Author's Note
This is a sequel to Silent Whisper's Symbiosis, and reading that story first is essential to understanding this one.
Thanks to you Silent for providing such wonderful material to work with, you're an excellent author and a good friend.
Whole Life
“Isn’t it funny, how hindsight can change everything, darling? A while ago, this would have been my worst nightmare, but now? I think Rainbow might have been right. I think every sordid moment of life aboard this ship was stolen from the dead. I think we deserve to join them.”
“We have to keep going!” cried the mare, peering behind her into the darkness. She squinted for a moment, chewing her lip nervously. She’d gotten too far ahead as usual, but it was hard not to. Everyone knew that they had to keep pressing forward. Remaining where they were wasn’t an option.
Normally she wouldn’t have minded getting away from the herd, but this was different. She didn’t want to do this last part alone. The thought of doing so made her uneasy. She felt like she didn’t deserve it.
Eventually, the faint sound of voices floated by on the stale air, and soon they were joined by lights.
Letting out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, Cloudy finally relaxed.
“What’s the holdup, Starscout?” called one of the voices to her.
They were still too far away for her to tell who had asked, and she turned away without replying. They knew why she’d stopped. It might have made them feel better to pretend this was business as usual, but each of them knew what was about to happen.
Cloudy waited until the voices were closer, and then began to push forward.
Soon, she found herself astride by two, then four, then more ponies than she could count. And with hoof-picks and shovels, all of them began to dig through the wall of soil and stone in front of them.
“We have to keep going!”
Sunny sighed, and waited for the inevitable.
“That means you too, Starscout!”
She rolled her eyes, and made a token effort to tap the rocks in front of her with the pick-axe. The metal tip bounced away harmlessly, not even leaving a mark. She waited a few seconds, before doing it again.
From behind, there was the sound of someone grumbling as they headed in her direction.
“Sunny, what are you doing?” asked Ivory. He spoke in low tones, clearly not wanting anyone else to hear their conversation.
“I’ve been doing this for four hours,” she snapped, fixing him with an unimpressed look.
“I know you’re tired, but we need to keep-”
“Ivory, I’ve been doing this for four hours. Can’t I have a break?!” she demanded, rubbing her sore neck.
“You know we need to keep at it,” the pegasus said, firmly but not unsympathetically.
“No Ivory, I actually don’t! Because none of you will tell me!” She shouted, throwing her pickaxe down, “Why should I help with the digging when I don’t even know what I’m digging for?! Everyone else here knows!”
Ivory stared down at her, one set of eyes among the several that had begun looking in their direction. The sounds of digging had receded to nearly nothing as more and more of the herd found their attention drawn to the growing argument.
“Just… just go help with dinner, okay?” Ivory replied exasperatedly, rubbing his brow with a hoof.
Sunny didn’t wait to be told twice. She stalked away, roughly pulling off her hoof-guards and throwing them to the ground. Behind her, she heard Ivory barking orders at the others to resume digging. She didn’t turn back, and kept storming away until she reached the tarpaulin flap that separated the digging site from the open air.
Outside, the cold hit her immediately. Without the combined heat of bodies and exertion, the night air was biting against her sweat-soaked coat. She shivered, and wasted no time taking off in the direction of the tent where dinner would be being prepared.
The little shanty that her herd had set up was quiet. Anyone who wasn’t either digging, or helping make the evening meal would likely be catching up on some much needed sleep. True leisure time had never really been something that Sunny had ever known in her short life.
When she reached the right tent, she stopped for a moment, and turned to the sky. The stars twinkled in the inky black. Sunny closed her eyes. She imagined that, when she opened them, the sky would be a joyous, bright blue. She imagined that the sun would be there, warming her face and giving life back to the earth.
Of course, when she opened them again, it was exactly the same as before. Pitch black, save for the meagre silver light of the moon and the herd’s flickering torches. Her shoulders slumped. But before Sunny could head into the tent, she spied something on the ground.
