A New Sun

by Ragnar

First published 7th of January, 2015

Maggie Wilson (26), on a smoke break from her dead end convenience store job in the California mountains, encounters the divine god-princess of a dead world. The princess asks for her help. Mag says yes.

Maggie Wilson (26), on a smoke break from her dead end convenience store job in the California mountains, encounters the divine god-princess of a dead world. The princess asks for her help. Mag says yes.

So how do you resurrect a dead world?

Featured on EQD.
Edited by Arcanist Ascendant.

Conversation One

Mag stubbed out the butt of her cigarette in the ashtray she'd brought with her into the woods, and didn't light another. The air was wet and the trees dripped and rustled in the breeze. The rain had stopped for now but would start again in a couple of hours, and this was the time to take a break, or so Mag had decided 20 minutes ago. Her boss wouldn't be coming back to the Quik Eats until Monday, so she was tempted to close for the weekend. There wasn't much traffic on route 371 this far up the mountain, especially at this time of year, so she could plausibly tell her boss no one had come while he was gone. As for the needs of customers, well, if someone needed wiper blades or an ancient hot dog then they could just break in, couldn't they?

She pulled a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of her long winter jacket and studied the contents. Half the pack remained, but she didn't like menthol. She pocketed it again after a moment’s consideration, not bothering to take another cigarette, and continued down the dirt trail to the lake.

She thought about the cold front rolling in next week. She thought about going home and falling asleep in her bed, or perhaps on the floor if she couldn't be bothered to walk to her bedroom. She thought about television static and the sound of tires in snow, and wondered if she'd be less bored in the evenings if she got a cat, then decided not to get a cat because she wouldn’t be able to smoke in the house anymore, and because she wasn't sure she wanted another living being in her house, making noise and wanting things. Mag didn't want things, generally speaking, or nothing she was willing to put into words, and it made her house a peaceful, silent place. She also didn't want to clean out a catbox.

The lake was around the next bend in the trail. Some days she stood at the edge of the lake and watched the birds and bugs if they were out, and that was her plan this afternoon.

Today a soupy white fog covered the lake. Mag couldn't even see the other shore. The sky was partly cloudy at most and the lake had never been foggy in the day. The water was too still. Mag squatted next to the shore and decided to light another cigarette after all.

Now a tiny light glowed in the fog. Mag lit a cigarette and grimaced; she hated menthol. The light got bigger, or perhaps closer. Mag watched it. There weren't fireflies in this part of California, and this wasn't the season for them anyway. Perhaps it was someone with a lantern. But why a lantern in the daytime? Mag tried to put her plain red Bic back in her pocket and accidentally dropped it in the mud.

The light grew and changed. It was a warmer, rosier shade of white than the fog, and brighter than a lantern, so bright that Mag had to shade her eyes with her hand. It resolved into the most beautiful thing Mag had ever seen.

It walked across the water on four thin legs and burned with a corona of smokeless pastel flames.

It had light for skin and suns for eyes.

The water rippled with each step.

Mag fell backward and hid her eyes in the crook of her elbow. She couldn't breathe.

“I don't believe in... I don't believe in...” She couldn't finish the sentence. She uncovered her eyes.

The burning archangel, the goddess, the apocalypse of Mag's worldview stepped onshore and walked up to her. As it walked the light faded.

The fire shrank and became a horse's mane. Light turned into pearl fur and the suns burned down to pupils.

It half-fell into a resting position. Two white wings slackened open into the mud. It also had a long, straight horn—and a crown.

It opened its mouth and whispered, “Help them.” Quiet as the words were, they echoed oddly and shook pine needles from the trees. Then it—or she, judging by the voice—passed out.

Her head fell to the ground and Mag tried to catch it, but got poked by the horn. The angel-goddess's head splatted into the mud.

Mag crawled away, stood, stepped back, tripped over a rock, and dropped back to the ground. She stayed there and stared.

The creature seemed smaller now. Mag realized belatedly that the being looked as much like a horse as anything else. A unicorn? She had wings and a crown. The queen of unicorns?

She'd asked her to help “them.” Who? Mag peered into the mist, looking for someone else, and realized the fog was growing thinner. The opposite shore was visible now and looked the way it always did. They were alone.

Mag stood up again and took a few deep breaths.

“Help them,” muttered Mag. “Okay. Okay.” She leaned over the whatever-she-was. “How?” Whatever-she-was didn't answer. She looked too heavy to lift.

“Wake up,” Mag tried. Horse-Thing didn't move.

“Wake up, your majesty?” Nothing. Mag stepped back for a better look.

Her majesty was definitely horselike. Her mane had stopped moving but still looked slightly insubstantial, like a rainbow in a sprinkler, but with the thickness of skim milk. Her horn was the approximate length of Mag's forearm and hand. There was a stylized sun painted on her flank. These were all just details, however; what mattered was that she was the most unbearably beautiful thing Mag had ever seen. Mag wondered who she would have grown up to be if she'd seen this creature when she was younger.

She reached out and brushed the queen's ear with the tip of her fingers. The ear flicked and Mag pulled her hand back. Then she poked the ear again. The ear flicked again. Mag stuck her finger in the ear proper and the queen's eyes opened. Her majesty silently regarded Mag with one eye. Mag pulled her finger out of her ear.

“Sorry,” Mag murmured.

“Human?” Her voice was normal, now. She sounded like a cross between Galadriel and someone's mother.

“I go by 'Mag,' actually,” said Mag.

Her majesty stood up—the mud didn't stick to her fur—and looked around. “Earth, then.” She faced Mag. “Mag, my name is Princess Celestia.”

“A pleasure,” said Mag, sticking her hands in her pockets. They stood a few feet apart.

“There's no need to be intimidated,” said the creature.

“I'm not intimidated.”

“All right,” said her majesty gently. “Mag, I have a request.”

“It's not 'Take me to your leader,' is it?” said Mag.

Celestia's eyebrows went up. “It is. Have you dealt with this sort of thing before?” She looked behind her. “Is this lake a crossroads?”

“No and no. Probably.” She thought about it. “You know what? Maybe it is some kind of crossroads. I don't know anything anymore.”

Celestia gave her a pitying look. “Human, please relax. I can see this situation is making you uncomfortable, and for that I'm sorry, but I really do need your help.”

“I'm not uncomfortable,” said Mag. She started to step back, and stopped herself. “Anyway. What do you mean by 'leader?' Are you looking for more of a mayor, or the governor, or the president, or what?”

“I'm afraid I don't know his or her proper title,” said Celestia, “but I would prefer to meet with the leader of the humans if you can arrange it. Or perhaps you could simply point in the proper direction, if you'd prefer.” She blinked and her legs wobbled. “Or where I can find lodging. I've been walking through the fog between worlds for... quite some time, now.”

Mag shrugged. “Humans don't have a leader. We have the UN, I guess, the United Nations. As for lodging...” Mag tried to imagine the princess getting a hotel room and failed utterly. “Well, I guess there's, uh, my house?” Come to think of it, she couldn't imagine that either.

“Oh, I wouldn't want to impose.”

“Well, aren't we Ms. Manners,” said Mag.

Celestia wrinkled her immaculate white brow. “I'm afraid I don't follow.”

“Nothing, sorry. I just get sassy when I'm intimidated and uncomfortable.”

“Ah,” said Celestia.

Mag scuffed at the ground with her hiking boot. “Okay, listen. You are really, really, really, really weird. No offense meant.”

“None taken.”

“And kind of overwhelming. No offense.”

“I apologize.”

“You're forgiven.” Mag took a few deep breaths. “Right. Yeah, you're freaking me out, but I think I do want to help. I wasn't doing anything important anyway.”

Celestia bowed her head. “You have no idea how relieved I am.”

Mag led the princess back up the path.

“My world ended,” said Celestia.

And what could you possibly say to that? “Oh.”

“I was set to guard it and guide it, but all things end, I suppose. But why did I outlive it? Worlds have ended before, but its regent always goes with it. It's the way of things.” She looked up at the light of the setting sun cutting through the leaves of trees, then down at the dappled shadows. “Maybe it's not the end yet. Maybe this is something I can heal.”

“I don't know how I can help with that,” said Mag.

Celestia smiled. “You already are.”

It took a moment for Mag to recover from that smile. Every little thing Celestia did, every glance and every step, did that much more to crowd Mag out of her own head. “I don't even know what you're looking for,” she managed.

“Perhaps you'd feel better if I walked further away,” said Celestia.

“I'll get over it,” said Mag. “But seriously. What am I really going to do for someone like you?”

“You mentioned a couch I could use, to begin with. After that, I would like to know more about your UN.”

“We didn't talk about it in high school and I sort of dropped out of college,” said Mag, “but I can tell you it's a kind of, I don't know, council that sets up and sometimes enforces agreements between nations. If it's got a leader, he's probably elected.”

“Then that's not who I need to speak with first,” said Celestia. “It sounds like your regent prefers a light touch, or tends toward subtlety. We have until sundown tomorrow to contact them. If it takes longer, diplomacy is going to be a bit rocky.”

“Rocky?”

“A bit. How warlike would you say humans are?”

“We're a murdering pack of absolute bastards,” said Mag.

“Colorfully put. In that case, I'd rather we moved quickly. Your regent is likely to be very human indeed. Are you afraid of heights?”

“About as much as most,” said Mag. “Wait. Are you serious?”

“I'm afraid so. Which direction is your couch?”

“The same direction as my home. Go north over the straight road through town. Pass the huge wooden bear through the woods and look for the white house with the fewest pine trees, no lawn and no car in the driveway. That's my place.”

“What is a car?” said Celestia.

“You're going to see a lot of examples on the road. That should help.”

“Understood.” Celestia flared out her wings. “Climb aboard and hold onto my neck.”

Mag really wasn't up for this, but helping the princess was obviously more important than her feelings. She climbed aboard and focused on taking deep, slow, even breaths.

“Be brave,” said Celestia. She flapped her wings experimentally a few times, then launched straight up through the trees. Pine needles and cold winter air rushed past them and then Celestia burst out above the trees. She hovered in place for a moment, looking around for the road, then glided toward it.

“The air is very thin here,” said Celestia.

“What?” shouted Mag over the rushing wind. God, it was cold up here.

“There's the road. Goodness, is that what a car is? How interesting. And there's your town.”

Mag didn't enjoy the next few minutes in the slightest, but at least it went quickly. Celestia touched down in front of Mag's place, panting, and Mag rolled off Celestia's back and onto the ground.

“Cramp,” said Mag through gritted teeth. “Cramps. My world is cramps.”

“That,” said Celestia between gasps, “was a decision with quite a lot of downsides. For Heaven's sake, please give me somewhere soft to collapse.”

Mag tossed her house keys to Celestia without getting up from where she lay on the ground. Celestia caught them in a field of magic. Mag stared. “What was that?”

“Magic,” said Celestia.

“Okay, but what was that?”

“I'd be much happier to discuss pony biology in the future, as opposed to right now, when I'd be happiest to hear which of these keys opens your door.”

Mag staggered up her driveway, plucked the keys from Celestia's field (surprisingly easy, slightly tingly), picked out the correct one, and opened her door. She gestured for Celestia to follow her inside.

She preferred a clean house, and it was easiest to clean a house without much décor. She had no pictures or posters or flowers on her table. The walls were white and the carpet was beige. It was simplest this way.

“Thank you for inviting me,” said Celestia. She surveyed the front hallway. “You have a lovely home.”

“This way,” said Mag.

Celestia stopped when she saw Mag's living room, which was entirely bare except for the couch in the center of the room, which faced a large CRT television sitting on the floor against the opposite wall. Celestia, true to her word, walked up to the couch and collapsed into it. Mag realized at this point that she couldn't watch TV while Celestia slept and had nothing else to do for the night, so she sat down next to her TV and tried to knead the pain out of her arms and legs.

Oops. She'd forgotten to close the store. Oh, well.

Unicorn royalty slept softly on her couch. Mag felt numb. She usually did, around this time of day, but this was different. Tomorrow she was going to do something that mattered. She'd promised and she knew she wouldn't flake this time, because she didn't dare, not because her majesty seemed like the “Off with her head” kind of royalty but because making a unicorn sad was one thing she didn't want on her conscience. This was why she preferred to never get involved with anything important; yesterday there was a broken slushie machine and nothing on TV; today there was a heart-wrenchingly beautiful Mrs. Ed and an ominous deadline.

The princess's world had ended, so she'd walked until she found a new one. How long had it been since she'd rested? What did it feel like to lose everything you'd ever loved? Even in her sleep she looked tired.

The heater had been on all day, so it wasn't as cold as it could be. Nevertheless, Mag went to get two blankets out of the plastic tote at the foot of her bed, one with a Powerpuff Girls pattern and the other a hazy shade of seafoam green. She unfurled the Powerpuff Girls blanket over Celestia's still form and kept the green one for herself, curling up again next to the television. She realized she'd never had a house guest before.

“I'm sorry for being afraid,” she didn't say, and slowly fell asleep.

Author's Notes:

I don't know what the hell I'm doing, but it's fun so far. I hope I can keep this going.

e: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQZCOx3RdF8

Conversation Two

Princess Celestia stood groggily in more or less the center of Mag's kitchen. Mag was relieved to see that Celestia could get bedhead, though she wondered how that worked, exactly. Yes, she'd ridden on Celestia's back and could theoretically have taken the opportunity to run her fingers through her mane for the sake of science, but she'd been preoccupied.

“I don't know how you like your coffee, so I put a bit of milk in yours.”

Celestia floated the mug of coffee out of Mag's grip. “Thank you.”

Mag poured herself a cup of coffee as well, black, and sipped at it. “The toilet and shower are through the door across from the living room. You know what a shower is, right?”

“I'm familiar with the idea, yes,” said Celestia.

“Ooh, you're sarcastic in the morning. Are you hungry?”

Celestia took a hearty gulp of her coffee and stood still for a moment with her eyes closed. Then she said, “I beg your pardon. Yes, I'm hungry. How is the local pine? It smells a bit piquant for a morning meal, but perhaps something bracing would help.” Celestia looked out the kitchen window. “Oh. It snowed.”

“You eat pine?”

Celestia scratched her chin. “Frozen pine really does sound like a bit much, now that you mention it. But I take it you don't eat pine, frozen or otherwise.”

“Never tried it,” said Mag. “I doubt I can digest it. I have some leftover SpagettiOs I was planning to get rid of, but I can make a can of chicken noodle.”

“What are SpagettiOs?” said Celestia.

“Pasta in tomato soup, basically,” said Mag.

“And what is 'chicken noodle?'”

Mag pinched the bridge of her nose. “Right, I should have thought of that. Listen, my species is omnivorous. I'm guessing you aren't. Is that all right?”

“So long as your prey or herd animals are treated with dignity and as much kindness as is reasonable, yes,” said Celestia.

Mag cleared her throat. “Um. Sure. Basically.”

There was an uncomfortable pause. “I see,” said Celestia. “I'd prefer not to know the details, but if I find myself addressing your United Nations, I may have a few polite observations to make.”

“No chicken noodle for you, then. Got it.” Mag opened her cupboard and found it to be mostly empty. “Problem is, I don't have anything else. Maybe I should go to the grocery store. How about this: describe a complete meal for a typical horse princess and I'll see what I can do.”

“You mean pony princess, but you're very generous.” Celestia drained what was left in her mug. “Let me see if I remember the human diet enough to predict the contents of its marketplaces—yes, I think so. Would you like to share a breakfast of bread, olives and wine?”

“How European,” said Mag.

“Where is Europea?”

“Europe? Up and to the right across the ocean, on American maps at least.” Mag closed her cupboard door. “Yeah, sounds decent. I'll be back in about 45 minutes.”

“If I may offer an alternate suggestion,” said Celestia, placing her mug in the sink, “you could wait 10 minutes while I bathe and then I could come with you. I'd like to see how your world has changed since I last visited.”

“Is that a good idea? You're a lot to take, you know. There's also the fact that you're alien royalty, and look the part.”

Celestia's horn shimmered. She blurred around the edges and turned into a human.

Now she was a willowy woman with dark black skin and delicate features, wearing some kind of cream dress that would have looked more in place on the streets of ancient Greece, or at least Disney's Hercules. Her hair was a mess of tight, unruly black curls.

Mag stared at her. “I have questions.”

“I bet I have more questions than you,” said Celestia. “Let's discuss it after I take a shower.” She nodded to Mag and walked out.

“Wait,” said Mag. “You can't wear that.”

Celestia poked her head back through the kitchen doorframe. “Why not?”

“One, it's like 20 degrees out and your outfit has short sleeves. Two, people stopped dressing like that 2,000 years ago.”

“I don't get cold and I'm used to standing out, but I have no objections to blending in,” said Celestia. “If you give me an example of modern winter dress I can change the glamour to suit.”

“I'll google around while you take a shower,” said Mag.

“I'm going to do it quickly so I can find out what on earth it means to 'google around.'”

Eleven minutes later, Mag caught the smell of her own shampoo as Celestia peered over her shoulder.

“Is this device called a google?” said Celestia. She'd changed back to her normal appearance. She was also completely dry in spite of the fact that Mag had forgotten to give her a towel or tell her where they were.

“It's called a computer.” Mag pointed at the tower by her foot. “That's the part doing all the work.” She gestured at the screen. “This shows the work, and these two things down here let me control it all.” She pointed at the metal shelf over her bed. “The black box up there is the router. That receives the internet signal and sends it over to the computer tower down here, and the tower sends...” Mag happened to glance at Celestia and trailed off.

“It's complicated,” Mag summed up.

“If I asked for more details, would I understand the answer?” said Celestia.

Mag snorted. “I hope you don't ask, because you've just heard everything I know.”

“Human invention has come far,” said Celestia. “I can feel the signal that travels from the router to the tower, but I can't read the code. The tower decodes this signal, then?”

“Yeah,” said Mag. “Hey, are you saying you've been to Earth before?”

“Yes, a long time ago.”

“How long ago?”

Celestia thought about it. “Well, it was just a day trip, so I don't think I could say for sure, but I recall much discussion in the city forum on the recent Roman conquest over the city of Carthage.”

Mag typed “roman conquenst of Carthage” into the address bar. Celestia watched her fingers with fascination as she did so. Mag pointed at the screen.

Celestia smiled. “Ah, I see. It says 'Google' at the top left. You've just 'googled' something.” Her eyes traveled down the page. “And I see it corrected your spelling without being asked. That's not entirely polite.”

Mag shrugged. “It does it automatically. It's not trying to be rude; it's just a computer.”

Celestia looked back and forth between the screen, the tower, the keyboard, the router and Mag. “Let me see if I'm following you. Together these objects form an encyclopedia and a dictionary operating by immensely complex, mysterious means, and you have nothing to say in its favor but 'It's just a computer.' Are miracles so commonplace in your life that you've lost interest in them, or are you trying to impress me by pretending to be bored with the wonders of your world?”

“Probably both,” said Mag.

“And it receives this information through the air in your house, emitted from an equally inscrutable black box sitting calmly on a shelf in your bedroom.”

“That's right,” said Mag.

Celestia sighed. “And apparently it can also display human winter fashions.”

“Well, according to this, you're at least 2,200 years old, so I guess we're even,” said Mag.

“2,200 years,” mused Celestia. “Yes, I suppose it's been a while.”

