Quiet.
I found myself standing in the empty Canterlot train station.
A few trains were present - but not a single pony was. Or cow. Or diamond dog. Or griffin. Or bird, squirrel, or any other animate object. Plenty of recent litter and detritus - a cup of tea was still steaming on the cafe's red-and-white checkered tablecloth.
Other than the inhabitants... wasn't I missing something?
Oh yes - just a moment ago, I was in the middle of a sort of informal duel, and I'd looked into those eyes, and...
Obviously, this wasn't real.
I tried visualizing the Baroness's carriage, and tried taking a step to the side, just in case my actions still had some effect on the real world. And moved my hoof to try tossing the cupcake that might be resting on it in the direction I recalled the Baroness to have been standing. And said aloud, "I seem to be undergoing an induced hallucination. If I didn't just win or lose the bout, I concede the match." I waited a few long moments. "Anypony who wants to try to snap me back to the real world, go right ahead." I waited a few more moments. "Right. If anypony can hear me, you have my permission to take care of my body until I'm back to normal."
There was still no response.
I wasn't sure whether anything I did had any effect in reality or not. So, in case it did, I sat down right where I was, and waited. I wasn't sure what sort of mental meddlings might be moving through my mind, so I tried not to think of anything I didn't want anypony else to know, such as that trick Cheerilee showed me with her hoof. I called on what I knew of meditation, counted my breaths, and tried focusing on the image of a candle flame.
The wind blew. The sun shone. Shadows shifted slowly.
My belly rumbled. I brought up some cud to chew.
My udder was starting to feel taut - as was my bladder.
Eventually, my body's needs - my apparent body's needs - overcame my reluctance to risk blundering about in the real world. I announced my intentions to relieve myself, gave anypony watching my body time to get a bucket or something, and took care of that. I wondered just how much of what I was experiencing had any connection at all to reality... sighed, and emptied my udder by drinking my own milk.
I still found that to be weird.
Eventually, my belly demanded more than just cud and milk. I thought about my options, sighed, and finally stood up. I kept on announcing what I was going to do before I did it, and, carefully, in case I might bump my head into a wall or something in reality, walked to the train station's cafe, went behind the counter, rooted around a bit, and came up with some muffins. They tasted just fine, went down well... and my stomach stopped complaining.
Hm.
Since it seemed that whatever I did, I wasn't getting any feedback from reality, it seemed reasonably safe to conclude that nothing I was doing was making my real body do anything, though I wasn't going to rule out the contrary. I kept on announcing my intended movements before I made them, collected a legful of stuff from the cafe's supplies, and sat down on one of the cafe's chairs. I laid some knives on the tablecloth, isolating an eight-by-eight set of squares; I scribbled down piece names on shreds of napkins, and used various utensils to weigh them down; and ended up with an improvised chess set.
I tried to recall some of the chess problems I'd seen over the years, put them onto the board, and spent some hours trying to solve them.
The sun continued lowering; I began to feel sleepy, and my body's other needs continued to make themselves known.
I yawned... shrugged, and gathered up the cafe's other tablecloths. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to sleep on them, but I didn't want to wander too far afield just yet. I laid a couple on the ground, lay down on top of them, covered myself with the rest, and closed my eyes.
The next thing I knew, I was opening my eyes, the sun was rising, and I felt a bit stiff, but no longer tired.
Hm.
The next week was... quiet.
I was able to live off of the cafe's stores for a couple of days before they started going too stale, and I had to start wandering further afield for food and drink.
When I got bored of thinking about chess, I branched out to other problems. The game of Go was a nice change of pace - I'd never quite gotten the hang of even the basics, and I enjoyed having the time to try working my way through them without interruption or distraction. After that were more abstract logic puzzles, such as Nim, and working out what the exact odds of a given poker hand were from scratch, and Knights and Knaves puzzles, and coming up with my own puzzles to spring on others.
And on the seventh day, when I opened my eyes... there was Baroness Kohl, glaring at me. She looked just like she had during our duel - save her eyes, instead of glowing red, were a nice, deep violet.
