//------------------------------// // Tower // Story: PaP: Bedtime Stories // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Nicole could barely lift her hooves. The snow was so thick that some steps brought it cascading onto her back, or up through her cloak and down her hood. The sliced and re-glued waterproof fabric of her clothes protected her from the worst of the moisture and wind, but even so she felt like every step cost her a few minutes of life. It wasn't as though she was walking through a blizzard, either. The mere cold of winter was enough. The unicorn mare was almost as large and healthy as an earth pony, with strong legs and confident steps. That did not mean she would live, though. The windswept wilderness around her bore little sign of human habitation. There were no more roads, no more farmhouses or fields as she imagined she would find. Only the desolate, snowy wilderness as far as she could see. Her coat was a creamy white only a few shades different from the thick snow, though it was broken with brown splotches of a few different shades. Her mane and tail had both been cut short and ragged, though what was left of them were several different brown layers. Nicole could barely remember how long she had been walking. Long enough that she had run out of rations and spent the last few hours before nightfall scavenging for food each night. Long enough that much of her belongings had been damaged and she had abandoned them to conserve weight. Conserving every ounce was the essence of what made fastpackers like her so good. It hadn't helped at all that she was herself getting heavier with each passing month. How much bigger can I get before I can't keep going? Nicole didn't know the answer, but she supposed losing weight would've been an even worse sign. A mother who lost weight as a pregnancy progressed was in dire straits indeed. Nicole had no company in the wilderness but the Wailin' Jennys echoing from the earbuds she had hung into her ears. The sound came through quite clearly even though the cables had started to fray and she had needed to patch them with a few precious inches of electrical tape. So long as some loud noise didn't startle her, or her changing moods didn't make her lower her ears and dump the earbuds. Nicole walked all day, as she always did. Usually she kept going until her backpacking watch gave her two hours to sundown. She didn't keep going that far today, though. Instead, it was the tower. The terrain here was very flat, without mountains or even many hills to break the monotony. There were scraggly trees, but even these didn't add very many obstructions. It was hard to tell for sure, but Nicole thought she could see for fifty miles at least. There, in the direction she was heading, was the tower. Nicole's eyes widened and she sped up, searching for somewhere clearer she could use as today's campsite. She didn't have to go much further, just into another stand of scraggly bare trees. She stopped, making sure she could see the tower all the while, a tired smile spreading across her face. "I don't wanna get your hopes up, but... I think I might've found it." She glanced over her shoulder, concentrating. She felt the rush of energy up into her horn, the firm state of mind she had practiced. Separation dissolved and the saddlebags on her back became a part of her. She commanded them to open, and they did. She lifted a worn leather case out, holding it in front of her. The sleeve had once contained Nicole's bible, along with several other church books. It didn't anymore, though she was fairly sure God would forgive her for that. It's His fault I had to leave it behind—I wouldn't have if He had stopped the world from ending. Nicole unzipped the case, unfolding it in front of her. There was a book inside, with an old-fashioned cover and thick block letters. The paper was frail and yellowing, which was part of why she protected it so reverently. "The Foal's Guide to Unicorn Spells, Cantrips, and Enchantments" it read, along with a simple magical design. Nicole turned a few pages, until she got to the introduction. There on the flaking paper was an illustration, and it was this she held up to the horizon with simple levitation magic. There was the swept spire of the tower, curving slightly as it went and glittering in the light. The illustration was only simple black lines, yet it matched the real thing before her eyes perfectly. The image was a seal, with the words "In Scientia Opportunitas" written in flowing letters around it. There was also a printing date, though Nicole could make no sense of "Printed Nocturnus 949 AE." Nicole didn't leave the precious volume open to the air any longer than she had to. The book was so delicate a stray breeze might tear the pages if she wasn't careful. Protecting it was more than just good sense—it was honoring a sacred trust. She worked quickly, tossing the saddlebags off her back and removing the tent from one side. Her ultra-lightweight backpacking tent had fairly small parts, little titanium rods and stakes and a few cords that had to be tied. If she hadn't been able to levitate them all around, Nicole wouldn't have stood a chance of getting it set up in time. With the help of her horn, it only took her a few minutes. She tossed her bag inside right away, unzipping the little vent at the top of the tent for what would