Coming up through the dry, cracked ground was a single green shoot. It was tiny, and weak, but the note of colour against the backdrop of the infinite grey plateau was unmistakable. She started to move her shaking hoof out to touch it, and bit her lip. The temptation to yank it out of the ground and eat it was nigh overwhelming. She hadn’t eaten anything green in so long. She bet it would be fresh and juicy.
But a sudden clatter from inside the tent shook her from her thoughts, and Sunny withdrew her hoof like it had been burnt. The idea of pulling the shoot felt suddenly obscene and selfish. To snuff out some of the only new life she’d seen in months.
How selfish she was, how selfish they all were.
Sunny sighed. There was work to be done.
“Rarity, I think there might be something wrong with the water,” croaked a rasping voice from the gloom.
But Rarity didn’t know who it was, and she didn’t care to stop to find out.
She’d been walking for so long, for her whole life. She couldn’t stop for someone who had fallen behind, no matter who they were.
Besides, Rarity thought to herself, maybe another one down might make the water taste a bit sweeter again.
She didn’t know whether that thought made her want to laugh or cry.
“What did you do?” Butterscotch deadpanned the second Sunny entered the room.
“Told the truth,” Sunny muttered, not meeting her mother’s eyes.
“Sunny,” Butterscotch said. Her tone was one that Sunny had noted that all mothers seemed to have a knack for. With one word, she indicated she wanted Sunny to explain more, and that lying would be instantly detected.
“I don’t see why I should have to dig when I don’t even know what we’re doing here!” Sunny exclaimed, prompting Butterscotch to sigh.
“You know we decided not to tell the younger ponies.”
“But why? It’s not fair! I’m fifteen now mum, I deserve to know. We’ve been here for months, and it’s just been ‘we’ll tell you when you’re older’ over and over again. Does our opinion not matter to you?!”
“Sunny Starscout, of course your opinion matters to us!” Butterscotch snapped, throwing her cooking utensils onto the worktop and fixing her daughter with a hard stare. “We’ve not been telling you for your benefit, not ours.”
“And why exactly is it for my benefit to not even know what we’re digging for?” Sunny demanded.
“So you can have some version of a childhood, Sunny. Before you have to grow up and hear all about the world we live in.”
“Everyone else who goes there everyday knows;, but I’m expected to just swing a pickaxe all day while the other ponies my age get to do the easy stuff!” she shouted, not caring for how many of the herd might hear her through the thin tent walls.
“You know why you have to dig, Sunny,” Butterscotch replied, weariness audible in her voice.
And, in her mother’s defense, Sunny did know why. The sad fact was that, in a world so largely devoid of life, with so few crops to tend, earth ponies were getting increasingly rare. Someone with her innate strength was a pretty useful commodity when it came to mining through rock. A pony as intelligent as Sunny was fully aware of that.
But, crucially, Sunny was also fifteen, and as such she was far more concerned with arguing with her mother than suffering the infuriatingly necessary injustice of breaking rocks all day long.
“Come and cut up this nightroot with me Sunny, please,” Butterscotch said, apparently deciding the best solution was to avoid the topic altogether.
Sunny held firm for a moment. She could push the topic, but her mother wasn’t really one for budging. She could leave her here, and run off into the night. Of course she’d have to return after a short while if she didn’t want to freeze to death.
The nightroot would get cut up, cooked and eaten at the end of the day. It always did. Always nightroot, one of the only vegetables that grew in the dark. It was waxy, tasteless. Its sole purpose was to provide some fuel for their bodies. There was no joy in it, nothing to relish.
There was so little joy at all here. Only in each other, in the herd, was there even the slightest amount of solace. And a bookish, argumentative filly like Sunny had few friends. Only her mother, one of the few of their number courageous enough to brave the minefield of childbirth.
