Endure for an Eternity

The morning sun rises and with it so do I.

I was laying in my bed when I felt the sun's rays shine on my face and for the moment it was a welcome feeling as its warmth graced me with its natural, gentle caress.

But after several minutes of it beating down on me, it turned from a welcome blessing to a harsh curse as it started to get very hot under the covers as the sun's rays started to heat up the sheets and blankets that I was underneath at the moment.

Before I could roll over and try to get away from the heat of the sun my warframe moved in front of the window and stopped the scorching heat of the sun from beating down on me.

"Thank you," I grumbled out mostly to myself as I went back to sleep, the heat was already waking me up now that it was no longer the case I was slowly slipping back into the welcoming fold of sleeps embrace but that too was cut short when someone started to knock on my door.

At first, I was content to just to ignore whoever it was that was on the other side of the door and to go back to sleep, but when the person on the other side started to knock again but this time louder it has been firmly decided that this person wasn't going anywhere.

'Woe that is madness...may whoever disturb my slumber know eternal damnation.'

Grabbing one of the numerous pillows that are on my bed so I can rest on the doorframe to address whoever dares to bother my sweet sleep, I grudgingly shuffle towards the door and opened it to reveal a white equine wearing an equally white dress standing before me with a hand raised in a knocking gesture. And standing behind her were two guards, standing stoic and still as I slowly blink at the princess who was keeping me from my slumber.

"Yes?" I said while slowly leaning against the door, my hands have moved the pillow to form a buffer zone between me and the piece of wood as I relaxed into the door.

Realizing that the door was now open and that I was there waiting for her to speak up, the princess of the sun lowered her hand and cleared her throat before speaking to me.

"Uh yes...Good morning Viktor, I was just walking to the dining hall for my early morning tea before breakfast is served and I was wondering if you would kindly join me for some tea?" The solar princess said as I blinked one eye at a time very slowly before grabbing my pillow and flung it at the bed.

"Do you know how early in the morning it is?" I said as I let out a yawn, my body reacting on its own as my arms stretch outward as I feel my bones start popping along with my back.

"The sun is just rising so it is clearly early...I take it you are not a morning pony?" Celestia said and for a moment I just stare blankly at her.

"My body is still adjusting to not being inside a cryogenic stasis pod so just bear with me for a moment," I replied back, a second yawn escaping from me as I start to blink in sync once more.

"I see, I apologize for waking you so early, you may go back to sleep if you wish."

"No, no, it is alright. I might as well try to get used to this world's time schedule if I am to be staying here until my ship is repaired." I said as my eyes blinked away the sleepiness that resided within them, my body slowly booting up to greet the day although my brain is trying to tell me to return to bed to gain an extra two hours of sleep.

"Just don't push yourself too hard now." The princess of the sun said as she gave me a worried look, something that looked a bit odd to me since most people besides The Lotus didn't usually care about our welfare.

"Don't worry about it that much princess, we Tenno always have to push ourselves harder to make sure that we are always ready to face what tomorrow will throw at us." That and so we can show off to the other operatives how prestigious we are.

"Please take things slow, I would hate to see my guest run themselves ragged." At least this one royal person cares for my health, the Orokin High-Born didn't give two shits about us.

So glad that they are dead now.

"I appreciate your concern for my welfare princess but it is not needed. If I can endure for several hundred years of warfare then I can handle anything that life has to throw at me." I said as I gave one final stretch as I heard and felt my spine let out one last crack and a pop before finally settling back down and following the celestial princess to the dining hall for morning tea.

As we walked down through the hallway leading towards the main dining room, I witnessed as Celestia stopped and greeted every single servant and guard that passed us by. I am sure she is either doing this because she is a kind leader to these ponies, or that she has been doing this for so long that it has become routine for her and that it is expected of her to do such a thing because she has done this countless times already.

Just like how I have been fighting the Grineer, Corpus and the Infested for a few centuries, it too has become routine and to the point that it is almost boring whenever they decided to cause trouble in the system.

