Knight of Wands

Chapters

Prologue: Temperance
Chapter 1: The Devil
Chapter 2: The Tower
Chapter 3: The Star
Chapter 4: The Moon
Chapter 5: The Sun
Chapter 6: Judgement
Chapter 7: The World

Prologue: Temperance

“Jackie,” said a voice, so sudden and real that Jackie’s entire reality came crashing into focus. It was a familiar voice—one she’d known for thousands of years. Alex. Where everything else in the universe was transparent and ever changing, the pony that pushed it all aside was violently real. Her coat was sharply green, her mane stark white, and her eyes seemed to cut right through her. “We’re almost there.”

Holding up one leg, Jackie could see that she too was transparent. Only this one creature was solid. “We almost to the next life yet? I’ve never been much for esoteric shit. This is already getting on my nerves.”

Alex spread her wings and flapped, and the sea of foam and probability was blown away. Jackie alone remained, standing on naked black stone. She offered a leg. “Come on, it’s just a little further.”

Jackie looked around, smiling weakly. “Let me check my calendar… yep, says here I’m dead forever. Looks like I’m free.” She took the offered leg. “Just don’t think I’m going to let you bring me back to life or something. I’ve seen you break the rules for long enough, I don’t want to start copying you. Then ponies will start comparing me to you, and that would just get awkward.”

Lonely Day rolled her eyes, as amused with Jackie’s humor as ever. “Stygia is waiting,” she said.

They walked together for time beyond time, under a bleak gray sky and a tower of lead so tall it seemed to curve. Around them Jackie watched as the natural processes of life and death flowed in both directions—rust that transformed into sturdy steel tools, then again into red rocks. Butterflies that spun themselves back into cocoons.

“Do you do this for everyone?” Jackie found herself asking, as they crossed through an ancient city of crumbling skyscrapers. She looked in a shop window, but instead of seeing any sort of ancient display she saw skulls, empty sockets watching her as though they’d been waiting for her to peek where she shouldn’t.

“Most people don’t die in the Supernal,” Alex said. “This is… another part of it. Some dead end up here, some don’t. If you wanted those answers, you shouldn’t have died.”

Jackie glared up at her, but didn’t have to resist the temptation to be snide. She no longer had the energy for anger and frustration. She was just a gust of wind, surviving how she could.

There were others there with them, as indistinct as she was. Ghosts of creatures that lived no more, or maybe hadn’t ever lived to begin with. It was hard to know for sure.

Eventually they reached an airport. Jackie recognized it from the familiar smell of gas fumes outside, then the fresh coffee and baked goods inside. Alex handed her a boarding pass, walked her through security, and then they were waiting for departure beside her gate. Thousands of other ponies waited there, each one with another bit of folded paper holding their ticket.

Jackie looked out the window, and found she couldn’t actually see any of the aircraft. Instead she saw light, in colors and combinations she’d never imagined before. It was a barrier pressed right up against the glass, beyond which there seemed to be nothing at all.

“This is it, huh?” Jackie leaned forward, stealing the rest of Alex’s muffin in a few quick bites. She pulled with her teeth, removing the boarding pass enough to confirm they were in front of the right gate. According to the screen high on the wall, they only had a few minutes until boarding call. “All those thousands of years of religion, all those ancient prophets and mysteries, and the afterlife was an airport all along. Must’ve been fuckin’ confusing for some Middle-Eastern merchant who’d never seen a lightbulb in his life, waking up here.”

Alex shrugged. “Reality is always a matter of perspective. Maybe if you believed in something, you would know where to find it. But you never did, Jackie.”

She tensed, sitting up suddenly in her seat. She almost threw the boarding pass back into Alex’s face—but that too would be too much energy. Her emotions all fogged over to a uniform gray, and when she spoke it was with monotone flatness. “I don’t believe in things, Alex. I believe in people. Like Ezri.”

“Boarding call for Jacqueline Kessler,” said a bored-looking attendant. The doors opened. There was apparently no one else using this gate. “Boarding call, Jacqueline Kessler. Please report to gate 25 for departure.”

Jackie stared up at the podium. The pony standing behind it didn’t even seem to see her, even though she was only a few feet away. Who the hell else could be on that flight, stupid? You could just call me over yourself.

“She’s a good one to believe in,” Alex said. “But you’re past the point where that matters. Before the world ended, people used to say we were born alone, and we’d die alone. This is what they mean.” She nodded towards the doorway. “Only one seat on that flight.”

“Where does it go?”

Jackie stared through the doorway. There was a few feet of boarding bridge, then the shimmering veil of light, cutting straight through it and obscuring whatever was on the other side.

“I have no idea,” Day said, her voice nervous. “It calls me, every time I die. But I can tell you how the people look who go through. It’s a peaceful process… painless. Whatever’s over there—it’s the way things are supposed to be. Water must flow from the river into the sea, so it can rise as clouds and fall again. Mighty mountains must be worn down into dust, swallowed by subduction zones and eventually be melted back into new peaks somewhere else.”

Natural. The thought was bitter. Now she could finally muster some energy for emotion. “Why should we care if it’s natural? Just because this is the way it used to be… doesn’t mean it should be. The universe is infinite, Alex. Why should we have to die?”

“Boarding call for Jacqueline Kessler,” the speaker said, a little more annoyed. “Flight is refueled and ready for takeoff. Boarding call, Jacqueline Kessler.”

Alex only shrugged, her expression infuriatingly blank. “I changed my mom into a dragon. I wrote my sister’s name high on the Supernal’s tallest tower. I’m not here to argue with you. But you gave your life, Jacqueline. You chose this. I’m not here to tell you that you have to enjoy it, or to want it anymore. Or to like it.” She gestured around the airport with one wing. “If you want to wait here, you won’t be the only one. You weren’t the first one who was too scared to go.”

“I’m not scared.” She gritted her teeth together. “I want my wife back. Tell me I can find her, and I’m gone.”

“I can’t tell you that,” said Lonely Day, Goddess of Death. “Because I don’t remember. Why don’t you go there and find out?”

“Or… what?” Jackie spoke nervously. As a flicker and a ghost, she lacked most of her confidence. Not that she had ever fought Alex before, but she wouldn’t have been afraid to in her life. Now she hesitated. “You can’t kill me.”

“I won’t do anything,” the Alicorn said, her voice said. “I’m only here to help you. Death comes for all men—and here I am. Your friend, as you’ve always been mine. You’ve left your kingdom in good hands—now it’s time to let go.”

“Final boarding call for Jacqueline Kessler. Please report to gate 25, your flight is about to depart. Final boarding call.”

Jackie turned, and very nearly marched her way to the gate. There was a hope—a faint hope, maybe, but something—that there might be some kind of existence on the other side of that light. Maybe Ezri had been waiting for her, all this time. She could find out right now.

But Jackie hesitated. Her existence as a ghostly bat here suggested another option. Could a dead bat still use their powers of the dreaming world to travel through it? There was only one way to find out.

“If you can’t tell me Ezri’s there… then I’m not going,” Jackie said. “Not until I find out for myself. I know once I go, I won’t come back.”

Alex didn’t react with anger. Her horn didn’t flash, and she didn’t scream something about the natural order and how dare Jackie violate it. She only looked sad. “If you leave… you might not ever find your way back,” she said. “My time with you is nearly over. If I leave, you will be on your own. Wherever you go—whatever happens to you… it might be terrible. There is much worse that can happen to the dead than their death. Please don’t go.”

But Jackie was already reaching for her magic. The dagger was gone—she’d given that away to little Liz before her death. But she could still feel the Dreamlands out there. Only… it felt like she was reaching down into herself, instead of out into the world. There was magic there, a connection she could use.

Jackie tugged on it with what little magic she had left, yanking open a doorway. It felt much like any of the previous dream-portals she had made, though she didn’t recognize the place on the other side. It looked like a floating island, with a high castle rising on its center and sculpted trees and flowers all around it. What the hell is that? What sympathetic connection had made the portal there of all places?

It didn’t matter. She had so little magic left. She felt—transparent, like she might drift away on the next stiff breeze that blew by. If she had to open up another portal, she might just die again. Jackie stepped through, and didn’t look back to see Archive’s frightened face staring after her. Her companion didn’t try to follow.

Author's Note

http://unicornic.tumblr.com/post/170904670987/commissoned-by-bitera

Chapter 1: The Devil

The Devil

The portal closed shut behind Jackie with a terrifying roar of finality, and she knew she would not be able to return to that otherworldly airport by any magic she knew. It hadn’t been part of the Dreamlands, but this… this felt familiar to her.

She was standing in an orchard of somewhat undersized trees, with a modest castle rising just through them. From the empty sky all around her, she guessed this was somewhere near the library, where dreams of enlightenment and enrichment dwelt. If I’m on an eternal quest for secrets unknown, this is probably where I would start. Maybe she could find the library, and dig through its archives without provoking Mercy’s wrath.

Then again, if the figment guessed she had been the one to kill Athena, she would probably end up as just another volume on the shelf.

Doesn’t matter. I’ll find some help. There are bound to be others here. Castles had residents, didn’t they? And Jackie was one of the greatest dreamers that had ever lived. Even a pale echo of her would be powerful enough to demand respect.

She passed a pond stocked with koi and other domesticated fish, and was a little surprised to see her reflection. She wasn’t transparent anymore. That was strange, given how airy and unstable she felt. She looked real, but inside she was a cloud of shifting probabilities.

Oh god. I know what I am. There was no other explanation. Jackie had become a figment, as all bats before her who had escaped to the Dreamlands to run from their mortality.

She stopped in place beside the pond, testing her wings, flexing her limbs in turn, muttering to herself. “It’s alright, Jackie… relax. Think. There’s nothing wrong with being a dream-spirit. You can… make this work. No one in the universe knows more about the Dreamlands than you do. Just review. What is life like for a figment?”

They have to represent something, her subconscious self answered. They draw power from connection to the sleeping world. Figments that represent something act it out in dreams, and they take magic back to the Dreamlands. But they get changed by the thing they represent, losing their original identity. Those that don’t… fade away.

She started walking forward—towards the center of the castle. There were no other destinations anywhere else around, no sense trying to get anywhere else. She would have to find the lord of this place, and discover if perhaps she might be of service. If not, maybe they would know where in the friendly skies she could fly next.

“What else do you know?” she asked, coaching herself as she kept walking. “Go on. There’s more.”

She did know more, though none of it was encouraging. Figments can’t die, unless they’re eaten by another spirit. Otherwise they’ll just reform somewhere else, with their power significantly reduced and their memories fragmented. They don’t die, they get decomposed with each death until there’s nothing left.

Which meant, obviously, that Jackie couldn’t die here. Even one death might permanently alter her perception of the world, or else make her forget about her quest completely. What if another spirit ate all her memories of Ezri?

So how do I cheat? There was one obvious method—one that a few had used over the years. It was the same cheat that Meliora used, since after all what was that city but a dream spirit of its own?

Magic can be fed directly into the dream world, and it grows dramatically in the conversion. If I had a mortal friend with access to Glamour, I could use the power to stay alive without altering myself into the spirit of some element.

That was the basics, and direction towards what her goal had to be. She had to make friends with a dreamer, then get them to send magic to her. She had knowledge to trade, and plenty of secrets. She could make it work!

But she would have to survive long enough for that to happen.

Maybe there was one in the castle in front of her. There were no walls, only a cluster of buildings surrounding the central keep. The doors seemed unusually large, like they’d been built for humans. But why…

“Are you gonna keep talking to yourself like that?” said a voice from behind her. A disturbingly familiar voice, except that the pitch was too high.

She turned, leaning to one side, and there was a creature creeping nearby.

At first she’d thought it was a cat, from the way it prowled along the rim of a stone wall with its tail out behind it and wings spread. But… cats didn’t have wings, and anyway the blue-gray coat was as familiar as the voice.

It was her voice, her body. The interference-pattern cutie mark was there, the same eyes, the same fang-toothed-grin.

Oh god. What if I’m already breaking apart? What if I’ve already died once and don’t remember?

“Just gonna stand there, giantess? Not sure what you have to be afraid of. At your size, even the humans would leave you alone.”

Jackie took a deep breath, forcing herself to breathe in and out. “You… are… me?” she began, speaking slowly. “A part of me?”

The bat laughed, lifting into the air in front of her and landing on the ground. She looked up with surprisingly little fear, despite her size. Because it’s the Dreamlands. Size doesn’t matter. She could be any size she wanted. Except the small one didn’t seem to think so. “If I was any part of you, you think I’d be this size? Equestria’s small enough to wrap up tight in somebody’s truck or something. Not so much where you come from, I bet.”

