Some years later…
Magpie walked alone through the forest, her helmet clicking lightly against her air-armor with every step. With such strides in lightness and efficiency, it barely felt much heavier than an oversized jacket. It helped that her armor was built for a crystal pony, and held only enough air for her to answer radio messages, without any of the complex tanks or scrubbers that other ponies relied on.
Her heavy saddlebags clinked together with every step, but she barely noticed the weight. Being made of stone had its advantages. One shovel, one set of stonecutter’s tools. Not the heaviest thing she’d ever carried.
Every minute or so she had to slow, referencing the positional tracker and the thin map she carried. She was still on track, and the flowers she’d brought remained protected in plastic film. Equestria had thousands of places to buy flowers—but none quite like these, carefully cultivated from the fruit trees that fed each dome.
Eventually she reached her destination, identifiable only by a column of rock rising from the trees, taller than even the largest oaks among them. She walked past the old monastery, barely more than a pile of windswept stone. She passed between the hovels where their farmers had lived, clinging desperately to every drop of rain the distant unicorns granted them.
The old road still ran through Buckshire, a gentle loop that followed the shape of the stone and the shelter it provided.
She stopped short, body shaking as she smelled the flames. Distant screams, desperate ponies fleeing for their lives. Buckshire had chosen their side, even if Magpie never had anything to do with it. They’d chosen badly.
The ash was all gone now. She thought she saw a chunk of awning emerging from the soil near the stone, where once a market had stood. The voices of the dead sung in her ears, and she hummed along with her sisters as she walked. The words were lost to her now, but she’d barely known them even then. It didn’t matter.
Past the market she found her destination, tucked into the shadow of the pillar.
There wasn’t even a patch of rust where once the graveyard gate had been. But the old willow still stood, a withered husk that hadn’t fallen over despite who knew how many years. She removed her shovel from the satchel, and began to turn over sod. She wasn’t trying for depth. She found the first monument a little way from where she expected, a stone cylinder cut from the black rock of their patron. It had always been forbidden to use the stone of their patron, with only this exception.
She wiped away the mud with the fabric of her suit, exposing the symbols. But Magpie hadn’t been literate then, and she didn’t know whose names were on it. She could only settle it back into place, and go back to digging.
“Excuse me!” someone called, voice echoing down from overhead. “Excuse me, you shouldn’t be here!” She looked up, freezing in place as she saw the figure.
This was a princess—though not one that Magpie had heard of from the world before. Someone new, the one serving as their envoy. “If you wanted to deviate from the official tour, you were supposed to file a request with—” She stopped, eyes wide as she looked between Magpie and her shovel.
“What are you doing here?”
She turned her back on the princess, turning over more old sod. “Something important. I apologize for… running away. Please don’t let my actions jeopardize your relationship with Tranquility.” She lowered her voice to a nervous whisper. “I’d… actually prefer it if you didn’t mention this to anyone.”
Princess Twilight Sparkle made an unhappy sound, settling down on her haunches not far from the first monument. “I make no promises until I see what you’re doing. If you’re here to rob from this place… what ruin is this, anyway? There are no historical sites here.”
“Buckshire.” She went back to digging, and it wasn’t long before her shovel struck stone. She paused long enough to wedge her blade under, then lifted. “It was one of the first to declare for the Lunar Rebellion. The Solar Guard wanted to make an example of us. They razed it before the first winter.”
She knew she’d found what she was looking for even with most of it still coated with mud.
Magpie lifted it with care, with strength her old self never could’ve managed. But she had the strength of a crystal pony now, she didn’t need half the village helping.
It wasn’t much of a pillar, all things considered. But even for Buckshire, she hadn’t belonged to much of a family.
Still, Magpie removed the leak-patching kit from her saddlebags, spraying the surface down with abrasive cleaning solution from within. What was meant to prepare plastic for a seal also worked well to help her get the slime and mud away from the face of the monument.
It wasn’t much to see, just a little heart barely visible after so many years. Below it she had drawn four lines, two larger and two smaller.
“You haven’t come to take anything,” the princess said, her voice subdued.
“No.” Magpie didn’t look back. She didn’t need permission from the princess, even if she was an Alicorn.
She took her chisel and mallet, then wrote.
It was not the same language her parents had tried to teach her. But she imagined they’d be proud of her, if they saw her writing on her own.
It took her almost an hour to carve their names. The princess sat behind her, silent and respectful as the sun gradually set behind the horizon and a full moon rose high over their heads.
Finally Magpie removed the plastic tube she’d been carrying, exposing the penumbra blossoms within. She settled them down before the grave, and cried until she didn’t feel like crying anymore.
Magpie rose, packing away her tools one at a time. If she really squinted, she imagined she could see a little patch of moon that was darker than the rest—the black metal of heat absorbers. “If you don’t mention this, I’ll owe you,” she said. “Er… Princess.”
Twilight nodded solemnly, tossing a scroll into the gaping maw of an ancient well. “As it happens, I just misplaced the rest of your itinerary, anyway.”