“How old are you?” said Mag.

“Old enough that your question has less meaning than you think, but I would call myself young,” said Celestia.

“Compared to what? Continents?”

“Well, worlds,” said Celestia. “I am as old as Equis, and Equis died young.”

Celestia sat down on the floor and stared at her hooves, and neither she nor Mag said anything for a while. Mag performed a Google image search of winter fashion and browsed for a few minutes. After a while, Celestia looked up and watched the screen beside her.

“These all look terrible,” Mag finally said.

“Do you think so? I think they're all very elegant. Look there.” She pointed with a hoof at one model wearing a white long coat and matching knitted cap.

“She looks like a tube,” said Mag.

“But an elegant tube,” said Celestia. “I'm going to try it.” She stepped away from Mag's chair and changed once again into a tall black woman, now wearing the long coat and cap. Celestia twirled, stumbled, and caught herself.

Mag looked her up and down. “Well, fine, that's not bad, but you still need shoes, socks, pants, a shirt and a purse. Let me look them up. Also, don't fall over.”

“Human legs are deceptively complicated,” said Celestia.

Shoes turned out to be more difficult. Celestia quickly found a boot style she liked, but it had high heels, which she couldn't manage to take two steps in, and the uppers didn't fit properly when she changed the soles into flats. Eventually, Mag managed to find a similar boot online without the heels. Socks were easy. Celestia's shirt mostly wouldn't be visible under the coat, so Mag just pointed out a simple cinnamon top with long sleeves.

The pants were a sticking point.

“I think you're joking,” said Celestia.

“Not in the the slightest,” said Mag.

Celestia crinkled her brow at the computer screen. “No, I'm fairly certain you're joking.”

“Do I strike you as a person who tells jokes, Your Majesty?”

“I would rather you called me 'Celestia,' under the circumstances. And I am a politician—I know a poker face when I see one.”

“But I would never lie to a unicorn,” said Mag. “What's the problem? Is it the color?”

“It's a bit bright, yes,” said Celestia.

“Oh, I'm sure you could change it. Personally, I think they'd look good in a dark shade of plum.”

“I could do that,” said Celestia.

“Good, I'm glad we worked that out together.” Mag rotated her computer chair to face Celestia and folded her arms. “Well?”

“No, I think we'll keep looking for more pants,” said Celestia.

“Is it the cut?”

“No,” said Celestia.

“Does the fabric look uncomfortable?”

“I wouldn't say so, no,” said Celestia.

Mag spread her hands. “Then what could possibly be the problem?”

“The fact that the pants say 'juicy' across the back in sequined bubble letters,” said Celestia.

“If the sequins look scratchy, you could always replace them with glitter,” said Mag.

“I think I'll just wear the same bottoms you're wearing,” said Celestia.

“Jeans? With that coat?” scoffed Mag.

“Well, yes, unless you have a third idea,” said Celestia.

“Jeans are out of the question,” said Mag. “The back pockets would get in the way of butt words, and I wouldn't dream of sending someone outside without butt words to go with such a lovely coat.”

Celestia folded her arms to mirror Mag's. “Do you have pants that say 'juicy' on the back?”

“Tons,” said Mag. “Piles of them.”

“Show me.”

“I'm already dressed for the day and I don't want to get up. Here, we'll compromise. How do you feel about leopard print?”

Celestia rolled her eyes. A pair of slim black jeans popped into existence between her boots and coat.

“Boring,” said Mag. “Okay, well, I already found your purse. A purse is a little bag for carrying things in, by the way, and most women have one when they go shopping.”

“I know; we have purses in Equestria,” said Celestia, “but I don't think I can imitate that. It doesn't correspond to any part of my real form.”

“Oh, is that how it works? Well, it's not compulsory.”

Celestia glanced at the screen one more time. “Is your purse a plush shark as well?”

“Nah, it's just this,” said Mag, pulling her gray cloth handbag toward her from the other end of the desk. “Let me get some shoes on and we'll go. Of course, the upshot of all this is that you're horribly overdressed for a grocery store run.”

The clouds had all gone away before dawn and now the sky was a solid cobalt blue. It hadn't snowed more than a couple of inches and now it was all turning to dirty slush. It would be a cold walk to the store. Mag walked with her hands in her jacket pockets and her eyes on the ground in front of her, watching for ice. Celestia looked at everything else; the trees, the asphalt of the road they walked alongside, the fog of her breath, the guard rail, a passing bird. She walked with her thin, ungloved hands folded in front of her.

“I found an unopened pack of Marlboros with a lighter sitting on top outside of a liquor store when I was 17, ran off with it, smoked my way through it over the course of the month, bought another when I turned 18, and made a habit out of it.” She absentmindedly fiddled with her jacket pocket. It had been a while since her last cigarette. Did she still hate menthol more than she needed a smoke? Yes, still.

“Very well,” said Celestia. “Your turn.”

"Hm," said Mag. “What are the limits on the shapeshifting?”

“Let's see. I can only hold it for a couple of hours at most, and it's technically not so much a change in shape as it is a form of illusion that fools both sapient creatures and inanimate objects. It doesn't work on animals, and the rare person will suspect me of something without knowing why.”

“You made that face yourself?”

“In a way,” said Celestia, fiddling with her nose. “I picked the dark skin so as to look foreign, which would help me talk my way out of social mishaps. Other than that, the shape is based on my true self. For instance, I am tall with a narrow face, so my disguise is tall with a narrow face. This is made of cartilage, yes?”

This sounded promising. “Yes. But if you can change the color and the clothes then you can change anything about yourself, right?”

“I haven't experimented much and I suspect there are limitations I'm not yet aware of, but possibly,” said Celestia. “I'll try something right now.” She shifted again.

“Whoa, check for witnesses first,” said Mag, looking over her shoulder.

“I'll be revealing my nature to your species sooner or later, you know.” Celestia's voice had changed. She stopped and looked Mag in the eye, smiling faintly. Now she looked more or less like Mag—but taller, and with a narrower face. Her skin was also darker than Mag's, with higher cheekbones and softer eyes.

“Huh,” said Mag.

“You don't look as surprised as I'd hoped. Did it not work?” said Celestia.

“Kinda,” said Mag. “You look more like me, but a bit different. Prettier, for one.”

“Oh, Mag, you're already as beautiful as you can be, which is to say very much so,” said Celestia, laying a hand on her shoulder.

Mag rolled her eyes. “Thanks, mom, but you're laying it on a little thick.”

Celestia gave her an unsatisfied look and changed back to her earlier human form.

“Your turn,” said Mag.

Celestia thought. “I have one. There's a substance your people seem to use often. Your computer is encased in it, as is the device that made coffee, and your jacket seems to be woven out of it. What is it?”

“Oh, plastic?”

“Say again?”

“It's called 'plastic,'” said Mag. “It's made out of petroleum, I think. We drill oil out of the ground and do something to it, and then it changes to plastic. It can be any color including clear, it can be soft or hard, water doesn't hurt it, and I think it's really cheap to make things out of. You're going to see it all over the place.”

“Doubtless named for its malleability. Fascinating,” said Celestia. “Your turn.”

“Yeah, I've got one,” said Mag immediately. “Do your subjects all look like you? Because I don't know if I could handle that, to be honest.”

“Not quite like me,” said Celestia. “For instance, most ponies are the height of my withers, or your navel. I could sketch a few of my friends if you liked.”

“Yeah, I'll want to see that,” said Mag.

“My sister, of course, looks a bit more like me. I'll sketch her as well.”

“Your sister?”

“Mm-hm. Princess Luna,” said Celestia.

“What is she like?”

Celestia touched Mag's shoulder again. “You know, Mag, I really appreciate that you're referring to the people of my world in the present tense.”

“You'll see them again,” said Mag.

“Thank you,” said Celestia quietly.

“But really, what is your sister like?”

The road bent to the left. The downward grade leveled off.

“How to describe my sister,” Celestia said. “We rule together, I the day and she the night. Physically, she is taller than our subjects but shorter than I. The tip of her horn comes up to the top of my head. Her coat is a dark blue and her cutie mark is of the moon—on one flank it waxes, and on the other it wanes. She walks the dreams of our subjects, offering guidance and comfort where she can, and where she can't help, she stays by their side in some capacity so they don't have to be alone. Luna also raises and lowers the moon.”

“What do you mean, raise and lower the moon?” said Mag.

“Just that,” said Celestia. “She uses her magic to move the moon along its correct path.”

Mag stopped and faced Celestia. “What.”

Celestia stopped as well. “Is something the matter?”

“You mean that literally. Your sister moves the moon around. How big is the moon? Is it small or something?”

“I couldn't give you the exact dimensions, but during my... tenure as the moon's custodian,” and for a moment a haunted, faraway look flitted across Celestia's face, “I judged our moon to be about 2,000 miles in diameter and eight quintillion tons in weight, where a mile is 5,280 feet and a ton is 2,000 pounds, a foot is this distance,” she held her hands a foot apart, “and a pound is... well, it's a bit less than one twelfth of a gallon of water, and a gallon is 231 cubic inches, an inch being one twelfth of a foot. Is something the matter?”

“So you two can move moons around. Eight bazillion tons, 2,000 miles across, no big deal.”

“You seem uncomfortable again,” said Celestia.

“Sorry, but that's terrifying. I trust you, but, uh, maybe you should gloss over that one when you're talking to the world leaders.” Mag shook her head and went back to walking. “You can move the moon,” she muttered. “The actual moon.”

“And the sun, which is 866,738 miles across,” said Celestia.

“Oh come on!” said Mag, throwing her hands up and walking faster.

Celestia walked more briskly for a moment to catch up. “I suppose I have my next question, then. How do your sun and moon move? Do you humans have some sort of device? I wouldn't be surprised, considering your people's immense inventiveness and, if I may say so, what seems to be a tendency to hubris.”

“The moon orbits us and we orbit the sun,” said Mag.

“You orbit the sun? How strange. But what are the motive forces?”

“Gravity,” said Mag. She was no astronomer, but she knew the basics.

“I don't quite follow,” said Celestia. She stopped. “One moment,” said Celestia, and closed her eyes. Her eyebrows lifted steadily higher over the next few seconds. “Your planet is repeatedly almost falling into the sun, and your moon is falling to Earth?”

“I guess,” said Mag.

“And no part of this fills you with existential dread,” said Celestia.

“Nah,” said Mag.

“But surely that plays havoc with your climate.”

“Nope, it just makes winter and summer.”

“The seasons work autonomously as well.”

“Yours don't?”

“No, we do it ourselves. Everyone helps. The pegasi influence the effects of the sun by moving the clouds and guide the migrations of birds, while the unicorns and earth ponies handle everything else closer to the ground, such as clearing snow or tucking in the animals that hibernate.”

“Okay, your world is adorable,” said Mag. “It's also cool that you've got pegasi. But what's an earth pony?”

“Is that your question?”

“No, that's an interjection,” said Mag.

“I find it interesting that you've heard of unicorns and pegasi,” said Celestia. “An earth pony has neither wings nor horn, but is gifted with talents relating to life and growth.”

“Cool,” said Mag.

“Your turn.”

Mag hesitated. She'd have to broach this one tactfully, and tact had never been her strong suit. She just wasn't good at being considerate. The vocabulary of her social skills consisted of blunt honesty, silence, and occasionally lying like a rug; telling the truth in a kind way was probably the best way to get through life, she had to admit, but she was neither kind nor honest by nature. There was a reason she lived alone.

Oh, well. “What happened to your world?”

Celestia gave a desolate smile. “I should tell you as much as I can for the sake of the mission, I suppose." She gathered herself, then began her story. "It was very abrupt. I was squeezing lemon juice into a mug of tea in the evening after a long day of meetings, every single one of them regarding a nicety of the most recent minotaur-griffin trade agreement and its impact on cacao seed prices—which is more interesting than it sounds, I promise you—”

“Minotaurs and griffins. Of course.”

“Hush, please,” said Celestia. “Yes, minotaurs and griffins. We can discuss them some other time. Now, as I said, it was abrupt. It began with a terrible wrenching sensation. I looked out the window and saw the moon fade away. The torches dimmed and went out. I set down my tea and went out to the balcony, and I saw all the lights of Canterlot flicker and die. The wind slowed and stopped. The usual susurrus of my living city went silent. I heard a crackling sound from inside, and saw that my tea had frozen over.

“The stars went out one by one and I had to use my magic to feel the world around me. I felt the stone of the walls and floors go smooth and lose their texture, and as they did my carpet sank into the floor. The walls dissolved into mounds, like sand. I tried to shine a light to see, but the only thing left was flat, uninflected gray, and the balcony overlooked nothing but black. The only thing left was a mirror. I shined my light brighter, bright enough to see for miles and blind anypony who might look at me, hoping someone, somewhere would see. I heard no one. There was nothing left, only gray floor, a balcony, the black, great piles of sand—and mirrors.

“The mirrors had survived, standing in place where they used to lean or hang from walls, sometimes even in midair above a pile of sand, and that's when I worked out what had happened. Reflections are the edges of worlds, you see. A healthy world sees itself, is self aware in a manner of speaking. When you look at a mirror, at the edge of the world, you should see nothing but the world reflected back on itself. A world is a seamless whole where every edge simply loops back around like a chain with its two ends connected, or perhaps like the inside of a sphere. Do you understand?”

“Honestly? No,” said Mag.

“It's all rather abstract,” said Celestia. “Suffice to say a mirror should reflect the world, barring a magical effect of some kind, and the mirror of my bedroom did not. It had turned into a frame of solid black, just like the view from my balcony. My world was dying. It could mean nothing else.

“I took off from the balcony and searched for survivors. I found none, only silence and emptiness. I didn't even find the ground; the dark simply went down and down, forever so far as I know. I looked back and saw that my castle had gone, but I could still see the mirrors, now standing on nothing. Then I noticed that gravity and air had disappeared along with everything else. There was nothing left but mirrors, empty space, and me.

“I have no words to describe how I felt. I couldn't speak, couldn't weep. I perched on the frame of a mirror and sat still like a gargoyle. Mag, did you know there is no limit to how good or bad a person can feel? Every century I discover a new height of happiness I had never seen before, and when I stood there at that point and looked at the last night of my world, I found a depth of grief that...” she faltered. “In my life I have lost many loved ones. I carry the memory of...”

Celestia went silent. For the third time in 24 hours, Mag floundered for something to say and found nothing.

“I was there for some time,” said Celestia at last. “Then I thought about it. I still lived. Why? Equis is all that I am, but it had gone dark and I'm still here. Looking after my world is my entire purpose. If it dies then I am nothing, in the most literal possible sense. Therefore there was some irregularity, and, anyway, surely the death of a world is more gradual than that. I decided that, while I lived, so did Equis in some manner. Perhaps I really am all that's left. Perhaps my loved ones will live on in my heart and memories and nowhere else. But I believe there is some possibility that I can salvage something of it, and I will not accept its loss until I've explored every possible remedy. There are unknown quantities at work here that must be examined. I can ask questions. And, once I've learned what happened, I will bring all the resources of a goddess to bear.”

Celestia spoke calmly, without bravado. Since this morning Mag had noticed it was easier to be around her, maybe because Mag was acclimating to Celestia's presence, maybe because Celestia was acclimating to Earth, but now that same numinous weight was back, crushing, suffocating.

“What do you call a fish with no eyes?” Mag choked out.

Celestia blinked. “I don't—”

“Fsh,” said Mag. “What kind of tea is hard to swallow?”

“Th—”

“Reali-tea. What's the difference between you riding a bicycle in a ballgown and me riding a tricycle in shorts and a t-shirt? A-ttire. Why did the scarecrow get promoted? Bec—”

“Because she was outstanding in her field,” said Celestia.

Mag took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and let it out. “Right. Take note: bad jokes help with that thing you do.”

The corner of Celestia's mouth twitched. “Duly noted. Well done.”

“Yeah, that was clever of me. Hey, look. It's the big wooden bear. We're in town.”

Celestia looked up at the bear. It stood nearly as tall as the pine trees littered through town. Mag had no idea where it had come from or who had made it.

“I like this bear,” said Celestia. “Does it serve a purpose, or is it there for the sake of art?”

“I think it's just kind of there,” said Mag.

“Well then it's doing an excellent job,” said Celestia. She smiled up at it and then at Mag, and Mag wondered how real the smile was.

Author's Notes:

The goal is at least 2500ish words every week. Weekly deadline for now is Tuesday night, but I may change it to Fridays or something, depending on how things go when classes start.

Conversation Three

The local grocery store wasn't much bigger than where Mag worked. It carried fresh fruits and vegetables, canned goods, milk, eggs, and other basic food staples, along with junk food, cheap alcohol, cigarettes, candy, chewing tobacco, and an aisle in the back devoted to inedibles, mostly camping gear and cleaning products.

Mag walked in. “I am starving and I need a smoke. Let's just eat on the curb.”

Celestia followed, shutting the door behind her. “Do you walk to this store often?”

“No, only when I fly home on a magical pony queen and leave my car at work like a moron.” Mag pulled a basket from the stack, and put her purse inside it. “Now then. Shopping list: olives. Wine. Bread. Cigarettes. You get those, and I guess I'll get food for the week.”

Celestia nodded and took her own basket.

Mag had never shopped vegetarian before. Perhaps it was the size of the store, but vegetarian meals seemed to require a certain amount of actual cooking, rather than microwaves. You could nuke beans and the like, yes, but pasta and rice required work, and Mag normally preferred to save that sort of thing for special occasions. She supposed visiting royalty counted as a special occasion. But there was no vegetarian spaghetti sauce. She wouldn't have to make her own, would she? Mag pulled out her phone to look up recipes, feeling unpleasantly domestic. Surely there were simple sauce recipes.

Mag tapped the first recipe she saw that said “fast” in the title and frowned. What on earth was a shallot?

She kept searching until she found something reasonable, at least in comparison to the others, which all seemed to involve lots of preparation time, arcane ingredients, or both. Bottle of oil, jar of garlic, one onion, can of tomatoes, salt, pepper, Italian spices, bag of hard pasta. She grabbed another pot as well, as it appeared you couldn't cook elaborate meals with only one unless you wanted to cook each component of the meal one at a time.

She was just reading the back of a can of all-bean chili when Mag heard Celestia's delicate footsteps behind her.

“Problem?” said Mag.

“Mag,” said Celestia.

“Hold on.”

Celestia waited while Mag finished reading. She put the can back (beef for flavoring) and turned to see Celestia holding up a flashlight.

“Mag, look. A Mag-Light.”

Mag snort-laughed. A startled grunt sounded from the other end of the store and the manager looked around the corner to stare at the two of them. The old man saw Mag's shadow of a smile and stared.

“What?” said Mag.

He broke eye contact, shrugged, and walked away.

She looked at Celestia and saw that she'd raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, Spock?”

“Did he offend you?”

“Not really.”

“But enough that you stared him down,” said Celestia.

“If he'd be less nosy when I'm trying to shop, we'd get along fine.” Mag picked out two cans of pinto beans and walked to the dairy aisle.

Celestia trailed after her. “Has he been a problem before?”

“Not exactly. Although he's asked me questions before, 'What's your name' and all that, and I'm not really up for a conversation after work, you know?”

“I see,” said Celestia.

