Pursuit of Happiness
As Luna lay against Phasma’s chest in their favorite sitting parlor, a book hovering in her grip, a strange thought popped into her head.
She broke the silence, “Phasma? I do not believe that I have heard your native tongue.”
“English?” Luna strained to hear his answer. “I… don’t think I’ve spoken it since… since I died.”
“... I am sorry,” Luna shook her head. “I did not mean to open old wounds.”
“It’s fine,” he said.
“May I?”
“May you?” He repeated.
“May I hear this language of yours? There are few tongues on Equus. Hearing one from another world would be quite the treat. That is, if you would honor me so. If it is too painful, do not torment yourself just for me.”
Phasma hummed quietly, “It’s quite similar to Equish. The language structure itself, at least. It’s pretty hard to speak in it with this mouth.”
“Please?” Luna begged.
He was quiet for a few minutes. Whether bringing up the courage or thinking of what words to say, Luna could only guess. She set her book down and waited. Eventually, her patience was rewarded when he not only spoke in a language that rumbled slowly like distant thunder but sung. Deep, strange, and rambling, it was nonetheless pleasant to her ears. Luna grinned as she felt the reverberations through his chest and listened to the alien tongue. It lacked any of the usual sounds of Equish, replacing them with sharper consonants and shorter vowels.
<Maybe I’m foolish, maybe I’m blind. Thinkin’ I can see through this, and see what’s behind…>
Princess Luna groaned and stretched as she was unwillingly thrust into wakefulness. Much to her own frustration, the warm embrace of sleep fled her quickly.
‘This damnable duty of ours, what I would give to sleep in...’
With a sigh of defeat, Luna sat up in bed, blinking her eyes open. The thick blankets fell away as she stretched and yawned loudly. Cracking her neck loudly, she finished her stretching and stumbled out of bed– almost falling on her face in the process.
Phasma stirred but remained in the clutches of the Dreamscape.
‘Lucky,’ Luna sighed internally before stumbling to the balcony. ‘I shall give you a minute more.’
The hot bubble of air wafted inwards when she pulled the balcony doors open. Outside of her bubble of enchanted warmth, the snow-encrusted rooftops of Canterlot glittered in her moonlight. Carefully, Luna reached out with her magic and sought out the jewel of the sky.
Gently, she guided it along its rightful path towards the horizon. On a balcony nearby, Celestia pulled her inferior sun above the skyline. The beautiful oranges and yellows nearly blinded Luna when the light was reflected off the snow that covered the city.
“Bright,” Luna mumbled, stumbling back inside now that her duty was done.
As quick as she could, she pulled the thick curtains shut.
“Phasma. ‘Tis time to wake, the envoy from Griffonia shall be here within two hours.” Luna went to shake the sleeping changeling, “Phasma. If I must suffer, so shall you. Up.”
“Nnnnnooooo!” Phasma quietly moaned, curling up tighter.
Rolling her eyes, Luna set off for the bathroom.
As she was freshening up for the day, there was a knock at the door. Luna finished up the less dignifying parts of her morning routine and transitioned to sitting in front of her vanity and applying the layers of makeup that high society demanded each mare plaster themselves in.
‘Only thing I actually miss from being on my moon is avoiding this unnecessary tedium.’
Luna cleared her throat and called out to her visitor, “Come in!”
She heard the doors creak open, “Luna? You missed dinner last night.”
“I was busy. Please excuse me, sister,” Luna apologized as Celestia entered the bedroom.
“Oh, it’s alright,” Celestia said. “I simply missed your company. Where are you?”
“In the lavatory,” Luna explained. “Getting ready.”
“Are you decent?”
Luna snorted, “I am always decent. More than that, I was always the beautiful sister of us two.”
She heard Celestia laugh, “I mean will I have to hold my breath when I come near?”
“You will live,” Luna smirked, continuing to put on her mascara.
‘Of all the inventions in the past millennia, I can not tell if our ponies have made getting ready for the day easier or more complicated. Surely it was not this tedious…’
Celestia’s head peaked out from the doorway, “Good morning, sister.”
“Good morning, sister,” Luna returned the greeting. “I apologize for not making it to supper. I was relaxing with Phasma and we lost track of time.”
Celestia turned towards the bed, “.... With Phasma, you say?”
“We were holding hooves,” Phasma snickered, finally waking up. “It was the most lewd thing– but you’re too young to hear about it.”
Wordlessly, Celestia strode into the bathroom, brushing past Luna as she began opening several cabinets.
“Agh, sister! What are you…!”
