Imperfect Stasis

Chapters

Waking up
Adapting
Routine
Introductions
Events
Coming to Terms
Resolutions
Hope
Epilogue

Waking up

Twilight jolted as the shock of electricity went through her chest and her heart beat again for the first time in longer than she cared to think at the moment.

She inhaled her first breath of clean, purified air instinctively before she began to become aware. She felt vertigo as she was lifted slightly from the bedding she was on and a voice spoke to her. “Princess Twilight Sparkle? How are you feeling?”

Twilight took in the soft voice of the female and inhaled deeply, exhaling slowly and smiling as she opened her eyes and looked into a holographic projection of Fluttershy, her friend from so long ago.

“I’m well,” she said weakly as her bedding, made of foam and plastics, lifted into the air and hovered into a corridor while advanced medical scanners covered her body with lights that danced and arced from her horn to her tail.

“That’s very nice to hear, Princess Twilight Sparkle. I’m glad you had a good hypersleep, and it looks like you’re as healthy as a horse,” the voice giggled softly while the face tried to match the sound, “as it were. You’ve been asleep for a long time, as you know,” Fluttershy said calmly, “and we are nearly two weeks from Calandar Point, the fourth planet of the Song system. Are you ready to walk?”

Twilight flexed her muscles and moved her legs as she yawned slightly. “Yes, I believe I am.”

“Then please wait until we’ve reached the end of the hall and all scans of your being have been completed before you disembark to your quarters. Thank you for listening to me, it means ever so much,” Fluttershy said as the hologram dissipated and Twilight was left alone on a hovering medical bed.

***

She walked slowly and marveled at the solidity of the floor, yet it’s apparent inability to create the clippity clop sounds hooves made. She chalked it up to more advanced human technology she just couldn’t wait to explore when she got to the new planet and began oversight of the new colonies. She smiled softly to herself as she followed a path of lights on the floor and ignored the lights that lit up and dimmed as she passed them.

It was outer space, after all, and saving power at any reasonable cost was expected, even if the power never seemed to run out. She made her way to her cabin and raised her left hoof to a scanner by the door that was chest level to her. She patiently waited as it scanned a bracelet she was wearing before a soft note chimed and the door slid open into the wall.

She walked in and looked around her quarters. It was very small, unitarian, and basic. Exactly what she’d requested. She went to the bed and lay on her side as the wall came to life and Fluttershy stood meekly, hiding her eyes slightly behind her mane as she spoke. “Welcome to your quarters. Please, make yourself as comfortable as possible.

“If you need something, please don’t hesitate to ask and, if it’s possible, we’ll do it for you. You are registered as a Bronze member of the crew, so please stay out of restricted areas without guidance. If, at any time, you wish to eat; the dining hall is always open. There are several recreational areas that are open to the public during day hours and, for a fee, you may access private recreational areas during evening hours.

“Being a Bronze member of the crew you are also entitled to discounted healthcare and one purchase in the clothing department, as well as free non-alcoholic beverages for the duration of your stay onboard. Um, thank you for listening to me and if you wouldn’t mind, could you scan your ID once more, just so we can give you access to your personal belongings? Thank you.”

Twilight inhaled deeply and stared at the image of her friend and felt a twinge of ache in her heart as she rolled to her hooves and swiped her hoof through the holographic image of a panel. The room brightened slightly and a portion of the wall behind the hologram slid open. “Goodbye for now, Princess Twilight Sparkle, and enjoy your day.”

The image fizzled away and Twilight was alone with her thoughts, looking at a collection of tablets that held the majority of all the collective knowledge of the Royal Canterlot Library and Archives. There were two classic books she felt she needed to have with her as well, and the magic book she and Sunset Shimmer had used to nearly full, so many ages ago.

She took the magic tome and hugged it to her chest, remembering the life she started with so long ago before replacing the book and turning to the plastic cup sitting, wrapped, by a spigot in the wall. She unwrapped the cup and promptly filled it with a light yellow drink that reminded her of urine but, thankfully, didn’t taste of it.

“Ah,” she sighed after downing the cup full, “gotta stay hydrated while waking up,” she used her magic to refill the cup twice more and nearly crumpled the cup out of habit before she remembered that waste wasn’t really an option on this mission and she wasn’t going to let the new world turn into what Manehattan had before she’d left.

She turned the cup upside down and placed it where it had come from before she’d unwrapped it and went back to bed to collect her thoughts. She had two weeks before she would be the co-leader of a planet populated by humans, minotaurs, equines, ten dragons, and critters that would be needed to help maintain homeostasis with the various species.

She fell asleep without noticing and woke up softly in her bed with a refreshed feeling.

“Fluttershy?” Twilight asked aloud.

The disembodied voice soothed Twilight, somewhat. “Yes, Princess Twilight Sparkle?”

“What do I do first?”

“The orientation will be held, when you arrive, in conference hall C.”

Twilight smiled and nodded. “Thanks, I’ll get ready then.” She listened but only silence replied to her as she lay her head down and took in the sounds of distant machinery working. She rolled to her hooves and went to the wall that was open and pulled a garment bag out, the only other thing left besides the tablets was her obvious crown.

She opened the garment bag and smiled at the dress held within. One of Rarity’s best dresses that Twilight had sworn her old friend she’d wear on only the most special of occasions. This seemed to be fitting, so she slipped the black dress with white opals over her figure and took careful time to fit her wings through the slits before she nodded in approval.

“Always the minimalist,” she said to herself as she took the crown and placed it on her head, adjusting it slightly before looking into the mirror that was behind the bathroom door. “Yes, this will do,” she smiled and turned to the door. She exited and made her way to the conference hall lost in thought about what the new world was going to be like.

Waterfalls that dwarfed Canterlot Mountain. Fertile plains that would make enough food to feed all the races for ages to come. Lakes and rivers crisscrossing the entire planet with fresh water and not an ocean to be had. A blank slate that all the races could start over with and not make the same messy mistakes of the past.

She swiped her hoof by habit and walked into the conference room, found a padded cushion near the back and sat down as regally as she had been taught by Princess Celestia: and the room dimmed to blackness. In her youth she would have been startled by it, at least, but she was far more learned now, and waited for the show to start.

A human man and a mare pony appeared side by side at the far side of the room and began talking about the specifics of the new world they were to inhabit. Twilight kept her gaze ahead while she kept thinking about how to maintain peace between the races and tribes she’d be traveling with. Economics would have to be established that used the resources of the new world. Settlements would have to be spaced apart yet be close enough to maintain peaceful communications.

‘So much to ponder’, Twilight hummed to herself and was shushed by the hologram.

“Please keep all question and comments until the end of the orientation,” the man said.

“Yes, I under… stand?” she looked around the room as the hologram resumed orientation and noticed, finally, that she was the only one in the room. “Excuse me,” he raised a hoof and was hushed again. “Where is everyone?”

“Please keep all question and comments until the end of the orientation,” the man said as he resumed his lecture. Twilight huffed and stood, calling magic into her horn, brightening the room, and spoke calmly.

“As a future leader of the world we are about to inhabit, I would like to know why I’m alone.”

The man and mare looked in Twilight’s direction. “You are not alone. We are all in this,” they both gestured through the empty room, “together.”

“I understand that, but where is everyone else?” Twilight asked as she moved closer to the holograms.

“Please keep all question and comments until the end of the orientation,” the man said.

***

“Hello?!” Twilight shouted as she entered the main concourse from an elevator and blinked as dozens of shops blinked to life, electricity and magic funneling through their many power conduits for the first time since leaving her home and quiet advertisements whispered from inside the shops as her ears fell and for the first time in over a century she felt panic in her chest.

She was awake and alone on a starship that was launched third in a series of eight over the course of as many years. She couldn’t teleport that far, for certain. She needed to know where she was so she galloped to one of many observation rooms, this one in the concourse. She stopped to gawk at the true beauty of space and the vastness of it.

Stars shone brightly without the telltale twinkling she’d always known; and the darkness of space was even blacker than she’d imagined it being. Without an atmosphere to scatter the light from the sun, space was just… blackness between stars.

“Where am I?” she called to the room.

Her brow furrowed slightly as a familiar voice filled the room. “You’re in observation room 6B.”

She groaned. “I know that, Luna! Where am I in the trip? I’m not two weeks away, I can feel it.” She waited as the computer calculated and the room filled with a holographic display of the galaxy and a purple line shone from her homeworld to their destination several solar systems away. Several ships appeared on the line with hers being shown larger than the rest to indicate its significance in the apparent train of ships.

She gawked at the position of the ships in space and where they lay on the line. “We are currently forty-six percent complete with our journey.”

“Sweet Celestia,” she whispered as she looked at the distance left to travel. “That means-”

“We will arrive at our destination in 136 years, 2 weeks-”

“And three days,” she said at the same time as the computer. She kept her calm and turned to the doorway and crossed the hall to an assistant terminal. “I need to send a message home.”

“The communications array is powered down at the moment. If you wish to send a message you will need to visit the kiosk to record your message, it will be delivered during the next transfer.”

“Okay, where is the kiosk?” Twilight asked. A beep sounded from her right and she looked to a small table with a transparent glass wall and rolled her eyes. “How’d I not know that?” she said as she trotted quickly over to her own invention that was made with the best human technology available at the time.

She sat in the provided cushioned bench and waved her hoof over the pad. The device came to life and she tapped a few keys. “Hello, this is Princess Twilight Sparkle on board the starship Rea on my way to Calandar Point, I’ve woken up early and I think I’m the only one here so, anyone else awake or back home, can you get in touch with me and we can figure this out?”

She tapped a few keys with her magic and then send.

"The communications array will power on in two years and two weeks, three days to send your message-” Twilight frowned and waved her wrist over the console.

“Command override. Princess Twilight Sparkle, code Harmonic 6. Activate the array and send the message now.”

The computer was silent for two seconds, the longest two seconds she could think of, before it beeped. “Command authorized. Sending message,” she sighed in relief, “message will be delivered in seventeen years, two months, one day and thirteen hours, estimated reply will be in thirty four years, two months, three days. Thank you for using AT&T.”

Twilight yelled and slammed a hoof on the console as an image of her ship sending an envelope back to Ponyville Castle and returning displayed itself. “Darn it! What they hay is going on here? Relay my message to the other ships!”

“Message relayed. Soonest reply is expected in 136 years, three days.”

“WHAT, why?!”

“All passengers are in hypersleep until two weeks before arrival as per Twilight Space Code 16678.32 subsection 322a: In the safety of all passengers’-”

“I know the code!” she shouted in a volume she wasn’t used to. She waited as her echo quieted and stopped reverberating through the empty concourse. “Okay, Computer,” she asked with a shaking voice, regality gone, “what do I do? How can I go back into hypersleep? I wasn’t part of that team, that was minotaur technology… proprietary technology,” she said in a deeper voice.

“Waking early from hypersleep is not possible-”

“Give me the specs!” Twilight shouted again.

“Hypersleep technology is unavailable to unauthorized personnel. I can offer some hypothetical research provided-”

“I don’t need hypotheticals, I need to not be alone on a ship for a century and a half!”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand the question.”

“Darn human technology! Why do you have to be so logical?” she cursed as she got up from the booth and cantered quickly to an elevator. “To the command decks,” she said as she sat at a booth designed for ponies and buckled herself in. She waited as the elevator gave a safety brief about staying seated and buckled through the journey across the ship while she focused her gaze outside the windows that faced open space.

She stared out the window long after having reached her requested deck and felt like a lone star, thousands of lightyears from another of its kind. Alone, yet surrounded by it’s kind… just out of reach.

She began trotting down the command hall and liked how she’d helped design the command deck into a ring. It was more efficient than having a flat bridge alone, she had the entire command staff here and if she could get one of them awake she could have them help her get back to sleep before she went crazy.

She’d have to wake a minotaur, though. They were the engineers and while most were in engineering, the senior ones were the most capable and knowing of their own technology. She reached the command pod and waved her hoof by a small console.

“Command quarters are restricted to entry without proper authorization.”

“Command override. Princess Twilight Sparkle, code Harmonic 6. Open the door.”

“Command not authorized. Command quarters are restricted to entry without proper authorization.”

“What?!” she shouted as she waved her hoof by the console again and again. Each time receiving the same message. She looked into the pod room and focused her magic into a teleportation spell and released it. She shouted as magical feedback sent her flying into the wall behind her with enough force to push the air from her lungs.

She coughed as she stood again and tried to cast the spell again, only to be thrown back into the wall, softer this time. “What the hay? Computer, why can’t I teleport in?”

“The command ring is secured from damage and sabotage by order-”

“I know the orders!” she shouted. “Open the doors,” she yelled channeling a rare spell she hadn’t used since fighting a ferocious beast long, long ago. The spell focused into a splitting beam that would have sliced through a mountain with ease… only to fizzle out of existence millimeters from the surface of the door itself.

“Please! Open the door!”

“The command ring is secured from damage and sabotage by order-” Twilight choked on her sobs and ignored the lecture as she fell to her knees and let her body shake as she was, for the first time in a long time, lost without help.

Composing herself quickly she took several calming breaths and stood up, locking her sadness away and went to the elevator. “A pony must eat, lest she lose who she is,” she said from rote memory, “and I cannot lose myself, I’ll figure this out soon and this’ll be little more than another inconvenience, like giving birth or commanding an army.”

She chuckled to herself, having never commanded an army. “Well, if I had, I’m certain the battles would have been the most efficient in history.”

Adapting

Twilight calmly walked into the dining hall and looked at hundreds of empty tables and booths set up in the most efficient way that she’d figured possible. A distant section near the corner of the room was reserved for couples, dates, and interspecies relations, which, surprisingly; occurred quite often. The sound of small robots coming to life with whirring noises made her ears swivel and her attention was drawn from her growing hunger for a second before she made her way to a food distribution island.

An island a couple meters wide that hung from the ceiling to dispense foodstuffs near the base, covered with icons of food choices covered panels and one panel was exclusively drinks that made her mouth water. She waved her hoof by a panel and it lit up. “Meal choice, please,” Fluttershy’s voice asked softly. Twilight poked a vanilla almond cappuccino and her ears fell as a denied tone buzzed. “I’m very sorry, but that option is for Silver members and above."

Twilight poked the next option and the next continuing through the row and receiving the same message overlapping itself. She frowned in frustration before taking in a deep breath and looking over the lists of drinks and skipped several rows down to soda options. Each option from orange to the one she detested the most… diet, was denied to her.

“I thought I got free soda,” she grumbled.

“Soda is dispensed to silver level and below members two weeks from our destination,” the voice advised.

Twilight growled and went two more beverage rows down to tea and selected the Celestia Select, a brew she had fallen in love with long before contact with humankind had introduced her to the indulgence of flavored coffees… and was denied. She yelled and stomped her hooves onto the floor and glared daggers at the console.

She went to the farthest right of the row and tapped it. “Thank you for your selection, enjoy your drink,” the voice said as plain chamomile tea was dispensed into a cup inside the machine and slid out to her. She took the hot cup of tea in her magic and turned to the nearest table and set it in a spot before turning back to the island.

She swiped her hoof over the console and skipped to the bottom three rows and tapped the farthest left icon and sagged as the buzzing sounded. “I’m very sorry, but that option is for Silver members and above.”

“Celestia give me strength,” Twilight snorted and tapped the second to last row and was approved for her meal. She listened as a container was filled and a small door opened and out slid a compressed block of hay, wheat grass, oats and a spoon. She looked at her meal as she took it to her seat. “Just what a pony needs…”

She ate in the silence with the poise and grace she’d learned over the years, taking time to chew each bite and savor what flavors she could while swallowing with a level of grace that she had once thought to be too much. She finished her meal within an hour and placed her plate and cup in the proper receptacle before she walked around and noticed trays, then continued to walk past them, taking note to use one next time.

She retired to her room and went to bed, lying on her side, and called a tablet over with her magic. She started with a story from the human world called Moby Dick. An hour later she set the tablet down and sighed. “That was a good book… Maybe I should read another,” she let her eyes close and fell asleep as visions of a great white whale entered her dreams.

***

Twilight dropped the thaumic laser to the floor from her magic and pushed it with the pile of equipment that wouldn’t cut through the door to the command room. “If I can get in, I can wake up somepony that can help me,” she said for the hundredth time. She picked up a heavy pulse driver and held it like a jackhammer in her magic, placed it to a seam in the door, and let her magic flow into it.

The sound reverberating through the halls made her stomach uneasy but she held at it until she had counted to twenty and then lowered the device, trotted to the sealed door and placed a hoof on the polished seam. She tossed the device into the pile and turned to leave area, again. She walked past the used cutting and drilling tools and glared at them.

Casting a repulsion spell, she scattered the pile of tools across the section she was in before turning away and walking to the elevators. The doors opened partly then closed as she took the first habitual step forward causing her nose to bump into the door. The door opened partly and closed several times before opening completely.

“If you break and send me into space I’ll be very disappointed in you,” she said as she entered the elevator and took her seat, not bothering to strap herself in as she’d grown accustomed to the trip.

She returned, for the first time in days, since she woke up, to the concourse and smiled as the area came to life as she entered. A waterfall of rainbows began to pour to her right for the first time and she lost herself in the swirling colors as they fell. She began to walk the long hall and looked at the stores and what they had to offer, then stopped and inhaled deeply as she looked at the back of a Minotaur.

She panted and gasped as she took a trembling step closer and entered a nice, posh, fully stocked bar and quickly went to the bar to meet the creature. “Oh, thank goodness. I’m not alone! How long have you been awake? Where have you been? Are there any others?!” she implored as the minotaur turned around and reached for a glass on the counter. It had a towel in its other hand and began to polish the drinking glass.

“Sorry,” it said gruffly, “I missed that. What’ll ya have to drink?”

“To drink? I don’t need a drink, I need to know if there are others,” she asked rearing to the bartop and looking intently at it.

“Afraid I don’t know what you mean, you’re my first customer of the day so…” it left the sentence open. Twilight leaned a little farther over and looked down to his legs and her hopes fell as she noticed a robotic track and inlay attached to the minotaurs lower body. “...what’ll it be?”

Twilight slid into a chair that was made for ponies in mind, and placed her hooves onto the counter. “I’m alone, again.”

“Miss,” the minotaur said, “we’re never alone, yet always alone. All we can do is the best we can with what we have.”

“What’s your name, do you even have a name?”

“Name’s Minnie,” the voice changed slightly to a more soft tone, “and you are?”

“Princess Twilight Sparkle.”

“Oh, a Princess? Well, first one’s on the house then! What’ll it be?”

Twilight looked at the seemingly endless options and looked to her wristband. “What can I get with this?” she held her hoof up.

“It’s all charged to your account, Ma’am. You can, technically drink every drop here, although I wouldn’t suggest it, and you’d get the bill… or your next of kin will,” she mused as she placed the cup down and her hands onto the bartop.

“I’ll have a Cerulian Ale. Double, on the rocks with a twist of bergamot.”

“Coming right up, and a fantastic choice, if I must say so.”

The robot moved swiftly from one side of the bar to the other before swiveling around and reaching to a top shelf to begin making her drink. She watched the fluidic motions of the robot as it poured her drink into a smaller glass, added her requested items, then placed it in front of her.

Twilight took the drink in her magic and sipped it softly, letting the various sweet flavors dance across her tongue before she swallowed and then downed the rest of the drink in one swallow. “Another, no ice and use lime this time.”

“Straight away, Ma’am,” the robot replied and poured another drink that Twilight gulped down with a sigh. “Feeling better, Ma’am?”

“Not really. And please, just call me Twilight. Are you sure no one else has come by?” she asked as she tapped the glass indicating she wanted another.

While the robot poured the drink she shook her head as well. “Nope, you’re my first customer today.”

“I woke up early from hypersleep.”

“That’s not possible,” she replied placing the next drink in front of Twilight, “hypersleep technology is a combination of the best human, Minotaurian, and Equestrian magics. There’s never even been a hiccup of a problem since the technology was introduced two hundred years ago.”

Twilight smirked. “How many customers have you had today.”

“Just you, Twilight.”

“And yesterday?”

“None, it was a slow day,” the robot replied beginning to polish a glass again.

“And since we’ve left on our journey? How many have you served?”

“Just you, Twilight.”

“So, if it’s only been me, and I’ve been awake for… let’s say three weeks.”

“Ah, then we’re almost to our destination? Wonderful to know, Twilight,” the minotaur nodded slightly with a content smile.

“Where are the other passengers, then?”

The robot looked to Twilight and stared. “They seem to be hypersleep.”

“And am I?”

“Apparently not,” the robot replied as it began to polish the glass again. Twilight frowned at the already sparkling clean glass.

“Then obviously, I must be awake and alone and we’re not at our destination, right?”

The robot stopped for a couple seconds then it’s head twitched as calculations were made. “You are not possible then, Twilight. Hypersleep has proven to be 100% effective.”

“Then I’m the first to ruin the perfect ratio, not the first time I’ve broken the system… probably won’t be the last,” she drank half her drink and sighed at the robot. “Have any plans for the next century?”

“Just what I have to do, Twilight,” Minnie said and winked to Twilight.

