Heart of Courage

Princess Celestia walked the hallways of Canterlot side by side with Rarity, though the white unicorn bore little resemblance to the former seamstress from Ponyville. Her usual well-brushed tail and mane were barely groomed, and her puffy eyes and messy face made it apparent that she hadn’t seen a touch of makeup in many days. She wore a simple black gown; something completely alien to her usual gaudy sense of fashion.

“Princess,” Rarity glanced up at the taller Alicorn, her ears drooping downwards, “how are we going to stop them without her? The elements are now incomplete and everypony knows what I did. I see the way they glance at me when they think I’m not looking.”

Princess Celestia spoke, shaking her head. “Rarity, for the thousandth time, it wasn’t anypony’s fault.” She stopped the gloomy unicorn and hugged her with a wing. “We will figure something out to save Equestria, even if we cannot use the elements. Even though your friend is gone, you cannot lose hope.”

The pair continued around a corner into a large circular room full of tall glass windows. Named the Hall of Heroes, it was a place where Equestria honored ponies who performed valiant acts of heroism for the nation. Located in a remote wing of the castle, it did not often attract visitors.

“She wouldn’t want you to blame yourself for something you aren’t responsible for.” Princess Celestia’s voice now gently echoed in the spacious chamber. “The Twilight I knew would want you to accept what happened in the past but focus on saving the future. If you decide to live your life in misery, you will only be disrespecting her memory.”

The pair stopped walking in front of a marble statue of a unicorn. The plaque below read, Twilight Sparkle: She gave everything she had for those she loved. “For all she did for Equestria, I think it is fitting we honor her by giving her a place here. Equestria needs heroes now more than ever. What are you going to do, Rarity? Will Twilight’s fate consume you? Or are you stronger than that?"

Rarity paused for a second and took a deep shaky breath as she fought back tears. “I will do my best to accept what happened but I will never forgive myself for losing my best friend.” She shook her mane like she used to when it needed a little rearrangement, and her blue eyes iced over with a steely stare. “For her memory though, I will be brave and fight for all ponykind.”

Twilight Sparkle bolted awake and looked around frantically, calming down once she recognized the steel room with all the beds. A medical bay they called it? At least I’m not tied down again. The door remained shut and her bed still had the only occupant. It was all real then. I somehow traveled millennia into the future. My friends and family… they must be all gone. A heartbreaking wave of hopelessness washed over her. “I will never see them again,” she whimpered out loud to nopony.

“Oh, good! You’re awake! I was really worried when you passed out.”

Twilight jumped to see the bipedal creature sitting in a rotating chair at a desk near the back wall. Floating above the top of the desk stood a glowing three-dimensional image, of what looked like an earth pony, before it winked out and disappeared. A quick stab of uncertainty shot through Twilight until she recalled that this creature meant no harm. A human was what she said she was, right?

“How are you taking the news, sweetie? I am so sorry for causing so much distress, but lying to you would only make the resulting consequences worse.” The blonde-maned human rolled her chair, which not only could spin around but apparently had wheels on its legs, to the side of her bed.

Twilight gazed into the strange creature’s compassionate eyes and realized she couldn’t hold her despair in anymore. The truth of her predicament hit hard. “My…my family and friends… they are all gone...” her voice wavered slightly. “They are all… d-dead aren’t they? I will never see any of them again. I'm so alone.” She choked out between sobs, squeezing her eyes shut when she felt two soft, strong arms hug her. Opening her eyes a little bit, she saw the human hugging her as if she were her best friend. Twilight couldn’t even remember her name, yet this alien creature cared for her and empathized with her. Twilight wrapped her front legs around the human and wept into her shoulder.

“You aren’t alone anymore. We will help you adjust to your new life and make new friends. Right now, we are making our way back to Harmony where the Princesses will decide how to best help you start over. They will know what to do.”

It took a second for what Victoria said for it to sink in, and Twilight’s eyes then lit up as a small sliver of hope blossomed in her heart. “Princesses? Are Princess Celestia or Luna around? Could I speak to them?” Having some part of her past still around could help make her feel less lonely, and to her joy, the human’s face mirrored her own enthusiasm.

“Actually, we were sent here by Princess Celestia herself! I don’t know how she knew you would appear out here, but that’s something we can ask her when we get back to Harmony. Princess Celestia rules part of the civilian side of UEN government. Princess Luna is still around and she leads the UEN military.”

