Chapter 44
The Best of All Possible Worlds
Chapter 44
The statue garden located behind Canterlot Palace, 95 Summer EY 6764
The journey back to Canterlot from Stalliongrad had been mostly uneventful, which left Blue Belle plenty of time to mull over her suspicions.
Something’s wrong, she kept telling herself, and the Princess and the human know what it is.
The two of them effortlessly dodged all of her attempts to figure out what precisely had happened to them right before that last Council meeting in Stalliongrad. And to everypony else, perhaps, they managed to pull off their illusion that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.
But the knowing looks they would get in their eyes, the way that they seemed so sure about minor aspects of the immediate future, and the way they would laugh at nothing in particular made it abundantly obvious to the new Minister of Unicorn Affairs that there was a secret to be uncovered. She silently vowed that as soon as she had reunited with her father, the two of them would get some kind of answers out of the pair.
The thought of meeting her father again caused Blue Belle to softly gasp, as if at one time there was a question of whether she was ever going to see him again. This sharpened her suspicions even further.
“Why are we out here again?” she asked her two companions, as they followed a nearly-invisible path deeper and deeper into the Royal Gardens.
“Well, that portal to Earth has got be fixed sooner or later,” Princess Celestia said lightly, “and I figured there was no better time for Voltaire to see Discord’s statue. You did want to see it as well, didn’t you?”
“Of course,” Blue Belle said impatiently. “I just didn’t think that it would be this inaccessible.”
“Yes,” the Princess said with a frown, “I probably should relocate Him again. He tends to have a...bad effect on the vegetation.”
“You say that like He’s still alive in there,” the unicorn said nervously.
“That’s because He still is,” Princess Celestia replied.
The unicorn broke out into a cold sweat. “Is there any chance that He could break out?” she asked.
The alicorn closed her eyes for a moment. “No, He’s secure,” she said finally. “Speaking of which, we’re here.”
~ ~ ~
On a marble pedestal stood a mixed-up bipedal creature, one arm outstretched in a dramatic gesture, with His eyes closed and His single-fanged mouth open wide, like He was singing an aria from an opera.
Voltaire chuckled. “Is this actually what it appears to be?” he asked. “Did the Princesses of Sun and Moon defeat the Draconequus god by staging a singing competition?”
“Yes,” Celestia said with a broad grin. “And He ‘won’, through rampant use of a laryngitis spell on all of the actual contestants.”
“We had a Roman emperor like that,” Voltaire said with a shake of his head. “It’s said that he let Rome burn to the ground one day so as to provide better accompaniment for his latest fiddle composition.”
“Excuse me, but ‘Draconequus’?” Blue Belle interrupted.
“That’s, err, His species,” Voltaire replied.
“His species...you mean there’s more than one of Him?” Blue Belle started hyperventilating.
“Ah...” Voltaire hedged.
Celestia glanced up at her Sun. “Would you look at the time!” she exclaimed.
Voltaire thoughtlessly did just that. “I’m blind!” he exclaimed.
“We need to be in the audience chamber, right now!” the Princess exclaimed.
Still inside that same cell at Charité, June 23, AD 1751
...around.
Genevieve was now stuck here in the human’s world, forever.
Well, forever...or until she picked up that magic pencil over there and repaired the portal to Equestria. She didn’t know how she knew that the pencil was magic, or the fact that it operated for anybody just by drawing, with no incantations or other special instructions. She just knew. (Thankfully, she was not aware of everything else she could have done with that pencil if she had a mind to.)
And this was a prison, wasn’t it? The creature in Equestria was an escapee from a prison, and nobody knew but her! She had to go back, even if the Princess wanted to punish her. Although...
Genevieve’s memory flashed back to the moment when she had glimpsed the Princess’s face during her journey between worlds. She realized that what she saw was a look of compassion, the look of a pony who was honestly pained to be losing her.
She decided then and there that she would not be motivated by fear of what her ruler might do to her. She would face her just punishment, whatever it might be.
Also there was the matter of the footsteps generated by multiple creatures approaching the door, but Genevieve assured herself that fear of the monstrous, almost-certainly deranged fellow prisoners/monsters that were coming for her soul had absolutely nothing to do with her selfless decision. She pushed the papers back into a large square, stood in the middle with her hooves holding the papers in place, and picking up the pencil with her lips, quickly drew a circle around herself.
