It took a moment for the silence to fully register when Rarity first awoke, but the realization that she was alone was enough to startle her into full awakeness. She blinked a few times, risking a little bit of magic to wipe the crust from her eyes. Her hooves, pleasantly numb, walked onward, and she only stumbled a little bit as her conscious will took control of her movement.
A cursory glance around was all that she needed for most of her instantaneous anxiety to fade. The sunlight was still filtering in through the glass roof and the right-side windows, surrounded by a sea of stars. She was safe, and more importantly, she was still going the right way. All it had taken as a filly were a few horrifying rumors of ponies getting turned around for the fear of the light on the left to settle in. If it was on the right, then she was right.
All-right, alright.
She smacked her lips and trotted over to the right, keeping a steady pace forward as she did so. A strip of panelling chimed pleasantly as she walked over the pathway. Tilting back her head, Rarity opened her mouth as a trickle of water dripped from a pipe above her, matching her pace perfectly so she could drink. Some landed in her mouth, rinsing the taste of the previous night away, but most of it landed on her back.
Humming to herself, she stepped off the water-path and looked around. It really was quiet when nopony else was around. The hallway sloped almost indiscernably upwards, both behind and in front of her, shrouded in a mist that kept her walk pleasantly humid.
Ugh, it was going to be a boring day, really, if nopony else were around. Had she fallen behind? She tried to clear her head, focusing on how she felt. No, no, her energy levels were fine. Better than usual, actually. She must’ve kept a fantastic pace during her rest. Was everypony else just-
“OUT OF THE WAY!”
A hoarse shout cost Rarity a few missed hoofsteps before she regained her steady, even gait. She looked back to see a pair of ponies moving rather urgently towards her.
“Move it, Ivy!” wheezed the stallion of the two, propping up the breathless mare next to him as they awkwardly shuffled past her. “Roseluck here’s gonna pop any minute!”
Ivy. Rarity made a face. They made it sound so dreadfully common. At least her plant wasn’t of the fruiting variety; she could see the grapevines winding their way around the stallion’s limbs, making his trot an awkward, uncomfortable-looking one.
“Best of luck,” she said after a moment, watching the pregnant mare waddle as fast as she could into the brightly-lit fog ahead of her. She mostly meant it, too. Foal birth was one of the most risky things a pony could do, and it baffled her that mothers who survived the process often decided to do it again, but she supposed it was in the best interests of ponykind that they continued to have foals. Many didn’t make it, after all. Many couldn’t keep up with the light.
She rustled her back gently, enjoying the feeling of cool leaves brushing against her coat. Since the food crisis after the few months of Eternal Night, there had been many desperate studies on how to keep Equestrians alive when most of the vegetation had died. Her ancestors had been a part of the only one, as far as anypony could figure, that had worked. The few surviving species of plants deserved as much of a fighting chance as the ponies who depended on them, after all, and the brilliant plan had been to make the dependency mutual. Sure, it probably had cost them Equestria, wherever they’d left it, but she was still alive. Ponies were still alive, even if they weren’t quite… completely pony, anymore.
Muffled hoofsteps sounded from behind Rarity, and she perked up. She must have gotten towards the front of the herd, then, if ponies were catching up to her like this! Perhaps later, she’d slow her pace down, and see if she could find where the others were.
“Oh, it’s just you, Rarity.”
She looked back and beamed. What fortune, somepony she actually knew! “Rainbow Dash! It’s wonderful to see you, darling! How have you been? You’re looking… healthy?”
It wasn’t true. The chrysanthemums on Rainbow’s back were wilting, with most of the petals looking rather shredded. It figured that of all the ponies, Rainbow would get a gorgeous flowering plant, while Rarity was stuck with mere (admittedly attractive) leafy vines. Leave it to a pegasus to be unable to resist the urge to fly while in full bloom.
“Yeah, yeah. Look, they were already starting to fade anyway.” Rainbow made a face as she matched Rarity’s speed. “Did you see Roseluck go by? How many ponies were with her?”
Humming, Rarity peered into the mist. “Just one was with her. A stallion, also an earth pony. A grape species, if I’m not mistaken.”
Rainbow scuffed a hoof against the floor. “Ugh. No clue where Lily went, then. You sure you didn’t see anypony else walk by?”
“I did not. It’s entirely possible I missed something, if she went by much earlier. I did just awaken.”
Rainbow blinked. Frowned. “Really? And you’re all the way up here?”
