//------------------------------//
// Episode 2.2: Survivor 
// Story: Earth Without Us 
// by Starscribe 
//------------------------------//

Jackie woke screaming, her whole body shaking with painful spasms. Little knives pierced her flesh in a thousand places, constricting her with waves of agony. As she shook, Jackie realized it was actually cold she was feeling, not wounds. With each moment, her sensations came into greater focus. Cold wasn't even quite the word, though it felt that way. It was more like leaving a hot tub after spending an hour relaxing inside: even a comfortable night could seem freezing by contrast. The cold she felt wasn't missing thermal energy, it was a lack of something else. 

Magic.

Jackie's existence had been all but consumed by magic once. Her memories of that place no longer made logical sense, though she tried to interpret them anyway. A place without space where symbols governed all. Alien-looking gods with strange gifts whom she had disappointed by not being someone else. Her mate with holes in her soul.

That last image brought Jackie the strength to sit up, opening her eyes and casting about for Ezri. Jackie was in a small room, with rough wooden walls and only a tiny window set high in the wall. The bed had an old-fashioned look to it, and come to think of it, felt like it was probably filled with straw instead of anything more comfortable.

There was very little light in the room, no electric lights in sight. Yet even so, Jackie found herself transfixed by the glow of the sheet beneath her. Where it neared her body, the white of the bed sheets seemed to fracture into a thousand prismatic shades, so bright her eyes started to water and she had to look away. What the hell was that?

Of course, some sights were more mundane and yet no less distracting. Whatever strange body her memories of the recent past led her to expect, that body appeared to have faded. One glance down at herself told her she was an ordinary bat pony, without any strange mixture of human and pony traits. Probably for the best.

But where was Ezri? There was only one bed in the small room, along with a low table. There was an oil lamp on the table, wick trimmed and not currently burning. It still felt like Jackie was freezing for lack of magic, but it didn't hurt quite so much anymore. She tested her legs and found them sore but functional. There was no trace of her uniform or the gauntlet she should've been wearing near the end of one hoof. Hopefully it wasn't too far away; she would have a hard time getting around Paradise Crater if she lost that.

The door wasn't one of Paradise Crater's usual airlocks, nor were any of the surfaces made of the unidentifiable metal alloys the HPI used for their construction. It was instead an apparently healthy hardwood, sanded and sturdy. Like the ceiling and the bed, it was also built at pony proportions, meaning the handle was slightly above her eye level instead of requiring her to stand on her hind-legs just to open it. Jackie half-expected the door to be locked, and in this she was disappointed. A little pressure and it swung outward, into a plain wooden hallway. Whatever strange trick her eyes had been playing on her with the sheet didn't repeat when she neared the wood, thankfully. That meant it was something strange with the bed and not with her, right? Some kind of healing spell?

Instead of oil lanterns, she found glowing crystals set into brackets on the walls of the hallway beyond, casting a uniform blue glow onto the hardwood floor. There were no guards, nor any ponies she could see. That there wouldn't be humans here she could assume with some confidence: the ceiling would’ve required any to stoop. Besides, just because she felt deprived of magic didn't mean there was none around her. It was still there, such as she could sense it without being a unicorn. Compared to where she had been though, her body felt like it might shrivel up.

"Alright Ezri, where'd you get off to?" Jackie froze as she heard the sound of her own voice. Though the tone was familiar, there was something melodious to her speech that had never been there before. It was as though she had become her own harmony, pitch-perfect even in a few words she had only been whispering to herself.

"What—" The effect didn't fade, no matter how quietly she whispered. Whatever, she couldn't get distracted. Even so, she wondered. She had drunk from the chalice of strange beings, and known doing so would change her. Was this what their potion had done?

Jackie frowned, picking a direction and moving as quietly as she could. After living in Motherlode and then with the HPI she felt more than a little self-conscious to be walking around naked, but she tried to banish the thought. The magical deprivation and her missing mate were both worse. Clothes could wait until then. Did thinking like that mean she was just a regular pony after all?

