The Education of Tumbling Leaf

by Slipshod Extension

Dewdrops glimmering on tender buds

In the first spring after the Long Night, when the Princess Celestia cast down her sister and trees budded green once more, Tumbling Leaf left his home to seek the true meaning of harmony. He was a colt then, young and brash in the first strength of youth; and he had read many books in his childhood, so was very ignorant. All his life he had heard his parents speak of the Princesses and how they kept harmony in Equestria. Yet as he grew there yawned a void within him, and he wished for answers to questions he knew not how to ask.

“But what is harmony?” he asked his brother, Chestnut Hooves, for he admired Chestnut in all things. Chestnut was taller than Leaf, with a glossy brown coat, and when the family brought produce to market he found many ponies eager to speak with him.

“I don’t know,” said Chestnut. “That all’s the way it should be, I guess. You should ask Pop.”

“Ask your mother,” said old Tiller, for he left such matters to his wife.

“Harmony is love,” said Vintage Red, and kissed her son firmly on the forehead. “Feel that? That’s it.” And Leaf protested and quibbled and begged her to explain, but he could get nothing more out of his mother than determined affection.

Leaf sought at the library what he could not find at home. There he read the tales of the Princesses, and the meditations of wise ponies, and grew enamored of Arrow’s Flight, a philosopher of the pegasi. And when the Nightmare came he was much disturbed, for Flight like his parents spoke of the Princesses as the very embodiments of harmony. If love was harmony, how could a princess have fallen? How could she have lost her love for her sister, for the ponies under her care? And how could the Solar Princess have cast her down, her only monument the mareshead blemish across the face of the moon? He could never have fought Chestnut, for the love between them was great. Leaf asked his brother and father, and most of all his mother, until he was weary of asking and they weary of hearing; for they had no answers to still the turmoil in his heart. At last Vintage had had enough.

“Your old mother’s not good enough for you, then?” she asked, for she was frustrated with Leaf’s troubles and her inability to still them. “Why don’t you ask your pegasus philosopher, then. She’ll set you straight.” Vintage meant nothing by the words and forgot them soon after. So she was surprised and hurt when, a week later, Leaf made ready his saddlebags and announced he would leave. Vintage pleaded, and Tiller disapproved, and Chestnut offered to go with him, but Leaf denied them all.

“Come home safe,” said Vintage “you stubborn colt. You know you’ll only find the answers you want.” And she shared her tears with Tiller and Chestnut as her son’s figure dwindled over the rolling hills.

So Leaf traveled north to Cloudsdale, finding his way easily, for the heavenly city was visible even from his family’s farmstead. Often he had dreamed of visiting the glimmer on the horizon. His breast swelled to imagine meeting with the winged ponies and viewing Equestria from on high. But when he arrived, and stood on the flowering earth watching the rainbows stream down from the clouds, he realized he had not planned how to find Arrow’s Flight with no wings of his own. He was grateful when three young pegasi noticed his plight and glided, sporting and spinning like falling petals on the breeze, down to the ground to ask his purpose.

“I’m here to meet Arrow’s Flight,” Leaf said.

“Arrow’s Flight?” said one of the fliers, his feathers cerulean, fluffy, and free. “She’s old.”

“And boring!” added a second, her mane rippling like fire in the breeze. “All ‘duty’ this and ‘the way’ that. No fun at all.”

“Grandmother says it’s the way of young things to wonder and wander, and of old things to grouse and demand,” said the third, looking seriously at Leaf with eyes the purple of evening skies. “I’ll tell her that you’re here.” So she departed, and her two companions stayed with Leaf. Their names were Cloudy Burst and Shooting Star. They told him of the wind and the clouds and the brewing of storms, and asked the abashed earth pony about his plants and fields. When the purple-eyed mare returned, leading a wizened teal pegasus afoot, they stood back and giggled to one another while Leaf asked his question.

“Tell me, oh Arrow’s Flight, what is harmony?” Leaf said. “For I have read your writings, and I think you must be the wisest pony in the world.”

