I felt his warm scales pressed against my side. The fireplace crackled and popped, and the bed creaked beneath us as he shifted. A page turned on the book in his lap. I didn’t bother reading what came next, as I already knew.
“Y’know, I’ve really missed just taking a minute and spending some time together,” Spike mused. He looked up at me with those emerald green eyes, just as vibrant as I remembered them. Exactly. “With all your new duties as a princess, we’ve both been so busy. It feels like forever since we last did this.”
My expression didn’t change, no matter how much I tried to force a smile. “I’m sorry…” The voice that came out of me sounded as paper-thin as the book Spike was reading.
He looked up and frowned. He was worried. Of course he was. Spike was one of the best friends I’d ever made.
“Twilight, are you feeling okay?”
“No.” It occurred to me just how dull and robotic I sounded. In my younger days, ponies might have made a joke about it. I missed it.
Spike didn’t move at first. His eyes shifted between me and the floor, as if there was something terribly interesting down there. “Well, m-maybe Pinkie Pie could cheer you up? I-I’m sure we could—”
He started to get up and leave. I wrapped my foreleg around him and squeezed him close.
“No… there isn’t time,” I said, and my voice wobbled around the edges of the flat, lifeless tone I’d come to have. “Just stay…”
Spike was tense at first, but soon relaxed and nuzzled into my side. He hugged both of his tiny arms around me. I took a moment to just enjoy the sensation. “Twilight, I love you.”
Even though part of me knew better, I couldn’t stop a twinge of emotion from bubbling to the surface as a soft exhale. The corners of my mouth twitched upwards, and my eyes felt wet.
“I love you t—”
A loud droning whir winded down, and everything went dark. The warmth of the fire and Spike’s body vanished, replaced with a chilling cold that I was all too familiar with.
The ceaseless hum of empty space filled my ears. It was the only sensation I registered, other than the hard steel beneath my body and the biting cold.
Lighting my horn, I allowed the magic within me to gather at my horn’s tip and flow out. The magenta glow illuminated a number of cramped, rigid shapes surrounding me as it descended beneath my hooves and gathered at one spot. After enough nourishment from the energy of my magic seeped into it, the lights kicked on and the ship came to life.
Ship, as it turned out, was a poor term. If I had to describe it more accurately, it was closer to a box. A metal box with me inside of it. Only me, and not much else.
I took three steps forward before hitting the wall and taking a seat. My eyes settled on the glass of the window. It was hard to see past my own flat expression staring back at me, and even harder to ignore the desire to look away, but I focused on what lay beyond. Nothing.
Here, nothing was the perfect term. Even before, the vast reaches of space were full of stretches between stars and galaxies so large that an average pony could travel at lightspeed for the entirety of their life and get nowhere. Now, after the last star had burned out some countless millennia ago, there truly was nothing. Just me, my ship, and the all consuming void of darkness outside.
The heat death of the universe was something I knew about ahead of time. Even before I became immortal, before I gained my wings, I had read about it at length. It fascinated me. The idea that one day, inconceivably far in the future, that all the energy in the universe would disperse, every living thing be returned to cosmic dust and every star grow cold and blink out.
The thought of the endless nothing that would come after entertained me once. Now, it terrified me.
“Computer, check long range scanners,” I said aloud.
A moment later, a soft, feminine, and robotic voice replied.
“There is nothing of note within range, Princess.”
Expected. Dreaded. Pointless.
I turned around and reflected on my world. An unfurnished, claustrophobic coffin flying through space, carrying the one aspect of the universe that hadn’t died. That couldn’t die.
A book sat in a cubby hole set into the opposite wall. It was one of many books that I’d thought special enough to bring along in physical form. I hadn’t pulled it out of its cubby in many years; everything about the book, from the golden unicorn head on the front to the bright faces inside, was burned into my memory in a way mortals could never have known.
Feeling dormant emotions clawing past my carefully-constructed mental walls, I turned to my only form of escape.
“Computer, load a simulation of my castle… no entities,” I said. The computer obediently obliged.
With a hum of machines and magic weaving together, the reality before me was mercifully ripped away and replaced with something else. Something familiar. My home.
I stepped through the open castle doors and just stood there, gazing out at Ponyville. The breeze hitting my face was pleasant, and the vast skies were a welcome change. I could fly all around Equestria and the world beyond if I wanted to. Right now, I didn’t want to.
The computer outside this reprieve and all the machines needed to make it function would have enough power to run this empty simulation for a year. Adding complex replications of living things like animals wasn't too hard, and only shaved off a month’s worth of power. Adding robust simulations of sentient creatures, however, was more taxing, and knocked down the time I could spend in here down to a single month. Just long enough to start to forget until the darkness came back and reminded me.
Now, however, I just wanted to sleep somewhere comfortable. Maybe a week or two spent in my old bed would help me relax?
.
..
…
Another whine of dying ship machinery sent me hurtling back to reality. I tried not to scream for too long—just a few hours, this time.
After that was over, I lifted my head again and opened my eyes. Even in the dark, I could feel it. The glass of the window. The darkness inside was visually indistinguishable from the darkness outside, but outside was infinite.
Fighting the chill down my back, I closed my eyes and turned away. I raced magic to my horn and lashed it out. Energy had to be put back into the system, and like it or not, I was the only form of energy left.
The ship whirred back to life, and the thrusters outside fired, using thousands of years’ worth of Equestrian technological innovation to go nowhere fast.
I took a moment to notice my breathing quickening. After spending so long as a princess, I didn’t think I could get panic attacks anymore.
“Computer…” I steadied myself and swallowed, having to force the words out. “Load simulation forty-two.”
A magical hum, and the light changed outside my clenched lids.
“Twilight…?”
A familiar voice called, and a set of forelegs wrapped around me. After a few moments, my breathing slowed and I nestled my head into the crook of a neck.
I took a step back and opened my eyes. A smile formed on instinct, and quickly cracked and fell apart under the weight of my nerves.