Jackie could've shouted, and maybe she would've been able to get somepony's attention. Unfortunately, she wasn't sure yet whether she was somewhere friendly or not. She hadn't been locked up, and apparently she hadn't been mistreated, but it was impossible to be sure. The primitive look of the place reminded her of Motherlode, and the comparison did not do any favors for her opinion of the place. When she left, the mine had supposedly been put under new management. That couldn't erase her memories of the abuse she had seen there.

At the end of one hallway, Jackie found a door covered in alien markings. Well... maybe not completely alien. One couldn't spend any amount of time around Alex and not at least learn to recognize the Equestrian alphabet. Jackie couldn't read it, yet it didn't seem like it was being used for any arcane purpose. Rather, it was a line of text on a placard near the center of the door, as any other label might be used. It didn't seem like there was anything arcane on the door. As before, it wasn't locked, and a little pressure made it swing outward.

The door led into a stairwell, lit by more glowing crystal brackets set into the wall. Jackie had seen brackets just like these in Alex's saddlebag, complete with similar glowing crystals. That, combined with the writing made her reflect: could she be in Equestria? Alex had said it was more primitive than Earth, and everything was the right size. Of course, Jackie hadn't seen anywhere besides Motherlode and Paradise Crater, so she didn't have many comparisons to what the outside world looked like anymore. She found that she didn't care, so long as she found Ezri. Everything else could wait.

There was more sunlight from the stairs going up. Eventually she would find a window large enough to climb to freedom, right? The stairs led her to a ground floor even more primitive than the rest of the building she had seen, like the interior of a medieval castle. The walls and floors were thick stone, with thin windows of stained glass. Crystals still provided the light, though they were placed far more regularly here. Instead of the quiet glow of evening, the interior glowed with a pale white light reflected from thick glass windows.

Jackie glared at nothing in particular, searching for a sign of another stairwell. The doors would probably be guarded, but few guarded windows even in a world where so many could fly. It just wasn't practical. However, she found no easy stairs, just a long hallway with flaring buttresses in a Gothic style. Frequent carpets and tapestries broke the dull monotony of plain stone, displaying the obvious wealth of whoever owned the castle.

That probably meant they had been taken to Europe, right? How the hell had she slept through the entire sea-voyage?

Jackie picked the darker direction down the hallway and started walking, ignoring the maze of side doors and passages that branched from it. Such wandering would only get her lost; at least if she stuck to the main open area there would be enough room to fly and maybe get away. What Jackie could really use was someone to give her directions. Alex, she was the one she needed. That confusing pony probably had the floorplan of every medieval castle in the world buried in that library of hers.

Almost as she thought it, Jackie felt a strange weakness all over her body, powerful enough that she nearly collapsed. She stopped, swaying on her hooves, whimpering with the sudden effort it took to stay awake. She searched for whatever trap she had stepped into, or perhaps a unicorn with a glowing horn who had just cast a sleeping spell.

She found neither; the hallway remained as deserted as ever. Jackie started to walk, trundling forward even if she had to beat her wings and drag her hooves to do it. Maybe she could find a side-passage after all, hide in a closet... sleep off whatever was happening to her. She had allies she could find along the Skein, ask for help. Maybe one of them would know what had happened to her.

Jackie made her way to the first door she could find, and was pleasantly surprised to find she wouldn't have to struggle with it. Just as the rest of the lower floors, it had been designed for pony use, with a far lower lever-style handle instead of the twisting knobs that humans favored. "Please God, let it be a broom closet." 

The room beyond was some kind of closet. Unfortunately for Jackie, a pony stepped out the door even as she tried to open it, spoiling any attempt she might've made at secrecy. "Hello there!" The stranger was so close Jackie fell onto her rump, and she very nearly screamed. Only her last few years as a batpony in the HPI were able to keep her from crying out.

Her shock didn't last long. If anything, it was an invigorating slap back into wakefulness. The pony stopped a few feet away, looking concerned. "Are you alright?" That voice was familiar — damn familiar. Where had she heard it before?

