BEGIN
A Dream. A Journey. Illness. Life.
A dream is a wonderful thing. It brings hope, and a reason to live. It can drive the one who has it ever onwards, and give untold joy when finally attained.
A dream is a terrible thing. To strive for something, only to have it slip away time and again. It can leave you hollow, and to lose your dream completely can crush your very soul.
Have you ever had a dream, dear reader?
You see, it is with a dream that our story begins, and with a dream that our story ends.
Long ago, there was a dream. It belonged to an earth pony couple, and was as humble as they were. He, a clocksmith of some talent but little fame; she, an artist of some fame but little confidence. He, who found beauty solely in the gears with which he worked and the eyes of his wife; she, who saw beauty in all the world and the touch of her husband. One and another, together as one.
As one, they dreamed. They dreamed of a foal, a life born of their love. They dreamed of a home, a place to spend their lives in the happiness that belongs only to those whose love is true and pure.
Together, they travelled. Teary farewells as they left their families, a new life before them. Warm and loving touches, as winter's caress drove them to cover 'neath trees and bushes upon their journey, the cold serving only to bring them closer. Tender kisses upon the shores of silver rivers, feasting on the spring bounty of berries and flowers. Through seasons good and bad, weather cruel and kind, they were together.
He created clockwork marvels of carved wood and brass gears: Birds that sang in beautiful chorus, so true in pitch that to hear without seeing was to believe a nightingale was near. Rabbits that hopped and chased one another endlessly, to the delight of foals. Music boxes, their melodies singing the love he felt for his wife.
She gave unfathomable beauty to all she saw, with paint and charcoal and chalk: Serene and silent lakes and ponds, the waters so still and perfect that one was afraid to breathe, lest they cause a ripple and spoil such tranquility. Trees, filled with singing birds, each one poised as though to leap from the canvas and take flight. Roaring flames in hearths, their warming glow filled with her love for her husband.
Through towns warm and cold, across roads of stone and dirt, over hill and over dale, they travelled, seeking the place that would capture their hearts, the place they belonged.
A place they found.
A fledgling town, too small to yet have a name. A town that, had the cold winter winds not caused them to seek shelter, they may never have found.
A home was built, to house two and their dream.
Days became weeks, weeks became months, and months became years. Seasons came and went, but never did their love fade or wane.
Always, they were together. Always, they dreamed.
The town grew, earning a name, though to the pair it was always Home.
She sold her paintings, as she always did. No house in their town was bereft of her work, and many a family had found themselves the subject of her talents. It was rumored that one of her paintings, depicting the town in winter's grasp, with the Mare in The Moon gazing down upon them, forlorn and distant, a lonely eye watching over the sleeping world, had been bought as a gift for the Princess Celestia, in distant, fledgling Canterlot. She, however, cared only for the beauty, for her husband, and for their dream.
His clocks, his contraptions, his mechanical marvels—they, too, found places in homes near and far. Those little dreams were given life, with wood and brass and copper forming tiny miracles. No matter the care he had for his carvings, his precise work, it could never have compared to the care he had for his wife, and the dream they longed to fulfill.
Dreams are wonderful things. They are beautiful and wondrous.
Dreams are terrible things. They are fragile and cruel.
Illness came to their town, carried upon the back of a winter that ate at the soul as it ate at the body. Food ran short and hungry beasts drew ever closer, but it was the illness that took the greatest toll. The young, the elderly. Those who had seen too little life, and too much. They were the first to fall, to leave their dreams behind and sleep eternal.
Still, they stayed together, and together they would stay... had the illness not touched them, too.
With a whispered word, a final kiss, she met her end.
With a heavy heart and whispered words, he lay her to rest.
With winter's end, few remained. Broken hearts, families smaller than they had been before the coming of the snow. Little food, and far less joy. He stayed only until no snow remained, until the first flower grew upon his beloved's grave.
Without a word, he left. There was no love. There was no dream. There was no home.
While he travelled, he created. His works of wonder, delightful to those around him, seemed as hollow and empty as his heart. It was all he knew, without her by his side.
Days became weeks, and weeks turned into months. The summer, the spring, the autumn and the winter. No laughter beside the silver rivers, no warming touch in the shelter of snow-laden trees.
He walked, he created, he never wept. His tears lay frozen upon a mound of earth, where hope and a dream lay buried.
Until, that is, he made something he once had wanted, but now could not imagine. The artist's touch, when left alone, gives rise to the heart's desire, and when he broke from his thoughts, he found a foal in his hooves. Tiny, carved of the wood he had picked up to put on the fire, and utterly perfect. It had her eyes and her smile, his mane and his cheeks. It was what he could have had, the dream unrealised, chased away by cruelest fate.
The tiny statue was cast into the flames, regret and anger at what he had lost filling his soul. How dare his traitorous hooves taunt him with such a thing? He cursed the world, his fate, himself. He cursed his hooves, the knife with which he had created the lifelike mockery of his dream, a dream he would never attain.
