Of Ponies and Fate

The wind kicked up suddenly startling the wanderer awake.  How long had he been asleep this time he thought lethargically.  A century, maybe a millennium?  'Not that it mattered.'  He thought to himself.  There was a time long ago when he kept track of such things, but that time was long past.  He sat hunched over with his arms braced firmly on his knees and his hands cupping his chin as he stared into the thick blizzard raging around him.  What little he could see was a flat empty waste land devoid of any landmarks.

A familiar pain lanced his chest, but was quickly suppressed.

 'What good would such an emotion do me now?'

He briefly entertained the thought of picking a random direction simply walking until he once again tired of it.  Seeing the tediousness of such a whim set him squarely back on the path of apathy.

'Maybe another nap.'  He thought, 'this time I may get lucky and never wake up.'

The wanderer closed his eyes once again welcoming the release of darkness followed quickly by dreams of a time long ago when his journey was not so lonely.  The balm of the past washed over him as he once again saw fields of lush grass and colorful flowers.  He could hear faintly the laughter of children as they played in the warm spring mourning so long ago.

Then he was in a vast ruined city.

Smoke billowed from windows while fire lept through the streets.  Gun shots rang out followed by screaming, only to be drowned out by concussions of deafening artillery mercilessly raining down from the sky.

A sudden flash of blinding light in the distance silenced everything.

Once again the wanderer awoke, only to find himself floating through a dark void punctuated by twinkling starlight.  Though it was impossible to draw breath it hardly mattered to the wanderer as he'd long ago stopped breathing, thinking it was a waste of energy.

He felt regret for his decision, knowing that he may never be able to to enjoy the air of his home again.  The planet he'd watched over for so long was now gone he reasoned, laid bare and rent asunder by the dying sun he'd sadly missed the final moments of.

That meant that his slumber had lasted billions of years this time, maybe the next time he woke he would see the end of the universe.

'Would I then be released from this endless journey?'  He seethed bitterly.

His sudden agitation gave way to another wave of apathy causing him to close his eyes once more, and give himself again to the peaceful embrace of dreams.

It was with irritation the wanderer had woken up this time.

He could feel the intense heat even through the vacuum of space. The light of the violent galaxy venting powerful gamma rays at him was blinding. Rolling in the weightless void to get a view of his surroundings he was surprised to find the void of space dominated by similar violent young galaxies.

The wanderer could only stare slack-jawed with horror as he pieced together the truth of his surroundings.

He had slept through the end of the universe and into the infancy of a new one.

A convolution of silent laughter consumed him followed by fitful weeping. After what seemed like centuries, he wore himself out and fell into a dreamless sleep which he vastly preferred then to the enticing illusions of the past.

The wanderer awoke once again unable to breath. Not the most foriegn experiance at that point, except for the pressure that seemed to press him from all sides.

When he opened his eyes he found complete darkness. His first thought was that he'd drifted into a black hole and paled at the thought of spending the rest of eternity in the black prison.

His despair was mounting and threated to overcome him until his sense of touch told him the truth of his predicement. It was damp, a chilled wetness that seeped into his very bones.

For the first time in what he could only guess was billions of years he exercised his power.

Willing his body incorporeal, he passed through the press unhindered, sure to keep the pull of gravity below him.  As he slipped free of what he now recognized as rock he was met with a brightness that temporarily blinded him.

After a few seconds passed his eyes adjusted and he stared wide-eyed at the scene before him.

Rolling hills and sweeping grass land swept out before him caressed lovingly by the life giving rays of a noon-day sun. Even from his perch high on the last of a range of mountains that dominated the view behind him, he could feel the warmth of the nurturing light.

As familiar as these surroundings seemed, the wanderer found something very wrong about its similarities to Earth.

The more he pondered this the more perplexed he became.

Willing more of his power awake he could sense a another familiar presense, though one he hadn't felt for tens of milleneum before the fall of human kind.

Power. Godly Power. Besides his own.

