The Tale of the Butterfly - A Fairy-Tale

The further she ventured towards the north the barrener the surrounding nature became; sharp winds howled down from all sides and tore up the ground. Having spent all her life in blooming meadows and valleys the stony plateaus with their deep rifts scared her quite a bit. She avoided them as best as she could but soon accustomed to the environment. Good night’s sleep turned out to be a rare occurrence nonetheless.

   The mountains were near. Up here only grey conifers grew that fought against the cold. Sungown learned to ignore the loud cracking of frozen branches at night and to utilize the tree’s lee side without getting lost in the woods. There, dense briarwood and thorn-covered scrubs had overgrown what might have been a path once and it was black as night; she could barely see what grew behind the first few rows of trees, leaving her uneasy.

   Day after day flew by and every night she covered herself with needles and twigs. She missed the moaning of the earth; the stones on which she slept couldn’t be bothered and didn’t speak. In fact nothing up here spoke to her except the wind, but what was a gentle whisper down in the valley was more of a never ending lamentful scream. Sungown missed her chamber at the palace, she missed the company of Lousy and the princes, she missed fresh salad and the water bugs down by the pond. The pony often imagined to be back; then she planted the lantern in front of her, awoke the visage of the sun and watched the blue hue of the lantern enchantedly. From time to time she fell asleep while doing so. In her dreams Sungown lived beneath an ancient tree and ate away at its roots. When she woke she found herself in a dark world; whether it was the same night or the next, no one knew. Her longing grew with every step.

   Whenever she had passed one forest with the next being off in the distance, the stillness that hold sway over the plateau almost drove her insane. To break the silence she started talking to herself and later sang Lousy’s songs until she couldn’t stand it anymore and began to scream against the wind. Up here even the echo died down - but one time, someone answered. An infernal roar like the hissing of a titanic beast came from deep underground, leaving Sungown frozen solid on the spot. She stopped talking to herself or the wind after that. She also stopped fighting the cold. Though the wind hurt her face she didn’t avert it. Grey and cold her body became with little to no trace of her stunning beauty left. When it rained she usually sat down and waited. She paid attention to every single drop hitting her until the sensation became overwhelming - and once the rain was mixed with ice crystals it was as if hundreds of stings penetrated her coat (she paid attention to them as well). The weather formed and hardened her and she became as cold as stone.

   It was then that her surroundings began to change. Breaking through the stone small patches of grassland soddened by small watercourses enlivened the mountains. Thin layers of ice covered them that creakily broke under her hooves. Her way - she did not choose it; Sungown rather obeyed the intuition of the rabbits - went downhill for the first time in a long time now. The wind came from behind her; every now and then she’d spread her wings causing her bones to grunt and her joints to creak, only to wish the gust would be strong enough to lift her off the ground. Even though it never happened she enjoyed the feeling and told herself: “That’d be enough.” She tasted the ferns that spotted the ground; they were not as tasty as the ones she had had before but were enough to satisfy her hunger, at least for now. That evening she looked to the stars but didn’t recognize any pattern, so she took the time to come up with and name patterns of her own. To focus her mind on other things than the cold, the rain, and the silence of the stones filled her with glee. At times she even dared to hum a simple melody but could not bring herself to speak up. It must have been weeks since she had had heard a friendly voice. Next, she looked up again, wondering if - by any chance - she herself could not become a star as well? From then on she kept the lantern ablaze as to mimic a star around her neck.

   Far and wide she had wandered without meeting another living creature beside of her shadow or reflection on the water. That changed when she climbed down a steep slope and found herself in a forest. Making sure not to slip and fall she didn’t realise until the crunching of twigs snapped her out of it, and the sight simply took her by surprise. After this long time the soft ground felt strange, yet overwhelmingly right and, bouncing up and down, she strolled into the forest and made sure not to lose track so she wouldn’t get lost. Suddenly the rustling of leaves above her head made her turn; then a voice spoke:

   “Who strays into this part of the world? Oh by the heavens, it’s a ghost I see, it has to. No one ever risks to disturb the solitude that sleeps within these hills. Be gone, shadow; leave me be, leave me be.”

