"Well! This is just great!” Rarity proclaimed to nopony but herself. “I wake up in the middle of the woods, with absolutely no idea where I am. My mane is a mess! There's plant bits in my coat! I have absolutely no provisions, or my emergency priming supplies! And to make matters even worse, I'm late for my appointment at the salon!!” She huffed as she pushed through the foliage, letting out a bemoaning cry as she felt her coat brush up against the ferns, leaving their mark upon her.

“Ohh~” She cried out, “This better not be the Everfree, or I'm going to be right cross with whoever sent me here!” She then paused as she reached a clearing, her eyes widening as she took in the sky.

“Well, that's certainly... strange.” Rarity appraised, her eyes taking in the night sky. It was radiating with countless beautiful stars, aimlessly not standing still, like all good stars should.

Strange seemed to be the word on Rarity's mind since she awoke, on her hooves no less. Okay, it was one of the words that's been on her mind. Despite it clearly being night, she could see everything as if it were day; however, she didn't cast a defined shadow.

“Okay, enough complaining, think Rarity. Let's see... I was heading to Applejack's home to pick up ------- ----- when-” She then frowned after her seeming failure to say ------- -----. Her eyes then widened at her inability to even think ------- -----'s name. “What is this!? Why can't I say ------- -----?? Has something happened to my ------!?” Her heartbeat started to quicken as she quickly started throwing out other names she knew, seeing if there were others she couldn't name.

“Ohhh, why ------- -----?” She whined, her heart aching as her brow furrowed. She then glared to the shifting heavens, as if it was at fault. “Just what is going on here!?” She asked as she stomped her hoof. She then blinked. As if to answer her, a star separated itself from the sky, plummeting towards Rarity.

It was on fire.

Rarity let out a shrill that would put a banshee to shame as she ducked for cover. She heard the fireball crash into the clearing behind her, with a very anticlimactic <plunk>, reverberating a thrumming sound afterwards. Not even feeling a breeze from the impact, she looked out from behind the tree she had valiantly hid behind to see a twisted metal sign slightly embedded into the ground in the field.

She walked up to the sign, much bigger then herself, frowning as she took it in. The edges of the sign were smudged in dark guck, burned on from the fall. On the sign was the image of a car, crumpled from some unspecified collision, and in her expertise, it looked totaled-

“Wait.” She eyed the ruined car, her eyes widening as the strangocity of the situation climbed into the red. “How do I know what a car is!?” In her moment of bafflement, her eyes wandered to the slogan written under the car. She wasn't familiar with the language, but still understood it, regardless of what sense it lacked.

'Stuff happens. Will you be ready when it happens to you? Get insured today!'

She stared at the sign, wondering if she had asked for this when she shouted to the sky. Letting out a sigh, she looked to leave, when she thought she saw the black sludge quiver. Keeping her eyes locked on the guck, she slowly backed away from the sign.

The guck quivered again, and the sign was instantly enveloped in it, and the entire mass that was the large sign vanished in a puff, leaving only a small glob of black gunk, which unceremoniously fell to the dirt with a <splat>.

“Eh heh. Leaving now~” She said as the guck changed shape to something far less repulsive. Taking on the appearance of a black rabbit, it looked at Rarity with eyes that demanded her attention.

It was like looking into the abyss. The abyss of extreme cuteness.

A cornucopia of potential cuddling, cute squeaks, soft petting, and all around lovey-dovey cutsie-wootsieness washed over the mare. Rarity swallow back a childish squeal as her heart beat quickened. She wanted to scoop it up and hug it and feed it and call it Mr. Whiskers and have him play with Opalescence and before she even realized it she was hugging Mr. Whiskers.

“Aren't you cu~ute! Fluttershy would just adore you!” It was so cute that she had forgotten about the sign it had seemingly consumed.

She felt the lightest hint of a migraine as she held it close. “Oh, you'll just make a great playmate for -----------!” Rarity paused a moment as she looked blankly into the woods.