It wasn’t fair that Sunny had to mine all the time, nor that she had to choke down nightroot night after joyless night. But it also wasn’t fair that her mother had to watch her only daughter slave away all day, without that glint of zeal for life that all parents want for their children.
Alll they had was each other, and all she had was Butterscotch. So Sunny sighed, walked over to the older mare, and began to help prepare the meal.
Cloudy drank from her canteen, and tried not to grimace. They had been digging for weeks now, and the water recycling machine they had brought along was struggling to keep up. She tried not to think of everything that had been fed into the device to give them all something to drink. Tried not to think of the faint taste of urine she was sure she could pick up.
Once the herd had realised the elevator shaft their ancestors must have left for them was unusable, the dig had begun. But it had to be worth it, right? To finally breach through? To see whether all their predictions had been correct. All their devices saying one thing.
That the sun had come back.
She placed her canteen down, and went back to join the herd. They were all scrabbling at the top of the tunnel. Some with picks, some with spades, some with their bare hooves. Because they could taste the fresh air. They’d been able to for days now. They could smell it, or rather the lack of it. The lack of cramped bodies and sweat, of poorly covered latrine trenches and unwashed fur. The freshness that had to mean that they were getting close.
She pushed through to the front, and began the desperate clawing herself.
All the herd were so close to her, they were squashed together at the apex of the tunnel. Once they had realised how close they must be, they had stopped with the formalities. Stopped digging horizontally to make enough space for everyone, stopped digging at a gentle incline. It had become a mad rush to climb as high and as sharp as possible and get out the wretched underground that was the only thing any of them knew.
Cloudy gasped for breath. She scraped the ceiling, having long discarded her pick.
The air got cleaner, the stink washed away. The closeness dissipated. Cloudy saw light, she felt a glorious coldness on her hooves that the foul, humid heat of the tunnel would have never allowed.
The herd began to cry out, Cloudy pushed forward. Her hooves scrabbled, they stopped meeting resistance.
She pushed through.
The tunnel ended.
Something else started.
“We have to keep going!” Rarity cried out, desperately trying to drag the sedentary bodies of her herdmates along. Though, of course, she only really cared about one.
Deep down, though, she knew it was for naught. Once they sat down like this, they didn’t get up.
Around her, the rest of the herd moved quickly, refusing to look at those that had fallen irreparably out of the chase. And a part of her wanted to laugh at herself for being indignant.
Rarity had flashes of watching Rainbow fade into the gloom. Of walking all around their ship until she reached the place once more that her friend’s skeleton should have laid. She remembered finding nothing, and of being so, so thirsty that she just had to drink.
And then she remembered vomiting, before drinking the water once again.
“You have to keep moving, it can’t have been for nothing!” Rarity growled at the rosebush, but she got no reply.
Roseluck’s daughter, still so young, simply wilted a few petals. Rarity couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a foal. Her breathing was shallow and laboured.
Rarity turned to look at the quickly receding herd. All of them old, all of them slowing, all dry mouthed gasping for water that quenched thirst less with every passing day. The sunset line approached as Rarity continued her futile attempts to make the young mare move.
She remembered a time when they were always hours ahead of the line, and now it seemed like they were always just a few seconds from death.
The sunset line passed over her.
Immediately, she felt cold. She felt her vines’ desperation to be back in the light. She felt the life draining from her body.
Tears beading in her eyes, she let go of the rosebush. Then she bolted in the direction of the herd.
Sunny and Butterscotch cut up the nightroot in a tense silence. The rhythmic chopping noises floated through the air where there would normally be lively conversation. Sunny loved her mother, and she desperately wanted to speak with her.
But Sunny was also angry, and she didn’t want to give in.
“You’re too clever for your own good, do you know that?” Butterscotch said, a sad smile on her face.
“Huh?”
“You always have been, right from when you were born. I worry about you a lot, Sunny. You’ve always been an old soul for someone so young.”
“I’m old enough to know why we’re here, mum,” Sunny said, turning to look Butterscotch in the eyes, “Please.”