   “I am not a shadow or at least not yet”, Sungown replied. “I will become one sooner or later if I continue my journey through this tristesse. As of now I am something different entirely. Though my intentions were not to scare you; I’ll go and never be heard of again. Yet I must admit: it warms my heart to hear another voice other than my own.”

   “Indeed, you are of flesh and blood”, the voice said; it belonged to a bird as it turned out, with quite a flutter it sat on a branch and watched the pony from above. “To witness that; who would have thought? Pardon my behavior but the cold up here will get a hold of your heart eventually.”

   “No need to apologize, dear bird. I know the cold all too well.”

   “What”, the bird asked, “are you doing here all on your own anyway, do tell?”

   “I’m looking for someone”, Sungown replied.

   “Who might that be?”

   “That I do not know. Perhaps you can tell me? I seek someone to teach me something I don’t already know and, more importantly, teach me how to fly. Just look at my wings and how useless they flop by my side! Oh how I’d wish to soar like your kind do.”

   “Well… I do know how to fly. Is it me you’re looking for by any chance?”, the bird chirped.

   “The birds back at my homeland could not teach me and neither could the butterflies or the dragonfly. For long I have wandered and became first a rabbit, then a stone. Teach me how to become something else; then you just might succeed.”

   “To be something new is not within my power. However, to learn something new is a different story - perhaps I can teach you after all.”

   Sungown grinned excitedly. “Try your luck. I know a lot already.”

   “Very well”, the bird tweeted and tried to think of something that only she would know. Alas she had spent her entire life in this forest and thus asked: “Do you know what I am?”

   “Neither an eagle nor a hawk, that I’m sure of, though you could easily articulate as one. You are a magpie. I can tell from your plumage.”

   “Right you are. One what kind of tree am I sitting right now, hm?”

   “Simple; a larch. Its needles are all shed, they rustle beneath me.”

   “Right! But whose forest it is we are in?”

   “Nobody’s”, Sungown said, “and thus everybody’s.”

   “Right… again”, the magpie admitted, furious about how that pony was exposing her. “Here’s something you don’t know! My name!”

   “Not fair!”, Sungown cried out. “You don’t know mine either. Since you don’t seem to be able to teach me something new I will continue my search.”

   The magpie however longed for the pony’s lantern. The cunning bird had long watched Sungown from afar. Playing the kind and obliging stranger she had lured the pony into a trap. Seemingly upset, the magpie uttered: “If you don’t wish me to teach you how to fly go and be on your merry way. Of course I thought you’d be clever enough to see through my little jest. But time is of the essence. I can’t humor you for any longer if you are that stubborn. I’ve got other duties to tend to, you see, like repairing my nest and giving flight lessons…”

   She then spread her wings to take off when Sungown suddenly yelped: “Wait! You are a flight teacher? May I attend your classes? Please allow it, please!”

   “If you pay for it. My services are costly.”

   “Since I do not own anything I simply cannot pay you.”

   “Well… what about that lantern around your neck? It appears to me as a proper toll.”

   “Oh please don’t take it from me”, Sungown begged, “for I care deeply for it. But come to think of it I do have something else to give you.” She then took off the brooch and showed it to the magpie. Because the lantern was still burning the brooch caught a glimmer and seemingly glowed on its own.

   “Very well”, the magpie said eagerly, “that’ll do. It will buy you one hour and not a minute more!”

   “Before I give you my brooch though I wanna see that you can actually teach me properly.”

   Devious as ever the magpie picked up a pebble the winds had torn from the stone and carried into the crack between two branches of the tree she was sitting on. “This is my student”, the magpie chirped. “I’ve taught him all I know. Now, you mean to tell me pebbles can’t fly? Watch closely then for I’ll show you something new. How else did he possibly come all the way up here?” Tucking the pebble in her beak the magpie then soar high above the treetops and let go; the pebble vanished between the trees. “Marvellous! Look at him go!”, she hollered before returning to her branch. “He flew right to the peak of that mountain. Did you see him?”

