“Greetings, Anthony,” Starlight Glimmer said, once I’d opened the door to her. “Glad to see that you’re well.”

Within her aura she held a scroll that she wouldn’t look away from. With a quill, she added a checkmark to it.

“Hey, Starlight,” I replied, looking over her head. “Fluttershy’s not with you, is she?”

“I have no idea where Fluttershy is right now.” She turned to her list again. “Nice weather we’re having, isn’t it?”

“I guess so. Sure. Although it’s sunny here every day.”

She added another checkmark, muttering to herself, “Introductions—check. Small talk—check. Ask the big question—uncheck.”

Awkwardly, I scratched the back of my neck. “What’s this all about, Starlight? That wouldn’t happen to be another checklist Twilight made for you.”

Finally, she lowered her scroll to look at me. “Actually, yes, it is. I thought it would make things easier, but… maybe I’ll just cut to the chase: I’m here to ask you out on a date.”

“Oh?” I could already feel my heart sinking.

Starlight nodded. “Fluttershy might want inside your shirt, Anthony, but I want inside a completely different part of you.”

“Oh?” I gripped the door, preparing to slam it on her.

“I want inside your heart, Anthony.”

“Oh.” I released the door, wringing my hands together.

As Starlight continued, her eyes glittered and her cheeks burned red. “We could, I dunno, go for a walk or get milkshakes in town. Or spend the whole day at the beach. Or even have a few drinks at the pub and play darts. There’s loads of stuff we could—”

I held a hand up to halt her. “Listen, Starlight…”

She took another step towards me, causing my heart to twist. “Yes?”

“I’m just not that into ponies.”

Starlight furrowed her brows. “But you live with ponies. Millions of them, in fact!”

“But that wasn’t exactly by choice. When I was a teenager on Earth, I stuck a fork in an electrical outlet on a dare and wound up here. And for all I know, this might actually be some marshmallow-like purgatory I’m now trapped in.”

Starlight’s ears flattened atop her head. “So you won’t go out with me?”

Now my heart didn’t just hurt. It felt on the verge of collapse. “Believe me when I say this: it’s not you, I just don’t see ponies in a romantic light.”

Frantically, she went back to her scroll as if it might give her some helpful tips. “But… but I did everything on the list! I greeted you! We chatted about the weather! I even learned how to correctly pronounce that stupid human name of yours!”

“Anthony? You think Anthony’s a difficult name to pronounce? You’re a talking pony named Starlight Glimmer!”

She huffed at that. “Well, I just so happen to believe that Starlight Glimmer’s a beautiful name. Rolls right off the tongue. Go ahead. Try it. Slowly.”

I did as I was told. As bluntly as I could. “Star. Light. Glim. More.”

Again, she stared upwards at me, eyes twinkling. “Yes, Anthony?”

“Get off my lawn.”

That caused her to growl deep in her throat. She might’ve only been half my height, but that didn’t make the tiny mare any less menacing. I knew all too well about her checkered past.

She took the time to straighten out her mane. “Fine, Anthony. Be that way. Like I care in the slightest. There’re practically thousands of ponies that would kill to go on a date with me.”

As I started to shut the door on her, my right shin began to throb—which was odd because nothing had come in contact with it.

Oh, wait, I thought. Oh, no.

I glared down at Starlight. “Did you just kick my shin?”

She avoided my eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Anthony. I was standing out here the whole time. I haven’t moved an inch.”

“Okay, I’ll ask this differently. Did you go back in time just to kick me in the shin?”

Starlight scrunched her face up in mock disgust. “As if I would dare do something that reckless again! I know perfectly well not to mess around with time travel anymore!” She sniffled. “I mean… it’s not like my heart had recently been shattered into a thousand tiny pieces by some dumb jerk with an impossible to pronounce name…”

Slyly, she glanced back up at me. “Unless you’ve changed your mind about our date.”

I groaned. “No, Starlight. I haven’t.”

Now my other shin hurt. Bad. I jumped up and down on the spot.

“Stop going back in time to kick me in the shins!” I screamed.

“Well, then stop being so mean and denying yourself my love! You’ll like it! I promise!”

I stopped hopping up and down. An idea just came to me. “You do realize two can play this game, right?”

Starlight held her head up. “Whatever do you mean?”

“Well,” I started off dramatically, “considering I am also a friend of Twilight Sparkle’s, that means I can also screw around with time if I so wish to.”

“Nuh-uh!” Starlight blurted childishly. “You can’t!”

“But what’s stopping me from just thinking about it?” I closed my eyes and held my fingertips to my temples. It made thinking things no less difficult, but I thought it might look cool. “In two hours time, I will go see Twilight Sparkle about something rather important. Reluctantly, she will agree, and soon I’ll be sent back in time to…”

Starlight’s pupils shrunk. “To do what?”