Unless the last remaining queen starts unleashing her Kuva guards out to siphon more Kuva, Forhd Bek with his Ambulas proxies, or the Stalker and his Acolytes go out on a killing spree again.

But when someone decides to stir the pot and do something they shouldn't be doing, like say...a certain Grineer Scientist, experimenting on the Infested to try and make them into a bioweapon when they already were one. One of these days I will have his head mounted on my ship, preferably next to the Stalker's head when I can cut it off but it will be resting next to Vay Hek's cyborg head.

While I was lost in my thoughts about the routinely lives that both Celestia and I seem to share, I soon found myself standing at the dining hall door with my hostess and her guard escort waiting for me to come inside and have a seat.

"Viktor, are you alright? You have been standing there for a while now."

"Oh...sorry. I was just lost in thought." This is starting to happen more often, I guess being alive again is giving me more time to contemplate what matters to me.

"Thinking about home?" Oh, you have no idea princess...Cetus and my dojo are my homes, my landing craft counts if I think about it.

"A bit, it is just so different here than it is back home. From what I am have seen here so far it is quiet and peaceful, something that is a rare commodity back home due to the different warring factions constantly vying to wrest control from the others for themselves." I said as I walked into the dining hall and proceeded to find myself a seat.

"My short stay here is pleasant, something I am not used to and although I loathe the fact that I have nothing to do other than study with my liaison about your people and my own private time studying your history but I am also enjoying it. I am just used to always being on the move helping the people survive and fight against the oppressors that roam the system, not sitting down and reading a book." Finding a chair to sit in I set myself in it as I continued to talk to the solar monarch about my thoughts.

The white princess stared at me with a gaze that held firm for a few seconds before breaking off, my guess is that she was not expecting me to be straightforward with what I was thinking of, or that she is not used to hearing hardships from anyone.

"This land...from what I have read so far and from my small glimpses from the windows here is that you all live in what is tantamount to a veritable paradise with nothing to worry about. I envy you and your ponies but I know that this wasn't always the case as you had to fight those that threaten your home and your ponies. You fought for a hard-won peace and were successful to make it last so long."

I stopped talking after that as I stared back at the wall opposite of me, my mind wandering to how the Origins System is doing, how it is handling everything without me.

Soon afterward, however, I was drawn from my thoughts as the sounds of the doors opening up as I heard the sounds of wheels quietly rolling over the white marble tiles and came to a stop at the long table where Celestia and I sat at.

Turning my head and my gaze to the source of the nose I saw that it was one of the chefs that work here and he was setting what looks like a piping hot tea kettle on a thin metal stand and placed several small plates and cups beside it before placing opposite the kettle a plate filled with a small variety of light snacks.

The solar princess sitting on my left sat there for a moment before lighting her hold with its golden glow and with it I watched as a teacup and tiny plate levitated together along with the tea kettle lifting up as it tilted over as a brown cascade of boiling hot tea is poured before being put back into its place. With the princess getting herself some tea I proceeded to do the same, but as I did so I saw that the princess placed two cubes of sugar into her cup before stirring it three times with a small silver teaspoon before taking a sip while I let it simmer for a few seconds before taking a sip of my own.

"Hmm...this tea...it reminds me home...a time before I became what I am...a peaceful time in an otherwise backwater planet away from the trials and tribulations of the empire." I mused quietly to myself as I thought back to what I was just a child living in one of the colonies that dot the surface of Mars. I was sick with a rather bad case of the common cold and my mother made me tea to help me get over the sickness. The tea I am holding in my hands right now reminds of those times, when I was blissfully unaware of what was going on around me and that I was ignorant of suffering and sadness.

And all it took to shatter my childlike perspective of everything was for me to be locked in a ship with rapidly deteriorating conditions in the cold vacuum of the Void.

"What hardships did you have to endure to become what you are? My heart aches to even think about what it must be like to go through that all alone with nopony to help you through it." Princess Celestia said as took a dainty sip from her tea cup, seems like her kind isn't used to hearing about such things.

That or she is just giving me a shoulder to lean on to get it off my chest.

