And I Dreamt of Fallstreak's Rain
Chapter One: “And I Dreamt of Fallstreak’s Rain”
by InfinityXanadu
Part One: The Lighthouse / Stormclouds
Dear Celestia. The sky is grey here, grey and foreboding as a gull’s wings; they seem to wrap around me like downy swaddling, covering me in their overcast gloom. I’m not sure why they do this, perhaps they wish to take me across the sea, in a boat without a bottom; to send me back to the beginning, when I clambered ashore here to begin my journey.
A pony, disheveled and weary, stood before a towering lighthouse rising up against a stormy backdrop of clouds. The lighthouse looked old, decrepit with its age, and through its windows the equine could see the silhouettes of disused furniture, a rotting staircase, and all the other firmaments and fixtures one would expect to find in a lighthouse lying disused and forgotten.
The pony, had its coat been groomed and its posture erect, could have seemed an amaranthine exemplar of its species, but its coat was so matted and dust-covered that the coat’s original color was nigh-impossible to discern. So the equine stood, ponderous, for a moment, a mysterious figure before an even-more-mysterious lighthouse.
Then, it moved one hoof, slowly and with deliberate effort; a fraction of a hoof-step in front of its previous position, shifting its weight with an audible groan of suppressed pain. As it stepped forward, it took note of its surroundings, in more detail than just “a lighthouse.”
Age, it seemed, was the one commonality that all objects before the figure possessed, for it was standing on a pier dotted with the innumerable signs of age: broken planks, rotted ropes, gaping holes in the pier’s structure, and the ever-present greening caused by exposure to salt, sky, and sea-algae. Beyond the pier’s terminus was a small gravel hoof-path, pebbles worn into dust by the passage of time. The lighthouse itself was comprised of the main tower, connected to a small outbuilding by an open door.
After taking careful note of its environment, the pony resumed its slow pacing towards the lighthouse’s entrance. With several more steps, it heard a ghostly voice--strangely familiar--in her head recite something. Almost... but no, different. Strangely reminiscent of a letter, spoken in a wistful way, but at the same time recalling cadences of introspective hysteria.
Dear Celestia. The fallstreak grows ever more apparent as I gaze at these airborne juggernauts of cirrus spissatus. At least, that’s what he spoke of, these could be others. I, for one, believe that they are nimbus, for their fallstreak is murky with a resolute mournfulness. But that is of no matter, the importance lies in their presence. For they are the sea in which my bottomless boat rides; the sea in which all my struggles, sorrows, and my own grey menaces both drown and float. I’ve not put much thought into which genera mine would fall under. Perhaps it would be the spissatus, or maybe a stratiformis, though I feel that that would be too light. Maybe mineisn’t defined clearly anywhere; it all exists only in this microcosm, this boat without a bottom.
The pony, by now, had reached the end of the hoof-path and was standing before the lighthouse itself. Turning to the right, it peered into a dust-coated window, as if to better examine the lighthouse’s interior without entering right away. Unfortunately, the grimy windows aptly hid the lighthouse’s innards, preventing the equine from ascertaining too much more information. However, it was able to see a ghostly... figure... staring at it. The figure was scarce more than a splotch of darkness; a patch of slightly discolored air in a vague equine form, albeit much more... spindly, almost, and lithe.
Recoiling in shock, the equine’s eyes darted around, searching to see if any more ghostly figures were moving around it; if this were an attack. The years, apart from inflicting their toll upon the pony, had taught it to be wary of unknown figures. but it found none, and dashed inside--as fast as its time-worn and weary legs could carry it--the lighthouse, ignoring the outbuilding for the moment.
As it entered, ears pricked and senses un-dulled, it just was able to spot a slight disturbance above. Whipping its head up, it saw the ghostly apparition duck out of view, apparently having glided up the near-destroyed stairs to the lighthouse’s apex.
Unfortunately for it, the equine lacked the capability to likewise float--or couldn’t use it if it did have that ability, for it was far too tired--and was thus resigned to examining the interior more closely.
A quick appraisal, however, turned up nothing of import that it had not already known, and it was just about to leave the building when its eye caught a ceramic cup, lying on the floor amidst a pile of unrecognizable detritus. The cup was fragile, and the pony couldn’t think of any way to pick it up--it didn’t have any telekinesis, at least not here--without breaking it, and after all, it was just a ceramic cup. So the pony turned slowly around, made a quick pass through the outbuilding, with similar results--except no cup--and left.
