//------------------------------// // Sky Treading // Story: You're Here! // by Arn //------------------------------// Celestia knelt down, “Please. Pull yourself onto my back." She stretched out her wing as a gang plank. " No! This was the ruler of Equestria! The One who raised the sun and moon! It was unfitting to think of her as transport. No matter how much bigger she was, to think of her as a blimp." Marigold trembled as she hesitated thinking these words. "Marigold,"Celestia stern words brought her back. “why do you stop? Do you not know that indecision leads to destruction, that the one who hesitates is lost? If you are not committed to your cause, how can you be committed to him, how can you be committed to marriage?" Marigold met her eyes as she thought of Saffron. "The situation can be salvaged if you hurry." Marigold swallowed at Celestia's words. “If a giant, bid you come here, your sponsor, and you neglect to follow through...after everything, your run through Filly Delphi, your jumping onto a Dirigible already pulling from dock despite you not being a Pegasus, your time aboard the crowded ship, your travels through my city, wouldn't this giant you fear have a right to take some reimbursement for his investment?" "How do you know?" "You talk in your sleep."Celestia said blithely. “What you need to know is you have been given a second chance, take it before it disappears and you have to go back home having done nothing, never being able to look Feather Duster in the eyes again!" No!No!No!! No more down memory lane! At this Marigold scrambled onto Celestias back, between neck and wings. She was big! Celestia raised up testing the balance of the pony on her back. Celestia was very tall! Little Marigold gasped. "Take your front hooves and wrap them tightly in my mane. “Marigold obeyed. Celestia’s hair was light, yet thick, soft yet strong. “Pull as hard as you can." "Your majesty...."marigold protested her ears flat on her head. "Do. As. I. Say. “the princess spoke gently but Marigold could feel a rumble running from the huge mare's frame through her own body. Again she obeyed. "Please forgive me for hurting you!" Marigold said as she pulled with all her might, maybe more than necessary. Marigold opened her eyes to see the princess's smile. "Very good!" She said motherly. “We are ready..."Celestia walked over to the balcony, turned around walked back into the room, did a quick turn speeding up, full gallop, and stretched out her wings as they passed the threshold. They were wide! "Hold on, my little pony!" Celestia jumped the railing, as a barrier at a steeple chase, hurtling into the graying shadows, moon lit below and beginning with a dive, down and down. The wings to catch the wind, bitter in marigold's face, bringing them in to a fast step climb, muscle in the wings pumping to go higher. Celestia was strong! A storm of humors Marigold could not easily communicate were left below and behind at the pit of the dive with her stomach. She bit down hard on her tongue and lips resisting an involuntary scream. Marigold ,understood why she wrapped her hooves so tightly, experienced freefall, glad she did not float off Celestia's back, before falling hard at the end of the arc! Celestia was now bow shape below the moon. Oyarsa, a strange pony called her. The Oyarsa of the Sun, her, flying below the Oyarsa of the moon both beneath the stars, on that clear night. The young stars too, treading their dance with Ramandu. Perhaps, the same young stars, in a few hundred years, that would aid the princess escape, not knowing better. What would they learn on a thousand worlds after? A thousand maybe stories from a thousand would be worlds! Speed and power is how Marigold would later describe the flight. In the sky: pure power, bending the wind, the will to trot across the sky, as if buoyed along in a boat over gentle waves, the rhythmic sound of that alicorn's deep breathing. Periodically Celestia would fall or dip or rock sideways making Marigold on her back jump or cringe, pressing into, burying her head into the princess's soft fur and mane, causing Celestia to chuckle. "Peak up little pony," she teased gently. "take a look at the sky, and the land," she felt Marigold hug tighter. "just a peak, then you can put your head back down again. Why should this one night scene be wasted? Why shouldn't you have visions to go with your memories? Something to tell of later, you’ll never see such things again."Celestia felt little Marigold raise her head tentatively and hesitantly. “Look to your right,"Celestia looked back, “with your eyes open." she felt the pony cringe again."Now, to your right." she obeyed. "Look up to the stars." she felt her body crane. "Now,to the moon." she felt her look that way." Now, you may curl up."Celestia felt the pony tightly burrow in. "You will probably never see such sights again." she sighed. ”To regret, not looking in more, in those times of intermission for contemplation.