The artist's original pastes:
http://pastebin.com/dJvKnix1
http://pastebin.com/gc0a329Q
http://pastebin.com/ttW87bWM
http://pastebin.com/bZAkL9Gj
http://pastebin.com/J7wuQvvH
http://pastebin.com/irSy4vjU
http://pastebin.com/WYsqB5ZS
http://pastebin.com/sYEjB3ZU
http://pastebin.com/BTEbhuRc
http://pastebin.com/dBg5GMMZ

Glossary:
http://pastebin.com/vj4B4mJE

Prologue
Monday, May 4th

	It was a beautiful spring evening in Ponyville. Birds were chirping, flowers were blooming, and the air was cool and fresh, having been washed free of pollen by a scheduled rain shower earlier in the day. Several houses had wind chimes tinkling out front or laundry drying out back. The sun peaked out from behind a cloud and a cool breeze spread the scent of wet earth.
	Ponies throughout the town stopped on occasion to smell the flowers that lined hthe sidewalks, and to purchase the flowers that were sold at various snack shops. At Sweet Apple Acres, Big McIntosh and several other stallions were diligently checking up on the blossoming apple trees. In back of the schoolyard, young fillies and colts were busy searching for eggs in the playground. Meanwhile, Sugarcube Corner bustled with activity.
	Within the gingerbread walls, enchanted to stay fresh and ward off vermin, cheerful music was playing from an old gramophone. A multitude of mares carried out myriad conversations with one another, many of them congregated around a large snack table offering fresh baked goods and crisp produce. A pink earth pony mare was visible greeting ponies as they filtered in fashionably late to the party.
	“Hey, Derpy Hooves, happy Estrus Week! Glad you could make it!” Pinkie bounced with excitement at the gray mare’s arrival.”
	Derpy smiled goofily, one of her eyes pointed at Pinkie. “My wooden mitten’s full of squirrels!” she replied, smiling from ear to ear.
	Pinkie giggled. “Derpy, you know you can’t speak straight when you drink too much! Why do you do this to yourself?”
	Derpy threw her forelegs up in protest before clumsily toppling forwards due to her unsupported front half, her golden mane flopping forwards and covering her eyes. “Fightin’ cups! Donut fudge meat!”
	“You’ve made so much progress with your speech, but whenever you drink…” Pinkie sighed. “Just don’t cause too much trouble, okay?” She waved the ditzy pegasus in.
	Derpy blushed, getting back to her hooves and dusting herself off. “Pricy hood! My llamas, twenty five!” She galloped into the middle of the party before dropping to the ground and spinning like a top. “Weee, pile of fake pants ink!”
	Pinkie just shook her head and turned back to the door. “Oh, Ditzy Doo, glad you could make it!” She threw her forelegs around the purple-maned pegasus. “I haven’t seen you since Winter Wrap Up! You get lost again?”
	Ditzy rolled her eyes. “I got turned around *two times*, and I’ll never live it down!” The music abruptly cut off.
	“*Yeehaw*, everypony!” Applejack’s voice echoed through the bakery. “Gather ‘round; it’s time fer pin the sperm on th’ egg!”
	Rainbow Dash grinned, flying towards her friend and easily becoming first in line. “*Alright*, I love this game!” She flapped her wings with excitement as Applejack blindfolded her. As soon as the knot was tied, grabbed the paper spermatozoon and spun in a circle, nearly starting a small tornado.
	When she stopped, she wobbled a bit before righting herself. Applejack pointed her in the direction of the egg and slapped her rump. “Giddy-up, RD! Fertilize that egg!”
	Rainbow Dash neighed in protest and slowly walked forwards until her face bumped into the wall. At that point, she rubbed her nose and removed her blindfold. “Aw, darn!” She threw her blindfold to the ground.
	Applejack chuckle, “Calm down, sugarcube. It’s never the first one of the night. It’d be pretty boring if you’d ended the game right there.”
	“Fine, fine, I just hate losing; that’s all.” She huffed. “I think I’ll go see what Fluttershy’s up to.”
	The shy pegasus was sitting in a corner with a dozen or so adolescent fillies, including the Cutie Mark Crusaders, gathered around her, listening to her speak. “Yeah, yeah, we know all that!” Dash heard Scootaloo say. “Miss Cheerilee covered that in health class.”
	Fluttershy smiled. “Oh, okay, I guess that’s a good thing. When I was your age, I didn’t have anypony to help me through my first heat, so it was… really awkward.” She blushed. “I just wanted you fillies to know that how you’ll be feeling is perfectly healthy and normal, and there are ways to deal with your… urges.”
	Rainbow Dash sighed and flew in between Fluttershy and the fillies. “Look, it’s *really* not that complicated. All you need is a cucumber or a zucchini, and something flat and heavy to attach it to. Then all you’d gotta d–”
	“Rainbow Dash!” Fluttershy blushed so hard she could’ve been mistaken for Applejack. “I was talking about a *cold shower!*”
	Dash rolled her eyes. “Sure, if you want to do it the *slow* and *boring* way! What’s wrong with having some harmless fun?” She lowered her voice. “If you want, I’ve got some *awesome* toys you could borrow, or I could buy some for you if you’re too embarrassed.”
	 “*Rainbow Dash*!” Fluttershy scolded. “These are *fillies*! Watch what you’re saying around them!”
	Rainbow Dash scoffed. “When their heats start, they’ll be young mares. They’re not gonna be innocent little moppets for much longer, so if they’re gonna have the itch, why shouldn’t they know how to scratch it?”
	Fluttershy blushed. “Because they’re too… I mean, they just…” She sighed. “Rarity, can you back me up here? Rarity?”
	Rarity was in a nearby corner, sitting on a towel and snacking on a large plate of food piled with carrots, celery, four deviled eggs, three brownies, a chocolate bar, and various other miscellaneous food stuffs. When Fluttershy said her name for the second time, her ears twitched and she turned her head. “Hmm?”
	Fluttershy sighed. “How would you feel if Rainbow Dash gave your little sister a ‘toy’ to help her through her estrus?”
	Rarity considered the question for a few moments, and then swallowed. “Do you mean right now? That depends. Would Sweetie mind if I borrowed it for… a few hours? I promise I’d clean it and get it right back to her!”
	Dash rolled her eyes. “Why did you even come to the party if you knew you weren’t gonna be able to focus on anything?”
	The antsy unicorn rolled her eyes. “It’s the spirit of the season! This party only happens once a year; it would’ve been downright *rude* of me if I’d stayed home and missed it for the sake of my own pleasure. So it makes more sense for me to come and find something to occupy my senses.”
	Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “And you decided that gorging yourself would be the nest way of doing that? I thought you were watching your figure.”
	Rarity rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t mean I can’t afford the occasional indulgence.” She took another bite and chewed and swallowed it. “Besides, it’s perfect weather for a brisk jog, so I’ll have this burned off in no time.” She reached under her plate and patted the slight paunch that had formed in her belly.
	Rainbow Dash grinned. “See, Fluttershy? You’ve gotta lighten up; even Rarity is letting loose for the holiday!”
	Twilight Sparkle chuckled, turning her head briefly from a nearby conversation. “When I lived in Canterlot, we just used potions to help cope with estrus. It’s not healthy to skip them entirely, but they can be suppressed, and the symptoms lessened. I thought it was a little odd how Ponyville celebrated Estrus Week, but after giving it a shot I have to say there’s a certain charm to celebrating the season instead of fighting it.”
	Rarity nodded. “Ah, yes, Canterlot ponies tend to be rather stuffy in that regard. It’s one of the few things about the capital that I don’t admire.”
	Twilight smiled in response. “Indeed.” She turned back to her conversation partner. “Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, if you have any spare textbooks, I could definitely use them. Rebuilding the library was relatively simple, but it’s going to be difficult to replace all of the books.”
	Cheerilee nodded. “That Tirek had absolutely no concern for the consequences of his actions. I know he *intend* to destroy the library, but to destroy so much information so recklessly…”
	Twilight nodded. “Fortunately, I kept diligent inventory, so I know exactly what books I need to replace. I made sure I didn’t have the only copy of any book, getting copies made when I needed so, so none of the books should be lost forever.”
	The cherry-colored earth pony smiled. “That’s good to hear. I guess you probably lost your notes, though, unless you also made copies of those to keep somewhere else.”
	The lavender unicorn shook her head. “I’d filed those in the basement for storage, and the basement survived mostly unscathed. I did lose the notes I was working with at the time, about seven months’ worth, but I was able to replicate most of them from memory. It was still incredibly frustrating, though.”
	“Yeah, I imagine it would be. I know what it’s like to have to start over on something like that; a couple years back, I lost the draft of my curriculum to a strong gust of wind. I never found where it landed, so I had to rush to rewrite it from scratch before summer was over.”
