//------------------------------//
// Alone + Easy Target 
// Story: Friendship Is Optimal: Changing Tides 
// by Boopy Doopy 
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It was a long week for Daphne after her father’s funeral, one of the longest of her life.
It was one that began with her mother and siblings agreeing that, instead of holding out hope that their father would wake back up and get better, he should be shipped off to Japan for a fantasy procedure that would supposedly upload his brain to Equestria Online. As impressive as the game was, the things she heard about being able to upload people sounded like nothing but science fiction to her. Of course, her opinion about the matter was outweighed by the rest of her family.
The life insurance money came in remarkably quickly, just a day after the operation was finished and her father was declared dead. It was a pretty good one that paid out a lot of money; they’d definitely be able to live off the payout for a few years after paying for hospital bills. But what the heck good was money when they no longer had a father in their life? Daphne knew it was unlikely, but she couldn’t help but wonder if that was why their mother agreed like her siblings did.
She immediately felt bad thinking that about her when she saw how poorly her mother was handling it. She was particularly tearful at the funeral that ended Daphne’s long week, a week that left Daphne herself feeling a mixture of numbness and depression. She flopped into her bed on Saturday evening after hearing for the ten thousandth time about how people were sorry for her loss and talking twice as much about the decision to let him go to Japan after several months of battling cancer. She wouldn’t have been surprised if she slept for the rest of her life. Seventeen years old was too young to be losing a father, especially one who was just forty-one.
She didn’t get back up until late Sunday afternoon, the sun shining in her eyes through the window as she did. Somehow, even after last week, the days still kept coming, and would always come forever. She guessed that meant she should get out of bed.
The rest of her family– what was left of it anyway– was hanging out in the living room like they always were. Her six year old sister, Olivia, watched a cartoon on the sofa next to their mother, while her little brother and sister lay on the ground as they used their phones. The mood didn’t feel very much different than it had since their father was first diagnosed. The air itself felt slightly depressed, the atmosphere somehow listless like Daphne's family was right now.
“Did you hear anything about Dad?” she asked casually to no one in particular. She wasn’t exactly sure why she did since she never supported the decision, but it wasn’t like it could be taken back now. No matter how much fiction it all was that she heard about.
“I haven’t played since Monday,” her little brother, Steven, said without looking up. “I’m pretty sure you can just check and see where he’s at though if you ask Princess Celestia, can’t you?”
She wanted to argue and say that she wasn’t the one who agreed to do that to him, but didn’t. Instead, she sighed and flopped onto the couch next to her little sister, closing her eyes as she leaned her head back.
“I can head online if you’re about to, Daph,” Liana said, looking up from her phone as she lay on the floor. “I haven’t played recently either, and some of my friends were asking about where I was. I could check with you.”
“I’ll just do it myself,” she said, letting out a long breath. “Later though. Not right now… What’s for dinner, Mom?”
She barely heard the answer. Everything seemed so monotonous. More so than it’d been for the last several months. Her father was actually gone. Sure, it might have felt like that before, with him having to live in the hospital for the last month or so of his life, but it was permanent now. There was no coming back, no hope of getting better– nothing. A copy of her father as a pony created by whatever scientists working on Equestria Online would only ever be just that. A copy.
Daphne could only let out a breath as she stared at the ceiling. She’d have to see what the copy was all about eventually, wouldn’t she?
Not right then though. She didn't know what she should do with her afternoon, but she didn't think she wanted to deal with something like that right then. Maybe making her little sister check with her was a good idea.
The afternoon seemed to drag on endlessly, but eventually the sky changed as the day turned into night. The dinner of peas and macaroni and fries was a far cry from their father's cooking, but no one complained. After that, her mother returned to her bedroom and Steven and Liana went their own ways, leaving Daphne to take her place next to Olivia back on the couch. The girl had taken her focus off of cartoons and put it on her PonyPad. She might have played Equestria Online more than anyone in her family, in spite of her age. It wasn’t too big of a surprise since My Little Pony was originally a show for girls her age.
“What are you doing, Livvy?” she asked as she looked over her little sister’s shoulder at her screen. It wasn’t in Canterlot where she, like most people, usually played, or the shard the two shared together. The town she was in now was much smaller, and her filly sized unicorn was by the beach making something. 
"I'm building a clubhouse," the little girl said simply. "It's gonna be for me and Dad. Princess Celestia said he lives here now."
"Yeah? Well I don't see him," Daphne replied as she quickly scanned Olivia's screen. She didn't know how eager she was, but she was certainly interested to see what kind of copy they had come up with. Not that she could tell anything with just a look around this one part of the beach. Even if he was here, she had no idea what he was supposed to look like. 
