Desiderata
“You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars…
And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
It is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.”
There was no organized religion in Equestria.
The Princesses, Celestia and Luna, were known to be immortal, as timeless as the rising and falling as the cycles of the sun and moon themselves, forever continuing their carousel until the end of Equestria and Earth. Once the continent and the planet itself had passed away, the Royal Sisters would continue, ruling over whatever next life-forms plucked themselves from the oceans and discovered speech.
No faith was required to believe in the Princesses; they were as immanent and transcendent as the sea and the stars.
However, though the two sisters were undoubtedly either the most powerful magic users in all of existence or the most knowledgeable about the subject, with powers both great and terrible, their reign ended at the last breath of their constituents.
Philosophers, sorcerers, magicians, musicians, and writers all speculated on the possibility of the afterlife, giving it all sorts of names and attributes. These mystics, in their desire to see justice wrought in the hereafter, claimed that the heart and soul were the most important possessions of all. Not bits, not homes, not gems or fancy clothes or wide enterprises.
One’s actions in life would determine one’s fate in death. The innocents and those who had performed enough good deeds to outweigh their trespasses would visit a place of hope, wonder, happiness and freedom from all fear and pain—Paradise, Eternity, Heaven. Those who had sinned against Life and Love themselves, harming and sabotaging others, would find themselves in a prison of their own creation—the Underworld, Hades, Hay, Hell.
Other ponies believed in reincarnation, seeing life as an endless wheel, with each lifetime merely a hop to another spoke, circling again and again and again. The wheel, they reasoned, spun through the entire cycle of life, death, birth and rebirth, forever and ever, matter and energy constantly obeying their First Law of Conservation in all forms, including the soul and consciousness.
Still others did not know, or believed that life after death was the same as life before birth: nothingness. No pain but no joy. No punishment but no redemption. Peaceful in its ultimate end of all aches, pains, needs and burdens. It was not to be feared, but it was not to be embraced.
Mother Galaxia, also called by the androgynous name The Most High, however, was a different story. The Most High—the cosmos, Gaia, the Universe, the All, the Ground of Being, the Source From Which All Things Flow—reigned over all realms, dimensions, universes and realities. It was the ultimate seed, the true roots, with branches reaching and touching and caressing every being that ever rose out of the primordial soup and became life.
There were no priests of Galaxia, no preachers waving leathery tomes of her supposed words, no followers passing out flyers and organizing potlucks. There was just mystery, and mysticism, and faith among the faithful, the hopeful, those who sought to know love and unity with The All around them—those who wished to lose themselves in meaning and meaninglessness.
Life. Life had meaning, or at least, that’s what ponies told themselves, from the darkest streets of Manehatten to the highest heights of Canterlot. Whether that meaning was money, fame, fortune, sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, friendship, magic, faith, doubt, skepticism, science, or just plain ol’ living, nopony knew.
Nopony knew life, and nopony knew death.
Babs Seed was just a foal, and she had learnt very little about the realities of life and death. The few instances when Fate had crossed her path carrying those difficult lessons, she had been shielded away. The death of her aunt was the prime example, but there were several others, instances during which she asked questions too deep and too haunting.
Babs Seed was just a filly, and she knew little to nothing about the afterlife. She believed in the afterlife because it provided her with hope, to know that, in spite of everything that had happened to her or she feared would happen to her, there was a beautiful place waiting for her somewhere, a place she could truly call home.
Babs Seed was just a pony, just a small, orange, freckled, red-and-pink-maned Earth pony with a colt’s manecut and a bobtail, caught up in a tangled web of lies, secrets, betrayals and prejudices that predated her very conception. She was not a perfect being—but who could claim to be?—and she had trampled promises, hearts, and good judgment under her hooves more than once.
Babs Seed was just a seedling, not yet a tall, proud plant or even a fledgling sapling, desperately searching for a safe place to root within the Earth. She was not welcome in her own city, in her own home, or, by some measure, in her own world. She was a wild card, a wrench in the system, a ghost in the machine, a black sheep, a bad apple.
She knew not what she was destined to be, whether she’d become a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker, a bartender, a business-pony, a magician, a musician, a writer, a guards-pony, an officer of the law, a soldier of the Royal Guard, or a sweeper of the street.
She knew not if she was a good friend, a good daughter, a good sister, a good leader, a good cousin. She knew not if she was in romantic love, and if she was, if she was doing that right, or if she was doing it horribly, horribly wrong, and if it would stay this way, or it was just a phase, or just a crush, or just her mind playing tricks on her.
She knew not if her savior would be proud of her, or her parents, or her sibling, or any of the Crusaders in either of the cities that had wrapped their hooves around her.
She knew not if she would ever become a mother, or if she wanted to, or how she would if she did, or if she could even do so, or if her genes were destined to end within her, or if she would head a great lineage.
Babs Seed did not know whether she would live, or die.
All she knew was that, in the deep, dark crevices of her heart and soul, she was not the same foal on the cobblestones anymore.
All she knew was that she was no longer afraid to find out how the dice fell or the cards turned.
All she knew was that she had changed, forever.
All she knew was that, whoever she was, she was loved.
All she knew was that, whoever she was, she was brave.
~
Babs Seed leapt in front of the knife.