Twilight let out a shout of joy, squeezing her eyes shut and smiling despite the tears running down her face. Sure, she still had her mentor, but it didn’t change the fact that all her friends and family were long gone. After a few seconds, Twilight calmed herself and slowed her breathing. Once she composed herself, she pulled away from the human. The purple unicorn rubbed her nose and chuckled a little as she asked “Why are you so nice to me? I freaked out when you walked in and I’ve already forgotten your name.”

The smiling human laughed before she answered. Her laugh brought a warm sense of comfort to the unicorn pony. “I'm Victoria Schaefer, a human from Flankfurt. You think you freaked out? I need to show you some video from the first time ponies and humans met each other. That was a sight to see.” Victoria leaned back in her chair, rubbing her chin before gesturing with her hand. “See, we used to have animals on Earth called horses which looked fairly similar to you ponies except they weren’t sapient. Also, once you ponies found out that humans ate meat, there was this misunderstanding and rumor spread that we wanted to eat ponies. Those first few months were quite chaotic. Later on though, many struggles united both races and forged an everlasting alliance. We are called the United Equestrian Nations, or UEN for short.”

Twilight leaned back slightly, giving the human a nervous stare. “You’re a carnivore?”

“We are mainly omnivores.” Victoria smiled a toothy grin to show the different types of teeth in her jaw. Curiosity and her love for science got the better of Twilight and she leaned forward for a closer look. “We need both plants and meat. Humans can’t digest grass or hay like you ponies but fruits and vegetables are necessary requirements for nutrition. Also, humans won’t eat meat from intelligent creatures, though we may joke about it from time to time. It is a pretty big cultural taboo.”

“Well where do you get your meat from? Do… do you have slaughter houses?” The thought sent revulsion through the pony’s body.

“On old Earth many ages ago we did. Once the human population grew too large, we had to find another source of food which led to the food synthesizer. Now all human and even pony food is created in machines from basic building blocks of matter. No animals are harvested yet the synthesized food is apparently indistinguishable from the real thing, although I wouldn’t know the difference since I’ve never eaten any meat that was once alive.”

At that moment, the sliding door opened again and the butterscotch pegasus trotted in. She noticed Twilight sitting up and walked over to her bed. “How are you feeling?”

Twilight wracked her memory for a split second trying to remember her name. “Socket Wrench, right?” The pegasus nodded happily. “Yeah, I feel better. I'm sorry I scared both of you. It… it was a lot of information to digest.” Twilight scratched the back of her head with her hoof.

“Yeah, Victoria explained the situation to me.” Socket nodded her head. “I didn’t know where you came from, so at first I was as confused as you. Well, maybe not that much.” She turned to Victoria. “The captain is on his way here now to talk to her.” Socket Wrench thought for a moment before turning back to Twilight with an inquisitive expression. “By the way, what is your name?”

“I'm Twilight Sparkle.” At the sound of her name, shock, disbelief, and amazement flashed across their faces. After a moment of confusion, Twilight realized, they’ve heard of my name before. Before she could ask out loud, Victoria spoke.

“You mentioned the Wulven war. I assume that is the time period you came from, Miss Sparkle?”

“Yes, we were three months into the war when the… incident happened.” Another thought came to her. “Oh, did we win the war? Were the Wulven defeated?”

Taken aback by the question, Socket Wrench opened her mouth but before she could answer, Victoria quickly interrupted. “Socket, don’t forget about the Wells Doctrine. We can’t tell her anything about her time period until she sees the Princesses and the UEN Council.” She turned towards Twilight, but had a mischievous grin. “I can tell you this though. Equestria still exists today so you can probably figure out your answer from that bit of knowledge.”

“Well, well, well. And I thought I was the only devious one around here.”

Twilight, Victoria, and Socket all looked up towards the door where the new voice had come from. Leaning against the open entrance stood another human. This one had a short black mane and dark brown narrow eyes. Its face and body structure differed slightly from Victoria and its voice was deeper so Twilight figured this human was a male. He shot a smile at them and made his way over to her bedside.

Victoria sighed and said, “Zhang, how in the hell do you get through those doors without making a sound?”

Zhang spoke again and Twilight picked up yet another new, familiar accent. “Sweet Victoria, you know a magician never tells his secrets.” He waved his hand, sending a few small colorful sparks in the air.

