Immersion

by Mark Britton

Artificial Conflict

It was late morning in Ponyville as Twilight and I walked down the main street, looking at the shops. I had gone outside before but not a whole lot, so I was the subject of some gossip as I saw ponies fake whispering to each other and giving rather obvious stares.

If this was how subtle this world was, lying would be incredibly easy. Heck, I could make a sarcastic remark and they would probably accept it as fact. Made me glad I wasn't a liar. Who knows what kind of chaos I would spread if everyone really believed every lie that poured out of my mouth.

"Whatchya thinking about?" Twilight asked.

"Oh, lying."

"Lying, huh? What are you lying about?"

"Nothing at the moment," I smirked.

She gave me an exasperated snort, which boosted my smile.

I looked around some more and noticed that everybody had markings on their rear. I hadn't noticed any drugs or alcohol or smoking, so I suddenly became really interested in why everybody had a tattoo. Was this the first sign of something seedy happening in this world?

"What's with the tattoos on everyone's butts?"

"Well, everypony has something they're really good at, right? Once a filly or a colt finds their special talent, then they get their cutie mark."

I was disappointed but not surprised. Tattoos were too hardcore for this world. It didn't line up with the sugar-coated vision.

"Wait," I said, just now realizing, "...but they are permanent?"

"Well, yeah."

"Isn't that scary?"

"Well to some, I guess. It's a really big deal, though. It's a sign of growing up."

"But you're branded forever doing one thing. Isn't that awful?"

Twilight gave me a bit of a giggle. "You're not stuck doing the same thing forever. Quite the opposite, actually! You see my cutie mark?"

I hadn't given it much attention but I looked down to see her cutie mark. Each line was perfect and the skin undisturbed by the markings.

"It means I'm very talented when it comes to magic. Now, I could have been a magic teacher and taught others, I could have become a researcher, designing new spells or I could have researched ancient spells. It's all up to my choice."

"But you would be stuck with something magic, no matter what?"

"Well, I'm honestly very glad that my cutie mark is about my magical ability. As a filly, I was really uncertain about my abilities. It felt great to know all my hard work had paid off. To know that this was my destiny."

My face contorted, trying to see the positive in such permanence.

"Does the human world have anything like cutie marks?"

Hmm. My mind mulled over it a second.

"College degrees."

Twilight's eyebrows raised in surprise, and she started to speak but was cut off when she realized we were here.

"Oh, here's the boutique."

As we walked closer, Twilight scrunched up her face when she read the sign on the door.

"Closed? That's... strange. Rarity never closes on weekdays unless there's been an emergency."

"Maybe she's caught a cold." I smiled.

Twilight frowned in my direction, opening the door without delay.
"Rarity? Are you in here?" She called out as we entered.

I looked around the impeccably-maintained shop but was startled out of observing by the gentlest of sneezes.

"Twilight? Is that you, my dear? Oh! And you've brought company!"

I watched as Rarity peeked her head through a line of clothes sitting on a rack. She looked even softer than Twilight.

"I'm terribly sorry. It's nice to meet you, but I seem to have come down with something and I simply can't... Ah! Ah!"

Quickly, a tissue levitated over from the other side of the room and Rarity pulled it in with her head behind the clothes as she let out a violent "Achoo!"

She peeked her head out again. "I simply can't hold good company right now."

I had been absentmindedly watching all of this go down, but now I turned to glare at Twilight. Her eyes were big and round, and she smiled warily.

"What a... coincidence, huh? Haha..."

Her reaction scared me more than any of the creepy foreshadowing that had gone down. I pointed a finger at Rarity, to which she flinched.

"There are no coincidences in your world, Twilight."

"I beg your pardon?" Rarity scoffed.

My mind was racing. I had seen it in the townsponies before. Simple, easy-to-resolve, three-act conflict. The only question about this was who was meant to learn from Rarity being sick?

Twilight noticed my deep thinking and sent an angry snarl my way.

"She is just sick. You don't need to tag on any additional meaning to that."

"Twilight, you have the benefit of having the perspective of an outsider looking in on this world. Do you not think it's fishy at all that I called this? Seriously? What are the odds? A million to one?"

"Is this just a regular human thing? Are all of you this paranoid?" She answered flatly.

"Here, I wanna show you something." I grabbed Twilight and with all of my strength, picked her up a couple of inches off the ground and slowly marched off with her.

"I guess we're leaving, Rarity. I'll come back tomorrow!"

"Have fun with your guest, dear!"

Rarity sneezed as the door shut closed.

"I have legs, you know."

