The land of Equestria was a land of great magic and grand opportunity.

From Manehattan to Applewood, from Canterlot to Neighagra Falls, it seemed that every town was filled in the endless bustle of activity. Destinies were discovered, true love was realized, and life went on as life is wont to do.

In one small community, however, things were different.

Resting under a mountain range, hiding beyond a maze of volcanic glass, the ponies of ancient Tambelon dreamt sweet dreems of freedom and wellness, of friends and love.

One day, they might realize their dreams

Until that day, they rest.

Author's Note

Wow. You actually read all of that? In that case, you probably deserve some sort of author's note. In fact, this will probably be longer than the "chapter" itself.

To be clear, I know that this story has an abundance of issues. It's "flow" is a stuttering, jarring gait, it rushes through moments that really shouldn't be rushed as it rushes through everything, and the story probably could have worked better as a "full story" in place of this exercise.

With all of that said, I think that this was a decent experiment. I frequently see stories where a chapter with 10k or even 20k words is used to follow a small group of well-established characters doing a couple of relatively simple actions. Some people have mastered the art of adding context and depth to otherwise simple actions.

I think of myself as a pretty cerebral writer myself, though not in the good way. I spend too much time worrying about and explaining motivations and other internal processes instead of having things happen in stories. This was my attempt to break myself out of this habit, to focus on how large of a scope I could create in a limited space without ruining everything.

While I can understand why this sort of thing isn't done more frequently, I hope some people can appreciate it as an interesting experiment.