This is insane! Dainn thought to himself, eyes glued to the creature before him, the one that he was told by Death was God itself. A pony?! An alicorn!? A… FEMALE!?!?

Before his death, Dainn didn’t believe in such a thing as a God, believing that men were the true masters of their own destinies, deciders of their own fates, rulers of their own domains. To assume otherwise was to say that there was something out there that could rend control from you in an instance if it so pleased, and for something to exist that held more dominance than the caribou was a very un-caribou concept. Though if one were to humor the notion, they would have pictured such an entity to be undoubtedly male and most likely caribou in form, wanting to make itself in the image of power.

To see this instead, knowing what this creature was supposed to be, would have sent any average caribou into hysterics. Dainn himself wasn’t quite taking it well either, not twitching so much of a muscle in fear that it would be one that offended. Did she know what he had done to the creatures that represented her? How could she not? He had taken over all of the pony kingdom, enslaved everyone within it into physical or mental bondage. There was no way that could go unnoticed.

If she did know though, she didn’t show it. There was no expressions of hatred on her face, or any other for that matter. The alicorn wasn’t so much as looking at him, just standing there with her eyes closed. No, not standing, she was... sitting? Dainn wasn’t sure. The way she was doing it looked odd. Her rump was firmly planted on the floor, but she was not sitting cross legged or with her legs in front of her. Instead, the way she sat looked… animalistic. It looked like she was sleeping, which was in its own way was more off-putting than if she had been mad with him. Was she even aware that she had company.

“Hello.” Dainn said, wanting to get the alicorn’s attention. Still, there was no response. “Hello!” Again nothing. It was bothersome being ignored, especially since Dainn’s whole reason of being here was to have an audience with God, but he wanted to err on the side of caution when it came to addressing the entity. She was supposedly the only one who could guarantee his return to the world of the living, so doing anything to upset her would not be wise.

However, caution didn’t need to interfere with his curiosity, and if the alicorn was indeed asleep, then he could use this opportunity to get a closer look at her. So he approached her, taking precautions with his steps in order not to wake the slumbering god.

To his amazement, his stealthy approach worked, and the alicorn hardly moved a muscle. She appeared oblivious to Dainn’s presence, which the caribou couldn’t shake as being odd. This was supposed to be God, right? How is it that such a powerful being, one who could possibly restore his life, couldn’t detect him?

It started to make Dainn think, and start to rationalize this with his caribou mindframe. Perhaps this creature wasn’t God. In fact, this looked nothing like what he would have believed a god would have looked like. For one, this creature was small for an all powerful being, her body mass being less than his own. Then there was her form. It wasn’t like any other pony he had seen before. It was more bestial, with her hands having been replaced with another set of hooves. Her body was sleeker too, and lacked breasts at her chest.

Animalistic as her form was, there was a certain beauty to it. Aesthetically, it fit the caribou’s view of women as well, matching the outward image to the internal one. In a way, she was visually the very depiction of a female, perhaps a perfect representation of what a mare should be, or perhaps how they were always supposed to be.

Then a thought crossed his mind, one that made sense of this situation. This female wasn’t God. It was God’s slave. Of course a divine creator would make something of such perfection for himself, though he had to say that allowing her to keep her horn and wings, plus the lack of a collar, were choices he didn’t approve of. Coming to that conclusion though, it begged the question of where God was, and why Death had sent him to this creature instead.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” The alicorn asked, finally opening her eyes, giggling a little as the caribou took in her visage.

“So you are awake.” Dainn said with disdain, no longer having any sense of reverence for this creature, and unsurprised that it could speak english, “That’s good, as now you can take me to your master.”

“My… master?” The red haired mare replied, lifting a brow. “And who do you think that is?”

“Don’t play coy with me.” Dainn answered, “I was sent here by Death to meet with God. When I got here, all I saw was you. A beast like yourself clearly isn’t a God, so I must assume you’re supposed to lead me to him. So why don’t you be a good mare and-”

“Take you to the creator?” The mare said, interrupting the stag. The alicorn lifted herself up from her sitting position, standing on all fours, and walked past Dainn, her hooves clopping loudly against the darkness beneath them as she wandered off in what seemed to be a random direction. “I suppose that wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Excellent,” Dainn said, staying close behind the alicorn, “You’re the first thing I’ve met in this place that has been helpful. It’s a bit refreshing, actually.”

