Speak Not Of The End Of The World

by Shaslan

Rating: teen
Tags: Princess Celestia, Cheerilee, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Death, Princess Luna, Strawberry Sunrise, Science Fiction, Cherry Berry
Length: 21663

When Strawberry Sunrise was eight years old, she watched as the sun blinked. It vanished for exactly four seconds, and Strawberry knew she had just seen the end of the world.

This is a collaboration piece with The Red Parade for the Scifi Contest.

When Strawberry Sunrise was eight years old, she watched as the sun blinked. It vanished for exactly four seconds, and Strawberry knew she had just seen the end of the world. Years pass, and the blinks get longer. Strawberry loses ponies to the blinks – loses ponies she loves. And she knows she cannot let it go on any longer.

Laotyn is tasked with watching the planet down below the great gas-ship Taelo. The primitive lifeforms are unevolved, bestial. But when Laotyn looks closer, when he strains his senses to really listen, he begins to think he can hear something that sounds almost like speech. 

Published 2023-04-02 19:40:01 UTC
Last updated 2023-04-02 19:40:01 UTC

Reaching 2

“I’m 28 today.” The words fell out of her tongue like water from a dripping faucet. Strawberry Sunrise leaned as far back as the capsule’s command seat would let her and sighed quietly. The console offered her no reply. Reaching up, she stripped off her helmet and took out her earpiece.

Mission Control had fallen silent fifteen minutes ago. She knew that they wouldn’t be contacting her again. From here on out, she was on her own. Outside the window ahead of her was the sun: a big yellow and orange ball, flickering like an image on a bad TV set.

Strawberry stared at it. She could feel it staring back.

The sun. That stupid goddamned sun. That sun that had taken so much from her, that had turned the world she loved to ash, to dust. It was all gone now: as empty as the space around her. The console let out a timid beep.

Strawberry’s eyes flicked to it with disinterest. The minor, precise adjustments she had been instructed to make wouldn’t matter. Precision wouldn’t matter for what she was about to do. “It takes more skill than you’ve got to miss the sun,” she mused, smiling at the memory.

The sun flickered, almost as if it recognized her incoming presence. The distant stars winked and shimmered, filling the void with specks of light. It all made her feel very small and insignificant. And in a way she was.

She eased the throttle forwards, feeling the engines fire from behind her as the craft lurched forwards. A low hum filled the cabin: one that was quieter than the air conditioning unit that kept her company deep into the long, sleepless nights that plagued her.

Dreams. Thoughts. Memories. Echos. Names. They all didn’t matter in the end. Everything faded away just as fast, no matter how important. It was pointless now to try and hold on.

Strawberry reached up to flick a switch. With nothing left to do but wait she slumped back, staring straight into the sun. Equestria was somewhere behind her now, she couldn’t see it even if she tried craning her head.

But she didn’t. What would the point be? She may have lived there, but the truth was that she had left its earth long ago. A few stray thoughts slipped through her mind, tinges of feeling and emotion. Memories of things that had already happened.

A hotel room, a strawberry martini, a boomerang. A beat up car, a movie, a juicebox.

Blossomforth. Redheart. Cheerilee. Cherry Berry. Her mother.

I just don’t know what went wrong.

A photograph was sitting taped to the dashboard, the only thing she had taken with her from the station. It was the one of her friends and Blossomforth’s car. Strawberry put a hoof on it tenderly, and the very touch triggered a dozen more memories.

It was getting bright as the sun grew closer and closer. She couldn't see it, but she knew it was there. Waiting for her. Strawberry pulled down her visor and space became even darker. She shifted the throttle and the craft picked up speed. So too did the memories flying past her.

And then, Strawberry was everywhere.

She was in the space craft’s hangar bay, hugging Cheerilee tightly. She was in the bathroom of her dorm on the station, screaming and punching the sink until her hoof was bloody.

“What made you do it?” asked the nonexistent reporter in the empty pressroom.

Strawberry laughed. “What didn’t?” There was an invisible flash from an invisible camera.

She was standing on the lawn of her childhood house, staring at the ghost of Cherry, the two of them laughing until they cried.

She was sleeping beside Cheerilee in her hotel room, unable to decide if she wished Cherry was there instead.

Catching a boomerang on the hill. Floating in an empty white room. Watching her friends cease to exist on television. Dancing in a nightclub as red and blue lights fell across her face like rain. Speeding too fast through a parking lot, in a car that was falling apart. Laying on her bedroom floor, staring at traces of the afternoon splayed across her bedroom wall. Standing on the top of the stairs, looking down at herself as a child.

Strawberry let it all slip away without even trying to hold on to any of it. She was not a hero. Nobody would call her one. But that was okay. The world would never save her anyways, why would she ever bother trying to save it?

“I’m not quite sure what went wrong! I’m not quite sure what went wrong!”

The ship beeped in alarm, but Strawberry ignored it.

Faster and faster and faster, she throttled towards the sun’s surface. The heat was overwhelming, the light too much for her visor. Strawberry wasn’t bothered. She was who she was, until she wasn’t: and in that moment, she ceased becoming Strawberry Sunrise.

She became nothing.

With that final thought, her world flashed white as a vague shape appeared before her. She paid it no mind.

She reached up towards the stars and…

Effervescence

Laotyn spread his surface mass wide, changing from his customary sphere to a more practical mass of tentacles that split, in turn, into airy tendrils that caught the currents of gas like sails and carried him up and away.

<> said a passing person, the centre of their body flashing a friendly yellow. The warmth of the words and the thoughts, carried to Laotyn on a tide of gentle emissions, sank into his fluid like a draught of the purest, cleanest hydrogen sulfide.

<> sang Laotyn in return. Orange and yellow pulsed through his whole mass, out from his core into the very tips of his tendrils. It was an unnecessary display, perhaps overly enthusiastic – but a day like today warranted optimism.

Laotyn was feeling on top of the world, and he wanted everyone to know it. Today was the day he finally got to enter the observation pods.

He arced around the central miasma chamber, his body undulating smoothly from current to current before he found the geyser he was searching for and clung to it, jetting upwards towards the observation deck. The vast open space of the central chamber yawned beneath him, thousands of cubits wide – almost an entire thirtieth of Home’s total mass, a measurement so large that it still made his mind spin. Colours pulsed softly from the sporeclouds below, pastel blue and soft shining pink, And the algae pools glistened subtle green in the very base of the chamber. Overhead the gas flowed thick and soupy, and people rode the currents in every direction. If Laotyn didn’t look too closely – if he tried not to notice the algae-bubble walls encasing the chamber on every side, protecting it from the vacuum of space – it almost felt like he was back on Home, living out one of the memories inherited from his ancestors.

The geyser increased in power as it neared the chamber’s ceiling, and Laotyn narrowed himself down to a pointed cone, tendrils spinning loose behind him. The seamless curve of the sphere’s edge sped closer and closer, and Laotyn braced himself before he burst through the clouds and impacted on the outer algae-mesh. It gave and stretched under the force of the geyser, but for a second Laotyn suffered the same frisson of fear he always did – that today would be the day the algae sphere failed him and he was splatted like a spore against it. But the technicians who had grown the Taelo had been experts, every millimeter precision-engineered. The transport geyser pointed directly at one of the few single-layer spots in the triple-layered walls of the central chamber and Laotyn’s sharp tip was more than enough to peirce through.

He was propelled up into a narrow cylindrical corridor, the walls pulsating with the same gentle green phosphorescence as all the rest of the ship. The burst of air that came through with him provided enough force to keep him going, and with a gentle exhalation he relaxed back into his usual amorphous form. The wind at his back, Laotyn flowed down the corridor. He was pulsing a hopeful amber, shot through with the white of excitement, and when another denizen of the ship passed in the other direction it was a struggle to tone himself down to a more acceptable level of saturation.

<> they asked, umber amusement tinging their outer edges, and Laotyn flushed puce.

<> he explained.

The other person extended a tendril across the corridor to him, touching his body and sending a shot of camaraderie and support directly into his system. <> they said. <>

<> called Laotyn, realising that this must be the observer he was replacing, but the current had already carried him past them, and they only waved a regretful tendril back at him.

And it was only as they squeezed through the access portal back into the central chamber that Laotyn caught sight of the telltale growths inside them. The grey-white spheres of new life. No wonder there had been a vacancy. That person was a nascent Parent, nearly ready for merging. This had been their last shift in the pods, and likely their last day altogether.

Merging was a magical process, a beautiful thing – but Laotyn was young, and the loss of individuality still seemed like a frightening prospect. He supposed that when he was older he might feel differently.

Boosted by fresh air from the miasma chamber after the other person’s passage, Laotyn’s pace picked up again, and he was carried around several more bends and loops before finally passing through the edge of another algae-sphere and spinning to a halt.

This sphere was much smaller, only double the size of the living quarters Laotyn’s wealthiest parent had left to him. A dozen little doorways perforated the outer wall, leading to the observation pods. The subtle colours of those within were just visible, and Laotyn’s whole surface itched with the urge to get in there and see it all for himself.

Someone was floating in the centre of the room, a relaxed circular disc, her tendrils fanning gently over the informational display in front of her. As Laotyn watched, she raised one in greeting.

<> she said.

Laotyn felt himself swell with pride, inflating to fill as much space as he possibly could, throbbing red and amber with excitement. <> he said. <>

Elsewhere

Cheerilee had somehow found her before she left.

“There you are,” she snapped, out of breath. “Have you been avoiding me?!”

Strawberry didn’t reply.

“Like it or not, we’re going to talk before you go out there.”

“Okay.”

They stared at each other. Strawberry could almost feel hatred radiating off of Cheerilee, from years and years of boiled over tensions and frustrations. But there was something else there, too. Something she couldn’t recognize.

Cheerilee took a deep breath before she began to speak again. “Strawberry, I…” Instantly, her anger melted away and her words washed over her like a wave. “I guess I just wanted to say that I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you.”

“What? Cheerilee, you’ve done more for me than literally anyone else in my life has,” Strawberry protested.

“If that were true, neither of us would be here right now,” Cheerilee said sadly.

Strawberry sighed and put a hoof on her oldest friend’s shoulder. “You really think you could’ve stopped all of this from happening? The sun, all the death, everything?”

“I don’t know,” Cheerilee sniffed. She looked so small against the dull metal of the station. “But I feel like I could’ve if I just… did more.”

“Cheer… Some things are beyond you and me.” She sighed, feeling exhaustion setting in. “I can’t explain it, but ever since I was a kid, I was convinced that the world was going to end. And that nothing anyone could do would stop it. You taught me years ago how bad it was to think that, and showed me how I was hurting everyone around me through it. And I mean… We’re here now. We still have a chance.”

Cheerilee wiped her eyes again. “When you come back from your mission? What happens next?” A silence grew between them and Cheerilee regarded her with a sad, knowing look. “Strawberry… It’s going to go fine. I know that I’m always the one clamoring that things will go wrong, but–”

“No.” Strawberry let that single word escape her. She could lie, stretch the truth a bit. But Cheerilee didn’t deserve that. “I’m… I’m not coming back tonight.”

She could see the lump in Cheerilee’s throat. “I… had a feeling. With the way you’ve been… talking about things lately.” She took a deep breath and released it in a choked sob. “How are you so sure?”

“I don’t intend to come back,” Strawberry said simply. She draped a wing over Cheerilee’s shoulder. “Walk me to the hangar bay?”

They proceeded down the steel halls of the station, letting the silence wash them away. “I should go,” Cheerilee whispered. “I’m not supposed to be down there.”

For the first time in a long time, Strawberry felt a twinge in her stomach at that. She didn’t want to be alone. Not now. “C’mon Cheer. Nobody’ll notice.”

When she didn’t protest further, Strawberry continued leading them towards the bay. They came to a stop in front of a heavy set of airlock doors. “I dreamt again last night,” Strawberry said. “I was with Cherry, at home. We were sleeping together, and I was just watching. Laying beside her.”

“Oh, Strawberry…”

“No, it wasn’t a sad one. It was… I knew she was dead. And maybe she did too. In that moment I could’ve woken her up, said any of the things that I’ve wanted to say over the years.”

The doors slid open with a quiet hiss.

“But I didn’t. Just let her lay there.” Cheerilee reached down and took Strawberry’s hoof in her own. Together, they crossed the threshold and stepped into the hangar. Strawberry’s ship was waiting: a sleek, white craft, with engines and wings and all sorts of other things that she didn’t know how to spell.

“I’m glad you found me before I left. I’m not used to being able to say goodbye.”

Cheerilee sighed. “I don’t want this to be goodbye,” she whispered. “But I guess we don’t get what we want.” She leaned in and pressed her forehead against Strawberry’s.

For a moment they stood, embracing the other. It sparked an old flame within Strawberry, a series of familiar tingles flashing down her spine. But she paid them no mind. She did nothing more than hold the position.