“Wait, who was I going to show you to?” She asked as she held it a hoofs length from her with her magic. The little rabbit cocked its head as it smiled at her.

“Opalescence happens,” The rabbit said in a deep, very un-rabbit like voice, making Rarity drop it in surprise, getting a small shrill from the mare, “will you be ready when Opalescence happens to you? Get Opalescence today!” The rabbit then grew slightly, turning into a fluffy cat with dark gray fur, wearing a small bow on its head.

Rarity now considered the creature to be even cuter. And yet, now she felt something terribly unsettling about it, and a red flag was flying in the back of her mind, insisting she run. The cat got on its paws and moved closer to Rarity, letting out a sweet meow. Rarity took a step back from it, and the cat's demeanor instantly changed.

Its fur stood on end as it hissed at Rarity, suddenly grown to Rarity's size. Rarity looked at the cat, and instantly felt reminded of the food chain, and a pony's place on it where it concerned pony sized cats.

“Stuff happens!” The cat bellowed out as it took a menacing step forward. “Get insured when today happens to you!” Rarity, having had more then enough of this, turned and bolted. Fortunately for her, the large cat seemed to be... terribly unfit for chasing ponies.

Not three paces after she started, she saw the cat plow shamefully into a tree. Rarity considered stopping, but only redoubled her efforts when the tree was seemly swallowed up by the cat- no, the monster.

“Ow! Ow! Ow!” She cried out as she ran through the woods with abandon, branches clawing at her coat and mane. Looking over her shoulder, she saw her pursuer seemingly getting larger with each tree it crashed into. “Celestia help me! I promise I'll never use synthetic cat-food again!” She then frowned at her own desperate plea, as she was certain she's never owned a cat.

Maybe Celestia was listening, because right as the monster caught up to Rarity, she ran right off a cliff, appearing suddenly from the other side of the underbrush she was passing through. Okay, maybe Celestia wasn't listening.

Thankfully, there were plenty of trees, branches, and bushes to break her fall. Separating herself from her broken fall, she almost fell off her hooves when the monster slammed into the ground behind her. Its cat-form melting away like a ball of mud, splashing Rarity, getting guck on her face and flank.

Rarity felt a major migraine assault her as she desperately rubbed the guck off. The guck itself separated from her, returning to the mass that was slowly reforming as Rarity began galloping again.

“Dumb rock!” She heard the monstrosity shout behind her, and her gallop faltered. It spoke in her voice. No, not quite. It was her voice, when she was younger. Not giving it a chance to get her again, she kept running. Her lungs were starting to cry out, her eyes getting teary from the unexpected exertion. She ignored them. The monster compelled her to move like the wind.

“Will you be ready when rock happens to you!? Get dumb today!”

She more than heard its words. She felt them reverberate through her core. She was now under the very strong impression that she couldn't hide from the monster. That it could follow her, effortlessly now. It didn't need to chase her, for it would never lose her. Still, she ran.

She ran, and ran, until, she reached the end. Her gallop came to a surprised halt as she reached the edge of the forest. Before her was a fall that had no bottom, but stars. Carefully looking over the edge, she saw dirt, with roots poking out, making the side, and underside of the mass of land she stood on.

The forest was on a clump of land, floating in the stars. The moving, shifting, alien stars, with guck monsters that can grow and change shape. Almost wanting to scream at everything that's troubled her since waking up, she instead tried to keep her balance. The ground trembled slightly as she looked back the way she came. Far, far into the woods, she saw darkness, and she had nowhere to run.

Not quite ready to give up on an escape, she started following the edge of the floating island. Though she wanted to run, her body refused to tolerate such a ridiculous notion. Catching her breath as she followed the edge, time seem to slip by her, and before she noticed it, she had come upon a clearing that was loosely attached to the rest of the island. A small peninsula of grass and dirt no bigger than a carriage.

A dead end.

Truly, the only reason it caught her attention was because there was a stump in the dead center of it. A old woodcutter's axe planted into it. Looking closer, Rarity saw that the grass and soil looked different from the island she was standing on, and started to wonder if the small attachment was an unexpected addition, instead of being a natural part of the whole.

