It was such a nice dream. Flutters and I were sitting in a meadow, watching the clouds pass by. Every now and then, a passing butterfly would alight on Flutters nose, and she stare at the little thing half amused and half fascinated. I would eat hay fries and peach cobbler off her belly. It was actually rather relaxing. I couldn't tell how long all this went on but it seemed to last forever. Then the humans showed up…

It was strange, seeing humans walking with purpose. From everything I've gathered from the Equestrians I know, humans are not just rare, but extinct here. Also, they seem rather less evolved than I. These humans, though, were more advanced than even I could guess at. They moved in a coordinated fashion, like a military troupe. They were clad in what looked like armor, but not medieval armor. Nor was it the body armor of today's military forces, either. There were L.E.D.s everywhere on them, filaments of tubes running hither and thither, micro-hydraulics running the limbs with ease and weapons I can't begin to speculate on. (At least the looked like weapons.)

As they marched, I heard them speak and it was like no language I know. It was lilting sort of tongue; the strangest part of it was, though I'm no polyglot, I understood them! Whatever this procession was about, I could feel a certain anxiety and maybe even, a bit of resignation? Was I the only one to hear these people as the trudged along? I look towards my dream version of Fluttershy and she is entertaining a monarch on the tip of her hoof.

"We should fight! We have the weapons, we have the interdiction; why aren't we turning those creatures into so much glue!" A firebrand of a young man said this.

He's answered by a mature woman in an armor that seems regal, I guess. The lines on her face suggest she's at the tail end of midlife. "You know as well as I do that we can't match them in terms of magic. Did you or did you not see the Eighth Division? Eradicated, to the last! Their powers outstrip our weapons by a hundredfold and you know it! Damn the Proletariat, they doomed us all!!"

A weary looking middle-aged gentleman speaks, "Then Matron, what are we doing? Are we to retreat in perpetuity until all Humanity is a footnote in the fossil record?"

"No," answers the regal armor wearer, "We must preserve our species, in any way possible. The Intelligentsia have uncovered another world, similar to ours, but with beasts that have little of the intelligence or magic of ours. There are also humans there as well. They are less evolved, and are suffering through an age of ice, but we shall educate them. We shall rebuild there."

"And what if the humans there think us monsters?" The firebrand again.

"We shall disguise our technology to make them appear more appealing to them, I guess," the woman answers, "but as always, we shall survive, we shall thrive."

"Madame, does the Intelligentsia know if these humans are capable of understanding?" Asks another man in flowing robes of magenta, a bald pate reflecting the mild sunlight overhead, "Even some of our own are less than tolerant of new ideals…"

"They have many aspects that are identical to us. Their world runs on a much faster spin than our own. According to estimates recently devised by House Intelligentsia, for every hundred years that pass here, ten thousand pass there. Goddess of Light and God of Life, whatever caused that? Not even Intelligentsia knows… In any case, the Gateway shall send us there towards the end of that ice age. We shall endeavor to inform them, raise up a civilization there not unlike our own, or die trying."

A pretty ginger girl quips, "Just as long as it isn't another Atlantis, then, yes, Matron?"

"Atlantis was a failure for many reasons, the least of which was that the locals were driven by deep seated lust for power and wealth. That we must purge or contain that once we get there. It was a mistake, attempting a temporally displaced colony like that."

After that, the procession is mostly silent. I can hear murmurs of dissent, grief, and desperation among the rest of the column. My eyes lock on to one of the ladies passing by; she heavy with child and clutching the hand of small toddler who is crying silently. The one thing that unnerves me most about all of this is the young ginger girl. She seems- familiar to me. Where have I seen her before…? There is no way I could forget a face so pretty.

"Remember us, Archmage."

Huh?

"Remember us, Steven Ambrose. You are descended from some of these, the Great Terran Empire. Let not our failure be repeated…"

The ginger girl, I think she was speaking to me. (How did she figure out my surname??) She gives me one last look…

"Do not let our memory fade, Archmage."

*GASP!*

Ugh, God, I need to stop eating cupcakes before bed…

Hmm… <was is das?>