“I don't really want to carry a thing of milk, so that one can wait until after we get my car. Maybe we can swing by here again. Am I buying that flashlight? I may as well.” Mag plucked it out of Celestia's hands and put it in her basket. She noticed Celestia had nothing in her own basket. She further noticed that Celestia was still giving her a look.

“What?” said Mag.

“When I said 'I see,' I had assumed you'd have something more to say,” said Celestia.

“Like what? And what about the rest of the groceries?”

“Hm?” Celestia glanced down at her basket. “Oh. I apologize; I was distracted. I noticed most of the foods available here are very tightly packaged, perhaps because they must be shipped great distances—I know they must be because many of these products can't be easily grown in this climate. I also noticed how ornate the packaging is, and how each product has enough fine print to resemble a legal document. Most of the packages have elaborate labels on them, all very carefully designed. I was just beginning to consider possible connections between the complexity of human food packaging and the tendency for humans to wear clothes at all times, as if humans were packaging themselves or as if you were clothing your foodstuffs, when I noticed this interesting device with your name on it. Then I brought it to you to see what you'd say.”

“Oh,” said Mag. “Did you see any bread or olives?”

Celestia continued as if she hadn't heard. “You also asked, 'Like what?' This surprised me, as most people, when I say 'I see' in that way, tend to stop whatever they're doing and reconsider their actions.”

“What actions?”

“In this case? Evading smalltalk,” said Celestia.

“Is that seriously a big deal?” Mag headed for the canned goods aisle in search of olives.

“Yes,” said Celestia without elaborating.

Mag found herself getting annoyed. “Smalltalk? Why would I? What's in it for me?”

“You'd like to bargain, then?” Celestia smiled as if she'd won. “Very well. I can't claim to be any great cook, but I've learned to make a few recipes you may enjoy, and I see the ingredients to several of them on these shelves. I'll make one of them tonight if you go and have a civil conversation with the shopkeep.”

A vegetarian dinner made in Mag's kitchen with Mag's things wasn't as appealing as Celestia seemed to believe. Mag wasn't a vegetarian, wasn't wild about people touching her things, and would probably be in the kitchen right alongside Celestia, at first just to hang around awkwardly but, inevitably, to help cook, defeating the purpose of the deal. The only reason Mag didn't immediately refuse was because she didn't actually know how to say “no” to Celestia, and if she did manage to refuse, what then? Celestia might strike up a conversation of her own with the store manager and then draw Mag in anyway—Celestia was wily like that. Or she might let it pass, then be primly angry about it and give Mag the silent treatment. Or she might just leave. Would she be upset enough to leave? She'd only just arrived.

Mag glowered, but handed her basket to Celestia and said, “I'll get cigarettes and wine, and I'll talk to him for a bit. A little bit. You can handle the olives and bread, right?”

“Certainly,” said Celestia. “And Mag? Relax.”

“Come get me if there's a problem,” said Mag, trudging to the register.

“Hi,” she said.

“Good morning,” said the man. “Pall Mall, right?”

“Yeah, and your finest box of wine,” said Mag.

The man laughed. He was pushing 60 and bald as an egg. “Finest box. I like that. Well, I've got Franzia. Is that okay?”

“Sure,” said Mag.

The man palmed a pack of Pall Malls, set it on the glass counter, leaned over, grabbed the box in both hands, and set it next to the pack. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, my friend should be along with some groceries.”

“Hey, you know, earlier, that was the first time I've heard you laugh,” he said.

“It's a grocery store, dude,” said Mag. “Not that funny by nature. Wait. Do people laugh in here a lot?”

“Sometimes,” said the man. “They'll smile, anyway. All I'm saying is, I've never seen you without an annoyed look on your face, and then suddenly you're shopping in the morning with a beautiful woman who can make you laugh.” He gave her a sly look. “I met my husband in this grocery store, you know. It's a charmed place.” Then he looked self conscious. “Not that it's any of my business.”

“Wow, okay. First of all, I know something you don't know,” said Mag.

“What's that?”

“The real answer to that question is hilarious, but for now let's just say she's not my type.”

“Ah, I see. Fair enough.” He scratched his jaw with the heel of his hand and looked embarrassed. “Listen, I don't mean to—”

“Don't worry about it,” said Mag.

Celestia set her basket down next to the box of Franzia. “Good morning! I'm with her.”

“Good morning,” said the manager, clearly relieved. “We were just talking about you.”

“We were?” said Mag.

“Nothing too horrible, I hope,” said Celestia.

“Naw,” said the manager.

“Regardless, introductions are in order. Mag?”

“What?” said Mag.

“Introductions.”

“Sure. Uh, manager guy, what's your name?”

“Jorge,” said the man. “I run this little place. You need anything, I've got the best prices in town—no disrespect meant to any local convenience stores, of course, ha ha ha!”

“Ha ha,” said Mag. “Jorge, this is Celeste. Celeste, this is Jorge. My name is Mag. I'm behind the counter at the convenience store down the road, the one that doesn't sell gas but does have a broken slushy machine.” I have no social skills. I'm actively dying of hunger and I need a cigarette. I will eat you and smoke your bones if you don't let us get out of here soon. “Celeste is...”

Celestia interrupted. “Celeste is short for 'Celestia,' and I represent a foreign nation seeking international aid. Unfortunately I can't tell you much else for political, practical and personal reasons, but I can say I'm a friend of Mag's and I'm currently staying with her.”

Jorge gawked for a moment, closed his mouth with an effort, and turned to Mag. “Well, that wasn't my first guess.”

“Yeah, your first guess was that she was my new girlfriend,” said Mag, watching Celestia's face.

Celestia smiled wryly. “I don't think I'm her type.”

Jorge nodded. “Yeah, she said the same thing.”

Mag pulled her wallet out of her purse, glanced at Celestia's now surprisingly full basket, and put three 20s on the box of wine. Jorge seemed to take the hint and started to manually input prices into the register. Celestia leaned over to study the bills, then noticed the plastic Humane Society donation box, picked it up, read the text, flipped it over and read the back. Jorge stopped to watch her from under his eyelashes.

Celestia sighed, kissed the coin slot, set the box back down and walked out, shutting the door with care.

Jorge handed Mag her change and loaded the cans, tubs, and bottles into paper bags. “That country she says she represents. She's not really a diplomat, right? She has to be in charge.”

“Honestly? Yep,” said Mag. “Don't tell nobody.”

“No one would believe me. What country is she from?”

“Can't tell you and you wouldn't have heard of it anyway. Hey, can I borrow one of these baskets? I had to walk here because I left—”

“Left your car at work,” said Jorge. “Do you want me to drive you two over to your store? It's too cold to be walking.”

The last thing Mag wanted to do at this moment was spend more time with another human being, even one who'd turned out to be more or less inoffensive, but she didn't have any good reason to refuse. Now what?

Mag looked at the door to make sure Celestia wasn't listening in and said, “Celeste wanted to look around town a bit, so I was planning to walk us over to where my car is. That way she can take in the sights.” There. Barely even a lie.

“No? You sure?”

“Yeah, I'm sure.”

“All right, well, good luck and have a nice day. I hope everything works out for your friend.”

“So do I, and thanks,” said Mag. Then she stopped. “Seriously. Thanks.”

“For what?”

“I don't know,” said Mag. “I just felt like saying it.”

“Huh. Well, you're welcome.” Jorge waved. Mag walked out, closed the door behind her, and then realized you were supposed to wave back. She considered going back in to wave but decided not to. She'd barely gotten away.

Celestia was standing in a handicap parking space examining the sign. A nearby homeless man sat against the wall with a bottle in a crumpled paper bag, watching her. Mag maneuvered her basket of groceries to the crook of her arm and fished the receipt out of her change from the twenties, then handed the change to the homeless man along with the half a pack of menthols. She walked up to Celestia and lit a cigarette. She drew deeply and breathed the smoke out slowly, savoring the bite of the tobacco and the way the cold turned her smoke so thick.

She took another slow drag, let it out and said, “So. That kiss you gave the donation box. Did that do anything?”

“Almost nothing,” said Celestia.

“Almost nothing,” said Mag.

“Almost nothing,” confirmed Celestia.

“But not nothing.”

Celestia watched the plume of smoke and said, “You know, I'm increasingly tempted to present myself to your governments immediately. As I examine your world, I become more interested in doing what I can to help.”

“You'd be less dependent on me, at least,” said Mag. “Make a flashy entrance on the world stage and you'd be everyone's darling, at least until you start talking about changing things. I could see them giving you a limo and driver, and a monthly allowance. Not that I mind buying you things. Can I drive your limo?”

“What is a limo?” said Celestia.

“It's a car for rich people. Someone drives you where you want to go while you drink champagne in the back seat.”

Celestia gave Mag an appraising look. “What is your work history?”

Mag took the cigarette out of her mouth and tapped ash into the snow. “Are we being serious?”

“Yes,” said Celestia. “I know little about you, but I'm beginning to suspect I know more than most, and as the local Mag expert I judge you to be a woman of potential. What are your ambitions, Mag?”

“I don't really have any. I just wanted to coast through life, honestly.”

“Many have lived worthwhile lives with no goal but to be happy,” said Celestia.

“Right,” said Mag.

Celestia took Mag's hands. “Mag?”

“Yeah?”

Celestia leaned forward and said, “If you like your life as it is, why are you so unhappy?”

Mag took her hands back with as much tact as she could manage. “Unhappy?”

Celestia let go of Mag's hands but didn't move away. “Yes, I'd say so. I... know people, you see. I understand them. It may be a power given to me for the sake of fulfilling my responsibilities, or maybe it's a skill I've picked up by caring very much for very many people over a very long time. I've spoken with you and listened to the things you've said, and I've to a few conclusions. You are not shaped like my people, and as a human, you think differently and see the world differently than nearly anyone I've ever met. But you have the same look in your eyes that my sister once did, and our mutual friend Jorge wonders why you never laugh, and so do I.” Celestia lifted her chin and her tone grew imperious. “Write a resume. Submit it to me. I need to know more about your work history and existing skills, but I have a job opening and I want you to fill it.”

“Uh, wow,” said Mag. “What's the job? Not limo driving?”

“The human world is endlessly intricate and you understand it. I am also not used to working without help, frankly. I need both a guide and an aide-de-camp. We can put your restlessness to work, and as you work you can think on what you really want out of life.”

“I'd have to quit my other job, of course,” said Mag thoughtfully.

“If you do then my advice is to be polite, give adequate notice, and don't cut ties,” said Celestia.

“Because you won't be here forever and I'll need my old job back?”

“Because it's the proper way to do things,” said Celestia, wagging a finger playfully.

“What's an aide-de-camp?”

“You're asking questions. Good. An aide-de-camp is a personal assistant for a political or military figure. Different aides will have different responsibilities according to whom they assist. In your case, you would keep track of my schedule and contacts, prepare me for social events, and solve all the little problems that could undermine my efforts if not addressed by a competent person. You would arrange for meals, and for appropriate clothes for both of us. You'd maintain cordial working relationships, note the emphasis, with the servants and representatives of the mighty, and you yourself would be my representative when I'm not available. You'd follow me as I go about my day, especially at parties and the like, and take notes on future engagements or any promises I make. You may also have to read my mind sometimes, which is to say anticipating my wishes and acting accordingly. I wouldn't worry about that part, however, as you already do that very well, such as when you knew I would prefer to see more of the town than be taken directly to our next stop.”

Mag flushed. “You caught that, then.”

“I have excellent hearing,” said Celestia.

“So that was all right, then, the thing I said?”

“Arguably,” said Celestia, “but be careful. When my aide speaks, she speaks for me whether she intends to or not. I once had an aide who accidentally started a war because she thought she was speaking off the record, off the clock and purely on her own behalf, when in fact there is no such thing. Don't lie under any circumstances. Don't mislead unless lives are in immediate danger and you are perfectly certain I can't deal with the problem myself.”

Mag raised a finger. “Another question. What if it's a choice between lying and starting a war?”

“Tell the truth, fetch me, and let me talk them out of it.”

“And another. You realize this is the one job in the whole world I'm the least qualified for?”

“Just trust me,” said Celestia.

Celestia was turning out to be a smiler. Mag supposed it was a kind of political defense mechanism. People saw the smile and believed she was in control, that nothing was wrong. This time, Celestia was giving Mag the smile of a stage magician asking her volunteer to lie down in a box.

Mag had always wanted to be sawn in half. “Sure, but only because I'd like to see what a human tailor does when you ask one to fit a pony princess for a pants suit. You did say I'm in charge of wardrobe, right?”

Celestia's smile widened. “We can talk about that later. For now, I need your resume. Oh, and an application for dual citizenship as soon as Equestria is recognized as a sovereign nation, with the help of an attorney if possible. Your country allows this, yes?”

“America? Yeah, I think so. So I'm going to be an Equestrian?”

“America is a graceful name for a country. And yes, if you'd like. It's not completely necessary, but I think it could be very helpful.”

“If this turns into Dances With Wolves then I'm going to go home and stay there. Just saying. Also: I'm hungry and we're doing nothing about it. Let's eat on the curb and see if that homeless guy wants any olives.”

Celestia looked confused. “'Homeless guy?'”

“That guy,” said Mag, pointing. The man was still watching them. “Hey, dude. Want some bread, olives and boxed wine? We'll all have to drink right out of the box without touching the spigot, but we can make it work if we believe in ourselves enough. The other problem, though, is that I don't have a can opener for these olives. Maybe Jorge does. Let me... what? What is it?”

Celestia had grasped Mag's hand, and this time Mag didn't think she could have pried Celestia loose without a crowbar and a gob of lotion. The smile was gone and now Celestia wore a mask of calm. She approached the homeless man, pulling Mag behind her.

“My name is Princess Celestia, regent of Equis.” Her voice didn't shake, but her hand did. “What is your proper title, cousin?”

The homeless man got up. He was easily taller than Celestia, with a craggy face and wiry gray beard.

“Eldest,” he said, in a voice like sharkskin.

Author's Notes:

This fic is turning out to have so much dialogue that I'm just going to start naming the chapters "Conversation One," "Conversation Two," etc. so people know what they're getting into. This is a talky fic, a very talky fic indeed.

Conversation Four

Celestia gave the eldest her sunniest, gentlest smile. “I'm happy you found me. I had intended to begin searching for you after breakfast, but I could see no simple way to contact you and I've heard nothing of any palace or fortress you might maintain, so I wasn't certain how to go about finding you.”

The eldest returned the smile, or showed his teeth at least. “I'll walk over there,” he pointed at the mouth of an alley about 30 or 40 yards away, “and you two can talk amongst yourselves for as long as you need. Then you'll follow me if you want to discuss what you're doing in my world, and why one of my subjects is following you around like a duckling.”

Then he walked away. Celestia watched him like a cat watching a stranger.

“So,” Mag said.

“Your regent,” said Celestia. She let go of Mag's hand.

Mag massaged her fingers. Celestia had an impressive grip. “So why can't I feel him the way I feel you?”

“You can't feel him because you've always felt him,” said Celestia. “He guided the history of your species, and every single one of you have been influenced by him in countless ways. I don't know his powers or his methods, but I can tell you that, as regent, it is he who decided what it means to be human, what it feels like from day to day.”

The eldest had reached the alley. He leaned against the wall and lit one of the cigarettes Mag had given him, looking as if he was prepared to wait forever.

“Is that right,” Mag said under her breath.

“You've lived your whole life in the shadow of his hand.” Celestia shuddered. “Skies above, his aura. It feels like delirium and cold winds.”

“'Aura.' That's another word for the thing you do? Or you both do, I guess.”

“I think humans can feel my presence in the same way I feel his, yes,” said Celestia. “I wouldn't expect a species without magic to perceive auras, but I suppose encountering a foreign regent must be like finding a patch of snow in the desert, even to a creature who has never touched the aether and doesn't understand what it is she's feeling.”

“Huh. Well, your aura reminds me of Broadway music, or possibly a children's choir, if you were wondering.”

“I know. I've been told it's a bit cloying.” A look of concentration crossed Celestia's face. After some thought, she said, “Two aliens are sitting in a bar. One alien says, “Blorp, bloop, blee noog warble.' The second says, 'Goodness, I think you've had quite enough.”

Mag nodded. “Very corny. Good job. Did it help?”

“No,” said Celestia sourly. She squared her shoulders. “I suppose we'd better just follow him.”

Mag shrugged. “Fine with me. If it makes you feel any better, you're probably just as hard for him to take as he is for you.”

“I would just as soon seem harmless, but I'll keep that in mind,” said Celestia. “And I don't suppose I could convince you to stay behind while I talk with him?”

“Are you kidding?”

“He's an exceedingly dangerous being,” said Celestia. “He smells of madness, and I'm not certain how much value he would attach to an individual subject even if he is sane. I've spoken with regents who would harm one of theirs to make a minor rhetorical point, or because it didn't occur to them not to, or because they were hungry.”

“I'm not going anywhere. If you want to get into politics then this isn't going to be the last dangerous person we talk to, so I may as well get some practice in.” Not waiting for an answer, Mag walked toward the alley.

Celestia caught up. “As you wish. I'll do what I can to protect you. I would suggest you stay silent, but I get the feeling you already have other plans.”

“What gave you that idea?”

“You're wearing your poker face again.”

Most of the snow had melted by this time—this was California, after all—but little drifts of dirty snow still lay in certain shadows the morning sun couldn't reach. The eldest's alley was narrow, about six feet wide, so direct light hadn't touched it yet. Snow lined the bottoms of both walls, and the pile of wet trash stuck to the fence at the back of the alley was still frozen.

The eldest glanced at Mag and Celestia and stepped into the alley without looking back, apparently trusting them to follow him. They did.

He led them to the end of the alley and to a metal door to one side. The door had no handle. The eldest laid his hand where the handle would be, flexed his hand, and pulled. There was the sound of wrenching metal and the door opened as if his hand were a magnet. Inside was a flat plane of wood. The eldest shoved it with both hands and it tipped over, revealing itself to be a rotten pressboard bookcase. Behind the bookcase was an empty room lit by a broken window covered in bars. The walls, the floor, and the ceiling were all made of discolored concrete. Five large concrete blocks had been scattered in one corner, each the size of a park bench, and there was a pile of bricks next to the door, possibly an ex-fireplace. The room was otherwise bare, and colder than a meat locker.

The eldest stepped over the bookcase, walked to the corner, and sat on one of the concrete blocks with his back to the wall. “Today,” he rasped, “this room will be my court. We won't be disturbed. Princess, you're here as a supplicant, yes?”

“Yes,” said Celestia. She sat down on another block seven feet away. Mag followed suit.

“Uncomfortable?” said the eldest.

“Not terribly,” said Celestia.

“I mean your disguise,” said the Eldest. “You're dressed up as one of mine, but you aren't. Go on and make yourself comfortable.”

Celestia changed again. Mag was ready this time, watching carefully. The shift was almost instant, but this time she saw a transitional stage with wings, arms, forelegs, and back legs, shining and many-limbed like a Hindu deity.

She fluttered her wings a bit and shifted into a cat's sitting position. Now her eyes were level with the eldest's.

“Better?” said the Eldest.

“Much. It's not a difficult spell, but it does begin to feel constraining after a while,” said Celestia.