Jackie scooped the bat out of the air with her wings, moving so quickly that the creature was powerless to resist. Maybe it was being part of her, or maybe it was just a little slow to move, because it didn’t get away in time.

She sat the creature down on a stump with a purposeful thump, leaning in close and baring her teeth. “Listen to me, whatever you are. I don’t fuckin’ care that I’m dead, I’m still the most dangerous thing in this place. I’m here to find my wife, and anyone who steps in front of me is fucked. Got it?”

She waited for the creature to show her acknowledgement, in the form of a terrified nod. “H-hey there… big girl… why don’t you take a deep breath… maybe a few cubes of sugar… think this over. You wouldn’t murder your own flesh and blood, would you? Also… congratulations on getting married? I’m not sure I have it in me for the commitment.”

Even with Jackie threatening her life, she was making stupid comments. She’s definitely part of me. How many times have I been decomposing? That would explain why she didn’t remember, too—other versions of herself had those memories.

But I still remember Ezri. That’s what’s important. I can still find her. I’m coming for you, sweetheart.

“I wouldn’t murder you,” she said, finally letting go. She remained close, teeth bared in case the bat tried to fly away. At her size her chances of escape seemed near zero, but that didn’t matter. Jackie stayed within reach anyway, just in case. “Not if you answer my questions.”

“Then I’ll answer your questions,” the smaller bat said, spreading her wings with a weak squeak of submission. “Go on, shoot. But I don’t know everything. It’s no fair if you hurt me over shit that’s from your world and not mine.”

“It’s not fair that I’m here in the first place,” Jackie said. “I should’ve come with my wife when she died. But I let her die for me, and now we’re both suffering. Tough shit.”

She rose to her hooves, circling around the stump. “What dreamer owns this castle?”

“Uh…” The bat winced. “We’re having trouble right away. I have no idea what the shit that means. I think this is… the Underworld maybe? Or maybe it is my dream, and this is a nightmare. See, this is called Unity. This castle was a school, like Hogwarts but for internet people. My sister got her owl and I never did, but I tagged along because I’m needy and maybe a little insecure.”

She made like she was about to hop down from the stump, adjusting herself on the wood in an effort to get her balance.

Do I really shake my butt that much when I’m about to jump? Jackie cleared her throat, and the pony hastily sat down again, shivering in fear.

“If it’s a dream, I don’t know whose it would be. Guess mine?”

“No.” Jackie spread one wing, pointing. “You said… Underworld. There’s no such place.” Wasn’t there? None she remembered. But maybe this part of her knew other things. Or maybe there was only a fragment of memory in that tiny bat head, and she was interpreting it as best she could with limited information. That made some kind of sense. “What made you think we were there?”

“Because this whole place got fuckin’ nuked,” the tiny bat said, as casually as if she’d been ordering lunch. “I mean, not literally. I think they shot it until the magic ran out and it fell out of the sky, but you get the idea.”

She didn’t even remotely get the idea. So far as Jackie could tell, this was still the Dreamlands. She closed her eyes, trying to change into the human form she’d occasionally used.

Nothing happened. That’s not proof. I couldn’t change after Voeskender cursed me, either. I could still be somewhere familiar. Misty had been able to change some parts of her form easily, so long as they didn’t compromise her basic nature. But she couldn’t make more significant changes without a dreamer to help her.

Human is too different. I have to try something subtler.

Jackie imagined she was the same size as this tiny bat—and the ground rose up to meet her. They were suddenly at eye-level. The bat actually grinned at her, squeaking in pleasure. “There we go! No more giants throwing their weight around. Guess the castle finally got you.”

“No.” Jackie glared at her duplicate—or at least she looked like one. To Jackie’s dream-senses, she was something else. Not a dream-spirit, just as Jackie couldn’t see herself as transparent. But not quite as real as a person, either. “I made myself smaller. I’m guessing that any dreamers who live in this place are probably going to expect ponies to look like you. If anypony asks, we’re twins.”

“Anypony,” the bat repeated, her voice bitter. “You don’t have to say it like that, you know. Anybody exists for a reason. It’s not like ponies don’t have bodies.”

Damn. Is this me in the past by several thousand years? Jackie had once agreed with her, in the same way she’d stubbornly refused to answer to the name “Dreamknife.” But those years were over, just like so much of her life.

“Anybody, then,” she said. “But no, actually I mean anypony. Humans are almost never very good at dreamwalking. Our chances of finding one in here are near zero.” And if we do, they’ve been here so long that they’re not human anymore. They’re what I will be in a few thousand years.

Unless she could find the knowledge she wanted. It wouldn’t be so hard, would it? Just… discover proof of something that not even Archive knew. Find someone who had returned from the other side of the iridescent veil. How hard was that?

“No one is here,” smaller-Jackie said. Well, identically-Jackie currently. “No humans or ponies or anything else. Not that there’s a difference. It’s just been me for days now. I dunno… why, or how. I haven’t been to Unity in ages. I guess maybe there was some reason. Maybe Sunset Shimmer’s involved somehow. Gotta rise up from that cave eventually.”

That gave her pause—a name Jackie recognized. But before she could ask about it, she heard something else. A sound that seemed so strange to her that she almost couldn’t identify it. It was from the distant recesses of her memory, a past as ancient as human ruins like this.

It sounded like jet engines. Her sensitive ears directed sharp eyes to a patch of distant sky, where a tight formation of aircrafts seemed to be narrowing in for an approach. They were coming closer so fast that she almost couldn’t think—supersonic speeds. A few blinks of time, and they’d be passing.

But this was the Dreamlands, or something like it. Jackie had been in the sun long enough that she could recover. Her wife was a mission, something to give her purpose. Purpose was critical for a figment. So long as she was moving towards her purpose, that was a few more precious drops of magic.

Enough that the aircraft blasting towards them slowed down. They were still coming closer with terrifying speed, but now it was more like watching a record-breaking run than aircraft.

“Oh shit.” Other Jackie stared up in horror. “I think this is it. The moment this whole fucking thing exploded. We’re, like… some kind of back in time.”

Jackie lifted up into the air, her wings flapping. “So what, off the side you think? Into the air around here? Got to be safer than a castle about to explode.”

“Off the… fuck no.” Other Jackie shook her head, pointing inside. “There’s a door in there. Goes to Equestria. How about we don’t get shot to hell by the air force? So long as you can…” She moved one of her legs, awed. “What the hell are you doing, anyway? You aren’t a unicorn.”

Equestria, huh? Might be all kinds of lost knowledge on their half of the Dreamlands. “I’m a bat, that’s better. This is our world. Unicorns can suck it in here.”

They galloped for the largest building. Jackie gave up on keeping the same size as this fragment of herself after about ten seconds of running, returning to her previous height and scooping her onto her back with a single bit of effort from her wings.

“I don’t know if being big is the right call!” Tiny Jackie squeaked into her ear. Maybe that was what she could call her: “Squeak”. Better than just thinking of her by what she wasn’t. “Ponies are my size! Equestria’s gonna be terrified of you! Left, left! That way!”

Jackie didn’t so much as respond to suggestions about what Equestria might think of her. There were few things Jackie cared less about than what Equestria thought. The world’s broken state was their fault in the first place. If only they’d not scattered people through time, Jackie would never have lost a wife.

I wouldn’t have found her either, technically. Alex wouldn’t have been ruling, Riley probably wouldn’t have made Ezri… my whole life would be different. I’d probably still be living in my hometown.

But death wasn’t the time to be rational, it was the time to get angry. Anger—and every other emotion, for that matter—was power she could use.

She could feel the ground shaking under her as slow-motion explosions shook the castle, probably toppling whole towers from above them. But Jackie could see none of it, and barely feel it.

She’d opened into a room like something that might’ve housed the Stargate. Except—from the look of things, it almost did. There was a device in the center of the room, with all kinds of machinery running into it, and a surface of utter blackness. It was one of the ways a portal spell could be made.

A whole section of the floor gave way, breaking the path into the portal. As more rock showered down around her, Jackie took to the air, flapping desperately towards the opening as it tumbled. There could be no magicking it back—she had no emergency escapes, no clever backup plan. It was into that portal, or else be broken into even more pieces.

She was just another figment now.

I won’t. I’ll see you again, Ezri! Maybe on the other side. She reached the event-horizon, and exhaled, closing her eyes tight. If it was anything like a unicorn’s teleport, that was probably a good idea. She jumped through, carrying Squeak along with her into the abyss.

Author's Note

https://furrgroup.tumblr.com/post/171643272978/heres-a-cute-batgirl-i-drew-for-a-patreon

Chapter 2: The Tower

The Tower

Jackie landed in a tumble, knocking Squeak from her shoulders and rolling for a few feet before coming to a stop in a field of sand and burned grass. She moaned, trying to get her legs under her, but for the first few moments she didn’t try very hard. So long as she could still move, that was what mattered.

“I don’t…” squeaked the little voice from nearby. “Where the fuck is the receiving portal? There’s supposed to be a huge building, lots of ponies. Warm bath, plenty of bugs to eat.”

Maybe her small size was helping her, because she was already on her hooves, bouncing up and down beside Jackie. “Come on, get up! We’ve got to find everybody.”

Jackie did, though more slowly. Her limbs were a little more sluggish to respond, and she could feel a soreness that she knew wouldn’t be going away immediately. She rose with a groan, shaking out her wings. “Who was trying to kill us?”

“I think the US Air Force,” Squeak said, landing on her back without invitation this time and pointing forward with one hoof. “Go that way! There are some buildings that direction. Maybe we can ask for help.”

Jackie resisted the urge to shake the little pony off her back. But she was light enough that the weight was insignificant. Besides, having her up there probably meant she couldn’t get herself into more trouble.

And I don’t really want to be alone here. Company was definitely the superior way of traveling the Dreamlands, even if her only company was a broken piece of herself. Could I put us back together by eating her, the way spirits do?

Maybe, but she couldn’t bring herself to try it and find out. There was something far too disturbing about killing another version of herself, even if they weren’t supposed to be two people to begin with.

“The… a pre-Event government? Still surviving in the Dreamlands?”

The bat made a high-pitched squeak of displeasure. “Didn’t say we were in the Dreamlands. I have… no idea what the hell that is, but you said that. My guess is the Underworld. And why wouldn’t the Air Force be here? Because it’s not our country? Hasn’t stopped them before.”

She winced, trying to process the high pitched barrage of new information as fast as it came in. A fool’s errand, unfortunately. There was no chance of her keeping up.

But Squeak was right about one thing, there were buildings up ahead. Maybe whoever lived in them would be able to offer them some guidance, even if they looked like something that Sunset might’ve ordered built in Summerland.

They passed a little cottage on the edge of a forest, then crossed onto a dirt road. Apple trees lined it to the left, and Jackie picked one up with a hoof, offering it to the bat on her back.

At least they still had a little in common—she seemed to have no more compunctions about stealing than big Jackie did. She began to chew thoughtfully, without gratitude.

Jackie grumbled and ate one herself, and had just about finished by the time the city came into view.

Well, city might be overly generous. It looked like a modestly-sized European village from several centuries before the Event, except that there were occasional radio aerials emerging from some of the houses and a solar film spread on a few roofs.

It might’ve been a comfortable, charming place, except that it had very clearly been wrecked by some kind of armed conflict. There were strange, square buildings rising on the other end of the city, and everything nearby had been shattered or broken somehow. Entire walls had caved in, as though hit by tank shells. A gigantic tree made of glass had several shattered branches at its base, and bright green fires still smoldered on some of what had fallen.

And there were bodies—human bodies mostly, in various stages of decay. Many of them didn’t look like they’d been fighting so much as they’d fallen over while walking somewhere then gave up on being alive.

Jackie stepped around one of them, eyes scanning the exposed arm for the telltale ichorous black tendrils of a thaumic poisoning. The evidence of a corpse that would soon rise again.

Except she didn’t see it. She was walking beside them, with no sign of magical harm. Even if no ponies had been around at the time, her own presence here should’ve started the process of waking them up.

But it didn’t. The corpses stayed corpses, strange military uniforms and all.

“This is… not what I expected,” Squeak said, perching on a nearby cart. It looked a little big, even from where Jackie was standing. Squeak could’ve been this fruit-cart-owner’s pet cat. It didn’t help that she arched her back and puffed out her chest like she was about to start mewling. “I know there was a plan to invade Equestria, but… this isn’t right. These humans aren’t wearing the right colors.”

