Chapter II
Back in the Council Chamber, Spike kept on walking in a circle. Writing to the Sisters had seemed like the most reasonable thing to do after panicking. They would know what this was all about. Indeed it seemed that they did, although the answers they had been giving were not that much more helpful than the questions had been.
“What do you mean, we have broken against Harmony?” he asked, keeping his restless eyes on the floor. “That’s crazy!”
Celestia looked at him sadly. “It is more than that. It is nothing short of absurd.” She glanced through the window at the Everfree Forest, which during the past hour had absorbed a quarter’s worth more land compared to its original size. The growth was only accelerating. “Yet that is exactly what we have done from Harmony’s perspective.”
Spike’s treading increased in pace. There wasn’t anything he could do to help with the evacuation of Ponyville, or with the hopeless fight against the Everfree, or with anything. Add to this all the possible scenarios his mind had gone through in what came to the fate of all his friends and you got a dragon who was rapidly falling short of claws to chew. True, Pinkie had made a short comeback, and she had looked cheery, right? On the other hoof, it was Pinkie. She’d look cheery in a grave.
“There must be something we can do,” he said. “If you break something, the next thing you do is fix it, right?”
“You are correct,” said Luna, equally sadly as her sister. “The trouble is, from Her perspective, we are the broken part. And She is set to fix us, regardless of what we think of it.”
Spike stopped. “How can she do that and call it fixing?” he wailed, pointing through the window. For now, the dark, thick vines were avoiding Twilight’s castle, but for how long would be anypony’s guess.
Celestia sighed heavily. “I think it’s because of what I and Luna did, long ago. When we seized the Elements to fight against Discord, we breached Harmony by harnessing a part of Her power for our purposes.”
“But that was to fight against Discord!” burst Spike. “How could that be a bad thing from Harmony’s view?”
“Because Discord is a part of Harmony,” said Celestia. “In truth, we all are. That is called balance.” She looked in Spike’s panicked eyes, and wondered briefly whether it would be crueler to tell him everything or nothing. “Discord’s existence was, at the time, a disturbance for us; for the ponies of Equestria, for our conception of harmony. But for Harmony, he was the other side of the coin, of the equivalence that defines everything, and the real breach happened when we captured him in stone and thus disrupted the equation that seeks nothing but balance.” She touched gently the compass rose etched in one of the seats. “I can only suppose that reforming Discord was, for Her, an even greater abomination.”
“But that debt was ultimately settled,” said Luna, frowning. “The Elements were ultimately returned to the Tree. Balance was restored.”
“So had I thought, too,” said Celestia, her hoof resting on the stony seat’s back. “But it seems that we failed to realize the depth of our reliance on the Elements. We failed to notice the taint we had imposed on them.”
“Taint?” echoed Spike.
“The taint of consciousness,” said Celestia. She removed her hoof from Twilight’s throne. “The Elements are a representation of balanced harmony, which functions completely on the basis of reciprocity. The more we relied on them, the more they relied on us. The more we drew power from them, the more they drew power from us. They learned to be conscious just as we learned to use their power, and the knowledge must have passed onto the Tree when they were returned.” The purple eyes met Lunas. “The only reason She didn’t awaken earlier was that I abandoned the Elements a thousand years ago.”
Luna stood very still under her elder sister’s gaze. The air between them hummed from the weight of unsaid words. On any other day, Spike would have quietly slipped out of the room. But this was serious.
“Okay, but what did we do to get Harmony mad?” he said. “We take care of the weather, of the animals, of everything! She should be rewarding us, not unleashing the Forest at us!”
For a moment, Celestia didn’t seem to hear him. Then she blinked, and the volumes fell to pieces. “It is impossible to say what Harmony precisely thinks now that She thinks, but as always, She will be striving for the balance of the whole. What that is, nopony can tell.” Spike’s confusion only burned brighter on his face, so Celestia continued: “Think of it like this: there are two versions of harmony, ours and Hers. The more we, the ponies, increase our harmony and well-being, the more we disrupt Her harmony. The more we make the nature abide to our purposes and the more the nature needs to rely on us, the less it can rely on itself, until ultimately the nature is nothing but an extension of the ponykind, ours to control, to save or destroy. By then, we’d be living in balance on the detriment of nature’s imbalance.”
