Sunset Shimmer dragged her hoof across the touchpad on her cyan-colored laptop and then prodded a button right above it. A new window appeared on the screen with a black background and lines upon lines of white text that seem to write themselves within it.
Sunset already knew what all of it said. The ponies watching over her shoulder, however, did not, and couldn’t hope to read anything before it scrolled past. Sunset knew that it wasn’t so much watching as it was more staring with awe and wonder.
She took the moment to glance at the magic cloud hugging the underside of the laptop and noted where it lingered over the power socket. She smirked and nodded to herself.
The text suddenly halted, and Sunset blinked. She glanced at the last few lines of text closely and then groaned. “Bad pointer. Right...”
Princess Celestia, who looked no less translucent than the previous day, sat right next to Sunset. She leaned forward to examine the screen closely. “What precisely is all of this?”
“I’m trying to write a program that will simulate timeline interactions. It’s not going so well.”
“You can’t fix it?”
Sunset lifted her forehooves into the air. “Turns out these are too big for the keyboard.”
Adamantine, who sat next to Sunset’s opposite side, nodded. “That would be an issue, I suppose. And yet how is it that you came by this technology?”
Sunset levitated over what looked like a flip phone (it, like Celestia, looked translucent). “A few days ago, I saw this fall in the clearing just before Celestia showed up. I can’t use it though because it’s passcode protected.” She looked over at Celestia and said, “But I thought that if a cell phone still works in Equestria, I could probably use my laptop here. So I had Crystal run me home to get it.”
“It’s so small,” Starlight Glimmer, who stood behind Sunset, said. “There aren’t that many computers in Equestria. The few that I’ve seen have been like twice my size. …And not nearly as nice looking.”
Sunset laughed. “I know, right?”
“The real question we should ask, I suppose, is what this computer is capable of,” Adamantine said. “How powerful is it?”
Sunset pointed toward the center of the clearing where a chunk of metal the size of a small house now sat. “It’s not nearly as powerful a computer as that thing’s gunna be when we’re done with it. But I can still do quite a bit with it.”
“Such as?”
Sunset couldn’t help but notice Chrysalis, who stood by herself at the edge of the pavilion, also turning to glance in her direction.
“Well,” Sunset replied, “I can surf the web, play videos, chat with friends, make programs, do music stuff…”
“How interesting,” Celestia said. “I would suppose that ‘music stuff’ is very helpful for your band.”
“Yeah. It sure is. I know I’ve spent a few nights editing our songs and putting them together.”
“Oh, you’ve recorded them?”
“Yeah. Only like a dozen songs or so, but yeah.”
Celestia smiled. “That sounds lovely. I’d like to hear what you’ve come up with, Sunset.”
Sunset grinned. “I’ll let you listen to them later. They’re all on here.”
Starlight’s eyes widened, and she pointed at the laptop. “Wait, you can play music on this?”
“Yeah. I’ve got plenty of songs for us to listen to.”
“Really? How many?”
Sunset scratched her head. “Uh, I dunno. It’s something like ten thousand songs or something like that.”
After a long and palpable pause, Sunset looked around to find that they were all staring at her with dumbfounded expressions. “What?”
Starlight chortled. “Oh, sorry. For a second there, it sounded like you said that there were ten thousand songs on here.”
Sunset nodded. “Yeah, that’s right.”
“Preposterous!” Chrysalis exclaimed as she thundered over. She towered over them and pointed at the laptop and said, with bared fangs, “You dare to suggest that all of that fits into this tiny thing?”
A sly smile graced Sunset’s muzzle and she moved the cursor on the screen onto a new icon and clicked on it. A new window shortly popped up containing what looked like a very populated list. The first of these items was highlighted already. The top of the window flashed with a title and a timestamp that started to count upward.
The drums came out first. After a few beats, a twangy guitar joined them. The tune sounded rustic in a way. A male voice soon joined the ensemble with his voice too sounding rustic, singing about people waving red, white, and blue flags.
A single line at the bottom of the window said the words 10612 songs, 24 days, 16 hours, 22 minutes, 77GB.
