Approaching Thunder

The primroses were in bloom.  Upon the hill where the Great Library tree stood, the fillies and colts ran circles in the meadow, calling out with abandon as if no danger existed in doing so, or were likely to transpire should a pony call out too loudly and waken some sleeping griffin, or a great eagle perhaps.  Twilight Sparkle thought slowly, considering the danger, where and when it had last appeared, and whether there was any harm in allowing the ponies to continue their loud calls and frolicking.  It seemed just yesterday that Twilight and her friends had been in mortal danger -- had it?  She was dreaming about it that morning, fidgeting in bed, and her hind leg was in dull pain from restlessly scratching and pawing the bedspread in her sleep.  The old wound was acting up again, and it woke her up, prompting her to crawl out of bed with much effort and emerge from her burrow.  The older ponies seemed to enjoy the weather as well, dusting up the flickering dew from the hillside that was now sparkling in the early morning light as the fog rolled on, cascading down the valley into the line of timbers below, and across the distant line of pylons to the west.  Twilight surveyed the village from the entrance to her tree.  The pony who had been hired to assist her was late -- wasn't he always?  With some confusion, she wondered where Spike had gone off to, and then she remembered that it had been some time, many moons at least, since the dragon had spread his wings and flown off.  Probably to that Great Water of his, Dashie had said. I don't expect we'll be seeing him again.  Rainbow Dash had tried hard not to show it, but she had developed an affection for the little dragonet as he grew up, and she had been there that day, teaching him to fly, when he saw for the first time that far-off distant shore on the horizon.  The concept of never-ending water confused Twilight -- where would the animals live? -- but she was assured by Spike that it exists.  Now Spike was there on his far-off distant land, with other dragons perhaps; and the young pony who had been hired to replace him -- they got younger every time, it seems -- was late.  Adjusting her glasses, Twilight peered into the distance, trying to pick out a pony she might recognize, one that would help her get to the edge of the village.  She had something important to attend to in the forest... but she was not sure she could get there.  Stepping outside, the earth felt like mud, as if she was still asleep and each step carried her away from the Everfree Forest, shrinking in the distance as the morning light crept in and the tendrils of fog boiled off, taking with them the glimmering illusion of closeness, a sense of attainability that once she had associated with distance, with running.  It seemed to her now that everypony else in the village was running, was outside.  Twilight was filled with a momentary sense of dread -- perhaps she was late for a test? She had recalled Princess Celestia saying something about a meeting, the last time the two of them had been together, before the great violence when the dog attacked ponyville.  Even now she could recall galloping in terror, leading the creature on from Tartarus, far-off down the fields and through the woods to the edge of Ponyville, the edge which she now sought.  I must rescue my friends, she thought.  The light in the entrance to the tree-burrow was still dim.  Clouds had rolled in over the night, depositing a fine mist of much-needed rain, and the crepuscular sunlight was shadowed by the roots on either side.  Dear Princess Celestia, lady of the Sun, let me make a bargain with you.  It seemed to Twilight as she tried to pick out a pony she recognized, that each one -- galloping past, as they sang and rolled in the meadow, rooting up flowers here and there and passing them to each other, or at some points playfully depositing them with a hoof in their hair -- each one seemed at first like a pony she recognized, and she called out, haltingly, to herself, but the words caught in her throat.  My life for the life of my people.  These were not the friends she remembered, yet each one looked similar, a sister perhaps?  Twilight tut-tutted herself, and made a mental note to ask why Rarity had not introduced her to these other family members, new residents of Ponyville though they may be.  A yearling pony trotted by, with a cowslip in her mouth, looking for all the world like Fluttershy, the pegasus she knew, and waved in Twilight's direction, attempting a cheerful greeting but the sound was muffled by the flower in her teeth.  Twilight saw a flash of resemblance -- perhaps that pony Fluttershy had been seen with, some time ago?  She seemed related -- and then it faded.  Fluttershy, the one who could hardly fly, Twilight now recalled.  But she could not remember their faces, and she strained to pick them out now, among the thinning crowd, yet the ponies in the village moved off, as if turning her backs on her.  It was time to graze.  A troop of several ponies cantered by in procession, looking for all the world like a detachment of Rainbow Dash's militia that she had been talking about forming.  Twilight strained her eyes, and for a moment it seemed to her that perhaps these were her friends, returned to greet her, and perhaps offer a song.  