• Published 19th Sep 2015
  • 8,413 Views, 964 Comments

The Eternal Lonely Day - Starscribe



Human civilization ended on May 23, 2015, when everyone on earth became a pony. In the years and centuries that followed, what would humanity become?

  • ...
39
 964
 8,413

Chapter 12: Arrival Day (291 AE)

They came from the gloom of near evening, circling in from upwind where their prey would not smell them. Since the Event, it seemed that all animals were at least a little smarter. Huan had seemed to outright understand her at times, and followed complex spoken instructions with characteristic canine loyalty. Unfortunately, that same new source of mental power was extended to all creatures, even the dangerous ones. Even the wolves.

In later years, she might be impressed with their cunning. At the time, though, she didn’t consider it. A single lone beast, massive and shaggy gray, came at them from a direction she could smell and expect it. It loped towards them with head down and ears back, in clear hunting fashion.

Day scooped Ezri onto her back and did what many equines had done before her when confronted with danger: she ran. “Hold on Ezri! Don’t let go no matter what!” The ground flew beneath her with the crunching of her boots. It was true she might’ve been faster and stronger without them, getting her hooves directly on the earth... but such minor obstructions mattered less and less as she got older.

She filled herself with the alien vastness, expanding her perceptions. She saw the earth itself stretching out in all directions, and knew exactly where to put her hooves so they would not slip. Strength gave her gallop the leaping confidence of a gazelle. A wolf might be able to run down a unicorn or flightless pegasus, but never an earth pony. It was all the creature could do to keep up.

The drone squeaked and whined in protest, though Day couldn’t have said why. Only later did she understand Ezri had probably judged the wolves’ plan better than she had. It took one predator to know another. The wolf chased her off the path and into the trees, never getting close yet not letting her get far enough away to choose her own route.

She saw them all at once: half a dozen animals, with coats somewhere between white and gray. Then a mouth that could’ve opened wide enough to crush her whole head. She dodged to one side, only to find another wolf blocking her. When she reeled backward, a third wolf emerged, teeth bared. They circled in on her, closing the circle tighter.

She hadn’t been thinking rationally. What she should’ve done was get her gun from inside the bag, or charged the first wolf directly. An earth pony with her strength, with three centuries of combat experience... she could’ve turned the animal to paste. A dozen wolves were different. While she killed one, another would rip Ezri in half, and three more would be on her back.

Instinct, like hot sweat in her brain, screamed that she should run, bolt through the circle and try to escape. Now that she realized it was there she fought it back, forcing herself to think rationally. Thinking like a horse was exactly what she didn’t need right now.

None of the wolves struck right away, just slowly tightened the circle. They seemed to recognize the danger this prey presented; the first individual to attack would very likely be hurt. A single kick from an earth pony could break bones, which could mean death for a wild predator. That gave her a few precious seconds to think.

She couldn’t get inside the saddlebags fast enough, not with the way they were tightly attached to her back. Ezri, though... “Get in!” She turned, yanking the nearest flap open with her teeth. The Luna side, the one she used for storage. It couldn’t be helped. “Don’t open that for anything!”

To her credit, Ezri obeyed. No sooner had she clambered in than the saddlebags froze in the air, rigid and unyielding. Alex was trapped. Of course, the wolves couldn’t actually know that. She made a show of huffing and bouncing back and forth, when she was really wiggling her way out of the straps. She couldn’t lower her mouth to the release; that would be an invitation to pounce.

“Another step closer and you’re dead!” she shouted, casting her eyes about the group. “I’m not as young and defenseless as I look!” She would have to start traveling with her gun over her shoulder if she lived through this: she hadn’t thought wolves had made it this far south yet. “Dead!”

A particularly nasty wolf, its face covered with scars and teeth broken, was the first to lunge at her. Protecting Ezri had meant trapping her: she couldn’t get her flank out of its way. Unfortunately for the wolf, she had felt its leap through the ground and been ready for it.

She filled herself with enough of Earth to turn her blood to iron, and bucked with the force of a cannon. Claws raked easily through her trousers and underclothes, but slid off her hide like it had been steel. Bones broke. Not hers. One wolf didn’t move.

