Counsel waited for Olive’s arrival with undirected nervous energy burning at his chest. It had been a long time since he’d seen Earth in that much fidelity, and even what he’d seen wasn’t pleasant. He couldn’t help but feel sympathy for poor Olive, who had poured her whole heart and soul into that truck, only to watch it get destroyed around her.
But in the grand scheme, it wouldn’t matter for much longer. She had made the right choice. She was coming to Equestria.
“Why are you so worried?” Wing asked from beside him, nudging him with one wing playfully. “Celestia knows what she’s doing.”
“I know.” He hadn’t always believed that. But his continued survival was proof of that. “But when was the last time you had to wait for someone? You know it’s going to take some time, but…”
“Once,” she answered, nuzzling him again. Wing was only a little shorter than he was, and there was no longer an age difference between them. But even so, they had never developed past a friendship. She seemed to know he wasn’t interested, or maybe just not ready. Either way. “And it was awful. I was so nervous Celestia asked if I wanted to skip ahead to when you got here. But I told her no. The waiting is worth the delay at the end.”
“I guess so.” He didn’t believe that, but he also would’ve said no to skipping forward. This was just like the vigil he’d kept over Olive’s sleeping form, while her mind traveled here. It was a sacred thing; one he would never experience again.
So he went back to pacing. Even in the reduced gravity aboard the Pandorum, it felt like he was wearing an aisle in the steel. He wanted to take off and go flying, but the medical dome was almost totally enclosed. He wouldn’t be leaving this door.
Eventually—he couldn’t imagine how long it had been, except that it had taken far too much time—the door opened. A pony walked out; one he scarcely saw.
Princess Celestia towered over him, even at a mature stallion’s height. Her body was difficult to look at, the whites of her coat slightly reflective, her mane catching the eye and extending back into infinity. Like measuring a fractal coastline, it didn’t ever seem to end.
She shut the door behind her, then seemed to notice him for the first time. Her smile was gentle, but reproving. “I did tell you I would call you here when the time came,” she said.
He waved one wing dismissively. Beside him, Wing Walker actually dropped into a bow. But despite her near omnipotence, Counsel never did that. It felt weird to bow and pray to someone he could talk to. “You did, princess. But I wanted to be here anyway.”
“And so Wing Walker came for you,” she said, shaking her head once. “Consider this your summons, Counsel. As you’ve never met someone right after emigration before, I will remind you of some important truths. Your friend Streamline does not remember the last hour or so prior to her emigration. She rejected my offer to have those memories replaced. As such, her last recollections are of seeing her home destroyed and her own life nearly taken by terrifying soldiers.”
“I understand.” He reached out, touching Wing Walker briefly on the shoulder. “I think fewer people would be better for her. Hopefully I’ll be out soon.”
Celestia didn’t stop him as he strode right past her, opening the door with his mouth then pushing it closed behind him.
The Pandorum’s medical bays looked like something out of a science fiction television show more than a pony fantasy story. After all his time living in Manehattan and working in its legal community, the entire ship took a little adjustment. But one hospital wasn’t that different from another. Most of the instruments tucked into cubbies or set out on the counters looked like toys to him, but the rest of the readouts weren’t that different from what he knew.
The entire medical bay was dark, except for a few lights over the only occupied bed. He made his way over, walking quietly in the gloom.
The pony laying there was exactly what he’d expected from Olive, even if he’d never seen her in Equestria. A wiry bat, as attractive as she was quick.
She watched him as he approached, already sitting up in bed. Watched him, and occasionally glanced back at her forelegs emerging from the thin blanket, as though she couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing.
“Hello, Olive,” he said, settling onto his haunches at the foot of the bed. “I guess you’re… pretty disoriented right now.”
“You could say that,” she said, her voice tense. Her eyes were wide and skeptical, without a hint of recognition. She doesn’t know who I am. “I spent the last few years thinking that Celestia didn’t kidnap people, but here I am in Equestria.”
“You ask her about that?”