But the ponies passed by, some offering a wave here and there and in one case a deferential bow. A very formal bow, Twilight thought; but as she considered saying something, the spirit of resemblance passed, and her eyes clouded.  These were not the five she had journeyed with from far-off Horsehoeford, after the destruction of the old village long ago.  She desired to see their faces.  Often at night, when curled up with a book about their travels, she had taken out quill and paper, using her hoof to steady the shaking paper -- and attempted to jot down what they look like, perhaps to write another story of their encounters, but the image was never clear as it was in her head, or perhaps it was never clear in her head.  Often the pages ended up crumpled at the foot of the bedside.  Or she would take a great stick of charcoal and wipe out what she had done, vigorously attempting to forget the broken image lest they clear the mind of the image she had of her friends in years past, years ago, in ages long ago under the sun.  Now it was still overcast, for the sun had moved up into the cloud layer above the horizon, and the blue downs off in the distance turned a pale shade of olive green as the cast-off reflections of the clouds played off of them.  Far off there was again that sense of distance, receding into the horizon, as if the universe vanished there, beyond the limits of Twilight's perception.  Perhaps Horsehoeford was still off there somehow, and the Great Pony, and the Crystal Ponies dying, though they didn't know it yet. Perhaps they were off there, still alive, somewhere -- in some place in space and time, beyond the limits of pony perception.  Twilight did not know how to explain such feelings, and in any case she could not, for her hind leg was in pain again, sending her jolts of images and confused memories that took her out of her thoughts.  An image flashed by of the foot of a great hill, the hill on which Ponyville stood, and young Twilight was at the base of it, and as she gazed up the hill ended, and beyond it was only sky; no sense of horizon but a sense that this was perhaps the end of Equestria, or perhaps the center of it where it had begun; for the clouds rushed past and there they had discovered the Great Tree, on a hill surrounded on all sides by the Everfree Forest.  The forest had been cut down since then, by Men, it was said; but a thin fringe of woods protected the chalky down on which the village had been constructed.  Men seldom came up the hill, but instead had placed a ring of stones at the base of the hill, on the path which led to the summit, to the pony village; a single standing stone pointed to the far-off turret of the village hall, as if in warning. The men had fled when they saw ponies approaching, for each percieved a wild animal; but banded together, they could be dangerous. Sometimes pegasi had seen them building, their wooden wagons commanded by captured oxen. In the Mayor's burrow beneath the village hall, councilponies often debated by firelight whether the Men were magical; in any case these debates usually turned academic, which is why Twilight often enjoyed them, but could not remember seeing her friends at them.  In any case, she had counseled, the men were dangerous and best avoided.  Usually such admonitions were countered by some brash young pony -- an officer of the Wonderbolts, who would get up and regale the others with stories of the outside world. Twilight and her friends had not heeded such warnings years ago when they were young, and no self-respecting young buck would shrink from such a challenge, they'd add. This would end the meeting, as Twilight would hush them all to go off to bed and back to their houses, meeting adjourned, but not before offering to tell them a story of what really happened.  Then she would tell a story of Clover the Clever, how she and her friends had discovered Ponyville in years past, before the Sun and Moon existed perhaps, or at any rate a long time back.  But the young colts would crowd around her by the firelight and shout no, tell us another story, and they would demand to hear about the time that Clover and her friends snuck into the Giant's farmhouse and rescued the fluffy ponies there, and how Princess Rainbow fought the Great Cat of Ahuizotl with her bare teeth.  Often Twilight Sparkle would have to refer back to her own volumes to discover how the story really went; but it was tough to keep up, for her journals were a mess, stories and spells intermingled with personal notes; and her eyesight was becoming poor.  Usually she would end up telling about her journeys, passing over the pages which contained her field notes and specimens, which fell out on the floor to be picked up by some foal, and she had difficulty resisting teaching them a thing or two, but she would usually return to the story.  Often the older ponies would remain in attendance, and as Twilight now recalled, they would gaze on her with some degree of reverence, but intermingled with pity and a degree of sadness, as if gazing on a lost artifact, perhaps the one Twilight was describing in her story, or a clay pony that had been kept in the damp for too long, and was now crumbling into dust.  "'Are you angry, Dear Clover?' asked Princess Celestia." Twilight had told the story on the previous evening. "'No, my teacher,' replied Clover, 'I am not angry. But I have learned that with creatures one loves, suffering is not the only thing for which one may pity them. A pony who does not know when a gift has made her safe is poorer than a slug, even though she may think otherwise herself.'" Wisdom is found on the desolate hillside, Clover, where none comes to graze, and the stony bank where the unicorn scratches a hole in vain.  