	“So *that’s* why you were acting so off on the first day of class!” Apple Bloom commented.
Sweetie Belle nodded. “There was a ton of gossip about that. We thought somepony had died.”
	Cheerilee shook her head. “No, but I had to pull an all-nighter to get everything ready. I was basically running on nothing but coffee that day, and I slept throu–”
	She was cut off by a loud trumpeting noise that seemed to come from nowhere in particular, or everywhere at once. A second or two afterwards, there was a bright flash in the middle of the bakery. When everypony’s eyes had recovered from the flash, they saw a familiar draconequus floating in the middle of the room, wearing a party hat and holding a paper party horn.
	“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” He looked around the room. “It looks like *somepony* decided to throw a huge party, without inviting *moi*. Frankly, I’m insulted!”
	Rainbow Dash flapped her wings aggressively. “Well, of course we didn’t invite *you*, Discord! You’re a dude!”
	Discord lowered his eyebrows. “And just *what*, exactly, does that have to do with anything?” he asked indignantly. “Why's that a problem?”
	Twilight Sparkle sighed, clearing her throat. “It’s tradition, Discord. Estrus Week started over a millennium ago as a way for mares to get together during mating season and avoid stallions, so they wouldn’t succumb to their urges before they were ready.”
	“So the stallions are all just left out of the fun? That hardly seems fair.” He sniffed the air. “If it’s all about mating, or not mating, then why is Rarity the only one who’s in heat? Is the whole party just for her?”
	Twilight shook her head. “Obviously, not everypony goes into heat at the exact same time; it can be anytime from late spring to early summer. We still like to celebrate the holiday out of tradition, but it’s not exactly practical nowadays for it to last for months, so it’s just scheduled to fall halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice.”
	Discord rolled his eyes and sighed. “Okay, fine, I’ll play your little game.” He took a deep breath, concentration evident on his face, and then his physical form was quickly transformed. The muzzle shortened, the mane grew longer, and the colors and features softened, and the whole body shrank slightly.
	The female draconequus grinned, and then spoke in a more feminine voice. “There we go! I suppose now you can call me ‘Eris’.” She bowed slightly.
	Rainbow Dash facehoofed. “You can still turn back whenever you want, so it doesn’t exactly fit the spirit of the holiday, does it? You can’t just crash the party and then shapeshift int–”
	Rarity cleared her throat, setting her plate down. “Well, I think it’s getting rather late, so maybe we should just call it a night. Wouldn’t you lot agree?”
	A general murmur filled the room. It wasn’t particularly late, and the party *had* been in full swing, but Discord’s arrival had more or less caused the festivities to grind to a halt. Gradually, ponies began finishing what they had been doing and slowly filtering out of the party, until only the Keepers of the Elements remained.
	Rarity finished her food and put her paper plate in the recycling bin. “This has been fun, Pinkie. I can’t wait to see what you have planned for tomorrow.”
	Applejack nodded. “Darn tootin’! It’s been a blast!”
	Fluttershy smiled. “Yeah, I had a great time. Thank you for taking the time to host this party; I really appreciate it.”
	“Yeah, it’s always great to celebrate a Ponyville-style Estrus Week!” Twilight added.
	“Yep, I had a blast!” Rainbow Dash commented. “See you tomorrow, Pinkie.”
	Pinkie Pie sighed, waving goodbye. “Yeah, see you, I guess. Too bad it was cut short.” She walked over to a trashcan and tied off the bag. “I guess I’ll just clean up…” she said to herself.
	Eris growled to herself, reverting to Discord, the transformation taking about half as long as the reverse. He paced around the bakery, muttering to himself, until his eyes happened upon the unfinished game of pin the sperm on the egg.
	He floated up to the game and grabbed a sperm from the basket, sticking it to the egg with a talon and grinning. “So, they shun me to protect their precious wombs, huh?” A literal lightbulb appeared over his head. “I have just the prank to get them back…”
	He snapped his talons and disappeared with a flash, reappearing at Carousel Boutique. “First of all, I’ve got to make a deposit…”

Chapter 0
Monday, May 4th

	Her stomach distended with food and her genitalia inflamed with sexual arousal, the libidinous unicorn mare fumbled awkwardly with her saddlebags to extract her key, unable to concentrate properly on her telekinesis, her mind preoccupied with other matters.
	Before long, though, the key was enveloped in the light blue aura of her magic, and floated towards the keyhole. After clumsily missing the mark several times, it finally slid in and turned, unlocking the door with a click.
	Rarity smiled and pulled the handle to open the door. It took some jiggling to remove her key, but she managed it without too much trouble and returned it to her bag, sealing the clasp with a snap. With the door finally open, she rushed inside and closed the door behind her, locking it with her magic.
 	She glanced at the clock. Almost half past eleven at night. Out of habit, she briefly considered fixing herself a late dinner, but the bloated feeling from her stomach quickly dissuaded her.
	Almost as if jealously clamoring for her attention, her labia widened and her clitoris protruded in a vulvar "wink", reminding her that she desperately needed to satisfy the primal urges that plague mares every year.
	Her vulva glistening with lubrication, she eagerly climbed the stairs to her bedroom. After closing the door behind her and ensuring it was locked, she extracted a small, unremarkable box from under her bed, a label on the side marking it as "TAX FORMS" so as to deter any snooping fillies from examining its contents.
	She carefully opened the cardboard box with her magic, revealing a smaller box, one made of a dark varnished wood, intricately carved with a small floral decoration on one end, made of brushed metal with a circular hole in the middle.
	She inserted her horn into the hole, the hole and turned the box, the grooves on the inside of the hole matching perfectly with those in her horn, and finally lit her horn, unlocking the latch with a barely audible click, one she likely would not have heard if it hadn't been conducted to her ears by a path of solid bone.
	Smiling, she removed her horn from the hole and opened the box, revealing a cerise velvet interior. Sitting in the center of the box, in an indentation made specifically for it, was a large dildo, made of rubber and intricately detailed, and a small bottle of lubricant. Rarity smiled and lifted it out of its cradle, almost reverently. "Bonsoir, mon godemiché…"
	She closed the lid of the box and climbed into her bed, on top of the covers, and lay on her back. She carefully lined the toy up with her vaginal opening and and began to insert it in a smooth, continuous motion. She bit her lip as it spread her labia apart and penetrated farther into her, the stimulation sending sparks of pleasure to her brain. She stifled a moan as it progressed, before remembering she was alone, dropping her carefully maintained façade, and moaning like a wild animal. At least, she thought she was alone.
	Unbeknownst to her, Discord was watching her from her bedroom closet, enjoying her lewd display through a crack in the door while he schemed. If the mares insisted on guarding their precious wombs by excluding him from their fun, wouldn't it be funny if shunning him for the genitalia he'd decided to give himself ended up backfiring and getting one of them pregnant?
	He knew he'd be proving them right, but it'd be worth it to get to see the look on her face when she realizes she's pregnant. He just wished he could spread the love, but one mare in heat is better than none. A mischievous grin on his face, he watched his quarry stimulate herself, her hips bucking wildly as she thrashed about on her bed, disturbing the sheets beneath her.
	Lying on her bed with her back arched, Rarity moaned loudly, furiously slamming the dildo into her vagina. It was custom made, so it stopped just short of her cervix, which allowed her to use it with wild abandon, its scrotum striking her rump with each thrust inwards, without worrying about bruising herself.
	Waiting patiently in the closet, Discord observed the mare devolve further into a state of pure bestial lust. When she turned the dildo inside her to allow its scrotal base to stimulate her clitoris whenever it hilted inside her, he made a mental note to himself, eagerly waiting for her to fall asleep.
	Rarity's vaginal muscles contracted around the dildo as she drew ever closer to her climax. Feeling herself teetering on the edge, Rarity slowed down in an attempt to prolong her pleasure for as long as she could. Through years of practice, she had gotten to know her body well enough that she could have kept herself balanced at her tipping point almost indefinitely.
	However, she was exhausted from the party and desperate for release, so she soon found herself unable to suppress her natural urges any longer, she squeezed tight around the dildo and thrusted it with renewed urgency. Before long, her vaginal muscles were rippling along its length, trying to squeeze out ejaculate that she knew would never come. There were more effective toys on the market specifically designed for estrus that would squirt lubricant upon climax and better sate the urge to be inseminated, but refills were always prohibitively expensive, no doubt in an attempt to milk as many bits as possible from desperate mares, so most mares simply coped without them.
	Still, it was good enough to push her over the edge, and she quickly found her whole body seizing up as she covered the toy in her fluid, waves of pleasure rushing through her body. She wasn't completely satisfied, of course, but that didn't matter, because as her orgasm subsided, she found herself almost immediately drifting to sleep, not even bothering to remove the toy from inside her.