Adamantine’s jaw dropped to the ground.
“What. The. Buck,” Starlight said.
Chrysalis had to lean over the back of the laptop in order to see it for herself.
Sunset scrolled down the list as she tried to find a more familiar item. Her head, meanwhile, bobbed in time with the currently playing tune. Eventually, however, she reached a familiar song and she clicked on it. The rustic tune immediately died and was replaced with a lively opening that sounded like a series of very short chimes.
“I feel it stirrin’ deep down inside my soul. The rhythm’s taking hold, and it’s about to roll,” a female voice sang.
Celestia gasped. “Goodness! Sunset Shimmer! Is that you singing?”
“Yeah,” Sunset replied, her grin growing wider.
Chrysalis stood back up and slowly nodded. “Well… I guess I will have to say that I am impressed.”
The five of them heard a loud bang, and they immediately looked up to find Crystal Faire now standing a few meters away from them. She looked long in the face and even appeared disoriented as she came out. She turned and trotted toward them.
“Oh, hey, Crystal,” Sunset said.
Crystal’s expression remained unchanged. “Perhaps we should wait until all of this is over before we fawn over the piece of technology, hmmm?”
Celestia and Adamantine stood up, both looking red in the face. Chrysalis, meanwhile, rolled her eyes and backed away from the computer.
Crystal’s eyes turned to Celestia whom she examined from mane to tail. “You are looking more faded today,” she said.
Celestia blinked and looked at herself as well. She could see the dirty ground through her forelegs. She nodded and replied, “I feel more faded today, even.”
Starlight swallowed. “So, uh, is she getting worse?”
After a moment’s consideration, Crystal nodded solemnly. “I’ve noticed it with everything else; the phone, the Crystal Heart. Those are fading too.”
Some hoofsteps behind them signaled Twilight Sparkle’s arrival. All of them turned to face her. Sunset even stood up.
And Twilight looked like the color had drained from her face as she tremulously asked, “But… if she’s fading, won’t she eventually…?”
Celestia shuddered and glanced over herself once more. She examined her own translucence. Her frown deepened with every passing second. She finally shook her head and said, “It appears that my time is limited…”
There were several gasps although most of them were silent and subdued. Chrysalis’s expression twitched but didn’t otherwise change off a contemplative frown.
“Nooooo…” Twilight wheezed as she stumbled forward. “No no no no! I just… I just got you back, and…”
Celestia frowned. “I’m sorry, Twilight, I…”
“I can’t take that. We have to do something! There has to be a way to keep you from fading out! Crystal!” She whirled around. “We have to do something!”
Crystal shook her head.
“Come on! Don’t you have any ideas!? Any at all!?” Twilight screeched.
Crystal sighed and turned away. “I have no idea,” she croaked as she started to slink toward the middle of the clearing.
Twilight’s next words died at the edge of her throat. She glanced back and forth between Celestia and the retreating Crystal. “I…”
Celestia shook her head and wrapped a wing around Twilight. “Don’t fret over me, Twilight. I’ll be fine.”
“No! You won’t be fine! You’re going to—”
“Yes, I know,” Celestia replied. “But there are things far more important than my well-being right now.”
“Celestia…” Sunset whispered.
“Are you sure…?” Twilight wheezed.
“Yes, I am sure,” Celestia nodded. “I’ll just have to be cognizant of how I use my remaining time. I am sure that I can use it to help out however I can.”
Adamantine chuckled. “That sounds like a fantastic idea.”
“Definitely,” Starlight added.
Celestia chuckled and then turned her gaze back to Crystal. “But I do have to wonder…”
Out in the middle of the clearing, Crystal took a spot at one of the work tables and started to hammer out some metallic parts. She shot at it with her magic which sent energy coursing throughout the piece. Several leylines then appeared within.
And Crystal continued working in silence from there.
Sunset, along with everypony else, watched in an equal silence. Eventually, she too said, “Yeah…”
* * *
Starlight tapped her hoof against the ground as she fused two balls of metal together with her magic. The spell then connected some leylines on the insides of the new, singular object. She then reached for a long needle from the edge of the wooden table in front of her and stuck it into the object, intent on using it to guide something on the inside.
