Daemeon smiled as he walked.

It was an odd thing to him. He never smiled. At least, he never wore a serious smile. Many was the time that he’d mimicked the motion. Like paint or plaster, a facade to cover the reality. A convincing farce, but a farce nonetheless. It was not that he feared to smile. Nor was it a conscious choice that he didn’t. He was merely a victim. Of what was he a victim? Of the whirlpool of consequence? Or the hydra of choice? Or, perhaps, he was the victim of knowing, not knowing, or knowing what one cannot know?

Of himself?

Of the world?

“It’s beautiful today,” Daemeon mumbled to himself as one foot fell before the other. His smile grew as he gazed about at the trees sparsely placed to create a faint canopy that did very little to blot out the brilliant morning sun as it crested over the tall buildings to his right. The dismal storm that had sullied the previous day had long since given way, and now the air was moist with dew rather than precipitation. A soft breeze shifted the leaves above and those that no longer adorned the trees. They twirled and scattered at his feet, forming small tornadoes of reds, yellows, and oranges. The soughing of the leaves was accompanied by another familiar sound, one which seemed far cheerier to the bright eyed Daemeon than it had only a day before.

A soft, feminine voice cut through the gentle rustle asking, “What’s that sound?”

“They’re leaves, Colgate,” Daemeon answered with a happy tone that surprised the both of them. He shook his head and continued, “We’re walking through a park.”

“A park?” Colgate wondered. “I thought we were going to get pancakes.”

Daemeon chuckled lightly. “You must be hungry as a horse. Pardon the pun.”

“I will not,” the mare stated derisively, slapping a small hoof playfully on her man’s back. “I told you, I’m not a horse.”

Daemeon’s chuckle degenerated into a laugh as he explained, “I know. I know. I want to take you to a special place that’s said to serve some of the best pancakes. It’s a bit of a ways on foot, but instead of crowded streets, I decided we could take a little detour through the park. It won’t add more than ten or fifteen minutes to the walk.”

“Fifteen minutes?” Colgate mused. “This must be a pretty big city if you have to walk fifteen minutes just to get food.”

“Indeed it is. I’m not sure how I can really put the size of this city into perspective for you.” Daemeon ran his fingers through his messy brown hair and asked, “Just how many ponies live in that village you’re from?”

“Ponyville?”

“Yeah. Ponyville. That’s not a brilliantly clever name.” Daemeon added to himself. “If they’re all ponies then wouldn’t every place they lived be a ponyville?”

“Umm,” Colgate hummed to herself. Name after name rolled through her mind. Lists, appointments, good teeth, bad teeth. “Including the outlying farms and discluding our non-pony residents, I believe the count would stand at 672, give or take a pregnant mare.”

A little impressed, he asked, “You seem pretty solid on that number. Do you know all of the ponies in your village personally?”

A smile broadened on Colgate’s face as she explained, “I’m the dentist! Everypony has to come to me if they want to keep their teeth healthy.” The smile dimmed after a moment, and she added with heavy resignation, “At least, they used to.”

Daemeon heard the underlying sadness in her voice as she answered him. Even if she had tried to be more subtle, her man was beginning to notice a pattern in her. It caused him to wonder very seriously, “If she hated her job as much as she says, then why is she always so eager and happy when she mentions it? What’s more, why is she sad when she says she has put it behind her?”

Daemeon might have pursued his question, but he did not want to cause her sadness right then. A gorgeous sunny morning was about him, banishing much of the cold of the dark night. It was uncharacteristic of him, a theme that was becoming more obvious every moment he spent with the insufferable little, blue mare, but he took real joy in that morning. It seemed his very perception of his surroundings had altered. The leaves crunching beneath his feet were suddenly a cheerful sound. The reds, yellows, and oranges colored the dewy fields in the fire of life, not the foreshadowing of death. Even the tree branches that now terminated to nothingness, skeletons in their own right, seemed to Daemeon then to be soft, supple, and beautiful.

Ruin that? Ruin that gentle, sunny morning with prying questions that could only make his little Colgate sad? Her Daemeon couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do less. Instead, he pursued an emotion he almost always yielded to. In curiosity, he inquired, “When I told you there are eight million people in this city alone, you said there aren’t that many ponies in Equestria. Just how many ponies are there? Do you take frequent censuses?”

The mare tapped her hoof against her chin in thought. “I don’t think so. At least, there hasn’t been a census in my lifetime. I think the last census was taken almost 300 years ago.”

“Really?” Daemeon wondered in surprise. “That’s a long time to go without taking a count. We have a census every decade here. Do you happen to know how many ponies there were in your last census?”

“I’m a little rough with my history. It’s not my job to know you understand. I do have a friend who’s talent is in history though. He’s told me some things I’ve wanted to know when I ask. I believe the total count was around 45,000 ponies. Those only account for the ones living in Equestria, but at that time, ponies weren’t very spread out around the world. That was before our borders as a nation were set you see. We’ve spread out and grown quite a bit since then, so that number is probably pretty outdated.”

“Fascinating,” Daemeon exclaimed. “I’m sick of talking about me. I want to hear more about your world. So, yours was a budding nation only three hundred years ago?”

Colgate smiled to herself at his excitement. She’d never had the joy of explaining their rich history to anypony else. Everypony knew from elementary, and most other races didn’t care about pony history. Eagerly, she elaborated, “No, no, no. We weren’t a full nation then, but Equestria itself was founded almost two thousand years ago, a thousand years after the end of our Tribal Era.”

“Tribal Era?”

“Yes,” Colgate explained as she shifted to a more comfortable position in her bag. “I told you before that there are three types of ponies; Unicorns, Pegasi, and ponies of the Earth. Before the founding of Equestria, the three races were divided into tribes. We were scattered across the continent and our hierarchy was little more than that of the herd. We feared and would not relate to each other. Our diets consisted of only grass and water, and our numbers were kept thin by the beasts of the land. It’s said, though there’s really very few texts or solid history dating back to this period, that each of the races was almost driven to extinction more than once.”

“Remarkable,” the man with the ever brightening smile said in awe. “So you know exactly how your race came to civilization? And it only took two thousand years? Human history goes back so many hundreds of thousands of years that we can only speculate as to how we came to be. Entire religions have been formed just to answer that question.”

“We have a general understanding, yes, but the point where we draw the line between awareness and beast is about three thousand years ago.”

Growing ever more curious, Daemeon found himself demanding, “What happened then?”

“Three important events occurred very near to each other then,” Colgate said taking a deep breath. “It all started with the Earth ponies. One of their roaming tribes discovered that better and far more abundant food could be secured if they spread seeds themselves and cultivated them.”

“The birth of agriculture,” the man interjected. “It’s believed that our first societies formed for similar reasons. Please go on.”

“Well,” the mare explained with a gentle smile touching her unseen lips, “the many Earth pony tribes saw the success of agriculture, how the tribe that learned grew numerous in number as they stayed in one place and secured themselves, and they soon followed suit. In time, most of the Earth ponies had given up on roaming altogether. The village became the norm.”

“What about the Unicorns and Pegasi? Did they turn to farming as well?”

“No,” Colgate answered, shaking her head inside her softly swaying confine. “The Unicorns and Pegasi saw the success of the Earth ponies and were envious. They first tried to master agriculture for themselves, but both races ran into grave difficulties. Unicorns, who had gained a fundamental understanding of magic, had become too lax in their physical builds. They could not pull plows and could hardly bear the harsh heat of the sun. To try to work with their magic would have been even more taxing. You remember what I said right? A unicorn’s magic is powered from within and tires us.”

“I remember.” Daemeon’s eyes followed down the weaving path. It was quite a distance to their destination, but he still slowed his pace a bit. He did not want the conversation to end. “What of the Pegasi? Were they not strong enough either?”

“They are a good deal stronger than the Unicorns. They may have had a decent shot at it if it weren’t for the flightiness of their being.”

“Flightiness?” he inquired.

“Yes,” she answered. “Their hollow bones and desire to reside in the clouds made them ill fit for the plow. They may have had strength, but lacked the persistent will and pervading patience to make farming possible. They gave up on it almost as quickly as the Unicorns.”

“Interesting. They had the intellect but lacked the physical capacity. This must have created quite an imbalance between the races.”

“It did,” the mare answered in affirmation. “It was then that we neared the Dark Era. The success of the Earth ponies and the failure of the Pegasi and Unicorns lead to a thousand year period of hegemony in which the Pegasi and Unicorns lived off the toiling of the Earth ponies and held them in a constant state of hardship.”

Confused, Daemeon interjected, “Hardship? For the Earth Ponies? I thought you said they were the ones who succeeded. How could the other races have had power over them?”

“Well,” Colgate began, “it started with minor conflicts. Then there was a brief but violent period of tribal warfare. The Earth ponies would plant and harvest and the Unicorns and Pegasi would try to rob them of their fruits. The Earth ponies were strong though. And they had grown so numerous that they knew the price of failure would be starvation. They could no longer content themselves with grass. Any attempts to rid them of their food was met with such fierce resistance that the Pegasi and Unicorns decided it was not worth the losses. The Pegasi soon discovered something that could turn the tables in their favor.”

“What was that,” Daemeon begged.

“The Pegasi had long since earned some power over the clouds. The magic of their race allowed for them to treat clouds as though they were tangible objects. They could touch them, move them, even sleep in them. For a long time, they only used this ability to build themselves villages in the sky where they could sleep without fear of being eaten by walking beasts. As their envy of the Earth ponies grew however, they learned that their agriculture was directly dependent on the weather. Plants needed rain to grow, and they discovered that they could manipulate the weather, so the crops of the Earth ponies would fail. As the Earth ponies united themselves through agriculture, so the Pegasi united themselves through the weather. The Earth ponies were very soon forced to give a share of their food to the Pegasi lest they lose their fields and livelihood.”

“You know,” Daemeon pointed out, “you certainly are fluent in your history for not having specialized in it. Are all the ponies as smart as you.”

Colgate was glad for once to be in a sack as her blue furred cheeks blushed red. She smiled in spite of herself and answered, “We all learn the history of ponykind in elementary studies, but I will admit that I have a better memory than most. I had to if I was going to be a good dentist.” Her smile widened significantly at the thought of her job to reveal her two rows of shining teeth, then dimmed as she again had to remind herself why she was even in this wretched city in the first place.

“So an entire race had to pay off another just to keep them from bothering them?” Daemeon scratched at the scruff growing ever longer on his chin. It had been a while since he’d gone without shaving. Even when he had nowhere to go, he always managed somehow. For some reason however, he was having a difficult time caring. “That’s pretty intense. We have had many such occurrences in our history as well, though, never with such strong and legitimate racial lines. No group of humans is intrinsically stronger, weaker, smarter, or less intelligent than any other group. Our differences stem from individuality, from the different circumstances that form each of us. It is the sum of human individuality that separates us into groups where as it seems you ponies were divided more purely by objective capabilities.” He silently mused for a moment before probing, “What happened with the Unicorns?”

“Well,” she started again, “the Unicorns grew even angrier and more envious as not only the Earth ponies prospered but the Pegasi as well. They noticed that both races had grown stronger in their individual unity. Years went by and the Unicorns grew less and less in number. It is written that the bitterness the other races held for them pushed them into ever more dangerous territories of the world. They fell victim to beasts and wildlife as they were crowded out. It is known for certain from archaeological findings that they grew to be so few that they feared their own extinction. Not a single skeleton of a unicorn has been recovered from this period despite extensive searches.”

“That’s unbelievable!” Daemeon marveled. “That must have been a dark time for them indeed. I can only imagine what it must have been like for a collective conscience to see their days of existence so numbered. And the Pegasi and Earth ponies allowed for it?”

“Allowed for it?” the unicorn muttered heavily. “They did what was in their power to ensure it. It’s said that the Unicorns had perpetrated atrocious deeds in their earliest wars to take possession of Earth pony crops. The Earth ponies wanted them dead, and the Pegasi, distrusting the horror of their magic, allowed for them to be driven out. It is rumored that they even helped.”

“But they survived,” her man noted. “I mean, you’re here to tell me this story, so you couldn’t have all died off. You said the Unicorns also gained control of the Earth ponies. How?”

“The sun.”

“The sun?”

“Yes,” the mare stated simply. “The last of the Unicorns decided to make one final stand before they disappeared from history. They convened the few small tribes remaining together to form one last collective. They decided that if the Earth ponies could prosper with their strength and the Pegasi with their wings, then the Unicorns must turn to what limited understanding they had of their magic. Up to that point, they had been limited almost purely to mundane alteration and illusion. They knew not how to evoke or divine and the transmutation we know today that could have saved their lives was not yet learned. It is unclear as to how they came to the solution that they did as something akin to it had never even been conceived before. The very notion spoke to their desperation, and certainly seemed laughable at the time. Hindsight being what it is though, their ridiculous notion saved the Unicorn race.”

Mystified, Daemeon pleaded, “What did they do?”

With her own flavorful suspense, Colgate answered, “It is said that they gathered at the peak of the Smoky Mountain, a peak so high that it pierced the clouds and was a fearful place for even the Pegasi. From that precipice, they looked down on the lands of the Pegasi and Earth ponies and were beyond even hate. They then looked upon the coming dawn and did something never done before. With their collective, they focused their magic on the sun and pushed it back. What was a slow rising dawn suddenly became a fast flying dusk. The sun set in the east and night ruled for what should have been three days.”

“You really weren’t kidding about the sun. That’s incredible!” The overwhelmed man slapped a hand against his forehead, hardly able to find the words to express his wonder. “I thought you were kidding when you said the Unicorns controlled day and night, but they actually do, don’t they. Forgive me for calling your world a fairy tale. What fairy tale could come from such a dark history? Literally! What happened next?”

