Chapter 20
“W-who are you?” the merchant questioned, fear flickering in her eyes. The pegasus peddler’s wings were poised for immediate takeoff. Rarity doubted that the elderly mare could’ve gotten far, and besides, with Firefly on her tail she most likely wouldn’t have made it to the tree line at the edge of town. “What do you want?”
“What you’re selling,” Rarity answered calmly, trying to put on her kindest smile. “We can pay—er, trade—or, uh…”
The white unicorn stopped, drawing a blank. She couldn’t believe it. She’d never had any bits in this frightening new era, and the only thing she could have used to trade had been force-fed down the throat of a tree-shaped abomination. She certainly didn’t want to steal the Disks, but she COULDN’T have come all this way for nothing!
“Do… any of you have anything with which we can pay this nice pony?” Rarity inquired lamely of her companions.
“Not unless she accepts lethal explosives as legal tender,” Surprise replied.
“President Rainbow paid for everything I needed,” Firefly answered.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Megan responded with a smile. “My computer is only able to create certain objects it’s scanned, with a few exceptions. Matter blueprints for basic survival gear are preprogrammed, including everything from food to water to gold. I can’t produce human money on command—that stuff’s all digital transactions—but I can form as much gold as necessary, in any shape I want.”
Rarity’s face lit up as the human snapped her fingers and plucked a featureless gold coin from thin air. The merchant reacted with a small squeak of shock that was quickly mixed with a glint of want.
“Not that I’m complaining,” Firefly spoke up. “But since when did gold become basic survival gear?”
“The ULE isn’t the only… place… we humans keep in contact, remember,” Megan explained as she handed the coin to the pegasus peddler, who hesitantly took it. “I don’t even know the exact number of places we interact with. But a common theme in all of them is the value of gold. Thus, just in case we ever find ourselves stranded, we can always purchase anything we might need that our computers haven’t yet had a chance to scan.”
Rarity didn’t really care how or why Megan possessed what she claimed to be an infinite supply of gold. She was just happy that such a fortunate break would finally bring her however many Disks this merchant had in her stock. Judging by all the magical recording devices stacked in boxes and laying out on the makeshift stand itself, it seemed that such mechanisms were all that the merchant sold. With any more fortune, she would have collected at least a somewhat sizeable chunk of the Disks Rarity’s friends had left her.
“This will do nicely as payment,” the pegasus peddler mused, still ogling the sparkling yellow metal in her hooves. Apparently her fear had abated with the appearance of such monetary compensation. Rarity had the sneaking suspicion that that single gold piece was worth more than all the magical recording devices the elder pony had to sell, but then again, the white unicorn supposed that it really didn’t matter. Megan had said she could make as much gold as she needed, hadn’t she? “How many antique recording devices were you looking to purchase?”
“You see, we’re only looking for a… special set of Disks,” Rarity replied. “They all have gemstones in their center, and they can only be played be a certain individual, being useless to anypony else.”
“You mean the crack Disks?” the peddler asked.
“They’re cracked?!” the white unicorn gasped. Would they still be able to function if damaged? How could they have been damaged at all anyway? Even Daybreak hadn’t seemed to be able to destroy one with all her magical power back in the skirmish with the skywhales!
“Oh, no,” the pegasus subsided Rarity’s fears, allowing the unicorn a relieved sigh. “I just call them that because, like you say, they aren’t of any use to anypony. I only keep them around for kicks, mainly. They make almost everypony who tries to use them crack with frustration, and they eventually bring them back to me demanding a refund. All sales are final, of course, but I must admit it is quite humorous to see them get so flabbergasted. I mean, I do warn them that nopony’s ever worked them, but they don’t listen. I’m guessing you’re one such… er, pony?”
“Yes, I am one such pony,” Rarity answered, putting extra emphasis on her last word. “And I would like to buy every ‘crack Disk,’ as you call them, that you have.”
“Certainly,” the old pegasus agreed, looking back at the coin with even more giddiness than before. If Rarity had thought the merchant was cheating them before, there was no doubt about it now that the pegasus realized she wouldn’t be parting with all of her wares. But once again, it didn’t really matter. Megan had plenty more bits were that one had come from, even if it wasn’t a proper bit. “Let me gather them for you.”
