Strange Bedfellows

The next day, Applejack, Blink, and Rarity all rose bright and early—the sun hadn’t even come up yet—and said their goodbyes, heading out onto the trail Blink had mapped out for them.

The route passed first through a thicket, bushes and trees on either side of them. Oddly enough, as Rarity and Applejack looked the map over, they found that they weren’t staying on land—by the looks of it, they were actually passing through a huge body of water which connected Equestria to their current continent. It wasn’t long before Rarity got curious.

“Blink,” she asked. “where exactly are we going? Applejack and I were not even sure we were in Equestria anymore when we landed in those mountains.”

Blink shook his head. “You’re not, and besides, it’d take a little too long to explain— I don’t really want to bore you.”

Rarity smiled. “It’s no bore at all, Blink.”

“Yeah, ain’t like there’s much better to do,” Applejack said.

Blink sighed. “Look, the place we’re going to? It’s kind of off-the-radar. It’s pretty much the only route that won’t force you two to spend a year or more getting back home.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “I’m guessin’ that means we ain’t heard of it.”

Blink nodded. “Glow Star knows about it, but she wouldn’t be in much condition to travel there even if she had the desire. I think Celestia may know about it, but the citizens have tried their best to keep everything hidden.”

“Ah, citizens!” Rarity cried. “That must mean we’re going to a town, or a city. What is it like there, Blink? Are the ponies glamorous and sophisticated?”

Blink was silent for a few moments before answering. “I guess you could say that,” he said. “They certainly believe themselves to be higher-up than most other ponies.”

“Well then what is it, dear?” Rarity asked. “If the ponies there are high-society citizens, I must do my best to fix myself up.”

Blink shook his head. “I’d advise against that,” he said. “Just trust me. It’s not really that great a place.”

Applejack interjected. “Is that where you’re from?” she asked.

Blink nodded. “Sure am. I don’t mind telling you, since I’m pretty sure it was obvious that I wasn’t a Shetland…you two seemed to have your suspicions about me from the get-go. I’m as much a normal pony as you two.” He chuckled. “Albeit quite a bit shorter.”

Rarity smiled. “Well, I’m sure the city you come from is lovely, despite what you say. After all, you seem to have turned out well.”

Blink narrowed his eyes, turning back to look at Rarity. “That’s because I was raised a Shetland,” he said, turning back forward. “The ponies in that city are just off.”

Rarity wasn’t satisfied. “But why do you say that, Blink? Is there something wrong with the city? Does it have a name?”

Blink shook his head. “No name. I guess it never mattered much whether the city was named, considering nopony is really supposed to know about it. And as for whether something is wrong with it, well, it’s a long story, and the answer isn’t really yes or no.”

Applejack looked at him expectantly. “Well we’re listenin’” she said. “It’s a long walk, if your map’s anything to go by. A story would help to pass the time.”

Blink opened his mouth to respond, but visibly deflated. “Fine,” he said. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

“Alright, well, as far as I can remember—at least from what my parents taught me, since there was no formal schooling—the city was first erected in a time perhaps even before Celestia.” He smirked. “I don’t really believe that, considering how advanced the technology within the city is, but that’s how the story goes. Farthest back anypony can place the city’s history is about six-hundred years ago.

“In any case, there was a stallion named Fizz—an earth pony—that had been living in Equestria his entire life, but wasn’t satisfied with it. I can’t tell you what gears were misplaced in his brain, but for some reason, he felt that Equestria would never advance, never progress, because there was no strife, no pain, no suffering. He saw Equestria as little more than a nation of pansies that were ripe for the picking because they never had to deal with their own problems—Celestia did it all for them.” Blink chuckled. “Obviously he never heard about you two and the Elements of Harmony.

“Now, Fizz, despite his name, didn’t have a water-related special talent. In fact, he was a brilliant inventor, always working with different types of machinery—a practice actively discouraged, but not banned, by the Princesses. Despite multiple warnings, they couldn’t get Fizz to quit his tinkering, but neither could they throw him in the dungeons because he wasn’t hurting anypony.”

