//------------------------------//
// Curvature: The First Colony 
// Story: The Weight of Worlds 
// by LysanderasD 
//------------------------------//


The Weight of Worlds



A My Little Pony fanfiction by LysanderasD




Curvature: The First Colony

220 AL


It was incredible what ponykind could accomplish in two decades, Curvature thought. She stood ready to disembark as her bus approached the terminal.

Around her sprawled the beginnings of a city—not just of stone, but of metal and cloudstuff too. It was not large—not yet—but it would grow.  In the warm amber of sunset, everything gleamed. Here, in the governmental sector, the buildings soared highest, the tall spire of the space agency seeming to pierce the dome of the sky. Habitation blocks had recently given way to apartment complexes. Most of the market area did not rise above two storeys, at least not yet. Cities have long gestation periods; this one had merely had a bit of a head start.

Here and there arcane projections painted neon-colored advertisements across the sides of buildings. Pegasi flitted from building to building while elevated transports sped flightless ponies along their way. Here, on ground level, ponies trotted, or rolled along in carriages—both traditional and self-propelled. Larger omnibuses like the one Curvature was riding in vied with them all for space on the roads.

Kilometers of space around the city had been zoned for planned expansion in the coming years, but from certain points in the city, higher than she was now, one could see farms planted firmly near the edge of the horizon—earth pony families that had worked land for generations generally being the sort to stick to tradition, even here, on soil that, in geological terms, had barely felt the first hint of pony magic.  

Far outside the city, atop hills in the distance sat the ship that had borne them all to this planet, its massive engines silent. Even from here, at a distance where its name was barely legible, it seemed to loom, like a lazy dragon sprawled out on a mountain range. Much of its hull and inner workings had been stripped to help get a head start on the city, giving the ship a faintly skeletal look which was offset somewhat by its warm coloration, deliberately evocative of Canterlot Castle back home. For the arrivals, it was a symbol both of their journey and where they had come from. For the ponies born here, the ship held an entirely different meaning—more for some than for others. The ponies who had come here did not, after all, intend to leave—certainly not for a very long time.

Just over twenty years ago, none of this had been here. Only the ship, descending laboriously into the atmosphere, laden with ponies and dreams. They owed much to the Princesses, without whom they would never have made it this far. 

Curvature was just shy of being first-generation native. She had been a filly when the EMS Eternal Hope had exited arcane space in orbit above the planet, and she remembered, if only vaguely, the visages of the elder alicorns as they blessed the voyage, and (this stuck in Curvature's head more clearly) the feed from the viewscreen showing the complicated emotions warring across Princess Twilight's face as the Eternal Hope left its dock and pointed its bow toward a distant star. The ship and the materials and arcane technologies it employed and carried with it had been her greatest endeavor, after all.

The bus rolled to a stop. Curvature swung her bag over her shoulder and stepped off into the street, making a beeline for the gleaming spire of the aeronautics headquarters. This close to the end of the day, on-hoof traffic was minimal, and the orange-coated earth pony only passed a singular pedestrian—a unicorn stallion engrossed in his wireless terminal—before ascending the steps to the headquarters of the New Equus Equestrian Space Agency with its name proudly proclaimed in shimmering arcane letters hovering just off of the building's surface far above. The glass doors slid soundlessly apart for her, and she entered.

In the burgeoning city, space was at a premium. Nevertheless, and this perhaps had to do with much of the building being salvaged from the Eternal Hope, the entrance to this particular structure was cavernous. The architects, or more likely the interior designers, had chosen to fill the space with a massive orrery—a mechanical model of the solar system. Despite the fact that she had seen it before, and not an insubstantial amount of times, she stopped and stared.

The orrery had been an early project, put together when the ESA building hadn't even been here, when the space the city occupied was still mostly unworked plains. The ponies who had put it together based it on what they had seen of the system at the time, defined by the astronomical data available before the ship had ever launched. The part that gave her pause was the star, set in the middle of the orrery, around which the system's four planets spun.

Heliocentrism, the phenomenon was called. Planets orbiting their sun, rather than the other way around. What wonders the universe held.

Of course, she mused, it wasn't that way any more. That particular problem had solved itself, in its way. Curvature's head slowly lowered and turned to an enormous window overlooking the city. From her position inside the building she could see the distant shape of the Eternal Hope, gleaming in the twilight and looking for all the world like the castle she remembered from her foalhood.