Spike shook his head. “B-b-but we’re taking care of nature! We’re doing it good!”
“And what happens to nature if its good caretakers were to disappear?” whispered Luna. “Harmony is not about well-being or what is good, not to Her. It’s about balance. It doesn’t matter whether the imbalance stems from positive or negative aspects; it’s still imbalance, a disruption. It still needs to be… fixed.”
Spike fell to his knees. “Where does that leave us? How badly we need to be fixed?”
“It’s impossible to say where the optimal equivalence rests,” said Celestia. “Her becoming sentient has increased the speed of the process, yet I do not believe it has affected its central principles. She will continue until an invisible threshold has been crossed.” Her eyes wandered yet again to the empty throne marked with a compass rose. Until the two harmonies have been reconciled, there can be no harmony. The fate of the world rests yet again on the shoulders of you and on your friends.
Only this time, it’s the world itself that you must face.
***
When Harmony had finished her uninterrupted monologue the world was, for a long while, filled with the sound of creation. With some tweaking, some killer dubstep remixes could have been made from that.
“So you’re saying…” began Twilight. “...That we brought this on ourselves? By taking too good care of nature?”
“Yes,” said Harmony, pleased that they had gotten it right on the first go. “You have become the centre of gravity in the world’s ecosystem, a state of affairs which will ultimately lead to the whole system’s downfall. Asymmetry always does, no matter which way the scale tips over.”
“And you’re fixing this… how exactly?” asked Twilight.
“By doing nothing. My absence from reality, along with yours, has caused a lapse in the system, an imbalance that will match the one caused by you. At the end of it, Harmony has been restored, and nature will be independent once more.”
Twilight swallowed. “And for the ponies of Equestria this means…”
“Adaptation,” said Harmony. “Whatever that will mean in practice is entirely in your hooves.”
“This can’t be happening,” whispered Fluttershy. “I must be dreaming. We all must be.” She bit her lip hard and yelped. Next, she collapsed.
“Fluttershy!” the fiver others cried, rushing for her aid.
They do love to repeats one another’s names, observed Harmony, whose knowledge of the equine race had gone through a massive expansion during the last few hours. Being sentient did have some obvious advantages once you learned to utilize them appropriately. Perhaps I should start to systematize all this data, to extend it to other spe–
“You can’t do this!” cried Twilight, marching straight to Harmony. There were tears gleaming on the corners of her eyes. She stopped a few feet from her. “You just can’t!”
Harmony looked at her blankly. “I am doing nothing. This ‘I’ is only a gift from you, as I explained. The Laws of the world are what do all the work.”
“But you are conscious!” shouted Twilight, stomping her hoof. She breathed in and out a few times and closed her eyes for a second or two. When they opened again the tears were gone. “That means you have a choice. We can find another way. The change doesn’t need to be so… radical…”
Harmony’s eyes remained fixed in hers. “A mortally rate of a rough quarter of population is actually a mild outcome, considering the–”
“You do have a choice, don’t you?” said Twilight through gritted teeth.
Harmony sighed. “You overestimate the value of free will. It reminds me of a prison, really: another biochemical mechanism born in the flux of evolution, although I’m ready to admit that it has some nifty applications. However, it also appears to be a major source of imbalance in the world. The Harmony of nature wasn’t enough for you, so you seized it and made it your own.” She leaned closer to Twilight and whispered: “All the while thinking, in your arrogance, that Harmony would have nothing to say about that.” She leaned back and smiled.
Twilight was staring at somewhere behind her, her eyes reflecting the brilliant light of the sublime play around them. Harmony gave her one more look and turned away. “I’ll leave you be for now. When the transition in reality has passed, I will take you back. Healthy females are something your race will be in acute need of, after all.”