“What am I supposed to do? I’m alone on a ship traveling at faster than light speed with a robotic bartender as my only source of interaction. As humans say; what do?”

“Well, if you feel alone, even when surrounded by others,” Minnie said as Twilight sarcastically looked around the empty bar room, “why not have fun with it?”

“Fun? Princesses don’t have fun.”

“Take the crown off,” Minnie pointed to Twilight’s head and the crown resting on it, “and just be a pony for a while. Make friends, take chances, do something you’d never do and let the world see you in a new light. Then try and tell me how alone you feel.”

Twilight stared at Minnie for a few minutes while the robot polished a new glass and gave occasional glances to her. “You know what,” Twilight said firmly as she swallowed the last of her drink, “I’m going to try just that.”

She stood from her seat and promptly fell to her haunches, listing to the side lazily. “What tha-?” she mumbled.

“Ah, that would be the alcohol, miss. Ponies, while resistant to alcohol, are not immune to its effects and you consumed one glass more than most ponies should within an hour’s time.”

“Oh, thanks for that. Another!” she said pulling herself to her hooves and moving to the seat again, barely fitting as she looked at Minnie’s expression. “I said another! I’m going to live, starting now!”

“Ah, yes, Twilight,” Minnie replied as she began to pour another drink, “might I suggest living as an action and not as a function?”

“Then tomorrow I live, today I drink like a pony I once knew,” she looked at the glass in front of her and mumbled a quiet prayer before drinking it. “And give me some hard cider! Then a human beer, a good one! And some pretzels and hay chips… and turn on some modern rock and roll!”

***

Twilight awoke just outside the bar in the main concourse. She felt the pain of drinking for the first time in years and was thankful that no pony was around to see her lying on cool metal with her crown around her neck, dangling like a necklace. She didn’t detect any vomit, so she wasn’t that bad off, she thought.

Until she moved to stand up. The room spun and only then did she notice the whole area was darker due to simulated night. She lay her head back down and the spinning slowed as she thought of what she’d do first, once she could move on her own.

A cleaning robot bumped into her hind leg and she lifted her head quickly to see it, regretting the action, but still interested as to why a machine would bump into her. “Hello? Are you sentient, or being controlled?”

The robotic cleaner whirred around and moved away in an arc around her as Twilight called upon her magic and tried to cure herself of some of the after effects, to no avail. “Ugh, too much booze makes magic no work,” she mumbled as she rolled to her belly and braced her hooves for the inevitable effort she’d need to put in to standing.

With a hefty grunt, she forced herself up slowly until she was standing taller than she was lying down, her legs shaking and barely straight as she wearily looked around her and made a forced smile to Minnie, who was still polishing a glass.

With effort she’d expected to use to move Canterlot Mountain itself, she began to walk forward to the nearest elevator to get back to bed and drink some vitamin water, lots of vitamin water.

Twilight got to the elevator and laid on the floor as it began its warning to strap in and rolled her eyes. She inhaled as the elevator began a climb to the quarters section then sucked in a breathe as the elevator stopped and she began to float. Making matters worse, she opened her wings to try to balance herself and began spinning in the enclosed space as she attempted to stop herself.

…

The door to the elevator opened a few minutes later and Twilight stumbled through the doors as three cleaning robots crossed her path in an excited effort to be useful and clean the mess she’d made throughout the elevator.

Twilight, blushing deeply, quickly trotted away and down the nearest hall. She, indeed, felt a lot better after having lost so much waste from her body, but she had planned on going to the bathroom for all the mess it had made. She couldn’t bring herself to look at a robot for the rest of the day from embarrassment, so she decided to shower and get rest.

The communal shower was large and open, big enough for twenty ponies to stand and mingle, just like she’d wanted and planned. The reason she’d taken a lower level guest pass and not the Royal Diamond pass she was supposed to. She wanted to be seen as an equal, of sorts, with her subjects.

Now, she’d have traded a dozen Royal passes for a single pony to converse with. She bathed in hot water that was as fresh as any she could remember, before she went to her room and took another tablet from the wall and began to read more stories while she used what magic she could use to fill, and refill, her drink.

“Ah, a book about friendship and magic. That’s what I need right now! Harry Potter, prepare to be read!”

***

Twilight galloped down the halls of the concourse without too much fear of slipping and falling over herself and getting hurt.

She estimated her top speed during the ending length of the hall was as fast as… she didn’t care. She just liked to run. She turned around the rainbow waterfalls and made another lap to the other end in a few minutes to a similar waterfall before lapping back and slowing from a full gallop to a quick trot.

“Water,” she said as she approached a kiosk. A cup of water was filled and she took it in her magic, greedily gulping it down between heavy pants. She tossed the cup into a recycler and thanked the machine before returning to gallop again.

…

Twilight entered the arcade, a place she’d purposely avoided since she was a young unicorn because it was full of things that weren’t meant to help a mind grow, and looked around as it came to life.

Loud noises. Flashy lights. She was invited over to a half dozen games by the holographic image of her friend Pinkie Pie, each programed to simply entertain. She nearly backed out of the room but stopped, steeled herself, and walked in deeper. She looked around at the games and quickly figured out how to play most of them, others how to simply win by using quantum mathematics.

She stopped at a game that seemed to be different enough, a copy game. She carefully walked onto the large platform that would have fit five ponies side by side and waited.

“Um, hello? Can I play?” she asked as the arcade became slightly quieter. The area darkened and she jumped back slightly as an image of a pony that looked a lot like Pinkie Pie appeared, but she had tassels in her mane and glow sticks as earrings and as her cutie mark. A stallion appeared next to the pink mare on the far side of the platform and took a step back, began nodding as a heavy bass beat began to play.

The pink mare stood on her hind legs and began to move her hips side to side in a way that captured Twilight’s attention, before she landed on all fours and the lights dimmed, brightening over Twilight.

“...Oh heck no! I’m not,” she paused and looked around at the hopeful face of Pinkie Pie, looking at her from where her hologram stood at the entrance to the game. A plea that almost begged the mare from epochs away that screamed ‘please, dance’.”

Twilight turned back to the pink mare and hopped up to her rear legs and moved her hips right, then fell over to the left; her wings did nothing to help. There was a recorded laughter that played when Twilight fell that she didn’t appreciate as the pink mare repeated the motion under a spotlight.

Twilight got back up and onto her hind legs. “I’m so gonna show you how it’s done!”

…

Twilight flew off the platform and landed proudly at the base of the steps, lather covering her body as she panted and looked at the happy Pinkie Pie hologram. “Yeah, seventeenth! Take that,” Twilight gloated.

“Out of fifty,” Pinkie replied with a giggle into her hooves. “Don’t worry, everypony gets better with practice! Better luck next time,” she beamed a smile and began waving to the door, waiting for other ponies to come play that game.

Twilight stood regally and used her magic to wipe the sweat from her body and teleported it into the nearest corner for a robot to clean up and turn into something useful, like drinking water. Part of her didn’t like knowing everything was recycled, another part of her wanted to drink some of that recycled water right now, before she went back to get a better placement in the dance game.

She went to a nearby kiosk set in the wall, pressed the water icon, drank her fill after several cups, and then turned back to the game. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she saw one of the Pinkie Pie holograms look at her in concern… but that couldn’t be, it was, and is, just a hologram.

***

Twilight stood and tossed the computer terminal she’d modified to the floor and didn’t care when it clattered and probably broke. She looked at the control console to the command deck and back down the ring, past where she could see because of the curvature, and sighed. She couldn’t break in. She couldn’t magic in. She couldn’t hack in.

She charged her magic and teleported to the concourse and sighed as she entered the bar. Minnie was polishing a cup and smiled warmly to the pony approaching her. “Good day, Twilight. It’s nice to see you. Did you know you’re my first customer of the day, again?”

“Yeah, you’ve said that everyday for the past month. I’ll always be the first, and last.”

“Oh, there’s something to be said about that, Miss. A pony who spends that much time in a bar is certainly consistent with something in their lives, right?”

Twilight snickered. “I love how you’re always so positive and seem to have an answer for everything.”

“Ah, yes. I may be a robot but I’m programmed to be a smart one. I’m practically an android, to be honest, but like a pony I know; I don’t care for titles so much,” she smiled and winked.

“Yeah, I feel ya. So, here’s what I was thinking of doing today…”

Twilight shared her plans and Minnie simply raised an eyebrow as Twilight finished. “Well, that’s something I’ve never heard of, or been programed to respond to… I await the reaction of the other guests, as well as my own, when the time comes.”

Twilight sighed and downed her drink. “The time will come soon. It’s something I’ve always wanted to try and since there’s no living creature to judge me, present company excluded,” she nodded to Minnie, “I feel it’s as good a time as any. I’ll see you tomorrow, at the latest.”

“And I wish you the best in your endeavors,” she replied grabbing another cup and beginning to polish it.

Twilight stared at the repetitive action before leaving her seat and the bar.

…

Twilight exhaled deeply as she entered the showers from after her gallop around the concourse, taking two laps around the top two levels of the shopping center before she retired for the day from exercising.

She let the hot water wash over her and clean her fur from a day’s worth of sweat and the feeling of failure. She waited until she felt clean enough then began to tremble as she brought the sharpened blade to her eye level and made sure it was sharp enough by tugging a strand of her mane and gently slicing it off. Without effort the blade freed the hair and she let it fall to the floor as she watched it fall quickly, weighed from the water.

She brought the blade to her neck and made the first motion, wincing as the blade touched her flesh.

…

Twilight peeked from the shower room hesitantly and glanced both ways down the barren hall. She never took notice of how clean and polished the walls were until she caught her distorted reflection in a far wall. She took her first step out and shivered at the suddenly cooler air that graced her skin and brushed what was left of her mane from her face with her hoof before she made her way to her quarters.

Entering the room she walked to the small bathroom and opened the door, ignored the toilet since she’d been a naughty pony and peed in the shower, and opened the door fully to see herself. Her eyes closed tight as the door opened fully and the mirror faced her. She counted to seven and squinted one of her eyes open to see herself, bald.

She opened her eyes fully and gawked at the mare she was looking at. Save for her head and tail, she had shaved herself fairly well, having missed several dozen spots and patches of fur in areas that she couldn’t see too well, and she wasn’t going to try to shave her reproductive areas. That left several quickly healed light cuts on her neck and barrel from where she’d slipped or nicked herself, but she didn’t look too bad.

She turned sideways and looked at her dark skin, darker than the purple coat she wore so proudly, yet lighter than black. She smirked at herself and used her magic to call over a towel and let it drape over her back to keep some warmth while she went for a trot around the halls.

If she was going to be bald, she was going to experience what she could until it grew back, or she used her magic to regrow it. She stared into her reflections eyes and then shrugged. “Whatever. Who’ll ever know I was bald? Who would care if they did see me?” she smiled. “Twilight, you are beautiful in anything you wear, even nothing.”

She turned and began to walk to the door before she stopped and looked at her tablets, took one at random in her magic, and left the room.

Twilight began a long trek through many halls before she came to the room she had least expected to go into while on the ship since she was going to be on the ship for only two weeks and those were full of scheduling and planning sessions that were set up months before she even went into hypersleep.

Twilight found a nice recliner by the pool and laid her towel upon it, laid on the towel, and took the tablet to her gaze and began to read a random story that she selected from the thousands on the device.

Sixty pages into the story she let her gaze move to the pool. It’s pure waters almost called to her as she lowered the tablet and let forgotten memories come back to her of playing in the lake by Ponyville with her friends, her best friends, mortals in every respect. She rolled to her hooves and felt her ears swiveling like they hadn’t in a long time as her hooves clacked on the tile surrounding the rim of the beckoning waters.

She crouched and screamed gleefully as she leapt into the air and flapped her wings once to give her distance to make it into the middle of the pool before she curled herself tight and splashed into the warm water. She broke the surface and spat a mouthful of water out in a stream before laughing loudly and beginning to pony paddle to the far end of the pool that was against a bubble of glass that looked out into space.

She stopped and placed a hoof on the glass and rode the waves as she looked out at the universe beyond. An inch of material separated her from oblivion and she smiled at the blackness. She turned and dove under the water, using her wings to propel herself to the other side and back in a single breath.

She broke the surface and turned quickly in the water, closed her wings and dove to the bottom of the pool before opening her wings and, with a powerful flap, propelled herself out of the water and into the air above it. Water followed her up, each drop and bunch seemed to slow down as she looked around herself.

Slowly, time resumed and the water went its own ways while she glided to the rim of the pool and shook heavily until she was drier, then returned to her seat and resumed her reading, a bit of stress had left her and she felt calmer than she had in days.

“Maybe, another swim,” she advised herself, “I can read later.”

Routine

She entered the elevator and pressed the button, a button she’d began to press more and more over the past few weeks. The lift moved so smoothly that she could barely notice it, even when paying attention to it. Several minutes later it stopped and the doors hissed open, a wave of cool air flooded the room she was in and she shuddered, by instinct.

Walking out she took a look around at the hundreds of shipping containers, each filled with various supplies and repair parts. Supplies they’d need to build their new cities, from textiles to toilets to wood for structures. And repair parts to build almost a second ship, if she’d needed to repair even a small robot she’d have the parts to do it.

She picked up a tablet from a dispenser that held dozens and looked at the manifest, went to a small car designed for ponies by humans… they’re such a thoughtful race, Twilight said every time she used it, and drove down the rows. If she could, she’d take the car to another floor and drive it around the other floors, but it was designed to not work that way, a problem she didn’t think would ever be an issue, since she’d put on so much extra muscle with her workouts, as of late.

Driving the car was a fun experience and, on occasion, she had even bumped into some of the shipping crates that held various tools and items, just to see what would happen. The worst she’d experienced was a ten minute ban from driving, which she frowned upon being banned for any amount of time from such a fun tool.

Arriving at her favorite container, she opened the doors and looked around the nearly pristinely organized tool shed. Spanners, self sealing stem bolts, hammers, even a thaumic regulator; everything was in its place and happy that way. She went to her worktable and pulled the tablet to her gaze and began to scan the inventory for other useful items she would need to complete her task.

…

Taking the last panel in her hooves, she pressed it tightly into place and smiled to herself. She’d fixed her hypersleep pod! She wasted no time climbing in and getting comfortable as the pod sealed shut. The air began to be sucked from the enclosure and Twilight began to panic. She bucked like a wild horse from earth’s past and finally teleported free before she began to suffocate.

Landing on her rump her wings unfurled and she glared at the pod that wouldn’t work, that she couldn’t fix, then got up, gathered her tools into a set of work saddlebags, and returned to her shipping crate to formulate the next plan.

…

Walking into the medical bay, Twilight looked around the sterile stainless steel and silver room with doors and cabinets full of supplies. The manifest made it clear that most of the possible chemical compounds that were needed to even induce hypersleep weren’t onboard her ship… they were on the seventh ship. But, they had a handy robot that might be persuaded, through a little reprogramming, to help synthesize the compounds.

Twilight went to the human shaped robot and opened its access panel and began to read the schematics before starting her reprogramming. A simple four hundred lines of code here and a few dozen there, about two hundred times, and she’d be in luck!

The explosion wasn’t what she was expecting, but when red and black wires crossed with human technology it tended to spark. Yellow and black seemed to pop loudly. Crossing orange, yellow, and a black before powering on a robot made a nice explosion that impressed Twilight, and had she not been an alicorn, she’d certainly have lost an ear, at least. As it was, she was treated to tinnitus for several hours and the joy of cleaning robot pieces from the area before the cleaning robots could start their more detailed job.

Twilight went to the next room and looked at the medi-pod. A full surgery team for any of the non-dragon races, that could heal any ailment in a few hours, tops. Lost a leg? It’ll grow a new one. Horn cracked? It’s got an epoxy for that. Pregnant? It’ll give you a patch that delivers any missed essential vitamins for the next week of the pregnancy!

“Stuck awake on a 130 year voyage? Sorry, outta luck,” Twilight snickered at her thoughts made vocal as she turned tail and left the room. “Fluttershy?” Twilight called out. A wall hummed to life and a hologram of Fluttershy stood.

“Yes, Princess Twilight Sparkle? How can I help you?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. The computer wouldn’t stop calling her by her full name and title, no matter how nicely she asked. “Yes, I would like to schedule a massage, can I expect one soon?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Princess Twilight Sparkle, but the masseuse seems to be unavailable at the moment. I’ll schedule you one right away, though.”

Smiling, Twilight looked at Fluttershy. “And, how long will that be? Oh, about 130 years?”

“...Yes, that is close enough, can I do anything else for you?”

“Yeah, I’ve been having an itch at the base of my tail for the past couple minutes, can you have somepony scratch it?”

The next hour was spent with another set of silly requests that would flood the system when ponies woke up. Teeth needing to be set, lightbulbs that needed filling, water that needed dehydrating… Twilight was full of ideas to prank her crew, her friends would be proud of her.

She stopped when the thought crossed her mind. The past few days had been spent focusing on how to solve the problem of going back to sleep, but she hadn’t been alone long enough to really miss her friends in a very long time. It, hurt.

...

Twilight entered the dining hall and ordered her breakfast: A block of various fibrous items and a paste of some kind of marmalade, a cup of black coffee, and a peppermint candy. She took her tray of food to her table, sat down, and began to eat. She tossed some crumbles of her block of food onto the floor and play fed the robots, complimenting them on doing their jobs so well.

She cleaned her mess, dropping a little more food from her tray as she walked to feed the robots, and took her mint with her to her room. She stopped at the door and cocked her head to the side in empty thought before she turned and began to walk blindly down the hall and turned left.

She chomped loudly on her peppermint candy as she turned a corner and was greeted with a sight she didn’t know she missed; wooden paneling. She walked down the hall and looked at the plants that grew in alcoves in the wall, out of view from anypony that wasn’t walking the hall and behind glass to stop the sweet smell from filling the hall.

She stopped by a large double door and looked intently at it. It held her cutie mark etched into the oak doors and she called on her magic to open the doors. They didn’t move. She went to the panel and waved her hoof over the pad and smiled as the door chimed and unlocked.

Opening the door and walking in was like stepping into another world compared to the one she had been in. Three floors seemed to hover in the air, suspended by metals and technology that still awed her. The first floor had a full kitchen, fireplace, and a table that would easily have fit a dozen creatures.

It was where she was supposed to have her meetings and plan the colonization with the dragons that had already landed. Sites that were explored and areas safely cleared on the new world that were ready for her to settle.

The second floor had clothing, technology that inspired comfort and relaxation: a personal hot tub, a bathroom that was the size of her given room, tripled, including a shower, and a toilet that was made for ponies, not humans or minotaurs. She sniffled as she looked at it, then to the personal shower that had dozens of settings that were all designed to relax her.

She continued to the third floor and stopped, choked back a sob as she looked around, and walked to the massive comfort queen sized bed, and placed a hoof on its comforter. A space mesh created to reduce friction while locking in just the right amount of heat to even survive in space, as long as there’s air. Another proud creation of hers as a gift to the other races.

She looked to the walls and the bookshelves packed with tomes, scrolls, messages from her children and the families of ponies that would never see her again, and books. Tales from ancient archives from all the races that could write, or cared to orally tell a story; stories that couldn’t be scanned into a computer, and a bookshelf dedicated to love letters from ponies that had fallen for her, ponies that she’d never known existed.

She climbed onto the bed and began to sob to herself at what she’d given up by leaving her world behind, and what unknowns were really ahead of her, and everyone else, on this journey. She rested until she had come to terms with the events, for the moment, and called a random scroll to herself. She unrolled it then read it; a random love letter from a pony she ruled over, from Southern New Equestria, that was wishing her a voyage as beautiful as she was.

She carefully rolled it back up and replaced it, beginning to read dozens of others. She cried into some and laughed with others, her children’s children’s children had grown and spread to several nations, and covered every walk of life… so many didn’t even know their connection to her, but she knew, and that was important, nonetheless.

She rolled to her hooves from the bed and flew to the bottom floor, left the room, her suite, and went to the bar.

“Miss Twilight! As always, you’re the first customer of the day, what’ll it be?” Minnie asked as she placed the polished cup down reaching for another. Twilight finally had had enough.

“Why are you always polishing a dang glass? It’s clean, they’re all clean!” she waved a hoof at the glasses lining a shelf in the back. “What’re you doing that for? You don’t need to stay busy, you can just shut down, or standby, or whatever. What’s the bucking point!?”

Minnie smiled and grabbed another glass, wrapped a towel around her other hand, and began to polish the pristine cup. “I’m a bartender, Twilight. I stand here all day and pour drinks for dozens, or hundreds, of creatures an hour… it would be unnerving for anyone to stand still for any amount of time and stare idly at them while they talk, flirt, ask advice, or drink to forget.”

Twilight blinked at the minotaur thoughtfully. “That’s, actually... really smart,” she said softly.

“I’m programmed with some psychological techniques, as well as how to be quite the socialite,” Minnie said setting the cup down and the towel next to it on the bar. “So, Cerulean Ale?”

“Hit me with a double… wait,” she said, “give me a bottle of vodka, or rum. I want to stare into my pod again,” Twilight said dejectedly as she looked at the counter in front of her.