Eventually, too soon and too long at the same time, Cheerilee pulled away. “Okay. Good luck.” There was nothing more she wanted to say.

“I’ll see you again. Maybe not here, but I know it.” Strawberry raised her helmet and pulled it over her head.

Cheerilee smiled sadly. Strawberry turned to her craft and began walking. Up here, she felt closer to Cherry than she had in a long time.

There was no turning back, no hesitation as she ascended the ramp. No last minute words or calls from her oldest friend in the world.

There were no regrets, no thoughts left unspoken.

There was nothing left to say.

Mousseux

The Taelo was the largest spaceship ever grown in an algae pool, the culmination of millions of minds pulling together in pursuit of one goal and one goal only. Survival. The work had been an undoubted success; over twenty percent of the inhabitants of Home were safe on board. Another twenty percent had made it to the Leonaria, but contact with the Leonaria had been lost two generations before Laotyn’s parents had merged to spawn him and his siblings. It wasn’t clear whether there had been a communications malfunction or an outright disaster, but the Leonaria was lost, and only the Taelo was left. Sailing on alone through the vast cold ocean of an empty universe.

But now, after generation upon generation had lived and merged within the confines of the algae spheres, the Taelo was finally nearing its destination.

Issia. A pinprick of light in an endless universe of dark. The focal point of all poetry, all song, all hope for the last seven generations. The very future of all known life.

When the extinction event came, every denizen of Home scrambled to find a solution. The probes and the sensors sent out by the ancients had yielded nothing – lightyear after lightyear of dead empty space punctuated only by fading stars and barren lumps of stone. There were young stars out there, blazing hot stars that would have burned the delicate gaseous biospheres of Home to a crisp, but there was nothing like the gentle mellow light of Home’s sun.

Until finally, the little star named Issiawas found. A hydrogen-rich star just small enough to allow for a geocentric solar system, just like the star that had once orbited Home.

In fevered haste, the great starships had been constructed. Only two of them, and all the wealth and beauty of a dying world was used in their creation. The finest scientists, thinkers and artisans were sent aboard, based purely on merit. Those who did not make the cut were matched with other rejected applicants and merged to produce a bright new generation who could carry the hope of their dead parents forward. And those remaining, who were not talented enough to be welcomed either in their own right or through their spawn, dedicated themselves to the work of equipping the two starships with every scrap of knowledge and and history that Home had to offer. Extinction made people selfless. By the time the two starships left, Home was a barren wasteland populated only by the dying. Everything of worth had been crammed into the Taelo and its sister-ship. Nothing that could be saved was left behind for the extinction event.

Seven generations followed. Long, long lives lived within the Taelo’s confines, ending in song and sharing and Parenthood. Most of the memories Laotyn’s parents had given to him were of these lives. Only a very few snatches of Home remained, the gift of his long-dead ancestors. Open vistas, purple skies. Great gas clouds and slow-swirling storms. Huge flocks of people flying together through the eternal sky, lit by the watery light of the star that orbited the planet. Lives lived and loves lost, shapes and tendrils so blurred that Laotyn had no clue what the names of these ancient people had been.

But it had been beautiful. Home had undoubtedly been beautiful. And it had given the Taelo everything it possessed. From the algae that kept their breathable air safe inside to the gas clouds that sustained them, the people owed everything to Home. The historians taught its story, and Laotyn had projected his own ancestral memories to the class in school when he was young.

But Home, alluring and nostalgic as it was, did not hold the same charm for Laotyn as Issia did. Home was the past, and Issia was the future.

Five annual cycles had passed since he had first applied for the observer role. He had always known what he wanted to do with his life. The very day after he officially matured into an adult, he submitted his request – and then every day of the next five long cycles, had worked disconsolately at the roles the Council of Elders had appointed him to, always hurrying away to scrape what gleanings he could of Issia from the publicly released recordings. And they were always the same. Issia draws closer. Our new home. The little planet that the star orbits shows every sign of being an excellent core around which we can plant the spore-seeds and grow our atmosphere. Before three generations have merged we will be flying through the gas storms again. It will be perfect. A new Home.

A new Home.

All Laotyn had ever wanted was to see it for himself.

Phosphorescence

<> The supervisor gestured towards the pods, and Laotyn followed the gesture hungrily. He was so close.

But then he hesitated, right on the brink of everything he had been waiting for, suddenly nervous. <> How could he ask her advice? He didn’t even know her name. <>

Pale pink bloomed in her centre and threaded out through the yellow of her welcome – he had embarrassed her, and Laotyn felt himself colouring in response.

<> With an effort, she smoothed herself back into yellow and constricted into a more formal sphere shape. > she said, offering him the traditional salute. <>

> Laotyn replied, glad for once to take refuge in the familiar greetings. <>

<> Then, the forms attended to, Lyia lapsed at once back into her disc shape, short stubby tendrils already reaching for the keys to her informational displays. <>

The rush of words flooded over Laotyn, leaving him dazed and uncertain in their wake. He quivered for a moment, and then contracted his bulk in agreement. <>

<>

Lyia keyed a button, the same bioluminescent algae as all the others surrounding her, and Laotyn watched as the walls separating the central chamber from the pods thinned. The blurred shapes beyond grew clearer, and Laotyn immediately zeroed in on the doorway with no shadow behind it. That was the pod that had been so recently vacated – the pod that would be his!

Lyia ushered him forwards, and he hurried to follow her directions. Up he floated, until he was close enough to touch it. One little nudge against that membranous door and it would give way and let him through, and his future would finally become his present. His body pulsing with hope, with trepidation, he lingered there, right on the brink of it. For one long second he paused, his tendrils almost brushing the door and then drawing back as he tried to impress the moment upon his memory. Tried to embed it into his very cells. A key moment. A really important memory, just like Lyia had said — one that he would treasure for the rest of his days.

<> Lyia chirped, not understanding the gravity of the moment for him despite the colours spiralling through his body — and how could she, how could anyone understand just how long he had waited for this day? — and she extended a lump of her body to push him inside.

And then suddenly he was there. Inside the sanctuary. The shrine he had pined towards for so long. It was perfectly round, and the algae-bubble walls were the same translucent, milky cream as any other. The light that shone from within them was muted.

But there were differences, too. This was no ordinary chamber. There were sixteen holes in the chambers sides, and beyond those, Laotyn knew, waited the receptors that would boost his own natural abilities far beyond anything any individual was capable.

To Laotyn, even the air itself tasted different in here. More special — no, no merely special. Sacred.

<> Lyia’s voice cut into his thoughts, the message delayed because of the barrier blocking him from the particles she was emitting. <>

Laotyn undulated for a moment. Could it really be so simple? Just reach out, and take it?

<> Lyia was waiting, watching, and Laotyn knew he could not disappoint his new supervisor on his first day — no matter how unorthodox she was.

There was nothing for it. The time had come.

Carefully, he shaped himself. Sixteen tendrils extruded from his central mass — not one more or less than was required, and each the perfect width.

With slow, painstaking caution, Laotyn inserted himself into the receptors —

— And he throbbed with one desperate burst of bright white as the world outside rushed in upon him and swept him away.

Call Me Back

–What went wrong?

The pony across from Strawberry extended a hoof in her direction.

Strawberry stared at it like it was a foreign object. It took her mind a few seconds too long to make the connection, resulting in an uncomfortable silence, but she raised her hoof to bump it in return. The other astronaut winked and laughed.

“Team, we’re reading good up here,” came a voice over her earpiece. “Finish your checks and let us know how it looks.”

“Copy that,” replied the lead astronaut, prattling off a long line of commands.

Glancing to her right, Strawberry tried to smile.

Against all odds, Cheerilee was going to space. She had fought and protested the notion for years, but eventually she came to accept the fact that they simply needed researchers up at the orbital space station. That wasn’t to say she had changed her mind on things, though.

Currently she was wound up like a spring about to explode. Strawberry reached over and gave her a pat on the shoulder. “We’ll be okay.”

“I hope you’re right,” she whispered back.

“I always am.” With a quiet sigh, Strawberry tried to relax in her seat. They were aimed upwards now, sitting perpendicular to the ground, above a massive contraption that would produce an unspeakable amount of force, propelling them to the atmosphere.

She remembered back when Redheart and Blossomforth had first launched, and the reverie and admiration surrounding their mission. There was none of that anymore. No more fanfare, no more camera flashes. Just another ship in a long line of ships. Nothing that hadn’t been done before. No closer to an answer.

At least the sun was out for now.

“Horseton, we are go for launch.”

“Copy that, standby for launch sequence.”

Strawberry turned to look at Cheerilee. “You know… I’ve been dreaming of her lately.”

“Oh?” Cheerilee blinked in confusion. “But I thought that after Luna died…”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember much of it, but she’s there. They’re not always pleasant dreams. Sometimes I’m underwater, and I can see her above me on the surface. Sometimes I died that day instead of her. A weird one lately is where I get a text from her and we have a conversation. But I know full well she’s been dead.” Strawberry sighed quietly, unable to see Cheerilee’s eyes because of her visor. “I guess that makes me a hypocrite. All that talk of letting go. Still can’t do it.”

“10, 9, 8, 7…”

“It’s harder to do than they spell it out to be,” Cheerilee offered. “But I’m still proud of you. You’ve come a long way, and I know Cherry’s proud too, wherever she is.”

“...6, 5, 4…”

Strawberry chuckled. “I hope so.” She looked up towards the sky, releasing the breath that she didn’t know she had been holding. “You know…”

“3.”

“I hope she’s not waiting for me up there.”

“2.”

Strawberry closed her eyes and sighed.

“One.”

…

…

…

…

…

…

Sensation.

Her heart leapt to her throat. Her eyes bulged, her body was thrown back in its seat. The cabin s hook and shuddered violently, and an angry roar filled her ears.

And Strawberry looked up and saw it all. Space. Stars. The sun, the moon. Everything in between.

It was all laid out before her like a picnic blanket.

She reached up to touch the stars and…

“... I’d like to thank my mother for starters.” A sea of nothing sat before her: empty chairs, tripods without cameras. Answers without questions. From her seat on the platform, Strawberry scanned the absent crowd before continuing. “We haven’t spoken since I started here, and to be honest we haven’t truly spoken in over a decade. I was always confused about the way she treated me. And how I never really felt like she respected me. It took me a long time to understand what was really happening, but… Knowing what I did doesn’t make fixing it any easier.”

She looked down at the water bottle sitting on the table.

“You can’t fix a broken heart with tape. You can’t make the sun stop blinking with only one rocket.” She chuckled to herself at that. “I spent days staring at my phone. Wondering if she’d call. She does sometimes, in my dreams. We talk, we fight, we yell and scream and swear. Sometimes I tell her I’m sorry. Sometimes she says that she loves me. But no matter what, every single time I wake up, I stare at my phone and I hope she doesn’t call.”

Strawberry unscrewed the cap and raised the plastic bottle.

“So… Here’s to you.” She leaned back and drank.

When she opened her eyes again she was standing amidst an empty, faceless crowd of ponies. They were all moving in tandem with each other, hurrying for some goal unknown. A pure white fog surrounded the background, and as Strawberry looked around, all she could see was one building: the house she grew up in.

And sitting on the front lawn was a foal, one with a yellow coat and a red mane, staring up at her with wide, curious eyes. Before she could approach them, one of the ponies bumped into Strawberry’s shoulder.

Strawberry turned and watched as this figure passed her by, their gray coat slowly gaining color until it became a vibrant pink. Until they became… “Cherry.”

Cherry stopped and turned around. In the time it had taken Strawberry to speak, they had made it to the opposite end of the street. For a second neither of them spoke, until Strawberry took the first step forwards.

After a few seconds, Cherry matched it, and Strawberry advanced again. Slowly, surely, they continued this dance, until the two were standing in front of each other. The crowd around them began fading, petering out and clearing, until it was only them in the empty space.

Cherry looked just as Strawberry remembered her, bu indescribable all the same. As she stood there, all she could think about was how much time was lost between them. How many nightmares and panics had passed since their last real meeting, and how the hole she left behind only ever seemed to get deeper.

But Strawberry could voice none of this. So instead, she laughed.

And after a moment, Cherry began laughing too.

Memories embraced her then, but it was nothing compared to the warmth of Cherry’s hugs. Words became empty vessels, unfit to even try to convey what Strawberry was feeling as emotion threatened to burst forth from her stomach.

Pain. Love. Anger. It all flew by in an unrecognizable blur, too fast to catch and not worth the effort. In that second, Strawberry finally felt whole again.

“Are you going to miss home while you’re up there?” asked a nonexistent reporter, seated in a nonexistent press room.

Strawberry chuckled. “Nowhere feels like home.”

Luminescence

The entire Taelo, suspended in space. Burning with all the radiance of a star, lit up like a tiny sun in its own right as the light of hundreds of thousands of souls combined into an inferno.

All around was darkness and echoing emptiness. A limitless wasteland, where nothing lived and nothing died. Only the Taelo mattered. Only the Taelo shone.

