The scenery outside the windows had shifted away from the chaotic floating islands and checkerboards of Discord’s realm into something more sane, water washing over everything until the train rose up slightly, the tone of the wheels on the tracks changing as they passed onto a bridge, the water falling away into an ocean far below.
At first it was beautiful, a huge expanse of pure blue water that brought to mind the most exclusive resorts and far-off places in the world. Rarity could watch it for hours, just thinking about the kind of place they might end up. An endless paradise of sun-washed beaches and white sand? Perhaps some kind of undersea palace?
Hours passed. Then more hours. A full day. Rarity fell asleep and woke up to Kyanite offering her tea and biscuits.
“Thank you again, darling,” Rarity yawned. “We’ve been traveling for quite some time, haven’t we?”
The crystal pony nodded. “We’re leaving the realms closest to Equestria. Discord’s realm forms sort of a border between the inner and outer realms. The Aether Express goes to places ponies in Equestria have never even heard of.”
“And it takes longer to travel there,” Rarity guessed.
“The first time you leave home, it always feels like forever,” Kyanite said quietly. “But when you’re going back, it’s like it takes no time at all.”
Rarity nodded. She hadn’t been on a trip like this since she was a filly. Ever since she’d started to grow up, the world had shrunk. A visit to Canterlot went from an exciting event to a dull commute. Manehattan or the Crystal Empire needed a touch of planning but were still old hat, merely places to go instead of adventures to experience.
This, though, even merely being on a bridge that took more than a day to cross at the speed of a rushing express train, was novel, and she had no idea what might be at the other end.
“You’ve been on this route before,” Rarity started. “We’ll be… no,” she stopped herself. “I was going to ask where we’ll be stopping next, but I think I rather want to be surprised.”
“I think it’ll be a pleasant surprise,” Kyanite said. She gave Rarity a warm smile and moved on with the jingling snack trolley. Rarity felt her spirits buoyed by her words. This time, no matter what they found, she was determined to try and make the best of it. Discord’s realm hadn’t been so bad in the end, and part of her was regretting how much time she’d wasted before she’d even tried to relax and enjoy it.
This time, she was going to savor the journey and the destination.
Rarity made an excited, high-pitched squeal not entirely unlike that of a porcelain teapot coming to temperature -- a balmy, breezy summer temperature complete with the scent of the sea and the crowing of distant gulls.
“It’s everything I could have imagined!” Rarity swooned. The edge of the train platform was right up against the beach, the tracks parallel to the line between land and sea. She leaned against the wooden railing, made deliberately to be slightly rough, not unlike a weather-beaten dock, as if the train itself was a ship that had come to port. Decorative fishing nets and brightly colored floats decorated the platform.
“Look this way,” Diana said. Rarity turned, and a pair of sunglasses were deposited on her face. “There we are!”
“Don’t forget sunscreen,” the Conductor said, his mood bright. He took off his cap and adjusted his mane, squinting in the glare of the sun. “We’ll be here for sixty-seven hours and eighty-nine minutes. You’ve got almost three full days to get a nasty sunburn.”
“I’m not going to complain about having some extra time to enjoy the climate,” Rarity said cheerfully. “Though I don’t feel properly dressed without a hat and-- aren’t you terribly warm in that, Diana?”
Diana looked back at her cloak. It was made of thick, plush material, certainly thick enough for all but the coldest climate and entirely inappropriate for the tropics.
“You might be right,” Diana agreed. She lowered her hood, shaking out her pale blue mane, and unclasped the cloak from her shoulders, taking it off and folding it carefully.
Rarity watched her with interest that was somewhat unseemly when a mare was undressing. Not that ponies had anything to hide, but even so. There were social rules. She couldn’t help herself this time -- she half-expected to see wings on Diana’s sides to go along with her horn, but they were bare.
It wasn’t the only bare thing, and perhaps that was the most shocking thing. Diana’s flank was not only naked of wings, it was also unmarked, with no cutie mark painting her coat with color and the magic of her talent.
Rarity let out a small gasp. Diana sighed. It was the tone of a pony who had heard the same question many times. A pony who didn’t like giving the answer anymore if they ever had to begin with.
“No,” she said quietly. “I don’t have a cutie mark. And I don’t wish to discuss it, please. It’s a private matter.”
Rarity nodded. “I’m sorry for staring, darling.” She looked away, feeling ashamed. There was nothing wrong with a pony not having a cutie mark. No, that wasn’t quite it. A pony with no cutie mark at Diana’s age was the sign of some tragedy, as much a visible disability as a unicorn with a shattered horn or a missing limb. To comment on it or judge a pony for it only truly passed judgment on those who thought less of them for it.
“All ponies who ride on the Aether Express have a reason for their trip,” Diana said, offering half an explanation, and more than enough to satisfy Rarity without making either pony uncomfortable with personal details.
“Here’s your luggage,” the conductor said, having ducked inside the train to get the bag for Diana when he saw her start to undress. Rarity hadn’t noticed Diana even carrying luggage - in Discord’s realm she must have left it onboard the train due to the short duration of the stop. It was an old bag, a carpetbag made from some ancient rug, only part of the design visible. Diana snapped open the locking clasp and carefully put her folded cloak inside.
“There we go,” she said, holding the bag at her side with her magic. “Shall we?”
The two passed ponies in the streets, a few families but mostly couples. It reminded Rarity of some of the finest vacation spots, places appropriate for a honeymoon or to find the kind of pony one might want to go on a honeymoon with.
“What a wonderful place!” Rarity said as they walked, passing shops selling swimsuits and summerwear and varieties of food that she couldn’t even begin to identify. There were signs in at least three languages she knew, and even more that she didn’t.
“It’s not a large Realm, but it’s quite pleasant,” Diana said. “It seems to only be as large as this island and the sea around it. I think you could gallop around the whole thing in a few hours.”
Something occurred to her.
“Diana?” Rarity asked. “We got here on the Aether Express, but I can’t imagine everypony arrives the same way. What’s across the sea?”
“Nothing,” Diana said. “This place isn’t like Equestria. If you sail too far, you’ll simply arrive back here.”