“Is there a reason that people don’t want to help you?” The alicorn asked, looking back to the caribou following her.

“Nothing legitimate…” Dainn said in reply, knowing well the alleged reasons people had to be apprehensive towards him by now, but still seeing it as more their problems than his. Experiencing The Cycle might have taught him a little about humility when it came to his current circumstances, and gave him a proper perspective of how he couldn’t do anything himself to get out of this situation, but it didn’t remove his self-importance, nor his sense of righteousness.

“That is a shame.” said the alicorn, veering to the left, “I hate it when people go out of their way to make people unhappy. Then again, I think that is a sentiment shared by all creatures.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Dainn said back to her, having met his fair share of people who only wished to do harm - some of which his closest allies.

“But would you say that you wish to harm others?”

“Well of course not,” Dainn replied, truthfully not considering his rule or methods as ever being harmful.

To him, the ponies, gryphons, buffalo, zebra, diamond dogs and every other race of the world that he had conquered were like a mass of backwater tribesmen who had yet to learn how things truly functioned, living among their females like equals, and allowing their given societies to fall to ruin by doing so. To force a male into a proper way of living through military dominance was simply a method of re-education that would benefit the world greatly as later generations started seeing caribou values as their own. To crack a whip across the back of a woman was to reaffirm her place in the world, and thus prevent more serious harm later on. Everything Dainn had ever done was helpful to those he had taken responsibility over, and thus he never felt remorse for any of his actions or those of his men, because it was all for the greater good.

“I thought so,” The alicorn said, turning to the left again, “You don’t seem like a sadist to me.”

“Were you trying to determine if I was?” Dainn wondered aloud, thinking that perhaps this slave was testing to see if he was worthy of meeting her master.

“No, I am not here to judge or condemn.” she said, as if answering his thoughts.

“Good.” said Dainn, “It’s wonderful to see a female that knows not to question a male’s actions.”

“Have you had trouble with women before?” asked the alicorn.

Dainn wanted to tell her no, that of course a male like himself couldn’t be ‘troubled’ by any female, but when he went to speak, an image flashed in his mind, one of the orange mare that had destroyed his manhood in a single devastating strike. The memory unnerved the king, and forced him to hold back on his declaration of inherent superiority towards women. “Could we change the subject…” he said instead.

“Why of course.” The alicorn agreed, giving a slight smile as she continued walking, raising her head up a little to point her eyes to the darkness above. “They are lovely, aren’t they?”

Confused at the mare’s statement, Dainn tried to track her line of vision. “What are you referring to?” he said, seeing only the endless, ever present black that enveloped this world.

“The stars,” she answered, “They look beautiful as they twinkle in the distance. So full of life and possibility.”

Dainn squinted his eyes, trying as hard as he could to see these alleged stars, but still he saw nothing. It appeared that God’s servant was a bit deranged, or perhaps just stupid. The way she spoke most certainly sounded like the ramblings of a moronic child who didn’t understand that stars were simply balls of fire floating out in the vastness of space. It reminded him of the myths the ponies used to spread about their alicorn princesses, and how they could direct the movement of the sun and the moon. Of course such things were mere propaganda, spread to make lesser ponies believe the princesses were powerful, and one that he easily debunked by removing their horns and proving the two celestial bodies moved on their own. Nothing but fairy tales believed only by the ignorant.

This level of idiocy made Dainn wonder if this mare was even capable of guiding him. As far as he could tell, she was just leading him throughout the darkness in a wide circle. In fact, with a third turn to the left, he was all but certain that was indeed the case. “Mare… Allow me to ask you a question. Is it the intent of every creature in the afterlife to make me the fool?” With that said, Dainn planted his hooves, refusing to go any further on this fool’s errand.

The alicorn sensed that the caribou has stopped, and likewise stopped in her tracks. “Is something wrong?” she asked, turning back to face him.

“Ever since I have gotten here, I have been put into situations where I am made to look ridiculous. First I had to deal with a version of death that acted like an utter fool, and teased me while I could do nothing to prevent it from doing so. Then I was met by my old mentor, who proceeded to berate my every achievement before utterly annihilating me. After that, Death returned to me, in the guise of my killer no less, and said that he would deliver me to God, and instead I find a mare who is more animal than pony, who is now wandering about in the endless void as I follow her about unquestioningly. I want to know, is this all some divine joke being played at my expense?”

