Inevitabilities

by Sharp Quill


Epilogue

The Everfree Forest passed by below. As forbidding as it looked, this high up Meg knew it was safe enough—and quite frankly, she was almost preferred the easily understood dangers down below to the asylum for the insane her home world had become. Almost.

Serrell had revealed all, triggering conniptions all around but few changed minds. Everyone stubbornly dug in, refusing to budge. Not even Andrew’s optimism could keep the convention from being shutdown, threatened lawsuits over broken contracts be damned. When the death threats had started to arrive, most of the senior staff who hadn’t already quit in frustration and disgust finally took that as a hint to do so.

Meg and Steve had briefly returned to their apartment to see what could be salvaged. There wasn’t much. Just about everything was either gone or trashed. Fortunately, Meg had taken to keeping backups of everything digital in Twilight’s castle; it had amused her at the time that her digital possessions could survive the literal destruction of the Earth.

Equestria was now their home, the asylum paperwork rubber-stamped by the princesses. What outrage that had stirred back in the U.S. was drowned out by everything else. At least word of that new portal had yet to leak to the public. Nonetheless, it was only a matter of time; Royal Guards had been posted in the cave. So far, all they had kept out were federal agents still hoping to take Meg into custody.

She took a quick look behind her. Nopony was following. Not that she was being watched or anything, but one could never discount the possibility of being spotted flying in a direction no sane pegasus ought to be flying. A certain rainbow-maned pegasus was too effective at traversing large areas. This was something she needed to do by herself, if only because it’d look even crazier than flying into the Everfree.

There it was, up ahead. The abandoned castle. And there, by its side—yes, she could just make it out. A gorge. She flew towards it. This was the most dangerous part of the journey: descending. Nothing would bother her at her destination.

Into the gorge she flew, and she spotted the cave. A welcoming soft glow emanated from it. Going inside, she glided, then landed in front of the Tree of Harmony.

She practically snarled at it.

“What do you want from me?”

The Tree was silent.

Of course it was silent. Even in that dream, when it was inexplicably in Tartarus, it never spoke.

She couldn’t be satisfied with that. When she was turned into a pony that first time, when she had been made magical, she had sensed something in that timeless instant, something harmonious. The tree in front of her was supposedly the very essence of it.

“Answer me!”

She shook her head. What am I doing? She half-expected the Crusaders to descend from the upper branches. Fortunately she was not subjected to that; evidence of some lingering sanity, she supposed.

She walked right up to the tree. As before, a faint shadow made itself felt of the harmony she had experienced while being zapped by the rainbows.

Well, it wasn’t as if there were any witnesses present.

“Answer me!”

Silence. She looked around. No dream Celestia to pronounce her doom. No flesh-and-blood Celestia, either, to express concern.

“It’s a tree of few words, you know.”

Meg exhaled as her head slumped. Slowly, she turned around towards the condescending voice. “Why are you here, Discord?”

He touched his paw to his chest. “Can I not have concern for a friend?”

“Do you still insist you weren’t playing the part of Future Meg?”

That had been Twilight’s conclusion. It fit the facts, after all. Even if Future Twilight learned to handle hyperspace, she couldn’t shape-shift to assume Meg’s human form. The same applied to any other alicorn, including any that had yet to ascend. Maybe Chrysalis could handle hyperspace, but… no. That she’d participate in something like this was so preposterous it wasn’t worth considering. So that left Discord, and if that had been Future Discord, well, that explained the behavior of Present Discord.

The draconequus did something completely unexpected. “That was really you. Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” He even carried out the motions.

“Why now? You wouldn’t Pinkie Promise before.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “You really expect a sensible answer from the Spirit of Chaos?”

“No,” she said, sighing, “I guess not.” Did it even make a difference? Could he truly be bound by a Pinkie Promise? “Are you finally willing to explain what you sensed about my future self that drove you away?”

He said, not unkindly, “You’ll find out in the due course of time.”

“Of course I will.” She looked back at the tree, recalling the first time she saw it. She hadn’t in many months looked at that selfie of herself and Twilight posing by the tree. Maybe… with Discord? No, he’d have to handle the phone, and that probably wasn’t a good idea.

