Atlas (Rewritten)
Atlas
A little faunus girl from Mantle going to the city of dreams.
As she walked down the street, with Fluttershy on one side of her and Rarity on the other, Blake found herself thinking about Ilia Amitola.
They hadn’t seen each other in a few years now; Adam had taken Blake to Vale, Ilia had remained with the Mistral Chapter. Skilled as she had been, there was a good chance that Ilia was dead now. Life expectancy in the White Fang could be as short as it was down any Atlesian mine; even the very best tended to die before their time: gunned down, cut down, bombed, devoured by grimm, all lost to the hazards of the huntsmen, the Atlesian military and the monsters of the night.
Perhaps Ilia filled a shallow grave somewhere in Anima; perhaps there wasn’t enough of her left to be so disposed of; perhaps she still lived and fought for the White Fang’s cause; perhaps she still lived and had seen the folly of their ways as Blake had. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps; the truth was that Blake had no way of knowing for sure, or of finding out.
But as she walked down the street, with the cold air nipping at her face and nibbling at the tips of her cat ears, Blake thought about her and her story.
She’d found it incredible at the time, the rules that Ilia had consented to obeying, the shackles that her parents had sought to place upon her, the way that she had denied who and what she was in the name of fitting in.
Blake had listened to Ilia’s story and found it impossible to believe that Ilia — that anyone — could have failed to resent the imposition involved in such self-denial. Of course, she had then been hypocrite enough to start engaging in just such self-denial herself during her first semester at Beacon but only, so she had told herself, out of absolute necessity.
She hadn’t been able to bring herself to believe Ilia when the other girl had claimed it wasn’t hard.
Especially if it meant being in Atlas.
It was the tone of her voice that Blake remembered most of all: the lingering longing as Ilia said the name of Atlas, the city of dreams; the way she said it, it almost sounded as though it were not a place but an idea to strive for, a kingdom of heaven built on Remnant. So different from the scorn and hatred with which Adam had spoken about his home; it had seemed impossible to think they could be speaking of the same place or to conceive why anyone would speak of the infernal pit of Adam’s memories with Ilia’s lovelorn sighs.
It had been impossible for Blake to believe that any place, still less a place so racist that Ilia’s only chance to dwell there had been to deny her race, could inspire such feelings.
Of course, Rainbow Dash spoke that way as well, something that Blake had found equally hard to believe as Ilia’s nostalgia at first. Now that she was here, now that Fluttershy and Rarity were showing her all the wonders of the technopolis amongst the clouds, Blake found herself starting to get it.
It must be wonderful to live here as yourself without having to hide, to be accepted in this place where it seemed like anything was possible and life could only get better.
The city flew. The city was flying. The clouds were not only above, forming vague shapes before getting blown away by the passage of the angular cruisers proceeding on their stately passages overhead, but beneath them too, and all around them as the floating city nestled in their midst like a particularly rocky cuckoo in the nest.
Blake and her companions passed a robot using an extendable clawed hand to pick up litter off the sidewalk, and as they sidled around it, the android had given a courteous nod of its inhumanly square head. “Good day, ladies.”
Blake stopped and stared at it. “Uh, thank you.”
“No, thank you, Miss,” the cleaner-bot said, before resuming its litter picking.
Blake watched it go along its merry way. “That… that was politer than the hologram at the skydock,” she observed. “Do all the robots talk in Atlas? And so politely?”
“A lot of them do, yes,” Fluttershy said. “My parents’ vacuum cleaner is very polite when he’s asking me to move my feet out of the way, but Rainbow was so annoyed by her toaster that she, um…”
“There was a little bit of an accident,” Rarity explained. “Involving Rainbow, the toaster, and a lump hammer. Twilight fixed it up, but then there was another accident, and she ended up scavenging it for parts.”
“Huh,” Blake said as she continued to look at the litter-picking robot. For a moment, she wondered why they still needed faunus to work the mines of Mantle, but then she remembered that faunus were cheaper than robots, and in some ways more durable as well, able to recover from injuries that would break an android beyond repair.
And faunus labourers don’t cost anything for the SDC to replace.
“Blake?” Fluttershy asked. “Are you okay?”
Blake realised that she must have been showing something of her thoughts upon her face and quickly forced her expression into something more neutral, even as she covered her mouth with her scarf against the bracing breeze. “I’m fine,” she said softly. “Is it always so cold around here?”