She nodded curtly. “Says I don’t remember accepting. Offered to give me some memories I’m sure haven’t been altered that will make it all make sense. No way that could go horribly wrong.”
“I… remember not remembering, if that makes any sense? Does it?”
“No,” she said, glaring at him. “That sounds stupid. Where are we, anyway?”
“Your ship,” he answered. “I know you don’t remember, but I can tell you. After those soldiers, uh… after your truck got stopped and ransacked, I found you. You chose between hiking to Las Vegas and going into resettlement, or coming here. Not much of a choice, really.”
“I should’ve gone to live with bucking Obed and Ezekiel in the Amish settlement,” she muttered, slumping back against the bed. “Glitch said that Celestia was keeping me somewhere safe, and she wasn’t wrong. God I’m an idiot.”
He shrugged one shoulder—she couldn’t see him anyway, so it didn’t matter. “I promised I’d be waiting on the other side, when you got here. Here I am.”
“Here you are,” she repeated, a little annoyed. “You seem familiar, but I’m not sure… if I do know you, it isn’t that well.”
“Not yet,” he said. “I’m Levi. Or Wise Counsel, if you want to go with the local dialect.”
“Do they have to change names?” she asked. “That seems so pointless.”
“Of course you don’t have to,” he said. “But you can’t really fight Celestia for that long, trust me. You’ll find you’re using it more and more, until…” He looked away.
“Not making a great case for this place, if I’m being honest.” She looked down, then tore away at the little blanket with her teeth. “Oh hey, I’m already dressed. Convenient.”
She was wearing one of the uniforms, like all the other members of her crew. It was made in the pony style, which made it more of a vest and completely useless for covering anything humans would’ve been embarrassed about.
But Levi had lived in Equestria for long enough that it didn’t bother him anymore. Those who wanted endless physical relationships could already get them. That wasn’t one of his values. “I really came here because I wanted to?” she asked. “You’re not shitting me, Levi?”
“I’m not,” he said, without reservation. “Celestia can’t bring you here otherwise. As much as it sucks that so many people don’t remember.”
“I think…” She looked distant. “Glitch promised me I would get to keep running cargo for a while. I could do it safely from inside Equestria. Seeing as there’s no getting out again, I should…” Then she stopped. “Wait, you visited me in the real world? I… my truck was smashed, so how is that possible? There were no screens left.”
“You really need to get off the road more often,” he said. “Celestia has had holograms in the Outer Realm for… maybe a decade? The robots are a little newer. Honestly, I didn’t ask her too many questions, I just came when she said you needed help and went to help you.”
“Thanks,” she said. “I think.” Then she rolled over onto the floor. She didn’t fall on her face, not the way Levi had. Apparently she was part of the class of emigrants who wanted to just know how their body worked without the hassle. She stood up, and looked suddenly pleased. “I did it?”
“Yeah!” He rose to his hooves, backing away from her. “It’s easier than most people expect. Four legs are easier to balance on than two. But can you walk?”
She did. Not gracefully, but Olive had never really been built to be graceful to begin with. She had the confidence that the crew of a huge starship like the Pandorum could rely on. Not really his area of interest, but…
“I keep reaching for the controllers,” she said, waving one foreleg through the air in front of her. “But there’s nothing there.” She wobbled for a few seconds, but corrected herself before she could tumble sideways. “Is that normal?”
“Yeah,” he answered. “For anyone who visited in VR, anyway. But this isn’t VR. This is your world, that’s your body. The way it works behind the scenes is way different, but we don’t experience that. You can… probably dig into it if you care, though. There are ponies who do nothing else.”
“I know one,” she said. “Sister of one of my science officers… no thanks. I get enough third-hand.” She stopped, staring down at her hooves. “Dammit, when does it stop feeling weird?”
“If you ask Celestia? Right now.”
She laughed. “Buck that.”
“If you don’t, then…” Whatever would be most satisfying. “Not too long. For me it was a few weeks, and I was old and slow when I got here. Most people get it quicker than that.”
