//------------------------------// // 1.2: Prodigy // Story: Our Little Homeworld // by Horizon Runner //------------------------------// Time: 7:12 P.M. Mothership Position: Kharequus Geostationary Orbit, Scaffold Area. Location: Storage Area G-C21. “The Mothership Project is grandest undertaking in Kharequuin history. In the hundred years between the discovery of the Khar-Celest and tomorrow, the day we take our first true step towards the stars, our sciences have advanced a thousandfold. In reaching for the stars we have reached within ourselves and brought forth the true potential of ponykind. Our destiny lies before us; the time has come to reclaim our birthright, passed on to us by Celestia herself…” Amethyst Star groaned loudly, cutting off the intercom. “Can we shut that damn thing off? I swear, that Masterpiece flankhead gives the same speeches every time he’s on the air, and he still can’t make it sound any less like industrial grade manure.” Twilight Sparkle smiled and rolled her eyes. “Come on, it’s just to set the mood.” Regardless, she reached across the room with a thread of telekinesis and tapped the mute button on the wall-mounted control panel. Amethyst nodded with a derisive snort. “Well, usually when I want to ‘set the mood’, my choice of listening material involves less melodramatic lizard dung and more heavy metal.” Twilight shifted her attention back to the task at hoof. There were still supplies to organize and catalogue. Not everything could be built directly into the research ship—current-generation magi-fabrication just wasn't precise enough to make small, complicated instruments like electron microscopes or magi-field scanners. Amethyst’s shuttle had only arrived hours ago, but for some reason she’d insisted on helping Twilight with the mundane task. Twilight wasn't sure whether to be moved or irritated; as much as Amethyst's sacrifice was showing... it was really showing. Still, Twilight thought, a smile crossing her face, it is time spent together. Twilight checked off another crate full of assorted drafting implements and shot a glance at Amethyst, who was doing the same. Twilight had to give her cousin credit: few ponies could make the act of marking off check-boxes look angry. Still, despite her griping, there was a smile on her face for the first time in years. Amethyst had lived a double life. On the one hoof, she’d been born into an upper-class S’jetti family, raised in the world-renowned Academy City—Karan—and taught by the best professors in the world. She’d gone on to start her own business designing and producing weapons for various armed forces affiliated with the Daiamiid council. Given the climate of the times, her business had boomed. She’d been a billionaire within two years. On the surface, it seemed like a great situation. She was gifted, well brought-up, and she'd become a self-made entrepreneur. But Amethyst wasn't a fool. Well intentioned or otherwise, her prosperity came at a price, and she refused to ignore it. Her purple eyes had permanent rings beneath them, and her magenta-violet mane was perpetually in various states of disarray. The smile she now wore was something Twilight hadn’t seen in a long, long time. Not since Moondancer left, at least. Amethyst groaned, rearing her head back and placing a hoof against her horn. “Damn modeling clay, bucking sketchpads… what are we, an art supply store?” “Most of our work will be digital anyway,” Twilight said, casually checking off a portable holo-imager that would have bankrupted the university back home. “It’s only there in case you need it. Don't you still use clay for mock-ups?” “Not since college, I haven't. Converted to digital and never looked back." Amethyst swiped the sketch pad. "Another check on the list. All that’s left… a crate with two microscopes. Do you have them on your side?” “No.” Twilight frowned, glancing over the boxes. “They should be here. You sure you didn’t miss them?” “No, I didn’t bucking miss them,” Amethyst growled. “Please tell me they’re not still on the Scaffold.” “I know we took them with us…” Twilight closed her eyes and let her magic take over, expanding it across the crates. She tested their weights by lifting them into the air, leaving those that were too heavy on the floor. “Let’s see… with their mass, they should be…” She separated a crate from the rest, noting absent-mindedly that it had been in the middle. She’d assumed Amethyst had checked it, and Ammy had probably assumed the same of Twilight. An innocent mistake on both their parts. “You know, that gets freakier every time you do it.” Twilight opened her eyes. “Telekinesis?” “The