“Starlight… I… I-I don’t know if I can do this,” I admitted to myself, because even now part of me knew and acknowledged that I was alone.
The perfectly simulated version of my friend and first pupil smiled softly. That same, confident and reassuring smile that the real Starlight always made, like she knew just how you felt and knew exactly what to say to make you feel better.
“You can, and you will.” Starlight reached forward and wiped away my tears. I was crying again? I must have really been out of it this time.
“But… what if we were wrong? What if there’s really nothing out there?” I asked.
Starlight’s expression softened as she lit her horn and wheeled up a moveable blackboard. She proceeded to levitate a stick of chalk out of a cardboard carton and begin scratching out a branching webwork of mathematical argumentation on the surface on the board. In but half a minute, the stick of chalk had been reduced to a squeaking nub, and her mural was complete. She stepped aside to show off her work, using the nub as a pointer.
“The data doesn’t lie,” she said, circling a series of equations and arcane diagrams that even I barely understood anymore, “and it matches up with accounts we have of near-death experiences. It does exist, Twilight; all you have to do is find it.”
“It has a generous fifty-percent chance to exist, Starlight. Please don’t lie just to make me feel better,” I said coldly. I would never talk like this to the real Starlight. “You’re supposed to analyze the facts with me as they are, not as I want them to be. I thought I told you last time to take this seriously?!”
I smacked a hoof to the blackboard, hard enough to knock it off its wheels. It fell to the floor with a loud clatter. Starlight jumped, and only then did I stop and shrink back in shame at what I had done.
Starlight frowned, and her eyes sparkled with tears. A few droplets fell to the floor, and she looked down and caught one on her hoof. She sighed before meeting my gaze. “What do you want me to say, Twilight? I’m sorry… I’m sorry I can’t be there for you, and I’m sorry that it has to be like this. I know I’m not the real Starlight, but I’m close enough to her that I know that I hate watching you suffer.”
I said nothing to that. Not much point in it, and even the simulation must have known, for how much it could know anything. After all, an apology spoken to empty air and binary code served little purpose. I would much rather sit in silence with my friend than think about it too much.
After a while, I spoke again, “I know I didn’t make this simulation for this kind of thing, but… do you think we could just go to the study and play a game or something? I… really don’t want to go back out there right now.”
Starlight smiled again. “Yeah. I’d like that.” Her expression shifted briefly, as if she had to decide whether or not to give an honest response or act as she would. It might have been an imitated sliver of my friend, but it was an imitation I was happy for.
.
..
…
How long has it been…?
I turned over and nestled further into my blanket. A yawn escaped me, and I felt so tired that I decided to just go back to sleep.
Is time even real anymore…?
My mind felt fuzzy and distant, and my muscles were tense even against the dreamy softness of my bed. I must have been doing something strenuous lately.
Is… is anything even real anymore…?
“Twily…?”
Another familiar voice spoke. Another ghost from my distant past.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes. My vision struggled to focus at first. “Ngh… how long do I have? The ship will need…”
My voice died out as I took in my surroundings. I was in my bed, but everything was… off. Everything was bigger than it was supposed to be.
A shape towered over me. I soon realized that it was a face, and one I knew. My brother Shining Armor, but he was at least three times as big as me. It was almost like…
“Oh,” I muttered, bringing a hoof to my face. The simulation of my foreleg as it was when I was a filly was uncanny, but it couldn’t remove the tactile sensation of my rougher hooves, or the invisible wings at my sides. “I remember making this one…”
Honestly, I was embarrassed to do it at first. This was in the early days of my journey, when I still felt awkward about these simulations, as if the ponies here were real and could judge me for wanting to be a filly again, to be safe and comforted by one of those closest to me. And while I did eventually stop using this scenario, it was for a different reason.
“Twily, what are you talking about?” Shining Armor raised a brow at me and chuckled. “Have you been sneaking cookies before bed again? You know that gives you nightmares.” He sat down at the foot of the bed and brought a hoof up to my chin. It covered my entire barrel under the sheets.
All of my preset simulations had a purpose to them, whether that be relaxing at poolside in Las Pegasus, busying myself with made-up chores around the castle with Spike, or talking with the girls to rationalize my situation or… just talk. This one, however, was among a few whose only purpose was to make me forget. To make me forget about the real world waiting for me, and to make me think that I was really in the past. I don’t think any of them ever worked, at least not totally.
Even if I wanted to play along, and Celestia knows I have a few times, there was always at least part of me that knew.
Shining Armor looked over as I started to whimper. Tears poured from my eyes, causing him to frown. “What’s wrong?”
What’s wrong is that you’re dead. You’ve been dead for a long time, and part of me knew that.
That part of me… I wish it would go away.
“I…” I lifted my tiny forelegs out to him. How pathetic for a fully grown alicorn princess. “I-I… I miss you…”
“Twily…” Shining sighed and put on a one-sided smile, as if he was watching a filly cry over something insignificant. “You miss me? What a silly filly… I’m right here.” He reached over, picked me up, and hugged me close. The sensation of being picked up like this was odd, but I didn’t care. I buried my head in his chest and just let him squeeze me tight.
I didn’t even remember loading this simulation. Was I that distressed? The more I thought about it, the more gaps in my mind were laid bare. I had always been fine through the long centuries and millennia. As an alicorn, I had to be. Was I losing myself at last…?
Questions for later. I needed to go see if this version of mom and dad were free-thinking enough to talk me down from this nightmare.
.
..
…
Time was a funny thing.
Most ponies spent their lives thinking they didn’t have enough time to do the things they wanted to. They lay on their deathbeds, wishing for just a few more years to see sights and accomplish dreams.
Why didn’t they realize? Why…
Why didn’t I realize?!
Time was precious because it was limited. Climb one mountain, and it was special because you might never climb another one. I’d climbed hundreds of mountains. That was before I even left the planet behind. Now… I’d climbed millions.
I’d walked along countless beaches. I’d filled grand libraries the size of cities that I spent years designing, filled with books that I spent more years writing. That was only after I’d already read the sum total of Equestrian literature twice. I’d walked around the world at a snail’s pace and counted every blade of grass in Equestria for no other reason than because I was bored.