“The rest of you want that?” Her shout shook the earth at her hooves, or perhaps it came from the earth. It was hard to tell. Her back legs were free now, only her forelegs were still attached. Trapped was still trapped though, and they seemed to realize.

The trap sprung closed, the whole lot lunging for her at once. Archive inhaled, taking in all that her senses gave her, comparing it to all she knew, calculating. Exactly eleven wolves in the circle still alive, three more a little ways off to catch her if she made a run for it. She should’ve felt honored; such attention was only warranted for really big, dangerous prey. They must be hungry to attack a pony like this.

Archive leapt forward, twisting through the stationary loop of the strap. Her jump took her away from the saddlebags, and directly into the gaping jaws of another gigantic wolf. She twisted in the air so she would take the creature with her shoulder.

Archive was off the ground this time, and couldn’t call upon the full strength of Earth. Still, there was enough of it in her that when she met the wolf, it was her bones that didn’t break. Its teeth and at least two sets of claws raked through her clothes in various places, bringing hot lances of pain but not enough to stop her. She landed and rolled outside the place they had closed. Her jump had been too fast for most of them to track.

“You’re dead!” she roared, twisting back towards the group. Howls and snarls answered as they turned back on her. She let the earth wash over her, dulling her pain to insignificance for the moment. Her photographic perceptions let her take in the entire situation simultaneously: several more of the wolves lied whimpering around the saddlebags, which had seemed so soft yet yielded less to them than a brick wall. None looked more than stunned, however. She had only taken one more out of the fight, as the huge female retreated to nurse a few newly broken teeth.

Escape was there in the air, if she could get the bags open and closed again in time. If she died in the fight, Ezri would almost certainly starve before she returned. Archive had to survive. “You’re supposed to be hunting deer damnit!" One of the wolves was clawing at the saddlebags where Ezri had vanished. He managed to get the side open, but it was empty. Only Archive or Luna could open that bag.

They left it open, which meant she would have to close and then open the bag, without letting them get in beside her. At least Ezri wouldn’t be able to open her way out with the bag already open on the outside.

Archive turned and fled, pounding deeper into the forest towards the nearest watching sentry. She made no attempt to evade the creature, striking straight on at a full gallop. More blood stained her white snow clothes; more blood that wasn’t her own and another predator that wouldn’t hunt pony again.

She pounded through the forest, twisting and weaving like a doe that had lived here all her life. She came upon thick brambles, but didn’t even slow. “Let me through!” The plants grumbled in their way, but slid aside without so much as snagging her coat, letting her maintain her pace.

She banked sharply to the left as she came upon a frozen pond, which would’ve sapped all her magic the instant her last hoof slid off the snow. One of her pursuers, a few fresh scratches on its hide from the nettles, couldn’t turn sharply enough and went sliding out onto the ice. A few more scrabbled against it, found their footing, and kept going after her.

Just how hungry were these wolves? She had injured three of them now and hadn’t been slowed. Shouldn’t they have given up? The alternative frightened her far more than the idea of starving wolves: wolves smart enough to take it personally when she killed their own, and to feel anger and hatred towards her. To want revenge.

They wouldn’t get it. They had picked the wrong lonely traveler to attack. Pity really; Archive had no anger towards a predator for doing what it had evolved to do. She wouldn’t hesitate to do whatever she had to do to survive in turn. If that meant killing each and every one of them, she would. Guilt and second-guessing were luxuries of people who weren’t somepony’s food.

She couldn’t stand her ground, not without getting torn to pieces. She could keep enough magic in her for a single blow, but not half a dozen at once. Each new strike weakened her, strained her connection to the planet that much more. What she needed was her gun.

Her loop took her back to the saddlebags, floating as they were in the air. A short, lean wolf still pawed in vain at it, neither scratching the leather nor succeeding at revealing the juicy changeling inside. “Get out of my way!” she bellowed, and the juvenile retreated. Alex didn’t bother with the open side, but jumped and clambered into the sun side of her saddlebags, where she landed in a limp heap.

