Far Away Trains Passing By

by Emerald Flight

Rating: teen
Tags: Slice of Life, Main 6, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Romance
Length: 2257

Inspired by the Ulrich Schnauss album of the same name - an ambient slice-of-life during a rare storm of silence.

A storm of silence, rare in every meaning of the word, passes over Ponyville in early spring.

Inspired by the Ulrich Schnauss album of the same name - a series of emotional vignettes.

Published 2014-05-18 06:40:05 UTC
Last updated 2014-05-18 06:40:05 UTC

Knuddelmaus

The rain drummed lightly on the window, as far as she could tell.

Although visible, the water droplets colliding gently with the glass pane made no sound at all. The only indication there was any rain outside at all was the almost imperceptible hum and the periodic rush of one droplet pulled into another that could catch anypony's attention. However, the inside of the house kept its audibility, each small creak and groan of the hardwood and each soft vocalization made by either of them was clear and sharp.

It should have been dark, what with the rainclouds above, but it wasn't - light streamed in steadily through the window with the quality of some kind of spirit, getting caught on the dust in the air and gently touching every surface it could reach. But its weakness caused a soft contrast on her face, and it was beautiful. Everything was beautiful.

Their lips barely made contact anymore, which led her to believe Rarity was feeling what she was feeling. There was something keeping them from moving, a superior force, a calmness. She just looked down at her, breathing slowly, one hoof on her cheek and one on her side as Rarity's hooves pressed down passively on her back.

There wasn't much talking that led up to it. The rain started, and they noticed. Then Rarity asked her - quietly, sincerely - why she was really there. And, of course, she was there to help.

But that wasn't really it, and somehow Rarity knew that. And kissed her. Just like that, no warning, but Applejack didn't feel any need to pull away. Maybe she wanted to, maybe she didn't, but she caught a level of intimacy she hadn't caught before, and she hesitated. It was different, and inviting beyond anything. Accepting. In a moment, she leaned into it, and there they were.

Applejack opened her mouth for a second, to apologize, but when she did her lips touched Rarity's again - one more time, and she felt that velveteen surge run through her again. There's not a word to describe it. Perhaps addictive. Soon, Applejack found herself on the carpet next to Rarity, holding her, still wanting more.

But she did pull away that time, and the hum somehow seemed to quiet in her ears. Rarity pulled her face closer to her own, but not close enough for another kiss.

"How long do you want to go?"

Applejack felt their muzzles touch in the lightest of possible ways. "I don't know," she replied honestly.

Rarity looked up at her. "When did..."

"Does it really matter?"

"Maybe it doesn't," she replied in a whisper.

Applejack moved her lips down to Rarity's chest and nuzzled into it a bit, her warmth taking the chill off the end of her muzzle. "Maybe I..." she trailed off, but knew that Rarity understood.

"Maybe," Rarity replied simply, and put a hoof on the back of Applejack's head and another on her back in a kind of almost-embrace.

They stayed there until the end of the storm. Then Applejack left. She would be back tomorrow morning.

Suddenly The Trees Are Giving Way

Nopony was outside as it rained. Of course they wouldn't be outside as it rained. Fluttershy was alone in her paradise.

The beads of water fell constantly from the leaves on either side of her, spattering against the ground silently. She could almost hear her heartbeat. They'd been told about the storm of silence for days, maybe a week now, but it still seemed so surreal, like she was in a painting. She was staring across the river, and not once did a raindrop touch its surface. It for some reason helped her think. About nothing.

"Hey."

Fluttershy took notice, but wasn't surprised. She was meant to be there, Fluttershy knew. "Good morning, Pinkie."

Pinkie sat down next to her on the wet stone bench, staring out the way she was. "This is a weird storm, isn't it."

"It is. I don't really want to stop watching it."

"Are you sure? Do you need an umbrella?" she asked, offering Fluttershy her own bright pink one. "You're already soaking wet," she added.

"No, I'm fine. I can't feel the rain."

"Really?" Pinkie folded up her umbrella slowly, setting it next to her. "Wow. It's not even cold."

"No, it isn't. Isn't that odd."

They were silent for a moment, as the storm was raging imperceptibly around them.

"Does it make you think?" Pinkie asked quietly.

"Actually, it does... why?"

"Just wondering. It makes me think."

"About what?"

"I don't know. Life, death. Whatever. Something deep, I'm sure, I just can't put my hoof on it," Pinkie added, grinning widely.

Pinkie didn't know it, but she was a philosopher. Fluttershy knew it, and knew it well, whether her other friends did or not. Pinkie had a way of expressing things most ponies simply couldn't, and not through words. Just through when to speak. And why to speak.

Fluttershy was quiet. "You told me about the last time you saw a silent storm."

"Did I?"

"Yeah. I'm... well, I'm still sorry."

Pinkie nudged her foreleg. "Don't bother. It's years in the past now. It is odd, though," she began, "that it's been almost exactly years, you know? It's only been three days since the date."

Fluttershy said nothing.

"Maybe it's a metaphor."

"... The years?"

"The rain. Silent, brief, un... rememberable, I guess. In two minutes, we'll forget a raindrop, but..." she trailed off. "Maybe it's like life."

"Maybe."

Almost on cue, from across the river, in the grand, open, dark forest, a solitary tree rose from its roots and floated up to the sky and into the bright silver clouds. Nothing was left where it was but torn-up loam and the overwhelming sound of silence.

Fluttershy hadn't seen a silent storm before, unlike her friend. She wasn't aware that that happened until Twilight told her yesterday. Something about it, a silhouette against a bright gray sky, rising slowly up into the air on invisible wings, was mystical. Something far beyond her.

"You know..." Fluttershy began. "I don't think I'll forget this anytime soon."

