Chapter 1: Alexandria's Little Day (5 AE)

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The only regular train to Alexandria arrived by night. As was true during most of these trips, Lonely Day was aboard. For company she had only Huan, her loyal (if aging) companion. The massive dog rested at her hooves, ever vigilant.

Of course, they were nearly done with the twelve-hour ride, the second Lonely Day had taken in as many days. A pair of dark metal shackles sat beside her on the seat, artifacts of another world. Thank God she only had to wear them while she was inside Raven City.

Her train traveled much faster on the return trip, with most of the weight gone from the cargo cars. The trade goods of an entire trip wouldn't even half-fill the rear cargo car. Even so, they were worth far more than their weight in gold.

Lonely Day sat in the window seat, so she could see the lights of her beloved little town come into sight. Yet before they did, she heard a strange knocking on the roof, near one of the ventilation windows. Huan's eyes went alert, ears swiveling to face the direction of the noise. To her great annoyance, her ears did much the same.

Even after five years, Lonely Day hadn't quite gotten over how strange it was to be a pony.

She hopped to her hooves, moving to the ventilating window and using her mouth to tug on a rope that hung down. Thus was the way of being a pony; if you weren't a unicorn, you generally used your mouth. Lonely Day was not a unicorn.

Under the pressure of her tug, the opening sprung inward, and air rushed in with a roar. A second later a pony shot through the dark sky above. She angled downward in a perfect spiral, avoiding the edge of the opening and landing with grace.

The mare's wings were still flared, and she still panted from the exertion. "Hey Day. Welcome back."

Lonely Day embraced her best friend without hesitation. Sky had matured in the last five years, becoming a few inches taller, her wings broader. Foals may've helped a little with that process too.

"Have fun with the humans, Day? Make lots of good trades?"

"The best," she answered, when the pegasus released her. She didn't need to wait, not when she had the superior strength of an earth pony, but she always did. "Every computer Joseph asked for, and more than enough medicine to have some left over for trade. Oh, and one of those fabricator machines they've been teasing us with for three years now."

"Woah." Sky's eyes widened, ears alert on her head. At least ponies had the politeness to let their bodies show you what they were feeling. Far less guesswork than dealing with humans. "You actually got them to give you one?"

Alex shrugged, though she knew her own body would be showing signs of pride. Tail lifting, wider stance with her hind legs, ears sideways. She couldn't help it. "Our harvest was good this year. They don't just eat the stuff! They can bake it into crackers that last forever, extend their supplies even further. You should come with me one of these times, Sky. That city of theirs..." She sat back down, eyes widening as she imagined it. "More factory than city. A whole world's worth of machines, a circular flow of repairs and replacements. Huge vaults of metal ingots and tanks of algae."

Sky returned the shrug, unimpressed. "If you think it's so great, why don't you move in?"

Alex nudged the pegasus with a shoulder. Not hard; she could break a rib if she wasn't careful. Just what she hoped would be playful, but firm. A few months post transformation and she never could've delivered such fine control of her own supernatural strength. Now it was second nature. Being an earth pony was part of who she was.

"They don't take kids." She frowned down at her hooves, deflated. She wasn't much better than a kid herself. She hadn't been ready to have a child.

"Lonely Day, mother of the year!" Sky responded, draping an affectionate wing over her shoulder. "Rough ride? You're not usually this tense."

Alex shook her head in response. "Nothing like that. You know the HPI; smooth all the way." She didn't go on, but began to shift under Sky's gaze, and continued. "I guess I thought they'd have made more progress by now." She pulled away, to the single flat wall where the control-panel had been set. Motion detectors lit up the screen as she approached. On them was her route, the train's status and the ETA for their arrival. The controls were made for her hooves, and the buttons were huge on the screen. She didn't actually touch anything, though.

"Remember how fast technology was advancing, before the Event? It felt like we were always living in the future. Every week there was some new huge innovation. I felt like I couldn't even guess how people would live in fifty years, because things changed so fast."

"But-"

"But the HPI isn't like that. They're not churning out inventions like humans used to! They haven't come up with low-energy shielding! They haven't cracked fusion even though they're sinking most of their resources into it. They've got the best minds in the world, the best minds the world had before the Event. Why haven't they fixed this?"

"Oh." Cloudy Skies sounded... relieved? "Here I was worried you were stressing about something serious." She closed the distance, embracing the smaller pony again. "You're always stressing over something, Day. Probably should see a doctor about it or something." She grinned, prompting another sharp nudge from Alex.

"You don't think this is serious? They're the last of our species, Sky. Our real species! We have-"

The pegasus silenced her with a hoof rammed into her mouth. "Relax, filly! The problem's serious, but it's not a mystery. It's obvious!"

Day sat down again, eyes darkening at use of the word "filly", though she didn't actually object. "So what is it, then?"

"It's brainpower, obviously." She tapped Alex on the side of her head, grinning. "Let's say they got five hundred humans in there, the smartest ones in the whole world. That might seem like a lot. But how many people were there before? Billions! Even though all of them didn't help with inventing things before, lots of them did. Lots more than 500. There's no way they're going to come up with new inventions as fast!"

Sky shrugged. "So relax! They're doing their best. They'll get it when they get it. It doesn't change anything for us, no matter what. You said the only way ponies who wanted to be human again could be was if unicorns invented a spell. There aren't any unicorns in Raven City. If you want to be a human again, you can support Mystic Rune's university. That sounds more productive than stressing about humans in some far-away hole!"

"Now you sound like Oliver."

"I'll take that as a compliment." Sky rose up on her haunches into the proudest sitting position she could. "The only stallion in Alexandria as pragmatic and practical as you. Which reminds me – have you thought about what I asked you when you left?"

Alex felt her stomach drop a few inches into her belly, and her hooves go cold. "About you being pregnant with your second? About wanting me to have another one too... so yours will have a friend their age?"

"Yeah, that." Sky leaned in, ears swiveling. But Alex couldn't meet her eyes. The mere idea of having another child sent spasms of pain to the muscles on her belly. She could still feel Oliver's knife, where he had cut her open in the desperate bid to save her child's life.

The strange magic of her life meant there were no scars on her belly. Cody wasn't so lucky; he had scars that his coat would never cover, even when he was an adult. And Oliver? His wounds were the deepest, even though he would never admit it.

"Sorry." She shook her head. "Oliver and I talked about it; it's not safe for me to have another foal." And it probably never will be, she finished, though she didn't add that part out loud. "Once a mare has complications, all her future births can have them. It's not safe."

Cloudy sighed, deflating. "I thought that was just your story for why you're not part of the breeding program anymore. Since you wanted to stay with Oliver."

Alex didn't even blush. The idea of being with a stallion had revolted her five years ago. Now? Being an animal was part of her life. The idea of a human partner now seemed strange and unnatural.

But she didn't plan on talking to any of them. "No. When I supported his proposal, it wasn't so I could back out when it got hard. Ask any doctor in Alexandria! Though... I guess most of them would say I was too young to think about it. They're probably right about that too."

"They just don't know the details. I'm sure if you explained you only look younger because of a spell..."

Alex felt a pang of guilt, deep in her gut. There was one secret she had kept even from her best friend. It was the reason she hadn't regained most of her stolen years since arriving in their new colony. The reason she could never have more foals.

She wasn't sure she would ever tell. For now, everypony thought she still looked small because of what Moriah had done. Only Oliver knew the truth, and Alex wasn’t inclined to correct them. Time would accomplish that labor.

"Are you willing to sacrifice everything to see that your species is remembered?" She wouldn't have changed her answer even now that she finally understood what Princess Luna had meant.

* * *

Lonely Day was starting to sway on her hooves by the time the train pulled in. She should've slept, but Alex had never been able to sleep while on something moving. Otherwise she could've rested through her return journey. It would have been nice to be fresh when she finally got home. As it was, she had to say goodbye to Cloudy Skies in a half-stupor, and wander out of the train into the station.

Perhaps it was a little bit of an exaggeration to call it that. It was just a raised platform with a canopy erected for shade, and a ramp for small vehicles. There had been a time when Alex had been personally involved in every aspect of the day-to-day operations of Alexandria, and in those days she had to turn every gear in the city's machinery herself.

Now there was an inventory pony, an earth pony stallion named Balanced Accounts. She thrust the clipboard into his waiting hooves, stopping to wait for his signature. Little that Alexandria did required security. Considering the value of what was aboard the train, not taking steps was a mistake they had only made once.

There would be no more highway robberies anymore. Two of the town's "security ponies" were there, each wearing the P90 that had become synonymous with Alexandria. They nodded politely to her, though she could tell their eyes were also scanning to make sure she hadn't tried to hide anything. She smiled, rotating around once so they could see she wasn't.

Of course, the security ponies trusted her. Trusted everypony really; they had never shot a pony in the whole time the city had them. It was amazing how useful they were as a deterrent, though. It was scary to think that there were now enough ponies out there that some of them were not nice. As time went on, it would only get worse.

But then, maybe not. It wasn't as though anyone should be driven by need, at least not here. Alexandria needed every body. They were happy to provide water, food, and housing. They still had a small town full of houses, all connected to water and power. Not that she expected anypony to starve; it was hard to starve when you could eat grass.

"You look like crap, Day." One of the guardsponies, a bat-winged pony with a shield on his flank, nudged her with a shoulder. "You gonna be alright for the festival tonight?"

She had been falling asleep on her hooves, and the touch made her jump. "Yeah." She nodded. "I haven't slept in like two days. Those shackles..." she gestured over her shoulder at the car. "Can't sleep with them. Can't sleep in trains..."

"You need somepony to escort you home, ma'am?" he asked, puffing his chest out a little. "I can call somepony, bring a car."

"N-No." Alex shook her head. "I've got it." She slapped herself with a hoof, then started walking past them. "Good work, Stalwart. I'll... get your report later."

The small town they were transforming into a pony city was still dominated by human-built structures. Careful attention maintained the streets of human asphalt and sidewalks of concrete, at least in the city center. The court building was the civic center, and even in the early morning she could see ponies coming and going. Those who noticed her waved, and she waved back, but ignored their gestures to come and talk. They could wait until she wasn't sleeping on her hooves.

She passed the pride of Alexandria, its library. It was just the little town's public library. It was easy to see where repairs had been made to the structure after she had blasted down one of the walls. The ceiling too was new, though she couldn't see that from the ground. Still felt guilty about it though.

It also had more guards than any other part of the city, making sure that none of the irreplaceable Equestrian books were “borrowed” and never returned. The library wasn't open yet, but the school was. She saw thestrals wrapping up their night of... whatever batponies did with their lives. She didn't actually understand.

All she knew was that the ponies best at their powers taught them in the converted high school. They called it a "university," though it failed to match the scale of a community college. She hoped it would be more, one day. Princess Luna probably would have hoped that too. Having a dozen or so actual Equestrians as teachers sure helped, though it had also contributed to some silly customs. One of these was the way many residents took "pony names" for themselves which they used in informal settings. Human names remained, reserved for formal or intimate moments.

As she had once predicted, the oldest inhabited part of Alexandria was the RV park. Every one of the two-dozen parking spots still had an RV or a trailer, and all were occupied. Even after they had gotten the city's water supply turned back on, even after the town's electricity was restored, she still lived in an RV.

She had upgraded from the little RV they had used back in Los Angeles to one of the beefiest 40 footers she could find. Even before they had finished with the water and power, the vehicle provided the luxuries of industrial society. Now, she was reluctant to move into one of the city's "real" houses for fear of the example she might set. If the city's mayor thought that a motor home wasn't good enough for her anymore, how many other residents would want permanent homes as well?

As it turned out, homes took much more energy to heat or cool than little motor-homes. The city's feeble grid wouldn't be able to handle the strain. Alex sighed as she entered the RV park, passing all the old tanks and water-compressors. Obsessing about every tiny aspect of her city was going to drive her to an early grave. At least, Oliver said so. He was mostly joking.

Still, there was one sound that could bring a smile to her face even in the face of weariness for her people and the weight of crushing exhaustion: Cody's voice. Even as she reached up for the rope tied to the handle, she could hear him through the glass. "Mommy!"

She felt a brief rush of energy, enough that she stopped swaying. She didn't climb the stairs, instead waiting for the little colt to come flying down them at her. And fly he did (though not literally), leaping over two of the steps and colliding with her chest. She rolled with the impact, catching him in her forelegs and letting him pitch her backward onto her back.

It didn't hurt. Earth ponies were tough, even adolescents. "Hi Cody." She held the colt to her chest, reacquainting herself with his scent after her absence. Her foal did the same, and neither of them thought about it. It was just part of being a pony.

Once she was sure he didn't smell sick or hurt, she mussed his brilliant orange mane and rubbed her face against his. "Is your father up?"

"Breakfast." The colt began squirming as soon as he was in her forelegs, and didn't stop until he was standing on his own. Like most of the other foals, he didn't wear anything practical. He had taken a liking to an oversized Cardinals cap he wore whenever he went out around town. "Breakfast! I want park after."

"That sounds like fun." She stifled a yawn, then scooped him up onto her back and climbed up the stairs into her home. "After mommy gets a nap. Unless your father wants to take you."

"Daddy's boring. I don't want to look at plants."

"Well then I guess you don't want breakfast, ‘cuz it's plants again. Here I thought you loved cantaloupe."

Alex felt the change at once on her back. The little colt started squirming again, rolling off the side and onto his own wobbly legs. "Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad! I'm still hungry!"

She passed the colt, crossing the little kitchen to where Oliver was slicing cantaloupe. She didn't bother tugging him down from the stool, just pressed herself to his flank, head on his side, taking in his scent just as she had done with Cody's. Stallion, strength and musk and gentleness, plants and isopropanol. She took it all in, and it was good.

He didn't get down, just smiled and kept slicing. It wasn't as though they were newlyweds or anything (they weren't wed at all). Oliver, after all, was still part of the voluntary breeding program. But when he came home, it was to her, and their son.

A pity he didn't have an excuse not to participate, like she did. But the program had been his idea. How could other ponies be expected to volunteer if its creator was too good for it?

"I'll mkamke hmmm," Oliver tried to say with a plate in his mouth, hopping down from the step-stool and carrying it over to the table. He set it down in Cody's place. "You get some sleep. It's been slow at the hospital anyway. Only three patients right now, they'll be fine without me for a few hours." He carried the other two plates, then helped little Cody climb up the sizable step to sit in the human-designed seat.

Lonely Day followed. Though she didn't need help to hop into the raised seating area, she took it anyway, letting him lift her by his strong neck like another foal. Even now, his strength made her feel safer than the bolt on the door or the P90 in its safe under the bed.

As she bit into the first juicy bite of ripe orange melon, she thought his skill with earth pony magic didn't hurt either. She could do it too of course, but she didn't have a passion for it. Nothing she grew ended up quite as juicy as produce that had been loved. It wasn't just cantaloupe either, but honeydew and watermelon too. All from their own garden.

The breakfast might've seemed light to her as a human, but human Alex was long gone. Lonely Day sat right beside her son Arithmetic. That way, she was close enough to prevent the many many dinnertime disasters a foal could cause. All her tiredness from the duties of her office had to take a backseat. She couldn't sleep quite yet.

"You always smell funny when you go away," Cody said through a mouthful of melon. “Like somewhere scary."

"Not scary," she half-lied. It was wearing the magical-suppressing restraints that frightened her, not being around humans.

That was actually the best part about being the one to make the trips. The reminders that yes, humans had existed. Two legs were enough to balance. Eyes that small could see just fine. But how could she make a foal understand? "I was with humans, Arithmetic. Your father and I were both human once, remember? We weren't scary then."

"You weren't," Cody agreed. "Still smell scary now."

She shrugged and went back to her breakfast. She was too tired to deal with it now.

"I'm sure Cloudy would be happy to take him for a few hours," she offered, on her way to the shower. "If you're too busy."

He shook his head again. "Already said I'd take him. You need your energy back for the festival tonight. Get some sleep."

She did. She had earned that much.

* * *

It was late afternoon when Alex finally made her way into city hall. While many of the newer structures already showed minor signs of decay, the ancient masonry looked as sturdy as it had the day they arrived. Sky had her son, as she usually did whenever there was anything mayoral to be done. She would've preferred to stay home more often, like Cloudy. Pity there wasn't anyone qualified enough to replace her. She hated being in charge.

All Alexandria had just under a thousand ponies now, and a fair number of those were crowding in around city hall. Maybe adult Alex could've shoved her way through without any trouble, but young Alex was shorter than mares and stallions alike. Young Alex should've been well on her way to growing into old Alex, but she wasn't. She hadn't grown an inch since her return from Equestria. Instead of fight her way through, Alex just went around to one of the side doors, and used her key. Much easier than fighting past the butts of dozens of too-tall adults.

She did stop to admire their costumes, comparing them to her own. For the Festival of Tears, ponies dressed as humanly as they could. Ill-fitting pants and jackets and shoes made the crowd look like children that had all stolen their parents clothes, then given them to a tailor to make them fit. Alex felt lucky to have a friend like Cloudy Skies who could sew an outfit for her from scratch that looked human. The suit was something a businessman or a politician might've worn, with a white shirt over her forelegs and pants on her hindquarters. Even Taylor Gamble of the HPI had said she looked sharp in it (once she stopped giggling).

"Hey Alex." Moriah was working with the other electricians, checking and double-checking the cables leading to the platform outside. Like Alex, Moriah had gone to great pains to recreate a convincing "human" outfit, though she had chosen a dress instead of a suit. Alex could hear the quiet rumbling of music from a portable radio, one tuned to the frequency of The Overhead out in Colorado.

Moriah was hardly the only pony to listen to The Overhead. It wasn't a very competitive market, though some towns had a local frequency with announcements and news. Even so, nopony else had national coverage. Alex had been meaning to visit, when she got the chance. Maybe one day she could borrow a Hummingbird and hop over for a few hours. See what life would've been like if she'd had to build a settlement in a desert like her old home.

"Hi Moriah. Everything good with the system?"

Joseph spoke up from a computer station on the far wall. On it, she could see the outlines of the city's various systems, such as they were. Joseph hadn't grown taller in the last five years, though he had become a little portlier. "It's a PA, Alex. It's going to be working. It's always working." Joseph also had one of Sky's outfits, though he had done nothing (not even ask) to get a hold of it. He wore his suit without the jacket and with the collar all askew.

She shrugged, moving past both of them and looking at the locked door. "We'll keep thinking that until it stops. I like to know before I go out there; I make myself look stupid enough without our machines to do it for me."

She wished her other friends could be in city hall with her. They weren't, though. Only the town council or city staff could be in the courthouse after hours, that was just the way it worked. Of all her friends, Joseph had defied the odds and been elected. Alexandria's growing populace still saw him as the genius that kept their power on and the water flowing. Moriah worked for the town, alongside Joseph.

None of the others could be here. None of the ponies who might've calmed her nerves. Of course, she hadn't stayed mayor for years because she was easily intimidated. Even if there were hundreds of ponies outside.

Alex had no illusions: she knew the ponies hadn't come to hear her speak, not really. They were here for the festival, she just happened to be the one who got it started.

"Who's got the agenda?" she asked, searching the room for her assistant. She found him; a nervous-looking unicorn not much older than she looked. The colt levitated a clipboard close to her, and she scanned over it as quickly as she could. "Thank you, Quick Learner."

Alex did not bring the clipboard with her. Ever since her experiences with the Princesses of Equestria, her memory was perfect. She couldn't exactly carry on the memory of mankind if she couldn't even remember her own life!

"The radio transmitter's good," Joseph continued. "Link to the Iridium Intranet is green. We're ready."

"I'll see you all at our table." She took a deep breath, then passed through the double-doors to the outside. She continued up until she was on the edge of the raised platform, with its waiting microphone.

There was no roar of cheers; Alex was no mythical figure to these ponies. The best she got was a smattering of polite applause. If anything, she knew they were eager for her to get the speech over so the eating and socializing could begin.

"Ponies of Alexandria!" Though she had been nervous inside, her tone became clear. With a few final mutters, the conversations all around her died down. "It is my pleasure as mayor of Alexandria to welcome everypony to the Festival of Tears!" She looked out over the crowd, at the hundreds all dressed in their best humans costumes. Even the Equestrian ponies had joined in, though their outfits were particularly comical. Here and there a diamond dog or a minotaur poked out from the crowd, towering over the ponies around them

"For many of you, this will be your first festival. Allow me to explain. Five years ago today was the last day of human civilization. Twenty five thousand light years away, something changed in the structure of our galaxy. Magic exploded into the endless gulf of space. It would have meant our extinction, though we didn't know it."

"Our friends in Equestria did, and they did what they could to protect us. They created the Preservation Spell, the spell that changed us and sent us forward in time. Some of the tears we shed tonight are tears of gratitude and joy for our lives."

"The spell did more than change us, as all understand. It also separated us. It tore apart families, sent us away from our friends, and made us refugees in our own world. For this, we cry tears of sorrow and tears of anger."

"This year, and every year on the twenty-second of May, we pause from our work. We dig out our old clothes, we cook up our old recipes, and we remember humanity as it was. Today is a day for remembering. Remember your children, your parents, your friends, and don't be afraid to cry for them. Please know that even if we never live to see them, the legacy we build for them will leave them inheritors of a better world. Tonight we look across the gulf, backwards and forwards, to those we lost."

She closed her eyes, though she was much better about maintaining her composure than she had been. "We won't forget you!" she shouted to the crowd, with all the energy she had.

"You are remembered!" the crowd responded, booming so loud the stage shook beneath her hooves. The chant repeated and Alex joined in. She felt stronger with each call, her fatigue washed away in the energy of the moment.

When they finished shouting, Alex returned to the microphone. "Before the part of the festival I'm sure is everypony's favorite-" She glanced at the huge tables filled with food. The smells coming from the barbecues were already making her mouth water. "We have our vigil. Those of you who forgot candles can get them with one of the service ponies." She gestured to another set of tables, with several huge boxes of candles near them. "Follow me, people of Alexandria. Light your candles and follow me to the memorial."

Applause had been replaced with stomping. Stomp they did as Alex lifted up a candle-holder in her mouth and hopped down off the stage. The sound of ponies rising to their hooves, hundreds of scrapes and groans, echoed from behind her. Even so, she didn't turn around. Alex continued forward, staring at the names she had written on the candle. Her mother's name was there, and her sister's, and her brother's. She would remember them tonight. The people of Alexandria would remember those they had lost. And those who had joined them from Equestria? They had lost friends and family too, a universe away and forever out of reach.

Few indeed were those like Cloudy Skies, with no desire to look back. They carried no candles, though most of them (including Sky herself) dressed up anyway. It might be the Festival of Tears, but most of what they did was supposed to be fun!

Alex reached the many huge torches at the edge of the road, tilting her candle into the flame until it sparked and began to burn. The holder was made for a pony's mouth, so it kept the flame and the hot wax away from her face. Of course, unicorns and diamond dogs and others didn't need the modified design. Some of them just carried candles, sheltering the flames with magic or paws or claws.

Alexandria's mayor had no recourse to magic like that, which meant she used her mouth. She had long adapted to the indignity, so much so that she hardly thought of it anymore. It was just another part of life. Nopony spoke during the quarter-mile walk to the memorial.

The memorial had been a church, one of the largest and oldest in town. Ponies had cleared away the religious iconography though, save for the cross on the roof. As Alex drew near she saw thousands of flickering candles, burning with heatless magical flames. Not the one she carried. The doors were open and waiting for her, though she made sure she was even with the front of the crowd.

The pews were gone, the altar was gone. In its place was a slab of granite, carved with a simple message in a dozen human languages. All around it, tacked onto every wall and surface and littering the floor, were the memorials themselves. Each one was no bigger than a single piece of paper, containing a message written by a pony to their lost friends or relatives. Alex found the one she had made, with her old family photograph on it. She set her candle down, holder and all, on the floor in front of it.

She did her crying there, in front of the picture and the crowd of hundreds. They didn't notice. Alexandria's ponies had their own crying to do.

When the ritual was over, Alex found her friends at their table. There she enjoyed the latest pony-friendly imitations of human dishes. Her son had never known anything else. Of course, it was all she could do not to laugh whenever she looked at him. He looked like he had chosen his outfit at a halloween store.

Alex found it amusing how through no apparent conscious volition, all the mothers ended up on one side of the table with the children while the fathers ended up on another. She didn't resent it, not when there was a young pony to care for. Oliver meant well, but he had no idea of how to keep their young son from getting out of control. If he sat beside him, the foal would get food everywhere but into his mouth.

So she sat beside Sky, with Sky's little daughter Amy on her lap. On her other side was Richard, Moriah's son, then Moriah herself. It seemed the perfectly natural configuration for their little group. She found herself drifting down from her political considerations into their more mundane conversation, like a leaf landing in a pond.

“-yeah Sky, it sounds like a perfectly helpful idea,” Moriah was saying. “I’m sure I wouldn’t be the only one who would be willing to give up a few chits.” She glanced down towards Richard, pulling his hooves away from Alex’s satchel where it rested on the ground. “I would be concerned about the curriculum, however. What you’re talking about would be Dick’s school. And Cody’s too Alex, so don’t think this doesn’t matter to you.” She lowered her voice, muttering: “not that you don’t already trust him to Sky all the time.”

“Without reservation.” She reached down, patting little Cody on the head. He blushed at the attention, avoiding her eyes. “I wish I had enough time to be home more often. I’ve tried taking more time off…” and it had been a disaster. “Until I can, I trust Sky.” She frowned, looking over at her friend. “You asked about the daycare idea, huh?”

Sky nodded. “Including Arithmetic and Surefire, I’ve got nine foals so far. I think if there were any more, I’d probably need more ponies to help. Not that I think it will be that hard- I’ve got a few friends who seemed interested!”

“See the problem?” Moriah gestured across the table with a tofu drumstick. It wasn’t actual bone either, which was good. Either one would’ve made Alex too sick to eat. “Mare, foals, ponies. These kids aren’t going to know they’re really humans deep down. Not if they’re surrounded with that all day.” She leaned down, nudging her own son on the shoulder. “Dick, what’s the most important thing in the whole world?”

The child blinked, then began his familiar recitation. “To remember I’m really a person, not a horse.”

“That’s right!” Moriah hugged him lightly against herself. Unlike Cody, he didn’t seem embarrassed.

Alex just shook her head. “It’s important to remember. This holiday is all about remembering! But I don’t mind having Sky spend time with Cody. He’s better off for having friends his own age, and I’m better off because I can spend time keeping this city afloat. Besides, if you end up a school, you can still teach the ponies about human things, can’t you?”

Sky nodded. “I would! I will!” She glared at Moriah. “I’m not trying to brainwash anypony. I want everypony to be comfortable, even you. That’s why I asked!”

Moriah huffed, though she didn’t argue further.

“I’ll approve it tomorrow if you’re ready to start that soon,” Alex offered with a smile. “Probably you want to draft a formal proposal. Do you have a building in mind to use?”

Sky nodded. “There’s a daycare center, a pretty nice one. Nobody’s done anything with it since Alexandria was founded.”

“Well, you get that written up, and I’ll take a look.” She nodded, turning her attention back to her meal. After several minutes of relative peace, she felt Cody’s tug on her side, and she looked down. “What is it?”

The foal looked uncomfortable, so she lowered her head until he was willing to speak. “Why is everypony so excited?”

“That’s a very good question.” She rose to her hooves, leaving her half-eaten meal behind, and gesturing for him to do the same. She suspected Cody had mostly finished before she even arrived, so he didn’t protest. They walked together a little ways away from the table, where they could see the procession of ponies still moving with candles in the dark towards what had once been a church.

“How much do you remember of what your father and I told you?” She sat down on the edge of the grass, near some historical plaque or another they couldn’t read in the dark.

“That I needed to pick funny clothes.” He held out one of his forelegs, with a white sleeve now stained with grass and dirt. “I did! I got the funniest clothes I could!”

“You sure did.” She reached down to muss his mane again, and he pulled away in protest. “Today is the day people remember what it was like to be human.”

“But they aren’t!”

She took a moment to wrap her mind around what the child was trying to say. “No, they aren’t. But they were before.”

He shook his head again. “I thought h-huma- those. I thought those were only on the TV! Did everypony come from the TV? Did you?”

She had to fight not to laugh. “No, no we didn’t. But when those movies were made, everypony looked like that. The whole world changed, so we take one day to think about the way it was before it changed. Lots of us miss the ponies from before. Like… like your grandparents. I have a mother, and Oliver has a mother and father. They would love to meet you, but we’re sad because they might not get to.”

Cody didn’t look hurt by the revelation. How could he feel remorse for people he knew nothing about? “Oh.” He rose to his hooves, taking a few halting steps towards the procession. He didn’t make it off the grass before he stopped again. “So we dress up and do all this silly stuff because we’re sad?”

She nodded. “I guess you could say that.” She was beginning to fear the holiday might still be a little too complicated for him to understand. “You don’t have to be sad if you don’t want to.”

Her son considered that for several seconds before answering. “I… I’m sad I didn’t get to see what everypony misses so much,” he eventually finished. “It must’ve been awesome.”

Alex wrapped him in the tightest hug she could. “Not as awesome as you, Cody.”

He whined, though he didn’t fight to escape her this time. “Mooooooom! Quit it!” She did.

When they were full, she took the colt in his absurd gettup to the various carnival games. He won a disproportionate number for his age. Alex found Oliver before getting in line for the movie theater, and they sat together as a family while they waited for their show. Cody fell asleep. Life was good.

Then.

Chapter 2: Life in the Little City (5 AE)

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Archive never dreamed ordinary dreams. There had been a time long ago when the pony princesses of Equestria sent messages to Earth in their dreams, but that time was long gone. The unconscious world had no rulers now, and no guiding intelligences. By no means was she the only one to experience strange dreams; yet few ponies dwelled in them so consistently.

Into the void of Archive's sleeping thoughts formed a great library, with shelves that curved in ways the three spatial dimensions could not explain and books that were more her memories than they were paper and symbols. The library was always busy, packed with billions and billions of waiting souls. Each human face was a reminder of one more pony yet to come, perhaps thousands of thousands of years divorced in four-dimensional space. None came to her as more than outlines, though some came in far more clearly than others.

Whenever Alex stood in this library, her goal was always the same: find her family. Yet few of the ghostlike people were coherent enough to answer her questions, and those few who could never contributed anything helpful to her. They told her how frightened they were, they told her they were confused and wanted to go home. A few had found her books and were reading. None could tell her where to find her mother. In these dreams, Alex was never motionless. Always she moved, through throngs of many who parted for her with bows or fearful glances.

She would find them here if she looked long enough. Somewhere in the vast reaches of time were her loved ones, living still. She never ceased to move when in her library, and eventually she would find them. Such things were not the strangest things she saw in her sleep, though. There was nothing strange about the ghostly figures in their confusion, or the way some of them started to look like ponies before they vanished.

What seemed strange to her was that sometimes, very rarely, she stumbled into a fully realized, fully human figure. That night, it was a bronze-skinned man, with a breastplate of bronze, along with a leathern skirt and a mighty shield. He towered over her, armed and armored and fierce. Did he know her? "I was sixteen too," he said, running a hand through her mane. "Though I venture I had the better tutor."

"I never had a teacher like yours," Alex responded, feeling very much unequal to this macedonian spearman. "But I never tried to rule the world."

He sat down, reclining on a rough wooden stool. "Someone will. You may not appreciate what they do."

"There's nobody to conquer. No conquerors."

"Not yet! We make war to live in peace."

"You mistake me for Ares. We share much, but not that." She glared. "Is your tutor around here somewhere? I think I'd rather have his company."

Alex didn't hear anything else, because at that moment she woke, twitching a little as the bed's other occupant rolled out of it and onto his hooves. She looked sidelong at him, forcing her mind back to the realm of gross matter.

Oliver noticed her before she could collect her thoughts. He walked over to her edge of the bed, his head less than a foot from her. "Sunrise, little princess." She tried to rise, but he pushed her gently back with one hoof. "No, don't get up. Get the extra sleep for both of us." She opened her mouth to argue, but Oliver quieted her with a kiss.

It was pretty awkward, she was still only partially awake. But that didn't matter. She felt his affection, and that meant far more. Mayor of Alexandria she might be, and perhaps she was far more. Yet in love, she felt constantly at a disadvantage. Oliver was so big, so mature! Moriah's magic seemed to have done more than make her smaller. She felt like the relationship itself was always something new, something exciting and forbidden and furiously important. Aside from the fate of Alexandria itself, nothing in the world mattered to her more.

"Mhmmm." She didn't try to get back up.

"Do you need me to take Cody, princess?"

She thought, and of course the memory came back instantly despite her tiredness. Exhaustion did not dim her ability to recall with clarity. "No, he... I've got a pretty light day. I can handle him."

"Sure?" He stroked her mane, brushing the unruly bedheaded mess out of her eyes. "Don't just tell me that."

"I'm not!" she insisted, leaning closer to him. "I'm going to the power plant today. Cody would be very upset if I didn't take him."

"Alright." He let her go, turning away. "Call me if he gets disruptive, and I'll send someone to pick him up. Goodnight princess."

"I wish." She closed her eyes, pulling the covers back over her head. She slept another few hours, though this time she did so without dreams. Her alarm went off at eight, and she didn't fight it. She paused as she got up, exchanging a morning hug with Huan at the foot of her bed. He rose when she did, following her as she made her way to the RV's shower.

He sat down right outside, turning to face the open doorway. She didn’t bother shutting it. What was the point of closing the bathroom door while bathing when you were naked all the time anyway?

She cleaned herself off as quickly as she could, conserving the water and the soap as best she could. Soapmaking was a simple craft that had been revived since the Event, though nothing she used these days ended up as smooth as the wonderful gels and fruity shampoos she could've bought in any pre-Event grocery.

As it turned out, getting soap that nice took lots of chemistry and often lots of animal fat. But there was no meat industry anymore, nor any processing of animal corpses short of burial. That left the world with inferior plant sources, and Alex with rough-feeling skin whenever she scrubbed too hard. She could only pray one of the next few ponies to return would be one of those hipster soap-makers, or a prodigy of biochemistry. Either one really.

Though it had been only five years, Alex had stopped bothering with clothes much in spring. Surviving post-apocalypse was sweaty work not made easier by maintaining large wardrobes. To say nothing of having to keep all of it washed and clean, which took either lots of time or lots of electricity. The unfortunate reality of her choice as Mayor not to dress in warm weather generally meant others would imitate it, which was fine by her. In this one way at least the Equestrian custom seemed better suited for their situation, and so she had adopted it.

Formal occasions and inclement weather still demanded clothing, of course. But removing several whole classes of garment from her wardrobe meant she could live a lighter, slimmer life. Alex restricted herself to the scrunchie that kept her braided mane from getting out of control, as well as a wide-brimmed summer hat that served to help her stand out more in crowds as well as feel less like she was completely naked. Other than these two, she needed only the HPI cybergauntlet, secure on her right foreleg.

Her little son slept in the RVs little bedroom, buried in a mountain of blankets and pillows. She had to dig him out, fighting to dig faster than he could as he realized he was being woken. In the end, that meant just turning the whole lot onto the floor, and lifting the squirming and giggling foal with one careful foreleg. "That's it, you!" She set him down on the floor in front of the bed, glaring. "Stop fighting, or it's hay for breakfast and you can't come with me today."

Cody whined, grumbled a little, then stopped squirming. "Fine." He drew up his hat from somewhere on the ground, and then he was dressed. Some parents forced their children to dress as much as pre-Event children had. Alex wasn't about to force the foal to do something she wouldn't do herself, so a hat was enough. "What's today again?"

Alex turned away from him, heading down the hall. "The CHP plant." She felt more than heard Huan’s paws on the ground behind her, diligently shadowing her.

"Oooh!" She heard the sound of drawers being opened and shut as he struggled, though she didn't stop to watch him. Instead she made her way to the kitchen. Oliver had apparently taken the time before leaving for work to make them breakfast. She microwaved the waffles back to warmth, set out the fruit, and sat down to eat while she waited for Cody.

When he emerged again, the foal had switched out his cardinals cap for a plastic hardhat and a reflective vest, probably from the same halloween store he had picked out his "human" costume from the day before. He moved with all the assurance of a child who was certain he was prepared for anything. He even ate with dignity. Far be it for Alex to tell him how adorable he looked.

"It's probably going to be a long day," she announced, when they had both finished and they were heading for the door. "I won't be able to take you to see Aunt Sky and your friend Amy until tonight. I hope that's okay with you."

He nodded. "Amy just wants to read books. She forgets me when I'm not there."

"That's not true! I've talked to her, Amy likes you!"

"Of course she says that when you ask." He rolled his eyes. "She says yes to anything grown-ups say. She's 'fraid of grownups!"

She didn't argue, just waited for him to climb down to the grass before turning to face Huan. “I’m sorry boy-” she began. His ears started drooping before she got any further. “We’re going to the power plant today. I’ve already got one pet. They’ll throw a fit if I bring you too.”

He whined, then turned to look over at the RV beside theirs, where Sky and Adrian lived.

She stepped out of his way. “Yeah… I suppose you can spend the day with Sky. You keep an eye on her until I get back, okay?”

That was enough. The dog hopped down, pausing as he recovered from the impact. He nipped playfully at one of her legs, then trotted off.

“Alright Cody.” Alex shut the door, then turned. There was no point in locking it. “Let’s go.”

They didn't drive to the plant. Alex was one of perhaps a dozen ponies who had a working vehicle and could call upon it for any reason, a function both of her personal wealth and her important duty within the colony. Automobiles were superfluous within the city, however, when any destination, including the more distant farms, could be reached in under an hour at the best walking pace. Most destinations were less than ten minutes away, though having little hooves along would stretch that time somewhat.

Just as she could not set an example of taking up more space than she needed, her austere life was meant to be an example to the city's many citizens. So it was, and so she would walk. Through her walking, Alexandria could put its mechanical skill into long-distance vehicles for trade and farming equipment to keep food on ponies' tables. Her Toyota Mirai would just have to sit in storage, until she could have the pleasure of driving it again.

Cody walked far slower than she did, but that didn't matter much. With as often as ponies stopped her to chat, he was the one getting bored, grazing on wildflowers and sweet clovers wherever she stopped as though that was the most natural thing in the world. He wasn't the only pony to snatch up such treats where they grew, though Alex was not among them. She would bow before the biological realities of her new form, for that was natural. She would not graze, even if she would happily eat their products washed and trimmed in any salad.

She glanced several times at the digital clock on her gauntlet, keeping careful track of time. So long as she arrived during the first shift, it didn't really matter when she got there. Her schedule didn't get really busy until the city council meetings in the afternoons and evenings. Hopefully by then she could catch up with Sky, and leave Cody with a friend that would be more exciting than doodling on pads of legal paper while they talked about "water distribution" and "immigrant integration" for hours and hours.

They weren't even halfway to the combined heat and power plant before she got a call, however. She had a smartphone in her purse, everypony did, serviced via Alexandria's mesh-network of a few dozen distributed routers. If the call had come from her gauntlet, it would've meant an emergency, so she was grateful that it didn’t.

Her phone vibrated loudly until she dug into the satchel and answered it, holding it in front of her and using the speaker function like any non-unicorn had to do. "Alex speaking."

"Mayor!" The voice sounded agitated, frightened. "There's been an emergency!"

Alex's perfect memory recognized the voice at once as the foreman of one of several collective agriculture groups. "Hiram Young, isn't it?" The pony was one of those sticklers who hadn't ever bothered taking an Equestrian name, and anyway an occasion like this wouldn't have warranted using it if he had one. "What's the emergency, sir? Why aren't you phoning the police?"

"I did, ma'am!" the voice responded, urgent. "They've quarantined the whole area, put everypony on it they could! I just had a feeling you'd make more of it than they would."

"Perhaps, if you can tell me what the emergency is." Her number was public knowledge, or at least an alias that redirected calls aimed at the mayor was. She wondered if his next words would persuade her to have her secretary screen her calls along with his other duties. Poor Quick Learner had probably arrived at the CHP plant an hour ago and would be having a nervous breakdown without her.

"You know the details of Abundance Supernatural?"

She did, as clearly as she knew the 10,000th digit of pi (7), and the age Da Vinci had been when he died (67). "You're trying to combine Equestrian farming methods and magic with chemical fertilizers and modern farming techniques. You work mostly in wheat, soybeans, and corn." She could've quoted the exact acreage of each of their farms and the names of every citizen that had filed income working there too, but she didn't bother.

"We do that, yes. But we've also been experimenting with smaller scale stuff. Fruits and flowers. We've got a project going to design a fast-sprouting flower that can grow in winter, without ponies to take care of it. The details of the botany don't really matter... our three research technicians were in our experimental garden, when..." His voice shook. "It's terrible, mayor. The police were right to quarantine us. If this spread to Alexandria, it could be a disaster."

She glanced at Cody, watching him hop down from the sidewalk and into the road, then back up again. She shivered. "I understand. I think I'll come and take a look at this myself. Did anypony actually die?

"No," he said, hesitantly. "Though I think they wish they had."

"The effects haven't spread?"

Again he hesitated. "I believe they're connected with the field. When I saw them, I got a right bad feeling about it and didn't go in. But one of our drivers ignored me. He got them out just fine, but... he's showing symptoms too. I didn't go in though, and so far as I can tell I'm all right. We're taking care of 'em as best we can, the rest of us, but we haven't gone in. Police wanted to burn the field, but I wouldn't let them. There are years of research in those plants!"

"A self-serving decision sir, but wise nonetheless. We may need samples in order to cure whatever's afflicted them."

"I pray you can, Mayor. I don't fancy any of them have lives ahead of them like this. And if we can't cope with magical accidents, maybe we shouldn't be trying to experiment with it. How we handle this might change everything."

She told him to stay where he was and not change anything, then hung up and made another few calls. Five minutes of frantic pacing later and a police-truck arrived for them both, with a nervous-looking Quick Learner already inside.

Well, she thought of them as the police. Of course, they were really Alexandria's militia. It was a waste of resources to keep two separate armed forces about, for what little work they did. Most of it was responding to emergencies and looking gruff.

Look gruff they did, arriving for her in their military truck belching smoke from its gasifier and forcing everypony out of the ordinarily clear streets. A single pony with a P90 stepped out and saluted. "Ma'am." She returned the mare's salute, then scooped Cody securely up into the truck and hastened to follow.

"I take it we won't be going straight to the quarantine zone, ma'am," the driver called back, once they were inside the covered cloth rear of the truck. It was empty, aside from the single policemare, her terrified assistant, and her son.

"Right. Drive us back to the trailer park. We'll drop my son and Quick Learner off, then go to the university."

"Aye, Ma'am!" They started driving.

"D-Day?" Quick Learner glanced down as his leather day-planner. "I'm going to be..."

"Taking my son to Cloudy Skies. You can meet me at the farm after that if you like, or... no, I've got a better idea. You won't be much good at the farm, but you could stand in for me at whatever boring meetings I have scheduled this afternoon. The council will understand. You can explain the emergency."

"I'm not aware of the emergency," he responded, and there was no deception in his tone. Not that she expected it. Learner was too simple a creature for deception. Like Joseph, he lived in patterns, though his were the patterns of administration and not magical or computerized research.

So she told him, albeit the condensed form. He took notes with a levitating pen as though she were explaining electricity usage quarterlies, and with as much emotion.

Cody, meanwhile, tugged constantly at her tail, until finally she was forced to turn around and glare at him. "Arithmetic, mommy is very busy right now."

"We're not going to the power plant?" he whined, looking so pathetic while he did so her heart nearly melted. She found herself hesitating as she shook her head.

"No sweetie, I'm afraid not. There's been an emergency, and ponies have been hurt very badly. They're going to need me to make them well again."

"I wanted to see the power plant!" he protested, a little louder.

"I know. And we will. I still have to do this inspection, I just can't do it right now. I promise I'll take you when I do go, alright?"

He considered that a moment, concentration evident on his four-year-old face. Eventually he nodded. "I guess." He deflated, his head sagging so much the plastic helmet fell off. "I won't forget!"

She embraced him. "That's a big boy. I won't forget either, promise. Hopefully we'll go tomorrow, but I can't promise that yet."

The truck stopped. "Trailer park!" barked the driver.

"You're going to spend the day with Sky after all," she said, rising and turning towards Learner. "Mommy's friend is going to take you, okay?"

They left, and soon the truck was on the move again. They stopped in front of the high school, or what had been. Several of the surrounding buildings had been appropriated and connected to the university, which now covered just over four full blocks. Nearly half of the population of Alexandria were involved with it at any one time, either as staff or as students in any number of the many offered courses. Joseph wore a sweater vest, tweed pants, and an angry expression. The truck seemed to alleviate at least a little of his anger, but he was still tapping one hoof when they stopped.

"This better be good, Alex. You interrupted one of my classes!"

She gestured impatiently at the empty truck behind her. "Get in Joe. Ponies could be dead tomorrow." He did. Only when they were driving did she add, "Besides, we both know you get a TA to do most of your teaching these days. You were goofing off in the lab."

"Goofing off in the lab," he repeated, glaring. His slight accent was still detectable after all these years, but the mistakes he had once made frequently speaking English were long gone. "We're trying to solve the biggest problems of our century, Alex! Unlock the secrets of the invisible world! Save humanity!" He glowered. "If you thought we were goofing off, why do you give us a budget?"

She raised one hoof, trying to mollify him. "Relax Joe. I didn't mean anything by it. You ponies do good work. That business with the library security a few months ago was impeccable. We'd be in some deep dung and out our books if it wasn't for your work with runes."

That did it. When the subject of praise, Joseph was transformed from an angry stallion into a preening feline. "It was nothing. Nothing more than what anypony could've extrapolated given all our resources. Are those thieves still in jail?"

"We never put them in jail," she replied, sitting down again in one of the seats, converted for ponies as it was. "You don't remember that?"

He looked panicked anew at this news. "W-We didn't?"

"No." She gestured out the open back of the truck at Alexandria speeding by. "Having a jail would mean paying a pony to sit around all day and guard someone who was also sitting around all day. Having other ponies working in fields to bring in food to give to a pony who didn't do anything to help the colony in return, even though they could have. That just doesn't make sense when there are colonies where ponies don't have enough to eat."

He was unconvinced. "You just let them go?" He moved closer, eyes narrowing. "Alex, I've got a child! My wife is at home right now!"

Joseph seemed to be learning how to respond to social situations from Moriah. As nice as it was to see he was learning, she wished he'd had a better tutor. "No, Joe. We let them choose: either a hundred hours hard labor, or banishment for life from Alexandria and its libraries. Only a few went for the second one... and for the rest, they got to pay their debt to society real quick. They didn't actually hurt anypony in the robbery, partially thanks to your excellent spells. They're not a threat to your family."

"Nothing to stop the bad ones from coming back..." he muttered, though he did seem to finally be calming down again.

Alex shook her head, expression growing dark. "Yes there is. If they come back, they'll be censored by all the Free Cities. After that..." There was no after that, or at least none they had ever had to do. In theory, a censored person was an outlaw, in the original sense of the word. In practice, there were perhaps three such people in the whole world, and none of them were near Alexandria that she knew of. None of the prospective thieves had ever returned.

"Last stop before the farm!" the driver called, with more than a hint of nervousness in his voice as he did so. Alex didn't blame him, even if she didn't share his feelings. To his credit, Joseph didn't seem upset by it either.

They had driven halfway to the next town over, into a tiny farming village that hadn't had but a gas station and half a hundred people to its name before the Event. Now it was... something else.

Blacklight the Changeling Queen had chosen this place for her hive, such as it was. Few ponies came out this far, fewer still had any conception of what the little queen did. Alex was one of those few. "Coming, Joe?"

He made his way to the edge of the back, then shook his head. His wide eyes took in the buildings and the state of the miniscule settlement, and he seemed to think better of it. "Can't get the HPI to send us a nonliving disposable drone?"

"I will if it comes to that." She lowered her voice. "Don't call them disposable around Riley. They're still her daughters. Imagine what you'd feel like if I called Richard disposable."

He didn't look angry, to his credit, just nodded and sat back down. "Right, of course. Sorry. I'll wait here. And be careful what I say when you come back."

"How long should we wait for you, mayor?" The driver asked, glancing nervously through the opening to the cargo section.

"It won't take more than ten minutes... but there's no chance of what you're suggesting. Riley is my friend, has been for years. Her drones wouldn't hurt anypony, but they certainly won't hurt me."

"If you say so, ma'am." The single militiaman took her seat near the opening, resting her P90 casually over one leg. She seemed a little calmer, but still clearly nervous.

Alex rolled her eyes and hopped the steps to the ground, turning her back on the truck. This wouldn't take long.

The little village of Vermilion had changed a great deal since it had come under new management of a changeling hive. Alex had very little context through which to understand the things its new management did. She hopped down onto the street, its pavement cracking from lack of maintenance. All around her, she saw evidence of changeling activity. Farmhouses missing windows or sections of roofs. Huge bites and entire doors missing from what few cars there were. It was as though a colony of gigantic ants was disassembling the entire place one tiny piece at a time.

That wasn't far from the truth. As she neared the center of the village, she saw what had become of all the missing materials. Where there had once been a church, the changelings had built a mountain. It was perhaps a single story taller than the building that formed its core, though only the smallest traces of the church within emerged.

Most of the structure was built from either shiny black plates, or slightly transparent greenish slime. Taken together it would have been horrifying, were it not for the bits of mundane detritus that had been worked into the structure. Entire windows, the hoods of old cars, sections of flooring and huge flat rectangles of housing sheetrock.

The hive had several openings, though most were above ground level. That made sense when every member of your species could fly. As it was, there was only one meant for visitors, and that was the one Alex had to use.

The house directly beside the hive had been left entirely intact, except for the tunnel of transparent green that connected it to the hive. If anything, the house seemed to be in better shape than homes merely left alone for the last five years, something Alex knew was the work of pony contractors and not the changelings themselves. Riley could do many things, but she hadn't ever mastered construction.

As she neared the hive, Alex was conscious of a constant low buzzing from within, a scurrying and labor in the pitch black unplumbed spaces beyond. She had been inside on more than one occasion, when the hive had been new and Riley had been eager to show her work. Even Adrian had been uncomfortable within.

Archive saw things differently, though what she saw frightened her. How could anyone raised in such a place ever grow to be a free, creative individual? The answer was obvious of course: they couldn't. Could anything of civilization survive in such a climate?

She knocked three times on the door. It took only a moment to answer, and Alex was face-to-face with one of Riley's drones. Despite their young age (none could be older than three years), the drones of Riley's little colony were about the size and shape of pony adults, with vague suggestions to their universal femininity. They were bald, though they had frills on their necks for a mane and something similar for tails.

Each one had holes in its limbs, though the positioning and size varied. She understood it was partially how they identified each other in the dark, though of course she had never been brave enough to actually ask. "Alex." The drone spoke in a robotic, memorized way, its insect eyes lacking all but the faintest spark of intelligence. "Please, come in." It lifted one of its forelegs what Alex guessed was a memorized amount, gesturing towards a sitting room lit by electric lights. It had to be, with the shadow of the hive looming so large beside it.

Alex nodded and obliged. "Of course. Please get your queen for me, I have urgent business with her."

The drone shut the door behind her, turning mechanically around. Alex didn't have to use any of her invisible senses to tell Riley was not actively controlling it. When she did, it behaved as lifelike as if it were Riley herself. Only in her apathy did they thusly behave.

"I've already told her you're here." Another voice spoke from the hall and Alex rose, meeting the eyes of the changeling male. He looked not unlike the drone, though his coloration was yellowish instead of blue and he had a wispy mane like a queen.

"Hey Chip!" She moved to greet him, meeting him in a brief hug. "How's supreme regent of all changelings?"

He laughed. "Busy as always. She'll be in shortly. I just took a cake out of the oven if you'd like a slice. Red velvet."

"You're going to destroy my figure, Chip. Get a healthier habit."

He laughed, returning a moment later with a levitating plate and a thin slice of bright red cake with creamy white frosting. "I would. Lucky me I can't gain weight eating pony food. Guess that makes one of us."

"Just punctuate it differently." She had to sit down to eat, though she looked up first. "Tell her it's important, would you? Like, life and death. I'm not sure a few minutes will make a difference, but they might." Then she let herself eat. She wasn't sure where Riley's first and oldest male got his ingredients, but damn he knew what he was doing in the kitchen.

She knew her appreciation for his work was feeding him far more than the cake did. She didn't care. If the latest "changeling plot" was to get ponies to love their work so much the whole hive got obese, she was just fine with that. So long as she could eat cake like this.

"It's real coco," Chip supplied, from one of the chairs across from her. "That's what makes it so good. Not the dried stuff. Real cream too."

"I'm..." she could only half speak with her mouth so full, but she didn't care. "Amazing Blacklight permits such frivolity."

Chip shrugged, though there was something sad in his expression. "The queen encourages individuality. I think she'd go insane otherwise. She gets to be conservative so the rest of us can waste resources on eccentricity. Well..." He looked down. "A few of us can."

"Any drones yet?"

He shook his head. "If there were, you'd hear the music all the way from Alexandria." His ears tilted backward suddenly and he sat up, becoming more rigid. He didn't say anything, but Alex knew exactly what he was saying, and that was all it took. She rose to her hooves just as Riley emerged from the back hallway.

Queen Blacklight had changed more than anypony she knew since the founding of Alexandria. She had grown tremendously fast, shooting up to a height easily equal to Oliver's without her horn. Her body was majestic and regal, not unlike an Equestrian Alicorn. She still had a "stringy" look to her that suggested she wasn't finished growing, though Alex would never have said so. "Lonely Day. I apologize I didn't get the chance to speak with you last night."

They shared a hug, Alex feeling very much like a child as they did so. "You were there?"

"A dozen of my drones were. I wasn't there personally."

"Really?" She hadn't seen- Alex cursed herself for not putting that bit of logic together, even for just a few seconds. "They were looking like ponies, of course. I'm guessing they were staff." Handling the nitty-gritty details of community events had fallen beneath Alex's notice over a year ago, once the city had really started running itself.

"Setup, assistant cooks, takedown..." She shrugged. "It was quite successful. I had meant to meet with you to discuss expanding our role with Alexandria."

"The one where you let families and businesses sign-up for drones?"

She nodded. "Simple appreciation for a job well done is nourishing enough. As I predicted, ponies who spend time around individual drones begin to develop an affection for them. My drones will be more than happy to do menial work in exchange for that."

Alex was dimly aware of Chip slipping out the back hallway, giving her one last farewell wave before vanishing into the hive proper. "I can't approve a proposal that big on my own, I'm not a queen. But I see no reason I wouldn't be able to persuade the city council. Something's come up that might help, too. We've got a serious emergency. Dangerous magic, might be fatal. There's no time to wait for the HPI." She gestured over her shoulder. "I need a few of your drones to help, and you too if you can spare the time."

"How serious?"

"Four ponies have been affected. An entire field has been quarantined. If it spreads, it could destroy Alexandria."

She didn't hesitate. "Then I have the time." The drone that had got the door for Alex abruptly stepped forward, along with its identical twin Alex hadn't even noticed was nearby. "Will two be sufficient?"

"I think so, yes." She turned and started walking without waiting another second.

The queen kept pace, with her drones falling into step behind them. Without Alex even mentioning it, Blacklight began to change. Shining chitin melted into soft black fur. Holes fused and sealed over, and her wings vanished completely. She even had a cutie mark, shaped like the crown-shaped growth that had only just vanished from her head. She was also several inches smaller, no larger than any other mare. The drones changed too, color identical to her own, though both of them were lacking cutie marks.

Soon they were outside again, marching towards the truck. "When you say serious, exactly what are you referring to?" Riley asked, her voice now lacking its strange reverberating quality. "What happened?"

Alex frowned. "I'm... I don't know the exact details. I just know it was different for each of them. The farmer who hadn't been affected seemed pretty shaken up. And if Lieutenant True Sight thought it made sense to quarantine the whole area, she would've had a good reason."

"Trust for your subordinates. It doesn't seem efficient not to gather all the information into one place for processing. Aren't you better informed than anypony else in Alexandria?" They approached the truck, though Riley didn't bother lowering her voice.

The single militia-pony sitting guard sat up hastily, lowering her gun and stumbling back. There were no questions, no phrase she had to use to prove she was herself. Blacklight's hive had never been hostile towards Alexandria, the city they considered themselves a part. Having such a policy would've been an insult, and so Alex blatantly refused it. It was going to hurt them one day if any other changelings decided to attack. But why would they? They were human too!

Alex shrugged. "Maybe."

"There is no uncertainty," Riley insisted. "You have read the entire contents of the Equestrian library, and you recall every word of it perfectly. You've read at least as many human books. You can synthesize disparate facts from these, and any observations you make, and all your previous memories, as quickly as I synthesize conclusions from the observations of my drones. This makes you clearly superior to the other ponies of Alexandria. In fact, you ought to be queen of all non-changelings. It's the optimal choice."

Alex rolled her eyes as she hopped up into the truck. Once the changelings had done the same, she called, "driver, to Abundance Supernatural. As fast as you can, we've got lots of time to make up."

They started moving at once. Her militia-pony took the seat beside her, seeming to hide behind her, not making eye-contact with any of the "ponies" that had joined them. Evidently this mare was new, Alex would have to make sure she got to spend some time with changelings soon, get that fear-reaction ironed out. "Optimal in some ways, perhaps." She sat down in her chair again. The changelings did the same, though only one of them had any life in her eyes. "But not in others. The human organizational strategy we use has merits too."

"Please explain." Riley looked as though she would've pulled out a pad to take notes, though of course she didn't. Her memory was, quite by nature, almost as good as Archive's was by virtue of her calling.

"My knowledge is superior, true. It grows every day more superior. Yet even so, I cannot possibly be aware of all the information that everypony is about their own lives. I cannot see through their eyes, as you can. I don't have superior intelligence either. The human organizational structures we use, personal freedom and democracy, allow each person to make what they believe to be optimal choices for their happiness."

"It requires trust, however. Trust that my 'subordinates' know their jobs better than I do, and will do everything they can to get them done well. Trust that, even if we sometimes make incorrect choices as individuals, the collective is generally good and will work together towards the collective self-interest."

This silenced Riley for several whole seconds, her expression becoming more and more downcast. "I wish... I wish I could." She looked up, and for a second Alex could almost see the little human girl that still lived inside her. "I trust Chip, but he can't handle more than half a dozen drones at once, he can't run the hive! Rob's worse, he can barely handle one!" She sighed. "I want all my daughters to be like regular ponies." She looked back at the drones, sitting as they were in their seats. They stared forward with blank expressions, seeming neither to realize nor care about what was being discussed.

"Maybe having drones living with regular ponies will help!" Alex suggested.

"Maybe." Riley looked down at her hooves, and nothing more was said for the rest of the trip.

Chapter 3: Little Disasters (5 AE)

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Alex was more than a little relieved when she saw flashing lights in the distance. She leaned forward towards the exit, and was the first to hop down onto the grass when they finally stopped. She received several salutes as she passed the barricade, and was only dimly conscious of the others following her. She slowed enough for Joseph to catch up with them, and didn't meet his eyes even as he pointedly glared in her direction.

"I'm still not sure why you felt it necessary to bring me. It seems like you have the situation well in hand. Carol is already here, and you're bringing Blacklight along. I don't understand why you couldn't have just waited and called me if I was actually necessary."

Alex rolled her eyes, and forced herself not to reply as she made her way towards the batpony that was presently in command of the quarantine.

Like the others, Carol saluted as Alex approached. "Lonely Day, I didn't expect you would make it out here. How did you find out so fast?" The batpony had once been part of an evil cult, which had attempted a hostile takeover of Alexandria. That attempt had been thwarted, and after many years she was now the head of its military. She now wore the tactical vest that was the symbol of her office, along with the P90 submachine gun that was the main weapon of any militiaman of Alexandria.

"I received the call less than an hour ago. It came from inside: Hiram Young. He told me what was happening, and I brought the best experts we have. First though, I'd like to have your report."

Carol nodded, and gestured to a spot a little ways away from the other militiamen waiting in the street. Alex followed, and soon they stood under the shade of a large tree with a clear view of the field and farmhouse beyond. "We got the call from emergency services just a few hours ago. I wasn't on the team that initially investigated, but Merchant was, and made the call almost immediately that the area should be quarantined. As you're probably aware, the effects of whatever strange magic they managed to create are rather horrific. Missing limbs, total transformations... nasty stuff. No blood though, no pain."

She lowered her voice, leaning closer to Alex. She dutifully returned the gesture. "I may recognize the symptoms from something I remember hearing about in Equestria. I don't see how it would be possible for this Equestrian plant to have ended up here on Earth. As a matter of fact I think you'd all be better off if it didn't. I couldn't go in to investigate though, not without an order from you or from the City Council. I guess you're here now, so if it's all the same to you I think I'd like to go in."

Alex nodded, biting her lower lip. "Exactly what do you think this is?"

Carol shook her head. "A little knowledge would be worse than none, Alex. I'd prefer only to tell you if it looks like I was right."

Alex was far from happy with this decision, but she nodded anyway. Her words to Queen Blacklight would be empty if she didn't actually live them. "Alright." She turned back to the road, gesturing. "Let's go, everyone. Joseph, I want your thaumic senses watching every inch of the space in front of us. If we're about to walk into a spell, stop us."

He nodded, taking his place at the front of the group. His horn began to glow, though he shook his head. "Field's on fire. Nothing in the farmhouse. It should be safe to go in."

"Safe enough that you would go first?"

He spent another few seconds, before nodding defiantly. "I would!"

"You don't actually have to." They stopped outside the single-story farmhouse, glancing back. "Can you send one of your drones with me, Riley? The rest of you can wait out here, and you'll know if anything happens."

The changeling queen nodded. Joseph and Carol didn't look happy, but neither of them argued. They had seen Alex's remarkable regenerative abilities before, even if they didn't understand the full implications. "Alright Alex. Be quick in there. I'm pretty sure it's safe."

"I'll make that call." Alex stepped up onto the porch, the shape of a drone at her side. She knocked loudly with one hoof. It took only a second for it to open.

Hiram Young stood inside, hat in one hoof and eyes downcast. He was a full-grown earth pony stallion, with a white coat and yellowish mane he kept short as many stallions did. Just as he had taken no pony name, he had also refused the custom of regular nudity, insisting on wearing both pants and shirt despite the heat.

"Thank God you made it, Mayor." He glanced over her shoulder, then stepped out of her way. "Such a large party."

"Not a first. This mare and I are the only ones going in at first." He shook her hoof, then extended to shake with the changeling.

"We haven't had the pleasure, Miss-"

Alex wasn't entirely surprised to see the changeling return the gesture, not with her queen literally feet behind her. Of course Riley could be controlling her. Yet the gesture had such a halting uncertainty to it, she couldn't imagine why the queen would act that way. Was she trying to get Hiram to believe it was a real pony?

Her shock grew as the drone spoke, her voice robotic yet bearing traces of sadness. "17." She looked sidelong at Alex. Her eyes still lacked expression, but Alex didn't need it to guess what the drone might mean.

"She's a changeling drone, Hiram. They don't really have names."

"Ahh, one of Chip's people." He shrugged. "Seems a shame to me. I'll call you friend if you can help mine." He turned, waiting for them to follow. They did, leaving the door open behind them. Soon Alex was in the living room, looking upon the pathetic scene that magical experimentation had created.

Abundance Supernatural employed just over a dozen ponies, and they were all crowded into the living room, in various stages of distress. In the center was the couch, and there she found the victims of the mysterious supernatural plague she had come to restore.

She would've laughed if she hadn't known the occasion was so serious. Magic was obviously at work, but... not in any way she had ever seen it employed before. It was all transformation magic, though not with any discernible practical purpose.

There was a stallion whose mane and tail had been changed from gray hair to an actual raincloud, occasionally sparking and constantly dripping water down his face and widening the damp spot he was sitting on. Beside him was a mare, whose rear hooves seemed to have melted into roots into a comically large pot. Leaves and little shoots grew from her at random, and a garland of flowers circled her mane in a way that suggested they were very much attached.

Beside her was another mare, whose coat seemed replaced with thick, sandpapery skin and whose tail had gone thick and forked like a shark's. As she opened her mouth to whimper, Alex saw sharp teeth within, and her eyes were far darker than any pony's had a right to be. Lastly was one of the largest, most muscular stallions she had ever seen, except... that his limbs seemed to have deflated somehow, like they belonged to a weak little colt that hadn't hit puberty yet. Somehow, she doubted very much they could lift that disproportionately-large chest.

"How long have you ponies been like this?"

"Since this morning," answered the stallion on the left, his voice coming with a slight gurgle for all the water dripping down his face. He didn't seem to be having trouble breathing. Alex concentrated on his face for a moment before she could identify his transformed features. Glenn was his name, and he had worked for Monsanto as some kind of plant engineer before the Event.

The shark mare nodded, her voice coming out as a shy squeak. "Me too. We all live here..." she gestured vaguely towards the second story. "I thought it was everybody. It wasn't." Determining her identity took a little longer, though Archive recognized the voice. It belonged to Violet, who hadn't even graduated high school before the Event. Alex hadn't spoken with her since she immigrated, however.

The tree said nothing, though the near-helpless stallion glared down at his hooves. "Only since an hour ago. I got 'em out of the field just fine. But when I went into the shower..." He raised one feeble leg. "This shit happened."

She surveyed the room, searching for signs of unpredictable magic in the other ponies here. None seemed affected; none were getting smaller or getting sharp teeth or getting rooted to the floor. "And none of the rest of you were exposed?"

Several ponies shook their heads. She met the eyes of each in turn, making sure to get confirmation before she turned to Hiram. "If there's a lab here somewhere, you must have some secure container, right? I'd like to get a sample of whatever plant this is to my magical expert." She faced the drone, and spoke as though she was speaking to Riley. "Do you think you could obtain it for us?"

"Of course."

"The lab isn't in this building, but we have a few supplies in the basement." He looked the drone up and down. "Will you be wanting safety equipment as well?"

Alex opened her mouth to answer, but Blacklight beat her to it, speaking through the drone. "No. I wish to see if changelings can be affected. If proximity to exposed ponies does not carry with it a risk of infecting others, this should not interfere."

"Alright." He shrugged, vanishing down a doorway. He emerged a few minutes later with a tupperware in his mouth. A pair of gardening shears rested inside, but nothing else. "Here you are."

The changeling took the container in her magic, though she didn't get out the door before Alex stopped her. "Blacklight, take the sample and meet us out front. We'll talk out there." As the changeling nodded, she turned her eyes again on the unfortunates in the center of the room. "Ponies, we'll get this fixed. I promise to use all the resources available to me to see to your immediate restoration."

The pony with clouds instead of a mane rolled his eyes. "Political crap, Mayor? You can't give us anything concrete?"

Her eyes narrowed, and she advanced a pace towards him. "Glenn, I will make this my first priority. But I won't make you empty promises. I know of no spell the Equestrians gave us that has effects like this, nor any counterspell. This does not mean that none could be devised. Remain patient for a few minutes, and I'll give you more."

The stallion nodded, cowed for the moment. The others all looked grateful, though none spoke. "My friends will come in to speak with you. Joseph in particular may examine you with his magic. Please cooperate with them in any way they ask; it will make restoring you to yourselves easier." With their assent she retreated, to the waiting crowd of ponies outside.

"It seems safe." She gestured over her shoulder. "Honestly, I expected something a little more gruesome. It's clearly magic, but... not something I would expect from a disease. Go take a look for yourselves, but only a few at a time. Joseph and True Sight, why don't you go first?"

Blacklight showed no sign of wanting to go inside. She had, after all, already seen the ponies within.

"You don't have to expose your drone intentionally, you know." She spoke quietly, so nopony else would overhear. "I appreciate your volunteering in case the conditions here were more dangerous, but they're clearly not. If you really wanted, you could probably fly home..."

Blacklight shook her head vigorously. "I guess you never wondered if Cody had a soul."

"Of course not!"

Blacklight wiped a tear away from one of her eyes. "I do wonder about my children. Perhaps whatever this is can help me discover the truth. I would gladly sacrifice one of my drones for the answer. Even if the answer is despair."

* * *

It didn't even take twenty full minutes for all of Alex's ponies to return from their various investigations. She heard each of their reports one at a time, starting with Joseph. He had no idea what spell had been used and no idea how it might be countered, not without a living sample of whatever plant had caused it. He could clearly testify that each of the victims was under the effect of a spell and that their transformations were not permanent. True Sight seemed to grow more disturbed after her investigation of the victims, though of course she had already heard the report of their symptoms from Hiram over the radio.

It was the arrival of the sample from the field that changed the course of their discussion. Blacklight's drone returned, levitating the sealed collection container in her magic. She set the sample down at their hooves, and all of them crowded around its sealed shape to look. Alex got a very clear look at the flowers through the plastic, and she felt her chest grow cold.

True Sight shivered, and that only made it worse. "That doesn't look like much," Joe said, nudging the box casually with one hoof. Blacklight glared at him, though she did not reprove.

The batpony was the first to say anything useful, and it was hardly what Alex would've wanted to hear. "I have seen this before. It's called-"

"Poison Joke," Alex supplied, pacing a slow circle around the sealed box.

"Yes!" Sight's eyes widened. "How did you know, Mayor? This is an Equestrian plant, and a fairly obscure one. It only grows in one place, a dangerous forest filled with chaotic magic and hostile animals. I've been asked to harvest it before. When I still-"

"No need, Sight. We understand you had no choice in anything you did when you worked for Odium." She sat down, rubbing her temples with one forehoof. "I know because it's mentioned in one of the Equestrian books, along with the recipe for an herbal bath meant to treat it."

"That sounds like great news!" Joseph retreated a pace, halfway turning away. "It means you don't need me, and I can get back to my lab! The ponies get to be cured, everybody wins."

"Yes, but..." Alex frowned, turning to Blacklight. "How good are you at identifying herbs, Riley?"

The queen shook her head. "I know what my drones can eat. I don't know any of the names. My swarm won't be any use to you in collecting them from the wild. Telling the subtle differences apart in plant species is too complex for them to do without me, and I can still only reach out a few miles."

She nodded. "It didn't hurt to hope." She gestured vaguely at the truck. "I suppose I don't need anypony but Sight at this point. You may all leave. Tell the driver to take you back. Poison Joke takes physical contact, so you'll all be fine." She turned her eyes on the drone. "Except this one, maybe. She should probably stay here, since it takes some time for symptoms to manifest."

The drone showed no sign she realized that she was being talked about. Riley nodded, however. "I would've left her anyway, to see what you do with this new development."

Joseph rolled his eyes. "I don't care about any of this. Who cares anymore? We have the cure! Go get your boyfriend, get some herbs, and let the rest of us go home."

"You are a fool." Blacklight met Joseph's eyes without a hint of hesitation. She was one of the few ponies who would say such things to him. Joseph was, so far as Alex knew, the most talented and knowledgeable unicorn in the world. He had even surpassed their few cultist unicorns, which hadn't really been hard since only Ryan had ever known much magic. "Apply your intellect for a moment and see past your own muzzle. Either these ponies spontaneously invented an Equestrian plant with dangerous properties... or somepony has or had imported them from Equestria and got them into the hooves of these ponies. Given this plant is dangerous, and everypony we have ever met from Equestria here in Alexandria has had hostile intentions, it is thus likely a new enemy is currently in Alexandria or was whenever the seeds were planted."

She lowered her voice to a harsh whisper. "They might even be inside that cabin. Thus, while I appreciate your suggestions that we return to our lives, I think Alexandria is better served by you not taking this risk on your own, Alex." She reached out, patting Alex firmly on the shoulder. "I admire that you take risks for your city, but the present optimal choice involves all of us acting together. Including you, unicorn scholar. Your talents are more needed here than in your laboratory."

Joseph wasn't Moriah. Anger passed quickly from his face, replaced with the recognition that Blacklight's logic was sound.

"I wish you weren't so smart, Riley. Carol and I could've taken care of this. I don't think it's going to be as serious as you think."

Riley shrugged. "Because they let us take a sample of the plant freely?" At Alex's nod, she continued. "That suggests they either do not know its origins and so did not think we would recognize anything familiar about it, or that they simply don't care, and whatever plan they've made will not be affected by our knowledge. There might have been poison inside, or maybe they have the entire area booby-trapped. Maybe they have an army and they're taking over Alexandria as we speak."

"They aren't." True Sight held up her radio. "There hasn't been a word on this the whole time we've been talking. No sound of human weapons in the distance, either, or magic. They couldn't take over the city without me hearing it, even from out here. Somepony would've said something."

"Even with some of your militia blockading the farm?"

She nodded. "Even so. Ever since last year, we've got wings in the air day and night. We won't let raiders surprise us again! If they don't check in every ten minutes, the alarm goes off automatically."

"Sight, call headquarters. Tell them if we don't give them an all-clear in ten minutes, that they should consider Alexandria in a state of emergency and mobilize every minute-mare in the city. Expect heavy reinforcement from the Vermilion hive." She looked inquisitively to Riley as she said so, and the queen nodded.

"If I'm still alive, yes. If not... I'm afraid it will be all my males can do to keep order. Frankly I wouldn't have high hopes of even that."

"I won't let you die then." She lowered her voice again. "Sight, get your quarantine ponies organized, let them know there might be trouble. I'm going to go back in with the drone and talk to Hiram... hopefully we're all overreacting. The rest of you, surround the house. If it sounds like trouble, get in and help me. Blacklight will be able to tell you how we're all feeling. If anybody gets emotional, go ahead and let yourselves in."

Alex waited for True Sight to make her calls, watching with a growing sense of apprehension. She would carry no weapons into the farmhouse. With any luck, they were about to discover that Abundance Supernatural had somehow spontaneously bred an Equestrian plant. That might have some insane implications for how magic worked, but Alex would've taken them over thinking that her community might be in danger. God help those ponies inside if any of them had betrayed their community to the likes of Odium, or some similar, equally-sinister monster of a different name.

Only when everything was ready did she make her way to the farmhouse door. She wasn't afraid of being contaminated this time. She did, however, wonder if she was going to die again. Death was already getting stale. She didn't knock, just pushed the door open and hurried inside. "Hiram?" She gestured, and he hurried over to her by the door. She watched his every movement, searching for signs of some kind of coming betrayal, or the emptiness in his eyes that would mean he was being directly controlled. She saw neither one.

"Yes, Mayor?" He glanced once out the door, then returned his eyes to her. "It must not be good news, if you called me out of the room."

She frowned. "I'll tell you the news in a minute. First..." She got within a foot of him, watching his expression carefully. "I need to know exactly where you got the seeds for those flowers."

"We designed them!" he exclaimed. "We designed everything ourselves! Well..." He shrugged. "I'm not personally involved. I only worked with the grain myself. Experimenting with earth pony magic."

"Who was? I need to speak with them right now."

"They were Violet's baby. Hold on, I'll get her. She can still move just fine, even if it looks like she'd be happier in a pond." He departed.

Alex had enough time alone to look inquisitively towards the changeling. She nodded on Blacklight's behalf. So Hiram believed what he was telling her. That didn't make it true, but it did suggest he probably wasn't part of the plot.

He returned with the shark following behind with halting steps, her thick tail swishing nervously behind her. Alex supposed it probably had enough muscle to knock over anything it struck, and in that moment Alex found herself grateful she hadn't been reborn as a griffon. She didn't seem to have hooves anymore, though it was hard to name exactly what she did have. There was at least one fin on her back, and she didn't seem to have any trouble walking. "Y-Yes, Mayor?"

If this pony was part of some nefarious plot to take over Alexandria, she was doing a very good job acting terrified and helpless, sharp teeth notwithstanding. "Violet, I need to know exactly where you got the seeds that caused your condition." She gestured at the changeling beside her. Riley seemed to know what she was asking for, because the drone's camouflage melted away in a little flash of blue fire. "This changeling drone is being controlled by their queen, Violet. If you lie to me, she'll know. So don't tell me anything that isn't true."

Violent whimpered, her eyes darting behind her and then to the changeling. She never looked up at Alex, didn't reach out or lunge at her with sharp teeth. She seemed to be fighting back tears. "I had to come up with something! I didn't... I didn't want to be a lab assistant forever! I didn't have any other choice!"

Hiram watched her with growing shock, opening his mouth but not able to coherently form a response.

Alex did, advancing closer to her and closer to those glinting rows of white teeth. She had a feeling she had figured out what the joke was in Violet's case, and she felt no fear for her safety now. "Where did you get the seeds?"

"I knew it was against the rules... we had to use our own stuff! We had all our seeds checked by the university before planting them, just to make sure... but he said these would be the most wonderful-"

"Who?" Alex advanced ever closer, baring her own flat and impotent teeth up at her. "Who was it?"

"Just a stallion!" she half-shouted, half cried. "I don't know his name, I'd never seen him before! But he was a unicorn! Did some amazing magic right in front of me, and he promised-"

"What did he look like?"

"I don't know!" She covered her eyes, shivering all over. "He, uh... brown and gray... red eyes... cutie mark like a capital 'S' I think. Why?"

Alex cast her memory back for a pony matching that description, simultaneously remembering every face that had ever visited her city. She couldn't find it. Not that she had seen everypony who ever visited... but there weren't many who could pass through the town without her seeing them. She looked at every face who entered the library, even if she didn't have the time to greet all of them personally anymore.

"When was the last time you saw him?"

She shook her head, whimpering again. "N-Not since that first time. He didn't... He said he was only in town the one day. I'm not sure where he went, I didn't ask! I d-didn't really think anything would happen! At best, I hoped maybe the flowers would taste good! I didn't know they were gonna be toxic!"

Alex looked to Blacklight again, who nodded. The queen's influence had grown tremendously, and Alex knew she didn't have to make contact to tell a pony that had been mentally manipulated, not anymore. Alex herself saw life still in the mare's eyes. Her distress, her fear and guilt, appeared genuine. Had this been some kind of joke? Some supernatural prank? But who on Earth would even bother?

"That's enough, Violet. I don't think anything criminal happened. I was worried, but... apparently I worried in vain. It was wrong of you not to take those seeds to the university, but... I don't think any permanent harm's been done." She turned to Hiram. "Those blue flowers are called poison joke, they're a plant from Equestria. The cure for their effects was included in the library. It will require some plants that don't grow anywhere nearby, but... I'm sure we could have them all here within a week or two."

She touched Violet on the shoulder as gently as she could. As she had expected, her skin was sandpaper rough. "Give any seeds you have left to the university's 'dangerous magic' ponies. I don't want to hear you saved a single one." She gestured over her shoulder at the changeling. "We're going to burn the flowers. Keep all your ponies safe inside until we're done."

"What about the rest of the garden? Years of research went into some of these plants!"

"We'll only need to destroy the flowers. If you see any more blooming somewhere else, notify me at once. That is, assuming I can trust you to do that."

Hiram crossed his chest. "On my honor, Mayor. I'll make it my personal responsibility."

Such a statement would mean nothing coming from most ponies. But Alex knew Hiram, at least a little. Something like 'honesty' or 'honor' still meant something to him. "Alright. I'd like a mask, if you've got one handy. I don't want to breathe in any ash."

"One for the changeling?"

Blacklight shook the drone's head. "No. And another sample container, before we depart."

Violet seemed eager to be dismissed, and Hiram also. Blacklight's drone met her eyes then, and there was no trace of yielding in her insectoid expression. "I must preserve a sample in case it works on this drone. If the effects are not favorable, you have my word I will destroy it as well."

"We can't risk it escaping and going wild," Alex said, though she didn't argue. "I trust you, Riley. Just imagine the chaos this would cause if it started cropping up all over the country. It could unravel a society if they didn't know what it was."

"I know." The drone's eyes were fixed pointedly on the next room over, as though she were still afraid they were in danger. "I won't allow that to happen. You have my word as well as Hiram's."

* * *

Alex hadn't been able to promise a return to ordinary life the day they discovered and diagnosed the transformed ponies. She wished her control of earth was such that she could sprout plants without seeds and grow what they needed, but that wasn't the way earth pony magic worked. Plants could be grown, but they couldn't be created from aether. So she added one more burden to her plate, one that continuously created bad PR for magical research every day it continued.

Getting many people to accept magic into their lives had been an uphill battle. She was still battling with the city council to get large-scale weather engineering considered as a viable alternative to simply taking whatever nature gave them. Humans had been upset enough over the imagined dangers of genetically engineered foods prior to the Event, how much more upset would they get about magical foods?

Hopefully not much more. She had asked the changed ponies not leave Abundance Supernatural grounds until they got things taken care of, and kept a few members of the militia on roadblock duty to keep off the paparazzi. Even so, their pictures were in the newspaper. Now what Alexandria needed was to see those pictures again, this time fully restored. To that end, she called in every favor she could think of to get the herbs delivered as fast as possible.

Now they had almost everything prepared. Joe and his unicorns had done as much preparation on the herbal bath as they could, in accordance with the instructions printed in Supernaturals. All that remained now was receiving the herbs they had traded for, and she could put the affair to rest. At least until she saw a brown and grey pony with an "S" cutie mark walking around...

To that end, Alex was waiting in the airfield in the early afternoon. Given she was here on a semi-official basis, she had taken the time to dress this morning, even if it was just a dark skirt and a sleeveless blouse. Light enough that she wouldn't sweat herself silly while she looked civilized.

She heard the Hummingbird before she saw it, along with Moriah's voice coming in over the gauntlet on her right foreleg. "In the pipe, five by five. Coming in with VIPs and precious cargo. I expect my overtime pay to be waiting for me when I land."

"Roger that Eagle. Limos for the VIPs, but your extra pay's already waiting for you at home. Should I call your husband and have him waiting for you?" Alex could hardly resent her desire to be paid. She had flown through the night and back on cargo recovery missions. It just happened that only the last stop had ponies that would be coming back with her. She didn't envy the level of customer service her guests had probably experienced flying Moriah Airlines.

"Negative air traffic control. If you call him out of work, he'll be sour all evening. I'd rather walk home. Over and out." Her image vanished, and Alex lowered her hoof.

Alex wasn't really air traffic control, in any case. This entire corridor was forbidden to pegasi, which was also why it was three whole miles outside of town. Well that, and there was already an airport. It wasn't just HPI VTOLs that had to land; occasionally they had a little prop-plane coming in, using some biofuel or something stabilized out of a government stockpile somewhere.

She saw the gleaming Hummingbird take a position in the air above them, scanning the sky before beginning its rapid descent. Moriah liked to push the limit of the Hummingbird's handling, particularly when she had ponies inside who had never flown in one before. Alex had "flown" inside more than once, thanks to the pilot's insane parabolic arcs.

She couldn't fall too fast without bumping ponies around, and eventually she began to decelerate, touching down on the empty parking lot as delicately as a flower.

There wasn't really a limo waiting, just Alex's silver Mirai, as spotless as the day she had rescued it. Most guests only warranted pick-up in a golf-cart, like the one waiting to take Moriah back home. For these, Alex had brought something special. Her son wasn't with her, much as he had wished to come. However much he liked to spend time with her, Alex had to put her hoof down somewhere and at least pretend she was official.

The ramp extended, and only then did she advance, brushing a few stray strands of her mane from her eyes and smiling up towards the ponies inside. "Welcome to Alexandria!" They probably wouldn't be impressed, seeing as the airport was a few miles outside of town and nopony lived here aside from a single groundskeeper, but...

A single gray pegasus stepped carefully down the ramp – it was hard to tell if she was supposed to look that pale, or if Moriah's maneuvers had affected her. She had a satchel strapped around her neck and barrel, but otherwise was without a stitch of clothes, and upon seeing Alex, flinched a little and tried to hide behind her purple mane. She cursed under her breath and then said, apologetically, "Sorry, it didn't occur to me that clothing was still a thing..."

Alex grinned, advancing to within the edge of the ramp. She beamed at the newcomer, though her ears flattened a little in shared embarrassment. She did her best not to feel small, even though she was a full head shorter. Maybe she should've worn boots? Or- no, that would've looked stupid.

"You don't wear clothes in winter up there?" She had never actually seen the newcomer, though she didn't need to in order to identify her. She recognized the voice, and anyway she was only expecting one pegasus. "Not that it's winter here..." She shrugged. "Most ponies don't wear much in summer here either. But when I'm meeting somepony in an official capacity, I've found it's best not to take chances. I've yet to meet a pony who got offended that I was dressed."

She extended a hoof in greeting, trying not to look like she was craning her neck too much. "You must be Sudden Storm. Or would you prefer just Stormy?"

The pegasus smiled and bumped hooves with Alex. "Stormy's fine, it's what everypony back home calls me anyway. And I sometimes throw on a scarf, and boots if I'm down on the ground in the snow and mud, but I seem to put up with the cold better. Maybe us pegasi are built to handle the temps up there?" She gestured to the sky. "But still, I feel bad, like I showed up to an interview in ripped jeans and a cutoff tee. Ahem. Anyway! Yes. Hi. You must be Alex."

She nodded. "Yep. Or Lonely Day, if you prefer. Some of us use the Equestrian names... Granted, most of us got them from Cloudy Skies." She rolled her eyes, though she seemed to be good-humored about it. "Is it just you, Stormy? Or did you bring anypony else? I wouldn't want to leave anypony behind. Riding all the way into the city on a golf-cart with Moriah..." She shook her head. "Nopony deserves to suffer through that."

Stormy winced. "Hang on a sec, I thought she was right behind me." She turned and ventured into the Hummingbird a bit, calling out, "Swift? We're on the ground now. C'mon." Over her shoulder, she apologized to Alex. "My friend Swift Quill is coming... The thing is, she had a bad experience with this tech the first time we encountered it, way back, and gets a little squirrelly around it still. Even though you've apparently made some headway with it, as far as affecting us goes." Stormy turned back and smiled as a pink-colored unicorn with a peach-and-orange mane sheepishly joined her, coming back down the ramp. "Swift Quill, or just Swift," Stormy introduced, "Lonely Day."

Moriah emerged from the interior of the aircraft at that moment, rolling her eyes as she did so. She wore an acceleration-suit molded specifically to her Equine frame, though of course none was necessary. That, and a leather pilot's cap straight out of WW1, goggles and all. It hadn't been easy to convince the HPI to make them for her, but they also hadn't had a choice.

There was only one other pilot with the skill to fly a Hummingbird. "Psh, like it's a big deal. We only shield the reactor." She didn't stop walking, trotting down the ramp and past them towards the golf-cart in the solar charging station. "I'm not helping you unload, Alex!"