“Hmm!” said the teal mare. “If you think that, you need to read it all again. But I’ll tell you anyway. It is harmony that birds should fly, that fish should swim, that trees should grow tall and bud. It’s harmony that ponies should turn the heavens and change the seasons. See for yourself!” And she waved to the young fliers.

They took Leaf’s bags from him, lifting him beneath shoulder and breast; and he quivered to watch his warm earth drop away beneath him and the great trees shrink to kindling. About him now the rainbows poured, and the pegasi bore him around minarets and buttresses of cloud, through curtains of mist shining in the morning sun. Leaf shivered for the damp and cold, and Star giggled at his discomfort.

When they alit in the cloudtop city he was amazed at the soft resilience of the spun cloud underfoot, at the grace and elegance of the white-columned porticoes and colonnades, at the vibrant grace of the winged ponies. Now one trotted atop the clouds gathering tendrils of white, now another sprang into the air to retrieve a wayward bit of fluff, now others rose, hovering, to stare curiously at their earthy visitor. His wonder mingled with terror to be so far from the ground, and he felt his knees tremble beneath him. Flight hobbled forth along a cottony terrace, her granddaughter beside her; and Burst and Star herded Leaf in their wake. As she led the way through the cloud city, ponies parting before her, the sage gestured and spoke over her shoulder.

“See how the warm air, rising, bears the flowing river-water back to the sky! See how the drops mate, like to like, to return to the earth! See how the ponies drive the clouds, bringing rain and sun to where they are needed. See the skill of the weatherherds, as they train to harness the scudding clouds and bring the tornado to heel! See how the old teach the young, and how the young care for the old. This is the cycle; this is the way of things." And Leaf was much impressed by the splendor of sunlight and cloud, and the cycle of air and water, and the work of the weather and the disciplined ponies who made it. He stood silent and watched as a platoon of pegasi spun a thunderhead—from simple air, it seemed—and drove it south toward his family farm. The rain would do the corn good, he knew.

“I would learn the ways of the weather,” Leaf said, “if an earth pony may learn.”

“Huh!” Flight said. “Harder than hard, that, when you’ve no wings to lift you and clouds part like dreams before your hooves. An earth pony’s place is on the ground. We bring the rain and sun; you use them. This is harmony.” Leaf turned away, to fix in his mind the glory of the cloudtop city which he might never see again. But Arrow’s granddaughter, whose name was Moonlit Gloaming, stared at her grandmother with her vivid purple eyes; and looked back at the pale green earth colt, still as slender as a sapling.

“I will teach him,” she said. And Flight groused and grumbled but eventually declared there could be little harm in it. There was no point trying to stop Gloaming, Flight said, for it was the way of the young to be wild and foolish and they would learn in time. Leaf stayed in Cloudsdale in a room in Arrow’s house, and wandered the cloudy city in the mornings, watching the sun come over the horizon and set the firmament to rose and gold. But he came not near the edges of the clouds, for with the sight of the earth the horror of falling came upon him. In the afternoons he learned from Gloaming; who was a quiet teacher, but firm in the fashion of her grandmother. She taught Leaf of updraft and downdraft, pressure and vortex, warm and cold front and the uses of wings and weather magic. He did not learn quickly. It would have been hard enough for him, raised by earth and root, to learn the deep traditions of the sky even were Flight his teacher. Leaf cared for the beauty and the life of the clouds, but not overmuch for their crafting and herding. And he often lost Gloaming’s words in the sound of her voice, and the light in her eyes when she spoke of soaring spirals around thunderheads or of running with the lightning. In the evenings Leaf returned to Flight’s house and cooked, drawing many visitors with the rich, homey food of the farmponies.

So again disquiet grew in Leaf’s heart, for he came to love Gloaming. He longed to soar and cavort with her on the morning wind, and put to action the many lessons she taught him of air and heat and water. His breast ached to see her dappled, purple form working among the clouds at midday; and he waited eagerly for her to finish her work and sought to lengthen their lessons in the evening. And one night Arrow, who had seen many lovesick colts, stepped quiet behind Leaf as he worked in the kitchen.

“You think you love my granddaughter,” she said. It was not a question.

