Getting back together with Forerunner was a little harder than just touching a teleport pad and hoping for the best. But wandering through a nation recovering from war was not even the third hardest thing Sarah had ever done. She might not have been able to change—at first—but they had time to practice, time to hide, and in the end everypony was talking about Motherlode so it wasn’t hard to get there.

The escaped broken-horn pony had even gone there, or so she’d said. “You owe me now,” she’d declared, the last thing she ever said to Sarah. “And I intend to collect.”

Sarah arrived there with Photuris beside her, in the seats of two Equestrian diplomats. They were calling the city New Canterlot now. Not a terribly imaginative name, but she hadn’t said that to anyone. It wouldn’t have been very diplomatic.

They stepped off the train station along with the wave of other ponies, and Sarah found she could barely recognize the place. This was no secret home of a buried base that would never be seen by anypony—it looked like how she imagined ancient Rome might have looked, a few years before things got big. Machinery was tearing the mountain down, and several of the other peaks besides. The original buildings were nowhere to be seen, except for a single large community center right near the exit of the train. The roof had been burned off and several windows had been shattered. Curious, Sarah made her way up to the building, following the crowd.

“This is the last surviving structure of Motherlode. Though the Storm King’s armies tore down your bricks and shattered your houses, your memory lives on forever in our hearts.”

There was a list of names after that, presumably those who had died here. Sarah didn’t stop to read it, but instead glanced over her shoulder at Photuris. She made for quite a fetching pegasus, with enough coaching. There was still something weird about that, some part of Sarah that worried she’d changed herself for her. That was never something she’d ask from a partner. She hadn’t changed to make the world like her, so why should the world change for her?

But she hadn’t fought too hard. The “pegasus noble” beside her was just as clumsy as the old James had been, just as desperate for her help. Only now instead of being annoyed, Sarah found it endearing. It wasn’t like she could be expected to travel incognito for a month alone.

“Where do you think we should find them?” she asked, forcing herself to use Eoch even though she had no reason to. There were no Golden Army on this side, and instead the ponies conducting them away from the station wore plain blue cloth jumpsuits and stun pistols with wide curves for their hooves.

UN Civilian Security forces, or at least ponies trained to become them. She couldn’t tell if these were “her” colleagues in the Rangers or if they were natives. Probably a little of both, judging on the way they spoke.

Photuris pointed up towards the tallest building. Like all the others it was still under construction, with massive metallic machines running up a tubular scaffold. This was friction-forming, the 3D-printing that could put up whole cities in a year with enough feedstock. “All we really have to do is find one of the drones, take it into a closet, then tell it who we are.”

“Yeah.” Sarah set off in the indicated direction—which was easier said than done. The path here was wide and paved, with street lights set above them for night. But many ponies were heading in that direction, buzzing with apprehension, distrust, and even relief. Sarah couldn’t get their emotions from her mind now, and maybe she didn’t want to. It was a convenient advantage.

The entrance wasn’t unfinished like the upper floors, but cut from polished granite and intricately carved. It looked more like an Equestrian building than a Pioneering Society one, without the plain flat floors and identical grid lighting. Instead there were enchanted torches in here, and the walls had been carved with history.

Sarah stayed away from the crowd of tourists drifting over to appreciate it, instead flowing with the elites towards a security checkpoint.

There were simple X-ray weapon scanners here, which most of the ponies passed through without even realizing what was happening. But there were UN Security on the other side, watching the crowd coming through alongside a half dozen or so royal guards.

Sarah and Photuris passed through with the crowd without so much as a glance, since of course they had no weapons to speak of. But they didn’t make it much further before they faced another obstacle—a hallway filled with automatic elevators. Each one had a huge computer set into the wall beside it, along with a pony in uniform. The crowd separated, with little groups removing documents to scan.

Shit. Sarah removed her own from her pocket in her “unicorn” magic, frowning inwardly as she did so. I knew that thing looked like a QR code. She’d made quite a convincing forgery, but there was no way in hell it would fool a computer.

“Welcome to the capitol building,” said a friendly stallion by the back elevator, nodding politely to the two of them. “I know our magic can be strange to first-timers. If you need any help, just say so.”

