Aether Express

by MagnetBolt

Second Stop: Chaostown

The train rattled on the tracks once it had finally started again. It had only been a few hours, but it felt longer. Rarity couldn’t explain it exactly but the time seemed to weigh on her, almost like some of those thousand years Princess Luna had spent imprisoned there on the moon had shaved off and mixed with the dust.

“Where will we be going next?” Rarity asked. The lunar landscape swept past. It was hard to gauge their speed. The horizon seemed too close and the air too clear and still. “The sun, perhaps? I’d love to see what Princess Celestia has done with it.”

Diana shook her head. She kept her gaze away from the window as they traveled. Perhaps she’d felt some of that endless time in the same way Rarity did.

“The Aether Express doesn’t go to the sun,” Diana said. “It’s for the best.”

She stole a glance outside. The sun hung on the horizon, far more distant than Equestria.

“It’s unapproachable. Blinding and hot. You can’t stare at it for long or else you come away damaged from it, and even the Aether Express can’t get close. No, I doubt anypony could get close to her.”

Rarity tilted her head. “Her?”

“Realms reflect their rulers,” Diana said. “You’re an educated pony -- surely you’ve heard that the health of the royalty is shared with their land. Princess Celestia is a very distant pony, is she not?”

“I’m not sure I’d say that.” Rarity laughed a little. For once, she felt that she knew more than the tall pony she was riding with. “I happen to know her personally! One of my best friends was her personal student, you see. I’ve even gotten to see a bit 'behind the mask' as it were.”

“You should be careful.” Diana closed her eyes, tugging a curtain across the window to keep the hot sunlight away from her face. “Ponies who stand in the sun for too long get burned by it, and when it crests the sky even the brightest stars are forced to vanish.”

“Did you have some sort of… bad experience with her?” Rarity guessed.

“I’d rather not speak of it, please,” Diana said quietly.

“Ah, right. I apologize. I don’t mean to press. Consider the subject totally dropped!” Rarity waved a hoof as if tossing something aside. “So where will we be stopping next? I was told that there’s a chance of a bath, which I would dearly love.”

A ghost of a smile washed across Diana’s face.

At the same time, a palm tree swept past, so quickly Rarity almost missed it.

“Somewhere tropical?” Rarity guessed.

Something pattered against the windows. For one brief moment the noise was calming and a welcome departure from the quiet of the moon. Then Rarity saw the thin brown stains, and the distinct slightly-sour smell of chocolate milk.

“No,” Rarity gasped.

The rain washed away some of the dust, revealing a multicolored checkerboard. Plants sprang up along the tracks, with flowers that were shaped like trombones and sousaphones and made rude noises as the Aether Express passed them by.

“You’ve figured it out already?” Diana asked.

Rarity gave her a flat look. “I’ve seen this before. They’re Discord’s creations, aren’t they? But that was back on Equestria! Please don’t tell me we’ve come full circle.”

“Discord is a being of great power, and naturally he has a realm of his own. I wouldn’t say it’s going to be as quiet as the moon, but it’s certainly going to be more lively,” Diana said. She seemed pleased. Rarity couldn’t tell if it was because there was almost no sign left of the moon in the increasing storm of chaos they traveled into or because she was looking forward to the destination itself.

“Somehow I doubt I’m going to get that spa treatment,” Rarity groaned.

---

She became even more sure that she wasn’t going to enjoy the stop when the train came to a stop and an announcement was made that they’d be stopping for just over a full day.

“Twenty-five hours and seventeen minutes?” Rarity asked. “That’s oddly specific.”

“We need to get fuel and water for the next part of the journey,” the conductor explained. He was a real gentlestallion, taking Rarity’s hoof and helping her down the steps to the station platform. “The workers here are reliable, but the amount of time it takes them is totally random. Last time I came through here, it was fifteen minutes, and the time before that it was a month.”