“'So cold'?” Fluttershy asked. She was dressed for the weather in a turquoise overcoat with a lilac belt clinching her waist and bands of the same colour around her cuffs. In fact, lilac was the dominant colour of all Fluttershy’s accessories, including the mittens enclosing her hands and the beanie sat loosely atop her head. “Oh no, when fall really starts, it's going to get much colder around here; I’m almost glad to be spending the autumn in Vale for the Vytal Festival … except that means I won’t be able to adjust to the cold before winter gets here.”
“How bad is it?”
“Oh, it’s never allowed to get too bad,” Rarity said. “In fact, thanks to the city’s heating grid, it can often be quite pleasant, even in winter, but they do turn the temperature down enough to allow a little snow from time to time. Not enough that anyone gets snowed in or put at risk, but enough that there is a decent layer for children to play in for a few days or a couple of weeks.”
Blake looked around, at the towering structures of glass and steel that loomed over her head, rising like stalagmites into the sky. “I’m a little surprised that the city puts up with the disruption just to let kids have some fun.”
“It isn’t just for that,” Fluttershy conceded. “Twilight explained that … well, I don’t really understand it myself, but apparently, it isn’t healthy for us or good for the heating grid to keep it running at maximum all the time; we need to conserve the systems to make sure they don’t wear out unexpectedly, and allow time for routine maintenance. And besides, if we melted all the snow that fell on Atlas, then Low Town would get too much rain at once.”
“What?” Blake asked, not understanding.
“When the snow melts, the water falls down to the city below like rain,” Fluttershy explained. “It’s the only weather they get, living in our shadow like they do.”
I wonder if they enjoy the slight variation in their weather routine or curse it, Blake thought.
“Speaking of the weather,” Rarity said, “we were going to help you find something more suitable to wear, weren’t we?”
Blake shivered a little. “Yes, that might be a good idea.”
Rarity smiled. “I know just the place. Follow me, darlings!” She strode off, leaving Blake and Fluttershy to follow in her wake as swiftly as they could.
They followed her down the wide thoroughfares and the bustling streets, beneath the shadows of the towering structures and past the robots diligently working to keep the streets and windows clean and the city on the move; Atlas, Blake observed, was a city of many parts, and none of the parts that she observed matched Adam’s rancorous description. She had no doubt that something like the hellish place that he described existed, perhaps in the Low Town dwelling in perpetual shadow of the city amongst the clouds, living around the ever-growing heap that was the refuse of those literally and figuratively set above. But not here. Not when she was amongst the clouds herself.
Here, she could see why Ilia had been so enamoured of Atlas. Here, she could almost see why her old friend had described it as a city of dreams. Atlas, as she walked through it in Rarity’s wake and with Fluttershy by her side, seemed almost like a place where anything was possible.
Atlas was a city of technology. Blake had always known that, everyone knew that; even more than martial force, Atlas prided itself as an exporter of all the most advanced technology, on being the workshop of the world, the place that had given Remnant not only the CCT network but all of its other modern wonders that so enriched the lives of everyone who dwelled within the kingdoms.
But being in Atlas itself, standing on the sidewalk of Remnant’s self-proclaimed workshop, brought home to Blake the fact that this was no idle boast. Every building was a cathedral to the worship of science and technology; it was like an entire city modelled after the CCT tower (of course, the tower was modelled after the city, but Blake’s thoughts went to that with which she was more familiar), where even the shopping malls had a sepulchral feel to their architecture and design.
Everything was modern; there were a couple of stores they passed with a faux-antique front, but in design, in construction materials, everything looked as though it had been built within the last few years using the most advanced techniques and cutting edge materials. Blake would seriously not have been surprised if Fluttershy had turned around and told her that they tore everything down after about five years and built it all from scratch so that it never got old.
Small hordes of robots toiled unseen, unthanked, and unregarded by the people milling around them: they picked the litter; they swept the streets; they scaled the vertical sides of the towers of glass and stone with spidery legs to wash the windows until they sparkled; they controlled the flow of traffic on the roads; they patrolled the streets and plazas. Some of them, like the litter pickers with one clawed hand and the other holding a bag, looked human, or at least they looked humanoid; some of them, like the rolling street sweepers or the little security ancilla that looked like bins on wheels, that Blake only recognised were robots when she saw one of them ram into a pick-pocket hard enough to knock him off his feet before tasering him, did not look human at all. Of the vast variety of droids Blake saw maintaining Atlas, only the battle droids — surprisingly few in number, but then, she supposed that the Atlesian authorities thought it was overkill to deploy robots designed to kill their enemies for law and order duties — were familiar to her; the rest, she had never come across even in the heart of Vale.
