Alex knocked lightly on the door with the edge of one hoof. She wasn’t wearing any regalia today, not even a crown. She wasn’t even wearing her old saddlebags, but a fresh pair made from sturdy white cloth.
The manor was one of the finest in the city, built from the ruins of an old skyscraper. The door opened only seconds after she knocked, and a pony wearing a dark suit bowed politely to her. “You’re here to see your mother, Princess?”
“I am.” She made her way to the elevator, waiting politely as a crowd of teenagers piled out.
There were six or seven of them, no two the same race. One of them was even human, if the new class of “Homo arcanus” residents could be considered human. She alone stared at Alex as they walked past, pointing so the others would notice. Their lewd conversation fell to hush whispers, and they came to an awkward halt.
She walked past them into the elevator, waving with one hoof. Archive often took the time to converse with individual ponies, hearing their concerns and reporting anything she learned to her friends in congress. But today, she was in a rush. Mary couldn’t be kept waiting much longer.
The elevator had an attendant, a young unicorn with a bored expression who nearly spit up his coffee when he saw who was getting in.
“Top floor,” Archive said, standing in the corner of the elevator and looking down, in the silent code of elevator passengers through the ages.
“R-right away.” The attendant didn’t wait for the minute customary on the bottom floor, just snapped the metal doors shut with his magic and began to propel them upward.
There was nothing electronic about the way elevators worked anymore, only mechanical. Unicorn levitation bore them rapidly up through the building, with a lever-brake to stop them on a given floor.
“Not that I mind…” the attendant began, his voice awkward. “But why not use a balcony, Princess? Why not teleport?”
She often did. But Archive didn’t say that. “I don’t do very much as princess, Gearbox. One of my few duties is to set an example for other ponies to follow. If I want everypony to visit their parents, I have to make sure everybody knows that’s what I do.”
“Right.” He looked down, avoiding her gaze. “Didn’t expect you to just say that. If I’m not being too bold.”
“Not at all.” They were nearing the top of the building now, she could tell. The chain always made the same rattling sound as it started to run out of space. “Besides, this is my last trip up here. No sense taking shortcuts.”
They reached the top-floor suite, and Gearbox brought the elevator to a stop. Archive didn’t wait for his response, just tossed him a few coins for a tip and stepped out.
There was no locked door, only a cozy entryway that led into the rest of the suite. The door that had been here had been propped open with a lump of metal.
It had been almost two centuries since Mary had shared Alex’s modest home in the growing city of Estel.
Archive stepped into a bright, spacious suite, complete with art on the walls, polished wooden floor, and a warm fireplace crackling merrily to fight back the autumn chill.
Not unlike those times many years ago, she found her mother in the kitchen. The surfaces were all polished granite, the appliances all replaced with old-timey mechanical versions. The range had a firebox, and a flume rising up into the ceiling. Even so, it smelled delicious.
Mary had changed as much as her apartment. Her coat had gone gray, with only a splash of green. Her mane was white, spectacles perched on her face.
She also wasn’t alone. A gangly human figure stood in plain white beside her, washing a sink full of dishes with a vaguely disinterested look on her face. She looked less than sixteen years old. “Honored Memory! It’s a pleasure to—”
Archive raised a hoof. “No need for any of that, Keeva.” She gestured to the door. “I’m going to spend some time with Mary. You’re dismissed for the evening.”
“You just want more flan for yourself,” she said, folding her arms.
“Now now.” Mary turned away from the oven, dropping the mit from her teeth. “I made enough for all the grandkids, sweetie. That’s plenty for you too.”
“Are you sure?” Keeva seemed to be looking more for Mary’s approval than Alex’s.
“I’m afraid so,” she said. “Whenever my daughter has that look, I know it’s going to be hours. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, alright?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Keeva nodded politely, bowed to Archive, and hurried from the room.
“Your latest assistant has some spunk,” Alex said, sitting down on her haunches just outside the kitchen. She knew better than trespassing in her mother’s sacred territory while she was working.
“Keeva’s a sweetheart,” Mary agreed. “Whenever Isaac sent me a sycophant, I sent them back. Keeva has enough sense not to let me have everything I want, so she’s better for my health.”
Alex looked around the kitchen. It looked as though Mary had filled every plate she had with sweets—cinnamon cookies, sugar skulls, several delicious loaves of Pan De Muerto. The smell brought back ancient memories of a childhood she’d all but forgotten.
“Doesn’t look like you’re thinking about your health much anymore, Mom,” she said, gazing around at all the food.
“I cook when I’m troubled,” she answered. “And we both know why that would be. You were taking so long, I was worried St. Michael might get here before you did.”
Archive pawed at the ground. “That isn’t who does it.” She no longer sounded amused. “But she is coming. Just behind me, actually. Maybe… a few minutes.” She reached into her saddlebags, removing the only thing they contained: a slim metal case with a single latch, lifting it up onto the counter beside the sink.
“Is that so?” Mary sounded disinterested as she worked, taking the oven mitt into her mouth again and opening the oven. She moved the flan from inside, resting as it was inside a second dish filled with boiling water that had nearly smoked away.
“The Gray,” Archive said. “In Equestria they called her the Pale Mare, but she doesn’t like that name. Death isn’t supposed to be scary.”
“It’s easy not to be afraid of something that never comes.” Mary spat her mitt onto the counter beside the steaming flan, turning to gently close the oven behind her. “I hope she isn’t mad.”
