She entered the elevator and pressed the button, a button she’d began to press more and more over the past few weeks. The lift moved so smoothly that she could barely notice it, even when paying attention to it. Several minutes later it stopped and the doors hissed open, a wave of cool air flooded the room she was in and she shuddered, by instinct.
Walking out she took a look around at the hundreds of shipping containers, each filled with various supplies and repair parts. Supplies they’d need to build their new cities, from textiles to toilets to wood for structures. And repair parts to build almost a second ship, if she’d needed to repair even a small robot she’d have the parts to do it.
She picked up a tablet from a dispenser that held dozens and looked at the manifest, went to a small car designed for ponies by humans… they’re such a thoughtful race, Twilight said every time she used it, and drove down the rows. If she could, she’d take the car to another floor and drive it around the other floors, but it was designed to not work that way, a problem she didn’t think would ever be an issue, since she’d put on so much extra muscle with her workouts, as of late.
Driving the car was a fun experience and, on occasion, she had even bumped into some of the shipping crates that held various tools and items, just to see what would happen. The worst she’d experienced was a ten minute ban from driving, which she frowned upon being banned for any amount of time from such a fun tool.
Arriving at her favorite container, she opened the doors and looked around the nearly pristinely organized tool shed. Spanners, self sealing stem bolts, hammers, even a thaumic regulator; everything was in its place and happy that way. She went to her worktable and pulled the tablet to her gaze and began to scan the inventory for other useful items she would need to complete her task.
…
Taking the last panel in her hooves, she pressed it tightly into place and smiled to herself. She’d fixed her hypersleep pod! She wasted no time climbing in and getting comfortable as the pod sealed shut. The air began to be sucked from the enclosure and Twilight began to panic. She bucked like a wild horse from earth’s past and finally teleported free before she began to suffocate.
Landing on her rump her wings unfurled and she glared at the pod that wouldn’t work, that she couldn’t fix, then got up, gathered her tools into a set of work saddlebags, and returned to her shipping crate to formulate the next plan.
…
Walking into the medical bay, Twilight looked around the sterile stainless steel and silver room with doors and cabinets full of supplies. The manifest made it clear that most of the possible chemical compounds that were needed to even induce hypersleep weren’t onboard her ship… they were on the seventh ship. But, they had a handy robot that might be persuaded, through a little reprogramming, to help synthesize the compounds.
Twilight went to the human shaped robot and opened its access panel and began to read the schematics before starting her reprogramming. A simple four hundred lines of code here and a few dozen there, about two hundred times, and she’d be in luck!
The explosion wasn’t what she was expecting, but when red and black wires crossed with human technology it tended to spark. Yellow and black seemed to pop loudly. Crossing orange, yellow, and a black before powering on a robot made a nice explosion that impressed Twilight, and had she not been an alicorn, she’d certainly have lost an ear, at least. As it was, she was treated to tinnitus for several hours and the joy of cleaning robot pieces from the area before the cleaning robots could start their more detailed job.
Twilight went to the next room and looked at the medi-pod. A full surgery team for any of the non-dragon races, that could heal any ailment in a few hours, tops. Lost a leg? It’ll grow a new one. Horn cracked? It’s got an epoxy for that. Pregnant? It’ll give you a patch that delivers any missed essential vitamins for the next week of the pregnancy!
“Stuck awake on a 130 year voyage? Sorry, outta luck,” Twilight snickered at her thoughts made vocal as she turned tail and left the room. “Fluttershy?” Twilight called out. A wall hummed to life and a hologram of Fluttershy stood.
“Yes, Princess Twilight Sparkle? How can I help you?”
Twilight rolled her eyes. The computer wouldn’t stop calling her by her full name and title, no matter how nicely she asked. “Yes, I would like to schedule a massage, can I expect one soon?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Princess Twilight Sparkle, but the masseuse seems to be unavailable at the moment. I’ll schedule you one right away, though.”