“Good. Welcome to my court. You are Princess Celestia, and you are Margaret Taylor Wilson. Don't look startled, girl; you're mine and I know everything about you. As for myself, I am eldest of the humans, wandering king, builder of cities. My name is none of your business.” He held out the paper sack with the bottle. “No toasts.”

Celestia took it, sipped lightly from it, wiped her lips, and passed it to Mag. Mag sipped as well, and choked.

“What the hell is this? It tastes like Wild Turkey and Nyquil.” She swallowed with some difficulty and handed it back to him.

“That's because it's Wild Turkey and Nyquil,” said the eldest. He drained the bottle and tossed it over his shoulder. It broke against the wall behind him. “Introductions and shared drink, as per the old rules. We can begin.”

Celestia nodded graciously. “Thank you for hearing me. I am—”

“Sorry, sorry, one thing,” said Mag. She stood up. Celestia gave her a warning glance, but stood up alongside her. The eldest stood up as well. Mag's forehead came up to his Adam's apple.

“Just as you like,” said the eldest. He gazed down at her with his calm, hard eyes.

“Cool. You're the regent of Earth?”

“That's right.”

“Guard and guide of the humans since the beginning of the species?”

“King and builder,” growled the eldest.

“But basically yes?”

“King and builder.”

“But basically yes.”

“Speak your piece,” said the eldest.

“I just wanted to make sure, first,” said Mag, and swung her fist in an uppercut.

The eldest stepped back with a smirk. Mag swung again. He ducked a few inches to the right.

“Mag!” barked Celestia.

The eldest caught her fist. She wrested it back, but didn't swing again.

“I get that a lot,” said the eldest to Celestia. “Something on your mind, my little girl?”

“History,” Mag hissed.

“Oh, one of those talks,” said the eldest, rolling his eyes.

“The trans-Atlantic slave trade. The Trail of Tears. JFK. The first world war. Jeffrey Dahmer. Stalin. The Holocaust, for Christ's sake.” Mag poked him in the chest. “Where the fuck have you been?”

“Everywhere,” said the eldest. “Sit down before you do something stupider.”

“Stop patronizing me and answer my question."

“I did. You think I'm going to give you a full accounting of my life up to this point? I don't owe you an explanation.”

Celestia interposed herself between the two humans. They stepped back, glaring at each other.

“I think we should discuss this in a different way,” said Celestia.

“Oh, but this is the human way,” said Mag.

“Melodrama?” said the eldest.

“Fighting.”

“Mag, eldest, please sit down,” said Celestia.

Mag ground her teeth, but sat down. So did the eldest, then Celestia.

“Thank you.” Celestia laid a hoof on Mag's arm. Mag felt smooth metal warmed by body heat—a horseshoe. “Mag, you are asking what sounds like a very valid question, but I can't condone violence. You call it the human way, but I've met many people from warrior cultures, and your actions just now wouldn't have fit in among any of them. Going out without a weapon and then attacking a larger opponent unarmed? I would call this the behavior of a normally peaceful person acting out of anger, not a trained warrior expressing herself in culturally appropriate ways.”

“You were also trying to talk about something important when I changed the subject,” said Mag, squeezing her eyes shut. “Sorry.”

“You do have the right,” said Celestia, frowning at the eldest. “As for you, old one, if you don't like to be asked impertinent questions, why would you teach them to be so curious and so angry? And I, too, wish to hear your answers to her questions, because the answers may change how I approach this hearing. I'm going to step back and let her speak first. Mag, would you like to try again?”

“Hold,” said the eldest. “Princess, you asked a rhetorical question just now and I'm going to answer it. It's simple. I taught them anger and curiosity by pretending not to exist, so of course I'm not going to want to answer questions.”

“You let people kill each other because you don't want them to know you exist?” said Mag.

The eldest sneered. “What do you want me to do? Go public? You think all the wars are going to stop if I go on the news and tell people to knock it off?”

“Well...”

“Are you seriously suggesting you can't stop a war?” said Celestia, genuinely surprised.

“I don't stop wars,” said the eldest.

Celestia looked at him as if he'd just eaten a child. “For ponies' sake, why not?”

The eldest took a last drag of his cigarette and flicked the butt away. He'd smoked it down to the filter. “Because I mostly can't. Oh, I can prevent them. I prevent wars all the time. If you all built a monument for every battle I've prevented, you'd run out of space for anything else." He lifted Mag's pack of menthols to his lips, sucked one out, struck a match on a concrete block, and lit up behind a cupped hand. “Can't prevent all of them, of course. Doesn't matter what I do—sometimes someone picks the wrong place and time to mention God or communism or whatever the fuck, and then it's off to kill and die. And I'm not a wizard. I can't walk onto a battlefield and stop time, and if I could, they'd just start dying again after I left. Sometimes humans kill. It's something we do.”

“What can you do?” said Celestia. “What are your powers?”

“Rude question. What are yours?” the eldest said.

“Words and reasoning,” said Celestia.

“And personal illusions, traveling between planes of existence, flight, complete control over the aether on a cosmic scale, a solid operatic soprano, 'excellent hearing,' playing string instruments with your hooves, horn lasers, flower arranging, immortality... the list goes on and on, doesn't it?”

“Those are some of my lesser tools, but yes. And you?”

“We can't all be sun gods,” said the eldest. “Me, I see everything. The past, the future, the world.” He pointed at Mag. “Her great-great-great-great grand-niece's social security number is going to be 114-27-5890.” He gestured to the both of them. “You two talked about how the Equestrian sun orbits Equis.” He jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “The guy who owns this room on paper isn't going to notice the bag of broken glass until after he sells the building in a few years. Other than that, I can heal any wound I get, I know a few little tricks, and I've got two hands. You ever heard of chaos theory?”

“No,” said Celestia.

“Yeah,” said Mag.

“I forget how it works,” said the eldest, “but the idea is that a butterfly flapping its wings in South America can make hurricanes on the other side of the world. I know when and where every metaphorical hurricane butterfly is, so I go around smashing them.”

Celestia brightened with understanding. “Infinitesimal variables can come together to have a massive impact. You can foresee the results of all the variables, so, with enough planning, you're able to change the course of history.”

The eldest turned back to Mag. “So you get it, then? You all complained about the cold war, but it could have been a real war. You're welcome. You're mad about the Holocaust, but it could have been worse. They could have won. You're welcome. Trail of Tears? You should be grateful there are any Indians left. And this species would have died of plague a hundred times over in prehistoric times if it weren't for me. Just shut up.”

“Eldest,” said Celestia in a strange voice, “where is your brother?”

The eldest said nothing.

“You're a sibling,” said the Celestia. “This world was never made to be ruled by just one person, was it? It works, but it's lopsided and warped, like a house missing some of its supports. And there's an emptiness to you, a ragged hole in the shape of a loved one. You had a brother and now he's gone. Where is he?”

He smiled bitterly. “Am I my brother's keeper?”

Mag jumped backward off her seat, stumbled back, swallowed. “Are you saying you murdered him?”

The eldest shrugged.

“Oh, cousin, what have you done?” whispered Celestia.

“I smashed a butterfly,” said the eldest. "An important part of my job is controlling the variables in human history. My brother would have been the biggest variable, and there was only one way I could control him. It was almost the first thing I did in life. Do you know, killing a god is a lot easier when you can see every possible future? You just have to look for a future where he's dead, then see how that future came about, then make it happen.” His eyes narrowed. “What's wrong, princess? Never had to make a tough call before? Or maybe that story sounds familiar to you. You had a sister, didn't you?”

“Be careful what you say next, eldest,” said Celestia in a deadly soft voice.

Mag felt nauseous. “The oldest human, the guy who decided what it means to be human, kicked things off with a murder. That was our defining moment. It makes sense.”

“This is another reason I never explain myself,” said the eldest. “Listen to me. Live a couple of decades or walk a few miles, look around, and you'll see that right and wrong have changed a little. Walk further or live longer and even more changes. You want to know what life would be like if my brother were alive? It'd be incomprehensible to you as you are now. You'd be horrified. You wouldn't even call it civilization, and you wouldn't want to call them humans. The princess would have appeared on the lakeshore, climbed up the hill, met a few of us, and walked right back to the lake to search for a different world. I know this. I stood in that tall grass for the first time at my brother's side, looked at him, and saw. I saw all the futures of humanity, ladies, and this timeline is the only one I could stomach.”

“What, you're the good twin?” said Mag, attempting to process all this in terms she could understand.

“Hell no. I'm the murderer. He was the magical one, all glorious and perfect. His head was full of hopes and dreams, and then I strangled them out of him. Get off my back about this, but don't whitewash it, either. You know I can't enter a home? Our aether laid a punishment on me for what I did. I killed my family, so I can never have another, at least not like that. I can only wander.”

Mag's head whirled. She could just barely tolerate the idea of a flying unicorn princess, or pretend to, anyway. And this mad god fit nicely with what she knew of the world, or so she would have said if someone had described him to her a week ago as a purely hypothetical being. What she couldn't do was reconcile the idea of these two beings existing in the same multiverse. Mag sat down on the floor and pressed her hands to her eyes.

The eldest chuckled. “Let's move on before the mortal has a breakdown.”

“I have two things to say, first,” said Celestia.

“Go ahead,” said the eldest.

“One. I won't go into detail, but if you can see the future then you know I'm not bluffing when I say that, if you don't apologize to me for that comment about my sister, and to Mag for your cruelty, you won't like what follows.”

“Fine, fine,” said the eldest. “I'm sorry, Princess Celestia, for comparing the two of us. I was only saying we both know what it means to make terrible personal sacrifices for our people. Ms. Wilson, I could have dealt with your question in a kinder way, but I didn't, and for that I'm sorry. There, princess. Good enough?”

“For now,” said Celestia. “Two. In all the futures, was there a world where humanity would see your brother's murder as laudable?”

“Of course. If you can describe a world, it was a possibility at one point. Do you realize how many futures there are at any given time? In a chess game—one of the simplest worlds I've ever come across—there are 400 possible different board configurations after both players make their first move of the game. After they go a second time, it's about 200,000. After the third turn, the number is 121 million. Now imagine a board game as complicated as your world or mine, played over the course of eons. That board game is the game I'm playing every day.” He chuckled again. “Can you see why I decided to play both black and white, all those years ago? Me, I think maybe this is the world where I did the right thing. Who knows? And who cares? What's done is done. Did I answer your question?”

“To my satisfaction,” said Celestia.

“Then make your other request,” said the eldest with a languid, magisterial wave.

“Yes, I'd like to leave your company as soon as possible.”

“Then get to the point.”

Celestia sat up straighter. “I want to submit a request for safe passage and temporary residence in your world, along with any refugees I may find who would normally be under my protection. If you're willing, I would also like permission to bargain and treat with your people, helping wherever I may. I will neither make nor request any oath of fealty. I will offer no threat to your sovereignty. I—”

“Boilerplate, boilerplate,” said the eldest. “The standard refugee arrangement. Request granted. But what about your little friend? Protect her and order her around, if you like, but she's not yours.”

Mag took her hands off her eyes. “I'm not yours either, you bastard.” Celestia grinned back at her.

“You're my responsibility,” said the eldest. “That's what the word 'mine' means.”

Mag could have the rest of her philosophical crisis later. “Then I can't possibly be yours, because I'm my responsibility. I make my own decisions. Yeah, you created the world as it is. You're pretty much God. You even created me, sort of, because you made a bunch of choices about how history should go and now here I am. The only real limit on your power over the world is human nature, and you created that too, didn't you? But you know what?” She leaned against Celestia, laid a hand on her back, and rested a cheek on her neck. “Hail Satan.”

The eldest threw his head back and laughed. “Well, just call it a contract between the two of you and it'll be covered under the part of the agreement about bargaining with humans. But princess, don't ever forget that even if I gave her to you and declared you her regent, she'd still be a human. She always will be, and if you try to change that, you'll break her.” He cracked his knuckles and neck, stood, stretched his back, rolled his shoulders. Celestia stepped off her own block.

“We done here?” said the eldest.

“I'd say so,” said Celestia.

“Hopefully forever,” said Mag.

“Good. Thanks for the cigarettes,” said the eldest. “Oh, and Mag? Someone robbed your store last night because you left the door unlocked. I didn't do it.” Then he left.

Mag and Celestia stared at the door for a while. Mag covered her eyes with her hand again. Celestia folded a wing around her shoulders, and Mag pressed her face into Celestia's side.

Author's Notes:

I rewrote this chapter several times and it still looks like this.

Conversation Five

Celestia held the dustpan in place with magic as Mag swept Funyuns into it. The thieves had trashed the place.

“I would think you'd be angrier,” said Celestia. She had assumed her human disguise again.

“One thing I've learned about this job is that people turn feral the moment they walk into a convenience store,” said Mag. “If I started shouting every time someone acted like an animal in here, I'd never stop.”

Celestia emptied the dustpan into the plastic trash bin next to her. “Has this place ever been robbed before?”

“Not while I've been working here, but I think it's happened at least once. Okay, I think this aisle is good. What's in the next one?”

Celestia peered around around the corner of the next aisle. “Quite a lot of melted ice cream. It's mostly dried now.”

“Okay, time for the mop. Isn't that also the aisle they dumped the oil in?”

Celestia took another look. “Yes, over on the other end. Shall we use a towel for that part?”

“Could you do that, please? There are paper towels under the counter.”

“Of course,” said Celestia. She walked over to the lake of car oil at the end of aisle three while rummaging blindly with her magic through the shelves beneath the register. She found the roll of paper towels—a particularly large and thick brand of paper towels Mag regularly ordered from an industrial supply website because, as Mag had told Celestia, customers were animals—floated them over, and pulled off a sheet. Mag walked out the back door to get hot water from the bathroom, remembered that the thieves had stolen the keys to every door in the building including the bathrooms, and instead moved to the spigot against the back wall. She mixed up a bucket of soapy water, grabbed the mop, and went back in.

“Could you also pass me my putty knife?” said Mag. After another rummage, Celestia floated it over.

“Thanks.” Mag dipped the putty knife in the soapy water and got to scraping up ice cream. Celestia finished sopping up the oil and began gathering the empty wrappers strewn everywhere.

Mag remembered something. “Oh, you know what happened that was sort of like this? That time a pack of coyotes got in at night. They ate everything, puked it back up, and left. Less actual property damage and they didn't run off with my keys, but on the other hand, I had to clean it up by myself. Thanks, by the way.”

“I'm hardly going to stand around and watch someone else clean up a mess like this all on her own,” said Celestia, picking up shards of glass from the broken freezer door.

“You're royalty, though,” said Mag.

“Yes, this is novel for me. I've helped with disaster relief before, righting fallen trees and performing large scale counterspells and moving boulders from roads, that sort of thing, but I don't often clean a floor.”

“You're enjoying this, aren't you?”

“I thought it would be insensitive to say so, but yes,” said Celestia. She picked up and threw away the empty ice cream tubs all over the floor, and hummed a tune as she did it.

Mag shook her head. Celestia was wonderful, beautiful, as unquenchable as the sun, and as perfect as Mary Poppins, and Mag, to her own surprise, appreciated the company. But at the same time, Mag was beginning to understand why the ugly stepsisters hated Cinderella.

“Did you say coyotes?” said Celestia.

“Yeah, coyotes.”

“It's interesting. We had that species of animal in Equestria,” said Celestia.

“Why are our worlds so similar? Same language, same animals. Is it like that with all the worlds?”

“Most worlds have a number of things in common with each other, but not usually to this extent, no. I had to search for quite some time to find a world with so many similarities. Are you going to use that mop?”

“Right after I finish scraping up this ice cream,” said Mag. “You were looking for a world like yours, then?”

“I had hoped to find a world with inhabitants who understood magic on the same level my people do, so that they might help me determine what has happened to my world. Unfortunately your people seem to be mostly blind to the aether, and, so far as I've seen, you don't even detect it. On the other hoof, your grasp of nearly every other science beggars belief, so I'm expecting to find great help here. More importantly, I made a new friend.” She smiled and winked at Mag. “Yes, on the whole, this is a good place to set up.”

“What do you need to set up?”

“If you're just going to sit there, couldn't you let me use the mop?” said Celestia.

“I'm gonna use it as soon as I finish scraping,” said Mag. “If you want to clean up the rest of the oil, you could just use paper towels and dish soap. That might work better anyway.”

“We'll see, I suppose,” said Celestia. “To answer your question, I need to set up a laboratory. I'll know more about what I need by the end of today.”

“Why, what happens at the end of today?”

“There are some things I'd like to check in Equestria. Now that I've had time to rest and think, I've realized there are certain samples I need to collect, certain tests I need to run.”

“We're going dimension-hopping?” said Mag. “Cool!”

“'We?'” said Celestia. She deposited one last soapwater-and-oil-soaked paper towel in the trash, wet a cloth towel in a bucket of clean water, and rinsed the soap from the floor.

Mag braced herself for an argument. “Yeah, 'we.' You want me to sit around and wait for you while you go places no human has ever been?”

Celestia set the “wet floor” sign down where the oil had been and cast around for the next thing to clean. “That's what I'd planned, yes.”

“I have a better plan, and the plan is that you take me with you. And before you tell me it's dangerous, would you say it's more dangerous than the eldest? Because I survived that meeting just fine, and he even scares you.”

“If I had known then what I know now about your eldest, I would have pushed much harder for you to stay behind,” Celestia said sternly.

“And you didn't, and it was horrible, and I'm just dandy all the same,” said Mag. “Come on. Do you really want to fight about this? I don't. I'm not one to complain, and I want you to understand that I don't blame you for any of this, but honestly? Hanging out with you is the one and only good thing about my day so far. Even breakfast sucked, and I was looking forward to that.”

“I certainly can't say much for that wine, at least,” said Celestia. “Well, how about this? For the rest of today, you'll teach me about the human world, and then I'll make the Equestria trip tomorrow instead. The first part of today has been difficult, but we can make something of the rest of it.”

Mag tossed the putty knife into mop bucket and got up. “I'm going to stop being subtle. I was always awful at it anyway. I can't let you go back to Equestria alone because of what it was like for you last time you were there. I realize we just met, but having anyone with you while you're in there would be better than having nobody, right? I'm coming with you.”

And now Mag had embarrassed herself. She bent and fished around in the mop bucket for the putty knife, mostly for something to do other than maintain eye contact. You weren't supposed to come out and say that kind of thing, were you?

Mag glanced up at Celestia and saw a touched expression. “I... wasn't looking forward to that part.”

“Glad we settled that,” said Mag, and mopped the aisle. Her other reason for wanting to come was that she was feeling clingy, but there was no need to mention that.

Cleaning the store had taken hours. Celestia and her magic were an immense help, especially when it turned out that she could lock and unlock doors without a key, and, to Mag's amazement, could even fix the broken glass of the freezer door. Now the only problems were the empty register, the stock shortage, and the fact that, while magic could take the place of keys in the short term, sooner or later they would need the real thing. Mag couldn't decide whether it would be better to call a locksmith before or after her boss came back. She would also probably have to call her boss to tell him about all this, and the last thing she wanted to do right now was talk to someone with a legitimate reason to be angry with her.

Mag snapped the register shut. “I changed my mind. I am mad. Messing up some podunk mountain snack shack is childish, but hey, cleaning up after jerks is half my job. Robbing a convenience store is so mundane that I'm a tiny bit disappointed I wasn't there for it, so I could live the cliché and maybe get some pity points from my boss. But running off with the keys? They're threatening to do the same again sometime. What am I supposed to do, camp out in here until we get the locks changed?”

