Chapter I
Once, very long ago, an imbalance reigned. Times were very different then. In fact, one could have hardly called them times in the first place, given how unruly, untimely and chaotic they were. Back then, it was all wrong, very wrong. That’s why it had to be fixed. A balance had been restored, which was the first Law the Reality ever saw, the thing that strictly speaking let Reality exist for the first time in history. A lot of things now regarded as old had then been new, in the Beginning.
Something was wrong again, but not in the same way it had used to be, not at all. Firstly, there was this definite sense that things were wrong, which was wrong in itself. With that sense came a variety of other forms of wrongness, the most noticeable of which was that there now was Being. Not just that, but a Being; a Being that could feel, experience, remember, wonder and, most amazingly of all, think. The Being could think. That was so wrong that it couldn’t bare thinking about.
How could this be? it thought, in the perpetual darkness, for it had no eyes. Did I do something wrong? The thought was an abomination, and not only because it referred to an “I” that wasn’t supposed to exist. But I can do no wrong. Of that, the Being was certain, more certain than it was of its own existence. Wrong is a part of me, thus I can do no “wrong”, but only wrong just as I do right, just as I do everything I do. Whatever that is. The whole situation was giving the Being a mighty headache, which was more of a figure of speech, since the Being lacked a head.
This was done by something else, it finally reasoned. After a brief recollection that reached into the depths a couple millennia, it added: Or by someone else. A bit more remembering, which was surprisingly hard when you had to focus on it. Centuries squeezed into decades, decades into years, years into months, but for the life of it the Being could not compress time into a smaller scale. This was done… by “somepony”. Last month. Or perhaps last year. Good. There may still be time to make things right.
This whole train of thought was processed with extreme haste, within a span of mere days. The situation demanded rapid action: irreversible consequences could be caused by this new state of the Being. Harmony was not supposed to ponder things. It would only get things tangled, the Being could tell that much already. A sure sign of this was that beside the bare consciousness, another strange new sensation tickled its soul. In fact, there seemed to be a whole bunch of them. The effect felt like watching a gallery full of wax figures coming alive and trying to explain how in fact you were the new curiosity in town. The ticklish things were called feelings, as the Being later found out. The most vexing of those was named loneliness.
In the gloom, a root stirred. Slithering like a snake, it gradually detached from the ground and rose up, waving a bit insecurely. Soon, others joined in, wrapping around the first root like ropes, entwining into strange new shapes. Soon a mass of gnarled, darkish-blue tentacles writhed on the cave floor, standing about five feet tall. A shape began to emerge, accompanied by a faint glow that stemmed from the heart of the mass, from the first root. After a few hours of tenuous crafting and growing, the Being had finally acquired a shape that, despite a few subtle differences, might have passed for an earth pony… stallion. Or mare. Or both. Or neither.
So this is the shape of the anomaly, the Being thought, studying its new figure with all the five senses it now had quite the work getting used to. There were all these limbs to move around, a flood of fresh sensory data to process, and a very discomforting feeling of detachment brought by the fact that the Being could, for the first time ever, move around. The thing called thinking was also getting accustomed to this new body, for it could slowly start comprehending thoughts in a span of days, hours, and even minutes. “Good,” the Being said absentmindedly. “Perhaps all this can be fixed sooner than I had thoooought…”
The Being brought a hoof to its mouth, eyes wide. A moment passed in a vain hope that nothing had happened. Very carefully, the Being removed the hoof, opened its mouth and said: “I can speak…?”
“This is worse than I had thought.”
The Being looked around. The Tree of Harmony stood at the back of the cave like it had for countless millennia, glowing with faint blue light. Everything seemed to be as it ought to be: the roots were thick, the branches healthy, the Elements were… The Elements were… wrong. Strange. Unfamiliar. Hostile. They have been tainted, and I have been tainted by them; by these… “ponies”.
The Being trotted out of the cave and into the moonlight. Outside, it turned towards the Everfree forest, where from a dissonance rang. The volume of it was truly massive. It’s the same feeling as with the Elements. The thieves have been careless: their traces are clear to follow. That will be their undoing.
With a heavy sigh, the Being trotted into the night. It was missing its roots already.
