> The Universe is Doughnut-Shaped
>  by DannyJ
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> It All Comes Back Around Eventually
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Gold Coin had been thrown out of many establishments during his life, but it was marked low point for him to be thrown out and immediately fall face-down into a gutter during a rainstorm. The bartender stood in the doorway behind him, his indistinct ranting drowned out by a clap of thunder and the sound of raindrops splashing into Gold Coin's puddle.

Eventually, the bartender retreated back into the building, leaving the drunken earth pony to his misery. His yellow coat was soaked, and his overgrown, pale mane lay over his face, obscuring his vision as he flipped himself over and rested his head on the curb. He groaned, staring up at the clouds, and forced himself back onto his hooves.

"Bastard," Gold Coin mumbled.

"Oh, hey, Goldie!" said a cheery-sounding voice.

He turned around to find that a grinning guardspony had somehow appeared behind him without making a sound. With a half-lidded expression, Gold Coin let out a long sigh.

"Hey, Broadsword. You just get off work?"

"Sure did! Long day today, lemme tell ya! Some foals came by the statue garden and released some primeval god of chaos or something, and it was madness all day."

"Uh-huh, yeah. I kinda noticed. My house came alive and started beating up the other houses on my street."

"Yeah, it was crazy alright!" Broadsword gave a modest laugh, then settled down. "So... what are you doing out here?"

"Well..." Gold Coin looked over his shoulder at the bar, swaying slightly in the wind. "I came here to drink, but the owner was getting snippy with me about how many I'd had, and I might have made some personal remarks about his mother that caused some conflict..."

He turned back to his conversation partner, whom he noticed was no longer smiling.

"...I got kicked out, if that wasn't obvious already."

Broadsword shrugged. "Hey, it happens. But if it's drinking you planned on, me and Explodey were going to meet up with Chains at his place. There'll be card games too!"

For the first time in the conversation, Gold Coin smiled.

"That sounds like fun."





Thirty minutes later, a now much dryer Gold Coin returned from Chain Mail's kitchen with a large tankard in hoof. He sat down at a round table in the middle of the sparsely-decorated dining room, where three white stallions were casually conversing through a poker game.

Two of them, Chain Mail and Broadsword, were earth ponies, but were easily differentiated at a glance by their manes. Chain Mail had a long blond mane, as opposed to Broadsword's short, blue, and curly one. The third stallion at the table was Explodey McGee, a unicorn with an even wider grin than Broadsword's. He shared Chain Mail's colours, but was noticeably smaller than him, lacking the toned guardspony physique that both Chain Mail and Broadsword sported.

A slight smile tugged at Gold Coin's lips as he sat down opposite Broadsword and picked up his own cards. The conversation continued around him as he picked up his tankard and took a drink.

"But I don't get that," said Chain Mail. "Like, why hold a ceremony like that to celebrate these girls if you're trying to keep their identities under wraps? It surely can't be enough that the media aren't allowed to publish their names. If the goal is to give them privacy and a normal life, then, well... everypony at that ceremony would recognise them now, right?"

"I dunno, lieutenant," said Broadsword, shrugging. "Though, thinking on it, did Princess Celestia ever actually say 'these six mares are the Elements of Harmony' to the crowd at any point? Is this just one of those things that we only know because... well... we already know it's them?"

Chain Mail leaned in, resting a hoof on the table.

"See, that's what I thought at first, too. But even if she didn't, the connection should still be obvious to other ponies, shouldn't it? All the public knows because of the Harmony Protection Act is that there are six anonymous mares somewhere out there who defeated Nightmare Moon using some magical artefacts. Then here's Celestia, honouring six mares for somehow bringing down the seemingly all-powerful Spirit of Chaos. Even if I weren't a lieutenant of the Royal Guard, and I hadn't told you lot, we'd still know enough to connect the dots, wouldn't we?"

He looked down at his cards and frowned. "Crap. I fold."

Gold Coin chuckled as he dragged the twelve bits on the table over to his pile.

"Tell ya what, Chains," he said. "I think you're overthinking this whole thing."

"How so?"

"Nopony is gonna connect the dots that you think they should, because nopony actually cares all that much. You think the media care about figuring out who the Elements of Harmony are? They don't. Look at this."

Gold Coin got up and trotted back to the kitchen, grabbing a newspaper off the counter with his teeth and bringing it back to the table. He sat down and opened it to a random page.

"Sapphire Shores to start new tour soon! Oooh!" He turned to a different page. "Prince Blueblood is publishing an autobiography! Wow! I'm so interested! What else we got here? Oh! A politician did something stupid! Who'd have thought?"

"Okay, point taken," said Chain Mail, rolling his eyes.

Gold Coin slammed the paper down on the table.