The merchant ducked down, picking up the magical recording device she had dropped at the sight of the group. Placing it in a box of other such Disks, the old mare lifted the unexpectedly large container onto the stand’s counter and pushed it towards Rarity.
Rarity’s draconic optics opened wide, their green glint almost seeming to glow with disbelieving shock.
There were so many! Could every one of them really be a Disk?
The white unicorn lit up her horn once more, levitating the box to the ground where she could get a better look into it. Casting the locator spell, she was almost yanked headfirst into the crate.
“This can’t be…” Rarity whispered to herself as an idea sparked in her mind. Then, turning to her companions, she instructed “Wait right here!”
The white unicorn galloped off a ways and then cast the spell again. It tugged her horn hard, but only in the direction of the box far behind her.
No... That was impossible! Were they… was this really all of them?
But how could that be?! Rarity wanted so desperately for it to be true, but how could every single Disk be here in one place? After the raid on Pinkie Pie’s Party Supplies during the war so many centuries ago, it was only logical to assume that they had been scattered across the globe. Even if they hadn’t been, how could they all end up in the possession of an old pegasus merchant?!
Because here they were. Hers. Finally.
Tears of joy in her eyes, Rarity galloped back over to the crate and her friends.
“We need a secluded place to view these,” she announced to them. “And then we need to celebrate.”
. . .
“Okay,” Rarity mused, looking over the contents of the crate which she had just dumped on the floor of the room the group was renting. Just like the pegasus peddler, whatever gut-wrenching fear the zebra innkeeper had expressed at their appearance had all but vanished when Megan produced another imitation-bit. “I don’t know which order these go in, so I suppose I shall just have to start at random and work my way through until I’m done.”
So what if they were out of order? The very first Disk she’d seen had been the very last recorded, after all.
“In that case, I think we better step out,” Megan intoned.
Rarity, confused, turned back to look at her new friends.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“We can tell this is something important to you,” Firefly responded. “And we wouldn’t feel right watching something so personal.”
“Oh,” Rarity stated. It was all she could think to say. She had never had any qualms with viewing Applejack’s Disk with the others back in the forest. It had just seemed natural, whether it was personal or not, to view it with her friends.
“And besides, we don’t want to wait around for however long it takes you to view those things,” Surprise added. “Especially when you’re the only one of us who understands any of it.”
“Oh,” Rarity repeated, with a different intonation this time. Surprise, as insensitively honest as always, did have a point. Rarity instantly felt beyond selfish, having led the only friends she had in this frightening new time on a purely personal search. She had never once asked what they had wanted to do. The search had just been that important to her.
But did it deserve to be? Megan had only wanted to see The ULE, and though it wasn’t always pleasant, that’s exactly what the human had gotten through journeying with the group. Surprise had never really expressed any desires or needs of any kind, staying with Rarity even when the white unicorn didn’t want her to, so Rarity felt no regret there. However, wasn’t Firefly’s predicament more important than a search for thousand-year-old messages? Viewing the messages wouldn’t bring her original friends back, after all. But Firefly was alive, here and now, and she needed help.
Sure, they had found temporary help in the form of the fruits only by being on this search, as well as discovering a potential permanent cure for the multicolored pegasus’ condition. But shouldn’t helping Firefly have been Rarity’s top priority? Shouldn’t the slow, agonizing mental death of a friend who was alive more be more important to the white unicorn than what was essentially nothing more than the goodbyes of friends long dead and gone?
“Yes, you all go ahead and enjoy yourselves,” Rarity agreed, trying to keep a smiling face but not quite succeeding. “I believe I saw a spa when we came into town, and a restaurant that looked lovely.”
Her companions each gave her funny looks, seeing her strained expression, but seemed to be unable to identify it as a horrified realization of her own actions. Perhaps they viewed her look as melancholic at being about to finally say goodbye to her friends for real, even if their lives had long since ended. Either that, or they were simply too emotionally, physically, and mentally drained themselves right now to decipher the truth. Nevertheless, they strode out of the room in search of some well-deserved relaxation, leaving Rarity to the Disks.
‘I shall definitely have to ask them what they want to do from here on out,’ the white unicorn thought to herself as the door clicked closed behind her exiting friends. ‘Firefly’s predicament shall come first, and Megan will have to come along for that, but she’ll still be seeing the world. Surprise will probably come with me no matter what, though it wouldn’t hurt to ask her if there’s something I could help her with after all she’s done to help me. And then there’s the matter of finding Firefly’s parents, but what do I do after that?’