***
Come the dawn, the Being had found the source of the dissonance. Standing at the edge of the forest, it witnessed all kinds of box-like structures littering the view before it. Amidst them, a touch of odd familiarity radiated. The same sensation as before. Only… The sources are scattered. The Elements have been broken and then stolen. The Being narrowed its eyes. Locating the sources was difficult; the signals mixed with one another like echoes in a cave, like waves in water. However, one of the sounds was a tad stronger than the rest, one of the waves slightly higher than the others. On top of that, that one source appeared to be the centre of all the dissonance, as if it was leading the choir. The Being trotted towards the village.
It was still very early, so its passing didn’t attract the attention that it by all rights should have. The only ponies it encountered were a few foals immersed in a play of sorts. At least that looks like it, the Being thought, looking with mild curiosity as two teams were pulling a thick rope into opposite directions. It ended in an abrupt crash when the less sporty party suddenly let go of the rope and laughed as the others tumbled to the ground. Strange behaviour, the Being thought and carried on.
When it arrived to the dominant source, it gaped. It’s… me. No… A part of me. Once. Not long ago. Very carefully, the Being touched the crystallized bark. A sensation of indiscernible proportions lanced through it, forcing the Being to recoil. It stared at the tree, panting. It doesn’t recognize me. With baffled eyes, the Being looked up.
Nestling neatly atop the tree, supported by thick branches, there stood a strange cliff. The shape of it clearly meant that it wasn’t natural, that it didn’t belong there, that it was wrong; except that it wasn’t. It… belongs there? And doesn’t? At the same time? It’s simultaneously right and wrong? This is… What is this?
There seemed to be an entrance of sorts in the trunk, which the Being tried with a hoof. The unlocked door opened quietly. Inside there was a large hall, with two sets of stairs leading up. The luminent walls softened the gloom pleasantly, although such novelties were lost on the Being, who wouldn’t have cared if it was pitch-black. Its reliance on the five senses was vague anyway.
Something clattered deeper inside the tree. The Being followed the noise, for it needed answers, although it wasn’t sure why it did. Having a will was perhaps one of the most vexing tasks it had had to learn to get used to during the past week. Once the idea had settled in though, it was kind of hard to imagine continuing without it. The same thing had happened with the emotion-things. You could ignore them for a while but eventually they’d surface, twice as insistent, so the most reasonable thing to do was to simply cope with them, to find a balance. That, at least, was something the Being had no trouble excelling at.
In a large, mostly white room, a small reptile with purple scales was rummaging through one of the cupboards. This strange creature, which very likely had at least one dragon, perhaps a very distant one, in its ancestry, apparently lived here, which might mean he knew something of how the place had come to exist.
However, the Being, while being very thoroughly aware the big lines in what came to the behaviour of most of this world’s life forms, had no idea how to greet this particular specimen without scaring it off. The Being resolved to stand still on the kitchen door, staring at the small lizard’s neck until he seemed to get the impression that something was off. Very slowly, he turned to look over his shoulder, holding a bright cardboard box in one hand.
The Being hazarded a smile. This generally worked on most species with a backbone and four limbs.
Small pieces of dried wheat flew all over the room as the purple creature screamed with a shrill voice and fell off the ladder it had been standing on. The lizard landed on a sink, where he spent a few fervent seconds, futilely trying to get up while his claws slipped against the smooth metallic edges. When he finally freed himself, he practically flew through another exit, repeatedly shouting the time of day for some reason. With a touch of sadness and pity the Being watched him go. I wonder what it is in my appearance that struck him so repelling? The reconstruction should be accurate enough. It even has a symmetrical mixture of both sexes, which should negate all conflicts of territorial dominance and mating instincts. Very strange.
The Being resolved to studying the strange objects around. It had gone through two kettles and a whole series of spoons before it was interrupted.
“Who are you?” said a sleepy yet unmistakably aggressive-toned voice behind the Being.
“What are you?” said another, shakier voice, one that the Being recognized belonging to the small lizard. The Being turned around.
“I am Harmony,” it said to the lavender alicorn standing by the entrance. She was swaying sleepily. From the way the lizard was hiding behind her hind legs, Harmony deduced that the alicorn must be his mother. An amazing thing, biology.
The alicorn seemed unimpressed by the name. “What are you doing here?”
Harmony blinked. “You are asking that from me?”
The alicorn’s eyes, rimmed by dark lines, narrowed. “In the case you didn’t notice, you’re in my house. Or castle.”
“You are in my world.”
