//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: The Moon // Story: Knight of Wands // by Starscribe //------------------------------// The Moon So far as transitions went, at least they hadn’t fallen to their deaths or been beaten to a bloody pulp this time. Jackie felt a little pain in her eyes adjusting to the light, but not for long. It was only the moon, and the cold evening air was refreshing against her coat. She shook once, soaking it in and letting herself breathe. She could hear the sound of numberless changelings in a swarm chittering and calling to one another, then a crack as the portal behind them sealed closed. Then it was just her, and the terrified breathing of a few other clones. Slivers? Fractions? Corpses, maybe. She was turning into a veritable corpse brigade. What keeps killing me? I haven’t even been hit this whole time? Maybe Charybdis was getting his final revenge after all. She had set her spirit adrift, and it would be devoured. She didn’t have the power to reach into the Abyss anymore, but other creatures did. Maybe that was what waited for her at the end. “I just met you five seconds ago,” Sarah said, startling Jackie. She was back to looking like a pony—an Alicorn again, with the same cutie mark and colors and everything. Like we don’t remember what you really are underneath. “So don’t let me presume. But I’m going to presume and say you feel like you’re on the run from something.” “Because your world was unsafe?” “Because you don’t seem surprised.” She circled around the three of them. “Look at you all. Survivors of a shipwreck, that’s what this is. And… you should know that you’re kinda sorta technically dead now? I hope that’s not an issue. It won’t be, we’ll get new bodies on the way out. I guess if you didn’t want to be in the system… sorry? I mean not really but I should say sorry so we’re going to go through that song and dance.” Jackie tried to listen to her and take in the details of their surroundings at the same time, but it wasn’t easy. Trees, insects, the moon high overhead. She couldn’t smell any other ponies, or the kind of creatures that she knew to be afraid of. But that didn’t mean they were safe. Every time we’ve gone anywhere, we were attacked almost immediately. Either by things that seemed native to that place, or just random chance. It looked like they were under siege by a rival dream-traveler, one of incredible persistence and power. Jackie’s dream powers were working, and the others all around her acted like fragments of herself broken apart by unconscious deaths. But it still felt like she was missing something. “Look, I can tell you’ve got a short attention span, so I’ll explain this the simplest way I can. You’re on the run, but I don’t think the thing you’re running from is one you can get away from with just hooves and wings.” Sarah tapped her chest with one wing. “It’s in there. Something you’re missing, maybe.” “I’m not running from anything,” Jackie insisted. “I’m looking for knowledge about the afterlife. I know there’s something, because a death goddess took me there. But I don’t know if that’s where to find my wife.” “Maybe she’s nowhere,” Moire suggested, her tone helpful. Her words were less so. “Like my soul after I got downloaded. Just another ghost in the machine, that’s what they say. Data in the network. I don’t mean to the cruel, but you could be looking for something that doesn’t exist anymore.” “You weren’t there,” Jackie hissed. “I saw them. Felt them, during the Last War. Archive brought back thousands and thousands of dead, including from ponies from right before the end of the world. They’re real. One of them traded places with an Alicorn… and she’s still alive.” “But not your wife,” Moire continued. Either she didn’t realize this was a sensitive subject, or she didn’t care. “Maybe she didn’t want to be back. Maybe she—” Jackie’s voice was a growl. She didn’t move, didn’t even twitch, just locked eyes with the bat. “Think real carefully about what you’re about to say, Moire. Really, really careful.” The bat swallowed, stumbling back a few inches. She didn’t continue. “What I thought.” There were a few moments of awkward silence between them, until Jackie finally spoke. “So, Sarah. You said we were dead now? Is that how this world works?” Dreams had deaths all the time, and existence always continued. There was no dream without some kind of existence, even if it was just freezing in a substanceless void for all eternity. Sleep might be compared to death, but dreaming never was. “Where are we, exactly?” “Digital,” she answered. “This is Upstream—an alien computer of incomprehensible size and power. It’s run by an AI that’s basically a god and there’s nothing anyone can do but learn its rules or die. But on the plus side it wants to protect living things, and we haven’t had to fight it too much.” “Okay,” she said, completely unconcerned. It didn’t even enter her mind that this Jackie might be right—obviously she couldn’t be, not here. “So how would we become alive again? We need to get back to… where the living ponies are. Get some magic from them, that we can use to…” Even she was struggling to remember her plan. Magic would let her… stay in one piece, that was it. Without it she would forget who she was and start to change. Was she changing already? How will I know when I’m somepony else? She couldn’t even keep a diary, since objects were