Two creatures travel into the depths of a far-off ice world on a mission: Find the tomb of the last alicorn.
Millenia after fleeing the Cataclysm that destroyed their homeworld, the globular cluster that has come be known the Forge is home to all manner of creatures. The old powers that launched the Exodus are long gone, and the current settlements live on their bones, scavenging what they can from the ancient magitech.
When a unicorn named Rutile Quartz learns of a sealed Crystal Empire vault that is speculated to be the tomb of the last alicorn empress, she swears a vow to help the researcher in search of it find and open the vault to learn the secrets within.
In the Forge, a vow is more binding than the strongest of magics, something the sworn will sacrifice anything to see done. But everything has a price, and the pony who sets hoof in the ancient Imperial vault may not be the same one who leaves it.
An entry in the 2023 Science Fiction contest. A crossover with the TTRPG Ironsworn Starforged. Familiarity with the game is not required. Other tag is for reindeer, umbrum, and Rabia A branch in the Eventide multiverse. Also check out author Patreon,Ko-Fi and commissions.
To say that the starship landed on the ice planet would be a charitable way of describing it.
The more accurate description would be that cobbled-together set of parts assembled around a FTL engine staggered its way through the atmosphere, its landing gear engaging a moment too late to avoid bashing and skidding its way along the ice sheets like a stone skipping across a pond. Once it'd finally stopped, it slowly tilted to one side, the name Crystal Heart barely visible on its hull, and the door on the side now pointed skyward gave a tell-tale hiss and started to open.
Rutile Quartz leaped out the door and lit her horn, the unicorn going into self-levitation on instinct to lower herself to the ice. She almost blended into her surroundings with her coat of blue-tinted white, but it also made her glossy black, cropped-short mane and tail stand out all the more, along with the stripe along her back and stripes on her lower legs of the same colour. Her soft blue magic faded as she found her hoofing, then looked over her shoulder at her companion.
Tundra lit her antlers and gave a tentative hop, plunging downward at first before her magic surged with a faint sound of jingling bells and she summoned the strength to defy gravity. The rust-red doe wobbled in the air in her barely-controlled descent, and scrambled to keep her hooves under her body when they met ice.
Rutile watched as Tundra eventually steadied, musing on the fact that she'd somehow ended up traveling with what may be the only reindeer in the entire galaxy who struggled to fly, then looked at the ship, taking in every dent in the metal with a hiss of, "Well, buck me..."
Tundra looked back, taking in what Rutile had, and immediately cringed. She then offered a tentative smile. "Hey, I mean... any landing you can walk away from..."
Rutile let out a deep sigh of frustration. "Easy for you to say. That's my ship. We're just lucky nothing in that debris field hit anything essential or breached the hull." She eyed Tundra as the doe pulled a metal disc from her pack. "You're sure this is the right planet?"
"It's the one the star map pointed to," Tundra said as the disc activated, holographic stars and planets springing into the air in front of the pair. She lifted a leg to jab a hoof toward one of the planets, prompting the map to zoom in. "If it's not, there's one other inhabitable planet in this sector, but it'd be a longshot."
Calling this planet inhabitable felt overly generous to Rutile. Neither of them were affected by the cold, but unless some serious terraforming and weather control was done, she couldn't see enough agriculture going on here to support a settlement.
Still, the Empire had supposedly been founded near the northern pole of the homeworld, so clearly they'd had the magic and technology once to make an environment like this barely an obstacle. The original refugees may have even found a place like this inviting, reminding them of home.
"Then we'd better pray to Cadenza the map was right." Magic coiled around her pistol, pulling the old thing out of its holster; there'd been two at first, a matched set, but like the integrity of her ship, its twin had been a casualty of their quest. "Which way does it say to go from here?"
Tundra zoomed in further, until she was looking at a near-flat plane with two blinking dots. She then glanced up at the yellow dwarf star hanging in the sky above them, and nodded. "This way."
With the gun still hovering next to her, Rutile followed Tundra over a snow-covered hill, scanning the the sea of white for movement. Sapient life may have left this world long ago, but that didn't mean it would be devoid of life entirely, and Rutile was ready to riddle anything that thought a pony and a deer looked like a bite-sized snack with bullet holes.
The cold iron of her medallion pressed against her chest, heavy around her neck. Just like it had been the first day.
"How old Imperial are we talking, here?"
Too many of Rutile's jobs had started in a place like this, watering holes built from the bones of old ships and smelling like apple cider and salt. She looked at home in here, but her conversation partner didn't, the doe twitching her ears at every little sound and looking like she was one harsh look away from bolting.
"Old." A datapad slid out of Tundra's pack, symbols in a language that Rutile couldn't read scrolling across its surface as it was laid upon the table. "It may be the first settlement the Empire founded after the Exodus."
Rutile snorted, and what followed was the voice of experience. "Which is old enough that it's almost certainly infested."
Tundra gulped. "Well...yes. That's why I was hoping for some firepower and not just transport. But it's not just the technology or data." She tapped a hoof on the screen, a particular set of symbols becoming highlighted in red. "There's signs that... it may be a tomb." She leaned closer to Rutile, lowering her voice. "An alicorn tomb."
Rutile froze. Her senses reached out in every direction, searching for a flare of emotion that would have come from an eavesdropper, and found none. "You have my attention."
"I can't guarantee it." She stared at the highlighted passage. "There's a few possible translations of this, but one of those translations can mean 'alicorn.'"
"So there's a chance." Light encased Rutile's medallion, lifting it over her head and placing it on the table. One of her hooves covered it, and she took a deep breath of air tinged with salt and spices. "I vow to bring you to this Imperial vault, and help you find whatever's inside."
There was no magic in the act, save for what had briefly levitated the iron. There didn't need to be.
Tundra's eyes had gone wide. "You... a vow? Just like that?" She sputtered as Rutile placed the chain back around her neck. "We haven't even discussed payment and you just--"
Magic surrounded metal again, and she turned the medallion around, showing the heart engraved on its surface. "If the empress is in there, that's worth a lot more to me than coin."
At a distance, the metal doors would have blended in shockingly well with the surrounding ice and rock. Standing right in front of them, however, and Rutile could only stare up and imagine the titans who would have used them. Alicorns were supposed to have been much larger than ordinary ponies, but she struggled to imagine anything short of a dragon needing such a door. Even most vehicles would have clearance to spare.
Tundra was poking around to the left of the doors, and she finally managed to uncover something that had been buried in the snow. It looked far more scaled for ponies, a metal structure that came up to roughly Rutile's eye level and had a slot in the top. "This looks like the opening mechanism. You said you had an idea of how to get in?"
Rutile nodded, and the chain around her neck lifted. Her medallion slid into the structure, and then the glow around her horn intensified. Tundra gave a surprised bleat and hopped back as the beam of magic struck metal, but Rutile was too focused to say anything.
The first component was iron.
The second was magic.
The third was love.
And so she kept the spell flowing, and she thought of home. She thought of parents, and of friends. She thought of support, care and hope, that eventually turned to tearful goodbyes and the fear that it would be the last goodbye. And when the last bittersweet memory of a too-short foalhood had fallen past her mind's eye, the doors hissed, and slid open.
Rutile walked in, leaving the medallion as her offering to the structure. Tundra hurried after her with an awed expression, and squeaked when the doors slammed shut again, nearly catching her short tail. "Root--!"
Rutile didn't look back. Light-crystals reacted to their proximity, slowly taking on a flickering light, but her eyes still hunted for movement in the shadows. "Look alive. A vault this old is bound to be hosting trouble."
"But--Th-the key..."
"I'm the key," she said simply. "The metal's just a conduit. If we don't find something that'll fit in the lock before it's time to get out, I'll improvise." She briefly looked back at the trembling doe. "Now move, and keep your eyes and ears open for an ambush."
The Crystal Empire hadn't existed in millennia, and this vault may have been one of the first things they built. Sealed to only be opened with the right key, it couldn't have been breached in ages. Setting hoof inside, walking over the metal floor, Rutile kept expecting layers of dust and the tell-tale taste of recycled air, like a ship in the middle of a long voyage.
And yet, the floors and walls looked freshly cleaned, and the air was cool and crisp. Even the light-crystals seemed to only be flickering as part of their activation cycle, not from age. It was like she was walking into an active facility, just with all the workers having left and the signage in a language she couldn't read.
With only her and Tundra's breathing and hooves, alongside the hum of the crystals and her own magic, for company, the barely-audible snap stood out with the starkness of a gunshot. And shortly afterward, the space they were in started to warp.
The creatures that appeared were in the general shape of ponies, but it was like their parts had been popped off and replaced with that of other creatures like a foal taking apart their toys. Unusual paws, claws, wings, horns, and tails bedecked the chaospawn, and they moved jerkily around the room like puppets on strings.
"Knew it." Rutile pointed her gun at the nearest spawn as Tundra raced toward a computer terminal. She eyed the door behind it, the crystal nearby lit up red in what seemed to be the universal signal for locked. "Can you get us through there?"
"Yes, but it'll take time!"
"Then I'll hold them off." The light around her horn surged, and several sets of mismatched eyes were drawn to the light. "COME GET SOME!"
