//------------------------------// // I - As Below, so Above // Story: Empty Horizons: Sea of Stars // by Insipidious //------------------------------// She was going to fly.  She’d decided it earlier that night. As the moon rose over the world, she told herself she would accomplish that. Climb up the edge of that brilliant, deep blue and look down upon the ponies below. That was the place for a pony to be seen: the realm of the clouds.  It had taken her almost all night to muster the courage to do it, but here she stood. Her hooves made hardly any noise as she snuck along the wooden dock jutting from the edge of the jungle-laden island she called home. Some might say it was odd there was a dock jutting out of the seemingly endless wilderness, but she would tell them they weren't looking close enough.  She only hoped the eyes in the jungle weren’t watching her now. They’d try to stop her and she couldn’t have that. How would she ever fly if she didn’t take a risk? That was how it always worked in the legends, after all. At the edge of a pony’s rope, their purpose was revealed.  Her favorite told of the pegasus who couldn’t fly but lived in the mythical cloud cities of old nonetheless. It was a silly story that made no sense—who would live in those places if they couldn’t fly?—but it was the best one. Because, just before she hit the ground, the birds grabbed her and showed her how to be strong.  With any luck, the water would make a good substitute for ground. At least it was softer, right? Right… Time to be like the ponies of legend.  She spread her wings, catching the moonlight in her thin, leathery appendages, creating a spotlight for the rest of her body. Normally she would flinch away from this since it reminded her of her bright, obvious, attention-grabbing white coat. Today, she felt no fear of her brilliance, allowing herself to shine for the dark night. Strands of amber hair sparkled at the edges of her vision, framing her view of the open world before her.  For the first time, she didn’t feel ashamed of her appearance. She was beautiful. And the night would see her. The ponies in the jungle would too, apparently, since she started to hear shouting.  Cursing to herself, she knew it was now or never. She flapped her wings and jumped off the dock. After a moment of weightlessness, she was plunging toward the waters far below.  The experience of dropping like a stone threw her stomach into her throat even though she was falling face-first. For a moment, her mind contemplated how little sense the sensation made, able to reason that it was backward before the panic set in. With the panic came the tumble; for while her wings weren’t helping her fly, they were certainly able to toss her around like a cyclone.  She had no control and she lost her previous meal of mangoes and snake within the first ten seconds. After this, however, the panic began to fade as the sensation of falling became familiar. Taking stock of herself, she knew she wasn’t dead. She also knew the water was rising to reach her quickly and hitting it at this speed was probably a terrible idea.  How did birds do it? They flapped, right. She forced herself into an upright position and began to flap as hard as her wings could manage. To be fair, her descent slowed, but given the tug of her mane on her scalp she was still falling way too fast. Taking a moment to think, she spread her wings wide for balance.  To her shock, the air caught under her webbing, turning her dramatic fall into a slope. The initial jerk from the wind tugged at her joints but she managed to hold her wings steady. Slowly, what had been a straight dive into the water turned into an angled one, until her mane was no longer pulling angrily at her scalp. Flight.  With a toothy grin and the wind in her ears, she looked around.  The moon sat on the horizon, reflected in the eerily perfect calm of the ocean. For a moment, there was no up or down; the reflection in the water was so crisp. Before her was a full moon and all around were brilliant, shimmering stars. Sharp, blazing holes against a sea of darkness.  They were just like her.  She was a star.  There was no ocean, no floating islands, no lost history beneath the waves. There were no legends here, no ponies at all. The realm of the stars was beyond all that.  But she was a part of it.  A brilliant streak of white crossed the sky, shattering into numerous smaller chunks above her head. There was a thunderous boom as the cosmic event captured her imagination, but she scarcely heard it. She felt it, a tingling sensation running through her veins. This was it. This was the moment. She knew. Carefully, she shot a glance back at her flanks.  Beautiful, white, perhaps even cosmic.  But still blank.  Her heart sank and she let out a hiss of anger. That was it! She’d been certain! Had she been Gifted, that… that would have been the moment that marked her destiny.  ...Who needed to be Gifted? Who needed the stories of old, the magic, or some mark on their butt to tell them what their destiny was? If she wanted this moment to be her destiny, it was going to be her destiny! She would forge her own path. All ponies should forge their own path! Stop fixating on all those stupid legends. The ponies of the past had their chance.  Now, it was hers. She would fly right up to those stars a— Wait. She didn’t get a mark. She didn’t have magic. How was she flying? The moment she thought to ask that question she realized she wasn’t. With rising panic, she noticed she was simply falling slightly slower than usual and was about to hit the water. Remembering her training at the lake, she folded her wings back and pointed her hooves forward into a proper dive. Her reflection rose up to meet her, and for a moment she saw the terror in her eyes.  