Butterscotch looked her up and down for a moment, deep in thought. For a moment, Sunny thought she was going to break.
“Did I ever tell you about your name?”
“I was named after your gran,” Sunny replied curtly. If they were playing this game, then Sunny wasn’t going to bite.
“Yes, but did we ever tell you why she was called Sunny?” Butterscotch continued with a chuckle. Sunny tried not to seem interested, but her mother could read her like a book. There was nothing that Sunny Starscout loved more than learning something new.
“You see, her mother, Cloudy, was the first pony to break out of the bunkers. When the eternal night came, and all the plants died, no one had anything to eat. There wasn’t nightroot back then,” Butterscotch said with a wan smile, gesturing down to the unappetising, dark blue plant on the table, “And all the smartest ponies in the world tried to work out what they could do to keep everyone alive.”
“And our ancestors went to live under the ground. They made artificial lights which kept them warm and helped grow enough food to keep them going, I know.” Sunny interjected irritably.
“Just listen, love. They went underground for hundreds of years, but the food was getting less and less each year. The herd was getting smaller. Until, one day, they checked their instruments, all the devices they had down there to try to monitor what was happening on the surface, and they saw it. The sun had come back.
“But their ancestors, our ancestors didn’t think they would ever leave the bunkers. So the way out had crumbled over time. They had to dig their way out. And the whole time they didn’t know whether their instruments were right. They made a leap of faith, they got their whole herd out of there and reached the surface.”
“Yeah, and then Cloudy was the first one to reach the surface, and their instruments were wrong,” Sunny spat, scrunching her eyes up, “They got up here and the sun was out for, like, a few days out of the month. And then they had to eat nightroot like us, and wait to see if the sun ever comes back each time it goes away. I already know this, mum. I don’t need reminding.”
“They weren’t wrong,” Butterscotch said softly, stopping Sunny’s rant, “The sun had come back. Cloudy lived her life on the surface. And she was so happy, and so in love with the sun, that she called her daughter Sunny. It wasn’t until she died that the sun started to go away again. This, all of this, is because the long night is starting again, Sunny.”
Sunny looked at her mother, suddenly feeling her mouth go dry.
“Do you understand why we don’t want to tell you this? No one wants their children to live knowing that one day, the sun is going to go away forever.”
Sunny felt like the ground was collapsing from under her. She dropped the knife and shakily backed away from the counter. Her mind spun, reaching out into the void for anything, any question she could ask which might stave off the realisation she was rapidly coming to.
“But… I… so why did you call me Sunny then? If you knew the sun was going to go away, then why name me after it?”
“Hey, sit down, love, don’t worry,” Butterscotch soothed, walking over to help steady her daughter, “I was hopeless. The sun was going away, and we had no way of fixing it. But, just before you were born, we found our hope. We found records out in the wasteland. One of the other experiments worked, after the eternal night.”
“Wait, what?” Sunny exclaimed, gawking at her mother.
“That’s why we’re here. That’s what we’re digging for. To find their old lab, all their old research, so we can survive too. I called you Sunny because, when we found out, it was like finding a new sun. And then you came along, and I felt like Cloudy must have. I felt like I could look my daughter in the eyes, knowing she would live a better life than I had. That’s why, your whole life, we’ve been travelling here, Sunny. And now we’ve arrived, that’s what we’re digging for.”
“Wait,” Sunny said, feeling the information overwhelm her as she began to hyperventilate, “You’re telling me there are other ponies out here? Others that survived?!”
“Not here, Sunny, up there.” Cloudy responded, beaming, and pointed her hoof up to the sky, “They changed themselves, and escaped out into the stars. And when we find their lab, we’re going to follow them.”
Rarity watched passively as the bright, light fog slowly moved over her body. The herdmate that she had collapsed with had long gone quiet. Even the light hadn’t been enough to sustain them.
