Atomic Number

by WritingSpirit

Rating: everyone
Tags: Adventure, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 4422

Twilight Sparkle takes a trip down a river.

Twilight Sparkle takes a trip down a river.

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Inspired by the music of case/lang/veirs
Cover art by Hioshiru

Published 2017-10-06 20:50:07 UTC
Last updated 2017-10-06 20:50:07 UTC

Atomic Number

he great river flowed on, regardless.

Morning came and went without much fanfare. Golden rays blossomed in full force, tearing through the clouds gathered from last night and beckoning her onward. The wind came surging in from behind, tussling her mane and plucking a few of her feathers. In its wake, the sails above her head fluttered about, their ruffles falling onto deaf ears. Within it all, Twilight Sparkle maintained her steadfast gaze ahead to the coming rightward bend, her magic gracefully tipping the wheel as her eyes darted between the boat's path and the billowing scarlet ribbons she had tightly tied on the cables.

"Alnus rhombifolia."

Green, gracious green. Pleasant was the color plentifully presiding over this bountiful landscape, should one discount the brilliant azure blanketing the sky and its shimmering reflection in the waters. Flanked by tall, lush trees on both sides, flowers blossoming in the height of summer, she was stuck in the denseness of it all, smiling softly. The leaves rustle when a particularly strong wind picked up, almost as if applauding her presence. She couldn't help but sway to their tune as well.

"Betula occidentalis."

A leftward bend, much sharper than the one prior, yet it warranted no more than a gentle tip of the wheel. As the boat made its way around, Twilight let out a gasp, tucking her wings and crouching low when she spotted a splendid flock of blackbirds up above not too far ahead, gorgeously performing in a rarely seen yet frequently spectacular murmuration. They cascaded inside and out, warping and morphing constantly and sinuously into the most irregular of curves, yet still drifting together like a singularity across the sky. For the longest time, she marveled at the birds in their freeform waltz, displaying passionately their avian prowess and dexterity with the most undulant of geometries. How they pulled it off would never cease to amaze her, even after knowing the queer biology behind it all, though riding down that tangent would only do a disservice to describe the rhapsodic masterpiece happening before her very eyes. So she sat there, merely as an admirer, and nothing else.

"Abies lasiocarpa."

The great river flowed on, regardless.

The watery path split in two, cupping in its embrace a long stretch of dry land. Gentle waves gift to the bay gravel chips, sand grains and the occasional fallen branch waiting to be snatched away by some passing beaver or mallard. Huddled in the center of the island, jutting out from where a trio of giant rocks rested, stood proudly a cluster of cedar trees, towering above most of its fellow compatriots. Squinting her eyes, Twilight could make out a diverse collection of colored birds perched on its branches. Had she brought a pair of binoculars, she would've been able to correctly identify them right down to their species. She wasn't here for birdwatching in the first place, after all. Nevertheless, she made a mental note to return here just for that, perhaps even have her friends tag along as well. Make some good memories out of this place. Now wouldn't that be nice?

"Picea mariana."

A shrill, rattling chirp came from beside her. Turning her head, Twilight smiled when she spotted a belted kingfisher perched on the boat's gleaming railings, its crested head fluttering as it perked up its neck, black beady eyes staring at her. She tipped her head low in a muted greeting, though it seemed to pay no heed to her gesture, instead letting out another rattling call before diving down the side of the boat, swiping a stray fish from the river and swooping off with it flailing in its beak. She watched as it took a sharp turn and veered off towards the trees, only to lose sight of it amid the leaves, hopefully to return back to its roost or perhaps search for another somewhere else. Certainly a most mundane mystery to ponder over in the days to come.

"Abies nordmanniana."

With the kingfisher's departure came the familiar sensation pressing against her bones. It felt discomforting, perhaps even infuriatingly so, yet these past few days it had mellowed out, never quite able to overwhelm the creaking rafters of the boat as it did prior. Perhaps she was coming to terms with it. Perhaps it had all been just her emotions going awry, shattering into splinters and pricking at her joints. She never knew what to make of this sensation and all the usual furor that would come with it afterwards, and she never would. All for the best, she presumed. Let everything run its course and it shall reach a conclusion, eventually.

The great river flowed on, regardless.

"Larix laricina."