Pinkie smiled and nudged her foreleg gently again, as a seal to the conversation. "I gotta go. See you later."

With that, Pinkie trotted off, her hooves on the mud making soft noises that nonetheless stood out against the white silence, against the static hum, that had settled over town.

Fluttershy was there until the rain stopped.

Nobody's Home

There was a veritable list of things to compare it to, a list of things to memorize about it, a list of things to study about it. A list of things to do. But the scroll floated in midair, surrounded by the warm pink glow, unmoving, unaltered. Meanwhile, she sat and stared out the window.

She hadn't noticed before what a nice town Ponyville was. It was small enough that everypony knew each other, and it was small enough that anypony could move in and be welcome. It was a strangely isolated place, but it held an air of necessity, like it was permanent, like it would forever be unchanged. Just like the scroll.

She caught the hoofstep behind her long before she felt the hooves wrap delicately around her chest and the soft lips against her neck. She closed her eyes for a moment, and let the scroll fall to the floor.

"Go back to bed," she said quietly.

"It's about eleven," he replied, in the same tone, and kissed her lightly again.

"Still. I thought you said you were tired."

He paused. "Well, I couldn't miss our second anniversary."

She felt the familiar half-amused smile find its way onto her face. "That's tomorrow."

"Mm. Happy almost-second-anniversary."

He tried, at least. He'd tried from the beginning, when he had to ask her out no less than six times over the course of a few weeks before she finally gave in. He'd tried when they were getting settled as a 'couple', trying to change for her, but it didn't work. She didn't mind.

"Watcha doin'?"

"I'm..." she trailed off, the very notion of the storm slipping her mind until she glanced back down at the scroll. "I'm supposed to take notes on the storm."

"Oh, that's today." He rested his head on her shoulder for a few moments. "It's quiet."

"Yeah."

The hum grew louder for a moment, and fell back down. She dipped a pen in ink with her magic quickly and jotted that down. The hum seems to deviate in v

She was suddenly taken back, literally, from the scroll, and brought tightly into his forelegs, her head against his chest. She wanted to pull away, get back to her work, but she couldn't - she simply didn't want to. She was away from it, and that was fine. After a moment, she nuzzled gently into his chest and sighed quietly. She was... safe. In turn, she wrapped her forelegs around him as well, pulling him as close as she could.

After a few long minutes, she moved to sit up, and kissed him gently once, twice. He did something, ran his hoof along hers in a certain way, that always made her want to kiss him again. Clever, really. She looked into his eyes as he looked away briefly. They were caring, but they rarely knew how to properly carry that out. Sometimes he couldn't manage her intelligence, or her skills, or her want for order, but he was always trying.

It made her think, suddenly, heavily. She wanted to live with him for a long while. He cared, she knew it - what more was there that she needed to solidify what they had? Maybe she could... maybe he...

It was just the storm talking, right? Yeah.

He looked down at her. "Do you want to... go out, maybe?"

She smiled, the half-amusement developing into simple contentment. "I do."

They ran through the silence down to the hills by the train station, and laid there alone, watching the rain fall from below, until there was no more rain to watch.

A Million Miles Away

The clouds parted in front of her like they were nothing, which they honestly were. To her, they really were nothing. She was a pony, sentient, alive, constant, with goals and wants and desires. They were clouds.

But sometimes she envied them.

It was a very minor, yet very bitter envy. It was bordering the edge of unsupportable, too. She could travel quickly, and she could go anywhere she wanted to, right? And she could appreciate the ground below, and the wind in her face, and clouds couldn't. What was there to envy?

Maybe that's simply what it was. They couldn't appreciate it, because that was it for them. They saw the ground, and the sea, and died peacefully knowing nothing but that. Of course it was stupid, but at her altitude, some stupid thoughts find their way to her mind.

The cloud she was lying back on was being finicky, making noises against the pure silence of the storm, breaking her concentration. But she refused to go back to the west and find another dense-enough cloud, so eventually, it blended in with the hum, and the silence returned. She wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn't. Not through this.

Above the clouds of a silent storm, few ponies knew, there were layers of fog. But it was different from normal fog - denser, like smoke, and its colours were constantly shifting when her back was to the sun. Not just the colours of the rainbow. Every colour she could recognize, and some she couldn't. It was more than mesmerizing. It was powerful.

It was only a silent storm that made her think so much about the trivial things, and it was definitely due to the magic, or so Twilight had warned her earlier that week. Wow, earlier that week. Another era, when the storm wasn't there. It seemed eternal.

She knew the thoughts were going to come because, four years ago, part of her training was 'attending' a silent storm. They'd traveled across an ocean and two deserts to get to where they saw it, and it made her cry. That was the last time she remembered crying, was four years ago. Nopony ever got to see above a silent storm, unless they were a pegasus curious and strong enough to find a way through the thick cloud layers and preserve their stamina enough to stay.

Suddenly, she saw a shadow appear above her head. Another pegasus? She turned behind her.

There, breaking the sun's rays into thousands of small, beautiful fragments in a halo around it, was the silhouette of a tree, rising through the thick fog like a phoenix from the ashes.

It was one of the least-likely things any pony, any sentient thing, could ever witness. Her eyes refused to blink, her stomach churned. In front of her, the tree's bark, strip by thin strip, began peeling from its body and dissolving into shards and then into nothing. Leaves fell silently, suspended by laws of gravity that don't exist, before curling and becoming nothing but air in front of her. From the center and spreading up and down like some plague, holes appeared, and chunks dissolved, and pieces disappeared little by little.

They were going somewhere, somewhere unknown. Somewhere she couldn't go. Somewhere the clouds couldn't go.

When it was gone, Rainbow Dash cried.