I pointed at a nearby mirror. “Look for yourself.”

So she did. And didn’t appear very fond of the results. “You cut my mane!? How? When?”

I smirked. “I paid your hairdresser twenty extra bits to cut it short. Then I scratched her behind the ears to cement the deal.”

Starlight seemed on the verge of tears. “You’ve ruined my mane!”

I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. Her mane might’ve been a half-inch shorter than usual. Max.

As Starlight fiddled with her newly clipped mane, I went to her and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “See why it’s not nice messing around with time? So how about we call it a day and—”

That was when Starlight frowned even harder than I thought possible; a perfect upside-down U that chilled me to the core.

Oh, no, I thought. Oh, please, no.

Poof.

And there went my house. Every last scrap of it.

I fell to my knees, looking at the flat, empty space of land that used to be my home.

I screamed at Starlight, “You destroyed my home!? Just because I cut your mane a bit short?”

She shrugged. “Tit for tat and all that.” Then she pointed at a dumpster on the other side of the street. “And I didn’t actually destroy your home, Anthony. I just changed how well off you do around here.”

“So I live in a dumpster now?”

Starlight shook her head. “No. Now you live in the house behind the dumpster. Still… it’s not nearly as nice as your old place. Plus, you live next to a dumpster now. That’s kinda gross.”

I was still looking at where my house used to be. All the irreplaceable items I’d just lost. “Aww… there was like a half-eaten yogurt in the fridge I was planning on finishing today.”

“You know,” Starlight began sweetly, cozying up to me, “you could always get back that half-finished yogurt of yours. And have even more yogurt! And all you’d have to do is—”

“Go on a date with you?” I finished for her. “Yes, I get it.”

“So whaddya say, Anthony? Ready to give adorable, respectable ponies a try?”

Again, I denied her. Still the wrong answer, it seemed, as the world suddenly went white before flipping back to normal. Or close to normal.

“What… what happened?” I asked in clear astonishment.

“Oh, you know, just the apocalypse,” Starlight replied matter-of-factly, toying with her mane again.

Not only was my old house missing from its usual spot, but now it appeared as if all of Ponyville had gone missing as well. All around us stood blackened and hollowed out buildings and homes; litter and graffiti everything in sight. It was like some giant bomb had gone off at the very center of town and no one had bothered cleaning up since.

Starlight finally turned to me. “This is two hundred years from the moment you refuse to go on a date with me. See the outcome of that silly decision of yours? Bet you wish you picked differently, don’t you?”

“This just… this just doesn’t seem possible…” Then I spotted another pony far in the distance. I yelled out to them. “Hey! Hey, you! Come over here!”

The pony came forward. A stallion in a tan trench coat and hood, armed to the teeth with dirt- and blood-covered weapons. Instantly, I regretted calling him over.

Until he spoke.

“Hey there, friends!” the pony greeted us warmly. “Care to do some bartering on this warm post-apocalyptic morning?”

I raised a brow. “Actually, I was wondering if you could tell us what started all this mayhem.”

The stallion pulled down his hood with a smile. “What started the Great Marble War? Isn’t that a grand story!”

I felt Starlight pulling at my shirt. “How about you don’t talk to him, okay? He could be dangerous! He could even be a Raider that wants to eat your face!”

The stallion only chuckled at that. “Oh, please don’t go confusing my kind with all those nasty Raider ponies, miss. My kind don’t even eat other ponies!”

I asked casually, “Want to still tell us how this all started?”

“Well,” the stallion began again, “the Great Marble War all started when Princess Celestia lost one of her marbles. One of her favorites, actually. And when she asked her sister if she’d seen it, Luna said, ‘No, I haven’t. Maybe ask Cadence.’ So Celestia did just that! And as it turns out—”

“Cadence did have the marble?” I ventured.

“No! She hadn’t seen it either. So Cadence goes on to say, ‘Maybe you dropped it on the ground somewhere.’ And Celestia replies, ‘That’s a good idea. I’ll have a look around.’”

I couldn’t take it anymore. I shouted above the stallion, “Does this stupid Marble War have anything to do with some mare being turned down for a date two hundred years ago?”

The stallion only looked at me curiously. “Well, of course not, sir. That’s just stupid. Please stop being so stupid around me. Being that stupid in the Wasteland might get you killed! Or worse. It might get your face eaten off! And then you’ll have the nickname Tasty Face! Just ask my friend Tasty Face. Although he won’t be able to say much back. On account of having no face with which to speak with.”

I spun back to Starlight. “Take us back home already. This is just sad.”

Another flash blinded me. Once again, we arrived somewhere new.

“Now where are we?” I asked.

“Isn’t it obvious? This is Ponyville’s cemetery.”

It sure was. Grass and cracked headstones as far as the eye could see.