The minotaur's left arm was gone from the elbow down, and a thaum-cannon was grafted to the stump in its place. His gnarled face was twisted into a grin as he and his goons advanced on them, and only laughed when Rutile's twin pistols slid from their holsters.
"It's nothing personal, little pony," he boomed. "The Order of the Two Sisters has a huge price on your head, and there's nothing more profitable than when a bounty's marked dead or alive."
The diamond dog to his right gave his own wicked grin. "Bet that horn will sell for a good price, and I hear pony hearts have a few good uses too." His eyes then landed on Tundra. "And those antlers and pelt will look good on someone's wall."
Tundra shook violently behind Rutile, who gritted her teeth. "You want pieces of us?" She leveled both pistols directly at the minotaur's head. "THEN COME GET SOME!"
Bullets didn't do much to chaospawn.
Well, no, the bullets definitely did something. They struck, and they left a hole. It just didn't seem to be slowing them down any and Rutile wasn't sure they really noticed the bullet holes now decorating their torsos and heads. She remembered settlements who'd been overrun by the things, where the inhabitants had resorted to dropping rocks on them, because that would keep them in one place and they'd eventually stop moving as whatever force was animating them presumably got bored.
Unfortunately, in this smooth metal hallway, she was all out of boulders to crush the advancing spawn with, though she was getting some luck in aiming for legs and wings, as they seemed to obey just enough natural laws to need those in order to move. Once she ran out of bullets, she started slinging bursts of magic to give her cover for a reload, and that did a little more; Rutile didn't know many spells, but she was able to add just a little bit of fire to the edges of what were otherwise raw bursts of magic, and one of the ones with goat horns and a mermare tail shrieked as the flames spread through shockingly flammable fur and scale.
Tundra was frantically mashing at the interface with her hooves, but thankfully none of the chaospawn seemed interested in her compared to the unicorn hurling metal and fire at them. While that was entirely the point of Rutile making a spectacle of herself, it did mean that the horde of at least a dozen pony-sized beasts were heading right for her and she only had one gun and one horn. She was backing up to try to keep in ideal firing range, and she knew that she was going to run out of floor to back up over.
That happened a little sooner when she suddenly had to leap forward away from the snapping jaws of a spawn with the head of a timberwolf, that'd managed to get behind her. Her shoulder slammed into a part of the wall, that, rather than simply making the usual sound of flesh meeting unyielding steel, proceeded to beep at her.
That beep was followed by part of the wall opening, and the clatter of something hitting the floor. Rutile risked a look, and her ears perked. "What have we got here?"
She slid one of her front legs into the device, and watched with a whirr as the plates of metal latched on to fit her perfectly. She then pointed the muzzle of what looked a lot like a cannon at the timberwolf-like spawn, and the device roared to life, the beam of light that erupted from it handily slicing the spawn in half.
Rutile's face lit up like a foal who'd just gotten five years' worth of birthday presents at once. "Oh now we're talking!" She whirled around and pointed her leg at the sheep-like spawn in front of her with four wings, but rather than forming another ray of death, all she got were a series of beeps that she didn't need to be an expert on magitech weapon to know meant out of charge.
"Buck." Her pistol flew up and she took out the spawn's front legs with a pair of well-aimed shots, then leaped backward over the pieces of the one behind her, trying to regain some distance. She didn't expect the snake-like tail of the half-a-spawn to coil around her leg and send her crashing to the floor.
Breathe, came an old mantra. Embrace the pain. Make it theirs.
Rutile twisted, and her free hind leg slammed into the base of the snake tail, freeing her and sending her skidding back. She harnessed the momentum to roll to her hooves, and went for the eyes of a spawn with the front limbs of a bear. It roared in apparent pain, but that didn't stop it from rearing and knocking the gun from her telekinetic grip with a swipe of its claws, the wide swing sending them grazing her shoulder as well. Even the tips of those claws tore through her flesh with ease, and droplets of blood hit the floor like spilled rubies from an overturned jewelry box.
Rutile raised the thaum-cannon, frantically probing at it with her magic, and when she heard a beep that she prayed meant that it'd recharged, she aimed at the bear-spawn. The beam fired again, and Rutile's horn blazed as she directly fed it her magic, watching the beam widen and not so much cut as obliterate the chaospawn, as well as several behind it.
She also felt new pain as the metal against her front leg grew hotter and hotter, the scent of burned flesh and hair more than just her targets', but she didn't stop, not until she had to in order to catch her breath. Stumbling on three legs as the fourth was trapped in red-hot metal, she looked at Tundra. "I could use that bucking door!"
"You try translating ancient computing code, then! This coding language doesn't exist anymore!"
Rutile cast a quick cooling spell on the cannon, and instantly regretted it as the icy feeling almost felt worse than the heat. She probed at the gun more, searching for something else, anything--
There was a whirring, clicking, and more beeps, and something new fired from the muzzle. Rather than a beam, an orb of magic soared in an arc and landed in a group of spawn. Once it hit the floor, it exploded, sending them flying in all directions, in varying levels of whole.
For a moment, despite it all, she couldn't help but grin. I'm in love.
Rutile saw the doors fly open to Tundra's triumphant, "Got it!" and she ran, seizing up her pistol and companion both in her telekinesis as she bolted for the opening. The muzzle of the cannon automatically folded in, and it clanged against the floor as her focus narrowed to the point of safety, ignoring the agony that lanced through her with every step.
The moment they were through, the doors slammed closed again behind them without a moment to spare, and Rutile collapsed in a panting heap. It was over.
Or just beginning.
"Foal of a--"
Rutile jerked away from the burn of the antibiotic gel on her gashes, Tundra needing to duck under one of her kicking hooves. Far from the shaking mass of fur and antlers earlier, the narrow avoidance of a broken jaw didn't seem to phase her any. "Hold still, Root." Dark green magic tugged at Rutile's now-bare front leg, a different gel starting to spread over the places where coat was gone and only painful flesh remained. "You're lucky you weren't burned worse, with how much magic you were forcing through that thing. What were you thinking?"
"I was thinking I didn't want to be torn apart by chaospawn," she spat back, and looked at the cannon laying on the floor nearby. "And I didn't know it'd overheat. I'd never seen a thaum-cannon do that."
The device had looked enough like the old minotaur's for her to guess its function, but now she had the opportunity to look at it more carefully. His had been battered and dented, the paint where he'd marked it with his name and crew symbol fading, and there had been signs of hasty welding to provide the modifications necessary to use it as a prosthetic rather than having a limb inside. Meanwhile, this one was sleek and showed no signs of wear or tear, with a set of symbols--a model number, perhaps?--engraved along one side as the only mark on it.
"That's because they have sinks to vent off excess magic." Tundra glanced sideways at the cannon, then continued her work. "This one is old and probably experimental. It's not going to be up to standard."
With infection warded off and burn treatment complete, Tundra shook the spray bottle of bandaging concoction, and Rutile flinched at the initial touch of the foam-like substance as it spread along her wounds. "It still packs a bigger punch than my pistol." The painkilling effect soon, mercifully, set in and it solidified in a flexible, semi-transparent covering. "I'll just be more careful with it from now on."
Tundra inspected the covering, presumably hunting for any flaws in the seal. "I'm hoping you won't need to use it again. I'm pretty sure those doors were sealed to keep the spawn out."
"Or keep something worse in."
"Do you have to be so pessimistic all the time?"
"Well, given that, after I made my vow to you, we've--" Rutile started tapping the hoof of her uninjured front leg against the floor to count. "--Been chased off a world by zealots, had to shake a hunter looking to saw my horn off, had to do a hasty patch job on my ship's artificial gravity generator in Harmony-forsaken nowhere, had a close encounter with an ages old debris field..."
"I get it, I get it..." Bottles and jars floated back into the medkit. "Well, short of us getting to a planet with a proper hospital, that's the best I can do. Just take it easy on that leg."
Rutile snorted a little as she got to her hooves. "No promises."
Rutile Quartz knew that she was, charitably put, a bit of a brute. She'd been firmly part of her settlement's lowest class, a unicorn born for labour. Her magic hadn't been seen as useful for much that wasn't hauling and lifting things with telekinesis, and so all of her spells had been self-taught. And when a pony didn't have a wide range of magic, but could pick things up, one of those things ending up being a gun when danger reared its head--or when the mare who claimed to own the planet sent one too many taxcreatures and needed to be reminded that she was outnumbered by her supposed inferiors--was a natural result.
She didn't have a formal education, and much of her understanding of history had come from the stories her parents had filled her head with and her own hunt for books about the Crystal Empire. It meant that she didn't know what the change in architecture meant, but the difference was still stark. The halls they'd found the chaospawn in had been more angular, while these didn't have a hard edge in sight, instead flowing together in almost organic-looking curves, despite being built of what looked to be the same metal as before.
Tundra, now out of immediate danger, looked enthralled, and the sensation of her awe was a nice change from the fear. "It's fascinating how well-preserved this is. This facility has to be thousands of years old, and yet..." She peered at a computer terminal, squinting at the symbols on the screen. "I wonder what they were doing here. Military research?"