"Alright, already," she practically growled. "I could keep you here for an eternity - but the way you've been comporting yourself, I don't know if even that length of time would do any good."
"Ah, there you are," I said, looking up at her from my nest of train cushions. "I don't suppose you'd be interested in offering a monologue about what all this," I waved a hoof at the empty city, "is all about? Perhaps I can suggest an easier way for you to accomplish whatever your goals are."
"Are you aware of the most common phobia amongst the Children of Alicorns?"
"Yes," I said, interrupting as she started answering her own question. I got another glare, so I waved a hoof. "Sorry. Please continue."
"A mild form of isolophobia is near universal. But ponies - and cows - need contact with others; we are all afraid of being alone, and desire to be part of a herd. Without at least being acknowledged by others - sanity begins to slip. A normal, healthy, sociable female of our age bracket should only be able to last a week in complete isolation before losing her mind. But you - you do not seem to have even noticed!"
"Ah, is that all? Well, far be it for me to assist someone who seems to have just said that they just tried to drive me mad - but didn't anypony tell you that by the standards of most ponies or cows, I'm already quite insane?"
Dryly, she said, "That particular fact seems not to have been conveyed to me."
I nodded placidly. "It was the first thing I told the Princesses when I first met them. I was able to convince them that however sane I might or might not be, I was still useful to them. And they have been making use of my insanity ever since. The current question seems to be, what use is it you are trying to make of me? I regret to say that I know absolutely nothing about you - I may have encountered your name while perusing lists of nobles, but I'm afraid that it didn't make any more of an impression on me than any of the others. And if you were so unaware of how I act that you thought a mere week by myself would break my mind - then, for all you know, I'll be quite willing to do whatever it is you want me to do."
"I doubt that."
"Have you got anything to lose by trying?"
"Possibly. I need to think."
I raised a brow - most ponies would just have said 'no', most of the remainder would have said 'yes'. It appeared I was dealing with one who actually knew when she didn't know something; in other words, someone who just might be smart enough to be dangerous - or be a useful ally, if I could find some way to persuade her that keeping Equestria from being destroyed, as those other continents had been, was more important than whatever petty concern she might be trying to eliminate me over. If I was lucky, I might even be able to get her on my side without revealing even that danger - perhaps I could offer the mathematics demonstrating why a slave trade tended to do more long-term harm than good to a society. But for the moment, I merely nodded, and said, "The world could do with more thinking, so I won't interrupt."
She was looking at me with a faintly puzzled expression. "I believe," she said, "that I would like to know more about what you want. What you wish to accomplish if all goes right for you."
I relaxed in my hammock with Cheerilee, the four pups, half-grown, splayed across us at various angles. I sipped at my glass of algae-broth, and looked out the window, at Equis, as we gently accelerated to the moon, where the starship was waiting for us. It was only a small Orion put-put, pushed forward by nukes capable of leveling cities, but would get us to the ringed gas giant faster than the ion drive pushing us out of orbit right now - and once we were there, we could start building the fuel scoops for the really powerful engine, the one that could take us all the way to the next star, while we spent the decades of the trip safely turned to stone and unaging...
I started blinking rapidly, as Kohl was back in front of me, Canterlot's empty train station back around us. "What was that?" both of us asked, at almost the same time. I spoke again first, "You're the one who fired up this mental... thing. So you tell me."
Distractedly, she said, "This world, in whatever appearance I give it, is entirely my domain. I granted you a moment to shape it according to my suggestion... and that... I don't know what that was... was what you most hope for?"
"If you say it is - then who am I to doubt it? I'm a little surprised that my... well, whatever part of my mind was responsible for that, seems to think that it's more worthwhile to try for a long voyage with preservation, than to try to come up with something that can go faster than light, which, due to certain things I have learned in the past few months, seems less impossible than I'd previously thought."
"That can't have been a sane aspiration - it must have been the product of your... derangement." She seemed almost to be talking to herself.
"I could lead you through the math and physics, if you'd like. Well - if you'd like, and if I didn't think you'd be likely to use such knowledge to kill me and mine."
"I need to find out more about where your insanity lies." She frowned, looking at me again.
I was a happy calf...
