//------------------------------// // Prologue // Story: All These Years (Set in Stone) // by eLLen //------------------------------// “Wow… What is that?” Skylight gasped, fluttering her wings in excitement. Running a crimson-coated hoof through her darker crimson mane, she danced her eyes upward for a moment, half-expecting an answer from the murky forest greenery spread around her. Getting none, she glanced back down at the upturned dirt around her, still damp and muddy from last week’s storm. Darning a grin, the pegasus bounded into muddy ditch, paying no mind to the splash of gunk that jumped up to greet her as she landed. On a normal instance it would’ve been a slight annoyance to her, but she was far away from a normality at the moment. Trudging through the mud and flapping her wings to move quicker, Skylight couldn’t help but grin as the word “discovery” floated in her vision. She reached out with her hoof, cautious at first as if expecting the oddity to suddenly spring to life and run away, but closed the distance just as quickly, wiping the grime off of the gray face turned away from her. “Woah!” she exclaimed, eyes widening at the sight of the statue before her. She wasn’t taken back by the statue itself—she already saw that it was statue from above; that was what attracted her to it in the first place—but she was instead caught by the sheer realism portrayed by the sculpture. It was made perfect by its imperfection, that is to say, the smooth beauty found in works of art was void in this statue, instead having all the ruggedness and messiness a real pony would have. Skylight may not have been an artist, but she could recognize when something radiated a sense of value. The surprise of the almost unnatural realism loosening its grasp on her, the mare took a moment to get a good look at statue, only to end up raising her eyebrows once again as she leaned in closer. Aside from the level of detail in it, the stone form had a… bizarre look plastered across its face, being somewhere between surprise and fear, while also being on the skydive to panic. Only regarding it a moment longer, she shrugged and traced her eyes along the rest of the statue, or at least what wasn’t buried in the mud. Only half of it was sticking up, its left side, but it was entirely visible aside from that. A dozen observations coming into her mind at once, she had to back up to collect her thoughts lest her eyes bombard her with more. First and foremost, she’d made a discovery. An actual discovery! A few bubbly giggles slipped from her lips, but she forced herself to think straight. What to do? she asked herself. Glancing back down at the statue, she put a hoof to her chin, then promptly whisked it away at realizing it was covered in filthy mud. Anyways… “What would Daring do?” she wondered aloud, completely oblivious to what she’d just said. “…Record data.” Skylight didn’t have any paper on her, much less anything at all, but she figured just looking would be good enough until she could record things properly. “Let’s see,” she said, eyes darting across the show of a statue, “Earth pony. Mare. Messy mane in a ponytail. Messy pony tail… in a ponytail.” She chuckled. “Average-ish height. Picture of fitness. And… no mark?” Cocking her head at the, indeed, blank flank, she glanced back at her own mark picturing a sun rising high over the clouds. Shrugging, she figured it must be because the statue was monotone, not leaving any color for a mark to be made up from. Shifting to looking at the condition of the statue as a whole, she saw it was in surprisingly good condition for being buried in the mud for Luna knows how long, scratches not included. Simply put, it was whole and unscathed. Step one down, Skylight drew closer once again, brushing some grass shreds off the face off the statue with the edge of her hoof. A sense of satisfaction welled up inside of the pegasus. She’d always loved the thrill of discovering new things, though, not in a boring school-teachy kind of way. No, she loved being in the field like this and, as she always put it, “adventuring for the sake of adventuring.” Like now, for instance. She’d discovered a statue in the middle of the forest just by wandering aimlessly until she made sure she’d gotten herself lost. A burst of excitement shot through her veins at the thoughts of what this statue could actually be. Maybe a lost artifact from the Pony Sisters’ castle. Or maybe even better! Perhaps an ancient totem from before Equestria’s beginning. Or maybe… it was actually sent from the future like in those science-fiction stories! …Okay, she doubted that last one, but it was still fun to think. Of course, there was always the possibility that it was nothing at all, like… just some colt’s long-lost school project, but Skylight still hoped for the best. Besides, it was just too much fun to imagine all that it could hold. Dwelling on where to go next, she only needed a moment to decide; landing outside of the ditch with a few flaps of her wings, she looked off toward the beaten path she’d come from. I’m bringing it home, she declared. But first, she’d need a way to actually do that. Taking one last look at the statue, she estimated it had to weigh too much to carry for a mile, and flying wasn’t even worth considering. So… wagon it is! Leaving behind a cloud of dust in her takeoff, she rotated herself in midair once above the tree tops, finding Celestia’s sun. “East,” she said aloud before taking off just due south of the direction. Soaring toward home, she was unable to stop the spreading grin on her features.