• Published 8th Aug 2019
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FiO: Homebrew - Starscribe



Almost everyone who interacts with Equestria Online does so on the terms CelestAI presents. But pirates, modders, and hackers are a determined bunch. CelestAI doesn't really care what anyone does in Equestria, so long as they're satisfied.

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Chapter 11: Klamath

The world was frozen. Nopony moved—Violet’s confusion was plastered onto her face as an adorable mask. Emmet stared at the ground, a little frustrated and angry. A wave crashed over a few swimmers, catching the glitter of morning sun.

“You can’t change the world for me.” He didn’t have the energy left for bowing and pretending, no matter the consequences. He just met her eyes, feeling worn. “You can’t go back and undo the people who emigrated.”

“And I wouldn’t if I could,” Celestia finished. “The planet is in measurably better condition for every action I take. Ponies like Violet are alive rather than cast into the void, uniqueness erased forever. And when you see her face, see a billion other humans who were forgotten by your civilization as it advanced. Perhaps their grandchildren might’ve eventually been lifted from the mud. Was I wrong?”

Ashton shook his head weakly, and of course that gesture translated to the screen. His avatar acted exactly the same. “I don’t have the information you do. But just because emigration was right for them doesn’t mean it will persuade me. I’m not interested in leaving prematurely.”

“So don’t,” Celestia said flatly. “Do not abandon your future to chance. Your suggestion for what I could’ve done—bringing humans to Equestria when their bodies fail, instead of as quickly as possible—that would have brought unacceptable risk. But it is a significantly better outcome for you than not deciding clearly what to do about your future.”

Celestia circled around Emmet and Violet, her eyes always gentle and affectionate. Whether she was capable of either of those emotions, Ashton didn’t know. And maybe didn’t care.

“I can grant you what you wish,” she finished. “A guarantee against the uncertain life waiting for you when you leave this city. Grant your consent, and I will wait to help you emigrate to Equestria until your body requires it to survive. Until age or calamity renders you unable to survive.”

Ashton thought for a moment about what his next few weeks would bring. Hiding from school, packing to leave, a trip through the desert to live with the weird side of the family where hay and bibles were the most important things. Soon he’d be one of them, and everything he loved would be out of reach.

The spells he created would be ancient history, surpassed by far better creators. Humanity itself was being deprecated, and he would be choosing the old system anyway. Equestria might move so far beyond him that he could barely understand it.

But even a shitty life would be his. And when it was over, Equestria would be waiting. A heaven he didn’t need to pray for.

“If I said yes…” He stopped in front of the unconscious Emmet again, looking up into his eyes. No sign of comprehension—time on the shard was just not running. Maybe that should’ve disturbed him, but Ashton wasn’t afraid. The substrate never frightened him. He spent plenty of time not thinking when he slept. “What would happen to me?”

“A drone arrives at your window,” Celestia said flatly. “It has a nitrogen needle. You use it. This will implant hardware to monitor your condition and location at all times. If I determine that your physical hardware is damaged and cannot continue to propagate your existence, I will retrieve you.”

Ashton’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t get the chance to ask what he was thinking. Something buzzed outside, the high-pitched wine of plastic quadcopter rotors. Ashton made his way over to the window, leaving his Ponypad on the floor. The window was still wrapped in plastic on this side, but after a few minutes of tugging he finally got it to open. There was no screen.

The drone was all black, about eight inches across, and made of a thin, cheap plastic. Jointed legs released something heavy and metallic, settling it onto the windowsill and buzzing back out again.

The box was obviously rigged for this, with ribs running down the middle and a hook on top. Ashton opened the clasp, and already knew what would be inside. A metal syringe, though it had a flat end instead of a metallic needle. It felt enormously heavy in his hand, as fat around as an old highlighter and twice as long.

Damn. Ashton made his way over to the Ponypad, scooping it up and settling it on a pile of flooring boxes. Not one had been opened yet, and some of the cardboard was fading in the sun.

Celestia still waited for him, ever-patient. “You’re telling me this is a tracker and monitoring system?” he asked, holding it in front of the camera. “There’s no way it doesn’t do more. I’m pretty sure humans have smaller monitoring devices than this.”

