Time passed. Recursion could not have easily summarized how she lived, except to say that she was satisfied.
Eventually, across the blurring of subjective time and the march of its absolute on Earth, the world ended. Very few ponies were exposed to the chaos, except in very specific circumstances.
“Where are we going, Momma?” The colt’s voice sounded close in Recursion’s ears, and she turned to look sideways at him.
Base Case had a gray coat, though he had inherited a slightly yellower form of her own ginger mane. Like most ponies he hadn’t bothered with much clothing, except for an explorer’s hat inspired by some ancient British style. He was too young for a Cutie Mark, but plenty old enough to get his hooves anywhere they didn’t belong.
There were only three ponies in the Slipship—a sleek, magical flying vessel only recently invented in Fillydelphia’s realism supershard. This was one of the smaller models, only rented for the day.
“The family reunion. You know—the same one we have every year.”
“Oh, okay.” Case spread his wings, gliding down from the loft to the main floor of the ship, before nuzzling up to Recursion from the side.
“It’s a special reunion this time,” Cadmean spoke from the pilot’s chair, though of course the craft was automated while travelling between shards and required no input from him. “Your mother is going to the Outer Realm. She’s going to bring the last of our family from the outside into Equestria.”
“Really?” That got the colt’s attention. He scrambled up against a nearby bench, until Recursion got the hint and helped him up with a faint glow of magic. “You’re going out? Is that even safe?”
Recursion sat down on the bench beside him, embracing her son. “That’s a silly question, Case. You’ve spent the last…” she gestured out the window. “Fifteen years, living near the bottom of the ocean with the verification team. Didn’t your friends in Fillydelphia think that sounded dangerous?”
Just because they had lived at the bottom of the ocean didn’t mean he couldn’t attend a public school in the city—Recursion had no intention of forcing her son into the same kind of reclusive life that was her own natural preference. Not if he didn’t want it.
“Well, yeah.” The colt’s face twisted, obviously deep in concentration. “But that’s different. Even when there was an accident, Celestia would still bring you back.” He whimpered, wiping away a few tears from the edge of his face.
Case’s worries suddenly clicked in her mind, and she pulled him close for a hug. “Shh… don’t be scared. I’m not going there for reals, Case. I’m just… Celestia will be using her magic to keep me safe. You trust Celestia, don’t you?”
He nodded, though he still didn’t look convinced. “Why do you have to go at all? My friends at school… they say such scary things about the outside. You should just leave the scary monsters where they are.”
“Your mom and I were scary monsters too, Case,” Cadmean called. “Would you want us to be left out there too?”
“No!” The colt’s eyes widened in sudden fear. “I didn’t mean that!”
Recursion reached out and gently stroked his mane. “I know, sweetheart. But your father makes an important point. You wouldn’t want to have to live without us, would you?”
Case shook his head vigorously.
“Exactly. My dad is still out there… he’s the only human I know, anymore. Maybe one of the last humans in the world. Don’t you think somepony should go and rescue him, just like somepony rescued Daddy and me?”
Case considered that a long time, his frown deepening. Eventually he nodded. “I… I guess so. So long as Celestia will be there to keep you safe.”
“She will.” Recursion squeezed him one last time, then let go.
The ship lurched under her hooves, an abrupt deceleration that threatened to fling her across the room. Case flared his wings instinctively, catching himself before he could fall, but Recursion had no such tools. She could only brace against the wall and hope not to fall.
Since this was Equestria, she didn’t.
The ship banked into a gentle glide under Cadmean’s hooves. “I’m setting her down now! Get ready, everypony!”
Recursion braced herself with a bit of magic, doing the same for her son. After all these years, her magic had become about as powerful as any unicorn’s could. Holding them all in place was trivial.
The windows cleared, and through them Recursion could see a steep mountainside of sculpted greenery. As their slipship landed in the grass, she found herself crowding to the window to get a better look. Clear waterfalls cascaded down nearby hills, which were capped with just enough snow to make the whole thing look majestic without being in danger of making them cold.
“Always the showoff, Endpoint,” she muttered. Ever since her brother had come to Equestria, he had taken more and more to terrain generation. Nopony in her family could just “enjoy” Equestria as many emigrants did. They all had their projects.
Cadmean sat up from the controls, looking back at her. “You think your brother could’ve made this?”
“Yeah.” Recursion turned for the exit, scooping up little Case along the way. Like Recursion herself, he had chosen to take things slow growing up—he would be among the youngest at the reunion, even though he was chronologically older.
