Redemption

There is a mare trotting over to me. She is smiling, her short pink mane and tail move with the wind. Her white coat seems to be as soft and beautiful as the clouds. Her smile cheers up even the most devious of ponies. Her eyes seem to bring bliss into the world. She is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

My head is hurting. It feels like there is something constantly poking it.

I opened my eyes, the sky is blue, there isn't a single cloud present. I can feel the wind blowing and the water hitting my back, the sand covering my forearms. There are birds singing in the distance, and three fillies looking down on me with sticks in their hooves.

I lift myself up and look around. I am at a large pond. Seems more like a crater with water inside, there seems to be a dense forest in the opposite side of where I'm standing. The three fillies take a step back when I gaze upon them. They seem normal enough, one of them is a unicorn with a purple and pink mane and a white coat. The other one is a yellow earth pony with a bright red mane. There is another Earth pony right beside her, she has a orange coat and purple mane… wait, she's a pegasus, wow, I've never seen wings that small in a filly her age. Poor little pegasus, she'll probably never be able to fly.

I stand up on my hooves for me to get a better look, when I feel a sharp pain on my ribs. I grunt in pain, which startles the little fillies. The white and yellow ones hide behind the orange, who stands still with a mean look on her face. Reminds me of Celestia. Celestia, if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be in this mess, damn princess and her lies.

I look over to the little fillies. "What do you want mister?" The orange one asks me. I just look down on them. Strange, usually the fillies look a lot smaller, maybe they aren't fillies after all. No, wait, none of them have their cutie marks yet, so they are fillies. But how are they so tall. Maybe genetics. Or I have just been away for too long and didn’t notice the evolutionary process that occurred in the past… "Hey mister!" She shouted at me, making me lose my train of thought. I do that sometimes, just daze off when thinking about something, it just occurs naturally, I don’t have much control over it, it mostly happens when I think too much or when I'm bored and… there, I did it again.

"Sorry, little filly, I was just…. Oh wow…" My voice seems a lot thinner. It seems like I just inhaled a balloon full of helium. What is this? I clear my throat a couple times just to see if it helps. "Test, test." Nope, not at all. The fillies appear to be even more frightened now, good job Atlas. "Sorry. Could you tell me where I am, please?"

"Sure thing mister, you're in outskirts of Ponyville." The white one raises her hoof and smiles at me. I don’t smile back. Ponyville huh? Ponyville…Celestia really likes her puns. Her sense of humor will always bewilder me.

"Thank you little one, now could you tell me the way to Canterlot please?" I ask politely.

"Why don’t you just find a map?!" The orange one flaps her wings furiously as if trying to take flight.

"That's rude." I reply. "Didn’t your mother ever teach you anything?"

" My mother's dead." She replies with her head down.

I just look at her for a couple of seconds. "That's very unfortunate for you, anyway, which way is it to Canterlot … I don’t think I caught your name." I say to the white unicorn.

"It's Sweetie Belle." She says smiling.

"Sweetie Belle, thank you. So, Sweetie Belle, which way is it to Canterlot?" I ask trying to smile as best I can, but failing miserably.

"All you have to do is take the train up the mountain, right there." She points to something behind me. I turn around and look at the mountain. Right on the side of it, is Canterlot. And right at the top of the highest tower, is the princesses quarters. There is where I must go in one year time, to see what the will be the princesses choice.

"Thank you very much Sweetie Belle. Now I must go." I walk past them and prepare for my flight back to my home. Maybe I'll pass by donut Joes, they say that he has the best donuts in Equestria. Huh? I can't feel my wings. I look back and what I saw will haunt me forever. I saw nothing, there was nothing there. Absolutely nothing, my wings, were gone! GONE! How could my wings be gone?! Oh no, this isn't good! My horn, MY HORN! I run as fast as I can to the pond and look at my reflection. My horn, it's gone! GONE! Oh no, no, no, no! I look smaller, that’s why everything is so tall, and that's why my voice is thinner. I'm an earth pony, an earth pony. "CELESTIA!!!!!" I fall down on my rear legs and throw my forelegs up to the sky. "I will get you for this, I will have my revenge. I swear it, I will!!!!" I fall down on the shallow water. I look up and see Canterlot. And I know that Celestia is looking at me right now, with a huge grin on her face. What am I going to do? What am I going to do? I turn back and see three scared little fillies hiding behind a bush. "Hey. Girls, I'm not going to hurt you." I assure them. Might as well make friends with the locals, maybe they can help me somehow. There may be a powerful enough unicorn to bring my horn and wings back. The white one, Swettie Belle was it? Gets out of the bush and walks over to me. She puts a hoof on my own.

"I trust you." I see her smile and my heart just explodes, twice. How can something so little be so adorable? After she says that, the yellow one leaves the bush. She also smiles at me.

"Howdy, I'm Apple Bloom, you already met Swettie Belle and the paranoid one is Scootaloo." I snicker at her name. For some reason it makes me think of chicken. "And we are the Cutie Mark Crusaders!!" Sweetie and Bloom shouted in unison making me cringe.

"Well, okay."

"Hey what does your Cutie Mark means?" Sweetie asked.

"Yea, what does it mean?" Scotaloo decided to leave the safety of the bush to hear my story.

"Well, I'm.." I can't say that I'm the one that keeps the world from falling into the void. I need to think of something, okay, think, think. "I'm an geologist. I study the earth and … geology."

"Cool." They say in unison.

"Hey mister, you never told us your name?" Apple Bloom states.

"I guess I haven't," I chuckle at the thought . "…it's Atlas."