I blinked as the scene dissolved before it even had a chance to fully form. "What?" I started asking, when:
I was an unhappy calf...
That fell apart as quickly as the first. Kohl was frowning much harder than before.
I was an emotionless little annoyance of a calf...
"Hold on, I'm getting dizzy!" I complained, as that one broke up as well. "What are you trying to do? Make me relive my past? Rifle through my memories?"
She shook her head. "I'm not sure how you're blocking that - but now I have to know how your mind works."
I was angry. Enraged. Furious! The last time I'd felt even close to this was when my network carrier censored what they said was objectionable content, even though I'd picked them specifically to avoid other censorship! I couldn't quite remember what had made me mad this time, but if I was feeling something stronger than that, then it had to be an even worse violation of my civil rights - how hard could it be to understand that those were enshrined in law to protect everybody, on a fundamental level, so that society itself could function? If it was bad enough to make me this mad, it had to be something bad enough to cause real damage, so it was important that I remember what it was, so I had to think hard...
Sadness. Depression. Despair. There was no point in doing anything, not even trying. I'd felt like this before. I'd made a promise to myself about what to do if I ever did again. Would it be an effort to think of it? No, there it was - I'd made a pre-commitment to myself that if I ever came to a point in my life where I couldn't see the point of doing anything, then I would act as if I did have a purpose... and that purpose would be: doing whatever was necessary to allow myself to read comics. I remembered the reasoning - that letting myself starve to death meant I couldn't read, that comics provided plenty of ideas which might inspire other purposes - but none of that really seemed to me to matter right now. I'd be even unhappier with myself if I couldn't fulfill that promise to myself...
Aaaaaaahhh! Falling! Not again! Let me stop! Get my hooves on the ground!
I'm so jealous of... of... the people who are actually smart. I'm well aware that I'm not nearly as smart as I like to think I am. All my seeming cleverness - it's all just tricks, things that anyone can do if they knew. I can't do anything that requires real intelligence, like come up with a truly new theory - the best I've been able to do is come up with 'new' insights that others have come up with so many times before. What I wouldn't give to develop an actual new idea, think a thought that hasn't been thought before - to be the first one to understand something...
My goodness, I blush even at trying to imagine what I was doing before I woke up in Blueblood's bed, after having taken that love potion...
"What?!?"
My goodness, I feel disgust for... someone who feels that rooting around in another's mind is a worthwhile use of her time. Not just disgust - pity, that she's such an ignorant pony as to think anything she could gain is worth what such actions will cost her...
"How dare you. How dare you feel that way about me?"
My head was really spinning, after having had emotions force-fed into my brain like that. So I wasn't exactly thinking straight when I answered her, "Most people who ignore ethics do so because they don't understand them. All an ethical rule-of-thumb really is, is a guideline which tells you when you should sacrifice your short-term gains, such as learning intelligence through violating a mind, in order to achieve even greater long-term gains, such as not annoying a cow who might be the only one who can keep all Equestria from being utterly destroyed. But you - you not only have all this power, you seem to have at least a modicum of intelligence. And yet you never learned that most basic of lessons. I would bet that when you were young, if you were offered one candy immediately, or two candies if you could wait an hour, you'd have taken the single candy every time..."
My rambling was interrupted by a sudden pain - Kohl had slapped me in the face with a hoof. I blinked, then rubbed my jaw, and said, "In another situation, I might say, 'Thanks, I needed that,' but I'm not sure I want to encourage-"
"You worthless, meddling, interloping, dirty, cow!", she spat. "You think you're better than me? Don't you have any idea what I can do to you?" The sun, unremarkable until now, exploded outwards, turning red and seething with flares and prominences. All around us, as the sky darkened, the city roared into flames.
"Ah - so it is to be torture, for telling the truth... when you seem to have enough control of all this to know I'm not lying. Not the way I'd have chosen to go, but at least I'm in honorable company." As the train station around us started turning into so much kindling, I sighed. "Shame, though. I don't feel the way you are because I think I'm better than you. I pity you because you are so much less than you could be."
The circle of fire closing in on us... slowed. "Explain," Kohl ordered.
