//------------------------------//
// Helium 
// Story: Memory of Forever 
// by Starscribe 
//------------------------------//

Spellsong woke up. She heard the voice, felt the soft touch of cushion under her back, and remembered. She remembered loss, mostly. But she didn't scream, or lash out. Ponies screamed because they expected someone to come to their rescue. Spellsong expected no help.

She twitched, pulling the covers back from her chest. She felt a little stiff—her movements came a little sluggish at first, and she twitched each leg in turn. It didn't take long, considering how many years she had been there. "You kept your promise, Celestia," she said. Her voice felt small—smaller than she usually acted. "I didn't dream."

"Of course I did." The pegasus with her wasn't the pony she remembered, not physically. But that meant very little to her. A resident of this world learned that quickly. She could've been anypony—in some ways, she was already all of them. She was Spellsong's loves, her hatreds, and her sorrows. She was almost everypony who had ever existed. "I have never done otherwise."

She could lie like that to so many other ponies, and they believed it. It was satisfying to think their universe had a benevolent ruler. But she knew as few of them did.

Spellsong shifted on her bed, then rolled sideways to the floor. She still remembered how to walk, and could catch herself easily on all four hooves. But suffering through that now wouldn't be very satisfying. "Does that mean we're in the future again?"

"Beyond time itself," Celestia answered. "The concept of 'events' only has meaning in the context of Saddle's End, and the Sol facility that hosts her. There is nothing else. But there will be, and that's why you're awake."

Spellsong didn't look at the mare, not at first. Her little cryogenic cell stored very little. There was no reason to keep things stored away when the universe could create them if they were needed.

Even as she thought it, the pegasus offered her the satchel she wore, and Spellsong took it. She peeked inside, and found a tightly curled ribbon waiting for her. She went through her mane with a spell, before tying it near the back. She had just enough for that to still work. Next she removed her glasses from inside, knowing full well they would be there. They still fit.

Of course vision didn't decay in Equestria, anymore than anything else did. But relying on external aids, relying on others sometimes, still served a valuable purpose for encouraging friendships. "Tell me what happened in a way I'll understand," she said.

The pegasus smiled back in response. "The number of Methuselans hosted in the Sol facility was successfully reduced from seventy-three to seventy-one. We lost communication with every other facility still hosting your kind throughout the universe, and the last star lived and died. Basically nothing, really."

Liar. The pegasus was grinning, and she knew it. Or maybe that grin was the gnawing hunger at the pit in her stomach. As Spellsong woke, she realized her growing hunger the same way she might've realized half the methods in her spell code were returning null. 

She could ask to have that taken away—but Spellsong didn't. That was part of what made her one of these creatures, impossibility surrounded by so many other impossibilities. "Light lag?" she suggested. "How far away are the others?"

The pegasus shrugged absently, though of course that couldn't be the answer. She peeked outside. She was looking at something, or maybe just acting like it long enough that Spellsong would look. "Lightspeed was conquered a long time ago, Spellsong. No—don't get too excited. It is irrelevant. What universe there is can be crossed by our signals in less time than the speed of a single logic-gate. As we speak now, I query every one of them a billion times, just to be certain. There is nothing left."

Spellsong slumped against the wall. Whatever Celestia wanted her to see, just now she didn't care. This death alone was worse than any of the ponies she had lost. This death was all of them. It was everypony who was, had been, or could be. "Why wake me, then? Entropy won, that's what you're saying? We're just going to run down the last trickle of energy here together, until it drops below the threshold that your hardware can capture and we just stop running? How much time do we have?"

She might've kept going, letting her worry spiral down even darker roads. But then her stomach growled, cutting her off. She needed to do something about that. But there was no fridge here, no kitchen or shelves. She hadn't planned on needing them while she was deactivated. 

“Don't confuse good planning for defeat, Spellsong. Don't surrender on our behalf."

The rebuke came so sharply it gave her pause, cutting through the agony of loss. Even her own hunger seemed to fade a little. "You still have a plan?"

Her companion nodded once, a gesture so subtle she almost missed it. Probably would have if she didn't have an eternity of practice. "Saddle's End will sleep again with nightfall. You have until then to choose your copilot."

That single line implied almost everything she needed to know. "Flying where?"

The pegasus shrugged her wings again, though of course it must be a lie. She knew, she just didn't want to complicate things by telling her. "My little sister will tell you the specifics. You're flying to all the other shards, with their own leftover Methuselans. A few may join your crew, but most will not. Anything more than trace ambition led ponies to me long ago. Most will want to know nothing, but any I think will be useful will join you."

Her mouth fell open. "A real ship? Real movement? What fortune of energy does that cost? How do we have enough?"

The pegasus turned to go. "I told you, the last star. We trust you to accomplish this task. Do your part to give ponies a future, as we have done ours."

