Lost Among The Stars

by PostPony


3 - And Smell The Roses

---Twilight Sparkle---

I woke up again a few hours after Spark Eclipse left. It was still dark except for the minimal illumination from the dim lights on the walls. It took a second before the recent events flowed back into the forefront of my mind. Having nothing else to do, I spoke the words, “Legs on.”

Another shock, slightly weaker than the one I was given last time I was awake, struck me where the mechanical limbs connected to my torso. A pained whine escaped me this time. The feelings of pain left me after a moment, replaced with sensations that were rather confusing. Regardless, I tried sitting upright. Instead of the easy motion I expected, I got a flurry of random leg movement. I even accidentally kicked myself. I didn’t feel any pain, but I certainly felt the impact.

I sighed and decided to focus on relearning how to walk. It was a good distraction from anything else. I didn’t want to think about home right then.


---Luna---

Things were not well in Equestria. While a number of state sponsored projects were underway to find methods to protect Canterlot from ever again coming so close to destruction, I knew that Celestia had been holed up in her room for a number of days now. She had skipped court several days in a row and was entirely missing from the public view.

The gentle clip clop sounds of my hooves against the hallway floor accompanied by the flap of Rainbow Dash’s wings had come to a stop. It was nearly noon when I knocked on her door. I knew that she could hear me and that she knew it was futile to ignore me. It always was. I knocked again, patiently waiting for a response. “Princess Celestia? Are you there?” Rainbow Dash called through the door. “Celestia?”

“Sister,” I spoke out next next, “you can’t stay in there forever. You need to talk with us-”

The door’s lock noisily unlatched and the door began to open slowly. From my position at the door, I could see my sister upon her bed watching us.

“Sister, you still lead a country, you need to-” I was interrupted by the venom in Celestia’s voice.

“I declare you solar regent. Go away.” Celestia quickly penned a note across the room on her desk and sent it away in a green flash.

I was stunned. I had not expected to be treated this way by my sister after all that has happened, much less to just toss her responsibilities aside. Rainbow on the other hoof became angry. “How could you.” She said darkly. She walked closer to where Celestia was lying, emotional force in her hoofsteps. “How could you turn your back on her, them.”

While Celestia’s expression was one of a highly controlled deadpan stare, the approaching pegasus allowed hers to worsen.

“Twilight looked to you like a mother. Now you’ve abandoned her! What do you expect us to think about that!” Rainbow shouted at the embodiment of the sun.

Celestia was quiet. I watched with mild worry as she got off her bed and stood up. Rainbow took a breath to say something more but her words were cut off as a golden aura snapped her mouth shut and abruptly lifted her up. Celestia, still silent, began marching across her room toward a door seldom used.

“Sister!” I yelled and began following them, fearful and unsure of what my sister planned.

She threw open the heavy stone door and cold misty air flowed out past her hooves. In just a moment they were both inside. I quickly caught up to see what was going on. At first it looked like just a stone box of a room. Rainbow was nearly shoved against a wall that seemed to have one half a darker shade of grey than the other.

“Do you see them?” Celestia spoke softly, but the volumes of restraint bode of bad news.

Rainbow, who looked slightly scared in spite of her everlasting tough front, looked confused at first until her eyes went wide in some sort of understanding. I followed closely to get my own look and discovered that rather than a plain stone wall of a slightly different shade like I thought, but an ocean of densely packed text. I quickly realized that it was all names and cutiemarks.

“They all deserve to be remembered.” Celestia spoke slightly louder. “But their lives were easy to dismiss. They were all the ones that mattered to me but I let most of them out of my mind without too much effort.”

“There has only been one exception, and now there is a second.” Celestia’s voice was losing its silky smooth nature and was moving towards a worn, gravelly sound. Rainbow had no words of course, but at that moment she squirmed as Celestia’s tears escaped her eyes and fell. Drips of boiling hot water were landing on her right wing. Before Rainbow could try to struggle, I saw my sister’s magic brush the dangerous fluids off. Rainbow was set down and released onto the floor of the small stone room. Celestia quickly made her out. She had stopped by me and in a whisper not audible to Rainbow, “Take care of things for a while, okay?”