She heard more scratching and barking from outside, felt the fabric shake. Maybe they would try and open this side too, and she would have to shake the entrance until she could get the flap to drift closed. What she wanted to do was sit here as long as it took to get the wolves to get bored and leave her alone. She couldn’t though, not with Ezri terrified in the storage side. No child could be left in that state: Ezri needed love, and without it she might be rash. She might eventually try to escape, right into the waiting jaws of the wolves.

Alex shrugged out of the jacket, wet as it was with blood and shredded through in several places. She pounded into the room, straight to a locked safe concealed behind a wooden panel. She twisted several times with her mouth, forcing herself to hold steady so that she wouldn’t make some mistake and have to start over. The gunsafe clicked, and she tugged violently until the thick steel swung outward.

Inside were several weapons, pre and post Event both and all in good working order. She selected one of the most modern, an SER-MKV. The gun seemed like a strange fusion of splint and weapon, clicking into place with plastic grips along her foreleg. Electric servos tightened and secured it in place, and the sight clicked up. Lifting her leg and tensing was all it would take to fire.

She pounded back to the entrance, where claws still scraped in vain at fabric. “Hollow-point!” she shouted at the gun, which beeped loudly and made plastic grinding-sounds as it switched internal magazines. Alex planted her other three hooves securely, then used her front right to flick the bag open. Snapping jaws met her, claws scrambling to get inside.

Archive didn’t need any complex trajectory calculations to shoot accurately at this range. She fired into the predator’s mouth, gore exploding outward behind it. Its limp corpse slid out of the opening, clearing the path to several more of the creatures.

Archive held her hoof steady, retreating a pace and keeping her eye on the sight. A second later another wolf lunged for the opening. It died in the air, though the momentum from its leap carried it forward to the ground at the base of the saddlebags, where it could rest beside its companion. Four wolves were dead.

“I don’t want to kill you!” she shouted out the opening, as loud as her little pony body could muster. “But you won’t kill me, or my friend! There’s no fight for you here!” She fired into the air, the third ear-splitting crack in as many moments.

At last, the wolves had enough. It seemed the power of firearms was not unknown among them. They scattered, barking and growling fiercely as they fled. They did not retrieve the dead.

* * *

Lonely Day climbed from the saddlebags and over the corpses of the dead. She had seen enough death not to balk. That didn’t mean she relished seeing it, though. “I’m sorry you couldn’t find something else to eat,” she told one of the corpses, before grunting and shoving the still-steaming corpse aside. She cleared aside the other as well, so that Ezri wouldn't climb out onto the corpses of their enemies.

She did nothing further to conceal the wreckage of the battle than move those she had shot a few paces. Alex closed the open flap, then tugged it open with her mouth. “Ezri? Ezri, are you alright?” Nothing answered from within.

Alex clambered inside, tugging it shut behind her. “Disarm.” The gun loosened from around her leg, and she shrugged it off onto the floor. Now that her battle was over, Alex was painfully aware of her numerous lacerations. A few would probably need stitches, seeping blood into her underclothes. She would ignore the pain a few minutes longer.

There was only one floor in the storage room, a round space Alex had filled with shelves. Most of the Equestrian artifacts were gone with the books, distributed among the cities of Earth. The haul that replaced it looked like it had been stolen right out of time. Unopened boxes from electronics stores, paintings and other artifacts, all rested on the higher shelves. The lower shelves were filled with far more mundane supplies: wooden barrels of wheat and corn, bales of hay, jars of vegetables. Salt, baking soda, detergent. Alex had stolen the enchanted torches from the shelves she had ripped out in the other half.

The storage room had no heating system, no active electronics of any kind. To keep everything fresh, Alex tried to spend as little time in here as possible. It wasn’t nearly as cold as the outdoors, though it would get that cold if they stayed. “Ezri, where are you?”

She heard a whimper from the back and made for that way, moving slow. “It’s safe, Ezri. They’re gone. You’re going to be safe.”

Ezri had taken one of the bales of hay and hidden inside it. She could see the eyes poking out from inside the disorderly pile, watching her as she approached. Alex sat down a few feet away, not daring to approach any further. “You did good, Ezri. You did what I said. Perfect.”

“You hurt.” The voice was so faint Day almost didn’t hear it. It didn’t sound frightened, exactly. It sounded awed. “You bled for me.”

