A Jar of Dark

The warmth graced Penumbra's face once again, as it had every day on this day, since before her fifth birthday. When, however, the unicorn opened her now colorless, vacant eyes, she was not greeted by a shining sun through her room window. There was as there had been for eighteen years: perfect, pitch black. No different shades, no depth to it, just a seemingly endless black. As she had grown accustomed to, Penumbra got out of bed, did a routine of stretches, and ended up knocking her head against her nightstand with a loud and resounding crack.

Happy birthday, Penumbra. Here's your first present: a headache. The blind mare winced as she ran her hoof over the bump just above her horn. Doing so also reminded her of her mane, which she had been unable to control since the day she had gone blind. It was spiky and long, very much like that of a popular disk jockey, she had been told. She hadn't even meant it to look that way, but what did it matter to her? Corsair, her elder brother, had said it gave her a real punk look. She had replied that she'd like to know what punk looked like, and he quickly shut up. She hated that.

Penumbra had developed a very sharp sense of wit, and the downside of this was that she often snarked other ponies into silence. Silence was terrible for her. She could never tell if she was alone or not unless she could hear another's breathing, their hoofsteps, their voice, or—if she was really desperate—their body odor. Thankfully, the sanitation systems built into Thardrim Station's living quarters removed any unpleasant smells, and also ensured that most ponies were kept in an almost constant state of cleanliness.

Where all the waste matter went was a mystery to most ponies living on Thardrim, but Penumbra knew better. She had gotten a job, with difficulty, in the engineering crew, whose job it was to make sure every mechanism, every pipe, every circuit, every piece of equipment aboard the station was functioning at 100% all around the clock. The unicorn had been unable to apply for the First-Response Emergency Repair Crew, FRERC, as she had wanted to since age ten. , Penumbra had learned the ins and outs of Thardrim alongside everyone else in the engineering conditioning class, and was now working as a general repair pony. Penumbra knew, from her work in the pressure regulation control and recycling sectors, that all waste matter was broken down on a subatomic level, the protons and neutrons realigned to produce complex proteins, which were baked into the foods the station ponies lived off of. At that level of change, Penumbra knew that there was no way she could find eating food she had eaten only four days ago gross, but it still made her a little uncomfortable every time she saw someone less enlightened than she scarfing down one of the smart-oven's special cakes.

The trouble with the recycler was that subatomic destruction and reconstruction was expensive and difficult, and as such, the machine often broke down mid-process. Penumbra could not count how many times she had been called in to get the recycler chugging again, and had to smell the bizarre mix of unprocessed waste matter and the rather heady odor of new protein strings.

Penumbra exited her bedroom, which now had a door into her family's living room, rather than her parents' bedroom. She was immediately greeted by her little sister, Spotlight, jumping up and giving her a very tight hug. "Morning, Penny! Happy birthday!"

"Thanks, sis," Penumbra choked, being unprepared as she couldn't see her sister jump in front of her, "um, I'd sound more excited if my ribs weren't being broken."

"Sorry, Penny! Had to see if I could still wrap 'em 'round you!" She giggled, pulling away. Being a pegasus, Spotlight had decided to join up with a space-acrobatics team, hoping to one day acquire enough money to join the Wonderbolts and work under her idol, Rainbow Dash. She was two years younger than Penumbra, and had just discovered the perks of being legal age, the greatest of which was a ShowMe. While planets and colonies required ponies to pay large sums of money for a ShowMe engraving, Thardrim and its sister-stations gave one to every resident who had been raised there once they reached legal drinking age. They were necessary for getting in and out of the living quarters and where one worked. In Spotlight's case, she had 24/7 access to the standard gym and the null-gravity gym, and was constantly prodding her two elder siblings to come work out with her, and had succeeded once or twice.

"Now come on, Penny! I wanna give you my present!" Penumbra was pulled along towards the living room sofa, and was sat down upon it. She then found Spotlight had thrust a box into her lap, with a little more force than necessary. Sighing, Penumbra lit up her horn and tried to levitate the box lid off. It wouldn't budge.

"Oh, right, wrapping paper," she said, and began to tear at the paper with her hooves. She tried again, and the lid came away. Her magic reached in, and pulled out a long, jingling object. Penumbra blinked, as she reached out blindly with her hooves to catch the pendant and chain.

"It's solid silver, with an amethyst in the center! I thought you could turn the heads of a few colts with some shiny things." Spotlight explained, sounding giddy with excitement, "how do you like it?"

