Bored… so bored…
Mornings often move slowly. The sun was streaking across the sky, patient and crushing, and pushing forward the day at the same pace as the day before, as the next day will be. Time is a funny thing, it always moves so slowly, grudgingly, and it travels with the foreboding knowledge that no matter what any pony does, it will not be defeated.
Today, though... Of all days it was quite apparent that the whole world had decided to move at the pace of a snail; the wind blowing through the grass in a leisurely manner, leaving the stems of the grass to collide like tiny, green, bending towers. A hummingbird flew up from this very grass to proceed along its daily schedule of collecting nectar. Or maybe it had gone to meet other hummingbirds, or maybe it wanted to soar as high into the sky as it could; to go off and have adventures on the other side of the world. Whatever it was doing, it made Cloud Charmer dreadfully sad.
High above, in the great passes and valleys of the mountains, rocks groaned. They too had to wake and perform their morning rituals to prepare for the coming day, did they not? Rocks have just about exciting days as anypony else in this world; they wake, they stretch, and then they sleep until next morning. Yes, they were as boring as any of the ground walkers in this world. Wait, that was mean, it was not that those who walked on the ground were boring, but how could anyone love the ground when the sky was just sitting there above them.
This was how Cloud Charmer saw the world; slow, boring, and unadventurous... most of the time. She wanted more. Deep in her heart she wanted adventure. It was part of her, it was in her bones. She wanted to rush headlong into the dark, and the high, and the dangerous and she wanted to drink in the excitement. To feel the adrenaline pumping through her veins as she faced the unknown, the unimaginable.
But instead, she had to settle for boring. Slow… and boring.
Cloud Charmer never meant to be up this early, but as the cart lurched across the dusty path along its upward climb it had somehow managed to awaken her from her deep slumber. It was unfair! Why did the motion of the cart have to be so... jarring.
Cloud and her family were moving to their new home on the side of the mountains. Some town that had situated itself on the mountains above the forest where the royal pony sisters had placed their castle. The castle was fairly new, depending on how you look at it; because while several decades may seem a long time to a pony, to an immortal like the sisters a decade was not much more then a pit stop along the road of life. The town itself was only half the age of the castle, as it had taken a while to for ponies to remember where the castle had been before Discord's takeover of Equestria. Ponies had been moving there in large groups since they remembered that their home had returned and there was a castle of their saviors make , who now were considered the greatest protection from harm that the kingdom had to offer.
Cloud Charmer’s family had decided to move there for different reasons.
Cloud stared up at the sky, her stormy grey eyes seeming to brighten as they reflected the light. Cloud was a Pegasus, with a dark grey coat, similar eyes, and an unkempt light blue mane with dark blue highlights.
What was that beautiful blue dome that ponies called "sky"? Why was it so enchanting? What did things look like from up there? She had heard many stories, mostly from her uncle. Perhaps the sky ended, eventually stopping at some point that her uncle called; the atmosphere. Or maybe the sky just kept going on forever. Even now, as her family trekked through the mountains, she found that while the clouds here were closer than she had ever seen them, the roof of the sky was still far out of reach.
As she stared up in the sky she could feel only wonder. She wished she could fly already! The clouds were so close! she felt that she could reach them if she could just fly.Well, she could hover a little, but that was it.
So now she was stuck down here, too old not to be flying and too weak to actually fly. Cloud Charmer was stuck here on the stupid, boring ground, with all these boring rocks and trees, and the world was so exciting, just above her... Out of reach... Being a pegasi stuck on the ground was not fair.
Cloud looked at her parents. Her father, Stormflight, was a Pegasus like her, and was currently pulling the cart towards their new home. Despite his small stature he was actually very strong. He was a fun dad, and often played with Cloud Charmer and told her stories while on the road. Her mother, Oak Leaf sat on the passenger seat, humming to herself. Cloud wondered why they had decided to move at all.
