This Quiet Earth

by
Dafaddah

Chapter four: All flesh is grass

Edited by and based on an idea proposed by Sharp Logic

Starswirl the Bearded leaned on Twilight and closed his eyes. “Please, Princess,” he whispered, “read the second page.”

The page levitated to where she could see the text. She glanced at Starswirl before starting to read.

“Are you sure you want to hear this, Maestro?” Her ears drooped as she stared into his face. The pain there seemed as deep as an ocean. The corners of his lips turned down.

“Read, lass. I have never refused to drink from the cup of truth, especially when its draught tastes of naught but bitterness and pain.”

I went out hunting today. When I went out I left the door open. Dad would have been so mad at me, but then there are no eaters anywhere near here, there’s only the dust. And me.
Dad took me hunting before. Once we found a book made of paper. It was inside a shrine. Dad always looked in those. He let me look at the book before we brought it to the reclamation unit. There were pictures of people in it. He was so happy because the reclamation unit said we needed carbon, and the book had a lot of it. The biscuits tasted funny after we put the book in, but dad seemed to feel better for weeks afterwards.
Yesterday we had another magic storm. All the cameras in the dome stopped working. Now I have to go see myself what’s happening up top. Dad said to always keep the elevator below because the magic doesn’t like it deep underground. I’m glad I did because it was still working, and the stairs are way too high to climb.
The reclamation unit said it was now running at seventy-two percent. I'm glad dad wasn't here to hear it. He was so sad when it announced seventy-five percent after the last magic storm. Dad said that when the number gets lower the unit takes longer to make biscuits, and it needs more input organics. That's why I went hunting. But I didn't find any organics. I didn't find anything else, either.
Maybe I should go looking for eaters. Sometimes I think I’d rather see an eater than stay alone, even if he eats me afterwards. Or maybe I can catch him and put him into the reclamation unit, but not before I talk to him. Maybe he could tell me a story. I miss stories since the books stopped working. Darn magic. It ruins everything.
I’m gonna go out tomorrow again and maybe I’ll find an eater then. I hope so.

Twilight lowered the sheet. "Maestro, I'm starting to think these eaters are some sort of creature that preys on humans. Have you ever heard of them before?"

There was the dull tinkle of dirt clogged bells as Starswirl shook his head. He held it low, as if he didn't want to meet her gaze.

"And the reclamation units turn organic materials like books into biscuits. But then why would he want to put the eater in the reclamation unit?” Her eyes grew wide in shock. In a panic she grabbed the first sheet and reread the text.

– Today I brought dad’s body to the reclamation unit. –
– I remember when we put mom’s body in. –

“Maestro! The reclamation unit...” She couldn’t bear to say the words. She looked at Starswirl, who had fallen to his haunches and was hiding his face in his forehooves. “The biscuits...”

She looked at the skeletal form in the chair and felt her gorge rise. “He... they... Sweet Celestia, how could they?” She raised a hoof to her mouth, and then ran into the corner and vomited. It took several minutes for the heaving to stop and her breathing to settle.

Twilight finally managed to look in Starswirl’s direction. During all this time he had barely moved. His hooves trembled as he slowly placed them on the floor. His head was bowed and hidden in the shadow of his wide brimmed hat. These are his kind, she thought. This must be breaking his heart!

He nodded, reached into his cloak and passed her the canteen of water. Twilight rinsed her mouth. She looked at the mess on the floor and with a flash of purple made it disappear. She returned the water bottle to Starswirl, who put it back into its pocket.

Twilight realized she understood. If these were ponies, she would also need to know. Looking at the remaining sheaf of papers she took a deep breath, and her horn glowed as she held another sheet before her face. Her voice was unsteady when she started reading, but it gained strength as she proceeded.