Day nodded, meeting Ezri’s eyes as she always did when she had something important to say. “Of course I did, Ezri. Your mother gave you to me. I wouldn’t have let anything happen to you.”

Ezri stirred from within her makeshift shelter. Her head peeked out first, then she emerged, shaking the straw away from where it clung. “Why?”

“I protect my own.” She didn’t look away, but she did stretch and expand her perceptions into the nonvisual, as Sunset Shimmer had taught her to do. She had done so before with Ezri, and never seen anything. Now she saw a line, a faint thread and an ember burning on borrowed time. She let her mind drift back to reality. “You’re not imitating anymore.” She was still bleeding. If she didn’t do something about it soon, she might be too weak to treat herself.

“No.”

She ignored the pain a little longer, reaching out and embracing the little drone. Not even a month ago, and she had been little more than an animal. Were all changelings so close?

Ezri closed her eyes and held herself there until Alex let her go. “Still hurt.”

“I should probably do something about that, huh?” She let the drone go. “And all the blood. Come on.” She gestured to the door. “Let’s get over to the other side. I’ve got first aid in there.”

“‘Kay”

Alex took up the gun again when they reached the entrance, arming it. They wouldn’t be caught defenseless in this country again. As soon as they were back on the snow, the saddlebags flopped limply to the ground like so much fabric. Alex tossed them onto her back, but didn’t bother securing them. She just wanted to get away from the dead, in case the wolves were hungry enough that they decided to come back for their own.

Ezri looked around in awe at the wreckage of battle. She stared at the corpses until Alex nudged her to start walking again. They didn’t say anything else.

Without the protection of the spells, the winter stole the heat from Alex and made her whole body feel stiff. Blood froze into her clothes around the wounds, and cracked as she walked. It was not a state anypony ought to travel in. She took them away from the dead, away from the path and back to the brambles from earlier. There she concealed the saddlebags, and flopped inside like a dead fish.

“Help!” Ezri pawed at her side, her tone frantic. “Need help?”

“N-No...” She shivered, tried to force herself to stand, then failed. “Just... a little weak.” She started dragging herself towards the stairs, not caring that she was tracking snow in with every gesture. “First aid kit is... in the bathroom. I should clean these out too. I don’t want to get infected...”

Ezri whimpered, trailing after her but not seeming to know what to do. She seemed no different from any other frightened child then, however strange she might look. “I’m sorry... your world is like this, Ezri...” She winced as she reached the stairs, trying with her forelegs again. She rose. “You shouldn’t have to see this. If you’d like to go upstairs and wait for me, I... shouldn’t be more than a few hours. It’s not that bad. Just don’t leave the shelter, not for any reason. Don’t open it no matter what happens to me, understand?”

Ezri shook her head. “Won’t go!”

She reached the bottom of the stairs, and the bathroom door. “You shouldn’t watch me though... I’m not... It’s not as bad as it looks. I’ll... be fine...”

She felt light. The chill had taken away sensation at the end of her hooves, and she couldn’t get any of Earth’s strength in here. This place wasn’t on Earth. She fumbled at the door, and her hoof slid down uselessly three times before she managed to get it to swing inward. Her tongue was going numb.

She was bleeding to death. Archive was no stranger to the feeling: she had died more than anyone else she knew. She had left so much blood on the snow, and having her source of magic taken away so suddenly was too much. She might have made it if she had shelter back on Earth, and a skilled doctor. She wasn’t sure she could even make it up the stairs.

Ezri watched her intently, and grew more distraught with every second. Alex supposed she knew why: the predator recognized dying prey when she saw it. “N-No...” She had no magic, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have determination. She fought back the cold and the sweet numbness that waited in it. “Ezri, promise me... you won’t leave the shelter.” She was slurring every word, tripping over herself. Her legs gave out, and she saw blood pooling under her leg. Had the scratch torn an artery?

Only her will kept her alive. “You’ve... water sink... food in the pantry... fireplace... I’ll...” Ezri’s horrified face faded.

Alex died.

* * *

She floated without touch, sight, smell, or sound in a void that extended forever in all directions. Only in such moments did Archive feel peace. She could stay here, and never hurt again. None of her friends would ever leave her again, and she would never fail them in return.

