4.24 Light Years · 10:24pm Nov 18th, 2014

A while back, I asked you guys to pick the next fic I was going to write and a lot of you, for some reason, picked the fic that I thought least likely to be picked. 4.24 Light Years is a romance fic that is more or less a reimagining of the Makoto Shinkai movie, 5 Centimeters per Second. Anyway, if you're wondering where I'm going with this, it's right here. See, I'm sort of afraid that I might never finish this fic, even though I want to, and so rather than just letting it languish in my gdocs dungeon, I thought I'd post a blog with the first part of the fic that I have written already just to get it out there. This is maybe a terrible idea, but fuck it. Let's do this.

It was night, and the breeze rippled across the grass carefree and light like foal skipping through a meadow. On this hill, just beyond where the town’s lights could reach, a young colt lay on his back, his hooves crossed behind his head as he gazed up at the stars. His eyes were faint, like he was looking somewhere far away, unblinking in the nighttime air. His breathing was steady, almost silent amongst the various sounds of the night, and nearly forgotten amidst the wonder of the sky. In his head he counted the stars, always starting at the one nearest to Equus, and spiraling out from there. He’d lose track after the first dozen or so, but he’d repeat the process over and over again, night after night.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he felt a niggling sensation. Something told him that he should head back home. It was getting late, and he still had school in the morning. Summer break wouldn’t be for another few weeks yet, and finals were on the horizon. But despite all that, he ignored the voice inside his head, and listened to the much louder voice inside his heart, the one that told him that this was where he belonged.
Moonlight fell on the hill, just barely illuminating the waving grass. But the ground was the last place he planned on looking. His eyes were fixed squarely on the sky. For the past few years, although really since he was a foal, he’d become more interested in astronomy. And just in the past year, he’d started coming out here every night. He’d wait until his family had all fallen asleep, then slip out the front door unnoticed, quietly making his way through the streets until he reached the secret path that led to this little clearing in the surrounding forest. Well, it wasn’t really all that secret. Goats had been using it for centuries, but no one paid any attention to them anymore. That was perfect for him though; it meant he’d be alone.
Stargazing, as it had simply been when he started, was the one pastime he could really enjoy. But since he’d gotten more serious about it, it became more of an obligation, or maybe a job, it was hard to say. All he knew is that know he came out here every night not just with the intent of gazing in wonder at the stars, but of observing them, and observing their movements. Tracking their celestial courses across the vast sea of space was as fascinating to him as charting the ocean was to the early explorers. He’d watch as the cosmic orchestra played out before him, a ballet of stars over a stage of infinite darkness.
He smiled. Shifting his position a bit, he cast a glance over to the moon. It hung in the air like a great white disc, suspended by nothing, floating in emptiness. Up until a few years ago, there’d always been a face on the moon, but then upon Princess Luna’s return, it disappeared, leaving the heavenly body somewhat barren. Even from the immense distance of Equus to the moon, he could make out the pockmarks that dotted its surface, signatures of a millennia old cosmic war fought by unfeeling combatants in the cold black of space. At the time, they would’ve left the moon angry and red, spitting out chunks of debris, but now it simply sat there, looking content in its position.
The thought made him smile again, for whatever reason, and he turned his gaze back to the much further bodies of the stars. If one was of a keen enough eye, one could make out pictures amongst the stars, depictions of glorious battles, timeless romances, and ancient betrayals. Of course, they were all just fairy tales, but that didn’t make them any less exciting to hear about, not for him anyway. Stories about constellations had always held a special place in his heart, even now, even when he knew they weren’t real. Maybe, he thought, it was because he knew they weren’t real. Not that it mattered much, anyway.
His ear twitched suddenly as he heard the cracking of a twig from the nearby forest. He didn’t get up, or move, but he turned his head slightly towards the source of the sound. Hearing it again, this time a bit closer, his ear twitched a second time. He watched the path, waiting for this new pony to arrive. Shortly after he heard a third rustle, he saw her emerge from the trees, and his heart stopped for just a brief fraction of a second.
Maybe it was the way the moonlight danced across her silver mane, or the way the breeze hit in just the right way to ruffle her tail, or even how the glint of her blue eyes stuck in his mind, but the sight of her left him feeling breathless. Of course, he recognized her almost immediately. She was Moondancer, or just ‘Dancer’ as most ponies called her, and she was from the same school as him. He began to wonder what she was doing out here so late at night, but before he could follow that line of thought anywhere, she noticed him.
“Oh…” she said, almost sounding disappointed, “I wasn’t expecting to find anypony else here.”
He didn’t respond.
She took a few steps closer to him, then something lit up in her eyes. “Oh! I know you. You’re Starsong, right? From the class below me. You’re in Mr. Shimmering Creek’s class, right?”
Slowly, he nodded. “Yeah, that’s me. And you’re Moondancer, from Ms. Sunflower’s class.”
She grinned. “That’s right.”
A strange silence fell over them. He was still lying on his back, and she kept glancing between him and the sky. Eventually, she said, “So what are you doing out here? Kinda late for stroll, huh?”
He sat up, wrapping his hooves around his knees, still gazing upwards. “I could ask the same of you, couldn’t I?”
She chuckled. “You could, but I asked you first.”
“I’m stargazing,” he answered, shooting a quick look at her before returning to the stars. “What about you? What could you be doing out here so late?”
“You answered it yourself already, didn’t you?” She smirked, following his gaze up to the stars. “I’m here to stargaze, like you. I usually go to the other side of town, but I felt like changing things up tonight. I never expected to find another pony out here doing the same thing.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly, “neither did I.” For some reason he couldn’t explain, he suddenly found himself wishing she would leave. He felt bad about wanting that, and yet at the same time couldn’t think of anything he wanted more right now. She had taken away his serenity, by accident, sure, but taken it all the same. He wanted the quiet back, the solitude.
