Fluttershy looked out at the herd of non-ponies once again, her face blank as her thoughts turned their very existence over and over. She loved the poor ponies, but they also scared her. Not to mention they were a constant reminder of...
"Fluttershy?" Discord asked.
"Hm?" She said, looking up at him.
"Are you okay?"
Fluttershy was surprised at this. "Why... Yes, I'm fine. Do you think something's wrong?"
"Hrm... Well you're acting different. More..." He waved his hand around, searching for the word. "Distant. Locked up in that little mind of yours, not coming out. Instead you just stare at that herd of... whatever they are, like they have all the answers."
Fluttershy glanced outside at Browncoat. He was munching on some grass, blissfully unaware of everything going on. She sighed. "It was difficult being here all alone. I formed connections with them. It made being here both easier and harder..."
"...Harder?"
"They gave me some companionship. But it felt... empty. Without meaning. They just liked me because I'm good with animals. None of them liked me for who I am. I'm not sure they're capable of that. It's like saving their lives meant nothing."
"...You hadn't mentioned saving them before."
Fluttershy's demeanor shifted to near panic. "W-Why I'm sure I mentioned it! I... I heal all sorts of animals! You've seen it!"
Discord narrowed his eyes at her. "Fluttershy..."
"Please," She said, her eyes starting to water. "Don't ask. Please."
Discord took a step back. He never got to actually respond, for at that moment Sperion flew in through a window. "Ah," He said, pointing a limb at Discord. "You found her I see."
Fluttershy smiled. "Sperion! You're back!"
"Drifted all the way around the Realms to see you again." He let out a synthetic chuckle. Then he paused. "...If you're here, why is Fluttershy still here?"
"Some idiots blew up the portal while we were in it," Discord muttered. "Apparently we have enemies."
Sperion shrugged with his three limbs. "I have no idea who'd do that. I'm not informed of things in Central." He turned to Fluttershy. "How's the Realm been treating you?"
"Oh, it's nice enough. I've got a lot of animal friends, though it was very lonely before my friends showed up."
"Ah, yes. Twilight and Trixie?"
Fluttershy blinked. "No... Twilight and Pinkie."
"Trixie's back in... 'Central.' We don't know what the zebras did to her yet," Discord growled.
"It's been a couple days..." Fluttershy said, worried.
"I'm sure she's fine. I can just imagine her smoke-bombing our enemies in the face," he chuckled. "Though I don't see her fixing the portal, so we're stuck here."
Fluttershy nodded. "At least we have each other. And now Sperion's here!"
"Only for a short time, as you know," Sperion reminded her.
"Oh that doesn't matter, you can still have a little party."
Sperion blinked. "...You didn't strike me as the sort who enjoyed parties, Fluttershy."
"Oh, I don't, not really," she said innocently.
"Not unless I make them!" Pinkie yelled, suddenly standing on one of Sperion's limbs. "Prepare yourself silvery sea urchin, you will have cake!"
"I have no mouth," Sperion deadpanned.
"I can create the fundamental concept behind cake." She rushed him into another room, blabbing on about 'experience' and 'metaphysics' and 'yeast.'
Fluttershy looked at Discord. "So...?"
"I'm betting he lasts five minutes before giving up all resistance."
"I was going to say ten."
"Oho! Faith in the urchin? How interesting." He paused for a moment. "Fine. I won't ask. But Twilight will figure out something's wrong, and I'm certain Pinkie already knows about it some way or another."
"I..."
"Don't worry. Let's just go enjoy this welcoming party. I will bring the chocolate covered potato chips!"
"That sounds disgusting."
"Ah, but ponies will try anything once," Discord cackled, walking with Fluttershy into the already set up party room. Fluttershy had no idea where the balloons, cake, punch, or presents had come from, but they were there nonetheless. She didn't even bother questioning them, Pinkie would be Pinkie after all.
Pinkie stuck a party blower into Sperion's center and giggled. Somehow it made a 'fweee' sound without Sperion blowing into it. It didn't even look like it should have been able to stay where it was, but stay it did. Sperion grabbed it and fiddled with it for a few seconds. "...Peculiar."