But the voice which now came to her was that of Luna's.  "Are you ready to go, ma'am?"  Twilight jumped, taken out of her reverie.  It was the young pony, here to assist her.  Swiftly he pressed to her side, his withers supporting the weight of her neck, and nuzzled her mane as he lifted her front hoof, helping her aright.  Appreciating the warmth and assistance, Twilight decided to forget her annoyance at the pony being late.  "I-im sorry, milady," he said anyway, although she had not yet spoken.  "It's quite alright, Spike -- er, whatever your name is,  But, do you think we could go and graze first?  I seem to recall I have an errand I have to pursue at the edge of the forest.  Do you have my list?"  "It's right here, ma'am." "Good, then... my next assignment.  I can't seem to find it."  After a moment of hesitation, the pony understood and tucked the list in his jaws, where it unrolled, flopping out on the pavement in front of the entrance.  He had to balance himself against the lower stable-door which was wide open, while Twilight pored busily over the parchment, but she could not find it listed, could not find anything about an assignment in the Everfree Forest.  Where was Spike when you need him?  Usually this was the point in the story -- in the day, rather -- that Spike would have indigestion and belch green flame, and another scroll would come forth, with instructions from Princess Celestia, instructions from the sun.  But nothing came forth, and the voice she heard was that of Luna in her head, but she could not remember what Luna had said, in her dream before she woke up.  The pain was coming back to her now and the echo of the voice faded before she could quite grasp what the Princess of the Night was saying.  It was the voice of the pony speaking to her now.  "I don't think it's here ma'am, are you sure perhaps it might be better if we go and still graze?  The sun will be high in the sky soon, and the manticores are out -- my cousin Silver Periwinkle saw them in the heather yesterday by the side of the Iron Road...." The pony was clearly agitated, wanting to be somewhere else with his friends, perhaps drinking cider in the orchard, or grazing down by the others.  The air was full of the scent of freshly-mown hay, and Twilight knew it was the season when ponies wanted to be out and about, in the sunshine, reveling in Lady Celestia's bounty, and not a time for thinking about manticores or spirits.  Nevertheless, after he had helped her to the middle of the village green with the help of a walking-stick which he had thoughtfully brought along, she asked him to go on his way.  "Don't worry about me, sir," she added.  "I just have a mission to attend to at the edge of the forest.  But... perhaps I should stop and see Pinkie Pie first?"  Twilight seemed momentarily uncertain.  A pressing need was upon her to avoid Pinkie's ministrations, but she got the sense that she was needed, torn between assignments as usual.  In a nervous panic, the young pony juggled her things and attempted to pack them into Twilight Sparkle's saddlebag, but he could not seem to fit them in, and Twilight shied away when he attempted to put it on her back, brushing up against her bad leg.  It was obvious that he was unused to having to care for the disabled.  "Y-yes, milady. I did mention to you a minute ago, Pinketta wanted to see you. They're in the village now..."  "Well, you go on along, tell them I'm coming.  Maybe I'll go to the edge of the woods first.  I'm on an important assignment from Princess Celestia."  After tossing her an uncertain look, the pony smiled and trotted off at a quick pace; she did not see him again.  The clouds gathered and a shadow cascaded across the fields in front of the village, the fleeing sunlight dappling the meadow and casting every stalk in sharp relief. The wind picked up and kicked the wildflowers into a flutter, and with her ears cocked, she could hear the breeze whistling through the trees at the edge of the woods, as the branches waved, full of leaves, black against the gathering clouds, then pale white as the sun hit them, only to vanish in shadow of the gathering mists, down at the bottom of the hillside.  She could understand why her haunch was paining her now.  "Looks like rain," she thought, "a gathering shower off to the west."  She could not see the stormclouds -- no pony could, although an eagle or a human might -- but she had other senses, and her sense of smell told her that a change was in the air, a salt smell and a subconscious scent of ozone that made the hair at the roots of her mane tingle.  Still, the dappled sunlight in the overcast sky made all around her appear normal, and cheerful; but it was grey, in the morning, and the ponies rushing toward her felt like ghosts to her.  Twilight Sparkle fell still, as a statue, and contemplated.  The woods called out to her, singing their sighing voices, and she was drawn to them.  "Where do I go to?  Follow the sunshine -- " she sang in return, softly under her breath, and she found that her hooves had carried her to the edge of a bluff, where a deep dell propelled them into the briars at the forest edge -- but her reverie was cut short.  