//------------------------------// // Spotty Stowaway // Story: Magic's Birth: The Sisters' Memories // by The Psychopath //------------------------------// The air was salty and the sun made itself known by gradually burning through the thick gray clouds far above. Dissonance and the two giants were offline most of the time, although Dissonance found more entertainment in watching the crew working and the fauna moving about the airs and water around the vessel as it moved. The rippling left in its wake pushed up various different things wandering nearby, such as vasts amounts of a purple algae and tiny little creatures living upon them. Celestia took notes as she leaned in close over the edge of the vessel, eager to satisfy her needs for knowledge unknown to the blue. At some point, the ship entered a wide stretch of water colored a brownish-red color. Luna had believed it to be a contamination of the water, but with the advent of the massive and heavy ship, the truth became clear: It was a vast ocean of hand-sized fish-like creatures. Celestia scooped one up and brought it to her sister. They possessed six limbs, each ending with a large fin. Their giant eyes could look around independently from each other, and it seemed fine breathing in the air despite having gills. It squished itself into a ball-like shape when confronted with the two glowing machines. Its mouth protruded from its head, but not by much, and its lips narrowed into a thin beak. Only the upper lip had any hardness to it, and even then it was relatively easy to push in. Luckily, it wasn't damaged, keeping an inconsistent sponginess to it. "What is this thing?" Luna pondered. "Looks like some kind of bird-creature." Celestia shook her head. "No, it looks more like a fish with a beak." She looked to the water and flinched. "I can't believe it lives in that...that fake blue though. I had to touch it," she lamented in disgust. Luna grabbed the creature out of her sister's hand and threw it at the ocean. "Take that, fake blue!" she cheered. The white machine hummed pensively as she looked past the horizon in an attempt to see something other than the red-brown ocean. "What else do you think is in this thing?" she asked her sister absent-mindedly. Luna grabbed her chin, and her hull plating shifted around. "I'm not sure. I only know of a few creatures, but they were very small aquatic creatures that qualified as pets to the makers." She placed both hands on the edge of the hull. "You think there's something beyond the blue and the black? What else is there in this world? How varied is it or is this all there is? Are there other machines like us? Are they crazy like Dissonance and Galah?" Celestia shrugged. "To be fair, Galah is a prototype. Dissonance doesn't have that excuse." Luna imitated a 'snort' she had heard coming from one of the crew members during their lunch break. She enjoyed the sound, finding it quite pleasant. Why had her makers not given her such a feature. Certainly the children would have enjoyed a laughter like that as well. Neither she nor her sister had noticed that something was stalking them from amongst the many containers stacked very high upon the hull of the ship. It hid in the thin spaces left between them, using the mooring clamps and straps keeping everything together and in place. Celestia shouted in terror when it pounced on her back from behind, clinging to her in a hug. The white machine paused for a moment, overloaded by the reaction she displayed. Something else again? Another emotion? "What's this?" Luna wondered quizzically. As she leaned in closer, the figure let go of Celestia and latched onto the blue machine. It took several minutes of effort to pry it off of them both, leaving the creature exposed. The sisters had floated upwards, just out of reach of the entity who attempted to jump up and catch them in vain. "Hey, isn't that the thing we had seen in the forest near the farm?" Luna asked her sister. The entity was mostly black. Its body had been charred and covered in a thick layer of dirt, creating a vague smearing effect that thinned at the base of its feet. It was mostly featureless, save four shutters it used to cover its two large harlequin-colored eyes. It was closer to the appearance of the makers than any of the other machines that displayed sentience that the sisters had ever seen. All along its body, be it the arms or the legs or its torso, hole of various sizes and shapes could be observed. They exposed the wires and delicate machinery inside for the elements to witness, and it seemed to have been damaged aside from that. The sisters could see signs of rust within, and various broken, live wires hung loosely outside of its body. "Looks like it's a machine after all," Celestia said. She leaned in towards the holes and led her fingers in and out, apparently amusing herself until Luna pulled her away before the charred machine could grab her again. "Stop that," the blue machine chastised. "How is it even still working? More importantly, how did it even get onto the ship?"\ "That's true." Celestia lowered herself again. "How did you get on here?" She had lowered herself too much, giving the creature an area to pull itself up from and hug the white machine. "It's very clingy," Luna noted. "We'll have to tell the heavy-set maker about it, otherwise I'm not sure how it will continue to function at some point." Celestia struggled to free her arms while the malfunctioning machine clung onto her like its continued functioning depended on it. "But he only comes to see us and the others at set times of the day while he works, usually only during the lunch break." Luna tried to pry the creature off of her sister as she came up with an idea. "We could try to take it around with us to see the ship then? It seems to be gaining sentience. Perhaps stimulation would help it develop better?" she suggested. Celestia checked her chassis for any potential damage after the malfunctioning robot was finally pulled off of her. After a moment of thought, she acquiesced. "Sure. Until we show it to the maker, I suppose traveling around the vessel wouldn't be a bad idea. It helped me!" she stated with glee. Hesitation seemed to mar the charred robot's decisions. It looked around for a place to hide, but couldn't really find any good ones. As it stood, it was so fixated on the two machines of the blue that it had no idea where to go or hide at. It paced in placed nervously, keeping its arms up to its chest and hands to its featureless face as though it were chewing on non-existent nails. Its optics shot to Luna's outstretched ring hand, and it froze for a moment as it looked up to her, then down to her hand, then up to her, and repeated this