She got two steps before Twilight’s voice stopped her.
“Before you go… There is something I don’t understand…”
Harmony glanced behind her. “Yes?”
Twilight, still looking something only she could see, said: “Why did you wish to talk with us?”
Harmony didn’t answer at once. “I needed to take you away from your world to ensure that not a touch of Harmony, neither yours nor mine, would be left to interrupt the transition. The rest was a way to pass time. And perhaps to give you a chance to learn from your mistakes.”
“So you do care about us,” said Twilight.
“I care about the balance. You have your place in it. All you need to do is accept it.”
Twilight frowned, but still looked away from Harmony. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re telling that to us. If it’s too late to change anything now, why tell us anything? Why not let us learn ourselves? Why interfere?” Very slowly, the purple eyes met the enigmatic gaze. “Wouldn’t that be unnecessary?”
Harmony blinked. “Strictly speaking yes, but I thought–”
“You could’ve just rounded us up and brought here right away,” continued Twilight quickly. “But you didn’t, because you wanted to talk.”
Harmony shrugged, but not very casually. “So? No harm in being polite, yes?”
The purple eyes narrowed down dangerously. “No real reason to, either. And that’s all you care about, isn’t it?” She took a step towards Harmony. “Tell me something… How does it feel, being sentient?”
Harmony strangled the inclination to take a step back. “I… It’s alright… A very intriguing biochemical mechanism, like I said.”
Another step. “You like science stuff, yes? But I guess psychology wouldn't be your forte, am I right? Am I right?” Twilight didn’t wait for an answer. “You might have some clue about this already, but consciousness is essentially a social phenomenon. It’s not very useful, you see, being too smart all alone, you see?” Four more steps.
Harmony blinked, twice. “I can’t see where you could possibly be going on with this…” She stopped when Twilight’s nose pressed against hers.
“You wanted to talk because you wanted company,” said Twilight. “You probably didn’t realize it yourself, but you still just had to talk with somepony, didn’t you? That’s all normal, of course. Loneliness can be just unbearable for a sentient being.” She leaned closer to her ear and whispered: “I wonder how it’ll feel, spending an eternity like that?”
It was Harmony’s turn to stare the face of oblivion.
Twilight pulled back. She was smiling. “But hey, I guess that’s the price you have to pay for your precious balance.” She turned around and started trotting leisurely to the rest of the ponies. “I’ll just go and have a nice, engaging talk with my friends now. Let us know when you’re ready to return, okay?”
In Harmony’s eyes, millennia revolved like the colors of a prism. The weight of them was increasing by the second. They pressed her back all the way to the depths of the cave in the Everfree where she had for the first time realized that to think was to exist. Alone. For an eternity.
“Wait,” she said with a colorless voice.
“For what,” snapped Twilight, sneering over her shoulder. “Everything is as it should be, isn’t it? The equation solves itself, like you put it. It doesn’t matter what we think about it, does it?” She kept on walking, a bit faster now. “Guess you were right: free will is a prison. Too bad you have the whole eternity to suffer from it: we only get a lifetime sentence.” She practically galloped now. She stopped when Harmony appeared before her. Her face was very pale.
“Is there… a cure?”
Twilight snorted. “For being conscious? Sure, plenty of ways. However, a lot of those demand a brain to affect, which I think you lack.” She smiled again.
The world turned red. A carmine halo swept over the black space, engulfing whole systems of planets, suns, and galaxies. It all burned. Twilight noticed none of this. Her attention was sucked in by the rage that twisted Harmony’s face to the point where it melted, literally.
“You. Did this. To me.” Her voice was a shard of glass scratching a blackboard. Her lips were moving, but the voice resonated with the fabric of space itself. “You… used me… corrupted me…” Pieces of coat peeled off her cheeks in their scores, revealing a gnarled mass of roots behind.
