Blake gave a long sigh and stretched out his back muscles, working his arm to get the aches out of the muscles. There was a vegetable burger frying on the plate in front of him, and a handful of chips merrily bubbling away in the oil.

The kitchen was technically closed, but Blake had been allowed to cook himself something for dinner after his second debrief of the day had gone an hour over schedule. His second meeting with Celestia had been awful. They had barely settled in when an envoy from Saudi Arabia had arrived with a billion and one questions about the Equestrian version of Saudi Arabia and the denizens.

Any time Blake had had to talk to the princess was gone, and he was delegated to awkwardly standing in the corner, hoping to be dismissed so he could return to cooking food.

But the moment he was free, Steven had snatched him for another debriefing, where he sat for an hour and a half recanting aspects of Celestia’s conversation with the envoy, up to and including Celestia’s inability to understand his accent properly.

There was a very strange sound from behind him, and Blake looked back over his shoulder suspiciously. A light glowed underneath the door leading to the storage room for cleaning supplies, before the light faded almost immediately. The door silently opened, just a tiny amount, before closing again.

Frowning, Blake reach for a knife, unsticking it from the magnetic strip above the counter. He swapped it to his left hand, holding it back-hand, and then stepped quietly over to the door. He laid his left hand on the door, concealing the knife behind the edge of the door, and then tugged it open.

“Oi! Who’s there!” Blake challenged.

“Greetings. A spacious cleaning closet you have, here,” Celestia said amicably, pretending to examine an old straw broom.

Blake frowned deeply, reaching around the door jamb and flicking the light on.

Celestia blinked repeatedly until her eyes adjusted to the sudden light, arching an eyebrow at him. “Are you done? I do not need anything.”

“Why are you in the cleaning closet?” Blake asked flatly.

The princess gave a soft snort. “I was feeling peckish. I was waiting for the kitchen to empty so I could get myself something to eat.”

“You could have just asked,” Blake said dubiously.

“I could have,” Celestia said candidly. “But I do not enjoy bothering people after hours. Either way, I would not be allowed to peruse and choose what I wished to eat.”

“Or snoop around the kitchen and learn more about humans,” Blake said with the slightest of smug smiles.

Celestia’s eyes narrowed slowly. “You are more perceptive than you pretend to be.”

“I play things close to the chest,” Blake admitted with a slight shrug “So are you really down here to get something to eat?”

“I am particularly interested in the dessert cakes but I am afraid that I do not which I prefer,” Celestia admitted. “I wished to order one of each, but I thought it would be… presumptuous of me to do so.”

“You didn’t want to give the idea to all the human diplomats that you’re some kind of glutton or cake-fiend?” Blake asked with an arched eyebrow.

Something like a low growl rolled from Celestia’s throat. “I do so love that you take every single one of my admissions and use them to insult me.”

“Well stop admitting things to me then,” Blake teased, making a motion with his head. “Are you coming out of the cleaning closet?”

Celestia gave a long-suffering sigh, but nodded, picking up her wings and stepping daintily out of the storage room. “Not going to turn me in to the guards?”

“I’m off the clock, I’m not… required to report to the guard,” Blake said tactfully. “I’m basically just a civilian right now.”

“And if you were to notice a certain princess rummaging through the sweet’s drawer?” Celestia asked carefully.

“I would probably think it strange, but hey, I’m not working here right now. It’s not my duty to stop you,” Blake said, placing a hand over his chest sincerely. “Though, I would probably say that the chocolate-swirl bavarian is the best dessert in the house.”

Celestia gave a bright smile at that, taking a step towards the door. Blake took a step backwards and to the side, allowing the princess to pass.

“Could you direct me to the sweet’s drawer?” Celestia asked, ears perking upwards hopefully.

Blake nodded, pointing vaguely towards a corner of the kitchen. “The freezer over there.”

Celestia gave an appreciative nod, brushing past him. Her tail brushed against his bare arm, and it felt like weightless, ethereal silk. Celestia didn’t even notice, pushing past and heading for the freezer as indicted. She paused in front of it, pushing and pulling at the top before discovering that it could be lifted, pushing it upwards and peering down into it.

Blake quickly swapped the knife from one hand to the other, and then leant over to stick it back to the magnetic strip, quietly closing the cleaning room door with a foot. “So uh… can I ask you something, since we’re not officially in any capacity to… thing?”

Celestia looked back over her shoulder, an eyebrow arching upwards. “Quite. We are most definitely not in a capacity to ‘thing’ at present.”

“You know what I mean!” Blake huffed, pursing his lips. “I’m off the clock, I can ask something more frankly without you taking offense to it.”

“I assure you, I will take equal offense to anything you should ask, be it in official capacity or otherwise,” Celestia said smartly, leaning in until her nose was just inside the freezer and inhaling deeply. “Ooooh… I do quite enjoy that smell.”