“I’ve heard that technology in Atlas is twenty or thirty years ahead of the rest of the world,” Blake murmured. “Now that I’m here … I guess it’s true, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know much about that,” Fluttershy murmured. “You should really talk to Twilight if you want to know about science and technology.”
“We’re here!” trilled Rarity, coming to a stop outside of a store with a blue front which sparkled as though the stone had been infused with diamond dust, and where graffiti-styled art decorated the windows and the displays behind the dresses out for show.
“Um, Rarity,” Fluttershy murmured. “Isn’t this where you work?”
“Yes, it is, as it happens, where I’m doing my internship,” Rarity conceded. “But that only means that I know we’ll find something suitable for Blake inside.”
Blake eyed the window displays. The dress that looked as though it had a skirt made of clouds certainly looked pretty enough, but she wasn’t sure about its practicality. “Does this place have anything…? I mean, just because I’m here on a break doesn’t mean I don’t need something … day to day.”
“Oh, these are just some high-end examples to attract custom,” Rarity explained, with a degree of exasperation in her voice. “There are plenty of … mundane items on the other side of the door. Honestly, sometimes, I must say that I grow weary of the constant suspicion under which I labour. You’d think I wanted to put everyone in avant-garde every moment of every day.” She paused. “As opposed to every conceivable special occasion.”
Blake smiled, if only a little. “You’re right; I should trust you,” she admitted and allowed herself to be steered inside by Rarity, with Fluttershy following them in.
“Coco!” Rarity called out, projecting her voice across the open, spacious boutique.
Blake’s first, absurd thought was that Rarity was calling out to the second-year protégé at Beacon, who would have been a favourite to win the Vytal Festival if Pyrrha had been just one year younger; but that was ridiculous; just because that was the only Coco Blake knew didn’t mean that it was the only Coco in Remnant.
The girl who emerged from the other side of a rack of dresses was not Coco Adel. She was a deal smaller and more slight, for a start, and paler for another. Her hair was cyan and opal, cut short and worn in a bob that curled around her ears, and she was dressed in a purple blouse with a sailor neckline and a ruffled blue and purple skirt above cyan stockings. Her light blue eyes blinked in surprise.
“Rarity?” she said. “Oh, so you did bring your new friend here! You must be Blake.”
“That’s right,” Blake said softly. “Blake Belladonna.”
“This is my roommate, Coco Pommel,” Rarity explained. “She’s also interning here at Prim Hemline’s boutique.”
Coco stepped forward, and offered Blake her hand. “Thank you, for all your service.”
“All my— oh, yes,” Blake said. That’s right, I’m supposed to be an Atlesian spy, aren’t I? “It was nothing, really.”
“Blake, as you can see, needs something more appropriate for our kingdom,” Rarity said.
Coco smiled. “You have something in mind already, don’t you?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Rarity replied.
“Shouldn’t this be my choice?” Blake asked.
“Oh, of course it’s your choice, darling,” Rarity said. “I’m simply going to ensure that you don’t choose poorly.”
Rarity proved all of Blake’s suspicions unfounded, as Blake had to admit as she emerged from the store some time later; with Miss Hemline, the boutique owner, absent and Rarity taking the day off, Coco Pommel had been left to hold down the fort, and she was ever so obliging; she hadn’t done much to help Blake choose an outfit — Rarity had that well in hand — but she had rushed from one end of the store to another and then allowed Blake to change in one of the fitting rooms after Fluttershy had paid for the ensemble.
Yes, Fluttershy had bought her outfit. That wasn’t something Blake had requested, it wasn’t something that she had sought, but she had nevertheless found it impossible to prevent. Fluttershy hadn’t raised her voice, Fluttershy hadn’t said anything particularly forceful, she had simply smiled and adamantly refused to take no for an answer until Blake had given in.