	Seeing that his moment had arrived, Discord waited silently for a few minutes until he was sure she was sound asleep. The clock struck midnight. Minutes later, he began to slowly open the closet door, only for the hinges to squeak in protest, as if trying to warn their master of her fate. Cursing under his breath, Discord rolled his eyes and simply phased through the door.
	Having dropped any pretense of normality, he walked up to the bed, his feet floating an inch above the floor to avoid making any sound. The sleep mask sitting on her nightstand marked her as a light sleeper, so he knew he had to be quiet or risk ruining the surprise. Once he reached the bed, he floated himself over her sleeping form, careful not to block the moonlight and alert her to his presence.
	He was already fairly erect just from watching her, so he didn't have to waste time with that. Instead, he surveyed his surroundings. Despite Rarity being the only pony living in the house, her bed was laid out for two ponies, including two absurdly plump pillows at the head of the bed. He could use them to his advantage.
	Slowly and carefully, he lifted her off of her pillow and into the air, turning her over and allowing her legs to dangle. He then proceeded to stack the two pillows up underneath her, setting her back down on the top of the stack and allowing her to straddle them, her rump propped up in a pose that was rather lewd and, more importantly, readily accessible.
	Grinning mischievously, he surveyed his hoofiwork, or rather his taloniwork and pawiwork. If the pillows had been invisible, and her sleeping face obscured, she could've easily been mistaken for a mare presenting herself to a stallion. In fact, the pose even seemed to fool the mare's body itself, as her tail began to lift on its own out of reflex, revealing her vulva, stretched wide by the dildo still lodged in her vagina.
	This presented the first major hurdle for Discord to overcome. He grasped the base of the dildo firmly between his talons and slowly began to pull it out of her. There was a small degree resistance as her vaginal muscles tried to hold it inside of her, as well small amount of suction due to how well it fit her, but he soon got it out without too much difficulty, and crucially without waking her up. He set it on her nightstand and stood back up, moving into position.
	It was the moment of truth. A large smile on his face, he held back a giggle as he looked down at the sleeping mare, propped up on her pillows. Her rear end was pointed directly at him, her tail lifted and her clitoris winking invitingly. Her vaginal opening moved slightly in response to the dildo's removal, begging to be filled again. Well, it'd just be *rude* of him to refuse…
	He placed his forelimbs on either side of her and pushed his hips forwards, sliding the tip of his penis between her labia. On a whim, he picked the dildo back up from Rarity's nightstand and sniffed it. Whatever part of his chimeric biology was equine in nature quickly responded to her pheromones by intensifying his erection, pushing her labia farther apart.
	Once it had given him the boost the needed, he smiled and put it back in its resting place. Taking a deep breath, which pulled even more of the intoxicating scent into his nose, he steadied himself with her shoulders and pushed the tip of his penis deeper inside, followed quickly by his shaft. Once it was halfway inside of her, he paused to catch his breath.
	Because he saw her using such a substantial toy, he knew he didn't have to worry about taking her virginity, and in a way he was… disappointed. He'd still get to impregnate her, but it would've been extra delicious if he could've deflowered her as well. He briefly considered restoring her virginity in order to take it back himself, but that would almost certainly wake her up, and it wasn't worth ruining the prank.
	So instead, he simply pressed forwards, burying more and more of himself in the soft folds of her genitalia. He didn't waste any time savoring the warmth, however; he had a job to do. Moving his paw and talon to her rump, he pushed deeper into her warmth until he bottomed out at her cervix.
	He slowly thrusted inside of her a few times before frowning in annoyance as he found himself unable to hilt, having reached the end of her vagina with a couple inches of his shaft still outside of her. He considered just slamming forwards and penetrating her cervix, but he figured it was unwise to risk injury to the uterus that would soon be housing his offspring. Instead, he settled for shortening the length of his penis, allowing him to hilt inside her, his pendulous testes striking against her clitoris.
	That turned out to be just enough stimulation to reach Rarity through the fog of sleep, and she began to stir, groaning slightly. She didn't question the girth inside her, since she remembered how she fell asleep, and Discord had frozen in place out of instinct. However, her brain slowly started to piece together that she had been moved to a new position, one she almost certainly couldn't've gotten into herself. Realizing that something was amiss, Rarity started to squirm, blinking her eyes a few times and groggily starting to look around.
	Thinking fast, Discord leaned forwards and bit the mare gently on the back of her neck, careful not to injure her with his sharp fangs. He'd picked up a few tricks in his years ruling over Equestria, one of which was very useful at the moment, relying on vestigial instincts to kick in and pacify the pony. Sure enough, her muscles immediately relaxed and her struggles ceased. Discord smirked and silently thanked evolution for aiding him in his effort to reproduce.
	He resolved to wait until he was sure she had fallen back asleep, but his own urges quickly got the better of him. Unable to keep himself still for any longer, he began to thrust with renewed vigor, somewhat cocky after cleverly saving his scheme from the brink of ruination.
	Rarity moaned and her vagina tightened around Discord's penis, her hormone-addled brain incorporating the stimulation into the narrative of a rather lewd dream. She shivered involuntarily and produced more lubrication as he thrusted inside her. Regular practice had significantly reduced her refractory period, so she was quickly approaching her second orgasm of the night.
	Discord grunted as he thrusted faster still, barely tapping her cervix with each thrust. He was definitely enjoying himself, but and he would've loved to stay inside her until the sun came up, but he'd come to impregnate her, not just to have fun, and he knew taking longer to finish meant a higher risk of being caught in the act, so he picked up his pace. As well as speeding up, his thrusts also grew harder and more erratic. He panted with exertion as he slammed into her, until one of his thrusts was hard enough to force his knot into her, locking him in place inside of her. He grunted and winced, no longer able to thrust inside her effectively.
	Fortunately, he didn't have to wait for much longer, as the tip of his penis flared out like a stallion's and his scrotum contracted, pulling his testes closer to his body. He threw his head back and snarled as he ejaculated inside of her vagina, pumping her full of thick ropes of his sticky draconequine semen.
	This was exactly what Rarity's body had been begging for, and it responded with another orgasm, much stronger and more satisfying than the first. Because of the dual seal formed by Discord's flare and knot, pressure began to build inside her vagina. Soon, though, the pressure was released as her orgasm opened her cervix slightly, enough to allow his potent semen to rush into her fertile uterus.
	Discord panted to catch his breath as his penis pulsated with each shot he fired into the mare under him. Deciding to make the best use of his time, he detached his genitalia from his body so he could finish inseminating Rarity while he cleaned up.
	The first thing he did was lift her off of the stack of pillows. Seeing that a wet spot had formed on the top pillow, he rubbed it with his paw, magically cleaning and drying it. He then placed the pillows back where he found them, turning Rarity over and laying her back on one of the pillows.
	As he was reaching over her to pick up the dildo he had set aside, he noticed her abdomen swell larger as his penis continued to fill her uterus with his semen. It occurred to him that an unusually large bump could tip her off to something having gone amiss, so he grabbed the dildo and begrudgingly got his penis to stop ejaculating, the flow petering off just as the bump reached the size of her food gut from the party. As his knot and flare subsided, he was able to pull his penis out of her vagina, quickly replacing it with the dildo while he reattached his genitalia to his pelvic region.
	Wiping the sweat off of his brow, he surveyed his work. Aside from a ruffled mane and significantly more sexual fluids dripping from her vulva, she looked just as she had when she had fallen asleep. The little changes that were left were quickly straightened out with a little magic, signaled with a snap of his digits and a brief flash of light.
	Discord smiled. Rarity now *looked* as though nothing had happened, but of course in reality she was now holding almost half a gallon of chaotic semen in her uterus. It was currently being held inside by her cervix, but once his offspring had securely attached to her uterus, he'd allow it to leak out a bit at a time whenever she excreted.
	Rarity turned over in her sleep, Discord's generous load of semen sloshing inside her. Her mind rationalized the encounter as part of a dream, a dream that would swiftly be forgotten shortly after awakening, but her body was very satisfied at being inseminated. Already, the symptoms of her estrus were beginning to subside and her body was automatically preparing itself for pregnancy.
	Discord checked over the scene one last time to make sure he hadn't missed something, returning the closet door to its original position with a squeak and disappearing with a flash, leaving over half a trillion spermatozoa inside her, dispersing in search of her egg. Most of them would simply get flushed out and die, but a few would be tasked with pushing the conceptus down her Fallopian tube to speed up implantation, and one lucky spermatozoon would get the privilege of fertilizing her ovum and creating a new organism, changing Rarity's life forever…

	Rarity yawned and arched her back, pulling the edges of the sheets out from under her mattress as she did so. She carefully folded them to the sped with her magic to allow herself to get out of bed without disturbing them any further. As she did so, the slight paunch that came into view reminded her of her plan to exercise in order to burn off the extra calories from the previous night's party.