“A day is a useful amount of time,” Diana said. She let the conductor help her down, bowing politely to him in thanks. “It gives us time to see the local sights, get refreshed, and perhaps even sample the local cuisine.”

It would have been rude to suggest they’d be better off waiting on the train, especially if Discord was somewhere close enough to hear them -- and knowing the creature even a little, Rarity was sure that he’d arrange things to be in the worst place at the worst time.

“Do they have hotels here?” Rarity asked. Diana motioned for her to follow, and they walked through the neon-lit station and past nonsensical paintings that changed whenever one looked away from them for too long.

“Rooms are arranged for travelers at every stop that lasts more than a few hours,” Diana said. “According to the conductor it should be near the station…”

They stepped out into something like a town square. Booths of every shape and size were set up in a bizarre bazaar. Diana led her into a crowd of ponies, which looked almost normal at first glance. The longer one looked, the more one noticed unfocused eyes, colanders used as headgear, and the occasional burp ending in a brightly-colored bubble.

A pony floated past them, hanging in the air as if she was drifting down an invisible stream. She hummed a tune to herself, oblivious to everything else going on around her.

“That must be the hotel,” Diana said, her height making it easier for her to see it over the crowd. She took Rarity’s hoof and led her through the press of bodies, Rarity trying her best to block it all out until they emerged from the other side and went through a set of heavy wooden doors and into blissful quiet broken only by the twanging tones of what had been a pop song and was now being played on soft accordion and banjo.

The hotel was very nearly normal. True, it still looked like a pop-art fever dream, but the furniture was behaving and following all known laws of physics and the shag rug under Rarity’s hooves was neither moving nor changing color. She almost wished it would, given the color was a sort of dusty plum that managed to not complement any other color in the room.

“Hmmm…” Rarity rubbed her chin and prodded one of the chairs in the lobby with her hoof. It was shaped something like an ink blot but felt like velour. She made the bold decision to sit in it, and it made a sound rather like one of Opal’s cat toys did when trodden upon. “Do you think this hotel is safe?”

Diana picked up a pamphlet from the counter. “According to this, it should be.” She floated it over to Rarity so the designer could look.

It was possibly the most dull-looking thing Rarity had ever seen. It was black and white and beige and that was the entire color palette of the world the pamphlet’s designers lived in, but it had a solid weight to it, like it was made out of the finest cardstock. Somepony had tried their hardest to make it seem real and present and an anchor for ponies in need.

“Turvy Hotels,” Rarity read. “Guaranteed to have at least two Cuils of reality in every room or your money back. Offer limited to mortals and former mortals. Offer not valid in the state of Florida.”

She opened it up and looked at the many exciting things the hotel offered, like a single direction of gravity, electromagnetism, a constant flow of time in all rooms, and, available only for platinum club members, causality.

Rarity looked up. She’d heard the majority of the words before and knew what more than half of them meant, but that just left her with more questions than answers.

“What’s a Cuil?” she asked, flipping back to the front cover.

Diana shrugged. “I have no idea, but it sounds extremely official and there’s a seal of approval from the Equestrian board of measurements and weights.” She waited at the counter for a long minute, then leaned over to look behind it, obviously finding nopony.

“Darling?” Rarity said, politely. Diana looked over at her, then followed Rarity’s pointing hoof to a sign that said ‘ring for service’ hanging over a rubber chicken.

“Of course, how silly of me,” Diana said. She pressed down on the chicken and it made a deep ringing clang like a brass bell. A pony instantly appeared, popping up from behind the counter like a jack in the box.

“Pinkie Pie?!” Rarity gasped.

“No, don’t be silly,” the pink pony scoffed. She pointed to her face. “You can clearly see I’ve got a false moustache! Pinkie Pie never wears one of these!”

Rarity raised an eyebrow.

“Okay fine, she rarely wears one of these,” the pink pony admitted. “Seldom wears. Occasionally wears? She’d definitely only wear it if it was funny, and I’m not wearing it to be funny, I’m wearing it because I’m concealing my identity and don’t want to get popped like an overfilled balloon like all the others!”