The mare couldn’t help but laugh at his excitement. Not even the widest eyed little colt would get as enthused with what she considered such a normal history. She could only imagine the flavor a real historian could tell it with. “The three days of darkness caused chaos unrivaled until Discord came among us. It is said the land had not known truer darkness as the Unicorns did not stop with the sun. They shifted the moon away as well and dimmed the stars. This came before any of the races had learned how to use fire. Only the Unicorns could harness light with their magic. That darkness, scary as it was, was only the first horror to come our way.”

“What else happened?”

Colgate smiled. “Ponies everywhere learned three important things in those three days of darkness. The first was that animals need a regular sleep cycle to maintain sanity. Those of higher intelligence were able to cope, but the animals of the day wandered and stumbled aimlessly or slept themselves to death. The beasts of the night feasted in droves on the aimless creatures and multiplied beyond reason. Blood bats and timber wolves, monsters of magic, bred prodigiously in just three days and feasted not only on the beasts but the ponies as well. Only the Unicorns were spared that suffering on their Smoky Mountain.

“But it did not end with the beasts. Another thing we learned was that plants needed sunlight to survive. It took only a single day to notice that the vegetation was failing and one day more to see much of it wither and die. It is said that, by the third day, Equestria was on the verge of death. Every crop of the Earth ponies failed and the only food left was what the three races had stored for themselves. A rough season of starvation was ahead for the numerous Earth ponies and Pegasi.

“Even then, it did not end with the crops. The third thing ponykind learned in those dark days was that the sun was the real master of the weather. The bitter cold might have been expected, but it was the winds that were the true terror. As one side of the Earth grew ever hotter and our side ever colder, the planetary winds were shifted bringing an endless howling from the east. With it came more precipitation than was ever experienced before. The first day was said to have had torrential rain that came down endlessly. Without stuttering, that rain became balls of hail that grew larger and larger as the second day continued. By the third day, the hail had become snow so cold that it did not falls as flakes. It fell instead as solid crystals that were said to sting like hot shards of fire.”

Colgate ceased speaking as she realized that Daemeon had stopped walking. She softly prodded his back and asked, “Are we there?”

“No,” her man answered after a brief moment. “I just. I think I’m starting to understand you ponies a bit better now. I think I can understand you a bit better. I also think I see why you ponies don’t believe in God.”

“Why is that?” Colgate asked curiously.

“Well, you see,” he began slowly, “your story sounds very similar to an Old Testament story we humans have in a text called the bible. In scope and grandeur, they are very similar. There are however some very fundamental differences. While we also have histories of such grand and ominous stories of despair, ours have always been said to be perpetrated by a higher power than humans themselves, be it God or gods. You ponies however don’t seem to need God. You yourselves are the perpetrators of your own history. You are your own gods. You took control of your world much as we have, only you don’t blind yourselves from the truth as we do.” Daemeon shook his head suddenly and continued walking. “I’m sorry I interrupted you. Please continue.”

“Sure, uh,” she paused. “Where was I again?”

“What came after that hot fire snow?” Daemeon said in excitement that bordered on a demand.

“Oh! Yes, well,” the mare continued, “at the end of the third day, the Unicorns released their magic, and the sun rose once more. It is said that the world was so discouraged and destroyed that neither the beasts nor the ponies could bring themselves to rejoice the dawn. It was during this dawn that the Unicorns sent an ambassador to the Earth ponies stating that the Unicorns must be taken up as royalty lest they stop the sun once more. While the Unicorns had nothing left to lose, the Earth ponies had everything to lose. They submitted to the will of the Unicorns.

“The thousand years that followed are called the Dark Age both in memory to those three dark days and in understanding of the extremely tenuous peace the tribes had earned. Through the labor of the Earth ponies, the castle kingdom of Unicornia was established where my race lived in luxury and nobility over the Earth ponies, forever hanging the threat of darkness over their heads. Since the Pegasi no longer had to worry about obtaining food because of the peasantry on the ground, they built themselves a grand floating city called Pegasopolis in the clouds. While the Unicorns obtained their welfare off a threat alone, the Pegasi sometimes had to fight for their dominance over the weather. They quickly became a society of honor bound warriors. It is said that the only trade the Pegasi engaged in during those centuries was that of a warrior, ready to impose their will at any moment.”

The mare’s long speech came to a standstill as she took a moment to collect her thoughts. Taking advantage of her pregnant pause, Daemeon interjected, “May I ask you something I don’t quite understand?”

Colgate giggled, “Aren’t you suddenly a gentlecolt. You can ask me anything. I already told you that.”

Daemeon chuckled in turn, his smile widening, threatening his face with wrinkles he’d never thought he’d suffer from. He asked, “Why is it that ponies couldn’t live on grass anymore? I mean, I should guess that the food you grew would taste better, but why would anybody starve when you can eat the grass around you?”

“It’s funny you should ask,” Colgate answered. “We’re actually not entirely sure how we came to change, but the why has become apparent as modern medicine has advanced.”

“How do you mean?” Daemeon pressed.

“Well,” the mare explained, “we ponies were curious about this change for a long time. It seems to have come as a fairly sudden change over a hundred years after the discovery of agriculture. One generation of a tribe would start living on crops instead of grass, and not two generations later, the tribe would lose the ability to sustain themselves on grass. We discovered the cause only in the last three hundred years after we began comparing pony anatomy to pig anatomy.”

“Pig anatomy?” Daemeon asked, noting through a gap in the trees that the pair was nearing the street that would lead to their breakfast. “What would you learn by studying pigs?”

“A lot actually,” Colgate responded while she shifted uncomfortably in her sack. “Can you set this bag down for a bit? It’s annoying and stuffy in here.”

Daemeon frowned, immediately wishing he could just hold her openly in his arms rather than in a sack. He looked about for a place less in view of probing eyes. He was already a bit off the trail so as to avoid any interaction with the strangers walking the many weaving paths. Lady luck afforded him a cluster of trees and bushes that would serve well enough to hide him from the usual park goers. As casual and inconspicuous as a man could be, he sat himself down, extending his legs outwards and placed his Colgate before him.

Radiance.

Daemeon had only one word to describe little Ms. Minuette as the bag fell open, and she stood on all fours to stretch. The dazzling sun shot through a hole in the leafy canopy above and outlined the mare’s gossamer coat and rich blue and white mane and tail. She took to stretching her four little legs individually, twisting them forwards and backwards, making little moans of relief when they made audible cracking sounds. She shook herself, swishing her mane and tail tumultuously until they were an even worse mess than before. While her actions were mundane in fact, they caught Daemeon’s heart in his throat as he watched her literally radiate the sunlight, glowing a beautiful blue.

Radiance.

Colgate stopped her stretching after a moment and turned her gaze back towards Daemeon. To say that she blushed would have been an understatement. It would be more appropriate to say that her entire face burned red as she met Daemeon’s eyes only to see them widened and his mouth gaping at her. Her gaze immediately fell to the ground as she stuttered in severe embarrassment, “Why, why are you looking at me like that?”

Daemeon closed his eyes and shook his head suddenly, trying very hard to think coherently. It took a moment before he could gather his thoughts enough to answer softly, “I’m sorry. I just. It’s just that, I mean, I’ve never seen you in the sunlight before.”

His mare dug her hoof at the grass, not having the courage to look Daemeon in the eyes again and asked meekly, “What about it?”

Slowly, simply, with reverence, he stated, “You’re beautiful.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than Colgate flinched and turned away from him. Her reaction shook Daemeon. He pressed forward and asked gently, “Are you okay?” When she did not respond, he fearfully placed a hand on her shoulder.

The mare with her gossamer blue coat flinched from her man’s large hand and snapped, “Don’t touch me!”

Daemeon could feel his chest seize in sudden and violent panic as he begged, “What did I do! I’m sorry Colgate! I swear, I didn’t mean to hurt you!” His fear only intensified as he saw the little pony begin to quiver. Wanting nothing more than to grab her up in his arms, yet not wanting to make the situation worse, he sat panting in indecision. When he felt he couldn’t bear her cold shoulder any longer, he pleaded, “Please look at me, Colgate. You’re hurting me.”

For a third time, Colgate flinched. The pain in Daemeon’s voice was clear, and she felt it with equal sting. It was not the equal sting of that linking charm but the mutual pain of friendship, and it was far more crippling than physical pain. Taking a deep breath, the mare, beautiful in Daemeon’s eyes, turned her face back towards his, revealing a pair of crystal blue orbs welling with tears. She found herself feeling ashamed when she realized that Daemeon’s own grey eyes were tearing up as well. She didn’t have the heart to argue with him as he reached a hand to her cheek and rubbed a bead of sadness off her soft fur. She closed her eyes at the touch, waiting for the question she knew was to come.

“Colgate,” Daemeon whispered apprehensively. “What have I done that has upset you? Please tell me, so I don’t do it again.” Her man sniffled piteously before concluding, “I never want to hurt you like this.”

The mare sniffled as well. He had said something that hurt her dearly, made her remember an awful truth about herself that she often refused to think about. She didn’t want to talk about it, but the fact that she’d hurt Daemeon just because of how she reacted made her feel much worse. She gave into his anguished interrogation and the gentle strength of his hand against her face. The little, blue unicorn pushed past his reaching grasp and laid her head against his stomach. Comfort came to her as Daemeon wrapped his arms around his mare and pulled her into a hug. Her ear came to his chest to be gifted with the beat of her favorite lullaby.

They sat in silence, only the soft breeze flowing through the trees and the rumble of the city providing an ambiance to the moment. When the pair had calmed their feelings, Colgate wiggled her way out of Daemeon’s relatively huge arms. Her man was sorry to have her go but knew better than to invade her space. Colgate sat five feet apart from his cross legged form and stared through the canopy to the bright blue sky. Not a cloud was there to hinder its glory. Lost in the airy void above, Colgate spoke, “I’m really sorry I reacted like that, Daemeon. It’s just that it’s been a very long time since anypony told me I look beautiful.”

Daemeon cocked his head in confusion and disbelief. Colgate may have been the only magical talking pony he’d ever met, but he had a really hard time believing she didn’t get called beautiful often. What’s more, even if she wasn’t, he couldn’t imagine why his calling her beautiful had upset her. Something she said stood out to him and made him even more curious. “How long has it been?”

“How long has it been?” the mare echoed to herself in silence. The breeze picked up her flowing mane, blowing it behind her. She breathed deeply, preparing herself for a painful explanation, one she had not told in a long time. Without turning her gaze back to Daemeon, she began, “It’s been twenty three years since I was last told I was beautiful.”

Her answer stunned Daemeon for more reasons than one. As a firm testament to just how very little he knew about his newest and only friend, he asked, “Just how old are you?”

Sadly, she confessed, “I’m thirty seven.”

“Really?” Daemeon marveled. “You’re a lot older than I thought. I guess I wouldn’t be the one to guess the age of a pony, but you seemed so young and sweet I just figured you were in your early twenties.”

An unhappy smirk alighted Colgate’s face as she said, “You do nothing but flatter me. I may look young, but I am far from beautiful in the eyes of other ponies. In fact, as a mare I’m rather repulsive to stallions.”

“Repulsive?” her man cried, aghast. “What on Earth would be the least bit repulsive about you? You’re soft and gentle and beautiful. You’re even smart! That alone would be significant if it weren’t for the fact that you’re modest too. Is there something about the way you look that I’m missing?”

Colgate disregarded the beautiful day for a moment and turned her attention back towards Daemeon. She wasn’t crying anymore, but there lingered a pained submissiveness in her expression as though there was no hope in her. She answered him, “No. I’m the right shape and size. At least, I used to be the right size. There aren’t any glaring problems with the way I look. Even if there were, that wouldn’t be a problem the way you seem to think it would be. I should guess it’s because you’re not a pony that you don’t notice, but to anypony else, it’s painfully obvious.”

“What’s painfully obvious?” Daemeon demanded. “I don’t get it. What makes you not beautiful?”

“The way I smell.”

If Daemeon was confused before, he was completely lost then. “The way you smell?” he questioned obliviously. He paused for a moment, hoping she would elaborate without his asking. The mare seemed certain however, that her explanation was a sound answer. Cautiously, he was forced to prod, “Do you, uh, do you smell like something? I mean, if you smell bad I can’t tell. Do you have bad body odor or something?”

Colgate’s somber expression suddenly morphed into awkward horror and defensive anger as she burst out, “I do not stink!” Frustrated, she slammed her hoof on the ground and cried, “I’m barren! Okay? I’m barren! That’s why I’m not beautiful. I smell about as attractive as a ninety year old grandmare.”

“Oh,” Daemeon mumbled stupidly in his enlightenment. He wrung his hands together, unsure of how to react to her statement. He wanted to offer some words of sorrow or understanding, but her problem was quite beyond him. He instead resorted to doing what he always did. He asked the first question that struck him, “Did you just become barren recently? I mean, thirty seven is getting a little up there isn’t it?”

“No,” Colgate answered, shaking her head sadly. “Most mares are fertile until about fifty years.” She hung her head lower and lower until her entire body slipped to the ground like a mop. With her chin on the grass, she continued apathetically, “And no, it wasn’t recently. It wouldn’t have been a problem if it were. I could have had my own foals and stallion by now. No.” Her eyes began to glisten again and her apathetic voice slipped into bitterness. “I got to grow through my first years into adulthood. I got to feel what it’s like to be lush and lively, with my whole life ahead of me. Then, right when I was ready to look for a relationship, my cycles stopped.”

They sat in silence for a moment, both of them looking at the grass as her Daemeon absorbed her words. Softly, Daemeon lurched forwards from his cross legged position and splayed himself across the ground on his stomach. When this failed to grab her attention, he wriggled his face up to hers until they were only a couple inches apart. Colgate’s impossibly large eyes lifted towards her man’s own grey orbs. The smallest hint of a smile fluttered across the mare’s lips as she found herself absently lost in the kindness and strength his soft gaze offered. Daemeon smiled in turn and brought a hand forward to rest on her two petite forehooves. The gestured widened Colgate’s small smile, and she brought her head down to nuzzle her man’s relatively huge hands, reveling in the warm breath coming from his nostrils.