Rutile shrugged, and glanced at her thaum-cannon, now attached to the other front leg to keep from aggravating her burns; that was one advantage to being a hoofed species, that it was easier for technology to be swappable from limb to limb. "If this was the first world they settled, then probably. You can't be an empire with just one planet."
She'd known that there'd been wars... but to say "there'd been wars" was a bit like saying "ice turned into water." Conflict felt like such a fundamental part of life that it went without saying. The Crystal Empire had had enemies, and had eventually succumbed to the cumulative damage. Tale as old as time.
It was as she was musing that Rutile placed down the hoof on her burned leg, and suddenly everything was cold. The warping was different this time, with no sense of things outside clawing their way in, but instead a sense of being yanked elsewhere, and she heard Tundra's distressed bleat as she was pulled along too.
The walls were the same organic shapes, but now the metal was barely visible through the green, wax-like substance caked onto it. Cocoons large enough to hold ponies hung from the ceiling, and clusters of eggs were nestled in corners. And in front of the pony and reindeer both were several forms of buzzing, hissing, fang-baring black and green.
Hunger pushed in on Rutile's mind from all sides, and her heart ached.
"See what I mean? Something worse." She tossed her pistol toward Tundra, who nearly dropped it as her magic fumbled, then leveled her cannon at the largest of the hissing, equinoid shapes. "Let's see how you like this."
"I would hope you'd reconsider. This path you're on will only lead to ruin."
Rutile glared at the changeling in front of her, his exoskeleton shining a brilliant, pearlescent white that threatened to burn her eyes. She knew that wasn't what he really looked like, because everyone who wore those blue and pink robes made a point to look as similar as they could. Ponies and other creatures limited to mundane ways of changing their appearance would bleach their fur, feathers, and scales, but changelings' natural glamour led to them effortlessly making themselves into the shining stars they wished to be. The ones in the deep blue and silver robes would do similar, making themselves the deepest, glossiest black.
She liked to think that the actual changeling under that illusion was something much less glamourous. Maybe dung brown, with a dash of puke green to go with it.
"Your king and the empress were allies once. Practically family." She looked at his golden sun medallion and made no attempt to hide her grimace. "I don't see why you'd throw in your lot with the Order."
"He was never my king," the changeling scoffed. "The time of kings, queens, emperors and empresses is long gone, little pony. You'd do best not to chase shadows of the past."
Rutile took the mental image of a dung brown and puke green changeling, and added the detail of him being shorter than her. "That's rich, when your goddesses are long dead."
"The Sisters can not and will not ever truly die. They simply shed Their mortal shells and now live on in every moon and star." He bared his teeth at her, and for a moment, she could almost see fangs. "Unlike the false alicorns."
She looked at him, and she hoped he choked on her revulsion. Rutile looked at him and saw a changeling brimming with love, his body barely able to contain all that had been offered him. Freely given to him, and then shared... with a select few of his rank. Elites passing around goblets overflowing with affection, who never thought to give back to those on the fringes. Sharing love made it more filling, made it last longer, but she had seen the way isolation could still slowly starve.
She had seen what happened when the glimmer faded and the holes started to form, but he never would. He was insulated, pampered, bathing in more adulation than he could ever consume. Enough that he didn't seem to even be able to taste her loathing.
"You have my answer," came the words through clenched teeth. She turned away, finally sparing her eyes the shine of worthless false pearl. "It won't change."
"Such a waste," came his voice like poisoned honey behind her. "Your unique magic would be of great use in aiding the starving."
Rutile stopped. Allowed the few moments that would allow him, in his arrogance, to think she may look back.
Instead, she kept staring straight ahead as she kicked him in the face.
Compared to the chaospawn, bullets did a little better here. While their exoskeletons were harder to pierce, at least a fatal shot had the decency to actually make them stop moving. Tundra wasn't doing half bad handling the pistol, once she'd gotten a feel for the weight and recoil, and Rutile regularly heard the sound of a shot landing and a body hitting the floor.
The thaum-cannon, on the other hand, seemed to be having some difficulties, mostly because these were flying targets who retained just enough higher brain function to dodge the beams of death. Chaospawn were powerful, but had no self-preservation instinct, spreading havoc for unknown reasons. Here, Rutile could understand entirely why she was under attack, though understanding didn't mean that she didn't need to fight back.
"What in all loving grace did we walk into?" Rutile hollered as she fired off a beam that managed to clip a drone's wing, sending it careening into a wall.
"My best guess? An alternate reality."
"Oh is that all?"
"You asked." Tundra fired off a series of shots that felled a drone, tried to fire off a couple more to no result, and hastily started to reload. "Anywhere with chaospawn is going to have some tears in the veil. This is probably a timeline similar to ours, just one where these... whatever they are infested the facility."
"They're changelings."
"They're what?"
"I said they're changelings." Rutile fired off a spell as the cannon recharged, and the pained screams as the flame consumed the drone she'd struck buried itself deep, ready to emerge again in her nightmares. "I found a nest like this once. This is what they turn into when they're starved of love."
It was a lie. She had seen this more than once. She'd heard that changelings had once thrived as allies of ponykind, stalwart friends who grew stronger the more they were loved, but that had been on the homeworld, where a hive with resources running low could easily pack up and move closer to a community they could integrate into. The vast distances of a post-spaceflight era had not been kind, and sometimes things happened to cut them off and make everything shut down but the barest necessities to survive and the instinct to feed on the first living soul they found.
Tundra looked at the largest of the changelings, and seemed to be looking with new eyes. "I don't suppose you could love us out of this, then?"
The pain in her heart was near unbearable. "I would if I could, but they're too far gone." I'm sorry. "Duck and cover!"
Tundra obeyed, leaping back and summoning a thin barrier. Rutile activated the cannon, and the orb of magic flew. It struck the starving royal, the explosion obliterating them and all drones unfortunate enough to be close, and that's when the ranks broke, survivors scurrying off into dark corners and giving mare and doe alike room to breathe.
"Okay..." Rutile looked around. She could still sense the hunger, now mixed with potent fear, and but it didn't give her a lock on the direction of the stragglers. "Now, let's find a way back to our reality before they decide they want a round two."
Tundra nodded, her antlers lighting up as she closed her eyes, swinging her head left and right. "It's hard... to get a grip... on..." She suddenly pointed to a spot beyond what was left of the fallen royal. "Here, I think."
Rutile walked toward the indicated spot, and she felt the sudden chill and sense of being pulled before she was back in the sleek metal hall again. She sighed in relief, and glanced over as Tundra faded into sight beside her. "Care to say anything else? Like 'I'm glad that's over' or 'I hope we don't run into any more of those'?"
"No, I'm good." Tundra took off at trot, but Rutile didn't need to be an empath to see the shaking in her legs. "Let's keep going."
"Finally, after all this time, somepony competent..."
Rutile paused, ears perked, listening for more of what she'd thought was a barely-perceptible whisper. Silence reigned for a long moment, and then she shook her head and followed Tundra. Just an aftereffect of the assault on her empathic sense, she reasoned.
The architecture had changed again. The organic shapes were gone, and the angular ones had returned. The difference here, however, was that the light-crystals seemed to have burnt out; no flickering of activation started up as they walked, and so Rutile and Tundra were primarily finding their way around via their own magical glow.
Tundra was still hanging onto the pistol, and it surprised Rutile a bit how at home it already looked in her grasp. Tundra was full of surprises, really, the way she would snap from trembling in fear to focused and determined when the circumstances were right, and right now, while fear was still present, she mostly just seemed ready to shoot the next thing that tried to jump out and try to take a chunk out of them.
Maybe she'd even let her keep the gun, when the expedition was over, since Rutile herself had a new best friend strapped to her leg. A friend who'd given her some nasty burns, but hey, when you were a unicorn, making accidentally getting lit on fire a dealbreaker for a friendship was a way to not have many friends.
It was getting cold again. No sense of warping, but still a deep, unnatural cold, and Rutile felt something brushing against her legs in the dark, like smoke or mist. She stopped, and so did Tundra, with horn and antlers both lighting up brighter to try to pierce through the gloom.
The darkness didn't seem to like that much at all, and the cold grew thicker as the smoke surged in front of them, starting to form vaguely pony-like shapes.
"Just like clockwork." Rutile sighed and raised her cannon. "Alright, everypony get in line so I can blast you in an orderly fashion."
Spaceflight involved a lot of waiting.
Faster-than-light travel had been mastered millennia ago, but that incredible feat was still slow compared to the unfathomable distance between stars. It meant that a journey from one sector to another had a lot of downtime involved, and a creature needed to find ways to pass the time. Sleeper ships were a thing of the past, and besides, being on ice meant that, if something went wrong, there may not be time to wake up and fix it.
They'd jumped their way between a few inhabited planets and space stations--only one of them had been welcoming enough for them to come and go without being actively shot at--but now the path to the sector on Tundra's ancient star map involved a lot of empty space. Having needed to patch up the artificial gravity generator once on this journey already, that's where she was when Tundra found her, looking over the mechanisms in the hope her hasty patch job would hold.
Old technology and data could be worth a lot. Maybe after she paid the bribes necessary to get the bounty off her head, there'd be enough to fix up her starship. Replacing it was out of the question, not when the old filly of a ship had saved her neck countless times.
