“I have to follow her!”
Even before the dark unicorn had made it out of the town square Cloud Charmer was moving. The universe was swinging around her but each step she took seemed to emanate its own beat, now she was the drummer! So she did what any drummer would do; she played her own beat.
The hunt was on! She could feel her blood pounding, hear her heart beating. The world slipped by her as she dodged the dancing ponies and dashed out of the town square after the unicorn. She just saw the pony’s tail slipping around the corner she had just run into, she was moving fast!
“Man, what’s got her so jumpy?”
No time to think about it. She had to run! Moving at top speed Cloud hurled herself around the corner behind the mysterious pony, who was blasting down the street, knocking other ponies over as she ran. She was fast! But Cloud Charmer was faster.
Cloud shot down the street, leaving a cloud of dust and coughing ponies in her wake. This is exactly what she wanted! Excitement, exhilaration, the whole universe seemed to pound with the beat of her hooves touching the ground. She was so happy that she had decided to follow that mysterious sound. Everything was moving, everything was chaos, she was loving this adventure!
The dark filly was sprinting ahead, her mane flying in the wind as she ran, but the pony didn’t seem to notice. She just ran, ignoring all of her surroundings as she went. Cloud was about to shout a warning when the pony smashed into a cart in the middle of the road, that had to hurt! Yet the pony didn’t slow, she just kept running as fast as she could, not stopping or pausing but rushing out of the town. Cloud Charmer kept up the chase and left the last buildings behind just in time to see the pony disappearing into the woods in front of the mountain.
Without stopping, Cloud ran behind her into the woods. It was now sunset, and though there was still light the shadow of the mountain loomed over the forest, creating a dark and gloomy atmosphere in what otherwise would have been just a bright and gloomy forest.
Cloud followed the unicorn more slowly now, one wrong step could get her hurt. Climbing slowly and quietly through the bushes and branches that lay out before her she managed to follow the pony without her noticing, no easy task, as the woods were getting darker and following such a trail would have been almost impossible in the low light. Not impossible enough for Cloud Charmer!
She thought she was right behind the unicorn until she turned around a tree and found herself face to face with a sheer wall of collapsed rock. There was nowhere the pony could have gone, she had followed her perfectly! Yet now Cloud faced a cliff wall and felt nothing but confusion, until she looked up.
The unicorn had already climbed almost to the top of the rock wall. Where was she going? For that matter, how did she know how to get there? Cloud had no idea of where she was going, but she was sure of one thing and one thing only: she liked this pony!
With that thought in her mind she hurled herself at the cliff wall, and began laboriously climbing to the top. The thoughts raced through her mind as she climbed. How did that pony do this so fast? I wish I could fly already! None of that matters, come on Cloud, climb!
So she climbed, if a bit slowly, and after a few slips and even more scrapes Cloud Charmer found herself peering at the pony over the edge of the top of the cliff.
The filly was just sitting there, staring over the edge of the cliff, doing nothing. Had she really climbed all the way up here just to look at the view? Cloud pulled herself onto the ledge, standing up and turning to approach the unicorn. But as she did she saw the pony throw herself over the edge of the cliff!
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” not even thinking Cloud Charmer threw herself over the edge behind the unicorn. She had t save that pony!
Then she plummeted, she forgot that she couldn’t fly! Now cloud was spinning through the air, on a nose dive towards her doom. Mountain, sky, nothing stopped moving as she fell, the wind blasting her mane all around her.
Falling…
Falling…
Falling…
Falling…
Stop!
She had stopped! Was she dead? She opened her eyes, she was floating! The air seemed to shimmer around her, what was going on? She sat there, in the air, for a few more moments before she was lifted up to the cloud above her, and into the concerned gaze of two dark blue eyes.
It was the unicorn! Sitting on a cloud!
“Oh my, are you okay?” the worry coming off the pony was palpable.
“Ugh! How are we alive right now?” then she remembered that they were sitting on a cloud and jumped to her hooves. “How are you doing that?”
“What do you mean?” the unicorn asked, still looking worried. Her voice sounded weak, like she didn’t talk a lot.
