Morning
One day, I decided to throw myself out a window.
After dragging myself kicking and screaming back to the waking world, I’d hauled myself out of
bed and plodded over to the shower cubicle. With a quick spritz of water and a squirt of nanobot
shampoo, the layer of sweat and loose hair that’d built up overnight sloughed off, leaving
my coat as lustrous as liquid mercury. After that, I dashed to the kitchen and printed
out my usual breakfast: a slice of Vitamelon(sugar content boosted to one thousand percent of
the daily recommended amount) and a glass of water, an offering to appease the demon
in my stomach. As I munched on the melon, my drone, Raven, detached from her
charging socket and showed me the morning newsfeeds.
As I skimmed through an article about a senator who’d been having an
affair with his own clone, something occurred to me: I had been repeating this
same morning ritual the same way for almost a century. I always woke up at the
same time: 6:00 on the dot, I always showered for precisely one minute and
twenty seconds, I always used precisely two squirts of shampoo, and I always ate my breakfast in precisely four bites. Nothing had changed
It’s disturbingly easy to get locked into a routine when you're pushing your seventh
millennium.
I furrowed my brows.
“Raven?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
I couldn’t help but smile. I hadn’t been a princess for millennia, yet my robotic assistant had always insisted on using my former title. It was like the old Raven had never left me.
“Raven, can you think of something to…spice up my morning routine.”
“Thinking”. Raven had beeped for a few seconds. “Perhaps you could try some coffee for an added caffeine boost?”
I’d recoiled. “No!” Millennia ago, I had sworn that that foul concoction would never
pass my lips!
“I guessed as much. “ More beeping. “Perhaps you take your daily walk a few hours early?”
Hmmm.” I pondered the idea for a moment, then shook my head. Raven’s suggestions were nothing but variations on the same exhausted theme. I needed something fresh. Something that took my usual morning ritual and hurled it out the window. But what? What could I do that I already hadn’t done a million times before?
As I brainstormed ideas, I turned my head towards the apartment’s sprawling picture window that partially justified my six-figure rent. Outside, the Kant city skyline glimmered in the morning sun like molten gold. An idea arose from the depths of my consciousness. It was ridiculous. It was dangerous. It defied all common sense. It took a metaphor far too literally.
It was perfect
Trotting over to the opposite end of the apartment, I’d turned to face the window, took a few
hoofsteps back, then lowered my head until my horn pointed straight out like a magical curlicue
lance.
“Princess, may I ask what you’re-”
“Shh!” I held up a hoof and took a few deep breaths. With a roaring neigh, I reared on my hind legs and charged, pumping my wings for extra speed. As soon as it detected me, the
smartglass began to turn cloudy, frantically trying to reinforce itself. All in vain, the moment my
horn made contact, the smart-glass shorted out with a pop, and six hundred kilograms of alicorn
burst through the pane and into space.
For a moment, I was engulfed in a cloud of sparking smart glass shards like wobbling,
sparkling snowflakes, trying in vain to reform themselves before safety protocols forced them to
disintegrate. I was a miniature solar system, an equine sun surrounded by countless
crystalline planets. Then gravity, the ultimate killjoy, dragged me back to earth. Figuratively
and literally.
Air rushed past my body, whistling past my ears, whipping my mane into a frenzy. All I could
hear was my heart pounding against my rib cage like a caged animal. Adrenaline surged through my veins like a flood of liquid fire. The world spun around me as if I were the spindle around which everything else turned. As I fell, a smile slowly spread across my face. Serotonin flooded through my brain. For a few fleeting moments, I was alive.
Below me, I could see tiny, ant-like pedestrians staring up at me, frozen in shock. I could hear
their gasps, their screams. The pavement directly below me began to frantically shift color and
texture, trying to morph into something soft and cushioning. Horrified pedestrians grew
Larger every second. from ants to mice, then rabbits.
Stars flashed before my eyes. The next thing I knew, I found myself sprawled eagled against the
pavement, laying in a shallow crater of cracked smartcrete. Bystanders of all species crowded
around me, asking me if I needed help while their drones buzzed around me like
vultures over a carcass.