In truth, it was because of family that they were moving. Stormflight came from a very wealthy Pegasus family in the south. Such families as this arose in great number after the return of harmony to the land, and Stormflight's family had major success running a weather pony operation in the south. The family was very pompous, and Stormflight had left to see the world as early as he could. When he returned, he returned a soldier, and he brought back with him a new bride. Oak Leaf, an Earth pony. The family had prided themselves on being pure Pegasus, and the backlash of Stormflight's marriage struck hard.
His own family had shunned and ostracized him. How could he have betrayed them so deeply? They had refused to even acknowledge him, and even considered officially removing him from the family... at first. But the younger generations of the family, including Stormflight's brother, Far Flung, quickly grew to love Oak Leaf's kind and caring nature. They eventually welcomed her as part of the family, and were even more delighted when Cloud Charmer was born.
Yet the good times, it seemed, were not fated to last, and after several threats from the older members of the family Stormflight was forced to take his new family and flee the south. Far Flung had offered a home for them up here, under jurisdiction of the two sisters. Stormflight, left with no other options, accepted Far Flung's offer, and the family had begun its long and arduous journey here.
A journey that had lead Cloud Charmer to be sitting on the back of a cart, heading towards a new home, wishing that she could fly.
The world continued to pass by along from the back of the cart, looking at the horizon left Cloud seeing the sky as ground from her lying position. It was all so... empty. In fact it completely lacked in any non-monotonous activity whatsoever. She wanted, no, she NEEDED something new to take her mind off the unending road that lay both before and behind her.
“Moooom! Are we there yet? I don’t think I can take much more of this!” said Cloud Charmer, who then proceeded to release a sigh loud enough to wake the dead from their slumber.
Cloud’s father chuckled, “you've asked that every five minutes since you woke up.” In truth, Stormflight didn't mind the whining. He had been constantly amused by the antics that had come from his daughter's impatient nature.
“She’s just bored.” Said Oak Leaf in her pleasantly deep voice, “why don’t you look at the scenery, Cloud? We’ll be there soon, I’m sure of it.”
“I’ve been looking at the scenery all day!”
“It’s only been a couple of hours since dawn.” Stormflight said in a very lighthearted tone. “I’m sure you can wait a little longer.”
“Funny, I seem to remember hearing those words from you, husband. Long ago. ” Her mother chided, also amused by the conversation.
“But can’t we go faster? Maybe the world would move faster if we did!” Cloud said as she let herself fall onto her back in the cart. It was a possibility, whenever she ran it felt like the world sped up around her, so maybe the same principle applied here.
“The world will move when it does. You need not bother trying to rush it, besides, I am sure you will have the best of times when we get there.” Oak Leaf said.
Cloud didn’t even bother responding to that; it was too obvious of a statement. She knew she would have fun there, that’s what made the wait so unbearable! The pain of waiting to see just what lay ahead for her at a new home was so much to think about that the idea of taking so long to get there was crippling. They had been on the road so long that she couldn't even remember when they had left. That, or... she just hadn't bothered to find out when they had left.
It was all so little to take. It was unexciting, and, ultimately, too time consuming for her to bother focusing on all the fun she had missed while travelling. So she stared at the sky and sighed again,this time loud enough that creatures scampering in the long grass on the side of the upward ascending road turned to look at the passing cart.
The world stayed like that for a long time, nothing existing but the crunching of dirt as the cart made its slow journey across the land. Cliffs passed by... deer ran between a few trees in the hills higher up the mountains. The sighing wind blew across the grass, turning the ground into a moving green carpet. All was quiet.
Until something quite curious occurred.
Though Cloud Charmer did not understand what had happened at the time, she heard the resounding click of two peices of the universe sliding together. A grumbling sound rapidly grew in volume inside of her head, until a sound like cymbals crashing together brought the original sound to a halt. The world began to move; not just slowly, but speeding up, as if the wind had picked up and began turning a windmills fans faster and faster.
Motion surrounded Cloud like a twister, threatening to pull her in. Grass started rustling like thunder, rocks jumped and danced to an unheard beat in the world. The universe was now in full force, pushing the cart faster and faster down the road. The wind blasting around her, in tune to a music that simply could not be heard, Cloud looked ahead of the motion, and was swept up with relief, then excitement.
They had arrived at Cliffside.