After Daemeon believed he’d afforded the silence its due, he relinquished to his continued curiosity, “I have no experience that can give me the strength to offer appropriate words of solace. I am without children and a wife myself, but that is through my own choice, not any impotence. It does strike me that this should be grounds for your not being married at all.” Colgate’s ears perked in interest, and she turned to regard her man more fully. “With mankind,” he explained, “we do not let fertility inhibit our desires to form relationships. We will marry even if one or both of us are impotent. Are you saying you can’t marry just because you know you can’t have children?”

Colgate puckered her face in thought, unsure of how to explain what was complicated even to her. Again she found herself in a quandary where there is very little good reason dividing what can happen and what does happen. Carefully, she said, “I’m not sure I understand your concept of marriage. In Equestria, the major point of marriage is having foals. It states that you have decided with whom you would like to dedicate your body and household. It takes a lot of work to raise a family after all, so we need to come together from our individual lives and work with each other to make it happen. It’s a sort of necessary, mutual infringement where we give up much of who we were to give to our foals. If there’s no foals to be had however, then that work is unnecessary. I suppose there’s nothing stopping me from getting married other than it being a lot of work with few benefits.”

Daemeon’s face scrunched at the simplicity of her argument. “There’s no way it’s that easy for them. They’re ignoring something.” “What about intercourse?” Daemeon countered.

The mare’s cheeks reddened a bit to hear Daemeon put the question so bluntly. It confused her that he would broach the topic at all. She asked, “What about it?”

“Do you ponies have any sort of sanctions against intercourse outside of marriage? It seems like you must since you have marriage for the context of propagation.”

“Oh!” the mare explained, standing suddenly in revelation. “Oh! Oh. Now I think I know where you’re coming from.”

Daemeon propped up his elbows to rest his chin in the palms of his hands and begged, “What do you mean, ‘where I’m coming from?’”

Colgate sat back on her haunches and grabbed her flowing blue and white tail up with her hooves to straighten up. “You’re wondering why we don’t get married as an excuse to engage each other physically.”

“Yes,” Daemeon answered, glad she wasn’t completely oblivious of the unusualness of her statements. “Do you not have to because your society has no problems with engaging each other outside of marriage?”

“Well,” Colgate began, running her hooves through her lustrous tail absently, trying to straighten out some of the knots that were forming, “that is a very long and complex story rooted deeply in our history. It dates all the way back to the Simple Era and the events that took place before that era, which you know almost nothing about aside from what I’ve already told you.”

Her man reached over and ran his finger through her tail with her. She smiled radiantly, a beauty in the sunlight, and allowed him to touch her. Were Daemeon God fearing, he might have considered it a blessed allowance. The man with the beautiful smile stated simply and softly, “We have all the time in the world. As I said, I want to learn everything about you. That includes all the chaos that has lead up to you. If you don’t mind, and I assume you don’t since you seem so happy to tell the story, I would like you to continue your history.”

Colgate chuckled and said, “You sure like to talk, don’t you. I’ve never heard anypony use so many words to ask so little.”

The man with the wonderful laugh responded in kind, “I like to talk, yes. I have so few chances to do so meaningfully. What I enjoy even more is listening and learning.” His smile dampened the tiniest bit as he explained with inward pain, “The more I learn, the better I can teach.”

So subtle was Daemeon’s inflection in the realization of what he said that it did nothing to dampen the mirth of Colgate as she launched once more into her story, “As I was saying before, the way marriage and relationships are organized is based out of the events of the Simple Era.”

Intently, Daemeon asked, “When was this Simple Era? Was it before your Tribal Era?”

“No,” the mare returned with a shake of her head. “The Simple Era started at the end of the Dark Era about two thousand years ago, when the hegemony of the Earth ponies was forced to a halt, and the three races united to form Equestria.”

“Ah!” Daemeon cried in excitement. “This was my original question. So your Equestria was formed at the end of your Dark Era, not your Tribal Era?”

“Exactly.” Colgate stopped to take a deep breath before explaining, “The founding of Equestria is immutably linked with the events that forged the Dark Era a thousand years before. As I said, the Unicorns and Pegasi had risen to hold control over the Earth ponies. Two races lived off of the third through threats and violence. The Unicorns never had to fight because they knew how to push back the sun and kill the world with darkness. They established themselves as a comfortable Oligarchy over themselves and the Earth ponies.”

“An Oligarchy?” Daemeon questioned with intrigue. “So you ponies started to form governments? That makes a lot of sense considering the fact that you left your tribal roots behind.”

Colgate smiled, glad she didn’t have to explain the word to him. “They must have similar governments then. I wonder how they live.” Not wanting to break from the story with her own questions, she continued, “Yes. It made sense for them to form into that government specifically. The fact that they did not work and living in the castles they’d forced the Earth ponies to build gave them a feeling of superiority. Because the Unicorns took so much, they were rich while the Earth ponies were poor. The Unicorns that collected the most wealth unto themselves became the highest nobility. The wealthiest pony became the king or queen over all of Unicornia.”

“Interesting,” Daemeon interjected. “Did the Unicorns give back anything in return? I can imagine their magic would have come to some use. Did they perhaps use it to help administrate their kingdom?”

The mare shook her head and explained, “Like I said, they lived on a threat of power. The Unicorns formed themselves into an Oligarchy, but they did not administer to the Earth ponies. As there weren’t any other races at the time to contend for control of the land, the Unicorns liked to write that they controlled everything. They probably thought Unicornia was bigger than Equestria is today. That was not the case however. The reality was that their borders went no further than the portcullis. They didn’t care in the least for the ponies of the Earth and did nothing to help them.”

“So what did the Earth ponies do? Did they form into a nation themselves?”

“They couldn’t,” Colgate responded. “The Earth ponies had to work so hard and spread themselves so wide to cultivate the land that they did not have the time or means to form into a kingdom.”

“So,” Daemeon mumbled in thought, “they remained as they were when they first learned agriculture?”

“Not exactly,” the mare went on. “When they first formed into villages, they still thought along the lines of tribes, independent of other tribes of Earth ponies. They lived only for the village and produced only for themselves. This created very little need for any government beyond a herd. That changed however, when the other races began making demands of the Earth ponies' crops. The Earth ponies had to learn to collaborate first to protect themselves, then more so to meet the food demands after the three days of darkness. This was difficult because of the distanced nature of the Earth ponies and the work they were forced to do. They had to create a form of government for themselves that answered their woes.”

“What did they come up with?” the man begged, lolling his head to lay sideways on the grass while he listened.

The unicorn likewise shifted more comfortably to her side and continued, “They invented Democracy. It was not nearly as ordered a structure as the Oligarchy of the Unicorns, differing little from our tribal roots, but it served the purpose well enough. They would elect representatives within villages that would represent the needs and capabilities of that village. The representatives of all the villages would then meet to coordinate village efforts and organize distribution of their crops to the other races.”

Daemeon frowned and interjected, “Representative Democracy sounds more ordered to me than a simple Oligarchy. This nation, America, was founded on almost the exact same principles out of very similar circumstances. Handling a Democracy takes a great deal of compromise and is often extremely complicated. Was theirs not the same?”

The mare returned her man’s frown, answering, “I imagine it wasn’t. You said there’s eight million humans in this city alone? We ponies have never attempted a Democracy on such a ridiculous scale. Even three hundred years ago when there were 45,000 of us, I couldn’t imagine trying to satisfy Equestria with a Democracy. With that many of us, I could imagine it getting complicated as you say. With the Earth ponies however, their needs were few and there was nothing to argue. They were not a nation as your America seems to be. They lived independent of the government for the most part. All they did as a race was work and live.”

“I guess primitive Democracy would work better than what we have,” Daemeon mused. “What about the Pegasi? You said they built a grand floating city. Did they create a government too?”

Colgate shifted onto her back, extending her four petite hooves in the air, and peered through the sparse canopy. The blue sky was almost cloudless and fairly glowed in the sunlight, much as she did. She could almost see the beauty and magnificence of Cloudsdale with its ever shining rainbows and towering columns. “I wonder what Pegasopolis looked like.” Her gaze fell from the sky to the black hooves pointing out of her blue coat and answered, “They did in fact.”

“Was it like the other two?”

“No,” she explained. “They did not have the security of the wealth the Unicorns had or the daily labors of the Earth ponies. They had to subject their will over the Earth ponies in a different way. Initially the threat of the weather was enough to put the Earth ponies in line, but the Earth ponies gradually learned that the Pegasi would be hard pressed to affect all of the crops in the land. They eventually took to refusing the Pegasi their demands.”

Daemeon followed the mare’s gaze to the sky, trying to imagine how the weather could actually be affected by little flying ponies when mankind could hardly predict what the weather would do. “What did the Pegasi do then?”

“Well, as I said before, they formed a warrior society, a Timocracy. Every Pegasi was trained from birth to be able to fight the Earth ponies and force them to give up their food.”

“But,” Daemeon stated, “you said the Earth ponies were stronger than the Pegasi and could fight them off. I thought they came to dominance because of the weather.”

“They did initially,” the mare answered, turning back towards her man. “But the Earth ponies by then had come to be too spread out. They were all forced to work too hard. They did not have the energy for a war. Plus, the Pegasi had come together and were able to attack in force, swooping down on any rebellious village. This being their whole purpose in life, the Pegasi formed a government in which the strongest, fastest, and bravest should rule over the rest. It was a society that held strictly to honor where no Pegasi should harm another. They all formed up for the greater good of their race, much as the other races did.”

Daemeon turned from the sky and looked at Colgate’s diminutive face, upside down from his perspective. He reached a hand over and caressed her ear with his thumb. Colgate closed her eyes and moaned at the touch, relishing it as much as her man did. She would have been satisfied to stop talking and just soak in the sun if Daemeon didn’t prod, “But that all changed when Equestria was founded?”

Colgate sighed, keeping her eyes closed and continuing to enjoy Daemeon’s affection. She answered almost dreamily, “Yes. Things might never have changed if it weren’t for the upset.”

“The upset?” Daemeon wondered aloud.

“Mmhmm. The three days of darkness, when the Unicorns united to push back the dawn. This event ushered in the Dark Era. It was an age of imbalance between the races where each worked only for its own ends, paying no heed to the other races, creatures, or the world around them. With both regret and thanks however, the Unicorns also changed something on those fateful nights that they had not expected and took many, many years for them to understand.”

Curious, Daemeon pleaded, “What was that?”

The mare opened her eyes, crystal blue, and explained, “It is written that it was almost imperceptible at first. The winds blew differently. Instead of single days being colder or warmer than others, groupings of days would be colder and warmer. None of the races knew what to make of it. At first they passed it off as odd coincidence, but it gradually grew more noticeable as time passed. Days grew longer, then shorter, then longer again. It was something which had never happened on Earth before and the ponies were left in confusion.

“Then the impossible happened, something which had not happened since those three nights or any time before or after. Snow disappeared where it had always fallen and fell where it had never fallen before. The winds shifted beyond what had been almost perfect predictability. The temperature stopped being consistent as it had always been from place to place. Rather, it moved places. The heat and cold, day and night, began seeming like creatures running about erratically. At the time we did not, could not understand. It had never happened before.

“We knew what snow was. To those at the time, it was the cold water that you found if you went north or south far enough. We did not hate it before. It was cold and not fit for crops, but we just avoided it. It had never come to us before. Thus, when we came to experience it for the first time we had grave difficulty coping, as did the animals.”

Daemeon furrowed his brow as he listened to her, trying to understand why she was using such vague terms to describe what happened. She spoke as though she were talking about an apocalypse, but the more he listened, the more he began to grow certain that she was speaking of something far less impressive. Yet, if she was, it would suddenly become a far more impressive thing. Taking a hesitant guess, the man asked, “Are you talking about seasons?”

Colgate nodded and continued, “The first seasons our world had ever experienced came in the years after the upset, the three days of darkness. The first summers, winters, springs, and autumns made their debut on a world that could do little to cope with them.”

Flabbergasted, Daemeon sat up and queried, “Wait. That doesn’t make sense. Wait. What? What? You mean to tell me that you hadn’t experienced a winter before then? I don’t understand. How can that be?”

With confusion of her own, the mare pressed off the ground and countered, “Do you mean your world has always had seasons?”

“Yes!” her man exclaimed in bewilderment, running his fingers through his hair. “And yours hasn’t? That’s absurd. How could it have seasons one year, but none the year before?”

“Huh,” Colgate mumbled to herself. “I guess you humans had some bad fate. There was never a time when your world was in perfect tilt?”

“Perfect tilt?” The question suddenly sparked memories in Daemeon. He rested his thumb against his chin pensively, trying hard to remember where he’d heard those words before. Stories as credible as fairy tales fluttered through his thoughts, and he slowly began to form an answer, “Actually, we have stories of a time when the world was in a perfect tilt. They’re completely fictitious of course and really very impossible, but we have them. They date back to when we were first becoming a civilized race and were learning to write. They tell of a time when the first man and woman lived on Earth. They were said to live in a paradise garden where the weather was always pleasant. People have understood that to mean that there were no seasons then.”

“Good,” Colgate exclaimed. “Then you will understand what I’m talking about. I bet the story of my history will be similar to yours.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Daemeon leaned back and said, “Please continue. You say your world was in perfect tilt, and then it wasn’t. Why?”

“In hindsight we know now that the world fell off balance because of the intervention of the Unicorns. They upset our cosmos by pushing back the sun. At least, they understood it as having pushed back the sun. In reality, we never really moved the sun. The Unicorn race merely succeeded in stopping the Earth’s rotations for three days by holding it still through a magical force held stationary by the sun which is a much larger cosmic mass.”

Daemeon’s mouth dropped open in wonder. While much of what she said sounded like ludicrous magic, it also made a lot of sense. “Then again,” he noted to himself, “A lot of things that sound reasonable are impossible.”