Dropping the anchor by the island's bend, Twilight Sparkle lowered the sails as the boat lurched to a halt, rocking lightly to the waves it made. With a final stretch of her wings, she descended into the cabin, taking care not to jam her horn into the doorframe as she did so many times before. She rummaged under her bunk, sifting through the stockpile of snacks she prepared for the journey, her hoof wavering over the plethora of canned goods and packets before reaching for an apple. She had a boxful of them down there, courtesy of Applejack despite her insistence otherwise; she would only be away for a few days, after all. Nevertheless, the box of apples remained, and so she took one from the crop and bit into it, chewing while she searched the drawers to pick out a book from several she had brought along to entertain her as the sun began its slow descent.

Two hundred and eighty-seven pages and five apple cores in a paper bag later, she dimmed her lantern and huddled in her bunk, giving one last gander at the magnificence of the night sky outside the window. The sensation from earlier returned, tugging at her ribs and pulling at the walls of her chest. Knowing no better remedy to treat it, she snuggled against her blanket and closed her eyes, slowly but surely finding herself peacefully drifting down a strange and ethereal yet all-too-familiar path that would become but a mere, incongruent fuzz of gray in the morning.

The great river flowed on, regardless.

There was a storm last night. Vicious, considering how harsh was the nocturnal winds' rocking of the boat. Strangely enough, Twilight didn't feel nauseated by it in her sleep— she attributed it to the vigorous flying lessons she would have with Rainbow Dash on a monthly basis. Clambering across the narrow wooden deck towards the bow, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting the soothing air swirl in her swelling lungs. Pungent was the unique scent of pine and petrichor, yet it had been the most refreshing thing to relish in her journey so far. Coupling it with the chill of the early morning, she soon found herself wide awake, her spirit swathed in a soft, splendid serenity.

The waking world was without a wistful smile in these parts, so she brought it upon herself to step in and undertake that role. It certainly wasn't the brightest smile she could muster, but it should suffice. The sky lightened up in turn, the deep haze of violet being spilled over by a vermilion curdle. A chorus of dawn's sweetest chirrups celebrated its arrival as its first few rays peeked out from the shadow of the distant mountains, grandiose light rushing in like a tidal wave to meet her gaze.

"Abies grandis."

Freshwater sparkled. The trees glowed green. A gentle wind picked up, and in its wake, Twilight adjusted the sails and made her way towards the wheel, her hoof tipping it by its gilded spokes. Riding down another inconspicuous bend, the boat turned to face the rising sun, majestic as ever even in this corner of the world. Gazing as it is now, with the wind carrying her mane and streaming through her wings... she could only hope to capture this oh so glorious moment she once imagined impossible: seated on the deck of her homely sailboat, drifting down the river bend with the sunshine caressing her cheeks and the forest air stroking her lungs. It was, in every way, incomparable.

The last of the constellations faded away as the amber fields burned blue. By the time noon came around, the boat had sailed into the mouth of a ravine. Jagged white cliffs towered over her from both sides, with gleaming streaks of marble veins zigzagging across. At one point, Twilight could lean over the sides of the boat and reach out a hoof to touch them, feeling the crooked lines of smoothness ripping through the rock. Her gaze traveled upwards, blinking when she was met with a peeking glare of sunlight, though beyond that she could spot the garrison of fir trees standing stiffly at attention, many of which sprinkled the ravine in a waltzing cascade of its green needles. She giggled underneath this gentle shower, feeling them brush lightly against her skin even as some of them trapped themselves in her coat and mane. Not that she minded, after all.

"Abies concolor."

The ravine soon opened up, the cliffs parting like curtains. As the river returned to flowing in its full glory, she trotted back towards her cabin, glancing at the map of the forest neatly spread out across the table. It was still incomplete, as there were certain parts of this forest that were still left untrodden and thus, uncharted. Nevertheless, that shouldn't bother her too much; her destination was already marked with a red pin, located further downstream still. She should come upon it in another day or so, and she certainly would if she dallied not. Then, and only then, can she finally have her peace of mind.