She was aware of the doe before she spoke. Even if Rutile hadn't already been able to sense her via magical means, the distinct 'click click' of reindeer hooves would have given her away. But even though she knew her temporary crewmate was there, she didn't expect Tundra to stare at her like that and offer only a single word. "Why?"
Rutile didn't look away from her hovering tools. "Why what?"
"Everything."
"You're still going to need to be more specific."
Tundra let out a sigh of frustration. "I put out a commission for someone who could protect me on his expedition, and I got somepony who seems to be even more determined to open the vault than I am." More clicking brought Tundra into Rutile's field of vision. "You want to find the resting place of the Crystal Empress, to the point that you'll make a vow, chase me through life-threatening circumstances, and get yourself branded a heretic, for even a chance that this is her tomb." The next repetition came with more force in her voice than she'd thought Tundra capable of. "Why?"
Rutile was silent for a while, as she put away her tools one-by-one. Then she turned to face Tundra properly. "You're a historian. So, do me a favour and tell me what you know about the Crystal Empire."
Irritation rolled off Tundra, and she gave another sigh that was almost a growl, but then she took a breath, and Rutile listened to her voice take on the quality of lecturer. "The Crystal Empire was one of the pre-Exodus powers. They're known as the original homeland of the crystal genetic variant of pony, who were superficially similar to earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns but had their own magic, primarily circling around emotional detection and manipulation."
Rutile silently noted the use of past tense, and said nothing.
"Most of the inhabitants of the Empire were ponies, crystal and otherwise, but by the time of the Cataclysm, they also had significant populations of changelings, yaks, yeti, penguins... and reindeer." Tundra's ears twitched uneasily, but it didn't stop her for long. "Their heraldry is dominated by an icon referred to as the Crystal Heart, which is believed to have been a symbol of their loving and welcoming ideals.
"The Crystal Empire was the last faction to be under alicorn rule, after the elder generation of alicorns died off and only Empress Flurry Heart remained." Ears twitched again, then drooped. "From there... records are fuzzy. The Empire was at war with several other factions, continued to lose territory and... eventually collapsed.
"Only the vaults remain, but most of them are corrupted. Our best guess for why is that the decaying magic in the archo-technology draws in chaospawn, and they keep ripping up the integrity of the surrounding reality until it's untraversable. Of course, the Order of the Two Sisters just likes to use it as evidence that the Imperial family were heretical, nevermind that Equestrian vaults have had the same problem and that most agree that the Equestrian and Imperial alicorns were friends and allies."
Tundra huffed. "There, your ancient history lesson. Now why did you have me recite all that?"
Rutile, who'd been motionless as she listened, rotated her body slightly. "Look at my flank."
"Excuse me?"
"My mark. What is it of?"
Tundra seemed to be on her last nerve--it was news to Rutile that she had nerves to be on her last of--but she still humoured her, peering at the mark. "Well, it looks like a chunk of your namesake, rutile quartz. Black rutile quartz, to be exact. White crystal with several black incisions running through it."
"And what is it in the shape of?"
Realization dawned. "...A heart." Tundra suddenly glared. "Are you really going to boil this down to 'my magic tattoo says so?'"
"Not quite." Rutile started to move away from the mechanism and back toward what passed for living quarters in the cramped ship. "You listed off reindeer back there. Let me guess, you can trace your ancestry back to the Empire?"
Tundra shook her head a bit. "No one can definitively trace themselves back that far." She sought out the chair in the small sitting room that, in the time they'd been travelling together, seemed to have unofficially become hers. "But I'm relatively certain." She went about arranging herself on the chair in a rough approximation of a loaf, her longer legs unable to fully tuck beneath her body like a pony's. "That's what you're doing too, then? Chasing your heritage?"
Rutile nodded as she hopped up onto the old couch and settled in. "And some answers about it." She glanced at her mark herself, briefly. "Ones that maybe this old vault can answer."
"It's still a lot of trouble to go to for just answers."
Rutile snorted. "I don't see you bailing out, either. You're technically a heretic, too, now. They just got generous with my bounty after I kicked that bishop."
"...I see your point." Tundra managed a weak smile. "I hope we both get everything we're looking for out of this. If we're going to end up in the history books ourselves, I'd rather it be for the right reasons."
Rutile smiled back. "Me too."
The pistol had been abandoned quickly, and Tundra was pressed to Rutile's flank as both of them fired off blasts of magic. The incorporeal creatures didn't burn in response to the fire that Rutile was slinging at them, but the light of the flames seemed to be enough to send them recoiling, hissing and shrieking. It was the same with the thaum-cannon, the raw force of the magic not seeming to do as much harm as the bright light its beams gave off.
"A shame that so many of my children have fallen... but then, if mere wisps could stop you, you wouldn't be worth my time..."
The whisper was nearly lost in the roar of the cannon, and even as she focused on driving back the shadowy creatures, Rutile subconsciously flicked her ears, trying to find where it had come from and better make out the words.
When the final wisps faded and the oppressive supernatural cold lifted, Rutile snorted and shook, as if trying to remove the last of the unwanted presence with the motion. Tundra made her way over to one of the security terminals, and she, meanwhile, scanned her surroundings, looking for anything that was still amiss.
Slowly walking over to where the shadows had been clustered caused a sudden hiss, and she watched as a panel in the wall slid open. She then found herself staring into glass, and at the crystal visible through it.
"Yes, that's it, little pony... Come closer..."
It looked like her cutie mark. Pale quartz in the rough shape of a heart, with lines of black running through it. Ancient text she couldn't read was below it, and as she stared, a light seemed to pulse in the depths of the crystal's structures.
"A layer of glass is nothing that you can't break through, my champion. Come and claim what's yours..."
Her burned leg raised, hoof coming to rest on the glass. A chill seemed to be spreading along her hips, and she didn't notice her mark starting to shine with its own inner light.
"Root!"
Rutile jerked back away from the glass as if she'd been struck, and turned to look at where Tundra was peering at her, radiating concern. "Huh?"
"I said I've got it." She angled her head, gesturing at the computer screen with her antlers. "The same bypass commands worked as the last time."
"Oh." Rutile looked at the quartz one last time, then shook her head a bit and headed for the now-open doors at a trot. "Good work."
It seemed like the best description she had for the crawling sensation that make her feel like something was watching her, and doing so with disapproval. She'd never put any stock in the horseapples of alicorns ascending after death--dead was dead, and everypony and everyone would eventually cross the River of Souls and see whatever was on the other side in their own time--and so she'd, in turn, never felt that her actions were being weighed and measured by a force that she couldn't see. Even when she occasionally sent a prayer to Mi Amore Cadenza, that was more foxhole mentality than true belief...
But right now? Something felt like it was making itself at home behind her eyes, thin legs skittering through her grey matter and making her hairs want to stand on end. And she wanted it gone, as soon as possible, especially because whatever it was made a headache bloom behind her eyes whenever she brightened her horn to compensate for the continued lack of light; the crystals were still burnt out in this section, and so she wasn't surprised when she saw dark smoke starting to resolve into equine shapes.
These ones were a little more distinct, and as they formed, hints of different colours started to be seen in their smoky bodies. Three in total, one had a hint of bronze, another a dash of aquamarine, and one a brush of pink. It was the last of those who spoke, breathing out, "Cryssstal...?" in a raspy hiss.
Talking was new, but Rutile raised her cannon-wearing leg all the same. "I'm starting to get real tired of fighting off monsters, so if you've got more words, use them carefully."
"Wait!" The bronze one surged forward. "We're not your enemy, cryssstal unicorn. There'sss no need for usss to come to blowsss."
"Crystal unicorn?!"
Rutile ignored the outburst from Tundra, her cannon still trained on the shadow and smoke. "Really? Because we already had a close encounter with some creatures that looked a lot like you."
The aquamarine one shook their head, making the suggestion of a mane ripple. "Thossse were jussst shadesss. Fallen remnantsss. We're true umbrum, and after thousssandsss of yearsss down here, we're not interesssted in picking a fight with the firssst new faccce."
"Umbrum? Root--"
"I know what umbrum are," Rutile cut Tundra off. "My parents told me the story of Sombra and Radiant Hope."
She'd already suspected that that was she'd been fighting before, but she found herself believing them that those hadn't been true, whole umbrum. These three were much more like what had been described to her as a foal.
"Sssomepony who remembersss the old ssstoriesss?" The pink umbrum rippled with excitement, and voids where eyes should have been still managed with widen with delight. "Then you know that umbrum can choossse to be more than monssstersss. We don't have to fight."
Tundra was radiating terror, and Rutile could feel her pressing close, their fur intermeshing. She still kept her eyes trained on the trio. "You've been here for thousands of years, you said."
"Yesss. We've been locked--"
"In the inner chamber." She bobbed her head at the hall past the umbrum. "Is there an alicorn there?"
All three went still and silent for a long moment. Then the bronze one spoke, quietly. "You ssseek the Cryssstal Empressss."
"Yes. And if we're not enemies, then you know what would prove it?" She angled her head slightly, to indicate Tundra. "Helping us get down there to set her free."
