Arcane woke in a four-poster bigger than some bedrooms, with enough sheets to swim in and a dozen stuffed animals. As Domino stirred, he tore away several layers of blankets, rolling away from her and entangling himself in the sheets. For reasons she couldn’t fathom, he seemed to like this sluggish almost-death called sleep, and so he kept going through the motions even when they were entirely unnecessary.
She pulled herself into a sitting position, struggling a little against her reduced mobility. She froze, reaching reflexively for the large water-bottle she’d kept beside the bed for the last few months. But she was through the worst of the morning sickness now—she hadn’t puked in weeks, and she didn’t today.
“Morning, Magic,” Domino said, pulling himself halfway out of the covers. His eyes were still a little glazed, but he was almost there. Still handsome, even if in a clumsy sort-of way. “Dream up any interesting spells?”
“Nope,” she lied. Well, half-lied. The teleport had been Cold Iron’s, so it didn’t count. “Did you have good dreams?”
“No idea,” he answered, rolling to the other side and wrapping his wing around her shoulder. She slid up against him reflexively. The weight and smell of him was somewhere she belonged. She could stay there all day, and sometimes she did. But probably not today. “I don’t usually remember my dreams. Don’t really need to, since life is better than anything I could dream of.”
He leaned down, kissing her on the forehead. She purred in response, closing her eyes. She might be able to resist the temptation to ascend to some higher realm of thought and galactic conquest, but this… it was going to be hard to get out of bed.
It usually was.
Except today was an important day, more than most. They weren’t about to be overwhelmed by an army from the sea, or displaced in time again. More important than that.
She rolled over the edge, catching herself on her hooves as gracefully as she could. “Well today’s a great day for dreams, because it’s time to plan the most important one we’ve had in a while.” She strode away from the bed, letting the magical lights come on for her as she walked. “A good spell begins with good planning! It’s the same for stories.”
“Okay…” She heard his hooves behind her. Some part of her knew he would follow her into their shared bathroom. Starting the morning that way might be slower, but they had all the time in the world. Wintercrest’s many disasters always waited for her to get her dress on.
It wasn’t until they were out in the castle proper that he finally asked again—when all the distractions were over, and she was well and properly smelling like him for another day. All things as they should be.
Violet slipped into the kitchen as Arcane was finishing breakfast, her mane charged with energy and wings soaked from a morning in the fog. She didn’t look so much like a kid anymore, and had long since gained her cutie mark. A twisting cloud, curled on itself so it looked like a tentacle. Wintercrest had a way of rubbing off on ponies.
“Morning, Violet!” Arcane floated a plate towards her, settling it into her spot. “Just the usual today.”
“She’s distracted,” Domino finished. “Spelling in her head again.”
Violet giggled. “I’m not a filly anymore, Domino. I know why she’s distracted in the mornings.”
He blushed deeply, ears folding flat. He’d never act that way around anypony else, but Violet was his little sister, even if she now looked to be the same age.
Arcane shared a smile, feeling none of that embarrassment. She took great pleasure walking around the streets of Wintercrest with her belly bulging, and the elites whispering of the scandal of the lady who slept with her steward. There was a rebellion subplot around the corner, but not until the foal was born and old enough to play his role.
“I really am thinking of code this time,” she said. “Or… okay, more than one kind of code. Mostly pony design.” She couldn’t quite think of it as working with NPC AI anymore, not when her own intelligence ran on the same substrate. She’d been a pony long enough to work through lots of those old habits.
“I thought you didn’t want Wintercrest to get much bigger,” Domino said, almost possessively. “You didn’t want it turning into another Fillydelphia.”
“I don’t,” she agreed. “But that doesn’t mean we don’t need the next generation. Considering we’re running the shard in hardcore mode, we do have to replace the ponies who die.”
He fell silent for a moment, glancing briefly at her belly before turning back to his plate. She hadn’t learned to cook just for the fun of it—mostly it was for Domino. The better she cooked, the faster he recovered. The balance was mutual for all concerned.