come next. Despite her excitement about the proximity of her destination, Nicole didn't allow herself to be distracted. She searched diligently through the forest, digging through the snow with a light titanium trowel and freeing edible underbrush. She gathered the dryest dead wood she could find as well, though she favored sticks far thinner than what most people burned in their fires. "Last night of gathering firewood out in the wild," she muttered to herself. Well, maybe there was at least one other she wanted to hear, but she knew that wasn't rational. "Last night of wishing we weren't alone. Derek was so much better at this. I know you weren't... still wouldn't remember, but... before winter, he could find enough food for all of us during the walk. It seemed almost magic how good he was at knowing what we could eat and what we couldn't." Nicole was a fairly experienced naturalist, which was much of the reason she was still alive. Where others wouldn't have known the difference between holly berries and wintergreen, Nicole could easily judge the differences in their leaves, just as she could identify every edible thing along a trail regardless of the season. Granted I'm not sure how many of the plants I pass up this body could handle... Her single book didn't talk about that. By the time she was walking back to her makeshift campsite, it was dark enough she had to light up her horn for illumination. This spell too came easily for her now, though it had sent her into a migraine headache whenever she tried it during the first few weeks. It was an amazing relief to make it back to her tent and seal it up behind her. Even with the light of her horn, she knew better than to be out at night. As fast as she travelled, there was no extra weight for things like "weapons." If something big decided she was food, well... she probably would be. Nicole's backpacking tent was barely large enough for two adults to sleep in, but that made it positively spacious for a single pony. She dug around in her saddlebag in the dark, eventually digging out the contraption more responsible for her survival (or at least her sanity) than any other. It looked like a little stove, though there was an opening for sticks in the bottom instead of any other kind of fuel. This she filled from some of her haul, lighting the kindling with a flint striker and stoking with a few sturdy breaths. She made sure to place the little stove right in the center of her tent, directly under the vent. It still wasn't the smartest idea. She never dared sleep with the little stove burning, or else risk any number of different deaths. After trekking alone across a continent, she sure as hell wasn't going to suffocate of carbon monoxide or burn before she could wake up. Not on her last night, that was for sure. The little stove gave her some warmth, as well as heat for her single little pot, which she filled with snow from outside. While it melted, she plugged her phone into the charging port. No signal, as usual. She resisted the temptation to keep listening. Nicole wanted to be alert for predators, but that wasn't the only thing she was listening for. Why haven't you heard or seen anyone coming from Alexandria? she asked herself. Why aren't there any roads? None of that mattered. She would reach the city tomorrow, she was sure of that. She would arrive and find it full of ponies, just like she had been imagining since Derek died. "We'll find out what that disease was," she muttered to herself. "We'll find out what happened to the world. The people there will know. They've got to know." * * * Nicole slept uneasily that night. This was not terribly uncommon for her, not since she had come back after the end of the world. Strange dreams seemed as much a part of being a pony as walking on four legs and peeing standing up. Lots of it was taken up by totally mundane nightmares—watching Derek come down with the strange sickness, digging his grave, watching their tiny house burn down... Well, technically those were all memories first, so it was hard to blame the whole "pony" thing for any of that. Nightmares were a regular part of Nicole's life, though they were stranger than usual today. Long walks and tears faded easily into the background, and rarely lingered with her until morning. Something did, though. A vast, crumbling space she had never seen before, packed with collapsing bookshelves and smelling of mildew. Only a few little candles burned, and didn't get nearly high enough to include the ceiling far above. It seemed appropriate that the only other she saw in the massive space would be a bat, or at least have batlike wings. "You're too late," she said, sounding a little bitter. "If you'd come here a century earlier, you would've loved it. Not anymore." "I know the world ended!" Nicole shouted, since she couldn't actually see the speaker yet. "I'm an animal now. My husband was too, before..." "That's not what I meant." That was when she saw the creature clearly. She was larger than Nicole, her teeth pointed and wingspan huge. She didn't look old the way the last pony she had seen looked old, with the color fading from her coat. This pony looked bright and alert. "You came all the way to goddamn Alexandria, but there's nothing there anymore. There's nothing anywhere. Look." Nicole looked, and the cavernous space was gone. She stood instead at