Penumbra couldn't like it and couldn't dislike it. For seventeen years, her little sister had tried to help her get over her blindness in one way and one way only: buying things with pretty colors. Apparently, Spotlight had never made the connection that Penumbra couldn't and hadn't been able to appreciate pretty colors since she was five. She assumed that her elder sister was content with still being able to look good, despite not being able to see. This was especially applicable to Penumbra, as she had inherited her mother's beauty. Penumbra, however, thought differently. What good were good looks if you couldn't even tell you had them? She hadn't the heart to upset Spotlight, though. The pendant must have cost a lot of bits, and the pegasus probably took some of those bits out of her funds for her future. The present meant well, but had no idea how to express that.

"I'm sure it's beautiful!" Penumbra said, in a good imitation of an excited voice. It must have fooled Spotlight, because she let out an excited squeal and took Penumbra in another bear hug. "S-sweet Celestia, Spot, not so tight!"

"Enjoying your presents?" Came another voice, and Penumbra turned her head in the direction it came from to greet her older brother, Corsair. Spotlight released her sister and Penumbra heard her hoofsteps as she ran around the coffee table and took Corsair in another embrace.

"You got off of work early! Yay! Now all we need is for mom and dad to get back!"

"Where are they, anyway?" Penumbra asked her two siblings.

"Dad went out to greet some pony who just arrived on the station, and mom's off buying you her present." Penumbra's face scrunched up in confusion; she hadn't forgotten how to display emotions, after all. What confused her was that mom hadn't bought her a gift already. She usually had them in the house, wrapped, and hidden somewhere three months before the blind unicorn's birthday. Maybe it was one she could only get today. "Oh, and Spot, something you should know," Corsair began, "Dad messaged me, Rainbow Dash is coming to the station."

Penumbra held her hooves over her ears as Spotlight let out a scream of delight. "Why? Where is she now? How far out is the ship!?"

"Easy, Spot, easy. She's coming from the Palosol colony, apparently she got stuck there with a group of mercenaries."

"That's just like her, doing badass things on other planets!"

"Listen! Dad said you'd be able to meet her in the airlock about two hours from now, but that's only—only if Penny wants to meet her."

"An Element of Harmony, on Thardrim?" Penumbra muttered, feeling a little excited but not as much as her sister. She had never gotten to meet one of the Elements of Harmony before. Hardly anyone on Thardrim had. The planet Teraphim was on a different orbital circuit than Equestria, and so they only came close for a very short time every year. She didn't know much about Palosol, but knew there was a terraforming project going on, and that they were incorporating hovercraft that specialized in going over sand, as that was the environment the colony city had been built on. That piece of technology was exactly the kind of thing that caught Penumbra's interest, so she nodded vigorously to them both. "Maybe she knows something about the tech they're using there to mold the planet!"

"See, Penny, that's why you should apply for a job at Topaz," Corsair said, bringing up an old argument, "they build the terraforming robots, Penny, and all that stuff you like. Getting into the Topaz division here wouldn't be hard, would it?"

"I've already applied, Corsair," Penumbra replied, exasperated by this subject. "They redirected me to Thardrim's repair crew without another word, remember?"

"Yeah, yeah, if at first you don't succeed, sis." Corsair chuckled, and came over to sit by Penumbra on the sofa. He also held a present out to her, which he had not wrapped. Though Spotlight let out an unhappy sound at seeing the plain brown box, Penumbra did not complain. Ripping paper off of a box when you couldn't see either wasn't nearly as hard as repairing the matter-recycler. All you had to do to get the thing going again was check the particle separators for blockages, which only involved seeing how hard it was to turn the gears manually, and then retightening and re-magnetizing the coils for the separators, which consisted of a spell that did not require a line of sight, and then finally restarting the feed motors, which was as easy as pressing a button. Penumbra had learned through trial and error everything else that could go wrong with the recycler, simply by feeling around within with a magically-cast appendage and listening for any irregular sounds.

Penumbra lifted the box lid, and pulled out something she had to hold in her hooves to guess what it was. It was a little metal disk, and one side made her hooves tingle whenever she touched it.

"No way, is this a Mnemodrive*?"

"That it is, loaded with all six volumes of magical applications in technology!" Corsair announced, proudly. "I thought you might like it for handling some problems they throw at you in repairs."

"This is fantastic, Corsair! Thank you!" Penumbra's excitement was real this time, holding the thick disk much more carefully now. There were two things she loved most: reading and technology, and Corsair had given her the best of both.

"I thought you'd like it," he laughed, hugging her with a wing. "Happy birthday, sis."

There was a chiming sound, and Spotlight, who had remained silent while Ruby opened her second present, suddenly leapt up, and made for the communicator mounted on the far wall. Corsair got there before her, and had a hushed conversation with whomever was on the other line. Penumbra waited patiently. Probably a surprise of some sort: dad always had a surprise in the docking stations waiting for her. She never believed for a second that he was just "talking to some pony" like Corsair had said.

