A malaise falls upon the train ride to the bureau, fixing frowns into the faces of her colleagues. Small talk chooses not to show up. Past granite gates lay the atrium where the portals lay. Traffic from the other worlds to here is still low; not many appointments show up on her list.
But as she approaches her desk, the candle still lays there. Anarchy sits at her chair, touching the flame with the tips of her bat wings. At the last second, her head rises; everypony else gives her a quick greeting. “Hiya. What’s up?”
Cinnamon bites her tongue. The draconequus—or ponequus or whatever she is… spawns of Discord are not to be questioned, not too much. “Anarchy?”
“Always with the full name,” she teases. “You know you can call me Ann, right?”
“I wish I could have the honor, but like I said, we haven’t really met a lot. Our progenitors—”
“I mean, my Dad and your world’s Dad… uh, Discord… they did meet in the comments somewhere,” she said.
“I’ve taken note of that. But Anarchy—er, Ann—why are you here? At my desk?”
“Come on, is it a crime to hang out?” she answers with a laugh. “But to be serious, my family and I are planning to move into your world for a while. Can’t really have two Moms in the ol’ cottage, but we can manage in Ponyville somewhere.”
Cinnamon magically picks up her clipboard. “That’s more than fair. When’re you going?”
“End of the day?”
That gives Cinnamon pause. “That early? You’re not the sort to be in a rush.”
“Oh no, no rush!” Twiddling her claw and paw, “Still, it’s… Mom and Dad want us to get out of here sooner or later. This place is great and all, but this ain’t a village. Dad would go mad from the gray walls and the gray floors and the gray goo—”
“He’s already mad.”
“Heh! Knew you’d say that.” She pumped a fisted claw into the air. “Could never resist a joke for too long!”
Cinnamon sighs, putting down her clipboard. “So, what now?”
It takes a while for Anarchy to focus back on the conversation. “Just papers for moving in. Dad and I are pretty bad at bureaucracy, which, figures—” she sticks her tongue out again “—but that’s what this place is for, isn’t it? I can at least be there. And your friends are still there, too.”
“Like, everyone?”
“From the 2016 changelings to the Jinglemas start-up OC’s made for DrakeyC’s—”
“Watch your meta levels, Anarchy.”
“Oh yeah, right, that!” But she turns to the reader, blushing. “You know, kinda’ wish Comma had his own representative OC for this one. Could’ve had some roleplay going on…”
Back-and-forth waiting for Ponyville mail and other documents in the refurbished town hall. From what Cinammon’s heard, it isn’t too different from many other Ponyvilles across the worlds. Anarchy’s world, for example, lived several years ahead in “canon time.” How Cinnamon still managed to understand concepts like “time differential” in her training for bureau work, she has not figured out.
But in line, changing chairs every few minutes, getting familiar with the patient ponies before and after her, Cinnamon waits to the scratching of pencils and ballpen. Anarchy is at Cinnamon’s beck and call, teleporting in and out to provide signatures and hoofprints and other forms of identification, at one point bringing along Cozy Glow (which the other ponies in line then get scared of, only to be told that, no, the petrified Cozy Glow in the Canterlot Gardens hasn’t gotten free; reports of Anarchy and her friends’ deeds and misdeeds spurred this world’s S.M.I.L.E. to enact stricter security measures—
“Oh yeah, I think that’s me,” Anarchy says. “Whoops! Here’s your little parenthesis back: )”
“How did… how did you speak out a punctuation mark?”
Anarchy pats Cinnamon on the back. “Practice. Also, long line we’re having here, yeah? I figure I can stay here for a jiff. So, everypony, who wants to see Cheese’s chaos mane?”
Several ponies raise their hooves.
“And here’s where you’ll be staying in,” says the realtor to Anarchy’s family, voice somewhat muffled through the walls. “Close to the Everfree but not too far from Ponyville proper.”
Cinnamon hangs back just outside the front door, listening to the businessmare praise the newly constructed house by the wayside. Fluttershy has been expected to be here, and along with Anarchy, her two other children are present, a changeling-esque creature and a pegacorn colt. Of good surprise to Cinnamon is Discord’s presence, holding a bouquet of flowers, sometimes nudging Fluttershy with it. They share a polite kiss on the cheek while the realtor doesn’t work, which Cinnamon sees through the window.