And it was as beautiful as all the sunrises on Home had ever been.

Even after all this time, that first moment of entry was still enough to steal away his senses. The beauty of all that concentrated life — so far as the people knew, all the life in the universe, all gathered in one place. It was worth losing a few moments to the wonder of it.

But Laotyn had a job to do, and he was a consummate professional. With only the palest tint of cornflower-blue wistfulness, he shifted his tendrils in the receptors, and turned his attention outwards.

All was as he had left it at the end of his previous shift. The Taelo, blazing like a miniature sun, and the huge swathes of black space around it. They were passing another star — passing in the loosest sense, given how huge the distance dividing it and them — and up ahead, the beacon of Issia, constant as ever.

Seven annual cycles of observing. Of watching that little dim light grow steadily brighter. The Taelo was almost there. They would reach their new planet within Laotyn’s lifetime — something he had once believed impossible.

He passed his gaze away from Issia itself, straining his senses to their limit to catch a glimpse of the planet itself. It was dark there, lifeless as any other hunk of rock the Taelo passed — especially with the fiery heat of the Taelo itself always there, drowning out everything else — but…today something was different.

Today there was a shape there. A sphere, just like the Taelo. Just like the planet. Outlined dimly, very dimly, in shining silver light. Just a tracing of it, just a whisper. But it was something that had not been there seven days ago, when last it had been his turn to observe Issia.

This was new.

Even as he watched, it dimmed and faded, leaving the planet the same dark silhouette that it had been before. But it had happened. That momentary spark had been real.

Lyia, when he told her, shone red-orange with excitement. <>

With palpitating nerves, he did so. The two of them squished into one pod was unpleasant, but Laotyn watched the play of colours across Lyia’s surface in an agony of suspense.

So when she flushed a deep, disappointed indigo, Laotyn deflated to.

<>

<> she said, almost crushed beneath the weight of the word. <>

<> He wanted to brush her aside, to check again — to be certain he had not dreamt it. But there was no room, and clearly he had been wrong. Lyia would not lie.

Her dark colour gradually gave way to something lighter and more wistful. <> She gave a quiver of laughter and shook two tendrils at him theatrically. <>*

Laotyn did his best to laugh as well.

<> Lyia reassured him. <>

Dipping his body in agreement, Laotyn slid back through the algae wall to free up space for her to exit, too. He would keep watching. And when it happened again, he would be ready.

PS1

When Strawberry Sunrise was 26, she graduated in the dead middle of her class.

“Here’s to space! Here’s to us!”

A chorus of cheers filled the room as glasses clinked together. Strawberry watched it all from the corner, nursing her strawberry martini in silence as she watched her classmates celebrate.

“Tie’s a little off, Sunrise.”

Strawberry looked down to adjust it. “Sorry ma’am.”

Rolling Thunder reached out and yanked it straight. “There ya go. You got an image to keep now, hear? Everyone’s lookin’ up to ya.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“You might be the most tight-lipped recruit I’ve ever met. All this time and those are still the only two words I can get out of ya.” Rolling sighed, giving her a firm slap on the back. “Make me proud up there.”

With that, Rolling left, and Strawberry felt that she would never see her again. But she was alright with that. She wrinkled her nose and stared into the bottom of her glass as the thick smell of cigarette smoke hung in the air.

“You all done with that? I can recommend you an apple martini,” huffed the bartender.

“Pass,” Strawberry said with an annoyed flick of her ear.

“Suit yourself.”

“I will, thank you.”

From behind here there was a smash of glass followed by some surprised gasps and drunken cheers. “Oh, I just don’t know what went wrong!”

Strawberry downed the last of her drink and made for the exit.

The air outside was cool. It always seemed to be, nowadays. The seasonal cycle had more or less imploded on itself, leaving a fairly consistent schedule of biting winds and hazy days behind. Not that it mattered, since any food nowadays could only be grown in agridomes.

The streets glowed in a strange red and blue tint, from the neon signs decorating each side of the road. Hoverbikes and speeders were parked at irregular intervals along the curb, strange bulky shapes in the night.

“Oh. You.” Strawberry turned to see Cheerilee sitting on the bench beside her. Her old friend refused to meet her eyes. “What do you want?”

Strawberry raised an eyebrow. “With you? Nothing. Just got tired of being in there.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

“Why not?”

“Because you don’t surprise me anymore.” Cheerilee said it evenly, without any hint of intonation in her voice. Not too differently from how Strawberry spoke, in fact.

Strawberry crossed her forelegs in annoyance. “You going to keep talking in circles?”

“No, because it won’t matter, you don’t know how to change.” With that, Cheerilee shot Strawberry a hateful glare. “You’ve been the same for years. I’ve given up hope of you being different.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t know how to let go!” Cheerilee screamed.

Her thought echoed down the empty barren streets.

“Let go?” Strawberry echoed. “Let go?” She threw her head back and laughed. “What is there left to let go of? What is there I could possibly let go when the universe pries every last thing away from me?”

“No, that’s not what you believe,” Cheerilee spat. “You gave up hope long ago. And I could never figure out why. But you gave up! You gave up long before Redheart and Blossom died. Before Cherry died. Before the sun even blinked. Your entire life, all you’ve ever done is give up.”

In her friend(?)’s eyes, Strawberry could see the fading light of distant stars. The bright burns of crashing ships. The flame that consumed them all in the end. Names ran through her head of failed missions they had learned about at the academy. Each one more desperate than the last.

Effervescence. Phosphorescence. Luminescence. Scintillation. Effulgence. Radiance. Incandescence.

Dozens of lives lost. Nothing gained for them.

Cheerilee turned away, swiping at her eyes with a sniff.

Modern Warfare. Closer. PS. Closer 2. Duvidha. Elsewhere. PS 2. Reaching. Calling. Reaching 2.

As the moonlight gently fell over her body, Strawberry saw something there that reminded her of her mother and that look she would always have. She had always considered it one of disappointment. Anger, maybe. But standing there, watching as Cheerilee cried… She finally realized what it was.

Equestrian Solar Mission 1. Equestrian Solar Mission 2. Equestrian Solar Mission 3. Equestrian Solar Mission 4.

It was hurt.

Because Strawberry had hurt her.

Stepping forwards, she draped a wing of Cheerilee’s shoulder. The motion was met with an accusatory glance, but nothing more. Strawberry pulled her into a hug. “I’m sorry,” she whispered quietly, evenly. “You’re right. I gave up before I even began.”

Cheerilee leaned into her and the two let the night swallow them whole.

Strawberry quickly lost herself in her thoughts again, feeling her body move of its own accord. She vaguely remembered rising from the bench, then riding an elevator to a cramped hotel room, moonlight peeking through the curtains.

Hurt.

Such a strange, alien thing. Strawberry had been hurt. She was still hurting. Painful ghosts and reminders made sure of that. Nothing could ever make the gravestone in her hometown cemetery stop hurting.

But she had hurt others.

She, Strawberry Sunrise, may have done more damage to the ponies around her than the sun sickness could ever do.

When her mind returned to her body she was lying in an unfamiliar bed, Cheerilee clinging to her. Her chest rose and fell, but other than that she was still. Voices still rang in her mind, spoken by ponies unrecognizable to her.

I’m not quite sure what went wrong.

I’m not quite sure what went wrong.

Strawberry wanted to leave, to head home for a shower and a snack. But she stayed, letting Cheerilee wrap herself around her, clinging to her tightly as if she were afraid to lose her.

I’m not quite sure what went wrong.

“I don’t want to be in love anymore,” Strawberry whispered.

I’m not quite sure what went wrong.

I’m not–

Fluorescence

<>

Rygiae’s tone was joking, almost teasing, but Laotyn kept himself a staid, sober ash-colour.

<> he answered, perfectly seriously. <>

Rygiae just laughed. <> xe chuckled. <>

And then he was zipping out through the chamber’s exit, and Laotyn just exhaled a body-full of gases and propelled himself onwards toward his pod. Thank the ancestors he didn’t share a shift with Rygiae. He wouldn’t be able to maintain the patience to deal with that excuse for humour on a regular basis.

With a muttered greeting to Lyia, he slipped straight into his pod and plugged in. Forming the required sixteen tendrils was as easy now as flying; sometimes outside of work he would lose his concentration for a moment and then realise he had accidentally produced them, sixteen identical shapes. And he would have to shake himself and force relaxation to return.

But there was no question of that now. Not now that he was here, in the one place that truly mattered. The place where he came alive.

The dim pulsing glow of the planet was now familiar to him. It only occurred in the non-liquid sections of the planet’s surface, and then only for a few hours at a time. It was strongest in one spot, on the largest of the non-liquid masses — and, strangely, down at the very lowest point of the atmosphere, right against the planet’s core. It was bizarre: on Home all the lifeforms had evolved in the upper echelons of the stratosphere, where the gas-winds blew strongest. Only the algae had scraped out a form of life on the surface of the planet’s core, and algae wouldn’t be strong enough to light up Laotyn’s receptors like this.

But with every day, the Taelo grew closer, and the glow of the planet grew brighter. And now that they were only a matter of weeks away from Issia, Laotyn could hear it.

Days slipped by. Laotyn had never been very good at taking his mandated rest periods — why would he want to, when everything good in the future of the people was there for the watching? — but now they vanished entirely. He traded shifts, called in favours, and when nothing else worked, resorted to begging. He had to watch Issia and its planet: especially its planet. It was so bright now. Only a candle flame compared to the roar of the Taelo, but contrasted with the endless dark they had travelled through — it was like starlight. Weak and flickering, but there.

When he listened – when he pushed all of his heightened senses in that direction and tried to listen to whatever down there – he heard something that was almost, almost the buzzing baseline of a sentient mind. There were no words, no colours, no thoughts; just a deep, persistent buzz that seemed to hint that something somewhere down there was thinking.

There was still a pattern to it. Strongest in one place, strongest when Issia was on the other side of the planet from that spot. Laotyn watched Issa’s revolutions, waiting impatiently for Issia to leave so that the barely audible crackle would blossom forth into that telltale buzz once more.

<> Lyia said, through the closed door of his pod. <>

He didn’t answer her. He had no time. Every fibre of his being was focused in on the planet. Waiting, waiting, agonised waiting for he hardly knew what.

And then, when it finally happened, Laotyn almost burst from the shock of it.

A spike in the hum. A bulge, a hump — a flash, almost. A nearly audible whisper.

Quivering in excitement, Laotyn manipulated the controls and pushed his augmented perception to its limits. Outside of his own body, looking down at the surface of Issia’s planet from the upper reaches of its own atmosphere. The buzz of the planet’s life was at its zenith. He was closer than he had ever been, and that buzz suddenly crescendoed into a muted roar — and Laotyn suddenly saw.

There were minds down there, on the surface of that planet.

He could feel them. Untold multitudes of them, mumbling and near-silent, like nascent embryos growing inside a parent before Merging.

Somehow, life had evolved down there, in a biome unimaginably different from the only sentient species known heretofore. The pure, gaseous regions of Issia’s planet were colourless blanks, but down on the surface — there they were. Minds growing amid the muck, like so many plants.

Half-formed thoughts crested and broke like waves, an ocean of them. All so quiet as to barely be audible. But the sheer volume of them…Laotyn was adrift, floating on a sea of whispers and stars.

As he pushed his receptors further still, tuning in to the strange frequency these beings seemed to operate on, fuzzy images wafted in and out of view. Strange creatures, utterly foreign — one fixed colour each, their moods a mystery. And worse than that, their shape…fixed, solid, rigid as a rock. They moved in set, strange ways, with no give or fluidity. Strange holes and decorations adorned their surfaces, and as Laotyn watched these creatures through the mirror of their own thoughts, he trembled.

After all this time. After all the searching that the people had done, in the halcyon days of their past, when spacefarers had been explorers and heroes. They had searched the universe for kindred spirits — for any spirits — and every expedition had returned with nothing to show for it. Dead worlds, no hint that life had ever existed or ever would. Failure after failure, and the people had turned their focus inward again. They had concluded they were alone.

For that to be proven wrong now, after the extinction event, after Home was gone — for the new species to inhabit the very world that the people hoped to colonise — there was a dreadful sort of irony in it all.

They had come seeking a new world, but it was already occupied.

And how would the people share with a species so alien, so other?

Laotyn knew that he should disconnect. That he needed to go straight to Lyia — no, straight to the Council of Elders — he needed to warn everyone. This was a discovery that it would shake the Taleo to its very foundations.

Rationally, he knew all that, but still he lingered. He listened to the fragmented thoughts of the creatures down below, still so many months distant from him, and he tried to imagine what their life would be like.

Closer 2

“Oi, Sunrise. C’mere a sec. I wanna show you something.”

Strawberry looked up from her bunk at the door. A one-eyed, one-legged pegasus was leaning against the doorframe, smirking at her. “Yes ma’am.” She set aside her book and made her way out the door, the other pegasus leading the way.

