Prologue: A blue unicorn takes off
Cold. The words bit Trixie as hard as the wind. Once upon a time she would have been soaking in the hot tub of the princess suite of the most expensive five-star hotel she could find. Now she was barely getting by in the midst of one of the most universally accepted bad places in the whole world… the Everfree forest. The cold and shivering Trixie pulled all of her excess clothes together as a makeshift blanket. She was still shivering but at least there was some level of warmth.
“How did I get here?” She asked this rhetorically. Of course she knew all too well. Pride, an excess of pride with a nice thick layer of stupid on top. Funny thing, if you read enough newspapers reading “Trixie, the greatest!” you start to believe them. You start coming up with more and more elaborate stories of your amazing accomplishments; hell, you don’t even research them anymore! Who cares? The papers and ponies all say you’re the best! Hell, you could probably just pull a monster name out of your ass and say that you slew one of them on your way into town and the townspeople would praise you for your bravery without a second thought. And then it all goes to Tartarus all in one fell swoop. All of Trixie’s travel belongings, destroyed; mode of transportation and stage, stomped; friends and family, not answering; what few bits Trixie saved rather than spending on lavish living conditions, stolen by a greedy agent, and as a bonus he skipped town.
Trixie Lulamoon, Trixie the spectacular, Trixie the great and powerful, The great and powerful Trixie, which sounded way better hence why Trixie stuck with it, reduced, in a single motion from a lumbering half-awake beast, to homeless, friendless, bitless, just everything less. Revenge had been the only thing that the blue unicorn could even think about, it was her driving motivation, the only motivation she had. Then she thought of a brilliant plan… to defeat Twilight Sparkle, the unicorn that had humiliated her, in a duel of magic. If one thing, one thing in all of Gradna could redeem her reputation it was to defeat her. Pupil of the Princess, savior of the whole world several times over, it sure as stuffing wasn’t going to be easy but it would do the trick.
Trixie wasn’t stupid of course; one doesn’t become a magician without being at least a little intelligent. She knew that some hungry, ragged mare that had been living on the road, feasting on whatever berries, wild game, and whatever else she could find was going to beat Twilight Sparkle. So she got a job, specifically at a rock farm; why did they farm rocks? Who were they sold to? Why, again? Trixie couldn’t have cared less; all she cared about was that their bits shined. Trixie eventually heard rumblings of a strange store in Canterlot that sold a mysterious amulet, one that could provide the power of an alicorn. Needless to say Trixie became interested and decided to retrieve this amulet by any means necessary…
And then it all went black. Trixie couldn’t remember anything from putting on the amulet to eventually having it removed for some useless piece of junk. She found out that Twilight had bested her once again, and she had taken over a small town. Trixie realized then and there why she lost, a fundamental difference in power, and also a difference in perspective. With what little talents Trixie actually possessed she had been praised from Canterlot to the moon about how amazing she was, and she let it go to her head, making her prideful. Twilight Sparkle possessed far more power than her, and yet she was very down to Gradna about all of it. She was caring and loving to those who Trixie would’ve treated like servants or fans. Trixie gave one final farewell to Twilight, as humbly as she could while still being mad about losing, and ventured forth to reclaim her life, to start fresh.
What actually happened was Trixie back into living off the scraps of others… again. While Twilight Sparkle was quick to forgive Trixie for her actions, an evil amulet possessed her in case you forgot; the rest of Equestria was less in the forgiving mood. Some places blacklisted her, other refused her any of their services, others threatened to send her to jail, so here she was, in the Everfree forest of all places, eating an overcooked rabbit with some wild berries that Trixie hoped wouldn’t give her the trots. This was Trixie’s life, once grand, now gross, funny how life works.
A low rumbling snapped Trixie out of her reverie, a rumbling that only seemed to be getting louder. “An earthquake?” Trixie shouted, searching for the source of the rumblings, or more appropriately a good place to hide. Growling and the smell of sap soon accompanied the rumbling. Trixie turned and was face to face with three Timberwolves. The unicorn found herself backed up against a tree, staring at the wolves. “B-back away wolves, or Trixie will have to, will have to…” Trixie started channeling her magic, realizing that even if the wolves understood her, they were probably as hungry as she was and were staring at their next meal. Then she looked up, and everything stopped. She found it almost impossible to describe what she was looking at. The source of the rumblings wasn’t an earthquake, or a beast; it was something that Trixie had never seen before.