"Do not worry about it your highness, because of the turn of events that led to my training in the way of gun and blade I would not be here otherwise. I may have suffered from that tragedy but I have only grown stronger from it along with the other children aboard the vessel at the time, I can only hope that I was not the only one to have woken up from our slumber." I said as I took another sip from my cup before placing it on the plate and set it down on the table.

The two of us soon began to talk about small tidbits about ourselves to one another, slowly learning about the other but for the most part, we just kept it simple and not too invasive or intrusive into the other's past. At one point it even got us to where I just had to ask the royal pony a question that I have been pondering for a while.

But before I could even utter out a word of my question regarding her sister's mental stability, the door leading to the main hall that we have entered from opens up to reveal my liaison walking in with what looks like the orange earth pony from the day before along with the cyan flyer and her yellow friend.

Applejack if I am recalling her name correctly, and she looks like she is already prepared for the day as she is wide awake and alert.

Must either be an early-riser or is very quick to transition from asleep to awake.

Her friends, on the other hand, they look like they just woke up and that they don't like it one bit. I believe the two flyers are Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy if the meeting was anything to remember.

"Good morning Princess Celestia, Viktor, nice to see that you are awake. I have wanted to talk to you about something for a while now but..."

"Hey big guy, you got any ray guns?" Rainbow Dash said just as another group of people entered the dining hall, the young purple scale-covered being that was accompanying the equines in the ruined castle, the white-furred unicorn Rarity walked in with practiced grace while the pink earth pony Pinkie Pie skipped in without a care in the world.

At first I didn't register what she said but after a few seconds I understood what she asked me and for a moment I wanted to deny her the knowledge that I do have a few of these 'ray guns' that she wants to know if I have any, but then again if she knows that I do have some then maybe she would either leave me be with her random questions or better yet be in awe by them and leave me alone.

"Yes Rainbow Dash, I do have ray guns," I said and with a fist pump from both her and the purple scaly one I watched as they both started to ask me more about them.

"How big are they?"

"Can they turn somepony into a pile of ashes?"

"Do you have one that can hypnotize them into being your slave?"

"Can they make me bigger than I already am?"

"Can we see one?"

"Yeah! Come on bro show us!"

And with their questions and requests, I did what any Tenno would do in this situation.

I denied their requests.

"No."

This immediately made the scale-covered one...you know what, I think I recall his name...Spoke...Splike...Spike? Yes! That's it, Spike! Anyways this made Spike a bit upset but for the time being, I may as well humor these aliens by showing them some cools things I have at my disposal at the moment.

"Wanna see something cool?" I asked as I looked at a barren patch of wall that lay to the right of the dining hall table.

"Like what?"

"This," I said and motioning my warframe I watched as it walked up to the wall before pointing his left hand at the wall, palm flat to its surface before dispensing a holographic spray onto its flat surface.

Illuminated on the wall was a baby kubrow chasing a butterfly, the kubrow in question had an off-white underbelly fur with a light brown fur coat with grey stripes all over it. It looked adorable because that was my kubrow when it was just a pup and I took it to Earth one day because it looked bored being on my ship all the time.

My little buddy ate a Grineer soldier's head that day and I was never prouder of the little ankle biter than I am when I take em on a mission to stop a grineer or corpus operation ending in success.

The equines were in awe at the sight of the holographic display that was hovering just above the wall, even the white monarch was in awe at the spectacle that was wavering in place.

This, of course, got the attention of my liaison as she started to ask me questions as more chefs started to enter the room and put more food down onto the table.

"What did you just put on the wall Viktor?"

"That my friend is what we Tenno's call a 'Spray', we put those down during our missions to either alert our squadmates where we have been, to confuse our enemies, or to just put them down as an 'Operator was here' flags for us to visit later if we ever come back to that particular location in the future," I said as I remember the last time I used my spray, it was in the middle of space and I was waiting for the rest of my squad to show up so I put that on a passing asteroid to pass the time.

Floating in space while your friends play catch up because I sped through the Corpus Hammerhead chopping their employees and drones in half with my ax.

"So its a sort of flag then?"

