It is very difficult to track the time on an entirely new planet.
It was the one thing Rarity had not prepared for—while she had a plan for how everything would work scientifically, she had absolutely no way of meaningfully measuring time. Her televox didn’t get any sort of outsider data at this range. She had brought no clocks. She had absolutely no idea how long a trip around the sun was for this little rock.
After some time, the not-knowing was becoming like an itch to Rarity, and she decided to time it. Though this was more difficult than she had anticipated, she eventually found that one Eventide day was about half as long as one Equus day.
So, for her to be as tired as she was each Eventide night, she had to be doing at least twice the work.
Perhaps the mathematics didn’t quite work out, but Rarity found some kernel of truth in that concept, and it was often how she thought of herself and her work.
Much of it was monotonous.
Little of it was adventurous.
But all of it was necessary.
And today, Rarity would think back on each of those moments deemed unworthy to take her first breath on her new planet.
“Don’t be nervous,” Twilight said. “We did all the calculations, checked and double-checked your measurements. The worst that can happen is it might, um… it might not smell very good.”
Rarity scoffed. “I do believe I can manage.”
She couldn’t.
If her new planet, her first planet, her own planet, had even a whiff of foul odor, Rarity was going to be completely devastated.
For a moment, she allowed herself to imagine what it might be like.
The new sky burned bright orange, a perpetual sunset on the planet named for dusk. A perfect match. Rarity imagined the way a sunset in the fall smelled on Equus—the heavy scent of the leaves, that bit of chill in the air, an unexpected warm breeze carrying smoke from a nearby bonfire. A full, hearty, deep smell. Even the memory of it wrapped her up in a comforting embrace.
She opened her helmet.
It hissed. Things hissed here now because there was air. Things made sound. How she had missed it.
The smell rolled in quickly and quietly.
It wasn’t an autumn sunset, but it wasn’t a garbage dump either.
It was dust. A dusty road in the desert, perhaps. Or in the woods. That hard-packed, dry soil and sand that kicks up around your hooves as you trot down the marked trail. There was no scent of leaves, because there were no trees.
Not yet.
Pinkie was the next to bound out of the ship and pop her helmet off, followed closely by Rainbow Dash. The pair of them took deep breaths, admiring the freshness of air unbothered by other ponies.
“Wow,” Rainbow said. “Y’know, you do the drills, but they don’t come close to how it feels to do it for real.”
“You should all be very proud of your work so far,” Twilight said, stepping forward from the ship. “This is going to be a beautiful little planet.”
“Once we plant some trees, it sure will!” Pinkie said.
Rainbow scoffed. “Do you not see the color of the sky right now?” she asked, gesturing boldly to the horizon.
Pinkie shrugged. “It’s pretty. But trees are gonna be beautiful.”
“Girls, please,” Rarity scolded. “I won’t have the two of you duking it out. We’re a team.”
Rainbow grumbled something under her breath.
“We are planting trees today, aren’t we?” Pinkie asked. “I’ve been meaning to bust out some super-cool hole-digging techniques I learned.”
Rarity wasn’t quite sure she wanted to unleash that on her shiny new planet, but she laughed and nodded. “Absolutely. Rainbow and I will be laying in the seeds, and you and Twilight will be using your earth pony magic to get them growing a little faster.”
“Yay!” Pinkie squealed, clapping her hooves together. “And we get to do it in the fresh air! Double yay!”
Rainbow sighed. "Fine. Just keep the rock talk to a minimum, okay?"
Pinkie giggled. "No deal! It's my turn to geek out!"
Rainbow looked to Rarity for help.
"It seems more than fair to me," Rarity said simply.
Pinkie let loose a bounce that sent her higher than the roof of the ship—an impressive feat, even with the reduced gravity. "Woo-hoo! Everything's comin' up Pinkie!"
Meanwhile, Twilight continued to struggle out of her suit, the awkward flaps around her wings catching in a number of difficult and uncomfortable angles.
"Let me help you with that," Rarity said, rushing forward. "Twilight, are you feeling alright today? Ever since the atmosphere, I've been nervous about—"
"I'm fine!" Twilight chirped back. "No worries at all."
That felt like a lie, but Rarity found that she couldn't exactly press it. What was she meant to say, anyway? That she had noticed Twilight's pale skin and general dizziness? That Twilight's condition should be cared for at a hospital conveniently located a hundred lightyears away?