"Miss?"

The distant stallion's voice pulled Curvature from her thoughts. She blinked, mouth agape just slightly as she brought herself back to the here and now. She looked across the entrance hall to the receptionist's desk, behind which sat the thin-looking blueish unicorn who had called her. 

"Can I help you?" he continued. He sounded slightly hoarse, which Curvature knew suggested a busy day. He looked tired, but his face and his question were genuine. "The center isn't open to visitors after sunset, so if you're here for a tour..."

He was new, she reasoned. Any other receptionist would at least have known her name. She strode forward with purpose, fishing her ID badge out of her bag and offering it to him. The badge shimmered in the unicorn's egg-blue corona as he pulled it closer. She grimaced when she saw him double take, no doubt having spotted her name. His eyes flicked up from the image of her cutie mark—stylized concentric circles reminiscent of orbital lines—to find her own eyes.

"Miss... Curvature." He seemed surprised by the name, giving her another curious glance.

Ah, she thought. There it was, the old familiar question. “Yes,” she intoned. “That Curvature. Apparently astrophysics runs in my family.” 

His brow furrowed. "I... see," he said. He gave her badge another glance, murmuring something before returning it.

"I'm here from the observatory.” She tried to push past the topic to move onto the task at hoof.

When he replied, he sounded a little more sure of himself. "New astrological data? You know you could have sent it through secure post, right? Or over the wireless. You didn't have to hoof deliver it."

"When Horizon sees this, he'll understand why. He hasn't gone home yet, I hope. I did call him before I left."

"No, he's..." The unicorn glanced down for a moment as if checking. "No, he hasn't left. I'll call ahead and tell him you're on your way."

She gave the receptionist a nod and made her way around to the ramp which lead to the elevator bay.

"Er, Miss Curvature?"

She looked back. The stallion gave a smile. "I appreciate your family’s work.”

Curvature tried smiling back, but it felt fake.

Far Horizon was a green-coated pegasus, bent over his desk, paying absolutely no attention to Curvature as she stepped into his office. His narrowed eyes and furled brows suggested more than a little frustration, and the earth pony paused.

The most impressive thing about Horizon’s office was its back wall, occluded by a state-of-the-art fundamentally entangled illusion, an exact copy of what the optic jewel in its orbiting satellite was seeing—the sprawling surface of this planet, New Equus. Blue and green she shone, not unlike the planet some dozen lightyears hence which had birthed and sheltered ponykind. The angle wasn't right to see the city, but even if it had been, the young demesne that would one day be a bustling metropolis was simply too small to show up on the feed except as the smallest pinprick of light against the dark of the falling evening.

The rest of the office was a model of neat efficiency. The space was sparsely filled. Benches for visitors, drawers for storing hard copy, and little else. The desk was an import from Equus, brought on the ship at great expense on the part of its previous owner, Horizon’s father: genuine oak from the Whitetail Woods near Ponyville. It took up most of the office’s remaining space, all solid angles and hard lines, deep brown in contrast with the smooth curves of the space center itself. Curvature imagined was by design; it tended to ground ponies in the here and now so that the view from behind the desk didn’t carry them away.

“Is now a bad time?” As soon as she asked, she knew she was right.

His eyes flicked up to her, peering over the edge of his glasses. He didn’t need glasses, of course; at its worst, pegasus eyesight merely required flight goggles to keep track of moving objects in midair. Ground-bound and standing still as he was, the lenses were more for the effect. Somehow, it completed his image: despite the deep forest color of his coat, he always seemed distant and unapproachable, more like the Everfree than Whitetail. Curvature’s ears pinned back.

“I should have been home an hour ago,” he said, every word pointed and precise, little nails he used to hang this offense squarely on her. “First Green Tea delivers yet another report from the princes, and then you call and tell me you have more bad news. What is it?”

Curvature tried not to sigh. Far Horizon was not the ESA’s first choice for governmental liaison, but he was the best choice. His predecessor, a unicorn mare named Glib Glam, had done the, well, the liaising well enough; she’d been everyone’s friend, to a fault, and as such had consistently failed to get anything done. Horizon, while he lacked the interpersonal skills one might expect for his position, was better able to apply himself, and thereby the appropriate pressure, to make sure ponies acted on what he said. 

