Luna stared at the body of Waise, shocked. “W-what just happened?”
“Killed herself,” Orgis said.
“…Why?” Celestia asked. “We offered her amnesty…”
“Angry. Bitter,” Orgis said. “Firm.” She looked like she was thinking of another word but couldn’t think of anything to translate it to.
Celestia looked down, sorrow in her eyes. “…Was she really that set in her ways? Willing to do whatever to be rid of us?”
Arlowe slowly nodded her head.
Celestia sighed. “If you truly do not want us here… We can attempt to rebuild and leave.”
Luna and Twilight gasped. Discord lost hold of his green beverage, the glass falling to the ceiling and shattering.
Arlowe was stunned. Orgis waved her hands around frantically. “No! Help us can! Together!”
Arlowe translated to Forsoo and Emin. They agreed with Orgis’s assertion. Lem gave everyone a thumbs up, though he was visibly bothered by Waise’s body laying just under a yard away from him.
Celestia smiled, turning to Lem’s camera. “In that case I look forward to a long and prosperous friendship with the gari.”
The ponies and the gari present began to clap. The message needed no translation to be understood, not this time. The tension that had existed between the races had been cut by a death of one most opposed.
Forsoo smiled. Exactly as planned.
Now they had to deal with those released Equi…
~~~
Sunset sat in front of the doors to the Lobby, waiting. She stared deep into the shiny doors, unblinking. She glanced at the clock. They had been in there an entire day. Nonstop! Weren’t they tired yet?
She checked the video feed inside the room – they still showed no sign of wrapping up, though Sunset could tell Twilight’s brain was past well-done at this point. She was mildly surprised there wasn’t smoke coming out her ears.
Sunset noticed with amusement that Luna had completely forgotten she was wearing socks. Otherwise she wouldn’t be swinging her limbs around wildly and slamming her hoof on the table with a smirk on her face.
Sunset sighed – she wasn’t going to get to them anytime soon. Should she just rush in? No… It didn’t require immediate attention. Yet.
“Come here often?” Discord asked from the ceiling.
Sunset jumped into the air with a slight scream. She quickly looked from the ceiling to the screen – Discord was in both locations, looking bored. “…Did you really just duplicate yourself out of boredom?”
“Eeyup,” Discord said in his best imitation of Big Mac.
Sunset shrugged, getting back to watching the door. Then something occurred to her.
“Hey…” She began, turning to Discord. Then she violently shook her head. “No, bad idea.”
“Oh, now you simply have to tell me. Come on, what is it?”
Sunset bit her lip. “It’s about the cryogenic chamber malfunctions. I don’t think our Mite did them.”
Discord raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“I found an archived scan of the affected area – there is evidence of a Mite, yes – but no cat hair from the ears you put on it. I found that in a path leading out of the Ark, not even coming close to the affected area. And unless your spell was temporary and the Mite came back…”
Discord lowered his sunglasses to reveal another pair of sunglasses beneath. “So… We’ve got two creepy crawly Mites now?”
“Yeah. But that’s not what’s weird. Full ship scans were performed back when we found the first Mite – there wasn’t a second Mite, or anything made of the same alien material. This new Mite came on board later.”
Discord frowned. “From this planet perhaps?”
“Possibly,” She said. “Both of the worlds were on the same map after all. They are probably connected in some way.”
Discord put on a suit. “Well, I say that means it’s investigation time.” He pushed a finger to his tie and it honked. A portal in spacetime appeared behind him. “There’s the mainland, where shall we start?”
Sunset blinked. “We… probably shouldn’t.” Then she paused for a moment. “You know what, screw it, let’s go look for these Mites.” She left a quick note for Twilight and then leapt through the portal. They were both gone, the hall of the Ark empty once more.
Mere minutes later the doors opened and Twilight stepped out. She was barely able to stay awake enough to walk, but she had some ponies to see. She completely missed Sunset’s note. Behind her, Orgis stood by Starlight. The two were staring into the glory of the Tree of Harmony.
Starlight turned to Orgis, pondering something. “I… could teach you the way of Harmony.”