"You can say that yes, we do have our own flags but these are temporary and they are easy to dispense and use at any given moment. That and our flags are fairly tall and long so we usually need an open space to roll them out and set them to stand." That and they are usually set on fire by the Grineer and Corpus whenever they are found cause they are a bunch of assholes.

That was when Spike and Rainbow Dash asked me if I had anything else on me.

"Well, I got my codex scanner...my spray...my spare ammunition, health, shields, and energy dispensers, kinetic siphon, I even got a specter on hand." The last one got everybody's attention as Twilight asked me how I got a ghost with me.

Time to show them what it does if they want to know what it does.

"Do you want to see what it is?" They all nodded yes, even one of the chefs who stayed behind to watch what was going on.

Giving my warframe the 'go-ahead' nod it casually removed one of the small orbs that lined its hip and threw it beside me and near-instantaneously a warframe appeared before their very eyes.

It was a standard Excalibur warframe wielding a Soma assault rifle, at its hips was two Vasto revolvers, and hugging its back was a Skana long sword. Its coloration was its stock coloration of grey and white, bland and ordinary as I didn't want the enemy to think that they were being attacked by the elite of the Lotus.

Everyone did their 'Ooo's' and 'Awe's', they were easily impressed at the sight of yet another warframe standing amongst them but before they could try to pest me further, Princess Celestia called us all back to the table as she told us that the food was getting cold.

The food that was set out before us all looked good from an equestrian standpoint, but for me, a human being and also a Tenno Operative, I had to be cautious what exactly I put into my mouth as I did not scan anything that they had placed before me since I did not know what was safe to consume and what was poisonous to the body.

Whipping out my codex scanner my warframe began to scan everything on the table and Ordis in short order relayed to me what was edible and what was a one-way ticket to death's doorstep.

Of course, this disturbed the others at the table as they gave me weird looks, and of course, they didn't say anything because they were trying to be polite, naturally, my liaison had other things on her mind.

"Umm...Viktor...what exactly are you doing?" She asked me as she cast her gaze to the strange device my Rhino Prime was holding as its orange scan lines moved from each plate and bowl on the table.

"I am scanning the food on the table to see if I am capable of digesting it properly without suffering from any complications. Although the air here is just like that of my home and that some of the life here looks familiar as well, I am not taking any chances that anything here might cause me some sort of discomfort." I said as I looked at Twilight, I can tell from her gaze that what I am doing might be seen as offensive but I am doing this just to make sure I stay alive if I am to eat their food.

"Okay, just... don't do that if there are guests coming to the castle, it may be seen as rude from any foreign dignitary that might visit." An understandable request, one that I am willing to oblige once I am done with my scans.

Voicing my confirmation to her request and with Ordis confirming that most things on the table were safe to eat with the exception of the flowers and any food that had flowers in them, or hay, or petals...mostly stuff that any insect might eat when hungry.

With that out of the way, I grabbed myself a few pieces of wheat toast that have been turned to a nice golden brown color, a small pile of scrambled eggs and lastly a glass of what I believe to be is milk. My scanner wasn't entirely thorough when it came to the milk, it just said that it was safe to drink, not of what type of milk it was or from what animal it was from.

Why was I eating so little? Because my body is getting used to not being in a cryo-stasis state and so it requires actual food to continue operating at peak capacity. Food paste that was offered to me by the Tenno-Relays is meant to be the same as eating normal food but it severely lacks in taste and also that it's green and smells foul, who in their right mind would eat this all the time? Another reason why I am eating only a small amount is that I am making sure that my body can adjust to eating real food and also help my stomach slowly get used to eating food that wasn't turned to paste and put in a tube.

Soon after I was done eating I allowed myself the time to look at all the others as they ate, talked to one another as they engaged in revelry that I too once shared with my fellows.

I missed them already, but I know that I will see them again soon, it is only a matter of time to get my ship repaired and in working order. And with the new amount of knowledge that I have acquired from these equines I am sure that I will be well on my way to being a Grandmaster, maybe even a Gold Tier Grandmaster!

