Luna seems to sense your feelings, because again she avoids looking at you. Can she read your thoughts? You choose to proceed on the assumption that she can’t, lest you be paralyzed and unable to act. Only a flame of white-hot anger for your vanished brothers and sisters enables you the courage to speak with such confidence to a being obviously vastly beyond your power and intelligence. If Luna wanted, you know the magic she wields could sweep you away like dew before the sun. You don’t care. If you were silent now, you could never face your fellow man. You could never face yourself again.
“You had no right!” Your mother and sister’s faces seem to shine in your memory. “You told us first, and your first choice wasn’t to interfere with us. I appreciate that… ‘Saving’ us with this spell was a noble thing to do, but you had no right to make the decision to use it for us!”
You don’t know their reasoning for not contacting humanity again with their intentions. Fear for what might happen to society? Obedience to the requests of Earth governments? Sloth? Frankly, you don’t care. “That was wrong.” It’s not what bothers you most, though. “Why couldn’t you just change us so we could survive around magic? If your race is powerful enough to change a whole planet at once, making such a minor change to an existing species should be easy!”
Luna meets your eyes, and you see her pain burning there. “I’m sorry, Lonely Day. What you suggest was our first hope. It would have required hundreds, perhaps thousands of willing human volunteers. It might not have ever been possible; we still don’t understand how your kind created magic, while we and all other forms of life depend on it. Yet the bodies of ponies and other Equestrian creatures we knew well. Perhaps with a hundred or a thousand years of study we might have made such a spell; we only had a few.”
You stew on this for some time, thinking. You know nothing about how such a powerful spell is made, or anything about spells at all besides Joseph’s levitation. Luna’s words ring honest to you; you do not believe she is the sort of pony to lie. After all the damning things she’s told you, you have good reason to think so. She could have easily sterilized pony influence from her story if she wanted, and she hasn’t. That trust does not extend to telling her about the HPI, however. Somehow, you still think doing that would be a betrayal. Let their existence remain a secret.
You sit down on your haunches, staring down at the floor. You find your anger rapidly waning away, replaced with a gnawing pit of hopelessness. The usual self-loathing is there stronger than ever. Luna’s explanation about matching souls to bodies cuts almost deeper than humanity’s “inevitable” extinction. Why were you, of all things, a young earth pony mare? Of all the bodies you could’ve had, that probably would’ve been your last choice.
“Whatever the reason… what you’ve done amounts to exterminating our civilization. Even if the people ultimately survive, the society we built will die. All we accomplished will fade into distant history. Even if the other survivors and I succeed, even if we manage not to starve, humanity as we knew it is gone. Fifty thousand years of crawling down from the trees and out of the dust, and you erased us without even asking!”
All your screaming will be for nothing though, unless: “Can you reverse it? This spell you’ve made… can you stop it?”
Luna shakes her head. “The spell already ran its course, Day. In the instant magic reached your world at last, it ran to completion and faded away. There is nothing to stop. Your people have, by great majority, been sent into the future, and not even Celestia or I could predict when any individual will arrive. A spell to bring them all back would be impossible. Likewise, the transformation was universal. As any human left behind would’ve been slain, we could not leave any out.”
You don’t correct her. It’s easy to cover up that lie of omission with plenty of anger. “What about as individuals? Could you change us back? Could you make me human again? All of us?”
She seems reluctant to answer, turning her eyes away again, and up at the stars. “Yes,” she eventually admits. “Easily.” You open your mouth to speak, but she preempts you. “However, the spell would mean certain death for anyone subjected to it. Transformation is a difficult, intensive process. It saturates the entire body with powerful magic, and strains each and every tissue. You would return to your human form only to suffer the same death every human exposed to magic has suffered before you.”
She reaches out, trying to rest a wing protectively on your shoulder again. This time you pull away in revulsion, glaring at her with all the impotent rage in your soul. She touched you. “I am sorry, Alex. I am sorry if you hate Equestria for what we have done to you. I accept that hatred freely, as this conversation would not have changed our actions. We could not stand by and allow a life like yours to be extinguished. Even if you find the necessary transformation detestable, even if you loathe Equestria for all eternity, we would still have chosen to save you. We could not have lived with ourselves otherwise. It is against our nature to witness the suffering of others and do nothing. This is the Equestrian way. Had we not acted, your species would've died a painful, universal death.”
