//------------------------------//
// Knowing 
// Story: Beyond Me 
// by Boopy Doopy 
//------------------------------//

“Was that really Princess Celestia?” Scootaloo asked, not touching her dinner of mashed potatoes and green beans. “Like, the real Princess Celestia? Standing in our house?”
“She’s just taking Asher to get checked up on,” Lofty explained for what felt like the fiftieth time in the past hour. Not that she believed it herself. Sure, the filly was sick and had caused a little bit of a scare in Ponyville, one that wouldn’t be over until after the holiday, but she didn’t really believe the Princess of Equestria herself would come all the way down to Ponyville just because she was sick. No, it was much more likely that Asher was telling the truth about herself, that that was the reason Celestia came down to take her to Canterlot. Not that she was going to tell the two fillies at the table that.
“She should be back tomorrow or Sunday, like the princess said,'' Holiday added, “and then you girls can go back to listening to her tell stories and playing pretend. Now please eat your food. It won’t taste very good cold.”
“Do you think she’s friendly?” Sweetie Belle asked, then gasped. “Maybe she’s trying to take over the world! That’s why she wanted to know about the Summer Sun Celebration!”
“Maybe she’s-”
“Hush now, girls,” Lofty scolded them. “Those aren’t very nice things to say about your friend, especially when she’s not here.”
“We’re sorry…” the two girls apologized at the same time.
“When she comes back, we expect you to tell her that, too,” Holiday added.
“Wait a minute,” Scootaloo started, suddenly thinking of something. “She told us that she was a boy, so shouldn’t we call her ‘him’?”
“We… will talk about that later. Now eat your dinner, please.”



“Didn’t she say she was some creature called a human?” Scootaloo asked Sweetie Belle once the two were alone in their room. “And was turned into a pony?” she continued. “Maybe that’s why she didn’t know what cutie marks were!”
“Now we have to be extra sure to teach her about being a pony! What if she messes something up and people figure out she’s not one?”
“What if she’s here because her parents were mean to her and turned her into a pony for misbehaving, and so she ran away from them? And that’s why she said her parents weren’t here?”
“What if she killed them and now she’s hiding and trying to blend in as a pony so nopony finds out?”
The two fillies gave each other a serious look for a second before breaking into a fit of laughter at the absurdity of the situation they were able to come up with. They laughed for a few minutes to themselves before Sweetie Belle spoke again.
“Wait, she also said she used to be a colt, which means we need to teach her about being a girl, too!”
“Okay!” Scootaloo agreed. “But, um, not a froo froo girl like your sister, Rarity. She should be more awesome, like Rainbow Dash.”
“But also a little bit fashionable like Rarity, too, so nopony is mean to her.”
“And we can teach her how to get her cutie mark!” the orange pegasus added excitedly. “She said she didn’t even know what it was!”
“We have so much to help her with. This is going to be fun!”



“You don’t really think she- erm, he- is… some creature else, do you?” Lofty asked as she and her wife washed the dishes. “I mean, the Princess of Equestria did show up in our home just this evening to speak to her, and took her to Canterlot…”
“Well…” Holiday responded tentatively, “I mean, it never sounded like she was lying to us… I mean, he, but I guess it is possible that the princess really did get news that quickly, seeing as they have to make restrictions on the Summer Sun Celebration because Asher is sick…”
“What do you think Celestia will do with her? I mean, if she’s telling the truth… or, I mean, if he is, then… what?”
“I mean, I don’t know,” the mare answered. “I’m not sure. I assume Celestia would… send him back to wherever they came from then? I don’t know…”
“Well, I’m sure the princess knows what’s best… although I have to admit, she was a very nice filly… or, um, colt… is it weird that I almost want her to bring Asher back?”
“You know we can’t take care of a foal in the long term, Lofty,” Holiday reminded her.
“I know that, but it would still be nice to take care of Asher until the Summer Sun Celebration was over, anyway, but I guess that would be pretty selfish on our part. Only taking care of him until we had to abandon him.”
“It’s not selfish to want to take care of a foal,” Holiday told her as she moved over to nuzzle her. “Besides, we’re assuming that Princess Celestia is doing more than just making sure she gets better. She said she’d return in a couple of days, didn’t she? I don’t think the princess would lie to us, and if she was mistaken, she would tell us.”
“You’re right,” the pegasus agreed, giving her a quick kiss. “We’re probably getting worked up over nothing. It's probably just because Asher is sick that she's in Canterlot.”