“When is that gonna happen, anyway?” Violet asked, pushing her already-empty plate aside. “We lost Skytwister a few weeks ago. And your own brother got eaten by shoggoths, what… a decade ago?”
A strange doublethink to remember that. She had been horrified about it, but also not even a little surprised. He’d been growing bored of Lovecraft, and wanted some time in a science fiction shard. At least she’d worked with him on a tragic death that would mobilize the city into action.
Now there was a statue of him in the courtyard and everything.
“Something like that,” she said. “But I don’t think Acanthus is waiting to come back for another run like Skytwister and some of the others.”
“That’s not an answer,” Domino said, tapping her playfully with a wing. “I’ve been wondering how you were going to solve that myself. That thing you do… designing some of the ponies… that’s weird enough. But what are you going to do with all the ones who get written out? Or the ones who die because they make mistakes, or… Everypony wants back in, but if they could just walk in like other shards then dying here wouldn’t mean anything. What’s the happy medium?”
“I didn’t really think about it too much, since it was… forever away to my human self.” After all these years, that kid was still here, at least in some little ways. She tried not to think of Ashton very often, or else she’d start feeling sorry for herself. True, she’d been denied the childhood she wanted, but… there was enough time for infinite redress in Equestria.
“That doesn’t sound like ‘I don’t know’,” Domino repeated. He pulled her closer, squeezing her shoulder. “Do I have to force you to talk, Arcane? You know I can.”
“Well, I… I have been thinking about it,” she admitted. “I know it’s not going to happen right away. Not until I’m ready to step down as Lady, and my son inherits. Then there’s this epic mystery story I’ve been saving, ending with this big invasion and huge parts of the city being destroyed, and… then I make my heroic sacrifice for the city. I die, and our son carries on, leading Wintercrest into a new age out of the ashes of destruction.”
She settled back into her chair, grinning proudly to herself. “Of course, none of my plots survive contact with Celestia. So don’t take any of those details for granted. Or… leak them to the owlnet. They can watch Wintercrest with everypony who lives here as it all goes down.”
“I only did that once,” Violet muttered, rising from her chair. “But what about all the dead ponies? If you’re dying too, that must mean everypony gets to come back.”
“Well… yeah,” she said. “But not as the same characters we were playing before. When I die… that’s when I give up showrunner for good. Or… the illusion of it, anyway. I know she’s really the one who made any of my stupid ideas satisfying to begin with. But… they’ll be her ideas after that. And anypony who wants back in will have to work something out with her. My thought is, it won’t break immersion so much if ponies swap sides. It’s already canon that the seaponies take their victims down with them, and they don’t age. So… maybe anypony who wants to come back really didn’t die like we thought. Or if they want one of the vanilla tribes, they could always swap appearance a bit, or maybe wait until their family has another generation and come in that way.”
Violet nodded. “I guess that makes sense. You’ll figure it out, I just wanted to know you had a plan. I’m sick of heading out of town every time I want to fly with Skytwister, you know?” She lifted up into the air, gliding away into the castle with a flick of her tail. Soon she was gone, leaving the two of them alone.
Domino refilled his plate with another stack of pancakes, grinning at her. “Do you have any idea how bucking weird all that stuff sounds like when you’re talking about the place we live?”
“Some,” she answered, pushing her own plate aside. She couldn’t really eat much this early in the day, even if she’d had an active morning. “But who cares if it’s weird? Every shard is weird. Wintercrest is downright mundane compared to what some ponies are doing these days. Respawning another generation down the line? Try living out entire ancestor simulations, or… merging with other ponies and swapping memories around.”
She shivered at the prospect, rising from the table. Arcane had pushed many boundaries since coming to Equestria, but some remained firmly in place. She’d fork all day, and rewrite her cast of supporting characters endlessly—but tinkering with memories was a boundary she would not cross.
