Bit worked.
This was nothing new—the essence of her existence was labor. She felt no resentment at that fact, since that would require comprehension of those feelings in the first place. Bit knew only that she had a purpose to fulfill, a goal always slipping further, ever-renewing.
Her home was a tower, larger and grander than any other structure in the city of Zircon. She did not know that name of course, or even what a "tower" was. But while she worked to keep the windows clean, she often took an extra moment to look outside and appreciate just how much there was to see.
Her tower was surrounded by structures on all sides, built from the same clear crystal as her tower. None came close to the height of her home, but all glittered in the light on the evening sun when it reflected off the snow.
When she reached the very top of the tower to clean, she could see beyond the walls of Zircon, where wind kept the glacier barren and lifeless. There was a stark beauty out there, one that invited her to explore it. A world with no windows to clean, no shelves to organize, and no rats to hunt.
But she could not entertain such thoughts, so dismissed them as quickly as they appeared. Once, long ago, the Wizard had been in residence. He answered all her questions, helping her understand things that were real and things that were not. But whenever a question possessed her, she found the door to his rooms shut, and so did not question him.
Her purpose was to serve, not to annoy. If the Wizard did not want to be disturbed, he would not be.
She could not say how long she had worked his tower, keeping away the animals and cobwebs, sweeping away ash from the fireplace, and clearing ice from the balconies. Day and night were no different, save that she couldn't tell when windows were clean quite so easily by moonlight.
But then came a day that was not at all like the others—a day of terror and despair. The day her last brush finally broke.
The tool was precious to her, a long metal-handled thing with soft bristles. She could spin it to any length, then take the brush in her mouth to clean windows no matter their distance.
At first, the loss of a tool was not the end of her world. She had been through this particular disaster before, and survived it well. She traveled down to the very bottom of the tower, over the place that was too broken for her to fix. She passed pages and wood and other rotten things, and finally reached the shelves.
Here were her supplies—an endless well of water she mixed with salts to clean. Other things—brushes and brooms and rods to keep the whole tower in perfect condition.
The supply room was empty. Her hooves slipped and wobbled over broken brooms, and she nearly fell over completely. After a few seconds of struggling, she caught herself on open ground.
This is not right, she thought. The Wizard always makes sure his tower has enough supplies. He knows everything.
The shelf with replacement brushes was empty. The cabinet with brooms held only sticks with no bristles. The mops were withered husks, and the rags were a pile of scraps and ashes.
Bit's crystal body did not breathe, nor did she have a pulse. But she felt an unpleasant pressure around her chest, a constriction that made it even harder to think straight. She needed to do something, though she couldn't say whether that was escape, or attack, or...
Without her to maintain it, the Wizard's tower would fall into ruin. All her work from all of forever would become meaningless. She had to do something fast.
Doing things fast was not in Bit's nature, any more than doing things that were new. The sun rose and set and rose again, and she occupied herself with other tasks, hoping perhaps that she could cheat the need to innovate. The scraps in the storage room could be sorted into boxes and piles for proper disposal... though nopony had come to collect their waste for a long time.
But memory was a fickle thing, and once she'd seen the state of the storage room, it beset her like an angry insect. There were so many other tasks she should be doing, all made impossible by her lack of equipment. She remembered when she had mopped the floor, remembered when she had organized the wizard's shelves, remembered so many things. All failures, slipping away.
The windows were the last thing I did, she realized. When they're gone, I will be a failure.
Day came and went and came again, and finally she resolved to do something about it, even if it required her to reconcile two incongruous facts. The Wizard wanted his tower maintained, but the Wizard never wanted to be disturbed while his door was shut.
Numberless days passed, and the light from outside gradually became orange and hazy, cast through cloudy glass. Only when the days had become almost as dark as the nights did Bit realize the truth: the Wizard might want one thing more than another.
There was no objective way to measure which option the Wizard would prefer for his tower. In the end, Bit decided on the simplest metric: she could list a dozen things the Wizard wanted her to do, that she could not do anymore. He would have to forgive her impertinence just this once.
Bit hesitated by his door, hooves clattering loudly against the stone. This was the one place she hadn't cleaned, and here she left large hoofprints in the dust. The Wizard's quarters had the largest door in all her world, the only thing made from wood instead of crystal.
She wobbled on her hooves, stopping there for many silent hours. She held one hoof just over the surface, never tiring, never sleeping, never needing to eat. She didn't require any of those things.