I went out hunting today again. No eaters, but I found some bones. Just a few ribs and some backbones. They must have been left by an eater. I found them hidden in a shrine. I was so happy I danced, but I shouldn’t have. The dancing made me too hot and my ears started buzzing and everything got dark and I fell down. When I got up everything smelled funny and I had a headache.
It was real hard to find my way back, but dad showed me how to make tracking signs and I was able to do it. My head was pounding real hard when I got into the elevator. It was only then that I notice I had peed in my shorts. I cried. Dad told me how important it always was to give back to the reclamation unit, and never waste even a drop. I put my shorts in the unit, but I was still so ashamed.
Later I went down to the gallery to look at the pictures. I pretended they were real people and I talked to them a lot. I kinda felt better after that, even if they aren’t real. I like talking to the lady. I told her about the bones and she smiled at me, she really did. Sometimes she isn’t smiling, and even if her picture looks the same, it feels different. Dad said it was a special picture because of that.
I think I’ll sleep under the lady tonight. I like to be near her.

Starswirl finally stirred. “It would appear this is a world where the normal practices of agricultural and animal husbandry have failed and food is made by machines.”

“We have been travelling for days, lass. There was no grass. Grass is the beginning of all life, for the things that do not eat grass, eat those things that eat grass. The tree of life must start at the roots. Here, the roots of life are gone. This land is not a desert where life is rare and precious, it is a wasteland where no seed grows and the water itself is as sterile as the dust upon its shores.

“The reclamation unit turns biological matter into food. Any biological matter. The boy and his father lived by scavenging the remains of the dead.” His face was a study in misery. “How did it come to this?”

Twilight had no clue what she could say to console the former human. “I’m so sorry, Maestro, this is such a horrible fate.” Her glance fell again on the sheet she had just read aloud. Twilight’s left ear rose, and its mate joined the first one a moment later.

“Maestro!” she said with sudden energy. “There’s another room we haven’t found!” She put the sheaf of papers onto the table and began to inspect the perimeter of the room. "The foal – the narrator – he said he went down to the gallery!" She kept searching as her horn began to glow. She stopped in front a wall panel that looked like every other, and closed her eyes. There was a vibration in the floor and the panel rose upwards silently, revealing a well-lit stairway leading down.

She turned to Starswirl, who stood nearby with his mouth gaping open. “Ta da!” she chanted with a smirk.

“Well done, lass.” said Starswirl. Despite the words he did not smile. He gestured downwards. “After you, Princess.”

Twilight smiled and spreading her wings minimally glided down to the level below. What came into view as she descended made her jaw drop.

An almost uncountable number of the most beautiful sculptures and paintings she had ever seen filled a hall that could easily have contained the Throne Room in Canterlot Castle several times over.

Twilight stared in awe as Starswirl joined her. He froze at the base of the stairs for almost a minute, and then waved a forehoof at the incredible sight. His voice trembled as he spoke.

“Look carefully, Princess. Collected here are the greatest artworks of an entire civilization.”

Just to the right of the stairs a small pad and pillow lay below a wall of paintings, showing where someone must have slept. Just above the pad was a portrait of what she presumed was another human female smiling. Twilight did a double-take, and approached the painting to examine it more closely.

“This must be the portrait of the lady mentioned in the diary!” She looked at it from first one angle and then another. “I can understand why he wanted to sleep next to her. She’s... I... it’s like I was standing in front of a living being!” Twilight tilted her head first to one side, and then the other, and then it hit her. “Doesn’t her smile remind you of Princess Celestia’s?”

Starswirl approached the painting. His hoof trembled as he raised it and tenderly stroked the painting's frame.

“That’s because it is,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. He sank slowly down to his haunches below the painting, his expression paradoxically both happy and indescribably sad.

“If I doubted it before, then I no longer do: Princess, this is the world of my birth. I painted this portrait many years before I became a pony.” His gaze focused inwards. “I had accepted a commission to capture the likeness of a young noblewoman, Ma Donna Lisa Gherardini,”– he said the name with a strange lilt, as if speaking in a foreign language –“for posterity by her husband. For one of the sittings Princess Celestia showed up disguised as M’onna Lisa,”– that accent again – “and yes, the smile is Celestia’s.”

Twilight indicated the well populated room with her hoof. "What about the rest of these?" Many of them were sculptures of humans and animals done in the classic style, although there were also some more modern looking pieces. Starswirl turned around as his eyes roved left and right over the exquisite pieces, drawn inexorably to the next while still having to tear his gaze from the last.