"Oh you ain't seen nothing yet Sperion! I've got alllll sorts of tricks!" She smashed a cake into him - the thing somehow absorbing into his body.
He twitched. "I... Feel so full of energy..."
"It's called a sugar rush. Embrace it! For the part is just getting started!"
"You are a most interesting pony."
"Eh, I'm just Pinkie Pie, and I'm here to make you feel at home! Come along, let us enjoy a feast! I've got corn, corn, corn, and other interesting foods for dinner!"
"Aside from the deserts it all appears to be corn."
"Exactly!" she grinned. "He understands! Let's give a hand to the three-armed Sperion!"
in the midst of their clapping, Fluttershy realized something. "Hey, you didn't have three arms before..."
Sperion shrugged. "The form is not static. Stimuli result in change. It's not bad for me, don't worry."
"Oh. Okay. Is it good?"
"Well, I can be more expressive with them," he said, generating a plastic cup and levitating some punch into it. He paused. "...You sure this will work Pinkie?"
"You got the cake didn't you?"
He poured the punch on his center - and it just dripped to the ground. "Hrm. That didn't work."
"Eh, it isn't an exact science. If it were, I'd be predictable! Can you imagine that? Me? Predictable!?"
"I could stand to predict you from time to time," Twilight said as she strolled in. "Much a part of you as it is, it can be pretty overwhelming."
"Pfft, that's the fun part!"
Twilight nodded. "Hello Sperion."
"Twilight. I wish to apologize for the way I acted with you when we last met. My time in New Mareu was... Stressful, and I had just finished meeting an old acquaintance of mine when you met me. I am sorry. Here's to hoping we can start over." He levitated a drink to her.
"It's nothing Sperion," Twilight said, taking the drink. "We all have our off days." She sipped, and her eyes went wide. "P-Pinkie? What flavor is this punch?"
"Cinnamon apple with extra extra cinnamon."
She gagged. "That's not punch!
"I never said it was punch!" she giggled.
Twilight let out a gasp of air. "So... Cinnamony..."
Discord handed her a glass of water and she drank it. She was mildly surprised to find it actually was water, though she somehow drank the glass along with the fluid. It took her a minute to process this.
Sperion made his chuckling noise. "It seems you four have quite the interesting relationship."
"Oh yes," Discord said. "I was the bad guy at one point, Fluttershy was the hermit, Twilight was the introverted bookworm, and Pinkie..." He paused. "...Is exactly the same."
"I WILL NEVER CHANGE!"
Sperion made a nodding motion. "Remaining constant for so long is something to be proud of indeed." He let out a synthetic sigh. "I have changed much over time. Not all of it by my own choosing."
Twilight looked at him curiously. "How so?"
"My past is long, complex, and dark. And not fit for a party. Let's just enjoy ourselves, I'm not here for long."
Discord smirked. "I like how you think! Sperion, you and I are going to be great friends!"
Sperion floated there for a moment "Never in a million years..." He took all of one second to reconsider. "...All right, what's the plan?"
"I don't know. Let's go exploring!" Discord snapped his fingers and they were in the middle of the giant clearing, beneath behemoth creatures floating above them.
Pinkie giggled. "Adventure time!" She shouted, clinging to Discord.
"Discord..." Twilight began, but she was cut off by a giant seven-eyed whale creature floating overhead, moaning loudly.
"Aw... He likes us!" Fluttershy drifted over to the whale thing. "Yes you can do a trick! Yes you can!" Fluttershy squeed while the whale did a midair backflip.
Pinkie cheered. "Discord! Give him a bouncy castle!"
"On it!" Discord said, creating an inflated bouncy castle on the whale's back and jumping in it. "Come on in, the castle's great! Guaranteed not to cause concussions!" To prove his point he purposefully faceplanted into the neon colored floor. "...Ow."
Fluttershy and Pinkie sighed - before jumping in to bounce with him.
Twilight looked down at them, smiling. The smile was short-lived, for a thought occurred to her. "Rainbow Dash would love this."
