The Education of Tumbling Leaf

I'm Gonna Rec It!1,155 stories ·112 members

Source

Highly recommended by the very generous PresentPerfect! Review here.

When a child is young enough to believe in truth and old enough to not have found it, fluid enough to need no foundation and rigid enough to want one, cynic enough to mislike the world and romantic enough to love it, then may they go wandering on dusty hooves through wood and plain and mountain, hungry for the warmth of other hearths and the caress of novel tongues and customs. And when their ears and eyes and heart and hooves are filled to overflowing, they must hope that the road has worn them to fit a door passed along the way.

A fairytale bildungsroman sort of thing, grown several times too large.

Death and violence are not frequent or terribly explicit, but they do appear.

Chapters (7)

Dewdrops glimmering on tender buds · 13th Mar 2021 · 2,262 words
2,262
Download .txt
Download .html
The roiling of thunderheads in the throat of the sky · 13th Mar 2021 · 3,856 words
3,856
Download .txt
Download .html
The ravening wind that leaves trees cold and bare · 13th Mar 2021 · 1,196 words
1,196
Download .txt
Download .html
The drip of milky water in forgotten pools · 13th Mar 2021 · 1,921 words
1,921
Download .txt
Download .html
The first summer night still warm beneath the moon · 13th Mar 2021 · 2,024 words
2,024
Download .txt
Download .html
Golden rays on aching eyes · 13th Mar 2021 · 1,046 words
1,046
Download .txt
Download .html
A completely unearned coda · 13th Mar 2021 · 264 words
264
Download .txt
Download .html

Comments ( 15 )

Viewing 1 - 50 of 15
- Newest First
- Oldest First

PresentPerfect

Author Interviewer

PresentPerfect #1 · Jan 23rd, 2022 · 1 · · The drip of milky water in forgotten pools ·

That is the most badass description of King Sombra's defeat I could ever ask for.

PresentPerfect

Author Interviewer

PresentPerfect #2 · Jan 23rd, 2022 · · · Golden rays on aching eyes ·

Heartbreaking.

PresentPerfect

Author Interviewer

PresentPerfect #3 · Jan 23rd, 2022 · · · A completely unearned coda ·

oh my god, that's perfect

iisaw

iisaw #4 · Mar 5th, 2022 · · · A completely unearned coda ·

Beautiful work!

Slipshod Extension

Slipshod Extension #5 · Sep 7th, 2022 · 1 · · A completely unearned coda ·

11171791
Thank you! Sorry for the long, long delay.

Bicyclette

Bicyclette #6 · May 4th, 2023 · 1 · · Dewdrops glimmering on tender buds ·

“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

Bicyclette

Bicyclette #7 · May 4th, 2023 · 1 · · The roiling of thunderheads in the throat of the sky ·

“This is harmony,” came the dragon’s rasp. “That the weak should feed the strong, and tremble at their coming. That each should prosper according to his measure. Your Princess knows this. See how she cast down her only rival, to rule you whimpering ponies alone. Even now she raises a castle in the sky, built and fed by you worms who crawl in the mud. For the mighty to bow before the weak is an affront to the greatness of their nature. That is your lesson, little mouse—take what you will, as far as your will can take you. And now I will take my pay.”

and oof! love these different, self-serving interpretations of the same event. really makes you think. the cruelty of Felsite’s domination over these three species is horrifying, and the deer show how cruelty flows downward in turn.

“Ah, but the mountains are mine, little pony! Mine for I came here first, and none can take them from me. I found these little dogs beneath my hills generations ago, and I told them they could stay if they brought me the fruits of my land. If they mislike our bargain, they can always renege—or they may simply flee. But it is a fine life. They have meaningful work, and the greatest miner of each pack finds the end of all suffering each year. They are grateful, as they should be.”

and yet even he must find ways to justify what he is doing, even with his stated philosophy

Bicyclette

Bicyclette #8 · May 4th, 2023 · 1 · · The ravening wind that leaves trees cold and bare ·

A streak of ruddy, bare burn cut through Gloaming’s mane and down her neck, the signature of the lightning bolt by which had she saved Leaf from the dragon. Leaf watched it in pain as she paced across the canyon where they hid from Felsite’s wrath.

there are a lot of joules in those lightning strikes! pegasi are not to be messed with

It seemed easier to think, now, in a loose sort of way. His shoulder didn’t pain him so much anymore, and it really was getting warm. Leaf tried to kick off the oilcloths bound around his hooves, but his legs felt clumsy. Well, he had been climbing all day. Perhaps he would feel more agile after a nice nap in the snow. He dipped his nose toward the white frosting.

and oof, the pony version of paradoxical undressing.