Blake exited the boutique with her black scarf still wrapped tightly around her neck, as well as her white crop undershirt and her white shorts. Underneath her black vest, she wore a second undershirt, this time of purple that covered up her exposed belly and offered an additional layer of warmth in Atlas, while her arms and shoulders were covered by the long black and white tailcoat, falling down to below her knees, which she wore over the top. The front was white, although bordered by black at the neckline and in stripes running down the sleeves; the back was black, turning to white again as the tails fell away; the inside was lined with soft purple velvet. She had exchanged her boots for a much higher pair which went up almost to her thighs, concealing her stockings and even a little of her shorts.
It was, to be perfectly honest, more comfortable than Blake had been expecting. She felt a little warmer already.
“Thank you for this,” Blake said, as they stood once more on the sidewalk outside. “Thank you for your help, Rarity, and Fluttershy, for—”
“Don’t mention it,” Fluttershy said.
Blake chuckled. “Okay, I won’t.”
“Now that you’re properly dressed for Atlas,” Fluttershy went on, “where would you like to go next?”
“I don’t know where I am,” Blake said with perfect honesty. “Where would you like to show me?”
Fluttershy raised her head to look at the drones passing by overhead, some of them laden with parcels and packages while others looked as though they might be watching the crowds below. “Would you like to see the Garden of Serenity? It’s one of my favourite places in the whole city.”
“Then I’m sure it’s great,” Blake said. “Lead the way.”
Atlas was a city of surprising greenery. Atlas was a city torn out of the earth, uprooted and unmoored from the land, only to be moored again with technology, and Blake would have expected it to have little patience and less love for green and growing things. Yet as Fluttershy led the way, and Blake kept pace beside her, Blake could see that it was not so. In fact, Blake found herself surprised by how much of Atlas was not given over steel and glass and carefully-shaped stone. It was true that, for any sign of greenery, Blake had, paradoxically, to look upwards onto the rooftops of the ornate buildings — and that fact did make her a little suspicious as to how many of these spaces were open to the general public, as opposed to those who owned those buildings or leased out parts of same — but at least it was not nothing, and even those who could not enter the rooftop gardens could hopefully appreciate the sight of them, for whatever that might be worth.
But while green spaces might grow in the sky, it appeared that animals and birds did not. So far as she could see, nothing lived here but people, hordes of people untroubled by beast or bird or insect. Blake had never been considered a particular lover of any of those things — she couldn’t stand dogs, for one — but she noticed their complete and utter absence now and wondered that those all around her could not do so. No doubt, time had rendered them carelessly complacent of what they were missing.
“Most of the animals in Atlas are pets,” Rarity explained, seeming to guess at Blake’s thoughts. “And kept indoors. There’s the public zoo, and rumour is that the Schnees have the most fabulous menagerie— oh, goodness, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s just a word,” Blake assured her. “The issue is with those who named the island, not with your use of it. You were saying, about the Schnees?”
“It’s said they have a private zoo,” Rarity said. “Containing absolute wonders, creatures that are extinct in the wild.”
“If they do, then it seems very cruel to keep them that way,” Fluttershy murmured.
“But if they were to be released now, then surely they would just die off, darling?” Rarity asked.
“Animals aren’t meant to live in cages,” Fluttershy insisted. “I volunteer at an animal shelter, where unfortunately, we don’t have much choice sometimes, but my dream is to open up a real sanctuary here in Atlas, an open space where the creatures can run free and wild.”
Blake frowned. “Then why not just release them into the wild?”
“Some animals can’t survive without help,” Fluttershy said. “Because they were bought as pets and then abandoned or because their natural habitats have been destroyed. Do you know how much damage dust mining does to the environment?”
“No,” Blake replied. “I was always more concerned with the damage that it did to the miners.”
Fluttershy didn’t seem to know how to reply to that; she looked away without saying anything.
Blake felt a twinge of guilt. “Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to—”
“You didn’t,” Fluttershy assured her rapidly. She brightened up. “You should come and visit the shelter sometime; if you’re going to transfer to Atlas, then you should meet Major Leaf.”
“Major who?”
“He’s sort of General Ironwood’s pet tortoise and sort of the Atlas Academy mascot,” Fluttershy explained. “Rainbow says that it’s considered an honour if the General lets your team take care of him, but with General Ironwood and so many of the students away at Beacon, the shelter has been taking care of him so he doesn’t get lonely. Tank’s there, too.”
“Rainbow’s pet tortoise,” Rarity explained.
“Ah,” Blake said. “Is there any reason why tortoises?”