Thinking back on the knowledge I had acquired so far, I thought back to the biology and anatomy of the equestrians and it only took me a few moments for a rose hue to color my cheeks as those images now line my mind. I had almost forgotten about such a topic because I was asleep for so long and I thought that it wouldn't matter to me anymore.

How I could have forgotten this I do not know, I mean I was taught this in middle school on Mars long before I became a Tenno Operative, and yet I have nearly forgotten about it...but why am I having these particular thoughts now? I mean if what my teacher said is true, then I am supposed to be having these thoughts whenever I see someone that catches my eye...but did it also include if my eye is being caught on the opposite gender of an alien species?

I doubt it, but then again maybe love has no bounds here...or did he call it lust? I can't remember it clearly but it is the 'L' word.

After everyone was done eating we all were going to go our separate ways but of course my liaison had other plans.

"Viktor, me and the girls are about to head out and enjoy ourselves in Canterlot and I am thinking that you should come with us," Twilight said as she stood up from her seat and dusted herself off from any crumbs from her skirt as the rest of her friends cleaned themselves up as well.

I thought on accepting her request but a few things came up that I had to clarify with her and her princess.

"Twilight, if I go out there as I am, what will the public response to my appearance and my presence be?"

"Well um...the nobles of Canterlot are a bit stuck up and stuffy, so they will for the most part either ignore you for being a foreigner, or they will try to see where you are from before going back to what they were doing."

"Nothing I am not used to, there are plenty of enclaves back home that are the same, mostly they do it out of self-preservation because they are afraid that any outsider that is let into their homes will invite unwanted attention such as the Grineer or the Corpus."

But before Twilight could offer any more of her sound advice, Celestia decided to intervene on her behalf.

"My dear student, although I am happy to see that you are trying to help our friend here adapt and acclimate to his surroundings I am afraid that he cannot leave the castle grounds just yet." The alabaster monarch said while taking a sip from her teacup as the ponies in the room looked at their princess.

"Why is that, Princess Celestia?"

"You see Twilight, although you have helped Viktor begin to understand Equestrian society through your teachings, he is still considered an outsider to the equestrians because they not only do not know that he exists but they also don't know that he is not of this world. If word were to spread that there is an unknown being roaming the streets it will incite unnecessary panic and begin to ask questions that I am not ready to answer just yet. I already had to lie to the press about what happened at the Castle of the Two Sisters within the Everfree Forest that it was an accident from a royal guard exercise." Celestia said as she let out a quiet sigh that clearly wasn't missed by everyone in the room.

"So what you are saying that I am to remain inside until you bring forth my existence to the world?"

"I am sorry to say it but yes, you are to remain indoors until such a time that I am able to best prepare and show the world that we are not alone in this universe," Celestia said and for a moment the others looked at me and I thought I saw what looked like pity, but I was not having any of it.

Shaking my head at them I told them what I thought of it all.

"While I understand that you are taking all of the precautions that you think are necessary to maintain the peace, it is not needed for you see I am capable of moving around unseen," I said as I looked out the one window that just so happens to be looking out over the cliff and the forest below it.

This, however, catches Twilight's attention as she then asked me what I meant by moving unseen.

"Are you planning to turn invisible? How? You don't have a horn since your not a unicorn so this is perplexing me greatly." Twilight said as she gave me a once over, once again trying to see if I am not hiding something but alas she found nothing.

Smirking to myself I grabbed my warframe by returning to my command chair and resuming direct control which in turn incidentally deactivated and dispersed my specter in the process.

With me back in control, I went back to my room before locking the door and planting my warframe right in front of the door to prevent anyone from entering without my permission so I could begin my plan on exploring this new world unhindered.

Upon my return to the transference chamber, I immediately went back into the connection but this time giving Ordis the orders to begin rudimentary repairs to the Scimitar immediately. These repairs won't be able to take me back home to the Origin System but it will be able to get my ship out from this dilapidated castle and back into the skies where it belongs.