“All the others…” Rarity frowned. “Ah! You’re one of that horrible horde of clones!”

“Now I’m only a party of one,” the clone said sadly, wiping a tear from her eye. “That was another good episode.”

“How did you even get here? Does the mirror pool connect to Discord’s realm?”

“Oh, you know. A daring escape! The details aren’t important, and they’d take forever to write out and contradict several canon events if I even tried! What really matters is that eventually Discord found me and brought me here where I wouldn’t have to worry about being exploded by Twilight Sparkle, turned into an alicorn and gone mad with power!”

Her fearful expression tugged a string as tight as a harp’s saddest span in Rarity’s heart.

“I’m sorry,” Rarity told her, reaching out a hoof to touch the clone’s. “We didn’t even think you were real ponies. We just assumed you were… illusions, or something similar.”

The clone nodded, giving Rarity a weak smile. “I know. I wasn’t sure I was real either.”

Rarity sighed. “You don’t have to wear the moustache. I’m not here to blast you with magic, not that I could.”

“I like the moustache,” the clone replied.

Rarity looked at Diana for help. The taller pony was stifling a giggle.

“Could we get the keys to our rooms?” Diana asked. “Our reservations should have been called in ahead of us.”

“Sure! You’ve got room 301 and room B.” The clone put the keys on the counter then leaned over to point. “Go down the hallway to the end, turn around and come back halfway, then go up the stairs to the fifth floor and your room is on the left.”

“Is that… room 301, or room B?” Rarity asked.

“Both, obviously,” the clone scoffed.

---

“When she said both I thought she meant they were next to each other, not that both doors led to the same room,” Rarity sighed. She took off her saddlebags and put them on one of the beds. It sloshed, which either meant it was a waterbed or else she was going to have a difficult night.

“I apologize if I’m intruding on your privacy,” Diana said quietly.

“No, no, I think it’s actually better this way! I wouldn’t want to miss the train tomorrow and, truth be told, I’m a touch nervous about staying here.” From the window she could see the landscape floating by. The train had stopped in an area that was something like an island of stability, but the further off she looked, the less normal things were. Sections of earth and stone floated in the void, somehow avoiding colliding with each other as they passed by. Some were large enough for entire farms. Others were precisely the right size for a single confused goat.

“Why don’t you get washed up first?” Diana suggested. “I know you’ve been looking forward to it.”

“Oh, thank you so much, darling, I’ll be quick!” Rarity practically ran into the bathroom. The polite thing would have been to refuse the first offer and give Diana another chance to step in ahead of her, but there was a limit to politeness and Rarity’s limit was the itching, crawling sensation of lunar dust. It had all the worst characteristics of charcoal combined with the irritation of powdered gemstone.

She rushed into the shower, reached for the faucet, and--

“Three?” she asked quietly to herself. She’d seen faucets with one lever. Faucets with separate handles for hot and cold. She’d never seen one with a third control. None of them were labeled, just anonymous chrome waiting for somepony who should have simply known which to twist.

Rarity put her hoof on the left-most handle. Would that be the hot water? She couldn’t feel heat through the fixture but that was normal for all but the poorest-quality construction. She stopped herself before committing. Why should she assume any of it would work the way she expected? The hotel guaranteed some level of reality, not of common sense.

So the right-most handle? She touched it. Ah, but perhaps she was overthinking it. It might simply be over-engineered! If there were water heaters, there could also be water coolers. One handle for hot water, one for cold, and then that would make the middle handle of the faucet tepid, and safe to start with.

Rarity smirked, having overcome the puzzle, and twisted the handle.

---

“Why does the shower have a tomato juice setting?!” Rarity demanded, after figuring out how to get a proper shower, then taking a second one because she was sure there was still a trace of pink in her coat.

“Tomato juice?” Diana asked. She was sitting next to the window, watching the city outside with obvious amusement. Rarity wasn’t happy to see that amusement extend to her predicament.

