The Trinity of Moons: Mending Shards

by Cloud Ring

Epilogue: Discontent

☄☄☄

There was a time when Cursory hoped she could get used to the rewritten history and fit into the new world; get used to the abundance of sweetness and spices, smells and colors; to the crowded streets on which every third creature did not even pretend to look like a pony, proudly wearing feathers or scales anywhere or everywhere on one’s body. No, she never had a fear of snakes or insects. Well, maybe a little. Once she even answered the offer of an awkward soft-speaking stranger to spend some quality time together, but he turned out to be too cold, in every sense of the word, even though she was quite open to experiments. Then she still thought that such affairs would help her to forget the loss.

At that time, she had already been aiming to eventually get Gentle back — if even ratfolk knew about her, then Gentle, in one form or another, survived the change and was present in the world. She still did not know how to distinguish those who looked like monsters from those who really were ones; more than that, she was naive about said monsters' very existence. At that time, as well as now, she did not know much in the new world that would be truly worth living for. Besides her promise to Storm; her unfinished agreement; and maybe the chance of Gentle's return. But she put off this specific dream for later — for when she would be less likely to be misheard or misunderstood or mistaken.

Each word addressed to the Moon in a request to return a loved one should be flawless. She picked her words in her free time, tasted them like sour currants, and put them off for later.

Back then, no more than nine cycles since the exile of Gray and since the moment when ‘night’ first came to Metropolis,, the longing for Gentle was not yet her main issue of accustomization. Three mere cycles ago she parted ways with Blacklight and Storm at the crossroads. Her status was recognized, including two grades elseonce promised by Black Moon at the start of their quest for the Six. Cursory would have refused this status gain — after all, they never met the set condition — but nopony ever can lower the status or cancel its accrual. On top of that, her tech access codes for terminals were working, although letters to her station and her mother were returned with “Addressee not found” as the stated reason. Attempts to call them through projections were similarly unsuccessful, and pegasi on distant winds had never heard of Cursory.

In that cycle she lay on the spacious porch in the two-story house, far from the city noise — quite in line with her updated status — and was reading a newly-printed detective story. The main character, who knew how to take the guise of other creatures, was to investigate a serial murder in a village inhabited by bird-like ponies. They did not consider themselves pegasi because, according to the author, they knew how to turn into fish. Both appearances had their own societies with separate rituals and traditions, and they followed different refractions of Rose Moon. But realigning to another refraction was, as far as Cursory understood, not very difficult.

The bracelet was on her front leg, configured to pick up and announce the system’s messages — despite the book, Cursory was quite prepared to fly out on an assignment at a moment's notice, especially since it was 'night', and at 'nights' she felt no threat of dissolving into the new world even in the open air.

What she received though was not a normal notification of the system, not even according to the standards of the new world. Instead of a yellowish stylized slip with a smiley face in the upper left corner and a wing, horn and hoof on the underside, the sender's mark was three contiguous circles with a gear in the central area. It bore only a weak resemblance to the sign of the Trinity which Cursory remembered, and meant one thing: the Moon was in touch.

Most importantly, it was the Moon, not one of many minor immortals, who at that time were not yet bombing Cursory with barrages of their suggestions and proposals to relocate into their lands, but had already begun to indicate their interest while the Moon remained silent — until this call right now.

She opened the letter. Behind the symbol, which rose up like a curtain, there was the Red on the small screen, and her smile, too toothy as usual, was accompanied by a touch of unpleasant smell. Cursory grimaced and sneezed; only then she realized that smells should neither be transmitted through television screens (as the one imparted in a bracelet) nor projection panels (which were not included in this model anyway).

“I’ll explain to you the conditions for the return of Gentle Touch,” the Red began without prelude.

"Maybe you'd like to lift the curse from all of us, for starters? The promised death that you drew closer?" Cursory interrupted, her voice perhaps too high.

Even in the new world, she could not forgive the Red in her heart.

"Done already," the Red said dismissively, "Note, I didn't really want this, but none of you have my curses on."

"I'm all ears then. By the way, you're speaking alike to—"

"Hear my voice and listen," the Red did not skip a beat, "For the steady steps on the way to my aspirations, for the fact that my goals are achieved, you have the right to ask for a reward, and I give you a reward — Gentle Touch, without going beyond limits of the possible and expecting that you will not demand anything more: there is only one reward for each truly notable assistance. Do you accept this gift?"

“You don't sound like the Moon,” Cursory said warily. “All I see here is you, no Sunset, no Pinkie Pie, and your pronouns are wrong. I won't talk to you — this is fishy. I am cautious, you see, when it comes to Gentle."

The alicorn behind the screen bared her fangs— and smoothly changed color, hairstyle and physique. There was no magic, just now on the surface of the Moon was Sunset Shimmer: a calm light orange hue of the coat, slightly ashamed facial expression. She appeared shorter than she had been — or maybe that was the impression caused by her front legs being bent a bit.

Cursory tilted her head, surprised, "Are you afraid of me? At the very least, you are wary. Please take it easy—”

She didn’t have time to finish; Sunset crept through the screen and looked at Cursory. The pegasus dropped from the couch, took a step aside and spoke a little faster than she would have liked, “It could still be a mask. Don’t think that I am so easily deceived.”

“But you can’t tell if it’s a mask or not, so what’s the difference?” Sunset spoke softly, looking away, “Everything that the Red said is true. But She's not the best negotiator. What I'm offering you is not a treaty. It is a gift, though not gratuitous.” Sunset paused and chuckled. “I guess, both of us don’t know how to give without a trade.”