"Assuming a few things here - you want to bring Equestria back to its rightful glory, by going back to the strength of ancient Unicornia and all its lost and hidden secrets, right?"
"... Perhaps."
"That's really the best you think you can do? You can't even imagine that you can surpass the wonders your ancestors did, and create even greater wonders of your own? Are you so tied to the idea that Equestria's greatest age was in the past, that even the idea that its true Golden Age is yet to come has never occurred to you?"
The ring of flames stopped just outside the two of us, hiding the rest of this world from sight. But at least it stopped. She grated, "I think your insanity is infectious - that I am even listening to your nonsense."
I snorted. "It's not nonsense - and I'm quite capable of showing you why not. It might take a while, though. How's my body doing back in reality?"
"It remains right where it was - mere moments have passed."
I frowned at her. "Wait - you can have somepony live a full week, or more, in mere moments... and you've been using it just to drive ponies insane? Haven't you ever used it for studying, or teaching, or otherwise improving your mind, or somepony else's mind?"
She glared at me. "I may be listening to you - but do not test my patience. I can still light you on fire."
Perhaps as a demonstration, a spark jumped from the flames to land on the tuft of my tail. I quickly stuck it in my mouth to extinguish it. "No need to get snippy. Since we're not in a rush - is this really the environment most conducive to learning? I'm afraid there's a bit of math involved - simple enough, but it's still math. It's hard to prove option X is definitively better than option Y if you don't actually use numbers to compare them."
She stared at me for a long moment... and then the flames disappeared - replaced by the Ponyville schoolhouse. "Will this suffice?"
"I suppose. Now, I suppose one place I can start is that I'm actually as selfish as it's possible to be. I want to be at least as immortal as the Princesses, and I want to have as nice an eternal life as possible. The main question is what it actually takes to have as nice a life as possible, and to answer that, I have to know how to tell the difference between what is true, and what is false. There are all sorts of methods that have been proposed for finding the differences; and, over the centuries, the track records for each of those methods has been fairly well established. The methods which tend to do poorly are now usually called 'fallacies'. The remainder tend to be subsumed under the general principle of paying attention to what the evidence actually is, and adjusting your beliefs in accordance with the evidence rather than trying to make the evidence fit your beliefs. By knowing how the universe actually works, you gain the strength of being able to predict what it will do, and also what it will do if you nudge it one way or another, so that you can get the universe to line up more closely with your goals. The question we are faced with right now is - are you willing to discard any of your beliefs, in favor of truer ones?"
"I have no false beliefs," Kohl stated primly. "And even if I did - they are minor ones, and naturally I will change them."
"Are you sure about that?"
"You doubt my word?"
"I doubt everything. So how about a wager? If I can give you an idea you refuse to accept, even in the face of evidence, then we'll both know there's not much point in my trying to teach you all of this - so you send us both back to reality... and uphold your original agreement to leave me and mine alone. If I can't - then I'll do my best to teach you as much as I can."
"I do not wager with rabble."
"But you will torture us?"
She looked at me. I looked at her. After a while, I said, "If you're not interested, I could go back to meditating."
"I make no promise. But present your idea."
"Just one? I'd better make sure it's a doozy." I pursed my lips, then shrugged. "So I'll take a stab at this: Equestria would be better off with no noble class at all, you are doing more harm than good by being a Baroness, and thus your efforts are leading towards you being merely one of the largest fish in a terribly small pond, instead of a much larger fish, who happens to be one amongst many of the same size in an immense ocean."
"WHAT?"
"Are you willing to listen to the evidence in support of the idea?"
"Of course not! There can be no evidence supporting such an obviously ludicrous proposal! Nobility are the greatest of all ponies - and ponies the greatest of the Children of the Alicorn! We are smartest, we are strongest, we can use magic - nopony short of the Princesses themselves can stand against us!"