“I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’ve had an unfortunate accident with a skunk,” Rarity said flatly. “You should thank me for not letting you discover it on your own.”

“I admit I had a feeling there might be some twists we would need to untangle,” Diana admitted. “Just because reality is stable here doesn’t mean it was designed by ponies with the same sense of aesthetics and common sense as we’re used to.”

“And I was the perfect guinea pig?” Rarity asked.

“More like a canary in a coal mine. You did want that shower,” Diana reminded her.

“True,” Rarity sighed. She climbed up onto the bed. It sloshed under her, and there was an odd thickness to it, less like a waterbed and more like a mattress made entirely of gelatin.

She pulled back the edge of the blanket and wasn’t entirely surprised to see lime-colored gel with floating bits of fruit. She poked the bed more firmly and watched a cherry wiggle deep inside the mattress.

“You’d think they’d get ants,” Rarity mumbled.

“Be careful or you’ll unleash some kind of pun about aunts,” Diana warned. Rarity groaned and covered her face. “Try lying down on it while I get cleaned up. It’s more comfortable than it looks.”

Diana got up and swept into the bathroom. There was a long, significant pause of total silence, then she opened the door again and looked at Rarity.

“The middle one is the tomato juice,” Rarity warned her.

Diana nodded and ducked back into the bathroom. Rarity laid down on the jelly bed. She absolutely refused to admit it was comfortable and started making a list of all the ways it was disappointing right up until she fell asleep.

---

“You called out for him in your sleep,” Diana said. “You can tell me who he is, I won’t tell a soul. Is Tom your stallionfriend?”

Rarity felt a blush creep all the way across her body, making her almost as pink as the tomato juice shower.

“I’m sure I don’t know anypony named Tom,” Rarity said, technically saying something true if only because she was leaning very heavily into the term anypony. “Besides, I don’t remember my dream! It’s odd, usually they’re quite inspirational, but this time it was just… darkness.”

“It means you’re tired and hungry,” Diana decided, in exactly the same way a parent decided things for a foal. With kindness and understanding and a total disregard for what the other party might want. “Thankfully, your nap took care of the first and we can take care of the second together!”

She seemed excited. More excited than Rarity believed she or anypony had a right to be, given that they were walking into a restaurant in Discord’s realm. There weren’t even any hoof-rated establishments! Without a true guide to quality, she was going to have to take a chance on Diana’s instincts.

“What sort of food did you say was served here?” Rarity asked. The restaurant was certainly interesting, for lack of a ruder word. Hanging from the walls and ceiling were an incredible assortment of things, from clothing to paintings to, in one case, a bicycle that hung upside-down. It had the effect of a museum curated by a circus ringmaster and filled with cafe tables.

“I believe it’s called fusion food,” Diana said. She walked past a sign that asked the ponies to seat themselves - and in this case ‘asked’ was literal, as it was quietly speaking over the soft jazz playing in the background. The mouth was printed on paper but moved as if it was real, whistling when Rarity walked past it with her usual hip shimmy.

Rarity blushed and hurried past it to sit down in a surprisingly normal chair that could have belonged to a cafe anywhere in Equestria without drawing comment. Now that she really looked at it and her eyes adjusted to the lower lighting, the building seemed less intimidating. Yes, there were odds and ends everywhere, but that was only a veneer, a coat of chaotic paint over otherwise dull decor. In some ways it was more like a Hayburger Princess than some kind of culinary fever dream.

Menus had been left on the tables, and Rarity picked one up to look at it. There wasn’t anything on the menu she didn’t immediately recognize, but at the same time each item had been merged with something else. Noodle soup egg rolls, caesar stuffed peppers, sandwiches with pizza in place of bread.

“It’s certainly an interesting menu,” Rarity said. “It almost seems designed to push ponies out of their comfort zones by offering one ingredient they enjoy mixed with something they don’t.”

“Novelty is a tempting spice,” Diana said.