The aquamarine one seemed to bristle. "She'sss the reassson this placcce hasss been sssealed. Why we were sssealed in with her, asss a ssside-effect." The bristling smoothed, and they made motions of a breath they didn't need to take. "But... forgivenessss isss part of change, isssn't it? No longer keeping old grudgesss."
They all looked at each other, and each gave a nod, before the bronze one spoke up again. "We'll help you, cryssstal unicorn. If. You do sssomething for usss firssst."
Rutile raised a brow, finally lowering her cannon to the floor. "What do you want?"
The pink one turned sombre. "Our mother."
The spider in Rutile's brain ceased its skittering, and the headache started to clear. "...Keep talking."
Glass shards bounced off Tundra's shield as the case exploded. The crystal that'd been within hit the floor and skidded a short distance, without a single chip or scratch.
Once the debris settled, Rutile headed for the hunk of quartz, dodging Tundra's attempt to grab her short tail and telekinetically pull her back. "Root, this is way too dangerous. The umbrum--"
"Are the ancient enemy of the crystal ponies. An enemy so old, they predate the Exodus." Pale blue magic seized the stone, and she rotated it in the air as she took in every angle. "A lot of things have changed, Tundra. And as the last crystal pony left, I think I get a say in whether to keep that grudge."
"You're..." Tundra came up to her side, watching the quartz as if it may leap out and bite her. "They... were right...? You're a crystal?"
Rutile snorted and gave a sardonic smile. "You really never noticed, historian?"
"My specialty is archo-tech!" she blurted defensively. Then, looking over the mare with fresh eyes, she continued, "Unicorns can have a wide range of spells, including emotion-based ones, so you being an empath didn't seem too strange. And you don't look..."
"Sparkly?" Rutile offered, then rolled her shoulders in a shrug. "Either that part's a myth, or there's a trigger for it I've never found. The actual signs are subtle, subtle enough that my own parents thought I was just a mutant at first." Her ears drooped a bit as she sighed. "Maybe there's the potential for more, lurking around in pony genetics." She glanced at her mark. "But trust me, right now I know for certain that I'm the only crystal pony in the galaxy."
At those words, the quartz shuddered in her grasp, and the blue started to be consumed by impenetrable black. The crystal jerked, Rutile's magic hold breaking and it soaring down to slam into her chest. She could faintly hear Tundra calling her name as her legs gave out, knees slamming into the floor, but she was too consumed by the pain to respond.
"Finally my waiting pays off..."
Her veins burned like lava had been poured into them, and the transparent bandage over her gashes was shredded as black crystal spread over them instead, providing their own seal. More crystal spread over her burned leg, until it had covered it from hoof to knee. Only once the transformation had stopped and the pain had faded to a dull ache did she move, shakily rising with a groan and finding Tundra there immediately to lean against as she got to her hooves.
Rutile looked down, and found the heart-shaped stone embedded in her chest, right below the base of her throat. She tentatively moved her coated leg, finding that it flexed just as easily as flesh, and found herself breathing a dark laugh at the irony. Well, if she hadn't looked like a crystal pony before...
"...Root?"
"I'm okay." Rutile tried to give a reassuring smile, but was pretty sure it looked more like a grimace. "If this used to be an umbrum, there's not much left now. Hope they'll still take this as me holding up my end of the bargain."
Dead was dead. She stood by that. But some things died in strange ways, and did so more slowly than others. There was life in the crystal, but not much. Maybe whatever just happened would stop the remainder from crossing over, and maybe it wouldn't, but at that moment, Rutile didn't care.
She was close to seeing her expedition, and her vow, done, and so she said the only thing she could. "Let's get moving."
"You're back!"
The umbrum circled Rutile, and her leg twitched with a desire to raise the cannon again to ward them off, but she suppressed it. She let bronze, aquamarine, and pink inspect her in turn, and it was the last who drew their head close to her chest to stare into the quartz, watching the light within pulse with Rutile's heartbeat. "Thisss isss all...?"
The bronze one, instead, looked directly into Rutile's eyes, and she stared back, not flinching away at all from the empty gaze. Whatever they'd been searching for, they seemed to find it, as they eventually nodded. "You've done your part, cryssstal unicorn. We'll free your empressss, and free ourssselvesss."
Rutile smiled. "Good. I'm glad we could come to an understanding."
As she trotted down the dark hallway, all three umbrum stuck close, speaking to one another in excited whispers in a language that Rutile didn't understand.
Tundra trailed behind, and her dread was thicker than the shadows.
With another bypass, they were back in a lit portion of the facility. Their new umbrum companions would hiss a bit and draw back whenever a light-crystal flickered on, but they didn't react with the same signs of pain the shades had. Just displeasure and discomfort. Rutile certainly couldn't begrudge them that when the lights now felt a bit too bright for her eyes too.
The three continued to converse, and while they'd spoken clearly enough to her--that was supposed to be a property of ageless entities like the umbrum, some form of inherent language-learning, able to move forward through ages of linguistic drift and somehow know how to speak, with any slip ups being due to habit rather than lack of knowledge--right now they were primarily talking in what she assumed was their native dialect. Some words almost sounded recognizable, and every once and a while they veered into modern speech for a sentence or two before returning.
It was in those bursts of modernity that she picked up on their names. The bronze one was Bizra, and seemed to be the oldest. The aquamarine was Morga, who sounded like the middle child. The pink was Thana, clearly the youngest. Snatches of pronouns and modes of address allowed her to puzzle out that Bizra was a stallion and the other two were mares, if those terms were even the proper ones for umbrum. After all, they were vaguely equine in shape, but as shadowy magic arranged into a quasi-solid form, they hardly could be expected to have similar gendered language as ponies.
What little she could understand of their speech sounded a lot like a family planning their vacation. Things they wanted to see, or do. Thana in particular repeated an ancient word enough times, in enough contexts, that Rutile was reasonably certain it meant a type of theatre. Excited to get out of this vault and do something as simple as see a performance.
She almost felt bad about pointing her cannon at them. Almost. Enough things had tried to kill her in here that she felt she'd been pretty generous in not shooting first and asking questions later. Besides, they'd been enemies of ponykind when they'd been locked up in here, even if they seemed docile now.
The story of Radiant Hope had warned that they could be deceptive...
Well, if they tried to do anything to the empress, she'd blast them then. Simple as that.
There was a locked door ahead, and Tundra headed for a computer. Rutile did a quick count of the layers they'd passed through, tried to gauge how deeply they'd gone and and how far it may be the core, and promptly gave herself a headache. Though the fear and dread that her companion was giving off certainly wasn't helping, either; something deep as instinct was telling her to soothe the doe, but she didn't know how, especially not while she looked like some kind of half-crystal magic cyborg.
Still, she had to try.
Rutile slowly approached, and saw ears flick in her direction. With one front leg encased in crystal and another in metal, her hoofsteps weren't anywhere close to light, so she wasn't surprised. "Tun...?" The flicking ears flattened and Rutile flinched. "Hey," she started again, voice soft, "You okay?"
Tundra turned to stare at her in disbelief. "Am I okay?" She winced, looked over at the three umbrum, and only kept speaking when she was sure they were too busy chattering to pay attention to her. "You're fused with an ancient crystal with who-knows-what dark magic in it, that has three umbrum following you around like ducklings, and I'm the one you ask is okay?"
"Yes." Rutile glanced at Bizra, Morga, and Thana as well, then back to Tundra. "Because I'm also the one who can sense emotion, and you feel like you're going to throw up or pass out at a moment's notice." She lightly stomped her crystal-coated hoof. "I feel fine."
It wasn't bluster. Other than her new light sensitivity, she felt good as new, now that the pain of the initial transformation had faded. In fact, if she didn't look at either place where the dark crystal had grown, it would be easy to forget that it even existed. Even the stone in her chest felt... normal.
Tundra looked at Rutile, and for a moment, the sadness overwhelmed fear. "That's why I'm worried, Root. All this happened, and you're not reacting to it. You're carrying on like you always do. Don't you think there's something wrong with that?"
Don't I think--?
"What a sickeningly sweet friend you have. It seems that even a battle-hardened crystal pony still has some of that weakness. What a pity."
Rutile gritted her teeth. "Why do you care? I'm just the hired muscle, remember? And the job's almost done." She turned away, and walked toward the three umbrum. "You're the historian, and I'm just the history. The extinct species back from the dead. Worry about yourself."
She could feel Tundra's eyes on her, at first. Then, slowly, the doe turned away and got back to work.
Good.
They'd barely set hoof through the newly-opened doors when they saw it.
The chaospawn they'd fought before had had the rough size and shape of ponies. This one seemed to have instead taken the template of a hydra. There were four heads, four legs, and a tail, none of them were from the same sort of creature, and any one of those heads could have easily grabbed up Rutile and eaten her whole. It'd been laying on the floor, much like a marionette without strings, but their presence had it shuddering back into animation, getting onto the mismatched legs and looking at pony, reindeer, and three umbrum with far too many eyes.
"I thought you said the first doors were keeping the spawn out!" Rutile burst out, looking to Tundra, who was looking at the pistol with the confidence of a bushwoolie who'd been given a slingshot to fight a dragon.
