//------------------------------// // All To Walk Off a Cliff // Story: When Two Clouds Meet // by Ardent Wing //------------------------------// Cloudy night was confused. Why was she walking into town? Why was she away from home so early? Even now as she looked at the trees passing her by as she walked, she could not stop herself. What had happened? She should not be outside this early. The sun was streaking towards the far and mountainous horizon to the west. This sight was not unfamiliar to Cloudy Night, but she had never come outside this far from sunset, and the brightly burning light was hurting her eyes. She once again tried to stop herself; she needed to go home! She didn't want to be out here! Yet she kept walking towards town anyway. This day had been so wrong for her. First she woke up half a mile away from home, hanging in a tree! She had rushed home to try to get in some more sleep, but her parents had left for the end of summer celebration and the front door to their cottage had been left locked. Cloudy had ended up climbing into a nearby tree and dropping onto her balcony window. Oh how she wished it had been as easy as it would sound! Suffice to say, it was the second time that day she had ended up hanging from a tree. Then, to make the day just that much worse, she had been unable to sleep that day, as she kept hearing this noise; like a drumbeat, which kept her awake. Eventually she had just walked out of her home and through the woods, in the day! It was absurd, outrageous, and what was that noise she kept hearing? She couldn't take it, it was too much noise, plus the town itself would be crowded. Cloudy Night hated crowds; they were just too hustle and bustle for her to take. She did NOT want to go to town! So why was she doing this? It must be the sound, that beat. It was pulling her. No matter what she did she could not resist the temptation to follow the music. Yet she had only begun to hear these beats since she woke up this morning. Desperately, Cloudy tried to remember what had happened to her last night. She remembered going to her nightly hangout spot, then she was lying down and looking at the sky, everything was fine until- until she had heard a voice, a voice that came from nowhere... What had the voice said? To a greater extent, why would the voice talk to her? She was nothing! in a world full of important ponies she was just some worthless, friendless unicorn. She did not do anything important, it's not like she was related to king Bullion or anything. So why would some mysterious voice come out of the dark to her? It had to be a lie, or some cruel trick, or even just her imagination. That must be what the beat was too, just her imagination, so she had no logical reason to be following the beat right now. She kept trotting towards town. The sun was dropping towards sunset, should she not go to the cliff before dark? Oh, why can’t she stop walking towards town? Finally Cloudy came within sight of the first buildings, and began to feel true terror. Everything was moving too fast! Everywhere ponies were dancing and playing in the street. Some ponies were throwing streamers out from their upstairs windows. It was chaos! It was so confusing. She hated being surrounded by such a state of perpetual motion. Cloudy kept walking through town. Despite the disorientation she felt from seeing the world blasting by all around her, Cloudy Night could not stop herself. She was being pulled, against her will, through the endless sea of ponies towards the center of Cliffside. All the while the drumbeat was getting louder in her head. The terror was starting to ebb away as she kept walking. She still felt dizzy from all the ponies rushing all around her, but now it was a good kind of dizzy. It felt like she was floating in air; not quite rising, not quite falling. Everything was moving so fast that the colors had merged into a single, strange blur. She couldn't even place why she didn't feel so bad anymore, she just... didn't. If only she could have stayed in that state for longer. The beat pulled Cloudy through alleys and back streets. Continually deafening her, continually enticing her to keep moving. Further and further she went, even managing to lose herself in the town that she had lived in all her life. She just floated along, trapped in her little bubble of peace, safe from all of the beats that seemed to wash over her from whatever opening in the street that she was now walking into. This bubble stayed with her until she walked into the town square, and realized something very odd about herself. For the first time Cloudy Night truly realized how much of a mistake she had made trotting into town today. If she thought that what she saw before was dizzying and chaotic, then this was a truly terrifying piece of absolute lack of order. Music was blaring from a band playing on stage, all trumpets and drums. Fillies and foals were running through the square chasing rabbits. Ponies everywhere were dancing and laughing. It was horrifying! Her ears went back; this was, well, a lot! There was too much noise, too much movement! Yet the drumbeat was worse. On and on it went, rising until each beat crashed like thunder in her head. Each pound seeming