“What exactly was he working with? Why was technology frowned upon?” Rarity asked.

Blink shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you, but I can say that the technology developed into the stuff that the city’s made of. It’s all gears and cogwork—nothing I can make sense of. As far as discouragement goes, it’s probably got something to do with magic and raw being Equestria’s primary source of construction and infrastructure.

“So anyway, he finally gets fed up with the warnings and discouragements—not to mention being a bit of an outcast among his kind—and decides to start preaching his machine-gospel in town squares all over Equestria. Most ponies didn’t listen to him, but like any crazy stuff that somepony spews, a small cult eventually rose up around it. Can’t exactly remember what they were called, but they’re basically the dominant sect in the city, rather than deferring to Celestia like we do up here on the surface.”

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “That’s just crazy,” she said. “You’re telling me these ponies go around talkin’ to their clocks and stuff?”

Blink shook his head. “It goes pretty far beyond simple clocks,” he said. “But give me time—I’ll get to that.

“Well, after a little while, Fizz got together a decently-sized congregation who believed in all the stuff he was saying. I can’t say whether they were also tired of Celestia’s rule, downtrodden and needing something to believe in, or whatever, but I can tell you that they were obsessed with Fizz’s dream to the point of zealotry. They went around to every village Fizz didn’t have time to reach and preached his word, drawing more and more ponies into the fold, like a domino effect.

“Once he had around seven-hundred or so followers, Fizz started drawing up plans for a city that nopony could easily stomach, even his most devout members.”

“What was it?” Rarity asked.

“It was an underwater city, meant to be constructed in the sea separating Equestria and the continent you’re currently on.” He cleared his throat. “In any case, that was his plan—an underwater city that would be prepared and hardened against intrusion, and that would promote the advancement of machinery and free thought.”

“But there’s a difference between Equestria and a single city,” Rarity said, “not least of all in terms of numbers.”

“I’m aware,” Blink said, “but Fizz’s followers were, as you probably guessed, mixed-gender. He planned on building the city big enough to rival or flat-out beat Canterlot, which it turned out he was more than capable of. I don’t think he wanted to hurt anypony—he just wanted to forge a new life for himself and his followers.

“I’m getting off track, though. Fizz finally started to teach his group about working with his machinery, the earth ponies in particular. He showed them his schematics, had several members make copies to distribute among his flock, and had the earth ponies start building scale-model replicas to make sure they could mimic the most difficult designs at least at a miniature level.

“As far as I know, they spent at least fifty years, cycling members along the way, preparing for their journey to the bottom of the sea—the unicorns all practiced barrier magic alongside spells to let ponies breathe underwater. The pegasi all learned to build the pieces of this mechanical dome that Fizz had drawn up. The design’s way over my head, but if I remember what I was taught by my parents, its outer machinery is protected by a constantly-maintained spell that redirects the water flow into a network of pipes rather than allowing it to rust the machinery. It covers the entire city and basically helps provide purified fresh water while keeping the seawater out entirely.

“The earth ponies probably had the hardest job—engineering the actual city with Fizz’s help, then building it. I can’t imagine the pressure they were placed under, having to do something like that with the constant threat of a unicorn’s magic running dry and drowning.”

“You sure as heck wouldn’t catch me doin’ something like that,” Applejack said. “Not for anypony.”

Blink chuckled. “Yeah, me either. I’m not strong enough to do something like that anyway.” He sighed. “Anyway, by the time the group was actually ready to head into the sea with their ever-increasing collection of ponies, Fizz had gathered around twenty-one-hundred, including a few travelers from other continents.

“The journey wasn’t all that easy on them. The unicorns had to constantly keep all the other members of the group breathing with their magic, the pegasi stood the greatest chance of drowning, and the earth ponies were hauling rope and all sorts of metal parts into the deep.