In spite of herself, Jackie blushed. Living with the HPI hadn't ever let her get used to being naked, not like Alex and most natural-born ponies were used to it. This mare didn't wear or carry anything, and didn't seem even a little embarrassed about it. "Fine, fine." Jackie's wings folded against her side, and she took a little comfort in their familiar touch on her coat.

"Very good, Jackie." The pony nodded respectfully. "Can you tell me where we are? I don't think my creator ever intended for me to leave the library." She walked right past her, in the same direction Jackie had been going. She didn’t move like somepony who knew where they were going. The mare's steps clattered oddly, as though she wore horseshoes made of glass. 

Jackie took a few seconds to learn her look: soft pink coat with a pastel blue mane, and a cutie mark of — her eyes almost lost focus as she saw it; an incredibly intricate rune the likes of which she had only ever seen in dreams. The pony had a strange reflectiveness about her coat too, as though her shampoo contained a few drops of metallic paint. She almost glittered in the light from the crystals, though the effect didn't seem to happen in the sunlight coming through the windows.

Jackie felt a little better, awake enough that she could follow. So she did, hurrying to catch up. "Who are you?" The familiarity of the voice still nagged at her, though she still couldn't place it. Her strange tiredness seemed to be fading as she walked — a mystery for another day.

"My creator named me Mercy, after my mission."

"You kidnapped me?" She was still too weak to sound angry.

The pony shook her head as they neared the end of the spacious hall. "I suspect I was kidnapped also. I know I don't belong here." She inspected the massive wooden doors, seemingly as surprised by them as Jackie herself. These weren't just big doors, they were positively massive: reinforced by thick metal straps. These were true castle doors, the sort that could take a battering ram and keep standing. Mercy pushed on one of the massive doors and it started to swing, opening with a blast of cool air and unusually soft light. That, and a view Jackie took to be another universe.

A village waited outside the door, unlike anything she had ever seen. It wasn't a modern marvel like Paradise Crater, nor was it haphazard construction in human ruins. Were it not for her powers telling her she wasn't, she probably would've checked if she were dreaming, because what she saw just didn't make sense. Outside the door was a courtyard, though not a very large one. It overlooked a town of thatched roofs and cobbled streets, yet she could also see the glitter of whole buildings made from crystal. Beyond the village were rolling fields, well cultivated with all sorts of crops waving in the wind. 

Jackie's mouth hung open as she looked further still, as far to the horizon as she could. Nearly at the edge of her vision, the pastoral land changed in a single brilliant instant to a frozen wasteland. Flat ice, blowing snow, distant mountains of bare black rock. The division wasn't natural; the demarcation was so abrupt that Jackie knew magic must be involved, even without seeing the towering crystal spires jutting from the ground just before the break.

"Where are we? How did we get here? Where's Ezri?" Jackie could pick up hundreds of voices in the village below, voices raised in happy conversation and song. Cookfires rose from a dozen chimneys, and Jackie's stomach rumbled at the scents. Those were the smells of well-fed ponies, of hearty stews and vegetables, not the grass that ponies in failing settlements ate.

"I can only provide information I was given. Perhaps if you were to explain the answers to those questions I could repeat them in the future."

Jackie sighed. It could've been worse: the pony could've raised an alarm. At least she was only being unhelpful. "What do you know?" Jackie took in the castle, its empty parapets and glowing guard-stations. None seemed staffed. Could the guards be down in the village with the doctors? She supposed the village wouldn't have much to worry about from bandits, with arctic wasteland surrounding it on all sides.

"Everything my creator knew or suspected about the Biblio Universalis. Seeing to its creation is my entire purpose."

Jackie walked a little ways up the cobblestone path in the courtyard, towards the outer wall. The term was not familiar to her, though it did remind her of something. "That's Latin for..." Thank goodness for cognates. "A universal book?" She grinned. "Did Alex send you then? She told me about a project like that!"

