Celestia stepped up atop the castle spire. She looked off at the spread of ponies darting about the market street-- yards and yards beneath her. Every one of them probably had a special story to tell. Every one of them probably had their own little dramas and their own little comedies going on in their lives.

Her eyes trailed a long grey pegasus for a few seconds. So tense, so scared... I wonder if he's worried about being let go from his job. Or maybe he's being dropped from school. Celestia's eyes then trailed a young filly that bounced to and fro across a set of benches. The filly's golden mane rubbed beautifully across her face. She tumbled onto the lap of a short green-ish black unicorn. Celestia's eyes opened up wide as the filly and the unicorn kissed.

So many stories... Such... So many beautiful little lives out there... Celestia moved her eyes over to the little window right below her. She saw Luna in the reflection. Celestia curled her head and gave her mane last minute brush or two. She then placed her satchel back on her back. Her wings fluttered. She bounced up, and then she sailed through the air towards Ponyville.

Celestia thought back to her days a filly. She recalled the exact moment when she first felt the silvery device in her hooves as well as that hard, cold stare from the wispy grey unicorn as he explained. "The magical necklace does not conceal its wearer. It transforms the wearer into the target of his or her heart's desires," Celestia narrated as she popped through cloud after cloud, "The wearer feels the same emotions, thinks the same thoughts, and remembers the same memories. Prolonged use is... unadvised."

Celestia's eyes ran along the ground as she flew. The Everfree Forest melted from the gnarled, crooked mass of trees with countless beasts hiding in every shadow into the homey stretches of oaks with soft, shady bushes. She beat her wings, and then she jumped upwards. She curled around and then focused her eyes along Ponyville's town square. A handful of horses milled about, although they seemed to tire even more with every step.

The sun goddess flew straight down. She rustled past banners and nudged along roofs. She didn't even have to use a single spell; she easily bounced along from corner to corner where the ponies would never look. Celestia eyes ran along the horizon over to the curly gingerbread-brown roof of Sugarcube Corner.

She trotted from rooftop to rooftop. Her gaze wandered down to a small two-part side door with an open top. A certain pink and white unicorn sat on the edge-- twirling some gigantic chocolate bar in his hooves. Celestia let out a girly squeal. She bounced onto the ground besides the door, but she then immediately paused. That's... Well, I guess that was just the Luna in me talking. Her heart raced, and she had to force herself to remain calm. I'm not Lulu. Not Lulu. Not Lulu.

"Well, good evening," Celestia said. Strawberry jerked his head around in all directions-- placing the chocolate on the counter besides him. Celestia then jumped over besides him. She curled her head around his.

The unicorn nudged himself forward, and he made a happy noise. He flew his hooves around Celestia's shoulders and squeezed tightly. Celestia rubbed her head against his neck. She felt his frizzy pink mane stroking all along the side of her head and then going down along her back. Touching, touching, touching, touching... He feels so... Oh, Lulu, I can't believe it. Every little rub felt like a kind-hearted kiss.

This is just, so... Just... Her heart couldn't stop beating faster and faster. She nudged herself closer into his hooves. The warm, inviting scent of fresh strawberries danced along her nose. She closed her eyes and then moved her head along the edge of Strawberry's shoulder. She felt some kind of magical electricity trace along his skin at every move. No. Just... stay calm. I'm not Lulu. No. NO.

The unicorn suddenly stopped. He leaned back a bit, and he made a silent, happy smile. He then pushed open the bottom half of the side door. Celestia's eyes then ran all across his body.

His soft, fluffy mane and tail seemed to blend into one as it wrapped across his side. She had knocked his glasses a little bit to the side-- the lenses curled across his face and barely hanging on to his nose. Oh, Strawberry you... you dork... You adorkable thing. She instinctively walked forward into the kitchen back into his hooves.

And then he kissed her.

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

"What was your name again?" Luna asked. Yet another mountain of dust rained from the ceiling as the ponies thrust open a side door. She tried her best not to sneeze.

"Your highness, you didn't ask the first time," the stallion replied. He glanced at the alicorn and then at the little door in front of them. He fumbled through the over-sized key chain with his hooves.

So socially oblivious... You remind me of a certain purple unicorn. The stallion unlocked the door, and they then stepped into a little storage room. Luna took a dust-filled breath, and then she went on, "Okay, please, tell me your name. Do it for the first time."

"Elective," he replied. He tried to nudge himself around. Yet-- stuck in between the various stacks of ancient papers and the tall goddess of the night-- he could barely even move.

"What's your first name?"

He turned a soft shade of pink. "It's... To be honest, your majesty, it's Susan." He then hurled himself over and bucked against the wall. The wooden slab collapsed, and the horses found themselves looking into a gigantic new room. "Everypony calls me 'Advanced Elective'-- or just 'Vance' for short. But... Susan is..."

*Tick*

Luna stepped into the wall of darkness. "Please, Vance, help us." The two horses stepped forward. Inky blackness then surrounded them from all sides.

"Uh, your majesty, my magic is not really... anywhere near powerful enough to... even..." She heard him tap the ground in frustration as he trailed off. Luna concentrated, and then she bucked up on her hind legs. The room lit up brightly. Luna's eyes grew wide, and she almost panted.