“Well, who am I to stop some quality brooding?” Minnie said with a smile and whirred down the bar to get a bottle of bottom shelf rum. “This’ll be a big bit on your tab, are you sure? We still charge by the shot.”

Twilight took the bottle in her magic and looked through it. “What’s my tab at now?”

“Oh, Miss, I don’t think I should tell you at this point.”

“Then this’ll be worth it,” Twilight muttered as she took the bottle and left the bar, tossing the cap to a passing robot as she went to the elevators. “Good girl, eat up and grow big and strong,” Twilight mumbled as the robot crunched the tin lid into bits before turning away.

…

Twilight drank from the bottle as she trotted down the seemingly endless ring that held the crew hypersleep pods. She demanded to be treated as an equal to the ponies she was traveling with and as such was put with the common ponies that would help make the new world a better place, each using their special talent in the right way.

Twilight had a team of fifty of the best ponies and smartest humans crunching numbers and arranging ponies based on special talents to have the perfect crew of three thousand ponies to help build the first settlements and five planned cities over the course of their lives before passing their work onto the next generation.

That didn’t include the thousand minotaur, five thousand humans, eight hundred Diamond Dogs… Twilight shook her head and continued walking, trying to not think about the lives she’d be leading to a new existence. For generations she’d be the only one to live through it all until they could establish a quick method of transit. Teleportation, or a new way to travel through space.

She passed hundreds of pods, each holding a sleeping pony that was unaware of everything. Each one essentially dead, waiting, balancing between a choice or a computer error and sending them one way or the other. She let her mind wander on various statistics from how many would be needed to survive on the new world to how many would be willing to graze in a steady rotation to maintain food supplies if there was a problem with the supply ship ahead of them, or behind them.

The bottle fell to the floor and rolled away from Twilight as her magic failed her for a second and spilled some of its liquid as it moved away. Twilight followed it, knowing that because the room was actually a ring, that it would roll forever until it was stopped by something.

She watched intently as it rolled and she followed until it stopped, finally, by a doorway. Twilight staggered slightly and looked at the porthole she’d not noticed before. “Humans and their sameness,” she mumbled as she waved her hoof over the pad and the door opened, “gotta make the walls and doors and everything the same color so I can’t see… stuff.”

She passed through the doorway and through a short corridor to an oval room with several space suits held dangling from actuating arms. “What the hay? I don’t remember this,” she said looking over to a wall paned. “What is this?” she asked.

Applejack’s voice replied with her strong accent from the nearest wall and an image of a pony in a space suit began walking in place. “Well, every pony needs ta have a lick ‘a fun, now’n again. So, we rightly set us up a rootin’ tootin’ experience that’ll knock yer socks off, so get ready ta see space up close!

“Just hop inta a suit, put on the helmet, and take a walk out yonder doors. You’ll be as safe as a pea in a pod, so don’t fret none, and enjoy the view.”

Twilight looked at the nearest space suit and approached it, poking it once with her hoof. She looked at a glowing panel on the floor and stepped on it, causing the suit to open slightly. She took a moment to climb into it and make certain it sealed itself completely before the helmet lowered and secured itself to her suit.

“Now, reckon ya might get a touch anxious and that’s alright. It ain’t natural ta do what we’re about ta do, so take yer time and don’t think yer under any pressure ta do this,” Applejack advised her through her helmet with a slight radio quality to it. A light shone above an airlock. “Just head to the doorway and walk on through, Ah’ll make sure yer safe’n sound.”

Twilight trotted to the hatch and tapped a panel with her hoof, waited for it to open, then walked into a long, narrow tube that was almost completely smooth, except for a command console at the end.

It was brighter than she expected it to be and as she reached the end Applejack’s voice came back. “Now, yer all sealed up tight so ya don’t have ta worry a bit. Now, just pull that lever to the side and tap the button ta vent the atmosphere before ya take yer first step into the vastness of the universe.”

Twilight looked at the simple handle and then reached out, pulled it down, and pressed the button. She was glad she was in the suit because the air rushing from the room was loud as it was, then the airlock opened and she saw, with the greatest clarity, space.

Staring into the vast emptiness she stumbled forward and tripped over the hatch seals before her boots hummed. “Magnetic boots activated,” the familiar voice said, “if’n ya wanna turn ‘em of, tap the icon on yer right foreleg.”

Twilight walked ahead, the sound of her breathing her only companion now as she left the airlock. “Tether attached,” the voice whispered as something clicked on Twilight’s back. Twilight walked ahead to the edge of the platform she was on and looked to her hooves.

Down was relative at this point, but she still felt a sense of vertigo looking at what wasn’t there.

She lifted her left hoof from the platform, tapped the icon on her right foreleg’s monitor, and took a step forward. She was used to flying, it was second nature at this point in her life, but this was different.

There wasn’t a fight against gravity, there wasn’t the sound or feel of air against her body. She drifted out for a few lengths then moved to place her hooves back down and began to panic as her hindbrain couldn’t register having nothing, anywhere. She calmed herself with steady breathing and let herself drift out into the great expanse of nothing beyond the ship she was in.

She looked to her side and took in the massive structure that made her feel as small and insignificant as she was at the moment, compared to what she saw around her. The front of the ship wasn’t visible, but she knew that pony magic powered the shields that kept the ship safe while human and minotaur technology was durable enough to take a beating and keep on working.

She didn’t even feel upset when they wouldn’t take her advice on redundant systems because they had that covered already. She let her mind go blank from the thoughts of the past and future and let herself simply float like a foal in the womb, her breath the only thing she could experience as she closed her eyes and let her body succumb to space.

…

Twilight secured her space suit and returned her bottle of liquor to the crook of her foreleg and took a drink. She turned to leave the oval room and stopped, then looked at the airlock. She drank the last of the bottle and felt it burning as it went to her stomach, then she dropped the bottle and staggered to the airlock… and opened the hatch.

Twilight walked to the far side of the tunnel and looked out the outer hatch, staring at the blackness, ignoring the shining stars. “Now, yer all sealed up tight so ya don’t have ta worry a bit. Now, just pull that lever to the side and tap the button ta vent the atmosphere before ya take yer first step into the vastness of the universe,” Applejack’s voice said cheerfully.

Twilight reached up and gripped the handle with her hoof and slowly pulled the handle down. She waited with bated breath as she let her right hoof hover above the button. She felt her stomach clench and her eyes filled with tears as the hovering foreleg began to shake… then she lifted the handle and returned to the oval room in a trot.

Applejack’s voice started to speak but Twilight was at a full gallop from the room and into the sleeping area before she knew it. She galloped as fast as she could, tears spilling from her eyes as she made her way down the side of the room. Passing dozens, hundreds of sleeping ponies as she went before she tripped and tumbled, rolled, and finally stopped on her side with a final thud of her head against the cool floor.

She laid there, crying at what she’d nearly done, for she didn’t care how long, until she finally composed herself enough to stand up and walk back to her suite. If she was going to be in Tartarus, she might as well make herself comfortable, she thought.

Then her gaze went over a sleeping pony. A stallion. A cute stallion. She realized she was staring and blushed, apologizing to the pony in the pod before realizing she was being foolish. She looked at the name on the display pad. “Shining Smile. Huh, nice to meet you,” she said as she looked at his sleeping form.

“Can I tell you something, Shining?” she asked and waited the normal time it would take for a pony to agree, “I almost vented myself into space a little bit ago. Like, why would I do that?” she asked him softly, “I don’t understand, I’m immortal, there’s no way I could simply die, right? Why would I have even thought of something so awful?”

She looked at him and smiled. “Yeah, I was just being weak and crazy, I guess. It’s a good thing I bumped into you here…” she stared and let her mind wander about what it would be like to see him smile and see if he fit his namesake. She felt herself beginning to blush again. “Uhm, I think I’ve gotta go, but I’ll see you later, okay?”

***

Twilight galloped into the bar and slid to a stop at the bar. Before Minnie could ask Twilight started rambling. “I found a cute stallion! I totally think I could be friends with him and we connected at a real fundamental level!”

“Well, that’s very nice to hear, Twilight. I hope you bring him by and introduce us. Finished the whole bottle, did we?”

Twilight scooted herself into her seat and rested her chin on the counter. “Yeah, and I almost did something stupid. But, then I met him. I think we can be the friends, really!”

“Well, then, why don’t you go spend time with him? Certainly beats hanging out at a bar, right?”

Twilight looked at Minnie then nodded once. “Yeah, I guess…” she said as she looked at the wall of alcohol behind the bar. “And I’m drinking more than I ever have, too. Maybe I should take a break.”

“Indeed, Twilight.”

“Thanks, for being such a good companion to me.”

“It’s what I’m here for, Twilight,” Minnie said and took a glass into her hand and began polishing it.

“And give me a coffee, black.”

***

Twilight finished her gallop around the concourse, all three levels had been graced by her hooves and she was ready for her shower, after a drink at the bar.

“Hey, Minnie!” Twilight chirped as she walked in. “Tea, please.”

“Ah, starting light today?” the robot replied as she began to pour hot water into a small kettle.

“Yeah,” Twilight panted, “just gonna shower soon and see Shining. I’ve got another story to read to him and then I guess I’ll go to the arcade for a couple hours. I’ve gotta keep my scores high,” she smiled as Minnie produced a teacup and saucer from a drawer.

“That sounds like a lovely idea, Miss. I think you’ve earned a special treat,” Minnie said as she turned and placed the tray of tea down and looked behind Twilight to the doorway. Twilight turned and her eyes widened as a series of human style robots rolled into the room and began singing Happy Birthday to her. A two tiered cake was held by one of them and as they approached she began to sniffle.

“I, can’t believe I forgot my own birthday,” she looked to Minnie, “but, how?”

“Every member is entitled to some special treats on their birthday, Twilight, regardless of the nature of their accessibility.”

Twilight listened as the robots finished the song and then looked at the six candles on her cake, made a wish to herself, then blew them out. She took the cake from the robots and placed it on the bartop, looked lovingly at it, and then without the slightest bit of decorum she plunged her muzzle into the cake and began gobbling it from the center out.

“Oh,” she shuddered once she’d eaten half the cake and taken a deep breath that she’d missed while eating, “sweet Celestia that’s amazing… I haven’t had anything this good since before I went to hypersleep. The basic breakfast I’ve been getting has been just enough, but this…” she licked her frosted muzzle and felt the sugar high beginning.

Minnie passed her an extra towel and patted her own muzzle, letting Twilight know she’d need to do better. “I can understand that. The meals set forth, by you, for the bronze members of the crew were meant to help them live for two weeks, not this long.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to think that I’m taking the whole ‘impress the other races with logic’ route has backfired on me, a little,” Twilight admitted as she wiped her muzzle. She listened as the robots left the bar and she was alone with Minnie again. “Minnie, can you watch this for a little while. I’m sorry about the mess, but I’ve gotta shower, I’m really sweaty.”

“I shall do as you command, your highness,” Minnie smiled and winked.

Twilight looked intently at Minnie. “You’ve never called me that before.”

“It’s your birthday, Twilight, I should call you by a title at least once in our time together. Until next year, anyway.”

Twilight’s ears sagged. “Yeah,” she said sliding from the seat and stepping on a robot that was cleaning the crumbs from beneath her seat, “only a hundred and some to go.”

“And there’ll be a cake with each one,” she smiled and began to move the cake from it’s place and clean the mess Twilight had made while eating.

“I’ll see you in a few hours, Minnie. Keep up the great work.”

…

Twilight exited the shower and went to her old room to groom herself. There wasn’t any reason to mess up her suite with fur and feather down if she didn’t have to. She preened her wings and then went to her suite to read some letters again.

Lying on her bed her thoughts went back to the blue stallion sleeping peacefully. She charged her magic and teleported to his sleeping pod and took a seat on the lounge chair she’d placed there and began to talk to him about her day and the past week since she’d seen him last. She covered everything she could think of that a stallion would care to hear about before she stopped and sat quietly in the silence of the endless room.

“Shining, I think you’re one of the only ponies I can trust. I wish I could spend time with you, the real you. But, I can’t exactly…” she paused and her eyes narrowed as an evil thought crossed her mind. She looked to the panel and reached a hoof to tap it. Information scrolled by and she read some of it.

“No, no I can’t wake him, even if I wanted to. The system isn’t designed to be opened early,” she looked at the pod and got up, taking several steps away and examining the structure. “Humans and their sameness,” she mumbled as she looked for a seam in the sides. She found a small crease in the smooth plastics that made the base and tugged slightly at it.

It opened with relative ease, showing several memory cores and redundant safeties. “No,” she whispered as she took a step back and closed it, looked at the stallion again, and shook her head. “I couldn’t do that to him.”

She turned and began to walk back to the elevators, glancing over her shoulder once before she galloped away.

…

Twilight slipped on the dance floor and landed on her tail with a yelp as pain shot through the back half of her body. Rolling to her belly the dancers opposite her stopped their routine and struck a pose Twilight didn’t care about as she looked at her tail and then the sweat covered, polished, game floor.

“Pinkie?!”

“What?!” Pinkie shouted back as she appeared on her pedestal, beaming a smile.

“Ugh, get me a towel and I’m gonna need some shoes to dance if I’m going to slip.”

“Awe, but you were just shaking your groove thing! I’ll get this all fixed in a jif!” Pinkie said and saluted, just before a half dozen robots came to life around the room and worked their way to the dance floor and cleaned it to a dry polish. “And the shoes you want are in the concourse, shop R-459, special, just for you. Have a fun time!”

Then Twilight was alone again. She wagged her tail and winced at the pinch she felt at the base, but it wasn’t broken and she was stronger than she was and would only weep softly for a minute or five while walking to the shop.

Entering the shop after a twenty minute walk she looked at the door and sighed. Three diamonds; Rarities specialty shop. “Of course it is,” she sighed as she walked in.

“Oh, hello darling! My, you’re not wearing anything a’tall! This must be remedied, post haste.”

An image of rarity fizzled into existence and began walking through the shop to a mechanical dress rack and as it began to move Twilight huffed. “I don’t need clothes right now, just shoes so I don’t slip on my sweat while... exercising.”

“I won’t take ‘no’ for an answer, dear,” she paused as she looked back from the clothes moving past her to Twilight, “Your Highness? Oh, my! Royalty in my shop?” she squealed and danced in place as the machine whirred faster, “shoes? Exercise? I have just the outfit.”

Three minutes later Twilight had forced herself into a yellow one piece bathsuit that she’d put over a pair of black leggings and had sweatbands on her ankles and across her furrowed brow. “Rarity, thank you, but this’ making me hot as it is.”

“All the better to help you lose weight, Your Highness! Why else would royalty need to exercise? Oh my,” Rarity’s face blushed slightly, “unless, it’s mating season.”

“No, it’s not mating season, and even if it was I can take care of, hey!”

Rarity giggled and waved a hoof. “Simply a joke, Your Highness. I’ll fetch you some shoes that’ll work best to avoid slipping in, whatever fluids cross under your hooves.”

Twilight grumbled and undressed, tossing the clothes into a pile and stomping them with a hoof. “Even the hologram can be a pain,” she sighed. Rarity returned with a small pony robot behind her, the size of a foal.

“This is my sister, she’ll be fitting you for your shoes,” Rarity beamed as the little Sweetie-bot bowed deeply.

“It’s nice to meet you, Your Highness. You honor us with your presence. Now, may I ask you to step into this sizing device. Thank you, your size is… 19? That’s, impressive. I’ll return right away with your non-slip shoes.” A moment of waiting and Sweetie-bot had left and returned with a set of hoof covering shoes.

“These are the best option for mating season, as they prevent staining to your hooves and slipping on spillage,” Sweetie-bot said sweetly as Rarity giggled into a hoof. Twilight huffed and took the shoes in her magic and turned to leave. “Thank you for your patronage, Your Highness.”

“Come again, oh my, certainly an unintentional joke…”

“I need a drink after this,” Twilight mumbled.

...

Twilight sat in her seat at the bar. “Okay, let’s say that you’re trapped on a deserted island and there’s a way to get another pony to the island with you, but you’ll be damning them to life on the island with you, what would you do?”

“What are we talking about?” Minnie asked.

“I think I can wake him up. But that’s wrong, right?”

“I, don’t understand,” Minnie said with a raised eyebrow.

“Okay, forget the island… Let’s say you can do something great for yourself, but it would be bad for somepony else, what would you do?”

Minnie thought for a moment and stopped cleaning the glass. “I think, that you’re asking the wrong person. I’m here,” she gestured to the bar, “and according to the laws of robotics I cannot knowingly bring harm to anyone.”

Twilight stared at the bartender and let her jaw slack open for a second. “I, how do you have advice for everything but this?”

“I have a lot of advice to give, but I don’t know everything. I think the answer you seek is within yourself. If you’re stuck on an island alone, perhaps having another to keep you company would be a good thing, even if it seems bad to the other.”

“So, I should do it?”

“I believe you should do what you think is best for the mare I see before me.”

“Now that’s good advice… but I can’t, it’s just wrong.”

“Then don’t do it, but know you’ll be alone on the island for a very long time…”

Twilight looked at Minnie and slumped. “I think I can wake Shining Smile from hypersleep.”

“Ah, then best of luck to you both.”

“But I can’t, it’d be damning him to the rest of his life here.”

“Then tell him and let him make the choice,” Minnie advised.

“I can’t do that unless I wake him up,” she said exasperatedly.

“Then may I suggest something?” Minnie asked. Twilight nodded. “Do what’s right, for you both. If you like this colt so much, ask him out. If he accepts great, if not, there are plenty of other ponies in Equestria.”

Twilight sighed. “I need to walk this off, and see him again. I’ve still got a few letters to read to him and that’d be a nice distraction.

***

“So, then I cast the spell and went back in time to warn myself not worry about the future… but I was so caught up with myself being from the future I couldn’t talk to myself about the past!” Twilight laughed loudly as she sat beside the pod. “I love telling that one, it’s a perfect example of hubris, with idiocy mixed in, too.”

…

Twilight finished her gallop around the concourse, not feeling as winded as when she’d started her exercise routine, and went into the bar. “The usual, Minnie.” The robot poured Twilight’s drink by the time she’d made it to the bar and took her seat. “Sorry about the sweat on the seat, again.”

“No problem, Twilight, it’s taken care of every night.”

Twilight took the ale in her hooves and drank it in one shot, panting slightly as her body relaxed from the exercise. “So, I’ve been thinking about it again, and I won’t do it. I know I’ve talked about it a lot lately, but this’ the last time, seriously this time. He’s a stallion and I’m an alicorn, there’s just no way he’d find it normal to be on a starship with me.”

…

Twilight held her black coffee in her magic. “I mean it, this is the last time I’m bringing it up, but I think if I woke him up he’d totally be okay with making friends and being with me through the rest of the voyage… What? Are you judging me?!” Twilight asked loudly as she gulped her water down from the pitcher in her hooves.

…

“Okay, if I wake him up, and then after a few years put him back to sleep with a stasis spell for a year each time then maybe he wouldn’t really mind the rest of the trip. I mean, I could make a monument to him when we arrive or even wake a few ponies up over the decades and make it seem like I’m not the only one to be awake early.”

Twilight sipped her tea with a wince at its strength.

…

“When I wake him up I’ll read to him like I have been over the last few months and then he’ll understand that I’m a sensible mare and that hating me would be foalish, besides, I’m the Princess of Friendship, everypony loves me,” Twilight said between bites of her birthday cake.

…

“When did I ever say I’d use my Princess authority to suade him to like me? I’m likable by myself…” Twilight said opening her wings widely.

...

“Twilight,” Minnie said finally, “you’ve been coming in here for… a long time, with the same conversation. If you like this colt so much, just ask him out. You’re a wonderful mare and if he doesn’t see that in you, then he’s just a daft fool.”

Twilight blinked at Minnie. “That long?”

“Yes, you run, stop by and have a drink while talking about your colt, then you leave to shower, nap, read, see your colt again, then swim, tinker with your technology… you tell me everyday of your routine, but the only problem is that it hasn’t changed.”

Twilight was silent as she looked into her almost empty glass of whiskey. “I was the same way back home, I need routines or I can go a little crazy, even as an alicorn princess I have desires that need to be met, like my desire to be noticed by others,” she smirked to herself.

“And this colt, you want him to notice you? Then why not do something to stand out from the crowd? What’ve you got to lose?”

Twilight sighed and let her mind wander. “I guess I only have one real option: I have to stop seeing him. I’ve spent so much time alone already, it can’t be much worse, right?”

“It is what you make of it,” Minnie said, refilling Twilight’s glass and capping the bottle, “just don’t regret your choice or you’ll never forgive yourself.”

***

Twilight stood over the pod holding the sleeping pony within, a look of defeat and sorrow on her expression as she lowered the toolbox to the side of the pod. She opened the control door and looked at the computer chips, large rectangles of hardened silicone that held technology she wasn’t allowed to even understand within it.

Taking one out she slipped it back a slot and took one of the control chips from her own pod and slid it into the slot. Shaking as she took a step back she closed the door and winced as the power flowed through the circuitry, sending popping and sizzling noises from within.