The looming behemoth was made of metal. That much Trixie could immediately discern. The metal was coated in a coat of dull green, blending well with the trees it was hovering over. Four large flame-spewing cylinders, two large ones on its back and two smaller ones on its middle, seemingly held aloft the huge metal object. On its front was a pair of silver cylinders, each sporting six smaller cylinders. It had a face of glass and looked almost like a tail, which glowed a sickly green. A small latch on its top opened up and out of it climbed what appeared to be a coatless pony. The creature sported a leather overcoat with matching hat and was carrying some long cylinder attached to a small rectangle.
“Four-legged creatures!” boomed the creature in perfect Equuis. “I am going to ask you once and only once…” the Timberwolves looked in the creatures’ direction, probably because of the noise that it was making. Trixie would have used this as an opportunity to attack them, but she was similarly transfixed and confused by the creature standing atop the hovering metal creature. “You will stop harassing the two-legged creature in front of you, unless you provide meaningful reason. I am armed and will fire unless you cease your assault.”
The Timberwolves obviously didn’t stop. One of the creatures dove straight for Trixie, but just as she was throwing up a barrier a bright light flashed and the wolf fell just short of Trixie, with its head gone, and its neck smoldering. “I warned you, now back away!” The creature shouted, and by this point the wolves actually were backing off, mostly out of fear. Trixie saw her chance and dove farther away from the wolves, before letting off a blast of magic. The magic connected with one wolf, incinerating part of an eye and much of its snout. The vile beast whined and squirmed upon the ground in pain while its pack mate ran in the opposite of Trixie and the metal beasts’ direction.
The blue unicorn turned back in the direction of her savior only to see the cylinder in the stranger’s hand pointed in her direction, and a small red light dancing across her chest. Trixie watched as the behemoth slowly lowered to the ground, extending three small metallic legs to stand on. The creature walked along the behemoths side and jumped to the ground, giving Trixie her only chance. As he was momentarily stunned by the rather long jump Trixie dove behind one of the trees.
“Excuse me, I’m willing to listen to your explanation as to why you felt the need to kill a fleeing opponent,” the leather-wearing creature shouted, “of course I reserve the right to decide to shoot you.”
“And you wonder why Trixie hides?” Trixie sighed. Just as she let out a near-silent sigh the tree next to her had a new hole blasted into it. Trixie instinctively dove in the opposite direction, stopping herself mid-sprint when another hole was blown into a new tree. She started to step back only to walk directly into the creature, who grabbed her arms and pushed her into the cold bark of a tree. “Trixie apologizes! I don’t know what you want but Trixie is sorry!”
The creature let go of her, allowing Trixie to spin around and get a better look at it. It was male, that much Trixie could safely assume, thanks to the stubble growing on its chin and the bob on its neck. Piercing green eyes complimented the green glow coming from the strange cylindrical weapon that he carried, but he didn’t seem entirely malicious. The creature’s eyes scanned Trixie from top to bottom, his eyes finally resting on her horn. “Is there something wrong with my horn?”
“I’ve never seen sapient creatures with horns like yours. It’s smaller, more rounded…”
“Trixie’s horn is not small!” Trixie screamed at the man, causing him to jump back a bit. “Trixie’s horn is full, and powerful, and…”
“I’m sorry,” the male quickly asserted. “Both for what I just said and for trying to shoot you…” The man removed the hat from his head, revealing well-combed black hair with a small ponytail in back. He also placed the weapon against a tree, offering his now empty hands to Trixie. “I’m unarmed, and I apologize for threatening you. If it isn’t entirely obvious I’m not from around here.”
Trixie gulped back the ‘no shit’ in her throat, not wanting to aggravate the creature that was able to kill a Timberwolf as though it was nothing. “I suppose that since you did save my life that would sort of make us even. My name is Trixie Lulamoon, and I…” the exchange was quickly ended by the loud growling coming from Trixie’s stomach.