It saw that the gravel path linking the pier to the lighthouse branched off, leading to a rough trail heading up to the hills beyond, and to a path following the coast. In order to examine things methodically--though more to save itself pain, at first--the pony moved towards the beach path.
Dear Celestia. Shortly after I began my journey, I cut a single line into the white chalky peak of a nearby hill. It served a twofold purpose--first to ensure my continued solitude, and second to remind me of my sole goal. That forsaken tower, the aerial atop the peak of my despair. It was common practice, back in his days, for marooned sailors wishing to be left for dead to carve such a line--a spiral, circling; a staircase to the sky. It will ensure that I complete this journey, that I find this aerial before my time is gone. For even now, the clouds circle around me.
The beach was strewn with kelp, and the scent of salt permeated the air even more so than before, but it was deserted. The pony’s hooves seemed to sink ever-so-slightly into the damp sand, but it was firm enough to walk on. And so the pony did, eyes drawn first to the awesome cliffs to its fore, where a white cleft of exposed chalk encircled a nearby peak, and then to the grey horizon, extending a seemingly infinite distance before fading into obscurity.
A faint glory could be seen from the sun’s probable position, but nothing brighter was visible, and the environment was still lit with the same speckled light filtering down from the shrouds of clouds above. However, when the pony turned its gaze, in between the sea and the cliffs, it could just discern the minute traces of a rainbow’s ghost.
A fogbow such as that could only mean one thing--it was time to move. By what knowledge the pony understood this, it could not fathom, but it felt a primal, importuning, inexorable call to move towards the highest hill--and the aerial, whose pulsing red light seemed a glowing eye in the sky.
However, the pony decided to linger awhile yet upon the beach, and, stepping carefully over the few rocks that littered its path, it reached the end of the beach path. For a rock jutted sharply across the beach, blocking all passage save through the water... and the seas looked rough. Faint traces of... something marked the jutting rock, as if somepony had tried to stencil an image, but that image, whatever it was, had been worn away by time’s inexorable precession.
The trek back to the lighthouse was uneventful, but the pony found that it could not move faster than an agonizing plod. However, if it concentrated on the serene environs it found itself in--serene, yet with an undertow of passionate... fear, permeating the air as subtly as the salt--time seemed to slip away.
Upon returning to the lighthouse, the pony opted to take the path leading into the hills, the “high road,” if you will. But it was less of a road, and more of a trail, strewn with pebbles and stones haphazardly and spotted with patches of encroaching plant growth. The whole effect was that of a disused, off-the-beaten-road path, albeit one exuding a very melancholy affect.
In fact, the entire environment began to wax melancholic, as the pony began ascending the verdant hills beyond the lighthouse.
Dear Celestia. These grey-green hills are as desolate as the sea surrounding them; desolate, but not like the grave. Yet, they hold a tranquil misery, a sadness encroaching. Perhaps it’s the clouds, but I believe their fallstreak holds something more than mere melancholy. For their tendrils seem to stretch, filaments piercing our threadbare fabric of life. It’s really theywho are the emotionless ones; they who are the reservoirs and bottomless aquifers of our lamentation. As they float, bottomless sky-boats processing in their mummer’s march across the horizon, I only wish that I knew why. Why these connecting threads stretch from sky to earth, sea to sky.
A gelid breeze blew, biting into the pony’s quivering coat like so many arrows as the pony neared the crest of the first hill. Ruffling its coat to ward off the chill, the pony continued on, pausing for a mere moment to survey the valley below.
Behind the pony lay the lighthouse, the pier, and the beach; ahead lay the hills, cliffs, and an odd, pulsating red light. It looked for all the world like an infernal klaxon or beacon, and it hung amidst the clouds, amidst the faint fogbow, amidst the highest peaks of the hills ahead.
With a nigh-sibilant whistling, the wind picked up speed, threatening to sap the pony of yet more body heat. As it was near winter-time, the hills had a faint smattering of hoarfrost upon their grassy slopes, but nothing so substantial as snow was to be had, at least not yet.
That red light... it reminded the pony of something. Something hidden within memories long wished gone. Something it wanted to hide, but knew that it must share with that one. Why? Why did it feel this way? It could not answer, but some deep, primal instinct told it to look up, at the clouds, at the fallstreak’s falling rain.
As a few drops of rain, scattered into mist by the gusting wind, fell, the pony gazed up at the faint fallstreak, the barely-discernible rainbow’s ghost, the glinting patch of grey velvet that hid the fading sun, and remembered.
Remembered.