“What do YOU mean? You’re walking on a cloud! Only pegasus ponies can walk on clouds!”
“So can I.”
“That’s it, you just can? That is… that is… awesome! I’ve never seen this before, this is so exciting! I love seeing new things! What’s your name by the way? So can you fly or just walk on clouds? Where did you learn…”
The flurry of questions was overwhelming the unicorn. She shrunk back against the cloud with a whimper. Cloud Charmer noticed this, so she slowed down.
“Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I’m Cloud Charmer! What’s your name?”
“I'm… Cloudy Night” the unicorn spoke softly.
“That’s cool! Cloud and Cloud, that’s us! I like that! So how did you do it? Walk on a cloud I mean?” Cloud Charmer was full of questions, but she knew she had to take it slow with Cloudy.
“I’ve been walking on clouds since I was a newborn.” She answered. “You see, my family goes up to the high mountain for winter solstice each year-“
“Winter what?” Cloud had never heard that word before.
“Solstice, it is the longest night of the year. My family and I go there-“
“Wow, you sure know some fancy words! That's good, Though I might know a few words that you don't. How do you know all this? What-“
“Are you going to let me finish?” Cloudy asked.
“Oh, sorry! Continue.” Cloud was momentarily put out, but quickly recovered
“Ok, so my family and I go up the high mountain every solstice. So do a lot of the ponies around here. Every year they go up the mountain bringing gifts to pay tribute to Princess Luna, who raises the moon. Then they have a big festival at the summit which goes on the whole night, all just to entertain the Princess.
When I was just a newborn I wasn’t allowed to go up the mountain, so my parents left me with a foal sitter. I wanted to go so I snuck onto a fruit cart carrying food for the celebration. When I arrived I was amazed by the sky, the stars were out, and the moon was high, but you couldn’t see the ground. Instead there was just a sea of clouds as far as the horizon, and the celebration was in full swing! Ponies were laughing and dancing, and my father was entertaining the crowds with his magic tricks. I’ve always hated crowds, so I decided to hang around the edge of the cliff instead. I got too close, and when ponies noticed me on the edge there was a panic, they all rushed to save me, but I walked off of the edge.
You can imagine the terror my parents felt, and then the amazement when they saw me walking on a cloud instead of falling to my death. I probably scared every-pony with my fall, but I also learned that I could walk on clouds like a pegasus. So I’ve walked on them ever since.”
As she finished her story, Cloudy Night realized something. She had never talked this long to any-pony in her whole life! She could talk around this pony. She felt comfortable around this pony. She wanted to spend more time with this pony.
“That’s an awesome story. So you’ve been walking on clouds ever since, huh? So that’s what you were doing out here?” Cloud was having fun hanging with Cloudy.
“Well, yes, but mainly I came to think, and to look.” Even as she said it Cloudy looked up at the blazing blue brilliance of the night sky.
“Look at what, I don’t see anything!” Cloud Charmer was confused by what Cloudy had said. What was she looking at?
Rather than answer, Cloudy grabbed Cloud’s hoof and pulled her onto her back, to look up at the sky.
Cloud was startled when Cloudy pulled them both to be lying down on the cloud. What was she doing? She was so confused, but then she…
“Woah…”
The night was in full effect, the stars were bastions of light in the dark blues surrounding them. The colours all seemed to mix together, and suddenly it wasn’t points of lights in a dark backdrop, but hues of colour colliding on the canvas known as the sky. Blue turned to white, white to blue, the transition being slow and carful. But in other places the sky seemed to combat itself, distant lights smashing against their dark surroundings, creating flashing points of white. The whole sky had become a glittering veil, calling Cloud to it, to enter the void and float amongst the stars. But the moon! Oh, the moon was a glowing ball, gigantic in size, and she could see every detail of its surface, the rises and falls, the scratches, like roads criss-crossing along the whole thing. The moon had never felt so close before as it did at that moment. The light from the moon made it into a gleaming plate in the sky, and its light shone down on Cloud and Cloudy, turning the cloud they were lying on into a ghostly ship in the sky.
The two fillies just lay there, staring up at the sky for the rest of the night.