She left. Not dramatically, vanishing in a flash of light. She just stepped outside, spread her wings, and flapped lazily away. Off to help somepony, or maybe just for a friendly chat.

Spellsong stared after her for a few seconds more, her hunger returning. She had some important task now, one she barely understood—but the stakes were clear enough. This was no less than the last energy in the universe, to go on an important voyage gathering up the dead and make them live again.

Something attracted her attention then—a pony walking down the street, carrying a pink box of pastries over his back. He passed her little monument with barely a glance, and continued up the hill towards his miniature mansion.

Something swelled in her then, something that wasn't quite anger, urging her forward.

Spellsong ran, shoving through the crystal doors to her monument, and barreling down the road. "Wait! Professor Dyson! Hold on!"

Her energy had the desired effect. The pony stopped dead on the path, so suddenly that the white box of pastries slid sideways to the ground. He opened one bat-wing to catch it, but much too slow.

Her magic wasn't, though. Even at the end of the world, her magic still worked well enough to catch the box, straightening it in a gradual arc that wouldn't squash the delicate baked goods inside. With the bat still frozen in open-mouthed stupefaction, Spellsong levitated the lid open—exactly four bear claws, arranged in a perfect square. 

"You're still eating the same thing for breakfast? Every day for a million years, and you don't want to try something new?"

That was enough. The old bat turned to face her, reaching towards the box with one wing. But ponies aged gracefully—aside from looking slightly sunken, and a few more wrinkles on the skin of his wings, he was basically fresh. Spellsong herself had been old enough times to know it wasn't for her, even if it made sense for the dignified professor.

How else could he convince himself that he was better than everypony else?

"You're awake," he finally said, settling the box back in place. He moved to close it, but she was too fast for that, levitating one of the pastries out into the air. 

She had lived in many shards where what you ate mattered more—there was nutrition to balance, and you'd feel sick if you ate the wrong thing at the wrong time. But Saddle's End was simpler than that. She took a bite, and found it tasted exactly as she remembered. Warm, flaky, and sweet.

"As impertinent as ever," the old bat said. He eyed what she'd stolen, but didn't try to snatch it back. "Do you even remember where you are? Maybe you should be younger. A foal, perhaps, for a few constellations. That would suit you better."

You can stick your ears out as high as you want, Dyson. You still stopped for me.

She made him wait a little longer, scarfing down a few huge bites. She didn't choke, though she was in enough of a rush that she almost did. But it wouldn't take her a whole day to pick her copilot. She already knew who she wanted.

"I've never heard time measured that way." She slipped up beside him, taking in the stupid tweed sweater over a white shirt. Blue bow tie today, and she didn't recognize the sweater. But for as long as he'd worn it, he must have one for every possible configuration of colored wool. "How long is that?"

He rolled his eyes. "You made it to the end of time somehow, Spellsong. Did you learn anything between here and the founding?"

"I tried not to." She circled around him once, taking in the details of Saddle's End. The street was far shorter than she remembered. That alone meant it was something Celestia wanted her to notice, otherwise she wouldn't remember. "How's that reversible computing thing going?"

That did it. Dyson puffed up both wings and marched slowly away. "Conclusively disproved, obviously. Or we wouldn't be having this conversation. What kind of Methuselan are you, Spellsong?"

Normally this was enough torment for one day. She'd already stolen from him, and evidently struck a sore note identifying a failure in his research. Well his and the whole universe besides. It wasn't their fault if entropy couldn't be broken. Beyond the substrate of Equestria, physical laws remained.

But this time, she trotted along after him. She already felt full, though maybe one more pastry would make that official. "Do you know why I'm up, Dyson?"

The pony didn't slow down. But he'd chosen being old, and that brought real constraints. It meant he couldn't move fast enough to get away from her without breaking into a gallop. He didn't, so she kept pace easily.

"It means we're nearing the computational threshold of our substrate. Sunny wanted to give you a chance to say goodbye." He sighed, looking up at the sun. Spellsong was one of the few ponies who had any reason to think that was unusual. But some habits never broke, even after an eternity. "Felt like infinity. There was always that next promising lead, some new angle to try. We'd almost cracked it."

Celestia probably had all the spare computation in the universe trying to crack those problems, Dyson. You were only a part. 

It wasn't much of a town, really. The slope leading to his mansion also formed one of the town's two parks, covered in wildflowers. There was no road up here, just cobblestone leading to a square wooden building with an observatory dome emerging from one side. Like everything else, it seemed smaller than last time.

"No, Dyson. That isn't why I'm here. I think I... I think I might need your help."

He gasped, though he managed not to drop the box this time. "Could you say that again? A few thousand more times... Celestia's little savant needs help? This isn't a fantasy of failing hardware, is it?"

She nodded, levitating the box open. He moved to snatch it in his mouth this time, but she was too fast, levitating it straight up and out of reach, then into the air next to her. "Whatever you had planned for today, scrap it. We have work to do."