It started a normal day, seemingly. Well, not exactly normal. The Sun had been a little shy about coming up that morning, but it had made it into the sky with only mild delay, and the rest of the early hours had been uneventful.
My friend and ward had been behaving oddly again, but the occasional abnormal acts from the Unicorn were really a constant of life, to be depended on rather than worried over.
This time, in particular, I was indeed proud of the little one, the odd behaviors attributable to the responsibility my charge was learning to carry so well. This, I had thought, was a sign of further good times ahead. I was wrong, and right.
Shortly after the Sun had reached peak position and begun its trip back to the edge of the sky, I waited for the afternoon showers to wash me clean. They didn’t arrive. There didn’t even appear to be Pegasus in the sky; as if the scheduled rain had been forgotten. It wouldn’t have been the first time, but combined with the morning’s Sun delay, it brought me concern.
My little pony had rushed out hours ago, still exhibiting her unusual behavior. It occurred to me that although it might be normal for her to be abnormal, this particular brand of unusual often meant that something else was wrong, something that might be worse than a few eccentric tendencies.
I filed the thought away. Whatever was happening, the little one would do fine, as she always did. My duty was to support, not fret.
Turning my attention back to the world, I compiled further curious observations. Just as the sky was empty of wings, there didn’t seem to be much activity on the street, either. Even the soothing cacophony of the midday market crowd was absent. The only sign of life was a small avian pet inside my household, asleep on his roost as he always was at this time of day.
There was a moment where I thought, perhaps, that this silence could be appreciated, rare as this kind of peace was during the sunlight hours. But the time to cherish was gone before I could take it. There was a rumble; it echoed in from the distance, moving under the earth more than through the air. A second followed, seemingly closer to town than the last. It was almost like thunder of the ground, pure concussive force proclaiming the movement of something powerful, something massive.
Before I could find what the sound meant, there was a flash of magic; my little Unicorn had returned, teleporting in from somewhere-I-know-not and taking post at my lookout balcony, where the young mare kept a telescope. It wasn’t nighttime, but she began to view something through it all the same. I could not connect the strangeness of the day together fast enough; in seconds, my charge was gone, popping away with her magic in the same manner by which she had arrived.
Nor did I have time to gather what was happening after she had gone. Instantly, I knew why she had fled. And in just an instant more, I knew nothing at all.
Fire.
Explosion.
Darkness.
A warm feeling briefly graced my consciousness. The nature of the feeling was no more astonishing than the realization that I still had a consciousness; it was the first feeling, the first thought I had experienced since… I could not even guess. I knew time had passed, though how much was unclear. I knew I existed, though the where and what of that existence was a mystery.
At first, a burning sensation coursed through me, eating me from the inside out; but it quickly faded, taking more of the form of a memory, then a dream of a memory, before fading out of my thoughts altogether. Another sensation took its place, one of friendly warmth, and friendly words, and laughter. It felt like I was opening up, letting these feelings enter me and yet radiating them from myself out into the world.
Then I felt it. The whole land, from the mountains to the sea. I rode through that land, spouting the joyful emotions I was carrying across the breadth of the country. And I wasn’t alone. Six others rode with me; my ward and her friends, sharing and spreading the warmth to every being we came across. But there was something different about me. They each had a place, a where; some went east, some west, some south. I went with all of them, in all directions at once. I wasn’t so much in a place as I simply existed, being anywhere that they were. Or maybe they went anywhere that I did, carried on my… light? Feelings? What was I now?
The freedom from form, though thrilling at first, was no longer welcome. I had always been grounded, sturdy, and steady. I didn’t have any experience with change so drastic as all of this movement, let alone being without a shape to call my own. Thankfully, there was only one change left.
In the last moment beyond which I didn’t think I could stand this new existence, there was a shift. My little pony and the others left my immediate presence, although I knew they were still nearby. I was in one place, no longer stretched across the land. I was compact, closed up, though not squished nor trapped. I was moving.
Up in an arc, high in the sky, and quickly back down; the familiar cool soil of the town surrounded me entirely. But in moments, I was moving again… and yet I wasn’t. I remained in the ground, and reached out to touch the sky. I could feel the soil, and the breeze, and the Sun. As the buzz of active magic dissipated, I knew where I was, and I knew what I was.
I was on the outskirts of my beloved town, within sight of my original home. I was high above all of the residents, each of whom I knew so well. I was taller, larger inside and out, and I held more knowledge than I could have ever fit before. My former form smoldered in the distance; but the many tomes which it was my duty to guard were safe on my new shelves, interspersed with many ancient works I had not possessed before.
My thoughts stumbled when I took account of my most valuable holdings, but that was quickly resolved as an owl flew in and took its rightful perch, unharmed, it seemed, by the destruction of the last one. Soon, my ward, and her ward, alongside the other ponies I had flown with, together entered my new halls. They discovered that I was a library and that I was a castle. They called me amazing, magnificent, and fantastic. They called me a spectacular improvement over the old one. The last stung a little, but I knew what they meant.
My duties expanded after that. Many of the ponies dwelling in the town were now under the protection of my Unicorn, and so under the protection of me; my new wards. New ponies visited from all over to speak to her and walk in my halls. Many brought books from foreign lands, filling up the shelves to our mutual pleasure.
And though it took a while, my little pony would once again call me Home.
Author's Note
Ha! I actually finished a story!
...Half-baked, supershort, and thrown up in one day, but still.
{This story is retroactively dedicated to all of those who apparently found this tragic loss so hard to take.}