Shadow and Flame

Rarity yawned daintily as she slowly stood and stretched on her small bed mat, her bed sheet rising with her before sliding off into an inelegant  heap.

As the pale unicorn stretched several joints along her back and legs popped and creaked slightly. A year or two ago Rarity would have been appalled by her body producing such unladylike sounds but now she just enjoyed the sudden looseness in her limbs as she idly looked around her spartan room.

It was a tiny thing, almost a cubicle with plain grey metal walls, a single lamp dangling from the ceiling, a basket in the corner for dirty clothes, a box with clean clothes neatly folded by Rarity, two bed mats, one for her, one for her room mate, and a single door leading to a corridor, lined with doors to identical cubicles, leading to the showers and outside world.

Such was the accommodation of one who works in the factories constructed by the Aeon within the Everfree Forest. Definitely not the grand penthouses that Rarity had longed for in Canterlot but still she found herself content with the circumstances.

A sudden loud snore and a shifting of cloth abruptly ended the unicorn’s reverie and she glared at her room mate for their graceless behaviour.

The grand fashionista of Ponyville had to admit that not all that long ago she had sadly been speciesist. Being a unicorn of high tastes she had been quickly exposed to the prejudices and snobbish nature of her ‘betters’ of the Canterlot elite and that had developed a sort of disdain for other beings of Equestria further deepened by her experience with Diamond Dogs and what she’d heard of the griffin, Gilda’s behaviour. Even around Zecora she had felt uncomfortable.

But then the war had come.

The Aeon had simply disturbed her.

True they were graceful in their own bizarre bipedal way but they were just too different, too wrong. At least other non-ponies had a familiar equine shape.

They were so strange with their bizarre tongue and accents and the way their skin colours were so uniform even if their hair colour varied greatly.

When her friends had decided to join the Equestrian army she had been a little reserved about it. If she hadn’t been so worried about letting down her friends she wouldn’t have done it for the sake of keeping a maximum distance between herself and these aliens.

Now with her talent with gems revealed to extend towards all minerals in general she was working among ponies, mules, donkeys and aeon constantly in a filthy factory producing weapons and armour for the Equestrian and Imperial armies.

Naturally she had been very reserved, a lady among brutes, keeping to herself and refusing to talk to anyone, but inevitably she had become lonely and a kind soul managed to finally crack open her self made shell.

Rarity growled at the offending smelter between coughs as the soot cleared and the machine squealed and died.

Someone had somehow gotten organic matter on the production line, much to the taskmaster on the upper level’s fury and it had gone unhindered down to the smelter where it melted and burned, clogging the magic powered contraption, causing the pressure to build to dangerous levels.

If Rarity hadn’t practically torn the release valves right out of their pipes the whole thing would have exploded in a violent rush of molten metal and untapped mana.

She raised a hoof to wipe the soot from her face only to find her leg pitch black with the gunk.

The fashionista wailed as she realised that she was covered from what was left of her mane and tail to her still well maintained hooves in soot.

Never before had she gotten this filthy!

Her surroundings weren’t much better off, everything being covered in layers of black dust and sludge originating from the large metal pipes that held the pressure valves.

A sharp laugh caught her off guard and she spun around to see a group of the mules from the upper levels giggling uncontrollably.

Rarity pouted and looked away, what little was left of her pride starting to fray rapidly.

“All right you, get lost.” A feminine voice with an odd unmistakably aeon accent said. “You’re not even supposed to be down here.”

The no-longer-white unicorn looked behind her to see the mules walking off still laughing under their breath while a tall- though short for an aeon- red skinned aeon in thick forge garments glared at the departing mules with their hands on their hips.

The Aeon looked back at Rarity and the unicorn looked away at the concerned look on the Aeon’s face.

“Hey you alright there?” She heard the heavy footfalls approaching. “And why aren’t you wearing your protective barding?”

Rarity glared at the floor.

“I was simply on my way to my lunch break when the warning beacons went off and I won’t wear that hideous thing unless I have to.” She said in a sulky mumble too insulted by the filth coating her to care about keeping appearances.

The aeon laughed to Rarity’s surprise.

It wasn’t the laughing itself that surprised her but the way it laughed.