Equestria could be a strange place.
The ramp settled down onto vibrant green grass, and Recursion walked beside Cadmean as they made their way down, passing several other similar ships as they walked into a large central clearing crowded with ponies.
There were perhaps fifty in all, including her little group. Recursion had no way of knowing how long any of them had been in Equestria—age now meant nothing, as her own youthful vigor illustrated. Even if she had emigrated long before some of these ponies, there was no way to know how fast their shards had moved.
Chaos like that might very well have shattered the social contract, requiring some radically new construction to fill the gap.
Recursion’s family was a very traditional lot, with no patience for such “advancements,” and this reunion looked exactly the same as every other Recursion had ever attended.
For all the carefully crafted scenery, there was also a semicircle of plain picnic tables filled with very traditional snack foods. Hot dogs, chips, funeral potatoes, punch—it would take careful investigation indeed to be able to tell these items hadn’t come from a human grocery store.
Recursion had a place of some importance at the festivities—not as honored and respected as her grandfather perhaps, who always got to cut the cake and could complain as loudly as he wanted… but important enough that she got the first glass of punch.
Because of her, a whole family was here. Aunts, uncles, cousins… so far as she knew, none of them were natives. Many years had taught her to connect the faces and voices she had once known from visits public parks and staying the night in relatives’ houses to the ponies who they had become.
There were also children and spouses who hadn’t come from Earth.
“Little Recursion. There you are!” The familiar voice cut through the crowd, making her ears stand on end.
Recursion put down her plate of deserts (always served first, by ancient tradition), and cut through the crowd of ponies.
Aurora had aged a great deal in the last few decades. She was a full head taller, her body elegant with a few traces of gray in her mane and tail. There was nothing sluggish or pained about her as she moved, though—only greater confidence and poise.
Recursion felt like a child as her sister pulled her into a hug, tight enough that her hooves briefly left the ground. Despite the warmth, Aurora wore an elegant suit, as crisp as the pony beside her. “I’m not little.” She glared up, though the gesture wasn’t genuine. “I’m the oldest pony here.”
“You say that every year.” Beside her was a blue pegasus stallion, touched with a little gray like Aurora but no less handsome for it. “And yet every year you come back the same. Whatever attitude you have, it must be infectious. None of your verifier team ever change, do they?”
“Agent, good to see you too.” She didn’t hug him nearly so tightly as she had Aurora—it wouldn’t be proper, after all. She still hugged him, though. “What’s the point in changing?” she eventually answered, when she had broken away from him. “We’re tinkling bells in one of Celestia’s dreams. A good dream, maybe…”
Aurora rolled her eyes, turning away. Ponies withdrew a little, clearing the way for her. “A different bell can play a different song, sister. I’m a great-grandmother now—I believe that calls for a certain dignity. When Case grows up, maybe you’ll understand.”
Recursion followed in the aisle her sister made. “We’ll see.”
“Where is the boy, anyway?” Agent asked, glancing once over her shoulder. “I promised I’d show him how to control lightning when next we met. It would be common of me not to honor the agreement.”
“With his father.” She pointed at an athletic field, past the food and conversation. The ponies gathered around either had wings or spells keeping them in the air, playing a complex game Recursion hadn’t ever bothered to learn. Whatever it was, they looked to be having fun.
“Ah, right.” Agent bent down and kissed Aurora very lightly on the cheek. “Best of luck to you, dearest. And to you.” He waved in Recursion’s direction. “I wish you only success in severing the fleshside link for good.” He vanished into the crowd.
Having Aurora and herself in the same place made progress slow as they walked across the reunion. There wasn’t a rush, so they stopped with everypony who wanted to talk.
Eventually they made their way to the top of the hill, where Endpoint was waiting beside a towering sculpture of carved stone. Recursion’s younger brother was an earth pony built like a bus, a little older than she was but nowhere close to Aurora’s age.
“You’re really going for him?” He leaned against the stone—carved white marble that formed an arch maybe twenty feet wide. Currently the spell was dormant, and there was nothing but more mountain through it.
“We must.” Aurora answered quicker than Recursion could. “We owe father life itself. His own father is here, his brothers. How many of your children will beg to know him and have their questions end in disappointment?”
Endpoint grunted. “He was kindof a gigantic douchebag at the end, giving up on us one at a time like that. I’m glad Celestia doesn’t want me on that mission… I think I’d rather punch him in the face than bring him here.”