the base of a massive crystal tower, a whole structure of glittering gemstone. In front of her was a statue of a rearing pony without wings or horn, pointing up at the sky. The pony's features had all faded—there was no mark on the flank and she couldn't guess at gender. She could still read the inscription though, half buried in sand. "My name is Archive, final hope of Mankind. Look upon my knowledge, ye wise, and despair." Without knowing how, Nicole recognized the huge structure before her as a university, larger than many she had known from her world. It was in ruin now, ceilings fallen in like London after the Blitz. "You won't find your answers there, refugee. Not anymore." "Then you tell me!" Nicole screamed, as loudly as she could. "If you know so much, what happened to the world? What killed my husband?" Nicole woke screaming, without any answers. "It's not true," she told herself, snacking on the rest of her food. She washed herself with more melted snow and a rag—she wasn't going to wander in a barbarian, even if she had been one for months now. "When we get there, it's going to be a bustling city." She packed up the tent, rolling up her ultralightweight sleeping bag and packing away her wood-fired electric stove. "They'll answer all of my questions." Strangely specific nightmares didn't mean they would be accurate, even if they were a little more convincing. * * * Nicole could tell something was wrong from the moment she first saw the wall. That Alexandria had been a walled city she could tell from far away; huge stone blocks rose up at least five stories in some places, with still-higher towers breaking periodically. "Maybe Derek was wrong," she muttered to herself, as she moved briskly up a flat area that might've once been a road. "Just because we have all the same plants and the land looks similar—this might not be Earth." So far as she knew, North America hadn't ever had cities like this. As she got closer, she could see the disrepair she had guessed from a distance wasn't the natural erosion of time. Huge black craters had been torn in the sides, and whole sections were falling over. Nearest her direction, one of the towers had fallen over onto the land in front of the city, with stone blocks seeming to melt together, as though from some inhuman heat. There were no voices from up ahead. No smoke rose from the city as from primitive fires, and no sound of cars or other machines. She heard only the cheerful songs of birds, and caught only the mournful eyes of squirrels and other woodland creatures. It was late afternoon when she finally reached the wall, and the huge tear into the side that the missing tower had made. Up close, it looked as though massive hands had gripped the thing, taking huge gouges into white marble. Despite the terrible stress, much of the walls appeared intact around it. Her horn hummed faintly to her as she got close, a sure sign of still active spells coursing through them. There was no gate in this direction. It seemed foolish to walk around and find one with such obvious damage here that allowed her to clearly see inside. Just as her dream had warned, she saw no people within the gates. Mere feet within the walls cobblestone streets began, with huge buildings leaning narrowly out over them. Nicole clambered over huge stone blocks, hopping back down onto the cobbles and making her way inside. It was hard to make specific guesses about what the city had looked like, because the whole thing had been burned. Many of the structures had been at least three stories, packed tenements not unlike some European cities. There looked to be glass windows and power lines too, and metal tracks were set into the center of the street. A little way further she came upon the charred wreckage of a trolley, still tangled in the lines. There were no living people inside, though she could make out the bleached white of bone from within rotting cloth and wood. "Ugh!" She pulled back and away from the trolley, hurrying a little faster down the street. She soon reached an intersection, and turned in the direction of the tower. This close to the university, she could make out the glittering crystal spire, several different shades of sea-blue melting into green as it got lower. Several smaller towers rose up around it, tall enough to still be visible over the wreckage of the city. "Maybe... maybe the press survived?" She sounded weak now, even to herself. There was no reason to suspect the school would've done any better than the rest of the city. This wasn't a natural disaster—if it had been, the bodies wouldn't have been left to rot. As she walked, Nicole took in the city. Not all the buildings were burned, and those that had survived gave her some idea of what it had been like. Many had been white once, though the whitewashing gave way to smoke and other unsavory stains. There were many wide windows, many chimneys and sloped roofs. There were lots of old-style Edison bulbs, rising from the streetlights wherever they hadn't been completely shattered. The writing was English. Nicole passed what she took for a grocer, though someone had scrawled "NO PRODUCE TODAY" across the chalkboard. The shop within had been totally looted—just like all the other structures she had passed. Nowhere on ground level did anything useful remain. Eventually she made it to the university. There was no