The creature chuckled, “Maybe we should have a conversation over some dinner? I have some food on my ship…” he motioned to the huge behemoth in he arrived in.
“Do you have a salad? I haven’t had properly prepared greens for months now!” The man nodded, “Then lead on!”
The pair walked up to the back of the ship, and after a few button presses the behemoth opened up to allow the two inside. The back was some kind of storage, filled with large metal crates stacked on top of one another and tied down with large plastic. As soon as one of Trixie’s hooves touched the cold steel of the ship’s interior an alarm began to blare, followed by a large cylindrical machine, similar to the ones on the front of the ship, taking aim at Trixie from the ceiling. “Intruder,” a feminine voice shouted, “Unidentified life-form on ship leave now or…”
Just as Trixie was about to boot it out of there as fast as she possibly could the man stepped up to her and called back to the machine, “Disarm Protocol: Allow until life-form leaves, level 3.”
The weapon retreated to its resting position on the ceiling, “Protocol acknowledged, voice command accepted, welcome back Captain Peregrinus.”
“Good to be back Compa, if you could have that soup reheated for me, the life-form and I will be having dinner.” Trixie was still frozen in place, as she had been when the weapon had descended. The man tapped her on the shoulder, breaking her from her catatonic spell. “Sorry about that, can’t be too careful, especially with the cargo hold.”
The two walked through the ship till they reached the kitchen, a glaringly different room from the halls they had walked through. The halls were simple metal, not even a rug had been thrown down to liven the place up. Meanwhile the kitchen was so homely it almost felt like it was from a different era, with white tiling across the floor and even striped white and blue wallpaper. The man ushered for Trixie to sit at the table bolted to the floor in the center of the room. As he started to prepare some form of salad for Trixie he asked, “I don’t suppose you’ve ever met anyone like me?”
“No,” Trixie replied, “it’s not every day that Trixie is rescued from death only to be then threatened by her rescuer.”
The man sighed dramatically, “You killed one of them as they were trying to retreat. I’m supposed to high-five you over that?”
“It was a Timberwolf!” Trixie shouted before remembering, “That’s right; you aren’t from around here.”
“Yes, but I’m going to assume that it’s a carnivorous beast, not a sapient being, but in my defense I couldn’t have known that at a first glance.” The man pulled out some cheeses and began slicing.
Trixie rolled her eyes, “Oh yes, because a bunch of creatures on their haunches about to maul a young mare, that could be interpreted in any number of ways.”
The man squirted some kind of dressing on the salad and handed the bowl to Trixie, who of course dug in as fast and voraciously as possible. “You’d be surprised, there are some worlds where the evolutionary chain sticks with four-legs, also you could have been some kind of serial-killer cornered by the police, you don’t want to assume these things, could start an intergalactic incident, or just get you executed.”
Trixie stared sadly at the salad before her, “Actually the ponies of Equestria would probably thank you for taking Trixie’s life, after everything that she’s done.” The man sat across from her at the table, one hand noticeably hovering above his hips. “I sort of took over a small town, but I was being mind-controlled by a magic device of pure evil so it isn’t entirely my fault.” The man’s eyebrow raised, “What?”
“This is a magical society?” Trixie nodded, “Huh, don’t get that many of those, course it would be me who gets the first contact scenario.” Now Trixie’s eyebrows rose, “you know ‘First Contact,’ first contact between alien species.”
Trixie was about to shoot back that he was the alien, not her, when she remembered a far more pertinent question. “How are you speaking Equuis if you’re an alien?”
“So that’s what you call it huh? It is a little weird, on my planet it’s called English, and out there…” he said motioning above him, “its called Galactic Common, or just Common for short. Very easy language to translate other languages into, at least when they are alien languages with a complete different linguistic structure, since it uses a simple yet malleable sentence structure, also easy to create new words within it, since you can just insert words from your own language and it still fits in the structure, hence why its used as the Common tongue by most of the Allied Worlds, and knowledge of it is required in Off-World politics.” Trixie was practically overloading from the information rush. The man seemed to notice this and smiled lightly, “I can tell this is all pretty tough to take in, so ask me some questions, I’ll answer em’ one at a time and we’ll see if we can get you up to speed.”