Smiling, Twilight looked at Fluttershy. “And, how long will that be? Oh, about 130 years?”
“...Yes, that is close enough, can I do anything else for you?”
“Yeah, I’ve been having an itch at the base of my tail for the past couple minutes, can you have somepony scratch it?”
The next hour was spent with another set of silly requests that would flood the system when ponies woke up. Teeth needing to be set, lightbulbs that needed filling, water that needed dehydrating… Twilight was full of ideas to prank her crew, her friends would be proud of her.
She stopped when the thought crossed her mind. The past few days had been spent focusing on how to solve the problem of going back to sleep, but she hadn’t been alone long enough to really miss her friends in a very long time. It, hurt.
...
Twilight entered the dining hall and ordered her breakfast: A block of various fibrous items and a paste of some kind of marmalade, a cup of black coffee, and a peppermint candy. She took her tray of food to her table, sat down, and began to eat. She tossed some crumbles of her block of food onto the floor and play fed the robots, complimenting them on doing their jobs so well.
She cleaned her mess, dropping a little more food from her tray as she walked to feed the robots, and took her mint with her to her room. She stopped at the door and cocked her head to the side in empty thought before she turned and began to walk blindly down the hall and turned left.
She chomped loudly on her peppermint candy as she turned a corner and was greeted with a sight she didn’t know she missed; wooden paneling. She walked down the hall and looked at the plants that grew in alcoves in the wall, out of view from anypony that wasn’t walking the hall and behind glass to stop the sweet smell from filling the hall.
She stopped by a large double door and looked intently at it. It held her cutie mark etched into the oak doors and she called on her magic to open the doors. They didn’t move. She went to the panel and waved her hoof over the pad and smiled as the door chimed and unlocked.
Opening the door and walking in was like stepping into another world compared to the one she had been in. Three floors seemed to hover in the air, suspended by metals and technology that still awed her. The first floor had a full kitchen, fireplace, and a table that would easily have fit a dozen creatures.
It was where she was supposed to have her meetings and plan the colonization with the dragons that had already landed. Sites that were explored and areas safely cleared on the new world that were ready for her to settle.
The second floor had clothing, technology that inspired comfort and relaxation: a personal hot tub, a bathroom that was the size of her given room, tripled, including a shower, and a toilet that was made for ponies, not humans or minotaurs. She sniffled as she looked at it, then to the personal shower that had dozens of settings that were all designed to relax her.
She continued to the third floor and stopped, choked back a sob as she looked around, and walked to the massive comfort queen sized bed, and placed a hoof on its comforter. A space mesh created to reduce friction while locking in just the right amount of heat to even survive in space, as long as there’s air. Another proud creation of hers as a gift to the other races.
She looked to the walls and the bookshelves packed with tomes, scrolls, messages from her children and the families of ponies that would never see her again, and books. Tales from ancient archives from all the races that could write, or cared to orally tell a story; stories that couldn’t be scanned into a computer, and a bookshelf dedicated to love letters from ponies that had fallen for her, ponies that she’d never known existed.
She climbed onto the bed and began to sob to herself at what she’d given up by leaving her world behind, and what unknowns were really ahead of her, and everyone else, on this journey. She rested until she had come to terms with the events, for the moment, and called a random scroll to herself. She unrolled it then read it; a random love letter from a pony she ruled over, from Southern New Equestria, that was wishing her a voyage as beautiful as she was.
She carefully rolled it back up and replaced it, beginning to read dozens of others. She cried into some and laughed with others, her children’s children’s children had grown and spread to several nations, and covered every walk of life… so many didn’t even know their connection to her, but she knew, and that was important, nonetheless.
She rolled to her hooves from the bed and flew to the bottom floor, left the room, her suite, and went to the bar.
“Miss Twilight! As always, you’re the first customer of the day, what’ll it be?” Minnie asked as she placed the polished cup down reaching for another. Twilight finally had had enough.