“That’s how Equestria is, too,” Rarity noted.
“I suppose it’s similar in some ways, though on a much smaller scale,” Diana agreed. “But to answer your other question, ponies arrive here through many means. Magic is the easiest way, of course. There are some spells that allow travel between Realms. There are also thin places in every world where one can slip from a Realm into another. The Aether Express makes use of places like that in its route.”
“Ah, I see,” Rarity nodded. Diana could see she didn’t quite understand.
“Often, ponies don’t even realize they’re in a different realm,” Diana continued. “They might think they’re in a jungle valley where the sun doesn’t set, or that they found a hidden city of gold, or they found a lost world deep under the earth. Connections between realms can be permanent until they seem to simply be the same as any normal part of the terrain.”
“And the connection here is so easy that ponies use it as a vacation spot?” Rarity asked.
“Some places want to be found,” Diana said. “If you ask around I suspect many of these ponies come from entirely different worlds, and they’ll return to them when they leave. A tiny few might find their way to another realm entirely. The Aether Express is the only sure way to travel the many worlds.”
“Mm.” Rarity smiled. She felt a little more special just hearing that. Yes, the ponies around her might have found their way here, but how many even knew it was a separate Realm? How many would keep traveling on? It made Rarity different from the crowd, which only made sense to her. After all, Rarity couldn’t remember a time when she wasn’t the main character of her own story.
Perhaps a few moments, when Twilight was clearly the leader. But not now. Twilight was far away, and this time the spotlight didn’t have to be shared.
Diana followed along behind Rarity, placid and tranquil.
Rarity ran into the hotel room with the energy of an excited foal. The hotel, or, rather, motel, was designed like the typical building turned inside-out. A wooden frame formed a skeleton around adobe walls painted salmon-pink and aquamarine. Walkways on three floors ran around the building on the inland side, with balconies in every room looking out over the ocean. Inside, the rooms were a touch shabby, that kind of decor you expect in a room where they know ponies won’t be spending much time.
Rarity barely even looked at the wallpaper and thin carpet, bee-lining to the balcony. Their room was on the top floor, and from here she had a wonderful view of the ocean. The water was pure blue, with palm trees swaying in the breeze, their tops at eye level from this height.
The sand was-- Rarity looked down at it and frowned. She hadn’t really looked at it before. Certainly, it was a busy beach, with ponies walking and picking over the sand, but there was something wrong.
“Is it… dirty?” she asked. It seemed like a silly thing to ask about sand, which was only slightly removed from being fancy dirt itself.
Diana deposited her luggage on one of the beds and stepped out to join Rarity on the balcony, following her gaze over the dunes and seagrass to where the shore met the sea. From this distance it was difficult to make out, but the sand wasn’t a clean, blank canvas. Debris in every color of the rainbow lined the beach, the surf gently pushing it up further onto shore. Ponies walked around the largest pieces, obviously aware of what looked like a half-buried landfill.
“It doesn’t seem to bother them,” Diana noted. “How odd.”
Rarity’s excitement deflated slightly. “Perhaps it’s just this one stretch of beachfront,” she suggested. “I’m sure they can’t all be like this.”
Diana nodded in agreement. She could sense Rarity’s worry. It didn’t take an empath to see how the well-groomed and detail-oriented pony would be bothered by such a filthy excuse for a seaside.
“It’s probably just from tourists. Or a shipwreck. Or a party!” Rarity tossed her head, trotting back into the room with determination. “It will take no time at all to find a proper place to relax.”
“This is absurd,” Rarity groused. She had gone so far as to buy herself a new hat to try and improve her mood, a wide-brimmed stylish summer hat, a peanut-colored floppy-brimmed do appropriate for the sun, complete with a huge bow made from hoof-dyed tie-dye ribbon.
The hat wasn’t what Rarity thought was absurd. No more absurd than Diana spending almost the same amount of bits as she had, but on coconut-scented sunscreen and a drink inside half a pineapple that looked and smelled nearly the same as the sunscreen. No, what she found absurd was that they’d walked two miles and found only more and more debris along the shoreline.
“Perhaps the ponies here simply don’t value cleanliness the same way we do,” Diana said. “You must remember we’re far from Equestria. The ways ponies live won’t be the same as they were back in your home. This is even more distant than Discord’s realm of chaos.”
“But then what about the rest of the city?” Rarity asked. The entire city was like a resort, every street a curated experience full of friendly ponies ready to help others find exactly what they needed to enjoy themselves. If they had truly been the type of ponies to allow a beach to get this filthy, why was the city almost perfectly clean?
“I’m not sure,” Diana said. “Let’s ask somepony.”
She led Rarity to one of the small stands within sight of the beach. This one was selling shaved ice.
“One small shaved ice,” Diana said. “And could I ask you a question?”
“Only if I can ask you one,” the mare running the stand replied. She started turning the handle on an old crank-powered machine clamped to a heavy table, shaving a block of ice into snow to fill a small paper cup.
“We were curious about the beach,” Diana continued. “Why is it so… dirty?”
“Oh, you must be new here,” the mare said, slowing down. “That’s a little hard to explain. It’s not dirty, it’s just full of memories.”
“Memories?” Rarity asked.
“Before I’ll answer that, I need you to answer my question,” the mare said with a smile and cheeky wink. “What flavor do you want? We’ve got blue, red, mint, and tutti-frutti.”
“I didn’t know blue and red were flavors,” Rarity said.
“Well, then you’ll want half and half,” the shaved ice mare carefully poured syrup onto the mound of shaved ice, coloring half of it bright blue and the other half candy-apple red. Diana gave her a bit for her trouble, and the mare gave them the shaved ice along with a small spoon. “Most ponies know about this place and come here on purpose, so it’s a little surprising you two don’t know about the memories.”
“I have a feeling we might be using the word differently than you are,” Diana said.
Rarity tasted the shaved ice. The blue was distinctly flavored like a great many berries without being exactly like any one of them. The red was similarly like cherry and strawberry and red licorice but only like them and not mimicking them. The flavors really were blue and red and it was difficult to think of them as anything else.