“Why earth?” Blake asked bluntly.

“Why Equestria?” Celestia countered, giving him a sideways stare.

“That makes no sense,” Blake complained, with a faint sigh.

Celestia shook her head gently. “It makes no sense unless you understand the context of our dimensions. Do humans understand the concept of divergent dimensions?”

Blake shrugged. “Are you talking about infinite possibilities playing out and new dimensions being created for each decision?”

“That is… a very rough understanding of it, yes,” Celestia said guardedly. “So… why Equestria?”

“Your question still makes no sense, even in context,” Blake said with a long-suffering sigh. “I feel like I’m being lectured.”

“You are,” Celestia said, turning to give him her full attention. “Divergent Possibilities Theory states that anything that can happen will happen. In some dimension. Including this conversation. There is a version of this conversation where you say something wrong and I stab you with my horn and you bleed out on the floor. There is a version where you have an aneurism and die. There is a version where you seduce me.”

Blake blinked once. “I’ll take your word for it.”

Celestia cleared her throat. “Either way. It’s not so much that this is strange in and of itself. It had to happen somewhere, why not here?”

“Why did you decide to talk to us? Like… how did you even get to earth?” Blake asked bluntly. “You know, was it completely random?”

“Completely random,” Celestia stated. “It was not I who opened the portal. Though… alternate universes are not unknown. There is a… device in my possession capable of accessing a world similar in sorts to this one. There is also a magical place. A lake. It is capable of creating paradoxes in the Divergent Choices Theory to create clones.”

“Clones,” Blake said blankly.

“Clones,” Celestia said with a wry smile. “I myself witnessed four dozen of the same pony parading around Ponyville. It was… strange.”

“So all of this… this isn’t even a big thing to you?” Blake asked with wonder.

Celestia tilted her head slightly to the left, looking thoughtful. “In a sense, no. It is a big thing, certainly. But in context… it is hardly the strangest thing I have ever seen.”

“But still… why Earth? Why this specific rendition of… whatever you called it,” Blake said lamely.

“The Divergent Dimension Theory,” Celestia corrected with a slight smile. “I did not choose this dimension, as I already said. It was chosen for me.”

“But why? Why did you decide to… come here? You know. Actually talk to us? Why not just close the gateway and be done with it?” Blake queried.

Celestia frowned slightly, and then closed the lid of the freezer. “May I divulge a secret?”

Blake shrugged. “Sure. I don’t promise I’ll keep it forever and ever, though.”

“I trust that you’ll not immediately tell everyone that will listen,” Celestia said, giving him a piercing stare. “The gateway was not created by myself. The… bond between our worlds. It was, to my understanding, an accident. A unicorn was trying to expand the space of her cupboard, and she got the spell wrong. She was supposed to put the other end of the portal in another place entirely. Like a cave. Somewhere where she could store her clothes and other nicknacks. But she got distracted, or did it wrong. Her portal went back to the cupboard.”

“So why didn’t it just make the portal thing shut down? It’s like dividing by zero, right?” Blake asked, confused.

“Something akin to that, yes,” Celestia said, pursing her lips. “The portal, however, did not shut down. It went to the cupboard. In another dimension. This dimension.”

“So this is your Narnia?” Blake asked with a soft chuckle.

Celestia frowned at that. “Everyone keeps saying that. I do not understand the reference.”

“Forget about it,” Blake said with a wave of a hand. “So… that’s why you chose to keep the gate open?”

“Well… by the time I discovered the portal, the unicorn had already engaged in… a relationship with a human,” Celestia said carefully.

Blake arched an eyebrow.

Celestia shrugged her shoulders with a soft giggle. “What can I say? Unicorns are fast workers. I was unwilling to just… separate the two of them across the gap of dimensions with no chance of finding each other. Plus… the gate intrigues me. It is… it is both amazing and mundane.”

“Explain?” Blake asked, leaning against the counter.

“At the time the gate was created, it was a perfect replica of the cupboard in Equestria. Down to its atomic structure,” Celestia explained.

Blake frowned, chewing his bottom lip. “Shouldn’t… shouldn’t that be impossible?”

“Yes!” Celestia said, bouncing slightly in place, excited. “It should be such a crazy impossible thing to happen… but it’s not. That’s why it is also mundane. Divergent Dimension Theory states that there is a nearly infinite number of different paths taken. Therefore, there must be an atomic clone of that cupboard. In fact, there is an almost infinite number of them. There is an atomic clone of that cupboard that is sitting on a volcano right now. There’s one floating in space. There’s one at the bottom of the ocean trapped into a pressure-bubble.”

“So your… your portal could have gone to any of them?” Blake asked, trying to muddle through what she was saying.