Sarah nodded, handing over the forged passport. “Sarah and Photuris, here to see Forerunner,” she said, speaking clearly for the computer.

The passport went into the scanner, and for a moment the light flashed red instead of the pleasant green. But then the moment passed, and it changed to blue. Their helper gave the passport back, looking relieved. “Goodness, you two are lucky. You had me afraid that your papers might’ve expired. The lines for new ones are a nightmare this early in the morning.”

“I’ve had a few lucky breaks in my time,” Sarah said, taking it back. “Guess I’ve got a guardian angel.” The door slid open, and Sarah strode through without another word.

Photuris rushed in behind her, wings fluttering slightly as the dress rustled around her hooves. She leaned up close to Sarah’s ear as the door shut, her voice a fearful whisper. “How did you know that would work?”

“I didn’t,” Sarah said, holding still and confident for her. As confident as she could going into the belly of the beast, anyway. “But I had a feeling Forerunner would be looking for us. Weren’t you, Forerunner?”

The screen displaying the available floors had gone black, but a second later it was replaced with a human figure, with bright yellow hair and an unmistakable unicorn horn. So maybe not quite human. But the voice was familiar, and that was good enough for her. “I’d almost given up on seeing you again. I wondered if maybe ‘Sarah’ thought she was done with me. I wouldn’t have looked for you—you did help save my colony. Yet here you are. I’m quite curious what caused you to return.”

The elevator came to a halt around them. The effect was subtle enough, she didn’t get bounced and bumped, but the message was obvious. They wouldn’t be allowed to leave until they could produce a satisfactory answer.

“Ocellus is here,” Sarah said, without hesitation. “I don’t know exactly… how she’s thinking about me right now. But my original assignment was to establish diplomatic contact. I went through fucking hell and back, might as well make sure the job is finished.”

“I suppose you could see for yourself,” Forerunner said. The elevator moved again, though not much further. It stopped, then the doors slid open to a floor rather unlike the first one.

It was like a scene out of Irkalla—dozens of changelings hurried about the room, worked computers, carried messages, or were busy in conversation with visitors in little conference rooms. There was a bright metal plaque near the entrance, with a few guards on either side. “Embassy to Irkalla,” it said. “Changelings and invited visitors only.” The guards waiting just outside the elevator were both black changelings, though they wore UN uniforms and carried stun pistols like all the other police they’d seen thus far. One of them stepped forward, pointing to the sign. The plaque was printed in several languages—English at the top, Eoch below it, and a dense changeling script below that.

“Which one are you two?” the guard said. “Not to be impolite, but the visitor center is two floors down. I assume you must have something if Forerunner let you up here.”

Sarah let her disguise melt away. She wasn’t nearly as good as Ocellus had ever been, or probably any native changeling. It took her nearly twenty seconds of concentration. But when she was done, all the hostility vanished from the guards’ faces.

Beside her, Photuris had changed back as well, though she was a second instance and had a much easier time with everything changeling than Sarah herself did. Her friend had been “born” to it, in some digital way. The details still confused her.

“What brings you to the embassy today?” the guard asked, a little more polite. Not that she’d drawn her stun pistol or anything before.

“We’re here to see Ocellus,” Sarah answered, striding forward as confidently as she could. “I assume this is the place.”

The other guard, a male, stepped slightly into her way. “Maybe it is. But that’s the princess you’re talking about. You can’t just walk in on her. When’s your appointment?”

Sarah plopped down on her haunches right there in the hallway, spreading her wings a little in helpless defeat. “Just give her a call and tell her Sarah and Photuris are here to see her. That’s all the appointment we need.”

From the look on the guard’s face, he didn’t want to let her through. But she spoke with the air of a practiced con—absolute confidence that she wouldn’t be refused. Even a wary guard could do little against the powerful illusion of belonging. They might be changelings who could sense their feelings, but she had no reason to fear that here either. Sarah was absolutely confident she was telling the truth this time, however scared Photuris might be.