“Ponies come here looking for things they lost,” the shaved ice mare said. “This beach is special, because no matter where something vanishes, it can be found here if a pony spends enough time looking for it.”
“Really?” Rarity blinked. “So it I lost a sock in the wash…”
“It’s here somewhere,” the mare confirmed. “But most ponies are hoping to find something a little more meaningful than just mismatched socks.”
“Perhaps we should have a look?” Rarity suggested to Diana. “At least to see if it’s true.”
“Just… one thing,” the ice mare warned. “You’ll know when you find something that’s yours. It’s polite to leave everything else alone so the right pony can come and find it someday.”
“Of course,” Rarity agreed. It did seem like the polite thing to do. She nodded and walked with Diana, who had gone a bit quiet as they walked towards the sea. Rarity looked up at her, catching the expression on her face. “Is something wrong?”
“No,” Diana assured her. She stopped walking to give Rarity a somber smile. “I suppose I’m just not sure I want to find my past here.”
“Before we start worrying about our foalhood diaries, we should see how true it is,” Rarity said. “I’m not even sure how we’ll distinguish one lost earring or misplaced set of keys from another.”
The ponies here obviously trusted they’d find something. Now that she knew what she was looking at, she could see the ponies walking along the beach didn’t have the happy, easy gaze of tourists. Their expressions ranged from determined to desperate, eyes fixing on every bright bit of color half-buried in the sand before moving on. All of them were looking for something, and the otherwise beautiful beach was merely a distraction to them.
“At worst, I’m sure we can find somewhere to sunbathe,” Diana said, looking up at the sky through her dark glasses.
“There’s no harm in taking a quick peek,” Rarity said. She walked closer to the water, her gaze falling on damp stuffed animals, a pair of glasses mostly buried, a mug decorated with a faded cartoon. It was all remarkably undamaged, even the worst of it needing little more than to be toweled off and dried.
She stepped around the junk. For her many virtues, Rarity wasn’t a pony with the patience to keep at something that seemed pointless. She preferred to be precise and replace brute effort with skill and precision. Applejack was her oldest friend, and where she would consider the work itself to be worth doing, Rarity preferred to know she was making the best use of her efforts.
So she almost quit early, until something caught here eye and wouldn’t let go, a bulge in the sand, just a tiny bit of a curved shape visible. Rarity stopped and started clearing sand away. It only took a moment, shifting some of it off the soft surface. Impossibly, a balloon floated into the air, and unnatural panic gripped Rarity as it passed above her head. She grabbed it with her magic, tugging it back down to safety.
“That’s… not possible,” she whispered. Memories flooded back, something she’d almost entirely forgotten. It wasn’t even anything of consequence. It had been just before Sweetie Belle was born, when she was an only a foal, barely more than a toddler. Her mother and father had taken her to what she saw as a fancy restaurant for her birthday, one of the loud and colorful family restaurants that always felt like a celebration to simply be there. She couldn’t remember what she’d eaten for dinner, but it had ended with ice cream, the sundae cup coming to the table with a balloon tied to it.
This balloon. It had the name of the restaurant printed on the rubber along with the cheese-wedge it used as a logo, but the establishment itself had closed almost a decade ago, and Rarity had lost the balloon almost immediately, losing her grip on it right outside the front doors. It had floated off into the sky and she’d cried with the kind of loss only a foal could experience. Her parents had offered her a replacement, but she had refused. She’d lost her balloon, the one that had been special, the one that had been hers.
And now it was back. It was worthless, just junk, not even the good kind of balloon that Pinkie Pie brought to parties. Yet seeing it again brought back all those memories, finally resolving a rift of deep sadness Rarity hadn’t even been aware of, something imprinted on the soul of a filly and as lost to time as the balloon itself.
Tears welled in her eyes and wouldn’t stop. It was silly and stupid, but she found herself crying over a balloon as if it was a long-lost friend, and she was ashamed to have forgotten it.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?” Rarity asked. She’d left the balloon in their hotel room, and every time she looked at it, it was like coming home.
Diana took a moment to apply another streak of sunscreen to her cheeks and horn before answering. The floral smell of something almost, but not quite like the way ponies imagined coconut must smell like wafted through the air.
“I’m not all that interested in collecting junk,” Diana said. “It’s a novelty to sit under a new sun, one Princess Celestia never touched. If you believe the stories, apparently the sun and moon here take care of themselves.”
“How odd.” Rarity shook her head. “Very foreign.”
“It must be more difficult than it seems,” Diana agreed. She added another stripe along the bridge of her snout. “Perhaps that’s why it’s summer here all year-round.”
Rarity gasped. “Does that mean they’ve never experienced winter fashion? They’re missing out!”
“I’m sure they more than make up for it with swimsuits,” Diana joked.
“Last chance,” Rarity warned her. “You never know what we might find out there!”
Diana shook her head firmly, looking away from Rarity’s gaze and over the ocean to some distant and invisible shore. “I left home because I wanted to escape the past, not dig it up.”
Rarity leaned on the shovel she was holding. She’d rented it, at a price just slightly less than it would have cost to simply buy one of her own. There were stands up and down the beaches selling buckets and sifters and shovels. There were even some foals who’d pestered her for bits in return for their help in searching the beach. “It’s just a bit of harmless fun to pass the time. Isn’t there anything from your foalhood that you’d like to see again?”
Diana shook her head and laid down on the beach chair she’d rented, adjusting the towel under her head that she was using as a pillow. With her eyes closed, she looked like she could have been sleeping already.
“Not everypony had a happy childhood,” she said quietly. “There are things I would bury even deeper if I could. I hope you enjoy whatever it is you find out there.”
Rarity felt guilty for pressing her. There was obvious hurt there, and she’d stepped right into it. She made quick apologies, which were just as quickly waved off, and made her escape down to the edge of the beach. Ponies were there -- she wasn’t sure some ponies ever left -- squinting at the sand and examining everything they found as if it might fit some hole left in their memories.