She knocked. The sound echoed through her body more than the door, a glass clicking sound that disoriented her slightly. The echo was so loud she imagined half the tower must've heard it, though of course there was no one but her to listen.
Seconds turned to minutes, and still there was no answer. She remained in place as long as she dared, maybe hours. But she could only wait for so long before she was confused near to bursting. She banged her hoof again, even louder this time.
"Master!" she called, the first time she had used her voice in as long as she remembered. But the words were still there, however confused. It didn't matter, there was no reply. Several minutes passed in silence, and another feeling took root in her chest.
Bit was afraid. All this time she had assumed the Wizard was just behind that door, guiding the affairs of his tower from behind the scenes. But she hadn't seen him in all this time, in long enough that her tools fell apart and the tower was crumbling. Had there ever been a wizard in the first place?
A long time passed. The sun rose and set and rose again, maybe more. The world grew darker in dusty glass. Dust began to collect on Bit herself, dimming the luster of her crystal body.
Eventually she acted, resting a hoof on the knob and twisting.
The door wasn't locked. Before she even realized what was happening, it slid open, creaking loudly as it swung inward. "Wait!" she called in fear and frustration, grasping faintly at it with one hoof. But she was too slow, and the door swung all the way open.
Even in the muted light from outside, Bit could see the interior for herself. Could she really just turn around now?
If he's going to be upset with me, it can't get much worse, can it? I already opened the door. Bit considered turning around for another moment, or maybe it was a few days. However long it took, the open space continued to beckon to her, until she couldn't resist the pressure any further.
"Master Wizard!" she called, louder this time. "I have failed, Master Wizard. I need help." She stepped through the entrance, eyes scanning for him. She did not remember this part of her tower very well, since she didn't clean in here, so there was much to see.
The Master Wizard kept a very large space, separated into several rooms. The foremost of these was broken with many tables, though these were different than the other tables Bit cleaned so closely. Instead of empty flatness like the floor, these were covered in strange things. Crystals, wire, clockwork, and lots of paper between them. The Master Wizard truly was a creature of inscrutable ways.
As she penetrated deeper into his forbidden quarters, Bit began to wonder if maybe she should clean in here as well. The floors were so dirty, every window opaque with grime. She was not very sensitive to smell, yet even she felt as though there was something unhealthy about the space. Surely the Wizard would not appreciate dwelling in such conditions.
She found several more doors, each one shut but not barred. She stopped for a lesser extent at each one, hesitating with commands already disobeyed. But now that she was determined to find him, very little could restrain her.
The final door was not shut, but damaged. It hung off its hinges, with debris scattered across the floor. She stepped inside, and found the situation within even worse.
"Master Wizard, I have tried to follow your instructions," she began. "I hope you will be pleased with me. But I need help to continue my work."
She stepped over a chair that was the wrong way over, beside a table covered in a thin roll of metal. Crumbling paper blew to ash as she passed it, and crystal crunched under her hooves. She paused beside a pile of pale, fragile stones, in shapes she didn't recognize. She pushed them aside, letting the wrapping around them crumble in her hooves.
More for the tower's waste collection, if only the bin was emptied enough.
The walls had been damaged here too, with a few chunks of crystal crumbling into the tower. Ice had sealed the opening, leaving the chamber far colder than the rest of the tower. But Bit didn't care about that, she only wanted to find the Wizard.
He wasn't here. She scoured the last room—she found more strange stones, and other things she couldn't identify. She found some of his old robes, along with more of his old objects.
At the far end of the room, under a shattered window covered with chunks of ice, was a table that Bit remembered. The chair in front of it was crumbling with time, but she could remember it later. The Wizard sat in that chair, hunched over a collection of gigantic crystals. They sang under his magic, harmonizing together.
"What are you doing?" she asked the empty room.
"I am building the future," the Wizard said.
"What is the future?" Bit asked his empty chair. She settled down on her haunches onto the ground just beside it. She felt the indent there, crystal worn smooth by many, many times sitting in that spot. She didn't have a chair, but she didn't mind. Comfort was not a concept Bit understood.
"You are," the Wizard said. "One day all of Zircon will be like you. The cold won't crush us into our city walls. We won't starve when the harvest goes bad, we won't fear Equestrian invasion."
None of those things had made much sense to her then. They still didn't mean much to her now.
She could still imagine his face, watching her from his chair. The Wizard had entrusted his tower to her. No matter what happened, she couldn't fail him.
"I will fix this," she declared. "I will find my own brush."