The Best of All Possible Worlds

by McPoodle

Introduction

“To hold a pen is to be at war. This world is one vast temple consecrated to discord.”

In the basement beneath the Canterlot branch of the Rich Family Bank, there was once a unique collection of artifacts from the outer lands, the result of a lifetime’s obsession by the younger sister of the bank’s founder. This informal museum was open to employees of the bank, as well as to anypony who asked really nicely.

The author had the privilege of visiting this location on multiple occasions, before an unfortunate incident involving a brownie recipe and a weaponized parasprite caused it to be dismantled, and the artifacts donated to the Palace for safekeeping. The highlights of that collection included a scrap of barding (all that remained of the heroic griffon Captain Otto after he gave his life for the Princesses), a dragon scale that had passed through the Astral Plane, an airtight vial of a semi-solid pink substance that only moved when you didn’t look at it, and a harmless-looking piece of machined coral called a “sell phony” that boasted the tightest security of the entire museum.

The least noticeable of the artifacts were a couple of metal items mounted under a glass case upon a red velvet stand, dating nearly two hundred and fifty years before the return of Nightmare Moon. One of them was a pocket watch, long since wound down, and the other was a large silver coin embossed with an elaborate seal involving an eagle and a regal crown of an unfamiliar style. A good deal of research eventually revealed that the watch was in fact the first watch in the history of Equestria, indeed the first advanced non-magical machine ever seen by pony eyes. The coin was most unusual for what was depicted on its hidden face: the bust of a human, surrounded by the legend “FRIDERICVS BORVSSORVM REX” in the human script: Friedrich, King of Prussia.

Discussion of these finds with Princess Celestia revealed the existence of a detailed set of notes compiled by an ancestor of the author who actually met the visiting human these items are tied to. With the current interest being shown by the public in humans and human affairs, it was thought that this might be the best time to share the details of the visit by this human to the court of Canterlot, and the surprising role a young Equestrian had in these affairs.