“If it is any consolation, you will not have to loathe us much longer. It may be eons before our worlds touch again. In all likelihood, it won’t be in your lifetime, or your foals, or theirs, many times over.” She pauses, sitting down on her haunches where you were moments ago. The gesture is far more elegant from her, like a great ancient Sphinx more than a baby horse, which is how you look whenever you try anything.
“I hope, at least, that your hatred will be forgotten by then.” She sighs, and you hear the weariness in it. It’s the sound of mountains wearing away to dust, of stars growing cold in their orbits. The entropy of the universe itself. “So many ponies, when they learned about you, were thrilled by the prospect of friendship with your world. Perhaps their distant grandfoals might realize that promise still.”
Your anger has entirely drained away by then, and only hopelessness is left in its place. You collapse to the ground again, not far away from Luna. “I guess… I guess there really isn’t a way.”
Not for Equestrians, anyway. There is still hope. You’ll be traveling back with a vast library of magical knowledge. Maybe, in time, transformed human unicorns will grow skilled enough to work magic as Equestrians do. Perhaps they might learn to create a human body that can survive in magic, in close cooperation with the HPI and their settlers. Humans arriving from the past as ponies might be restored to their proper bodies then, and Earth’s forests might again see the unprotected feet of their first steward that had ever dared to dream.
But that dream was not one you wanted to share with Princess Luna. Either she could see your thoughts or she couldn’t, but you didn’t trust her completely. You had no doubt that, with the limits of magic now removed, she could easily track down and exterminate the few beleaguered humans if she wanted to. Even if you never imagined she really would, you would not risk their safety. They were your brothers and sisters, not her. No transformation would tell you different.
Even if that one day happened, it was true that human civilization as you had always known it would still be gone. Luna and the Equestrians had sacrificed it to preserve the lives of humans themselves. No amount of rage could reverse the spell. “What… The worst part of all of this is what’s going to be lost. The more time passes, the fewer resources will be available for a new pony just arriving from the past. My little community had basically unlimited food. A thousand years from now, there won’t be anything edible left made by human hands. It’ll all be dust.”
“Sure, ponies can eat grass. Maybe less of them would starve than would have… but lots of us will still die. And even if we don’t, our culture will. Nobody’s going to be thinking about art or the moon landing when they’re freezing to death and eating weeds and running from wolves. You’ve erased us, Princess Luna. The human legacy is gone, and nobody will survive to remember it.” Again, you don't mention the HPI, though you don't really count them either. With most people living as ponies on the outside, their lives are more like the last echos of a dream.
Luna is quiet for a long time. “We have considered the first problem. When this conversation is over, I’ll explain some of the solutions we had discussed. But before that…” She rises to her hooves, fixing you with those intense eyes. You’re grateful she’s not asking about humans, because you could never lie while under pressure like this. “Why do you let this burden trouble you, Lonely Day? You’re young, at the very beginning of life, and the weight of preserving the human legacy is not yours alone. Can’t you be content with all the other ponies in the world, and know that some of them will share your desire? I fear for your future if you allow it to consume your thoughts this way.”
It takes you several seconds to get the confidence to speak, and to put together words that are both correct and entirely honest. You can’t force anything else out between your lips when under such intense scrutiny from such a powerful pony. “I’m sure if those others were here, they’d say so too. But you wanted to talk to a pony from Earth. You wanted to know what we would think. This is it; we always counted on being remembered. Now it seems we’ve been damned, erased, and will soon be forgotten. Worse, there’s nothing we can do.”
Princess Luna looks away then, pacing around you in a wide circle. You’re not sure what she’s looking for, but you try to stand tall. Your anger is spent, and your determination is vastly running out. You’ve said your piece. Now you’ll face the consequences. Like Luna, you would not have done this any other way. You feel something in that moment, though you couldn't say what. A brief surge of understanding, of contentment, of the sense that your place in the cosmic scheme is finally clear. They will not be forgotten.
“Perhaps. There are no others here, no others to serve. There is no time. Since your arrival here, other servants of mine on your planet have brought other ponies here. None met my requirements to be Equestria's envoy. Some have even elected to stay.” She sighs, but it’s more amused than sad this time. “Our engineers could not be more thrilled. Still, of all those who will return, I would trust this burden to no other pony.” Her eyes narrow. “Lonely Day, are you willing to sacrifice your life to see that your people are remembered?”
You nod, without hesitation. You don’t even blink against the force of those eyes.
“Then perhaps, something can be done.” She gestures with one wing, striding briskly towards the door. “Come with me, my little pony. We must speak with my elder sister. There is much we must accomplish before you must return, and very little time to see it done.”