“Why are you always polishing a dang glass? It’s clean, they’re all clean!” she waved a hoof at the glasses lining a shelf in the back. “What’re you doing that for? You don’t need to stay busy, you can just shut down, or standby, or whatever. What’s the bucking point!?”
Minnie smiled and grabbed another glass, wrapped a towel around her other hand, and began to polish the pristine cup. “I’m a bartender, Twilight. I stand here all day and pour drinks for dozens, or hundreds, of creatures an hour… it would be unnerving for anyone to stand still for any amount of time and stare idly at them while they talk, flirt, ask advice, or drink to forget.”
Twilight blinked at the minotaur thoughtfully. “That’s, actually... really smart,” she said softly.
“I’m programmed with some psychological techniques, as well as how to be quite the socialite,” Minnie said setting the cup down and the towel next to it on the bar. “So, Cerulean Ale?”
“Hit me with a double… wait,” she said, “give me a bottle of vodka, or rum. I want to stare into my pod again,” Twilight said dejectedly as she looked at the counter in front of her.
“Well, who am I to stop some quality brooding?” Minnie said with a smile and whirred down the bar to get a bottle of bottom shelf rum. “This’ll be a big bit on your tab, are you sure? We still charge by the shot.”
Twilight took the bottle in her magic and looked through it. “What’s my tab at now?”
“Oh, Miss, I don’t think I should tell you at this point.”
“Then this’ll be worth it,” Twilight muttered as she took the bottle and left the bar, tossing the cap to a passing robot as she went to the elevators. “Good girl, eat up and grow big and strong,” Twilight mumbled as the robot crunched the tin lid into bits before turning away.
…
Twilight drank from the bottle as she trotted down the seemingly endless ring that held the crew hypersleep pods. She demanded to be treated as an equal to the ponies she was traveling with and as such was put with the common ponies that would help make the new world a better place, each using their special talent in the right way.
Twilight had a team of fifty of the best ponies and smartest humans crunching numbers and arranging ponies based on special talents to have the perfect crew of three thousand ponies to help build the first settlements and five planned cities over the course of their lives before passing their work onto the next generation.
That didn’t include the thousand minotaur, five thousand humans, eight hundred Diamond Dogs… Twilight shook her head and continued walking, trying to not think about the lives she’d be leading to a new existence. For generations she’d be the only one to live through it all until they could establish a quick method of transit. Teleportation, or a new way to travel through space.
She passed hundreds of pods, each holding a sleeping pony that was unaware of everything. Each one essentially dead, waiting, balancing between a choice or a computer error and sending them one way or the other. She let her mind wander on various statistics from how many would be needed to survive on the new world to how many would be willing to graze in a steady rotation to maintain food supplies if there was a problem with the supply ship ahead of them, or behind them.
The bottle fell to the floor and rolled away from Twilight as her magic failed her for a second and spilled some of its liquid as it moved away. Twilight followed it, knowing that because the room was actually a ring, that it would roll forever until it was stopped by something.
She watched intently as it rolled and she followed until it stopped, finally, by a doorway. Twilight staggered slightly and looked at the porthole she’d not noticed before. “Humans and their sameness,” she mumbled as she waved her hoof over the pad and the door opened, “gotta make the walls and doors and everything the same color so I can’t see… stuff.”
She passed through the doorway and through a short corridor to an oval room with several space suits held dangling from actuating arms. “What the hay? I don’t remember this,” she said looking over to a wall paned. “What is this?” she asked.
Applejack’s voice replied with her strong accent from the nearest wall and an image of a pony in a space suit began walking in place. “Well, every pony needs ta have a lick ‘a fun, now’n again. So, we rightly set us up a rootin’ tootin’ experience that’ll knock yer socks off, so get ready ta see space up close!
“Just hop inta a suit, put on the helmet, and take a walk out yonder doors. You’ll be as safe as a pea in a pod, so don’t fret none, and enjoy the view.”