She watched as several actuated arms moved over him and began to inject him with medicines and chemicals as air vented into the pod with a static hiss. An electric shock was sent through him as the pod unsealed and a monitor began to beep in the slow rhythm of a pony’s heartbeat. She stumbled back and gulped as his bed was lifted from its pod and a hovering image of Fluttershy appeared before him.

“Shining Smile? How are you feeling?” the hologram asked casually and waited a few seconds before continuing. “That’s very nice to hear, Shining Smile. I’m glad you had a good hypersleep, and it looks like you’re as healthy as a horse,” the voice giggled softly, “as it were. You’ve been asleep-” Twilight picked up her tool bag and teleported away as sweat began to form on her brow.

Twilight appeared in her old room and quickly shoved the toolbag into her storage area and shut it, then lay on her old bed and trembled heavily, cursing herself for what she’d just done.

Introductions

Twilight galloped into the bar and took her seat quickly. “I did it, I woke him up, he’s awake, he’s awake!”

“That’s fantastic, how’s he taking it?”

“He doesn’t know I woke him up… I can’t tell him, he’d hate me, he’d hate me for taking away his life, just so I wouldn’t be alone anymore. Celestia, what’ve I done?” Twilight asked as she clutched her head in her hooves and stared into a bottle of wine that was directly in front of her.

“You’ve done what you feel you needed to. If you want, you can bring him here and-”

“No! You can’t tell him, he can’t know yet. I’ll tell him, but I have to let it come naturally. I have to tell him in the right way, this’ our secret, okay?” she asked Minnie, implored.

“As you wish, Twilight, I’m just a bartender, not a secretary,” she replied. “Care for a drink?”

“A stiff one, double Scotch with Splenda this time,” Twilight said as she replaced her hooves to her temples and pressed lightly. “C’mon, Twilight, you’ve been through worse. You’ve fought monsters that would have flayed the flesh from every unicorn, just for their pelts and a giggle. You’ve negotiated peace with a race of bipeds that were in their fourth world war and were ready to end their entire race. You’ve befriended the Lord of Chaos, several times. You can handle this.”

“Here’s your drink, Twilight, anything you wish to share?”

“No,” Twilight said as she drank the drink in a single swallow, slammed her hoof onto the bar, and roared as the liquor burned its way down her throat, then coughed. “Luna’s teats that’s strong,” she said as she charged her magic, “I’ll see you soon, please, our secret,” she said before she vanished from Minnie’s bar.

…

Twilight landed on her bed and bounced twice, taking in the open feel of her suite as she felt her head spin for a brief time before she rolled to her hooves and climbed from the bed. She went down to the second floor and to the bathroom. Showering, brushing her teeth, peeing, grooming herself and preening her wings; she finished and looked at herself in the mirror and her eyes locked on her horn.

“No, no-no-no, I can’t let him see me like this. Pegasus or unicorn? Can’t be both, but have to be one… which?” she looked to her sides and the wings comfortably tucked in, then to her horn and sighed. They were both as much a part of her as her fur was… but she’d cut that off once and was still herself.

She concentrated and focused her magic to her sides and with a much simpler popping sound than she expected, her wings were gone. “There, now,” she cast a similar spell and her wings reappeared, “okay, there when I need them. Hello, unicorn Twilight, it’s been a while,” she said as she focused her magic and let the spell envelop her body.

She felt herself shrink slightly and the pop sound came again and before her eyes she looked at the unicorn she had once been so long ago. She smiled to herself and turned around, examining herself and groaned as she looked at her cutie mark. “That won’t work, he’d know me regardless! Okay, Starlight Glimmer, time to do the old cutie mark trick you taught me.”

With a few seconds of focus she recalled the spell and closed her eyes, she released the spell and felt a cold tingle wash across her body, then opened her eyes. “What!? No! I’m not supposed to look like Starlight Glimmer, I’m supposed to have her cutie mark,” she sighed and recast the spell with different focus this time.

She watched her coat return to the comfortable purple she knew, her mane returned to its correct colors, and her cutie mark was now Starlight Glimmer’s. “Thanks, old friend, I knew I could always count on you when I needed you,” she sighed as she stood tall and left the bathroom, the suite, and the floor.

Twilight noticed several lights flickering on and off in the distance down a hall. “That’s the thirty seventh time that’s happened this month, what’s going on?” she asked. “Discord? Is that you? Are you here?” Silence replied as the halls went dark again. “Fine, be that way,” she turned back to the elevator and walked in, stopped, then returned quickly to her room.

…

“Hello?” Shining Smile asked as he walked into a shop and looked around, “anyone here?” Twilight stepped from the elevator and watched him exit the shop and walk across the hall to another. “Hello?” he called out.

“Hello,” Twilight answered from behind him. He turned and looked at her and smiled. “Oh, hello. I’m Shining Smile, I just woke up, but there’s no one else here, where is everyone?”

Twilight stood still. “I’m Twilight… Glimmer, and we’re it. You woke up early… just like I did.”

His smile fell, then he smirked. “Right, so you’re a comedian?” He watched as her expression didn’t change from its serious nature. “Wait, how can we be awake early? How early are we talking here, a couple months?”

…

“Estimated time to arrival is in 131 years, eight months, nine days.”

He stared in silent shock at the images before him. “H-how long, um, have you been awake?”

“Meh,” she looked past the holographic images of their journey and into real space beyond the window, “about four years.”

He snapped his gaze to her and looked at her slightly empty eyes and before she knew it she was in a tight hug. She tensed at first, pulling back slightly, then let her body relax as she fell into his embrace and began to cry openly, loudly, from the deepest part of her being. Centuries of sorrow began to pour out of her at the moment and he held her as she vented the sorrows she’d kept hidden, the fears she put away, and the anxiety she had coped with.

Most of all, she cried because of what she’d done to this stallion and that she’d have to tell him.

…

“This’ the main dinner hall, there are eighteen dispensary islands across the floor and each has virtually unlimited food, especially if it’s just the two of us,” she giggled softly as he looked around the area.

“It’s so, clean and empty. You’ve been coming here for four years?”

“Four times a day, everyday. A mare has to eat a regular diet,” Twilight smiled.

“But, Twilight Glimmer, it’s such an extreme case. A pony shouldn’t be able to be alone for more than six months before madness begins to set in, how did you-”

“Ah, here we are,” she interrupted him, not liking where the conversation was heading, “my favorite island. I’ll get my meal and meet you at my reserved table, okay?”

He nodded and watched as she waved her hoof then tapped two keys and took her dispensed meal to her table.

Twilight sat and looked at her block of meal and sighed as she took the spoon in her magic and pressed it to the corner. As always, it began to crumble under the weight of the spoon and within a few seconds of her sitting a small group of four robots were waiting to pick up her mess. She smiled at them and tossed the first spoonful to the robots.

“Jasper, Snickers, Cordy, you let Buddy eat, too.”

She sniffed the air as Shining arrived with a tray full of hot food: fresh oatmeal, scrambled eggs, buttered toast with strawberry jam, almond flavored cappucino… her gaze crossed his tray as he sat down and she looked at her broken block of, ‘food’. She took the spoon to her mouth and crunched the roughage as he sat down and smiled at his meal.

He glanced to her tray and raised an eyebrow. “On a diet?”

She chuckled softly and raised the hoof that wore the bracelet. “No, this’ what I can have at my access level.”

His jaw fell open. “You mean to tell me that you’ve eaten that for four years?” Twilight nodded and lifted her spoon to her mouth again, her chest aching at the scent of his meal before he grabbed her tray and moved it aside, pushing his in its place. “Eat this, please.”

“No, it’s your meal, I’ll-”

“Don’t be proud, you need more than that to live and we both know it. Now, eat up and I’ll get another tray,” he said firmly as he got up and turned tail, a rather nice tail, to her and returned to the island and got another tray. “There, now we can eat a proper meal, right?”

Twilight stared at the food in front of her and wiped her right eye from the tears that were forming before she took her spoon and scooped hot oats into her mouth. She began trembling in excitement as she began hopping across the tray, eating some of everything as quickly as she could, just in case something happened to make her have to stop.

Shining smiled as he watched Twilight gobble her meal as he took a more modest spoonful of food to his lips and enjoyed a rather common meal that he’d had only a couple days before, in his timeframe. He chuckled as he watched her guzzle the drink down like a crazed animal, ignoring her magic and using her hooves, then drop the cup into it’s spot.

He sniffed the air as a sudden sweetness, he knew pretty well, filled the air and he blushed as he thought of its source. The mare across from him was definitely excited from the meal, he thought. A common occurrence according to some studies, he began to think while focusing on his meal and away from the mare’s enjoyment of her first real meal in years.

Twilight licked her bowl clean as she held it in her hooves and let it fall to the tray, then licked the tray free of toast crumbs, and then her hooves, just in case there was anything there.

She slumped back in her seat and giggled giddily as her belly grumbled at her in satisfaction. She stared at the ceiling tiles for a moment before she felt herself falling asleep and began to tip backwards and before she could stop herself she tumbled from her seat, ungracefully with flailing limbs and a yelp, and landed on her back.

“Oh my, are you alright, Twilight?” Shining asked in concern as he got up and quickly went to the smiling mare.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been better,” she said and yawned. He yawned too and they shared a chuckle. “I think I need sleep, how do you feel?”

“Tired and thirsty, just like they said I would when I woke up.”

Twilight forced herself onto her hooves and stumbled forward, taking her tray in her magic and putting it away. “Hurry and eat, I’ve gotta show you a few more things around the ship.”

Shining nodded and drank the rest of his coffee and cleaned his tray and sided Twilight. “I’m ready.”

“Then follow me. Sorry guys,” she looked to the robots, “no more snacks today.”

She showed him the pool, the elevators, a couple observation areas she preferred and not once did he complain that she was showing him common things that held no interest to him. He was following her and letting her talk as much as she wanted, in a tight black dress with white opals, that showed her muscles moving as she walked, because she needed it more than she knew.

“And this’ the bar! I spend time here almost every day, too. Well, everyday, and then some, sometimes. This’ Minnie, the bartender! Minnie, this’ Shining Smile!” Twilight beamed and placed a foreleg across his back.

Minnie looked to Twilight and processed something before looking to the stallion. “Ah, it’s nice to meet you, I hope you two enjoy your time together. Would you like a drink?”

Twilight cleared her throat. “A water! Or, uhm, tea? Maybe a coffee?” she placed her hooves on the floor again and thought for a moment.

“I’ll take a margarita, mango, and make it sweeter than normal.”

Twilight looked to the stallion as he took a seat several from where she usually sat and then to Minnie, who seemed to be taking in Twilight’s change in appearance as well as her indecisiveness. “I’ll take the usual, a single, with lemon this time,” Twilight said as she approached her seat and hesitated.

“Um, I’ve sat here for the past few years,” she said uneasily looking at Shining and the seats next to him.

“Oh, it’s fine,” he said hurriedly,” I’ll move to you so you don’t have to sit alone over there.”

She took her seat and he sat next to her as Minnie began making the drinks. “Here’s to long lives and good health,” Twilight toasted more from rote memory than plan. She clinked her cup to his and drank half her cup, gently setting it on the bartop and staring into it.

He sipped his drink and sighed. “Now that’s a great drink. Thanks, Minnie. So, Twilight, what’s the plan?”

“Plan?” she asked side glancing to him.

“Yeah, to get us back to sleep or wake up others. You know, a plan? There’s gotta be something you’ve thought of over all this time.”

***

Shining looked sadly at the spread of tools, cutting equipment, computer parts, and torn apart walls around the command rooms. “I’ve tried everything to get into the command decks. The pod room is secure and so is the command room. I can see into the command room through the window in the door, but that’s all the access I have.”

“Well, maybe I can have more luck,” Shining said as he went to a command console and waved his hoof over the unbroken pad. “Access denied,” a voice said.

She placed a hoof on his side. “It won’t open, I’ve tried everything.”

“I didn’t think it would work, but it was worth a shot,” he said quietly, “so, that’s it then? Why not go back to engineering and slow the ship down?”

Twilight shook her head and kicked a screwdriver away from her hoof. “If I tinker with anything back there I could drop us out of FTL and then the trip would take a hundred thousand times longer. If I did manage to even slow us down, the next ship is still on autopilot and won’t do anything but avoid us.

“We could even watch it pass us by, if we’re sharp eyed enough,” she said with a smile, “I’ve done the math and worked out everything, there’s nothing to do but live.”

He turned to her and frowned. “Well I’m not ready to cash it in. I just woke up so there’s still hope, and maybe if we woke up from hypersleep then others might, too. We may not be alone for long, so we have to hope for the best, right?”

He walked past her and to the elevators. “I’m going to my room, you wanna come and work out some plans, you may. Otherwise I’ll see you in a few hours at Minnie’s?”

Twilight followed him. “Yeah, I can talk about my plans... But first, let me show you some things I do to get my mind in a better place.

Twilight led him to an observation room and called the holographic trail of their journey up and began offering different scenarios that ranged from flying too close to a star for a gravity assist and warping the star’s atmosphere enough to cause it to make a slight shift in spectrum and change it’s color from white to a tinge of blue. Another scenario had her change the planet to having a surface of green jello.

They shared a laugh at the sight of the ships bouncing across the surface. The last scenario was her favorite; as they landed her nine best friends were waiting for her with open forelegs when she disembarked. She shed a tear while Shining hugged her.

…

This is the arcade,” Twilight said as she led him in. Pinkie welcomed him, as well, and his eyes were drawn to each game that had Twilight’s name as the score winner in nearly every slot on every machine.

“Here’s the best one for me, because I love to dance and I’ve gotten better at it since I’ve had so much time to practice. I really can’t believe how bad of a dancer I was and nopony told me!” she smiled weakly. She slipped into her black rubber shoes and climbed the stairs with him following as the lights dimmed.

“All you do is copy what they do and you get points! It’s so easy and a great way to learn to dance,” she said as the characters appeared and struck a pose that Shining laughed at. “Yes, even the poses.” She wiggled her legs and tail and starred the pink pony across from her down with an intensity that bordered on pre-combat.

When the pink pony began dancing Twilight copied her moves almost exactly with a fluidity that almost belied ponykind. Shining was in awe as she ended with her own pose, forelimbs crossed as she stood on one hind leg, panting and smiling victoriously. “Your turn,” she said landing on all fours and taking a well deserved sit.

Shining looked to the slick and bearded stallion across from him and smirked awkwardly as the hologram began to wiggle his backside and side step to the beat. Shining looked to Twilight, who was hopefully looking at him, then he began to copy the moves. The music hummed to a stop several seconds in and Twilight laughed.

“B-b-b-b-usted!” the game announced as Shining looked around in shock.

“But, I did exactly what he did,” he pointed a hoof at the stallion that was sitting and leaning against the pink pony.

“Not well enough. Try again?”

“Yes,” he said with a determined look crossing his blue face. The match began again with Twilight scoring high and he scored better, completing the round. He reared and stomped his hooves at his close win to loss and Twilight flinched.

“Okay, I think we can play something else if-”

“Oh, Tartarus no, I’m gonna whoop that guy’s flank,” he said with a grin to her then wiggled his legs and got ready for the next round.

…

Twilight sidestepped his rush and bit tighter on the ball as she pushed through the very padded robotic guards and crossed the goal line. “Yes! Another point for team Twilight! Woot-woot!” she spiked the hoofball and did a little jig in place as he trotted up to her.

“Okay, so you’re a master of hoofball too? What can’t you do?”

Her smile fell as she thought suddenly of the one thing she couldn’t do.

…

“That won’t work either. The combustion ratio is seventeen to three point six five, the resulting reaction would cause more damage to the superstructure before opening the doors, or even denting or scratching them.”

“You’re really smart, what was your special talent again?”

Twilight looked away from him and faked a cough. “Well, uh, venting energy?”

“So, you got your cutie mark while venting energy? Interesting,” he said writing something on a notepad he’d been using all day. “Okay, and how old were you when that happened?”

“About seven, maybe nine. I can’t really remember anymore, so much has happened that it’s just become another day in a long lonely life,” she said moving another technical manual to herself. She yawned. “I’d been three days that we’ve been going over these plans and we haven’t gotten anywhere I haven’t been yet, why don’t we just admit defeat and go do something?”

“I’m still not convinced that it’s over. There were at least a hundred different creatures that designed this ship, and the others, for the trip. Heck, Princess Twilight Sparkle played a huge roll! There’s gotta be a way to get around this, she’s known for her neurotic obsession with every possible detail, there’s a way, we just have to think like her.”

Twilight held back a giggle. “You’re funny when you’re stressed.”

“And why do you feel that way?”

“Because when I get stressed I kind of obsess with whatever it is that’s bothering me until I resolve it. It took me years to go over every possible way that wouldn’t end with somepony on the ship getting hurt,” she glanced to him then away, “but then I found you, and here we are.”

“I see,” he scratched more on the notepad, “have you read all these technical manuals?”

“No, just the relevant ones. I don’t think the manual on waste reclamation is going to help wake up the command crew. Or the one about recycling air, how would that help us get back to sleep for the rest of the journey? And this one,” she held up a manual on maintaining the robots, “I’ve even read this one three times, just in case a robot could have access in any possible way, and still no luck,” she tossed the hardcover manuscript away.

Twilight rolled to her back and looked at the ceiling of his room. It was far nicer than the one she’d be assigned. It was higher, with a changing spell that made it flow with the time of day, on Equestria, and there were even pegasi in the distance moving clouds that she could see. All an illusion, though. The chandelier was a nice touch to his room, though, and the small waterfall that sang or hummed, or even made ocean noises… maybe a little much. She remembered it had been designed for a human, not a pony, so it was a bit more lavish than it needed to be.

“Hey, Shining?”

“Yeah, Twilight?”

“Can I… sleep over tonight?”

There was a pregnant pause and silence as Twilight awaited the declination. “I don’t see why not,” he finally said. If Twilight had her wings still she’d have flown around the small room with her excitement. She, instead, rolled to her belly then jumped twice, then landed on his bed and snuggled with the covers.

“Oh, this’ gonna be so nice, to have a sleeping buddy!”

He chuckled as he looked up at the late afternoon sky. “Yeah, when it’s bed time. Until then, how about I get back to planning?”

Twilight hummed as she nuzzled a pillow then quickly rolled from the bed. “Hey! Lemme show you my room! It’s really nice and it was supposed to be for Princess Twilight and her leadership crew! It’s totally neat-o, lemme show you, ple~ase?” she begged as she lowered herself beside him.

He rolled his eyes and smiled before he agreed. Twilight hopped up and went to the doorway, pushing it open with ease as she’d been given access to his room, and quickly led him to her suite.

“Wow,” he said walking in through the massive oaken doors. He couldn’t help but notice the cutie mark on the door and the certain way Twilight’s rump swung when she was walking in. He shook his head and looked around the room in awe. “It’s so, big!”

Twilight giggled. “That’s what she said!” she shouted and burst into laughter. “Oh, Celestia, I’ve waited so long to finally use that joke… and it was worth it! The look, on your face!” she laughed as he gawked at her before chuckling.

“I didn’t know you were so… crude,” he said in jest as he walked past her and looked at the three floors. “So, you’ve lived here?”

“Oh, yeah! Lemme show you! There’s a kitchen here, but I don’t have access to buy anything to cook and I had an assistant that did most of my cooking when I should have learned and then when I could have learned I was too busy with my job and then I just let my friends help or I ordered food more often than not, not that you could tell with my figure but I make certain to exercise a lot otherwise I’d get fat and lose my confidence and Celestia always says that confidence makes the mare so there’s that,” she paused to inhale deeply and began to explain what each floor held as she happily went up the stairs and hopped around between each area.

“And this’ my bed where I sleep and that over there is Fort Book, where I can read all the books I want all day and night and no one can stop me because I’m Princess Twilight and any monster that comes near my fort will be thwarted by the mightiest weapon of all!” she shouted as she struck a pose, pointing above and beyond herself.

“And what might that be,” Shining held back a laugh at her practiced theatrics.

“The power of the written word! None shall defeat Fort Book as long as the Princess possesses the books of freedom!” she karate chopped the air and ended her pose, then looked back at him with a cheesy grin. “But, Fort Book could always use a knight to defend it, too.”

Shining trotted over to the small structure made from books, stacked together and with enough space for one pony to fit and nodded. “Yeah, I could see it. Where do I sign up?”

Twilight went over to him and hugged him tightly. He hugged her back. She withdrew and smiled. “Thanks, for being here with me.”

They looked deeply into each other’s eyes as Twilight leaned in closer to him and he stayed still, ready for a kiss… only to be booped on the nose. “Tag! You’re it!”

Events

Twilight snorted awake and jolted slightly as she felt an embrace tighten around her from behind. She calmed instantly as she recognized the blue foreleg latching and tugging her closer to him. Smiling, she sighed and remembered last night, and how it had started in the evening and she made sure it lasted until well after bedtime. It was the best game of hide and seek she’d played in years.