“I wonder if we could catch the thieves,” Celestia said.

“I don't even want to look at them,” said Mag.

“We could take the keys and perhaps the money back, and I wouldn't mind the chance to give them a talking-to,” said Celestia. “We could also call your local constabulary. You have one, I presume?”

“They wouldn't be able to do anything, and anyway, they'd want to catch the thieves, and what if they do? The thieves are probably teenagers. They'd go to juvie, and I wouldn't wish that on anybody. I know what I'm talking about; I spent a couple weeks there.”

“Juvie?” said Celestia.

“Juvenile hall. Jail for kids. And before you ask, no, I'm not a hardened criminal. It was just some stupid teenager stuff.”

“I trust you,” said Celestia. “It confuses and disturbs me that a child can go to jail for a crime that only merits a two week sentence, though. Surely there's a more appropriate punishment.”

Mag stripped open a Slim Jim. “It was going to be 24 hours, but I got in a couple of fights. Does that make it better or worse?”

“I think I don't know enough about your criminal justice system to comment,” said Celestia. “Do you mind if I ask what you did?”

“Ten years ago, I borrowed my parents' car without their permission. They reported it as stolen because they wanted to teach me a lesson. I got pulled over for coming to a rolling stop. The cop found out what happened and took me to the station, I got in a shouting match with the cop, then again with my mom over the phone, and then with my dad in person. Some other cop put his hand on my shoulder from behind and I turned around and decked him—I know, I know—and they sent me to juvie for the night to be 'scared straight.' Want some Doritos?”

“Some what?” said Celestia. Mag tossed her a small bag. “Oh, I see. Thank you. And judging by the empty wrappers we threw away, it opens like—ah, yes.” Celestia crunched a chip and motioned for Mag to continue.

Mag rang up the chips and Slim Jim, but she couldn't make change because there wasn't any in the register, so she wrote herself a sticky note about it and stuck it to the counter. “Anyway, there was this other girl in juvie that hated me on sight. No idea why. That escalated because neither of us knew how to back down, so, long story short, my stay got extended. It wasn't fun, but it could have been worse.”

Celestia nodded sympathetically and ate another chip.

“You aren't appalled at my dark past?”

“That isn't a dark past; that's a difficult adolescence. Goodness, these are salty. May I have something to drink?”

Mag tossed her a water bottle. Celestia opened it without difficulty—apparently they had twist tops in Equestria—and drank a third of it in one go. She set the bottle down on the floor and frowned at her Dorito-dust-stained hand. Mag tossed her the roll of paper towels.

“Thank you,” said Celestia. “As I was saying, I've never come across a culture in which adolescence is easy, and some individuals have it harder than others depending on personality and circumstances.”

“Yeah, well, I was an independent-minded and opinionated teenage girl in an authoritarian family,” said Mag. “They had me memorize every bible verse related to obedience when I was a little kid. I had to wear dresses, never pants, and I was supposed to call my parents 'sir' and 'ma'am.' There were a lot more rules, but maybe you get the picture. At some point I started testing boundaries. Little things. Sarcasm, lying, sitting without crossing my legs. They got mad, I got mad, they punished me, I retaliated, they punished me more, I pushed harder, so did they. We fought every day over every little thing. After a couple of years of this, it got to the point where the cops had to come over a couple times a week to pull us apart, and I loved that, because sometimes it meant I could spend the night in a cell rather than at home. Some of the best rest I got back then was behind bars. Eventually I turned 18, moved to the other side of the country without giving them an address, and just generally cut them out of my life. Oh, for—stop looking all sad. That was the best decision I've ever made.”

“But family—”

“No,” Mag said firmly. “You don't know how ugly it got. You don't know how it felt. Trust me. By the time I left, they were every bit as done with me as I was with them. I think they moved out right after I did, to make sure I couldn't ever come back. This is not one of those stories that ends in a tearful reunion where everyone forgives everyone else. God, will you stop looking at me like that?”

Celestia looked away, but her eyes didn't change.

“Sorry,” said Mag.

Celestia sighed. “I have seen families like that. There are few things I loathe more than the estrangement of a family member, but I understand that sometimes there's no other option.” She looked at Mag again. “You heard what the eldest said to me about my sister, I believe.”

“I remember,” Mag said.

“First, I'd like to say that both my actions and my motivations were completely different from his. The eldest's comparison doesn't apply in the slightest.”

Mag threw the Slim Jim wrapper at the trash can and missed. “You don't even have to say it. I could tell that that was just him being horrible. God, he's so horrible. What is wrong with that guy?”

The wrapper floated the rest of the way into the trash. “Madness, or something like it. The eldest sees everything—the past, the present, all possible futures, and every inch of your entire world in each of those contexts. We all take our cues from our environment, and the eldest's environment as he sees it bears little resemblance to what you or I would recognize as reality. I asked him if there was an alternate world where the murder of his brother was moral, and he said yes. What other strange worlds does he have in his head? Which world does his moral compass come from? What would such a man even value?”

“I don't know if you could call him crazy,” said Mag. “I've met people with brain problems before. You know, people who hear voices and believe weird things. Schizophrenic, that's the word. They weren't like him. Mostly they just seemed scared, and I walked away wishing they didn't have to feel like that. The eldest wasn't scared. He was a di—a jerk the entire time, and on purpose. He liked it when we got mad and he laughed when I freaked out. He was—you know what, no. I'm done thinking about him. It's just too horrible. What were you saying about your sister?”

“Let's walk down to the lake as I talk,” said Celestia. “I would like to use it again to travel the worlds, as it's easier to use a reflective surface I've passed through before. The trip to Equestria shouldn't take too long now that I know where this world is in relation to mine, so, with luck, we'll be back by lunch. Are you ready to go, or would you like to rest a bit more?”

“I'm ready.” Mag picked up her purse and walked around the counter.

“It's beautiful here,” said Celestia, looking up at the sun through the pine needles.

“Yeah, I like the mountains better than the city. I lived in LA a couple months and it was terrible.”

“LA?”

“Los Angeles. A huge city about a hundred miles to the west. It's full of smog and people and there's nowhere to park.”

Celestia gazed west. “A pessimistic answer, but I'd like to see one of your cities.”

“You were going to tell a story,” Mag reminded her.

“Yes, while we walk. Shall we?”

Mag led Celestia down a steep dirt path. At first it was just wide enough for one person, so that Celestia had to follow behind Mag, but it opened up and leveled out after a couple of twists in the trail, letting them walk side by side.

“Can anyone see us, do you think?” said Celestia.

“Well, this trail isn't exactly remote, but I can't see any houses, and I don't think there are that many people who would know about a rough little path that goes from the edge of the less popular side of the lake to the back of a convenience store.”

Celestia let the disguise slip away and breathed deep. “Much better.”

It was strangely easy to forget that Celestia was a pony. As a human she was merely regal, only slightly uncanny, barely angelic at all. There was always that same sense of pressure, but Mag was learning how to deal with it. But then, just when you got used to being around her, she changed back into a glorious pony princess.

“I've stalled long enough. I owe you a story.” Celestia settled into a steady, thoughtful walking pace, the better to think and talk. “I wish I could say it started with the parasite, but really, it started because she was alone. Luna is—was—is the princess of the night. She plays other roles as well, but what's important is that she always performed them at night, and our ponies have always slept through the night. They're afraid of the dark, and the dark is what she is. There was no one for her to talk to and no one to vent at. And I did nothing, because I didn't understand what I was seeing in her. People should not be alone in life, Mag.” She gave Mag a meaningful glance.

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.”

“Good. Where was I? Right. Now, there is a kind of creature that preys on sentient beings. There's no proper name for it, but it's essentially a conceptual parasite. Each one is different, with different methods of predation and consumption. The one I am speaking of now, which some call Nightmare, preyed on loneliness by fostering jealousy and then making an offer of power in exchange for a say in the host's decisions. After convincing the host she had no one to care for and the only recourse was to punish the world, the parasite would make its sales pitch. If the host accepted the deal, she would find herself steadily growing in magical strength while losing progressively more control over her actions. Eventually she would have all the power in the world, and all the volition of a marionette.”

“'She,' you keep saying. Did it only prey on women?” said Mag.

“I'm not sure. I never allowed it to spread. I only say 'she' because its host was my sister.”

Mag winced. She could see where this was going. “What did you have to do?”

“I couldn't separate them, and someone like Luna is capable of immense destruction even without the parasite. I wanted to search for a way to cure her, but she forced my hoof by not allowing the sun to rise. I fought her, and imprisoned both her and the parasite inside the moon for a thousand years in the hope that I could come up with a plan before her return.”

“And did you? Come up with a plan, I mean?”

“I did. There are greater powers than I, and she and I used to have limited access to one of them, or perhaps I should say six of them. The elements of harmony, they're called. Have you heard the expression 'Omnia vincit amor?'”

Mag scratched the back of her neck in thought. “'Everything,' uh, something, 'love?' Is that 'Love conquers all?' I've heard that. I think someone wrote that in Ancient Greece.”

“That may be where I came across it,” said Celestia.

“I always liked 'Love is as strong as death' better. Love is cool and all, but since when does love beat death? Everything dies. Death always wins. It's like playing rock-paper-scissors-black hole.”

“Perhaps,” said Celestia.

“You used love to beat the demon?”

“I wouldn't use the word 'demon,'” said Celestia. “It's too dignified. It gives the parasite credit that it doesn't deserve. But yes, you could say that. I passed the elements of harmony into the care of six loving ponies. Individually the elements represented virtues, and the ponies lived lives devoted to, well, not always to the demonstration of that virtue, but certainly lives devoted to contemplating what it meant to be generous or kind or loyal. Together the elements and their ponies were a force of harmony and friendship. The elements are the nearest thing to the pure physical embodiment of love I've ever come across, and their power is limitless. They defeated Luna and the Nightmare at the height of their strength, and, when the six new bearers wielded the elements, they destroyed the Nightmare entirely. So, yes, I would say the 'demon' was defeated with love.”

“The demon that wasn't a demon,” said Mag.

“Just so.”

“What were the virtues? Which ones did you get, when you and Luna found them? Or could you both use all six if you wanted?”

“They divided themselves between us,” said Celestia. “ As for my elements, it hardly matters now, I suppose, but I had the elements of kindness, laughter, and generosity. She got loyalty, honesty, and magic. Neither of us really exemplified any of those traits, in hindsight, but I also think our ability to live those ideals was less important than the role they've played in our respective lives, just like the new bearers.” Celestia's face twisted with loss. “A student of mine became the element of magic. She would send me weekly letters on what she had recently learned about friendship, and those letters taught me to love them all. Skies and scars, I miss them so much.”

Mag laid her hand on Celestia's back. “What are their names?”

“Rarity, Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy. Twilight Sparkle.” Then Celestia said suspiciously, “Is something wrong?”

“No, no, nothing, they're wonderful names,” said Mag. She should have known what to expect, really. This was not a good time to laugh. This was not a good time to laugh. It was vitally important that she not laugh.

“Oh, get it out of your system before you hurt yourself.”

Mag gave up and cackled. “I'm sorry! I can't help it. Your world is pure cane sugar. 'Good morning, Fluttershy!' 'Top of the mornin' to you, Twilight Sparkle.'” The laughter faded and all she was left with was confusion. “What I don't get is how something like your world can be real. In your world, ponies control the weather by pushing clouds around with what, flying steam shovels? Meanwhile, in my world, we have the plague.”

“Don't forget that we also had things like the Nightmare,” said Celestia. “You have computers. You have this forest. And, for all your studied cynicism, you're still willing to concede that love is as strong as death. Where did you learn that, if not in a worthwhile world?”

“You're getting preachier by the second. The lake is close, by the way.”

“I can smell the water,” said Celestia.

“I come down here on my lunch hour once or twice a week. The lake has a good smell to it.”

Celestia smiled. “It does, doesn't it?”

The lake came into view, with its bottle green water and tall grass growing along the shore. It was nearing noon. There were no clouds, and the reflection of the sun burned gold on the water.

“I'm sorry,” said Mag. “I wish I hadn't laughed at your friends' names.”

Celestia turned her nose up theatrically. “It's a nice day, so I'll forgive you if you admit that 'Mag' is a sillier name than the ones you laughed at.”

Mag crossed her arms. “Never. 'Mag' is a completely reasonable name, unlike 'Princess Celestia,' the strangest nonfictional name I've ever heard.”

"Insolence. But I need your help, so this bulrush shall take the punishment in your stead." Celestia bit the head off a nearby cattail crunched it vindictively.

Mag rolled her eyes. "Consider me chastised."

Author's Notes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHOHi5ueo0A

Conversation Six

Watching someone open a path between dimensions should have been interesting. It wasn't.

Mag sat on the grass a few feet from the back with her forearms resting on her knees. “How long does this usually take again?”

Celestia stood in the water up to a little above her fetlocks, staring intently down at her own reflection. “As I've said twice already, it takes as long as it takes.”

Mag dug through her purse for something to do. “I'm more looking for a status update, here.”

“The status is that I haven't seen a frayed edge yet, and my friend keeps distracting me. The status was the same last time you asked how long this is going to take, and the status will be the same the next time you ask.”

“Frayed edge?”

“No reflection is perfect. Look for the tiny inconsistencies between the reflection and the world it reflects, and you've found the frayed edge.” Celestia had relaxed as she spoke. She seemed to like teaching.

Mag pointed. “The water is rippling and it makes you look goofy. There, an inconsistency.”

“Inconsistencies, not imperfections in the reflective surface. A hair of my mane in the wrong place. A cloud that's too far to the southeast. A faint light or distant face. Have you ever seen something strange in a mirror out of the corner of your eye? That was the frayed edge of reality.”

“Because I'd entered... The Twilight Zone,” said Mag dramatically. “Do they have TV in Equestria? No, probably not, because you didn't compare my computer to a television. But do you have film? Moving pictures?”

“Projected moving pictures,” said Celestia. She hadn't blinked since she'd started.

“Cool,” said Mag. “I should show you Youtube when we get back. We can do a Twilight Zone marathon. Hey, have you considered trying to surprise your reflection by doing something it wouldn't expect?”

“Yes. Most dimension travelers try that at some point. It doesn't work, unfortuna—there!” Celestia plunged her head into the water. The water didn't splash, and the waves of the lake passed through her neck as if it weren't there.

“Weird. What now?”

Celestia flicked her tail.

“What's that mean?”

Celestia flicked her tail again, more insistently.

Mag got up. “You want me to follow you? Sure.” She stepped offshore and her shoes filled up with near-freezing water. “Blah! You couldn't have mentioned how cold this was?”

Celestia flicked her tail once again.

“Okay, how about this? If I'm doing the thing you want me to do, flick your tail up. If not, then to the side.”

Celestia flicked her tail diagonally.

“That means I sort of am and sort of aren't, right?”

Celestia flicked her tail up.

“Can I get another hint?”

Celestia whipped Mag lightly on the leg with her tail.

“Oh, come on. I'm the one with wet socks. I'll catch my death in this.”

Celestia, still holding her head in place, sidestepped clockwise until her tail was next to Mag's hand.

“Grab your tail?” Mag did.

Now Celestia stepped forward and Mag followed her into deeper, colder water. Celestia's white back tilted as if she were going sharply downhill and then disappeared under the water. Mag took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

The cold was hellish. Mag wondered for a few painful moments whether Celestia was who she said she was, or if Mag had in fact fallen for the schemes of a kelpie with extremely circuitous hunting methods. Then there was light, followed by the vertigo that naturally came with gravity suddenly moving 90 degrees. Mag fell into warm grass and curled into a ball around her waterlogged purse.

“C-c-cold,” said Mag.

Celestia stood above her. “I beg your pardon for not warning you. I also wish I'd told you what to do next after I saw the edge, but we worked it out, so things turned out all right. Here, this should help.” Celestia's horn glowed.

Water crawled across Mag's skin and out of her clothes, pooling around her. Mag pulled herself halfway up, staggered a few feet away from the water, and dropped back down into a ball.

“Still cold?” Celestia's horn glowed again and the air warmed around them.

Eventually Mag uncurled herself and opened her eyes.

She lay on a grassy hill under an overcast sky of goldenrod clouds. Door-sized standing mirrors littered the hill, one every few yards in every direction, all of them unassumingly reflecting the grass and sky. Every mirror was framed and every frame was different. Celestia lay next to her on her belly, watching and waiting. A slow, dry breeze drifted down the hill.

“Better?” said Celestia.

“My phone is probably done for and I just soaked most of a pack of cigarettes, but other than that, yeah,” said Mag. She examined the mirror they'd come through and was disappointed to discover that for the most part it was just a mirror. It reflected Mag back at herself (brown hair in a ponytail, thin lips, slouching a bit) standing in the grass, with Celestia behind. Her reflection did nothing untoward so far as Mag could see, blinking as she blinked and shifting as she shifted.

The frame of the mirror was a point of interest, at least. Persons unknown had carved words and phrases into the wood in a variety of languages. Mag recognized some of the languages, but some were more alien. Some were impossible. One, a chain of interlocking hexagons with each link filled with blobby shapes, seemed to have altered slightly every time Mag glanced back at it. One was in French. None were in English.

Mag looked at Celestia in the mirror. “Where do these come from? What do they mean?”

“Travelers will sometimes leave notes on mirrors for each other. Small pieces of advice. Attempts to characterize the inhabitants.” Celestia pointed at the hexagons. “'The people of thirst.'” Then, at the French sentence. “'Enter in peace, but at arms.'” At a vertical column of shallow, serpentine scratches. “'The hollow lords.'” At a pair of pictograms so old that the breeze had eroded them as smooth as if they'd been sanded. “'Save them.'”

Mag traced those last words with her finger. They were the oldest message there.

Celestia approached. “This is the Valley of Mirrors. There are other places a reflection might lead to, but most lead here. It's the safest In-Between I know of for mortal travelers, but don't let your guard down. I only mean it's safer than, say, the Gray Sea or the Walled Path, and that isn't a difficult hurdle.”

“What should I look out for?”

“Other travelers, or things you don't understand.”

“I don't understand anything here,” said Mag.

“Then stay close and keep asking questions,” said Celestia.

Mag moved in close. “What's at the bottom of the valley?”

“A lake,” said Celestia.

“Does the lake have a reflection?”

“Yes, and the world it leads to is used as a kind of quarantine zone for dangerous artifacts,” said Celestia.

“Let me guess. No touchy?”

The corner of Celestia's mouth twitched. “Yes, no touchy. In fact, let that be your mantra so long as we're out of your world. When in doubt, no touchy.”

“Cool. So, just to confirm, I'm completely and utterly out of my depth here, right?”

“You have no idea,” said Celestia. “Shall we?”

“Yeah, I'm starting to think we shouldn't screw around,” said Mag.

“Then you're paying attention. Now that you're ready, we're going to teleport.”

Mag stepped back. “What?”

“Equestria is a great distance away, and we didn't bring food, drink, or supplies of any kind. Walking isn't feasible.”

“Teleporting??”

“It's perfectly safe,” said Celestia.

“How do you know? How does it work?”