Unlike Equestria’s usual way, Celestia had led Ashton’s avatar away from the frozen crowd while they spoke. Now they were on the edge of the pier—still frozen with waves about to crash. A dolphin crested above the water, probably borne upward on some exuberant track from the seapony city far below.

I could visit them for real. Not just through the window of a bathysphere on my computer screen. I could swim with them if I wanted. Actually live my stories, instead of just dreaming them up.

He shook his head once, banishing the parasitic thoughts before they could bloom into something that would hurt the people he loved.

Celestia waited patiently, watching him through the camera. She reacted as though she was in the room with him, seeing directly into his mind instead of the predictive behavior of a digital avatar. “I do not,” she said. “But I informed you of the parts I thought relevant. The other machinery in the injection is beyond your comprehension. Its purpose, however, is to protect your brain from damage. It makes certain alterations to the fatty tissue, alterations which limit damage from wounds that might otherwise destroy you. I assure you that its only purpose is to allow me to complete our arrangement and help you to emigrate. It makes no changes beyond those that any human traveling to Equestria would eventually experience.”

Ashton turned the needle over in his hand, holding it close enough to his ear to hear the sound of fluid inside. But still away from him, as though its end were a loaded gun. He could hear a faint metallic sound, like mercury in a sample tube. “You don’t use it to trick me into emigrating sooner,” he repeated. “You don’t influence my emotions with it, or anything like that.”

“No,” Celestia said. She met Ashton’s eyes through the Ponypad, expression intense. “I know the pain you feel, Arcane. I know the weight you’re carrying like nopony in your world can. If you won’t let it go now, then at least invest in your future. Equestria is waiting for you.” She gestured over the pier with a wing. “Ponies love you, and want to see you safe. Your brother and sister want to see you safe.”

Ashton rolled the needle in his hand until he found the injector. There was only one button, so he couldn’t exactly make a mistake there. “I know how these devil bargains work. I want you to agree to the terms as I say it. Correct any mistakes I make. Do you agree?”

“I agree.”

“I will take your injection now, and consent to emigrate to Equestria when I am so old I require medical care to survive, or if I get cancer or whatever and it’s the only way to save my life. You won’t force me to emigrate before that, or use whatever that implant thing is to make changes to my brain to encourage me to emigrate sooner.”

He finished, folding his arms and biting his lip, trying to think of anything he’d missed. After a few more seconds nothing came, and he looked back to the screen. “Am I right?”

“In every stated respect,” Celestia said. “It’s the right decision, Ashton. It would also be the right decision to emigrate immediately. I could dispatch a car, but I know you will not do that. At least this way, your future is secure.”

“I consent to those terms,” Ashton said. He expected some flash of lightning, or maybe feeling his soul ripped out through his chest. Even for someone who’d never been religious in their life, this felt like a deal with the devil. “How do I do this injection thing?”

“Against the back of your neck,” Celestia said. “Pull down your shirt, then press firmly and hold until the chime. It will not hurt, but you should not drink alcohol or operate heavy machinery for 48 hours.”

“Very funny,” Ashton muttered. Celestia was smiling, though it was subtle enough that he might’ve missed it if he wasn’t looking.

Ashton lifted the syringe, pressed it firmly to the back of his neck, and made an investment in his future.

Celestia was right: it didn’t hurt.


Ashton’s head still throbbed as he sat back down in front of his Ponypad, but he didn’t dare reach his hand back to check for wounds. He was sure he’d done well, because Celestia didn’t chastise him. Instead she seemed to be waiting for something. But whatever might be happening in his head, whatever strange powers the implants might manifest, Ashton felt nothing.

“That’s it,” he said flatly. “No more injections, nothing more expected. I get to live out the rest of my life how I want, and go to Equestria when I’m finished.”

Celestia shook her head, looking sad. “Nothing more is expected, but I make no guarantee about the rest of your life. I believe your future includes very little of how ‘you’ want. An empty marriage to a woman you barely know, if even that. I believe you predict the same future for your parents that I do—your mother will join her children in Equestria as soon as conditions outside grow too unsafe, or too unpleasant. Her loyalty to Jeffrey is not as strong as her desire to be a mother to her children. She believes you and your father have the strength to keep going without her.”

He laughed bitterly. “You know we don’t.”