Something lurked in the gloom, moving between the maze of exhibits, hunting prey. Mismatched eyes in the dark. The sound of hooves and the softer padding of paws. Rarity felt herself freeze up, her instincts struggling to pull memories of how to cast a spell, any spell at all, out of her thoughts.

A creature with three heads, a tiger, a goat, and a snake. Rarity recognized it by reputation. A bad, predatory reputation that included a tendency to eat ponies. Whole, if the pony was lucky. In pieces, if they were less fortunate. A chimaera! It appeared out of the dark, rearing up and ready to pounce.

“Welcome to the Soft Jazz Cafe,” the tiger head said, its tone flat and bored. For the first time Rarity noticed it was wearing a striped shirt and vest, the vest covered in the strangest assortment of pins and decor Rarity had ever seen. There was no theme or even really feeling to it, like it had just grabbed things at random out of a box and pinned them to its clothing. “What can I get you?”

“Don’t forget to offer the ssssspecials,” the snake whispered.

“Drinks first!” snapped the goat. “Follow the flowchart!”

“I don’t suppose you have coffee?” Rarity asked.

“Of course, Ma’am. Chocolate or vanilla ice cream?”

“Ah, chocolate?” Rarity asked, giving Diana a look and trying to convey that she was rather put-upon by the suggestion of ice cream in her coffee and would have preferred a plain espresso. Diana couldn’t possibly know the Ponyville cafe had a drink that was as close to a milkshake as possible while still being a coffee drink and that Rarity ordered enough of them that it constituted a line item in her monthly budget.

“I’ll have an everyflavor soda,” Diana said.

“We’ll be right back with your drinks,” the goat said. “Go, go!” she nudged the tiger head, trying to push their entire shared body. The tiger groaned and padded off.

“I wasn’t expecting a chimaera,” Rarity said, watching it retreat into the shadows of the kitchen. Now that it had left, some of that paralyzing primal fear had gone with it. “I wonder if Discord had anything to do with its creation?”

“Perhaps she was hired to fit the theme,” Diana said. “Do you think she gets paid three times as much as other waitresses?”

“It would only be fair,” Rarity conceded. “And if I had a predator working for me, I’d certainly want to ensure they were in a good mood and well-fed on something other than customers.”

“Indeed,” Diana agreed. “It must be difficult to keep everypony here happy and safe.”

“Because of Discord,” Rarity agreed, until Diana shook her head.

“The reverse. Have you ever met a pony who was mad? Truly mad? They can be terrifying, unpredictable. I’ve seen families broken by it. They remember who the pony was, who they still are on good days, and live in fear of the bad days. When they’re unable to care for them, the ponies are locked away where they can’t harm themselves or others.”

Rarity swallowed, uncomfortable with the topic. Nopony could be comfortable with it. “I’ve seen ponies who had good days, and bad days. In Ponyville, when I was younger, there was an old mare named Candy Buttons. She was so kind and… fragile. She was never rude to anypony, but she’d wander and get lost and everypony in town knew how to lead her home. There was a kitchen fire one day, and she had to leave town to stay with her daughter and never came back.”

“I believe this is where those ponies go when they finally get so lost they fall out of Equestria entirely,” Diana said. “A world with none of the harsh rules of reality and where other ponies won’t judge them.”

Diana went quiet for a long moment, looking into the shadows. Not looking at anything, just staring into the middle distance, caught in an old memory.

“It’s terrible, when a pony really needs help and nopony is there for them. Not even family. Perhaps even enemies are better than a pony like that…”

Rarity wasn’t quite ready to think that well of the creature, even if he’d somehow, allegedly, learned that friendship had value. “I think you’re giving Discord too much credit,” Rarity scoffed. “He’s collecting ponies like… like zoo animals!”

“Perhaps so,” Diana agreed, taking a deep breath and smiling slightly, turning back to Rarity and pulling herself out of her obviously dark memories. “He’d probably agree with you.”

