The Sound of Raindrops on Slate
The Sound of Rainfall in Providence
The sound of raindrops fills the forest. They soak the soil. A calm stretches out in all directions, and slight breezes stir our matted fur. The world around us is emptiness. I look to my sister huddling behind me.
I look over the white grasses and gray trees. Black pine cones smolder on their branches. The blues of the sky have peeled back, and silver streaks snake across it. A stench clings in the air, that of sulfur and smoke.
Leaving her, I walk to a whitewashed trunk. The stiff grass cracks beneath my hooves. I reach out to touch the papery bark but stop myself. With a quick glance left and right, I turn from the tree and walk away.
We walk without words. There are none left. The images of the forest around us pulse and fade. The leaves flicker. Shards of light cut through the air, alighting on what chalky dust our breath stirs up.
Roads, those rivers of dust and gravel, weave across the country. Monuments shimmer in the haze of heat. Lifeless trees give way to ashen, gutted buildings. The traces of habitation are all but wiped away.
My sister coughs. We press on.
Her Majesty strode to the veranda overlooking her garden plaza and courtyard. A fountain stood in the middle of the plaza, running bubbly white water over its mottled stone. Dark clouds blotted runs of sunlight from view. A steady assault of rain and bluster thundered, pounded, roared. She turned her back on the bushes and grasses driven and lashed by the weather.
She sighed. Something was missing, she knew. She had all she wanted: food, drink, and entertainment of every flavor, her loving subjects, servants, and friends. It was everything that she could wish for…
In the midst of the sounds of wind and water from outside, she heard something peculiar. She heard laughter, a faint giggle borne from far away.
“Could it be?” she whispered.
“M’Lady,” came a small voice from behind her. “Atmos requests your presence.” Her Majesty turned to look at the mousy servant behind her. Sighing a second time, she rolled her eyes and nodded.
“Let him in, and he better have a good reason for scheduling a storm on our anniversary.” The servant only nodded and turned to open the door. Behind it, a tall stallion with a coat hued gold, blue, and pink-violet stood smiling.
Stepping forward, he said, “Darling—”
“Don’t start that with me. I want to know what that—” she gestured to the clime beyond her open window “—is doing here, now of all times.” The stallion made as if to step closer, but instead he only smiled a pained grin.
“The North Wind has been dry for three months already. The gift of water has come today; without it, half the Earth Ponies’ crop would surely wither. Thousands would die when winter settles. I couldn’t allow that possibility, even for you, My Love.” She saw almost juvenile sincerity in his features. The Queen hazarded a flirty smirk.
“Okay, then,” she said. “I’ll forgive you.” She stretched out her wings and stepped toward him. “I’ll forgive you if you first catch me.” She feinted a jump over him, but instead turned sharply and galloped out the window, into the rain, into the wind, into the storm. Smiling broadly, bracing himself, he bounded out to join her. The two weaved about, dodging trees and plants and shying from the thunder. With a wet smack and a sonorous thud, the two were left sprawled in the mud.
“Oh no! Oh Dear!” the mare cried mockingly. “What are we going to do with you?” She pounced on her lover, and they rolled about, slinging muck and water every which way.
Stopping to take a breath, lying with her under the rainfall, he asked, “Am I forgiven now?”
“Oh, not yet,” she answered, sporting that coy smile that strummed his heart.
“No fair, I’ve caught you—”
“I said first you had to catch me. There’s one more thing…”
“Celestia, a name for the gods,” the Queen whispered. She lay in a cot, exhausted, midwife by her side. A white foal lay beside her, shivering in a shaky slumber.
“We must put her to walking as soon as possible, Ma’am,” said the midwife firmly.
“Just a moment longer. I just— I just want to look at her once more.” The Queen looked up. “A horn. She has a horn. What does this mean?” The midwife shook her head slightly, but the new mother had already closed her eyes and fallen asleep.
“I don’t know,” she said quietly to herself.
Celestia loved her father.
She liked when her father made the rain. She didn’t know why they were afraid. She only wanted to help.
She was laying in her father’s rain. She didn’t like the way it made her cold. She hated the rain. Why did he make it?
“Sister,” said Luna. “Come back.” She stood over her.
“Go away.”
“No.”
Celestia huffed.
“You can change the rain,” Luna said. “Try.”