"She probably would," Sperion agreed. "She was a bit... brash at times, but she has a wonderful fiery spirit."
"That sure sounds like her." The whale did a backflip again, and the three riders screamed with glee. "I hope they're okay..."
Sperion made his synthetic sigh long and drawn out. "I hope so too. They know not what these Realms can do... The danger in them."
Twilight gulped. "I... I know you don't like the fact that Starlight took your curse and made a spell, but..."
"No. I'll look for them, but I will never again let somepony travel with me. The drift..." He stopped.
"Sperion?"
"Where you come from the Realms mix into one. But out here, in the separations.... it is not meant to be."
"What do you-"
Fluttershy screamed in terror. Twilight looked over at her in panic - seeing nothing out of the ordinary save for a flock of dragons flying in the distance, not paying them any mind.
"Fluttershy?" Pinkie asked. "What's wrong? It's just some dragons!"
Fluttershy was breathing so hard she couldn't speak. She curled up into a ball and started shuddering.
Discord teleported them all back to the house. He held her in his arms. "...What happened to you?"
She didn't respond. She just cried.
~~~
"Appleack-"
"-how have you been acclimatin' to your power? That's what you were goin' to ask right?" Applejack rolled her eyes at Diamond. "Well, seeing as I could predict that question, Ah'd say pretty well."
"What have you discovered-"
"-about my inflection. Well, Ah can see the past pretty easy, can guess what's just about to happen decently, and know more than I wanted to know about things just by lookin' at them. Too much information is becoming a bit of a problem. The inner workings of Implode are something I'd rather unsee."
"Perhaps you should consider taking a step back and looking at things objectively?"
"Oh no, Ah'm not giving up my emotions today."
"All you'd have to do is accept the Realm into you, though I know you're not going to do that."
"...Did you make that choice?"
"No, all of us here were born without emotions. At least, not in the way you see it. We do not experience rage, love, amusement, or loneliness. But we do have beliefs, convictions, and desires. We don't lose everything. We just don't let things get in the way of our minds."
"...Huh. You're right about that. That's a belief right there. Still think it's plum crazy, but you do you."
"Mhm," Diamond said. This struck Applejack as a little odd, but she didn't comment on it. "Look at this," He said, producing a flat orange rectangle, about the size of a dinner tray. Applejack looked at it and saw so much information contained in the microscopic engravings
that lined the object. Her eyes went wide.
"What is this?"
"One of many thousands of such sheets we have in the Archive. Tell me, what is on it?"
"The structure of every single element on the periodic table. Every fact about them Ah can think of, and some Ah can't. That's a book's worth of stuff there."
Diamond nodded. "Your skill has now reached the level at which you can read. Follow me, it is time to show you the Archive." he stood up and walked out, marching right down the brown hallway. Applejack followed close behind, a little excited at the prospect of something - anything - to do here. It had been getting rather droll as of late. The two of them climbed to the top of the brown rectangle, stepping into the garden. The great tree loomed over them, and the fields were producing a high yield of 'pale fruit.' The fruit were round and a lightish blue, and when mixed with herbs grown in between the bushes, they made the food bricks everypony used for sustenance.
This was not their final stop, however. Diamond led Applejack off the edge, towards one of the bridges made of smaller shapes tied together by rope. The two of them jumped from shape to shape, the green plane far below. They approached what Applejack presumed to be their goal - a large orange dodecahedron with an entire face cut out of it to serve as an entrance.
Diamond walked in and stopped abruptly. Applejack's jaw dropped when she saw what was inside. The entire shape was hollowed out and filled with shelves - hundreds of the orange structures, stuffed with the extremely thin orange plates.
"How... many are there?"
"1,117,924,628," Diamond said. Then he put the slide he had into a shelf. "Make that 1,117,924,629."
"...And you're just letting me come here?"
"You could always have come here, nothing was blocked to you. It would have been pointless, however, if you couldn't read any of it."
Applejack pulled out a slide and glanced over it. "...The history of the pink diamond nodes?"
"Yes. Most of these are created by our own hooves. There are a few left here by our ancestors. Few of which are helpful, most of them being legends and tall tales. We keep them around only for historic importance."