"Nopony cares, because in case you haven't noticed, newspapers are trash and they belong in the trash. Discord will make the front page again tomorrow. The day after that, we might hear a little about the aftermath, perhaps with an opinion piece or two, or printed interviews with some random cretins pulled off street. Then it'll be right back to celebrity gossip and obsessing over the latest fashion trends, or something equally vacuous. The trivia train stops for nothing. If Fluttershy told the whole world tomorrow that she's the Element of Kindness, she'd still always be better known as a fashion model, because that is simply the world we live in."

"Yes, Goldie, you're a mishippope. We get it."

Chain Mail picked up the cards and shuffled the deck, while everypony else drank. Gold Coin smiled slyly as he put down his tankard afterwards.

"You know I'm right."

"Probably," said Chain Mail, raising a hoof. "In this specific instance, yes, maybe. But I still think there's no need for you to be so cynical about things all the time. I mean, what's with you, anyway? Did your daddy not hug you enough as a child?"

He dealt out the cards around the table. Gold Coin kept smiling as he took his.

"Good one. How about you, mommy's boy? You have any excuse for being a thirty-year-old virgin?"

"Okay, A, I'm not thirty, I'm twenty-seven, thank you very much. And B, I'm not a virgin, because I have, in fact, been banging your mom on the regular."

"Ohhhhh snap!" said Explodey, leaning in to bump hooves with Chain Mail.

The corner of Gold Coin's mouth twitched.

"Yeah, she mentioned that to me. She said that she would've found somepony better, but you're the only stallion willing to take a strap-on for only two bits an hour."

"Ohhhhhhhhhh!" said Broadsword and Explodey together, banging their hooves on the table repeatedly.

"I'm beginning to see why you get kicked out of so many bars," Chain Mail replied, rolling his eyes.

Gold Coin opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, he was cut off by a sharp rapping at the front door. Chain Mail looked over his shoulder, then back to the table. Silently, he gestured to the door, got up, and went over to open it. Gold Coin leaned across slightly to peer down the corridor. When Chain Mail opened the door, both recognised the stallion on the other side.

"Softy?" said Gold Coin and Chain Mail in unison.

The elderly earth pony stepped over the threshold and shook the rain out of his faded brown coat. He ran a hoof through his frayed, greying mane, and smiled warmly at the other ponies at the table as he walked in.

"Hello, children," Soft Spoken said half-sarcastically, as he sat down at the table between Gold Coin and Explodey. "What's the game?"

"What are you doing here?" asked Gold Coin. "You don't have enough sick days to see us for a third time in less than a month. What's going on? Is Tomey dying or something?"

"No... Actually, Sir Ancient Tome was arrested this afternoon."

Gold Coin blinked.

"He what now?"

Chain Mail sat down slowly, while Soft Spoken sighed and rolled his eyes.

"It's something of a long story, but apparently, Sir Tome was a part of some secret society known as the Brotherhood of Chaos that's been undermining the Crown basically forever. They worship Discord, or something like that anyway, so when they got word that he'd broken free, all the members publicly revealed themselves and started terrorising the populace. But then he was defeated, so the authorities swooped in to arrest all of them, including Tome."

Everypony at the table stared at Soft Spoken, rapt with attention. When it seemed that he was done, there was a second of unbroken silence before Explodey spoke up.

"Does anypony else here have the strangest sense of deja vu?"

"Not even slightly," said Gold Coin. "But damn, really? Tomey was a traitor? The Archmage of Canterlot was secretly a cultist this whole time? All the time that we've known him?"

"To be fair," said Chain Mail, "Tome was always kind of a tool. I mean, I never would've pegged him as a crazy cultist, but this news really doesn't surprise me as much as it should."

"But I feel like I should've known this at least. Me and Tomey went to school together. Yeah, I always thought he was a tool as well, but... still, it's weird for somepony you know to turn out to be... well, that."

"Why haven't I heard of this Brotherhood of Chaos?" asked Broadsword. "They sound like the kind of ponies the Royal Guard should know about."

"I've heard of them, but they're kind of above our pay grades," said Chain Mail. "The EIS were usually the ones who handled Brotherhood of Chaos matters, though I hear that SMILE and the Torchwood Institute also used to have its dealings with them."

"Hm," said Soft Spoken, turning to Explodey on his left. "Hey, you used to work for Torchwood. Did you ever hear about the Brotherhood of Chaos?"

"Uh, like once or twice, I guess?" Explodey shrugged. "They weren't really our concern most of the time. Sometimes the EIS would contract us for some project involving them, and we'd pass on our findings after, but that was it. Torchwood's a business, not a military branch. We were always more interested in magical weirdness."

"Like sludge monsters who take pony form," said Gold Coin, deadpan.