“I know it's safe because some ponies can teleport if they work hard enough at it, and nopony has ever been hurt in transit,” said Celestia. “As for how it works, understanding it even in layman's terms would require you to have more senses than you seem to. Simply put, it's magic. I'll cast a spell that takes us from one location to another without our having to pass through the intervening space.”

“Okay, but how does it work? Does it break us down into particles, whizz us off to where we're going, and then put us back together?”

“No, it leaves the teleporting object or person intact. It's painless and instantaneous. There are no risks.”

“I don't—” then Mag realized what Celestia had just said and nearly collapsed with laughter. “'Nopony?' Seriously?”

Celestia frowned. “Is there a problem?”

Mag covered her grin with her hand. “No, no problem. Just another sugar rush. Hey, you know what? I feel all right about this now. Do your thing.”

First they were somewhere, and then they were somewhere else. It was as simple as that.

“My world,” said Celestia. She did not sound enthused.

This part of the valley looked more or less the same, right down to the positioning of the nearby mirrors, except for two things. Firstly, the slope of the hill had pitched a few degrees. Secondly, the mirror they now stood in front of didn't reflect the valley. Instead it showed an endless, starless night. The wooden frame was carved with new and different messages. This time, one was in English: “The beloved.” Mag didn't ask about the rest.

“After I cast a few spells on you, this will likely be the least dangerous part of the trip. There is nothing left to hurt you, after all.” Celestia tried to smile and failed. “This one will let you breathe.” Her horn glowed and something like a yellowish soap bubble appeared around Mag's head. “This will protect against the lack of air pressure, which, believe me, is far more important than it sounds.” The glow continued. Something almost but not quite like cloth wrapped itself snugly around Mag's hands and clothes.

“A space suit?” said Mag, looking at the cloth closely.

“A fan of speculative fiction, I see,” said Celestia.

Mag smirked. “Guess again. Humans have gone to space a bunch of times. We've even landed on the moon.”

Celestia raised an eyebrow. “You're joking again.”

“We have video evidence. I'll show you later.”

Celestia studied Mag's face. Her other eyebrow lifted to make a matching pair with the first. “You're serious.”

“Ha! Yeah, it's awesome. We totally went to the moon, hopped around a bit, planted a flag, drove a little golf cart thing, tossed a ball back and forth, and went back home. When we all finally kill each other and there's nothing left but the roaches, there'll still be that flag on the moon.”

Celestia rested a hoof on her cheek. “My word.” She said it with no irony at all.

“It happened because my country got into a space race with another country called the USSR because of a rivalry about economic principles. It's a long story.”

“And now I want to see a few of your history books,” said Celestia. She glanced at the black mirror. The light died in her eyes again.

Mag clapped her hands. “Come on. We get this over with, we go home, you run your tests, and then it's movie night.”

Celestia bowed her head and clenched her eyes shut. Mag hesitated, then laid a hand on Celestia's neck.

“This isn't going to take that long, right?” said Mag.

“No,” said Celestia quietly.

“And it'll help you get them back?”

“Possibly,” said Celestia.

“Well... whenever you're ready,” said Mag.

Celestia opened her eyes. She looked paler than usual, if that was possible, but determined. “Yes, of course it's possible. This has to be done. I have one more spell, and then, I'm sorry, but you'd better climb on my back again.”

Some tiny, starved little part of Mag's soul, the part that wanted seventeen kittens and wished it could fly, kept insisting that riding on Celestia's back was the bestest thing to ever happen to her and she should take every opportunity to repeat the experience. The rest of her dreaded it. Celestia was too small to ride comfortably, wasn't wearing a saddle, and didn't have anything Mag could really hang onto. If there was a way to do it that didn't end in pain, Mag hadn't found it.

“That's fine,” sighed Mag.

“Or I could try riding on your shoulders,” said Celestia.

“You joke, but I'll bet it'd be about as pleasant either way.”

“We can experiment later. Now, as you said, let's get this over with. The last spell changes how gravity affects you. Here you are.”

Celestia's horn flared one more time. Mag didn't feel any different until she lifted her arm, at which point she floated slowly upward.

Mag flailed. “Ah! What? Save me!”

Celestia grabbed Mag with her magic, sat her down on her back, and held her in place. “Your science hasn't found a way to do that, I take it. It's a small safety measure, in case you slip away from me. Now gravity will pull you to the nearest object as if that object were solid ground, regardless of that object's size, and, instead of pulling you harder as you get closer, it'll do the reverse. There should also be an effect that slows you down as you approach something, so you shouldn't be able to accelerate enough to harm yourself even if you somehow end up a thousand miles away from the nearest object.”

“You're surprisingly well prepared.”

“I once had another student who was fascinated with the idea of space. Starswirl extensively studied the nature of gravity and how magic interacted with it. He never made it to space, but he truly believed somepony would someday, and he did reams upon reams of original spellwork to ensure that ponykind was prepared.”

“And so you are,” said Mag.

“Yes. One more thing: we unfortunately won't be able to speak without air.”

“I know,” said Mag. “Do you think I can leave my purse here?”

“Without it being stolen, do you mean? I wouldn't worry. Travelers aren't so common, and they would likely be too cautious to touch an unfamiliar object in this place.”

Mag leaned over as well as she could from Celestia's back and let go of her purse. The gravity spell hadn't affected it, so it dropped to the ground. “No big deal if it rains, since it's already full of lake water. Okay, I'm good.”

“Then off we go.”

Celestia stepped into the mirror.

It wasn't like space. There were no stars and no light of any kind except from Celestia's horn, and the light fell on nothing. It was so quiet that Mag could hear her own rushing blood. Now Mag understood. This was the corpse of a universe.

Mag realized Celestia hadn't moved. She floated in place, wings and legs slack. Mag couldn't say anything to her, so she leaned forward and hugged her as best she could, the bubble around Mag's head distorting enough to let Mag lay her brow in Celestia's mane. Celestia seemed to understand and raised her head, flapping her wings once. Where were they going? Celestia had said something about samples, but hadn't given any further details.

Celestia's horn went out, and there was nothing to the world but the warmth of Celestia's fur.

Now Celestia had gone and Mag floated alone in the cold black nothing. She touched the head-bubble and found it to be intact. The spells were holding. When had Celestia left? Mag must have fallen asleep.

She supposed she should be afraid, but it was so peaceful now. For the first time in nearly a day the pressure in Mag's head was gone. She hadn't realized how heavy it had gotten. Now Celestia was gone and there was no one but herself. There was nothing left to worry about. No responsibilities, no one to speak to her, no one to upset or disappoint, nothing to clean because this was the cleanest place in all the worlds. When had she last felt this calm? Tuesday night in the town jail a few days after her 17th birthday. No, one of the guards had tried to strike up a conversation that night and wouldn't go away, and then someone in the drunk tank had moaned the entire night. At home on the weekend with nowhere to be? No, there was always, always something that needed doing, just one more thing, and then another. Had it been... never?

How would Celestia find her? In fact, how had Celestia lost her? Maybe the dark had eaten Celestia just as it had eaten her world. If that had happened, would her spells still work?

But it was possible Celestia was gone. Mag wondered why this didn't upset her. She could admit, at least in the privacy of her own mind at the center of death's empty heart, that she had loved Celestia on sight. Celestia was everything she didn't believe in. She was meaning and purpose, understanding, selflessness. There was that set of touchingly unrealistic moral principles that, so far as Mag knew, she had held throughout all her interminable life. Yes, it was only reasonable that she had faded away and would never come back. The only puzzle was how someone—ha, “somepony”—could last so long, how the real world could tolerate someone like that. And Mag would die here, of course. It was probably her own fault. But Celestia wasn't there to grieve over it, so it wasn't so bad.

“Who goes there?”

Mag flinched.

“You have wandered far from your proper place, mortal.”

Mag looked around, but saw no lights. “Where are you and how are you talking?” And what had she been thinking a moment ago? Suddenly it seemed so pointlessly maudlin. And surely Celestia was all right. Right?

I am nowhere, anymore.

“Really? Because if I can hear you, and the only thing I can hear is my thoughts, then it seems like you're in my head. That's not nowhere.”

“It matters not. Now identify yourself. What manner of creature are you, and why do you trespass here?”

“My name is Mag.” Acting on a hunch, she added, “I'm here with your sister.”

Ah, yes. Now there was a new aura pressing close. It wasn't so unlike Celestia's, with that same sense of silent song. This one made her think of music boxes. There were differences, however. Celestia's aura was overwhelming; her sister's was hypnotic and comparatively subtle. What was her name again?

“DO NOT MOCK ME. My sister and all my world has gone. I swear upon the memory of the stars that I will fill thee with a lifetime of waking nightmares if—”

“No, seriously,” said Mag. “She's fine. I don't know where she is right this second, but I think she's somewhere in Equestria collecting samples. She's going to die of happiness when she sees you.”

A pause. My sister is truly alive?

“Yeah, can you find her somehow? And bring me with you. She probably wants me back, and I want to see her face when you guys meet.”

“Truly? My sister is alive?”

“Yep,” said Mag.

"Truly??"

“Yeah, can you find her?”

There was no answer.

“Don't forget me,” said Mag.

“Alive,” said Celestia's sister damply. "She's alive? She's alive! She's alive!! And the others?"

“We're, uh, well, we're working on that one,” said Mag.

“Would that I could help you. There is nothing left of me but a dream, and you and I wouldn't even be able to speak if I hadn't caused you to sleep. Yet you've changed the flavor of my confinement with this news of my sister, and for that I thank you. You say your name is Mag? I shall remember it.”

“What, you're giving up? Let's work this out. We can get you out of here, I'll bet. Can you hitch a ride in my brain somehow?”

“Yes, I believe I could, but what then? Will you carry me around in your head for the rest of your life? I myself have been possessed in the past, and I have no wish to visit that experience on any other being, however willing.”

“You think I'm going to leave you here? Dude, it's fine. You want me to wake up and tell your sister I found you and then didn't do anything about it? What do you think she'd say?”

“She would tell you that you chose correctly, and that she is overjoyed to learn that I still live in some poor capacity. She will no doubt find a safe place for you, then come to visit me.”

Mag crossed her arms. “I've been arguing with gods all day and I've won every time so far. Give up and hop into my brain.”

“I'll not play into the self-annihilating impulses of some petulant human. I need simply wait for you to awaken, and our disagreement shall end.”

“Oh, you know what I am?”

“Yes, I now recall that my sister once told me of a distant world housing a species of plains apes in the rough shape of chimpanzees, but elongated in the same way the giraffe is an elongated goat. Warriors, she called you, and slavers. She praised your invention and adaptability but ultimately advised a policy of avoidance. Now I see your mind, and, in all candor, I have as little wish to dwell in the dreams of a human as I do to impose myself on the psyche of another.”

“You can read my mind?”

“Read it? We are in it. All that you see here is what you brought with you.”

Mag looked around. “Yeah, well, I can't see anything, unless that's what you're getting at, in which case that's an impressively dramatic thing to say. But I'm still right.”

“Let us say you are. what do you propose to do about it?” said the princess, amused.

“Bicker about it until you agree.”

“Then do continue making your argument. I shall simply wait in silence until—”

Mag woke up. She lay in the tall grass again under the yellow clouds, and Celestia was shaking her.

“Mag! Mag! What happened?”

“Your sister is still alive,” Mag muttered. God, it was bright here.

Celestia gasped. “You're all right. Oh, thank goodness, you're all right. I don't know what I would have done if I'd led you to your death. What did you say?”

Mag's mouth opened without her permission and said, “I'm alive, sister.” It was her own voice, but the intonations and pronunciations were different.

Celestia's face was a picture.

“Ooh, I win after all,” said Mag in her own voice. “What's up, other princess? Did you change your mind?”

Now the other princess spoke in her head. “No, but it appears I never had a choice in the matter. You have indeed won, but only by default. And it now occurs to me that, though I am an unwilling guest, it is wrong to hijack the use of your voice without your permission. Human, may I speak with my sister for a little while?”

Of course, Mag thought to the princess.

“Hello? Can you hear me?” said the other princess in Mag's head.

“Oh, I thought you'd be able to hear my thoughts,” said Mag. “Yeah, go ahead.”

Having someone else use Mag's mouth was by far the strangest thing she had ever felt. “I am all right, sister, and I'm overjoyed to see you. I thought I was all that remained of Equestria.”

Celestia shook off her astonishment and said, “What happened? How are you doing this? I miss your face, Luna. Where are you?”

“Alas, all that's left of me is my dreaming self, which this human now holds in her mind, and we must be content with that. As for what happened to Equis, I know nothing except what I witnessed from the edge of dreams.”

“I remember that you were asleep,” said Celestia. “Maybe that's how you survived. Did you find other dreamers after the world ended?”

“No, only the formless, gray remains of Dreamland, and I was alone there until I found the dreams of this mortal—the contents of which I will not describe to anyone, human Mag, so you needn't fear for your privacy,” said Luna.

“Thanks,” said Mag. “Good, I can take my mouth back whenever I need it. Hey, you know, you were worried, but I'm feeling okay with this so far. Anyway, don't mind me. You guys keep talking.”

“I promise you the novelty will wear thin,” said Luna. It seemed unfair that Luna could talk to Mag silently while Mag had to speak. “I shall do whatever I can to make this less difficult, but I think a time will come when we each regret today.”

“I didn't anticipate this at all,” said Celestia. “Mag, are you sure you're all right?”

“I think I am. I don't feel different or anything. Question: did this happen because I wanted it to?”

Luna answered Mag out loud, again speaking with Mag's own mouth. “No. This is a phenomenon caused by the freak intersection of forces, and however this happened, I can't imagine that our wishes played a part. Mine certainly didn't. Unless you have some sovereignty over dreams?”

“Nope, I never even remember my dreams. Well, at least that means it's no one's fault if this all turns tragic somehow,” said Mag.

“No one's fault, and yet our responsibility to prevent,” said Celestia.

“I concur. Take this seriously, Mag.”

Mag picked up her sopping purse and threw it at the back of another mirror. It bounced off with a slapping noise and spilled wet change into the grass. “Take this seriously? How? I'm permanently brain-pregnant with an extradimensional horse queen of the night.”

“Pony.”

“Yeah, that.” Mag leaned her shoulder against the mirror. She banged her temple against it a couple of times, trying to bludgeon a bit of sense into things in general. It didn't work. “You see, this kind of situation is what we in the business of apathy call 'fatal but not serious.' I mean, yeah, fine, okay. Okay. I hereby officially acknowledge that, even though I still think this is the best way Luna's situation could have worked out short of Luna spontaneously growing a body, it's true that things could get ugly if it turns out I can't handle having a god riding shotgun in my head, and I've got to be proactive in learning how to handle it. That said, you have to admit this is ridiculous.”

“I wouldn't call it that,” said Celestia.

“And what would you call it? Something more positive and inspirational? Please don't say 'an opportunity.'”

“I would call it step one.”

“And step two is what?”

“I don't know. Let's go and find out.” Celestia smiled encouragingly.

“You two realize, do you not, that the In-Between is not a place for giving away one's position with protracted conversation, then standing still?”

“So I'm told,” said Mag.

Celestia raised a hoof. “You know what? I've already figured out step two. In step two, we find a way for the three of us to have a conversation without me missing every other thing my little sister says.”

“She says this isn't the place to talk about this.”

Celestia teleported them back to Earth's mirror instead of answering; Mag's purse landed next to her. Celestia leaned in to whisper, “Luna is right. We need to be more cautious than we were just now. As a matter of fact it would be best if we were quiet until we've returned to Earth, in case something has picked up on our presence.”

“Your breath smells like Doritos,” Mag whispered back.

Celestia turned to the mirror, but looked back and waved her tail near Mag's hand. Mag grabbed it.

“Keep watch,” whispered Celestia, and fixed her gaze on her own reflection.

Mag knelt to pick up her purse. “What am I watching for?” she said, quietly enough that it only reached her own ears.

“Changes in the light,” answered Luna. “Patches of grass moving against the wind. The voices of people you know who shouldn't be here.”

Mag lowered her voice a bit more. “And that clicking sound?”

Somewhere out among the mirrors there approached a complex, rhythmic, metallic clicking, like a wandering orchestra of scissors. It was impossible to tell how close it was.

“Warn Celestia.”

“Hear that?” whispered Mag.

“Yes,” whispered Celestia, but didn't move, blink, or respond further.

Mag tried moving her mouth without vocalizing at all. “Now what?” Luna didn't answer.

She tried again in a whisper of a whisper. “Now what?”

“We can only wait for Celestia to find the edge. It is too late to flee, except into a mirror. There is nothing we can do to disguise our presence from it, for the collectors can feel both of your heartbeats through the vibrations in the ground. Combat is not an option.”

“Not an option? For Celestia?”

“Soft, human. Softly. We have attracted the attention of one creature already.”

“Mm.”

“Good.”

“Mm?”

“Combat is not an option because, when a collector is injured, the others come. All of them.”

“Gck.”

“You grasp the situation.”

The clicks were getting distinctly louder. Mag glimpsed a tendril in the distance, a whirring chaos of struts and wires—and then Celestia stepped into the mirror. Mag clenched the tip of Celestia's tail and darted after her.

The cold was even worse now that she was expecting it. Mag scrambled to reorient herself in those liminal, airless seconds, breached the surface of the lake and drank in the sight of the Earthly sky. Celestia hovered over Mag on her great swan's wings, lifted her out, and flew her to shore, where she performed the same drying and warming spells she had before.

When Mag felt alive enough to talk again, she said, “Tomorrow I'm going down the hill to buy a full length mirror that we can keep in the living room. We can use that from now on, instead of this ice-water freaking lake.”

“Every edge is cold, and a new path is always dangerous to pass through, but it's possible to get lucky. Perhaps you'll find a worthwhile mirror.”

“Mag?”

“Yeah?”

“May I borrow the rest of your body? Please, for a few minutes only. Just that.”

“Sure.”

Mag relaxed and Luna took over. Luna drew in and then let go of a shaking breath. She closed Mag's eyes, breathed deep again, smoother now, and breathed out. Then once again, in, out. Mag felt it all.

Luna tried to stand, but fell forward onto Mag's hands. “Sister,” she said.

Celestia helped her up. Luna stood straight for a bare second and then fell to her knees. She touched Celestia's shoulder. They hugged.

“We are alive,” said Luna.

“And together,” said Celestia.

“Then we are home.”

Conversation Seven, Followed by an Aside

“This is a car,” said Mag. It was a blue Saturn from late 90's with sun-damaged paint and a missing hubcap. They loaded the groceries into the car while Celestia explained plastic, even though Luna hadn't asked.

Celestia bent to look at the undercarriage. “Another amazingly complex device.”

“But what does it do?” said Luna.

“You can talk out loud whenever you like, you know,” said Mag.

“I would rather not impinge on your agency.”

“You're worried about abusing the poor little mortal, but I'm worried about you feeling trapped in there. Chill out and talk.”

“Sometimes I shall, then, but I intend to request permission whenever I have anything long-winded to say,” said Luna.

“That's fine,” said Mag. “By the way, the left hand is yours if I'm not using it.”

Mag's brow furrowed without her say-so. Luna said, “For emergencies only.”

“Whenever I'm not using it,” said Mag. “Something funny, Sunny?”

“You look like a madwoman, arguing with yourself like that,” said Celestia.