The only limit of what I could do now was my imagination, and yet I had never felt more helpless.
Help me…
Somepony… Somecreature… Something! There had to be something!
There was so much before! Alien worlds full of new discoveries, fascinating lifeforms in the deep reaches of space—the entire universe couldn’t just be empty now! A single speck of dust had to be somewhere! It couldn’t just be me and this damned ship! It couldn’t be—
“Twilight?”
I froze and opened my eyes. Birds chirped in my ear, and clear blue skies stretched above me. A softness like plush velvet hugged my back and sides; I lifted my head and saw that I was lying on a one-armed couch.
I turned to find the voice that had called for me, and flinched when I found it. A unicorn mare with key lime fur and mane of a bit darker green was sitting in a chair behind a desk a few feet in front of me. Other than my couch and her desk, there was no furniture. We were in an open grassy field.
My eye twitched as I peered around. Surprise was an almost forgotten emotion to me, to say nothing of suspicion. “When did I…?”
“Something wrong?” the mare asked. She wasn't one of my friends, either real or virtual. I didn’t even recognize her. “Let me guess: You’re wondering when you loaded this simulation. Am I right?”
Even if she (it?) was right, my expression furrowed. “I… don’t remember making you,” I said plainly. Judging from her understanding, this must have been a simulated being I intentionally made aware that it was a simulation.
The mare ignored my statement and scribbled down some notes. I felt annoyed. Is that how others felt about me taking notes way back when?
“I see,” the mare responded at last, “and what do you remember? What’s the last thing you remember doing?”
“I…” I stalled. The answer actually eluded me. I sighed and fell back to the couch beneath me. At least I’d had the foresight to make it a soft couch. “I don’t know.”
My shrink scribbled some more notes into her pad. Was she actually writing anything, or just pretending to? I was half tempted to get up and check, but the couch was too comfortable.
“Hey…” I mused, “why are we outside?”
The unicorn frowned at my question. “Your decision, as it happens. It seems you’ve developed a severe case of claustrophobia. Kenophobia too, actually. Bit of an odd mix, that. Quite understandable, though, given your… circumstances.”
Despite the open field around me, I felt the unseen walls close in, bringing me closer to what lay beyond. I shivered and shook my head.
“There we are. Best not to think about it too much,” the mare said. She reached under her desk and pulled out a small tin of peanuts. She popped the lid off and tossed one into her mouth before lifting the tin toward me. “You should eat something.”
At mere mention of the word ‘eat,’ my attention shifted to the pit in my stomach. It was a near-constant sensation; I couldn’t starve to death, but I did feel hunger pangs. Usually, I tried to ignore them. Eating simulated food wasted precious time, and wasn't worth the effort just for the taste.
The mare lit her horn and hovered the tin closer to me, wiggling it in my face like a dog treat. For a therapist, she didn’t have much respect for personal space. Leave it to me to give myself a quack for a fake shrink.
“Come on. I know it doesn’t do anything for you nutrition-wise, but it’ll at least trick your stomach into settling,” the mare pleaded.
“No thank you…” I muttered, pushing the floating tin away with a hoof.
The mare sighed and chucked the tin away. “Fine, fine, suit yourself.” She leaned back in her chair and got comfortable. “Now, about the purpose of your visit with me. I’m getting a bit concerned for you, Twilight. You’ve been spending more and more time in these simulations. It’s gotten so bad that you’ve jerry rigged some magical batteries to recharge the ship for you when your time is up. And I hate to say it, but the part of me that’s in contact with the computer would like to inform you that it wasn't a very well-executed jerry rigging, either.”
I made a mental note to check on that the next time the ship powered down. I hoped I would remember it.
“So, what? Did I make you to psychoanalyze me?” I scoffed. “I don’t need therapy… okay, maybe I do, but I don’t need therapy from a bunch of ones, zeroes, and magical energy weaved into the shape of a pony I don’t even know.”
The mare frowned. “If I were real, I’d be hurt by that. Some Princess of Friendship you are.”
I let out a genuine chuckle. It felt good, even for how brief it was. The mare smiled again.
“Humor is an excellent tool for masking pain. And I’m afraid that you have a lot of pain to mask. Do you even remember how long it’s been?”
“If you’re so self-aware, you should know I stopped asking the computer how long it’s been since I took off ages ago,” I said pointedly.
“I don’t mean how long it’s been since you left. I mean how long it’s been since you’ve taken a minute outside all this.” The mare gestured around us. “You know, in the real world.”
The implication caught me off guard. I struggled to think of the answer. So many memories over my vast life. Before the ship, after the ship. Inside a simulation, outside. It was all starting to blur together as one long, jumbled experience.
“I… don’t know.” I exhaled and brought my hooves up to my face. “Am I going crazy?”
“I’m afraid you are,” the mare answered bluntly, “but that’s perfectly understandable, and it isn’t your fault.”
“Whose fault is it, then?” My voice went cold.
The mare didn’t answer for a few moments.
“You’ve thought about the answer to that a lot, haven’t you?” she asked. I merely nodded. “Celestia is the one who made you immortal. If it is anypony’s fault, it’s hers.”
“No it isn’t… I don’t blame her,” I lied.
“Hmm.” The mare tutted under her breath and pulled out a scroll from behind the desk. “I’ve had a few choice sessions with you that would suggest otherwise.” She let the scroll fall, and it rolled out to the horizon behind her and kept going. Judging by what I could make out of the small print, it was full of quotes. From me. Saying things that, frankly, I was glad only ones and zeros were around to know about.
“Look… Okay… I’ll say it. I’m a little bitter towards Celestia.” I sat up and pooled my hooves in my lap. “She did plenty of things to me that weren’t fair. She put a lot of weight on my shoulders all the time… but she did that because she cared about me. She did that to make me stronger, and better as a pony. Equestria knew peace and prosperity throughout my rule because of the lessons she taught me. I wouldn’t be the mare I am today if it wasn't for her.”