They weren’t kept waiting five minutes before the sounds of a rushing crowd echoed down an unseen hallway beyond. And a few seconds later, Ocellus appeared. She didn’t wear a jumpsuit like her guards, only a little metal crown and a satchel for a computation surface. She was surrounded by half a dozen attendants—some of them changelings, a few of them apparently ponies, and one a Forerunner drone. It was almost an absurd sight—a pony in charge of so many changelings. Yet Sarah could feel the loyalty these others felt for her. Whatever happened here, they thought of Ocellus with something like reverence. Maybe having a leader whose affection you can eat helps them be more loyal.

She stopped dead as she caught sight of Sarah. Sarah was frozen too, trying to figure out exactly what this pony was feeling. Mostly it was pain—pain at seeing her together with Photuris, maybe. Or maybe being reminded was what hurt. Whatever the reason, Ocellus didn’t seem in a hurry to make the first move, even as her escorts and attendants made increasingly uncomfortable noises.

But while both of them were paralyzed with indecision, Photuris apparently felt none. She walked straight up to Ocellus, lowering her head politely. “Ocellus, I think? I hope your uncle is well. I think I remembered liking him. Not your father as much…”

“Thorax is well,” Ocellus said, with a little strain in her voice. “He’s sitting on the council now, making the big decisions with the Alicorns. Which leaves me to be an ambassador.” She lowered her voice just a little, though that would do nothing with such a large crowd all around them. “I guess seeing you here… you two must have done it and lived. The… Stormbreaker, I mean. Your password worked.”

Photuris nodded. “Oh yes, Princess. There was really no danger of it failing. Just of being blown to bits before we got there. That almost happened.”

“I was sorry I couldn’t go with you,” Ocellus said, though there was just a hint of bitterness there. She was more than sorry.

“Me too,” Sarah said, though she didn’t bow. There was no sense making things weirder than they would already be. “Yeah, we did it. I don’t know how much of the win was ours and how much was the big bomb, but… I think we deserve partial credit.”

“Maybe… you could come to my office,” Ocellus said, only a little awkwardly. “There’s, uh… more privacy in there. I don’t think we should have this conversation here.”

Sarah had no desire to argue, and a few minutes later they were sitting in Ocellus’s office. It was easy to see how, like the rest of the embassy, efforts had been taken to model the interior after the ship Irkalla was built inside. There were lots of handles that went nowhere, bits of machinery that didn’t seem to serve anything but aesthetic purpose, while other things like interface terminals and food dispensers were totally functional.

Even the chairs looked similar, like brand new versions of the lumpy cushions obviously meant to envelop you during a high-gravity burn. Sarah sat in one of those chairs, trying not to look too uncomfortable as it swallowed her. She watched the others from an increasingly-dense cocoon of fluffy black cloth, and wondered if that was the point all along.

“I gotta ask…” Sarah said, once all the advisors were gone and the three of them were alone. Several of the guards had protested at that, but Ocellus hadn’t responded terribly well, and neither did Sarah. “What happened with your dad? After forcing us to kill ourselves to escape, I can’t imagine…” She sighed. “I hope Discord doesn’t melt my brain or whatever. Looks like I failed pretty hard.”

“Uniting the changelings.” Ocellus nodded. “You did. But at least Pharynx didn’t get to unite us. He tried, but… it was like I said. Once we were all dead, it made the whole mission look like they’d planned on killing us, and nopony believed him. Not that very many believed us either… it really just came down to what ponies wanted to hear.”

Photuris hadn’t sat down, and lingered between Sarah and the door. She obviously didn’t want to be in here, though whether that was out of jealousy for Sarah’s relationship with Ocellus, or fear for what might happen if they stayed together, it was hard to judge. She was a “native” changeling now, which meant she was exceptionally good at keeping her emotions low when they were being read. Unlike Sarah, who could be read like a book whether she wanted it or not. “Doesn’t look like it went that bad. I saw plenty of original changelings out there. Almost as many as bugs like us.”

“Almost,” Ocellus repeated. And there was a little pleasure in her voice. “Pharynx still has his faction of Old Hive down there, living the traditional way. A few of my uncle’s ponies joined him too. But the rest of us… We weren’t the only ones sick of living underground. The promise of somewhere better to live, with a friendly advanced culture waiting for us… that was good news. Besides, I don’t know how much you saw, but Equestria got, uh… pretty badly ruined. Our little invasion seems like an angry argument compared to what the Storm King did, so lots of old grudges just don’t matter anymore.”