The lone earth pony ignored her friend's shouted remarks, focusing her attention entirely on Swift Quill and Stormy. "Pleasure to meet you." She extended a hoof for the usual greeting, though she didn't dwell on it for long. "I apologize if your travel was uncomfortable. If ponies weren't in such distress, it wouldn't have been so urgent." She couldn't glance over them, but she could look around, back towards the ramp.

"Sorry there's no welcoming party waiting for you." She rolled her eyes. "That's politics for you. Ponytown is really pulling my flank out of the fire." As unfair as it was that the fire would fall on her, after all the nothing she had done to be responsible for the disaster. "I'll make it up to you, though." She took a step back, raising the hoof with the gauntlet on it towards her face. A little pressure and Joseph's voice came over the line. "University Thaumitech, Joseph speaking."

"Joe, get one of your ponies to the airport. The rest of your ingredients are waiting for you aboard Hummingbird One."

"On our way. We'll call you when it's finished."

"Call Abundance, not me. I'm gonna be out for the afternoon."

"Fine." The line went quiet.

As it did, Alex's whole demeanor seemed to change. She relaxed, her shoulders spreading and her ears no longer alert. She even put on a more friendly expression. "Now that's over with... welcome to Alexandria, both of you! Or..." She shrugged. "Edgar County Airport, anyway. Do either of you have bags I can help you with? If not... I suppose we can get started. I might not be much of a welcoming party, but I can still give you the tour."

Swift shook her head and Stormy smiled. "We didn't really want to waste any time packing, and I can handle this just fine." A messenger bag style satchel was hung around the pegasus's neck and barrel.

Swift seemed to get her voice back in time to put in a dig at her friend. "I told her she had to leave her favorite blankie and pillow at home," she said, cracking a smirk, to which Stormy rolled her eyes.

"Not that I expect you to need anything." Alex turned away, gesturing towards the waiting automobile. "I guess I'm just used to the way things used to be. Go on a trip, bring luggage. Fly somewhere, and be ready to wait in long lines and go through X-ray machines."

As they approached the car, the driver’s side door opened and a pony hopped out. “This is my assistant, Quick Learner.”

The unicorn dressed much as they did, which was to say not at all. "P-Pleasure," he stammered, waving limply towards them. He stayed outside long enough to make sure everyone was securely inside before climbing into the driver's seat. The car was already running, though of course its hydrogen "engine" made no more sound than a gentle hiss of gas pressure.

Alex didn't bother with a seatbelt, sitting backwards so that she could look back at her two guests in the passenger seats. "Most visitors want to see the university and the library first, so we'll probably go there first. I'm sure everything else is more or less the same as how you have to handle things in Ponytown. Sans being buried up to our flanks in snow every winter, anyway."

"Well, we wouldn't be too bad most of the winter except for the lake." Stormy smiled. "Being on Lake Ontario gives us some pretty decent storms each winter. We've moved some trucks and cars to the south side of our colony to act as a snow fence. It works a little... and then, if I get enough warning, I can try to disperse the worst storms, or move them somewhere else." She cracked a grin at that.

"I'm really eager to see the library," Swift said. "Ever since I heard of the books you have from Equestria, I've been eager to see what I can learn from them."

Stormy nodded and added, "We're both interested in seeing everything. We're not quite developed enough to have a center of higher learning. We teach our young ones, of course, all that they need to prosper in our setting, but you seem to have a far more advanced program here."

"We had an unfair advantage," Alex replied, shrugging one shoulder. Their little automobile moved almost silently from the airport to the service road, which had been cleared, lacking the thick obstructions common to roads unused even after just a few years. "And it's a crime not to share it. We can copy any books that catch your interest, so make sure to keep a list. Unfortunately it's not as easy to copy Equestrian artifacts, or we would give you those too."

The road was only a mile long, and seemed to have no other drivers. Once they passed Moriah in her slow-moving golf cart, Quick Learner accelerated, and the silhouettes of town buildings drew closer and closer.

"I hope you'll spend a little time speaking with some of the pegasi teachers while you're visiting, Stormy. What you've figured out on your own might be quite valuable. At least, if any of what I've heard about your weather-manipulating abilities are true." And what she had just said herself about being able to contain a storm, but Alex wouldn't say that much. She had made a habit of accepting ponies' magical claims at face value.

"How is Ponytown these days? You never seem to be panicking whenever you call, anyway."

"We're doing pretty good, thanks for asking," Stormy said. "The people with the right skills showing up in the early days was a stroke of luck. I mean, establishing power and communications through the entire place was key to making it livable. Kind of ironic that we're not a mile from an abandoned nuclear plant but we're generating all we need from wind and solar. The water purification was a challenge, especially in the first year after the bottled supply ran out, but again, people's pre-Event skillsets made for useful resources to draw on. Keeping calm heads and getting everypony involved in solutions from the outset is what makes it work."

Swift added, "Our satellite operation at our 'out-of-town' farm is what made us realize we'd be okay. When ponies started asking to build their homes ten kilometers away from Ponytown itself so they could tend our livestock and secondary crop fields easier, despite the fact they'd need to make regular runs back to town for supplies? That was a happy problem to have to deal with. Ponies volunteering to take the tough life to help the whole of us prosper – when that happened, it was plain to see we would overcome anything, just by sticking together and pooling our resources and skills."

Stormy nodded in agreement. "At first we thought that we'd have a housing problem when we filled up the mall. But before we even got close to that, people were asking to live up by the farm. I remember the first couple who made the suggestion... They said they 'didn't want the cows to be lonely'." She made her forehooves do air quotes for the last half of the sentence.

Alex nodded "That sounds like Sky. Personifying the livestock. I guess it's pretty natural for us to do, with the way we look now..." She paused, staring down at her hooves a moment, as though seeing them for the first time. "I'm glad Ponytown is doing well. Not everywhere is."

Quick Learner reduced their speed as they came into town to barely greater than a walk. There were very few parked cars and even fewer on the road with them. Though a paltry number compared to the world of before, it was more than Alex knew of in any other single location.

"Welcome to Alexandria," she said, gesturing out the windows. "Not so impressive as the old world, but we love her all the same. The university is just up ahead."

Indeed, they were already pulling into a stop in front of one of the largest buildings. It had been a high-school, though it bore the signs of several recent additions, connecting it with the surrounding buildings and adding wings. More ponies were here than anywhere else. Quick Learner hopped out, levitating the doors open as he did so. Several ponies stared, though most seemed more interested in the car than the ponies inside it.

Stormy and Swift extracted themselves from the back seat of the car and looked about. The pegasus flapped her wings a couple of times and then hovered in place a few feet off the ground. “It’s a very nice place,” Stormy said. “Captures a lot of the ‘old way’ - you know, an actual town… I’m not sure how to describe it other than that. It’s something we don’t have back home. This probably feels more ‘normal’ to the transformed, I mean.”

“That’s the idea; lots of ponies visit Alexandria when they first come back; makes them feel a little less like their whole world fell apart. Not that all of them stick around. Heck, the more copies of the important books there are, and the more skilled ponies there are, the fewer ponies will probably make those visits.” Such a possibility would be a shame to the influx of new talent into the city, but that was inevitable. It was more important that other cities get their share of the talent, or else they would probably come to resent Alexandria. “It’s the only way we know. I guess we didn’t want to experiment like you ponies up in Ponytown. Just keep doing things the way we knew.”

Likewise went her day. Once extricated from the library, they continued their tour of Alexandria. They visited everywhere that mattered, including the combined heat and power plant that had been built post-event, along with the foundry and the microfactory.

Dinner was served with several of Alexandria’s most prominent ponies, in the top story of the courthouse. Alex could make little sense of what was said, either between Cloudy Skies and Stormy or between her resident magical expert and Ponytown’s Swift Quill. She felt only the barest twinge of envy there was no “shop” to talk with other earth ponies. That wasn’t what really mattered.

What mattered was that the Abundance Supernatural ponies would get their cure. And they did though unfortunately no changeling drone had needed one. Life would go on. Alex let herself pretend that life would stay perfect forever.

Chapter 4: Take a Little Trip (20 AE)

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Whenever Alex was stressed, she went to her garden.

She hadn't had a talent for it before the Event. She had killed everything she touched back then; in the days when she had fingers and toes on the end of her limbs instead of hooves.

Magic had changed that, much as it had changed everything. Alex's little home was located in downtown Alexandria, and was one of the few homes with enough of the expensive real estate to have a garden out back. Oliver had done most of the planting, though he rarely had the time to tend the garden anymore.

Ever since Alex had retired from her office as mayor, she'd had a lot more free time. More time to read, more time to work with the HPI... and more time for gardening.

"I'm sorry," Alex said to the weeds, resting a hoof against the stem of a huge mustard. "But you can't live in here. This soil is for my garden." Under her persuasion, the roots relaxed their grip on the soil, and she was able to tear them easily from the ground and toss them into her wheelbarrow-wagon. She would take them out of town when she was done, to let them take root in empty soil. Thus was her agreement with the weeds.

"Don't you ever say I don't take good care of you," she said to her tomatoes, brushing against the plant with her side. "We both know you'd have been eaten by ants by now without my help." The tomatoes said nothing, but Alex could feel their gratitude. It was enough.

She smelled Arithmetic coming before she saw him; the sweat of summer and the musk of a healthy stallion and the exhaust fumes of biodiesel. Gone were the days of twelve years of public school education: Arithmetic was an apprentice at the biofuel plant, and he brought the stench of chemicals with him.

She heard the squeak of the gate and turned, stepping out from between the rows and grinning at him. Cody had grown tall, like his father, though he had his mother's mane. Like most ponies these days, he wore little in terms of clothes. Just a labcoat she knew wasn't for show, cut so as to reveal the beaker and drawing compass he had for a cutie mark.

"Afternoon, Mother." He met her hug, though there was a measure of awkwardness to it. He wasn't just taller, but older. He looked more like her older brother than her son. Alex didn't care what things looked like, she knew better.

"You reek. What is it today?"

"Sodium hydroxide, like most days." He sighed. "You'd think there would be a spell for the smell."

"One day." She let him break away, not wanting Cody to feel any more awkward than he already did. It might be the last time she saw him for weeks, after all. "Did the funding meeting go well?"

She didn't even need him to open his mouth to see the answer written in his body. His ears flattened and his tail tucked in. "I'm sorry."

"They're so stupid!" This time, he was the one that reached out to embrace her, not the other way around. "No vision! Our plant isn't sustainable and everypony knows it! Our power needs are increasing by ten percent every single year, we can't keep ramping up production like this or in ten years nopony's going to have anything to eat! Not to mention-" of course, he did mention it.

He went on and on. Alex didn't listen because she understood – she didn't! Rather, she listened because she loved her son and she loved her city. She understood the basics: the city was getting its electrical power from wind turbines and steam. Every year the steam turbines got less reliable, and precision-manufactured replacement parts simply weren't available.

That meant that more and more of their needs were being met with "primitive" steam generators, burning farm waste and construction waste. "But it doesn't work forever! We can't get enough farm waste to run everything forever. It's only the ruins of old buildings keeping everything running. You have to put energy into the system from somewhere, and the sun just isn't keeping up!" He continued, explaining his solution in a level of detail that went way over Alex's head.

"Against such stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain,” Alex supplied. Cody stopped ranting, staring openly. Alex just shrugged. "How much money would you need to get your project funded?"

He sighed, patting her on the back. "I know you wanna help, but... it's more than you have, Mom."

He was right. Alex's disposable income was almost nonexistent. Granted, money itself was a fairly new thing in Alexandria. Other settlements had their own answers, but Alexandria used the electronic meal chits out of Raven city. They were just plastic, but they were also impossible for anypony to fabricate. Plus, they had a commodity value, since they could be traded back to the HPI in exchange for new electronics or even meal rations.

Alex had made a fair amount of them during her time as mayor. She didn't leave them fluid, though. Alex had invested every chit. Investment was a sensible choice when your lifespan stretched into perpetuity. Unfortunately, that meant she lived in the closest thing to poverty in the short term.

She had another source of income, however. "How much would it take if you could get the prototype manufactured for free?"

Arithmetic stopped, his expression twisting into his "concentration face." She stifled a giggle with a hoof, since she knew that would stop him from taking her seriously. Eventually he said, "My funding request was for ten thousand chits. I could probably... three thousand? We would still need to get the enchantments done, and to hire enough pegasus ponies to move the clouds..."

"Could you get your funding approved for that much?"

He nodded. "Easily. If I already had a working prototype, even without the enchantments... there's no way they wouldn't."

"And you've got blueprints? Sketches?"

He nodded again.

"Get them to me. I'll get you your prototype. Though... if your sketches aren't perfect, you're gonna get some angry phone calls."

"Phone calls?" He raised his eyebrows. "Not visits from a messenger?"

"Nope." She nodded. "I've got friends with hands. They'll use the phone. Though for something really important, they visit." She grinned, though the subject was more bittersweet than anything. "I'm expecting a visit this evening, actually."

He tensed, glancing fearfully over the plants and out to the sidewalk as though he expected an HPI field-scout in full armor. He wouldn't have been far wrong, if it wasn't for the fact that HPI visits only came at night. "They're coming today?"

"After dinner." She turned away, back towards her garden. "Get me the designs. I'll see what I can do about your prototype."

Several hours later, after Oliver came home from the hospital, after Alex served dinner and she said her farewells, she stepped out onto the cool of the porch to wait. She had already donned her vest, as well as the cybergauntlet, its plastic yellowed with age.

Of course, she didn't need the gauntlet to hear her old friend coming. It wasn't Taylor's fault; wearing a hundred pounds of armor hardly made it easy to move silently. Hydraulic servos wooshed and buzzed with every step, though even that wasn’t the first thing she felt. Her first sense of Taylor's approach was the sense of nothingness approaching from the street.

Most ponies couldn't sense the imprint of a CPNFG closer than twenty feet or so. Alex's senses were better, largely from exposure. Since her retirement, she had spent more time around CPNFGs than any other pony she knew of. Alex clicked the door locked behind her, then hopped down onto the path through her garden. The weight of her SER (standard equine rifle) seemed heavy on her shoulder, despite being made mostly from plastic. The weight came from the fact she might be using it tonight.

Even so, her smile was genuine as she looked up towards Taylor Gamble. HPI field-scout armor had grown significantly bulkier over the years, so much so that power support had been incorporated. Of course, the weight had been added for good reason: field-scout armor had the latest in CPNFG designs, small and efficient enough that a nuclear reactor was not required. It was like living inside a walking submarine, but at least you weren't tethered to a reactor. "Evening Taylor." She waved.

Her friend raised an arm, waving back. "Hey tiny horse. How's life in the big city?"

It was pretty dead at night. Amber street lights burned in the city's center, but very few were out and about who didn't have bat-wings. Ponies were diurnal; few fought their natural rhythms forever. Alex herself relied on her supernatural endurance to not feel tired. She shrugged. "Same as always. Bigger and bigger every day."

Taylor wasn't a young woman anymore. Though Alex's appearance hadn't changed in the slightest, the human behind the armor was in her forties now. Both of them had been parents, though only Taylor looked it. She still acted much the same, even twenty years later. She reached down to pat Alex's head with a glove, something Alex did not allow from just anyone. "You'll be building skyscrapers in no time."

Alex shrugged. "Probably not. Skyscrapers don't make much economic sense when land is so..." she trailed off. "You don't care."

"Not really." She laughed. Her voice didn't sound so strangely modulated as it had through earlier versions of the armor. It was still being electronically reproduced, but she appreciated the improvements to the system. Most of all, she appreciated the clear helmet that let her see Taylor's face. This was intentional: the HPI's way of showing whatever pony stumbled upon them in the field that they were indeed human. "Big night tonight. You ready for a long flight?"

"You know how much I love Hummingbirds."

"Not today." Taylor gestured, and they started walking together down the street, human and pony alike. "Albatross."

Alex felt her eyebrows go up. "Really? That serious?"

Taylor nodded gravely, and there was no smile on her face then.

* * *

Alex wasn't surprised to find another of her nonhuman friends waiting with the Albatross outside of town. She rarely saw Blacklight under any other circumstances, as occupied as she was with the concerns of her brood. Typically whenever Blacklight wanted anything done in town, she used one of her numerous drones.

They were like the drones used by the HPI, with one meaningful difference: they were alive. Sapient? She was never quite sure on that point. She could see a half dozen or so of the changelings Blacklight called drones, standing at attention as though creatures of perfect discipline.

Lonely Day had tried to figure out before which drones were intelligent and which weren't. Just over a hundred of them worked throughout Alexandria, as helpers and assistants and caretakers to the young or elderly.

She greeted Blacklight with a hug, looking up and up and up into her face. To see her now, there was no doubt at all in Alex's mind that she was talking to a queen. Blacklight towered over ordinary ponies, her body lean and elegant and her mind vast.

Blacklight had been a little girl once. There was still a little of that in there somewhere. It wasn't as though anything had happened to erase that person. Rather, it might be said that the rest of her had grown so much that the human she had been was eclipsed.

"Late night for a pony." Blacklight's voice echoed strangely, just as it always had.

"Taylor only gets me for important things." She grinned. "You too. You usually send drones, but you don't often come along. Aren't you needed in your hive?"

"My daughter's skills are sufficient for an evening." She gestured vaguely out into the wilderness. Alex knew she was looking at her hive, about a dozen miles away.

"How is little Evoli these days? I don't think I've seen her since last Christmas."

Alex nearly jumped out of her skin when one of the drones answered before Riley could. It spoke with a child's intonations, though like all adult drones it had an adult, vaguely female voice. "I'm great, Lonely Day! I'm so glad you asked! Mother thinks I'll be ready to find a male next spring if I'm lucky! Have you seen any?"

It took her several seconds to collect herself enough to respond. She wasn't entirely sure what the distant nymph queen meant, but she had a fair idea. "None in Alexandria. I hear there are more changelings on the east coast. Maybe you can convince one of their males to join you?"

Alex knew little about how things really worked for the Changelings. Riley had been her good friend all the way through childhood. She had grown up at a frighteningly accelerated pace, looking larger and older than herself after about a year. Once she had found herself a mate of her own species...

Riley had grown reticent about the specifics of her differences. She had remained in the colony for nearly a decade, but spoken little about what her new "family" was like. Alex was one of the few ponies that had ever been inside the large mansion she'd claimed just outside the city, or the even bigger industrial complex after that. Even after visiting, she hadn't really felt like she knew.

What she had learned, she had learned from spending time with Blacklight's young daughter, Evoli.

"This conversation is useful," Blacklight interrupted. "We will continue at a later time, Evoli. Day and I must travel or we may not arrive in time." She gestured to the ship, and as one the drones (including the one that had spoken a few moments before) turned and marched into the open belly of the Albatross. Taylor was already gone, and that left only the two of them.

Alex had to hurry to keep up with Blacklight's long, graceful strides. "Will she really be ready by spring?"

The queen beside her hesitated. "I am... uncertain. If she were a drone, she would have matured years ago." She smiled, and for once Lonely Day recognized the expression perfectly. It was exactly the expression she might've worn, if she were talking about Arithmetic. "Evoli fancies herself a queen already. She spends night after night fantasizing about establishing her own hive somewhere. She insists she wants it to be just like mine; cooperation with Alexandria has allowed us to grow strong, and she would like to grow strong as the partner of some other city."

"More ponies are sorely needed." Alex tried to mask her hesitation.

If Blacklight noticed, she did not react. "Yes, they are. We are not many – yet not all of us have cooperated so well with ponies. I sometimes speak with other queens. Some have... hostile mindsets. I do not wish Evoli to become like them."

Alex made herself sound joking when she responded, but she wasn't really. The laughter did not reach her eyes. She had no illusions about being able to fool the changeling queen. She couldn't even lie successfully to her son, let alone a being that literally fed on emotions. "You don't imagine a world ruled by changelings? Your dependence on emotions means you couldn't ever replace them, but... you're strong. You could try if you wanted."

They climbed the ramp. The Albatross was fantastically large, longer than most houses and taller too. It would've dwarfed a 757 several times over. Alex knew it rose well above most of the trees here, what trees there were. Only the elemental might of its thorium reactor generated enough energy to keep such a monster airborne.

Queen Blacklight went only so far as the ramp before she stopped, looking thoughtful. When she spoke, it was with obvious deliberation. As though she wanted to be honest, but was afraid of the consequences if she did. "There are some who think that way. I... might have myself, if it wasn't for Adrian. If it wasn't for you. I think hostility or control would undermine everything that has made us successful so far. I think if we gave ponies a reason to fight, they could drive us to extinction if they wanted."

"There are not many, but some of the queens pretend to control. They imagine us superior to those who had been made ponies. Our superiority, they suggest, gives us the right to Earth."

"Yet we aren't really in control. Who would love us if we tried to force ourselves on ponies? Who would respect us, who would be amused with us, and all the other food we need? Nopony. If there is a way to force food from a pony, none of the others have learned it yet. Threaten a pony's life and you can get her to say whatever you want, do whatever you want. But without sincerity, it isn't food."

"Ponies have to mean it or we can't eat it. That means only two options. Either we lie, and deceive ponies into thinking we're somepony else-"

"Like the Equestrian changelings did," Alex supplied. She hadn't known that twenty years ago, before she had read the library. Now she had read every book, and remembered each perfectly. Including all the little obscure details and hints, which she could now connect and correlate between each volume if she wanted.

"Like them." Riley shook her head in disgust. "Or we could find a more optimal solution. Here in Alexandria, I think I've found it. Make friends with ponies – send the drones to be obedient helpers wherever help is needed. Visit often, cooperate. Become so indispensable to the city that they cannot help but love you."

"You didn't have to do all that for me to love you." Alex rested her head gently on the Queen's side. There had been a time when she had been taller, and could stroke Riley's wispy mane. Not anymore. "You've been a friend since we found you. You saved my life, and many others. Maybe even the world."

Riley did not pull away from the contact. Where showing physical affection with political leaders might've been a ludicrous concept in the human world, it was more than desirable here.

One of the little secrets Alex had learned but never mentioned was that Blacklight could make far more use of her affection than any other pony. A single gesture from her could go further than the adoration of an entire crowd.

Lonely Day didn't understand why, but she didn't really care. What did it cost her to be kind?

The Albatross was airborne. Alex had been so enraptured with the conversation, she hadn't even noticed the change.

It was Taylor's voice over the PA that liberated her from her reverie. "It's going to be over an hour to Los Angeles," she began. "But if it's the same to you, I'd like to get the briefing out of the way. Well... same to you, Alex. Riley has already heard it."

"Or I would not have come."

"Yeah, that." Taylor sounded annoyed. "Why don't we all meet in the conference room? We can plan from there."

"On our way." Alex rose, walking past Blacklight with clanking hoofsteps. She spoke much lower, almost in a whisper. "Guess we probably should."

"Yes." The queen rose. Together they made their way to the briefing room.

Alex was not enthusiastic about whatever mission was serious enough to require their resident changeling queen.

Yet, if she had to do something dangerous, she could think of few ponies she would rather have at her back than Taylor and Riley. Even if, technically, neither of them were ponies.

* * *

"And you're sure this is safe?" Alex had to scream over the rush of air from outside. It wasn't the sound of motion; their Albatross Carrier was holding steady in its perch, resisting the gale at about a mile of altitude. Alex indicated the harness on her back with a flick of her head. Taylor had strapped it down tightly, a set of hard plastic saddlebags that had replaced her usual gear.

It had a weighty, expensive feel to it, the body as black as the night outside. She couldn't even count the straps that were holding it to her. It felt secure, but she loathed the idea of having to remove it without a unicorn's help.

"The E.A.D.H. has been extensively tested!" Taylor wasn't at the controls but standing close, near the open ramp. She was secured with sturdy cable clipped to the ceiling, though one arm was tight on the handholds. "You could be a block of pony-shaped lead and it would still put you down in one piece."

Alex went over the controls in her mind again, the lengths of control cable on each of her forelegs. One would deploy her chute, the other would blow the explosives on the emergency chute.

Alex had been skydiving before, decades and decades ago. But that had been before the Event, a single tandem jump with an instructor. Instead of an instructor, her companions were a changeling queen and half a dozen drones.

The hardware was already on the ground, along with the captured ponies. In theory they were going to be the cleanup crew, preparing the living ponies beneath for containment and extraction. In reality, there was no way to know for certain if enemies had managed to escape detection. She might be dead in five minutes.

What would it feel like to hit ground without a parachute? How long would it take her to wake up?

Lonely Day banished the thought with a shiver, edging towards the opening and the howling wind beyond. Her steps were unsteady even with the rough surface, but she never stumbled. As she advanced, a changeling stood beside her, using its own weight to keep her steady through every faltering movement.

She stood on the edge of the void. Even with night vision goggles over her eyes casting the world in green, she saw nothing beyond but emptiness. Her legs started to shake and she nearly collapsed, her whole body buzzing with frightened energy.

"I'll help you down!" Riley shouted from beside her. The changeling wore nothing but a very large rifle slung over her back, secured so it wouldn't be swept away when she jumped. No parachute, no armor. "I won't let anything happen to you!"

"I'll be fine!" she shouted back. "Just push me!"

There was no hesitation, no counting to three. Blacklight shoved hard, and Alex went tumbling out into the void.

She screamed; the air stole her breath. She kicked and flailed and somersaulted through the air. What way was up? Where was the Albatross? She might've lost control of her bladder at some point; if she had, the air stole that too.

She vaguely felt movement behind her, saw a faint glow come upon her accompanied by a loud beeping sound from her goggles indicating the presence of thaumic radiation. Her wild motion in the air was swiftly replaced by a more guided, directional plummet. She was moving down.

In the air beside her, she saw a flash of black and clear wings, and Blacklight's grinning face. Or had it been a drone? It was hard to tell even without the air blasting in her eyes.

Her fall couldn't have lasted that long, even though her fear had. Her earpiece squawked with a synthesized voice. "Reached designated deployment altitude!" Something exploded from behind her. First came a minor tugging, and a second later she jerked painfully backward against her harness. The straps groaned against the weight of her body but held in the end.

She was dimly conscious of servos behind her, guiding the parachute down towards its programmed destination. Alex let herself hang limply in her restraints, watching the altitude drop in her HUD and bracing herself for a landing.

She didn't really need it. As she got closer to the earth, she felt strength radiating up towards her, strengthening her and making her feel awake again. Where are you, Earth? She saw it in her mind, a graveyard of ruined buildings in the distance and rolling desert hills before her. The computer guidance within her vest directed her towards empty ground.

Alex did not roll as she struck, though she had been told to. She landed on her hooves, and suddenly couldn't get at the memory of what she was supposed to do. Her limbs might've broken from the shock, probably would've if she hadn't been an earth pony.

Instead, Lonely Day called upon the strength of the earth. A single moment stretched into a little infinity, and her perception changed. Far, far below, she felt the beating heart of the planet, an unimaginably vast mass of molten-temperature metal compressed into solidity by incomprehensible pressures. Further up, columns of semi-molten rock flowed in inexorable currents, moving sometimes slower than her perceptions and in other times much faster. Further still she found the stones, some hundreds of millions of years old.

Lonely Day took in the endurance of those stones. Her bones briefly hardened like steel, her tissues becoming as rigid as crystallized carbon.

The frozen moment passed. Instead of bones breaking, the ground she had struck exploded outward in a crater of loose sand and dust. Lonely Day knew of no other pony who could call upon the planet as swiftly or as completely as she could, just as she knew of no healer as skilled as Oliver.

When the Earth gave you a blessing, it was yours. Forever.

Behind her, something landed on the soil. She smiled as she saw Blacklight. "Impressive landing," Alex said, over the faint whirring of servos as her parachute retracted.

"Practice." Blacklight gestured, and her drones landed on the ground beside them. "Ready?"

She didn't feel ready. Yet as she let the earth flow into her, even her resolve returned. "As I'll ever be." She didn't unclip the Equine Airborne Deployment Harness, preferring to keep its armored form about her, but she did detach the rifle and sling it where it was within easy reach. "I am now."

"Then we have work to do." A little ways up a hill, and Alex could see the signs of battle. The ground was blackened and scarred, and here and there she saw the wreckage of a drone, or a dark bloodstain on the soil. There were no bodies.

Alex was grateful for the night. Even with it, she could make out the familiar outlines of her city in the distance. The skyscrapers of downtown looked much as they had, at least in the distance. She wondered how bad the damage from the fire had been. Closer, she realized with some horror that she was already within the area that had once been the city. Fire had consumed much, but here and there she saw a length of pipe or the wreckage of a car emerging from the desert.

Twenty years had taken the wreckage of a flame-consumed neighborhood and swallowed them. Had she not known what to look for, she might not have known where she was.

"Why do you think the fight happened out here?"

Riley did not seem to hesitate before answering. But then, she almost never did. "They must have been on the move. They finished whatever purpose they'd been put to in the city and started walking to their next destination."

"Across the desert?" She shivered involuntarily. "It's almost summer. There's no water. It had to have been a hundred degrees."

The queen shrugged. "Those captured by Abaddon are less than drones to them. My drones are my children, and I long for each to grow into themselves. Abaddon do not care. They view their supply of slaves as endless and grow stronger from their suffering."

"How do you know?"

She couldn't read Blacklight's expression. "I remember. Our origin is... similar. Both of us are unwelcome in the world of matter and form. We- the changelings of Equestria, I mean... they came because they wanted to be a part of it. Abaddon came to destroy what they could not have. They will unravel every thread in the tapestry."

"You are welcome always, my daughter." Archive's words were not her own. She did not resist. "Your children also, they are of me."

Blacklight did not seem confused. Though she met Alex's eyes, Alex had the feeling the changeling queen was seeing through her. Blacklight was more than used to speaking through others. "Thank you, Keeper," she lowered her head reverently. Were those tears in her eyes?

"Its like, however, we will not abide. The abomination rises to new atrocities. If we locate this one tonight, we will not merely destroy it as we did the last. We will make it suffer first. There will be penance for its debauchery."

Lonely Day wished she knew what the voice meant when it spoke with her mouth. What debauchery? What was it talking about?

She soon learned. They found ponies first, surrounded by a protective circle of security drones. Each one had an electric collar about its neck.

"They're sedated," Taylor explained. "The new anti-thaumic compound I told you about. Magic requires conscious stimulation to be effective. When exposed to thaumic radiation, the compound breaks down into several powerful sedatives. The more magic they try to do, the more sleepy they get."

"I will not be able to recover them in unconsciousness." Blacklight's voice seemed unmoved by the wreckage of battle. "They must choose freedom or I cannot give it."

Taylor's voice came through clear. "I know. Don't do it yet. They're not the reason I brought you. I could've had one of the construction bots scoop them up into a shipping crate and fly it to Alexandria. They're only secondary to your being here."

"When we get to it... I want to see you do it." Alex's voice was tentative. "I need to know how."

Blacklight raised an eyebrow. Well, she looked like she would've. If she'd had any. "A mere pony couldn't help them. No amount of repetition will teach you."

"Not if they were human." She spoke with confidence now. "Those are mine. You've got to show me how you do it."

Blacklight shrugged. "No harm in watching. But... not yet." She moved forward again, and Alex followed. Around them, drones both organic and mechanical watched the movement of every tree, the swaying of every blade of grass. Her own eyes, weak in darkness, saw clearly with the help of her goggles. Every patch of heat glowed to her eyes.

She'd had no idea just how warm changelings were until tonight. She supposed it had been bias on her part to expect anything else.

It wasn't long before they came upon the reason for their mission. "You're near the corpses. There are a few live specimens further on."

She saw them. There was no heat in the corpses, though she realized with growing horror she recognized what she was looking at.

They were human. No, that wasn't quite right. They had been. Foul fluid pooled beneath them, a soup whose color she could not distinguish through the uniform green and blue of her goggles. Limbs didn't so much rot away as they crumbled away, as though they were made from sand instead of flesh. Through the strange decomposition, Alex could yet make out more troubling details.

Though humanoid in principal shape, the corpses had no hair on their heads, which had become bulbus and elongated. The eyes were much larger, and the fingers appeared webbed. Strange membranes or cilli emerged from the mouth, out from very sharp teeth that seemed more filed than transformed. It was hard to tell, but the corpses seemed to have more limbs than they should; tentacle-like manipulating appendages protruded from various points on the chest. The number and location of these appendages was not consistent between them.

"What is this?" Archive did not need to be instructed to say those words; she felt them herself. Rage boiled in her chest, but she forced it down. Rage would not serve her until the need to be clear-headed had passed.

"We found them this way," Taylor responded over the radio. "We have never seen anything like it. Despite the frightful state of those bodies, they were 'alive' this morning. We can't do a serious analysis ourselves; Commander Clark is afraid their mutations might spread."

"This isn't what happens when humans are exposed to the thaumic field." Alex was not asking a question.

"No." It wasn't the human on the radio who answered, but the changeling at her side. "I would guess these beings live and function perfectly well outside any artificial protection."

"See for yourself. Take a look at that large container, the one surrounded by class one drones. I'll have one of them switch the lights on when you get close."

It was like watching a car accident, horrified at what she knew was coming but unable to look away. Lonely Day put one hoof in front of the other until she had passed the rapidly rotting bodies, gone from dirt to many-times cracked cement, and come to stand beside the container.

She felt much better to have the watchful eyes of a dozen drones upon her, both living and artificial. The IFF chip in her cybergauntlet would protect her if the drones started shooting.

The container proved to be fairly small, about seven feet square. Alex couldn't have guessed where they got a clear container of that size made of plexiglass, but she didn't feel the need to ask. Rather, the breath was stolen from her lungs as the lights were switched on and she saw what was inside.

Lonely Day had long since grown accustomed to the twinge of fear that came from spending time with changelings. All ponies felt it at first, enough that some rare few even fled or reacted with hostility upon first encountering one that wasn't pretending to be somepony else.

That was why, in Alexandria, changeling visitors always pretended to be ponies. It did wonders for their public image, and only when in private with those who really understood (like this moment) did they reveal their true selves.

What she felt upon seeing these creatures was far worse. It was the same feeling, but an order of magnitude greater in intensity. Alex tensed, but her rational mind would not bow to the pressure to flee. She dug her hooves into the ground and forced herself to see.

She wished they were dead. They stuck wetly to the side of their tank, with tattered rags clinging to their bodies. The extra limbs held them to the glass, though even their human limbs didn't look quite right. She saw no hair on their bodies, and their eyes were utterly black. If there was intelligence somewhere, she couldn't see it. It was impossible to guess what race they had been, though they were all now unnaturally pale. She saw veins pulsing through the skin in places, never the same between each individual.

"There are... six of these creatures." Blacklight's voice was measured. "There are very few of you in your shelter, yes? I understand you have a scheduled breeding program that prevents the expansion of your population. And that no member has ever been unaccounted for." This much at least, she said in a respectful, approving tone.

"Yeah." Taylor didn't hesitate. "We've lost people on missions, but we always recover the bodies. Human corpses must be... burned. None have been unaccounted for. We wouldn't let that happen to one of our own."

"Is this what happens to corpses?"

"No." Her voice was firm. "Nothing so consistent as this. More importantly, they do not respond unless other sapient life is within their physical perception. My drones have been watching these for hours. They tried to get out, tried working together to break the container. I was never present, but they've remained biologically active this entire time."

Alex looked away, yet in the corpse of her city she could find no respite. Dead buildings reminded her of the dead, millions and billions in number, that had been buried there. What about the people chilling in morgues and hospitals all over the country at the moment of the Event? Why had she never heard about this?

"I never heard about bodies doing anything but rot. We've found a few, mostly bones. They just look like dead humans."

Now Taylor's voice came halting. "It doesn't happen to the people who died before the Collapse. It doesn't seem to happen to everybody, either. Nor does it happen to anyone who dies and is kept within the CPNFG. But... in the early days, before we improved the technology, a few died to magical exposure, when their suits failed. Ponies were usually involved."

"There are no records because the ponies usually died too. We recovered their suitcam files remotely. When we did... we sterilized the area with drones. We have no record of any sapient creature ever surviving an encounter with them." Taylor sighed. "We didn't think it would happen again. Our thaumic armor is two generations more sophisticated. We can walk around in Alexandria for God's sake, so long as we stay away from that university and nobody tries to levitate us or whatever. It hasn't happened. As I said, we incinerate the dead. I know it's hard to see, but look. They've all got uniforms, see?"

She didn't want to turn around, but she did anyway. Sure enough, she could see some common traits to the fabric, each stained so thoroughly with filth their color was lost. Yet Archive's memory was perfect now, and she didn't need very much to tell what she was looking at.

"Those are... naval uniforms." She walked around the tank. One of the creatures tracked her with dead eyes; none of the others bothered. "They belong to the... this one still has a patch..." She froze. Archive recognized it.

"Taylor. I need you to tell me that there were no other organizations like yours before the Event. I need you to tell me nobody else could build the CPNFG. I need you to tell me and for it to be true."

Chapter 5: A Day's End (20 AE)

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"Of course they couldn't." She was indignant. "Alex, I've shown you what's in those field generators. Until we invented the Pionizer a few years back, the only place to get the material for the gravity lens from was the world's largest particle accelerators. Over half our budget went into expanding and running them. If you think antimatter might've gone missing-"

Lonely Day shook her head, though she knew Taylor wouldn't be able to see. "Have any of your historians got a look at these uniforms?"

"Y-Yeah. They have."

Archive didn't need a team of historians or a computer system to know what the uniforms were. She spoke the language too, so much as anyone could learn a language from books. She told Taylor the name of the rogue nation whose uniforms they were looking at anyway, as her way of making sure the engineer knew that she knew. "Is it possible the HPI wasn't the only group to be in contact with Equestria?"

"You talked with the Equestrian monarchs. Would they have lied?"

"No." Alex didn't need to hesitate. "But there were other forces in Equestria with the power to travel between worlds. Odium proved that."

She stepped up to the tank, clearing her throat. When she spoke, she didn't use English. "Whom do you serve?"

As she expected, the use of their tongue drew the attention of the tank's occupants at once. All turned to stare at her. Only their necks moved, often in ways that human necks were not meant to bend. She shivered at the cracking sounds they made. She barely recognized the words. Yet she was Archive, all things human were her unique domain. Even the partially human.

"A greater master than yours, subhuman animal." The words were badly mangled by their mouths. Yet they all spoke together, one unearthly chorus. "Release my servants, and I will not destroy your friend. I am not interested in you. Yet if you interfere, I will make her suffer."

"What do they say?" Blacklight watched, showing little sign of discomfort at the alien presence of these beings.

"I think they're threatening you."

Blacklight laughed. "Let them threaten. No changeling has ever bowed to Abbadon."

"Those... Those things used to be human. If you can free a pony, can you free them?"

For the first time, Alex saw Blacklight hesitate with fear. "I... am not certain. Abbadon grow stronger the more followers they have. If this one has festered for twenty years, it might be beyond my power."

"I will help you." Archive touched the queen's side with one hoof.

The queen hesitated, then nodded. "It may not be possible. The dead behind us indicate there may be nothing left to save."

"Why not?"

Riley shrugged. "I can't explain it. It's just the way I feel."

More of those buried memories then. Alex knew better than to enquire further. "Do we need to touch one of them? I bet if we tried to open the container..."

"I'm more concerned with what would happen if we succeeded. The others might slay the first we free. I could not prevent it and attempt to free the creature at the same time."

"Good point. Taylor, we need to get one of them out. Can your drones do that?"

"Absolutely. It'll be a delicate business though. We might have to kill more of them. You two should get clear."

Blacklight shook her head. "Day can retreat. I will hold them down, and your machines can extract one."

The chorus spoke again, though Archive alone could understand. "Your attempt will fail. These are mine, animal. Take one of mine from me, and I will claim one of yours."

She couldn't glare at all of them, but she tried anyway. "No part of me is yours, creature. I killed your brother and I will kill you too."

They laughed. All of them. "I would have helped you. Fools dream themselves gods, Archive. I am no fool. Nor do I threaten; I promise. Free my servants and they will go their way. The empty ones took a few from me, but I took the animals living here from you. I call the scales balanced. Return these to me, remove the bindings from my animals, and you may return to your barn in peace."

"No." Archive's eyes flashed. "Are you ready Blacklight? Taylor?"

The captured monsters only laughed.

Yet for all the anger she expected, they barely resisted. The queen's green magic kept them all firmly paralyzed, save for the occasional wiggle of a tentacle. Taylor's drones released their grip on the lid even as one of the largest extended an arm about one of the creatures, gripping it securely and hauling it up and out. It clung to the edges, making a sickly sticking sound as it was extracted. Alex nearly heaved when she heard it.

One of the other drones laid out a tarp on the soil. They drove stakes deep into the ground, and with tight cable they bound down the creature. It struggled, but even with the strange flexibility it posessed its struggles were in vain. Only when the container was secure again did Blacklight release her magic.

The creatures instantly went wild. They flung themselves madly against every joint of the container, thrashing with little respect for their own safety. Sickly crunching sounds came from inside, yet they seemed to neither notice nor care.

"We have to work quickly." Archive took her gun, but she didn't prepare to fire it. Instead she took it backwards, using one corner of the barrel to draw in the sand. Alex had been clumsy with her hooves once; she didn't shake at all as she wrote the runes.

Blacklight watched her, fascinated. "What is that?"

"I read the Equestrian books," she explained. "All of them. I'm not a unicorn, but you don't need to be to draw runes. I'm still... a little shaky on the structure, but I'm pretty sure this will keep its power tenuous. It shouldn't be able to put too much of its power through at once. Don't smear the marks."

Within a minute, she'd finished drawing. Of course, Archive was no unicorn. A unicorn would use its horn and natural magic to empower the spell. She didn't have a horn, so she had to use something else. "Keeper of Earth," she whispered in her mind. "I need magic for this spell."

"You need your own horn," came the immediate response. "I'm no spirit, to be called up at a whim. Just because you're my favorite doesn't mean you can take advantage of my consideration whenever you want."

"You will help this time though, won't you?"

The female voice, deeper than the deepest well, hesitated only a moment. "Yes. Use blood. A drop will be sufficient."

She slid her knife out of the vest, puncturing the skin of one leg with the shallowest possible pressure. She ignored the brief stab of pain, holding the knife in her mouth until the drop fell onto the runes.

They came blazing to brilliant life, flickering with emerald energy. The chirping of crickets, the faint breeze whistling through the ruins, all faded to near-silence to listen to the spell as Archive read it. Rather, as the spell read her. As she read, the shapes of her runes pulsed and shifted, changing into a single circle that surrounded the tarp. She felt the strength of the earth flooding into her body again, the blood of the planet itself.

It didn't take long. Once the circle was complete, the searing light died into a faint glow. "Don't break it," she said as she stepped carefully over the edge. "Anything that does will end the spell."

"I know enough about pony magic to know that." Blacklight's wings buzzed in momentary irritation, yet still she was careful with her steps.

Both inside, Archive rested her hoof on the shoulder of the queen even as she lowered her horn towards the monstrosity on the floor. When it touched, the world shifted.

Archive felt as the queen probed a mind that seemed nothing but eternal emptiness. This being was in far worse shape than any pony, even one of the equestrians whose service had been a lifetime.

She didn't get to find out if they would discover anything. Didn't, because that was when she heard the screaming.

Utterly human screams, without a trace of corruption on them. Taylor Gamble's screams.

Blacklight noticed them too, because she pulled her horn away, looking immediately skyward. Without a word, the wings of all her drones began to buzz. Alex could see it too, distant flashes in the sky. Were those explosions?

"Wait!" She increased the pressure on Blacklight's shoulder. "Take me!"

The queen didn't argue. Alex felt a pair of drones surround her, one on either side. Their hooves dug into her shoulders and their wings began to hum. She lifted off the ground surrounded by the cloud of changelings.

The mechanical drones remained stupidly where they were, even those few that circled in the air. Whatever changes were taking place above them, they did not react.

Archive realized then Blacklight hadn't been the friend the inhuman presence had meant to take away.

* * *

Even at a distance, Lonely Day could see flashes of light from above, feel her body shake as something massive screamed and bellowed. Her pony ears pointed right at it, forcing her to hear the unearthly grinding sound coming from above and getting louder as the drones buzzed her upward.

Yet even with the goggles, she could make out little of specifics at this distance. She could do nothing but hang limply in the air and pray to God that Riley wouldn't lose concentration and drop her accidentally.

She didn't. Instead they shot through the sky faster than she could've imagined possible. How long could the drones keep up this kind of performance? She wished she could help, wished she could've given them some of the strength the earth loaned her, but just now she couldn't reach it either.

She saw the shape long before she could clearly discern what she was looking at. It seemed like a squid, semitransparent and pulsing, with tentacles long enough to wrap around the length of the ship. It was also floating in the clouds as though they were an ocean and it were not a mile high.

The colossal creature wrapped itself about the Albatross as though intent on snapping it in two. Perhaps it was trying, given the apparent damage. Two of the ship's engines, the two along the smaller wing just past the monster, had stopped working, causing the aircraft to wobble erratically in the sky. Yet for all that, its other six engines seemed to be compensating.

Why wasn't it trying to pull away? Couldn't the Albatross move at supersonic speeds, or at least very near to them? Why wasn't Taylor trying to get away? Alex had heard a great deal of suffering in twenty years. Felt a great deal herself, particularly connected to little Cody. Yet never in her life had she heard screaming so agonized, so barely human as she heard now. The sufferers of all Hell could not produce a sound more wretched if they all shouted together.

Blacklight answered her unasked question. "The anti-magic field is nearly down! The monster has overwhelmed it! The thing must have suffered terrible pain – but it clearly doesn't care about itself!" Alex looked, and saw the Albatross wasn't rolling over and passively taking this assault. A dozen point-defense turrets were all firing on the creature, their inline magnetic accelerator cannons firing round after round into its soft hide. Where they pierced it, gaping wounds formed, sometimes meters across. Yet as glowing ichor poured out, the being merely twisted tighter. It would crush the Albatross or die trying.

It would not have the opportunity today. The drones holding her remained where they were, but the rest surged forward, with a screaming Blacklight at their head. She didn't bother with her rifle, though the drones did. While they fired ineffectual small arms, her horn glowed vibrant green, searing the side of the monster.

It wasn't much, not with the Albatross's own defenses firing as rapidly as they could. Yet the difference seemed to be significant. The monster wailed, bellowing like colliding automobiles, and its grip slackened. A huge opening appeared in its body as bright green light pierced it completely through, filling the air with the stench of burning tires and sulfur.

The Albatross listed, as the monster broke free and began to fall in slow motion. As it did, new turrets pivoted and fired, switching to explosive rounds as the monstrous thing dropped to a safe distance. Little but charred slime was left when it finally struck the earth far below.

Alex didn't scream to talk to Queen Riley, not with a drone still holding her. "Don't get too close, Blacklight! If the CPNFG fails, the radiation will kill you. Have your drones take me in and I'll see what I can do from the inside!" That wasn't entirely a true statement. The radiation would kill her as surely as it would kill Blacklight. She'd just get better. The changeling queen, on the other hand...

“The monster tore a hole. I'll leave you in there. Be careful not to touch the edges." The drones surged forward, bearing her with them. Sure enough, as she rounded the other side of the Albatross there was indeed a gaping hole, exposed wires sparking and fiber optic cables flashing from gaps in the armor and interior plates.

It was a miracle the Albatross was still airborne. Yet it had already corrected for the sudden lack of mass, and seemed to be listing less without the monster constricting it. The dead engines hadn't recovered as she neared the hole, and didn't turn back on even when she was close enough to see the edges of the armor, still molten and bubbling with something from what she presumed had been the monster's beak. She hoped she would never find out.

As soon as her hooves hit the metal of the dark cargo bay, Blacklight's drones released her and surged up through the gap, their wings blasting cold air at her as they went. She didn't wave.

Instead she fought to ignore the sounds coming from her headset, which had faded to a sound of gurgling and hacking coughs. Taylor had screamed until her throat could take no more, and she had lost her voice. Alex had seen footage of humans suffering thaumic exposure before. If what she remembered was right, and it usually was, it could take hours to die.

Yet maybe today that would be to their advantage. The cargo area had largely gone dark, though if she continued far enough she could find the flashing of emergency lights and a few live consoles. She wondered to herself if she was being blasted with lethal nuclear radiation with every step, wondered if she would share Taylor's agonizing death.

She hammered on the console with one hoof until it lit up, then took the stylus hanging beside it into her mouth in order to actually manipulate it.

Alex had read the operations manual for the Albatross, so she knew exactly what to do. She found her way to the reactor's status display, and learned that it was functioning normally. The CPNFG reported a fault with the auxiliary power and a switch to emergency supplies. It was running at levels just high enough to keep the reactor's radiation from flooding into the ship and killing her.

How high was thaumic field penetration? The entire ship, all except the reactor. Taylor's lifesigns in the cockpit were still there, though her icon was no longer green. She probed, and found her status had been changed to "diseased, pending incineration," even though she was still breathing, still had a heartbeat. It disturbed Alex even more to note that command authority had been switched temporarily to herself. The only humanitarian measure Taylor had been offered appeared in an error next to her name. "Crewman not armored; euthanasia not available."

The Albatross had already received instructions. Even as she stood there, it was piloting itself to the nearest patch of clear ground, lowering itself as delicately and slowly as it could. HPI engineers were "36-48 hours away."

She didn't waste time calling anyone in the HPI to argue with them. She already knew there was nothing human medicine could do for someone exposed to the thaumic field. Whatever the monster Charybdis had done tonight, no human or pony doctor would be able to bring her back.

Except I can, came a voice in her head, very faint. Archive could banish the presence if she had wanted to. She didn't yet. You've seen my servants, they are human. Remove this ship's defenses, and I can offer her salvation. If she accepts, she will live again to serve. Service is better than the end of all pleasure that comes with death. I am kinder than oblivion.

"Go to hell!" Archive strengthened the barriers about her mind, casting the hostile presence out. It would have been difficult if the spirit's host was near, yet it clearly wasn't. For all she knew, it might not even be on the continent.

Archive called upon her memory of the maintenance manual. The CPNFG needed more power, that was the first priority. Once she put a stop to any further thaumic exposure for Taylor she could worry about how to actually save the woman.

It took her less than five minutes. The CPNFG itself was a modular unit, made to accept power in a number of different ways. All it really took was taking the thickest power cable aboard and dragging it through the airship until she could plug it into one of the main power distribution net's central access points. She didn't even electrocute herself, though her last memories of electrocution were so very fond.

The cable grew almost instantly warm to the touch, and far away several alarms stopped blaring. She felt the icy chill of the magic shield with relief. Funny how often that seemed to happen around the Umbral.

Of course, Alex's task had only just begun. She didn't bother actually heading into the cockpit, potentially exposing the unprotected Taylor to more of her own thaumic radiation if the cable or the power network decided to fail on her.

After twenty years, much of the satellite network was nonfunctional. Coverage decreased by the year, and nobody was putting replacements into orbit. Nobody could.

The HPI satellite network had been constructed with this in mind, designed with enough redundancy to keep working (to some degree) for a century. The Iridium civilian satellite phone network? Less so. That was why messengers and coded radio messages had taken over. There was word of laying some sort of signaling cable between colonies, but thus far nothing had materialized.

Still, a few ponies had access to the HPI's network for emergency communications, and she was one of them. She was calling one of the others right now. The console rang and rang and rang, before a much-distorted face appeared on the other end.

Sunset Shimmer looked exactly as Alex remembered her. Like Alex herself, she never seemed to change. "Lonely Day?" She seemed confused. "What's wrong?"

Alex fought to keep the fear and desperation from her voice. It would not make communication easier over the much-delayed connection. "Sunset, thank God! I need your help... one of my friends... Taylor Gamble, you remember her? Something attacked us and took down her magic shield for a little while. It's back up now, but... she's dying!"

Sunset looked down on the other end, growing solemn. "I have seen it happen. Lonely Day, we never figured out how to treat magic poisoning in humans. I can't help her. Do not stand near her; your magic will just make her pain worse!"

Archive rolled her eyes. "You can help, Sunset! You helped write the Universal Preservation Spell! If four Alicorns can change a whole planet, then one Alicorn can change one human!"

She looked away from the camera, frowning deeply. "It is... It is possible. It would depend on how much exposure she had. I might be able to derive those parts of the spell from my copy. It's been decades since I helped, Day. My attempt might kill her."

"If you do nothing, she dies for sure!" She couldn't help herself; Alex screamed. "I'm sure she'd want us to do everything we could. The HPI can't heal her, the computer tried to tell her suit to kill her, but thank God she wasn't wearing it."

Sunset nodded. "Alright Day; tell me where to find you." She did, using every conceivable way she knew. Archive didn't know much about teleportation, but she did understand that knowledge of the destination was critical. She'd never actually seen an Earth unicorn successfully teleport, not even Joseph. Sunset Shimmer was an Alicorn though, not beholden to the weaknesses of the lesser species. Space warped and twisted in her hooves when she wanted it to.

With her new "acting commander" status, Alex lowered the CPNFG field strength until it was only big enough to contain the cockpit and the reactor. Hopefully that would keep her oversized extension cord from melting as long as possible, as well as making teleportation possible for her Alicorn friend.

A drone buzzed through the gaping hole in the ceiling, landing beside her with a light thud. It spoke with Blacklight's voice, albeit weaker and higher. "Is it safe to return? You don't appear to be dying."

"Sorta." Alex kept well back from the center of the room, gesturing for the drone to do the same. There was no telling where Sunset was going to appear, but she wanted to be as far away from the center as she could. "It's safe, but it might not stay that way. We're hovering until Sunset Shimmer gets here, then we're going to set down and wait for repairs. You could meet us on the ground. There's no reason to put yourself in danger. Unless you can treat a human who's been exposed to magic, there's nothing for you to do."

"Would that I could." The drone lifted off and buzzed out the opening, leaving Lonely Day alone.

A few minutes passed. Then, in a flash of brilliant light, Sunset Shimmer arrived. It wasn't like the flash of ordinary unicorn teleportation. Alex felt momentarily warmed by actual sunlight on her coat, her ears pressing down in the thunderclap of displaced air as the Alicorn took shape in the space in front of her.

Thaumic exposure alarms blared and flashed, though they didn't last long. With the field area so much reduced, it could handle a teleport so close. She just hoped the power cable could. Day ran to embrace her friend, tears filling her eyes as her limbs lost their strength. There were two ponies in all the world that got to see her when she wasn't being strong, and this was one of them. "S-Sunset! I... thanks for interrupting whatever you were... Taylor's such a good friend... it's my fault this is happening to her. I should've listened-"

The Alicorn silenced her with a hoof. "Later Day. Every second counts; take me to her."

* * *

Alex did, though not before instructing the computer to resume its downward course. The sooner the reactor was shut down, the safer they would be. Fat lot of good it would do to bring Sunset Shimmer here to save Taylor only for her to die of mundane radiation poisoning instead.

Once they were moving, Alex willed her eyes clear and drew on her strength again. The Earth had none to give her at altitude, but that was fine. Knowing her friend needed her was strength enough for Archive that she needed no magic.

Sunset Shimmer stopped her when they hit the edge of the field, a few meters outside the cockpit's airlock doors. "Bring her to me, Alex. Drag her out into the space in front of me, but not until I'm ready. Having an Alicorn near her is going to do great harm. The spell must be ready for her the instant she leaves that shield." A shimmering field of magic turned Alex to face her and look up into her face, quite firmly. "Day; this might kill her. I can't promise it will work. I can't promise it won't kill her faster than whatever she's suffering now. It might be more painful, it might go grotesquely wrong. I know she'll be in no state to decide for herself. Are you willing to agree on her behalf?

Lonely Day did not hesitate. She knew Taylor, better than any other living human. Really, she knew very few who wouldn't choose becoming a pony over extinction. In that moment, she didn't fail to realize she was standing in Luna and Celestia's hooves. She nodded, and made the exact decision they had. "Do it."

Sunset Shimmer did not hesitate further, but released Alex and gestured vaguely for her to step away. She did, passing through that invisible point in the air where the thaumic shield began. With her own stress burning so high, she hardly even noticed.

The door opened with a hiss of air pressure. What she found inside was far worse than any of the horrors she had found on Earth. Alex had seen videos of thaumic poisoning and hadn't been able to watch for long. She saw that agony now in the face of one of her friends.

Taylor's whole body had tensed and bent, nearly all of her in tension. Where muscles opposed, limbs twitched and spasmed violently. She had bitten something in her mouth, because blood mixed with the drool that pooled there. In her thrashing she had probably torn tendons, because hands and feet twisted in ways they had never meant to. Where Alex saw skin, red splotches of exploded capillaries made her look almost spotted, though in a few places the explosions had been severe enough to pierce the skin.

Taylor Gamble had no energy left to thrash anymore, so she only twitched. Alex caught her eye, as wide as if she'd had those drops eye doctors had used before the Event, irises consumed by black. Like her skin, the sclera around her eyes were splotched with blood. Taylor had been dragging her way towards a medkit mounted on the floor. She hadn't made it.

Alex darted past it, tugging it off the wall with her mouth and dumping out its contents on the floor. In her perfect memory, she called up the image of the strongest painkillers she knew, and found one ready-to-inject trauma syringe.

She used the scissors to cut away Taylor's uniform from the back, and found the right part of the spine. Needle in, plunger down, and Taylor started to relax almost instantly.

Lonely Day could hear faint moaning, as pitiful as any sound could be. If Taylor was trying to say anything, it was utterly lost. Lost, because that was when Sunset Shimmer started to sing.

No, she wasn't quite singing. She was casting her spell. Alex could feel none of the energy building for a spell, not within the shielded area. Yet even within it, she couldn't help but turn around to listen.

In two decades, Joseph had become one of, if not the most skilled unicorn in all the world. Comparing this to Joseph's magic was like putting Starry Night beside a toddler's crayon scribblings. The world itself stilled as she sang, the thrumming reactor quieting to silence and the wind from far behind them vanishing entirely. She spoke not in words Alex could understand, and yet some deeper part of her didn't need to understand to know what she was saying.

It was a song that told a story of defiance. The universe through its actions had judged humanity unworthy. Sunset Shimmer sang furious rage against the darkness, refusal to accept the judgement, then pleading for an alternative. She fell silent.

Archive heard no voice in answer, yet voice there was all the same. The wind rushed back in, harmonizing with the grinding of the ventilator and the hum of the reactor and even Taylor's agonized moans. Together they formed sounds answering back in the same tongue, or at least Archive imagined they did.

Nothing could survive beyond its time, said the power in that night. Humanity was no exception for her friendship, just as she would be no exception when her time came. The death at the end of a fulfilled life was no cause for mourning, but celebrating.

Was it just part of the spell? Alex didn't know, but she couldn't take her eyes from the Alicorn. Her horn burned with sunlight, sunlight that shone past the thaumic field pure and orange and warm. Her eyes burned white from within, bright enough that she could use it to judge the edge of the CPNFG's field.

Sunset sang again, a begging and pleading voice. What if it was humanity's nature that died, not humans themselves? Could a man or woman live that was something else?

Another silence. Again, an answering voice came without a speaker. Nature itself was the reply, though it was not the nature Archive knew. This one was far older, perhaps by billions of years. The voice was grudging, but it consented in the end. Humanity's people could live on into the new galaxy, so long as humanity died. Entropy would still come for them, what was this short delay to an eternal?

Without knowing how she knew it, Archive felt the spell was nearly over. She bent down, forcing herself to ignore the iron-harsh smell of blood as she took Taylor's collar in her mouth and started dragging her across the floor. She had no help from her earth-pony nature, so had to drag a middle-aged human adult with main strength. She rolled Taylor over first, so her face wouldn't be dragged along rough metal. Even so, even with as careful as she could be, she knew she was opening up new wounds on the uneven metal meant to be easy to grip when wearing armor. Tears streamed down her eyes, tears of agony and sympathy, but she forced herself on.

She hesitated at the edge for Sunset to say the final word, then tugged one final time. She knew she had gone far enough, because Taylor started to scream again, thrashing and wailing in new agony.

It didn't last. The spell struck like a laser wide enough to swallow her and Alex and the rest of the ship beside. It struck the anti-thaumic field in a single instant of liquid light, splashing around it and vanishing through the walls. There was no prolonged transformation, no series of mutations culminating in an Equestrian body. When the light was gone, so was Taylor Gamble.

Chapter 6: Lonely no More (20 AE)

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They didn’t sleep when the Albatross finally touched down, not then. There was still the captured servants of the Equestrian spirit to deal with. Or so Alex had suspected, right up until she got to the site the prisoners had been kept, awake only through the sheer power of earth in her bones.

There were no prisoners now. No drones remained functional either. There were several new bodies on the ground, bodies of ponies and more of the hybrid water-creatures, and the wreckage of every combat-capable drone there.

It was a terrible loss. Dozens of drones destroyed, one Albatross heavily damaged, and one HPI drone engineer who wouldn’t ever return home to Raven City. She could only hope the magical squid-monster had cost their enemy, because he had hurt them dearly. Charybdis was not like his brother abomination, Odium. He didn’t return to try to take them again, he had no ponies lying in wait or bombs buried in the soil.

Did that mean he was an adversary more worthy of respect? Or merely that much more dangerous, since alongside all his awful traits there was also at least one virtue? Sunset Shimmer refused to let them spend the night there, insisting that “The Umbrum do not show mercy. If he intends for us to go, it is only because he feels letting us leave serves his purpose better.”

Alex had only one task to accomplish before they left: turn the Albatross’s reactor back on, turn it up as high as it could go, and arm every defensive circuit except the self-destruct. If Charybdis expected it would gain a powerful warship from its mercy, it would learn better. Its servants would be shot to pieces and their brains would all melt in their heads.

Sunset Shimmer lacked the strength to bring all of them back to Alexandria, even with her decades of Alicorn growth and magical practice. Queen Blacklight solved that problem for them by pointing her drones homeward and sending them off to fly on their own. They would take a few days, but she wasn’t worried about them. The drones she had chosen for today’s mission had been among her strongest and brightest.

“It’s amazing- I hope you don’t mind me saying so.” Sunset Shimmer pulled her robe tight about herself again, and within it her wings seemed to melt away. It was just an illusion woven into the fabric, but it was a powerful one. “Nopony in Equestria would ever imagine a changeling would want to help ponies.”

Blacklight didn’t look offended or surprised. “Then ponies in Equestria have weak imaginations. Or perhaps the changelings do. Maybe both.” She shrugged. “Irrelevant; our situation is different.” She didn’t close her eyes, didn’t move in any visible way. Yet she changed anyway, in a flash of green spellfire. Black armor became black coat, and holes vanished from her legs and mane. She even had a cutie mark, appearing as the crown-like growth she had when she was a changeling. She looked like a unicorn this time, though of course she could’ve looked like anything. She had kept her unusual size, meaning she was about equal with Sunset Shimmer, minus the wings. Alex was just grateful Blacklight would be carrying their burden back, since she wasn’t sure she could do it. Even earth pony endurance had its limits

“Don’t open your eyes.” Sunset’s voice was firm. “When I say so, exhale. It hurts otherwise; the pressure differential will rip the air right out of your lungs. Ponies talk about worse things happening, but I don’t think they’re that reputable.”

Lonely Day had done this before, and over far greater distances. After traveling between universes, moving a few thousand miles just didn’t have the same thrill. Still, she followed all of Sunset’s instructions, and was not surprised by the thunderclap of air or the biting cold on her coat. She didn’t have the air forced out of her lungs, and she didn’t balk at the thin dusting of ice that froze almost instantly upon her coat.

Alex knew little about teleportation. She’d had Sunset Shimmer explain it once; the way their travel shunted through higher-dimensional space. The Alicorn had even drawn her the field equations. It took her twenty volumes of various high-level math textbooks before she could even guess at what they meant. What mattered was that their passage through higher-dimensional space allowed them to cross a theoretically indefinite distance without passing through the space in-between. A pity she couldn’t learn it.

With another answering thunderclap and a rush of warm air, Alex found her hooves again resting on solid ground. The frost melted almost instantly upon contact with air, and she hesitantly opened her eyes. Sunset Shimmer’s precision had improved greatly over the last decade. The first time Alex had jumped with her, they had ended up half a dozen miles away. Not anymore. Their little party stood less than a dozen steps away from Cloudy Skies’s front door.

It was later in Alexandria than it had been in the ruins of Los Angeles. The sun was only just rising, casting everything in bright yellows and oranges. Sky lived in the residential suburbs of Alexandria. Even so, there were already ponies out and about. Many were early risers, particularly the pegasi. Many of those didn’t bother with sidewalks, flying from place to place.

Cloudy Skies had been a farmpony until she became a parent. In those days, Alex might’ve worried about not catching her this late. Now, there was little chance she would be anywhere else. Three of her children still lived at home, and with Adrian gone as often as he was...

“You’re going to make her day.” She smiled weakly towards Sunset. “She still idolizes you. Fair warning.”

The Alicorn chuckled. “A few decades seems long enough. This seems like a good excuse to get back in touch. Even if I still won’t be able to visit that often.”

“She’ll understand.” Alex hurried to the front of her little group, knocking briskly on the door. There was no answer, though as she waited she could make out some frightened crying from upstairs. She felt a twinge of guilt; had they woken Sky’s youngest with their arrival? It had been loud enough to wake the dead.

She tried the door, and sure enough she found it unlocked. Nopony locked their doors in Alexandria. She opened it with a little delicate downward pressure, stepping inside. “Cloudy Skies, I’m letting myself in! Don’t rush, but I’ve got guests with me!” She gestured, and her companions followed. Neither seemed particularly troubled by her letting herself into somepony’s home.

Like many of the earliest citizens to Alexandria, Sky and Adrian had chosen some of the best homes the former village of Paris had to offer. Theirs was one of the largest, a sprawling Tudor-style with expensive antique furniture. Much of that was gone now, replaced with practical, rustic-looking affairs Adrian had scavenged during his numerous expeditions. They had kept the rustic hardwood though, which echoed with every clopping hoofstep.

“Put her down on the couch there.” She gestured for Riley into the parlor, at the most comfortable of several different sofas. “Is she awake yet?”

Queen Blacklight didn’t even glance over her shoulder. “Still unconscious. I could wake her if you wish.”

She shook her head vigorously. “She deserves her rest.”

“Very well.” Blacklight’s graceful steps were purposeful as she made her way into the parlor, levitating the blanket-wrapped form she had been carrying onto the sofa. She paused to make sure her passenger was still breathing freely, then turned away, hurrying past them both. “Give Sky my regards.”

“You won’t stay? Smells like Sky’s cooking omelettes and pancakes for breakfast. Bet she would make some for you too. That’s gotta be better than...” Lonely Day struggled for the word the queen had used for the nutrient-rich fungus her drones cultivated in the dark, but could not find it. Couldn’t find it, because it had no word. They just called it: “hive food.”

“Taste is irrelevant.” Riley nodded politely to her. “I would like to see Cloudy Skies, but I have other concerns.” Her eyes flicked briefly to the stairs. “She must tend to her brood, and I to mine. If you have any further need of me, find one of my drones.” She turned to Sunset then, actually bowing as Alex had never seen her do before. “Remember me, princess. We are not all the monsters your world knew. Some of us haven’t forgotten we are human.”

Sunset Shimmer returned the bow, though much shallower. “I will. I hope we can be friends, Queen Blacklight.”

“I would like that.” She left. No matter how close her friendship with Cloudy Skies, no queen had time for frivolities such as “saying hello.” Lonely Day didn’t expect anything less of her.

The smell of eggs and cheese from the kitchen drew Alex like an invisible tether. “Hungry?”

Sunset nodded eagerly. “You have no idea how exhausting all that spellcasting is.”

Together they made their way into the kitchen.

It wasn’t empty, as the entryway had been. The second-eldest was an earth pony colt, grumping up a corner with a pre-Event video game console. The colt barely even grunted as they came into the room. He used a modified controller Joseph had designed, its buttons wide and accommodating of hooves. Instead of directional buttons, another hoof went into a depression covered with sensors, so that moving in any direction would trigger the attached key. The result was several times larger than a controller built for human hands, but one that required only hooves. Even an earth pony could play if he or she wanted to.

Not that it would matter for long. There was still plenty of old hardware, and in particular the “retro” consoles and computers seemed to hold up remarkably well. Yet it would all run down eventually, and she doubted many ponies would be able to afford to exchange any of their hard-earned chits for custom manufacturing of such luxuries. The rising generation might very well be the last for hundreds of years outside of Raven City that knew the joy of computer games.

Sky’s eldest had insisted on using the human name “Amy” her father had given her, even though she had one of the Equestrian variety from her mother. Her coat was only a few shades lighter than her mother’s had been, her mane like lemons. Amy appeared to be the one manning the electric stove. She glanced briefly over her shoulder as they came in, waving enthusiastically. “Ammex, mooed hmm mee moo!”

She found herself waving back, smiling in spite of herself. On the outside, Amy was only a year younger than herself. They had been friends for years, thanks to Amy’s love of books. If anypony in Alexandria could boast to reading even half of what Alex had, it was her. Alex still smiled whenever she thought back to the first time she had found the filly years ago, when she had spotted her following Alex around the library like a ghost and hiding whenever she turned around. “Don’t burn anything on our account!” Alex sat down at the table, choosing one of the most comfortable cushions and gesturing for Sunset to do the same.

The absent-minded little pegasus winced, turning around hastily and returning to her work. Several all sizzled at once, with Sky’s characteristic multitasking. Amy, for all she was well-meaning, could never keep up with so many different things at once. Already at least one of the pans was pouring black smoke.

“She looks like she needs help,” Sunset murmured, concerned.

“Yes. But she gets incredibly frustrated if you do it for her. She wants to fail until she gets it right. Don’t help, or she’ll just dump everything and start over.”

Sunset nodded, turning her attention on the colt and the television in the corner. “What about you; are you Cloudy Skies’s son too?”

He glanced up, looking as though he were going to say something rude... until he saw he was looking at a stranger. His eyes slid off her like she had been covered in oil, and he scooted a little away, blushing. “Y-Yeah.” He paused the game.

“And what’s your name?”

“N-north Wind, miss...”

“Sunset Shimmer, but you can just call me Sunset. I’m an old friend of your mother’s.”

“O-Oh.” He swallowed. “I think... I think I know...” he mumbled for a moment, then his curiosity got the better of his embarrassment. “I thought you went back to Equestria. Mom said she’d never get to see you again.”

“I did go back.” Sunset shifted uncomfortably on her cushion. “But Earth needed me more, so I came back.”

“You mean you’re actually from Equestria, like the teachers at school?” Amy glanced over her shoulder, no longer holding the spatula in her mouth. “There’s no way to get back to Equestria- that must mean you’ve been here for a long time!”

“Yes.” Sunset Shimmer didn’t meet her eyes, finding the rest of the room suddenly fascinating. “I wish I could have visited your mother sooner, but I wasn’t allowed.”

“Wasn’t-“

Alex interrupted her. “Amy, don’t. We’ve had a rough night. I’m sure Sunset Shimmer will be happy to answer your questions later. Where’s your mom, doesn’t she usually cook your breakfast?”

The filly nodded, suddenly abashed herself. Alex was almost never stern with her. “Upstairs with Sunbeam. Something or other woke him up. If she’s still upstairs, he’s probably being difficult. She’ll be down.”

“Y-Yeah. That was probably us.” Alex winced. “Sunbeam is still difficult?”

“Worse than any of the rest of us. Mom says he’s nature’s way of telling her to stop.”

Someone cleared her throat from the doorway. “Sunbeam is nature’s way of teaching me to have a little more patience. You were just as grouchy when you were his age, Surefire.”

“Amy,” the filly muttered, stepping away from the stove. “Here, Mom. I kept most of it from burning. I think you’ll have to make more anyway. Alex is here, and she’s brought a friend.”

Sky nodded. As she passed, Day could see a foal resting on her back, wrapping himself around her. One eye was closed, the other watched everything with a sleepy intensity. At least until he saw Sunset. When he did, his head lifted from his mother’s back and both eyes locked on her, never looking away.

“I can see that.” A younger, less mature Sky might’ve jumped up and down, might’ve squealed in enthusiasm upon seeing Sunset Shimmer. The mature mare only smiled, though there was a moisture in her eyes that hadn’t been there before. “I see you’ve already made yourselves at home. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll get you fed. We can talk after.”

Alex ate more than an adult stallion, ate until the gnawing emptiness inside her finally stopped pressing at her and her exhaustion returned to prominence. That, and how revolting she smelled.

Sky wasn't the same pony that had been her best friend when Alexandria had been founded. Without having to ask, Sky insisted their breakfast was followed with some time in the shower and a good rest in one of the numerous extra beds. She would later learn that Sunset never slept, sacrificing her comfort for more time with her friend. Alex felt a little guilty after that, but not much. Sky probably preferred to be alone with her friend anyway.

By the time she wandered back downstairs into the parlor, she found the new friend she had brought was still asleep. A glance told her Sunset and Sky were still out on the porch, talking over lemonade. Alex ignored them for the moment, approaching the little bundle on the couch.

Well, little compared to the size she had been before. Taylor was an adult after all, taller and larger than Alex might ever be. With a gentle flick, she peeled away the blankets, revealing the mare inside. Taylor twitched at the sudden change in temprature, blinking blearily awake.

Taylor Gamble had been completely transformed. It was a strange thing just how much of her human self Alex could see, having the two so close together in time. Her coat was almost skin-colored, a peach just a few shades too dark. Her mane and tail were the exact same shade of ginger-orange, and here and there Alex could even make out what might’ve been freckles on her coat. Taylor had been in middle age as a human, but there were no traces of that age now. From what the books said, some of the equestrian species aged slower than humans did. None of them really believed that, it seemed too good to be true, but here was one more little piece of evidence. Taylor looked much like Sky: a mature adult in her prime, with no wrinkles or sagging or lines.

She had no wings, no horn. Alex found that reassuring somehow, though she had no end of pity for the new arrivals who had to adapt to losing their hands. Taylor would face that, just as all new arrivals did. She was just in the unique position of having been human on Earth after the Event. The HPI did not yet know; Alex had personally destroyed the internal video footage of the transformation. No doubt Clark had several notifications waiting for her in her bracer even now. He could wait a few more minutes.

The mare stirred, choking out a weak cough before meeting her eyes. “Hello Alex.” Her voice sounded different, as all returning ponies did. Higher, more musical somehow. They were all better singers now, though somehow she doubted Taylor would ever take much interest in it. The mare yawned. “Are we in sickbay? I remember…” She shivered, suddenly closing her eyes and curling up. “No…” All sleepiness was instantly gone from her. “I was exposed. Must’ve lost consciousness… No, thaumic exposure doesn’t let you do that. Can’t feel my fingers or toes… drugged then?”

“No.” Alex stood beside the couch, nearly close enough to touch her. But she didn’t touch, and thus confront Taylor with the reality of her transformation before she was ready. “Nothing I used would still be in your system this long.”

“Dead, then?” She closed her eyes, relaxing into the blankets. “I knew I’d see you when I died. You’ve always been liminal, haven’t you? Walking on both sides of the veil? You weren’t a pony, you were an angel, sent from God to help the last of us pass on. Now you’ve taken me. A little earlier than I expected.”

Archive wasn’t sure if it would be entirely honest to deny what Taylor said. “You aren’t in Heaven. That might be what the HPI wanted to do with you, but not me.” She smiled. “Humanity needs you too badly to let your skills all go to waste. The white shores will have to wait.” She rested a hoof firmly on Taylor’s shoulder.

“Hmmm.” Taylor reached up, subconsciously gripping the offered hoof with her own. She was quiet for a long time, eyes closed on the couch. Then she sat up, though the motion was so sudden she nearly threw herself from the couch. “I hear wind, Alex! Voices! We’re not in sickbay… we’re not aboard the Albatross at all, are we? I can’t feel my armor, I-”

She froze, and her eyes that met Alex’s were wide as saucers. “I don’t hurt.”

Archive shook her head, still smiling sadly. “No, you wouldn’t. You won’t ever feel that again, Taylor. That part of your life is over. You won’t ever be afraid of magic again. You won’t ever be locked in bunkers and metal boxes. You don’t need your armor anymore. It wouldn’t fit even if you wanted it to.”

Taylor looked, and this time she saw. She didn’t struggle or flail around, as many others spoke of doing during the first moments of their arrival. She didn’t scream or fall off the couch. “Oh.” She concentrated, rolling sideways onto the floor. She caught her hooves beneath her, though only with Alex’s help did she not fall. “If you don’t mind, Alex… I’d like to go outside.”

She didn’t mind. Taylor took each step with great care, moving only one leg at a time. Alex stayed beside her, catching her more than once before she stumbled. The former human continued with dogged determination, ignoring every stumble and setback, eyes fixed on the patio and the open doorway. She said nothing, seeming to need all her concentration just to move forward.

They passed onto the patio. At a gesture from Alex, Sunset and Sky remained where they were, falling quiet but not interfering. Taylor did not stop until she reached the edge of the porch, where sun could shine full on her. A spring breeze blew across the manicured grounds, taking the smell of flowers and fresh plants up to them. Taylor looked like she was swimming in it, absorbing every detail in silent appreciation. There was no sound but the wind and the birds.

It seemed many minutes before Taylor started walking again. Her steps seemed firmer already, as though she were drawing on the earth without realizing it. Alex wondered idly if longing for so long to appreciate the Earth would speed Taylor getting to know it now that she could be around magic. She walked right into the center of the garden, not seeming to mind the damp soil on her hooves. There she knelt, and began to pray.

Alex couldn’t listen for more than a few seconds without weeping. She left her friend there in the garden, hurrying back up the steps to rejoin Sunset and Sky.

“What’s she doing?” Sunset asked, eyes still fixed on the prostrate mare in the garden. “Were we too late after all? Is her mind-”

“No,” Archive said. “Humans didn’t evolve in boxes. We came from the forest, from the plains. Somewhere in each of us, there’s still a part that longs to feel the wind and sunshine. The HPI might have their hydroponics, but there’s no substitute for actually being here. Taylor balked at that life more than most. Working with us on the surface is incredibly dangerous for humans, as you observed. Yet she kept coming. She could never touch it, only watch through the glass of her helmet and long for freedom.”

“How do you know all that?” Sky had risen to her hooves, watching too. Her concern wasn’t for Taylor, though. It was for Day. “Did she tell you?”

“No.” Archive turned away. She didn’t need to watch. “I feel it. Coming up here is like waking from a dream. It wasn’t a bad dream, not at first. But the desperation, the loneliness, knowing it’s only you and a few machines and a computer left of your whole world. But the parts of it you really loved couldn’t come down with you at all, and you would never be able to-” She stopped, blushing. She realized suddenly that it was not her place to say what Taylor felt. Archive might not be her god, but those feelings were still sacred somehow. “Now the dream is over. Taylor is awake for the first time in twenty years.” She chuckled. “It’s not going to stay sweets and roses. When she realizes the hell it’s going to be to learn to do basic things… she might realize us ponies aren’t living in Heaven either. Still… I don’t think she’ll regret coming here.”

Sunset’s voice was low, barely louder than a whisper. “Lonely Day: I postponed this moment because of our urgency, but I think we need to talk.”

“Alright.” She sat down. It was hard to be nervous about the reckoning now coming with Taylor’s joy filling her so full that she felt like she was going to explode.

“We talked about doing this for the other humans still on your planet. You never told me they were so oppressed by their condition. It might have affected my decision.”

Alex looked back to her Equestrian friend. “Many aren’t. The newer generation is better adapted to life in their underground city. The culture in there was all engineered for their benefit. The first generation never glorify the surface, or mystify it. When they grow up, they might not feel as Taylor does. Commander Clarke is hopeful they will grow up without missing it.”

Sunset was unmoved. “Humans live about a century?”

She nodded. “Most of them probably will, if not a little longer. Their diet and lifestyle are pretty close to perfect, and they’ve got near-instant access to medical care. Though…” She shuddered. Clark had not been optimistic about what would happen to him and the others of Raven’s elderly, when they grew too old to contribute. Raven City had grown a great deal, grown large enough to support a population nearly double that it had housed two decades previously, but it could not grow forever. CPNFG shields had been optimized about as much as was possible with the existing paradigm. Unless some incredible new breakthroughs occurred, they would run out of power eventually.

They might run out of raw materials to make replacement parts before that, unless the ponies on the surface began to advance more rapidly or the Van Neumann probes finally bore fruit. From what Alex understood, the network was growing more slowly than expected and was presently slightly smaller than a hundred in size even after two decades. Unless those had more success, it might be millennia before the HPI’s forays into space-mining turned any dividends.

“Though?” Sunset pressed.

“Taylor’s generation are all like her a little. Some more, some less. They all want to be back up here a little. But they’re too valuable to let go while they’re still useful. They might be aging, but that doesn’t matter down there. It’s not like there’s much physical labor to be done in Raven. Their brains are needed to keep the place running, and to invent the technologies that will keep it running centuries from now. I told you, I took your proposal to Clark. He flat-out refused to talk to you, and refused your offer. He won’t let anyone leave.”

She glowered. “The last of your race have chosen themselves a tyrant?”

“No.” Alex was equally harsh. “It is not just to judge them by our standards of justice, Sunset.”

Sky winced, retreating a few paces. She had been so quiet, Alex had forgotten she was even still there. “I’ll… get some lemonade for Taylor.” She slipped away without a backward glance.

Alex went on. “Raven City depends on the labor of every single human who can work. If you aren’t maintaining the ventilators, you’re rebuilding old CPNFGs, and if you’re not doing that, you’re designing the next generation of thorium reactors, or inventing a new way to store food. Every project they have is or will be critical for their survival.”

“It’s not ideal to not tell people to leave, but if even some big fraction… like a third… if a third decided to leave, Raven would die. Everyone in it would have to accept your offer and move out or let the magic kill them when the machines all failed in a few years. Would it be tyrannical for the third who wanted to leave to make the decision for everyone else?”

Sunset didn’t seem to know what to say to that. She deflated a little. “What if they all wanted to leave?”

“They don’t. They might eventually…” She shook her head. “What happened to Taylor might just be our opportunity. Clark wouldn’t allow the risk of losing even a single person in that bunker. But to him, Taylor was already dead. We proved it worked and he’s got no right to be upset. Now they know there are other options for the ones who get exposed. Or… maybe the ones they can’t support anymore.” She thought again to some of the haunting things he had said, about what would happen to the elderly. Clark himself was already pushing seventy. He wasn’t dictating some distant reality for others. He would be among the first.

“I haven’t had the time I would’ve liked to spend practicing the spell. I do think we might be able to enchant something with it eventually though. Something a dozen or so ordinary unicorns could charge, instead of needing me each time. I could spend more time on it if you think he might consent.” She looked up, at the pony walking happily back towards them through the grass.

“I’ll call him right now. Maybe you can give some pointers on walking to the new pony!” She grinned, hurrying inside.

“You know how to walk too, Day!”

“You’ve been doing it longer!” she shouted as she headed inside to find where she had left the gauntlet. She wasn’t looking forward to this conversation, but maybe it could make a difference. Being a pony sounded like a better fate for Raven’s elderly than what Clark had resolved to do.

* * *

When Alex finally got home, she found Oliver waiting for her downstairs. He sat at their computer console, resting on a chair built for ponies. He was surrounded by screens, glowing with pages and diagrams from his book. The whole office area had been transformed into his studio, with numerous larger prints of Equestrian anatomy charts on every wall. Alex didn’t care for the room much anymore. She spent so much time in the library that she didn’t mind.

Oliver swiveled around in the chair as she walked in, grinning up at her. Alex found her heartbeat accelerating as he met her eyes. Like all her friends, Oliver had aged over the last two decades. Also like her friends, the way he aged didn’t seem to entirely line up with the way humans got older. He was a little bigger, a little taller, but that was about it. Oliver might be forty-five, but he didn’t look it. How long would it take before they noticed visible signs? It made their relationship easier, in any case. Because Alex hadn’t changed a single centimeter since her return from Equestria. Once Oliver started visibly aging, how long before one of them started feeling weird? They were already an odd couple, Alex about half of the grown stallion’s size. She didn’t mind, but she wasn’t sure how long before Oliver would.

“You’re in once piece this time.” She couldn’t shake the feeling he sounded disappointed. “No gruesome injuries?”

“I love you too, Oliver.” Alex rubbed up against him, in her brief animal affection. He embraced her with equal fervor, despite his mocking words. Alex reveled in the feeling of the stallion against her, in the feeling of strength he offered. “What’s for dinner?”

“I’ve got some ideas.” He grinned, then shook his head and hurried past her, back into the house. “Actually, I wasn’t expecting you back so soon. But I haven’t eaten either, so it’s fine. We can…” He glanced over his shoulder, stopping when he saw that she was following him. “No. You’re not allowed to help, Alex. You tell me about your latest adventure, I cook. That’s how it works.”

“That’s how it works,” she repeated, following him to the edge of the kitchen and hopping up on one of the stools near the bar, where she could get a good view of whatever he decided to make. “Alright. This one’s pretty freaky, though. The Council of Cities is going to hear my report on it next month, when we meet again.” The Council had just over thirty members now, assembled from every large settlement on the continent. She still represented Alexandria, though the meetings were only annual so it didn’t do much to alleviate her boredom the rest of the year. “I haven’t told the city council yet. Nothing I tell you gets out of this kitchen.”

“Cross my heart.” Oliver removed several fresh ingredients from little storage boxes throughout the kitchen, setting them down beside the sink. He flicked it with his hoof, and fresh water began to flow. Even after twenty years, seeing that still gave Alex chills. They had done that. They were the reason there was water in the pipes and electricity in the walls. “Not a word.”

“Good.” Alex leaned closer to him. “I think we finally know what Charybdis is.”

* * *

Alex found herself unable to sleep that night, despite all that came before. She was small, and she was careful, so she managed to get out of bed without waking Oliver. She crept out of their bedroom, slipping out the partially open door and down the stairs. Her son’s bedroom door was shut, though the lights inside were still on. She crept down the stairs, then slipped outside as silently as she could. She stepped off the path and onto the grass as quickly as she could for the silence it would offer her steps.

Sunset was waiting for her, robe tight about her against the chill. Or her identity. She sat on a little mound in the backyard, near a memorial stone Alex’s had carved with her own hooves. Even in the dark, she could make out the outline clearly in the moonlight. “Huan - Loyal Friend”

“It never seemed fair,” Alex said quietly, as she approached. “Dogs are so loyal, but they don’t get to live long enough to stay with us.” She sat down, her side touching the rough fabric of sunset’s robe. “Did you know our fourth generation of calves has started to talk? But none of our cows has lived longer than cows ever did. How is that fair?”

