Still they continue. The sheer face of Canterlot Mountain rises in the background, steep and bold in greys and browns. They stand on earth, now. Their lofty travels above are ended. Scattered randomly about the landscape are small shacks and large fields of amber grain. The shacks are humble and wooden, with a select few rising over two storeys. Small unlit lamps hang from hooks on the walls, and no trace of stone or metal may be found. Small dirt paths run through the buildings haphazardly, reflecting only the paths most trodden.
A couple of bright blurs take form in the background, though none engage the two. They have their own businesses to tend to. The easel, once more, is set, and the earthen colors have begun to take shape over the page. The scene slowly comes to life in bright greens, soft golden browns, and the brown slurs of wood. He sits beside her, silently, patiently.
She likes the quaint village, she thinks. The colors lend themselves well to her imagination, and though it is a simplistic place, its heart runs far deeper than the roots of stone or concrete. She likes to feel the soft grass, the depression of soil under her hooves. These people have not yet thrown off their connections to the land, and she doubts they ever will. Although some may think it depressing to live quite literally under the high vaults of luxury, these ponies hold no affections for the useless gildings and arcades and paved venues. They merely enjoy being a part of their earth.
The artist comes upon an interesting realization: she has never quite had the same affection for the earth. It has been beautiful, and occasionally inspiring, but she has never looked to it for comfort, for any sort of meaning. She has never had roots in the earth, and at the thought she gives a silent ironic chuckle. She looks for roots in cities and others, not in the earth. She cannot overcome the sense of humor to it, though her smile makes it more difficult to paint. Now she has lost her focus, and looks for the spot she had left off.
Every once in a while, he remains quiet, she remarks. The bright smile fades not, but the words end. She likes the short quiets. They are like lulls in the storm of her emotion. It is a fair storm, she thinks, but still it confuses her, to feel so much at once. Her love overcomes her at many points, so she is happy when there is just a single moment to sit still, to be silent. She can stop, think, reflect on everything that passes. He has seen it in his eyes, he understands that something will have to change for their child. That is likely what he is silent for, she thinks. He knows not how to continue. As she feels the small heartbeat, she thinks there must be a closing, a last journey. She will tell him that she is up for a final lap.
And yet perhaps it need not be the end, at least not permanently. Children grow fast, she thinks. When they have grown enough, they may continue. That would make her career futile again, she thinks. Forget her career. She thinks now, her art shall never be worth this time with him, no matter how she improves, no matter what power she wields in the brush, he will always mean more to her. Is that all right? It is her resolution, so that is as right as it should ever be. All she needs are them. It is only him, her, and the child now. Her smile grows, and once more, she has lost her place on the canvas. She still enjoys to paint, though. After all, it is her greatest talent. Her greatest material talent, she corrects.
She has painted more with him. It is due to the quick changes of scenes, yes, but she senses there is something more beyond that. She is more inspired with him, yes. That adds to it. There is something more, though. Over the few months, she has grown so much. She has cast off her inhibitions with him. For these months, she has been almost entirely happy. The ‘almost’ seems out of place, she thinks. Still, no relationship is perfect. Indeed, she has argued with him, though it falls out of her memories like sand through a sieve. In the end, only the happiness remains, and the rest is a vague afterthought.
He is ready to give all of it up. He wonders what job he will find. How simple it is to think of working, until he imagines being confined. It is for a greater good, he assures himself, though thoughts still haunt his mind, walking the same path each day, making trodden paths, seeing the same colors, feeling the same thoughts for the rest of his life’s span. It makes him feel constricted already, like he cannot even move from the spot where he sits without disrupting a fiber of his life, his child’s life. he revolts against himself. It is selfish. He has fulfilled his dreams already, seen a multitude of horizons and sunrises. Now it is time to ensure his child’s are met.
It is a wonderful life he leads, he decides. He will love the child more, he knows, once it arrives. He is merely unused to fatherhood. He has already felt the first echoes of a father’s joy. One day, in a few months, he will be happy to grow roots. Nothing else will feel so noble, so fulfilling, than securing the childhood that he was denied. Perhaps by seeing his son grow well, that last bit will fall into place, the final unresolved pieces of his own childhood. He will provide a father where there was previously dust, and she a mother where there was previously a shadow.
Slowly, in time, they meet the Earth.