“So you come up here, join with the… Pioneering Society, with Equestria…” She trailed off. “What the hell is it even?”

“We’re calling it a Federation,” Ocellus said. “My uncle’s idea. Equestria has the land and way more population. Pioneering Society has Forerunner, and you played a big role in the war. The official lie is that you’re a race of noble heroes from ancient pony history, come to save Equestria in its time of need. It isn’t the first time something like that has happened, apparently, just… the first time at this scale.”

“Not a lie,” said Discord, lounging in an oversized chair near one wall. Large enough that it could’ve seated a human, and Discord had to be about that size. “That’s precisely what you were. The only slight alteration to the story is the implication that you knew about the danger and came here of your own accord. That’s all sin of assumption, I swear. But ponies prefer to lie, even to themselves. You like your agency.”

Sarah blinked, then turned to stare. She hadn’t seen him there, hadn’t even seen the flash of a teleport. Yet here he was, folding his mismatched limbs as though he’d been invited.

But where she was annoyed, Ocellus and even Photuris seemed amazed. They froze, Ocellus even lowered her head in a slight bow.

Sarah rose to her hooves. “You’re here,” she said. “Here to… punish me, I guess. I failed your mission, so…” you’re going to tell Forerunner all about me. But she didn’t say that, and Discord didn’t need her to.

“Oh, absolutely not.” Discord clutched a claw to his chest in mock offence. “You’ve done perfectly well, Sarah. And besides, that secret was never a secret. Perhaps the first generation of Forerunner probes didn’t know… but did you really think every ‘Sarah’ on every world could keep that secret perfectly? Some of you got caught, and accurate information was included in…” Discord turned to one of the wall panels, tapping it with a claw.

To Sarah’s horror, it lit up, and that same almost-human face appeared there. “How long have you known about Sarah?”

“Personnel revision 1.13.4a,” he said, as though remarking on any other software patch. “But you shouldn’t feel personally guilty about it, Sarah. Your original self apparently took her secret to her grave. But there were a few incidents, and eventually enough consensus verifiers were able to conclude beyond any doubt that it wasn’t an individual pattern corruption issue.”

Sarah flared her wings defensively. Her body flashed, returning to the bat body she’d been given when she first woke up. Even after everything else—after becoming an Alicorn and gaining access to near-limitless power, this was the body that she felt most comfortable wearing. “Why the fuck did you make me if you knew I wasn’t who I said?”

Forerunner smiled at her though the screen. “Why should your impersonation matter to me? You’ll recall I didn’t keep you with ‘your’ unit for any length of time. I fabricated you long after their training had already begun. You would never have been permitted to join and disrupt their activities. But just because you’re not useful as a munitions engineer does not mean you aren’t useful.” Forerunner nodded towards Ocellus. “You’re quite a skilled diplomat, and a talented adventurer. While the Sarah template has never been loyal to my organization or to me, it always behaves in ways that are consistent with the general welfare. You can’t help but be a humanitarian. You’re loyal to humanity as a whole, or… civilized life as a whole, in this case. It wasn’t just humanity then, but as you can see the results were generalizable.”

Discord smacked the panel again. Forerunner’s figure distorted, his voice stretching into nothing before the screen went dark blue with white text. Sarah couldn’t read it, but she got the message anyway. She had learned what Discord wanted her to learn. “My threat existed entirely in your head. The best puppets keep themselves on the strings. But I’m done with you now.” He turned, looking up at nothing in particular. “Equus is saved from whatever the Storm King wanted, but it’s about to become rather dull. It’s a good thing I’ve made friends with wanderlust.” He met her eyes again, raising one hoof in a mock salute. “Good luck to you, Sarah.” He vanished.

“Hey, Photuris.” Sarah tried to keep her voice flat, not hinting at what she was feeling. But she didn’t do a good job. Even Ocellus would probably feel her pain, lack of powers notwithstanding. “Could you give us a minute alone? Wait for me outside.”