doubting she had made it, for the location was exactly as it had been in her dream. A massive campus, with its structures seemingly constructed from a single unbroken sheet of glittering minerals. It was far enough away from the burned buildings on its sides that there were no scorch marks around it, though there was other damage. What might've been elegant gardens looked like they had been eaten down to the dirt, with only a few feeble scraps of field grass peeking through the snow. The garden of statues had all been torn down, broken and cracked. Only the one she had seen in her dream remained, though it was so melted and charred that only the plaque was distinguishable. Every window on the building looked like it had been shattered, though that did little to mask the powerful sense of latent magic. It was hard to tell, but it seemed to be coming from the exact center of the tower, a glow more intense than any she had felt. Nicole couldn't keep going. She had become a widow, crossed the country with a pregnant belly, fought depression and fear and loneliness, and survived the winter. To finally arrive in her destination and find it filled only with ice and corpses... it was too much. She couldn't bring herself to care as the sun went down. Couldn't bring herself to care as she finally stopped shivering. She would die here, in front of the monument to a nameless pony who had not come for her. She would die, and so would the last shred of her husband. Time swam, and Nicole knew none of it. The moon rose in the sky, and the snow and its spire of crystal seemed to catch fire. As the rest of the city crumbled, the former university didn't seem to care. Neither did she. Something shook Nicole's shoulder. She didn't notice at first, but the shaking got worse, and she blinked. She had long since run out of tears, though there were streaks of ice down her cheek. She looked up. There was a pony there—a unicorn stallion with gray streaks in his lime-colored mane and bright green eyes. "You shouldn't be out here." She stopped crying, though she didn't really care that someone had seen. How long had it been since Nicole saw someone who wasn't a corpse? Months? Years? She wasn't sure she could trust her memory. "A-me- real?" Her words came out in a slur, mostly from the cold. "Peace." His horn glowed the same bright green as his eyes which fixed firmly on her chest. Nicole felt sudden warmth blaze into her chest, reminding her just how painfully damaged her body was becoming. She wasn't just cold, she was freezing to death! Her limbs had gone numb, there was ice on her face and around the edges of her hooves. She started to shiver violently, shaking water from her mane. "W-what..." "Hold still, child." The warmth didn't fade, growing brighter and brighter from her chest. Ice along her coat began to melt, as the glow spread out from her chest and down her limbs. Snow all around them boiled to steam, leaving strange arcane patterns on the ground. "Almost..." Pressure exploded from around her, a crack that scattered snow for hundreds of feet around and left her dry. Her mane fluffed a little at the sudden heat. More importantly, she no longer shivered, no longer even felt a little chilly. Except for the wind. The stranger collapsed onto his haunches, breathing heavily. His horn still glowed, though the green was quite faint; equivalent to the light her own horn might make. "A young mother shouldn't spend the night out in the cold." She felt alive, it was true. At least, she felt more alive than she had. That didn't mean she didn't feel angry. Without meaning to, her horn started glowing. "My world hasn't fucking cared about what 'should' be. Not since the world goddamn ended." Nicole bared her teeth at the stallion—if he thought she was going to be an easy victim just because... It was hard to tell for sure, but she was fairly sure this pony was much older than she was—either that, or his mane was just naturally that gray, and his face that grizzled. He visibly recoiled from her anger, raising one hoof in a placating way. "You're a refugee?" He cleared his throat. "That explains the accent." "I'm from Manitoba, eh." She spoke without thinking, exaggerating her vowels and truncating her consonants. The gesture settled a little of her anger, if only because it was familiar. "What's a refugee?" She still sounded defensive, and she was still cold. She still didn't care. "It means you're from Earth. Arinna, it's been..." he trailed off, looking up at the sky. "I couldn't even tell you. The triple digits all blur together." He shook his head, rising to his hooves again. The gesture seemed to cost him a little. "Look, it's not really safe out here. It's winter—if I don't freeze to death, wolves or raiders will catch us. I don't think I've got the juice to fight them off just now." He tapped the side of his horn with one hoof, then turned away. "I could show you where I'm living. You'll probably get more answers there than the university." "The university printed books." Nicole found herself speaking without meaning to, following him a few steps. "I'm sure they know more than just one person could. Even if you are... into the triple digits." Those last few words came out with more than a little skepticism. "It would've been before they burned the library." He shrugged one shoulder, glancing back at her. "Really, they