Memory blurred in death as it never did in life, and she saw the whole length of her existence as a single moment. Cody learning to walk. The faces of her human parents in a hospital in LA. Earlier, stranger things for which her life had given her no words.

The future too. Somewhere in that future she saw a great light, though she saw it as a memory. Somewhere waited for her, pulled at her. It was pulling at her even now, demanding that she complete her journey at last. It was so far away, but so bright that she could see nothing of what waited inside. Its edge was an event horizon beyond which her existence, or at least her memories, ceased to have meaning.

‘Not yet.’ She turned away, away from the singularity. She was being pulled back; back along the threads of belief that bound her to Earth. ‘I am not finished.’ There was no rage for her departure, only sorrow. Whatever became of the spirit, she would not see it this time.

Archive screamed as life flooded back into her, every nerve alight with agony. She spasmed, confused, coughing up a lungful of fluid. In that way, it was very much like a birth. Pain in every limb faded into a universal sense of pins and needles, twitching a little as her muscles remembered how to move again.

It was not a good smell. She spent several minutes fighting her way out of her ruined clothes, tossing the whole lot into the bathtub. It was still warm, which meant either it hadn’t been that long, or... Ezri hadn’t stayed. The spell that kept her claudication in stasis could not function if anyone was alive inside, but until just now she hadn’t been alive.

“Ezri! Ezri, are you in here?” She walked out into the hallway, her steps still coming a little sluggish as all her limbs woke up. She pushed the bedroom door open, scanning quickly for changelings. The hammock and bed were empty. It was possible she could’ve hidden under the bed or in some of the larger drawers, but Alex didn’t look. If Ezri was hiding down there, she could come and find her later.

How long had she been dead this time? Hours? Weeks? Typically worse injuries meant a longer death, which gave her a little hope. She hadn’t been exploded, dismembered, or irradiated this time, so hopefully... “Ezri! Ezri, where are you?” She turned to the stairs, feeling more confident with every step. She almost felt alive again; another few minutes and she should be fully herself.

The upstairs looked ransacked. Cushions and blankets on the floor, furniture moved, paper torn up, and books piled disorderly. The kitchen was worse, and she could scarcely see the ground through the mess. What had happened?

“Ezri, where are you?” Alex stood at the head of the stairs, keeping her eyes alert for movement. The entrance was closed, though... that didn’t mean it hadn’t been used. Anypony could open it from inside. If Ezri had disobeyed even once, she likely would’ve gotten stuck out there and frozen to death. “Please Ezri, it’s me! I’m okay again. Where’d you get off to?”

Alex hurried to the controls in the kitchen, which displayed the current local time. Two days. Unfortunately, the clock didn’t actually run when someone wasn’t inside. She had to update it each time they used the shelter if she wanted it to stay synced up with the world outside. It meant at least two days had passed.

Damit Ezri, I hope you can follow instructions, Alex thought, darting back into the room to begin a more thorough search. Her mind began to wander as she looked, thinking to what she might tell Queen Blacklight if she couldn’t find her. “Yes Riley, I helped your daughter find her soul, but then I let her wander out into the woods and freeze to death. No I didn’t get to talk to her and figure out what made it work, I let wolves kill me before I could.” There were no excuses with a changeling queen. It wouldn’t matter that Alex had been dead when her daughter got lost. It would still be her fault.

Alex couldn’t find Ezri on the second floor. She tried the rest of the basement too, even opening up the maintenance areas and checking them, but they hadn’t been disturbed. That done, she made her way up the stairs to the third floor.

The third floor was really just a round balcony that circled the room, giving access to the shelves around the wall (which she hadn’t torn out). The storm that had taken the lower floors appeared to have passed through here too, because most of the books were on the floor in piles of various sizes. She found Ezri asleep in a “nest” of books, blankets, and food. Dried crackers and vegetable paste were smeared on the ground around her, and the whole thing was covered with so many layers it probably could’ve kept Ezri warm in the snow.

Normally she would’ve been furious at the mess. Under the circumstances, she was so relieved that nothing Ezri could’ve done would’ve made her upset.