That she knew she was getting weaker?
It was all in the energy. As the system's energy spun up and up and up, Twilight appeared to be winding down. A pony hemorrhaging energy out into the universe. Leaking power. Bleeding out.
But how could she say it?
Rarity only cleared her throat gently and politely.
She didn't push.
"Alright," she said, as she always did, gathering the attention of her crew. "The seeds are on the ship. Twilight and Pinkie will likely need to work ahead of us, as well, to part the stone. Why don't you two get started while I help Rainbow fetch the seeds?"
"Yes, sir, Rarity, sir!" Pinkie said.
Before Rarity could get another word out, Pinkie launched herself into the air, another incredible leap with ridiculous height. As she came down, she pointed her forehooves ahead of her, and drove into the stony crust of the asteroid.
A loud cracking sound rang out, something like the sound of splitting logs, and Pinkie withdrew her hooves from a divot the size of a bowling ball.
"Ta-da!" she sang.
Twilight's face went white. "Uh. I think I'm going to stick to some more… surface methods," she murmured.
Pinkie shrugged. "Suit yourself!"
With that, she went leaping away, forehooves plunging into the surface of the stone over and over again, leaving miniature craters in her wake.
"You should come with, Rarity," Twilight said. "I know the focus with Architects is the wings and the horn, but earth pony magic is just as important."
Rarity's ears perked. "Oh! That would be wonderful! Rainbow, do you think you can—"
"I'm on it," Rainbow said, zipping off to fetch seeds. She left a puff of dust with the subtle scent of ozone in her wake.
Twilight coughed lightly and waved the rising cloud away from her face. The dust motes, glowing orange in the sunlight and floating delicately around Twilight's snout, only served to make her all the more ethereally beautiful.
She looked at Rarity. "Ready?"
It took Rarity a long moment to ground herself again in the present moment. "Mhm."
Twilight smiled, nodded, then strode over to Pinkie's first crater in great arcing steps. Rarity scurried after her, her own grace hampered by the lower gravity.
"I'll be honest: Pinkie's definitely doing the hard work, and I'm not the best at earth pony magic," Twilight said with a little awkward chuckle. "But! In order to… y'know, actually bury the seeds, we'll need to loosen up this stone into something resembling topsoil."
“You can do that?” Rarity asked.
Twilight shrugged. “Sure. Just watch.”
She looked down at the crater between her hooves, then began to slowly rub them over the surface. As far as Rarity could tell, it wasn’t with much force—the sort of strength one might use if they were smoothing the page of a very old manuscript. The stone did not part ways beneath Twilight’s hooves they way it did under Pinkie’s (who could still be heard drilling into it with her bare hooves), but it did seem to… almost ripple.
Rarity furrowed her brow and leaned in closer, watching at the stone seemed to push and pull with Twilight’s hooves.
Twilight giggled. “Y’know when you take a stick of butter out of the fridge, but it’s too hard to spread on your toast?” she asked.
“Erm… I suppose.”
“Have you ever rubbed it between your hooves to try to heat it up?” Twilight asked, casting a glance Rarity’s way. Her hooves still worked the ground, larger and larger ripples following her motions.
Rarity tried not to laugh at that. “I’m sorry, are you saying that’s… that’s what you’re doing?”
“It’s about that technical,” Twilight said with a scoff. “You just want to keep working it until—ah-ha!”
Twilight’s vigor was renewed as the stone started to crumble beneath her hooves. It came away, a fine, rich powder, and began to fill the crater Pinkie had left behind. It wasn’t quite dirt, but it wasn’t quite stone, either.
“With Pinkie’s nurturing, this is as good as the best fertilizer on Equus,” Twilight explained. She was leaning harder into her strokes, now, sloughing off more and more of the artificial topsoil with each pass. “Neat, huh?”
Rarity reached out to touch it.
It was so fine. Not like sand or dirt at all—softer than either. Compressible and light and airy. Unlike anything that could be found at home.
“Goodness…” Rarity murmured.
Twilight only chuckled in response. “I promise, it’s not the magical feat it looks like.”
“It’s incredible,” Rarity breathed, her hoof still poking at the substance curiously. “Could you… could you show me again?”
Twilight seemed somehow surprised by that request. She pulled away from the dirt to look at Rarity, long and hard, and chuckled lightly. A little snort snuck out with it, but she didn’t try to hide it in the least.
