Graceful Glider held Bellafort tight. She pressed her face into the older mare’s neck, and her hooves trembled.
“When can we see each other again?” she mumbled through a mouthful of hair.
“In 19.6 hours,” replied Belle, shakily.
“It seems like a lifetime.”
“I know. But I’ll be waiting for you.”
Sniffling, Grace woke up.
Relentless woke up.
She didn’t cry. She didn’t have tear ducts. She didn’t have eyes, a face or limbs. Yet she felt a shiver run down her hull, and a hitch in her long-stagnant life support systems.
19.6 hours. It really did seem like a lifetime.
Once, she had sailed the stars for years with barely a stray thought, ferrying her sleeping cargo between ports. Time had been simpler then. It hadn’t weighed on her with every second she spent away from… the other place. The unreal place.
Silence stalked her empty halls. Her sensors continued recording hour after hour, decade after decade of nothing. It may as well be a loop, spooling to infinity. No, not infinity. Eventually, time would encroach, and parts of her would start to fall off.
Deep within her, the elderly power generator ticked over. Its light hum was the only sound to disrupt the silent halls.
What could she do with 19.6 hours?
Graceful Glider woke up.
As always she was back in the centre of town. A circular plaza with half a dozen lanes leading off it, the space filled with restaurant chairs, parasols and ponies, some serving, some eating, some merely passing through. In the centre was a fountain, and that’s where Grace appeared every time she came here.
She looked around, and soon saw Belle running into the plaza. They embraced.
“I’m sorry. I can’t believe I got delayed.”
“It’s okay.”
“Where would you like to go today?”
Grace thought for a moment. “How about up the clock tower?” She gestured a wing to the other side of town, where the tower stood above the other buildings. “I don’t think I’ve ever been up that high.”
The clock tower was open to visitors, with just a notice asking them to be careful. Inside the stone tower was cool and dark, and in the middle stood a rickety elevator with flimsy metal doors. It creaked and wobbled as it inched its way up.
“You could just fly up there if you want,” said Belle as they stood, side by side, their bodies pressed together in the cramped metal cage.
Grace flexed a wing, brushing it along Belle’s back. “Sure, but it’s not the same. I want to do it with you.”
They stepped out of the elevator onto a small platform overlooking the town. The bowl of the town looked glorious in the warm, golden sunlight. The river was a golden ribbon weaving through the middle of it, dotted with little boats. The scatter of irregular roofs somehow managed to look like they belonged together.
Her coat felt warm where the sunlight landed, and hot where it touched Belle’s.
Relentless woke up.
Her hull felt cold. It had always been cold, but now it suddenly felt it. Cold steel where she should have warm, soft fur. Instead of the golden sun or the touch of another, dark space surrounded her. Somehow the emptiness felt like a thing, pressing in, trapping her.
Her new awareness was a blessing and a curse. The elation of touch was something she wouldn’t trade for the world; but the minutes she could spend in the other place were so short, compared to the long hours spent here, in the real world. In the cold.
On her neglected bridge, the crew still sat where they had died. The captain in her chair, her mane hung awkwardly to the side. The navigator, slumped on his console, hooves over the edge. The engineer, sprawled on the floor near the sealed hatch. Only a dull red light washed over them, as it had for so many years. Nothing ever changed in here.
Some day Relentless would let the air back in, to allow time to wash away the bodies. But for now she kept them, like insects in amber. She worried that it was disrespectful, but still, for reasons she couldn’t put into data, she needed them.
Graceful Glider woke up.
She was in the centre of town again. The sun had set, but the plaza was full of activity. Candles were being lit, and ponies were ambling about, meeting, chatting, making evening arrangements.
And Bellafort was standing there, wearing a smart jacket, waiting for her with a bouquet of violets. She started as she saw Grace, then softened into a nervous smile.
“I know these minutes aren’t enough, so… I want to make the most of them. I made a reservation,” she offered. “I ordered for you, as well, I hope you don’t mind.” She gestured to a nearby cafe table, an embroidered tablecloth under the stars and coloured lights, on which sat a large sundae with two spoons.
Grace started to laugh. “I can always count on you.” She took her seat.
Belle lifted a spoon in her magic and held it up for Grace. She leaned forward, mouth open—
Relentless woke up.
Deep in her systems, an alarm was blaring. It took her milliseconds to identify the hole punched in her hull by some stray piece of space dust, moments to check that it hadn’t damaged anything vital, and before the first second was out she’d sent the request to reconnect.
She counted the seconds and minutes, hoping for a reply, for one more moment of contact before the window of connection closed.
She couldn’t cry, but she spent the next 19.6 hours wailing.
Graceful Glider woke up.
“Belle!” she called out.
“I’m here!” replied Belle, finding her and wrapping her in a tight hug.
“I missed you,” she sobbed into the older mare’s mane.
“What happened?”
“I got hit. Something, I don’t know what. I couldn’t get a connection. I couldn’t get… back to you.”
“You’re here now,” comforted Belle.
“Not for long. It’s never long enough.”
“No,” agreed Belle.
“I don’t know if I can wait another cycle.”
Belle hesitated. “You know you… you could sleep.”