Colgate continued, “While the sun rose as it had every day before, it rose in a slightly different direction. The movement was imperceptible to us at first, but it grew more and more apparent as the seasons became more severe. For a thousand years, or so we can guess as years were not an existent thing until the coming of the seasons, the tilt grew more severe. Each summer was hotter than the last and each winter more bitter. The winds blew rampantly, unpredictable to the core. The harsh extremes of the upset echoed as a sort of foreshadowing of the chaos we brought on the world.”

“I can’t imagine,” Daemeon muttered. “I literally can’t. There’s no experience I or probably any human ever can compare to this.” He leaned forward again and pressed, “You said it was only like that for a thousand years though. Does that mean you fixed it?”

His mare bit her lip, trying to find the right words. “Yes, and no,” she began. “We were able to fix the chaotic seasons, but we did not have the power to return the world to what it once was.”

Daemeon smiled at the thought of another coming narrative. He crossed his legs and beckoned, “Please continue.”

Colgate smiled at his smile, happy in his happiness, eager in his eagerness, and explained, “Every year grew worse than the one before. These seasons were not like the seasons I, and I would guess we, have ever experienced. They were erratic. Winter could come next to summer with hardly a transition between. The winds did not properly disperse the clouds causing dry spells and flooding, sometimes back to back.

“While the weather was bad, the drifting days were even more unsettling in light of the upset. Some days were unreasonably long while others barely existed. While the ponies did not mind the light, the darkness was a time for sleep, and we could do little good venturing through it. To say that our crops suffered because of the inconsistent weather and sunlight would be an understatement.

“While we were only having difficulties, the animals were almost beyond salvation. They, unlike we, could not begin to understand why the world was changing. Because we had thrown it off balance, they suffered death in winters from the cold, death in the summers from the droughts, death in the darkness from predators, and even death to the predators after their prey had virtually dried up into extinction. For many hundreds of years, our world seemed to be spiraling into a cataclysm we could not initially understand or control. Many feared that we were doomed.”

“Which you weren’t,” Daemeon interjected abruptly. “I mean obviously not since you’re here to tell me this story. Did the world even itself out or something?”

Colgate shook her head softly and answered, “No. The world is not a being that rights itself. We screwed up the world when we decided that we couldn’t live as beasts in a herd. Fulfilling our desires on the intellectual level cost us the luxury of not caring about the world around us. For those thousand years, our greed could not match our wisdom, and everything, including ourselves, suffered. No. We were the ones to upset the balance, and we were the ones to bring balance back.”

“But how?” the man begged impatiently.

The mare couldn’t contain her laugh at his inflamed desire to know. “You’re funny, Daemeon. You don’t even try, and you’re funny. I’d like to hear you tell a joke sometime.” When her statement was met with a frown, she shrugged and continued, “There came a year when the winter season was so bad and extended for so many months that the whole of the three races had run out of food. Tensions ran high as each race blamed the inaction of the others for their suffering. The Earth ponies were blamed for not tending their fields properly and hoarding food. The Pegasi were blamed for manipulating the weather as the had done in the past to cause suffering on the others. Finally, the Unicorns were blamed for shifting the sun as they had so many years ago.”

“But none of that was true,” Daemeon stated as he followed along. “None of the races were trying to do things to harm the others. It was because of what happened at the upset.”

“Exactly! Now you’re catching on.” Colgate stopped to catch her breath before she lead on, “While they were incorrect in their distrust and assumption that the other races meant ill, they were not completely incorrect in their omissions that ponies were to blame. When that dreaded winter came and each race saw the others suffering, a High Summit was called, the first gathering of each race on the grounds of mutual harmony to ever take place. They came together to figure out how they might work together to survive the crisis. They thought that with all three races gathered, a solution could be found.”

“So,” Daemeon prompted, “don’t keep me in the dark. What did they decide? How did they fix the world?”

“They didn’t.”

Her man slapped his palm against his forehead in frustration and moaned, “You must have been born off a cliffhanger. Did they accomplish anything?”

“Not in any sort of unity,” Colgate continued. “The three races could not let go of the past and their mutual hatred. They discussed nothing of how to fix the mess. They only argued over whose fault it was. No decisions were reached at that first High Summit, except perhaps an agreement never to trust each other again.

“When the three races abandoned each other and convened alone, they all reached the same conclusion as to where the future would lead them. Each race left the lands they had settled for so long. The castles of Unicornia were lost and forgotten and the cloud city of Pegasopolis dispersed into nothingness. Fields the Earth ponies had worked so many years to plow and till were left to the wild, consumed. A great exodus ensued as each race sought a better land to settle, one where the winter did not go, and they could restart with a new order that did not depend on the will of the other races.”

“Did they succeed?”

“Somewhat.” Colgate stood and began stretching her legs. Daemeon caught her attention by tapping his lap. Having far too few reasons to argue and far too many to agree, she assented and crawled into his grasp. She rolled onto her back, pulling her tail over herself in modesty, and continued, “Where there was a long winter in one place, there was a long summer in another. They had to travel a great distance, each tribe going their own way, but they all collided on the same place.

“But it was all for naught. No sooner had the three races arrived in good lands then the tumultuous Earth shifted and the winter they had left behind greeted them again. While before they had had the heart to blame and hate each other, now they only knew despair. None of the three races believed they could survive another journey. They were thus lead back to square one. A second High Summit was called, up in a mountain cave to escape the winter they’d brought upon themselves. In their certainty of coming extinction, they finally let go of the past and became equal parts in a plan to save the world.”

“How did they do it?”

Colgate smiled and sighed, exhausting herself in her story. She was determined to see it through to the end however, if only for Daemeon’s sake. He liked to learn, and she had the willingness to accommodate him. She began, “They looked back on history and traced the fault to the three days of darkness. When they had agreed what event caused it, they created a three prong plan to set the world right. They understood that every single one of them would have to work hard if it was to succeed, but they had nothing left to lose aside from their lives.

“The first prong was to enlist the full strength of the Unicorns, as they had done a thousand years before, and focus their will onto the sun. They had tried this before in vain attempts to restore the world to the way it was. Now however, they directed their will to a much more plausible goal. With their collective efforts, they focused their will to affect the tilt of the Earth more favorably. In so doing, they created consistent seasons that were far more manageable. The days and nights came at regular annual intervals, and the weather ceased to be so erratic, so long as the Unicorns projected their will.

“The second prong of the plan required the Pegasi to give up their warrior lifestyles. Where before they had only ever affected the weather to cause harm, they were now called upon to bring life. Every pony with wings took flight and worked endlessly from morning to night, pushing the clouds against the winds and bringing favorable precipitation to the croplands of the Earth ponies on whom they and the Unicorns relied for food. They found working together far more difficult than merely taking by force, but they knew the old order could not survive.

“The third prong of the plan called upon the Earth ponies to take up a new labor, one they had never engaged in before. It was a labor born of practicality and a broadening understanding that ponykind was responsible for the world. Already much of the wildlife had died off. The birds, the fish, and most especially our four hoofed distant cousins. From cows and goats to pigs and sheep, the Earth ponies took into their keeping as many of these failing races as they could. They closed them up into pens and fed them, kept them warm, kept them from extinction. It was a difficulty at a time with a great many difficulties already at our hooves, but for the first time we truly understood how much we relied on each other. Our faith was that we may one day rely on those animals as well.”

“Well, that’s certainly ambitious,” Daemeon mused aloud as he scratched Colgate’s belly, being careful to avoid her bite. “I can understand the bits with the Pegasi bending the weather and the Unicorns controlling the sun, but it seems like a pretty big stretch to say that the Earth ponies would take care of the animals out of what appears to be the goodness of their hearts. From what you’ve told me, it seems uncharacteristic of what was done in the past. It would certainly be uncharacteristic of humanity. We try in small part to take care of the animals, but we do far more damage than help. What prompted the change of heart?”

Colgate hugged his hand to her chest and nuzzled his fingers again, taking pleasure in his strength. She answered him, “That is actually quite a point of scholarly debate. Much of what happened in those times was uncertain since there were few ponies who thought it important to write down what was happening when there seemed there would be none of their kind to read of it in the future. Most of what we know of the end of the Dark Era was written near the beginning of the era that came after the second High Summit.”

“What era was that?” her man begged as he lifted his mare out of his lap to cradle in his arms. “She’s the size of a large baby,” Daemeon thought to himself. “But she’s so far from a baby it’s almost unnerving. Too smart. Too observant. Too proud of herself and who she is. It’s a shame she’s rooted in the past and the lie of order.” The reflection caused him pain he was very careful not to show on his face and thus disturb his beautiful, radiant mare. “Her ignorance of me is what’s allowing this to happen. Could I ever hope to teach her my ways, why I do what I do, without making her hate me? Could I even begin to show her the fallaciousness of love without ending this animal exchange of emotions that has been pure rapture to me after such a long career of breeding despair?”

As he considered his unspoken questions, Colgate delighted his spoken ones, “The thousand year period after the second High Summit is called the Simple Era, so named for the incredible simplicity of pony life and the lack of the former governments and hegemony. It was a stark contrast to the thousand years previous as the seasons were within reason and not one war came among the ponies, whether within or without. No other races had yet risen to contest us, and while we called our new land Equestria, it was a nation only in name, hardly in fact. To be a nation would dictate a government, and we had no such thing in those centuries.”

Daemeon immediately came to the assumption that she was wrong in her explanation. A nation cannot function without a government. Even a man unto himself is a sort of government. Where there are minds to question, there is desire for order. Then in imposing order, man breeds chaos. He was genuinely curious about where she could be going with this new Simple Era, but his voice almost gave way to his disinterested distraction in his internal conflict as he asked, “How could there be no government?” Even as he asked, he continued to wonder, “She’s so lovely. She may be smart, but she cannot know to what extent she has captured me. A day and night of exchanges is hardly enough time to convey to her how she has upset all of the personal growth I have strived for. One day, I am the man of cold calculation that is necessary to teach as I do. The next, I am weeping because she reminded me of how good it feels to indulge the senses, to give into the mundane pleasures of life and forget my higher and nobler goals.”

“It’s a little difficult to explain,” the mare explained. “After the High Summit, our society was organized such that every single mare and stallion of each of the three races, from the Pegasi just learning to fly to the eldest Unicorns who had just enough strength and will in their bodies to project their magic, was required to fulfill one of the four labors of our new age. To maintain the new order, there could be no dissenting between the races. And indeed, there was none. Every unicorn was necessary to control the tilt of the Earth and the rotations of the moon. Every pegasus was necessary to control the weather and soften the severity of the seasons. And most especially, every Earth pony was necessary to meet the agricultural demands of not only the three races, but the animals they had taken into their keeping as well.”

“What could prompt the three races to behave so pointedly, in such understanding and unity?” Daemeon could thank his years of endless subterfuge for his uncanny ability to hold a conversation while his mind attended elsewhere. “I have given into her. I am weaker than I’d hoped. I’ve decided to take pleasure in her instead of enlightening her. But how long can I keep that up? Another day, a week, a year? Forever? Hardly. She must go back to her world, a world to which I have no intent to see. What’s more, she must return soon. How could I pretend to protect her from this wretched world that would steal her away from me in a heartbeat?”

“That’s the point of debate I mentioned before,” she went on, unawares to her man’s internal conflict. “So much so that stories have risen to explain our sudden changes in heart. The most popular story, the one we tell our foals before they are ready to learn some of the darker sides of the history, holds that the severe winters of the Dark Era bred magical monsters called windigoes. They are said to have fed off of hate and used that hate to propel their magic into making the winters more miserable. As the popular myth goes, the leaders of the three races discovered the existence of the windigoes at the second High Summit. They realized the monsters fed off of our hate and used this as a pretext to stop hating each other.”

Her last sentence caught Daemeon off guard and pulled him from his thoughts. In a sort of wonder, he asked, “They stopped hating each other?”

Daemeon’s question caught Colgate equally off guard. She had figured he would ask about the windigoes if he were going to ask about anything. “Well, yeah. They just put the past behind them.”

“Where did the hate go then?”

The mare pinched her brow in uncertainty. There was some intensity behind her man’s question, but she didn’t understand why. It seemed a really arbitrary and somewhat speculative point to her, something better left to scholars who worked their talent in studying pony history. After a moment of reflection however, she invented a solution of her own that seemed to satisfy the story, “It didn’t go anywhere. At least, in the context of the myth it didn’t go anywhere. You see, the windigoes fed off of hate. It didn’t have to be directed to a certain group or towards them. There needed only to be hate for them to feed on. If they were real, which most ponies believe they were, then the fact that they no longer exist would lend to the idea that there was no hate for them to feed on for a time.”

On hearing her explanation, Daemeon sighed in bereavement. This drew a frown from the mare in his arms which he instantly tried to dispel with a reassuring smile. “It’s alright,” he soothed. “I was just curious about something. I’m sorry to have to tell you that the windigoes never existed.”

Bewildered, the mare beckoned, “What makes you say that?”

“Well,” Daemeon began, “I can’t say I know anything about magic. I would not even lend any credence to its existence if I hadn’t seen the impossible with my own eyes and lived to tell stories because of it. In at least this regard, I have no basis with which to question the existence of windigoes. I hardly know of the magical or historical evidence or of how monsters can come to be in your world. The fact that I’m talking to a unicorn, before now only a creature of fancy, says enough in my eyes. There is one thing about your story I have a great understanding of though. And that’s hate.”

In confusion, Colgate pressed, “What about hate?”

With a more solemn tongue, Daemeon continued, “It is as I have said before. Where there is love, there is hate. Where there is action, reaction. There is only one true solution to solving the problem of hate, a problem that has existed since mankind, and I would assume ponykind, first went beyond the declarative, the imperative, the exclamatory, and developed the interrogative. That first ape so long ago that looked up from the back of the mate he was grooming to wonder why he groomed doomed all who followed. Where before he had only acted, now he sought a reason for why he acted.