Orgis nodded slowly, still taken in by the light.
“Okay, step one, learn how to meditate… This part took me a full decade to get down.”
~~~
Fluttershy was watching Flurry Heart, which would have normally been one of the happiest times of the pegasus’s day. She came here often just to watch the young alicorn, so full of life and innocence. Even her cries were usually heartwarming.
Not today though. Today she was crying in fear.
“Come to mama!” Cadence yelled, a psycho grin on her face. “I’ve got hugs!”
Shining Armor held Cadence by the tail. “Cadence! You were choking her!”
“I was expressing my love!”
“Babies can’t be hugged that hard!” Fluttershy wailed, crying just as much as the filly she was trying to keep safe.
“Cadence!” Shining Armor yelled, losing his grip on her. “You need to calm down-“
“Calm is dead!” Cadence shouted. “There is only love! Only love!”
“This isn’t love!” Fluttershy yelled.
“Then what is it?” Cadence bristled, kicking Shining Armor away and glaring at Fluttershy.
“Selfishness.” A new voice said. All fell silent – even Flurry Heart – taking the time to look at Pinkie standing in the doorway.
“What.” Cadence deadpanned.
“You’re being selfish,” Pinkie reiterated, no hint of comedy in her voice whatsoever. “Now, you could blame it on lunacy, but you’re still caring for yourself more than your family. They need to be kept safe and healthy. You need to catch up on centuries of lost hugs. You need to consider their needs over your own.” Pinkie sighed.
Cadence was speechless, her left eye twitching slightly. “W-what do I do?”
“I don’t know,” Pinkie said. “It may be that you can’t do much to yelp yourself. Celestia knows I can’t help myself.” She giggled awkwardly at her remark.
Fluttershy sniffed. “You… can’t?”
“Well think about it for a minute Fluttershy. Do I seem sane?”
Fluttershy shrunk back. “…No…”
“No need to feel bad Fluttershy,” Pinkie said, smiling. “You’re just used to my brand of crazy.”
Cadence looked into Pinkie’s eyes. “…What do you do to cope?”
“Honestly? I just roll with it and try to make everypony smile! It’s alllllll in the attitude for me! Though that might not work for you. You’ve got a different sort of problem. I just see things. You… You missed out on your family so long you broke.”
Cadence drooped. “I… I… Yes…”
“Yeah. Positive cheery attitude won’t help here. Probably dangerous. Buuuuuuut-“
“You could think about what your family wants you to be now rather than focusing on what you didn’t get,” Fluttershy blurted.
Pinkie blinked. “Woah! Fluttershy you’re amazing!”
“That won’t fix it though…”
“Pffft,” Pinkie said, waving a hoof dismissively. “Problems like this don’t just get ‘fixed.’ But they can be lived with.” She looked at Cadence and Shining Armor. “Can you two do that?”
Shining Armor looked at his wife and smiled. “I can. I promised to always protect her and be there for her. That still applies when her enemy is part of herself.”
Cadence gasped and sighed. “Oh Shining…” She threw herself on him, smirking.
“Andthat’sourcuetoleaveFluttershycomeon.” Pinkie dragged the Pegasus out of the room and closed the door. They could hear Flurry Heart laughing inside.
“…Do you think everything will be okay?” Fluttershy asked.
Pinkie just stared into space and didn’t answer.
~~~
Spike looked up from the tablet he was holding to see Applejack and Rainbow Dash enter the room, faces set in disbelief.
“Woah,” Spike said. “You two look you almost got hit by a train.”
“Understatement,” Applejack muttered. Rainbow Dash nodded in agreement. The two fell silent.
“Well, what happened?” He pushed.
Rainbow Dash took a big breath. Then a grin spread across her face. “Twilight just asked me if I would be willing to direct weather control for this entire freaking planet!” She laughed. “Me! In charge of all the clouds! All the clouds! Facing off against hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning, you name it! I’ll be the Minister of Awesome Weather!”
“Ah’m not sure you have the responsibility for it…” Applejack said.