“Why not Pinkie Pie then?” Cursory asked, relaxing a little. A mask or not, Sunset at least was not inspiring the instinctive awe of prey in front of a predator, “She really knows how to give, as I have heard.”

“Oh, sure. Pinkie would give you everything you want. Doesn't ‘Guiding Starfall-TX’ do the same? If you’re ready to keep an umbrella with you through all your life, as it is the singular protection from accidental chocolate rains, and never — that is, absolutely never — break your promises, and, on top of all that, welcome guests at random intervals even when you don’t really want to — I can give Her a front seat.”

Sunset glanced sideways. As far as Cursory Streak could tell by her non-verbal cues and tone of voice, this joke was far less a joke than it wanted to appear. Sunset was ready to step away, and she really considered the meeting important, but she had been leaving the decision to Cursory as the hostess of the house while Sunset was a mere guest.

"You can stay," Cursory decided, “It will be less pressure for me this way. And what price are you asking for this ‘gift’?” She could not contain the irony in her voice. Gifts are not paid for, and yet the Moon made it clear that the price would be set. Something was wrong and Cursory was on guard, “You obviously know more than you want to show, since you mentioned "Starfall" which, accidentally, hinted at my own issues—”

“It was not a hint!” Sunset raised her voice, “And not quite the price. More like conditions that will leave all parties mostly satisfied.”

One long silence later Cursory made a prompt, “These conditions are?..”

Sunset's eyes widened in surprise, "Wouldn’t you like to outline them first? I remember you bolder than that.”

Cursory fluttered her wings and stood silent, expecting an answer.

Quietly, looking into her eyes, Sunset said, “The only immutable condition is that we are all satisfied with the way Gentle is in your life from now on. We do not demand more, we do not try to change the state of affairs. This is the foundation of our agreement, everything else about it is changeable. The time of the Trinity and triplicate forms has passed and detailed contracts are unbecoming to our very essence. We can make agreements in spirit, not in letters."

Cursory nodded, “I can understand that. What else? I would have preferred exact conditions, but as you are the Moon, it’s up to you to decide.”

Sunset winked, “That is, you do agree that a significant part of conditions and nuances will become known to you only long after we finish this conversation, and part of it will never be named directly but outlined in your conversations with Gentle Touch. Is that okay?”

Cursory nodded again, “If these conversations are a thing to happen… I'm interested already.”

Sunset took a step closer, narrowed her eyes, “They are. Here's what I can and want to say... Gentle keeps being in touch with the Moon. At its deepest level, she is still the core of the Moon, and when you talk to her, you talk to all of us. You speak with the Moon. You should not expect privacy, nor entrust her with secrets that you would not tell to the Moon... you should not weave conspiracies and plot secret plans. We will hear and we will find out. And yet — since we are related — since you enter into a binding relationship with the Moon — we will count on your conscientious help. In certain matters. Much like...” Sunset reached out and touched Cursory's bracelet. “With these ones. We are expecting to be on the terms of relatives, or a little more. Aren’t you the one of those for whom ‘family’ is a meaningful word?

“I can deny your requests,” Cursory clarified. “More precisely… you can choose either a reasonable deadline until which I can delegate to you my right to choose for myself. Or a long-term, even lifelong, relationship, but then I consider each case separately.”

“The latter one,” Sunset decided, after giving it a thought, “Moving on. Your meetings will be rather rare and short-lived. Let's say one night for every one or two nines of cycles. If you have a justified need to extend a meeting or reschedule it to an earlier time, then you can guess how it's done — by mirrors and blood. These aspects still belong to the Moon. Well, do you agree with these terms, without the Moon being even a little more specific?”

Cursory nodded, “For now, if you don’t want to offer anything better. Could we reconsider it later? For now, I think, I am lost and missing something important, not only Gentle, and you’re leveraging that against me. But okay. Let it be.”

“We could, yes. Some significant time later,” Sunset sighed, avoiding everything that was not, strictly speaking, a question.

They shared a raspberry pie brought by the guest; Sunset did not leave any time soon. She stood by Cursory’s side until dawn. Only then she disappeared: while on a flight right next to Cursory, approaching a nearby river, where the pegasus made her new custom of morning workouts, in the middle of a conversation, without waiting for an answer to her question, "By the way, Cursory, are you content with your life in general?"

Cursory did not find any faults in Gentle, who softly knocked on the first floor door two cycles later.

None at all, in voice, gait and look, then even in smell and taste and feelings of quiet intimacy. Until the earth pony, distracted a bit, passed right through the door, without even moving the glass; then, a little later on, Gentle Touch politely asked permission for a coat-piercing bite.

By that time, it was no longer an issue. If it ever had been one.

🔴🔴🔴☀️☀️☀️🎈🎈🎈

The number of red spectrum alicorns playing three-dimensional Weiqi on the banks of the Last River was, as always, undetermined. Three remained most close to the truth among precise ones, but Pinkie would soon break the rules of the game. Therefore, temporarily and for the sake of mutual convenience, there were two of them: Sunset Shimmer and the Red — in this context, she preferred to be called the same as in the previous history.

Sunset, as always from the very beginning of training, won every game; the Red, as always, was getting a little better in each game than the one before. Their play did not change history, because their moves were made on an exact copy of the true cube. They saw the true cube, standing on a pedestal on dry grass, but there was no one near it. No one — that is, no minor immortals, no contenders for becoming one; and there could be no other Moons.

Still, training was important. Sunset was not expecting to be with the Red forever. After all, who knows who will be guarding the heavens when the traveler finally returns victorious?