should've seen it coming. Name the place 'Alexandria', what do they expect? Should've named it 'The City Where Nothing Bad Ever Happened.' More proscriptive that way, eh?" "Don't you do it." Nicole wasn't sure what made her trust this pony. Maybe it was that he was the first friendly face she had seen in months. Maybe it was that he knew far more about her world than the only other pony she had ever met had. Well, besides Derek... He might be taller, but he was also older, so it didn't take long for her to catch up. "It's okay for me to make fun of my own accent. It's, like... racist or something when Americans do it." She didn't sound very convincing though, not even to herself. "Racist." He repeated the word with a tone almost like awe. "You really are a refugee." He stuck out his hoof, grinning. His teeth were white and well cared-for despite his apparent age. "You can call me Karl. It's simpler than the truth." "Alright, Mr. Karl..." She touched the edge of his hoof with her own, however briefly. The gesture didn't really make as much sense for ponies as it did for humans. "I'm Nicole." He started walking again. Karl seemed to know where he was going, because he took some streets while avoiding others. He didn't seem to be heading back into the ruined residential district, but further into the official-looking parts of the city. "First order of business—we'll need to come up with a better name for you." She stopped right in the street, glaring up at him. "Excuse me?" Again Karl looked placating, lifting up one hoof. "Nopony uses human names anymore." He lowered his voice, barely loud enough for her to hear over the wind. "Ponies blame refugees for..." He looked up, around at the city, and shivered all over. "This. Half of the ponies who might’ve found you—even the good ones—might just decide to make an offering of you. Keep the plague off their foals for another year." Nicole shuddered and started walking again. "I think... I think I know what plague you're talking about." "Aye." He nodded slowly. "If you ever find somepony else you say your name is..." He leaned a little closer to her. "Adventure Time. Got a real adventurous cutie mark, so that ought to pass." She forced her mouth to close, hurrying to catch up with him. "You're not serious. You want me to tell people I'm a cartoon show?" "I want you to tell ponies that you're..." He smiled. "You know the classics? Well, you come up with something better if you like. Just make sure it sounds like it shouldn't be a name—that's how you know you're on the right track." She ignored his snide smile. "Why don't you live in the university?" She flicked her tail behind them, towards the massive crystal structure. Its whole outline seemed to glow in the night, little flickers of frozen moonlight darting from the base to the tip in fairly regular succession. "Looked pretty stable. There's lots of magic coming from inside, I bet—" He cut her off with a look. "The 'university' is the first place raiders go when they get here, Nexus notwithstanding. You get sick of killing desperate, starving ponies after a while. Trust me." His ears flattened, and he quickened his steps a little. "Besides—grow up with modern amenities, and it's hard to give them up. I like my electricity and running water, and the university doesn't have either." "You're joking," she said, eyes narrowing as she looked around them again. "I don't know what this place looked like before it burned, but it doesn't look like it was ever modern." "I... guess not." Karl slowed down again, looking wistful. Here the buildings were made of stone, and so they had fared far better. Even so, they had the look of state structures about them: massive columns, impractically gigantic doors and high windows. Much damage was apparent, including tons of graffiti in a language she couldn't read. "I didn't see it founded, but I saw it a few years later. Wasn't... much of a town then. Everything was still working though, which was nice."  Her guide didn't seem to be seeing the same buildings as he spoke. "Old movie theater was right here. I used to go there all the time, but... I don't remember what I watched." He shrugged. "Whatever, doesn't matter. We're almost home." He crossed another street, towards what looked a little like a park. Would've been, if there weren't broken statues and a giant crater in the center. Nicole wasn't really thinking about that, though. "Derek was right." She sighed, glancing down at her belly. "It's Planet of the Apes, if the apes were us." Karl wasn't the only one seeing things that weren't there. "How long?" He shrugged. "I don't know. My memory gets really fuzzy each time I..." He shook his head. "Alexandria fell in 1021 AE. I... guess it's been at least that long." "Over a thousand years?" Nicole repeated, though there was no disbelief left in her voice. She didn't really have the energy, not when she was surrounded by so much evidence. "Guess it makes sense nothing would be left." "Almost nothing." Karl stopped at the edge of the crater, his horn beginning to glow. It was deep—as though there had been stairs here once leading down. They had all collapsed now, though that wasn't the worst. Much timber and other refuse had been brought here, all of it burned. As Nicole looked, she saw bones mixed in with the refuse. She withdrew a few steps, mouth opening in horror. "What