“Luna, have you missed a step in your morning routine?” Celestia quizzed her, shutting the cabinets and sending Luna a worried glance.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Have you… Are you taking your supplements?”
Luna glared at her sister, casually pulling out one of the vanity’s drawers and pulling out several pill bottles.
“Yes, I am. Do not coddle me, sister, I am not some fragile thing that breaks in the wind.”
Celestia took the bottles from Luna and opened up each one, shaking out a pill from each and returning the pills. One container she shook vigorously but produced no medicine.
“That explains it,” Celestia muttered to herself.
“Explains what?” Luna questioned.
“One of your bottles is empty,” Celestia said, as if that explained anything. Pulling out a large box from one of the lower cabinet drawers, Celestia produced a new pill bottle and presented it to Luna. “Here you are, Luna. Please remember to take two of these a day.”
Deciding it wasn’t worth arguing, Luna rolled her eyes and took one tablet of the medicine, not even bothering to get water to wash it down.
“Thank you,” Celestia patronized her with a smile.
“This is a rude way to greet your sister,” Luna said bitterly. “Do not treat me as if I am a foal.”
Her sister frowned, “I’m sorry, am I treating you like that?” Luna nodded, and Celestia wrapped her up in a hug, “I don’t mean it that way. I just worry for your health, and seeing you hurt like this is unbearable.”
“Cease speaking in riddles and speak plainly!” Luna spat.
“You ran out of your medicine and didn’t tell anypony,” Celestia sighed. “This is not the first time it’s happened, and it’s not the last. Just… be down for breakfast soon. I think I can explain things better then.”
Celestia ended the hug and left Luna in a deep scowl as she retreated from the room. Luna tried to return to applying her makeup, but something about the interaction didn’t sit well with her.
“What the hell was that?” Phasma asked, groaning as he rose from bed and onto his hooves.
“Apparently, we shall find out shortly,” Luna grunted, giving up on her attempts to apply the Faust-forsaken invention known as mascara.
Luna pulled out a chair from the dining table and aggressively sat down in it. Aggressively sitting was no easy task but Luna was a champion when it came to sulking.
Though she had a tendency to take it too far….
Suddenly aware of the danger of wallowing in her feelings, Luna looked to Celestia for answers.
“Well?”
Celestia presented a dish of pancakes to Luna, setting it before her. Luna pushed it aside.
“Are you not going to tell me what is going on, Celestia?”
“Why were you absent last night, Luna?”
“I was with Phasma, reading and talking with him.”
Celestia nodded, “Where is he now?”
“He’s sitting next to you,” Luna said, trying to control her nerves.
“There are only two chairs at this table,” Celestia pointed out. “Where is he?”
Luna blinked in surprise and looked around. True enough, only Celestia and Luna were in the room.
“What…? He was just here!”
Her sister grimaced, “No, he wasn’t.”
Luna rose abruptly, “What are you… saying! Darn it, Celestia! What’s… why…” Luna broke off as she clutched her head.
“I hate it when you miss your medication,” Celestia sighed. “Phasma doesn’t exist. He never did.”
Celestia watched Luna squirm at the far side of the table. She wanted to comfort her– she itched to go hug her sister tightly– but experience has taught her to give Luna space whenever she comes down from a hallucinogenic episode.
“Just take a minute and breathe,” Celestia advised.
Luna listened, staring at the table before her, breathing heavily.
‘All this pain. All my fault.’
Luna grunted and put her head in her hooves, “This is not the first time.”
“No,” Celestia confirmed. “Would you like to talk about it?”
“No, I do not,” Luna dismissed. Before Celestia could say anything, Luna continued, “But I think that I must.”
Celestia nodded slowly, “Okay. Was he a changeling this time?”
Luna nodded.
“That seems to be a trend,” Celestia said, stabbing at her pancakes. “Ever since the wedding, this phasm of yours has been a changeling. Fitting that he should be named Phasma…”
“He was a unicorn before that,” Luna realized. “A blue unicorn named Expected Value.”
“That’s the one,” Celestia nodded.
“.... It hurts, Tia,” Luna whispered.
“I’m sorry,” Celestia said back. “If I hadn’t banished you to the moon, you wouldn’t have developed–”
“You did what you had to,” Luna shut her down. “It is my fault. Still, thank you for being here for me…. It was too good to be true, was it not? Somepony else from another time– another realm, in this instance. Unable to connect with others, put through pain and trials like me.”
“It’s not that far-fetched to imagine that you wanted somepony to connect with,” Celestia consoled her. “Still, insects?”
Luna blushed and covered her face in embarrassment.