Of course she fell through instantly.
The Audience Chamber of Canterlot Palace, 95 Summer, EY 6764
“That’s it!” exclaimed Caloric in a towering rage.
Too bad that towering rages look utterly ridiculous when you’re wearing mage’s robes.
“I have had enough of this recalcitrant portal! May Princess Luna take it to Tartarus for all I care!”
As the other two mages gasped in horror at the utterance of the Forbidden Name, Caloric bucked a random pillar.
At that precise second, Genevieve tumbled out of the just-opened portal on the other side of that pillar and cracked her head against the floor.
“Genius!” proclaimed Aether and Phlogiston, reaching out to shake his hoof.
All three raced forward, not to assist the fallen donkey, but to stabilize the portal. That job was reserved for Gordon, who seemed to have materialized nearly as fast as his daughter.
“Genevieve! Genevieve!” he cried, cradling her form in his forelegs. “Speak to me!”
“Uhhhh...am I in trouble?” she added weakly.
The jester could do no more than to hug the jenny tightly to himself, wetting her coat with his tears of joy.
~ ~ ~
At that moment the doors to the audience chamber burst open.
“We’re home!” exclaimed Voltaire. “Did we miss anything?”
Princess Celestia merely rolled her eyes as she followed the human into the room.
“Genevieve!” Blue Belle exclaimed, racing around the other two to reach the prone figure.
“I’m sorry, Lady Belle,” Genevieve said, her head bowed, “I failed even at my exile. Give me the worst the Equestrian Justice system has for me.”
“Are you nuts?!” the white unicorn exclaimed. “This whole time, I was manipulating you for my sick gratification, but no more! I’ve become a new pony, and you’ve become one of my new role models!”
“Me?” the bewildered donkey asked.
“Yes, you!” Blue Belle replied, poking Genevieve in the chest.
“Do you have any idea how long you’ve been gone?” Princess Celestia asked as she knelt down beside her.
A shocked Genevieve bowed her head down to the ground. “No, Your Highness!” She then bowed her head even further to add, “I am not worthy, Your Highness!”
“Genevieve,” the Princess said gently but firmly, resting one hoof on her shoulder, “you are a subject of Equestria, and for that alone you are worthy of my attention and love. I am your protector, but I am not so high above you as you might think. In any case, you have been gone for fifty days, and a lot has changed while you were gone.”
“F...fif...fifty days!” Genevieve exclaimed. “But I was only gone for a few seconds!”
“A few seconds on my planet,” Voltaire explained, “but time does not move the same in our two worlds.”
On hearing this, Blue Belle’s brow furrowed in suspicion, and she grabbed one of the mages to ask him some questions.
Genevieve looked up at Voltaire, her eyes blinking rapidly. “You are a human!” she exclaimed.
“And not a prisoner,” he added with a bow. “Merely the victim of a rather cruel practical joke.”
Genevieve looked behind her at the still-open portal. “Then I guess you better be returning, then?” she asked cautiously.
“Yes,” Voltaire said with a sigh. “It is time for me to finally make my leave.” He gestured to the Sparkle Sisters, who were waiting curiously outside the door of the audience chamber. “Thank you two for everything,” he told them, before extracting the gray cap from under his periwig and handing it off to Eveningstar. “Now have excuse for short goodbye,” he joked in bad Equine.
“Goodbye,” he said to the distracted Blue Belle, tapping her on the head with a finger. “You now new ‘Voltige’. Have fun annoying Princess!”
Celestia and Blue Belle simultaneously face-hooved.
“Goodbye,” he said to Gordon. “You jester—laugh more!”
“Goodbye,” he said to a confused Prince Blueblood, who was only just then entering the audience chamber. “Having still the fun at being the sore loser.” The prince figured out enough of that last sentence to nod in agreement.
“Goodbye,” he said to Genevieve. “Be nopony.” She looked at him strangely for this.
Finally he turned to Princess Celestia. He opened his mouth...and found absolutely nothing to say. He wanted to thank her for showing him that it was possible for a stubbornly deluded populace to change, because that gave him hope that his native France might yet avoid the pains of revolution that he knew were coming. He wanted to assure her that when the time came to face her cursed sister that she would be able to help her. He selfishly wanted to congratulate himself that he had managed to become memorable to an immortal, and therefore was now an immortal of sorts himself. But without his cap he could say none of these to his satisfaction. Finally he grinned as he thought of the perfect way to say goodbye.