fact that you’re so bucking good at it.” Amethyst gestured at the floating crates. “That’s gotta be what, two hundred kilos, minimum? Just looking at it makes my horn ache.” Twilight shrugged indifferently, setting the crates down in neat rows. “Well, maybe if you ever practicedyour magic…” Amethyst snorted. “Right. Sure, I could be a hornbuilder like you, or I could go with finesse.” She spun the pen in an elaborate arc and swiped it across the tablet with an exaggerated slash. “And we cross the finish line! Time to stick them in the other cargo hold, right, oh master of magics?” Twilight rolled her eyes, but a smile lingered on her face. “I’ve missed you, Ammy.” “Don’t get sappy on me, Sparksy,” Amethyst retorted, grinning. “But yeah, I’ve missed you too.” Time: 7:20 P.M. Location: Mothership Crew Elevator TL-21. Approaching Docking Pylon 6. The crates took a teleport shunt down to the loading bay. It was a somewhat experimental system, still—and they didn't dare use it on ponies—but it was quite efficient for cargo, taking far less time than an elevator and nearly the same amount of energy. Ironically, that little round pad was part of the reason Twilight Sparkle was here. She'd invented teleport shunts, along with the Phased Disassembler Arrays that powered the construction and resource harvesting departments, and about half a dozen other small bits of magitech that made life in space generally simpler. Besides that, she'd revolutionized the science of spatial magic—before she'd come along, an inertial-dampening spell and a gravity spell were incompatible. She'd been the first pony to show that not only could the spells be configured to fit within the same area, but that they could be shaped in such a way that individual corridors could run perpendicular to each other while still providing one standard G to the ponies walking them. It was fair to say that, without Twilight Sparkle, the Mothership might have launched ten years later, and with half the fancy toys. None of this was to say that the Mothership had ever been primitive. It remained a seven-kilometer-tall vessel capable of supporting up to twenty thousand crew members and six hundred thousand cryogenically frozen passengers—and intended to carry them across tens of thousands of light years. Granted, that final attribute was no pony feat—if the Hyperspace Core had been made by ponies, it would have overshadowed everything Twilight had accomplished by several orders of magnitude—but the Mothership Project had never been anything but high-tech. From the moment of its conception, it was destined for greatness. And despite her contributions, Twilight Sparkle was still a newcomer, relatively speaking. The ship had been under construction for sixty years, and Twilight Sparkle had only been alive for two dozen of those. Even of the months she'd spent in space, most of the time she'd been living on the Scaffold, rarely setting foot on the Mothership proper. The sheer size of the Mothership meant that she hadn't seen it all, and maybe never would. So when Twilight Sparkle stepped into the tram, there was a spring in her step. Much as she knew the schematics like the back of her own hoof, she’d never seen the hangar. She keyed the destination in with enthusiasm, quickly tapping in H-T6 and picking Hangar Docking Pylon Six from the proffered list of options. As the tram slowly pulled away from the station, starting to run “down” the length of the ship. Metal passed by the glass roof at increasing speed, along with catwalks and wiring that seemed too distant to be real—one of dozens of service corridors running the height of the ship, Four trams to a corridor. Twilight Sparkle hummed a little tune, tapping her hoof lightly against the floor. It was a break from her usual demeanor, but both Amethyst and Twilight knew enough of each others’ dirty little secrets that they could act… if not like ‘themselves,’ then at least like the ponies they didn’t want to admit they really were. Amethyst caught on to her excitement. “What’s up, Sparksy?” Twilight grinned back at her. “Just wait a minute or so. You’ll see.” A light flashed by overhead, briefly casting their faces into sharp relief. Twilight could picture the blast door sliding closed behind them, and the one ahead slowly opening. Almost there… “Oh, come on!” Amethyst moaned. “I hate that! All this suspense manure really gets on my nerves. The light at the end of the tunnel is just another sand-cursed spaceship.” Twilight merely kept grinning. She glanced up at the passing corridor, her eyes flickering to the little landmarks only a pony who’d helped design the ship would