Trixie’s first question was an obvious one, but one still in dire need of answering. “Who are you?”
The man smiled widely, as if he had been waiting this whole time to tell Trixie. “My name is Damien Peregrinus, originally from the planet Earth, currently an intergalactic merchant, peacemaker, envoy, and whatever needs doing guy of the Allied Worlds; and this here is my ship, the U.S.S. Scorpius A.W.F.”
“U.S.S. Scorpius A.W.F?”
“Yeah, the U.S.S. part is a cultural thing but A.W.F. stands for Allied World Forces. It’s a sign that my ship flies as part of the Allied military, at least when needed.” The man leaned back and sighed contentedly; “This baby is my home, built her from scratch, without any help too, nothing better than living on the road.”
“Yeah,” Trixie replied softly, “I know the feeling.” Trixie smiled lightly and searched for a different topic of conversation. “This salad is quite good, may I ask what it’s called?”
“Caesar Salad, an Earth recipe, I found out how to replicate it with other ingredients, good thing too, pretty much the only vegetable that I would eat.”
Trixie decided not to inquire further, when you haven’t eaten anything wholesome in months it really doesn’t matter. He could have handed her a pudding encased in a sheep’s heart and as long as it had actually been prepared, as opposed to roasted on an open fire for twenty minutes, she would’ve gobbled it without a second thought.
“Actually, why are you here?” Trixie asked, trying not to sound like a jerk.
“Happenstance.” Trixie just stared as the human continued. “I was just exploring the area, I do that sometimes. Just kind of fly in one direction from a nearby planet. I was actually visiting a planet nearby that has sapient life that is just beginning to form civilizations. I was there studying them for the Mec’tavi Coalition. They try to monitor any civilizations as they develop, in terms of technology, and general cultural attitude, they call it monitoring potential threats.” Damien took a swig of a fizzy black drink in front of him, before asking Trixie, “any other questions?”
“Earlier, when you were telling your mechanical beastie not to shoot Trixie, you mentioned ‘level 3,’ Trixie would like to know what that means.”
Captain Peregrinus smiled and lightly chuckled, “I was not expecting that question now, if at all.”
“Also,” Compa chimed in from an intercom located on the wall, “referring to someone as a ‘mechanical beastie’ is rather rude. I am the Artificial Intelligence to a highly refined and advanced Intergalactic space vessel.”
Trixie stared confusingly at the sentient intercom, “I programmed her myself, figured that it would probably be pretty lonely and boring in space with no one to talk to, so I gave her something of a sassy personality, spice up conversations.”
“Fo sho,” the computer replied sarcastically.
“Also to answer your question, that minigun in the cargo hold is connected to Compa’s camera system, set up throughout the ship…”
Trixie shuffled uncomfortably in her seat, “E-Everywhere?”
“Except the bedroom and bathroom, but those rooms are towards the center of the ship, so it’d be pretty difficult to break into my ship through there. But Compa is programmed to act based on several voice commands, Level 1 is to open fire, a sort of ‘there’s a gun to my head, do something’ button.”
Trixie had to admit that she was curious what kind of trouble that the human had gotten into that he felt it necessary to program such a command.
“Level 2 is prisoner, incredibly restricted access, keep tabs unless accompanied by someone Level 3, 4, or 5. Level 3, yours, is a temporary guest pass, access to everything except major systems, engines, Slipspace engine, unaccompanied access to the bridge, that sort of thing, Level 4 is basically just a more permanent version of that.”
“Level 5 is you then?” Trixie finished.
“Yep, complete unrestricted access, of which there is currently only one.” The human sat back in his chair, sighing contentedly.
“But if you wanted company while exploring then why wouldn’t you have simply brought someone along? Surely someone as much of a genius as you must’ve had thousands of admirers, tons of screaming fans, ponies dressing up as you for Halloween or for conventions in your name…”
“No, none of that. In fact it was part of the reason I left, over a girl… Anyways that’s enough depressing speak, since you’re here, you want the tour?” Trixie nodded eagerly, “Alright, let’s start where the magic happens then.”