The barracks was mostly quiet, with only a few pegasi lurking and lounging about. The majority were off enjoying their break from training and resting. Getting themselves ready for the next batch of lessons and drills.

Strawberry didn’t pay any of it much mind. She passed the tests and exams with moderate proficiency, did what she was told, and kept mostly to herself. Her fellow recruits respected this at least and left her alone, to the point where Strawberry barely knew any of their names.

She knew the name of her superior though, mostly because she swore to never let them forget it. Rolling Thunder, the mare made of bricks. The unstoppable force, she liked to call herself. She just couldn’t figure out why they wouldn’t let her back up in space again. Not like she needed all her limbs in zero gravity!

“Alright, Sunrise. Today I’m gonna show ya somethin’ that’ll change your life. Turn it right over on its head. You’re gonna love it.”

Strawberry sighed internally. “Yes ma’am.”

“Of all the cadets they throw at me, don’t think I’ve ever seen one like you. You’re almost halfway done with your training, y’know that?”

“Yes ma’am.”

Rolling laughed, rough and harsh. “Yeah, you’re almost outta here, and I still don’t know a damn thing about ya! Neither does anyone else, really. You’re just one big red and yellow mystery.”

They left the housing complex, stepping into the sunlight. Strawberry glanced up at the sky, half expecting to see pegasi floating about in between the clouds, before she remembered how much of a danger it was now to even consider spreading one’s wings.

“Here, this way.”

Rolling moved on at a brisk pace, undeterred by her handicap.

“Tell me about yourself, Sunrise.”

Strawberry thought for a second. “What would you like to know?”

“Hmm. Let’s start with what you think about all this space stuff.” Rolling paused to glance back at Strawberry, almost in suspicion.

“It’s fine.”

“Fine?” Rolling let out a surprised grunt. “Y’know, there’s tons of ponies out there that were right frothing at the mouths to get up in space. But not you. You’re just… Well, you’re just here. Ain’t nothin’ more to it.”

Strawberry sighed quietly as they began to climb a hill. “I had a friend who was excited to get up there. Another who loved the sound of flying. Both of them are dead.”

That brought a swift end to their conversation. They continued to climb the hill until Rolling came to a stop at the very top, slinging off her bag and fishing around in it. “Here we go. This,” she remarked as she drew out a long, wooden object, “is a boomerang. Heard of ‘em?”

“Sure.”

“Neat thing about ‘en is that they always come back to you. Now I dunno about you, but to me, that’s what life really is.” Winding up her foreleg and leaning hard on her prosthetic, Rolling cocked back her foreleg and fired away. The boomerang went whipping through the air, arcing back at its apex before returning right to the spot it had left. “No matter what ya do, things come back. Life’s funny like that.”

Strawberry considered that for a moment.

“That’s why you gotta keep an open mind,” Rolling continued, ignoring Strawberry’s attempts at reminiscing. “Can’t get too hung up on petty grudges and all that. Look at me! Where’d I be if I let a lil scratch stop me? Rolling passed the boomerang over to Strawberry.

“Go on. Give ‘er a whirl.”

From the hill, Strawberry could see the sprawling training campus before her. Plain concrete buildings lacking window and character piled into each other, shades of white and gray against the green knolls around it. It looked like a pile of clay dumped in a park, something so horrifically out of place it felt insulting.

She thought of Cherry. Of Blossomforth and Redheart, and of disappointing her mother years ago. From her vantage point, she could almost see her teenage self walking the paths below her. With a deep breath, Strawberry drew her foreleg back, and with all her might, let the boomerang go. It glided through the air gracefully, like a bird.

“See, there you go! Now, you just gotta…”

…

…

…

“... make sure that whatever you do, your tether does not break. If it does, you’ve got no way of reversing momentum, and you’ll go flying off in space like the proper drongo you are. Clear?”

“Yes ma’am!”

The cadets around Strawberry were brimming with a bright, eager energy, looking like a bundle of oranges in their space suits. Rolling scanned the cadets with a cold, calculating glare, finally focusing on Strawberry. “You get that, Sunrise?”

“Yes, ma’am.:

Rolling seemed like she wanted to needle her more but decided against it. “Alright. Get in here, then. You’re up first.”

With a nod, Strawberry pushed past her jealous crewmates and stepped into the chamber.

The door sealed behind her, in time with a drawn-out exhale from Strawberry. Slowly, things became clear. The ceiling became the floor, the walls became limitless. Strawberry’s hooves left the ground as she drifted up into the air like a lost balloon.

Rolling said something over the intercom, but Strawberry zoned it out. She let herself float as if she were in water, closing her eyes and letting the sensation of nothing fill her mind.

Then, she reached up and caught the boomerang.

Scintillation

Laotyn was hungry. There was a gnawing hollowness inside him that never quite seemed to go away. It irritated him; like an itch he couldn’t quite scratch. He had visited the algae-pool four days ago, touching down just long enough to consume the maximum allowance for a single day. And yet his body was already demanding more.

He pulsed a dull ocher, but tried to push the frustration down. His body would just have to make do with what it had. There were more important things to pay attention to.

Eagerly, he formed his sixteen tendrils and reached for the controls. He had timed it perfectly, but the same doubt as always lingered.

Would she be there?

It had taken him some time to grasp that the creatures on the world below were at their brightest to him when they were in their rest phase. Their thoughts when waking were too quiet for him to make out, and it was only during the nightphase of the planet’s cycle that their minds unfolded and expanded enough for him to make them out.

One by one, they dropped into sleep, and with each departure, the planet below brightened. The fixed locations they lived in — cities, they were called — flared up one by one. So strange, to root yourself to one location, rather than drifting as people had done on Home. Laotyn dwelt in a single resting chamber by necessity rather than by choice. But these creatures — ponies, the image-word recurred again and again in their dreams, and he was beginning to grasp the language, crude as it was — these ponies were fixed in body and fixed in place, no flexibility in either. Perhaps the two aspects were related.

Laotyn focused on one little white pinprick. The minds there were disordered as all the pony minds were, and flashing images inundated him, each there only for a moment before the thought pattern changed and it was gone. A pony with its young, alive at the same time as it, despite its parenthood. A pony galloping through fields of waving green plants. A pony spreading its wings and performing the limited lower-atmosphere movements that this species perceived as flight. Scores of them, all at the same time, a relentless current of them. And if Laotyn’s concentration wavered even for a moment, then the rest of the planet would flood in on him as well. He had spent the first night paralysed by that, lost in the rush of it all.

But tonight he was ready; he was focused. He kept all his senses trained on that one small city — and there was only one whose thoughts were deliberately pointed in his direction.

She was thinking, or dreaming, as she called it, of the sky. She always was. It was what had drawn him to her in the first place. She was floating alone in a vast empty sky, not a cloud in sight. A sphere was suspended above her — huge and translucent, shining with a soft green glow. The image had jumped out to Laotyn the first time he saw it. It resembled, very vaguely, one of his own people — and it was such a standout in the mass of pony thoughts that he had zeroed in on it immediately. But the balloon, as she called it, was not the sentient creature here. There was a basket below it, and in the basket, a pony. She was pink, making her look permanently embarrassed — though her yellow mane gave her a slightly more hopeful air. And just as she had the first time, she tilted up the stubbiest of her tendrils, the one with all the holes on it, and opened one of those holes in a curving shape with a rush of thoughts that, had she been a person, would have made her a warm and welcoming yellow.

<> he greeted her, the image of those two bizarre plants still alien to his mind’s eye. His people named themselves in musical, lyrical patterns of colour and sound — but hers sought comfort in the familiar, and named themselves after objects and plants from the world around them.

Laotyn, she replied, her conception of him a hazy image, a undulating mass of rainbow cloud. He smiled as he saw it. Crude, but effective.

<> He still struggled to grasp the difference between the two. His own people never turned off their minds in the way that ponies’ perception of sleep implied. You rested and meditated alone, and that was all. There was none of this dramatic change in thought patterns, no flights of fantasy through composite landscapes made of memory blended with imagination.

She squeezed air out through one of her holes. Laughing, she had said on their last meeting, when he asked.

My day was great, thanks. I went on a date.

<>

But even as he asked, she was already supplying the images. Another pony, bright yellow this time, with an angry-red mane. Almost the reverse of Cherry Berry’s colours. It had the two extra tendrils that some ponies possessed. It’s holes were open wide, just as Cherry Berry’s were, showing the white solids inside, and the memory was tinted with happiness.

It’s spending time with someone, Cherry Berry said, and the scene in which she stood abruptly shifted. The sky and the balloon melted away, and now they were in a dark space lit by dimly flickering flames.

Though he had no tangible form here in the dream, though they could not hurt him, Laotyn shied away. Fire was something that had never been seen on the Taelo, but the sight of it awoke long-dormant instincts. On Home fire had been the one great natural danger to the people. When a spark ignited in that hydrogen-rich atmosphere, the results were…horrific.

But here, on Issia’s planet — Equus, Cherry Berry had corrected him once — here on Equus the fire was pleasant. The ponies were giving off feelings of contentment, of pleasure, and reflections of the flame danced in the large wet circles through which they perceived the world.

<>

She did the air-squeeze laugh again. Why do you sound so confused about it? Don’t sky-jellyfish date?

<> he replied. <>

And selection of those partners was not so much the choice of a life-mate as it was the choice of the other constituent parts of your future offspring. Friendships were important — Laotyn had had many, before he finally earned his entrance into the observation pods — but they were nothing to do with Merging.

The stuff you come out with is so trippy, Cherry Berry said, waves of umber amusement radiating off her almost as clearly as from a person. How does my subconscious come up with this stuff?

<>

It was not strictly ethical, to let her believe that he was merely a figment of her own imagination — but Laotyn was in totally uncharted waters now, trying to establish relations with the first sentient species ever discovered, and when she had made the assumption he had not corrected her.

She launched then into the tale of her date, and the ponies stationed in the dark, enclosed space lit by fire began to move and act as the story played out. Laotyn listened to her words, but he was more focused on her colours, her emotions. She was so real. So vital. If he wasn’t looking directly at her, if he couldn’t see her horrible mass of liquids and solids and squishy meat wrapping it all together, he would have believed she was a person. She was a person, that much was obvious. In all the ways that counted, apart from external appearance, Cherry Berry and all her kind were people.

But Laotyn’s people had come all this way. Thousands of years. Generation upon generation, circling the tight confinement of the Taelo, dreaming that some day their descendants would see the open sky again. That a new Home could be made.

How could they recreate what they had lost on Issia’s planet, when to do so would destroy the life that was already there?

<> he said, cutting into her monologue, <>

She did not hesitate. Sure, I can try.

<>

Cherry Berry released air noisily through one of the holes in her highest tendril — usually a way to facilitate movement, but she remained stationary. Laotyn was unsure if the intention behind the movement was the same, or if it was another obscure emotional indicator.

Sounds like one of the puzzles they hand out down at Princess Twilight’s friendship school.

Not understanding what she meant, Laotyn remained silent, trying to draw more information out of her.

They’re real good at interspecies friendships down there, Cherry Berry said at last. I’ve never studied there, but the kids are out and about in town enough that almost everyone’s gotten roped into one of their silly friendship lessons. They’d probably tell you that there’s always a way to balance everycreature’s needs.

<> She would not be able to see him, but in his pod, Laotyn contracted with disappointment, shrinking in on himself as his colour bled away. His understanding of the terraforming modules was rudimentary, but so far as he knew, there was no option to change half of an atmosphere. <>

Princess Twilight would say, and here Cherry Berry adopted a tone obviously intended to be mocking, You just need to try harder.

<> he warned her, despair tinting his words and his body alike a dark, terrible blue. <>

The scene shifted again — they were back with the balloon, but now the yellow six-limbed pony was present in the balloon beside Cherry Berry. Buddy, I don’t understand what even half of that means, but I think I’m more interested in dreaming about her than about you and your freaky sky-jellyfish friends.

<> said Laotyn, utterly defeated. <>

Unless the Council of Elders reassigned him, of course.

Laotyn left his shift a smaller person than when he had entered it. He needed to visit the gas-wells and drink, but no matter how much methane he had inside him, he didn’t think it would make him feel any more buoyant.

Cherry Berry was his friend, his first new friend in years. In ever, if you took into account the friendships he remembered his parents having with the parents of other people. Cherry Berry was the first truly original person he had ever known.

But he knew what the Council of Elders would choose, if he revealed the truth to them. And how could he do that to his friend? When he had dreamed of reaching the pods, he had anticipated the pleasure of seeing the new world first, before anyone.

This was not what he had wanted.

Waiting Room

When Strawberry Sunrise was 24, she wondered where all the time had gone.

It had been about six years since Cherry died. Sun sickness, they were calling it. Some strange disease that was striking down and killing ponies at random. She was one of the first cases.