catch. “Just… let’s see… five… four…” Amethyst just stared at her. “...Seriously?” “Three… two…” Amethyst rolled her eyes. “Uuuugh. I hate it when you get all dramatic—” “One… zero.” And then, there was no more speaking. The tram’s glass construction might have seemed pointless while it was passing through the service corridor, but the service corridor didn’t last forever. When the tram slid out onto the inner surface of the hangar, the view changed. Amethyst slowly moved over to the  glass and pressed her face against it like a little schoolfilly. Twilight didn’t hesitate in joining her. The hangar’s dimensions were simple enough on paper: eight hundred by two thousand by six hundred meters. It didn’t seem like much, until you started really thinking about it. But when you saw it? Mind. Boggling. Space had never much bothered Twilight. It was like quantum physics; strange and wonderful, yes, but it was something she understood on a theoretical level. One didn’t often come into situations where she particularly needed to see it in action. Kharequus’s surface, the Scaffold, the stars—they were all distant, and while impressive, next to impossible to properly put into perspective. In the hangar, you could see the distance. You could let your eyes wander across the walls, see them stretching out farther than made rational sense. At first, it was like looking along the Scaffold’s hull, but then it curved up, inward, becoming a room. Manufactory slabs drifted like metal clouds, illuminated in blue by light-cells, placed to ensure that no part of the hangar would ever be fully in shadow. The slabs were basically miniature versions of the Scaffold—hoofholds and frameworks for construction efforts. Only one pair was actively working at the moment, but the rest were in place, testing their systems one last time before the Jump. One of the Mothership’s two tugs—technically, a Porter-class corvette—zoomed past the lift on a trail of white fire, so close that Twilight could see the pilot, a grey-coated mare with a pale-yellow mane who grinned and waved before slipping out of view. Twilight shook her head, refusing to believe that she’d seen the mare’s eyes pointing two different directions. That would have been too surreal. “So, Twi…” Amethyst said through her teeth. “I guess it’s fair to say that this is bucking beautiful, eh?” “Yes. That’s more than fair.” “Sappy poetic verse, and all that bull, eh?” Twilight smiled, her luminous eyes fixed firmly on the awesome azure anchorage ahead, finding the pinprick details in the Mothership’s internal aspect. “I suppose you could go that far.” Amethyst smirked. “You just did it in your head, didn’t you?” Twilight suppressed a most unsophisticated giggle. “Maybe a little. I'm bad at poetry.” Amethyst let out a small chuckle of her own. “Goddesses, I wish Moony was here for this. She’d have a whole damn piece composed before we made it onto the research ship.” Twilight’s smile faltered. “Yeah, she probably would.” Amethyst grinned. “Just one more reason to be excited for tomorrow; we get to hear my marefriend wax poetic over the glories of a hangar bay—if she ever gets done with the outside of the ship, that is.” Twilight did her best to keep smiling, even though she didn’t particularly feel it. She and Moondancer hadn’t been speaking when the latter left to join the crew of the Khar-Selim. Moondancer had been on that ship for six years now, six years Amethyst had spent alone on the planet. And for what? Twilight had asked herself then, and she asked herself now. Why had she left? Just to grab a little extra glory? Just to get away a little faster? It didn’t even make sense. She should have been here, at least. They could use astrophysicists on the Scaffold, and Amethyst would have been a shuttle-flight away. Instead, she'd chosen to join a team that was slated to take a tour of the solar system. And yet, Amethyst still loved Moondancer somehow. They still talked, celebrating anniversary after anniversary through a digital screen, waiting two hours between each snippet of conversation. Somehow, their relationship had survived it all. The only conclusion Twilight could draw was that Amethyst was just the most patient mare in the universe, and that there was no way Moondancer deserved her. “It’s gonna be great,” Amethyst said. If she knew how Twilight felt, she refused to acknowledge it. “Me and her, back together at last. And you'll finally get a chance to get to know her.” She leaned over to Twilight and gave an exaggerated wink. “Who knows; maybe she can convince you to try a little adventure, if you know what I mean. Wink wink, nudge nudge.” Twilight