Alex winced. “We should, uh… finish before she gets here.” She gestured to the box. “It’s time for you to stop pretending, Mom. You’ve been an excellent grandmother, and great-grandmother, but unless you’ve changed your mind…”
She flicked the box open with her magic. Inside was a soft black velvet padding, and resting in the center was a black curve like a small dragon’s scale, made of dark metal and looped onto a silver chain long enough to go around a pony’s neck. “Have you changed your mind about staying?”
“No.” Mary made her way over, legs shaking as she did so. So far as earth ponies went, she was remarkably old—old enough that without medical magic, she would’ve already been dead. “It was a hard thing. Tom’s had thirty years to wait for me already. If I take that, he’ll be waiting a lot longer.”
Archive nodded. “He will, yeah. If you do stay, I’m sure you’ll find others. Dragons do everything at eleven. If you thought estrus was bad…”
“My son is lecturing me about sex again,” Mary said, laughing. “How many relationships have you been in since you became a princess?”
“A few…” Alex looked away, ears flattening.
“My guest room still smells like seawater.”
“I said I was sorry!” She whimpered. “I didn’t plan on bringing him back with me.”
“Of course not,” Mary agreed. “These days, it wasn’t that your boyfriend had too many legs that bothered you, but that he didn’t have any.”
“It feels weird.” Alex covered her face with one wing, trying to hide her embarrassment. “Bringing anypony back to meet you. You’d never have been happy with me if I’d brought a boyfriend back home back in LA.”
“Psh.” Mary brushed her words away. “The church was changing even then. But something tells me you never wanted to.”
Alex didn’t contest the point. Her early journals still preserved a clear record of her early attraction to Sky, despite how fruitless those feelings had been. Sky had never even known about them.
“I’ll admit, some of it is hard to understand. You were gone for…”
“Six months,” Alex supplied.
“Right, six months.” Mary struggled on her legs, and Alex levitated over a cushion from nearby. She dropped onto it, visibly relaxing once she had. “It only took you six months to find a fish handsome enough to want as a boyfriend?”
“It actually took about five minutes.” Alex glanced briefly over her shoulder at the clock she knew was mounted to the wall. Mary was running out of time. “Change into something, and all those primitive parts of your brain get changed too. Otherwise you wouldn’t know how to control your new body, and all your vital organs would stop working.”
“Hold on,” Mary interrupted. “Five minutes? You never told me that.”
She blushed all over again, levitating the case onto the ground at their hooves. “Mom, we’re running out of time here.”
Mary folded her arms, expression stern. Alex knew better than to try and force her. Once Mary made up her mind, it was made up. Even if what she’d decided wasn’t a terribly good idea.
“Fine,” Alex groaned. “Crescendo was in the first pod of seaponies I met. I liked him…” She took a breath. “I liked him even before I changed. Now getting him to like me… Mom, can we talk about this later? Like, when you aren’t about to die?”
Mary’s forelegs stayed folded. “My funeral arrangements?”
“Just like you asked,” Alex agreed. “I found an ordained priest, commissioned a traditional marker, ordered the catering exactly how you asked. You want to know how expensive it was to order meat-buns in a city of mostly herbivores? I really don’t want to think about who we’re eating.”
“Chicken isn’t a who,” Mary scoffed. “Anyway, you better not be lying to me son. If I see even one flower out of place, you’ll be hearing about it for the next century.”
“Nothing will be wrong,” Alex promised. “I have a perfect memory, remember? I made sure.”
“Good.” Mary relaxed. “Did anyone ask why you were paying for a funeral for someone who wasn’t dead yet?”
“No,” she answered. “It actually helps me to start rumors, honestly. Even if some of them end up feeding into that stupid religion…”
Mary reached out, resting a leg on Alex’s shoulder. It felt dry and shriveled, and her whole body shook. “Tell me one thing, Alex. How do you say goodbye to all the people you’ve watched die?”
Alex remembered an ancient city, one that barely knew how to feed itself. She remembered streets paved by humans and a graveyard with mostly humans buried in it. Remembered speaking at the end of a brief ceremony, then spending the night waiting through the snow.
“N-not easily,” she squeaked. “It feels like it’s going to rip my heart out every time. Each pony I lose hurts a different way.”
“Good.” Mary relaxed visibly. “I don’t want it to… to do something that would make me cold. Take away my feelings.”
“Well…” Alex didn’t want to speak, didn’t want to say anything that might discourage her mother from taking the amulet. Yet she didn’t want to lie to her even more. “Some ponies do that. Like the one who made this… or Jackie.”
“Jackie is a delightful pony,” Mary defended. “What’s wrong with her?”
“Oh, nothing’s wrong,” she said. “She just doesn’t ever spend time getting to know ponies who aren’t immortal. Her only friends are at least four hundred years old. She kept herself sane by keeping herself from caring too much about ponies who would leave her.”
Mary considered that a moment, then extended a hoof anyway. “Give me your amulet before I change my mind, Alex.”
Alex levitated it out of the box, setting the chain gently around her mother’s neck. “Hold still. If you burn your apartment down, it will make pretending you’re dead very difficult.”
Mary opened her mouth to make a snarky reply, but instead of words a brief burst of greenish flame emerged from her throat.
* * *
Mary’s funeral happened the next day, exactly as she had wanted it. Every daguerreotype of the princess attending the event published in the Estel Journal included a dark-scaled adolescent dragon not named in the text.
The event wasn’t remarkable enough to amount to any sort of holiday in the city. Most ponies who noticed were related to the royal family in one way or another. Tears were shed, prayers were made, and life went on.
When it was all done, Alex arranged a flight to Colorado for her mother, where she could spend the next few months learning not to burn anything down.
As for herself, well… she had a little more swimming to do before she was done with the ocean.