the hell is—" The smell hit her then—a wave of death that overwhelmed the cold and poured into her equine nose. She couldn't help it: Nicole turned her head aside and wretched. It took her a few minutes before she could think clearly again. "What the fuck is this place?" Karl lowered his head respectfully to the crater, raising one hoof to his chest. "Arinna give them rest." He sighed. "I really wish we didn't have to come this close. Come on; be careful as we walk around the crater." Nicole followed, though not nearly as close to the edge as Karl walked. She did her best to see in as little as possible, dimming her horn until it was just barely enough light to see by. Even so, she had to tread carefully. There was no snow here, but there were patches of ice, blending into the dirt and scraggly dead grass. It was only the reflection that let her see them at all. "Your home is near a grave?" She couldn't see Karl's face in front of her, yet she could hear his voice break as he spoke. "I wanted to bury them, but raiders come back too often. They'd know someone had been here." "Not that." She flicked her tail back towards the rest of the city. They were very near to a wall here, perhaps only five hundred feet or so away. It rose tall and proud here, unbroken by damage as other sections had been. "Why would you live here?" "No choice." He stopped walking about a hundred feet past the crater, tapping the ground with one hoof. The dirt sounded a little different here, though it was hard to say how. "We're here. You ever teleport before?" There was no indignation left in Nicole anymore. "I can't say I have." "First time for everything." The stallion glanced around, surveying the land all around them. He seemed to be searching for something, though it was hard to say what. After a few seconds, he seemed to find it: a burned stick with enough intact wood to write with. The stick levitated towards them, then started drawing on the ground all around them. "You'll probably want to pay attention—any new spell is a spell worth learning." "Spell." She repeated the word, the same one her scrap of half-rotten book always used. "You just draw it onto the ground? Draw, and... things happen?" "Not quite." He tossed the stick aside. "This pattern is a focus for the power, as well as my mind. A better unicorn than I wouldn't even need it for such a short distance." He climbed over the marks, careful not to touch any of them with hoof or tail. "Come in here. When I say go, close your eyes and breathe out as hard as you can." "Sure, whatever." Nicole rolled her eyes as she stepped inside. "That makes about as much sense as any of the rest of this nightmare." Karl ignored her. His horn, only faintly glowing before, seemed as though it had caught on fire. It was light as she had seen it earlier, a radiance of magic she had never manifested in herself. "Open wide the gates," he commanded. "Through the threshold." Green light swirled around them, choking light and air away. "Now!" Nicole shouted, slamming her eyes closed and covering them with a hoof. Time ceased to flow as strange sensations danced around her—scorching heat that threatened to burn at her fur, chilling cold far worse than winter. There was no air to breathe, and something seemed to be drawing the life right out her throat. The awful moment passed, and Nicole fell a few inches. Not far, and soon enough she was on her hooves again with only a little jerk. "That was awful," she coughed, wiping something away from her face with a hoof. Frost? "Yeah," Karl admitted. "I was already a little drained from warming you up. But it was either teleport anyway, or spend the whole night in the dead city." There was no longer any breeze, no longer moonlight or cold or smell of fire and death. Nicole opened her eyes, but there was nothing to see. She concentrated, and her horn started to glow again. Emptiness became a cavernous tunnel, easily high enough for a human to walk. In the glow of her horn she could make out the faint tiles of a mosaic set into the ceiling—a pair of nude human figures, arms outstretched. Just as with her old book, there was a little Latin written there too. "Ad Vitam Aeternam," she read, then sighed. "Guess they didn't get their wish." "No," Karl agreed. "Not even close." In the faint glow of her horn, the elderly stallion looked much the worse for wear. His face had a sunken caste, his whole body more shriveled. Could a unicorn use so much magic they starved? "B-but... it's still home. The others will be..." He rose slowly, using a worn-looking stone handrail to keep himself steady. There were no stairs, but instead one long ramp. It stretched down below them in one direction as far as her light could go. In the other direction there was only rubble and dirt, apparently from a serious cave-in. No doubt the crater was at the other end. "Are you gonna be alright?" "Yeah." He nodded, and started walking again. Without meaning to, Nicole found herself walking closer to him, suddenly concerned. What if he slipped and rolled down the ramp? "I'll be fine." He looked up, and seemed a little healthier. "It's not far. I just need a little rest, is all. Come on. I think you'll find the rest of your answers down there. Let's check out the accommodations." * * * Nicole found that the lower they got, the more she could see without her horn. Whatever else he