“We all have our tastes,” Celestia continued, “but I suppose you were the more adventurous of us two. Remember Caldera?”
Luna chuckled, “I do now! What a beautiful dragoness…. Stars, I have not seen a deeper shade of red ever since! Her scales were more precious than rubies.”
“I distinctly recall you two passing them off as such,” Celestia smiled. “What was it that you tried to buy with them?”
“A boat!” Luna laughed. “We even got it! I would call its previous owner a fool for believing us, but it turns out that we were the ones being scammed. Blasted thing sank on its first voyage, and the stallion who sold it vanished like the morning’s mist!”
They shared a laugh and remembered that breakfast was sitting in front of them. With the mood somewhat better, Celestia moved the conversation topic along to the Griffon envoy and what they wanted to discuss.
‘Let Luna be distracted with work. Faust knows that’s how I keep myself sane. That, and one-hundred proof whisky.’
Luna had a secret.
As the nights dragged on and dragged out, she had amassed a collection of notes that would send Princess Twilight Sparkle into a passion-fueled rant. Her sister, on the other hoof, would be sent into a fit of conniptions.
Hence it being a secret.
Being the Princess of Equestria had its perks. Aside from the usual things, like always skipping lines or never paying taxes, Luna had unfettered control over all information in Equestria. Actually it was Celestia who had that control, but Luna was slowly easing into her role as co-ruler. Having unlimited access to whatever she wanted allowed Luna to pursue the fields of magic that lesser mages had died in pursuit of, often quite literally burning in the fires of their own ambitions.
The alicorn sisters were not new to these forbidden fields. Dark magic, mind magic, necromancy, summoning, divination, and even the rare scrap of soulmancy would sneak their ways into the Princesses’ studies. How else could one face such dangers without knowing what those dangers were?
So it was not the notes’ existence that would send Celestia into a state of worry, but instead their purpose.
The field of study that Luna had been analyzing over the past few years was not a new one. Starswirl himself had experimented in it and had taught the sisters himself on the matter. Specifically, he taught them that it was a, ‘useless, dangerous, foolish, and pointless matter in getting yourself involved in things beyond your control.’ Naturally, Celestia became the most involved in it, going so far as to give her heart to the matter.
It was the subject of dimensions. Studying them, gazing upon them, and traversing them. Celestia had nearly destroyed Equestria when she ignored Starswirl’s advice, leaving Luna and the Elements of Harmony to pick up the pieces when she vanished to another world. Despite this, Luna coveted the same thing that Celestia had discovered in this parallel dimension: love.
Her heart ached for somepony else. Not just anypony, but somepony who she loved. She had met many stallions and mares in her time, and a number of late had tried to win her affection. But her heart already belonged to another.
Somepony who never existed.
Existing only as a collection of delusions when she neglected her medicinal care, Phasma haunted every single one of her dreams. Luna had toyed with the idea of tormenting herself in recompense for her crimes a thousand years past but had found that the duty was already fulfilled. Everypony longs for what they do not have, and Luna was not above that fault. Nothing more than a hallucination, it was impossible to even speak with Phasma– let alone truly embrace him.
With careful goading, Luna had obtained a few lectures on the subject of dimensional travel from Princess Twilight Sparkle. Luna was of course as much of an expert on the subject as Celestia, she lacked the contemporary understanding and new philosophies and discoveries on the matter. Twilight went into great detail about the multiverse theory, the terrifyingly-named chaos theory, the idea of portals and wormholes, and on and on and on.
Coupled with her own research, Luna found herself with an entirely new problem; it was getting difficult to hide all of her notes in her study. In addition, performing experiments safely and covertly was next to impossible with the possibility of intrusion. Luna had met the limits of possibility. It was simply impossible to continue her deranged passion any further.
Phasma grunted as his shield took the full hit of Luna’s magical blast. He slid back several paces, dropped the shield, and darted to the side.
He continued his story as they fought, “So, no shit, there they were, unimaginably far away from Earth. Their duty was to establish a colony– agh!”
Luna had tracked his movement and followed her attack with a spell that transmuted the dirt into ice. Her foe slipped with a yell of surprise. But her triumph was temporary, as Phasma quickly recovered and took to the skies using his insectoid wings. Luna launched off the ground herself as the battle took to the skies above the dueling pit.
“Colonists? What next?” Luna grunted as she and Phasma parried blow for blow.
He launched a barrage of orange bolts as he spoke, “They received a signal. A… message over the stars. Something shouted into the impossible vastness of space. It sounded like random– son of a bitch!”