Finally, when the boat had left the shadow of the cliffs, she dropped the anchor with a flick of her magic, letting the boat steady itself before it spun to a halt. Tying her mane up into a ponytail, Twilight trotted towards the edge and knelt down, her hoof meagerly skimming the water's surface, before she gently lowered herself into the river with a soft sigh. The needles that coated her drifted from her form, and when she dipped her head into the water, those trapped in her mane followed suit. With a brisk gasp of glee, she tossed her head back, sending an arc of dazzling droplets skittering across the river, their last words expressed in a flurry of concentric ripples. A few paddles about later, Twilight soon began washing herself clean, ensuring with great precision that every hair and every pore of her skin was rinsed completely. During it all, before the curious stares of a herd of deer stopping by for a drink, her mind wandered, at first in search of a song to hum to, but it nevertheless came upon something else.

"Why here?"

Why here? Why this forest in the middle of nowhere? Why not somewhere close by? Someplace she could just trot to? Someplace she was most familiar with? Why not the forests near home? Surely there's no need to sail all the way out here for this, right? So why here? Why this place? Of all the places she could even imagine to begin with, why here? Why a place she knew nothing about? Why a place she would never had thought to come to otherwise? Why here?

The answer was rather simple, really.

Because there's no place quite like home.

The great river flowed on, regardless.

The galaxies above her head were as bright as they were breathtaking, even from between the branches. She could hear them shimmer, those stellar swirls, their rings tinged in yearning. Drenched in the cosmic candlelight, Twilight listened to their lustrous echoes, letting them guide her cradle across the violet haze permeating across the midnight waters. Beyond it came vagrant howling, dour and deafening in resonance, united despite their irregularity. The rustling of leaves that followed caught her attention, and from the undergrowth she caught sight of pairs of glowing eyes wary and wrathful, though she paid no heed to them, instead persisting forward.

Her eyes scorched with fatigue. Her jaw was left hanging halfway, trembling as she soldiered on against breaking the silence with a yawn. With a grumble, she scrambled to reach for another apple from the box she hauled up from her cabin and took a huge bite, the zesty juices reinvigorating her as it always does for three minutes and forty-nine seconds tops. She blinked, trying to break through the blurry veil hanging over her eyes, yet try as she might, it would never come off, perhaps for the best. Flashing lights flickered from the back of her mind. Circles clustered before her flustered eyes. The hole in her head was a gaping maw, eating away at rationality and forethought like a virulent infection. The fire beneath her eyes razed her irises, seething into them a bloodshot red. It was then, and only then, did Twilight Sparkle begrudgingly surrender, albeit with grace.

Groaning in defeat, she mustered the last spurt of her magic to drop the anchor, before she clumsily dragged herself into the warmth of the cabin and crawled right into the comforting warmth of her bed. Gazing out the window at the snickering stars, she withheld a snarl. Her breathing shivered once, then stopped, then once more, before it evened out into a long, mellow exhalation. Her hoof reached under her bed, absentmindedly petting the satchel she had stashed beneath alongside all her assorted foodstuff. With that, she closed her eyes and, almost instantly, began freefalling into a dense abyss of darkness.

From portentous darkness, came prosperous light.

"Wow..."

"Wow indeed, Your Highness."

"I mean... this is certainly something else. I mean, I expected it to be old, but not this old."

"Well, it did have its fair share of history here in Ponyville, even before its conversion."

"This place... the town it was brought from... it's not on the map."

"Not anymore, at least. From what I know, no one ever goes there anymore. No one even remembers its name anymore. Frankly, considering its distance from Canterlot and every other major settlement across Equestria, I'd say it wouldn't be particularly feasible if anyone decided to head all the way back there just to try and start over."

"That's true."

"It's a shame, really. I heard it was quite a lovely town. Now, there left only memories of that place. In fact, my grandfather even had some old photos he took from that place before everything happened. I have to say, despite their age, they still looked rather lovely."

"That town would've been something, wouldn't it, Mayor Mare?"

"Indeed, Your Highness. Indeed. To think, back in its day, it was a tourist attraction. Now, all that's left of it is just mere memories."

Mere memories.

It was with that parting epiphany — that quaint pair of words — that Twilight Sparkle swiftly returned to the material world. Rubbing her eyes, she stretched her hooves, then her wings, before capping it all off with a quiet yawn. Wandering out of her cabin and onto the deck, the tepid trickle of river water beguiling to the ear, she found herself once again with her breath stolen, this time by a sight she had somehow missed hours earlier in her meandering daze: the supermoon, this infrequent yet extraordinary sight, hanging there in all its full lunar glory. It loomed over the magnificent river and the insignificant boat rocking on its rolling waters, and for a moment laughter, distant and defiant and devilish all at once, rang in her ears. Twilight chastised her overactive imagination, instead seeking solace in the burgeoning blossom of moonlight encapsulating her form. In exchange, she could only provide it unspoken echoes of admiration.