	She groaned as she sat up in bed, rolling her tongue around in her mouth. She realized that she had fallen asleep without brushing her teeth, so that moved to the top of her to-do list. She shuddered to think how bad her morning breath was, especially after all the food she'd eaten the previous night. With a sigh, she dropped to the floor and landed on her hooves before making the bed with her magic.
	Squinting her eyes against the morning sun reflecting off her lavender walls as she made her way to her bathroom, mostly working off of muscle memory as her eyes adjusted to the morning sun. Once inside the bathroom, she picked up her toothbrush and toothpaste with her magic before opening the toothpaste and turning on the faucet.
	After briefly running the toothbrush under the cold water, she turned the faucet off and applied a small dot of toothpaste to the brush. It wasn't the glorious swoosh depicted on the box, but it was common knowledge that that was just a ruse by toothpaste manufacturers to get ponies to use way more toothpaste than necessary.
	As she brushed her teeth, watching the clock to be sure to brush for the recommended two minutes, a completely different story was playing out inside her. Deep inside her womb, Discord's sperm were swimming deeper inside her, spreading out in search of an egg to fertilize. They all had Discord's face, because of course they did. Because Rarity had ovulated recently, their search would not be in vain.
	Once the two minutes were up, she spat the toothpaste into the sink and rinsed her toothbrush out. Figuring she should make up for forgetting to brush her teeth somehow, she retrieved a bottle of mouthwash from behind the mirror. However, as she was pouring herself a capful, it occurred to her that she'd probably want to drink something while she exercised, so she poured the mouthwash back into the bottle to save it for a time when it would be able to do its job without being rinsed away.
	She cricked her neck as she recapped the bottle and put it away. Enough stalling. She closed the mirror and rinsed out the sink before leaving the bathroom all together. Stopping only to retrieve a water bottle from her icebox, she headed out into the vernal sun, grabbing her sweatband and saddlebags on the way out the door. 
	Once the door was securely locked behind her, Rarity set out for a brisk trot, heading nowhere in particular and taking the scenic route to get there. The thought occurred to her at the back of her mind that she wasn't turning as many heads as she'd expected to, however. She was a gorgeous mare, so she still got the usual glances, but normally stallions couldn't resist a whiff of a mare in heat, but stallions seemed to be largely ignoring her as she jogged past them.
	Of course, there was a simple reason why she was slipping under the stallions' radar: she was no longer on the market. Discord had satisfied her body's desire to be bred, so it no longer needed to advertise her fertility to every potential mate. In fact, just as she trotted along, her full belly protruding beneath her, his sperm cells were entering the final stretch, one final straightaway before reaching her egg.
	Oblivious to the race that was going on in her Fallopian tube, Rarity took a large gulp of water out of her water bottle, savoring the refreshing sensation of the ice-cold water running down her throat and into her stomach. Reinvigorated, she picked up her pace, closing her water bottle and stowing it in her saddlebag.
	As she continued to jog, she got into a rhythm, an almost trancelike state where she ran on autopilot, no longer thinking about her legs and only watching passively as the scenery passed her by. This rhythm was a major benefit of running that caused her to prefer it to more sedentary exercises, as she could just tune out and let her body take care of the hard work while her mind was allowed to wander. However, this trance did not last.
	Somewhere deep inside her, in her left Fallopian tube to be precise, Discord's sperm had found their mark. Thousands of them swarmed her lone egg. Even if it had been reluctant to accept them, it could not have withstood the onslaught for very long. In fact, however, the siege was a short one, as the egg quickly acquiesced and let one of them burrow inside and fertilize it.
	The instant when Rarity became a mother was marked by a dramatic spike in magical energy, one that resonated with her horn and caused it to sputter briefly, just enough to disrupt the flow she had developed. Her mental rhythm having skipped a beat, her hooves were thrown out of sync and she quickly tumbled face-first into the dirt path.
	Rarity blushed heavily as a beige pegasus mare leapt from her seat on a nearby bench to come to her aid, offering her hoof to help her up.
	The mare clicked her tongue as she helped Rarity up. "You really must be more careful, dear…" she admonished. "You're carrying precious cargo, after all."
	"Huh?" Rarity raised an eyebrow in confusion. Once she was standing on her own hooves, she followed the mare's gaze to her belly and blushed furiously. "Oh, no no no no no, this isn't… I'm not…" She cleared her throat and brushed some of the dirt from her coat. "I'm afraid this is just a ‘food baby’. I'm trying to burn it off."
	The mare chuckled. "Ah, I see. I just assumed, because of the season… I apologize."
	Rarity shook her head. "No offense was taken; it's probably generally a safe assumption to make this time of year. Thank you for your help, miss…?"
	"Ataxia." The mare smiled. "Pregnant or not, you should be careful. Good luck with your exercise; I can see you like to look after yourself, and it definitely shows."
	Rarity nodded. "It's hard work, but it pays off. Thank you again for your help, Ataxia. I'll be on my way."
	The pegasus mare smiled. "No problem. Take care!"
	Rarity waved goodbye and trotted away, heading back to the Boutique to give her coat a thorough cleaning.
	The beige mare blinked, and when she opened her eyes, the whites of her eyes had turned a bright yellow, and her pupils a bright red. "Yes…" she said under breath, her voice suddenly much more masculine, "take *good* care of my little bundle of chaos." Her voice switched back for a prolonged giggle, and a bolt of lightning flashed ominously off in the distance, followed soon by the boom of thunder and accompanied by a dramatic gust of wind.

	With a dramatic surge of magical energy, a brand new being found itself suddenly existing. Having never existed before, this was a new and very puzzling experience for the zygotic demidraconequus. This was a very intriguing phenomenon, so it decided to try to suss out exactly what this whole "existing" thing was all about.
	It knew it was existing, because all the thoughts it was having had to come from *somewhere*; it seemed absurd on its face to attribute actions to a non-existent entity, or even to call it an "entity". Whatever the source of the thoughts was, it seemed reasonable to call it "self".
	Of course, this didn't take it very far. It observed that "self" was not a closed system; it was receiving inputs from… somewhere. Self considered that these were just signals from another part of Self producing the illusion of externalities, but that idea seemed… far-fetched. After all, these inputs didn't seem to correspond to any actions undertaken by Self, or have any internal cause that Self was aware of. Even if it were true, this hypothesis would imply the existence of at least two entities that were in some way distinct from one another: the Self and the Deceiver.
	Self, therefore, decided to operate off of the working assumption that it was not just existing, but existing in some larger Context in which it was not the only entity to exist. Since Self had learned of its own existence by observing the results of its own actions, namely its thoughts, it figured it was possible to learn about the nature of Context by observing the results of *its* actions, namely the Inputs being experienced by Self. Even if the Context was only the Deceiver, observation would allow the Self to better understand the Deceiver, and hopefully better predict which Inputs it would produce next.
	The first thing it noticed was that the inputs were multitudinous and rather varied, which suggested that the Context was populated with a plethora of different entities. Furthermore, distinct entities tended not to coincide with one another, but rather had a definite Separation between them, with a variable degree. It quickly became apparent that not all of the Separations were the same, even when degree was taken out of the picture; there were degrees of all different kinds. After some trial and error, Self discovered that it needed three distinct measurements of degree to describe every Separation.
	However, even these three Degrees weren't quite enough to describe a Separation, because in truth there was no one Separation between any two Entities; these changed. Self found it necessary to specify a fourth Degree to specify how far along in the progression of these different Separations. This new Degree of Progression seemed fundamentally different from the three Degrees of Separation in that it seemed to operate almost entirely in one direction, but upon closer inspection they appeared to be tied quite closely to one another, so Self felt comfortable stating that the Context had four Degrees.
	The Entities weren't all identical either, however; they produced a wide variety of different Inputs. Self quickly realized that a lot of these differences could be accounted for by Degrees, and by how quickly Separations were changing with respect to Progression, but that still left several differences unexplained. Self began categorizing all the different Entities that were giving it Inputs.
	Meanwhile, in the macroscopic world, Rarity was panting, her front half covered in a thick layer of dust, clinging to her due to the copious amounts of sweat. She took a large gulp of her water bottle, which was only half empty. She regretted cutting her exercise short, but she just couldn't stand to be so filthy for much longer. A smile spread across her face when the Boutique came into view, and she picked up her pace, 
	Inside her, however, her offspring was concerned with much simpler concepts. It had catalogued all of Entities it was perceiving, in a system that ended up having lots of different categories and subcategories. Self would have to modify the system if it encountered new types of Entities, but it was a good first draft.