Luna smiled as Phasma spun to the ground, smoke trailing from him. Before he could slam into the ground, his wings spread out wide and Phasma glided across the pit. He flipped around, facing the sky, and fired a few Focused Will blasts Luna’s way.
“But it was more than sound. It was a song! An old song of home, of homesickness, of belonging elsewhere!”
Luna phased out of existence. The orange beams of light cut holes in the clouds above as Luna reappeared beneath Phasma, pulling him down and sending them both into a painful crash landing.
She pinned him, wrapping her forelegs around him and pointing her horn at his neck.
“Ergh! You hit like a fucking truck, you know that?” He grunted. “I yield, woman!”
Letting him go, she rolled out from underneath him, “In time, perhaps you will be more capable than a foal with a sword. A lot of time.”
“I’m a trophy husband, I get it,” he groaned. “Ow, that was one rough landing. I’m the one covered in chitin, how the hell are you uninjured?”
“I dodged.”
“You dodged the ground? The fucking ground?!”
“Yes.”
Phasma stared at her. For a few moments, Luna managed to hold her reaction. Then, she broke out into laughter.
“I shielded my back as I held onto you,” she revealed. She offered a hoof, and he took it with an eye roll. “A song of home, hmm?”
“You want to hear it?” He guessed, and she nodded. “Of course you do. What’s in it for me, though?”
“What?”
He smiled coyly, “In return for signing again.”
“.... I will find you,” Luna promised.
The Princess of the Night jerked awake, her fur slick with cold sweat. She was alone in her bedchamber, the thick black-out curtains keeping her room in pleasant darkness despite the time.
“Alone, once more,” she muttered, rubbing her face. “Note to self: lay off the scotch before bed.”
As she headed to the bathroom, she began to hum a song she never heard. Luna had to skip over a lot of the words as she simply didn’t know how to make the proper sounds, instead focusing on the tone of the sorrowful song.
Months ticked by, their passing being nothing more than a painfully slow prison sentence for Luna. All the centuries of solitude on the moon were nothing compared to the hoofful of years of progress that stretched itself as thin and slow as possible.
Deep within the cold embrace of Canterhorn, a staircase wound down from the Palace’s dungeons. Guarded by the Night Guard, its entrance was secreted away and out of sight from any who were not privy to Luna’s confidence. The passage eventually gave way to a collection of rooms. A second study, a small library, a storeroom, an enchanting room, a forge, and the experimentation room.
Luna had almost everything needed to cross dimensions.
Using the might and finesse of her alicorn powers, Luna had carved out the space necessary to continue her search. She collected every scrap of knowledge on dimensional travel possible: rare materials and techniques were perfectly within the Princess’s grasp. The only thing she lacked was time.
Being one of the most watched ponies alive meant that it was hard to abscond away into the dead of night. Luna put in her best effort despite this. An hour here, a day there– any time where she could reasonably not be missed, she was in her laboratory.
Studying. Experimenting. Forging. Reasoning. Theorizing. Enchanting. Eating iced oatmeal cookies despite the diet that Celestia imposed on her.
It was slow work. Agonizingly slow. When Luna sat through dreary meetings with nobles that had far too high opinions of themselves, she was daydreaming about forging the portal matrix control mechanism. When Luna was attending the Equestria Games and watched the greatest that the Kingdom and Crystal Empire had to offer, she mentally was working through the connection entropy dilemma. When she had attended her fifth Nightmare Night at Ponyville, she was thinking about how to achieve negative mass to generate the portal.
If Celestia ever found out about Luna’s obsession, she would never let Luna out of her sight. Luna knew this, so Luna kept it all hidden from Celestia. Sleepless nights were passed off as the usual abundance of stress that Luna endured– not that Luna was lying about that. Sometimes, she would spring forth from her bed, abruptly thrown out of her duties of protecting the dream realm.
Nightmares of what was and what wasn’t shackled Luna. Her dreams, both night and day, became more singularly dominated by her one goal: achieving the impossible.
The quiet buzz of a gas lantern kept Luna company as she was hunched over her desk inside the laboratory’s study. Papers were strewn all about the small space and not a single square inch of the walls was left uncovered in papers or diagrams. Though Luna was not a scholar by trade, she and Celestia had put enough hours into the study of the esoteric and scientific fields to be considered foremost experts in dozens of fields each.
There were only so many damned paintings to make and recipes to try baking, after all. Something had to eat up their free time.
Luna studied by lantern light and used writing utensils with her mouth rather than magic. Luna had to keep magical interference to a minimum within her wards. She never got used to the taste of quills– she would also never get used to the taste of these wood-covered pencils that Twilight had supplied her with, either. Nevertheless, the taste was one of the smaller sacrifices that Luna was making in pursuit of her fantasies.