“They’re very adorable,” Fluttershy said. “Maybe that’s enough.”
Nevertheless, despite having been assured that animals did live in Atlas, they did not live out in the open where they could be seen but, apparently, huddled behind closed doors, out of sight and mind. Atlas was a city built by humans and occupied by humans, and by the machines that they had built to serve them. It had neither time nor place for animals, whether they were true beasts or simply those colloquially described as such.
Atlas was a city of division. In this whole bustling metropolis, she couldn’t see a single other faunus face, not a single one glimpsed in the crowd, no trace of a tail or a pair of ears, no teeth or claws. High Atlas was a human city, built by men for men to dwell in, and they meant to keep it that way. No one commented upon it, Blake didn’t even notice anyone staring, let alone whispering; she didn’t see any ‘no faunus allowed’ signs on any shop doors.
But she didn’t see any faunus either.
No wonder Ilia had snapped the way she had; passing for human or not, knowing that you were the only faunus in the room, day after day … it must have been hard on her. It would be hard on anyone.
At least I’ll have Rainbow, if I make that choice.
Atlas was a city of war. If Blake hadn’t known that already, if she hadn’t already possessed enough experience to have told her that, if the sight of the cruisers and the airships passing overhead had not been sufficient to tell her this, then she would have certainly realised it as Fluttershy and Rarity led her past what looked like the only structure in the entire city that was more than a few years old.
To reach the Park of Serenity, the girls brought her through another city plaza, open and empty, with grey stone slabs staring upwards at the sky and clouds above. In the centre of this plaza, the only object in the entire square, the focal point without any distractions, was a statue. An old statue; Blake didn’t know exactly how old it was, but in the middle of this hyper-modern city all around it, placed in the midst of a world that was racing forwards towards a new and brighter future, it looked like a relic from some ancient bygone kingdom. A woman, carved out of pure white marble, unmarred by vein or blot or flaw in the design, stood atop a towering plinth of black stone. Her face was ageless, her eyes were closed, and her head was bowed downwards towards the ground; she was simply dressed, with her arms bare and her feet hidden beneath her long skirt and one breast bared as though she were about to feed a child. Perhaps it was for that reason alone that she put Blake in mind of a mother, or perhaps there was some other ineffably maternal quality that Blake could detect but not really describe.
Blake stopped and stared at the statue as her friends, noticing, halted also.
“Would you like to get a closer look, darling?” Rarity asked softly
Blake nodded, and the three of them walked across the pedestrianised space until the maternal figure, high upon her plinth, would have been looking down upon them if she had but opened up her eyes. Her arms, bare and devoid of sleeve or glove, were spread out on either side of her, gesturing or encompassing that which lay before her. Beneath her feet, upon the heavy bronze disk that separated her statue from the black pedestal that hoisted her into the air, were embossed in gold the words ‘These Are My Jewels.’ And all around the statue, beneath the woman’s hands, were more statues wrought in bronze, statues which had an antique style but nevertheless appeared newer than the woman who embraced them as her children: a soldier, his rifle resting upon his shoulder; a huntress in the uniform of the specialists, one hand upon her sword; a pilot, her face concealed beneath her helmet and visor; an engineer with a toolkit in his hand; a scientist in a lab coat. The jewels of Atlas, who kept the city safe from the monsters who surrounded them.
Flowers were laid around the statues’ base, garlands and bouquets, blots of colour around the black stone plinth and grey stone slabs that formed the floor. Some of the flowers were accompanied by photographs; other photographs had been pinned to the pedestal itself: smiling faces, laughing faces, grave faces, faces set in posed expressions, proud and noble faces; so many faces set in a single moment staring out at Blake with sightless eyes.
“Who are all these people?” Blake asked, thinking that she knew the answer already.
“Those we’ve lost.” The answer came not from Fluttershy or Rarity, but from Applejack. Blake hadn’t seen her there, but she wandered around from the other side of the statue now, her hat held in her hands. “Those who’ve given everything for this kingdom. Anyone can leave a picture here, don’t matter who it is: your brother, your cousin, your best friend, that jerk you knew in school who made something of himself … and gave everything of himself. Your parents.” She glanced away, and her smile was as thin as it was brief. “Howdy, girls.”
“Good morning, Applejack,” Fluttershy murmured. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
Applejack brushed one of her twin ponytails over her shoulder. “It’s been too long since Ah paid a visit, what with … well, you know.”