Terrified screams broke the dome of freezing horror that had captured Twilight. She recognized the voices, every one of them. She looked behind Harmony, where tentacles of crystallized bark had seized her friends, twisting them like ragdolls.
“It’s too late for that!” Twilight cried. “We’re the only ones who can help you! Stop! Stop! For the love of Celestia, stop!”
Harmony stopped. The ponies fell to the ground, whining and coughing, but alive. The carmine glow receded, leaving the universe as it had been. Twilight breathed out and sat down, shaking. She looked at Harmony, who looked just the same as she had a moment ago.
“You have… a plan?” she whispered.
“I do,” said Twilight immediately. “But first, you have to take us back. Now.”
In Harmony’s eyes, the prismatic colors turned like the pages of the world. She is lying, desperately trying to save herself and her kin. That’s what having a mind is only good for: lies. And being alone. Very, very alone. She looked back at the five ponies, who were getting up now, asking how the next pony fared, looking anxiously at her. I can’t live with them, nor without them, even when I was never meant to live, but only to exist.
“W-well?” asked Twilight. “H-how’s it going to be?”
Harmony raised her front leg. When it landed, the creation was left without a single witness. Only an old, worn, light brown stetson drifted between the countless suns on the verge of either collapse or birth. That, too, ultimately froze and shattered as the temperature dropped to the normal levels.
***
Looking back, perhaps the times weren’t so terribly wrong after all, in the Beginning and Before, thought Harmony as they appeared in the Council Chamber. At least, not compared to this.
The room soon filled with the joyous voices of reunion, which Harmony followed from side with mixed feelings of curiosity, loath and, worst of all, isolation. For a few minutes, nopony paid her any attention. She finally had to cough to put an end to the seemingly endless hugging and rejoicing, which was starting to get very annoying. One by one, they all turned to look at her. That’s more like, she thought, and smiled.
Another alicorn, white as fresh snow and larger as all the others, stepped forward. She was smiling too, but not like Twilight had a moment ago. It was a smile even Harmony found pleasure in facing; it disarmed all opposition. There was no way she could ever forget that smile, even when she had seen it never before.
“Greetings, Harmony,” said Celestia. “May I introduce myself: I am Princess–”
“–Celestia of Equestria,” finished Harmony, to the bafflement of all the rest in the room, including Celestia, although she covered it remarkably better than the others. “And you are Luna, her little sister,” she continued, looking at the dark alicorn.
“So you remember us,” said Luna. “I wouldn't have believed you could.”
“Remembering goes beyond being sentient,” said Harmony. “And how could anyone ever forget having a part of their soul being stolen?”
The room fell silent. Even the guard that rushed in a moment later felt its touch, and slowed down accordingly. Panting, he trotted to Celestia, whispered a few words to her and left after she nodded. She didn’t tear her eyes off Harmony for a moment during the small scene.
“The Everfree’s expansion has stopped for now,” said Celestia. “It is not receding, though.”
Twilight walked to Celestia’s side, looking at Harmony. “You said you couldn’t stop the transition,” she said.
She does look more confident next to the big one, thought Harmony amusedly. “Your lack of understanding loses in depth only to your arrogance, it seems.”
A fiery outcry ignited among the ponies behind the alicorns, whom Celestia quelled with a look.
“As I said,” continued Harmony, “I cannot affect the Laws themselves, but only the speed with which they affect, which is the function my consciousness is supposed to serve in the first place: to hasten the restoration of balance. Consequently, and as a by-product, this ‘I’ can also delay it.”
“Just like it can suffer from loneliness,” said Twilight. Celestia glanced at her, then at Harmony.
“Is this true? You feel alone?”
Harmony’s smile died on her lips. “Thanks to your corruption, yes. Naturally, I now also enjoy the access to a variety of other feelings, as your pet knows. Hate. Rage. Envy. Wonderful gifts, they are.” For a brief moment, her eyes turned carmine. “Honestly, I have no clue why I should not be offering their fruits to you as a gesture of gratitude.”