Looking to what he determined was north-east based off the magnetic field, if that basic logic could be trusted, he saw a radiant light coming from the distance. The power it radiated filled him with both trepidation and nestalgia.

He felt a pull in his chest he had thought lost to the ages. He was curious.

Calling on the oldest of his powers he lightly ascended into the air held aloft by expertly controlled up drafts.  With one final look to the fields below his perch the wanderer took off at what he considered a meandering pace, content to watch the landscape rolling slowly below him.

With his power awakened he set it too work scouring below him for any and all information about this hauntingly familier world.

Some distance ahead he could feel the presence of life forms. Letting himself fall below the cloud cover he focused on his vision, enhancing it to view the life forms up ahead before deciding to get closer. What he saw excited him.

Buildings and other signs of civilization doted the flatland in the distance. Around the town he could make out rich forests and the tilled earth of farmland.

After a half an hour of flight he was over his destination.

Deciding on discretion he focused on the light from the sun, willing it to bend around his body and making him invisible.

He landed lightly in an alley way that lead into what he suspected was a market place. Striding purposefully to the main street, confident he was undetectable to more mundane senses, he couldn't help but stop and stare. Instead of a village of humanoids he found the streets populated by brightly colored ponies of varying hues.

The pastel equeans seemed to communicate verbally, though the wanderer couldn't recognize the language.

It was fluid and complex, a far cry from the ponies of his old world that could only whinee or nhay.

He stood there marveling while ponies went about there daily business at the market. Walking over to a busy stall he stooped over one pony, for he was almost two heads taller than the dominutive equines, with a brown coat and mane bartering with the stall owner with what looked like coined currency.

The wanderers' head reeled trying to cope with the strangeness of this world. He needed a name to fit to this place, but could find no sign that might tell him this towns name, not that he would have understood the sign anyway. Having no other option he dipped into the mind of a nearby pony with a blue coat and pink mane that looked almost like frosting.

Before he could concentrate however, he found himself looking at what looked like cupcakes printed on her flank.  Looking around he noticed all the ponies in the market place had a picture on their flanks.

Quickly putting that aside for later he focused again on a nearby pony. Gently he turned her thoughts to where she was.

She looked around herself visibly confused. Realization came next to her face, then as if she had been rather foolish she blushed before resuming her window browsing.

The wanderer had a name but couldn't make sense of it.  Desiring a translation he dipped into yet another ponies' mind this time referencing words with images and concepts.  Finally he got his answer.

'Ponyville?' He thought, confirming that what he gleaned was an accurate translation.

His curiosity sated for the moment he reluctantly lifted lightly into the air and was once again airborne.

He looked again to the north-east, the light he saw was still there, it's gentle yet radiant glow was closer and was outlined in the distance by a castle ornately situated on the side of a sheer cliff.

The wanderer wondered how these ponies could have mastered such a feat of engineering.  As he flew at a steady pace toward the castle his thoughts began to wander back to the ponies who's minds he'd touched. These ponies had kind souls and he could tell their sense of community was strong. No matter how deep he gazed he could find no hate or violent nature of any kind.

'This race....'  He thought hopefully, 'might just succeed where humanity failed.'

       Shaking himself from the darker thoughts that came with the reminder of his failure, he became pleasantly aware he would be at the castle in a few minutes. Except it wasn't just a castle as he had thought earlier. It was a city.

He couldn't help but be impressed by the scale of the construction. The architecture was detailed and flawless. Alabaster marble had been shaped in a way that no tools could possibly presume to. This, he realized, had been shaped by magic, powerful magic.

He focused again on the radiant glow. He found it was coming from the tallest tower of what could only be called a palace.  It occurred to the wanderer then that the one he sought my well be the ruler of this realm.

He looked down at himself considering his appearance for the first time.

The cloak he wore was grey, having long lost its true color, and heavily worn.  His robes were similarly grey and in taters.  And from head to toe he was covered in dirt from being entombed in the earth for who knows how many millennium.