“Seems like they invaded anyway,” Jackie said, kicking a bit of metal that had fallen beside one of the humans. She brushed it off with a wing, then lifted it up. It was a rifle of some kind, though most of it was black plastic. Like something she might’ve seen in the hands of an HPI soldier during her earliest memories of being a pony. It had been thousands of years since they used plastic rifles.

“Nobody I know either.” She kicked, rolling over one of the bodies. It was a little gruesome, but she avoided looking at the gray skin and shriveled features as best she could. There was a patch on the breast, and she could read it. “Federation Navy.”

“You know these guys?”

“Nope.” The bat seemed much less comfortable around the corpses than Jackie herself. She landed on her back another moment later, and seemed to be keeping her head down from how muffled her voice sounded. “Ugh… keep going. We should… should walk somewhere else, I think. Yeah. Somewhere else.”

“Where?” Jackie looked around, but she could see no other signs of life. No ponies seemed to have fallen here, just the strange humans. And not one of them was wounded.

“H-how about… oh, there!” She pointed up to a distant hill, overlooking the town. There was a tall wooden fence there, and past it were some buildings made of metal and glass, like the sort of temporary buildings a construction company might put up around a large project that was still being built.

“Sure.” Jackie started walking. She could sense no nearby exits, nothing that indicated they had entered a single pony’s dream. Nor did she sense the dream’s stability, which would’ve been a sure sign that they had invaded the sleep of a still-living pony.

So is it still the Dreamlands? Is this the Equestrian side, maybe?

If it was, the Equestrians were sure dreaming of a lot of dead humans in strange uniforms.

“Wait, I changed my mind!” Squeak called, as soon as they’d made it halfway up the hill. There were more bodies this way, spreading out from a broken-down entrance and shattered section of the wall. Almost as though this is where they’d come from. “We should go the other way! Yeah! That, uh… that mountain there, I think that’s Canterlot! The huge city up on the hill. Looks like it might be a few days away, but… rather be there than here.”

“Sorry.” Jackie kept walking. “I need to figure out what happened here. It’s a problem I have.”

The bat followed along behind her, just as she’d guessed she would. “Are, uh… are you sure? We don’t have anything to do with this. You said so, you don’t know who they are. Maybe we shouldn’t be near a war? There are guns everywhere. You want to get shot?”

“Not today,” she admitted. “But here, it won’t kill us. There’s no such things as guns in the Dreamlands. It only hurts because you believe it does. And if you change your mind, decide it doesn’t… then it won’t.”

“We aren’t asleep,” the little bat called, her voice annoyed. “That was cute when you said it before, but it’s not cute anymore! Don’t get yourself killed!”

“I’ll… stop if it looks dangerous,” she said. “Fair? Anything pops up that looks like it might hurt us, we can both turn around. But these…” She gestured with a wing up at the hill. “These men and women are dead. They won’t hurt us.”

They weren’t alone here. As Jackie passed through the broken gate, a murder of crows took off from a nearby patch of corpses, cawing and squawking their protest at being interrupted. But they didn’t lunge for her, and so there was no violence. Just some annoyed looks.

“There wasn’t even anyone left to bury them,”she muttered. “Who would do that?”

“Maybe not a who,” Squeak said, landing on her back again. “Maybe a what. Disease—contagious disease, maybe. We should get going.”

“There isn’t a single dead pony here,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Maybe don’t freak out about nothing. Obviously nothing we can catch.”

Squeak grumbled, but she had no argument to that. There wasn’t a single pony in here, just the many dead humans left right where they’d fallen. Unless they’d been disturbed by a bird feeding on them, that was.

Of all the temporary buildings in this strange camp, there were two distinct styles. Mostly cloth tents on one side, without any attention paid to privacy or stability. They wouldn’t have been warm enough to keep even a pony comfortable if the snow really got thick on the ground.

But there was another half, the conventional structures she had seen from down in the pony town. One of them still had power.

Jackie approached the building, her body tense and wings spread with every moment. She had to step over and around numerous bodies as she approached, but that didn’t matter. She’d survived the Final War, she could survive this.

The building had automatic doors, and they slid open for her as though they weren’t at the end of the world, surrounded by death.

The inside wasn’t a transition to another dream realm, nor were there any of the impossible proportions that were so common in dreams. But we’re still in the Dreamlands, we have to be. Nowhere else this could be.

Unless Squeak was right, and this really was the Underworld. There was certainly enough corpses.

Inside the building was an open lobby with a few modern desks and a huge model of the globe as a slowly-rotating water feature in the center.

At least it wasn’t choked with bodies like the outside. The air here smelled shockingly sterile, despite everything. Only cleaner and the occasional plant smell drifted through the space.

“Oh thank god.” Squeak landed on the reception desk, which was as empty as the rest of the building. “Nobody died in here.”

“Don’t look too relieved—maybe this is the place that killed those people.”

Squeak glared up at her from the desk, but she didn’t take off. “Don’t think so. That fountain is the same logo as the one on their uniforms. I bet this was their… HQ or something. This might’ve been where those people lived. Maybe you could find out how they died, if you care.”

“Not really,” she answered. “I’m still looking for a living dreamer—so I can use their connection to the waking world to get some magic in here. We’ll run out without it, and eventually have to change ourselves to get work. When that happens, we stop being human one day at a time, and eventually we forget why we’re even here.”

“Great,” Squeak said. “The world you come from sounds like it sucks, if that’s what you think things are like. But you’re wrong anyway. We aren’t in a dream. Maybe we’re dead. But…” She pointed at the screen behind her, making an excited bat trilling sound. “See? There’s power flowing to one of the cells. Looks like it’s locked, too. Someone might be alive down there.”

“Worth a look,” Jackie said. Not because this mystery would trouble her—it was just a dream. But rather, being locked in a cell as the last survivor of a massacre made this sound very much like a dream. One they could repurpose for their own ends.

There were multiple floors, and Jackie very nearly got them lost. But Squeak seemed to know what she was doing, and after a few minutes of backtracking, they were standing in front of the door to the brig.

Locked. The sensor clearly saw them—but each time they approached, a little light above the door would flash red. Probably a sign that they didn’t have permission.

“Well, guess that’s it,” Squeak said. “What a terrible shame. We’ll just have to fly off to somewhere safe. Maybe we can find Harley—she’d cook for us. Even for you, oversized monster pony.”

“Stop.” She didn’t look away from the door. “This door is only polycarbonate.” She rapped against it with a hoof.

“Yeah? Isn’t that stuff shatterproof? Hard as steel.”

This particular flavor of it was, but the technical distinctions were irrelevant now. “Sure. And we’re getting inside.” Jackie closed her eyes, concentrating on the dreamlands as she had so many times before. There was a heavy metallic thunk, and a large object landed on the ground beside her, along with several cylinders that wobbled and fell over.

“Fuck me sideways,” Squeak said. “You have a welding torch up your ass?”

Jackie picked up the helmet, fitting it over her head and letting the visor smack down. As before, the magic drained her terribly, making her mind drift and lose focus on the world around her. She very nearly picked up off the ground and diffused into the air right there, her essence no longer unified by magic. But she gritted her teeth, pictured Ezri’s face in front of her, and held on.

After a few moments of panting, the sensation faded. She offered a tiny version of her helmet to Squeak. “We’re getting that prisoner out.”

Plastic crumbled easily under a few smooth slices from the torch, filling the air in front of her with an acrid black smoke that billowed up and out into the hallway behind them. But it wasn’t as though there were other ponies using the building who could complain about it.

After a few minutes Jackie had cut a hole large enough for her to climb through, and the melted plastic stopped sliding away in thick black strings. She turned off all the valves, switched off the welding torch, and tossed the helmet to the floor at the base of the door.

She wasn’t left searching for the right cell for very long—there was only one to choose from.

As with the outside, the ones who lived here used plastic for the cell door. This was clear, permitting an uninterrupted view inside. Except there was no furniture through the polycarbonate, not even a chair. Just a length of cable, maybe two feet in total. Not even enough for the pony to hurt herself.

But that wasn’t the strangest thing about the cell—no, that was its occupant.

For the second time today, Jackie saw herself. The pony had the same blue coat, the same bright mane, the same interference pattern cutie mark. Only… those wings didn’t open and close quite right. As they approached, her eyes tracked on a perfect curve, like a security camera following someone as they entered the room.

“This is getting silly,” Jackie said, stopping right on the other side of the glass. The pony there was taller than she was by a full head at least, and was bigger along every other proportion too. At least she wasn’t a cat by comparison, like Squeak. “You’re me too? A third one?”

“I can tell that isn’t the case,” said the speaker, rising to her hooves and pacing on the other side of the glass. She didn’t sound quite the way Jackie might’ve expected—there was a slight click with every step, reverberating around the inside of the little room. Like she was wearing plastic horseshoes. “You’ve got no ping. No implants, then, not even a cortical recorder. You’re both all meat.”

Jackie shivered at the way she said it—but there was nothing predatory about those words. She only sounded observational. “Implants?” Jackie raised an eyebrow. “You mean like the HPI putting in metal bones and electric muscles? That was old school, copy number two. We do it with magic now. No need for a new surgery every time someone new comes up with a good idea.”

“The… resemblance is uncanny,” the one in the cage observed. “But that doesn’t mean we’re the same person. I can’t believe my organic self would’ve found her way to Equestria. You couldn’t pay me enough to be a horse. I had to get forced into it, and there’d be no Sunset to do the forcing.”

“Sunset,” Jackie repeated. “Sunset Shimmer?”

“You’re shitting us,” Squeak spat. “She’s not here!”

“She is,” said the bigger version of her, stopping right on the other side of the glass. “No other Sunset I ever met mattered to anything. But I haven’t met too many ponies. Not as many as I’d like. Is it weird if I have sex with you?” Her eyebrows went up. “I was late to the party, wasn’t I? You two…”

The little one shivered, tucking her tail between her legs. Her ears flattened, and Jackie could smell her embarrassment. But the way she took off her back and insisted on floating in the air under her own power was also a powerful suggestion of her discomfort. “We almost got killed in the ghost of Unity. Probably something similar waiting for us here, big me.”

Jackie tensed, finding that logic made perfect sense. She glanced once over her shoulder, then hurried back into the hall and started dragging things in. She didn’t even want to guess how hard it would be to get the computer to open this door. But she wouldn’t need to with a little welding.

“It would be weird,” Jackie said. “I don’t even know your name. But I can guess what you’re gonna say.”

As it turned out, she couldn’t. “Moire Pattern,” the pony said. “That’s how you avoid collisions here in Normandy. New names for a new face, and you’re all invited. So the middle one is Jackie, and the small one is…”

“Squeak,” Jackie said, not waiting for her to have enough time to protest. “That’s what I’ve been calling her, anyway. See, just get her flustered and you’ll see why.”

Squeak obliged them with a little embarrassed performance right there, before landing on the computer console nearby and sticking her tongue out. “Keep talking like that, giant. See how helpful I am when you’re in trouble.”

“I’m just being real! Anyway, neither of you is the real one if you want to get technical. We’re in the Dreamlands… a really shitty part of it I’m guessing. You’re parts of me that got damaged after I died. Spirits eat spirits, but they don’t die. They just decompose, and that’s our life now.”

“You believe in a… Dreamlands, you said?” Moire raised an eyebrow. Now that she was up close, Jackie didn’t think those wings looked terribly convincing with a light source behind them. There were plastic joints inside, catching the light in a way that no real one ever would. She could practically see the hinge.

“It’s not about belief.” Jackie kept back her annoyance as best she could, settling the helmet onto her head. “It’s about experience. The Dreamlands is just another place. It’s not about prayers and offerings. It’s about going there and surviving the trip home. Never easy, but often worthwhile. If you can manage.”

She didn’t hear her companions again, because then she turned up the gas, and for a while that was all she could hear.

The cell door was thicker, and far more stubborn than the door into the brig had been. But a little determination and her fur to keep away the worst of the heat, and eventually a little circle of semi-molten plastic smacked onto the floor in the cell.

“It’s so thoughtful of you to let me out,” said the bat inside, though she didn’t try to force her way through right away. She seemed to be waiting for the plastic around the edges to harden, just as Jackie had done with the door in. “Real good Samaritans you are.”

“I’m not,” Jackie said, matter-of-fact. “I really just don’t want bits of me to die. I’m thinking we might be able to get fused back together at some point. Spirits combine in the wild, and there’s for sure a natural way to force it.”