Bicyclette

Bicyclette #9 · May 4th, 2023 · 1 · · The drip of milky water in forgotten pools ·

Leaf’s saviors were unlike any ponies he had seen before. Each bore a unicorn’s horn, unusually curved. They had no fur, but rather gleamed in coats of smooth chitin. Their eyes glowed flat and blue, with neither white nor pupil, and from their backs sprouted wings of some stiff, iridescent membrane. He marveled at the colors as they buzzed to either side, and he wondered if this was what had given the Crystal Ponies their name.

hoowee, a very understandable and unfortunate assumption for Tumbling Leaf to make!

He grew fast and strong and clever on the jeweled soil of the Crystal Empire, loving the perfect lines and angles of gems above the fuss and mess of ponies. But he was handsome, and seemed gracious, and smiled broadly in the schools of the art, so none perceived his contempt for the inefficiencies and follies of his peers. And when he was full-grown in body and the might of his magic, his will a chisel to shatter even the Princess of Love, he set out to score the pattern in his breast across the muddle and discord of the world.

absolutely love this poetic description of Sombra’s rise

“Yes, that was harmony to Sombra. That all things should have their place, that all movements should be smooth and clean, that the world entire should be a great machine and he the engineer.”

this really does capture his perspective so well

She paused. “You have seen our children.”

and ooh, i love this as the origin of the Changelings! it is just so perfect! really casts the whole Chrysalis story in a new and far more interesting light

“We made them so they would not repeat our mistakes, would not, could not lie to one another by face or word. We made them to hunger for love, so that they will always need one another; and we made them to know one another entire, so that need will never turn to hate. They require no gesture, no sound—words and faces will be games to them, for their hearts will be one. Not bound by Sombra's chains and rules, but grown together by nature, like different hooves of one body. True harmony. We made them, we labored through the long years even as we laid down to sleep one by one.”

absolute perfection, i love it all. augh

Galatea shuddered, stalactite jowls quivering. “She should be their head, not I. I cannot lead them forever. I do not know them as we made them to know one another. They do not know me as they must to truly love. If they grow around me like a crystal around a flaw, they will never be as strong, as whole, as they must be to live in this world.”
Leaf did not know how long he lay in the blanket of the Crystal Ponies, beside the assembled rows of their past and the insensate lump of their future. Galatea seemed content to lie beside the great, dark creature forever, frozen as the dark shapes within their jewel sarcophagi.

and augh, sorry i’m quoting everything but all of this is really great imagery

Bicyclette

Bicyclette #10 · May 7th, 2023 · 1 · · The first summer night still warm beneath the moon ·

Leaf hoped that some part of her was awake to hear, like a seed that takes in water and begins to uncoil its long-dormant motion and life, even before a green sprout emerges from the shell to see.

love his use of agricultural metaphors throughout, though considering how Chrysalis turned out…

Leaf who had faced the dragon could not shift the plumed stallion, nor his dozen compatriots in their proud fitted corselets. Galatea was exhausted from the climb, and he suspected the magic of ten Galateas would not suffice either. So they sat on a wrought-iron bench looking down on the plain, with the scent of honeysuckle and roses on the air and the setting sun like a flaming eye before them.

and our heroes who have braved dragons and tyrants finally face a challenge that cannot be overcome: bureaucracy

“What!” The voice dripped outrage. “Have you already forgotten? Has that self-righteous fireball erased me, denied me, after the waltzes we danced together, the advice I’ve given her, the times she’s sobbed before me like a foal? This is beyond belief! Young, scarred, frankly rather old-looking colt, I am Discord. I am the anointed foe of Harmony and Right and Good and Cute Little Bunnies and all that blather, and if anyone can tell you what harmony is, I can. I know it like the center space of my dartboard, the face duct-taped onto my punching bag, the playbook of the buckball team that knocked mine out of the finals for eight seasons in a row! I know all things, for certain values of ‘know’ and ‘things’; and I never, ever lie, for the truth always hurts more. So bring me a tangerine and I’ll end your quixotic little quest and you can go home a broken stallion.”

love how you somehow keep Discord being Discord, straining against the boundaries of this fairytale bildungsroman while still remaining firmly a character within it

“Harmony is—oh, I was kidding, can’t you take a joke, even I know she’d incinerate you if you took her morning sweets—harmony is the idea, the idea that it all must fit together somehow, that your world can be at once broken and whole.” And the grease of the statue’s laughter poured over Leaf and filled his mouth and lungs as he stared into the glassy eyes that were once Galatea.

and, oof. love the poignance from a most unexpected source. but that is somehow expected, isn’t it?

Bicyclette

Bicyclette #11 · May 7th, 2023 · 1 · · Golden rays on aching eyes ·

and it was all building up to this, Celestia's presence felt but not seen in the actions and mindsets and souls of every character in the story so far. and i must say, this really lived up to it. she truly feels like the Celestia that she should be

Bicyclette