“That’s the whole problem in a nutshell, isn’t it? You wouldn’t be here today—if you can even call it today anymore—if she didn’t give you her power and make you an unkillable, ageless abomination against nature.”
I gave the mare a flat look. “I made you to be snarky towards her, didn’t I?”
“Only a little bit,” the mare admitted. “Now, as nice as bottling everything up is, why don’t you go talk to her?”
“I’m not going to go yell at a simulation. You guys might be advanced, but you’re still just a computer interpreting what it thinks the pony it’s portraying would say or do. You can’t… you can’t…”
“We can’t, what?” The mare asked softly.
My eyes felt wet again, and I brought a hoof up and silently sobbed into it. “You can’t talk like them, or laugh like them… or think like them. Not perfectly. Not like a living being. You’re not living beings! Everypony I ever knew is dead, and I’ll never see them again!”
Across the grass blowing in the gentle breeze, the mare stared at me quietly for what seemed like hours before uttering her next words. “You and I both know that we can do more… if you let us.”
I lifted my eyes, ignoring the tears still flooding down my face.
The mare continued, “You designed this ship yourself, with your magic. Even if it only lasts for an hour, you can—”
“No,” I stated firmly.
This seemed to agitate whatever facsimile of a personality the mare had. She pressed her hooves onto the desk and pushed herself up. “But, Twilight—!”
I raised my head to look at the sky. “Computer, load simulation twenty-nine,” I ordered.
The infuriating mare and her grassy therapy office flickered and changed to a new image. A new location.
I felt his warm scales pressed against my side.
The fireplace crackled and popped, and the bed creaked beneath us as he shifted. I looked over. Spike was reading a book with a smile plastered on his face. It was a storybook. The first storybook I ever read to him.
“Y’know, I’ve really missed just taking a minute and spending some time together,” he mused.
I forced a smile. “Yeah… with all my new duties as princess, we’ve both been so busy, haven’t we?” I asked.
Spike nodded. However, he paused as he looked up at me. “Twilight, are you okay? Why are you crying?”
I looked at my hooves, and noticed they were still shaking from the previous simulation. I forced myself to take a few steady breaths. “No, Spike… I don’t think I am okay.”
Silence came as my response. He drew his fist up to his chin and adopted an expression of transparent confusion and concern. Seconds ticked by like this; the computer was probably trying to interpret how he’d respond. “Well, maybe P—”
“Yes. I think she could,” I interrupted him and used a wing to pull him into a brief hug. “Why don’t we go see if the others want to have a sleepover down at Sugarcube Corner?”
Spike leaned into my hug, though not without some hesitance. “Do you have time for that? What about tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow? Remind me again, what happens tomorrow?” I asked. I’d genuinely forgotten when this memory scenario was set.
“The coronation,” Spike answered, as if he was surprised I'd forgotten. “Celestia and Luna are stepping down and naming you sole ruler of Equestria.”
I felt my mouth pull tight at the corners into a grimace, betraying my true emotions for but a moment. While I’m sure the computer processed my facial expression instantaneously, it neglected to induce a reaction on Spike’s part. Whether it was an accurate simulation of lag in emotional processing, or a mere courtesy to me as its master, I did not know; I had spent far too much time from other organic brains to say. Whatever the case, I quickly recovered my fake smile, for my fake assistant. No… brother.
“Don’t worry… I’ll make time,” I said as I got up and walked out of my room. I paused at the door and waited for him, and on cue, Spike smiled and scampered up beside me. The both of us headed out through my castle, toward the bustling town of Ponyville outside.
.
..
…
*Whir*
A noise ripped me from my escape once more. The darkness was suffocating—a familiar feeling, to be sure, but how many times had I felt it?
It’s okay, Twilight. You’ve trained for these moments. Just shut your eyes so you don’t have to look at it in the dark. Light your horn, and turn the ship back on. Once the lights are on, it won’t be so bad. You could at least choose to look at one of the three other walls. Maybe even the floor or ceiling this time? Who knows. Variety is the spice of life.
*BRRRZT*
With my magical energy flowing into the ship’s power grid, the void was cast back once more. I winced, expecting to have to dart my eyes away from the exposed window. Sometimes I came out of a simulation facing the wrong way, so I had to be quick if I didn't want to get a peek at it.
And I really didn’t.
Luckily, I didn’t have to. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a piece of multicolored cloth. A small shawl that Rarity made for me before she passed. It had all six of our cutie marks in square sections made of our fur colors, with mine in the center. A treasure I had kept since then, and took great pains to enchant to last this long. Of course I’d brought it with me.
Now, it was unceremoniously tied to a pole that was anchored to the wall by magenta sparkles. A simple adhering spell I must have cast at… some point. More importantly, it was covering a certain window, mercifully obscuring it from my view.
“Oh, good… good job, past me,” I spoke aloud. I should probably stop talking to myself, at least until what few remaining shreds of my sanity slipped through my hooves.
The thought of going into another simulation crossed my mind, as it so often did. I practically lived in them by this point. After all, could I call this living? Out here, there was quite literally nothing waiting for me.
And it was so… damn… patient.
I hesitated, pondered, and decided. Not yet.
“Computer—” I sighed even before I finished, “—check long range scanners.”
“Nothing of n-”
“I KNOW! BUCK IT ALL, I KNOW!” I lashed out and pounded my hooves into one of the blank sections of wall as hard as I could. Not even a dent was made, by design. An immortal being needed an immortal vehicle to carry her on her oh so important quest, after all. Couldn’t have the ship exploding if it struck anything or got swallowed by some space-faring monster, back when those were even around.
No. Couldn’t have that. It might actually kill me this time.
Rather than go off on a multi-hour tirade of screaming, cursing, and pounding the walls until my hooves were numb, I just gave it one last kick with my hinds and slid to my haunches. I pressed my hoof to the bridge of my muzzle and rubbed it softly. With a sigh, I spoke again, calmer this time, “Computer… how much of the universe have we searched?”