“Ribbit!” Voltaire croaked.
Nopony said anything, all of them looking to their Princess to see her reaction.
Although her eyes glistened, Princess Celestia said nothing for several seconds, until suddenly...
“Brr-deep!” she croaked back at him.
In the language of Voltaire’s fictional frogs, she had just hailed him as a god.
Voltaire chuckled, and then he laughed, and then the laughs built into gut-busting guffaws. Once he started, he found himself completely unable to stop. Wiping his eyes several times, he waved feebly, then stumbled towards the portal and tumbled through.
And so it was that Voltaire, the greatest champion of human liberties of the French Enlightenment, left the magical land of Equestria, not through exile or fleeing from a vengeful mob, but by laughing his ass off.
The cell at Charité, June 23, AD 1751
When Voltaire arrived back on Earth, he heard Blue Belle exclaim from the other side of the portal. Eagerly, he leaned forward and listened in.
“Wait just one second!” the unicorn exclaimed. “The timing of this is unbelievable! How did you know the portal would open at that precise moment? And the time gradient between worlds is completely impossible! Phlogiston here tells me that it would require even more magic than an alicorn possesses to make time pass so slowly on Earth compared to Equestria.”
The mage pony muttered something about making that statement under duress.
“And that means...I knew it!” Blue Belle crowed. “That can only mean the covered-up existence of a g—”
She was never allowed to finish that sentence, as a shocked Princess teleported the two of them out of sight.
Well! Voltaire thought to himself. It looks like the Princess will be forced to restore Blue Belle’s memories after all! I do hope that Celestia is able to cut out the worst parts. Better for the filly to think she blacked out from the pain after removing that necklace than to go through what actually happened.
~ ~ ~
“Voltaire! Voltaire, are you in there?”
The voice was that of King Friedrich, and it was accompanied by the rattling of Jordan nervously flipping through his key ring to find the key for this door.
Voltaire only had a few moments to spare. With a kick of his foot, he scattered the pages forming the portal. He then picked up the magic pencil that was located at his feet, and dropped it through a circle of light that had just then appeared at his side.
“Death from above!” he exclaimed with a smirk.
The circle winked out of existence just as the door opened.
“My dear Voltaire!” the King exclaimed as the door was opened. “Are you...groveling?”
Voltaire jumped to his feet. “Of course not!” he exclaimed roughly. “Would Friedrich the Great have asked the legendary Voltaire to join his entourage for no other reason than to see him grovel?”
The three men standing behind Friedrich looked on in shock, certain that they were about to see the idiot in the prisoner’s cell get the punishment he had just wriggled out of.
For a few seconds, Friedrich said nothing, his eyes growing bigger and bigger and bigger. And then he slapped his knee and uttered an explosive guffaw.
“Don’t ever change, Voltaire!” he laughed.
The other men, relieved, turned and made their way out to the belated birthday party for Jenny.
Seeing that they were alone, the King pulled his Court Philosopher aside. “And if you ever deign to use that tone towards me when a commoner like Jordan is present, I will have your head. Understood?”
“Yup!” Voltaire squeaked, before meekly following in his monarch’s footsteps.
But of course by this point, he had already decided that serving King Friedrich was no longer worth the trouble.
After all, if you’ve served the Alicorn Princess of Equestria, any other ruler is merely second-rate.
~ T H E ~ E N D ~
Stats
Page generated in 0.031 seconds
Total duration
933 users online
1,203,675 hits today, 2,004,447 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
WOO! Good run!
So ends a gripping, amusing, oft times moving tale.
Well done, sir. Well done indeed.
>Story about Voltaire in Equestria
Let's see if the author's actually read the Philosophical Dictionary or just took Phil 101 as their mandatory English requirement...
2326610
Err, not the whole thing, but you'll find one of his articles had a strong influence on me if you keep reading.
2326622
Well, did you at least read enough to know he supports Democracy only in small, peaceful countries?
I must say I don't regret ever finding this story. The world building in it was superb and the storyline incredible. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending as of yet (still digesting it), but I can honestly say there wasn't a single portion of this story that I didn't enjoy.
Please, never stop writing.
FFFFFFUUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK YYYYYYEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSssssssssssssss!
A follow up in modern times? Now that will be interesting to read considering all that has happened since the 18th Century.