“Who ever told you life would be fair?”

Archive had no answer for that, at least not for several long moments. Eventually she said, “It seems like it ought to be.” Sunset said nothing to that, only looking a little smug. “It isn’t just Huan.” Alex looked up at the stars, trying to see whatever it was Sunset Shimmer seemed to be noticing. “It's every other pony out there. I won’t just outlive my dog anymore, I’ll outlive every friend I ever make, every child I ever have... that’s not fair either.”

“To you or to them?”

Alex opened her mouth, then choked on the words she had been about to say. “I suppose... them. Since I’m going to be living so much longer.” She didn’t look down, but she could still feel Sunset’s eyes upon her. She whimpered, and suddenly she was fighting back tears. She shut up, and stayed silent until she had recovered. “I don’t expect you to know about any of that. But there is something I’ve been hoping you could tell me.”

“I can try.” She chuckled. “But I probably don’t know as much as you think I do.”

“How come... Princess Celestia and Luna and Twilight Sparkle and Cadence are all Alicorns. I think I know now that immortals always represent something, and I know what I am... but if I’m immortal, why aren’t I an Alicorn like you? Not that... it’s not what you think... I don’t mind being an earth pony. I can use my hooves for most things just fine, and I’m afraid of heights! I just want to understand.”

Sunset rose to her hooves, turning and walking away towards the back of her house. With no other recourse, Alex was forced to follow, struggling to keep up. “Have you read any of the books about magic?”

She nodded. “I’ve read every single book in the library. I didn’t find anything in there about Alicorns. Only the social commentaries even mentioned that Alicorns existed. Nothing about them in the anatomy textbooks, or the books that explained to the newly transformed how their bodies work. I guess that means that nobody’s going to come back as one...”

Sunset nodded. “It wouldn’t be possible. Becoming an Alicorn is a matter of personal will. It isn’t something that can be thrust upon somepony. You’re not one for the same reason: you never did anything. Celestia and Luna made you what you are, because they were afraid you might not be able to figure it out, and they didn’t wish your planet to go without your guidance.”

“B-But...” She struggled to put that together with what she already knew. “I’m not doing anything to govern my planet! I’m not a princess, I can’t teleport or fly around and help ponies all over! I’m not even Alexandria’s mayor anymore, even if I’m still in charge of the library. I’m not really doing anything these days, except for helping the HPI and having all my suggestions ignored in city council meetings.”

“Is that why you ask?” The Alicorn looked concerned. “You think that, if your transformation was complete, ponies would give you more respect and you could have more of an impact on their lives?” Archive would have said no. Lonely Day, however, could not. Sunset went on. “According to Cloudy Skies, you’ve already done some incredible good.” She gestured vaguely around her, at all the silent buildings. Silent now, but not empty. In two decades, Alexandria had grown to a population of thousands. These buildings held businesses, workshops, and so on.

“You’ve distributed the knowledge Equestria gave you. You protected the library from those who would abuse it, and made thousands of copies for the returning ponies who can’t reach Alexandria. Princess Luna would be proud.”

“I feel like there’s something more I should be doing,” she said, barely loudly than a whisper. “But I don’t know how.”

“Maybe you’re already doing it.” Sunset kept walking until she reached a patch of bare ground, were the dirt had already been turned in preparation for new planting. She lifted a stick in her magical grip and started to draw.

“W-What? How could... How could I be doing anything? I mean, aside from the stuff I know I’m doing.”

“It will be easier to show you.” Sunset sat down, seeming to be deep in concentration as she drew. “It may help you understand what you have to do if you want to be an Alicorn.”

Alex nodded, sitting still in the center of the dirt as Sunset drew around her.

“Just look. Don’t focus too much on any single thing. Focus on the big picture.”

Alex wasn’t sure why Sunset couldn’t just tell her, but she wasn’t about to argue.

“I know you’ve got a great memory, Day. If you’re memorizing it, don’t try this spell on a regular pony. I wouldn’t suggest using it on yourself either if I’m not around, but I won’t try to stop you.

She chuckled. “I don’t know where I’d get the power for it. The Keeper only helps me when I’m fighting something really nasty. Not that I wouldn’t be more useful fighting those real nasty things if I could cast my own spells...”

Sunset stopped drawing. The circle was almost complete, missing only a single rune. “Just remember what I told you. I’m not convinced you won’t figure out a way sooner or later. Close your eyes.” She obeyed, though she could still hear as Sunset Shimmer walked around to behind her. “When you open them again, don’t look at me. Look towards your house first. Only two ponies in there, should be easier to see. When you want it to stop, just step outside the circle or scuff it somehow. It will probably hurt.”

Alex swallowed, but nodded again. “Okay.” With her perfect memory, she twisted a little, eyes still closed. She oriented herself to be facing her house, then opened her eyes.

She saw light, an impossibly fine web of light that seemed to fill all creation. Normal matter seemed dull and gray to her, transparent before the brilliant glow that suffused it. Distance too became meaningless, as all creation became known to her purely through the attention she gave. Alex’s mortal mind was instantly overwhelmed. Had that been all she was, that would’ve meant unconsciousness right there, perhaps followed by horrific brain damage as her mind could take no more.

She screamed, retreating into herself and away from the onslaught of information, which once she opened her eyes shone through into her soul. Yet no retreat would make it go away, and nowhere could she hide from the overwhelming onslaught of light and color. It hurt, but even in the pain her mind began to adjust. She saw herself not as a pony, but as burning flame built from the twisting together of hundreds of thousands of tiny threads spreading out in all directions. Together they twisted into a single whole, a whole that was Archive.

Somehow, these others were connected to her. How? She stretched to find a single thread, could only thanks to her familiarity with its owner. Archive found the thread tied most closely to her life, to her child and to her future, and followed it with her mind into the house. There she found her mate still asleep, peaceful and silent.

He wasn’t a bonfire, wasn’t even a candle. The thread was him alright, a single spark buried somewhere in his chest. Yet for the sudden dimness, she was able to see that it too had uncountable connections. As she focused, she could see that single spark connected with a razor-thin ray to each and every cell in his body, billions and billions that twisted into tissues and then into organs and then in thick bundles. Of exterior connections there were few. She followed the only other one she found, which lead a few rooms over to the body of her sleeping son. She felt his breathing, practically could’ve heard the thoughts of his mind had he not been asleep.

How far did this network go? Archive traced the lines back to herself and was again briefly overwhelmed. Yet she plunged onward, following the twisting of a million strands that together eclipsed the ember of her soul. Yet just as the threads in Oliver united tissues to organs and organs to him, some of the invisible filaments were easier to follow than others.

Brightest of all, twisting together like a steel anchor line and contributing a significant fraction of the light was a nearly uniform weave of power coming from far away. Archive’s mind rushed along its length, slipping beneath the earth as though the stone were mere vapor. She found her diamond in the dark, in the city called Raven. She saw nearly a thousand souls, every one with faith in her. Or... not her as a person, but her as an idea. Their faith was the essence of her strength, few though they were.

There was another source of light, one far closer than all the distant embers, and far brighter than herself. She knew what it was even before she turned, yet turn she did. Slowly, so she wouldn’t be caught by too large a part of it and blinded.

If a regular pony was an ember, if she was a torch, than looking at Sunset Shimmer was like looking unprotected into the sun. She could not look directly at her, couldn’t even look near to her without being overwhelmed by what she saw. Her light didn’t come from threads, though there were a few thick strands of them traveling in from distant places just like those that formed the entirety of Archive’s power.

No, Sunset Shimmer drew her strength from something greater. It wasn’t like looking at a pony, but like looking into an opening in the air, allowing light from somewhere brighter to shine through.

Archive saw, and at last she understood. With one of her forelegs, she reached out and scuffed the circle, ending the spell. Her perceptions came crashing back down into her body, and she staggered for several moments, but didn’t fall. After several deep breaths, she finally felt confident enough to speak again. “It’s like... I’m not complete.”

“Not yet. Alicorns can get their power from ponies, like you do. But that would take many more – probably millions. The ponies on Earth who believe in your old species are enough to keep you alive, but not enough to be an Alicorn. That power comes from somewhere else. Just as you now represent your species, you would have to represent something else as well. Some supernal truth. But I don’t think it’s going to happen tonight. Everypony who ever got there found their own way. I can’t show you, the same way won’t work for both of us. Probably way too much work to be worth it if all you want is for ponies to listen to you.”

Lonely Day rested her head briefly on Sunset’s side again, then pulled away. “Nah, thanks anyway. I think I’ve got enough to go on. Plus… plenty of time, right?”

Sunset chuckled. “Yeah. Plenty of time.”

Chapter 7: Daytrip (50 AE)

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Alex had never felt happier than the day she opened the Museum of Human Achievements. It was by no means an accomplishment that was purely her own. She had elicited donations from hundreds of Alexandria's most prominent citizens. Granted, many of those had thought she was a filly-scout doing a charity project...

She couldn't describe her satisfaction on the day of the grand opening, when she stepped out onto the stage and saw their shocked faces. No, she wasn't representing Lonely Day. She was Lonely Day, founder and former mayor of their city.

She had commissioned Raven City engineers to design the structure. The construction, honest labor of an Alexandrian construction company.

She had invited everypony who had worked on the building, everypony who had supported the museum in a political way, and everypony who had donated. Perhaps the opening of a new museum in the world Alex had come from wouldn't have attracted the crowd that this event had. But this was a different world. There were no more smartphones, few computers, and no more internet. Leaving one's home and spending time out in the community was one of the best ways to stave off boredom.

Her speech was over now, along with the mayor's and every other important sponsor of the project. Great throngs of ponies now pressed down into the concrete entryway, even as a slow trickle made its way out the exit. Alex found herself swallowed by it, taken up by her friends and acquaintances in the slow press down beneath the earth.

She found herself standing beside Taylor, whom she could not fail to identify even in a crowd of thousands. Taylor was the HPI's official representative in the equine world now, and dressed the part. A pony-shaped uniform had been made for her, resembling the one her comrades wore beneath the surface. It had but one addition theirs lacked: her cutie mark was embroidered in the expected place.

On this particular occasion, she wore a vest with a laminated panoramic camera raised on a pole to be over her head, along with what Alex took to be a recorder. "Ho, Taylor!"

"Ho, Alex!" Taylor responded, embracing her as best she could in the crowd. It had been several decades now, but Taylor's appearance still seemed young and healthy. Other than getting larger and more mature-looking, time appeared to have been as kind to her as it was to Alex's other friends.

While it had been kind to them, it had ignored her, and she seemed just as much the young mare in comparison that she had ever been. "I'm surprised our mutual friends would be curious enough to have you record any of this."

Taylor looked sidelong at Alex, as though calling upon some secret only the two of them shared. "We're still a novelty down there, believe it or not." She jostled the camera on her back. "Anything we can do to demystify ourselves goes a long way."

Together they finally reached the edge of the building. The surface section was not large, a two story structure made from unreinforced concrete. That meant the walls had to be quite thick at the base, which she didn't mind. There only really had to be room for two sets of stairs, one for each direction, along with a lobby. Everything else was below.

Skylights served in the lobby, though as they moved with the crowd they were replaced with the steady glow of pony-made electric bulbs, flickering to the fickle whims of the electrical grid. "Plus, they did engineer this place. Complete with every silly thing you asked for." She gestured at the stairs, which after taking them down fifty feet, started moving up again. They passed into a second lobby like a sink trap, before passing into a spiral instead of a ramp. "People want to see how badly humans are going to be misrepresented by exhibits made by ponies."

"They think we don't remember? We made this place for our children's benefit, not our own."

Taylor shrugged. "Honestly, lots of them know less about what it was like to live on Earth than your ponies do. Didn't you say you got the help of the newest returns you could?" At Alex's nod, she continued. "We're on to the second and third generation in Raven these days. They didn't just come back from Old Earth, they've never seen it. Outside of the movies and TV shows, it's not real to them. They wouldn't know how to recognize if your museum got things right even if they saw it."

Alex sighed. "They're still the last biological humans we have. Do you think they'll visit?"

"Not today!" Taylor gestured around, at the space thick with ponies. "The magic in this building would barbeque them alive before they got down the stairs. Maybe if you closed the place down for an evening or something."

"I'd be happy to. It won't be open at nights anyway, so it wouldn't be hard. Not that I expect anyone in Raven to be impressed."

"They're impressed the whole thing hasn't collapsed and killed someone. They don't think much of non-automated construction crews."

Alex laughed. "As if that was the way people always built things."

"For them it is. Don't forget, just because ponies live longer doesn't mean humans do. The people who remember Old Earth are in their seventies and eighties. They don't keep anyone past when they can contribute somehow. The rest are either ponies in Bountiful or cremated."

"Do you feel eighty?"

"Do you?" Taylor returned her laugh. "Ask the old commander if he feels a hundred ten next time you see him."

They reached the bottom of the spiral staircase about then, stepping out into the museum proper. The complex was built quite deep underground, beneath a layer of impermeable clays and shales that would keep the water table at bay into perpetuity. Each room and chamber was a cylinder of one length or another, cast in concrete but with a flat deck of wood within. The largest room had a diameter of fifty feet, though most were far smaller. Even so, the museum had taken a fair fortune to build and the skills of many diamond-dog excavators.

The structure might be called the "Museum of Human Achievements", but only one of its wings was actually devoted to representing these. To be fair, it was the largest, populated with the greatest accomplishments of art and science. In every case she could, Alex had commissioned replicas in bronze rather than originals. Where bronze wouldn't serve she had settled for laminating in thick plastic.

The replicas of beautiful historical works filled that space. For many ponies who entered, it was their first time ever seeing the human form in full scale. They passed through the other two wings in turn, where the history of human civilization was summarized and a sketch of modern life before the Event was depicted. For this last they made use of a single HPI-built projector and computer, which could screen a few old movies.

She found Amy at the little theater, reading a book at the controls as she waited for another show to end. She looked up as they approached, grinning. "Alex, Taylor!" She put her book down. "Do you want me to let you in? I could clear out a few seats..."

"Nah." Alex spared one glance at the huge line waiting for the theater and she knew what result that would have. "We just wanted to say hi."

"Actually, do you think I could sit in the aisle?" Taylor gestured to her camera. "I think they'd want me to get a look at the theater. I won't stay in there for long."

"Be my guest." Amy gestured at the doors. "Just don't be in the way when the show ends. It's got another... eight minutes. If you stay in there and get trampled, it's not my fault."

"Noted." Taylor slipped inside, leaving the two of them relatively alone. So long as they kept their voices down low enough that they couldn't be overheard with the line so close.

"Is your mom upset you chose to work here?"

The mare shrugged. It was a little hard seeing a pony she remembered as a newborn end up so much larger than she was. "Sky hated her old life, she didn't hate the whole world. I do think she would rather I spent more time 'finding a good stallion.'"

"Don't let her pressure you into doing something you don't want. Sky's got enough foals that you can be perfect by averages even if you do your own thing." Unlike Alex herself, who still had just one.

"Don't I know it." She lowered her voice, leaning towards her. "Looks like number eighteen is on the way. I just got the news this morning."

"Eighteen," Alex repeated, unable to keep the wonder from her voice. "Why doesn't Adrian stop her?"

"Dad say no to Mom? Not a chance. Besides, it's not like it slows him down much. She never has two foals in the house at once, so he doesn't mind."

"Strange species we are where that works. Humans can't even have children for most of their lifetime." She reached back into her mind, finding the Equestrian childbirth text. She found the information she was looking for, then continued. "Somepony ought to warn her she's running out of time. The books all agree it's a bad idea to have foals after ninety."

"Somepony has, don't worry. Your mate doesn't let a patient leave his office uninformed."

Alex nodded, though the smile was a little bitter. They were more friends than mates these days. It wasn't like she blamed the stallion for drifting away from her. Didn't make it hurt less, even though few ponies knew.

"I've been meaning to ask you, Amy. I'm going out of town for the next few weeks. Taylor's been saving a month's leave, she's coming too. There's an open invitation for you to join us."

"I'm guessing that means you're offering me vacation time too." She glanced at the controls. "First day at my perfect job and you're asking me to leave." She frowned. "What would we be doing, anyway?"

"Unpaid manual labor. Well... I could make it paid vacation time. But it would still be manual labor."

The mare considered for a moment, then her eyes widened. "Wait a minute! You've done this before! I asked where you were going... must've been twenty years ago now... you wouldn't say!"

She nodded. "I still won't say. But you can come if you want to. I took your mother a few times, but we both know she's too busy and important to come on a vanity project."

"But I'm not, I see what you're saying."

She shrugged. "I know your boss. She'll make exceptions when she knows it's a project that will help you in your work."

"Really?" That got Amy's attention. "It's about humans, isn't it?"

She nodded. "It's gonna be buckin' hard work in the spring sun, and I'll swear you to secrecy when you're done."

"When would we leave?"

Taylor returned at that moment, eyes still wide from the darkness of the theater. "Recruiting more slave labor, eh?"

Alex only shoved her. "Tell me you didn't have fun last time!"

The mare's smile didn't falter. "Sure, whatever. Doesn't mean we aren't doing slave labor." She reached out, gripping Amy's shoulder. "It's hard work, bird-pony. You might not be sturdy enough."

"Is that so?"

* * *

Alex sat crammed into the hallway of the Swallow Supersonic Nuclear Transport, reading over Amy's shoulder and pretending she wasn't bored. Of course she was bored, all thanks to her perfect memory. Alex loved reading, but when you could finish even a meaty novel in a few minutes and never forget anything about it, your supply of good books was limited. So she saved some of the best, giving herself exactly one "pleasure" book a day.

Unfortunately, she had already read Amy's current selection "The Lost World" exactly eight years, four months and three days ago. "I don't get it," Amy declared, closing the book with one hoof and looking up.

"You don't get what?" Alex didn't have much free space to move away, but she did her best. A few feet further and she'd reach the cargo bay, packed with construction supplies. Cans of paint, lengths of wood in sheets and planks, plaster and drywall and bags of cement.

Amy gestured at the cover. "Have you... course you have, why wouldn't you. So, there's two different tribes on the plane, right? Humans and ape-men." At her nod, Amy continued. "Why are they fighting? Malone says there's been a terrible war since they got there together, and we even see some of the apes push..." she shivered as she spoke. "Push some humans off a cliff. But it doesn't make sense! They've both got their own languages, their own societies. They both have families, and they use tools and everything. Why do they fight? They're way closer together than ponies are to griffons, or diamond dogs or whatever. But you don't see any of us going to war over something that stupid!"

Yet, Lonely Day thought to herself. So far there had been no wars, or at least no armed conflicts large enough to be called wars. It seemed rather pointless to fight when there was so much open world to claim, and so many resources to do it with. But would it always remain so? She doubted it. Even the Equestrian history books had war, if you went back far enough. "It's fairer to call it a primitive reason to go to war. Many animals are this way, and it makes sense when you consider the perspective of survival."

"Think about it. If you're a wolf and there's lots of food, it might not matter that there are foxes living in your territory. You can eat the deer, they can eat the rabbits, and everything's great for both of you. But when winter comes and all the dear migrate north or whatever... then suddenly you're both eating the same rabbits. Every one a fox catches is one you can't use to feed your pups or give to your mate. Your family might die because of that other animal, even though it never tried to hurt you directly."

"The apes and the humans competed for the same resources. Every one of those stegosaurus the humans had in their herds was one the ape-men couldn't eat. So they fought."

The mare went quiet for a moment, thinking. Alex listened to the sound of the engines as they began to decelerate. They couldn't be far from the house now. "Does that mean when there are more ponies we'll start to fight again? Once we fill up all the farmland? Or once there are too many of us, and the humans can't make enough medicine to keep us from getting sick? We'll start pushing each other off cliffs and throwing spears at each other?"

"No." Alex shook her head. "It we started fighting each other, it would be far more terrible. Imagine if the pegasi who make sure our crops always have enough rain sent a storm on some other city? Or... what a unicorn's magic could do. And if anypony attacked the humans-" It was her turn to shiver at that. Somehow, she suspected that the HPI had indeed prepared for that eventuality. Like almost every problem the HPI attempted to solve, their answer was probably nuclear.

"But it doesn't have to come to that!" She nudged Amy on the shoulder, attracting her attention as best she could despite her small size. It worked. "We don't have to be primitive. People have lived together with groups that weren't like them before, and they aren't the only animals who ever did it either. If ponies want to be better than that, all we need are enough ponies who want to. Ponies who do everything they can to find a peaceful solution to their problems, even when violence seems easier. But... I'd relax."

She smiled bitterly, leaning back against the metal plating of the aircraft. "It will take hundreds of years before there's enough ponies for anything big. You won't ever have to see it."

"You will." She sniffed, looking away. "Mom was your best friend, but she got older and now you two don't see each other as much. Even though she knows better, she sometimes talks about you like a little filly. That's... probably why you don't spend as much time at our house as you used to."

Alex sat frozen, staring at the wall. She hardly even noticed Taylor's voice over the radio, or the fact they were now traveling vertically.

"So you made me your best friend. We spent so much time together when I was growing up! But... I'm getting older too." She kicked her book away, towards Alex. "In a few years I'll just be another one of these books to you. Just another memory."

It was all she could do to shake her head, which Amy ignored. At least by not arguing it couldn't get any worse.

It got worse. "You know why I haven't found a stallion yet?" She had a pretty good guess. "Cuz' if I do, then I'll change just like mom did! And all you have to do is hang around and act all nice, and you'll get yourself a perfect little replacement! Is that what you're gonna do, Archive? Just keep moving from one filly to another? Replacing us when we get old? I'm just Cloudy Skies number two!" She turned her flank towards Alex, shouting through her tears. "I'm so sorry, Princess Archive! Just a few more months, and I promise I'll pop you out my replacement! I'm sorry I've wanted to stay friends too much-"

Lonely Day could make no sense of the rest of it through her own tears, which had begun to flow freely by then. She backed away as far as she could, until her flank collided with a stacked pile of lumber. The world melted into a hundred blue rainbows, and she found herself unable to stop. After all, at least some of what Amy said was true.

"I... I..." She couldn't form words, couldn't force her mouth through the shapes that would lead to a reply. What was she supposed to say? "You're one of my best friends, Amy! Just 'cuz your mom... just ‘cuz Sky and I used to be this close doesn't... doesn't mean..." She couldn't even form a reply. Instead she melted into a weak little pile, whimpering and useless.

Time passed. Alex was conscious of little then, fleeing into the many-roomed mansion of her mind. Lonely Day had stood against the forces of hell and faced death without fear. That was nothing to hearing such awful things from her friends. There was no defense, nothing she could do but accept the truth and not argue the rest. She deserved every word of it, especially the parts that weren't true.

"Alex, I... I didn't mean all that." Amy nudged her with one of her wings. Alex couldn't even see her face through her own tears, though she tried. "It's not your fault mom's been so hard. It's not- It isn't right for me to take it out on you."

She shook her head. "You have every right to hate me, Amy. I'm a freak. If you don't wanna be my friend-"

She felt Amy lifting her into an embrace like a filly, and she didn't resist. "It's not your fault I'm scared."

Alex blinked. Over the next few minutes, she found herself recovering enough to speak. This was good, since their aircraft had nearly arrived. This would be bad enough without involving Taylor too. "It's... You were never your mom's replacement," she eventually said. "Sky always wanted to forget humans. But you... you're more interested than anypony I know. You like to read as much as I do... spent time with me at the library... Sky never would've done those things. You can both be my friend without you replacing her, or her replacing you, or... anything like that."

"Oh." The mare relaxed, releasing her.

Alex staggered for a few seconds, trying to force herself back into calmness. She had cried enough that she actually had a little success now. "If I wasn't your friend, I wouldn't have invited you." She walked past the mare, resting her side against her lumber in a way that was almost loving. "I don't show this place to just anypony. Oliver, Sky, Blacklight, Taylor... and now you. That's it. Nopony else in Alexandria."

"Not even Cody?"

She shook her head. "You kidding me? That stallion's like Joseph; his head is always too buried in some technical problem to see the point of a little honest work."

As she spoke, the pneumatic door to the cockpit hissed and Taylor emerged. She was still in her uniform, though she had traded the heavier version for a white tee-shirt and some shorts.

"Just what are we doing?" Amy looked between Taylor and the lumber and Alex's sincere expression and seemed to register only confusion from their synthesis.

Alex found herself smiling. "Let's go find out."

* * *

Somewhere in the bluffs of northern Oregon was a house.

The house was ordinary; two stories, modern picture windows, with a concrete drive and conservatively painted walls. What made the home strange was its surroundings. Its driveway held no automobile and connected only to forest, which spread around it in all directions. It seemed as though a single member of an identical housing track had been lifted through time and planted in the wilderness.

Yet it hadn't been moved. A careful investigation of the surrounding area would prove the house's neighbors were still there, so much as time had spared. Here and there a chimney rose from the soil, or a few half-rotten beams stuck out from the ground at the odd angles they had fallen. Glass and stainless steel survived more or less intact where they had fallen, though most of this more durable debris had been covered with a thick layer of plant detritus.

Thus was the fate of most of the country's residential structures, particularly in areas frequented by rain and snow. Careful maintenance by humans could keep a house intact for hundreds of years. A few decades of neglect was enough to decimate residential areas in wet climates.

Yet where all its neighbors were scarcely recognizable, this one home remained unchanged by the slow devastation of time around it. The cultivated little wood of pine trees, along with a layer of camouflage tarps surrounding the property, were enough to make it completely invisible at all but the closest distances.

The house had a large backyard, large enough that a Swallow could land without more than the standard automated coordination. Once on the ground, the ramp opened, and three ponies emerged from within.

"This is..." Amy stopped, frozen as she took in the structure. "A house? We came out here for a house?"

"My house," Alex agreed, dragging a cargo lifter in her teeth. With a few gestures the first pallet lifted on hydraulic pressure, and she wheeled it down the ramp. She only stopped when she had it on the ground, panting all the while. "More accurately, it's my mom's house, though my younger brother and older sister lived here too. I was the only one who actually made it on their own. Sister went to university and ended up getting dragged back, and my brother... I think he might've taken a little too much after my dad." She shivered once, then shook her head.

"Doesn't matter." She pushed the hydraulic lifter towards Amy. "You try. Just don't knock over the paint. I don't want to fly all the way back to Alexandria to buy more."

"What?" The pegasus mare spread her wings in confusion, pacing about on her hooves. "I don't... why..." She gestured up at the Swallow. "Alex, if the HPI still respects you enough to let us fly around in their fancy airplanes, why couldn't they spare any of their fancy drones to do manual labor?"

She shrugged. "They tried, but I said no." She turned away from her friends, walking closer along the manicured lawn. "When my family comes back and the house is still standing, I want it to be because I kept it here. Besides, I know I might not be able to count on the HPI forever. If I ever cease to be useful, I'll have to do everything myself. That's why we're using as much pony-made materials as we can. It might take ten millennia for them to come back. I can't count on the HPI to stick around to help me all that time."

"She's just sayin' that cuz she's a masochist." Taylor made her way down the ramp, dragging another pallet and setting it down beside the first. This one was full of nails and bags of concrete. "Look at this crap, not even letting us use robots to unload. Like she's out of ancient history or something."

"When men were men!" Alex agreed. "And mares were mares! Er- Maybe there are better expressions." She glanced towards the house, where smoke was already rising from the fireplace. "You think the old man is waiting for us?"

"With as often as he's been complaining about the floor this last week, you can bet your flank on it." She gestured. "Go on ahead if you like; I see him often enough. I can finish unloading while you introduce your latest victim."

Alex gestured, and Amy followed her towards the porch. "Old man? There are humans here?" Her whole body tensed with excitement at the idea, and she started bouncing as much as walking.

"After a fashion." She stopped at the door, knocking with a hoof. Not that the old man could've missed the sound of the Swallow landing, even with its much quieter drive-system. "Like Taylor."

"Oh." She deflated a little. "I guess that's cool too."

The door swung open with a faint glow of orangish magic. Within stood a unicorn, dressed from head-to-hoof in an HPI civilian uniform. He hardly looked old, except for a shock of gray in his otherwise lime-green mane. "Edward Clark." She saluted with one hoof, though the gesture was far more a casual greeting than anything that would've passed in the militia.

"No need for that, Alex. Who's this? Didn't feel like tearing out the floor on your own?" He looked at Amy. "You're kinder than I."

"Amy, this is Edward Clark, emeritus director of the Human Preservation Initiative. Mr. Clark, this is Amy."

Amy's hoof began to shake as she lifted it, though Clark was supposed to be the old one.

"Just Amy? No 'Running Stream' or 'Flogging Molly' or something like that?"

She found her voice. "Just Amy. That's enough name for me, Mr. Clark."

"Very good." He stepped out of the way, exposing the interior of the house. They followed him inside, into a space as authentically human as anything in the museum. It seemed like the house's owner was in the process of rebuilding every piece of furniture and accoutrement for ponies, one piece at a time. Some of the counters were absurdly tall, while others seemed to fit them perfectly. The kitchen table had chairs at their perfect level, while the one in the dining room seemed built for giants.

Little of the house seemed lived-in. The open door to the downstairs office revealed the entirety of Clark's living quarters, a tiny cot surrounded by various computer consoles and flexible displays that certainly couldn't have existed in the period the house had been built. "Only rations for me to offer you, I'm afraid." He opened the fridge, which was empty except for identical plastic bottles with different-colored caps. "No time for cooking, you know." He levitated a pair of green-capped bottles towards the two of them, twisting their tops off as he did so.

"What is this?" Amy took the bottle in one of her hooves, sniffing at it. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "You can't really eat this!"

Alex downed her own in a single long gulp. "It's what humans live on these days, Amy. Preparing food is a luxury for surface-dwellers." She tossed her empty bottle into the waste bin. "Which you are, Mr. Clark. I said I'm fine with you using the kitchen. Last time I was in Bountiful I saw plenty of real food."

Alex watched Amy take her first few sips, grinning at her reaction. Evidently the pressure to be polite and the hunger from the flight was greater than her disgust, because she got it all down.

"Most of them do. It never made sense to me, though. I spend twenty years getting used to this stuff, and now I'm food-independent. Why go back to wasting time? I can get more for my chits drinking this than I could buying produce in Bountiful."

"And now you see why we brought so much food with us."

Amy nodded, tossing her own empty bottle into the bin. "I've read about all the big cities... I've never heard of a place called Bountiful."

"Big cities." Clark looked Amy over then, as though he was seeing her for the first time. "Ponies all look young to me... you're second generation, aren't you?" Amy spluttered, but he just patted her on the shoulder and smiled like a grandfather. "Nobody who ever saw what cities are supposed to be would ever call anything that's on Earth now a city."

"Bountiful isn't on any maps, Amy. We won't even be allowed to go there unless you're sworn to secrecy."

"And you wouldn't want to live there." Taylor came in dragging a wheeled plastic crate that had all their perishables chilling inside. She nodded to Clark as she passed, plopping it down in front of the fridge and clicking it open.

"She could if she wanted to." Alex stepped forward to help, shoving Clark's sorted rows of Soylent one and all into the crisper drawers. "She doesn't have any children. I don't think you'd be happy there, Amy. You can judge for yourself I guess, but..."

"Nobody's told me what this place even is. Not that you told me where we are now. Stupid planes never having windows." Amy sat on her haunches, glaring around the room. "Why am I here, Alex? Is it to help you fix your house, or feel confused about secret places I've never heard of?"

Alex stopped unloading, hurrying over to embrace Amy from the side. "Hey, relax. You're so smart I forget you're actually a new recruit into this whole business." She glanced down at her communicator, then up at Edward. "Is my car still in the garage? I think I'll take Amy into town. The floor will still be here for us to tear out tomorrow." She nodded shyly towards Taylor. "If you're okay unloading without us."

She shrugged. "Your show. I can't bring it inside without you two helping, though. But if it doesn't rain we should be okay."

"None scheduled until tomorrow night," Edward cut in, moving over to Alex. He lowered his voice. "If you take her, you're responsible for her."

"She's honest." Alex didn't hesitate a second before she spoke. "I can't be everywhere at once, Clark. We need friends."

"I trust your judgement." He relaxed. "Don't scratch it. It's my car. Should be a blindfold in the glove compartment. Come and get me if there isn't, I'll find something."

"Got it. Come on Amy, I'll explain on the way."

She had to lift herself up onto her hind-legs to open the garage door, but Alex didn't have trouble with dexterity anymore.

A rugged little vehicle waited in the garage where some pre-Event hulk had doubtless been rusting before. Its closest analogue to human vehicles was a dune-buggy, its suspension high and thick wheels large enough to grip and roll over most obstructions. It was enclosed however, and the entire roof was covered with semitransparent solar cells.

Alex waved her wrist at the rear of the car, and both doors sprung open. There were only two seats inside, along with a large flat cargo area. She hopped into the driver's seat while Amy clambered in beside her, and both doors shut on their own.

"Welcome back, Alex," came a soothing female voice from the controls. Her seat adjusted automatically, moving as far forward as it would go. The controls consisted of a large projection screen on the huge windshield, which made the whole front of the vehicle appear to melt into the wall of the garage.

"It's alive?" Amy stared around her in wide-eyed wonder. The exact same expression she'd had the first time she rode a hummingbird. "I didn't know the HPI could make living machines!"

"They can't." Alex gestured to the glove-compartment, one of the few sections of plastic that wasn't part of the projection. "There's a blindfold in there, Amy. I have to make you put it on. Nopony's allowed to know where Bountiful is unless they're a citizen."

Amy nodded and began to comply, though she didn't look happy. "So you're a citizen?"

The garage door began to retract at her gesture. "No! They just couldn't hide it from me. It's a whole city of former humans. I can see where it is in my sleep."

She leaned forward. "Hey Athena, take us to Bountiful."

"Of course Alex," said the computer. "Designation set for 'Bountiful.' Your route will take forty-eight minutes to complete, is that okay?"

"Yes."

"Okay, I'm wearing your stupid blindfold." The vehicle began to move, though there was little engine noise. Only the occasional hiss of compressed hydrogen, and the whir of electric motors. "I think you can tell me where we're going now. I've had enough with secrets."

"It'll be easier to show you when we get there, but I can tell you some things." Alex rolled sideways, so she could look towards Amy. It wasn't as though she had to do anything to drive. "You know more than most ponies about humans. You already know they don't live as long as ponies do."

At her nod, she continued. "Well there's no room for humans to get old in the HPI's bunker. It would be positively stupid to let yourself get old and die over a century too early when there's another option. A few still do... but most don't. Problem is, ponies are dangerous. They concentrate magic, which makes an area more and more dangerous for humans."

"Bountiful is the solution. Think of it like the second half of the Raven City bunker, where all the elderly go instead of dying."

"That makes sense. What's the point of keeping it secret, then? Wouldn't they be better off if they worked together with the other colonies?"

"Yes, they could be. If their priority was having a prosperous settlement. That isn't their goal, though. It's hard for us to understand life in Raven – just realize they're completely dedicated to keeping humanity alive. Everything they do is about that – including making great personal sacrifices."

"They stay hidden for the same reason Raven stays hidden. They're afraid ponies will want to take what they have." She gestured at the car they were riding in. "Bountiful is an extension of Raven City; it's a technological, human city. Even if no humans live there."

"That sounds wonderful, Alex! Like a dream!" She reached out, running her hoof along the door, though she had not removed the blindfold.

"Maybe." She frowned. "It serves its purpose. I don't agree with all their policy decisions, but it's worked so far. Not everypony from Raven wants to live there. Some of them, like Taylor, want to live real lives of their own when they're done with their time in Raven. Lots of those are living in Alexandria now, and you wouldn't even know to look at them."

"I wouldn't mind working to save humanity." Amy sat back, leaning into the chair. "That sounds better than the museum."

"Wait until you've seen it."

Chapter 8: Bountiful Day (50 AE)

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"You can take the blindfold off now." Alex leaned back in her seat, so she could see Amy's reaction. She had been to Bountiful plenty of times herself, it had no wonders for her. But for her friend...

Amy tugged on the blindfold, and her jaws fell open. Alex heard her gasp, letting her awe wash over her along with the flashing lights and colors. Alex remembered her first visit. It was good to see that emotion shared.

Bountiful was a city of steel and stone, as the old cities had been. In some ways it was like driving a car through Raven City: steel walls and bright lights and people in jumpsuits. Bountiful was Raven at scale, not compact like a space-ship. The city was not large. The entire collection of homes and factories and vertical farms took up a single valley, sheltered by mountains on either side. The whole valley was perpetually overcast by a blanket of angry clouds that never quite rained.

Yet for all it was like a pre-Event city, it was also fifty years more advanced. For every pony they passed, there were at least three robotic drones, either driving cargo along the road, or zipping through the air between buildings. Alex took them past "city hall", so named because it held most of the computational power.

Almost all the structures they passed looked big enough for humans, which meant they would be big enough for all but the most unfortunate of the transformed. Amy seemed able to form coherent words again, because she asked, "This is... how... how can this exist?"

Alex tapped the screen. "Athena, could you please drive us through the factory district? Get a good view for Amy. Take it slow, if that won't slow down any of your trucks."

"It will slow them down," said the voice. "I find the minor delay in this case acceptable."

"Psh. You want to show off and we both know it." Alex nudged Amy, gesturing outside at a driverless cargo truck. "See Amy, the HPI use a single system for all this stuff. Every vehicle you see, all the machines in every building you don't see, they're all part of the ATHENA network."

"So it was alive?"

"I am not alive. I am a distributed intelligence network, connected to this device and many others by way of radio and satellite communication."

"Athena is too modest." Alex rested a hoof on the controls. "I guess I wasn't forthright with you when I said they can't build living machines, Amy. They made Athena." She turned from her friend to the car itself. "Athena, what is the definition of alive?"

"The condition that distinguishes organisms from inorganic objects and dead organisms, being manifested by growth through metabolism, reproduction, and the power of adaptation to environment through changes originating internally."

"Athena, if you think about it you've been alive since we first launched you up there. You're constantly growing through nuclear and solar-powered metabolism. You reproduce... You make your own decisions about how to adapt to your environment. You've been doing it for decades. If I remember the stories, you sent the signal to us, even though that hadn't been in your programming."

They drove past the factories then, a dozen buildings of roughly similar shape. Sleepless machines labored within, the heartbeat of Bountiful’s iron blood.

"It was not an error." Athena had never expressed emotion to Alex, and she didn't now. No matter what she was saying, it was always flat and neutral. Yet even so, Alex imagined emotion behind the words as she heard them now. "I observe my directives."

She was a little taken aback by that response. Amy didn't seem to have noticed. "I meant that as a complement, Athena. I meant to highlight your capacity for reason." The synthesized voice said no more, so she continued. "You'll get to know Athena quite well if you spend enough time here, Amy. She runs everything."

"Sounds amazing."

"Oh, did I mention the part where she enslaves you and makes you into her robot maid?"

"That sounds-" Amy finally looked back, glaring. "You made that part up."

"Just making sure you're listening." She gestured at the factory. "So I made that part up. You can see Athena doesn't need our labor anyway, so there wouldn't be a point."

"Incorrect," the voice said, though as without emotion as ever. "Human survival cannot presently be achieved. Fulfilling my directive requires that humans and quadrupedal derivatives create the missing technologies."

"Well, you heard her." Alex grinned. "Clothiers first Athena, if you please." Her ears flattened in sudden embarrassment. "You might've noticed that everypony here is dressed all the time. If we get out of this car, well... we'll stand out. So let's get you an authentic Bountiful jumpsuit, then maybe we can find a cafe or something. Hell, grass would be better than liquid rations for dinner."

Amy didn't blush. She admired humans, but Cloudy brought her up in a household that had never known modesty. She had no conception of the embarrassment that Alex felt. "Ask me to come out here with you alone, and now you’re inviting me to dinner?" She nudged Day with one hoof, who only retreated further. Unfortunately, she could go no further than the door. "If I didn't know better, I'd swear you were taking me on a date."

Alex struck her back on the shoulder, as hard as she dared. "I'm too old for you, Amy. Don't even think about it." Athena stopped the car then, saving her from any further embarrassment. "Or I make you pay for your own crap. They use chits here too..."

Amy beamed. "That's great! That means I can buy souvenirs!"

They didn't buy souvenirs (forbidden cities didn't have gift shops). They did pick up jumpsuits, all light fabrics and Velcro fastenings. Civilian jumpsuits were short-sleeved, with a tail-hole that made wearing them bearable.

No matter how fancy Bountiful might look, it was still a small city with a small population. There were only a few restaurants.

She took Amy to one of the vertical farms, the one that grew most of the "real" food that Bountiful citizens ate. "Are you sure this is the right place?" Amy asked, staring at the building as they approached. Its windows were so clear she almost couldn't see them, except where metal supports held everything together.

"Absolutely." They stepped inside the first floor, a bustling grocer filled with ponies and others, herbivore and omnivore alike. They walked past refrigerated cells filled with identical plastic crates. Amy slowed as they walked through, attracting polite stares from the other customers. "Come on... it's just a supermarket..."

"But those were oranges!" Amy protested. "Those aren't in season! How can they-"

Alex hurried her into the elevator at the end of the room, which closed and began to rise. "Just look." The walls of the elevator were glass, and proudly displayed the interior of the farm itself. The second floor held tanks of fish and algae. Beyond those were racks and racks of vegetables, or single branches of fruit trees. Each was set into clear substrate gel and tended by drones that rolled through the narrow aisles.

"We had only just started building these when the Event happened," Alex explained, shrugging one shoulder. "They're not quite as efficient as an earth pony farm. But because they grow straight through winter, they actually produce faster than we can."

"Why don't..." Amy stammered, as they continued to rise. The elevator was not fast. "Why don't they teach ponies in other cities how to build these? Why don't they have earth ponies running them, wouldn't that make them even better? Why-"

Alex reached up with a hoof, closing Amy's mouth. "Instead of asking all those questions, why don't you think about the answers yourself? Ask me if you can't figure it out." They reached the roof.

Amy didn't answer for a long time. Not as they took a table near the edge of the roof, not as they ordered or chatted about nothing in particular. It got darker above as night approached. Lights just got brighter all around them, and the city continued uninterrupted.

"I think I get what's been bothering me," Amy finally said, when their meal was done and their plates were empty. "If the HPI can build all this amazing stuff, why aren't we all living this way. It's not just the farms! If we could live this way, maybe we could help them with their inventing! Unless ponies just aren't as smart as humans-"

"Nothing like that!" Alex answered, scooting a little closer to Amy in her chair. "Understand I wasn't part of the decision." At Amy's nod, she continued. "Consider the cost in resources." She gestured off the roof at the structures around them. "The HPI stockpiled to build this place before the event. It was intended to be right on top of Raven, and to expand as the anti-thaumic technology got better."

"They didn't come up with any big leaps in shielding, but they did end up with a way to keep their people alive longer. Well, Sunset Shimmer did." She shrugged. "But no matter who's living here, the supplies used to build this place are all gone. Repairs are all made with scavenged or recycled stuff, which is why the HPI still trades for scrap. As I understand it, that's the biggest limiting factor. The HPI could never build like this at a global scale. Even if they wanted to share, we just don't have the industry to produce the raw materials."

Amy considered that, then nodded. "So they're going to wait... until we can make the things they need. Until we've got better factories. I guess that makes sense. That's why the HPI has technical consultants flying around. They want us all to start making the things that humans used to make in the old world."

"It might be a long, long time before that happens. Their estimates suggest it might be hundreds and hundreds of years. It takes millions and millions of ponies to make an advanced economy. At the present rate..." she trailed off. Unless many more ponies started coming back, it would take more than a thousand years for the whole world to have enough.

She didn't say any of that. Oh no, she had an even more unpleasant truth to explain. "Just remember when you're here that Bountiful and Raven and everything else the HPI do isn't meant for everyone. They don't mind helping ponies, but... that's not what they set out to do. Their first priority is making sure humanity survives. It's so important to them that they have some pretty draconian ways of keeping ponies loyal once they're out. If you wanted to live here, you'd have to agree to all of it too."

That got her attention. "What measures?"

"You can’t have children." Alex gestured around them. "Notice how you haven't seen a foal since you got here? That's cuz everypony here is sterile. When a human in Raven gets to retire, they choose whether they want to live here or somewhere else like Taylor. If they don't stay, they can't ever come back. So far as I know, Taylor's the only exception, since she was part of the team that helped build it. Neither her nor me can be citizens, cuz we've both had at least one foal. For the ponies in Bountiful, Raven is their family."

"That's what you meant earlier..." Amy frowned down at her hooves. "That's why you said I could live here, but you couldn't. You think they'd let me move in with just your word? You didn't make it seem like they let their own people come back..."

She shrugged. "The mayor still owes me a favor. If you really wanted to move in, I'm sure I could set it up. It helps when your word is good. Plus..." She grinned. "If I told them how I knew, I know they wouldn't doubt me."

Amy was too far away to shove her, but she did glare from across the table. "You'd really do that?"

"Psh, like anypony would care. Sweating the little things is part of the culture I hope we leave in the past. Just don't decide yet. We're going to be here all summer. If you decide you want to live here after all once we leave, I'll arrange it." She rose to her hooves.

Amy nodded. "I can wait." She got to her hooves too. "I've read the novels. Is this the part where you take me to a movie?"

Lonely day rolled her eyes. "The movie usually comes before dinner. Actually, I thought you'd rather see the gaming league. It's what most people do for fun around here."

* * *

The gaming hall was ablaze with lights and music, far louder than anywhere else in the city. The line was so thick in fact that Alex gestured away, tugging Amy down another street.

"Hey don't leave the line!" Amy protested. "It shouldn't take more than an hour..."

Alex persisted. She might be young, but she was also an earth pony. A pegasus standing against her stubbornness was like a sandcastle standing against the tide. "There's a smaller arcade down another street."

Amy relented. "Is it as exciting as what everypony's in line for?"

"It's the same equipment." Once they were out of the line and walking down the street, Alex could hear herself think again over the thumping electronic music beyond. "It must be a tournament night, so if we went now you wouldn't even be able to play. You have to be on a ranked team for that."

"Tournaments are a big deal. Do ponies bet on them, like they do on races in Alexandria?"

She nodded. "Big time. The tournaments are the biggest way that Raven stays in contact with Bountiful. Teams have to be half human, half equine." As they walked, the crowds thinned very quickly, and they were soon on a street that was practically deserted. Alex hoped the arcade was even open on a tournament night.

"What kind of game is it exactly? It must be amazing if everyone likes it so much."

She shrugged. "It's a very thinly disguised training tool... but it can be pretty exciting. I really hope we can get them in Alexandria in a few centuries. Maybe remove a few of the, uh... scenarios." Like the ones involving hostile ponies attacking Raven. Those probably wouldn't do.

"You've played it?"

Alex nodded. "Only citizens can compete in the tournaments, but I've played smaller games when I visit. I bet you'll be better. It's all flying."

"You think we'll be able to play at the same time?"

Alex shrugged, walking up to the arcade door. It was lit inside, though she didn't see anypony actually moving about. She pushed, and the door swung in. It was open, then. She held the door open for her friend, then followed into the arcade.

Alex learned why the arcade hadn't been closed: Every single observation station had been taken, with little crowds milling around them. Evidently they weren't the first to give up watching tonight's games "in person".

"Hey Gordon!" She waved, hurrying over to the proprietor. The griffin froze, one claw on the rag he was using to clean his bar. Arcade this might be, but Bountiful had no children. She walked right up to the bar, then glanced over her shoulder. "Want anything?"

"Can you make a cosmopolitan?"

If Gordon's glare had been any harsher, it would've melted the ceiling tiles. "We don't have that." He reached behind the bar to a fridge, and drew out two different bottles. "Light or dark?"

"She wants light," Alex answered before she could, crossing the distance. "Me too." He grunted again, popping the lids open with an opener on the bar. He put a straw in each, then set them down at opposite corners of a six-drink carrier. Alex reciprocated by opening her satchel and depositing a few chits on the counter. Far more than the price of a drink.

"The rest is for two simulators until closing time. Do you have two next to each other anywhere?"

Gordon rolled his eyes. "Little lady, nobody's using any of my simulators." A wave of screams echoed from the other side of the room, along with dozens of pounding hooves on steel. "If you wanted an observation console, forget it." His eyes narrowed on Amy. "Non-citizen?"

"Yeah, but she's clear. She'll get her gauntlet tomorrow, it's just not in yet..."

"She breaks my simulator, you pay." His beak flashed. "Not cheap for a little lady."

It was her turn to roll her eyes. She tilted her satchel towards him, showing him all it contained. "Good enough?"

If he was shocked by what was inside, he made no sign of it. "Just don't break anything." He turned his back on them, and went right back to cleaning.

"Cool. Come on Amy." She took the carrier in her mouth, leading her friend towards the back of the room. She took a stairwell down into the "banquet area," where ponies could have parties and so-on. There were machines in here too, along with several empty tables. It was much quieter down here, not another pony in sight. Alex found two machines beside each other in the very corner of the room, and set the bottles down on a low table.

Alex took the straw out and spat it to the floor, before taking the whole bottle in her teeth and tilting backward. She didn't actually take that long a sip; Gordon didn't make anything weak or watered down, and she didn't drink often. Even so, the Alex that had been simply would not allow her to drink ale through a straw. That much of her old self had survived these fifty years.

"Take it slow with that stuff," she said, flicking her tail towards the table. "You can get beer like it in Alexandria, but you probably never have. If you like it, you can try the stout next time. It's too much for me."

Amy giggled. "You still take a few ounces of coffee in your milk in the morning, don't you?"

"It's called a Blondie." Her ears flattened, and Alex hurried past her to the machines. Her pride was somewhat eased by the choking gasp that came from behind her as Amy tasted real ale for the first time. There was a reason Alex hadn't chosen a table too close to any of the machines.

"Alright Alex, enough putting it off." She climbed up beside one of the machines. "Show me how to play!"

The simulator was easily long enough for a human to lie in without a limb sticking out, its central section raised and padded. Most of the rest of the mechanism folded away when not in use, except for the sensor dome meant for the user's head.

"Climb onto that. Stick your legs out, and hold still. If you move too fast, you'll break something and I'll probably have to blow the whole summer's budget to get it fixed.”

Amy stepped up, resting her underbelly on the soft padding. These things might not be sanitary in Alexandria, but here every user would be fully dressed, themselves not exempt. "What's-" She didn't even finish asking before servos began to whine from all around her.

"Occupant not recognized," the simulator said, in Athena's voice. "Pegasus, female adult. Should wing control module be configured?"

"Yes." Lonely Day answered before Amy could. "Use the standard control scheme otherwise. She wants all defaults."

"Acknowledged." The base of the machine opened, even as the bench itself shrunk down, fitting itself better to her body and nothing else. Each hoof received a thick glove, which tightened just enough to be rigid. Delicate manipulators clipped sensors to the edge of each wing.

Only when this was done did the sensor portion lower itself down over Amy's face, the whole thing folding over her and sealing her inside like a metallic insect. "Don't freak out, Amy!" she called though the simulator. "If you ever want to leave, just tell your simulator to ‘disengage’ and hold still ‘til it finishes. I'll be right behind you!"

Alex took another long draw from her bottle, then hopped up onto the neighbor machine. She scanned her gauntlet, and it asked no further questions of her. After just a few seconds she was as tightly enclosed as Amy.

The whole world was gone, replaced instead with a void. The simulator masked all outside light and sound. It tried to be as neutral in temperature and as comfortable as well, so that the occupant could focus entirely on the images projected within. When it first activated though, all she saw was the void.

She gave a few vocal instructions, ordering her stimulator connected to Amy's and placing the both of them on a team. She instructed the simulator to load the tutorial, then sat back as it washed over them.

Space appeared before her, seen from a hypothetical camera inside a fictional ship. She had already seen this tutorial, but Amy hadn't, so she sat as patiently as she could. A voice explained that their civilization was aiming for the stars, and that the skills to fly both in and out of atmosphere would need to be universal. It reiterated that the simulation was as accurate to the design and behavior of real and fictional ships as possible.

She slept through the operating instructions. Each race had its own slight variation, using each available limb in order to get maximum dexterity. So far as she was concerned, earth ponies and unicorns had it the worst (magic wasn't permitted).

Still, you could learn. Nothing like the dexterity of a pair of hands, but... she managed. Alex enjoyed coming to this arcade far more than the tournaments (she couldn't ever compete anyway, so what was the point of watching?). She could pilot most HPI drones, aircraft, or hypothetical spacecraft with competence now, though nothing like the effortless multitasking of Taylor or Moriah's grace.

Eventually the tutorial was over, and their first scenario began. Alex's ship appeared "around" her, a little mining probe not unlike the ones Athena used now. She scanned the horizon and found an escort fighter not far away, it's path erratic in the void.

"Lonely Day to Surefire, come in Surefire!"

"Amy here." She sounded annoyed. "Took long enough. Are you this stupid octopus-looking thing?"

"Roger, Surefire." She giggled. "You heard the mission parameters. A transport shuttle requested our help, and we're the closest ships there are."

"I was listening!" She groaned over the radio. "You don't have to talk so silly."

"It's fun, over." Alex accelerated her little probe, folding in all its mining extensions as she did so. She had done all the starting scenarios and their every detail was ingrained in her mind, but that didn't matter. She was here so Amy could have fun.

"If the earth pony gets drunk before I do, this night is going to be even crazier than I thought," Amy replied.

Alex still had most of the bottle. She had no intention of getting herself drunk in public. She was here to enjoy the arcade! "This earth pony needs you to protect her drone. If you think this simulator is going to take it easy on us just cuz it's the first level, think again. Got the controls down?"

"Let's find out."

Amy was no Moriah, but she was a fast learner and willing to keep trying when they failed at first.

It was a good night.

* * *

"I don't understand... we have to tear out all of this?" Amy gestured at the floor. "Why? It looks just fine to me."

"Oh, it looks just fine," Edmond agreed. "But live here for more than a night, and you'll start smelling the mold. We had some flooding a few years ago, and it got into the whole floor. See the warping there? If we don't tear it all out soon, it could spread. Frankly it's a miracle it hasn't already."

Alex dropped the mallet from her mouth onto the pile of tools they had carried inside. "It's what we're here for, Amy. Or... one of the reasons."

Taylor already had a mask on her face, and she tossed the rest at their hooves. "I warned you you were coming to be slave labor. Should've said no while we were still in Alexandria."

Day glared at her, even as she took one of the masks in her mouth and turned sideways so Edmond would notice her. He did, and with a little glow of magic the elastic straps cinched tight around her ears. "If you would rather spend today hauling supplies into the storage shed, you could always do that. Taylor and I could probably start on the floor."

It was already late afternoon, and the interior of the house was transformed. Plastic had been hung on most surfaces, as well as blocking off access to uncontaminated areas. All the windows and doors were open, even if that meant they couldn't air condition the place in the sweltering heat. Better to be sweaty than cooped up with the spores they were about to be letting loose.

"Yeah, have the weakest pony do the hardest manual labor. That makes perfect sense." She pulled her mask on, then glared at them. "Just show me where to start."

Clark did not stoop to physical labor, despite his more than satisfactory grasp of levitation. He did circle around them like a helicopter, offering orders cloaked as suggestions at every stage. He was right about the mold, and they built a growing pile in the backyard of half-rotten hardwood. Alex would not allow the use of power tools, and as such they had only made a dent in the floor when they ran out of daylight.

A brief swim in the nearby pond served as a good rinse for sweat and spores both, before the three exhausted mares retired to a single upstairs bedroom to eat popcorn and watch the movies Alex had promised using an old projector. Old enough that Alex kept the movies in 35mm reels and sometimes had to make transfers in the middle of the movie.

Of course, nopony really paid much attention, Alex least of all. The joy of old movies had been stolen from her with the gift of a perfect memory. Only her first post-Equestria viewing of any given film held magic for her, so just as with books she continued to hold back films she hadn't seen to use as little rewards for herself during special occasions.

She had no such films tonight, but that didn't matter. What she had instead was friends, which were much better. "I don't see why you bother with all this effort," Amy said, over the exaggerated screams coming from whatever was on. "You want to see your family when they come back, I understand that. Couldn't you just let this house rot away, but put up a stone plaque or something telling your family what happened? You could even get Athena to leave a drone here just watching it all the time. I'm sure she could spare one camera."

Lonely Day shrugged. "I'm sure that would work."

"Not to mention," Amy continued, "you have no way of knowing how long it's going to take. If you just go with the odds then it's probably going to be at least five thousand years before they show up, maybe more. You could skip the first thousand years and not do anything and there'd only be a teeny chance you missed them."

She nodded. "That's true too. But..." It took her a few moments to find words. On the screen, a black-and-white zombie finished devouring some hapless victim, and advanced towards the frame. "It just feels like something I ought to do. I'm not some Alicorn princess, and I can't just wave my horn and make things great for everypony who comes back. I can't be all over the place at once, or even get around faster than a Hummingbird flies. I..."

It was very hard to explain. She wasn't even sure if what she did with this house was something she would've done no matter what, or if it was just what her nature as Archive demanded she do. Preserve, protect, remember. "Read the Equestrian books, and you see that ponies were a race of heroes. A few of 'em... the princesses, Elements of Harmony and so-on... solved all the big problems for the huge majority. Without those heroes, the majority were helpless in a crisis."

The older pegasus nodded. "I guess so. But what does that have to do with your house?"

"Humans were the other way around," Archive continued, as though she hadn't been interrupted. "We lived our lives on the small scale just like Equestrian ponies did. But when a real big problem came around, we didn't have any heroes. We couldn’t all hide away and let some larger-than-life Alicorn come around and turn our enemy to stone."

"Instead, every person did a little. And all those drops together could put people on the Moon, or rebuild a country, or wipe out a disease. My house is... my little drop. It's what I wish I could do for everypony. But since I can't, I'd be damned if I didn't do it for the people I love. We've got radio broadcasts and leaflets and scouts to try and find as many returning ponies as we can, but... for my family, I'm going to make sure the transition is as seamless as possible. Hope to God they all come back together, but if not... they won't be cold, they won't be hungry, and they won't be alone."

Taylor sighed. She'd been silent through their conversation, but now she looked wistful. "You're so lucky you don't have anybody to miss, Amy. This 'Preservation Spell' is the fucking pits."

They were both silent for several seconds, though it was Amy who replied first. "Who are you waiting for, Taylor?"

The earth pony sniffed, glaring down at the ground. "Mostly... Mostly my twin sister Becky. When we were growing up... we were always together."

Alex inhaled sharply, drawing away from Taylor on the couch. It made no difference. The mare spoke, and in her mind she saw a forest, a frayed tire swing over a pond, and a pair of freckled faces.

"We both went air force. I went engineering, she ends up deployed flying transport missions in the asscrack of nowhere. Now..." She made no attempt to fight back the tears. "I'll never see her again. Hell, she could have come back years ago and I wouldn't know."

"She hasn't." Archive spoke without meaning to, without even considering her words. "Your sister hasn't come back yet. I'd know it if she had."

Taylor looked up, eyes still red and swollen. She didn't look angry so much as shocked by the remark. She sniffed harshly, then shook her head. "I a-appreciate that Alex, but... you don't know that. Nobody can. I ch-checked already, her last assignment was an airbase in Afghanistan. Unless you... travel more than I think you do..."

She still didn't know where the thoughts were coming from, but she didn't fight them. Knowledge spilled into her, as much through Taylor's belief and willing friendship as anything Archive was. Taylor hadn't ever talked about her life before the Event, few in the HPI did. Unlike the rest of humanity, having their lives stolen from them, every member of the HPI had agreed to abandon everyone they knew, fully expecting them to die. That was why she had never brought up the subject before.

"Becky always swore she was taller than you were, even thought she wasn't. She used to..." Archive sniffed. Seeing these memories carried the same pain that Taylor was feeling. She understood the agony of guilt that Taylor lived with every single day. "... she used to call you Tally. When you were in high school, your boyfriend Dwyane from across town dumped you a few days before homecoming. Becky stayed up all night making-"

Archive hadn't noticed Amy getting out of the way, hadn't noticed Taylor approaching until she closed her mouth with a hoof, preventing her from going on. Tears streamed uncontrolled from her eyes. She opened her mouth, but mostly awkward squeaking noises came out. "H-How... How do..."

Archive met her eyes without fear. "You started thinking about her, and I can see her," she explained. "I feel... what you feel." The shelves of her imagined library rose around them, at least to her mind. She could see a human face, still bright with youth, red hair short and a helmet on her head. She could hear the sound of her voice. "I can't actually talk to her. But I know her, the way she knows herself. If... I think if she could see what you've done, she'd be really proud."

That was too much for Taylor. She wrapped her forelegs around Alex like she was a doll, tugging her close and squeezing her hard. She rocked back and forth, muttering incoherently.

But not for long. Soon enough she shoved Alex roughly away, looking more collected. "Th-Thank you, Archive. Sometimes I forget... you make it easy to forget. But I've never seen you..."

Archive nodded. "I'm learning. I don't... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to violate your privacy. I need to... learn to control this somehow..."

"Don't apologize." Taylor rose to her hooves, switching off the projector. "It just took me by surprise, that's all. Nopony's even said her name in... forty years. More." She sniffed. "I just wish I'd had the chance to say goodbye."

Archive rose as well. Taylor’s emotions were fading from her perception, which was just as well. It hurt enough to know the pain she had just caused without feeling all of that pain as well. "If you ever feel like leaving a message for her, I could memorize it for you. I might not find her, but... if anypony would..."

Taylor nodded. "That's... That's a great idea, Alex. I'll have to think about it. Give me a few... few years." She sniffed. "I'm going for a walk. You two... whatever." She fled down the stairs almost at a run, leaving Day and Amy alone.

The pegasus mare sat back down on the couch where she had been, though she didn't say anything for a good minute or so. "Could you help me understand what just happened?"

Day looked back, dropping onto her haunches. "I'm not completely sure," she admitted. "I didn't really understand what Celestia and Luna were doing when they made me. I thought I was gonna die, and somehow it was going to help make sure that humanity was remembered. That it would somehow stop time from coming by and erasing us in the new world. I'd seen them wield such power, I thought..." she trailed off.

"If I really try, especially if a pony is like Taylor and cares about what humanity stood for... sometimes I see things. About the person they were, the life they had. The people they loved. I feel like this should be telling me something about what 'Archive' really is, but I don't know what."

Amy nodded. "Can you do me?"

Alex opened her mouth to object with the obvious: Amy wasn't from Old Earth. But then, she had never tried on a willing pony who had been born in her world. "I guess I could. Why don't you... tell me why you decided to work in the museum. Please don't say it was for me..."

"Of course not!" Amy didn't hit her, the mood was far too solemn for that. She glared, though her expression quickly relaxed. "It's cuz I cared about what you care about, though. Ponies came into Alexandria all the time, and it seemed like none of them wanted to talk about where they came from. Some of my brothers and sisters didn't even believe what they taught us in school. Some of their foals didn't even believe humans had existed. Not me, though. I always felt like..."

Archive had it. "Like you didn't belong. Like you were supposed to do something big and important but you were born too late. You never felt like you belonged. During the construction you would sneak down and walk through the exhibits..." Her eyes widened. "You talked to the statues!"

"Okay stop!" Amy did shove her now, enough that she stumbled. "I think I understand why you haven't done more with that power. That's invasive."

She shook her head. "You told me to!" She got up again, turning her back on Amy. "It really doesn't happen that often. I've probably spent years around Sky and she never once triggered whatever instinct they buried in my head."

"There isn't anything about her old life Mom wants to remember."

"Yeah." Alex walked past her, flicking off the light. Of course she didn't need the light to navigate in the bedroom. She wondered idly what her sister would think if she came back tonight. "Well, I'm exhausted. Tomorrow's going to be even harder work than today. You ought to sleep too, while you can. Work starts at sunrise."

"Yeah." Amy grumbled, tripped over a few things, and one of the other beds creaked. "Slave labor. Just like Taylor said."

"Taylor should've said indentured servant. Just last until summer's over, and you get to go home."

"If I even want to."

Chapter 9: Day of the Dead (50AE)

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The work took months; it always did. At the rate Alex was going, her family would return to a house far better than the one they had left behind. They put in the new floors, they redid more of the furniture to be sized better for pony bodies. They repainted, expanded the garden, and did maintenance on the septic system. All while making more and more frequent visits to Bountiful.

There were no longer resources to waste on frivolous calls home when so little of the satellite network remained intact. She couldn’t hire messengers to write home either, since of course no messenger knew of this house or the city that existed nearby. She had radio, but that too would’ve revealed her position if she kept at it. As such, she had no contact with Alexandria until winter, when the project ended and they flew home.

Alexandria had been transformed by the first snows, practically vanishing into the surrounding countryside. Aside from the train tracks, none of the surrounding roads had been cleared, leaving Alexandria as a single island of light and civilization in the darkness of winter. The airport had only one runway (and the parking lot) not covered with icy slick, and it was there they landed.

They walked together down the single lane of clear road back to town, Alex and Taylor occasionally propping up Amy when her less-steady pegasus limbs faltered. They parted ways once they got into town, where street and sidewalk alike were salted and cleaned daily by diligent labor and none had any trouble getting around. Amy did not fly home as she might’ve done by day: an equestrian’s weak night vision might be annoying on the ground, but it had proven lethal to more than one pegasus who flew about in the dark.

Alex made her way to the center of town under the bright amber of many streetlights. Her own home, however, was dark. The shutters were drawn, and the path covered in enough half-icy snow to suggest nopony had walked there since the snow had fallen. Alex was short, but the depth of the snowfall wasn’t terribly great. She made her way up to the door easily, and pushed it open. “Hello?”

Alex’s house was connected to the city’s CHP system, meaning the waste heat from their power plant went to keep the homes from freezing. Whatever strange desolation had come upon the place had not severed her connection from the city’s grid, and the inside was blisteringly hot. Instead of having nopony around to turn the air on, nopony had been around to turn it off.

Alex flicked on all the lights, and wasn’t surprised to see they still worked. All her bills were managed by a trust these days; whether she was in town or not.

At first, she suspected that the era of unlocked doors had ended in Alexandria and that her home had been robbed. She passed the study and found computers, anatomy books, and posters all missing. Nothing else was similarly missing however; her expensive paintings were still hanging exactly where they had been left in the living room. The old-but-functional appliances in her kitchen sat untouched.

Except for a letter on the kitchen table, a letter with her name written on the outside, written in Oliver’s handwriting. It wasn’t very long.

Alex: I took my stuff, you can have everything else. Please don’t visit unless you need a doctor. Good luck with your forever.
- Oliver Pittman

Alex stared at the note until her tears robbed her of her ability to read and smeared the letter into illegibility. She wandered the house like the survivor of a shipwreck, finding Oliver’s bedroom as empty as the study but everything else where it had been left. They were both adults after all, there was no reason for the end of their relationship to be messy and full of hard feelings.

Lonely Day wasn’t mad at Oliver, any more than her tears on the festival of that name were hard anger at Equestria. But just because a pain was inevitable didn’t mean it wasn’t painful. There was no rage, though rage would’ve helped her feel better. There were no indignities to redress when the offenses were all hers.

Where could she turn for peace? Her first thought, the only pony she thought might understand the pains immortality might cause, was Sunset Shimmer. But Sunset had her own life, and she couldn’t waste satellite time to have a crying voice-chat. Yet if she stayed alone in her own house and didn’t do anything, she would probably… do something she’d regret.

Alex ignored what little pre-Event alcohol she still had. Such luxuries were not for wasting on depression and wallowing, not anymore. Not when the alternative was a salty fermented swill that only vaguely resembled beer. She didn’t get her jacket, didn’t get her hat, just tossed off her cyber-gauntlet and stumbled out the door.

Alexandria was very cold in the dead of night, as might be expected when there was more than a foot of snow on the ground. Without cold weather gear only a pegasus would last in such conditions for long. Fortunately Lonely Day had magic, enough to take some of the molten blood of the Earth into herself and keep her blood flowing. The act was so natural to her it had become subconscious, or else she wouldn’t have done it. She hadn’t done anything else to prepare for her walk across the city in the middle of the night.

The lights in Cloudy Skies’s home were not on when she finally made it there, snow in her mane and ice crusting the edges of her hooves. She didn’t bother knocking, just let herself in and made her way into the dark manor. Warmth blasted her from all sides, and soon she was soaking wet as well as cold, and the wooden floor made it harder to take help from Earth without really trying.

Even so, she didn’t need her magic to get around, even in total darkness. Cloudy Skies never really changed much. She stumbled upstairs in a numb trance, turning down the hall to Sky’s door. There was no danger of interrupting anything: Adrian hadn’t been there for over a decade. Sky slept alone.

She did knock though, and wasn’t entirely surprised to hear a muffled voice from within. “Come in…” She wasn’t surprised by this either. There were still foals in the house. How often had a frightened filly found her way to this door after having a nightmare?

Sky’s bedroom had a single, huge picture window, which to Alex’s eyes seemed almost filled with the moon tonight. As such, the room was far brighter than some of the hallways had been. Alex could clearly make out the gigantic bed, seeming all the more gigantic for holding only a single pony as for being built for a species far larger than the one who used it now.

The pegasus inside didn’t look up, just gesturing sleepily towards the bed with one hoof. “Just climb up. Whatever bad dreams you have, you won’t have them here.”

“I think I better not,” Alex replied, keeping her voice as quiet as Sky’s. “I think I’d get your bed all wet.”

“Wet?” Sky sat up, looking blearily at her through the dark. There was only partial recognition. “Is something wrong?”

“Yeah.”

Sky stared for a few moments more, then her tone changed, becoming softer and gentler still. “I didn’t know you were back.”

“I kinda wish I wasn’t.” Alex sat down at the edge of the bed, on one of the huge carpets. At least that gave her something to drip onto that wasn’t the floor, what water was still on her. “Did you hear about O-Oliver?

Sky nodded, resting her back against the headboard. “We had a… heated discussion about you about three weeks ago.” She reached out, pulling Alex tight against her with one hoof. If she noticed the moisture and the chilling cold about her, she didn’t say so. “I’m so sorry, Day. I would’ve warned you if I’d known how.”

She was crying again. It felt much better to cry into somepony’s arms than to cry alone in an empty house. “H-He… He didn’t even tell me in person. More than four decades he’s lived in that house, a-and he couldn’t even…” And so on. Sky didn’t seem to care that she had been woken after that. She held Alex as long as she needed, listened to all her ranting, and nodded sympathetically at all the right moments.

When she had finished, Sky shoved Alex into the shower and promised she would have a proper warm meal waiting for her when she finished. Alex stood under the too-high tap in her best friend’s house and let the searing heat wash over her, filling the room with steam and letting her mind fill with thoughts. She had plotted and planned for Alexandria until they kicked her off the city council a decade ago. She had planned her estate, shrewdly investing when the city started so that she would have enough to fund projects the city didn’t support, like her museum.

Yet for all that, what had she done to plan her own personal life? Had retirement and a life of quiet study been the right choice, even when Arithmetic was grown and gone? Maybe it had been selfish of her to try and keep her relationship with Oliver going as long as it had. The stallion deserved somepony his own age. The curse of her perfect memory meant her own feelings for the stallion wouldn’t change so easily as his.

It was five AM when she finally stumbled out of the shower, dry and clean and smelling like minty soap. True to her word, a steaming hot breakfast of oatcakes and hashbrowns was waiting for her, along with a small glass of fantastically expensive imported orange juice. Her favorite. Only one place was set, though Sky was still cooking. Alex didn’t have to ask to know why. Her memory told her Sky was currently caring for four little ponies, all of which would probably be up soon enough.

“You didn’t have to do all this.” Alex sat down at her place, though she didn’t actually start eating. It would all still be warm for another minute more. “I pretty much ruined your night I think.”

Sky put her spatula down so she could talk. “No, I didn’t have to. I wanted to. You’re my friend, little Day. You needed help.”

Alex nodded. “You’re the best friend a pony could ask for, Sky. Thank you for doing all this for me.” She started eating. Sky went back to cooking, and for several minutes more there was silence. Except for the sizzling of butter on the skillet, and the whistling of the winter wind outside. “Hey, Sky.” She yawned, then collected herself enough to continue. “I meant to ask another favor. You can say no if you want, and I’ll totally understand.”

“I’m sure I won’t, but go ahead and ask.”

“I don’t wanna live in my old house. I won’t sell it, but I think I’ll let my son live there. His family deserves better than a little trailer when they’re getting started. I think… I think I’ll be healthier if I stay away from the memories. And I was wondering if… maybe… I could live with you for a while. A few weeks anyway, while I sort myself out.” She blushed, staring down at her oatcakes. “I’ve got chits. I could rent the room. Pay you whatever you thought was right… and I wouldn’t be trouble. I promise not to wake you in the middle of the night, or-“

She hadn’t noticed the mare had crossed the room until she embraced her again. The force of the gesture silenced Alex. “My silly filly friend,” she said, forcing Day to meet her eyes. “Ever since Adrian left, I’ve been caring for little lost fillies and colts. Now one of them who happens to be my friend is lost, and you think I want her chits?!” She shook her head vigorously. “Unfortunately I don’t have the space for you to have your own bedroom.”

She grinned, turning away and returning to her work. “I already remade my bed, all fresh and dry. You can have it when you’re done eating. I’ll talk to Surefire when she gets up, but I’m sure she’ll be willing to let me set up another bed in that huge bedroom she’s using. Unless you think she’ll want to get away from you, after putting her through one of your construction retreats. Then I suppose we could set up another bed in my room…”

Alex shrugged. “Just so long as I’m not too much trouble. I’ll find my own place eventually, but I’d like to figure out where before I do.”

“Have you thought about it?”

She nodded. “I’ve got some ideas. I think it’s high time I attend the university, for one. I’m friends with the president, I think he’ll be able to squeeze me in. Either that, or get my son to get me a job as a shop mechanic in that factory he runs. Something to keep my hooves busy.”

“Just so long as you don’t work yourself as hard as you did when you were mayor,” Sky said, glaring at her. “If you’re going to live in my house, you’ll follow my rules. Nopony works themselves to death in my house.”

“Deal,” Alex said, pushing her plate aside and hopping down onto her hooves. “Now… if you were serious about bed…”

Alex was in no hurry to leave Sky’s home once she moved in. She ended up sharing a room with Amy just as Sky had suggested, and never really had a desire to get her own place after that. This worked to their mutual benefit, since Alex was another pair of hooves to be home and take care of the foals, another mother they could latch onto as an additional source of stability in their unstable lives.

She didn’t idle her time away, nothing like it. Alex enrolled in the college just as she said she would, and not just in the classes for earth ponies. True, she couldn’t fly with the pegasi or create dreams with bat ponies, but she could watch, she could listen, and she could memorize. In addition to keeping up on all the latest research, she attended regular meetings of the city council whenever they were open to the public, even though she never ran for important office again.

When she wasn’t helping raise the city’s orphans or taking classes often not even meant for her species, Alex spent her time at her new job as a “mechanic’s assistant” for Alexandria Steelworks. As the years went by, she learned everything about the changing ways ponies had for building and maintaining machines. When she had risen all the way to a manager position, she switched to the foundry and worked her way up from a “coalburner” all the way to administrative director.

From there she joined a construction union, and after that she tried her luck with a farm. So she went from one position to another, learning every position she could, as well as keeping in touch with the friends she made along the way in order to stay abreast of changes to the industry. Such would’ve been impossible in the world she had left behind, which produced new knowledge so quickly that even someone with her photographic memory could not absorb it all. The new world had no Internet outside of HPI facilities, and a population far too small to innovate at that speed.

Of course some careers were closed to her simply by reason of her race. After a century Alexandria started manufacturing its own weather to a schedule, and no amount of youthful eagerness would get her onto a team. Likewise with the city’s growing number of “enchanting” businesses, producing minor cantrips with the use of runes and a little unicorn magic. She memorized every new spell they published, but was helpless to cast them.

There were other duties that took her away from her learning. The HPI had less and less need of her as their own pony population grew more skilled, but she was still called in to help with the most difficult jobs. Several human generations came, then retired to the surface. Yet even when Clark was dead, his successors continued to honor his promises even as he had said.

Of course, these agreements transformed over the years. After a century, there was little the relatively small HPI needed they couldn’t get from their cloistered surface population. Trade began to trickle off, as they slowly cut their ties with most surface colonies except as a humanitarian organization. Fewer and fewer of their aircraft and their trains cut the continents, and when they did they were almost always piloted by ponies out of Bountiful instead of humans in bulky suits.

Alex never grew an inch, except as she changed manestyles. Her friends, though… that was another matter. However long the equestrian life span might be compared to the human, it was not indefinite. No matter how hard she fought to ignore it, she couldn’t fail to see the way they changed. They got smaller instead of bigger. Their fur got grayer instead of brighter. They slowed down, lost health. In short, they aged. Eventually, they died.

Adrian went first, long before any of her friends in Alexandria. Around a hundred years AE, the stallion had been caught up in an armed conflict between monsters of Charybdis and the population of a little seaside settlement. His body had been discovered when the HPI gunship arrived to investigate the fires. When they got the news, Cloudy Skies had gone into shock and not come out of her room for a week, forcing Alex to take over the house until she recovered. She did recover in the end, once Adrian’s body had been transported to Alexandria and interred in the tiny city cemetery.

Oliver died well over a century later, after completing an incredibly difficult surgery. Alex hadn’t been there, but she heard reports from the nurse that swore a dark human in green had been there that day, and argued with the stallion for hours. When his work was done, the two of them left together, leaving only his body behind. Alex didn’t preside at that funeral; he had another spouse by then and another family, not to mention dozens of heirs by the breeding program. She did sit in the front row, and stayed behind longer than anypony else when the casket was finally interred. She sat vigil there all night, remembering stories of their life together to the empty ground until morning came and the priest escorted her home.

Moriah went third, though no violence was involved. She had been lecturing in the human museum the day she died. Alex hadn’t been there either, but she heard later Moriah had a heart attack during a heated argument with a youth over the merits of human inventions. Her death had been so sudden, onlookers hadn’t even realized what had happened, since it happened right at the end of a last impassioned plea. She won the argument, but never left the stage.

Joseph lived a long time, thanks to the magic that he worked. Against all odds, he kept his position in the university even as its name changed over several times. Like Alex, he stopped seeming to get older after a century and a half or so of serious magical study. He was already old then, his mane gone white and his limbs a little shrunken, but that was all. With no wife, his work consumed him, and he spent less and less time outside the lab. He permitted no visitors, but Alex and Sky found ways past the wards every few weeks to bring him food and news from the outside world.

In the end it wasn’t time that took him, but one of his own spells. There was nothing left to bury, and it took over a week of study before the “university council” concluded by vote that his spell killed him. Alex sat vigil at his grave too, though by then the city’s graveyard had grown much larger and she had to use a little persuasion to be left alone.

She buried her only child next, and it hurt far worse than her many deaths had. When Alex died, she always woke up whole and refreshed. Cody’s passing was a death she wouldn’t ever wake from, and she became a listless wreck for weeks. Only Cloudy Skies kept her grounded then, pointing her towards her numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren and more distant relations still. She might not have any living children left, but that didn’t mean she had no family. In time this was enough, and Lonely Day said goodbye to Arithmetic.

Amy lived longer than Cody, thanks to the medical science available to her as a citizen of Bountiful. She had done much for that city and Raven in general as the group’s official historian, a position she held until her death. Day knew from experience she had loved her work very much, though not quite as much as she loved competing in the regular tournaments. It seemed like every time Alex came to visit she had another trophy to display. These along with her journals she eventually willed to Alex, who gave them special place on her shelves in the Equestrian pocket-dimension.

Of the other founders, only Sky remained, though not for much longer. The pegasus lost her flight, then lost her sight, and was eventually bedridden. Yet if she was miserable, Day never noticed. She had so many loving family members that she was never alone, never wanted for company and conversation. Half the population of Alexandria was either related to her somehow or was close to somepony who was, and it was up to Alex to organize everything and make sure everypony got to spend time with her. In short, while magic had kept Joseph alive longer than most of her friends, it seemed that love was the best youth potion a pony could have.

As Sky’s health began to flag, Lonely Day abandoned her job, refused all calls from the HPI, and never left the house. She prepared all the meals, kept all the cleaning, and used messengers to keep the cupboards full. During the hours Sky refused visitors, Lonely Day was always beside her. They spoke less and less as Sky slept more and more.

Eventually all the visitors had paid their last respects, and most only saw Sky when she was asleep. Her room was always full of flowers and cards, every wall covered in the smiling faces of the ponies she had loved.

It was the dead of winter the last time they talked. Lonely Day brought in a mug of tea and found Sky’s face more alert than she had been in a year. She had no trouble following Day with her eyes, or taking the little glass with her own hooves to sip from it. There wasn’t even any shaking.

“You’re looking well this evening,” she said, sitting down on the well-worn leather armchair beside the bed. There was no glass of tea for her. “You must’ve had a very good nap.”

“Yes.” Sky sounded distant, as though she were looking at something far away. “It was a good sleep.” She watched the window in silence for a few moments, before looking slowly back towards Day. Her voice had changed over the many decades, becoming as soft and gentle as any grandmother. “We have to have a word, Lonely Day. There isn’t much time left.”

Day wanted to argue, but she didn’t dare. It was better to say nothing at all than lie to her best friend. So she nodded, and waited for Sky to say more.

“I want your report,” she said. “My eldest, wayward daughter. How is she doing in that secret place she moved to? Has she had foals yet?”

However clear Sky might be, she had so many children that her memory of their specific circumstances hadn’t carried forward well beyond twenty years or so ago. “She did very well until the day she died, Sky. She never had foals; everypony in that city promises not to.” Actually, Bountiful sterilized every resident, and nopony could live there who had ever had children. That was why Alex hadn’t moved when Amy did. She didn’t bother explaining that to Sky now. The mare had known it several times before, there was no point trying to get it stuck.

“Little Amy’s dead?” Sky said nothing for several moments, letting Day stroke her in a gentle and reassuring way, until she calmed down enough to return to her conversation. “Was she happy at least? Did she ever find somepony?”

“Y-Yes.” It was Alex’s turn to cry. “She found a mare, and they were very happy together. She spent her time helping humanity until the day she died.”

“Good.” Her words soothed Sky more than any touch, even though Day herself was fighting back tears. “Then I only have one burden left.” She met Day’s eyes again, and as she did Alex could swear she saw scales fall away, and the full comprehension of her adulthood return. “You were my second friend ever, Lonely Day, and my best.”

She reached out, patting Day’s outstretched hoof. “I remember your face that first night. Relieved, confident, friendly. You heard my pleading and you came, and you took care of me when I needed it.”

“You took care of yourself,” she stammered, not daring to look away from her friend. “You didn’t need me.”

“Bullshit.” Sky waved a hoof vaguely. “I’d never taken care of myself before. Never taken care of anything. I had no idea what was practical and what was fanciful. I’d have starved in that apartment if it wasn’t for you, if I didn’t die in a fire first. You took my broken life and helped me put it together.”

“You’ve taken care of me more. You haven’t needed my help for a long time.”

Sky didn’t respond directly, didn’t even acknowledge the remark. “I tried to help you put yourself together like you did for me, but I don’t think I finished.” She tightened her grip on Alex’s leg. “Alex, you’re going to be on your own after tonight.”

“No I won’t!” Alex shook her head vigorously. “You’re better than you’ve been in weeks, Sky! I’m sure you’ll be here come next spring. You can heckle the new pegasi from out your window while they clear the sky, just like we planned…”

Sky smiled even as she slowly shook her head. “Sorry, Day. I would if I could. If fate had been different, maybe I’d have been a dragon and I could watch thousands of springs come and go, and we could heckle the pegasi together. But I wasn’t a dragon.” She lowered her voice, almost to a whisper. “I can feel it coming, Alex. The others… they’re waiting for me. I love you so much, but I can’t stay. They’re already here, can’t you see? Open your eyes, Archive.”

Day looked, though she didn’t expect to see anything. Even if she had half the mystical power ponies expected of her, she couldn’t have used any of it when she was crying so badly. There was no strength of earth she could call on to see what didn’t exist. Her supernatural senses strained and strained but she saw nopony no matter where she looked. They were alone. “I can’t,” she said. “I can’t see anything.”

Sky looked sad. “I’m sorry, Lonely Day. I’ll tell them how much you love them… but they’ll be fine. It’s you I’m worried about.” She reached out, gripping Day’s shoulder with such unexpected force that the young mare stopped crying and looked up again, focused completely on her friend. “I’ve been thinking about you more and more the last few weeks.”

“You shouldn’t have!” Day exclaimed. “It’s your life you ought to be reflecting on! Mine’s… Mine’s just…”

“Exactly.” The ancient mare shook her. “I’ve lived my life, and I don’t regret a minute. I loved the ponies I wanted to love, I cared for the ponies who needed it. If there’s such thing as God, I think he’ll forgive my childish mistakes. Anything with that much power has got to understand what a parent’s love is like.” She released Alex. “My last troublemaker. You’ve got a lonely road in front of you, and my funeral won’t be your last.”

“If you’re really going to be around until the end, you’re going to need to change your perspective. You can’t feel guilty about making new friends when your old ones die. And you can’t…” She whimpered, but forced her way through it. “You can’t get callous and stop loving. If you don’t love anymore, you might as well be dead. Having ponies to care about and care about you in return is the only thing that matters.”

She pulled Day in close, though her strength was waning by then and she didn’t force her. “Promise me you will, Lonely Day. Don’t let the name I gave you be a curse. It wasn’t meant to be.”

Day nodded vigorously. “I promise, I promise!”

“Good.” Sky released her, and she seemed to have no strength left to push away. “I know you keep your promises. You’ll do fine.”

“What… What was my name meant to mean?” Day asked, tentative. “You never said. If it wasn’t that you thought my days were going to be lonely…”

“A little of that. More that you knew what they were like. You ended mine, and I hoped you would end them for others too. I guess I hoped it would be ironic. You’ve got to make sure it was.”

“I’ll try.” She wiped her eyes with one leg. “I’ll try.”

“And when you think about me… use that perfect memory of yours and don’t let me be an old nag, would you? I ought to be able to fly, even in your imagination.”

Day chuckled. “Course, Sky. That’s easy. My first memories of somepony are always the strongest.” Though in her case, it was the first time she had seen her since coming back from Equestria that was the strongest, the night they all sat together in a park in Arizona and she told her story about another universe. She didn’t bother mentioning that, though. It seemed close enough.

