“Other… worlds,” Dust said, expression blank.
“I’m afraid so,” Rarity responded as they approached the tree as a group. “None of us grew up in this… Mesh of yours. Before yesterday, none of us had even seen it.” She looked up at the ever-rotating gears, trying not to flinch every time she heard a clank from above.
“I… wow.” Dust put a hoof to her head, rubbing her temple. “I… guess there’s something beyond the darkness, then…”
“Darkness?” Rainbow asked.
“Oh! Yeah, most ponies don’t know this, but the Mesh has a top. Go high enough and it’s just… nothing. I guess it’s not nothing forever! That’s great news!”
“Well it couldn’t be, infinity doesn’t exist…”
“What?”
Rainbow shook her head. “Never mind. But yeah, there are other places besides the Mesh, we’re all from different ones. Unfortunately, we’re stuck here.”
Dust gasped. “That’s horrible! Your fellow mechanics must be worried sick! What can I do to help?”
Rarity decided not to correct Dust’s use of “mechanics”. “There was a thief. She stole the object that allows us to travel between different worlds. She has wings, like Fluttershy and Rainbow, and wore a black suit that covered all her features. I’m afraid I don’t have more description than that, but the wings should be enough, I believe.”
Dust nodded. “More than enough! I’ll send word to the higher managers; we’ll find this thief!” A frown crossed her face. “What pony would steal something so important from other ponies?”
“You don’t have thieves here?” Fluttershy asked.
“It’s… rare for an item to be stolen, though not unheard of.”
Rarity furrowed her brow, deep in thought. A world where there was no magic… but also little to no theft? Sure, the lives of the ponies here were clearly harsh and limited, but apparently they weren’t hopeless.
Could Rarity’s Crystal Sea survive without magic? Possibly… When this other worlds thing inevitably crashed and burned, she’d have to keep that in mind. Maybe she’d been going about it all wrong. The solution may have been to accept what was coming and make the most of it.
The ponies here were doing that just fine. They all knew exactly what they meant to the Mesh. They fixed it with everything they had, so much so that their movements often matched the clank clank clank of the Mesh itself. Rarity was admittedly a little jealous of how well in-tune they were with their world. They could move with it, eat with it, and work with it… She had no doubt they only stopped because their bodies needed rest. Even the children were one with the world. It was beautiful how everyone worked together, and Rarity would have smiled had the clank not been driving her mad.
“Anyway, uh, you three don’t have the right tools to help us with the shift…” Dust seemed to be thinking about what to do with them. “So you can just stay here, around Applejack’s apple orchard!” She gestured with pride and glee at the fruit-bearing tree and the saplings around it. “Be careful, it’s the only one of its kind, and with Applejack missing… we’re not exactly sure how to care for it.”
“Applejack?” Rainbow asked, her ears perking up. “…There’s a chance she got tossed to Rarity’s world.”
“You… know where she is?”
“Maybe. I haven’t seen her, but it would follow the pattern. If we could get our device back, we could take you to the desert and you could help search for her!”
“I’ll do what I can!” Dust promised.
Rarity had trotted up to the main tree and laid a hoof on it. “This is not meant to survive in a world without a sun or seasons…”
“…I don’t know what those words mean,” Dust said, blinking in confusion.
“Trees – all plants, really – depend on the rhythms of nature, not the rhythms of artificial technology. The lights above are invariable, the temperature constant.” Rarity furrowed her brow. “You are immensely lucky it fruited at all, many trees are not capable of self-pollination.”
Dust stared at her in shock. “You… know a lot more than we do.”
Rarity nodded slowly. “I tended many gardens in my time, trying to regrow the life lost to the sand. I learned much of tree care.” She sighed. “If I had my magic, this tree would flourish…”
Fluttershy put a hoof on her. “When we get the device back, we can use the magic from the other side.”
Rarity nodded. “That… could work.” What am I thinking? Restoring magic to more than one world? This one doesn’t even need it! “I will make the attempt should the opportunity present itself.” Why do I do this to myself?
“Anyway, I have to go speak to the other managers,” Dust said, wiping some dirt off her boots. “You guys can stay around the tree, eat one of the apples if you want. The stairs to the food tubes are over there, though you’ll have to wait for dinner for those to give you anything. I’ll be back as soon as I can – don’t wander off!” She winked at them and bounced up the stairs cobbled together from random bits of scrap metal and haphazardly machined bolts. Despite its rickety appearance, it didn’t so much as shake with her bouncing.