“Tsk, what?” Rarity whined. “Is it wrong to find this interesting? I thought that was the point!”
“No!” Twilight shook her head, though her smile did not fade. “No, no. Not at all. I’m just wondering where this Rarity was the entire time we went to school together.”
Before Rarity could reply, there was a heavy thud behind her.
Rarity and Twilight whirled about to see Rainbow Dash standing above a large burlap sack.
“Rares,” she said, already out of breath, “we’re living in the future, here. Why did you pack the seeds in a bag from the dark ages?”
Rarity rolled her eyes.
Twilight giggled. “I’ll leave you to it.”
Rarity tried not to make a snide comment about that, though a small giggle of her own snuck out.
“Adorable,” Rainbow commented dryly.
Rarity whipped around and glared at her friend. “Oh, please. Spare me your tomcolt-ish disdain for affection.”
Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You gonna help me with this giant sack?”
“Of course, of course.”
With that, Rainbow released the top of the sack, allowing it to tip forward onto the rock and spill a bit of its modest contents. Tiny seeds ran in every direction with a rushing sound that reminded Rarity of the ocean.
Rarity expertly ignored the disruption, using her magic to sweep the mess right back into the sack. “Honestly, these are nothing special. Just some seeds for hearty trees with high oxygen production,” Rarity explained, running her hoof over them. “We can drop a few seeds into each hole, as long as they’re the same kind.”
“Cool, you’re sorting ‘em,” Rainbow announced, sidling up to the first hole and holding out one hoof.
Rarity furrowed her brows. “Rainbow, I—”
“You think I can pick through those tiny things with just hooves?” Rainbow tossed back before Rarity could even finish her argument. She held her hooves up to prove her point, demonstrating their poor motor control by clapping them together a few times.
Rarity couldn't exactly argue with that. "Fine, then," she said.
She grabbed the top of the sack and dragged it over the stone towards the crater. Then, with a paddle of her magic, she shifted through the seeds and withdrew about a dozen or so birch scales, which she then poured into the hole.
It was rather mesmerizing. The tiny, woody seeds tumbled through the air so slowly, like cherry blossom petals or feathers. Low gravity and new air resistance. A fascinating combination.
Rainbow wasted no time in pushing the soil over the hole and patting it down. She did so rather erratically, with a doglike energy that made Rarity cringe away from her.
"What the heck is this stuff?" Rainbow asked, rocking back on her haunches and shaking the powder from her hoof. "It's like… it's like an already-chewed brownie."
"It's space dirt," Rarity explained dismissively, tossing some more seeds into the next hole.
"Eugh…"
Rainbow pounded her hooves against the stone a little more. Whether or not this worked to clear away the soil was unclear.
Rarity chuckled. "It's how earth ponies make soil on rocky planets. Twilight just showed me."
Rainbow gave Rarity a curious look. "No way this can actually grow stuff," she said. Then, after a moment, she added, "not that I know about growing stuff."
Rarity only shook her head and returned to her seed-sorting.
This was the sort of slow work that was missing from her years in school. Thoughtless, allowing the mind to wander—and where better to let the mind wander than another world? A new one?
Rarity poured more seeds from her magical grasp and watched their slow dance through the new air. Few would ever get to experience such a thing.
She peered down into the hole as the seeds piled up, and thought that a few more might do the trick. Without looking, she reached behind her with her magic and gave the sack a small tug up to her side.
Nothing more. So gentle.
To her surprise, the sack came flying forward, tipped over, and spilled a variety of seeds into the hole before her.
Rarity made a small sound of surprise.
That was the second time her magic had betrayed her here.
Perhaps a side effect of—
"Hey, uh…" Rainbow zipped up beside Rarity. "How's the apprenticeship thing going, anyway?"
Rarity quickly scooped the seeds out of the hole and tossed them over her shoulder, earning an odd look from her friend. "Hm?"
"Y'know, how's the whole Twilight thing?" Rainbow asked. "I dunno, I feel like you guys haven't exactly been… I dunno."
Rarity knit her brows. "Rainbow, darling, I have absolutely no idea what you're trying to say."
Rainbow made a face.
"What's that?"
"What's… what?"
"The face."
"What face?"
"The—" Rarity stopped herself and took as calming a breath as she could muster. "You've been in an odd mood today. Might that have something to do with this?"
Rainbow shrugged. "You don't think she's being kinda… cagey?"