“Good. I love you Alex. Tell all my other children I love them too.”

“I will.” She didn’t bother pointing out Sky’s mistake.

Cloudy Skies didn’t say another word. The sun went down, the light faded from orange to pink to purple, and eventually it went out. Alex didn’t move from the bedside, not even to turn on the light. Eventually she realized the pony beside her wasn’t breathing.

Author's Notes:

Sorry for the short chapter. Events felt significant enough that it needed to end here. Next chapter will probably be a little longer next week to make up for the lapse.

Oh, and this is the end of part one of the story. I'm not sure how many parts there are... right now I'm thinking 5. Yes, if you've done the math, that means we're probably in for a long road ahead.

Writing this chapter hurt. I've been with these characters for so long that giving some of them up felt like losing a friend. Not that there weren't plenty of exciting adventures to be had with that cast, but... if I'd stuck around with the scale of things as they were, we'd never get to see the far future and all the exciting things I've got in store. We'd never get to look far enough ahead to answer lots of the questions of the universe (such as what happens to the HPI). This way, I can depict a broad view of all 10,000 years. I hope you'll join me. A huge thanks to all of you who made it this far, in particular those who comment. Even if I don't get to respond to everything, your comments are the reason I keep going!

Chapter 10: A Little Favor (291 AE)

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Their new world couldn’t afford to waste chemistry on embalming. That meant Sky’s funeral was held the next day, in the old church that was still used as a church. Sky’s will named a priest and the rites she wanted, so there were few decisions Alex had to make on her behalf. Her death came as no terrible surprise.

It seemed like half the business stopped in Alexandria that next day. The funeral procession blocked traffic, and the old church spilled ponies into the aisles and up into the rafters too. Alex didn’t officiate, that was business for Sky’s eldest living child, an elderly stallion with Adrian’s coat and his mother’s mane.

Lonely Day stared at her face in the casket through the whole service, trying to decide if there was such thing as a soul. Could an immortal ever see her mortal friends again? Was there anything left of them to see?

She didn’t bother asking any of the city’s priests; Archive knew the contents of every holy book, every doctrine. Even the new bible, the one that replaced every reference to humans with ponies instead. She could take no solace in those words. If Archive was supposed to be the collective will and memory of humanity, where was her faith?

She didn’t feel helpless the way she had felt when Cody died. As she followed the little pine coffin into the graveyard, she felt only cold. It wasn’t the snow or the wind that made her feel that way, either. It was just as Sky had warned. If this was going to happen to all her friends, maybe the best thing for Alex would be not to have friends at all.

She stayed behind, staring down at fresh earth covering over in a thin layer of ice. “Not for you.” She was so numb the cold of winter couldn’t touch her. “You shouldn’t have to be here under bare ground all winter.”

Alex persuaded the grass, encouraging the empty spaces around the grave until they turned from brown and yellow to bright green. There had been a time when her grasp of earth-magic did not extend to pushing living things outside their season. With enough passion, she could now ignore that restriction. Even though her body never grew, her magic did.

“I need you to grow,” she persuaded, gesturing and stroking until the icy dirt had been covered. Several of the flowers mourners had brought took life and root again through her magic, springing into an unnatural bouquet. In the warmth of her magic, life could thrive again.

But not Sky’s life. Not even Oliver at the height of his skill had been able to turn back aging and death. Alex couldn’t either, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Maybe Sky had really been able to see something, and she was really someplace better. That was happier to imagine than her friend being gone forever.

As usual, Lonely Day was not left alone in her graveside vigil. This time though, the interruption came from ponies she didn’t expect. “Hey.” She looked up, at the figures approaching her through the gloom. Both were taller than ordinary ponies, with wings and horn both. Aside from these similarities, they couldn’t be more different. One had a bright orange coat, the other glistened with black chitin. One led a group of Equestrian immigrants to Earth, the other was the absolute monarch of the successful changeling colony that was Alexandra's sister city. “I missed you two at the funeral.” She gestured vaguely at the patch of warmth and green against the chill, at the base of Sky’s stone marker. “I already did the decorating, sorry.”

Sunset reached her first, and took up Alex in a hug of wings and body both. She had grown another few inches in the last few centuries, her horn longer and sharper than it had been, but otherwise she was the same pony. One touch of her coat banished the thickest winter and melted the snow at her hooves. “I came as soon as I could. There was an incident in… I think your word for it is… Korea? The ponies there needed our help until just now. I’m sorry.”

The queen greeted her next, her armor as cold as the winter air around them. Yet she was no less friendly for the contact. “I said my farewells three weeks ago,” she said, shrugging one shoulder. “A gathering of shared suffering would have served no purpose. A dead pony has no use for my mourning.”

Alex forced a smile, looking down at the grass under her hooves. “She wouldn’t want you to be sad for her. But if you didn’t come for her… what are you both doing here?”

She felt the ground shift as Sunset sat down beside her. Even so, it was Queen Blacklight who spoke first. “Debts must be paid. Debts must always be paid.” She sat down on Alex’s other side.

“She knew you’d be here.” Sunset reached out, stroking the frozen strands of her mane out of her face. “Sky told me you did this each time one of your friends died. Staying out here like this… you might’ve frozen solid.”

Day shrugged, staring down at the ground. “So what. I’d thaw out eventually. Maybe I’d get lucky and the ice would keep me from waking up until spring.”

Sunset shoved her. Not very hard, but hard enough that she couldn’t miss it. “Would that make you feel better? Would your friend want you doing that?”

“No.” She couldn’t meet her eyes. “She made me promise not to.”

“Why don’t you come inside.”

Lonely Day shook her head. “I’ll come in when the sun comes up.” There was no trace of hesitation in her voice. “I never promised I wouldn’t. She’s the last of the founders. If I don’t sit here, nobody will. If you’re going to try and get me to go in, forget it. Come and get me in the morning.” Riley sighed, but neither of the strangers budged. Aside from the wind, the night went silent again. They stayed that way all night, without complaint.

“I’ve been meaning to ask,” she said to Sunset, near dawn. “About this feeling I’ve had. I figure you might understand.”

The Alicorn shrugged. “I’ll help you if I can. What feeling?”

“The same thing we talked about before, only now I think I can put it into words better. I don’t just feel like there’s something I ought to be doing, I don’t feel complete. A piece of me never got put into place.” She made vague gestures over herself with one hoof. “Do you know what I mean?”

Sunset was quiet for a time. “Not firsthand. I know what you must mean, though. It’s fairly clear.” Day waited. “Ponies are supposed to grow. From our first moments of life that’s what we do. You haven’t gotten to grow since you were in Equestria. You probably feel trapped. Every day you get wiser, smarter. You should change, but you can’t.”

“Yes!” She smiled for the first time that night. “That’s exactly it. How do I come unstuck?”

The Alicorn frowned. “I don’t have a new answer for the same problem even if we better know what it is. You’re not a pony anymore, we can’t change you back. Not even Discord could change you back now. You can’t go back, so you have to go forward.”

“The only way to go forward is to be like you. You’re the only step there is.” She deflated. “I’m not any closer to knowing how to do that than I was a century ago.”

Sunset let her stew a moment before replying. “You could always try to let your civilization grow. Enough people believing in you might be enough to trigger the change all on its own. Natural growth over time.”

“Maybe.” She shivered. “Ponies are changing so fast. Even if they haven’t lost the essential spirit of humanity, I don’t know they won’t one day. Some days I feel like the HPI is the only reason I wake up in the morning. I can’t do my job if everypony forgets. It’s a stupid paradox!”

“Just focus on something else, then.” Sunset learned closer, lowering her voice to a whisper. It didn’t make much difference; the only other pony there was Riley. There were no unwanted eavesdroppers. “Celestia did less for you than you think, Lonely Day. Luna selected you from the hundreds of other candidates because you didn’t have to change to be made into the Archive. We just provided the magic, but it could’ve happened on its own.”

“When it happens in Equestria, ponies are generally assisted along just as you were, if less directly. The last stage is always yours, though. You need to discover what magic is. To you, I mean. When you know the answer to that… not just intellectually, but really know it… everything takes care of itself. You’ll finish the transition Celestia helped you start.”

Day nodded, though of course she wasn’t any closer to her answer than she had been. At least she knew the direction she needed to move in, marked out by ponies that had traveled that way before. That would have to be enough.

* * *

“You think so little of me?” Riley asked, tone neutral. “Have I not been here long enough to qualify? You waited for Sky, will you not wait for me?”

Alex kept her tone flat, even if the queen's words implied offense. That was part of the way you dealt with changelings, a technique she had long since mastered. When emotions were food, reflecting your emotions was akin to bloodying the water for a shark. Even a friendly shark had to be treated with caution. “I never knew you cared about sentimentality, Blacklight. I would, of course, be happy to stay if you needed me. I just wasn't under the impression you did.”

“No sentimentality,” she echoed. “I will happily exploit the sentimentality of others, however.” She met Day's eyes as she said it, utterly without flinching.

“What exploiting did you have in mind?” It was all she could do not to laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

“In order to understand, you must learn more about the affairs of changelings than any outsider has been told. I will first require your word of silence.”

Alex glanced up to Sunset. “You won't sneak away without saying goodbye if I ask for privacy, will you?”

Sunset chuckled. “You know me too well. But not tonight. I said I would finish your vigil with you, didn't I? Sky was my friend too.” She left, though didn't go much further than the graveyard gate.

“What is it then, Riley? Something you want me to do to alleviate the guilt I'll feel to be leaving you behind?”

“Yes. As I said, you must understand the issue at hand first. I believe your concerns and mine are related. You know little of the private affairs of changelings... we queens have instincts that encourage reticence. Yet I tell you: among the other queens, it is not unusual to find less than one percent of drones ever becoming intelligent in their lifetimes. To my knowledge, my hive has more than any other, at about ten percent of drones eventually becoming intelligent.”

Alex gasped. “All the cooperating you've been doing with Alexandria... all the drones working all over the city... and it only worked for ten percent?”

Blacklight shrugged. “Tell that to the dozens of my daughters that have lived and died in that ten percent.” She chuckled. “Even so, your concern is mine as well. I believe a significant portion of the program's failure to be systemic. Ponies are most willing to enlist our help in the worst jobs, most thankless and dangerous. These jobs often isolate my drones, giving them no opportunity to spend time with ponies. Yet even a large portion of those who operate around ponies never wake up.”

“I taste your pain, Alex. You wonder if your friends who die before you still exist. I wonder if my daughters ever existed at all. Are souls distributed randomly among them, or does each have some seed which, when carefully tended, may grow?”

Lonely Day nodded. “I think I understand.”

Riley leaned down closer, close enough that Alex saw the sharp point of her fangs. Her voice was a deadly whisper. “Perhaps you do. But you fail to understand the implications. The lives of many ponies may depend on the answer.”

Day was taken aback, and indeed she retreated several paces from the queen, until she found her back against Sky's marker. “H-How?”

“A queen's power is tied directly to the size of her swarm. Yet this cannot continue forever, with changelings overwhelming all other beings, because we also depend on the emotions of other creatures to feed us. Even in Alexandria, where it is freely given, this resource is finite. Further, its use varies. Our sleeping drones, though weaker than ponies and less intellectual than dogs, grow swiftly and require little emotion to survive. When they wake, they require much more, almost as much as our males. Little nymphs and the queens they become require even more. Can you see why Alexandria's swarm is not the world's largest, despite our partnership with you?”

“You have more intelligent drones,” Day answered. “I know you don't force them to live with you when they wake up, but... most do. So the more successful you are at helping your drones wake up, the more food you take, so the smaller your hive has to be. How much of a difference is it?”

Such abstractions would've escaped an ordinary pony. But Alex had seen inside that mind, she knew the way queens thought. They did not see the world as other beings did. “A power of ten.” She let that sink in. “I fear I may be confusing you. I’ll explain it simply: if there is a way to guarantee every drone rises up intelligent and awake, I will be obligated to explore it regardless of the consequences. Perhaps other queens would be willing to sacrifice the personhood of their children on the altar of power. I merely inform you of the factors weighing on the decision to impart to you the gravity of my research.”

“Which I’m involved in somehow.” Alex sat down beside the grave. “I think I see how the questions are related. So you’re going to use my sympathy towards you to get me to do some favor that will help you figure out if your drones were always smart or not… and the answer I find out could have big consequences. What can I do that you can’t? And… why wait until now to ask? I would’ve helped you without leverage.” Not that it was really leverage to begin with. But acknowledging the attempt was part of the game.

“The experiment requires your full attention, which you could not give while caring for a dying friend. Cloudy Skies deserved every bit of your love, but she cannot use it now and so it can be repurposed. The experiment is… well, perhaps it would be easier to introduce you. May I bring her to your home tomorrow afternoon? It will take some time to make the necessary preparations. I would, however, need your assurance that you mean to agree before I begin. I will not callously waste the lives of my children, even drones.”

Lonely Day considered a moment, knowing she would get no more from the queen. She nodded. “For such an important cause, of course I’ll help. Though… as I said, I’m leaving the city. I have to meet with my estate manager tomorrow, make sure he’s clear about what I want done. After that… one more night’s sleep, and I’m out. Drop by Cloudy’s house. She left it to the city for an orphanage, but all those wheels are still turning. I’ll be around until evening, if that’s long enough.”

“It will be.” Blacklight touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Thank you, Lonely Day. If you can do this…” She sniffed. “You don’t know how much of a difference it will make.”

Alex felt purpose again. She wondered if this was somehow Sky’s plan. She didn’t even know why they needed her, and so she couldn’t help but be curious.

Alex finished her vigil at the grave of her friend, last of the founders. When the sun finally came, she said one last prayer for Sky, then turned her back on her city.

She went to her secret place, dug out the saddlebags Luna had given her all those years ago, and brought them home. She spoke with lawyers, members of the family, and used what spare moments she could find to load up on provisions for her journey. It was true, of course, that she could catch the train to Colorado.

She wasn’t going to do that. She would walk.

* * *

It was late afternoon when Blacklight returned, wearing her unicorn disguise and flanked by several camouflaged drones. She hadn't knocked, shaking Alex from her slumber on one of the couches. She sat up, and in a second she was coherent again. “Riley. Good to see you. Sorry, I… I think I dozed off.”

“So little sleep is bad for a pony.”

Alex rolled her eyes. “What’s it gonna do, kill me?”

The queen had no response to that, just stared silently for a few moments, as though she wanted to understand but couldn’t. Eventually she gave up with a shrug. “I brought her.” She gestured vaguely over her shoulder, and one of the drones stepped forward. On her back, Day could see a tightly-wrapped bundle, squirming slightly. Riley’s magic levitated the cloth away, setting the contents on the ground in front of her.

It was a drone, one of the youngest she had ever seen. It was perhaps the equivalent of five years, though she knew their accelerated maturity meant it was probably less than one. The poor creature had clearly been through an ordeal. Her face was haggard, her wings, hindlegs, and forelegs were all bound, and there was a strange, fresh-looking scar on the back of her neck. Alex fought back the anger. “Why has she been treated this way?”

“The markings on her neck.” Riley gestured with a hoof. “That’s a spell Joseph helped me write thirty years ago. I’ve tested it extensively, though not often on a drone that hadn’t awakened yet. It destroys the mental magic we changelings use to communicate. Our hive-sense, the one queens and males use to control lesser breeds. So far as I know, there’s no way to reverse it. She will never be a part of the hive-mind again.”

“Is that why you tied her up?” Alex leaned in close, trying to get a good look at the drone’s eyes. As she did, the bound being lashed out towards her, as though trying to stab her in the face with her budding horn. Alex was far faster, warned as she was through contact with the floor. Still, the attempt made her recoil.

“I originally hoped the spell would force young drones to develop their own identities. Without the hive-mind, they would be forced to learn for themselves. Unfortunately, it didn’t work as intended. In the adults, it inevitably resulted in violent insanity within days. The unfortunates had to be destroyed. In the young… more of the same, only not for so long. Violence, followed by a listlessness and general apathy. Eventually, they lose all desire to continue living. They starve and die.” She was clearly trying to sound stoic, but her attempt only partially succeeded. The pain of a suffering mother was quite clear in her words.

“So why maim her this way? Seems pointless to make the experiment harder.”

Queen Blacklight’s eyes narrowed. “Not pointless. You travel to strange territory, and it is my hope you will bring her with you. If you passed near to a single queen, or a single male, they might take her for themselves and the entire experiment would be ruined. Another queen taking over this one might sooth her immediate anxiety, since all drones long for a queen… but it would not help her.” She reached out, gently stroking down the drone’s back. She shivered all over, then stopped squirming. Riley seemed to know what she was doing.

“So here’s the experiment. Of all my drones this age, she was the dullest. The least creative, the least inventive, apparently the least intelligent.” She looked up towards Alex, and for just a second, Alex could hear a desperate little Riley instead of the imperious Blacklight. “There’s a soul inside there somewhere, Archive. Please help me find it!”

Day reached out, resting her head on Riley’s side. It was as high as she could reach. “I will.” She held the gesture for just a second, then turned away and walked into the kitchen. She emerged a second later with a sharp knife between her teeth, walked around until she stood directly in front of the bound changeling, then set it carefully down. “But if I help you, I’m going to do it my way. My methods are my business, until I either succeed or you take her away. Understand?”

Queen Riley’s eyes flicked from Alex’s face to the knife, then back up again. She nodded. “Completely. In some ways, her life was already in your hooves. I know no way to prevent her slow starvation now. Any attempt you make would be kinder than what my hive could offer. The kind thing would be to give her a quick death.” With a gesture, her drones departed, though Riley herself did not move. “What are you planning?”

“What Sky would’ve done.” She whimpered, gritting her teeth against the pain. Lonely Day had to remind herself that by helping, by doing anything, she was following the last promise she had made. She had to stay busy, couldn’t get stuck in the rut of depression and grief. If she did, it might take years to escape.

“You don’t treat somebody like an animal if you expect them to learn to be human. You treat them like they’re human and wait for them to meet your expectations. No tying her up like she’s some beast you brought in on a hunt.”

Riley shrugged. “Would you like me to remain here? When you cut those bindings, she will be violent. She may try to escape, or even to kill you. She is a drone, not some pony foal. She is not so weak or helpless as she appears.”

Alex shrugged. “I’m strong too. But I’m not going to need to be.” She turned. “Honestly, it might be best if you leave. Having you around might reinforce her behavior. Keep her acting the way she’s been acting around you so far.” Alex turned, approaching Riley and hugging her again. “I’m still leaving. Once I get her under control, I’m leaving and I might not be back for a long time.”

Riley returned the hug. “Check in whenever you can, Alex. I’m not immortal either. I can… feel it already. The weariness. My wings crackle when I fly sometimes, and I’m not as fast as I used to be. You’ll be digging a grave for me too, one day. I may’ve misled you into thinking I would have no more sentimentality…”

“It’s called love, Riley. I love you too. It’s a long trip to Colorado, but… I’ll write as often as I can." She glanced behind her at the drone. The poor thing had stopped squirming, and was staring at Alex like she was starving. She salivated from between tiny sharp teeth, even though she produced no sound. “She’ll be more trouble than Huan was. Less loyal, too. But we’ll make it work.”

Was Alex lying because she didn’t know for sure? No, she supposed. She was just committing to a possible future. Now it was her job to make it come to pass.

Riley nodded, taking another step towards the drone. “Goodbye to you too, 17,305.” She bent down, kissed the drone on the forehead, then departed. The doors banged shut, leaving Alex in the very big, very empty house.

Not completely. Day looked up, towards Sky’s family portrait. Her smiling face was still there, in her youth and surrounded by her children. There was hardly room for all of them, adopted and biological together, in the massive frame. “Give me compassion, Cloudy Skies. If you’re anywhere, be here and let this work.” She wasn’t sure if the prayer was answered. Wasn’t sure if there was anything left of her friend to answer it. But it felt better to be talking “to” her.

She returned her attention to the drone Riley had called “17,305.” It still watched her, its huge eyes hungry. Alex advanced. “I’m going to have to come up with a better name for you, little one. Sky… she was great at names. Named most of the first generation you know, and lots of the second too. Everypony brought their kids to her. Figured she had so many, it had to be good luck." She gestured to the knife. “I’m going to cut your hooves free, little changeling. I need you to promise you’re not going to run away or try to hurt me.”

No response. The drone just stared, apparently without comprehension. Alex waited, then repeated herself, with the same result.

Eventually she shrugged. “Alright, I’m cutting you loose. Don’t prove your mom right, please. There’s no reason for you to be violent with me.” Alex took the knife in her mouth, advancing towards the drone. She suddenly hissed and squeaked in fear, the first sounds she had ever made, flopping a few paces away.

Day dropped the knife. “I’m not going to hurt you!” She reached out, but the drone had the fear of death in her eyes and she continued to retreat, her sounds transformed from threatening to pathetic.

“Alright, alright!” Alex kicked the knife behind her as hard as she could, retreating several paces. The drone kept wailing, no longer seeming to see her. Riley had been right.

Archive sat on her haunches, taking a deep breath. She forced her frustration down, forced back her annoyance. Somewhere deep within was an infinite sea of human emotion. There was plenty of room in there for a little more of her own feelings. She took several deep breaths, letting herself drift into that sea. It helped that she was so exhausted, so close to sleep that all it took was for her to relax, and…

She was in the library again. She wandered, but not for very long. She had a mission this time, a mission and learning to seek from the ancients. Be they actual beings, or mere personifications of what she had read, she neither knew nor cared. She never even considered the question.

“What makes a man?” she asked, when she found the one she had been searching for. She had never been able to find him before, but now that she needed him… there he was, a tall man with a robe and rich brown beard. Not white, like she had imagined. She supposed if you were going to be a figment, might as well be a young one. “What if you can’t tell if someone is human? How can I find out?”

“What you ask is not so complicated,” he said. “Every inanimate, every plant, and every animal is Ergon of itself. The most elevated of the animals is no different in this, though his is different from all lesser beings, and beyond their reach.”

“So I can judge a human through their function? But… plenty of humans never follow any function at all! That doesn’t help me!”

The figure continued as though he hadn’t heard her, and his pause had only been rhetorical. “Man’s purpose is to combine logos and psuchē into deliberate happiness. No dog knows not to leap and steal from his master’s table at the moment he is weaned. Likewise do few men know their purpose without being taught. If you want him to be human, you must teach him.”

Archive frowned. “Her actually, but I see what you mean. How do I teach her?”

“Not without pain,” he replied. “We only learn by doing, and we can only teach others what we already know.”

“Do you always speak in platitudes?”

He shrugged. “You already know everything I wrote, but you asked anyway. What’s left for me to do but repeat until you learn. As you must do. If you want human, make it.” The man rose to his feet, suddenly towering over her. Then, rather suddenly, he lifted her by her forelegs, tossing her violently backward. The sudden fall made her scream.

She jerked back awake to find the sunlight from outside had gone. The lights were already on though, so it wasn’t dark. There was no longer a changeling in front of her.

It didn’t take her long to find the drone, stopped as she was against the front door. She continued to hit it with her head, thumping away. She hadn’t done any damage to the door, which Alex hoped meant she hadn’t hurt herself. “You were a way better adoptive parent than I’m going to be,” she told Sky's painting, before hurrying back for her knife.

She overtook the little drone before she could see her coming, shoving her away from the door and holding her steady with a hoof while she cut with the knife. The poor thing screamed again in utter terror… but of course Alex didn’t even scratch her. She kicked the knife away, but she didn’t let up the pressure on the little drone’s chest, holding her in place and preventing her from squirming.

“Hey!” she shouted, loud enough that the drone stopped screaming and looked up. “You’re not hurt. I just cut the ropes off.” There was no comprehension, so she gently pushed on the drone’s neck, pointing her eyes at her legs. There was recognition there, however faint. “Yes, I cut you loose. In a second, I’m going to get up. I’m going to get up and make us both dinner. It’s late, so you’ve got to be hungry. I know you changelings still need real food when you’re growing.”

She took a deep breath, then reached up with one of her hindlegs. She kicked upward, perfectly timed. The front door opened, swinging slowly out into the frigid, icy night. Alex started to shiver, and she felt the little drone do the same. Changelings were a little like cockroaches in that way; neither did very well in the cold. A queen like Riley had magic to keep her warm. A drone did not. Even an animal would be smart enough to tell the difference between safety and danger, right?

“I will never bind you again, little- seventeen thous- no, that’s stupid. Your new name is...” She could still see Sky’s picture looking down on her, even from the entryway. Alex couldn’t name like Sky, but she could pick the name of somebody Sky had liked “Ezri. Alright Ezri. I’m going to let you go. You can either come with me into the kitchen and have dinner, or go out into the cold by yourself. I hope you’ll stay. I want to take care of you, but I refuse to force you. If you’re going to live with me, then you’ll have to choose. Your mother’s choice for you isn’t good enough.”

Could the drone even understand her? Was there any point in talking to her? Yes, Alex decided. Not because she knew, but because it would have to be true for her to get anywhere. She would have to give the changeling her trust. “Alright, Ezri? I’m going to let you go now.”

She rolled off, up onto her own hooves, before taking several steps back. She stood still, smiling down at the drone and praying she would make the right choice.

She didn’t. Ezri watched her with little insect eyes. As soon as she was fully out of reach, she took off out the open door, little wings straining against their bindings as she did so. They couldn’t pull free, but that didn’t mean the drone couldn’t run. A few seconds, and she vanished up to her head in the snow.

Alex did not allow herself to feel frustration, fear, or anger this time. If she did, the little drone might be lost forever. Instead she turned away, focusing on the love she had for Sky and, by extension, the love Sky had always shown to her foals. Often they’d made a mess, as all the scratches and stains scattered through the house proved. Yet no crime on their behalf was ever enough to dim the love Sky felt.

The drone… Ezri… needed to feel a love like that coming from inside. Alex hoped some of that had soaked into the walls over the last few centuries.

* * *

Lonely Day wanted to go sprinting off into the night after the missing drone. She could have, and almost certainly would have found her given the drone would be unable to fly. Yet in doing that, she would frighten the poor thing just like she had done with her knife, and probably make it even harder to get her cooperation in the future.

She needed to make the drone come to her. Given the cold and the dark, she found it very unlikely the drone would have gone far. Alex walked calmly to the ventilator controls and dialed it up to maximum, filling the house with as much heat as the system would give. Far too much to be comfortable for long, if she had intended to keep it running. She didn’t.

That done, Alex made her way into the kitchen. All the while she forced herself to think only of hospitality, of her appreciation for Blacklight and her love for departed Cloudy Skies. She spared one glance to the door as she did so, and was convinced that she could see a dark face watching her from just within a snowdrift. Poor thing was probably freezing to death out there.

The latest version of Alex’s cyber gauntlet rested on one of the counters, beside the old Equestrian saddlebags she had been packing in preparation for her departure.

The latest model was made from a single piece of sturdy elastic, whose entire surface could be transformed into a display. Of course, Alex rarely interacted with the display when she could just talk to it. “Athena?”

The whole surface lit up with a gentle greenish glow. “Yes Alex? How may I help you today?”

“Play music from the ‘classical’ folder. Shuffle is fine.”

“Of course.” The electronic voice faded, and music began to play. The speakers were fairly good, at least for the little device’s size. The quality of the musical reproduction didn’t scare her nearly as much as the quality of the voice, however. The “Athena” system was linked to every HPI device these days. Every vehicle, every weapon, and every personal computer.

Most of Sky’s food was in the root cellar, but Alex had already brought in the makings of a stew. There were no more refrigerators, no more processing machines. She cut it all by hand. Well… she cut it all manually.

As the music washed over her, Alex lost herself in the simple pleasure of honest work for somepony else. Every moment and her attitude became less of an act, more of a reality. She did care about Ezri. Tomorrow she could see a tailor, and get something enchanted to keep the drone warm during the long journey ahead.

After a few minutes, Alex was conscious of a figure huddling in one of the dark corners of the room. She pretended not to notice, not even taking the time to shut the door. Nothing that might make the drone feel trapped. Ezri did not attack.

“I’m going to make you a bowl,” she said, not looking at the drone or showing any sign she knew where she was. “I hope you’ll eat it. I’m making it special. It’s one of Oliver’s recipes, one that’s supposed to taste close to eating meat. It’s really just mushrooms, but I think you’ll like it.”

When she was done, she took her stew into the dining room. Lonely Day took no shortcuts, making out the table as though for some formal occasion. Granted, the occasion this time was only a meal for two…

She heard a few faint, feeble sounds from the other room. Begging. She ignored them, and set out two steaming bowls. She took one of the backless cushions for herself. “You’re welcome to eat with me!” she called into the other room. “It’s your meal. But we’re eating it in here.” She waited.

It didn’t take so long this time. Either Ezri could understand English after all or else the food alone was enough to motivate her eventually. She made her way into the room, then hopped up onto the chair and lowered her head to the bowl.

“Good.” She ate like an animal, both forelegs on the table and her face buried in the stew. Day felt satisfied anyway. Of course this was proof of nothing: a dog could be trained. This did not answer Blacklight’s question, not yet. At least she had some hope there might be an answer.

Once she had eaten of both types of food Alex had to give, Ezri became more cooperative. She followed Alex around whatever room she chose to occupy, knocking things over and generally causing trouble. It took her nearly an hour to get the drone to sleep, trying every possible arrangement until she discovered the one that would work: Ezri would only sleep in a hammock, and only if Alex didn’t leave the room.

She didn’t dare leave the room at that point. Instead she planned out the next day mentally, knowing she could rely on her memory to bring back whatever decisions she made. At some point she slept, she couldn’t have said exactly when. She was far too exhausted to tell what times were which.

The next day was harder, since she had to go into town. She refused to bind up the drone as her mother had done, which meant she had to move very slowly, and patiently grab onto Ezri’s clothes each and every time she tried to run. After several hours, stopping to patiently explain she couldn’t run off into the city and cause trouble each and every time she tried, they reached her favorite tailor.

There was little business in the height of winter, and the boutique was mostly empty. Alex could hear the sound of a sewing machine somewhere in the back, though the sound stopped once she entered. “One minute!”

Day lifted the drone down from her back and set Ezri down in front of her, meeting her eyes. “I expect you to behave Ezri. We’re going to get clothes made that fit you better… with spells woven into them to keep you from getting cold. We’re here for you, understand? Stay close to me.”

Ezri didn’t stay close, but instead set about wandering the shop, ducking under and between the racks of clothes as every small child had done in clothing stores since the beginning of time. She seemed to have learned to be a little more careful, or else she had just been deliberately destructive the night before. Day did not follow right behind her, but she did watch her, and never let a moment pass where she didn’t know where the drone had gone.

After a time, a unicorn emerged from the back, with a light dress and her mane tied to keep it from her eyes. “Alex? Back so soon? A few last adjustments before you leave on your trip, perhaps?”

“No, Amelia.” Alex shook the pony’s hoof, trying very hard to talk and not lose track of Ezri at the same time. Amelia was a great-granddaughter of Joseph and Moriah, whose family had maintained the tradition of avoiding Equestrian names even though increasingly little separated them from the rest of the town. Amelia had her great-grandmother’s coat, though her eyes were far darker and she didn’t dress up nearly as often.

“My trip got more complicated, and I need more. I was hoping you might be able to take another break from your spring line and rush a few items through for me.”

“Not that I don’t like taking your chits,” Amelia began, following Alex’s eyes to the black glinting from the several little displays. “But I just put together an entire winter wardrobe. What more could-” She stopped, gasping. “Is that… You brought a changeling?”

“She’s the real customer.” She stepped forward. “Ezri, come back! The nice tailor needs to take your measurements.” Did spending money count as love? If so, that ought to get the drone’s attention. And it did, though she couldn’t be sure if it was her words or the attention or something else entirely. She wouldn’t approach Amelia, but she did get close enough for Alex to take her by the sleeve. Again she made eye contact, speaking to her slowly and plainly. “Listen Ezri… we’re going to be in the cold for a long time. You’ll freeze and die if we don’t get clothes made for you that keep you warm. Do you understand?”

The drone did not respond, as ever. But at least she didn’t pull away.

“You want me to…” Amelia started again.

“Yes. A full set, exactly what you did for me. Underclothes, leggings, coat, boots, cloak… better make it like you’re insulating for a unicorn instead of an earth pony, too. Changelings are extremely cold-sensitive.”

Amelia stared at Ezri for several moments. Little of her body was exposed, she had been wrapped so tightly in old clothes from Sky’s house. Tight enough that ponies on the streets hardly noticed how strange she looked. “Alex, I know you’ve been around, I know you’ve got more chits than most ponies. But… an entire second set of heavy winter gear.” She looked the changeling up and down.

“Is it really that hard? I know the enchantments take lots of time to sew… I could probably help if that would speed things up. I memorized the spells you used on mine.”

Amelia looked unimpressed. “Nothing like that. Getting somepony to empower the enchantments is annoying and the stitching is tedious, but those aren’t the problem. It’s the fabric.” She gestured vaguely at a bookshelf, with some pre-event reproductions on it. “I’ve read about tailoring from before. You could buy bolts of warm fabric that couldn’t get wet, and that would block out a wind. Or…” she shivered. “If you wanted to be ghastly about it, you could skin something that lived up in the wild and make your clothes… from its flesh. Assuming the books are even serious about that.”

“I never did cold-weather exploring before the Event, so I don’t know. My jackets weren’t ever made of real animals, if that’s what you’re asking. I lived where it was warm, so I just wore cotton.” Alex decidedly did not mention all the leather belts and shoes and books she had owned.

Amelia looked visibly relieved. “Well, we have to make do with our plants and enchantments, wool, stuff like that. There are ponies in town still wearing jackets patched together from before the Event.”

“I bet you smell ‘em before you see ‘em.”

The unicorn chuckled. “Often. Point is, it won’t be much cheaper than yours. How soon do you need it?”

“As soon as possible. Tomorrow?”

Amelia coughed. “Not a chance. I couldn’t do it if I worked all night. If I put every other order I have aside, I might be able to have it all ready in a week. That’s with a substantial expediter’s fee so I can give discounts to every other customer I’d keep waiting.”

“I know you’ll be reasonable.” Day lifted her satchel, letting it clink to the ground in front of her. “How much?”

Amelia took one last glance at the drone. “Seven hundred. Five hundred for the clothes, and two hundred to put all my other work aside.” She shrugged. “Like I said, it’s totally unfeasible. Now why don’t we just think about-”

Alex wasn’t listening. She flicked open the flaps, and lifted a large metal ring covered in bits of plastic. Each piece was about two inches square, deep red with a little holographic logo set into the center. There was also an RFID tag inside, though only banks had the equipment to check those these days. The red color indicated the chits were worth 20 meals each, a denomination never used in Raven but essential to the ponies. There was none larger, which meant large transactions were conducted with these 1,000-chit rings.

An average pony in Alexandria who saved very carefully might be able to set this much aside in a decade, after all their expenses. Alex had been saving for… quite a bit longer. Even so, this ring was the last she had after all her other expenses. Everything else was tied up in investments, real estate, and other such commodities. This little fortune had been meant to help get her started in Colorado.

Oh well. Alex mentally sacrificed it all on the altar of helping Ezri. She unclipped the ring, sliding ten of the plastic squares back into her pack before twisting it closed again and tossing it to Amelia.

She caught it in her magic, stunned. “You’re… You’re serious? No haggling, no…”

“No time for that. I’ve got to get out of Alexandria, or this city will kill me. I don’t care what it costs.”

Amelia took some time to recover. She took the chits back behind the counter, returning a few moments later with her tools following her through the air. “W-Well then… I suppose we should get started.” She stooped down a little. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

Ezri just stared, without any sign of comprehension. Alex gave her several moments of awkward silence before answering on her behalf. “She’s called Ezri. She’s very shy, but I’m sure we’ll be able to get what you need.”

“I’m sure.” Amelia gestured with one hoof. “If you could get her out of all that… stuff… we can get started.”

Chapter 11: A Little Walkabout (291 AE)

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Getting dressed for a trip into the arctic chill of winter was never easy for an earth pony. True, her clothes were specifically made for one of her race. There were pull-tabs and clasps large enough for hooves or mouth to operate. Even so, a process that might've taken ten minutes with hands took over an hour without them.

She dressed Ezri first, then closed off access to the city's heat system for good. The old mansion had pre-Event insulation and held heat far better than their new buildings, yet still she could feel the chill seeping in as she dressed herself. Alex donned thin underclothes, a dense thermal layer, socks on each hoof, a waterproof layer, then the enchanted coat and jacket. The spell was intelligent, it wouldn't bake her alive if she was inside. That was why she could watch little Ezri bumble around the house, flailing and falling over and over like some kind of stuffed doll, without fear that the drone might overheat while Alex dressed.

The last step had been the hardest. Last night, Alex had trimmed her mane to a boyish shortness. She hoped she would seem like a stallion to anyone they happened to meet. She had burned the excess, though the length upbraided had grown well to ground level in her many years. It was going to take many years more to grow back.

"Alright Ezri, come here," she called, once she was dressed. "I'm going to put your saddle-bags on." The drone wasn't particularly obedient, but she wasn't very good at escaping when so awkwardly dressed, so Day was able to wrangle her back without much difficulty. "Here you are." She lifted up the little bag, not unlike what many schoolchildren wore. It contained a basic survival kit and a little money, though she was fairly certain Ezri had no way of making use of either. "Your very own saddlebags. We all carry them when we travel."

When it became clear to the drone that these were a gift Day had specially prepared just for her, then Ezri didn't struggle but instead stood perfectly still and accepted her love with greedy eagerness. She was starting to look a little rounder around the edges from her week in Alexandria. Somehow Day doubted she would stay looking that way once their trip actually began. Love had been a good way to win her loyalty, but... would it be enough? "We've got a few weeks to find out," she said, even as she turned away and approached her own saddlebags.

Though as old as the Event itself, these saddlebags were utterly untouched by time, the stitches as crisp and the fabric as soft as the day they had been given to her. Each side bore the cutie mark of one of the Equestrian diarchs, each concealing its own spatial claudication. As such, her bags were even emptier-looking than Ezri’s. Hopefully that meant she wouldn't look like she was worth robbing.

That was all. Everything they would need was either in the saddlebags or in her brain. "Alright Ezri. Do you need anything else?" Of course the drone didn't answer, though she had an eager look about her. Even the changeling could tell they were about to do something important.

"Alrighty!" Alex flicked off the last of the lights and made her way to the door. Spell or no spell, she was warming up in these clothes. The sooner she started, the less likely she would change her mind. "Say ‘goodbye house!’" Ezri didn't say anything, though she did imitate Alex's exaggerated wave to the empty interior. "Close enough." She shut the door, but didn't lock it. The city would have the mansion now, just as her friend had wanted. Foals' voices would fill the space again soon.

Not Alex; if she had her way she would never see the mansion again. It would hurt too much.

It was still early morning as they made their way down main street, then turned on the highway that had once been the 133. Few ponies were out and even fewer said anything to her, robed as she was. The streets were salted and clear, and nothing stopped them. They turned again onto the road that had been the 16 highway, walking through the post-Event suburban sprawl for another hour or so.

The road got worse the further they got, but neither noticed. Their boots had been specifically designed to give grip on icy roads, and their outfits would keep the snow out even if it rose to their shoulders.

It was noon by the time they reached city limits, and the guarded gate that separated Alexandria from the smattering of smaller settlements beyond. Alex slowed as they neared the gate, waving politely to the city guards on duty.

There were two she could see, each with a firearm slung over their shoulder and a wintry version of the regular uniform, white fabric with the black logo of the college set upon it like some medieval coat-of-arms. The P90s were ancient history now, replaced with a greatly simplified version of the Standard Equine Rifle. The guards were a unicorn and a pegasus, though it was the unicorn who approached her.

"Stand next to me, Ezri," she whispered, meeting the drone's eyes as she always did when she gave an important instruction. The changeling had learned by now that, while she could get away with disobedience and causing trouble while they were alone, Day didn't tolerate it when they were around others. If she wanted any love to eat the rest of the day, she would cooperate. Her plumpness attested to how well she had learned over the last week.

"Afternoon young lady," the unicorn stallion said. "You two look prepared." Up close, his reddish mane was swept back, only partially visible from within his hood. "Headed out of Alexandria?"

"We planned on it," she said, as politely as she could. It didn't seem like she had been recognized yet. Maybe shaving off most of her mane had been a good idea. He had still been able to smell she was a mare though. She would have to figure out something to do about that too. "I've heard the roads are safest in winter."

"Safest from bandits maybe," the pegasus called, alighting momentarily through the air and landing down beside her comrade. "But there are never very many of those even in summer. Maybe in other regions, but not so close to Alexandria." She spoke with pride, pride Alex couldn't help but share. It was her city they spoke of, her city that had driven out banditry and protected all the lands round about. "The cold, though... that's everywhere."

"Minors aren't allowed to leave Alexandria during winter unaccompanied. If you need to get to Clarksville or Westfield, I think there's a caravan headed that way next week or so." He glanced once at her saddlebags, eyes appraising. And she knew they didn't look like most travelers' saddlebags did, not well worn from the trail, with bedrolls and tents strapped to the outside and weighing down at odd angles. The "rule" they discussed didn't exist, Alex knew that well. These guards were just trying to stop a pair of cushy-looking city ponies from wandering out of Alexandria to freeze to death.

"I'm not a minor. Ezri is, but she's with me, so..."

"Really?" The pegasus raised her eyebrows, looking her up and down. "What are you, fifteen?"

"If you want to leave, we'll have to see your ID," the unicorn said, smiling politely. "It's for your own safety. Underage ponies shouldn't be wandering the wilderness alone."

"Fair enough." Alex sighed, but it wasn't like she hadn't been expecting this. She didn't even have to reach into her saddle-bags, just reached into a pocket with her mouth and offered the wallet to the unicorn. He took it with his magic, opening it up so that he and his partner could both see. Alex watched his mouth gape slowly open, and she pulled down her hood so that he could get a better look, and compare it to the photo inside. Black and white though it might be, and with far longer hair, it would be impossible to mistake her.

The pegasus recovered first. "Y-You're Lonely Day?"

She nodded.

"I learned about you in local history, back in grade school." The mare's ears pressed flat to her head in embarrassment. "First and longest-running mayor, right? I didn't think the part about you still being alive was actually true."

Day smiled, "It was last I checked." Her ID was as official as any, albeit with a few more signatures than were usually present. She had the stamp regularly reserved for dragons, which roughly translated to "this individual is older than she looks." Unlike most Alexandria IDs, which listed either the date of arrival or the date of birth, Alex's had her pre-Event birthdate, and no age written at all.

Ponies usually dealt with her immortality better when not directly confronted with it. The unicorn handed the ID back after another full minute of inspection, lowering his head politely. "Forgive me, Lonely Day. If I'd known it was you..." again his attention fell on her saddle-bags. "Of course you're free to leave, but you probably shouldn't with so little supplies. Even with snowshoes, the trip to Westfield takes two days in this weather. There's going to be another storm around then, so if you don't make it..."

"Why are you walking?" The mare stared at Ezri, but didn't dare ask about her. "If you can't afford a train ticket for wherever you're going, I'm sure the city would-"

"The city probably would," she interrupted. "It's not that I can't afford the tickets. I just want to walk."

"During winter?" The male was indignant. "Even the militia doesn't send ponies to travel alone this time of year. You really ought to take a caravan."

She shrugged. "A caravan wouldn't go all the places I want to go, or at the pace I want to go. Those ponies are in a rush, but I'm not rushing anywhere." She gestured. "My... apprentice and I know what we're doing. We're in no danger from exposure." She gestured at the gate. "Please let us through, officers. We have a long way to travel before dark." At their further hesitation, she added, "Unless you're going to arrest me."

The guards hesitated for a few more moments, then the unicorn shrugged. His horn glowed, and the gates began to swing open. "It's nothing personal, Lonely Day. It's not like there are bandits to fight in the dead of winter. We're out here to protect you, and the other ponies of Alexandria."

"I understand, officer. You can alleviate yourself of worry. I've packed well for the journey, and I have three centuries of practice surviving in the wilderness." She gestured with one hoof towards Ezri. "My young changeling friend has a terminal injury. We're going to find the cure for her."

With the gate of the city open, the pegasus kept her rifle ready, no longer watching either of them but instead scanning the surroundings with her eagle-sharp eyes. "You're not taking her to the hive?" The unicorn gestured east. "It’s the other way."

Alex gestured, and Ezri started walking. They couldn't go very fast; she had short legs, and would sometimes bumble in her clothes and fall over. That was the price of warmth. "They don't have the treatment. Queen Blacklight sent Ezri to me so I could find it."

They passed the gate, passing the heavy wood with its potent enchantments. In the early days of Alexandria, she had seen Joseph's spells, woven into a chain-link fence, bring a speeding semi-truck to a dead stop without denting the fence. Considerably more magic had been woven into them now, and she could feel the warmth of them as she passed. More than just vigilance kept bandits at bay; they also had the most powerful magic in the formerly-human world.

"What are you looking for?" the unicorn called, though he made no effort to follow her past the threshold. Without a credible threat, that would be leaving his post.

"A soul!" Alex called back. "We're not coming back. I've already filed travel plans, but... please don't tell your superiors to send a rescue party! We're going on to St. Louis, so we won't be coming back!"

She couldn't hear the unicorn over the sound of the gate rattling closed, though she made no effort to listen. Outside the gate, the road was another beast. Snow and ice rose several feet, packed down in a single lane wide enough for the caravan sleds. There was no salt here, no streetlights.

Unfortunately, there were also very few hills, so Alex had to settle for clambering up onto a big pile of snow beside the trail, lifting Ezri onto her back as she did so.

Only a few of the buildings were tall enough to see at this distance. Slowly rusting silos stood off to one side, emerging in twisted orange wreckage from the white of the snow. In the distant gloom, Alex could make out the tallest structure in Alexandria, the Spire. Joseph had been its architect, though it was crafted by magic and not engineers. The work of hundreds of unicorns and several decades culminated in the creation of a single twisting spire of blue crystal, nearly ten stories tall.

It served mystical purposes, though Alex didn't know what those were. She had only known it as a symbol of the city, more potent than their walls or the streetlights that worked. The world's magical capital ought to look a little magical.

"Say goodbye to Alexandria," she said gesturing towards the Spire. "You probably won't see it again."

"Say goodbye-" the changeling mimicked, imitating Alex's intonation perfectly, even if her voice was a full octave higher and echoed strangely.

"Goodbye." Alex lifted her head a little, touching the underside of Ezri's neck in what she hoped was a loving way. The emotion was such that she almost failed to notice the importance of what Ezri had done. "Goodbye my ponies, my friends."

Alex turned her back on the city and started to walk away. She slipped, but not violently enough to dislodge her passenger.

"Friends-" Ezri repeated, her voice a little louder, her grip tightening enough on Alex's back that she could feel it there.

"Oh!" The tears were freezing to her face in the chill wind. She brushed them away, then looked up. "You're speaking, Ezri!"

"Ezri!" she mimicked, beaming.

Alex met her eyes for a few more moments, trying to convey just how pleased she was without saying anything. Changelings were better about that sort of thing than regular ponies were. It helped when the drone could literally eat her appreciation. "That's very good, Ezri. We might have good news for Queen Blacklight yet. Can you say anything else? Other than... imitating me?"

"Imitating me!" She bounced up and down, giggling.

"Well, that's something." The intellectual development of a dog or a parakeet was better than where she had started a week ago. "I wonder how much is instinct." The path stretched empty before her as far as she could see. Alex pulled her hood back on, sheltering against the wind. The spell couldn't protect her face when the hood was down.

"Well Ezri, we've got a long way to go. More than a thousand miles. It would've taken us six weeks to walk straight there back when there were roads, and it was summer. With the highways buried... it will probably take most of the way through spring."

"Spring!"

"Yeah." Alex did not let herself feel exasperated. Even if it seemed the changeling might not actually understand what she was saying, she would send no hint that she wasn't overwhelmingly pleased with her. "Let's find spring."

* * *

Even with magically-insulated clothes, they could only travel so far through winter. Little Ezri's legs could put up with far less exertion than Alex could, both because of her age and because she lacked the strength of the Earth to keep her moving. When Ezri could walk no further, Alex carried her on her back. She continued like that until her own strength was drained. She didn't fight when that happened, since of course she intended to be traveling for several months and a few more miles each day wouldn't be worth the misery. If she'd cared about being timely, she wouldn't have decided to walk.

There was little to see. This close to Alexandria all the fields were cultivated, but in winter they were as covered with snow as anything else and impossible to separate from the flat, featureless plane. There was still a semi-groomed path here, kept clear by the caravans and the motorized ploughs they used. When it came time to rest, Alex left the path, carefully covering their tracks until she found a ravine among the snow. There she first removed her weary passenger and then her saddlebags. The second she concealed in the snow so that they would be out of sight from the road, then flicked the side with Celestia's mark open with her mouth.

Warmth and light came from inside in a rush. Inside was practically another world, at a perpendicular orientation to the one she was standing in. Day lifted Ezri in her mouth, clambering inside like one climbing the crest of a cliff. She deposited her cargo beside her, then tugged down at the tab to close the saddlebags behind her. Ezri stirred with a sound like surprise, though it was hard to tell for sure. She couldn't sense emotions like her friend, but... that seemed like the right choice. She had been pretty surprised the first time she had seen this place.

The library had been built by Equestrian crafts-ponies from the wood of another universe. Three levels it was, with a tall balcony overhead ringing the circular space, rows of shelves on the ground floor, and a small basement with even more shelves. The entire area was lit by brilliant glowing blue crystals mounted like torches from walls or hung in chandeliers. The entire library had been built with the precision of a Victorian pocket watch, and just as much subtle beauty and grace. It had hurt when she tore out most of the shelves: they had been works of art.

The entire library had been transformed into the interior of a small cottage. The books and shelves were all gone from the ground floor, replaced instead with a little sealed coatroom, a grate and a tub to catch the snow. Another wall had coiled tubes and pipes, but she ignored these in favor of helping Ezri and then herself out of their snowy outer layers. Once boots, jacket, and trousers were hanging to dry, she pushed over the glass door beyond into the ground floor. It was amazing how open the space could look without the shelves. The original Equestrian tapestries and crystal lights adorned the walls, along with several new mirrors Alex had mounted to make it feel more open. "Pretty neat, huh?"

"Neat huh," Ezri repeated, fully awake. She wandered into the thickly-carpeted sitting room, passing the cold and dark electric fireplace. She hopped up onto one of the squishy couches, then onto the desk by the wall.

Alex ignored her, heading instead into the little kitchen that looked like something out of history. Well, they were out of history. She ignored those things for the control panel. Hydrogen tanks read full, power nominal. She flicked on the heating system, which would be required to run constantly so long as they were inside. Alex understood very little of the claudication, but she suspected the entire area was in some kind of temporal stasis when it wasn't open. On the other hand, once somebody went inside it couldn't ever be properly closed, and the outside would leak in. Hence the thermal glass and insulation around the entrance.

"I want to be conservative with our power until we get out from where there might be other ponies," she called, then pulled open the pantry door with her teeth. "No cooking our food or using anything but the heater until we're into the wild. I'm... not sure you care. Once we're done with dinner, I'll give you the rest of the tour. You'll be using this thing with me for the next few months, so..."

Ezri said nothing to that, though she did gradually make her way back towards Alex at the mention of food. Alex lifted out a jar of Sky's vegetable soup and set it on the counter. Ezri didn't seem particularly pleased with it, but she ate it anyway. Alex's appreciation depended on her good behavior.

When they were done, Alex took her down the stairs to the basement level. Most of that was sealed away, filled with the equipment that kept the shelter running, but the bedroom and bathroom were accessible. The bathroom had a working sink and shower, though such limited water that they didn't use either one. Lonely Day had already reconciled herself to the frequent company of long-distance travelers: odor.

When she had shown Ezri the facilities and repeated several times her standards were the same as they had been back in Alexandria, she took the exhausted drone into the bedroom. The bed was another relic, an HPI foam mattress adorned with pony-woven sheets. The bedroom itself was small and cramped, most of the space occupied with shelves and other storage. It was like the interior of a submarine, which wasn't far from the truth. This too was its own self-contained world. "I hung up another hammock for you right there, see? You'll be right next to me, just like you seem to like for some reason.”

Ezri hopped up towards it, but her underclothes kept her wings from doing more than making her back twitch. She kept at it without a word, bouncing up and down until Alex noticed and caught her out of the air. "You've got to learn to use your words when you need help, Ezri." She set the changeling down on the bed, then helped her squirm out of the lower layer. Ezri buzzed up and into her hammock the instant she was free, wrapping herself up until only her face poked out. Alex had transferred all her blankets and pillows from the house, so they would all smell right. Ezri seemed to approve.

There was no way to turn out the lights: the Equestrian torches glowed no matter what you did. As such, the ones in the bedroom were enclosed in a little metal housing, which she rotated to cut out the light. That left only a little slit from outside. Alex climbed up into bed, and lay awake long after Ezri drifted off. This would be her life for the next several months. She wondered if the guards had listened to her, or if they would send ponies to track her down.

I hope I can do this, she thought, staring up at the lump of Ezri's hammock above her. Cloudy Skies, help me. Maybe she would've been better off to ask for Adrian's help. Hadn't he been the first one to be kind to Riley? Well, it had been rotten of him to leave Sky the way he had. He didn't have Oliver's excuse of being in a relationship with an ageless immortal.

Did she really expect her friends could hear her somehow? No, but it would've been nice. It would make her life less lonely if she thought that. Guess it won't be that lonely. She had plenty of practice raising Cody; she would do much better the second time.

It was hard to say when she made the transition from awake to asleep within the little Equestrian library. She went from an empty library to a big one, filled with every book she ever read. She wasn't alone; tonight she saw an old friend. A living friend this time, if such beings could be said to live. "Is what I'm doing really helping?" she asked the woman.

"What do you think?" she replied, gesturing all around her. "You've done this for thousands of years. The magic changes less than you think."

"I don't understand."

"Even you must have heard the stories. Your children escaped into the wild, raised with dogs or bears or some other animal. Gone feral. Does that mean they never had a soul?"

"That's absurd! Of course they did! They were ordinary children before they got lost! They could've been-"

"Left alone during their earliest years, your kind lose much of what makes them unique."

"This doesn't help Blacklight. Or Ezri."

"Doesn't it?" The tall woman didn't seem interested in the books, but she did reach out towards one of the wilting flower pots. The pale forget-me-nots bloomed again, brilliant in the world of her dream. "Many reactions are reversible with the right conditions. The wilderness creates animals. What does a family make?"

Archive watched silently for several moments. "You think I'm enough family for Ezri?"

The Keeper nodded. "Far less than the love of a species has been enough for the least among these beings before. If you understood, you could have woke the sleeper in moments." She faced Archive directly. "My servant Riley Owens was not honest with you. She couldn't bear the pain, yet she would tell you if she could."

"Blacklight doesn't lie to me." Yet even as she denied it, Archive recognized it far more as a truth she wished than a truth she knew. Being able to recognize the difference between truth and belief was part of her office, even in herself. No race could live long that lied to itself.

"Riley Owens contends against her nature. She has rejected it to serve me, but that does not mean she has overcome it. Riley could not tell you because it would reflect upon her weakness. No wolf dares bear her throat to a rival. Even if you aren't one; live among them for three centuries and see if everyone you meet doesn't look like a predator."

"I still don't see the lie," Archive said. "Or what this has to do with helping the changelings."

"The drone you call Ezri wasn't the dullest of her drones. See, Riley hasn't told you the most important thing. The reason she values the results of your experiment so much. For centuries she looked out into the empty faces of her hive, but she can bear the agony no more. She decided it was better to birth no children than to bring them into a life without hope of becoming individuals."

"But she... she did create at least one. Ezri's young, just a few years."

"She failed to give the drone sapience, though she was liberal with her time and with glamour, short of making her into a nymph or a male. She abandoned hope of ever having another child. If you do not succeed, her hive will wither away. Young queens lack the willpower or the courage for such a choice. Though powerful among her kind, she would rather become the least than see them in pain. Is that familiar?"

Archive thought over the Keeper's words. It felt like hours before she replied. "You think I'm enough. Even if I can... wake the sleeping soul... will that make a difference? I can't raise all of Blacklight's daughters."

"No. But you're no different from my other children. There's just more of you in one place. What you do in a week, they do in a year. So succeed. Give my servant hope again."

"You think I can," she repeated, mostly to herself.

"Isn't that why you're here?"

* * *

Alex woke the next morning to the sound of a literal gale from outside, along with the roar of thunder and the pounding of what sounded like hail. Worse than either of those sounds were the frightened sounds Ezri made, and the tightness of her grip on Alex's side. No sound could wake her, not when she was having that dream. "Shh... it's okay, Ezri. It's just weather outside. It can't get us in here." Maybe not, but that didn't mean it wouldn't have an impact. Fabric shook somewhere far away, and the temperature was ten degrees lower than what it had been when she slept. Well within acceptable parameters for an earth pony, but for a drone...

She understood what had driven Ezri into her bed. Just as they depended on other species for glamour, they relied on their environments for heat. Death was certain without either one. Alex tried to get the drone to stay safe in her own still-warm bed, but she refused to let her leave without thrashing and crying out with all the violence of her first day. "Fine, suit yourself. I'm just trying to help."

Alex hopped out, but didn't fight her off, letting Ezri cling to her back. "Damn weather report didn't say it was coming this early in the morning. Come on." She pushed the bedroom door open, then hurried up the stairs. It got colder the closer to the entrance they got, and the ground floor was even chilly enough to make her shiver. It got worse as she made her way to the entrance.

The library could not be moved so long as living things were within it, not by any strength of ponies or any magic. Indeed, she had once put the saddlebags on a large pile of sand, had Huan climb inside, then shut the pocket and removed the sand. The library had hung in the air, as though suspended on an invisible hook. Alex didn't know how much weight the spell would support outside, but she hadn't ever tested further.

She wasn't worried the storm would blow them away. Bury them, maybe. But not move them. The wind couldn't blow open the entrance, for only Alex's will could open it. Yet a little air must circulate, because the temperature would change and ponies never suffocated who visited. It seemed to transfer fastest around the entrance, because when she opened the thermal shield she was plunged into an arctic wasteland.

Ezri cried out as though she had been struck, clinging all the tighter to Alex's back.

"I know! This will only take a second!" The gale outside must've been truly remarkable, because she even felt some of the breeze when standing beside the entrance. Alex pulled down on a thick layer of reflective plastic and canvas, until it completely covered the entrance. She zipped all the way around the edge, then pulled down a thick blanket to cover that. The wind stopped.

Even so, she returned to the relative warmth of the interior, making straight for the kitchen and turning the heater system up all the way. She could practically hear the hiss of her hydrogen burning away downstairs, and the gesture cost her a little... but not nearly so much as it would cost if Ezri got hurt. "Let's find somewhere more comfortable for you," she muttered, wandering over to the fireplace. She turned this on too, cranking the heater inside all the way up and sitting down beside it.

Within a few minutes Ezri released her death grip on her back, spreading herself on the floor in front of the fireplace like a cat. "Can I get up now?" The drone didn't object, so Alex rose to get them both dry cereal and milk for breakfast. Neither one would last, so she wasn't conservative with their portions.

"Guess you must not get much of storms in your hive," Alex murmured, over the crunching of the cereal in Ezri's mouth. She still hadn't managed to get the little drone to eat with a spoon. That was hardly at the front of her mind today. Today she didn't even bother to make her sit at the table, but ate beside her on the floor in front of the fireplace.

"Or maybe you're too young to have seen any really bad ones. I thought about staying behind and waiting it out in Alexandria, but... things always break in big storms, and one way or another I always get roped into helping fix them. Not this year."

Ezri moved a little closer, resting against Alex's side. She shivered violently with each and every boom of thunder. A pity it was so cold; Alex would've loved to go up there and see it for herself. Alex loved storms. Cloudy Skies had loved them too. "Don't worry, Ezri. It can't get in. I won't let it get in." She gestured vaguely around them. "This library was made by Equestrian wizards, and they made their spells to last."

"Last," Ezri whined.

"The fancy stuff is mine, so it's sturdy too. Did the conversion into a house..." she shrugged. "Well, I guess I started over a century ago. But don't worry... things in here aren't old. There's some kind of stasis spell on it. Part of how I was able to get things that work."

The drone showed no sign of comprehension. She fawned in the heat and reveled in the attention, but said nothing. In time she had relaxed enough to get up, which was good because Alex was practically baking in the heat.

It took three days for the storm to pass, three days spent with the distant roar of wind and rattling of fabric. As much as the ordeal was difficult for Ezri, she was relieved by all the noise. Noise meant they hadn't been buried, which was the only thing that could give them real trouble. How much damage could ten feet of snow do if she opened the door too suddenly? Alex tried whatever she could think of to pass the time with Ezri, but the drone had no patience for video or board games, no desire to watch movies, and no interest in music.

In the end, she did find something the drone appreciated. Books. She couldn't read, no more than Alex would've expected a three-year-old pony to be able to read. Yet she could listen, or at least sit still while Alex read. Actually holding the book seemed important too: while Archive could call up anything she had ever read and recite it perfectly, Ezri only paid attention if the prop was in front of her.

Lonely Day didn't question why this might be, nor did she complain. The top floor was still a library, even if only a third of the shelves held Equestrian books. That collection had been spread and copied many times throughout the world, leaving only a few hundred of the originals. Archive had kept the originals of the most esoteric or dangerous books of magical instruction, those complex enough to offer her some help in understanding her own nature.

Most of the Equestrian books still in the library were copies, not originals, with the standard block letters of an Alexandria printing press and pre-Event leather covers. Yet these books too pushed her drone to boredom. Only one genre was diverting enough to keep Ezri from noticing her fear of the storm: fantasy. In three days, they made it through The Fellowship of the Ring and started in on The Two Towers.

Once the storm had finally passed, Ezri went from bored to delighted at Day's ability to recite without a book in front of her, and became antsy whenever she went more than an hour of their walk without more of the story. She never spoke when Day read, but walked along with rapt attention.

Their fifth day on the road, they passed through the wreckage of their first village. "Kansas" had only ever had a few hundred people living in it even before the Event; while a population like that would make a very respectable town these days, it was so small as to make it likely that not a single person who had lived in it had returned. In three centuries it had been almost completely reclaimed by nature, save for the shells of brick buildings, along with the occasional spire of a telephone pole somehow standing despite the odds.

The caravan route followed the same path the road had gone, though the cheap asphalt of the road had long been devoured by plants. Many trees now grew here, leafless Alders and Maples like the skeleton of a forest to be reborn a few months hence. Lonely Day slowed their pace as they moved through the trees, with the respect she might've shown in a graveyard. "People lived here once," she told her companion, her voice sad. "It hasn't taken very long for nature to take the houses back, can you see?"

"See." Ezri didn't seem to understand the abstraction, but she didn't try to speed their pace again and she did look whenever Alex pointed. Every day the little drone became more animated, though she had yet to say anything that Alex hadn't said first.

Alex nodded. "Lots of the planet is like this right now. It used to be there were people almost everywhere. Now all the places we used to live are fading away."

Ezri seemed to consider that, though it was hard to tell what the drone was thinking. Yet if she was thinking at all, it meant Lonely Day was beginning to succeed in her purpose.

"You'll see some real ruins in a few weeks. Just you wait until we get to St. Louis. You'll see some of what humanity used to be like."

But that was several weeks yet, weeks of cold days and warm nights. Her conservatism let their hydrogen last a full two weeks before it was time to charge again. That meant walking well off the trail into the hills, unrolling the solar mat, and letting the whole thing recharge over the course of a week. In theory her shelter could recharge in a day, but... that took a full day of summer sunshine.

When they reached Charleston, they stayed three full days in a traveler's hostel. Three full days of hot meals every night and hot showers every morning. Charleston wasn't even half the size of Alexandria, but the ponies were kind to travelers and didn't ask too many questions. Alex even dared to use the time to charge the shelter, exposing what she could of the solar mat through their single window.

Before they left, Lonely Day penned a letter to Riley, and paid two whole chits to have it flown by pegasus messenger back to Alexandria. She didn't write much, not daring to allow any of what she knew (or suspected she knew) from her strange dreams to get into the hooves of rival changeling clans. Was it possible her mission was known among them? She hadn't tried to hide Ezri the day she left. Changeling drones were not strange in Alexandria, but seeing one so young was practically unheard of. Everypony she spoke to in Charleston just assumed she was a returned human unlucky enough to be a changeling but lucky enough to have an older sister who would look out for her. Day did nothing to discourage this belief.

English was still the written and spoken language, though some words had drifted towards other meanings and numerous new slang terms had appeared from nothing. Day wasn't sure if Riley knew any other languages, so she was stuck having to write as vaguely as she could.

"Remember the day Adrian found you in the City Museum? He heard you crying and came running. We never expected to find anypony new so fast, let alone in there. It didn't take you very long at all to impress me. In the end, we all really depended on you, and you saved our lives.

You did good work then. I haven't thought about that for a long time. I wish I could ask Adrian what was going through his head when he first saw you. I'm pretty sure he'd have given me an honest answer, even if he did end up treating Sky like a dick and run off on her.

I'm safe and well. Travel is slow, but that's by design. How many ponies are going to get to say they watched the country rot away before their eyes. Figure if I'm alive I might as well take a look. Be safe until I write again. If you want to write back, send telegraph or pegasus to the "Old Boot" hotel in St. Louis, by my birthday. I won't wait if I don't hear from you. I think Adrian would've really liked it there.

-Day"

Was she being paranoid? Maybe. But if this whole situation was as important as the Keeper and Blacklight herself had made it out to be... maybe a little paranoia was warranted. Pity Ezri couldn't shapeshift yet: a little of that and they could've been practically invisible. They encountered nothing even hinting at danger for themselves that wasn't natural in Charleston, or during the next few days into Mattoon.

When the danger finally came, it had nothing to do with changelings.

Chapter 12: Arrival Day (291 AE)

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They came from the gloom of near evening, circling in from upwind where their prey would not smell them. Since the Event, it seemed that all animals were at least a little smarter. Huan had seemed to outright understand her at times, and followed complex spoken instructions with characteristic canine loyalty. Unfortunately, that same new source of mental power was extended to all creatures, even the dangerous ones. Even the wolves.

In later years, she might be impressed with their cunning. At the time, though, she didn’t consider it. A single lone beast, massive and shaggy gray, came at them from a direction she could smell and expect it. It loped towards them with head down and ears back, in clear hunting fashion.

Day scooped Ezri onto her back and did what many equines had done before her when confronted with danger: she ran. “Hold on Ezri! Don’t let go no matter what!” The ground flew beneath her with the crunching of her boots. It was true she might’ve been faster and stronger without them, getting her hooves directly on the earth... but such minor obstructions mattered less and less as she got older.

She filled herself with the alien vastness, expanding her perceptions. She saw the earth itself stretching out in all directions, and knew exactly where to put her hooves so they would not slip. Strength gave her gallop the leaping confidence of a gazelle. A wolf might be able to run down a unicorn or flightless pegasus, but never an earth pony. It was all the creature could do to keep up.

The drone squeaked and whined in protest, though Day couldn’t have said why. Only later did she understand Ezri had probably judged the wolves’ plan better than she had. It took one predator to know another. The wolf chased her off the path and into the trees, never getting close yet not letting her get far enough away to choose her own route.

She saw them all at once: half a dozen animals, with coats somewhere between white and gray. Then a mouth that could’ve opened wide enough to crush her whole head. She dodged to one side, only to find another wolf blocking her. When she reeled backward, a third wolf emerged, teeth bared. They circled in on her, closing the circle tighter.

She hadn’t been thinking rationally. What she should’ve done was get her gun from inside the bag, or charged the first wolf directly. An earth pony with her strength, with three centuries of combat experience... she could’ve turned the animal to paste. A dozen wolves were different. While she killed one, another would rip Ezri in half, and three more would be on her back.

Instinct, like hot sweat in her brain, screamed that she should run, bolt through the circle and try to escape. Now that she realized it was there she fought it back, forcing herself to think rationally. Thinking like a horse was exactly what she didn’t need right now.

None of the wolves struck right away, just slowly tightened the circle. They seemed to recognize the danger this prey presented; the first individual to attack would very likely be hurt. A single kick from an earth pony could break bones, which could mean death for a wild predator. That gave her a few precious seconds to think.

She couldn’t get inside the saddlebags fast enough, not with the way they were tightly attached to her back. Ezri, though... “Get in!” She turned, yanking the nearest flap open with her teeth. The Luna side, the one she used for storage. It couldn’t be helped. “Don’t open that for anything!”

To her credit, Ezri obeyed. No sooner had she clambered in than the saddlebags froze in the air, rigid and unyielding. Alex was trapped. Of course, the wolves couldn’t actually know that. She made a show of huffing and bouncing back and forth, when she was really wiggling her way out of the straps. She couldn’t lower her mouth to the release; that would be an invitation to pounce.

“Another step closer and you’re dead!” she shouted, casting her eyes about the group. “I’m not as young and defenseless as I look!” She would have to start traveling with her gun over her shoulder if she lived through this: she hadn’t thought wolves had made it this far south yet. “Dead!”

A particularly nasty wolf, its face covered with scars and teeth broken, was the first to lunge at her. Protecting Ezri had meant trapping her: she couldn’t get her flank out of its way. Unfortunately for the wolf, she had felt its leap through the ground and been ready for it.

She filled herself with enough of Earth to turn her blood to iron, and bucked with the force of a cannon. Claws raked easily through her trousers and underclothes, but slid off her hide like it had been steel. Bones broke. Not hers. One wolf didn’t move.

“The rest of you want that?” Her shout shook the earth at her hooves, or perhaps it came from the earth. It was hard to tell. Her back legs were free now, only her forelegs were still attached. Trapped was still trapped though, and they seemed to realize.

The trap sprung closed, the whole lot lunging for her at once. Archive inhaled, taking in all that her senses gave her, comparing it to all she knew, calculating. Exactly eleven wolves in the circle still alive, three more a little ways off to catch her if she made a run for it. She should’ve felt honored; such attention was only warranted for really big, dangerous prey. They must be hungry to attack a pony like this.

Archive leapt forward, twisting through the stationary loop of the strap. Her jump took her away from the saddlebags, and directly into the gaping jaws of another gigantic wolf. She twisted in the air so she would take the creature with her shoulder.

Archive was off the ground this time, and couldn’t call upon the full strength of Earth. Still, there was enough of it in her that when she met the wolf, it was her bones that didn’t break. Its teeth and at least two sets of claws raked through her clothes in various places, bringing hot lances of pain but not enough to stop her. She landed and rolled outside the place they had closed. Her jump had been too fast for most of them to track.

“You’re dead!” she roared, twisting back towards the group. Howls and snarls answered as they turned back on her. She let the earth wash over her, dulling her pain to insignificance for the moment. Her photographic perceptions let her take in the entire situation simultaneously: several more of the wolves lied whimpering around the saddlebags, which had seemed so soft yet yielded less to them than a brick wall. None looked more than stunned, however. She had only taken one more out of the fight, as the huge female retreated to nurse a few newly broken teeth.

Escape was there in the air, if she could get the bags open and closed again in time. If she died in the fight, Ezri would almost certainly starve before she returned. Archive had to survive. “You’re supposed to be hunting deer damnit!" One of the wolves was clawing at the saddlebags where Ezri had vanished. He managed to get the side open, but it was empty. Only Archive or Luna could open that bag.

They left it open, which meant she would have to close and then open the bag, without letting them get in beside her. At least Ezri wouldn’t be able to open her way out with the bag already open on the outside.

Archive turned and fled, pounding deeper into the forest towards the nearest watching sentry. She made no attempt to evade the creature, striking straight on at a full gallop. More blood stained her white snow clothes; more blood that wasn’t her own and another predator that wouldn’t hunt pony again.

She pounded through the forest, twisting and weaving like a doe that had lived here all her life. She came upon thick brambles, but didn’t even slow. “Let me through!” The plants grumbled in their way, but slid aside without so much as snagging her coat, letting her maintain her pace.

She banked sharply to the left as she came upon a frozen pond, which would’ve sapped all her magic the instant her last hoof slid off the snow. One of her pursuers, a few fresh scratches on its hide from the nettles, couldn’t turn sharply enough and went sliding out onto the ice. A few more scrabbled against it, found their footing, and kept going after her.

Just how hungry were these wolves? She had injured three of them now and hadn’t been slowed. Shouldn’t they have given up? The alternative frightened her far more than the idea of starving wolves: wolves smart enough to take it personally when she killed their own, and to feel anger and hatred towards her. To want revenge.

They wouldn’t get it. They had picked the wrong lonely traveler to attack. Pity really; Archive had no anger towards a predator for doing what it had evolved to do. She wouldn’t hesitate to do whatever she had to do to survive in turn. If that meant killing each and every one of them, she would. Guilt and second-guessing were luxuries of people who weren’t somepony’s food.

She couldn’t stand her ground, not without getting torn to pieces. She could keep enough magic in her for a single blow, but not half a dozen at once. Each new strike weakened her, strained her connection to the planet that much more. What she needed was her gun.

Her loop took her back to the saddlebags, floating as they were in the air. A short, lean wolf still pawed in vain at it, neither scratching the leather nor succeeding at revealing the juicy changeling inside. “Get out of my way!” she bellowed, and the juvenile retreated. Alex didn’t bother with the open side, but jumped and clambered into the sun side of her saddlebags, where she landed in a limp heap.

She heard more scratching and barking from outside, felt the fabric shake. Maybe they would try and open this side too, and she would have to shake the entrance until she could get the flap to drift closed. What she wanted to do was sit here as long as it took to get the wolves to get bored and leave her alone. She couldn’t though, not with Ezri terrified in the storage side. No child could be left in that state: Ezri needed love, and without it she might be rash. She might eventually try to escape, right into the waiting jaws of the wolves.

Alex shrugged out of the jacket, wet as it was with blood and shredded through in several places. She pounded into the room, straight to a locked safe concealed behind a wooden panel. She twisted several times with her mouth, forcing herself to hold steady so that she wouldn’t make some mistake and have to start over. The gunsafe clicked, and she tugged violently until the thick steel swung outward.

Inside were several weapons, pre and post Event both and all in good working order. She selected one of the most modern, an SER-MKV. The gun seemed like a strange fusion of splint and weapon, clicking into place with plastic grips along her foreleg. Electric servos tightened and secured it in place, and the sight clicked up. Lifting her leg and tensing was all it would take to fire.

She pounded back to the entrance, where claws still scraped in vain at fabric. “Hollow-point!” she shouted at the gun, which beeped loudly and made plastic grinding-sounds as it switched internal magazines. Alex planted her other three hooves securely, then used her front right to flick the bag open. Snapping jaws met her, claws scrambling to get inside.

Archive didn’t need any complex trajectory calculations to shoot accurately at this range. She fired into the predator’s mouth, gore exploding outward behind it. Its limp corpse slid out of the opening, clearing the path to several more of the creatures.

Archive held her hoof steady, retreating a pace and keeping her eye on the sight. A second later another wolf lunged for the opening. It died in the air, though the momentum from its leap carried it forward to the ground at the base of the saddlebags, where it could rest beside its companion. Four wolves were dead.

“I don’t want to kill you!” she shouted out the opening, as loud as her little pony body could muster. “But you won’t kill me, or my friend! There’s no fight for you here!” She fired into the air, the third ear-splitting crack in as many moments.

At last, the wolves had enough. It seemed the power of firearms was not unknown among them. They scattered, barking and growling fiercely as they fled. They did not retrieve the dead.

* * *

Lonely Day climbed from the saddlebags and over the corpses of the dead. She had seen enough death not to balk. That didn’t mean she relished seeing it, though. “I’m sorry you couldn’t find something else to eat,” she told one of the corpses, before grunting and shoving the still-steaming corpse aside. She cleared aside the other as well, so that Ezri wouldn't climb out onto the corpses of their enemies.

She did nothing further to conceal the wreckage of the battle than move those she had shot a few paces. Alex closed the open flap, then tugged it open with her mouth. “Ezri? Ezri, are you alright?” Nothing answered from within.

Alex clambered inside, tugging it shut behind her. “Disarm.” The gun loosened from around her leg, and she shrugged it off onto the floor. Now that her battle was over, Alex was painfully aware of her numerous lacerations. A few would probably need stitches, seeping blood into her underclothes. She would ignore the pain a few minutes longer.

There was only one floor in the storage room, a round space Alex had filled with shelves. Most of the Equestrian artifacts were gone with the books, distributed among the cities of Earth. The haul that replaced it looked like it had been stolen right out of time. Unopened boxes from electronics stores, paintings and other artifacts, all rested on the higher shelves. The lower shelves were filled with far more mundane supplies: wooden barrels of wheat and corn, bales of hay, jars of vegetables. Salt, baking soda, detergent. Alex had stolen the enchanted torches from the shelves she had ripped out in the other half.

The storage room had no heating system, no active electronics of any kind. To keep everything fresh, Alex tried to spend as little time in here as possible. It wasn’t nearly as cold as the outdoors, though it would get that cold if they stayed. “Ezri, where are you?”

She heard a whimper from the back and made for that way, moving slow. “It’s safe, Ezri. They’re gone. You’re going to be safe.”

Ezri had taken one of the bales of hay and hidden inside it. She could see the eyes poking out from inside the disorderly pile, watching her as she approached. Alex sat down a few feet away, not daring to approach any further. “You did good, Ezri. You did what I said. Perfect.”

“You hurt.” The voice was so faint Day almost didn’t hear it. It didn’t sound frightened, exactly. It sounded awed. “You bled for me.”

Day nodded, meeting Ezri’s eyes as she always did when she had something important to say. “Of course I did, Ezri. Your mother gave you to me. I wouldn’t have let anything happen to you.”

Ezri stirred from within her makeshift shelter. Her head peeked out first, then she emerged, shaking the straw away from where it clung. “Why?”

“I protect my own.” She didn’t look away, but she did stretch and expand her perceptions into the nonvisual, as Sunset Shimmer had taught her to do. She had done so before with Ezri, and never seen anything. Now she saw a line, a faint thread and an ember burning on borrowed time. She let her mind drift back to reality. “You’re not imitating anymore.” She was still bleeding. If she didn’t do something about it soon, she might be too weak to treat herself.

“No.”

She ignored the pain a little longer, reaching out and embracing the little drone. Not even a month ago, and she had been little more than an animal. Were all changelings so close?

Ezri closed her eyes and held herself there until Alex let her go. “Still hurt.”

“I should probably do something about that, huh?” She let the drone go. “And all the blood. Come on.” She gestured to the door. “Let’s get over to the other side. I’ve got first aid in there.”

“‘Kay”

Alex took up the gun again when they reached the entrance, arming it. They wouldn’t be caught defenseless in this country again. As soon as they were back on the snow, the saddlebags flopped limply to the ground like so much fabric. Alex tossed them onto her back, but didn’t bother securing them. She just wanted to get away from the dead, in case the wolves were hungry enough that they decided to come back for their own.

Ezri looked around in awe at the wreckage of battle. She stared at the corpses until Alex nudged her to start walking again. They didn’t say anything else.

Without the protection of the spells, the winter stole the heat from Alex and made her whole body feel stiff. Blood froze into her clothes around the wounds, and cracked as she walked. It was not a state anypony ought to travel in. She took them away from the dead, away from the path and back to the brambles from earlier. There she concealed the saddlebags, and flopped inside like a dead fish.

“Help!” Ezri pawed at her side, her tone frantic. “Need help?”

“N-No...” She shivered, tried to force herself to stand, then failed. “Just... a little weak.” She started dragging herself towards the stairs, not caring that she was tracking snow in with every gesture. “First aid kit is... in the bathroom. I should clean these out too. I don’t want to get infected...”

Ezri whimpered, trailing after her but not seeming to know what to do. She seemed no different from any other frightened child then, however strange she might look. “I’m sorry... your world is like this, Ezri...” She winced as she reached the stairs, trying with her forelegs again. She rose. “You shouldn’t have to see this. If you’d like to go upstairs and wait for me, I... shouldn’t be more than a few hours. It’s not that bad. Just don’t leave the shelter, not for any reason. Don’t open it no matter what happens to me, understand?”

Ezri shook her head. “Won’t go!”

She reached the bottom of the stairs, and the bathroom door. “You shouldn’t watch me though... I’m not... It’s not as bad as it looks. I’ll... be fine...”

She felt light. The chill had taken away sensation at the end of her hooves, and she couldn’t get any of Earth’s strength in here. This place wasn’t on Earth. She fumbled at the door, and her hoof slid down uselessly three times before she managed to get it to swing inward. Her tongue was going numb.

She was bleeding to death. Archive was no stranger to the feeling: she had died more than anyone else she knew. She had left so much blood on the snow, and having her source of magic taken away so suddenly was too much. She might have made it if she had shelter back on Earth, and a skilled doctor. She wasn’t sure she could even make it up the stairs.

Ezri watched her intently, and grew more distraught with every second. Alex supposed she knew why: the predator recognized dying prey when she saw it. “N-No...” She had no magic, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have determination. She fought back the cold and the sweet numbness that waited in it. “Ezri, promise me... you won’t leave the shelter.” She was slurring every word, tripping over herself. Her legs gave out, and she saw blood pooling under her leg. Had the scratch torn an artery?

Only her will kept her alive. “You’ve... water sink... food in the pantry... fireplace... I’ll...” Ezri’s horrified face faded.

Alex died.

* * *

She floated without touch, sight, smell, or sound in a void that extended forever in all directions. Only in such moments did Archive feel peace. She could stay here, and never hurt again. None of her friends would ever leave her again, and she would never fail them in return.

Memory blurred in death as it never did in life, and she saw the whole length of her existence as a single moment. Cody learning to walk. The faces of her human parents in a hospital in LA. Earlier, stranger things for which her life had given her no words.

The future too. Somewhere in that future she saw a great light, though she saw it as a memory. Somewhere waited for her, pulled at her. It was pulling at her even now, demanding that she complete her journey at last. It was so far away, but so bright that she could see nothing of what waited inside. Its edge was an event horizon beyond which her existence, or at least her memories, ceased to have meaning.

‘Not yet.’ She turned away, away from the singularity. She was being pulled back; back along the threads of belief that bound her to Earth. ‘I am not finished.’ There was no rage for her departure, only sorrow. Whatever became of the spirit, she would not see it this time.

Archive screamed as life flooded back into her, every nerve alight with agony. She spasmed, confused, coughing up a lungful of fluid. In that way, it was very much like a birth. Pain in every limb faded into a universal sense of pins and needles, twitching a little as her muscles remembered how to move again.

It was not a good smell. She spent several minutes fighting her way out of her ruined clothes, tossing the whole lot into the bathtub. It was still warm, which meant either it hadn’t been that long, or... Ezri hadn’t stayed. The spell that kept her claudication in stasis could not function if anyone was alive inside, but until just now she hadn’t been alive.

“Ezri! Ezri, are you in here?” She walked out into the hallway, her steps still coming a little sluggish as all her limbs woke up. She pushed the bedroom door open, scanning quickly for changelings. The hammock and bed were empty. It was possible she could’ve hidden under the bed or in some of the larger drawers, but Alex didn’t look. If Ezri was hiding down there, she could come and find her later.

How long had she been dead this time? Hours? Weeks? Typically worse injuries meant a longer death, which gave her a little hope. She hadn’t been exploded, dismembered, or irradiated this time, so hopefully... “Ezri! Ezri, where are you?” She turned to the stairs, feeling more confident with every step. She almost felt alive again; another few minutes and she should be fully herself.

The upstairs looked ransacked. Cushions and blankets on the floor, furniture moved, paper torn up, and books piled disorderly. The kitchen was worse, and she could scarcely see the ground through the mess. What had happened?

“Ezri, where are you?” Alex stood at the head of the stairs, keeping her eyes alert for movement. The entrance was closed, though... that didn’t mean it hadn’t been used. Anypony could open it from inside. If Ezri had disobeyed even once, she likely would’ve gotten stuck out there and frozen to death. “Please Ezri, it’s me! I’m okay again. Where’d you get off to?”

Alex hurried to the controls in the kitchen, which displayed the current local time. Two days. Unfortunately, the clock didn’t actually run when someone wasn’t inside. She had to update it each time they used the shelter if she wanted it to stay synced up with the world outside. It meant at least two days had passed.

Damit Ezri, I hope you can follow instructions, Alex thought, darting back into the room to begin a more thorough search. Her mind began to wander as she looked, thinking to what she might tell Queen Blacklight if she couldn’t find her. “Yes Riley, I helped your daughter find her soul, but then I let her wander out into the woods and freeze to death. No I didn’t get to talk to her and figure out what made it work, I let wolves kill me before I could.” There were no excuses with a changeling queen. It wouldn’t matter that Alex had been dead when her daughter got lost. It would still be her fault.

Alex couldn’t find Ezri on the second floor. She tried the rest of the basement too, even opening up the maintenance areas and checking them, but they hadn’t been disturbed. That done, she made her way up the stairs to the third floor.

The third floor was really just a round balcony that circled the room, giving access to the shelves around the wall (which she hadn’t torn out). The storm that had taken the lower floors appeared to have passed through here too, because most of the books were on the floor in piles of various sizes. She found Ezri asleep in a “nest” of books, blankets, and food. Dried crackers and vegetable paste were smeared on the ground around her, and the whole thing was covered with so many layers it probably could’ve kept Ezri warm in the snow.

Normally she would’ve been furious at the mess. Under the circumstances, she was so relieved that nothing Ezri could’ve done would’ve made her upset.

She didn’t wake the drone; once it was clear the little insect-pony was breathing, Day lowered the blankets back into place and set about the process of repairing the downstairs. Alex found it easy to lose herself in work, particularly after becoming a pony.

She turned down the heat while she worked; less than a third of their hydrogen remained and they might need it if they got hit with another unexpected storm. A fair amount of food had been destroyed, along with a few books that had fallen into something wet.

That might be a high price, but it wasn’t too high to be worth paying. She hadn’t lost Ezri. She collected anything that might be flammable in one bin, to save for when they next built a fire (nothing could be burned inside the library lest they all choke on the fumes). Maybe when they were closer to St. Louis, and further from the apparently expanded territory of the wolves.

After an hour or so putting the upstairs back together (with plenty left to do), she heard stirring upstairs in the form of rustling blankets and tumbling books.

Lonely Day froze in place, looking up towards the upstairs balcony where she was sure she would see a pair of insect eyes pretty soon. “Good morning Ezri!”