Twilight shuffled in my grasp and broke free, leaving me to quickly rush her to a nearby table at a restaurant. There were several townsponies in nearby seats, all talking to each other. They preferred groups of two, though. I spotted a couple that looked married and briefly pointed to them, trying not to attract attention.

"Those ponies, there. Do you know them?"

"Not really. Why are you so interested in them?"

"They look married, don't they?"

"I guess." Twilight was getting impatient.

"Hold on. Watch me."

I stood up and walked through the crowd of blended noise to the couple where I crouched down next to them as awkwardly as possible.

"Excuse me, but I'm conducting a survey related to..." I stumbled for words "...things ponies argue about in public spaces, anyways! If it's no trouble at all, could I get a summary of what you were arguing about?"

In programmed fashion, the couple was startled at my sudden presence, annoyed at my interruption, and completely accepting of my excuse. All hostilities ceased with the simplest explanation.

"Oh, lover's spat." The tone of the couple shifted completely to a positive one. "You know how it can get sometimes. The people you love the most have this crazy power to drive you mad!" The stallion teased in a playful tone. The mare giggled in response.

Satisfied, I turned around with a smile. Twilight facehoofed.

"And what did that outburst of invasion prove?" She aggressively whispered.

"I thought they looked like a couple, so they were a couple. There was no element of surprise. Not even hostility about a foreign person injecting himself into their conversation?"

"And what's wrong with them being polite?"

"Doesn't it seem suspicious? There's no primordial self-defense at all. Not a bit."

"Self-defense? In a conversation?" Twilight chuckled.

"Humans need safe and familiar spots to function. Every aspect of our interaction is a fight for dominance, a fight for security. Humans wouldn't entertain such an invasion of privacy. They would defend against it."

Twilight sighed. "Well I don't know if you've noticed this, but we're not humans. We don't fight in every conversation, and we're not against newcomers."

"That's unnatural."

"It's politeness! What do you want me to say? That politeness is unnatural?!"

When Twilight's voice fell flat, the entire area was silent. Everypony was staring at us. Twilight blushed and awkwardly smiled at them. I walked away, gesturing for her to follow.

She angrily trotted behind me.

"You're confusing a different perspective for being unreal. Just because this place is different from your home, that doesn't make it any less real."

"Okay, let's think about this conversely, then."

I stop dead in my tracks and turn around to Twilight.

"Now I know you're angry at me, but seriously." I started, "...I want you to tell me. Where is the most brutal, unforgiving, naturalistic place on this planet? Where people fight all day and all night?"

Twilight closed her eyes and thought.

"Dragon Lands. Maybe the Griffin Kingdom."

"Okay, there. Different race, same planet, similar primitive brutality as my species."

"I'm not trying to say there's disharmony in our world. I'm just saying that you've been trying to push this idea of mistrust onto everypony, and you can't do that. You have to assume the best of everypony."

"I want to go one step further."

Twilight sighed, exhausted. "Okay."

"This time in Equestria. What is the most brutal, everypony-for-themselves place in Equestria."

"Manehattan." She replied almost instantly.

"Tell me about it."

"Well, it's... it's a big city and everypony's busy. They rarely have time to talk to each other, much less think about each other's feelings. It's a very mean place."

There was a tone of defeat in her voice.

I, however, felt security knowing there was a place like home. Granted, I didn't want to go there anytime soon, but it proved my point.

"Is that real enough for you?" Twilight asked.

"No. Because that's far away from here. It's in this town, I know that now. There might be true conflict out there, but not here. This is a safe place."

Twilight sighed.

"It's synthetic." I reasserted.

"I'm going to go visit with Rarity. She's probably wondering if I'm okay."
Seeing her walk away so sad was sobering. I began to feel a little guilty.

"Can I come with?"

"I... think you should go home."

Twilight walked away. And I was left alone in the middle of this dirt road. Townsponies talked among themselves, some about what had just happened in front of them, some were distracted. Either way, I was sitting down on this very real road feeling a really sad feeling.

Yeah. This felt like a midpoint.

Comments

[FarmFreshAppleTarts]

"Well, everypony has something they're really good at, right? Once a filly or a colt finds their special talent, then they get their cutie mark."

Cutie marks... Its about perspective. If their world was less story focused, it would be a reflection of the individual. With the story thing, though...its destiny bullshit.

Its a fault of cannon. Cutie marks are sometimes something of destiny, sometimes a more personal experience that brands you with a symbol of who you are, your passion, or both. We see ponies clearly doing things unrelated to their Mark, as the mark is more of a symbol of discovery, part of becoming an adult.