"a few changes will have to be made..." he thought, allowing his power to flow fully.  Restoring his appearance to match the measure of his existence.

Princess Celestia moved with grace down the spiral stair case of her tower.  While the guards of the palace could be heard long before being seen, Celestia hardly made a sound as she moved with practiced poise toward one of the many castle gardens.

The sun sank low on the horizon casting long shadows over the ornate white marble walls.

She would once again need to perform both the duty of setting the sun as well as raising the moon, and while it had been this way for centuries she couldn't help but feel a stab of loneliness as she raised the moon.

The same moon she had imprisoned her own sister on. An exile that in just under two decades would be broken.

And then what?

She could no longer wield the Elements of Harmony and she knew that her sister would not forgive her either. That left her with only one choice. The mere thought of it made her quail inside

"Princess." said the guard stationed at the entrance to the garden curtly as he came to attention.

"Sargent Silver Lance, I think I'll be fine by myself tonight." Celestia said warmly.

The guard looked like he was about to argue that he should stay, but a warm yet firm smile from his princess told him that in no way was this debatable.

"Aye your highness," he said, saluting smartly before leaving to ponder how the princess knew his name, this being the first time they'd spoken.

When Silver Lance was out of earshot Celestia gave a short bemused chuckle.

She had long ago made a game out of memorizing the name of every guard in the palace, the looks on their faces were priceless every time.

The rumor going around was that they thought she was all knowing and could see all there was to know about a ponies' life simply by looking at them.  There were mind reading spells of course, but none that could glean more than surface thoughts without causing damage to the mind, as such these spells were kept deep in a secret vault in the royal library. After all, she would never teach anything that had that kind of potential to cause harm.

Letting go of the thought, she focused on the matter at hand and trotted lightly into the garden.

Alone once again she fell quickly back into her earlier mood, and with practiced ease lowered the sun below the horizon while simultaneously raising the moon to set it on its celestial journey across the sky.

The long shadows of the palace became pools of impenetrable darkness and the glow of the moon covered the alabaster marble in a blanket of deep blues.

It was a cool night of early spring, still clinging to the last vestages of winters chill.

Her subjects would be settling into bed soon, leaving her to her lonely thoughts.

'This is what Luna must have felt,' she thought, guilt settling next to loneliness in her heart.

Princess Celestia stared into the moon in deep thought before she realized there was another soft glow of light in the garden.

The wanderer saw the surprise plainly in her beautiful features and marveled yet again at how expressive these equines were.

He had once again become invisible before landing soundlessly in the garden, taking his time to try and come up with a way to communicate with the noble creature. He couldn't help but see the irony that humanity had been succeeded by creatures that had dominated their early fairy tails.

She was a tall delicately slender alicorn with a coat that put the walls of her alabaster palace to shame, and an etherial flowing mane and tail full with the colors of sunrise.

Curiously, there was a mark on her flank as well, this one was a radiant sun.

This close to her he could now easily tell she was the source of the power he'd felt. An immortal like him, and when he saw loneliness in her soulful eyes he'd dropped his invisibility, unconsciously seeking to comfort her.

Celestia's surprise held her from taking action against the intruder. She had been present at the beginning and knew every form of life, but she had never seen such a creature.

Standing on two legs it was almost as tall as her, excluding her horn, and showed no signs of fur.

She was at a complete loss as to what it could possibly be. It almost exuded light from its pristine white robes and shock white mane, both, like her own mane, flowed without so much as a breeze in the crisp night air. The creatures eyes were a piercing sky blue that glowed with fey light. And she could not deny that, for all it's strangeness, it was majestically beautiful by any species standards

"Who are you?" The question came unbidden and only eliciting a look of confusion from it.

Realizing this wasn't the most accurate question to obtain the answer she sought, she refrased the wording, and therefor the meaning, of her inquiry.

"What are you?"

The confusion on the creatures face shifted to concentration as it looked deeply into her eyes.