And then it was hot. Almost unbearably so. To the point that rolling around in the rain sounded like a far better option…. “130 degrees Fahrenheit, at least while she’s on full power, the girl cools off once you land and shut her off for about an hour, hour and a half.” The engine room, which is what allowed the ship to be propelled off the ground according to the human, was so blisteringly hot Trixie could feel the sweat falling off her brow the millisecond she stepped in the room. The two giant rotating colliders submerged in nearly a full foot of water, mere feet away from Trixie, apparently caused this.
“But you have landed, so why is it so damned hot?”
“I never shut the ship off, that’s why, anyways you get used to the heat, especially when something in the engines need fixing. You’ll work on it whilst its cool but then once you turn them on they generate heat pretty fast. Have to in order to get the ship off the ground fast.” The human gestured out of the room, which Trixie was all too happy to do, only to walk her to a very similar looking room.
“Why do you have two engine rooms?” Trixie asked, though was partly thankful, as this room was at a temperature that some might even consider bearable.
“Because this isn’t an engine, this is a Slipspace drive, way, way, way, way above your current tech level based on what I’m assuming.”
“Your ability to casually insult Trixie is mind-boggling.”
“Does everyone in your species talk like that?”
“And again, are all the members of your race buffoons with the social aptitude of grilled salmon?”
“The hell does that even mean?”
“Trixie doesn’t know. She’s just mad!” The two just laughed at the exchange, “Also no, Trixie was once a famous magician, who roamed the land bringing her unique brand of entertainment to the masses! The whole third-person thing was something that I developed to give me my own special touch.”
“All I had meant was that you probably wouldn’t have been as confused about…”
“Trixie was not confused, just because she doesn’t know anything about Space travel doesn’t mean that she is confused. Confused implies that Trixie has been taught but was unable to retain, or unable to understand, Trixie simply hadn’t been taught the lesson yet.”
The human smirked. “Alright, then when I was talking to you earlier about engine propulsion, I told you that my ship being a mid-freighter I have a lot of maneuverability, so how do you think that maneuverability is controlled…”
“Trixie is going to excuse the fact that you are asking her a question that you had yet to provide the answer to and give it her best guess. And I am going to guess that you control the engines individually.” Captain Peregrinus’ jaw pretty much hit the floor then. “Trixie is right on the money isn’t she?”
“Yeah,” he replied, “I control the individual boosters, as well as occasionally manually setting thrust and burn quotient. I’m really impressed that an uncivilized citizen was able to just guess that from a beginners guide to engine maintenance.”
“And once again…”
“No, I have an explanation,” the Captain retorted. “The Allied Worlds refer to species and civilizations that are incapable of space flight ‘uncivilized’ it isn’t an insult. Not entirely anyway, it’s just a reference to the fact that your species hasn’t achieved space exploration yet.”
“It still feels a little elitist coming from one whose race has…”
“Yeah funny thing…” Captain Peregrinus said scratching the back of his neck, “My race hasn’t discovered space exploration, only me. I told you that I built the ship on my own, and I meant it.”
Now it was Trixie’s jaw’s turn to hit the floor. “But how? You must’ve had to invent all sorts of new sciences that your species didn’t even have!”
“Well, I won’t take all the credit.” Mr. Peregrinus sheepishly replied, “When I was a kid I found some ship schematics written in a weird language. Eventually I deciphered them and started to build the ship. Obviously I had to substitute numerous materials, but still the basic outline and all of the sciences of Slipspace and such were already present, I just modded them. Good thing too, or I may never have found The Hub.”
“The Hub?” questioned Trixie.
“Technically its called the Citadel of intergalactic communications, education, science, medicine, economics, and political convergence, but that’s kind of a pretentious mouthful so everyone, even The Empress, calls it The Hub.”
“Huh?” Trixie replied. “Wait so the ruler of this place is known as The Empress, is she your boss then?”
Captain Peregrinus chuckled some more and gave one of his special smirks, “She is the boss of pretty much everybody, but I do take jobs from her more than most. Envoy work doesn’t pay well in creds but it does have perks.” Trixie gave him an expectant glance, “As an envoy from the A.W.F. you get met as a political figure, so its usually business over a feast or a festival, at least if it’s a world that is only beginning to drag itself from the primordial grasp of their home world.”