action for several seconds. It stopped when it saw Celestia grab her sister's hand with her own, then let go. Still nervous, the charred machine slowly reached out and, with some flinching, grabbed Luna's hand. The sisters could tell that it felt triumphant in the fact, bouncing up and down in excitement. Now that it was standing fully without hugging anyone, the two machines could see that this stowaway was easily as tall as they were while floating above the ground. It gladly followed Luna as they moved between the crates, watching the mostly clear skies -or at least as clear as they could be considered- and the strange machine. The story was interrupted by Twilight's laughter, prompting the two princesses to stare at her. "What is so funny, Twilight Sparkle?" Luna asked as though indignant of the reaction. "You look like a teacher holding the hand of a very young student." The lavender alicorn stifled her laughter. "It just looks so absurd because that robot acts like a very clingy child, but it's taller than you two were." Celestia huffed and turned away. "I don't see what's so funny." The mare silently gestured to the image of a tall machine being escorted like a child, but she couldn't muster up any proper words through her laughter. Luna shrugged and resumed her story. It had been completely unaware of its environment, fully fixated on the sisters, something that it definitely regretted. On its quest to reach its goal, it had not registered any changes to its surroundings, only obstacles to mount. Now that its processing power was allowed to reach the rest of its systems, it could finally take in everything around it. The machine flinched when one of the mooring belts wobbled slightly, its loose end slapping the container due to the wind. It flinched when said wind began whistling between the massive metal boxes towering above it. Only its attachment to Luna gave it enough courage to not immediately run away like a cat. "It's okay," Luna reassured it. "That's just 'wind'. It's not dangerous at all at these speeds." The machine's head snapped to her and tilted itself slightly. A loud, deeply disconcerting sound came from it that sounded like multiple trains screeching to a halt distorted into a reverberating, dense noise. Its body convulsed as it performed whatever strange task it was attempting to do but grabbed its 'throat' and stopped shortly thereafter. It seemed concerned and looked at Luna with a sorrowful gaze. Its hand, missing a finger, pulled some rusted components away with it, revealing several smaller holes covering its throat as well as some dead wiring dangling limply. Celestia leaned in and rubbed her nonexistent chin. "We could go to that weird maker that has all the dead machines when we get back," she suggested. "I'm sure he would love to see all of our friends, too." "Isn't he the only one that has access to black energy?" Luna asked. The white machine shook her head. "No, but he did say he was one of the few." She stared at the machine's damaged body and hummed. "Still, he's the only one we know that can probably fix it up." "How about we go back to exploring?" Luna asked the charred robot. It nodded eagerly and bounced impatiently from side to side. Their exploration of the vessel's surface was impeded, however, by the crew inspecting the tightness of the mooring belts. They were quick to spot the two glowing machines and the charred creature the stood with them. "What the...Thought they were s'posed to be below deck," one of the caretakers commented while pointing to the ground. "They're floating, too," the other realized. "We were told they weren't that special." The two paused a moment, remaining uncomfortably silent while they tried to understand what was happening. "Wait, haven't they been here for several days? I saw that fire-faced giant and the puffy weirdo, but these ones I haven't seen anywhere." "And what about that black one?" The other gestured to the charred machine. "Doesn't look too good." The charred machine emitted another series of noises, causing the caretakers to wince over in pain while clutching their heads. It fled atop one of the larger containers using Luna as a leverage point. It grabbed any debris that was present, such as small bits of concrete and shells brought by the sea, and started chucking them at the two creatures angrily, adding to their pain. The sisters were quick to float up and block the projectiles that harmlessly bounced off of them. "No!" Luna chastised. "We don't throw things at the makers. You could hurt them." The creature stood tall and tried to get around the sisters, but they fully blocked its access. Angry, it started stomping around and making high-pitched crackling squeaks. Celestia was taken aback by its behavior and confused. "What is it...doing? I've never seen this." Luna rested the side of her against her ring hand. "It's having a temper tantrum." She snorted. "Having all this information on raising children is still going to serve me after all this time." She straightened herself and boosted her voice's volume. "Put that shell down!" she commanded. "Or we won't help you around the ship and leave you here on your own." Despite the noise, the machine immediately snapped to attention. It looked around, thinking for a moment. In fact, it took it a long while to come up with a proper solution, or at least, it attempted to find a solution to its dilemma. Instead, it threw the rock angrily on the ground and stood straight, its eye shutters tightened near its center, giving it a rather upset expression. "That hurt a lot!" one of the caretakers complained. He continued to voice pained grunts and voiceless complaints as he cleaned out his ears with a finger. "I have no idea what that machine is. I don't know if it was part of the machines we were told we were bringing along. We'll have to ask the captain about it." "Isn't the fat one the captain?" Celestia asked out loud. "Could you ask him to come see us? We were actually going to go see him, but he isn't on lunch break yet." The first caretaker shrugged. "If it's urgent enough, the vice-captain can take over temporarily, but muzzle that thing first!" The two rubbed their heads and slowly walked away, mumbling to themselves about being delayed on their work by the crazy machine and that they still couldn't believe that machines were displaying sapience. The black machine 'cackled' when it heard them mention fears about just that, preferring to behave as carefully as possible around them. One complained about feeling emotionally drained just from that event, prompting the charred machine to gaze at the pair suspiciously. It seemed intrigued by the comment, but the two sisters couldn't understand why.