“I’ve met him on several occasions,” Rarity reminded her. She was sure Diana knew about it. The mare seemed to know quite a bit more than she let on. “I don’t think he knows how to be kind to other beings.”

“Maybe you’re right, but I imagine he enjoys praise. Where else in all the universe would you find a group of ponies who might appreciate Discord as much as the collection of lost souls that wandered their way here?”

Rarity nodded. She was willing to believe that. She’d love to have a captive audience of ponies who really understood fashion. She loved her friends, but Rainbow Dash certainly didn’t dress in style.

In the end, the drinks were delicious, if packed with sugar, and while fried rice risotto wasn’t as good as she’d hoped, the dessert menu was shamefully good and chili peppers were an excellent addition to strawberry cheesecake.

---

Rarity tilted her head and tried looking at the canvas from a slightly different angle. It was impressionist, a splash of motion and color that she was struggling to interpret. “It’s… a waterfall?” she guessed, glancing up at the artist for confirmation.

“It’s dignity!” the painter snapped. “Can’t you tell?! It’s like you’ve never seen an abstract concept before! See? Here are the dignity scales, and the dignity fire tail!”

“Ah yes, how could I have been mistaken?” Rarity agreed, trying to defuse the situation. “Of course. Dignity.” She felt slightly ashamed for not having understood the intent of the artist. It was far easier in a museum, where there were small explanatory cards written by ponies wearing tweed and the pony who had done the work had passed on a century before and couldn’t correct them.

“Would you like a print? Or perhaps a pair of calipers?”

Rarity thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “The color really is striking. And… dignified?” She threw that last in there as a guess as to what might please the artist and seemed to hit a bullseye, because the painter smiled broadly and took her bits. Rarity sighed in relief. She’d gone off on her own to do a bit of shopping with her allowance, and Diana had vanished to do… well, Rarity hadn’t asked, as it had felt rude to do so.

“I threw in an extra set of calipers,” the mare whispered, giving Rarity the protective envelope with the print inside. “Just in case.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Rarity said, putting it away in her saddlebags. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was going to do with calipers. It wasn’t that she didn’t know how to use them -- she actually did have two sets at home. One very well-adjusted and expensive set that she used in cutting gems, and a second pair which she’d ended up using as a clamp too many times and were as well-adjusted as the average pony in the crowd around her.

While Rarity was busy sorting herself out, a pony nearly bumped into her.

“Excuse me, Miss? You’re not from around here, are you?” the pony asked. It wasn’t exactly an apology, but the tone was afraid and on the verge of a panic attack.

“No, I’m just passing through,” Rarity said, looking up. The stallion was wearing a postal service uniform, and it looked slightly worse for wear. He’d clearly been in it for quite some time without having a chance to change or, if the smell was any indication, get a bath. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh thank goodness!” the stallion deflated slightly, lowering the guard he’d been holding against disappointment. “You have no idea how happy I am to see somepony else who isn’t supposed to be here!”

“Is that so?” Rarity asked. The stallion was clearly a bit cracked, but it seemed more from stress than anything else. “You don’t belong here?”

“My name is Parcel Post. I’m with the Equestrian mail service!” He turned slightly to show off his worn uniform. “I was only supposed to deliver a letter,” he explained. “I’m not even entirely sure how I got here! Nopony seems to know how I’m supposed to get back, either! I’ve been stuck here for…”

He stopped, and sweat beaded on his face. He wasn’t sure how many of his memories he could trust. This little patch of town was the most stable place he’d found, but before this there had been so much drifting in the void, with no way to tell time or place. For a while he wasn’t sure he was real. His whole life before the drifting could have been an illusion, created in an instant by an uncaring god who just needed a prop to give Discord a letter and was then done with him forever.

“I don’t know how long it’s been,” he whispered. “Days? It has to be days, at least. Maybe longer. How long has it been since the tea party?”

“That does sound awful,” Rarity said. “Why don’t you sit down over here where it’s a bit quieter?” She led him over to a calmer patch of the market plaza, helping him sit on the edge of a fountain full of golden water and crystal-clear fish.