Pushing away from her desk, Luna bit onto the lantern's handle and sauntered over to the largest room in her lab, the experimentation room. Scorch marks long faded and the telltale rainbow-hue of magical residue coated the walls. In the center of the circular chamber was the apex of Luna’s studies: a nexus traverser.
At least, that was Twilight’s name for the not-so-theoretical device. Luna preferred the simple archaic term ‘portal.’
It was a nine pointed star with a circle carved out of the center. Made of enchanted adamantium and socketed with more gems and enchanted metal plates than Luna could remember, the centerpiece of her dimensional studies looked like a cross between a baroque art piece and some nightmarishly-large piece of industrial machinery.
‘Nine points, just like the changeling’s faith worships.’
Luna had learned to appreciate the finer details of dreams and hallucinations from her studies into divination and her duties as matron of the dream world. From abstract chaos and orderless nothing, fragments of truth were revealed. These messages from the deep consciousness were guided by Harmony. Unfortunately for the mortals trying to comprehend them, they often came across as useless poems and pointlessly undetailed warnings.
In this case, they guided Luna along the right path and reassured her that she was doing the right thing. Confidence was another scarce resource in addition to time. Luna was keeping far too many secrets from her sister. She also recognized that nothing about this was healthy, let alone wise. The fears, worries, and guilt were eating away at her like a devouring swarm of insects. Luna took solace in what signs she could that she was treading the correct path.
Luna adjusted a few enchanted gems in their sockets. According to her notes, this new configuration had the greatest chance of working. High that chance was, Luna was about to find out.
She took position in the magician’s circle that served as the portal’s control surface and began the start-up sequence. In a minute’s time, the device was ready to activate.
“Once more unto the breach, then?”
She reached out with her magic, grasped the handle of an oversized switch, and pulled it down.
The reaction was immediate. Magic pulsed through the manufactured miniature Ley Lines. The gems scattered across the portal began to glow with their empyrean energies, casting a multi-hued glow across the chamber. Already, Luna could feel the static charge building in the air. In reaction to the sudden influx of ambient energy, her starry-mane had begun to whip wildly, as if caught in a gale.
“To bridge the unbridgeable,” Luna chanted. “To achieve the impossible. To connect a world of magic with one of science, a nine-pointed-star shall be born!”
Within the circular frame, a teal shimmer took form.
“Yes!” She cheered. “Across the heavens themselves shall I reach! Eat your heart out, Celestia, this is how you cross the multiverse!”
The shimmer started to grow as if it was an expanding star. It began to snake out from the center of the portal’s frame, reaching towards the edges. The seconds passed agonizingly slowly as Luna’s heart pounded harder and harder and harder!
The words of the song of Earth came to Luna’s mind. She took a deep breath and recited the words.
<Almost heav–!>
The magic touched the frame of the portal with a thunderous crack. Instantly, the teal shimmer exploded in size and ripped apart the portal. One wild tendril of magic raced along the magical Ley Lines and slammed into Luna. She flew back from the circle and hit the wall of the chamber with a grunt of surprise, and the air was pushed out of her lungs. Luna cried out in pain as rampant magical energy played havoc across her horn. The nascent portal vanished soon after, its magic escaping into the protective charms that lined the room.
“No,” she mouthed.
‘Please, no!’
She pulled air back into her with an exaggerated gasp, and began to scream.
Celestia found her an hour later.
Luna had taken care to line every room with protective charms. Not only did they save her life and her work in the case of catastrophic failure, but they also warded against teleportation or scrying.
Her sister gazed across the room, taking in the ruined state of the portal and the cracks along the walls. Eventually, her eyes came to a rest on Luna. Luna was curled up on the precipice of the gateway, eyes red from crying.
‘Somepony must’ve told her. I bet it was Gale Wind. His heart is always in the right place, shame his mind is on leave elsewhere.’
“Luna,” Celestia whispered as she climbed the cracked stairs of the portal.
Luna cringed, ‘Great. Now I must endure hours of lectures and–’
White wings enveloped Luna and pulled her into a tight embrace. For a great while, Celestia did not speak. Instead, she offered her company and comfort.
After an eon of slowly trying and failing to pull herself together, Luna managed to put up a front of strength.
"Thank you, sister."
To which her sister replied "... Please make me a promise, Luna."
Luna frowned, "What would you have me promise?"
'If she asks me to abandon my lofty dreams….. No. It simply can not be.'