The earth pony slung the bag forward and fished out a manilla folder. He stared at it warily, eyes narrowing with premeditated dislike.

“If you’ve already heard from the princes, then this probably won’t tell you anything you don’t already know,” she offered. “Unless Prince Dreamchaser didn’t tell you about how the fourth planet’s moon nearly escaped again.”

Horizon opened the folder and groaned. “No, no… he did. Of course he did. You could have just sent me this to corroborate. It’s always hard copies with you.” He jerked his head to the side, and Curvature followed the gesture to a file cabinet. “The whole top drawer is stuff you’ve given me. You know we can work with the numbers better if we don’t have to put them into the simulations ourselves.”

“There’s not much to simulate,” Curvature said, a little harshly, trying to overpower the pegasus’ bad attitude. “It’s happening right now. Telescopes can see it, satellites can see it, Dreamchaser can feel it.” She saw him look back down at his desk, his face twisted into a scowl. She pushed on, leaning closer to him with every word.  “You’re the only one who regularly gets to talk to them, Horizon, and you have to make it clear that the slightest mistake could be fatal! The prince is treating the bodies of this solar system like they’re marbles in a game—”

She actually jumped when Horizon’s hoof impacted the desk. “I know that! He knows that! How many times do you think we’ve had that exact conversation, Curvature?” He stood, moving around the desk and toward her, wings twitching at his sides. “I shouldn’t need to remind you that we are literally on the frontier—not only in a physical sense, but in a magical sense as well. Or should I get a unicorn to explain the finer points?”

Curvature took a deep breath. “I understand that the princes are the first of their kind…”

“The princes,” Horizon said, slowly, straightening his glasses, “are pushing the boundaries of what we know about magic in every way. They are a problem we could never have expected to have to deal with. We are in the midst of learning, on the fly, some of the most fundamental aspects of alicorn magic, and there are bound to be some bumps along the way. Surely, Curvature, you understand that.”

The earth pony stood her ground. “If he’s not careful, all it will take is one particularly nasty bump and we can kiss this entire colony goodbye.”

Horizon’s wings flared with enough force that the folder behind him on the desk saw its contents scattered by the rush of air. “You know what,” he snapped. “If you want to impress that on him so badly, maybe you should speak with him.” He took a deep breath, holding a hoof to the bridge of his glasses and closing his eyes. His wings folded back up along his sides. “Maybe…”

There was a hint of desperation in his voice that hadn’t been there before.

“Maybe he’ll respect his cousin more than a stranger.” 






Curvature was exhausted by the time she got home.

She lived on the third floor of a ten-floor apartment complex. Perhaps it was the earth pony heritage, but she didn’t feel comfortable living any higher. Normally, she’d have taken the stairs, but after dealing with Horizon, the best she could do was drag herself over to the elevator and gently lean her forehead into the button, closing her eyes and breathing deeply until the gentle chime told her her ride had arrived.

The ride was a slow blur. When she got to her floor, she shambled out and down the hall. Her head hanging even as she opened the door to her apartment. The earth pony pulled her wireless terminal from her bag, then slung the bag over her shoulder and away. By the time she made it to her bed, her vision was swimming.

When Curvature was roused again, the sky in the window was as close to black as the glow outside allowed. Tidbits gently brushed his forehead against her shoulder until she raised her face to blearily look at him. The tabby meowed pointedly, giving a knowing look.

The clock told her she’d barely been out for thirty minutes. She shook her head and raised a hoof to pet the cat. “Sorry, Bitty Kitty. I’ll get your food in a second.” It took her longer than that to gather herself and push herself over to the floor again. Tidbits mewled plaintively, hopping to the floor with much more grace than his owner. She rubbed at her eyes and moved to the kitchen.

On the bed, forgotten for the moment, her terminal chimed quietly as it received a message.

Curvature,

I’m sorry I yelled at you. However, I really do think that the princes might respond better to someone closer to them. I know you don’t get to see him often, but Dreamchaser asks after you whenever I visit with him, and Green Tea says he mentions you a lot.

I know audiences with the princes are meant to be registered through official channels, but being liaison lets me skip the line every once in a while. Meet me at the ESA building at eight tomorrow. I’ll get us a shuttle.

Just do me a favor—next time you’ve got numbers for us, just send us the Tirek-damned numbers. That filing cabinet is getting dangerously top-heavy.

Far Horizon