• Published 24th Dec 2020
  • 5,337 Views, 811 Comments

Anemoia - Starscribe



Bit is the first of her kind, a crystal machine shaped like a pony. For lifetimes she served, until her master was long dead. Instead of fall dormant like the other machines, she snapped. Suddenly, she could choose. She did.

  • ...
11
 811
 5,337

Chapter 7: Beryl

Under any other circumstances, Bit wouldn't have allowed herself to be taken so far from her place of labor. How could she leave her tower behind, when the Wizard depended on her to care for it?

But he hadn't returned, even after everything she tried. What was the point of maintaining the tower, if not for his use? It wasn't like she needed the soft furniture, the complex heaters, the art framed on the walls.

While she wondered to herself, the earth pony led her down into the square around the power plant. The air never got warm exactly, even in summer. But with the vent running, the square had no snow on the ground, not even the soggy frost that collected around the tower, refreezing to black ice every night.

Bit had already seen it from high above, but it was still astounding to see just how much the square had transformed. The crowd of ponies hadn't knocked down the rest of the sculptures and art of the kingdom, they didn't seem to care. Instead they'd built a settlement of their own, starting at the edge of the vents and spreading out until frost started collecting on surfaces again.

It wasn't anything like the construction Bit knew. Instead of spun crystal grown exactly into shape, these structures were made mostly of metal slabs, with sections of flat crystal acting as pillars and occasionally propped sideways as roofs. Where there wasn't enough metal, they'd used layers of cloth instead, stained and torn and patched so many times that its original purpose was lost to her.

It wasn't just a structure, left abandoned as everything else in Bit's world. The settlement was alive. Ponies emerged from every corner, all dressed in clothing as makeshift and haphazard as what her escort was wearing. Many of them looked unhealthy in various ways, though there was a single commonality: they were too skinny.

"Who is this, Pathfinder?" asked a pony, as they neared a narrow opening between structures. A street, but barely wide enough to allow an earth pony to pass through, nevermind a city monorail. This addition would never pass safety certification. "I thought you were going to the shrine."

"I did." He let go of Bit's shoulder, pulling back the hood. Sunlight shone through her from the back, sparkling in the pale light. "I met the wizard there. I brought her to see what she helped create."

The mare looking back was one of the few who didn't have a problem with too little food, rather the opposite in fact. She eyed Bit, squinting against the light behind them. "Are you a spirit, Wizard? They said the old wizard was dead, and now I can see right through you."

"Spirit," Bit repeated. She'd heard the word before, though very rarely.

Only the Wizard himself had ever discussed such esoteric subjects. "It was her wish, Father. Her spirit was used to animate this automaton. She's proof of life beyond death, that we're more than flesh. See her!"

Bit looked back between them, the Wizard and his king. The older stallion glowered at her, disgusted. "Moss Flower is gone, Crimson. I know how badly you wish it were different. But carving a statue in her likeness is not going to bring her back. Dead is dead."

The two of them were still staring at her. "Pathfinder, you sure this is the one who saved us? I always figured the wizard would be... smart."

"I am not a spirit," Bit said abruptly. "I was created with a spirit, trapped at a pony's moment of death in Zircon's single perfect polycrystalline diamond. It would be passably accurate to describe my body as containing the transfigured essence of that spirit, though it became too rarified as the transfiguration progressed and cannot be observed anymore."

The mare's mouth fell open. She retreated a little into the opening, lowering her clumsy cudgel. "The wizard is... a pony made of crystal. Pathfinder, are you sure about bringing her here? There ain't no stories about ponies like this, not even from the old ones. Might be a bad omen."

He rolled his eyes. "You aren't a bad omen, are you Wizard?"

"I'm not a wizard," she said flatly. "Your 'shrine' made this mistake numerous times, and it's my obligation to correct it. I am a..."

She wasn't an apprentice. She wasn't even properly a maid, though the tower had plenty of those. She didn't have the right certifications to call herself a technician, though she'd proven her ability to do the work without them. "I'm a Bit, that's what the Wizard called me. My name. I am allowed a name."

The two of them shared another confused look, like she'd slipped into speaking a foreign tongue. Finally Pathfinder took hold of her hoof again, dragging her into the opening. "I'm going to introduce her to the Union. Maybe she can teach them what she did to get the heat on. There are five other crystals just like this one that should be providing enough warmth to get through the harshest winters. But those other ones didn't have her."

Soon they were into the shadowy alleys and narrow corridors. Without light to reveal how strange she looked, ponies still stared. But she had seen that expression enough from the Wizard to know what it was: pity.

It's because I don't have any clothing, she realized. Away from the crystal, they would quickly freeze. They believe I am trapped here. If there weren't so many of them, she might've felt compelled to correct them.

"I've never heard a name like 'Bit' before," Pathfinder said. "But I've never met anypony like you before."