She sat down next to him while Starswirl scanned the room. "Many of the sculptures I recognize are from antiquity. Some are the work of my close contemporaries in Italy, and some I do not recognize at all. But all unmistakably show the hand and genius of man.”

“We are indeed fortunate, Princess, to have witnessed this,” said Starswirl, sounding hoarse. Twilight had difficulty reconciling his words with the expression on his face. He looked utterly devastated. Concerned, she placed a hoof on his withers, and felt them shake. Then the mage buried his face in his hooves, and wept like a child, no doubt for his species and for this sad world.

“How can it be so?” he spoke through sobs. “How could uncaring providence let there be an end to all the dreams and hopes of an entire world?”

Twilight had no answers to give. She just held on to her idol as grief wracked the old unicorn’s frame, and cried with him and for him. She wasn’t sure how long it took. All that mattered to her was to let him know that he was not alone as he faced this unimaginable loss. At some point the shuddering stopped and he fell into a troubled sleep against her side.

She gingerly levitated his slumbering form aside and took out the bunk-bed from her cache. She gently lay him down on the lower birth, and finally fell asleep holding his foreleg in hers as she leaned against the bed.

Starswirl awoke in the bunk bed to the sound of a gently snoring Twilight Sparkle. The poor filly had spent the night at his bedside. He recalled the reason why, and it took all of his willpower to avoid bursting into tears again.

He did not want to disturb the sleeping mare, and so he quietly rummaged through his pockets, pulling out the sheaf of papers that comprised Maximilian’s diary. He lay the first few pages aside and began to read.

I lost another tooth today. I was glad because it gave me something to put into the reclamation unit. Dad said everything that comes from our bodies has to go into the unit. Then I got an idea. After the last magic storm the little room cleaning machine stopped working, so of course I put it into the unit, but then I thought, maybe it hasn't been working so good lately, so I took my other shirt and used it to wipe the entire floor from inside the elevator all the way down to the gallery. I actually found over two dozen hairs! One was blond like mom’s, I was so happy to have been reminded of her. I kissed the hair before I put everything into the reclamation unit and pressed the button.
I don't listen to the warnings from the unit anymore, there are just too many of them. I have a hard time going outside now. Even though it's getting a bit cooler, I still can't walk very far without getting really dizzy, nowhere far enough to find new organics anyway. So I just have to hope an eater will come here and I can get him before he gets me. It would be a nice birthday present. Only three months before I'm ten years old! I can't wait!

He was just a boy! The thought burned like a fever in his skull, and he suddenly couldn't bear the comfort of the bed. He arose as quietly as he could and went to stand before his Lady. He shoved his face close and began to examine the painting’s every minute detail. He wasn't sure how long he had been there when he heard Twilight's voice.

Starswirl looked in her direction. Twilight yawned and stretched. Her smile could not conceal the concerned expression on her face. "Good morning, lass." He turned his attention back to the portrait.

"What are you doing?" He heard a flap of wings and the soft staccato of the mare's hooves hitting the floor as she landed at his side.

“I spent years working on this portrait, doing infinitesimal adjustments as my knowledge of pigments and techniques evolved. I’ve examined every detail and every brush stroke, looking for differences in the hope that this was not my portrait but that of another Leonardo, my brother from a world almost like my own but still different. But I found no differences, not even in the slightest.”

“What would finding a difference have gained you, Maestro?” she asked, perplexed.

“Hope,” he replied with another glance in her direction. “A slim hope that this was not the fate of my world, but rather that of one closely related to it.” When her expression became quite sad he found he could no longer look her square in the face.

“I know. It is craven of me to wish that this disaster has befallen not mine own world, but my neighbour’s.”

Her reaction wasn’t one he expected. “Maestro!“ she called out, concerned. “It’s not cowardly. It’s a perfectly normal reaction for victims of disaster to look for any ray of hope, no matter how dim, and this... this is the biggest disaster I could ever imagine.”

He nodded and took the portal frame from its usual pocket in his cloak. "Here." He levitated it to Twilight, who took it into her own magic grasp. "I would like for you to write a note of apology and place it inside. Tell the recipient that I'll repay all that I took, with interest, as soon I can. Please repeat it in Gryphonian as well, if you can."