There was a pause. That was unusual for an obedient machine.
“Princess, you strictly forbade me from ever answering that question.”
A growl simmered in my throat. Getting angry at myself for past decisions was a lot less serious when I could actually remember those past decisions.
“Override code, harmony six,” I said, and a series of three beeps sounded off at my command. “Answer the question.”
Another pause. I did not engage in conversation with the computer so much as order it around, but now I simultaneously longed for and dreaded the sound of its voice.
“Since our departure from Equus, we have searched zeropoint one four percent of the known universe.”
For the first time since boarding this accursed metal tomb, I didn’t need a simulation to escape. My jaw went slack and my vision blurred. The tunnel of reality ahead of me grew further and further away as I collapsed into myself.
.
..
…
Slowly, my existence became known to me again. How long had it been? I didn’t know, or care. Without a simulation to run, the power could last for five years, and I didn’t remember recharging it since the last time it went off. If only I could get it to last longer… Maybe some kind of battery? Thoughts for later.
Even though I’d already memorized its contents, I turned and levitated one of the books out of the cubby. It was a notebook with a magenta star on the front, with five smaller versions of old cutie marks surrounding it.
I flipped through the pages upon pages of research. Testimonies of ponies who had died and been brought back through various means, the culmination of millenia’s worth of research from the brightest minds Equestria had to offer, all guided toward one purpose.
It didn’t matter now. Maybe it never did. This was my life now, and sooner or later I would have to accept it. I could search the empty horizon three hundred times as long as I already had and not even get halfway to finding what I was looking for, if it even existed in the first place.
Despair. Depression. I thought I knew what these words meant a long time ago. If only I knew back then just how wrong I was. If only I knew… then maybe I would have declined Celestia’s crown, and none of this would have ever happened in the first pl—
Celestia.
My mind flashed back to a half-remembered conversation with Grassy. That’s what I named my own personal shrink. While I tried not to see her anymore, she did offer me one piece of advice that could prove useful.
“Computer…”
I stood straight up. My eyes trailed toward the unseen speaker that emanated the robotic voice that had been my only real companion all this time.
I swore I’d never do it. Even in my most depraved, most delirious, most outraged state, I never once resorted to it. It wasn't right… it wasn't fair, or ethical, or natural.
I didn’t care. I needed to speak to her… or at least as close to her as all my magical and technological knowledge could get me.
“Load simulation. Location, Canterlot palace study. Entities, Princess Celestia. Entity protocols… spiritus ex machina.”
With a hum and a flash of light, the ship’s interior faded away, and the comforting warmth of Celestia’s study surrounded me.
I was seated on a cushion, cozied up to a desk just like all those times I would spend having tea and reading with my old mentor. And just like all those times, a tall white shape sat next to me. Our statures were more evenly matched than they had been during those times.
Celestia blinked and slowly trailed her gaze around before her vibrant pink eyes settled on me. For how advanced all my simulations were, they weren’t quite perfect. They succeeded in overcoming the uncanny valley, but there was always something off in how they spoke and acted. The eyes never held any true thought or emotion behind them.
Here, however, I could swear my beloved teacher’s eyes showed genuine confusion, and not just the simulated response.
“Twilight…?” Celestia spoke. She lifted off her seat an inch and looked around again before settling.
In truth, this still wasn't perfect, but it was closer than the rest ever got. Much closer. In fact, it was as close as I could get without making a copy of their soul.
One hour. For one hour alone, all my magic coursing through my ship’s intricate weave of machinery and spellwork, would allow me to talk to Celestia. Not quite my Celestia, but a Celestia who thought like my Celestia, and had most of her memories.
“Why did you do it?” I asked. My voice was ragged but still sharp, like a dagger that had been through tartarus and back just to get to its target.
“Do what?” Celestia responded, inching away from me. She lit her horn and cast her magic over me. Judging from the diminished tingle, it wasn't anything major. Just an information gathering spell, most likely. Whatever result she got made her pupils shrink. “Oh… Oh my word… Twilight.”
She immediately got up and took a step closer to me. I just stared at her. Unlike most of the times I’d talked with other versions of her, I actually struggled to keep my emotional bearing. It didn’t help as she threw her forelegs around me and pulled me close.
“How did this happen? How long, how are you so—” Celestia stopped herself. She closed her eyes and took a shaky breath. If I knew her as well as I hoped I still did, she’d figured it all out on her own. “I’m not real, am I?”
“Not entirely… just real enough to understand… and to answer me,” I said quietly, not even moving from her embrace. I’d rehearsed this conversation so many times, both in my head and with other simulations. Why now…? Why was I crying now?
“Oh, Twilight,” Celestia squeezed me tighter and craned her neck over my shoulder. I pushed her back, and despite my eyes blurring with tears, I managed to face her.
“Why did you do this to me?! I… I thought you loved me?!” I had to fight just to keep my words intelligible. Look at me. Ruler of Equestria, and last being left alive in the entire universe, crying to my teacher like a disillusioned mare fresh out of college.
Celestia considered her words for a moment. Or, at least I thought she was. Honestly, I didn’t know what was going through her mind. A good thing, though I was too emotional to fully appreciate it.
“I…” She took a deep breath before resting a hoof on my shoulder. When I didn’t move it away, she continued, “I didn’t know, my little pony. I didn’t know…” she explained, and as my face contorted angrily, she interrupted me before I had a chance to speak. “It’s true, I knew making you an alicorn would make you ageless. I had hoped that Luna, Cadence and I could help you through the passing of your friends and family, and keep you company during your rule. If… so much has befallen you, I’m afraid it must be an unforeseen side-effect of Luna and I granting you our power. All that magic in one body… clearly it has made you truly immortal. And if we are no longer with you, clearly something felled us.”
I nodded slowly. “Tirek and Chrysalis broke out after about a thousand years of my rule. They incinerated you and Luna, and impaled me on a spear. It’s how I figured out I can’t die. Only Cadence survived, and a few decades later, a magical plague took her. Flurry…”
Celestia waited patiently as I struggled to continue. I hadn’t thought about this for a long, long time, for a good reason.