She didn’t wake the drone; once it was clear the little insect-pony was breathing, Day lowered the blankets back into place and set about the process of repairing the downstairs. Alex found it easy to lose herself in work, particularly after becoming a pony.

She turned down the heat while she worked; less than a third of their hydrogen remained and they might need it if they got hit with another unexpected storm. A fair amount of food had been destroyed, along with a few books that had fallen into something wet.

That might be a high price, but it wasn’t too high to be worth paying. She hadn’t lost Ezri. She collected anything that might be flammable in one bin, to save for when they next built a fire (nothing could be burned inside the library lest they all choke on the fumes). Maybe when they were closer to St. Louis, and further from the apparently expanded territory of the wolves.

After an hour or so putting the upstairs back together (with plenty left to do), she heard stirring upstairs in the form of rustling blankets and tumbling books.

Lonely Day froze in place, looking up towards the upstairs balcony where she was sure she would see a pair of insect eyes pretty soon. “Good morning Ezri!”

“Good morning,“ she imitated, though in this case she didn’t copy Alex’s tone. It seemed a few days alone hadn’t been long enough to lose the ground they had gained. Assuming it even could be lost. “Morning...” Her wings buzzed, and abruptly the drone slid between the bars of the railing and began to descend. Ezri couldn’t yet fly, Alex knew that now. She was excellent at gliding, however.

The drone landed on the top of the nearby couch, and seemed to be glaring at her. Day froze, silent as the drone sniffed at her, walking a slow circle through the cramped space. Whatever Ezri seemed to be expecting, she didn’t appear to find it, because she only got more confused.

“Dead,” she whimpered, clinging suddenly to one of Day’s hindlegs. “You died!”

“I did.” Lonely Day was not surprised a drone would be conscious of the reality of death, living in a changeling hive. Whatever Blacklight’s attempt to give her drone-daughter sentience, it would not have been sheltering her from reality. Even the parts of it Alex herself never would’ve chosen to show her. “Did your mother ever tell you about me?”

Ezri didn’t answer, just clung a little tighter. So Archive tried something else. “I knew you needed me, so I had to come back. I won’t let it happen again.” Just how much could such a small drone understand, anyway?

Honesty she could understand. However insect-like they might appear, Alex learned then that drones could cry.

She took things slow with Ezri for the next few days. Alex spent much of her free time cleaning up her cabin, or doing her best to repair her enchanted clothing. The underclothes were thoroughly destroyed, but that didn’t matter since she had several sets. The jacket and snow pants, on the other hand...

She was fortunate that the spells didn’t require absolute integrity of the materials involved. Even so, the openings leaked heat, heat she couldn’t afford to lose in the dead of winter. Day trimmed the tattered parts and sewed patches on the inside, but that was all. Hopefully she could find a good tailor in St. Louis.

Ezri retained her intelligence, and seemed to grow more alert by the day. After a day or so of being cautious around Alex she returned to being as affectionate as ever, never letting her out of sight. Eventually Alex had done what she could for her winter clothes and they started walking again. She kept her gun within reach this time, and used it more than once to protect them from predators.

Few bothered them on the road, though. There were plenty of other animals to eat, animals that weren’t possessed of powerful magics or advanced technology. As it had been in Earth-that-Was, animals attacking people was more an irregular sign of desperation than a commonplace occurrence. Another few weeks, and they passed through Effingham.

No ponies lived here now, though before the Event the little city had been larger than Alexandria. As with most places, the neglected structures had fallen into disrepair, though the older stone churches and banks continued their hollow vigil.

They were wearing their snowshoes the day they arrived, the wind gusting fiercely but no snow falling. “Buildings!” Ezri shouted as they entered, pointing at an aluminum building half buried in the snow.

“That’s right Ezri.” Alex couldn’t scoop her up; it was much harder to do that when the drone was wearing snowshoes. She didn’t like the idea of getting kicked in the face with them as she walked, which Ezri was very likely to do. “That is a human building. It must’ve been made stronger than the others, since it isn’t fallen over.”

“Why?”

“Because we have a freeze-thaw cycle here. It’s very bad for buildings.”

“Why?”