Blake frowned. “Is … is someone you know on here?”
Applejack nodded. “One or two,” she said softly. She didn’t elaborate, and Blake didn’t push her. She’d said enough.
They stood in silence, under the shadow of the marble woman and her treasures, the jewels of Atlas that would never gleam again.
Perhaps it was nothing more than her imagination at work, but as she looked again, Blake almost thought that it looked as though the woman was about to weep. Perhaps that was why her eyes were closed.
“Who was she?” Blake asked.
“She represents the city,” Rarity said.
“I thought she was meant to be a queen from long ago,” Fluttershy said.
“Ah don’t rightly recall,” Applejack admitted. “You’d need to talk to Twi if you want a history lesson. All Ah know is, this is where we say goodbye.”
“I’m sorry,” Blake whispered, feeling the inadequacy of the words. How many of the photographs strewn around or pinned upon this statue had met their ends not because of the grimm but because of the White Fang?
How many brothers and sisters of the White Fang have lost their lives in exchange?
The answer, she was sure, was too many on both counts. Too many had given their lives in this war, too many heroes on both sides had paid the ultimate price for their ideals, and all for what? What had changed? What had all the gallantry and sacrifice accomplished? The battle lines could not have moved less if Atlas and the White Fang had dug their trenches across either side of a muddy field somewhere and competed to see who could slaughter more of their own men trying to move the battle lines an inch or two.
Is there no alternative to this? No better way? Is this doomed to be the way it is forever?
It was enough to make her weep with frustration the tears that the old queen or Atlas anthropomorphised could not.
“Blake,” Fluttershy said gently. “Are you okay?”
“I,” Blake began, pausing for a moment. “I was just thinking about how much has been lost, you know?”
Fluttershy nodded understandingly. “Would you mind if we left now? This place … it always makes me so sad.”
If that was true, then Blake could well understand why, because it was making her sad too; if it was a lie, then it was gently meant, to be sure. “Okay,” Blake said. “Let’s keep moving.”
“You’re welcome to join us, if you want to,” Fluttershy said to Applejack. “We were just about to show Blake the Park of Serenity. That is, if you don’t mind, Blake.”
Blake was about to say that no, she didn’t mind, but before she could speak, Applejack had already done so. “Nah, you two go ahead. I … I think I’m going to be here a little while longer. There’s still one or two things I have to say.”
One or two … and one, at least, is very close. Not the jerk in school who made something of himself. Her brother? Her parents?
Blake couldn’t help but wonder, even as she knew that it was not her place to know. Applejack remained, lingering under the shadow of the statue, looking up at the woman on the pedestal as Fluttershy and Rarity led Blake away.
She hadn’t realised what an oppressive mood had prevailed about that statue until they were away from it; although the mood of melancholy that oppressed her soul did not abate by a long shot, it did ease off just a little, once they were out of sight of the memorial and all it represented to her.
And so they led her to the Park of Serenity, the only green space that Blake had seen thus far in the entire city that was at ground level and not raised up on a roof somewhere tantalisingly out of reach. It was encased within a transparent biodome that kept the worst of the elements at bay and which, Blake could see, would be necessary when the winter came and the weather made these mild temperatures seem tropical by comparison. Within the dome, inside the park itself, a hundred different kinds of flowers bloomed in carefully-tended flower beds — tended to by actual gardeners, what was more: grey-haired faunus in straw hats and waistcoats who moved amongst the visitors with rakes and hoes and buckets — blooming with chrysanthemums, lavenders of blue and green, iris and rosemary and rue, roses red and white and pink, daffodils and tulips. Apple trees spread out their boughs as succulent-looking green fruit bloomed upon their branches. Cherry trees blossomed radiant pink. And in the trees sang hundreds of birds in as many colours or more than there were different kinds of flowers in the garden.
It was like a different world, one wholly removed from the technological marvel outside the glass — or glass-seeming — world from which they had just come; it was like the fairy stories in the battered old book that Blake’s mother had used to read to her and which she had given to Penny: the ones in which the protagonist entered into a fairy world, lingering there a day or two, only to find that ten or twenty or a hundred years had passed in the real world when they returned.
That … that might even be comforting, Blake thought. To spend an age in here and come out to find that Sienna Khan and all those whom I knew in the White Fang had died, and perhaps even the White Fang died with them. Then I could see what the world had become in my absence.
