Sunbringer

With the frost on everypony’s mind, time quickly healed the worst of the wounds. Yet some scars still remained and ever since Light descended upon her village Square never quite felt herself at ease. But then how could she forgive and forget, when merely days after the Celestial’s arrival he once again shook up the entire tribe by revealing a grand plan. He gathered the tribe around the communal fire as the embers reflected from their shining, captive eyes and shouted in ecstatic glory that they would build a stone Tower to reach up to the top of the sky. A building so unfathomably tall that if a pony were to climb it they could just walk up to the Sun and bring it down.

And that’s exactly what Light promised.

With the Sun in his grasp, no longer would the tribe ail and hunger, he said. Ponies could grow as much food as they wanted and the frost would be no match for its radiance. No creature or foreigner would dare intrude upon them. All he asked in return was the measly price of the hooves necessary to accomplish the task. That night the tribe forgot the frost for a few hours. As they stared into the fire, each of them saw the Tower with themselves as the one to place the final stone on it and the glory and warmth it would bring. All of them, except for one.

Planning out the work started early the next day with great enthusiasm. Nearly the entire tribe was divided up to start carving huge blocks of rock out of the nearby mountain with the rest to haul them to the intended place of the Tower. Even the younglings and the elderly were roused from their homes to help out wherever they could to achieve the noble goal.

With spirits high and the goal so distant and abstract, things truly seemed to take a positive turn, at least for the time being. The unity with which the tribe worked together seemed to even make the eternal winter a little more bearable and the sky a little brighter. Not even Square could stay gloomy any longer. She was ready to swallow her pride, especially seeing how even Light showed great interest in making the tribe’s life easier in return for their services. He carved boulders in seconds and levitated them with such ease, as if they were mere feathers. His magic also melted the snow effortlessly, returning long-missed colours like pale green and brown to the tribe, a feat its ponies could previously only achieve with great effort and carefully protected flames, until not even those could fight off the encroaching frost.

Yet, as moons passed, Square couldn’t help but notice that everypony’s enthusiasm began to fade as the work dragged on, especially Light’s. First he stopped melting the snow, claiming that he needed to preserve as much of his magic for the big day as possible. Perhaps nopony could have faulted him for this, but then he completely stopped helping out and preferred to instead merely watch from the sidelines whilst urging ponies to work even faster. Finally, one day the tribe found his usual place completely empty. It took several minutes of shouting from Barren Earth to finally calm everypony down; Light wasn’t gone, he’d simply made himself at home in the Tribesmother’s abode so that he could focus even better. From then on the only times the tribe ever saw him appear were the rare moments he stared out a window to watch their toil.

The work continued, though with each day passing Square noticed fewer and fewer smiles. Ponies who previously helped each other pull their stones now either ignored each other or outright competed to see which of them could deliver more and garner the Celestial’s favour. As the Tower kept climbing higher, the excavation site on the mountain nearby grew as well, looking more and more like a diseased black wound surrounded by pristine snow with each and every day.

During those days, Square herself began to feel doubt growing in her chest. She often thought to ask, if the Sun was so hot to melt all of the snow, how would Light even grab it, let alone how would her tribe stay near it. Yet anytime she opened her mouth to voice her concerns, a multitude of disapproving looks were sure to silence her quickly. Not that there would have been many opportunities to ask anyway as ponies no longer talked to each other. Nopony had time or energy to sit around the fire anymore and families and friends no longer played together, all choosing to instead collapse into their beds and gather the little strength they could in order to toil for another day.

With each day of progress, things turned only worse. As if sensing their strife, the winter redoubled its efforts and it felt like every morning bit deeper into the bone than the last. The village itself became buried more and more, its once clear outlines now a vague hint between the taller and shorter mounds of snow. Both the carving and delivery of rocks slowed considerably as ponies simply couldn’t work fast enough to outpace the storms.

Some still sought solace in Light’s presence, figuring all hardship was worth it as long as they could bask in the Celestial’s gaze. But even this came to an eventual end once the lower floor of the Tower was finally finished. Their saviour sequestered himself in a closed-off room inside, allowing only food and—after getting tired of her endless groveling and pleas for worship—Barren Earth inside, otherwise insisting on the need for privacy so that he could prepare the spell to bring down the Sun.

In all honesty, Square didn’t mind this approach nearly as much as she thought she would. Resentment was the only thing she didn’t mind resenting and the less she saw of Light, the less she had to think of why things were like they were. Instead of him, she could just project all of her pent up anger and homesickness for the forest into carrying the stones and clearing away the snow, leaving behind only the little hope she still clung to that what they were doing was for a purpose.

The monotonousness of her days made time fly and soon enough the small filly grew into a strong mare, far faster and capable than any of her kin. And with strength and diligence came respect. No longer was she that little day-dreamer who everypony made fun of behind her back. Even the coldest of ponies couldn’t turn a blind eye to the fact that she did three others’ work in one day. But whilst Square was respected, she still never found warmth. Light’s influence never faded even after his seclusion and the tribesfolk never forgot her insolence. The affront was so great that not even moons’ worth of backbreaking work could redeem her in their eyes.