A Knight's Tales

by Modern Masquerade

Adrift (Future)

Silently, the ship glides through the void of space. Silver sides reflect the distant stars, bouncing away their light into the uncaring void. Inside, the silence is broken by alarming sirens. Creatures run back and forth in haste, trying to stop the ship’s fate. Meanwhile, one figure doesn’t rush, instead standing out of the way as others fix something of which she is ignorant.

Prism was told this would be a simple routine trip to visit Qorzisva’s home planet. Prism was told that it would be quick, comfortable, and safe. As the sirens blare around her, Prism feels her legs locking under her, a well trained sense of danger going haywire. She doesn’t know what’s gone wrong, but she knows that she can’t fix it with a hammer. Finally, the order she dreads comes across on the loudspeakers, they must abandon ship.

Making her way to the escape pods, Prism sees the cramped metal boxes, not so much unlike a coffin with a view of the stars. No room for comfort, and certainly no room for more than one. 8S comes to check on Prism, but her words seem blurred in the chaos of the situation. Prism manages to make out a sentence, “It’ll be alright, we’ll just meet up on the pickup vessel.” Even still, she can’t help but feel that the situation isn’t over yet.

Stepping into the tall box, Prism contorts herself to fit the escape pod that was obviously never meant to hold her kind. Crossing her forelegs across her chest and raising up on her hindlegs seems to do the trick, as the pod detects its passenger and closes. The front door holds a wide window, through which Prism can see 8S waving her off, a twinge of worry in her eyes.

Prism’s world shifts suddenly, shaking her as the pod moves back and into a long tube. Magnetic pulses accelerate her down this tube and out of the ship, where the knight finds dozens of these other pods floating through the void around the ship. Several more come out of the tube as Prism’s pod starts to drift away and make room. The air tastes stale and metallic, but it is the utter silence outside of her own breath and rapid heart that starts to panic the young pony.

Just then, a blinding flash comes from the ship as its hull tears itself apart. The entire ship starts to crush in on itself in a silent implosion into its Jump Core. A panic overtakes the unicorn as she realizes that her own pod is moving toward the collapsing core. As her pod falls into the glowing sphere where the rest of the ship is compressing, Prism simply closes her eyes, giving a silent prayer.

BOOM

The deafening sound of a massive explosion surrounds Prism, and then she feels something quite familiar, the pull of gravity downward. Daring to open her eyes, Prism looks around to see a distant horizon over unfamiliar ground. Ground that, she quickly notes, is not only very distant but is also approaching rapidly.

Starting to sway and spin swiftly through the air, the pod tosses Prism around inside of it. The sky seems to rotate and a panic sets in again. Taking a deep breath to calm herself, Prism looks around her small prison for an option. Looking above, she finds several buttons of various colors. Hardly able to make out the writing, a wince covers Prism’s face as she blindly presses the one furthest left with a glow of her magic.

A hard jerk pulls on the pod, yanking it up as if it were trying to tear away. Looking out her window, Prism sees thrusters firing below her as the pod finally stops spinning. Unfortunately, it only hardly slows before smashing into the ground that lies far too close. The noise is painful, as metal and glass break apart and crunch together. Cushions of some kind deploy all around Prism as the impact seems to threaten to break her.

Feeling immense pain all around her body from the crash, Prism reaches out blindly once again with her magic, prying off the door of the pod. Moving gingerly, especially on her foreleg, which felt broken, Prism moves out of her little coffin, giving a cry of pain in spite of herself. Looking around as her magic reaches for her Cure wand, Prism sees a desolate grey wasteland of harsh rocks, with piles of metal scrap and junk scattered about.

Looking up ahead, unfamiliar stars shine in the sky, their light almost mocking Prism in her isolation. Her situation starts to dawn on her as she looks around, no sounding horn could call for help from the stars, and she has no magic that could do the task. Even the greatest signal fire would be useless. Prism looks again about her surroundings, utterly alone.

Author's Note:

Here we begin another arc, though this one is set in the future. I hope you're ready, because Prism sure isn't.