And yet... it was there. Almost alive as the hungry flames danced across it, his features and hers slowly blackening, the smiling, innocent face everything he had ever wanted.
The fire burned, but the pain was meaningless compared to the loss he would not feel again. The tiny carving was snatched to safety before it could catch, cradled within his hooves as though it were alive.
It was not a foal. It was mere wood, but it was enough... enough to reawaken the dream he had long thought dead.
It was not a foal. It was hope.
He knew only his craft, but his dream, his hope, were his once more, and the wooden foal would not let him forget them again.
Plans were made. All he knew, he used. He travelled further, to learn what he did not know. Towns he had passed with her, he found himself within once more. Her paintings, her spirit, the freedom with which she had viewed the beauty of the world, showed him what they could have had. What he would have.
Months became a year, became two. Wood and brass and bronze and copper, from all corners of the land, became gears and mechanisms, the pinnacle of his art, shaped by his own hooves. Always, the wooden foal gave him strength.
Two years became three. Gems, cut and polished, touched by the magic of unicorns paid with lesser examples of his art, came alight, waiting only for the completion of his masterpiece, his dream. Always, the wooden foal gave him hope.
Three years became four. The town he once called Home was found once more, and he spoke to her of his dream. His old house belonged to another family, a sign of the town recovering, much as he was. A new house was built, in the woods where nature reigned in all her glory, and the beauty was almost as wondrous as his wife's paintings.
Wood and brass and bronze and copper. Wood to carve, to find the face. Brass for hooves, to touch the earth. Bronze for wings, to soar and see the beauty of the world unfettered. Atop it all, copper, a gleaming skin.
Gems, for heart and eyes and mind. The magics within, though from many a unicorn, touched one another and found a harmony, guided by his dream.
As the sapphire eyes sparked, the first flicker of life within, his heart leapt. As the first hoof was moved in an unsteady step, he moved to assist. As the great, gleaming wings spread, he felt his soul soar.
Always, the wooden foal smiled at him. He had found his dream, though in a way he had never expected. Through clockwork and magic, copper and brass, he had a child.
END
Life. Death. Beauty. Dream.
Within a small house, within a forest, a life was born from a dream.
One step, then another, bronze hooves moved. Gears whirred and ticked, a delicate mechanism giving life and motion, powered by a heart of quartz. Copper feathers slid and spread upon great wings, gleaming in the soft light of flickering candles.
Finally, eyes of flawless sapphire opened, looking upon the world, a dream made whole and real.
This dream's gaze saw only one thing. The face of Father, weeping. Though, he did not weep tears of sorrow, but tears of joy.
For he had found his dream.
The dream was innocent, without guile or fear or sorrow. As delicate and trusting as a newborn foal, knowing only Father, and the things he taught.
He taught his dream of beauty, of Mother, who slept eternal, and of the wonders of the world. He taught of the seasons, the mountains, the flowers and the birds. Paintings and songs and his marvelous machines, these were her playmates, her companions, her world within the house within the forest.
She learned of beauty. Beneath the sun, beneath the moon, their light touching her gleaming body was deemed beautiful by Father. The dances learned from Father's music boxes, with spinning ponies so small yet wondrous, revealed beauty in movement. Tales of the far-off lands, of Canterlot, of the highest mountains with snow-kissed peaks, of great bodies of water called oceans that sparkled in the sun, told her there was beauty everywhere.
The greatest beauty, though, came with tears. Words of Mother brought tears, silver drops that fell from Father's eyes. Words of love, and life, and loss. Of joy and sorrow, of peace and pain.
The dream knew of these things, the things Father taught.
Sometimes, while the sun crossed the azure sky, behind the clouds of purest white or stormy grey, Father would go away. Always, he would return to his dream before the moon's silver eye could gaze upon the land.
At these times, he spoke of the town, of where Mother lay sleeping. He would speak, and he would weep, and he would laugh, until he, too, slept.
Through the night, the dream would wait. She did not sleep, nor breathe nor stir. She would only wait, until Father awoke once more with the rising of the sun, to speak and teach and create beautiful things.
Time passed, as it must. Days into weeks into months into years. Summer's heat warmed her unfeeling body with dazzling light. Spring unveiled new wonders, flowers and bees and the marvels of the forest. Autumn coloured the trees anew, with oranges and reds, as though the forest were ablaze with living flames. Winter, too, had beauty. The serenity of the sleeping world, a stark white canvas alive with possibilities.
Always, the dream remained near her home, where Father had given her life, where beauty was all around.
Always, time continued on its course.
A year, then two, a dozen and more. Father spoke and taught and created. The dream would listen, and watch, and learn.
Father would go to town, and the dream would remain. Father would sleep, and the dream would wait for him to awaken.
Until, one morning, he did not wake with the rising sun.
The dream waited as the sun rose, then set, chased and followed by the moon. She waited beside his bed, for him to arise and speak of beauty once more. And yet, he didn't.
One day passed into two, then three. Still, she waited, never stirring from her place.
