Discord walked over to where Celestia was looking down onto the recently founded Equestria below. "Hey, Celestia!"
"Hello, Discord. Come to pester my children again, have you?"
"Oh, no! I'm here to pester you!" He responded with a sly smile. "I performed an experiment among your little ponies, and I found that they are gloriously dupable!"
Celestia turned toward Discord with a curious glare. "What have you been doing, Discord?"
"Oh, you know, just being a god, changing alliances, requesting ridiculous sacrifices..."
"No virgins, this time, I hope."
"No nononononoooo~!" Discord conjured a tiny floating altar and began adding various items while simultaneously setting them on fire. "Just their mane and tail hairs, seven and a half oranges, a frog, and a manticore toe nail. Y'know, small stuff." The altar then caught fire and everything disappeared.
"I get the feeling you're trying to make a point."
Discord booped Celestia on the snout with a claw. "Right, you are!"
Celestia managed a look somewhere between annoyance and curiosity. "Are you going to tell me, or are you going to make me guess?"
Discord pouted pathetically. "Well, I know you'll just take the fun out of making you guess, so I'll just tell you. You see, your little ponies all think you're a god, an all powerful being that controls everything from the growing seasons to the cards they draw while gambling. In fact, they believe that any creature that can perform more powerful magic than they is a god they must appease to receive some ridiculous blessing or another. I just started my own little chaos cult over in the east by the mountains. You should have seen the looks on their faces when I turned all their tools into daisies!" Discord chuckled mischievously.
"You might want to get to your point" Celestia stated.
"My point is that the loyalties of your little ponies are quite fickle. They have no sense of morality beyond what you give them as their 'goddess of the sun and moon'."
Celestia smiled. "They're learning for themselves what works and what doesn't. I trust them to figure it out eventually."
Discord wasn't deterred. "They don't have any commitment to any sort of 'right' or 'wrong'. Because of that, if I were to appear as some glowing cloud and command a group of them to rape, pillage, and plunder, I bet you they would. They believe we're flawless, omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent beings with individual plans for each one of them."
Celestia looked down at many pony settlements scattered across the land. "And what's wrong with that?"
"Well it's a lie, isn't it?" Discord's smile bent into a disturbing grin.
Celestia turned to him. "Is it?"
Determined not to be outwitted, Discord folded his arms condescendingly. "Of course, it is. Not even I know everything."
Celestia smirked her own mischievous smirk. "What was that? I didn't quite hear you."
"I said-... " Discord paused, then suddenly glared at her. "You know, one day I'm going to get you."
"Oh, you already did." Celestia leaned closer to Discord with a sultry look.
Blushing, Discord held his glare. At least he did until Celestia gave him a small peck. "B-buh..."
Celestia chuckled before pulling away. "You're cute when you think you're clever."
Discord managed to pull himself together enough to return to his glaring. "My point still stands."
"Well, if you must know, I do know everything, and I am all powerful. I just don't show it off."
"Then, what number am I thinking about?"
"My cute butt."
Discord blushed once again. "Wrong. I was thinking of thirty thousand and two."
"But when I mentioned my butt, you did think about it, didn't you?" This time, Celestia booped him on the nose.
Discord's fur did little to hide the redness of his face.
Celestia giggled and returned to watching her little ponies below. Though, her mind was distracted when she felt Discord's breath on her ear.
"I could have you right now, and you wouldn't be able to stop me," he growled.
Celestia turned to him so that their muzzles were barely touching. "You love me too much to do that," she whispered.
After a moment of temptation, Discord teleported into the distance, walking some direction away from there.
A small smile lingered on Celestia's lips. Turning back to the ponies below, she prayed their future would be bright.
Vinyl Scratch ignored the terrified stares and gasps of the other patrons as she floated up to the counter. The barpony finished serving a mare on the other end of the counter before turning toward Vinyl.
"How may I help yoooooo~..."
His face flushed when he saw a see-through Vinyl floating impatiently in a seat.
"Uh.. V-..B-.. You're dead!" he managed to stammer out.
"Yeah. And?" Vinyl snarked. "I want a drink."
"But I went to your funeral! What... How... "
"Well, you always said you wanted to get some more spirits in here." Vinyl winked.