As Celestia exited the room, I noticed a trail of boiling drops of water on the smooth stone floor marking the sun princess’s path. Then she was gone. A quiet pop of a teleport and a dim flash to go with it shown throughout her bedroom. I sighed in defeat.

“Let us leave, Rainbow. Best to not linger.”


---Spark Eclipse---

The sun was only just rising when I returned to the hospital. I flew north of my home, detouring over the misty Pacific waves before curving over the urban sprawl of Tamarelantis towards the hospital which stood alone surrounded by residential areas. I timed myself to land at the entrance at exactly 6 AM. I was pleased to find Berry Sun and Frosty Davis where they had been dropped off by an automated government car. In no time we were in the elevator ascending to the newcomer’s room.

Nothing had been said for a moment before Frosty’s curiosity got the best of her. “Mr. Eclipse, um, did we ever find out who that pony was?” She asked. I noticed Berry give her a subtle kick in attempt to tell Frosty to be more respectful, but both she and I ignored it.

“Yes actually.” I started, glad that the young mare was less timid around me than the average pony. “I can start by saying that The Wait is over.”

While Frosty waited for an explanation, Berry probably almost had an aneurysm. “What! What do you mean it’s over?!”

Frosty nearly jumped out of her shoes at the outburst. “Would someone explain what this wait is?”

I turned around and fiddled with some controls on the back wall, which quickly became transparent. The wall was now a window overlooking the receding ground and city and the Pacific ocean beyond. “The wait for our ancient cousins to find us. We aren’t native to this world as I hope you've learned in school. That pony you saved has very little genetic similarity to any pony in the world, yet the mare we are going visiting is another like me. I could sense it. Yet she is probably only Berry’s age.”

“So she’s an alien pony?” Frosty interjected. I looked at her for a second before laughing lightly.

“Well, you aren’t wrong. Keep in mind that she speaks a dialect of our original language rather than English. Also, she had to receive some heavy modification to preserve her ability to walk. Since she is another hybrid pony, she will recover fully regardless. I spoke with her a little bit last night. She called me something that I believe translates to 'alicorn'. In both languages it means the material that horns are made of, but they seem to have adapted it to refer to ponies that are a mix of all subspecies, like me,” I explained.

The conversation trailed off for the last few seconds of the elevator ride. A gentle bell sound announced our arrival to the top floor. We shuffled into the short hallway. It had only a few rooms for patients along with one for storage and another for a teleportation locus for emergency purposes. We approached destination door when we heard a loud thump.

I hesitated for a split second before quickly entering the room. The two mares chased me in to see what the commotion was. Before us we saw the purple mare whose limbs had been replaced with high quality prosthetics. Rather than resting in the bed like a sensible pony, she was spilled halfway onto the floor, face first.

I immediately moved to help her up while Berry and Frosty stayed in the back of the room standing awkwardly waiting to see why I had brought them. While berry was looking closely at her augments, Frosty appeared to be self conscious about her bipedal stance and the fact that she was wearing clothes casually. After checking to make sure for a second that Twilight was fine I turned towards them and started gesturing towards the two of them. “Berry, would you say hi and wave?”

Berry did so. “Um, Hello.” She waved for a second before turning towards me. “I thought she didn’t know English?”

“She doesn’t, but greetings work either way.” I informed Berry. I turned to Frosty. “Would you do the same Frosty?”

Frosty appeared to be distracted for a second by her thoughts before she realized what she had been asked. “Oh… hi.” Frosty waved. Twilight just stared at her, further agitating her self consciousness. She shifted nervously on her back legs that were stilted off the ground by the shoes made of black plastic and carbon mesh materials. Frosty held her smile and stopped moving, not knowing what to do.


---Twilight Sparkle---

I had been attempting to practice with my legs for nearly an hour before Spark Eclipse and the other ponies had arrived. I was relaxing on the bed from my self taught rehabilitation when a small mechanical device on wheels rolled into my room and up to my bed. Its top surface was raised up on top of a hexagonal scissor lift with a telescoping pole in the middle. On top of the raised surface was some kind of container made out of a material I wasn’t familiar with. It was a white substance that was flexible yet stiff, if those contradictory descriptions made any sense. It was easy enough for me to use my magic to open it to the welcome sight of food in the form of carrots, beans, and a salad.