She hummed under her breath one of the songs that had just finished playing. It was catchy, she had to admit. And, at that moment, she felt like an all-star.
“That song is kind of a meme,” Sunset said without looking up from her own work, “but… I like it too. It’s nice.” She too poked and prodded at a piece of metal on a wooden table that was pressed right up against Starlight’s.
The laptop sat on its own table right next to Sunset. It made a few more melodic sounds and then a flute chimed in. The low tenor voice that followed was toneless but nonetheless spoke lyrics all the same.
Starlight raised an eyebrow. “Who is Molly Percocets?”
Sunset clicked a key on the keyboard and the laptop went quiet. “That song is so overplayed right now.” She set her tools down and started to scroll through the song list. “Let me see if I can find something that’s good…”
Starlight rolled her eyes and looked around the clearing. She spotted Celestia and Chrysalis each on different sides of the large structure in the center of the clearing. Celestia levitated a small object around the side of the structure and held it near Chrysalis. Chrysalis, who stood at the top of some scaffolding, didn’t even afford it a glance but nonetheless took the object within her magic.
Starlight had to remind herself that the large metallic structure was a half-finished supercomputer. It definitely wasn’t a laptop, that was for sure.
She then turned her attention to Crystal who worked at a lonely table by herself. Crystal worked just like they did, but she had a thousand-yard stare and her features, once vibrant, now lacked color and life. Crystal’s mane and tail had numerous split ends (those, Starlight knew, had accumulated over the last few days).
Starlight stopped for a moment and watched Crystal work. She could see that Crystal’s movements were sluggish and half-coordinated and her eyes had little bits of swelling around them and bags underneath them.
Starlight couldn’t remember seeing Crystal having left that spot for several hours. She couldn’t remember Crystal so much as uttering a peep.
She leaned across the table and whispered, “Hey, Sunset, is it just me, or is Crystal looking out of it?”
After a pause, Sunset looked over her withers and surveyed Crystal for herself. She then turned back to Starlight with a solemn frown and nodded. “Honestly… Yeah. Not just today either.”
“She looks miserable.”
“She probably is miserable.” Sunset set her tools down and glanced toward Crystal again. “This whole stuff with the multiverse is pretty stressful. Heck, I’m not feeling so great about it myself. But with everything else that happened recently, with Celestia suddenly appearing and her mom being somewhere out there…?”
Twilight trotted up at that moment and put her forehooves on one of the tables. “She’s still pretty shaken up about all of that,” she finished.
Both Starlight and Sunset blinked.
“You know she can probably hear you, right?” Twilight asked as she glanced between the both of them.
Starlight blushed but shook her head nonetheless. “Not like it matters; she can just look at the timeline and see every word that we’ve said.”
Twilight nodded. “That’s true…”
“Twilight, I’m worried,” Starlight said with a frown. “She’s obviously out of it.”
They heard sparks and immediately turned to see a dark blue cloud flowing out of Crystal’s horn. The cloud had sparks of electricity flowing through it. They watched in a deathly silence as said cloud formed over Crystal’s head.
Crystal put her tools down, looked at the cloud over her head, and groaned. She lit her horn, and a glass jar appeared. She uncapped the jar and funneled the cloud into it before sealing it up. She set the jar on the corner of her table and then took several long and deep breaths.
She shook her head and, after flashing the three of them a brief glance and blushing, she returned to her work.
Sunset swallowed. “What was that all about?” she whispered.
“I know what that is,” Starlight said. She turned to Sunset and Twilight and leaned as far across the table as she could. “There was a time where I needed to vent all of my anger and frustration. I bottled it up.”
Twilight’s muzzle twitched in thought but she said nothing.
“So… Crystal’s doing it too?” Sunset asked.
“Uhm…” Starlight replied. “That’s what it looks like.”
“I don’t think that’s anger,” Twilight whispered.
“Well… no… but that’s not good emotions either, I can tell you that,” Starlight whispered with a frown. “And the thing I learned about bottled emotions… is that the bottle can break. Because my bottle broke.”