Twilight looked at the nearest space suit and approached it, poking it once with her hoof. She looked at a glowing panel on the floor and stepped on it, causing the suit to open slightly. She took a moment to climb into it and make certain it sealed itself completely before the helmet lowered and secured itself to her suit.
“Now, reckon ya might get a touch anxious and that’s alright. It ain’t natural ta do what we’re about ta do, so take yer time and don’t think yer under any pressure ta do this,” Applejack advised her through her helmet with a slight radio quality to it. A light shone above an airlock. “Just head to the doorway and walk on through, Ah’ll make sure yer safe’n sound.”
Twilight trotted to the hatch and tapped a panel with her hoof, waited for it to open, then walked into a long, narrow tube that was almost completely smooth, except for a command console at the end.
It was brighter than she expected it to be and as she reached the end Applejack’s voice came back. “Now, yer all sealed up tight so ya don’t have ta worry a bit. Now, just pull that lever to the side and tap the button ta vent the atmosphere before ya take yer first step into the vastness of the universe.”
Twilight looked at the simple handle and then reached out, pulled it down, and pressed the button. She was glad she was in the suit because the air rushing from the room was loud as it was, then the airlock opened and she saw, with the greatest clarity, space.
Staring into the vast emptiness she stumbled forward and tripped over the hatch seals before her boots hummed. “Magnetic boots activated,” the familiar voice said, “if’n ya wanna turn ‘em of, tap the icon on yer right foreleg.”
Twilight walked ahead, the sound of her breathing her only companion now as she left the airlock. “Tether attached,” the voice whispered as something clicked on Twilight’s back. Twilight walked ahead to the edge of the platform she was on and looked to her hooves.
Down was relative at this point, but she still felt a sense of vertigo looking at what wasn’t there.
She lifted her left hoof from the platform, tapped the icon on her right foreleg’s monitor, and took a step forward. She was used to flying, it was second nature at this point in her life, but this was different.
There wasn’t a fight against gravity, there wasn’t the sound or feel of air against her body. She drifted out for a few lengths then moved to place her hooves back down and began to panic as her hindbrain couldn’t register having nothing, anywhere. She calmed herself with steady breathing and let herself drift out into the great expanse of nothing beyond the ship she was in.
She looked to her side and took in the massive structure that made her feel as small and insignificant as she was at the moment, compared to what she saw around her. The front of the ship wasn’t visible, but she knew that pony magic powered the shields that kept the ship safe while human and minotaur technology was durable enough to take a beating and keep on working.
She didn’t even feel upset when they wouldn’t take her advice on redundant systems because they had that covered already. She let her mind go blank from the thoughts of the past and future and let herself simply float like a foal in the womb, her breath the only thing she could experience as she closed her eyes and let her body succumb to space.
…
Twilight secured her space suit and returned her bottle of liquor to the crook of her foreleg and took a drink. She turned to leave the oval room and stopped, then looked at the airlock. She drank the last of the bottle and felt it burning as it went to her stomach, then she dropped the bottle and staggered to the airlock… and opened the hatch.
Twilight walked to the far side of the tunnel and looked out the outer hatch, staring at the blackness, ignoring the shining stars. “Now, yer all sealed up tight so ya don’t have ta worry a bit. Now, just pull that lever to the side and tap the button ta vent the atmosphere before ya take yer first step into the vastness of the universe,” Applejack’s voice said cheerfully.
Twilight reached up and gripped the handle with her hoof and slowly pulled the handle down. She waited with bated breath as she let her right hoof hover above the button. She felt her stomach clench and her eyes filled with tears as the hovering foreleg began to shake… then she lifted the handle and returned to the oval room in a trot.
Applejack’s voice started to speak but Twilight was at a full gallop from the room and into the sleeping area before she knew it. She galloped as fast as she could, tears spilling from her eyes as she made her way down the side of the room. Passing dozens, hundreds of sleeping ponies as she went before she tripped and tumbled, rolled, and finally stopped on her side with a final thud of her head against the cool floor.