"I said I was pretty sure they were intended to!" Tundra shot back as she put away the gun and lit her antlers with magic. "Chaospawn don't exactly play nice with three-dimensional space!"
The hydraspawn roared, and Rutile looked at the three umbrum. "That spawn is between us and the empress." None of them looked impressed with the sight, but when she spoke, they all nodded. She nodded back, then raised her cannon at the beast. "Take it down!"
Bizra, Morga, and Thana surged forward, and in that moment, Rutile understood why ponykind had once feared the umbrum.
Rutile hadn't been around dark magic much, and the work that the Order of the Two Sisters had done to stomp out the practitioners of it was one of the few things of theirs that she could agree with. Her one close encounter had been a sorceress who'd started puppeting the dead around a settlement, and she'd never forget how the magic had felt.
It'd been like somepony had found a way to make all of her senses feel oily at once, like she was drowning in a mixture of hate, sadism, and avarice that had been thrown into a blender. She'd later figure out that being a crystal pony made her especially susceptible, and had grimly noted at the time that she could have made a lot of coin as the proverbial canary in the coal mine. If the crystal starts acting like she wants to crawl out of her own skin, you've got dark magic around.
The umbrum had been fine to be around, just existing, but when they attacked the chaospawn, lashing out with shadows crafted into blades, whips, raw blasts, all of it hitting with force to effortlessly cleave through the unnatural flesh...
"Yes, my children, prove that you are superior to chaospawn."
Rutile's head rung, and she barely managed to fire off a single cannon shot before her legs nearly crumpled beneath her. Her stomach churned and she heaved, but nothing came up and the action only served to make her see stars.
Pain lanced down her back, dark crystal bursting out from either side of her spine. They were thin sheets, running from her shoulders to her hips, and had jagged edges that made them look like a twisted mimicry of fairy wings as they spread out to the sides. Then her horn flared with magic, and this time there was none of her trademark blue, only inky black.
"The umbrum will not be halted by an abomination such as this!"
Rutile started to levitate, soaring up with greater ease than she'd ever been able to before. She lifted her leg, pointed the cannon, and the dark power rushed from horn to device, firing off a beam toward one tree-trunk-like neck. One of the spawn's heads hit the ground, shark-like jaws still snapping at air, and she saw Bizra, Morga, and Thana turn to stare.
"Yes... you will do nicely. If I must inhabit a body of flesh, it's fitting that it be a crystal pony, after Hope poisoned my son against me."
The chaospawn lay in pieces. Those pieces were still making an attempt to attack them, but making such laughable progress at it that it was safe to soar over or step around them, and deeper into the metal hall. Rutile landed on the floor again, but she barely felt it against her hooves. Everything felt a little bit detached, like she was feeling only the echoes of the sensations. The new crystal pseudo-wings didn't move, but they didn't have to; they were really only there for show, not too unlike the wing-like structures that the three umbrum had.
Not very unlike them at all.
"Soon we will be done with this place. Once we've slain the empress, I will use this body's magic to create more umbrum, and we will spread across this planet, and this galaxy. The age of alicorns will finally end, and we will no longer have to fear the selfless, loving acts of crystal ponies locking us away."
"Root...?"
Rutile's head turned sluggishly, like it was moving through syrup, and her eyes landed on Tundra, her hooves click-clicking their approach. Her worry cut through the haze of Rutile's senses, and everything came into sharper focus. Tundra was still worried about her, even after she'd snapped at her like that.
Why did I snap at her like--?
"But perhaps, before the alicorn, we should start with ridding ourselves of this reindeer."
Rutile's horn lit, and the shadows bubbling around it made Tundra draw back again.
Then crystal blue consumed ink black, and Rutile grabbed her mental spider by its intangible legs. And that is where you've bucked up.
"How are--?!"
I think you misunderstand the situation you're in. Cracks started to run through the crystal on her side, leg, and sprouting from her back. More blue light poured from them, and Bizra, Morga, and Thana hissed and shrank away from the brightness. I'm not trapped in this body with you. You're trapped with me.
Pain lanced through her head and body. "You insolent little--"
Go ahead, give me a headache. Make me toss my cookies. Make me pass out from it. I don't care. The cracks continued to spread as Rutile clenched her teeth against the fire in her every muscle. I made a vow, and we're going to fulfill it. Tundra and I are going to restore the empress, and you're not laying a hoof on either of them.
The black crystal shattered with a burst of light, and the shards littered the ground. The heart of quartz was still firmly embedded in her chest, but everything else had fallen away to reveal flesh and fur again. She looked at the three umbrum, and offered an apologetic smile, "Sorry about the lightshow. Dark magic doesn't really agree with me."
Morga seemed to smile back. It was hard to tell with such skull-like faces. "It'sss okay. We underssstand the feeling, sssince love magic doesssn't agree with usss."
Tundra's hasty shield faded, and she stared at Rutile wide-eyed as she approached. "Are you... okay?"
"I'll be more okay when we're out of here," she said with a sigh, the aches in her body still fading. "But I'm... better. Sorry for scaring you."
"Forgiven." Tundra breathed a deep sigh. "But I think we both could use a rest, before we go any further."
Rutile nodded her agreement. "We can take a breather up ahead."
In the tradition of space-travel-suitable rations everywhere, the mix was as nutritious as it was tasteless, which was good, because it would have to be packed with a lot of nutrition to make up for the effort required to chew it. She'd found a clean bit of floor to loaf on and eat, and Tundra was a bundle of legs as she leaned against her, giving her own ration pack a few nibbles.
They had offered some of their food to the umbrum siblings, but been turned down. They didn't need to eat--Rutile had figured, what with being locked up for millennia and still being alive, but it'd felt polite to offer--and so only tended to consume food for the experience of it. They didn't want to drain the resources of the creatures who actually needed the sustenance... and the unspoken part seemed to be that there was nothing they saw worth experiencing in the contents of the ration packs. Instead of eating, the three seemed to be taking a nap, laying together in a pile.
The weight of Tundra leaning against her was as surprising as it was welcome. Usually the doe had only pressed close when fearful, and only reached out when doing so to help patch her up. There had been no casual, friendly contact throughout their journey, and Rutile couldn't remember anymore if that was from a lack of her trying or Rutile subconsciously rebuffing any attempts. It also didn't hurt; when the crystal had broken off, the flesh beneath had been pristine, and she'd take that as one upside of the whole affair
Tundra's eyes fell on the quartz, and she slowly chewed her bite before swallowing and speaking. "You're possessed, aren't you? There's a mind in there, still. Enough to influence you."
"Enough to try," Rutile admitted with her own glance downward. "You've seen something like this before, I take it?"
Tundra's ears drooped and she looked at the floor. "There was a vault placed by one of the splinter factions that the Griffonians fractured into post-Exodus. The others on the expedition kept arguing about which one." She breathed a tiny laugh, before her tone turned even more sombre. "There was a golden idol in it infused with complex magics that had been protected against decay. It took over one of us and drove them to attack the others."
Rutile's stomach churned, and it had nothing to do with the quality of the food. "And let me guess, before they turned on you, they claimed they felt fine?"
"Got it in one."
Rutile leaned over, and nuzzled the top of Tundra's head. "I'm sorry for bringing back such bad memories." She withdrew again, smiling at the wide-eyed look on her face from the affection. "But don't worry, even dark magic can't make me an oathbreaker. I made a vow, and I'll see it through, and this hunk of rock can't do anything about it."
"I'm starting to wish you hadn't." Tundra tentatively leaned more, and offered a brief nuzzle to Rutile's neck. She then pulled back with a sigh. "It was bad enough when the Order sent that bounty hunter after us. But since we've stepped in here you've gotten nothing but hurt. And what happens when the vow's fulfilled?"
Rutile felt that she had a much better understanding of why Tundra had been in that watering hole alone now. She shrugged. "Then the empress helps me get it off."
"You sound convinced she's alive in there."
Rutile nodded toward her mark. "When my family figured out I was a crystal pony and told me, my mark showed up, and I knew two things for certain: That I'm the only crystal, and that the empress is alive somewhere. It's like an extra sense on top of my empathetic one."
"And what if she can't reverse this?"
"Then she can teach me how to better control it."
"And if she can't do that either?"
Another shrug. "Then I guess I'm the next thing that ends up sealed underground where it can't hurt anyone."
"You wouldn't dare."
Rutile gave a grim smile as she heard the mental hiss. I would, and I will. This is my body, not yours, and I make the rules. If you don't like it, get the Tartarus off my chest.
"All this time later, and you crystal ponies are still so self-sacrificing. It makes me sick."
Like I said, if you don't like it, leave. The smile softened to something more encouraging, and Rutile nudged Tundra. "Hey, don't be so glum. This is going to be an amazing discovery. You'll be the deer who brought alicorns back."
"And the umbrum," Tundra added bitterly.
Rutile looked at the snoozing pile of shadows. Did they look a bit more solid than they had earlier? "As long as I'm in control, they're on our side. The empress can decide if she wants to give them a chance further than I have."
The conversation lapsed into silence, and for a time, their only companion was the sounds of their chewing, and the fact that Thana had started to snore.