 	One thing that Self noticed when cataloging the different types of Entities was that their behavior changes in the proximity of other Entities; the Entities were interacting with one another. They were attracting one another, repelling one another, splitting, merging, clumping together, breaking up, and so forth. In the process of cataloging the different types of Entities, Self ended up counting four… no, five different Interactions that the Entities were undergoing.
	It also became evident that, even within the exact same category, Entities produced Interactions of varying intensities. Some Entities just had more… oomph than others. The amount of Oomph an Entity had wasn't fixed; an Entity could gain or lose Oomph through an Interaction. It seemed, however, that the Entities were only trading Oomph among themselves; Self never experienced an Input that indicated Oomph appearing without a source, or disappearing without a destination. In fact, upon closer examination, the Entities themselves seemed to be *made* of Oomph.
	As it was observing the Interactions of various Entities, it's attention was soon drawn to a particular cluster of Entities, accompanied by and tightly tied to an intricate and complex matrix of Oomph. A large quantity of Oomph, in fact, of the variety associated with one of the types of Interaction that Self had identified. The properties of this Matrix seemed to shift in accordance with Self's thoughts. No… that wasn't right; the response was too quick to be caused by an Interaction. The changes were instantaneous.
	In fact, the Matrix didn't seem to be *responding* to Self at all. All of the changes it underwent could be traced back to either a previous state of the Matrix or an Interaction with an Entity in the Context. Self was forced to conclude that the Matrix, in fact, *was* Self… or at least *part* of Self. Self's thoughts weren't simply abstract concepts; they were patterns in a Matrix of Oomph, a Matrix that was closely bonded with, and held together by, an organized cluster of distinct Entities. So Self wasn't an Entity at all, but rather a *collection* of Entities, going about their usual Interactions.
	Completely oblivious to the new life-form's existential crisis, Rarity entered her bathroom. Before she stepped into the shower, however, she glanced at the mirror that doubled as the door to the medicine cabinet. Was she going to be long enough before finishing her exercise that it made sense to use the mouthwash? She decided that the most practical approach was to simply take an extended shower, long enough for the mouthwash to sit on her teeth, and then finish her exercise after she'd dried off. Satisfied with this plan, she opened the cabinet and retrieved the bottle of mouthwash.
	Her passenger had also reached a conclusion. Okay, so Self wasn't an Entity, but rather a structure, composed of multiple interconnected Entities and an associated Matrix of Oomph. That was fine; it wasn't the end of the Context. In fact, upon further reflection, being a Structure was *better* than being an Entity. Entities were boring; they just bounced and jiggled about, swapping Oomph in their simple Interactions. As a Structure, however, Self was complex enough to actually *think*, and to experience Inputs that told it about the Context and its Degrees, and the Entities that populated it, with their Oomph and the Interactions that controlled them.
	Since Self was a Structure in the Context, and Entities in the Context could influence it through Inputs, Self wondered if the reverse was true. If Self could influence the Context, that would be good to know, because Self could change Context to better suit its goals, rather than allowing it to simply progress on its own. And so, Self concentrated on the Oomph that permeated the nearby Context, and willed it to coalesce into an Entity. Marvelously, the Context obeyed, and a brand new Entity appeared, only to be quickly whisked away by an Interaction.
	This gave Entity an idea. It could vastly accelerate the speed at which it learned about Entities and their Interactions if it could set up different scenarios and watch them play out, rather than only working off of what Interactions just happened to be occurring. And so Self created two of the Entity next, very close to each other, and watched as they sped off in different directions. It repeated this many, many, many times, in rapid succession, observing each time how the Entities behaved before they were whisked away by external Interactions.
	Once the second hand was back at the top of the clock, Rarity briefly gargled the mouthwash and then spat it into the sink. When she lifted her head back up from the sink and glanced at her reflection in the mirror, she noticed several stray hairs in her mane that were practically standing on end. She sighed and ran a hoof over them, to no avail. Frustrated, she climbed into the tub. After taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she reached to turn on the water, only to yelp and pull her hoof back when a bolt of static electricity leapt from her hoof to the shower knob.
	Holding back the urge to curse, Rarity winced and shook the affected hoof before inspecting it closely with a quizzical look on her face. "Hmm, that's odd…"

	After creating the twelve trillion thirty-four billion six hundred thirty-one million seven hundred seventy-three thousand four hundred fifth Entity, Self observed the surrounding Entities start to shake vigorously back and forth. This brief cascade of high-frequency, high-amplitude vibration intrigued Self, as the source was not readily apparent. This would take further observation to fully explain. As such, Self created 12,034,631,773,405 additional Entities and waited to see if the phenomenon would reoccur.
	Rarity continued to squint at her hoof, holding it in the light from a window to get a better look at it. She was mostly checking to make sure the spark hadn't left a mark, but part of her was hoping that if she looked closely enough, an explanation would materialize. Soon, however, she shrugged it off as a fluke; she could've picked up from any number of places, from removing her saddlebags to walking on the bathmat to drying her sweat on a towel. She sighed and reached for the handle again, figuring that whatever the source of the charge, she'd already discharged it, and so she shouldn't get shocked again. And then she was shocked again.
	Because she couldn't think of any way she could've built a charge back up in the few seconds since the first shock, the second shock still came as a shock to Rarity. Caught somewhat off guard, and yelped again and quickly formulated a plan. Wanting to prevent a repeat occurrence, she quickly put her hoof back on the knob and then moved a hoof to the metal drain of the shower, keeping herself grounded. She didn't know what was causing it, but she knew the basic workings of electricity.
	Sure enough, the vibrations reoccurred, although less intensely this time. Out of curiosity, Self tried creating twice as many of the Entities, but this time nothing happened. Self didn't know whether this was unusual or not, so it then created half as many. Still nothing. Was it to do with the specific Number, 12,034,631,773,405? Self created 12,034,631,773,404 Entities, and then 12,034,631,773,406. Still nothing. For the sake of thoroughness, Self once more created 12,034,631,773,405, expecting the same outcome as the first two times. Nothing.
	Upon seeing that grounding herself appeared to have worked, Rarity smiled and turned the water on, adjusting it by memory to her preferred temperature, and then turning the temperature down slightly in order to cool herself off after her exercise. Of course, the cooler water also helped soothe her hoof, which was still stinging slightly from being shocked. Soon, however, even that pain was gone. There was still a slight tingling feeling along her grounding leg, but she shrugged that off as being either from the water or a residual effect of the shocks. Whatever it was, she decided not to worry about it and began to hum.
	Strangely, repeating the circumstances didn't result in the same results, unlike what Self had observed in its many, many experiments. Self figured that either that initial conclusion had been mistaken, or there were some unseen variables in the larger Context that hadn't been controlled for. The consistency of its previous observations led it to lean towards the latter.
	Seeing diminishing returns with the current line of study, it resolved to leave that mystery alone for a while and turn it's attention to a different variety of Entity. It tried creating one of the other varieties it had seen, but found itself unable to do so without also creating a corresponding opposite for it. This alone was quite intriguing, but the resulting pairs were fairly short-lived, dissipating quickly, so Self quickly lost interest, only continuing for a short while to observe how their reacted with each other.
	Then, Self noticed a new series of vibrations. These had lower amplitudes and frequencies, but they were more prolonged. In response, Self stopped it's experiments, but the vibrations continued. Self created 12,034,631,773,405 of the Entities that had caused the initial pulse of high-intensity vibrations. The new vibrations continued undisturbed. They didn't seem to be responding at all to Self's actions.
	Self considered that the vibrations might just be an intrinsic part of the Context, that maybe Entities just vibrated sometimes for no apparent reason, but that didn't seem to make much sense. Then again, Self didn't know everything about the Context, so that idea couldn't be ruled out right away. Still, the vibrations were… complicated. They were mostly consistent, changing slightly in frequency and amplitude from time to time, sometimes even stopping entirely for brief moments. There did seem to be a pattern behind it, big what exactly that pattern was was out of Self's grasp for the moment.
	Rarity absentmindedly tapped a hoof on the floor of the shower as she hummed a pleasant tune. Lathering herself up with a bar of soap and her telekinesis, she couldn't help but wash herself to the best of the song. As the coolish poured over her coat, she allowed it to wash her worries away. She could finish exercising her gut away later. The sparks wouldn't bother her if she was careful to stay grounded. The strange spike in magical energy that had caused her to stumble in the first place slipped out of her mind entirely. With the Boutique closed for the holiday, she wasn't in a rush to get anywhere, so she allowed herself to just relax and enjoy the shower, once again zoning out and operating by autopilot.