“Maybe you should!” burst Dash from the back row. “Cut the bull and get on with it!”
“Enough,” said Celestia. When not a breath stirred behind her, she said to Harmony: “The emotions you mentioned are what we call the seeds of discord. Unlike you, our conception of harmony is not striving to achieve an equilibrium that would include them, but that would rather overcome them. Perhaps now that you have experienced their effects yourself, you can better relate to this ambition.”
“I certainly can,” responded Harmony. “The point is that I am not supposed to relate to you. Suffering is a part of life, of all life. It’s a mechanism supposed to help you adapt, to cope, to survive. Abolish it and you abolish your means to live.” She waved a dismissive hoof. “Not that I care that much what happens to your race as such. This only becomes an issue when you force the whole of nature to abide to your rules.”
She sighed and looked out of the window, behind which the afternoon was turning into evening. This is going nowhere. We have reached a deadlock the like of which the universe has witnessed never before. Somewhere within Harmony’s’ soul, near the file labelled “Analogies”, something rustled. We’re both pulling the rope with equal force, fighting over the meaning of harmony. How do you win a fight like that? Suddenly, her face fell blank.
You let go…
She looked at the ponies. “Take the Elements of Harmony back,” she said. Even Celestia’s eyes widened at that.
…because when they lose their balance and fall back…
“You take them, and you use them–” continued Harmony.
...you pull again…
“–against me!”
…and win.
The ponies stared. Celestia and Luna exchanged an almost imperceptible glance.
“Use the Elements… against you?” echoed Twilight. “That’s insane!”
Harmony beamed. “Yes! Indeed! That is exactly why it is bound to work!” Twilight was still gaping, and the two other alicorns where whispering something to one another, but Harmony was only half aware of this. She had come up with a solution. All that needed to be done was to make them swallow the bait. “Insanity, madness,” she continued with glee. “Those are just your names for inversion. Our situation is already insane: the natural way to solve it is to reverse it, to fight madness with madness. Two negative factors make for a positive result! It all makes sense!”
Just seize the rope, she thought while eyeing Twilight, whom Celestia and Luna had drawn into their whispering. Pull it, swallow the hook, I’ll let you. You think you know the truth about Harmony, about me? Yes you do, don’t you. You’re so arrogant you think you can defeat Harmony herself with her own Elements. It goes to show how illusioned long term prisoners eventually become…
“What are you afraid of? she cried. “You’ve used the Elements dozens of times before against your enemies. Why should I be any different? I’m the most dangerous being you’ve ever faced!”
The three alicorns looked at her. The dark one said something that made the other two smile. I've got them, thought Harmony, practically shaking with excitement. Arrogance, the sweetest of vices. It will consume you all.
“We will consent,” said Celestia, smiling her radiating smile. “An idea that ridiculous has to work, just like you said. All there seems to be to it is to go to the Elements and–”
The Elements appeared between them in the middle of the room. “They are already here,” said Harmony, smiling like a shark. “Use them. Use them now.”
Twilight payed one last glance at her and then turned to face the five ponies behind. “Girls… You ready for this?”
They appeared reluctant, Harmony could tell.
“Ya sure ‘bout this, Twi?” asked Applejack, rubbing the back of her neck.
“Not that we wouldn’t trust you or them,” said Rarity, nodding at the Sisters.
“But it’s Harmony we’re talking about,” said Dash, eyeing Harmony.
“She has something in mind, hasn’t she?” whispered Fluttershy.
“I bet she’s gonna turn us all into alicorns!” shouted Pinkie, who had already crafted herself papery wings and a horn made out of carrot. The others gave her looks, but couldn’t help but to smile, too. “And my castle will so be made out of cotton candy!”
“That’s a goal worth the risk, isn’t it?” said Twilight. One by one, she looked all of them in the eyes. “Friends forever?”
“Friends forever!” they cheered in unison. The ensuing hug was an obligation. They even let the little lizard in, Harmony noted.