“It did!” Celestia said, clapping her hooves together with a giggle.

Blake blinked once.

Celestia snorted slightly, composing herself. “This is getting into the realm of really advanced theoretical physics and abstract concepts I don’t expect you to understand. But yes… yes it could have gone to any of them. But… in this dimension. In this divergence, it didn’t. And even though everything I know, even though science tells me that it is mundane and normal… I can’t help but feel as though that is somehow special. I feel as though it is destiny for me to keep this portal open. The universe opted to give me a portal to this place. It would be folly to just throw it away.”

“I sort of get where you’re coming from but it’s going right the hell over my head,” Blake admitted, scratching his head helplessly. “I get a headache the more I try to think about it.”

“It is an exciting concept, but perhaps one best left to philosophers,” Celestia admitted, turning back to the freezer. “Now, which of these is the chocolate-swirl Bavarian?”

Blake sighed and stretched a little bit, watching Celestia spoon bite after bite of chocolate cheesecake into her mouth with delicate motions.

“So uh… how much do you guys even eat in an average day?” Blake asked uncertainly.

“A lot,” Celestia admitted with a slight smile. “I gain much of my sustenance from magic, but it doesn’t fulfill me as much as food. It is not nearly as pleasurable, either.”

“You’re on your third cheesecake,” Blake pointed out, arching an eyebrow.

“And you have barely touched yours,” Celestia said, motioning towards his quarter-slice sitting on a plate in front of him.

“I’m just waiting for it to warm up a bit so it’s nice and pliable. Plus, I don’t want to be eating like some kind of monster and getting crumbs all up in my beard,” Blake said, wrinkling his nose slightly. “At least, not in front of a princess.”

“So tell me, Blake, are you in a committed relationship?” Celestia queried, taking another spoonful of cheesecake with a happy little hum.

Blake shrugged. “Sort of? I’ve got a girl in the suburbs but we’ve been kind of… distant, since the accident.”

Celestia arched an eyebrow.

“I guess I’m a lousy cripple,” Blake said with an uneasy chuckle. “I had nothing to do but sit around and get drunk, and yell at my TV. Watch some footy, etcetera. The one time we did get… uh… intimate, I lost my balance and ended up putting my weight on my foot. I passed out from the pain.”

“That is not very pleasant,” Celestia admitted, frowning slightly to herself. “Is coitus a vigorous activity for your species?”

Blake shrugged again, picking up a spoon and picking at his cheesecake slice. “I guess? I mean, you need a certain amount of ‘vigor’ to get anywhere towards the end of it. You know, unless you’re on a hair-trigger or something.”

“Indeed,” Celestia said with a careful nod. “How… how long does it usually last?”

Blake gave the princess a long stare. “How about you tell me, first.”

Celestia tutted slightly. “Roughly thirty seconds, at last count. Selective evolution is no longer pressuring Equestrians to mate for as short a time as possible, but reversing thousands of years of evolution is a slow process.”

“Well that sounds about right for virgins,” Blake said with a slight chuckle. “But god, thirty seconds after you’ve done it a few times? I can barely even… uh… ‘finish’ if I’m wearing a condom at all, let alone in thirty seconds.”

“Ballpark?” Celestia asked, head tilting slightly to the left.

“Probably ten minutes?” Blake responded sincerely. “It’s not exactly something you break the stopwatch out for.”

“And how… developed are your species in their sexual practises?” Celestia asked candidly. “Do you still have mating rituals?”

“Rituals?” Blake asked, wrinkling his nose. “Not that I know of. I mean… an observer might say that some of the things we do are ‘rituals’, like ‘courting’ a girl or buying her nice things. But there’s no actual uh… prerequisites for sex. Except, you know, Tab A into slot B.”

“How very eloquent,” Celestia said with the softest of giggles. “Are human males or females rough? Is mating a violent affair?”

“It can be,” Blake admitted with an uneasy shift of his weight. “My last girlfriend liked me to pull her hair and be really rough. I wasn’t much into that, honestly.”

“And… foreplay?” Celestia asked with a coquettish smile.

“There’s definitely a bunch of that. Fingers, tongues. Stuff like that,” Blake admitted.

“You are being very forthcoming,” Celestia said with a soft smile.

Blake shrugged. “I’m too tired to be complex at the moment. Plus, I’m off the clock.”

“As good a reason as any,” Celestia said with a thoughtful smile. “So… another note of curiosity. What are the rates of homosexuality in your species and how are they perceived, culturally?”

Blake frowned at that, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “I read somewhere it was like five percent of the population. Which seems about right, I guess. And gay marriage is about the biggest conversation these days outside of legalizing drugs.”

Celestia gave him a searching stare. “And how do you, personally, feel on the issue?”