   “I-I think so”, Sungown murmured in fear of upsetting the magpie again. She did see one thing: a small black dot that was here one moment and gone the other. But she couldn’t tell that the pebble had, in fact, fallen to the ground instead of flying to the mountain peak like the magpie claimed, and since no one’s had ever lied to Sungown she believed the bird. “He must be a special kind of pebble if he’s able to fly.”

   “Every pebble can fly provided he has the right teacher”, the magie chirped.

   “Never should I’ve doubted you. I did, and you proofed me wrong; for that I apologize. Take the brooch, it shall be yours. Now take me in as your student, dear, kind magpie!” With eyes wide in excitement she looked up to the magpie who swiftly swooped down and took the brooch off Sungown’s mane. However once she returned to the branch the lantern’s hue couldn’t reach it anymore, robbing it of its glimmer, and what was without glimmer was about as priceless as the dirt covering the ground in her forest. “Eeeeeeh!”, she spitted and cried. “Liar! Trickster! Give me what should be rightfully mine!”

   “But I don’t understand”, Sungown whispered.

   “Cheated! I’ve been cheated! Eeehhh! Nought will I teach you, trickster, gambler! A stone you are? Climb up the mountain and search for the pebble as your teacher then! Eeehhh!” Once more the magpie swooped down and chipped at Sungown’s head. She tried to fight back but the bird was as evasive as it was clever and sly, and the magpie didn’t let go of her until her mane was an utter mess; then she vanished. The brooch lay in a knothole where the magpie had left it, out of Sungown’s reach entirely. She stomped the ground in anger and sadness, she simply could not understand what had caused the bird’s outrage. At least, she told herself, she now knew who to turn to. The peak of the mountain was shrouded in clouds.

For two more days Sungown stayed at the forest in the hope the pebble would return in search of the magpie. While waiting she used the juicy plants growing betwixt the trees to rebuild her withered strength. “I eat in advance”, she once said to herself, confident enough to use her voice again, “who knows how much grows up there? Beside stone and ice and snow, of course.” When the third day came and nothing changed she left the forest at long last and approached the slope. Yet climbing up proofed to be way more difficult than climbing down. She had to utilize every dent she could find all the while trusting in her ability to pull her upwards without tumbling and falling. Soon covered in dirt and cuts she cried: “If only I could use those useless piles of feathers!” Loose stones gave way under her weight. Sometimes she had to turn back and climb up somewhere else because she didn’t find any edges to hold onto. It took her the entire day to reach a part of the slope that wasn’t as steep; a miserable old tree of white bark clinged to the stones and Sungown used the stem as a bed for the night. By dawn she woke and continued the last bit of climbing, when suddenly a loud clanging and crashing rose right behind her, and she turned around just in time to see the old tree falling down and breaking into pieces.

   It didn’t take her much longer to reach the top. Here, the debris was less and the winds of a thousand years past had chiselled the stone to resemble something akin to stairs. Following them she soon came to a ridge; she crossed it and when she arrived on a stony plateau the sun died in a sea of red at the horizon. Exhausted, Sungown stopped for a moment as the last light vanished from her sight. But the sky was clear and a waning gibbous moon spent enough light to guide her through the night.

   The ground was covered by an ever so thin layer of ice that glinted in the moonlight. It was as though she was walking upon and beneath an endless ocean of unresting stars, resembling myriads of eyes that blinked in anticipation whenever the pony took a step. Igniting her lantern, the land surrounding her was quickly soaked with quivering blue light with the ice reflecting it in every way possible. A rainbow was cast upon the ground and the wind carried away some ice crystals, throwing them into the air where Sungown danced amongst them. The sight was so magnificent that she couldn’t hold in a squeal of fresh delight. “If only Lousy could see!”, she laughed. “And the princes and the entire grove and mama, too!”