Dainn didn’t know why he bothered to ask that question. If the events leading up to it’s utterance was any indication, then he wasn’t going to like the answer to that. Maybe it was just the habit of supernatural creatures to fuck with mortals upon their deaths, fill them with false hope and then give them the run around until they finally broke. That was a dismal thought, but one that seemed to fit what was happening to him.

The mare, having heard Dainn account of his time in the afterlife, removed any signs of happiness from her expression. “I see… I could understand why you’d feel that everything here is jerking you around. You’ll have to forgive me.”

“For what exactly?” Dainn crossed his arms, ready to hear exactly what part in all this the alicorn had played. Far be it for a female to be anything but a nuisance.

“You wanted to meet the creator, yes?” The mare said, planting her flank back down on the floor. “Well then… hello.”

“Hello?” Dainn asked, confused.

“I am the creator.” the alicorn stated clearly, “I am the one who started everything. The one who set in motion the events that led to your creation.”

“You’re… kidding…” Dainn said, not as willing to believe this mare was God as he was when he first arrived. Then, he had just leapt to a conclusion because she was the first thing he saw, and he expected the first thing he saw to be God. Now that he had time to think, it was logically unsound that a female could ever be a deity. It defied the basic rules of nature.

“I wanted to give you time to adjust and relax, so you wouldn’t be intimidated by my presence. I am not here to invoke fear.” The alicorn could tell that Dainn was beyond skeptical, and was standing firmly in the realms of disbelief, but she felt he was still deserving of an explanation.

“Is that so…” Dainn said, reflecting what the alicorn knew, “So you are the all-powerful being known as God. And I suppose you can prove this?”

“Do I have to?” the alicorn asked the stag, “With everything else you have been through, do you need more proof?”

“I believe I do.” Dainn said, tempting fate against this mare who to him held no presence of power.

“And why is that?” she questioned once more, “What could possibly make you question that I am not who you were told I was?”

Dainn assumed that this question would come, but he knew just enough about the rules to believe he could trump the alicorn’s assertions. “Let me ask you one thing. Are you one of these ‘conceptual beings’, of the likes of what Death claimed to be?”

“In a sense, yes.” the mare said, being as direct as she could be with the stag. “I am, in form and ability, the amalgamation of the concepts of God when it comes to this universe.”

“Then I have no reason to believe you are who you claim. It is my understanding that conceptual beings appear to those in forms that represent a person’s views of the concept. I may admit that by the rules explained to me, my need for God in my current situation could give form to one, but I refuse to believe that my mental image of one would ever be a female. Even in my deepest of subconscious, that is an impossibility.”

“And why might that be?” asked the alicorn.

That lack of knowledge only made Dainn’s stance on his opinion stronger, as he believed that God would certainly know the mentality of his own creations. “I would never see a female as being greater than I. Females are weak, stupid, useless things that never aspire to the greatness of any male, let alone I, the powerful and mighty king of the caribou.”

That declaration caused the mare to chuckle, which honestly wasn’t that odd to Dainn. He had become accustom to the insolence of females. He also assumed that like in case of death, any attempt to punish this mare would not be possible. So instead, he just let her do as she wanted, though it went against his nature. After all, even if she was a false God, she was now not only his only chance to eventually find the real God, but the only other creature he had as company as well.

“You are a king, you say? That is hilarious.”

“And why is that?” he asked, the alicorn’s words begging the question.

“Well… because of this.” The alicorn’s horn began to glow, and in from the darkness a rather large standing mirror came flying in.

Such a feat didn’t surprise Dainn too much. This wasn’t the first time that furniture appeared out of nowhere in this place, and levitation magic was simple enough, even among unicorn mares. If the alicorn thought this would impress him, then she was sorely mistaken.

Of course, that was not the mare’s intent. What she really wanted was to utilize the object to explain her previous words, and she did so by setting the mirror in front of Dainn with the greatest of ease.