As she bounced off, all the other mechanic ponies stood up – half of them at the exact same instant – and trotted off to different parts of the mesh, tools in their elastic boots.
It was time for another cycle of work.
The three of them were alone with the tree.
“I don’t like it,” Rainbow grunted.
“Don’t like what?” Rarity asked.
“The… slavery,” Fluttershy said. “Can’t you see it? They live only to work. Even the children have tools strapped to them.”
“I see it,” Rarity admitted. “And I also see their smiles and satisfaction. I know what slavery looks like, Fluttershy, this isn’t it.”
“It may be better than the Crystal Sea, but it’s still wrong. Ponies need to have freedom. Choice.”
“You really believe that?” Rarity asked. Fluttershy nodded in confirmation even though the question was rhetorical.
Rainbow huffed. “Why is this even a conversation? It’s pretty clear they’re a literal manifestation of the ‘cogs in the machine’ idea. They move like they’re gears in this Mesh, there’s no individuality here. We need to fix it.”
“Fix it?” Rarity raised an eyebrow. “What if they don’t want it fixed?”
“Then we’ll save them from themselves.”
Rarity lifted her head as high as it could go. “And who are you to judge them?”
“Captain Rainbow Dash, Merodi Universalis.” She tried to stand tall, but she was significantly shorter than Rarity. “I have authority given to me by my superiors to interfere in other societies through the ‘case by case basis’ clause, allowing me to act in situations for what I believe is the betterment of life, justice, and harmony.”
“That’s a highly unusual regulation.”
“It was that or complete non-interference, and if you’ve seen enough people die by natural disaster or pointless war, you realize that’s pointlessly stupid.”
“The ‘case by case’ seems too loose, to me, to hold any real legal merit. What stops you from going too far?”
“A bunch of stuff that’s too political for me to care about. Why don’t you go ask yourself? You made that law, after all.”
Rarity didn’t have a response to this.
“Renee ‘Rarity’ Jackson is Overhead of Expeditions, the Division tasked with exploring the multiverse. Yep, she’s you, but she’s also not you. She cares a lot more about the plights of ponies when she sees them!”
“I think we’re getting off track here,” Fluttershy said, inserting herself between the two of them. “We can argue about what to do with the Mesh later, right now we can’t do anything without that device. So… truce?”
Rarity let out a disgusted huff and turned to the apple tree. “Fluttershy, do you have a small knife I can use?”
Fluttershy pointed to a small blade strapped to her side. “Yes. …Why?”
“This tree needs some proper pruning.” She took the blade in her mouth and started hacking at some of the smaller branches. This tree needed care, and it was an activity vastly preferable to glaring at Rainbow until the managers came back. She couldn’t stand that mare. Who did she think she was, talking like that?
~~~
“…and then I revealed my ploy and that was that. She never stood a chance, though she put up an admirable show of words if I’m remembering correctly.” Twilight laughed. “After that, I founded Unity as its Empress, though it took a while for that to catch on for obvious reasons…”
Applejack was barely listening to what Twilight was yammering about. After the first few minutes of her using words like “galaxy” “spaceship” “AI” and “thaumic vortex” Applejack had decided her brainpower was better spent getting acquainted with the world she found herself in. This did nothing to stop Twilight from going on and on. At least Pinkie seemed to be understanding what the “alicorn” was saying, so Applejack figured she’d just ask her for a dumbed-down version later.
“I’m still the Empress today, over ten thousand years later, can you believe it? No, of course you can’t, I bet you don’t know of anypony that’s come close to living that long, since alicorns don’t exist here. Shame, really, you don’t know what you’re missing…”
Grass was very interesting, Applejack decided. You could walk on it, and it wouldn’t be harmed. To be walked upon appeared to be its only purpose, as far as Applejack could tell, since she hadn’t seen anything try to eat it since she’d gotten here. But she had seen lots of things buzzing around fruit in the trees and then feathered things jumping out of the sky and eating the buzzers… A chain of nutrients rising from the fruit and moving up; an elegant mechanism. Far too complex for her to fully understand quite yet, but she had plenty of time.