She nodded, rising to her hooves. “Sure, Sarah.” She touched lightly against her, then changed back into a pegasus. “I’ll be there.”

Ocellus watched her go, silent.

“So… we did it.” Sarah crossed to the desk, watching her across its matte metallic surface. “We saved the day together. Made a new home for the changelings. Everybody wins.”

Ocellus looked away. “Almost everypony.”

“How much longer do you think it will take?” Sarah asked. “I mean… this Federation thing. Still looked like organized chaos up there. New country… no way it’ll be going up overnight.”

Ocellus shrugged. “It took at least a decade after Chrysalis died. I think it will probably be… something similar this time.”

“Well.” Sarah leaned across the table, taking Ocellus’s hooves. “Little Photuris out there wants an adventure. Lots of old places to explore, old technology waking up… and I was never much for settling down.”

“Yeah.” Ocellus tried to pull her hooves away. She might’ve succeeded, if she had any of her strength. But she wasn’t using it, so she didn’t force Sarah away. She needed no magic to feel her pain.

“But what’s a decade? We’re immortal now. Besides, I made you a promise. I’m not sure if you remember.”

“I won’t expect you to keep it,” Ocellus answered quickly, her voice pained. “I know how desperate we all were. You spoke rashly, and—”

Sarah cut her off with a bat wing. Currently fake, but that didn’t matter. “I’ll still go with you. Photuris only thinks she wants to be with me. But I’ve been with her type before. The energy and the thrill wears off for them—what they really want is to be somebody’s wife, tidying up the house and only going on adventures to the movies. So if… ten years from now… if you still want to go find your mom… Photuris will be about ready to hang things up, if she doesn’t way sooner. We could go. If you want to.”

Ocellus kissed her on the cheek. It was light—not like she really expected more. Not with cameras watching them from every angle, and Photuris waiting outside. “I think I would.”

Melody had never seen the world end before. Buried deep in Motherlode’s most secure facility, she saw little of the danger. There was no violence that reached her, though a few times she heard soldiers shouting about contact at one of the entrances. The Storm King’s soldiers got very close at times, closer than any of them could’ve imagined was possible. But in the end she and little Roman were safe, while those braver and more competent fought somewhere else.

But then the end came, and the realization that her husband might not be coming back. From the bunker she learned the war was over, and she listened carefully for news of survivors. But that news didn’t come. Their determined old commander didn’t come back, or the obnoxious dragon, or the hacker. They’d been well and truly killed up there, apparently.

Melody tried to be strong—but she didn’t have the spine to be strong for others. Motherlode needed more princesses to rule, but she couldn’t manage that anymore. Couldn’t go to meetings, couldn’t listen to briefings about the Federation or make suggestions about what infrastructure they might need to turn Motherlode from a mine into a capital city.

If it weren’t for little Roman, she might’ve gone completely nuts, and swam upstream to try and find where Deadlight had gone. But she had a child now, and the perspective of a better life to come. They had known this might happen—that Deadlight might not return. He had lived for over a thousand years by avoiding risk, and there could be few risks as daunting as the Stormbreaker.

She kept herself busy with the foal, which proved to be every bit as troublesome as she’d imagined for a human baby. Lacking hands didn’t make him easier to handle, not when he could run on his own almost from the first day and fly at times not long after.

It’s okay. If I just keep going, we’ll get Deadlight back.

They had once known a magic that could restore the dead to life. Once life returned to normal, it could be used, and they could get their missing loved-ones back.

So she waited in the background, living in a quiet apartment at the bottom of Motherlode. Life took off without her—her status as a citizen became less important as more alicorns like her began to appear, many of them taken from among the former “Changeling” population. Before too long she was more of an interesting relic of the past than a force of any consequence in the present.

It was all she could do to keep sending messages to governor Lucky, and hope that she wouldn’t forget about the dead. And eventually—though it was years later, and Roman was almost old enough for his cutie mark—Lucky delivered.

Well, not actually the governor. It was Photuris, a changeling expert in Equus technology. She’d tracked down a cloning facility on the other side of the ring, one that could be used to produce bodies in a way that Forerunner could understand. The method was a little clumsier than Harmony’s ability to create a body arbitrarily whenever it wanted, but it was good enough. Saved their dead a confusing and disturbing trip through the underworld, anyway.