She laid there, crying at what she’d nearly done, for she didn’t care how long, until she finally composed herself enough to stand up and walk back to her suite. If she was going to be in Tartarus, she might as well make herself comfortable, she thought.
Then her gaze went over a sleeping pony. A stallion. A cute stallion. She realized she was staring and blushed, apologizing to the pony in the pod before realizing she was being foolish. She looked at the name on the display pad. “Shining Smile. Huh, nice to meet you,” she said as she looked at his sleeping form.
“Can I tell you something, Shining?” she asked and waited the normal time it would take for a pony to agree, “I almost vented myself into space a little bit ago. Like, why would I do that?” she asked him softly, “I don’t understand, I’m immortal, there’s no way I could simply die, right? Why would I have even thought of something so awful?”
She looked at him and smiled. “Yeah, I was just being weak and crazy, I guess. It’s a good thing I bumped into you here…” she stared and let her mind wander about what it would be like to see him smile and see if he fit his namesake. She felt herself beginning to blush again. “Uhm, I think I’ve gotta go, but I’ll see you later, okay?”
***
Twilight galloped into the bar and slid to a stop at the bar. Before Minnie could ask Twilight started rambling. “I found a cute stallion! I totally think I could be friends with him and we connected at a real fundamental level!”
“Well, that’s very nice to hear, Twilight. I hope you bring him by and introduce us. Finished the whole bottle, did we?”
Twilight scooted herself into her seat and rested her chin on the counter. “Yeah, and I almost did something stupid. But, then I met him. I think we can be the friends, really!”
“Well, then, why don’t you go spend time with him? Certainly beats hanging out at a bar, right?”
Twilight looked at Minnie then nodded once. “Yeah, I guess…” she said as she looked at the wall of alcohol behind the bar. “And I’m drinking more than I ever have, too. Maybe I should take a break.”
“Indeed, Twilight.”
“Thanks, for being such a good companion to me.”
“It’s what I’m here for, Twilight,” Minnie said and took a glass into her hand and began polishing it.
“And give me a coffee, black.”
***
Twilight finished her gallop around the concourse, all three levels had been graced by her hooves and she was ready for her shower, after a drink at the bar.
“Hey, Minnie!” Twilight chirped as she walked in. “Tea, please.”
“Ah, starting light today?” the robot replied as she began to pour hot water into a small kettle.
“Yeah,” Twilight panted, “just gonna shower soon and see Shining. I’ve got another story to read to him and then I guess I’ll go to the arcade for a couple hours. I’ve gotta keep my scores high,” she smiled as Minnie produced a teacup and saucer from a drawer.
“That sounds like a lovely idea, Miss. I think you’ve earned a special treat,” Minnie said as she turned and placed the tray of tea down and looked behind Twilight to the doorway. Twilight turned and her eyes widened as a series of human style robots rolled into the room and began singing Happy Birthday to her. A two tiered cake was held by one of them and as they approached she began to sniffle.
“I, can’t believe I forgot my own birthday,” she looked to Minnie, “but, how?”
“Every member is entitled to some special treats on their birthday, Twilight, regardless of the nature of their accessibility.”
Twilight listened as the robots finished the song and then looked at the six candles on her cake, made a wish to herself, then blew them out. She took the cake from the robots and placed it on the bartop, looked lovingly at it, and then without the slightest bit of decorum she plunged her muzzle into the cake and began gobbling it from the center out.
“Oh,” she shuddered once she’d eaten half the cake and taken a deep breath that she’d missed while eating, “sweet Celestia that’s amazing… I haven’t had anything this good since before I went to hypersleep. The basic breakfast I’ve been getting has been just enough, but this…” she licked her frosted muzzle and felt the sugar high beginning.
Minnie passed her an extra towel and patted her own muzzle, letting Twilight know she’d need to do better. “I can understand that. The meals set forth, by you, for the bronze members of the crew were meant to help them live for two weeks, not this long.”