She could feel a presence in her mind and was about to force it out, but noticed it was a respectful, gentle probing, focused on the words she'd just spoken.

It opened its mouth as if to speak but no sound came out. With what appeared to be strained effort it took in a breath, as if it had never before had the need to breath.

The second attempt at speech only elicited a long incoherent wheezing sound.

It's lack of ability to communicate brought a pained look to its face. Then, exploding violently in her head with what seemed like a thousand voices each with a different language, it spoke directly to her mind.

Through the cacophony she prepared her magic to strike but stopped, seeing the concern in its features. It was trying to be understood but knew not how to speak her language, in fact it seemed to have forgotten how to form words with its voice at all.

At last the cacophony passed and she heard a single word she understood.

"Please." The word formed clearly in her mind.

As she tried to make sense of the word the creature took a step forward and she was immediately on guard.

"Please." The word again coming unbidden to her mind, this time more gently.

The creature held out it's hands in a disarming manner and took another step, this time more slowly.

Carefully it walked forward until in was only two paces from her and reached out. Celestia's first thought was to throw up a barrier but quickly suppressed the urge. This creature wanted only to be heard and she accepted the hand as it was placed on her head.

It's presence was now fully in her mind, and while it probed every available memory of verbal speech, it stayed respectfully away from her personal memory's, even though through the connection she could feel its curiosity.

She was curious herself.

How could it dig so deep into her mind and yet there be no discomfort that normally came from such efforts? In fact it was like a warm breeze washing over her, leaving her unharmed and refreshed.

At last the wanderer opened his eyes and took a step back, taking in a calm breath no longer straining with the effort.

He recognized the trust the alicorn had placed in him. By allowing him to touch her mind she had shown him a kindness he fully intended to repay.

"Thank you."  He said as he felt his heart warm, grateful that those had been his first spoken words in eions.

The smile that graced the creatures features didn't stop at his lips, (she was now certain it was a "he" after hearing him speak) even his eyes seemed to smile.

A long silence past between them before Celestia realized he was waiting for her to ask him her questions from earlier.

Quickly she regained her regal bearing thinking of the questions she wanted answered first.

"My name is Celestia, would you give me yours?" She asked, trying at least to be civil before asking more obvious questions.

"My charges called me by many names, but the truest of these is Ehecatl.". He said thinking for a moment before continuing.  "In one of my charges languages it meant "wind", but then again I was called that too. There were many words for the same concept in my home."

Ehecatl's face was almost unreadable as he spoke.

"Very well then, Ehecatl..." Celestia said trying to gauge her guest as she asked the next question.  "...What are you?"

"A good question." Mused Ehecatl as a tinge of melancholy filled his voice.  "The truest answer I can give is that I..." His expression became distant as he looked for the proper words "...am you. Though if you mean my appearance than I am human."

Celestia was stunned into silence.

Like her?

Was this a being like herself, an immortal destined to bare witness to eternity?

"Why have you come to my realm, Ehecatl?" She asked finally, deciding that finding out this immortals intentions was more important than her personal questions.

"I... don't know." said Ehecatl, who appeared to be mulling something over in his thoughts. "I think I've been here all along, buried  deep underground. I'm not even sure how long I slept this time." He paused for I moment in confusion, "you said "your realm".  Where am I?"

Celestia gestured for Ehecatl to follow her. He obeyed and followed respectfully behind her.

Moving quietly down the darkened corridors they passed several royal guards some of which looked about to attack the strange intruder. However, seeing the calmness by which their princess lead him, they settled back to their posts casting worried glances after the pair as they proceeded.

After climbing the spiral staircase to her personal quarters, and many reassurances to her quarters guards that everything was alright, Celestia stood in her darkened room with her strange guest.

"Over here please." She said as she lead Ehecatl to the terrace.  Her horn glowed as she willed the moon to shine even brighter.

"This..." She began, waiting for the moon to shine at its brightest, illuminating the vast landscape as effectively as a sun rise,"...Is Equestria."