A Hush Reigns Over the Universe, But a Final Blaze Shouts

by Comma Typer

This Should Be Everything

And the candle is passed to the unicorn at the reception desk. She keeps her focus on her papers and schedule when they slide into view.

In here and beyond, the Inter-Creature Bureau of Metareality faces much variance in what is considered normal, with a list of which realities to interface with and of which portals to check up for routine maintenance in the CO-TY Hub. Recent negotiations were had with a universe on the brink of war, whose gates were installed beside those of an Equestria where humans had endured the brunt of history with ponies. As for Cinnamon herself, she hails from a magic-filled Earth—

The lights flicker.

She turns on her horn to grip onto the candle; its faint warmth touches her, a metaphorical anchor when staff perform emergency checks on the portal arrays. Multiple Flurry Hearts, both grown-ups and foals along with an elderly version of the baby, gather to discuss the current state of affairs. A panicked and time-traveling Starlight Glimmer teleports in, ruining the multi-alicorn conversation before bumping into multiple Sunsets rushing to and fro between Canterlot City portals, crashing a dozen briefcases. Paper trails fly overhead, their racking about littering themselves onto her desk.

And a claw taps its digits on the desk. “First time?”

Cinnamon sizes up the sudden draconequus before her. She’s encountered only one other such creature here—other than Discord—yet the stranger still gives her pause. Said stranger is less of a noodle, more of a pony with oddities like huge bat wings, the amalgamation of Fluttershy’s body but the eyes of Discord. And bat fangs. Yet noodly.

“Yeah, probably not,” says the creature as she floats down to Cinnamon’s level. She stays cool, if remote from the administrative mayhem going on around them. She then takes out a remote to mute several ringing alarms across the whole facility, forming a near-invisible soundproof dome including herself and Cinnamon. “But I don’t think we’ve met a lot.”

“Oh, uh, Anarchy?” an unperturbed Cinnamon asks, rummaging a drawer to verify her name. “Yes, I’ve met you before, right when I found out we had other versions of ourselves in your world some decades ago. How’s Cookie and Oakley there? Also… huh, you weren’t scheduled for today—”

“Not for quite a long time.” She conjures up a chair to sit down on. “Or, well, not me, per se. Not me me.”

“Not you you? Oh right… reader’s depiction, memory, all that. You—or your prime self, rather—did take an interview once, right?”

“Once in-character, once out-of-character. Or was that Watson versus Doyle?” She takes the bubble pipe out of her mouth. “But I’d hate to break it to you. Something caused the lights to go wee-woo here?”

“Uh, yes?” Over her own head, pegasi and griffons carry equipment to fix the fixtures. Wrenches and spanners fall as the earth rumbles. “So, what happened in your world?”

“Um, well, Cinny… it's not exactly what happened in it but to it.”

---

Broken lines of dusty manes and limp tails flee from an ashen Ponyville. A Screwball is corralled out by the Royal Guards, while the Elements coordinate the exodus of hoofsteps.

Cinnamon sees her own uniform on other ponies, other creatures, other versions of her bureau now present. Faintly recognized are those under a major branch called “The Manor”; their leaders welcome the refugees with howls and weepings that she can hear from a mile away.

The base for a trio of Canterlot statues is cordoned off before being lifted up to the back of a truck. Ashen moods sour the faces of an aged Pinkie and her family, a broken Lil Cheese breaking into a waterfall of tears. Other trucks roll themselves in, showing insignias and signatures of different realms, deploying portals, all paths to safety.

The dirt under her hooves withers into dust. She sits and beholds: a paled world.

---

Crisp pages and dusty history books amass under her hooves or in her magic. Her agency hasn’t had much equipment and training compared to its counterparts, just enough to observe and interact, not enough to conduct impromptu rescue operations. But into the sacks and wagons the tomes go, with wagons decking the crystal halls of an abandoned Castle of Friendship.

“This should be everything, including the ones you haven’t seen,” Anarchy points out with a foam hand as she grabs several books, literally kicking the dust out of a volume.

“No need to worry. We’ve got photocopiers for most of them. The ones too fragile for that, quill and parchment. What’s next?”

“Taking in my friends and family,” she says. “At least the ones you remember. Or how you remember… or something.”

“I know." She lets her mane fall just so to half-cover an eye. "A shame I haven’t met everyone. So sudden, too.”

Another book gently falls into a wagon. The rest of the tomes soon roll out of the castle.