Melody’s fears—that Deadlight might have found somepony else, forgotten about her, or perhaps had chosen not to return somehow—vanished the day he stepped off a jumper in New Canterlot. He looked much the way she remembered—but without the scars, or the weariness in his eyes.

“You’re back!” she exclaimed, wrapping her forelegs around him and squeezing so tight that Roman behind her made a confused noise. “I thought… I wondered if you weren’t going to…”

Deadlight returned her embrace. “Of course I would. I’m sorry…” He looked over her shoulder, where Roman was watching nervously behind her. “Looks like it took longer than I thought.”

“Yeah,” she said, hastily letting go, and nudging Roman forward with one wing. “Roman, this is Deadlight. The one I told you about.”

“Dad?”

The stallion nodded. “More directly than my others.”

The child didn’t seem to understand that—and he danced about on his hooves, staying out of reach of Deadlight’s embrace. But Deadlight wouldn’t stay a stranger for long.

Melody learned much about his journey Upstream. Though the parting had been painful for him, Deadlight’s existence had been hard and he’d been fighting for many years. Time worked differently in Equestria, and what had seemed a few years for her was a great many for him.

“It’s good to know that civilizations aren’t forgotten,” he said. “I know now, hunting for ruins was pointless. They’re all still alive up there, just as vibrant as ever. Without Harmony’s rules crushing them like they used to crush Equestria.”

She learned about his travels, and part of her felt a little envy she couldn’t have gone along. That was the kind of adventure that she would’ve loved, even more if it were with him. But time was vast, and he couldn’t have seen them all. Perhaps when Roman was older…

New Canterlot grew bigger around them, its lights shining brighter and its surroundings more civilized. The entire mountain range was covered with one gigantic city, as many ponies living in it as had lived in all Equestria before the Federation formed. There was much to do—no more need to live underground and hide from evil warlords that didn’t exist.

Qingzhi had put an end to those who still lived, out in distant wars with slaver-nations now unmade. But such wars never troubled Melody, not now that she had Deadlight with her.

Their life together brought other adventures—like the one that had made Roman.

Their second foal was born in the same year Roman got his cutie mark—a girl this time, also a bat like her father. She had inherited much of his looks as well, except for her mane.

“What are we going to call her?” Deadlight asked, crawling into bed beside them and looking down at the tightly wrapped bundle.

The blue mane was all Melody had needed to make her choice, though it was only a few faint strands. “Someone who didn’t come back.” She looked down into the baby’s huge red-brown eyes, and imagined the foal was watching her. Couldn’t be. She should be almost blind. “If it’s okay… I’d like to call her Olivia.”

Many years passed, with many more triumphs, more failures, more death and rebirth. The boundary between Equestrians, changelings, and the Pioneering Society grew weaker, until over the centuries they no longer mattered at all. As the years passed the restrictions of the ancient Equus ring were understood, and eventually mastered. Death became irrelevant, the restrictions of equine life were eased and eventually removed, and civilization spread.

The Sanctuary ring was massive as no ordinary planet with similar gravity could be, as large as nearly a hundred Earths. As terraforming went forward, life expanded rapidly to fill the available space. There was no pressure from age and disease keeping it down, after all. No reason to conserve their use of what was by its nature an artificial environment.

Political systems changed as an increasing number of hypercompetent immortal Citizens rose through the ranks, establishing their own states in the increasingly remote districts of Equus, united in the Federation thanks only to a unified reliance on the Forerunner Colonial AI.

Lucky Break and the other princesses were not needed forever. The more citizens there were, the less society depended on them. After many years—years that would’ve defied her easy understanding at the time of her fabrication—Lucky Break was finally free to step down from any office of the government, and look up towards the sky instead.

Though strange eons had passed, several who had once belonged to her original crew were united together again in common interest aboard a reconstructed Agamemnon. They had changed their names several times, shifted through instances and identities in the way that the Sanctuary Ring allowed, but they were still truly themselves.