She felt the island tremble again, and looking back to the islands center, she saw on all the trees that she could see, a small black tendril attached to them. In a blink, all the trees disappeared, revealing that the monster had become quite sizable.

“Dumb stuff happens to you!” The mass cried out in Rarity's voice, and she saw the monsters tendrils start to dig into the soil. Recalling what just happened to the trees, Rarity turned around, on a hope, and leapt for the small peninsula. She landed into it, rolling in the dry grass as she looked back. The island was gone. All that remained was a large, floating black mass.

The mass contorted in the floating space, getting smaller, and moving closer to Rarity. She backed up from it as the shrinking mass slowly approached her little island. She stumbled as she walked into the trunk, falling past it in a very un-lady like fashion. As she got back on her hooves, she chanced a better look at the axe in the trunk.

If she wasn't completely afraid for her everything, she would have scoffed in disgust. The axe's handle was rotten, dried, and cracked. It just waiting for a good breeze to snap it in two. The head of the axe was covered in moss and bits of small mushrooms, making the condition of the head indeterminable. But if the handle was any indication, the head was likely nothing short of a rusty mess.

Avoiding giving the axe any more undue attention, Rarity saw that the monster had finished shrinking. It was standing on the island with her. It- She was now a small filly, black coat with a darker mane and tail. Her hair style resembled Rarity's, and on her flank was a set of three black diamonds, imposed over a crashed car. Seeing the monster's ----- ---- made Rarity look to her flank, seeing it bare.

The dark filly smiled at Rarity, a sweet, innocent, foal-like smile, and stepped closer, then stopped, frowning at the disgusting axe that rested between them. It started to rotate to the left, around the axe, making Rarity shift, keeping the axe between them. It glared at Rarity, and she looked to it wide-eyed. The two of them paced around the axe for several seconds, Rarity hearing her own heartbeat in her ears. The time spent circling, turned into time Rarity spent catching herself, composing herself, taking in the situation.

“Dumb stuff!” the filly shouted as it moved to push aside the axe. When it brought its hoof down to the axe, the filly yelped as she stepped back from it, cradling her hoof as smoke whisped off of it. It looked at the axe in fear, before its eyes met Rarity's. Rarity clearly understood what that meant, and swallowed her pride as she grasped the axe by the rotten handle with her magic.

Everything stopped.

Rarity was completely unable to move, and monster stood still, the look of fear in its eyes frozen, locked with Rarity's. Even though she couldn't move her eyes, she could see, from her eyes' corner, that the axe was glowing, from more than just her magic.

'Do you, recipient,' a sweet, yet androgynous voice asked of Rarity, 'accept the responsibilities tied to wielding this axe? Are you ready to be held accountable, as its master, for its actions, so help you?'

Oohh~! Why is today being to so, so strange! Yes! Now give me the axe so I don't get gobbled by whatever that thing is!

'Name?'

Rarity!

'Understood. Greetings Rarity. Please, be kind.' Rarity mentally faltered, caught off guard by the pleading tone in that last sentence. Before she could dwell on it, time continued, and the axe separated itself from the stump, being pulled out by Rarity's magic. The monster took a step back, its fear more evident as Rarity eyed the axe in her grasp.

'Master!'

Despite already talking to the strange voice while time was frozen, Rarity almost dropped the axe right then when it spoke to her.

'Swing! Before it flees with your fragments!'

When the axe said fragments, Rarity was suddenly instilled with understanding as her eyes fell back on the monster's ----- ----. She looked back into the monster's eyes, and hesitated. The monster looked just like her, as a filly, and she couldn't bring herself to swing at a filly. The monster seemed to catch her hesitation, as the fear in its eyes vanished, giving her a cute stare Rarity use to use on her parents.

'Master?'

The monster took a step forward. Rarity took a step back, the axe floating in the air, unmoving.

'Master... Do I have permission to protect you?'