Like the sun, nobody had any explanation for it. First they recommended wearing a mask, then staying home, then walked it all back saying they didn’t think it was contagious. It was just another thing in a long line of global panics.

Strawberry didn’t care about any of it, because nothing changed the fact that Cherry was dead.

She stopped counting days since the funeral, only vaguely noticing as seasons changed around her. As she slowly faded away, so too did the world around her. Ponies she knew died from sun sickness, others went to space to help the cause. The clock marched onwards.

Strawberry had grieved. She had cried, screamed, punched the wall so hard she broke her hoof. Wondered how the sun could take Cherry but not her. How someone so brilliant and lovely could die, while the useless sack of flesh named Strawberry Sunrise continued to exist.

Eventually the Royal Guard came for her, and Strawberry did as she was told. She went to the office, signed some paperwork, and went to orientations. She was now well on her way to becoming an astronaut.

At least her mother was somewhat proud that she now had a job.

“You okay?”

Strawberry stared at Cheerilee blankly. “Yeah.”

Cheerilee sighed, reaching over and squeezing Strawberry’s hoof.

Throughout the years, Cheerilee had done her best to be there for her. It was more than she deserved, frankly, but Strawberry had never been successful at expressing that. While Strawberry was drafted to be an astronaut, Cheerilee and her fellow educators were tasked with helping the ever-expanding science team in analyzing every single detail of the sun, praying for a breakthrough.

Judging by the fact that the sun had been gone for seven days now, they weren’t finding much success.

The waiting room smelled strongly of chemicals. Everything was sanitized and cleaned regularly, even if it was already proven to do absolutely nothing. She supposed the sentiment was nice.

“It’s… Fine to not be okay,” Cheerilee offered.

Strawberry pursed her lips. “Then I’m not okay.”

“I’m sorry.”

Strawberry sighed, tension deflating for a moment. “No, I’m sorry. I’m… I’m not over it. I don’t know if I ever will be.”

“Me too.” Cheerilee squeezed her hoof again.

“Thanks for sticking with me.”

“Absolutely. Strength in unity and all.” Cheerilee sighed, staring up at the television monitor above them. “I hope everything goes okay today.”

“Down here or up there?”

“Both.”

The television was tuned to a news station, where old footage of Blossomforth and Redheart was playing while a reporter gave a voice over. The two were going to launch near the sun today, in an attempt to find… something.

It would have been exciting if Strawberry remembered what that emotion felt like.

“Cheerilee? The doctor will see you now.”

Cheerilee flinched, and Strawberry gave her a reassuring pat on the back. “Hey. I’m sure it’s not sun sickness.”

“Let’s hope so,” Cheerilee said, rising from her seat and heading for the receptionist’s desk.

With nothing else to do, Strawberry idly watched as the footage cut to live transmissions of the mission.

“Horseton, we’re closing on the Alpha marker now,” Redheart’s voice said.

“Copy that Effervescence. You’re still on track.”

A smaller image showed the two astronauts boarding their vessel, waving and smiling to the crowd. The two were dressed in orange spacesuits, with helmets bearing reflective black visors tucked under their arms.

Strawberry tried to picture herself in that same position, acting like she was about to save the world. Try as she might, she just couldn’t picture herself there.

Glancing out the window, Strawberry was struck by the feeling that something was about to change.

“Uhh… Effervescent, we’re reading something near you. Solar fluctuations are spiking, do you…”

“Stand by Horseton.”

Strawberry wanted so badly to reach out, to call her friends. Get them to come back. But that was impossible.

“Effervescent—“

“Shit! Mayday, mayday, we’re picking up…”

“Adjust your course, you need to—“

“It can’t, that’s not—“

Strawberry stood, staring at the television.

“Oh shi—“

Silence.

“Effervescent, come in. Effervescent, do you read? Flight, I have loss of radar contact.”

Strawberry felt something cold and icy wrap itself around her heart.

“Ops, this is flight. Lock the doors.”

The television blinked, and a canned laugh track filled the air. The horrified receptionist had changed the channel to a rerun of some late night talk show. A grinning stallion was laughing hard, basking in the glory of a joke he had just told. “Right? Right?! Like, what’s the whole point anyways?”

A few audience members yelled in approval.

“All I’m saying is that if the sun has decided that it’s time to dip, then hey, maybe it’s got a good reason!”

Strawberry didn’t know what to make of that statement.

The door opened again, and Cheerilee stepped back into the hall. “Not sun sickness!” she beamed. “Just a little cold. Did they launch? How did it go?”

Illumine

<>

The dream was dark and cold. No blue sky, no balloon. Only darkness, black as the void beyond the Taelo’s walls.

And yet he had chosen her dream to enter, he was certain he had. He had scanned the city carefully, picked her out, and dived deeper. He ought to have been with her right now — and instead there was only this dark, formless penumbra.

<> Councilperson Kirel’s voice was nervous.

Laotyn shifted uncomfortably, all too aware of the observer, of their tendrils inserted into the same receptors as his own. It was altogether too much physical contact, and he wanted it to be over already.

<> he said, trying to sound suitably deferential. <>

<> objected Councilperson Kirel. <>

Their strident tone was — it was too much. As if it wasn’t bad enough that Laotyn had acted selfishly, had chosen his own species and his own loyalty to the Council of Elders. As if bringing a second person with him into Cherry Berry’s dream wasn’t a huge enough betrayal on its own.

No wonder she was angry with him. No wonder it was dark.

But he could not say that. He could not even think it, not with the Councilperson so close to him in the physical world. There was a chance he would get too agitated, that the wrong thoughts would leak out of him and be overheard.

<> he tried again. <>

There was a long pause, and discomfort was rolling off Councilperson Kirel in waves.

And then a voice spoke. Truly spoke, the way Laotyn understood ponies did in their waking lives. No soft thoughts and gentle colours here. Just vibrational sound, raw and uncompromising, the waves of it jittering painfully through his body even all the way back on the Taelo.

“Laotyn. Is that thy name, interloper?”

With a pulse of hurt that reverberated through both him and the Councilperson, Laotyn whipped around, trying to locate the source of the sound. The words were Ponish, but they were projected directly to him as well. He was not translating, as he did for Cherry Berry. There was no guesswork here, just raw intent.

<> One thing was for certain — it wasn’t his friend.

“I noticed that one of my little ponies has been having strange dreams the last few nights.” Soft and silky as water flowing beneath his tendrils, the voice echoed from the darkness on every side. “Not nightmares, per se, but something unusual. So I decided I would come and see it for myself.”

<> A pony, he assumed — but what little of their mind he could feel felt very different to Cherry Berry’s. This pony was not asleep, not like the others slept, and yet the power of their mind was beyond anything he had yet experienced.

“I am the Princess of the Night, and those who would prey upon my subjects soon regret it.” As the final word echoed, sending another painful vibration through the air, light flared, and a pony stepped out from the shadows.

She was huge, so large that Laotyn wondered if one of the ponies had finally found a way to change their own shape — but other than the size, her form was largely the same as the others. It was the sheer bulk of her mind that differentiated her from them.

Here was a presence older and more powerful than any pony, than any person, that Laotyn had ever met.

<> he asked, but she shook her upper tendril in the way he had come to learn meant no.

“What are you? You are not of Equestria, nor even of Equus. That much I know already.”

<>

<<—Say nothing,>> interjected Councilperson Kirel. <>

The blue light shone brighter, and Laotyn belatedly realised it was emanating from her. Could Cherry Berry do that?

“If your intent is not pure, yes, I am.”

<> he whispered to Councilperson Kirel, using only his short-range emissions. <>

“I do speak for all ponykind,” boomed the Princess, agony rolling from her jaws with each word, tearing at Laotyn’s fragile skin. “And we say that we do not welcome you, aliens. We do not want you here. I see the machines in your thoughts. I see what they will do to Equestria. Take them elsewhere, I tell you, because this world is already taken.”

<> Councilperson Kirel was growing truly panicked. <>*

Laotyn threw out a tendril from the upper portion of his body, trying to halt the Councilperson before they could disconnect. <>

If Councilperson Kirel left now — if they took this impression of the ponies back to the Council — it spelled doom for Cherry Berry and every pony that called Equus home.

“I realise it,” Luna said scornfully, and her voice rang louder, “And if you do not alter your course now you will find that my next warning is far more painful.”

<<No!>> In desperation, Laotyn opened his mind wider to Luna, letting more of himself flood out into the dreamscape. She didn’t understand, neither of them did. These two obstinate old Elders, both certain of the hostility of the other, would doom two species to war, when friendship was possible. He just had to make her see, and then Kirel would understand that the ponies could be reasoned with.

Laotyn’s memories blossomed into being in the darkness of the dream. The algae pits, glowing far below as he spiralled through the spheres. Songs floating through narrow cylindrical corridors. The pink skies of Home. Flocks of people, arcing together through the celestial storms, just like ponies galloped in herds.

There was commonality here. Personhood. Shared values. They just had to see it.

“What is this place?” Luna’s voice was suspicious, but the anger was suddenly fading. She took a step forward, almost crossing the border between her own dark and Laotyn’s mind, and hope surged in Laotyn’s core.

She was so close to grasping it.

The people were just like ponies. Families, stories, songs and history. Everything was the same. And if they worked together, if they blended their minds and their science, then just maybe they would find a way. Perhaps the upper regions of Equus’ sky could be altered, without destroying the ground. Perhaps the conversion to gas giant did not have to be total. Perhaps —

—And then Luna’s hoof crossed the barrier into Laotyn’s thoughts, and she screamed.

Agony spiked through Laotyn’s every tissue. The soundwaves, the vibration: it was going to tear him apart!

<> begged the Councilperson, and then abruptly they wrenched their tendrils free of the receptors and their presence was gone.

Luna screamed again, and Laotyn wordlessly screamed back at her, forcing more of his memories out into the open. She was attacking him, with her terrible noise, but he would not give up. He would make her see that he was not evil, that the people were not conquerers and villains. There had to be a way for them all to live in peace. There had to.

It was like fire, the noise, but Laotyn dredged the very depths of his ancestors’ memories and pulled forth the most powerful of all.

Home, the planet, striped in pretty shades of pink, dotted with great white discs where the storms were whirling. The little sun orbiting the giant, fading red light warming the planet. And beyond it, the great shadow.

The extinction event.

If this didn’t evoke Luna’s pity, nothing would.

For one second, two, he was lost in the horror of his own memory, but then he resurfaced and reached for her with his awareness, trying to see how she had taken it.

She had stopped screaming.

That was a good sign, right?

<> he said into the darkness, but all was silent once more.

Luna was gone.

<> he insisted, though after this disastrous meeting he wasn’t sure the Council of Elders would feel the same.

No answer came, and with a twisting indigo-purple feeling of dread deep inside, Laotyn cut the connection.

Modern Warfare

Princess Luna was dead.

The news shocked everyone into a stunned silence. The next few weeks passed in a meek numbness, as headline after headline struck the world.

Princess Celestia, apparently in grievance, had gone insane. Ponies in Canterlot saw something surge up into the sky, catching fire before turning into a distant speck. The sun went out for three hours that day. When it came back, it was announced that Twilight Sparkle would take the throne.

The news was met with mixed results. A massive protest occurred in Manehattan, followed by mixed riots in various other cities. Some ponies considered the death and disappearance as clear signals that the end of the world was upon them. Chaos reigned supreme, as if Discord himself had returned, and any sense of hope had long since been lost.

And yet, some things still seemed to stay the same.

“I can’t believe she wants me to find a job!” Strawberry rolled her eyes at the thought. “How does she not understand that the world is literally ending? I don’t want my last days to be stuck behind a convenience store counter or something.” She kicked her rear legs up onto the dashboard in annoyance.

A strange side effect of the chaotic developments was a rapid push in technology. Magic continued to deteriorate, to the point where Twilight outright banned the use of any type of magical ability due to the injuries and destructions running rampant through Equestria.

One such invention was that of a car: a sort of cart that could be piloted instead of pulled.

While a brilliant and exciting innovation, Strawberry wasn’t surprised that Blossomforth’s car was somehow the most tacky thing in existence: a magenta colored vehicle with a turquoise driver’s side door, fake wooden furnishings on the inside, and stickers of her and Redheart’s cutie marks plastered all over the outside.

“Your mom’s wild,” said Redheart from the back. “I know people like that though. They think that we should just carry on with life because if this isn’t the end of the world we’re all just screwed.”

Strawberry scoffed. “And me working at a convenience store is a better option? I’d rather take the end of the world if that’s the case.”

“I still don’t think you could know that if you never apply yourself,” Cheerilee muttered.

“I don’t think Strawberry has ever applied herself to anything in her life,” Cherry joked.

Strawberry rolled her eyes again.

“Ooh. Lot’s empty!” Redheart said excitedly.

Blossomforth’s eyes lit up. “Ooh!”

“Don’t you dare,” Cheerilee warned.