She made a lot of noise and motion rolling over to look into his face, but he was too exhausted to wake up. She smiled and used her magic to brush his forelocks from his face so she could see him slumber, then leaned it to kiss him, lightly on the snout. Charging a spell she teleported to the side of her bed and stretched, wincing a little at the soreness she felt from what she’d been through. “Never hiding in an air vent again,” she whispered with a smile.

She chuckled quietly as she thought it was a soreness she couldn’t, and didn’t want to, fix. A reminder of her first whole night of playing in a while, and the one that she needed more than she knew. It was better than a videogame, by far. She teleported down a level and went to the bathroom, laughing at her disheveled look in the mirror. Her mane was entirely frizzed. Her tail had tangles. Her coat was matted and flat or fluffy in random spots, and one of her ears was stuck to the top of her head.

She showered and groomed herself, getting ready to preen her wings she rolled her eyes as she noticed they weren’t there. She went back to her bed and stood,, watching him sleep and taking note of the smile, still plastered on his muzzle, before she yawned, quietly. Getting back into bed, she closed her eyes, she fell back asleep.

Twilight woke when Shining got up and quickly trotted to the stairs and descended them. She smiled as she watched him leave and couldn’t help but stare at his dock as he left. “What a butt,” she whispered as his tail disappeared down the stairs.

She rolled to her hooves again and climbed from the bed, making the bed after she got out, and then went downstairs to wait for him to come out of the bathroom. Her ears slumped as she heard the shower turn on, it was going to be a longer wait. She went to the first floor and to a couch against the wall, laid on it, then picked up a random tablet she’d left there long ago. Turning it on she looked through the list of books and rolled her eyes. She’d read nearly every book in the Canterlot archives by this point.

She’d linked into the system and downloaded millions of human books, but most didn’t seem interesting, except ones that were fictional, to them, about magic and monsters. The Harry Potter series was a nice read, as were the collective futuristic idea’s of Isaac Asimov and how they paralleled with the human present, even though they were written a hundred years before humans split the atom or traveled into space. Ideas seen as outlandish, at the time, were now part of human society.

She listened and sat up straighter as she heard the bathroom door open and the soft clopping of hooves on the bathroom tiles before going silent on the padded floor and he, surely, went to the grooming station. Being an earth pony, he might appreciate a little help, she thought and turned to prance up the stairs and watched him for a few seconds as he held a brush in his teeth and began with his tail.

“Need some help?” She offered.

He left the brush in his tail since it was nearly stuck and looked up to her. “Would you mind? I’ve got tangles, snarls, I think a knot or two… Just, I’m a mess,” he smiled to her, “after all that playing, I feel like a foal again.”

“I had so much fun with you, can we do it again? I need a little time to recover, parts of me are sore that I didn’t know could be, but I’d love to again tonight, and to sleep with you again. It was nice to not sleep alone.

He smiled as he listened to her and watched as she used her magic to brush his tail, and yelped as he tugged a snarl free. “Oh, don’t be a big baby,” she scolded him jokingly as he sniffled.

“I’m not, it just hurts, you’re rough.”

“Uh-huh, want me to show you ‘rough’?” Twilight asked as she tugged through another snarl and then the brush went smoothly through the rest of his tail. She nodded at her first task done and took the short-hair brush and forced him to his belly, then beginning with his neck, brushed him as gently as a mother would her newborn foal.

“Fooled you, you thought I was gonna hurt you? I’d never hurt you, you’re my friend, right?” She asked as he untensed under her brush and relaxed.

“Well, I’m your friend, that’s for sure, but I was worried you were going to be a rough groomer, and that’d make it awkward to ask for help in the future.”

“Oh, I’ve been doing this for centuries,” Twilight dismissed him.

“Heh, you look great for your age, then.” Twilight slowed her brush strokes and stuttered.

“Uh, I mean it feels like it’s been that like long. I’ve taken care of a lot of foals and other ponies,” she minimized her experience.

“Ah, so you spent time as a foalsitter? That’s pretty neat, and it’s good you’re good with kids because with a century something could happen,” he joked. The brush clattered to the floor and he looked back to her, to see her getting up and trotting away. “Twilight?” he asked getting up and following her, “is everything alright?”

She stopped and hung her head. “A little. I miss my family, I miss my friends, I miss Equestria. Why’d I decide to come on this trip? What horrible change in the fabric of the universe would have made me wake up… us, I mean.”

“Twilight Glimmer, look at me,” Shining asked softly, placing a hoof to her side. Twilight turned and looked back to him, her eyes brimming with tears. “Look, it’s not the worst thing to spend the rest of our lives on the ship. It’s got everything we need to live, not just survive, and we have each other… not to mention that there’s a good chance, at this rate, that others will wake up, too. So, look on the bright side.”

He smiled warmly to Twilight and noticed her ears perk up a little. “Yeah,” she sniffled, “I guess I’m over thinking it, right?”

“Oh, sweet Celestia, no! You’re almost under thinking it! You’re right to be upset,” he poked a hoof to the carpeted floor, “we’re going to die, possible alone, and one of us will outlive the other, regardless of what we do, short of dying at the same time in an accident or, Pastures forbid, suicide,” both their features sagged the longer he talked, “but there’s no getting back to sleep and there’s no way for both of us, even if there was, because I’ve seen human movies like this,” he snorted, “where one must be sacrificed to save the other. I’ve done research, it seems to be a multiversal constant! There’s always a sacrifice, it seems, in every major decision in history.

“The battle with Discord? They had to eventually give up use of the elements. Battle with Nightmare Moon? Lost a princess… I could go on, but humans have their share, too. It’s almost a joke by death herself, to see what will be lost for the greater good!”

Twilight placed her hooves on his shoulders and looked him intently in the eyes, noticing he had a wild look about him. “Shining! Snap out of it, now you’re overthinking! Just, breathe. That’s it, take a deep breath in… and out, again. Feel better? Okay, you were going full Princess mode,” Twilight giggled to herself.

“Princess mode? Like a Twilight Sparkle freak out? The ones that are known across the worlds?” he sighed, “I never thought I’d be that neurotic in front of a beautiful mare.”

“Awe, than- wait, neurotic?”

…

Shining swung the sledge hammer as hard as he could to the door and grunted as it made contact. The reverberations sent shockwaves through his body and a pain into his forelimbs that made him drop the oversized hammer with a clank to the floor, the command door still undamaged. He looked around at the tools and selected a laser, picked it up, and began firing it at the door…

...

Twilight hid in a store on the concourse behind a display, holding her breath as she heard his hoofsteps falling. Closer and closer he came, then passed. She felt giddy as she’d finally found a hiding spot he couldn’t find her in… until she heard a tapping on the window behind her and her ears pinned back. She turned around to see a smug smiling blue stallion waving at her and pointing at her horn.

Twilight let her gaze rise and she slumped to see a bow on the tip of her horn. She reached up with her left hoof and knocked it away and glared at the stallion who was turning to enter the shop. “Twilight, you almost lost me, but this time you really didn’t notice the frilly ball gowns with bows?

“Seriously, if you hadn’t walked through them, I wouldn’t have been able to find you.” He helped her to her hooves and she bumped her shoulder into his.

“Well, next time I’ll be more mindful of the accessories.”

“Wanna play another game?”

“Nah, I’m tired of hiding and seeking… I kinda just wanna lay under a tree and read a book,” she snorted a sarcastic laugh, “in about a hundred years I’ll be a tree!”

“That’s, not how it works,” he chuckled nervously, “but I remember lying under trees back home. We had this willow, a big one, that let just the right amount of sunlight through its leaves and branches during midday, that I’d fall asleep if I was alone. Heh, the same goes for most trees, though. Plant me under one, while I’m alive,” he clarified, “and I’ll sleep like a cat.

“If I had a wish, it’d be to have a few trees here and there, instead of all this metal. I mean, it’s not possible, of course, because the ship isn’t designed for it in the least and we haven’t the resources, right?” Twilight shrugged, actually not knowing. “And to feel a breeze blowing across my face…

“The memories of home, am I right? I guess we left it all behind for a world we’ll never see, but, I hope that it’s a lot like home for the others,” he stopped as he felt a light breeze across his face. He turned to see Twilight, eyes closed and focused, blowing gently at him. He smiled and sniffed, her breath smelled like breakfast, and he really liked breakfast.

“So, Twilight,” he said after a couple seconds, “what’d you do under trees back home?”

“Well, I just used to read under them… I was a bit, studious.”

Shining began to lead her out of the shop as the lights flickered off, then on again. They shrugged it off. “I gathered that, what with your tablets of books that I’ve seen lying around the place. You’ve read them dry, as it were, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, it’s a good hour to read a good book. There’s not much to reading once you’ve learned to speed read, and then I move on to the next book. Again and again. I’ve read everything that can be read, I sometimes feel,” she said as the entered the concourse and looked up to the skylight.

“Twilight, do you ever just read, to read?”

“Not like I used to. Hey, do you know what day it almost is?”

He looked to her and admired her gaze into the heavens. “Hearths Warming? Summer Sun Festival? Winter Wrap Up?”

She looked at him seriously, then cracked a smile. “Hearts and hooves day! Would you be my special somepony?” she asked levitating a plastic flower from inside her mane and moving it to him.

“My lady, I would be honored,” he took it in his teeth and bit down on it, then made a face that made Twilight laugh. “I, thought it was real…” he said nervously as she pulled him into a hug. A hug that melted his anxiety away, and he began to laugh, too.

…

Twilight sat with Shining in one of the few restaurants on the concourse with candles lit on their table. A real meal placed before them by robotic chefs that had been dormant for too long steamed and filled the air with its sweetly roasted red pepper scent, mixed with a half dozen other flavors that tickled Twilight’s tongue with its almost foreign appeal.

“Are you enjoying your meal, Twilight?”

She wiped her lips daintily on a napkin and smiled with some green stuck between her incisors. “Oh, yes, very much, thank you.” She turned to her soup and looked into the depths of clear blue and dipped her spoon into it, took it out with a fine level of soup, raised it to her lips and slurped it quietly. Then she sighed at the long lost flavor.

“I’m really glad you’re here,” he said lifting his wine glass and taking a sip, “I don’t think I could have made it as long as you. You’re a stronger mare than any I’ve known, and I’ve come across quite a few with personal issues that weren’t nearly as fun as you. Not that I’m saying you have personal issues!”

“It’s okay, I understand. I’m glad you’re here with me too. There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

“Oh? Well, anything you have to tell me, I’m here for you.”

Twilight sighed and opened her mouth to speak, just as five robots entered the room singing happy birthday, with a cake presented to Shining.

“Oh my! I didn’t know it was my birthday, thank you so much, Twilight Glimmer!” he grinned as the cake was placed before him and the robots finished their song and waited. He looked at the dozen candles and over them to Twilight, who was smiling awkwardly, then blew the candles out as the robots played the sound of cheering and hooves stomping in approval. Six seconds later they went silent and turned to depart.

“Oh, thank you so much, Twilight. I’m so glad I met you, this’ the best birthday I’ve had in years,” he grinned as he took a knife in his fetlock and began to cut the cake, “and now I know that you’re great at surprises! What’s next? A birthday present?” he grinned as he cut a piece out and slid it onto his plate.

Twilight got off her seat and walked over to him. “What’re you doing?” he asked curiously with a smile. His eyes widened as Twilight kissed him softly on the lips.

“Happy birthday, Shining.”

He smiled widely and licked his lips and slid his plate to her. “Wanna share the first piece?”

...

Twilight was alone in her shipping crate in the bowels of the ship tinkering with metals and tools, when she stopped and looked up to the ceiling and a smile crossed her muzzle as a thought crossed her mind. She got up and got the manifest and began scrolling through the lists until she found what she wanted.

Going to the car, she drove for a while and stopped by a stack of bins. Opening the third from the bottom she smiled as she looked at a spool of gold wire. “To be used for construction and wiring only, by order of-” she stopped herself and rolled her eyes at her own orders. She took one spool out of the dozens and drove back to her crate.

Spending a few hours, she smithed a matching set of wreaths from the gold with leaves and a daisy that could have been real, only coated in gold. She made sure to size them correctly and giggled like a filly with a crush when she set them side by side. Then her eyes widened in realization, that she did have a crush on him.

Twilight left her container and closed it, not locking it, and drove to the elevators. Walking in she noted the doors had another problem closing and she waited patiently for it to fix itself before she went to the concourse.

“Hey, Minnie! I wanted to tell you something… Oh, hey, Shining Smile,” she slowed her gallop in at the laughing stallion.

“So, Minnie was just telling me about the month you went bald?” Twilight sucked in air sharply and blushed deeply as she looked at the robot.

“I believe it was two months,” Minnie corrected to Twilight’s horror. “But, she eventually got the shaving down and her body is quite the thing to behold when clean shaven from horn to tail,” Minnie said as she filled a fruit smoothie for Shining.

“You see, uh, I… There was, ah, uhm…” Twilight fumbled for words as Shining listened, ears erect and pointed to her.

“You just did some experimenting, it’s totally fine. I bet if I was given the opportunity I’d shave, too.”

Twilight gulped and took a couple steps closer. “Y-you would?”

“Meh, i’unno,” he shrugged as he took a sip of his drink, “but I might. But only alone, or with a pony I’d trust to keep the secret,” he winked to Minnie, “present company excluded.”

Twilight felt a bit hurt at that statement. “Oh, I totally understand. I wouldn’t have done it if I knew I was going to be seen. I have a reputation to uphold,” she stood taller and slightly regally, by habit. “A mare shouldn’t defile her image, ever.”

“Indeed, Your Highness,” Shining quipped and mock bowed. “What’s with the royalty act? You’re not from Canterlot, are you?”

“Psh, no,” Twilight relaxed, “I’m from Ponyville, remember?”

“Yeah,” he licked his lips clear of smoothie and looked to Minnie, “I can’t forget. The Palace of Friendship’s there, Twilight’s home… The Princess Twilight Sparkle, that is,” he tapped her barstool, “so, should I go and let you ladies have a chat?”

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Twilight said climbing into her chair and tapping the counter, pointing to his drink. “I’ll have what he had,” she said as she leaned toward him and tapped his nose. “You’re it, go hide, I’ll be along shortly.”

He grinned and drank as much of his smoothie as he could before getting off his seat, leaving the bar and looking left then right, and finally choosing right, leaving her sight.

“So, how did he take the news?” Minnie asked.

“I haven’t told him yet, but I will. Very soon, it’s almost Hearts and Hooves day and I’m going to ask him to be my special somepony, for real. He’ll be upset, but I know he’ll understand. That’s all I wanted to say, I guess, but now I wanna smoothie!”

“Twilight, you should tell him. A lie is broadly defines, but a secret is more direct in its meaning, and they overlap so easily.”

Twilight sat in silence as Minnie made her smoothie and added a shot of liquor before passing it to the pony. “So, this’ what he drank?” she asked taking a sip and letting a grin slowly form. “It’s really good. What’s it called?”

“He said it’s called ‘a shot of therapy’.”

“Huh, wouldn’t it be funny if he was a therapist? Like, he was diagnosing me all this time?” she slurped her drink happily as Minnie twitched slightly, unnoticed to Twilight.

“Indeed, Twilight. That would be quite the development.”

…

Twilight walked into the arboretum and took a sniff, smiling to herself and wishing she could open one of the sealed containers and take a taste of a daisy. Each sealed with a timelock spell to keep the contents fresh and ready for implantation on the new world. She went to a container and opened it, taking in the scent, then taking the contents in her magic.

Walking to the room door she looked through the window that kept it sealed and teleported through it to the other side and then looked back at the room. A solid wall of polished steel reflected her and she smiled. The perfect place to hide a room the size of her suite full of magically stasis held plants and trees was a great idea and she was glad she’d discovered the floor plans for the section and noticed the missing area.

Taking her item she went to her suite and knocked loudly on the door with a hoof. Waiting she tapped the floor several times until the door opened to show her blue stallion friend wearing a suit jacket and dress shirt under it with a tie. “How do I look?” he asked smiling awkwardly, “I don’t wear clothes often.”

“You look dashing,” she replied and her horn glowed, revealing a scarlet dress that was covered in various types of gems and sparkled in the light. His eyes widened at the sight of the mare before him, and the box that was between her front hooves. “How do I look?”

“Umina… Hah, uh, w-wow,” he finally whispered, taking in her appearance.

“Thanks, I went to one of Rarities shops and bought this dress, for you. Oh, and I got you this,” she lifted the box in her magic and held it to him. Being an earth pony, Shining sat and grabbed the box, opening it and looking inside.

“Oh my,” he said, taking the largest rose he’d ever seen from the box and letting the box fall to the floor, “it’s so big.”

“It’s been modified genetically with human science, like most of the vegetation we’ll be planting, and I want you to have this one. The first of its kind to be smelled by ponykind… If you’re hungry,” she looked at it, then him.”

“No, this’ too special. My first special somepony gave me a flower,” he said taking it and placing it on his head, “how’s it look?”

Twilight giggled. “Silly, but it works. Let’s go get something to drink before our date,” she said turning and waiting as he left the room. She closed the door and began walking with him down the wooden hall, then turned onto the sterile hallway to the elevator.

“So, what’s the plan? I’ve got the permission to get the meal.”

“And I thought the mare always paid for the first date,” she said moving closer to him as they walked. The lights flickered again as they walked, but they ignored it as a normal happening.

“They do, when they’re not Bronze level,” he joked and bumped his flank to hers.

“Well, you’ll see what I’ve got in store at the bar, then we’ll take it from there.”

He grinned widely. “I can’t wait.”

…

Entering the bar they took their seats and Minnie placed a rectangular box in front of them. “Your gift, sir, from Twilight.”

“Oh boy! Can I open it?”

“Not yet, I’ve gotta go to the fillies room, I’ll be right back.”

“Miss, should I simply tell him what’s in the box?” Minnie winked.

“There’re no secrets between us, Minnie, he knows everything already because he’s so smart.”

Twilight dismissed herself as Minnie stared into space, calculating.

*
Twilight stood in the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She was happy, beautiful, and with a stallion she was falling in love with. Real love, not just a quick fling because she was in heat. Oh, she’d be there soon enough, too. That’s why Hearts and Hooves day was always in early spring, so mares could find a mate at the right time. And she’d found the one she wanted for the rest of her life, even if she had to turn him into an Alicorn to do it, she’d be with him forever.

“Ah, I remember a few years ago when Her Highness first told me she met you.”

Shining stopped sipping his shake and licked the foam from his lips, staring at the robot. “What?”

“She found you sleeping in your pod and spent years debating whether or not to wake you, I’m glad she did; she’s so much happier now. Happier than I’ve ever seen her.”

Twilight returned from the bathroom and stopped at the look Shining gave her. Utter shock and revulsion. “Shining?”

“It, was you? You woke me up?” he asked, trembling and leaning back from Twilight as the mare looked at Minnie, who was smiling contently.

“...Yes.”

“And, Your Highness? You’re, not just a royal assistant, or something, are you?” he looked at her in fearful awe.

Twilight’s horn glowed and her size increased, her horn grew longer, and her wings forced themselves from her dress; her change ruining it. “I, was going to tell you, Shining, I just-”

He held a hoof up to her as she scooted from his seat and backed away. “No,” he started, “I… I knew you had issues and I was helping you with them. As as therapist, it’s my job, but this? This?!” he blinked as his eyes began to brim with tears and he kept backing away. “You’re not just a damaged mare, you’re full blown mean, and petty, and you stole my life from me!” he shouted.

Twilight’s ears pinned back and she opened her mouth to say something, anything, but nothing came as he shook his head and turned to leave the bar.

“Twilight, I don’t think he took that as well as you thought.”

She felt her heart break and let out a sob as she realized she was alone again.

Coming to Terms

Twilight laid in her bed, in her suite, alone. She’d sobbed and cried for the past two days until she couldn’t cry anymore. Opening her eyes she coughed dryly and looked to the water dispenser across the room. Calling to her magic she pressed the button and began collecting some in a magic sphere before bringing it to herself and sipping it all down in one motion.

She sighed once she’d finished drinking and laid her head back down on the soft pillow and sighed. “Another day, another night… another decade alone,” she whimpered as she shut her eyes tightly.

She turned her gaze down past her legs and to the window and looked into space and wished she could cry again. Cry more. She groaned in the effort to squeeze a single tear from her eyes and finally laid her head back to the pillow in exasperation.

“What am I doing with my life?” she whispered. “All I’m doing is living in the past and the present, again. I should be thinking about the future, the world I’ll be leading and the ponies and others…” she stopped and sighed, again. Stopping herself she rolled to her belly and climbed from the pristine covers to the edge and then the floor.

Walking to the stairs she descended and looked around the second floor, it was more barren than she’d remembered. She hadn’t noticed him moving in his things and acquired items from around the ship until it was all gone. In the time she’d taken to talk with Minnie about what she’d done and how she couldn’t blame the robot, he’d cleaned out all his belongings from her suite.

He probably returned to his room, but she’d been to self absorbed to think about it until now. “Computer, Fluttershy?”

“Yes, Princess Twilight Sparkle? How can I help?”

“...Where’s Shining Armor… I mean Shining Smile?”