“Sounds dull,” Trixie responded bluntly. “Considering how high your security is I was hoping for more…” Trixie paused and dramatically searched for the proper word.
“Dangerous,” Trixie nodded, “exciting,” another nod, “the kind of work that becomes the stuff of legends and campfire stories.” Trixie nodded eagerly as she leaned closer.
Peregrinus whispered in her ears, “How does being a Betweener sound to you?”
“A Betweener?” Trixie asked.
“Yep, a peace envoy.” Peregrinus smirked, “you go into the middle of a warzone and attempt to get the two sides to come to a compromise on their issues. Once I was almost caught in a bombing at a spaceport. It was a civil war between two factions of the Meldvi; on one side was a group of religious extremists devoted to keeping the Meldvi people safe and sound on their own planet, even telling the others that those that died on other worlds, or even just in space, would never reach the beautiful Sha Gardens, their paradise that is supposedly awaiting them after death…”
“So the religious extremists bombed a spaceport?” Trixie asked, enraptured.
“Nope. The port had actually been built for incoming space traffic by the religious faction that controlled the government. The scientific faction had attacked a church that was located in one of the adjacent buildings. To prove that the golden Sha beasts wouldn’t even protect their most holy building, so why would they care about whatever and stuff…” Peregrinus trailed off, “To be honest that story even depresses me, I mean, what a damn waste of intelligent creatures, sacrificing themselves like that.”
“Something tells Trixie you would be less broken up by the same happening to the religious citizens,” the unicorn responded.
“I was on their side, begrudgingly on their side, but on theirs none the less. I don’t like innocent people getting hurt. Even if those innocents are misguided and clinging to arcane beliefs that prevent the scientific growth of their world, they are still innocents.” The Captain shook his head and checked a small flat glowing surface that he pulled out of his jacket. “Sorry I took up so much of your time, it’s already pretty late based on the current position of your moon. Is there anywhere that you’d like me to escort you too maybe drop you off if it’s far away?”
Trixie stood in thought two different voices vying for control of her mind. One screamed that this guy lived a dangerous life, he did admit just now that he was almost killed by an explosion, and was someone to be avoided as soon and as fast as possible, and yet… The promise was too great. The promise of adventure in the wide-open vast expanse that ponies have stared at and dreamed of their whole lives. Ponies have had extensive careers speculating about what would lay beyond the boundaries of their own galaxy, but Trixie may have a chance to know for certain…
“Could I come with you?” The Captain seemed genuinely taken aback at the question, and merely stared silently for several moments. “I’m homeless, I was living in the small glade that you landed in. Perhaps just let me prove myself as useful to you, just take me on one or two missions with you and if you don’t like me you can drop me back here, but please Captain Peregrinus, I am begging you, give me the chance that my fellow ponies refused…”
“Damien.” Trixie and the human met eyes, “if you’ll be traveling with me, you’ll call me by my first name. My name is Damien. And if you’re up for it, welcome aboard miss Trixie.” Trixie offered her hand to shake, which the human accepted, “grab whatever belongings you have outside and head back in, Compa will lead you to the bridge.” Trixie nodded and eagerly ran outside to get her things.
All that remained of the once Great and Powerful Trixie was just a bunch of clothes. Just about the only things that weren’t crushed by the lumbering beast that destroyed her life. The whole time she kept her eyes on the ship, fully expecting it to lift off without her, but it didn’t. She took one last gulp of Equestrian air and ran onto the ship, stopping just short of where she had been held at minigun point when she first came aboard. But the guns never fell from their holding position on the ceiling.
Instead lights on the floor began lighting, with a voice chiming in from above, “please follow me to the bridge, your captain is waiting.” Trixie nearly shed a tear, she had her second chance! She tossed her clothes to the ground of the cargo hold and sprinted along the lights. She eventually reached the bridge, a tightly constructed room, a large glass window separated into three segments, a pair of chairs bolted to the floors, and an insane amount of controls lining even the walls around the window.