Dainn’s eyes popped open, and his pupils shrunk, staring at the form of a naked caribou that stared back at him with equal amounts of disbelief. Of course, his nudity wasn’t what threw him off. He recognized that he had been rendered nude by the army of dead caribou that he had encountered before. His reflection though was wrong. Horribly wrong. Mind-numbingly, mouth-drying, heart-stoppingly wrong. If he wasn’t already dead, he would have keeled over on the spot. Instead, his knees gave way, and he fell backwards on his rounded bottom.

Of course, part of the problem was that his butt wasn’t supposed to be round. It was suppose to be a firm, chiseled ass, that of a caribou warrior. Nor was he suppose to have a curvy figure, or a pair of pouty lips, or two small nubs atop his head for antlers, or a set of D cups hanging from his chest. It was the most horrifying thing that Dainn could have ever imagined. Worse that the thought of being alone forever, being torn apart by the vengeful souls of dead caribou, or even having to endure The Cycle. Somehow, without him even noticing, the stag had become a cow.

Dainn touched himself, making sure this wasn’t some illusion held within the mirror, but he found that the differences held by his reflection matched his physical appearance. Every curve or bump a complete duplicate of what the stag saw in the mirror. He kept searching his form though, hoping to touch upon something that could dispel what he saw. It was only when he felt around for his manhood and found his fingers sinking into a hole in his crotch, feeling the digits poke inside him, which in turn sent a shocking new sensation into his.

The surprise of this new feeling caused a knee jerk reaction, his hand momentarily losing control, making him push the fingers inside him even further. This caused the sensation to grow exponentially, as it also did Dainn’s fear. In his mind, he equated it to being stabbed with a knife, with the freshly created orifice having an incredible sensitivity to it, having for the first time been touched by anything. In repulsion, Dainn removed his hand with great haste, causing the feeling to spike temporarily, and eliciting a yelp from his mouth as it overwhelmed him. He wanted to deny, to refuse the new found feelings in his crotch, but unfortunately another sensation on the fingers he removed pulled him back into reality. One of wetness, that coated his fingers in fluids he was all too familiar with. With that all denial dissipated, proving to the once proud king that the mirror showed only reality. Dainn screamed, with a very feminine sound exiting his muzzle, all the while scooting farther away from the vision of himself. This was a nightmare. Of all the worst possible things, this was THE, WORST, POSSIBLE, THING!

From behind the mirror, the red headed alicorn poked her head out. “Is something the matter?” she said, the chipper tone of her voice and the gleeful expression she wore letting Dainn know that she knew exactly what was going on.

“Change me back!” Dainn yelled at the mare, the female voice tearing out his throat.

He had never been so distressed over anything more than he was over this transformation. Not the death of his mentor, not the destruction of the caribou homelands, not even his own death. To be ‘switched’, as the caribou put it, was the most terrible fate that could befall a male, and for Dainn specifically, it was the biggest, most awful, most tragic event that could ever happen.

“But how could I do that?” The alicorn questioned coyly, “I am a mare, and by your own definition, I am entirely powerless and worthless. Surely you don’t believe that such a creature could do such a drastic transformation.”

Dainn got on all fours, and scurried over to the alicorn as fast as his four appendages would take him. “I’m sorry!” Dainn said, lowering his head before the alicorn. “I get it! You’ve proven your point! Just change me back!”

“So you believe me now when I tell you that I’m the creator?”

Dainn had to admit, what the mare had done to him was no small feat of magic. It was not a simple process to change a person’s gender. For the ponies, the very notion of that act was impossible. For the caribou, it was only possible through the use of a device that harnessed a lot of runic magic, a device that at the time of Dainn’s death was located in Canterlot, and was one of a kind, a relic made from materials and magics from the caribou homelands that were both lost to The Cycle.

For this mare to have altered his gender, without him even being aware of it, required incredible magic ability, the likes unheard of by any pony, caribou, or anything else. It alone didn’t prove godhood, but it proved that the alicorn was one with the power to change the world around her at a whim. Though he could not mentally accept her divinity, the stag could not refute that he was outclassed by a wide margin.

“Fine! Yes! You are God!” he said, hoping to sway the alicorn, “Just turn me back, please! I beg of you!”

Looking down on the doe before her, the alicorn took some pity on Dainn. Using her horn’s magic, she lifted the mirror up again, and set it aside the caribou. “Take a look at your reflection one more time.”