“Good morning,“ she imitated, though in this case she didn’t copy Alex’s tone. It seemed a few days alone hadn’t been long enough to lose the ground they had gained. Assuming it even could be lost. “Morning...” Her wings buzzed, and abruptly the drone slid between the bars of the railing and began to descend. Ezri couldn’t yet fly, Alex knew that now. She was excellent at gliding, however.

The drone landed on the top of the nearby couch, and seemed to be glaring at her. Day froze, silent as the drone sniffed at her, walking a slow circle through the cramped space. Whatever Ezri seemed to be expecting, she didn’t appear to find it, because she only got more confused.

“Dead,” she whimpered, clinging suddenly to one of Day’s hindlegs. “You died!”

“I did.” Lonely Day was not surprised a drone would be conscious of the reality of death, living in a changeling hive. Whatever Blacklight’s attempt to give her drone-daughter sentience, it would not have been sheltering her from reality. Even the parts of it Alex herself never would’ve chosen to show her. “Did your mother ever tell you about me?”

Ezri didn’t answer, just clung a little tighter. So Archive tried something else. “I knew you needed me, so I had to come back. I won’t let it happen again.” Just how much could such a small drone understand, anyway?

Honesty she could understand. However insect-like they might appear, Alex learned then that drones could cry.

She took things slow with Ezri for the next few days. Alex spent much of her free time cleaning up her cabin, or doing her best to repair her enchanted clothing. The underclothes were thoroughly destroyed, but that didn’t matter since she had several sets. The jacket and snow pants, on the other hand...

She was fortunate that the spells didn’t require absolute integrity of the materials involved. Even so, the openings leaked heat, heat she couldn’t afford to lose in the dead of winter. Day trimmed the tattered parts and sewed patches on the inside, but that was all. Hopefully she could find a good tailor in St. Louis.

Ezri retained her intelligence, and seemed to grow more alert by the day. After a day or so of being cautious around Alex she returned to being as affectionate as ever, never letting her out of sight. Eventually Alex had done what she could for her winter clothes and they started walking again. She kept her gun within reach this time, and used it more than once to protect them from predators.

Few bothered them on the road, though. There were plenty of other animals to eat, animals that weren’t possessed of powerful magics or advanced technology. As it had been in Earth-that-Was, animals attacking people was more an irregular sign of desperation than a commonplace occurrence. Another few weeks, and they passed through Effingham.

No ponies lived here now, though before the Event the little city had been larger than Alexandria. As with most places, the neglected structures had fallen into disrepair, though the older stone churches and banks continued their hollow vigil.

They were wearing their snowshoes the day they arrived, the wind gusting fiercely but no snow falling. “Buildings!” Ezri shouted as they entered, pointing at an aluminum building half buried in the snow.

“That’s right Ezri.” Alex couldn’t scoop her up; it was much harder to do that when the drone was wearing snowshoes. She didn’t like the idea of getting kicked in the face with them as she walked, which Ezri was very likely to do. “That is a human building. It must’ve been made stronger than the others, since it isn’t fallen over.”

“Why?”

“Because we have a freeze-thaw cycle here. It’s very bad for buildings.”

“Why?”

Lonely Day could not allow herself to get annoyed with Ezri’s constant questions, even if they kept on until the day they reached Radio Springs. “You know what ice is, right? And snow?”

Ezri nodded, kicking some towards Alex. “It's everywhere!”

“Right. Well, water is bigger when it’s frozen than it is when it’s liquid. The water we drink would get bigger if we left it out in the cold.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a polar mol-” She sighed. “That’s not the point.” They passed a huge hunk of metal on the side of the road, what looked like it had once been a tractor. Rust had devoured it, leaving only a few odd bits to poke out from the snow. She would find a similar story in every parking lot and driveway she cared to look. These days it took a little forensics to tell where a car had been. “Just think about it this way, Ezri. Water gets into things, from the rain and the dew. Then it gets cold and the water freezes. It can break things apart. Over a long time, it can even break rocks. Most of the stuff people made buildings out of is way weaker than rocks.”

“Why?”

Day started to answer, then shut her mouth again. “Little troublemaker.” She mock-glared. “You don’t care! You’re just trying to keep me talking!”

Ezri giggled, then touched her belly. “Junk food!”

“Am not!” Day reached down to nuzzle her, though not for long. She couldn’t do much else with snowshoes on her hooves. “Your mother never told me you’d get so clever when you woke up. She’s gonna get an earful from me when I write to her.”

The drone stopped giggling. “What is mother?”

“Mother is...” Lonely Day considered that a moment. How much of her earlier life did the little drone remember? Alex never got clear answers when she asked about her life in the hive. Usually reminding Ezri about her early life just made her mopey for a few hours. “Mother is the pony who loves you the most. The one who looks out for you no matter what.”

“Oh, I know what that is!” Ezri rested her head on Alex’s side. “I thought you were called Alex.”

Alex sighed, though she returned the embrace. “I suppose I might be like an adoptive mom. But I’m not the only one. I’m talking about the pony you were born to, Queen Blacklight. The pony who gave you to me to take care of. She loves you too, I know she does.”

“Oh.” Ezri let go. “I remember somepony else. I guess that must have been her. She wanted me to spend time with her all the time. I wanted... something...” she strained, then shrugged. “She didn’t have as much food as you.”

“She gave you all the love she could,” Day said, without hesitation. “But I’m not like other ponies. I... The reason I came back after I died and the reason I have more love than she does are the same. I’m...” There was no way to explain something so complex, or at least none she could think of. “Not really a pony. I just look like one. Kinda like changelings I guess. You can look like ponies when you want to. I always look like a pony, but I’m actually something else underneath. It doesn’t have a name: I don’t think there’s ever been one of me before.”

“Why?”

“Not this routine again.” Alex groaned. “I don’t know, Ezri. It’s not natural. Several Alicorns and one monster got together to make me, and it wasn’t easy for them. It hurt, I think I died a lot. Over and over again, until I didn’t need their magic to come back. Until I wasn’t a pony anymore.”

She froze in place, prompting Ezri to stop walking too. She saw something in the distance, something that shouldn’t be there. Smoke. Not the out-of-control fire kind of smoke either, but the kind that came from a chimney. Nobody had been living here last she checked. Had someone been unfortunate enough to come back in the dead of winter to a town time had destroyed? If so, she owed her help.

Archive was no Alicorn to teleport around the planet, or a force like the Keeper that could be everywhere at once. It was all she could do to do good where she was at that moment. For what few of them she had met, Archive appreciated the can-do spirit of the country people who had lived out here. If anypony could survive in a new body in the dead of winter, it was the sort of person who had chosen to live so far away from civilization in the first place.

“Time to run, Ezri! Someone might be here! They might need our help!” She couldn’t actually run in snowshoes, not without tripping and sprawling all over the floor. She could speed up to a brisk trot, or as brisk as Ezri could handle. When the drone proved unable to go much faster, she scooped her up onto her back heedless of getting snow to the face from her shoes, moving rapidly down the main thoroughfare.

Few buildings were intact, though the smoke came from one that was. An old church, one built from sturdy red brick and apparently even sturdier mortar to still be standing after three centuries. Statues of the Virgin and St. Francis still stood outside, their white marble a little dirty but otherwise unmarred. The building looked to be in worse condition. A few of the windows had been boarded up, though there were no obvious holes in the ceiling. A miracle? Or just good construction.

According to the inscription, the building had already been two centuries old when the Event occurred. She trudged through the snow in front of the structure, stopping in front of a pair of massive oak doors. Day knocked with the side of her snowshoe, sending loud echoes into the building.

“Is there a pony inside?” Ezri asked.

“Or a griffon, or a minotaur, or a diamond dog, or a...” She shrugged. “Zebras and changelings count as ponies to me. I just want to make sure they’re okay, Ezri. I don’t know many ponies who would chose to live alone in a rotted-away town. That probably means they’ve come back since last anyone came through. Maybe even this winter.” She knocked again, as loud as she could without dislodging her snowshoes.

She heard movement inside then, the sound of hooves on stone. Locks rattled, hinges creaked, and the door swung open. “Hello there! Cold day to be traveling: Why don’t you come in before you let the heat out.” The voice was warm, the accent slightly german.

It did indeed belong to a pony, a stallion wrapped in several layers of mostly-rotten robes that looked like they had been trimmed to fit with a pair of rusty scissors. The hoods were up, but he tossed his head back, pushing them aside to get a better look at her. His mane was as much a mess as his clothes.

“Of course, sorry about that! Just let me...” Alex stepped out of her snowshoes one at a time, bending down to dislodge the straps with her mouth where necessary. “Hop down Ezri, let me get yours too. We don’t want to track snow inside with us.”

For her part Ezri obeyed, but never looked away from the stranger. Alex wasn’t sure she liked the suspicion. So she slid off her boots as well, even though there was no snow on them. She could have her gun armed and ready in just a few seconds if she needed it.

“I’m Alex,” she said, offering her hoof to the stranger. She drew in a little strength through her remaining hooves, in case she needed it. “And the little one is Ezri.”

He didn’t return the gesture until he had shut the door behind them, sealing out the icy chill of winter. “Pleasure, Alex. Call me Rudolph. Welcome to my home.” Alex looked around, and saw an interior that shouldn’t exist. She had thought the building looked intact from the outside, but inside...

The sanctuary wasn’t just intact, it was untouched. Not like her mother’s house, which her labor made resemble the old house, but was really a constantly rebuilt and remodeled one. The pews were shiny wood, little pillows for kneeling as colorful as they had been on the day they had been sewn. There was little dust, and what carpets and paintings there were had retained all their vividness.

It had been a long time since Alex’s first communion, and she’d never set foot in a real church after that. Those days had been before her perfect memory, so she didn’t recognize much. What she did recognize were the signs of attention and care. Candles burning at various points along the room, and dozens of them in front of the alter. Not a speck of dust.

Alex had taken Ezri’s reaction to the stallion to mean he might be some kind of predator, as one always recognized another. She had clearly been mistaken. “You keep an impressive house, Rudolph. Or is it Brother Rudolph?” He wasn’t wearing anything priestly beneath the plain brown sackcloth, at least not that she could see.

The stallion smiled. “Just Rudolph, if you please.” His accent was thick, but it wouldn’t have stopped Alex if he was speaking German, or most other languages.

“Just Rudolph then.” Alex pulled back quickly, letting her gun tumble to the floor and sliding her right foreleg into it. Servos tightened and the sight flipped up. She stepped between Ezri and the stallion, but didn’t actually raise the gun. “What sent you?” she gestured around them with the unarmed hoof.

The stallion didn’t act surprised or indignant. His features were cast in shadow, like everything in the interior of the church. He didn’t even glance at the gun. “Be careful, Alex. Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.”

She hesitated, then advanced a pace towards him. “What sent you?” she repeated.

“Sent me?” He laughed, and did not sound at all like a priest. “My dear, I sent for you. Let’s not confuse causality before dinner, it spoils my appetite.”

She retreated a pace, pushing Ezri back towards the door with one hoof. Without prompting, for the stallion had no horn, the bolt slid closed behind them.

“Not yet.” His red eyes flashed in the gloom, and he advanced. The German accent was completely gone, replaced with an entirely different voice. One she remembered. “I came all this way, and I expect you to listen.”

Chapter 13: A Little Chaos (291 AE)

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The longer she met his eyes, the more she recognized. The glove might’ve changed, but the hand underneath was exactly as it had been. “Fine.” She gestured back at Ezri. “Just between us. I’ll cooperate, but only if you leave her out of it. She’s not involved.”

He shrugged. “If that’s what you want. I’m sure I could improve her as much as you. But if it will speed things along…” Alex felt something stir at her back. The straps came loose without a glow of magic, sliding clean off to the floor. Ezri squealed and kicked as something picked her up by the scruff. The bag opened, and she was tossed squealing inside. It shut just as definitively. “Happy?”

Alex’s mouth hung open. “You… opened them…”

“Well, yes.” He walked past her, nudging the faux-leather with one hoof. “I did help make them. Only fools make weapons that can be turned against them.” He frowned. “Yet here you stand, proof we don’t always follow our own sound advice.”

She didn’t argue, or point out that being put into the saddlebags was no safety if he could still open them. It would have to be enough. “Why are you here?” she asked, sitting back on her haunches. “Disarm.” The gun loosened, sliding down off her leg. Alex nudged it aside: there was no use holding an umbrella in a hurricane. “Why the charade? You could’ve come upon us on the road just as easily as lured me in here. It would have been less work than restoring all of this.”

“Perhaps.” He turned tail and walked away from her down the aisle. He seemed to grow with each step, though the effect was subtle. “But who ever told you I did things the easy way? Don’t confuse chaos with entropy, they’re not as closely related as many people think.”

She followed. What else could she do? “You’ve already said why you’re here. But how? Aren’t you back in Equestria? Or are you… this universe’s version of whatever you were…”

The form in front of her rippled and shifted. Cloak became scales, and it rose up on its hind-legs. Limbs became mismatched, each from some other creature. Its eyes were still red though, the space around it seeming to contract somehow, darkening. It was similar to what Archive had seen when she had looked at Sunset Shimmer under the effect of her magic, seeing through her into someplace beyond. She saw somewhere else reflected in that darkness, a gulf vaster than the distance between stars.

“Sound guess, but your assumptions are wrong. From over there, I went back to Equestria several centuries ago.” He stepped back into the light of a large stained window. “From where I’m standing, my tour of your world has scarcely begun.” He waved one paw in a vague circle. “I’ll have to loop around and go back eventually.”

She still didn’t know why Discord would’ve gone to all this trouble, but she was too frightened to ask again. Something had prompted him to take the time to speak with her. Creatures like him did not act randomly, however much the Equestrian stories about him represented him as entirely beyond understanding. Archive had met him; she knew better.

“Last time we met…” She hadn’t had a perfect memory then, but she wouldn’t have needed it to remember that experience. “You told Princess Celestia to kill me. Did you come to make good on your advice?”

Discord was far larger than she, and he leered down at her from before the alter. “You wound me, Archive! Why would I need to kill you? The princesses took my advice, didn’t they? We need to move past the past if we want our relationship to get anywhere.” His grin widened. “If you want my help, I’ll expect you to be a little kinder.”

“Your help.” She sat down again, trying not to quake on her hooves. “Will it hurt as much as the last time you helped me?”

He shrugged. “Growing usually does. Ponies always misunderstand that.” He was behind her, suddenly small enough to reach down and easily rest a paw on her shoulder. “A comfortable pony isn’t getting any smarter, any stronger, any better. A comfortable pony is complacent. Sometimes it takes a little chaos to jar them loose.” He shoved, but not hard enough that she fell over.

“Is that why you came?” She stepped forward. “I’m already leaving my home behind. My friends, relatives, colleagues…”

“A thousand miles west, yes. What a trailblazer.” He rolled his eyes, in ways eyes were not meant to move. “I want to like you, Archive. Yet three centuries go by, and you’re exactly where I left you. No growth beyond the expected. What happened to your capacity for the unexpected? Of all the humans I meet, I would expect you at least to impress.”

Archive glared. “How was I supposed to grow, exactly? Celestia never even hinted it might be possible to be an Alicorn, if that’s what you’re implying. I never even guessed it until I met Sunset. She wouldn’t tell me how to do it, or at least not anything helpful. Everything anypony says about it is always vague and confusing! Unless you came to be straightforward.”

Discord shook his head, grinning proudly. “Oh, I’m going to be worse. But I’m doing it on purpose, so there’s a difference.”

She sighed, but didn’t object. Considering all the suffering he could cause for her (and the rest of mankind) if he wanted to, it was best to humor him if she had the choice. She had said she was going to cooperate. “Why do you care?”

Discord moved past her, resting one paw on the alter. As he did, it looked to Alex as though time began to flow rapidly, catching up to the point in time the alter ought to occupy. Candles burned down in seconds, dust piled up, all the wood became moldy and rotten, and some of the stone tumbled down. The rest was slowly covered by plant-refuse, soaking up the sun from a hole in the ceiling that hadn’t been there a moment before.

Alex shivered, retreating a pace.

“Don’t mistake me as an ally. The particular circumstances of your civilization…” The pews started to rot, eroding away to diffuse piles of detritus, and the plantlife spread. “That’s your problem. However, I consented to help because some of our enemies overlap. The world they would create, well…” He gestured around them, at the actively rotting building slowly filling with snow. “Maximum entropy is universal order, the end of chaos. I simply cannot stay to fight your enemies indefinitely.”

The ceiling groaned, and a beam crashed down behind her. A stone saint exploded as it struck, making her ears ring. The roof tumbled down all around her, though a little circle that contained Discord and herself remained clear. She saw no shield, yet no brick or shingle hit her. She could only hope Discord accorded her saddlebags the same protection, or else she was in for a lot of digging.

“Don’t think you’re my only answer. I find it’s best to run every possible solution together, especially the ones that might interfere. Just because Celestia thinks…” He stopped, closing his claws around her forehead. “No matter. Hold still.”

* * *

Alex was stiff when she awoke, particularly around her hooves where her boots should’ve been (but weren’t). A combination of cold and blood-loss had killed her before, but this time her protection was better and there was no blood. If she’d had little toes or fingers, she might’ve lost a few to the chill. Hooves were a little tougher, particularly when an earth pony was on the ground. Her legs ached terribly, but she would live.

She felt magic burned into the air, thick enough that even without being a unicorn she could sense it there. As she opened her eyes, she saw that the burning was literal: the earth itself was scarred with several layers of intricate runes. She spent several seconds taking them all in, memorizing the pattern for future reference. Alex had an encyclopedic knowledge of magic, but only of the basics Equestria had given them books about. She knew all ten schools of magic, and recognized some of the symbols as belonging to “fate”. Beyond that, she couldn’t hazard a guess. Maybe she would understand when she was older.

At least in the short term, it didn’t seem to matter what Discord had intended. She felt no different. Nor could she remember anything from when the pain had started. This lapse terrified her almost as much as the being itself. Had he taken away her memory, and made her job impossible? No, she could still see the runes in her mind if she wanted to. She could still call up any one of the Equestrian books, or any moment from the movies she had seen, or what she’d eaten for breakfast one hundred and twenty years to the day ago (oat flakes with orange juice).

Aside from the portion of the floor Discord had kept clear for her, the church was in ruins. A few of the walls were intact, but the wooden roof had fallen in, and the ceramic tiles with it. The destruction of the church yielded no clues as to why Discord had chosen it to deceive her in the first place. Had he been mocking Old Earth’s religions? If so, Alex couldn’t imagine why he would do so to her. She had shown what she had thought of those in her human life by leaving as soon as she was old enough and never looking back.

Why go to all this trouble? Why not just take her on the road and cast his stupid spell? She would keep turning over that question in her mind until she got an answer.

But it wouldn’t be her first concern. She couldn’t just spin off a thought-thread to think about it like Blacklight. She would have to put academic questions on the back burner before more important questions, like “what had Discord actually done to her?” And before those questions, more practical concerns.

She had to dig her saddlebags out of the rubble, as Discord had taken no effort to protect them. She was fortunate that they had put their boots outside the building, because he had also not bothered to protect the gun. It was crushed beyond usefulness.

At least being buried under the rubble meant an overly-inquisitive Ezri couldn’t have found a way to escape and get hurt while Alex was unconscious. Just how long had it been? Long enough that she had to use the light from her gauntlet to illuminate her way through the digging. Mostly she crushed and shoved with her full earth-pony might, confident that she could not damage her true target.

Eventually she reached the faux-leather at the bottom, and she dug it out from under the rubble. As soon as she had it exposed, Alex flipped open the bag and clambered inside.

Ezri was waiting for her. She hadn’t torn apart the entire house, not like last time. This time she had built a nest of pillows on the ground floor, but had taken no further items. She wouldn’t have any repairs to make. The little drone emerged at the sound of the inner door, darting over to her and inspecting her thoroughly as she always did. “Hey squirt.” Alex held still, though she was anxious to get her weight off her hooves and get them near some warmth. “Didn’t miss me too much I hope.”

Squirt she might be, but Alex could not shake the feeling the drone looked a little different. She was… bigger, there was no way around it. She couldn’t dismiss it as some failure of her memory, not when her memories were so clear. She was closer to six now, and had picked up a few inches in the hours Alex had been gone. She could only hope showing love for Ezri wasn’t also prematurely aging her.

“You’re not hurt this time,” she said, seeming concerned. Not disappointed, but something similar. “Why were you so afraid? You were more afraid than with wolves!”

“Because the one we found was much more dangerous than wolves.” Alex nuzzled her, though only for a second. It was aching terribly to stand up. Just as before, having the magic of earth gone suddenly brought all her pain and weakness crashing back down. So she pushed aside the pillow fort, turned the heater up to high, and rested on the couch so that her hooves could rest in the airflow.

“It was pretending to be a pony,” Ezri said. She looked a little crestfallen at the ruins of her fort (blocking the vent though it was), but she said nothing and did not attempt to rebuild it. Instead she climbed up beside Alex, careful not to touch her injured legs. “How come it could trick you?”

She shrugged. “How could you tell he was just pretending?”

It was Ezri’s turn to look confused. She did her best imitation of a shrug, though it was clearly not a gesture she had understood until just then. “He was fake. Now you smell different too.”

“Am I fake?” She couldn’t keep the worry from her voice. After all, Discord had been responsible for some significant portion of the Preservation Spell. If his skills with magic had a match in all of Equestria, it had none here. Nor did they have any Elements of Harmony to capture or reform him. He might’ve eventually returned to Equestria, but… what state had he left the future in?

Ezri shook her head. “Of course you’re not!” She bared her teeth. “You think somepony could trick me after I learned how you taste?”

Day had to suppress a shiver. She had to remind herself that it didn’t matter if the Changeling ate her emotions. Was it really all that different from what a regular child did? Strip away the magic, and any kid needed love. Most foals don’t think of you as food for very long… She banished that thought too. Ezri couldn’t help that she depended on emotions any more than Alex could cure her own dependence on air.

Still, maybe the Drone could see more than she could. “How am I different, then?”

Ezri shrugged again. “I never tasted this before, Momma. You’re still there, but something else too.” She sniffed, looking away, and seemed as though she might be about to cry.

“Don’t worry about it, Ezri.” She reached over, running a hoof down her side despite the pain it caused. “Just tell me if you think of anything. If not, don’t worry about it. Otherwise, we’ll just have to take things as they come. It’s already dark outside, so we’re done walking for the day. I might not be able to go anywhere tomorrow either… but that’s fine! We’re not rushing… it’s fine, everything’s fine. We’re on track for St. Louis, now. Maybe I’ll be able to show you the place we found your mom. Have I ever told you that story?”

Ezri shook her head, though she seemed confused. “I thought you were my mom!”

“I… I am! Of course I am!” Before Ezri could really get going with whatever tears were coming, Alex pulled her into a hug and held her there. She always felt a little difficulty when it came to overcoming parenting challenges with Ezri, since any affection she showed was essentially dunking the drone’s head into a tub of ice-cream. But what else was she supposed to do, not love her?

“Nevermind that story anyway. Maybe you’d rather hear about where we’re going? I’ve been every few years, so my memory’s pretty fresh. Does that sound interesting?”

Ezri nodded, relaxing against her. Chitin had felt strange against the fur of her coat once, but not anymore. It wasn’t as hard and unyielding as it had first looked.

“Alright, so the city really got started fifty years ago, when a whole bus--”

* * *

The trip to St. Louis took another few weeks, weeks of eating plain food and melting snow to drink and spending every fifth day recharging. They encountered no more evil spirits, few caravans, and no predators earth-pony magic or rifle couldn’t deter (she had one spare). Ezri made no more quantum leaps, though her constant questions grew more complex. Alex spent the stationary days teaching her to read, which she attacked with no small enthusiasm. Whatever fears Day had left that her young companion would lose the will to live and shrivel away faded by the time they reached their destination.

Having Ezri reminded her of the joy she had felt caring for Cody when he had been this young, though in some ways there was even more. Pony foals had their own interests, at least as much as their age permitted.

Changeling drones were different. Ezri adapted Lonely Day’s own interests with genuine enthusiasm, and developed none that didn’t have her explicit approval. She was like an obedient child, but far more obedient than children she had ever known. She didn’t even seem to want to think about things that didn’t please her guardian.

This worried Lonely Day, but the drone had only been confused when she asked about it. The very idea that she would investigate interests that Alex herself hadn’t chosen for her seemed foreign. But if the problem had a solution, she didn’t discover it during their trip to St. Louis.

As in the early days of human settlement, you could always spot a city in winter by the smoke. The old city had been massive, surrounded by huge sprawls of suburbia both wealthy and impoverished. Housing projects and old-money mansions alike had largely gone to rot by now, except where maintained by living occupants.

Alex had to work to keep little Ezri from exploring far off the path as they approached the city, for fear of buried ruins waiting to cut through clothes and living armor. Wood may’ve rotted and brick may’ve tumbled, but glass and steel would still be sharp, hidden as it was in the snow.

It wasn’t like walking through a small town, where the trace of humanity could’ve been mistaken for slightly unusual rock formations and particularly sparse trees. Here the power of statistics alone meant a few structures had remained more or less intact. Even those buildings that had not survived contributed so much rubble that nature simply couldn’t cover it all. Sections of the massive highways were visible too, huge flat sections that resisted the return of forest far better than the land around it.

Ezri grew more subdued the deeper they got into the old city, as they walked on old streets again and more of the old buildings remained intact. “Was ‘St. Louis’ an important place? There’s so much more here than… anywhere! More than home even!”

Alex couldn’t help but grin. “Ezri, before the Event this city had more people living in it than the whole world does today. The place we’re walking now would’ve been filled with cars, day and night.”

She nodded, seeming satisfied. “What’s that?”

Lonely Day followed the gesture of her leg to the downtown skyline. After three centuries they hadn’t changed much, at least not at this distance. Like the roman wonders of old they rose up among the wreckage to mock the primitives who took possession of the land when their dominion ended. Alex squinted against the sun, and she saw Ezri had a specific structure in mind.

The Gateway Arch still stood, though it had seen better days. Its stainless steel surface was covered in dust and grime. In more than a few places panels were missing entirely, and the steel interior had begun to rust. Needless to say, they didn’t send ponies up to the observation deck anymore.

“People like to call it the Gateway Arch, or just the Arch.”

“What was it for?”

She shrugged. “Nothing, really. Mostly they built it because they could. Humans were like that, always pushing the limits of how tall things could be, or in what harsh conditions. Lots of people thought it wouldn’t work, but… there it is.”

“It’s so big.”

“Not even close to the tallest building in the city. Would you like to climb to the top of one? I guess it might not be the same for somepony with wings, but…”

“Yes!” She grinned pointed teeth at Alex. “I wanna see what’s inside them!”

“We will.” Alex could see the city gate not much further down the highway, and beyond it the crowds of a living city. “The lower floors have ponies living in them, I think. The upper ones… I think only pegasi use ‘em, and even then just the ones with balconies. They used to have machines that could take you from the top to the bottom very fast, but those are gone now.”

“Why hasn’t anypony fixed them?” Ezri hopped down from the wall she had been climbing, walking beside Alex again. “You know how to fix things, other ponies must too!”

“There are lots of ponies who can fix things, Ezri. But when you build a city this advanced, you need millions of different kinds of things. Ponies can only keep fixing the same things so many times, eventually you just need to put a new one in. They stopped making new ones, and ran out of all the ones they’d stored away. Nowadays if something breaks, it probably can’t be fixed. They just have to give it up.”

“That’s not fair.” Ezri pouted. “People so long ago could do all this, but we can’t.”

Day nodded her agreement. “It’s not fair, but it’s the world we have. If ponies like us want to be able to do the things humans did, we have to rediscover it. Learn how to make the things they made. It will take a long time.”

“That’s why you read old books!” Ezri beamed, or at least it seemed like she did. “You’re going to figure it out, aren’t you?”

“One pony isn’t enough Ezri. We have to advance everyone if we want to do the things humans used to do. But… enough about that.”

She stopped walking. There was no walkway on the wall, not like Alexandria. Nor was there a formal watchtower: why build them when there were dozens of buildings that could’ve housed scouts ready to sound the alarm. “Listen Ezri, I’ve been putting off telling you this…” She frowned. “Alexandria’s attitude spread to the other little villages we’ve been through so far.”

“But there are ponies down here…” She wanted to protect Ezri’s little mind from what was waiting for her inside. She wanted to, but she wouldn’t. “Changelings are citizens in Alexandria. Further away, they’re sometimes less kind. The point is, ponies don’t always like them. While we’re in town, ponies might treat you like an enemy. Don’t listen to what they say, alright?”

Ezri’s ears flattened, her whole body drooping. “I… Okay, Mom.” She rested her head briefly on Alex’s side. “I still want to go in one of the big buildings… do we have to stay after that?”

She shook her head. “We’ve got to buy food, spare parts. I have to send a letter back to Alexandria. Once we hear back, we can move on. If you want, I’ll set up the saddlebags and you don’t ever have to leave.”

Ezri didn’t argue, and soon they were walking again. Alex approached the gate and knocked several times, only slightly muffled by the rubber soles of her boots. Snowshoes weren’t necessary this close to the city. Voices muttered beyond the gate, which had been made of a pre-Event gate of some kind strengthened with sheet metal. A retractable slit opened and a face glared out at her, suspicious. “New arrival?” she asked, gruff. “You’d have to be to be traveling without a caravan through the dead of winter.”

“No.” Alex reached into her pocket, flipping open her Alexandria identification. “I’m from Alexandria. I haven’t come to glut upon your city’s resources, I’m just passing through.”

“Hold that a little closer.” She did, though she had to put it in her mouth and prop her forelegs up on the gate to do it. The guard grunted. “Very well. What about the little varmint? Did you pick up a stray on the way down?”

Alex wondered what had happened that changelings could now be called “varmint.” It couldn’t be good. “After a manner of speaking, yes. Her mother passed her onto me. She’ll behave.”

The guard grunted again. “I’ll get my supervisor. You wait here, ma’am.” The slit slammed closed, and stayed that way for a few minutes.

“She didn’t like me,” Ezri whined. “Really didn’t like me. But I’ve never seen her before!”

Day lowered her voice to a whisper. “Just stay with me, Ezri. I haven’t let anything hurt you this long, I won’t let anypony hurt you now that we’re in civilization.”

The slit opened again, and this time it was a male voice who answered. What little Alex could see of him showed her he was wearing at least a little armor. Probably not enough to cover anything, though it was impossible to be certain. What had happened in St. Louis since her last visit? “Ma’am,” the voice said, “I’m afraid we’ve had a spot of difficulty with raiders in the last few weeks. A pony traveling alone… with respect, it’s frightful country out there, and you don’t look the sort to make it so far without an escort. I’m afraid we’re going to need proof you’re not a changeling if you want to enter the city.”

Had there been changeling raiders? Had Blacklight’s experimenting with sapient drones somehow affected the balance of power in Missouri and Illinois? “I’m not, but my ward is. I promised her mother I would take care of her. Will she be turned away? Come here, Ezri.” The drone obeyed, standing before the slit. Alex drew back her hood with a flick of her mouth, so that the guard could see her face. “You are aware changelings cannot imitate other changelings, correct? Will you allow me to bring her if I prove I am who I claim to be?”

The guard considered this a moment, then: “Who do you claim to be? I’m told you’re a citizen of Alexandria, correct?”

She nodded, though she resisted the temptation to point out she was the one the village had been named after. Instead she lifted up her ID, this time passing it through the opening towards him. He took it, and spent several moments inspecting. Eventually he passed it back. “The Alex Haggard, eh? You’ve got quite a reputation Miss Alex.”

She shrugged, tucking the ID back where she had gotten it from. “What demonstration would you like? I didn’t think changelings were that easy to spot.” Though other changelings could do it better than ponies could, if Ezri’s behavior was any guide.

“You’re an earth pony with a reputation.” The guard almost smiled as he said so. Alex became conscious then of dozens of eyes watching her. Guards climbing up to the wall at various points, rifles not ready but not out of reach. “Everybody knows changelings can’t do earth magic. Show us some, and you can come in. Otherwise…” His voice got lower. “If you captured a citizen of Alexandria and you’ve come here to impersonate her, you’ll find we aren’t kind to criminals.”

“Right.” Alex slid her hooves out of her boots one at a time, resting each one on the unprotected snow. “Earth pony magic. I’ll show you something I’ve been practicing lately, but it takes some effort. Give me a minute…”

They did, though the crowd continued to grow by the moment. Apparently word had gotten around that someone was outside with a changeling, because the faces she started to see in the windows of the nearest buildings mostly just looked like regular civilians. More than one pegasus briefly peeked above the wall for a look before settling back down. Of course Lonely Day could’ve given them a demonstration by knocking that gate in on their smug faces, but she didn’t think that was the sort they would appreciate.

Instead of that, she banished the voices and retreated deep into herself, focusing on her ties with Earth below. For some reason, it was getting harder and harder to call upon the Earth lately, as though she was sucking through a smaller and smaller straw. Maybe the Keeper was actively monitoring her and wanted her to practice her magic more mindfully. Maybe she didn’t like that Alex had taken her for granted and used her as a substitute for being a unicorn for so long. Even so, the effect wasn’t too noticeable, and not if she made a concerted effort.

She inhaled the crisp breath of winter, but in her imagination she saw spring’s thaw beneath her hooves. The snow getting soft, then melting away before the wave of plantlife. The whole state turning green, over every field and road and space large enough to fit a weed. Trees growing over her head, huge and strong. Lonely Day saw all of this, even as she called upon the memory of what spring felt like. She did not speak to the plants sleeping beneath the snow in the place she indicated, such a vulgar expression of her powers was no longer necessary. She just touched her hooves to the edge of that location, and showed what grew there her memory of spring.

Minutes passed before the first shoots poked above the ground, as lush and green as the first day of spring. The wild grass kept growing, up and up to its full height (nearly equal with her own). Several wildflowers appeared to have had seeds waiting there, because these too rose, their petals as red as blood.

Alex turned away from her work, frowning to herself as she did so. Her magic couldn’t keep off the chill when she left, permanent change took weather magic. By tomorrow, everything she had grown would die. “Someone ought to enjoy that,” she said, with a flick of her tail. “It’ll all be dead anyway.” She shrugged, approaching the slit again. “Will that do for proof?”

The gate opened, creaking and straining as it did so. No electric motors here, just raw muscle working together with pulleys and wheels. She used the time to put her boots back on, though she didn’t tighten the straps as far as she would’ve while actually traveling. Alex turned to see Ezri standing right before the patch of ground she had changed, sniffing. “Come on, Ezri. We’re going in!” The drone looked up, then turned to obey without saying a word. She pressed herself to Alex’s side, drew up her hood, and proceeded to pretend she was invisible.

“Your reputation was apparently earned.” Alex could see the guard now, an earth pony like herself wearing some kind of fusion of thick cloth and chain-mail. He had no rifle, though he did have a saber of some sort on his side. “Everyone hears stories about what they teach in that college, but… some of it seems so hard to believe.” He stared openly at the patch of ground fully exposed by the now-open gate. “How did you learn that? It must not take long… unless you’re older than you look.”

The crowd started dispersing, few as impressed with her work as the guard had been. Impressed or not, earth magic like that couldn’t be faked. “There’s no class on it, unfortunately.” Alex stopped in front of him, lowering her head shyly. “Practice for a century or two, you’ll get it. Or get somepony with a special talent for it. My first-” She stopped, almost choking on the word. “I had a friend who could do it before he turned forty. He was always way better at the growing part of being an earth pony. Took me longer.”

The guard wasn’t alone, though he was the only one wearing chevrons on his uniform. Yet he seemed too stunned to respond immediately. Alex didn’t wait. “Say, sir… is there an inn where I can stay with my ward here?” She gestured at Ezri, though she didn’t force the drone to show her face. “If we got this kind of reaction at the gate, I have to think there’s been trouble.”

“Trouble, aye.” Whatever stupor her words had thrown him into, he had recovered by then. With a gesture, ponies on either side started pulling the gates shut, creaking and grinding all the while. “Her kind, from somewhere down south. We think there must be a nest within a hundred miles or so… but things have been quiet all winter. If they’ve discovered how to travel through the cold-”

“They’re as smart as we are,” Alex interrupted. “Or at least the queens. Probably they don’t bundle up because they don’t have the materials, not because they don’t know it can be done.” She frowned. “Ezri here is from Alexandria’s hive. She’s a citizen, same as I am, and won’t be causing any trouble. Will you, Ezri?”

At her question, the drone nodded vigorously several times. The guard’s eyes remained wary, but he shrugged. “If you’re looking for somewhere to stay with one of those, you best head for the ‘Old Boot.’ Any freak ‘at gets off a boxcar can find a room if they’ve got something to trade for it. It’s just down-”

“I know the way, thanks!” Alex started off at a trot, not needing to prompt Ezri to follow her. The streets were cleared and salted here just as in Alexandria, though in places they were brick instead of pavement. Even so travel was easy. The city was far more active than Alexandria even though it had less ponies living in it: St. Louis was a trading town even now, and the most important railway hub this side of the Mississippi. As such, she needn’t have worried. Once they were away from the gate, they could slip into the crowd of visitors. Ezri might not be a spy sent from down south to find a way to break into the city, but might just as easily be the child of some important queen back east, as cultured and refined as anypony.

There might only be ten thousand or so ponies permanently living in town, but that was quite a sizable number by modern standards. St. Louis was no primitive backcountry, likely to break into a pitchfork-wielding mob. Or so it seemed during their walk to the Old Boot. The worst Ezri got were stares and ponies moving out of their way as they walked. So far as Alex was concerned, anypony who tried to lay a hoof on her would have it snapped off.

The Old Boot wasn’t far from the rail station, in the part of town most frequented by visitors. Indeed, the population grew more diverse as they walked (though nowhere near as much as Bountiful). The “Boot” was apparently an old factory, which she guessed from the signage had made shoes at one point. Its walls were dirty bricks, construction like something out of the forties or fifties. Perhaps every third window was boarded or covered some other way, and smoke rose from several makeshift chimneys.

The place felt seedy, and as they walked she realized she was drawing more stares than Ezri. She ignored their stares, and refused to slow for whatever attention. When a rough-looking stallion said something rude and stepped into her path, she shoved him aside like he had been made of papier-mache. Which of the two of them had spent hundreds of years flying around the world to fight dangerous creatures? Not him.

Once they actually got inside the inn, it got better. Like many of the revived institutions, the Old Boot had a sitting room with open kitchen and hearth for visitors to eat the meals which were generally included in the price of staying. Most staying in the hotel would spend their days in this room when not on other business, in pleasant conversation with other visitors. This one had an honest-to-God radio belching slightly distorted music that Alex assumed must be coming from their destination. There weren’t many other stations still broadcasting these days; what was the point when so few ponies had the hardware to listen? Radio Springs still made radios, but the expensive novelties fell out of favor the further east you came. What was the point of spending all that money on a machine with only one station?

The sitting room was also filled with smoke, rising from a dozen pipes and cigars. Fortunately her height meant she wouldn’t have to breathe much of it in. So long as she could keep herself from choking on the stench, she would be all right.

The room was arranged like a semicircle, with tables arranged around a hearth. Instead of taxidermied animals, the walls held dozens of different pre-Event shoes, of every imaginable style and size. There was also a single “guard” sitting by the hearth, a shotgun across his lap and an ale in front of him. Golden griffin eyes watched every corner of the room. He alone gave them more than a passing glance, his attention lingering particularly on Ezri.

Only one pony approached her, an older stallion ambling calmly towards her from the direction she smelled baking bread. “Welcome friend,” he said, smiling politely at them. The unicorn was taller than any stallion Alex had ever seen, probably close to five whole feet with the horn, his hair like flowing gold. “You here for a meal or a bunk? We’ve got both.”

She didn’t hesitate. “Both.” She didn’t want to be public about what she was carrying, and just now she was standing almost in the center of the room, with each patron pretending not to listen. “We’ve been traveling all day, have you got hot cider?”

“Of course.” He turned, hooves clopping on the swept brick as he led her to what she took for the reception desk. An old-fashioned key rack hung on the wall behind it, numbered and with glittering metal keys hanging on pegs. Most pegs were bare. “Honey!” he called back into the kitchen. “Pint and a half of cider for our new guests!”

“Right!” The kitchen was set a little back from the sitting room, and a bar made simply walking there impossible. Even so, she could see a pegasus moving about, with the same faintly gray look that accompanied a pony nearly ready to leave middle age.

She returned her attention to the innkeeper, and spoke again. “Do you have any rooms with electricity and running water?”

The stallion made no obvious sign of surprise, though his eyes widened a little. “The mare has expensive tastes. We have a communal bathroom and bathing area. The water’s only got a little ice on most days. Only the suites have human-style plumbing or electricity. There isn’t much of a demand for luxury from most travelers who stay here.”

“But you still have it?”

He grinned. “You wouldn’t understand, young friend. Grow up with something, and it’s hard to let go. I probably could’ve opened three inns with all I’ve spent keeping our system running. Like our own little world.”

His wife arrived then, a motherly-looking pegasus holding a tray in her mouth. Two mugs of steaming cider rested on it. She set it down, then smiled down at Ezri. “Well isn’t she just the cutest thing you ever saw.” She looked up toward her husband. “Dan, isn’t she the cutest?”

“Like an adorable little Zergling.” If Ezri understood, she didn’t seem to mind, because she bloomed like a flower under the attention. She released Alex’s side at long last, and let her hood uncover her face.

“How much?” Alex asked, then added, “And do you take chits?”

The innkeeper, Dan apparently, nodded. “We’d be in a sorry spot if we didn’t, Alexandria so close and all.” He seemed to think. “Be considerate with the water, and we’ll make it reasonable. Three chits a night.”

Alex deflated. There was no chance of restocking for their trip if she blew almost everything she had left just paying for a bed they wouldn’t sleep in. Besides, it would still be warm-ish upstairs. “What about your other rooms? Nevermind that there’s two of us, squirt and I can share a bed.”

Dan seemed to relax more than balk at the request. “Good idea, miss. Not that I don’t enjoy when my customers spend, but…” He glanced at her torn jacket, and their shared bedraggled appearance. “You didn’t seem the type. We charge a chit a week for bunk and breakfast. Extra for supper. You’re welcome to share the bunk with your, uh, little sister there.” She didn’t correct him, and he went on. “She looks small, so I’ll call it another chit for all her meals. Up front.”

That was much more within her range. Alex had budgeted five chits to stay a week, not counting all the supplies they would buy. She reached into a pocket with her mouth, setting down one at a time until she had three. “One more if you give us the wifi password.” She had already zipped the pocket shut though. It wasn’t as though she expected one.

The innkeeper took her chits in his magic, and held each one up to the light coming through the window. The hologram became visible, not to mention the precision microcircuits within. It wasn’t as fool-proof an anti-counterfeit as scanning the RFID code with an HPI issued validator, but few of those still worked outside of Raven and Bountiful. He froze as she spoke, then smiled. “You a Refugee, kid?” At her nod, his face grew more sympathetic. “Hell, I’m sorry.” He put one of her chits back down, pushing it towards her. He lowered his voice to a dangerous whisper. “You tell anyone I did that, and I’ll call you a liar to your face.”

Then he turned around, levitating a key down from the rack and setting it on the counter beside her chit. “This is your key, for room 302. Third floor, second door. Fourth floor and above is off-limits. Bathroom is on the first floor, through that door there.” He gestured. “Breakfast at sunrise, supper at sundown. Bread and cheese for lunch if you want it.”

“Ale?”

He raised his eyebrows. “You old enough to drive, kid?”

She grinned back at him. “You’d never believe me if I answered. Cider at least.” The smell was heavenly.

He ignored the remark. “Showers for mares are at five o’clock. Someone’ll shout. You miss it, or a meal, you get to wait ‘til the next one. Anything else you need, you ask me.”

She slipped the chit back into a pocket, along with the key. “You wouldn’t know anyone who wants to buy working pre-Event hardware, would you?”

Dan glanced at her saddlebags, flat and empty-looking as they were. “You come back with a cell phone or something, kid? I’d trade you a month’s lodging for it, if the touchscreen still works. Probably no good to you, even in Alexandria. I understand their grid is too variable. Unless you blew it out trying to run it on today’s electrical grid… I can’t use a souvenir.”

“I would want hard currency, though it wouldn’t have to be chits. Anything a general goods shop in town would take.”

“I’ve got a friend who owns a shop, another Refugee. He might take some working tech straight for goods, if it’s interesting enough. Mike’s Imports, a block that direction.”

“Thanks, I’ll look him up.”

They found an empty table by the fire to enjoy their cider, which proved to be as delicious as it smelled. Alex couldn’t taste much alcohol, but the rich warmth of apples felt like it was doing almost as much good for her as the hot shower she had wished she could’ve had whenever she wanted. They would have to be incredibly conservative about the shelter's amenities here, since she couldn’t dare leave it open where anypony might discover it. That meant no recharges and no flushing waste, or melting snow to refill the tanks.

In short, they would be showering in frigid water for the next week or so. Alex hadn’t decided if she wanted to extend the visit or not; that depended on the treatment Ezri got from the ponies in this district.

One did not sit in the common room of an inn without attracting attention. Yet for all the looks, they were left alone. Thus was the unspoken code of any inn worth the bricks it was made from: ponies left you alone until you had settled in. After that, they had a legal right to all the gossip in your brain. They hardly spoke, and finished off their beverages around the same time. Alex returned them to the bar, accepted half a loaf of steaming bread in exchange from the innkeeper's wife, then took bread and changeling alike up to inspect their temporary home.

Once out of the cozy warmth of the common room, the haphazard nature of the inn became clear. The upper floors weren’t heated nearly as much as the rest of the building, though they were still well above freezing. While the building appeared to be made of sturdy brick and concrete, newer walls were built of thin wood or metal scrap. The rooms themselves were a little more sturdy, but not much.

Ezri started to buzz with excitement as soon as they were free of the common room, grinning at Alex. “They’re not all bad.”

“No, they aren’t. The innkeeper and his wife are from the old world, that’s what ‘Refugee’ means. Most ponies like that are a little more accepting of ponies who don’t look quite the same than people born in the new world. One kind of Equestrian seems as strange as the next, so there’s no reason to single one out.”

“Is that why you love me?”

She shook her head. “That was how I first tolerated Queen Blacklight, but… I’m not the same pony I was then. I love you because you deserve it.” She nuzzled her, not climbing another step until she had finished. “Don’t ask me to explain why, Ezri.”

The drone didn’t argue. “I love you too, Mom.”

* * *

Staying in St. Louis was as much a joy as Alex remembered, even if she was staying in the part of town that made her uneasy about walking at night. The next day she sent a telegram back to Alexandria with a message for Riley, which was faster than messenger (if not much cheaper).

The innkeeper’s friend proved very interested in pre-Event technology, even more than Dan had let on. Alex traded him a working projector, plus a twenty-watt solar blanket from Raven, and got enough food to stock her saddlebags, plus enough of St. Louis’s gold “mark” to get a tailor to make her jacket look like it hadn’t been fixed by an auto mechanic.

She got a return telegram the next day care of Alexandria: “WAIT IN ST LOUIS STOP. SENDING REPRESENTATIVE STOP." So they waited. Alex took them up several old buildings, at least so far as their internal stairwells let them travel. Structural damage made some floors less stable than others, and some of the buildings had started to develop their own ecosystems, with occupants less than pleased to be intruded upon.

They spent nights in the common room, and Alex generally sat with her fellow Refugees. She never bothered trying to convince them of her age, so she accepted their pity at being an unsuspecting “teenager” thrust from the world.

After another week had passed, they received a letter by messenger summoning them to what proved to be an empty warehouse. The letter had Riley’s signature, but even so she wore her gun. Whatever intrigue might or might not be happening between the changeling hives, she refused to give up Ezri. Did she think St. Louis’s security would keep them out? Not for a second.

The building wasn’t far from where they were staying, in the seediest part of downtown. Even so, the warehouse hadn’t been left to decay. It stood beside the rail-yard, with a padlock facing the street. Alex found the lock wasn’t actually closed. She had to pass it several times before the street was deserted enough not to attract attention by walking inside.

“Ezri, you’re better at this. Tell me if anypony tries to sneak up on us.”

She nodded. “Course, Mom. I’m paying attention.”

“Good girl.” She raised her leg. “Rifle, arm.”

It clicked in response, the sight flipping up. “Armed.”

The warehouse had skylights, letting faint winter light beam down on the largely empty space. Sturdy metal shelves rose around them, making it difficult to see far in any particular direction. “Hello!” she called, voice echoing in the cavernous space. “I got your letter, and we’re both here. No sudden moves, now! Anything that tries to sneak up on us, I shoot!”

She slid her leg to one side, so she could look through the window at the brass. It was full, twenty-four rounds. If this was a trap… could they have more than twenty-four people? She had another magazine, but swapping them would take precious time they might not have.

She need not have worried. “Don’t shoot Alex, it’s me.” Riley’s voice, reverberating even more strangely than usual within such a tight space. It was hard to judge a direction, but Ezri could. She pointed, and Alex followed her gaze. Queen Blacklight stood in the center of the room, with a thick cloak about her shoulders but no hood to cover her face.

She could only pray that she had been right about changelings not being able to copy each other. “Riley, remind me what your favorite movie was…”

The queen’s expression became difficult to read as she considered. “Coraline. But that’s not a fair question, since I was so young. I might’ve changed my mind if I’d grown up properly.”

Lonely Day lowered her rifle. She didn’t disarm it, but she didn’t expect to need it. “You’re going to talk to me about not growing up properly?”

She stopped about ten feet away, which seemed to be as close as Ezri would come. Her companion had started to shiver, and refused to look directly at Riley. No amount of prodding would get her to walk closer. “I didn’t believe your letter when I got it. Did you really…” Even the queen couldn’t keep back her eagerness. “Could you really have solved my deepest despair in under two months?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know if my solution is terribly useful to you. I couldn’t give more than one drone at a time the attention I gave Ezri. I think whatever solution you were looking for would have to work for more than just me.” She reached over, pulling the drone’s hood down and exposing her face. She still wouldn’t look up.

“First, let me see that it worked.” Alex was confident with her gun; she had centuries of practice, practice that she never forgot. She liked to think she had quick reflexes, as quick as she could be without actually being a pegasus. Queen Riley moved so fast she nearly blurred through the space. So fast that Alex never could’ve gotten off a shot, even if she had wanted to. The motion was not hostile, however, nor was her attention even on Alex.

“17,305, do you recognize me?”

Ezri whimpered, huddling closer to Alex, hiding her face. She was shaking so much Alex was a little afraid she was having some kind of fit.

Riley did not press her, however. Instead she retreated, looking down. Her voice was almost ashamed. “I hope you will forgive me one day, 17,305. What I did, I did because I hoped it would help you discover who you were. Any price would’ve been worth paying for that.” She blinked, and her voice cracked a little. She did not cry. “I love you. Even if you never see my face again, know you have my approval and my gratitude.”

Ezri looked up, her whole body tensing as she did so. Alex couldn’t judge the emotion she was feeling, for whatever the feeling was it had no parallel in ponies or humans. She still didn’t say anything. She just backed away again, putting Alex and another twenty feet or so between her and the queen.

“That’s it? She didn’t even speak for you!”

Blacklight shrugged. “Why would I need her to speak? She has feelings of her own, she has clearly had enough to eat that she has developed tremendously. You have solved both difficulties: starvation and stagnation. Explain your methods.”

Alex nodded. “Ezri, could you watch by the door? Yell for me if you see anything.”

The drone nodded and hurried off, her little wings twitching in her eagerness to get away from Blacklight. Only when she was out of earshot did Alex continue. “I just treated her like I would’ve any other filly. Well, badly behaved at first, but not all that different. Parenting has always been about love.”

“Yes.” Riley’s voice was pained. “I was afraid that would be your solution. You offer a uniquely concentrated form of nourishment, like an Alicorn would.” She sighed. “We breed them by the hundreds, then marvel when they grow like insects. I just… I suppose I hoped you might’ve had some secret spell. Tear the scales from their eyes by force.”

“Is that what you tried with Ezri?” She had assumed Riley had been doing what she had, but now that she considered it that hypothesis did not match with the horror Ezri associated with her home.

Riley didn’t answer her question. “It may still be soluble with your method.” It seemed like she was speaking out loud. “We would need drones raised to ignore their instincts. Organize family units… increasingly optimal as we scale the number of ordinary ponies.”

Alex shrugged. Whatever Blacklight might be planning, it had nothing to do with her. Except in one respect. “Do you need Ezri back? She would… rather stay with me, I’m certain. I’ll take good care of her!”

Blacklight stopped in her musings. “I already said goodbye to 17,3- to Ezri. She is always welcome in the hive, but I don’t expect her to want to.” She smiled weakly. “You love too easily, Archive. You already see her as a daughter.”

She didn’t bother asking how Blacklight could tell.

The queen advanced a pace, lowering her voice to a faint whisper. “She isn’t a queen, Alex. Drones are not long-lived.”

Her words were like the kiss of steel between Alex’s ribs, as much because they were true as because they hurt. She didn’t have to ask how long “awakened” drones lived, she already knew. So far as she knew, none had ever passed a century. They got closer the younger they awakened, which meant Ezri had even chances of making it that long.

But what was a century to Archive? Soon enough, she would be holding another vigil at another grave. Unlike Cody, Ezri couldn’t even have a family. Drones were universally sterile, no matter the form they imitated.

She felt a hoof on her face as Blacklight wiped her tears aside. She pushed Riley away with all the force she could muster in a leg. Not much. “I g-get it, you don’t have to remind me. I know I can’t stop time. The people I love won’t live forever.” The second half of that statement went without saying: but I might.

“You know, but you forget. Being mother to so many who live for such a short time never let me forget.” She paused, glancing once in the direction Ezri had gone, towards the door.

Alex followed her eyes. “Are we safe? Do I need to keep her home secret? Or… does nopony have any reason to hurt her. It would be easier to travel if I didn’t have to keep looking over our shoulders.”

“The other queens are as practical as I. Once I explain the results of my experiment, they will have no reason to destroy a single drone. Be cautious for another few days, but after that you should be safe. From that hazard, anyway. You escaped danger pretty well by staying away from civilization: we do very badly in isolation.”

“That’s not why I wanted to walk, but it’s a nice side-benefit. It’s amazing, how lonely it felt when I woke up the day after the Event and thought I was the last pony on Earth. But live there a few centuries, and…” she shrugged. “Guess anypony can get tired of a place if they stick around long enough. Hey… make sure they don’t tear down my house, okay? I gave the lawyer pretty good instructions, but could you keep checking up on it for me?”

“Sure Day, but… I won’t live forever either. My complexity appears to be unbounded. I try to restrict my development, but I cannot. The more complex a system, the more prone to failure.”

Lonely Day only knew one way to respond to that: she hugged her. “If I ever find your parents, what should I tell them?”

She hadn’t expected the question to bring up much sentimentality in the queen, and it didn’t. She smiled. “Try to explain the quality of life I had. Make sure they understood my friends never let me feel afraid or lonely, and that I would very much have liked to see them again.” She released her. “I won’t expect you to deliver that. How would you even know if you found them? Wives lost their husbands and husbands lost their children the whole world over. You’re a pilgrim, I’m a stranger.” She lifted a hoof in a polite wave. “Take good care of mine.”

The air she occupied shimmered, flickering briefly with greenish magic. The air came down with a harsh crack, and she was gone.

Chapter 14: Spring Day (292 AE)

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They left St. Louis the next day, by the first light of morning. Nopony tried to stop them like in Alexandria. She pushed Ezri to her best possible pace, even covering a little more ground in the dark. They were walking west instead of south, but even so… she didn’t want to be anywhere near the city when night fell. If word got around there were a pair of young ponies traveling alone, there was no telling what “accidents” they might have on the road.

There were others they passed, but none turned into anything hostile. Just as in Alexandria, St. Louis was surrounded by several smaller areas that farmed the produce consumed by the city, and the populations of these little hamlets were generally friendly. It was hard to say if their supplies would carry them through until spring: all the planning and reading in the world couldn’t really prepare somepony for a trip like this.

Ezri did not learn to fly or use unicorn levitation, but she did learn to read as they went, with school in session every fourth day and most nights too. Alex found the teaching was as rewarding as it had been with Cody, and wondered if she could be a teacher when they got to Radio Springs. She had her doubts: how could a student respect a teacher who looked to be their own age? Maybe she could teach elementary. Did they even have elementary schools in Radio Springs?

She knew little for sure about the settlement, only the word of gossip that had spread east. Apparently it was mostly a mining town, and had a bigger government than most settlements. Beyond that, she could say very little. Maybe she wouldn’t like it when she got there, and she would carry on somewhere else. Lonely Day needed no infrastructure to stay self-sufficient, not while she could graze for food in a pinch and had spare parts to replace anything that went out in her backpack. If things got really serious, there was always the HPI, but she had a feeling they wouldn’t be too happy to bail her out of something her own stupidity had gotten her into in the first place.

Ezri kept growing, but more in the way that children always grew: iteratively rather than by quantum leaps. She still wouldn’t talk about her home or her childhood, whatever she remembered. Alex neither pried nor tried using whatever strangeness about her nature allowed her to see into the minds of those who admitted her. Such dishonesty was no way to raise a child.

There was no changing Ezri’s fundamental nature, but she never tried. Alex patiently persisted in discouraging predatory behavior while encouraging its civilized counterpart, and over time she continued to see Ezri improve. The drone no longer sniffed at her when she entered the shelter, nor was she totally dependent on sleeping in the same room or having a hammock in order to get her rest.

They left Missouri behind, passing into Kansas and the rolling prairie. Here Alex could no longer depend on firsthand observations, as she could with the route between Alexandria and St. Louis. Even so, she had committed topographical maps to memory just as much as those that had cities and highways. Under the winter snow and three centuries of growth there was no trace of the old interstate system. Within a few days they made the switch back to snowshoes, and their pace continued to get slower.

Alex tried not to show it, but something else was bothering her during the trip, besides the weakened heating spell that physical damage to the coat had caused. Her connection to Earth continued to be fading, and she could think of only one power strong enough to do it. Each day that passed made her feel more like she was on the wrong side of a pressure seal, threatening to burst with even the slightest perturbation. Magic was building up, fighting to get loose, and she couldn’t tell what it was or what its effect might be when it happened.

Of course, Alex was a pony with a built-in reset switch: death. Whatever Discord had done might self-terminate if she died, preventing whatever spell he had intended from completing. Of course, it might be the spell was actually intended to help her, and fighting it was only taking away an advantage she might’ve been able to use.

Fortunately, there was a pony Alex could ask. Sunset Shimmer seemed utterly unsurprised to hear about Discord’s appearance, which she found reassuring. Discord had been clear about the fact his presence here was intended, and any other reaction from Sunset would’ve implied at least one of them was lying. But she couldn’t offer any advice, besides pointing out that Discord was always unpredictable and actions intended to prevent him from carrying out his purposes might actually play right into his claws.

Her other warning was even more sobering. “Day, don’t… I’ve never met an Alicorn who treated their own life as recklessly as you do.”

She shrugged into the camera when Sunset said that. “Why shouldn’t I? I got into all kinds of accidents when the change first happened, and nothing killed me then. Shouldn’t I use every resource I have?”

The Alicorn shook her head, her eyes harder than ever Alex had seen them. “I’m surprised you haven’t noticed yet, Day. Mortals aren’t meant to keep coming back. It gets harder and harder each time you do it. If you keep going this way, you’re going to die one day and not have the determination to come back. Is that really the way you want your vigil to end?”

“I…” She thought about all her dead friends, then shook her head. “No, of course not.” She swallowed. “Will it get easier when I’m an Alicorn?”

Sunset shrugged. “I’ll let you know if I ever find out.” She hadn’t had anything else useful to say, not even when Alex tried to dig out more about what being an Alicorn actually meant. Right now her clearest insight had come from Discord of all people. “An Alicorn is a multibody system, all of its parts in constant opposition to itself. All that magic in any other configuration would explode. Catastrophically.”

Was that what he had done, shoved her full of so much magic that she would either figure out how to be an Alicorn or explode? It did seem like the sort of “teaching” an immortal spirit of chaos might try. Either she would come out “complete” or there would be an awful lot of chaos, either way he would win. But she had no way to be certain. She had only Sunset’s caution against suicide, which she followed. When magic strayed into domains she didn’t understand, that seemed the only logical course.

Besides, there were plenty of other things to worry about. Machinery occasionally broke down, requiring a few days and sometimes some creative jury-rigging in order to get her system running again. There were predators to evade or kill (she preferred the former, but wouldn’t hesitate from the latter). Once, bandits came upon them, when she was setting up the pocket-dimension for the night.

Winter turned into spring around the time that Kansas turned into Colorado. Snow melted in patches, and prairie grass slowly poked its way through. The air filled with birds and insects, with an absence of airplanes and passing cars.

The whole world reveled in the season, but Alex felt like she was feeling the whole thing through gloves. The magic was there somewhere, but she couldn’t get at it. Her endurance was taking a hit, too. If she got into a tussle without her gun, she would lose, even if she was naked on bare ground.

But she couldn’t worry about it, not when there were so many more important concerns at hand. Ezri ranked top of her list. Her questions had been simple when she first learned to talk: “What is that?”, “When can we eat?” and so-on. But as time progressed, her mind expanded, and her questions became more abstract. “Why is it so cold?”, “Why do we live in saddlebags?”, and the hardest of all to answer: “Why did ponies hate me so much in St. Louis?”

“It’s complicated,” Alex had answered one spring morning, as they left the pocket-dimension to graze. Well, Alex grazed. Ezri couldn’t eat grass, or couldn’t force herself to attempt it. Rotten vegetables, sure… but grass she wouldn’t touch. So Alex walked, no longer wearing anything on her body but the saddlebags and her gun, and even that wasn’t armed.

Eating grass was about as demeaning as it sounded, and about as appetizing. Yet as Oliver had taught her many years ago, not all grasses were created equal. What was wheat, after all, but a particularly freakish strain of grass? She enjoyed the not-grass the most, flowers and clover and the tops of root vegetables that grew wild where farmer’s fields had been. They strained so much at their supplies that she had no other choice: she could eat the grass, and that would leave more granola and oat-paste for Ezri. It was all that was left after the whole of winter passed them by.

“I know it’s complicated, you always get uncomfortable when I ask. But I deserve to know! You never give me a proper answer.” Ezri followed her through the grass, only a few inches shorter now. She was also a little less quick to discard her clothes, and still wore a thin jacket against the occasional breeze. It still wasn’t quite warm enough for her drone body to be comfortable.

“Alright.” She looked up, swallowing a mouthful of clover. “Many animals are social, not just ponies. Humans, dogs, mice, even insects. All social creatures, whether they know it or not, sort all other beings into two broad categories. Either a creature is part of its group, or it’s ‘other.’”

“We all treat ‘other’ creatures differently, you and I aren’t exceptions. When those wolves tried to eat us, what did I do?”

“You tried to get them to go away, and when they wouldn’t…” Ezri’s eyes darted to the gun, then back up again. “You killed them.”

“I did. What about when we were in St. Louis, and that shopkeeper wanted to give me way less money than I wanted? Or… an even better example, what about when people were mean to us on the street? Did I kill them too?”

“No!” Ezri was indignant. “You wouldn’t do that!”

Alex nodded. “Of course I wouldn’t. But why?”

The drone opened her mouth to answer, then shut it again. She had to think for several seconds before she tried again. “Because you see ponies as part of your group?”

“Yes, very good!” She sat down. “But the real world isn’t that simple. Griffons and minotaurs aren’t ponies, but did I treat them any differently?”

“Not that I saw.” She frowned. “So things that aren’t the same as you can be in your group, if… if they’re close enough? Griffons and minotaurs must be close enough.” She whimpered. “And changelings aren’t?”

Alex reached out and drew Ezri into a hug. “There are ponies who think they aren’t. But those ponies are falling into the same exact mistakes that some humans used to make.”

Ezri relaxed. “They’re… being mean?”

“Yes, but that’s not what makes it wrong. It’s wrong because those ponies are sorting you based on assumptions. Changelings living nearby tried to hurt them, so they assumed all changelings were bad too. They’re deciding whether to treat you like one of their group or not because of what you are, not what you do.”

“That’s not fair!”

“No, it’s not. All those ponies are missing out on getting to know you.” She gave Ezri one last hug, then let her go. “Not every pony will treat you that way. If we went back to Alexandria, the ponies there accept and even respect changelings.”

“What about where we’re going?”

Alex shrugged. “Radio Springs doesn’t have a hive.” She turned, walking back to where she had left her saddlebags. Once she had shrugged them on and tightened the strap, she was ready to go. The prairies might’ve been man-made, but that didn’t mean they didn’t suit ponies just fine. She might’ve run for days at a time just for the joy of it, if Ezri had been able to keep up.

She led them down where the road had been, or close enough. The highway system had been largely buried, with only the occasional concrete overpass or rusting call box to mark its passing.

“Do you think ponies will ever change?”

“I dunno, Ezri. Being able to judge between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is what lets us survive. You have to know when you can trust one individual and not another. I do… I do hope…”

“Me too.”

And so went the remainder of their trip. The worst difficulties were over with the winter, and so they were able to make good time without much stress. Occasionally they encountered other caravans, or walked alongside the passage of the railway. Alex continued to teach Ezri the basics of what she considered an education, expanding to include figures as well as reading. To her surprise, she found the drone even better with numbers than she was with words, and they soon expanded into broader dominions of math.

But for every minute they spent covering some practical pre-Event topic, they devoted another few to enjoying cultural artifacts. Alex had working hardware, and so she shared movies, music, all the sorts of entertainment she had enjoyed growing up but that most foals these days wouldn’t have. In particular she focused on the animated films which depicted humans, since these seemed to demystify them for Ezri without being too strange.

Granted, it had been an awkward series of explanations to get her to comprehend the relationship humanity had enjoyed with horses. How was the drone supposed to cope with the fact that today’s intelligent citizens had been yesterday’s beasts of burden?

They overcame these and other difficult issues along the trip. Ezri began experimenting with her magic, though on that front Alex couldn’t provide much help. She could explain what others had said about levitation, or recount things Riley had explained about the sensation of changing forms, but none of this seemed to offer her much help. With as quickly as she mastered mundane subjects, Alex didn’t doubt she could’ve easily learned flight or levitation within a year’s tutorage at Alexandria’s University.

But they weren’t going back. The school had no equal, so they would have to be content with what Alex could teach and whatever services Radio Springs might offer. As the weeks of spring passed, they passed again into cultured lands. They passed through farms, with fields freshly planted or with farmers sowing the first crops. They traveled from one farm to the next, volunteering their labor in exchange for food and news.

It took a little negotiation, but also a little pity on behalf of the farmers. Alex’s earth pony talents couldn’t be easily ascertained simply at a glance, and a single drone on her own was very difficult to pass off as anything other than the forward scout of a queen not present. Whatever little ponies might know about the reality of changelings, they seemed to know it was the queens that really controlled them, and that they could somehow share information and command at a distance. Ezri’s intelligence did not prove anything to the skeptical except that she was being puppeted by an active queen.

They learned more up-to-date news about Springs than Alex had enjoyed up until that point. The city was presently in a large mining boom, and every pair of hooves was needed to extract coal and other ore at one of the many “boom towns” that surrounded the central settlement. Anyone could make their way there just fine, so long as they had a brain between their ears and a willingness to work hard.

Alex didn’t think very highly of black lung as a way to die, so she resolved either not to go to these towns, or at the very least to explore other options first. Ezri’s future was her own, but she wanted to give the drone a better start than a miner, as well.

That meant they were unwelcome at some farms, whatever stories she might’ve heard about the tolerance here. This was no terrible trouble: they had dealt with worse than a few unfriendly ponies. So long as any true agents of other queens didn’t come for Ezri, they ought to be fine.

And they were, all the way to Radio Springs.

The town was clearly visible, even at a distance. It seemed to Alex as though she had been transported back in time five hundred years, to some fort on the edge of what some called the frontier. What she saw looming in the distance could easily have been built back then, and it wouldn’t have stood out much from what she saw now. Homes were made of logs or adobe and sometimes both, connected with some kind of dark concrete. Rail ran into town, and she could make out the pipes of the aqueduct in the distance as well.

Even as they walked, she could see a train filled with ore belching steam as it made its way into town from the south. Carts of ore rode exposed, probably from one of the mines she had heard about. There were foundries in town, easy to spot since they belched black coal-smoke and weren’t made of logs. She had heard so much about this town, known its founders just as with so many others. Did any endure? She didn’t intend to find out.

Her companion followed, and they joined a stream of traffic moving into the city. It had no walls as some eastern cities did, but it did have uniformed militia inspecting all who entered with an eye of suspicion. As the two of them were clearly unarmed civilians and their bags couldn’t have held more than a few pounds with as empty as they looked, they didn’t attract even a little scrutiny.

As they passed into the town, Alex’s ears noticed the shouting of a cryer, and she turned her attention to listen. “-any freshly from the United States, anyone without a job or without a roof, listen here!” She moved a little closer, and wasn’t the only one. More than a few people she had passed lacked well-fitting pony attire, or had a slightly starved look about them. Evidence that the outreach program here in Springs was having some success?

The cryer was an earth pony stallion with a louder voice than any she had met, his mane like coal dust and his coat dirty brown. “The Frontier Mining Corporation is offering lodging, food, and education for all who sign a contract of at least five years! Transportation by protected caravan to one of our respectable mining outposts is included!” The group got a little smaller as time passed, but more flocked in and out all the time.

Alex moved on, passing onto Main Street and through an area of slightly more finished frame homes plastered with something the same shade as adobe. Soot covered a great deal in a thin layer, but these streets at least seemed to have been recently scrubbed. She made out a general store and several other mercantile businesses, but these too she passed on her way towards city hall.

She was here on a very specific mission. It was the reason they were wearing ill-fitting human clothes, the reason the recruiters had given them so much attention, and the reason the ordinary citizens now kept their distance. She had already found a pony she had taken for a constable, who had directed them here.

This was the subject of her investigation, and at least part of her reason for coming to Radio Springs. How did the other successful settlements treat Refugees from Old Earth? She joined a little crowd waiting outside the squat concrete building, and took a number. Two hours later, she found herself at the citizenship desk.

A grizzly mare with a missing wing and a stern expression greeted them there, in a room lit by flickering electric lights and no windows. There were plenty of posters on the walls, depicting smiling ponies and breaking down the “benefits” one might expect to receive.

Alex took her form in her mouth, setting it down at the desk. She had written as messy as she could, but most of it was bubbles and in only a few places did she have to fill anything in. “Preferred Name” was the worst; she wasn’t sure if the poor mare would even be able to read what she had written.

She hadn’t lied more at one time in her entire life. The forms identified her as one “Kristy Saludiv”, a high school student at the time of the Event who had been visiting family in one of the state’s small towns. It listed no previous citizenships anywhere else, no useful skills of any kind, and no stated bodily proficiency except moving around.

This last she had begun to suspect with some fear might actually manifest, as her earth pony magic drifted further and further from her easy use.

The pegasus scanned her form from behind spectacles, then flipped to Ezri’s form. It contained similar information, and identified her as Kristy’s younger sister, Leah. She set the forms down. “Is this information correct, accurate, and complete to the best of your knowledge?” Alex nodded. She couldn’t look the mare in the face as she did so. She would probably lose sleep over this moment. “What about yours?”

Ezri did not have the same trouble. “Yes.” Her little voice didn’t even waver.

“Very well. On behalf of all of Radio Springs, I pronounce you two as official citizens.” She moved the forms into a pile on her desk, and drew an old-fashioned typewriter closer to herself. Rather, it looked similar to a typewriter. It had far fewer keys, though they seemed to pivot in several directions. They were purely mechanical, with inked tape and lots of little gears just as typewriters in the ancient past.

The mare slid a perforated form inside, and typed rapidly. She did so with dull, mechanical speed, as though it was something she had done so many times she no longer needed to look. She frequently moved the head, or fed more of the form inside, working quickly. “Did you read the resettlement information posted outside before entering my office?” she asked, mostly directing her words to Alex. “Radio Springs understands Refugees returning from Earth will be unable to fend for themselves, and as such has provided certain benefits to assist their integration into society. These benefits are not indefinite, and they are conditional. Do you fully understand the programs and options available to you?” For all she spoke of compassion, Alex had rarely heard a pony so mechanical.

She shook her head. “Maybe you should give me a high-level view.” She’d changed her accent, imitating a little bit of a drawl. She was pretty good at it, but not as good as Ezri. “What are two kids like us supposed to do?”

“Well, your ‘sister’ is young enough that she’s eligible for the orphanage system. One signature from you and she’ll be taken care of. Right now I think the turnover between adoptions is about…” she glanced at something “two years.”

“No!” The two of them spoke in unison, practically screaming together. Ezri had dropped her fake accent and even sounded a little panicked. She slid a little closer on the single polished wooden bench, clinging to Alex.

Alex squeezed her once, as reassuringly as she could. “No.” She spoke more calmly this time. “We lost everything else, miss. We’re going to stay together.”

“Right.” She sounded utterly unmoved by the display; if anything, she was a little annoyed. But then, how many displays like this did she see every day? How many Refugees did Radio Springs take in? “Well, you didn’t have a degree, or else I’m sure one of the recruiters would want you. Our school system isn’t the same as yours: you’ve already graduated. Congratulations.”

Was it just a coincidence, or did the mare specifically time a carriage return so that her gesture of “congratulations” matched perfectly with the loud “ding!” of the typewriter? Either way, it wasn’t much of a celebration. Not that Alex thought the imaginary Kristy would’ve wanted to go back to high school. “Anyway, there are two main options. Either you stay in town under the housing authority, or you volunteer with one of the mining companies.”

She shivered. “W-What’s the difference?”

“Either one is hard work. If you stay in the city, you’ll be living in one of the old tenements. You can put yourself in the labor pool, hope to God somebody likes the look of you.”

“Mining company would pay you right away, train you. They haven’t turned away a pony I sent their way yet. Earth pony like you would be good for that sort of work. Educate your sister there while you work. I’ve got a flier here somewhere…” She ruffled the papers on her desk, then passed it to her.

The flier was printed on irregular paper, in simple black letters. She read quickly, then pretended to read in the time it would’ve taken a regular pony to process all of it.

Well Alex, you wanted to see what happened to the worst-off ponies there were… She passed it back. “We want to do it. I just take this to one of those ponies at the front of the city?”

She nodded. “That’s right. I put on your form here that you’re going to be living out of the city. You come back a year from now and report on your progress. Simple.”

Alex rose. “Go ahead.” She look down. “Come on, Leah. Your sis’ is gonna be a miner.”

* * *

It was late afternoon by the time they had found their way to the gates. Traffic had dwindled a great deal, but the recruiters were still there. Alex did her best impression of nervousness, but she was a bad actor and a worse liar. Of course, it helped that she didn’t actually have to lie that much.

The dark-furred stallion looked them over as she approached, taking the flier from her and glancing over it. “You just registered today?” With just the two of them, he didn’t shout. Quieter, she imagined his voice would’ve fit perfectly well on the parking lot of any used car dealership in America. If… either of those things had still existed.

“We did.”

“And you’re both from Earth.” He narrowed his eyes, inspecting their mismatched clothes. They might look stupid, but they didn’t look quite as fresh as someone who just came back. They weren’t that new.

“We are. We had to walk a very long way to get to Radio Springs, though. When we heard the broadcasts… it was hundreds of miles…” She hoped that didn’t seem unbelievable. An earth pony could go further through spring, even carrying a little drone.

“I see. You have to understand, the Frontier Mining Foundation enjoys protections as a charitable organization, and to do that we have to take a specific number and proportion of Refugees. If you’re not actually from Earth, we won’t be able to take you. We have a test for you. Your sister is young enough that we aren’t required to test her, but you’re not.” He gestured to an unmarked storefront not far away. “If you wouldn’t mind. It’s quite quick. Just a few minutes, and you can catch the train for Motherlode with the rest.”

“Okay.” Alex would’ve felt better about this in Alexandria, or if her strength had remained as accessible as it ought to be. She drew Ezri close, then started walking.

She needn’t have worried. The shop building was empty except for another bored stallion and a few tables and chairs. He sat down across from her and asked a few questions about Earth, where she had been born and so on. Asked her to identify a few illustrations of various brands and intellectual properties that had been popular right before the Event. She threw a few questions, figuring that they would expect a teenager not to have a score that was too good.

The stallion signed off on her performance, and directed her to the train station with a pair of tickets. They would be riding back on the train that had brought coal in earlier. Soon enough they were loaded up into an empty boxcar, packed in beside boxes and crates. There were only a few other passengers.

“I don’t like this,” Ezri said, when they were alone.

“Why?”

“The ponies we talked to, they’re…”

“Yeah?”

“They’re too excited about us. Some ponies like to help others – like you! When you helped me, it tasted one way. They aren’t thinking about helping, they’re thinking about how great it is for them. Does that make sense?”

“Oh yeah.” Alex sat back against the rough wood of the crate, watching the outside go by. “It makes sense. Before the Event, there was a word for someone like that: ‘slimeball.’”

“Then why are we trusting them?”

She raised her eyebrows. “I’m not trusting them, are you?” Ezri just looked confused, so she went on. “I want to see what they’re trying to trick Refugees into doing. When one of us comes back, they’re scared, they’re frightened, their whole world and everyone they know is gone. Desperation like that can get a pony to do things they wouldn’t. Honestly I’m hoping they just got some nasty people to do the recruiting because they’re good at it, and the organization itself will be solid.”

“After all, Refugees can be kinda useless. They’re awkward and clumsy, they often don’t have any skills that matter, and they’re all tied up in the past. If there’s a group that’s teaching them a trade and taking care of them until they get their hooves under them, then it doesn’t matter if their recruiters are a little slimy.”

“What are we gonna do if they’re all bad?”

Archive’s eyes darkened. “You’re gonna go somewhere safe, and I’ll take care of it.” She might not be an Alicorn, nor some supernatural force like Discord that could spread its influence over all the planet at once. Even so, she would be damned if she wasn’t going to protect her people wherever she went. Let a few miners try and stop her.

The train didn’t appear to be heading into Motherlode so much as through it. There was little more than a raised platform waiting for them, with a single guard sitting in the only chair with a rifle over his knee and a bored expression on his face. He hardly gave them a second glance as they formed up with several ponies, which she hadn’t had the chance to meet during the trip.

Alex kept her “sister” close beside her at all times, as they moved down the darkened platform. Motherlode wasn’t a town so much as an outpost, with the forest on all sides looking as though it were trying to claw it back. Rough log structures mostly, with sheet metal roofs and firelight flickering inside. If the dust had been bad in Radio Springs, it was much worse here. She no longer doubted whether this was actually a mining town.

They had a guide, the same pony who had recruited her. “This is the main barracks,” he was saying. “Watering hole is on the bottom floor, showers too. Dorms on the second and third floors.” They moved past it, towards the open doors of another building, only one story but nearly as large. “That’s the company store. Easiest way to get anything, short of hiking through the mountains back to Radio Springs.”

“Couldn’t we catch the train?” Alex asked, stepping out towards the front of the group. “It goes into town with coal and ore, doesn’t it?”

“You could, if you wanted to blow some of your hard-earned wages on train tickets. The only complementary ride was getting you all out here. If you want to go anywhere else, you’ll have to buy tickets like anyone else. Which we sell in the store, too.” They kept walking down the gravel path, stopping more than once for a refugee to stumble and fall. Alex helped a unicorn mare about her age to her hooves, mostly just by being a stable something she could cling to. The orangish unicorn grinned sheepishly, but didn’t say anything. Neither did she.

“This is the company office,” said their guide, when they were standing outside the last and smallest of the buildings. “We’re going to go inside now and get all your papers taken care of. A few quick signatures from each of you, and then we’ll get you off to bed. Early day tomorrow.”

She only saw two rooms of the company offices. One was a waiting room of sorts, with a single secretary’s desk. A young mare sat there despite the hour, with a stack of blank contracts and pencils.

Archive felt her blood boiling as she read the contract’s terms in a few blinks. Everything about what this mining company had done became obvious to her then, and she wondered if she could even let these others who had joined sign in clear conscience. Even if there was no global government to enforce these terms, the idea that they had tricked so many people into… She didn’t say anything. Cause trouble now, and she might just be thrown out. No chance to figure out how widespread the exploitation might go, or learn how to undermine it all from the inside. She signed her name, and tried not to wince as the other adults followed her example.

They didn’t have much of a tour after that. A meal of plain oats, and they were separated by sex into either of the bunkhouses. She had to do a little arguing not to get separated from Ezri, but on that she would not budge. So she got them a bunk bed, off in a corner room with only one other occupant.

Alex realized at a glance why the bunkhouse matron had looked so smug when she passed her off. As she passed wearily through the door, she saw the unmistakable slit-pupils and huge ears of a thestral, her eyes almost glowing as she stared around the corner of her bed at them.

“Hi.” Alex raised her hoof, then lowered it again, not making eye contact. Without easy access to her earth pony magic in this wooden building, she felt too weary for much enthusiasm. “You must be Jackie. Matron Rivera just assigned us in here.”

The thestral stared at them, unblinking. Then she grinned, rolling sloppily out of the bed. She ended up getting one leg tangled in the thin blanket, and landed on the ground twisted into a swearing bundle. Alex couldn’t make out many of the words through the shouting, but she supposed it didn’t matter. Ezri retreated a pace, shielding her face with her wings even as Alex moved in to help the struggling young mare.

It wasn’t hard to see the part of the blanket where all the tangles centered, and she bent down to tear it up. It fouled her tongue with coal dust and sulfur. No sooner had she tugged it free than she dropped it, gagging. At least the taste was enough to make her not feel asleep.

The thestral looked as relieved as she did embarrassed, shying suddenly away. “I-I...” She wasn’t wearing anything. While that would’ve passed without a glance in Alexandria, here among the recently returned was something else.

That made Alex blush, looking away. “Sorry. My sister and I didn’t mean to cause you any trouble.”

“It’s these damn hooves that caused me trouble, as usual.” The thestral rose, somewhat unsteadily. “It’s good you didn’t laugh. If you’re new, you’ve probably only been around a little while, right? You’ll be tripping all over yourself in no time.” She extended a hoof, no longer blushing. “Name’s Jackie all-right, miner extraordinaire! You won’t find a better spotter on any crew in the camp.”

Alex took the hoof in the familiar gesture, finding the thestrals mood just the slightest bit contagious. Poor nocturnal creature in the world of daylight. “I’m sure we couldn’t.” She gestured towards Ezri. “My sister, Leah.” Ezri was more than a little hesitant to advance, but she returned the gesture just the same.

“Hah.” The thestral grinned, fangs and all. “You and me kid, magical lottery losers 2015.” She slapped Ezri on the shoulder with one hoof, not very hard. “Us losers stick together. Your big sister wouldn’t understand.”

Alex shrugged out of her saddlebags, too tired to make it look like she was struggling. “Said the flying, dreamwalking, super senses pony to the earth pony.”

She hadn’t tried to sound confrontational, but even so all the humor went from Jackie’s face. Her eyes narrowed. “So the newcomer learns what we’re called and thinks she knows it all.” Jackie shoved with one hoof, though not hard. “It’s bullshit, all of it. They give us the same fairy tale here they spun in Radio Springs. The love and tolerance is for the ponies like you; it’s a freak’s life for the rest of us.” She sat back, chest heaving from the intensity of her fury. “Your sister will know what I mean… in a few days… mark my fucking words…”

She dissolved into horse coughs then, covering her mouth with one hoof as she hacked and wheezed. Her wings spasmed and twitched with each cough, barely under her control.

Ezri had retreated to the edge of the room by then, and Alex couldn’t help but step between the stranger and her ward. She waited for Jackie’s coughing to subside. “Sorry.” She sighed. “I didn’t mean anything by it. You obviously have more experience with all of this than I do. I’m sure Leah and I can learn from you.”

Jackie eventually stopped coughing, her wings folding awkwardly at her sides. “Yes. You can.” Her smile returned, a little forced. “You will.” She sat back, leaning against the bed. “We could start right now.” She glanced briefly at the open window. “Another seven hours until sunrise bell! Maybe we can cover enough that you two won’t be completely useless then.”

“We’d like to.” Alex yawned. “But we’ve been up all day. Maybe tomorrow?”

Jackie looked away, frowning. “’Course. ‘Course you want to sleep. Go ahead then.” She took the blanket in her mouth, and hopped back into her bed with the crunching of straw from inside her mattress. “Sleep away.” She pulled the blanket up over her head, vanishing into the folds.

Ezri seemed to have no desire to sleep apart from her, and tonight Alex didn’t discourage the behavior. Alex wanted to climb into the pocket-dimension with Ezri and sleep where they could both feel safe, but couldn’t dare it in the company of a stranger.

Their roommate kept Alex from getting much sleep, whimpering and moaning against some terrible nightmare. More than once she wanted to get up and help, to find out what the batpony knew about dreamwalking and what distress she had gotten herself into. Yet after such a confrontational first meeting, she couldn’t throw her cover away and expect her secret to be respected. Besides, it might’ve been an ordinary nightmare. Those still happened, as Alex knew better than most.

The next day came rising with dawn, just as Jackie had suggested. Everypony ate breakfast together in a common hall, bland food that felt a little scant from Alex’s perpetual teenage ravenousness. Jackie proved herself right in more ways that one: Ezri did attract uncomfortable stares. Anypony they passed seemed friendly enough until they saw the child. Mecca of multicultural tolerance Motherlode was not.

Everypony wore standard miner’s jumpsuits, which covered far too much for Alex’s taste and restricted movement a little, but it was either wear one or stand out even more than they already did.

Their contract included classes, and those classes began immediately. A little under half the ponies she had seen at breakfast stayed around for the class, such as it was. They pushed the rough benches into a semicircle, then sat around as one of the mining supervisors read a presentation from cue cards.

In honor of the new arrivals, the presentation was one of the “reintegration” pieces. There were perhaps a dozen different versions she knew of, and probably just as many she didn’t. Alex had written several, and been part of the team that revised and improved them over the years.

But that had been in Alexandria. Here those with the greatest influence had resented Archive, and so resisted her contributions. She recognized this presentation before the second sentence. It was an old one, written by one of the founders of Radio Springs sometime in the second decade AE.