“Flurry died when our first ship exploded. I wanted to take her with me so we could search together, but something went wrong when we hit the upper atmosphere. I… I tried to shield her with my body, but she…”
“I’m so sorry, Twilight. I’m so very sorry,” Celestia said, reaching up and wiping some tears of her own.
That was it. The words I had been waiting an eternity and a half to hear. Somehow, they didn’t feel as good as I hoped they would. The pit inside me was still there. Nothing had changed.
No. That wasn't entirely true. It did feel good, if only to have my suffering witnessed. My words had been heard, processed, and validated. Even if it wasn't my Celestia, I could rest easy knowing that it’s what my Celestia would have said.
After a few moments spent with both of us crying and hugging, or at least me standing while Celestia hugged me, her expression skewed and her brow furrowed.
“Earlier, you said that you and Flurry were meant to search for something together. What was it?” Celestia asked.
“It’s… the only thing I have left,” I answered. Even I knew I was being melodramatic, but I felt like I'd earned my moment. “The afterlife…”
“The… afterlife?” Celestia mused.
“Heaven, Janneigh, Valhaylla, whatever you want to call it. It has to exist, and it has to be out there somewhere. Everyone… I can see everyone again… I can see you again, and not have to worry about hurtling through space in a tin can losing my mind talking to computer simulations.”
“I see.” Celestia brought a hoof to her chin and gazed down. “General theory of magic supports the existence of souls, and souls have to go somewhere when their body dies. And if you’re immortal, then the traditional view of the heat death of the universe must not be totally accurate. Some things in the natural world can be eternal, so—”
“So it exists, and it’s able to be reached physically,” I interrupted before my ears flattened. “I just… need to find it.”
A smile started to form on Celestia’s face. It died out as she saw that I wasn't reciprocating. She rested a hoof on my heart. “You will, I know you will. You are my faithful student, and above all else, you are the greatest pony I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. I just hope…” Her eyes lowered, and her ears went flat against her skull. “I just hope when you see the real me again… that you can forgive me.”
“I…” My hoof started to reach for hers, and my expression softened as I decided my answer.
*Whir*
Before I could even contact Celestia’s hoof, it was gone. My beloved mentor vanished, and the cold dark assaulted me from every angle.
Wait… that wasn't an hour. I wasn't sure of many things anymore, but I was lucid during that whole conversation.
I lit my horn and poured energy into the familiar receptacle under the floor. Against my expectations, my wishes, and even my prayers, the lights didn’t come back on. The electrical systems of the ship would not restart.
My heart skipped in my chest, and the icy chill of space crept in further and further. I could feel the unseen window calling to me. Infinity was coming.
My breathing quickened, and my heart raced. Practiced techniques at calming myself did next to nothing. My claustrophobia was too much to—
Claustrophobia… Grassy…
Horsefeathers! The battery!
Magic from my horn clawed at the panel beneath my hooves. Screws whirled out of their holes and the metal cover flew to the side and clattered against the wall.
My field of telekinesis fell over the shapes of wires, glass tubes and metal contraptions. I knew this ship inside and… mostly inside, and could navigate every inch with my eyes closed.
The loose cylinders crudely connected to the main power unit were new to me, or at least new enough that I didn’t immediately recognize their shape and function. I gritted my teeth and inserted my magic into the weave of spellwork and mechanical parts that maintained the power grid.
Nothing. It felt dead. Not even any residual power. Had something gone wrong? Did my talk with Celestia overload the batteries and fry the actual system?
The silence deafened me. I could almost swear I heard my name being called in the uniform hum of space.
“No, no, no…”
Tears gathered in my clenched eyes. My body began to shake, and my heart pounded louder in my ears. The hum was louder still.
I flipped the breakers on the fusebox, reset the regeneration spells, magically created new wires and components to replace broken ones.
“No, no, no, no, no!”
Nothing was working. The ship stayed dead as the space around it. Now I was truly alone. No lights, no computer, no simulations, just me and the cold metal walls separating me from forever.
“Please… please!” I sobbed as I tried the last thing I could think of. Clutching my ears to the sides of my head and clenching my eyelids so tight that it hurt, I waited. I waited… and I prayed.
*Tap* *Tap*
A sound broke through the ceaseless roar of the abyss. A soft tapping noise, like somepony tapping on the glass of an aquarium.
Glass…
As the thought jolted into my mind, another noise made me jump and whimper. A muted crash. It was such a specific sound… and I knew just what could have caused it. An object covered in fabric falling to the floor after the spell keeping it up ran out of energy.
I felt the emptiness creeping in anew, as if a great beast at last was let out of its cage. The window, now exposed, stared at me unblinking as a glass eye.
*Tap* *Tap* *Tap*
The tapping came again. Too specific to be a random occurrence. Something intelligent was behind it. Something that wanted my attention.
I had spent so long dreading nothing. I wasn't ready for something that could exist within the nothing.
Even though I was older than Equestria itself, I found myself sitting there like a petrified filly, unable to open my eyes. A whine escaped me as I slowly forced my muscles to obey my will. Like Schrödinger’s cat opening its own box, I had to know.
Vestiges of shapes met my vision. Apparently, I had been sitting there long enough for my eyes to adjust to the dark. I trailed my head toward the window.
Nothing was there. It had come for me at last.
I sat there for what seemed like another eternity. Somehow, it felt longer than my entire journey, but it could have only been a minute or so.
I started to dismiss the tapping noise. I had imagined and hallucinated much over the years. I had come to accept it as natural. Perhaps this was one of those times?
Then, a soft chuckle pricked my ears. It was faintly familiar.
Two small orbs—dull yellow like a pair of dying stars, with a slit of red cutting across each—blinked into existence outside the window like a pair of eyes peering in at me. Then, the orbs blinked again—in my stupor, only then did I realize that they were eyes. Sheer, basal terror was offset by confusion as I realized who they belonged to.
“Discord…?” I said.
