Machinations of the Worlds

by SoraPiroB

Clockwork

Where does a world come from when it is born? What god decides when to create a new reality? Why would they do it? Is it merely on a whim? To exercise their powers lest they become forgotten? Or maybe they wish to tell stories? To bring to life some desire or dream? Then who are we, subjects of these gods, but an audience, or the actors?

Deep in the Royal Vaults, a dusty glass case sat among centuries worth of junk. Here, many artifacts of ages gone by lay here, preserved and forgotten, collecting dust and slowly deteriorating as the spells that preserved them weakened and faded. Many were gifts to the Princesses, others were items discovered as explorers ventured out past the borders of Equestria. Some ended up in museums, others were displayed in the palace itself. Those that were mostly uninteresting, unsightly, or dangerous ended up moldering away in the Vaults.
Here, in the case, sat a clockwork facsimile of a pony, the brass and copper composing its body faintly reflecting the dim lights within the vault. It was modeled after a unicorn, the bronze horn atop its maneless head coming to a sharp point instead of the dull tip found on actual unicorns. It was almost completely covered in copper plating, leaving the joints uncovered and gaps between a few of the plates to allow ease of movement. The inner workings of this clockwork pony could be seen between the plates, numerous gears, armaments, and springs of varying sizes that would work together to make the pony move. Attached to its chest were two small mechanical arms, each two feet long when fully extended and ending in three long fingers that could manipulate objects as small as a grain of rice. When not in use, the arms folded up and laid flush against its chest. It had two large glass orbs for eyes, both filled with a translucent blue liquid with a tiny light bulb suspended in each to serve as pupils. On its flanks was the image of two interlocked gears, etched in the copper and traced in silver filigree, and for a tail dangled dozens of thin chains.
The clockwork pony had been designed and built about eight centuries prior by two ponies who sought eternal life, deciding that a reasonable solution was to create bodies that never aged or caught disease. The only issue with their plan was being able to successfully transfer and contain a pony soul within the new body, as well as finding a viable way to power it indefinitely. Their project was abandoned after the passing of one of its creators, and the disappearance of the other. So the automaton was displayed for some time in the school where one of the creators taught, but was then moved into the vault after the building was remodeled during the expansion of Canterlot. The years went by, and eventually the clockwork pony and its creators were forgotten.
In the dimly-lit room, several things happened in quick succession. First, an oak table dating back three centuries before the banishment of Nightmare Moon gave way, two of its legs snapping from the weight of all the objects stacked on top of it. These contents were then strewn about the floor, a large urn rolling into an old set of armor. This then fell over into the case containing the clockwork pony, shattering the glass. The automaton was knocked into an ancient statue of Commander Hurricane, the leader of the Pegasus tribe prior to the creation of Equestria. The ancient helm placed atop the statue's head was knocked off, unintentionally setting off a spell wrought into the metal that released lightning into the room. This magical bolt struck the mechanical pony on its horn, simultaneously creating a fissure in the fabric of reality.
Beyond the hole was emptiness, a chasm filled with neither light nor darkness. The pony fell through, tumbling into the void between worlds. As the tear in the Veil of Equestria slowly healed itself shut, the head of the automaton swiveled towards it, slowly coming to the realization that it was now, in fact, alive. Soon after, it would come to know that it was alone, trapped drifting endlessly through the Chasm. Rotating its body towards the direction it was drifting, it came to terms with its existence. Here it was, a pony made of gears and springs, alive for exactly 6 minutes and 17 seconds, drifting in the space between worlds, where nopony has ever been before. It shook its head and sighed, a feat only made possible by the miniature gramophone that served as its voice box.
As it drifted through space, the clockwork pony worked on creating its own identity. Despite having only been alive since it had been hurled into the Chasm, it retained memories of its existence since the completion of its construction. From those memories, it was able to glean some insight to the nature of ponydom and life. It created a name for itself, Clockwork, unimaginative yet fitting. It realized that it could feel emotions, albeit subdued compared to those felt by normal ponies. For the most part of its journey aimlessly wandering through the Void, all it could manage to feel was boredom, melancholy, and loneliness.
It began to take notice of the Void, and of the differing realities the drifted through it. To its mechanical eyes, each world seemed to be a giant bubble, of neither gas nor liquid nor solid, but existing all the same. The surface of each bubble seemed to vibrate, each at different frequencies, no two worlds having the same. Sometimes the skin of a world would bulge and twist, and in some cases sections would split off, creating brand new realities, birthed by the whim of some god. Occasionally, the bubbles would drift towards each other and collide, their surfaces pressed so close together that they become so thin and fragile that they sometimes rip and form fissures, linking one world to another. Other times, some event within each world would tear a hole into the Chasm itself, much like the one that sent the clockwork pony on its current path.
While it pondered its lot in life, Clockwork noticed that he was hurtling toward the Veil of some alien world, its surface undulating like kittens playing under a blanket. As it watched, a fissure ripped itself into existence, a tear barely large enough for him to slip through. Tumbling through the tear, he immediately found himself submerged at the bottom of a river, at the foot of an enormous waterfall. As Clockwork dragged itself out of the river and looked towards the source at the top of the waterfall, it froze, and would have gasped in shock had it any lungs to perform the action.
As it stared up at the tall mountain, it could see the tall white spires of Canterlot. Clockwork shook its head roughly, scarcely believing its glass eyes. Here it was, not that far from the very city of its creation, and yet it knew that it couldn't be, since its path through the Void carried it straight away from its home world. It soon confirmed that this world was indeed different, noting subtle differences in the placement of several spires and buildings. It shook its head, unable to believe that he had been able to appear in a world nearly identical to his own.
Turning away from the waterfall, Clockwork spotted a bright glimmering in the water, near the spot where it had emerged. Wading into the river and grabbing the object with its mouth, Clockwork took it ashore and wiped away the mud and silt with a hoof. It was an amethyst brooch, set into platinum. It was slightly cracked, and glowed faintly from within like the morning sun. Rinsing it off with water from the falls, Clockwork attached the brooch to the front of its chest, holding it in place with its mechanical hands.
The automaton turned back towards Canterlot, deciding to find the owner of the brooch and return it to them. But as it watched, it spotted a black spot in the sky close to the top of the mountain. The spot grew rapidly, growing into a large inky boulder, glowing slightly from friction with the air as it hurtled to the ground. The ground shook as the boulder clipped the summit of the mountain, sending rubble into the city below, and a huge explosion threw Clockwork into the air as it landed at the foot of the mountain range. As it tumbled through the sky, the mechanical pony was able to see a large black pool appear around the boulder, right before becoming blinded by a bright light and appearing in the Chasm.