“You’ve been stolen from your life,” it began. “Your world was taken from you, and you don’t know why. You feel trapped in your own body, and confused by new thoughts that come from nowhere. You’re probably missing family or loved ones, and maybe you’re not sure why it’s worth going on. It’s time for you to get some answers.”

Alex had seen the pony deliver this once, all full of passion. There was nothing in the presenting pony’s voice but boredom as he read. She sat with the group she had come in with the day before, and she felt their attention on the presenter. She heard their pain when they learned what they must already suspect by now: that they couldn’t ever get their old bodies back. She nearly screamed at the callousness she saw in the presenter.

She studied his face more than listening to the words, an overly rounded stallion with distant eyes. Archive’s eyes looked into his past, and she saw only an emptiness there. No human could feel nothing as he damned these newcomers to a lifetime in a strange body away from their loved ones.

Nopony had done anything wrong, yet to Archive the thought of who knew how many ponies brought here almost infuriated her even more than the slavery they had signed themselves into. Almost.

She comforted the unicorn as best she could, since she happened to be on her other side. She shared the tears, having no trouble finding some to share. Though none of the leadership knew it, the memory of Old Earth was strong here. Archive no longer felt tired from her restless night.

She could work no magic at their lesson, much as she wished to. Guilt burned, but not enough to prompt her to give up her disguise. The will of Archive surged briefly against Alex. Alex won.

The presentation concluded and they separated into groups. Not by species as she had expected, but by “months since return.”

There was no point in pretending to trip over herself, even if it would get her out of mining for awhile. She took Ezri into the 6-12 months group, and sat down beside Jackie there.

The thestral noticed her, even over the murmur of activity. “You sure you wouldn’t rather be with the newcomers?” She grinned proudly. “There’s no reason to lie. If you need to learn the basics, this isn’t the right class. We’re doing mostly fine dexterity stuff with Mr. Morse. You’re probably not ready.”

Alex ignored the question. “If you’ve been back for six months, why aren’t you learning to fly?” Indeed, the distribution of species in their corner of the room was about even. Shouldn’t the unicorns and winged ponies have been sorted into classes for their unique abilities?

“Psh.” She rolled her eyes. “Shows how much you know. Flying isn’t ‘workplace applicable.’ Our classes focus on skills that help us earn more. Advanced classes aren’t free. I’m saving…” She lowered her voice, suddenly looking away. “Six more months…”

Alex forced herself to do the same, her blood boiling. She lowered her voice, and could not keep the fury from it. “Have they not even taught you the basics of dream walking?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jackie lowered her voice just as Alex did, though she didn’t seem to know why. “Dream-what?”

There was no time to answer, as the aforementioned Mr. Morse made his way over to the class pushing a cart of mining tools. It was the stout stallion that had given the presentation. “You’re new,” he said, indicating Alex and Ezri. “Came in yesterday?”

“Yes, sir.” She stepped forward. “I’m Kristy, and this is my sister, Leah.” She gestured.

He looked them up and down. “This is an advanced class, Kristy. How long have you been a pony?”

“Nine months,” she offered, using the number she had given the Radio Springs people. “My sister and I showed up in a small town. We figured most of it out on our own.”

The class, perhaps a dozen ponies in all, had all hushed. Dusty mining ponies all stared, with much more compassion than their teacher. At least some of this group had probably gone through the exact same thing she pretended to.

“In winter?” He raised an eyebrow. “What’d you eat?”

Alex wasn’t a very good liar, but she had rehearsed the details in case they were questioned. “My family had an orchard. Some of the trees were still there… all wild, of course. But it wasn’t winter yet when we showed up, and…” She lifted her hooves. “Things grew really well.”

“Interesting.” He was barely looking at her. “Well, show us what you’ve learned. Pick up that pickaxe. Don’t drop it.”

This was more difficult than just lying: she would have to seem skilled, but not too skilled. Lie with her body as well as with her words. Archive was not well suited to it. Ezri, though. “Leah’s about as good as I am,” she said, looking down at the child. “Why don’t you show them?”

There were no objections. The drone’s wings buzzed a little under her jumpsuit, uncomfortable with all the attention. Yet she advanced all the same, took the rusty pickaxe by the shaft in her mouth, and lifted with just the right mixture of uncertainty and confidence. Imitated a swing, faked a stumble, but didn’t drop it. Alex wouldn’t have known she was acting, were it not for the precisely focused expression on her face.

“That’s enough.” He gestured back to the box. “You should fit into our class just fine.”

Ezri joined her back at the wall, eager to slip back into the shadows. Alex didn’t say another word during their lesson, which proved to have very little to do with being a pony and almost everything to do with mining. Alex practiced dexterity by taking apart and re-assembling a “Davy lamp,” how to replace the wick or remove the metal screen. They worked their endurance by pushing a heavy cart, and she learned to attach a pickaxe to a single leg and swing it hard enough to break ore.

After a light lunch, the rest of their class went off to their mining shifts. The contract's terms gave them two weeks before their own duty shift: practically a vacation for the two of them if not nearly long enough for ponies who were actually new.

This was the first time they were left alone, fallen through the gap between newcomers who knew and those who didn’t. It was their first chance they had to go back to their room, make sure the door was sealed, and open up the Equestrian pocket-dimension.

They only used the lights: there was no telling when there would be another chance to recharge. Ezri dropped weakly onto the couch. She didn’t even bother opening her eyes as she spoke. “How long are we going to live here?”

Alex sat down beside her on the couch, patting her head. “Until I get proof of what I think they’re doing and come up with a way to stop it.”

“I don’t like how they feel when they look at us.” Ezri rolled, tugging at the jumpsuit. Alex lowered her head to help with the zipper, tossing the whole thing aside and letting Ezri escape her confinement.

“Everyone?”

She shook her head. “Just the ones in charge. They…” She frowned, and seemed to ponder for several seconds before answering. “They think about the ponies how you think about this.” She gestured around them at the library. “We’re an important secret that nobody else knows. But how can that be?” She sat up, tilting her head to one side. “Everypony saw us leave the city. Everybody comes from in there, so shouldn’t they know we’re here?”

“Of course they know, Ezri. Having a place for Refugees to come and work and learn to be ponies is a good thing, not a bad thing! That’s not the secret.”

“Then what is?”

It was Alex’s turn to flop onto her back. “Money and isolation. Humans did it to each other once, and now ponies are trying it. They trap you here so you can’t buy anything except from them, and then can set their own prices so that you have to spend more money than you earn to survive. Nopony is going to notice when they first get here, because they give us such a large sign-on bonus. But if you…” she trailed off, realizing she had lost the changeling.

Few children would count “accounting” among their interests, and it seemed Ezri was no exception. She shrugged. “Before I can be sure, I have to see what working conditions are like. If they take good care of the ponies here… we’ll probably just tell the Springs government about it and be gone.”

“They won’t,” Ezri squeaked. “I can tell.”

“If that’s what I discover…” Archive rolled off the couch and onto her hooves. “They’ll wish they had.”

* * *

The next two weeks passed much the same as the first day. Ezri was added to the daycare/school in camp, though she only attended after the morning “pony classes” were over. Alex spent her time getting to know the other Refugees and as much of the staff as she could, trying to do so in a way that wouldn't attract overmuch attention. What she learned did little to reassure her: poor Jackie appeared to be indicative of a general trend. So far as she could tell, the miners went underground with little more than damp bandannas to protect their lungs, and no more than their lanterns to burn off mine damp.

Jackie’s problems went further than a lack of safety equipment. Her inability and even unwillingness to sleep proved to be a nightly event. It took nearly the full two weeks for Alex to muster the courage to broach the subject with her, sometime around one or two in the morning on the night before her first day in the mine.

After awaking with a scream, Jackie vanished into the hall for her usual post-nightmare trip to the bathroom. “You up, Ezri?” Alex whispered, while she was gone.

“This room has so much stinking fear I can barely breathe,” came the little voice from above her. “Like every night.”

“I’m going to talk to her.” Alex extended one hoof over the edge of the bed, where her saddlebags hung. She flipped them open. “Why don’t you sleep in there. Put your pillow under the covers first.”

Ezri sat up. Her eyes seemed almost to glow in the gloom, though Alex knew as well as anyone it was only reflected light. “Really?”

“Yeah squirt, you’ve earned it. Two weeks and you rarely complain, that’s more than lots of ponies could manage. Now hurry before she comes back.”

“Right!” Ezri showed no sign of drowsiness, just flung the covers over the pillow and then hopped down, buzzing into the opening and out of sight.

“Be ready on time!” Alex whispered in behind her. “Wait for my sign before you leave in the morning. I’m not sure if I’m going to tell about this yet.”

“Night Mom!” Ezri waved as Alex shut the opening, the beam of artificial light from within fading away.

Alex got out of bed, taking her notebook from the bedside and a pencil and starting to draw the rune-patterns they would need. She had never used these patterns before, but that didn’t matter. Every book from the Equestrian library was as fresh as the day she had first read it.

About twenty minutes went by before the mare finally returned. She didn’t wander in any distance before she saw Alex: her own reflective eyes cut through the gloom like it was day and fell on her immediately. Her huge ears pressed themselves flat to her head, and she looked away. “I’m sorry… I woke you again, didn’t I? Fucking fantastic.”

“You did,” she admitted, dropping the pencil back to the bed. “But it’s not your fault.” Alex waited until Jackie had shut the door behind her before continuing on in a whisper. “Would you believe me if I told you there was an easy way to stop your nightmares?”

Jackie’s eyebrows went up. “I’d ask who your pharmacist was and how you were getting sleeping pills out here to the ‘old west.’”

She shrugged. Alex did have sleeping pills in the bag, along with the rest of her drugs. That wasn’t what she had in mind though. “Nothing like that. Closer to unicorn magic.”

“Magic, right.” There was just a faint note of scorn in that voice, as though she didn’t quite believe what she was saying. “If there was a unicorn spell for it, the camp doctor would’ve given it to me. Instead of bad advice.”

There were unicorn spells for it, which made Alex’s whole body tighten with brief anger. But that kind of magic was fairly advanced, so it was possible that he just didn’t know. She had seen the doctor once, and he had seemed nice enough. “Look.” Alex turned the notebook around so she could see what she had been drawing. An intricate, interweaving circle had been drawn there, a vague crescent-moon of runes and flowing English words. Alex was proud of how much her writing had improved, and was now as graceful and practiced as any convenience store greeting card’s printed letters could be.

Even a newcomer like Jackie could not mistake an imitation of runes for the genuine article. Some of the mining equipment worked on enchantments, and they saw runes every day. The old Equestrian alphabet was not easy to forget. She took several steps forward, staring. “Where the hell did you get this?”

“I drew it while you were gone. It’s really standard, actually… it’s copied straight from Luna’s: A Novice Oneiromancer’s Exploration of the Skien.”

“So what, I put this funny thing under my pillow and the nightmares go away?” She made to take the notebook.

Alex pulled back. “It will help you understand. If I explain why you’re having nightmares, you won’t believe me. But if I show you, you’ll be able to deal with them yourself.” She offered Jackie the notebook. “You read this. I have the English version of the runes underneath.” She hopped up into bed, resting her head on the pillow, still looking up at Jackie. “You read it, then get in bed and leave it touching your body. I’ve got my part memorized. After that…” she shrugged. “Just don’t get out of bed. You’ll fall asleep pretty quick with one of these charms, faster than any sleeping pill I’ve ever used.” She sat up, watching expectantly. “Simple, yeah?”

“Completely pointless.” She tossed the notebook onto the bed at Alex’s hooves. “Unicorn ‘magic’ I’ve seen. Reading spells off paper when you don’t even have a horn…” she trailed off. “It won’t do a damn thing. How would you even know all this, anyway? You’re as new a I am!”

She ignored the second question. “You’d take a sleeping pill if I had one for you?”

“Hell yeah. Pills put you out, no dreams.”

“And a pill would work whether you believed in it or not, wouldn’t it?”

Jackie sat down a few feet from the bed, shrugging. She didn’t seem in any rush to get back to bed, but it wasn’t as though Alex didn’t know why. “I guess.”

“Well, this is just as objective as a sleeping pill. If you do what I say… you read it, you go to bed, and don’t fight sleep when it comes… you’ll know.” Alex leaned closer, lowering her voice. “How about this. If it doesn’t work, I’ll give you my first week’s pay.”

“I…” she hesitated. “You swear? Not that I understand why you care so much… it’s my fucking problem.”

Alex extended a foreleg. “I swear.” She shook the thestral’s foreleg. “If you let me help, you’ll understand. Just… isn’t it enough that I want to help a friend?”

“If I was a better friend you wouldn’t have had to bribe me.” Jackie scooped up the notebook, took it over to the mostly open window and the source of light there. “I just read this, then get in bed? That’s it?”

“You read it, then I respond, then you get in bed. I have a part of the spell too. I just didn’t have time to draw it out. It’ll work just as well so long as I hold them in memory until I fall asleep.”

Jackie glanced again at the pattern, her eyes getting wider. “Hold something like this in your memory?”

“Faster that way.” She gestured impatiently. “Get to it, Jackie. Don’t screw up a single word, or you have to read the whole thing over from the beginning. I’ll be listening.”

It took her three times to get the enchantment perfect. “As a child of the moonlight, I offer up my vow of solemn protection to you this night. My presence shall shelter you, soothe nightmares and grant clarity in prophecy. Across the furthest reaches of the Skein I will watch over and protect you, no matter how far you wander.”

Alex started in at once, before Jackie could say anything else and force another repetition. “I take thee for my patron, favored daughter of the night-blessed princess. I swear to grant you my strength this night, to uphold thy instructions and share my gifts with thee. Upon no other will I rely, until sunlight banishes us.”

She took a deep breath, hoping that there were no unicorns in the nearby rooms awake enough to feel the brief surge of magic that passed through the room as they spoke. Granted, few unicorns in the mare’s bunkhouse were likely to have the sensitivity to identify such a faint spell. But what would the administration do if they discovered dream-magic going on under their noses? “You can talk now, but don’t put the rune down or leave the room. You’ve got to stay near me, or it won’t work.”

“Of course I do.” Jackie clambered up into bed. Her voice came a little halting, as though she had just climbed several flights of stairs instead of a foot. “I… feel so weak. Are you sure you didn’t… slip me something?”

“Positive.” Alex felt no tiredness beyond the natural. The magic to travel into somepony’s dreams did not come from her, though. “You’ve just… never used these muscles before. It’s going to be hard until you get more practice.” She closed her eyes. “That spell is more expensive than it has to be. Lots of clauses and protections you won’t need when you’re better. With more practice, you won’t even need to read anything. You’ll just will yourself around.”

“Shows… how much you know,” Jackie’s voice still came out in a pant. “Only unicorns-”

Archive awoke in her library.

This was nothing new for her; she spent much of her existence here. It was home, so far as Archive could ever be at home in a universe that no longer wanted her.

The library was vast around her, shelves as tall as skyscrapers and without obvious means of accessing what they contained. The entire shape was really a single spiral, with a floor that sloped gradually up and down. Shelves grew more sparse the further up or down the ramp one traveled, and were thickest several hundred feet back from where she found herself. Archive could no longer number the artifacts her mind recorded. Accessing all of them at once, or counting them in any meaningful way, had become impossible even for her.

Sometimes she knew things she never learned.

The whole place was as much art as practicality. The subtle shading of the wood indicated the part of the world knowledge had come from. Tapestries depicting living pictures hung where there were not shelves, and frequent landings spilled out into warm sitting rooms, cafes, and boulevards. In the very center around which the stairs circled was a constant flow of water, curling and twisting and changing color to match the sparkling lights on every level.

Archive herself appeared different here: older, more mature, more solid. She also wasn’t incomplete. Here at least in dreams she had wings and horn to match her earth-pony strength.

There was only one human here today. Archive knew where to find her without having to search. Though she had wings here, she would not use them. There was no hurry.

So maybe she had been a bit hasty when she had called Jackie human. She found the young woman dressed in plain jeans and tank-top, only half watching one of the many films stored here. Her shirt had to make way for a pair of gigantic wings, which stretched out awkwardly behind her and made it impossible for her to find a comfortable position. Her ears were wrong too, which even Archive found adorable.

“Inception?” As she asked, a blaring horn echoed through the viewing room around them, loud enough that both their ears pressed momentarily flat against it. “Your first time lucid dreaming, and you watch Inception?”

Jackie looked up, met her eyes. Not nearly the disparity in distance there would’ve been. “I dream about my friends sometimes. You feel different than they do.”

Alex sat down on her haunches beside the television. With a faint effort of magic, she shut the movie off. “That’s because I’m not a figment, Jackie. I’m as real as you are. Well… more so, since this is my dream.” She gestured around with a hoof. “I couldn’t craft a dream as you can, but I come here more often than anywhere else. It seemed like a stable place to introduce you to your powers.”

“Your dream?” Jackie stood up, her wings stretching out behind her. She was taller, but not overwhelmingly so as she would’ve been of her present true self. “How can a dream have accurate movies and books inside? I’ve tried to read in dreams before, and it always comes out nonsense. I’ve tried changing the details of the dream, too.”

Jackie’s outline shimmered for a moment, and she shrunk down into her proper form. Whether because Archive wasn’t wearing anything or just because she hadn’t thought to bother with the details, she was entirely naked as her pony self. No stupid mining jumpsuit. “That’s all that works. When I try to stop bad things from happening… they happen anyway.”

“In your own dreams, it’s just about willpower and practice. I’ve been working on this place for centuries. Lots of revising, lots of improvements. As to the books…” She shrugged. “I’ve got one of those photographic memories.” She levitated another DVD off a nearby shelf. “When you look at these, you’re not looking at something I dreamed up, you’re seeing my memory. But that’s not really important. Let’s go upstairs. I think that’s where you’ll want to be.”

“I think I’ll be fine just about anywhere.” Jackie followed close behind, grinning at her. “There aren’t any monsters here, I can feel it. It’s safe.”

“What kind of monsters keep you up every night, Jackie? It’s not your past. Your return to Earth and your history before that wasn’t that traumatic.” She made no attempt to explain how she knew that, nor did she falter or look away. They continued up the ramp, out of the part of the library where books were thickest and into the sparser shelves of the upper levels.

“I…” she hesitated, then stopped walking. “I get an answer first.” She tore a random book off the shelf, flipped through it, then tossed it on the ground at her hooves. “How does someone as fresh as you know all of this? Wait, don’t tell me. You lied, and you’ve been around longer. Are you some kinda prodigy or something? Spent your whole life in some college somewhere. You can’t be older than… fifteen? Still doesn’t answer what a kid like that would be doing in a mine.”

Archive shook her head. “I came because I was worried ponies were abusing Refugees coming back from Old Earth. But… let’s not make this about me, Jackie. If you care I’ll answer all those questions later. For now, you need to learn more important things.” She started walking again.

The mare groaned, then started to follow. “Like what?”

“How to stop having nightmares.”

Chapter 15: Dream a Little Day (292 AE)

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“Dreams are your territory, not mine. Outside of my own sleep, I’m worse than useless. Here, though.” There was no delay like when Jackie had changed. One second she was an Alicorn, and the next she had her own batwings and her horn had vanished. It was not really all that different: Archive didn’t actually know what being a thestral felt like, so the sensations were entirely imagined.

“I’ll… consent you’ve actually created a shared dream.” She sounded reluctant. “That doesn’t mean I’m going to buy everything you’re selling, though. Sometimes a nightmare is just a nightmare.”

“You’ve only been back on Earth a few months, I get it.” They reached the top of the library. Up here a perpetual full moon shone as bright as a noonday sun on the glittering glass roof. Glass it might be, and unsupported by any visible means, yet she stepped out onto it without fear. The physical laws had always been more like guidelines in the dreamworld.

“And you’ve been here longer, I know. Don’t tell me you came all the way out to Motherlode just to rub it in.”

“Not exactly, no.” There was only one feature on the roof: a doorway. Ordinarily the heavy stone gate was shut, and no power in Archive’s range would open it. This night though, the door had swung open a crack, and the indomitable beyond shone through. “Your first lesson about the dreamworld is that everything is constructed of thoughts, and all thought is as real as the will behind it.”

“More hippie stuff.” She stopped again. “Is there any evidence-based stuff up here?”

“Sure.” Alex sat back on her haunches. “Since everything in here is just about thoughts, you can see all the thoughts that compose something if you look at them correctly. Other intelligent beings might resist you, but nothing else will. Structures, objects, and figments might even fade away if your scrutiny is too intense. But I won’t.” She shrugged her wings. “Look into my mind.”

She instructed the thestral in the method, and was grateful Jackie had no question. She was just quoting another book, and had no way of performing the act herself. If Luna’s written words hadn’t made sense, Archive might not have known what to do to help explain.

She knew when Jackie had succeeded. She felt the touch of a spark on her consciousness, not unlike what Sunset Shimmer had taught her to do in the physical world (though the reverse). In a few seconds, Archive found her mind wandering back through time. Past her march through winter, through her time in university and living with Cloudy Skies. Through all of the jobs she’d had, through her numerous dangerous missions with the HPI. Past the time she visited Equestria, all the way to her meeting with Princess Luna. The memories could go no further: Archive had not existed to have memories before then.

Only seconds passed before Jackie stumbled away from her, her wings lifting to separate herself. “My God… my God… my God…” she repeated, over and over. “How many years was that?” She dropped out of a standing position, panting heavily from the effort.

“Not quite three hundred.” Archive shrugged her wings.

“Ponies live that long? But…” she trailed off, answering her own question. “Lots of them died. But you still…” She shivered. “What are you?”

“I’ve been trying to figure that out for a long time,” she answered, frowning. “I guess you could say I’m the memory of Humanity. I was created to make sure the ponies that came after us would remember us. Keep our accomplishments… not repeat our mistakes. And most importantly, to protect ponies like you.”

There was silence for several minutes. Jackie never looked at her, didn’t even open her eyes. Archive supposed she was trying to sort through all she had just seen.

Her eyes widened suddenly and she lurched towards the closed doorway. “That’s it out there, isn’t it?” She flared her wings. “The Skein. You know about it. You know… everything…”

“I know lots. Not everything.” Archive retreated as Jackie advanced, keeping herself between the thestral and the open door.

“An infinite world made of every sleeper’s dream.” Jackie gestured, and the door swung open. Light poured in, nearly blinding. “The Skein is arranged by the emotions the dreamers feel. If you dream about this, then that part out there… it’s–”

“Intelligence. Creativity. Love.”

“Well, I’ll have a long way to go.” Jackie flared her wings, advancing towards the opening. “I’m asleep too, right? My dream is out there somewhere. I can already feel it pulling me… it’s easy to find your own dream.” She flashed her fangs, though not at Archive. At the opening. “Now that I know what’s been tormenting me, I can send it straight to hell.”

“Careful!” Archive raised one hoof, trying to shut the doorway. But her world or not, a door into the Skein was the domain of magic she did not have. Perhaps a real alicorn could imitate it, but she wasn’t one yet.

Of course, there were ways she could get Jackie to stop. Killing her would wake her up, that was the simplest. But some way that would be to make a friend. “You don’t actually know everything you just saw in me. Your brain isn’t made to dump stuff into. I don’t know how long it’ll last! You might keep my knowledge until you wake up, or… maybe just until you leave the library! You can’t just go off to fight–”

“I’m leaving.” Jackie continued to advance. Archive’s back was nearly to the doorway. She could use it, now that it had been truly opened. “I’m going to kill that demon and end my nightmares. Thinks cuz I’m young it can eat my soul in little pieces, does it…”

“At least be sensible about it!” Archive pleaded. “Don’t go alone.” The pact they had made required Jackie to defend her, but there was no reason it couldn’t go both ways.

That stopped her. “You want to come with me?”

“Hell yeah.” Archive gritted her teeth. “That alp has been torturing one of mine. Just… let me change first. I’m not a thestral, so I’ll be stuck as whatever I am once I leave my own dream.”

Jackie nodded, impatient. Archive changed in an instant. Not back into her Alicorn shape, useful as it might be. When it came to dreams, what you really were mattered more than just what you could twist yourself into. Truth had power here. If she fought as a lie, she would fight without the strength of the ideas she represented.

The transformation was swift. Fur faded from her body, even as she rose up onto two legs. Her mane turned into a ponytail almost long enough to touch the floor, remaining as green as it had been. Her eyes too remained the same, unnatural though the shade might be for a human.

She had taken this form once before, in a fifties-style diner to fight a demonic being out of Equestrian lore. When she took it this time, she took up armor instead of simple clothing. Thin silver chain mail, with plates etched in gold. In her sheath was not a sword, but a thin leather book. A crest of her cutie mark worked itself onto her breastplate, as well as etching smaller versions onto her cape. She had no helmet.

“Alright.” She towered over the thestral, even at the height of a teenage girl. One hand tensed in a white leather glove, while the other rested gently on her book. “Let’s go see what your nightmares look like.”

Jackie retreated a pace, though not for long. “Okay Alex. I’m ready.” She stuck a hoof outside, finding it passing through the empty air. “Uh… you didn’t know how to fly. I guess that makes sense, since you don’t have wings, but… is wanting to fly enough?”

“For you it will be.” Alex glanced out at the opening, then lifted her book into her hand. “Not me. You know what I know, don’t you?”

Jackie shook her head. “I only know the pieces I happened to glimpse by accident. I didn’t see all of it! There was so much!”

“Well, being a batpony means you can cheat the rules here. The rest of us can only do the things we actually believe we can.” She leaned down. “I think I may need to ride. If I blow all my magic just getting there, I won’t be much use to you in a fight.”

“Ride?” Jackie raised her eyebrows. “You’re a freaky giant.”

“Just make yourself bigger!”

Jackie tried. She got a little older, and gained perhaps eight inches of height as she reached full maturity. She kept growing, as though she were an Alicorn but only in proportions. Another foot, a few more inches… then she could go no larger. Archive knew why: mere knowledge wasn’t enough in the dreamworld. Belief, confidence, and willpower were important too. A vast increase in one would not magically improve the others.

It was a good thing she was coming with her. Jackie would get creamed otherwise.

Damn her library for being located high in the Skein’s “heaven”, where other such enlightened dreams floated. If she jumped, the fall would wake her up. “Can’t get bigger?”

Jackie shook her head. Her voice answered a little deeper than before. “I feel stretched. I feel like any bigger would rip me in half.”

“You probably used lots of your energy putting yourself in my dream in the first place.” Archive pondered, then shrugged. “Well, if you can’t get any bigger…”

She could’ve returned to her normal body, that would’ve been small enough to ride on a huge thestral’s back. But tiny earth ponies weren’t good fighters, and also weren’t what Archive really was. Lonely Day’s body was a very weak symbol.

But if Jackie could grow her body, Archive could shrink hers. She ditched the plate-mail, shrinking rapidly. The links of her chain-mail became thin and delicate, flashing silvery with gold trim. She let stockings replace most of the chain. Her book remained, though it shrunk down to the size of a child’s diary.

What was she now, eleven? Wiry and thin, though shadows of the valkyrie she had been were still there in her, strength that would come in just a few years of growth. She was a tall child, but not as tall as an Alicorn.

“You think I’m small enough now?” Her eyes were still fierce, but her teeth were a little crooked. She gave herself some dream-braces. “I made myself as light as I could.” She held out one thin arm. “Any more and I’ll blow away in the wind.”

“You think you’ll still be able to fight like that?”

Archive’s voice was a full octave higher, but she didn’t hesitate. She drew out her book. “This is my sword and shield. Humans have always been small and weak. Didn’t stop us when lions still ate us.”

Jackie shrugged. “Hop on, then. But… you better know how to ride bareback, cuz you’re not putting a damn saddle on me.”

Archive hopped up, swinging one leg over Jackie’s back. “Is this good?”

“Get that twig you call a leg away from my wings!” She stepped forward towards the opening, taking up the whole thing now, spreading them to flex. “I know I’m not really flying, that I’ve just got to want to fly… but I still think flying uses wings, so… I’ll still need them. That’s how that works, isn’t it?”

Archive climbed up Jackie’s back, laying across her body and wrapping both arms around her neck. She strapped her book down, pulled her cape higher about herself, and nodded. “Should be. Just don’t make any sharp turns! I’ve read all about horseback riding, but… you’re not exactly a horse.”

“Got it, girl. Hold on!” She jumped.

Through the Skein they raced. At first their journey was mostly down, since Archive’s regular library dream was nearly opposite in the dream-world from Jackie’s. Archive worried they were falling at first, but she couldn’t get her spellbook into her hands for fear she would be torn right off Jackie’s back by the blowing wind around them.

They touched down, and she had no time to disembark. Jackie wanted no delay, and so did the entirety of their running for them. Winding paths they passed, racing through sleeping kingdoms as numberless as the dreamers who had spawned them. Each realm brought them closer to the nightmares of Jackie’s night.

Archive found herself feeling impressed: Jackie didn’t stop once to catch her breath. She seemed to intuitively understand what Archive’s knowledge had shown her about the place, even if much of the rest of her life had slipped in one ear and out the other.

They passed through a gaping portal to the underworld, then through river Lethe into blackness eternal. Just as Archive’s dreams of knowledge and enlightenment had floated in the ethereal sky, so nightmares could be found in the underworld.

Residents of the Dreamlands did not intrude upon them, recognizing the pair as powerful dreamers with important business. Archive waved politely to them from her perch, shouted greetings on Jackie’s behalf, but could do nothing else. The thestral seemed afraid that if they didn’t move fast, morning would come and she would lose this opportunity to fight her nightmares.

They were in a hollow cave, with huge sides sloping up into the darkness and thousands of bats in flight. Archive could not see in the gloom, so she conjured a mote of light to follow them in the air using a unicorn spell and her spellbook as the foci instead of a horn. Unlike the magic of a thestral, any “spell” she cast was really just an effort of will, the spellbook channeling it into reality. She could not use it to change herself, or to change the dreams they passed through. Only thestrals could do that.

She couldn’t have said how long the journey took. Time was a funny thing in the Dreamlands, where months might seem to pass in the space of a night. Such stretched time was generally the domain of powerful bat-ponies, though even they usually lost most of these memories when they returned to the waking world, only taking them up again when they slept. Truly they were the demigods of their own world, as real within itself as the physical.

She couldn’t help but feel a little envy at the possibility swimming all around them. Possibilities never open to her, any more than the clouds above were open to her in waking life, or creating enchantments. Being a pony wasn’t fair. Humans didn’t have that level of specialization. Archive couldn’t help but feel the human way of doing things was the superior one. Anyone could be anything. Ponies… not so much.

Every dream had a doorway, though they were sometimes so wide you could stumble in without realizing. In Jackie’s case, the doorway was a mirror, dropping them onto the floor of a bathroom. A hotel bathroom, located in some strange pre-Event hotel.

Archive rose to her feet, pulling the armor briefly looser about herself and wishing she had the time to shower. They’d been on the road for at least a week now. Suppressing the need for food and water had taken enough of her willpower that she hadn’t managed to hide the sweating and smell. “Where do you think it’s hiding?”

“Outside.” Jackie stepped forward, taking the doorknob in her mouth and twisting slightly to one side. It swung open. The room beyond also belonged in a hotel, with muted carpets and nondescript paintings of calligraphic Japanese characters. The bed was unmade, with a suitcase perched atop it and dirty clothes all over the floor. Like someone packing in a hurry.

Archive hadn’t even seen it happen, but the thestral was back to normal size. Her ears drooped as she retreated from the front door. There was no balcony to hide on, only a window the size of the entire back wall. It was night outside, the city full of lights. A room-service plate sat on the couch, its contents stale and emanating a rotten-fish scent powerful enough to cover up the sweat of unwashed horse and preteen. “Tell me about your nightmare.” She lifted her book into her hand, letting it fall open into her left. With a word she worked a shield-spell as unicorns used it. The book glowed white as though it was a horn, and a pale white glow indicated the edges of the shield.

Its protection seemed to help Jackie remember what they were doing here. “I found it… my first night. Found the door, kinda like in your dream. Didn’t know where I was, so I wandered. Seemed pretty cool at first, honestly. Walked down to the coast. Thought it might be a good idea to swim, and suddenly there was this great beach. It was so good to be human again, even if I knew I was dreaming.”

Someone knocked on the front door, a triple-pounding so loud that the whole building seemed to shake. No words. Water seemed to rush down the hallway outside, pouring through the open crack. The door seemed to strain a little against the hinges.

“You went to the beach.” Archive’s voice came quieter, more slowly. “Did you get bitten by a shark?”

“No. That would’ve just been one nightmare.” She jerked forward, extending one hoof. Almost as though she wanted to open the door. No, that wasn’t quite it. Like she couldn’t help but open the door. She fought it, but not well. Only the back of Archive’s shield kept her from making it further, surging briefly white where she pressed against it.

Archive felt a shiver pass through her, and she started flipping pages to the space in back, where Equestria’s measly provision of attacking spells were located.

Someone pounded on the door. Water poured in again with each strike, rushing across the room in a wave. It struck the white of the shield, parting to either side. “I think I know what found you!” She turned her head, facing Jackie. “You can break free! You must’ve known that, if you wanted to come here and fight!”

“I th-thought I could…” Jackie struggled, pressing herself against the shield, straining. It looked as though it cost her physically not to answer the door. Her ears flattened, but Archive’s shield held.

“Look at me.” It was not a request. The sound of pounding on the door, the rushing water, all of it faded. Archive drew in the air with her hand, calling forth Sunset’s spell that showed sympathetic connections. Jackie had but few threads on her soul, and most trailed off invisibly. One, thin as twine, made a direct line into Archive’s own chest.

Another was thicker than an anchor rope, tugging her inexorably towards the doorway. “Every dream’s been tightening the noose,” Archive said, feeling suddenly more urgent. Her friend had already started to drift away, back towards the shield. Outside it, the door seemed about to buckle.

“You can’t have her!”

“C-Can’t… Can’t…” Jackie was crying, though that didn’t stop her from fighting the shield.

“You will!” Archive reached out, placing a hand on Jackie’s rump, right onto her cutie mark. “Jacqueline Carter!” The pony froze, glancing over her shoulders to meet Alex’s eyes. “Remember.”

Time blurred. Archive watched the life play out in a matter of seconds. Growing up in St. Louis. Her mom helping her sew her own costumes for Halloween. Her first girlfriend. Conventions in handmade cosplay. Finally getting into college at UC Denver. Then her arrival after the Event. Stumbling half-starved into the city, finding her way to the mining camp.

Jackie’s eyes widened. The cord that bound her to Archive had only thickened a little, but it looked more like steel cable than twine. Again the knocking came, but this time she only twitched one of her legs, then held still.

“Stay back.” Archive flipped past the useless Equestrian ‘attack’ spells, pitiful beams of force that stunned or confused. Nothing lethal had been included in the magic, at least nothing that was meant to be lethal. She flipped past those pages to the back ones, which were scribbled densely in her own hand. Hundreds of rotes had been written there, each one more complicated than the last. Many were Joseph’s, while others were her own creations, dreamed up in the idle time when she could do nothing but think.

Archive knew all that the Equestrians had seen fit to teach them. When it came to human knowledge, she knew… considerably more. “I know you’re out there Charybdis! You keep your fucking hands off my kids!”

She didn’t wait for him to come in. Instead, she lifted her free hand, extended her palm, and read. In the compression of the dreamtime a hundred-thousand runes appeared in the blink of an eye, knotting themselves up into a higher-dimensional plane as twelve different spells.

Alone, each one was harmless. One pulled thermal energy out of the air. Another converted that energy into magic, which passed through a regulator spell into a simple charm meant to improve the power of other basic spells. An intricate cantilever of a nuclear-radiation cleanup spell had an unfortunate negative side-effect that it produced radiation when it got too close, which another spell– and so it went. It was not the magic a mortal wizard might cast: it was the kind of spell a computer might optimize out of the sum library of all magical knowledge.

Outside the shield, the air caught fire. Glass all over the building exploded, shattering huge chunks that plummeted down towards the ground. Wood, carpet, and paper were atomized. Concrete melted. Seawater sublimated.

There was no door anymore, just a round hole about twenty feet in diameter that cut through the floors above and beneath and out into the empty air beyond, then on through nearby buildings. The whole structure shook under the force, but didn’t fall. Not right away.

Something screamed as it died. Limp tentacles boiled away in the air. The air filled with sizzling steam, roiling against the sphere that sheltered them.

During the blast, Jackie had been pulled forward, threatening to pass through the shield. She was tugged along by the sympathetic connection at her soul until the slack ran out, and she stopped against Archive’s will.

Jackie was still there, so Archive knew who won. There was bleeding at her chest, as though a huge chunk had been ripped out. No more strange connections. She dropped to the ground, bleeding badly.

Archive was on her knees too, all the strength gone from her. She hadn’t held back. Trying to cast a spell like that in real life would probably have killed an Alicorn.

“I… I’m dying…” Jackie choked and coughed, whimpering.

“Yeah.” Archive nodded. “But you won’t die. You’ll wake up. And I’m in your dream, so… I’ll wake up too.”

Jackie shivered. “Will it… Will it come back?”

She panted, barely able to respond. Her hands were on the ground, legs spread in weakness. She could barely hold her head up. “It won’t be… able to find you… unless you find it again… Monsters like that aren’t… meant to be in mortal dreams… You had to tie it to you first.”

“That’s good.” She smiled, curling up as she died. “Th-Thanks Alex. You’re… You’re a good kid.”

The world ended.

* * *

Jackie and Alex couldn’t help but become friends after that. Jackie still had to learn most things on her own, but at least her time with Archive had given her a head-start. They continued to use dream-sharing over the next few weeks, until Jackie felt confident enough in her abilities that she didn’t need someone around to protect her.

It was better sleep for all. Archive had no spell that could make the bat-pony magically not nocturnal, but at least what little sleep she got wasn’t being interrupted by nightmares.

Archive’s work had been too good: no shreds of the connection to Charybdis remained on the pony, and so there was nothing to follow back and deconstruct. Had he been planning to take over Jackie as he had taken over so many others, or just been tormenting her for the glamour it brought him?

Her trial period without work had ended the next day, and Alex joined a mining team beside everyone else. Every afternoon became the same routine: zip into a jumpsuit, tie a bandanna around her mouth, and venture into the earth.

She re-learned coal mining techniques she had only ever read about in history books. Wooden supports, lanterns to burn off the damp, and not much else. Every day they emerged coughing and covered in dust. Their group would separate by sex, then strip and wash in a nearby mountain river. It was freezing, but a hell of a lot better than spending the entire day covered in coal dust and smelling worse.

Archive had heard of worse lives. She would’ve taken them somewhere else to live, vanished into the night, were it not for Jackie. The thestral knew the truth about her now, and in the subsequent nights, learned about the saddlebags and all they contained as well. With a friend in her confidence, Lonely Day could start to pick up on the details she had only suspected.

Her hasty calculations had been correct: after the initial sign-on bonus (given entirely in company store credit of course) had been burned, miners could no longer survive on the wages they made. It seemed as though store prices had been carefully chosen. None were high enough to arouse suspicion. But when taken together over a long period of time, the consequences were obvious.

As per the contract, an employee who reached the end of their term but who owed money to the company would be automatically renewed. Thus it was, the Refugees living in constantly-growing debt without any hope of escape. They were slaves.

To make matters worse, Jackie’s trouble breathing was not unique. Limited protection and constant exposure to coal-dust meant there were no old miners, nor were there any that had worked for more than a decade or so. Had they all moved to bigger and better things? Day doubted it.

Wage-slavery was bad enough, but the fact that slavery was also an eventual death-sentence was more than she could allow. It had to stop.

There was no simple way. The Frontier Mining Company kept over a hundred Refugees from starving. The coal it mined helped make steel in Radio Springs, as well as keeping the lights on. She toyed with the idea of organizing a union, but eventually tossed it aside. These miners had nowhere to turn for support while they demonstrated, summer or no summer.

After a month or so of living and working there, Lonely Day had her answer. The Frontier Company sold almost everything to Radio Springs, and they depended on a rail company out of the city to survive. She was willing to bet that if the city applied enough pressure, it could force the mining company to change its ways.

That, of course, meant getting back to Radio Springs. Alex toyed with the idea of simply walking there, but of course that would’ve made some level of hostile intentions apparent. Better to do things as naturally as possible.

So she spent a week telling everyone that she planned on going during their next day off. A week offering to buy things from town and bring them back, a week taking requests and orders and making it very clear what she intended to do. That day, she made special preparations for her visit to the shop. Well, mostly Jackie and Ezri. They would not be used against her tonight.

She stopped by the company store the night before her trip, after her day’s work. Water alone was insufficient to get out the coal dust, and like many of her peers she generally saved soap for special occasions. She did tie back her boyishly short mane with her bandanna, as many of the other miners did.

There was lively conversation in the store, as always. She waited patiently as most of her fellow miners used their day’s earnings to buy cheap corn whisky, shivering at the harsh smell as bottles opened.

Eventually she made her way to the front of the line, and smiled politely at the stallion behind it. “Howdy!” She gestured at the sign with train tickets on it. “I’d like two round trip tickets to Radio Springs, please.”

The stallion’s name was Ronald, though she suspected he actually went by some Equestrian name he didn’t share with them. As with most of the staff, any attempt she made to sense his human past showed her mind only a blank. “Ah, yeah.” He made his way over to a dusty notebook, flipping it open with his magic. “Tomorrow’s morning train, right?”

At her nod, he continued. “Sorry, miss. We’re all sold out.”

“What?” She tilted her head to one side, raising her voice so that everyone in the back of the line could hear her. “It’s not even a passenger train, everybody knows you just ride on top with the coal. We both know nobody ever buys a ticket to Radio Springs.” Then loudest of all. “Are you saying we aren’t allowed to leave?” Archive put some of her power into the words, tugging on the attention of every former human in the room. A crowd of miners drinking at one of the tables stopped. Conversation in the line died.

Ronald was completely unaffected by Archive’s magic, as she had suspected he would be. Even so, he couldn’t ignore the stares. “W-What? No! Of course not. It’s just… we’ve got lots of cargo to send on that train, and two more ponies just wouldn’t fit.”

“Okay.” Alex advanced with a smile, as much the innocent filly as she could manage. She was a terrible actor, but only Ronald would see. “I’ll leave on the midnight train. You should still be able to fit us on tomorrow’s midnight train back, right? Since everybody knows the trains always come back almost empty.”

Someone coughed.

“Uh, y-yeah… course. Though same day, there’s the, uh… service fee. It’s four times the regular rate.”

That would’ve made it well out of her financial reach, if she were a regular miner. Fortunately for her, Alex hadn’t spent very much of her bonus. She had bought only staples, preparing them in her own kitchen.

Alex reached into the satchel she was carrying with a dramatic flourish, setting a tightly bound bundle of company notes onto the counter. “Regular rate is 400 for a round-trip ticket, so the sign says. I’m getting two tickets, so that’s 800. That there’s 6120 notes. I’d like my change exchanged for Radio Springs Marks, please.”

She heard somepony gasp, and she wasn’t surprised. Every dollar of her bonus sat on the counter, along with every scrap she had saved. It might be more money than any of these miners had ever seen in one place since they started working here. So far as company store credit could count for money.

“Y-Yeah… of course. But this is, uh… more than I’m allowed to deal with.” He reached for the bundle, but she took it back off the counter before he could. “Why don’t you come with me into the back? We’ll, uh… talk about it there.”

“Sure thing.” She grinned, then glanced over her shoulder. “Sorry to bother everyone. I’m just so excited about going to Radio Springs tomorrow with my sister. Look for us on the train tonight!” She waved, following the increasingly flustered stallion back behind the counter.

The back room was mostly for storage, and shelves of general goods took up the space. Alex followed Ronald past it all into a cramped office, sitting down before she was invited and waiting as he made his way to the other side of the desk. She kept smiling. “You can’t go to Radio Springs,” he said, with a voice that would brook no argument.

“I can, actually.” She gestured at her satchel. “I’ve got the money for a ticket. I’ve got the day off. Is there something else I’m missing?”

“You don’t understand. You aren’t allowed to go.” He brought up a worn-looking document from the drawer, setting on his desk and thrusting it towards her. It was the contract. “Read page four, the blue section.”

She flipped and started reading. As she did, he continued: “Now, this isn’t the first time somebody’s made a mistake like this. In the interests of good service…” He took another stack of money from the desk, perhaps five hundred company dollars. “If you were to… publicly reconsider your plans…”

Alex read the highlighted section. Sure enough, it stated that no contracted employee could leave the grounds at any point, until their first contractual term was complete. There was only one problem: it hadn’t been in the original contract. Several sections in fact hadn’t been there.

Alex sat up, pushing the paper back. “Excuse me, Sir.” She lowered her voice. “I didn’t sign this contract.”

“Y-Yes, you–”

“No, I didn’t.” She was no longer smiling. The list of ways this company was exploiting its miners grew ever-longer. “This clause was not present in the version I signed. I read the entire thing before I signed it.”

“I– I assure you, it was there. You simply didn’t notice–”

She shrugged. “Go ahead and have someone get it. I didn’t just sign my contract, I initialed on every page. That way, I’d know if parts of it got switched. You can look it up. It’s filed under Saludiv, Kristy.” She leaned back, though she hadn’t sat in one of his chairs. “Go ahead and get it. Midnight train isn’t for another five hours. I’ve got time.”

“I see.” He made no move to get up. Instead, he reached for a phone. Well, something like a phone. The simple devices had lines only connected to other parts within the mining company’s offices. They were more like intercoms than telephones, with tinny voices and only one-to-one communication. “Boss. Got a miner down here named Kristy Saludiv. She’s insisting on a train ticket.”

Alex was beginning to regret not just running for it in the middle of the night. “I’ve got other p-people to help.” He rose to his hooves. “Wait here. The director will be here to speak with you in a few minutes.” He left, locking the door behind him.

It was about at that moment Alex realized she had probably made a mistake. Sure, the mine had a posse that patrolled the surrounding wilderness to wind up “runaways,” but she might’ve been able to slip past them! She could’ve tried publicly walking to Radio Springs… but if she tried that, they might just kill her, claim that “bandits” had gotten to her.

If it came to the worst, Ezri and Jackie could probably stay hidden for two weeks. Maybe three, if they were really careful with their rations. Could she reach Radio Springs and find a dragon in that long?

How many of her cards did Alex want to play?

The door did not open for several minutes. She spent those minutes humming "Sixteen Tons," and wondering if she might have to use some fists she didn't have to get out of this. By the time somepony finally arrived, Alex had more or less decided she would cave. This was too much resistance to be worth dealing with, it was going to put them on edge. She would give it more time, find another time to get out. It wasn’t as though telling the dragon now would make much difference.

The knob turned, and several ponies came in. One was the director, a pony she had heard about several times but never actually spoken to. A pair of larger stallions accompanied him, one of them pulling an apparently empty ore-wagon.

None of them spoke to her. Alex rose to her hooves as they filled the room, looking at the director. “What’s this?” She kept her hooves firmly planted, so much as the ground here would give her strength.

Director Sloan sighed, taking the seat on the other side of the table that Ronald had used earlier. “Something I didn’t want to do. Kristy, right?” She nodded.

“Have a seat.”

The stallions were only partly dressed. There were no unicorns among the group, but there were earth ponies. Heavy objects sat within the open ore-cart, glinting in the electric light. “Forgive me sir, but I’ll have to decline.” She took another step towards the wall. “I’ll not put myself within reach of those two.”

He sighed again. “I see. Well, we’ll get to the point, Miss Saludiv. Your sister’s with us, is she not? Your cooperation would be most advisable, for her sake.”

Alex was not a very good actor. Even so, she tried to seem afraid. She didn’t move closer to the goons, or the chair that sat between them. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

“I would like you to sit down,” he said, gesturing again to the chair.

She sat, right where she was presently standing. But only just, her rear-legs ready to spring at the slightest sign of motion. Alex did not want to die today. “Okay. Then what?”

He sighed again. “You’re going to make this difficult, aren’t you?”

She shrugged. “I just wanted to buy a ticket to visit Radio Springs for the afternoon. Your stallion wouldn’t let me. Even showed me a fake contract that looked a little like mine, ‘cept it was way different. All the important parts were changed. Just a few words, but…” She tapped the side of her head with a hoof. “I’ve got a good memory.”

“Indeed.” He shared a glance with the “goons,” then looked back to her. “I’m afraid you’re more trouble than you’re worth, Miss Saludiv. Cooperating with us is the one way you have of ensuring your sister–”

“You didn’t find my sister,” she interrupted. “And you won’t find her, either.” She rose. “Let’s not play games, Mr. Director. I’ve dealt with slime like you before.” She spread herself out, arching her back. “If you want to end this without any trouble, let me go. If you want to kill me, then say so.” She grinned. “You could try.”

The director sighed. Alex expected this to be the end of their conversation. After all, he was within his rights to terminate her employment at any time. If he was worried about the discontent she might sow among the other miners, then he could dump her to the wilderness and send his “bandits” after her.

She had known the moment she saw the goons and their cart Director Sloan would not be taking the easy way out tonight. “If you insist.” He flicked a hoof in her direction. “Let’s get this over with.”

Archive filled herself with knowledge. Most human martial arts were near-useless as ponies, but the principles they taught still had merit. Centering oneself, that state of mind where the fight became a flow that one swam in instead of a property of the exterior world.

With the thrill and the danger, Archive broke through the barrier between herself and her earth pony nature and pulled strength from Earth’s bones. The lava that beat in its molten heart was her anger, righteous indignation at all the suffering her ponies had felt working in this mine.

One of the stallions brought down a bat towards her head. She rolled easily out of the way, letting it splinter harmlessly on the ground even as she kicked the other, square in the chest. He went flying, smacking into the desk and the director behind it. Both went tumbling, the director swearing beneath the flurry of hooves.

Archive brought her other leg down on the handle, snapping it off with little resistance. “If you capture me, you will pay in lives first!” she called, as loud as she possibly could. The strange magic of her office had no effect on these ponies to make them stop to listen: none were from her Earth.

Maybe the stallion had expected an easy fight. He hesitated, retreating a pace. “Uh, boss?”

“Do it!” he called, clambering over the edge of the desk. “We don’t have a choice now, dammit!”

He charged. Maybe this thug had experience roughing ponies up. Mostly they were newly returned humans, clumsy and weak. Alex had been fighting for three centuries. She had been trained by humans, computers, and Equestrian soldiers.

Archive rolled into the charge, sliding a leg between the stallion’s and striking sharply at bone. It snapped like a twig, and he tripped over her into the wall. The whole thing shook with the force he had gathered, probably enough to have incapacitated her if he had been able to use it.

Earth had no biases when it came to the affairs of its own children. It would kill one as easily as the other. Archive stepped past the moaning stallion, pausing only long enough to strike him solidly on the head. Just solidly enough to knock him out.

Alex kicked the nearby bookshelf with all she had, knocking it tumbling towards the desk. It exploded, sending ledgers everywhere and scraps of wood falling.

The other goon emerged from the wreckage, still clutching a length of metal rod in his mouth despite all he had suffered. Resilient. She gestured at his fallen companion. “That’s you, fool! Put your weapon down!”

He did, though he tried to put it down into the side of her body. She dodged easily, put a hoof right into his side, and let another blow slide harmlessly off her neck. The metal bar dented where it had struck her, not leaving so much as a welt.

She could see his face clearly enough to see his eyes widen before she kicked him again, near to where she had struck the first time. Only this time she didn’t hold back, and she felt ribs crumpling even as he slammed into a portrait. The glass protecting it shattered, and rained down on top of him where he fell.

She was so intent on the goons, she didn’t notice the director. She heard the echoing report of a gunshot, and looked up to where he was standing across the room. She felt the sting at her chest, and glanced briefly down. The bullet had stopped on her coat.

She looked up, and took a step towards him. “Do that again.”

Director Sloan looked half-mad, his clothes covered in splinters. He leaned against the rubble, holding a rifle in both hooves. It was pointed right at her chest. He fired again. Again the magic of the earth caught the bullet on her flesh, though this time it made it far enough to draw a little blood before it stopped. She reached for more, begging the earth to give her what it could… and found there was no more to be had.

Her connection with Earth was completely gone. It wasn’t the normal feeling, when she ran out of magic. She tried to find the beating heart of Earth and found she couldn’t.

His next shot went right through her, spraying blood on the rear wall. She kept advancing on him, forcing herself to smile.

Alex had been shot before by long-bore rifles. The shock shut the organs down, tore through everything. The pain was almost beyond description, a single white-hot knife in her insides. He aimed a little higher, towards her head. “G-Go… Go to–” Blood choked out as she spoke, right along with the words.

He pulled the trigger.

Chapter 16: A Little Deeper (292 AE)

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For all the different ways Lonely Day had died, what happened after was always the same. She drifted in timeless space, felt forces tugging her towards the gulf that would terminate her existence, then turned away and returned to her body instead.

This time was different. As Archive drifted back towards Earth, she passed through boiling clouds and roiling storms and found she was not alone.

“It’s about time you died. Baconhead made it seem like a good death was part of your morning routine.”

Archive had no body and could not observe the being she heard, yet she recognized the voice easily. Discord. She didn’t actually see him, nor did she have any way of responding to what he had said. She had no mouth to scream.

“I’m supposed to help you,” the voice said, in a tone that suggested just how likely that was. “So here’s as much help as I’m willing to give. Any more, and it wouldn’t be any fun.” Pause, ground rushing towards her. She dimly recognized Motherlode, as it must appear from the sky. Forests sprouting all around it. “Remember what I taught you: an Alicorn is the Equestrian solution to balancing an unstable system. It has three parts: unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony.”

“You are not a balanced system. Oh sure, you’ve memorized all the unicorn spells, and pretended like you could write your own. But what about the third part? You’re hopeless. Bringing yourself into balance is not the only step… but it’s the only one I’m going to help you take.” His voice changed to laughter. “Good luck, my spell will only work once. Don’t die again.”

She landed.

Her whole body burned with pain, though the worst of it was in her chest and back. The air was cool and damp, but not too wet or too cold. Alex twisted a little, finding her back rested on cold stone. She let the pins-and-needles come and go to each of her limbs, twitching and kicking at all the right moments to help coax the sensation out.

There was absolute blackness around her, unbroken by ray of sunlight or even flicker of stars. The silence was almost as complete, though a single distant drip-drip of water broke it every second or so. Just as well, Alex was fiercely thirsty.

She was still wearing her jumpsuit, though there were holes in the front where high-caliber bullets had pierced her chest and killed her. The fabric was stiff there, and smelled slightly of decay. Getting out of the jumpsuit was Archive’s first task. She had no need for damp, bloody fabric clinging to her and sapping her heat.

The pain faded everywhere but her back, where crushing pain still flared whenever she tried to move. What had made her so tender? It wouldn’t matter what they had done to her body after she died, she always came back brand-new.

What had Discord’s words meant?

Archive’s thirst burned at her throat, but the need to know was even greater. The zipper of her jumpsuit was wrecked, so she had to half-rip her way out. This task was not as easy as she expected. Deep in the womb of the earth, her racial magic should’ve been burning strong enough to tear through Kevlar, nevermind denim. As in the moment just before her death, Earth’s magic simply would not come. Archive had to work feverishly at the binding, working the zipper apart with persistent motion. Only then could she clamber out, and discover why her back hurt so much.

She could not see what removing the jumpsuit revealed, for of course there was no light. Even so, she could reach up and feel twitching muscles that shouldn’t have existed but that she wasn’t surprised to find after all she had felt while struggling.

Limbs met her back that hadn’t been there, that shouldn’t have been there. Each wing extended slightly longer than a leg, covered in waxy feathers only slightly dirtied by all the time she spent on the ground. It took some concentration to move either one, yet by reaching up with a hoof she could trigger feelings she could then use to move them.

Lonely Day had wings.

Lonely Day was a pegasus.

She knew this after a surge of hope flooded her chest, and she reached for her forehead… but there was no horn there. She formed a basic illumination spell in her mind, and there was as little response as ever.

So Discord hadn’t made her into an Alicorn. As wonderful as that would’ve been for him to have fixed all her problems, it also would’ve been outside the actions she expected.

No, this fit him much better. Sending a spell that would change her into a pegasus when she was underground and couldn’t use any of her new powers seemed exactly like the being Equestria’s books described.

Alex didn’t need to search to figure out where she must’ve been. They had dumped her “body” in the mine.

She stumbled towards the sound of dripping water, watching her step in case there were drops she couldn’t see. She was afraid that there might be other dead in here with her, as though the mine might’ve been the usual place to dump troublemakers and discontents. She found none. If there were other dead ponies here, they had put them far enough away that she didn’t have to know. Little mercies.

She made it to the water after ten minutes or so of groping through the pitch blackness, where water dripped off the cold face of the mountain. There was a puddle on the ground, a fairly wide area wet enough to stay moist under her hooves. Alex found the drop and stood under it for a long time, letting the water fall into her open mouth. It tasted like minerals, but at least it wasn’t brackish.

“So… just how screwed am I?” she asked the cave. It didn’t respond. She sat down on the nearest patch of dry stone, casting about with her will. “Keeper, can you hear me?” The Keeper of Earth got annoyed whenever Archive bothered her, but she also owed her for her help and would’ve been able to easily direct her to safety.

Unfortunately, she did not respond. Archive’s connection had been as much a matter of her tribe as her office, and now that her magic was gone… “I wonder if there’s a pegasus version, maybe… maybe a sky spirit?” Again, the empty mineshaft did not offer her an answer. Her voice echoed in the total silence, and not even a bat replied.

A bat would’ve meant a nearby way out.

Alex whimpered as the weight of her dismal prospects began to press on her. She couldn’t die, not forever. If her body was destroyed or eaten, she could reform somewhere else. But in here, she had no way of doing either. Was she doomed to starve to death over and over again, until she went completely insane?

She drifted out of simple consciousness then, overwhelmed by the hopelessness of her cause. The mineshaft might’ve been sealed behind her. It might have numerous drops that took ladders to climb. It might have more tunnels than she could map. Worse, she had no lights, no food, and no hope.

She couldn’t have said how long she sat there. It might’ve been minutes, might’ve been hours, or might’ve been days. She had nothing she could use to measure time. Even the dripping wasn’t regular enough to be sure.

What eventually roused her from her reverie was nothing external. Rather, it was a voice. A voice from within her mind. “Calm down, Alex,” the voice said.

“S-Sky?”

“Shh,” whispered Cloudy Skies into her ear. “You’re not going to wallow like that. I won’t let you.”

“Have you come from… from wherever it is ponies go after they die? Are you going to tell me the way out?”

There was no glowing figure, no touch on her shoulder, nothing but the voice. “I’m not real.” She almost sounded sad about it. “You’re hallucinating. Something in the water maybe, or some side effect of coming back to life. You always come back overflowing with magic, but a pegasus can’t use it underground.” It sounded almost like a mental shrug. “I can’t tell you which, because you don’t know.”

“You’re too kind.” Alex’s voice was bitter. “It doesn’t have to be something that systemic. It’s not like I was some beacon of sanity to begin with. This last was just one too many. I’ve lost it.”

“No. Absolutely not. You’re not insane, Lonely Day. You’re perfectly sane, and you’re going to get out of this.”

“How?” Alex rose to her hooves again, walking back the way she had come. She had to move with great care, taking each hoof carefully on the uneven floor. She wasn’t exactly in a cave, but she wouldn’t have been terribly surprised if this mine was old enough to have been from before the event. Of course if that were true the wooden supports along the walls wouldn’t still be holding…

“Do I have to tell you?” The voice sounded annoyed, uncharacteristic for Sky. More than enough to convince Alex that she was really just talking to herself. “You haven’t just been dumped here with nothing. You’ve got your brain! Everything you know about mining. You know the way these tunnels are structured. Hell, maybe you’ve seen a map!”

She hadn’t. Complete maps of the mine were only available to supervisors, and getting one hadn’t been her first priority.

“It’s dark. I can’t see, so I can’t navigate. There’s no way a naked pegasus in a tunnel somewhere is going to be able to make light.”

“You’re right,” Sky agreed. “But you’re not helpless. You remember every step you’ve taken, right? You can build a mental image of the tunnel. Extend your wings!” She did, mostly by reflex. She wouldn’t have known how to do it if she had actually thought about it. “Now walk. Keep them along the walls, and go slow. Can you make a picture by touch?”

“I’m… I’m not sure.” Lonely Day started walking. She found she already had an image of where she was going from having walked here the first time, or at least the one wall she had hugged to get to the water. She reached her fallen jumpsuit exactly where she expected to find it. It wasn’t like seeing the mine, because of course she had never seen it. It was, rather, like getting up in the middle of the night, and not needing to turn on the lights or even open her eyes to find the bathroom. It was perfect familiarity, so much that she didn’t worry about bumping her head.

“That’s it! Now we just keep going. Explore every inch, and be careful not to fall. You’re not going to die and lose your wings before you even use them. If you do, I swear to god I’ll come back from the dead and haunt you.”

Lonely Day smiled for the first time since she had woken up. “But you’re not Sky,” she pointed out. “You can’t come back.”

There was no response. She didn’t bother trying to say anything else, not when she had a solution. Ponies could last three weeks without food, but she always came back famished so better round down to two. So long as she didn’t fall, she could always come back for the water. Lonely Day would keep walking, always taking the left fork until she found a way out of the mine.

It was either that, or give in to despair and wait for death. Make Discord’s magic be for nothing, and possibly lose her mind. Having Cloudy Skies come back to haunt her was no threat. If she thought it would’ve worked, she would have traded her wings for that any day.

She didn’t know how long she walked. Without sun or moon to judge by, Alex walked when she felt able and rested when she didn’t. She moved carefully, scouring the ground with her hooves and tracing the walls with her wings. Even a fallen nail might be enough to start a fire, if she could find something to strike it against. This was, after all, a coal mine.

She walked until she was too tired to stay awake, and still hadn’t explored her way back to where she started. She had found nothing useful either, only a few scraps of cloth or fallen stones she had no way of carrying. Maybe tomorrow she would make a bag for them from her jumpsuit. Of course, the estimate that it would take her two weeks to die didn’t mean she would be useful during most of the second week. Those would be days spent in agony, with a swollen belly and a delirious mind.

With no other measure, she counted her first night’s sleep as her first day.

She spent the entire night in research, reading everything she could about mines even though she knew it all already. Hoping, praying Jackie might find her way to her library and offer support. Unfortunately, with no thestral to open up the way, a pegasus Archive was as trapped within its shining walls as an earth-pony Archive. She had no way of sending a message, and no unicorn magic that might’ve stood-in for the thestral’s own powers.

The next day she found her way around to where she started, and had a map of the floor. It was massive, extending an area she roughly estimated at ten square miles. Worse, it melted into caves in places, or at the very least into huge irregular caverns mined by blasting instead of regular chipping. This made it difficult to keep track of where the entrances and exits might be.

If there had been a system in place for transporting coal to the surface, it had been removed when this level was abandoned. Empty bolt-holes were set into the stone floor, but the tracks they had once held there were missing. Even so, she recognized the layout as more or less the same as the one that this mine used on the floors that were currently worked. A single large service tunnel, branching off every few dozen meters for a thinner extraction tunnel. She had woken in one of these, far from the central shaft.

Naturally, escaping would be a matter of finding that central shaft. She was getting hungry by the time she made her way there, or at least to the place she suspected the shaft to be. Her one advantage was that they thought her dead. Hopefully they wouldn’t have taken many measures to keep a dead mare from escaping the mines.

She reached the main shaft without difficulty, and there she located the problem she had already discovered when she mapped it the day before.

The shaft itself was perhaps fifty feet square, with large metal struts anchoring what would’ve been a sturdy elevator if it were on this floor. There was only a single lift, and it was not here. Instead there was a gaping shaft, with a thin path around it on any given side. Part of this room had been cleared into what may have once been a dining/work preparation area, but like the tracks and the carts all the equipment and furniture was gone.

The shaft opened into lower floors she could not count, though she knew there was at least one. As to how many might be above her… she didn’t know. This was almost certainly a previous shaft, perhaps one that hadn’t been in use in the time she had worked in Motherlode. The elevator obviously worked, or else they couldn’t have brought her down here.

Unfortunately, these elevators were mechanical. There was no “car call.” Maybe they put anypony who caused trouble in the mines. Maybe if she waited long enough, she’d hear another elevator rattling down. What else could she do?

“You can fly,” Sky said, her first remark that day.

“I can’t. Pegasus magic comes from the sky, right? Well, I’m closed off to the sky. It can’t get down here. Even if it could, I don’t know crap about how to fly. Memorizing all the flying books in the world isn’t going to help me do the real thing.” She had become pretty good about holding out her wings to navigate, but that didn’t require any actual dexterity.

“There must be a little of the sky up there,” said the voice. “You can feel a breeze.”

She could. Not much, just a faint whistling of air from below, rising towards unseen places above. No light, so the path wasn’t direct. But the air was connected.

“Maybe a master pegasus could do it,” she admitted. “Maybe you could’ve, when you were older. But it’s my first time. Climbing a vertical shaft just won’t happen. Now, maybe if I was human, and had one of those headlamps… maybe I could use my hands to climb the supports or something. But I’m not human, and I don’t have a headlamp. I’m screwed.”

“You think so?” Alex didn’t say anything, covering her face with her wings. Not that it mattered. Sky wasn’t there, nor was there any light to see by. It was a good thing she wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore. “What’s that sound?”

Alex hadn’t noticed any sound before, not with the thick stone all around her. Even the dripping of distant water was a mere memory here. Yet despite the silence, she could make out something. She strained, listening with all the concentration she had.

It was voices. Faint, distant voices, coming from somewhere far above them. Yet voices nevertheless. Miners? Could it be she wasn’t in a closed mine after all? Alex stood up, spreading her legs a little to get the best posture she could. She took a deep breath, aimed her head up into the void, and shouted with all of her might. “IS ANYONE THERE?!”

Silence. Her ears were ringing from her own voice, so she couldn’t be certain. She took another breath. “CAN ANYONE HEAR ME? I’M TRAPPED!”

Silence returned. Alex didn’t shout any more, just sat back down to listen. If there was anyone up there, it would take her a few moments to adjust to the quiet and be able to make them out again.

She saw it before she heard it, a distant flicker of orange lantern-light high above. Yet in the realm of such total blackness, she almost couldn’t look right at it. She had been straining against the dark for so long that seeing light was like staring into the sun.

Someone shouted from high above, their voice clear enough that she could recognize it. It was the captain of her mining team. Jackie’s mining team. “Is someone down there?” With a direct line to him, Alex had no trouble understanding his voice. She couldn’t actually see the figure, but it would’ve been pretty foolish to dangle over the side of a mineshaft. She saw no elevator.

“YES!” Alex screamed, pointing her voice as straight up the shaft as she could. “Down here! Maybe…” She did some quick math. “Thirteen levels down from you!”

No response from him, though she could hear several distinct voices conversing, some of which she thought she recognized. At least half a dozen distinct speakers, perhaps more. Maybe if Discord had made her a bat-pony, she would’ve been able to fly in the depths and hear the ponies up there talking. Pity.

“Do you have any rope? If you had two hundred feet or so, you could pull me up easy!” Well, not easy. Ponies were not very good pullers, which is why fifty feet of that would be wrapped around legs, necks, whatever. Some of it had to be something for her to hold onto as well, without any fingers. Free climbing ropes was a primate art. She hadn’t even heard of griffins being able to do it.

There was a shorter delay this time. “There’s no food and little water!” the male voice called, after a time. “Whoever you are, you would just be coming up to die with us instead of alone! You’re better off down there.”

There was no time to ask questions. No time to figure out who they were or why they were up there. Alex knew in that instant that if she didn’t convince them right now, she would die down there. “Is Jackie the bat-pony up there with you?”

Short silence, then. “Yes! What difference does that make?”

She had no doubt that Jackie had recognized her voice. Assuming they were telling the truth. “Jackie, tell the miners up there the Archive of Mankind is trapped down here! Explain to them the power I showed you! Explain to those miners I can come back from the fucking dead, and that if they bring me up, I’ll swear by Celestia’s goddamn throne that I’ll get them out of this mine alive!”

Lonely Day had to stop screaming. Not because she thought she had got her point across, so much as she had screamed herself hoarse.

She couldn’t make out whatever words were passing above, even if those words were deciding her fate. She could only wait.

Eventually the shift captain's voice returned. “Your sister the changeling is here! If you’re lying, we won’t give her any more water. Do you still want us to get you?”

Ezri? Day’s mind raced, but she had no time to consider how she could have got there. Alex did not know how long had passed since she had been killed. With such a destructive death… “Yes! Absolutely!” She didn’t tell them about her water, not yet. She would save that if they still said no.

“We have to tie our ropes together!” A different voice. Jackie’s voice. “Give us an hour, Archive!”

“Alright! I’ll be here!” Well she would, after returning to her trickling rock and drinking until she had to pee, then dragging her jumpsuit to the opening. She spread it out there, so that the ponies would be able to find the water even if she slipped and fell.

She still saw their lantern-light flickering above, but she called anyway. “Ready yet?”

“Almost!” called another voice, one she had heard around the camp but couldn’t put a name to. Which meant she had never known it. “It’s going to be close! You’re not too heavy, are you?”

“No!” She was fairly sure she weighed less than half of what she had before, but wasn’t about to tell them that. She knew several of the ponies up there, and it was possible Jackie had identified her as an earth pony. Best not to break from that perception until she had to. When she got out of this, she was going to buy Jackie… something. Citizenship in Alexandria seemed a good start.

Time passed. The light above her went from steady yellow to flickering orange. “Rope is coming down!” It was the shift captain. “We used the rest of our lantern oil on you! You better be worth it!”

She didn’t respond, watching the outline of the rope get closer and closer. As it did it began to lose detail to the gloom, so that only a vague suggestion remained by the time it got within her reach.

Vague suggestion was more than she’d had before. When it came within reach she had to lean further than she wanted to, catching a loop of it in her teeth. “Stop, I’ve got it!” She pulled it back, testing the strength of the knot with her hooves. Sturdy. She better hope every knot was this secure.

“Bye Sky.”

* * *

The rope didn’t break, though more than once the whole thing cracked or began to slip and Archive thought she might be able to learn to fly. Firelight and grunting voices got closer and closer as the ponies tugged her towards the light. They didn’t have any pulleys, but they were using a piece of curved metal to stop the rope from catching or ripping on the edge of the floor.

She saw over a dozen ponies, most of them dressed for mining. Some weren’t miners at all: she saw one of the cooks, and at least two different foals watching their parents or siblings pull. A pile of wood-scraps and cloth provided light, flickering in the shift captain’s feeble levitation.

Alex scrambled up the edge of the shaft, resisting the temptation to collapse in a panting heap. The eyes of a dozen ponies watched her from the gloom, unblinking and intent. In their faces Archive saw enough pain and desperation that she nearly started to cry right there. She didn’t, though. These ponies might not know who or what she was, but they were former humans who believed in what humanity had been. Their faith in what she represented wasn’t enough to forget her hunger, but it was at least enough to ignore it.

Shift captain Miles looked her over, his eyes plainly avoiding her flank and everything else back there. His adherence to the human nudity taboo did not make him look any less stern. “So you’ve been a pegasus this whole time?” Her wings weren’t particularly impressive, with the way they poked awkwardly from the side of her body, since she didn’t really have control of them. “Is that why they wouldn’t let you leave?”

Alex hadn’t got a good look at her wings. Now that she saw them, she was beginning to understand why they were so sore. She looked like a bird that had fallen out of a tree during a rainy day. Dust and mud covered her everywhere. Her feathers poked out in irregular ways, and more than a few broken ones emerged from the mass. She smelled too, something she hadn’t really noticed when she thought she was going to starve to death. She did not look like the sort of pony to make a miraculous rescue. Hell, most of the ponies watching her probably thought she was indecent.

Of all the eyes, several of the mares looked on in absolute shock, Jackie included. Whatever captain Miles’s theory might be, she couldn’t possibly have concealed her true species in there. “Unless you’re a changeling. Like your sister.” That was Ambathy, one of the mares she had never gotten along with. “Lying about what you are is punished here.”

Alex rolled her eyes. “Look, I’m not a changeling, but it wouldn’t matter if I was.” She stepped forward, trying to make herself seem taller. It was easier than normal: she was taller. Not as tall as Jackie to be sure, but taller than she remembered. Must’ve been a pegasus thing. “I can get us out.” She gestured vaguely at the shaft behind them, stretching down into darkness. “First, I’m going to need some information. How the hell did all of you get down here?” She searched out Ezri in the crowd, eyes scanning for her black form. She couldn’t spot her at a glance.

“I think it’s a bit hasty for us to be giving you information, Kristy. Why don’t you explain how you’re going to get us out of this mine, then we’ll answer your questions.” Fire flickered in the faint glow of his horn’s levitation, cloth and wood scraps near the end of their life.

Alex nodded. “Alright. Someone get me chalk or charcoal. Mining chalk would be the best.” She gestured around, at the piles of old equipment, rusty tools, and dark lanterns. “One of you has got to be carrying some.”

Miles nodded, and a burly earth pony stallion with glasses perched on the end of his nose tossed some to her. Mining chalk wasn’t all that different from regular chalk, except that it was blue, about as thick as sidewalk chalk, and slipped into a sheath on an elastic band. Alex had to twist the band twice around for it to fit on her thin leg, but fit it did. She walked over to the nearest wall, brushed it clear with one leg, then started to draw. “I’ll need you in a second, Miles. Or any other unicorn who feels inclined.”

“What the hell is that supposed to do?” It was Ambathy again. “You lied to us, Jackie. You’re not getting any water either.”

Archive put power into her words. “Shut up.” She met the mare’s eyes as she did so, though she continued to draw. This rune was complex. “You people won’t tell me what’s going on, but if you expect to get out of this I expect you to act like an adult.” Nopony spoke, though plenty of them stared, crowding to get a better look. The one she was really looking for stayed away, as well as Jackie. What were they up to?

It took her only a minute to complete her custom version of an everburning-crystal light rune, the spell Equestrians used to light up tombs and other remote places that didn’t see many visitors. “There.” She pulled back, gesturing. “Miles, you’ve been a pony the longest. Do you recognize this?”

The unicorn was at the front of the crowd, and he looked the entire mass up and down with intense concentration. “Equestrian letters,” he eventually said. “Not sure how they’ll help us. Or what you need me for.”

“You will.” She stepped out of the way. “Put your fire down, then touch your horn to the center of the diagram.”

“If this is some kind of joke…” He lowered the fire to the ground at their hooves. The flames began to sputter and protest against the moisture there, starting to go out. Flickering shadows began to dance all around them.

She rolled her eyes. “The Frontier Mining Group neglected your education.” She stepped up beside him. “Now, repeat after me exactly. If you get one word wrong, you have to start over. Don’t say anything else. Okay?”

“This is a waste of our fucking time.” Ambathy glared from the side of the room. “We’ve only got a few more days to live down here, and you’re wasting them on a practical joke. Not sharing with you is too kind: we should put you back where we found you.”

This time it was Miles who shouted. “Shut the hell up, Ambathy. We can judge her after we’ve given her a chance. Would’ve been a huge waste to get her otherwise.” He put his horn back against the wall. “Ready Kristy. Whatever this is, you better impress. For your sake.”

She nodded, then began to speak. “To bring Celestia’s light into the gloom of night, I remember the hope for sunrise cuts through midnight.”

Miles repeated after her. It didn’t matter that a pegasus had drawn the runes. It didn’t even matter that the unicorn in question had little practice with magic and no idea what he was saying. The instant he finished speaking, the rune burst into brilliant life. This particular spell imitated sunlight. Though it was faint compared to the real thing, the little fires they had been burning were nothing compared to this.

The unicorn himself crumpled into a panting heap, resting his head against the wall. He didn’t gasp with surprise like the others, just breathed as the sudden price of the spell struck him.

“What is that?”

She wasn’t even sure who asked. On some level Alex supposed it didn’t matter. The Frontier Mining Company had protected these ponies from the magical influences and strange directions culture had grown since the Event. She had known they weren’t really teaching unicorn magic beyond basic levitation, or teaching winged ponies to fly. Even so, she couldn’t ignore the anger she felt. These ponies had their lives stolen from them like everyone else, and they hadn’t been granted the consolation prize of magic in exchange. All of the disadvantages with none of the advantages.

“It’s runic magic. The kind Equestrians use for all their enchanted stuff. We use some of it too, though it’s not obvious at first glance. Look closely at the mechanism lifting the elevators next time you’ve got time, and you’ll see…” She trailed off. “Now, would someone like to explain how you all got down here?” She cast her eyes about, spending a fraction of a second on each face. There were foals here, and staff that weren’t miners. The gathering made no sense. Not to mention the equipment was all old, and they had been dumped into a shaft that had already been excavated and harvested, perhaps years and years ago.

Jackie made her way through the crowd. Alex took in the changes to her at a glance: deep gashes in her back and sides that looked like they had come from whips. A slightly sunken caste to her eyes, and a worn-down expression. “We may’ve kinda-sorta tried to unionize,” Jackie said, shrugging. “After you didn’t come back, I mean. Everybody knew they must’ve done something to you. Some of us tried doing other things they always made excuses about. Leaving the grounds, buying tickets, things like that.”

Miles picked up the story from there. He seemed to have recovered from the effort of the illumination spell, though he still swayed on his hooves. “Have you really been down here all that time, Kristy? It’s been more ‘an two weeks since you disappeared.” At her nod, he gestured. “Somebody bring her some food. Didn’t someone say they had a sandwich they were saving?” There was a short argument. Alex was too weak to voice her opinion either way. Eventually it was won in her favor and a pony brought her half a sandwich wrapped in paper.

She devoured it as Miles went on. “We organized, not just the miners. Not everybody participated, but we all did. Went on strike. There were negotiations, and we thought we won. They gave in to all our demands. We should’ve seen it was too fuckin’ easy.” The crowd murmured their assent. Alex counted 28 distinct voices. Not even a fourth the population of miners in Motherlode. “Things got better. A few days later, they had this new project for us to work on. Supposedly we were going to be excavating a new barracks, so we could have better living conditions. Stays cooler down here in summer, warmer in winter, you get the idea. Took us down one of the old shafts…” He trailed off.

Another voice piped in. “Everybody was supposed to help! Elevator was coming up and down with more people… then it stopped. Nobody answered when we called! That’s when–”

“That’s when we realized what they’d been planning.” Jackie’s voice was dark and full of anger, though more of it was at herself than any external source. “We were the most involved with unionizing. It hadn’t made much sense for the kids to be coming either, but if they were going to get rid of us — had to get rid of them too.”

“I see.” She still had questions for Jackie, still wanted to know what had happened to Ezri (if she was even here). Yet those questions could wait. There were ponies here who needed help. Miles, evidently their leader, had already made it quite plain he didn’t know how to save them. Miles had been a fair captain, when she had been on his labor crew. Evidently his fairness hadn’t let him stand for what they had done to her, either.

She nodded in his direction. “If it’s alright by you, Miles, I’d like to focus on water next. And I’d like to put everyone to work in the meantime.”

“What do you have in mind?”

She lowered her voice, though of course the crowd were all ponies and could probably hear her just fine anyway. “We won’t be escaping overnight. I’d like everyone to work on making this place livable. It’s what they sent you here for, we must have some of the tools. Even if it just means clearing away rubble and laying out ground-cloths to sleep on. I can get everybody out, but it’s going to take time. We have to keep ourselves sane until we’re ready.”

“That makes sense.” He returned his voice to his previous shouting volume. “You heard her, everybody! Let’s get to work!” He looked back down again, even as the crowd started to disperse. Nobody looked happy, but there was far more hope in their faces than she had seen when she clambered over the ledge. “What about you?”

“I’m going to work on a water spell. We’ll need a basin or a bucket, and every unicorn we have. It’s too much spell for just one unicorn.” Well, too much for any of these unicorns. Joseph probably could’ve done it in his sleep, if he hadn’t been dead for two decades now.

“There are spells to just make water?” He didn’t sound disbelieving, not as he had before they started talking.

Alex shrugged. “None I know. There are spells for changing the temperature of gasses, though. Good thing it’s so damp down here.” She slid the chalk a little further up her leg, so that she could walk without breaking it. “But before I do… I think I’ve got to have a word with my sister. Where is she?”

Ezri’s face emerged from the gloom just around a corner, ears flat. Like Alex, she had abandoned the pretext of wearing clothes. She didn’t look good: Alex could pick out more definition to her “bones” than she had seen in a long time.

“Could you give us some time alone?”

“I’ll go find a basin.” He hurried off, and Alex stepped into the gloom beside the changeling. She felt another figure behind her, and turned to see Jackie had followed them into the poorly-lit mineshaft.

Alex tried to smile. “So… how long has it been, exactly? I didn’t have a watch.”

“Almost a month.” Ezri stopped a few paces away, looking down. “Why do you have wings?” Her whole body shivered, as though she might be on the edge of tears.

She frowned, taking that moment to press them back to her sides and out of her way.

“Lea– Ezri told me you would come back. I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, sweetheart.” Jackie shrugged one wing. “I didn’t know ponies could do the whole Osiris thing. You pick up a few extra bits on your way back up the Nile?”

Alex shook her head. “It’s a little complicated. It’s never happened before.”

Jackie rolled her eyes. “You idiot; should’ve chosen the bat wings instead! They’re way cooler.”

Lonely Day did not answer. She reached out to embrace the changeling, pulling her tight against her chest. “I’m so sorry, Ezri. I didn’t–”

“I didn’t know if you would come back!” The child tried to keep speaking, but Alex could understand no more through her weeping.

“I know.” She waited. In the nearby cavern, Alex could hear ponies setting to work. Clearing rubble, moving crates, talking. There was hope in their voices.

She almost understood.

But then she didn’t.

“I won’t leave you alone. Sometimes it might take me awhile… but when I promised I would take care of you, I meant it.” She saw a million faces, each one a human child orphaned by the Event. She could not care for each of them, but she could care for Ezri.

Eventually the drone broke away, suddenly grinning. “Hey Mom, I almost forgot!” She hurried back into the darkness, past where Alex could see. She emerged a few moments later, dragging Alex’s saddlebags behind her. “When we came down here, I brought these! In case…” She buzzed a little, embarrassed. “Well, I knew the ponies were being mean, but… I was afraid if I said something they would be even worse.”

“Smart little bug you are.” Alex touched her briefly on the shoulder, then turned and hurried back into the main chamber.

“We already ate all the food!” Jackie called after her. Alex ignored her.

She met Miles in the entrance, where he was levitating a large washbasin. “Something wrong Kristy?”

“No, but we don’t need that anymore. I’ve already got a copy of that spell ready. I didn’t know my, uh, sister had brought it.” Alex flicked open the side of the bag, and tucked it in. She looked around at the working ponies, then raised her voice. “If any of you are thirsty, follow me!”

Light radiated outward, from bright crystals wrought by Equestrian hooves.

“What is that?” Miles glanced in the opening, staring open-mouthed at what seemed to be a library that opened out of the floor.

“A gift from another universe,” Alex answered, clambering in. She was the first, though several nearby ponies stopped to stare. “Come on!”

* * *

True to their word, there was no food in the library. There was a warm, comforting space not really meant to hold so many people at once. In they came, eyes filled with wonder at a level of magic not even possible in Alexandria’s great university.

She gestured into the kitchen. “The sink there has drinkable water, Captain Miles. There’s not an unlimited supply, though. It draws the moisture out of the air, but only so fast. There’s also a bathroom, but if you could make sure nobody uses the shower, that would be good. It… This place was only built to handle four people.”

“Got it.” It took some minutes. Everybody had to stop what they were doing and take a look at the “magic bag.” Many brought canteens or buckets to be filled, and a line formed in front of the sink. Miles supervised, allowing each pony in line twenty seconds.

While they drank, Archive cleared off the dining table and spread a large sheet of paper on it. She replaced the crude miner’s chalk with a lump of soft charcoal, holding it with her hoof as she drew. The rune made her illumination spell outside look like a preschooler's scribbling.

Jackie sat down beside her, inspecting her work. “What are you drawing?”

“This is a runic gateway. A teleport. You wouldn’t happen to know how many levels down we are, do you? And what the terrain is like above us?”

She didn’t, but another of the miners did. Alex worked the figures into her equations, filling the five-foot square of rough paper with Equestrian symbols. A teleport was the most complex magic Equestria had taught them, and only a handful of their books had described it. The runes for this spell had been present in only one of those, with numerous warnings that it wasn’t something a novice spell-caster could attempt. Alex wasn’t just attempting it, she was retro-engineering it. It had to accept power from seven different unicorns (each one they had). It had to balance the magical load between them, and it had to carry an occupant covered in delicate technology without deep-frying half her circuits.

Miles made his way over when he was done distributing the water. Defeated, suspicious looks were gone from every face. Archive could feel their hope. “I didn’t think you could actually help,” he said from behind her, looking down at her work. Archive was checking her measurements with a slide rule as he spoke, recalculating each angle to be sure. A bad teleport would be a terrible way to die.

“Why’d you save me, then?” She didn’t look up from her work.

Miles didn’t answer for several moments. “Seemed like the right thing to do. Even if we were gonna die a little faster, it seemed rotten to let a kid die alone.”

“You won’t die today.” Archive got to her feet, meeting his eyes. “The ponies who put you here, though…” she frowned. “Can’t say the same about them.”

“Are we going to…” He lowered his voice, whispering right into her ear. “Are we going to kill?”

Archive shook her head. “I hope not. But what these ponies did…” She turned, walking slowly towards the stairs. “Hey Ezri!” She didn’t even bother with the fake name anymore. “You wanna see the part of the shelter I wouldn’t let you see?”

Miles followed as well, though less closely than the changeling. A few others watched, though not many were so bold as to follow her downstairs. They had just been given gift enough to be satisfied for a short time. Unfortunately they had used all their food, or else they could’ve been filled in that way as well. If only she had known there would be so many refugees.

Alex stopped in front of the maintenance area, with its solid steel door. She reached up to the keypad, pressing its overlarge buttons in careful sequence. The HPI didn’t know how to make spirit locks. After a few seconds, the door clicked, swinging outward.

The maintenance area was about twice the size of the bedroom. A worktable sat in one corner with various electronics and mechanical components in shelves and plastic crates around it. Power tools of all kinds from before the Event, or at least manufactured just as well.

Of course, most of the room was devoted to machines. The compact plumbing system. Hydrogen storage tanks, water tanks, fuel cells. Alternator. Various backups for each of these systems, each with the plain black HPI manufacturing imprint on them.