Lonely Day could not allow herself to get annoyed with Ezri’s constant questions, even if they kept on until the day they reached Radio Springs. “You know what ice is, right? And snow?”

Ezri nodded, kicking some towards Alex. “It's everywhere!”

“Right. Well, water is bigger when it’s frozen than it is when it’s liquid. The water we drink would get bigger if we left it out in the cold.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a polar mol-” She sighed. “That’s not the point.” They passed a huge hunk of metal on the side of the road, what looked like it had once been a tractor. Rust had devoured it, leaving only a few odd bits to poke out from the snow. She would find a similar story in every parking lot and driveway she cared to look. These days it took a little forensics to tell where a car had been. “Just think about it this way, Ezri. Water gets into things, from the rain and the dew. Then it gets cold and the water freezes. It can break things apart. Over a long time, it can even break rocks. Most of the stuff people made buildings out of is way weaker than rocks.”

“Why?”

Day started to answer, then shut her mouth again. “Little troublemaker.” She mock-glared. “You don’t care! You’re just trying to keep me talking!”

Ezri giggled, then touched her belly. “Junk food!”

“Am not!” Day reached down to nuzzle her, though not for long. She couldn’t do much else with snowshoes on her hooves. “Your mother never told me you’d get so clever when you woke up. She’s gonna get an earful from me when I write to her.”

The drone stopped giggling. “What is mother?”

“Mother is...” Lonely Day considered that a moment. How much of her earlier life did the little drone remember? Alex never got clear answers when she asked about her life in the hive. Usually reminding Ezri about her early life just made her mopey for a few hours. “Mother is the pony who loves you the most. The one who looks out for you no matter what.”

“Oh, I know what that is!” Ezri rested her head on Alex’s side. “I thought you were called Alex.”

Alex sighed, though she returned the embrace. “I suppose I might be like an adoptive mom. But I’m not the only one. I’m talking about the pony you were born to, Queen Blacklight. The pony who gave you to me to take care of. She loves you too, I know she does.”

“Oh.” Ezri let go. “I remember somepony else. I guess that must have been her. She wanted me to spend time with her all the time. I wanted... something...” she strained, then shrugged. “She didn’t have as much food as you.”

“She gave you all the love she could,” Day said, without hesitation. “But I’m not like other ponies. I... The reason I came back after I died and the reason I have more love than she does are the same. I’m...” There was no way to explain something so complex, or at least none she could think of. “Not really a pony. I just look like one. Kinda like changelings I guess. You can look like ponies when you want to. I always look like a pony, but I’m actually something else underneath. It doesn’t have a name: I don’t think there’s ever been one of me before.”

“Why?”

“Not this routine again.” Alex groaned. “I don’t know, Ezri. It’s not natural. Several Alicorns and one monster got together to make me, and it wasn’t easy for them. It hurt, I think I died a lot. Over and over again, until I didn’t need their magic to come back. Until I wasn’t a pony anymore.”

She froze in place, prompting Ezri to stop walking too. She saw something in the distance, something that shouldn’t be there. Smoke. Not the out-of-control fire kind of smoke either, but the kind that came from a chimney. Nobody had been living here last she checked. Had someone been unfortunate enough to come back in the dead of winter to a town time had destroyed? If so, she owed her help.

Archive was no Alicorn to teleport around the planet, or a force like the Keeper that could be everywhere at once. It was all she could do to do good where she was at that moment. For what few of them she had met, Archive appreciated the can-do spirit of the country people who had lived out here. If anypony could survive in a new body in the dead of winter, it was the sort of person who had chosen to live so far away from civilization in the first place.

“Time to run, Ezri! Someone might be here! They might need our help!” She couldn’t actually run in snowshoes, not without tripping and sprawling all over the floor. She could speed up to a brisk trot, or as brisk as Ezri could handle. When the drone proved unable to go much faster, she scooped her up onto her back heedless of getting snow to the face from her shoes, moving rapidly down the main thoroughfare.

Few buildings were intact, though the smoke came from one that was. An old church, one built from sturdy red brick and apparently even sturdier mortar to still be standing after three centuries. Statues of the Virgin and St. Francis still stood outside, their white marble a little dirty but otherwise unmarred. The building looked to be in worse condition. A few of the windows had been boarded up, though there were no obvious holes in the ceiling. A miracle? Or just good construction.