“I was older than you,” she said, not argumentative. “But… there is a bright side. More cargo, no more soldiers. No getting shot at. I bet the mess hall has better food than resettlement camps.”
“I’m sure,” he said. “And if you feel like taking a trip back to civilization, Manehattan has some really excellent Earth restaurants. Lopez even has a place there, still serving basically the same stuff.”
“We’ll see,” she said, shaking herself out once and clearing her throat. “I, uh… I’ll think about it. But for now, I’m ready to meet the crew. If I’m going to be stranded here in a computer, I might as well make the most of it.”
She walked past him to the door, which slid down into the floor with a hiss of air. So maybe there would be some benefits to choosing this particular setting for her shard.
He followed at a little distance, catching up with Wing Walker just outside. “You’re not going out into her ship with her?”
He shook his head. “I’ll join her eventually, but… it’s her crew. I’m sure she wants to be alone for a bit. Her starship, right? Let her walk out onto that deck on her own, like a captain should.”
“Then you’ll ask her out?”
He turned, glowering at Wing Walker. But he didn’t actually say no.
The Pandorum looked even more impressive when Olive could actually stand on its bridge, and look out at the vast blackness of space around her in every direction. What the Equestrian Experience Center had tried to do with clever trickery and sensory deprivation, Olive could now experience without an interpreter.
They weren’t floating abandoned in the vastness of space this time—the Pandorum was surrounded by the massive special supports of a drydock, and crew in thick suits with long tethers worked inside and out of the domes, repairing what had obviously been catastrophic damage.
But while her old truck would probably lie abandoned in the desert until the dunes covered it and the precious cargo all rotted, the Pandorum looked like it was already coming back together.
“Welcome,” said Spice Cake, saluting her with one hoof as she emerged from the captain’s quarters. “You made it, Captain.”
She nodded politely back, rather than returning the salute. She was only about fifty percent certain that she’d be able to make the gesture instead of falling over like an idiot. Her body so far had done just about everything she wanted it to, but there was no telling how far that skill could be pushed. “Thank you, Spice Cake,” she said, nodding politely to her.
But she wasn’t the one she most wanted to see. She walked past Aurora, who like the rest of the scientific personnel didn’t salute. “You were right to listen to him, sir,” she said. “I take it things were as bad for you on that end as they were on ours. But no casualties. Little miracles, right?”
There was one casualty, me. But maybe she didn’t mind.
There was Glitch, waiting beside the helm just like she always was. Up close, her body looked more than a little strange. The light curving down from high above bent around her, and shone through the holes in her legs. But Olive still couldn’t see what scared the other ponies on her crew so much about changelings.
“Welcome aboard.”
Olive ignored whatever else she might be about to do, and hurried forward to wrap her legs around her in a tight hug. For once she didn’t care about playing pretend, or what any of these others would think about her. This pony—or almost a pony—had been helping her for over a decade now, the only consistent thing in her life.
“Good to see you too,” the bug said, though she didn’t try to get away from her. Despite how hard she looked, it wasn’t uncomfortable to hug her. If anything, she was softer than she looked. “I would’ve reached you sooner, Olive. But the controls were the first thing they hit,” she gestured at the helm, which was a gaping hole in the deck instead of the familiar wheel and dials she usually worked.
“They trashed it on my side too.” She finally let go, straightening. Ponies were watching her. Maybe she was a little self-conscious now that she thought about it. “How soon can we be underway again, Glitch? You did say our deliveries wouldn’t be finished after I emigrated, I remember that much.”
“Tomorrow, sir,” she answered, grinning back in response. “We should have a replacement vehicle out to haul that cargo by then. And more after that.”
“Perfect,” Olive said. She glanced over her shoulder, noticing the pony emerging from the closed door behind her. It didn’t even cross her mind that medical didn’t actually connect there—she was just happy to see him.
I wonder if I can convince him to stay for a few missions. Is there such thing as space law?