“W-What? Yes!” She was confused that the axe had to ask for permission to-

Suddenly the axe freed itself from her grasp, falling down towards the filly. The monster jumped back, it's form shifting back into the large cat as it hissed at the axe. The axe moved with alarming speed, its head pivoting, its angle shifting mid-swing to connect with the monster. When the axe connected, it took a moment for Rarity to process what followed.

Memories of when she got her cutie-mark rushed back to her. Being yanked along to a rock she did indeed call dumb, which housed a great many fabulous gemstones inside. The rock split open, she used the gems for the play, and she got her cutie-mark. As the memories flashed before her minds eye, her actual eyes saw an entire island's worth of trees and foliage explode out of the monster, flying off and away from the axe and mare with startling speed, disappearing into the starry canvas with a twinkle.

The monster was still in front of her. It was as small as a cat, and it hissed as it jumped off the island, out of the axe's reach. As Rarity looked over the side, she saw the dark gray cat smile to her.

“Will you be ready when Opalescence happens to you?” It asked menacingly, as it vanished into the starry landscape.

Rarity let out a long and tired sigh as she slumped into the grass, letting her body and nerves calm down. As she lay there, she saw the axe float before her.

'Permission to speak my mind.'

Rarity eyed the talking axe, and dearly wished Twilight was here to explain what was going on. Letting out another sigh, she gave the axe a reluctant nod.

'You could do with some more exercising, master. Also, you're an utter mess.' The axe declared, both with concern, and annoying forwardness. Rarity looked at the old, decrepit, moss and fungal covered axe in complete and total shock.

“Well, you're one to talk!” She scoffed, getting on her hooves, glaring at the offending tool.

'Master, I'm an axe. I can't exercise. Silly!'

“I meant being an utter mess!” Did a floating, talking axe just call me silly!?

'Huh?' It sounded honestly confused, 'I can't really look at myself. Is it bad?' The axe asked as it floated in the air, turning around, as if trying to look at itself.

“Completely dreadful!” The axe stopped spinning before the blade looked to Rarity's mane, as if appraising it.

'...can I borrow your mane?' The axe asked as it started to float towards Rarity, 'I'd rather be clean.'

“Y-You keep your dirty self away from me you, you, overgrown tinder box!”

'Master, you could hurt some axe's feelings, calling them names like that.' It replied with a hurt tone, its head bobbing with each word, making its handle swing about unhinged, and it was really annoying the mare.

“Stop floating!” Rarity demanded in a moment of lost restraint. As if a puppet's strings had been cut, the axe dropped instantly. The handle fell square on the stump, the entire weight of the metal head coming down on it, breaking the handle into countless smaller pieces of tinder. Rarity stared wide-eyed as the head landed on the stump, lifeless.

“Are you... okay?” She asked timidly, approaching the axe.

'...that really hurt...' the axe weakly replied. Rarity picked up the axe's head, with her hooves, and the shattered remains of the handle weakly fell out, leaving just the metal head of the weapon intact.

“So, you wouldn't happen to know what's going on, would you?” The axe was quiet for several moments, prompting Rarity to look at it in concern.

'Well, I was sleeping, when suddenly I had a new master, and then I broke, and it hurt.' It summed up, matter-of-factly. Rarity muttered a small apology as she looked over the axe, then frowned.

“I meant that monster that was chasing me. Or, well,” she then motioned to the stars, which were still moving about in an unnatural way, “This!”

'Oh. That's the Fragmented Sea.'

“Huh?” Rarity flatly asked as she looked to the axe with a deadpan expression.

'Yea, I agree, stupid name. But I didn't name it. But whoever did, must have been a pretent- prentou- preterea-… a big stuffy smarty-pants!' Rarity let out a patient sigh as she started rubbing the axe against the trunk, scrapping off the moss and other gunk that had grown onto it. 'Oh~ That feels nice...' the axe sighed out, sounding quite happy with the treatment.

“Would you mind telling me what the Fragmented Sea is?”

