"Remember your purpose. Forget me."
The void. It surrounded me like it had for the past... hours? Weeks? Years? Millennia? There was no concept of time, only space within the cosmos, in which I travelled endlessly. I kept moving as I had before, just like since I started moving for the first time. I had neither concept of beginning nor end, all I knew was the movement. I saw stars passing by, inhabitable planets of untold hues of colours. All I knew was that I had a mission. A purpose. What that was I didn't know. Only that I had to fulfil it, no matter what.
As I kept moving past solar systems and galaxies I didn't feel anything, I didn't know anything. My... being... my essence flew through and past all of creation. I was a wisp of pure energy with no form, no physical attributes. Although, many civilizations would, during their reign, see a small indigo star passing their planet. What they saw was I, or my essence more precisely. On closer inspection one would see a ball of deep purple light covered in a veil of indigo. Much like a robe in strong wind would flap behind the wearer, so did my veil.
But my journey through the cosmos was about to end upon reaching a tiny planet with a minuscular sun and a moon orbiting around it. This insignificant planet would become my new home for a while. But this I did not know at the time; my essence was drawn to it almost on instinct. I orbited the planet in a moment, landing on top of the tallest peak of the globe.
The peak stood at the top of the world I was now on. And seemingly in an attempt to reach it, the local civilisation had built a city on the lower half of the mountain, reaching all the way to the middle. The tall towers of white and gold of the city could be seen from hundreds of miles away, but the view from the peak reached to the western and eastern coastlines, and a bit beyond to the ocean.
Now that my journey was over, my essence started to change. The veil protecting it became a robe of dark indigo, not allowing the light shine through anymore. My essence itself started to wither slowly as it begun to build what would become my physical manifestation.
The first thing to appear was consciousness, but with nothing to hold it within, it began to spread. I felt the whole planet at once, from the smallest grain of sand, to the largest beast roaming the seas. I remembered my travel through the cosmos, but nothing before that. And I remembered that I had a purpose. Suddenly my consciousness pulled back into the robe, more specifically into the beating heart my essence had created. I now had something that bound me to this world. Next, my body started to grow.
I felt my nervous system form around my heart, taking shape to what would become my body. Then came the bones, then the muscles. I acknowledged the cold wind on my exposed tissue, the sharp cold causing burning agony. But I didn't feel it, for how could I express what it was without a mouth to scream, or a brain to process it. But soon that was corrected, my brain formed in an instant inside my skull, reaching outwards to become eyes and ears. Skin started to form from my back, reaching around my new body to protect it.
Nothing had become something.
As I opened my eyelids for the first time in my existence, I saw a view worthy of eternalising. The sun was rising from beyond the horizon and rays of light hitting the clouds and glistening in the far blue sea, lighting the world before the sun was visible from the ground.
I tore my gaze from the view and looked down upon my newly formed body, only to be greeted by my two grey furred legs. The weight of my body told me that I had a similar pair behind my head, along with my torso. Turning my head around, I noticed a muzzle sticking out of my face with the corner of my vision. It was almost unnoticeable unless I paid attention to it or looked down. Looking up I discovered long purple strands of hair stuck to my scalp. I was an equine.
Questions formed in my mind after that word. Equine. How did I know it? Where have I learned it? By what means did I associate and understand things with words in my head. I was talking to myself in my head, in a language I’ve no knowledge of. It is simply there. Coherent sentences whirled through my head, but how did I know what they meant?
Deciding to leave this enigma behind, I started my work on learning how to move this body. Moving every inch of my body at a time I quickly learned how to control it. Each step was to be taken with two legs at a time, twitching my tail and ears under the cloak, blinking to keep my vision clear. Muscles reacted to nerve signals. All these things to memorise, This shouldn’t take too much effort, I thought to myself.
As it turned out, the peak was not untouched. As I walked around, trying to find a way down that didn’t involve my body falling at a terminal velocity and being crushed when I’d come to contact with the ground, I found a small path leading around the mountain, spiralling down, which I descended whilst taking note of every detail of the lands surrounding me.
By the time the sun was directly above me in the sky, I had reached the city that I saw from the top of the mountain. It looked smaller from afar, now it seemed like it would take a similar time to walk from this end to the opposite as it took me to walk the small path from the top to here. Peculiar.
As I came to the end of the path, I was greeted by a wide road leading towards a large gate, two large doors embedded in a tall wall. Taking -now steady, as I fell over a few times on my way down- steps towards the gate, I heard a loud noise coming from the gate, which was followed by the large pair of doors opening. They were four times as high as I would’ve been if I were to stand on my hind legs, trust me, I checked.
Standing against the doors on my hind legs turned out to be much harder than I had expected. Not that I thought it’d be easy in the first place. After a moment trying to stay upright, one of the – what I assumed to be – guards came to see what I was doing.
~~~
One of the guards stationed at the gate was looking down, expecting the cloaked pony to emerge within the city walls, “Why hasn’t he gone through?” he mused, asking nopony in particular.
After a few seconds a yell came from behind him “Hey! Silver, go check it out. Something doesn’t seem right.” Silver turned his head towards his friend, simply deciding to nod before going down the stairs behind the wall.
~~~
The guard emerged and yelled something after a moment, presumably meant for my ears. I couldn’t understand it. Landing back down on all fours I looked at the gate, determining it’s height and thinking to myself Without proper scaling equipment, this wall could hold an army.
When I looked at the guard, I noticed that he too was an equine, about the same height as my body was. What differed aside from his armour were his colours, the fur was white and mane yellow. Maybe his body is of different breed I instantly thought. It would do good to observe the locals; maybe I could find something out about their culture or behaviour.
~~~
Silver Spear walked to the gateway to tell off the traveler for not allowing the gates to be closed in timely manner. When Silver saw the stranger standing on his hind legs against the wall, his words died in his mouth.
After a few seconds of silence he finally raised his voice “Oi! Get inside quickly! We need to close the gates!” The only response he received was an emotionless look from under the pony’s indigo hood and a cold shoulder when he walked past Silver into the city.