“Good luck with that one,” Moire Pattern said, taking a few steps back before leaping smoothly through the exit. She executed it perfectly, legs tucking in with mechanical precision and catching her millimeters above the ground. She was like the best trained performers in all Equestria, without even a hint of melted plastic stuck to her coat. “I’ve heard of programs who fuse before, but you’re meat. There’s nothing we can share beyond a good time. Offer’s… still open on that one, by the way. Interested?”

Jackie was about to say no when the earth all around them started to shake. She immediately took off in a low hover, and was unsurprised to feel Squeak’s weight settle onto her back again. The mechanical copy watched from nearby, amused but apparently not intimidated.

Glass shattered, the structure heaving. From somewhere nearby, Jackie could hear at least one other structure actually collapsing under its own weight.

“We need to get outside,” she said, tossing the torch aside before she could get tangled in the tubes.

“Sounds like a plan to me!” squeaked the Squeak. They ran. Unfortunately for them, their own building seemed to be collapsing. Huge cracks were spreading in the concrete, almost as though they were following Jackie in her flight.

They might be. Voeskender could be trying to get his revenge at last. But she didn’t give up—just kept flying as fast as she could, gritting her teeth together and focusing on the objects falling all around her. Huge sections of wall rumbled and cracked.

Then the ground opened. A gaping hole spread through the cement, right below them, and growing wider with every second.

Magic? Are we being attacked? But she couldn’t sense any manipulation of the dream. If something more fundamental was involved, she wouldn’t have been able to feel it.

Moire was just behind her, keeping pace. Despite being mechanical, she seemed able to fly pretty well.

Then the crevasse opened wide enough that the entire building couldn’t escape.

Jackie caught one glimpse of an unfathomably long drop, the return echo of a stretch of ground so long that she couldn’t even sense the other end of it. Then they were sucked down.

Author's Note

http://sketchashy.tumblr.com/

Chapter 3: The Star

The Star

If this had been a physical place, it was possible that the transition to below-ground would’ve killed her. All that wood and glass and debris tumbling down would certainly not have held their shape, and would’ve served only like the stones in a rock-polisher, but with their bodies.

But though the others didn’t believe her, Jackie was convinced she was dreaming… or at least that she was in the Dreamlands. Dreaming was impossible for someone with no more physical body.

Jackie didn’t get crushed to death, even if they weren’t fast enough to escape the falling building. They just fell—for hours, it seemed. Fell until she figured they must’ve emerged from the other side of the earth by now.

This isn’t how dying a glorious death for the world was supposed to go. I’m supposed to just vanish and it’s over, not this. It made her think of every other non-immortal creature that had gone before her with sympathy. And maybe wish that she’d been more obedient to Alex’s request.

But the fall ended eventually, with a crash as terrible as the endless distance they’d fell. It hurt, and for a while Jackie thought she might’ve died. But she had no organs anymore, not really. No bones to break. Distance only hurt because she remembered that it ought to. It could do no lasting harm.

With this realization she sat up, in a world lacking color or depth. “Sound off,” Jackie called, finding her voice echoing strangely. “Who’s alive?”

She heard a groan from beside her, and something shifting under shattered bricks. Squeak emerged, shaking out her wings. “Barely. Not sure I want to be.”

Jackie couldn’t see her—but her voice didn’t sound that bad. At least she wasn’t choking on her own blood or anything. We only think we can die because we remember being alive. Sorry guys, you’re just shards and copies. I’ll try to keep you alive during the trip if I can.

Unless it meant that she couldn’t discover the truth about Ezri. They were still on a mission. Honestly I’m fucking it up pretty bad at this point. Lost in somewhere that should be a dream but doesn’t let me use all my powers.

But was that because she was wrong about the Dreamlands, or was it because being dead changed the powers she had access to?

“Functional,” said another voice, shaking off the rubble of the room around them. Jackie could see a glow, and followed it a few more seconds to a set of eyes, the same shade of brown-gold as her own. “Somehow. There must be a force-neutralizer down here somewhere. Something must’ve caught us. There’s a wall here still standing.”

Jackie wasn’t sure about that, but the wall part seemed true anyway. From the look of the tent of material above them, this last wall was holding everything up. Jackie fumbled around on the ground, and lifted a plastic flashlight from among the debris, switching it on. Better than using someone’s freaky glowing eyes. “So, how do we get out?”

“Seismic analysis predicts…” Moire Pattern began, circling in place as she looked around. “Right there! See that beam? If we can lift it up a foot or so and hold it, we should be able to escape.”

Or I could cut us into the Dreamlands, like I did to get away from Alex. “Hold on.” Jackie put out a wing, stopping Squeak in her flight. “There’s something else I could try. Something less risky.”

“Sure.” Moire sat down on her haunches, watching. Her ears brushed up against the ceiling. “You don’t have any implants, so I’m guessing it’s native magic?”

“Native is an interesting choice of words,” Jackie said, but she was already concentrating. “And…” Nothing was happening. Why couldn’t she… the answer was obvious.

She was already in the Dreamlands. Her old self had frequently crossed between the Dreamlands and the waking world, using the connection between them to bypass huge amounts of space. But if she was dead she couldn’t leave the Dreamlands. This was her whole world now. No shortcuts.

She could freely pass in and out of the dreams of sleepers, but apparently that wasn’t what she was in right now. No dream, no easy escape that way either.

“Nevermind.” She blinked, looking up. “My magic isn’t working here. I… really should’ve known it wouldn’t. It’s my fault for expecting any different.”

The two bats just looked at her. She couldn’t see judgement in their expressions, just confusion and pity.

“Sure,” said the robot. “I think I can manage… it’s just one beam. I’m stronger than either of you, unless short stack there is really an earth pony.”

“Big talk from someone who isn’t alive,” Squeak squeaked, settling on Jackie’s back and lowering her voice to a whisper. “Do we have to bring her?”

Jackie didn’t even dignify that with an answer. There was no chance she would leave behind another broken part of herself, no matter the circumstances they’d found her.

How many pieces are there? She had lived for thousands of years—longer than most civilizations existed. She had numberless lovers and experiences, numberless contributions to the universe both good and bad. That probably made her a pretty big spirit.

Maybe I shattered the instant I was born. Only Alicorns are supposed to be this big.

It didn’t matter—none of it would, so long as she could see Ezri again.

The ceiling above them began to shake, as Moire lifted the support and held it with quaking legs. “Go, both of you! Before you get squished!”

She went, clambering over shattered glass and crushed concrete, with Squeak clinging to her neck all the way. She didn’t go far though, just enough to be out of the doorway. That way the other Jackie could follow.

Moire’s legs seemed to give a little—then she jumped, rolling out from the collapse even as the building imploded like an empty water bottle taken under the ocean. Moire rose, brushing the dirt and grime from her coat, and ignoring the damage the steel rod had done to her shoulders. But her torn fur didn’t bleed, or show any other sign it was causing her pain. You really are a robot.

But where were they? Jackie scanned the area around them, but her flashlight wasn’t bright enough to reach past the broken building. It was utter blackness in all directions, without even the crack leading up.

“Now we’re in the Underworld,” she said, as casually as she could. “Eh, Squeak? Cuz’ we’re under the—”

“I got it,” she said, taking off and baring her teeth. “That’s some real low-effort shit, Jackie. You could at least try.”

Jackie ignored the anger, trying to take better stock of their surroundings. It didn’t seem like any of the other buildings had fallen down here with them, just the one. Though describing the pile of rubble as a “building” now was a bit generous. Probably nothing useful to be scavenged from in there.

“Why don’t we take inventory,” Jackie said, her voice echoing strangely in the vast space. “I know I can summon objects and sense magic, I’ve used both of those powers already. But… from what I’ve seen, probably nothing bigger than me. I can’t give us a ladder tall enough to climb, or a helicopter to fly out of here. What about you two?”

Squeak landed on a pile of broken cement in front of her flashlight. “I can walk on clouds and change the weather,” she said. “I miss my girlfriend very much and I don’t think I’m going to find her in some stupid hole.”

You do remember! That was encouraging, anyway. Maybe her broken parts could heal. She was like a… starfish, regenerating in pieces. Whether those pieces would ever come back together she still couldn’t say.

“Not a lot of weather down here, pint size. And we wouldn’t have much use for changing it either. Walk on clouds, yeah right.”

Jackie stuck out a wing to cut off the little bat’s response. “She can. I can too, so guess you’re the one who’s fucked if we have to do it. But… probably not down here. So what can you do?”

“I just got overhauled,” she answered, as though that was itself an explanation. “I can lift a hundred times my weight, fly just a little below supersonic, got full satellite uplink and ten petabytes of local storage.” She folded her wings to her side. “Saving the best for last, it’s okay. Perks of being a soulless machine with no free will whose entire life means nothing, that’s how we do.”

Are either of them sane? But was she?

Apparently not, because the flashlight’s beam was shining on something up ahead, a colorful glint against the gloom that was clearly moving in their direction.

A changeling, of the later breed like her wife. Ezri? Ezri, are you here?

Jackie didn’t even stop to think about what would happen to her companions—she just started galloping. Even her wings were forgotten as she crossed off the wreckage of broken building and onto a uniformly flat, cement floor. It seemed to stretch on forever, with the tiny, occasional grate for drainage and some markings she couldn’t read in the gloom.

But none of that mattered, only the one she could see. The glitter of a shell, the flash of transparent wings. She was here!

“Wait! Stupid giant, where are you going? Don’t leave me with her!”

“I think she lost it,” said the other voice. “Her heart rate just spiked, and her pupils went crazy. Maybe she’s having an episode. Come on.”

Jackie ignored them. Let them think what they wanted to think, she didn’t even have a heart rate.

As she galloped, Jackie became conscious of the fact that the flat space wasn’t as empty as it had first appeared. There were huge… pillars, rising up in the gloom. Each one of them was as wide as the largest buildings, as big as a convention center or block-spanning skyscrapers. Some kind of brown foam or growth seemed to surround them, with a distinctly moist appearance to it. She stayed well away, just concentrating on her target. There was another pony in here, and she wouldn’t have to get onto any metaphorical flights to find them.

She rounded the bend, and nearly smacked into… herself?

Jackie swore under her breath, looking up at the pony. She would’ve been the same size as her, except that she was distinctly an Alicorn. Wide wings, sharp horn, and several inches of height. “Hey.” She didn’t even bother with politeness, stopping dead and clutching at her chest as she panted. “There was a changeling here. Where the hell did she go?”

“Oh, you saw? Dammit.” The pony winced, then shifted. Her magic dissolved, and there was the changeling she’d seen before. She wasn’t naked like the other members of her group—she had boots on her hooves, with adjustable clasps apparently made to resize every time she got bigger or smaller. She had a satchel too, which looked to be filled with something. “You must have good eyes.”

Jackie did have good eyes. Damn, I didn’t know I could look that good. She might’ve said something about it, if she were doing a little better. But Jackie was exhausted enough already.

The other two caught up another second later, skidding to a halt behind her. Both stared at the newcomer with equal confusion. “I don’t get it,” said Squeak, the first to break the silence. “Why is there another one? Aren’t two enough?”

“I didn’t plan on there being more than one,” Jackie said. “But you know what they say about making plans. Then I got myself killed, and now… now here we are.” She stuck out her hoof. “You’re Jackie, I’m Jackie, so are they. We’re dead, or maybe dreaming or both. What’s going to try to kill us here?”

The changeling’s ears flattened to her head, transparent wings spreading and buzzing in an insect display of discomfort. “Ughhh… I don’t know what you’re talking about. My name is Sarah. I’m… a changeling. Not a bat.”

“You tried to be an Alicorn,” Jackie said, unimpressed. “Don’t think we didn’t see that. You can’t just pretend we didn’t, Sarah.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m a changeling, there. That’s the truth. A changeling who… can’t… remember how she got here. Have either of you seen Photuris?”

“Let me guess,” said Moire, before any of them could react. “That’s a changeling. Your girlfriend?”

She shifted, making an embarrassed buzzing—but if she thought any of them would judge her for it, Jackie couldn’t imagine why. “So are we,” she said. All hunting for the same thing. Different names, but the same destination.

Was there some meaning in this dream? Maybe it wasn’t some random swathe of the Dreamlands—maybe it was somewhere she had created. Powerful dreamers could do things like that, and she was fairly certain she had. She’d made apartments to resemble the ones she’d lived in while human. She’d made safe pockets for her visitors. She’d made places for them to puppet bodies made of dream while they visited other realms.

But had she made an endless black abyss, populated only with broken pillars?