Without turning around, she asked, “So why did you create those portals, all those thousands of years ago?” He hadn’t answered that question when Twilight had asked it, but there was no harm in her asking it again. Discord was not known for his consistency; he might answer this time.

“Why not? Things had gotten rather boring.”

It wasn’t much more of an answer than the one Twilight had finally gotten, but it was something. And it reminded her of something her future self had told her. “What if those portals had never existed? How would my world be different today?”

“I think that should be obvious.”

It should, shouldn’t it? Cause and effect, after all. “Well, for starters, the Greeks would have left us no myths about unicorns, manticores, hydras, etc. That would have affected Western culture down to the present day, but I don’t see…”

She face-hoofed.

“There would be no My Little Pony, because it was inspired by those myths. I wouldn’t be a brony. I wouldn’t have a Pinkie Pie doll; there’d be no Pinkie Pie dolls. Would Twilight and Rainbow Dash have even come to my world?”

“You’re thinking too small,” Discord said. “Many were affected by those portals. Many more were never born, while others were born in their place.”

Comprehension dawned on Meg. “The gene pool shifted as people emigrated through the portal. Even for those who stayed behind, if their children’s conception was shifted by even a day, maybe hours, they’d have different genes, grow up to be different people. And the differences would grow exponentially with every generation. After thousands of years…”

“After thousands of years, your world—or at least a sizable chunk of it—would be populated by a completely different set of people, living in societies that had evolved in different directions.” He clapped his paw and claw in glee. “The butterfly effect with a vengeance!”

Meg collapsed to her haunches. “I would never have existed, would I?”

“No. And you’re welcome, by the way.”

Yeah, right. As if he’d known those portals would have brought this world into existence, much less had known what would have existed in its place if he hadn’t created those portals. Which brought to mind other words from her future self: if Equestria never existed. How would the lack of portals have affected Equestrian history?

All the inexplicable similarities came to mind: language, dodos, Las Pegasus casinos, even electrical outlets. There could be no doubt: if there had been no portals, then Twilight and Rainbow Dash would not have come to her world, much less cross paths with a non-brony Meg—because those two would never have existed either.

But wasn’t this line of thought pointless? The portals did happen, the Greeks did leave behind those myths, My Little Pony did get inspired by them, and she had been born and had become a brony, and Twilight had also…

Unless.

No. The wave function collapsed, yielding this reality. Even if the many-worlds interpretation was correct, those other realities were irrelevant as far as this reality was concerned.

Nonetheless, any and all time loops that made this outcome probable had to be completed—would be completed, must be completed.

She looked up at the mute Tree of Harmony. With her luck, she probably created that tree in the distant past. “Discord, just how far back do these time loops go?”

There was no answer. She looked behind her.

“Of course you’re gone.”

She turned back to the tree. “Don’t suppose you’d like to answer that question?”

The tree continued its subtle, shifting patterns of soft illumination.

Meg shook her head. “I suppose not.”

There was no point in staying; she’d gotten what she needed, if not what she had wanted. Taking wing, she left the cave and rapidly soared to the safety of the sky.

As she flew over the forest, that question would not leave her alone. If Equestria never existed. Why would her alleged future self have raised that question if the answer was academic? Yes, she raised it because the quantum coin had come up heads, but that only meant that the time loop was more probable for the question having been asked.

Probably.

Sometimes random chance is just random chance.

Regardless, it still seemed like a big red flag; it implied it went way back in time.

Right?

Ponyville approached. She veered north, heading towards Canterlot, to check in with her brother’s family. Steve was also there, at Celestia’s School, helping Arcane Scroll make sense of the accumulating data on that star.

She spotted a cloud up ahead. Aware of the growing exhaustion in her wings, she headed towards it. That rapid ascent from the cave took more out of her than she had thought.

More words from her future self intruded: You need to keep that in mind. She already knew magic could override the laws of physics; what did that admonition mean? What laws would they need to magically rewrite in the hyperspatial void, and for what purpose?

She touched down on the cloud. As she rested her weary wings, tail twitching in thought, her eyes gazed upon the palace in the distance while other fragments of that conversation floated to the surface of her mind, raising question after question.

By the time she resumed flight, the absence of answers led to one conclusion, that it was imperative that they figure it out.