Starlight strolled towards the back of the place, stopping beside one of the larger headstones. She went on to explain, “This is your final resting place, Anthony. In the timeline where you never go on a date with me.”

My eyes instantly went to the year I would die. I was happy to see I still had quite a few years left. Although, that happiness died on the spot once I saw just how they’d misspelled my name: “HERE LIES ANON-THONY – MAY HE REST IN PEACE”.

Angrily, I dug my shoes into the ground. “Anthony isn’t even that hard of a name to spell! Holy crap! Every foal in Equestria can spell Ahuizotl no problem, but no one can spell Anthony? I’m calling shenanigans on this!”

Starlight directed my attention to the writing below my name:

“He had an okay-ish life. All things considered.”

I grimaced after reading that. Whoever did the headstone carvings around this place needed a harsh talking to. Or firing.

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” I admitted. “What’s so wrong with okay?”

Starlight put one of her hooves in my hand. “Let’s see what the difference is when you do go on a date with me.”

More white. More teleportation.

Before us stood the same headstone as a second ago; same misspelled name and everything.

“Wait a minute.” I scanned the year I wound up dying again. “In this timeline I die three years earlier. What’s up with that?”

Starlight only stuck out her lower lip in a pout. “I can’t help it if I love you too hard. But read the part below that.”

I did. It read: “He had a pretty swell life. If you really think on it.”

I rolled my eyes. “Great. So my life went from ‘okay’ to ‘swell’ all because we went on a date. This isn’t exactly riveting insight, Starlight.”

“No?” she asked hotly. “Then I guess there’s only one last option to try!”

One last time we teleported across time and space, and for one small wonderful moment, I almost believed I was back inside my old home. Well, technically I was back in my old home. Only it had changed.

“Like what we’ve done with the place?” Starlight Glimmer asked, a dainty smile on her lips.

I only had to look at some of the picture frames around the living room to understand just what she’d done. This was the future; perhaps only a few years, at most. The future where I’d actually agreed to go on a date with her.

I looked from one photograph to the next. In them Starlight and I smiled and embraced, and traveled the world together as one loving couple. We even visited Equestria World at one point, and got our picture taken on the log flume as we both got soaked to the bone.

From photo to photo I went, as Starlight settled herself on the couch in front of the fireplace. “And here’s where you hold me in your big, strong arms each and every night.”

I somehow doubted that. I couldn’t even lift up that same couch when I vacuumed once a year.

“You even go on to invent a type of ice cream that never melts,” she continued on softly. “You get the idea when you fall down in the shower.”

My mouth hung open in shock. “I become a hero. An ice cream hero.”

“Much more than that, Anthony. You also become a father to a beautiful baby girl.”

Oh, no, I thought. Oh, cheese and crackers, no.

I’d seen enough David Cronenberg films back on Earth to figure how a human/pony hybrid might turn out. Yet…

Yet she was perfect in everyway.

A unicorn, just like her Mom. Asleep in her crib with her tiny head resting on a pillow.

“I don’t understand,” I told Starlight next to the crib. “How can humans and ponies—”

She held a hoof to my lips and shushed. “Magic.”

“No, but seriously, I have a lot of questions—”

She shushed me again. “Magic.”

“But—”

“I’m just going to keep saying the word ‘magic’ until you stop talking, Anthony.”

I eventually stopped, but only because another question came to mind.

“What’s her name?”

Starlight gave me a playful smirk. “Megan.”

I was surprised. “Wow. A human name. That’s—”

“Only her first name. Her full name is Megan Jupiter Peanut Butter Sandwich Glimmer.”

“And there’s all those silly extra pony names,” I muttered more to myself than her.

Starlight came to stand at my feet, grabbing both of my hands between her hooves. She asked me earnestly, “If this is our future together, can you honestly not see yourself happy here? Will you still not give ponies a chance?”

I pondered. For a long, long while I pondered.

I thought of the loving photos downstairs. I thought of cuddling up to her, each and every night on the couch. But most of all I thought of little Megan—a soul brought into this world simply due to the love between two individuals.

I could be happy here, I thought, before I knelt down and kissed Starlight on the lips.

After a long embrace, Starlight pulled away from me. “We should celebrate! We should order pizza!”

Then she ran from the room to order.

“What do you want on yours, Anthony?” she called. “I always get double pineapple on mine.”

And just like a shot to the heart, it all came tumbling down around me. Perhaps this wouldn’t work out, after all, I thought dourly.

I kissed my future child atop the head and whispered, “I’m sorry, Megan Jupiter Peanut Butter Sandwich Glimmer. Perhaps in another alternate future timeline, we shall meet again.”

And so the time war between Starlight Glimmer and I raged on evermore.

Author's Notes:

I have no good answers for this one.