Of Stone and Timber

by TheOnly

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Other, Romance
Length: 2024

Tom the rock and Bloomberg the tree are in love

Tom the rock and Bloomberg the apple tree learn what it means to love. Sometimes, even the most unlikely of things will fall in love.

Published 2012-05-24 20:54:01 UTC
Last updated 2012-05-24 20:54:01 UTC

Why did I write this

Of the many things that could be disputed, the beauty of nature had long been the one topic that always elicited agreement. Nopony, whether they be pegasus, unicorn, or earth pony, could deny the beauty of nature. For it was nature that was the very force that allowed life in Equestria. Almost every moment outside of a house was spent around nature for a pony, and to admire nature had become somewhat of a scarce practice, as most ponies would trot by a group of trees, ignoring them and labeling them as "ordinary". Although nature offered endless beauty, it was absorbed in the background, making only for pleasurable scenery and decoration. Most ponies would trot by a patch of flowers, never once stopping to sniff the petals, or to appreciate the crisp, bright colors that they contained.

Along a dusty path, a field ran to the side, covering most of the area in a dark green. Each blade of grass the same height, never cut or grazed on. The fading sun cast its glow on the grass, which became darker as the sun receded further into the horizon. Deep in the field, a tall wood trunk stood in the way of the rays, shading the grass beneath it. It's shadow cast twice it's actual length, the sun almost directly behind. Small green leaves swayed gently on the sturdy branches of the tree, their undersides a dark shade of green, controlled by the whims of the breeze. The branches, however, did not move in the gentle breeze. Some of the smaller branches occasionally swayed in stronger gales, but the thick, sturdy limbs were not subject to movement. Should they move, the entire trunk would have to move with them. Only the strongest of winds could possibly rip the roots of the tree out of the soil, where they anchored themselves. Each root slithered downwards, deep into the soil where it collected water and minerals, rooting the tree strongly in the dirt. The tree was as still as the boulder nearby.

Not but a few meters away rested a boulder. On the exterior the boulder was smooth, the flat edges lacking any sort of bumps. Each edge ran along the rock, meeting at a spot near the top to create a point. Where the different edges met each other was a thin sliver of sharp stone, only to revert back into a smooth edge. Although its figure imitated that of a diamond, it was only a boulder. It was a cold, gray rock that stuck out in the field. It did not belong there, but it could not move to a more fitting spot. The lone boulder had watched the field grow around him, years being added onto his legacy. Centuries passed, and not a single gale strong enough to push the rock had come, not a rainstorm so brutal that it had budged the stone or eroded it to a noticeable extent, nor an earthquake so horrific that the rock had been shook to some other spot. He had sat alone watching the blades of grass grow around him, watching a path be carved out through the grass, watching the ponies trot unknowingly through the field along their path. They didn't know he was watching.

He had watched as the majestic tree grew a few meters away, the result of a miscarried seed from some far off apple tree. Alone in the field, the only plant that cast a shade, the tree soaked in the sun. For years the rock watched the stable tree grow, getting taller with each day. The ponies trotted along the field, not noticing the growing tree, but the stone did not notice the ponies either. He was too busy observing the tree,From the first two leaves that hung off of the sapling, to the formation of the brown bark. Each branch grew slowly, and the boulder did not miss one of them growing to their full stature. He watched each leaf sprout out of the thick limbs, and the bright red apples bloom, becoming plump and ripe and shiny. None of the growth was missed, the rock saw all of it.

The rock was not without a name. As the days had gone by, he had chosen a name for himself: Tom. Unbeknownst to the growing tree, Tom had secretly named her. Due to the creation of fruit upon her limbs, he named her Bloomberg, a fitting name for a tree. For years, as Bloomberg grew taller and larger, Tom stayed the same size. Stuck in his solid, cold rock form he could neither grow taller, to face Bloomberg, nor grow larger. All he could do was watch.

Bloomberg watched, too. She watched Tom from afar, growing fond of him. As she grew taller and sturdier, she looked down on Tom and saw him from above. Days would pass, the sun rising and setting as if it only took a few minutes. It rained and snowed, and the sun blazed down upon the field, but neither of the two lovers felt as though the seasons had passed. It was all background, all they saw were each other. All they experienced was each other, even if they never touched and all they could to was gaze. Bloomberg's roots felt the heavy weight of Tom from beneath the soil, but they refused to grow upward toward him. They were programmed to grow deep into the soil, never to see the sunlight.