The ship creaked. It was doing that more and more these days.
It was the foals. That had been the problem. She always thought any mare would be mad to get pregnant. Pregnancy slowed you down, made you unable to chase the light. So of course, fewer mares would raise children, and even among those who decided to, survival for her or her child was far from guaranteed.
And as their numbers shrank, survival became more unlikely.
And as their numbers had continued to shrink even further, survival became impossible.
A nearby pipe buckled, and burst, leaking a slick oily substance out into the water they were sitting in. It was building up and beginning to destroy their ship. Circuits shorted, metal rusted, machinery broke.
It was never meant to deal with this much water, but there were no ponies to drink it any longer. Rarity didn’t think there was anyone left but her now. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen anyone other than her, or her recently passed companion.
It was funny, she thought to herself, they had always been so concerned with simply moving forward, she didn’t think she’d ever even bothered to learn their name.
She coughed, her throat felt like sandpaper. More of her foliage sloughed from her body.
Even if there was anyone to drink the water, no one would want to anymore. What half her body was submerged in was a foul, stinking bile. None of the sweetness it had from when she was younger remained.
Of course, their numbers had been shrinking. There was no one to feed it any longer.
She choked, finding herself only unable to cry for the dehydration.
The oil continued to spill out. When it caught the light, Rarity thought it looked like a Rainbow.
She closed her eyes, and enjoyed the light on her face.
“We were a spiteful race, and we wrought what we deserved. I can’t imagine we shall be missed,” she announced, in the vague hope that something might answer her. That the outloud declaration could provide some sort of bookend for this whole mess.
But, of course, Rarity was alone. Her herd was long gone, Roseluck and her daughter were long gone.
Rainbow was long gone.
So it didn’t matter.
And contrary to her announcement, she was afraid to die. But she hadn’t been lying. They had wrought what they deserved, and she couldn’t deny there was also a feeling of relief that this wretched experiment could at least be brought to a close.
So, in the absence of anything further to do, Rarity looked out of the window at the stars, and took some comfort in the last few moments of sun, and life, before the ship continued its eternal rotation, and she was left in the dark.
Sunny sat by the tent, enjoying the feeling of warmth on her face. The sun had finally come back a couple of days ago. It had been gone for two and half months this time. The longest she’d ever known.
It used to worry her, when she was smaller. She’d always sit in her tent, snuggled in Butterscotch’s hooves and wonder whether the light would ever return. Since speaking to her mother all those weeks ago, she knew now that one day, probably soon, it wouldn't.
And when that day came, even the nightroot would eventually die out. Nothing could live in total darkness forever, after all.
But Sunny didn’t worry all that much anymore. These days she found herself more concerned with thoughts of their ancestors who managed to escape. She wondered what paradises they found in the aether. She wondered whether they’d one day find them too.
Because not too long after, she’d spoken with her mother, they’d finally broken through the rock wall. They’d found the lab, the enormous skeleton of the half completed starship. It was like an enormous wheel, a looping path. Sunny preferred to think of it as an ouroboros.
She didn’t know why, but it felt right.
She looked down at the ground, where the shoot she’d found on that night used to be. There was a tiny crevice where it had been uprooted.
Sunny smiled, and regarded her hoof. She watched the way the plant had merged with her. Even when they’d found all the specimens in the lab, rosebushes and ivy and the most amazing flowers, bathed in the artificial lights they all slept under, Sunny had felt like she wanted to become one with this tiny shoot.
The sun would go in soon, and she knew that her mother would be looking for her. Bookish ponies like her were invaluable when it came to poring over research notes and working out how to get the ship ready for takeoff.
But she remained still, enjoying the moment of sunshine in a world that was so often cold. There wouldn’t be many more days like this. The world was going to become cold again, maybe forever.
But Sunny could, at the very least, enjoy one of the last moments down on the ground. Safe in the knowledge that they’d be up in the stars soon, following their forebears for another chance at life.
