Two paths diverged in a yellow wood...
The falling leaves whispered as the soft touch of autumn winds caressed them in its embrace, letting some fall softly to the ground and others were lifted high to the sky. The quiet crunch of the old browned leaves was the other sound throughout the dense woods as an old mare, her fur grey with ages and her skin wrinkled much like the ripples upon a winded lake, passed through. Despite the soft slow walk and the evident pain in her steps, the old mare smiled happily as though she were elsewhere, thinking of times of joy...
Her hoofsteps carried her softly through the forest and onto a simple path. It was nothing more than a line in which leaves were crushed or trampled, but the old mare looked at it and saw something else. Stepping out from the falling leaves, she placed her hooves upon the flattened path and looked behind herself. A simple and single pond remained untouched, the water on it's surface reflecting something completely different from that which lay above it.
No leaves fell upon it, and the wind could not touch its waters.
A slow turn of her head and the mare began walking forward. As she did, the wind curled around her like an old friend, gentle flowing movements of the air itself seemed to breath life into her as her footsteps took upon themselves a light touch. The old mare laughed quietly, like the soft tones of tweeting birds, and took yet another step. The leaves swirled at her feet and grass seemed to sprout from the ground, like it hadn't been there before.
The leaves turned green again and soared skywards, reappearing upon the trees themselves as if the season were a much happier one. The grass spread out and blanketed the entire path, as though it had chosen to relieve the tired mare. For each step, flowers sprotuted down the sides of the path and gave the winds a pleasant smell. The mare seemed to smile like the sun itself in radiance, her aged skin was smooth and untouched. her mane, however, was retaining it's old grey hue.
The air was suddenly filled with more tinkling laughter as a pair of blue jays danced in the mare's mane. As the birds danced, their feathers gained a vibrant hue of blue, and purple touched the mare's mane. Flowing as the river, the color washed down into her mane and it seemed to shine with a new youth. Her tail was batted at playfully by a lone squirrel, who seemed to very much enjoy the soft warmth that had filled the air. Soft and cozy, much like that of a hearth.
The squirrel soon left her tail and climbed up the trees, reborn like they had been in the spring. The soft greens soon moved out into the rest of the forest as the mare moved forward. The animals of the forest made calls that seemed to sing softly of memories, and the trees seemed to be one with the wind as it coursed past them. The sky itself had changed to beautiful hue of blue and the clouds drifted lazily and sprinkled light rain upon the world below them.
What was gnarled became smooth.
The mare finally encountered a clearing, full of rocks in which a sole few ponies wandered. They seemed to be inspecting the rocks and the mare herself had seemingly appeared from naught but the shimmer in the sky and the rustled leaves behind her. To them, she was a mystery and nothing more than an old tale never spoken but always there. They, it was not, for it was a single lone filly. A daisy graced her small mane as the wind danced about and spoke whispers, as though it too held more stories than could be seen. The mare, though she looked young and vibrant, had eyes that glistened with years of old wisdom and different stories from the wind.
The mare knew tales the soft winds could not carry, and she choose to speak them. Walking up to the filly, who tilted her head to the side, the mare finally spoke up with a voice that held nothing but warmth and the softness of a lily petal. "Hello," the mare smiled at the young filly, "what are you doing, looking at those rocks with such interest?"
The filly met her eyes, "The rocks have stories."
"Do they?" The mare chuckled with amusement, though the foal was not deterred for something in the laugh, what it was she did not know, told her that the mare was not laughing at her, or at what she had said.
"Of course," the filly said, pointing at the one behind her, "this one talks about a white mare who was once obsessed with what she believed to be a diamond, but was just him." The mare smiled, and the filly went on, "this one talks about a city upon the side of a mountain and how it once was taken over by bugs who changed."
"Is that all they tell?" The mare asked.
"Yes," the filly answered softly, "they rarely tell more."
"I know the stories too," the mare said, "would you like to hear them?"
The filly perked up, a grin making its appearance upon her muzzle as she answered, "Yes please!"
The mare smiled and sat down, watching as the filly did the same. "A long time ago, when ponies knew little of magic and the world, when everything the light could touch was new, and places where the light would venture only so deep, there was a creature of amazing magic with the power to change the world with a touch of his claw. This young being, who knew less of himself than he did the rocks he was born from, rose out into the world and began spreading his magic..."
An old wizened mare stood upon a sea of sand which reached farther than the horizon showed, had found a small rock. The rock was silent and could speak of little but the mare whispered stories into it. She spoke and spoke, told and told, until the little rock could hold no more and cried out the wonders she had made fairytales.
The other rocks listened and from deep within the sea of sand, they rose. The mare lay the small rock down and picked up another, continuing to speak of more stories. It was a long story, and she told it for as long as she could, but yet never stopped. It was an endless tale, which started with Chaos.
The mare soon learned this story was only her own, yet the rocks believed in her and continued to rise. A lonely story, this tale, for only rocks and sand and wind could hear it, and the sky did little but watch. This little world, though not so little, was little because it held only these things. Wind, sand, rocks, and sky. And the mare herself, though she had not come from, nor always existed, like this world. The mare was new.
In her story, she created another world.
The belief of this story, from the mare and her companions, made the world real to them. A whispered story, told only in a large deserted world, was real. Not here, not there, but ever real to those it touched.
And so, it was real.
Far across to somewhere else, nowhere that could be reached, yet somewhere that was always known and was always within reach, the story spun itself to life and allowed itself to be told.
Wonder.
Imagination.
Magic.
Darkness.
Chaos.
Order.
The story spun for eternity, forever unfinished, forever told, forever a sweet fairytale.