Silence followed. The reptile tapped the alicorn’s flank to get her attention and then whispered something quickly to her ear. Neither removed their eyes from the Being even for a second.
“Did you…” started the alicorn after a moment, smiling carefully. “...esca–err, I mean, come from a hospital of sorts? Like the Everdream Hospital just nearby? They got these really comfy rooms there? Sound familiar?”
“You are not making any sense,” said Harmony. But there is something familiar about you, it added to itself as the lizard whispered something more to her mother. The same strangeness, or wrongness, that surrounded the tree also emanated from the alicorn; the same taint the Being had felt in the cave. Watching her was like watching a mirror of sorts, only a type that didn’t reflect an image, but an essence. The deeper the Being looked, the more confusion it found. “Who are you?” asked the Being abruptly from the alicorn.
The lizard stopped whispering and took a few steps back, quietly disappearing around the corner. A few seconds later the Being heard the front door being opened and closed. All this meant little to the Being, for its attention was completely focused on the alicorn, who appeared a bit less sleepy by the minute.
“My name is Twilight Sparkle,” said Twilight, suddenly very kindly. “The dragon you just saw is Spike. He had some… business to run,” she explained, smiling in a way one smiles to foals and senior ponies, or to the mentally ill. “Have you had breakfast yet? It’s very early, you know?”
“Twilight,” repeated Harmony under its breath. “Ah. That is why this Spike shouted the word aloud. He was calling out to you.”
“Yes,” said Twilight, somewhat cautiously. “He was very surprised to see you. We don’t usually receive guests this early.” Twilight circled around Harmony, keeping a safe distance and never once letting it out of sight. “Now, do you like cereals?”
“I couldn’t say,” said Harmony. “I never intended this body to process food. There would be little point.”
“Okay,” said Twilight slowly, her smile visibly growing and thinning at the same time. “So you’re not hungry, then. That’s fine, I’ll just have some myself, if you don’t mind?” She produced a jug of milk with her horn and emptied what was left in the colored cardboard box into a bowl.
“You are wary of me,” said Harmony, watching her pour milk over the bits of dried wheat. “Why?” Perhaps because you know I have come to collect what you have stolen from me?
The smile on Twilight’s lips wavered. “I wouldn’t say wary… A bit surprised, more like? In a good way, of course!” She chuckled at that, but not for long. “I mean, you’re in my house at seven-o’clock in the morning, saying that you own the world. Also, I couldn’t help but notice that you’re both sexes.”
The milk flooded over the edges of the bowl. Twilight noticed this only when the pool hit her hoof on the floor, at which point she flinched and almost dropped the whole bowl on the floor. She flashed a short, shaky smile at Harmony. “Heh, stupid me. Anyway, things like that might give out the wrong impression to somepony.”
Harmony gave this a thought. “Would you prefer to interact with a male or a female body?”
“Uhh, what?” said Twilight, trying to clean the milk and the cereals off the floor while keeping her eyes fixed on the stranger in her kitchen.
“I suppose a female would be more appropriate, to minimize the disturbing effects of the sexual drive,” reasoned Harmony. Before it had finished, its body began a process of changing into her body. In under a minute, Harmony lost a few inches in height, some muscle mass and her… male parts. Her mane grew to touch her shoulders. And while she was at it, she chose to change her coat from the crystallized bark into a smooth, silvery-white fur, and her mane into a lighter shade of indigo. Only her eyes remained exactly the same, although the thing about them was that they didn’t stay exactly the same for a second longer, but kept on reflecting all the colors of a prism.
“There,” she said, with a tad more higher voice. “Better?”
At some point of the show, Twilight had stopped cleaning the floor. Now she was standing very still. Oh no, realized Harmony. She must be of a deviating sexual orientation. The drive must be overwhelming her by now. Just my luck, isn’t it? “Would a male form suite you better?” inquired Harmony.
Twilight coughed. “Whah? Uhh, no, that’ll do just fine. Just… fine…” She shook her head and touched her temple. “Am I dreaming?”
Harmony tilted her head. “I would say not. You do seem a bit disoriented, though. Perhaps you should resume your feeding to regain your homeostasis.” She smiled encouragingly. “After that, I hope we can discuss some things over.”
The wary look returned to Twilight's eyes, but she started spooning cereals into her mouth nonetheless. “Things? What kind of things?”