“The story gets pretty foggy from there—I always assumed it was to avoid talking about which ponies bit the dust—but after nearly another hundred years, the city was finally finished in all of its glory, not figuring in the later expansions. I never got to see all of it, since it’s miles and miles wide in every direction, and the scenery makes your head spin after a while, but I can say it was impressive.”

“So what did Fizz do with this great new city?” Rarity asked. “Surely he opened up relations with Equestria?”

Blink shook his head. “No, that’s never what it was intended for. It was supposed to be self-sustaining, syphoning ocean water and converting it to fresh water—the citizens have never gone thirsty, and the area gets rained on so heavily and so frequently that they rarely have to worry about draining the ocean dry—and growing all of its own food. Far as I know, the citizens haven’t ever wanted for anything.

“All this basically means that Fizz has never had to rely on other nations, political status and haggling, and has never had to barter with the other rulers of the world. When the population grows, they just make expansions. In short, he achieved everything he could have dreamed and more.”

Rarity smiled. “Well that doesn’t sound so bad,” she said, “in fact, this city sounds like a lovely place to live.”

Blink shrugged. “There’s a lot to see there, though we’re probably not going to be stopping to see it. If I recall, there’s a massive clock tower in the center of the town—to me, it just looks like a mess of gears and hot air, but I guess it really means something to the other ponies—they all worshipped it like a god.

“There were other stories, though, and you’ll see the results of those stories once we get there—I’ll explain as best I can, but it’s pretty hard to wrap one’s head around.”

Rarity cleared her throat. “And what about Fizz? Who took over for him once he passed away?”

Blink shook his head. “Nopony. Fizz is still running the city just as much as he was six-hundred years ago.”

Applejack chuckled. “You’re playing around with us, ain’t ya?” she asked. “Ain’t nopony ever lived that long except the Princesses.”

Blink didn’t seem amused. “Fizz is different, let’s just say that. A lot of his longevity comes from his willingness to do unconventional things to stay alive. I’ve heard of him using ancient magic from the other unicorns to decrease his age, I’ve heard that his machines augment his lifespan, and I’ve heard that he drains the life-force from other ponies to fuel his.” Blink snorted. “Which is just ridiculous. Magic like that doesn’t even exist.”

Rarity sighed. “If only we had Twilight here,” she said. “I’m afraid I only know as much magic as I need to in order to get by—Twilight is practically a living magical encyclopedia.”

Blink nodded. “I should hope so, the way you two spoke about her. In any case, it’s not much of a secret that Fizz’s extended lifespan is unnatural and, judging from his appearance, I’m willing to bet machine augmentations are what got him the way he is.”

Applejack smirked. “What, is he some kinda half-pony, half machine?”

Blink shot her a look. “He is, actually. Though half-and-half is pushing it—if anything, he’s slightly more machine than pony at this point.”

Applejack’s jaw dropped. “But how could a pony do that? It ain’t natural!”

Blink shook his head. “No, it isn’t, but very little is natural down there—I guess for a mare like you, it’ll be like some kind of nightmare. Everything’s gears and augments with those ponies, constantly adding, upgrading, and changing themselves around—every single one of them.”

Rarity raised an eyebrow. “You’ve spoken quite a bit about these augmentations, but what exactly are they?”

Blink sighed. “The augmentations were something Fizz initially thought up when he started getting old, long after the city was built. How he survived before that, I have no idea, but it was only just then he started to get older. He decided he wasn’t done running things yet, I guess, and headed into his lab for a few days, or so the story goes. A few days later, he came out with a new eye that glowed like a Hearth’s Warming Eve light, one of his legs had been replaced by that grinding machinery, and his mane was completely shaven down, I guess to make his head ready for more changes.

“He probably knew it wasn’t going to be enough, because the week after, he went back into the lab to make more changes.” Blink bit his lip. “Makes me wonder what his fortitude really is, if he was able to operate on himself without even thinking about it.

“The process continued for several years with occasional assists from the ponies he trusted to learn the craft—lungs replaced with automated inflation/deflation devices to give oxygen to his brain, other eye replaced with a matching number, parts of his stomach “redesigned” to work more efficiently so that he had to eat less, and all of his legs converted to match the first.