“Prince Shining Armor has been deceased for over one thousand years, Shining Smile is on deck 7, room 3523.”

Twilight looked at her bathroom and thanked the hologram before she cleaned herself up, used the facilities to their fullest capabilities then placed her crown upon her head.

She left her suite and made her way to Shining Smile’s quarters.

Stopping outside his door she heard the sound of music playing through the door. She raised a hoof to knock and stopped herself. Looking at her foreleg and then back to her wings she shook her head slightly. She shouldn’t lie to him anymore. No more secrets. No more being alone.

Knocking on the door softly she waited a few second and shrugged, then began to turn to walk away, then she was face to face with the stallion as he left the bathroom. Staring at him she hoped to see a smile, only to see a frown form and his brow furrow. “Are you here to put me back to sleep?”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “I was desperate and-”

“Then have a nice day,” he bowed slightly, mockingly exaggerating the next phrase, “your highness.” He walked past her and bumped her out of his way as he went to his room, opened the door, and let it shut behind him without looking back once. Twilight stared at the door in slight shock.

“No pony’s done that to me in… ever!” she huffed and walked to his door, knocking forcefully like a police officer looking for entrance. “Hey, you don’t get to leave that way!” The music turned louder and the panel blinked red for a second. “You can’t lock me out! I’m a Princess and you have to listen to me!”

The music loudened and she stomped her hoof to the floor heavily in frustration. “Fine, be that way. I’ll talk to you later,” she shouted to the door and turned away, stomping to the elevator and taking a seat. “Swimming pool,” she said to the room and waited as the doors closed. They made a hushing sound as they closed. “No, you hush! He has no reason to shut me out now, we’re all we have.”

The pressure in the elevator came in heavier than normal and Twilight’s ears popped as the lift began to move. Halfway to her floor it stopped suddenly and she was sent into the ceiling as the gravity failed just before the lift stopped. “Ouch! What the hay? Fluttershy? Why’s the elevator freaking out? It can’t be mad at me too.”

Fluttershy replied in distorted static, then silence. She wouldn’t reply to Twilight’s commands and requests. Finally Twilight went to an access panel and opened it, using her wings to hold herself steady as she worked the panel free.

“Let’s see here,” she hummed as she scanned the circuitry, “well, maybe if I redirect the power flow from the air filtration system to the lift motors I can get going again.” With a few changes to wires and a switch being toggled several times Twilight grunted as gravity resumed and she fell onto her left hind leg heavily enough to hurt, but the lift had resumed movement.

“That’s more like it,” she said standing and flexing her stressed limb as the lift moved again to her floor.

Twilight exited the lift and quickly went to the pool and jumped in, using her wings to propel herself ahead and to stop her in the middle of the pool, then she relaxed and floated to her back, her wings spread fully to hold her even so she could look at the wooden ceiling.

“What a week.”

***

Twilight panted heavily as she finished her latest lap around the concourse, ignoring the offers shops had if she’d only go in. It was her best run since, ever. She’d never had the time or desire to gallop to her best ability, and she was using it to its fullest. She slowed by a water dispenser and grabbed a cup in her magic as her legs trembled and threatened to fail her. She tossed the cup aside and placed her lips on the dispenser and began to greedily slurp her fill of purified water.

She snorted a breath in and stopped drinking to begin gulping fresh air into her lungs as she let her wings open. She regretted the action as it didn’t relieve the weight on her legs and drew more from her energy reserves than she thought they would. She let herself collapse to the floor beside the water dispenser and exhaled all the air she could before she sucked in more.

Her head spun, her vision blurred, and she felt amazing. The burning across her body, the pain in her muscles, the cold water in her belly that was nearly returning to her mouth with every deep breath. Best of all, she wasn’t thinking about anything besides her body. Not Shining Smile, the lies, the lost friendship, the lonely suite, the life she stole from him… she was lost inside her mind and her mind was clear.

She didn’t know how much time passed but she finally got up and quickly trotted to Minnie’s bar to use the bathroom. She stumbled as she walked in and saw Shining at the bar with a clear liquid in a glass in front of him. He turned to glare at her. “What’re you doing here,” he asked.

“It’s Tuesday, I get to be with Minnie on Tuesday’s.”

“It’s Wednesday,” he clarified and returned to looking into his drink.

“Oh,” she replied as she staggered to the bathroom, “I just have to pee, really bad,” she made her way out of his sight.

“You said you only peed in the shower,” he shouted at her after she’d turned the corner.

“Sir, was that necessary?” Minnie asked Shining.

He looked up from his water and stared at Minnie. “No, it wasn’t. We’ve had this talk before, you know how I feel about her.”

“I also know she’s sorry and wishes for forgiveness.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’ll think about forgiveness when we land on Calendar,” he said gulping his drink and moving from the seat. Twilight returned, looking intently at the floor beneath her forehooves as she walked towards the exit. “Forget it, you can have the day with her,” he said as he walked through the exit threshold.

Twilight looked up and inhaled to say something but the words died in her throat and only a whisper of one word escaped. “Please.”

…

Shining was trotting through the concourse, looking at the shops that were waiting for hundreds of visitors. Advertisements galore sprang out at him, it felt like. Advertising discounts for large purchases, groups, and reservations. He continued past them and made his trot down the main hall to the end waterfall. Turning around it he went back on his path to complete his modest workout.

Twilight’s voice squealed to life over the P.A. systems. “Oh, I’m sorry about that. I didn’t think it would, uhm, look, Shining. I’m sorry for waking you. I know I was selfish and petty and being self centered,” Shining looked up to the glass ceiling and around as the mare spoke, not stopping in his trot, but he grew more upset the longer she talked.

“I couldn’t be alone anymore. I spent so long alone that I was bordering on suicide when I found you, asleep in your pod. I, felt something I hadn’t felt for a very long time,” she giggled briefly, “and your name reminded me of my brother. He was the captain of the royal guard back before I first got my wings.

“He was, and always will be, my first best friend… and many others have come and gone. I’ve wielded the elements of harmony with some, fought the Solani with others… and others I’ve been in love with, foolish flings or lifelong affairs. The four years I spent with you, reading to you, sleeping beside you, telling you about my life, I felt that friendship again.

“I didn’t want to wake you up, but I didn’t want to be alone, either. I needed to wake up, and I still haven’t, I guess, in a way. I had to think of the future of the new world, and an insane pony princess wouldn’t have been a good thing. I mean-” she stopped when she looked into a security monitor at him shouting. Flipping a switch she gasped.

“-ole my career! You stole my family and future and money! You ended my family line! I had a dozen names chosen for a child and now they’re worthless! I was something back home, now I’m nothing! I’ll be ashes in space decades before we get there, you…” he fell to his haunches and she could see tears falling to the floor.

“Shining, I know you might not want to talk to me now, but think it over. We can still be friends, uh, distant acquaintances at the worst, right? We haven’t really talked out a plan about anything besides who gets Minnie on which day, but we need more than that, we can’t be alone, can we?”

He looked around and found a camera pod attached to a wall and glared into it. “I was a therapist, I can manage better than you ever could!”

“Oh, I, guess I never asked what you did-”

“That’s because you’re a selfish… you know what, nevermind,” he stood and wiped his eyes before he walked away.

“But, we can talk this out now! You’re a listener, I’m a talker, it’s the perfect base for a friendship.”

“A friendship based on lies and deceit is doomed to fail, Princess. Even you know that.”

She placed her hooves on the console before her and looked intently into another monitor that he was approaching. “Shining, we can start over. I’ll tell you everything from the start and won’t lie to you. I’d even be willing to make you an Alicorn so we can-”

“Live the rest of eternity in a lie?!” he shouted, “With you in the back of my mind as the cause for my eternal torment? Never, I’d spend a year in my room drinking my own-”

Twilight cut the communication off and slumped back into the chair and swiveled it away. “I can fix this, I have to. Starlight Glimmer may be the Princess of Magic now, but I’m still the Princess of Friendship, and I have a standard to uphold. Please, let me fix this,” she squeezed her eyes shut and took a calming breath.

…

Twilight called upon her magic and scanned the floors going down the main concourse, following the fiber optic wiring, power conduits, waste and water pipes, and other technology that was needed to make the ship operate, until she found a large open space where the technology wasn’t crossing over itself in controlled chaos.

“Right here,” she said, marking the spot with a small divot before she left.

…

Twilight slept comfortably in her suite, her bed messy and covered with papers and plans of what she was planning when she felt a presence watching her. She opened her eyes quickly and turned her neck to look to the right and she saw Shining glaring at her.

Without a word they stayed still for a moment before he lifted something and threw it at Twilight. She gasped and screamed as ice water splashed across her, and everything else around her, soaking the mare and bed. He jumped on the bed and pushed her down with his forelegs. “I hope this helps you wake up!” he shouted as she blinked her eyes clear.

He raised a hoof and brought it down quickly and nearly struck her, but he stopped himself. Grunting in frustration he climbed from the bed and went down the stairs, leaving a wet mare in a damp bed. Twilight lay back down and looked at the ceiling, shivering slightly as ice melted between her body and the bed sheets, and felt nothing.

She was emotionally dry and her heart was done aching for him. If she only got to see him when he lashed out, it would be enough.

…

Shining passed Twilight during one of his morning trots and glanced at the mare as she carefully tore a hole in the concourses floor and he rolled his eyes, taking a wide berth around the mare and her doings.

She glanced up at him as he passed by her and then looked back at the opening she was making and focused on her work.

…

Twilight knocked on Shining’s door and rocked side to side, waiting. She knocked again and waited and finally the door hissed open. “I have a gift for you,” she said before he could shout at her. His ears unpinned from his head and moved to face Twilight as his features relaxed slightly.

“I haven’t seen you in three weeks and now this?” he sighed. “What do you want for it?”

“Nothing, just, to give it to you.”

He stared at her. “Fine, give it to me,” he finally said and looked at her hooves.

“It’s by the bar, I left it there for you, you can get it whenever you’re ready.”

“Wait, so you got me something I can’t even have right now?” he asked incredulously as she turned and walked away, a smile forming on her lips. “What a generous gift, your highness,” he snorted and the door hissed shut.

Twilight kept walking and went to the elevator, then the bar, and waited.

An hour passed before the elevator doors chimed and the doors slid open to reveal the blue stallion. He took a few steps past the waterfall and stopped, exhaling deeply at what he saw.

Twilight appeared behind him with a smile. “It’s a willow tree, a few years old when it was put in stasis but it’ll be nice and big in a few years and you can read under it whenever you want and I won’t bother you, I promise.”

He went to the tree and sniffed it, looked it up and down, then moved under it to a tablet lying on the floor. He could feel the soil beneath the metal and he smiled to Twilight for the first time in nearly two months. “Thank you,” he said quietly and moved under the tree, laid down, took the tablet in his hooves and began to look it over.

“I’ll, see you later?”

He didn’t reply or acknowledge her, but she felt better and less empty, and happy.

…

Twilight nuzzled Shining in her bed and hummed contently as she pulled him closer to her and pressed her lips to his, pillow? She woke up and sighed in exasperation. “This’ the second night I’ve dreamed of him,” she whined as she pushed the pillow he’d slept on away and rolled over, “I swear, if I fall in love with him I’ll never forgive myself.

“But, what if he loves me? Or likes me? I haven’t seen him for three days, since I gave him the tree, what if he’s dreaming of me too? Like, right now?” she let a hopeful grin cross her muzzle as she sank as deep as she could into her large, empty bed. “I think, I need to relax before I go to sleep,” she giggled to herself as she pulled the pillow she’d pushed away close again.

***

Twilight woke up bright and refreshed to the sound of the P.A. system announcing something. She hummed and smiled as she nuzzled her pillow, then her ears twitched and she sat up quickly.

“Whoever put a tree on my ship had better have a good reason,” the new female voice rumbled. Twilight fought from her covers and fell from the bed, a tangled mess of sheets and blankets. She grunted and teleported free with a yelp as she began to fall from the third floor terrace to the floor below. Opening her wings and flapping she stopped herself before she impacted and flew to the door.

With a thud she burst through the door and landed, entered into a full gallop to the elevator, and slid into the small room, shouting the floor she needed to get to.

Twilight didn’t sit, choosing to hop on her hoof tips in anticipation as the elevator moved at its seeming slower than usual pace to the concourse.

The elevator stopped early and the doors opened to show a very surprised Shining Smile with a very messy mane. He entered the elevator and the doors sealed the two in the most awkward silence Twilight could remember since she was just a little unicorn. The elevator chimed and the doors hissed open, both ponies moving out in unison and rushing to the tree.

They both stopped as they took in a six foot tall minotaur. Blue skin, black fur, and horns that were polished so well they nearly reflected the tree she was staring at. “What’s the meaning of this?” she pointed at the tree before turning to look at the ponies. Taking in Twilight she fell to her knees in prostration.

“Get up! Who are you, are the others awake?!” Twilight asked loudly as she galloped to the bowing minotaur.

Standing at a quick pace the minotaur shook her head. “Lieutenant Sub-Commander Regina, Alotta, Tech division.”

Shining burst into laughter and earned a glare from both females. “It’s nice to meet you, Alotta,” Twilight raised a hoof in greeting and smiled as Alotta shook it gently. “The tree is here because we needed it,” she glazed over some details, “and now you’re awake so where’s the rest of the crew?” she asked happily.

“I’m the only one awake, my pod had an error and woke me up early. I didn’t expect to find you, Your Highness, or a tree. What’s been going on since we left? You’re supposed to be asleep, both of you, all of us.”

Shining stopped laughing at Twilight’s glare and frowned at her in return. “Look, she woke up and then I did, and now you’re awake. We’ve got a long way to go, too, so welcome to the party,” Shining huffed and crossed his forelegs.

“That’s not an answer I’m alright with,” Alotta said turning to the elevator, “come with me.”

They quietly rode the elevator to the command ring and exited to the sight of a mess of screwdrivers scattered around the area. Alotta looked back to Twilight and then Shining before walking out into the hall and walking past the spent equipment. “I was wondering what all this was about.”

“Yeah, we tried to get into the command center or the command sleeping pods, but it’s sealed really well.”

“Human’s don’t take chances,” she said stepping over a large industrial drill and leading the ponies, “they wanted to make sure the command crew woke up if we were needed and the ship would be safe from anything and everything that would or could harm it or its crew. The fact you’re awake tells me there’s something very wrong.”

They made it to the command door and Alotta waved her wrist before the panel and the door opened, just like any other. Twilight’s eye twitched as Shining patted her on the side before he walked past her and inside.

“Don’t touch anything,” Alotta said as she walked into the command room. A sterile white room with windows around every other side, a large table glowed in the center of a lowered platform while another, smaller, table of the same style a few lengths inside the doorway. Twilight reached to touch the smaller table and an alarm blared.

“Dude! Don’t touch the merchandise!” Rainbow’s voice called out. Twilight blushed slightly and relaxed her foreleg from her chest as Alotta and Shining looked pointedly at her.

“Computer, system diagnostics?” Alotta asked the larger table.

“Hey, I dunno what’s going on here, but it’s not my fault!”

Alotta frowned and looked at Twilight. “This is the hero, the greatest pegasi commander, of Equestria?”

“The voice is Rainbow Dash, and in her life she accomplished a lot, so it was logical, to the programmers, to have her as the command interface. Not me,” she pointed out.

“Whatever, there’s no display so there’s gotta be something wrong with the diagnostics systems. We need to reboot the system,” Alotta said with a heavy cough, “excuse me for that. On each deck there’s a panel by the floor marked with a serial number ending with the deck number and a corresponding letter on the wall nearest the elevator, open it and connect this,” she took a tablet from a nearby cubby that blended into the wall, “and plug it in, then get back here.”

Twilight and Shining nodded, taking a tablet each and moving to the doorway. “While you’re doing that, I’ll check your pods.” Twilight and Shining kept moving, slightly more nervous and anxious of each other.

…

Twilight appeared behind Alotta as she looked intently at the circuitry of Shining’s pod. “Your pod just opened, woke you up early. This pod,” she paused to cough into her hand and wipe it on her leg, “does he know you sabotaged it?”

Twilight moved the tablet from her magic to the minotaur. “Yes, that’s why I planted the tree. We’re still over a century and a quarter from Calandar, I needed him to be my friend, even if it was in the smallest way.

Alotta groaned and shook her head. “Damn. How far did you two take it?”

“I kissed him once, on his birthday.”

“That’s it? I’d have ridden him like a bucking bronco,” Alotta grinned widely as Twilight suddenly frowned and lowered her head. “That’s what I thought, you like him, don’t you?”

Twilight’s demeanor changed and she took a step back in surprise. “Uh, I, uh.”

“Well said, for a princess. I won’t tell him, and sorry about that a second ago… unless you wanna share?” Alotta laughed loudly at Twilight’s baffled expression and her wings popping open as naughty thoughts filled her mind.

“N-no! He’s mine, I mean, he’s not mine but- Stop teasing me, let’s find out what’s wrong.”

…

The table lit up and an image of the ship appeared, red warning boxes filled the air around the ship with lines connecting where the problems were. “Well, this sucks,” Alotta mumbled as she took in the nearly ship wide alerts.

“What they hay?” Shining whispered at the alerts.

“The whole ship is in trouble, isn’t it? Computer, what’s happened?” Twilight asked.

“She won’t respond to you, Your Highness, your access is too low. Computer, what happened to cause all this?” Alotta asked.

The image changed to a bar graph with a high spike on it. “So, there was something that happened and the shields were all boosted up and then stuff started to go all wonky.”

Alotta looked at the spike and tapped it, expanding it. “Pod Princess 4 activated when the event happened,” she looked at Twilight and then back to the display. Pinching her fingers on the bar it shrank down and the other errors began to show in order. “Something’s been causing errors and making the system work harder and harder to compensate whatever’s causing the problem.”

“So, just ask the computer what happened and fix it,” Shining advised.

“Not that simple. The event changed the workings of the self repair, so that means,” Alotta coughed roughly, “we have to find and repair the problem ourselves,” she managed to say before falling to a knee and supporting herself on the table with another coughing fit.

“Alotta, you’re not well, what’s wrong?”

“I… don’t know,” she replied as she clutched her chest and rasping a deep breath, “I, need to rest, give me until this evening.” She stood and walked proudly to the door and after it opened she looked back. “I’ll be right back, relax and have some time, we’re going to be busy soon and I don’t know for how long.”

Twilight looked at Shining who began walking to the door. “Shining-”

“I’ll be under my tree, resting as well.”

Twilight closed her mouth and nodded once to the stallion who didn’t look back once as he followed the minotaur out of the room. Alone, Twilight turned back to the table and ran a hoof along the surface. “I miss the old days of you sending me and my friends on little missions, what do I do now? Now that everything feels wrong?”

She looked at the table, waiting some kind of reply. “Computer,” Twilight called out.

“Yeah, what’s up?” Rainbow’s voice replied.

“I’d… like to upgrade to Princess Diamond Level.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. What’s the password?”

“Princess Twilight Sparkle, code Harmonic 6.”

“Oh, my bad! You’ll be upgraded as soon as the Ship Commander gives approval for pass level increase, thanks for flying Air Dash.”

Twilight facehoofed and groaned. “Of course I need security to give me access to a higher level, human security protocols.” She turned to leave and relax as well.

Hours later Twilight was swimming in the pool, her wings gone as she had realized she enjoyed swimming as a unicorn. Shining was reading under the tree, a hushed rustling of the leaves drew his attention up as that rarely happened before he yawned and laid his head down and quickly fell asleep.

Alotta was deeply asleep, breathing raspily, in her quarters.

As Gravity failed.

Twilight was hovering underwater, remembering when she was young and imagined what it was like to float in the sky. Something she didn’t think was possible at the time. She held still, holding her breath as she relaxed and let her mind flow like a steady river. An ache was barely noticeable in her chest but it was a tell she knew from decades of training.

Flexing her muscles she flapped her wings and stayed still, a smirk formed on the side of her mouth as she remembered she’d taken her wings away. She kept her eyes closed and began the task of swimming up, after several stroked of her hooves against the water she opened her eyes as she wondered why she hadn’t broken the surface yet.

Holding in a gasp she looked ahead to a distorted world, the room seemingly tossed into a convex lense moving down she realized she was trapped in a bubble of water. Panicking at the thought of her water droplet solidifying into a ball of ice in space she felt the ache in her chest pulse as she needed a single gulp of air.

Casting the spell to return her wings she flapped them as hard as she could to escape, only to cause the water around her to spin and begin to pull her into a dizzying spiral within. She tried a teleport spell, only to appear in a growing bubble nearby. Exhaling and gasping in a quarter breath of air she was pulled to the center of the new drop of water.

Thrashing in a primal panic she exhaled most of her air in a scream for help as she watched the room around her spinning in every direction, just as she was. She felt the ache in her chest worse than before and realized that she was still a pony, and needed air and food to live. Her thrashing and the last of her air escaped in the panic of her mind as she grabbed for anything with her magic, only to pull more water closer to her from outside.

As a red darkness enclosed upon her vision from the outside in, her only rational thoughts were of Shining Smile, before she put herself into a deep meditative sleep with a last second spell.