   If only! With the icy ground mirroring the above it did, in fact, seem as if she was flying, a starry infinity both above and below. She walked among the stars and was as beautiful and free as never before. All of a sudden some of the lights developed a life on their own as they whirred around in circles and buzzed and jumped aloft. Where they passed, gleaming sparks briefly flashed, and they were too quick for the eye to follow. It was then when Sungown realised them to be tiny fairies. Her lantern’s glow must have lured them out of their homes in the ground: living freely close beneath a mountain’s surface they loved, and were attracted by, anything that was merry and full of song. They often could be seen coming out in times of meteorite showers and some legends suggested the fairies simply tried to communicate with their siblings for they too had once been stars that had fallen from the sky. Now the untimely awakening made them reveal themselves and they watched Sungown with childlike curiosity. So much glee they found in her, so much energy and mirth; they soon stirred up a jolly little tone (this was and has always been the fairies’ way to commune; not every strange noise that could be heard up here was the result of the wind after all). Then Sungown too whistled one of Lousy’s songs, the fairies tuned in, an orchestra of voices that encircled the pony in colorful dancing moves. Sungown didn’t even realise how they started leading her uphill; her legs were not hers anymore and the lights mesmerizing and stunning.

   A blazing beam of light blinded her. With one wing fanned out she covered her eyes until she found a straight thought: Was the night over already? Far east between colored belts of fog a new sun rose, the song of the fairies died down and the sunlight quickly extinguished their gleam. Sink back into the ground they did, one at a time, returning to their earthen homes to rest. For minutes Sungown stood there and thought and saw and felt - nothing. She was at a place unknown to her, the ground was scarred, the air thin, far below her feet clouds clinged to the mountainside; she understood: the fairies had led her to the mountain’s peak. But her lantern was still down there… somewhere. With a woeful heart she uttered the words: “Now I am left with nothing. My blanket I tore apart, my brooch I sold, my lantern I forgot. Nothing to remember me of what I was until now. For a night I was a star and - like one - I burnt out. I danced amidst the fairies yet I didn’t return back into the ground. What am I now?”

   At that moment she became aware of a cave. Ample and massive the maw of stone yawned, Sungown entered to flee the sunlight. Inside, the symmetrie the place bore surprised her. The walls stood firmly straight, the ground without a gouge, the ceiling wondrously curved. Fascinated she dared going deeper. It didn’t take her long (the cave’s entry was still visible and provided some light) to reach a flight of steps that led her deeper into the cave. At the end she found herself in a giant hall; the hall at the queen’s palace was nothing compared to this one. In sooted pans flickering flames burnt, casting dancing shadows upon the walls, the ground - but one spot they seemingly avoided and a titanic one at that. She soon came to realise that the spot was an animal. The creature towered high above her. Its scales were too black to reflect any of the flame’s light and when it breathed air the scales followed the body’s movement, meandering around as if they were liquid. The tail was armed with thick red thorns and red were the claws at all of its paws. Smoke rippled from his nostrils like the jaws inhabited a fiery abysm. Sungown opened her eyes in awe as she looked up to a real, living dragon.

   And the dragon looked back - with eyes as white and brilliant as stars, faceted like a diamond.

   “I have heard you since you first set hoof on my mountain”, the dragon spoke, his voice a quake, but melodious and slow like a dream. “Tell me, what brings you here?”

   “Great dragon”, Sungown said, “I’m looking for someone. I did not know of you and did not mean to interrupt your slumber.”

   “Nothing ever interrupts me”, the dragon answered. “I see wide and hear far. Nothing on this mountain that I don’t know of and what does not live on this mountain does not know of me; nothing that I not have heard of; every tale and every name I remember.”

   “How many, I wonder?”

   “Even more than there are scales on my body.”

   “I could count them an eternity over and still wouldn’t be able to finish. You must be alive for a very long time, great dragon, if you know so many tales.”

   “Indeed, for I grew with this mountain and came from his roots. Minutes are eternities to me while the years pass by like the leaves in fall.”

   “But you must grow very lonely, great dragon. Close to no other being did I meet on my way from the forests of the valley up here. Is there no one to visit you?”

   “Many questions you ask”, he spoke, rising his head even higher into the air. His eyes glistened in the darkness. “You walk into my home without a word of introduction. You interrogate me but yet failed to reveal who you are looking for. You know what I am, don’t you? Aren’t you scared of the punishment I could bring over you for your rudeness?”