Now it was the pony following her, not the other way around. "Send me, no. Alex was one of my creator's names, though it was not the one I used. I still don't know how I found my way outside the library. When she created me, Archive said she exploited the weak laws of the conscious realm, imagining me into being as she could never have created in the world she called the Phenomenal. I must infer that we are in some other realm yet without the conscious — another dream, as she might explain. Perhaps yours?"

"We aren't dreaming." Jackie didn't hesitate with her answer, though she didn't expect an earth pony to understand it. She opened her wings a little, as if to illustrate she was a thestral. Not that it wouldn't be abundantly clear from a hundred other details of her body. "I know a dream when I feel one, Mercy. The world has a flexibility that—"

She trailed off, suddenly noticing what she hadn't only moments before. As she had said, the world she was in now didn't feel anything like a dream. It did, however, contain a single element that did. While the rest of the world was concrete, resistant to any manipulation Jackie might've wanted to do, this one being had a certain malleability about her, a fluidity that marked her as something other.

"You're a figment!" Jackie exclaimed, retreating a few steps in sudden shock. "But that's not possible! The first rule of dreams is that they aren't real! It's all in the mind, doesn't have any impact on the body or the real world. You can't be here!"

The mare didn't look offended to be told she wasn't real. She shrugged, studying Jackie without apparent comprehension. "Please do not get distracted, Jackie. We have a purpose to accomplish still. Archive created me with the instruction to serve you and aid you in completing her mission. We cannot abandon that mission now simply because we are lost. Use your thestral magic, return us to the library, and let us return to work. Archive's spell remains incomplete."

"This isn't a dream." Jackie walked past the figment, through the open gates and onto a pleasantly cobbled road. The road stretched down the broad hill, curving with it and passing in front of the numerous buildings below. She didn't have to look far along it to see activity she hadn't been able to see from within the courtyard.

Just beside the road, in a huge open field about a mile away, a fair seemed in progress. A few thousand ponies crowded into the space, watching entertainers and shopping from booths and seeming to enjoy themselves. Songs carried through the air, joyful songs just a little too distant to make out. 

This, then, explained why she had been abandoned. An unconscious pony didn't need much guarding. Could Ezri be there?

"I already told you that, Mercy. I am a thestral: I can sense a dream by the way it feels around me. Dreams have a flexibility to them, a resonance within the Skein. Feeling how they might be twisted, searching out their meaning and the secrets about their dreamer they reveal, is central to my powers. If I was asleep, I would know it."

"I am not real," Mercy said, following her out the gate. "You said this yourself. I cannot reconcile your statements. How may we not be in a dream yet I not be real? Is this the Supernal, the realm higher still than dreams Archive sometimes mentioned? Or—"

A realm higher than dreams? Jackie shook her head. "Nothing like it. We're not in the untamed Skein either; if we were, it would take concentration to prevent you from being torn apart by its chaos. I'm not concentrating on you. You're not even my creation. Apparently you're Alex's. Created to—"

She remembered everything at once. The reason the mare's voice sounded so familiar was because she spoke in Alex's voice, if Alex had been an adult mare instead of a teenager. Alex had told her in detail about an unfinished spell and some kind of automaton she had created to assist Jackie in the event— in the event of her death.

"Could a spell of Alex's have sent you to me, Mercy? She mentioned a spirit she'd created as insurance. Could you coming here be something she planned?"

"No." Mercy didn't hesitate. "Archive was forthright about my purpose. When she died, I would remain within her library. I would care for and maintain the structure until she returned. More importantly, I would assist you in finishing her spell and distributing the Biblio Universalis. Leaving the library would be antithetical to my purpose. How could I maintain a place without being there?"

"Your creator didn't know much about the way dreams work." Jackie started walking down the hill, towards the crowd. There were very few guards at the festival, at least few she could see. The ponies there didn't look hostile; most of them weren't even dressed. She hadn't been locked in either, or apparently guarded. 

Just now, Jackie was willing to risk a little harshness for answers. She had to find out where she was, how she had gotten there, and what had become of her mate. Philosophical questions like "how does a dream make it into the real world?" were interesting, but slightly less important. So she walked. 