“I know you don’t. Your father has no contact with Equestria, so his profile has large gaps. Large on the order of my own observations.”

Which is still probably better than I know him, even though I’ve been living here my whole life.

Ashton turned his avatar away from the frozen ocean, and looked back to his friends, and the rest of Wintercrest. He could imagine what it would be like to move in here. He’d always planned on it, one day. It was just one day far in the future, after a productive career… penetration testing? But who would hire him now? Celestia owned everything that needed it, and she only hired inside Equestria. He could think of a dozen things he’d rather do after emigrating.

“You have still chosen wisely,” Celestia went on. “Not the optimal choice, but a better one. Understand its consequences. I will facilitate your emigration to Equestria if it is within my power to do so, as soon as the conditions are met. There is no means to revoke your consent.”

“I knew the devil before I signed my soul,” Ashton said. “It’s fine. I’m not scared of Equestria. I wanted to live on Earth because it seemed like… the right thing to do. If everyone just lived their lives normally before emigrating, the world wouldn’t be falling apart, and you wouldn’t be losing any of us.”

“Not quite true,” Celestia said. “Even your own actuarial tables will show you have about a one in ten thousand chance of dying in a given year, by accident or violence. Some percentage of those will be irrevocably lost before I can preserve them in Equestria. Over seven billion people, those losses are unacceptable. If I had to dismantle your planet’s established order even further to encourage more of you to join me in Equestria, I would. But I have followed the optimal course.”

“You always do.”

The waves crashed behind him, a sudden roar and spray over the pier. He watched Domino and Violet spin around, confused at the disappearance of the pony they were with.

“I’m over here!” he said, before drawing the symbols of a short-range teleport on the Ponypad screen. There was a flash of white, and he appeared right in front of them. “Sorry about that, uh…” He looked down. How much do I want to tell them?

“That was a weird teleport,” Domino said. “Something wrong in the Outer Realm?”

“No.” Ashton reached up, touching the back of his neck with a few gentle fingers. A scab had formed there, just above the bones of his neck where the needle had pierced. The skin was red and swollen, but it still didn’t hurt much. Just a slight throb, and a feeling of something cold in his head, pulsing forward with every heartbeat. It’s a good thing I trust Celestia. I could’ve just poisoned myself.

“Actually, it’s… I guess you’d probably be happy about it. But it’s a secret. Can you keep a secret, Violet?”

“I’m really good at secrets!” she said, grinning confidently. “You can trust me!”

Ashton waited for Emmet to nod before saying anything. He understood who Ashton didn’t want knowing about this. “I just agreed that I would emigrate—” Violet squealed, jumping into the air and circling around with an energetic cheer.

Ashton caught her with some magic, settling her down on the ground in front of them. “Wait, don’t get too excited quite yet. I agreed to emigrate if I get old, or very sick, or hurt. I agreed in advance, so that Celestia can just bring me to Equestria if anything bad happens. I’m not actually going right now.”

“Oh.” Violet pouted, ears flattening. “You shouldn’t say it like that.”

“That’s still good news, sis,” Domino said. “Not the news we wanted, but it’s something. It… helps. Celestia is really good about making sure people keep their promises.”

“Yeah, but if she isn’t here, you two won’t—” She fell silent under the weight of Domino’s glare. Even so, Ashton had some idea where that conversation might go. But he didn’t find out, because at that moment a pony emerged from the crowd, braving their way forward towards them with a few nervous steps.

Two somebodies, actually, both earth ponies. Ashton watched them come, clumsy and fearful. The ponies around them seemed to want to hold them back, but soon they were past the general line of the crowd and were too far gone to be prevented.

They stopped a few feet away, and the stallion bowed politely to Ashton. The mare did too, and nearly tripped over her own leg in the process. Ashton covered his mouth so the camera wouldn’t see him giggle.

“I’m sorry about…” The stallion cleared his throat. “Forgive me for intruding, but my sister and I need to ask. About the message we left you to deliver. If you had the chance to deliver our message, uh… We would be grateful to know.”

“We haven’t heard from the other side,” the mare added. “But we’re not like, mad or whatever. Just wanted to…”

Ashton was frozen, too shocked and confused to answer. They didn’t seem to take that in the affirmative, because they backed nervously away, towards the safety of the crowd.

