Those Days

by ElementOfHope

Roads

A long time ago there lived a young colt. He loved nothing more than playing with his two best friends. One was a mare the same age as him and the other was another colt older than the young colt. Everday the three friends would meet up in a big field of grass and play together untill dark.

They always had fun together...

One day the young colt went to meet up with his friends, like always.

"So what are we going to play today?" asked the young colt.

"Actually, I thought we could talk today." Said the mare.

"About what?" He said.

"Well tomorrow me and my parents are going to be moving to the big city so I thought I could use this time to say goodbye." she said.

"Well that's great! You always wanted to go to the big city, right? Oh...but won't it be hard to live out there and come to school here?"

His friends both looked at the young colt with pity.

"Yes, it would be very hard to do that." she said. "That's why I'm going to school in the city. I won't be going to this school anymore."

"...but then how are we supposed to play together?" The young colt asked, worried.

"It'll be okay." She said patting him on the back. Just because I'm gone doesn't mean we won't still be friends."

"Okay, but promise me that you'll come back some day."

"I promise."

The days melted away. The two other friends still played together in the grass field like always, waiting for the day their friend would return. They would talk for hours about what their friend might be doing. One day they began to talk about what they wanted to do when they grew up. The older colt asked the younger what it was that he wanted to do when he grew up.

"When I grow up I wanna be important, someone who helps people, and I want lots of friends!" He said stretching his hooves up to the sky as if trying to catch his dreams.

"That's a lot of stuff." His friend said. "Do you really think you'll get everything you want?"

"Well...yeah! As long as I keep believing it then it has to come true, right?"

"Heh, you really are a wierd one. No wonder she liked you." The older colt said teasing his friend.

"Hey! Shut up!" The young colt said embarased that his friend would say such a thing. Both colts then started laughing untill they went home.

For days the colt's waited to hear from their friend in the city.

The days turned into weeks, months, and then years.

Both still waited, in the same field, but the young colt's friend grew tired of this.

One day the older colt didn't show up in the field. Getting worried the young colt dashed off into town to look for his friend.

"I hope he's okay..." he said.

He looked for what seemed like hours untill he finally found him, hanging out with a bunch of other colts from school.

"..and I bet he's still out there in that field waiting for her. That idiot doesn't even know that his friend completely forgot about him." The group of colts started laughing. The young colt couldn't believe his ears.

"You're wrong!" He said going up to the group after gaining the courage to do so. "She promised that she was going to come back and I believe her!" The older colt was caught off guard. He didn't expect to see the young colt here.

"What are you doing here?" He asked.

"I was waiting for you in the field like I always did but you never showed up. I thought something happened toyou so I went out looking for you."

"Ha! Is this the little shrimp you were talking about?" Said one of the other colts to the young colt's friend.

"Shrimp?" The young colt said feeling hurt about the remark about his height. "Aren't you going to say anything?" he asked his friend.

The older colt looked at him and then looked at the other colts. His face formed a wicked smile.

"No, I'm not going to say anything. You really are a shrimp. Everyday you got to the same field and wait for a mare that's nver going to come back!"

"She's not just a mare, she's our friend!" The you colt said on the verge of tears. "...and you're supposed to be my friend."

"I was never really your friend shrimp. I was just hanging out with you because she was there. If she never introduced us we never would have hung out at all. Now she's gone. I've moved on and got better friends and you're not one of them."

Unable to fight back the tears anymore, the young colt ran home while trying to indure the hurtfull things the colts said to him.

"Crybaby, shrimp, and loser."

After that day he never spoke with the colt he used to call his friend. He still tried to got to the field everyday but the colt's chased him out, claiming the field as their own

The years went on and the young little colt grew up. In school he would always try to make friends but he would only ever see them at school. Years passed and the young little colt grew into a strong stalion. It was then that he made the decision to leave home and find what it was he wanted to do with his life.

On his search he eventualy wound up in the city where the mare from his childhood lived in. Overjoyed the young stalion searched for his friend. After a long search that took a whole four days he finally found her. The mare too was also excited to see her old friend after so many years. For hours they talked about what happened to each other over the years but two things never came up. The young stalion didn't want to ask why she never came back and couldn't bring himself to mention their old friend. When they finished catching up the mare bid farewell to her friend.