sighed, bottling up her reservations about Moondancer. She’d be back soon, and answers could come then. "Adventure," she deadpanned. "Really, Ammy?" "Yeah, you know, let yourself relax and party, find some colt and just go nuts, maybe have a few drinks—" Amethyst caught herself, but the word had already slipped out. She and Twilight both winced. "Sorry," Amethyst muttered. "Slip of the tongue." Twilight didn’t look at her. "S'okay. It was a long time ago." Amethyst let out a long sigh. "Look, I'm not asking you to go back to... then, but you have to loosen up a little. This should be a fun time for you!" "Sounds great," Twilight said softly. "Maybe this time it won't end in disaster." "Like I said, I'm not asking you to turn back into that. I promise, you can loosen up without going completely crazy, so please do, okay?" "Amethyst..." Twilight said. "I've got a job. I've got a role. I can't play around like a filly anymore. As much as I'd like to just fool around with some colt or… have a few drinks, I can't. I've got responsibilities, and you do too." Amethyst gave a derisive snort. “Heh, right. So you 'grew up'? That's your excuse?” Twilight sighed. She was fairly certain she knew what was coming next. "Yes, I suppose I did." The tram entered a “building” which jutted out from the inner hull, sliding to a stop before a gleaming platform. The doors parted with the faint hiss of hydraulic muscles. Twilight stepped off first, Amethyst following her closely with an exaggerated spring in her step. “Hey, Twi!” she said in a mocking, childish tone. “Since I’m not all grown up like you, can I color all over the walls with crayon? Ooh! Maybe I’ll draw a pretty little purple unicorn like my dear, sweet, younger cousin!” Twilight rolled her eyes. “I’m not playing this game, Ammy.” “Whatever. Just remember, Twi... I know where the cookie jar is.” Twilight let out an exasperated moan. “I’m done talking to you.” “Fine, be that way hardflank. No cookies for you!” Amethyst stuck out her tongue and trotted away. She didn’t make five steps before bursting into laughter. Twilight couldn’t help but smile. Amethyst really had started to change. The docking tube was ahead, blocked by a sealed airlock that had been painted dull red and covered in warning labels. The room preceding it was set up like an airline terminal, with rows of fold-out chairs placed too close together for any real comfort, but plenty of floor-space for luggage or—under extenuating circumstances—bedrolls. It was even carpeted, in contrast to the normal, metal-floored corridors. There were no windows for safety reasons—the hangar outside wasn’t pressurized—but there were video screens against some of the walls, and most showed video feeds of the Mothership’s exterior. There was only one pony present by the time Twilight and Amethyst arrived. She was a unicorn of about Twilight’s age, with an immaculate ice-white coat and a mane that was somewhere between indigo and violet, woven expertly into a swirling pattern so precise that Twilight couldn’t imagine doing the same to her own. As they approached, she looked up, blinked a few times, and let her eyes widen briefly before turning back to the object in her hooves, which appeared to be a tablet similar to the ones Twilight and Amethyst had just been using in the cargo hold. Amethyst made her way over to the far end of the row where the other mare was seated, dropped into a slouch, and started making exaggerated snoring sounds. Twilight made a point of ignoring her cousin and headed off towards the other mare. Twilight took the adjacent chair, gingerly setting herself down and folding her legs beneath her in the almost catlike way she’d come to associate with her fellow S’jetti. The other mare looked up at her briefly, smiled, and then went back to staring incredulously at Amethyst, who had by this point flopped onto her back and started kicking absentmindedly at the air. It was surprising how much you could tell about a pony from how they sat in a chair. For example, the mare beside Twilight was clearly not used to this style of seat, as she’d adopted an awkward pose which had her leaning on her forehooves while her back legs were extended out in front of her, forcing her spine to curve slightly. It was an upper-class Naabali pose; intended to look imposing whilst perched on a tall, padded chair. Given her coat color and the attention obviously placed on her mane, it wasn’t unreasonable to guess the rest of her was Naabali as well. Twilight reflected that she wasn’t great at starting off conversations and suppressed a sigh as the inevitable awkward silence fell upon