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Multi-Uni-Whatsit Theory2,000 words
The Black Market Messenger1,658 words

Multi-Uni-Whatsit Theory

Author's Note:

This is set slightly before Twilight became an Alicorn, and of course, to continue with our theme, in a different universe. That's uh, pretty much the only thing you should know before reading this. Have fun.

Most of the day had gone by, now. Any moment, Luna would raise the moon, and all citizens of Equestria would trudge off back to their homes after a long day of work to rest and relax. One particular, purple citizen, hadn't even left the house that day. This house was different, as different from the other houses as the occupant was from the other citizens. This house was a tree. Not a dank, moss-ridden, smelly old rotting tree, no. This tree was a library, and it had been hollowed out to provide some form of shelter (though the nights when a storm was scheduled had the potential to get quite hairy).

The occupant I was talking about is a student. A scholar. Taught by no less than Princess Celestia herself. The mare is practically a goddess, and to be taught by such a person was a tremendous honour. More so than being taught by the Greybeards of High Hrothgar. Wait, sorry, is that not allowed...?
...
Oops.

The occupant of the library was, as previously stated, purple. She's a mare, a unicorn, top-scholar and her name is Twilight Sparkle. Although well-respected around the village for being a bearer of an Element of Harmony, this didn't mean Twilight was terribly social. She wasn't. Of course, she tries hard, but in the end she prefers the company of her books to other ponies. In fact, why am I telling you all of this? If you're reading any of this in the first place, you know just who Twilight Sparkle is.

Twilight closed the book she had just finished reading and yawned. Because reading exercises your brain, doing it for a whole day can feel like you've just run the Equestrian marathon twelve times on a sprint. It's incredibly tiring. She placed the book away from her into the ever-growing pile that Spike would surely clean up, and that she wouldn't have to bother doing anything about. She scanned the opposite pile of books that Spike would surely not get mixed up with the other pile, and if he did she'd kill him, and picked out a black leather-bound book.

The cover of the book was emblazoned with delicate, peeling gold leaf that spelt out the words: "Multiverse Theory". Underneath the big, tantalising title, was a horrible nasty little sub-title: "And Why The Princesses May Not Be Gods". Ouch. Offensive. Neither Celestia nor Luna were entirely considered to be deities, so whoever wrote this clearly had a bit of a grudge. But not the courage to put his name down as the author. Still. It raised a lot of questions and Twilight had always been very open-minded about these things. The first paragraph went something like this:

"Somewhere on the D axis, just a few degrees left, maybe one or two down, such a universe exists that is wholly inhabited by teleporting loaves of bread. They float around in nothingness, some toasted, some white, some burnt, some brown, some burnt and brown. Maybe even a rainbow loaf. They float, unaware of each other's existence, because loaves of bread tend not to be sentient. Or maybe they are, in that universe. In ours, though, loaves of bread aren't sentient. But just imagine; meeting a sentient loaf of bread. How would you know it's sentient? It has no way of communicating. It would just float there, in nothingness. It has no way of moving, yet it can think. It just occasionally feels a nice tickling sensation as it's atoms and very matter is transformed and transported to a new, random location in this vast nothingness. Eventually, these loaves may just teleport into each other, creating some horrible, godless, Chernobyl-like creature. What then? More loaves of bread would surely add to this massive cacophony of yeast. A planet may form. A solar system (Or to be more specific, a ‘loafular-system’) may form. Of course, the bread would eventually rot, and hungry micro-organisms that feast on the planets of loaf would appear. Why, eventually they would mutate, and these horrible creatures will salivate. Oceans will form. New life forms will begin to arise from the gloopy green bread. The biggest ball in the ‘loafular-system’ would create so much pressure on it's self and spontaneously combust, sending light towards the other loaf planets. Plants and creatures may thrive on one of these loaf planets, and suddenly... Well. We know the rest as history."

The first thing that struck Twilight as odd was the size of the paragraph. She could fit her whole hoof in that. Though, like an old fisherman, she had seen bigger. A flashback of the 48-liner paragraph from "Encyclopaedia Of Sea Bass" flashed across Twilight's mind, and she shuddered uncontrollably. Albright Knot was really, really into sea bass.

The second thing was the choice of analogy. Why bread specifically? Was this intended as a joke? Twilight assumed it was, from the use of "Loafular-System" as a pun. Fine, but there was something she felt she was missing from that analogy, so she read it again. It was very specific. And then she found the third thing that bothered her, hiding there on the end like a Mike Tyson sucker-punch to the face.

"We know the rest as history."

Twilight pulled a confused frown. She knew exactly what the author was implying, but she wouldn't let herself register it. So she didn't. The rest of the book went on as you might expect. It explained the possibility of multiple universes, each one different, some with only one difference, some the exact same. In multiverse theory, anything was possible. Anything. The concept fascinated Twilight to no end. The theory was not only inevitable, but logical. And each universe would have it's own set of physics. A universe created as described by the opening paragraph of the book was entirely possible. As was a universe created by a small child with some Play-Dough. The final days of that universe would be when the child got bored and started eating the Play-Dough to the consequence of adverse health effects.

Twilight giggled to herself about the idea. That was slightly sadist. She found relief in the knowledge that the author wasn't directly attacking the two Princesses, because by his own theory, it had to be possible that they did create everything. She felt a lot more comfortable around the book now, and read into all the finer details and knick-knacks and small-prints. She was so engrossed, that she didn't even notice the sun go down.