Years passed, and ponies crossed the path over and over again. Never once did one look over at the boulder and the tree, resting a few meters apart. They moved along the path, unaware of the two lovers. Sometimes two ponies would come into the tall grass of the field and sit in it, watching the sunset. They would hold each other in their hooves. When this would happen Tom would watch with envy, but the ponies did not see him. They were oblivious to the stone and timber, too caught up in themselves.

There were times where a group of ponies would trot down the path and look over at Bloomberg, pointing at her and chatting among themselves before trotting along. Each time the ponies came down the path they would point at Bloomberg, one of them shaking their head before the group would trot down the worn-down path. It had become more of a rut from all of the hooves that had trodden on the dirt.

Tom's rigid, rough form eroded ever so slightly from the rain and the wind, but not enough to draw his attention nor make any difference in his appearance. He only kept track of whether he was watching Bloomberg in the illumination of the sun or the shades brought by the darkness of night. For what would have seemed like eternity to a normal pony felt like only a couple hours to the two works of nature. Both Tom and Bloomberg knew that what they felt was true love, and as they rested in the field disregarded by the ponies, they only felt their love grow. But nature would not allow it.

Tom and Bloomberg had both been damned to the hell that constituted their existence. They could not express their love, confined in the cold recluse of the forms that nature had forced them into. They could not speak, or express their love in any forms. They could only watch from their resting spots, unable to show emotion or communicate, kept apart by nature. Neither could move on their own accord, stuck in their spots for eternity until some other entity decided to move them against their will.

The lovers were separated from each other, never to pursue their love. Simply because nature had created them in the form of a boulder and a tree, their love was unable to blossom, to ever be expressed by even the simplest of emotions or actions. Simply because of the form they had taken, they were shoved into the cold, lonely world of their existence where they were forced to keep their feelings tightly bound within them, never to come out. Years upon years flew by, but nothing changed and it never would. Nature kept the two apart, compelling the roots of Bloomberg deeper into the ground to salvage food, her solid trunk to lay deathly still where it had grown. Tom was unable to move, unable to get closer to his beloved. Every rain that fell, every snow that floated onto the expanses of the field did not effect the two constituents of nature.

Forever would the two lovers be closed within their borders, Tom within his hard, jagged stone encasement and Bloomberg within her wooden prison, garnished with drooping leaves and crimson apples that no longer shined. When the sun rose out of the depths of the sky, it covered the field with its light, but it did not matter to the two lovers. For the sun only provided food for Bloomberg, but otherwise was just another facet of nature that moved along with the rest of the world, timed and predestined. When the sun sunk into the horizon it only plastered a dark coat of despair onto the field, leaving the boulder and the timber to wallow in their forbidden love, locked away in the forms they had been put into by nature.

Years moved on like this, the two lovers resting only a few meters from each other, unable to illustrate their sadness. They could only watch each other. Watch each other for the rest of eternity, forsaken.

One day, a pony deviated from the dust path, moving through the tall grass of the field to the tree. She was orange, with a bright mane that matched the yellow sun. She left, returning a couple hours later with a group of ponies. They uprooted Bloomberg, carrying the apple tree down the sorrowful path, away from Tom, and off to some apple farm, where Bloomberg would be planted once again. They tied her to the back of a carriage against her will, but she was unable to do anything. She stood still like she had done for so many years on the field, all of her actions being dictated by the ponies that had taken her.

Tom watched from his place on the field, watched as Bloomberg was torn away from his presence. He watched his beloved was stripped of his vicinity, ripped out of the field where he had watched her grow and become what she was. The ponies had whisked her away from Tom, and all he could do was sit in the field; all of his loss stifled within himself, never to be revealed. Never again would Tom see Bloomberg, for he could not seek her out. He could not look for her, and she could not look for him, and never once would nature give them a chance to find each other once more, to pursue the love that was stowed away.

Tom was condemned to watch the empty field. Condemned to sit in his one spot and watch where Bloomberg had once stood. He could only observe the field where he had lost the only thing he had ever loved, watching the blades of grass grow and the sun float upwards into the sky and sink downwards into the horizon. Nothing changed, the ponies passed by the path and looked towards the field, noticing the lone boulder that stood in the green grass.

The day came where Tom was engulfed in a flash of light, teleported away from the cold, mournful field of plain green grass. He found himself lodged in a wall, placed there by a cackling draconequus who muttered his plan while he worked with Tom. However, even in this new place Tom could never forget the field. He could never forget Bloomberg.

Their love had been denied simply because of the form that they took, forbidden to show their love, each day enduring the torture of encasing their love in their shattered souls.

Such is the cruelty of nature.