“To be completely honest, the title of Empress is just for show nowadays. Unity basically runs itself, and if it didn’t I’d have probably removed the title from myself forcefully because politics just gets boring after a thousand years, you know? I tried a lot of different things after that, lived several lives, because immortal…”
Seeing trees where they belonged was an immense help to Applejack. Already she could see that the lighting over her tree back home should be set to vary slightly. From looking at the few sick or damaged trees she came across, she was able to deduce that damaged limbs should be amputated rather than left on the tree, for they would drain resources. Also, she should probably get some of the buzzers, somehow. They did something with the “flowers”.
“Most recently I’ve taken up a bit of mad science. Everything in the universe had been getting same-y and predictable to me, so when I heard of some high-end research that theorized a way to enter other universes, I took over the project. Naturally, it worked, since I’m here, but there was a bit of an accident involving a headstrong pegasus…”
Applejack looked up at the sky. When she had first arrived in the desert, the sky had been terrifying. It reminded her of the endless blackness that hung over the Mesh. The complete nothing that insisted the Mesh and all its mechanics were completely alone, doomed to toil just to add a few more cycles to their lives. Now… now she saw what a sky was supposed to be. Bright blue with a rising light of life; dangerous as a furnace, but providing all that was needed. Or a darkness lit up with specks of the unknown. She should find a way to bring this all back to the Mesh, to wind it up once more. Surely, it could be done?
“We’re here!” Red Riot announced, holding out a hoof as they passed through the edge of the forest. “Welcome to Musk!”
Musk was a paradoxical mixture of wrecked buildings that were little more than rubble and grandiose fortifications guarded by armored ponies equipped with far too many weapons. At first, these ponies had aimed their various bows and “guns” at the ponies coming out of the forest but they had lowered them the moment the Reds stepped into the light.
Though they didn’t look away. Twilight was impressive enough to draw their attention.
As the group approached, it was clear the town had suffered much. There were many scorch marks on the ground and most of the destroyed buildings had clearly been leveled by invading monsters. Applejack could make out the carcass of a creature made of what appeared to be solid obsidian lying in the center of town, a few ponies taking glowing pickaxes to it, no doubt finding some practical use for its hard skin.
The first building they passed when they entered Musk was a large structure forged of metal. It was lined with weapons on all sides ranging from swords to bows to hammers to more of those “guns”. The entire structure was glowing a soft, pale green, an effect Applejack couldn’t make sense of.
“She’s still gone…” Riot told her brother.
“So unlike her…” Rage responded.
“Who?” Pinkie asked.
“Fluttershy, the blacksmith,” Riot explained. “She makes all the weapons and is known worldwide for her craftsmanship. She went missing yesterday and hasn’t returned.”
Pinkie opened her mouth to say something – but she was quickly interrupted by a loud, booming voice.
“HARKEN! What goddess graces our presence!?”
Applejack glanced to the source of the voice – a unicorn dressed in large, flowing robes and a ridiculous orange hat that looked like a coiled spring.
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “I am not one of your ‘goddesses’ and if you value your dignity you will not address me as such again.”
The robed unicorn stopped short. He hadn’t expected this outcome.
“I’m Twilight Sparkle, Empress of Unity.” Twilight extended a hoof. “And you?”
“Temple Brick, Priest of Jupiter,” he said, bowing. “I am afraid I know of no district named Unity…”
“You wouldn’t have,” Twilight admitted with a chuckle. “But I appreciate the proper gestures.”
Applejack still had no idea what the significance of bowing was.
“So…” Pinkie leaned in. Given Brick’s surprised reaction, he had not noticed her presence prior to this. “Why don’t you tell us about this legendary blacksmith of yours?”
Twilight’s smile faltered, but before she could give a passive-aggressive chiding remark to Pinkie, Brick lit up.
“Oh, Fluttershy! Ah, our greatest citizen…”
~~~
Fluttershy was getting a little worried about her two friends. …was “friends” too strong of a word? She didn’t think so – she may have only known them for about a day, but she already felt connected to them, like her life had needed the two of them in it since the day she was born, only she hadn’t realized it until now.
It was unfortunately clear the two of them did not have similar feelings toward each other. Rarity’s opinion of Rainbow had started off bad and only gotten worse, while the pegasus had attempted to smooth things over until they had arrived at the apple tree.