"Promise me you will never suffer in silence again. Promise me that if you are hurting so much, you will tell me. Or anypony. If I am failing you, please, please! Tell me!"
"You have not failed, Celestia. It is I who have failed. That seems to be all I am good for…"
"Enough!" Celestia snapped. "I do not want to hear you say such awful things ever again. You are not good at failing. If anything, you're rather terrible at it! Banished for a thousand years, and now this mess! What… what even is all of this?"
Despite her best efforts to stay in a mood, Luna couldn't suppress the smile that Celestia coaxed out.
"Very well. I am terrible and failing… This is my… my magnum opus. My greatest work. Or at least, it would have been had it worked. I aimed to bridge the gaps between worlds and travel across to distant dimensions."
Celestia shook her head, "You couldn't have enchanted a mirror like any sane master-magician would?"
"Yes, because that worked out well for you," Luna rolled her tired eyes. "You nearly collapsed only two universes with an unstable connection, nothing big! Besides, the dimension I have my sights on has no magic. A conventional two-way connection is not possible. Something more is required…"
Celestia sighed, “I have so many questions. My spitefulness is demanding to know how you managed to accomplish all of this with our burdensome duties as princesses, but I really need to know why you are doing all of this.”
Luna’s smile dropped, “.... I am alone, Celestia. Yes, I know I have you, but beyond that? I am alone. I have tried to connect with ponies this day and age, but it is… fleeting. I can accomplish only so much. The Elements are out in Ponyville and my thestrals are loyal beyond friendship, but professionalism demands distance at times. The nobles of the court–” Luna laughed derisively, “– well, they have not changed a bit. I am blaming your negligence on that.”
“That’s a tad bit unfair,” Celestia muttered. “I… I don’t know what to say, Luna. I would be lying if I said that I was surrounded by companions myself…”
Luna shrugged, “We are alienated from our subjects. If not by status then by virtue of being overloaded with work.”
“So how does this all fit in?” Celestia asked, gesturing to the portal frame around them.
“... I believe I have found him.”
Celestia frowned, “Him? Who…. Luna, you don’t mean–”
“I do,” Luna nodded.
“Luna! You must understand that this obsession is leading you to ruin!”
“If that is my fate, then so be it.”
Celestia held Luna tighter, “Never again. I will not let you out of my sight. I will not let you fall down a self-destructive path. Not again.”
“Then I guess you shall have to aid me!”
“.... I guess so.”
Luna stammered, “Wait, what? What? What?!”
Her sister grinned, “I said I would not abandon you, Luna. If, after all this time, you refuse to turn away from this path despite knowing where it leads, then I will walk down it right beside you. If it leads both of us to ruin, then at least I will be with my sister.”
Luna looked up to her sister, “Truly? You truly mean it?”
Celestia shrugged, “I mean, I’d prefer not to, but what the hay? Why not try?”
“Huzzah!” Luna cheered.
“But,” Celestia interrupted the merriment, “in return for my help, you must promise me one thing.”
Luna paused, eyeing Celestia wearily.
“... I will hear your request,” she said diplomatically.
“You must show me how you managed to get the time to do all this,” Celestia beamed. “Equestria might have been a tad bit worse if I managed to get away half as much, but that’s a sacrifice that I’m willing to make!”
“Deal!” Luna shook her sister’s hoof. “It has taken me four years to get to this point. With the two of us, this is sure to go by much faster!”
“Two of us?” Celestia repeated. “What makes you think that there will only be two of us?”
Phasma didn't exist. He never did, in fact.
That was an irrefutable truth. Nowhere in Equestria's history did he come to be, and in all adjacent dimensions, his absence was absolute, too. To attempt to find somepony who never existed was simply impossible.
So Luna, Celestia, the Elements of Harmony, and a small army of scientists, estranged esoteric wizards, and overworked interns worked to achieve the impossible.
Luna taught her sister the mischievous ways of procrastination and playing hooky. Not that Celestia was a stranger to such tricks, she merely put herself too much into her work to realize what could be delegated or ignored without consequence. Centuries of habit had ingrained in Celestia the belief that every action of hers was important. The truth was that a good fifth of what she did was not important enough for a Princess's direct attention.
One fifth of the workload might not seem like much, but Celestia suddenly found herself with two whole hours of free time each day. True to her word, she dedicated her newfound freedom to helping Luna's project.
The Elements of Harmony– mostly Princess Twilight– had stopped by to help from time to time. Offering insight, a helping hoof, and quite frankly a quarter of the theoretical workload in Twilight’s part, they helped speed the project along for their friend.