"Hey, don't knock it. Being an immortal shape-shifter is rad as hell. You haven't lived until you've slathered a whole population centre in your amorphous slimy mass, bathing in their memories as you become host to a living collective of a thousand lives, their combined insight allowing you to see the face of God himself."

"You... can't actually do that, can you?" said Chain Mail. "Can you actually do that when you're in... sludge monster form?"

"I could before," said Explodey, smiling to himself and looking at the ceiling. "I have fond memories of doing so, back in the time before time, when our previous iterations fought for existence itself against nameless horrors!"

"Are you going to start spouting that crap about the world being a work of fiction and us living in a reboot again?" asked Gold Coin. "Because if we're going down that road, then I'm going to turn in for the night and save myself the exhaustion."

"No, no." Explodey shook his head. "I learned my lesson after Las Pegasus. Not all are ready to hear the gospel of the before-times."

Gold Coin sat back.

"Hey, speaking of weirdos with horrifying powers, have you heard from Sliske recently?"

"Ehh... no," said Explodey, sheepishly. "We don't really keep in regular contact. I hear Torchwood has her working on some interdimensional expedition now."

"They do," said Chain Mail, not looking away from his cards. "Her survey team is trying to map out some realm called Jotunheim. Apparently it's really cold."

The table were all quiet, each stallion present focused on Chain Mail. He looked up and noticed their stares. His brow furrowed.

"What?"

"Do you keep in regular contact with Sliske?" asked Gold Coin.

"Of course. She's our friend, isn't she?"

"Yeah, but we're all her friends, and she hasn't bothered keeping in contact with us." Gold Coin pointed to Explodey. "Hell, she and Explodey have known each other for ages, and they don't write each other."

"So what?" asked Chain Mail, defensively.

"Hey, I know we were joking earlier, but for real, are you still a virgin?"

Chain Mail said nothing, pursing his lips and looking down at the table. Gold Coin's eyes widened.

"By Celestia," said Gold Coin, grinning. "Really now? Sliske?"

Broadsword smirked and covered his mouth with a hoof. Soft Spoken quietly blushed, and Explodey waggled his eyebrows in Chain Mail's direction.

"You do realise that she's, like, a space ghost, right?" Gold Coin continued. "She wears flesh like you wear that stupid armour. Does it really not bother you that you're essentially banging a haunted meat puppet?"

Chain Mail glowered, as red in the face now as Soft Spoken, but much less shy about it.

"Oh, like you have room to talk!" he shot back. "You're really gonna sit there and judge me for my relationships when you have regular threesomes with a shape-shifting sludge monster?"

"I am smoozekind," said Explodey.

"Whatever. You're a freak, just like everypony else at this table."

"For your information," said Gold Coin, "I am, in fact, thoroughly ashamed of what I get up to with Explodey and Broadsword, and I never once claimed that I wasn't a hypocrite. But this isn't about me. This is about you. You and your bizarre desire to have intimate relations with a mind parasite and her vehicle."

Broadsword gave Gold Coin an earnest look.

"Is there a particular reason you're so uncomfortable about us?" he asked. "Because if you don't feel good about something, we can stop doing it while you're there. Me and Explodey will have other times."

"Yeah," said Explodey, nodding. "Like, is it the slime thing? I can stop doing the slime thing. That's just something Broadsword likes."

Soft Spoken, still blushing profusely, leaned further back to get out of the way of Gold Coin and Explodey. Gold Coin's eyes flicked over to Chain Mail, who was now grinning deviously, and then back to Explodey and Broadsword.

"No. The slime thing feels good. It's the shape-shifting thing. It feels like I'm changing partners every five minutes. It's too impersonal."

"Hmm." Explodey shrugged again.

Before the conversation could continue, Gold Coin wheeled around back to Chain Mail.

"My point still stands."

"Well," said Chain Mail, smiling, "I think that we have now firmly established that you are a sexual deviant, and that you have absolutely no right to judge or criticise me for my choices, so as far as I'm concerned, this argument is over, and I win."

"No it's not, and no you don't."

"But it is and I do, though."

"Heeeey," said Soft Spoken, leaning back in. "I've got an idea. Why don't we change the subject?"

"Certainly," said Chain Mail, picking up his cards and shuffling again. "What's going with you now, then? Are you out of a job with Tome going away?"

"Not at all," said Soft Spoken, picking up a pair of cards as Chain Mail dealt them to him. "Young Mystic Chant is taking over his father's estate now, so my employment will continue under him."

"Isn't he, like, twelve now?" asked Gold Coin.

"Yes."

"Hey, does Mystic know you're a vampire?" Explodey asked off-handedly, as he looked at his cards.

"I shouldn't think it would matter, but he does." Soft Spoken kept his eyes on his own cards. "In fact, he told me I could keep my blood packs in the fridge now if I wanted. I'm not sure he understands that it's actually a hygiene issue, not just Tome being squeamish."