Now they weren’t speaking to each other. Rainbow wasn’t speaking at all, which was alarming for a mare of her personality. Fluttershy was more than a little surprised she hadn’t taken off to hunt for the thief just to get out of Rarity’s presence. What she did do was make sure everypony knew her dissatisfaction with their current situation by wearing a permanent scowl and grunting every few minutes.
Rarity, on the other hoof, was largely impassive. Even without the coverings on her face, she did a good job hiding her emotions behind an even, calculated expression. All Fluttershy could tell from looking at her was that she was thinking. Hard. About what was anypony’s guess.
With a deep breath, Fluttershy walked up to Rarity’s seat at one of the tables.
“If you’re here to try and smooth things over between me and Rainbow, you shouldn’t waste your time.”
Fluttershy deflated. “She’s just upset about the w-“
“Disagreeing on the specifics of society is nothing to harbor resentment over,” Rarity interrupted. “It’s her attitude I take issue with. I don’t believe I need to explain why.”
“She’s an explorer, Rarity. Being a little bombastic is to be expected.”
“The average pony not knowing how to think is expected, doesn’t make it acceptable.”
“She’s seen a lot more than we have.”
“I doubt she’s seen pain like we have,” Rarity grunted.
“You wanna talk about pain!?” Rainbow shouted, jumping out from behind the tree.
Fluttershy tensed. “Oh, no, plea-“
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I would!” Rarity declared. “Have you watched your entire world fall?”
“Multiple times,” Rainbow growled. “My world is one of the most common variants out there! I’ve visited at least half a dozen that were completely destroyed! Not reduced to a desert, Rarity, just gone. There are eldritch deities out there that devour entire universes for breakfast because they’re insulted by our use of magic! I’ve sent my subordinates, my friends, to their deaths at the claws of those beasts! So get your prideful head out of the clouds and get down here! Your tragedy is limited to one. World. And you actually have a chance to fix it! That chance is a gift.”
Rainbow pushed a hoof into Rarity’s chest. “I’ve seen so many worlds that don’t get a chance I’ve lost count.”
Rarity’s face remained impassive, level. Slowly, she removed Rainbow’s hoof from her. “I see.”
“Fina-“
“You’ve let yourself grow desensitized.”
Rainbow pulled a hoof back to punch Rarity across the face – but she froze before following through. With a sigh, she let her hoof drop and her ears fold back. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. I have.”
Rarity’s expression shifted to surprise, matching Fluttershy’s own. Neither of them had expected Rainbow to admit to any sort of failing.
Rainbow sat on the ground, gaze fixed on the dirt below. “You see so much death and insanity out there you just learn to… dismiss it. It’s a problem almost all of us in the business have. We start with bright eyes and bushy tails claiming we’ll never hurt anyone and we’ll always defend those who need it. But then you kill someone in self-defense… then you kill to stop a world from falling apart… you forcefully stop a war by killing the leaders of both sides…” She looked up, expression pained. “And then you realize one day you just killed somebody and didn’t feel anything.”
Fluttershy put a hoof to her mouth.
“It’s terrible,” Rainbow said, tearing her gaze from the ground and looking up to the lights dangling over the apple tree. “The multiverse is a wonderful place filled with beauty and amazing friends, but to find them you have to go through all the terrible things. Death, oppression, tragedy…” She lowered her gaze to meet Rarity’s own. “It’s everywhere. And if you cry for everyone, you’ll break. So you just… don’t.”
Silence fell over the three otherworldly ponies.
Clank. Clank. Clank.
Rarity opened her mouth. “I-“
“There they are!” Dust called from the top of the stairs, scrambling down to meet them. “See? I told you! Wings!”
Fluttershy almost chided Dust for her poor timing, but it really wasn’t her fault. She looked behind Dust, catching sight of a thin stallion with a white coat stepping in perfect time to the Mesh. Even his blinks were in time – every third clank.
“You were not exaggerating,” he deadpanned, his very syllables following the Mesh’s beat in an eerie, almost musical tone. “Ponies from beyond the Mesh, I am Calcium Echelon. Who is the manager of your group?”
“I am,” Rarity and Rainbow said at the same time.
Fluttershy facehooved, letting out an exasperated whine.