The Agamemnon was not traveling a merely exploratory mission. No one knew better than the ancient Pioneering Society why manned exploration ships never made sense for the first wave. The cylinder had, rather, been filled with life, an ecumenopolis of reconstructed buildings and the organic drones that maintained them.

And at the bridge of that great ship were two of the most respected citizens in all Sanctuary—Flurry Heart and Lucky Break.

The journey was long, though they did not cut it through ordinary space as the ancient probe had done. Sanctuary’s builders were wiser than that, their drives more arcane but incalculably faster.

Eventually they arrived, the ancient ship passing smoothly through the diffuse outer shell and magnetosphere of one solar system among an infinitude of others. In the inhabited interior of the cylinder, music and celebration was so loud and enthusiastic that it shook the bridge through the deck plating.

Lucky thought about issuing a general order to quiet down—but in the end she just tuned out the noise as best she could and kept her eye on the controls.

She had a different body now, like everyone did. Neither quite a pony nor human, with the advantages of both and the disadvantages of neither.

Nor was the distribution of forms monotone—there was no need for it to be, when each person could be specialized towards their particular discipline, or simple preference.

Flurry Heart was larger than she was, and more graceful despite all the years Lucky had to catch up. But even with all the time that had passed since her first fabrication, Flurry Heart had lived for an order of magnitude longer. It would be many centuries before the passage of time eased the difference of complexity between them.

But that didn’t matter. Lucky enjoyed having her close—like having a qualified expert following behind to double-check her calculations.

“There’s definitely something there,” Flurry Heart said, or at least that was still how Lucky thought of her. “Around the planet. Gravimetric readings are distinct.”

“You’re correct,” said Forerunner’s voice from the console—an Equus style perfect projection from the floor, which hovered in the center of the room just in front of the virtual window. The two of them were the only ones who happened to be physically present. All the other crew in attendance had only virtual bodies. They appeared just as real so long as they remained in this room.

Forerunner among them—he still wore one of the earliest hybrid bodies, with distinct human suggestions clearer than anyone else Lucky knew. “That’s the Neptune Brain, within a few percentage points.”

The planet appeared in the space before them, along with the dense bands wrapping around it. They had the same general shape Lucky remembered from early concepts for the station, which hadn’t been built in her lifetime. But they were much expanded, and further out from the atmosphere than she remembered.

“We thought it might be here,” Flurry Heart said. Lucky recognized in her an ancient hope, one that no other pony would’ve known to hear. There had been a part of her, once, that was tortured with images of the end of creation, so that she might be more fully convinced that Equus was all that remained. But if that could be proven wrong—if life could endure even here… then how many more times might life have survived?

That was why they were here, as much as reclaiming the ancient homeworld.

“I’m reading… yes, there it is.” Forerunner appeared to walk right over to the model, pointing at one specific point along the ring. “I’m getting radio readings from here. Very faint.”

He gestured, and the station itself appeared to grow much larger along a single-cross section. Lucky winced as she saw the unmistakable damage there—blown transit tubes, melted antennas, whole sections of the station open to space. The thin skin of redundant solar panels along its surface had been pot-marked with so many impacts that it was obviously nonfunctional.

“The brain had a fusion core,” said another pony beside Forerunner. Though Martin’s voice and body were both different now, Lucky still knew him instantly. He filled the air with other readings—heat, energy, spin. “Their reactor is offline,” he said. “Habitation section has no atmosphere. Looks as close to dead as anything could be.”

“We thought it might be,” Lucky said. “Might still be able to salvage the electronic minds down there if the radiation hasn’t trashed the drives. Dispatch a probe, Forerunner, and we’re moving on.”

It might’ve been more logical to be cautious—but Lucky had never been that kind of pony. Neither was anyone else aboard.

They turned inward, towards the center of the solar system where the ancient mother of all life had once shone. But there was no sunlight now, not even the diffuse background glow of the stars that should’ve been along the plane of the ecliptic.

As they advanced, the virtual model of the solar system grew more detailed. The gas giants were in their expected places, but lacking their expected satellites. The fabled Europa over which there had been so many wars—didn’t appear to exist. The orbital path of Mars was empty as well, and the asteroid belt was gone too.

