My Little Rider: Friendship is Joker

by lilAngel

Inception - Another P

Another, older, part of the story. A long way from Ponyville, and a long way from Canterlot, there was a mine. It had changed a lot since the first simple farmers had found valuable rocks in the ground, and the advancement of this place came in waves. For a hundred years, or a thousand, one generation would follow in the hoofprints of their parents, and then out of nowhere their most valuable seam would start to yield treasure. It was a treasure that could change the world.

It was a few years ago, but the ripples of the most recent change were still spreading. It hadn’t been the heads of the household who triggered it, but their daughter. A filly who didn’t really understand the ways of the world, exploring on a whim, was the one who’d made a wish. She was an earth pony filly, with a pale coat almost the colour of the rose quartz that she was named for. And one day, she was lying on the rocky floor beside the stream, her normally emotionless sisters in floods of tears as they wondered how this could have happened.

For generations, the family had gone down into the mine to this one vein of crystal, walking through a natural tunnel to a chamber that was some kind of geode, lined with row upon row of sparkling white and gold stones. There was a fountain here, the Gaia Fountain. From there, a stream that glowed like a rainbow issued forth, winding its way through the tunnels before vanishing into the rock. Everypony knew that the stream was what made their land so fertile, and they were the luckiest ponies in the whole area. They also knew from family legend that if somepony made a wish on the Gaia Fountain, it would start to release the soul of the world itself in the form of special crystals that could be forged into Gaia Memories. But for more than a thousand years now, the well had been dry. The farm’s owner had come down here to make a wish every week, to no avail. When age rendered him too infirm to continue, his wife took over the chore, but her wishes were no more effective, and she too grew too weak.

Rose didn’t have much of a wish. She just wanted to know that death wasn’t the end; that she wouldn’t suffer the grief of watching her parents succumb to age, or the torment of remembering them every day. Rose cared so much about those she loved, and less about the finances of the farm. So when her sisters took over they would change habits and procedures that their parents had unthinkingly followed for two long lifetimes, and Rose was sure she’d be unable to stop mourning every time she saw something different. She didn’t want to be the one who remembered. Then she was distracted, slipped and fell. She tumbled into the iridescent stream at the very moment the wish formed in her mind, and there she died.

“Rose!” the eldest sister shrieked, unable to believe her eyes. Nopony had ever seen her like this before, but maybe the emotion in her voice was partially terror that she might have caused this. She’d been running an experiment on the Stream – her childish collection of pretty rocks had turned into a fascination with geology as she grew up – and had yelled for Rose to get out of the Geode while she was taking readings. Could that have been the distraction that had killed her? “No!”

It wasn’t long before the other members of the family were drawn by the wail of despair.

“What happened?”

“Oh Celestia, Rose Quartz, speak to us!”

“She’s… gone.”

“What’s this? Did she make a wish?” It was a piece of crystal, but it didn’t have the same metallic sheen as those on the tunnel walls. It was long and slender, branched like a trident in the middle. The main part of it was a rich pink colour, but the natural spikes on the end and the design embossed below the join were the same powder blue as Rose’s eyes. In a room of so many sparkles and so many colours, it might have passed without notice, but it glowed with a slow pulsing like a heartbeat.

“It’s… alive?” The youngest member of the family took the Memory and looked at it. Held at the right angle, the trident shape might have been a letter ‘E’. She reached towards the prone form of her big sister with it.

“Don’t! Those things are dangerous, and she’s…”

“She’s dead. But this thing is still alive, and it’s linked to her somehow. See these bits? That’s the colour of her eyes.”

“You think it can bring her back? Or her life has been temporarily transferred to the Gaia Memory? An interesting hypothesis, but…”

“Enough arguing. Somepony get grandpa’s Control Collar so we can try that thing.”

“There isn’t time! And this trident thing wouldn’t fit in the slot.”

“But an untamed Memory without a Collar could –”

“Could it make things any worse?”

One sister didn’t see the point in arguing, and instinctively pressed the lever on the side of the Memory before pressing it against her sister’s blank flank. It was clear something had happened when a deep, melodious voice called the Memory’s name, shaking the walls of the cavern. Whether it was the right choice, though, they wouldn’t be sure for a very long time.

“ETERNAL!”

---

A wave of magical energy surged across Equestria. The few G3 Gaia Memories that had survived the last governmental purge resonated and trembled. About half of them, the ones with the most potential, lost their dull and lifeless appearance. They glowed with light in any of the colours of the strange rainbow, and changed into something else. Powers that would once have been too weak to sell were evolving into a new form. And the Geode, harnessing and concentrating the power of the Gaia Fountain, began to grow an entirely new kind of Gaia Memory, the first crystals appearing like new buds on an old, withered tree.

---

A surge of rainbow light rushed up from the Fountain, as if the energy was flowing through air like it normally flowed through the water, passing through the rock and through the family home, and raining down on the land across all Equestria.

---

The Tree of Harmony, in its secret grotto, sensed the change and began reaching out. It folded itself around the Elements it had once purified, and shielded them from the Eternal Memory’s disruptive influence. They would be changed by the energy, but not destroyed.

At the same time, the Tree reached out further with its magic, and began to search for Champions who had the potential to use the Driver. It found one, a unicorn filly, who could turn her magic into a funnel and control the rainbow surge for a moment. She would do. And others, who contacted that wave of power to a greater or lesser degree at the moment their lives changed. With the bearers identified, the future Champions, the Tree could begin the next stage; that of tuning the Elements of Harmony to match the hearts of those who would one day control them.

And finally, it searched the world for a Memory that would be suitable to contain the essence of Harmony itself. A new Element needed to be purified, a new Driver made. It couldn’t purify the one it had previously used, as that had never been returned. It didn’t feel sad, though. The tree dealt with what the world now was, and could not feel hope or regret. But maybe the thoughts in its sap raced just a little faster, as it found both a Gaia Memory whose only emotion was of love, that might just become a Driver if given the right influences. The Tree couldn’t feel hope, or despair. But it could see that the new Driver would be ready weeks, or even months, after the wave of dopants it was made to combat had surged across Equestria. Even in those circumstances, it did its best.

---

And within the Geode chamber, cooling limbs twitched and jerked. Rose Quartz stood unsteadily, as ripples of corruscating magic changed the colour of her coat, and the mark of Eternal appeared on her haunch. Rainbow sparkles raced through her mane, and when they were gone it was a brighter, more vibrant shade. She was alive, and she looked like a pony rather than the giant monster that family legends might have suggested. But her family would soon learn that the Eternal Dopant was not the daughter they knew. Rose Quartz was no more.

Somepony else, not quite a monster but not quite a pony, stood in her place. She would change their world, in every way it was possible to change, and as she did it she would change herself even more.

Author's Note:

I really need to finish the sketch of Rose Quartz that's serving as the cover picture for this story.
Anyone with more artistic talent able to help me with that?