It seems that the story ended on the theme, "It was all just a dream."
In one sense, it's logical. In another, it makes the ending tremendously disappointing. In an unrelated sense, time travel complex enough to make me draw a diagram makes my head hurt and wave events by while I rub my eyes. A little out of place, and a bit of a waste, as all the lessons learned come with no downsides, which invalidates a few of the themes poking around of sacrifice and lesser evils
Until I reached that glorious 'ribbit!'
That was just... a PERFECT ending to this AMAZING fic! I can't wait for the epilogue and acknowledgement. Send my regard to the original author!
I look forward to the epilogue and follow-on.
And that was a quite brilliant story. Also, in a paean to the virtues of the American education system, I have now learned more about Voltaire from My Little Pony fanfiction than from any actual schooling I may have received.
I'm...going to miss this story. Looking forward to the postscripts and promised short followup story!
just a question, who compiled these notes?(refering back to the begining of the story), and how did the altered timeline get discovered?
you know, because this story was written in presumably modern equestria.
*there
I don't feel especially talkative tonight, but I will say that the quality and frequency of this fic made it my most closely followed. My standards are left even debilitatingly higher than they were before.
I have thoroughly enjoyed this story, start to finish. I look forward to what is to come.
An incredible story that made me read all its glorious 44 chapters in one-sitting, even though I have exams tomorrow.
...Yeah, it was totally worth it.
Okay.
A follow up?
a great story in general, and all of this?
Dang, you sir, are amazing.
Just, thank you, happy that I got to reading this.
I believe that this is the best work of fiction presently on the site.
So the real question is, who is the poor bastard from modern day you are gonna use for the next installment?
My vote goes for Ozzy Osbourne, for the sheer hilariousness of everyone trying to interpret his insane gibberish during the first meeting.
Time, What Is Time - Blind Guardian
Wooh!
2326630
Democracy? This is Equestria! We don't need your stinkin' "democracy" here! (
)
2326649
Wellll....not really.
The Griffish Revolution still happened, so all those griffons are still dead.
And "The Frog Princess of Fomalhaut" still exists, so the ponies still realize that Celestia is not a goddess.
What got taken away was a brutal regime of pony-on-pony violence that Celestia didn't think her subjects would ever emotionally recover from.
It's only from Voltaire's point of view that it looks like a dream.
So in summary: a little bit of mind rape. But not a whole lot.
2326743
Fixed.
2326742
Well, the author of this story is (fictionally speaking) Twilight Sparkle, so that leaves you with four possible suspects (I doubt anyone will think that Morningstar's submissive husband counts). Considering that the memoirs of "The Roman" were written by his translator, that leaves Eveningstar as the most-likely author of the notes.
Bravo! An excellent read. I enjoyed every minute of it.
I'm both happy to see this come to a conclusion, and sad to know that it is done.
This is one of the stories here that has amazed me the most. It's amazingly complex, shows such a great amount of research and planning, and manages to have both Equestria's good-natured optimism that we know from the show, and Earth's bloody history, without making either one look completely ridiculous. I'm normally wary of human-in-Equestria stories due to how uncreative many of them can be, but this is one of the most creative stories I've seen here. I'm going to have to read this one again, at some point.
Voltaire was a wonderful main character, and so satisfyingly different. Celestia was perfect--partly by being imperfect--and showed so much of what I love about her. Heck, you even made me like Blueblood, which is impressive enough on its own.
In any case, thank you for the wonderful story. You've got some real talent!
Amazing story. I especially like how it all wrapped up with so few loose ends. Also I have a new found respect for Celestia, because of you. Bravo sir bravo.
*Mashes the Up Vote, Follow, Favorite Buttons all at once*
Well, that was a satisfactory conclusion to a story I've been recommending to all my friends incessantly. Can't wait for the epilogue.
I'm considering making this story canon within my own corner of the ponyverse.
Great. Now I have to go out and buy a hat to tip off to you for a story well told.
Thinking a top hat. Mares dig the top hat.
Great story this is! While not exactly as exciting and action packed as more known stories, such as Fallout Equestria (or any good sidefic of it) or Past Sins, it is certainly on the same level in my opinion!
Oh man, I just realized I haven't updated the trope page in forever. I'd better get on that...
Also, a sequel in present day? I hope you send another philosopher person, or someone who at least talks about human condition like Voltaire did. Or maybe a famous person. Sending Stephen Colbert, Nelson Mandela, or Oprah would be hilarious!