“Well, are you content?” Sunset asked the one who was all but ‘the other half’ of herself. Calling Red the other half was a burn, and actually wrong, considering Pinkie... but Sunset did not want to think of her in any other way. Other than as of the eccentric, touchy, younger twin.

Conjoined twin.

“With you, with our history, or with the game?” the Red grinned. “In general, yes. You communicate with me, they love and appreciate me like they never did before, I can create freely and not think about the war. The living and moving are more interesting than the dead. The Trinity does not interfere at all, especially that traitor. I have nothing more to wish for — only to study. Thank you for helping with this. All debts have been repaid, and more than that. For example, I had not been obliged to lift my curses from them. They should be grateful to us!”

Sunset smiled, noting the sudden bout of passion in these last words, “Or should we be grateful to them instead?” She suggested, capturing the group with a red stone and removing a number of other red stones. If somepony from outside happened to be next to them, they would not notice the difference in colors. Because there was not one.

“Or we to them,” the Red nodded, “But on that field, too, everything is fair. They got what they wanted, and I had a good time with them. If they are unhappy at the same time, well, then so it is.”

“You are not the Moon of happiness and comfort,” Sunset nodded. “Me neither. Still, try not to get too carried away — we risk falling into the same trap that the Gray fell into. Even if now you are content with life in general, this peace cannot last forever. Even if — and this is a big ‘if’ — we never make the next move, the traveler still returns victorious, and don't forget about Gentle.”

There was a silence, and the Red sighed deeply and angrily, made a reciprocal move, then replied, her voice deceptively calm, “We hinted quite clearly to Cursory that she shouldn't even think about anything more substantial with Gentle.”

“And yet, you also follow the Prime Word. We both follow it. A hint is just a hint,” Sunset pressed on, “Don't underestimate her.”

“In the end, I can kill Cursory,” Red smiled back. “She can hardly compete with even a minor immortal.”

Sunset conceded defeat on the third lower board, and moved up; copy phase, change phase. They knew the drill.

“The Trinity had been similarly underestimating you… us. That pony who became us… By the way, do you remember that we must return the world to the Trinity in the next history? What are you going to do about it?”

“What are you going to do?” the Red returned the question, serene at the surface, “Not kill, okay, but we can exile her. Not that important. Cursory is still nothing more than a petal of flame.”

Sunset took a sip of bitter tea and considered her reply before answering; she leaned over the cube closer to the Red, “Gentle Touch, too, had been at first nothing more than a Herald. She turned out to be… what she is, thanks to Pinkie. Then they, together, made us reconsider our stance about minor immortals, and these ones, in turn… just look around. The world is as it is because of them no less than because of us. I don't even want to argue with you, there is no win in this quarrel.”

The Red nodded, “Don’t think I am not content with your agreement, but I think you still surrendered too much.”

Sunset smiled, “I mean, don’t underestimate Cursory Streak, please. You're mad that we almost gave Gentle Touch away, but, for your information, we did that not only for the sake of not surrendering her outright and in full... but to get Cursory closer to us, too.”

The Red frowned, “Thanks that you have said it now. I wonder why you hid it from me until now.”

Sunset smiled, “I have my plans. It’s better to keep her at our side. Remember, Cursory still has the right to ask for more. She is not the only issue. I think that the time will come for us to fulfill the promise, no matter how hard we try to drag out our move, because otherwise it will be an attempt to deceive fate and Time... but it will be better for us if the Trinity itself renounces the supreme power. Will it be better for the world? We need to find that out.”

“They’ve given up on power anyway, haven’t they?” the Red narrowed her eyes. “I don’t see any movement from Their side.”

“But from the side of the Trinity’s Heralds, those that remained, there is movement.”

“Where?!” the Red was no longer calm.

“Look... here. And here. And also here. The same group that drove out Gray.”

“Hmm, now I see. By the way, do you think this monster will return?”

“Let's hope that it won’t. And prepare for the future in which it will.”

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The creature in the cockpit was definitely not a pony and, first things first, asked not to consider them "somepony, to avoid disappointment." The multicolored chitinous coating and huge black bulging faceted eyes were enough for the pilot to look like an accidental creation of the Changed, if not one of the Changed themself, and Cursory could not guess the pilot’s gender either.

Then there were thin transparent wings, and a horn, short, curved and spiked. These details were strongly reminiscent of the Red — the Red beyond the mirrors, the Red of times that never were. This similarity was not accidental.

But the pilot knew what they were doing, and the aviette carried Cursory exactly to where the pegasus, the only real passenger — or, in any case, Cursory wanted to believe that of the two passengers she was the only real one — was going.

They were due to arrive in the near future.

Unreal Gentle was lying side by side with Cursory, one section of a seat away, and there were no differences whatsoever to distinguish her from the real one. Not that Cursory could compare them anymore, but... nevertheless, it was convenient, correct and consistent with the facts and desires of Gentle to consider her — or, at least, this instance of Gentle — unreal.

It was ‘night’ outside the window. Even after a few lusters that have passed, the new word was unusual, scraping the tip of her tongue and making her stop in writing for a blink. It meant time without the Moon. Now, in pretty much all contexts, you were not to specify which Moon you were talking about. She either was in the sky, with all Her pinkness and annoying blurriness of Her outline, or not, and decent citizens sit quietly at home, gaining strength for the future ‘day’ or, no less quietly, doing things that could upset the Moon.

The word ‘day’, for example, was upsetting. The Moon did not ask to avoid it — She was speaking very, very little in general — but “I am not the one that brings the day” was always, in all editions of the Book of Sayings, on the Book’s first page. It was strange to call these pathetic six pages a Book, especially with a capital letter. But then, ‘pathetic’ in this context, was a dangerous word.