"Does this mean we can hang out again?" He asked.

The mare only gave him excuses for each day the young stalion asked.

"I have work to do."

Or..

"I have plans that day."

And even...

"That's day won't work for me."

The mare couldn't look the young stalion in the eyes. He knew what this meant. Even though she liked seeing him again, she had no intention of seeing him anymore.

"Oh, that's okay." He lied. They bid farewell and the young stalion continued on his journey.

"I guess time and change can hurt friendships." He said. "Does this mean I can never have a real friend?" The thought of this tore him up inside. He felt like there was no such thing as an unconditional friendship, because of the colt, an no such thing as a lasting frienship, because of the mare.

In his heart he wanted to believe there was still a chance, a single sliver of hope, that he would make a true friend.

It would be some time before he would ever realise his dream.

For now, he would just keep walking down this road, alone.

Author's Note:

Wrote this while listening to "unwavering emotions." Please read and review.

Comments

[Blue_Moon]

Well, the story is ok, but I have a few criticisms.

-Grammar and Spelling errors. Need to fix this as these kinds of things really ruin the immersion when the reader is reading a story.
-Pacing is too fast. We never got to see an example of the colt and filly's friendship, meaning we had to assume that they were good friends. This is where the term "show, don't tell" comes in. When writing a story, don't just state things. Actually show things happening. For example, you could have put more depth on the friendship between the two ponies so we would care about them much more.

This next issue is more of a personal issue, but it still relates to my second criticism. The ending did not make any sense. I thought you said earlier that they were very good friends, yet she broke her promise and didn't really want to be friends. I understand you wanted to make this scene sad, but because I had never seen many examples of their friendship, I didn't care that she didn't want to be his friend anymore. Why would a reader get sad over seeing something lost that they never saw with their own eyes? Also, the ending was really depressing and unsatisfying. You should put tragedy in the genre tags.

[ElementOfHope]

2524548 Dear reader, I am ver glad that you took time out of your day to wright an honest review of my story. I will take everything you said into consideration. truth be told I did want this to have a better ending but that is just how life is. This was a story writen by the stalion and it was writen so that it would be easy to understand. Or at least i tried to write it that way. The stalion's character is actualy from another project I was working on and in a way this was sort of a test. Anyway I've been rambling way too long. Thanks again for the review and I hope to see you again In the future.
-ElementOfHope

[Blue_Moon]

2526351

Glad I could help. Please don't think I was being mean though. I want to help you with this story. I recommend finding a good editor for your story and going back in and put some more depth on the relationship between the two characters. And also put a bit more depth on the ending. These two factors could help the story a lot.

[RedRaven]

Ehh... It was okay..

[ElementOfHope]

2786834 well I didn't mean this story. I meant the better one with more chapters and likes

[RedRaven]

2791553 I know just ran into this story and decided to read it...

[Elektric Smile]

Hey! Sorry it took me so long to get around to reading this.

I like the idea of this story. Execution is key, though. It's not enough to just tell what happened, but you have to paint a picture for the reader, as cliché as that sounds. This story could be much longer, and even drawn out into several chapters, but because it's several years condensed into about 1,500 words, it's a little awkward and poor paced.

That being said....I truly believe this story would be successful as multiple chapters, each part of the story, beginning middle, and end, into its own segment. That way the reader would get drawn in and feel connected to the characters. You already have the materials needed to make this story work, and the relationships between the characters feels genuine, and all that is needed is maybe some background information and depth to the characters. So far though, I really like how each character is, and all that is needed is just depth.

Spelling and grammar could have been a little better, but it really doesn't ruin a story too badly. Just a couple misspelled and awkwardly placed words.

If you want, I can help you edit? I'd be more than happy to.

So far, so good! I'm going to read the other story later.

[ElementOfHope]

2928008 yes and I'm glad you red this story but my other story is much better in my opinion. Can't quite remember if you red it though. If not please do