The lakes had trained her well, so the feel of cold water on her coat wasn’t startling in the slightest. The massive influx of salt in her mouth and nostrils was unlike anything she had ever experienced. Part of her thought it was fascinating while most of the rest thought it burned. A small part of her decided it would make a good seasoning. She wasn’t sure what to do with this information.  Ignoring her mind’s tendency to go the weirdest places at the least convenient times, she used her wings to swim to the surface, finding them very effective under the water.  If only there had been stars beneath the waves. Instead, there were only a few small fish that were quickly running away from the massive splash she had just made. Down here, the world did not accept those who were bright. Just like the jungle.  She breached the calm ocean surface, sucking a breath of air into her lungs. After rubbing the water from her eyes, she glanced around. The moon was still there, as were the stars… but they felt oh so far away. Not even the gift of flight would have gotten her to them.  Turning herself back the way she’d come, she noted that she had actually traveled a significant distance from her island floating above. It was still possible to make out the dock, though that was only because the others had lit the fires at the edge of it. She watched a light drop from the dock.  They were dropping ropes with fire at the end, hoping she’d see them and grab on.  With a sigh, she began to swim back, her wings propelling her forward like a torpedo. They were never going to let her hear the end of this. Probably grounded from the hunt and forbidden from eating mangoes. It was going to suck.  Feeling something brush against her leg, she decided getting eaten by a deepfish would suck a lot more.  Pushing herself, she dove slightly under the water and jumped out like a fish, spreading her wings wide to catch the air. She was far too heavy with all the water in her coat to glide like she had been earlier, but there was a second or two of extra airtime because of the maneuver.  If she had bigger wings, maybe… That was something to think about later. Right now, she needed to get out of the ocean.  It didn’t take her anywhere near as long to get back as it had taken her to drift out. She spotted one of the ropes with a burning end just before it hit the water’s surface. She leaped onto it, latching on with her sharp teeth and all four hooves at once. That was enough of a jerk to get their attention—the rope began to move upward, slowly pulling her out of the ocean.  There were somewhere around ten meters of extra rope dangling under her. They had certainly made sure the rope would reach her no matter how far the wind may have taken it, even though there was absolutely no wind tonight. Looking up, she could see the bottom of her island.  She’d never seen it from this angle before. There were no trees, but it was still jungle-like in appearance with snaking vines that covered almost all the rocks and even a few flower buds awaiting the coming of morning. As she adjusted her eyes to take in the full scene, the island became a round spot of darkness surrounded by a halo of stars.  Never before had she felt so small.  She wouldn’t have expected herself to feel excited at the idea even if she had.  Her reveling in her size was interrupted by the rumbling of the waters far below. The calm, reflective sea had begun to churn with frothing, aggressive bubbles. The terrible maw of a deepfish erupted from the depths, lined with teeth larger than her entire body. The fish couldn’t reach her.  It could reach the bottom of her rope. The massive, interlocking jaws slammed shut on the dangling tip of her lifeline, giving her full view of its face. The eyes were so much worse than the teeth. Each milky sphere was the size of a house, wrinkled like the skin of an old mare. There was no movement in the eyes whatsoever and caked pockets of blood had coalesced at their bases, looking more like a forest of some red parasite than a natural part of the fish. Its massive scales reflected the moonlight far better than the white thestral’s coat ever could.  She saw what was going to happen. The deepfish would start falling and pull on the rope with more weight than anypony could deal with. The dock would shatter after even a second of trying to hold this massive fish and she would fall with it. It would be certain death for her and whoever else up there didn't react quickly enough. So she bit the rope and pulled back as hard as she could. At the end of her sharp motion, an immense pain drove through her jaw. She couldn’t help herself—she let out a bloodcurdling screech that would have shattered any windows on the island had they been present. Something had snapped in her mouth—a fang? Forcing the scream down her throat, she bit on the rope again, not to cut it, but to allow herself to work through the pain and get a stronger hold on the only thing anchoring her to life.  Only then did she realize that she had succeeded. The bloody end of the rope below her was not connected to a deepfish.  Somehow, through some trick of fate, her broken fang was still there, dangling by a single, loose thread. She picked it up with her wing, folding it close to her body.  She spent the rest of the ride up trying not to pass out from the pain.