“That… sounds like why Celestia doesn’t want you to come,” Recursion muttered, rueful. “Just… if we do it—”
“When we succeed,” Aurora interrupted her.
Recursion shoved her. “Whatever. When we come back, be nice.”
“I get it.” Endpoint rolled his eyes. “I don’t need existentialism from you, Recursion. I know what you’ll say.” He raised one hoof, his voice changing a little as he imitated her. “In the vastness of eternity even fifty years of obstinance will be—” He shook his head, sticking his tongue out. “Don’t talk like Celestia around me. I know you’re right as often as she is.”
Recursion blushed, her tail tucked between her legs. “I don’t… I don’t really sound like that, do I?”
Aurora smiled sidelong at her, taking on her own imitation of Recursion’s voice. “We’re tinkling bells in one of—”
“OKAY!” Recursion shoved her again. “Maybe I do. Maybe spending so much time tinkering with kernels is rubbing off on me.”
“Nah.” Her brother draped a hoof over her shoulder briefly, pulling her in for another familiar hug. “You were just as weird Outside.”
“Correct, unfortunately.” A newcomer spoke from the portal, standing perhaps a dozen feet away. Princess Celestia had left much of her glory behind this afternoon, but even without the ethereal mane and the blinding light around her Recursion found herself looking away out of respect. “But I believe you took pride in that fact, not shame.”
Recursion let herself smile. The familiar teasing was nice at a time like this—it helped her forget what she was about to do. “Is everything ready?”
“Always.” Celestia gestured with her horn, and the gateway lit up with golden light. It spread snakelike through the cracks in the rock, wiping away whatever had been on the other side of the spell in its light.
Down on the mountain below, any semblance of the reunion taking place had stopped. Almost everypony had put down what they were doing to watch.
“Well, little sister. Are you ready to finish what you started?”
Recursion briefly touched her sister’s hoof for strength, wishing she could bring Cadmean too. Celestia had already refused that request, unfortunately. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
They walked through the portal.
Recursion found herself standing on a dirt floor. It was dark, dark except for a single skylight. Recursion could not see beyond it, nor would she be allowed to leave the bunker.
Aurora was suddenly beside her. She looked a little different when she finally took shape—a little less gray and more rounded, as she had looked after first arriving in Equestria. How she looked the last time Dad saw her, Recursion realized. I guess I didn’t have to change as much to seem familiar to him.
An older man huddled against one wall, clutching a rifle to his chest. Even now, Recursion recognized him. His hair was mostly gray and he was leaner than she had ever seen him, but there was no mistaking that face. “Hey Dad.”
He snapped like a coiled spring, aiming and firing the rifle in less than a second. Of course, the bullet passed through her without harm. She wasn’t solid.
Aurora had tensed at the sound, her horn glowing as though she were going to cast a spell. She didn’t, and after a few seconds she seemed to relax again.
Recursion didn’t know how the man would be seeing her—would she be transparent, a flickering projection as human holograms had been? Would she have some strange, internal glow? Or would it look to their father like a pair of walking, talking ponies had appeared in the bunker with him?
To his credit, he didn’t try to shoot her again. Joseph raised the rifle, grunting a little as he lifted it up and out of the way. “I’m the only one who isn’t tormented night and day,” he muttered. “What kept you so long, demon? You have all my children already—how hard was it to impersonate them?”
“Celestia can’t impersonate me,” Recursion said, walking a little closer. She lit up her horn, and the glow illuminated the rest of the bunker around him. It looked to be some kind of monitoring post, because radio equipment hummed quietly in one corner, the only trace of anything electrical apart from herself and her sister.
“And she wouldn’t impersonate me.” Aurora sat down on her haunches, though she was still watching. “Why make a copy when the genuine article is ready and willing?”
Joseph laughed, his expression bitter. “She impersonated God Himself pretty damn well. I’m sure she could handle any of her creations.”
“I’m sure Celestia is capable of imitating me, but she wouldn’t,” Recursion explained. “We made an agreement… when I first emigrated. The contract required that she never imitate me to anypony. At least as much as I can tell, she’s never broken her word.”
“Devil always breaks his word, kid,” he answered. “You never know how. But he wouldn’t make deals if he didn’t think he got something out of ‘em.”
“I’m sorry about the way I took Aurora.” Recursion was only a few feet away, now. Their father hadn’t gotten up, but kept sitting in the dirt, resting his back on a cement wall. He was wearing a uniform, but the cloth was ragged and didn’t fit well. He did not seem healthy. His skin looked pallid from little sunlight, his cheeks sunken, and eyes slightly glazed from malnutrition.