“Eventually, seeing how efficient and eternally young Fizz was, other ponies started asking for similar augmentations—it kind of became the culture down there, like a status symbol.”

“That’s disgustin’!” Applejack cried. “How could a pony want stuff like that done to them?”

Blink shrugged. “Hard telling, but there’s no arguing that they’re faster, stronger, and maybe even more magically in-tune than regular ponies. He’s designed these additions to be better than a normal pony in every way, and he succeeded.”

“More magically in-tune?” Rarity asked. “But how could that be? A unicorn’s energy and magic comes from being naturally in-tune with the magic energies around them.”

“I don’t really remember,” Blink said, “but I can try to piece together what comes to mind. Well, first off, you both probably know that a unicorn’s horn is a sort of conductor for magic energies, which the unicorn can then choose to refocus or shape in whatever way they choose.

“Fizz decided he wanted that ability and asked for volunteers, unicorns that were either almost dead or who weren’t using magic all that much. He separated their horns from their heads—in what I imagine to be a very painful process—and then ground them down to analyze their base content. Granted, it was all volunteers, but it’s still the stuff of nightmares.

“He found some kind of unknown element in the horns—something his best biologists weren’t familiar with—and decided he would try to refine it into one of his machines, a horn to be specific.

“Well, needless to say, the process was a success—he invented a brass horn that could be attached to a normal pony’s head to give them access to the same magical energies. For his model—pretty much the only one of its kind—he stuffed so much of the conductive element into it that the second it was on his head, he couldn’t control the magic and ended up frying a pony or two.”

Applejack balked. “He killed them?”

“They got a proper burial later,” Blink said, “and he hadn’t meant to—the magic flowing through the horn was just too much for him to handle, never having experienced conducting it before. As far as I know, he’s one of the more powerful spellcasters in the city, if not the most.

“But I guess he wasn’t finished there. He wanted the flight capabilities of a pegasus next. Thankfully he didn’t need any pegasi except for study on what made their wings so aerodynamic and able to give them locomotion in the air.

“I have no idea what he found or how he was able to construct them, but apparently, right after his research concluded, he stepped out of the lab with steam-powered wings fused into his back. They worked just as well as any pegasus’ wings, albeit with a lot more noise.”

Rarity was struck dumb. “You mean he turned himself into an alicorn?”

Blink nodded. “That’s exactly what I mean. The worst part, I guess, is that nothing he did was ever questioned. None of his test subjects were forced, he never killed anypony on purpose—I think he just genuinely wanted to help expand pony life, and he did—his citizens are happy. It doesn’t change the fact that he lies squarely in the uncanny valley at this point.”

“So Blink,” Applejack said, “if ya don’t mind me asking, how’d you go from livin’ down there to livin’ with the Shetlands?”

Blink’s eyes narrowed. “My parents weren’t fans of the way everything was run. And since Fizz doesn’t force ponies to live down there so long as they don’t speak about the city to the ponies on the surface when they leave, my parents just kinda took off with me when I was about twelve.

“Only one thing that still confuses me,” Applejack said. “I don’t get why he’d just let ponies walk with his secret. They could tell everypony.”

Blink smirked. “You’d think that, but his people are surprisingly loyal to him. There have been a fair share of ponies that left in the past, and so far, the only surface-dwellers that know about it are you two, me, and Glow Star.”

Blink paused as they exited the trail, looking around. The forest was starting to get thinner, the terrain less flat, and the air began to smell of salt.

“We’re getting closer,” he said. “Still, we can’t see the sun and we’ve been traveling for a decent amount of time—you two alright?”

After a nod from the mares, Blink said, “You sure? I don’t want either of you collapsing on me when we get close to the shore.”

Two more nods and the group continued on. The pace they set was steady, and as they traveled the scent of salt grew thicker in the air. The ground began to get more slippery, caked with thick mud—the roots of the trees began to rise from the earth, grasping at their hooves.