She started by carefully sifting sand away, uncovering things she didn’t recognize at all. Most of it was truly junk, but that made sense in a way. The balloon she’d found had meaning to her, but without that meaning, it was little more than garbage. There was probably somepony out there to whom the things she was finding were treasure, even if to her eyes they were a doll with one leg missing and a mane that had been cut into something that was either daringly punk or, more likely, styled by a foal who was aware of manecuts but not how they were done.
“I suppose some things are universal,” Rarity said, turning the doll over in her magic. It wasn’t hers. There wasn’t that spark of recognition. Still, she’d had one not entirely dissimilar to it. Rarity was sure every filly did at some point in their lives. Hers wasn’t lost, though. It had gone on to greener pastures -- she’d repaired it, given it a rather sporting custom outfit, and gifted it to Sweetie Belle.
“Hey!” somepony snapped. “That’s not yours!”
Rarity turned to the voice, finding a furious pony storming across the beach to her, an older mare with red cheeks and that combination of anger and embarrassment that comes when somepony’s hoof has been caught in a cookie jar.
The only thing to do was try a soothing smile. “I apologize, darling. I was just looking.” She offered the doll to the other pony, who snatched it out of her grip.
“It’s rude to poke at memories that don’t belong to you,” the mare mumbled, taking it protectively. The way she cradled it in her hooves made Rarity instantly and absolutely sure that it belonged to her, or at least had belonged to her decades ago when she’d been far smaller and hadn’t yet earned that hairdressing cutie mark on her flank.
“It’s my fault,” Rarity conceded in further apology. “I’m not from around here, and I don’t know the local customs.”
“I suppose it’s fine if you didn’t know,” the mare said, putting the doll away, sufficiently appeased by Rarity figuratively, and almost literally, bowing and scraping for forgiveness. “Just remember if you find something that doesn’t belong to you, you need to leave it where it is.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to dig things up and find the pony they belong to?” Rarity asked.
The hairdresser shook her head. “Things find their way here for a reason. If a pony goes and takes them, they get lost all over again! It’s like defying destiny, and some ponies are even worse.”
“Worse?”
The mare looked around, then leaned in conspiratorially. “There are ponies that deliberately go around and take things. Then they sell them back to the ponies that the memories really belong to, and charge them a princess’s ransom! It’s against the law, but that doesn’t stop ponies.”
“No, I suppose it wouldn’t stop them if there was a profit to be made,” Rarity conceded. “But how would they match ponies to memories?”
“Ponies get desperate. Everypony here on the beach is looking for something, and if they can’t find it, they sometimes turn to the black market. Everypony knows it’s a bad idea to even go looking because it encourages them, but…”
“I understand,” Rarity said quietly. It was blackmail of the worst sort. “Why don’t the authorities do anything about it?”
“They do, when enough ponies complain, but by the time they’re involved the damage is already done. The memories are out of place and there’s no way to know where they should be.”
“I’ll make sure to be careful,” Rarity said. “Both of other ponies memories and to make sure I don’t get scammed.”
The hairdresser nodded, smiling. “I’m glad we could help each other. You found Princess Silver Saddle. Maybe that’s how I was meant to meet her again!”
Rarity nodded and they gave each other the quick, polite hug that could be given to near-strangers, and when the pony trotted away, whispering to the doll, Rarity felt a little warmth in her chest. It wasn’t quite as good as finding something for herself, but helping others was its own reward, and she knew not to go to the wrong part of town.
Naturally, she only lasted another hour at the beach before she just had to go and see the wrong part of town. To familiarize herself with it and know what she shouldn’t be doing, of course, it had nothing to do with the frustration of finding old shopping lists, novelty telephones shaped like cats, and one wedding ring that she had very carefully placed back in the sand exactly where she’d found it, suddenly terrified that she might have broken whatever chain of destiny would reunite it with its lost owner.
“You lookin’ for something special?” a pony asked, from a dark alleyway. He had a mask over his face and wore the kind of long coat that a pony didn’t wear to the beach unless they were deliberately trying to be mysterious. Or they might wear it if they were some kind of pervert, which that opening line did not rule out.
Rarity answered with a raised eyebrow that was precisely inclined to indicate that if he was about to show her something untoward, she knew at least three types of martial arts and one of them involved knitting needles.
“Nothing like that,” the stallion said quickly, catching her suspicion. “Wrong part of town for that sort of thing and you seem more like the kind of fine, educated lady who ain’t interested in a show.”
“You’re right about fine and educated,” Rarity allowed.
“Just so, just so,” the stallion agreed. “Perhaps I can interest you in some memories?”
Rarity knew full well that she wanted to see, just in case something of hers had ended up in some back alley being traded around, but she was experienced enough not to seem too eager. “I thought it was against the rules to sell them?”
“It’s against the rules to go digging them up,” the stallion corrected. “I would never do such a thing. Why don’t I show you my shop? It’s not something to discuss on the street if you catch my drift.”
“Alright,” Rarity said. She was sure she could defend herself. She’d fought off all sorts of monsters. A pony trying to scam her barely even counted as a speedbump, and at worst she could simply buy her way out of the problem with a few bits and acting like a rube.
She followed the masked stallion into the alley and to a cart parked on a back street. He motioned for her to step back, then pulled a rope, the side of the cart opening up into a small stand, still on wheels and ready to roll in case of emergency. The stallion hopped inside and behind the counter.
“Plenty to see here, Ma’am, good chance we’ve got something you might find familiar if you catch my drift.”
Rarity stepped closer to look. Inside the booth, there were shelves lined with what seemed like a random assortment of junk. It wasn’t quite the same random assortment that she’d seen on the beach, though. The merchant had picked out things that had obvious value even beyond the sentimental. Jewelry, old books, a wedding dress that hung like a ghost from the back wall.
“Don’t you feel bad about keeping all this here?” Rarity asked, her eyes scanning the shelves. A bag of marbles. A photograph. A golden necklace.
“No, ma’am! I’m doing a public service, trying to reconnect ponies with the things they lost that others snatched up. Reselling things stolen from where they should be. Can’t rightly put them back, can I? So I sell them at a reasonable price to discourage ponies from taking what isn’t theirs.”