“Yeah, I’m starting to think that I’m taking the whole ‘impress the other races with logic’ route has backfired on me, a little,” Twilight admitted as she wiped her muzzle. She listened as the robots left the bar and she was alone with Minnie again. “Minnie, can you watch this for a little while. I’m sorry about the mess, but I’ve gotta shower, I’m really sweaty.”
“I shall do as you command, your highness,” Minnie smiled and winked.
Twilight looked intently at Minnie. “You’ve never called me that before.”
“It’s your birthday, Twilight, I should call you by a title at least once in our time together. Until next year, anyway.”
Twilight’s ears sagged. “Yeah,” she said sliding from the seat and stepping on a robot that was cleaning the crumbs from beneath her seat, “only a hundred and some to go.”
“And there’ll be a cake with each one,” she smiled and began to move the cake from it’s place and clean the mess Twilight had made while eating.
“I’ll see you in a few hours, Minnie. Keep up the great work.”
…
Twilight exited the shower and went to her old room to groom herself. There wasn’t any reason to mess up her suite with fur and feather down if she didn’t have to. She preened her wings and then went to her suite to read some letters again.
Lying on her bed her thoughts went back to the blue stallion sleeping peacefully. She charged her magic and teleported to his sleeping pod and took a seat on the lounge chair she’d placed there and began to talk to him about her day and the past week since she’d seen him last. She covered everything she could think of that a stallion would care to hear about before she stopped and sat quietly in the silence of the endless room.
“Shining, I think you’re one of the only ponies I can trust. I wish I could spend time with you, the real you. But, I can’t exactly…” she paused and her eyes narrowed as an evil thought crossed her mind. She looked to the panel and reached a hoof to tap it. Information scrolled by and she read some of it.
“No, no I can’t wake him, even if I wanted to. The system isn’t designed to be opened early,” she looked at the pod and got up, taking several steps away and examining the structure. “Humans and their sameness,” she mumbled as she looked for a seam in the sides. She found a small crease in the smooth plastics that made the base and tugged slightly at it.
It opened with relative ease, showing several memory cores and redundant safeties. “No,” she whispered as she took a step back and closed it, looked at the stallion again, and shook her head. “I couldn’t do that to him.”
She turned and began to walk back to the elevators, glancing over her shoulder once before she galloped away.
…
Twilight slipped on the dance floor and landed on her tail with a yelp as pain shot through the back half of her body. Rolling to her belly the dancers opposite her stopped their routine and struck a pose Twilight didn’t care about as she looked at her tail and then the sweat covered, polished, game floor.
“Pinkie?!”
“What?!” Pinkie shouted back as she appeared on her pedestal, beaming a smile.
“Ugh, get me a towel and I’m gonna need some shoes to dance if I’m going to slip.”
“Awe, but you were just shaking your groove thing! I’ll get this all fixed in a jif!” Pinkie said and saluted, just before a half dozen robots came to life around the room and worked their way to the dance floor and cleaned it to a dry polish. “And the shoes you want are in the concourse, shop R-459, special, just for you. Have a fun time!”
Then Twilight was alone again. She wagged her tail and winced at the pinch she felt at the base, but it wasn’t broken and she was stronger than she was and would only weep softly for a minute or five while walking to the shop.
Entering the shop after a twenty minute walk she looked at the door and sighed. Three diamonds; Rarities specialty shop. “Of course it is,” she sighed as she walked in.
“Oh, hello darling! My, you’re not wearing anything a’tall! This must be remedied, post haste.”
An image of rarity fizzled into existence and began walking through the shop to a mechanical dress rack and as it began to move Twilight huffed. “I don’t need clothes right now, just shoes so I don’t slip on my sweat while... exercising.”
“I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer, dear,” she paused as she looked back from the clothes moving past her to Twilight, “Your Highness? Oh, my! Royalty in my shop?” she squealed and danced in place as the machine whirred faster, “shoes? Exercise? I have just the outfit.”