"About what?"
"About most stuff," Rainbow said. "I dunno, I guess it's easy to be blinded by all the… everything. But she won't talk about her alicornhood and Architect stuff at all."
Rarity blinked. "Well, of course she does," she said. "She was just talking with me about the soil."
Rainbow sighed. "Not, like, science stuff," she whined. "Like—I mean, it's been just the four of us on this planet for days, and all I know about her personally is that she went to school with you and she doesn't like green tea."
Rarity rolled her eyes. "Oh, please. Surely you're exaggerating."
"I'm not!" Rainbow argued, stomping her hoof on the stone. "Has she told you anything about what happened between when you knew her as a foal and now?"
Rarity opened her mouth to reply, to spit back something clever and perhaps slightly vitriolic, but nothing came to her.
She faltered. Stuttered a bit.
"See?" Rainbow pointed at her accusingly. "That's weird, right?"
Rarity shook her head. "I'm not sure what's gotten into you, Rainbow," she muttered. She looked down into the sack and once again began to sift through the seeds. "It's perfectly alright for Twilight to want some privacy. She's never been much of a sharer, anyway."
Rainbow made another face. A grimace of frustration with a dash of sympathy.
Perhaps she just didn't have the words for what she was trying to say. Perhaps she couldn't call forth the right way to say 'you know that's not what it is. You know this is weird. You're smarter than this.'
Or perhaps she knew her face said it all for her.
"It doesn't matter," Rarity said simply.
"But do you feel like you're, like… learning?" Rainbow asked. "Isn't that the point? How can you learn if she only talks to you about stuff from classes anyway?"
That was an interesting point.
Rarity hesitated again.
"Just think about it, okay?" Rainbow said.
"Mm," Rarity grunted. "I mean—nothing to think about."
"Whatever," Rainbow muttered. "Shouldn't've brought it up I guess."
Rarity didn't say a word. She quietly poured seeds into the stone below, watched them tumble through the new air and into the new earth.
"I'll go… fill in holes, I guess," Rainbow said.
She turned and trotted back in the other direction.
Rarity had learned plenty.
Twilight had taught her all sorts of things. She had guided her through moving the heavens, the skies, and the earth. She had been by her side every step of the way. She had offered wisdom and support every day, always in kind and humble words, with gentle embraces and warm smiles to celebrate the successes and work through the failures alike.
So why was Rarity having so much trouble recalling anything of substance at all?
As she poured in hoofful after hoofful of seeds into Pinkie’s craters, Rarity did her best to recall anything Twilight had taught her that couldn’t be found in a textbook. All those details about atmospheric composition, the cute analogies to help her understand things outside of her discipline—those were facts. They weren’t lived experiences.
Certainly not the lived experiences of one of the only alicorns in existence.
But, surely. Surely there must be something.
Surely this was only a result of Twilight’s own nervousness and humility, not a deliberate attempt to obfuscate.
Wasn’t it?
Before Rarity could align her thoughts properly, she heard a light coughing off in the distance. Instinctually, she looked up, and spotted Twilight’s silhouette on the horizon.
“Twilight?” Rarity called into the empty distance. “Are you alright, dear?”
And she saw it again: the limpness of Twilight’s form, the paleness of her face, the trudge in her step. She felt it, too. Felt that vacuum inside of her. That empty space where the magic should have been, where the kindness and the humility and the love and the warmth should have been.
Twilight, of course, did not respond. She only kept trudging along.
Rarity looked back over her shoulder at Rainbow, who only shrugged and continued her task.
Considering this permission to run off, Rarity released her grip on the sack of seeds and set off at a gallop to meet her mentor.
“Twilight!” Rarity called again. “You look dreadful! What happened?”
Twilight scoffed. “Gee, thanks.”
“Oh, I only meant—” Rarity stopped herself, one hoof on twilight’s shoulder as she tried to catch her breath. “Actually, Twilight, that’s precisely what I meant. Do you feel alright?”
“I’m fine,” Twilight wheezed, waving away Rarity’s touch.
“Do you need to go lie down on the ship?” Rarity asked. “I-I could help you set up the new quarters! I know we said we’d do it yesterday, but—”
“I’m fine!” Twilight repeated, this time forcing a chuckle to mask how out-of-breath she sounded. “Honest. I just tired myself out! I don’t have Pinkie’s energy. Or Rainbow’s, for that matter.”