“We need to escape… wherever this is,” she said. “I don’t know if the Dreamlands is reflecting our memories back on us, or maybe this is what it’s like to be digested by a dream-spirit. But this is unsafe, and we’re dying. We’re breaking out.” She winced. “You, uh… Sarah. Please tell me you were the one who got the dream magic. Can you do portals?”

“She thinks we’re dreaming,” Squeak said, annoyed. “We’re not. We might be dead though.”

“We are dead!” Jackie yelled, her voice booming off the ancient pillars. For a few seconds there was absolute silence, with all the other bats staring at her. She didn’t give them a chance to cut her off.

“I’m sorry to tell you. All of you. We’re here because my world was fucked up. There was a monster to slay that could only be killed by sacrificing someone else’s life. That was mine. Now here we are… dead. I should’ve moved on, but… I told the goddess of death she could fuck off.”

Squeak tugged on her wing. “Uh, Jackie, there’s—”

But she ignored her, yanking it free and rising up onto her hind legs. It was time they faced the reality, all of them. They couldn’t keep gathering up her broken pieces forever. “That’s why any of you exist. We’re decomposing in the Dreamlands, breaking down into different fragments of personality and memory.”

“Jackie!” It was Squeak again, her voice barely even words anymore it was so high-pitched. But it cut through enough for her to notice the ground was shaking.

Something was coming for them. She lifted up her flashlight, shining it out into the gloom.

It looked like a rising black tide, moving almost as fast as she could see. Except—there was a glitter of hard shell, not just a fluid. Those were changelings, all coming for them.

Oh god.

“I don’t know what the fuck you said,” Sarah called, lifting up into the air. “But dying is fucking terrible, I don’t want to feel that again. Let’s skip and say we did.” She gestured with her horn, and a crack split the air in front of them. There was a forest through there—a forest that smelled of familiar plants and comfortable spaces.

Was it the Enchanted Wood? Jackie didn’t know, but she no longer cared. They hurried through, before the rising tide of changelings could reach them, and tear them all apart.

Author's Note

http://egophiliac.tumblr.com/

Chapter 4: The Moon

The Moon

So far as transitions went, at least they hadn’t fallen to their deaths or been beaten to a bloody pulp this time. Jackie felt a little pain in her eyes adjusting to the light, but not for long. It was only the moon, and the cold evening air was refreshing against her coat. She shook once, soaking it in and letting herself breathe.

She could hear the sound of numberless changelings in a swarm chittering and calling to one another, then a crack as the portal behind them sealed closed. Then it was just her, and the terrified breathing of a few other clones. Slivers? Fractions? Corpses, maybe. She was turning into a veritable corpse brigade.

What keeps killing me? I haven’t even been hit this whole time? Maybe Charybdis was getting his final revenge after all. She had set her spirit adrift, and it would be devoured. She didn’t have the power to reach into the Abyss anymore, but other creatures did. Maybe that was what waited for her at the end.

“I just met you five seconds ago,” Sarah said, startling Jackie. She was back to looking like a pony—an Alicorn again, with the same cutie mark and colors and everything. Like we don’t remember what you really are underneath. “So don’t let me presume. But I’m going to presume and say you feel like you’re on the run from something.”

“Because your world was unsafe?”

“Because you don’t seem surprised.” She circled around the three of them. “Look at you all. Survivors of a shipwreck, that’s what this is. And… you should know that you’re kinda sorta technically dead now? I hope that’s not an issue. It won’t be, we’ll get new bodies on the way out. I guess if you didn’t want to be in the system… sorry? I mean not really but I should say sorry so we’re going to go through that song and dance.”

Jackie tried to listen to her and take in the details of their surroundings at the same time, but it wasn’t easy. Trees, insects, the moon high overhead. She couldn’t smell any other ponies, or the kind of creatures that she knew to be afraid of. But that didn’t mean they were safe.

Every time we’ve gone anywhere, we were attacked almost immediately. Either by things that seemed native to that place, or just random chance.

It looked like they were under siege by a rival dream-traveler, one of incredible persistence and power. Jackie’s dream powers were working, and the others all around her acted like fragments of herself broken apart by unconscious deaths.

But it still felt like she was missing something.

“Look, I can tell you’ve got a short attention span, so I’ll explain this the simplest way I can. You’re on the run, but I don’t think the thing you’re running from is one you can get away from with just hooves and wings.” Sarah tapped her chest with one wing. “It’s in there. Something you’re missing, maybe.”

“I’m not running from anything,” Jackie insisted. “I’m looking for knowledge about the afterlife. I know there’s something, because a death goddess took me there. But I don’t know if that’s where to find my wife.”

“Maybe she’s nowhere,” Moire suggested, her tone helpful. Her words were less so. “Like my soul after I got downloaded. Just another ghost in the machine, that’s what they say. Data in the network. I don’t mean to the cruel, but you could be looking for something that doesn’t exist anymore.”

“You weren’t there,” Jackie hissed. “I saw them. Felt them, during the Last War. Archive brought back thousands and thousands of dead, including from ponies from right before the end of the world. They’re real. One of them traded places with an Alicorn… and she’s still alive.”

“But not your wife,” Moire continued. Either she didn’t realize this was a sensitive subject, or she didn’t care. “Maybe she didn’t want to be back. Maybe she—”

Jackie’s voice was a growl. She didn’t move, didn’t even twitch, just locked eyes with the bat. “Think real carefully about what you’re about to say, Moire. Really, really careful.”

The bat swallowed, stumbling back a few inches. She didn’t continue.

“What I thought.”

There were a few moments of awkward silence between them, until Jackie finally spoke. “So, Sarah. You said we were dead now? Is that how this world works?” Dreams had deaths all the time, and existence always continued. There was no dream without some kind of existence, even if it was just freezing in a substanceless void for all eternity. Sleep might be compared to death, but dreaming never was. “Where are we, exactly?”

“Digital,” she answered. “This is Upstream—an alien computer of incomprehensible size and power. It’s run by an AI that’s basically a god and there’s nothing anyone can do but learn its rules or die. But on the plus side it wants to protect living things, and we haven’t had to fight it too much.”

“Okay,” she said, completely unconcerned. It didn’t even enter her mind that this Jackie might be right—obviously she couldn’t be, not here. “So how would we become alive again? We need to get back to… where the living ponies are. Get some magic from them, that we can use to…” Even she was struggling to remember her plan.

Magic would let her… stay in one piece, that was it. Without it she would forget who she was and start to change. Was she changing already? How will I know when I’m somepony else?

She couldn’t even keep a diary, since objects were as malleable as anything else in here. It would just change like the rest of her world. “Unless… one of you can tell me what I want to know about Ezri. Where she is, how to get there. Is she living where that flight goes?”

“Living,” Squeak said. “I’m not sure any of us are living. Might not be the best choice of words.”

“Whatever.” She didn’t even look up. “What about you, pretend Alicorn? Do you know the secrets of life and death?”

The Alicorn’s eyebrows went up. “I already told you. We’re technically dead right now. If your wife is anywhere, she’s already in here. It’s just a matter of finding her.”

No way. This was just an empty forest, with no sign of… alien supercomputer? There were no such things as aliens, not after the Event.

But it wasn’t like she had better options.

“And to get there, uh…” The Alicorn’s horn sparked once, smoking slightly. Then she pointed. “That way!” She started walking. Not terribly fast, but Jackie followed anyway.

The others had no choice but to imitate, or else be left behind. Last of them was Squeak, who landed on her back as she’d done several times already. Even so, Jackie had gone from one of the largest and tallest ponies she knew to almost the smallest member of her group. There was no justice.

“I didn’t tell you anything about her,” Jackie said, annoyed. “You only know her species!”

“Yeah, she’s a changeling. Like me. All of them go back this way when they die—so they can get processed and reborn. She’s done it before, she’ll do it again. You’re the one who’s new to it. If you’re my clone or shallow-copy or whatever, then you’re new at this. Don’t worry, you’ll get it.”

“I’m uh… not sure this is where you think it is,” Moire Pattern said, the only one who was flying of their group. She didn’t seem to get tired, her wings moving in the same perfect, mechanical way with each stroke. “I’ve been trying to run several of my programs, and nothing happens. I tried running a Realm lookup for Ezri, nothing. Tried calling up the Murciélagos, no reply. No messages, no satellites, nothing. This isn’t digital.”

“I have no idea what any of that means,” Sarah said. “But digital might not be… quite right. Their computers are so much more advanced than us they probably don’t share anything in common. They can talk, though… that’s what the Forerunner is for. He’s our computer’s method to communicate with theirs.”

But Jackie could see what the others couldn’t—Sarah was nervous. Her eyes darted off the rock formation they could see through the trees or the thicker part of the forest, and moved over them like something new. She has no idea where she’s going.

This annoyed her, but not enough to say yet. Jackie needed to know if they were being intentionally misled, or… something else.

The trip became something more akin to her trips through the Dreamlands after that. A few days passed in the forest, with Jackie’s little “army” of companions remaining dedicated to the mission despite their numerous and obvious differences. She wondered if any of them would realize they were helping her without any effort on her part. But they hadn’t yet. There was never anything like self-awareness from her companions.

But wouldn’t they have said the same thing about her?

She remained fairly passive in terms of directions as they traveled, so long as she was continuously reminded that they were indeed in territory she didn’t recognize. She was prepared with every second to take over and point out just how stupid their mission was, as soon as she found somewhere familiar in the Dreamlands.

But she never did, not once. On some levels this was not that unusual, since the Dreamlands was an ever changing place and its features and landforms were always moving, always reconfiguring themselves. But they didn’t just shift at random—they had patterns. Dreams grouped by symbols and she should’ve been able to trace those symbols to an exit.

Jackie found that she couldn’t. There were no signs of other dreamers—in fact, she hadn’t really “met” another person who wasn’t just another fragment of herself.

At least there weren’t any more lurking in the forest, just as there were no more inexplicable disasters to get them killed.

Not until they stumbled into a city.

Granted, that name was generous. It reminded her a little of a deer settlement, if instead of living wood they had built their city with entire collapsed sections of buildings. Sheet glass and scrap metal had been made into buildings at random, and the single road running through town was made of old vinyl records and the corpses of endless Beats By Dre.

She could tell there was something strange about the “villagers” before they got close—but now that she’d seen them, Jackie didn’t try to turn back. They walked on two legs like humans, but they were furred like ponies and dressed like ponies and displayed their cutie marks prominently on much of their bodies.

“Alright, uh…” Jackie stopped them at the city wall, which was made of thousands of rusted cars all stacked vertically and welded together. “Time to blend in. How many can do that?” She looked around, but only the changeling raised a hoof.

“I’m not sure we should be going in,” Sarah said. “This is, uh… maybe not the way I imagined. I think I might’ve made a wrong turn somewhere, and we should try to find our way…” She trailed off at Jackie’s glare.

“Maybe you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, and they do,” she said. “I’m going in. I suggest you all come with me.”

“Maybe… I’m your pet?” Squeak suggested. “And the giant robot is your noble steed? She’s always bragging about being tall, now she can be tall enough to carry you.”

“You know I could eat meat if I wanted,” Moire Pattern said. “I dunno if a tiny bat should talk like you do. It’s bad for her safety.”

But there had been no violence between them before, and Jackie ignored the suggestion it might happen now. She closed her eyes, and concentrated on another bit of dream magic. She had to focus, for just as before she started drifting the instant her magic began. Only by focusing on her hooves against the floor could she keep herself grounded.

She hadn’t used magic for days now, so the sensation wasn’t nearly as bad as when she’d used the welder. Jackie didn’t dissolve, and after a few seconds she’d dreamed herself on two legs, with a pair of wings behind her and some scraps of scavenged clothes mostly open in front like the ones ponies in the village were wearing.

She took a few tentative steps forward, testing the joints on her weird legs. But despite the weird way it looked, she felt no pain.

“Not bad. You sure you aren’t a changeling under there too?” said another pony from beside her. A nondescript unicorn girl, blue with an orangish mane. “Who am I? You get one guess.”

“I don’t care,” Jackie said. “But good, that’s two. I guess… robot and tiny-me can’t do this. We’ll just have to hope they don’t notice. Or… maybe pass you off as our pets if we have to. Try not to talk once we get into town.”

“Try not to talk she says,” Moire muttered. “I could get resleeved in a body like that in five minutes with the right machines. Too bad we’re in a fuckin’ forest and there’s no fabrication credits.”

“Yeah.” Jackie didn’t even try to sound sympathetic. “Just don’t talk about it when we get in.”

