Chapter 1: Bleak Suroundings
Failure.
All the one known as RUNA has experienced is up to this point is failure. RUNA is flawed for in the heat of battle it malfunctions and is flung into the trees.
Zap. Poof.
So many trees. RUNA has slumbered in this trees before when all the world was a dream and eyes were but a far-off fantasy as RUNA was bound to a tree whose roots stretched far beneath the broken soil and drinking up fragments of snow.
All RUNA sees are trees pointing high above to clouds that are almost unreachable.
Zap. Poof.
RUNA tries to stand but falls among the shards of blue surrounding, standing out amongst the snow like fragments of a shattered sky.
Flicker. RUNA blinks unwillingly and the world goes dark in a place as distinguishable as a dream as a carrot is from a star.
Flicker.
Bright light shines softly across the woods and into RUNA's eyes.
Flicker. Blink.
Soundlessly RUNA arises and stares at the darkened sky glittering with thousands of small light rippling across the vast expanse, and it knew that it had been left behind by the one it called the Awakener.
RUNA trudges through the snow, magic coursing through a body lacking everything else.
RUNA poked around the ruins of battle-the Spire as it was once called-eyes gleaming and constantly flickering all coming up with the same results: NO ORGANIC LIFE DETECTED.
Its bestowed magics had turned up nothing. RUNA's mission had failed.
It hadn't protected anything. Now RUNA was lost and alone.
A cold wind swept by stirring a few glistening swirls of snow, but it wasn't as if it could be felt. There were no living ponies here, no one to feel its effect.
RUNA's legs buckled and she plopped down into a debris-ridden snowdrift, face devoid of any kind of expression. Its shutter-like eyes even blanker than normal as if it might have vaguely been able to comprehend any sort of emotion beside the bleak oblivion within it, a side effect of not having a soul.
The wind died and the silence was resumed, RUNA's ear pricking.
"This land has no sound," it remarked blankly. "Creator liked sounds."
Once more RUNA's eyes flickered and it sank deep into some half-forgotten incident of the Tree Time when the Voice of The Creator spoke such a thing in a tone that made Her seem so far away...
Without warning RUNA sprang up with an abrupt pop like some kind of mechanized toy. Its blue glow the only true light among the darkness and crystalline reflections of snow. It opened its mouth as wide as any dragon could and like a gramophone and from the echo of a memory poured out, a noise from the Tree Time when all but bark and roots were meaningless.
The sound of wolves.
After a while she buckled down once more and sat in the snowy ditch. Waiting for a Creator who would never come.
Flicker. Flicker-close.
The sun began to rise, all its warmth shed in vain.
The sun had long since sunk below the horizon and the stars leapt out when RUNA was active again, shining a bit more brightly than before, the snow like beads of sapphire.
It stiffly walked amongst the desolation before it then whirled around in a motion that seemed to fluid for such a thing and walked away heading in a direction unfamiliar to it before stopping quietly.
RUNA feared it would be heard. Then everything would be ruined.
"Creator?" It called, almost sounding unsure behind the monotone.
"Creator!"
Even the wind refused to cause even a leaf to quiver, had there been any.
"CREATOR!"
Creator wasn't hiding. At least not here. That much was clear.
A construct without their Creator is as empty as a stomach in famine; but RUNA almost believed that it felt something more.
Alone, alone, it was all alone. A single bit of fallen sky amongst what appeared to be infinite white.
RUNA must find Creator. That was the nothing going through its simple head, if anything could.
RUNA stood for a long time just watching its shadow grow and shrink. It knew neither Sun nor Moon, only skyorbs.
And skyorbs would guide RUNA.
It sank into the snow for the last time and began to form what it thought the perfect plan, however incomplete it was.
RUNA watched as the white orb rose. Today was the day it would leave the crater, the wolves no longer here, and the trees.
Everything it knew would be gone as soon as the mountains in the distance were crossed.
But there were no emotions to tie it here.
There was nothing at all.
RUNA stepped forward. Its first step on a most important journey, perhaps even an epic odyssey which was a concept unknown to this being to whom the world appeared blank.
It seems proper balance was also an unknown concept as RUNA's first step forward-which appeared as uniform as a soldier's-landed it flat on its face into a pile of unmoved snow that had fallen last night.
This revealed a book. RUNA levitated the volume to meet its eyes, trying to comprehend the object scorched to almost nothing from a recent magic blast.
A lone piece of parchment fell loose and stuck in the snow, half in and half out of the impression made by this bumbler.
RUNA tossed the burned book away and exchanged it for the latter.
Flicker.
'LIST OF SUPPLIES'
Flicker.
'PROPERTY OF ONYX'
Flicker.
'LIST-FOOD-COMPASS TO HEAD SOUTHEAST'
Flicker.
'KNIVES-CLOAK-HATCHET'
Flicker.
'-EXTRA KNIVES-CLOAK'
Flicker.
'BACKUP KNIVES.'