“Oh yes, very reasonable prices. Like for that book there?” Rarity pointed at a blank book that was lightly worn.
“Ah, well, this here is somepony’s personal diary,” the stallion said. “Plenty of secrets and dirt in here that I’m sure they wouldn’t want anypony to know.” He took it down from the shelf, holding it in one hoof and not quite letting Rarity touch it.
“So you wouldn’t sell it to just anypony, then?” Rarity asked.
“I’d be happier if it went to the pony who wrote it, or at least a family member. It’d go against my personal code otherwise.” He paused. “Of course that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be willing to let it go for a little extra, to soothe my soul.”
“Yes, I’m told bits are wonderful for that.” Rarity’s tone dripped with sarcasm, but it didn’t seem to bother the merchant.
“None of us are perfect. I’ve even sold some of my own memories off, for the right price. A pony does what they have to in this cruel and uncaring world.” He wiped a phantom tear from his face. “So how about it? Call it a hundred bits?”
“Don’t be silly. I’m not going to buy somepony else’s…” Rarity rolled her eyes and felt her attention waver, and for a moment she felt positively tipsy. She belatedly realized she’d spent quite a bit of time on the beach, in bright sunlight with very little to drink in the way of fresh water. “Perhaps I’m dehydrated,” she mumbled.
“Ah well, that’s life. One last look around before you go?” the stallion offered, his green eyes piercing. Rarity looked up, glancing at the shelves. She hadn’t felt any of that surge of sudden recognition that she had before when she’d found a genuine memory, so it wasn’t likely that--
She froze. Something caught her attention, pushed into the shadows on the back of a high shelf, where she must have missed it the first time. “What is that?” she asked.
“Hm?” The stallion followed her gaze, stepping to the side and dramatically reaching back to the shelf, pulling it free. “Do you mean this?”
Rarity looked at it and gasped. Memories flooded through her. It was a torrent of recognition, like a tidal wave pushing everything else aside. “Yes! I have to have it!” She reached into her saddlebags, putting all her bits on the table. “I’ll pay anything!”
The stallion smiled behind his mask.
“You gave him all your bits for a piece of cheese?” Diana asked.
Rarity rolled her eyes as hard as she could. “You don’t understand, this isn’t just cheese! It’s…” She held it up, ready to explain herself. Then she looked at the cheese. There was no wash of recognition. It was a bit of somepony’s leftovers.
Diana waited patiently for Rarity’s thoughts to catch up to hers. Like a tortoise chasing a hare, they eventually got to the finish line.
“That…” Rarity gasped. “That stallion scammed me!”
“Yes, it’s terrible when you can’t trust a criminal,” Diana agreed. Rarity gave her a look that would have made a foal run in terror, but it washed over Diana like water. “You were warned and went looking anyway. You’re upset you were fooled but you should be blaming yourself. Don’t think of it was being tricked, think of it as spending bits to learn a lesson.”
Rarity huffed and sat down heavily on the sand. Diana was right, which was unfair because it didn’t feel like her fault.
“I didn’t fall for some simple trick,” Rarity mumbled to herself. She went back through the events. There was a haze over them, of the type that usually only accompanied weddings, holidays, and wednesdays. Like she’d been drunk.
It would be one thing if he’d tricked her with some razzle-dazzle false gemstone that seemed real in low and indirect light. She’d forgive herself if it had been something that seemed familiar but wasn’t once she’d looked twice. Perhaps if it had belonged to a very famous pony who surely wouldn’t miss it, she’d even be tempted enough to take something that didn’t belong to her.
No matter what, though, she would never throw money at something without even trying to haggle. That was half the fun of shopping, and buying from a mysterious merchant in a back alleyway? Rarity knew better than to take the first offer! If he’d asked for two hundred she could have talked him down to twenty and both of them would still feel happy about the deal.
“Weddings… of course!” Rarity gasped and shot to her hooves. “That stallion must have used some kind of mind-control magic on me! I’ve seen it before!”
Diana took off her sunglasses, clearly more interested now. She raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yes!” Rarity started pacing. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. There was this feeling, like I knew the cheese from somewhere. It wasn’t some silly story that I bought at face value. He somehow made me feel like that!”
For a moment, Rarity feared that Diana’s opinion of her was low enough that she might doubt the explanation. The taller mare obviously didn’t think much of anything anypony around them was doing. Rarity stopped when Diana’s hoof touched her shoulder.
“You’re right,” Diana said. “I’m sorry. You’re no foal being tricked out of her lunch money. We’ll go together and find this stallion of yours.”
“Are you sure you can take a break from your sunbathing?” Rarity asked.
“There are other suns,” Diana assured her. “I can’t let a friend be a victim and do nothing when they ask for help.”
She squeezed Rarity’s shoulder a little tighter in support.
“He was here?” Diana asked, once they’d reached the alleyway.
“Yes, but it was a cart,” Rarity said. “I’m sure once he used his spell and took my bits, he was smart enough to leave before it could wear off.”
Diana nodded. This alleyway had escaped whatever public servants kept most of the city spotless. Sandy mud collected in the low spots between cobblestones, and there were tracks on the ground that showed where the cart had been, protected enough by the walls of the buildings framing the alleyway that the sea breeze hadn’t erased them quite yet.
“I doubt it’s the first time he used the same trick,” Diana said. “This kind of preparation means he knew what he was doing.” She looked over her shoulder at Rarity. “A professional criminal, instead of a crime of passion.”
“And now he’s long-gone,” Rarity sighed. “We’ll never find him.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Diana said. “His scam relies on finding ponies who are looking for memories. That means he can’t stray too far from the places tourists might gather. And there’s something else -- his hoofprints are here. Look between the lines of the cart wheels.”
“Can we follow him?” Rarity asked, excited.
“We have some idea on where he went, and the ruts for the wheels are quite deep. It must be a heavy load, and he’s no earth pony.” Diana narrowed her gaze, walking slowly and looking at the tracks. “No earth pony at all.”
“What is it?” Rarity asked. She looked at what Diana was examining. The average pony might have missed the details, but Rarity didn’t. “Oh!” She understood immediately. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I believe so,” Diana agreed. “Now we just need bait. We’ll catch more insects with honey than vinegar.”