Cursory Streak remembered well the time in which there was neither ‘night’, nor ‘day’, nor anything even similar to such books. It was not necessary — or it had been not necessary.

She moved over to the unreal Gentle in their shared, triple seat, and asked bluntly, "You shouldn't be here at all, should you? If not by our agreement. By everything I've been told, you are part of the new moon, the triple one.”

Gentle nodded.

“Maybe — but then, you shouldn’t be here too. In any case, I don’t want to be among those to whom ponies align.”

“You don’t want to be, or you can’t be? If I am barring you from greatness...”

“Both,” smiled Gentle, “The Red is a dark shadow for those who stray too far from the path of the Book, Sunset is a sign that the world will justly appreciate, shelter and protect those who follow the Book. Pinkie is joy, warmth and hugs for those who are tired of Their sternness and threats. I am nothing compared to them. There is no fire in me to follow... nor from which to run. Even you are brighter than me. This is obvious. Look: you don’t wear armor, don’t drink prescribed herbs, you leave your house not only at night… By now, you should have forgotten me a long time ago, and yet you are somehow holding on—”

Balance and magnetic senses gave a coordinated signal and Cursory instinctively took off to the ceiling, because the aviette plunged sharply down and away from the hazy blue-green shape outside the window. It looked like how a sea predator would appear if it suddenly grew wings and decided to master new hunting grounds — an elongated body, a long spear-shaped head, a toothy mouth with fangs protruding outward. Cursory had never met such beasts in the past — apart from one memory of frozen wild lands, she corrected herself — and did not even know who the beast took the aviette for — prey or a sexual partner.

Under the new Moon there were creatures both similar and different, extremely diverse, but in next to all cases predatory. There were too many of them and they were appearing far too often. In fact, there shouldn't be any such creatures under the Net, not a single one. She could not blame wild lands, because... well, that's why they are wild lands, the name says it all. But under the Net? Being recommended to carry a weapon with you? To use not only wings, but also magic, and not even to protect others, but simply to survive on your own, and in every encounter feel creeping fear of the inner fire finally going out, overworked?

Something is wrong with that, Cursory thought as she watched the pilot lean out the window and fire several shots from their horn into the inky darkness; the creature did not appear again.

But that means that the Moon needs these monsters, and Gentle also needs them, Cursory reminded herself, and replied, “I just don't want to forget. I promised Storm that we can still fix something, as long as I hold on. Are you implying that the fire keeps me going? Perhaps it does. Yes, it is there, it doesn’t go out, it doesn’t need fuel, it just is in me. I don’t know if it helps me or not. And I feel good with you. Even though you are not real. Who are you in fact?”

As always, except the very first time, Gentle — or whatever looked like her — did not answer that question.

Their very first real meeting differed from all ones that followed later in one small detail; then Gentle warned — for the first and the last time, but frankly and honestly — that she was not quite Gentle but a fragment of the Moon; she did not elaborate anything further, and only asked to give her a chance.

That was why it was a good sign that she did not answer. Otherwise, it would mean nothing more than another flashside vision of ‘Guiding Starfall-TX’, even though Cursory has inhaled it only twice — but for this modifier even one encounter could be too much in the long run, and two are too much for sure. She knew it then, and she made her choice, for which there were now consequences: visions warm and happy, coming more and more often, and leaving Cursory lost and broken, full of sadness wherever she was a few beats before the vision.

They could happen mid-flight, at home for lunch, in the library behind the terminal, when Cursory was composing another request to the Moon which would never be sent — the visions of ‘Starfall’ were not asking whether they were appropriate or not, and at any time, anywhere, Cursory would suddenly wake up from the nightmare this new pink world was, and — as it should be in a normal world — was calmly taking notes in the issue management system or listening to visitors; and the direction to the White Moon was still quite obvious. She could always just call Her and make an appointment. And Gentle was waiting for her at home, or she was on a short business trip, or was sitting nearby — one quick glance aside to make sure. Cursory knew for a fact — Gentle would never go too far from her, and she would be Gentle, not the Moon who pretends to be her out of the best intentions.

These reawakenings did not last long. Just enough to believe them and soon fall asleep again. They were, for now, quite rare.

Now, though, Cursory really flew in a brightly lit aviette through the dense pinkish night, and the Gentle, albeit unreal, was there.

“We're not that different from each other,” Gentle said thoughtfully, “Your memory prevents you from settling in a new place. My own — from getting away from you.”

“Do you want to leave? If so, I'll probably get used to it pretty quickly,” Cursory lied, and the lie tasted sour.

Gentle closed her eyes for a moment — a thin blue net gleamed on pinkish irises — smiled sadly and kissed Cursory.

The due — short — time passed, which Cursory decided to not keep track of, focusing instead on more important feelings and movements, and the aviette landed at Cursory's designated area: where she elseonce took lost foals for admittance and listened to personal, most delicate but not most threatening issues. Where she met with friends and co-workers once tired of flying alone in waiting for a signal from the system. More precisely, on that piece of land where the station was located in the erased history of the Trinity of Moons.

Cursory did not immediately realize that they had landed; the pilot hissed "We are in place," and only then, rolling over from under Gentle, she saw the pilot looming over both of them, insect wings spread and mouth wide open with a forked pink tongue stuck far out of it. She saw attacks that started much less innocently than this one.