The barpony promptly fainted.
"Well, dangit. Guess I gotta help myself."
The rest of the patrons were frozen in horror as the terrifying specter floated over the counter, grabbed a bottle, and chugged it down. Parents covered their children's eyes, babies cried, and one stallion lost his liquor into his lap.
Suddenly, the entrance to the bar exploded. A gray mare with a pink bowtie and beeping goggles ran in and aimed a gun at the specter. "Drop it!"
Vinyl turned towards the newcomer and gave her a deadpan stare... then she returned to emptying the bottle in her magical grasp.
A loud bang rang out, scattering glass and liquids throughout the room.
"Aw, come on, Tavi! I was drinking that!"
"Begone! Begone! BEGONE!" Octavia repeatedly yelled as she fired round after round at the bored looking ghost.
"Tavi, stop it, your scaring the turtles," Vinyl stated, pointing at a small cage of shivering reptiles. "Also, now that you're here, I have to ask. Were you the one that killed me?"
"Of course not! Why would you assume such a thing?"
"Uh... well, you were just shooting at me trying to get me to go away. I just figured that, y'know, putting two and two together..."
"Oh nononono, dear. This is just a dream where you've come back from the dead to haunt me."
Vinyl looked around at the still frozen patrons, the shaking turtles, and the unconscious barpony, before returning to Octavia. "No, I'm pretty sure this is real."
"You there! Drop your weapon or we'll shoot!"
Octavia turned to see multiple officer ponies surrounding the bar. Her chest glowed with the green hue of aiming lasers. "Oh..."
A ghost Octavia and ghost Vinyl sat in the corner of the bar, cards in their hooves and glasses on the table.
"Go fish," Vinyl stated before taking a large swig.
Octavia reached over and grabbed another card from the pile. "Buck!"
"Hah hah~" Vinyl taunted.
Then they played cards all night long and had a good time.
Fortune telling doesn't work the way people think it does. And that's the way we want to keep it.
Crystal balls, tarot cards, bones, horoscopes, and fortune cookies are just a show put on by scammers. People who take your money only to tell you something so vague and flexible as to apply to literally anything in your life. They'll say something like, "I sense struggle in your future, but it will pass" or some bull like that, and then proceed to charge you a fortune for your fortune.
Real fortune telling doesn't work like that. Except the charging a fortune part. That part is exactly the same.
Seeing the future doesn't require voodoo rituals, astrology, or anything like that. It's less performing some mystical ceremony to receive a revelation, and more thinking back to your memories of the current future. Just like remembering, only what you remember hasn't happened yet, and the farther it is from "now", the more difficult it is to remember.
The most frequent question we get from our clients is, "Can the future be changed?"
The answer is always yes. You see, we fortune tellers learned long ago that agency is unfortunately a real thing. I say unfortunately because every time someone uses agency to make a decision, it changes the future. Every time we're remembering a future, it mutates rapidly as we remember it. Most of the time, the changes are extremely subtle, and the general idea of the future stays pretty consistent. It's like watching a hundred versions of the same die roll in the span of a second, and then picking out which number came up the most. Thankfully, the number doesn't change too often, and even if it does, it usually returns to its original value.
Most people don't use agency. If they did, telling the future would be much more difficult than it already is. Because people tend to react to their circumstance instead of choosing their circumstances, this means, strangely, that indecisive people are more predictable than decisive people. And that's good for us.
The reason we call it Fortune Telling is because it is exactly that. Just like a bank teller, we give people large fortunes. The title is less about predicting the future, and more about the ability to hand someone the most lucrative path. This means we can charge a fortune for the fortunes we give. While that does limit our client base to the extremely wealthy, thankfully, the extremely wealthy are extremely interested in our work.
We go by the acronym of FTA's, or Fortune Telling Advisors. If anyone asks, though, we say we're Financial Trade Advisors. We put on the façade of stock trader. Dress nicely, have corporate offices, and make sure to keep a myriad of stock tracking applications open on our computer screens at all times. And thankfully, the stock trading world is so absurd that even actual traders can't tell the difference. This means we can keep most if not all of our clients in the dark about the true nature of our skill set.