She shrugged, staring out the window, watching their reflections against the stars beyond. “I suppose I just walked rather quickly in my sleep. Isn’t that what you usually do? Why, I’m surprised-” Rarity cut herself off before her mouth could get ahead of her brain. Why had Rainbow been behind her, anyway?
“Sure,” said Rainbow after a moment’s pause. “I’m the fastest there is, you know that. Everypony knows that. Maybe Lily just went ahead of the other two, and we both missed it.”
Something about that didn’t quite sit right with Rarity, but she let it pass. “Have you seen the herd? I’m fairly certain I’ve gotten ahead of most of them, but I haven’t reached the ones who chase the sunrise edge, so I can’t be that far from the others, right?”
Rainbow shifted her wings uncomfortably. A few more pale petals fell limply into her feathers. “Yeah, you’re about ten minutes ahead of them. Rarity, I’m glad I found you, I actually wanted to talk to somepony away from-”
“Sh-” Rarity shushed, squinting ahead. Something was ahead of them, in the slowly-rotating ship. Something dark, and… motionless?
Oh, no.
Rainbow saw it a few seconds after Rarity had. “ROSELUCK!” the pegasus shouted, and bolted forward, leaving a few leaves, leaves in her wake, but her concerns were elsewhere. “No, no, NO! This can’t be happening! Where’s Time Turner, Rose?”
The figure didn’t answer, but one hoof shifted slightly forward. It looked, Rarity noted with queasy disgust, as though there was a good deal more fluid lost than there probably should have been. She looked away as she slowly made her way towards the pair, staring into the starry void outside the window, keeping the view from rotating.
“Why would he…” Rainbow swallowed audibly. “Why would he leave you?”
“Foal… alive. Had to keep… moving…” gasped a voice, almost too softly for Rarity to make out what was being said.
“But… no! Rose, you can’t do this, you can’t give up, you can’t-”
“She can’t get up, darling,” Rarity interrupted. “Her foal lives on. Maybe it’s even a rose bush, like its mother, but she can’t keep up. And if she can’t keep up…” She bit her lip, unwilling to finish the phrase.
A prismatic blur whipped around Rarity, shedding another faded petal. “You’re saying we should just leave her to die? Alone? The herd’s not too far behind, and the sunset line’s under an hour away! If she falls into the dark side of the path, she’ll… she’ll…”
Rarity sighed. “She knows, Rainbow. You said most of the herd’s not too far behind. Somepony will stay with her and talk to her, if she makes it to them. It’s likely that her last moments will be in the light, with friends. That’s more than most get.”
“Yeah,” spat Rainbow, “because most get left behind if they’re too slow. They-”
“How,” said Rarity softly as a thought occurred to her. “Did you know that the sunset line is under an hour away?”
No answer. She had to tear her gaze away from the window and mist ahead to make sure Rainbow was still with her. The pegasus refused to meet her gaze.
“You didn’t know where Lily was. Did you just wake up, too? But you’ve always been a fast sleepwalker, Rainbow.” She gave Rainbow’s back a cursory glance, noted the bulge of roots under her skin, too prominent for any healthy pony. “Your plant is sick, dearest. Are you not getting enough energy?”
“I’m fine,” spat Rainbow. “It’s everypony else here who isn’t. I needed to talk to you about this, or to somepony.”
Rarity quirked an eyebrow warily. “Oh?”
“Yeah. Listen, so this satellite’s round, right? A big giant wheel?” Rainbow gestured upwards.
Rarity looked, and squinted at the angled mirrors that redirected the sunlight towards her above the glass of the walkway. “As far as we know, yes. The sunlight reflects in to feed our plants, which feed us.”
“But it rotates,” said Rainbow. “And so we’ve got to walk to follow the sun. Why?”
“Because,” explained Rarity, gently. “If we sat still forever, we’d die.”
“Okay, so that makes a sort of sense. But if it’s a round wheel, why do we never see the bodies of those who’ve fallen behind and died? What happens to them, when the plants fully wilt and try to take the last bits of nutrients from the ponies within them? Shouldn’t we be tripping over skeletons by now?”
Rarity had an answer for the first part, at least. Unpleasant as it was, it was something she’d thought about. “Perhaps the ship disposes of them after they reach a certain point in the dark. Perhaps it burns them as fuel, to keep the ship spinning.”
“That doesn’t explain the water!” Rainbow snapped, eyes wide and wild. “That doesn’t explain the mist! We can’t live off of just water, and neither can plants.”