I cleared my throat. "I assume you will know I'm telling the truth when I say two - no, three things. One, I know how to build a mechanical contrivance, which anypony can use, unicorn or not, which can kill you stone dead from, oh, a mile away. Two, unicorns aren't the only Children of the Alicorn who can use magic. Did the ponies who sent you after me not tell you what happened just before I was petrified? I managed to incinerate my lab - with magic. And three - what was three again? Oh yes - if you're willing to sit still for the math, I can show you that there are inherent difficulties with centralized decision-making, due to the nature of networks, so that even if all the smartest and most powerful ponies are in full control of a group, that group will do more poorly than a nation with decentralized decision-making, even if those decisions aren't made by the smartest and most powerful."
"You are insane."
"If that's the case - then is there a point to keeping us here?"
"Of course. Somepony who poses as much a danger to everypony else as you do needs to be... prevented from doing actual harm."
"So - you know I believe I'm telling the truth, but you'd rather kill me than even look at why I think it?"
"I never said anything about killing you."
I was a cow. Just a cow. One of the herd. I didn't have to think. All I had to do was eat and make milk. That was what I was born for, and all I was good for, and I would spend the rest of my life doing just that. Years and years and years...
... until the grass before me was covered in soot and ash, which covered the whole land, choking off all life until nothing was left alive, not even me.
I coughed, clearing the remembered taste of burnt everything out of my still-imaginary mouth. "What-?"
I was just a cow - but I could at least aspire to be the herd matriarch, helping to protect all my little cows and make their lives better...
... until the sky was filled with black demons, who swept through unrelentingly, and killed and killed and killed-
Kohl grunted, "Just... accept it!"
I found some happiness with my marefriend, even though staying together meant all the other ponies disapproved of our relationship and she lost her job, but we only needed each other, and so we stayed with each other...
... until the earth quaked, and great chasms split the land, which sank under the waves to never be seen again.
I hurriedly said to Kohl, "Did I not mention I have compelling evidence Equestria itself is in mortal peril?"
Cheerilee and I were together, and she even had her job, and fine, we had our happy life together, I simply kept my nose out of politics to focus entirely on making her life in Ponyville better...
... and a great flaming rock fell from the sky, destroying the entire town, quickly followed by more which laid waste to the entire continent.
"And that even the Princesses agree with me about that?"
Kohl paused before dropping me into another scenario. "You actually believe that the Princesses believe you."
I nodded, cautiously. "And the more you and your faction try to obstruct what I do, the more danger you're putting your own lives in. If you don't believe my own mind - you can check with the Princesses themselves. There's a memory charm involved, so even they don't place this secret in danger, but, well, I couldn't have that memory erased from my own mind and still do anything about the problem - so I've always been a weak link, especially when mental magic is involved. Like what you're using on me."
"I do not believe you."
"You don't have to - as long as you're willing to change your mind, when you look at the actual evidence. Like I said to the Princesses - if I'm wrong, I'll be happy I'm wrong, and go to an asylum willingly. But if I'm right - do you really want to risk all of Equestria, or even all Equis, being destroyed?"
"You are still a... political problem."
"That's what I was talking about earlier. Your short-term interests are to oppose... something I'm doing, politically. Your long-term interests are to ensure Equestria survives, so that you can have short-term political interests, even frustrated ones."
She gazed off into the distance. "Even if I were to release you, no more insane than you are now, to investigate this... claim of yours - there are other ponies who will not believe such a thing regardless of the evidence, and will continue to seek your destruction."
"If it were an easy job, anypony could do it. I've got Hope that I've got a good chance of succeeding."
Kohl's head jerked up, her eyes widened, and she said, "Oh, you are not some mysterious hidden Element of Harmony."
I coughed. "You might want to bring this to an end if you don't want me thinking ridiculous impossibilities at you, such as, say, the relativistic twin paradox, or the unexpected hanging, or the Ship of Theseus, or Monty Hall, or how an infinite sum of integers can equal a fraction, or-"
My hoof finished shoving my dueling cupcake at my own head.
I looked around - everypony was where they were before I'd spent the week, or seemed to, in an unpopulated Canterlot.
"I guess I lose," I said cheerily, and started wiping the icing from my face.
(Author's Note: This chapter, and the previous, are, with the author's permission, heavily inspired by Capn Chryssalid's story This Platinum Crown, a sequel to The Best Night Ever, both of which I highly recommend.)