Corsair stopped mumbling and began speaking aloud again. "That was dad. Says he wants us to bring Penny, come tartarus or decompression, to the docking stations right now."

"I can get there myself," Penumbra said, standing up from the sofa and walking towards the door.

"Yeah, well, we're coming with you anyway. No sneaking off, this time!" Corsair responded, and Penumbra suddenly found herself between her two siblings, guiding her along. She didn't really need their help: She had memorized the way to the docking stations a while ago. She didn't have to rely on the arrows or the navigation panels on the walls, as so many others did. Penumbra relied entirely on tactile and auditory memory to figure out where she was on the station, and it had so far not lead her astray. That didn't, of course, prevent her siblings from trying to help her every step of the way.

–––––––– — – -

The large metal door to the docking bay slid open, and Spotlight let out a cry. At first, Penumbra thought it was out of fright, but she needn't have worried. "Oh my gosh! It's Rainbow Dash! She's here already!" There was a rush of wind to the blind mare's right, as Spotlight took flight and landed, rather violently, in front of where Penumbra assumed Rainbow Dash was.

"Whoa! Well, looks like you weren't lying after all, Rainbow." Said a deep, male voice, somewhere in front of where Penumbra and Corsair were standing.

"Come on, sis, Rainbow Dash brought some interesting company," Corsair said, leading Penumbra forward.

"Yes, as I was saying," Gyroscope's voice interrupted Spotlight's enthusiastic squeals. "My youngest daughter is a huge fan of yours, miss Dash. It sure is an honor to have you aboard, even if it's just for a short while."

"The pleasure's all mine, governor!" Said another female voice, sounding much younger than Penumbra had expected. "Listen, my ship needs refueling, and my crew need food. Can you direct them, or...?"

"Ah, yes," Gyroscope chuckled, sympathetic to the mare's situation. "You'll find all temporary living quarters just left of the docking bay doors, mares and stallions. They're all equipped with a fully functioning smart-oven and supply dispenser, and the bill will be directed towards your captain, whom I will offer a generous discount to!"

"Thank you very much, but we don't need it." Rainbow answered, "I have all the money I need in my account, you can send the bill to that. So long as my crew doesn't get carried away!" This last comment seemed to be directed at someone else, and sure enough, several voices began laughing, before filing out of the room. Rainbow Dash had apparently not gone with them, and was instead still talking with Penumbra's father. The blind unicorn could hear her sister’s hooves hitting the floor every time she landed after an excited jump, and as soon as Gyroscope bid her goodbye, Spotlight attacked her with a barrage of fangirlish questions.

Penumbra shook her head, a little embarrassed at her sister’s behavior, and began turning around to leave. “It was nice meeting you, miss Da-”

Thunk.

The unicorn stumbled a little, having walked right into a pony coming the other way. She rubbed her already bruised forehead, and mumbled a halfhearted “sorry.”

“So-rree,” said the pony, only it sounded nothing like any pony Penumbra had ever heard.

“Um, come again?” She said, as politely as possible.

“Ai was just seh-ing soarree, foh bumpeng ento yoo.” The voice was definitely female, but her accent was very, very thick. Penumbra’s nostrils dilated, as she smelled something unfamiliar. This pony was not perfectly cleaned like all the others. It wasn’t an offensive smell, but one that conveyed that she had not lived in a squeaky-clean bedroom with ventilators and a bed equipped with scent-absorbing sheets and moisture catchers.

“Ah, Zuri!” Called another voice, inflected the same way. “Gared hittacha del’a lousca?”

“Héi lidja eredomok mì. Scy-yîo te muth, Druva!” The first voice shouted back, sounding little irritated.

“Macaba, macaba,” replied the second one, as if laughing.

“Here, stand back, Penny.” Corsair warned, and, being an officer of the security detail of Thardrim, Penumbra obeyed him. The pony in front of her let out some sort of snort of dislike, and her hoofsteps travelled around them, muttering again in that strange language.

“Well, Penumbra, now you’ve met a celebrity and a zebra in the same day. I think that’s a pretty good present, if you ask me.” Gyroscope chuckled, somewhere to Penumbra’s right.

"A good culture lesson, maybe," Penumbra muttered, "I didn't know they were allowed on Thardrim."

"Only with visas, I'm guessing that's the sway Rainbow Dash holds over them, to keep them under control." Gyroscope's voice grew louder, and he must have been facing Penumbra up close, because she could smell the hint of alcohol with salad on his breath. "Why don't you head back to our room, Penny? I heard your mother had her present waiting for you there."