"So why all the secrecy?" you may ask.
Well, here's the thing. The real world doesn't like people who can see the future. Most people think that either the world would accept fortune tellers and use them to better society, or shun them because seeing someone's future is invasive and creepy. Neither is true.
Being a fortune teller myself, I can tell you that if the world knew about fortune tellers, it wouldn't be long before we were all living in hiding, spending most of our time trying not to be assassinated by governments and businesses that feel we know to much. Even a predictable life on the run is still a life on the run. The Salem Witch Trials came about because some poor girl didn't know that her powers were unusual. In letting other people learn of her abilities she got herself and a lot of other people killed.
We'd rather that not happen again.
We do a lot to make sure that no one ever reveals us. If any one of us sees a future indicating we'd been found out, we find the source of the problem and eliminate it. This has allowed us to live in secrecy for thousands of years.
So, why am I telling you this?
To be frank, I'm tired of no one else knowing. It's uncomfortable living with people who know what you're going to say before you say it. I just want to live a normal comfortable life, to be able to complain about my problems to a stranger just like everyone else. It's oddly relaxing to let out my stresses like this.
And, well, I picked you because I know that you'll never have the opportunity to tell anyone else. You can probably smell the smoke by now.
Thanks for reading anyway.
In Equestria, MLP is just a show to the ponies as well
I find it funny to imagine that the actresses for each character are vastly different from the ones they portay.
Like, Flittershy's actress would be the super diva demandipants of the bunch. Rarity's actress is actually a southerner, grew up on a dairy farm. Rainbow's actress is immensely humble and super nice to everyone. AJ's actress is a city slicker who has problems with the make-up designed to make her look and feel dirty and sweaty all the time. Pinkie's actress is a heavy metal artist and singer.
Twilight's actress is pretty much just like Twilight, except she doesn't like the show very much. In fact she's immensely critical of a lot of the decisions of the writers. "Can you believe the lines they give me? She's supposed to be the smart one and she sounds slower than a bag of rocks."
"At leastcha gettin' paid, raight?" Rarity's actress would respond.
"Yeah yeah, but seriously, having this horn glued to my head all day gets annoying as Tartarus. At least they made her a princess so I could let my wings out from under that tight vest."
"They could have an episode where your horn gets broken off. Just imagine, Princess Twilight, the princess of magic, bleeding and permanently magically disabled." Pinkie's actress remarks.
"This is a kids show. That's not gonna happen."
"Kids show?" Fluttershy's actress mocked. "As if. I got to swear in one of the episodes a while back. If you think that kind of language is fit for children, honey, you are seriously mistaken."
"At least the fans love you the most. Those pictures from the fashion episode sold like hotcakes," AJ's actress spoke into a mirror as she removed her fake freckles.
"Loved. Past tense, dear. That was before Fluttershy's endearing shyness became crippling social inneptitude," Flutterhy's actress bitterly spat. "Every stallion from here to Detrot is drooling over Starlight, now, because who doesn't love a bad mare, right? Tartarus, even I think she's hot because of it."
"Well, I'm going out for drinks. Any of you girls wanna join me?" Twilight's actress asked halfway out the door.
"You know I don't drink," Rainbow's actress replied with a smirk.
"That's right, you're a Maremon aren't you? How many stallions you gonna marry?" Pinkie's actress poked.
"Hardy har har," Rainbow's actress rolled her eyes and chuckled.
AJ's actress stepped away from the mirror "I'll join ya. I need a few cold ones."
"Awesome. Anypony else?"
"Why not?" Pinkie's actress shrugged. "It's on the way to my recording session anyway. I can't have too much, though. Gotta keep my voice clean."
"How do y'all sing that stuff for hours on end, anyway? Don'tcha throat get raw after a while?" Rarity's actress asked.
"Yeah, that's why we spread out my recording schedule. I need to rest it every time in between."
"Alright. See you all tomorrow!" Twilight's actress waved as she walked away.
"Bye!"
"Later!"
The door shut behind them as they left.
———
I can imagine that the real Princess Luna wouldn't be too pleased with the show's symbolic portrayal of her impeachment. The real Celestia however is quite fond of her portrayal.