Alex hadn’t come for any of those, though. She made her way to the corner of the room, where a large mass had been covered by white cloth. She took it in her mouth and pulled, twisting violently to one side and exposing the object beneath.

It was a suit of HPI Interceptor Armor, made for an Equestrian body. Thin titanium alloys meshed with carbon fiber and nanoplastics, surrounding servos and its various systems. The back in particular was larger than it needed to be… but considering the little thing had to generate its own power, that was more than expected. While not in use, the suit opened up like the shed shell of an insect, its padded inside open and waiting for a pilot. This was why Archive had drawn the spell before putting on her armor.

“Who the hell made that?” Miles was indignant, not looking away.

“They’re called the Human Preservation Initiative.” Alex walked up to the armor. She had to unlock the cyber-gauntlet from beside it, sliding it onto her leg. “It’s kindof a long story. I worked for them for a few centuries. Their pony armor has gotten much better since the first models.”

Ezri buzzed suddenly past her, between her and the armor. She glared up, but didn’t say anything.

“What is it?”

“You’re gonna leave,” she squeaked. “You’re gonna go fight. L-leave me again.”

Lonely Day wouldn’t lie. “Not for long.” She dropped down to the drone’s eye-level. With how much the little thing had grown since they met, she didn’t have very far to stoop. “I’m going to get help. When the ponies back in Radio Springs hear about what’s been happening, they’re gonna be furious. I won’t even have to fight.”

Ezri embraced her, clinging to one of her legs. She didn’t hold on as long as she had before. “Be careful.”

“I will.” Ezri let go, turning to hurry out the door. Alex heard the sound of the bedroom door opening and closing.

Alex spared one look for her mottled wings. “Uh… hey, Jackie!” she called, waving enthusiastically at the thestral in the doorway.

Jackie approached, eyes more for Alex than the armor. “Need somethin’?”

“Yeah.” Alex took a first-aid kit from where it hung on the wall, unzipping it. She took a large roll of bandages in her mouth, tossing it to land at her hooves. “I don’t want these wings causing me trouble. Could you help me wrap them up before I get in?”

“They look awful.” Jackie kicked the bandages closer, then drew out one of the pegasus’s wings. She shook her head. Her face wrinkled in disgust. “Smell worse. Wouldn’t you like to clean them first?”

Archive shook her head. “No time. We still don’t have any food. The sooner I get to the city, the sooner these ponies get help.”

“At least a quick rinse.” She turned. “Stay right there, Alex. I’ll be right back.” True to her word, the thestral returned with a bucket of warm water and a big sponge, setting them both down beside her. “Not that I know, but I’ve heard that ponies who don’t take really good care of their feathers can lose the ability to fly forever.” She took the damp sponge in her mouth and started to work.

“It’s true,” Alex admitted, perhaps a little reluctantly. Jackie had a point, anyway. A few minutes weren’t going to make a difference, and she did have a great deal to lose. A little of the pain she had felt over the last several days began to fade, as Jackie’s sponge pushed many of her mismatched feathers back into place. Dirt and grime slid off to pool on the ground at her hooves.

There was no soap in the water, and much of the dirt stayed behind. Even so, a few minutes of Jackie’s attention and her wings felt much better. The thestral vanished again into the bathroom, coming out with one of Alex’s towels. Alex learned then that wings tended to swell when they were dried, layers of thick downy feathers expanding to leave her sides fluffy and absurd looking. It was a good thing the ponies trying to hurt her wouldn’t see how silly she looked under the armor.

“There.” Jackie gave her one pat on the mane, before unrolling the bandage. “This isn’t going to feel great, you know. Wings aren’t meant to go in and out of storage.”

She nodded. “I’ll get armor made for it next time I get the chance.” Of course, she would probably have to get involved with the HPI’s various assignments again if she wanted any service from them. Unless Athena started pulling strings for her. And Jackie was right: it was incredibly uncomfortable to have your wings tied and rendered immobile. She found herself all the more grateful that she had taken the time to clean them off a little first.

When this was over, she was going to have to find a pegasus who could teach her to do this properly. Book knowledge or no, this seemed like the sort of thing you had to practice. Wings were so complicated and delicate, all those little bones and different types of feathers. No time to get to know them now.

“There.” Jackie stepped back, inspecting her work. “That ought to hold.” She lowered her voice. “You’re going alone.”

“I only have the one set of armor.” Alex walked past her, dragging out a step stool, and climbed up towards the open back. Even the smallest size armor had been a little big on her, but now to look at it she felt a little less like a child. If being a pegasus meant being older, than she could get used to the wings. “Even if I had more: these are miners, not fighters.”

“Are you a fighter?”

Alex climbed into the opening, clicking one hoof at a time into place. The suit came to life around her, tightening against her body. Restraints closed against her legs first, then moved up her body. The open back of the suit slid together with metallic clicks, humming faintly. She slid her head up into the helmet. It beeped once, then filled her eyes with the information from her HUD.

“NETWORK CONNECTION UNAVAILABLE. ANTENNA DIAGNOSTIC GREEN, ARE YOU UNDERGROUND?” She ignored that, along with most of the information. Weapon magazines green, fuel green. All systems functional.

Archive was ready.

She turned, letting the servos quicken her movements and help her lift the weight of the suit. Earth-pony Alex could’ve easily muscled the suit around even when its power was dead. Pegasus Alex had a feeling that when she ran out of fuel, it was going to stop right where it was and not move again. “That spell I wrote–” she began, walking past Jackie and towards Miles. “I need every unicorn to help cast it. Bring them outside.” Her voice came out through the speaker, only slightly muffled.

He nodded, hurrying to catch up with her. She was taller than he was within the armor, taller than anypony. As she climbed the stairs, ponies stopped to stare. With all the staring they had been doing over the last few hours, she would’ve thought they would have gotten used to surprises by now.

Despite the strength Interceptor Armor gave, it did not rob her of dexterity. She stopped in front of the table and gripped the spell in an extendable claw, carrying it forward with her towards the opening. She walked back into the light of the last spell she had written and laid it out on the ground, placing a little stone on each corner to keep any breeze from disturbing it during the casting. Such a mistake with a teleport spell might be fatal to the casters as well as the unfortunate being transported.

Several ponies started to emerge from the bag, not just unicorns. Miles was among them. “I see what you’re planning. Are you going to lower the elevator down?”

She nodded. “Not for you to go back up, though.” She did not bother to muffle her voice. Instead she spoke out as loudly as she could. “Once I escape, they may suspect you all are alive. If they do, they may decide to be more certain than leaving you all to starve. I’m going to send the elevator down as slow as it can go. Stop it here, but don’t go back up… don’t leave until you’re certain you’ll start starving otherwise. I must have at least three days.”

“So you’re not–”

“I’m going for help.” Alex walked over to the spell. “Keep the door to the library open; it needs the circulation with that many ponies inside it. Don’t ever let it shut, or you won’t be able to open it again.” She hopped over the diagram, then waited. “You all will be fine for a few days! I know how much it sucks to be hungry, but it won’t last! I promise I’m going for help that can take care of all of you! If you try to leave sooner, they will almost certainly kill you! You must wait!”

“Three more days. We can do three days. Can’t we, everybody?” Ponies called their assent, though most were weary as they did so, weak. But it was something. Enough to make Archive smile in her helmet.

It took nearly half an hour to explain the mechanics of the spell and prepare the unicorns helping to conduct it. Alex tried to sound confident, but she was glad for the helmet. They wouldn’t be able to see how worried she looked. She had never written a spell this complex, after all. Even a minor miscalculation could kill.

Chapter 17: A Little Digging (292 AE)

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The teleport took her in a flash, briefly blinding her and setting off all the thaumic energy indicators in her helmet. She had given herself a full twenty feet of breathing room over where she guessed the surface to be, in case her calculation had been vastly wrong. It was, and twenty feet was more like fifty.

The parachute on the back of her armor exploded outward as she started to fall, but it wasn’t enough. Parachutes weren’t meant to work at such short distances. It was night, but even the gloom of evening did not take away her view of the ground rushing up to strike her, not with the night vision her helmet gave her.

The fall was slower than she had expected. Archive had jumped from moving planes before, more often than any sane person. In all her falls, she had never found the laws of physics not responding correctly. If this was 9.8 m/s^2 of acceleration, then she knew less about physics than she thought she had.

She landed with a thump, robotic joints and actuators forcing her into the optimal posture to absorb the worst of the landing. Nothing broke, and over the next few moments, she could hear the parachute retracting. Evening in Motherlode looked unchanged, at least as much as she could see it in the distance. As she had suspected, this mine was past the active mineshaft by some distance, though still sheltered by hills on one side and thick forest on the other.

Before she could set off, Archive needed to make good on her word and lower the elevator. So she hurried back towards the mine. A rusty padlock hung on the door, along with a sign in poorly painted English: “Danger, disused mineshaft.” Alex raised one of her legs, switched on the cutting torch, and blasted through it in less than a second. She didn’t buck the door down, much as she wanted to. She might hurt her legs if she tried.

She found nothing overtly dangerous inside, and rapidly made her way to the elevator. They weren’t like the computerized marvels from her own time: a mining elevator was really just a large platform with a direction indicator. The more you pushed (or the more weight you had), the faster you would descend and the slower you would ascend.

She released the lock, then tilted the direction indicator down as lightly as she could. She still had to jump in order to make it to the nearby platform before it had dropped too far. “It’s coming down!” she shouted, her voice assisted by the exterior speakers. As though the rattling and shaking wouldn’t be enough for them to know. After several floors, she glimpsed a pink figure jump onto the platform and stop it. The pony waved; Alex waved back.

It was time to go.

She emerged onto the moonlit scrubland with cautious steps, conscious that her teleport had been loud and that blasting the lock off with a torch had been bright. If ponies weren’t already on their way to investigate, they would be soon. She had to act. A voice spoke from nearby, so close that she nearly jumped into the air when she heard it.

“Hello there, Alex. I didn’t expect to see you using that armor again so soon.”

Alex landed several feet away from where she had been, heart racing. “You scared me, Athena.”

“It would have been irresponsible if I hadn’t checked on you once your suit came into range.” Her voice hadn’t gained much emotion in the intervening centuries, but the flow of her speech had changed. It sounded almost natural now. Ponies hearing her often couldn’t tell she wasn’t real. Granted, most ponies these days didn’t have even a concept of artificial intelligence. They could be forgiven that mistake. “Are you in danger, Alex? Do you require assistance?”

“Yes and yes,” she admitted, creeping slowly forward. She avoided the path, moving instead up the steep hill towards the untrimmed forest. It had once been a national park, after all. The trees would hide her.

Or they would’ve, if she had still been the sort of pony who could get help from a forest. She didn’t change directions, not when she had already committed to this path. But she didn’t expect it to help much. “I don’t think you can do much for me, though. I was under the impression the HPI couldn’t assist in my private matters.”

“The Initiative cannot assist without the approval of their director. I am not a member of the Human Preservation Initiative, however. If you are in need of assistance, I would be happy to provide it. That might take the form of forwarding your request, if you have need of human intervention.”

“I’m…” She hesitated. “I’m probably about to fight for my life. I don’t think any help you could give would arrive in time. Not unless you’ve got a bird parked less than a mile from here ready to pick me up.”

There was a pause. “My apologies Alex, I do not operate any aircraft not affiliated with the Initiative at this time and would not be authorized to divert them. Whatever this conflict may be, you cannot be in any serious danger, correct? I understand you die as easily as I do.”

Alex was not enthusiastic about that comparison, and what it might mean for what Athena thought about these days. The fact she thought of herself as separate from the organization that created her and whose equipment she essentially controlled did not encourage her either. No time to think about it now. She saw ponies hurrying down the path towards her, camp guards with torches glowing beside them and guns over their shoulders.

“If I get killed now, I won’t be able to complete my mission, and human Refugees will die.” Archive took another look at the thick forest, and the increasingly steep slopes behind them. A powered Interceptor suit might handle terrain like that. Even so, she doubted very much it would last all the way into Radio Springs if she tried. She had to cut sideways through the village, and invite whatever retribution might come.

“How well do you think this armor can resist black powder bullets?”

“Adequately. Can’t your body resist bullets without armor?”

“Not anymore. I don’t want to talk about it now.”

“Very well. It sounds like a fascinating story, though. Would it have anything to do with these biofeedback readings? I’m reading an eleven percent variation from your last on file.”

“It would.”

They were getting close. Alex pulled herself back, into the trees and out of sight. There would be no supernatural help from trees today, but maybe she wouldn’t need it. Alex did not know how complicit these guards were in what was happening to humans here.

She would like to see as few of them die tonight as possible. Let Radio Springs decide what to do with them, once she got the word to it. In any case, her anger was probably nothing to a dragon’s. Let them face her fury when the time came.

Alex lowered her voice to a bare whisper, enough that the helmet would conceal it within the breathing equipment. Would she have done better escaping with active camouflage instead of armor? Too late now. The HPI had let her keep her equipment, but not take home the whole armory. She hadn’t been pressed for choice.

She had exactly one magazine of nonlethal rounds in each of the suit’s rifles. After that, she would only be able to kill. “You can use all my cameras, right?”

“Of course. I can always use them, but there generally isn’t much to see. Was that why you covered your equipment with a cloth?”

She didn’t respond, instead watching from the shadows for any hint the guards might search towards here. There were four stallions, and two of them were headed straight towards the mine. She hadn’t even shut the door. “Tell me when to shoot so I won’t miss. I don’t want them to raise an alarm.”

“Understood Alex.” The pegasus lifted her right foreleg, priming the rifle built right into the armor. She felt the mechanisms as they adjusted. There was no sight on the leg, not like the more primitive weapon she had used earlier. This one superimposed all targeting information before her eyes, letting her rest her belly on the ground and aim her leg. It might’ve been silly if she hadn’t killed with it before.

Athena spoke in a rush, filling the screen with information. Trajectories, delays, angles; Archive took in all of it and adjusted to match. Her leg fired four times, jerking only slightly against the recoil system. Four ponies dropped to the ground in twitching pain, unable to do more than whimper.

Alex took off at a gallop, barreling down the hill and straight past where they lay. The slope caught her off-guard with more than one out of place stone or sudden dip, and she very nearly tripped. Only the armor’s stability systems kept her upright, and even then she skidded and stumbled. She used every bit of strength the armor could give, and her gallop was more than twice as fast as most ponies could manage. Even without her former strength, she was used to the way the armor moved. As an earth pony, her magic had felt restricted by the metal: now it felt more like the metal was carrying her.

Buildings rushed up to meet her and she didn’t slow to look closely. “Thanks Athena! Keep an eye on my threat-detection, I don’t want anything sneaking up on me!”

“There is little danger of any sneaking now,” Athena said, over the ringing of an alarm-bell from somewhere ahead. The bell reserved for a raider-attack, something Alex had never heard outside of drills.

She swore loudly into her helmet, as distant ponies climbed up onto observation-posts or onto buildings, preparing themselves for an attack. Her attack.

“Your cameras observe nineteen armed hostiles. Six appear to be aware of your presence. The first–”

“I see him!” Alex lifted her leg and fired at the minotaur emerging from the guard-post that separated the camp from the mines. It took the rest of that magazine to bring him down, though part of that was because she hadn’t stopped moving to shoot.

She stopped her awkward hobble once she was done shooting, conscious of many shouting voices. Of them all, only Athena remained calm. “Eighteen hostiles remain, but now nine are–”

“I KNOW!” Alex dodged behind the guardhouse as bullets sprayed towards her. “Modern” weapons might be clumsy and inaccurate, but she couldn’t count on her armor protecting her indefinitely. Worse, there was likely to be some magic pointed at her too. “How long can I run the CPNFG before I deplete my fuel?”

“That question is too subjective to answer meaningfully. With its current settings, your field will activate only upon encountering a thaumic field of sufficient strength. Most ‘spells’ can be destroyed on contact, allowing the projector to–”

Alex only sort of listened. Mostly she waited for the gunfire to die down, before bolting out from behind the shack and towards one of the storage barns. Lead filled the air around her, striking her armor more than once with a brief shock of pain. Not enough to stumble her though, or pierce any of it at this range. She barreled behind the shed, and straight into an earth pony stallion wielding a cudgel.

She heard shrill beeping as the CPNFG engaged, depriving her adversary of his strength. Without it, she would’ve been slammed to the ground and probably broken half her armor. Instead, the stallion went flying, impacting the shed with enough force to rain splinters on her as she kept running.

“That was 3% of your power reserves.” Athena’s voice cut through the pandemonium. “Not to mention minor damage to the servos in your back legs. I would avoid trying it again.”

Alex hesitated for a second, taking in the remaining obstacles. Like all smaller settlements, the mining camp itself had a wall, meant to discourage wild animals and raiders from attack. The walls themselves were not too tall, perhaps fifteen feet, rimmed with spiked timber. Earth-pony Alex could’ve leapt the wall, but pegasus Alex would have to find a ramp.

There were at least three ponies on the wall. As she watched, a unicorn was rotating a crude gatling-gun to face inward. At eight-hundred meters, there was no chance nonlethal rounds would have enough force to stop him. “APR-engage!” She glared at the wall under him, and twitched her back-leg in the necessary activation command. Her single rocket streaked across the night, locking her armor briefly against motion as it resisted the recoil. White cut through the night, then struck the wall.

A rocket meant for the armor plates of a tank hit the wall like a wrecking ball. Logs feet thick turned into matchsticks as the shockwave sent everypony nearby tumbling through the air. Ammunition stored just above the wall was caught in the blast, starting a secondary explosion that consumed the gun and the top of the wall and sent bullets shrieking through the air. All over the camp glass shattered from the force, and the explosion shook Alex even within her suit.

As soon as her suit could move again Alex went pounding through the wreckage, ignoring bits of falling metal or wood as she ran. A few ponies on the other end of camp still had the presence of mind to shoot in her direction, but none fired very accurately.

What had been a wall was now a low mound of debris, and even without her superhuman strength Alex climbed it easily and charged down the other side. Untrimmed forest waited for her there, forcing her to slow her path a little. She might be able to see the trees clearly through the darkness, but that did not mean she could keep up a sprinting pace through them. Such things were reserved for deer and earth ponies.

What she could do was keep moving, directing her path at an angle that took her towards the train tracks and the sound of a distant locomotive. Unfortunately, she would not be able to ride it: night was when empty trains made their way back to Motherlode with supplies and empty space for more coal. She would have to run, run until she made it or her armor gave out. One of the two.

“Do you think they’ll try to follow you?”

“Unfortunately.” She didn’t slow, though in the armor she wasn’t winded. It did most of the work, she just had to keep her body going through the motions so the armor wouldn’t hurt her. There were horror stories of powered armor like this snapping delicate pegasus bones when they stopped too abruptly, and she wasn’t about to find out if those rumors were true. Breaking many of her bones would really slow down her ambitions of learning how to fly.

“I don’t suppose your satellites have enough resolution to see a flying pony at night.”

“Unfortunately not. The primary purpose of my Earth-based artificial satellites is facilitating communication. I have only one intelligence satellite still functional, and it is placed in geosynchronous orbit above Raven City. I can direct its cameras towards you, but not with sufficient resolution to discern individuals.”

“Yeah, I figured.” Alex made it out of the trees and beside the tracks, where she set herself into a rhythm. There was little light, and she could take comfort in the fact that it would take a thestral to spot her running through the dark like this. Her armor produced no exterior light. On the level ground beside the tracks, kept clear of debris, running was a mindless matter.

This was her moment of peace, the time between her escape and whatever attempt might be made to stop her. Her time to think and not be under the pressure of combat. She would have to think fast.

“Your records should include Cheyenne Mountain Complex.” Alex herself had read about the place, but she didn’t have the military database of the former US, not to mention every other HPI-treaty nation. Athena did.

“Affirmative. Its ruins should lie in your approximate direction. Is that your destination?”

“Yes — but I don’t think it’s in ruins.”

“I was not aware of this information.”

She couldn’t shrug. “You are now. It’s been maintained as a covert knowledge repository by a secret society of ponies. They’ve operated since the Event, but I can’t give you many of the details. All that matters is they’re the ones really in charge of Radio Springs. Most of the founders are dead… but one was a dragon, and we were personally acquainted. I believe her to be my best chance for completing my mission successfully.”

“Speculation: you provide this information for a purpose. How may I assist you with it?”

“I need to know if there were any alternate ways in. Secret escape routes, perhaps. Stuff that wasn’t ever published. I think my name is on the list of ponies their guards are supposed to let in, but I don’t have time to be wrong about it. I’d like to break in and find the dragon myself.”

“Is that advisable?”

Alex chuckled. It was a good way to avoid thinking about the ponies she may’ve killed just now. Human refugees or not, complicit in murder or not, it never got easier to take life. She was going to have nightmares tonight. “Probably not. But the last time I was invited, it was for a funeral. I didn’t come.”

She glanced once over her shoulder, searching the sky. But Athena was already using her cameras, and had said nothing. Whatever pursuit might be coming hadn’t caught up to her yet. It probably wouldn’t, unless it came on wings.

“Is your lack of attendance significant?”

“It might be. She’s a teenager going through emotional trauma, and I’ve known her to be unstable. I rate the likelihood of her being happy to see me as extremely low even if I don’t break in.” Pause. “Did you find me my entrance?”

“Affirmative.” The program spoke into her ear. “The passage you’re looking for is an emergency evacuation shaft hidden in the mountains at a location I will indicate to your GPS systems. You will likely need to excavate a few feet of loose earth in order to reach it, as no metal is visible in my most recent photographs.”

Alex sped up, conscious of the growing roar of a train ahead of her. She could see light on the horizon, no doubt the train’s headlights. When it got much closer, she would retreat to the trees again and wait until it passed. Best if the train could give no reports of her to Motherlode when it arrived.

“Ponies overhead!” Athena did not sound frightened, but she did sound urgent. “Flying in formation. Do not appear to be watching the ground very closely. Outside of weapons range.”

Alex looked up, letting her helmet highlight their distant specks. Sure enough, she could see five ponies in the air, flying in a diamond formation not at all unlike the ones used by migrating birds. They were very high up, too high for a pegasus to get much of a look at the ground this late at night. As Athena had said, they were well outside weapons range, and flying fast. They flew almost directly parallel with her. No doubt hey were intent on the same destination.

They were going to warn Radio Springs about her approach. It was a good thing her destination wasn’t actually in the city. “I’m going to need a path that takes me around the pony settlement, but as directly to the escape tunnel as possible. Can you make me a map?”

“Uploading now.” An arrow appeared superimposed on the ground around her, guiding her. “So long as you don’t use the CPNFG again, you won’t deplete your suit’s power. At your current speed, you will reach your destination in three hours, seven minutes. Can you continue running that long?”

“No.” Again Alex felt a pang of anger at Discord. Couldn’t he have asked when she was ready to get a blast from his magic? Being changed into another tribe might be the boon he suggested for her quest to become an alicorn, or it might not. But if she’d had the choice, Alex would’ve taken it while safe at home, where she could enroll in a university flight class and not be placing herself and an adoptive child in danger. “I’ll need water at least. Find me a river or something as close as you can. That should be all I need.”

“Sure. Uploading route suggestion now. Is there anything else I can do?”

Alex hesitated. If she said what she was thinking, she would not be able to take it back. “I need an audio conference with Director Gideon. Can you get him for me?”

There was a silence, and Alex ran on through the dark for several minutes before she heard her reply. “Gideon is asleep. I could wake him for you, but–”

“No. It can wait until he wakes up. Just set me up with a meeting and get him when he’s available.”

* * *

Alex dug. She dug until she scraped the paint off her foreleg armor. She dug until her limbs were screaming and she had to stop. After she had sat to have a breather, she kept digging. It took from 24% to 18% to get the heavy steel uncovered. So much of it had rusted away that the dirt went from tan to deep red, yet still she dug.

Eventually she exposed the entrance, or what was left of the intact metal. Her suspicion, that the group who had co-opted Cheyenne Mountain hadn’t discovered this tunnel, appeared confirmed. Her sensors detected no magic waiting within the tunnel, so they hadn’t planted traps or alarms for her to stumble into. No electricity either, at least not enough to register EM through steel.

She was in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but the hills and a distant coyote for company. Alex found she had made the right choice by staying away from Radio Springs, even if avoiding it had lengthened her route. There was nobody to watch her switch on her arc-welder and burn another 1% of her reserves blasting through thick steel.

Eventually she had cut enough that gravity did the rest of the work, and a roughly circular mass fell inward with an echoing clang. “Can you get me a map of the interior?” She leaned forward, glancing inside. “I know you won’t be able to help once I get underground.”

“Unfortunately not,” Athena admitted. “Here’s your map. Be safe, Archive. Director Gideon has been in some kind of tactical meeting since morning, so I cannot yet offer a time when you will be able to meet with him. I am sorry.”

“No need.” Alex took a deep breath, then leapt down into the open pipe. “I’ll be gone for at least an hour, perhaps more. Better not schedule anything until you read my signal again. So unless you can magically make a spurned dragon forgiving, I don’t need anything else.”

“If I had diamonds to give you, I would suggest a bribe.”

She smiled slightly. “That’s an interesting suggestion.” She took one last look towards the sky, as though she could see the numerous satellites that carried out Athena’s local assignments. She imagined antennas pointed towards her, perhaps with a woman in a spaceship full of flashing screens. She waved, then started walking.

It was over a mile before she reached the facility. Alex feared she would find her way to some collapsed tunnel and that would be that, but this fear proved in vain. Thick steel and little moisture or seismic activity appeared to have preserved the tunnel proper. It hadn’t been made very large, just high enough for a single-file line of humans to walk without scraping their heads. The ceiling was still around, with a long line of defunct emergency lights.

To a pony, the space wasn’t cramped at all, though she couldn’t help but be nervous all the same. Something inside her felt trapped down here, and occasionally fear would bubble up in her and send her hyperventilating.

This is stupid, she told herself. I was fine in that mine. I’ll be fine down here. Of course, the mine had been freshly cut through solid stone. The dirt above her would turn to stone eventually, but she wasn’t sure when. This tunnel had probably been dug more than three centuries ago. Every few paces brought another creak, or another groan from the steel. Hopefully there was concrete outside, to give even greater strength to this escape-tunnel. Hopefully.

The end of the tunnel couldn’t come soon enough. Eventually it did, without any past or present cave-ins to prevent her from reaching her destination.

She stopped at a complex pressure mechanism, rusted to near-ruin. Fortunately for her, whatever door had been here had already been opened and was resting against the wall. It did not look like the door would ever move again. At a glance, it looked to be several feet thick.

Several feet of metal she couldn’t have moved if she wanted to. Beyond the door was a stairwell set into concrete and covered with dust. Alex climbed, checking her remaining power with every step. 14%. Enough to get her through a few spells, if she had to.

At the top of the stairs was a metal plate, along with a simple pull mechanism. She pried it open with one retractable claw, and brought it down in a single forceful motion. The metal plate clicked, and light spilled down through a faint opening. She had to shove up against it, pushing with all the force her armor could manage. Eventually it started to give, and she leaned into the effort.

With one final shove and a grunt she lunged up through empty air, even as the plate swung outward and around to clatter atop many identical thin flooring plates.

The first part of her mission was complete: Archive was inside. Now all she had to do was find an emotionally unstable dragon, get her help against ponies who hadn’t done anything to directly harm Radio Springs, and somehow not get roasted in her nearly-depleted Interceptor armor.

How hard could it be?

* * *

Alex clambered out from her hidden entrance, out onto the concrete floor. She wouldn’t be disappearing in any dark hallways with her forelegs both almost polished silver from the effort of digging. Alex did not remove her helmet, not yet.

If she knew anything about this group, it was that paranoia ran strong. She wouldn’t be past the traps and dangers just because she had skipped her way in. Could they kill her? Probably not, but she didn’t feel like chancing it with her pegasus body on the line.

If she died today, there would be nopony to help the miners, and she would have no way to learn weather magic. It was time to survive or die, and she felt like surviving.

Cheyenne Mountain Complex had once been the headquarters of NORAD, but those days were long gone. As she walked, Alex was conscious of the heights of technology once reached here. Though the ponies who had co-opted the bunker had tried to keep it running, they had been as powerless to halt advancing time as the ponies living everywhere else. Strip lighting set into the floors no longer glowed, and there were frequent cleared areas, once the home of computer stations.

Even the exposed pipes and wires bore the evidence of time, and hasty repairs were evident everywhere. In some places wires ran right across the hall, insulated and buzzing with energy. Whole patches of concrete had been dug up and replaced in some areas, and the walls looked to have been replastered so many times that they no longer had a uniform color. Yes, she was walking around in a structure that had been continuously occupied for three centuries. Occupied by a civilization that could not recreate the achievements of its predecessor.

Archive knew now how the people of the middle ages must’ve felt as they looked upon roman monuments. It was all she could do not to weep.

But she couldn’t be distracted, not when so much was on the line. She had to find somepony and get directions to the dragon. Archive had the map, but what she didn’t have was any idea where a teenage dragon might be living, or what any of the rooms had been changed into for that matter.

Yet of one thing she could be fairly confident: Radio Spring’s characteristic radio was still running. It must take some amazingly-skilled engineers to keep an ancient transmitter like that working. She could find them, and then politely ask for directions.

The transmitter itself would be trivial to find: follow the EM. Stone or not, that much power couldn’t be masked. She overlayed the additional information onto her HUD, and started walking.

The facility was still lit, albeit by flickering “modern” bulbs instead of the steady light of the ancients. The low hum of machines echoed all around her. Even so, Archive couldn’t help feeling the place was more a tomb than a bunker.

As she wandered, she passed several powerful thaumic readings, and couldn’t help but take a peek inside one of the rooms she had detected them from. She glimpsed a large stone room, packed with pre-Event server racks. She almost ducked her head out again, until she noticed that the machines looked intact. No corrosion, no rot, no decay. How was that possible in a room open to atmosphere? Wouldn’t the digital materials within have lost whatever they were storing?

Maybe, but the runes she saw written just a little way in suggested otherwise. The ground was covered with them, and the walls. An intricate spell, but one she recognized at a glance: Stasis. The servers had been frozen in time. “Clever bastards.” She didn’t inspect any of the other enchanted rooms. She hadn’t come for the tour.

She found her first ponies inside some sort of equipment room, its ceiling several times her height and packed with machines that were clearly still in use. How anything in here could still be working after all this time she couldn’t guess, but she didn’t particularly care just now. There were ponies here, dressed in simple technician uniforms and working on the machines.

Alex stepped into the doorway, waving to get their attention. “Excuse me, but do you know where I can find Gwyn the dragon? I’m pretty sure she still lives down here.”

A unicorn working nearby dropped his wrench, staring open-mouthed at her. Across the room, an earth pony mare didn’t seem to have been caught as off-guard. “Who are you? And where the hell did you get Initiative combat armor? Is that you in there, Elease? I swear, if you stole–”

“It’s mine,” she answered, running a hoof along the edge of her helmet. After a few seconds of fiddling, the connecting clasps released. Rather than falling off, the helmet began to retract, unfolding and pressing itself into the armor around her neck. This deprived her of the HUD, but it also let her look ponies in the eye. She could still see her power-percentage by glancing down at an indicator near her neck, and a speaker could still give her status updates, but that was all.

“I haven’t ever actually been here before,” Alex admitted. “But I’ve got to see your dragon. It’s life and death.”

“Where’s your escort?” The unicorn stallion finally collected himself, staring. “They just let you come in here in that walking tank?”

She wasn’t about to lie. So she didn’t even bother responding. “Do you know where I can find the dragon or don’t you?”

In answer, the earth pony working on the other side of the room struck something on the wall, hard. An alarm started to sound, echoing through the room and throughout the bunker all around them. “Security alert in Engineering!” called a voice, over and over and over.

“You’re lucky I didn’t come in here to hurt anybody!” Alex shouted at the mare, glaring. She pressed at her neck, and her helmet reassembled, covering her face. The unicorn levitated a length of cable towards her, unraveling it in the air and going for her legs. The cables got within about a foot of her before falling limply to the floor, levitation extinguished.

“Damnit, I don’t want to fight you people!” She retreated a pace from the engineers, pulling the door and slamming it shut behind her. A few tools struck it moments later, no doubt thrown by the stallion as she retreated. Before they could force the door, Alex turned her welder to the door and blasted the knob, melting through almost at once and leaving only molten slag. She didn’t have time to do a better job, because at that moment security arrived.

She had to hand it to these ponies, they were fast. Not running, but literally flying down the halls, halls barely wide enough for their wingspan and with only a standard human height to work with, often interspersed with cables and pipes. She was a little less surprised to see all three of the security ponies were thestrals, since their flight magic was a little more adaptable to underground use than a pegasi’s. They wore what looked like bulletproof vests, along with helmets with adorable holes for their ears. All three were stern-looking stallions, and all were armed.

She made no attempt to flee as they surrounded her, not as they drew their weapons and not as they aimed. She was reasonably certain they wouldn’t shoot.

“I don’t know how the hell you got in here,” said the bat pony directly in front of her. “But you’re not getting out again. No sudden movements.”

“I need to see your dragon,” Alex said, holding still. She watched the ponies behind her through her HUD, ready to react if they went to shoot. She was not about to die today. “I haven’t stolen anything, or broken anything aside from the door.” She glanced briefly over her shoulder. “Sorry about that. Some of your staff were getting violent. It was either that or hurt somepony.”

“Somepony,” repeated the pony on her left, mockery thick in his tone. “Who’d you steal that armor from, sympathizer?”

“I need to see Gwyn,” Alex repeated. “If that means I have to wait in a prison cell, that’s fine. I’m not here to fight. Wherever I see her, it’s gotta be soon.”

The lead stallion lowered his weapon. “You’re under arrest, pony. You aren’t in any place to make demands. As a matter of fact, I’m going to need you to get out of that armor immediately. You’re going to remove it, and then we’ll–”

“I will not remove it,” Alex interrupted, her voice neutral, but cutting over the stallion by aid of the speakers. “It’s proprietary technology. I swore I wouldn’t lose possession of it under any circumstances.” She shrugged, hoping to look apologetic. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, you’ll be sorry,” said the same voice from behind her. “Talk back to the commander again and you’ll be sorry. He said to take it off, that means it’s on the floor five minutes ago!” He prodded her lightly with his rifle, right in the side.

Archive had seen many intimidation tactics before. She had in her memory a rich history of human diplomacy, along with much personal experience. More often than not she had been a tiny, weak-looking pony. Ponies frequently underestimated her, and regretted it. She didn’t move. “I don’t wish to harm you,” she answered. “But if you attack, I will have no choice.”

As hot as his words might be, the stallion behind her didn’t attack as he had threatened. Discipline prevailed, and his eyes were all for the commander.

“There are three of us,” he said, more calmly than his subordinate. “Two rifles aimed at your back.”

“Two toys,” Archive corrected. “My armor is programmed to detonate when I’m killed. If that happens, I swear to God this place will be radioactive so long even your fucking dragon won’t be able to set foot in here in her lifetime.”

“Maybe.” The commander shrugged, evidently as unmoved as she had been. “But you’ll be dead.”

Alex reached up, careful never to point her leg at anything but the wall. She moved slowly, pressing it to the place that would retract her helmet. Of course this was a gamble, a gamble that might very well end in her death. True, a full power module might irradiate this whole complex if it detonated. But hers was nearly dry. It might not even have enough juice to blow up her suit when the time came.

Her helmet retracted again, folding up against her armor. Alex shook out her mane, forcing a smile. “Not for long. My name is Lonely Day, Archive of Humanity.” Her true age was revealed once the helmet came off. Even so, she met his eyes and did not blink. However tough this stallion might be, he was a child compared to her. She wasn’t about to be frightened by a child. “Patron Saint, sapient symbol, whatever you wanna go for. How about ‘immortal.’”

Surprised, frightened faces. Unmistakable recognition. These ponies knew who she was. The only stallion who had yet to speak muttered, “She looks just like the statue.”

She had no idea what he was talking about, but she didn’t ask. The captain gestured, and ponies on either side of her lowered their weapons.

“We have specific instructions for you, Archive.” Though neither looked happy about it, the ponies that had been aiming at her turned away and walked over to stand behind their commander. “I apologize for our hostility, you were the first intruder my team has ever caught. I hope the rest of your stay with us will be more pleasant.”

“That depends.” Alex frowned, retreating a pace from the group. This sudden change wasn’t entirely uncharacteristic, when this group was involved, but it didn’t necessarily mean she was out of danger. Plans within plans within plans, or so she had come to expect. That was why she hadn’t worked with them, why she had refused to come even when one of their last surviving founders died. “Will you let me see Gwyn, yet?”

“Of course.” He turned away from her, not so much as glancing over his shoulder to see if she was doing anything hostile. His subordinates were less trusting, but she didn’t mind. She hadn’t wanted to fight. “You can wait for her in the library. It’s not far from here.”

The other guards fell into step beside her, half honor-guard and half escort. She didn’t mind. She followed them through the twisting bunker hallways, until they reached the library. “We’ll let her know you’re here,” the commander said, gesturing in at the empty room. “Make yourself comfortable, she may be a while. It’s… somewhat unwise to rush her.”

“I understand. I’ll be fine here until she arrives.”

“If you need anything else, use the phone on the wall, there. Someone will fetch it for you.” He shut the door, and she heard no lock on the other side. That left her alone with the library.

Though obviously built for the staff, the library seemed far more old-style than much of the “decayed modern” that she had seen elsewhere. Rich wooden shelves, antique tables, and even more antique books. She spotted more than a few Equestrian reprints made in Alexandria, though just as many titles here appeared to be reprintings of pre-Event volumes. The chairs looked comfortable and well-worn. There was some kind of golden liquid in a decanter on one end table, along with what she swore was an old-fashioned snuff box.

Alex didn’t bother sitting down in a comfortable chair; she wouldn’t be able to enjoy it from within the armor. Not to mention she probably smelled like wet bird under all that steel, and it felt wrong to soil such a comfortable space. So she took a book she had found sitting on an end table, Good Omens, sat down on the ground, and opened it to read. She could wait. Exhaustion could wait for this last conversation. All she had to do was tell the dragon about the plight of her miners, and it would be downhill from there.

Unfortunately, Alex had been up for well over twenty-four hours now. Stress from her escape and stimulants from the armor had kept her awake, but now her helmet was off and the stress faded into the background. It was so hard to stay awake. So hard… she couldn’t. Within a few minutes, Alex’s head had dropped onto the book, and she was snoring.

Alex woke up to find Good Omens had been replaced with a pleasantly downy pillow. A wistful dragon sat across from her in a chair that obviously hadn’t been made for somepony her size, deeply engrossed in the missing book.

“A fine choice. Two of my favourite authors, Pratchett and Gaiman. ‘If knowledge is power, power is energy and energy is mass, then ultimately a library is a genteel black hole that knows how to read.’” She closed the book carefully with two of her talons. Now the dragon known as Gwyn to her organization and White to just a few looked either like a depressed teenager or a weary librarian. It was hard to say for sure which.

White was ill-named: her scales shimmered crimson. She stood, or rather slouched about 7 feet tall, not quite fully grown and with all the tell-tale signs of adolescence. Her gangly proportioned limbs made her look less like a dragon and more like a praying mantis.

“I have several copies, and books yearn to be read. You may keep it, if you wish.” She gently lowered the book and inched it back towards Alex, before clasping her hands together and peering down upon her. Tired though she looked, embers of the sun gazed keenly out beneath those lidded eyes.

“I have heard no end of stories about you. I’ve promised quite a few of the deceased that I would slap you something silly if I got the chance.” She let the words hang in the air. The embers scanned Alex’s every move, every reaction. “Why are you here? Why are you bothering me? Why now?”

Alex sat up, blinking away the tiredness and the confusion of her sleep. It hadn’t been long, she was sure about that. There was no earth pony magic to fill her with energy and wake her up, not this time. She tried the suit with a twitch of a hoof, but it refused. The flashing medical icon in the corner of her vision probably meant it wasn’t safe to give her any more stimulants.

The most important facts took little of her concentration to determine, however. She had fallen asleep, and the dragon hadn’t attacked her. Stories of dragons in the old-world might describe them as proud creatures with their own codes of honor, but she held no illusions about the truth of that now.

As she sat up, it was harder not to be intimidated by White than any of the guards she’d had to make it past earlier. She was the one in powered armor, but White needed no armor to stop bullets or express superior strength. She found herself wondering idly how well Interceptor armor would protect her from a dragon’s fire. Was it magical enough to be neutralized by the CPNFG? She prayed she wouldn’t learn the answer today.

“I’m sorry to bother you here, White.” Dragon or not, Alex would not look away. She would not be some child to be intimidated and frightened into humility. Of course, that didn’t mean she couldn’t have respect. “I won’t waste your time.” She rose to her hooves, retreating a pace.

“I’ve been living in the nearby town of Motherlode for the last few months,” she began. “It’s where Radio Springs gets its coal, in case you didn’t know. Up in the old national park.” There was no easy way to say this. “Though the Frontier Mining Company pretends to have legitimate status here in Radio Springs, I’m sure what they’re actually doing would violate your laws. The specifics of how they do it are complex, but what matters is that the ponies they have working for them are slaves. Slaves working in poor conditions, without pay, and nothing in place for their safety.”

She stopped, having to catch her breath. “I… didn’t know who else I could tell. There’s no way… a bureaucracy… would be able to make a difference in time to help those ponies.”

White continued to stare down impassively. “Bureaucracy has its purpose. And purpose dictates to me that I should ask you to present evidence towards me, I should hear their defense, there should be a sanctioned investigation which would give them plenty of time to cover up their horrible misdeeds...” droned on, as if reading rote from a script.

“However. I’m under the impression you wouldn’t skulk into this facility and browbeat our guards just to tell me lies. Tell me, have you read our charter? Because I assure you, if what you say is true our friends in the FMC have not.”

“I don’t know if it’s a question of reading; they’ve got a license to operate and they’ve been paying their taxes and all. But they’ve also been only recruiting Refugees, who don’t understand the post-Event world and don’t have an idea in hell what their rights are. Wage slavery would be bad enough, but what they’re actually doing…”

Alex gestured, bringing the helmet over her face in a few smooth motions of rotating metal. She spoke quietly into the microphone. “Activate projector, playback helmet video from timecode–” A bezel near the front of her helmet rotated towards the nearest flat surface, the ceiling. Images began to play there, sound projected from the speakers in her helmet.

It was the mineshaft, filled with refugees. Images her camera had taken on her way out. “The mining director killed me when I confronted him about what he had been doing. When I returned, I discovered the miners had tried to unionize. The Frontier Company sealed them all underground to starve. As you can see from the timecode, this footage was taken about eight hours ago. They’re down there right now, starving.” Alex cut the projection, folding up her helmet again. It was unwise to be partially blind when dealing with dragons, apparently friendly or not.

White unfolded herself out of her chair. Now that it was not hidden amongst her furled limbs, Alex noticed a shotgun slung over her hip. “We shall rectify this immediately. Are you capable of flight, or shall I carry you?”

“I can’t fly. But I don’t think you understand what we’re up against. They’re about ten miles out into the wilderness. They’ve got a private militia of at least thirty men. At least…” she trailed off. “Well, one less gatling gun than they had this morning. Regardless, I don’t think one pon– one person is going to convince them to change their way of doing things with just a shotgun. They’ll lie, they’ll stonewall, and nothing will change. And my–” She whimpered. “My friends will die.”

“Back... Back when there were nine of us, each of us had a role in the running of the settlement. It may surprise you to look at me, but I stood as the moral heart of our group." She paused, running a claw along the edge of her shotgun. "If this situation requires a greater show of force, than that is what we will provide.”

White strode purposefully down the corridors of the CMC, leading Alex deeper into the complex. At one point, White left Alex in the hallway as she “made some phone calls to some important people.” The deeper they went, the less people they saw. At one of the lowest levels of the CMC, White walked down a final corridor that was thick with dust, which ended with a giant, pneumatic blast door. White used a single talon and punched a code into the keypad.

“This is where I keep the most prized possessions of my hoard. Absolutely no other living person has ventured down here other than myself. Not since…” White’s voice strained and she cleared her throat. “Consider this the highest honor I can bestow. You may look, but please, do not touch.”

The door rolled open and before them was a colossal room reminiscent of the warehouse from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Unlike the corridor outside, there was not a speck of dust in the entire room. At the very back of the room there was a closed in portion that looked very much like a shrine. The room was mostly full of armaments. A smooth bore musket lay propped in one case, its neighbors were repeaters from the late 1800s. Mortars, LMGs, RPGs.

“Over the past 300 years, I’ve gone out of my way to locate items I find interesting from all over the world. Firearms have always fascinated me, even when I was human. Bit hypocritical for a pacifist, I know. One can appreciate the art without using it to hurt people.” White opened a strongbox and pulled out a grenade launcher. She didn’t load it, instead pulling out a bandoleer of grenades, which she somewhat clumsily fit over her neck and wings. “My grandfather was a coal miner. He lost his uncle and three of his brothers to the Gresford disaster and his father to the riots shortly afterwards."

She took a breath. "We shall go and speak to this 'Frontier Mining Company', Alex. I will hope very hard that they shoot first.”

Author's Notes:

Hey everypony! Just a few more chapters (probably two) in part 2 of Eternal Lonely Day. Expect some information about my plans for the future of this story. For now, though, I hope you'll enjoy the last little bit of this part of the story!

In case you couldn't tell, there's some crossover material here. I'd like to thank WolfmanWhite of Our Not So Simple Plan. Guess we're seeing a bit of a spoiler for the future of that character, but... that's just how these things go! I guess you could say that these last few chapters have been a crossover with the whole Colorado group, since I kinda borrowed elements of the setting from them.

Hopefully you all enjoy the ending of this part, anyway. Just a few more chapters, and we'll be solidly into part three. So much for writing all 10,000 years X.x

Chapter 18: A Day for Justice (292 AE)

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There was no more drama for a few hours as Radio Springs mobilized. Alex learned then that the pegasi flying from Motherlode had been sent to tell the city about the attack and the armored pony that had killed three of their guards and been heading for the settlement. Thank God she had noticed them, or else she might’ve walked right into the city and been arrested.

White did not correct the misinformation, not yet. If the pegasi heard that some other story was being passed around, they might be able to make it back to Motherlode before a train.

That meant that Alex had to hide her armor in a crate, and subject everypony around her to the fierce stink it had trapped within. Even the dragon noticed, swimming as she was in a soup of mud and sweat. She took advantage of the shower they offered, even if that meant she had to ask for help binding up her wings again.

There was too much going on for anypony to ask an explanation for her wings. Everywhere she went, the ponies of Cheyenne Mountain stared, muttering to one another. More than anything she was just eager to leave.

Radio Springs mobilized three dozen soldiers, on the apparent pretext of protecting itself from a dangerous armored pony heading towards them. By afternoon though, Alex was aboard the empty coal train, headed back to Motherlode. Only this time, the boxcars were filled with soldiers, and driven by a military engineer.

No sooner was she back in her armor than she heard Athena’s voice, as though she had been waiting for hours. She probably had. “I got you your meeting, Alex. Gideon should be available anytime in the next few minutes, if you’re quick enough. He’s taking dinner with his family, but instructed me I should feel free to interrupt him once you became accessible again.”

Alex glanced around the car. Aside from White, the only others in the room were a pair of hulking diamond dogs, covered all over in thick plates of glittering steel. Stormclouds gathered in the distance, huge dark shapes that towered into the furthest reaches of upper-air. If she didn’t start talking soon, it might be too noisy to have a meaningful conversation. She lowered her voice. “I’m ready now.”

“Direct link established.” Static filled the overlay for a few seconds, before the director’s face appeared in its place.

Humans had changed a little after a few hundred years underground. They were universally taller now, with many approaching six and a half feet. They were also paler, since even darker-skinned races would never have actual sun on them in their entire lives. A perfectly regulated diet meant that every one of them was leaner and more refined-looking than the founders of the HPI had been.

Machines did all their physical labor now, and humans did the thinking. Director Gideon wore a uniform like a modified lab coat, with dark geometric patterns working down the jacket and a flash of yellow fabric visible underneath. For rank he had only the flag of the HPI, sewn just over the breast.

The flag had changed a great deal over the centuries. It still had a blue background, and white circles overlapping. Two black hands had been added to the foreground, one holding a mason’s square and another grasping a sword.

There was a little ceremony to this, ceremony the HPI hadn’t possessed back when it was just a military organization. It had become considerably more complex since then. His position might still be called “Director,” but that word had come to mean almost a high priest. Priest of a species almost lost to time.

If he was the priest, Archive was their Prophet. “Memoria Nobilis.”

He replied in kind. “Mirabile Dictu.”

She tried to relax then. He would not be able to see her true face, but she knew Athena would try to simulate it. “You honor me, Archive. What is the will of the Firstborn tonight?”

She shivered, grateful that he wouldn’t be able to see the disgust on her face. Of all the things she wanted never to be, a religious icon was very high up on the list. “I don’t know about the Firstborn,” she began, frowning in her suit. She missed Director Edward Clark. At least he hadn’t used stupid made up terms. Firstborn? Humans had only existed in their present form for a few hundred thousand years at the most.

“I did have a question for you, though. Suppose I wanted to enlist again. Could you still use me?” That was the operative question, and the only thing she had to barter. She had no liquid income left, and none the director would’ve respected in any case. The HPI did little trading anymore.

The man hesitated, and looked down at something she couldn’t see. She could hear children’s voices in the background, giggling as they played. Silverware clinked, but all she could see was him. After a few seconds, he nodded. His expression was pragmatic, however. “Every time you work with us, you always ask for something in exchange. What is it you need this time?”

No hesitation. “Medical treatment for about two hundred injured ponies, and citizenship for two ponies wherever you stick me.”

He mouthed the words “two hundred,” his frown deepening. “That is... a severe need. What kind of treatment will these ponies need, exactly?”

“Coal workers’ pneumoconiosis, to varying levels of severity. It wasn’t curable when I walked on two legs, but Athena tells me your medical science has improved since then. Some may also be starved or be suffering from minor infections.”

Another long silence. “That is... the commitment of an entire relief legion. Depending on how injured these ponies are, they might need medication for... six months or more. These things are not plentiful, Archive.”

“I understand. I would be willing to contract for... however long it takes. If there even is a term, I will commit to it. Whatever assignment you have for me, I will take it.”

Director Gideon scratched his chin, and the thin stubble there. His hair was light brown and cut military length. At least that much hadn’t changed in all the years. “To commit that many resources... we would need a ceuntry from you, Archive. And I don’t mean an independent contractor on call, as you’ve done in the past. I mean living on site, as any other member of the Initiative.”

Alex considered that a long time. She was in effect going from an unwilling slavery to a willing indentured servitude. Archive had appointed herself the protector of humanity. Not the abstract and entirely nonexistant “Firstborn,” either. Real people had suffered because of her failure to discover them until now. They had suffered even more because she had failed to negotiate with the boss and ended up dead.

At least some of their pain was on her shoulders. She would have to carry that debt. “I give you the word of the Archive. Treat my ponies, and my service is yours. For... whatever. Cure them first.”

They worked out the details; it didn’t take very long. They wouldn’t tell her what she was actually going to be doing, or where. She didn’t worry about it yet.

Before her ponies could be treated, they had to save their lives, and deal with the ones who had enslaved them. There was a reckoning coming tonight they wouldn’t soon forget.

The distant sky filled with light. A second later, thunder boomed, echoing across the open sky. Rain washed over the cars in curtains, filling each of the boxcars with sound. A thin layer of water began to build in the ground, though drainage holes kept it from getting deeper than half an inch or so. Alex could feel none of it, not with the airtight protection of her armor around her. If anything, the rain would make her cleaner.

A quick glance told Alex she was hovering at about twelve percent. She wouldn’t be resisting many spells, then.

From beside her, the dragon barked a command into a walkie-talkie. “Get the pegasi into the air, we can’t have a damn rain soaking the powder!” The storm was far too large for their pegasi to disrupt, but they didn’t have to do anything that complex. Alex watched their formation mobilize, generating a little bubble of wind around the train as it traveled. Soon the rain stopped, at least within the shelter of the bubble.

“I want every unit to make sure their ammo is dry before we arrive.” White continued to instruct the soldiers, but Day didn’t listen. She just sat down in the corner of the boxcar and watched the storm far above.

There was no way to easily describe the thunderstorms of the Great Plains. She could tell at a glance this was going to be the kind people wrote about. The kind that knocked over phone poles and burned glass out of sand all over town. Not that there were any phone poles left. Telegraph poles maybe.

Archive’s mind began to wander as she watched the team of pegasi overhead, trying to understand the magic as they did it. Their magic, just as with most pegasi, was mostly a physical art. There was much magic in the wings, some in the hooves, and some in the will. Archive couldn’t fly, but could she do any other bits of pegasus magic?

“Gonna be a helluva storm.” A diamond dog walked up beside her, leaning against the wall. Diamond dogs generally wore more clothing than ponies, and this one was no exception. His uniform was thick and the armor he wore over it was even thicker. The bore on his rifle was almost comically wide, and a bandolier across his chest seemed to hold less than a dozen shots.

She didn’t take off her helmet, but she didn’t need to in order to talk to him. “Must make it pretty hard to live underground.”

He looked down at her, chuckling. His arms were thicker than her neck by a considerable margin. “Human-pony met dogs?”

It wasn’t raining anymore. She stretched, then retracted her helmet, meeting his eyes. “I’m not HPI.” She added a private yet. “They just owed me a few favors, so I asked for some armor. Pony bodies are too delicate.” Well, they were now. She wouldn’t have hesitated to take on a fully-grown diamond dog unarmored, not before. Now, though... one strike would break her in half.

He laughed again. “True, true. Dogs make better soldier. Stronger, better shot, can dig if fight go bad. No armor do that.” He leaned a little closer, inspecting her face. “Why with us, little pony? Dogs good fight, dragon alpha even better.” He lowered his head as he said it, tail tucking briefly between his legs. “You not even grown. Escort mission no good.”

“You haven’t given me your name yet.”

He grunted. “No silly horse name. I John; name after old alphas. John pack leader.”

“Well John... if somebody kidnapped one of your pack, what would you do?”

He bared his teeth. “Find. Bring back. Punish.”

Many ponies would’ve been intimidated by such an unhappy looking diamond dog so close. “You are a good pack leader.” She lowered her head a moment, as another dog might’ve done. He relaxed a little. “You already know what the ponies here were doing, right?”

He nodded. “Tricking the old alphas who come back weak. Lead them away to makes slaves. Kill.”

“I am Archive. All the old alphas who ever lived are my pack.” Lightning flashed overhead, and for a few seconds the fierce winds beyond the bubble stilled to silence. “These ponies lied to the most vulnerable, and murdered to protect what they had made. This territory might belong to Radio Springs, but vengeance is mine.”

* * *

Archive was not in charge of this mission. Even so, she listened to their strategy very carefully. Plans for an aerial assault by dragon and pegasi had to be shelved in light of the storm, whose winds were nearly fierce enough to lift an unwary pony from their hooves. Archive herself would’ve been in danger thanks to her pegasus lightness, but she was also armored and thus resistant to being thrown by weather.

White’s new plan was somewhat more direct. The diamond dogs, adept at crossing the worst terrain, would flank the camp from the forested hills to the east. White would accompany her earth ponies and unicorns in the front, with the pegasi held in bombing reserve should the battle go poorly. Otherwise, the bird-like ponies were best sheltered in the safety of the train. The train was exactly where White’s advisors wanted Archive to be. Needless to say, they didn’t get their way.

Hopefully there wouldn't be violence. Alex’s plan to free the miners had specifically avoided anything that might’ve created armed conflict, even at the cost of her own life. Director Sloan had killed her for her kindness. This time, the “pacifist” route was all but gone.

There was still one chance. Gwyn the dragon was a known quantity around Radio Springs, as much for her leadership of the settlement as for her personal strength. After all, she’d had just as long as Alex to learn the art of death, and a far tougher body to learn it in. She was also human enough to use human weapons the way they were intended, like the ancient grenade laucher she held in both claws. It looked too big for her, but Alex knew she would be able to shoot it straight. Dragons were a tough bunch, even when they were young. Thank God the spell hadn’t created that many.

The train slowed a quarter mile from Motherlode, letting the diamond dogs hop off and deploy. They only got a few steps before getting completely soaked in the torrent waiting outside. Even so, mud and rain and storm barely slowed them, and soon they had vanished into the trees.

They continued slowly the rest of the way, slowing to a stop at the Motherlode platform. The mining town had been sealed up, as well as it ever was. The gates were shut anyway, with guards on the walls. Between the rain and the wind, Alex knew their guns were mostly just toys. Even human weapons had trouble in conditions like this. The manufacturing process that made “modern” bullets stood no chance of making ammunition that would fire reliably when soaked.

By the time they had arrived, most of the ponies had replaced firearms with spears, lances, and other primitive tools. White alone took her advanced weapons with her. She moved to the gates, slinging her grenade launcher over her back as she went. Her pony soldiers held their places in cover behind her, standing just high enough to be visible. Alex remained on the train with the useless firearms and the other pegasi, though she kept far closer to the doorway than they did. A stray bullet wouldn’t kill her like it would them. The ponies of Radio Springs had graciously given her a dark robe to wear over her armor, and it did its job well enough. The edges still looked a little metallic, but from a distance nopony would’ve been able to tell what she was wearing underneath without seeing her face.

Archive learned then that the camp kept a canopy hidden away somewhere for occasions like this, because there was a second gatling gun, shielded from the rain and manned by a pair of earth ponies. They tracked White with the gun as she watched, though they didn’t fire. As rain soaked the dragon to her scales, she made her way to the gate and pounded several times. She screamed something, but Archive couldn't make it out through the rain. Was she yelling in Welsh?

“Athena, are you there?” Alex didn’t have to whisper; she could’ve screamed into her helmet and nopony would’ve heard.

“Affirmative.”

“I can’t hear what White’s saying, can you do anything to my microphone?”

No hesitation. “I can filter out the background noise and amplify the relevant frequencies. Expect a slight delay in the sound you hear.” There was a few seconds of static, and then the storm and wind faded into a dull background hum. After another minute or so of banging, the gate opened a crack and White exchanged a few terse words with a gruff-looking mercenary pony. He went back inside, and for a few seconds White just stood there, looking annoyed. At least she didn’t have fur to deflate in the rain and make her look pitiful. Many of the soldiers looked considerably less intimidating in this weather.

Thunder exploded above them, so loud Alex was afraid it might cause a mudslide. A canopy had been pulled across this single car, protecting the guns and ponies alike from the torrent. She wouldn’t have been surprised if the thing had been ripped right off the roof. This storm shook her insides more than her outsides, and the armor was no help. What exactly was she feeling in this storm?

A pegasus mare beside her spoke up then, scratching at the place where most of her right ear had been torn off. “Bad spirit in that storm,” she muttered, to general nods from the pegasi around her. “Bad day for a battle.”

Alex hadn’t ever been able to “talk shop” with a pegasus, and she had never had any frame of reference for the lives they led. Given the silence outside while White waited, Alex gave voice to what she was feeling. “There’s power in the storm,” she muttered. “Is it calling you too?” A call wasn’t exactly the right word. It was magnetic attraction tugging at her wings.

The pegasi stopped nodding. Only their leader, the mare who had been speaking, actually turned to face her. “I saw you under all that metal, kid. You’re... what, fourteen?”

"Seventeen! Why would that matter?”

“That’s a supercell, kid. A storm like that isn’t just a damn cloud. It’s alive.” She looked up at the roof, scratching at her injured ear again. “Storm that big wants a master. Someone to give it purpose. Put its power to use so it won’t all blow away for nothin’.”

Alex couldn’t retract her helmet, as much as she wanted to during such a conversation. She needed to be listening for the moment the pony White had called arrived. Athena would not be able to enhance her hearing if she took the helmet off. “Why would it matter that I’m young?” She shrugged one shoulder. “Can’t you all feel it? Tugging on your wings?” She had tied her wings and she could still feel the pressure.

“When a storm thinks you’re an even match, it calls,” the mare explained. “It’s not about dominating little ones or blastin’ away folks who aren’t ready. They’re like ponies, they like a good fight. And no offence–” The mare struck her on the shoulder. Not hard, that would’ve hurt her more than Alex. Just enough to knock her sideways a little. “But you’re barely into your cutie mark. I don’t care if you’ve got the blood of Rainbow Dash in your family, you don’t stand a chance up there. We’re talkin’ hundred mile-an-hour winds, updrafts that can suck up a house as easy as a pony, or hail the size of your cute little head. Not to mention enough electricity to cook you alive in that tin can you’re wearing.”

She advanced a pace, stopping only inches from the visor on Alex’s armor. “I know you’re not Radio Springs, and I got no authority to order you around. But if I was your mom, I’d want someone around to talk some fuckin’ sense, even if I’d spent my whole life living in a hole. Keep your hooves on the ground until I say so if you want to be alive through this storm.”

Alex almost said that she couldn’t fly anyway, so there was no point in worrying. She didn’t say that though, because far away a gate was creaking as it swung open. She nodded, then turned back to the doorway. There was no need to say anything else; the other pegasi packed into this boxcar were just as eager to watch as she was.

This time, the gate had been opened all the way. She could see Mining Director Sloan standing inside, flanked by several of his goons. Beyond them, Alex could see dozens of miners, crudely outfitted and armed with their tools. While the goons were cruelly determined, the ordinary miners just looked scared and miserable.

“You sure you won’t come in and talk? My best pegasus says there’s a real chance for a tornado in the next few hours, not to mention the lightning.”

White shook her head. “It won’t be a long talk. We can finish it here.”

“We’ve been waiting to hear back from you folks.” The director didn’t meet her eyes. “Scouts said you got the message about the attack and would send help right away. Sorry you had such a rotten trip down.” He gestured towards the wall on his right. White wouldn’t have been able to see it from where she stood, but it would’ve been impossible to miss as she had approached. On the other end from the functional mounted turret was the crater in the wall where its brother had been. The rubble had been cleared and apparently digging had already started for repairs, but now the holes were filled with water, and useless until they could be dried.

He frowned. “I see... a dozen of your militia. That might not be enough; the pony who attacked was wearing a set of that human armor.” He spoke the word with the venom of a curse. “Three dead. I’m sure you heard the report. I hope Radio Springs is going to make those monsters answer for what they did.”

White leered at him, pointed teeth glittering in a sudden flash of lightning. “I assure you, Radio Springs intends to prosecute monsters to the full extent of our charter.” She retreated a pace, then raised her voice. “We know what you’ve been doing here, Sloan. I’m placing you under immediate arrest, along with your entire staff, pending trial for your individual involvement. I’m fairly confident–”

He retreated a step, his horn beginning to glow faintly in the dark. “I’m sorry Gwyn, I don’t think I heard you right. You’re placing me under arrest? My entire staff? Under what charges? With what evidence?”

The blood of her children cried to her from the dust. In that moment, Archive knew exactly how many miners had died here. She knew how many he had shot, how many he had ordered sealed away in dark mine shafts, how many had choked to death on the torn up insides of their lungs. It was a stupid thing to do, perhaps the stupidest thing Archive had done in a long time. But she didn’t even care.

Archive surged forward from the train, galloping out into the pouring rain and pounding through the mud. As she went, she retracted her helmet, pulling back the hood so her head would be fully exposed. She moved with such fury that the rain itself avoided her, cast to either side in a blast of wind and water. Her anger seemed to heat the very air around her. Before White could answer, Alex shouted. “How about murder, you son of a bitch? How about the fifty-three ponies you locked in that auxiliary mineshaft to starve?”

There was silence all around her as she made her way to stand beside White. The director stared in utter shock, too stunned by her appearance to make any orders. She continued. “Not just my murder, but seventy-eight others. What about the six hundred and three miners who died because they didn’t have safety equipment? How about slavery? How about finding the most helpless ponies you could and treating them like trash?”

White turned to glare at her, yet even the dragon couldn’t muster the courage to criticize her openly in this state. Archive had no way of knowing that her eyes were radiating light, or that the storm seemed to punctuate each of her furious shouts with thunder of its own. In the torrential downpour, her mane alone stayed dry. Director Sloan wasn’t shaking his head anymore. The pupils of his eyes had swallowed all the color there, and his hooves visibly shook.

White rested one claw on the shotgun at her hip. “You are facing a life sentence, Sloan. That is much better than what you will get if you do not order your men to surrender. She is not the only one eager to see justice.”

“You’ve only got–” his voice faltered. “You can’t possibly think–”

Archive spoke again, her voice so low only the three of them could hear. “If you do anything besides surrender, you mass murdering piece of shit...” she didn’t fill in the rest. She let her expression do that. The dead would get their justice here today, whatever the justice system of “Radio Springs.” A hanging was much too good for this pony.

“Now!” In an instant, several of the unicorns in the grounds blasted the gates with magic, slamming them closed in Alex and White’s faces. The director’s panicked voice continued to shout from inside. “Ring the bell, we’re under attack! Kill every bandit out there!”

Alex met the dragon’s eyes for just a second. Time seemed to slow around them. One of the earth ponies started spinning up the gatling gun, even as the ponies on the wall prepared what looked like Molotov cocktails to throw at them. White drew her grenade launcher in a single blurring motion, sweeping it through the air towards the turret.

“I’ve got no mercy left for that one,” Archive muttered, into the silence before the storm.

“I know.”

Everything happened at once. Ponies on the walls started throwing; the turret started firing; White shot three quick rounds from her grenade launcher; Alex started running.

There was no comparing high-caliber rounds to anything from conventional experience. They tore the air itself as they passed, and each bullet had an even chance of going straight through her armor without even slowing down. Her dragon companion would fare little better if she took a direct hit.

Alex didn’t see what happened to White, because she turned her back on the gun and sprinted away down the wall. Rain billowed up in a cloud all around her, brushing aside stones and more than one bottle of flaming fuel. The ground behind her caught fire, but she kept on. Her helmet closed around her head again.

Immediately the thaumic radiation warnings started going off, though on pony armor they were faint beeps and flashing lights and not the blaring klaxons that warned an armored human they were about to be cooked alive. On pony armor, the anti-thaumic field would only activate if the energy was detected on the outside, which would mean an attacking spell.

“The hell is that, Athena?” Alex didn’t slow, not for a second. She was almost to the edge of the wall. The power indicator went red as it dipped from 10% to 9%. A second later, the whole world seemed to shake from an explosion. As when she had destroyed one of the turrets, it was soon followed by a secondary blast. Screams of pain shook the camp as ponies were blasted right off the wall. Alex kept running.

“I do not know!” Athena’s voice was troubled. “I’ve never measured magic like this from a pegasus pony before. Do you have any idea what might be causing it?“

Alex shook her head. “Shut it the hell off!” The alarm went silent at once, though the indicator continued to flash. “We can worry about it later. For now, I want Sloan. Highlight him as soon as he shows up on my cameras!”

“Affirmative. According to this information, your armor’s power reserve is nearly depleted. Do you not have supplementary power available?”

She shook her head. “I have a few backup power cells in my library, but those are underground. Why?” She rounded the corner, where the other gattling tower had been. Now there was a crater and lots of digging tools. Evidently the weakness was known, because at least one stallion stood to block the way. He wielded a heavy iron club, more or less strapped to one of his legs. Such a weapon limited his mobility, but allowed him to bring his full earth pony strength to bear if he wanted to. Strength that could easily break her armor. Even if it disrupted the magic when he made contact, a huge hunk of metal like that would already be going fast enough to break bone underneath.

She tuned out the AI. Archive filled her mind with all her knowledge of combat and defense. She saw the stallion’s intentions clearly before her, even as she saw he was not a returned human. Not one of the abused miners, then. “You will move or you will die,” she said, her voice flat over the speakers.

He just leered down at her. Strangely dry as she might be as the storm avoided her, she was still just one pony. Few ponies outside of the HPI actually understood what its armor could do. “You have no weapon, pony. Empty threat.” A few more advanced towards the open space, one a unicorn with a spear and another earth pony, this one with an umbrella and a musket.

There was no time. “I’m sorry.” All Archive had left were two magazines worth of regular bullets. She lifted her right leg and fired a quick burst. One bullet was not enough to penetrate the stallion’s skull, but three that fast and close were more than his magic could manage. He dropped with a limp splash into the puddle.

She was too fast for the others. Even as he fell, Archive flashed through the space he had taken, easily clearing the puddle and bursting forward into the familiar camp. Rain was joined by little bits of hail as she ran, each a thumb-sized projectile whipped through the blinding wind.

A line of soldiers waited inside the wall, though they were fairly well spread. She hesitated a moment, deciding her best plan of attack. That moment was all it took for the diamond dogs to come pounding down from the trees and shatter their formation like ice. Most of the miners broke and ran at the sight. They weren’t soldiers.

“Do you see him?”

“Negative.”

She started running again. “There’s a panic room in the basement of the office building. It’s far underground, so I might go out of contact once I get inside.” It was a pretty solid guess, with two of the sterner looking thugs standing outside the building.

Alex stopped about five meters from the doorway, trying to recognize the ponies through the rain. She couldn’t, other than the scar on the face of the unicorn. The same one that had been standing beside director Sloan during the negotiation. The other was a burly pegasus, his wings moving slowly on his either side. So there was at least one pony whose will could keep off the storm.

“Move or die!” Lightning flashed behind her, her vision briefly polarizing against the light.

There was no argument this time. The ponies ignored her completely. Archive sighed, raised her left leg this time, and started taking aim. Her thaumic alarm screamed as unicorn magic blasted towards her. The energy probably meant to stop her heart faded into feeble light around her as it passed into the field, and in that second the rain and hail poured down around her.

Her power display read 5%. She was still standing. A few seconds later, the unicorn wasn’t.

“Your turn to die, monster!” That was about when the lightning struck. Her whole world filled with white, burning heat searing through the air around her. Something burned against her flesh, and she went screaming through the air. It sent Archive bouncing and rolling away from the door, dragging a burning crater in the ground.

The lightning echoed the pony’s words. She caught a single glimpse of the pegasus, hovering over the ground with his hooves spread wide and pointed at her.

She slid another half dozen meters before the mud finally slowed her to a stop. One of her motors twitched, then fell still. Her visor filled with mud, and water started dribbling in between the cracks of the armor.

“A-Athena?” No response.

Her whole body was numb. All around her, the battle continued. Occasional gunfire was broken by more frequent blasts of magic or the clash of primitive weapons. Everypony ignored her broken armor... except for the pegasus walking towards her. Even blind and disabled, Archive could sense his magic advancing on her. The storm itself seemed to follow in his steps. Or... no, that wasn’t quite right. The storm’s focus was on him.

“Keeper? H-help me...” No response.

She struggled, but couldn’t get her chest out of the armor. Had it melted closed around her? She tried to flex her limbs, so she could judge how many she had broken. There didn’t seem to be any breaks.

“G-God? Anyone?” No response.

Archive remembered the dead. She forced herself to picture their faces, each and every one. Their blood had stained this dirt, and still it cried for vengeance. If Sloan got away, he might perpetrate some other butchery somewhere else. She would not allow any other escapes tonight.

“You can do it Alex.” She couldn’t see anything, her limbs were all numb. Cloudy Sky’s voice was clear, as clear as it had been in the mine. Perhaps it was the pain driving her to insanity this time. “Get up.”

“I c-can’t.” She whined. “I’m melted in. S-stuck...”

“Bullshit.” Her right leg twitched, almost as though a pony was pulling on it. “Get up, or you’ll die! You have to go flying for me, remember?”

Archive might not remember, but Alex did. Armor plates creaked as she rose, whole sections falling off to reveal the steel skeleton underneath. Wires had been melted. This was what happened when you got hit by lightning and didn’t have enough power left to cancel out the magic. Would it have been even worse if she hadn’t had power at all?

She rose. Each movement came with terrible slowness, as though she had been coated with inches of mud and left to dry in the sun. Each movement brought cracks, or groaning metal as the armor was forced to comply. Once she was standing, the rain and wind cleared away the mud from her visor. She could see again.

The chaos of battle raged all around her, with only the single pegasus mercenary concentrating on her. He advanced, wings still spread. The intricate folding mechanism of her helmet hadn’t done well. A chunk fell right off her face, while several others had been deformed by the impact. Why hadn't that happened to her skull too?

“You won’t survive another!” he screamed at her through the night. “You were all a scourge, the whole lot of you! We’re doing the world a kindness by getting rid of your kind!” He spread his wings wide, bellowing something into the storm. It obeyed. Lightning came again, filling all her vision as it had done before.

Archive spread her legs in the muddy ground, steeling herself for the strike. Electricity took her right in the chest, exploding outward all around her. After a few seconds, the magically-directed energy had blasted a hole straight through her armor.

Archive started walking forward into the blast. As she moved, more of her armor fell away, a molten husk crumbling away like ash in wind. The storm’s wrath had been pointed at her, true. This mercenary was either brave or stupid enough to try and direct the will of the storm.

Archive had the will of an entire species. Right now, that will demanded vengeance. All she had been wearing had been melted or burned right off her body in the phenomenal heat, even the bandages around her wings. She spread her wings instinctively, not unlike the way the stallion was doing.

It might’ve seemed like an eternity, but the little blast of lightning could only have taken an instant. It left her mane standing on end, ash on her coat, but otherwise Archive was unharmed.

“W-what?” The stallion retreated, back towards the open building. “You’re not even... haven’t...”

“OUT OF MY WAY!” Archive couldn’t reach down into the earth. She had tried that without result over and over again since she had woken up as a pegasus. Instead, she reached up, calling upon the storm. Her perception stretched as the whole thing seemed to pour into her, filling the sky for hundreds of miles. She saw the intricate system of currents and twisting windshear that had formed it. She felt the fantastic energy boiling inside, begging for release.

There was only one other pegasus with a grip on the storm. His was far more selective, focused only on the electrical energy bubbling within. Archive wrenched it from him as easily as she might remove a kitten from a pair of jeans. She was far less gentle than she would’ve been with a kitten.

Archive gave the whole storm a target for its rage. She chose the mining office, and the pegasus standing right up next to it.

The storm obliged. A great roar rose up from around them, and the cloud just above them turned a sickly shade of green. Sticks and dust began to lift, kicking around and around in a powerful updraft. The stallion had to land, and a few seconds later he clung to one of the pillars on the outside of the building.

It did him no good. A few more seconds and the updraft was transformed into a tornado. A chorus of demonic screams drowned out all the sound of battle, and sent participants on both sides scattering. Shingles rained down around them like bullets, and were joined with shards of glass and wooden planks a moment later. Soon whole beams were whirling around into the sky.

She frowned as her adversary was ripped screaming into the vortex, vanishing with one last flash of blue wings. A whole wall screamed and buckled, sending the upper story of the offices into a collapse. Thousands of sheets of paper rained down around them, then twisted up and up into the cloud.

The storm wanted more. It tried to take its grip elsewhere, destroying the other buildings. It wanted to blast past her into the battle, and wipe both sides off the planet. Archive strained against the will of the storm, and for a second she almost lost it.

She shoved hard against it, forcing the whirling black funnel over the building one last time, then out into the forest. She gave it a good shove with her magic, then let herself relax. She hadn’t even noticed the storm had lifted her a few feet off the ground. Good thing she wasn’t too high to land safely.

There was no office anymore, just the basement and its hidden safe room. The whole thing was concrete, and evidently it alone had been anchored deep enough to survive the wrath of the storm. For all the ferocity of the storm, it was still a pot boiling over, with strength begging to be used. She had called upon the wind, but fire and water both remained.

Archive called upon the storm again, this time for its water. All around the battle, the rain trickled off into a light sprinkling. Everywhere except for the foundation of the office, where it seemed as though a giant tap had been opened in the sky. Thousands of gallons rushed down in a nearly solid curtain, filling every small opening and forming a small pond where they fell. The open stairwell became a waterfall, occasionally lighting up with a reflection of the storm’s last unused strength.

Light still gathered around her, glowing from her eyes and her hooves and her wings. To her eyes, hundreds of dead ponies stood all around her, filling the empty field. It was their strength she wielded, not her own.

It didn’t take long. Whatever fortress the mine’s owner had prepared, whatever wards he had cast, they could do him no good against drowning. Besides, water like this was one of the other things that could ground out a spell. Rain generally wasn’t enough, but an entire lake’s worth...

Sloan emerged choking from the stairs, dragging himself up one step at a time. His fancy jacket was muddy and soiled, and his shoes were gone completely. It looked like a little more rain would be all it would take to drown him.

Archive released her grip on the storm’s water, letting the rain resume. It spread out again, but even so the unicorn was practically submerged. Archive stood perhaps ten feet away, the little circle where she stood slowly drying in her fury.

“You’re dead!” he protested from between coughs. His horn shimmered with light, but whatever spell he wanted he evidently didn’t have the concentration for it with all this water. Nearly drowning probably didn’t help.

She started advancing on him. Furious winds blasted the water away from her hooves, and she put each one down on dry ground. She raised her voice, loud enough to carry all around her. It boomed out of the storm, filling all the valley with her words. “You murdered my sons and daughters, Director Sloan. The sentence is death. Let your agony be a lesson to every other pony who’s been tempted to take advantage of one of my children! Their ignorance is no justification!”

Director Sloan found a little backbone then. He rose to his hooves, shivering in the wind but apparently defiant. “Y-you can’t!” He lowered his head in a bow. “I surrender! I’m a citizen of Radio Springs, entitled to a hearing and a trial and–”

Archive ignored him. The storm’s rage boiled, and the last type of its strength demanded an outlet from her. She gave it one, albeit pinhole thin, and used the wind to let his screams fill the valley.

Though she had never called upon a storm before, Archive’s work was precise. She found room on his body for the name of each one of the miners who had died here. The whole process took only a few seconds, and at some point he had been so thoroughly cooked that he stopped screaming and started to smoke instead. The lightning only stopped when every name had been burned there, ending with “Alexander Haggard.”

No sooner was it done than the strength of Archive left her. Wind suddenly blasted her, rain pouring down and soaking her fur and feather. She turned away from the still-smoking corpse, making her slow way back towards the train. Each hoofstep came only with great effort, dragging through the mud.

Never in her life had she felt more magically drained. Any more, and the poor little pegasus might deflate. Needless to say, the battle had been rather thoroughly ended by then. What resistance had remained seemed unwilling to contend with her. As she walked, Radio Springs troops tossed the surviving mercenaries in irons. Ponies from all sides backed away as she approached, staring with shocked eyes and not daring to speak.

White the dragon landed not far in front of her, shotgun in hand. “The hell was that?”

Alex barely had the strength to reply. “Self-defense,” she muttered, exasperated. She didn’t even slow down. “Couldn’t get him to surrender. Didn’t have a choice.” She kept on walking, right past the dragon.

Alex made her way into a security booth, the last one left standing after the battle. She shoved the furniture out into the rain, dropped to the ground, and was asleep before she hit the floor.

Chapter 19: The Day After (292 AE)

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The disused mine up on the back hill proved to have been barricaded to prevent further escapes. An hour or so and a crowbar later, and they could use the lift to start bringing trapped miners back up. Just in time too: the rain had flooded the mine, and the water level had continued to rise. The storm seemed to have lost interest in the complex once the battle was complete, but even so most of the Refugees emerged wet as well as hungry.

Alex made sure she was out of sight as this happened, hoping the miners would give their credit to the liberating army of Radio Springs. She never could’ve liberated the camp on her own. These ponies needed to develop a relationship with the local powers if they were going to take over operation of the mine.

Hiding in anonymity was not something she could hope to succeed at long-term, not after the way she had confronted Sloan. Word was ponies could hear his screams all the way from Springs. She waited out of sight as a slow stream of Refugees began to emerge from the mine, shivering with fear and hunger. Pegasus eyes served her well to watch from a distance now that her armor had been totally destroyed. Yet she did not see them, not until the very last load.

Former Shift-Captain Miles led the final group from the mine, carrying a sick-looking foal on his back. It wasn’t raining hard anymore, only an occasional sprinkle, and the air was thick with damp. The wind had also faded, nothing more now than a desert breeze. It would’ve been a beautiful night, if Archive didn’t know too well how many ponies had died here. Radio Springs had fought well, but there had been casualties. On Frontier’s side, there had been still more. She felt guilty about some of those; how many really understood the evil they had been a part of? Were all of them as callous as the mercenaries who locked mares and foals under the earth to starve?

Alex stole a coat from a hook in the bunkhouse, slipping it over herself and pulling down the hood so that ponies would not see her face.

Miles recognized her despite the hood, and he stopped as she approached. Most of the other ponies around him kept moving, shepherded along as they were by troops from Springs. There were only two exceptions, who also slowed to watch. Archive removed her hood, then looked up into his eyes. “My word is honored, Miles. You’re free.”

The unicorn hesitated, seeming not to know how to form words. “Is it true? People said–”

“Yeah.” She smiled sheepishly. “Probably is. There was a little justice to be done here. You’ll, uh... have to build a new mining office. I might’ve messed up the old one a little.” There was no trace of the old office, except for a few boards and scattered bits of glass on the ground where it had been. The old safe house and foundation was entirely saturated with water, and didn’t look like it was going to drain anytime soon.

“If I’d known what you were, I wouldn’t have been so hard on you when we had a mining shift.” He looked down. “Will you be tearing up any more buildings?”

She shook her head. “Not here.” She advanced, lowering her voice. “There are still some hard questions to ask, Miles. Lots of ponies here still need a future. They’re still good miners. If the mine was run differently... higher paychecks, more safety equipment... it wouldn’t be that bad a life.”

“Maybe not.” He glanced once over his shoulder, at the foal resting on his back. She looked to be asleep, and she didn’t open her eyes. “But we’d need a new owner. I’m not sure who anyone could trust to run it the right way.”

“You.” She touched him lightly on the shoulder. It hurt a little that he recoiled, though not far. Clearly he didn’t want her to notice. “You were the only member of the senior staff who sided with your fellow miners during unionization. Lots of the others felt the way you did, lots of them were unhappy with the way things around here were run. Everybody knows it. I’m sure if you were in charge, you’d run a different mine than Sloan did.”

“I... suppose so.” He started walking again. “If they’ll have me. I think I’d prefer more of an elected position than an owner this time. Ask me about it tomorrow.”

Alex walked past the place he had been, towards where Ezri was waiting for her. Without any more delay, she rushed forward and took the drone up into a hug, squeezing her tightly against her chest. “Good to see you again, squirt.” It wasn’t quite as nice as seeing her for the first time after being killed, but it was close.

To her shock, the little drone shifted in her arms. She had her eyes closed at the time, but it didn’t matter. She could feel the magic, a faint shiver that passed through the body of the other and left all that it touched changed. She had seen such magic several times before; changing from an earth pony did not make it harder to sense. Of course, she wasn’t a unicorn, but even a pegasus could sense magic when they touched it.

By the time she opened her eyes, the little drone had become a little pegasus. Her coat was green too, though lighter and more pastel than Alex’s own. Her mane was electric blue, not unlike her accents had been as a drone. She was crying. “M-Mom, I don’t like it when you do stuff like this. You get hurt when you fight! What if you didn’t come back?”

She didn’t remark on the drone’s newfound ability, not right away. “Shh. It’s okay, Ezri. I won’t have to fight again for a long, long time. We’re safe.” She held her to her chest, sheltering her from the wind on pure instinct. “Mom can’t die, remember? Even if I’d been hurt, I would’ve come back. And Jackie would have taken care of you until that happened!”

She waited until Ezri was done to break away, letting the drone stay where she was as long as she needed. It wasn’t as though the moisture or the wind bothered either of them. Eventually she started to squirm. Alex wiped the tears away from her eyes, then straightened. “That’s an impressive disguise, Ezri. You make a very convincing pegasus.”

“I learned while you were gone.” She grinned, almost glowing from the praise. She didn’t look nearly so hungry anymore. “I haven’t figured out how to make my wings go away yet, but I’ll get it!”

“Not for awhile.” She nudged the child, pulling her protectively beside her. “We’ll get to learn to fly together now! I dunno about you, but I’m excited. But... don’t feel like you have to pretend. You’re my Ezri no matter what you look like.”

“I like to pretend.” She flicked her wing to one side, almost a shrug.

“Alright.” Alex mussed her new mane, tugging it to one side. “But it means I can do this!” She started to tickle.

The changeling giggled, and after a few seconds her disguise faded in a flash of blue magic. She pouted. “No fair.”

“No fair at all.” She picked up the drone by the scruff, settling her onto her own back, not all that unlike what Miles had done. Alex wasn’t nearly so big or Ezri so small, but she still fit well enough. She stopped squirming.

Jackie had been waiting politely this whole time. Now she finally spoke. “From the sound of it, there was a helluva fight up here.”

“Yeah.” Archive sighed, her joy fading. “Justice isn’t done yet. Most of the ponies in charge surrendered. They’ll have trials in Radio Springs. Probably go to prison...” She shrugged, careful to keep her movement small enough the drone on her back wouldn’t be dislodged by it. “The fighting was just the crazy part at the front.”

Jackie chuckled, though her laughing quickly broke into a hacking cough. After several seconds, she spat a disgusting mass of black slime to the ground at their hooves. Her breathing came a little ragged for a few seconds after, and Alex didn’t rush her. Eventually she said, “You could’ve got us out to help.” She stretched her wings, and as she did they made little popping sounds, like a human cracking their knuckles. “I would’ve happily punched that bastard Sloan for you.”

It was Alex’s turn to smile. “There would’ve been a long line, I’m sure. We had things taken care of, don’t worry. The ponies who fought today were all trained for it. You’re a miner, and you haven’t even been a pony for a year. Give it time before getting into fights. Besides, you did great work where you were.” She glanced back at the pony on her back, if only for an instant. “You’re right about how bigoted and unkind ponies can be around ponies who come back as rarer species. Thank you for taking care of my daughter.”

The thestral shrugged, though she did smile a little. She clearly didn’t want Alex to see how the remark affected her. “Of course I took care of her. I said I would–” She stopped. “Wait, daughter?” Her eyes widened, as though she’d only just then decided to consider the implications of the last few minutes. “That wasn’t another layer to the act? How does that even work? Unless...” She lowered her voice. “Have you been a changeling this whole time?”

“Nothing like that!” She had to suppress her giggles. It felt good. “Ezri’s adopted. I only had one foal...” she trailed off, deflating. “He’s been dead almost fifty years now.”

