"Have you ever wished that life could have gone differently?" the moustached unicorn asks.
"Of course you have," his brother says slyly.
"Now, thanks to the ingenuity of the Flim-Flam Brothers, it can!"
"Relive a better past with the Grand Nostalgic Chronophagic Regret Eradicator 2000!"
"You, sir —" and Flim points to a brown earth pony with an hourglass mark — "look like a stallion whose younger days weren't perfect."
"Me?"
"Maybe they passed you over for a promotion," Flam smoothly adds.
"Or you didn't work up the nerve to ask for that kiss." The patter blends together as if from a single voice.
"Or your Cutie Mark doesn't seem as brilliant as it did at the time."
"It doesn't matter how far back things went wrong."
"Relive it all! Each eye-blink is a day, each minute is a year!"
"What do you say, sir? Ten bits for the life you should have had?"
"Cheapest lifetime you'll ever buy!"
The earth pony lifts his eyebrows, then chuckles to himself. "That is a bargain, for a chance to see how it might have gone. So, how does this work? I tell you my biggest regret, or —"
"Oh, heavens, no!"
"It's all completely confidential."
"The spell takes care of that."
"Just give us ten bits and step inside."
Money changes hooves. The unicorns usher him over to a once-gleaming metallic contraption a bit larger than a wagon, and open the door into a comfortably padded room about a ponylength square.
"Now you just relax."
"Easy and painless."
"Come out once you're finished, so we don't keep the next customer waiting."
"Enjoy!"
The unicorns close the door, fire up the machine, and study the monitoring systems for a few moments.
"Alright, brother of mine, he's in."
They settle into their seats, waiting for the machine to finish —
∆
— and they're a few minutes into their poker game when a brown earth pony with an hourglass mark strolls by, glancing around like he's looking for something. The unicorns leap to their hooves, warming up their pitch.
"You, sir —" Flim calls out — "look like a stallion with regrets."
"You don't have to be!" Flam adds.
"Have you ever wondered how your life could have gone differently?"
"Of course you have," Flam says slyly.
"Wonder no more, with the Grand Nostalgic Chronophagic Regret Eliminator 2000!"
The earth pony's eyes brighten. "Ah! Yes! It's a marvelous machine, indeed. I'd love a second go." He reaches into his saddlebags for ten bits.
"A second …" Flim squints at him. "Have you done this before?"
"Oh! No." The earth pony laughs. "You know. A second go at the past. Fixing regrets and all that."
The unicorns usher him over to a brand-new, gleaming metallic contraption, and open the door into a room about a ponylength square. It's comfortably padded and unoccupied.
"Now you just relax."
"Got it," the earth pony says with an easy smile. "See you soon."
The unicorns close the door, fire up the machine, and study the monitoring systems for a few moments. Then they take their seats and settle in to wait —
∆
— and a brown earth pony with an hourglass mark strolls directly down the midway toward them. The unicorns leap to their hooves.
"You, sir! Would you like to witness the magic of the Grand Nostalgic Time-Magic Regret Eater 2000?"
"Relive the life —"
"I'll take it," the earth pony interrupts, flinging ten bits their way.
Contraption, padded room, closed door, monitoring systems, moment of relaxation —
∆
The first customer of a slow day! The unicorns leap to their hooves. "Are you familiar, sir, with the Grand Nostalgical Time-Magical Regret Eater 2000 —"
Ten bits are flipping through the air almost before Flim finishes getting the name out. They usher the earth pony into the machine —
∆
"Behold! Who will be the first to brave the Regret-Replacing Time Erasing Nostalgiamatic 2000?"
"I will!" The earth pony pushes his way to the front of the crowd. Ten bits, two bits change —
∆
The unicorns leap to their hooves. "The Best Yet No-Regret Time Restorer —"
∆
"The Grand Categorical Super-Historical Regret Reducer 2000 —"
∆
"Witness the All-New Celestia-Approved Grand Nostalgic Chronophagic Regret Eradicator 2000, Mark II —"
∆
"The Best Yet No-Regret Time Restorer —"
"Didn't we already do that one?"
Flim stops dead in his pitch. "What?"
"… Nothing. Sold, here's ten bits —"
∆
"— The Magnificent Anti-Sorrow Time-Borrower —"
/\
"— Come try the Regreticator," the moustached dragon hisses. "Nothing to lose but your conscience."
"Gah!" The earth pony scrambles backward.
"Hssst. Don't be ssscared." A wing encircles him from behind, pulling him in close against a second scaly body. "It's painlesss. Let your regretsss fall away … for good."
The pony's eye twitches. "I, uh." He fumbles inside his vest and gasps. "My screwdriver! I thought I heard something rolling into the singularity vertex." He squirms out of the dragon's grasp. "I, ah, don't think I got this one quite right, I'll be right back —"
∆
"— The Regreticator!" the moustached unicorn says. "An eradicator for regrets!"
The earth pony sighs in relief and flips him ten bits.
∆
∆ ∆The door hisses open. The brown stallion staggers out, blinking against the light, but reorients with unusual speed, nodding at the inventors. His face is oddly hollow.
"Welcome back!" Flam says. "How was the better life you were looking for?"
"This time," the earth pony says, "I merely gave her some kind words and walked away."
"Ah," Flim says knowingly, "matters of the heart."
"She lived a long and quiet life. I found somepony else. But I went back to visit her right before she died." The brown stallion lowers his head. "She said she'd always had this nagging feeling … like there ought to have been something more."
Flim raises an eyebrow, but says nothing.
The earth pony brings a hoof to his chin, and stands in thought for a moment. Finally, he smiles, blinking back tears. "So — that's it, then. For all I've changed, no better way. All the awkward silences, the disagreements, the tears, the close shaves … my choice is those, or nothing at all."
Flim and Flam look at each other uncertainly. "Ah," Flam hazards, "perhaps you misunderstand our machine. All it shows you is a better past that once might have been."
There's a yelp from several cubits away. A grey pegasus mare pitches forward and faceplants, hind hoof tangled in a stray loop of the machine's power cable. Her ice cream cone flies from her curled hoof, bounces off of the grass with a wet splat, and rolls to a rest in the dirt.
The mare looks up at her ice cream, one eye wandering, and begins to cry. "Aw, nuts."
The earth pony bites his lip. The moment lingers.
Then he gives the inventors a cryptic smile, turns his back on them, and trots over. "Pardon me, miss," he says, helping her to her hooves, "are you alright?"
"I'm sorry," the bubble-marked mare whimpers. "I'm having a horrible day. I lost my saddlebags, I spent my last bit on that ice cream, and I don't even know how I'm going to get home."
He grins. "Well, if you could touch the alien sand and hear the cries of strange birds and watch them wheel in another sky, would that cheer you up?"
She giggles through her tears. "If a strange stallion trotted into the ruins of my life and whisked me off into some fantastical storybook adventure? I guess it would."
"Then, onward," he says, "into the best of all possible worlds."