Blake gave an uneasy shrug. “I used to be against it. But my girlfriend convinced me otherwise.”

“What argument did she use?” Celestia asked carefully.

“She compared it to prohibition. Like, if the government wanted to take away alcohol. Or wanted to outlaw sex. Or told me that I couldn’t be friends with someone I liked. And once I looked at it like that, it… it’s pretty fucking stupid, honestly. You do who you wanna do,” Blake said bluntly. “And how about in Equestria?”

“Homosexuality in Equestria is considered normal. It is more common among females than males, though there is a larger ratio of females to males,” Celestia said with a gentle nod. “I am pleased that you are so… moderate. But bothered that there are those who will so eagerly impose their will on others.”

“That’s humans for you,” Blake said with a slight sigh. “Power-tripping cunts trying to make other people do what they believe.”

“It worries me,” Celestia said candidly. “That someone would attempt to indoctrinate Equestrians in their beliefs.”

“You mean beliefs other than your own,” Blake challenged, looking up at her.

Celestia tilted her head slightly to the side. “Perhaps. But my methods have kept peace and harmony for many thousands of years. Evidence shows that humans have not known such prosperity.”

“No arguments here,” Blake said with a soft chuckle.

“You are more complex than you allow others to believe,” Celestia said suddenly.

“I’m just a dumb bloke from the sticks,” Blake countered, arching an eyebrow. “If you’re looking for some scientist to wax lyrical on history there are plenty around. I aint one, though.”

“And yet you have an intrinsic analytical grasp on the nuances of inter-dimensional diplomacies,” Celestia challenged.

“Holy shit slow down,” Blake said, rubbing his temple with a palm. “I didn’t bring my dictionary.”

“Perhaps it is merely your simplicity that makes you so very good at this,” Celestia said thoughtfully. “Many of the diplomats... I could sense them thinking about what to say, about how to explain things without giving up too much information. It was… off-putting. There is something I find enjoyable about your simple honestly.”

“I feel like I’m in therapy,” Blake admitted, scratching the back of his neck nervously.

Celestia giggled softly. “I just… thought that I should air it. I find your company enjoyable. More enjoyable than any human I have met so far.”

“Well gee, I’m not exactly up against the stiffest competition,” Blake admitted. “You’ve got the anal-retentive body-guards and the smarmy, blood-sucking diplomats.”

“Indeed,” Celestia said with a knowing nod. “And you are so strong a contrast. Why, were it not for my machinations to find a human that wasn’t a blood-sucking parasite or an anal-retentive automaton, I would be suspicious that you were merely a master diplomat pretending to be a layman.”

“If only,” Blake said with a helpless chuckle. “I wish I was. The pay would be a hell of a lot better.”

Celestia gave him a long stare, and then paused. She craned her neck, extending a wing and nuzzling down into the feathers until she found a worthy candidate. With a quick yank, she tugged a feather out, and then leaned over the bench, offering it to Blake.

Blake watched this process, half-bemused and half-confused, holding out a hand awkwardly to accept the feathers. “Uh… is this one of those cultural things that I don’t understand because I’m just a dumb human?”

“Indeed it is,” Celestia said warmly. “A pinion from the wing of a princess is not freely given.”

“So you want money for this?” Blake asked dubiously.

Celestia stifled a giggle at that, shaking her head. “No, Blake. I gave it to you as a show of my appreciation and affection. May you bear it proudly.”

“I uh… Thank you,” Blake said awkwardly. The feather was surprisingly light, longer than his hand, and amazingly soft. Even in the dim fluorescent lights, he could see edgings of gold in the pure-white feather. Just rubbing his fingers along it sent a tingle of power through the skin contacting it. “I wish I had something to give you in return,” he continued helplessly, peering down at the feather. “But we mainly just give jewellery and stuff to people. Tearing out some of our hair or fingernails or something would be... well, it would be insulting.”

“Our customs are very different,” Celestia said with a polite nod, straightening back up. She gave a languid stretch, smooth her wing over with a hoof. “But for now, I am going to retire to my room. Thank you for the lovely dessert, Blake.”

“Or three,” Blake countered.

Celestia giggled softly at that. “See that you are ready to serve me early on the morrow. I would hate to have to come looking for you.”

“I’ll be here,” Blake said with an awkward half-salute, not entirely sure how to bid farewell to a princess.

Celestia gave him a warm smile. Her eyes focused somewhere over his shoulder, and she concentrated for a moment, her horn glowing brightly. There was a golden flash of magic, and then the princess was gone.

Blake arched an eyebrow at the empty space where Celestia had sat moments previously, before frowning to himself. He looked down at the feather she had given him, and then carefully placed it in his breast pocket, before starting to clean down the benches so he could head home to sleep.