“From there the dominoes fell. When does hate start? It starts when we ask why something happens. When a bad thing happens, we look back and hate the thing that caused it. When a good thing happens, we look back and hate what could have refuted it. We become enamored with the good and detest the bad. We seek always to bring the good, to love something because it is good, but you cannot love something without hating what threatens it. It does not matter whether the hate is passive because the threat is not there or active because a monster is about to eat you and your family. The hate is there in any case.

“So we come back to you ponies, my little Colgate. There is no chance the windigoes died from lack of hate. There is always hate wherever there is love. The only way you could have starved them is if you collectively chose not to love, and I know your race is not so enlightened. If they were, then you would not be here, demanding that I give you the answers to a happy life. I have the answer, but you refuse it as so many before you have done.”

All the while Daemeon gave his solemn statement, Colgate remained unperturbed. She saw his gloom and doom and had heard enough of his bitter reprimands of love to know that he must be wrong. “How could I be happy if I gave up love?” she interrogated herself. “I understand his reasoning, but I still don’t understand his obsession with crusading against hate.”

With a stern voice, the little, blue mare responded, “I refuse your answer because I feel it must be wrong. Love is a beautiful, wonderful thing, full of smiles and laughter. It keeps us alive and gives our lives meaning. I understand your argument about the origin of hate. I never thought of it as you do before, but I can see how hate might only result out of love. What I don’t understand is why you think hate is such a bad thing. If I will come to hate some things because I love others, is it such a bad thing? You say hate causes all hardship, but can’t it also be a good thing? Wasn’t it hating you that kept me alive when you tried to kill me? Is there no such thing as a good, healthy hate?”

Where before his expression had been grave and serious, now it became one of sadness and depression. Colgate just barely saw the tears welling in his eyes before Daemeon engulfed her whole form in a firm embrace. It stunned her, but she did not argue or resist. Her Daemeon was sad, and there was submission in her heart to do whatever it took to make that sadness go away. They sat in silence for a moment, his heart thumping in her ears and her hooves pressed against his broad chest.

Daemeon spoke first, explaining in a soft, moist voice, racked with unrequited despair, “There you have captured the true problem with a single question.” He sniffled and took a deep breath before explaining, “How can we honestly oppose hate when it seems righteous to hate the correct things? Wouldn’t it be good to hate what is bad? I have already showed you how we can’t hate an action because it causes harm. You can hardly hate the weather. You can hardly hate the lion for wanting to eat you. But then you ask if we cannot hate the intent! Surely the intent behind an action is good to hate.”

Colgate begged in a voice muffled against the fabric covering Daemeon’s chest, “Isn’t it?”

Daemeon released his mare from the embrace and set her on the green grass before him. His words came forth in reflection of an inner agony, one which seemed to have weighed him down for a long time, “Then we must find the intent, Colgate. We have tried to do that before. Remember? Do you remember the fifteen? Do you remember asking whether it was better to hate them for forcing me to hurt you rather than merely hating me?”

“Yes.”

“Then what if I took it one last step and said that they were not doing as they had done of their own volition? What if I told you that they were formed from the intentions of an entire society, of every man and woman that came before them? What if I said that every terrible thing anybody has ever done has been motivated by the deeds of everybody before them? And what motivated all of those bad deeds, Colgate? Huh? What’s the only thing that has ever caused people or ponies to harm each other when all they want is to be happy?”

In fear of the implications of Daemeon’s words, the mare could only stutter, “I, I, I don’t know.”

“Hate!” Daemeon shook as he spoke in unfathomable severity. “Hate, Colgate, is the only true intent. Hate, the spawn of love, is the only thing which one seeking to place blame could do so reasonably. You want to place blame? You want to hold people accountable for what’s in the past? You want to direct your hate? Well, there’s the rub, Colgate. The only thing you truly want to hate is hate itself. Unfortunately, you can’t use hate as a motivation to banish hate any more than you could put out a fire with gasoline. You might even try to hate love, but that is a contradiction unto itself. You would have as much luck turning left by going right, moving by staying still, or thinking by not thinking.

“We are then left with one immutable fact, Colgate. It is the answer you have been searching for. It is the explanation as to why you’re unhappy. You are unhappy for the same reason the couch is white. Our world is chaos. We try to bring order to the chaos for the sake of love, and in so doing, create the hate that harms us all. The only way we could truly be happy is to unfetter ourselves from hate. And the only way we could abandon hate is by ceasing to love each other and even ourselves.”

The silence that followed was interrupted only by the din of the never sleeping city that surrounded them. Daemeon took the time to wipe his eyes. The explanation had pained him dearly to tell. “It was for her own good. She was going to hear it sooner or later. Now that she knows, maybe she will understand and become enlightened as I have become.” The man grimaced at the thought, “But she will not be happy with what I have told her unless I can bring her to full understanding. Even then, it will be a difficult path. I know I am right, that this is necessary, but the weakness of my frail human state is bitter to think that I should turn her from love. She’s not wrong in saying that love is a beautiful, wonderful thing, full of smiles and laughter. I knew love myself after all, a great many years ago. Even in its wonder, I could not banish sadness.

“And now, just when I thought I had banished it permanently, this beautiful mare sweeps into my life and ruins my chances of removing the hate in my heart. What can my weak will do against the likes of her? Chaos, cruel chaos, undid me the moment I saw her bathing in that font of falsehood and her naivete caused me to laugh an honest laugh. What could that moment mean but the downfall of everything I worked so hard for? All my hopes for the future are shattered unless I turn away from her and abandon these actions. For indeed, these are actions, not reactions. A conscious choice my heart has made that my mind has little power against. A choice from which will spawn the perpetuation of this unhappy cycle of hate.

“I love her.”

Daemeon wanted to die the moment the thought entered his mind, wanted to burn it and himself for his failure, but he could not fight his affection. “Heart and soul I have given to her though she is unaware. If I could but take it away, I would do so in a heartbeat. Alas, I cannot! So unworthy of the knowledge I have accrued, I cannot even implement its doctrines on myself. Such a weak man as I am, how could I begin to preach what I myself cannot begin to practice. Never have I been so certain of the fool I am for thinking I could change the world. My good intentions are nothing. I can change nothing!”

The torn man opened his eyes at a touch. He looked down to see his little mare again climbing into his lap. She rested her chin on his knee, presenting her back to him. Her man obliged in glee that contrasted with his pain. She had done so little to capture his heart, yet she was his master. Daemeon had to bite his knuckle to keep from screaming as a realization came to his mind, perhaps the most devastating one of all. “I love her. And because I truly love her, I am now devoted to giving her what is best for her happiness despite my personal feelings.” Daemeon squeezed his eyes shut and tried hard to keep the hand he used to pet her from trembling. “Because I love her, I must continue her education. Because I love her, I must make sure she turns away from love. I must make sure she can never return the action. Though it kills me to bear the thought, I must redouble my efforts. With luck, sweet lady luck, maybe Colgate will turn out to be stronger than I and embrace what I have been unable to embrace.”

Daemeon was again pulled from his contemplations by a soft and ever more familiar voice, “You said I was smart, Daemeon.”

“Yes?” he returned meekly.

In a statement of fact, she continued, “You said I was discerning, Daemeon.”

“Yes.”

In conclusion, “You trusted me with your life.”

“I did.”

Colgate’s horn suddenly flared to life before Daemeon’s eyes. The spiraling cone emanated a deep blue aura that encapsulated both himself and the mare.

Daemeon remembered the first time he’d seen his mare’s magic like it was yesterday. Indeed, it was. He remembered feeling fear then, fear of the unreasonable and unknown, of the impossible. He’d fainted like a high class puritan lady at the sight of a corpse. His mind functioned around certainties, and to him, there was certainly no such thing as magic. It was merely a crude understanding of God, which was in turn a crude understanding of that which didn’t exist. An answer to fill in the gaps of logic. The convenience of mankind’s failed intellect.

His life had changed a bit since then. It is difficult after all to refute what you have seen with your own eyes. Either magic was a new reality, or Daemeon was insane beyond repair. The only thing Daemeon felt certain of now was that there were possibilities beyond what he’d imagined. Insanity? Maybe. That mattered little to Daemeon. The reasons were in the past where they belonged. He was a man who lived in the here and now. And right then, lived more than he’d ever done in his life to that point, up to that moment between moments.

They rose from the ground. It was not a pull as when you are lifted up. Rather, gravity seemed inconsequential. It gave way and Daemeon rose lighter than the air itself. His unicorn rose as well, floating just beyond his reach with her back to him. They breached a hole in the thin canopy, and went beyond.

The assent was slow at first, giving Daemeon time to take the experience in. The thousands of towering buildings that formed a rectangle around the green park surrounded them on each side. The sun flashed its glory over the city of millions, giving a shine and cheerfulness that fought against the coming winter. You might have called Daemeon’s view beautiful, a unique perspective that very few were offered. His eyes did not dawdle on the buildings however. The sun shined on only one thing that truly reflected beauty in Daemeon’s eyes.

Radiance.

Her flowing mane fell chaotically behind her, shifting softly in the the breeze passing over them. To Daemeon, Colgate was a far more marvelous being than whatever magic she employed that made them float above the trees and then the buildings. Higher and higher they went, the air subtly moving from the relative warmth on the ground to an ever deepening chill. Though his body shivered in the cold, he paid the weather little heed. His attention was elsewhere.

Time passed, though Daemeon could not say how much. He would not have even noticed that they’d stopped rising if Colgate didn’t suddenly turn in midair to face him. The dentist’s face was broadened with a wide smile that flashed her pearly white teeth, cared for meticulously over many years. She saw in Daemeon’s gaze the same intent focus he’d given her on the ground. Even in the chill air, she managed to blush and look away in embarrassment. She used the motion as an excuse to direct her eyes downward and survey the ground. Daemeon followed suit.

He was immediately impressed with how high they had come. Manhattan’s park shown as an almost indiscernible patch of green that Daemeon easily blotted from view with his thumb. The world seemed divided in half. To the east stretched the seeming infinite blue of the pacific. More surprisingly, to the west stretched New York City, as infinite in sight as the ocean itself. Daemeon had never been in a plane. He rarely left Manhattan. Pictures did little prepare him for the awe inspiring effect, the reality of eight million people. For perhaps the first time ever, the magnitude of the task before him was made clear. If he taught the whole of New York City, he would have only scratched the surface of mankind’s failings. It dampened his spirit to think that he had converted so few in so many years. He was a drop of water added to a roaring fire where petrol was fed endlessly.

While Daemeon felt discouragement at the sight, Colgate felt disbelief. “Eight million humans?” she pondered, almost fearful. “How do so many of them live so close together? What makes their permanency possible? Their technology must be far greater than I thought if they can sustain themselves and their planet like this.” She and Daemeon looked down for many minutes, each of them absorbed in the sight. With the shivering cold of the altitude and the stress such magical use caused her, Colgate directed herself towards her original purpose and whispered, “Daemeon.”

Her man turned his widened eyes to her and asked, “Yes?”

With a kind, assuring smile, she said, “Look into the sun with me.”

“What?” Daemeon cried in surprise. “No! That’ll blind us. I’m not doing that.”

Slyly, she countered, “Don’t you trust me?”

The question melted his skepticism, like wax wings up so high, and he turned his eyes upon the sun. He found himself mystified as it did not glare into his eyes as any time before. It was bright but not overwhelming. It seemed so clear to him, almost like a picture. He could swear he saw the black spots covering the sun’s surface, something impossible for a human eye. Without redirecting his gaze, he gasped, “How are you doing this?”

His mare chuckled and explained, “I told you last night. I only know three spells; levitation, fluoridation, and how to bend light so long as I have an initial source. As the sunlight comes to us, I bend away all of the harmful and overwhelming rays, leaving a view that is pleasant to see.”

“It’s amazing,” Daemeon whispered almost breathless.

He suddenly felt his head magically turned away from the sun. His eyes met with Colgate’s crystal blue orbs, impossibly huge and shimmering, and she stated in no uncertain terms, “I love this, Daemeon. I love my power and myself. I love that I can see the sun so beautifully, in a way so few others possibly can. Nothing, not you or anypony else, can change that love. All your talk of ending hate seems noble and good, but I believe you are ignoring a single, critical point. Love is more powerful than hate. Hate can be given and taken away. I hated you. And now I don’t. Love, on the other hoof, can be so powerful as to be irrefutable.”

Colgate magically directed their gazes to the sun once more and continued, “It seems to me that hate, by necessity, is always conditional. No matter how much you hate something, it can be undone. This even makes sense with your interpretation of hate. Hate, to you, always has a precondition; love. Love, as an action, needs no precondition. It can be unconditional, like my love for myself.”

“If that’s the case,” Daemeon interjected, “then why are you here?”

Colgate’s mirthful smile in the sunlight suddenly dispersed. A sad frown crossed her, and Daemeon suddenly found the pair quickly moving back to Earth. While their dissent was speedy, it did not feel like falling. Rather, it seemed that space was down, and the Earth was up. Daemeon found he couldn’t let his mind dawdle on the thought lest he suffer vertigo.

A thought struck him suddenly, and he pointed to the top of an apartment building saying, “Put us down over there. Nobody will be able to see us then.”

Colgate followed his finger and landed them atop a square rooftop. Daemeon immediately relished the feel of something solid beneath his feet. His joy was immediately dampened when his mare landed on her four hooves only to slump like a corpse onto the ground. Daemeon gasped in fear and rushed down to her crying, “Are you okay?”

His fear jumped sevenfold when he laid a hand on her side and found her as cold as ice, her ribs barely moving to gather breath and her eyes closed limply. In a panic, Daemeon ripped his shirt open, buttons flying in every direction, and hugged the freezing mare to his bare chest. Tearfully, he begged, “Please speak to me, Colgate! Please be okay! What happened? I don’t understand. You were just talking to me. For my love, Colgate, talk to me!”