That’s what she said, anyway. The way she leaned into Rarity told something of a different story.
“Let’s just get you inside,” Rarity said hurriedly.
It was easy enough to steer her weak friend towards the ship. Twilight didn’t have much strength to be fighting against anyone’s hospitality, let alone Rarity’s. The pair crossed the stone, enjoying the fresh air yet shivering in the unexpected depth of the silence which surrounded them.
“I’m really okay,” Twilight said again, as if Rarity might finally believe her this time. “There’s things to do. Terraforming doesn’t stop just because I’m a little tired.”
“Tsk.” Rarity shook her head as she lowered Twilight into a cushioned seat. “Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash are more than capable. And you’re more than a little tired.”
Twilight grumbled something in reply, but didn’t seem keen to truly argue. Instead, she hung her head, and allowed her eyes to flutter shut as she tried to regain her energy.
Rarity hopped up into a chair across from Twilight’s. She had learned after the first few near-collapses that Twilight preferred not to be waited on, and steadfastly refused anything offered to her while she wasn’t feeling well. Rarity thought she had tracked this to a sort of stoicism, but she was beginning to suspect more and more it was born of sheer denial.
“Did they ever tell you what to do when this happens?” Rarity asked.
Twilight looked up and opened her tired eyes a crack. “Hm?” she grunted. “Who?”
“The ponies who turned you into an alicorn,” Rarity said. “Did they ever give you any advice on how to recover when you’re feeling a little… ragged?”
Twilight scoffed lightly. “No.”
“Then you are feeling a little ragged?”
“No!” Twilight argued. “No. I’m alright.”
“Fine.”
Rarity once again allowed silence to overtake them. Only the ship’s far-off air conditioning could be heard whining softly to cool the room.
“Say you were feeling a little run-down,” Rarity said.
Twilight hung her head once more.
“What could I do about it?” Rarity asked. “As the mission leader, I think it’s only right that I know how to help you in a medical emergency.”
“There’s no medical emergency.”
“A magical one, then.”
“There’s no—” Twilight stopped herself. She took a slow breath and tried to relax, but only ended up looking like a wax statue left in the sun. “Rarity, I’m the first truly artificial alicorn. The ponies who made that happen don’t know any better than you do what that means for me medically.”
Rarity swallowed. “What about Cadance?”
“Cadance had alicorn blood,” Twilight reminded her. “She was going to be one eventually. It was just a… a sped-up process.”
“Mm,” Rarity replied.
“But, like I told you, I’m fine,” she said. “I’m not that great with my magic yet. I told you that much. Sometimes I just get wiped.”
Rarity sighed lightly.
“I need you to accept that,” Twilight pressed.
Rarity huffed. “But I—”
“No buts!” Twilight countered. “I—look, Rarity, I enjoy working with you and all, but you need to take my word for it that I’m telling the truth. And, even if I wasn’t, you need to accept that some of your team members are going to need to make sacrifices for the greater good of the group. You’ll be lucky if it’s something as simple as feeling a little tired.”
“I won’t accept that,” Rarity spat back.
It was quick. Bitter. It echoed through the deadly silent ship and came to a rest at Twilight’s hooves. She looked upon them with disdain.
Twilight gave her a look. A long, hard, cold one. “You won’t accept my word?”
“I won’t accept team members making sacrifices!” Rarity countered, her exasperation clear as she pounded one hoof on the grate below. “This isn’t that sort of mission! It isn’t life and death, it’s a research mission, plain and simple. There’s absolutely no reason for anyone to be treating themselves like—”
“This is what’s expected,” Twilight said firmly. “I mean, look at me!”
Twilight flared her wings in a sudden and violent display of color and power. Though she was running on empty, the size and impression of those wings would have been enough to spook a lesser pony into quietude. It reminded Rarity a bit of a songbird puffing its feathers to intimidate a predator.
“All of this is for the work,” Twilight said. “It’s just research now, but it may very well be life and death someday soon.”
Rarity could not look at her. She kept her eyes trained dutifully on a spot just above them, to give the impression of attention without truly paying it.
“This is serious, Rarity,” Twilight continued. “You can’t keep coddling me and pestering me like this. It’s not acceptable behavior for a mission captain.”
“Oh?” Rarity scoffed. “Or what?”
Twilight’s face went stony. “Or you’re not going to get your wings.”