She supposed she would have to find a place to settle down in this frightening new era. As creepy as the startlingly sober remains of Pinkie’s psyche were, at least the pink imprint wasn’t psychotically dangerous, so Rarity assumed she could always ask the imprint to help her get a new Carousel Boutique started. But would anypony in this new time even want to buy her designs? She was a millennium behind the times when it came to fashion, for crying out loud!
“I… I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” Rarity realized. Back in her own time, ever since receiving her cutie mark, she had known exactly who she was and who she was supposed to be. After making such steadfast friends, she had learned even more of who she was and her sense of belonging in the world had only increased. She had been a sister, a daughter, a friend, an artist, a lover of beauty, and the bearer of The Element of Generosity.
But she was definitely not several of those things any more. She was still a friend and still a lover of beauty. But her family had long since passed away. How could she be an artist if she didn’t even know if modern ponies would embrace her art? And even the title of Element Bearer had long since passed on to somepony new, even if Rarity had heard no mention of the modern Bearers in all her time here.
What was her purpose in this new time? Whatever it was, Sweetie Belle would want her to fulfill it to her fullest. And, since she had gained more hope from her real sister’s farewell than from anything else in her life, she would do just that. Thus, determinedly, she promised herself “But whatever it is, I will find it!”
First, though, there were some ponies… some pieces of herself… she needed to say goodbye to. She knew they would never really leave her, but she still needed to say farewell to the ponies themselves, even if only through memories made of magical light.
. . .
And so they had said goodbye. To each other, from Rarity to her friends and from them back again to her, across the centuries, across the tides of time.
Rarity had watched as her friends’ lives played out before her. She saw the rise of their companies, each of which was a wonder to benefit all ponykind, long before they fell to the whims of their insane imprints in all cases but Pinkie’s. She saw Twilight’s family, and for the first time saw the original Daybreak. She saw how each of her friends had settled down (or in Rainbow Dash’s case, refused to) and gone on to live happy, long, full lives.
Rarity spent hours staring into the structured displays of light, watching Disk after Disk in no particular order. She had watched her friends’ older selves only to watch their younger selves immediately after, followed by ages in between and then all over the spectrum once more. There really was no way to know in which order the Disks were meant to be viewed, but it didn’t matter.
All that mattered was that was that Rarity got to see her friends again.
That, and the rather startling thing Rarity found near the end of her viewing.
The Disk that had revealed the thing in question had sported a butterscotch cream-colored gem with traces of pink. Rarity had by now caught on that each gemstone represented one of her friends, from the bright pink of Pinkie Pie’s last Disk to the orange of Applejack’s Disk in which Sweetie Belle had given Rarity the most hope she’d ever had. This being so, Rarity had assumed that this would be a Disk featuring Fluttershy, long before her imprint went dangerously insane. Rarity had seen several Disks bearing Fluttershy’s gem so far, and was all too happy to see her again (and would have been to see any of her friends again, for that matter), but what the Disk truly held was not at all what Rarity had been expecting.
It had started out simply enough.
“Hello, Rarity,” Fluttershy’s face had greeted her, sprung up larger than life in a grainy green hologram. She was very, very old at this time, and spectacles perched on the pegasus’ muzzle while incredibly light streaks raced through her mane. She was smiling, but her smile held so much melancholy that it was somehow even more disheartening than a saddened frown.
Whatever could have upset Fluttershy so? She had seemed so happy in her other Disks… “I guess this is the final Disk I can give you.”
What? This was Fluttershy’s last message? It wouldn’t be the first of her friends to say their final goodbyes. Rarity had already witnessed the final recordings of Twilight, Applejack, and… Pinkie… But even though they had long since passed, the last Disk of each friend was always a bit bittersweet. It was still a chance to see them, but it also meant that no matter how many times she reviewed the Disks there would never be anything new for her to see.
“I’m so sorry that we couldn’t find a way for you to wake up,” Fluttershy’s aged image went on. “I really did want to say goodbye to your face rather than through some spell.”
Rarity knew how hard each of her friends had tried to wake her. Their various attempts filled many of the Disks. She never would’ve blamed them for giving up that she would wake, but they never had, and she would always love them for that.
