//------------------------------// // Clifftop // Story: The Olden World // by Czar_Yoshi //------------------------------// Starlight stared in dismay at the landscape ahead. She had emerged from the trees, and now stood at the edge of a wide, flat, smooth stone field. Her river coolly streamed across it before vanishing at the edge in a cloud of haze. And beyond? She could see nothing for miles save for the jagged shadow cut through the heavens by the distant interlinking of peaks. Starlight paced to the edge anyway, careful to steady her hooves in the event of wet ground. Peering over the cliff face, she swallowed: it was perfectly sheer, and so far down she couldn't make out the bottom. Or she could - but all it was was a mirrorlike lake, reflecting the immeasurable swarms of stars in the sky. Sitting down, she took a moment to pout, thinking back on the way she had come. She had hoped the flattening of the terrain had meant she was reaching the bottom; instead, she had merely found a cliff... and would have to part from her river, as well. Her instincts told her there was no time to waste, and she batted them away. So long as she found food and drink, she had all the time in the world. So she sat there at the edge of the cliff, staring flat-eared at the sky and the moon, the horizon that limited her sight so far away she felt she could touch it. After a moment of moongazing, she shook her head and looked away, briefly chastising herself. She enjoyed it, to be sure. Perhaps a little too much. With a slight feeling of nervousness, she curled around and inspected her flank. It bore two parallel lines of charcoal gray, exactly as she had seen it last. She sighed bitterly, overcome by an unknown mix of emotions that left a lonely taste in her mouth. Eventually, she straightened up, turned around, and continued walking. The first thing Starlight Glimmer did was backtrack along the river to a safe distance from the cliff's edge, so that she wouldn't get washed over if she slipped and fell in. Next, she dipped in her muzzle and drank deeply once again - this time remembering to stop while she could still move. She sighed again, wiped her lips, checked that her flasks were full... and turned her back on the stream, marching with the edge to her left. The filly stayed on the fringe of the forest, gladly letting the light from above replace her need to use her horn. But she stayed within range of the carpet of needles; thin as it was at the border, and even though she wore horseshoes, it was considerably better than hard stone. As she walked, she noticed her shadow growing longer... and it wasn't just from the setting moon. The ground beneath her was slightly sloped, indicating that she was losing altitude. She hummed pleasantly to herself; she had guessed the right direction. That and she just hadn't wanted to cross the river. The moon set. Abruptly, Starlight found her path that much darker: she hadn't realized just how much of the light it was responsible for. She almost considered relighting her horn, but the terrain was flat and the only cliff around was very obvious. Besides, it felt nice to rest, for a change. Rest. She snickered; she couldn't remember a time in her life her legs had been this used. Honestly, she was surprised she'd done as well as she had, going on hoof. Early on - before she'd even reached the caves - she'd overtaxed herself and had to rest for a day, legs turned to pillars of pink pudding, and had proceeded with horrible cramps afterward. But ever since, she'd been more careful, and hadn't once given herself more than she could bear. She wished she could say the same for her smarting horn. Starlight was still following the cliff edge when the sky began to lighten, and again when the sun fully rose. It snuck speedily out from behind a crag so fast she barely had time to blink - though her blink was more at the realization that she didn't need to blink. She craned her neck up and up, trying to look over the towering wall of stone that loomed before her much closer than the day before... and when she saw the sun, it was nearly at midday. She sighed, shivered, and stood there, allowing it to warm her coat and dispense of the night's chills. Then she continued walking. Now that the sun was up, Starlight opted to make another trip to the edge to check what was below. When she reached it, she was pleasantly surprised to see the forest canopy only a few meters down. She was almost there. Hardly wanting to shimmy down a sticky, sappy trunk with her saddlebags, she kept going. Parts of her body began to complain: her stomach was hungry, her legs were weary, her back was hot even though she still felt cold inside. Unhappily, she thought of the rations in her pack and the size of her last meal. If she didn't want to run out of food, she'd need to find trees that grew something other than pine cones. Or more grass. She doubted she could take that with her, but it had certainly been nourishing. Still, she forced herself onwards, periodically checking the cliff. Several hours later, it finally became shallow enough to jump down, so she braced herself, coiling, and leapt. More stone. Starlight frowned; she had hoped for grass. But the sun was still high in the sky, and the forest resumed ahead of her, so she would need to get a good start if she didn't want to have to use her horn again to see at night. To that end, she stopped, spread her packs, curled up on a rock and had the most pitiful picnic that mountain valley had ever seen. She winced from hunger again even as she re-packed her saddlebags, and shrugged it off. There would be real grass again eventually. Maybe she'd eat a full meal that evening. She'd tried ferns and moss already, only to find them intolerably scratchy, bitter, and dubiously edible. At least she wasn't sleepy. That much, she had under control: after countless sunless days in the mountain caves, her sleep schedule had devolved to something nopony could even guess. She wasn't sure how long she would sleep for when she next properly went to bed, but she knew she'd been up for a day and a half and her eyelids weren't the least bit heavy. So, with a supply of food that needed to last an unknown amount of time and a pair of eyes that definitely weren't sleepy in the slightest, Starlight Glimmer hitched up her saddlebags, perked her ears forward, and trotted into the forest.