as malleable as anything else in here. It would just change like the rest of her world. “Unless… one of you can tell me what I want to know about Ezri. Where she is, how to get there. Is she living where that flight goes?” “Living,” Squeak said. “I’m not sure any of us are living. Might not be the best choice of words.” “Whatever.” She didn’t even look up. “What about you, pretend Alicorn? Do you know the secrets of life and death?” The Alicorn’s eyebrows went up. “I already told you. We’re technically dead right now. If your wife is anywhere, she’s already in here. It’s just a matter of finding her.” No way. This was just an empty forest, with no sign of… alien supercomputer? There were no such things as aliens, not after the Event. But it wasn’t like she had better options. “And to get there, uh…” The Alicorn’s horn sparked once, smoking slightly. Then she pointed. “That way!” She started walking. Not terribly fast, but Jackie followed anyway. The others had no choice but to imitate, or else be left behind. Last of them was Squeak, who landed on her back as she’d done several times already. Even so, Jackie had gone from one of the largest and tallest ponies she knew to almost the smallest member of her group. There was no justice. “I didn’t tell you anything about her,” Jackie said, annoyed. “You only know her species!” “Yeah, she’s a changeling. Like me. All of them go back this way when they die—so they can get processed and reborn. She’s done it before, she’ll do it again. You’re the one who’s new to it. If you’re my clone or shallow-copy or whatever, then you’re new at this. Don’t worry, you’ll get it.” “I’m uh… not sure this is where you think it is,” Moire Pattern said, the only one who was flying of their group. She didn’t seem to get tired, her wings moving in the same perfect, mechanical way with each stroke. “I’ve been trying to run several of my programs, and nothing happens. I tried running a Realm lookup for Ezri, nothing. Tried calling up the Murciélagos, no reply. No messages, no satellites, nothing. This isn’t digital.” “I have no idea what any of that means,” Sarah said. “But digital might not be… quite right. Their computers are so much more advanced than us they probably don’t share anything in common. They can talk, though… that’s what the Forerunner is for. He’s our computer’s method to communicate with theirs.” But Jackie could see what the others couldn’t—Sarah was nervous. Her eyes darted off the rock formation they could see through the trees or the thicker part of the forest, and moved over them like something new. She has no idea where she’s going. This annoyed her, but not enough to say yet. Jackie needed to know if they were being intentionally misled, or… something else. The trip became something more akin to her trips through the Dreamlands after that. A few days passed in the forest, with Jackie’s little “army” of companions remaining dedicated to the mission despite their numerous and obvious differences. She wondered if any of them would realize they were helping her without any effort on her part. But they hadn’t yet. There was never anything like self-awareness from her companions. But wouldn’t they have said the same thing about her? She remained fairly passive in terms of directions as they traveled, so long as she was continuously reminded that they were indeed in territory she didn’t recognize. She was prepared with every second to take over and point out just how stupid their mission was, as soon as she found somewhere familiar in the Dreamlands. But she never did, not once. On some levels this was not that unusual, since the Dreamlands was an ever changing place and its features and landforms were always moving, always reconfiguring themselves. But they didn’t just shift at random—they had patterns. Dreams grouped by symbols and she should’ve been able to trace those symbols to an exit. Jackie found that she couldn’t. There were no signs of other dreamers—in fact, she hadn’t really “met” another person who wasn’t just another fragment of herself. At least there weren’t any more lurking in the forest, just as there were no more inexplicable disasters to get them killed. Not until they stumbled into a city. Granted, that name was generous. It reminded her a little of a deer settlement, if instead of living wood they had built their city with entire collapsed sections of buildings. Sheet glass and scrap metal had been made into buildings at random, and the single road running through town was made of old vinyl records and the corpses of endless Beats By Dre. She could tell there was something strange about the “villagers” before they got close—but now that she’d seen them, Jackie didn’t try to turn back. They walked on two legs like humans, but they were furred like ponies and dressed like ponies and displayed their cutie marks prominently on much of their bodies. “Alright, uh…” Jackie stopped them at the city wall, which was made of thousands of rusted cars all stacked vertically and welded together. “Time to blend in. How many can do that?” She looked around, but only the changeling raised a hoof. “I’m not sure we should be going in,” Sarah said. “This is, uh… maybe not the way I imagined. I think I might’ve made a wrong turn somewhere, and we should try to find our way…” She trailed off at Jackie’s glare. “Maybe you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, and they do,” she