   “How could I be afraid?”, Sungown bluntly asked. “Great dragon, you are so powerful and wise and beautiful. Your voice, even after I’ve offended you, sings; you are a part of this mountain and just as dainty and noble and colossal. All the songs speak of the splendor of your kind and no harm have you done to me yet. I am not afraid because it would mean to disregard all I see in you. Though I admit: You know how to intimidate me. And I’m envious of your wings - you must soar to unheard heights thanks to them, am I right?”

   “Higher, further than any other being. I reach for the stars and watch the world from above; the stars tell me all they know, all they see. From time to time I take one with me to listen to his never ending whisper while I sleep. But you are a fool not to be afraid. It would take one breath of air to end you, nothing more, and I would not mourn you; all would return to normal with the mountain as a home to me and me alone.”

   “So be it”, Sungown sighed. “Great dragon, once the die is cast there is no salvation. In no way possible could I outrun you and my death would go unnoticed. And I tell you this: Would I not find who I came for I’d rather end up in your belly than live on with my failure. But perhaps you’ll spare me if I offer you my name and my story to you: take them in as a part of your collection.”

   “I accept your offering”, the dragon explained. “However, consider this: Once given, all of it belongs to me. Behold: Aranay is my name, the Endless, he who was and is and never ceases to be, collector of all names and teller of all stories, the mountain’s heart and emperor over all winds. Every name I take is mine for names are all - they are past, present, and future of its bearer. If you give it to me I’ll spare your life. But you will no longer be who you have been before.”

   “I stopped being what I was a long time ago”, Sungown uttered. “Though still young I was a wild variation of things. Born as a butterfly, my mother raised me in a green meadow of undying beauty far away from here where I learned all that was to know. Then I left, listened to the earthen songs, dug up four princes out of a hole in the ground and clothed them with the sky’s azure hue. Their mother, the Queen of the Grove, allowed me to live beneath the earth like a rabbit, I talked to the trees and once again learned it all. That was my first transformation. For seven months I’ve lived as a rabbit and almost turned into a dragonfly. My teacher, it was he who taught me the songs that tell of your kind, was, however, not strong enough to change me. After that I left with the sun hung around my neck. She would rise on my command only. Long have I wandered about after that. I came to your mountain, slept amidst trees and stones, ate snow and rain and let myself be formed by the wind just as stone until I finally became one. Soon after I came across a forest. There I met the magpie and gave away my brooch, but she shunned me - so I climbed cliffs and wood until I could pick the stars from the sky to dance with them. Here my third transformation took place. In deepest night I awoke the sun to lure fairies out of their nests. Whistling my melodies, they led me up here before vanishing but not before I was turned into a fairy myself. Alone, I was transformed for the fifth and final time: I became nothing. I had lost everything that bound me to what I have been. Now, do what you please. So many times did I become something only to be nothing anyway, merely a shell filled with memories in search of a pebble that can, at long last, teach me how to fly.”

   As she ended, Aranay nodded and sighed: “Very well. Your story is told. But now to your name.”

   “Which one would you like to hear? As someone who can barely stay the same for a long time I have gathered many. My mother named me Sungown and such was my name among the butterflies. The birds at home used to call me Leafhead after how my hair reminded them of the fall. Hath Atal was my rabbit name - She Who Is Dressed in Sunlight is what it means. The fairies sang to me and whistled but whether it resembled a name I do not know. Only the stones did not call me anything, in return the magpie gave me three names: Liar, Trickster, and Gambler. Will you take all of them, Aranay? Or will you be as kind as to leave me at least one so there’ll be something to call me by?”

   “Never have I met an animal with so many names. Since you told them all I will take them.”

   “Take them”, Sungown sadly sighed. “One must be a dragon to bear them all I reckon. Will you show mercy? Now, rendered less than nothing, there is no use in ending me.”

   “Your life you may keep. Your story was long and your names aplenty. And still I wonder how you were able to transform so many times and yet stand in front of me as something different entirely?”