“Hey,” she said, pointing up to the sky, “you see that star?”
He followed her hoof. She was aiming to the right of the moon, and up just a bit. He felt a pit in his stomach. She was pointing right at his star, the one he always started counting from: Proxima—
“Mintauri,” she said, finishing his thoughts for him. “That’s the next closest star to Equus, you know? Nearest makes it sound like it’s close, but they say Proxima Mintauri is 4.24 light years away. That’s over thirty-nine trillion kilometers.”
He froze, feeling the beating in his chest gain a bit of extra oomph all of a sudden. Looking at her, his hooves locked tightly around his legs, he felt that he didn’t want her to leave anymore. She was staring up at the sky, not looking at him, but just seeing her flowing mane was enough to give his heart a little jump.
She turned slightly, looking back at him. Tilting her head slightly, she asked, “Can I sit with you?”
Scooting over, he patted the grass beside him, nodding. “Sure, there’s room for more than one pony up here.”
As she walked over to him and sat down, he could feel the heat emanating from her. His heart beat a little faster. She gave him a little smile, her blue eyes lighting up in the moonlight before she turned back to the sky, laying down flat. He followed suit until they were both sprawled out on the grass, staring up at the stars together. For a time, they remained in silence, but eventually he broke it with a short question.
“How did you know that?”
“Know what?”
“About Proxima Mintauri.”
She grinned, letting out a soft little sigh. “I’ve always loved the night sky, all the stars and the comets and the meteors. I love everything about it. It’s so beautifully… simplistic, don’t you think?”
He frowned. “I think it’s pretty complex. I mean, everyone of those little specks of light is a star, right? And many of those stars have planetary systems, and that’s not even counting the stars we can’t see. So, for every star you can look up and see, there’s a million more hidden in the darkness. Space is so unbelievably vast, I can’t think of it as anything but complex.”
She chuckled. “You may be right, but to me, it couldn’t be simpler.” Running a hoof through her mane, she said, “Equus is complex. There are ten different continents, and every one of them is filled with many different forms of life. Everywhere you go, you’re bound to meet someone you never met, or see something you’ve never seen. Space though… the universe is simple. Each of the individual parts are, of themselves, undeniably complex, but as a whole? It’s comfortingly simple.”
His frown deepened. “How do you figure that?”
“Just look at it,” she said, raising her hoof. “What’s out there but stars and planets? Everything in space, all the stars and all the planets, and even the galaxies they’re a part of are all made by the same unifying force: gravity. Space itself is essentially a construct of gravity, and we’re only able to be here talking about it now because of that. The universe is simple because the thing that allows it to exist is simple. Like you said, though, the potential for complexity is nearly infinite, much as it is here on Equus, but if you look at the big picture, if you look at the universe as a single object, it is, above all else, simple.”
Scanning the sky without looking for anything in particular, he said, “What did you mean ‘comfortingly’ simple? What’s so comforting about knowing the universe isn’t complex?”
Now it was her turn to frown. “You don’t think that’s comforting?”
“Not really.”
She sighed quietly. “I suppose we’re just different then.”
Silence fell over the clearing again. Both ponies kept their eyes focused on the stars as they slowly drifted overhead on their set cosmic paths, travelling to destinations an unfathomable distance away. After a bit more thinking, he smiled, remembering something.
“You never answered my question,” he said, turning his head to look at her. “You never said how you learned that about Proxima Mintauri.”
She turned her head as well, and their eyes met. She smiled that sweet, gentle smile and said, “I learned it from my dad. He worked at an observatory for a long time before we moved here. He’s an astronomer. I guess you could say that’s why I like stargazing so much.” She giggled. “But what about you, though? You didn’t seem very surprised when I told you, so I’m guessing you already knew that.”
He turned away from her, looking back up. “Yeah, I knew that before, but I didn’t expect anyone else to know it, at least not anyone our age. I read about it in an astronomy book I found at the library. Not quite as interesting as hearing it from your dad.” He chuckled, though it was somewhat less mirthful than her laughter had been.
She laughed with him, and he felt his heart lighten a bit. “I didn’t always like my dad’s stories, though. I thought they were boring. I always wanted to hear about grand adventures, not science facts. But, I think, in my own way, I came to appreciate that the universe is a grand adventure, and the stars are its characters.” She snorted, giggling again. “That probably sounded pretty cheesy, huh?”
A smile found itself on his lips, and he couldn’t help but giggle too. “Maybe, but I know what you mean. My dad always told me stories about the stars too, but he’d talk about the constellations, and the tales behind them, but to me that was never as interesting as learning what the density of the sun is, or how far away the moon is. I still remember them though… the stories.”
Propping herself up on a hoof, she turned to him, a twinkle in her eyes. “Tell me about one of them. I want to hear a fairy tale.”
He breathed in slowly, letting out the air through his nose. “Which one do you want to hear? There are dozens of them. There’s the story about Mythos, who wrote the Celestial Annals—the record of Celestia and Luna’s ascent—in the stars themselves. Or there’s Brio, a great warrior who fought the darkness to bring light to the world. And there’s the story of Tengri and Toci.”
“Who are they?” she asked, tilting her head a bit.
“Lovers, or they tried to be, anyway.”
She frowned a bit. "What do you mean by that?"
"Well, it's kind of a long story," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "There a bunch of other shorter ones I could tell you about."
Glancing up at the inky black sky dotted with specks of light and a moon that showed no signs of setting, she looked back at him and smiled. "I've got time."