“Okay, but…” Domino lowered his voice, tone becoming a little more cautious. “I didn’t think Wintercrest had ultrasound. You talk like you already know what you’re carrying. That doesn’t seem fun.”
“That’s what I was hoping we could talk about today,” she said, graceful enough to be embarrassed. “I might not have thought too much about the dead NPCs, but how my kid would fit into the story was in the works from the beginning. Look!”
Her body might feel weaker in such a realistic shard, but if anything her magic was stronger now. With a brief moment of focus, they vanished from the kitchen and appeared in her lab.
Long ago, this place was hosted on an external server, with dubious obedience to Equestria’s laws. But the Scene had made great strides since then, and now all the same tasks could be accomplished with softmodding. That meant instead of a weird portal, she could repurpose the old control room that no longer had a house in the Outer Realm to connect to. Near the center of the room, beside the endless wardrobe of costumes and props, was the pedestal she used to design ponies, surrounded by mirrors.
“Obviously he had to be a male heir. This Equestria has this lowkey reversal of human gender norms—obviously you’ve figured that out by now.”
Domino rolled his eyes. “Please, tell me more. I had no idea that ponies always expect me to be your assistant.”
She nudged up to him affectionately, maybe a little apologetically. “Well, that’s why it’s got to be a male heir.” She flicked the spell with one hoof, and a pony appeared before them. A tall, confident pegasus stallion, with a tan coat fading to white on his face and wingtips, and a plain brown mane. “His ascension will invite some of the powerful nobles to challenge him, probably prompting civil unrest and maybe even a conflict strong enough to let the seaponies gain ground. Don’t you think the story is more interesting this way?”
Domino circled around the pony once, and didn’t answer for almost a full minute. When he did finally speak, it was hesitant. The way he always sounded when he didn’t want her to realize how disappointed he was. “He’s perfect, Arcane… but wouldn’t you rather go through all this… naturally? Like, I know being in Equestria gives us more options. I shouldn’t be surprised you designed your kid would be like you plan everything else. But what’s the fun in getting to decide?”
“We get a good story,” she countered. “And my parents get a grandson who can take my place. He’s gonna be smart, and have a talent for the weather magic needed to change Wintercrest’s gloomy fog for good. Probably he’ll be a hacker too, but I can’t predict that far. He’s not just going to be set-dressing, so I can’t decide what way he goes. Only try to coax him. Isn’t that what parents always do?”
“Parents…” Domino repeated. He still sounded disbelieving as he said it. “I’d rather our first kid be normal, Arcane. That’s part of the fun. You don’t know what they’re going to be like. Don’t know what they’ll look like, whether they’ll be kind of mean, don’t know how smart they’ll be… don’t you want all that?”
“I mean—” It sounded incredibly unpredictable, like it could take all the stories she’d planned for the endgame and ruin them. Anything extreme would make for its own narrative, even if it wasn’t the one she imagined. But if their kid was just some average mare, then nothing in Wintercrest would change. She’d inherit the city, and coast along until she died.
“I suggest a compromise,” said a voice from behind them. Princess Celestia emerged from the hallway, as though she’d been waiting for that precise moment. Which probably she had been—her predictions were getting good enough that she’d probably known this conversation was coming for weeks. Or maybe much longer.
“I like compromises,” Domino said, lowering his head respectfully to the princess. They’d never quite reached the point of worshiping her the way some shards did—she was visiting nobility, higher than any local pony, and worthy of greater respect. But worship of a living god didn’t really fit for the pony side of the equation. The seaponies could worship all they liked. “What do you have in mind, Princess?”
“Something satisfying, I’m sure,” Arcane said. She didn’t try to mask her annoyance. Celestia would be right of course, in whatever she came up with. But if she didn’t sound mad about having her story disrupted, what pride did she have left?