Socket Wrench lightly punched him in the hip “One of these days, I’ll figure out your tricks and then we’ll see who has the last laugh.”

Zhang smiled and turned to Twilight, extending a hand. “How are you, Miss? My name is lieutenant commander Isamu Zhang. I am from Shanghay, and I am the Weapons Control officer on the Rainbow Dash, as well as one of her shuttle pilots. I flew the shuttle that took you onto the Dash.” Twilight put her hoof in his hand and gave him a combination hand-hoofshake. She opened her mouth to introduce herself when another pair of voices interrupted her from the hallway just outside of the open doorway.

The first voice sounded annoyed. “I swear Dmitri, if you were under anyone else’s command, you would be in the brig twenty-four-seven. I don’t know why I put up with your crap. Sometimes, I think you’re going to inadvertently cause a mutiny some day and throw me out of an airlock.”

A thick hearty laugh ensued, “Don’t act like you hate me, comrade. You enjoy dealing with my bullshit. That why you want to pilot patrol frigate instead of larger fleet vessel. More freedom to do what you want. Anyway, crew love you. Mutiny least of your worries. Worry more about our guest.” Twilight recognized this speaker’s thick, choppy accent from the region near Stalliongrad.

The pair of voices turned out to be a male pony walking next to another male human. They turned the corner into the open doorway and strode up to Twilight’s bed.

“Ah, she is awake!” The stocky, brown stallion with the Stalliongrad accent yelled with a huge grin on his face. “How you feel? Do you have headache?” He laughed before the male human smacked him on the back of his head.

“Dmitri, if she has a headache do you think the best cure is yelling in her face with your terrible grammar?” The human turned to Twilight and shook her hoof. “Hi, I’m Captain James Fletcher. I'm the captain of this ship and I was the one who found you down on that snowball of a planet. I’m sorry about Dmitri here. See, I am pretty sure his mother dropped him on his head when he was a little colt.” His face hardened slightly when he asked, “But, I also would like to know why you are important enough to drag us this far away from the war effort.”

Dmitri rubbed the spot where he was smacked “Bah! You wish I was.” He looked at Twilight and guiltily spoke “Sorry about that. Got carried away for a second. My name is Dmitri Bearclaw. I'm the Lieutenant Commander of the Dash. I help James keep the ship and its crew operational.” At the last remark, James rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Nice to meet all of you,” Twilight said. It was difficult understanding and learning about her situation with just Victoria and Socket there. Now it seemed like everyone important on the Rainbow Dash surrounded the medical bed and wanted to learn more about her. It felt very overwhelming. “I’m Twilight Sparkle and I'm sorry for being a hindrance.” Her ears drooped slightly.

“James, she came from the Wulven War.” Victoria’s eyebrows rose upwards in a knowing look, which brought an instant reaction of shock from him and Isamu.

“No, it can’t be. That’s impossible.” James looked back at Victoria, who nodded at him with a grim expression on her face. “You know what this could mean right?”

“What’s going on?” Dmitri asked

Ignoring him for the moment, James questioned Twilight. “May we take a look at your, umm… your cutie mark, Miss Sparkle? We need to verify something. Dmitri, Isamu, and myself will step outside for a minute.”

“Why would you do that?”

A confused look crossed his face before Socket Wrench laughed “James, she is from old Equestria. They didn’t wear clothing everyday back then.”

The comment made Twilight feel slightly embarrassed and she tried to defend herself. “Hey now, we…”

“No, no, no, no, I don’t mean anything bad by that. What I mean is that our culture has changed very much over the centuries. To be blunt, I would enjoy walking around without always having to wear clothing. Nothing beats having a cool breeze grace one’s flank. Sadly, that is looked down upon at most places.”

Victoria raised her hand to her face. “Socket, you sounded just like Dmitri for a second there.”

“Before we get carried away with thoughts of naked freedom, it is really important that we verify who our time traveler is,” Isamu advised as Dmitri opened his mouth to further derail the conversation.

Twilight moved her bed covers and leaned to one side exposing her right flank and the cutie mark upon it. Everyone crowded around to take a look at the purple and white star pattern.

Isamu’s impassive face filled with awe, “It really is her.”

Socket Wrench’s eyes grew very large while Victoria shook her head slightly in incredulity. “I can’t believe it.”