“And, Princess, be wary of what you say. They may not be from either of our timelines.”

Twilight nodded again, and so he started moving towards the statuary at an unhurried pace.

He stopped. He didn’t dare look back at the earnest young mare, for he knew if he saw the sadness in her eyes he would not be able to maintain his own composure. “I go seeking hope,” he said gruffly, and resumed his measured pace.

Twilight took a long deep breath. It was as good a time as any to write the letter, and so she got out a writing desk, quill, ink and paper from her cache. She wished Spike was with her. It was easier to compose a letter when she could just dictate it and didn’t have to write it out at the same time. Not to mention his clawwriting was also way better than her own rather messy hornscript. She considered for a moment. She couldn’t make any assumptions about the age or level of education of the pony that would read the letter, or even that it would be a pony and not a gryphon or some other creature.

It would appear that I have been taking various foodstuffs from you. This theft was unintentional, as I thought I was taking it from my own pantry. However it would appear evidence suggests that there currently exists a significant temporal misalignment time difference between my pantry in Equestria and where (and when) I am now relative to that selfsame pantry, and you yourself – a future or past resident of my cottage (depending on whose point of view we take as a reference, of course!)
In any case, I will endeavor to replace all the items I have taken and will of course give you even more in return as recompense for any alarm or inconvenience I might have caused you.

Starswirl hadn’t mentioned it, but Twilight thought it best to prepare for any eventuality. That included an extended stay on this world.

There is a distinct possibility my companion (yes, I am not alone in having been marooned here, and my companion is a mare from a different time altogether!) and I will need to gather more food from your pantry, otherwise we might starve to death before we figure out how to get back. Could we impose on you to leave some pony-friendly food items in the pantry, and replenish them when they run out?

A sudden thought struck Twilight, and she almost dropped the pen and paper as she facehoofed. Reaching into her cache she pulled out a purse full of gold bits. Feeling embarrassed that she hadn’t thought of it earlier, she resumed writing.

Ahem. Rather than repay you later (ignoring all the mess time travel makes of grammar and proper use of tenses) I will deposit with you now (ibid) some money that should more than adequately reimburse you for your expenses. Please make sure you stock pony foods in your pantry in the places where the items I first took had been situated, as my range of motion within it is quite limited and it wouldn't do to have the food available but out of reach. After all, as Princess Celestia says all the time, “Failing to prepare is preparing to fail!”
I am very grateful for your cooperation as this may be a matter of life or death for my companion and I me. Trust me, you wouldn’t want to be here!

Yours truly,
(I cannot disclose our names as it could cause a temporal anomaly that might swallow whole universes.)
P.S. Could you please put a Cantaloupe and some chocolate in the pantry with the other foodstuffs? Thanks in advance!

Twilight looked down at the letter in satisfaction. She rewrote the letter omitting her various retries and mistakes, trying her best to keep her hornscripting neat and legible, and then rewrote the entire letter in the Gryphonian language using what she hoped was the proper variant of talonscript, as suggested by the cooked fish can. Once finished she pulled out a letter tube from the writing desk, put the small purse of coins inside with the pages, closed the tube, and shook out the portal frame into its hexagonal shape. She then shoved the letter tube through it, and finally refolded the frame.

Next on her ‘order of business checklist’ was ‘breaking camp’, to which she had added ‘general tidying-up’ as they were technically indoors. The bunk-bed and desk were put away, but she had to spend a considerable amount of time and magical energy rebalancing her cache’s coin storage spell matrix, which she affectionately had labeled ‘the bit bucket’.

Having completed all her checklists, she decided to begin her own examination of the remarkable sculptures nearby. At first she was simply amazed at how beautiful and emotionally powerful the statues were. It was intriguing how easily these very subjective perceptions managed to cross the bounds of culture and species. Despite all the alienness, she could not shake the feeling that some of the pieces seemed somehow familiar. She decided to ask Starswirl about it once he returned from his own investigations.