There is no instrument to measure the relief that rushed through him when his precious, little mare’s eyes revealed themselves, and a small smile glowed on her cold lips. She took a deep breath and nuzzled her short snout against Daemeon’s pale breast. She had never felt his skin beyond his strong hands. To her, it was soft, smooth, tender, and so comfortingly warm that she thought, “I never want him to let me go. I wish he could hold me like this forever.”

Her musing was interrupted as something wet dripped against her flank. She turned her crystal blue orbs to Daemeon’s own dark grey eyes to find them overflowing with emotion. The fear was to be expected. Her death meant his death. The sadness also was not unknown to her. She had seen his sadness before. There was something more in that look, in his grasp, in his panicked words, something she had suspected and, up to that moment, feared. Now however, in his arms so close to him, his heart pounding a beautiful lullaby into her ears, she did not fear him. She did not fear herself. She gave to him with pure feminine delight that same sentiment he had relinquished to her.

“Daemeon,” she cooed, “I love you too.”

Words alone would have been enough to feed him joy, to know that she was neither dying nor dead. Such was his passion and attachment to her that just hearing her speak would have relieved him and made him happier than he’d ever been before. The joy he felt at hearing her speak however, could not compare with the joy he felt at the words she spoke. Just earlier, he had promised himself that he would do all in his power to make her stop loving. Now, he was glad to see his hopes fail. Such is love that it undoes everything that reason dictates.

Words failed Daemeon. Sometimes they are not enough. He could only hug her, wish her warmth, and return his love in equal measure. She continued speaking, “I’m sorry I scared you so much. I’m not dying or anything. I’m just exhausted. I’ve never pushed my magic to such limits before. Enacting two spells at the same time is taxing enough, but to do so over myself and somepony so much bigger than me for an extended period of time took almost everything out of me.”

In anger, Daemeon demanded, “Why would you do such a thing? If you lost control, you could have died!”

Colgate smiled and nuzzled him again. “It was a risk I was willing to take. I wanted you to see the futility of what you’re trying to make me believe. I wanted you to see the love I feel and realize for yourself that it’s not a bad thing. Nothing about my love of seeing the sun with my powers has caused me to hate. It has only ever made me happy.”

He did not wish to argue with her, but his conscious demanded it. He loved her. How could he not do everything he could to make her see the error of her ways? “But your magic is a part of you. You love it as you love yourself. If someone tried to take it away from you the same way I tried to take away your life, you would hate that person as much as you hated me. You can’t help but hate, and as I have shown you, there will always be hate where there is love. It’s possible that loving something isn’t wrong. It makes you feel wonderful and happy, euphoric even, but if hate is the price of love, then how can it be worth it? The world is chaos! And because it’s chaos, hate is always wrong because there is nothing you can justly hate aside from hate itself. If hate is always wrong because it is never right, then love must be wrong because it creates hate.”

Colgate’s smile faded, and she sighed sadly. Shivering from the cold and the lack of the energy she’d used to keep them floating instead of keeping herself warm, she grunted, “There’s the problem. You believe love must be bad because it causes hate, and I believe love must be good because it is better than hate. It would be convenient if each of us could agree to disagree and go our separate ways. That’s what I’d always do when I would disagree with my friend, Carrot Top.” The mare cringed in memory. “Sometimes I would even storm away from her because I thought her ideas were stupid. I would think to myself, ‘She’s just an Earth pony. All she knows about is carrots and dirt.’” Colgate’s frown became more severe as she noted, “You said so yourself. I’m a very smart pony. I’m starting to think that that’s been my downfall.”

Bewildered, Daemeon prompted, “What do you mean?”

Colgate shivered harder and Daemeon took off his shirt and wrapped it around her. Checking to make sure they were alone, he stood and took off his pants to wrap her in. Cold and personal shame mattered little to him when the mare he loved was in distress. He hugged her as close as he could and rested his bare back against the ledge overlooking the city. Thankful, Colgate continued, “I had gotten used to propelling my life on certainties. I was certain for a long time that I should be a dentist. As time passed, I became certain that other ponies hated me for who I was. Then I became certain that my job as a dentist made me unhappy. Then, with equal certainty, I told Princess Celestia that I had the wrong job, that my cutie mark was wrong.

“When I asked her to change my cutie mark, she did not say yes or no. She only asked if there was any way she could change my mind, make me realize that the mark itself was only for my benefit.” Colgate closed her eyes and pressed her cheek against Daemeon’s breast as she tried to remember. “I told her she could not change my mind. She then said something that I didn’t pay any attention to at the time, something I already knew for myself but did not truly understand. She said that we ponies are very fortunate, that an Egalitarian society doesn’t just happen. It takes unique circumstances, a unique history, to make such a thing as the peace and prosperity we have in Equestria possible. Even though she was the princess, I wrote her words off because I was so certain I was right. I even thought my certainty proved true when she sent me here. I was certain that she’d sent me so I could earn a new cutie mark, a chance to combat what cruel fate and our cruel order had dealt me.

“Are you no longer so certain?” Daemeon begged with intrigue.

The mare shook her head and answered, “No. She never said that coming here would change my cutie mark. She didn’t even know where I would go. All she said that she knew was that I would be changed before the end. At first I was certain that meant I would change my cutie mark, but now, I believe that is not the case.”

Daemeon nodded knowingly and stated in no uncertain terms, “You love your job.”

The statement caused the dentist to smile, flashing the pearly whites of her trade. “You noticed too?”

In affirmation, he answered, “You never mentioned it without a smile. Then that smile always disappeared when you would say that you had given it up. Circumstance dealt you a passion that you are very best at. You enjoy your job because you know it adds to your world, helps the ponies in a significant way.”

The mares smile mellowed, and she countered, “You say circumstance. I do not believe it was circumstance. My fear from the beginning is that my job was magically forced on me, that order dictated I should be this way, and I had no choice of my own. I am still under the belief that I am this way because it was determined before me, without my consent.”

Daemeon furrowed his brow in confusion and asked, “Why would you think your society forced you to be a dentist? You said you discovered it for yourself.”

The mare sighed and answered, “That’s because you don’t know our full history. You have only heard half the story. There was a time when we did not have cutie marks.”

With growing interest, Daemeon pushed, “When was that?”

Colgate smiled at his eagerness, his desire to know. The hours were passing, and he would not cease begging. With exhaustion evident in her voice, she answered, “We never had cutie marks until one thousand years ago, at the beginning of this era, the Reform Era.”

The tiredness of his loved mare did not escape him and he said, “I think we’ve talked enough for now, Colgate. You don’t seem up for it.”

“No!” Colgate shouted unexpectedly. She cleared her throat at the outburst and said, “I feel like we’re close now, too close. I feel like I, we, are on the precipice of understanding the truth.”

“What do you mean?”

The dentist sighed, shaking away her weariness, and explained, “Despite everything you say, Daemeon, about fate or the lack thereof, I believe I was sent to you for a reason. I believe you have the key to discovering why I, why we, are unhappy.”

A little crosser than he’d intended, Daemeon demanded, “What makes you think I’m unhappy?”

Colgate smiled at his outburst. The smile was not out of condescension but love for even her man’s more volatile side. She explained honestly, “You’re not unhappy now. You have me. I make you happy. Before I made you happy though, you only frowned, only glared, only lied, only cried. It seems to me that the moment you started loving me was the moment you were happy enough to laugh instead of saying it was a stupid thing that fed only on other people’s pains.”

Daemeon could only marvel at her perceptive, introspective nature. She was beginning to know him as well as he knew himself. His ego deflated, he admitted, “You are right. I never was happy. Happiness scared me growing up. It meant that I had become lax in my teaching. I felt I should not be happy until the world knew better, until it knew that there is no God and that chaos rules the universe. For many years, I have denied myself even simple happiness, like the kind you get from eating ice cream.” Daemeon sighed painfully as he thought back on just how unhappy his life had been since he’d killed his mother. “Happiness is the first step to loving something or someone. And of course, love leads to hate. I felt the only true happiness anyone could pursue was knowledge of good and evil.”

The questioning turned to Colgate as she asked, “What do you mean?”

The teacher sighed and closed his eyes. He gathered his words, a formidable army of all he knew, and began, “Mankind’s ultimate downfall is also mankind’s only hope of salvation. When that ignorant ape so long ago first questioned something, he sought knowledge. From then on, we have always sought to answer what is good and what is bad. It started with simple things. How better to live. How better to build. How better to feed oneself. We labeled whatever aided us in bringing pleasure as good and whatever hindered our pleasure as bad.

“As we have grown as a species, our perception of exactly what is good and what is bad has changed with our knowledge. It has matured. We grow closer to answers all the time, discarding fallacious lies of the past as they become dated, like the concept of God. Knowledge is always moving forward like that. We’re always becoming smarter because we can look back and see what was done and learn from it. There might be hiccups in the road, but we always push forward. It’s what separates us from animals. They have only their instincts while we have the ability to learn.

“Unfortunately, our knowledge has always been imperfect, and we have mistakenly linked love to goodness and hate to badness without discerning any real solution choosing the good. The problem with doing that is we are inclined to use our knowledge of good and evil to choose the good and disregard the evil. That doesn’t work with love and hate though because you can’t love without hating. Since the two can’t be separated, we must either quantify them both as being good or being evil. Since hate is the source of all conflict and tragedy between peoples, it cannot be good. We are thus lead to conclude that both love and hate are evil.”

“If that’s the case though,” his mare interjected, “then how can you be happy? Without love, where is joy? What could possibly be the pleasure in believing love is evil?”

“There you make an honest mistake, Colgate,” Daemeon explained. “You have unjustly quantified love with happiness. Love is an action. Happiness is a reaction. You can’t force happiness. It is the result of a circumstance, just as unhappiness is. Love may cause happiness, but it also causes unhappiness. Even hate can cause happiness! Revenge causes happiness, just as when you bit me. Revenge also causes unhappiness, just as when the bite harmed yourself. But don’t you think revenge prodded by hate is a bad thing?”

In reservation, Colgate assented, “Yes.”

“And just why is that?”

The mare chewed her lip wearily and answered, “Because revenge leads to counter revenge. Hate spreads hate. Violence spreads violence. It spreads unhappiness.”

“Did you ponies always understand that?”

“No,” Colgate mused aloud. “We didn’t really understand how bad revenge was until the end of the Dark Era. Before then, we always thought it was necessary for what was done in the past.”

Daemeon smiled in triumph and stated, “There you have it! In your own history, you can see the answer. Karma undone, you learned better than to seek revenge for pleasure. You learned to seek better things. Because you understood the difference between good and evil, you saved yourselves. This is true happiness, for surely you were happy to be alive. Knowledge made you happy, not love.”

“”If that’s true,” Colgate pleaded, “then why were you unhappy until love came along?”

The cutting question caused Daemeon to sigh in sadness. The answer pained him and made his existence insignificant in his failures. He pleaded, “How can I afford happiness in knowledge when I am the only one who could bask in its reality? The ultimate goal is in sight, the ultimate happiness, the salvation of humanity. I am also plagued with knowing that doing for all is better than doing for one. How can I be happy unless I spread the message and bring the whole world to enlightenment?”

“You are happy now.”

Her words stopped Daemeon’s rant cold. He could not refute her words. He looked at her knowing smile and wondered, “How can happiness from love feel so good?”

The mare continued, “But you will not always be happy.”

Curious to see where she was going, Daemeon only nodded.

Colgate sighed and stated, “I love my job. I always have. But, as you said, it seems we can love something and be unhappy. We can love and still hate. I have. You have. I have always believed it was good to love good things and hate bad things. I have followed this line of reasoning all my life and yet, my unhappiness has outweighed my happiness.” The mare lifted a hoof out of the confines of Daemeon’s shirt and pants and stroked his chin softly saying, “You believe it is only good to disregard love and hate and yet, your unhappiness has outweighed your happiness.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying,” Colgate began, “that maybe, just maybe, we’re both wrong about something.” Her voice sounded with authority as she continued, “I wouldn’t be here if I was right, and I believe you wouldn’t be here if you were right. I think we have both been wrong, and whether it be luck or fate, we have a chance to find the true solution, the answer to truly being happy.”

Genuinely intrigued, as there was a case to be made about furthering knowledge through a mutual exchange, Daemeon begged, “And just how would we do that?”

Colgate shivered and pulled her stroking hoof back against her chest. Daemeon responded by pulling his bare legs up to his chest, making a cocoon for her as he had done the night before. His little Colgate smiled and answered him, “I think it’s just as Princess Celestia said. I think the answer might be in our history. Equestria is so beautiful and peaceful. We ponies are free to pursue our desires and wise enough to know the good desires from the bad. I think we might come to a new understanding if we look at it together.”

Daemeon considered her words for a moment. “She might just have a point. I haven’t heard much of her world, especially at the time she lives in. If her world is so pleasant while this one is so wretched, then maybe hers has learned things we have not. That is why I wanted to know of her world in the first place. That is why I’m always curious. Knowing the past gives us the power to affect the present and create a better future.”

Consenting, Daemeon said, “I see no reason why we can’t continue. I do not believe I am wrong, but I do know that many great and intelligent men have been wrong before me. Speak then. I believe you were telling me about the birth of cutie marks.”

“Yes,” his mare responded, happy to be continuing the story. “Though, I’m afraid going directly to cutie marks would be a little premature. That came a thousand years ago you see. We left off two thousand years ago.” The mare’s eyes drifted beyond Daemeon into the blue expanse above. She was glad she had the mind and wit that allowed her to recall old history like she had learned it a day before. She would have made an excellent historian. “Hmm,” she mused. “Actually, maybe it’s not getting ahead of myself.”

Daemeon tried hard to keep from shivering in the mild chill. It was not a bad day but being in nothing but undergarments on top of a fairly tall building, exposed to the breeze, made for a less than pleasant experience. It was nothing to him however. If only Colgate was safe. He asked intently, “Why not?”