Their father wasn't here though. He wasn’t anywhere anymore. Daphne wished her family hadn't decided against her on her father giving up whatever chance he had left to fight. Or that the insurance agency and those doctors wouldn’t have manipulated her family with all that talk about emigration. It wasn’t that difficult to convince her mother with that talk about ‘saving’ him.
She wasn't gonna tell all of that to her six year old sister. "Did she say when?" Daphne asked instead. Apparently it should've happened a couple of days ago from what she heard.
“I dunno,” the little girl shrugged, not looking up from the screen. “I just know Princess Celestia said he lives here now, so I’m building a clubhouse. Maybe he’s gonna see us soon.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Daphne said flatly, but her sister didn’t notice. “Did you want any help building your clubhouse?”
“No. I can do it by myself,” Olivia said, the conversation ending with that.
Daphne didn’t press, and instead focused on other things, most of which was staring at the ceiling listlessly, offering only occasional glances to her little sister. She might have been curious about the copy they would’ve created, but she didn’t know if she was ready to meet it just yet. Especially not after her family thought a copy was better than a chance for their father.
She was barely paying attention when Olivia giggled and suddenly started speaking with enthusiasm in her voice. Daphne stole another look at her screen to see Olivia's filly, a small blue and orange unicorn named Warm Spell, laughing softly at an embarrassed looking pink coated unicorn. Daphne had never seen the mare before in her life.
"Hehe, I didn't know you were a girl, Dad," her sister said. "You look pretty!”
“I’m just being a mare right now while I think about what kind of stallion I want to be,” she said bashfully. “This is just what Celestia picked out for me. But thanks, sweetie. I think you look very pretty, too.”
“Oh! I also made a clubhouse for us!” she exclaimed, the filly on the scream tapping her hooves excitedly. “Come look at it!”
Daphne blinked at the sight, but didn’t say anything, only carefully watching the interaction with silent curiosity. If this mare was intended to be the copy they were going to create of their father, it was certainly an interesting one. Maybe the AI thought they'd want a girl for some reason, since there were more girls in Daphne's family? She had a few ideas.
She said none of them, and instead continued to look over Olivia's shoulder as she played. Her sister seemed like she was having fun talking to the character, and the mare seemed like she moved and acted in a more realistically human way than the other characters in the game. She wasn’t her father though.
“And this is the clubhouse,” her little sister said. “This is where we’re gonna live and play. It’s not finished yet though. I want it to be pink and yellow and orange.”
“That sounds very nice, honey,” the mare said politely, Daphne watching as she turned her head from wall to wall to take it in. “I can’t wait to see it when it’s done. I got a house today to live in when I woke up here though.”
“Oh. How come you decided to live here instead of Canterlot with me?” Olivia asked curiously. 
“I don’t know. This is just where Celestia put me. It’s called Summer’s Edge, I think.” Then Daphne watched the screen as the mare smiled and touched Olivia’s filly’s nose. It was a move just like her father would do, and something Daphne remembered experiencing all the time when she was little. 
“You can live here with me though,” she continued. “I just got a big house to live in, big enough for you and your sisters and your brother. You could even have your own room.”
“I wanna see!” Olivia said excitedly, before she added something else. “Also, Daffie is here, too. She’s looking at my PonyPad.”
“Hey, honey!” the mare that was intended to be her father waved with a bright smile on her face. She turned her head slightly, enough that it almost seemed like she could see out into the real world and was looking straight at her. The only thing that stopped it from being completely creepy was how quickly the mare glanced down at her hooves with growing redness on her face.
“Uh, hi,” Daphne replied simply, flatly. She held herself back from calling this mare ‘dad’.
“Um, can she hear me?”
“Mhm,” Olivia nodded down at the screen. “She said ‘hi’.” Then the girl continued, “I wanna see your new house, Dad.”
Daphne didn’t watch her sister play for that much longer. Within a few minutes, as the mare was showing her around some house on top of a hill, she’d headed up to her room to flop back in bed. She’d only been awake for a few hours, but she felt exhausted already, like a weight was tying her down and forcing her to drag her feet behind her. 
She lay on her back to stare at the ceiling, a lot of thoughts on her mind, but no particular one coming to the forefront. She just felt tired, and closed her eyes a few seconds later, once she decided the ceiling had nothing to offer her. It was the start of a new week, technically the first full one without her father. Although given how long he’d been in the hospital for before he died, it was just another week for her. She still couldn’t help but blame her family a bit for the choice they made about him.
It would’ve been amazing though if it really was him. Daphne cried hard when the doctor said he wouldn’t wake up again, and she realized it would be the last time she spoke to him.
She only wondered briefly about what the future had in store, one where you could pay to kill yourself and create a copy for your family. Very brief was the thought before she let out a breath and considered nothing else.