“I still think it’s stupid,” Sarah’s fake unicorn girl said. “We don’t have anything to gain from in there. This is just some other fraction of society from long ago. They’ve been dead for so long they probably don’t even remember there’s another place to live.”

Jackie almost gave up on her and started walking—but now Sarah didn’t look like her, she had another idea. These others didn’t seem to have so much of her memories. Maybe they’d get flustered by…

She slid up close to Sarah from behind, wrapping both arms around one of hers and not being even a little shy about personal space. “Hey, Sarah. I know you’re not happy about being here, but I’d be so grateful if you’d give me a chance. I know this should be your world, but it might not, and… I only want to try.”

“You’re not serious,” Squeak muttered.

Sarah seemed to think she was serious. It wasn’t that she was a starving changeling—her coat was colorful, which meant she wasn’t even the same breed. But maybe it was just old habits. Either way, the girl seemed to stiffen, and she nodded. “Guess we could… look. For a few minutes.”

“I know you won’t regret it,” Jackie said, though of course she knew absolutely nothing about what Sarah would think. It wasn’t a lie, but… she sure could sound convincing. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“Okay.”

“She’s serious.”

Jackie turned to glare at Squeak, but she didn’t say a word. Sarah didn’t argue again.

They walked slowly back around the village, then passed in through a fast-food sign that could be lowered and raised like a gate.

“Welcome!” said the first pony they saw—a male earth pony, with a brownish coat and dreadlocks in his mane. “It has been long since we had visitors. You must have come from far away.”

His eyes didn’t seem to linger on Moire and Squeak, though Jackie couldn’t be positive. Unlike their changeling, she couldn’t read emotions.

“Far away,” she agreed, taking Sarah’s hand and squeezing it before she could say something stupid and ruin it. “We are looking to get home. Can you tell us how to get to the Enchanted Wood? We have dreamed so far that we lost our way.” When she saw no recognition she went on, trying to keep her tone neutral. “Or maybe Leng, or… The Great City, or… Abaddon?”

The pony shook his head. As she spoke, others seemed to drop what they were doing and come hurrying over. The village was primitive—ponies hung fish to dry, they wove baskets from discarded grocery bags, or mixed porridge of scavenged berries and spam from cracked-open cans.

But apparently none of that mattered with guests to see.

“I’m afraid I can’t take you to any of those places…” he said.

“But there is somewhere we can go,” said another member of the village, without skipping a beat. A child, pointing up the hill. There was a longhouse there, made of various sizes of broken streetlights. “The feast has been waiting for you, Jacqueline. You must come with us.”

Jackie spread her wings, and very nearly tested to see if this strange anatomy could fly. But she could see no signs of violence—the most dangerous things these villagers had were the tiny knives they used for opening cans. If she couldn’t fight off two-legged freak ponies with can knives, then she probably deserved to get eaten by a weird cult.

“Alright,” she said. “But only if my friends can come.”

“Of course!” said the first pony. “We’ve been waiting for all of you. There are seats for them at the table.”

The glances she got from the various copies told Jackie that none of them wanted to sit at any table in this place, but she didn’t give them a choice.

Author's Note

The-Minuscule-Task

Chapter 5: The Sun

The Sun

The longhouse didn’t look like a longhouse on the inside. A younger Jackie—so long ago that she could barely even remember being that person—would’ve loved it.

The entire structure was bright pink and lace, with artificial elegance dripping from every corner. There was no sign of the salvaged look of the village outside—it was the Lolita’s wet dream.

Except that ponies all around her weren’t dressed the part. There were dozens of posing dummies around the edge of the room, each one wearing an outfit her college-aged self would’ve drooled over. But no one put them on.

There was no explaining where the tribal ponies were getting hot silver trays of tea and desserts—but Jackie didn’t ask, and didn’t care.

So far as she could tell, she didn’t need to eat any more than the spirits typically did. But the idea of eating again was appealing, and she took her offered seat at the head of the table. The others were separated along her side, each one with a tribal pony or two between them. Dressing up like these creatures might or might not have made a difference—even Moire was given a seat, rather than being penned outside like an animal.

Jackie knew there was politeness expected at a service like this, and so she did nothing to argue with her hosts, nothing to stop them and demand answers. Not until the tea was served and they’d been offered a variety of little cakes and sausages and other such hors d’oeuvres. Distinctly human in selection—how long had it been since she tasted pork?

“So why were you expecting me?” she asked, sipping her tea. “It seems you don’t need me. Your village is prosperous.”

“The village is prosperous,” echoed the earth pony stallion, who had taken the seat opposite her on the table. “We do not need you, you need us.”

“She needs a sanity check,” said Squeak, through a mouthful of biscuits. She was sitting on the table instead of a chair, but none of the villagers had reacted to that. Other than an occasional sidelong glance of disbelief. “I don’t think you guys are equipped. We tried.”

“I do need help,” Jackie said. “I’m trying to find a connection back to the living world. I need magic from there, so I can find my wife.”

“You need to find your wife,” said a pegasus girl from her other side. “These other things… not possible. But maybe your mission is.”

How do they know me? There had been a time—not so long ago, even if it felt like ages—that Jackie was a dreamer of great renown. The entire Dreamlands shook when she decided to build Meliora, and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do to stop her.

But now things were different. She didn’t expect a staff of random spirits to know what she was doing, anymore than she expected to be able to channel the magic for the insane things she’d done.

Even now, thoughts of her creations filled her with confusion and awe. Misty had been created by accident, but she was more power than Jackie could now imagine. Her presence with them for a few minutes would probably have ended the entire mission.

I’m not the pony I used to be. I’m just a ghost. What can I expect?

“Do you know something about the dead?” she asked. “About… where I could find Ezri?”

“Here she goes…” Squeak muttered, snacking cheerfully on another sponge cake. Had she somehow managed to get a dress off the wall since last Jackie looked sideways? How did it fit so well? “Don’t start, Jackie. Just… take a look around you for a minute. See, down the hall? Those are warm beds. Guess who they’re waiting for. And there’s a clean river outside, all this food…”

“It is true,” the stallion said. “We have waited many years for you. It would not be… proper… to refuse you places here in the graveyard of dreams.”

“What the hell is that?” Sarah asked. “This… doesn’t look much like a graveyard.”

“Not for bodies,” agreed the girl. Jackie blinked, and found she suddenly recognized her. Through the pony costume, through the tribal nudity, there was a friend she’d had in high school. She had the same dimple on her cheek, the same sideways braid. The same voice.

I never did tell you how I felt about you. That was why these villagers had looked so familiar, why she hadn’t been afraid of them. They weren’t villagers at all. Oh God.

“But Ezri isn’t here,” Jackie insisted, rising from her place. The dozen or so memories all stared at her, more confused and fearful than anything. “Ezri and I were together! My only regret with her was letting her die without me.”

“She isn’t here.” The stallion reached out, setting one hand on her elbow. Gesturing for her to sit. “You’re right. But we know… suspect… where you might be going. If you want to leave.”

“But knowledge has a price,” said the girl beside Jackie, through a mouthful of sweet cake. “Always a price. Sacrifice nothing, and you gain nothing.”

Jackie spread her wings. “I am everything you see and nothing else. I could give someone a memorable night… maybe you, sweetheart.”

She shook her head sadly, turning away. “You could have. But you decided to take another road. Now you can’t.”

“I can tell you where to find the knowledge you have been searching for… but to get there, you must leave one of your number behind,” the stallion said. “The choice is yours.”

“I’m dangerous,” Jackie whispered. “More dangerous than I look. If you know what I need, and don’t tell me…”

“You will kill us,” said an older, matronly voice from beside her. It sounded exactly like Jackie’s grandmother—though of course that woman had died even before the Event. “All of us. But you will leave ignorant.”

Had this been a human village, Jackie would’ve called them on their shit right there. Plenty of people said they would be willing to die for things—but few actually meant it.

But then again, Jackie wouldn’t have been willing to massacre women and children, even if they were being uncooperative.

I have to look Ezri in the eye when I find her. That isn’t the pony she loves.

But it didn’t matter, because these weren’t humans, and they weren’t ponies. Be they spirits, figments, or something else—there was no mistaking their behavior for human. They were a part of this place somehow, all sharing information, talking to her like they were the many mouths of the same creature.

“Trade one of… us…” She glanced between the members of her group.

She imagined Ezri sitting in the empty chair, watching. What did you give up for me? she could hear her ask. Who did you hurt?

“I can’t,” she said, settling back. “I want to, but I can’t. I couldn’t if these were strangers, and they’re not. They’re part of me.”

“Then enjoy your meal,” said the earth pony. “We wish you comfort and a safe journey to wherever you travel next. The forest is vast and filled with dangers.”

Silence descended, with Jackie’s various copies and clones looking relieved.

Except one. “Maybe somepony is sick of walking on this long road to nowhere,” Squeak said, buzzing over and landing beside Jackie’s plate. She adjusted her dress, settling her hat on her head. “Maybe this is more comfortable than crossing a wasteland. I already know I’m dead—maybe that’s news to the rest of you. Way I see it, if we’re gonna be in the Underworld… at least we can do what we love.”

She looked around the room—at the outfits, the little plates and cups. “Good luck to you on your quest but you don’t need me. You never did, really. I’m small and useless and I don’t know how to fight or do supermath. At least by staying here… I’ve done something.”

Jackie didn’t refuse her—how could she? She’d sacrificed her own life, or she wouldn’t be here in the first place. If a pony didn’t have that right, what did they have?

The deal was struck, and Squeak shifted seats to the other side of the table. She wasn’t chained or locked in a cage, but it was clear she wouldn’t be leaving.

“You have gone far, deeper into the many layers of memory and self,” the stallion explained, once the agreement was made. “When you have reached the center of the maze, then you will know. You must go further, where flames burn downward, and all light and darkness are reversed. Where even the dreams of dreams are forgotten. There you keep your wings folded, and your eyes will be open to the truth.”

Jackie sat back in her chair, wondering for a moment if she’d just been cheated. The dreams of dreams, that one she’d heard before. It was a thought-experiment more than a reality, something she’d read in an ancient Equestrian tome. It proposed that just as the Dreamlands existed as a realm of ephemeral thought given form by physical dreamers, there existed another realm, an order of magnitude further removed from stability, where figments themselves experienced a state like dreaming. The cycle of abstraction might continue infinitely far back in that way, until one returned to the physical world or dissolved into featureless stardust.

“Which way?” Jackie asked. “I like riddles, but we’re…” in a hurry wasn’t quite right, and she didn’t want to lie. “We’ve been on this journey a long time. We want it to end.”

Was that even true for the others? She wasn’t sure. But they didn’t object. “Which way do we fly to get to this place, where… fires burn upside-down. We’ve already gone underground. We’ve gone into places that seemed digital, and through several different portals. Yet the world we’re in still seems the same. The Dreamlands, just… a distant part not on any maps.”

The pony shook his head sadly. “I do not know. I know our village isn’t there, that you have further to go. I know how you’ll know you’re in the right place. But I can’t draw it on a map. Maybe one of you can.”

“I have been recording our trip so far,” Moire said, the first time she’d spoken for some minutes. “There were some caves a little way back that looked promising. Thermal readings from the mouth suggested something was burning down there.”

“Riddles are shit,” Squeak said. “I’m glad you all get to figure that out instead of me.”

“Will you be… alright, tiny bat?” Sarah asked. “We might be able to…” She looked around, then lowered her voice. “Negotiate another exchange. To free you.”

“I’ll be fine.” She sat beside her plate, her appetite for the little pastries apparently bottomless. “Look at all these outfits. I talked to one of the girls, and she said they’ve got plenty of fabric, and they do shows! They think I’m cute.”

“You are cute,” Jackie agreed. “And we’re all grateful for you.” She wasn’t sure it was entirely true—but she was, and she could mean it.

They got their first good night of sleep—Jackie’s first time ever sleeping in the Dreamlands. But if there was a realm of nested dreams in the unstable space of the sleeping world, she could feel nothing of it.

But imitating the things she’d done while alive felt good—they made her feel more real.

They left that morning, after one more meal. The others hurried from the village—but Jackie lingered in the gate, beside Squeak’s perch on top of a butter churn.

“Are you sure about this?” Jackie asked. She’d changed back into herself in the morning—not by choice, the transformation had just worn off in her sleep. But the villagers hadn’t seemed to notice or care, so she was probably alright. “I can…” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “If you need me to break you out of here, or… I will. I don’t like leaving ponies behind.”

