Tall Enough To Meet The Sky

The Sea. The Ocean. However you would have it.

The pinnacle of mystery. Space, in all its vastness, has been swept, but the watery expanses that coat our sphere of life are still shrouded in curiosity and unknowing.

Some may say we had known of its treasures, and have plundered them endlessly, to the point that the water itself has become dry of secrets, and adventures. Others, alike myself, know there is much more to the Seas than the tiny amount that has surfaced. We know something greater than ourselves is watching, and waiting, hiding at the core of the relentless movement of the ocean waves.

The Seas still hold secrets. Secrets they’ve guarded without end since their creation.

Secrets they’ve kept for far too long.

…

*Shhhhhhhhh…*

…

*Shhhhhhhhh…*

…

*Shhhhhhhhh…*

I blinked my eyes open. It was cold. Very cold.

I was lying on my side, my face glowing by moonlight.

I did not recognize my surroundings. They were cold, and unsettling. I glanced around, chills seeping through my fur, seeking the sound that had awoken me. The world around me was of darkness and shadows, cast in every direction. The light of the moon danced upon the ground around me, sparkling like a flashlight on broken glass. It shone like quartz fragments…

Like sand…

I shuffled in place, and felt the ground shift and form itself to the shape of my body. Sand. Behind me, the same sound repeated itself continually, quite like a broken record.

*Shhhhhhhhh…*

…

*Shhhhhhhhh…*

…

I flipped myself over with a grunt of effort, and was greeted with an image quite unlike anything I had ever laid my cold eyes on before.

The Sea lay before me, in all its vast, rippling glory. Its waves undulated over its surface, catching and throwing moonlight in every direction it could. It sparkled in its magnificence, gently lapping upon the shallow shore.

I lay there for a moment, allowing the gorgeous sight to sink into my memory. Something as amazing as this should never be forgotten.

I struggled to my hooves after the moment had ended. My joints ached after sleeping upon the cold, fine gravel. I shook my whole body, removing bits of salt and rock dust from my copper coat. I allowed my eyes to open a bit more, and examined the area around me in great detail.

From my eyes, my location consisted of an endless ocean, fluidly moving, with an endless beach of light yellow sand to match. Behind them, sand dunes of incredibly large and small sizes kept themselves, some climbing high enough to conceal some of the partly cloudy sky. The moon, a gibbous, glowing with Luna’s power, lit the world around me.

I blinked. This place was unfamiliar to me. I had seen much in my time, but never a sight so mystic and unforgettable as this. It was as though the AllFather Himself had blessed this shore, and banished all evil, impurity, and imperfections from it, to uphold its divinity.

The ocean called rhythmically, slapping against the edge of the shoreline as waves grew and shrunk. I left hoofprints in the semi-dry sand, searching for a way to leave the Oceanside. As time passed, the world chilled around me, and the great glowing orb dominating the sky crawled through the darkness encasing it, slowly reaching its peak. Was it truly nearing midnight? I had lost any idea of time, or how I had gotten to this place. I trotted parallel to the shore, scanning the horizon for an end to the eternal mountainous dunes to my left, or any change in the scenery around me. I took notes of detail as I moved; a large dune with grasses at its base, a red starfish abandoned by the waves, a lone tree atop a dune, and the hoofprints in the sand.

…Wait… Hoofprints in the sand? I had been trotting through the monotonous elegancy of the beach for about five minutes, and had yet to notice any other living being at all, save the occasional red starfish. I became curious. Perhaps if I were to find the one who dropped these prints, they would know where we were, and why. I found continuing to walk forward as my best option, and did so.

I chased the trail of marks, almost running, kicking up sand, in order to catch up with them. It had not felt like long, but the moon, bright as it was, had begun to slowly dim and descend, growing closer to the horizon by the moment. I felt a wave of… nervousness wash over me. There was an unease in the air. My pace increased as the moon set, and my panic rose as the coming sun would.

The amount of prints increased as I ran, making it seem as though more and more wanderers were slowly appearing upon the crystal beach, and joining together in a great procession. I called out a questionary greeting, and slowed my loudening pace to hear the response. Only the ocean replied, gently and calmly, much unlike myself.

…

*Shhhhhhhhh…*

…

*Shhhhhhhhh…*

It felt like only minutes, but the moon had passed the horizon. The night had ended. Panic was a knot in my stomach, pumping adrenalin into my limbs. I tried to run, but irrational terror and fear ensured my movement was impossible. My vision flipped in and out of focus, distorting the beach as the sun rose, and I felt my head begin to spin. My pace came to a screeching halt as I lost awareness of what was around me, and met the ground with force, knocking the air from my lungs. My vision blurred and spun, my head pounded, and the only thing I could recognize was the smooth, repeated sound of the ocean.

*Shhhhhhhhh…*

…no! It’s…

…

...not now…

*Shhhhhhhhh…*

…the sun…

…

…return…

As my awareness slipped from me, I could have sworn voices between the waves had crept into my ears.

And blackness enveloped my sight as consciousness fled.