As they proceeded laterally, their scanners were able to map the outside of an object that did not reflect even starlight back at them.

“I don’t understand it—” Martin said. And that meant much more than it once had, with the advantage of many years of learning. “The sun should still effectively have the same brightness it did. Even a massive structure like Equus has to radiate that heat back out again.”

“Now that’s interesting,” Forerunner said. “We have enough measurements to chart the object. Looks like it extends almost exactly to the orbit of where Earth should be.” A sphere appeared in the center of the model, consuming the inner planets and the expected location of the star.

“What is it made of?” Lucky asked. “A sphere, that size…”

“Scanners aren’t getting anything back, remember? I don’t have the foggiest idea what it’s made of. Equus doesn’t have any materials this strong, not that I’ve seen. They use active support. This… this is something else. I can’t imagine how you’d actively support a sphere.”

“I want to talk to them,” Lucky said. The slight rumbling of the bridge, the celebration in the cylinder below them, seemed to have died down. Everypony was probably watching. “Anyone have any ideas?”

“Fabricate a Forerunner probe,” Flurry Heart suggested. “Get it inside, wait for them to call us.”

Lucky giggled.

“Earth is supposed to be a consensus node,” Forerunner said. “Like the Neptune Brain. There’s protocol for making contact. We could try it.”

“What message do you want to send?”

Lucky hesitated, then switched to English. It wasn’t a language she was accustomed to using, and it was strange to talk with only sound. But she was still a linguist, deep inside. She could manage. “Pioneering Society colonists calling Earth. Is anyone there?”

“Sent,” Forerunner said, waving away most of the technical details of the model. “No bounce-back from the signal, just like everything. No way to know if they got it.”

They waited. Lucky couldn’t have said how long it took—time no longer mattered the way it once had. But eventually Forerunner appeared again, beaming. “Just got a signal. Tight beam, directly to our receiver.”

“What’s it say?” Flurry Heart asked.

“‘Welcome home,’” Forerunner said. “There are landing coordinates attached.”

Lucky Break returned Forerunner’s grin. “Prep the captain’s runabout. It’s time for some exploring.”

And that’s the end of the story. Over a year of writing later and half a million words, and here we are at the end of Message in a Bottle. Really we have two completely separate stories here—and if I could go back, I would probably have structured part two as its own story completely. Its scale was originally planned to be just two or three chapters, but then I had the idea to imitate the movie and my editors didn’t stop me and here we are.

First bit of news: Got a print book in the works. Still waiting on a cover, but once we get that finalized I’ll post a blog post with this story tagged if anyone is interested. A print volume would include only the first half of the story (500k words in one book would be thicker than two phone books, and that’s just not practical to print), with a possible second volume depending on the demand for the first.

It’s been a fantastic ride, a great year and a story I’m proud of at the end. I have a few words of thanks to say. First to Canary in a Coal Mine, who sponsored this story on my Patreon. I was given near total freedom to create this story, and I’ve hugely enjoyed the result.

Next, to the editors and pre-readers of the story. Two Bit and Sparktail have been consistent since the beginning, like they always are. We’ve had a rotating staff of pre-readers and volunteers cycle in and out since the production began, so it would be impossible to thank them all. But I’d like to give special recognition to Chyre and Doggyshakespere, who made it all the way to the end. And of course there’s Zutcha, who made the fantastic cover, and will hopefully be the one to help with the printed cover too. Oh, and there was that awesome illustration of the Ringworld he did, that was cool.

Lastly, thanks to every reader and particularly those who took the time to comment and encourage me. The days when I got few enough comments across my stories to respond to all of them are over, but I have been reading and enjoying your feedback through the whole thing, and using it to redirect away from dead-end paths where they occasionally suggest themselves.

Thanks for reading! See you… out there.

And if you’d like to see me a little sooner, I do have a writing/fanfiction Discord that anyone can join. It’s fairly active and covers all kinds of pone and non-pone related subjects, and is always a great way to reach me for questions or whatever since I’m in there basically all the time. You can check it out here: https://discord.gg/0qNiSuYHFFMrJwSQ