"Mere memories..."

Half-truths were always hard to dissect. They were memories, certainly, though not mere memories, mind you. To call them 'mere' memories was to discount all that had happened beneath its shadow, and that would be akin to travesty. She remembered how they began as clear as how they ended. With fondness comes fire; with solace comes splinters; with respite comes rage. In the end, all that was left was ash and its screaming scent scattering in the wind, and for the longest time, she never sought to do anything about it.

The great river flowed on, regardless.

"Pinus monticola."

Trees upon trees upon trees. Remarkable was the diversity of them mingling as one converging green, lining along the banks of the more desolate of tributaries. They were the last guardians, standing firmly even as the ground beneath them was being washed away as tendrils of mud, their root peeking out from the dirt barricade. Their fallen friends, stripped bare of leaves, were usually floating down the river, waiting to be trapped by the rushing current within an inward bend or wedged between a pair of jutting rocks. A blistering crack from behind was all the warning Twilight had, turning around in time to see one of the taller dirt cliffs breaking apart and collapsing, dragging a trio of trees alongside it into the churning depths.

"Pinus contorta."

Veering the boat away from the banks, Twilight kept a steady gaze onward as she had done so for the past few days, though she found the itch to shy away growing as she neared her destination. She glanced down to her satchel she had brought out from beneath the bed onto the deck, lingering over it before realizing that her eyes had fallen into the cracks between the floorboards. Shaking her head, she returned to the forward gaze she had trained and tendered throughout her time in this faraway forest, awaiting for her destination to make its eventual rise from the horizon.

"Populus tremuloides."

There were fewer animals here, so she noticed. With how prone the soil was to prostrate to the ravaging rapids, she couldn't blame them. Still, Twilight reckoned it wouldn't hurt to see a curious bunny, fox or deer staring out at her from the undergrowth, or at least hear a more exuberant song from the birds instead of another soliloquy to muddy melancholy. Solitude had a firm stranglehold down in these parts, it would seem, for even the fires of the sun felt feeble before this fortress.

The great river flowed on, regardless.

It was on that final note that she finally arrived at a ghost town, nestled deep in the basin between the highest of mountains.

The steepled belfry was the first to welcome her, its white walls burnished with dirt, moss and lichen. The rusted bell still hanging on in its confines swung in the mild wind, celebrating her arrival with muted tolls. Beyond it laid the submerged remains of what was once a bustling town that had rested snugly beneath the mountain, their collapsed roofs the only sign of them above the water. Some of the taller buildings barely managed to hoist up their gabled windows, left shattered by the elements. One even had the misfortune to have a tree fall and crash into its rafters, leaving its bark split into two and hanging above the gaping hole. Carefully, Twilight circumvented her boat between the buildings, the first few notches of the town's layout forming in her head, and as she traveled further inward, the ache in her ribs returned.

There's no place quite like home.

Twilight gazed up as her boat fell into the shadow one of the larger structures looming high above the water. With only the cap of the stone balcony barely peeking out from the water and the tarnished pediment being held up by a pair of crumbling columns to help her, she recognized it as being the town hall building from the photos that Mayor Mare had brought to show her. From here, she glanced southwest, smiling when she saw, situated high above in the mountains, her destination standing strong amid the trees. With that in mind, she readjusted the boat and sailed towards it, weaving between the waterways she had mapped out until it came upon the fractured remains of a road, prompting her to release the anchor with a swish of her magic.

Grabbing her satchel, she clambered onto the side of the deck and teleported herself onto the broken path, marking the beginning of her long trek into the mountains. Within the first several steps of her journey, there were a couple of abandoned apartments and destitute houses amid the tall grass, spared perhaps from the great flood of the distant past, though she concurred with how unstable the land around here was, they would slide into the water eventually. Sooner or later, however, she was surrounded by the familiar pillars of spruce and pine, casting upon her a cooling shade as she ventured down the vanishing dirt road, swallowed as it were by the sprawling undergrowth.