Three minutes later Twilight had forced herself into a yellow one piece bathsuit that she’d put over a pair of black leggings and had sweatbands on her ankles and across her furrowed brow. “Rarity, thank you, but this’ making me hot as it is.”
“All the better to help you lose weight, Your Highness! Why else would royalty need to exercise? Oh my,” Rarity’s face blushed slightly, “unless, it’s mating season.”
“No, it’s not mating season, and even if it was I can take care of, hey!”
Rarity giggled and waved a hoof. “Simply a joke, Your Highness. I’ll fetch you some shoes that’ll work best to avoid slipping in, whatever fluids cross under your hooves.”
Twilight grumbled and undressed, tossing the clothes into a pile and stomping them with a hoof. “Even the hologram can be a pain,” she sighed. Rarity returned with a small pony robot behind her, the size of a foal.
“This is my sister, she’ll be fitting you for your shoes,” Rarity beamed as the little Sweetie-bot bowed deeply.
“It’s nice to meet you, Your Highness. You honor us with your presence. Now, may I ask you to step into this sizing device. Thank you, your size is… 19? That’s, impressive. I’ll return right away with your non-slip shoes.” A moment of waiting and Sweetie-bot had left and returned with a set of hoof covering shoes.
“These are the best option for mating season, as they prevent staining to your hooves and slipping on spillage,” Sweetie-bot said sweetly as Rarity giggled into a hoof. Twilight huffed and took the shoes in her magic and turned to leave. “Thank you for your patronage, Your Highness.”
“Come again, oh my, certainly an unintentional joke…”
“I need a drink after this,” Twilight mumbled.
...
Twilight sat in her seat at the bar. “Okay, let’s say that you’re trapped on a deserted island and there’s a way to get another pony to the island with you, but you’ll be damning them to life on the island with you, what would you do?”
“What are we talking about?” Minnie asked.
“I think I can wake him up. But that’s wrong, right?”
“I, don’t understand,” Minnie said with a raised eyebrow.
“Okay, forget the island… Let’s say you can do something great for yourself, but it would be bad for somepony else, what would you do?”
Minnie thought for a moment and stopped cleaning the glass. “I think, that you’re asking the wrong person. I’m here,” she gestured to the bar, “and according to the laws of robotics I cannot knowingly bring harm to anyone.”
Twilight stared at the bartender and let her jaw slack open for a second. “I, how do you have advice for everything but this?”
“I have a lot of advice to give, but I don’t know everything. I think the answer you seek is within yourself. If you’re stuck on an island alone, perhaps having another to keep you company would be a good thing, even if it seems bad to the other.”
“So, I should do it?”
“I believe you should do what you think is best for the mare I see before me.”
“Now that’s good advice… but I can’t, it’s just wrong.”
“Then don’t do it, but know you’ll be alone on the island for a very long time…”
Twilight looked at Minnie and slumped. “I think I can wake Shining Smile from hypersleep.”
“Ah, then best of luck to you both.”
“But I can’t, it’d be damning him to the rest of his life here.”
“Then tell him and let him make the choice,” Minnie advised.
“I can’t do that unless I wake him up,” she said exasperatedly.
“Then may I suggest something?” Minnie asked. Twilight nodded. “Do what’s right, for you both. If you like this colt so much, ask him out. If he accepts great, if not, there are plenty of other ponies in Equestria.”
Twilight sighed. “I need to walk this off, and see him again. I’ve still got a few letters to read to him and that’d be a nice distraction.
***
“So, then I cast the spell and went back in time to warn myself not worry about the future… but I was so caught up with myself being from the future I couldn’t talk to myself about the past!” Twilight laughed loudly as she sat beside the pod. “I love telling that one, it’s a perfect example of hubris, with idiocy mixed in, too.”
…
Twilight finished her gallop around the concourse, not feeling as winded as when she’d started her exercise routine, and went into the bar. “The usual, Minnie.” The robot poured Twilight’s drink by the time she’d made it to the bar and took her seat. “Sorry about the sweat on the seat, again.”