Dainn didn’t want to, but he obeyed. As a female, it was all he could do. His eyes once more met with his pathetic female form. Dainn wasn’t one for crying, but the sight was bringing him to the verge of tears. Had his men saw him like this, they would have no compassion for his situation. A man who was switched had as few rights as if they had been born a woman. Of course, this was under different circumstances than if he had been switched through the normal methods, but he had little reason to believe that any caribou would see it that way. After all, there had never, in the history of the caribou, been a time when a woman had been switched into a male, not even if they had been born a man to begin with. To be female was to have no rights, and there were no exceptions.

Dainn didn’t have to look at the humiliating form for too long though. Only a few seconds passed before the alicorn flipped the mirror around, revealing that the backside of it was also a mirror. However, this side didn’t show the doe he had seen before, and instead reflected back the familiar male form of the caribou king, the once proud figure bowing before an alicorn with misery evident in his eyes.

“Sorry about that,” the alicorn said, stepping away from the stag, “But it looked like the only way to get through to you was to do something drastic. Why don’t you sit down for a moment, and I’ll explain a few things to you.”

Dainn was hardly listening, far too busy re-examining his body to make sure that everything was back where it belonged. Exploring his naked body, there was nothing he could see that was out of place. His muscles were just the right level of toned, his antlers were the proper length, and his chest had deflated back to a flat surface. The first place he had looked before all that though was back to his crotch, relieved to no end to find that he had the proper set of genitals.

The alicorn had once again changed him in a drastic manner, and did it so incredibly fast that he didn’t even realize that it had happened until he saw it with his own eyes. Everything, in the mere instance that it took to spin a mirror around. This was far above that of the caribou’s magic, as switching was a process that required several minutes at the least to accomplish. It was also suppose to be an incredibly painful experience. It was another testament to the mare’s skill that he didn’t feel a thing.

“Now then… before I begin, I think it’s time I learned a bit more about you.”

Having been shown a taste of her magical might, Dainn's complacency had skyrocketed. He would have been more than willing to answer any questions she had, but that was unnecessary. With a glow of her horn, the mare picked up the mirror once more, and to the stag's amazement, rolled the object in upon itself like a newspaper. Once twisted into as thin a tube as the pony could create, she began to spin it around in the air randomly and rapidly, so fast that it became a pseudo-sphere of blurred shapes.

When the mirror slowed down, it was no longer the rolled up hunk of metal and glass as it was before, and instead had turned into some sort of handheld telescope. Like any telescope of its type, it was a cylindrical cone with glass lenses on either end. Along that cylinder was a vast array of arcane symbols, which were placed upon segmented sections of the object.

Bringing the telescope to her eye, the mare looked out into the void in a seemingly random direction. “To remove some confusion, I’ll tell you that while I am a concept like you assumed, my form is not decided by your subconscious depictions as to what a god is. The one who chose this form for me is the universe itself.”

“I keep hearing this ambiguous ‘universe’ being mentioned by creatures like you and Death.” Dainn said, having settled down a bit with his restored masculinity. “What is it exactly?” If anyone should be able to explain that concept, it should have been God.

“The universe…” the alicorn said, twisting the segments of her viewing glass as she spoke, “Is the guiding force of all that we know as reality. It is what decides our every action, or at the very least guides us to how it believes we are suppose to be. It is composed of thousands, if not millions of forces all working with and against each other at the same time. Some benevolent, some malevolent, some indifferent, and some far more involved than they probably should be. They are the shapers of what you would know as reality, and what I know as the realities.”

“Realities?” Dainn questioned.

“Yes. Despite what you may believe, there are other worlds beyond your own. An uncountable number of possible and potential realities that abide by their own rules, and function separately from one another.”

“I-is that really possible?” the stag wondered aloud, surprised to hear there were worlds outside his own, and curious as to how different they were.

“From what I’m learning from my interscope, I can see that you are a fairly arrogant person, but I hope you really didn’t assume that you were the center of the universe.”

“Well... “ The caribou said aloud, before sheepishly backing away from the mare’s accusation.

“Anyways,” she said, spinning the segments of the scope a few more turns, “As a result of the universe’s contradictory nature, a large amount of chaos exists, which in turn is why a vast amount of realities exist. Some silly, some abysmal, some bright and happy, and some profound in their own ways. All of them though have a set of constants that exist in all of them, in one way or another.”