“ She felt the pony ever slightly lift her head. Marigold was taken directly to the pens by Celestia. It was a while before she lifted her head again. "Marigold." Celestia spoke at last. "I need you to raise your head high now! I need you to look around. Scout the sky and the ground with me.I need you to see what I see." Marigold obeyed. She clenched her jaw as she looked at the scene below her, a deep pit like a upside down layer cake, beside her, right then left, down and down and down! Three colossal structures they were, before Marigold, wide and tall, looking like rain cisterns. Small individual lights on top and campfires all around the base. One had a cage, like a grid, doming over it. Celestia flew close around them till Marigold could make out individual ponies by the shining in their eyes. "Tsk."Celestia muttered. "I will have to have a word with the centurion on the north side on the training of his soldiers!“ This was a curious thing to say Marigold thought. "I will tell you a secret Marigold."Celestia said playfully. “Do you see their eyes?" "Yes Ma'am?" "Do you see how they shine?" "Yes Ma'am." “Look at them.” "Wait." Marigold noticed something. "Some eyes Twinkle others are steady, on the north side!" "That is right." Celestia explained that ones who are glancing back and forth were doing their job," keeping watch on the pens and the ponies outside at the campfires."Celestia swallowed as she made a quick spiraling circle moving upward. "Every light and shine has its own hoofprints. My reflection is shining of thier eyes." Marigold could only see this because she was on Celestia's back near enough to her eyes. ”They also give away their positions.” Celestia flew over the tops of one of the pens. A vortex of wind threw them just the slightest, but that wasn't what troubled Celestia, she was a ruler of the wind, obviously, looking down. "Oh dear!" she said. In an instant, Celestia was surrounded, at a comfortable distance, for Marigold, by a swarm of armed Thestrals. They were, uncomfortably glancing toward Celestai, making chipping sounds like words spoken with uncertainty, and then their leader who was now flying beside Celestia. She looked at him, made a series of strange clucking sounds, like sneezing played from a kazoo, and immediately, in one body, the Thestrals broke away and returned to their patrols. "Very good!"Celestia said. "At least somepony is doing due duty!" She cleared her throat. "That sound!” she nickered a little,”I'm out of practice. I should join with the choir more often! What they must think hearing that quacking!" Celestia straightened her flight path and headed out of the covering airspace, passing clouds lit, bathed, in dim green or blue light, designating levels of hazard in the wind vortex, yet not overpowering or obscuring the illumination of stars and moon. Marigold didn't notice as they passed a singular blue lighted cloud with a Pegasus guard, groggy, fumbling paperwork under a small light,yawning. A female thestral stood on the cloud with him looking nervous, rubbing front hoofs one leg at a time. Startled by the passing alicorn, the guard glanced at Celestia who then nodded as she flew by. All it took was one look from the princess; he almost dropped the paperwork, then hurriedly, ordered the paperwork into a neat square tapping it on his hoof and gave paperwork back. Surprised, the delighted thestral, let gravity take her, carelessly and with great speed, falling , chitterling merrily all the way down, before flaring her wings into a graceful glide, swirling on the updrafts, then descended gracefully into the pen below, joy shinning in her eyes. Celestia began to make her own landing some distance from the campfires just a little beyond the pens. " You’re here!"she said." You have to quietly make your way to the door, past all." "Why here?” Marigold asked as she dropped off Celestia's back. "Your majesty, please, couldn't you just land and drop me off at the door?" "Now Marigold.I need to prepare things, they aren't quite ready for you yet.”She walked around Marigold "Look around!" motioning with one hoof as she walked. "Even you can see through the curtain of this shrub brush, the fires: ponies, griffins, dragons and diamond dogs celebrate; at campfires with family and friends!” Marigold looked back at the fires, silhouettes moved around beyond the heavy brush. “A lot has happened these few weeks. Even more these last days!Things I don't truly understand." She looked back to Marigold. "They are tired.I have had to put them through paces making time away seem longer. The soldiers, the staff, they've been doing their utmost for me and now is a time for them. Couples, who for the first time in their lives, can be with each other, unharried. " She spoke with a sigh shaking her mane."No,with this I won't interfere."She smiled."It is a great mystery..." Marigold imagined the commotion that would occur with Celestia's appearance. "I understand your majesty." she said dutifully with a sigh. "Fear not, my little pony." Celestia said with a smile. “He will be there." Marigold bowed, Celestia came forward then lifted the pony's head, "Marigold.“ her face serious." I will be watching and I expect great things from you." Celestia then shot off in a sudden gust of power, a deep whump sound stirring neither grass nor leaf, making Marigold gasp. Oh! No pressure there! Me...Just a simple flower store keep I am!her mind bubbled as she made her way to the door. Sights, so many strange, sights. Marigold determined to head straight up to the door turning neither to the right nor left.