Blossomforth winked at Strawberry. “I would never!”

“Floor it!” shouted Redheart.

The engine roared as Blossomforth pulled into the empty parking lot. With a straight strip of road ahead of her, she slammed her hoof into the accelerator and the tiny car ripped down the asphalt.

Redheart screamed in delight, Cheerilee screamed in fear, and Cherry just held on tight. Strawberry pulled her legs back down, watching as the streetlamps on the side turned into blurred lines. The line on the speedometer crawled higher and higher as the tiny car sped through the lot. As Strawberry listened to the engine’s roar, she couldn’t help but feel the sound felt familiar somehow.

In front of them, Strawberry saw a blur of orange and black in front of them. Her heart seized up as the car barrelled towards them, but her voice died in her throat.

The car slammed into it and..

…They simply passed through.

Strawberry glanced at the rearview mirror but saw no sign of the pony that she had seen. But a strange tingle was left behind, digging into the hole in her stomach.

The speedometer dropped as Blossomforth eased off the accelerator, laughing. “Oh, that’s great. I love this shitbox.”

“I’m going to throw up,” Cheerilee muttered.

“Not on me!” cried Cherry. “Otherwise I’m never taking middle seat again.”

Blossomforth pulled the car out of the lot and back onto the street. Strawberry leaned back and closed her eyes, zoning the bickering from behind her out. She took a deep breath, in and out. In and out. In and out.

A whiff of flowers hung in the air, from Blossomforth’s air freshener. The rush of wind ran through her mane, filling the car from a rolled down window. She felt the car shake and rattle beneath her as it barreled down the street.

Princess Luna was dead. It was such a bizarre concept that seemed hard to grasp. As important as it was, ponies didn’t seem to like talking about it. It felt disrespectful. Taboo, even. Like any gossip would result in Celestia returning to blast them all to tiny bits.

Strawberry wasn’t certain how Luna had died. Twilight had done a good job of skirting the topic, but the general consensus was that it had to be related to the behavior of the sun.

Since then, Strawberry had also been having… strange dreams. Not dreams of a dramatic, sudden end of all life in Equestria, but mundane ones. Everyday dreams. Dreams where she was still in high school, where she was studying horticulture and having lunch in the cafeteria and getting chewed up by teachers.

It was unusual, to say the least. Unexciting even.

But without Luna, Strawberry wasn’t sure what to draw from them.

“Dibs on the bathroom. I’ve had to pee since we left.”

Strawberry opened her eyes to see the car pulling into Blossomforth’s driveway. She shut the engine off and the girls piled out of the car. Cherry waited by the door while the others filed inside. “Hey. What’s on your mind?”

“Huh?”

“You seemed deep in thought up there. Unusual for you,” Cherry snarked.

Strawberry ruffled her mane. “Jerk.”

“Says you. Seriously, what’s up?”

“Eh. Just thinking.” Strawberry couldn’t help but notice how Cherry looked in the afternoon light. Her mane seemed less yellow, her skin looked pale. “Are you… sure you’re fine?”

Cherry waved a hoof. “Yeah. Just… tired, I guess.”

“You’re sure it’s not sun sickness?”

“Yes,” Cherry said, tensing. “I’m sure. I’m fine, Strawbs.” She darted in to kiss her. Strawberry was caught off guard by the motion and barely registered it before Cherry started pulling away. Reaching out, Strawberry wrapped her forelegs around her and pulled her back in to kiss again.

Their lips found each other easily in a rehearsed maneuver, as the two closed the remaining distance between them.

The moment was broken by Cheerilee, as the best ones often seemed to be. “Hey, lovebirds. Get inside, you need to see this.”

“We’re just good friends,” Strawberry said as they pulled away, leading Cheerilee to roll her eyes.

“Whatever you say. Just get in here.”

They followed her into the house, where Blossomfroth and Redheart were staring at the television set. The channel was tuned to a news station, where Princess Twilight was making an announcement.

“What’s going on?” asked Cherry.

“I don’t know,” Redheart says. “But it seems serious.”

“Truly, I wish there was another way,” Twilight was saying. “But the fact is we need answers. I know that our situation is drastic, but we must all band together and remember the things that unite us as ponies. While our physical manifestations of magic seem to be compromised, our intuitive senses are not. This is why I introduced a motion today that requires all pegasi between the ages of eighteen and thirty five to join the Aeronautics Program, where they will begin training as astronauts.”

A hush fell over the room.

On the television, whatever Twilight said next was drowned out by an explosion of questions from the amassed reporters before her.

“Holy shit,” Blossomforth finally said. “So… Every single pegasi has to get ready to go to space now.”

Cheerilee stared at the screen, mouth agape in shock.

“That’s… Wow,” muttered Redheart. “I don’t believe that.”

“She’s insane,” Cheerilee whispered. “How can she possibly expect this to work?”

Strawberry stared at the television numbly, as Twilight was dragged away from the podium by Royal Guards, with a different advisor announcing that the press conference was over.

“This is great! That means we’ll get to hang out together!” Blossomforth exclaimed, clapping her hooves in excitement.

Cheerilee chewed her cheek in worry.

“Really, they should just look into drafting Cherry. Right, Cherry?”

There was no response.

Strawberry turned to look at Cherry. Her girlfriend was staring straight ahead, with blank empty eyes. Without a word, she collapsed to the ground.

“Cherry!”

“Get back!” Redheart nearly threw Cheerilee out of the way, rushing over to Cherry’s side. “Cherry? Can you hear me?”

No response.

Redheart put her ear to Cherry’s chest. “Shit.” She knelt and began slamming her hooves into Cherry’s chest. “Call an ambulance!”

Blossomforth rushed into the kitchen for a telephone.

Cheerilee and Strawberry stood stock still, frozen to the ground in shock.

“One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.”

No response.

“Cherry? Cherry?!”

“Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten. Eleven.”

“I need an ambulance, she just collapsed on the floor!”

“Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen.”

Cherry turned her head, staring straight at Strawberry. She gave a quiet sigh and smiled. “Laotyn,” she whispered.

And then…

…There was nothing.

Effulgence

What, and then she just vanished? Cherry Berry sounded sceptical.

<> Laotyn shivered. <>

Weird.

<>

No. She frowned; he was learning to read the expressions of what he now knew was a face, and not merely another limb. Weird that I’m dreaming about Princess Luna’s disappearance and tying it to you. She’s missed a couple of parties and the gossip magazines are going crazy over it, but I don’t care about that stuff. She huffed. Then again, I have recurring dreams and what I guess is an imaginary friend, so what do I know about crazy?

<> Laotyn said wearily; it was a stock phrase by this point, and neither of them found it meaningful any longer.

Well, whatever. Cherry Berry flipped her mane dismissively. I’ve got a big flight in a couple of days, and if you’re not imaginary I wish you’d actually let me get some sleep instead of bothering me.

Laotyn’s hue shifted a shade darker. What could he say to convince her — and even if he could, would it even matter? Luna’s display of aggression had been horrifying, and the Council’s mind was all but made up. The hope of peace was dwindling, and no one but him even seemed to care that Issia’s planet was already occupied.

<>

It wasn’t the first time he had made the request, and the scoff she gave him was also a well-worn one. Yeah, that’d go well, wouldn’t it? A balloon pilot rocking up at the palace in Canterlot and demanding to see Princess Celestia on the grounds that the talking jellyfish in her dreams told her to.

She didn’t understand. Even now, she still couldn’t grasp that he was real. <>

Frustration was tingeing his words with ocher, and Cherry Berry cut him off with a wave of her foreleg. Laotyn, come on. Give it a rest. You’re ruining a perfectly good flying dream.

She pulled a rope on her balloon, releasing another gout of flame. Laotyn had finally learned not to flinch at the sight of it, but he still kept a safe distance. He was turning his next remonstrance over in his mind, trying to find the right words, when Lyia hurled herself bodily against the door to his pod.

<>

Abruptly pulling himself out of the dream, he turned to her, bewildered. <>

<>*

Object? What object? Laotyn shoved his tendrils back into the receptors and steered frantically away from Cherry Berry’s dream. Was it Luna, making good on her threat? What was she sending towards them? He hadn’t known that the ponies even possessed the technology for ships. They didn’t even know how to grow algae in shapes, for goodness sake! How could they suddenly have developed the ability to engineer all the varieties necessary for air filtration, vacuum protection, and all the thousand other requirements?

Moving frantically, he reeled his consciousness back in, casting about the Taelo for whatever was threatening it —

—And then he saw it.

A blazing arc of light, like a meteor or a comet, the tail that streaked behind it showing that it clearly had come from the planet. A ship, or something else? There wasn’t time to consider it — everything was swept away in the horror that this thing, whatever it was, was burning, and it was headed straight for the most flammable object in Issia’s entire solar system.

He zoomed in, as close as he dared, though he felt the heat scorching him even through the receptors.

It was no ship. The fiery core of the meteor, white hot and pulsing with anger, was a pony.

And he knew this pony. He had seen her often enough in Cherry Berry’s memories, and the dreams of all the other ponies who worshipped her.

Laotyn flew so quickly through the corridors that he hardly saw them whiz past. He expended air rashly, quickly, not caring what it cost so long as he reached her, so long as he put himself between her and his people, so long as he could save — he hardly knew who he wanted to save.

He wanted to save them all.

When he came skidding to a halt in the lower agricultural deck, he saw her. Already though the wall, facing down a crowd of farmers and frightened civilians who clustered together at the sphere’s far edge. The old flocking instinct returning in full force when danger threatened.

It was just as he had thought. One of their princesses. Celestia.

Laotyn stopped for a moment to observe her. Of all the ponies he had seen in Cherry Berry’s dreams or in their own, Celestia was the one most beautiful to his own perception. Her limbs and bones were as unpleasant as all the rest of them, but the filaments that grew on the top and rear of her body were not the same flat limp things as Cherry Berry had. Celestia’s mane and tail wavered like his own tendrils, and shone with soft pastel colours just like a person’s body. When seen from the right angle, she looked almost like a person herself.

But now, stood knee-deep in the algae pool at the sphere’s base as the wall behind her tried to reseal itself, Celestia looked anything but beautiful. The more time he spent with Cherry Berry, the more Laotyn learned about what was normal for a pony, and Celestia did not look normal. Her eyes were wild and staring, her pretty mane was tangled, and there was blood dripping from one of her nostrils.

If this creature had been a person, her skin would have been flashing red, red, red, terror and anger combined.

“You killed her,” she moaned, and as the other people nearby flashed red and white in their distress and pain at the terrible, foreign vibrations, Laotyn tried to focus on the deep undercurrent of purple-black loss beneath her words. There was so much pain flowing all around him. His own, his people’s, the pony’s.

“Murderers,” she gasped out, and Laotyn almost wished that he had not learned the language. She was accusing them of the crime they had not yet committed. They would become murderers when they took Equus and wiped out the species living there. “You’re all murderers, and you killed her, my sister — I only just got her back.”

Finally dragging himself out of his shock and his stupor, Laotyn dragged himself towards the monster in the algae pools. He wasn’t qualified, he wasn’t ready — but he was the closest to an ambassador his people had, and the fate of a species, his friend’s species, depended on him getting relations back on track.

<> he said, not certain if ponies would be able to understand him outside of dreams. <>

She looked at him with blank incomprehension, and then the expression on her face twisted into revulsion. The very same expression Cherry Berry wore when she talked about slugs, or brussel sprouts. Laotyn’s conception of both those things was hazy, but he knew enough to be wounded. He was not a slug, or a brussel sprout, so why was she looking at him that way?

“Wrong,” she croaked, and even though the volume was lesser it still hurt. “All wrong. Have to stop you. Have to…end this.”

Then her horn lit up, the same way he had seen Luna’s do once before.

<> he cried, but she paid him no heed.

“Mother,” she called, looking at no one at all, “Great Faust, I — I’ve asked too much today, but give me just a little more strength. Let me do this. Let me save them before I come to join you and Luna.”

<> Laotyn pleaded. <>

But her horn blazed yellow, and behind him, the crowd pulsed white in sheer terror.

<>

<>

<>

The fear in the room was stifling, he could taste it, and it was suddenly warmer than it had ever been before. The walls of the Taelo were blazing with light, and even though it was impossible, though Laotyn knew that no lone creature could move a sun, icy dread took hold of the very deepest parts of his core. No creature ought to be able to fly alone and unaided through the glacial inferno of the void, either, and yet this pony princess had done it.

<> he said again, weakly. He knew she could not understand him. <>

It was hot. Too hot. His fragile skin was beginning to crackle.
“Luna,” said Celestia, hope making her voice raw. “Luna, I’m coming.”

Luna.

Laotyn remembered how Luna had screamed when she felt his memories. Cherry Berry said ponies screamed when they were frightened or in pain — just like the people all around him were now. If he could make Celestia feel like that too, then maybe she would stop. Maybe she would think.