Squeak was wearing another dress, an entirely distinct one from the night before, and no less adorable. She shook her head. “I know the way you like to do things. There’s a part of me that would like to go on more adventures. But I already got dragged along with enough. I really just wanted to go to school, keep my sister safe, have my hobbies… I failed at all of it.”

She looked down, shifting on her hooves. “At least this way… I get something back. Sometimes that means saying goodbye. To the things we used to love—or the people. That’s part of life.”

“Part of life,” she repeated, voice bitter. We’re not alive, we’re not on Earth. Nothing we think is normal means anything here. But she didn’t correct the little pony. Squeak was giving up everything to keep their mission on-track. If that meant letting her say some silly things, that was fine. “Well, we’ll miss you. You weren’t too bad to have along, pipsqueak.”

“Don’t start.” She took off, looking embarrassed. “Don’t let the robot talk shit about me. Don’t let her forget we had to cut her out of jail.”

“I won’t.” She scooped the little pony out of the air, hugged her tight with one wing. She could tell she was embarrassed—Jackie felt a little of that embarrassment herself. But it didn’t matter. It was the last time she’d ever see her. “Have a good life, Squeak. Whatever that means in here.”

“I will. A cute, pampered pet. I think I’m overdue for some pampering.”

They left a few minutes later, back along the trail towards the cave. It was the closest thing they had to a lead.

Author's Note

https://www.deviantart.com/kiashone/art/Jackie-782615602

Chapter 6: Judgement

Judgement

Jackie kept her eyes forward and her head down as they approached the cave mouth. She didn’t need fancy sensors or magic to tell that there was heat coming from inside—there were flames burning somewhere, and not far away.

“I know I’ve said this before and you didn’t listen to me…” Sarah began, stretching out one clear wing and blocking the way into the cave. “But I’ve got a bad feeling about this place. Last time I didn’t like somewhere, we gave up our mascot. Who do we give up if we go in there, the robot? I don’t think so.”

“Hey!” Moire hissed. “Nopony said anything about giving up… anyone.”

Jackie sat down on her haunches, frowning between the two of them. Sarah was right about one thing—she had a bad feeling about this place too. Whatever was down in the earth, it didn’t want to be disturbed. But if we don’t go, we won’t learn. This was exactly why there were any big secrets left in her whole world—because learning answers was hard.

“I might die,” Jackie declared. “But if that’s the case, I’m ready for it. I have been for a long time. I’m already dead. I already paid with everything I have. But if… the two of you want to go your own way, I’d understand.”

There was silence for a few seconds, while the pair of them shared a glance Jackie couldn’t read. If the changeling wasn’t clearly real, she would’ve expected some kind of radio messages were traveling through the air around them. But since that obviously couldn’t happen…

“We’re coming,” Moire said, after a minute. “Or I am, anyway. If I had… if I ever find a girlfriend who I loved as much as you love, uh… Ezri. I wouldn’t let anything stop me from finding her again.”

Sarah shrugged. “Guess I’m in too. I’m immortal anyway, so it’s not like I have anything to lose. Neither do any of you, by the way. Or the little one we left behind. Crazy cults break apart, and she’ll be free before we know it. It’s just a matter of time.”

“Then we’re going down.” They did. Deep into a cavern of broken rocks and crags. She found the flames after only a short trip—and knew immediately what the silly riddle had meant. The flames were reaching deeper into the cave, instead of out at the fresh air coming in from above.

This was mixed with a strange combination of dampness and heat. Soon the cavern was populated with thick jungle plants, growing amidst will-o-the-wisps and huge gouts of natural gas. The smell was choking, and Jackie wondered again if she was finally wandering into a familiar part of the dreamscape. She knew the circles of hell, and she could follow them back to familiar soil. She could escape that way, back to her original plan.

But instead, they ended up on the shore of an underground lake. Fires burned all around, making the water reflect bright orange and flickering yellow. There were a set of old docks here, and a few ships moored. Most of them looked to have been anchored for so long that their sails had rotted to ribbons and rags, but not all.

Among them all was one ship that stood apart—like a luxury yacht built during the ancient days of human power. Its hull though covered with dirt and bits of rot, had once been precision-molded. There was a hot tub on the deck, and interface panels everywhere.

“Well I know which one we’re sailing.” Moire Pattern skidded and slid down a rough slope of red dirt, coming to a stop on the old docks. They gave a little under hoof, but held her weight. Which meant the other two were probably fine. “No sails, though. Wonder who built it.”

“The HPI,” Jackie answered, as they crossed up onto the dock. The door to the interior was open, and Jackie could see it had once been luxurious and well furnished. But the bottles of alcohol had all been broken or emptied. The leather and velvet had rotted, and the screens were mostly cracked. This ship had been here a long time.

Yet Moire Pattern marched straight past it all, knowing where the bridge was without being told. She fiddled with the lights for a few seconds and they came on, without much apparent effort on her part.

“You… know how this thing works?” Sarah asked. “That’s strange. I’m not very technical. I only pretended to be an engineer. Military engineer at that.”

Jackie rolled her eyes. “Don’t look at me. Most technical thing I ever did was summon a Soulshear.”

“Shut up you two.” Moire shoved a broken chair out of the way, along with a set of old, corroded armor that might’ve belonged to a seapony captain.

But why on Earth would a seapony be captain of a boat? Jackie couldn’t imagine.

The screen didn’t turn on at first—so Moire ripped it right out, exposing the wires underneath. “Somepony get me tools,” she instructed. “And quick. I think this old girl has security systems. Wouldn’t you all feel safer somewhere that could defend itself? Wait, I don’t care.”

Sarah gave her a look that said: “go right ahead”, and Jackie groaned. But she hadn’t rescued this one, this one had rescued them. She could do a little grunt work.

She found a maintenance closet after a few minutes of searching, and an old toolbox. She brought it over, settling it onto the ground beside Moire with a thump.

The mechanical pony was on her back now under the controls, with the entire plastic shell of the computer open and many of its wires exposed. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing, though for all Jackie knew she was intentionally sabotaging their whole operation. It wasn’t like she had any way of telling the difference.

“Got the tools then? Good.” She slid out, sitting up. “I’ve got news. Good, ship’s working. Bad? Reactor is dead.”

“R-reactor?” Jackie raised an eyebrow, but it wasn’t as though she hadn’t seen nuclear ships before. Even the pre-Event militaries had built them. “On something this small?”

“Yeah, why is that… Nevermind. Point is, with fusion you need a fair bit of energy to get things going. Once you do, things stabilize, and you start pulling out your unlimited free energy. Without that initial spark, your reactor is cold and dead. Like this one.”

“So we… can’t move,” she said. “We’re stuck.”

“We could fly,” Sarah suggested. “But your creepy friends seemed to think that would be a bad idea. We have to keep our wings folded, remember?”

“Yeah, we can’t if they said no,” Jackie said, without hesitation. “That’s… how these things always go. There’s rules about what’s safe and what isn’t. It’s the Dreamlands. If they say we’re allowed to sail and nothing else, then we have to sail.”

Moire sighed. “I was… afraid of that. There’s, uh… there’s a way to get it started.”

Jackie could hear the dread in her voice before she even finished, and she didn’t have to ask what it would mean. It means one of us is going to have to pay a terrible price to make it work, and there won’t be a way around it.

“Because I’ve got my own little RTG in my belly,” she said. “Ship’s capacitors are fucked, but I’ve got my own. If we… wired me to short circuit, we could get the reactor started.”

“And you’d die,” Sarah supplied.

“No!” Moire glared at them. “My capacitors would be fucked forever, no question. The point of having them is to even out an uneven demand against the steady output of the RTG. Without them, I’d… well, let’s call it comatose. What one of you would have to do is wire me up to the ship after that. See that?” She gestured under the cabinet, at the glowing length of wire. “When this is done, you hook me into the ship. It’ll boot me back up.”

Oh shit. It was just like the last time. The Dreamlands was letting Jackie pass, but only at the cost of one of her companions.

“You don’t have to,” Sarah said, without even waiting for her to say anything. “This isn’t your stupid mission. You know there are other fish in the sea. It’s not your fault this one can’t give up on hers.”

Jackie snapped one of her hooves down. “I don’t expect you to understand. But I agree, Moire. I won’t try to force you.”

“No,” the robot agreed. “And you won’t have to. I don’t have anyone, I said so. Guess… the little pipsqueak was alright, but now she’s in her little paradise. Maybe this is mine.” She looked around at the broken ship, its faded walls and cracked electronics. “This thing has the whole suite, you’ve got no fuckin’ idea. Whoever built this thing spent the income of a small nation. And from the sonar maps… this lake is gigantic. Ports, women… spare parts for sale. You’re basically making me captain of the best ship in the world.”

Jackie didn’t have to be the same pony to hear the lie in her voice. Her outlook wasn’t nearly as optimistic as she seemed… but she wanted them to think it was. She was trying to spare Jackie’s feelings.

“Tell us what to do.”

It took several days of work—not just wiring the robot pony into the reactor down belowdecks, but preparing the systems that would let her live on the reactor’s power once she got moving again. The robot pony wrote out a list of instructions for them—which controls to press, how to cycle the reactor through various failure states if their plan failed. Basic stuff.

But Jackie wasn’t worried—this was all just a dream, and in the Dreamlands it was never really about what should happen. It was about bargains struck, and prices paid. The exchange here was not with the reactor, it was with the ocean.

“And that’s everything,” Moire said, settling nervously into a pony-sized chair in front of the reactor. She’d already set all the tools one could want near it, along with a huge spool of spare wire for her umbilical. Her own belly was open in front of them, in a way that should’ve been gruesome but didn’t so much as make Jackie’s stomach twitch anymore. It was all wires and circuits under there, more advanced than anything she’d seen in the HPI. It reminded her more of one of the Wayfinder ships, though she wasn’t technical enough to understand their machines.

“Here we go,” she said. “You have the list, you know what to do if the reactor doesn’t start.” She turned, glaring at Sarah. “I want you to know I’m conscious every moment. I’m watching both of you, I just can’t move. So don’t try and stick my hand in warm water or some shit.”

“Why me?” Sarah asked, indignant.

“Because I’m helping her save her wife,” Moire answered. “She won’t do anything.”

“I won’t forget this,” Jackie said. “No matter what happens.”

“No,” Moire agreed. “You won’t.” She extended a hoof, smacking the emergency start on the reactor.

Her body began to spasm and twitch, and the smell of burning plastic filled the room. Jackie wanted to reach over and yank her free—but she didn’t. Instead she rushed over to the controls, opening each of the interlinks in turn, manually pumping fuel back into the chamber, and watching through a tiny camera as the embers of fusion burst into a vibrant orange glow.

“Damn,” Sarah said from beside her in front of the reactor, her face stained with the bright yellow radiance reflected out through many layers of shielding. “A little star. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised that somebody cracked fusion, but… it’s still fuckin’ impressive.”

“Yeah.” Jackie resisted the urge to say anything snide. Lights came on overhead; air filters began to chug.

“Vessel designation ‘Supership’ entering startup sequence,” said an even voice. “Prepare for departure.”

Holy shit you’re dead. Jackie jerked suddenly alert, staring at the speaker. But there was no more movement from the system—no turrets pointed at them, no threats.

“Well, are you prepared?” Sarah asked, glancing over her shoulder at Moire Pattern.

The pony did not move. Her eyes didn’t twitch, and there was no expression on her face. Smoke rose from short-circuited insides.

Jackie could make no sense of her advanced components, but she hurried over anyway, removing the cables and glancing down at the list. She hadn’t even read it through to the back side.

And there it was—on the back of one of the “emergency” pages, a scribbled note.

“Full prosthetic bodies aren’t made for high voltage overload—when this is over, I’m scrap. But my cortical recorder is shielded, and it should be fine. My skull should come unlocked when I’m dead—there’s a little box inside. If you ever complete this insane mission of yours, take me to Sunset Shimmer.

Find your girl. For both of us.”

She held it up for Sarah to read, biting back her emotions as best she could. It wasn’t a winning battle, though. This wasn’t like staying to cosplay for all eternity—this little piece had just wired herself up to die, all for her.

“Just like that, huh?” Sarah shoved the sheet aside.

She rolled the corpse gently onto the floor, then started fiddling with the head. It didn’t take long for a little metal clasp to open. A dark metal box emerged from inside, smaller than a baseball with the sturdy construction of a tank.

She held it up for her to see. “What will a bat give in exchange for her soul, eh Jackie? That’s two. Don’t think I’m not keeping score.”

