//------------------------------// // Chapter 11 — The Sleepless Beholder // Story: It Was Just Supposed To Be Lunch // by FanOfMostEverything //------------------------------// “What is breaking, exactly?” Sunset inquired. “Well, how to explain it?” Discord pulled his beard off and started to pet it in thought. “Oh! I know. You.” He pointed at Twilight. The princess took a step back. “I broke?” “No, silly. Remember when you did your time traveling stuff with that light-colored version of you?” “Starlight. And yes, kinda hard to forget.” She brought her hoof to her chin. “I fail to see how that could be relevant.” “Well,” he pulled a chalkboard from thin air and drew five non-linear lines in parallel . “Due to your now-student friend using the time spell, several realities were created in what technically can be considered the same frame of time, meaning that infinite possibilities were happening and would be jumping from one to the other.” “Wait, all of that at the same time?” Twilight exclaimed. “I hadn't considered that before.” “Sounds quite chaotic,” Sunset said before a boom of confetti hit her right in the face. “She said the magic word!” Discord shouted into a microphone, now in an announcer’s outfit. “Let's see if she can double her score with her next guess.” Sunset got the microphone shoved against her muzzle, and she first coughed confetti into it before speaking. “That’s what's going on around us? Multiple timelines overlapping and causing chaos and instability that only the Power of Friendship can solve?” “Exactly, but not at all,” Discord said, Sunset's score going down as the crowd of similar-looking Discords booed. “You're missing a very vital piece.” He turned to the Princess. “Mind illuminating her?” Twilight just stared at the draconequus and blinked owlishly. “Uhhhh… oh! The map! Starlight used it as the anchor for the spell so it went with me to every timeline! We've to find the anchor that’s causing this, which would be whatever Wallflower broke, and fix it!” Discord laughed. “Oh, no that's not it at all.” He booped the princess. “The answer was you.” “Me?” Twilight questioned. “What do you mean?” “You were a constant,” Discord clarified. “In every timeline that you visited, there was a thing that always happened; You weren't in it. Because you were jumping from timeline to timeline so the ‘role’ of Twilight needed to be left open. Same thing with your dear Starlight.” “Wait, so Wallflower is the constant?” Regular Twilight asked. “You're making sense but not at all at the same time.” “Thank you, I do my best,” Discord wiped away tears as he made a little bow to the human. “And yes, she's the constant here. All of us are in a constant fluctuation of possibilities, some wildly different from others, but she is the one thing that remains unchanged. Or at least, she should be.” “Why her?!” Rainbow shouted. “What makes her special?” She crossed her hooves and a second later noticed everypony glaring at her. “Just curious. We all went through the portal, and Twi's the one with a princess for a counterpart.” “Well, what have you all just discovered today?” Discord asked the class, who were now all in individual desks. Luna raised her hoof. “Can you be more specific? A lot has happened recently, and if what you say is true, possibly infinite timelines worth of things at the same time.” Discord nodded. “It involves all the non-princesses.” Fluttershy tentatively raised her leg. “Is it, um, Friendship?” “Close but not exactly.” “Is it Gayship?!” Pinkie shouted from her seat. “Correct! A+!” Discord pulled out a gold star and placed it on Pinkie’s head. “Your way of using ‘Magic’ made it to this dimension even before you all started sharing lips.” “How?” AJ asked, and Discord simply brought Wallflower to the front of the class. “W-what?” Wallflower looked up at the draconequus in disbelief. “I haven't done anything! At least, not me.” “You don't need to do much to be loved by many.” Wallflower blinked, then turned to the class. Sunset just smiled smugly, the rest sans the pony royals evaded eye contact. “Wait, all of you?! How?” “Well, darling, it's not like we aren't open to multiple partners.” She blushed a bit. “Previous make outs have proven