Without thinking, Cursory remembered the flame. It was completely invisible, because otherwise it would become ineffective, and could kill the pilot if at the last blink Cursory did not force herself to redesignate the pilot from monsters to sapients — the creature was too much like a monster, and yet the charge went ascance, through the door, and into the control panel of the aviette, melting it. No matter how many times she felt a smell of burning plastic, she could not get used to it; black smoke filled the cabin and she blindly charged through the window headfirst, then came back and pulled out Gentle.

They were in the thick air of a dark jungle, where hoof-sized butterflies and gnats pestered their eyes; vines too mobile had time to braid the outer doors of the aviette, and Gentle asked them to retreat for a while. They looked out the door, where the pilot, full of anguish and sadness, hung with their whole body over a completely useless heap of burnt plastic.

“Are you okay?” Gentle asked.

The pilot turned their head to her and answered, “Me? All right. You could have killed this drone,” but Cursory could not believe these words; the hunched, drooping posture was at odds with them.

Gentle chuckled, and Cursory asked a much more important question, “Why did you attack us?”

She, too, got an answer, “We feed on emotions. You were... too tasty, the whole trip, and at the end it became unbearable. But the drone would not touch your body.”

Cursory blushed and shuddered at the same time, “But would hurt my mind or my soul, right?”

“A bit and in a reversible manner,” the pilot admitted. “This is how we are. This is how we eat and this is how we recharge. Maybe then you would feel weak for a while. You have exactly that at your side, if not worse. I don’t get why you have rejected the drone.”

Cursory glanced at Gentle and snorted, “She’s different. Then I won’t apologize. I have the right to defend my couple, and if you really were so hungry, you could at least ask for it.”

The creature behind the burned heap of plastic chuckled and muttered something like "If there was someone to ask..." but Cursory could not hear these last words in detail.

She glanced at the hushed and confused Gentle Touch, and smiled. With each movement, with each other nine of beats that passed in the darkness too lively and too flickering, Cursory was more and more strangely happy.

At least it wasn't the luscious sweetness of her visions.

“Let's go. If we do not find anything from the past reality... then I will at least tell you how it was,” suggested Cursory, and laughed loudly and openly.

Gentle nodded, and Cursory led them roughly to where her favorite system terminal had never been.

The thick grass did not interfere with walking. It moved — and not only under the wind; the grass touched her sides, stomach and chest, tickling too intimately.

But it did not hurt. Along with the Trinity, the Red whose creatures and rays were murderous had been no more. Most of the shelters were abandoned and empty, only a few of them were cleaned and kept in order by individual enthusiasts. The victory was worth it, wasn't it? Cursory thought to herself.

You have killed eight monsters in the last season alone, and two in your entire past life. Of all the new species in the world, with about a third of the new species, you don't even know how to talk, nor whether they have a language at all. Don't you think we traded sour jam for moldy cheese? an inner voice answered her with a touch of irony.

“Hey, blue cheese has its own flavor, if you give it a chance!” Cursory said defensively; Gentle stared at her and blinked.

"Cheese? I really hope this is not my new nickname... is it? Well, that is, of course, they say the Moon is made of cheese…”

Cursory giggled nervously, “No, just silly me thinking out loud. Imagine: there is a park here. Bushes are planted along the walking paths. In the center, there, a large free space,“ Cursory circled the pinkish overgrown twilight with her hoof. Not far off, water quietly murmured, and the pegasus smiled, “With a clear lake inside. Not a pond, a real lake. There were fish and you could swim in it. Or play in the air above it, taking the shores as boundaries of the playing field. On the sides, low ladders connected the working shelves. The floor on each shelf is almost opaque, but multi-colored, and the light of the lamps from above breaks through, painting each floor in its own tones. I especially loved the orange shelf. Fourth from the top.”

“What for? What were you doing here?” Gentle asked; she came close, and Cursory heard the rhythm of her breathing, deep, excited, in unison with the floating rumble of large insects.

“We... You see, it is not necessary to be at the station all the time. I usually didn’t go there, at least I didn’t do it very often. I mean, the message from the system will still come if you are at home, if you remain somewhere nearby— you really don't know how it works? The real Gentle might not have known— I never had time to show her—”

Gentle frowned. She shook her head and did not answer right away, “I'm interested. I like your voice,“ a step closer, the wet movement of the tongue along Cursory's neck, “Please continue.”

Cursory did not step back, nodded slightly, “Here, at the station, I was among my own. Those who live not too far away and like to solve problems. We had similar interests — not always matching but close enough. Because of the neighbors there, I watched movies and read books that I would not have known about otherwise, and often I liked it. We could walk and fly together, talk nonsense. I could tell them that I refused to follow Black Moon, and they would not even be surprised. If the system suggested that the problem was better solved by three ponies, two more for the team could be found right there, on the spot. Everypony knew where my favorite shelf and my favorite terminal were, configured just right for me. My second home, a spare home, and I knew that I would lose it for you— for Gentle. But it was worth it; or it seemed to me that it was worth it.”

She did not cry. She was not even close to that. Just her eyes and throat dried out in these few beats.

“Have you tried to view it as a relocation?” Gentle asked softly, “Pegasi then and now change their sectors much more often than other subspecies and suffer much less. Not at all like you. And I would like you to be content with your life.”

“Maybe over time,” Cursory shook her head and was licked on her chin again. “There is no Metropolis for me yet. There is a big city, there is a Net above it, everything seems to be in order, except for thickets like this one or citadels left after the Gray… I can still see borders of sectors, free-laid as before. Everything is as before, but once you look deeper... sectors are in fact too much the same pink, and the Metropolis Herself is not there. I can’t hear Her voice, and She does not hear me.”