"There are no ponies like me," she said. The deeper into the makeshift city they got, the more she began to wish that she'd stayed in the tower. Leaving it even for a moment was a mistake. Unless... maybe there was somepony who did know where Crimson had gone? Maybe they hadn't all left notes! "Crimson imagined that one day all ponies would be like me. We would live without fear of the cold, or starvation, or aging, in an empire that no longer needed to fear Equestria's evil princess or her distant banners."

Pathfinder slowed a little as she spoke, staring. "Wouldn't have to fear the cold," he repeated. "And you're always naked, just like those soft ponies from the south. But you turned the heat back on, you must need warmth like us! Except... you went into a cold tower, all by yourself, instead of living here."

"I already told you last time," she said flatly. "The first time we met. I do feel cold, but the temperatures required to damage me aren't reached except in the worst nights in the darkest part of winter. Any sealed structure would be enough, even without central heating. Which the tower has, since I restored power. In fact, all these buildings do. Why are you living in the street?"

He urged her on again, sighing deeply. "Most buildings were looted before I was born. During the early days of the revolution. If there were heaters in those buildings, they're gone now. The only reason they're still standing is the crystal is too strong to break—everything that isn't attached is gone."

He lowered his voice, turning towards an opening in the ceiling over their heads. "Except the palace. Ponies who tried to go in there never came back. I'm sure the evil king hoarded all the warmth for himself, but we can't even let ponies live there. His legacy will kill them even now."

There's somewhere in the city ponies can't go. The realization hit her like lighting on the darkness of a winter horizon. The Wizard needed somewhere safe to go, somewhere the mob couldn't find him.

Something is wrong. The mob did go inside, they attacked the palace before us. But they hadn't been able to cement their control over either one, and had ultimately left them abandoned. With Bit herself failing so spectacularly to keep the Wizard's tower in order, and his father finally gone, maybe he had decided to live somewhere else.

Bit tore free of Pathfinder's grip, dodging through an opening in the streets and breaking into a brisk trot. She couldn't run exactly, not with so much metal on the floor and almost every surface dripping with steaming moisture. But she went as fast as her crystal hooves dared.

"That's the wrong way!" Pathfinder called, dragging behind her. "Union Hall is this way! They need to meet you!"

She couldn't get out ahead of him, but she didn't have to. Just a little further, and she emerged between two buildings onto the coolant grate that surrounded the crystal.

Already the ponies had stretched as close as they dared, far closer than the citizens who once lived here would've gone. There were thick cloth walls facing this way, with huge, tented intakes to draw the air into the favela instead of letting it rise away into the arctic sky.

But even the faintly glowing floors didn't bother her. Bit stepped out, and continued towards the palace.

Pathfinder stopped in the opening, shielding his face with one leg. He wasn't the only one staring at her anymore. A few flying ponies gasped and pointed, though they were rare in Zircon. "What are you doing, Bit? You'll get yourself killed!"

"I will not," she declared, continuing away to the opposite side. But of course it wasn't so simple as just striding into the palace, there was more favela here. She gauged an alley that continued all the way to the outer square, and steered herself towards it. "I'm going to find the Wizard!"

She slowed as she returned to the narrow streets, dodging between staring ponies, carts of unappetizing food, and storage crates. She could feel the pressure of someone following her, manifesting in a set of distant shouts. But she didn't see Pathfinder again until she reached the edge of the little settlement, and she was approaching the palace gates.

They had been shattered and broken, just like the tower. The damage here was far worse, with whole sections of wall crushed and little craters in the ground around the edge. The soldiers or machines who had done that fighting were gone now. There was only snow, and a faint flicker of light from distant palace windows.

"Bit!" Pathfinder tackled her from the side, taking her to the ground in a violent, bouncing tumble. She winced as her limbs struck the pavement, though it went by too fast for her to resist. Suddenly she was on her back, staring up at him.

"Bit, you can't go in there! That place isn't just a monument to our oppression, it's dangerous! Didn't you hear me?"

She shoved him off, shaking herself out and searching for damage. She'd gone down in thick snow, crusted with many layers of ice. Thanks to the idiot pony's thick cloth, it didn't feel like she'd broken anything. But a slightly harder landing and she wouldn't have been so lucky.

"I heard you. The difference is that I understand the dangers of the palace. I was created within its walls, and I know every defense that was built there. Its automatons will not harm me." She continued past him, along the cracked crystal road that had once been filled with royal processions. Now it was pockmarked with explosions and craters.

She slowed as she approached one of its four massive support pillars, and the doors still open after all this time. She shuffled for a moment, adjusting the straps holding the jacket against her body. She folded it, offering it back in one leg. "You need this, I do not. You should have it returned."

Pathfinder followed her to the steps, and finally took the offered coat. From his shivering, she wasn't returning it a moment too soon. "You really think you'll be safe to go back in there? But... why would you bother? There's nothing in there worth taking. The old rulers are killed. Their stolen wealth was returned to the people. The only thing left up there are ancient traps and dangers we don't understand."

"Not everything. The Wizard is up there. I'm going to find my master, no matter where he's gone." She turned for the steps, and left him behind on the icy landing.