A world without Rainbow or Sunset or Sun. A world where anyone who ever cared about me had passed on long ago.
No. It’s for the best that this isn’t that kind of story.
For her part, Fluttershy too looked as though she had stepped into another world, a better world, one that better suited her temperament. She looked relaxed here as she had never quite looked outside, and as a bluebird flew out of its tree to land upon her outstretched finger, she looked as enchanted by the chirruping creature as Ilia had ever sounded by the wonders of the city of dreams.
As Fluttershy stood, murmuring softly to the little bird which sat upon her hands, Blake and Rarity sat down upon a bench, an uneven bench made of a solid plate of metal that was torn and frayed around the edges and pock-marked upon the surface as though something had been beating on it.
It was so strange, to see such shoddy workmanship in Atlas, that Blake could not help but stare at it for a moment.
Rarity noticed her confusion. “It’s all recycled, dear. Everything — the chair and the benches and the like — in this garden has been made from the fragments of … the Superb, I think the name was. After she went to the breakers’ yard, her metal was repurposed. I find it rather… well, I don’t know if it’s appropriate, but I appreciate the meaning behind it.”
Blake’s brow furrowed. “What is the meaning?”
“That even the most hideous things can become part of something beautiful,” Rarity explained.
Blake nodded. “Do you … do you really believe that?”
“Of course I do, darling,” Rarity replied. “I am a fashionista, after all.”
“And what about people?” Blake asked.
“'People'?” Fluttershy repeated, turning away from her bird to face Blake and Rarity.
“If horrible things can become part of something beautiful, then what about horrible people?” Blake asked, stating it baldly. “Can they ever become part of something beautiful as well?”
Fluttershy stared at her for a moment. “You’re not a horrible person, Blake.”
“No offence, Fluttershy, but you don’t know me,” Blake said. “Neither of you know me, and you don’t know what I was.”
“'Was'?” Fluttershy said. “Not 'is'?”
Blake looked away for a moment. “I’d like to think so,” she muttered.
“Then does it matter?”
Blake stared at her, golden eyes wide. “You don’t think it does?”
Now it was Fluttershy’s turn to look away. “Nobody’s perfect,” she said. “Sometimes, even your best friend can hurt you without meaning to. If I held on to grudges because of the things that they’d done, or if they held onto grudges because of the things that I’d done, I wouldn’t have any friends at all.”
“What I’ve done is a lot worse than just hurting my friends,” Blake said. Calling my father a coward isn’t even in the top fifty worst things I’ve done.
“Maybe,” Fluttershy acknowledged. “But do you regret it?”
“Every day.”
“Then you aren’t the person who did those things, are you?” Rarity asked.
Blake blinked. “And … that’s it?”
“What else is there, but change?” Fluttershy asked. “And doing better next time?”
“Redemption?” Blake asked. “Penance?”
Fluttershy was silent for a moment. “Rainbow and Twilight tried to get me into video games once. I didn’t really enjoy them. I remember one game, you could do all kinds of horrible things and get negative points that would make everybody hate you … but then you could just buy them cookies or rescue stray kittens, and they’d forget all about the terrible things that you’d done because your positive points would cancel them out. Until you did something bad again, anyway. That didn’t seem right to me.”
Blake nodded, understanding what Fluttershy was saying: that expecting that you could or should do a set of arbitrary good things until you hit an equally arbitrary point at which you had cancelled out all of your prior bad acts was just as facile — if not more so — than the idea of a blank cheque of forgiveness. “But … how do I know if I deserve to be forgiven?”
“I’d ask if you were certain you’d forgiven yourself,” Rarity said. “But the answer, I’m afraid to say, is becoming more obvious by the moment.”
“So what?” Blake asked. “What does that matter?”
“It’s the only thing that matters,” Fluttershy said. “Even if the whole rest of Remnant forgave you personally, none of that would matter if you couldn’t forgive yourself. You’d still be trapped by what you’d done, unable to move forward.”
Blake let out a dispirited sigh. “That … that explains a great deal about how I feel,” she admitted. “I’ve been running and running to do something, anything, that will make up for what I did, but … but none of it made me feel any better.”
“I don’t know, for certain,” Fluttershy admitted. “But perhaps…”
“Perhaps we can find out together, darling?” Rarity said.