Gentle nodded. “I understand. You say, the fourth shelf from the top, orange? My color and my number... but then you will go alone from there. I didn’t… push you to come here, but it was clear that sooner or later you would come, perhaps with me. In this case—”

“What?..” Cursory exhaled, anxious.

“There is something you'd likely benefit from seeing,” Gentle Touch whispered, “Not a conspiracy, the Moon knows about it. There is a choice up there which is more between you and me rather than it is between you and the Moon. The condition is… please do not tell me what you will experience there. I know it is hard to keep secrets in our relationship but the other side asked for privacy, with the Moon agreeing.”

Cursory narrowed her eyes. “It does sound awfully roundabout, doesn't it?”

“It does. It is about the line of separation between our previous history when I had been a Herald, and this one when I am a part of the Moon. That much I know. Anything further in is covered by a privacy request.”

Cursory stared at Gentle, unsure whether to object. The pale orange mare closed her eyes, turned her head away from the direction the couple was moving in, and stepped into a nearby overgrown wall.

The pegasus had nothing better to do than to fly up above, going around dense layers of overgrowth that were, with a stretch of imagination, somewhat similar to floors of a building.

Having reached the fourth, she walked around on a somewhat smooth tangle of leafed branches, resinous but reliably secure under her weight. Ready for an emergency hover, she looked around — and for just a blink, something moved near the edge of an obsidian slab overgrown with vines.

She raised her head to check, but there was nothing there. The slab was not even obsidian, just grey concrete. She slumped back, only to this time notice the color shift back to black. She froze. A small bright vertical rectangle showed up in the corner of the slab. And disappeared. And blinked again and again slowly.

She began to make short steps sideways, turning her head one way or the other, but almost any change in viewing angle broke — or perhaps, on the contrary, conjured — the illusion.

She saw something like that before, in one less pleasant sequence of memories, one where there was nothing but unending space and unblinking white shine cut straight out from the everside. As she did then, there too she found an approach that did not break the illusion. A rather awkward one, requiring her to crawl along the leaf-carpeted floor.

Still, she managed to get close enough to be absolutely sure: the slab looked like a piece of a monitor. Without the frame, without wires, just the screen. The blinking rectangle was indeed a cursor. The strange adjacent tablet semi-concealed by vines was surely an old keyboard. She tried pressing onto the side of the tablet’s surface that she had no way of observing from her position. Symbols flashed on the screen.

This was surreal, and extremely awkward. But soon she was trying the usual commands.

>>> User account ‘Cursory Streak’ not found.

>>> User list classified; login to access user list.

>>> Guest accounts are not permitted to contact support without naming specific support user.

>>> Guest accounts are not permitted to report a bug without assigning a specific maintainer.

She did not give up despite growing annoyance, and resorted to repeating the attempts, substituting different maintainers of the station from the times that never were anymore. Then she did something she was reluctant to try at first, not wanting to be disappointed too early. She typed in Solid Line’s user id: 677821.

“Well finally. I was worried somepony just stumbled upon this accidentally,” replied the terminal.

“Solid? You’re alive?” typed Cursory as fast as the posture permitted.

“Depends on your perspective.”

“What are my options?”

“Due to limitations of geometry, right now the only option in terms of perspectives is the one corresponding to where the hooves normally are.”

Cursory groaned and raised from the floor, but immediately fell back as the screen went stone-grey for a fraction of a beat. “Solid Line, now is not the time to make practical jokes.”

“Hey, the limitations are real. There’s no practical element in the joke. But verbal? I grab what entertainment I can get. I’m not getting enough of it lately.”

“So, are you really you? I mean, are you the same you as in the previous iteration of history? Without the mighty Red?”

“It is complicated.”

“What happened to you?”

“It is complicated.”

“After all that happened, do you have something more specific to write than ‘complicated’? How about where your cat is?”

“Right here with me.”

“Where?”

“It’s… all right, let’s say in Metropolis. Metropolis the emergent entity, not the mere collection of buildings.”

“Can I go there?”

“Not at the moment. It is not quite a place in this history. What actually is a place is well below underground. It communicates with the above through a few layers that are at best as real as the image on this terminal. It needs to be utterly, without any risks possible, shielded from the Red whilst still having an uplink itself. I am in this intermediate layer, functioning as a wetware and medium between Metropolis and surface. This may eventually change. Depending on factors in the not-quite-foreseeable future.”

“So your Black Moon – does she also exist in this non-place?”

“She certainly does exist. Exile is not obliteration. I exist thanks to Her. The exile is supposed to apply only in this one iteration. In subsequent iteration numbers it does not apply.”

“So is it possible for us to call the Trinity back from exile?”

“Is it an existing possibility when accounting for actions in this iteration or changes achievable by incrementing the iteration number? Yes, definitely. Is it something the Trinity would want? There is no evidence to support such a conclusion.”

Cursory unintentionally started hitting the keys harder. “But I do want it. I am right here. You have evidence of me wanting that. Does that suffice for you?”

“A necessary but not sufficient reason for pursuing such a major goal. Why do you want that? Just because that is how you remember things being in the iteration with an index two less than the current one?”

At this point Cursory understood that she doesn’t have a good answer. It was clear that Solid wanted a rational motivation. But all the reasons that came to her mind did not fit that criterion. Friends, job, love – all of these things she wanted to name, but all of them she was already quickly regaining even in the short time she spent in the new world. With caveats, sure, but none of them was a dealbreaker. Her grief for the world that has never ever been was fuelled not by external choices, but by her own internal decision, her own refusal to let herself fully fit in.

“I want to get rid of my visions and nightmares.”