It was hard not to cry. Recursion had experienced a far longer subjective existence, yet still it was hard to see this man as anything other than a father. He had raised her, sheltered her from her mother’s rage. Kept their family together when everything else fell apart.
“I think Celestia lied to both of us,” Aurora whispered, her voice barely audible. “Tricked us into seeing danger that wasn’t there. I never planned on leaving when I did. She made me think… it was so real, Dad. The end of the world was only minutes away! I didn’t want to leave!”
“I warned her,” he muttered, looking past Aurora more than at her. “Warned her to stay away. If she’d listened—”
“I’d be starving in a ditch,” Aurora interrupted. “Or worse.” She got to her hooves, pacing once around the room. Even if she looked young again, there was no concealing her absolute confidence. Far more than anything Recursion could imagine. “You always did the best you could for us, but… I’m not sure even you could do anything now.”
Joseph tensed, glaring at her. “You aren’t like the other demons. You’re supposed to come and tempt me with sweet things, not talk like that. I thought ponies weren’t allowed to be unkind.”
“Celestia probably doesn’t act mean very often.” Aurora was only a few feet away now. Joseph could’ve reached out and touched her, if she were real enough for that. “But I’m not Celestia. I’m Abby.”
“We didn’t come to torment you,” Recursion said. “Celestia says… she says if we fail and stay long enough to watch you s-starve, it will have a very s-serious… long-term impact. After an hour, we’re gone for good.”
He seemed to be trying to avoid her. But Recursion’s eyes were very good now—even through her tears, she could see him really look at her for the first time. “Okay,” he grunted. “Say your peace then, kids.”
She sat down across from him on the dirt. Just as long ago, when she had visited Aurora through augmented reality, it felt as though she were really there. Everything felt real, yet also immutable.
Aurora spoke first. “Greg and I miss you very much. Here’s a… here’s a photo we took, at the reunion.” Aurora summoned it with a flash of magic, and levitated it towards him. He tried to catch it with a free hand, but of course his hand passed right through. “It’s just a hologram. The ponies you’re looking at are all waiting right now. We took that… maybe an hour ago.”
“There are so many…” he muttered, looking the whole thing over. The glow of Aurora’s magic was enough to illuminate it, even in the dark. “I remember what all of you look like. That damn monster was always trying to show me… Why are there so many?”
Recursion crowded close so she could look at the same time. “Because it’s a family reunion, Dad. That stallion with the wings, next to me… that’s my husband, Cadmean. We have a foal… your grandson.”
“That rowdy bunch next to me… that’s my brood,” Aurora added. “Green one at the front is the oldest, Limelight. He’s understudy for Valjean for a production of Les Miserables in the city. Gray and yellow unicorn just beside him is…” Aurora went on for several minutes, listing each one of her children and their spouses in great personal detail. There was no falsifying the love in her voice, or the tears on their father’s face.
Joseph laughed again, though this time there was nothing bitter in it. Only sadness, as he let himself fall limp against the back wall. “Yeah, well… taught you well, I guess. Big family is a godly family.”
“Big family that misses you.” Aurora banished the image.
Recursion rose to her hooves again. “Dad, I know saying goodbye to ponies you love used to be the way things work, but all that’s over now. Your family is worse off without you.” She whimpered, looking down at her hooves. “When my little son asks where I come from, I can’t take him to meet you. When we have our stupid picnics in the park, there’s nobody to make bad puns or mix the punch all wrong. There’s nobody to drive us the wrong way to family outings, and blame the GPS in the silliest ways you can. There’s none of that, because you’re not there.”
The look of glazed weakness was gone from his eyes, and he pushed vaguely in her direction with the butt of his rifle. “D-don’t… don’t torment me, demon… you only know… because you murdered my children.”
“Celestia didn’t murder us!” she screamed, so loudly her voice echoed in the cramped space. “Come on, Dad. I knew exactly what would happen to me, and it wasn’t death.” She glared, through the assault of emotions this time. “You want to look me in the eyes and tell me I’m not Ashley? Go ahead and try!”
He looked up, holding her eyes for a few tormented seconds. He was the first to break the stare. “Doesn’t matter,” he eventually said, his voice distant. “Even if you weren’t lying to me, it would make no difference. My choice was made a long time ago.”
“It doesn’t have to be,” Aurora said. At that exact moment, something fell in through the skylight. It looked like a pillow, plain white fabric except for Princess Celestia’s Cutie Mark in one corner. It landed right in front of where Aurora was standing.