might've told her, old Karl wasn't lying about a home waiting here. "I don't have the energy to give you the tour now, I'm afraid," Karl explained, as they made their way down. She let the light from her horn fade as glowing crystals set into the walls seemed to be doing that job, filling the whole space with soft yellow. At the base of the stairs was stone scarred by burns and other signs of battle, and numerous sharp spines and barricades pointing at them. Only a thin aisle was open in the center, with enough space for only one pony to walk at a time. Unlike above, there was no blood or other signs of combat here. Whatever war there had been down here had been cleaned up well. Behind the barricades was a gigantic sign, still readable despite numerous burns. "Welcome to the Alexandria Museum of Human Achievement!" Much of the rest had faded away, or been painted over with things she couldn't read. "You... live in a museum?" she found herself asking, following as close as she could without getting a face full of Karl's tail. "Sort of." Karl didn't turn to look back at her, since doing so might've ended up with him skewered. Nicole could sense more than just physical dangers from the space on either side of the aisle, too. Probably there were magical "spikes" waiting in there worse than the wooden ones. "Same structure." There were two doorways through the spikes, and light only came from one. He gestured vaguely at the dark one as they passed it. "The Museum is in there. We haven't visited much since things fell apart, but... you'll probably want to tomorrow." He stopped in front of the other doorway. "This building was designed by..." he trailed off. "A pony named Archive. She insisted on building underground to preserve this place through time. I can't really remember how it looked super clearly, but..." He shrugged, walking forward again. "When I took ownership of the property, it included copies of the original blueprints. No joke, they excavated twice the space the museum needed, and had this whole area boarded up. Arinna knows I built what the engineer intended." There was a bright hallway, with several wide doors stretching off in different directions. There were signs painted on the walls, but none of these were English, so Nicole couldn't read them. It hadn't been built with nearly the same level of care as the previous hallway—much of the walls were still unadorned stone, and the ground was still flat concrete. The ceiling itself was the strangest thing—each was a cylinder of different sizes, despite evident crumbling and decay around the edges. "I've never seen a building like this before..." she muttered, not even looking at her guide anymore. "It's a little like the transit system in Montreal, but not nearly as pretty." Karl shrugged. "Archive knew what she was doing. Well... at least about construction. She was pretty lousy at not getting her dumb ass killed." Was that bitterness in his voice? It wasn't exactly the first time Nicole had heard anger like that from someone she thought was older, but... "Who was Archive?" she continued, trying to sound conversational. Of course, she had learned so little about this world that she would take anything. "More of those silly noun-names?" Her guide abruptly stopped, and as he turned his anger was all for her. He glanced around her, as though checking to see each of the doors around them were securely shut. They were, each one like a submarine airlock. "There's nothing silly about the proper way we name things Adventure Time." He leaned down towards her, only a few inches away. She quavered as his hot breath brushed about her face. "Remember what you saw out there. Many ponies would happily add you to the pyre if they knew where you were from.” He waited expectantly until she nodded, and only then let her pull away. His expression relaxed. "Her human name was Alex… something. Arinna knows it’s been so long since I’ve heard it..." He abruptly stopped at one of the doors, his horn glowing as he twisted the seal. Metal squeaked, and air rushed all around her. "Can't be that long," she muttered, as he opened the door. "Horses live what, forty years? We look like we're mostly horses." "Horses live about forty years, so thank compassionate Arinna you didn't come back as a horse. The rest of us, well..." He shrugged. "Most ponies do about two centuries, though some do three. More if you cheat." He pushed the door open with a hoof, gesturing at the room beyond. "Your pod." Nicole barely even saw the pod. Had Karl really just—"Three centuries?" She shook her head. "You really expect me to believe a little animal could live that long?" "Not tonight." He stuck his hoof into the pod. Faint light glowed from within, as though activated by the motion. "I need rest, and so do you. Tomorrow we can go through the museum and answer your questions." "Alright." Nicole strode past him, into the pod beyond. She had barely made it a few feet in when she heard Karl start walking again. "I'll have somepony get you for breakfast in the morning. Don't say anything stupid." Soon enough the stallion was gone, his footsteps vanishing around the corner. Nicole stood in the open doorway another moment, looking down at her belly. "Well... here we are. Made it to Alexandria.” She dropped onto the ground, not even bothering to shut the door. "Wish you'd made it too, Derek."