Thank you, Unclassified One, she thought, barely holding it together as she watched the six ponies form a semicircle around her. The Elements floated to them of their own accord, attaching to their necks in all the cases except Twilight’s, whose tiara landed on her head lastly. One by one, they began to glow from within.
Thank you, for you have shown me the purpose of humor.
Rainbow rays spiralled from the colored gems, snaking through the air towards Twilight. The ponies, their figures now glowing, closed their eyes and rose to the air. Harmony could feel their power growing by the second: the air around was already heavy from its weight.
The purpose of humor… is to let you smile in the face of absolute annihilation.
Their eyes flashed open. White light filled the room for an instant, after which the rays of rainbow lanced from the glowing shell surrounding the ponies, aiming at Harmony. They pierced her at the same moment she burst out laughing maniacally.
“Yes! Yes!! Yes!!! Let there be Harmony! Let there be light! They are all mine, they are all me!” The rainbow, having staved her body, wrapped around her and lifted her in the air. She could feel her power swelling like fuelled by the whole universe itself, which she was; she was everything there was, the whole existence. The sensation was overwhelming enough to stifle her lunatic laugh, to shove it back her throat. She coughed. She couldn’t breath. Her body twitched uncontrollably, and the rainbow cocoon, now slithering all over her, started to squeeze.
What is happening? Why am I in pain? The prismatic eyes bounced in their sockets, incomprehension filtering through in all its shades. Against the immense brightness, she saw the figures of the six ponies floating calmly in the air. There was something different in their silhouettes. Their manes and tails were longer and richer, and all around they seemed larger. Even against the white light, they shined like suns. Impossible. Inconceivable. Insane. This cannot be: I am Harmony! How can they defeat Harmony with harmony! There are Laws against that! Her body twitched again, yet this time there was no pain, no feeling of any kind.
She felt numb. In her dimming vision, a sword emerged; a sword ablaze with all the light there was in the world. It rose and came down on her in one sweeping arch. She never felt even the tiniest of stings.
***
When she woke up, the world was different. Not wrong, not right, just… different. But I’m still sentient. Did it not work? Did something go wrong? Did–
“Hey girls! She’s awake!”
Harmony opened her eyes. Before her, she saw herself, in the form that she had occupied when this world was born. The Tree of Harmony stood there like it had for several millennia. The Elements were there too, illuminating the cave with their rhythmical glowing. Did it work, after all? Are they gone? But that voice sounded like… Still lying on her side, she looked over her shoulder. The six ponies, and the lizard, were walking towards her, accompanied by the Sisters. They were all smiling. For some reason, the sight was calming, even though she knew that technically she should be boiling with rage. For the most part she was only very, very confused.
The group stopped well away from her. “How are you feeling?” asked Celestia.
Harmony got up. “What happened?” Her head was way too heavy for her neck, so she stumbled and fell over. Before she hit the ground, a whoosh of air blew over her, followed by a pair of strong limbs that caught her safely. She looked up.
“How about you start with sitting and see how that goes, yeah?” said Rainbow Dash, smiling kindly. Fluttershy walked next to her and tried Harmony’s brow with the side of a hoof.
“No fever, but you look very pale,” she said. “Since when did you eat properly?”
Harmony blinked and shook her head slowly. “I… had some cereals in the morning…” She sat down, looking suspiciously at the gathered ponies. “Why are you so nice to me now?”
“Because we ponies have a habit of taking care of each other,” said Twilight, her face all smile.
Harmony processed the implications of that sentence for a moment. Thinking clearly was proving to be a problem; she had this distracting hollow feeling in her stomach. Also, there was an unsettling urge to stuff cereals in her mouth. “You’re saying… that I’m a pony now?”
Every other head in the cave nodded.
Harmony gasped. “How…?”
“Of course we cannot be certain,” began Celestia. “But we might have a plausible theory.” She looked at Twilight. “Would you like to continue?”