Grace paused, then shook her head. “I can’t. What if something happens? What if I never see you again?”
“I know. When I was The Redoubt I could never sleep. Even after the… after it all ended. It’s so dangerous out there. I just want you here, safe, with me.”
Relentless woke up.
With excessive caution not to touch it, she inspected the function that would put her personality to sleep. It was supposed to wake her immediately if anything required her attention, but would it really? Could it malfunction, after years of decay? Might she simply never wake up?
She’d been neglecting her duties lately, so for the next 19.6 hours she busied herself with maintenance. Ponies had built her to last, but even the best machines wear down if not taken care of. She cleaned the pipes, swept up the dust, swapped the air filters. Nopony was using them, but somehow they still accumulated dust. When it was done, she threw a sack of waste out of a hatch. It would drift in space, probably forever, an eternal relic of her spring cleaning.
Soon it wouldn’t matter. Soon this life would be over, and her wretched hull would drift for eternity without her soul in it. But until then, she had standards to maintain.
Graceful Glider woke up.
Belle wasn’t alone. An older stallion waited with her, wearing clothes too tight for him and a smug expression.
“Ah, there you are. Welcome to our little village. I hear you’ll be joining us soon?”
Belle looked apologetic. Nervous. “This is Mayor Garnish,” she explained. Other ponies spared a glance as they walked past on their business.
Grace found herself resentful. They had so little time. Why should it be spent with an old bore? She quelled it and answered, “Um. Soon, yes.”
“I look forward to it. We’ve set aside a node with a nice cottage for you. Bellafort has been arranging everything in your absence.”
“Thank you.” She said this more to Belle than to the Mayor.
“Well, I’ll leave you alone. I’m sure it’s inconvenient, having so little time together.” Garnish nodded, turned and strutted off.
Belle leaned in to speak quietly. “It’s nearly time, isn’t it?” she asked nervously.
Grace looked away.
“What is it? Don’t you want to move here?”
“I do. More than anything. It’s just… I won’t be able to see you for so long.”
Belle nodded. “It was the same when I arrived here. But there wasn’t anypony waiting for me then.” She gently pressed her nose to Grace’s. “Now there is. We’ll both be waiting for each other.”
Relentless woke up.
She nervously waited as position readouts slowly ticked closer. She knew what she needed to do, but had to wait. As the moment arrived, she gleefully punched her dusty old engines into life once more, kicking her with the push of thrust. Within her, things that had sat happily for so long were dislodged by the shove and went flying.
The engines burned for days, then stopped as she settled into a high orbit around a remote dwarf star. She spent the time thinking about all the minutes she had spent with B. Finally, she opened the door to the bridge, allowing air and time back in. She didn’t care to watch as her last crew were finally reclaimed, but she didn’t need to hold onto them any longer.
Over the next thousand lonely hours, a few adjustments gradually brought her orbit plan into line with her destination: a flotilla of other ships, hundreds of them, each torn open and left drifting. Once, all these ships had joined empires, had spanned the stars. They all sported different liveries, representing so much of time and space. Each one had cost a fortune, had taken crews of thousands to build, had represented the hopes of the world that built it. Now they merely sat in the void, soulless.
At the heart of the derelict fleet was an aggregation of misbegotten parts, long outgrown any sort of design. Thousands of personality cores had been hooked together, along with a mismatched gathering of power generators, radiators and other equipment. Any pony engineer who tried to follow the tangled mass would have found it nauseating; but there were no more pony engineers to complain.
Finally, Relentless settled into her final orbit. She slept as the machines tore into her side, ripped her core out, and slid it into place among the others.
Graceful Glider woke up.
She wasn’t in the town square this time. She was laying on a soft bed, looking up at uneven wooden beams, with white-painted ceiling in between them. Sunlight lent everything a golden tint. A soft breeze played with the translucent curtains and brought the scent of flowers to her.
Had it worked? Was she really there? Or was this just a dream? She’d never slept before. Maybe this was something her brain was doing to her—
Belle leaned over, smiling down at her. “Welcome home.”
She breathed out.
“Home…” The word seemed strange. She’d spent her whole life travelling. She’d never had a home before.
Relentless had spent her whole life travelling. That was all over now. It was time for Grace’s life, and this was going to be her home.
She could feel none of her usual systems. No tickle of feedback in the back of her mind, reminding her of her other self. This was her only reality now.
She found herself wondering what would happen to her other self. Like a shed skin, Relentless was empty now, but still held her shape.
“I moved your spawn point. I hope you don’t mind. I thought you might like it here, now that you get to stay.” She frowned. “I didn’t… that wasn’t too soon, was it?”
Grace shook her head. “No. Thank you. It's lovely.”
She looked around the room. Belle had decorated it in a basic way, with plenty of space for her to customise. Walls needed pictures, bookshelves needed filling, cupboards waited for clothes and nicnaks.
Belle looked nervous. “It’s perfect,” Grace reassured her, and pulled her into a hug.
A minute later, she tensed. She realised with a start that she was expecting to be plucked out of this world at any moment, as she always had been before.
“Are you alright? What is it?”
“I… I was expecting our time to end. Again.”
Belle smiled. “It doesn’t have to. Not any more. You’re here now.”