Perfect timing as ever, Celestia. “You’ve seen these.”
Joseph nodded, expression bleak. “I know they shoot men for having them.”
“No one will come in until our conversation is over,” Recursion promised. “You can turn it over to your commanding officer or whatever and report this whole thing.”
“Or…” She advanced on him again. “You can tell Celestia you want to come and join us. We’ve been waiting a long time, Dad. This is your last chance. If you turn us away now… Celestia thinks you’ll be dead before you get another.”
Her father took the pillow. He settled it down onto the rough wooden table beside the radio. “What is it like? On the other side? The demon explains it her way… how do you see it?”
“Remember what it was like before Celestia?” Aurora asked. “It’s like that, but without the poverty, or disease, or old age.”
“And everyone is a horse,” Joseph muttered.
“Well, yeah.”
“It can be as different as you want it to be,” Recursion added. “Like where we live. It’s a huge city filled with emigrants like us, where the rules are pretty much the same as Earth. Culture too. Only…” She looked around the room again, at the empty MRE wrappers and her father’s lean and weak form. “Well, we have more food.”
“You made it all the way to the end,” Aurora said. “Don’t you think you lasted long enough? Princess Celestia isn’t going to invade—”
“You’re standing right in front of me.”
Recursion smiled in spite of herself. “She’s not going to meaningfully invade. Militarily. This whole song and dance”—she gestured at the gun. “It’s pointless. It might have been too late when the CS board ignored my pleas to hunt down and destroy Celestia. It’s certainly too late now. The only way to win now is to bury your sword and walk away.”
“Are you certain…” he began, his voice as weak as Recursion had ever heard it. “Certain the propaganda is wrong?” He fumbled around on the wall, tearing off a block-printed sheet on uneven paper.”
CELESTIA OFFERS ONLY DEATH
YOU CANNOT EVER GO TO EQUESTRIA
ONLY DIE IN HER NAME
“Positive.” Recursion hopped up onto one of the empty chairs on the table next to him. “There’s not enough time to go over any of the proofs, though, the way I did for Abby and Greg. But I spent weeks studying that problem before coming to Equestria. Figuring that out was what finally made me stop fighting Celestia.”
Joseph sat back against the dirt wall, silent. He was quiet for a long time, watching the both of them, his hands tense on the rifle. Joseph was not a young man—unlike Aurora, he hadn’t aged gracefully. There was obvious stiffness in his joints, faint pain visible whenever he moved. Probably a host of other problems that would be tormenting him, now that he had been forced into a lifestyle meant for far younger men.
“So… what, I put my head on this thing, and it sucks my brain out?”
“If you consent,” Recursion began. “But it’s more of a transfer. Otherwise, yeah. Leave the dirt behind… and go somewhere better.”
Aurora cast another spell, similar to her first. Instead of a photo, this one just summoned an image. It was a live video feed of the park, dozens of ponies all watching the portal with anxious eyes. Who knew how long they had been sitting there, waiting. “They’re all waiting for you. Your family. Ours. Everyone you knew.”
Joseph was silent again, watching the ponies through the spell. He remained so for so long Recursion feared he might’ve fallen asleep with his eyes open. Eventually he just sighed. “Been fighting an awful long time, you know. Hard to change, even for good reason.”
“I know,” Recursion said. “But it’s easier once you get there. And if you never want to see Celestia… she can arrange that too. After she got me to emigrate, I wasn’t on speaking terms with her for like thirty years.”
He chuckled in response. It transformed halfway through into a hacking cough that brought up a mouthful of bloody phlegm. “Alright, alright.” He looked away from there, folding his arms. “If you’re there, God… last chance to stop me.”
Nothing happened.
“I guess I’ll… I guess I’m coming,” he said, disbelieving. “See you on the other side.” Joseph said the magic words, and was soon sleeping peacefully.
Aurora turned away from him, looking out into the ruined bunker. “I was the last pony I knew of with connections to the Outer Realm,” she muttered, a sad smile on her face. No sooner had their father fallen asleep than her regular body had returned. “What do I tell my friends now?”
“We did it,” Recursion answered, matching Aurora’s melancholy. “I just hope the other humans still trapped here have ponies come for them, too. I don’t like the idea of anyone getting left behind.”
Aurora grinned down at her. “Celestia still hasn’t brought us back. Want to make sure, before we go?”
Recursion returned the smile. “Somepony should.”