***

Shining woke up as something brushed across his whole body. He chuckled to see he was in the tree and he knew the feeling of gravity loss. “Stupid ship,” he said as he began to pull himself to the floor before the gravity resumed and he tumbled and hurt himself. Holding the trunk at the base he sat and waited, looking around the area and noticing a few garments trying to float free of their stands and an errant bottle of some alcohol hovering out of Minnie’s.

Gravity resumed several minutes later and a lot of clattering and smashing of bottles filled his ears. He smiled and quickly trotted from under the tree with pride. “Not hurt at-” he grunted at the tablet fell onto his head with a clack against his thick skull. “-all. Ouch.”

***

Gravity resumed and Alotta fell to the floor of her quarters with a heavy thud and an exhale as the wind was knocked from her. She rolled to her chest and pushed herself up, listing as she held her head, and asked the computer a system update.

***

Twilight woke as her body hit the poolside, a wave of water splashing over her causing her to gasp in air and vomit water the next second. Her chest ached and her head hurt, she took note of her brush with death and moved her wings first. Standing she shook dry and coughed more water from her lungs as air replaced the liquid for dominance.

She shook her bleary head and stumbled to the side, falling over and screeching as she toppled back into the pool. She cursed and favored gravity at the same moment as she splashed into the water and quickly fought the weight, gasping for air and pony paddling for surface. Until her back hooves made contact with the bottom and she stood up quickly.

Blushing slightly she looked at the water in the shallow end that was up to her knees and cleared her throat, mucous filler her mouth and she spat into the water, stood tall, and began to walk as regally as she could from the significantly shallower pool.

Trotting from the pool room she shook dry again and made her way quickly to the elevators, savoring the air as she splashed through water that had filled most of the halls.

“Command deck,” she called as she entered the elevator with caution. The elevator stopped on the concourse level and Shining entered, rubbing the top of his head.

“Rub all you want, you won’t get a horn that way,” Twilight mused through her chest pains. Shining rolled his eyes and took a seat a space apart from Twilight and looked out the window into open space for the duration of their trip.

Alotta was waiting for the duo in the command room. Her color slightly lighter than it was before she went to bed. “What happened was gravity failed,” she said as the two entered and she waved her hands over the table, moving through graphs and analysis before she stopped. “I, am sick,” she said to Twilight, “but I shouldn’t be.”

“You woke up, too. Maybe you’re just adapting differently than us ponies,” Twilight suggested as her horn alit and she scanned the minotaur. She hummed. “I think you should see the doctor, er, medical bot.”

“Didn’t you blow it up?” Shining asked.

“Oh, well, there’s still the autodoc,” she suggested as she moved beside the minotaur. “Hop on, I’ll walk you there, there is something wrong with you, but I’m only a doctor for ponies.”

“Of course you are, Princess,” Alotta said pushing the mare aside, “but I’m well enough to walk. Let’s go to the medbay and fix me up.”

Moving as quickly as they could they made their way to the medbay. The elevators seemed to move slower and their hooves seemed to weigh more as they went on. When they got to the medbay they were all breathing heavier, but moved to the next room. “Just climb in and tell me what to push,” Shining said moving by the control panel.

“Just press scan and don’t touch anything else, the machine will let us know what’s wrong,” she rasped as the machine rotated a clear door open. She walked inside and the device rolled sideways, lying her on her back. Shining pressed a green circle on the pad and the machine came to life. With a bright light flash to start, it began sending thin lines across the minotaur’s body, then it stopped. “What’s it say?”

Twilight and Shining looked at the screen in silence until Shining spoke. “That’s, a lot of red. Is that good or bad?”

Alotta tapped a button on the inside of the autodoc and the door opened. She swung sideways and rolled from the bed to her hooves and walked to the panel that was designed to face away from the patient, and sighed. “Yeah, that’s a lot of bad red. Doctor, what’s wrong with me?”

“I’m sorry,” a female voice came over the system, “but only authorized medical personnel are allowed to talk about your conditions or diagnosis with you. Please wait for the doctor to return.”

Alotta grunted, snorted steam from her nostrils, then waved her bracelet by the console. “Override Command Authority 5308, Alotta Regina.” Shining snickered.

“Grow up, shining,” Twilight commented as the computer confirmed his authorization.

“Patient has seventy three ailments that cannot be treated before the patient’s life functions cease. Treatment is not possible without medical team present.”

They fell silent. “How long do I have until I die?” Alotta asked somberly.

A click to their left got their attention as a machine dispensed three tablets. “These will aid with the pain you experience during the next few hours.”

They looked at the medicine in the dispenser for a while before Alotta turned and left the room. “I’ll be in observation room B2 in two hours, meet me there.”

The ponies didn’t know what to say to the dying minotaur as she left them. Twilight felt Shining lean against her and she tensed at the contact. She looked back to see him holding back tears. “You’ve, never seen death, have you?” she asked him.

“No, it’s something we’re taught about. We all know it happens and that it isn’t pleasant. But, we do the best we can with our lives to make it meaningful… it’s not something one is ready for, I guess.”

“No, and it’s never easy. It never gets easier to know death, especially of those you care about,” she said draping a wing across the stallion, “but I’ll be here for you and Alotta through it all. Let’s just go to the observation room to wait for her, okay?” Twilight said softly as Shining nodded and nuzzled Twilight’s side, partly to dry his eyes.

“Yeah, I like that idea. Let’s go.”

…

Alotta walked slowly into the observation room and smiled slowly, weakly. Wearing a dress uniform she seemed to have pride she hadn’t had earlier. Each step seemed to be more of an effort then the last. She looked at Twilight and then Shining and nodded to them and the bunch of flowers they had gathered and placed in the center of the window looking into space. She sat in a chair closest to the window and looked at the stars as they moved slowly by in the distance.

“I joined the mission because I wanted to go down in history as one of the guides to the new world. The new future for all the creatures of Equus and Earth alike. My family is already setup for generations whether we make it or not,” she chuckled, “and with you I know we’ll all make it. The problem is in engineering, but I didn’t have time to figure out what exactly.

“Here,” she whispered as she took her bracelet off and passed it to Shining, “this will, get you access, to the ship. I’ve raised Princess Twilight’s access level to the same,” she handed the item to Shining and turned slowly to look at Twilight, who was holding her hoof up and looking at her bracelet. “It’s the least I could do,” she rasped a quiet laugh.

Twilight leaned in to hug the minotaur and Shining did the same. A hug from both sides was something the minotaur had never experienced and it was a nice experience. “Thank you… I,” she chuckled, “really should have taken the medicine. Do, I look, good at least?”

Shining sniffled and let her go. “I think you look amazing.”

“Stallions… love… the… uniform,” she whispered as her last breath left her and she slumped in Twilight’s embrace. Twilight sniffled and rested the minotaur back into her seat, making sure to sit her upright. Twilight stood and walked over to Shining and hugged him. They both let each other cry with the other as the flowers by the window tipped over.

Resolutions

Twilight stood over the table in the command room while Shining sat beside her and looked at the display of the ship, most of it blacked out as the power was being funneled through the ship to other imperative locations. “Shining?”

“Yes, Princess?”

“Call me Twilight, please,” she asked softly as she followed the power, “it’s being shunted.”

“What is?”

“The reason Alotta woke up was the power fluctuated through the command ring and her pod was the one that was affected. All the pods are interlinked into the power network relay systems with their own power supply if the power fails. Common stuff,” she waved her hoof dismissively, “but there was a short in her pod that made it switch to backup power at random after the systems began to fail, waking parts of her body in random order.

“The reason she died was because parts of her were older than others…”

“That’s, awful,” he said leaning against her again and feeling the loss of the minotaur again, “such a terrible way to die.”

“Yes, but that’s not what I’m getting at. There’s more to my reference, the whole ship has these systems installed across it and they’re all switching on and off.”

“Oh no! The crew?!”

“No, they have their own constant power supply in the level that runs with it’s own thaumic generator powered by the aether itself. There’s no way it’ll fail,” her ear twitched as he sighed, “they’d survive in hypersleep for the next million years, I think,” she shrugged enough to make him move off her as she followed the power conduits.

“So, what’s the big deal? They’ll be fine then?”

“No, the power’s going to the rear of the ship. Power’s being moved to keep us alive at the cost of other systems, and it’s getting worse. At the rate it’s going the ship may fall out of FTL.”

“So, that’s not so bad,” he said hopping to the table and looked over the ship diagram.

“Without going through the shutdown protocols? We’ll be turned to space dust covering half a lightyear. We’d be dead before we knew it and no pony would know for centuries what happened to us. All of us, every pony, Diamond Dog, minotaur on this ship, not to mention the other creatures in hypersleep and plants… the bacteria we’re carrying: Everything plays a role on this mission, and this ships loss…”

They fell silent as they watched a part of the ship blink out before them.

“Twilight, we have to fix this… now.”

“Yes, we do,” she said opening her wings and straightening her back, “we have to go through engineering and find what’s wrong.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because, everything is processed through the rear of the ship. Waste, propulsion, energy conversion. It’s all done back there, and that’s where the power’s going in the largest quantities.”

“I… don’t know anything about electronics or machinery, Twilight. What help can I be?”

Twilight thought for a moment. “Well, you can push buttons and pull levers. Everypony is useful,” she said stoically, “every one.” Shining looked to Twilight with clinical interest for a moment before she wrapped a wing over him and pulled him close. “We’re all useful, right?”

“Of course, Twilight. We’re all needed, like I need you.”

She turned to nuzzle him and sniffled. “Thank you, Shining. I missed you so much.”

“Hey, you’re not totally forgiven yet,” he pushed away and she let him go, looking at him she was at a loss for words. “You still have a few years of silent treatment coming your way.”

Twilight chuckled at his comment and he let a laugh out. She leapt and tackled him to the floor and hugged him tightly, pressing her body to his. “Okay, I’ll apologize everyday until you forgive me,” she nuzzled him as he wheezed from her larger body size pressing on him, “starting after we fix the ship.”

She got off him and moved on as he rolled to his belly. “I’m right behind you,” he said pushing himself up, grinning widely.

…

They arrived in engineering and exited the elevator taking several steps ahead and looking at the heavy blast doors that sealed the area off from unauthorized personnel. They felt as though they were wearing saddlebags loaded with bricks. “So, do we knock, or...?”

Twilight pointed to the bracelet that was now wrapped around Shining’s right foreleg. He rolled his eyes at the irony and moved to a panel. The door hissed and opened enough for a single creature to move through. “You go first,” Twilight said and waited for him to go through. The door hissed closed and she smiled as he yelled her name. She waved her hoof by the pad and it hissed open and she went through the door to a tight hug.

“Shining, this’ the most secure area of the ship: No more than one enters at a time, that’s why the engineering crew is sealed inside.”

He let her go and frowned at her. “You just wanted to use your pass, didn’t you?” She smiled slightly and hugged him.

“I’m sorry, if it didn’t work you would’ve just opened the door from this side, right?”

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t have hugged you.”

She let him go and looked at the platform they were on then the railing at the end. She moved to the edge and gawked at the sight of the engineering floor. Three square miles of packed piping, tubing, machinery, and power storage devices that held enough energy to power everything on the homeworld for the next ten thousand years.

“Where do we start?” Shining asked. Twilight shrugged and looked around the sight.

“This’ only the first level. There are five levels just like this one, more or less. The power is being diverted here, so let’s find the main power terminal and see what’s going on. Maybe it’ll shed more light on the situation. It’s that way, I think.”

Twilight led him down several walkways and through several rooms until they got to the door to the room. “They locked the door?” she asked idly. “Command override, open the door, code Harmonic Six.”

The light over the panel blinked red then green and the door hissed open sucking in a gust of air that nearly pulled her in before it balanced, some. Lowering her wings she used her magic to force the doors open and stepped inside, followed by Shining. “What happened?” he asked.

“The gravity’s so heavy here that it’s imbalancing the air flow,” she inhaled a heavy breath. I don’t know how long it’ll be until it gets too hard to breathe, let’s go ahead and I’ll keep an eye on you.”

“Yeah, likewise,” he replied as they entered the room and looked around. The terminals were flickering on and off as she approached and tapped them.

“The power surge is affecting the systems here, too. There’re stairs behind that door, let’s see if there’s another terminal down there,” she moved to the panel and raised her hoof.

“Wait!” she stopped and looked at him, “if the air sucked us in a little here, what’s gonna happen when we open that door? What’s gonna happen?”

Twilight blinked at him and lowered her hoof back to the floor. “We need space suits.”

***

Opening the door to the stairs they were nearly pulled down the corridor leading to them as air tried to balance itself. The doors shut as Twilight pressed the panel with her magic and the suction stopped. “You’re a genius, Shining.”

“You’re wise for listening to me,” he replied as they looked down the hallway through their helmets to the stairs at the end and several sealed doors along the way. “Do you wanna explore?”

“No, this has to be priority, we have to find out what’s wrong.”

Shining took the lead and led them down the stairs to the next set of terminals. Twilight approached them and with a tap they were brought to life. Words in languages Shining didn’t know scrolled across the screens and he looked at Twilight as she read what scrolled by.

“Oh no,” she whispered to herself, but it went through the helmet communications system to Shining. He stayed silent. “There’s a fault in the engines, something happened to them and they can’t self repair for some reason, so they’ve been channeling more power to them to correct whatever the problem is. We have to get to the core.”

She turned and bumped into Shining and looked through the system diagnostics and atmospheric detection systems displayed inside her helmet to the pony that stood two heads shorter than her and blushed as he returned her gaze. She turned away finally and moved to the door at the far end of the room and opened it. There wasn’t a sucking of air, but the alert that there was none in the rooms ahead. The weight on their bodies made them feel as though they were carrying twice their weight, yet they trudged on.

The way was clear the whole way with dust a millimeter deep laid across the floor the whole way that puffed as they stepped through it. He looked back and saw their path as they walked and began to think idly to pass the time and take his mind off the weight on his legs. “Twilight, it’s getting so hard to move.”

“I know, but we’ll fix it soon and then you’ll feel like you’re walking on clouds.”

Several corridors they passed through until they came to a lift and entered it. “Is this a good idea? With the gravity being so heavy?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight responded as she pressed a button, “but I can’t teleport very far with this weight on me, us. So we have to take the chances as they come and adapt as we can.”

He nodded and sat as the lift began to descend. It ground slightly as it moved, but made the trip all the same. He was the first off and glad to be on solid ground again once they stopped at the engine level. The weight almost made him fall to his belly as it pulled on him. Twilight left the lift and staggered as she moved ahead to the blast doors and moved to open them.

The door buzzed and ground barely open enough for her to fit through if she’d not been wearing a spacesuit. She inhaled deeply and used her magic to bring Shining to her side and she looked intently at a spot just inside the doors and teleported through the doors. Barely making it inside she and Shining collapsed to the floor and looked back at the door that they barely passed through.

“That was too close,” she said as she forced herself up and looked around the room. “The control room’s here, the engine’s in the next room. Let’s go,” she said as she lifted him and moved her way to the doors to the next room. They opened easily and she winced at the heat that washed over her while Shining shouted in surprise and tried to get away to no avail.

“It’s hot, Twilight! Even through my suit, it shouldn’t be this hot.”

“I know,” she said as sweat began to form on her brow. “The engines are failing, that’s what the console read. There’s a fault in the gravity plating that started when the ship struck something, maybe a meteor or grazed an asteroid? It doesn’t know, but it woke me up and it’s been failing more and more ever since. The weight is pulling the engines out of alignment,” she panted as she walked in further and looked at the engine core through heavy glass, “and the systems are trying to keep them aligned.”

“So,” he panted, “the gravity is breaking the engines? That doesn’t make sense to me.”

“Science often confuses ponies,” she chuckled, “I’ll explain it to you later. Just, pulling that lever should reset the engines in sequence and keep us at FTL while balancing the power flow again. Once the flow is balanced the systems will begin to self repair and we’ll be home free,” she said happily.

Walking to console near the window she reached and gripped the lever. “So, that’s gonna fix everything? Just, pull a lever?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Kinda, I dunno, anticlamatic… I was expecting something more.”

“Well, life isn’t like a book or movie. It’s sometimes as easy as pulling a lever,” she said pulling down.

There was a low hum and grinding sound. The engine core flashed blue and then green just before gravity stabilized and she breathed easier and let him go to the floor. They breathed a sigh of relief as they moved more freely, the weight of their bodies freed. “So, now what?”

“Now, we go get a drink at Minnie’s,” Twilight said turning away from the handle and problems.

“I guess, after a shower. I’m really sweaty in here,” he said tapping his suit and looking at the engine. “Is it supposed to do that?”

Twilight exhaled shortly and lowered her head. “I don’t think so, whatever it is,” she said turning around and looking at the engine core. “You’re getting your little adventure after all.”

The core was crackling with fire and electricity, dancing across its spherical shell as arcs of plasma formed and fell back to itself.

“That looks like a star.”

Twilight stood beside him and nodded. “Don’t tell anypony, ever, but it is a star. It’s how we power the ship engines, humans created an artificial star to power them. They’re the most inventive species ever, but not without faults. Ponies used magic to confine the star and minotaurs used their technology to distribute the power.

“Together it was supposed to be the ultimate, eternal, power source. The problem with stars, is gravity.”

“Gravity?” he asked, sweating still.

“They make their own. The room in there is supposed to project an antigravity field equal to the gravity the star is producing so that there’s a balance of weight. If the gravity fails on either side the engines fail. That’s why the power’s been channeling here, the core’s losing anti-gravity power.”

“So, just balance it out. You can do that, right?”

“No, each system is proprietary to their races. The star is collapsing, that’s human tech, not pony.”

“So, what do we do, then?! Just wait while it collapses and we fall out of FTL?”

“No, it’ll turn into a black hole and suck most of the ship into itself before it evaporates. The rest of the ship will be turned to space dust from moving faster than light to standard space speeds in less than a minute.”

“So, what the hell do we do?! I can’t die before I’m supposed to die!”

“Well,” she paused and thought for a long moment then sighed. “I don’t know how to restart a sun… let alone make one.”

He turned and quickly made his way to the consoles. “There’s gotta be something in here, anything!”

“They don’t keep that stuff accessible to us, Shining. Even if they did, it’d take a week for a team of ponies to get the basics down and the minotaurs that are trained in the matters are asleep.”

“Then do something with your princess powers! You can’t let us die all die like this!”

Twilight looked at the core again and watched the arcing plasma strings dancing across the surface. She watched for nearly half an hour while Shining tried to find anything in the computers. Her eyes widened and she snapped her head to look at him. “Shining,” she said with a happy tone.

“What?”

“We’re moving at FTL speeds! That’s the answer, well, an answer.”

He looked back to her. “An answer to what?”

“We have to open the core and expose the star to space and it’ll reset itself!”

“Twilight, I’m not a scientist, but that’s not how stars work. Even I know that.”

“No, but that doesn’t apply at these speeds. The dark energy we’re passing through is more than enough to reset the core by, essentially, washing away the extra charge. All we have to do it open the ventilation ducts for, like, ten seconds, then we’ll be set and fixed!”

He looked at her through both their helmets and stared into her hopeful eyes. “Fine, but if we die I’m never talking to you again,” he said walking past her and to the window. “So where’re the vents?”

“They’re,” she looked around the core and didn’t see anything, “wait a minute, let me check.” She tapped several commands into the control panel and read the displays and garnered an awkward smirk. “Just pull the lever against that wall for ten seconds, that’s it.”

He smiled back to her. “I guess sometimes a lever is all you need, may I?”

She nodded.

He hopped in excitement. “I never thought I’d get the chance to save everypony! Best day ever!” He pulled the lever and there was a hissing sound, but nothing happened near the core. “Did it work?” he asked several seconds later. Twilight shook her head and he pulled the lever again.

“It’s not working, the panel says the vent system is damaged and needs to be,” she lowered her head until her helmet made contact with the console, “opened manually.”

He let the lever go and panted as the heat began to dehydrate him. “So, where are we going?”

“Not we, me. The system will vent once the system is activated so I’ll just go out there, pull the whatever to open the vents, teleport back and boom, over. Then we can get drinks,” she lifted her head from the console and turned to force a smile. “Easy as apple pie.”

“Okay, so how do we open the vents? Where’s the lever?”

Twilight walked past him and opened a door against the far wall. “Outside.”

“Oh, outside. That sounds easy, wait, outside? Like, outer space, outside?”

“Eeyup.”

He looked intently at her. “There’s a couch in your suite with your name on it… let’s go there and talk about this.”

“This’ no time for jokes, Shining.”

“I’m serious! You need my help, heck, you need more than my help if you think walking around outside is a good idea to vent the power of a star!”

“Don’t raise your voice at me,” she replied back as she walked through the doorway. He followed her closely. “I’ve fought monsters and befriended the Lord of Chaos. I’ve-”

“Never actually done anything like this! It’s one thing being tethered to the ship and floating around for fun. This? Make a mistake and you’re lost!”

“Then I teleport back,” she said in a deeper tone.

“That hasn’t been working too well for you lately. Ever since we got down here your magic’s been wacky, at best.”

