As the nigh-uncountable Wallflowers coalesced back into a single consciousness, they/she mostly perceived a blinding white glare of sensory overload. Going with the flow was all well and good as it happened, but trying to reconcile it all was giving her a worse headache than trying to follow the transitions.
“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
As such, she welcomed the distraction, not even irritated by the all-too-familiar apology. Well, mostly not. “Yeah, I get that a lot. I…” She trailed off as the glare faded. “Wait, where am I?”
Aside from the breathable air, Wallflower seemed to be in the depths of space, stars scattered everywhere she could see. When she looked down, she fell to her hands and knees—which she had again, along with her usual outfit—and something told her asking what she was standing on was a very bad idea. She focused on the speaker instead, which only raised more, if hopefully less dangerous questions. “Princess Twilight?”
The purple alicorn bobbed her head from side to side. “Not exactly, though I owe her much. You can think of me as Harmony.”
“Oh. Oh!” The implications took a moment to click. In Wallflower’s defense, there were a lot of them. “Uh, so, I exist.”
That got a wry grin. “I noticed, yes.”
Wallflower blushed. “Right. Sorry.” She cleared her throat. “I’m not used to dealing with, you know, concepts.”
“No?” Harmony tilted her head. “I think you’ll find you have some very fond memories of concepts.” Several rectangles opened in reality, like real-life pop-up ads. Except these were some of the most surreal relationships she’d formed to get here.
“Well, yeah, but they’re not…” Wallflower trailed off as the screens showed moments she hadn’t directly experienced, yet clearly remembered. The magnitude of what she’d gone through hit her. She might not have consciously spent much time with any individual lover, but what they had felt had always been real, and on some level of existence, so too were the creatures she’d loved.
That she still loved.
“Oh.”
“Indeed.” She brought her attention back to Harmony, who watched the screens with… was that envy? Wallflower still wasn’t great at reading pony faces. “You may have overdone it a little, but you definitely got what you wanted. I can see my oversight now, and together we can fix it.”
“T-together?” said Wallflower, eyes widening.
“Don’t worry, you just need to stand there as I get everything set up properly.” Harmony lit her horn, thin tendrils of light going from it out into all corners of wherever they were. “Congratulations, by the way. It’s not every day you get to be the center of the multiverse.”
Wallflower ignored that. She was still working through the previous world-shaking revelation. “So what happens to everyone?”
“Well, their worlds will be stable. No shattered realities or decaying false vacuums.” Harmony raised an eyebrow as the strands went taut, then detached from her horn and began to circle Wallflower. “But I get the feeling that wasn’t what you had in mind.”
“What happens to everyone I loved? To all those different mes? Does it just go away again now that I’ve gotten your attention?”
Harmony shook her head. “That all happened. Or is happening. Or in a few cases, will happen. Causality gets messy when spreading yourself across as many timelines as you did. You’ve brought happiness to so many creatures, Wallflower, both directly and indirectly, and all the different instances of you will continue to do so even if the one I’m talking to won’t always be aware of them.”
“Good. That’s good.” Wallflower looked around the building network of glowing, ever-more-interconnected threads gathering around her, uncomfortably reminded of overgrown kudzu. Or a spider web. “So… what happens to this me?”
“Ah. Yes.” Harmony cleared her throat in a way she’d definitely borrowed from Twilight. “There is a… slight issue there.”
That got a groan. “What is it now?”
“Nothing you’ll need to take care of. It’s just, well…” Harmony frowned in thought for a few moments. “Connecting your home to one Equestria created a thin trickle of magic, one that got widened just a little when various Twilight Sparkles started messing with the portal. And now it’s going to be part of the same connected, overarching existence as many, many more magical lands.”
Wallflower felt a chill run down her spine. “We’re not going to all turn into ponies, are we?”
“No, no, that’s simple enough to prevent. But there will definitely be some… side effects.”
One sunny spring morning outside of Canterlot High, Twilight Sparkle was having the time of her life.
“... and then on Friday, we can all cheer for Rainbow Dash during her soccer game against Griffonstone High, then go and have celebratory and/or conciliatory cupcakes at the Sweet Shoppe, going by Couple Rota D-Two for who spends the most time with whom, ensuring fair and equitable access to all girlfriends. This division of emotional labor will also provide convenient jumping-off points for any more intense displays of affection that may result during or after the scheduled activities. Any questions?”
She got to organize and lecture about a schedule for an eight-person polycule.
Rainbow Dash seemed less enamored with the presentation, going by how she slumped against the Wondercolt statue’s base. “Where the heck is Sunset? I’m not sitting through all of this again when you explain it to her.”
Rarity poked her in the ribs. “Darling, really, you can at least appreciate the time Twilight put into it.”
Dash glanced up at her and smirked. “How long have you been on your phone?”
“That is neither here nor there.”
“I appreciate it,” said Fluttershy.
Dash rolled her eyes. “Of course you do, Shy. According to Twilight’s cuddle wheel—”
“Couple Rota,” Twilight insisted, swiping to the diagram in question on the tablet she’d been using for visual aids.
“According to that, it’s your turn to hug Wallflower.”
Fluttershy did just that, with just the tiniest smirk.
“The Rota doesn’t mean you can’t hug Wallflower,” said Twilight. “It’s just meant to ensure we each give one other some minimum quantity of affection, because you all deserve it.”
Applejack gave Twilight a one-armed hug that was still enough to lift the other girl off her feet.. “So do you, Sugarcube.”
“There she is!” Pinkie called from atop the statue, where she’d been acting as lookout since Dash had asked about Sunset. She waved to the approaching figure. “Sunset! Sunset Shimmer! Over here!”
It was a beautiful day. One could be forgiven for thinking that it was because Sunset was keeping all the stormclouds in her demeanor.
“Everything okay?” asked Wallflower.
“Fine,” Sunset grunted out. She held up a hand. “And I don’t want to hear it.”
Rarity raised an eyebrow. “Wallflower aside, none of us have even said anything.”
“I still don’t want to hear it.”
The others traded uneasy glances. Twilight fiddled with her tablet. Pinkie slid down the Wondercolt.
Ultimately, Dash bit the conversational bullet. “So, uh… Nice view?”
All eyes turned to the immense stem that dominated the sky, arcing up impossibly far with leaves broader than planets to a drooping blossom through which the sun shone. An image replicated on a vastly smaller scale on Wallflower’s backpack.
For her part, Sunset shouted at the much more magical heavens. “It was just. Supposed. To be lunch!”