Forged in fire and scatted over centuries my story begins…
I was just an earth pony on the edge, immortal to be fair. My name, Forge Fire, the only remnant of my humble beginnings as a black smith. I arrived back in Ponyville after an eighty year stint in the sand wastes in a self-imposed exile. I’d hoped not to make a scene and was wearing my ragged full length duster with the collar popped, although on arrival I found more had changed in my absence than I had thought possible. The air was electric, the atmosphere positively crackling. The land was an unfathomable array of unnatural hues, there where houses in the sky and chaos seemed rampant. I made my way up a hill on the edge of town in the hope of getting a better view of the area. As I ascended I saw thunderclouds raining what seemed to be a thick brown liquid on the edge of town and a herd of what appeared to be giraffe although to the best of my knowledge giraffe weren’t white and preferred the warmer climates down South.
As I reached the summit I found myself nose to nose with a rather dour looking impossibly pink mare. I didn’t want to intrude but after so long without a pony to talk to I felt obliged to engage the pony in conversation.
“Hey.” silence. “What’s up?” more silence. “Sorry I di…” “It’s all a lie.” I was surprised at the melancholy in her voice accentuated by a tinge of vehemence. “What’s all a lie?” “Friendship, trust, love and happily ever afters. They don’t exist.” “I’m not going to argue with you there. Life has a way of taking more than we have to give. My name’s Forge Fire.” “Pinkamena.” “Have you been up here long?” “No.” She seemed very reluctant to talk. I sidled up alongside her and we fell into an uneasy, albeit rather soothing, silence. After what seemed like a lifetime we began to talk. We dove straight into the deep end, not surprising when you take into account the mare’s levity, discussing life, death and how fleeting happiness can be. There was a lonely insanity in the mare that I could relate to, it was a kind of tired apathy that I had fostered for longer than most ponies live. As the sun set for the sixth time in just hours I thanked Pinkamena for her company and left her to find a spot to kip in some hay a few miles out of the insane town.
I slept for hours, not out of necessity but rather as a way of organizing my thoughts. That mare on the hill had rekindled in me a feeling I’d long thought lost, contentment. I decided to spend a day out in the Everfree forest. That alone hadn’t changed, at least not much. Tomorrow I would have to return to Ponyville as although I could fend for myself I was running low on tabac and I couldn’t justify solitude after so long with no pony but myself to keep me company.
That night I dreamt of the wastes. They were a harsh uncaring landscape not fit for any but the toughest pony to live in. In the early years I had despised the desolation but had figured myself deserving of it. As the years progressed I had begun to find the beauty in it. At first glance the wastes were dead but on closer inspection one would find a myriad of life behind the scenes surviving and in fact thriving out there on the edge. Although I learned to appreciate the wastes no amount of time spent there brought me peace, not really.
***
The following day I set out towards Ponyville bracing myself for the otherworldly parody of Ponyville that had greeted me on arrival. On my egress from the Everfree forest I was left speechless to find a relatively ordered world. As I made my way into town I found it awfully quiet and after yesterday’s display of turmoil I feared the worst but fortunately after stumbling into a mare galloping flat-out towards the edge of town I was, in a rather rushed explanation, told that most every pony had been invited to Canterlot for Celestia’s addressal of Discord’s vanquishers. Discord… that added a-whole-nother dimension to what I’d seen yesterday. I’d always known he’d be back but it seemed that he had again been thwarted. He always had been too reckless.
All the stores were closed and in a last ditch effort for tabac I made my way to the apple orchards just out of town, ‘Sweet Apple Acres’. The last time I was in Ponyville there was little else beyond Sweet Apple Acres. There wasn’t a lot of activity on or around the farm but on the porch was and old, green mare. She was the picture of content dosing on a rocking chair on the front porch. As I approached she sat rigid in her chair looking almost afraid to speak. After an awkward pause she uttered, in little more than a whisper, “Forge, is that… is that really you.” At the sound of her voice memories came flooding back. She was rather weathered but it had to be her. “Granny Smith, little Granny Smith. You were knee high to a grass hopper last I saw you, forever getting in to trouble. I almost didn’t recognize you without those beautiful blonde locks you had.” “Why, you haven’t aged a day but never mind that, I’m sure we’ll have time to talk later. Please come inside.” “Thank you kindly Granny.” We went inside and Granny proceeded to explain the Discord situation to me and the part her daughter and her friends played in it. It’s a pity I missed him, there weren’t many still around who’d remember the old days. After her story we spent a few hours reminiscing before I felt it time to depart, before the light started to fade. All in all my trip to Sweet Apple Acres had been a success, on leaving Granny saw fit to part with some of her hardy Ponyville tabac and as I assured her I hoped to be sticking around she reminded me that their door was always open.
As I made my way back through Ponyville I spied the approaching throng of ponies on their return from Canterlot. I remarked at the sight of one particular group of ponies whom I at first glance knew to be the bearers of the ‘Elements of Harmony’. Bah, the ‘Elements of Harmony’, what a joke, more like the elements of an element of everything. Star Swirl had first coined the name but they had existed long before his time. Oh well, there was no use griping about the name. I made my way back towards the area of the Everfree forest I’d made my encampment in. By my return the sun had already dropped below the horizon and I contented myself by resting in the Y of a tree as I listened to the oh-so-peaceful sounds of the night.
***