It reminded her of the way Applejack would laugh when Rarity would speak of fashion, playful, not mocking, something the country pony would do before saying, “Well that’s just Rarity for you, prissy and prim.”

Rarity looked up to see the aeon crouching down and producing a surprisingly clean cloth from one of their pockets.

“Want me to clean up your face?”

Rarity blinked in surprise.

“Well... I- um.”

The aeon chuckled again.

“I just thought you’d rather walk out of here a little cleaner, and there isn’t a mirror in here, so...” An honest smile crossed their freckled red face.

Rarity smiled back a little.

“If you don’t mind.” She said quietly.

The aeon leaned forward slowly and began to gently wipe the soot from around her mouth and eyes, rubbing the soot off of the cloth and on to their pants legs to keep from spreading it around too much.

Rarity began to feel uncomfortable under the alien’s ministration as her original surprise at the aeon’s kindness  faded.

In a bid to reduce her awkwardness she decided to ask a question that had been bugging her for a while.

“If I may ask miss...” Rarity began.

“Vesena. You can call me Ves.”

“Ves.” Rarity smiled a little again, “If I may ask why is it that among yourselves you always refer to another aeon as ‘ae’?”

Ves blinked a few times, temporarily confused by the question then grinned almost mischievously. “Now you're the first native to ask that far as I know and there’s an interesting reason for it.”

And now Ves lay on the other side of the tiny room, aer bed sheet messily scrunched around aer front as ae snored quietly on aer side, revealing aer light red skin which bordered on pink with black freckles peppering aer arms and back and aer short coppery hair which was somehow tangled despite being so short.

Rarity sighed and stretched again this time her limbs remaining quiet then trotted over to Ves to attempt to wake aer up.

“Ves.” She said poking her room mate in the arm.

Ves groaned in reply without moving.

“Ves get up it’s almost dawn we need to get ready for work.”

“Just a few more minutes.” Ves grumbled.

Rarity gave the back of Ves’ head a disapproving look.

This was just about a ritual in the morning between Rarity and Ves, the unicorn almost found the aeon’s morning laziness infuriating.

Ves had explained a few days after they arranged to share a room that all aeon had a ‘sin’ which they were born with and it imposed a weakness or craving upon the bearer, the sin was always made plain by a coloured birthmark around the right eye.

Ves’ was Sloth, a sulfur yellow mark standing out around aer eye.

Apparently ae loved to sleep.

In effect ae wasn’t much in the way of a morning person.

“Ves we’ve been going through this for three whole months now just get up.” Rarity said rolling her eyes. This reminded her too much of Sweetie Belle on school days.

“I dun wanna.” Ves replied moving to grab aer sheets and pull them tighter around aer.

Rarity was faster, using her magic to pull the sheets away. That ended up being a mistake.

“Ves why are you naked?”

“I put my pyjamas in the wash late.”

Ves was also a forgetful aeon.

Rarity gave a drawn out sigh, one which before Ves and her had begun sharing a room she’d reserved for Sweetie Belle alone.

Some days it unnerved her how much she was reminded of her younger sister, right now it annoyed her.

Under normal circumstances she wouldn’t be fazed by a pony’s nudity but Ves not being a pony and having aer ‘parts’ in plain sight was not exactly pleasant and so caused Rarity to growl at her friend to put something on by time she was back.

Rarity whipped a towel out of her clean clothes basket and trotted out the door, leaving Ves to make aerself decent as she headed down the hall to the showers.

The reason as to why aeon refer to each other as “ae” and “aer” even when not speaking in their native tongue regardless of their immediate appearance or mannerisms turned out to be that unlike almost every other sentient species known to ponykind (reinforcing the feeling of them being “alien”) aeon are, as a species, hermaphroditic. They lack the gender and sex binary shared by the vast majority of the known cosmos (according to Ves) and so only have one word and set of suffixes for referring to each other, other than by name. In effect this meant that they lacked sexism and gender stereotypes -such as mares are dainty and stallions are tough- they are free to act and dress however they feel truly comfortable.

This was also why up until the equines from below had moved in with the aeon factory workers there had been no separation between the mares’ and stallions’ toilets and showers.

