Rockhoof could barely feel his heart beating. His light blue fur glistened with cold droplets gleaned from the fog surrounding his row boat. His light brown beard and mane dripped from the damp.
How long had he been on this boat? Why would the ocean be so glass smooth for what felt like an eternity? Would this cotton-thick mist ever lift? Since the stallion was half-numb from sitting in the boat for so long, he couldn’t even pretend to care.
His ears swiveled as he heard the flapping of large wings. He looked up, peering into the mist. As the sound grew louder, a dark blue shape coalesced into a familiar Alicorn.
“Hello, Rockhoof,” greeted Princess Luna.
Struggling to muster a polite smile, he replied, “Hail to you, Princess Luna. How did you find me in this haze?”
When she folded up her wings, she smiled. “Take a fanciful guess, my friend.”
It took a moment for the warrior to look down and notice that Luna was standing on top of the water.
“Ah. Right. I should have realized. How long have I been asleep?”
“You’ve been sleeping quite a bit lately, Rockhoof. You have also isolated yourself from your friends for a bit too long. Starswirl has asked me to figure out what troubles you so.” Luna rubbed her chin while examining her surroundings. “Hmm. Becalmed at sea. Surrounded by impenetrable fog. Alone in a boat, which I cannot help but notice, is designed to hold two passengers.”
“Oh!” cried Rockhoof as he scooted down the boat. “Forgive me! Please come aboard.”
“Thank you,” said Luna as she sat down. “I have seen this sort of dream before. Usually from those who have suffered great losses in their lives.”
His shoulders sank as he nodded. “You are not wrong, Princess. After my companions had returned to their respective homes, I decided to return to my village. I knew that after a thousand years of imprisoning the Pony of Shadows in Limbo that there were bound to be some changes, but . . .”
Luna’s ears flattened as she put a consoling hoof on his shoulder. “Rockhoof, there’s no way you could have known that Grani’s volcano had erupted a century after you had left.”
Rockhoof sniffed as his voice caught in his throat. “My home is completely gone, Luna! When I got back to Canterlot, I did some research and discovered that only a few ponies had escaped the eruption. I should have just put a stone cap on that blasted volcano when I had the chance!”
“Even with your immense strength, not even you could have bottled the volcano up forever. I’m afraid that this dream may have come about because you’re struggling with a basic truth that every hero has to face eventually.”
“What’s that?”
“You can’t save everypony. No matter what you do, no matter how hard you struggle, no matter how much pain you endure, somepony will die under your watch. This also holds true for any law enforcement officer, every firefighter and every doctor that I’ve ever known. Sometimes good people die who shouldn’t. I can’t stop that from happening.” Luna patted his back. “Neither can you.”
“That’s not the only thing that’s bothering me. I had to dig around ancient history books in order to find out anything about the eruption. Not even the head librarian had heard of Grani. When I was done with my research, I had to get away from Canterlot so I could come to grips with what I had learned. It was nighttime when I had reached the Everfree Forest.”
Rockhoof sighed. “I thought that perhaps I could look up into the night sky and still find the constellations that told the stories that I had learned in my youth.” Wiping off a tear, he said, “But try as I might, I can’t recognize the stars anymore.”
She nodded. “Ah, I see. Many stars have come and gone in the past thousand years. A vast number of them have slipped out of their old positions.”
“All the old stories and heroes my people placed in the sky are all gone. The stars have forgotten about everything that ever inspired me to be a member of the Mighty Helm. If even the stars can’t recall my history, who can?”
“I understand now. You feel like you don’t belong in the modern world because even the night sky doesn’t look familiar.”
“What troubles me more than anything is that my beloved home is gone, but almost nopony nowadays knows where Grani ever was. My greatest loss isn’t significant to anyone but me. I feel like a combat veteran that the world has deemed irrelevant. Unworthy.”
Luna patted his back. “You and I have more in common than you might realize.”
Tilting his head, he replied, “Really?”
“When I came back from the moon, I had to undergo extensive voice training so that I could leave behind the old-fashioned ways of royal speech. That was just the beginning of my re-education. The more I learned, the more depressed I became.”
“Why?”
“A thousand years of change meant a thousand years of losses, of missed opportunities. At least that’s what I initially presumed. What I eventually learned was that life, no matter what its length, isn’t just losses or gains.” Looking straight into Rockhoof’s eyes, Luna continued. “Life is often a series of exchanges. People come and people go. Some people are forgotten, but others are remembered. I lost a thousand years being in exile, but I regained my sanity and my sister. You spent a thousand years in Limbo and lost your ancestral home, but you now have another chance to start a new life.”
Rockhoof stroked his beard thoughtfully. “I suppose we do bear a semblance after all.”
Luna smiled. “That’s right. You simply need to give yourself more time to adjust to the way things are and not brood over the way things were. Speaking of which,” she cradled her front hooves under his own. “I think you’ve been becalmed at sea for far too long. Would you like to see what the stars look like to me?”
“Am I going to wake up now?”
“Oh, no. We’re going into my dream now. Just hang on.”
Luna unfurled her wings. With one jump, they both shot straight up and away from the foggy waters. A moment later, they were a mile above Equestria, the night sky glittering around them like gemstones.
Wide-eyed, he admitted, “I’m impressed. You have an excellent memory of star patterns.”
“Getting banished to the moon gave me plenty of time to memorize every star. There’s something about the night sky that you were obviously never told before your self-imposed exile.”
“What’s that?”
“A year after you and your fellow Pillars of Equestria went into Limbo, my sister mapped out star patterns to commemorate not only you but also your companions.” Luna’s horn glowed and luminescent images of his friends phased into view.
His eyes widened as he grinned. “That’s me holding my shovel! There’s Starswirl holding a spell book!”
Luna smiled at his joy. “Not only that, but whenever stars appear, die out or change position, Celestia redraws the constellations to accommodate the changes. A book of my sister’s astronomy-work has been revised and distributed throughout Equestria the entire time you and your companions were gone.”
“I’m not unworthy after all,” said Rockhoof, still staring at the glowing pictures.
“The Pillars of Equestria legends are often the subject of fan-fictions and camping trip stories, thanks in part to my sister’s efforts. Your home of Grani may be gone, but you were never forgotten.”
“I suppose I can live with that exchange,” he admitted. “Did Celestia map out a constellation for my village? I’d like for modern ponies to remember that place again.”
Scratching her mane, she pondered. “Hmm. No, I don’t believe she did.” Raising a brow, Luna asked, “Would you like to make one for her? I’ll see that the addition is in the next book printing.”
Chuckling with glee, Rockhoof carefully looked over all the available stars the way a filly studies a candy counter. Seeing him slowly forget his misery warmed Luna’s heart. He finally had something positive to focus on, which is an important step towards a better life. Soon he would learn the same thing she did in her first year back from the moon; the past is what we own, but the future is what we earn.
The stars forget, pondered Luna. Just like people.
But only if we let them.
“Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.” –Marcus Aurelius
qV�
Author's Note
Some of you are wondering where the name "Grani" came from. I noticed that Rockhoof's home was never named in the show, so I looked up the names of equines from Norse mythology. "Grani" was a horse owned by the Norse hero Sigurd. This horse carried the treasure that was awarded to this hero after he killed the dragon Fafnir.
I realize that it takes a lot longer than a thousand years for a constellation to become unrecognizable, but I wanted to work with the idea that when stars die out, they take the stories they tell with them.
