//------------------------------// // Chapter 30 - Sunrise // Story: The Earth Ponies // by RomanCandle //------------------------------// Half Note blinked. She was on her back, her head was spinning. She'd hid the stone and there had been sound and color and now she was in the dirt - She blinked. Her eyes were still out of focus. - the ground was soft. Moist. Earthy. She scrambled back onto her hooves - a blurry glimpse of dusty purple and red-orange confirmed her friends were still there, so she let herself look down and - There was dirt. Actual dirt, not the infinitely fine and dry and dead dust and - and it was spreading. Tornado Bolt and Firelock had similarly been blown down - on their sides - and were still in the process of standing up, but she could see the gray dust seem to dissolve or condense as it touched the edge of a spreading ring of deep, dark, rich brown. She cackled, manic laughter spilling out of her as the absurdity of it hit her - a rock, and now dirt, that was all she was getting, it was all she got as a worthless Earth Pony - and she spun around to take it out on the stupid, stupid rock, only to smash her muzzle into something that was much taller and closer than she was prepared for. She clutched her nose, cursing up a storm as she backed up, and as the stars swam out of her eyes she followed the offending object from where her eyes saw it - dull and brown, lighter than the dirt that was still spreading - as it went up and up and up and she gasped. It was a tree, now. Massive, putting castle towers to shame, and while the bark was the most mundane mottled colors imaginable the crown shimmered. Iridescent, gossamer leaves fractured the light given off by glowing blossoms and cascaded color down, rainbows caught in the air and lost in the depth of the soil. She backed away as she looked upward, entranced by the colors, and she heard the gasps of Firelock and Tornado as they noticed the same. One leaf - or petal, she couldn't tell - began to tumble down from its height and as a ray of fractured light hit Tornado in the eye she sputtered. "What did you do?" Her wings were trembling with tension as she followed the dance of the increasing number of petals as they tumbled downward, slowly and gently. The Pegasus felt the change in the air - things were moving in it, it was breathing, suddenly so much more fresh, open instead of empty... Half Note gaped before another gleam struck her. She tried to blink the rainbows out of her eyes and felt the sting in her snout, and the trance was broken, so she tried to stammer a response. "I just...I just hit it, I don't- I was angry, it was too quiet and that was the first thing I thought of, I was mad and it would make a sound and maybe break and it was the first time I felt like I could really do something and..." She trailed off as she stared, the petals still tumbling down. "...I guess I did something." The three of them watched in silence as the colorful dance continued, eventually laying themselves down in the soft soil. The air smelled like it had rained, the ground gave a little as they lowered themselves onto it, but it held its own against their weight in a way the dust never could. The air moved against their fur and manes so slightly, ruffled only by the tumbling of the leaves and petals, so softly that eyes would never see the movement but they still felt it on their skin. After all that nothingness, it was relief. They just watched, felt, breathed it all in and for a while, that was enough. Tornado began to shift in place. This was good, it was obviously good and they deserved a break, but...they weren't done. They couldn't be, not yet, when they didn't have answers. Clearly it was important, but she found herself worrying about what it meant, what they'd do next, even as the soil spread out of sight and the first leaves began to near the ground. She watched as one leaf, shimmering like stained glass gentled touched the soil and silently crunched in on itself, turning to a muddy lump. She was on her hooves in an instant, but Firelock was already speaking. "Guys, the leaves are falling faster..." And Tornado looked higher as Firelock and Half Note stood up and sure enough, they were falling in a flurry now. There was no wind to drive them but they spun around the base of the massive tree, getting faster and faster even as they watched and Tornado looked back down where she'd seen the one land and saw them slamming into each other, wrapping around each other as their colors mashed together, and the kaleidoscope of light was blinding but the shape of something big was forming, a shadow of muddied colors as the leaves and petals spun faster and further and soon they were in the storm, unable to see anything meaningful through the riot of color. Half Note gasped, Firelock screamed, and Torando sputtered as she threw her wings up in front of her face, expecting to be blasted by leaves whipped glass-sharp by cutting winds - but instead, she felt enveloped by a sudden blanket of softness. She tried to peek out, but found her vision obscured by a wall of whirring colors - it was so thick, she wondered how she was even breathing - but it was only a couple breaths before the flowers and foliage fell, gently, out of the air and down her back and to the ground. She ran to her friends before anything, their eyes squeezed shut and ears folded flat - they were okay, they had to be, but as they opened their eyes and Tornado opened her mouth a voice heavy as a mountain and lighter than perfume spoke. "You shouldn't be here."