Activating and taking control of my Loki Prime, the warframe twitched to life and was placed in front of the Arsenal as it was dropped off from storage before moving to the right as several more warframes were removed from cold storage to carry out the duty I have bestowed upon them. My warframe waited patiently for the other autonomous units to move away from the Arsenal locker as I gave Ordis orders on what needs to be done while I am off in Canterlot 'seeing the sights' as I would like to call it, orders that need to get done in a timely fashion if I am to be able to operate at peak efficiency in case of a disaster or worse...something manages to find me here.

"Ordis, take several of my non-prime warframes and have them begin making repairs, the Void Core can wait until we are able to take flight and have a suitable Dry-dock or hanger to make the repairs in. I don't want any kind of foreign material to fall into the core and risk causing a catastrophic meltdown and imploding."

"Operator, what are the odds of *Bzzzt* that hunk of chunk to *Bzzt* the Void Core to erupt in such a fashion?"

"I don't know but I don't care, I am not going to be taking any chances with it. If it was able to spit us out here in the middle of uncharted space, than who knows what it can do. For all I know, it might spit us out into some other dimension or worse right in the middle of a black hole." And Lotus save us if that happens. I do NOT want my final moments to be being crushed slowly within my own ship as I watch myself meet an agonizingly slow death.

"As you command, Operator, it will be done." And with that, he went about to carry out my command.

Stepping out from the Arsenal was my Rhino, Atlas, Chroma, Mag, and Vauban to carry out the repairs, and as for why I am sending out Mag for the heavy lifting? Her magnetic powers will be helpful in lifting and maintaining an even height as the rest will be uninstalling the engines from their housing to begin their tinkering.

The whirling of machinery was heard from the outside and the guards that were stationed here to watch over my ship immediately sprang into action, several of them grabbing their spears and shields from their tents while a few were even being pushed off their cots to wake up and get ready for what they think is a surprise attack.

What none of the equestrian guards realized what was happening was that they were being ignored by the warframes as they went about doing their assigned tasks.

While the guards were busy watching my warframes go about their jobs in taking apart and reassembling pieces of the fuselage, my Loki Prime activated his stealth field and slipped out of view and away from the camp. Dancing through the throngs of equine guards all the while picking up pieces of salvaged ship pieces and tagging them for pickup by a Carrier Sentinel, I even went as far as marking a few pieces of equestrian guard equipment for pickup to see what they are made of and if there is any room for improvement.

Although I could tell them the means of forging far superior alloys with the knowledge I have access to, I wasn't willing to give them that much of an advantage over the other races that inhabit this world, and if the books I have scanned and skimmed over are anything to go by, quite a few races might take this as a step towards war with them.

Sometimes I wonder why the princesses of the sun and moon don't just threaten the world with either a colony drop with the moon or scorching their lands with the sun? I mean if they can actually control those two massive celestial bodies with their magic then why not just conquer the world with it, not like there isn't anything in this world that can stop them.

Right?

Once I was out and away from my ship and the equestrian camp I left the ruined castle by way of the front doors that were barely hanging on their hinges, the courtyard was a mess with overgrowth of vegetation that hasn't seen a gardener or a goat in ages.

Stepping through the overgrowth that has seeped onto the cobblestone road leading out and away from the castle I followed it all the way out and into the surrounding forest. Staying on the road I continued to follow it until I came up a rope bridge, while the road itself is old and in serious need of a patch-up, the bridge itself seems to be brand-new, fresh even and I have a guess as to why that is. Seeing how rope isn't anything like stone or rock, it decays and degrades until it eventually rots away into nothing, or an unfortunate person step out it and the rotten wood snaps in half and they plummet to their death.

Not a good way to go, screaming all the way down before coming to an abrupt stop in a sickening crunch and a splat.

At least the local wildlife gets to eat well for the day.

The walk through the forest was an easy one with me sprinting through the foliage and bushes, avoiding the local wildlife as my radar pinged their locations that allowed me to stay well away from them. Eventually my run through the dark forest yielded fruit as I came upon the mountain base.

The climb up to the city will be a long one but I am sure that by the time I get up there that the girls would have left the castle and be enjoying themselves.

Lets see if I can surprise them.

With a grin on my face and a plan to enact, I began my ascension up the mountainside to meet up with my new friends.