Luna's laboratory quintupled in size and spilled out into many rooms close to its formerly-secret entrance. The relatively forbidden field of dimensional research was opened up to allow additional help. In a matter of weeks, the team made more progress than Luna had in years.
The portal was activated seven more times. Seven more times, it failed. However, each attempt gleaned more insights than the last. Attempting to connect to a dimension with no magic was thought to be impossible. But as they tried and tried again, the team became better and better at creating and holding the portal's connection, feeding all the magical energy from their side alone.
Finally, on the ninth attempt, Luna, Celestia, and Twilight had their most hopeful attempt so far.
“Start-up sequence looks good,” Twilight announced as she examined a printing feed that slipped through her hooves. “Ready for phase two!”
Celestia moved behind a large console covered in buttons and dials and pulled down an oversized lever.
“Phase two initiated!” Shouted Celestia.
Luna, who stood behind the console next to her sister, announced, “I have the mark. This universe is the farthest yet, but we have the mark!”
“Got it!” Twilight shouted back. “Starting the portal now!”
As the Princess of Friendship began the portal’s start-up spell, Celestia and Luna fiddled with the controls on the console, keeping the portal stable as it began to form. The teal shimmer once again appeared within the circular frame, growing larger with each passing second. This time, several metal coils around the portal siphoned off the errant magical surges. Luna and Celestia pulled away this wild energy as it formed.
The teal shimmer finished growing. Now, an opaque blue portal took up the entire portal’s frame.
“All systems nominal,” Twilight confirmed. “Luna, we’re ready!”
Grinning, Luna bridged the two worlds: Equestria and Earth.
“They told me it was impossible,” Luna said softly. “That he didn’t exist. But we live in the world of rainbows and magic and bullshit!”
Celestia looked over and yelled over the growing noise that the portal was making, “Are you saying something?”
“I am saying that with hope and Harmony, anything is possible!”
The portal finished for just one second. For one brief instance, the two worlds were connected. One: a dangerous void that lacked any magic. The other: a world so saturated with it that immortality was a reality for a select few.
‘Bring him to me!’
The spell caster’s intent mattered a great deal when it came to the result of a spell. Luna didn’t just want to travel to Earth. She wanted Phasma. She wanted him here, right now.
The portal, for a brief moment, flickered to show an alleyway that looked like it was in Manehattan. Then, the entire portal vanished. Its power had poured through until there was none left, and the teal glow that tinged the room had vanished suddenly.
But before it shut off, the portal threw something out. Something– somepony that tumbled down the steps of the raised dais and collapsed in a pile of black limbs on the ground.
Luna dropped what she was doing and rushed over.
Phasmatodea, the King of Changelings, groaned as Luna swept him up off the ground and into an embrace. He was different from how she imagined him. His legs were full of holes, his horn was twisted notched, his mane was a short crop of orange flame, and he had that weird crown-thing on the top of his head.
Overall, he looked like a male Chrysalis rather than a drone-royal hybrid.
Luna wept with joy that she was holding him at all.
“It worked?” Twilight asked, approaching Luna.
“Luna? Is it him?” Celestia asked, also coming close.
“It’s him,” Luna said. She leaned down and whispered, “Phasma? Phasma, can you hear me?!”
<.... Egh, what the fuck did he shoot me with?> The stallion muttered loud enough for all to hear.
“Oh, right,” Luna mumbled. “He would not know our language...”
Phasma opened his eyes– two orange slits, thankfully unchanged– and stared up at Luna.
<..... Horse?>
Then, he frowned, and smacked his lips and felt around his open mouth with his tongue.
Luna recalled as much as she could about English, the language that Celestia called ‘nothing more than the sound of distant thunder.’ She didn’t know much of the fictional-turned-true language, not enough to communicate.
So she sang instead.
<Country roads, take me home! To the place, I belong!>
Hesitantly, Phasma stepped towards Luna as she sang.
Did I make an entire short story based off a meme? Yes.
Was it worth it? No, it was better in my head.
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This is a Certified Hood Classic
A 6000 word chapter based on a meme?
This isn't your normal everyday shitposting, this is advanced shitposting.
Now I'm curious if lang is different in cannon. Wonder if he got pull from cannon verse lol.
What a wild ride. My heart dropped when Celestia mentioned "supplements," I thought I knew where this was going. Boy am I glad I was (somewhat) wrong!
Great work as always!
Missed an 'o' there, kind sir - it's spelled 'hookey'. Still understood what you meant due to context. Unless Luna and Celestia are secretly Canadian and love slapping a puck around a frozen pond, of course.
I'm high at the momment
From Phasma's perspective this has to be pretty bonkers. Get shot, wake up to a blue horse singing Country Roads.