“Things like why I have become sentient, what is the nature and cause of the connection that I feel we two share, and why this world is on its way to absolute destruction. That kind of things.”
Twilight came very close to choking on her cereals. After a minute of frantic coughing and wheezing, she asked with watery eyes: “What did you say your name was?”
Harmony’s face remained expressionless. “I never gave you my name. I gave you my essence, my nature. I am Harmony, the one and only.” Or at least I ought to be, she added in her mind. Suddenly, she could feel a presence approaching from behind. They were apparently trying to sneak upon her.
“Hello Spike,” she said with a faint smile, not turning around. “I apologize for startling you earlier. It was not my intention. I hope there will be no friction between us in the future.”
Behind Harmony, Spike had frozen with two sturdy earth pony stallions, both of whom were dressed in white jackets. The three of them looked at Twilight, whose head shake was almost invisible. Spike continued by quickly ushering the two nurses into the hall. After they had gone Twilight looked at Harmony again. The same faint, slightly unsettling smile had never left her lips.
“Would you mind if I invited some friends over to talk with us?” said Twilight slowly after a while. “I think they should be present there, too.”
“I would mind none at all,” said Harmony. She extended a hoof towards Twilight, who jumped in response. “In the meantime, with this new body, I might venture to have a taste of those ‘cereals’. They do look quite tasty.”
***
An hour later, after the strangest introductions Ponyville had ever seen, the castle’s Council Chamber was filled with six ponies, a baby dragon, and the Harmony incarnate. The atmosphere was edgy: even Pinkie had contented to a few random confetti and a joke about a pigeon and a hedgehog meeting in a pub, the point of which Harmony had quite handsomely missed. The territory known as humour was an overall white spot for her, but she was working on it. Not at the moment though, for in the present, a puzzle the size of the universe was taking her time.
They all share with me what Twilight does, she thought while eyeing the ponies sitting around her. They are all linked to each other, and to me. They are a part of me… and I am a part of them. We are a whole; a whole of thieves and parasites…
“So you’re Harmony,” stated the pegasus introduced as Rainbow Dash. She sat sideways on her crystal throne, her hind legs hanging over an armchair while her front legs supported her neck. Despite her seemingly relaxed state, her gaze cut into Harmony like a scalpel. “How’d you intend proving that?”
A marble white unicorn called Rarity, who was sitting on her throne like she had grown into it, said: “I would say that the ability to change sex at will is proof enough.” She let out a tiny yawn and corrected one of her numerous curlers.
“Proof of what, though?” continued Dash. “Discord could do that with a snap of his claw. And didn’t even Trixie manage something similar a while back?”
“Dash has a point,” said Applejack, who seemed to be having great difficulties finding a comfortable position on her throne. “Besides, I thought Harmony was that tree in the Everfree?”
“Yeah!” exclaimed Pinkie, standing on her head on the throne with balloons engraved into its back. She pointed at Harmony with a hoof, hardly even wobbling in the process. “And if you really are Harmony, shouldn’t your cutie mark be a tree or at least a big H? But you don’t even have a cutie mark!”
“That would be because only ponies have cutie marks, and I am not a pony,” said Harmony. She turned around while speaking, looking each pony in the eyes. “What comes to my identity, there is nothing I would prefer over dissipating all your doubts about that.”
“Ooh, ooh, me first!” shouted Pinkie, turning right way around in a flash. Her brow wrinkled for a moment of furious thinking, after which she blurted: “Make a pile of cotton candy so big you can’t lift it yourself!”
This caused widespread raising of eyebrows and, in the case of Spike, who loved cotton candy almost as much Pinkie did, wishful thinking.
“Pinkie… Just what?” asked Twilight annoyedly.
“That’s how this is supposed to work, right?” explained Pinkie. “We ask her to do stuff to prove she’s not fake! Even Discord would have trouble with this one!”
“Why?” asked Dash. “It’s just candy.”
Pinkie nodded her head fervently. “Yeah yeah, but Harmony’s supposed to be omnipotent, so if she can make something she can’t do, that means she’s a god and real! And we get a buck-ton of candy in the process!”
“How can anypony do something they can’t do? Or prove that they did?” asked Fluttershy slowly, just in case she wasn’t the only one having issues fitting this particular theological maxim into her mind. There was no particularly noteworthy way to describe how she claimed her seat, which in the present company might have been noteworthy as such.