“Well,” she began, “everything in the thousand years before the cutie marks sort of built up to them. They were, in a sense, the solution to the troubles unique to the Simple Era, the first thousand years after the formation of Equestria.”

“Why was it called the Simple Era?”

Colgate chuckled and answered, “It’s not a very creative name. The era was called simple because it was simple. It was the first time in history that there was no conflict between the races. The Unicorns, Pegasi, and Earth ponies formed a symbiosis in the aftermath of the Dark Era that allowed for no internal conflicts. This was also a time before the discovery or rise of other intelligent races. We were alone, supreme over the world as we knew it, and at peace. Every pony had a job, one which he or she was educated to do from birth. There was no questioning what was expected of you. There was no fear of the unknown. From birth to death, everything was simple.

“We catered to the animals, the weather, and the celestial bodies. For the better part of a thousand years, after century after century of warfare and hegemony, we had earned harmony. After coming so close to our extinction, we taught our future generations to think nothing of wild passions or overzealous desires. To keep the world in balance for the betterment of our species, we formed a commune of total equality where you did your job, ate your apples, and lived until death. The race you were born into determined who you were and there was to be no argument otherwise. It was at this time that we instituted the concept of monogamy on a social scale.”

“You mean marriage?”

“Yes,” she continued. “Before this time, it was always seen as better to populate as much as you could as fast as you could without regard to the consequences. Such was our older herd mentality that the moment a mare was in heat, every stallion with potency took her in an effort to impregnate her.”

“Yikes.”

Colgate chuckled while shivering again with cold and also with revulsion. “You can say that again. Thankfully, we did away with that and created the necessity of marriage between a mare and a stallion. This did wonders to curb population growth while at the same time creating the family unit. This was key to our new commune’s success.”

Intrigued, Daemeon pressed, “Why would that be? I would think trying to recreate mating habits would anger a society. It certainly doesn’t work well here. We have a marriage institution, but it is not mandated. People are allowed to have relations with whomever they want whenever they want. The only real laws that are enforced strictly prohibit underaged intercourse.”

“Well,” she went on, “the new society we set up ran counter to personal ambitions. It was greed and ambition that had been our downfall in the Dark Era. After the second High Summit, it was realized that there must be a new motivation for society beyond personal want. The formation of family units and monogamy tied foals not just towards their mothers but their fathers as well. With most of the population having to worry daily about not just themselves but their offspring as well, their was a much greater push towards concession to the commune.”

“You keep calling it a commune,” Daemeon interjected. “I’m not certain I know what you mean though.”

“Oh! Well, it was called a commune because we lived as total equals. There were no classes. There were no wealthy or poor. There was no government aside from the home, and every home lived the same. There was no currency. Everypony was expected to work and everypony got the same rewards. Dissenters or the lazy were criticized and prompted by their peers into motion. Nopony was subject to any laws because everypony was educated on what they would do and how they should act right from birth. Nopony held dominion over another.”

“Unbelievable!” Daemeon cried. “Scratch all the lunacy and magic off the board. We have a true winner for most impossible feat done. A perfect Communism!” The man slapped a hand against his forehead and pulled at a lock of his hair. “It’s illogical. No society can come together in such conformity around such archaic ideas. The closest we’ve ever come is by convincing everybody that God would go bump in the night if they didn’t behave. And even that was not enough. Surely this system could not have lasted more than a few decades. Would not a tyrant have risen to assume control?”

With a shake of her head, Colgate answered, “Not for a few decades or even a few centuries did it last. For almost a thousand years, this order ruled, this Communism as you call it. No tyrant rose to end the society. It buckled after a thousand years because of a catastrophe born of widespread unhappiness and a unique individual who catalyzed the discontent of the ponies.”

Daemeon stroked his lengthening beard, no longer a mere shadow, and mused, “No dictator but there was discontent. What was this discontent? Did it stem from some flaw in the Communism? Communism has never worked well in this world because of its many pitfalls. For instance, did laziness supercede desires to keep the new order going?”

“Surprisingly, no,” Colgate answered, sighing in continual exhaustion. She’d only been awake a few hours but the endless conversation and use of magic had drained her. She was too tired to even remember she was hungry. Still, she felt she must press on. She had to see this story through. She continued, “I can understand why you would think it would be that. I believe the commune only worked because of the unique circumstances and overwhelming responsibility we had shouldered. Laziness meant failure for our system and suffering for all. Everypony knew that. Everypony lived it. Everypony thus worked as hard as they could for their progeny depended on them.

“Your first guess of a dictator coming to power is closer to what actually happened. The only flaw in the system was its simplicity. As generation after generation lived and died doing the exact same work day in and day out, year after year, a discontentment rose in the populace. In hindsight, we understand the problem. We know that life is not merely for living. They lived, but they did not live well.”

“Live well?”

Colgate nodded and explained, “By turning as a society into that symbiosis, we tried to refuse a fundamental fact about what it meant to be intelligent. We gave up our individuality. Our minds were so focused on living that we would not allow for anything else. To put it simply, there were Earth ponies that did not want to farm or herd, there were Pegasi who did not want to control the weather, and there were Unicorns that cared nothing for the celestial bodies.

“The dissenters were few at first. Extinction has a way of making a society malleable towards change. As centuries passed however, the unrest became more and more unmanageable. There were ponies who wanted nothing more than to learn of history, ones who wanted to rediscover music, ones that wanted to revive lost arts, ones who wanted to invent and imagine, and ones who wanted nothing more than to dance. Everypony had desires beyond their simplistic lives, but none were allowed to pursue their dreams.”

“I still don’t understand. Why weren’t any of them allowed leeway? Would it cause so much harm to let a few do as they pleased?”

“I imagine you’re smart enough to see the flaw with that plan,” the mare pointed out. “Do you really think it would have stopped with the few? The moment the society made any allowance for individuality, it would crumble. What was one pony consumed with art would become a hoard made of thousands declaring that they wanted better than the simple commune. What then? The animals would have gone uncared for. The weather would have flooded wildly, destroying the agriculture. And the Earth would have lost the careful tilt the Unicorns had to work so meticulously to keep. One allowance would mean a return to the disorder of the Dark Era. The only thing more terrifying than not living well is not living at all.”

Her man nodded his agreement. Men had to eat bread before debating philosophies after all. In concern for his little unicorn friend, Daemeon asked, “Are you warming up at all?”

Touched by his worrisome question, she answered him, “Mmhmm. You’re very warm.” She giggled like a school filly and nuzzled his breast again. This drew a warm laugh from her man, one she was glad to hear. His pleasures were her pleasures and vice versa.

Daemeon's laugh ended awkwardly as he said, “I’m glad. I mean, I’m really glad. I really love holding you like this. You’re so soft and cuddly. Even with you being ice cold, this is warming my heart.”

His mare blushed again. This time however, she made no effort to hide her face. Her feelings were for Daemeon, and his sweet sentiment did not conflict her heart. Rather, she continued to be dumbstruck by the idea that they’d fallen for each other in the span of a day. She’d never experience such high highs and such low lows as she had in the last twenty four hours. It was like being on a nonstop roller coaster that just kept getting faster and faster. Right then, with her man’s statement, she felt as though they’d reached a glorious peak and the whole world was before them. With an audacity that certainly would have been frowned upon in her perfect society, Colgate lurched out of the confines of Daemeon’s clothes and planted a firm kiss against her ugly ape’s huge lips.

His mare’s forwardness caused Daemeon’s mind to go completely and utterly blank for a moment. She had kissed him once before, but it had only been on his cheek. Even then, it had only been for a couple of seconds. This time however, she did not let up, and Daemeon regained his mind enough to melt into the kiss himself. His hand rose to clasp the back of her head, his fingers running through her messy coiffure of white and blue. He found it both exhilarating and almost horrifying that he should be kissing a twenty something pound pony unicorn. Stranger still was the fact that he enjoyed it as much as he did.

Long was that moment between moments before the pair broke apart in very hesitant smiles. They looked into each other’s eyes, grey contrasting blue, and were still, save for their mutual panting at the sudden and passionate exchange. Gradually, their tenuous smiles began to fade as the reality of what had just transpired struck them. While it was one thing to admit their love for each other, this was another terror altogether. What was passion to two different species when such a thing was not even possible?

Colgate cast her eyes downward, unable to bear what she had just done. Daemeon responded by pulling her face into neck and nuzzling the top of her head with his beard scruff. Minutes rolled by with neither being certain of what to say. Daemeon was the first to speak, admitting something he’d never said aloud to anyone, “I’ve never kissed a woman.”

His mare twitched her ears at the unexpected confession. If only to ward off the unbearable silence, she confided, “I guess that puts us on the same level then. I’ve never kissed a stallion before.”

Surprised, her man held her back and prompted, “Really? You’ve never. . . you know?”

“No,” she said shaking her head. “And you?”

“No.”

Still in uncertainty, she beckoned with hesitance, “Do you mind me asking why not?”

Daemeon bit his lip, looked away, and answered, “I’ve never trusted anybody enough for something like that to happen. You?”

Again she shook her head, sadness evident in her expression, and explained, “No stallion wants to lay with a barren mare.”

Both in curiosity and in an effort to keep the conversation going, her man asked, “Is that because of marriage in your society? Are ponies only allowed to engage each other in a marriage that can produce offspring?”

The sadness in his mare’s expression slackened a little as something in Daemeon’s question struck her as odd. “Ponies can engage each other whenever we want. Why would we wait until after marriage?”

Glad to see the conversation rolling away from awkwardness, Daemeon explained, “That’s considered to be the noble thing to do in this world. A man and a woman get married. Then they have intercourse to produce children. Is it not the same with your marriages?”

“No,” Colgate answered in obvious confusion. “That sounds like an awful way to do it. What if they don’t conceive? What if the man is impotent?”

Her answer took Daemeon aback. He explained, “Then they are in poor luck, I guess. It’s not a huge deal though. I mean, couples marry without planning to have children all the time.”

Aghast, Colgate cried, “What would be the point of getting married then?”

Daemeon shrugged and answered nonchalantly, “So they can be together.”

“Are they not allowed to be together before marriage?”

“Well, yeah,” Daemeon continued. “I mean, people can engage each other whenever they want before and after marriage. We only have age restrictions.”

Growing even more bewildered, his mare pressed, “Then what’s the point of marriage? Wouldn’t that just be a complicated, forced monogamy on a pair of humans? What would hold a marriage together without foals?”

“Love?” the man answered, unsure of the word even as it left his mouth. “Marriage also comes with a lot of benefits from the state. As complicated as it sounds, a marriage actually makes it easier for a couple to live.”

“Our state gives benefits to marriages as well,” Colgate countered, “but those are for the benefit of the foals. It’s expensive and difficult to raise a foal. Why would you give those same benefits to two ponies without a child? Doesn’t that kind of undo the system’s purpose and create an unnecessary drain on the tax base?”

“Well, yes. It does. But that’s a risk every marriage takes. I don’t understand why this all sounds so weird to you. How do you ponies do it?”

“Two ponies don’t get married until they claim ownership of a foal,” she elaborated. “Usually a mare realizes she is pregnant and will approach the stallion who laid with her with a marriage declaration. They then spend the duration of the pregnancy reorganizing their lives around taking care of the foal. So long as the mare is pregnant and has the foal, they are officially recognized as being married.”

Immediately recognizing many different holes in her explanation, Daemeon demanded, “What if the stallion doesn’t claim ownership of the foal? The purpose of marriage in our society is to ensure that any children born within a marriage must be cared for by both members. What forces a stallion to take care of a foal?”

The mare’s eyes widen in horror as she answered indignantly, “Does maybe the fact that it’s the stallion’s foal make any difference? This is absurd. Is your species so crass that they feel no responsibility for even their own offspring?”

Daemeon dialed back a bit as he realized the absurdity of his own question, so much prompted by modern conceptions of responsibility. With a touch of sadness, he explained, “You really do live in a fairy tale world. I regret to say that humanity lacks some of the moral high ground you ponies seem to have built a castle on. We are not all that bad, but certainly you are not so perfect either. There has to be at least some instances of immaturity in your society where a stallion or mare fears the fiscal and life consuming responsibilities of raising a child. If nothing else, accidents must happen that call for strenuating circumstances. What is done in those cases?”

Softening her own tone, Colgate answered, “We aren’t perfect either. Things like that do happen. Fortunately, our society has pitfalls within community living that allow for such problems. A foal can always be adopted by another pair of ponies. Adoption does not occur on any large scale, but when the need arises, such foals often go to couples that cannot produce but have wanted foals of their own.”

“But,” Daemeon stuttered, “but I thought you said stallions do not wish to form relationships with barren mares. Does it happen and you’re just unlucky or what?”

Instead of getting upset at the remark, the mare tilted her head curiously and asked, “Wouldn’t that be obvious? Maybe your species doesn’t have the same quirks ours does.”

“What do you mean?”

“The infertile couples I’m referring to are pairing of mares with mares and stallions with stallions. Does none of your species find any attraction in their same gender?”

“Oh!” Daemeon cried, genuinely surprised at her calm demeanor towards such a topic when she’d seemed on the verge of bursting only moments before in regards to his world’s conception of marriage. “We have such people of course. It’s not a huge population, but they are prevalent. I just didn’t expect your ordered society would allow for marriages between two members of the same gender. A lot of people in this world campaign against the very idea, calling it an abomination.”

Colgate scoffed and demanded, “Why would they think that?”

“A lot of reasons,” Daemeon answered, shrugging his shoulders. “The reasoning essentially boils down to a sentence some guy wrote down in some history of some nation thousands of years ago. Because there was a social prejudice in the nation he lived in against such couples, he said that same gender relations were an abomination against God because they could not produce offspring. Unfortunately, that nations history became famous and literally hundreds of millions of people, if not billions, have read that sentence and used it as a holy edict to war against the obscene desires of such men and women.”

From her seat in his lap, Colgate’s only response was to raise an eyebrow and ask, “Seriously?”