According to the inscription, the building had already been two centuries old when the Event occurred. She trudged through the snow in front of the structure, stopping in front of a pair of massive oak doors. Day knocked with the side of her snowshoe, sending loud echoes into the building.

“Is there a pony inside?” Ezri asked.

“Or a griffon, or a minotaur, or a diamond dog, or a...” She shrugged. “Zebras and changelings count as ponies to me. I just want to make sure they’re okay, Ezri. I don’t know many ponies who would chose to live alone in a rotted-away town. That probably means they’ve come back since last anyone came through. Maybe even this winter.” She knocked again, as loud as she could without dislodging her snowshoes.

She heard movement inside then, the sound of hooves on stone. Locks rattled, hinges creaked, and the door swung open. “Hello there! Cold day to be traveling: Why don’t you come in before you let the heat out.” The voice was warm, the accent slightly german.

It did indeed belong to a pony, a stallion wrapped in several layers of mostly-rotten robes that looked like they had been trimmed to fit with a pair of rusty scissors. The hoods were up, but he tossed his head back, pushing them aside to get a better look at her. His mane was as much a mess as his clothes.

“Of course, sorry about that! Just let me...” Alex stepped out of her snowshoes one at a time, bending down to dislodge the straps with her mouth where necessary. “Hop down Ezri, let me get yours too. We don’t want to track snow inside with us.”

For her part Ezri obeyed, but never looked away from the stranger. Alex wasn’t sure she liked the suspicion. So she slid off her boots as well, even though there was no snow on them. She could have her gun armed and ready in just a few seconds if she needed it.

“I’m Alex,” she said, offering her hoof to the stranger. She drew in a little strength through her remaining hooves, in case she needed it. “And the little one is Ezri.”

He didn’t return the gesture until he had shut the door behind them, sealing out the icy chill of winter. “Pleasure, Alex. Call me Rudolph. Welcome to my home.” Alex looked around, and saw an interior that shouldn’t exist. She had thought the building looked intact from the outside, but inside...

The sanctuary wasn’t just intact, it was untouched. Not like her mother’s house, which her labor made resemble the old house, but was really a constantly rebuilt and remodeled one. The pews were shiny wood, little pillows for kneeling as colorful as they had been on the day they had been sewn. There was little dust, and what carpets and paintings there were had retained all their vividness.

It had been a long time since Alex’s first communion, and she’d never set foot in a real church after that. Those days had been before her perfect memory, so she didn’t recognize much. What she did recognize were the signs of attention and care. Candles burning at various points along the room, and dozens of them in front of the alter. Not a speck of dust.

Alex had taken Ezri’s reaction to the stallion to mean he might be some kind of predator, as one always recognized another. She had clearly been mistaken. “You keep an impressive house, Rudolph. Or is it Brother Rudolph?” He wasn’t wearing anything priestly beneath the plain brown sackcloth, at least not that she could see.

The stallion smiled. “Just Rudolph, if you please.” His accent was thick, but it wouldn’t have stopped Alex if he was speaking German, or most other languages.

“Just Rudolph then.” Alex pulled back quickly, letting her gun tumble to the floor and sliding her right foreleg into it. Servos tightened and the sight flipped up. She stepped between Ezri and the stallion, but didn’t actually raise the gun. “What sent you?” she gestured around them with the unarmed hoof.

The stallion didn’t act surprised or indignant. His features were cast in shadow, like everything in the interior of the church. He didn’t even glance at the gun. “Be careful, Alex. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.”

She hesitated, then advanced a pace towards him. “What sent you?” she repeated.

“Sent me?” He laughed, and did not sound at all like a priest. “My dear, I sent for you. Let’s not confuse causality before dinner, it spoils my appetite.”

She retreated a pace, pushing Ezri back towards the door with one hoof. Without prompting, for the stallion had no horn, the bolt slid closed behind them.

“Not yet.” His red eyes flashed in the gloom, and he advanced. The German accent was completely gone, replaced with an entirely different voice. One she remembered. “I came all this way, and I expect you to listen.”