“Don’t get yourself worked up, Celestia,” the princess told herself as she paced around the library. She found herself getting increasingly nervous at the idea that such a being as the one Asher described could exist. She said it with complete confidence, as though there was no way to argue against it, and still with more confidence in her voice. The way she spoke of this deity, it was as though she heard countless times that they didn’t exist, so many times in fact that she didn’t even bother to argue that greatly. The princess knew she was ready to drop the argument anyway, completely indifferent to what Celestia’s opinion was. That was what made her nervous.
She didn’t want such a being to exist. If a deity like that existed, it meant that she wouldn’t be in control of… well, anything. She had a plan set out for her student, Twilight Sparkle, and the introduction of such a creature could mess that up. She already didn’t like that one stranger had landed in her kingdom, and she didn’t know what she would do if more just came flying out of the sky to cause disharmony. It was a frightening prospect, once that Celestia had to take deep breaths to calm herself down from.
“Omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent,” Celestia thought as she walked past the shelves in the library, heading into one of the forbidden sections. “That’s what he said. Such a being cannot exist. Perhaps each of those things individually are possible for some creature to achieve, but not all three at the same time. No being can truly claim to be all-powerful.”
She made her way further until she stopped in front of a book containing a list of worlds that were accessible through the mirrors before they were destroyed, as well as a short description of each one. She only had a few pieces of information, but she could use those few pieces of information to her advantage. With that in mind, she quickly flipped to the couple of pages she had on the world ‘Earth’ and read.
Earth: Age: Unknown. Year: Roughly four hundred days. Day: Roughly twenty-five hours. Climate: Mostly temperate, with tropical and polar regions. Magic: extremely limited and dispersed. Dominant creatures: Minotaur-like apes. Status: Forbidden, known for extreme violence and hostility to other creatures. Do not visit for any reason.
The description continued from there, going over what she and Star Swirl had detailed, among other things, but she didn’t really need the rest. The main thing she wanted to know was how long each year was. About four hundred days. Celestia already knew how old the filly looked, which was around eight to ten years old. All she would need to do was ask her what her age was and then…
“And then he would simply say that this being translated his age correctly among worlds and shrug it off. And if it doesn’t match up, they would shrug it off anyway, and it would be proof that a worldgate wasn’t in play… impossible to prove that this deity doesn’t exist, but quite easy to prove that it does… do I really want to know?”
She thought for a moment before laughing at herself. What kind of question was that? Of course, she wanted to know! It was always better to know that it was to not know. Isn’t that what her faithful student taught her? Sure, knowing might be scary, but if a mere filly could handle knowing that there was an all-powerful deity out there, then surely she could, too. She was the ruler of Equestria for heaven's sakes! It was her job to know, and know she would. Or, at least, she would attempt to.
Before she knew it, she was off to bed and waking up again, raising the sun as she always did and waking up the sleeping filly as well. She couldn’t help but notice how peaceful she looked with her eyes closed, a little less so however once she saw the sweat on her forehead, causing her to quickly head to the infirmary to get more medication for her to take before waking her.
“Huh?” Asher asked sleepily as she groggily opened her eyes. “Where… where am I?” she got out, before gasping as she caught sight of Celestia, taking a second to remember where she was.
“I’m sorry, I did not mean to startle you,” the princess apologized as she gave her a glass of water with a tablet of medicine floating in it. “Your sheets are quite wet from your sweat, and you look a bit worse off this morning,” she explained as the filly took it in her hooves. “This should help to make you get better, or at least to keep your symptoms to a minimum.”
“Thank you,” she responded as she downed the drink, Celestia taking the opportunity to speak to her.
“I must ask, sir,” she said, “how old are you? I don’t believe you’ve told me.”
“I’m going to be twenty-five in a few months,” she responded, pausing to finish the glass, already feeling a bit better. “I’m actually in college, almost finished with my degree.”
“Twenty-five in a few months…” Celestia trailed off as she did some quick math in her head. “That puts you at about… ten thousand days old?”
“Uhhh… let me think…” she got out tiredly, not completely awake as she tried to do some mental math. “Umm… uh…. I- think it’s about nine thousand? Maybe a couple hundred short of that?”
Celestia put on a wide grin at that news, breathing an internal sigh of relief as she commented, “That’s perfect. Everything lines up perfectly.”
“Uhh, what does?”
“You being the age you are,” she explained. “Your body was nine thousand days old in the place you are from, Earth, and so as well, the worldgate you traveled through made your body nine thousand days old here.”
“What? I don’t… what? Are you saying that I’m supposed to- wait, how long is a year here?”
“One thousand days,” Celestia told her. It caused the filly to squint, her tired brain trying to work where she was going with this, not even stopping to consider yet just how long of a life that would entail.
“Oh, I see what you're saying,” Asher responded as she finally realized where she was going with the conversation. “This is about that thing you were talking about yesterday, right? Cause you think some portal brought me here?”
“Well, it seems likely to me based on-”
She interrupted her with a sigh, automatically explaining it away, saying, “God brought me here and made me a filly, so I’m pretty sure He wouldn’t have any trouble making sure I was the correct amount of days old in the place he brought me to.”
The princess sighed at that and opened her mouth to continue before deciding against it. Arguing with her right then wouldn’t have been the right thing to do, so instead, she opted to drop it. She would just have to accept that her position was a losing one and unprovable, not that it really mattered in the end. If such a being existed, then what was she going to do? Yell at it?
“Just go with it, Celestia,” she told herself. “There’s nothing you can do about the cause of his being here. The best you can do is try to send her back. If the deity exists, it exists. If it doesn't, it doesn't. Although, the conversation of his being a filly will have to be discussed eventually, whether because of a worldgate or a deity or some other reason. I’m sure it’s quite uncomfortable for him, however, I still have my own theories as to why...”