"I thought Spotlight said—"

"Spotlight's a good liar. Go on, go see her."

Penumbra walked back into her family living room, to the sound of someone humming a tune, and bustling about in the kitchen. "Mom?" She called out, and was met with a loud, exaggerated sigh.

"Your brother and sister just couldn't keep your attention, could they? Come in, dear, I have a surprise for you."

"Another one? I thought it nice enough I got to meet an Element of Harmony. Though Spotlight seemed to enjoy it a lot more than me."

"That? That was unplanned, entirely. Rainbow happened to be passing by, a pity the poor dear just didn't have more time to spend here and relax. I heard she had quite a problem with a bunch of wretched zebras, and had to bring them along with her back to Equestria."

"I met one of them, you know," Penumbra said, as she sat down at the kitchen table. "She seemed very distracted."

"Probably was!" Her mother huffed, probably lifting something heavy. "I heard some of those zebras have magic of their own. Maybe she was figuring out how to cut the dock's metal to see what happened when it was exposed to space. Anyway, your surprise is on the table! Go ahead, touch them!"

Penumbra reached out, and felt something large, round, and hard in the center of the table. There were two of these strange objects. She pulled them over to her, and began feeling over their surfaces with magic. They were like metal balls, only one end had a slight bulge, and while the rest of the metal was smooth, one large section of the ball seemed to be covered in perfectly-smooth glass. On the opposite side from the glass, the balls had tiny holes. Penumbra's heart gave a leap as she realized what this present was. Her mother had bought her a pair of high-end synthetic eyes.

"I don't know what to say..." She stammered. Eyes. Perfect, fully functioning eyes, just for her. This was by far the best birthday present Penumbra had ever gotten. She hadn't gotten them earlier because biotech corporations insisted on only supplying organ replacement implants to fully-grown ponies. Penumbra had been reading catalogs full of implants, partially to feed her desire for technological knowledge, and partially to feed that constant wish to perceive the world through colors and brightness.

"Don't say anything, dear, just take it in. Just think: by the end of today, you'll be able to see again, for the first time in seventeen years!"

Penumbra was overjoyed, and suddenly several other things clicked in her mind. Spotlight must have known about this present, and that's why she had gotten the pendant. The thought of being able to see the silver chain around her dark grey neck, two colors she could hardly remember, made her more than a little lightheaded.

"Mom, this is the best birthday present, ever." Penumbra managed to say, and felt Spy Glass' forelegs wrap her in a warm, motherly hug. "The surgery is today?"

"Right after an early dinner! I'm having the smart-oven cook up your favorite meals for the day. As soon as Corsair, Spotlight and your father get back, we can have lunch!"

Penumbra's family had assembled not too long after that conversation, and had sat down to a long lunch. Spotlight was babbling about things she had learned about what Rainbow Dash had done while on the colony planet, involving one particular zebra and some fabulously wealthy pony blocking her progress at every opportunity. Corsair had gotten her to shut up by reminding her that Rainbow Dash had at on point admitted she liked to brag and exaggerate a little. Penumbra was able to sit at the head of the table, in the same position she had seventeen years previous, which reminded her for a moment of the stinging pain in her eyes as the sun burned away her ability to see.

"So, Penny, now you're going to get a pair of eyes, what do you think you should do first?"

Penumbra put a hoof to her chin before answering her big brother. "Tell you everything that's wrong with your marefriend. Oh, and watch Spotlight perform."

"Better yet, you could apply for a better job. You did want to join with first-response repair after Topaz turned you down." Her father suggested, and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "I could pull a couple strings. Having a station governor for a father has its perks."

"No thanks, dad," Penumbra declined, chuckling,  "I'd rather get the job fair and square. It'll be that way, now, with new eyes."

"Just remember, you're—"

Penumbra did not get to learn what she should remember. At that moment, there was a loud, single, sustained beeping sound from somewhere in the ceiling, and the unicorn's blood ran cold. An alarm began to ring out, there was the sound of the metal covers, sliding over the windows, which normally occurred whenever space debris was on a course to collide with the station, but was now happening for something much worse. There was shouting and screaming coming from all the family compartments, a rushing of hooves.

"The lights! What happened to the lights?" Somepony shouted from outside the room.

"Use magic, you idiot, you have a horn!"

"But it doesn't work! My light spell isn't working!"

"Follow the emergency arrows, they haven't died yet!" Somepony else answered.

Everyone got up from the table at once. Penumbra made a beeline for the door, and found the outside crowded by ponies rushing for the escape pod bay. She lost track of where her family was, and then of what direction she was going as one too many ponies pushed past her. Then, she tripped, and fell under the sea of running legs. Hooves struck her in the face, and Penumbra fell unconscious.