“I’m not surprised. She’s looking unhappy, Twilight,” Sunset whispered. “Honestly, she’s been looking unhappy ever since this whole business started.”
Twilight sighed and turned her eyes to watch Crystal work. “Well… if I could speak my mind here… Something tells me that she’s been unhappy for a lot longer than that.”
The other two turned and watched in silence as Crystal continued working all by her lonesome.
* * *
Twilight took a bite from her apple and then set it down on her plate. She munched in silence, briefly considered the tomato sandwich on her plate, even reached for it, but then decided to put her capacities toward listening to the slow, melodic tunes that came out of Sunset’s laptop instead.
The fire pit in the center of the pavilion was now lit, and she sat around it with Sunset, Starlight, and Celestia who each had similar meals on their plates. They ate in silence, each wearing a content smile all the while. Adamantine sat behind Celestia as she idly flipped through a book.
A smooth male voice played melody to a bass, a piano, some drums, and the occasional backup singers. The song itself was slow, flowing, and melancholic in tone.
Chrysalis, who sat on a nearby cot, listened to the tunes in silence. There was a slight bob to her head and tapping of her hooves in time with the long beats.
Several lanterns, sporadically placed around the clearing, lit the entire area. The golden evening skies above accentuated their color.
Crystal stood in front of a wooden table. She worked in the same silence as before. Her magic gripped a needle which she used to poke into the piece of metal in front of her. She did so with the same vacant concentration from earlier in the day.
Twilight frowned and turned back to her meal. She took another bite of her apple in silence.
The other three stole some glances toward Crystal as well, but they said nothing.
Twilight’s thoughts ran toward what Crystal had shown her. She thought about what Crystal had gone through. She tried to imagine what had happened since.
You’ve been alive for a few thousand years since then, Twilight thought. And you haven’t had a friend in all that time?
She turned her eyes back toward Crystal. I can’t even imagine a life like that… You need friends, Crystal. Everypony does. You need someponies like us.
Twilight stole glances at Sunset and Starlight. She turned her gaze to Celestia and to Adamantine. She even, hesitantly, looked at Chrysalis out of the corner of her eye.
Gosh, I wish I could just show you that. How can I convince you?
Crystal put her tools down and just stood there staring at her work. She let out a dejected sigh and did nothing more.
The music coming out of Sunset’s laptop kept playing all the while. The backup singers, which sounded like a children’s choir, sang in a gospel-like manner; their song was even a lamentation. The male main singer said a few more choice lyrics as the song flowed into another verse.
Twilight set the apple back onto her plate and then climbed to her hooves. She trotted in Crystal’s direction. As she went, she thought about what she had seen at Cadance and Shining Armor’s wedding. She thought about the way they had moved together.
I’m not sure what I’m doing, she thought.
As Twilight approached, Crystal blinked and turned to face her. Crystal’s expression remained long and colorless.
Twilight stopped and gauged Crystal’s expression for a few moments.
The music behind her swelled as it hit the chorus. The backup singers joined the main male voice and they flowed into the next lyrics together.
Twilight extended her hoof to Crystal, silently hoping that Crystal would take it. But… I’ll give it a shot.
Crystal’s eyes flicked between Twilight’s eyes and her outstretched hoof. She sighed and straightened up and then took hold of Twilight’s hoof.
Twilight smiled and pulled Crystal away from the table. Twilight could tell from the way that Crystal walked that she was letting herself be pulled. She was, nonetheless, away from the table.
Twilight pulled Crystal nearer to the pavilion where there were no wooden tables, strung-about toolboxes, scaffolding, or assembled supercomputer parts. It was just a small, open area, and it was exactly what she was looking for. She kept her grip on Crystal’s hoof and she met Crystal’s eyes. Crystal met her back.
Twilight started to bob back and forth. She pushed and pulled against Crystal, and that prompted Crystal to start bobbing in return. Crystal’s expression, for the moment, remained unchanged.
Those in the pavilion watched in silence, and then, one by one, they stood up.