The whole topic was beginning to make Rarity a little uneasy. “Well, perhaps the plants of Equestria couldn’t, but these plants are grown to work with us, and us with them. We give them motion, sunlight, and breath, and they give us energy.”
“Do you know how plants used to grow?” Rainbow’s voice was softer, but for some reason it chilled Rarity more than when she’d been almost shouting. “They used fertilizer.”
“I don’t think-”
“Do we even know what water tastes like, anymore? It’s been longer than anypony can remember since we left Equestria. Is our water even water, or could it be made of-”
“Enough! I’m quite tired of your disturbing-”
“No, Rarity. Fertilizer is made of dead things, and recycled nutrients. Do we even know what’s above the mirrors on this ship, or below the floor panels? Is some monster driving us to walk in endless circles? Maybe-” and her voice dropped to a hushed whisper, barely audible over their hoofsteps and the comforting rustle of the plants on their backs. “We’re being rotated forever on purpose. Maybe somepony or something doesn’t want us to see what happens to those who die?”
“Rainbow, this is ridicul-”
“It’s not, though, is it?” And Rainbow was almost shouting again. “Do we know what’s in our water? Have we been drinking the corpses of our friends?”
For anypony else, Rarity would have laughed at them and immediately sought out new company, but it was Rainbow, and for Rainbow and the last dregs of whatever friendship they had, Rarity gave it a few moments of consideration.
It was ridiculous, of course, but even so…
“Wh-why,” Rarity asked, then paused as she heard her own voice shaking. She cleared her throat before continuing with the answer she felt she had to give. “Why would that bother me?”
Rainbow’s jaw dropped. “Wh-what? How can you-”
“It’s a different time, Rainbow. We’re ponies, but we aren’t Equestrians, and there may be none of us left anywhere in the universe. If this is what keeps us alive, then it’s rather unpleasant to think about, but it’s still kept everypony going.” Rarity nodded, mostly to herself. Yes, it sounded better, more acceptable when she said that out loud. It wasn’t enough to fully convince her, but that’d be a thought for a future time, and perhaps further discussion later on.
“So, let me get this straight,” said Rainbow Dash softly, staring Rarity down. “You’re saying that eating other ponies doesn’t even bother you?”
Rarity scoffed. “Well, of course I find the idea disturbing, but I don’t think there’s much to be done about it, if that is what’s truly happening. Honestly, Rainbow, you’ve gotten yourself so worked up over a theory. I’m sure there’s another explanation for where the, ah, deceased have gone. Perhaps it’s merely a sanitation measure!” She chuckled, swallowing back a strange bout of anxiety. “Why, if I give it a bit more thought, I’m sure there’s a far simpler explanation for all of this.”
“Yeah? I’d love to hear anything else you’ve got. How are we still alive, Rares? This is the only explanation I can think of that takes everything into account, and I just… I can’t believe you aren’t taking this seriously.” The only thing worse than Rainbow staring her down, Rarity noted, was when Rainbow didn’t look at her at all.
Rarity sighed. “I am, darling. Truly, I am. I admit, I don’t have a better one off the top of my head, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, and I think any answer would be far less horrible than the one you’ve convinced yourself is reality.” She stumbled as an awful thought occurred to her. “Wait, you’d fallen behind, and your plant is looking rather unwell... How long has this thought been bothering you?”
There was no immediate response, and that made Rarity’s pulse race as she put the pieces together. “Have you not been drinking, Rainbow?”
“No,” the pegasus said softly. “I haven’t.”
“Darling, what are you even thinking? You and your plant must work together to stay healthy, or it’ll start looking further than your bloodstream for nutrients and fluids! You know that you need to stay hydrated... to…” Something was wrong. It was too quiet, and it took Rarity a few moments to realize that her own hoofsteps were the only ones she could hear.
Rainbow had stopped. Was she so sick her legs had locked up? Rarity turned her head and slowed her pace slightly. “Are you okay? What are you doing?”
Rainbow laughed from where she stood, and sat down. “Joining Roseluck,” she whispered, and rested her head between her hooves. “Not that it matters much, since not even my best friend seems to care that she’s eating ponies.”
“Rainbow, come back! We can still talk about this!” shouted Rarity, slowing as much as she dared, watching as her friend slowly faded into the mist behind her. “Don’t give up! You have to keep walking, you have to…”
But silence answered her, and then there was nothing to distract Rarity from her distressing thoughts but the whisper of leaves against her back as she left her friend behind.