Only upwards from here.

"Am I back on the surface?"

"Are my clothes clean and free of dirt?"

"Am I in Canterlot right now?"

That was all the testing Isaac required to confirm for himself that the Root of Harmony's power was real and now in his possession. There was even a used Friendship Express train ticket in his pocket retroactively explaining why he was 'suddenly' a whole town away.

As he walked through the streets of Canterlot, heading towards the palace, Isaac ruminated on what exactly he wanted to do with this power, what his motivations were. Absolute power was already corrupting him absolutely, he knew that, so he wanted to set as strong a compass for himself as he could.

Ultimately, after everything he'd been through... Isaac just wanted to be comfortable and happy. He'd spent a good deal of his life following instructions, helping others, and sacrificing himself like the good boy/man he was supposed to be. Even after landing in a completely alien world, he'd done everything that was asked of him, challenged no one, and barely stood up for himself. He was not a confrontational sort of person, but he'd sacrificed too much in the name of trying to please everybody and satisfying nobody.

So now, with this power, he was going to make this world _good _for himself. Put himself first. Make everyone take care of him for a change, satisfy his needs. Hopefully without making the world a worse place, mind you; hopefully without making anyone suffer. But it would definitely involve crossing the line of overwriting everyone else's free will.

Isaac had a lot of fantasies, a lot of pent-up lust that required relief. He already had the perfect canvas: A world of exotic anthropomorphic mostly female ponies that appealed to his aesthetic sensibilities. It just needed an overall attitude adjustment... and maybe some more out-there kinks thrown in.

Either way, Isaac already knew who his first target was: The Princesses of Equestria.

Starting at the local level would just make a confrontation inevitable down the line. If he wanted this to go as smoothly as possible, he wanted Equestria's leaders on the same wavelength as him, supporting his goals, being his cheerleaders.

Not exactly the route with the most dramatic pacing, but it was pragmatic, darn it.

"Halt!! What business do you have with Princess Celestia?"

The royal guards flanking the grand doorway to the throne room crossed their spears in front of Isaac. Like most of the Royal Guard, they were muscular stallions in glorious armor with stern expressions that could make any ruffian flinch. But Isaac had little reason to be scared of them.

"Don't I have a private appointment with Celestia for the rest of the day?" he asked them casually.

There was no ripple through reality, no wave of transformation. Once he spoke, the answer was simply true. The royal guard on his right blinked and said, "You are Isaac, the human?"

Isaac chuckled and spun around with his arms wide, showing off his lack of tail and other conspicuously human features. "Who else would I be?" he replied sarcastically. Though his eye twitched as he realized that he was lucky that wasn't a Yes or No question... Tamping down his natural sarcasm was going to be tough, especially with how smug this power made him.

The guard showed some slight frustration on his already stern face. "It is best for the guests of our Princess to arrive early for orientation, especially on their first visits. But I will let her know that you have arrived. Once she is finished with her previous appointment, she will call for you. Wait here." With that, the guard pushed open the heavy, grand door just a crack and slipped in, leaving Isaac and the other guard outside.

There wasn't much else to talk about, so Isaac just paced in front of the door as he thought about what he was going to do next. There were practically infinite possibilities, all of which were equally possible with this reality-warping power. And if he could affect Celestia - whom Twilight Sparkle had never stopped gushing about from the moment he'd arrived - then he had little doubt he could achieve whatever dream he wished. But that just left the problem of choice paralysis, didn't it? So many paths in front of him, yet for now he could only pick just one...

The missing guard returned in the middle of Isaac's scheming. "Princess Celestia will see you now." He pushed the door behind him open some more to make room for Isaac to enter. With a heart racing faster in anticipation, Isaac passed by the guards into the throne room.

Isaac had never been in a castle before, and up to now things had been more or less what he'd expected with white stone halls and red carpets. But the throne room itself was a legitimately shocking spectacle of architecture. A giant room with stained glass windows leading up to not one but two thrones, one for the Princess of the sun and one for the Princess of the moon. Water features lined the carpeted steps leading up to the thrones, trickling down and then flowing through the grand hall in channels embedded into the floor. It lent everything an ethereal presence, like something magical was always happening in this room at all times.

There was only one other occupant, and she was perhaps even more enchanting than the room she was in. Isaac had briefly met her once before, when they were trying to figure out if it was possible to send him back home, but he'd never been alone with her like right now. She cut an imposing figure, much taller than all other mares at over nine feet tall if not ten. She was dressed in an intricate white dress with golden jewelry on her horn, wrists, and ankles, looking for all the world like a Greek goddess crossed with a winged unicorn. And though her dress was not tight enough to show off her curves, it was clear that she still possessed a regal hourglass figure beneath her dress, made all the more pronounced because of her height as she towered over all others.

"Ah, Isaac!" she called out with a smile that he could see from across the entire room, her voice regal and comforting, almost affable in an unexpected and disarming way. "Please, you've come a long way, feel free to approach. We have the rest of the day, after all."

Even though this was only possible because he'd asked a magical question, the thought that this veritable demigoddess wanted to spend the rest of her royal day with him, a mere commoner, made Isaac's heart trip over itself in a giddy way. And that was before various fantasies flitted through his mind of all the possibilities he could make real with the Root of Honesty...

He barely spoke as he climbed up the steps to the throne where she sat, and she noticed how quiet he was. "Cat got your tongue, human?" she asked playfully.