'Ohhh. Sorry. It's everything, only, if you took everything, broke it into a whole lot of pieces, and mixed it together. Yep! That's Fragmented Sea! Just leave it to me to simplify something that's, like, a very big headache.'

“Everything?”

'Everything.'

“Like, everything, everything?” And she heard the axe sigh, though she couldn't tell if it was from annoyance, or from relief of being cleaned.

'Ughh, every single little thing. Real stars, worlds, people, places, memories, time. Yeeaa, anything you can think of, and everything you can't.' The axe explained, it's tone shifting to something slightly mournful as it reach the end of its description.

“So then Equestria-”

'In pieces.' Rarity faltered at the blunt reply.

“My, my friends-”

'I'm so sorry to say, in pieces.'

“H-How do you know!” She asked, not ready to accept the facts straight up.

'Because the rarest thing to find in the Fragmented Sea, is something whole. You're not complete, and neither am I.' Rarity took this in, still not buying the axe's explanation.

“You're not being completely honest with me, are you?”

'Master, I cannot lie unless you give me permission to. It's the cold, sad truth. I can only wonder how long you've slept in the sea, and I'm so, so sorry to be the bearer of bad news.' Rarity took the axe's words in, gently resting the now mostly clean blade on the trunk as she looked to the stars.

She looked into the all encompassing field before her. Countless stars shifting though the plain, some growing brighter, others dimming down. She recalled the clump of forest, and how it turned into one of these stars when it was sent flying away from them.

The field of stars, she could now see, were fragments. The billboard that crashed near her, it came from another world. The monster, it too, from another world. And now, looking at all the lights around her, she understood.

Somewhere out there, were pieces of Equestria. Were her friends. Her family, all that she treasured, lay scattered. ------- -----, my ------, ooh! Her brow furrowed in annoyance, I can't grasp the words! But I know her, she's so dear to me. And my parents, and friends. I have to find them! She then looked back to the axe, quietly resting on the trunk.

“You said that I was asleep?”

'Yea. Umm, when a person, like you, is fragmented, its like they're asleep. When enough is brought back together, you wake up! Oh. It's bad news when an actual star wakes up, but that never happens anymore! ...I think.' As the axe spoke, Rarity noticed a name etched onto the blade. Three little letters stylistically drawn onto the back of the head, far from the blade.

“Lin?” Rarity read out loud, and the axe seemed to flinch, and Rarity eyed it with concern.

'I... I don't like that name. It would make me happy if you didn't call me that.'

“Well, then, what shall I call you?”

'Moralin. But, don't speak it out loud, unless you have great need of me.' Rarity considered asking why, but instead focused her attention on the fact that they were sitting on a small mound of land, floating in the Fragmented Sea, with no place to go.

“So, are we, oh what's the expression, set adrift?”

'Hmm? Oh! We can leave whenever you want, master! Just trot off the island while thinking of a destination!'

“Really? It's that easy?”

'That's right! Oh! Make sure you bring me! It's very lonely, being unable to move while on a small fragment such as this.'

“Oh, hmm, look here, dear, I'm allowing you to float again.” Rarity stated, and sure enough, Moralin started floating again. So, she's completely bound by my orders? That's... kind of sad. Rarity thought as the axe-head bounced before her.

'Thank you, master! Okay, just walk off, it's like, easy!' Rarity looked at Moralin skeptically, but, after a couple false starts, did such, while thinking of home, and was surprised that she wasn't falling, but drifting, as they left the small island behind. Looking back, she saw the island disappear in the distance, becoming another twinkle in the sky, and the island's movement was the only indication that Rarity wasn't standing still.

'Now, whatever you do, don't think of falling.'

And just like that, Rarity and the axe were plummeting down into the sea of stars. Rarity let out a loud, drawn-out scream, that never seemed to end, as the axe started giggling heartily.

'This is kinda fun!!' Moralin admitted as they plummeted through empty space, on their way to their destination. Next Chapter: 2. Home? One Big Mess! Estimated time remaining: 34 Minutes