“Thank you,” he sighed. “Y-you said you’re only passing through? Maybe you could help me! If you know how to leave, and you show me the way why… I’ll get you all the stamps you could ever ask for!” He laughed a little.

“That’s very kind of you to offer,” Rarity said. “I’m not sure I can do much for you.”

“What do you mean?” the stallion asked.

“I came here by train--”

“There’s a train?!” the postal stallion groaned. “If I’d known that, I could have been out of here already!”

“It, ah…” Rarity bit her lip. “I’m not sure you’ll be allowed onboard.”

Parcel Post started to stand up, alarmed and growing more upset by the moment. “What? Why not?! I’m an official part of the Equestrian mail service, you know!”

“I’m sure you are, darling,” Rarity said, trying to calm him down. “I’m just not sure how you would buy a ticket. I haven’t seen a ticket booth, and my ticket was given to me.”

“I have to get out of here,” the stallion mumbled. He looked at Rarity’s half-open saddlebags. The ticket inside seemed to glow slightly in the shadows, shining silver. He grabbed for it, snatching it in his teeth and bolting.

“Hey!” Rarity yelled. “Stop! Thief!”

A few heads turned to follow the fleeing post stallion, but nopony did anything about it. Or at least nothing useful. One mare howled like a dog, but it only served to make the stallion run faster with the keen instincts of a pony whose ankles had been chewed on by too many pets.

Rarity had to put her dignity aside -- the concept, not the print in her saddlebag, which she secured firmly this time -- and ran after him despite the well-known fact that a refined lady did not exert herself in public.

“I have to do everything myself!” Rarity huffed. She wasn’t exactly out of shape. By most accounts she was in wonderful shape, but that shape was ornamental rather than athletic. She lost him entirely when a brass band passed by, followed by a somewhat more skilled silver band and then a very skilled gold band.

By the time she was able to get around them, the stallion was well and truly gone, along with her ticket.

Rarity stood there, feeling alarm well up in her chest. If he had her ticket, she wouldn’t be able to get back on the Aether Express! She’d be doomed to stay in Discord’s realm, one sane voice in a symphony of chaos! There would be no escape, and she’d slowly be driven mad herself until she was just one of the babbling madmares.

And then she realized what she should have known right away. There was only one place the postal stallion could even be going. The train station.

---

“Is this yours?” Diana asked, holding Parcel Post up with her magic. Rarity’s ticket hovered just out of his reach, tugging away every time he made a grab for it. The conductor stood guard at the door to the passenger carriage, looking annoyed.

“I’m so sorry,” Rarity sighed. “He grabbed it from my saddlebags!”

“Please, you have to let me use it! It’s been so long since I’ve seen my family!” the stallion was in tears, and Rarity nearly felt bad enough about his situation to consider giving up her ticket.

“The ticket is for Miss Rarity,” Diana said. “Even if you got onboard, it isn’t for you.”

“What’s all this then?” coughed a scruff voice. A pink pony in uniform and with a tall, peaked cap marched up, swinging a baton in one hoof.

“Pinkie Pie?” Rarity asked. “Again? Or the copy, rather. Sorry. I’m not sure what the polite term is.”

“Please miss, when I’m on the job, it’s Officer Doppelpinkie,” the mare said, adjusting her official police moustache, which was fuller and more intimidating than her previous moustache. It was the kind of facial hair that could make a pony go mad with power. “Is this the troublemaker?”

“I’m not a troublemaker!” Parcel Post pled. “I just want to go home!”

“This isn’t your way home,” Diana said, putting the stallion down gently. He didn’t struggle or try to run. He just looked down at his shaking hooves, his knees weak. “We all have our destinies and obligations. Your destiny isn’t to be a thief.”

“I’m sorry,” the stallion whispered.