"Dreams require a dreamer to maintain. Powerful ones repeated over and over gain stability in the Skein, as Alex's library has. However, a figment has no soul, so can't keep it running. I tried that; it was one of my first ideas back when I was trying to sell dreams. Program a staff to keep doing things, then I could just drop a client in and not have to do anything. It doesn't work." She sighed. "You wouldn't be able to accomplish your purpose."

"I would find a way." The mare was unapologetic, following alongside her. 

Jackie was even more conscious of the strange horseshoes she had to be wearing, clinking along with their glass chiming. Alex had dreamed up a strange figment to run her library, that was for sure.

"Once I find Ezri, maybe I can return you to your dream. Until then, you'll just have to stay close."

Between the chill air and having a destination in mind, Jackie made swift progress towards the fair. Soon enough she could make out the voices with her sensitive ears, and she listened closely for what their words might tell her about the purpose of this fair.

Their accents were very strange, utterly unplaceable in her memory. As she listened, she found herself reminded of those technical support lines in other countries that had existed before the event, with staff that had learned a language from books and movies and not really used it much in their ordinary lives. That was the way the ponies spoke.

As she got closer, she could see the crowd was almost entirely ponies. Motherlode, like most of the former US had been very strongly pony in population, but it hadn't been a monoculture. There had always been the rare griffon or minotaur to break up the monotony, and give her someone to relate to in her weirdness. Not so here; she didn't see a single individual who wasn't on four hooves. There was no glitter of changeling chitin either (though with this environment, she was fairly sure they'd want to blend in).

There were a few thestrals, though as in all pony populations her species was quite rare and there couldn't be more than a handful.

Jackie made her way into the fairground, and she nearly jumped as someone levitated something around her neck. She looked up, whole body tensing, but she swiftly relaxed.

A unicorn filly, maybe fourteen, stood beside a large cart of painted wooden necklaces, which seemed a universal trait of the crowd. "Never forget our home!" the filly said cheerfully, levitating one for Mercy as well. "Enjoy the fair!"

Jackie nodded in a way she hoped would make up for her freaking out, glancing down at the wooden necklace. It was fairly simple, a length of twine with carved wooden suns and moons painted around it. A single sun at the bottom was larger than the rest, and carved slightly different than the others.

Jackie recognized these marks, all but the one at the bottom. They were the cutie marks of the Equestrian princesses, something she knew thanks to Alex's library. They were the same marks sewn into the entrances on either side of the magical storage. "Who's in charge?" she asked, keeping her voice just above a whisper. "Of the fair, I mean."

The soft golden filly raised one eyebrow, but she didn't argue the question. "Princess Sunset. She's in charge of everything."

Princess Sunset hadn't been the name of any of the Equestrian princesses. Jackie felt herself relax a little; for a few horrible moments she thought she had somehow made her way all the way to Equestria. She imagined crossing universes wouldn't have been easy to repeat. "Where can I find her?"

"Look for the princess." The filly's confusion seemed to be growing, and Jackie felt the suspicion in those eyes. It was time to move on.

"Thanks!" She hurried past her, praying that Mercy would follow and not make any more of a scene. She did follow, and soon enough the two of them were lost in the crowd. 

As embarrassing as being naked was, it seemed to be the dress code around here. Some ponies wore hats, others scarves or other simple accessories, but these were the exception. Being naked meant she didn't stand out, despite being a total stranger in a new place. It was a strange blessing, but Jackie intended to exploit it.

"Look for the princess," Jackie muttered to her companion, eyes scanning the crowd. She moved along with it, flowing clockwise around the stalls and booths. More than one of the food carts tempted her with the smells she had detected from the castle, but she couldn't risk getting any. Just because these ponies didn't seem to be carrying money didn't mean there wasn't some other monetary system in play she wouldn't understand. No, her hunger would have to wait. "What does a princess look like?"

To her great surprise, Mercy answered. "Princess is another word for Alicorn, or at least that's how Archive used it. It means having wings and a horn both — having the powers of all three basic equestrian tribes."