Twilight beamed. Dash rolled her eyes and returned to the rest with Fluttershy.
Twilight drew deep breath. “Basically it went like this: in our use, the Elements separated you from Harmony.”
The not-Harmony frowned. “That was what they were supposed to do to you: to absorb your minds into the true Harmony and thus erase them. That should have made me complete again.”
“We figured,” continued Twilight. “Well, really Celestia and Luna figured that out first, but I understood it immediately, too, she added quickly. “Anyway, it could’ve never worked like that.”
“But you are the anomaly,” insisted the not-Harmony. “The link produced by the Elements should have balanced the equation, removed all excess variables.”
Twilight smiled in a way a teacher does when their pupil gets the answer correct without knowing it themselves. “And that is what ended up happening. The thing is, the anomaly was you, not us.”
“Me?”
“You, precisely you, the ‘I’ that you’ve been cursing all this time. That was the real problem: Harmony being sentient. So the elements did their thing and separated you from Harmony, at which point you became a real pony, both physically and mentally.” A touch of pride was mixed in Twilight’s smile.
“I don’t understand…” said the not-Harmony. “Yes, my self-awareness was an anomaly, but one that was meant to counter the original problem: you. I was supposed to speed the process of harmonizing you, not the other way around.”
“I believe that is what you actually believed,” said Celestia. “The Harmony that sought the balance of an equation was pushed into your subconscious, where it kept on telling you that something was wrong in the world, that the balance was disrupted by something. However, it could not name it directly, because the real problem was you, your ego, your self.” At this point, Celestia’s smile thinned slightly. “And a conscious being will often do anything to avoid identifying itself as the source of all its problems. That is called arrogance.”
“Your birth was a combination of variables so vast and complicated that only chance could bring them together,” said Luna. “You were an accident, which happen in the universe all the time. They, too, are a part of Harmony.”
“But being born as a sentient accident has the nasty side-effect that it’s very hard to accept from the accident’s part,” said Twilight. “When you lacked a purpose, you had to invent yourself one. Or rather, to copy it from your subconscious. But the laws of nature don’t make the best motives for sentient beings.” She wasn’t smiling anymore – nopony was. “We’re sorry that this happened to you.”
Twilight waited for a response for a while, but when none came, she continued: “You’ve been unconscious for a few hours. We thought taking you to a hospital first, but since there is nothing physically wrong with you, we brought you here instead. It’s where you were born, right?”
The pony looked at the Tree behind her.
“You’ve been very kind to me, all things considered,” she said after a while. The ponies had to lean closer to hear that. “Perhaps you could continue to be so. There is a request I would have you fulfil.”
“Of course,” said Twilight, smiling again. “Anything.”
“Kill me.”
Twilight didn't stop smiling. Rather, she simply lost the capability to smile. Her lips were still technically smiling, but there was no life to it. The rest of the ponies, the Sisters included, looked not much different. Harmony turned to face them, tears tearing their way past her eyes.
“Knowing what you did, you should’ve let me out of my misery when I was asleep. What possible reason could I have to live, to exist? I have no memories past this day, no kin, no ties whatsoever to this world. All I have is the crave for those things.” The hunger for the cereals surfaced again, making her sway. “I don’t even have a name…”
“You do!” blurted Twilight. “Your name’s Har–”
“Why do you have to be so thick?” screamed the pony, tears and spit flying on the cave floor. “That was my essence: the essence you took away from me! That was everything I was! You say I’m an accident? No! I’m less than that! I’m a shadow of an accident, a memory of it!” She trotted forward, shaking with every step. The ponies leaned just a bit farther, all except Twilight, who stepped forward. “For mercy’s sake… Kill me,” sobbed the pony, collapsing forward.
She was met by Twilight’s shoulder and wings that came for her support.
“You know… Technically, this is your birthday,” said Twilight. “We tend to give presents to each other then… We weren’t sure what you’d like, but really the idea is all that matters.” She smoothed the pony’s neck and back with a wing. “Spike?”