“Such as?”

“Certain rules of reality, certain people, certain events.”

“And I take it that the caribou are one of these constants.” Dainn said with confidence, having no trouble believing that his race was not only dominant in his world, but in all worlds.

“Actually, no.” The alicorn said, shooting down the stag’s assumptions. “You’re people appear to exist in a select few realities. You are, in fact, an anomaly when it comes to the universe. Something created by the chaos, by a force that wished to use what I have created toward their own ends. Whether or not it did so malevolently, I cannot be absolutely certain.” Lowering her interscope, as she called it, Dainn could see a distinct look of displeasure.

“Then might I ask what the constants are?”

“Have you really not figured that out yourself? It should be fairly simple seeing-” The mare said, her once kind tone carrying a bit of hostility within it. However, with a shake of her head, she took a step back from the thoughts within her. “Excuse my tone. I know that none of what I saw was your fault. You were just doing what you were made to do.”

“What I was made to do?” The king once more was lost by the alicorn’s words. It sounded like he had been coerced into something without his knowledge, and that whatever it was, it was making this God unhappy.

“You see, Dainn,” said the alicorn, speaking his name for the first time, “The constants I speak of are the ponies of your world.”

Dainn’s heart sunk, understanding a little more what the alicorn had been talking about. He had assumed something similar earlier, upon first seeing the mare's form, but all recollection of those assumptions had left him until she directly told him that it was fact.

“Not only that,” she went on to say, “But zebra, buffalo, gryphons, diamond dogs… Every creature that you had bend under your will was a product of my design.”

“Then... then… Oh no...” Dainn suddenly felt very small. He remembered Death’s final warning to him, that if God found him unworthy, then it was very likely that he could be condemned to a fate even worse than being stuck in the abyss. At this point he had no reason to believe that any other outcome was possible.

“These creatures, and the world they reside in, are the constants. Ponies are supposed to be the rulers of Equestria. The Elements of Harmony are supposed to be its protectors, and the princesses exist to maintain balance, not only with the kingdom, but with the world on the whole. From what I have seen, you and your people exist only to tear down my creations for reasons that I would rather not try to understand.”

The alicorn gave a heavy sigh, glaring at the creature in front of her with something that felt to the caribou like resentment. How else could he interpret the feelings of a creature whose creations he had, as she probably saw it, ruined. If the caribou were the anomaly in God’s design, and the ponies her chosen people, then what they had done to them could only be seen as blasphemous in her eyes.

“W-wait!” Dainn said, his mind racing to reason a way out of this predicament, “If the caribou are so terrible, then why have you not stepped in to stop us?! You must believe we have done something right if you allowed us to take over Equestria.”

“You don’t seem to understand my position in this,” the alicorn replied, “While I did create the structure of reality that both your people and my creations reside in, I have long since stopped directly influencing with it. I set the groundwork, but I did so that other forces would do as they will with it. It is not my place to stand in the way of this chaos, and so you were allowed to do as you pleased in the reality given to you by the force that created you. It is for this reason that I’m not exactly angry with you, simply perturbed by what you appear to represent.”

“And what is that?” Dainn cautiously asked, still worried about God’s opinion of him.

In return he got a single, damning word from the mare. “Perversion.”

It was upsetting, to say the least, to hear that from God itself. To know it looked upon you and the actions that you had accomplished with such condemnation. This was far worse than when Svarndgr have made him aware that he was not respected by his own mentor, with his every action and goal now deprecated to such a degree that Dainn finally saw the futility of it all. Depression didn’t describe this feeling in the least, though despair was a more apt title for it.

“Now don’t assume that your world was the only one that had ever been based around sexuality. That isn’t the problem…” stated the alicorn, wishing to clarify herself, “But it seems that your very motivations are to destroy and contradict all that I’ve made. You have corrupted and desecrated relics that I put in place to protect the world. You’ve enslaved every last one of my creations based on a misguided premise of ‘male dominance’, torturing, raping, and maiming to prove a meaningless point, and all the while proving that you knew next to nothing about the world you existed in. If not for the fact that the powers of the universe allow for different realities to have small discrepancies in how they work, you would have destroyed your world simply on the merit of the sun never rising again.”