“We are in the presence of a living legend, my friends.” James leaned back and gazed at Twilight with a newfound respect. “I now see why Princess Celestia wanted us out here in the ass-end of the galaxy.”

“Speaking of ass,” Dmitri said, “nice flank.”

Smack.

“So everypony knows who I am even this far into the future?” Twilight asked, as Victoria gave her a final checkup so she could leave the medical bay and visit other areas of the ship. There had been a lot to ponder, and Twilight knew that she had a lot of information to catch up on.

“Everyone learns about the Elements of Harmony in school. They are the most famous magical artifacts in the galaxy. To this day, we haven’t been able to discover where exactly they came from or how to use them without a bearer. The Elements, unfortunately, haven’t chosen new bearers since your time period.” She met Twilight’s wide open eyes. “Yeah, that’s right. You and your friends are the last bearers in history regrettably.

Victoria held up a strange device in front of the unicorn’s face, moving it around in a circular pattern. Once she had completed three circles, it chirped loudly and Victoria set it back down, seemingly pleased with the results. “The Elements would be invaluable in the war we fighting now. One of the few bits of information we have discovered is that the Elements of Harmony can manipulate a seemingly unlimited amount of magical energy. So theoretically, they could be used for amazing feats from shielding an entire fleet to perhaps blowing up a star.” Victoria’s face had a strange expression at the last comment, Twilight noted. It looked almost like a pang of remorse.

Ignoring her curiosity regarding the human’s reaction for the moment, Twilight began a different line of questions. “You mentioned a war? Please don’t tell me I left one war to be thrown into another.”

A guilty look crossed her face when she answered. “We have been at war for over four hundred years. In fact, the war started right before humans joined the UEN. After we get your room situation settled, James asked me to take you to the conference room for a crash course in the current predicament we are in.”

“Four hundred years!” Twilight’s eyes opened wide. “Well who are you at war with?”

“We call them the cygnul. They originate from somewhere in the Cygnus outer arm of the Milky Way galaxy. Even after fighting them to a stalemate for hundreds of years, we still don’t know much about them. I’ll explain more about the cygnul in your orientation.”

“Okay well, why are there no Element bearers anymore?”

“No one knows. We can’t force the Elements to choose so they sit idle in… the Royal Palace in Canterlot.” Victoria’s pause drew a sliver of suspicion from the lavender unicorn. The human refused to meet her accusatory gaze as she typed something on a futuristic typewriter device.

Letting the comment slide, Twilight filed it away in her mind to bring it up later. “The Palace is still standing after all these years? I guess that means the Princesses and my friends did save Equestria after all.”

“It was updated over the years and is a lot bigger now. Also the city around Canterlot is huge. I know you’re fishing for information,” The human’s eyes flicked to hers for a moment, “but, I can’t tell you anything that happened within a thousand years of your time though. I have to follow the Wells Doctrine.”

Twilight Sparkle frowned and fiddled with her blanket for a bit. “You mentioned that before, what exactly is it?”

Twisting towards her, Victoria ceased her typing. “There was a famous human author many millennia ago by the name of Herbert George Wells. He wrote many famous works of science fiction and one of his more notable novels was The Time Machine. Equestria has had problems with time travelers in the past and they needed to decide how to deal with them.” At this, Twilight remembered her first experience with time travel and how such a short journey caused so much trouble.

“After the UEN formed, humans and ponies sat down and wrote out the current precautions to take when dealing with time travelers. The document they wrote was called the Wells Doctrine to honor that author’s name. To summarize, we are not allowed to discuss current events from a traveler’s time period until the UEN High Council meets the traveler. This is to keep anyone from screwing up the past. Right now, James is taking us back to Harmony where the Council will help you start a new life.”

“Human authors sound very interesting. I would love to get my hooves on some of those books.” Twilight’s inner librarian drooled at the thought of reading literature written by a species from an entirely different planet.

“I’ll have Socket show you the Dash’s digital library and teach you how to access it. There are enough books stored there for several lifetimes of reading.” Victoria then gave a short laugh at Twilight’s shocked reaction. “You are going to learn a lot about the technology of our time. It will astound you.”

Victoria finished her checkup and began packing up her medical bag. “Unfortunately, because we are a long distance from Harmony, it might take a few months to get back home.”

“Months! I'm cooped up here for months?” The thought of living in the medical bay for months made her sick to her stomach.