“I’m sure I’ll do just fine. I’m moving up!”
“What about you AJ?” Spike asked.
“Ah’m… goin’ to be in charge of mass food production. Farming food for those who need it as fast as possible. Ah’ll feed everyone.” She blinked, looking like she didn’t really believe it.
“That’s awesome!” Spike said. “AJ and Rainbow, world leaders!”
The two mares glanced at each other and smirked. They hoof bumped.
“Bet I can save more people than you!”
“Oh, Rainbow Dash, you are on!”
Spike rolled his eyes. “Think you might be missing the point here… What’s Twilight up to?”
The two shrugged. “I dunno,” Rainbow Dash said. “She doesn’t really…. Share stuff with us anymore.”
“Yeah,” Applejack said, drooping.
“It’s probably just because she’s so busy.”
“She did mention that she was goin' to some meeting… Or something,” Applejack offered.
Spike shrugged. “I just hope this craziness dies down soon. I miss her.”
“Yeah…” Applejack said, looking into the distance. “We all do.”
~~~
Twilight and Luna stepped onto the helicopter. Thorax, Ember, and Geraldyr of the griffons filed in behind them. Forsoo, Arlowe, Emin, and Lem were with them, leaving Orgis behind in the Ark since she wasn’t really a politician, and because she wanted to stay.
Twilight found the helicopter a bit dark for her liking – and also a bit loud. Why was this so different from the helicopters at home? It was hard to see the sky in here… Hard to feel the breeze…
Then again, these helicopters were really loud from the outside, so that might have been the reason everything was tightly sealed.
“Here we go…” Twilight said.
“Into the Unknown,” Luna responded. “I hope it has cookies.”
Twilight laughed. Despite all that happened, things were starting to look up. They still had to deal with the released Equi… But an actual relationship had been established amidst that. They were on the same page now.
From the ground, Celestia waved at the retreating helicopter. She smiled. “Stay safe, my sister.”
Beside her, Orgis turned to Starlight. “Ready learn!”
“Speak in gari I now,” Starlight said. “Mind magic from Twilight.”
Orgis clapped her hands and the two set off to the Tree. Celestia really doubted that Starlight was aware that she was basically founding a religion. Even the Equi had started to come to her with… reverent questions about the Tree. It was… interesting. Celestia had decided it was a good thing, in the end.
Now if only she could find Discord…
~~~
“What are we doing out here?” Sunset asked.
“Investigating,” Discord said as he threw another piece of fruit down the hill towards the village they had appeared next to.
“The Mites?”
“Sure.”
“Discord, they could be anywhere on the planet by now. I can’t scan the whole globe and neither can you.”
Discord shrugged. “So? How does that change anything?”
“Uh… It's kinda pointless to keep looking?”
“Nah!” Discord said. “Exploration! Let’s see the sights, roam the world, fill our eyes with this new home of ours!”
“That has nothing to do with why we came out here in the first place.”
“So?” Discord said. “Why not take the opportunity to have some fun while we search? Take a chill pill, pop the corn, and put on the 3D glasses to life!”
Sunset smirked. “You’ve been desperate to explore haven’t you?”
“YEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS,” Discord droned.
“Well alright then, let’s see the sights.” She looked down at the village. “They seem happy with that fruit.”
Discord snapped his fingers, providing a giant mound of pineapples. “Now they’ll grow sick of pineapples.”
Sunset shook her head. “Somehow, I doubt they will…”
~~~
The Mite’s ears twitched.
It was going to be a long time before it got to the other Key at this rate if it kept listening to this darned thing known as music…
But it sounded so good…
The Mite put it’s mission on hold for a while, deciding it was time to sample all the music on file as fast as it could download it.
The Mite was going to be here for a while.
‘Here’ happened to be on a jukebox with Interent access.
The Mite didn’t even have time to mourn its self-restraint subroutines.
~~~
Rarity yawned, stretched, and hopped out of bed. “Dear me, I hope nothing important happened while I was asleep.”
It turns out Murphy’s Law can act retroactively.
Who knew.