that.” “Why?” “Yer cute, hardworking, have wit, naturally make people want to hug you,” AJ counted with her hoof, which was harder than expected. “Do I go on?” “When?” “After the Stone incident.” Fluttershy answered. “Once we got the full picture of what you were going through, we all just silently agreed about it.” “Yeah, I mean, we gave Sunset shit for what she did back then, and didn’t even bat an eye against your quite immoral handling of your pent up emotions and trauma.” Another round of glares at Rainbow. “Hey! That one was positive!” Wallflower felt like she was going to faint as her brain warred between embarrassment, disbelief, panic and genuine happiness and warmth. “Okay, we’re unpacking that later when we’re back home.” “Slumber Party!” Pinkie shouted. Wallflower turned to Discord. “Okay, so, I’m the constant because apparently I’m lovable despite me being me. What is causing things to break? Why am I not doing the ‘constant’ thing you mentioned?” “Well, to put it simply…” Discord paused for dramatic effect. “The ‘constant’ is missing.” The gears turned in Wallflower’s head for about a minute before they finally clicked in place. “Uh, is she okay?” Fluttershy asked. “Give her a minute,” Sunset assured her. “She’s vibrating in place,” Luna pointed out. Discord pulled out a newspaper to wait for Wallflower to finish her processing, but got interrupted as suddenly the trees of the Everfree surrounded him and pinned him to the ground. “You can't seriously tell me that the REASON ALL OF THIS HAPPENING IS THAT SOMEHOW I’M NOT BEING REGISTERED AS EXISTING !” Wallflower shouted as she glared at the draconequus on the floor. “Well, you are quite unremarkable,” Discord joked, which got him shoved further into the dirt. “Should we stop her?” Rarity asked. “She looks like she’s about to turn him into a new flower bed.” “If he could be killed, he would be dead long ago,” Luna grumbled. Sunset got off her seat, casually walked over to Wallflower, and gently blew air on her ear.  The earth pony instantly shivered as her ear flicked. “Oh, wow, that was-” “I know, there’s plenty more I can show you later,” Sunset assured her with a side hug. “But right now we need to focus and not bury the only lead we got.” “Oh, right…” Wallflower looked at the trees before pointing at them. “Uh, how did I do that?” “You should stop asking yourself those questions,” Discord said before snapping himself out of the grapple. “It just limits what you can do.” “Okay, so…” Rainbow said as she flew closer to them. “Could we just throw Wallflower back out the portal to fix things?” “I don’t think so,” Princess Twilight said. “Even if she left, the constant would still be missing.” Discord nodded. “Yes, our best bet is to change her ‘missing’ status.” “How? What is it that’s not seeing her anyway?” AJ asked. To this, Discord shrugged. “Choosing not to question things has its drawbacks.” “Great,” Luna facehooved. “So we have to convince ‘something’ that Wallflower is a real, tangible pony. Er, human.” “Any ideas?” Sunset asked, but no one seemed to know what to do. “Well…” Twilight adjusted her glasses. “If she’s important because of our love for her, maybe we could use that?” “I have to kiss all of you?” Wallflower looked around at her friends, and suddenly her freckles were hidden by her blush. “I’m not against it.” “That would be a start, but I think Twilight’s implying that we’ll need more,” Luna walked closer to the blushing pony. “If she gets enough love to be a beacon of magic, that should make her noticeable.” “So… we get everypony to kiss Wallflower?” Rarity looked around. “We put up a kissing booth?” “Or throw a big make out party!” Pinkie cheered. “I don’t think just getting ponies to kiss Wallflower would be considered ‘love’, it has to be more genuine than that,” Sunset moved over to Wallflower and pressed her lips against hers, melting the pony as their tongues intertwined. “We’ve to make everypony love her for who she is.” “That’s gonna be quite the task,” Luna pointed out. Sunset just smirked. “Have we mentioned that Wally here is a passionate gardener?” Luna and Wallflower looked at each other. The Princess of the Night smiled excitedly. “Let’s talk while we get out of this forest.”