	The vibrations continued, changing frequency and volume in a rhythmic manner. Maybe Self could've attributed a consistent, persistent vibration to a property of the Context, but Self had learned from experience that the fundamental properties of the Context tended to prefer simplicity, not complexity, and this phenomenon was just too complex. No, the correct answer almost certainly involved complex series of Interactions between Entities, producing the unusual vibrations from somewhere Self could not observe. At least, not directly. Self would have to expand the scale of its studies…

	First, if Self was going to look for a source for the anomalous vibrations, it would need to keep careful track of their patterns, in order to compare them against any possible explanation. Furthermore, if Self was going to focus on understanding larger scales, it would have to develop a better understanding of how Interactions between Entities caused them to group together. As Self began to focus its studies towards this end, it realized that it was not the only Structure in the Context. As such, if it was to be successful in its studies, it would also need to fully understand these Structures. As such, it turned its attention to itself, figuring it was as good a place to start as any.
	As with most everything else it had observed, Self was made of Entities, and the Entities were made of Oomph. Most of these Entities were held together into balanced Triplets by an Interaction that was mediated by the exchange of a different Entity. This same Interaction also held these Triplets together into larger Clumps. The same kind of Entities that Self had first experimented with then formed Clouds that surrounded these Clusters, together forming Units of a few different varieties.
	These Units then combined, either through an Interaction or by joining their Clouds, into even larger Clusters. These Clusters could be anything from small groups of Units to long, twisted Chains. Some of these Clusters joined together to form various Mechanisms, which were surrounded by a Fluid and contained within a Barrier that marked the boundary of the Structure that Self now realized it was.
	Structures seemed to be very common in the Context. Self was surrounded by many Structures that were a fraction of its size, several of which seemed to be pressed against it, pushing it to who knew where. They seemed to be pushing it down a large, mostly cylindrical area. The walls of this cylindrical Passage were covered in Protrusions, which, like the wall itself, were also made of Structures. These Protrusions seemed to reach out for Self, rippling in the direction Self was moving as if trying to help push it along. Whatever lay ahead, the Context seemed determined that Self arrive there.
	Once she was done rinsing the soap from her coat, she decided to take the opportunity to wash her mane and tail as well. She would go to the salon later, of course, to have a professional get her coiffure back exactly how she liked it, but she could at least get all of the dirt out in the meantime. As usual, she started with her tail so she would be cake to get a good look at it without getting shampoo in her eyes. Still humming, she used her telekinesis to move the shower head to spray on her tail, rinsing out the largest clumps of dirt and wetting it for the shampoo. Then, she used her hooves to lather along the length of her squiggly tail, stroking and scrubbing to make sure it was completely saturated.
	Self figured that there had to be *something* else, because nothing in the Passage could've produced the strange vibrations. Furthermore, everything was being pulled in essentially the same direction, in a way that could only be explained by a very large, very distant Attractor. Unfortunately, the walls of the Passage blocked Self's view of the rest of the Context, so Self would have to get clever to figure out what could have. It knew that vibrations could propagate through the walls of the Passage, so the first thing it tried was producing a series of its own vibrations and observing how they had changed when and if they were reflected back.
	This was enough to give Self a general idea of what else there was. It was very crude, not even enough to make out individual Structures, but it could reveal a very large shape beyond the walls of the Passage, presumably made of even more Entities. This shape surrounded the Passage and was mainly cylindrical, with a few cylindrical protrusions extending from one side, pointing towards the Attractor, and another one on one end, in the opposite direction, which ended in a rather spherical shape.
	Inside the shape, the reflected vibrations revealed areas where material was packed closer together, and areas where it was more spread out, but there wasn't much in the way of empty areas; the whole thing seemed to be contiguous and lacking in significant gaps. The areas where the distribution of material varied, however, seemed to be mostly self-consistent, arranged in such a way that reminded Self of the Mechanisms in a Structure. Furthermore, there seemed to be a surface enclosing the large shape in a manner similar to Self's own Barrier.
	It occurred to Self that the large shape might in fact be some sort of Superstructure, with its own Supermechanisms and Superbarrier, made of Structures in the same way that a Structure is made of Clusters. This was an intriguing possibility. Self briefly entertained the possibility that there was also a Supersuperstructure that was likewise made of Superstructures, but its studies thus far had led no evidence to support that idea. In any case, Self's exploratory vibrations hadn't traveled beyond the Superbarrier of the Superstructure, so the source of the anomalous vibrations had to be somewhere inside of it. Self continued to prove with vibrations of different frequencies and amplitudes, directed in different directions, to get as clear a picture as possible of this newly discovered Superstructure it found itself in.
	Completely oblivious to the ultrasonic scan taking place inside of her, Rarity rinsed the second application of shampoo out of her mane. Afterwards, she stopped humming and shook most of the water from her mane, tail, and coat, splattering the inside of the shower. It wasn't very ladylike, but it was effective. Once she was mostly dry, Rarity retrieved two towels with her magic, wrapping one around her mane and one around her barrel. She frowned, and put a hoof to the slight bulge, regretting her overindulgence at Pinkie's party.
	As suddenly as they had started, the strange, unexplained vibrations stopped. Curious as to why, Self checked to see if any changes in the Superstructure had accompanied the end of the vibrations. Not seeing any, Self decided to use the opportunity to probe the Superstructure some more with its own vibrations, in order to get a more accurate picture without interference.
	Once it was done, however, Self's thoughts returned to the strange vibrations, and what could be learned about them by studying when they occurred. If only they'd reoccur sooner. Out of curiosity, Self willed the Progression of the Superstructure to speed up, and found that, indeed, it too obeyed its commands.

	As Rarity stepped out of the shower and onto her bathmat, she noticed that something seemed… odd. For one thing, the air was unusually thick, forcing her lungs to work extra hard and making her feel as though she were wading through a pool. Furthermore, her towels seemed… not heavier, but somehow more… massive, exhibiting more inertia than seemed reasonable for their size and weight. She could clearly feel the towel pressing against her chest with each step she took, until it reluctantly got up to speed with her.
	Finishing her jog was clearly out of the question; she was getting plenty of exercise just trying to walk at a leisurely pace. Instead, she decided to head into the main shop and continue working on her designs for summer outfits. And so, she trudged through the hallways, taking slow, deep breaths and pausing occasionally if she got too lightheaded. Every time she turned a corner, she could feel her towel pressing against her side, and the towel on her head threatened to come loose. She had no idea what was going on, but she didn't like it.
	Eventually, after several minutes, she finally made it down the into her shop. The whole room seemed still and deathly quiet, more so than it normally did before she opened it in the morning. Still, she tried to pay it little mind and only focus on her work. However, on her way to her dress display, she happened to catch a glimpse of herself in one of the mirrors above her tubs. In her reflection, she could clearly see her tail, as well as the towel wrapped around her mane, pointing straight back, waving slowly as if caught in an ocean current.
	This was strange, because she didn't feel any buoyancy. To test this, she waved her hooves in the air for a few moments, and although the air resisted her movement like water, she couldn't get any lift out of her crude paddling. And yet, as she did her strokes, she could see the hairs on her forelegs wave back and forth, as though they were under water. She shook her head. "What in the world…?"
	Despite thinking she was alone, her words of confusion did not go unnoticed. Inside her, Discord's spawn perked up at the new Vibrations. They were faster, of course, but once it had accounted for the accelerated Progression, Self noticed something else that was strange about them: they were more complicated. While the previous Vibrations had been mostly consistent in frequency and amplitude, changing only occasionally, these were constantly fluctuating. However, they were not random; there was still a consistency to them, and perhaps a pattern.
	Self wondered what kind of system could cause such a phenomenon. Unfortunately, it was just too small of a sample size. Self would have to wait for the phenomenon to reoccur several times, memorizing and analyzing each occurrence, before coming to any sort of conclusion. The answer would have to reveal itself soon, however; Self's attention span was already wavering, and the Context had so many other interesting things to investigate.
	As she passed the mirrors and headed for her dresses, Rarity was considering the possibility that she was dreaming. Everything certainly did have that dreamlike quality about it: the eerie stillness, the fluid movement, the low echoes of her hoofsteps on the lavender floor. But it was so *vivid*. Granted, it wasn't unheard of for dreams to seem like the real thing; dreams were notorious for seeming real until one awoke.
	Still, living underwater? As dreams went, it was fairly mundane. As though to reassure herself, she turned around and headed back to the mirror, fighting her towels as they refused to coöperate, the one around her mane only kept on by her hoof, and, once her hoof had successfully prevented it from flying off, her telekinesis. It occurred to her too late that she could've used one of the three mirrors around her stage and avoided that hassle.
	When she reached the mirror, she glanced at her hind legs to verify that they were, in fact, still there, and hadn't been replaced with a fish's tail. Indeed, she looked perfectly normal, except for the strange motion in her mane and tail.
	And that's when she heard the clock.