<> he repeated, with more conviction. And then, loading his words with all the hopelessness of his situation, with the same memories of Home that had halted Luna, he compressed them all down into one neutron-heavy word and shot it into Celestia with all the strength he had left. <>

She staggered. He saw it, and so did everyone else in the chamber. The light of her horn flickered, and for just a moment the heat did not increase.

<> shouted someone else, and <> called a third. Then more and more voices took up the cry, memories flying with wild abandon, and Celestia was stumbling, falling to her knees, splashing in the water like a dying thing.

<> Laotyn said, so softly that no one but himself could hear. <>

And I hurt Luna, too.

<> he said, realisation dawning — the loss and the madness in her expression — but it was too late.

People were crowding so closely around Celestia that she was hardly visible beneath the pulsating, multi-coloured mass. And they were all shouting, all screaming down at her. The barrage was too much, and by the time Laotyn had struggled through the throng to get to her, she was lying face-down in the shallow water, her pretty hair floating limp on the surface, stilled forever.

Sci-Fi

“This club sucks.”

“What?”

“I said this club sucks!”

“What?!”

“Fucking. Never mind.”

Strawberry slumped over and crossed her forelegs over her hoof in annoyance. To her right, Cherry scoffed, unamused by her girlfriend’s dramatics.

The mare to her left however showed far more concern. “Are you okay? Do I need to take you home?”

“I think she’s bored, Cheer,” Blossomforth said.

Cheerilee seemed unconvinced, shining her penlight into Strawberry’s pupils. “Ow! I’m fine!”

“Maybe she’ll cheer up with another drink,” chimed Redheart, her voice somehow booming loud over the music blasting over the club speakers.

Strawberry shrugged, ambivalent.

“I don’t know if that’s the best idea,” Cheerilee muttered.

“Relax! I’m the medical student here, I got this. I’ll get waters too,” Redheart said, excusing herself from their booth and shoving her way to the bar.

Blossomforth slammed her hooves on the table, drawing everyone’s attention. “Hey, before I forget! I’ve got news!” She puffed her chest up and flared out her wings, almost smacking a drunken couple in the back as they passed by. “I’m signing up for the astronauts program!”

Strawberry perked up and Cherry gasped. “Oh holy shit!” Strawberry said, suddenly invested again. “Damn! Congrats.”

“That’s wild,” Cherry agreed. “I’m jealous! You’re going to be flying spaceships and stuff, huh?”

“Yup! You should totally sign up too, Cherry, I mean you know more about flying than most pegasi around here,” Blossomforth said eagerly.

Cheerilee cleared her throat. “I… don’t know if that’s such a good idea? For either of you.”

Blossomforth tilted her head in confusion. “Why not? This whole blinking thing still hasn’t been solved, and I dunno if you noticed but it’s kinda just been getting worse. They need volunteers to figure this out, and I mean, we get to fly those cool new things they’re building!”

“Spaceships, yes, I just… It’s dangerous,” Cheerilee said, a lull in the music allowing her to return to her normal speaking voice. “I mean so much of this is untested! I just feel like they’re rushing this for answers, but they need to make sure that all these new inventions are safe. Especially if they’re going to be sending ponies up there!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll make sure she gets back in one piece,” Redheart said as she rejoined the group, deftly balancing several drinks on her back and distributing them with ease.

Cheerilee looked incensed. “You too?”

“Yeah! They need medical professionals too, and hey, beats working in a hospital.” Redheart leaned over to give Blossomforth a kiss on the cheek. “And if it means we’ll be together…”

“Gross!”

“You’re one to talk, Cherry,” Redheart shot back. “Little Miss PDA over there.”

Cherry blushed but shook her head. “As if Strawberry would let me touch her in public.”

“Hey now,” Strawberry replied.

“I don’t want to tell you all what to do with your lives, I just feel this is very sudden,” Cheerilee said, sipping on her water.

Redheart raised an eyebrow. “Wow, this got serious after I left.” She seized Blossomforth’s hoof and gestured to the dance floor. “Let’s dance ourselves clean. C’mon!” Blossomforth let herself be dragged away, gesturing for Cheerilee to follow.

“You better make sure they don’t hurt themselves,” Cherry observed, scooting off her seat so her friend could leave.

Cheerilee winced. “Redheart does have a violent way of dancing.” She downed the rest of her water and scurried off after them.

“So. You seem interested in the space program,” Cheerilee said as she sat back down.

Strawberry shrugged. “Eh. I doubt they’d want me. Didn’t even finish high school, what am I gonna do for them? Figure out how to grow strawberries in space?”

Cherry giggled, leaning into her. “Maybe that’s why the sun’s blinking. It’s just hungry.”

“You’re so silly.” Strawberry ruffled Cherry’s mane.

They fell quiet for a second, watching as their friends danced and laughed. The lights flicked and changed, bathing them in colors from red to blue to green. It was odd, seeing the unicorn DJ work the board with their hooves. But everyone knew that magic was unstable lately, in a strange correlation with the sun’s behavior. She had heard the tales of the seamstress who tried telekinesis and ended up burning her store down.

“I always hated dancing,” Strawberry said.

Cherry hummed in response. “Would you dance with me?”

“Mm. Tough one.”

They fell quiet again, and Strawberry wondered if the joke had fallen short. After a few moments of tension, Cherry slapped Strawberry’s leg gently. “Let’s get out of here then.”

“And go where?”

“Well there’s that movie theater next store.”

Strawberry looked up in time to Cheerilee throw her head back and down the entire contents of a bottle as Redheart and Blossomforth cheered her on. “Yeah. Alright. Sure.”

With that, the two slipped away from the club and into the street. It was a cool night, the moon hanging low overhead like a cautious guardian, no doubt suspicious of its sibling’s actions. Strawberry wondered how Celestia was handling the recent events.

Fireworks popped off in the distance, rising up above the buildings and exploding into a vibrant burst of color in the sky. It was funny to think how ponies were becoming more and more comfortable with the night instead of the day. The moon after all seemed to be far more reliable nowadays than the sun was.

Cherry led the way across the empty roads towards the theater. “They’re showing that new sci-fi film I was telling you about.”

“The… one about the changelings?” Strawberry asked.

“Breach, yeah! Funny enough the script was written before we found out they existed, so it kinda ruined the whole shapeshifter storyline.” They paused to pay for tickets and head inside. “I still think it’s cool though. The whole shapeshifting thing.”

Strawberry hummed in amusement. “I was wondering why a science fiction film had you so excited.”

“What can I say? I could finally fly if I were one of them.” Cherry sighed wistfully. “I’m not hungry, let’s skip popcorn.”

“Sure.”

They proceeded down the velvet red carpets and into the theater. It was mostly empty, which Strawberry didn’t think boded well for the film. “So. What do you think about all this space program stuff?” Cherry asked.

“Mm. Dunno, it’s fine, I guess,” Strawberry said. “I know you’re excited though.”

Cherry laughed. “Of course! You have no idea how hard it is to do anything flight related if you’re not a pegasus.”

Slowly, the lights began to fade away behind them. Strawberry watched as Cherry’s pink coat was gradually covered in an inky darkness. It reminded her of watching the sun set, with the lingering thought of if she’d ever see it again lurking in the background.

The screen flickered to life, and the theater fell silent.

Cherry reached out to squeeze Strawberry’s hoof. As the opening credits began to roll, she began to cough.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine, I’m just–” her coughing got worse, leading Strawberry to furrow her brow.

“I thought you said you were getting better.”

“I am! Just…”

Before she could finish her sentence, the theater lights abruptly came back on. A burst of static came from the projection box before a nasally voice filled the room. “Uh… I’m very sorry to disturb you all, but I’ve just… I’ve just received news that I’ve been asked to share. Um.”

An icy stab of dread embedded itself into Strawberry’s heart.

“...Princess Luna is dead.”

Radiance

<>

Nothing to worry about. Another weak cough. A dream of a hospital ward, instead of a balloon in a jewel-coloured sky. This happens to ponies. We get sick.

<> But he could already see the answer in her mind. Sneezes, coughs, fevers and chills. People had no such illnesses, but this one was beyond the norm even for ponies.

And Laotyn knew those symptoms. The pain, the bloodied noses. The dulling of the fur and the eyes. Slower in Cherry Berry than it had been in the princesses, but the same. And the same as it was in the other ponies he could see in her memories.

The sun sickness, they were calling it. How ironic. It was Issia, after all, that had called the people here in the first place.

<> he said abruptly. <>

He had been slow, too slow, to realise it. He had known that the memories hurt the ponies, that too much mental contact was bad — but even this? Even for Cherry, the last person he would ever, ever want to hurt? A few little conversations, and it was killing her.

Aw, really? She sounded disappointed. I don’t even get my nocturnal buddy to help me pass the time? Being ill makes you sleep a hell of a lot, you know.

<> Laotyn choked out, and he was apologising for far more than she knew.

Laotyn, I—

But he yanked his tendrils out from the controls, and he never heard the rest.

When he left his pod he was ink-black from end to end, and Lyia jerked back from him as though he was contaminated.

<>*

He did not answer. She would not understand.

Balling

When Strawberry Sunrise was 19, she made a choice that would change her life.

“Ugh. Thermodynamics are just so… boring!” The slamming of a book made her flinch. “I mean, I get it’s probably important for… something, but it’s just so dry!’

That high-pitched, slightly nasally voice never failed to bring a smile to her face. Strawberry flipped over to her stomach, staring down at the mare sitting on the floor below her. “Told you you’re just a massive nerd.”

“I’m not a nerd!”

“Yeah, you’re just ‘born in the wrong body,’ or something. The tragic tale of Cherry Berry, the pegasus without wings,” Strawberry said, using her wings for air quotes.

Cherry stuck out her tongue in Strawberry’s direction. “I’d do so much more with your wings if I had them. Not like you’re using them!”

“Without wings, how could I do things like this,” Strawberry asked, using both appendages to make an obscene gesture in her direction.

Cherry responded by reaching over, seizing Strawberry’s rear legs, and yanking her off of the bed.

“Gah!”

Strawberry tumbled onto the floor, landing right on top of Cherry who deftly flipped her onto her backside.

“Yeah?! You wanna make that again?” Cherry leaned in with a smirk, muzzle almost touching Strawberry’s.

Strawberry rolled her eyes, pretending like she was unfazed. “I would but your fat hooves are on my wings, dumb-dumb.”

“Fat?!”

Strawberry sensed an opportunity and shoved Cherry off of her. The pink earth pony tumbled to the ground, letting out a surprised shout as she fell. “Jerk!”

“That’s why you love me.”

“Ugh! I don’t believe you.” Cherry sighed, laying flat on her back. “So… You really did it?”

Strawberry grunted. “Yeah.”

“What’d your mom say?”

“Nothing. As usual. She didn’t have to, I know she’s disappointed in me.” Strawberry sighed, leaning back to rest her head on the wooden floorboards. “Doesn’t matter. There’s no point in staying in school.”

Cherry was quiet for a second. “I just… I don’t see how you can be so sure of that.”

Strawberry let her eyes drift up to the ceiling. The blinds were drawn shut, but specks of sunlight found their way through the curtains, leaving traces of light to wander across her walls. “It’s… I dunno. It’s hard to explain. It just, like, doesn’t matter at the end I guess. I mean, who cares if I did or didn’t go to high school? We still don’t know why the sun dipped on us that one time. For all we know it could blow up tomorrow. Kaboom, we’re all dead.” She used her wings to emphasize the explosion.

“That’s… Kind of sad,” Cherry admitted. “I mean. Even for you.”

Strawberry considered that. “It’s not like I want to be like this! But like, what’s the point?”

“I dunno, Strawbs.” Cherry sat up, reaching for her textbook again. “But some of us still think things are going to work out, and that means we still have to study and stuff.”

“Because you’re all nerds.”

“I’m not! Have you even seen who we hang out with? Redheart is a nerd, Cheerilee is an advanced nerd, and Blossomforth’s kind of a nerd,” Cherry countered.

“Nerd adjacent?”

“I’m surprised you know what that word means!”

Strawberry gave Cherry a light slap with her wing.

“Geez, so hostile! I thought you loved me!” Cherry whined as she rose to her hooves. “Be right back, I gotta go pee.”

“Mm-hm. Good luck.” Strawberry watched as Cherry crossed the room, pulling the bathroom door shut. “Hey, don’t go pulling a Derpy in there!”

“Oh noooooo! I just don’t know what went wrong!” came a muffled reply.

“If you make a mess you better clean it up,” Strawberry muttered, standing up and stretching out her wings. She went over to her desk, where a copy of the day’s newspaper was sitting. Sunset Shimmers: Scientists Baffled as Sun Continues Erratic Behavior, read the headline.

It turns out that she hadn’t been crazy all those years ago: the sun truly had vanished for a second. A blink, they called it. It sent a wave of shock and frenzy through society, but after that there was nothing. Years passed and the anomaly sat unexplained, fading into a joke and bonding point (“Where were you on the day the sun blinked?”)