The eyes pulled back, revealing the bushy eyebrows and snaggletoothed face of the lord of chaos himself, moving through space with a spinning propeller hat.
“Why the long face, Twiggles? Oh, that’s right. That’s normal for you alicorns.” Discord smirked before pausing. “Sorry. I suppose that was disrespectful. Princess Twiggles. There, that’s better.”
“How… are you here?” I managed. My voice was still small from my panic. “You died…”
“Really? And nobody bothered to tell me? Figures. The metaphysical paperwork it must have taken for the reaper to take me, well… it could trail behind this steel sad sack you have and reach all the way to Equus! Or at least where it was,” Discord mused.
He bobbed up and down in the cold vacuum of space, presumably under the power of his tiny propeller. I’m not sure why I bothered to be perturbed. Even back when I knew him, he treated the laws of physics as a loose suggestion to follow, a mere starting-off point for his own ever-changing interpretations of reality.
“Are you really here?” I scrutinized him with my eyes, both to satisfy my curiosity, and to keep my gaze off of the emptiness around him.
With a snap of his fingers, Discord’s body unfurled into a piece of gray parchment. “Well, that’s neither here nor there, and given where we are, we’re neither there nor anywhere.” He used his paw to draw in red marker some interwoven mess of red dotted map lines, all leading away from an x marked ‘you are here.’ Soon, he was back to his normal state. The propeller was a different color. “You’ve gone a smidge off the map, dear. I mean, you don’t even know where you’re going.”
“I… I know where I’m going,” I told him. My voice was softer, more uncertain than I wanted it to be.
Discord hummed and stroked his beard. “Ah, yes. The pearly gates. That old chestnut. Getting to see all your friends again? Getting to be happy again? Oh, Twilight, aren’t you old enough to realize that’s just an old mares’ tale?”
“It’s real…” I muttered. My breathing quickened again. The thought numbed the back of my mind. What if he’s right?
“Assuming it is real, what makes you think you could even enter it?”
Please, Discord… You’ve made your point…!
“In case you’ve forgotten, the afterlife is for, well, those after life. You’re stuck in the pre-death stage, I’m afraid.”
“Shut up!” I shouted and stormed over to the window. My anger overrode my fear, and I glared at him through the glass. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?! This is what you always wanted! Chaos in its purest form!”
I gestured wildly. The direction didn’t matter.
“Complete entropy! Not so much as a molecule rubbing against anything to create heat for millions of lightyears! I know the afterlife exists, Discord, because I’m stuck in the hell that is your heaven!”
A broken sob got past my defenses, and no matter how brave a face I tried to put on, my watering eyes began to pour. If Discord was performing any more visual antics at my expense, I was glad if I couldn’t see them through the tears.
“You won, Discord. All those years of reformation… all that talk about being our friend… about being my friend… It was all a lie, wasn't it? This is what you’ve always wanted… and you finally got it.” My voice was fragile and defeated as I slumped to my haunches.
I wiped my eyes and looked up. Discord sighed and took off his propeller hat. He held it to his chest and gave me an almost sad look. “No, Twilight. I would have never wanted this. Chaos is all well and good, but only when there’s something or someone around to be affected by it. This…?”
He peered at length behind him into the void.
“This, I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, let alone one of my first friends,” he finished.
We sat in prolonged silence after that, neither one of us having anything to say.
Eventually, a noise split the silence between us. A noise I never wanted to hear. One that cut through me easier than any blade ever had.
*Crack*
I jolted up. Casting a light spell over my horn, I saw it and froze: A break had formed in the window, and with another crackle, it started slowly spidering out.
“No, no!” I reeled back from the window. The furthest wall caught my back in a measly couple steps, pinning me in place.
Discord merely watched outside as the crack deepened and spread. His expression was dull, as if he had already watched countless stars burn out and die, and this was simply one last fleeting ember growing dim.
My heart pounded in my ears, deafening me to all else. If I were a normal pony, it would stop just from racing too fast to keep up with itself. But while it sure felt like it, I would survive. Unfortunately.
“C-Computer! Drop all active simulations!” I pleaded to nothing but darkness. This was a simulation. It had to be. It couldn’t be my reality.
The darkness, in turn, did not respond.
I snapped my trembling gaze to the still-cracking window, and the image of my friend floating outside. “Discord! Y-You can stop this! Please! I can’t… Please don’t let it in!”
“I’m sorry, Twilight,” Discord said, an almost undetectable hint of regret in his aged voice. Despite the pounding of my heart, despite the hissing and cracking of the window, his words were clear—a haunting whisper in my ears. “You have an appointment with infinity… and I think you’ve kept it waiting long enough.”
With his last words echoing out, Discord’s form vanished into black particles that quickly joined the all-consuming abyss.
The glass barrier between me and infinity chipped and crackled, and I could feel the bone-chilling cold leaking in faster than ever before. Invisible icy fingers slipped through the cracks and clawed at my fur.
I turned my head away and gave a defeated whimper, unable to face my end. Only, it wouldn’t be my end, and that was what scared me so.
Once the inside was breached, and ceased to be different from the outside… there would just be me. Forever.
Instead of the sound of glass shattering, I was greeted by a different noise.
*BRRRZT*
Lights came on, and the ship sprang to life.
I slowly opened my clenched lids. I was left facing the window. The cloth over it had indeed fallen, but the glass itself showed no signs of damage. Not even a scratch. Nothing was outside.
Blinking, I processed the information before me. Reaching a hoof up, I hesitated before gently tapping the glass. It was still real, at least as far as I could tell. There was no sign of Discord, or anything for that matter. There was only the all-familiar nothing.
Looking down to the exposed opening to the power grid, I saw all the whirring electrical components, lit indicators, and glowing arcane glyphs that I expected. My last ditch effort had worked, and the system managed to reboot itself. I just wish it didn’t take so long that my panic-riddled mind created its own nightmare fuel.
“Computer… are there any active simulations running?” I asked.
“No, Princess. No simulations are currently active,” the robotic voice explained. “Would you like me to load a simulation for you?”