She rolled over. “I wouldn’t even no where to start!” She looked up into the sky. “It seems so big.”
“Just try.”
Celestia tried.
“It’s not working, Luna.”
“Try harder.”
“I’m trying as hard as I can, Luna!” Celestia shouted. A few rays of sunlight parted the clouds.
Luna smiled at her. “It’s like they said. It happens when you’re angry.”
“Angry?” Celestia puffed. “I’m not angry at all, Luna.”
“When do you call me Luna?” Luna asked.
“When—ugh, just shut up already!” The sky was becoming brighter.
Luna punched her sister in the face. “You have power and you’re going to waste it with meaningless fits! Sister, think about what this means for us. We could be more. We could be more than Mother and Father—”
She was blown back by an unfamiliar force.
“Don’t ever do that again, Luna! I will murder you if you do!”
Sparks danced off her horn. Her eyes were bright. The rain had stopped.
Lying in a heap, Luna replied: “See, you just weren’t trying hard enough.”
“I am sorry, Mother, Father.”
She didn’t know that the power would grow out of control. No, that it’d grow to control her.
“Sister!” Luna watched helplessly as her elder sibling glared down at their parents, full power of the Sun behind her, flowing through her, glowing in her eyes. She saw the mark seared into her sister’s flank.
“I dreamt one day of a beautiful daughter,” started the Queen, maintaining the regal air about her, even with her and her King sprawled bleeding together on the floor of Cloud Temple. “Remember, whatever happens to you, that you’ve never once disappointed me.”
Celestia bowed her head, her expression unchanged.
Luna shut her eyes against the fire, the brightness, the hate, the burning. The clouds beneath their feet parted, and they fell; far, far down they fell. Latching onto her sister, Luna shut her eyes to the pain, the mark in her flesh forbidding her reentrance into Providence. The princesses fell—exiles, murderers, enemies to the gods—to the Lands Below, the Chaos.
Weariness takes hold of me. The road leads nowhere. Pain shoots across my forehead, resting in my alicorn. Sitting down, I press my temples until the dizziness calms. The road—
No, we’ve come to the palace garden. Trees and flowerbeds spread out around us. Specks of green and brown drip from the trees. Warm and cool spangles of color radiate from the flowers.
I stand. The colors drain from the scenery. The entire area is alive with noise. We come together, facing the chaos around us. The world throbs white once before fading to semi-darkness. The darkness shifts red, shifts blue, shifts back to contrasting black and white.
We feel our way around the garden, and soon it gives way to the large, inky doors of the main hall. Laying my hoof on one, I feel warmth flowing beneath the sizzling wood. An odor of decay surrounds it, causing me to sneeze.
I look back at Luna. She nods. I give it a tentative push. The door groans. The seared wood turns to streams of ash and dust. Clouds of dust billow around us. Squinting, I peer into the hallway beyond. Tiles of quartz and sandstone line the spacious interior. Broken pieces of furniture and torn fabric lie strewn on the ground, forgotten by life and time.
With a wary cough, I step through the makeshift entrance. I help her through. It's a slight canter down the overly-long corridor. The remnants of chandeliers idle on their patinaed chains, twinkling wryly. The sounds of our steps echo across the walls and ceiling.
An onyx griffon roars in silence. It's poised in purple regalia, jewelry and scraps of fabric. It sits as a sentinel to guard the throne room doors. After a quick glance in its direction, I step up to those faded golden doors.
I open wide the doors to the throne room.
Shards of color overlay white tile and carpet. A ghastly mockery of a sun beams outside, shining brightly into the stained glass windows. A tall alabaster seat stands cast in shadow and pale light. A griffon sits on it in good attire, and in quiet, and in stillness, and we know it has died. The corpse has yet to rot.
I stride to him. Ancient power surges around us three. I stare with awe until smiling parts my mouth.
“We can remake it,” I say, and I realize not my voice in the strange chamber.
“How?”
“With power,” I say, sterner. “With our power.”
“But will it be what it was before?”
“No,” I admit. “It will not.”
A great glow lights my horn. My wings stretch out, and my eyes fill with sunlight.
“But it will be better.”
I take away the griffon and his seat. I bear up two from the earth to replace it. When this was done, I sat on the white seat and gave a motion to her to sit on the other. When we were there together, I made the world anew.
We made the world anew.