them. She was just getting comfortable with the quiet when the mare spoke up, confusing Twilight’s thoughts in a single sentence. Twilight had met a good number of Naabal’s privileged class during her life, often as fellow students in Academy City. She’d never much liked them, much preferring the company of her fellow S’jetti when she wasn’t studying alone, but she’d learned a fair amount about their culture in that time. The upper classes were strongly religious, mainly so that they could insist on being Celestia’s direct descendents. White coats were practically an unofficial dress-code, enforced through everything from dyejobs straight up to genetic manipulation. They also had hilarious accents, and typically invested an unwholesome amount in their appearances. The mare sitting next to Twilight Sparkle fit all those stereotypes perfectly. But despite her posture, despite her lustrous coat, despite her carefully cured complexion, and despite the impeccable accent through which she spoke, the subject of her speech was all wrong. There was a code of introductions followed by upper-class Naabali—and Twilight had found (to her great dismay) that it was, in fact, an established piece of etiquette: Naabali introduced themselves by offering their name, their family’s holdings, and then the noteworthy deeds of their ancestors. In that order. They then waited for the other party to respond in kind, and an elaborate verbal dance ensued. To introduce oneself with anything else was considered incredibly rude, even if that introduction amounted to “nice weather we’re having.” But the mare sitting next to her didn’t give her name. She didn’t give her family’s holding. She didn’t give the deeds of her ancestors. Instead, she said, “My, the ship certainly is a beautiful sight, isn’t it?” It was a silly little difference, but Twilight was so used to hearing that same little speech that she was forced to do a double-take. “Yes!” she said with a little more enthusiasm than she’d intended. She turned her attention to the television across from them, finding that it showed an expertly angled shot of the Mothership, with Kharequus forming a curved horizon beneath it and the sun casting both into silhouettes. Come to think of it, Twilight had never really seen the Mothership on its own, separate from the Scaffold’s embrace. The first time she’d witnessed it, the Scaffold itself had blocked much of her view, and the subsequent times had been from within the station, making it hard to put it all in perspective. But now it was all out in open space. The Mothership hung suspended in the aether, a pale gray crescent studded with tiny jeweled windows. The rays of the unfiltered sun sparkled across its armor, creating dazzling highlights against those stretches of metal that were unpainted. The command tower, set into the upper half, glimmered like a Hearth’s Warming Eve tree, while the hangar entrance glowed like some strange icy forge. The inside of the Mothership was beautiful, but the outside was positively resplendent. And yet, the perspective was clear. It was so very tiny in the endless sky, against the maze of time and space. A species’ greatest achievement, caught in the blink of an eye. A pale grey dot in a wondrous cosmic tapestry… Twilight shivered. Amethyst was right. Poetry came easily when these things were in plain view. The mare didn’t offer up further comment, but Twilight found herself speaking before she even realized it. “It’s so big and… so small at the same time.” She cringed. Yep. That’s poetry, all right. The mare smiled. “I think I know exactly what you mean, dear.” She extended a hoof, and Twilight noted the careful grooming even there. “Rarity. I’m an engineer.” Twilight met the hoof with her own. “Twilight Sparkle, magitechnician and arcanoscientist.” Rarity’s eyes lit up like little sapphires. “Oh-ho-ho! It truly is a pleasure, Miss Sparkle. I must say I’m well acquainted with your work.” Twilight smiled back. “Thank you, really, but I’m afraid I’m not anywhere near as impressive as the press has made me out to be.” She inclined her head towards the airlock. “You’ve been assigned to the research ship, then? I haven’t seen you around the Scaffold before.” “I am a late arrival, I suppose. Yes, I am stationed here, though…” Rarity’s smile faded. “I must confess, I’m not really certain about my position. Why, with ponies like you and—if my eyes did not deceive—Amethyst Star present, I can hardly imagine what place a simple engineer freshly graduated from the university has in this crew.” Twilight’s eyes unfocused a bit as she asked herself the same question. Probably because