Rarity could have corrected her. She’d used the same metaphor in front of a certain pony who was too well-read to recognize a metaphor and not point out a tiny flaw in it -- flies actually preferred vinegar to honey. However, unlike that pony, Rarity wasn’t the type to split hairs when a friend was helping her.
“I certainly can’t be the bait,” Rarity said. “He’ll be looking for me.”
“You’ll have to help me pick out an outfit,” Diana said.
“Darling, I’d love to.”
Diana looked like a rich heiress, or at least that was the intent Rarity was aiming for with her outfit choice That meant a sleeveless dress, sunglasses several sizes larger than the ones she had been wearing, and slightly too many bangles and necklaces along with a tiny handbag too small for any practical use.
Diana was a quiet, polite mare who was too kind to point out that Rarity was spending most of her bits in bits in a bid to get back the ones Rarity had been scammed out of. Instead, she tried to enjoy the role, swinging her hips more when she walked, posing dramatically, looking inconvenienced at every tiny delay.
She looked and felt like an unbearable, overbearing mare who’d never heard the word ‘no’ in her life and didn’t think a pony with a real job was actually a person. A pony with more money than common sense. A pony who couldn’t tell gold from polished brass. It made her the perfect mark for scammers.
Rarity trailed her at a distance, staying back far enough that they didn’t seem to be together. For her own disguise, she’d found the perfect way to become invisible. She wore an apron and carried a broom. Most of the ponies in the street were the kind of people Diana was pretending to be, and their eyes slid past anypony who might be doing manual labor.
Whenever Diana stopped and gave predators in the crowd a chance to pick up her scene, Rarity paused and started sweeping the street. There wasn’t much there to sweep, but it was a beach city. There was always a tiny bit of sand she could push around with the broom. It was more than enough to discourage conversation or comment.
From her vantage point a block away, Rarity watched Diana turn around and start speaking to somepony just off the street. They exchanged a few words, and then Diana stepped into an alleyway, following them away from the bustling crowd.
Rarity gasped. This was it.
“Here!” Rarity pushed the broom into a passing stallion’s hands. He looked confused, saw her determined expression, and started sweeping with urgency inspired by fear. Rarity ran after Diana, chasing her into the alleyway. They’d just gotten to a very familiar cart when Rarity caught up to them.
The masked pony looked up. Rarity’s back hoof collided with their chest, tossing them back into the wheel of the cart hard enough to snap a few of the spokes.
“What?” They asked, coughing and not really hurt but definitely stunned. “Who--?”
“Sometimes I’m an aspiring new designer! Other times I’m a shrewd detective! And sometimes I even pretend to be a streetsweeper! Behind all of those disguises is the real me, Rarity!” Rarity’s horn flashed with magic, and she dramatically removed her disguise with a spell meant to help strip models between rounds on the runway. Rarity struck a dramatic pose for effect.
“Oh. You,” the masked pony said, unimpressed.
“So, you thought you could get away with scamming me?” Rarity asked, panting for breath after the jump kick. “I’ll have you know that I’m not so easy to fool!”
“Please, miss, I didn’t mean any harm!” the masked pony held up his hooves. “I needed the money for my sick mother! She’s just so sick and I had to do something to afford her medicine!”
“I didn’t know that,” Rarity said, her exuberance fading in the face of a harsh, cruel reality. Maybe it would be best to just let him go. Her bits were worth more to him than to her, and she could always go and get more if she really needed them. Wasn’t the health of a mother worth more than any amount of--
“Rarity,” Diana warned, clearing her throat. “Mind control magic.”
Rarity looked down at the masked pony. A lime-green glow was coming from inside the hood of his long coat. He gave her what had to be a sheepish smile. “It was worth a shot.”
Diana helped Rarity pick them up, holding them still while Rarity removed the mask the pony was wearing. Rarity’s own face stared back at her, sneering.
“None of that,” Diana warned, shaking the pony by the scruff of the neck. Rarity’s face vanished in a flash of green, ghostly flames that produced no heat, and the real monster behind the whole scam showed itself for the first time.
A terrible, horrific mockery of a pony was revealed, with chitinous plates instead of smooth fur, glowing blank eyes, and a sour disposition about being found out that was entirely understandable.
“I knew it,” Rarity huffed. “A changeling!”
“Alright, alright, you got me,” the bug pony buzzed. “It’s not illegal to be a changeling!”
“No, but it is illegal to defraud ponies,” Diana said. “You’ve been using your magic to weaken their wills and deceive them. Let me guess, you change your apparent identity every few days to throw off anypony looking for the mare or stallion who took their bits?”
“It’s a living,” the changeling said with a shrug. “It’s not hurting anypony! I just get them alone in an alleyway and show them my junk, then use a little special magic to make sure they have a good experience.”
“Did you have to phrase it like that?” Rarity looked disgusted.
“Absolutely.”
“We’ll have to turn him over to the local authorities,” Diana said. “I’m sure they have ways of dealing with ponies like this.”
“There’s no need for that!” The changeling tried to wiggle out of DIana’s grip, then turned into a snake, a rock, and a tiny cute foal when attempts to actually escape failed and it was time to lean into sympathy. “Couldn’t we come to some kind of arrangement?” the adorable foal asked, sniffling and on the verge of tears. “I’ll give you back your bits! I’ll even let you have some of my really good stuff!”
“We’ll take the bits back,” Rarity said. “But these things don’t belong to us.”
The changeling switched back to normal and grabbed a jangling bag from inside his coat. Rarity took it and opened it, then scowled wordlessly.
“Oh, that was my bag of bottlecaps, sorry,” the changeling said. “You’d be surprised by what a vintage cap can be worth to a collector!”
“I’m not a collector,” Rarity said sharply.
“Right, of course not, you’re a very practical pony,” the changeling produced a second, identical bag. Rarity checked this one again, then when it appeared to be full of bits she bit into one lightly to ensure it wasn’t something silly like a bag of chocolate novelty coins.
It seemed real enough, and she nodded to Diana.