Blake glanced from Fluttershy to Rarity and then back again. “I … I’d like that,” she said. “Yes, I’d like that a lot.”
Stats
Page generated in 0.068 seconds
Total duration
941 users online
585,315 hits today, 2,814,898 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Putting a bit of Volume 3 in here huh
There is a thing like having feelings for somebody. Meanwhile Wu trespasses in a manner befitting a terrorist and follows Blake all the way to Atlas without even telling or asking her beforehand. Advanced stalker level... activated.
9603760
I find it rather ironic that you say that because the person who suggested that he should do this complained that Sunset was the one acting like a creepy stalker.
9603767
It’s easy for Sunset to come across that way, but that’s due to her experiencing emotions she’s still not used to. The way I see it, Blake is someone whom Sunset truly has a major crush on, but because this is the first time she’s ever truly opened her heart to others, she doesn’t know how to really deal with it. So she comes off as an obsessed, love struck teenager (which she kind of is).
Sun, however, is kind of the same. Mostly, he’s always seemed to just go with the first idea that pops into his head.
Hiding himself in a crate of grenades and stowing himself on a warship definitely puts him in that same boat, though. Still, can’t really calm him a creeper cause he’s not malicious; just doesn’t really think about the ramifications of his actions.
If it was anyone else...
Stull, if he is going this far, he is going to fallow them to Equestria too, isn't he? Wonder what a monkey would turn into?
9603860
Storm Kings race maybe?
9603760
I think Sun is the kinda character that would do this sort of thing for anybody he really cared about, romantically or otherwise. He just doesn't think things through.
I really liked the imagery in this chapter. I'm curious to see how this version of Atlas holds up with the show's version once Volume 7 rolls around. I especially liked the statue. Small error, though:
The second "Fluttershy" should be Blake, yeah?
I was not expecting Sun here. At all.
This chapter is so amazing. First, you created an incredible and unique chapter dedicated to the architecture, geography and culture of Mistral. And now you've done it again for Atlas! Even before the premise of the upcoming Volume 7, every fan knows about Atlas. Seriously, back in Volumes 1-3, we heard more about the 'mighty country of Atlas' than we did even for Vale! The presence of Atlas can be felt in each and every Volume, and now we're here at last!
Beautifully done, my friend!
I wonder if Blake from the other side of the Mirror is the princes of Abyssinia , after all King and Queen of Abyssinia are black cats (and we don't know thier names so you can name them the same as Blake's parents)
9603872
That is what I'm leaning towards yes.
9604035
Headcanon accepted!
9604463
Seconded!
And also, does that also mean Adam would be a minotaur? What with the horns and all.
Anyone got any ship name ideas for (Fluttershy X Blake)
9605192
My guest the ship name would include "Butterflies and Cat"
9605254
Blakeshy... maybe
Blatershy... ugh
Flutterke... makes me think of tea
9605192
Pixiebob. It's a type of cat toy, and a pixie is a fairy usually depicted with butterfly wings.
It keeps bothering in this story. Sure, Rainbow's the kind of girl that wouldn't other people's opinions sans her close friends, but she would rather despise the general attitude to Faunus. If not for herself then for others (like Gilda) yet she has a "It's not so bad, you're evereacting. Gotta go, Military Business and so on." Just seems a little out of character.
9603760
Also does his team know he is there?
Damn, that was a good chapter.
I hope this “Atlas is so good” thing will stop, but since here it was Fluttershy and Rarity, it didn’t disturbed me much.
It seems that you took out parts where people were being pretty judgmental about a Faunus being up on Atlas. It's an unwelcomed removal, but hopefully it was simply moved for something later. Honestly when they went to get clothes I thought someone at the store would try to accuse Blake of trying to shoplift, or follow her to try to "catch her in the act."
11157393
11157485
This chapter is dedicated to being the first introduction of the glory of Atlas, so pristine on the outside. This is what Rainbow Dash and Twilight see. This is what Atlas is supposed to be, and that is anything but a bad thing.
But again, this is what RD sees. We’ve discussed quite a few times across the rewrite how she is the luckiest Faunus in Atlas, having landed amongst the purest examples you could find, until she forgot about all the other flaws and refused to hear otherwise.
And just wait till we get down to Mantle, where the flaws of this kingdom are the most obvious.
Judging by the description, that sounds like Blake's Atlas outfit from canon, the one she's still wearing in volume 9.