your parents are rich enough to buy you a spot, she thought, but there was no way she was actually going to say that out loud. “I’d guess,” she mused, picking her words carefully. “That you are here to develop things. Research and development are both jobs of ours, after all.” Rarity chuckled bitterly. “Aha, and there it is. I can see it in your eyes.” Twilight’s stomach knotted a bit. “What do you mean?” “The accent. My coat. You think I’m a rich little heiress, don’t you?” Twilight’s mind blanked. “It had occurred to me,” she replied flatly, then cursed her words. “Mhmm.” Rarity fixed her with raised eyebrow. “Well, despite the fact that I was born in Tiir and attended Celestraad University for five years, I’ll have you know that there’s no ‘Celestial Blood’ in my family line. Nor is there much in the way of an inheritance, as it happens. Whatever contrivance placed me up here, it wasn’t economic.” “Huh…” Twilight murmured. “And an engineer… you graduated from Celestraad University? After five years?” Rarity’s eyebrow rose. “I believe that is what I said, yes.” Twilight’s mental gears started moving again. Celestraad was just about the most prestigious school outside of S’jet’s domain. If Rarity wasn’t from a rich family and had graduated from—no, even been accepted into Celestraad, then she was a prodigy in her field, without a doubt. “That is quite an achievement,” Twilight said. “Oh, all the studying nearly drove the skin from my bones,” Rarity muttered. She smiled faintly, eyes lowered. “But yes, I suppose it was an accomplishment. I won’t say I’m not the least bit proud.” “Then it’s not such a mystery how you got here, is it?” Twilight pressed. “A pony graduating from Celestraad without a fortune is certainly”—she smirked—“a rarity.” Rarity made a sound halfway between a snort and a chuckle and quickly cleared her throat to cover it. “Oh dear. Please, tell me this isn’t your typical sense of humor, or I’m afraid I’ll have to resign on the spot!” Twilight chuckled. “Sorry about that. Blame Lyra Heartstrings; her ways are a bit contagious.” “Somepony say my name?” Twilight turned, finding herself staring at the green-coated chin of the devil herself. She quickly adjusted her gaze, bringing Lyra’s face into view. Lyra had somehow snuck into the seat next to Twilight and adopted her odd back-against-the-chair sitting pose—which put her head a good three feet above Twilight’s. It wasn’t like she needed help on that front, of course. Lyra was rather spindly, while Twilight herself was more on the average-small side of things. “Oh hello, Lyra,” Twilight said. “Talkin ’bout me?” Lyra’s nose twitched—pointed, a little sharper than average. A very Manaani nose. “I suppose we were,” Twilight replied. “We were discussing your awful puns and their viral spread.” Lyra clutched a hoof to her chest in mock-horror. “You wound me, Twi!” she exclaimed, golden eyes widening. Twilight rolled her eyes. She could indulge this for the moment. “I speak only the truth, Lyra.” Suddenly, Lyra grinned an ice-white grin. “Oh…! I can’t stay mad at you, Twi!” She then grabbed Twilight by the shoulders, pulled her up to eye-level, and planted an incredibly passionate kiss. On the lips. The next thing Twilight knew, she was lying on the floor. Lyra laughed uproariously, while Rarity glanced between the two of them like she’d just witnessed a murder. Twilight blinked past the shock. “Oh Ce-les-ti-a!” Lyra choked out between sobs of laugher. She jabbed a hoof at Rarity, who jumped backwards like she’d just been shot. “The look…!” Lyra heaved in a breath. “The look on your FACE!” She descended even deeper into the throes of mirth as Twilight slowly picked herself off the floor, groaning and wiping a hoof across her lips. Twilight slid into the chair, giving Lyra a dirty look. “Some day my vengeance will come, Heartstrings,” she growled, only sending Lyra into another fit. She turned to Rarity, who was giving her a hard stare. But before anypony could play further into Lyra’s bizarre mind-game, there was a little “a-hem” from behind Lyra. She turned, still giggling and wiping tears from her eyes, and found herself staring up at Bon Bon, wearing a cocked eyebrow and a slight smile. Bon Bon was in many ways Lyra’s opposite. Where Lyra was tall and lithe, Bon Bon was short and stout. Where Lyra was almost hyperactive, Bon Bon was cool and reserved. Her cream coat and smoothly-curled blue-pink mane were almost the only part of her that didn’t directly contrast with Lyra, and even then they weren’t exactly twinned. “What’s all this then?” Bon Bon asked, casually waving a hoof at the scene. Twilight watched in