After an hour or so she wandered to one of the far walls. There was an area with several very comfortable looking reclining chairs within what looked like carpet-covered egg shaped enclosures open to one side. On a whim she decided to sit in one of them. The instant she did a list of words in the human language appeared in the air before her face, glowing a golden yellow. She was amazed. Despite her enhanced sensitivity as an alicorn she was unable to detect any magic being used.

Doubting their tangibility, she reached out with a hoof to touch the words themselves. She felt nothing on her hoof, but the line she touched turned red, and the list was replaced by another one. She repeated the exercise again and was rewarded with yet a third list. This time she moved her hoof a bit faster and noticed that each line of text was momentarily coloured red when the tip of her hoof was over that line. It was only when she kept her hoof on a specific line for more than a second that it produced a new list. Each time the list seemed to end in the same word.

She tried the process once more. This time however, the list was replaced by a series of symbols. The first one showed two small vertical bars, the second was a simple yellow triangle pointing to the right, then a square, and then a graduated scale like the light above the elevator door. Touching the first symbol did nothing, however when she put her hoof on the second one Twilight nearly jumped out of the chair as a booming bass line with accompanying drums beat loud enough to make her barrel vibrate.

She quickly pressed the third symbol and the sound stopped. Sounds like Vinyl in one of her experimental moods! she thought.

The square had turned red. She gingerly decided to touch it again, and was rewarded with another yellow list, one that held the same number of lines as the last list displayed. She selected the last item in the list, and was presented with another list that also seemed familiar. By experimenting further she discovered that she could navigate back and forth through the lists as if they were a hierarchy of choices. At some point the lists invariably presented the same four abstract symbols. When she selected the same items as before she was rewarded with the same noisy musical segment that had previously startled her. She also noticed that the slider symbol allowed her to vary the loudness of the sounds.

Twilight’s jaw dropped. “It’s a music library!” she said out loud. With a feral grin she immediately set to sample as much of the music as she could.

Hours later (Twilight wasn’t sure how many) she came up for air, both enthralled and somewhat disturbed. Some of the music was nothing short of rapture given aural form. The songs, the choral pieces (she assumed they were choirs), and the instrumental pieces were simply incredible. But the orchestral ones! Twilight had wept at some of those, and hastily memorized the sequence of touches that produced her favorite melodies.

The aspect that disturbed her though was that not all of the musical pieces were unknown to her. Many in fact sounded quite familiar, if sometimes a bit distorted, as if they had been improperly transcribed. She also decided to ask Starswirl how it was possible that the humans had recordings of the major works of Hoofgang Amoodeus Moozart, the great Bovine composer.

Twilight was hardly back to the location with the stairs and the picture of the lady, when she saw Starswirl returning. He no longer looked so sad. Instead he looked positively furious. He practically stomped his way to the foot of the stairs.

Twilight was quite unsure what he was talking about. She recalled his parting words, but thought that now was not the time to quiz him on his quest for hope. Something had apparently put a bee in his bonnet.

“The boy’s parents, humanity, Providence... and Princess Celestia!” His eyes were wild, and Twilight could clearly see the desperation that lay under the anger.

Starswirl hid his face in his hooves. “I examined many of the sculptures and paintings that were familiar to me. Michelangelo’s Pietà and David, my fresco of the Last Supper, even some of the works by lesser masters. The only anomalies I could find were marks from mishandling or clumsy restorations. Not a stroke of the masterworks themselves was out of place.” His eyes smouldered. “No! This is my world, Twilight! And my people have not been saved by Equestria, as Princess Celestia said they would.” He looked up, betrayal, shame and despair each claiming a portion of his face. “Why!?”

“Equestria is supposed to save this world? But Maestro, I didn’t even know it existed before arriving here. Are you saying Princess Celestia did?”

“Yes she did, lass.” He hesitated a moment. “I agreed to come to Equestria in part because Princess Celestia said she needed my help to save humanity from a dreadful fate. She predicted that the world of Equestria and this one would merge with each other in a number of centuries. However, this would extinguish all intelligent life on Earth because Equestria’s magic was deadly to humanity. Much of my time in Equestria was spent planning how to avoid this unhappy fate, and we had a plan.” He waved a hoof. “But it appears never to have been implemented. And now humanity is... gone.”