At first that had lead to embarrassing and irritating problems but the Aeon had caught on to the issue quickly, with a few hints from the various equine workers, and had separated them all out into three groups for toiletry, mares, stallions and Aeon, the Aeon separating themselves for those who didn’t feel comfortable washing in the presence of Aeon or vice versa.

Rarity cantered over to the same shower she used every day, the cleanest one in the far corner, and turned the nozzle to activate the flow of water, waiting for twenty seconds for it to reach the right temperature then stepped in.

It was in that same shower that Rarity had idly pondered the nature of the aeons’ unigendered state. She had wondered; if ponies had been created (or evolved depending on who you listened to) with a single gender instead of two would she care so much about being a lady? Would she only be interested in stallions who were chivalrous and kind? Ever since she was a little filly she had been brought up believing in the princess and the prince, the set roles of each gender.

Her acceptance of the friendship of Rainbow Dash and Applejack had definitely opened her eyes fully to the fact that mares weren’t absolutely supposed to be ladies, obsessed with appearance and etiquette and the Blueblood incident had shown her that not all princes are gentlestallions, in fact they’re more likely to be twits, having been spoon fed their every wish from birth.

But now in the darkest hours of Equestria and the world she was wondering if any of it meant anything at all.

Now she thought about how Blueblood had acted, and how she would have acted similarly, given the chance, but because he was male it was unacceptable for Blueblood to act that way (he did take it to an extreme though). Is there anything wrong with a chivalrous female and a dainty male?

If ponies were as the Aeon would Rarity have thought it acceptable for Blueblood to act as he had?

However when she had brought it up with Ves the aeon had simply smiled in a bizarre maternal fashion and hugged her.

“There’s no need to have an identity crisis just because you’re a mare and want to be a lady.” Ae had said, “What’s important is that you act as and be what you feel comfortable as.”

That had been what had sealed Rarity’s friendship with the aeon, despite her minor xenophobia and doubts Ves was kind and quirky and understanding, qualities Rarity loved despite everything.

Rarity trotted out of the shower cubicle as the noise in the room began to rise with the trickle of mares moving into the shower room, chatting as they washed, and toweled herself off as she moved, so she wouldn’t drip on the floor on the way back to her room.

Upon arriving she was happy to see that Ves was dressed, even if ae was lying in bed again.

Rarity shook her head then set about thoroughly drying her mane and tail, the once luxurious coiffure now cut down to a tiny purple hedge along her neck and head to keep it from catching on any of the equipment in the factory.

Of course that didn’t stop her from taking good care of it, maintenance of her hair was just one of those things that made Rarity, Rarity.

Once she was satisfied that her hair was dry enough Rarity magiced a brush and her safety gear from the clothes box, attaching the dull brown and silver materials to her limbs and body as she brushed her mane and tail working what little knots could find their way in back out.

The protective barding was a simple thick and durable material that covered her legs, body and neck, as well as various plates of silvery metal for a little extra protection without disrupting manoeuvrability.

Rarity liked to think that despite the barding’s drab appearance she made it look as fabulous as anything else she laid hoof on.

Finally Rarity floated the brush back into the box and levitated a pair of bulky safety goggles out, stretching the strap to fit behind her ears and resting the lenses on her forehead.

She turned towards Ves slightly posing dramatically for a moment, causing her room mate who had lifted their head up to look at her to smirk.

“Fetching as ever Rarity.” Ves said before groaning to aer feet.

“Oh why thank you darling, I do try.” Rarity replied, leading the way out of the door.

They walked together out of the massive metal complex that housed the workers and traveled in an elevator up onto a higher level where the nature of their abode was revealed.

From an elevated walkway they could see all the lower levels of a series of interconnected platforms and domes, beams and elevators crisscrossing through the air seemingly at random, creating the massive airborne structure of Hathor, an Aeon Sky Farm, feeding and arming the aeon and Equestrian forces across the continent with the aid of a few others placed at strategic locations.

The fashionista and the aeon stopped a moment to admire the view across the colossal flying structure and across the Everfree forest.