Their heads float in and out of a succession of windows. Uncharacteristic of Discord, he shushes Mayhem and Frenzy whenever they get too rowdy with chaos magic, profusely apologizing to the realtor for their behavior.
When the sky darkens and night begins, from within their new home, Cinnamon can spot the shaky shadows of the family, cast by a candle Anarchy holds. Browning leaves rustle above Cinnamon, spinning before leaving.
Leaving the café, Cinnamon waves goodbye to Oakley and his newly wedded wife. They spoke of a simple and humble honeymoon, they boasted of the delights of love, they kissed through a little accident with spaghetti, they laughed and hugged.
But down the street, a faint light catches her eyes against the darkness. Once at the little cottage—not Fluttershy’s, but the style isn’t too far off—she knocks on the door. She is greeted by Fluttershy. Not the one she knows; the eyebags on her face proclaim her age. “Oh!… hello there. You must be Miss Cinnamon?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Ah.” Only now does Cinnamon register that her eyes are red. And that her voice is muffled. “Ann told me to expect you. Come right in.”
Cinnamon takes in the rustic aesthetic, of a little fireplace and a couple of reading chairs, the smell of freshly burned wood. Cheesy family pictures adorn the shelves; scrolls and quills encroach upon the cabinets and the furniture. Flowers in vases and pots and just pure soil bloom, lighting up Cinnamon’s path through the living room.
Fluttershy glides up the stairs and out of sight, but by the fire, Anarchy sits, with a cup of tea going cold by the recliner. A candle gives scant warmth to the drink.
“Where’s the rest of the family?” Cinnamon asks matter-of-factly.
A sentient teaspoon drops supar into Anarchy’s teacup. “Upstairs,” says Anarchy herself. “Discord’s brought over some friends…”
“Mm. You know that the rest of your friends are here, too, in safe hooves. Sort of.”
“Yes. Thank you very much for that.”
Cinnamon sees Anarchy’s chair expand into a two-seater, coughing out dust and a remote control and some pocket change. A paw invites her to take the extra space. So she takes it.
“I… I know I can’t be here for too long,” Anarchy begins, blowing on her tea. “I know why you’re here, why all this is happening. I… people will see me. Different ways, situations… just so I stay awake.”
“Stay awake?”
Anarchy lets a digit go from her cup. “There’s… four others expecting me. Or they already saw me. Funny how that works. But I wish… no… well, someone wishes we spent more time together, you and I.”
Cinnamon clasps her forehooves tight. “But we were quite far apart”
“Doesn’t matter. An ocean apart, but I still saw you, you still saw me. Wasn’t it you and your little horses that helped get him hooked onto your little world in the first place?”
“And you got him hooked to yours. I know...”
A hoofful of giggles are shared. Bubbly and fizzy is the feeling climbing Cinnamon’s soul. But everything vanishes with a sigh, a welcome layer of sound against the crackling of dying wood. “You can’t stay, you know, Anarchy. You already stopped staying. Besides, what am I doing here with you now? Just talking to someone else’s interpretation or remembrance of you just to let it all out?”
“That’s not Cinnamon talking, is it?”
“Ergh, probably isn’t. Yet, you’re not here, like, kind of, but you’re still… somewhere in my head… I just didn’t know. I don’t… no, I don’t know. One day or every day, I expect to say hi, and you say hi, and we’d wave, we’d talk… maybe not you and me but everyone else, your home and my home, like nothing happened. Cookie… she wanted to travel there, get to your world, get to know you more. Maybe after a while, we’d really meet, not just us but the creatures outside this reality… we’d have a party, a feast, talk about each other and our own Equestrias… or take a call, play chess, get to know our other friends…”
Sharp points take her on the withers. Anarchy’s claw, she sees, calming her down. An anxiety attack, or it might’ve been.
“But you know what The Good Book says, Anarchy… the house of mourning… it’s better than the house of feasting…”
Anarchy holds out a big black tome of scripture, the cover lit up in the fireplace’s melding orange aurora. “Where we all end up...”
The candle’s light burns as entertainment and contemplation. They watch it whip against the air, defiant as the flame fought the invading cold, then watch each other.
Though a gale, a storm, a hurricane pass them by, they grip their seats tight, grip each other tight, Anarchy’s chaos magic contradicting itself by maintaining order in her home, keeping the elements at bay and the candle afloat.
When an hour passes, Anarchy takes the fire into her forelimbs, says a weak goodbye, and hurries upstairs. And the candle is passed.