A noise at the door, one who was not Father entering, then leaving. Hours passed, the patient dream wondering what new things she would learn, and more who were not Father came.
Hushed words and curious glances, for loss of the old clocksmith and the presence of a strange masterpiece beside his bed.
When sleeping Father was taken, the dream did follow. From the house and through the forest, to the town where Father spoke to sleeping Mother. A new world was revealed, but the dream longed only for Father to awaken, to teach her of this beautiful new place.
She looked on as sleeping Father was placed within the earth. When the first soil fell upon him, she sat beside the stone that bore his name. When he could no longer be seen, she did not stir. When night fell, words and touches, meant to move her, the strange creation that was the old clocksmith's greatest work, proved fruitless and meaningless. They were not Father, and the dream would wait until he awoke.
A day, a week, a month. The shining oddity, of copper skin and brass hooves, of sapphire eyes and gemstone heart, remained by Father's side. The ponies of the town grew used to her, the gently clicking headstone, the silent watcher beside the clocksmith and his wife.
Slowly, the dream understood. Father would not awaken. He slept eternal, beside Mother, and would teach her no more.
In winter's grasp, seen only by the Mare in the Moon, she spread her gleaming wings. A single beat, then two, then more. Snow and frost fell from the once-still sentinel, and she took flight. She would see all the beauty in the world, and learn the things Father could not teach.
For weeks and months and years, she flew, and never did the beauty of the world end. Verdant forests, lush and green. Burning sand and towering dunes, golden and glorious. Bleak rocks and desolate wasteland, where life clung on, tenacious and unwavering. Cities and mountains, seas and oceans, she saw them all.
In tempests she danced, in torrents she soared. Beneath sun and moon, all the beauty of the world was revealed to the dream, and she learned it all. Her once-gleaming skin, of polished copper and shining brass, dulled and dimmed. A patina crept across her, changing old beauty for new, a sign of the years and untold time spent in search of beauty.
From sunrise to sunset, moon's ascent to moon's rest, she flew. Beyond the known world and back again, learning all the wonders she could find. The songs of great beasts in the sea, the flights of dragons fearsome and wonderful, the mysterious things that dwelled in lands forgotten and lost to the mists of time. Her sapphire eyes witnessed them all.
But something ever more beautiful awaited her.
Countless years had passed when she returned to the land of her creation, where a dream had been given life. A great glow, from a kingdom atop a mountain, as the sun rose to begin its path across the blue sky once more, was seen by a being of clockwork and magic. The dream waited, to see it again, to glimpse the strange beauty once more. Day passed into night, and as sun and moon continued on their chase, the glow appeared once more. With a beating of weathered wings, the dream flew towards it.
When it faded, she waited. When it shone, she followed. Day after day, she continued, drawing ever closer to this new wonder. Forests and paths and towns passed beneath her, yet all went unseen, caught as she was by a beauty unknown.
Finally, her hooves touched the night-kissed land, within a maze of hedges and leaves. She had flown past shining walls and over a city, to the towering spires of a shining castle. Her beauty lay within that wondrous structure, and she had only to wait. And wait she did, until it was time for the sun to rise.
Beauty. It seemed such a small word, to describe the sight before her. With wings and horn, together with stature all grace and height, a coat of purest white, lit by some inner glow, as though the sun had been given form. A mane that made the greatest rainbows cast by misty falls in ancient jungles seem pale, blowing as though touched by a breeze despite the still air.
This, though, was nothing compared to the wondrous creature's actions. Lighting her horn, the beauty spread her wings and looked to the sky. Caught between setting moon and rising sun, she seemed beyond all that had been, or ever would be. That morning, the beauty and the dream wept as one, yet no tears were shed.
The beauty wept as she gazed upon the moon, vanishing beyond the horizon.
The dream wept as she gazed upon such beauty, all she had ever wished to know.
The beauty vanished, returning to her tower.
The dream remained, watching, waiting, to learn more of this beauty.
Day became night became day. The dream remained unseen, concealed with the maze, watching always.
A week, then two. A month. Always, she waited. Always, she watched.
The dream knew beauty, in all its forms. It had learned from Father, from the world, from the being atop the tower. Upon this day, it spread its wings, rearing to take flight... and stilled.
The delicate mechanism within froze. The light left the sapphire eyes.
The dream had been fulfilled. It knew beauty, in all its forms.
Now, she would rest eternal, and sleep without awakening. Just like Mother. Just like Father.
Some years later, a tall and regal being would find herself wandering the maze beside her castle. There was no purpose to her steps, no direction as she walked, merely losing herself within the hedges and leaves.
To her surprise, however, in a dead end, hidden from view deep within the living labyrinth, something she had never before seen awaited her.
It was a masterpiece.
A face serene, born from the union of two, in spirit if not body. Wings broad and graceful, outstretched as though to take flight. Body poised in delicate balance, pointed to the sky. A patina upon the once gleaming copper hide, as though it had been there for countless years.
Princess Celestia smiled. It was beautiful.