Author's Note

http://silfoearts.tumblr.com/

Chapter 7: The World

The World

Her journey wasn’t over yet. Jackie did not return to the engine room, and the corpse of the second part of her that had given itself for her mission to continue. Maybe they were dreams, and she wouldn’t stay dead for long. But if she broke up into smaller parts and drifted in the Dreamlands, Jackie would probably not discover anyway.

She had information—what she was looking for could be found on the island in the center of the world. She’d come this far—she was going to sail the rest of the way.

Not literally, granted. The “Supership” used a hydrostatic impeller, and when it moved it glided smoothly over the waves in a way that made it feel almost like they were in a comfortable luxury car gliding over smooth asphalt.

Sarah had remained beside her every moment, with the robot’s brain now tucked away securely in her satchel that she never, ever removed. At least she wasn’t still trying to guilt Jackie over the robot’s sacrifice. She lied to us. She wasn’t supposed to die! She even made fun of us when we suggested it!

But it was too late now. She could no more undo what the bat had done than she could go back and save Ezri from dying in the first place. They had both made their choice, and known the consequences. So did I. Meliora is still standing because of me. Earth is safe again because of me. All this is just a bonus. Ezri would be proud of what I accomplished.

The bridge was a large space for such a small crew. They’d done their best to scrub the grime from the windows, Jackie even flying outside and wiping the glass as best she could. But they could only clear away enough of the slime to make the sea outside visible.

It looked like a sea—there were swells, and a gentle rocking that moved the ship from side to side.

Once they’d left the dock behind, Jackie could no longer see any sign that they weren’t on the surface. The sparse flames of fire out along the water gathered together to keep the ocean at perpetual sunset. Or sunrise. Hard to say.

But she knew where she was going, without asking this time. Jackie could feel the bottom of the ocean pulling her down, like gravity towards an invisible planet. She could do nothing if not follow.

At least she still remembered the basics of piloting an HPI vessel. She set a straight course, and avoided the underwater hazards with modest competence.

“You still think we’re in your digital world?” she asked, conversationally. “This is all on some… server somewhere?”

Sarah glanced down at her satchel. “There’s no reason you couldn’t simulate death here like everything else. This, uh… cybernetic pony… would be easier to simulate than you or me. We’d expect her to come back if we put her in a new body. This doesn’t change anything.”

Jackie shrugged. “Then why are you still with me? If you think I’m wrong, you can fly back the way you came. Make your own way.”

Sarah shifted on her haunches, seeming contemplative. Maybe she was thinking over whether to do exactly what Jackie suggested. But in the end, she only shook her head. “Feels like this is where I’m supposed to be. And if I’m here, at least I can make sure you don’t forget about those others. Make them count for something.”

Jackie could see something resolving in the window in front of them—an island concealed in mists. The water sloped up on the computer, with numerous highlighted hazards. A reef, or maybe a thick maze of rocks. Enough to destroy their ship. She turned sharply to one side, sharp enough that her companion squeaked in protest and started swearing as she smacked into the wall.

“Sorry, sorry!” she called. “There’s an island, but… dammit, I’m not sure… there’s got to be a way through.” She slowed the ship to a stop so violently that they smacked into the water on the way down, sending a shockwave reverberating through the ship. The sound of the engines died.

“An island…” Sarah repeated. “You sure there’s anything through the mist?”

“Hy-Brasil,” Jackie whispered. “I think.”

“I have no idea what that is, but it sounds like a myth.” She wasn’t wrong, but Jackie wasn’t going to say so. How much of her life would her younger self have called a myth?

But she didn’t take her eyes from the sea, or her hoof from the controls. She’d come so far now, she wasn’t going to turn back. “If you want to call it that, yeah. Not a bad name. Maybe Valinor. It’s something. I think I’ve been on my way there for a long time.”

Maybe something had been calling her here. Like water spiraling down a drain. Or something a little more romantic. Either way, she was so close. So close she could almost taste the place, feel its tendrils trying to reach out and tug her inside.

But as she circled, she found the reef continued. Crags of broken rock and bleached coral seemed to surround the entire space, without any visible break that might permit her to slip through. Had they circled the entire island yet? If not, they had to be close. Minutes away, perhaps.

“This is it,” Sarah said, staring down at their sonar data. “This is the last time it happens. You’ve given up everyone else, and now it’s my turn.”

“I didn’t—”

“Bullshit,” Sarah said. “Those ponies were only here because of your mission. You never would’ve met us otherwise. It’s like this whole thing is designed. A… program, made to test you. Or torment you. Which do you think it is?”

“I think it’s… a dream,” she answered. “The Dreamlands is a strange place. It reflects back what we expect, or what we want, or what we fear. It’s hard to say which is which.”

“And you think we were your… subconscious? Not even really people?”

“No.” Jackie hesitated. “I think you were all part of me… but then I got hurt. Died in the Dreamlands, but since I wasn’t mortal anymore, it just broke me into pieces. That would make an ordinary bat go insane, but I’m so old and have so much magic...”

“Well that’s bullshit,” Sarah said, pushing the throttle all the way down. “Here’s another idea. We’re not where you think we are. These ponies are real, and they want you to finish your mission. All of us do. What good would Squeak and Moire’s sacrifices count for if I let you fail right here?”

“You know how to get through?”

Sarah shrugged. “I’ve got an idea. Something you said about the ship.”

She watched, waiting for the bug to supply exactly what she meant.

“That looks pretty impassable—but I’m guessing you don’t really care about leaving. If you had someone to keep the ship moving forward, breaking through whatever that is along the way… you might be able to fly the rest of the way. Rather than crossing the whole lake.”

“You mean… break the rules,” she repeated, uneasy. “That’s… not great. Breaking through the reef will probably… trigger some kind of defensive reaction. Dreams don’t like it when you cheat. You have to do things the way they expect you to.”

“And if we cheat… do you think it would focus on both of us? Or just… one?”

Now that was a plan. Jackie couldn’t have suggested it, not without Sarah already volunteering. But now that she saw it—there was no other way. It might be exactly what this realm was expecting from them. “It should focus on the bigger threat,” Jackie finished. “This huge ship with a nuclear reactor in its belly.”

“Which… isn’t going to blow this whole place, right? If we sink?”

“No.” Jackie didn’t hesitate. “It’s fusion. It’ll lose containment the instant anything happens, start cooling off. Worst that could happen would be a conventional explosion—the reactor chamber is hot, really, really hot. Water gets in, well… steam inside a ship-shaped pipe.”

“So you’d have to fly fast,” Sarah said, gesturing up towards the deck. “Go stand right in front of the window. Soon as I get into trouble, you take off and fly as fast as you can for the island.”

“That’s not…” She swallowed. She wasn’t going to refuse the offer now, not after everything she’d done. “Thank you.”

Sarah shrugged. “Thank me by getting there. I’m immortal—I don’t care what kinda fake death this thing has in store for me. That robot seemed pretty fun, I’ll bring her back too. Have a party.”

“Have a party,” Jackie agreed, sticking out a hoof. “Remember me while you’re celebrating, alright? Remember… what we accomplished. The ponies we saved. The ones we helped. The things we built.”

Sarah took the offered hoof. “Sure thing, Jackie. Forever.”

She climbed up a set of corroded steps, along the edge of the deck where gray water sprayed up around her and the perpetual sunset sky turned everything crimson. There it was in front of her—an island that seemed to stretch forever, its coasts forbidden and forgotten. Nothing left ahead of her but fog.

Sarah didn’t wait for permission—she started backing up.

The “Supership” didn’t go terribly fast in reverse. The hydrofoil didn’t work, and it basically dragged itself through the water. But it wasn’t designed for that, and never had been. Jackie tensed, glancing inside through the dirty glass as they came to a stop. There was perhaps half a kilometer between them and the edge of the reef.

“Here we go!” Sarah called, her voice muffled by the glass. The engines roared to life, and the ship seemed to buck under her. Jackie spread her legs, getting the most comfortable, stable perch she could.

A lesser pony would’ve been thrown off, or else crushed by the acceleration to slide sideways off the deck as the prow lifted out of the water. But Jackie was not a lesser pony. Even in death, she had strength beyond almost all others. She spread her wings, narrowed her eyes, and focused on her balance.

The reef grew closer as salt water stung at her face, eyes, and hooves. She could see the fine line of rock just below the surface of the brackish water, an impenetrable barrier that would permit no ships to pass. Yet here they were, probably approaching a hundred knots.

Shit, I’m going flying off this thing like a gun. Jackie climbed past the window a bit, leaning forward on the railing with legs backward. The forward acceleration of the Supership kept her in place, for now. But if it faltered…

They hit the reef. Jackie heard the terrible crack from below as the lower section of the ship went shearing off like snapping plastic. Rock growled and crunched under the pressure, and they began arcing downward towards the water’s surface.

Jackie spread her wings, letting herself separate from the ship as it fell out from behind her. There was a terrible crash, an explosion of water from all directions accompanied by a crunch from the hull. She glanced over her shoulder just once as it started to roll, then tucked her wings and flapped for everything she had.

Something that wasn’t any animal she’d ever heard of roared in the deep, and the water behind her split open with its rage. She couldn’t fly backwards, but even still she could see a terrible reddish reflection as something emerged around the ship. A creature vaster than any vessel was wrapping itself around the massive craft. Steel buckled and screamed, glass shattered. But whatever Sarah was suffering in there, Jackie couldn’t hear her. It was the only mercy she got.

The mist continued before her, as thick as it had ever been. God, what if there isn’t an island here? What if every single one of them died for no reason? What if Archive was right?

Was the sea-monster following her? The mist was so thick all around her now that she couldn’t even see the water, couldn’t see anything. Only that sense of downward gravity was there, guiding her forward inexorably towards… something.

The fog parted in sunlight so brilliant that she was nearly stunned right out of the air. The water underneath transformed from black and angry to a clear, crystalline blue. And up ahead—not much further at all—was a coast. There rich trees grew, with canopies so thick that the sunlight would not burn the eyes of those below.

She imagined a city stretched away into the distance there, its spires rising with the slope up into a misty infinity beyond the sun.

There on the shore was a single pony, their body obscured by the folds of a thick, enveloping robe. She could see nothing of their features—the hood always hung too far, the hooves were wrapped in cloth that dragged wet on the sand.

Jackie landed in the wet sand just past the spray of crashing waves, her body drained and exhausted. The pony turned, and seemed to be moving in slow motion as they made their way over.

“I’ve come for… information,” Jackie croaked, holding herself out of the water as it crashed up on her from behind. But it wasn’t the icy, stinging spray she remembered from moments before—this was warm, the kind of water you could fall asleep in.

“No you haven’t,” answered a voice. “You want to know where to find your mate, the first reborn of Earth.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “I refused to go with… Archive. Not without knowing she would be there waiting for me.”

“Now you understand,” the pony answered. Its voice was indistinct—neither male nor female, old nor young. It shifted constantly through all of those, becoming at once too high to understand and at other moments deep and resonant. “You want to know if the one you love is waiting for you. But do you know how deep into the Oneiros you traveled? How far along the Anima Mundi you walked?”

“No,” Jackie whispered, spitting up a mouthful of sand and water. She couldn’t have. She wouldn’t have.

“You forgot,” said the speaker. “Let me show you.”

Jackie was sitting in an airport. “Final boarding call for Jacqueline Kessler!” called the disinterested attendant.

She rose to her hooves. Lonely Day did too, standing beside her on the platform. They walked together to the boarding gate.

“Will you be coming too, Alex?”

“One day,” the Alicorn answered. “Almost all the others have. Even the tallest mountain can be ground into sand. Even the dimmest stars burn out.”

“I’m scared,” Jackie remembered. “All this time I wanted this, but now… I’m not sure I’m ready. It’s easy to talk big about something like this, you know? To… claim you’re willing to do anything. Really shove it up Athena’s ass… but now here we are.” She held up the ticket.

The pony behind the scanner looked at her without annoyance, only sympathy. She had seen this before.

“You want to know a secret?” Lonely Day’s voice was low. “No one is. But it doesn’t matter—what’s through there might hurt. It might not be what you’re expecting. But it’s a lot like life—it’s the journey that matters. You’ve had a great one.”

“Yeah.” Jackie handed over the ticket. “I guess I have.” The gate beeped, opened in front of her. Jackie passed through, to where the light swallowed her.

She was on a beach. The pony in front of her lowered her robe. Underneath was green and orange.

Everything she dreamed of.

Author's Note

http://adgerellipone.tumblr.com/post/171052285432/commission-for-bitera