"Life goes on." Twilight said to herself, thinking back to a conversation she had on the deck of an airship a long, long time ago.

Her search for the humans has left her with more questions than answers. One empty world after another, the technology they left behind in perfect working order except for where nature was trying to overtake it once more. Where did they go? Why did they leave? Of course, she had spotted a few new species beginning their own civilizations. The unicorn at heart even had a theory that these creatures, at one time, had some sort of interaction with humans before they had disappeared.

As it was, she had no way to prove otherwise. Not unless she felt the need to travel planet-side, and question members of a species, that had yet to discover electricity, about a culture that had already invented Star-drives and more.

The readout in front of her was constantly detailing the resources that her quarry had left behind. This new species was using the shadows of a human city as shelter. This only strengthened her theories.

The thought that she should go and interact with these people in an attempt to learn of their connection to humans has presented itself to Twilight more than once. Until now she had always dismissed such thinking. After all, what would become of a species that was introduced to something far beyond their own understanding. There was no knowing what would happen.

Twilight knew that the humans had rules that kept them from interfering with any primitive civilizations that they might come across. They had even created a list of similar rules for Sentinel to follow, and now Twilight found herself in an almost identical set of circumstances, following the same rules that she had initially grown to despise.

Even after all of this time, Twilight still felt that Sentinel's rules preventing interference were inherently wrong. She still wasn’t sure that she could just stand by and watch as countless people died through war and disease just for the sake of a simulation. But out here, who knows...

Maybe that was the real difference between her and the monitor, he didn't see the other entities as people. Sentinel barely recognized her for who she was. To him, she was just a number.

She liked to think that all of that was behind her now. After Twilight gained access to the ship, she altered some of it's interior sections to suit her needs. She changed one of the living quarters into a new server room, one that now housed the entirety of her old world and nothing else. Another room now contains everything she needs to maintain her mechanical body. Twilight could also build new bodies should she ever choose to.

The unnamed ship was her home now. Travelling from star to star, always searching.

In the end, Twilight believed that best course of action was to continue on in hopes of finding some answers, so she decided to leave this particular fountainhead of evolution and continue on her search. One day, if she kept searching, she would eventually discover the fate of humanity.

She hoped...

~The End~

Author's Notes:

If you've made it this far, then I applaud your tenacity in sticking with me until the end. I can only hope that anyone who has read this has had as much fun in reading this fiction as I had in writing it. My inspiration was kicked off by some artwork created by Lysok (http://th09.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2012/201/9/5/a_story_in_stones_by_lysok-d57x29n.jpg) as well as the offhand comment from Discord during the season 2 premier, "...I don't turn ponies to stone!"

Enter Starswirl the Bearded, and as they say, "The rest is history."