   “What would that be?”, she asked. “I have told you everything I know. I rid myself of everything to save my life, gave away every single name.”

   “Except one. I see a pegasus before me. After all your transformations this one is as clear as day to me.”

   “This name I don’t know. Neither have I seen one nor was I called one until now.”

   It was at that moment Aranay broke into laughter. “Oh what fool of a gatherer I am!”, he cried in delight. “I remember all the names and the faces that told them - never have I named something myself other than me. Pegasus I call you because a pegasus you are! A winged pony! Of course you cannot fly like the birds or the dragonflies if you try in their image and had to meet a dragon to become something that no one could ever rid you off!”

   “But I’ve never learned how to be a pegasus”, she shyly murmured. “I don’t know how to act and what to say. Help me, Aranay, I beg you!”

   “To show you how to be a pegasus is not within my power. All my life have I been dragon and always will be till the day I leave this world.”

   “Show me how to become a dragon, then”, she demanded, causing Aranay to laugh again.

   “Are you sure about it?”, he asked through his tears.

   “I am the way I am”, Sungown said. “If it’s true what you said - and I don’t doubt your words - it matters not what I’m called or what I become. I have been a pegasus the entire time without even knowing and despite that I have had so many names, knew so many stories and became so many things. If a pegasus can manage to do that then imagine, Aranay, what a dragon is able of. I do not care what others see but what they see in me. Thus I plead, Aranay, great dragon, gatherer of names and teller of stories, you who called me by the name that was mine by birth:”, here she thought of Lousy and what he had told her, “Teach me how to become a dragon in order to make more of me than I ever was without losing what I have already been.”

   And Aranay spread his majestic wings, saying: “Do you know how dragons are born? They are but what earth yearns for the most and earth always yearns for what it cannot have. Whenever this yearning is satisfied a new dragon comes to life. So come, come with me, let me guide you to the very origin of all the earth yearns for: the stars!”

   With that, Aranay left his cave for the first time in a long time; long was their conversation, night had casted its veil upon the world. No living soul spied the gargantuan shadow as it pierced the heavens, the pegasus always by his side. Together they picked a star off the horizon; she took it and watched its ever changing, mesmerizing, pulsing light as if it was filled with souls that nervously flickered around. For the very first time she had flown. Her greatest wish, her yearning, finally came true and a star was her bestowment. She tended to it and hold it and the energy kept within overcame her, filling her body with celestial power. A horn sprung from her forehead all the while her legs and wings grew in size.

   “Again you have changed”, Aranay said. “Not a pegasus anymore but something new completely. I have no name for you. You may choose at your liking as is tradition among the dragons.”

   “What is a name anyway, dearest Aranay?”, Sungown said with a voice more gallantly and regal than before. “I bore them since the beginning with pegasus being the last. I became a dragon and now, again, something new. None shall call me by any name. Rather shall I be remembered by the things I did and intend to do. Something bigger lives inside of me now, bigger than anything I’ve ever dreamed of. I shall be gentle and wise and find my roots.”

And thus, or at least the legends tell it that way, is how the first alicorn came to be. She became the first leader of her race, Aranay always by her side and father to all dragons that followed him. From him she was told every name and soon learned every story and was benevolent and just to all, and whenever she didn’t know the answer to a question Aranay took her to the stars until she learned how to fly by herself. To the ponies she was the symbol of the sky, the sun, and the moon for she carried their energy and brought it down to the earth. And when the day came when weariness clouded her mind, she spoke: “Aranay, my time has come. Soon I will be gone, but don’t leave me down here. Take me to the stars one last time: I love them like children. You however shall return.”

   Whereas Aranay replied: “Once I gave you a name and even though you wished not to I have yet another one for you. I call you my friend. To the stars I will fly you and watch after your soul until it all ends.”

   Thus they left this mortal realm: the first alicorn, mother of all alicorns that followed her on the throne, and as the flame of her life flickered, Aranay, her closest friend, was with her as he has been almost all her life. And he still watches over this world and remembers all that has ever been.

The End