"Spirit of harmony, pony togetherness?" Chaos Comforting brought her hands together. "Looks like Twilight, distant gaze?"
All three fillies shook their head in unified ignorance. Silver Spoon snickered softly. "Maybe that's a thing where you come from?"
"Maybe..." The temptation to go check was strong, but leaving Filly Comforting wasn't on her todo just yet. "So!... So... I want to ask you a few questions, but I don't want to make it strange for your friends."
Diamond hiked a brow at that. "We're besties. There's not much you can ask that'd upset us that wouldn't also upset her."
Chaos Comforting smiled, clasping her hands. "You are a good pony."
"She is," agreed Filly Comforting with a matching smile. "And I love her." She grabbed Diamond in a firm hug, getting a squawk that turned into a returned hug a moment later. "What did you want to know?"
"Alright, before. Before you were Comforting Shade." Chaos Comforting waved over herself. "Before you were in this world."
"Oh." Filly Comforting inclined her head. "I put that aside. I'm done with that life. I died." The other fillies peered at her. "Sorry! But I did! It's a past life, literally. I don't think about it, because it's done. I'm Comforting Shade." She stood up tall and proud. "And I'm alright with that."
Silver hummed. "You don't... look, like... dead?" She poked her more familiar Comforting. "Yep, alive."
"Don't be dumb." Diamond rolled her eyes dramatically. "She just said 'past' life. As in not right now?" She gave Filly Comforting a firm thump with her hoof. "As in not right now. Of course she's alive."
Filly Comforting flopped back to her haunches on the thump. "Hey."
"Sorry." Diamond rubbed behind her head. "Didn't mean it."
Chaos Comforting perked. "You don't like being touched without warning either, right?"
"Nope." Filly Comforting offered an arm. "But expected hugs are great."
Chaos Comforting came in and the two met in a warm hug that was just as fuzzy and friendly as she had hoped it'd be. "Yep, you're me, at least a me."
Filly Comforting examined Chaos Comforting curiously. "Do you think about your past life a lot?"
"Yeah... no..." She rubbed at the side of her head. "Now that you bring it up, I guess I don't? But it's part of me. I didn't forget it. It's me, just past me."
"Well." Filly Comforting shrugged. "What can you say about the life before that?"
"I... Wait." Chaos Comforting frowned with thought. "I didn't have one."
"I bet you did," taunted Filly Comforting. "Why would we have one but not two, three, a thousand million bajillion?!" She tapped her hooves together. "As soon as you have more than one, it's hard to put a limit. We thought we had one world, but then, oops, there's another, which meant... Suddenly there's untold number of them. That's how things work."
Chaos Comforting waved up at the bright day. "This isn't..." But her argument died and she flopped to her bottom. "No fair... Alright... So maybe there are a ton of them... that I don't remember... How does that change things?"
"It doesn't. But my past one doesn't either. This is a new one." Filly Comforting wrapped herself around Diamond in a warm hug. "This life is the one I'm in, and I will live it to the fullest. The old one is done. I died."
Diamond squinted at Filly Comforting. "Now you're getting strange, but alright. I can't argue with where you ended up there." She turned to Chaos Comforting. "So, how is that different from you?"
Chaos Comforting puzzled that through. "My past is... still part of me. If there are other lives beyond it, I'm a little sad I don't remember them... Since that means they're really dead. I still remember my last one, so it's still part of me. I love this life, a lot. Oh! Harmony. I should check on her." She lifted into the air. "Will you still be here?"
Filly Comforting pointed off. "I'll probably be at school."
"Like a normal filly," added Silver Spoon, nudging against her friend. "Which she is, unlike... like... you."
It was hard to argue that... "I know this sounds a bit weak... but you're a friend of mine, back in my world, Silver Spoon. I don't want bad memories of you."
Diamond curled a hoof on herself. "Me too then, right? Ha, go... other... me?"
"We should go." Filly Comforting led the way towards school. It wasn't the college, it was the foal school, for foals.
Chaos Comforting waved as they headed off, considering the ramifications of it all. "I'm just a filly, a normal... cute filly." Which wasn't a bad thing to be, really... A filly... No extras, no frills, just a filly.
She took off with a crack of casual warp speed, arriving at the gorge that hid Harmony. The treehouse was up above it. The Young Six had done their job in seeing to its creation. Comforting drifted closer to it, cringing with fear. "I come in peace... please don't be angry..."
"Hello." Far-gazing Twilight stepped out from around the tree. "I don't know you."
But the words weren't colored with anger or fear. Comforting dared a little smile. "I know you, another you. Hello. I'm Comforting." She waved at herself. "From another world."
"You do not appear to be the correct Comforting. Your words appear to be truthful." Harmony sat, considering Comforting. "Why are you here?"
"I was sent by another you, to see some paths that were not taken. I've seen what I might have been, a few of them."
"Have you?" Harmony smiled faintly. "This Comforting is no agent of mine. She is a filly. She is a fine filly, that does not require my assistance. A pony. Nothing more, nothing less. Her fate is simple, but pleasant. What is yours? I cannot discern your path, Comforting of another world."
Comforting raised a hand quickly. "Objection!" Harmony inclined her head. "Sorry... But she got really hurt, didn't she?"
"She did," agreed Harmony without hesitation. "Many foals get hurt as they grow. I would prefer it not be, but she is no agent of mine. To intercede would be playing favorites. Why help her, and not other hurt foals?"