"Woah..."
"Remember, just because you can absorb all this information doesn't mean you can retain it. Our organic brains are horribly inadequate."
"Ah could browse this forever then..."
"Precisely. Pehraps you can find something interesting, or even make your own slide one day."
Applejack said nothing, just staring at the slides around her, speechless. She took one out and learned all the inner workings of a pale fruit. She took out another and discovered what was known about the tree, and learned of the backup trees elsewhere in the Realm. Another told her about the procedures to fix a broken horn...
There was so much to read... To see...
She found herself feeling a little bad that the others couldn't read it. Starlight had shown a small inflection of information, and Rainbow none at all...
She couldn't help but feel she wanted to share this.
...Maybe she could...
~~~
Rarity stirred.
Images of Yuku's gaping maw flashed across her mind.
Images of that pointed claw...
Her face throbbed.
Her face burned.
She groaned.
"R-rarity?" She heard Spike say.
She let out some air. "I'm here." She flicked her ears. "Have to get up..."
She stood up extremely slowly, needing to work at planting her feet on the ground. She looked around. They were in the cell, but it seemed... different. Oddly flat, and it was as if some of it was hidden from her.
She narrowed her eyes. "...What?"
"Oh Rarity," Spike said, jumping in front of her. "I was so worried!" He had a long gash diagonally across his face. It wasn't bleeding, nor was it infected, but it still looked terrible.
"Oh Spike! Look at you!" She put a hoof out towards him, intending to bring him in for a closer look. Instead she just fell over.
"Careful!" Trixie said. "You have to get used to a lack of depth perception!"
Rarity slowly stood up. "...I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"
Trixie's eyes went wide. "Stars. She doesn't know."
"Don't know what?"
Spike gulped. "How... How can you not feel that?"
"What!?"
"Your eye..." Trixie said.
"Oh don't be absurd, I can..." Rarity put a hoof up to where her right eye should have been. She didn't see anything. She screamed, falling on her rump, scooting backwards until she hit a wall. She winced, hiding her face.
Spike rushed to her. "...Rarity it's going to be-"
"Don't look at me!" She hissed. "I'm hideous..."
"Rarity, that doesn't matter, you're our friend..."
She looked up slightly. She whimpered, crying out of her remaining eye. She swore she could still feel her missing eye... Burning... Right where it was supposed to be. "I... I just feel wrong, Spike... Everything feels wrong..."
"Rarity, Rarity," He said. "It's okay. We're alive. Congeal stopped Yuku from killing us. They want us alive. We're all fine."
"Trixie can confirm," Trixie said.
Rarity nodded, slowly lifting her head up. "I... I know. Thank you. I... I just need a minute."
"Take as long as you need," Spike said. "We'll be here. ...Not like we can go anywhere."
Rarity nodded slowly, falling into silence.
She was disabled. She'd been disabled quite some time ago, healing spells wouldn't restore the eye properly anymore. At least not correctly. She couldn't walk straight. She couldn't see right. How was she going to make dresses? How was she going to help her friends escape this mess? How was she going to live!?
She didn't know.
In one fell swoop, her entire life had changed drastically.
What would she do now?
Trixie bit her lip. "I think she's..." She didn't finish the thought.
"She'll get through it," Spike said. "She's strong."
"Yeah..." she gulped. "Spike, I'm not holding together all that well either. These aren't nice zebras and they don't care if one of us loses an eye. Who's going to say they won't just start killing us off? They probably only need one! And three prisoners is a lot of trouble!"
Spike tensed. He knew Trixie was right. "We need to get out of here. We need to get out of here right now."
"Well you're in luck," a zebra said from the open doorway. "Congeal wants to see you again."
"Not what I meant," Spike muttered.
"I know. Don't care. Find it amusing really," the zebra said, gesturing for them to get out of the room.
"Wait a minute..." Trixie said. "Don't zebras speak in rhyme?"
"Only pretentious pricks. Come on, move it."
Spike and Trixie moved towards the door. Rarity made no motion. The zebra groaned. "Of all the stupid things I do... Get her to move, Blue."