“But anyways, I just wanted to say goodbye, old friend,” Fluttershy smiled with genuine warmth. “I never forgot you, and I never will.”
Rarity smiled and sniffed, biting back a tear that was equal part misery that her friend was truly gone and joy that she had always been Rarity’s friend even at the end of her long life.
And then—
“INCOMING!!”
Was that… Pinkie’s voice? But why did it sound so far away, and how could her voice even be here at all? Rarity could tell by the background that this Disk had been recorded in Fluttershy’s tree-based office.
Fluttershy seemed to be having the same thoughts.
“Pinkie Pie…?” the wizened pegasus questioned, looking around her uncertainly. “I must be hearing things. Sorry about that, Rarity, but for a moment there I thought I heard Pinkie Pie. That can’t be, of course. Pinkie Pie’s working on that special project she’s been so worked up about over at her factory. I suppose she could’ve teleported here with Twilight, but then the tree would’ve sensed the magic immediately and told me of their arrival. I guess that’s just old age for you, huh?”
Fluttershy seemed to be talking more to herself than Rarity now, as she had seen some of her friends occasionally do in their later Disks. Only this time, Rarity had heard whatever Fluttershy thought was just in her head. What was going on? And what was that project Fluttershy was talking about? Neither Pinkie nor any of her other friends had mentioned anything about a project at the Party Supplies factory.
“Hi, Fluttershy!!” Pinkie Pie announced, literally coming out of nowhere and popping up in front of her equally-old friend’s face.
“Pinkie?!” Fluttershy and Rarity gasped, at once simultaneously and a thousand years apart.
“Pinkie Pie, you could have given me a heart attack!” Fluttershy breathed frantically. “What are you doing here? How did you even get here anyway? The tree didn’t tell me any magic had happened in the area…”
“What, you think it takes magic to translocate halfway around the world?” Pinkie Pie giggled.
“Yes!” Fluttershy harrumphed angrily.
“Well it doesn’t,” Pinkie Pie assured her nonchalantly. “And I’ll tell you why! Oh, well, I guess I won’t, but my project will!”
“You mean you’re done already?” Fluttershy, still obviously very flustered, inquired. “You said you’d been planning that for years but had never had the time to do it until now. How can it be done so quickly?”
“The same way I got across an entire ocean without magic!” Pinkie explained, or rather, simply made things more confusing. “Not that I expect you to understand that, but you will if you use my project! That is, if you don’t go insane from the attempt. And I didn’t say I didn’t have time until now, I said I didn’t know the situation was so dire that I needed to do this project at all… Until now. Er, then. Back when I started.”
“Pinkie, what are you talking about?” Fluttershy demanded. “You’re not making any sense, and you’re interrupting my final recording for Rarity!”
“Rarity!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. “Thanks for reminding me, Fluttershy! I almost forgot. And I’m so sorry that I have to barge in on your final goodbye like this, but if my plan works, you’ll thank me later and you won’t have to say goodbye to Rarity at all anyway! So don’t worry, your auntie Pinkie Pie will take care of this for you!”
“I’m a year older than you,” the wizened pegasus reminded the slightly younger earth pony. “And I’m not letting you take away my last chance to say something to Rarity! Those assertive classes taught me not to let myself be pushed around, even by my friends. I know you mean well with whatever you’re doing, but I’m afraid it’ll have to stop. In fact, I think you may have finally gone senile…”
“I’M NOT CRAZY!!” Pinkie Pie all but screamed at the ceiling, raging at something that wasn’t Fluttershy even though it clearly frightened the pegasus, and understandably so. “I’m the only sane pony in this crazy universe! But that’s not important right now—what is important is that Rarity gets my project and uses it!”
Pinkie turned to face the magical recording device’s eye head-on now.
“Rarity, my project is all detailed in a book—I’ve taken to calling it ‘The Pink Book of Parties, Pantaloons, and Paprika,’ but you might just want to call it ‘The Pink Book’ for short (and no, its contents have nothing to do with anything in the title)—that I will leave behind for you in my factory. It’ll be hidden under a magical false bottom in the saddlebags my imprint will give to you when you wake up! I only hope that WHEN you wake up, it won’t be too late…”
WHAT?!