“It may be better now.”

“What if it’s not? What if you get sucked out into space and turned into-”

“Then I die, Shining,” she turned back to look at him with a disturbing calm, “I die and join my friends, family, lost loved ones and pets that I’ve cared for over the years,” she stood tall and if she could open her wings, she would have. “I return to all that I’ve lost, for the sake of all those beneath me.”

“What the hay are you talking about?! There’s only me that’ll ever know, that’ll ever care about your sacrifice… What would the heroes of Equestria’s third age think if you died before you finished your objective? I can’t do this!”

“I always finish what I start, it’s what I’ve always done and will die doing.”

“You’ve got issues, we’ve established that, but there’s more to this mission! If you succeed and don’t make it back, I’ll be alone for the rest of my life.”

Twilight looked down to him and slumped. “I know… I,” she paused, “I have to do this, for all those under me.”

“Under you? What about the Bronze Pass you were so proud of? The bricks of hay and oats you choked down for years. The overall world of suffering you subjected yourself to just to be one of those you rule over? You wanted to be their equals, now you want to die their queen?”

“No, Shining. It’s not like that, I have to do this. It’s what Princess Celestia would do, right?”

“Well we don’t know because we can’t just call ‘Princess Celestia’ and-”

“Yes, my little pony?”

“-expect, her… of course.”

“Princess Celestia?! How are you here? Can you help us fix the core?”

“I’m sorry, Princess Twilight Sparkle, I’m the core’s verbal interface. The core system is nearing critical mass, but I’ve been listening to your conversation and I believe in your ability to make the right choice, Twilight.”

“Why’s she voiced as Princess Celestia?” Shining asked Twilight.

“When something goes wrong with the most dangerous and important area of the ship, the most recognized and calming voice has to be the one chosen, right?” Twilight advised him. “So, you still believe in me, Princess Celestia?”

“I am programed to respond to you, Twilight, as you need me to. And right now I’m sensing the same young unicorn that was afraid of leaving Canterlot to make friends in Ponyville. That was once so insecure that she started a mob over a stuffed doll just to find a reason to write a letter to me.”

“Twilight, we should talk about that,” Shining said softly.

“The same little Alicorn that would cry into my mane when she was afraid she was going to fail her friends or the nation. You’ve always been so concerned about others’ opinions of yourself, Twilight, that you’ve rarely thought, rationally, about yourself. Time is running out. If you leave the core as it is, I estimate four days before it goes critical.

“You can spend that time living as you did back home, or you can spend it as you did when you were alone… or, my most faithful student, you can do what you postulated and live the rest of your life as you see fit. But whatever you choose, you’ll always be special in my heart and in the hearts of every creature that has crossed your path.”

“Wow, she’s really good,” Shining said aloud. Twilight looked to him and he gulped. The tears in her eyes were dripping into the helmet and she wept silently. “We should go back upstairs and take these suits off, take a little while, and talk the options over. C’mon, Twi,” he turned and started to leave. He stopped and looked back to see she was gone.

“Twilight? Where are you?” he asked loudly. Her voice crackled back through his helmet as he bound into the room they’d both been in.

“I’m outside the next set of doors. Shining, you’ve never called me ‘Twi’ before, and it helped me make up my mind.”

“Please! Don’t go, don’t die, not for me, not for us,” he called out.

“I might not die. There’s a great chance I’ll just walk back in the door.”

“How can you deflect the issue like that? This’ life or death and doesn’t need justification! Just use your magic to do this, you’re an Alicorn.”

“My magic is wacky because of the massive amount of magical energy coursing through the area. There’s more flowing around here than I’ve ever used in my life, much more than I could control. I’m opening the outer maintenance hatch now. It’s so much cooler.”

“That’s because it’s space! It’s cold and will kill you! Just, come back in and we can figure out another way!”

“Celestia was right, you were right, my friends were right. I put others’ opinions of me first. I need to do this, for me. And as a result, whatever happens, I’ll have made everyone proud, even you. Shining, I’m so sorry I lied to you, woke you, stole your life and career from you. I thought about it, but I didn’t really think about it, if that makes sense.”

“Twilight, come back. We’ll talk this out and maybe we can both go fix it, together. I don’t want to lose you, I can’t be alone for the rest of my life.”

“That’s only if I don’t make it, silly colt. I plan to come back. I’m on the surface of the ship, walking to the venting chutes.”

“Chutes? How many are there? Are you going to have to open more than one?”

“No, just the one. They’re just redundant systems that’ve failed.”

“That defeats the point of them being redundant then, doesn’t it?”

Twilight giggled through the comms. “Yeah, one of them is warped and won’t open. The other has to be open manually. It’s easy enough, Shining. All I do is press a button and get out of the chute while you pull the handle and vent the atmosphere of the star. Once that happens the dark matter and energy will flow into the vent chute and recharge the star. Just like I said it would before.

“I’m nearing the chute.”

Shining coughed dryly and walked back into the reactor observation room and to the lever. “I’m ready, because I believe in you.”

“Thank you, Shining. I know you do, and I believe in you, too. You can do this with me.”

They fell silent for a minute until Twilight broke the silence. “I’m almost to the vent. It’s more like an iris, to be honest. Once I push the button I’ll tell you and let you know when I leave the chute. You pull the lever and we hug when it’s over, okay?”

“Yeah, or what was it you said earlier? Yup?”

Twilight sighed wistfully. “Eeyup, it’s what my best friend, Applejack’s brother said, a lot. He was quite the stallion.”

“Oh?” he asked, “was he one, indeed?”

“Not like that. I rarely look at ponies that way in the first place. With him he was as large as a horse, almost. Red as the skin of an apple and his heart was a honest as-”

“Sounds like something happened,” he joked. Twilight puffed her cheeks but didn’t reply. “Were you at least close?”

“No, a friend of a friend is all he was. Nothing more. I’m at the iris. Pressing the button. Oh no,” she said in surprise over the connection.

“What? What happened?”

Twilight pressed the button twice more and the hatch opened and closed each time. “The hatch won’t stay open unless I’m pressing the button.” A klaxon alarm sounded twice and the room around the core turned yellow. “What was that?!”

“The console just lit up! I don’t know, Celestia, what’s happening?”

“Venting cycle has begun,” the voice replied to them.

“Oh horseapples…” Twilight gulped and pressed the button with her magic and backed down the chute, focusing like she hadn’t in millenia, only for the iris to swivel closed before she could get out.

“Push it and wedge something in there, there’s gotta be something, there’s always something!”

“Don’t panic, Shining. This’, gonna be okay. I can still make one heck of a shield spell and that’s from my own reserve of magic, not from the world around me. I’ll go into my overpowered mode and boost the shield, just pull the lever when I say so, I’ll be fine.”

“Fine? You’re saying you can deflect the heat of a star washing over you for ten seconds?”

“Yeah?” she responded with uncertainty.

“That’s not enough! We have to do something else, teleport back here and get something to wedge in there.”

“I can’t, Shining. I’m opposite a star, I’d be sucked into it before I reformed on the other side. I’d never make it. Shining, I’m ready, pull the lever.”

“No, i don’t believe you! It’ll kill you, the fire of a sun. C’mon, there has to be another way.”

“Shining, this’ it. Vent now or the core will go critical in the next few minutes. The safety seals were released when the venting cycle began. I didn’t know they would, but I can feel the change in power, it’s so strong. You have to pull it, now, Shining.”

“Twilight, I can’t lose you… I, have strong feelings for you, I want to tell you muzzle to muzzle.”

Twilight’s eyes glowed white as she focused the shield around herself and pressed the button with her hoof and the iris opened. She could feel the heat spike to greater than it was in the control room. “I feel the same way, Shining. Pull the lever and I’ll tell you when I get back in.”

Shutting his eyes tightly he leaned and pulled the lever down and held it as a whooshing sound filled the area.

Twilight screamed as the fire of a white dwarf washed past her and down the chute, out into space. The heat wasn’t abated by the shield and she could feel herself beginning to sweat profusely inside her suit. Each breath she exhaled threatened to blind her vision with fog on the inside of her helmet.

She grunted and panted as seconds passed. She whined as her eyes returned to their normal purple and her shield began to fail as her magic waned. With a whimper at the last second her boots demagnetized from the heat and as the last flame of the star sputtered out she used her magic to hold herself in place.

“It’s working, Twilight! The heats dropping and the console’s turning green again! It’s fixed, come back in! Twilight?” he waited a few seconds. “Twilight, stop messing around and come back in here.”

“I, love you, Shining,” her voice crackled through his helmet, then there was silence.

Hope

Shining scrambled through the doors to the hatch and reared, placing his hooves on the windows to look out. He didn’t see her so he called her name again with no reply.

He found the lever to open the door and pulled it running into the small airlock. The door closed and sealed behind him as he looked out into space and realized how tiny he felt compared to, he stopped his train of thought and shook his head. Pulling a lever to his right and pressing a button he opened the outer doors and took a step out. His boots hummed as they magnetized and a tether attached to his back.

His hopes spiked as he knew Twilight had to have one as well, so he just had to find his way to the chutes. He tentatively began to walk across the hull in the direction he believed they were in. Several minutes later he reached a large tube with recent scorch marks and called Twilight’s name again.

He looked down the dark chute and tried to make out a figure to no avail. He looked around the hull then into space and gasped as he saw her, floating away slowly and towards the event horizon of the FTL stream. He touched the chute and tried to get a new tether but none came to replace the one he had. With a frustrated and scared huff he made his way to the other chute, mere lengths away.

The tether detached from him and a new one attached to his suit and he leapt free of the hull, nearly. He began to poke quickly at the release mechanism for his boots as he looked up and gulped. Freed from the hull he barely kicked off with his rear hooves as he was already floating free and made his way up.

“Horseapples! I need to go that way,” he shouted as he moved away from her at an angle. He tried to run, swim, and even hop as they drifted apart. Finally he sighed and thought for a moment. He had time to think, she was still a ways away from the horizon, the blue glow barely shining off her suit.

He looked around and saw nothing to help him move. No tools, nothing to change his direction, only his tether. He turned and wrapped a foreleg around the cord and tugged slightly and began to move back to the ship. He finally landed and jumped off again, this time towards Twilight. He grinned happily as he floated to her.

The mare was a mere twenty feet away when his tether stopped him in place with a tug and began to pull him back. He cursed loudly and called Twilight’s name, hoping for a response. “I swear, if she teleported back into the ship and I’m chasing an empty suit,” he growled as he noticed the tether swinging toward him, still attached to Twilight.

He reached to grab it and caught it between his hooves with line to spare. He felt the vibrations as the suit pulled farther away and his hooves weren’t useful at holding it in place. He reached to tap his foreleg and activated the boots’ magnetic feature locking the tether to his right hoof and pulling him quickly back to his tether’s limit. With another tight tug he felt the pull and began to drift back slightly, with Twilight in tow. “Retract tether,” he said as calmly as he could and waited as he was slowly reeled back. He touched down and wrapped Twilight’s tether around his barrel with a tight knot and began to walk back to the hatch.

Once inside he pulled her to him and looked into the helmet and inhaled sharply. Twilight was in the suit, but she had burns across her face and her fur was singed badly. “I’ll fix you, I promise,” he said quickly as he closed the outer hatch and entered the ship again with the mare draped over his back.

“You have to be so large, don’t you?” he said as he made his way up the levels and through the doors to the main entrance. Waving his hoof by the panel, the door slid open quickly and he galloped through and to the elevator, dancing in place until it opened. “Medical!” he shouted as he practically jumped in.

The elevator seemed to move faster than it ever had before as he shifted Twilight’s weight on his back and faced the door, preparing to gallop once they opened. The medical bay was only a few rooms into the hall from the elevator and getting her into the autodoc would be easy enough, then he grunted as the thought of getting her out of her suit crossed his mind.

He began to think of where the release was and how to use his hooves or teeth to open her suit just as the doors hissed open. He galloped out and down the hall, into the medical bay and stopped short in the first room. He began to remove his suit and noticed a flashing light on the inside of his helmet before he removed it.

“What the-?” he stuck out his tongue and pressed the button.

“Welcome to the medical bay. Please state the nature of the medical emergency,” a hologram of a white mare wearing an old fashioned nurse hat asked him.

“We’re stuck in our suits and she was blown out into space!” he shouted quickly.

“Oh, that’s not good. Stay still,” she said calmly as the ceiling hummed and their suits opened on all the seams, “there seems to be something wrong with the medical robot, can you disrobe her and take her to the autodoc as quickly as possible?”

He took off his suit and snorted at the sudden scent in the air. It was something he’d never smelled and he didn’t really like it. He moved to Twilight and ached as the scent was coming from her. He began to pull the suit off her and nearly vomited as her charred skin peeled in spots, sticking to the suit she wore. The smell of burnt flesh and fur was almost too much for him, but he endured and scooped her naked body onto his back and quickly moved into the next room.

The autodoc opened and he pushed her in: it sealed itself once she was inside and there was a hiss of air as it sealed. A whoosh of air washed over him as the room was filled with fresh air and he took a deep breath; clearing the stench from his sinuses.

The holographic mare reappeared. “She’s badly burnt and is in need of serious medical attention. Please, state the procedure you want performed.”

“She’s the princess! Do everything to bring her back and heal her!” he shouted at the mare.

“Please enter authorization.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?! What do I need authorization for, she’s dying!”

“The medical procedure is risky and expensive in terms of our limited supply of medicine she’ll need. Please enter authorization.”

He shouted and lifted his right hoof. “Here, now do it!”

“Passcode?”

He shouted and stomped the floor in frustration. “I hate this place,” he grumbled in admittance as he tried to remember. “Okay, Alotta Regina, access code 5, uh, 5-6, no, 53...08! 5308!”

The mare smiled and bowed her head. “Access code accepted, commander.” She looked to the pod as it came to life. Twilight was lifted in a magic field and hovered in the middle of the pod while arms moved from the sides of the enclosure’s bed and began to inject her with medicine. Lights rolled from the bed up to the top of the cylinder and began to dance over her body while a light mist began to form.

As Shining watched, her body was quickly healed. An alarm whistled and red lights flashed in the room. He looked up and cowered slightly. “What’s happened?”

“Her heart is failing, please wait while we resuscitate.”

Twilight’s mostly healed body laid down on her side again and micro-defibrillators attached themselves to her chest. With a deep whistling hum they charged and zapped her. Her body curled and relaxed, the whistle remained as she was zapped again. And again. A needle was injected into her chest and she was zapped for the fourth time.

Gasping and opening her eyes suddenly, she coughed. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as she tried to move her limbs. Straps appeared from the bed and held her down and a small actuated arm came up with a ring at the end and danced in line with her head, sliding the ring onto her horn. A new needle injected her and she calmed just before the light began dancing over her body again. He watched with bated breath as her flesh healed completely and the red lights turned off. “Complete,” the white mare said. “Anything else?”

“Open the thing,” he said quickly as he pranced in anxiety just inches from Twilight. The pod hissed and opened. Before it opened completely he was climbing up and on top of Twilight. “Twilight? Twi? Can you hear me?”

She exhaled quietly and smiled. Opening her eyes she turned her head to look at him. “You, saved me?”

“Heh, yeah, it’s what I do. Couldn't be alone and all that.”

“Now who’s neurotic?” she giggled as she looked into his eyes. “No stallion’s ever saved me before; I like it, but let’s not make a habit of it, okay?”

He chuckled and nuzzled her. “Deal.”

***

Twilight and Shining sat at their table in the dining hall, both smiling and talking over trays full of the best food she could get them. She held a mug of vanilla almond cappuccino in her magic as she spoke from a mouth half full of food.

He held a spoon in his grip that had was loaded with jello and he watched it wiggle and jiggle as he giggled at her story. A few minutes later they fell silent but in good spirits still as they ate. “Shining?”

“Wassup?” he asked then made a goofy face.

“There’s something I need to tell you…”

“Okay,” he asked hesitantly.

“I spent some time yesterday after you brought me back, to look at what they did to me.”

“Yeah, I remember,” he replied taking the jello to his mouth and slurping it all.

“There’s a feature called ‘hold and stay’ build in. It’s a suspended animation feature,” she told him. He swallowed and looked intently, hopefully to her. “But, only one of us can use it. Obviously it’ll be you,” she smiled softly to him.

“Uh, what?”

“You get to go back into hypersleep, of sorts. I’ll wait by your side until you wake up, all 131 years.”

“That’s, very kind of you, but I think you should go back to sleep,” he held his spoon up and glared at her quickly so she knew he wasn’t done yet, “you’re too important to our future. You can’t show up alive and insane. Obsessed over a pony in a pod. You’d lose the respect of at least two of the races there and it would affect you ability to lead for ages. For example, when I do die.”

Twilight looked at him sadly. “Shining, you’re right, but we can spent that time together when we get there and I’ll read everything I can to help me stave off insanity,” she mused.

“This isn’t a joke or up to debate. It’s you that’s going into sleep, you can’t live ages with me on your mind.”

“Really?” she challenged him and her horn lit up. With a flash she was a smaller unicorn again. “Rule of Alicorns, if you don’t have your wings you’re destined to age and die. Now we’re in the same boat and I’m not changing back until you’re in that pod.”

He dropped his spoon and glared at her, she glared back. Neither was speaking or blinking as they challenged each other without words.

Finally, one of them blinked.

Epilogue

The elevator doors opened to the concourse and they gasped at the foliage that grew wildly. Flowering vines from nearly every level of the room for a distance from the giant tree at the center that was surrounded by wild flowers and smaller trees and fresh grass growing freely, all living at their own pace under the weeping willow.

A small cottage made from paneling from the royal suite and nearby areas stood firmly at the far side of the tree. The ship’s command crew took in the sight and glanced up to see the planet they were tasked to habitate barely in view. A shining blue dot, much like the one they’d left. Approaching the cottage they were careful to not step on any flora that they could.

Looking in they took in the sight of two ponies, cuddling in eternal slumber, with a tablet at the foot of the luxury bed they rested on.

Hello to whoever found this and us. I am former Princess Twilight Sparkle and this’ my love, my being, my reason; Shining Smile. We woke up early and, after a few adventures, decided that this was the best thing for us and the future of the planet we’re heading to.

You see, I’m not fit to lead the world we’re going to. As I’ve learned, I’m a little neurotic, obsessive compulsive, controlling… and that’s not what the new world needs. It needs a calm, competent, composed ruler that doesn’t have years, ages of baggage to weigh her down.

In the medical bay you’ll find our daughter in the autodoc. Her name is Shining Sparkle. It just seemed to fit her when we saw her for the first time. She’s an adorable five year old alicorn and is as smart as I was when I was twice her age. I think it’s because her parents were really great at what we did, to be honest.

She’s not too good at magic yet and hasn't had time to practice flying, but she's great with gardening, as you can see.

She’s in need of love to replace what we can’t give her anymore, and she’s the leader you need and deserve. I’ve left several tablets full of plans for cities, infrastructure, trade agreements, and even embargo practices and rules if a settlement chooses to sequester themselves.

We came to the decision to do things this way because it’s the right thing to do, not the easiest.

Love isn’t easy, it turns out. It’s as complicated as inhabiting a new world, because you’re making a new world, in a way.

Teach our daughter magic and flight. Teach her to lead and rule rightly, truly, humbly. Make sure she knows we love her, always and forever. She’ll always do the right thing, as long as she follows her heart and, no matter what, let her know we, her father and I, lived happily and died in love with each other.

We believe in the future of the world we’re creating and know it’ll be the Shining beacon in the Twilight of space that we always knew it will be.

To our daughter:

May Luna guard you, may Celestia light your path.

May your lives be as magical as Starlight Glimmer’s and as full of love as Cadences.

May you find friendship in all places like me, and may you rule as nobly as Flurry Heart.

Above all else, live like ponies: Fun and free of the shackles of hatred and anger. Live for each other and help all the others grow with you until the day you die, as we have.

Goodbye and live well.

Following the message were photos of the two as they lived their lives. Images that stayed with the new world for the ages.

Photos of the two shaved bald and smiling, the scars adorning Twilight were barely noticeable, but still drew attention. Splashing each other in the pool. Acting out a play. Dancing in the arcade. Having birthday meals. Growing older in each photo that passed until only he remained; smiling under the willow tree and holding the magical tome that Twilight and Sunset had shared. At the end, the last photo had them holding their baby girl, wrapped in a blanket and yawning. The smile they shared while looking at her said they loved each other and their baby.

They died as they’d lived together, happily and in love.

Their daughter’s work, in the ages that came and went, was built on the love her parents had shared with her and the lessons she was taught by the pioneers that raised her to be the Alicorn of Kindness she was meant to be.

Author's Note

Thanks for reading my first sci-fi story.

Special thanks go out to Shining Smile. He let me use his OC for this story without knowing anything about it.

A couple notes for my readers.
About Shining Smile.
He's a Pegasus IRL but I took his wings away for the story because in the epilogue the baby has no experience flying and it's a good way to have the pioneers bond; by teaching the kid to fly and use magic.

About the story: it's inspired by the movie Passengers. Fantastic movie.