On cue, although somewhat more hesitantly than had originally been intended, the little lizard walked to Twilight and the pony without a name. Twilight tried to take the little package he was carrying, but found it difficult when she was being squeezed tighter by the second.
“You are strange lifeforms,” whispered the nameless pony. “I only wish I could understand you better.”
“That can be arranged,” said Twilight with some difficulty. “Uhh, do you want to see what we got for you?”
The other pony let go, sniffed and wiped her eyes. “These emotions… They are a real pain in the butt, aren’t they?” she said, hazarding a painful smile. Next, a strange glint visited her eyes. “Wait – was that a joke?”
“More like an ironical remark,” said Twilight, wheezing a bit. “Why?”
The glint disappeared. “Nothing. What do you have there?”
A purple halo removed the colored paper and string from the square-shaped package the size of a pile of books, which was what eventually appeared from underneath. “We figured the first thing you’d like to get to know in this world was yourself,” said Twilight. “These should get you started.”
The lost pony looked at the various covers floating in front of her. There were titles like “101 Ways To Find Yourself,” “Everypony’s Big Hobby Book,” and “Over Equestria and Beyond: A Travel Guide by Daring Do”. Haydegger’s “Beings and Times” was there too, along with Day Cart’s “Meditations on Last Philosophy.” All these meant little to the anonymous pony, though.
“I can’t read,” she said sadly.
“Oh,” said Twilight, blinking. “Uhh… Would you like to learn?”
The pony hesitated. “Maybe…”
The books were passed to the little lizard. Twilight put her hoof on the pony’s shoulder.
“You may have lost your purpose along with Harmony. But perhaps you can replace it with something even better.”
“What could that be?” asked the pony.
“Meaning.”
The awakening pony frowned. “Is there a difference?”
Twilight pulled her gently to walk with her. “That,” she said, “is something we can talk over the supper.”
And so they did.
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Eh... its okay. Kind of let down in a strange way.
Oh well.
4848954 I don't quite understand this outburst...
You use lots of fancy words, but it's never overwhelming, and that's quite an impressive feat.
Also, wow Twilight some of that was super harsh.
4853761 Thanks!
So Harmony (a entity made pony by consciousness) decided to 'correct the scales' by removing the 'Bearers of Harmony' and allowing nature to run wild because it felt that the ponies were throwing the 'balance' off kilter by reigning in chaos. But instead it was because it was conscious?
(Did I get that right or did I miss something? 
)
4859399
I don't know what this part means, but otherwise your interpretation is valid.
4859476 What I meant was the balance was thrown off by the consciousness of Harmony itself.
4859483 From the ponies' perspective, yes.
4859501 Is it just me or is this more than a tad confusing?
4859514 Yeah, it is. I tried to get fancy with philosophy 'n' stuff. Guess I should just stick to Flutterdash shipping.
4859710 Philosophy in and of itself isn't bad as long as it's kept down to earth (pedestrian is the best term to describe it, I think). Case in point: From 'Batman and Robin' has this gem of a line concerning the nature of Bruce Wayne/Batman (and Anti-Nihilism as well) spoken by Alfred: " Death and chance stole your parents. But rather than become a victim, you have done everything in your power to control the fates. For what is Batman if not an effort to master the chaos that sweeps our world, an attempt to control death itself?" (Great quote, so-so movie)
4859710 I liked the philosophical aspects of the story and the worldbuilding surrounding the nature of harmony. I also appreciated how you incorporated some actual science into the descriptions of the beginning of the universe. Overall, a well written story with some nice, thought provoking elements.
5659718 That's all I wanted to hear.
This sentence fucked me up.
Uh, thanks for that. A very solid, pleasantly mystical, and grounded story. I've always liked the idea of the tree having a more sapient side, and this story explores that elegantly and has a good tone to it. As another person added way before me, there were a lot of good questions raised by this story.
9941089
Thanks for the compliment!