Jackie was taken aback, and tried not to let her mouth hang open for too long. "I thought you only knew about the book!"

She nodded. "Alicorns are one of the ways Archive speculated we might power the spell, so she taught me all about them. Including what she knew about creating them. Though she wasn't an Alicorn herself, so I suspect her information was incomplete."

Jackie felt a stab of something in her gut, something like a memory. For an instant she felt terrible grief, so intense she had to wipe away a tear and scrunch her mouth shut to restrain an involuntary sob. Where had that come from? 

Just as her strange fatigue earlier, it didn't last, and she was soon able to continue. "Keep your eyes open for an Alicorn, then. I didn't think that Earth had any, but it must if these ponies think they have one."

"Earth has one so far; Sunset Shimmer. I expect it's the same one."

"Did Alex teach you what she looked like?"

Again her companion nodded. "With some detail." She stuck out her neck, so the cutie mark on the wooden necklace hung closer to Jackie. "This is her mark. Archive spoke of her secret settlement somewhere in the world. The Alicorn would never speak of it to my creator, and so she respected her wishes and did not search for it. It seems we've stumbled into it by accident."

"What did your 'creator' think of this princess? If she was from Equestria, she must not've been that great. Weren't the Equestrians the ones who cursed everyone?"

Mercy shrugged. They were nearing a large raised platform in the center of the fairgrounds, where a band was playing cheerful music and a group of ponies sang. Jackie had never heard any of the songs or even seen most of the instruments, but she didn't have time to bother with any of it now. "She did not speak of the Event much, except as an objective to overcome. I believe Archive greatly respected and admired the pony Sunset. I don't recall her ever being described in a way other than kindly, though my memory isn't as perfect as her own."

"Then Archive is probably here, right? She would've come to meet with Sunset. Maybe... Maybe Ezri and me got hurt, and... she took us here for..." Even as she said the words she knew they didn't make sense. Yet still she hoped. There was an answer for how she had gotten here, an answer that made sense. She would find it.

"Weeks have passed since last I spoke with my creator. Not even an earth pony would have been able to stay awake this long, and she was a pegasus. I don't believe we will find her here or anywhere."

Jackie shivered, but she had no reason to doubt the pony's words. "We'll... cross that bridge when we find this princess." She forced herself to keep searching. She kept an eye out for the largest clumps in the crowd, signs of important ponies that others wanted to see. She saw none yet, but that didn't mean the princess wasn't here. "I wouldn't worry about it, Mercy. Alex died a few decades ago, and she was only gone a month. If it's already been weeks, I'm sure she can't be far from coming back."

"I... suppose." The pony followed close, keeping well away from any of the other groups. The crowd appeared to be too thick, its members too invested in their activities to notice the strangers. "I knew my creator to be very wise. If she thought she would return, I don't see why she would have needed to create me."

"No reason." The voice wasn't her own, yet it spoke far clearer English than most of the ponies milling about in the crowd. "Alex was learning to plan for the far future. It's an important skill for immortals, at least the ones who want to make a difference."

Jackie looked back at the speaker, and suddenly froze. They had found the princess. She shared several colors in common with the cutie mark at the end of the necklace, bright yellows and reds with a mane so brilliant it sparkled in the pale sun. She stood several inches taller than Jackie herself, even with the gangly height of a winged pony on her side. She wore slightly more than her subjects, with a thin golden crown resting atop her head. It wasn't very large, more of a band really, unadorned with jewels or fancy engraving. Of course, her wings together with her unusually long horn said far more of her authority than any lump of metal could, no matter how precious.

She couldn't help herself. While she didn't bow, she did lower her head in respect. "Princess Sunset Shimmer, right?"

"And you're Jackie." At her nod, Sunset continued. "Guess the nurse watching you came to the festival. Are you well enough to walk?"

"Plenty." She burned with questions, but was uncomfortably aware of a hundred eyes on them. With Sunset's attention, the whole crowd watched.

"Follow me, then. We need to talk."