“Yep.”

“How’s their war going?”

Daemeon couldn’t help but laugh and admit, “Not too well. As we get smarter, it becomes more and more apparent that people are more or less predisposed to it from an extremely young age. Also, the understanding that same gender relations are common among animals has sort of defeated the argument that it’s unnatural. Though, by that same token, you could argue that rape and cannibalism are natural, so you get a lot of nitpicking over details.”

“I take it you don’t support the side that oppresses same gender couples?”

“Actually,” Daemeon explained, “I’ve never had much of an opinion on the matter. In a distant sense, I kind of figured a utopian society would have somehow done away with it. That said, I am somewhat enamored with older ideas of order. People in ages past have expressed stronger communal moralities than you’ll usually find nowadays. That’s why it surprised me that your society would allow for it. I assume you do not care for mares yourself?”

The mare shook her head and countered, “You?”

Daemeon chuckled and answered, “I can’t really say. I’ve never sought out a relationship with anyone be it man or woman. I made a conscious choice decades ago to give myself up for humanity and pursue my teachings.”

“Speaking of which,” Colgate asked, “just what do you do to teach. You wouldn’t tell me this morning.”

“No!” Daemeon averted his eyes instantly and stuttered for an answer, “I told you. I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

Looking a little hurt, the mare begged in a soft, feminine voice that played sweetly on Daemeon’s sensitive ears, “Don’t you trust me?”

“Don’t do that!” Daemeon cried anxiously.

“Do what?” the mare countered innocently.

In exaggerated pain, he laboriously shouted, “This is another reason I have avoided women. You are tricksters, every last one of you! So sweet and kind and gentle you are. So tender to embrace. You weaken every faculty of reason with naught but pleading eyes. A woman could make a politician weep for his crimes, and I have fallen in love with a master among masters!”

His little Colgate was almost in tears from laughing at his rant. She slid off his lap and clutched her belly as she rolled around, thoroughly unable to contain herself. Through her tears and ragged breaths, she managed to say, “You are more dramatic than Rarity! Does the big boy have a couch he weeps sonnets on too?”

Her joy being his, he was caught up in her laughter as well. Taking advantage of the situation, he pounced on her diminutive form and sent probing fingers against the belly she clutched at. In seconds, her laughter turned into pitched squeals as Daemeon tickled her relentlessly. She kicked her four petite hooves furiously and cried in something akin to pain between labored breaths, “No fair! No fair! I can’t use my magic when you’re tickling me. I can’t! Stop! I’m tired! I’m sleepy! Please!”

Before he could make his mare too uncomfortable or angry, Daemeon ceased his dreaded torture. The exchange had been so physical that both of them were left panting, giggling, and perspiring in the cool breeze. Daemeon collapsed beside Colgate and hugged her breathless form against his bare breast, relishing the feel of her gossamer fur against his smooth skin. They panted together, and again her man’s heartbeat was in her ear. Her smile was so severe that it almost hurt. Again she nuzzled his chest, glad the awkwardness was so quickly put behind them.

Daemeon did not let too much time pass before he stated with a gravity she had not expected, “You have me in your hooves, Colgate.”

Worried at the sudden change in demeanor, she looked into her man’s eyes and asked, “What do you mean?”

Daemeon sighed, afraid of the truth of what he was about to say, and explained, “You have me. I love you with an undivided heart. It could not be divided as it loves nothing other than you. I want nothing more than to see you smiling and happy. Because of this, I will do anything I can to make you happy. This includes doing most anything that you ask of me. I will hate anyone or anything that tries to harm you. I will keep you safe, even if it means my own death.” He stopped to take another deep, shaky breath before concluding, “So if you force me to tell you the whole truth, the truth about what it is that I do, then you need only ask, and I will tell you. The only thing that I can hope is that you do not force me. I promise I will tell you myself when I believe the time is right.”

Touched by the sincerity and immutability of his words, she assented, “We already decided we were sick of talking about you earlier. You wanted to hear about my history, not yours.”

Daemeon smiled with relief that his time as Colgate’s friend was not at an end and said, “We did agree to that. Back to it then. You were speaking of the discontentment of the ponies at living in the commune.”

“Yes,” she said with a smile. “Here’s where we come to the most interesting part of pony history.”

“It gets more interesting?” Daemeon asked skeptically.

Cheerful, she answered, “Indeed it does. The commune reigned unquestioned for almost a thousand years. It worked almost perfectly for the sole reason that opposing it would lead to the certainty of despair from the Dark Era. The ponies were unsettled and grew more unsettled with every generation, but the commune might not have ended if it weren’t for the dreams of one unicorn stallion, Starswirl the Bearded.”

“Interesting. You’ve never mentioned a name before. Why is that? Have there not been any important names?”

“Oh, no,” Colgate explained. “There are plenty of names. There are even a few I could have mentioned, but none of them were truly key to understanding our history as Starswirl is. Also, I may have a passing interest in history, but I’m no historian. I’m really only giving you very broad strokes. Learning everything would take years of study.”

Satisfied with the answer, her man prodded, “Okay. What did this Starswirl guy do that was so important?”

“Well,” his mare began, “to understand what he did, you must realize that he was a unique individual. He was born with such a predisposition towards magic that his natural power outstriped any who came before and all who have come after. He did not just know magic well, he invented magic. In fact, we attribute the core of each of the digressions of magic aside from alteration and illusion to him. Not even the best of his many arcane creations have risen above him. He was the only mortal said to have been more powerful than our matriarchs.”

“Whoa, whoa whoa!” Daemeon cried. “Back way up there, Colgate. Did you say mortal?”

“Yes. Why?”

Having to steady himself even as he was laying on the ground, he begged the obvious question, “Mortal, as in, there are immortals in your world?”

“Oh!” the mare exclaimed in realization. “I suppose you wouldn’t have immortals here if you don’t have magic. It’s a good thing I didn’t mention them before. They actually didn’t exist until Starswirl the Bearded created them. But that’s getting too far ahead at the moment. I’ll get to them. I promise. For now, I need to start with Starswirl’s first infamous exploits. Okay?”

The man with the wonderful laugh let one loose and acquiesced, “If you say so, dearie.”

She continued with a smile, “Starswirl was considered to be a terrifying radical to most. His magic was so powerful that he was able to evade the stigma of working in the commune by pioneering the first use of the blink spell. Through will alone, he learned how to teleport himself out of trouble. Indeed, he seemed a menace threatening the harmonious order of the commune by refusing to direct the sun like every other unicorn. The society almost felt prompted to kill him altogether.

“To some however, he was a hope for change in a world where such hopes were long lost. Starswirl refused to focus on the sun because he felt every ounce of his power should be focused into discovering a magical solution. He was successful in this endeavor because there were many who protected him and fed him. For a long time, he worked on a spell he felt would set the sun as it had been before. He thought that he alone could affect the world’s tilt and put it into the harmony we had before the upset. He believed that by freeing the stress put on the Unicorns and Pegasi by having to care for the sun and weather, pony society would finally earn the elbow room it so desperately needed to expand beyond simplicity. With the world in perfect tilt, we could even relinquish the care we gave to the animals. Every facet of pony life would be improved.”

“Did he succeed?”

“No,” Daemeon’s mare answered with a sigh of resignation. “He believed he had found a solution, but stated sadly that the combined might of all the ponies magics and wills from all of history could not approach the magnitude of what he proposed. When he found his answer, he gave up trying to fix the Earth’s tilt and sought a different means of fixing the woes of our society.”

“He had unusual conviction in this regard. There is a famous quote regarding the solution that has passed down in history. He said, ‘Only the stars will aid in our escape.’ He believed that we could not fix the Earth’s tilt by balancing our will against the sun alone. He said we needed to focus our will on many different stars circling us in the cosmos. His understanding was that we could use them as added support to anchor the tilt magically. By coming from many different directions at the same time, it could be possible.”

“That’s intriguing,” Daemeon interjected, “but stars are almost infinitely further away from us than the sun. It only takes seven minutes for sunlight to hit us from our sun. The closest solar system is almost four light years away!”

Colgate nodded and explained, “That’s why Starswirl gave up on that plan. Since there was no way to fix the sun again, he turned to an alternate plan. He set his mind to the creation of a magical being that would solve our problems in a different way. His plan resulted in the creation of the world’s first immortal, Discord.”

“Hold up a second. You’re going to have to slow down and tell me why and how he did that.”

“I know. I’m getting to that.” With another affectionate nuzzle, she continued, “Starswirl invented the magical art of transmutation, the magic of transforming one essence into another through a projection of the will. Simple transmutation ascends even our modern understandings of chemistry in its potency to bend matter at the atomic level. A clever handling of such magic can turn lead into gold, worms into caterpillars, and fire into snow.

“Starswirl believed he saw in this branch of magic a solution. He found that such magic was not limited to his will alone, but to any who projected their with his. It didn’t even matter if they were a unicorn! Starswirl could act as the point of provocation for a spell and direct the focused energy of everypony else into the target subject. Because such magic did not require his will alone, he believed that, with the proper direction, he could theoretically create a being more powerful than himself. If his presumption was correct, said being could be vastly superior to him in every way save through creativity. Transmutation cannot add intellect that was not there already.

“Starswirl made this proposition to all those among the ponies who felt change was necessary. He said that he could create a being that could provide for every desire that pony individuality strived for if everypony gathered to him and projected their combined wills into one great spell. This creature, he said, would be a genie of sorts. Everypony who projected the force of their willful desires into the beast at its creation would give it the power to conjure said desires into existence. This beast would achieve everything the ponies wanted, and they would no longer have to worry about working to keep the commune alive.”

“You keep saying creature,” Daemeon interjected. “Did Starswirl not know what it would look like?”

“He actually had no idea what the creature would look like. He would use a starting host of course, but with so many wills working with his own, even he couldn’t predict what the final result would be. When all those who wanted to see their desires fulfilled gathered around him for the summoning, he manifested the spell into a fly. The result was a horror that went beyond what individual minds can imagine. Indeed, we created an incarnation of desire; Discord, the spirit of disharmony.”

“So that’s a literal thing, this Discord?” Daemeon said in wonder. “I thought you were speaking symbolically when you said ponykind defeated Discord or when you called me an agent of Discord. What was the creature like when it was summoned?”

Colgate shivered at the thought of the creature, the abomination. Daemeon reflexively tightened his arms around her until she settled down. Her answer surprised him, “I don’t have to give a second hand description. I lived through his second coming. I have seen him for myself and had the horror of living through his endless whims. He is what we call a draconequus.”

“A draconequus? You’ve seen him yourself?”

“Yes,” she continued. “He has the base figure of a pony, for it was ponies who conceived of him. But every limb and projection was warped and mutated in his creation to reflect the many discordant desires of those projecting their will into Starswirl’s spell. He has a goat’s hoof, a lion’s paw, a gryphon’s talon, and a dragon’s claw. He flies with the wings of a bat and a dove while his serpent tail flows behind him. To look upon him is to see pure chaos.”

“What happened after he was created? Did he do as Starswirl said he would?”

“No,” the mare answered, cringing. “At least, not in the way Starswirl had hoped. Discord was every bit as powerful as he could have imagined, perhaps even more so. On a whim, he could conjure almost anything into being. Not just transmute, conjure. And his limitations went only as far as the individual imaginations of the thousands of ponies who propelled their wills into his creation. He walked upon our world for one year. In one year’s time, he taught us to fear extinction again.”

“What did he do,” Daemeon begged.

His mare yawned wearily, growing more exhausted by the minute. “He endeavored to do exactly what he was created to do. He made Equestria, the entire world, his playground where he fulfilled desires so excessively as to cause far more harm than any good. Discord was not an evil creature. He was only what we made him. He was greed. He was envy. He was sloth and pride with a dash of gluttony. He was wrath. He was lust.

“He was a reflection of everything we wanted, everything our commune sought to destroy. Our arrogance, for indeed it was not solely Starswirl’s doing, was in ever thinking we could control such a beast when we could not even control our individual desires. Almost by definition, Discord was uncontrollable. As to what he did in that year he ruled, I can only tell you to imagine something.”

Confused, Daemeon parroted, “Imagine something?”

“Imagine anything. Imagine wanting cake and seeing your house turned into cake. Imagine wanting art and seeing the hillsides slathered in paint. Imagine wanting to run fast and never being able to stop again. Imagine wanting somepony to suffer, and they suffer endlessly. Imagine wanting to eat and dying from not stopping. Imagine anything and everything anypony could want in excess. All of these things were seen in that year of Discord.”

“I actually can’t imagine all those things,” Daemeon said in wonder. “It’s one thing to talk about things like that. But to actually imagine? I don’t believe I have the faculty.”

Colgate yawned loudly and murmured with closed eyes, “Nopony does.”

Daemeon noted her tiredness and said sternly, “You need to rest, Colgate. Why don’t we take a nap? We can eat breakfast later.”

The mare tried to shake herself awake and countered, “I can’t. You need to hear the rest of the story.”

Her man smiled and nuzzled her with his coarse beard saying, “That’s enough out of you. I’ll be here when you awake. My life depends on staying with you. Even if my life should depend on abandoning you, I would not. I love you, Colgate.”

With a weak and exhausted smile, she submitted and said, “At least put your clothes back on. I don’t want you catching a cold.”

She was right of course. Daemeon was trying hard to ignore the chill breeze, but he knew he would do much better with his shirt and pants. More worried about his mare than himself, he asked, “What about you?”

As from a dream, she answered, “Just hold me.” In magically fueled weakness, she slipped into a heavy slumber.

Taking care to disturb her as little as possible, Daemon gathered his clothing and redressed himself. He noted with a touch of annoyance that his shirt’s buttons were gone from his outburst of fear. It was nothing to him though if it meant he had kept Colgate the least bit warmer. He snuggled her as he always did and wrapped the oversized shirt around the both of them. Into a ball he formed and slept with his little Colgate in his arms.