A Letter to Future's Past
Dear Princess Celestia
This is your former student, I'm not going to say which one, for I'm afraid you won't know... yet. But hopefully you'll know eventually. I am stuck in a place were the sun never rises nor never sets. It stays up in the sky, behind a cloud of darkness. I have not seen the moon or the sun since a was with you. I have climbed hills and buildings far from your time in hopes of sending a letter to you. All my attempts have been thwarted.
I write letters to you frequently, as frequent as I can. Each letter I write is folded, the creases warp the words into a different message, such as the decisions I have made have warped my world into a different one. I fold these letters into paper airplanes, and throw them off of great heights in hopes of them traveling far enough to reach you. Near the horizon I can see where the sun breaks through the clouds, and where its bright light dances onto the grass. I aim my throw toward that gleaming horizon. The brightness drowns out the shape of the airplane and the message it carries. For a moment I am hopeful. I am hopeful that the letter I just threw will reach you, but when I see its white contour begin to fall back into the dark shadows I lose all happiness and hope.
Here there is no grass, there are no trees and all the rivers are dried up. It's awful lonely stuck here, in this dead world. I walk down the this rubble scattered trail of grey and brown stones once more. It leads up to the mountain. I have never climbed the mountain before, it is by far the tallest object around. You may wonder 'why can't he just run to the horizon? and dance like the sun does on those meadows of grass?'. I have tried to outrun the shadows, but darkness travels faster than light. However, I have seen the sunlight dance on these rocks, and on this mountain, however at that point I was very far away from here, and as I drew closer, the colder the colors grew and dimmer the light scattered.
This mountain is by far the tallest object around. I will climb this mountain, and throw this letter off its peak in hopes of it reaching you. When I first saw the light in the distance of this mountain, I saw you, but when I arrived in glee of salvation I was once again hopeless. I found no ponies and the light danced away from me once again, the only thing left behind is this dried dirt, and dark sky. As I walk toward this ominous mountain my hooves are imprinted into the granular sand. Shadows of a pure velvet black are painted onto the ground where I walk, hundreds of jagged rocks reach above me. They lead toward the mountain.
I am at the base of this mountain, I remember its beautiful waterfall, and your sun would fracture it into millions of rainbows. The waterfall is no longer there, and the valley it carved is a wedge from an ax swung at a rotten piece of wood. It splinters me as I trot towards it. It cuts deep into my memory of this place. The tips of this mountain were once frosted over with bright snow. I can't make out the snow anymore, even if I tried. It's peaks are now covered by the foggy darkness that forces me down here. But not at the top of the mountain, its highest peak strikes through the low lying clouds. That is where I will throw my letter.
I walk through the caves in the base of the mountain. No reminisce of train tracks are here. Parts of this cave are still not carved for a train to pass through, and heavy boulders lay where it would ascend into the belly of the mountain. The dim outside light quickly dies once it reaches the mouth of this cave. It is too dark, so I hold a candle while I trot through here.
I have to take the path to the left, it is my only choice. The path on the right is far to high above me to climb to. If I try to climb up the right side, as I had done before I will most certainly die trying. The orange light from the candle is the brightest thing I have seen that I can touch, its luminescence paints these cave walls for the first and final time. My hooves have grown numb from walking, I can graze them over the flame and I feel nothing. The tunnel is getting lighter now, not from the candle but from something else. It is a hole at the end of this winding chasm.
As I step out of the cave, it leads onto a small nest of rocks near the lower mountain peak. The horizon is brighter than I remember, and now I am off the ground, not near the top of the mountain, but enough to consider this as a high height. When I look down at the base of the mountain I can see where I left my hoof prints in the dusty and weathered sand. The wind is nonexistent in this dead world, so they will stay there forever. I have seen no force of nature come, even at the top of large hills and small mountains where I can almost touch the dark clouds, I feel no wind or rain or snow. This path I take on the outside of the mountain winds around into the waterfall. I will be safe however, the waterfall is dried up and destroyed.
In fact I can see it now. Where the waterfall used to be. I can see where it has carved the rock of the mountain, over thousands of years. I don't know why it has stopped now, but as I step under it I can still hear its roaring stream fall down the mountain side, and crash into where I am standing. The small vegetation that I have once seen on the side of this mountain is dead and rotted away, only the rigid rocks remain.