This was perfect. Simple as.
11315080
Nah mate, it's spelled correctly. You just uh... have some dead pixels. Yeah, some dead pixels!
This what-if went from heartwarming to the darkest timeline in a hurry. Phasma being nothing but a figment of Luna's imagination all along... that's worse than him dying ten times over. It looks like it went back to heartwarming towards the end, but I'm still worried that Luna and her 'new' Phasma might not match together like they do canonically. If Phasma gets the idea that Luna is responsible for his death then he might really hate her for it, setting their relationship off on the completely wrong hoof.
Well, this was quite a ride...
Interesting. Could definitely see Luna doing something like this.
This one was simply a roller coaster of emotions! After learning that Phasma didn’t exist in the dimension of this story, I was completely surprised and saddened. It has a nice ending, sure. But it got me thinking…
What lengths would Luna have gone?
Luckily, this didn’t turn into a Multiverse of Madness sort of deal, and good job with this one Slider, you sure know how to-
No! I’m not saying the thing!
Fine.
Change Expectations.
slaps myself in face at the corny
awesome chapter.
11315024
Fr, the Hood classics go hard here
Luna when she just wants her Boy.
Dude that meme
That's a lot of wack ass magic and potential for disaster that Luna's gotten herself info there.
Ahh, look at what they need to match a fraction of a tulpa's power.
11316197
Alicorns and ripping apart universes to get that D, name a more iconic duo.
All of that...
And that meme has me howling in laughter.
This was crazy good! Damn, I was happy? The depressed them happy, and now I’m sad again. Geez, a need a sequel for this!
The best cure for delusions: change reality to match the delusion so it isn’t delusional anymore! Mwahahahahaaa!
11317646
I reject your reality and substitute my own. Only in this case she has a shit ton of magic and resources to actually pull it off
11315032
Sliders goals are beyond our understanding
All the wack shit make my head hurt
But like in a good nostalgic way tho?
Wow, I really liked that. A genuinely sweet little story that turned out well with only setbacks, rather than tragedies. This was a great contrast with the last story and I do not care it came from a meme it was great.
wow.. just wow...
images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/61a7aa8e-cb4d-4148-9904-491360bf2f3c/d2kkjoc-44a28bcc-d42a-493e-b251-2b663d07f67b.gif?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7InBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzYxYTdhYThlLWNiNGQtNDE0OC05OTA0LTQ5MTM2MGJmMmYzY1wvZDJra2pvYy00NGEyOGJjYy1kNDJhLTQ5M2UtYjI1MS0yYjY2M2QwN2Y2N2IuZ2lmIn1dXSwiYXVkIjpbInVybjpzZXJ2aWNlOmZpbGUuZG93bmxvYWQiXX0.4fyJ220ZD2WNx052OnDG_y3UmLZR7Q43SKseo22eblY
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Ain't no way you made this just because of a meme.
In other news, I'm off to make a CE meme that I definitely don't want to turn into a story.
I like this spin.
Though I feel it should have delved into the idea of the unreliable narrator. There are hints of unreliable narrator in the scene where the pill is just kicking in, but it could have easily turned into a full delusion instead of clearing up.
My idea?
Luna doesn't buy that Phasma never existed, and deludes herself into thinking Celestia is Daybreaker, and keeps trying to prepare for war against both Daybreaker and Epitaph, though nobody will listen to her because Epitaph doesn't exist, and Celestia never turned. Eventually, she devolves into being so barely functional that they finally convince her of the truth. Or, at least some of the truth.
It's food for thought, for sure.
I call the idea, Hallucinations of Grandeur.
Hmmm I'll have to experiment with this core idea on my own time.
11353191
That's certainly a good idea. Not the idea I went with, simply another good story idea. I haven't experimented much with an unreliable narrator, so I might do something like that in the future.
With the power of Harmony and Bullshit on my side, the laws of reality are what I decide!
😭 😭😭 okay this one hit unexpectedly hard.
Ok, that was good. What I'm really curious about is what would happen next? Would it all be happy ever after? Would he freak out? Was he dreaming of her as she dreamed of him?
Anyway great little story.
11450311
A lot of freaking out.
Does waning crescent ever get a conclusion?
Also, tonal whiplash
the previous three chapters to this one be like
11575521
I'll probably do a second half for it
Bro, one of my favorite alternative timeline stories is based off of a meme.😭😭😭😭
The image for this chapter is gone because of discord CDN changing how the links work, dang.
11856464
Should be fixed until it inevitably breaks again
11857077
Yay!