Long ago Equus had been a world full of places to explore; unknown lands to traverse, unknown animals and plants to discover. That time was thought to have had ended when the world was mapped, cataloged, and rendered so one could happily fly through the world even if one didn’t have wings, all while sitting in front of a terminal or via a headset on.
Some were more than happy to ignore this fact, and go out on their own to experience the world with their own senses. One such individual is a young blue pegasus mare and her parents. Tonight they were camping in an anchored cloud, a great way to avoid needing a tent to keep the insects and weather out.
On this night the young filly - Stardust - is sitting atop the cloud looking up at the stars. Her eyes are wide as she looks at a night sky unpolluted by the lights of civilization. Before her stretches an unexplored sea of worlds waiting for someone to see them for the first time. A discolored band of purples, yellows, oranges, and greens stretched from horizon to horizon: the galactic disc.
As fillies are wont to do, she got too curious for her own good and decided to fly while her parents were asleep. She followed that band to the horizon, navigating by starlight and the stars overhead alone. Light winds helped keep the little pony aloft as she kept flying. Small dots moved through the sky rapidly; satellites keeping an eye on the world, artificial stars keeping everyone in touch with one another. Reflections of the sun sailing across the sky like tiny moons. Larger clusters of stars marked orbital habitats.
Stardust's family had agreed to go out camping for two reasons. The first was it got them out of the city to see nature. Her parents, whose goals leaned more towards getting back to their roots over the spectacle of seeing things for the first time, had also wanted to come out here for something that had caught Stardust’s attention: a comet flying between the Moon and Equus.
Brilliant, shimmering, static yet moving at the same time. It was something wild and untamed, uncontrolled by those who lived on and above Equus.
Once there was a Princess of the Night who ordered and decorated the night sky, but now she was a mere myth. Sure, old texts talked of her, but she had been gone for a very long time, as had her counterpart that controlled the day and sun. These days alicorns still existed but they were little more than long lived bigger ponies who had unicorn and pegasi magic.
Here in the northwest region of Equestria there was plenty of empty land that showed how neither ponies nor any of the other species inhabiting the planet were in complete control of the world. Dense and wild forests stretched out across the horizon, free from any nation state and teeming with ancient magic.
Stardust knew her history well and was flying towards the coast. She wouldn’t get there tonight, not with how slow she flew. Even if she was an adult and left contrails behind her like one of those fast fliers she was still days away from the coast. However, the coast wasn’t her goal. Something in her was drawing her to fly and keep that comet overhead.
In her heart she knew exactly where she was as she kept flying, her little wings beating and taking her from thermal to thermal. Every now and again she saw campfires below her. Many folks enjoyed coming out here and getting away from the constant buzz of the big cities with their massive spires and constant traffic.
It was by no measure a bad thing to live in the big cities, but you had to keep your wits about you , whether a ground-bound zebra or a pegasus flying through the air. Even the dragons had to watch out for the traffic that wove between the buildings, both on land and in the sky.
The night air played over Stardust as she continued to fly further west, the sky now lighting up with tiny fragments of the comet falling and burning up in the atmosphere. She took a moment to rest on a wild cloud, her eyes reflecting the brilliant display of nature. At moments like this one could easily believe an alicorn out there controlled the night sky and deeply desired for her subjects to enjoy her nights. Part of the young mare knew how and why what she saw was happening but her heart overrode the logical part of her and quietly whispered the mythical princess’ name.
“Thank you, Luna.” she quietly spoke. To her she felt that the mare of the moon had personally guided her to the best view on the planet to watch the celestial body pass their world, to watch its tears fall to earth.
She lost track of time as she watched, her eyes drinking in every detail of the night sky and naming each star she could remember. She even laid out the nebulas in the sky, the components of the galactic disc’s dust cloud that streaked across the sky.
Time stretched on and on. Part of Stardust had hoped that one of the comet’s tears would land near her but she knew the chances of that would be so tiny that it was silly to have that hope. Instead she began to make her way back to where her family had camped. She didn’t have a watch but could tell thanks to the changes in the moon and stars how long she had been away from camp.
She took flight, using the stationary stars in the sky as her guide. As a filly she was slow, but thankfully she was always good at long flights. The flight back was a quiet one filled with the brilliant and intermittent lights from the comet shedding mass as it flew close to her homeworld.
The wind had shifted from when she had first set out. They were turbulent during these twilight hours, a common thing between dusk and dawn. To the filly it felt as if the wind itself had wanted her to go out tonight and watch the stars only to whisk her back to safety.
Even as dawn was cracking in the east, the colors of a new day stretching out and quieting the stars above she still navigated following the Morning Star to her camp, keeping the Polar Star to her left.
A flash startled her and sent her into an errant fogbank. Checking herself she found the source of the flash. Her cutiemark had appeared! A quartet of stars with one orange leading the way. The joy from watching the comet was surmounted by the acquisition of her cutiemark, one that she knew by heart the meaning of: that of the guiding star.