RUNA didn't find much of anything on that list enlightening at all. That's probably why it burned the list to ash with a sudden spark of luminous blue flame conjured by the runes that were a constant presence.
Then it looked around and picked the direction it believed to be southeast and headed that way not a question in its mind.
It was really Regular-Old-East but it's not like that can be changed. Just allow the construct some false pride in its navigation skills.
RUNA had acquired a quest, and that quest was to find the Creator.
The second step taken was much more successful, it immediately caused a blue glass like staircase to form to lead RUNA over the towering mountains. When RUNA came to the end of the structure it leapt of and flew into the unknown, which is rather cold.
RUNA had crossed the peak of the mountains and was no longer in the static valley it originated from. There was only hard gusts of biting ice and endless snow to those who knew no better on this side where the question that gnawed at those who had the time or the foolishness to stop and think was whether the cold or the snow itself was the worst thing a pony could face.
For RUNA it was the snow, it was so fierce as it worked its way down that it caused RUNA to flash briefly, as if damaged.
Its eyes flickered with some sort of primal nervousness that every creature touched by even the smallest bit of magic probably experienced at some point or another.
There right off to the side, it spotted a cave. RUNA heads inside her luminous blue glow casting crooked shadows on the cold stone.
It spots marks over the corner, worn into the stone. Old hoofmarks.
1,114 year old hoofmarks that have almost entirely vanished over the course of time.
RUNA sits quietly and waits. Maybe somewhere-out-there Creator may also be found.
Waiting.
Waiting in the dark.
Sun broke through the snow after some time, yet RUNA remained unflinching and silent like the stone surrounding it.
Those two ponies. RUNA was meant to protect them, ordered to.
Where are they? Did they die?
It received no answer and left just as quietly as it entered, although perhaps for a different reason.
The snow was not falling as much anymore so RUNA decided to fly, to its Creator who just might be in need of a rather persistent blue construct.
RUNA was growing dimmer as the flight continued, though this went unnoticed by it.
Who knew what time meant to RUNA? It flew on and on until at some point RUNA fell out of the sky, spiraling downward into the sunbathed snow which glistened white gold. It looked even more faded then when RUNA took off.
RUNA opened her mouth once and then closed it as if to speak but only a bit of snow fell in.
It tasted funny.
It sat in the snow splayed out in a perfect mid-flight shape just like how RUNA had fallen, completely drained and helplessly watching the sun sink turning the sky from red to dark blue. RUNA's eyes glowed as silver as the stars and slowly blue seeped back into her and RUNA began to look more solid.
At some point RUNA closed its eyes and slumbered in the snow in an empty state still trying not to fade completely...
Head southeast, head southeast, head southeast...
In a way that was all RUNA knew...even if it was wrong.
RUNA awoke to three-and-ten feet of freshly fallen on its head, which it melted with its horn in order to escape, emerging with its bright blue glow restored, expressionless and unbreathing as normal, a few fiery blue runes bobbing in distress.
Creator is still waiting. To RUNA that was all that mattered even though it technically not even know the identity of 'Creator'. Was Creator a mare of a stallion? Was Creator young or old? Was RUNA formed in their image? What was their name?
It never occurred to RUNA that Creator could be dead. As the only things RUNA knew of Creator was their voice-it sounded like a mare's but RUNA could not be sure-and how their magic felt.
RUNA stood in the moonlight, as still as can be not noticing that it made RUNA glow brighter.
Maybe Creator can bestow a new name...
Over the next few days RUNA trudged on growing dimmer every sunrise then brighter when it set yet was unsure of how much progress it really made or how much time passed.
RUNA just kept going its hoofsteps vanishing just as quickly as they appeared, consumed by the snow that landed on its bridge.
For a many more weeks all RUNA did was walk but only in the dark where its eyes lit up the snow. It didn't recall anything but keep moving forward, emptier then usual on the inside.
For now.
There are many things buried under the snow. Things change over time, including the land. RUNA locates a basin at some point, a basin located a large slice in the land.
RUNA's senses are abuzz with something it does not understand.
It comes from beneath RUNA's hooves, a shrill hum only it can hear.
Eventually RUNA digs up the snow, layer after layer until it finds what it sought.
Below it all are tainted ashes humming with old traces of a burning power which is a clear indication of magic.
A bizarre magic, that feels vaguely familiar.
Yet crackling in the air are things just as old as the ashes and as new as the top layer of the snow RUNA broke through.
RUNA cannot name it but it is impossible for a construct such as itself not to sense the troubling energy among the ashes of wood that was.
A Shadow's wrath still lingers even after all these years.
RUNA continued to travel for many nights (and even a few days) in search of the one who created it. The Night Orb, whose true name was unknown to this peculiar traveler bestowed power to RUNA, as being in the tree so long had damaged some of its ability to properly sustain itself.
RUNA couldn't experience fatigue but each day it constructed a barrier around itself as not to lose any power that was gained. Through this creation the whole world was tinted blue and only stars gave any indication that it was night.