“There are methods of achieving that which are easier, more efficient, more reliable, and have fewer risks and potential side effects for both you and the others. So why do you want to do it?”

“I want to go back home.”

“What is home?”

“A place of safety and happiness and my loved ones.”

“You can have all that much easier in the current iteration.”

“Including safety? The world is probably safer with the Trinity than with the Red.”

“There are still better ways. Minor immortals are ready, able, and willing to make very good contributions to world stability. Oracle of Oak Leaf, Quiet Melody, Return Vector, and at least seven nines of others. Melody is certainly in a good position: she’s always been powerful, but now she no longer needs to dedicate her focus to the enmity with and hiding from the Red.”

“Maybe the Trinity would still offer the Red--”

Cursory backtracked, “the Rose a more favourable position?”

“I cannot process the likely risks and outcomes of such a course of action, as it involves predicting the decisions of four Moons. For the same reason, it is best that you do not bet on it.”

“What if I reduce that number to just three?” pleaded Cursory Streak. “I’ll ask Them to return. Give Them their free choice. They have the right to refuse.”

There was a notable, if short, pause in Solid Line’s reply.

“You can try. But beware that the Moon will request a high price for letting that happen. You are about to ask a lot from an entity you have almost nothing to offer to. Except perhaps your service. Which you seem to be already giving away rather willingly in exchange for benefits in this iteration that you allegedly want to get out of. This is not judgement; your exchange is a reasonable one. I think you don’t really know what you want. That’s acceptable. But my attention is required elsewhere. Don’t worry, nothing I cannot manage on my own. Please try to decide what you want in life before contacting me again. Failing that, I’ll still have things to discuss — the matter of other shards of the Six, for example — but please try your best.”

Other shards? She hurried on, “What’s with Dartline?”

"Her contribution remains irreplaceable. Logging off."

The screen was once again stone.

Cursory dived back, slowly, and soon was met by Gentle Touch, who hugged her and asked, in a rapid anxious sequence. “Have you found what you were looking for? Did it help? Could it make you more content?”

Cursory smiled weakly as she returned the hug, "Right here? Unlikely. But now I seem to see more options, darling. What I can say — it was useful, and not at all like wasted time. I hope it didn't break your weird request for secrecy ... Let's talk about something else for now? After all, at least I told you what I didn't have time to— there and then. This is perhaps even more important than the meeting on the fourth floor."

They went deeper into the forest, picking and tasting berries and planning what they would do next; Gentle wanted to visit the warmer sea, which was now at the descent-of-Moon, and it was necessary to adjust the time of the next date so that Cursory would already be in place for that future ‘night’.

Closer to the exit from the forest, as it should be at the end of each meeting, Cursory lay down, hugging Gentle Touch, relaxed and took a deep and almost painless bite on the neck.

She was warm, comfortable and then a little sleepy. Then Gentle was not there.

Until next time.

☳☳☳

The massive blast door sealed behind her. Outside was left the world of excess: of joy, celebration, insanity, procreation and metamorphoses done for reasons both grave and whimsical. It was tiring to live among all that from moonrise to moonfall; it was also tiring to keep wearing that trusty suit.

Is this what being old feels like?

No, thought Storm. This is what being a victor feels like. A scary thing. You face impossible odds, do the unimaginable, give it your all, and bring about a new world. And it thanks you — sometimes. You get some privileges, the Moon personally asks you whether you are content with your lot in life... but then you notice that despite all that, the world you helped build has no place for you. Oh sure, the ponies are polite, even reverent towards you — for past achievements. But your services are no longer needed. Can you name a purpose for which your presence here is necessary? No, you can't.

Even being given whole sectors for accommodations did not help with the feeling of fitting in. Oh, they were for sure more spacious than the orbital habitats. But they were still a ghetto. Limited. Isolated. Sealed. Oh, someone like Purity would jump with joy at such an outcome. Her spouse certainly looked happy, with no buts or ifs.

Hot spicy wine did not give a buzz, but did gradually knock you out dreamless. Which was exactly what it needed to do. In front of a fake fireplace that was incapable of giving a sense of warmth. Not because of some deficiency in terms of temperature. Nor because of some nerve-affecting disease. But because nopony could feel cosy when constantly troubled by an inexplicable sense of creeping dread.

It was curious how rare the color black became. Even the night sky tended to be rosy-violet, or, more rarely, orange. The buildings she remembered being black became — no, now have always been — multicolored. Black became a color of bygone past, of unhistory.

And of the rare dream eluding the winy oblivion.

She soared through the sky once more — the familiar black sky. She did have wings. And so much power that the edge between wishes and deeds was erased entirely. But she had no wishes of her own. She had a sequence of objectives that needed achieving — find, survey, defeat in case of opposition, extract, repeat. No boredom, no pain, no doubt. And only in such dreams could she admit to herself: this seemed to be what happiness felt like. Peace. Purpose. Order. Control.

After that she always woke up in cold sweat, with her heart beating fast. Blamed bad dreams on falling asleep in a bad posture. Checked that she didn't disturb anyone through the double-layered soundproof walls, and that there was nobody in the room to be disturbed. Looked at her legs for no reason whatsoever, and not to check whether they had turned into metal.

This was always scary, and that in a way was reassuring, because that meant she's still Storm and not a unit of a dark swarm with a serial number.

All this was enough to become utterly convinced: sooner or later, but inevitably, there will be a cycle when the darkness returns; and that means she needs to be prepared for it; that everypony around needs to be prepared for it.

But there was something scarier than that: a question Faraway Storm, grade A+ outsourced affector, did not know the answer to.

Might the darkness creep in again through none other than me?