“You have to read this book, Rarity, and PLEASE don’t go insane when you do!” Pinkie pleaded, trying to stay in the view of the device’s eye even as Fluttershy attempted to push her out of the way. “Follow the instructions, and you can save the world! If you don’t accidentally destroy it, that is, but if you don’t try to save the world then it will be destroyed anyway!
“You’re the only one who can do this, Rarity!” Pinkie called as Fluttershy finally succeeded in pushing the pink party pony away. "You’re the only pony I know I can trust. I’d get our friends to do it, but we’re too old to make the journey. I would’ve acted sooner, but I didn’t want to risk the world unless I knew it was too much at risk anyway. You have to save the world, Rarity! You have to save the world from The Seekers! You have to save it from TIREK!”
. . .
“Tirek?” Firefly echoed after Rarity had joined her friends again. She had reviewed the last of the Disks after Pinkie’s impromptu interruption, but there had never been another mention of Pinkie’s project or that name. The Seekers had been in there plenty, but according to the recordings the secret society had been eradicated just as quickly as it had shown up. Rarity remembered that there hadn’t been any other recorded instances of Seeker activity in the last thousand years, so she had assumed they were long dead and gone as well. “Who’s Tirek?”
“I was hoping you would know,” Rarity admitted, taking a sip of her fruit juice and savoring the rich, exotic flavor. The group was enjoying the luxuries of a local restaurant. Once again, the magic of instant gold had quickly abated any fear towards them exuded by both the other customers and the restaurant proprietors. “If it has something to do with The Seekers, then I certainly wouldn’t know, but everypony else in The ULE seems to know quite a lot about those dreadful pony-shaped monsters.”
“Tirek, Tirek, Tirek…” Surprise mused. “Nope, doesn’t ring a bell with me!”
‘Not that I was really expecting it to,’ Rarity thought absentmindedly.
‘I mean, I do know about everything else in your tale,’ came Surprise’s voice into Rarity’s mind without passing through her ears first. ‘Just not the ‘Tirek’ part.’
“How do you keep doing that?!” Rarity blurted, turning to face her snowy pegasus companion.
“Do what?” Surprise grinned, almost tauntingly. “Read your thoughts and then speak back to them? Pull weapons from nowhere? Et cetera, et cetera?”
“Yes…?” Rarity agreed, looking at Surprise with what might quickly evolve from uneasiness to fear. Her white pegasus friend had never looked this focused, this intelligent…
“I don't know,” Surprise announced dismissively. “But I do know that whoever Tirek is, if he’s involved with The Seekers, then we better get that Pink Book from your saddlebags before he, she, or it does. From the sound of it that book is just as apt to destroy the world as you learning about the secret past I don’t have is.”
There was a rather uncomfortably awkward silence.
“You mean we need to go back into that abominable tree?” Rarity inquired.
There was another silence.
This silence was swiftly broken by a chorus of raucous laughter from everypony and human.
“Seriously, though,” Surprise chortled as the laughter died off from each of them. “We need to get that book or the world is going to end.”
“What are you talking about?” Rarity demanded.
“I’m saying exactly what Pinkie Pie was saying to you back on the Disk,” Surprise replied, taking another bite out of the odd steaming vegetable she had ordered for dinner. It looked like a cross between a purple spider and abstract art, but the smell was heavenly. “Well, maybe not one-hundred percent exactly what she said, but the message is the same. I didn’t know it was this bad, but if my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-so-many-greats grandmother thought it was and went to all the trouble of actually writing about it, then things must be really, REALLY dire.”
“I might be inclined to believe you if not for two reasons,” Rarity spoke evenly. “First of all, you have yet to tell me why the world is in danger. And, although it’s certainly gone downhill since my time, I see no way in which it is nearing total destruction. Secondly, there is no way in Tartarus that I am going back to that psychotic monstrosity of a tree! Besides, that book will be melted by now, having been in the factory’s digestive recycling plant for all this time.”
“The Pink Book will be indestructible, mostly,” Surprise assured them. “Pinkie will have pushed it so that it's not entirely in reality anymore. And you really won’t go back to get the book unless I tell you why the world is in danger, is that it?”
“I won’t be going back to that tree period,” Rarity asserted.
“I didn’t want it to have to come to this,” Surprise sighed. “But I can’t do this on my own. I’ll need your help if I’m to get that book. And I think you will help me once I show you why the world is in danger.”
. . .