Yippie.
Great finish to the story, now I just need to find something else to read.
Whoa. You really did hint at time travel all the way back in Chapter 2.
In any case, exquisite tying up of loose ends. I wonder where the goddess Genevieve has gone...
Maybe we'll find out in the epilogue or sequel. I look forward to both.
WE OF THE COMPENDIUM ARE PLEASED BY YOUR STORY'S END. IT HAS BEEN DONE VERY WELL. WE APPRECIATE ALL THE HARD WORK YOU HAVE PUT INTO THIS TALE AND WILL GIVE YOU A GIFT :
IF YOUR ENEMIES ARE AS TOUGH AS NAILS BECOME THE HAMMER!
a NOTE OF MODERN DAY PHILOSOPHY FOR YOUR PHILOSOPHIC STORY!
The best and funniest story on this site, I think. It wasn't 'laugh out loud' funny, but in the cosmic sort of way. I can only imagine the research and brain power you put into it.
The Best of All Possible Worlds ends with The Most Convoluted and Annoying Ending. The time travel fubared everything and as I said before, I fucking loathe stories that end by trying to undo everything that just happened as well as modify people's memories so they don't have to remember something bad. I'll just remember this story as it was without the ending.
Well, now that it's over, I think I can definitely call this story one of my overall favourites on this site, and my favourite HIE story, period. Despite frequent revisions, I was never confused by the effects of retroactive changes I never read, it was very well planned, the attention to detail and historical accuracy was incredible, the philosophy and discussion was intelligent, and the characterisations were just perfect. And I do mean for ALL the characters.
Ten out of ten. Would read again.
And all of this is why I rule an Crystal Empire. I loved this story, I can't wait to forget it so I can read it again.
2330489
Fair enough.
Although, if you can figure out how to get modern-day Equestria out of the metaphorical 20 million car pile-up we had at the end of Chapter 38 that doesn't use time travel, I'd love to hear about it.
I suppose that's as much a criticism of how much I managed to screw things up as it is to how poorly I cleaned up the mess.
Also, as I mentioned to the other commentator who hated what I did, remember that I didn't undo everything, just Chapters 34 - 38. Oh, and all of Genevieve's character development--something I'll freely admit to regretting.
I really should be putting this at least once on every page of comments going forward (assuming there's going to be any more pages of comments going forward), but thank you all for your praise and your criticism through 45 chapters of pure fun. I had no notion when I started posting my idea of "the worst possible human to put in Equestria" eight months ago that anybody would particularly latch on to it. I promise that I will someday get this story polished into something closer to the ideal I have of it in my mind, where character developments don't come out of nowhere and everything retroactively makes sense.
As for that sequel, I think some of you are thinking way too big. This is going to be a little bitty thing, a way of showing how the consequences of this story have played out in the era of the TV series, which as I've hinted at in a few places, has gone a bit differently than the way that you're accustomed to.
2332490 The loss of Genevieve's character was one of the reasons I disliked the ending so much. She learned her lesson through great pain on the parts of others only for the ending to completely undo all that hard work. Having to read about Bluebell being physically and mentally tortured wasn't exactly a fun thing to do and yet that scene was made utterly pointless as Genevieve doesn't remember it at all. What's at the point of having trials for the characters if you undo them at the end?
Freaking autism; I like this, but I can't even try to get it.
I'll just settle for thinking this is kinda neat.
2335288 Perhaps, but I'm pretty sure the female offspring of donkeys aren't called fillies
2335345
It appears you are correct, so I've gone back through the entire story and fixed every use of "filly" when referring to a donkey.
2337150 images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120402132055/mlp/images/thumb/5/55/Diamond_Tiara_ordering_the_CMC_2_S2E23.png/830px-Diamond_Tiara_ordering_the_CMC_2_S2E23.png
Yes...
2326721
I've learned many different things about many different subjects reading ponyfics. It's one of the joys of reading!
Loved the story, it is quite deep and very thought provoking; if you want it to, that is. You can also just read it without letting your mind wander.
Okay, you most certainly have to write a sequel in modern-Equestria. I have to know what Twilight's reaction is to the Frog story. Especially if it gets forgotten over time and she discovers it in an archive.
2334258 Someone needs to mention that to Marvel Comics... (so many retcons)