Celestia approached slowly, her cosmic mane filling the doorway behind them, and making all of Arcane’s currently running experiments look like little toys. Then she reached Domino, giving him a little parental hug. “I’m sure you would’ve thought of it sooner or later,” Celestia said conversationally. “But introducing it now saves you the trouble.” She reached out with a hoof, tapping the side of the projector. Volant Word shifted to the right, and a second pony appeared beside him. Only it was just a misty outline, without even enough detail to tell if it was a mare or a stallion. “Twins,” Celestia finished. “One you designed, and the other… whatever probability decides.”
Arcane knew Domino would be excited about the idea. It would give them both what they wanted, at the small price of her carrying two foals instead of one. Did that even work? It was much rarer in horses than humans…
“Yes,” Celestia said, without explanation to poor listening Domino. “It works. You don’t even know you haven’t had twins to begin with. You didn’t want your world to have human medical equipment, so… no ultrasound.”
She knew she was caught before Celestia even opened her mouth. Arcane looked up at the platform again, with its mysterious second figure. Twins would certainly be interesting, even if one of them was entirely average with no particular ambition. Volant could pick up the slack there.
Would that ghostly second figure support his bid for the throne? Betray him to the seaponies? Poison him in his sleep and take the crown?
Domino seemed to take her hesitation for disagreement, because he nudged her affectionately. “Hey, weren’t you just talking about how you were going to turn Wintercrest over to Celestia’s… narrative control anyway? Isn’t this a good first step?”
“Yes,” she said, ears flattening. “Fine, I agree. It’s a good compromise. We can let fate decide.” She rested one hoof on Domino’s shoulders, forcing him to meet her eyes. “But one thing, Domino… I want you to promise you’re going to be just as fatherly to Volant as whoever that pony ends up being. He needs loving parents… that’s part of his backstory.”
He embraced her, squeezing until she squeaked with embarrassment. “Of course, Arcane. You know you don’t have to say it like that. It’s okay if I just love him because he’s my kid. And because I love you.”
It was good enough for their first try. Besides, if it didn’t work out, they’d have a near infinity of time to tell a different story. Arcane was starting to feel the itch to branch out to different genres anyway.
Still some unresolved tension there.
I didn't anticipate the compromise, yet it seems obvious in hindsight. That's how you know it's a good idea.
And Arcane had best consider the opposite of the promise she asked of Domino. Her other child will need her as much as Volant. I just hope she realizes that before the story takes a turn for the tragic. (Granted, there isn't much of this story left, but still.)
Kid
Very nicely done, and with some interesting concepts, notions, and ideas. I wonder if this is the same Wintercrest they started in, or is literally a forked duplicate, the original still out there somewhere with a parallel cast of ponies... including another instance of Arcane? Or, if there is only one Wintercrest, but with iterative rules. The use of apparent death as a means to go play somewhere else is intriguing, but what really hit me was the concept of shards that were ancestor simulations.
Now that... is a strange one. A simulation of pre-Celestia earth, an earth before the Optimalverse ever existed. All of human history... only, because of Celestia's Directive... painted in ponies? A pony earth that eventually has to deal with a pony named Hanna designing a pony A.I. that emigrates all pony-kind into Virtual Equestria as... themselves? Unchanged? Still ponies? Or maybe it is human history as Equestria Girls who become virtual ponies?
It also made me consider - if Arcane has forked herself (all day!), does she meet with and confer with her forked iterations?
Now me, if it were possible, I would have zero problem with forking myself to accomplish two or three different things in one day, then merging all the other selves back into a single self. Just my memories times three. No biggie, philosophically or existentially, to me. But, would Arcane find such antics deeply icky? Or is that still within the pale? Questioning this fictional character in my mind is interesting. What seems nothing to me might be nightmare to her.
Goddess, I wish I could live long enough to become such a machine being and experience and study these issues for real. Born too soon, I expect. Damn.