awe as Lyra instantaneously assumed a perfect poker-face, bottling up everything that had just happened and jamming a metaphorical cork into the hole. “Oh, hey Bonnie.” “What was so funny? Did I miss a joke?” “Oh, you know Twi, such a kidder! She was just telling me this one about a Manaani trader and a Naabali minister—” Bon Bon tilted her head just a fraction. “You’re still a terrible liar, Ly. I was watching the whole thing.” And the cork blew right off as Lyra descended back into the pits of mirth from whence she came. Bon Bon sighed, slipping into the seat next to Lyra, her posture a little closer to Twilight’s. “You’re lucky I know how you think, Ly. Most mares would take that kind of behavior as a sign of treason.” On a hunch, Twilight turned to find Rarity utterly and completely dumbfounded. Twilight leaned in towards her ear and whispered, “They’re together.” Rarity did a double take. “Ah. I’m aware of…” she gestured slightly at Bon Bon, who was playfully rubbing Lyra’s head. “...her, by reputation, but I’m not familiar with her… companion. She seems quite… liberal.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “Lyra’s Manaani. You get used to it eventually.” Comprehension spread across Rarity’s face. Her eyes crossed slightly, and she muttered a low “Aaaaah.” Twilight smiled back and nodded her most sagely nod. She’d been living on the Scaffold for two months, and Lyra’s moments of… madness were a daily occurrence. This wasn’t even the first time they’d kissed, though thankfully that wasn’t quite so common. Culture was a weird thing. Manaan’s especially. How Bon Bon could put up with everything Lyra did was beyond Twilight. That all said, even looking at them for two seconds made it plainly obvious that they deeply cared for each other. It probably had more to do with Bon Bon, really. If Twilight Sparkle was intelligent—and she’d been told such before—then Bon Bon was wise. She’d done as much for the Mothership as Twilight had—and that without the backing of a large kiith or even an upper-level education. Bon Bon Sagald, first heiress to the little kiith that just refused to die. Most people would call Sagald’s story tragic, but, having met Bon Bon, Twilight could only find it inspiring. Few ponies faced that kind of adversity, and fewer still lifted themselves up to such stature afterwards. Rarity apparently came to some sort of resolution and left her seat to introduce herself to the odd couple. Amethyst had drifted over, smiling at the commotion with a surprising softness. Lyra said something that made Rarity blush furiously, simultaneously causing Bon Bon to chuckle behind her hoof. Just looking at them, you’d never believe who they were. Lyra Heartstrings: multiple-award-winning equinologist. Bon Bon: inventor of the modern plasma drive. Amethyst Star: designer of the electro-arcano cannon. Twilight Sparkle, inventor of the Phased Dissassembler Array and the teleport shunt. And then there was Rarity. The late arrival. The unknown. She seemed nice enough to Twilight, but there were things that just didn’t add up. Talent alone didn't get you onto the Mothership. You had to be the best, and the rest of the team simply were. Even Moondancer—who wouldn't be joining them until later—was an astrophysicist of incredible talent. There had to be a reason for Rarity’s presence. Whether she was aware of it or not, something was going on beyond the obvious. It was probably a wealthy sponsor, perhaps a professor who’d become… fond of a pretty young mare from out of town. That wasn’t an impossibility—more extreme scandals had made it into the news in the past. Yet, if what she’d said was true, if she was a middle-class Naabali mare who’d graduated from Celestraad University, then she was definitely gifted. It just remained to be seen what those gifts actually were. But there would be plenty of time for that later. For now, Twilight wouldn’t contest Rarity’s place. She wasn’t about to deny anypony the opportunity they were recieving today. A buzzer blared, and a red light above the airlock door flashed. The research team stood, each shaking off their dust. Twilight was the first to step forward, followed by Lyra and Bon Bon. Amethyst joined them, then finally Rarity. Twilight felt a smile creeping along her lips as the airlock doors opened. Whatever might come ahead, whatever trials, whatever new experiences, whatever lay on the road to Equestria, and whatever lay at that mythical destination... she felt like she was ready to face it all. She swept through the door with a spring in her step. History was being made today, and Twilight Sparkle wasn’t about to miss it.