Twilight remembered circles, and so started to circle around Crystal. Her arc was slow, but given that the both of them were still joined by hoof, it served to swing Crystal around as well.
Crystal sighed through her nose and started to swing in the same direction. Twilight, in turn, loosened her pull as she could now feel Crystal moving with her.
Twilight studied Crystal’s expression as they moved, and she could see a fading frown. That prompted her to move with a little more vigor of her own.
Twilight combined the two motions where she pushed and pulled on Crystal as they circled about. Crystal, in turn, did the same. Twilight was smiling now.
Crystal’s lips started to curl upward.
After a few more moments of the two twirling about, Crystal suddenly pulled Twilight in. The pull forced Twilight to spin around, and she nearly lost her balance. It was only when Crystal caught her a second later that Twilight let out a giggle and pressed herself into Crystal. She then bounced off and spun back out but never broke contact.
The others trotted over until they reached the edge of the pavilion. There, they watched in silence. They regarded the display with increasingly wide smirks and grins.
Adamantine closed her book and watched with the hints of a smile on her face.
Now it was Twilight’s turn to try pulling Crystal in and Crystal spun in at her pull. But Twilight, unlike Crystal, didn’t so much catch her dance partner as she let her collide right into her. Crystal bounced off and spun back out and looked at Twilight with surprise.
Twilight giggled and returned to the swinging and bobbing that they had been doing before without missing a beat.
That, in turn, prompted Crystal to chuckle to herself. Finally, a smile graced her features and she moved as Twilight did.
The singer and his backup singers joined together and sang in strong and flowing tones. The guitar and drums that accompanied them swelled.
Chrysalis, who stood at the edge of the pavilion, unfurled her bug-like wings. She took a long whiff of air and let out a contented sigh. The wings on her back sparkled and glittered all the while.
Starlight came up alongside Chrysalis and gave her a playful punch to the abdomen. Chrysalis jumped a little bit and stared down at Starlight for a few moments. Starlight giggled in return. Sunset came upon Chrysalis’ other side and, when Chrysalis turned to look at her too, flashed a smile in return.
The three of them watched in continued silence as Twilight and Crystal danced.
The two of them continued spinning around each other. Crystal spun Twilight in and back out a couple of times; Twilight moved to her fullest each time.
Sunset and Starlight started to sway in time with the music. Chrysalis, still standing between them, cracked a grin and swayed in time with them. They kept their eyes on the duo dancing in the center of the clearing but, for a few moments, the three were in their own little world.
Celestia watched from the center of the pavilion. Her smile spread from cheek to cheek. She exchanged glances with Adamantine, and the two of them then nodded in approval.
At that point, the song began to fade out. With it, Twilight and Crystal’s dance slowed down. Crystal twirled Twilight one last time and then, as the song became inaudible, her movements ground to a stop. Crystal let go of Twilight and the smile that had been on her face disappeared.
On seeing that, Twilight’s smile also disappeared. She kept her eyes on Crystal’s face, and even tried to go in to retake Crystal’s hoof, but she stopped herself.
She didn’t want the moment to end. There was more that could happen, she knew.
The two stood in silence. Those watching from the side also stood in silence.
Crystal turned toward the worktable that she had been at and started toward it again. Twilight turned her eyes toward the pavilion again. However, when Crystal paused after a few steps, Twilight stopped herself from slinking back over.
Crystal’s eyes ran from some nondescript spot in the distance to the large metallic structure in the center of the clearing to the workstation that she had been at just a few minutes prior. She then turned and ran her eyes across the ponies at the pavilion and then, finally, to Twilight who looked expectedly at her.
Crystal smiled, turned, trotted up to Twilight, and wrapped her in a hug. Twilight gasped and then, with her smile returning, wrapped her forelegs around Crystal as well. After a few moments of embrace, they pulled back from each other.
Crystal’s eyes sparkled with vigor and life and some color had noticeably returned to her face. She stood taller and prouder now.
Twilight took the opportunity to pull Crystal into her where she wrapped a foreleg around Crystal’s withers. Crystal, in turn, wrapped a foreleg around Twilight’s withers.
And then the two trotted back to the pavilion together.