“You mean-”

“Yes,” said the alicorn, cutting Dainn off, “Celestia and Luna are supposed to raise the sun and the moon. I don’t even know how you could assume otherwise. You do understand that ponies have unique talents, and that those talents are symbolically represented by the marks on their flanks. You even utilized that symbolism to your own ends, having branded Celestia’s own mark with a symbol of chains imprisoning her talents, and as well as using a device to blank and remark ponies in order to alter their talents to ones more attuned to your goals. You only got away with something so impetuous and stupid because you existed in a reality that was literally created to cater towards your people’s desire to sexually dominate others.”

Dainn didn’t wish to upset God more than he already had by his mere existence, but what she had said begged a question. “But… then… if my reality was built to service me and my people… then why is my kingdom in shambles? Why did the Cycle happen? Why… am I dead?”

“Because while there was a force that created the caribou, and wanted them to come out on top regardless of the inane actions you took to do so, there are forces that saw your people’s existence as a blight on the universe. These forces worked against the one that made you, creating other realities in which you and your kind were defeated and destroyed. The force that created you saw this as harmful towards the reality he created, and thus tried to resist, but that only served to receive more retaliation, until finally their influence leaked into your world. One way to look at it is to say that it was their vengeance that caused your demise, as it had many times before. Another view might be that these forces allowed logic to be implemented upon your reality, seeing as the force that made you had tried to ignore the consequences of your actions, as damaging as they should be to any world. The only exception is your ‘Cycle’, which appears to be an intricate part of your creation. If not for it, you would have never had a reason to leave for Equestria, and the rape and enslavement of ponies is the only purpose for your existence.”

“That’s… disheartening… to say the least.” Dainn said, outwardly taking this new information well. In his mind though, he was finding it hard to process it. He wasn’t even sure that he understood it all, despite the alicorn seemingly explain it in the simplest terms she could for him.

From what he could piece together, something created him and the caribou, as well as the reality they existed in, in order to forge a world where they could violate the creations of God for whatever reason. This force, whatever it may be, then intentionally destroyed their homelands and thousands of lives with the creation of The Cycle in order to invent a reason for Dainn and his followers to embark on the journey to Equestria. From there, the force had intended to bend the rules of reality itself so that whatever goal it had intended could be achieved without issue, which then apparently drew in others to fight against this and set order back to reality, creating other alternate realities in order to have some effect on the one he was from, ones where he likewise met his demise.

It made Dainn ponder what his purpose for being was, now that he knew that there were things far beyond him dictating his every move. Was this entity that created them the aspect of fate that caribou believed in? Something that pushed all probability in their favor, no matter how ridiculous it was? He couldn’t be certain, but it made some sort of twisted sense. It also gave Dainn a thought that chilled him to the bone, one that he loathed more than any concepts of a female God, or him being considered a joke to his former king. That for all his life, he was not, as he believed, in control of his own destiny. That in actuality, he was just the pawn of some otherworldly force, one that took any form of will that he might have had and manipulated it towards its own ends, just as he had controlled the stallions of Equestria. The irony of it all pierced him, and fill him with an incredible sense of revulsion towards this entity.

“I believe that is enough explanation for now.” said the alicorn, breaking Dainn’s train of thought, “It’s time that we got down to the reason you are here. It’s time for you to make your plea.”

“My plea…” Dainn said with dismay, the very point of this encounter with God finally being brought to the forefront. He didn’t even know where to begin. How could he dispute his worthiness to live to a God who deemed his life a blight against her creations?

Fortunately, he didn’t have to begin his case immediately, with the alicorn continuing to say, “I believe a change of scenery is in order.” With a lift of her foreleg, followed by a sequential drop of her hoof, the abyss Dainn had grown accustom to instantly changed. No longer was he surrounded by the black void, but instead was met with walls and floors of pure white marble. The alicorn mare had moved herself in the split second, to a large desk at the back of this room, positioned at an elevated level than the caribou. He himself had been relocated to a space behind an oaken table, with a chair nearby made of the same material, with another table set up across from him.

“Dainn,” The alicorn’s voice boomed forth from her muzzle with a gentle, but undeniably powerful presence, “When we first met, you declared that it was never your intent or wish to harm others. Therefore, I must assume that you believe that your actions are a means to an end, and that that end is a better outcome for the world that you existed in than what it would be without you. Thus, if you wish for me to grant you another chance at life, I decree that you prove that your belief is true, and your motives are just.”