Well, this was off to a great start. He was a veritable God of this world, and he could barely withstand the slightest positive attention from a stunningly beautiful lady. All he could do was blush and rub the back of his head as he struggled to find a polite place to look. "I know we met before, but... that was a whole different thing."

Celestia nodded with a slight frown, her auroral mane waving in the nonexistent wind, its various glowing colors shining off her white coat and framing her face in a comforting glow. "I'm so sorry we never found a safe way to send you home. I know that you may not feel like a citizen of Equestria, but I want to assure you that, as far as I'm concerned, you are just as much under my protection as any of my little ponies."

Now Isaac was starting to feel like an asshole, unable to make eye contact with her at all. He'd basically come here with the almost express purpose of corrupting Celestia into some kind of kinky pleasure ****, but here she was, making amends unprompted. "Th-Thank you..."

"I know you must be nervous, being in the presence of the highest power in the land, but there's no rush. I've cleared my schedule for today," Celestia assured him, smiling gently once again. "I'm sure you must be wondering why."

Come to mention it, if reality had changed because of his question, that still meant there had to be a reason for all this. Isaac's curiosity was piqued. "Yeah, why?" Phew, another safe ambiguous question.

Celestia let out a little disappointed sigh and glanced aside. "Because I've read Twilight's reports on your progress. How you've had trouble making friends with ponies, adjusting to living here. Twilight is quite the expert when it comes to making new friends, but... when there are deeper issues at play, she struggles sometimes. I thought, perhaps, that having somepony else in your corner might be fruitful."

Damn, it really sounded like Celestia cared about him, which was not the vibe he was getting from just about every other mare. "Aren't you...?" Isaac paused and stopped himself from asking a triggering question and thought carefully about what to say next. "I'm just surprised you'd take a personal interest in my case when you've got a country to run."

Celestia put a hand upon her chest, which didn't help Isaac's eyes pretend not to be tracing her curves. "I feel responsible for how things have been going for you. You've been dropped into my nation, among my ponies, who look to me for guidance. If they've failed you socially, I can't help but wonder if I've failed them AND you. ...But perhaps we're getting ahead of ourselves."

Isaac's plans to warp reality in his own image were momentarily forgotten. "I don't know about failing me, it's just... Everyone just kind of gives me a wide berth, and I don't know if I'm offending them somehow."

"I have a theory about that, though it might come off as a little unavoidably rude," Celestia replied. She stood up from her throne, rising up to her full height, three and a half feet taller than Isaac at least. Looking down at him, she said, "I know Twilight asked many questions about your world, and from what you've told us, your world has a more... masculine tilt than ours. The way she tested your senses, humans aren't as sensitive as ponies are, as well."

Sure enough, the first week or so of living in Equestria had involved Twilight Sparkle strapping a lot of instruments to his body and running him through a battery of tests and questionnaires. "That sounds about right."

"Well..." Celestia took a deep breath, her nostrils flaring, then let out a sigh. "Simply put, you humans have strong, unusual pheromones, and the mares around you might not be sure how to react."

Isaac's eyes went wide in alarm. "Wait, do I st-?" He covered his hands over his mouth before he could make a fatal mistake with the Root. "...Please tell me I don't stink."

"It's not a stink, per se," Celestia replied with a thoughtful frown. "More in the sense that you broadcast the state of your body and emotions through scent signals. Your sorrows, your hungers, your... needs..."

...Oh shit. If Isaac's body was basically announcing 'I'M LONELY AND HORNY' through smell all the time, then no fucking wonder every mare with a working nose was awkward around him.

"Hailing from a different world with different evolutions, it's simply a strange, different bouquet with signals we might not know how to read, or are misinterpreting," Celestia continued, a tinge of pink on her white cheeks. "Plus... you are male, and you've probably noticed the gender ratio is greatly skewed in favor of females in this world."

Isaac ran a hand through his hair. "Well... damn. I guess that's better than everyone shunning me for no reason, but... it's not like I can just stop being me."

Celestia nodded sympathetically. "It is a difficult situation. That's why I wanted to confirm it for myself. We don't have to solve it right away, but I thought perhaps we might spend the rest of the day brainstorming possible solutions for this unusual problem. Maybe there's a special kind of soap we can apply, or maybe we relocate you someplace where there are slightly more males. We have the rest of the afternoon and evening to discuss, no pressure." She gave him another reassuring smile. "Have you had lunch? I can have something brought over from the royal kitchen."

But Isaac was now lost in thought. Part of his determination had come from how bad he felt for all these exotic alien mares basically refusing to approach him with a ten-foot pole for weeks on end. Now he knew the reason why, and why no one before could have even articulated the reason - it was working on a fundamental level that no one even really thought about. The question was: Did that change his decision to use the Root's power? Did he still have a reason to overwrite the world so aggressively when his woes were no direct fault of theirs?

Then again... Random fucking chance had landed him in a world where, just because he was a different species with different biology, everyone around him avoided him. Social interaction was next to impossible for him and him alone in a world that thrived on in-person social interaction. He'd been dealt a hand of all jokers.

No, this reality NEEDED to change. If random chance was going to deal him a shitty hand, he was going to pull out all the aces up his sleeve. The calculus didn't change. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Isaac looked up at Celestia with a burning determination in his eyes, and, for a moment, the demigoddess towering over him looked a little taken aback.