“No problem, Twilight, it’s taken care of every night.”
Twilight took the ale in her hooves and drank it in one shot, panting slightly as her body relaxed from the exercise. “So, I’ve been thinking about it again, and I won’t do it. I know I’ve talked about it a lot lately, but this’ the last time, seriously this time. He’s a stallion and I’m an alicorn, there’s just no way he’d find it normal to be on a starship with me.”
…
Twilight held her black coffee in her magic. “I mean it, this is the last time I’m bringing it up, but I think if I woke him up he’d totally be okay with making friends and being with me through the rest of the voyage… What? Are you judging me?!” Twilight asked loudly as she gulped her water down from the pitcher in her hooves.
…
“Okay, if I wake him up, and then after a few years put him back to sleep with a stasis spell for a year each time then maybe he wouldn’t really mind the rest of the trip. I mean, I could make a monument to him when we arrive or even wake a few ponies up over the decades and make it seem like I’m not the only one to be awake early.”
Twilight sipped her tea with a wince at its strength.
…
“When I wake him up I’ll read to him like I have been over the last few months and then he’ll understand that I’m a sensible mare and that hating me would be foalish, besides, I’m the Princess of Friendship, everypony loves me,” Twilight said between bites of her birthday cake.
…
“When did I ever say I’d use my Princess authority to suade him to like me? I’m likable by myself…” Twilight said opening her wings widely.
...
“Twilight,” Minnie said finally, “you’ve been coming in here for… a long time, with the same conversation. If you like this colt so much, just ask him out. You’re a wonderful mare and if he doesn’t see that in you, then he’s just a daft fool.”
Twilight blinked at Minnie. “That long?”
“Yes, you run, stop by and have a drink while talking about your colt, then you leave to shower, nap, read, see your colt again, then swim, tinker with your technology… you tell me everyday of your routine, but the only problem is that it hasn’t changed.”
Twilight was silent as she looked into her almost empty glass of whiskey. “I was the same way back home, I need routines or I can go a little crazy, even as an alicorn princess I have desires that need to be met, like my desire to be noticed by others,” she smirked to herself.
“And this colt, you want him to notice you? Then why not do something to stand out from the crowd? What’ve you got to lose?”
Twilight sighed and let her mind wander. “I guess I only have one real option: I have to stop seeing him. I’ve spent so much time alone already, it can’t be much worse, right?”
“It is what you make of it,” Minnie said, refilling Twilight’s glass and capping the bottle, “just don’t regret your choice or you’ll never forgive yourself.”
***
Twilight stood over the pod holding the sleeping pony within, a look of defeat and sorrow on her expression as she lowered the toolbox to the side of the pod. She opened the control door and looked at the computer chips, large rectangles of hardened silicone that held technology she wasn’t allowed to even understand within it.
Taking one out she slipped it back a slot and took one of the control chips from her own pod and slid it into the slot. Shaking as she took a step back she closed the door and winced as the power flowed through the circuitry, sending popping and sizzling noises from within.
She watched as several actuated arms moved over him and began to inject him with medicines and chemicals as air vented into the pod with a static hiss. An electric shock was sent through him as the pod unsealed and a monitor began to beep in the slow rhythm of a pony’s heartbeat. She stumbled back and gulped as his bed was lifted from its pod and a hovering image of Fluttershy appeared before him.
“Shining Smile? How are you feeling?” the hologram asked casually and waited a few seconds before continuing. “That’s very nice to hear, Shining Smile. I’m glad you had a good hypersleep, and it looks like you’re as healthy as a horse,” the voice giggled softly, “as it were. You’ve been asleep-” Twilight picked up her tool bag and teleported away as sweat began to form on her brow.
Twilight appeared in her old room and quickly shoved the toolbag into her storage area and shut it, then lay on her old bed and trembled heavily, cursing herself for what she’d just done.