said. “I’m going in. I suggest you all come with me.” “Maybe… I’m your pet?” Squeak suggested. “And the giant robot is your noble steed? She’s always bragging about being tall, now she can be tall enough to carry you.” “You know I could eat meat if I wanted,” Moire Pattern said. “I dunno if a tiny bat should talk like you do. It’s bad for her safety.” But there had been no violence between them before, and Jackie ignored the suggestion it might happen now. She closed her eyes, and concentrated on another bit of dream magic. She had to focus, for just as before she started drifting the instant her magic began. Only by focusing on her hooves against the floor could she keep herself grounded. She hadn’t used magic for days now, so the sensation wasn’t nearly as bad as when she’d used the welder. Jackie didn’t dissolve, and after a few seconds she’d dreamed herself on two legs, with a pair of wings behind her and some scraps of scavenged clothes mostly open in front like the ones ponies in the village were wearing. She took a few tentative steps forward, testing the joints on her weird legs. But despite the weird way it looked, she felt no pain. “Not bad. You sure you aren’t a changeling under there too?” said another pony from beside her. A nondescript unicorn girl, blue with an orangish mane. “Who am I? You get one guess.” “I don’t care,” Jackie said. “But good, that’s two. I guess… robot and tiny-me can’t do this. We’ll just have to hope they don’t notice. Or… maybe pass you off as our pets if we have to. Try not to talk once we get into town.” “Try not to talk she says,” Moire muttered. “I could get resleeved in a body like that in five minutes with the right machines. Too bad we’re in a fuckin’ forest and there’s no fabrication credits.” “Yeah.” Jackie didn’t even try to sound sympathetic. “Just don’t talk about it when we get in.” “I still think it’s stupid,” Sarah’s fake unicorn girl said. “We don’t have anything to gain from in there. This is just some other fraction of society from long ago. They’ve been dead for so long they probably don’t even remember there’s another place to live.” Jackie almost gave up on her and started walking—but now Sarah didn’t look like her, she had another idea. These others didn’t seem to have so much of her memories. Maybe they’d get flustered by… She slid up close to Sarah from behind, wrapping both arms around one of hers and not being even a little shy about personal space. “Hey, Sarah. I know you’re not happy about being here, but I’d be so grateful if you’d give me a chance. I know this should be your world, but it might not, and… I only want to try.” “You’re not serious,” Squeak muttered. Sarah seemed to think she was serious. It wasn’t that she was a starving changeling—her coat was colorful, which meant she wasn’t even the same breed. But maybe it was just old habits. Either way, the girl seemed to stiffen, and she nodded. “Guess we could… look. For a few minutes.” “I know you won’t regret it,” Jackie said, though of course she knew absolutely nothing about what Sarah would think. It wasn’t a lie, but… she sure could sound convincing.  “I’ll make sure of it.” “Okay.” “She’s serious.” Jackie turned to glare at Squeak, but she didn’t say a word. Sarah didn’t argue again. They walked slowly back around the village, then passed in through a fast-food sign that could be lowered and raised like a gate. “Welcome!” said the first pony they saw—a male earth pony, with a brownish coat and dreadlocks in his mane. “It has been long since we had visitors. You must have come from far away.” His eyes didn’t seem to linger on Moire and Squeak, though Jackie couldn’t be positive. Unlike their changeling, she couldn’t read emotions. “Far away,” she agreed, taking Sarah’s hand and squeezing it before she could say something stupid and ruin it. “We are looking to get home. Can you tell us how to get to the Enchanted Wood? We have dreamed so far that we lost our way.” When she saw no recognition she went on, trying to keep her tone neutral. “Or maybe Leng, or… The Great City, or… Abaddon?” The pony shook his head. As she spoke, others seemed to drop what they were doing and come hurrying over. The village was primitive—ponies hung fish to dry, they wove baskets from discarded grocery bags, or mixed porridge of scavenged berries and spam from cracked-open cans. But apparently none of that mattered with guests to see. “I’m afraid I can’t take you to any of those places…” he said. “But there is somewhere we can go,” said another member of the village, without skipping a beat. A child, pointing up the hill. There was a longhouse there, made of various sizes of broken streetlights. “The feast has been waiting for you, Jacqueline. You must come with us.” Jackie spread her wings, and very nearly tested to see if this strange anatomy could fly. But she could see no signs of violence—the most dangerous things these villagers had were the tiny knives they used for opening cans. If she couldn’t fight off two-legged freak ponies with can knives, then she probably deserved to get eaten by a weird cult. “Alright,” she said. “But only if my friends can come.” “Of course!” said the first pony. “We’ve been waiting for all of you. There are seats for them at the table.” The glances she got from the various copies told Jackie that none of them wanted to sit at any table in this place, but she didn’t give them a choice.