From above came the sound of birdsong—it filled the air, taking a bit of the edge off traveling in silence. Leaves fell around them as the wind blew, carrying with it the smell of open water.

Beneath, leaves crunched under their hooves as they walked, mingling with the birdsong to form a crackling, tweeting symphony. Applejack closed her eyes, trying to get lost in the beauty of it, the simple pleasure of the moment. Briefly she could forget what they’d been through—she could forget the blood-curdling rage in Seth’s eyes, could forget where they were going.

For just that moment she was back home on the farm, smelling dirt and sweat instead of salt water, feeling soft loam beneath her hooves instead of dry leaves, seeing Big Mac and Apple Bloom and Granny Smith instead of the swampy, sinister trees around them.

For the first time since they’d been zapped here, Applejack felt true pleasure, lightness and harmony.

Rarity, however, wasn’t willing to relax so easily—wherever they were going, it was sure to be something special, but there was a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. Not to mention her scar, a constant reminder that she’d almost become another of Seth’s victims.

The scenario had played in her head over and over again since she’d woken up in Glow Star’s hut—the screeches, the close calls, the feeling of those pitiless talons parting her coat and skin like tissue paper. The prospect of that happening again terrified her. She didn’t want to be weak like that again—she wanted to stand side-by-side with Applejack. She needed to be stronger.

She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t see the ocean until Blink pointed it out and she felt the fading light of the sun on her coat.

Rarity had seen large bodies of water before—namely the hot spring in the mountains—but this was something else entirely.

From far across the salty expanse, the sun was just dipping down past the horizon, leaving fiery trails across the sky and a brilliant pool of pearls in the water. The orange light danced across the sparkling sea and shined off a few reflective stones in the sand. The sight nearly brought tears to Rarity’s eyes.

No matter where she looked across that vastness, she saw water filled with the dying glitter of the sun. She saw diamonds and pearls, rubies and sapphires, flat across the surface and scudding lazily along, pushed by the gentle breeze.

In that moment, her worries were erased.

“This is the ocean…?” Rarity asked, breathless.

“It is,” Blink responded with a smile. “Breathtaking, huh?” His lips turned down. “Unfortunately, we don’t have all the time in the world to regard it—we’re going to be traveling underneath it soon enough.”

Rarity paused. “How long do we have?” she finally asked. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my life.”

Blink trotted over to a rockier portion of the shore, rooting around. “Well, our ride isn’t going to be here until sunrise, most likely, so you can enjoy this and enjoy the sunrise, but we’re not going to have time beyond that.”

Producing a large horn, Blink grinned. “You two may want to cover your ears—the city isn’t too far from this shore, but I still have to produce a pretty loud, high-pitched noise to make it reach them.”

Doing as instructed, Rarity and Applejack sat down in the sand, watching as Blink trotted back over to the water-line, shoved the horn into the sea, and blew into it.

Even with their ears covered, the sound was painful—thankfully it didn’t last long.

“Well, what now?” Applejack asked. “Do we just sit here and wait?”

Blink nodded. “That’s exactly what we do, actually. It’s going to be a while, so you two might as well get comfortable.” He smiled, then yawned. “I’m probably going to get some rest, and I suggest you two do the same—it’s been stressful recently.”

He laid back and put his hooves behind his head. Rarity, meanwhile, was captivated by the sea, staring off into the distance. Applejack trotted up beside her.

“You doin’ alright, Rarity?” she asked, looking at the unicorn with concern.

“Shhh,” Rarity whispered. “Applejack, we can talk once the sun goes down, if you like, but I just want to enjoy this. Let’s not think about anything else for just a little bit.”

Applejack stared at Rarity for a few moments before giving a smile. “Alright,” she said, sitting down next to her. “I’ll watch with ya. I reckon we deserve a moment like this after everything that happened.”

Rarity quietly slid over to Applejack and wrapped a hoof around her back, resting her head on the earth pony’s shoulder.

“That we do,” she murmured.