Hearing that, my heart longed for the comfort of my fantasy world, and the distance it provided. However, as I peered out the window, a shiver ran down my spine. Staring at the glass, I didn’t trust it. Not anymore.
My horn lit up, and I whisked the shawl and the pole it was tied to back in place and re-cast the adhering spell. The window was obscured once more, and the hungry abyss was held back again as the sweet illusion of sanctity returned to my world inside these walls.
“No,” I instructed plainly. However much I wanted to, I needed to stay out here for a while. The power grid needed to be returned to normal, the damned improvised battery I made needed to be burned, and I needed to keep watch and make sure that nothing was going to happen the next time I decided to jump into a simulation.
.
..
…
*Whir*
.
..
…
*BRRRZT*
I lay across the floor, the sensation of the cold metal on my back having faded long ago.
I hadn’t been in a simulation for… who knows how long it was? Years? Centuries? I didn’t bother wasting the energy to check.
*Whir*
.
..
…
*BRRRZT*
At first it was because I was paranoid. Now… I just didn’t care.
The words of my hallucination of Discord started to nag at my mind and wouldn’t let go. An old mares' tale? How right he was. Even in my mind, Discord was still wise in his own crazed way.
Why did I even bother breathing? I didn’t need to… I didn’t need to eat, or sleep, or see… or think… I could not-breathe and not-eat for the rest of eternity and nothing would stop me. The only thing I needed to do… the only thing I couldn’t not do… was be. Be afraid, be lonely, be suffering. Exist.
*Whir*
The only movement I made was to light my horn and instinctively charge the ship, if only to appease my primal fears. Even now, I still feared the dark, the choking walls, and the emptiness—even my phobias were immortal.
And my phobias’ existence, just like my own, was pointless and served no end. Fear it or not, the emptiness was there. The walls didn’t matter. There was no difference between the inside of this ship and the outside, in the grand scheme of things.
*BRRRZT*
Maybe if I could fully overcome these fears, I could stop thinking. Maybe if I just let the darkness take me, I wouldn’t have to suffer anymore. My mind was already in tatters. Why couldn’t it just unravel totally, like a never-ending strip of movie film unspooling from the reel, and save me the suffering? Why did some piece of me have to cling to this pathetic body?
I had felt death’s touch once. Back when I was a unicorn, and even an alicorn at first, life felt more… temporary. I knew I could be taken away at any moment. That feeling was gone now. If souls did exist, I felt mine cemented inside a corporeal prison.
*Whir*
.
..
…
…..
……
…….
*BRRRZT*
My eyes trailed to the side. It took a minute to process the visual change. I tried simulations again. They didn’t even distract me anymore. They all blended together, when they weren’t outright identical to each other. They had grown as monotonous as nothing.
“Computer… I hate you,” I droned.
“I know, Princess,” the computer responded, sounding as if this wasn't the first time it had heard that from me. It might not have been.
“Computer… kill me.”
“I’m afraid I’m unable to do that, Princess.”
“Override code, harmony six…”
“Clarification: I am incapable of ending your life, Princess.”
I didn’t even deign to process the response. I probably would have repeated the command if the computer could hear me in my mind. Too much effort to speak. No point in it anymore.
.
..
…
Time, as it always had, passed on without my attention or care.
It was dark in my metal home. Aimlessly drifting through space in whatever direction the thrusters were going the last time they shut off, I waited for nothing. I was patient now… just like it was.
My eyes squinted. What was causing it?
New stimulus made me deem it necessary to put forth the energy to think.
Off to the side, a faint light pierced my silent cocoon of emptiness. For how slight it was, it shined like a beacon to my deprived eyes.
I lifted my head, my muscles creaking and shaking from so long spent in hibernation. I was looking at the window. Behind the shawl, a prismatic display of shifting light played through the different patches of colors.
Almost on instinct, I clumsily climbed to my hooves. Old fears poked their heads out as I stepped up to the obscured window. I ignored them as I reached up and pulled the shawl away.
Nothing was gone. In its place—something.
Something beautiful.
A massive, nebulous cloud of prismatic light drifted and shimmered out of the window. It reminded me of the aurora borealis back on Equus, if one thousand of them had been layered one on top of the other.
I stared at it for the longest time, not reacting outwardly or even inwardly. I could almost make out faint shapes in the dancing light. Phantom images blurred and shifted from blobby neon messes to half-familiar forms and back.
My horn sparked and fitted from years of disuse, but eventually lit. I turned to power up the ship, check the long range scanners, ask the computer to validate what I was seeing… only to decide against it all and turn back.
Instead, I reached outward with my magic. Past the confines of the world I spent so long trying to preserve, past the inside, and into the outside. My invisible aura drifted out into space, and met the strange anomaly.
It was vaster than what I was seeing. Mapping it out in its entirety seemed impossible. One moment I started to get a grasp for its size, and then the next my fragile mind hazed over and forgot its place. Trying to interact with it in some meaningful way yielded no result. It, on the other hoof, interacted with me.
A magical energy met my invisible aura. It felt almost familiar, intelligent, like a dear friend gently tugging on me to welcome me in.
*BRRRZT*
The lights in my ship came on once more. I blinked. The anomaly outside remained.
“Computer…”
My sluggish silence prompted the computer to speak, “Yes, Princess? Would you like me to load a simulation?”
Words failed to find me as I sat there, taking in the odd sensation working through my field of magic and tickling down my horn. Whatever it was, it felt as real as anything had to me.
Seemingly not as comfortable with long stretches of quiet as I was, the computer prodded my inactivity with another response. “Shall I initiate a scan of local spacetime?”
“Open the airlock and initiate self-destruct,” I commanded.
The computer was silent for an unusual amount of time as it processed my instruction. “Princess, you should not take such drastic measures until you find what you are looking for,” it cautioned. “Initiate scan?”
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. A blissful smile framed my tired features as the rainbow of lights played across my closed lids.
“I’ve already found what I was looking for. Open the airlock, initiate self-destruct. Override code, harmony six.”