“Then my true colors are showing. But Luna knows all about that, right? She saw my dreams.”

“I have seen far worse.”

“Would you like to talk about it?” said Celestia.

“No way,” said Mag, and popped the hood to distract them.

“Oh, my,” said Celestia, walking a slow half-circle to admire the engine.

“But what does all this do? Is it some manner of unnecessarily complicated conveyance?”

“Luna keeps asking what it does,” said Mag.

“It's a vehicle,” said Celestia, proud to know it.

“How does it operate?”

“'How dost it operateth?'” said Mag in officious pseudo-British.

“I'm, like, so pointlessly obnoxious,” said Luna in bubblegum Californian.

“What light through yonder window breaks? Why, 'tis the east, and Luna shutting up is the sun!”

Silence followed.

“That's a wonderfully well-turned piece of verse, other than the break in meter in the second line,” said Celestia.

“Never mi—” Luna switched to Mag's voice. “Never mind our disagreement. Tell us where that line is from.”

“Shakespeare,” said Mag, “poet and playwright. Kind of a big deal, according to high school English teachers. I'll hook you guys up as soon as I can figure out a way to do it without having to sit through one of his plays myself.”

“You don't like his work?” said Celestia.

“His stuff is long, dense, archaic, and, well, the problem with inventing all the cliches is that now his work is cliched.”

“But do you recall the rest of the poem? What about the part you replaced?” said Luna.

“'And Juliet is the sun.' It's a love story. I don't remember the rest of it. Celestia, could you lock up the store?”

Mag heard every door lock simultaneously.

“Showoff,” said Mag.

Celestia smiled her Celestial smile. Mag stared at her longer than was polite.

“One second,” said Mag, and stepped around the corner of the store, where Celestia hopefully wouldn't see or hear.

“Okay, now that you're here, I have to ask,” Mag whispered to Luna. “How can she smile after what's happened? Is she faking it? I don't know what to say to her.”

“Faking it? I've known her since the beginning of the world, and even I am not always certain how to weigh the sincerity all of her smiles. I decided long ago to believe them all. She has an honest personality, after all, and why would she smile if she did not wish us to believe she meant it?”

“I don't know. Why does anybody hide their feelings?”

“Perhaps she smiles because she wishes to smile.”

Mag pondered. Should she ask? She might as well. “And you? How are you doing?”

“... I beg your pardon?”

“How are you doing? Everything that happened to her also happened to you, except you were stuck there. Don't answer if you don't feel like it.”

“I am in the light again with my sister. I do well enough for now. Is there anything else you wish to discuss?”

“Yeah, privacy,” said Mag. “Is that a thing anymore?”

“I do have good news on that front. I have been experimenting, and am finding ways to block out each of your senses.”

“Not sure how I feel about you putting yourself in a sensory deprivation chamber,” said Mag.

“Worry not. As I experiment I glimpse certain possibilities. For each sense of yours I block, I find another sense of my own—ones you don't appear to have access to.”

“You and Celestia keep bringing those missing senses up.”

“She means the aether, but I refer to senses neither of the two of you have. I am a warden of the ways, the margrave of the dreamers of Equis, and princess of the night. I have certain unique advantages.”

“All right, well, work on it.” Mag jogged back around the corner. Celestia had turned human again, worked out how to open the car door, and was now studying the steering wheel.

Mag knocked on the roof of the car. “Wrong side.”

“Are you sure? I learn very quickly, you know. How do you work a car?”

“If you have any attachment at all to your vehicle then I would advise against this.”

“Agreed,” said Mag. “Sorry, but nobody drives this without a license.”

Celestia crawled awkwardly to the other seat. “Is it a matter of law, then? I certainly wouldn't like to break the law. I'll apply for a license and then we can discuss this again.”

Mag got in, then got out again and scraped the ice off the windshield, then got back in and started the car. Celestia jumped, but then cocked her head to listen.

“But how does it work?” Luna burst out. Mag choked a bit; she'd been at the end of an exhale when Luna shouted.

“My apologies.”

“No worries,” said Mag. “Basically, the engine compresses gasoline vapor and then sets it on fire with a spark of electricity, the explosion pushes a piston, the piston turns the wheels, and then it does it again, and it all happens over and over again really fast. Then there's all this other junk, like fan belts and carburetors. I don't know what any of that does. You have to put gas in the car regularly, and this meter right here tells you how much gas you have left. The car also needs oil to keep all the metal from locking up, and you have to change that out every once in a while, and there are air filters for some reason. It needs coolant sometimes, and other fluids I can't remember right now. It shoots burnt gas vapors out of a tube in the back. Sometimes it breaks down and I don't know why. Then I pay some guys to fix it and hope they don't lie to me about what they did.”

“Why not learn more so they can't lie to you?” said Celestia.

“Because it shouldn't be my job to stop them from lying to me, because if I wandered around wondering how every single thing works then I'd never get anything done, and because I doubt I can learn enough about cars to call their bluff effectively anyway.”

“Hmm,” said Celestia.

“A disappointing answer, but it makes sense.”

“I want to drop these baskets off at the store and then I want to go home,” said Mag. “Anyone want to stop anywhere first?”

“Are the works of Shakespeare available on your Googling machine?” said Celestia.

“I'm not going to get through today without a poetry reading, am I? Yeah, they're probably somewhere out there on the internet. Let's at least eat lunch first.” Mag put on her seat belt. “Okay, guys, here's the thing. Cars are dangerous. If I drive off the road, I could end up rolling halfway down the mountain. If I crash into another car going the opposite direction with both of us going 30 miles an hour, that'd be like hitting a solid wall at a million miles an hour, mathematically speaking. In conclusion, if either of you is plotting to kill me then now's your chance. Still buckled up? Good, it's the law. Off we go.”

Celestia tensed up as Mag backed out, but relaxed when she saw that Mag had everything under control. She gave everything around her equal attention, from the window crank to the forest rushing by.

“So unmindful in the Ways Between, and yet such cautious eyes when you pilot your vehicle,” said Luna.

“If I screw up in Mirror Valley, I die. If I screw up on the road, I die and so do somebody's children, maybe. Watch "Red Asphalt" and then tell me I've got my priorities wrong.”

“This is some kind of instructional movie?” said Celestia.

“Yeah, how'd you know?”

“We had a few short documentary reels we'd show for government purposes,” said Celestia.

“Like what?”

“'Where Clouds Come From,' 'Magic and You,' various others.”

“I wish I could see them,” said Mag.

“Wasn't that your home, that we just passed?” said Celestia.

“Oh. Oops.” Mag pulled a U-turn and parked at the curb.

“'Your Magic and You,'” recited Luna while Mag and Celestia got out of the car and went inside. Her elementary schoolteacher imitation was dead on. “'In this video, we'll discuss the basics of what you can expect as you grow into your unicorn magic.' You should have your cutie mark by now—”

“Cutie mark,” muttered Mag, opening the door and putting her jacket in the closet next to the door. “Celestia, there's a thing next to my computer with a bunch of blank paper sticking out. Please please please show me what your ponies look like while I make lunch.”

Celestia shut the door behind her and changed to her real form. “I did say I'd do that, didn't I? Yes, I think I will.” She walked off.

“Sorry to interrupt,” said Mag. “Do you remember the rest of the video?” Mag unpacked the groceries. Good, Celestia had bought sandwich material. And what looked like every vegetable the grocery store sold.

Luna went right back to it. “You should have your cutie mark by now, but even if you don't, you likely have some experiences with your own magic. Maybe in ways you couldn't control! Don't worry, because that's completely normal. This movie was made to help teach you all about your growing powers.”

The movie got a bit technical after that. Then it started referencing onscreen diagrams and took for granted that Mag knew the meanings of phrases like “Clover vector,” and Mag decided Luna was messing with her.

Celestia walked back in and placed a few sheets of paper on the counter, then left the room without speaking. The couch springs creaked.

No other sound came from the living room and Luna went quiet as well. If it weren't for the silent music of Luna's aura, Mag could almost think the world hadn't gone mad. She finished tearing the lettuce, rinsed her hands, wiped them on a towel, and picked up the papers.

Celestia had gone for quantity rather than detail in her drawings. Every couple of square inches had its own pony, most of them minimalistic and fluidly illustrated, almost cartoony in places. Every pony had its own little scene. In one, a pony wearing a headscarf watered a pot of daisies on a table using a little watering can. In another, a young pony clung to the shoulders of an adult pegasus in flight. In yet another, an inquisitive, snouted face stared up at the viewer with opened mouth as if asking a question. There was a row of solemn guards with brush helmets, a nubby-horned unicorn eating a sandwich, a couple sharing a milkshake. They all had big bushy tails, almost like squirrels, but deliberately styled, just like their manes. It was a calm, kind world.

The last page was a little different. This was where all the detail had gone. In the top-left corner was a picture of what could only be Luna. Her eyes were stern but caring, and fathoms deep. Beneath the sketch were the words “Princess Luna.” The sketch to the right was a “Princess Twilight Sparkle and Spike the Baby Dragon.” There was something perennially young about the two, for lack of a better term. Twilight's stance, her expression, the little lizard guy on her back, the pile of books floating next to her, everything about her suggested someone who loved everything, wanted to know everything about everything, and never got tired of the world around her. Mag tried not to hate her.

Next were “Princess Cadance and Shining Armor.” Mag almost laughed. Now there was a power couple if Mag had ever seen one. Lord have mercy, were those two ever in love. They appeared to be getting married, which, considering they looks they were giving each other, was almost redundant.

“Pinkie Pie,” a cotton ball of joie de vivre. “Fluttershy,” wet kleenex with a rabbit. An arrogant “Rainbow Dash” that Mag immediately pegged as her favorite. “Applejack,” cowboy hat, lasso, named after an alcohol for some reason. And this “Rarity” obviously got up very early indeed every morning to get her hair like that.

Mag walked to the couch to find Celestia pretending to sleep, and leaned against the back of the couch to look down at Celestia.

“They seem fun,” said Mag.

Celestia didn't respond. Luna had nothing to say either.

“I like Rainbow Dash the best,” said Mag.

Celestia didn't move.

“Did you get your samples?”

“There was almost nothing to sample,” said Celestia without opening her eyes.

“Oh. What were you planning to get?”

“A sliver of wood from a mirror frame on the inside, some sand from the walls, any ambient energy, and a wisp of aether.” She held up a little corked bottle. “Here is that wisp. Equestria has an aether field, but it's as hollow as everything else there, now. No one has touched it since I left and it hasn't moved on its own. Nothing out of the ordinary for a dead world. As for the rest, they simply aren't there. No ambient energy, no sand, and all the mirror frames were gone.”

She smiled a nonsmile. “I'm glad you insisted on coming. After seeing all of that, I don't know if I would ever have bothered to leave.”

“That's a hell of a thing to say,” said Mag, keeping her voice conversational.

“'Hell.' Yes. A 'hell' of a thing to say.” She opened her eyes. “I've been wondering something. Should I really be so certain that a regent dies with her world? Books and my own experience tell me they do, but it's a hard thing to prove. Maybe we stay behind, like the mirrors. Maybe we count as mirrors ourselves. It makes a kind of metaphorical sense, wouldn't you say?”

Mag really wished Luna would say something, but she hadn't spoken since Mag had picked up the drawings.

“What will you do now?” said Mag.

“I don't know,” said Celestia. “No, I do know. I'll rest until tomorrow. Then I'm going back to the lake, and then to the lake at the bottom of the valley. There are many books down there, and I'm sure there must be something useful there. It's dangerous, but what is danger to me now?”

“I'm coming, obviously,” said Mag.

“Oh.”

“Really don't like what I'm hearing from you right now, by the way.”

“No?” said Celestia.

“It doesn't help anyway,” said Mag. She walked around the couch and sat down in the same place she'd fallen asleep last night. “Nothing you say or think is going to make you feel any different. That's how it works, when you stop caring. You could get up and eat lunch or you could stay right where you are. They'll both feel pointless, so why not get up?”

“Eat lunch. I could do that. And then shall I move across the country to live in an empty house in the woods? Shall I hide my heart under the bed and reach out to no one for years on end, avoiding everything that matters to me and hoping to go numb?”

“If it'd get you to eat a damn sandwich, sure,” said Mag.

Celestia covered her eyes with a hoof. “I'm ashamed. That was cruel of me to say.”

“Don't worry. You can't hurt me with that.”

“You can let go of the bravado, Mag. I know you felt that, and I'm sorry.”

“Whatever,” said Mag. “But don't knock the bravado. You've got your fake smiles, and I never stop fronting. It works. Any port in a storm, right?”

Celestia sat up. “I disagree with what you said a minute ago. I'm a great believer in the power of words. I've talked down armies and assassins. It matters what I say and think. I can stay productive if I work at it; I'll just have to be more careful of where my thoughts wander in the future.” She leaned over and hugged Mag. “I'll keep myself busy, helping your world and looking for a way to bring back mine. Thank you, Mag.”

Both of Celestia's wings were at her sides, and yet Mag felt a feather brush her shoulder. “I don't have it in me to hope to see Equestria again, and I hold little hope for a happy ending between the three of us. But I do hope we'll grow to understand one another, human Mag.”

“For a species that needs all four legs to walk, you people are awfully huggy,” said Mag.

“Tell me about the assassin,” said Mag through a bite of sandwich.

“The what?”

“You talked down an assassin. Tell me about that.”

“In exchange for the sandwich, I think I will.” Celestia dabbed her mouth with a cloth napkin. Mag didn't know where she'd gotten it, as the napkins on the table were paper, but there it was. “Some few decades ago I got an unusual bit of mail. A death threat, actually, written shakily in black chalk on rough, yellowish paper. It was sealed with the crest of Canterlot University in undyed beeswax. The content of the letter went on for some time, but the core of the matter was that the anonymous author intended to kill me because he wanted to know what would happen if I died.

“The writer was clearly unwell. If nothing else, a saner stallion wouldn't have given me so many ways to identify him. It took me less than an hour and a half to find the perpetrator (one Professor Redwood, a stallion who taught history at Canterlot U) and to confirm that he was well known for his erratic behavior and morbid interests. Some days later he burst into my bedroom with a blunderbuss at least four times his age and demanded that I light a candle so he would know where to aim. I refused; he might have hurt himself if I let him fire the weapon, and anyway, whatever he had loaded into the weapon was sure to damage my furniture. He said 'please,' and I offered to answer his question in exchange for his gun. He told me it wasn't a gun; it was an authentic griffin blunderbuss from the third griffo-minotauran war. I said I knew what it was, since I specifically recalled outlawing them. He apologized for breaking the law and said he'd surrender the weapon to the guards as soon as he finished using it to kill me.

“I asked him what in the starless hells he thought he would accomplish with all this. He asked if I'd gotten the letter. I told him I had, and that I spent the day pondering his question. I told him again that I would answer his question if he gave me the authentic griffin blunderbuss from the third griffo-minotauran war. 'The one you made illegal?' 'The very same,' I said. He set the gun down next to my bed and went over to the window to sit in the yellow wicker chair I typically take my tea in, hunkering down to listen.

“I'd written down my thoughts on the matter over the past few days, then arranged the resulting collection by subject and chronology. Now I lit a candelabra and read him the highlights. First I went over the immediate concerns, such as the contents of my will and what the legal repercussions would likely be for Professor Redwood. The will didn't seem to interest him that much and he just cocked his head like a bluejay when I started to talk about criminal justice, so I skipped ahead to describe my theory that Equestria would industrialize and revert to being a full scarcity society, and to make a few remarks on how these economic circumstances would likely interact with Equestria's growing counterculture and inevitable militarization. He was enraptured, and I always enjoy an appreciative audience, so I ended up reading that entire part out loud.

“After a few more pages I simply gave him the entire pile of papers and went back to sleep while he read them from the beginning. I never did get enough rest that night, though, because a maid came in a good hour before dawn and screamed for all she was worth. Honey-Do was always very tightly wound. My door guards came in and were understandably confused, until I pointed out the fireplace in the antechamber, and, more to the point, the sooty hoofprints leading from there to my door.

“Honey-Do screamed a bit more, and the guards shouted and stomped, and eventually Redwood looked up from his reading and asked everyone to be quiet. They didn't. Honey-Do scolded him for getting soot everywhere, which I'll confess I found cathartic, and the guards demanded to know what he was doing. The professor explained, once he could get a word in, that he'd come to kill me because he wanted to know what would happen. He apologized for the mess.

The rest of the week was thoroughly confusing for Professor Redwood, I'm afraid, but I arranged for a very comfortable and tastefully decorated padded room with plenty of reading material. We corresponded until his passing.”

“And he never tried to break out or send another threat? No hard feelings on either side?”

“Remember that we're discussing a stallion who could write endless reams of ingeniously insightful dissertations and academic papers within his field, but was incapable of buying groceries or having a lucid conversation. He was not a bad pony, just a confused one. I always enjoyed reading his letters. He understood my work in ways few others ever have, and I was one of the rare few who'd seen with her own eyes the ancient roads and battlefields that had always dominated his mind. We appreciated each other.”

“Enough chattering. What kind of barbarian doesn't own a table?”

“What do I need a table for when I've got a lap?” said Mag.

Author's Notes:

This one's a bit short and a bit shapeless because I'm having a busy week.

Conversation Eight

Mag stood in the bathroom with the door open, going over her cigarettes individually with a hair dryer. Celestia stood in the hall and read Mag's resume.

“You did well in high school, considering your circumstances,” said Celestia.

“It was something to do,” said Mag.

“Work history sparse and mostly irrelevant, but I'm offering on-the-job training, so that's not a problem. Steady work, and not a lot of jumping between jobs. Here's some kind of long number labeled 'SSN,' and it's displayed prominently, so I can only assume you have an especially good one.”

“Definitely,” said Mag.

“Contact information.' More long numbers. How does this work?”

Mag tossed her broken cellphone out the bathroom door. Celestia caught it.

“Open it,” said Mag. “No, from the bottom. Yeah. Okay, see those number buttons? If my phone worked, which it doesn't, you could put one of those phone numbers in and talk to the person next to the name.”

“Let me see,” said Luna. Celestia floated it back to Mag. Mag opened it and held it up for Luna to look at.

“And how far away can the other party be before this ceases to work?” said Luna.

“It's less about distance and more about satellite coverage. If the satellite signal can get to this phone and also to the other phone, I can talk to that person anywhere on Earth. The people who run the satellites charge more depending on whether you're calling another country, though, and which country.”

“A powerful tool,” said Luna.

“May I try?” said Celestia.

“My phone is broken, so it doesn't even turn on, but go ahead and push some buttons” said Mag, tossing the phone to Celestia and picking her hair dryer back up.

“If I could contact your previous employers, what would they tell me about you?” said Celestia.

“Technically, they're legally only allowed to tell you the date I started working for them and the date I stopped, and anything other than that is potentially slander,” said Mag.

“And if they were legally allowed to comment on your performance?”

“They'd tell you I'm even-tempered, fastidious, and quiet. The 97Cents store would tell you they let me go because a customer complained when I didn't smile back, and, if Mrs. Wattleson still works at the Bigfoot Museum, she'll tell you I'm a whore.”

“I imagine there's a story behind the latter. Do I need to know it?”

Mag considered throwing the cigarettes away. Drying them was taking forever, and they smelled like the lake. “I don't know, do you?” No, she'd keep drying.