Trixie didn't point out that he had rhymed his words. She just grabbed Rarity with her telekinesis and with a substantial amount of effort, dragged the white unicorn across the sandy floor.
The zebra took them once again to the large room. Congeal was there, right alongside Yuku. The white dragon didn't even bother with the invisibility this time. It was somewhat unnerving to see the giant dragon sitting there, staring out a window predatorily, without the zebras outside paying any mind. Yuku tore her gaze from the zebra townspeople when the prisoners arrived. "How's the eye?" she asked venomously.
Rarity said nothing.
"Trauma. Cute," She growled, turning towards Trixie. "Let us start where we left off. Sperion. How long did you talk with him?"
Trixie whimpered. "A... few minutes?"
"And what did he say?"
"I don't really remember!" she wailed. "We were there, cast a spell given to us by Sham Rock, then he showed up in all his three-armed glory!"
Congeal touched a hoof to Trixie's head the moment the arms were mentioned, and Trixie's tongue lolled out of her mouth, her entire body going slack. Congeal took a step back, dropping Trixie to the ground. "Of course it'd be her..." Yuku growled.
Spike rushed to Trixie. "Hey! That was uncalled for!"
"Oh, little creatures, am I too much for you?"
Trixie shivered. "C-Can... you... j-just... back... up..."
Yuku touched Trixie's muzzle with her large reptilian snout. "This far enough back?"
There was a soft laugh from behind Yuku. "Why, yes, darling, that is pretty good. Afraid you messed up 'back' with 'forward' though, dreadfully sorry, but that will get you dome demerit points in the long run." Rarity wasn't covering her face - her empty eye socket was there for the world to see, a red hole in her face ringed with blood, a marked red streak running down her face and across her sharp smile. "Maybe try listening better next time hrm?"
Yuku stared at Rarity in silence for a minute. "...I'm sorry, what?" she deadpanned.
Rarity began walking - stumbling slightly as she did so, but her face betraying no fear. "Wow, there it is again. You really do need to work on those ears of yours. Actually, come to think of it..." She circled the room, looking closely at Yuku's face. "Do you even have ears?"
Congeal was looking directly at Rarity - the look was somehow more intense than usual, as if there was something off about her beyond her missing eye. Yuku just glared. "Yes. Of course I do. Your point half-face?"
Congeal put a hoof on Yuku, in an attempt to calm her. She batted the limb away. "No. We don't need her..."
"Don't need me do you?" Rarity let out a laugh. "Really, darling, perhaps you should know who you're talking to. I'm Rarity, famous seamstress and the Element of Generosity." She stood firm, light from the window behind her, casting her in an impressive silhouette. "I'm so important, much more important than you. You're just some mysterious knockoff snake that has no class whatsoever-"
"That's it!" Yuku roared, leaping towards Rarity with intent to kill.
Rarity looked at the oncoming dragon, smirked, then leapt out of the way.
Yuku's rage vanished. "Oh..."
She hit the window with full force, blowing the bars and glass out completely, falling out into the street. A street filled with around a dozen zebras. Zebras that could see her clearly. They all pointed and screamed.
"RUUUUUN!" Trixie yelled, scrambling out the window, Spike in tow. "She wants to eat you!"
A magical explosion of green hit Yuku in the head. Some of the zebras were fighting back with druidic explosives. More and more of the concoctions hit Yuku from all sides. She roared, launching herself into the air and turning invisible. Even she knew she couldn't face the zebras of Clopro for very long out in the open.
Rarity finally managed to walk out of the room into the open air. Zebras were already crowding them, asking them if they were okay - in Zebrican. Many screamed when they saw Rarity's eye socket, but then most became concerned. They all wanted to know what happened.
Rarity didn't know much Zebrican, but she thought she knew the word for 'taken.' She hoped they understood.
She glanced back inside just for a moment.
There was no sign of Congeal whatsoever.
That made her uneasy...
She shoved the thought out of her mind. They were alive and in a public place now. She didn't think even Yuku was foolish enough to try something.