“So we’re square, right?” the changeling said. “You can keep the bottlecaps as an extra for putting you through a bit of trouble over your, uh, bits.” It laughed a little at its joke. “I’m very sorry and I’ll never do it again, so we’ll part ways as friends, yeah? Ponies love friends!”
“Aw cheese,” the changeling grumbled, as a broad-chested stallion hoofcuffed him. He clearly tried to change shape to slip out of them, but the cuffs sparked and he snapped back to shape without even managing to put a smile on his face.
“Thank you for bringing this to our attention,” the chief of the beach police said. Rarity couldn’t stop looking at his mane. It was up in a shape not entirely like an airship parked on his head, a stiff swirl of hair that extended almost to the tip of his snout. He wore the same uniform as all the beach ponies, mirrored sunglasses and a tight pair of red shorts. Despite being several blocks from the nearest water deeper than a kitchen sink, all of them carried life preservers.
“Somepony had to do something,” Rarity said. “I’m glad I could assist you with your investigation.”
“What will be done with the cart?” Diana asked, posing a question that had also been on Rarity’s mind. “I assume despite being junk, those are still memories somepony might be looking for?”
“It’s impossible to say,” the beach policepony sighed. “Not everything is a real memory. If you lose a receipt from your spa session, it won’t turn into a memory and wash up on shore. You’ve probably got plenty of stuff that just doesn’t matter all that much to you.”
“True,” Rarity conceded.
“The only one who might be able to tell would be the Prince, but…” the policepony sighed.
“The Prince?” Rarity’s eyebrows shot right up at the word. More than that, she could sense it. A tragic backstory. Royalty she’d never heard of before. Even better than that, Royalty of the stallion sort, which was sometimes easier to fantasize about when she wanted to imagine being swept off her hooves, though she wouldn’t have said no if the right Princess had made an attempt.
“The ‘but’ at the end of that sentence is concerning,” Diana noted.
“Is he sealed away with a terrible curse?” Rarity asked, her imagination immediately running to the breezie stories she’d heard as a foal. As a practical and adult mare, that imagination also added additional details a foal wouldn’t worry about, like what type of lip gloss to wear when kissing somepony to awaken them from eternal sleep, and the importance of breath mints in such an occasion to make a good first impression.
“Not exactly,” the officer said, looking less worried and more embarrassed by the line of questioning. “He’s just a bit…” He held up his hoof, clearly struggling for the right word. He went through his limited vocabulary twice and didn’t find anything with the correct flavor. “You know how some ponies are total party animals?”
Rarity scoffed and put a worldly hoof to her chest. The poor stallion thought she was the kind of pony who didn’t get out and about. “Darling, I am very good friends with a pony who I strongly suspect is some sort of eldritch horror made of frosting and party favors. I know party animals.”
The stallion nodded. “Cool. I don’t know what some of those words mean. Anyway, the Prince is like… sort of the opposite of that. He’s, you know.”
“Kind of a drag,” one of the other beach cops suggested.
“Yeah! That’s the word! High-hoof!” The two well-toned, tanned ponies clapped hooves. “Yeah, he’s a drag, so nopony really hangs out with him much and he doesn’t do anything except sort of sit on the beach over near Rockdive Cliff.”
“I see,” Rarity tapped her hoof on her chin. “Is there some special way ponies need to approach him? A gift I should bring, perhaps?”
“I donno what would make him happy. I’ve never seen him happy. I don’t think anypony has.”
“I should warn you, Miss Rarity,” Diana said, as they walked towards Rockdive Cliff. The way was well-marked, though few ponies seemed to follow it. It seemed odd to Rarity. How could ponies resist the urge to see a member of the Royalty? Certainly, it was possible that the locals had grown calloused to his presence, much in the way that Princess Celestia was something of a fixture and mother figure rather than an object of worship.
“Warn me about what?” Rarity asked. “I hope you aren’t going to reveal that the Prince is some long-lost relative.”
Diana chuckled a little at that, clearly more at some private joke than the actual humor in what Rarity had said. “No. But you need to be aware of what it means to create a Realm.”
“You think this Prince created this whole Realm?” Rarity asked.
“He did.” Diana seemed absolutely sure. “Every Realm is… how to explain it? It’s like a soul turned inside-out. A genus loci in reverse. Imagine if you were so powerful that your dreams lingered even when you were awake, and that’s what a Realm is like.”
“That’s evocative and poetic, but this doesn’t seem like a dream.” Rarity could feel the road under her hooves and smell the salt in the sea breeze. They’d eaten food and had drinks and those were certainly real enough to sustain them.
“A dream never does, while you’re in it,” Diana noted.
“Princess Luna and Celestia didn’t create the sun and moon,” Rarity pointed out.
“No. Equestria’s origins are lost to time. From what I understand, Discord’s invasion of the world unbound it. One could say that the Princesses inherited it. They’re also among the most approachable and… mortal of their kind.”
“You’ve met other alicorns?”
“It’s wise to study where you’ll go before you set off on a long journey,” Diana said. Rarity couldn’t tell how much the mare really knew. Was she being deliberately mysterious, or was it an act to cover up supposition and second-hoof hearsay?
“Very well, keep your secrets,” Rarity sighed.
The path up to the cliffs had an odd feeling to it. The whole time they’d been in the tropical paradise, it had felt like a perfect summer day, not too hot, not too humid. It was a perfect vacation spot, even without the draw of the memories that collected on the beaches.
The cliffs were different. The path gradually became steeper and less accommodating. Side paths and distractions and turnbacks tempted them on their way up, and the ground even felt harder and more treacherous. Overhead the sky darkened, clouds gathering but not quite raining, just hanging on that very precipice of precipitation, with the occasional phantom drop of rain just light enough that Rarity wasn’t sure if it was starting to rain or not.
The colors became gloomy, gardens turned into scraggly scrub brush and ugly rocks. Everything in the world was trying to tell them to go back, find something else to do, leave the pony at the top of the cliffs alone. Maybe it would have been wise, but Rarity was a pony who was willing to chase after her goals even when the path was difficult.