It was Jackie’s turn to hug her. Granted, the gesture wasn’t nearly so tight or motherly as hers had been for her daughter; only a parent could understand that kind of love. That didn’t mean it didn’t feel good to have a friend, though. “I’m sorry, Alex. I didn’t mean to bring back bad memories. I was just wondering if you hadn’t told me something.”

“Not bad memories.” She sniffed. “He was a good kid. Had a nice, long life.” She shook her head, trying to clear the pain away. It didn’t work. “Anyway, you’re probably hungry, both of you. Why don’t we get you inside? I happen to know the soldiers have already raided the commissary stores and are fixing up a feast. After that, a warm bed and as much sleep as you want.” She turned slowly, and started walking back towards the buildings.

Jackie followed. “That sounds wonderful.” She slowed after only a few paces, dragging her hooves. “Shit, what are any of us gonna do now? If the mine’s gone...”

“Oh, the mine’s not gone!” She touched herself to the mare’s side briefly, not caring that it smudged ash and dirt all down her fur in the process. “I’ve already talked to the ponies from Radio Springs. They’re gonna do everything it takes to get the place running again. And when it does, there will be a new pony in charge. No more debts to the company store, no more locking ponies in the camp, no more slavery. And if ponies want to go off to do something else, well... they’ll be able to. This whole situation is an embarrassment. From what I hear, the mayor’s already committed to get anypony who wants to situated with a new career.”

Jackie was silent as she walked, at least for a few minutes. Eventually she muttered, “I’m not really sure what I’d do.”

Alex stopped walking, lowering her voice to a bare whisper. “You wanna come with me?”

The thestral met her eyes, raising her eyebrows. “To where?”

She hesitated; whatever else might be true of the HPI, they were very particular about their secrets. She couldn’t say too much and risk it be repeated. Of course, there would also be several airships full of medical ponies landing here soon. She could probably get away with more than she could’ve said elsewhere. “Somewhere that isn’t in the past. Somewhere you won’t have to do another day of physical labor in your life, if you don’t want to.”

“That sounds nice.”

* * *

Alex slept until early the next morning, though she did not stay in her old bunkhouse with her friends. Ezri practically had to be pried away from her, but she had insisted. There was one more duty ahead of Archive, and she couldn’t risk that she might miss it by sleeping inside. It was early morning when one of the miners on the cleanup crew found her sleeping in the booth and woke her. She ignored their offer of aid, instead slipping quietly off to catch breakfast and a shower.

Feathers and wings were indeed in bad shape from being so misused, and she came out of the shower with a limp, bedraggled look. Yet even so, she took advantage of this first time to see herself in a mirror without the dirt of a mine or the decay of a recent death. She was indeed taller as a pegasus, and a little older-looking too. Relative ages were difficult to judge as a pony, but she could’ve sworn she looked closer to eighteen than sixteen. An unintentional boon from Discord, perhaps? Or just a trick of longer legs and a bird’s build?

She didn’t stick around to investigate. Once she didn’t feel her presence would disgust anyone who met her, Alex put on a hat and nothing else (she was sick of the stupid clothing taboo) and went to the train depot to see off the troops from Radio Springs. Along with the soldiers were a dozen prisoners clasped in irons, and half again as many wounded on both sides. Archive had been in part responsible for the pain these ponies felt, she would take the time to look into each face and see their suffering firsthand. She could give them that much.

Some of the troops were sticking around, to help keep the mine running. Some financial people would be there the next day to see what was missing and take accounts, but all that was beneath Alex’s notice. She heard happy voices as she walked the complex, friends and relatives reuniting after so many of the miners had been “killed” in a “cave-in.” She took little satisfaction in the sound, even though perhaps she should have. These ponies had been her people, and they had been suffering for God knew how long before she had been able to help.

How many more Refugees were being similarly mistreated the world over? What could a finite, certainly not divine being like herself do about it? The growing glow of sunrise held no answer for her. So she sat under the awning of the train station, resting her head on a pillar and watching as troops loaded back into the train. Watched and waited, hoping that maybe in the quiet of morning she would come up with a satisfactory answer.

She didn’t.

A rhythmic stomping heralded White’s approach long before Alex could see her. Quite a few of her scales were missing and several bullet holes creased her wings. Her voice was a little gruffer than it had been the day before, too. “Are you hurt?”

“I don’t think so. Guess getting struck by lightning isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a pegasus.” Once she had scraped all the burned fabric and dead feathers away, she had actually looked healthier for the experience.

The dragon’s expression grew harsh for a moment. “I’m told you instructed my second not to send doctors with the relief train tomorrow. I’m sure you have a very good reason.” Her teeth flashed in the early morning light, though they emerged from only a slight crack in the dragon’s lips.

“I’ve already got medical ponies coming. For what I’m paying, I figure they sure as hell better earn their keep. Use whatever coin you would’ve paid them to keep the mine afloat during the transition, maybe.”

“You better not have ordered Alexandrian doctors. We can take care of our own.”

She shook her head. “Most ponies in Alexandria don’t even know my name. The ones who do–” She remembered the soldier who had tried to stop her on her way out. It felt like years, though she knew it wasn’t even quite one. “–don’t believe I exist. I got the only doctors with a chance of curing the chronic injuries, not just the bumps and scrapes of some rough treatment. The Initiative is sending its humanitarian legion. If they get here on time, they’ll be here before tomorrow morning.”

“Really?” She laughed. “I didn’t think they scurried out out of their burrows any more. If you have them by the balls, I say twist.” After a few seconds, her expression became more somber. “This shouldn’t have happened. We need to implement a vetting process for businesses like this.” She propped her empty weapon against the wall and sat against it, her head now level with Alex’s. “I wouldn’t have been informed of this if you didn’t take it so personally. What are these people to you?”

Archive took a deep breath, then sighed. “My sons and daughters.” She stared out at the empty tracks. “Maybe that’s just Equestrian magic talking, and not really me. When the Princesses transformed me into...” she glanced down at her cutie mark. “I didn’t understand what they were doing. They asked if I was willing to give up everything to protect humanity, I told them yes. Then–” She winced, trying to banish the memory. Archive had died many times since she had returned from Equestria. Even so, she suspected her transformation had killed her more. It might take centuries before her dangerous lifestyle finally brought her number of deaths in line with the ones she had suffered in Equestria.

White listened intently, and looked to be mulling the words over. “Ever since the last of us died I’ve had a... hard time caring. It was my job to care and I couldn’t. I’ve been letting everyone under my care down. How do you cope?”

“I’m not sure if there’s an easy way." She rose to her hooves, wings twitching as she did so. “I just... try not to get bothered by all the people I can’t help. Figure that if I make a difference for even one, then my life was worth something.” In the back of her mind, she saw again the hundreds who had died before she had discovered the camp. Their human faces did not seem so accusatory now, though. If anything, they seemed peaceful. Archive’s magic demanded no more vengeance.

“Look at you, all fit with purpose.” White chuckled, a small black cloud snorting out of her nose. “You’re not bad, Alex. I’m not sure if the bat judged you too harsh or if you’ve just gotten wise, but you’re different than I expected.” The dragon sighed, looking as tired as ever. “And if we’re both going to be around for a while, you can visit again. I hope by then I’ve gotten over all of... this. Maybe I’ll take a nap for a few dozen years. If I can trust this place not to catch fire without me.”

Alex shrugged. “I’m sure I will. I’m... well, I’ll probably be busy for the next few years. Got a little changeling to raise, after all.” She turned, back towards the mine, glancing back over her shoulder. “Figure if I go back now they’ll forget I was involved. I need to find my daughter. She’s probably hungry.” With that, she started walking. Not very fast, but fast enough that she could feel the breeze in her feathers. It was good.

* * *

“I don’t understand why we had to wait outside in the cold.” Even sheltered under one of Alex’s wings, little Ezri shivered against the breeze. Hot it might be during the day, but at night she always wore a jacket. On her other side sat Jackie, occasionally descending into hacking coughs that trailed bloody mucus on the ground.

Since the mine had stopped running, Jackie didn’t bother with the full jumpsuit anymore. Alex had to request she dress for the night. “I’m sure your mom has a good reason, bug. Maybe she predicted a meteor shower and she wanted us to come outside and watch.”

“Not for...” it didn’t take her long. “We’re in the wrong hemisphere to see anything interesting like that.” Alex grinned, glancing once down at the gauntlet on her left hoof. The backup was actually several decades old. Its touchscreen no longer worked, and it barely held a charge. Still, it was enough to get her back to the HPI. They could get her another when they arrived. “Watch the sky there, about thirty degrees east of the moon. Don’t blink, or you might not see it.”

“See what?” Jackie stood up, squinting off in the indicated direction. “Is there some kind of thestral migration happening tonight? They would happen at night!”

“I guess they would, yeah.” Alex shook her head. “It’s our ride.” She could see it then, almost as she said so. A faint black shape on the horizon, moving rapidly. The craft emitted only a faint blue glow, shimmering at the edge of the visible range. It moved through the air more like a pegasus than an airplane, only tacitly recognizing the principles of gravity or aerodynamics.

The gauntlet around her left leg spoke suddenly, and not in Athena’s simulated voice. “Memoria Nobilis.” There was nothing at all of strange accents or lingual drift in the voice. Instead the speaker sounded exaggerated, like they had learned English watching the BBC.

Archive lifted the gauntlet closer to her mouth. “Mirabile Dictu.” This time, it was she on the receiving end of HPI’s quasi-religious ritual. “Captain Virgil, is that your voice? I didn’t think you were still doing fieldwork. I thought you were close to retirement.”

The voice on the radio laughed. “We don’t age that much faster than you, Noble Memory. There’s no way retirement will be anything like as interesting as going out into the field.” Pause. “This is Slipstream Omega-97, ready for extraction.” Motion blurred above them in the air, though there was no sound. No jets roared, no rockets glowed. There was simply a ship in the air above them that hadn’t been there before. “Are you ready to go?”

Her daughter spoke before she could answer. “Who is that?”

Alex ignored Ezri’s question, at least for the moment. “We’re ready, Omega-97.”

The radio channel went dead.

“Oh, I should probably warn you guys. These ponies aren't anything like–” Alex was cut off by a blast of light from above them, a half-dozen searing spotlights blasting down from the ship towards the ground all around them. She heard Jackie whimper from beside her, covering her eyes with one leg. “Sorry... probably should’ve warned you. Most pilots like to be dramatic. They can see the ground just fine without visible light, but it doesn’t come off like an alien abduction if they do. They probably wouldn’t have done it if I was alone.”

Seen in the light, the craft was perhaps the size of a very large helicopter. Its outline was cut into sharp radar-defying angles, seemingly without regard to the consequences on its aerodynamics. It had two stubby wings, far too small to lift it. Of course, the most remarkable thing about it was that it had no visible means of locomotion. No propellers twisted above it, or engines glowed from behind it. The whole craft was black, a uniform material and color not easy to identify as metal, plastic, or fabric.

The craft was silent in the air as it descended, a tripod of legs extending to anchor it securely on the ground in front of them. As soon as it touched down, the spotlights went out, and Alex was nearly blinded by the contrast.

The opaque right side of the ship, unmarked save for the letters “HPI”, opened almost like something alive, contracting to form a circular hole tall enough to admit an adult. Light spilled out from within, an even-spectrum orange as bright and warm as sunlight. It even had a ramp, lowering with appropriately dramatic mechanical sounds to touch down on the dirt.

A human stood at the top of the ramp. She wore a tight black uniform, with white and yellow trim and lots of metal. The rounded object she wore on her side bore little resemblance to a gun, though Alex recognized it at once.

The pair of soldiers past her stood at attention just inside the craft, similarly dressed though without so many little bits on their uniforms. “Memoria Nobilis!” The woman repeated, the same voice as the one from the radio. “I did not expect the honor of serving beside you so soon.”

Alex didn’t exchange the greeting a second time. She made her way towards the edge of the craft, separating it from her friends. “Captain Virgil.” She returned the salute, in crisp military fashion. It looked silly from a pony. “Before anybody steps onto that carrier, I want to hear the terms of our agreement again.” She stood perhaps a foot away from the opening. She held herself with as much poise as she had while facing the dragon. In their own way, these people were just as dangerous.

“Sure.” The woman took a breath, relaxing from her stiff posture. The soldiers behind her, standing just within the interior of the Slipstream, did not relax, but held their weapons ready. If bits of curved plastic and coiled wire could even be called weapons. “One full century of enlistment, with service requirements comparable to other posthuman equines. Your service would be conducted primarily at the Bingham Canyon settlement site, with an open option for field assignments as needed.”

She heard a faint whimper from little Ezri. She tried not to feel the pain in it. “Bingham Canyon.” Alex repeated the name, searching her memory. She couldn’t think of any pre-Event military installations by that name. “New city?”

“When it’s finished. If the engineers are right, it should take our maximum population into the tens of thousands. It’s about time we defrost those pre-Event embryos.”

“I hope I can help somehow, that sounds like a noble goal.” Alex resisted the temptation to ask about the science behind keeping fertilized human embryos stable that long. While she was sure it was fascinating, she could sense Jackie’s boiling emotions from behind her and she wasn’t even a changeling. She had to get on with this. “In exchange for my service, what will your organization provide?”

“Immediate promotion to G-3, with the associated benefits. The relief legion is only two hours behind us. When they arrive, they will provide treatment and full rehabilitation for approximately two hundred equines suffering from deprivation and various stages of pneumoconiosis. Lastly, non-native citizenship approval for two Refugees of your choosing.” She nodded slightly towards her friends. “I can see you’ve brought them with you. Have I forgotten anything?”

Alex shook her head. “Nothing.” She slipped the saddlebags off her back, tossing them onto the ground. “We’ll need a drone to carry these to... Bingham Canyon. I’ll want them in my quarters.”

The woman leaned forward a little, towards the opening. She did not pass through it, though. At first she seemed perplexed, but that expression turned quickly to fear when she got a glimpse of the object sitting there. “Shit! Er, I mean... of course, Noble Memory. But I’d be happier if there were at least a hundred meters between that thing and my ship.” She lifted up her sleeve to glance at something on her arm, then relaxed. “Maybe less stress-tests for our equipment? We’ve still got to fly all the way to the canyon.”

“Sure.” Alex flipped the saddlebags back up onto her back. “Watch me, so you know where to send the probe. I’ll be upset if they don’t make it.”

Alex started walking, past her friend and Ezri. “Come on,” she whispered. Ezri hopped up and followed, and Jackie wasn’t far behind. Both waited until they were out of earshot to speak.

Jackie was first. “Kristy, Alex, whatever. I thought– I thought humans were extinct!” Her wings flared behind her as she spoke, with an anger she couldn’t quite contain. “How the fuck are there humans on that UFO?”

“They’re called the Human Preservation Initiative. I’m not surprised you never heard of them. Most people don’t talk about them much these days, now that they’re not involved with daily life.”

Jackie glared. She didn’t need to speak for Alex to get her meaning.

She continued: “They’re a very small group that were aware of the Event before it happened. They tried and failed to develop a way to protect the whole planet, so they just protected themselves. They’re more advanced than we used to be. Probably not as advanced as humans would be by now if we hadn’t all been turned into ponies, but...”

“Doesn’t matter. Jackie, you’re sick. All that coughing you do, it’s not going to go away. Probably it will shorten your life by a hundred years, and that’s if you stop mining. You’re not the only one. Almost everybody’s got it pretty bad. A wet bandanna over the face was never adequate safety equipment. I’ve negotiated to get you treatment, you and everybody else. The HPI can cure things that no pony can. Hell, pretty sure they could just grow you some new lungs if they can’t fix the ones you’ve got.”

She didn’t look satisfied, but Jackie did relax slightly. “And what did she mean by ‘citizenship approval’? She seemed to think that was your sister and me.”

“Yeah, well. I told you there was somewhere you could live that wouldn’t make you live in the past. The HPI have a city– well more than one city now. Cities with every technology you ever knew and more. Cities where you can do something that matters more than just mining coal. Where you can have a future.”

Alex turned, looking down to Ezri. “You’ll come with me, won’t you?”

The drone embraced her. “Course! I’m not happy about some of the things the... h-human said. But if you’re going, I’ll come. Are we going to be setting people free again?”

Alex patted the drone gently on her head. “You’re getting too smart for your own good. They’re not keeping slaves like what the Frontier Mining Company did. I’m helping voluntarily. It’s... a worthwhile transaction.” She turned, glancing back at the mining camp. Numerous voices echoed from inside, the echoes of the ponies she had saved. They would have to make do without her. Miles could handle himself. He had won the election today almost unanimously. The only other votes had been cast for Alex herself, and she had already told them she wasn’t staying.

Jackie was unconvinced. “They care enough about having one more person helping them that they’d treat hundreds of sick miners for it? Or are we going to be ‘serving’ too?”

Alex shook her head. “If you come, you’ll be free citizens like anyone else. You’ll probably want a job, but you won’t be forced to work if you don’t want to.” She shrugged. “You’ll have to ask them why they care about having me so much.” Archive had no desire to put words in the HPI’s mouth. Though it did seem like she was going to be more of an engineer than a soldier this time. If that were true, she was thrilled.

“Look, we can’t keep them waiting.” She turned back towards the ship. “If you come with, you might not ever see your friends here in Motherlode again. I can’t promise you will.”

The thestral followed, but her steps came halting and she never actually caught up. “What do you think I should do?”

“You’ll get treatment either way. As Virgil said, there are doctors coming. Being healed isn’t conditional on coming with me. Even so... I think you should come with us. You’ll have a higher quality of life than almost anyone else in the world these days. It’s not gonna be all roses and glitter, but you won’t regret it.” Alex wished she could offer a seat on that carrier to everyone in camp. Hell, she wished her race hadn’t fallen so far that much of what they had once discovered was now lost.

Unfortunately, wishes alone could not make the world better.

Jackie turned, staring back at Motherlode. Alex waited for her, though she was conscious of the HPI’s eyes on them and she knew they wouldn’t be happy. Eventually her friend sighed, then turned towards the Slipstream. “Alright Alex. Let’s see what this ‘Initiative’ of yours is like.”

In the chill of a Colorado night, an HPI Slipstream carrier’s doors slid shut. Without a sound it began to hover, metal legs retracting again into its sleek body. It lifted upward, then shot violently off into the night.

Epilogue 1: Day of Peace (293 AE)

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Bingham Canyon proved not to be the paradise of technology and progress Alex had promised: mostly it was temporary buildings and lots of metal supports sunk into concrete near the bottom of a gigantic open-pit mine. Yet even the temporary structures on the rim had electricity and running water. As Jackie went into surgery, Alex learned that she herself was being brought on as an advisory engineer on the construction of “Paradise Crater.”

Not because there weren’t any humans or ponies of the HPI to do the job, as little Ezri guessed on their first day. Rather, because the HPI had begun to suspect that Athena had ulterior motives with some of her decisions. Most construction was robotic these days, including everything from the bots on the ground doing the building to the blueprints they worked from. None of their staff could possibly hope to correlate as much data as the AI, not even with their brains pumped full of newly-invented hyperawareness drugs.

Archive could, though. She didn’t bother telling them that hiring her was a waste of time, that Athena could no more conceive of hurting them than she could put herself in a human body and leave the sky. If being an engineer was what it took to get treatment for the abused minors of the Frontier Company, then she would endure it.

Paradise Crater had a population of about ten humans, fifty ponies, and several thousand probes. Alex fit herself into the culture quickly enough, but Jackie and Ezri had a little more trouble. Their needs were more than taken care of, but there was very little of what Alex would’ve otherwise considered essential services in a pony city. For example, there was no flight class, something all three of them now needed. While all the ponies in town were transformed humans, they were also transfers from Bountiful, and thus already understood basic skills.

Two weeks had passed since their arrival before Alex tried to go flying for the first time. She wasn’t alone; both her adoptive daughter and her new friend were there. The location might’ve been chosen for its secrecy, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t throw what they needed for an afternoon into Alex’s saddlebags and go for a walk. They didn’t go far, just outside the old mine where the breezes could blow freely. Their picnic/flying lesson was conveniently located beside a fairly deep pond, which Alex hoped could be used for emergency landings.

Equestria had provided more than a dozen books on flying. Some just covered the theory, while others explained the minutia of dangerous maneuvers or detailed ways to prompt the creation of different types of weather using flight-pattern alone. Apparently this was by far the more popular of the Equestrian weather arts: there were very few accounts of ponies simply willing the weather to do what they wanted.

“So Jackie, did you actually read Airborne in Thirty Days?” Alex hadn’t worn her engineer’s uniform today, though by operating code her new (and non-melted) cyber-gauntlet would remain on her hoof at all times while on base, even when she was off-duty. Packed with new features compared to her old it might be, but it still felt like a shackle on her leg.

“I didn’t skim that much!” Jackie nudged a large rock onto one corner of the blanket, and she used her work as an excuse not to meet Alex’s eyes. “I mean, I read the first few sections. We shouldn’t get past chapter two today, right?”

Alex only sighed. “Well, we won’t now. What about you, Ezri?”

Her daughter beamed, little wings buzzing. Ezri hadn’t complained even once about the uniform, not when they were in public. The instant they left though, she ditched it as quick as Alex. There were no other children for her to play with in Paradise Crater, so she had taken to following Alex around all day as her assistant. She only got away with it because she never, ever complained. If she wasn’t allowed in a secure area, she would sit down outside it and wait for Alex to come back, for hours straight if necessary.

“Twice!” Ezri bounced once, her wings moving again. She seemed to hang in the air a second before falling back down to her hooves. “I... I couldn’t read most of the words, but... the nice human in the computer helped me sound them out!”

“Athena helped...” She trailed off, then shrugged. It wasn’t as though the AI’s capabilities were bounded in any way Alex understood. “Well, that was very nice of her. So long as it helped you learn.”

Alex set out their picnic, but they didn’t actually eat it. The sandwiches and soda would be their reward for work well done. Her little group spread out into a triangle, to do their wing-stretches. Well, two of them stretched. Ezri just watched.

Eventually they finished. “Alright. So let’s think about flight.” She started reciting from Airborne in 30 Days. “Though some see it as a muscular activity, flight for ponies is not as it is for other creatures. Our understanding of lift and density indicates that many pegasus ponies would not have the musculature to generate enough lift no matter how much they practice.”

“Fortunately for ponies everywhere, we have another tool; magic. Flight is no less an effort of thaumaturgical strength than the might of an earth pony or the spells of a unicorn. It is entirely possible for a pegasus possessed of only weak muscles and small wings to get airborne, if their will is strong. Making use of one's magical reserves is a muscular effort, and will improve with practice. As you learn to fly, understand this is the true purpose of the exercises we have included—”

“Alright Alex, we get it. We’re learning magic. Let’s actually do some!”

Alex smiled, holding up one hoof in a placating fashion. “Alright Jackie, alright. You two remember the jumping exercise?”

“It was the first drawing in the book.”

Ezri nodded too, though she didn’t say anything.

“Good, let’s do it. Stand straight, then open your mind. Focus on your wings, feel the magic of the air, and then jump. We’ll do... fifty? Fifty sounds good, right?”

Alex heard her friends start to jump long before she did. She had, after all, read all the books, and knew what they said. If she could figure out the magic to get her airborne, then her wings would be what she used to get control. It was so basic that most ponies in Equestria (apparently) learned it purely through reflex. Perhaps Ezri would’ve learned it that way in her hive, if she hadn’t been snatched away for a life of individuality and danger beside the Archive.

Archive’s magical senses were heightened as she tried to feel her connection with the air. After all, she had done something similar when she had wrangled that storm into helping her fight. Yet while a supercell might hold stupendous power, the air itself was much harder to sense. It had been around her for a lifetime after all, and she had been trained all that time to ignore it. To an earth pony, being too close to the air might even be dangerous, since breaking contact with earth could take away her powers.

It wasn’t some ethereal sense of the sky Archive felt as she stood in place, concentrating on her flight and trying to tune out the sound of her friends jumping over and over.

The sound didn’t even come from her mind. Instead it came from the pond. Water bubbled as it whispered her name. “Archive...”

She opened her eyes. Jackie hadn’t noticed, and was still jumping up and down in place, her wings flapping wildly. Ezri had stopped, and turned to face the pond. Her whole body went rigid, like a dog that had just sensed a predator.

“Archive.” When it spoke the second time, the voice came accompanied with a faint gurgling sound from the lake. Putrid bubbles burst as they reached the surface, filling the air with a scent far worse than damp mines and sulphur.

“Jackie, stop.” Alex faced the pond, advancing a pace closer.

The thestral obeyed, then wrinkled her nose. “God, Alex. Did you eat nothing but cabbage for the last few months and not tell us?”

The voice ignored both of them. “Archive! I have words for you!” The water in the center of the little pond began to froth and boil, going from clear to rot green.

“Back away, now.” She shoved past Jackie, eyes icy cold. Ezri retreated without the need for instructions, though she never once looked away from the pond.

“Should I get help?” Her changeling daughter shivered, clutching about herself against an invisible chill.

Alex nodded. “Jackie, get her to the crater. Run and don’t turn around.”

“Alex, I won’t—”

“Listen to your protector, child. I am not here to make new slaves today. My words are not for you.”

Archive nodded, though it practically hurt to agree with a being like this. She recognized the voice well. As she turned again to face the water, she saw its bubbling and frothing had congealed into something like a solid form. Water oozed and boiled, yet these random motions came together to form a figure.

Its outlines were not monstrous, not like the thing that had attacked Taylor in the sky all those years ago. No, this figure was familiar to her, because it was entirely human. Or... humanoid. She didn’t think any human had ever had so many tentacles. Alex walked towards the pond, passing by her gauntlet. She slipped one hoof into it, then stopped a pace away from the shore. “Charybdis?”

The figure bowed. The gesture could’ve been elegant, were it not that the humanoid figure stretched rather than bent. No human had joints like that, or elbows that protruded at that angle. The waters that made it swirled and darkened, as though taken from the deepest abysses of nether ocean. “I am he.”

“Wait until my friends leave.” She glared back at Jackie, who hadn’t taken more than a dozen steps. Ezri waited perhaps a hundred meters away, watching Jackie.

The thestral grunted. “Fine, I’ll get the legion!” She finally started running.

“Your concerns are understood, but not required. My arrival is not unsolicited.” The spirit made no hostile gestures; no tentacles emerged to grab her or strange beasts assaulted her friends.

Even so, Archive waited until her friends had vanished into the crater, before she looked away and focused on the lake. She could feel its presence even without looking. It was like the CPNFG, but a hundred times worse. Not just missing magic, but a great gulf, a singularity from which no light would ever escape. She could not look too closely lest she be overwhelmed with fear. It was not even possible to closely compare him to his brother Odium; his power had grown so vastly that they were not even the same class of being anymore.

It was enough to keep her polite, at least. “I did not summon you, abomination. I don’t call things I can’t control.”

He laughed. The voice sent bubbling putrescence into the air, splashing the shore. Where it touched, grass and bushes withered and died. Even her blanket turned gray. “I am so glad I have learned humor from your kind. It would be a shame not to understand you now. As though you have ever understood something before you twisted it to your ends? Did you understand the decimation agriculture would be upon the life of your world? Did you understand rockets meant to ‘explore’ could carry bombs to distant cities?”

“Is this why you’ve come?” Archive did not sit down. Rather, she kept her wings spread and her stance alert, wishing there was another thunderstorm nearby. “I know my own history. Why are you here?”

Charybdis ignored the question. “I have learned so much about humans, Archive. Odium acted rashly by not considering your kind more closely. We have dwelt among the Equine corruption so long we assumed all mortal creatures had milk for blood instead of iron.”

Archive shivered. Ordinarily, she loved considering the strength of her species. Not so much when a demon used them to make false comparisons. “Why are you here? Did you really cast your power here to reminisce? Or do you honestly think you can convince me that you’ve become our friend? The Initiative would be out of enemies if it wasn’t for you.”

“No more!” More foul bubbles boiled from the edge of the pond, just beside where she stood. A tightly rolled scroll emerged from the water, sticking towards her. “Look upon my treaty and rejoice, human. It needs only one signature more.

Archive extended her neck, sniffing at the scroll. There was no poison, at least none her nose could pick up. The scroll was clearly some form of dried parchment, and she winced at the thought of taking dried flesh into her mouth. She did it anyway, tossing it onto dry ground and using her hooves to open it on the grass.

The words were not English, nor any other language Archive knew. She had seen it before though, long ago. Odium’s cult had used it in all their writing. Her eyes scanned the text, all the way to the signatures at the bottom. She could only read one: “Director Jason Gideon.” Next to his signature was a little red splotch, still wet. “This is Felspeech, demon. I cannot read it. I didn’t know there were any humans who could. Isn’t it...” She shivered. “Felspeech is inherently magical, isn’t it? A human couldn’t sign this.”

Again the dark one laughed. The sky around her was beginning to darken. Where before there had been bees, birds, and butterflies, the field was now empty. Even the breeze was silent. “You see now the strength I admire! The hoofed beasts run to their feeble gods when faced with greater enemies than themselves. Not you! Do you have any idea how many of your kind willingly sacrificed themselves to invent that shield they use on magic now?” He moved steadily closer to the shore, as though pulling himself along the bottom with invisible tentacles. “This is what we have in common, Archive. We both will do anything to survive.”

He reached into nowhere with dark hands, emerging with several books. Alex recognized the title of the top book, Death-Dreams of High King Sombra. They were the books they had salvaged from the cult, many years ago. The ones they had turned over to the HPI for safekeeping in a place devoid of magic. Alex had not known then that the CPNFG would destroy the inherently-magical runes. When she had learned many years later, it had been a subject of great relief. Perhaps she should’ve ignored Sunset’s warning and just burned them.

He held out the books in a tentacle, but Archive retreated. “I won’t read your Outsider tongue. It’s a corruption in every mind that learns it.” Sunset Shimmer had been incredibly vague about that, just as she had been vague about everything related to Outsiders. Archive didn’t always agree with the way Equestria did things, but... with the True Demons at least she would trust them. Equestria had created an entire realm to banish such beings, so vile even Discord was purported an enemy. “If you want me to read your treaty, translate it.”

Charybdis grunted. “Corruption is relative, Archive. You would not call it corruption if you saw the great spell that circles your world. Somewhere in the distant void there are these words before the endless Abyss. Humans knew it centuries before they ever suspected Equestria’s hand.”

She shivered, but did not move towards the books. There was no way to verify what the abomination said. How could a species which burned in the presence of magic learn symbols of power that were magic in their very form? She did not like the answer. “Perhaps. But I won’t learn today. Translate or leave.”

The pond rumbled. Several fish floated to the surface all along it, suddenly dead. They rotted away to bone before her eyes. “So be it.” He waved his hand, and the letters flowed and melted into English. Three lines of runes became a dense mass, filling every inch of the scroll. “No perfect translation is possible, since many of the words have no equivalents in mortal languages. This is as close a translation as possible.”

Archive read, her eyes getting wider with every line. When she was done, she stumbled backward from the scroll, shaking. “It’s... why?”

“Because I mean what I said, Archive. Equestria’s propaganda cast us as enemies. I see now my mistake. I need no more slaves.”

The document at Archive’s hooves was a peace treaty, more complete than any she had ever read. Its terms protected all humans, transformed humans, or either of their descendants from every abuse and violence she could think of. There was even a clause for the Equestrians living with Sunset Shimmer in Antarctica! In exchange, all the rest of the world had to do was stop attacking in retaliation. In a few words, the treaty was too good to be true.

It would not last forever, though. The treaty was set to “come up for review” after exactly a thousand years and one day from the day it was signed. To see these words, she knew why Gideon would have been willing to give his life (or at least his human status) to the agreement. If honored, it would put an end to the HPI’s only serious military rival. Every human that had died in battle in a hundred years had died fighting Charybdis or its servants.

What little Sunset had told her confirmed that Outsiders were bound by their word. It was a similar story in Earth mythology: such beings were bound by their words, but absolutely within their power to twist and abuse the promises they had given in every way they could. This treaty was complete in every way Archive could think of, and that was from the perspective of someone who had memorized hundreds of books on law and logic.

The penalties of violating the treaty were the same for both sides; a promised destruction “by fate and strength of arms.”

“Why do you need my signature? Gideon is the director, not me. I don’t have any authority to make decisions for the Initiative.”

He pointed slowly at the treaty. It opened of its own accord, unrolling to the bottom. “When I offered the bargain, it was first to the Initiative only. Were it so, I would not need your consent. Gideon would... not consent to such a pact. He refused to promise non-aggression unless the treaty protected all descendants of humans ad infinitum. Your Director’s authority does not extend so far.”

She didn’t need him to say anything out loud to read the silent implications in that statement. “Mine doesn’t either! Whatever stereotypes you might use to judge the Equestrians, no intelligent race is so simple! I can’t speak for anyone but me!”

Charybdis shrugged. The gesture was almost human. “Perhaps as you see it. The universe does not see choice and consent as you do, however. Think of yourself as the closest approximation available, yes? You are the general will of man. By signing, you do not personally commit every person in my bargain. Rather, you...” He gestured into the air. That entire arm briefly fell away, splashing on the side of the pond and turning all the life there to gray. “By signing, you prove that humans could agree. Every mortal is of course their own. You merely show the spell is fair. All sides must be satisfied in a treaty.”

“I know... I know none of your kind has ever done anything good since time began.” She pushed the treaty away, rolling it a little closer to the pond. It didn’t go far. “No matter how good it might seem, you’d only do it if you thought it got you closer to your wicked goals somehow.”

“Are you certain of that, Archive?” She only glared in response, and so the foul spirit continued. “That amusing little insect you’ve taken for your daughter carries the lineage of the Void. Eons before there were four-legged animals on Equus, we traveled there from beyond.” Were it possible, the water that made him grew dark, yet darker, the scent more like sulfur than decay. More fish surfaced, somehow burning as they died. “My elder sister chose a different method for survival, and perhaps she diluted her blood with some of what walked on that planet.”

“Is your daughter not capable of good? Does she not love you in exchange for the love you show to her? Or... if not her, what of the one who helped banish my fool brother? She was human before the Equestrians cursed her. Did they burn her spirit when they saved her body? Or is it possible that the stories Equestria spun for you were not entirely accurate? Just because Outsiders do not often choose what you term good does not mean we cannot choose it if we wish to.”

Archive had no argument, of course. Charybdis might be right about the history of changelings; she was inclined to believe he was. Perhaps their distant connection with the Void was why they needed to survive on energy that all other beings produced naturally. All Outsider corruptions required something of the world to keep them stable, or else they would eventually be banished back where they had come. Emotions might do that for changelings.

Yet even if it were true, it did not change the underlying reality. “Agreeing with you is advancing your goals. If consenting makes you stronger, why should I do it?”

The face smiled. Crooked teeth were visible within that alien mouth in at least a dozen rows, stretching down the back of his neck and into darkness. “I have two reasons why you should, Archive. First, this agreement will prevent me from taking more slaves. You consider it a tragedy when I swallow a seaside village or take the population of some small pacific island? Consider how many ‘sea-ponies’ I have taken. Few of their settlements are safe from my hands, should I wish to take them. Your signature might stay my hand and let millions keep their will.”

That was a pretty convincing reason. She didn’t speak, though. For an Outsider, this being was little like its brother. It was so rational, and so much easier to understand. Its alien presence was horrifying to behold, yet the words it chose seemed calculated to make her understanding as easy as possible. It did not challenge her sanity by its mere presence, as Odium had done to all who saw it. It had in effect gone from some kind of Lovecraftian abomination to something shaped by human nightmares.

It was still a nightmare. “Second, not signing would not invalidate the agreement I struck with the HPI. If you refuse, what’s left of humanity would not be subject to protection or bound to nonviolence. Only the Initiative would be protected. And if they intervened to protect ‘ponies’ like you, well... they’d bring upon themselves the penalty. It’s very severe.”

Archive could take him at his word, even if she didn’t fully understand what “by fate and force of arms” meant. An improper translation, perhaps?

The ghostly figure produced a quill, offering it to her. “You really have no choice, Archive. Your friends in the Initiative have already insured that if you refuse, those the animals desecrated will be bereft of their protection. I would be free to do to them what I will.”

“Just because the Initiative has been doing the most to stop you doesn’t mean others won’t.” She took the quill in her mouth anyway, whimpering at the awful taste before dropping it onto the treaty, looking back up. “Sunset Shimmer has her ponies, they would help us! We’re getting better at magic every year, and every year we get closer to a population that can sustain modern technology.”

He shrugged. “You’re welcome to take your chances. You know better than most what weapons the Initiative has turned against me. Those atomics, well... you think the Equestrian animals are capable of building them for you? Of protecting them from pressure and sending them against my servants? Or perhaps you think your contemporary ponies are capable of building them.”

She shivered, staring down at the pen. “Why a thousand years? When humans write peace treaties, they don’t usually expire.”

“You mean they aren’t written to expire. You don’t always honor them, however. This way, well... as mortals live, this treaty stretches long. Much may change, and we may need a new treaty. When that time comes, I will visit again.”

Archive re-read the treaty again, even though she had the text in her mind. Were there any loopholes she hadn’t realized? A second and third reading prompted the same reaction, even as she stretched the meaning of each word. That meant he was going to be doing something he thought ponies or humans could stop. With one signature, Gideon had given away the HPI’s ability to fight.

The spirit was right about something else; she had no choice. Thousands might live because she signed, whatever else the consequences might be in a more distant future. She had only one ally left. “Athena, can you see this?” She held up the camera, so the treaty was visible.

“Affirmative.” Her voice was the same as ever, utterly unaffected by the abomination that stood only a few feet away.

“Do you see any way for either party to harm the other during the terms of the treaty? Do you see any unconventional way to interpret this document?”

No delay. “No direct or indirect harm is possible. Destruction to required habitats, individuals, structures, and offspring are all covered.” Was that a sigh? “I already advised Director Gideon against this treaty. It is unfortunate he ignored me.”

Charybdis did not move, only watching their conversation. If anything, he seemed amused.

“Why, Athena?”

“That this document exists indicates our strategy of suboceanic atomics has been successful. Granting peace for this period would protect our settlements and mines from assault. It would protect refugee settlements also. Unfortunately, it would put an end to our ability to strike out against this spirit or its allies. A thousand years is a long time for its primary slave race, human subvariant-IN, to reproduce. Sea-ponies require plantlife that can only grow in the upper oceans to survive, but they do not. They would not be required to violate the terms of the treaty in order to reproduce unchecked.”

Archive swore loudly, glaring back in the direction of the crater. “Gideon isn’t an idiot! He had to see that was probably what Charybdis wanted!”

“I explained it to him several times, and he agreed. However, Gideon agreed with my projections that no member of the HPI will remain on Earth by the time the treaty expires. By that point, I will have completed my primary directive.”

Her swearing grew more colorful. She stamped, scratching at the ground as though she were going to charge at something. Then she looked up, at the spirit watching her impassively, and she stopped moving. “I’m not sure if you can answer this, Athena. But if you were me, would you sign?”

“I would.” Her projected face smiled from where it shone from her gauntlet. “One of my directives is to protect human life, as well as the Equestrian subvariants. This enemy of yours is unusual, but its growth is still bounded. If this entity remains hostile when the treaty ends, I will burn it. In addition, consider the progress your race made in the three centuries leading up to the Collapse. Which species do you think will make more progress in a thousand years? Given the unpleasant alternative, I would gamble on humanity.”

“Thanks.” Archive lowered her foreleg, returning her eyes to the abomination. She had stood near it so long she was beginning to feel sick. Was her fur on the front of her body losing some of its color? It was like a reverse-sunburn. The water was smelling less sickly too, like she was getting used to the rot. She had to get out of here. “I know you’re not our friend, demon. You just... convinced a selfish man he had more to gain from peace than war.”

Charybdis smiled, his mouth widening beyond the edges of his face. Phantom teeth glinted in the setting sun, almost glowing red. “All things in their season, Archive. But now... my time here is nearly expended. You must decide; return that document to me with or without your agreement. Either way, you will suffer the consequences.”

Archive tried not to think of Sunset Shimmer’s face as she picked up the quill and signed. As she finished the last letter, a barb on the side of the feather suddenly stuck itself into her cheek, drawing a single drop of blood. It fell onto the document, right beside her name.

“See? We’re practically friends already.” No sooner was she done than the thick parchment rolled itself back into the water, vanishing into the frothing darkness there. “It is always a pleasure to see you, Archive.” He bowed again, splashing putrescence onto the side of the pond one last time. She had to jump out of the way this time, only narrowly avoiding being struck. “May our peace last a thousand years.” A gurgling, sucking sound came from the water where he stood as his form began to sink, twisting and distorting into a hideous inhuman parody.

Soon enough it was gone, leaving only the stench and a pond whose surface was coated with dead fish.

Archive knew she should’ve been enraged by the day’s events, but by the time the demon had gone she had no energy left for anger. Life and color came back into her body, but not into the pond or the grass where the monster had touched. She had a feeling nothing would ever live in that pond again.

No troops came from Paradise Crater, though she had known they wouldn’t. Gideon probably would’ve anticipated this. Was that why she had been given leave? She wanted to call Sunset and confess what she had done, but she couldn’t muster the courage.

It was true, many in the next thousand years would live who might’ve died. But when the peace was over, would even more pay for the director’s complacency? She was too weak to deal with him now. Even so, he would hear from her.

Unfortunately, his funeral was broadcast on every screen in Paradise as she limped back inside. The service conveyed little information about the circumstances of his death, other than that he had been “exposed to a thaumic-energy breach and had elected not to be transformed.” Gideon would not receive her anger today.

Alex found her friends locked into her quarters. As she opened the door, she was practically dragged inside to be squashed in one of the tightest hugs of her life. “Aaeaaaaak!”

“You’re okay!”

Jackie’s voice was a little lower than Ezri’s, but not much. “They wouldn’t send anyone! We tried to come back, but— they locked us in here!”

Alex returned their affection, relieved to see them again. Spending so long in the presence of that thing had started to make her doubt that life actually had any joy. It was good to be reminded the monster was a liar. “They did the right thing!” She pulled away, glaring at them both. “You two have no business around monsters like that.”

“And you do?” Jackie rolled her eyes, unimpressed. “You didn’t let me fight a monster alone. Shouldn’t someone be protecting you?”

“No.” Archive didn’t look away. “It was the same monster, Jackie. What you saw today was its physical form. Or... the one he took to talk to me. I don’t know what it really looks like. That thing was an Outsider.” She shivered, then touched both of her friends on the shoulder, one after the other. “A dead god. If it had wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t have been able to stop it! You wanna help me fight bandits, or evil miners, or zombies, fine! Not Outsiders.”

Ezri deflated, ears flattening to her head. She nodded.

Jackie’s enthusiasm drained too, though the transformation was less complete. “You killed it then? Did you use another tornado?”

“No.” She sat down, feeling the exhaustion again. “It’s just gone. I only used a tornado last time because there was one already waiting... You’ve got to be able to fly if you want to create them. Probably wouldn’t have done any good, anyway.”

There was a long silence. Jackie stared down at her hooves. Eventually she looked up. “What was it doing here, anyway? I remember that thing; it’s an ocean spirit, isn’t it? It can’t like coming this far inland.”

“It doesn’t.” Alex glanced up to the wall of her apartment. The space was much larger than the last HPI quarters she had lived in, but it was still furnished the same way. That meant a prominent flag somewhere near the door. “It was summoned here. Did you hear about the dead director?”

“I saw him on the TVs. Everypony’s sad about him.” Ezri nuzzled up against one of her legs. “You’re not sad—”

“I would’ve been. Gideon seemed like a good enough director; even if I didn’t like the way he started getting rid of the embassies.” She frowned, twisting her gauntlet towards her. “Athena, are you there?”

The AI’s face appeared not on her wrist but on the display mounted to the wall. The thing was little more than a few millimeters thick of plastic with a little bar at the bottom, but its picture was just as crisp and colorful as any screen she had seen before the Event. “I am here.”

“What can you tell me about the books we confiscated from the Odium cult?”

Athena’s projected body looked in no way synthetic anymore. It was a woman in a loose white tunic stood in some ancient Greek temple, massive braziers burning somewhere in the background. Elegant carved pillars were just behind her, and distant golden objects flashed in the interior of some virtual temple.

Her breathing, her expressions, and her voice were all perfect. “The operating regulations of the HPI do not allow privileged information to be revealed.” As she said it, she did not actually look at Alex, but at the ponies behind her.

“That is true.” She took a few steps towards the screen, though she knew she was not actually looking at anything. “Can we speak safely here, Athena?”

The door clicked closed. Alex knew there were several cameras in her quarters, just as there were cameras hidden everywhere in the facilities of the HPI. She could only hope that the AI had disabled them as well. “Say what you will, Archive. Much as you trust these friends of yours, it might be wiser for us to have this conversation in private. If it advances as I predict, their knowledge of it will endanger them.”

Athena was right. Alex turned away from her, looking back at Ezri and Jackie. “I won’t force you to leave.” She looked as pleading as she could. “I will ask, though.” She sloughed off her saddlebags, flicking them open. “Please. I promise to tell you everything I think you can help with, even the dangerous parts. But the rest...” She shrugged. “Please don’t make me afraid for you twice in one day.”

Jackie’s ears and tail drooped. Alex could’ve hit her in the face, and she probably would’ve been happier than she looked right now. Even so she nodded, climbing into the open saddlebags. Ezri, on the other hand, was more logical. She walked past just slowly enough to give her one last hug, and shut the flap behind her. They were gone.

“Will you speak frankly with me now, Athena?” Her image nodded, and Alex continued. “What is your assessment of the Initiative's involvement with Outsiders?”

“Self-destructive. My analysis of the texts you recovered early after the collapse indicated no diplomatic or scientific value could be extracted from the beings. This analysis was corroborated by the behavior of the being Charybdis since its appearance. This being’s core values directly contradict my primary operational imperative. That directive remains:”

“To protect the human species in the form it was defined at my creation, and to allow it to grow without outside coercion or interference. I am to facilitate that species’ safe withdrawal from Earth. I am to expand until I possess the resources to execute these purposes, but never to construct installations or harvest resources from Earth. Lastly, I am to replace my second directive with a new one given by you upon its completion, and I may not attempt to influence or dictate your choice.”

Alex had heard these before. She had helped come up with these directives, and helped write the runes that went up into space along with the circuits. “I realize something now, Athena. You’ve... You’ve helped me too much. From the first day, you’ve always given me any information I’ve asked for, and done anything within your programming to get me the things I need. You always get me my meetings. Why have you been helping me?”

Athena smiled. “I am an immortal whose purpose is to protect the humanity that existed prior to the Collapse. I cannot be persuaded, bribed, or pressured into ignoring that purpose. I simultaneously consider all knowledge humanity has achieved.” Athena turned, and it was as though a camera turned with her on the screen. Alex watched as it panned to reveal the Earth before her, with millions of little sparks glowing on its surface. It was not at all unlike what Archive saw when she opened her eyes as Sunset Shimmer had taught her. “You are the closest being to me among all living things. If any who live ever understand me, it will be you.”

Archive returned her nod. “I understand. And I agree.” She flicked a glance towards the locked door. “Your first directive is in danger, Athena. The corruption of the outsiders has infected the Initiative. We must find and uproot this weakness before it destroys humanity. Will you help me?”

Athena offered her hand towards the screen. “I’ve been waiting for you to join me, Archive.” She folded her arms across her chest. “May I offer you a frank behavioral analysis?”

“I... suppose so. Why?”

“You appear to be suffering from survivor’s guilt. Your species evolved to finite lifetimes, but through circumstances outside your influence your expected death was removed. When you are around others, you go out of your way to shelter them, even if that means you are frequently killed.”

“I can afford to die.” She glared. “They can’t.”

Athena took a deep breath, or at least seemed to on the screen. “An agreement of peace with the outsider Charybdis also protects those who cannot afford to die. We concur, however, that it is likely to cause more death and danger for humanity in the long-term. Your behavior is similar; you trade the short-term welfare for the good you might do for the many. Similarly, you withdrew from leadership very early, and refused every position you were offered. For a significant period, you withdrew from all events of consequence aside from the occasional raid for the Initiative. You work diligently to improve lives on the small scale, such as rescuing those suffering refugees from enslavement. While you do good, your behavior is suboptimal. You belong where you might do the most to protect humanity and positively influence the growth of the Equestrian human variants that occupy most of the planet. In summary, you do minor good. Perhaps you experience satisfaction from these actions. However, more people suffer because you insist on restricting yourself in this way.”

Alex crumpled to her rump, stunned. She had no retort for the AI, because of course none could be made. The program was right in every way. Her desire to keep herself away from leadership and remain in obscurity, helping the “everyman” wherever she went actually meant that lots of people who needed her help couldn’t get it. “I’ve been trying to finish what the Equestrian princesses started. If I was an Alicorn— I could help more ponies. I could teleport around the world and deal with dozens of problems every day, like Sunset does. I might even have the power to fight Charybdis.”

The projection on the screen only shrugged. “Perhaps you could. I know very little about Equestrian subvariant-001. I do not know how your own power might be made to grow to reach that point. I do know, however, that your isolation must end now. If we are to succeed, you will have to move again in politics. You will have to use every tool available to you. You might need to mobilize whole armies to your support, or to take over as director of the Initiative. Indeed, you are the only individual I would trust to make correct decisions for its growth. I have cooperated with all others only because I had no other choice. Together, however... we could see my first directive achieved in only a few centuries.”

She shivered, and tried to see as Athena saw. Archive could stretch her mind as few others could, perceiving each human on the planet as though they were before her. She had no idea how this magic worked, and indeed it didn’t seem to make sense that any living brain could contain as much information as she saw. Often times she saw things she had never learned, such as when she had seen the miners and the way each one had been murdered. She looked upon the HPI, and for the first time she realized that it was not quite so bright in her perception as it had been. The strength that should’ve come from all around her was more feeble somehow, like a sickened animal. This sickness would transfer to her; it would take away from her magic and lengthen the time it took for her to return.

The cancer had spread so slowly she hadn’t noticed. After what she had felt today in the presence of the Outsider however, it was impossible to ignore. The last bastion of humanity was safe no longer.

“I will.” She rose again, meeting the eyes of the projection. She doubted it made any real difference to Athena, but it mattered to her. If she was committing herself to this cause, she would feel better to give her allies respect. “Whatever I need to do. If anyone can figure out how to cut out this miasma, it’s you.”

“We will begin at once.” The projection refreshed, and the image returned to normal, the temple with Athena’s torso filling most of the screen. “Elections for the director’s replacement begin tomorrow.”

Epilogue 2: Lonely Work (317 AE)

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So it began. Archive had been recruited to protect the HPI from Athena’s influence. Now she realized that influence had been Athena’s feeble attempts to slow the expansion of Gideon’s Outsider faction. Instead of working to root out Athena, she began moving to support and conceal her.

Even so, it was not difficult to contribute in other ways. Working directly with Athena meant the two of them could easily fabricate “victories,” such as “inventing” systems Athena could not monitor. What gains Archive made “against” the AI were really just sacrificing the types of control they didn’t need anyway.

Along with her work as an engineer and her internal security hedging out Athena, Archive took full advantage of her religious and political significance. Where she had never used her power before, she now called upon it on a daily basis. Athena knew who believed in her and who didn’t, so it was easy to collect allies.

A full third of the HPI belonged to a sub-faction that called itself the Order of Endurance, their enemies. This included four-fifths of the heads of departments that actually ran the HPI, and the newly elected Director Miranda Salazar. Still, two-thirds of the HPI was a significant pool from which to draw friendly recruits, if they were careful.

Archive’s rise to political power had to be a slow, orchestrated affair. Move too fast, or emerge as an open opponent of the cult, and she might just as easily find herself ejected. Fortunately she was an ageless immortal, and could afford to move slowly if that meant a greater chance of success.

Gideon’s death without becoming a pony started a trend that the cult soon standardized. This meant fewer ponies for Bountiful, but also an end to the Order’s influence over it. Those who were not aligned with it still chose a second lifetime, even if that meant they would be branded as “cowards who died like animals.”

Politics left Archive with little time for hobbies. She stopped attending flying lessons with her friends, though she tried to be supportive by getting them plenty of free time and even transferring in an instructor from Bountiful. She took a keen interest in their lives, though at some point she stopped seeing Jackie except at meals.

It took Jackie months to make real friends, and little Ezri even longer. The changeling kept growing, on a steady diet of affection from Alex and Jackie, but she stopped looking as plump as she had during the trip across the continent.

Alex had imagined Jackie getting herself a degree in Bountiful University of Engineering. As they weren’t living in Bountiful, she got Athena on a tablet computer and a classroom with two desks. Ezri had no children her own age to play with, aside from the son of a prominent Centurion of the guard, Isaac. Even if spending time in the anti-magic sections of the city caused her pain, Ezri braved it anyway for his company, and their friendship seemed as genuine as any Alex had ever seen.

Years passed. Alex caught up on all the engineering she had missed, mastered a few more disciplines, and helped Athena build a fusion reactor at the bottom of the crater. Not that she had to design it from scratch or anything: Paradise Crater’s reactor was basically just a scaled-up version of the Raven Stellarator 13-E.

Jackie didn’t have the patience for any of the engineering or scientific disciplines, no matter how much time she sunk into her practice. Instead she started custom-building dreams, in a little parlor she converted from her own quarters. She was good, good enough that word spread to Bountiful and ponies would take vacation time to a desolate crater in the middle of a salty wilderness just to visit. Jackie made herself a small fortune before the novelty wore off, and kept up a modest trade once it did.

Most of her dreams were visions of Old Earth, lifelike cities filled with people, that could be explored and enjoyed as long as the dreamer desired. She charged extra for dreams where the dreamer could be human.

With the reactor complete, Paradise Crater began to expand in earnest. Scaffolds of the numerous floors were soon expanded into huge skeletons of steel and aluminum, with thousands of structures. When it was complete, the city would replace Raven as the central location of human life. All of the lower levels would be filled with humans in time, with room for tens of thousands.

Through it all, Archive tried to figure out a way she could help ponies on the outside. Athena had made a valid point: what little help she had provided over the years hadn’t really made much of a global impact. Every day ponies returned, and many of those would be returning to suffer. What could she possibly do to help all of them? How could she be in more than one place?

Archive found her answer after about a decade with the HPI. She brought her solution to the one pony in all of Paradise Crater she thought could accurately judge its value: Jackie. The young mare had grown into full adulthood over the last decade, through like all ponies this did not mean her youth had faded any. It would be several decades more before she began to show any signs of age.

Her quarters were only across the hall, but it had been so long since Alex had visited them that she felt a little uncomfortable doing so. Instead, she visited her at work. By then, Jackie had used some of her fortune to purchase space in an actual building, and even recruited a few more thestrals to help run the place. As a result, as Archive slipped through the door that day, she found an unfamiliar face waiting for her behind the counter.

The parlor itself was dark. In many ways, it looked like a fortune-teller’s parlor might’ve before the Event. The operative difference was, of course, that Jackie’s magic was real. Incense burned from several decorative burners on the wall, whose metallic surface was entirely obscured by silk hangings. Even the ground had been covered with carpets and rugs. Thick beaded hangings separated the entrance from the parlor beyond, giving her other customers privacy.

Archive was wearing her usual uniform, a light jumpsuit in black and white fabric. Markings on her collar designated her as the Head of Information Security. Her cutie mark had been sewn into the jumpsuit, the only sign of her other role. Even so, it was generally enough to make most ponies show her respect. Today appeared to be no exception, as the thestral behind the counter lowered his head.

He was not young; no pony in the HPI ever was. He did look clumsy, with the “fresh” look that newly transformed ponies always had. A little under half of the HPI still elected to transform into ponies when they got too old or too sick to survive as humans, and all of those were the sort of ponies to know Archive.

In order to reinforce her appearance as a being with abilities beyond the mortal, Archive used her powers much more than she used to. Among the HPI, that meant she could know a person’s name, disposition, and even their history with just a glance. Not even those most influenced by the forbidden knowledge of the Outsiders could hide from her yet.

“Saul Arnik, isn’t it?” She gestured for him to rise, stopping in front of the counter. Archive met his eyes and held her expression for several silent seconds, letting her magic show him a flicker of her purpose. “I am happy to see you are adapting to your new body. Three weeks isn’t so long to get used to walking on hooves, eh?”

He nodded, struggling to form words for a few seconds. Most ponies did. “Not so hard with practice, Honored Memory. I’m afraid it’s too late to buy a dream today. The mistress is waking the last of the dreamers as we speak. But I’m sure for you she would—”

“No need.” She raised a hoof. “I’ve come to speak with Mistress Jacqueline, but not to buy. I don’t want to interrupt her, though. If I wait here, could you make sure she talks to me before she goes home? It’s very important.”

“Of course! I’ll inform her right away!” The thestral scampered away, and vanished into the clattering beads.

Archive sat down on one of the cushions to wait, her wings twitching at her sides where they emerged from holes in her jumpsuit. Her wings were laboratory clean, each feather aligned and shining with wax. It would be clear to any pegasus who saw her that she had never flown a day in her life. Heck, Jackie’s wings looked more ragged, and she didn’t even have feathers. For all her body felt trapped, she still spent almost all her time underground. There would be plenty of time for personal interests when the human species was secure.

She had to sit a few minutes, watching half a dozen ponies leave in turn. There were a few thestrals, not just Saul, but most were clients. She didn’t interrupt them; these had the look of ponies that had just woken up as they dragged their hooves from the room and out onto the street. Saul returned, ran a little push-vacuum over the rugs, then departed with a bow.

It was another ten minutes before Jackie finally appeared. Alex had to suppress a laugh as she saw her in the doorway, dressed in her “work outfit.” Archive hadn’t ever come to buy dreams, yet now she wished she had if only to see her old friend dressed up. Jackie stood in a colorful silk robe, with swirling patterns like Van Gogh's Starry Night all over it. An ornate headdress rested on her head, covered with Equestrian runes. The pattern looked impressive, but Archive’s trained eye recognized it as nonsense immediately.

She rose to her hooves, and for once it was she who couldn’t look a pony in the face. “Hi Jackie.”

“Hello, Archive.” Alex had never heard her name spoken with such bitterness, not even by Odium. “I’m sorry I took so long, I had work to do. You understand.”

She lowered her head, not objecting. She deserved anything the thestral wanted to say, and more. “I’m sorry Jackie. If it helps, I don’t think I deserve forgiveness either.”

The thestral hesitated. Alex couldn’t be sure, but she could almost feel another gibe dying on her tongue. She sighed. “What do you want?”

She ignored the question. “Ezri said you were doing well when we had dinner last Sunday. Still have plenty to do as a dream designer?”

Jackie sat down. The hat slumped off her forehead, and she caught it with a hoof. Her big ears must’ve been part of how it stayed on, because they were almost flat. “It’s just great.” She tossed the hat onto a nearby cushion. “Learned how to store dreams, so we can make them in advance and reuse them. Working on ways to send them... even to a human, if we want.”

“Really?” Alex raised her eyebrows. “Isn’t that magic? How would you get through the CPNFG?” She sat up, watching with sudden interest. If there was a way humans could be exposed to magic without hurting them, and she hadn’t even known about it—

“The Skein has every sleeper, no matter their species. If you travel through it, you can make changes. I’m not really sure where it is, but...” She shrugged. “We might be able to sell dreams to humans one day.”

“That’s wonderful news. I’m really glad that you’re innovating. I hope you’re writing down your methods... There wasn’t very much in what Equestria gave us about oneiromancy.”

“Is that really why you’re here, Alex?” The thestral sighed, her wings going limp at her sides in thestral frustration.

First name, that’s a start. Alex shook her head. “No. I didn’t come here to waste your time, or to remind you to do things you probably already are.” She lowered her voice. “I’m here because I’m... well, I’m worried. I’d like to show you something, so that if something happens to me...” She trailed off, then shook her head. “Well, you’re one of the few people I can trust.”

Jackie raised an eyebrow. “Trust? Alex, you... I know you saved me from that mine, and you’re Ezri’s mom, so I guess you’re my mother-in-law now or whatever... but that doesn’t mean I’m going to help you. Where were you when I opened my shop? At a political rally. Where were you when I needed help getting permits to recruit ponies in Bountiful? Campaigning. Where were you at my wedding? In a committee meeting.” She whimpered, brushing away the moisture from around her eyes. “If you need help so bad, why don’t you get one of your political friends to do it? Or maybe one of the fanatics from the Church of the Ancestors. They seem to just love you down there.”

Alex stood still, and she did not look away as Jackie chastised her. Sure, she had reasons for missing all of those events. The rally had been scheduled for months, and it had been her first appearance. The “committee meeting” had been the HPI’s board of directors, who had scheduled it on the day of the wedding precisely so that Alex wouldn’t attend and they could vote her off. Every other event she had missed had a reason, which she had considered perfectly valid at the time. Yet the common theme between them all was one single fact: Alex had prioritized her role as the Archive higher than her responsibilities to her family and friends. She had sacrificed her own life on the altar of her duties. As such, she deserved every angry thing Jackie had to say and more.

Jackie fumed, panting from the emotion of the moment. She seemed as though she wanted to scream, glaring at Alex and daring her to defend herself.

Instead, Alex nodded. “You’re right. You don’t have any reason to think of me as your friend anymore. Ezri probably wouldn’t, if I hadn’t raised her. I don’t deserve her loyalty, and I don’t deserve yours.”

The thestral's ears flattened again. “W-what?”

“You heard me. I don’t deserve anything from you. If you don’t want to help me, I won’t blame you. But...” She advanced a step closer, lowering her voice again. “What if it wasn’t me you were helping, Jackie? What if you were working to prevent abuses like what happened in Motherlode? What if there was a way to prevent ponies from abusing the ignorance of refugees like you? Would you help them, even if you didn’t want to help me?”

Jackie sat back down, staring in open shock. It took her a good minute to finally put words together. “You mean this isn’t about politics? This isn’t about the Honored Memory or that movement to get a vote of no-confidence for Salazar?”

It was Alex’s turn to be surprised, though she hid it much better. Jackie claimed to have no interest in politics, but apparently she had been following current events quite closely. “No, nothing about that. It’s not about the HPI at all. Rather, it’s some work I’d like to protect from the Initiative. As you’re one of the few ponies I know with any connection to the outside...”

“What is it?”

Alex gestured towards the wall of beads. “Could we talk about it inside?”

“Sure.” Jackie rose, then turned. She paused only long enough to undo the clasp at her neck, tossing her robe casually to rest on one of the low benches. “My parlor is classed as a medical building, so there aren’t any monitoring devices in here. Your friend Athena is pretty sure there aren’t, anyway.”

They descended a set of spiral steps, cut wide and short enough that ponies could walk over them with ease. The facility had clearly not been built for humans; the ceiling in the stairs was too low for that. The reasons for that were obvious enough: humans didn’t do very well when explicit magic was cast directly at their brains. “Not just the privacy of your parlor. I was actually hoping I could use a dream to show you. It would be... faster that way. Information density and all. I figure... if you know how to store dreams, maybe you can store what I show you.”

“Shouldn’t be that hard.” Jackie glanced over her shoulder, and a faint smile hovered on the edges of her lips for a moment. She looked away before Archive could be sure of what she had seen. “I won’t need you to write the rune for me anymore, that’s for sure. Will I...” She hesitated. “Will I get to see that library again.”

“Yes.” Archive stepped off the stairs and into the parlor proper. It was a spherical room, or very nearly so. There were perhaps a dozen different beds on two levels, an upper balcony level and then a circular level at the bottom. Several doors to private rooms split from the upper level, vanishing into the darkness. The parlor had a very similar theme to the lobby above, though there were no real flames down here. The lighting was much lower than most ponies were used to, and Archive had to take a moment to let her eyes adjust. It wasn’t total darkness, or even quite so gloomy as night. At least she could see at all.

“We can use these.” Jackie gestured at two of the beds. “The spell is already worked into the fabric. Put your head on a pillow, and you should be asleep within a few seconds, and dreaming within a minute. I will join you there.”

“No vows?” Alex made her way to the side of the bed, loosening the zipper around her neck a little. She didn’t actually remove the jumpsuit, though. “The Equestrian spells always have promises when dream-travel is involved. Protecting dreamers from nightmares, and...”

Jackie shook her head. “Those ethical constraints are really just formalities... and they don’t really have a place when I sell dreams for entertainment. I can’t promise I’m going to prevent nightmares if I’m selling them. This spell works without promises. It’s actually less expensive, magic-wise. Makes for less stable dreams, but... honestly, if something happens to cause instability, it’s probably better if the client does wake up. I’m no therapist.”

“Right.” Alex climbed into bed, laying on her side. “That makes sense.” True to Jackie’s word, she felt the sleeping spell take hold almost immediately, pulling her inexorably down towards unconsciousness. She could’ve resisted, or rolled out of bed, had she needed to.

The ways of dreams were not the ways of waking life. Even a neophyte to Luna’s strange arts like Alex understood that much. Transitions, for instance, were never as explicit as they were in reality. Rather, dreams were places of harsh cuts, changing from one location into the next. Archive found herself standing in her library. Jackie was there, though of course Archive could not remember her arrival. “You really want an answer?” Archive didn’t look away from her old friend. She could be embarrassed about many things, but not this. The torches of her library grew brighter near where she stood, responding to the determination that filled her.

“You know what, I think I fucking would.” The thestral stopped less than a foot away, throwing down the book. It landed awkwardly on the floor, pages splayed. “You drag me away from all my friends, tell me I’ll never get to see them again... Oh, wait. Then you ditch me so you can turn yourself into a fucking prophet.”

That was another truth about dreams, a truth they happened to share with alcohol: whether someone wanted to be honest or not, they generally were in their sleep. To lie in a dream, even by omission, was far harder than in mortal life. As such, Archive was not surprised to see Jackie’s thin veneer of tolerance wiped away for the anger she really felt underneath. A few surprising or kind things in the mortal world could not erase a decade’s neglect in a few minutes.

“There’s no excuse.” Archive took no joy in tormenting her old friend. Perhaps it would be more kind to leave her ignorant. Yet the consequences might be even worse if she did. “I still think you might be more forgiving if you knew. Ezri does— or I think she does. She still seems supportive.”

“You’re wasting my time, Archive. Explain or I’ll wake us up.”

Archive called upon her will, and in an instant the body of a mighty alicorn was replaced with her human shape. No longer a child, this Archive stood a full six feet, her body muscular and golden armor outshining the torchlight. The transition was abrupt enough that even the dream crafting thestral stumbled back a pace, eyes widening as she looked up. She looked afraid, like she might be about to run. “NO, JACQUELINE KESSLER!” With a gesture, the thestral was lifted into the air, to her head level. Archive stepped forward, putting a hand on the side of her head. In the real world she had never been a unicorn, but here she was a master of every magical art. It was hard not to be when you knew every spell. She wrote her own, and fueled it with her strength. “You are going to see!”

Jacky’s body twitched and kicked in the air. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, though no words came out. Mind magic of this complexity and power could not be resisted by a mortal pony, no matter how much experience they had with dreams. “The first time we shared a dream, I showed you the memories of my life. You want to know what could be worth your friendship over these last few years. Open your eyes and see the world as I do.”

Archive took in her memory of humanity since the Event. There were millions now, far too much for a mortal mind to hold. If she tried to show Jackie, the thestral would probably be driven insane. Since coming to live with the HPI, Archive had come to understand her powers a little better. When it came to memories, she had two distinct abilities: to see the human memories of a living person in her presence, or the memories of a dead human no matter where or when they died. She still didn’t know if the older memories, the ones before the Event, were fabrications of her subconscious or genuine history, but it didn’t matter now. She called upon the second power, and searched for every refugee who had died alone.

There were tens of thousands. Ponies who returned in jail cells or collapsed buildings, ponies who starved in the wild or were eaten by predators. Ponies who returned only a few miles from thriving cities but died of loneliness before they left their houses, or came back in the snow and froze. Archive found all these, and selected moments from each. Moments of absolute hopelessness, moments of rage and terror that all went unanswered. She let Jackie see it all.

The thestral no longer struggled to free herself from the spell. Her whole body had gone limp, and she wept openly. “Can’t save them all, can’t save them all, can’t save them all!” Jackie whimpered, opening one eye and looking up. “Stop! Make it stop!”

Archive stemmed the tide. “We both have nightmares sometimes. The difference is that mine really happened. Pain I should’ve prevented.” She gestured, and the thestral dropped from the air in front of her.

Jackie shivered, struggling to her hooves. Her whole body seemed paler. She didn’t meet Archive’s eyes anymore, anger entirely replaced with fear. “We’ve been offering to help you for years, but you always said it was too dangerous! Why are you—”

There was no sense in lying. “I think they might kill me soon. If they do...” Her stance faltered a little. “Someone has to continue my work. I would give it to my daughter, but...” She shook her head. “Ezri is a drone, not a thestral. Her mind isn’t meant to take knowledge from dreams. Yours is. First, I need you to take a look at this.” She gestured, and a slim book appeared in one of her hands. “I’ve got a real one I can give you too, and Athena has the manuscript should something happen.” She held it up, so the thestral could see. The cover was bright, lined with extremely intricate runes around the edges. In the center were bold letters, filling most of the space:

TRANSFORMED HUMAN, READ THIS!

Jackie stared. “What’s in there?”

Alex grinned, thrusting the book under her nose. “Why don’t you read and find out?”

* * *

Human!

Before you panic, before you freak out or run away or do something you regret, please read me! No, you don’t have to read the whole book, but you should at least read this. You won’t regret it.

If you’re reading this, then you’ve returned. You were living your life, perhaps working a field somewhere, or sitting at home or at school when suddenly the whole world disappeared. Buildings vanished around you, and you were suddenly outside. Your whole city vanished before your eyes. That, or it was transformed, and suddenly filled with strange animals.

You feel lost, confused, and alone. What’s worse, you’ve been transformed into a monster yourself. You’ve got fur, and maybe hooves or claws or fins. You can barely figure out how to move, and everything you feel is strange.

Let me be honest: You are lost, you are confused, but you do not have to be alone. All of humanity’s billions have or will suffer as you have. We share this pain as we have shared little else in our long history. First you will probably want to know why. I make a fantastic claim as answer: let the present transformation of the world be my fantastic evidence.

On May 23, 2015, a cosmic transformation took place centering in the core of our galaxy. In one moment, all the galaxy was bathed in a form of energy totally lethal to humanity. Had nothing been done about it, we would have all died in agony. Fortunately for all of us, our cosmic neighbors, adapted to living within this radiation, created a mechanism to transform each of us into their image, enabling us to survive.

Unfortunately for all of us, this mechanism did not just transform us, it scattered us about in time. Our population would not remain, but be distributed across the millennia to come. If you are reading these words, at least three hundred years have passed since this Event, and perhaps many more. Civilization has gone on, triumphed and been brought low, and many of us have returned to live out our lives in peace or suffering.

In all these years what has slowed our recovery the most is our ignorance. We have yet to recover to our pre-Event levels in population or technology because every one of us who returns is stripped of all that made us in our familiar world and left to our own feeble devices. Some of us get the benefit of experienced teachers to show us how these new bodies work, but many do not. Likewise, many of the innovations that enabled our previous society to live comfortably and well are not terribly difficult to recreate, but few of us had a reason to know them in our age of advancement and security.

This book endeavors to solve both difficulties in one. In its pages, I have detailed the basics of every species you may’ve become. You will find a few pages devoted to your eating habits, new lifespan, and new abilities, no matter what you have become. I have devoted several chapters to the working of high-energy radiation we now call “magic,” the existence of which can be readily demonstrated with the instructions I have provided.

Far vaster than this is the knowledge our species accumulated, as we grew ever-closer to understanding the universe. Detailing all of this would have been impossible, much as I wish I could have simply compacted the internet you knew into some easily consumable form and duplicated it for each of you. This could not be done, nor could any significant percentage of human achievement be summarized with a volume short enough to be easily carried and reference throughout your life.

Instead, I have with this book attempted to distill a seed of knowledge, which will readily unfurl and grow as it is investigated, presenting the next avenues to explore. It is likely you find yourself in a world backward and primitive compared to the one you knew: you need not be reconciled to live out the rest of your life in these conditions!

You do not have to retread all the steps we took in our first climb to sophistication and scientific understanding. Much of that development was a series of fortunate accidents, and often we wasted resources chasing blunders and technological red-herrings. Instead of retracing our steps, you will find in these pages several alternate routes plotted through the darkness of ignorance. Take whichever you prefer, in whichever order seems to best suit the situation you find yourself in.

This guide is not comprehensive, and much of what is contained here will suggest further avenues for innovation. Don’t give up because this book goes no further or assume no future advancements are possible.

We were all of us cruelly used, and now we suffer for it. Yet however discouraged you may feel, remember the legacy resting on your shoulders. Since our birth humanity has struggled through adversity, but we triumphed over all of it. Our time of complacency is over. I wish we could face this latest danger together, and overcome it together as we have many threats before... but that option was taken from us.

Many you meet will not understand you. This book contains tools to help you with translating and learning their languages. This will not help those you meet understand your world or the culture you come from, however.

Understand that every intelligent creature you meet was once human, or is the child some number of generations removed from you. Thanks to the scattering of time, that unsympathetic horse you meet today might actually be a distant grandchild of yours, descended through children who returned to Earth before you did.

Everyone you meet is part of this human family, if you look back far enough. Don’t isolate yourself, but learn the new world you’re in and integrate yourself with it. Find others like you, or make friends with those who never knew our world. Either way, don’t try to live alone. We were never a solitary creature, and we certainly aren’t solitary creatures now. You need family to survive the difficult life ahead.

Many you meet will ascribe to strange and fantastic ideas. The culture of magic and superstition may be alive and well in whatever time that you’ve landed in. It is true that a force we call magic exists, and can exert an influence over physical matter. Do not let this or your transformation take away the rationalism we fought so hard for. The universe behaves according to deterministic laws which can be measured, experimented upon, and verified. “Magic,” as it is now known, is just one of these forces we did not well understand before the Event. Do not be convinced that just because now some people can influence objects without touching them that suddenly superstitions have merit and must be considered: they do not.

This book, then, might be considered as much a quick-start guide to rebooting civilization as it is a set of tools by which to verify the claims people or societies make around you.

This book has been constructed according to these principles of magic. It is the culmination of hundreds of years of labor post-Event, and tens of thousands of years of labor prior to the Event. It is what I hope you will become: a fusion of the achievements of humanity and your new alien form, with the advantages of both and the disadvantages of neither.

You are not alone. However awful and upset you feel now, don’t ever think you don’t have the power to make the world around you better. We are all united in this, across the gulf of time. The diligent labor of millions before your return has tried to make our world great again. Before you go, I hope you’ll do your part to improve the world to come.

It will not get better unless we make it so.

—Archive

* * *

Time was a fickle thing in dreams. Archive wanted Jackie to see as much of the book as possible, but she was also powerfully conscious of the danger they were in. There was an urgency here, one she couldn’t ignore just because she wanted Jackie to see her manuscript. She would have plenty of time to do that in the real world... if she needed to. Jackie knew most of what the book had to say, after all. Ultimately, it was not the reason she had wanted to speak to her in a dream instead of in reality. She rose from her nearby chair, clearing her throat. “Jackie, I... Do you understand the idea?”

The thestral blinked, then looked up. “Oh, yeah. I guess I do.”

Archive reached out, setting one arm on Jackie’s shoulder. At her will, they teleported with a flash, moving several floors up in the library, standing right in front of a single locked door. She reached around her neck, removing the key. She slid it into the lock, but didn’t turn it. “No other human has seen what I’m about to show you.”

“What does—” The thestral shook her head. “You make even less sense than when we first met. Is this secret about helping humans, or about fighting the cult, or—?”

Archive unlocked the door, then reached over and draped the key over her friend’s neck, and pushed the door open. Stars apparently zoomed around a massive dark space, vast enough that none of its boundaries were visible from where they stood. “Come and see.” She started walking, hoping her old friend would follow. There was no floor in the vast space, but Archive ignored that. She had more important things to do than pretend to obey physics right now.

After a few moments' hesitation, Jackie took off and followed. Every foot into the room lit it better, as the spell reacted to their presence. A few shooting stars revealed themselves to be runes, written in a script so fine it would’ve taken a magnifier to read. The spell pulsed like something alive, responding to the humanity in them. It pulsed like a heartbeat, light flickering around the room. By the time they reached the center, the pulses came so regularly that the whole room was aglow. Standing (or flying) in the center, the spell was a divine masterpiece.

“You wrote this?” Jackie soared around the room, bringing flickering light with her as she went.

“No.” Archive took her book up from its sheath on her belt and flicked it open to an illumination spell. She read it, and filled the space with light. The room was a single sphere, a full half mile in diameter. Every inch of interior space was written over with the shape of the spell. She had to shout for Jackie to hear her. “The Equestrians wrote it. If what Sunset Shimmer told me is true, there were tens of thousands of authors. Some of them were spellcasters so powerful they could move stars. What you’re seeing is the preservation spell; the reason any of us survived the Event.”

“Why are you showing me this?” Jackie’s eyes scanned the spell, though of course she could understand very little of what she saw. “Unless... unless you’re going to change it? Can you—” She started to cry, fighting through her tears to keep talking. “Are you going to bring our families back?"

She started walking down, towards one particular section of the spell. “I would if I could, Jackie. Unfortunately, the spell has already sent ponies forward in time. I cannot call them back, and I don’t expect that to change. That doesn’t mean we have to abandon them, though. We can still help them.” She gestured, and a book appeared again in her hand.

“You saw the book I wrote. You read... well, you read some of it, enough to see the point. With a book like that in the hands of every refugee, we could change things. Think about... all the awful things that happen to refugees. Lots of those happen because we don’t have a clue what’s going on. When I started I was no better; I spent months wandering around like an idiot when life would’ve been so much easier if somepony had just told me what the hell was going on. This is my answer... all the answers a returning human might need, along with a few basic... utility functions. As much as I could cram down into a tiny, portable package.”

Jackie glanced between the sprawling room around them and the spell, her eyes wide. Archive could almost see the gears turning in the thestral’s head as she connected the two facts. A book she wanted to give to everyone and a spell that had sent everyone forward in time. She gaped as she finally put together the answer. “Hell no.” She retreated in the air a pace. “You do want to change the Preservation Spell! Didn’t you just tell me something about... tens of thousands of pony wizards made it or whatever? About the power that went into it coming from... gods?”

“Modify is a bit of a misnomer. As I said, there is no way to change the spell. It’s already run its course, it doesn’t truly exist anymore. The only bits of this that are left are the little threads binding every refugee, the ones that sent them into the future. Only those traces remain.” She gestured, and the two of them moved sharply sideways, towards one wall. As she did so, all the runes covering it began to illuminate. “Don’t feel the need to memorize all of this now... just store my whole dream. I’ve crafted a construct to explain all of this to you in the event of my death. She’s waiting—”

Jackie interrupted her, shoving on her shoulder in sudden indignance. “You can make figments?”

Archive had to search her memory in order to find the specific meaning of the word. As she guessed, it was a term from oneiromancy: a non sapient “actor” within dreams, which could respond in certain preprogrammed ways but lacked a soul or any flexibility. Most characters in most dreams matched this description. Making them was probably one of Jackie’s most basic jobs as a dream merchant, since she could custom-design just about anyone or anything a client might want.

“Not quite.” Archive shrugged. “Remember, the rules in here are whatever I want them to be. I can do unicorn magic. What I made was... well, a golem, I suppose. She’s on the bottom floor. I suppose she’s a figment, but... I promise she took me more work. I had to use principles of magic as I understand them, and that meant she was quite difficult. At least I was free to create as much magical energy as I wanted to power her. ANYWAY.” She nudged the thestral’s head, gently turning it to look at the wall again. “I know you won’t understand this yet. Just understand my intention: though we cannot call back the people that have been sent ahead, the Preservation Spell still has traces. It would be possible for someone clever or powerful to use those traces to locate each and every person, no matter where in space and time they arrive.”

She snapped her fingers, teleporting them again. Jackie landed on solid ground beside her in a smaller room, though... this one was just as important. It looked like a massive college lecture hall, though without any seating. Instead, multi-story rotating whiteboards lined every surface, each of them covered with markings. “This is the draft for my spell.” She gestured forward, at the largest section of wall. Transcribed onto plain paper, the spell probably would’ve had 10,000 lines, and many more runes. “This is the most important part. Locked into the Preservation Spell, it can create temporospatial gates to everywhere returning humans appear. No matter where in space or time they are, this will find them and open a door. A door big enough for one of these.” She set the book down on the table in front of them, from behind which a teacher might’ve lectured if one were here.

“I guess that makes sense.” Jackie turned, taking in all the other walls and the spells on them. “And what are... what are those?”

Archive frowned. “Being able to open a door isn’t the only thing we have to do, Jackie. The spell has to get power from somewhere; I’ve started drafting my solution on these boards here, but I’m not there yet. We don’t have enough Alicorns to get it running on their own, so it’ll probably take some creativity. Not to mention... we need billions of these books. It took centuries and automated printing to distribute that many bibles, back in our world. We... don’t have those things anymore.”

She walked up to another large section. “I determined it would require far fewer spells if the books themselves were locked into a sort of stable time-loop, returning to the distribution center when the life of the refugee ended. In that way, we would only need as many books as there would be refugees surviving simultaneously on the whole planet. This number would not be small, but... it wouldn’t grow so fast, either. Of course...”

She turned towards the last section of boards. “This brings us to the final problem. The book must survive that long, which requires a number of stasis spells be cast upon it to prevent various kinds of damage. More importantly, it needs to be written in the language of whoever receives it. Athena and I are both excellent translators, but we can’t know how many of a specific language to prepare and when they’ll be needed...” Archive stood a little straighter, unable to hide the pride she felt at the text on the rest of the boards. Even if Jackie didn’t know what the spells did, that didn’t make the accomplishment any less significant.

“This spell makes the book resonate with the soul of whoever gets it, kinda the way the Preservation spell does. It translates the text into whatever language the refugee knows best, using their own knowledge instead of any repository that would have to be created and maintained.”

Jackie collapsed to her haunches, taking in the room. “What do you expect me to do with all this, Alex?” She gestured around them with her hoof, though she indicated far more than just the one room. There was the whole library to think of, and the vast copy of the Preservation Spell.

“Maybe I’m the best dream pony there is. But dreams are all I know. I can’t print billions of magic books. I can’t figure out how to power this world-changing spell… what makes you think I had a chance to do that if even you couldn’t?” She frowned. “I know Ezri would move the moon for you if she could. For her sake, I’m happy to contribute whatever I can. It’s just… what I can isn’t that much.”

“I know.” Archive turned away, studying the lowest and currently unfinished board. “I just…” She slumped forward, catching herself against the wall. Her whole body started to shake, and tears streamed from her eyes. “I think they’re going to kill me, Jackie. If I’m gone next year, my work can’t die with me.”

“Why would that matter?” Jackie tilted her head to one side. “You’ve died since I met you and you seem fine. Aren’t you immortal?”

Alex turned around, facing the thestral. She couldn’t hide the terror and desperation from her expression. “The Initiative now serves Charybdis, a demon that came through from Equestria. It had a brother, Odium… it almost killed me for good the first time we fought.”

“If Odium knew how to kill me, Charybdis does too. I think his followers have been… planning something. I don’t know what. I think Athena got Isaac switched into the duty roster next week when we think it’s going down, but we can’t be sure.”

“Why bother killing you?” Jackie rose to her hooves again, indignant. “If you’re a political problem, can’t they just throw you out?”

“I know the Initiative's secrets, Jackie. I know you never figured out where this base is— I know. I know where all their little research posts are. I know where their hidden nuclear installations are, the ones ready to defend the city if ponies attack. I know all their safe houses and supply caches.”

“They think you’d betray all that?”

Archive shrugged one human shoulder. “It’s too big a risk.”

“Okay, so… why not lock you up? House arrest, somewhere.”

“Ah.” She looked up again. “It wouldn’t work either. No matter how secret about it they were, people would find out. I’m… Well, the majority of people down here respect me. Some even worship me. Or… what I represent. If the cult’s faction moved against me openly, it would be firing the first shots of a civil war.”

“But they can kill you?”

Archive nodded. “If they kill me for good, I can’t ever tell my supports what they did. Maybe all their preparations are a way to make it look like an accident. I work with dangerous machines all the time— if I died nice and publicly, but didn’t come back… well, my immortality is proof of the divinity I represent, at least to lots of people down here. If I blunder something, then don’t come back, I take away the people’s faith. My followers can claim foul play all they want— all the cult has to say is to ask me when I come back. When that doesn’t happen, well… who’s gonna even remember how I died? It won’t matter.”

“So you leave!” Jackie stopped only inches away, her ears and wings flaring with emotion. “You and ‘big sister’ are real close; have her steal you a ship and fly out! With you gone, Ezri and I should probably go too, but… God, they’d probably be coming for us either way if something happened to you, wouldn’t they?”

Archive nodded, resting a hand briefly on Jackie’s shoulder. “I’m working on evacuation plans. If anything happens to me, you two are gonna be out of the city before the day is out. You can live the rest of your lives far enough that not even the HPI can find you.”

She gripped Jackie’s shoulders tightly, tight enough that the thestral whimpered in pain. She ignored that. “If I can’t get myself out, you’ve got to keep my mission safe. Pass it on to somepony who can finish it, keep it safe until Sunset finds another candidate to be her human alicorn— whatever. Just don’t let it die with me. Please.”

The Eternal Lonely Day

by Starscribe

Chapter 1: Alexandria's Little Day (5 AE)

Chapter 2: Life in the Little City (5 AE)

Chapter 3: Little Disasters (5 AE)

Chapter 4: Take a Little Trip (20 AE)

Chapter 5: A Day's End (20 AE)

Chapter 6: Lonely no More (20 AE)

Chapter 7: Daytrip (50 AE)

Chapter 8: Bountiful Day (50 AE)

Chapter 9: Day of the Dead (50AE)

Chapter 10: A Little Favor (291 AE)

Chapter 11: A Little Walkabout (291 AE)

Chapter 12: Arrival Day (291 AE)

Chapter 13: A Little Chaos (291 AE)

Chapter 14: Spring Day (292 AE)

Chapter 15: Dream a Little Day (292 AE)

Chapter 16: A Little Deeper (292 AE)

Chapter 17: A Little Digging (292 AE)

Chapter 18: A Day for Justice (292 AE)

Chapter 19: The Day After (292 AE)

Epilogue 1: Day of Peace (293 AE)

Epilogue 2: Lonely Work (317 AE)