	Just ahead of her, the clock in the kitchen was tocking away. Not ticking, *tocking*, its pitch significantly lower than normal. Tock… Tock… Tock… Tock… Tock…Tock… It tocked away, way more slowly than it should. She didn't have a good point of reference, but it seemed like several seconds were passing from one tock to the next.
	She normally would've attributed this to a fatigued spring, but she knew for a fact that the clock in the kitchen was a pendulum clock, and she'd just lubricated it the previous week. Something was definitely very wrong. Deciding to investigate, she tightened her grip on her towels and headed into the kitchen.
	The tocks grew louder as she approached the clock. Unfortunately, the clock didn't have a second hand, so she couldn't verify her suspicions at first glance. She briefly considered climbing onto a chair or a fetching a ladder to inspect the clock, but she worried about either the thick air making her lightheaded or her large gut throwing her off balance, either of which could cause her to fall, possibly shattering the large segmented mirror beneath the clock. Instead, she settled for using her magic and squinting at the clock from a distance.
	Unlatching the clock from a distance was no small feat; she had to walk around to get a good view, and then stand on her hind legs, alternately propping herself up on the counter and the kitchen table. Eventually, though, she did get the front of clock free from the backplate, and then it was a simple enough matter to carefully lower it down and set it on the table for inspection, though her telekinesis seemed clumsier as the clock, like her towels, was strangely resistant to being moved.
	Indeed, the pendulum inside the clock was swinging much more slowly than it had any right to. It wasn't just a rusty pivot point either, because it showed no sign of slowing down. This was also evidence against the possibility that the air had been replaced by something much thicker, although it certainly felt like it had. Gears turning in her head, she telekinetic ally retrieved the large metallic serving spoon from its hook over the counter, observing its similar increased inertia, and floated it over to the table, where she dropped it.
	After she released her grip from the spoon, it seemed to hang in the air for a moment before it began to fall, way more slowly than could be explained by the apparent viscosity of the air. And so, Rarity just watched in befuddled amazement as it slowly gained speed until it clattered onto the table. Or rather, her brain expected it to clatter, but instead it was more of a stretched out, pitch-shifted *tak, tak, tak tak tak tak-tak-tak-tak* sound, or series of sounds. She sighed and shook her head. "Twilight, you'd better not have broken time again…" she muttered under her breath.
	There it was again! But the Vibrations were so small this time that it was difficult to make anything out. The complexity was still recognizable, but the amplitude was so low that the details had been almost entirely lost to background noise as the Vibrations propagated from the Source. From experience, Self knew that vibrations propagated more effectively among Units with smaller Separations, so it used its newfound control of the Context to reduce the Separations all of the Entities in the Superstructure, including itself this time, so as not to introduce a confounding variable. Progression would only tell if this would be effective, but now Progression knew who its master was.

	Rarity shivered. She hadn't made note of it earlier, but in addition to being thicker, the air seemed colder as well. Finally putting the pieces together, Rarity shook her head in astonishment. It seemed as though the whole universe had been slowed down. But if that was the case, why wasn't *she* affected? Nothing was making sense anymore. Now that she at least had an idea of what was going on, she lifted the clock with her telekinesis, moving it more effectively now that she'd had some practice, and secured it to the wall more quickly than she'd detached it, remembering where all of the latches were.	
	Realizing it had been a while since she last washed the tablecloth, she turned and walked over to the sink, picking up the spoon and carrying it with her, angling it to cut through the air more effectively. When she reached the sink, she dropped the spoon in, lowering it to the bottom herself so she wouldn't have to wait for it to slowly fall. When it reached the bottom, there was a loud clonging sound that rang throughout the kitchen and the spoon bounced. Fearing the worst, she leaned over the sink and looked where the spoon had hit. She winced when she saw the small dent in the bottom of the sink.
	Shaking her head, Rarity decided to further test her hypothesis by turning on the faucet. Not wanting to break anything, she turned the golden handle slowly and carefully, and indeed the handle wasn't any more resistant to being turned than it usually was. Several seconds after she started turning the handle, water began to ooze out of the faucet, not reaching the bottom of the sink until several seconds later, where it splashed in slow motion, droplets seeming to hang in the air for several seconds before they fell back down. And then the sink started to pull away.
	No, it wasn't just getting farther away; it was actually *growing*. Thinking fast, Rarity began to turn the faucet off, wanting to be able to finish while the handles were still in her line of sight. And she was just in time too, because sure enough, before long she found herself unable to see over the edge of the counter as the sink grew out of sight.
	Looking around, she saw that it wasn't just the sink. *Everything* was growing. Except for her, of course. Or rather, it seemed more likely that *she* was *shrinking*, and everything else was staying the same. Of course, "more likely" was a relative term; ponies didn't usually just suddenly start to shrink, at least not without a cause. Then again, time didn't normally slow to a crawl either. She considered the possibility that time hadn't slowed down, but rather she had somehow been sped up. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to tell the difference.
	She thought of the time Applejack had shrunk after their first run-in with Zecora. However, from her understanding, the effects of poison joke tended to be the same whenever it effected the same pony, and her mane and tail seemed normal. She knew Twilight had insisted that there was no such thing as curses, but she couldn't help but suspect that somepony had placed a hex on her. She briefly considered Discord, but his pranks at least tended to be *interesting*, and whatever was happening to her was fairly rudimentary.
	Strangely, as she shrunk, she felt herself seem to get *heavier*. This further ruled out poison joke, because she knew Rainbow Dash had been able to hold Applejack in her mouth without dislocating her jaw. Her legs soon began to ache, and she decided to go to Twilight for help while they could still support her weight. However, soon after she started to walk, the shrinking stopped when she was just an inch or two tall.
	Before long, it became very apparent that something was very wrong. She began to feel even more lightheaded than she already had. Her vision was blurry. She was freezing. Her lungs seemed useless; she could still breathe in and out, but it wasn't helping any. She felt like she was drowning on dry land. With her legs already struggling to support her weight, this certainly didn't help matters, and it wasn't long before she collapsed onto the floor. Her lungs burning and blackness closing in from the edges of her field of vision, her life flashed before her eyes and she found herself confronting her mortality.
	If she did die here, at her size, what would happen next? Would her friends come looking for her? Would they search the house from top to bottom, not knowing what had become of her until they smelled something foul or heard a sickening crunch underhoof? Of course, there was also the possibility that they wouldn't find anything but a satisfied cat, having just enjoyed a rather hearty mouse-sized snack, but she tried not to think of that.
	As Discord covertly watched the scene unfold, he shook his head. He had no intention of letting his prank turn fatal, especially because Rarity's death would mean the death of his spawn, as well as the premature end of his prank. Oh, and because he cared about Rarity too. With a snap of his talons, he created a field around her about to shrink the air molecules she breathed in to a size she could actually use.
	Just a few seconds after she blacked out, before any permanent damage was done, Rarity found herself gradually regaining consciousness, gasping for breath as she found that her lungs were suddenly functioning again. She was still freezing cold, and she felt very heavy, and her vision was rather blurred, but at least she was alive.
	Inside her, Self was getting impatient. Nothing. There was a momentary change in the concentrations of different Varieties of Unit in the Structures of the Passage, specifically a reduced prevalence of the Eightfold Unit, but the vibrations were simply refusing to reoccur, and just waiting for them to do so was becoming very boring. To keep things interesting, Self decided set aside the Vibrations for the time being and focus its attention on experimenting with controlling different Interactions.

	No matter what Self tried, it just couldn't get the Vibrations to reoccur. It could make its own vibrations, of course, but that wouldn't help it explain the anomalous vibrations it'd observed. It could try speeding up the Progression further and further, but then it might miss some of the finer details. It made the most sense to simply focus on studying something else until they reoccurred on their own. And so, it returned the Progression of the Superstructure to its normal pace and turned its attention to the five Interactions it'd witnessed so far. On second thought, it sped back up the Progression of the Structures that were pushing it, curious to learn what lay ahead.
	Before her brain had much time to process her situation, she suddenly found herself rapidly growing back to her normal size. Wanting to avoid any more close calls, or worse, she decided to go see Twilight while she still could. Maybe she'd have some idea about what in Equestria was going on with her, and, more importantly, how to stop it.
	As she left the kitchen and made her way towards the door, she felt lighter. At first; she thought it was just an illusion caused by her legs not having to work any more, but with each step she found herself propelled farther forwards, moving like she was on a trampoline. Pretty soon, she was moving forwards without any effort of her own, like coasting on a bicycle. Not long after that, she found her hooves unable to reach the ground, and she simply floated forwards like a puck on an air hockey table. Without any way to slow herself down or change her direction, she ended up crashing into the wall to the right of the front doors.