As if the realm itself decided they weren’t going to turn back, Rarity found herself at the top of the cliffs, and sitting on the other side of the plateau of nearly-bare rock was a being that should have been seated on a throne.
The alicorn prince was grey, but not a healthy off-white, the grey that came when something was so aged and sun-bleached that every possible color had washed out of it and left only faded nothing behind.
“We could still leave,” Diana said quietly. “I’m not sure he wants visitors.”
“You’re already here,” the alicorn Prince said. His voice was deep and resonant, seeming far more alive than the rest of him. He turned back to look at the two mares. He had the long, thin look Celestia might have if she was put off cake for a few centuries, and still appeared in the prime of his youth, perhaps even younger-seeming than Rarity despite obviously being so old the word ‘age’ scarcely seemed to have enough depth. “You might as well tell me your business.”
He motioned with a wing for them to join him at the edge of the cliff. Rarity stepped over carefully, but it was sturdy and safe and the Prince made no sudden motion to scare her. Diana stayed back, watching them.
“I’m sorry for disturbing you,” Rarity said.
“It’s fine,” the Prince said. He wasn’t upset. He was just exhausted, emotionally drained until he couldn’t be upset at an interruption. “I can tell you have important business. Something more important than your own desires.”
Rarity nodded. “Oh, I’m doing all this out of order. I should introduce myself. My name is Rarity. I came here from a far-away land. You have a beautiful Realm.”
“Thank you,” the stallion said, his voice quieting slightly. He seemed almost embarrassed by the compliment, or perhaps ashamed somehow. Rarity thought she could understand it. She’d poured her own soul into her work on many occasions, and even positive feedback could feel like baring oneself to another. “Please, call me Anse.”
“Thank you, Prince Anse--”
“Just Anse,” he corrected. “I’m not your ruler. I’m not even really the ruler of the ponies here.”
“If that’s what you want,” Rarity said, pleased and trying not to show it. A member of the Royalty was letting her be so familiar! And so soon after meeting him! Clearly her dignity and charm was winning him over. He smiled but seemed pained a bit by what she said, as if she was far off the mark and he was too polite to mention it.
“What did you need from me?” he asked.
“I’m sure you’re aware that this island is a place where momentos wash up on shore in an impossible way,” Rarity said. Anse nodded, so she continued. “Some ponies have been taking things that don’t belong to them, and I want to find a way to somehow ensure the memories they took go to the ponies that need them.”
“Oh. I see,” Anse said, looking down. “It’s not the first time ponies have done this. You should cast them into the sea.”
“Just… throw them into the water?” Rarity asked, confused.
Anse nodded. “As far from shore as possible. It’s best if you can only barely see the isle. You can never sail so far it leaves the horizon, but you can get close. They’ll wash up again, eventually.”
“I… I see. But--”
“If two things are destined to come together, they will, and nothing can keep them apart. Even if you locked those memories in a locked chest and buried them under a mountain, they want to find their owner. That’s how memories can be. It’s how I want them to be.”
Rarity watched his expression. There was pain there, or the ghost of it. Hurt so old it stopped being a real ache and just became part of a pony.
“You want to know how this place came to be,” he said, not looking at her. He gazed out over the ocean.
“I admit I’m curious, but I wasn’t going to press if it’s a painful subject.”
The corner of his mouth twitched up. “All true experiences are a bit painful, I think. Things that are too easy never seem important, do they? The things that are there every day, the ones you rely on… they slip away.”
Rarity swallowed. The Prince touched his chest with a hoof, holding it over his heart. It was the gesture of a pony who was missing something nameless.
“When I was a mortal, before I became this, I had a lover. She was my world. I made her my queen, and we ruled a kingdom. Not here, somewhere far off. It was a bigger world, but all I needed was at my side. We grew old together. Or, really…”
“She grew old, and you didn’t.”
“I got taller!” Anse laughed, then shook his head. “So I changed too, but not like she did. We spent decades together. Then it was over, and I spent centuries mourning her. And one day, I realized I couldn’t remember her name, or her face, or the sound of her voice. I remembered only the feeling of her hoof in mine. The only thing left were memories of how I used to feel, unanchored and ghostly. I spent thousands of years trying to remember her, fighting to keep my grip on what little I had. I left everything else behind and tried to find traces of her. Echoes left in the world. Eventually… all of this.”
“How did it happen?” Rarity asked. “Creating this Realm, I mean.”
“It formed around me and inside me. Your world has pearls, yes? It’s a bit like that. This land formed inside me, crystallizing around a tiny kernel of desire to remember. One day, I lost my attachments to the old world, and I woke up in this place.”
“And because of your desires, it collects memories,” Rarity said.
He nodded. “Yes. Some day, maybe it will even find the ones I want. Until then, other ponies come here, live here, and some even make new memories.” He smiled. “I think it’s helped a few others come to terms with their past.”
“It has,” Rarity assured him.
Anse started to stand, then abandoned the effort, not for lack of ability but merely desire. “Thank you for listening,” he said. “It’s good to tell my own story from time to time. If even a fragment of my love lives on in others… it means I’m not the only pony to remember them.”
Rarity reached for his hoof, but stopped herself before she did anything untoward. He was still in terrible mourning, not for a real pony but the idea of one. It would have been the greatest hubris to do anything to come between them in even the slightest way. Even just as a friend.
“I’ll take me leave,” Rarity said. “And I won’t forget what you told me.”
Rarity stood up and bowed, walking away. It felt like a dismissal. More than that. It felt like the moment she left his sight, he’d forget her. Not out of malice, just because he only had room in his mind for a single mare, and all the pieces around the empty space where she should have been.
“So that’s the only memory you found?” Diana asked. Rarity held tightly onto the balloon. Despite being pristine when it came out of the sand, it was starting to deflate in the way a cheap bit of rubber would.
“It’s more than enough,” Rarity said. “It’s proof that even something I only loved for a short moment loved me back.”
“It’s already mostly deflated,” Diana pointed out.
“Nothing lasts forever. That’s why we have to value what we have while we have it.” She stepped onto the train, tugging the balloon along with her, the toy following like an obedient, elderly pet