A group of ponies had surrounded her, and they gazed upon her reverently.  They seemed like spirits indeed, veiled behind her dimming eyesight in the failing light of the Sun; and as she gazed on faces there, what must have been a million ponies, an uncountable number -- more than five at least -- years dropped from her face, and their faces shone in the dimming light, and she recognized them.  There was Fluttershy; there was Rainbow Dash the valiant, who had stood alone with Fluttershy against the Great Hare, when the walls fell, at the final battle of Hoofram; there was Rarity, dressed in shining armor that she had worn to the Crystal Ball, celebrating the marriage of King Darzin; no doubt she had a dress for her to wear, for it was the coronation day now. There was noble Applejack, loyal to the last, so honest that she could not see her friends suffer, for she had given up the location of the Great Meadow, and there was hay overflowing there; there was Pinkie Pie carrying that hay, come to throw a party as she left the village on her quest.  And beside her, a dark pony she did not recognize, along with some others; but the dark one, quite a large pony whose name she did not quite remember, cast a knowing look at her, and winked.  Her friends' faces shone with a radiance from within, and she was overjoyed, and she saw that the large pony was merely wreathed in shadow cast off by her friends' luminance; but they ignored the others, and smiled, broad grins to be reunited with their friend, Twilight Sparkle the unicorn of old.  "SURPRISE!" she seemed to throw the hay in the air, and it cascaded down as tendrils of confetti; and Twilight cried tears of joy. And confusion; for her vision darkened, and she sneezed, struggling to blink through the noise and confusion of the hay, and it seemed to her that her sight was dimmed.  A young pink pony was standing there, surrounded by all the ponies of the village, and it was not Pinkie Pie.  Pinketta smiled a winsome smile nonetheless, but her friends had faded back into the crowd. The sky was darker now, although it was close to noon, and the clouds rumbled far in the distance, off in the points of space where bright light shone against the sky at night, where the Great Bear lived.  Twilight wished she could be there now, with her old friends, anywhere they might wish to go.  This was a quest, remember?  "My dear... my dear." Twilight called out shakily. "Do you know where my friends are?"  Pinketta jumped to her side, for which she was momentarily greatful, until the younger pony began to bounce up and down. "They're all here. Isn't it great? The whole village!"  "It's a surprise party, isn't it? It's..." Twilight struggled to remember the occasion that Rarity perhaps had told them about.  Was it the wedding of King Darzin?  A message from her brother and sister in the north?  "It's coronation day... isn't it?"  "Yes'm. Well, no, not exactly.  It's the Magical Mystery Cure!  You were supposed to be in the center of the village because it's a magical mystery day when magical things happen and it's the anniversary of the day you solved Starswirl's spell, but you already knew that, because you told us, or was it Clover? I get them so confused. But it's your special day and we couldn't find you and then we found you here, because of course here is where you'd want to be! Here by the edge of the dark, dark woods and the shivery briars, and --"  "Dear... dear Pinketta.  I am so greatful.  But you must know I have places to go, and miles to travel, and the woods are dark and deep."  The dark pony nodded.  "That's okay, because we already had the celebration without you.  I mean, you were sick and everything.  For the past several days at least!  Old Miss Applebloom told me.  So we had the party without you, with cake and everything, because you weren't up yet, but we couldn't have the party without you -- that'd just be mean, wouldn't it!  Because we're your friends!  Don't you remember your friends?"  And the hyper little pony burst into tears, overcome with her own momentary energy.  The dark pony spoke up.  "What she is trying to say, dear Twilight Sparkle, is that it is time for you to complete your mission.  Do you remember the words of the spell?"  "From one to another, another to one. A mark of one's destiny singled out alone, fulfilled."  Twilight spoke aloud, and the other ponies in the audience seemed confused.  "You wish... you wish to sing for me a song."  Pinketta sighed with happiness and relief. "Quite right!  Because of course there has to be a song!  You're setting out on a journey right?  To gather firewood or something.  There has to be a song for that.  Make room, you ponies.  Bring forth the swordsmen, and the clarinets.  It's time we sang the song we need, the song we sing for Twilight's deed!  It's time we sang the song for Magical Mystery Day!" Twilight's eyes brightened momentarily, and the words came to her unprompted, as if in reply.

        Morning in Ponyville shimmers

        Morning in Ponyville shines

        And I know for absolute certain

        That everything is certainly fine

Pinketta grinned from ear to ear, and all the ponies in the village started to sing.

        A true, true friend helps a friend in need

        A friend will be there to help them see

        A true, true friend helps a friend in need

        To see the light that shines in the end from a true, true friend

... (last part to be continued)