Comforting waved at herself. "My Harmony was my friend... but she didn't help me either, because I chose for her not to, and Discord did instead."
"That explains much." Comforting's curious appearance, then clear in meaning to Harmony. "That Harmony played favorites. I would chastise them, if they were here."
"She was doing her best, promise... Now I am her agent, sorta... I'm her friend, and help her."
Harmony blinked slowly, though her eyes never changed their non-focus. "I do not have friends. Technically, you could call all ponies my friend, but this would be incorrect." She turned to wave a hoof at the clubhouse. "They have seen me, and aided me, but they are not my 'friend'. I am their patron, to brighter futures. I am playing favorite, but they are my agents. I am permitted." She turned back to Comforting. "You are not an agent."
"I'm even better." She threw her hands wide, little sparklers bursting with it. "I'm a spirit, a watcher, like you. Like Discord."
"Oh! Oh... Oh. You should have started with that." Harmony dipped her head at Comforting. "Hello, fellow watcher. You are the first from another world I have met before. I trust the story you watch is proceeding smoothly?"
"Very." Comforting clapped her hands with a smile. "You are way more pleasant than another Harmony I met."
"You are meeting many of me?" Harmony inclined her head the other way. "Shouldn't you be watching your story?"
"It's paused right now." Comforting hiked a thumb at nowhere in particular, then curled the finger and others, forming a window showing the flickeringly paused view of her world and its Harmony, a tree, perfectly still. Though, for a tree, that was fairly normal.
The new Harmony peered at the image a moment, then looked away, back at Comforting. "That requires great power. You are a potent spirit."
Comforting dug out her button. "The other you is doing it. She gave me this."
Harmony snuffed the button gently. "It is of me, another me... Good. I was worried." Not that she had looked worried. "A spirit of that magnitude, visiting me? I am glad this is not the case." She reached a hoof and Comforting allowed the contact, gently brushing the fur of her cheek. "Little Chaos Spirit, friend of Harmony. Will you be my friend as well?"
Comforting jumped at that. "O-Oh! I... I can't... I'm alright with being friends." She offered a hand out. "But I will go back, to my world."
Harmony touched her nose to Comforting's palm. "Then we will enjoy the little time we have. Little chaos spirit, why are you so comfortable about an order spirit? Our natures are in conflict. I can feel it pressing against me. I am larger, it is a gentle press. It must be uncomfortable for you."
Comforting patted herself down, but she felt no pressure. She felt no tearing, or pinching, or anything else unpleasant, just the warm presence of her alter-friend. "I... Once I felt that, I remember. I used to, a lot, but I pushed against it, to hug my Harmony."
Harmony clopped a hoof to her cheek. "I lack the words."
"I'm sorry?"
"You have nothing to apologize for." Harmony inclined her head at Comforting. "You are a chaos spirit tainted with order. You took it on willingly, such a friend you were with an agent of order. This cannot have been one way... Is this other Harmony troubled? To have disorder pushed on it. I would not want that, but the result is... Is... Pleasing, I think." She looked over Comforting. "Pleasing, yes. You are a nice result."
Comforting crashed back to the ground, landing in front of Harmony's tree. She knew, somehow, it was her own world. "What?!" She dug out the button, which was shattered into so many fragments. "I wasn't..."
"You broke me." Harmony emerged. "Shattered me, like that button..."
Comforting winced, but those words were not spoken in hot anger. "I didn't mean to hurt you."
"I hurt you." Harmony stepped closer. "I threw you from your destiny. I made the first move... and kept making mistakes. You, Chaotic Harmony, Comforting Shade, you did as you could, the best you could see... I should have known better. I could see more. I could be more... I could have... This is my fault." She crashed, flopping at Comforting's feet. "I am a poor spirit."
"You are a great spirit." Comforting sank to her bottom and reached, cupping Harmony's cheeks in her hands. "You are kind and caring and growing."
"Order spirits should not grow," Harmony stated flatly. "They are, as they must be, and ever will be."
"You heard the other Harmony, I assume. You're not just an order spirit." She stroked and petted over Harmony. "You're even better."
"Better, or worse?" Harmony sat up slowly. "What am I?"
"My friend?"
Harmony sat in complete silence, eyes focusing on Comforting properly, fully, intensely.
"Right?" Comforting smiled as best she should. "I'm yours."
"I am not Harmony." She sounded so very sure of that. "I am something else. You were something else." She lifted a hoof at Comforting. "Then you became Comforting Shade. I... My choices are made, and now I am reborn. I am something else. Something new... Something good? Maybe..."
"I'm still me" Comforting tapped herself on the chest. "And you are you." She turned the tapping to Harmony. "Let's find out, together, what makes this new you, you, and even better, but you're still you."
Harmony inclined her head. "Will you go back to your old name?"
"N-no... alright. Alright!" She threw up her hands. "We'll think of a new name for you. Do you mind if I ask the others?"
Harmony glanced about, but there was nocreature there. "What others?"
"I can hear them." She put a hand aside her head. "Just give them a moment to speak their opinions. They sometimes have great ideas. Lucky for us, it's the end of a chapter."
"Chaotic Harmony... I don't understand. Part of me is scared that I will, some day... I trust you." She settled patiently for the voices to come, even if she didn't hear them.