A familiar voice from the doorway drew her attention. “Twilight, you aren’t going to be living here. We need this room for any wounded and I don’t think you would enjoy sleeping here while somepony is having surgery.” Socket Wrench laughed. “You can stay with me. I don’t mind the company or sharing my room. I'm an officer so I have a room to myself.”

Twilight hopped off the table and stretched her legs out. “Wow, thanks a lot Socket! I really appreciate that. I hope I won’t be a nuisance.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I'm sure you won’t.” Socket Wrench threw a bag onto Twilight’s bed. “We can’t have you walking around the ship without wearing any clothes, can we now?”

The comment brought a snicker from Twilight. “I guess not. I wouldn’t want to look out of place.”

“Here is an extra uniform I had made. You can have it. I don’t want you distracting all the stallions aboard this ship with that flank of yours.” Socket Wrench laughed at the flustered look on the unicorn’s face and the blush that bloomed onto her purple cheeks. “Also, James doesn’t want your identity to be revealed to the general populace yet. The crew will keep quiet, but if we dock somewhere, anypony that recognizes your cutie mark might start an unstoppable rumor, and rumors travel faster than the speed of light.”

Twilight finished wriggling into the uniform which hung loosely from her body. Before she could ask for a smaller size, Socket walked over and pulled a small black tab on the waist. The clothing shrunk to fit her snugly. “How did you do that?”

“The uniform is one size fits all. The cloth is made with a bunch of tiny microscopic machines. It’s called nanotechnology. They shrink and expand the material when needed. Cool huh?”

“Wow, technology is really advanced isn’t it? My friend Rarity would love to get her hooves on this kind of knowledge.”

“Nanotechnology is way ahead of your time by a few thousand years.” Victoria said as she finished putting her bag away. “You’re all checked out Twilight. You can see the rest of the ship but I do ask that you always stay with one of us five just in case an emergency happens. This is a military ship after all. I would also stay away from Azure Lightning. She is very competitive with other unicorns and can be quite the bitch.”

“Who is that?”

“Azure is the battle mage on our assault team. She is great at her job but pretty much lacks any social skills. That’s part of the reason she is assigned to a patrol frigate instead of the main fleet.”

“Okay thanks. I will keep that in mind.” Twilight headed to the door while Victoria went back to work on her computer.

Socket smiled as she headed down the passageway with Twilight following. While walking throughout the ship, Socket Wrench tried to explain more about the Dash. She learned it was a rather large craft for its classification because it was designed to operate on its own, far from an orbital base. She figured that whatever crash course Victoria was talking about would shed more light on the situation. They passed a few crew members of both species but most of them were ponies. All of them saluted Socket Wrench and gave Twilight a formal bow.

“Why are they bowing at me?” Twilight whispered to Socket after the third such occurrence.

Socket Wrench’s pupils shrunk and her face scrunched up. “Oh, horseapples.” She halted and lifted a forehoof, fiddling with a glowing screen on her leg with her nose. “You’re somewhat of a … celebrity I guess.” The pegasus mare waved her hoof in the air after she finished fiddling with the device. “I’ll have James alert the crew to stop that in case it raises questions.”

Twilight nodded, uncomfortable with the special attention. Then they continued their trek through the frigate. “Why are there more ponies on this ship than humans? It seemed from your short explanation that humans were more advanced?”

Socket’s smile disappeared. “We’re here, I’ll tell you inside.” She stopped at a doorway and put her hoof in a glowing screen next to it. A chime sounded and the door slid open. “I already programmed the door to open for you too. Just place your hoof there and you’re good to go.”

Once the door shut after them she spoke again. “Ponies outnumber humans by almost thirty to one in the UEN. A long time ago humans were almost wiped out to extinction. They barely survived when their home planet was destroyed and to this day, their population is still recovering. Their devotion to help each other and will to survive saved them, and ended up saving us ponies too. I’ll show you what I mean in the conference room.”

Twilight felt a twinge of sadness. Humans seem to be very friendly creatures.

“You can use whatever you need in my washroom and I have extra clothes for you to wear. My bed is decently sized so I hope you don’t mind sharing for tonight until I can have one built for you.”

“Not at all! Thanks again for all of this, Socket Wrench.”

She beamed a smiled “Don’t worry about it. I'm glad to help. Now let’s go give you a crash course in the history of the United Equestrian Nations.”

Twilight followed right behind her. “This shall be interesting.”