to knock against the inside of her skull. It hurt tremendously... more so than any pain she had ever felt. She had to leave! Everything was moving so fast, and she was frozen in place, desperately trying to hold on to some sense of awareness in the storm that had become her world. Her eyes scan the crowd, looking for something to hold onto. It was too much… she couldn’t take it! A black spot had begun creeping into her vision. She had to hold on! Had to… so loud… too much… can’t hold… Everything stopped. Cloudy’s deep blue eyes had locked with another filly’s from across the square. As the dancers passed by in slow motion, Cloudy memorized every detail of that pony. She was a Pegasus, grey coat, stormy eyes, light blue mane and tail with dark blue highlights. The pony’s hair looked very unkempt, and, like Cloudy, she had no cutie mark. She felt like it was. Entranced, she moved to take a step towards this new pony. Of course, then she looked at all of what had surrounded her. Panic has this funny way of waiting right until the last moment to set in... and when it does hit, it hits hard. Shapes whizzed by Cloudy, becoming blurs with the speed they were moving at. The world was spinning around her. The world was crushing her! She had to get away! Cloudy turned tail and bolted, running as fast as her hooves could take her. Her mane was blowing into her eyes and she couldn’t see where she was going. Through so many streets she just kept running, successfully managing to cover the same distance it had taken her minutes to cover walking into town in seconds. Until, CRASH! She had slammed into the side of a fruit cart, and it hurt! But she did not slow down, she ran as hard as she could out of the town, towards the woods and towards her cliff spot. She could feel the burn in her lungs, the sting on her muzzle from the cart, the slight headache that she had gotten from being out in the now orange sunset on the horizon. She did not stop running. She WOULD not stop running! Even as she ran through the woods outside of town Cloudy continued to feel the sheer panic that she had felt in that square, though she could think a bit clearer now. She wondered if maybe her parents had been dancing in that square? It was nearly night when Cloudy arrived at the rock wall in the woods, the moon being higher in the sky than the sun. The purples of twilight helped to calm Cloudy Night from her panic. Breathing deeply, she sat there for a moment. This was calm, this was peace, this was her world as she wanted it to be. Cloudy looked up at the wall of rocks and boulders that she had to climb to get to her spot on the cliff, it looked dangerous, occasional sharp and jagged edges poking out of the cliff wall. This had all been caused by and earthquake that had happened before she was even born, but then, most things had happened before she was born. The entire world had happened before she was born. The wall beckoned Cloudy, it was very steep, very broken, and very easy for her to climb. Taking a deep breath, she shot up the wall, climbing it as she had a million times before. Just as she would climb it every night that she went to the cliff spot for the rest of her life. In no time at all she was standing at the ledge at the top of the rock wall. She had made it to her spot, just in time too. Cloudy walked to the edge of the small outcropping that she sat on and looked out over the edge and into the void before her. The sun was beyond the horizon, its glow still giving the world its last bit of light before it leaves for the night. The stars were just coming out, twinkling from their positions so far away. She looked down, the town was below, and beyond that, endless forests all the way to the mountains in the west, where the sun was setting. In fact, if she looked close enough she could see lights coming from the fores in the huge valley below. As far as she could tell, the light was actually coming from the castle of the two sisters, which sat on the floor of this valley. It was beautiful... and lonely. She wished that she was not the only one to see this sight. As she had wished every night before, Cloudy Night wished for a friend. So lonely… Her old self had returned. That hollow emptiness, screaming at her the woe of a lack of being. The need of another to make itself whole, it was everything to her. So lonely… A nearby cloud was about to pass just under the cliff, it was the most hopeless sight in the world. She needed to jump! She needed that release! Despair crushed at Cloudy, what she needed was a friend. Sadness grew in her heart, just as the need to jump grew in her mind. She wanted some-pony beside her. Oh well, nothing to be done for it. The sadness would remain with her for the rest of the night, but that cloud would not. Cloudy tensed her muscles, preparing for one of her favorite parts of the night, and leapt off of the edge of the cliff, falling through the air… To land safely on the cloud below. “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Cloudy was startled when she heard that shout from behind her, she was twice as startled when a grey shape plummeted past her, falling through thin air. It was the Pegasus from before! And now she was falling to her doom!