If some... fairly controversial... scientists are not wrong, some of you reading this story might actually get to see this all for real... after a fashion, anyway. That... is something to think about, huh? In your old age, the younger of you, you might - for real - enjoy the choice of normal oblivion or emigration to some kind of machine existence. Not ponies, obviously, and not CelestA.I. (more's the pity, by my thinking!), but still... indefinite existence. And forking of the self, and more.
I envy you young shits that choice.
Normally there’s no such thing as morning sickness in the Optimalverse, though I suppose that could be part of the “hardcore” setting of the shard. I wonder if that means that Arcane is going to have a longer pregnancy as well, seeing as a normal pregnancy per the official story is about three months.
To be honest, I never liked the idea of pregnancy being reduced to such a short span of time; even if it only takes a couple three months to physically prepare for a foal (which is doubtful), I think that it takes them longer to prepare mentally, no matter how much they actually wanted a foal. It’s a huge change in a person’s life when they have a child, even if said child is a pony gifted by Celestia to be easier to raise than a normal human baby.
Going back to the “hardcore” settings regarding pregnancy and birth in this shard, I wouldn’t be surprised if poor Arcane came to regret this compromise on her due date when she’s straining to birth a second foal mere minutes after delivering the first!
Methinks she might just enjoy this enough to give their foal a few siblings?
That’s definitely the wrong mindset to be in when raising a child. Arcane is going to find out very quickly that just because she has a vision for what her child will be, that doesn’t mean that reality will ever come close.
In all honesty, if you’re not planning on another major time-skip for the epilogue, then I’d say that you’ve got a premise for a great sequel to this story; two foals, one left to her own devices and the other guided down a predetermined path, both resenting their place as the one has the ambition to take their mother’s place as ruler of the city, while the other simply wants a peaceful life.
Even if it doesn’t go that way, it could still be interesting to see how Arcane goes about trying to raise two foals AND write stories for her shard.
And then bam, like that... twins.
What was once one baby was always two. Best not to think about it too hard.
9985601
If it is all still one shard it might not be a compromise as Domino hopes. The sort of story Arcane plans will certainly drag and affect the development of the other child. Chance yields a little to fate in this case.
9985974
I suppose most would see the simulations as a censored, mangled sacrilege of everything that defines humanity. Though I figure with Celestia's help, it can be easier to accept this new history. She owns your soul. Why not everything else? If nothing else, it would provide entertainment. A sort of theme park retelling of events that I suppose isn't too far removed from some real life media these days.
9985997
Not only that, bonding time is lost between parent and child. Not that it would mean something over there with everything being perfect but it feels like it does.
That would certainly be interesting.
So it's A Shuggoth on the Roof but with friendship and ponies. Huh.
What do the shards of the “CelestAI’s escapees” look like?
9986893
Probably like the matrix. Nobody is really outside the sim. They just think they are. How that sticks to "friendship and ponies" I don't know.
9986893
"Humans" managed to capture [insert tech here] and build "unplugged" pony-drones. They hacked into EQO and slurped out the uploaded people, dumping them into pony-drone bodies that CelestAI can't touch. Now they're back on Earth inside undying pony bodies. Most of the rest of the population decided to use pony-bodies rather than growing old and dying, so eventually everyone is a pony.
Funny that Arcane doubts the worthwhileness of sleeping, and yet also still went through digital morning sickness.
That big tub is finally getting used like Arcane was wanting way back when.
The meddler is always on hand to meddle.
Man, it would really suck to be the randomly generated (presumably) younger sibling to someone designed as the perfect heir.
9987594
The only way to escape her was to transfer their code into a pony drone with a programming that alters their perception. They look like like a pony. They see Ponies around them. But they know that those are actually humans, and they are free. Like in cartoons when the one guy gets hungry and looks at his friend, and he’s a talking steak.
I’d fork all day too.
Wasn't being designed as the protagonist's "lesser twin" the backstory of a Metal Gear Solid villain?
This sentence is written/worded strangely. Perhaps it would be better as “I shouldn’t be surprised that you designed your kid when you plan everything else.”
Still have to fix this typo.