"Chamaecyparis pisifera."

The trek up the mountain must've taken hours. Several, in fact, according to the mental notes she made of the position of the sun every time she stopped for a break to nibble on a granola bar and gulp down a few breaths of the thinning air. The once-soothing wind was harsh and frigid at these heights, nipping at her coat as it passed her by without warning. Glancing up, she could make out her destination peeking from above the highest of branches, still standing strong despite its battered walls and broken windows. The steep incline Twilight had been trudging on slowly leveled out, a triumphant gasp leaving her lips when she finally stumbled into a clearing thriving with tall grass. Panting and recouping her breathing, she looked up at the triumvirate of dilapidated wooden buildings in the center of it all, before carefully making her way through the cracking doorway.

Once inside, she closed her eyes, finding herself ensnared by the overwhelming smell of old wood. The wooden walls, overran with thick layers of moss, were crumbling, with gaping holes letting swathes of sunlight sweeping in. The same could be said for the roof: a mere glance up, Twilight could see the sky beyond severed rafters and twisted beams, the rays of sunlight streaming between them momentarily blocked out by a flock of passing birds. At the side, flowers and fungi populate what was once a log carriage, with the blunt teeth of a rusted circular sawblade peeping out from the enmeshment. What's more interesting were the trees growing from inside here, breaking out of the wooden boards with their branches to reach the heights of their counterparts outside. Ironic, Twilight giggled to herself, to have all these trees growing in a sawmill, of all places.

When she finally finished admiring this hidden sanctuary, Twilight Sparkle settled down and flipped open her satchel, taking out a shovel, the paper bag she had filled full of apple cores throughout the extent of her journey, and most important of them all, a tightly-sealed urn. Without further ado, she began shoveling dirt off the ground, stopping and smiling in satisfaction once the hole was large enough. Turning towards her urn, she carefully removed the tape wrapped around the edge of the lid with magical finesse, all the while staring at a single nametag she had pasted on its side, the pair of words neatly written out in her elegant manuscription.

Her hooves were clumsier than her horn for this particular task, though she persisted with them nevertheless. Grappling at its ceramic curves and trying her best to stifle even the lightest trembles, Twilight gently and carefully tipped the urn towards the hole she had dug earlier. The ashes spilled forth first, scattering throughout the building and swirling in the light breeze, though she made sure to shepherd most of the sparkling grey into the hole, forming a small, short-lived mound soon to be spread out evenly across the dirt by her deft hooves. Coming from the very bottom of the earth, needing only a gentle push to egg it out, was a single acorn — a miraculous find beneath a pile of soot while cleaning up the burnt debris. Tenderness was all that graced her as she placed the acorn right in the middle, laying out around it in a circle the browning apple cores from the paper bag. When she was done, she gave a stretch of her dirt-stained wings and her muddied hooves, smiling sweetly at her display.

"You're gonna like it here," she spoke to it for the last time, taking one more gander at its home before eliciting a sigh. "Take care now."

Those parting words were heavy, the sensations in the back of her head flaring out to an intensity she had never felt before. Wearing only a wrinkling grimace to quell the more morose of thoughts, Twilight shoveled the dirt back into the hole, the dirt splattering across the ashen mound and circlet of apples one by one. Flattening the dirt with a few more slaps, she settled back onto her haunches with a beatific grin, a newfound warmth filling her chest and rising from her cheeks. For the longest time, she sat there in this tranquil paradise, conferring to it her quaintest thoughts and deepest secrets. When the skies started burning an amber red, she finally placed everything in her satchel, stood up and trotted back from whence she came, giving one last long and hopeful look over her shoulder before setting off on her own journey back home.

Night fell far and fast by the time she returned to her boat, the spangled sky once again enrapturing her, albeit not for long. After a quick bath in the river, she quickly retired to her cabin. She wasn't ready to sleep yet, no. Rather, underneath the guiding veil of a careening oil lantern above her head, she laid out a sheet of paper on the table and brought out her quill, nonchalantly stirring its very tip in the obsidian depths of the ink pot while her gaze drifted up to the stars, before making its gradual descent with an inspirited smile that graced even the finest edges of her lips. Thus and so, pen meets parchment, and with it came the first words in an ode to her former home:

"The great river flows on, regardless."

Author's Note