Colors of Canterlot
The skies above the land formerly known as Equestria, were grey. They had been such for years; decades even. No pony on the planet could remember, but conversely, there were no ponies on the planet to remember. Even if there were, ponies in that situation wouldn't bother themselves with something as trivial as keeping tabs on, and records of, the color of the sky. But in one corner of the city once known as Canterlot, a small, metal being did pay attention to the sky.
It (or she, for she considered her chassis to resemble that of a mare) enjoyed logging the skies. Rain fascinated her, but even moreover what followed rain. The rainbows that still graced the skies of Equestria from time to time were, as ever, sights to behold. They caused the robot, who referred to herself by the letters printed on her side, to feel something akin to joy. This ways of course strange, seeing as she was mechanical, but she felt it nonetheless.
Pon-E were the symbols spray painted onto her side. The first three letters were a cool blue, managing to stay bright despite the rust color that dominated her body; the hyphen was a bright red, and finally, the capital E was pink.
She liked the colors. In fact, she liked color in general, and it made her proud to have some of the brightest bits of color in the area, right at her side.
Pon-E was a strange phenomenon. She had once had sisters here in Canterlot. They worked tirelessly to return the city to its former glory. Back then, they had been simply what they appeared to be; Robots. Each stood the height of a pony, made once of light red stainless steel. Their legs were divided into two segments. The foreleg, which was cylindrical with a hollow quarter sphere acting as a joint to connect to the flatter, rounded tip upper legs. Upon their shoulder, the iconic Pon-E label was placed. Their bodies appeared segmented, and capable of movement, again bearing their label. They lacked tails; something their designers deemed not required. Their necks were segmented, similar to their bodies. Finally, their heads were spheres with protrusions for the brow and muzzle. All in all, they appeared to be solid metal earth ponies.
They were however, ponies only in shape. They acted only in the way they were designed to, to clean and restore, but as their job came to its finishing stages, they one by one fell into disrepair. Time ate through all things, and such it consumed the fleet of automatons. Pon-E could not have told you how long it had been since she and her army of sisters had been put here on this earth. In fact even if she knew how long it had been, she could not speak. Voice was not a gift bestowed upon garbage-bots. It was unnecessary for their objective.
The Canterlot sky grew dim as time passed. Evening turned quickly to twilight as the sun disappeared behind the great eastern tower. Pon-E remembered building that tower. She was impressed with herself. She had created a structure that could blot out the sun. Day by day she had followed the cycle of work. Crushing refuse into cubes to then add to the tower.
What a strange thought. Was she actually impressed? To her knowledge, her core processor was capable of no such thing. Yes something at the back of her logic array told her that yes. She was impressed. Not just that, proud even. Her logic array affirmed this once more, than proceeded to dedicate more of its memory in order to tackle the questions given life by this finding. She was feeling things. What did that imply about her state of existence. Is she equip to deal with the possibility of the emotions that may follow? A fan kicked on inside her core. The logic array was running hot in order to crush the numbers rushing in.
Strange. All very strange.
Her attention was diverted and the problem solving was put on hold as the sun began to fade and the sky took on a rich purple color. Pon-E took one final look at the colorful expanse before her. She reached her head into her makeshift satchel to produce her camera, long since forgotten by its original owner. She snapped a picture in order to catalogue the color before retreating back into her home. The motors in her legs whirred as she crossed the dropship's threshold and moved into the steel compartment she called home. Inside her alcove waited for her as steel segments on her body rearranged themselves to fit her chassis snugly into the space. Moving into her alcove jingled the charms and bits of metal hanging on salvged string she decorated her room with. The fan in her processor clicked off as systems powered down one by one. Her eyes flickered twice and then blinked off as the hum of her motor died down. Slowly she drifted off into sleep mode with nothing more than an orange light on her chest and an icon indicating battery power to give an onlooker proof that she was still in working condition.