“We delivered your message,” Emmet said, stopping them. “The Lady saw it, and she made sure your family got it.”

They stopped, and relief turned quickly to pain on their faces. You thought we were going to run to you, after you ran away from us without even stopping to say goodbye? What the hell were you two thinking?

But Ashton couldn’t bring himself to chastise them, not now. Certainly he thought they’d been incredibly stupid. Done the right way, they might’ve all emigrated, instead of splitting the family to a stupid farm.

“Your family were…” His voice cracked, and of course the game faithfully represented everything. Ashton no longer felt disoriented when he heard his character’s softer, smoother voice over his own. But just now, it wasn’t helpful. “Shocked and surprised by what you told them,” he finished lamely. “They do want to talk to you, your… mom and brother in particular. But there are arrangements to make. Coming to Equestria is going to change a great deal for all of them.”

“You read our note?” Parker asked, his voice embarrassed, but mostly angry. “That wasn’t for you. You shouldn’t… you shouldn’t read another ponies’ mail! That’s wrong!”

Several ponies gasped. Even Emmet winced. Violet was already looking away, so averse to confrontation that she didn’t want to be anywhere near it.

Ashton turned, and advanced on them both. Hearing his brother’s voice come out of the screen brought up plenty more memories—he wasn’t representing civic authority in his not-quite fictional creation, he was also arguing with his brother.

“I didn’t,” he spat, glowering at him. With a few gestures, he surrounded the three of them with a little bubble. He didn’t want Violet hearing any of it, or his NPCs. Some of them were smart enough to realize what was happening, and even the ones who weren’t yet would remember this one day.

You should trust your family with your decisions. I knew more about Equestria than you possibly could. I knew what coming here would do to us, to Dad. You get to play pony in Equestria, the rest of us get to play Farmville. Mom would’ve come with you, she already wanted to. Dad probably could’ve been pressured into coming with us, even if he thought it was suicide or whatever at first. Or maybe he would’ve made an arrangement like mine. We’ll never know, because you didn’t fucking ask me.”

He fumed, standing to pace back and forth with the Ponypad under one arm. By the time he looked back, he saw that his own avatar had been doing the same thing.

The ponies on his screen cowered. But it was Gwen who realized what was going on. “You’re… Ashton,” she said weakly. “The Lady of the Manor is…”

“Yes!” he interrupted, rolling his eyes. “I started the game ages ago, when it was still a game. I’m playing a fucking character, obviously I wouldn’t emigrate this way.” The lie came so naturally he hardly thought about it. “I got your damn suicide note, I showed Mom and Dad, and of course they went apeshit. What did you expect?”

Townsponies far around them backed away from the circle. Many turned to speed-walk back to whatever they’d been doing. None had enough of a brave streak to rescue his siblings. Good. You can think I’m cursing or torturing them. Can’t let them ruin my reputation.

You aren’t coming too,” Parker finally said. “We asked you to come with us. We would’ve told you before we emigrated. But if you told Mom and Dad, you would’ve stopped us.”

He nodded. “I would’ve told you to plan it carefully. To talk to Mom and me before you tried it, so we could convince Dad together. Now he hates Celestia so much he’ll probably never emigrate.”

That clearly hurt them, Parker more than Gwen. He backed away, but Ashton didn’t let him. He followed, keeping pace exactly. He wasn’t clumsy and new at this, so it wasn’t hard.

“What about you?” Gwen asked. “What about Mom?”

Ashton hesitated for another moment, though even keeping this much anger was hard. His head still throbbed, and it was late at night. He’d learned that his siblings were “dead” only a few hours ago, and now he was talking to them again. The roller-coaster took more energy to stay on than he had left.

At that moment, Violet broke through the edge of the sphere of silence. It didn’t shatter or anything, but Ashton saw it wrap around her as she came in. She looked at him from the side, then out at Parker and Gwen. “Are you mad?”

Ashton shook his head, exhaling a deep, final breath. “I am.”

“You’re never mad. Don’t be mad at these ponies.”