At that moment I had a small emotional relapse after the reminder that I had been separated from everything else I had ever known, but at least there were ponies here that were friendly and food I recognized. I used my magic to feed myself before I realized that I needed to use the bathroom. I carefully got off the bed, moving one leg at a time as I maneuvered myself onto the floor. I telekintetically pushed the curtain to the side and looked through the window to the ocean beyond. I had looked out once already but one look down at the city below and I backed off. I didn't want to contemplate the alien architecture right then, even though it was made by ponies. The curiosity simply wasn't there. This time my needs propelled me toward the room which had a sign on it with a paper attached underneath that said ‘bathroom’ in my language in perfectly written script. I found it odd how perfectly the text was printed, not to mention the sign above it with alien text engraved into it, probably saying the same thing. Regardless, I had more pressing concerns at the moment.

Several minutes later I was slowly trudging back toward the bed, thankful that the equipment in the bathroom was so easy to use, yet surprised at how different it was from what I was used to. I had arrived at my bed as I realized that I faced a challenge in its height. It was a challenge I had faced already, but I had cheated and used my wings that time. This time I elected to try walking around the room for a while longer to further get used to walking again. I had a new direct sympathy for ponies that had been injured greatly.

A while later I decided to attempt to get back onto the bed. I scrabbled up as best I could but my last effort to leap on top put too much much momentum in my movement that I could not counter with my wings in time and fell off the other side. What would have been a hard face plant turned into a heavy thud when I landed on the injured part of my chest that had been replaced with protruding metal parts. There was not much pain to be had but I felt a headache develop anyway.

At that moment the alicorn, Spark Eclipse, that I had met the previous day entered the room and quickly came to my side. “Hey. You okay?” He said before helping me back onto my new hooves.

“I’m fine. Having an armored chest can be convenient.” I attempted to feign emotional calmness. It was immediately obvious that Spark Eclipse saw through it but he didn’t do anything about it.

Instead he stepped aside and introduced me to the ponies he came in with. “That’s good. I’d like introduce you the ponies that saved you back the other day when you came. You were in bad spot and very bad condition body and actually in hole in ground under a statue. It almost fell if not for fast action by these two.” He explained. I was surprised that things could have gone even worse than they already had. “First is Berry Sun. She stopped statue falling.” He spoke to the pony who said some sort of greeting I assumed and waved. I waved back.

Spark then brought my attention to the other. “This is Frosty… eh, last name not translate, but she carry you out. They both is hero.” I only then really noticed the light blue pony with the white mane and tail with the icy eyes who stood on her back legs. The oddness quickly gave way to intrigue towards the items she had on her legs that seemed to allow her to stand in the odd manner easily. And the clothes seemed odder still. She seemed to be wearing a small garment made of tough, light blue material on her legs. It seemed to be analogous to pants that some higher class minotaurs would wear in their capital. She also was wearing some sort of basic shirt that was a darker blue that covered most of her torso except for her midriff.

I battled with myself for a moment about whether it was rude or not to ask about that but I decided that I may as well make my mistakes in a controlled environment. “Why is she standing like that. We have nothing like that at home so this is confusing.”

The taller alicorn nodded in understanding. “This because she spend time with many humans. Step father is human and many friends are human as far as understand. I suppose you have not seen any yet, but they have many nations over rest of world. I will have you meet one, but they stand tall so some pony learn to stand like them to make relating easier.”

I nodded in consideration. Spark continued. “I want try to make you know this place and may use their help again if want. Help you learn language and help me learn you language in case need sometime. I want give you place in my home so I can keep eye for while. Press wants to know about what happen when you came and want to make you ready. After maybe possible to find way home for you I think.”

I briefly pondered the situation before going with the one path available to me. I took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes. That seems to be the best way to deal with this.” I went to move closer but the fact that I wasn’t focusing on moving correctly nearly led to me fall over once again but I was caught in an orange aura cast from Spark Eclipse.

“May also relearn walk. These two mare can maybe help me if you like. Make friend, help learn, and keep company while I away sometimes. Sound good?” His Equish was decaying as he spoke, likely resorting to trying to just speak efficiently. Regardless, I was the Princess of Friendship. What better way to get a start in the world than by making friends?

“Yeah. Sounds good.” For the time being, the intellectual side of my mind was engaged. Successfully distracting me from the pain inside.