“I very much doubt it,” said Celestia.

“Is the story amusing?” said Luna.

“Wattleson caught me checking out her son.”

“Ha!” said Luna.

“I see,” said Celestia.

“Is that a normal 'I see,' or the 'I see' where I'm supposed to get self-conscious and rethink the last few things I said?”

“The normal kind,” said Celestia.

Luna laughed in Mag's head. “Your are about to pay for that, I wager.”

“And have you ever been 'let go' for reasons that were unequivocally your fault? Please be as honest as you possibly can.”

Mag started to answer and then paused. She had a ready answer to that. She had a ready answer for most interview questions, in fact; acing interviews was Mag's specialty. The trick was to BS shamelessly. Celestia was unlikely to fall for that, however, and now all of Mag's interview instincts were sending false signals.

A more honest answer had also occurred to her, and it led to something she'd been hoping not to mention. Mag could explain now or she could evade the question until Celestia dragged it out of her. She'd have to answer.

“Well... to be honest, I might get fired in a few minutes, and if I do then I'll deserve it.”

“Oh?”

Mag turned the blow dryer off and readjusted her ponytail nervously. “Yeah, uh, well, remember how I ditched a day and a half of work and got the store robbed including the keys? I'm about to drive down to a payphone and call my boss to tell him about it. He's never been that impressed with me in the first place, he's getting tired of me, and this is probably the last straw.”

“I'm sorry to hear that,” said Celestia. “He's been dissatisfied with your performance?”

“I think he thinks I've got an attitude problem, and he might have a point,” said Mag.

“And you were supposed to be at work today?”

“Yeah,” said Mag, wishing she could just shut the door and not have to talk about this anymore.

“For my sake?” said Celestia. “You could have left me to my own devices for the day.”

“Yeah, I know. I just really didn't want to go. Even before you showed up, I wasn't going to, not today and not tomorrow. I'm getting as sick of that job as my boss is of me, at about the same rate, and I'm getting lax.”

“I'm disappointed to hear that,” said Celestia. Mag withered.

“Your employer will decide the appropriate consequences,” said Luna.

“And then we'll say no more about it,” said Celestia. “But I can only hope you'll attach more importance to the job I give you. Are you supposed to be at work right now?”

"The store is open from 7:00 to 3:00 on Saturdays, so it'd close in about an hour,” said Mag.

“Then isn't that where you should be?”

The one thing Mag hadn't wanted was time to think, and, with no customers and a pristine store, she had almost an hour to herself. Well, not completely to herself. She would never be alone again, after all.

There was no point in getting worked up about it. She'd made a big show of being perfectly okay with Luna in her head for the rest of her life. The rest of—hang on. What would happen to Luna when Mag died? In fact, what would happen if they really did manage to bring back Equestria? Luna had a job to do, and if Luna didn't get her body back then Mag had better get packing. She could ask right now, of course, but she didn't have the guts, and anyway, someone might come in.

Are you sure you can't hear me? Mag thought at Luna. There was no answer.

Mag wondered if Luna would show up on a CAT scan, or how antipsychotic medications would affect her.

“What are you right now?” said Mag.

“Me?” said Luna.

“Yeah.”

“A dream.”

“And that means what, exactly? Are you a pattern of electrical impulses in my brain that somehow forms a separate consciousness, or are you a self-aware hallucination, or what?”

“You can think of me as the latter, if you wish, though I am in no way the product of your mind.”

“I think today would make a lot more sense if I had gone crazy,” said Mag. “I suddenly have an unreasonably beautiful friend who looks human except when no one is looking, and I think I pretty much met God this morning. Then I traveled dimensions on the back of the magical queen of unicorns and now I have a voice in my head that tells me to do things.”

“When have I told you to do things?”

“On the way here.”

“Did I? I don't recall.”

“Remember when that guy pulled out in front of me and you told me to rear-end him?”

“It was a suggestion at most.”

“Maybe, but it was a very strongly worded one. 'Run him down, that bog-spavined blaggard of an upright baboon,' you said. Did you know you slip into Elizabethan English when you're annoyed?”

“What is Elizabethan English?”

“Oh, you know, 'thou' and 'thee' and 'bog-spavined blaggard of an upright baboon.'”

“We call it Middle Equestrian, but yes.”

Mag decided to have a cup of coffee. She'd started the coffee machine when she came in along with the hot dog roller, and no one was likely to come in, so she might as well. She drank it black. It was cheap and vile, and oddly comforting. There was something defiant and alive about bad coffee. It burnt her tongue and left an acrid, almost sulfurous aftertaste, and right now it felt like a middle finger directed at the void. She decided to bring a thermos of it next time they went to Equestria.

Mag drained the mug, coughed, turned around to make sure no one had come in when she'd had her back turned, and said, “I just thought of something. Elizabethan English is what it is because of European history. It's got French loan words, German influences, bits of Latin from Roman occupation, all sorts of things that make it, well, earthly. It's an Earth language, and it evolved naturally. So where did Equestria get it?”

“Simple. Technically I am not speaking English. I am speaking Equestrian, and my nature is such that you understand it in your own language. The same applies to Celestia.”

“She never mentioned that,” said Mag. She looked at the clock on the register. Only 15 minutes to go.

“I believe you said you spoke to your regent today,” said Luna.

“I did?”

“You said you spoke to your god, did you not?”

“Yeah, and don't remind me,” said Mag.

“Celestia asked permission to stay, I suppose, as is proper. Did she bargain for others to come with her?”

“I think so,” said Mag. “She mentioned refugees. Or the eldest did. I forget. Either way, he probably knew you were coming, so I think he would have let us know somehow if he had a problem.”

“He knew? How can you tell?”

“He knows everything. It's his thing, I guess, along with murder, and being rude as all hell.”

“Murder?”

“The first thing he did on Earth was kill his brother so that he'd be the only one in charge of this operation.”

Luna answered with shocked silence.

“Explains a lot, don't you think?” said Mag.

“What possessed him to do that?”

“Do you mean literally? Either way, I don't know. Maybe you're right and the devil made him do it. Celestia says he's crazy.”

“I meant it figuratively, but that's a thought.”

“That he was born possessed? Wait. I just remembered I don't want to talk about him or think about him or remember his existence, not unless I have to. Let's talk about something else.”

“Then pray do something for me.”

“I don't pray, but sure,” said Mag.

“This is not a prayer. Put your paws—I mean hands—together.”

It sounded like praying, but Mag put her hands together anyway.

“Now draw them apart, but keep them flat.”

Mag did.

“A wooden chair.”

“What?”

“Do nothing but hold your hands in place. Simply listen, and picture each image as I give it. A leather bag of ice. A bowl of milk. The new moon. Message in a bottle. The color black.”

“Why are we doing this?” said Mag.

“It's a mental exercise. Dog hair on a sofa. Cold nose in fog. A kiss on the cheek. The color white. A dalmatian. A policeman. How do you feel?”

“Perplexed,” said Mag.

“And how do you feel now that I've asked how you feel?”

“Perplexed, intrigued, a little irritated.”

“The color red. The color black. The color white. White red black. Black white red. Black white red white. Black red white black.”

Mag sighed.

“Black red white black white red. Black red white black. Black red white red black. Black white red white black, and the aforementioned wooden chair. Black red white black. You may now put your hands down.”

“Are you messing with me again?”

“Yes.”

Mag put her hands down. “Literal plaything of the gods. Is this my life now?”

Luna's gave a whispering, feminine chuckle. “Is it really so shameful to amuse me? Ponies have traveled a thousand miles to exchange ten words with me in my court—to thank me, to forgive me, to spit at the floor before my throne. Fillies and colts have stood on their hind legs to whisper their little stories and questions in my ear. For one week last year I held the Court of Evening Flames; my servants built a great bonfire under the waxing moon and lined the streets of Canterlot with torches, and near ten-score bards came for no other purpose than to vie for my attention with their skills—tragedians, fools, dancers, jugglers, contortionists, snake-charmers, traveling storytellers sitting on rugs in the street, violinists and fiddlers, pianists and accordioneers... you have my attention, Mag, and they would have longed to be you, even to be a—what was your word?—'plaything.'”

“Are you actually this full of yourself, or are you still messing with me?”

“Messing with you? I would never mock your dour, unrelenting, almost religious allegiance to egalitarianism, always expressed with overfamiliar mien and affectionate rudeness.”

“Well you would say that, being part of a diarchy of infallible love and selflessness.” Mag blinked. “Comma, she said without sarcasm. You two are so weird. Have I mentioned that?”

“'Infallible love and selflessness?' One of us, perhaps, and I doubt even that, though she certainly expects much of herself.”

“Maybe she should. Your subjects all look like children, and she dotes on anything that'll hold still long enough.”

A customer walked in, some old man in a trucker's hat and half-inch-thick glasses who was obviously too nearsighted to see Mag glaring at him. He bought a 24-pack of O'Doul's, paid in exact change, and tore open the cardboard top on the way out of the building with a rattle of glass on glass. Mag didn't watch after that.

“They were indeed children, in most ways. Few mortals ever truly grow up. Those who do are often matters of legend.”

Mag checked the clock. Two minutes left. “Is that right?”

“It is. But of course I've seen exceptions. How about you? Would you like to become a matter of legend, Mag? An adult can change the world, even this world. I could aid you in this—if you will allow it.”

Mag emptied the register into the safe. This wasn't difficult, as the only things purchased in cash that day were a 24-pack of O'Doul's, a Slim Jim, a fun-size bag of Doritos, and a bottled soda. Mag remembered just in time that she needed to make change for her morning purchases; she triple-checked the arithmetic, as she wasn't sure she'd be allowed in the store after she called her boss and didn't want to make a mistake she couldn't fix. Luna waited patiently for Mag's response.

“I already signed on with Celestia,” said Mag at last. “Anyway, her offer was more concrete and less condescending.”

“She is a better salespony than I. Celestia can offer you a fulfilling and honorable life, and I imagine her pitch was a work of art. For my part, I offer only toil and understanding, and promise nothing else. I believe happiness is overrated. I do not sugarcoat. I'll never shield you from the consequences of your own decisions. But you want a concrete offer, don't you? All right. Magic.”

Mag flipped the “open” sign to “closed.” “Witchcraft lessons in exchange for my soul? You have my attention.”

“I don't know what you mean by that, so I shall just wait for you to clarify or give me a straight answer.”

Mag turned a few of the lights off, pulled her purse out from under the counter for possibly the last time, and walked out the back door. She stopped a few feet away and turned. “Here's the thing. You're the third person today to try acting like an authority figure, and of the three of you, you're the one inside my head. I sure as hell don't want an authority figure in my head. And on your end, if you're going to be stuck in a cage with someone until they die, would you rather be stuck with a student, or a, you know, a sort of, well...”

“Hm?”

“... a friend?”

“Then friends we shall be.”

“Well then, as a friend, could you maybe lock this door somehow?”

“Let us find out. May I use your left hand?”

“I already said you could.”

Mag's hand lifted up and pressed against the door above the lock. Nothing happened.

“Apparently I cannot.”

Luna let Mag's hand drop, but Mag put it back. “Would I be able to lock it myself, if I knew how?”

“I couldn't say. How many humans have done magic? What fuels human magic? What fuels you? Answer these questions and I may try to guess.”

“I'm having trouble with the idea of human magic when I think we've proven that I can't see your 'aether' thing and, what's more, you can use my hands to touch a door but you can't use my alleged magic to lock it. Why do you think I can do magic, and how does that relate to that word prayer hand thing you made me do?” It was the warmest part of the day, but the door had been in the shade all morning and Mag could feel frost melting under her hand.

“I guided you through a modified version of the magic assessment test—you would remember it from the documentary if you had been listening to it earlier. At first I wished to distract you from the dolor that had gripped you, while also confirming for myself that you truly couldn't touch the aether, but your results, while mostly indecipherable to me, were not null.”

“And yet humans can't see it.”

“For heavens' sake, please take your hand off the door. I can feel that too.”

“Turn off your sense of touch so you don't have to worry about it. You've figured out how, right?”

“I won't, because I believe you're trying to tell me something.”

“I just want to throw you off and keep you interested. And I'm doing it because garbage coffee, unfunny jokes, arguments, and cold doors seem to make me feel the most like myself when there's another supernatural being trying to recruit me for something. Also out of some kind of randomized spite that I didn't bother to think about, because I like to think I've made this into your problem instead of mine. What'll you do?”

“Simple. I'll drop the issue out of confusion. Your hand is beginning to warm the metal anyway.”

“I noticed. It's sort of like I won, isn't it? I beat the cold.”

“Then, by my count and insofar as I've understood you, you've gotten everything you wanted and you can put your hand down.”

Mag touched her left hand to her face. Luna yelped. Mag quickly wiped the ice off; she'd braced for the cold, but it'd still been unpleasant.

“This is what friendship means to you, I suppose.”

“I'm still feeling it out, to be honest.”

“Isn't everyone?”

Mag walked away. The door would have to stay unlocked, but she could see her handprint in the frost and it made her feel better somehow.

Mag walked around the back corner into the sun and up to the payphone. Two more things. Two more things. Two phonecalls and then she could feel like she'd done her duty for the day. Yes, she'd skipped out on work and probably should be ashamed of herself, and yes, both calls were likely to be horrible, and yes, her house was no longer a refuge from civilization and was now full of people who'd get very stern about housemates who dealt with their problems by eating a whole jar of peanut butter with a spoon while hiding under six blankets with the bedroom lights off and the door blocked with a tilted chair, which was a shame because that was what Mag really wanted at the moment.

But if she made two phone calls after everything else that had happened then she could feel like she'd had a human day and had also done something Maggish, something Maggy.

First she called her boss. His name was Amitabh Bachchan (no relation), and he was alright. He didn't raise his voice, though sometimes his voice could get very urgent, something Mag had had a problem with before because his Indian accent was as pure, thick and rich as the day he'd first stepped off the plane. Mr. Bachchan was in his sixties but looked forty, and had a sheepish, scruffy smile that had probably gotten him out of a lot of trouble over the course of his life. He had no particularly terrible flaws and Mag had always felt a little bad for dreading the sound of his voice every day. This weekend's carelessness turned out to be, yes, the proverbial straw that broke the proverbial camel's proverbial back. Mag would never clean that store again. He thanked her. She thanked him back. He said goodbye. So did she. He hung up.

“Yep,” said Mag to herself.

“There, there,” said Luna in a kindly but unsure voice. In a moment of emotional vertigo Mag realized this must be what it was like to be on the receiving end of her own awkward attempts to comfort Celestia for a pain she couldn't even claim to understand. She didn't know how to feel about that, so she decided to deal with the next thing. One more thing, and then she could go home.

She dialed a random ten-digit number. Someone picked up.

“Hello?” said some guy. It wasn't him. Mag hung up and mashed out ten more numbers. There was no such number, and the next number she tried was also unowned. The fourth one worked.

“Cute,” the eldest said over the line. “What the hell do you want?” A TV played some sort of Spanish talk show in the background.

Mag swallowed her pride. “Save them.”

“No. We done?”

“Who wrote that? Your brother? You?”

A window opened on the other end of the line, accompanied by the sound of traffic. “How should I know? It didn't happen in my world, so it's not my problem, so I can't see it.”

“Save them,” said Mag. “Has anyone ever asked you? Come on. Save us. Has anyone ever said please?”

“Yes, so don't bother. When you're immortal, trust me, sooner or later everything has happened to you at least once. People have begged me to save mankind in, what, 211 and a half different languages? No, 212 and a half. You want my advice? Save us yourself.”

Mag elbowed the metal of the phone box. “Say please.”

The eldest spat, hopefully out the window. “Oh, please.”

“Whatever. I figured I'd try.”

“One second,” said the eldest.

“What.”

“Do me a favor and put your hand on the brick wall, will you? Just for a second.”

Mag didn't move. “What's this about?”

“Just for a second, please.”

Mag leaned past the phone to touch the wall with a finger. “There.”

“No, with your whole hand.”

Mag laid her hand flat.

“Good. Now, listen, please. Thank you. By the way, hello, princess.” Luna didn't answer.

“Nice to meet you too,” said the eldest. “You listening, Ms. Wilson?”

“For about the next three seconds, and then we're freaking done.”

“Six seconds, actually.” His voice changed to a perfect imitation of Mag's father. “The first friends you make in years are some foreign negress and a California queer? Is that how we raised you?”

“GO TO HELL,” shouted Mag.

The brick wall cracked under her hand and the phone receiver in her other hand shattered. Mag jumped back from the phone box. She thought she could hear the eldest say “Sweet dreams,” but couldn't be sure.

Mag touched the crack in the wall. It passed laterally through the vertical height of eight bricks. The phone was all over the ground in a spray of black plastic and colorful wires. She looked over her shoulder for witnesses, picked up her purse from where she'd set it, slung it over her shoulder, and walked to her car.

“I didn't do that,” said Mag.

“I agree.”

“If anyone asks me if I saw who did it, I can truthfully say I didn't, and that I can't explain how it happened.”

“Perfectly true.”

“Glad we agree. Do I need to worry about breaking my car with magic? I'm a little worried about touching things right now, because seriously, I don't understand how that worked.”

“You needn't worry about that, but I believe you would feel better if you better understood what just happened. Would you like to discuss my tutelage again?”

Mag got in, slammed the door, turned on the heater, and accidentally revved the engine after a couple of false starts. “Can we talk about this later? I just want to go home.”

“As you wish, friend.”

Mag felt something loosen in her chest at the word “friend.” She'd always been a sentimentalist. If she weren't, she'd never put up with all these talking horses.

“Thank you,” said Mag.

“And can we discuss what that second talk was about?”

Mag adjusted the rear view mirror so the sun wouldn't get in her eyes as she pulled out. “He's the regent. He's a prick. My world sucks and it's his fault. He sees everything, like the damned panopticon. This includes the future, and he decided that this is the future he wants, so it really is his fault. I called him because I thought maybe it'd help if someone said 'please.' I know it's stupid, but if I didn't do it then I'd wonder for the rest of my life whether it would have worked. Don't tell Celestia, will you?”

“As you wish.”

“Friend,” said Mag to herself, driving away from her old job and leaving one last mess for someone else to clean up.

“Mag, I'm glad you're—” Celestia did a double-take. “Mag, are you okay?”

“I've been better,” said Mag, kicking her boots into the closet. “I've been fired and now I'm going to eat a jar of peanut butter in the bedroom.”

“It's just that the aether around you has an odd texture,” said Celestia. Her brow furrowed. “What do you mean you're going to eat a jar of peanut butter? I'm about to make dinner. You'll ruin your appetite.”

“I knew you wouldn't like my coping skills. Hey, so I'm grateful you're making dinner, but I need to disappear into my room and pretend to myself that I'll never come out again, m'kay? Just knock when you need help.”

“Do whatever you need to, Mag, and talk with me whenever you're ready,” said Celestia. She glanced back at Mag. “What is it?”

“Nothing. Luna is laughing herself sick at your housewife impression, is all. See you soon.” Mag stalked into the bedroom, turned the lights off, and fell into bed.

Author's Notes:

Posted at 3:47 AM. You got a complaint, that's my excuse. Tell me if you see a stupid mistake, though, such as how Mag never put money into the payphone.

I should fix that or something.