Leaf plunged a hoof into his vegetable pie and stammered, denials and deflections spilling from his lips. Arrow stemmed the flow with an upraised hoof. “Had I been unsure, that display would be proof enough. You’re a very nice colt, Tumbling Leaf, and a very fine hoof in the kitchen, but I don’t think you could be happy with her.”

Leaf was indignant. “What? But—we have so much in common! She loves weather, I love weather…”

“Do you?” Arrow’s voice was wry.

“I study it every afternoon!”

“You’ve been learning for a season or more, young colt, and I think you could say more about the hues in your teacher’s wings than about the art of bringing on a cold front. But—” and here she gestured to the gravy still dripping from his hoof—“you really do know your vegetables.” Arrow’s voice turned uncharacteristically soft. “She’s fond of you, too, of course. These things are never easy. Perhaps you could be happy for a season or three; but she is a creature of the sky, and you—” she stomped a hole in the cloudy floor, and watched as Leaf quivered and shrank—“are of the earth. She must go her way, and you go yours.”

Now Leaf’s brow beetled, and anger welled within him. “Well I want my way to be hers! I can’t follow her, but she could come with me—”

Arrow fixed him with a stare as sharp as her namesake. “Would you ask that of her? To leave her home and friends, her skies and updrafts, the work and world she loves, for you?” And Leaf stopped, and was abashed, and shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was small.

“But, then, what’s the point—of choice, of thought? Why can we think and speak, if our ways are plotted before us? What worth is life if we must think only of our duty, and not of our desire?”

“Hmm! This is duty, young colt—we must all find our way. The light, the wind, the water need no knowledge. They are as they are. Of all nature, only we have the ability to deny our place; so only we must struggle to fulfill it. The Princess knows this. When her sister stepped from the way—sought to stop the cycle of things—Celestia stopped her in turn. She kept harmony.”

Leaf heard her words, but they meant little to his tormented heart. “Surely nothing can be harmony that tears ponies apart. Ponies should be free—free to live where they will, how they will, with whom they will. That’s harmony.”

Flight’s wrinkled snout wrinkled still further. “Huh! I’d hoped an earth pony would be more grounded than our own flighty foals. One freedom constrains another, and all come with a cost. If you would see freedom, seek out the great dragon Felsite. It is said he is the most free of all creatures. Ask a dragon of harmony, and after see if my answer is not yours also.” And Leaf packed his saddlebags in anger, and left Arrow’s house in pain, and went to Gloaming’s house to ask that she come with him. He went, he said, to seek out a dragon, and to find the true meaning of harmony. And Gloaming came. She cared for this foolish young colt and feared he would perish without her. When dawn arrived, Arrow was unsurprised but still grieved. “She’ll be back,” she told Burst and Star. “Her place is here in the sky.”

Comments

[Bicyclette]

“Harmony is love,” said Vintage Red, and kissed her son firmly on the forehead. “Feel that? That’s it.” And Leaf protested and quibbled and begged her to explain, but he could get nothing more out of his mother than determined affection.

and oof, love how efficiently these first paragraphs introduce this adolescent’s search for understanding of his world. of course this initial answer would be unsatisfying to him now

“Grandmother says it’s the way of young things to wonder and wander, and of old things to grouse and demand,” said the third, looking seriously at Leaf with eyes the purple of evening skies.

ooh, love this line

“I would learn the ways of the weather,” Leaf said, “if an earth pony may learn.”
“Huh!” Flight said. “Harder than hard, that, when you’ve no wings to lift you and clouds part like dreams before your hooves. An earth pony’s place is on the ground. We bring the rain and sun; you use them. This is harmony.”

“I will teach him,” she said. And Flight groused and grumbled but eventually declared there could be little harm in it.

and thus illustrating the previous line, as well as how the old justify keeping everything the same as it always was, very nice!

Flight’s wrinkled snout wrinkled still further. “Huh! I’d hoped an earth pony would be more grounded than our own flighty foals. One freedom constrains another, and all come with a cost. If you would see freedom, seek out the great dragon Felsite. It is said he is the most free of all creatures. Ask a dragon of harmony, and after see if my answer is not yours also.”

and what a great start for this most bildungsroman of bildungsromans! really nailing the feel of it