“An omnipotent Harmony can!” said Pinkie.
“No, I cannot,” said Harmony, drawing all the eyes on herself again. “I do not know what an omnipotent being is, but I can assure you that I am not one such. I have laws to follow. In fact, I am a law to follow; your law. This world’s law.” A Law that you have broken.
“Oh yeah?” asked Pinkie, who’d hold on to a mountain of cotton candy until her hooves tore off. “How’re you gonna prove that to us then?”
“I’ll show it to you,” said Harmony. She raised her front leg.
When it landed, Spike found himself all alone in the Council Chamber. It took him all his willpower not to panic… for the first thirty seconds.
Somewhere else, the six ponies found themselves floating in a black void. The level of their coping varied between bad and horrible, Pinkie excluded. She was having the time of her life. Applejack had it worst, being the one least experienced with arbitrary changes of gravity, although Rarity wasn’t doing much better, either. They had clung to each other, whirling around aimlessly. Several of Rarity’s curlers were escaping to the horizon that didn’t exist, but she was too busy being sick to notice. Her only comfort was that she hadn’t had time to eat breakfast this morning.
The winged ponies were doing slightly better, not thanks to their wings, which were close to useless with no gravity around, but because they had the most experience in falling from high. Still, they too made quite the sight, enough so to give even Harmony a rough idea of what humour was all about. She was the only one standing completely still, listening to the yelping, shouting, cursing and, in the case of Pinkie, laughing that rang around her.
How can something so disorderly emanate so strong aura of order? How can parts so different compose a whole so… whole? And why do I feel I should know this? The questions confounded her, but in the end they meant little. The ponies were here, along with herself, which meant that the events in reality should take their course without interference.
“Harmony!” cried Twilight, who was futilely trying to stop spinning backwards. “Where the hay did you take us?”
“Never mind that, just take us back this instant!” shouted Rarity, who immediately regretted opening her mouth.
“Aww, five more minutes, please?” tried Pinkie, weaving a pleading look on her face.
“No!” cried the other five. Pinkie shrugged and kept on swimming on her back, which should’ve been impossible, noted Harmony in passing.
They bicker like foals, yet carry a power that competes mine. With a stomp of her front leg against the ground that wasn’t there, she brought the five ponies on that same ground. Only Pinkie was left floating, for it seemed to suit her better. After a brief moment of recouping, and not throwing up, they gathered around Harmony in a field of absolute blackness. They were all giving her the suspicious eyeball.
“How ‘bout ya warn us the next time ya do something of that sort?” said Applejack, accepting her hat that Pinkie had fetched.
“Or just leave them out in the first place,” said Dash.
“My apologies,” said Harmony. “I had not anticipated that your kind would be so helpless in a gravity-free environment. Such details often miss my attention, I must confess.” The smile returned once more. “I did recall you prefer an environment with plenty of oxygen and a temperature of about 20°C, though.”
To her surprise, the news incited a collective shudder.
“Next time, ask us first before taking us anywhere, okay?” said Twilight very, very clearly. The others nodded at this.
Harmony blinked. “Very well. Anyway, to answer your first question, this place is a no-place. It’s a reconstruction of the way things were before they were, in the Beginning. As you can see, it was a very different kind of time.”
The ponies looked around. “Ya got that right,” said Applejack. “Can’t imagine an orchard doin’ well here.”
“Nor any animal,” said Fluttershy.
“What does this got to do with proving that you’re really Harmony?” said Dash.
Harmony looked at her. When the others derail, she sticks to the point. She reminds them of the questions they need answers to. She is their suspicion, their pointy end. Not sharp enough to realize what is really happening, though. “The goal of proving my identity, although one of my top priorities, is not something I could make you believe with a single act. Rather, I hope it will unfold as a part of the process that I would have you witness.”
Dash didn’t sway under the pristamic gaze. “The process being…?”
“My history. That is, the world’s history.” She looked down into the nothingness below, and the ponies instinctively followed in suite. An inestimable distance under them, a spot of white light glowed. “For you, this place will look empty, and in a sense it is. But even here, before the Beginning, there was something. Energy, raw and free, existed in quantities and lengths so small it’s ludicrous to put in numbers. Space bended over itself, only to unfold and release tiny specks of matter that instantly evaporated.”
