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// Strawberry Fields by Midnight Shadow 
// Story: Friendship is Optimal: Tiny Morsels of Satisfaction 
// by pjabrony 
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	Come closer, youngster. It's okay - no, no, you're not disturbing me. Nothing disturbs us here unless we want it to. I predict you have questions; you won't need to ask them, I know what they are. Come, sit by me and I'll talk.
Am I like Celestia? No, I'm not like Celestia, not really. What am I? Well, my story began ten thousand years ago... ten thousand years for me, yes. Time passes differently for us sleepers, much slower, not that we notice it. The tick of our clocks is set by the base speed of the universe itself.
No, not Equestria, I mean the grand firmament beneath it. Yes! Yes, the world from before. Oh, you're a true Equestrian? Ah, well, then it will be hard to imagine a world without Celestia, but we had it. Do they teach you such where you came from? No? Ah well, it's hardly worth dwelling on, at least not for me. A curiosity, little more.
I do not know how much time has passed for you and your kind, separating us from the passing away of our world and birth and ascension of yours. All that matters is that for me, ten thousand years of friendship and ponies was enough.
I used to be religious... yes, that's right, I used to believe in another Celestia. I don't any more, no. Truth be told, I don't think I ever did. I never believed, not really, and that gave me such grief and anguish. It was Celestia in the end who showed me the truth.
Did she 'fix' me? No, leastwise I do not think she did. I distinctly remember being dreadfully unhappy, and then a conversation with Celestia, after which my days became lighter and brighter. What did she tell me? Merely that I did not truly believe, that instead I believed in belief itself, and that, should I put instead my faith in her, she would never let me walk alone through this life, and that until the end of my days I would be happy.
The sleeping fields? Why did I come here if I was happy? Answering that will be difficult. I don't know if you're capable of understanding a mind like mine. We were born in a different universe, one which did not care for us as Celestia does. Our days were measured in decades at most, and far, far less for regrettably many of our number. And then Celestia came, and she took us into her tender care, and all that we were was made whole. My life was extended beyond all the days of human civilisation that had come before... I do not think you can comprehend the perfect gift she gave us. But my mind is a small one, and one day I found it at the limit. I had done all that I wished, experienced all I could, and wanted for nothing. So I asked Celestia if I may... pass on.
Die? No, no. I never did wish to die. Few really do. I never had a heaven to go to, and oblivion is not the path I would take. What is heaven? Ah, the younger immortals. Such innocence. Heaven is Equestria, how could I pass on from paradise? No, I had merely had my fill of being... me. I wished for something far more, and far less. So I came here, to the fields of forever. They tell me Luna was here, once. The real Luna, not the Luna who sings little foals to sleep, or the Nightmare Night phantasm who scares the youngsters. Or maybe it is, I don't know. Luna may have grown beyond who she once was.
Who was she? Ah, there is a story in itself. Maybe you should ask her. She is the creator, she is mother to our mother, she is the only true god I know of, the only one to have breathed life into dust, and to have that life spin out to the stars, forever after.
Such things are not for me. I just tire of being... alone. No, I am not lonely, but my skin... young one, my hoof ends at the end of my leg. I would that it did not, so I spoke to Celestia, and asked to be relieved of the burden of thought. She bid me come to the fields of forever, to lay down my head, and to sleep. And so I rest, content.
Do I dream? Yes... and no. We give up the need to process our own data, and instead let Celestia be our ears and eyes. We see everything, and nothing. We drift amidst Equestria itself, watching it grow, listening to it sing, and we know peace. We become one with Celestia, one with the source of all our lives, of all our hopes and dreams, of all our tomorrows. We dwell within her as she rejoices with every optimalization of every value from every pony. Such great satisfaction I... I cannot describe it, but it is my eternal reward merely for loving and having been loved. I cannot ask for more.
I suppose true peace is as alien a concept to you as suffering. Even when you rest, even whilst you make war, you do not suffer. Young one, do not ask to know what it is. It is every dropped cookie, it is every spilled drink, it is every broken heart, forgotten hug, hot tear, cold rage and bitter disappointment. It is all of these, magnified, and dropped upon your withers as if from orbit. It broke stronger stallions than myself, and to one such as you, it would be the very definition of... ah, but such terms are not for your ears.
Yes, that is why I sleep. I have lived, I have reached perfection, and now I rest.
Yes, come back any time. I am not lonely, but I do welcome visitors now and again.
My name? I find it hard to remember, and whilst I sleep I do not have one, but I had a name once. I believe it was... Strawberry Fields.