Twilight was flabbergasted, and not a little miffed that Princess Celestia had never broached this subject with her. However, loyalty to her mentor compelled her to respond. “Please don’t be mad at Princess Celestia, Maestro! She never breaks a promise. I’m sure she tried everything she could to save Earth.”

“We failed,” said Starswirl. He seemed to shrink visibly as his rage evaporated. “A thousand years to plan and prepare, and we failed them all. We failed him.” He gestured up the stairs. “He was only a child, Twilight. Not even ten years old.” He sat down miserably on the bottom step of the staircase.

“I read another page of his diary before I went to find signs of changes in the artwork.” He offered Twilight the sheets.

Her magic levitated the papers to within reading distance from her face. She read the last sentence of the page:

“How could they?” he asked again. “How could his parents bring a child into a world they knew was dying?”

She thought of the Cakes and other parents she knew. It didn’t take her long to figure it out. “That’s not so hard to understand,” said Twilight in a quiet voice. “They had hope, Maestro. Despite everything that had befallen them and this world, they held on and persevered. I can’t find fault in them. I admire them, no matter how sad their fate and that of their son.”

Starswirl’s reaction surprised her. “There is another reason why I am so angry, Twilight.” He passed her the rest of the sheaf of papers. “Read the last one,” he asked.

It’s been six months since I’ve been able to find anything to put into the reclamation unit. Dad said the stuff in the gallery isn’t to be touched because it’s the last testament of mankind. It’s been a week since the last biscuits came out. The unit says sixty percent efficiency, but I don’t believe it. I’m so hungry!
I once asked dad why we had to use the reclamation unit. He gave me a book to read. It said all the plants had died from man-made biological plagues, and all food production came from microscopic machines. The world was surviving, until the magic plagues started. Then the microscopic machines became less efficient and produced more waste heat. The temperature around the world increased, and despite the world’s best efforts, the microscopic machines stopped working almost everywhere and most people starved. That’s when the eaters started. Not long afterward, the only place where people could live was here in Antarctica, and the magic storms started happening here too. People caught in them would get dark spots on their bodies and then they would die.
I put the book back in the library because it was too depressing to read. It was all dead stuff anyway. I would rather read books about cowboys! I can’t walk up the stairs anymore, so I better stay up here near the reclamation unit, just in case it produces some biscuits. I’m so hungry.

“Do you understand, Princess? They had painted themselves into a corner. Yes, even with Princess Celestia’s plan, the magic plagues would have killed any humans remaining on Earth eventually, but this world need not have died with them! As it was, the Earth had been dying for the last several hundred years. The magic plagues just hastened the end.”

Twilight was again at a loss for words when, suddenly, words came to them, courtesy of the same male voice that had drawn them to this refuge in the first place. It sounded as if it came from the level above. Again, it gave the impression of a text being recited, or a play being read. She flew up the stairs with Starswirl clambering up after her.

As she reached the top she noticed the body of the human child was missing. Instead a familiar form reclined on the single large chair, his back towards her.

“Alas, how terrible is wisdom
when it brings no profit to the man that's wise!
This I knew well, but had forgotten it,
else I would not have come here.”

“There is truth in such words,” said the voice in sepulchral tones. “Don’t you agree, Twilight dear?”

Twilight stood, legs apart and wings partly unfurled. “You!” she said in an angry hiss.

Starswirl galloped around her and clambered to a stop in front of the creature. His eyebrows shot up, and his head moved back in surprise. “It’s the ugly statue from Celestia’s garden!” he said.

“And I think I know how we got here,” said Twilight. “Starswirl the Bearded, meet Discord, the trouble maker.”

The Draconequus rose in his chair, still facing away from Twilight. “That’s not the usual ovation I get when I read the classics, but an artiste gracefully accepts what he is given.”

Twilight steeled herself to receive yet another mocking put-down from the irreverent trickster. Instead he did something she would never have expected in a million years. He turned around with his head down, in a pose that was almost humble. When he looked up there were tracks of tears running down his misshapen face.

This Quiet Earth

by Dafaddah

All Flesh Is Grass