Near it’s centre, a few kilometres off from the ruins of the Temple of the Two Sisters, five monoliths reached for the sky, the spires of a Mana Refinery, the tip of the centre most spire passing the lower layer of clouds, creating a tiny purple sun in the sky as raw energy was forced from a split in a ley line through the Everfree into a tiny point at it’s tip, compressing and weaving it from an ether into a gas then funnelling it down colossal pipes to the four smaller spires, placed evenly away from the central spire to be processed and compacted into a liquid then solid state to form the power source of the entire mechanical aeon battle force, their sky farms, sky forts, flying machines, walkers, tanks, sea ships, sea forts, land forts, dreadnaughts, all powered by raw solidified magic.

Rarity couldn’t help but find the spires elegant in their simplicity, powerful structures fueling the mind bogglingly immense machine of the Aeon Empire across the stars and all of known reality.

A machine that was slowly killing our world... Rarity thought to herself, suddenly sullen. She had heard rumors of the fiercer battles between the Empire and Shadow where their greater war machines and demons had pitted themselves against each other, destroying the landscape and rendering it unrecognisable and warped.

Ves, sensing her unicorn friend’s sudden change in mood, patted her on the shoulder and motioned gently to get over to the hangar bay.

A short while of walking had them accompanied by other groups of ponies, mules, aeon, donkeys and other creatures of strength, filing on to two massive flying machines dubbed “rocs” which were pretty much huge flying boxes smothered in layer after layer of protective plating and shielding runes.

Their eight wide wings spread shadows across the platform as everyone walked on in an orderly fashion, scaling the passenger ramps then finding their seats on the passenger level of the fuselage, the large and slightly cramped room housing just over a hundred and fifty seated aeon and equines while the deck below held replacement equipment and parts for the factory that was it’s destination.

Once everyone was aboard the underside of the wings of both rocs lit up with a dim blue light, the air shimmering with force as the levitators activated, humming loudly, and reduced the roc’s weight significantly.

The large ramp on it’s rear retracted and the double doors slid together with a hiss, sealing the occupants within as one roc lifted off the ground and sped off the platform in the general direction of the Mana Refinery, closely followed by the second.

After a short but uncomfortable trip that Rarity had grown used to, wedged amongst so many fellow workers, the roc landed with a slight bump and a drawn out hiss, the whir of the engines died down and the doors opened, two ramps sliding out, the one above releasing the workers and the one below giving the aeon and their awkward looking walkers access to the cargo.

Rarity and Ves walked together through the throng pushing their way towards the ramps leading to the higher levels of the tall factory with it’s many exhaust chutes giving off a dull red glow with a tiny trickle of smoke and steam from each.

At a guess the factory was thirty stories high though Rarity had never bothered to count exactly how many there were. The fashionista made metalsmith worked about the middle on the sixteenth floor just above the assembly floors for small single aeon flying craft called the “dragonfly” and below a floor reserved for storage of spare parts and repair tools waiting to be picked up and sent to the front lines at the end of the week.

A short elevator trip brought Rarity and her co-workers, most of which consisted of other unicorns and mainly red skinned “volk” aeon similar in skin colour to Ves, to the smelters where they crafted masterwork weapons and armour for the aeon elite forces.

It was a point of pride that Rarity, despite her change in occupation had continued to be a master in her profession going from making dresses for the high class to making armaments for the best of the best.

Rarity went straight to her station, next to Ves’ she was happy to note, and without missing a beat checked the state of the machine, fiddling with valves and switches and checking the nozzles from a safe distance, nodding in approval at it’s top notch condition, activated the machinations and set to work, the others in the room doing the same in a strange state of synchronisation.

Molten metals pooled into a cauldron in front of the alabaster unicorn, swirling and mixing while being watched carefully by her to make sure the mix was just right, next several gems, namely diamonds and rubies, clunked into a pan next to the unicorn.

She levitated the gems one at a time, eyeing them carefully even though they had already been checked, double checked and triple checked before coming to her section of the factory but it always paid to be a little extra careful, then crushed the mix of gems with a quick effort of will, keeping the dust elevated above the blisteringly hot mixture before reaching out with her magic again to scoop up the right amount of metal, shaping it into a more or less crescent shape while mixing the gem dust with the metal making sure to keep it even throughout by kneading the glowing orange liquid with her magic, impurities and a lack of uniformity being unacceptable in this level of weaponry.