“Alright Trixie, you ready for your first Slip?” Trixie nodded strapping herself to the chair next to her captain and nodding nervously. The captain pushed several buttons on the large console in front of him, and a large shudder rocked the ship as it lifted off the ground. All while Trixie was watching with eyes like pinpricks as the ground got farther and farther away the captain was pushing buttons and adjusting dials. The ship began to angle skyward and accelerated, wind battering its nose as it punched through the atmosphere.
And in one motion she had left it. There weren’t any clouds anymore, just black with small dust-like specks littering it, stretching on for what seemed eternal, and more than likely was. All she could do was release the breath that she had held through the ascension, submitting her lungs entirely to the processed air of the ship. All the while her captain was tapping at his tablet, looking at numerous numbers and settings. “Beginning approach to safe vector, begin Slipspace jump in twenty seconds.”
With a single click on his console the captain changed the right part of the window to a view of Gradna behind the two.
“Eighteen seconds.”
The light of Luna’s moon was washing over the sleeping ponies of Equestria. A comfort that Trixie may not know ever again…
“Sixteen seconds.”
The unicorn searched the screen desperately for one last glimpse of Celestia’s sun, hidden behind the planet, warming the nation of Zebrica as they basked in its warmth, a warmth that Trixie may not know again either…
“Fourteen seconds.”
Trixie’s mother had always said that this would happen. “Trixie, you’re a troublemaker!” she’d say. She always warned that Trixie would end up running off with some boy and getting pregnant, making mom’s same mistakes.
“Twelve seconds.”
Actually what if Trixie did want kids? What if she fell for some alien hunk on some distant world? Would they be compatible? If they were would they be able to have kids? Would those kids be normal, or would it be like inbreeding and they would be all screwed up?
“Nine seconds to Slipspace jump.”
Actually screw sex, what if she ran across some planet with weird religious customs? What if she ran into some kingdom where everybody was naked and woman were like pets? Would she and her captain have to follow those people in their customs, or are tourists exempt? She had to assume that tourists were exempt, since her captain was clearly wearing leather, real leather, and if he had found a planet where cows talked he’d be in some major crap.
“Six seconds to Slipspace jump.”
What if Trixie died? Was there some cosmic rule to where you went? Trixie had always been told that when she died she would become a member of the Eternal Herd, but then again the Zebras believed that they would become trees and parts of nature when they died. So Trixie could only imagine how different other worlds religions were, what if she died while on one of them?
“Five seconds to Slipspace jump.”
Would her soul travel back to the Eternal Herd? Would she become a part of that culture’s post-death traditions? Or did the very concept of other life on other worlds negate everything that Trixie had been told? She had always been taught that the Gods had created life, creating all the different species of Gradna one day at a time, and on the eighth they created Luna and Celestia to watch over Gradna, and to lift the Moon and Sun in their place as they had used all of their strength in the creation. When did they create these other worlds?
“Four seconds to Slipspace jump.”
Or were there other gods? Perhaps different Gods had created every world with life, and all of these religions were correct. But if that was the case then it simply raised the original question, where would Trixie go if she died? Would one of these other gods, should they exist, see fit to send Trixie to her gods? Her captain’s gods perhaps?
“Don’t worry, it’s always scary the first time,” came the soothing voice of her captain. It was at the feel of his hand on hers that Trixie realized that she was gripping the chair hard enough where her knuckles had gone white.
“Three.”
Trixie swallowed all the fears and uncertainties, realizing it must have been the same way that her captain had felt the first time he left his world.
“Two.”
“Yeah,” Trixie responded. It was scary, everything crashing down on her, but it was the same fear that any explorer felt. Going beyond one’s borders was always terrifying, always would be, at least the first time. Doesn’t everyone feel afraid when they first step into Pre-School, the first time they really leave their home? When they get their first job? First home? But that fear was always followed by…
“One.”
Adrenaline. A shot of courage right into the very fiber on Trixie’s being. The eternity was staring back at her, and she was to be the first. The first of her people to see beyond that border, she was the first to break through the ceiling that towered above her people.
“Slipping.” As Compa finished the countdown it was all that Trixie felt, pure raw adrenaline. As the ship was enveloped in a cone of black and white that excitement rattled her. Not the princesses, not Starswirl the Bearded, not Twilight Sparkle, but her.
She was to be the first, and from what she could she, the view was pretty great from up here…