"So how's this gonna work?" asked Chain Mail. "I'm assuming that a kid that age isn't just going to live by himself with you in that big old mansion?"

"Actually, that's exactly what's going to happen. I'm next in line to be Mystic's guardian. He inherits the house from his father, and I'll take care of both it and him until he comes of age. Though, that's assuming that Tome remains in prison for the rest of his life. Which looks likely, given his feelings on reforming spells."

Gold Coin finished taking another drink and laid his tankard down. "He's not going to go live with his aunt?"

"Frosty was arrested too."

"What about his great aunt?"

"Lady Arcane Arts was also arrested."

"Iron Hoof, then!" Gold Coin shouted.

"Iron Hoof died two months ago," Chain Mail said casually. "The doctors said that his brain was so understimulated that it just stopped working. He was actually too boring to live."

Gold Coin's face contorted in some combination of a squint and frown, and he shook his head gently. He turned back to Soft Spoken.

"Okay, since you apparently know so much about this, tell me exactly who was in this stupid Brotherhood, because it sounds like Mystic's entire family were in on it."

"Oh, they were. Well, all of his living relatives, anyway. Except for his cousin, Star Wish, but she's even younger than he is. Also involved were Text Book—"

"Wait, what?" Gold Coin's eyes widened.

"Zez, Railway, Justice and Care..."

Gold Coin spluttered.

"...And Chameleon and Night Shroud too."

Everypony at the table stared at Soft Spoken in various states of disbelief.

"...But... But... that's half the ponies we know!" Gold Coin protested.

"...Yeah," Soft Spoken said simply.

"Good riddance," said Chain Mail. "I never liked any of them. Chameleon was a bitch. The bitchiest bitch that I've ever met. And I've met Zesty Gourmand."

"Yeah," said Explodey. "And that Night Shroud guy? What was his deal? Was he a Night Guard, or was he a scientist? I don't know, because he never told me, but he definitely didn't ask for my consent before he took me down to the castle dungeons that one time and started doing all those experiments on me. That was a weird afternoon. I'm not even sure what he was trying to accomplish."

"Don't forget the time that Zez killed that little filly's pet cat and ate it," Broadsword added. "What was up with that?"

Gold Coin stared down at the table.

"I don't even know what to believe anymore. This whole time, most our social circle, as terrible as they might've been, were part of some ancient secret society, and none of us knew anything. It's like... after I met most of you, I thought that you guys were the weirdest people I knew... and then we get this. I don't know anymore, guys. I just don't know."

"Oh, please." Chain Mail rolled his eyes, making Gold Coin sit up again. "This is really what finally breaks you? Some dumb ancient conspiracy that worships a dude who summons chocolate rain? You have met actual aliens. A seven-hundred something vampire is sitting immediately to your left. Explodey over there is a pony-shaped mass of living sludge created by the Great Old Ones. You fuck him, and I let him hang out in my basement. Life doesn't make sense, and it never has, you prissy little bitch. Deal with it."

There was silence at the table. Gold Coin shifted uncomfortably, looked around at the others, and then threw up his hooves.

"I guess. Far be it from me to argue against not caring. I just think that sometimes, when the weird shit like this comes by, we would do well to keep some perspective. You have to wonder, do other ponies deal with this kind of nonsense in their day-to-day lives? Or are we just uniquely blessed with strange lives filled with odd occurrences like these?"

"It's just us, trust me," said Chain Mail. "I know normal ponies, and they don't deal with half the shit we do. We're magnets for weirdness. Us and a select few others, I suppose. I mean, I bet the Elements of Harmony don't have ordinary lives either."

"Why us, though?" asked Soft Spoken. "What makes us special? What brings us together?"

"Nothing," said Explodey, straight-faced. "There is no rhyme or reason to anything. Life has no meaning besides that which we impose onto it."

Chain Mail shrugged. "Sounds right to me."

"Yep," said Broadsword, still smiling.

Soft Spoken sighed.

"You know, in my time, we all believed in things. Celestia was a goddess who was the source of all good, moral right and wrong was defined for us, we were promised life after death and eternal peace, and it was fine. Everything was so simple, because they told us that it'd all be okay in the end. I miss that feeling of comfort. Nihilism sucks."

"You suck," said Gold Coin. "Explodey's right. Life is just a whole bunch of stupid shit that gets thrown at us by chance. You may not like that, but your outlook doesn't matter. Whether you choose to believe in something or not, stupid shit will keep happening regardless, so we might as well deal with it and continue about our lives. I mean, what the hell else are we going to do?"

Soft Spoken sat still and thought on that for a moment.

"Well, when you put it that way... it leaves us exactly where we were before."

"And isn't that life in a nutshell?" said Chain Mail. "Now, are you girls going to play cards tonight or not?"


END.