Rarity sighed. “I forgive you. When I thought I was stuck here, even for a few moments, I felt terrible panic. It must be even worse for you, hearing about a way out after so long. I don’t know if I’d make the same decision, but I understand why you did it.”

She stepped over to him and gave the stallion a polite hug, giving him a shoulder to cry on for a few moments. He took the opportunity to do just that.

“Isn’t there something we can do?” Rarity asked.

“It’s tricky,” the Pinkie clone said. “See, I know all about this stallion. He’s not even supposed to show up for a few more seasons! This is probably some kind of timey-wimey thing. It’s what happens when you end up floating through a spot with too much retrocausality. There’s this one pony in town that’s gone so far in the wrong direction that they’re CGI!”

“What does that even…” Rarity shook her head. “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”

“There is one way,” the conductor admitted, gruffly. He clearly didn’t like the idea, not least because he’d just had to kick Parcel Post off the train for trying to steal a seat, and now he was expected to help the stallion. “If they’re on official business, postal ponies can claim passage anywhere.”

“They can?!” Parcel gasped. He let go of Rarity. “Then… I declare that I’m on official business!”

“It doesn’t work like that,” the conductor said, shaking his head. “Do you have anything to deliver?”

Parcel Post’s expression fell. He looked in his mailbag. It was depressingly empty.

“No,” the stallion said quietly.

“Wait! I know just the thing!” Rarity said. She pulled the print, in its envelope, from her saddlebags. “May I buy a stamp, my good stallion?” she asked.

“Why? Oh! Oh!” Parcel Post gave her one of his stamps, and she gave him a bit.

“And may I borrow a pen?” Rarity pulled out the print. Diana produced a pen from her black cloak, and Rarity scribbled a quick message on the back of the abstract print before putting it back in the envelope and adding an address before sealing it, finishing it by licking the stamp and pressing it firmly into the corner.

“A letter,” Parcel Post whispered, taking it from her.

“I’d like this delivered to Ponyville,” Rarity instructed him, with a very official tone. “It’s very important that this gets there as soon as possible so my friends know where I’ve gone and how to take care of my cat.”

“That sounds like official Equestrian Post business,” Parcel Post said. “Mister Conductor, I am officially requesting passage on your train so I can return to Equestria!”

The conductor sighed. “I’ll take you to the next stop,” he conceded. He clearly didn’t like the idea but it had also been his idea and that made it all but impossible to say no. “After that, you’ll have to arrange something else.”

“Good enough, as long as I can get out of this place!” Parcel Post scurried onboard the train. “The ponies here are crazy!”

“It seems to me that he’s already a bit mad himself,” Diana muttered, too quietly for the postal pony to hear her as he settled into a seat. “Perhaps he’ll wind up in Discord’s realm again before long.”

“Oh, probably,” the counterfeit pink pony agreed. “I think it’s a time loop. He’ll get back to Equestria just in time for his boss to ask him to deliver a certain letter. It’s one of those dramatic irony things, like in that show with the spooky door!”

“Spooky door?” Rarity looked at Diana to see if the other mare had any better idea what the clone might be talking about. The taller pony shrugged, just as confused by her layered references to multiple pop-culture icons from other dimensions.

“Anyway, my work here is done!” Constable Dopplepinkie declared, adjusting her hat.

“You didn’t even do anything!” Diana snorted.

The pink pony dramatically swept out of the train station, having accomplished nothing.

Diana shook her head. Behind them, the Aether Express’s whistle blew, warning the ponies on the platform that the train was preparing to leave.

“Time to go,” Diana said.

“Oh, I’m so excited!” Rarity said. “I wonder where we’ll go next?”

Comments

[Cross Lament]

“I believe it’s called fusion food,” Diana said.

You'd think it'd be the Sun where they serve that.

[Thought Prism]

What a glorious chapter. Basically every joke landed perfectly. I also really love this line:

By most accounts she was in wonderful shape, but that shape was ornamental rather than athletic.

[red-sun]

I remember the chapter.

Then the postman never left there.