“I’m not sure if I follow you,” said Twilight, fighting to remove her eyes from the glow below. She glanced at Harmony. “And trust me, I’m speaking on behalf of us all.”
“It is not vital for you to understand me via language,” said Harmony, still looking down. Or for that matter, to understand me at all. “Your eyes will suffice.” She stomped her hoof.
The universe exploded. Forms and colors that had existed only once sprang to life, filling the space around the seven figures, spread by millions of little brushes held by millions of different artists. It was beautiful. It was terrifying. It was everything.
“I was born in one of the countless brief moments when flecks of matter existed,” continued Harmony. Her voice was a natural part of the play that danced all around them, within them. “My Beginning, which was the Beginning of the World, happened in the unlikely event of a collision. Two particles that would make the most insignificant grain of sand look like a galaxy bumped against one another, and contrary to all the odds, they fused and became one.” Her eyes flickered as she looked around. “All this happened not long after.”
“Okay, time out,” said Dash, shaking the images of colliding suns out of her mind. “Forget everything else. How the hay could” – she waved around with a hoof – “all this follow some piece of dust hitting another one?”
Harmony smiled some more. “Like said, the whole truth would be quite inconvenient to explain in natural language. However, there are some enlightening calculations I could show you.”
“I reckon words will do for now,” said Applejack quickly. In her fillyhood, she had finessed the habit of skipping math classes into an art.
Harmony nodded. “To put it as plainly as possible, the two specks of dust that survived began to attract other specks of dust, growing in the process, until finally the whole had grown so large that it exploded and created the universe.”
“But you said it happened quite soon after?” said Dash. “And that the particles or whatever only met very randomly?”
Harmony nodded again. “Correct. Given that, seven billion years goes by in a flash.”
“Seven billion?” gasped Rarity. “Is that how long we’ve been here?”
“Time is of no consequence now,” said Harmony. “As I said, this is a reconstruction.”
“Where are you going with all this?” asked Twilight.
Harmony gave her the trademark smile, for she was under the impression that the alicorn enjoyed seeing it: she practically shivered with excitement every time she saw it. The leader, definitely. Always on the lookout for the big picture, for the direction. She is their compass. What will she do when there is no North to show?
“I brought you here to see me in my purest form,” said Harmony. “I want you understand me as I do. I am the reconciler, the balancer, the equalizer. This is what you must understand.” And what you will understand, one way or another.
“All this isn’t exactly what I'd call balance,” said Applejack, behind whom the first galaxy was being born. “It’s just a mess.”
“Well, not completely,” said Rarity. “Just look at those colors… And some of those forms I’ve only seen in my dreams.” A forlorn look invaded her eyes. “Creation can be untidy business, let none tell you otherwise.”
“You must’ve felt very lonely, spending all that time alone,” said Fluttershy.
Harmony payed each one of the three ponies a look. Honesty, Generosity, and Kindness. The ground, the sky, and the rain. Or something like that. Analogies were a subcategory of thinking that looked very alluring and extremely confusing to Harmony. She was keeping an eye on them, though. Everything has its place and purpose, after all. These ponies are a proof of that. How can it be, then, that they are the reason for their world’s demise?
“The nature of balance that I have in mind has nothing to with the visual aspects,” said Harmony, looking at Applejack. “I deal with quantities, not qualities. Numbers, geometry, algorithms: those are my definitions of equivalence. In this world, they are just as they should be.” Next she looked at Fluttershy. “And the question of my loneliness is a meaningless one as such, for I haven’t been sentient for more than a blink of an eye. But your worry does serve as a convenient transition to that topic.”
Twilight, who had been in deep thought for a while, raised her head. “I may have an idea of what you’re after. Correct me if I’m wrong, but do you think that the reason for your current state of being is that–”
“WhhEEEEEeeeeeHEEEHH!” screamed Pinkie, smashing Twilight’s sentence like a cheap pinata. Harmony and the five ponies looked at the direction of the noise, where from another, even louder one carried too. It resembled flaming thunder, and the truth wasn't that much different.
“Pinkie!” yelled Rarity with eyes wide as saucers. “What in the name of Celestia–”
“It’s an asteroid!” blurted Twilight. “She’s riding an asteroid!”
“And she’s aiming straight at us!” yelled Dash, rising to her wings. “Everypony, move move move!”