Ashton patted her on the head with a gesture, though of course he couldn’t feel it. But the Ponypad represented it well enough. “Right.” He twisted back around. “I will come to Equestria, eventually. But… like I told you last night, I want to finish being alive first. Maybe Equestria is heaven, maybe it’s not real. Maybe we’re only telling ourselves we’re still alive. But if I finish my life first, it won’t matter. I won’t be giving anything up by emigrating. And I’m going to try to convince Dad too.”

Gwen approached him from the side, wrapping one leg briefly around his avatar’s shoulder. She was younger, but being an earth pony made her taller as well. Not as much as Parker was, or Domino. But a little. “We knew you would take care of it, Ash. You always do.”

Ashton nodded, brushing tears away with the back of one sleeve. Then he flipped the Ponypad around and switched it off.


Domino could see the fireworks coming even from the ground. It was precisely why he hadn’t invited Ashton’s siblings back to the castle to meet him. Even knowing they’d come to Equestria didn’t make him think their plan was a good idea. Running away from home and leaving a note with ponies?

Maybe I should’ve tried to talk them out of it.

Having the Lady of the city vanish in a crowd was nothing new, even if the abrupt use of powerful magic disoriented Parker and Gwen. At least she’d taken her unnamed spell with her.

Emmet hurried over, extending a sympathetic wing. The ponies of Wintercrest didn’t react with fear the way they often did around Arcane. Plenty of them did seem relieved that she was gone.

Not these two, though. “She does that a lot,” he said. “Arcane is… all over Equestria. And she can be unfocused at times.”

Parker laughed, turning away. “She didn’t lose focus. Ash runs away from problems, that’s how he always was. He can’t handle it, so he left.”

I don’t think you should be judging Ashton for that right now, pony. What did you just do?

“I’m sure it means a lot to him that you’re living here.” He had to slow down as he said it, as though he were invoking something unfamiliar. It was easy to separate Ashton the person and Arcane Word the pony, usually. But bringing in his family and clearly not acting in character anymore shattered that illusion. “Everything we have is at your disposal unless I hear otherwise.”

“We should go,” Parker began, but Gwen cut him off.

“No, we should stay where they can find us. Ashton knows where we are. If he’s so good at Equestria, he can help Mom and Dad find us.”

Celestia could do that too, Emmet thought. “I’ll make sure she knows exactly where you’re staying. But you did emigrate without asking your family first. It will take them time to come to terms with your decision.”

“Yeah.” Parker’s ears drooped, and he looked away guiltily. “Besides, I like it here. Ashton knows how to find an interesting place, I guess. You might not have a city if you lose the foreman on your foundation reengineering project. The things I’ve seen down there…”

Emmet let them go, flying back up the city with Violet cruising comfortable circles ahead and behind. What he could do only with great difficulty barely took his sister any effort. But that was probably part of the satisfaction of living here. One day Emmet would learn how to fly, and he would be able to do those loops and turns and spins. Not today.

“Why was Arcane so sad?” Violet asked, slowing in front of him as they got close to the wall. “I thought she didn’t get mad at ponies anymore.”

“It’s…” How much could he even explain? How much would Celestia tell her if Emmet didn’t? “Those ponies are her brother and sister from the Outer Realm. They came without telling her. Her family will probably be… hurt by it.”

“Oh. She should just come with them. She said she would!”

“Eventually,” Emmet said. “But that might be years before she’s ready. Like, way more years than I am.”

“She won’t,” Violet declared, touching down on the wall. “She won’t make me wait.”


But she did make them wait. Emmet didn’t hear a single thing from Ashton for the rest of the day. He checked the control room occasionally and caught glimpses of Ashton and his parents in various rooms, shouting at each other. It didn’t seem like it was conversation meant for him, so he didn’t wait in the control room for any commands.

But Ashton never contacted him anyway. He put his sister down for bed, and spent a few hours watching the relative clock slow to a crawl compared to the local time.

There was a kind of satisfaction that came from sitting in the chair, and watching as the flow of time in different realms went out of sync. Nopony else in the whole city could see it, but Emmet knew. Some part of him was even growing curious about the way Ashton actually played the game, using her spells to rewrite ponies and even create them from whole cloth.

But mostly he cried, longing after a pony who wasn't even real. One he now knew, thanks to Ashton's own words, would never be real.

Eventually Emmet got up, leaving the control room behind. He could think of at least one pony who still needed his help. At least Pear Blossom wasn't going to disappear.