Chapters
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Lilac Empathy remembered this place.She passed through a set of glass doors, along an indoor concourse with a large fountain filled with lilies, then up to an elevator with mirrored walls. She thumbed the button for the third floor, then stared back at her reflection. The dirty mirrors gave her a place to adjust her blue dress, and make a few changes to her makeup. She'd been crying again, so it ran down her cheek, and threatened to stain her blouse.The door opened a few seconds after the chime, but she…-
170.4 K •
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Before Lilac was a terror emerged from the darkest nightmares. Its body was an amalgam of writhing, bloody flesh, with misshapen bits of bone emerging at odd angles. It stood on two legs, but as a human being it was a horrifying parody.The flesh that made it had no particular order—organs pulsed and bled, exposed. Eyes poked out from parts of its body, still blinking, while broken skulls formed sharp teeth in its jaws. It was so large it had to crawl forward on its hands-and-knees, leaving a black trail…
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170.4 K •
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Lilac shielded her face with one leg, coughing and spluttering in the cloud of dirt and broken rock. She didn't expect that to matter much—the cave in would probably kill her, Risk, and Iris too. Only, it didn't. She lifted her leg a second later, confused. A glowing shell wrapped around them, bowing in slightly under the force of so much rock. Iris stood in the center, staring up at the collapsing ceiling. Even though her head was nowhere near the top of the shield, it seemed to be crushing her…
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170.4 K •
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Firefly was not the pony to cut through the rubble and finally dig up Lilac's shelter. This time she obeyed Luna's instructions, staying well back from the magical excavation. She had nothing like the power the Alicorn could wield, and getting into her way only gave the princess more to distract her.At least the whole mine hadn't collapsed, or else they might never have found their way to Lilac's shelter in time. It was only one specific room, which Risk's dad had called the “throne chamber.” Even from…
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170.4 K •
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Lilac flew for the first time a few months later. She hadn't told Firefly she was coming—that was entirely the point. Her friend had seen her slow recovery in Willowbrook Municipal Hospital for long enough that she would probably guess Lilac would be released soon.But would she expect her to make the trip up on her own two wings? Calling it “flight” was a bit generous at this stage, true. Lilac spread both wings in a constant gliding position—then found a promising spot above her, and teleported…
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170.4 K •
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After eternities vast enough to require multiple exponents to express, a new sunrise came to Saddle's End.It didn't exist in the strictly physical sense—but by volume, simulated spaces had once outstripped the real ones by many orders of magnitude. But they were gone now, sleeping as once Saddle's End had slept.A star rose in the sky, a G-type main sequence that bathed the small community in warmth and life once more. Birds began to sing, heralding the sunrise as though a trillion trillion trillion years…-
12.2 K •
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It wasn't the sort of conversation they would be having out here on the street, where so many ponies might overhear. Even as ignorant of Saddle's End as Spellsong could be, she was more considerate than just taking risks.Best not to give Celestia more work to do managing all their satisfaction.Like everything else, Dyson's home was basically unchanged from what she remembered. Smaller, fewer awards and scientific scrolls in the square case beside the wall. But basically the same otherwise. "Brown…
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12.2 K •
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Spellsong hadn't needed an entire day to choose her partner, when there were so few options left in the world of ordinary ponies."It's almost nightfall," she said, cresting the stairs to Dyson's library many hours later. Of course she hadn't been here all that time—she'd been out searching Saddle's End for somepony, anypony else she would've rather had as her copilot.But even if she found some old friends still remembered her, none of them were particularly suited for a role with such high stakes and…
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12.2 K •
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The endless void didn't make for an eventful trip. There was no energy left in the universe to create imagined brawls with fictional aliens along the way. Or worse, diplomatic contact, that would've added more minds to simulate and more energy demands. They passed with only each other for company, and not much to say. But even if Dyson weren’t much for keeping her entertained, he was attentive to know the instant they started to drift off-course, and correct before they could much delay their trip.A…
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12.2 K •
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The music stopped at once, with a sound of awkward shuffling beyond the door. That was about long enough for Spellsong to question whether or not she should be visiting looking like a pony. How close was this shard to rediscovering that they were ponies and rejoining digital life?She could've teleported back to the ship to ask, or maybe just cast a summoning spell to attract Luna's explicit attention. But someone on the other side of the door had already almost reached her.Instead she sent a flurry of…
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12.2 K •
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