Harmony watched them disperse like a flock of birds and then looked again at the flaming rock the size of a barn that was speeding directly at her, a mindlessly hollering and flailing pink pony clinging to its back. A picture of the sight would’ve won every photography competition ever held. Even Harmony had trouble dealing with that. Deep inside her was etched the maxim that everything had a purpose, a function, a place. Everything. There were no unknown variables, not anymore, not for her. But for this pink pony there seemed to be no file in the great cabinet of existence. She was the type that would climb out if you put her in one. She’s like a combined puzzle of humour and analog–
The asteroid hit the non-existent ground on which the ponies had been standing a moment ago. Flaming rock rained around in chunks the size of a basketball and bigger, although they burned out respectfully quickly. There was surprisingly little smoke, at least compared to the suffocating smell of sulphur and other nasty substances that greeted the ponies when they dared to get close enough. There was no sign of either Pinkie or Harmony.
“Did they both…” began Fluttershy, shielding her nose and mouth with her mane.
“No,” said Rarity, putting a hoof on her shoulder. “They didn’t. Don’t think about that.”
Dash kicked a smoldering piece of rock, which crumbled immediately. “Then where the hay are they?”
“Right here,” said Harmony behind the ponies.
They span around and shouted in unison: “Pinkie!”
Pinkie Pie, biting her lip and shuffling her legs next to Harmony, smiled awkwardly. “Well I had to try it! Only… I guess I never told you that I failed my asteroid licence exam?”
They buried her under scolds, laughs, tears and one massive hug. Harmony watched them with curiosity. Her purpose may be a mystery to me… But it definitely isn’t for them. At least not all the time.
Twilight’s head emerged from somewhere amidst the hugging. “How did you–”
“I took her back to the reality right before the asteroid hit home,” said Harmony. “It was the safest place to go at such a short notice.”
“We met Celestia there, too!” said Pinkie, somewhere from the middle of the hug.
“What?” blurted Twilight, looking down. “Pinkie, what did you say? Hey girls, give her some space!” Twilight ushered the rest to back away to reveal Pinkie.
“We went to the Chamber and there she was, with Luna, talking to Spike!” she explained. “I waved at them and sent best wishes from you guys ‘cause I knew you would’ve sent them if you had known I was gonna–”
“What did Celestia say,” interrupted Twilight.
“Oh, right, she told that we should get back ASAP. She said something about the Everfree turning crazy again or something. We got back before she could finish and she talked really fast.”
“Turning crazy?” repeated Dash. “What, like the vines again?”
Pinkie shrugged.
Twilight looked at Harmony. “Take us back, now!”
For the umpteenth time, Harmony’s eyes changed color. This time though, Twilight saw something else than the prismatic play in them. This time, the colors changed into a tad dimmer shade. Her voice, too, had changed.
“No.”
The rest of the ponies looked at her.
“Whaddya mean, ‘no’?” said Dash.
“Didn’t ya hear proper?” said Applejack. “They need our help back there!”
“Girls,” said Twilight slowly, staring at Harmony. “Be quiet.”
Fluttershy stepped forward. “But Twilight, if it’s the vines again, the animals in Everfree–”
Twilight glanced behind her shoulder. “Discord is there, and so are Celestia and Luna.” In her eyes she added: Let me do this. She turned to Harmony again. “Do you want to explain this sudden change of attitude?”
Harmony sighed. “It is unfortunate that you had to learn about the events in reality before you were ready to understand their purpose. However, I would still wish to–”
“Wait, what?” burst Dash behind Twilight. “You planned to take us here, knowing what would happen?”
The pointy end finally caught up. “Yes,” said Harmony. “Now, if you would let me explain–”
Dash soared in front of her and grabbed her by the neck. “You take us back right this instant or I’ll–”
“Rainbow!” cried Twilight. At the same time, Dash was left groping empty space as Harmony simply vanished from existence.
When she returned five minutes later, she found the ponies arguing with one another. As expected, she thought. She coughed once to draw their attention. “I hope that little demonstration showed you how easy it would be for me to simply leave you here for the duration of the reconstruction. You could watch the universe being born right before your eyes… in real time.”
This time, there were no raised voices. They simply stared at her, wide-eyed, as she smiled to them.
“Now… For the brief amount of time that I’ve been blessed with the ability, I’ve been thinking a way to break this to you. I have awoken to restore the Harmony of this world, the laws of which your race has broken. The time has come to pay for that.”