Also, here's a picture of Trixie.

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Pav Feira

Pav Feira #1 · Nov 19th, 2014 · · ·

I digs it. Starsong and Moondancer have some interesting chemistry, with youthful infatuation mixed with a desire for solitude mixed with a shared passion in the stars mixed with conflicting viewpoints on life. There's a lot of interesting leeway here, beyond the traditional shippy crush.

The opening six paragraphs are a little slow, though they do help set the mood and introduce us to Starsong's character. Moondancer's arrival starts the chemistry going, which as mentioned is the big draw here. I did have trouble placing their age, based on their backstory and vocabulary. Post-cutie-mark teenagers, I assume? They're both a little wordy in their dialogue, for strangers meeting after midnight, but they're also (sorta) eggheads waxing philosophic about their passions, so I'm willing to chalk that up as a character trait. Minor quibble, but it sounds like at one point Starsong is adopting this pose:
inzones.com/picturezone/pictures/t2/feb06-101.jpg
which doesn't work for a horsey since their hind legs bend the other way unless this is secretly anthro.

But yeah, the character dynamic's interesting (though full disclosure, I haven't seen 5 Centimeters per Second). I'd definitely dig to see more of this. That said, in spite of your previous blogpost promise, I'd suggest that you don't lock yourself up over getting this thing published. This is a good start, and you mentioned in OP that you're interested in pursuing it, so by all means go for it. But at the same time, don't feel like that blogpost promise precludes you from working on anything but this. Just work on whatever your muse wants, day-by-day. When you're feeling this, work on this, else go work on your inevitable Aryanne sequel :P

FloydienSlip