*Tick. Tick.*

A gigantic golden-white sphere the size of three Celestia's put together sat atop a flat slate slab. She ran her eyes across the walls around her-- geometric patterns of gold line after gold line all spread in almost every possible angle stretched everywhere. She saw it on the ceiling, on the floor, and then on the wall behind her. Where... Where did I get in here? Where's the exit?

She forced the hundreds of little questions that popped up right to the back of her mind. She then focused her gaze at the sphere. Ticking sound after ticking sound stacked atop each other into some kind of horrible symphony.

As she moved closer, she saw the golden-white skin become transparent. Her eyes danced across the endless set of winding springs, curling gears, vibrating pipes, and rotating knobs. Everything seemed to tick endlessly in a gigantic perpetual loop-- with no start and no end.

"How does it work?" Luna asked.

"Mathematicians call it 'adaptive expectation modeling'. In simple terms, it means that the machine calculates the momentum of certain trends, attitudes, beliefs, and so on throughout the user's lifespan and then extrapolates those things throughout n-dimensional space. It finally takes that result and creates a limited set of three dimensional slices of that n-dimensional object that the user can view right now," Vance replied.

"We meant..." Luna said, and she rubbed her hooves against the side of the device, "How do we operate it?"

Vance coughed nervously. He silently moved over towards her, and then he pointed at three large holes in the top of the device. Some kind of freezing cold smoke bellowed out of the holes. "S-stick your f-face and hooves inside," he eked out.

Luna took a deep breath. She bucked back up on her back hooves once again, and then she jumped forward. Smoke shot out across her. The last thing she remembered as a sudden outburst from Vance.

"Watch out for the smell and taste!"

*Thud*

Luna thrust her mouth open. She could see nothing but solid white. She then puked all over the floor. She closed her eyes again. The acrid smell of stallion's locker room towels mixed in month old salad burned throughout her nose and down into her throat.

She coughed again and again. She finally took a breath of clean air-- or at least some kind of chemical-tasting treated air that didn't make her want to hurl again. Luna nudged her hooves upon her head, and then she stood up.

The white blur faded. She threw glances all across the room-- going from the fancy set of chairs lined up against the wall to the massive, reflective windows to the almost endless array of tables. Same familiar ballroom from Canterlot... She took a step forward. Suddenly everything changed. Although a misty white haze fell through everything, she saw somepony walk right in front of her. It was... herself.

Luna squinted. She could only seen glimpses of the scene in font of her. She walked right in front of her future self, and then she slanted her head to the side. Luna then ran her eyes down from the future Luna's crown-- diamonds crisscrossed with sapphires that sparkled in thousands of ways from every inch-- to the end of the future Luna's bridal veil-- the smooth, soft blue decorated with sold white star prints.

Luna gasped as a familiar white hoof moved in front of the future Luna's shoulder. A familar pink-tipped unicorn horn then appeared aside Luna's face. Luna gazed at the solid golden ring atop the horn. Oh... Strawberry... Little whips of voices floated about the air around her.

"I do," Strawberry's voice said.

"I do," Luna's voice said.

The scene suddenly went back to the solid white blur from before. Luna blinked. In a split-second, she felt a familiar soft bluish-black carpet under her hooves. She leaned down, and she eyed the little 'Welcome to Hoffington' cube under her bed. Luna popped up, and she waved her hooves around in the air. The mysterious mist just fluttered across in all direction. Yet she then immediately saw something in front of her that brought her to a standstill.

Luna looked on as her future self twisted in the bed. Her future self pulled the sheets up right to the edge of her face, and then her future self made a happy sigh. Her future self moved upwards a little more, and the other half of the sheets across the bed got pulled over a little. Luna then saw the little filly curled up besides her future self.

"My... my..." Luna stammered. She sniffed.

Luna's eyes drank in every little bit of that long, flowing mane. Her eyes traced down the inky dark pink strands mixed in the with frizzy black streaks that ran down the filly's side and then nestled delicately across the filly's chest. Luna's gaze dropped towards the heart-shaped pillow locked tightly in between the filly's legs. Luna focused upon the filly's smooth, slender hooves and then the filly's cutie mark-- a image of the moon atop a set of dark reddish-purple roses.

Luna's gaze then moved straight up the bed. The filly's long, inky blue body— coated in dark pink spots from head to hoof— seemed to stretch on forever. Luna looked at the simple simple white shirt and neatly folded black glasses resting just besides the filly's pillow. The future Luna wiggled just a little bit more, and the sheets then curled over a few inches more.

Luna looked upon those closed eyes and that curly little nose on the filly. Dozens of little white freckles also dotted across the filly's soft, vulnerable-looking face. Luna then switched her gaze from the little, budding blue wings poking out from a bundle of sheets over to the neat little horn at the top of the filly's head. The horn had the same smattering of soft pink at the top as if she had dipped it in frosting. It looked just like her father.

The tears curled down Luna's face. Her heart just seemed to stop. She could barely breathe.

"She's beautiful..."

(To Be Continued)