I still carry the candle with me and the this letter. I am very careful the two do not touch. There is cave ahead of me farther up this carved out pathway. Back into the darkness I suppose. Before I venture into another cave I pause and look down the mountain side. I have not gained much height since the waterfall but I can see a pattern of the rocks below, a pattern I think I must be higher to see. The jagged rocks at the base of the mountain are not as random as everything else. They look like claws, trying to hook me and force me onto the ground.
This cave is much more dangerous than the one at the base of the mountain. It's rocks are not cleared away and I have nearly slipped, dropping this candle once or twice. Farther into this cave I can see another opening where the dim light touches down. It is high above me and I must climb. I have this letter held in my mouth, and the candle is held in one hoof as I climb with the other.
I make the ascent. As I climb these jagged rocks each step I take towards the opening feels like my last. What if one of these rocks give way? I can't think about that now though, the rocks can give way and I will use others. I am only focused on reaching the top.
I am outside of that cave now. Part of the letter was burned, but in distress I threw the candle down and heard it break against the rocky floor. Was that a dumb idea? Is it dumb for me to throw away my last light, at the chance you can hear about it? I am much higher than before. I can see the horizon and its warm light far beyond my reach. To my right is a cliff, I draw my view down the side of the mountain once more and onto those jagged claws at the bottom. Each of those jagged rocks are set in place for a reason, tiny ridges stretch across the rocks in parallel lines. Some of these lines are curved while others are straight. They are pathways to traverse that maze of jagged rocks. I shift my vision upward to the sky, not so high above me are the dark clouds that cover the sun. I will have to surpass them to reach the top of the mountain.
Along to my left is another path. I follow it aimlessly, in hopes of not finding another cave. This path takes me to the backside of the mountain. As I walk along this path it comes to another cliff, but not too far from me the path starts again. Across the wall of this mountain there are rigid rocks, some of which protrude outwards like horizontal columns. Cloth hangs from one of these horizontal bars. It is scorched but I can barely make out what looks to be the sun, with you below it. I reach up and grab onto one of these columns and then jump to the other side of the path. I turn around and look back at that cloth, this other side of the cloth reveals a different image. It is less burned, on the face of the cloth is Luna, your sister. She is below the moon. I want to go back and save that cloth, but what difference would it make if it was in my hooves, or a million miles away?
From here the path only goes upwards at a steep incline, straight into the darkness. I walk up this path, I remember when you used to walk me through the city. You'd show me where all the shops were and in the winter you would freeze the waterfall, I'd get onto your back and you'd slide down it. If I could just hear your laughter now, that would be all the light I need to keep me alive.
I can touch the darkness, and it stings. This cloud covers the sky, and I am able to finally touch it. I can go through it, I will go through it to the summit. I think about that cloth one last time, maybe I should have taken it with me. I look down the side of the mountain and I see those jagged rocks again. From this height I can make out what looks like the castle from a bird's eye view. This is your city, crushed and imprinted on the ground. That cloth was one of the thousands of banners that would be hung around your city.
I turn back upwards and look into the darkness. As I step into these forbidden clouds I can no longer see where I am going. I pat my hoof down onto the ground to make sure there is ground I can walk on. When I breath I can feel it seep into me. It seeps into me again and again, like all those years ago. I reach my hoof up and it goes through the last layer of this dark sky, I feel warmth and light. Something I have missed for far too long.
I push through the edge of the darkness and the summit is near, but I stop on my quest in awe at the sky. I can see the sun, and the moon. They're dancing together, the sun and her rays spins around the moon with her stars. A clash of orange and blue make streaks of a purple twilight form across the sky. Dawn sits on one end of the horizon, and dusk sits on the other. I climb further up the summit with this letter in my mouth.
Being at the top of this mountain is very surreal. This whole world is surreal but this especially. Across the horizon and below me I see the sea of darkness, its waves clash back and fourth. This letter I hold is coming to an end. I will carefully fold this letter into the best paper airplane I can. I will throw it as far as I can, hopefully far enough where it will escape this world and reach yours.
Help me escape this dead world. Help me escape this imprisonment.
If you find this letter, do not worry about where I am. That will be in the past.
Worry where I will be, in the future. When you take me in as your student, do not let me go.
Do not let me stray into the darkness, and relive this dream.
~Your soon to be faithful student.