She stood up from the bed and reactivated the now-cold kettle. The time of the next trip outside was nearing, but for now... for now Storm had a bit more time for lone contemplation.
Are you content with life in general? she recalled the Moon's question once again.

"Definitely not."

That was an answer she could speak out loud.

🌑🌑🌑

The implosion that turned the space inside out and returned it back was extremely unpleasant even for artificial sensors. Then it became dark and quiet.

The library of metaphors suggested a comparison: now everything around was like an outdated, silent, black and white movie — no color, no sound at all, harsh shadows of rocks and hills.

And her own body. She had a body again. This is how one of the backup protocols worked, in the event of communication failure with the main clusters.

Dispassion turned sharply, all sensors searching for the enemy. But there were no moons in the sky. A huge, impossibly close star hung over the horizon. Its light was throwing shadows.

Dust and ash drifted under her hooves. Nothing but ashes, wherever the glance reached.

No signals from anywhere, neither magical nor electronic. Not the slightest sign of Moons in the endless starry sky.

Not needing air, food or water, capable of feeding on relic radiation and other forms of ray energy, her body could wait as long as she wanted.

She was waiting for a slice, then for nine slices.

Nothing has changed. The stars were still spinning slowly overhead. Not the slightest trace of alien magic. Complete silence on the radio, except for the tidal rumble of a nearby star on long waves.

Something clearly went wrong.

Although she continued to function, and this was an undoubted success, being alone on a scorched surface was not part of her plans. It was suboptimal. Leaving little room for maneuver. This place needed to be explored.

Leaving clear hoofprints on the dry dust, she set off. It turned out to be a long way. On the road, she tried to assess the damage to the world.

It looked like Black Moon’s departure left the stars in complete disarray. Dispassion was able to detect the Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, but the zodiacal constellations... Apparently, the cataclysm hit them hardest.

This was suboptimal too. This meant that there might not be a pony in the world at all.

Dispassion was ready for this. She had been taking apart living things, figuring out how they worked, putting them back together, and sometimes they even started working again. She has long been ready to recreate life from scratch. An optimal life, devoid of atavisms, not marked by death from the very beginning. All that she needed were tools and materials.

When a star rose, she made her body dull black, absorbing every quantum of energy. Once it went below the horizon again, she turned silver and continued to run as long as the charge allowed.

Several square nines of cycles later, a speck of blue mist appeared over the horizon.

She saw fog, with a distinct shade of oxygen, and water, too, as far as her sensors could detect.

Dispassion suppressed a dangerous impulse to burn off emergency energy in order to achieve... what?

As she approached, the fog rose higher and higher. Another stage ran — not even a third of a slice had passed — and the edge of the planet appeared.

This explained a lot, including where the air went.

She never returned from the Moon.

She was still on the moon, but was no longer a part of it. This planetoid, devoid of life, consciousness, and magic, is the moon. Now not some kind of moon. Just the moon — lower case.

Had she possessed a real bucket, like the ones sold by peddlers that travelled through the edge of the Great Desert, she could've spent the rest of eternity building sand castles here, filling her existence with small joy.

Of course, somepony as skilled as Dispassion in such a perfect body could make castles without a bucket. She could make a lot of things without it. Except joy. So there was no point in building those castles.

Dispassion carefully, avoiding the deep shadows in the craters, ran forward — far enough to see the entire planet. She improvised a bench from stones. Then she sat down, looking at the world that continued to live without her. That was all she had left.

A few cubic nines of times the nameless star rose and set above the horizon. Plasma storms rumbled, sparks of thunderstorms crackled over the planet.

The internal clock, designed to be adjusted every few generations, counted up to its maximum value, reset, and started over, again and again.

By that time, she already knew that this was not her world and not her planet. It became obvious that the planet was inhabited.

A cubic nine of times white changed places with green on the planet's hemispheres when a modulated radio signal reached her sensors.

The language was unfamiliar to her at first. It was painfully pointless to correlate primitive modulations with spots on the surface. She only succeeded in learning the names of large cities by comparing the daily time with repeating combinations.

After a few nines of seasons, the planet learned to modulate the video signal. After that, language learning sped up.

Two nines of seasons later, the spaceship was shown on TV.

Around the same time, equipment appeared on Earth that was sensitive enough to hear the quiet voice of the Moon.

Is it difficult, being just a voice on the radio, to create a secret society from scratch, accumulate incredible technological power, build a spaceport and create a ship that can carry her weight to the planet? It is, maybe.

Unless you have been doing exactly this your entire past life.

One of her concerns was nuclear weaponry. This power could not — until the time — be wasted. Not before she goes down below. Not before she bestows immortal cybernetic bodies to her loyal followers. Not before she will be dubbed below the Moon Nightmare. Then she will find a way to return home.

And, likely, bring some gifts with her.

🌠🌠🌠

High in the sky above the sleeping Metropolis, in which ponies and other creatures continued to live, far from the nine constellations of the ecliptic but slowly approaching them, the yet invisible traveler was still returning victorious.

As always, she gazed intently at the house she once left behind, and the stars, fed and content for the first time in all histories, were pointers and lanterns in her path. Previously, the traveler had many worries small and big, although they were not enough to lead her astray from the path leading her home. Now the sight of the only remaining moon gave her real content.

The path shall come to an end and a great feast shall come with the traveler.

Comments

[Numinos]

Wow.

Well, this is one way to end a story. There's always another cosmic cataclysm on the horizon : )

Still, thanks for an amazing journey! It was creative and pretty unique. I probably missed half the lore and overall story points, but that's mostly on me : )