Being left alone for so long often made anypony a philosopher and even though it wasn't a pony RUNA couldn't help but do some thinking, mostly about the moon and wondering if it was the sought after one known only as Creator, after all it gave RUNA power, just like Creator.
Could they be the same? RUNA has never heard the Night Orb talk and am unsure if it can.
The silver beams of light marking where RUNA's gaze lands find the earth split beneath its snowy skin revealing the stone flesh, and scattered across it a few brave evergreens huddling against the wind and cradling the tossed snowflakes. None of this is visible to the normal eyes of ponies, as this grove is barely a blur on the horizon.
In time RUNA catches up with this spot until another sight replaces is as That Which is Off In The Distance. RUNA approaches its edge and peers in. Nothing is there so it lifts its gaze and teleports to the other side without even a blink, after all it was the more efficient option and RUNA was 'fond' of efficiency.
The grove contained almost nothing suspicious. Just trees that move in ways it cannot and faint hums of the strange magic that were almost as old as the construct.
More moonlight.
More walking.
RUNA builds continues a road to lead the way to the mysterious Creator, unaware of the monotonous routine of Her creation.
After RUNA left the grove a snowstorm swept it away, as if RUNA were as easy for the wind to carry as a snowflake. So from here on RUNA builds the road of what looks like vibrant blue glass and hopes in the mute and invisible way of such creations that it will lead to what RUNA desires most in the world of blue and white.
It is all the color RUNA knows.
Creator, where are you?
Everywhere there is snow, ice, rock, and sky although the rocks were not as prevalent now that the more mountainous terrain had been left behind, but it was only now that RUNA began to sense the decreasing elevation.
Despite the change in landscape RUNA did not know how long it had traveled or how long it would have to.
Was RUNA left behind on purpose?
RUNA came to a halt and stared at the snow that was forever falling.
Did Creator forsake RUNA like RUNA did those two ponies...? Was that why the one who awakened RUNA was not the one who created RUNA?
Was RUNA useless? Did they forget about RUNA?
RUNA continued to stand still as if expecting answers to fall from the sky like countless snowflakes.
Is Creator dead?
No...it cannot be...
RUNA's road crumbles beneath its hooves, all its miles and bridges covering every peak and valley.
RUNA has to keep going, and so a new road is built and RUNA continues to walk towards the horizon never saying a single word as it follows the moonlight.
It is now that the road of glass connects to something unknown, clouds gathering over it. The sun is no longer out so RUNA stops to gaze at a blue-hued expanse as seemingly infinite as the snow.
Blue is good.
The white land is gone with its small snow-round-mountains and hills.
There are small gray pieces everywhere accompanied by finer ones on the border of this strange and fluid land.
Who killed the mountains? Was it not their life-beat RUNA felt traversing this place?
'Blue', as RUNA had begun to think of this new landscape, 'roars' and burst forward its edges becoming a soft looking and white as it stirs the small gray stones beneath RUNA's hooves.
RUNA gasps and jumps at this. Blue recedes at this returning some of the stones it took.
"Stop. Do not go. RUNA is a friend."
Blue comes back.
"What are you?" RUNA asks it.
Blue shift and gathers itself, pointing upward and reaching for the floating masses of snow that drift far above them both.
Blue is a sky then. That much to is clear to RUNA. No, Blue is not a normal sky. The opaque look, the color, the attraction toward the true sky...Blue is a construct! Yes, that must be it.
But why is Blue alone? RUNA sees no stars or snow in its sky. Did Blue's Creator forget about them? But who was so mad they left Blue behind?
Maybe it was not a who but a what that created Blue?, RUNA thought, Perhaps it was the land? Can land do magic?
RUNA supposes land does need its own sky but why does it move so?
"Blue were you left behind too?"
Blue wells up and licks RUNA, this time spitting light, broken snow instead of stealing stones.
RUNA fall back on its haunches.
Blue recedes to make space for RUNA as it gazes at the white forming across Blue's surface just like the floating snow in the other sky, the one that isn't a construct, which grows brighter as the sun rises.
RUNA must continue the journey. Though RUNA does not believe it is to go over Blue-sky. It seems darker there so it must be night and it is the right direction after all.
It is time to go, to head southeast. RUNA wades into the gray-blue ocean, but jumps back, startled for a moment, although not by the cold that any living creature would feel.
RUNA tries to soak up as much moonlight as it can, unsure if it will find another moon for a while.
It then counts out as many of the the stars as it can before dawn comes, having memorized each one on its travels for navigation assistance.
Only then does it wade into the ocean, heading deeper into this 'second sky'.
Blue tugs in a way that is not the one RUNA has been taking, instead curling a different direction.
Oh, RUNA understands. First RUNA had to head east, and this must be south. So now RUNA will head south. That is how ponies get a 'southeast'.
It is where RUNA will wait for Creator.