Twilight woke up, her mind in a haze. She had slept on the floor that night, and the only thing that her assistant had touched was the pile of books Spike would surely not get mixed up with other pile, and if he did she'd kill him. Twilight attempted to stand up, but her right foreleg was still asleep. She'd have to wait for it to wake, and for the horribly inevitable pins-and-needles to strike. She had managed to finish the book before dozing off, but rather pleasantly, the text on the last page was smeared by where she'd been salivating in her sleep. Rarity would be pleased.

When finally the pins-and-needles did come, Twilight gritted her teeth and counted to ten. Her life-style meant that she had to deal with this problem quite a lot, and as a consequence, she had developed several coping strategies. These strategies included "Grit your teeth and count to ten", "Keep counting to fifteen", "Count a bit more to fifty" and finally "Oh dear this is bad, let's get a doctor". This time, Twilight counted to twenty-six.

Now able to stand up, Twilight made her way down the stairs to voice her objections to her barely-able assistant about the pile of books Spike would surely not get mixed up with the other pile, and if he did she'd kill him. She voiced her objections with a slightly raised volume, and Spike made his apathy quite clear as he cooked them both pancakes and syrup without participating in the conversation at all. Rolling your eyes and tapping your scaly foot doesn't count as participating.

Spike stepped off of the step-ladder he was using to reach the stove and carried two plates of pancakes to the table.
"Twilight, you need to get out more." He stated, climbing onto the chair with some difficulty.
"Oh, don't worry about me, Spike -"
"Who?" Owlicious hooted in.
" -I'm just fine." Spike gave her an impatient look, and held up a small mirror to Twilight's face. Her mane was bedraggled and she could have carried groceries in the bags under her eyes.
"See?" She gulped nervously. "I'm just fine."

Spike decided to just let the subject drop. She was never going to admit something was wrong until it became disastrous, at which point she would just blame Spike for not noticing or offering support.
"What was that book you were reading last night? You dribbled all over it, it must have been good, right?"
Twilight went a little red. "Oh, you saw that."
"Yes."
"It's all about..." She frowned, and clacked her hooves together a couple of times. She made a note to try and stop reading late at night because you don't remember much of what you read. If that note were a post-it note, and she had a board on the wall for it, the same note would have been there several times, covering the entire thing. Then in the middle would probably be her shopping list that Spike would totally not forget.

Twilight racked her brain while Spike munched on a bite of the pancakes he knew would now get cold and thrown away.
"Multi-Uni..." She took a sharp in-take of breath to get as much oxygen to her brain as possible. Her face was screwed up in concentration, so much so that Spike almost smirked.
"Multi-Uni-Whatsit Theory." That would do. She shrugged and took a bite from the cold pancakes, before politely placing her fork down on the plate to show she had finished eating.
"Oh yeah?"
"It was a very gripping read, and could inspire a revolution in the way we view maths and the universe in general!"
"Really?"
"Oh, yes! There could be more than one universe! An infinite amount of universes! And each one could have it's own set of laws that physics follows. It's... Well it's revolutionary!"
"Is it now?" Spike was staring dejectedly at the pancake Twilight hadn't eaten. She gave Spike a sympathetic smile.
"Sorry, Spike. It's cold." He muttered something under his breath, and shook his head.
"That's alright. Gimme the plate and I'll wash it." She did so. And so did he.

Twilight watched the always amusing spectacle of a baby dragon trying to wear rubber gloves made for hooves, and giggled a bit as he got his apron on. It looked like one of those aprons that belonged on an old, slightly chubby granny who was always cheerful and baked great muffins. Needless to say, it didn't really suit him. Well, that wasn't entirely true, he was certainly chubby enough. Twilight resigned herself to the bathroom after Spike yelled at her for laughing, and set about washing, and combing her mane. During his little rant, Spike had highly recommended she go outside, and that was exactly what she intended to do.

What was going to happen next, would be entirely Spike's fault.

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Ficta_Scriptor

Ficta_Scriptor #1 · Jul 25th, 2014 · · ·

An intriguing concept, I must say. It should be interesting to see how Twilight views the world now that she's been made aware of the 'Multi-bread' theory.

But I have to point out one particular criticism, though:

One loaf.
Two loaves.

The word 'loafs' only applies as a verb, i.e. 'He loafs around on the sofa all day.'

Nudels

Nudels #2 · Jul 25th, 2014 · · ·

I don't know if this is replying or not. Maybe you'll never see this. Heh. Oh well.

I'm glad you enjoyed it! The concept was born when a friend of mine sent me an email saying "Teleporting bread", and I kinda got carried away. xD

As for the plural of "loaf", thanks so much for clearing that up. I was always weary whenever I typed that out, to have my doubts confirmed is a load off my mind! (Self-proclaimed grammar Nazi, here! :3)

HB_DS2013

HB_DS2013 #3 · Jul 25th, 2014 · · ·

I'll bet my bits that this happened at the same time with the events of Expiration Date.

Ficta_Scriptor

Ficta_Scriptor #4 · Jul 25th, 2014 · · ·

4751616

You're right, you didn't reply, but I just happened to be on this page anyway so I saw the message.

To reply to a message, you first need to click the icon to the top right of a comment that looks like this: >> Once you do that, you'll see '>>' followed by a number code appear in the comment box, meaning whatever you type after that code will be classed as a reply and the other person will be notified. Hope that helps!