	She felt like throwing up, as the fluid in her ears started spinning every which way, no longer having a definitive up or down to give it a fixed direction. The fact that gravity wasn't holding her food at the bottom of her stomach anymore. She decided it was probably a bad idea to try to float herself over to the library with no way to change her direction, possibly knocking ponies over along the way. And she was quickly very glad she'd made that decision.
	It wasn't long before she noticed that her personal g wasn't stopping at zero; instead of staying put, she found herself sliding up the wall at an accelerating rate, the change in gravity's direction bringing her dangerously close emptying her stomach. Not wanting to see the previous evening's snacks a second time, she tried to slow her ascent with the wall. Unfortunately, that just caused her to tumble hooves over head, the friction against the wall being just enough to add some angular momentum to her predicament. This ended up being more than enough to tip her nausea over the edge.
	However, she didn't spew like she'd been expecting. She wretched vigorously, but achieved nothing but a dry heave. This confused Rarity, because she didn't think she'd had enough time to fully digest her food, and she definitely still *felt* bloated. And yet… her stomach was apparently empty. It was a relatively minor mystery, so she just added it to the list of things that day that didn't make sense.
	Of course, there was a perfectly reasonable explanation, namely that her stomach was no longer the organ in her abdomen that was full. She didn't know this, of course, but the question quickly fell out of her mind as she tumbled up the wall and hit the ceiling, landing on her side with a groan.
	Rarity groaned and rubbed her back as slowly stood up, or, rather, down. She looked "up" at the floor, and then "down" at the ceiling. She was certainly glad that she was inside where there was a ceiling to stop her ascent. On the downside, she was now trapped in the Boutique. She really wanted to go get Twilight's help, but she also definitely didn't want Celestia to have to scrape her shattered body off of the sky. As such, the only sensible course of action was to stay put and wait for it to pass.
	She hoped the change back wouldn't happen suddenly and drop her onto the floor, neck-first. To be on the safe side, she decided to head "down" to her bedroom and stand above her bed, so she would have something to cushion her if she fell. It was difficult for her to keep traction on the sloped ceiling over the stairs, so she ended up sitting down for a controlled slide, rather than tumbling forwards and landing on her face. It was a slow slide, because of the shallow slope of the steps, but it was also safer.
	Fortunately, she still had her magic, because she would not have been able to reach her door handle otherwise. *Un*fortunately, the height of the ceiling meant that she couldn't actually climb over the top of the doorframe and into her bedroom.
	It occurred to her, however, that the ceiling was even higher in her bedroom, and, worse still, it was *sloped*. Even if the padding of the mattress would compensate for the extra height of the fall, she'd inevitably slide towards the peak of the roof and end up falling to the floor in the middle of the room. That was certainly suboptimal, and defeated the whole purpose of…
	Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door. She sighed, looking back at the slope she'd managed to slide down, one she was not keen on climbing back up. She wanted to sit down and rest for a few minutes, but she didn't want to be seen as snubbing a potential customer. Even though it was a holiday, she would prefer to greet the customer herself and clarify the matter in person. Of course, there was also the possibility of getting help herself.
	"I'm coming!" she called out, slowly making the way up the slope. It wasn't *too* difficult once she got a rhythm going, but the Boutique definitely wasn't designed to be used upside-down. Perhaps it should be, given all the strange things that had happened in Ponyville over the years. Still, she eventually made it into eyeshot of the front door and unlocked it as soon as she could reach. The knocking continued, her voice apparently not reaching and penetrating the door from the top of the stairs.
	"Come in!" she called out.
	In response, the door swung open and Sweetie Belle stepped into the Boutique. She paused for a moment and looked around. "Rarity? Where are you?"
	"Up here!" Rarity called out, waving her hooves.

	Sweetie Belle looked up as instructed and her eyes went wide. "Rarity? What're you doing up there? How did you even get up there?"
	Rarity sighed. "I wish I knew. Weird stuff like this has been happening all morning. What're you doing here, anyway?"
	Sweetie paused for a moment before responding. "Mom and Dad are going on a 'date-cation, so I'm spending today with you. You didn't remember?"
	"It just slipped my mind is all." Rarity cleared her throat. "A lot has been happening lately.
	"Why didn't you just leave the door unlocked for me? Sweetie asked. "I could've let myself in."
	Rarity shook her head. "A mare can never be too careful this time of year."
	Sweetie raised an eyebrow. "What's the worst that could happen?"
	"Well, you could end up with a baby niece or nephew fathered by whatever ruffian sneaks in here first. I have no intention of becoming a mother until I'm absolutely sure I'm ready, and that includes several steps in my career that haven't happened yet, and finding the stallion of my dreams to settle down with. I'm not letting some ruffian wander in and ruin that for me."
	Sweetie Belle sighed. "You're being paranoid. Do you really think anypony in Ponyville would actually do that? Just sneak in and… have his way with you?"
	"It's not that simple…" Rarity explained to her little sister. "Some stallions just… aren't themselves when mating season comes around. All the pheromones they're surrounded with start affecting their brains, and they do things that they'd never do if they were thinking clearly."
	"I guess that makes sense…" Sweetie said. "Diamond Tiara said she saw a pegasus stallion fly down and snatch up Twist. I'm kinda worried about her."
	Rarity shook her head. "She's probably just trying to upset you. I wouldn't worry too much about it."
	"But Diamond Tiara said he had his… *thing*… out!" Sweetie protested. "And I haven't seen Twist in a while…"
	"You rarely see her anyway…" Rarity observed. "You drifted apart after she got her cutie mark."
	Sweetie Belle shook her head. "I mean not even at school!" She sighed. "Twist is an earth pony. If he took her to a cloud house… she wouldn't be able to get out." She cleared her throat. "At least, not without… well, *jumping*…"
	Rarity gave her sister a reassuring smile. "Don't be silly. If she were taken to a cold house, she'd fall through the floor. Don't let Diamond Tiara get to you."
	"Not all pegasus houses are made entirely of cloud!" Sweetie objected. "The floor could be marble."
	Rarity sighed. "Even if it did happen, he would've let her go as soon as he'd… used her." She cleared her throat. "The effects of the pheromones don't longer very long after the stallion has… achieved release."
	"Well, what if he was just a… a bad pony?" Sweetie asked. "Maybe he wants to keep her for next year. She could be his… his broodmare! Broodfilly!" She was shaking. "Stuck there making foals for the rest of her life!"
	Rarity wished she could reach her sister to give her a hug. "Calm down, Sweetie; you're letting your imagination get the best of you." She sighed. "Diamond Tiara isn't the most reliable source of information, after all. She probably just heard Twist was going on vacation and saw an opportunity to push your buttons."
	Sweetie forced a smile. "Yeah, I guess you're right; I shouldn't just take her word for it. She's always starting rumors, so she's not very trustworthy."
	Rarity nodded. "Right. Now that that's taken care of, I have a little problem of my own that needs addressing." She pointed to the ceiling.
	Sweetie blushed. "Oh, right, that looks pretty important. I'm sorry for getting distracted."
	Rarity shook her head. "If true, that news about Twist is concerning. But even if it were the case, I'm not sure what we would do with that information. Search every cloud in Equestria?"
	Sweetie looked down at her hooves. "I guess there's nothing we really could do. Hopefully she just made the whole thing up."
	Rarity nodded. "Now, could you be a dear and fetch Twilight for me? I'd like to get this sorted out before anything else weird happens."
	Sweetie Belle chuckled. "Sure, I'll be right back. Good luck with the… ceiling." She waved goodbye and headed out the door.
	Inside her womb, Self was pleased that it had so many more vibrations to analyze. However, it's attention was focused elsewhere. Specifically, at itself. Inside the Structure, changes were taking place. Some of the long Chains in the central Mechanism were bundling more tightly together. In addition, they seemed to be *copying* themselves. In fact, they seemed to be structured such that they could replicate themselves using only the ways in which Units tended to attach to each other.
	At least, most of them did. Of the dozen of different Bundles, one of them failed to replicate itself. It was stuck in an indeterminate form, a state of flux between a four-limbed shape and a smaller three-limbed shape. Seeing that one of the two shapes was similar to that of another similar Bundle, Self used its newly discovered control over the Context on the indecisive Bundle and stabilized it into the four-limbed shape, and observed what happened.
	Once the Bundle was stabilized, Self watched as the Structure sprung into action. After it was stabilized, the last Bundle successfully replicated itself, allowing the Structure to continue. The duplicate Bundles pulled to opposite ends of the Mechanism, which divided in two. Then, the Barrier pinched off in the middle, and Self realized that she was now composed of *two* Structures, with the Matrix now connected to both of them.
	Analysis of the Vibrations could wait; this new development was worth investigating. Self yet again had to re-evaluate her self image. She wasn't an Entity. She had been a Structure. Could she now be turning into a Superstructure?