But lately… Lately things were getting worse. Equestria had just launched some brand new space device to explore the world above them, and the universe didn’t seem to appreciate that. The sun blinked again. But that second time… It was longer. Nearly thirty seconds, where the sun was just absent from the sky. Nothing else seemed to change: not the wind, not the light, not the water. It was like someone had just forgotten to paint the sun into the picture.

The scientists were ready this time. So they thought. But everything they did seemed to just make the blinks faster and worse. Something was wrong. And that thought rapidly wormed its way into everyone’s mind.

Things were wild for a few months: widespread panics, riots, ponies locking themselves in their homes out of fear. But lately things had tapered off. Less hysteria, and more mundane. Strawberry wondered how long it would last.

Her ear flicked as there was a creak on the floorboards behind her. The spots of sunlight dancing across her wall felt strange now, like limbs of some alien creature lurking in the background.

Strawberry carefully crossed the room, glancing at the bathroom door to make sure it was still shut. There was a low and distant humming, a noise that Strawberry determined was coming from her closet. Carefully, she drew closer to it.

The doors were slightly ajar. Through the cracks she could see a flash of color: a strange orange material. Something thick and black, showing her own reflection. “You again.”

The-figure-who-must-have-been-adult-Strawberry was silent. A familiar sensation took over the room. Faces turned to places, names turned to dust. Too fast to understand.

“What do you want?”

Nothing.

“Why are you here?”

A strange sound, like a hum or a growl.

Strawberry took a deep breath, but before she could speak, the helmeted figure raised a hoof. She followed the direction, going over to where Cherry’s book was sitting on the floor. “This?”

The figure didn’t reply.

Strawberry picked up the textbook. Post-it notes were stuck at various intervals throughout the pages. She opened it to a random one: a chapter about the laws of heat exchange. Strawberry was never good at physics, so she understood none of it. “I don’t…” She looked up at the closet but couldn’t figure out if the figure was still there or not. Looking at the post-its again, she noticed that all were pink except for one green one. She flipped it to that page. It was completely blank, save for one word: Laotyn.

“Laotyn.”

The lights on Strawberry’s walls flickered. There was shouting from outside.

“Strawberry?”

Strawberry set the book down and ran to the window, yanking the curtains open.

There was a flush followed by the sound of running water. On the street below, a crowd was gathering, pointing up at the sky and muttering. The bathroom door opened and Cherry joined her. “What’s going on?”

“The sun’s gone again.” Strawberry felt the words leave her mouth, but her eyes were stuck on the street below. While everyone else was looking up, she found her eyes fixed on the ground.

“It’ll come back,” Cherry said uncertainly.

Strawberry didn’t reply.

After ten seconds, the crowd dissipated.

After a minute, it began to reform.

After two minutes, Cherry pressed herself into Strawberry’s side.

After three minutes a pegasus fell out of the sky. They began yelling that their wings weren’t working anymore. A unicorn tried to pick up a rock and found themselves unable to control their magic.

After five minutes, a police officer arrived and was bombarded with frantic questions and concerns. The sun had never been gone for this long before.

After ten minutes Cherry started to cry.

After thirty minutes the streets were empty. Everyone was hiding, for whatever good it’d do them.

After forty minutes the sun was still gone.

A Call

When Strawberry Sunrise was only eight years old, the world came to an end.

She was playing in the backyard when it happened. Her dolls were arranged around her on a picnic blanket, plastic utensils and silverware interspaced between them. An empty pink teacup was cradled in her hooves.

Something came over her then. The birds fell silent, the wind faded away. In that second everything was still. Strawberry looked up at the cloudless sky, where the sun was sitting just above her head.

“Mom?”

And then, the sun vanished. It was gone for less than a second, and reappeared so quickly that light inexplicably failed to dim or change. The cup slipped out of her hooves and onto the grass. Her wings locked up in fear, and she felt the blood roaring in her ears as her heart seized up.

“Mom?!”

As quickly as it happened, it passed. The birds came out again, the wind returned to brush against her skin. Shakily, Strawberry stood up, abandoning her makeshift tea party and heading for the house.

“Mom!”

The only reply was the quiet rustling of leaves in the wind, resting on the distant chirping of birdsong. As she reached the backdoor, Strawberry turned to glance up at the sky. The sun was still there but… it was different.

All her life, she had been taught about how the sun was essential for all life in Equestria. She had read countless tales and stories about the raising and lowering of the sun, and how Celestia used it to ensure that they all had a world to live and love in.

But looking up at it, something was different.

There was nothing magical nor beautiful about it anymore. There was no awe nor fear within her as she regarded it. Just… nothingness. With a deep breath, Strawberry pushed open the screen door and stepped into her house.

It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. The blinds were drawn tightly and the lights were off. The door to the kitchen had been left slightly ajar, a few carrots sitting on the cutting board by the sink. Strawberry paused by the fridge and peeked inside, searching for any leftover juice boxes. There was one left: fruit punch flavored. She took it and poked the straw through the opening before continuing.

She stopped again at the stairwell. The hallway directly above it was dark, the house still and quiet as if it were holding its breath. As she began her ascent, sipping on her juicebox, Strawberry paused at the fifth step. Experience of sneaking into the kitchen for midnight snacks had taught her that the step would creak awfully. More out of habit than anything else, she stepped over it, giggling to herself as she did so.

When she looked up again there was something standing on the top of the stairs.

The figure looked like a pony, but dressed in a strange orange suit that covered all of its skin. It wore a helmet on its head with a black reflective visor, so shiny that Strawberry could see herself in it. They stood still and unmoving as if it were a statue.

Strawberry took a step up the stairs.

The figure took a step down.

In the helmet’s visor, Strawberry saw blurs and shapes. Stark, white limbs stretching across a pitch black sky. Distant stars burning in a pure bright glow. A roar of fire and a sudden, violent red. They passed by too fast to hold onto.

The two continued to draw closer and closer, step by step. With every step up, Strawberry felt the world bend and break around her. Noise began to fill the air: a heavy, labored breathing, a mechanical beeping, a scream, crying.

Finally the two came face to face, with Strawberry staring up at the pitch black visor.

“...Hi.”

The figure said nothing. Instead, they slowly raised their hoof.

Strawberry placed their own hoof in the figure’s. When they touched, she saw everything. Scenes and images flashed through her mind, faster than any Wonderbolt could ever dream of going. Even though she couldn’t make them out, Strawberry could feel the pure emotion embedded into each and every one.

Pain. Loss. Fear. Anger. And then… there was nothing. Just numbness.

They broke contact and the figure reached up to grasp their helmet. There was a hiss of escaping air, and slowly, Strawberry came face to face with herself.

The adult Strawberry looked down at her, in the same manner one would observe a bug below them. Her mouth was drawn in a taut line, her brow furrowed like she was deep in thought. Her eyes were dull, in a drastic contrast to the visor.

From somewhere behind her there was a low, distant humming: her mother’s favorite song. The adult Strawberry opened their mouth, but no sound came out. She seemed so tired. So empty.

Strawberry looked down to fiddle with her juicebox. It was a quiet weekend outside. There was no screaming, no frantic running for safety and shelter. Nothing. In the schoolyard, Strawberry had played out some end of the world scenarios with her friends. The return of Discord. Of aliens. Of creatures straight from tartarus. Worlds where they could play the hero and save the world from destruction.

But this. This wasn’t that. This was quiet, meek, barely even noticeable.

When Strawberry looked up, her adult self was gone, with no trace left behind that she was ever even there to begin with. The windchime on the porch let out a few solitary notes, and Strawberry proceeded up the stairs.

In a way, perhaps it was more poetic that the world came to end on a lazy Sunday afternoon. But it was still odd. Why was it so quiet? Why didn’t anyone fight it? Why was it so unrecognizable?

Strawberry pushed open the door to her parent’s room. Her mother was sitting on the bed, folding laundry and humming to herself. She didn’t look up as Strawberry entered. Strawberry trotted over to the bed and climbed into her mother’s lap.

“What is it, dear,” her mother asked, stroking her mane.

Strawberry leaned into the warmth of her mother. “Something happened,” she said quietly.

Her mother smiled. “No, nothing happened.” She sighed, taking the juicebox from Strawberry’s hooves. “Sweetie, I told you, you can’t drink this many of these. It’s not good for you.”

Strawberry didn’t reply.

“Do you want a snack? Are you hungry?”

She nodded, deciding that she was, and her mother set her down on the ground. Strawberry followed her mother back to the kitchen, and they spoke nothing more of the end of the world.

Duvidha

A dilemma.

That was the word that Strawberry decided best fit her current situation. Sitting on her bunk, she stared out the window as the vast planet of Equus sprawled out in front of her. It was grand and beautiful, in its own unique sort of way, but Strawberry had long since given up on appreciating anything that it had to offer.

There was nothing there for her. There was nothing up here, either. After the initial thrill of their launch, their arrival passed relatively uncelebrated. The next few weeks were spent getting acclimated to life on the station, and anxiously awaiting their next mission.

It would come soon enough, Strawberry knew that much.

She stared at the photograph in her hooves. It was an old one, taken long before holoprojectors and cloud databases had been designed. It showed herself, Cherry, Cheerilee, Blossomforth and Redheart, doing a variety of poses around Blossomforth’s new-old car.

The memories embedded were still rich. Teasing Blossomforth that she somehow ended up with an old model of a new technology. Of Redheart telling the story of how she nearly totaled her own. Of Cheerilee’s general fear about the whole idea of driving.

And, of course, memories of Cherry.

She sighed wistfully, looking up out the window again.

Sun sickness. An in-flight accident. The sun. All things that had taken far more than they had any right to. Strawberry wondered what her friends would think if they could see her now. A sad, broken mare, filled with a void that could never be closed.

“I’m not quite sure what went wrong,” she whispered to herself.

Saying so made her feel a little bit better.

Outside, the sun flickered in and out of existence.

Strawberry frowned. The sun had bore many names over the years. The Great Goddess, The Harvester, The Traveller. But now? Now it was a reaper, a devastator, something that had claimed more pony lives than anything else in the history of Equestria. First it killed their rulers, then it came for everyone else. Safety was a myth, and fear grew to become the norm.

It was also senseless. So useless. So tiring. Who was the sun to claim this many lives? Who saw it fit that the greatest benefactor to their world would decide to end it?

Strawberry didn’t know. But there was one thing that she was absolutely certain of: it had taken everything from her. Perhaps it was time to take things back.

With that thought, Strawberry turned and picked up her helmet before heading for the door.

Incandescence

Laotyn was the only one on duty when at last the emissary came. After the news spread — like wildfire, as all news on the Taelo did — no one wanted to be in the observation pods any more. No one wanted to be close to a creature with whom even communicating hurt. No one wanted to befriend the monsters.

No one but Laotyn.

Not that he ever spoke with them. Not anymore. He would have no more lives on his conscience.

He had attempted to tell the Council of Elders. To warn them, to ask them not to hurt any more ponies. Two princesses and his best friend — was that not enough?

If he had been on the Council, he would have argued for a longer journey. Better to travel a little further, a few more generations, than doom another species. The only other species in all the galaxy.

But the Council did not agree, and they did not want his warnings. They already knew what talking to the ponies did, and they wanted to do more of it, not less. After Celestia’s attack…well, better to wipe out the ponies from afar than wait till the terraformer teams landed.

So while Laotyn’s colleagues fled, delegates from the Council moved into their chambers. They used the receptors not to watch for danger or to scout ahead, as they had been intended. They used them as weapons of war. Used them to kill.

They cut swathes through the pony population. Thrusting memories into the wide-open minds of dreamers, letting whatever aspect of communication radiation that disagreed with pony bodies do its work, and then they sat back to watch the dead count rise.

And Laotyn could not even warn anyone — not without breaking the promise he had made to Cherry. Not without dooming another innocent.

So he stayed silent, and eventually, the Council recalled their subordinates. The work was done. All they had to do now was wait.

And Laotyn sat alone in his pod, watching the friends of his friend mourn her. Watching her world die.

So when, at last, the emissary came, Laotyn did not raise the alarm. He did not call for the Elders, as he once would have done. He looked into the cabin of the rocket, and he saw Cherry’s partner, the only one, instead of the six he would have had himself, if he had chosen parenthood and Merging.

He saw the pony with the yellow wings and the green eyes that had reflected the candleflame on their date. He saw her aiming carefully at the weakest point on the ship, the barely-healed suture where Celestia had blasted her way in.

Perhaps this was what was needed. The only way forward. Perhaps this was, in a way, justice. After all, it was nothing much really. Nothing but the ghost of a world, a dead world, going away. A dead people going away, where they had been fated to go generations before. Going Home.

He saw exactly what would happen, and he pulsed a wistful cornflower blue. He saw the pony Cherry had loved, and he did what he had gotten so good at.

He stayed silent.