I’d picked myself up, brushing bits of pavement out of my coat, trying to reassure everybeing
that I was alright, which I was. Alicorns were durable; I had been slammed into mountainsides, swatted by dragons, and even survived reentry from low orbit. It’d take a lot more than this to kill me.
As the adrenalin high faded, a low-dull ache spread across my body. Wincing, I’d cast a
low-level pain nullifying charm.
It still hurt like the dickens.
As I brushed bits of smartcrete out of my coat and mane, a Kant CityGuard and a team of
paramedics teleported to the scene. As the paramedics checked me over, the Guard, a
yak/dragon with a bionic jaw, gave me a very strict lecture about public safety and how “just
because you’re an alicorn doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want,” then slapped me with
a thousand neo-bit fine and a mandatory hypnotherapy order. News drones orbited
around me, shutters clicking, broadcasting my image across the entire Net. If I knew the Net, it’d
gain a lot of interest, generate a few humorous memes, and then fade out in a few days.
Once the last bystander scampered off and the previous drone had flitted away, I walked
back to my apartment and collapsed on my sofa. A glossy forcefield covered the jagged
hole I’d made as it healed, a scab over a gaping wound. Thanks to my little stunt, I now owed my landlord and the City of Kant a combined total of twenty-thousand bits.
Worth it.
“Raven?”
“Yes?”
“Begin my mandatory therapy session,” I said with a snort. Might as well get it over with.
“Please hold still. This will only take a moment.” Raven positioned herself over my face and
switched on her holoprojector. A swirling blue, seafoam, and green tornado danced before
my eyes. My mouth went slack. Drool started trickling down my chin as the therapeutic laser
show attempted to rewire my brain before dissipating in a spray of voxels. A typical pony would
have felt relief, clarity, and a new sense of peace. The only thing I felt was an intense
feeling of vertigo and a killer headache.
The doctors wouldn’t understand. The doctors couldn’t understand. I wasn’t sick. I wasn’t
senile. I was just tired.
Groaning, I wiped the drool from my chin, dialed some painkillers from my printer, then lay back
on my sofa and waited for the universe to stop spinning around me. With nothing else to do, my
eyes wandered around the organized chaos of my apartment. In one corner, a blank easel stood
watch over a stack of oil paintings, waiting for brushstrokes that could never come. In another,
an unfinished manuscript lay on a pile of best-selling novels, waiting in vain to be published. On
another wall, a dented, rusting mage-rifle hung inside a sealed case, a relic from a century-long
stint as a mercenary. war banners taken from defeated enemies dangled from the ceiling. The walls were plastered with magazine covers, diplomas, and doctorates in everything from medicine to art history. There were even a few pinups from “Gentlestallions” magazines.
All of those accomplishments. All of those accolades. Even one of them would have been an
entire life’s work for a mortal. For me, they’d been hobbies, something to keep my immortal
mind busy as I waited for the heat death of the Universe. No natural talent was involved, no inherent skill or aptitude for them. I wasn’t a born artist, writer, or mercenary; my only talent had been an absurdly long lifespan.
My eyes fell on two ponnequins standing vigil in a corner, decked with hoof slippers, gorgets,
and gleaming crowns. One set had been forged from gleaming white gold. The other was carved from polished obsidian.
Seeing that old regalia turned my mind towards Luna. The last time I’d seen my beloved little
sister, she’d been about to leave on a ship bound for the outer planets; something about
wanting to “paint the moons of other worlds.” As we’d rode the gondola towards the spacedock,
she’d asked me about Starswirl’s Gift, just as she had the previous nine hundred and seven
times. As always, I’d refused. I wasn’t ready. Not yet.
As the universe slowly righted itself, I picked myself off the sofa. That was enough
self-reflection for now. I never was very good at being lazy; you can't afford to be lazy when you rule an entire kingdom by yourself for a thousand years. I needed to do something. Preferably without causing further property damage
“Raven?”
“Yes?”
“What does my schedule look like?”
“Checking,” Raven beeped. “You HAVE a 17:00 presentation at the Kant History Museum,
followed by a short Q and A session. Aside from that, your schedule is clear.”
Good. I had plenty of time.
“Raven?”
“Yes?”
I motioned towards the door. “Come, let's go for a walk.”
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