"When this is over..." Tundra ventured quietly. "If she can get that gem off, or help you with control... what do you think you'll do?"
Another lapse of silence. "I don't know," she admitted. The answer of go home was nearly on her lips, but she discarded it. For a visit, maybe, but she didn't think she'd be able to go back to a quiet little hundreds-strong planetary settlement anymore. "My most important vow I ever made was to try to uncover all I could about my heritage. My mark is essentially for being a crystal pony. Once the empress is back, she might have a job for me, but if she doesn't..." Rutile offered a hopeful smile. "I don't suppose you might want to take me on as a permanent bodyguard?"
Tundra smiled back. "You can be a reckless, caustic pain in my rump, Root, and you keep too many secrets." She chuckled and shook her head. "But I wouldn't have anypony, or anyone, else watching my back."
"Oh for my own body, so that I could vomit."
Get used to it. Or don't and get out of me. Rutile nodded. "Then it's a plan. If we don't have new Imperial jobs at the end of this, it'll be you and me and the stars." She raised a hoof, and Tundra raised her own to bump against it.
And for the first time in a long time, Rutile felt good about the future.
Chunks of automations fell to the floor, torn apart by magic.
It had taken this long to find any security measures, and while Tundra had clearly looked distraught at the destruction of the archo-tech, the bots themselves hadn't stood a chance against a trio of umbrum and a cannon-wielding unicorn. This time, being so close to the dark magic hadn't set off a transformation, but she'd still been woozy by the time they'd finished the fight, and needed a bit of time to get her hooves all moving in proper sync instead of wobbling.
The halls of this section were engraved with elaborate patterns, and between that and the security measures, some deep part of Rutile knew they were close. Her brain-spider seemed to know it too, which may have been why the voice had been silent, just radiating a sense of anticipation without trying to hiss venom at her. She didn't like it, because at least the hissing meant that she'd know what the voice was thinking.
As for Bizra, Morga, and Thana, the more she looked at them, the more they really did look more solid. Umbrum were known to be able to change their shape, and they seemed to be trading in their smoke-like appearance for something that looked a little more physically present, details settling into their faces and bodies that had previously been hazy and indistinct.
She stared up at the ornate doors, her eyes following the patterns. Tundra had taken her now-routine place at a nearby terminal, but the screen of it soon flashed red at her and let out several angry-sounding beeps, prompting her to let out a noise of frustration and smack the machine with her hoof. "It's not working. Whatever's got it locked, it's not the same lockdown as the rest of the building."
Rutile flicked an ear at that, nodded, and, on a hunch, stepped closer to the doors. As hoped, a much more agreeable beep had part of the wall sliding open, and sitting there...
A silver medallion, engraved with a heart.
Tundra's eyes widened. "That's..."
"Another conduit," Rutile confirmed, as her magic wrapped around the iron. She made sure it stayed blue, rather than black, not wanting a hint of darkness to have a chance at tainting it. "Probably just for this purpose, so somepony could let her out when it was time."
Was it time? She didn't know. She didn't know when the empress had expected to be woken up, and by whom, but thousands of years later by a single crystal pony, a reindeer, and three umbrum, with the Crystal Empire ancient history, couldn't be it. The thought of waking her up to all this made Rutile hesitate slightly, the medallion bobbing in the air.
Then again, if not them and now, then who and when? And there had to be a reason her mark had spurred her on like this to find this place.
Rutile took a deep breath, and focused. This time, instead of home and the past, she thought of Tundra, and the future. Then she watched the doors slide open and became the first pony in millennia to see an alicorn.
Empress Flurry Heart was a pale pink, her long purple-and-blue mane and tail curled at the tips. She was taller than any pony Rutile had ever seen, much of the height in her long legs and swan-like neck. She had a longer horn than any unicorn, larger wings than any pegasus, and her mark resembled the old Crystal Empire heraldry Rutile had seen in books. And even stepping out of a stasis chamber, she had a crystal crown perched on her head.
Rutile bent at the front legs and bowed low. Tundra was right behind her, the tips of her antlers thumping against the floor in her haste. The three umbrum were slower, but eventually lowered themselves to the floor, bowing each of their heads. Rutile looked up without lifting her head, and saw the empress's gaze sweep over all of them. She then closed her eyes, ears twitching as if listening for something, and when they opened again, the look in those pale blue eyes was full of sorrow.
"Rise, my little pony." She gestured with her wings for emphasis. "All of you, rise." Her eyes swept over them again, with a sad smile on her face. "This wasn't the picture I was expecting to wake up to." Her eyes fell directly on Rutile. "You're the first of your kind for a very long time, aren't you?"
"I am," she confirmed as she rose to her hooves again. "It took time for anypony to even know what I am, and I've been hunted for it."
The empress gave a slow, sad nod. "Some things never change." She then lowered her head, peering at the quartz embedded in her chest. "But sometimes they still surprise us. Hello, Rabia."
"Curse your entire line, alicorn. Curse Cadenza, Amore, and every last Crystal Empress stretching on to eternity."
Rutile cringed at the sudden hissing. "That's her name, huh?" She gave a shake of her head. "There's not much of her, but still enough to give me a headache. I don't suppose you know how to separate us?"
"I can look into ways. Though..." She smiled. "...Who knows, maybe you'll be a good influence on her?"
Rutile chuckled. "I've never been a good influence on anypony in my life, but there's a first time for everything."
The empress gave the slightest giggle, then looked at the three umbrum. "Well, you certainly seem to be getting along with her children, at least."
"My children will lay such a torment on you that'll you'll beg to be turned to stone, and I will listen to your cries for mercy and laugh."
Morga was the first to approach Empress Flurry Heart, and Rutile raised her cannon-clad leg slightly, ready to strike if Rabia's hissing was correct. What Morga did do, however, left her stunned.
Wings changed their shape, growing feathery, the skull-like face grew flesh and blank voids were replaced by true eyes, and then four solid hooves met the metal floor. Where had once been a fearsome-looking umbrum was an aquamarine pegasus, her mane and tail a dark cyan and her eyes a bright green. "There'sss..." Morga stopped, worked her jaw a bit as if trying to get used to having one. "There's so few of us left, your Imperial Majesty."
Bizra floated forward next, wings vanishing entirely as he shifted into a bronze-coated unicorn with a bright copper mane and the same green eyes. "It seems to us we have that in common with crystal ponies, and alicorns."
Thana was last, becoming a pink earth pony, again with green eyes, and the streaks of darker pink in her curly mane seemed to be mimicking the empress's. "All that acting against you has ever done is have us locked away in different prisons."
The imitation was uncanny. If Rutile hadn't watched it happen, she would have truly believed that there were three ordinary ponies there. The only thing off was the lack of cutie marks.
"We'd rather be your allies than your enemies," Bizra continued, before inclining his head to point this horn at Rutile. "We just didn't want to see what remained of our mother left to rot."
Rabia's voice was silent.
Not going to call them weak and soft-hearted, Rutile thought with a smirk. Throw a little tantrum about how your kids didn't turn out how you wanted?
"Leave me alone, pony."
Empress Flurry Heart, for her part, smiled. "I wouldn't be my mother's daughter if I didn't believe in putting old grudges down. I'm willing to make it a fresh start if you are."
Tundra stepped forward tentatively. "We fought through a lot of chaospawn to reach you. And one dimensional tear that leads to a hostile changeling nest. There might be more trouble on the way back up."
"Don't worry." The empress's horn lit, and Rutile could feel the weight of her magic. "If anything tries to block us, they won't know what hit them."
Empress Flurry Heart moved through the halls, and the facility reacted.
While Rutile Quartz's presence had caused a few things to activate, and Tundra's coding had opened a few doors, everything seemed to come to life as the empress moved. Machinery beeped, panels opened, screens had new text scrolling over them, all acknowledging her authority in their own way. She cleaned up as she went, teleporting debris away to unknown places with a bit of glow and occasional pop, her magic moving with absolute precision. If the time in stasis had dulled anything, she certainly didn't show it.
She glanced to one side as Rutile and Tundra stepped closer, not missing a beat. "You want to ask me questions."
"You can read us?" Rutile asked.
"Just in your expressions." She gave a gentle smile, the kind that Rutile could easily picture on the face of a ruler overseeing their court. "The crystal ponies are my subjects, but I'm still just an alicorn, and my mark isn't for emotional magic like my mother."
It was Tundra who ventured first. "What was this place?"
"Originally?" At Tundra's nod, she looked up at the ceiling. "It was the heart of our first settlement. We built machines for construction, transport, agriculture, defense..." Her gaze lowered again with a deep sigh. "It was also where we'd shelter in emergencies. And our changeling citizens used it as a nursery for their eggs and hatchlings."
Rutile suddenly had a much better understanding of the alternate timeline she'd glimpsed, and winced. "And then you locked yourself in it?"
The empress was silent for a long moment, as Tundra glared and gave Rutile a shove. When she did speak, it was with a question of her own. "Do you know what an alicorn is?"
Rutile tilted her head. "A mix of unicorn, pegasus, and earth pony? Really powerful and ageless?"