With that said, Dainn understood fully where he had been brought to, and what this was. This was a courtroom, and this was his trial. One where he would plead his case, and be delivered the final verdict on his fate.

Author's Notes:

Depression is a big deal in this day and age, being one of the most talked about emotional conditions in the media as a whole. There are always articles or news segments or commercials that talk about "how to reduce depression", "how to deal with depression", "how to overcome depression", and with good reason too. Depression is perhaps the most powerful of our negative emotions, either being caused by or being the cause of pretty much every other negative emotion.

It is also fairly easy to become depressed, because there are plenty of thing that can make a person depressed. Stress, sadness, feelings of inadequacy, of being manipulated, of being treated unfairly, loss of something important, a general disillusionment of the world around you, prolonged periods of nothing exciting happening in your life, or simple "just cause". Life, in and of itself, can be seen as a bleak thing that cares not about you and what you find important. This is why people dedicate themselves to something, be it their job, a hobby, science, god, or the simple pleasures of the flesh. People will do anything to find purpose in their lives, anything to preoccupy themselves and stave off those feelings of depression that come with the tedium of life.

So what would happen if you had dedicated your life to something, did everything you could to perfect your skills and become one of most, if not the most, prominent member of your field... only for someone to tell you that you got it all wrong. In this story the example used for this is in "god", which I would think that it would be awful for someone to have God to tell them that "they fucked up", but it doesn't even have to go that far. Perhaps all it takes is for for someone to grow up wanting a career in singing, manage to make a few hit songs, and then by doing so have a chance encounter with the singer/songwriter who inspired them, to which said person tells them flat out "I think you're shit". It's not impossible, as we should all know that one doesn't need to be good to make something successful nowadays, and what a horrid thing if this were to happen.

Now I would say that in this situation, one must evaluate if that opinion does have any meaning, because it is complete possible that the person you idolized is in reality a douche bag, or simply has poor opinions about your craft based on their own preferences and experiences, but there is the possibility they could be right. You really might suck at your favorite sport, or be a terrible manager, or not have the skills that match your chosen vocation in an optimum manner, and if you come to that conclusion, well then you now have a long trip down from that mountain of good feelings you had been climbing till then.

For a person like Dainn, the very thought of being a failure must be troubling. He is, by the results of his actions, absolutely perfect. His troops never fail in battle. He never receives even the slightly bit of damage. Women fall to their knees before him and offer their bodies to his desires (willingly or not, it doesn't matter). Men look up to him and aspire to follow his ways (at the very least this applies to his own people). He had built up a world conquering empire that only has beneficial properties for his people, pulling the caribou up from the ashes of their civilization into a new one where they thrive even more than before (mostly because they just leech off the hard work of the other races, but hey, it still works). To have done all that, and then to be told by both his mentor and the "god" of his reality that he was stupid and that his accomplishments not only mean nothing, not only that they were factually damaging to the world on the whole, but that he hadn't even hadn't even done any of these grand achievements himself, that he was simply a puppet to some unknown force all along.... Well gosh, I couldn't even begin to assume how terrible that would feel.

On the topic of "god" in this story though, I do want to make it clear that am not trying to use Fausticorn as a mouthpiece for any specific viewpoint here. In fact, I am trying my best to keep the character neutral, or at least have an entity that approves of anything that leads to an overall beneficial result. This stance is kind of based on an old quote I believe came from Faust herself, wherein she said that she really doesn't mind what people do with the characters she creates, so long as people are enjoying themselves. That is a great viewpoint from a content creator (because let's be honest, people are going to draw porn and some "darker stuff" whether the creators of their chosen subject approve or not), but I do get the feeling that she probably wouldn't enjoy seeing what FoE does with the characters she dedicated a portion of her life developing. A "do what you want, just don't show me that shit" kind of mindset. I could be wrong about this, Lauren could be the kinkiest one of us all, but who among us would like to test those waters?

Anyways, the next chapter is going to be the last one before the epilogue, and thus I am going to assume that it will take a little longer than usual to release. I would expect it in 2 weeks, but if I get it done sooner, it will be released sooner.