Once she was satisfied with the gems’ concentration throughout the metal Rarity closed her eyes relying on her magical touch rather than her sight, feeling the heat, texture and shape of the molten metal, kneading and coaxing it like putty into a crescent blade, slowly prodding it until it’s surface was perfectly smooth.

With a final flourish of magic Rarity pressed the edges of the blade into a sharp edge, though abnormal in shape, the crescent moon blade, once attached to it’s shaft, was ideal for dismembering and holding the monsters that the aeon warriors known as “Tevana” were trained to slay.

Opening her eyes the unicorn held the blade against the surface of a water bath to cool it into a completely solid state before turning the blade over several times, inspecting it carefully and pushing the background noise of the other workers out of her mind.

Satisfied with her work Rarity placed the blade on a conveyer belt behind her cauldron that carried the blade onwards in the production queue to have runes etched into it’s surface to increase it’s already impressive durability and potential for damage and to have it fitted onto a pole before being sent to be used on the battlefield.

Rarity glanced to her side, seeing Ves already on her second blade, aer hands rising and falling and moving in a rhythm to shape the lump of molten metal in mid air, a look of concentration on aer face.

The unicorn looked back to the cauldron before her and continued to shape and mold the metal refusing to let her mind wander or distractions take her.

Hours later Rarity and Ves, both tired from the metal smithing sapping their magical energies, went down to the cafeteria, adjacent to the factory instead of inside it, for their lunch break.

As Ves wolfed down aer workers portion Rarity looked at her own tray with a conflicted look on her face.

It took a moment for Ves to pick up the fact that aer friend wasn’t eating and ae stopped, taking a few gulps from the cup of water in front of aer then looked at the small unicorn with a concerned expression.

“You okay Rarity? You look a little down in the dumps.”

“Oh I’m fine...” She replied with a sigh, “Just thinking.”

“About your friends? And home?”

Rarity nodded.

“Yes we all heard about the loss at the Alicorn Alps...” Rarity rubbed a hoof against her forehead, her eyes closed. “I’m sure my friends are fine but the battalion Applejack is a part of took massive casualties and Rainbow Dash has a knack for getting into danger, as I’ve learnt from experience... And Fluttershy was there with the medical team... I’m scared I’ll have to tell Applebloom that her big sister is gone or if I had to-” Ves stopped her by placing a comforting hand on the alabaster pony’s shoulder causing her to open her eyes, finding her vision misted with tears.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I should know better.” Rarity said wiping her eyes.

Ves squeezed the unicorn’s shoulder and shook aer head.

“No Rarity it’s okay to be afraid for your friends, I know I get worried to bits whenever my friends in the fighting force get into trouble...” Ves said quietly, “Even more so when my friends who aren’t fighters get caught in the crossfire. I’m sure your friends are going to be fine, Arbedos arrived in time to save the majority of the sixteenth and seventeenth battalions and routed the Nightmares in time to face off the Shadow...”

“I know I just... I can’t help it...” Rarity said.

“I know it’s hard not to worry.” Ves bit aer lip for a second and decided to change the subject. Now wasn’t the time for that kind of talk. “So were you thinking about Ponyville as well?”

“Oh... Yes just thinking about my boutique... I would very much like to go back there. Even see Sweetie Belle and my parents...” Rarity said.

“Don’t worry, just a little longer and you’ll be on military leave as well as your friends.” Ves comforted. “Another couple of months and you’ll be able to re-open your store and see everyone.”

“For a month.” Rarity said with a huff. “And I’ll probably spend all that time dusting and reorganising.”

“Oh don’t be like that.” Ves chuckled, “Things are going uphill I bet the Empire won’t need Equestria’s help in time and you can all get back to your old lives.” Ae spread aer arms out with a wide smile.

Rarity shook her head.

“No we won’t be able to get back to our old lives... We’ve seen and sacrificed too much to be able to go back.”

Ves went silent for a while, the two of them left in their own sea of thought before the aeon spoke up.

“Come on Rarity, eat up. It’ll do you good.”

The mentioned unicorn looked at her food sadly for a moment then picked up her fork and tried to eat, not really feeling any hunger.