"Technically true, but the more important part is... an alicorn is a conduit." She nodded at the ancient medallion, now around Rutile's neck like her previous one had been. "Each of us is tied to an anchor. We can tap into that anchor to give ourselves more power by acting as its Avatar and letting the magic flow through us. So long as that anchor exists, so do we."
A far-off look came to the ancient mare's eyes. "My great aunts were tied to the sun and the moon of our homeworld, so when the Cataclysm destroyed both, they started to age, and eventually died. My mother was tied to the Crystal Heart, and my aunt the Tree of Harmony, and those survived, for a while longer. But once they were uprooted from the homeworld, their magic eventually ran out, and so my mother and aunt grew old too."
"The Crystal Heart and the Tree of Harmony were real?" Tundra breathed in awe. "Everyone's assumed they were just symbols, but they existed as real artefacts?"
"Oh yes, they were very real." A sadly nostalgic smile graced her face. "Mother told me that I once broke the Heart with my crying when I was a foal. I never figured out if she was serious."
Rutile considered what she'd been told, and then asked, "So if everypony else's anchors were destroyed, what about you?"
The empress stopped, turned slightly, and lowered her head until they were practically snout-to-snout. "My anchor is the crystal ponies themselves. I was born and fated to be their ruler and Avatar both." She lifted her head again, but not before Rutile spotted a glistening of tears in her eyes. "There was a war, and then a plague. By the time that both had run their course, there was barely anyone left. I was locked in stasis to keep me from the enemy, and only a crystal would be able to open it."
"So you wouldn't die of old age if crystal ponies went extinct for a while."
"Exactly. And I practically had to be dragged kicking and screaming." Her head drooped, and her wings weren't long after. "I'd given my Council the ability to overrule me if they unanimously decided on a different course of action, and the few councilcreatures left all told me they wanted me to be there for the future instead of going out fighting against our enemies."
"So you knew we'd come back eventually?"
A slow nod. "As long as there are ponies, there will eventually be crystal ponies. Our genetics are quirky like that. What was will come around again, given enough generations." She closed her eyes. "Though I guess any others who lived in the intervening years weren't destined to find me. I hope they forgive me for not being there."
The oldest being in the galaxy was grieving, and Rutile had no idea how to comfort her. "You're here now," she said softly, and that made the empress open her eyes again. "And I'll try not to die any time soon, so you don't have to go back in the freezer after you just got out."
That earned a small smile. "How considerate of you."
Tundra snorted. "Oh sure, for her you'll be careful, but not for the doe who keeps patching you up."
Smile turned to laughter, and Empress Flurry Heart's laugh was the most beautiful Rutile had ever heard.
The doors of the vault opened, and the icy air washed over them. Empress Flurry Heart, to no surprise, seemed to share the inherent cold tolerance that Rutile and Tundra did, and the three siblings were also completely unfazed as snow swirled through their manes.
The empress looked around, and Rutile wondered how this world must have looked like under her rule, before the ice reclaimed it. She then looked at mare and doe. "You said your ship is nearby?"
Rutile nodded. "Yeah, but it's seen better days. The debris field around the planet banged it up a bit."
"That's alright. I'm sure I can get the right machines fired up to build some replacement parts if it needs it." She gestured ahead of her with a wing. "Lead the way."
And together, six trails of hoofprints made their way through the snow. One set was cloven, the other more spaced apart from longer legs, and three a bit irregular as their owners took their newly-learned walking skills to the new mediums of ice and snow and slipped and slid for the trouble. Tundra ended up letting Bizra lean on her, Thana ended up under a steadying wing from the empress, and Morga used one of her own wings to hang on to Rutile. None seemed bothered by their falls, and by the time the ship was visible, they were all laughing together.
Unfortunately, it wasn't the only ship, and Rutile would have recognized this one even if its owner weren't standing there, loaded down in warm clothing and pointing his thaum-cannon at her. The minotaur bull looked the same as the last time she'd seen him, plus two new bullet scars on his face. "You really gave us a runaround, unicorn. Going off into a near-forgotten sector almost shook us."
Everyone stopped, and Rutile let out a snort. "Wow, there's not knowing when to quit, and then there's you."
The parrot-like orthinian next to the bull tilted her head to one side as she drew her pistol. "Well it sure paid off." She gestured at Empress Flurry Heart. "Lookit this one, boss. She's got a horn and wings."
The diamond dog grinned with every last one of his pointy teeth. "What do you guys think? Will an alicorn get us more coin live, or auctioning off the bits?"
The heavily-scarred zebra in the back shook his head. "Got to be live. The only way we'll prove we bagged an alicorn is if she's whole. She'll look too much like a unicorn and a pegasus in pieces."
Rutile glanced from alicorn, to the gaggle of hunters, and back again. "This is the Crystal Empress, you know," she said, giving them the chance she knew they wouldn't take. "You might be better off bowing than shooting."
The minotaur scoffed. "The Crystal Empire is dust. And we're not ponies, so we don't bow to pony royalty." He grinned, cruelty rolling off him in waves. "But we'll make sure to put her in our fanciest chains as we drag her off to the Order."
Empress Flurry Heart slowly shook her head, and gave a deep sigh. "Mother would be so disappointed, seeing that creatures like this are still around." Then her expression hardened. "Oh well..."
Her horn lit, and the wind howled.
Then where four creatures had once stood, there were only sculptures. Projectiles suspended mid-air, capturing the moment they all opened fire on her, perfectly, in ice, for eternity.
The empress slowly walked toward the frozen bounty hunters, then past them, examining the two ships. "And oh look... it seems that there's now a starship here in need of an owner." She looked at Rutile and Tundra, smiling in the face of the shocked and awed stares. "I suppose we'll just have to put it to good use, won't we?"
The Radiant Hope was much larger than the Crystal Heart had been, but that made the repurposed bounty hunter ship much more suitable for the mission at hand. Slowly but surely, over the last few months, it'd been cleaned up, upgraded, and redecorated to better meet Imperial standards, with the help of both the ancient machines still in operation and its new crew.
Rutile Quartz walked the length of the ship, taking in the bustle going on around her. Tundra was in conversation with the freshly-installed navigation AI, and the snippets of words that Rutile caught as she passed by told her that the talk had gone from official to casual in record time, as the two were discussing pre-Exodus literature. Morga and Thana were in the kitchens, and Rutile could smell that they'd broken out the contents of the latter's herb garden; the transformation hadn't given Thana true earth pony green hooves, but she'd familiarized herself with the vault's hydroponics anyway and buckled down to learning agriculture. Bizra was checking, double-checking, and triple-checking their supplies, making sure everything was in its proper place.
"This foal... what do you intend to do when we find them?"
Rutile wore a uniform, these days, in the colours of the Crystal Empire. It made her look more official instead of like a scruffy drifter. It also had the welcome side effect of hiding the magical quartz heart still embedded in her chest.
Tell the parents what they are, and give them all a chance to come to the New Empire, she responded mentally as she straightened out a picture frame holding an image of her standing next to Empress Flurry Heart.
A month ago, Rutile's mark had flared with light, and had given her a message, that there was another. Actually locating them, however, had been the empress's job, and it had taken that month to do whatever fancy alicorn scrying that she could presumably do. They had a sector and a planet to go to, now, though it would naturally take time to find the young foal once they got there. Especially if there was Order presence there.
They would have to deal with the Order of the Two Sisters eventually. They'd never allow an alicorn other than their long-dead goddesses to seize power again. But it was a large galaxy, and they'd have time to rebuild before needing to worry about removing that thorn.
"And if they refuse?"
Rabia hadn't spoken for several weeks after Empress Flurry Heart had woken up. Rutile reasoned that it may have taken that much time to come to terms with the fact that her children really weren't about to commit regicide in her name. Then she'd started talking, in small amounts, but had made no attempt to seize control again. Rutile couldn't say that the presence was welcome, but she was making an effort to not shut down every conversation with orders to get out of her head anymore.
Then we leave them be and make the invitation to the next one. With the portrait straightened out, she went through the rest of the sitting room, adjusting more decorations and fluffing pillows. This was the place she'd want to invite the parents in to talk, after all, if they were willing to accept her hospitality. She'd have to check with the umbrum sisters that the tea supply was good, so that they could brew a pot.
"This foal is your kin. More so than the parents, in some ways. You would let them be denied their heritage?"
Rutile rolled her shoulders in a shrug. If it's to be, then when they grow up, they'll track us down themselves.
"Like you did?"
That earned a sardonic smile. Hopefully with less shooting and without ending up with a voice in their head, but yes.
Rabia quieted again, at that, and Rutile continued her sweep of the sitting room. She wasn't sure about all this diplomatic business, but as the only adult crystal pony around, she supposed she understood the logic of sending her out as an envoy. She would become what she'd wished for as a foal, an adult who understood and would be able to teach young crystal foals all about themselves.
Not that her parents hadn't done the best job they'd could, given the circumstances. After this mission, she intended to pay them that long-overdue visit, and then bring them to meet the empress themselves. She'd also, of course, need to make time for another expedition with Tundra, as there were several other Imperial settlements that Empress Flurry Heart remembered and that may have surviving vaults.
The work of the no-longer-last crystal pony was never done.
