Dream

by Cascadejackal

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A Dream. A Journey. Illness. Life.

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A dream is a wonderful thing. It brings hope, and a reason to live. It can drive the one who has it ever onwards, and give untold joy when finally attained.

A dream is a terrible thing. To strive for something, only to have it slip away time and again. It can leave you hollow, and to lose your dream completely can crush your very soul.

Have you ever had a dream, dear reader?

You see, it is with a dream that our story begins, and with a dream that our story ends.

Long ago, there was a dream. It belonged to an earth pony couple, and was as humble as they were. He, a clocksmith of some talent but little fame; she, an artist of some fame but little confidence. He, who found beauty solely in the gears with which he worked and the eyes of his wife; she, who saw beauty in all the world and the touch of her husband. One and another, together as one.

As one, they dreamed. They dreamed of a foal, a life born of their love. They dreamed of a home, a place to spend their lives in the happiness that belongs only to those whose love is true and pure.

Together, they travelled. Teary farewells as they left their families, a new life before them. Warm and loving touches, as winter's caress drove them to cover 'neath trees and bushes upon their journey, the cold serving only to bring them closer. Tender kisses upon the shores of silver rivers, feasting on the spring bounty of berries and flowers. Through seasons good and bad, weather cruel and kind, they were together.

He created clockwork marvels of carved wood and brass gears: Birds that sang in beautiful chorus, so true in pitch that to hear without seeing was to believe a nightingale was near. Rabbits that hopped and chased one another endlessly, to the delight of foals. Music boxes, their melodies singing the love he felt for his wife.

She gave unfathomable beauty to all she saw, with paint and charcoal and chalk: Serene and silent lakes and ponds, the waters so still and perfect that one was afraid to breathe, lest they cause a ripple and spoil such tranquility. Trees, filled with singing birds, each one poised as though to leap from the canvas and take flight. Roaring flames in hearths, their warming glow filled with her love for her husband.

Through towns warm and cold, across roads of stone and dirt, over hill and over dale, they travelled, seeking the place that would capture their hearts, the place they belonged.

A place they found.

A fledgling town, too small to yet have a name. A town that, had the cold winter winds not caused them to seek shelter, they may never have found.

A home was built, to house two and their dream.

Days became weeks, weeks became months, and months became years. Seasons came and went, but never did their love fade or wane.

Always, they were together. Always, they dreamed.

The town grew, earning a name, though to the pair it was always Home.

She sold her paintings, as she always did. No house in their town was bereft of her work, and many a family had found themselves the subject of her talents. It was rumored that one of her paintings, depicting the town in winter's grasp, with the Mare in The Moon gazing down upon them, forlorn and distant, a lonely eye watching over the sleeping world, had been bought as a gift for the Princess Celestia, in distant, fledgling Canterlot. She, however, cared only for the beauty, for her husband, and for their dream.

His clocks, his contraptions, his mechanical marvels—they, too, found places in homes near and far. Those little dreams were given life, with wood and brass and copper forming tiny miracles. No matter the care he had for his carvings, his precise work, it could never have compared to the care he had for his wife, and the dream they longed to fulfill.

Dreams are wonderful things. They are beautiful and wondrous.

Dreams are terrible things. They are fragile and cruel.

Illness came to their town, carried upon the back of a winter that ate at the soul as it ate at the body. Food ran short and hungry beasts drew ever closer, but it was the illness that took the greatest toll. The young, the elderly. Those who had seen too little life, and too much. They were the first to fall, to leave their dreams behind and sleep eternal.

Still, they stayed together, and together they would stay... had the illness not touched them, too.

With a whispered word, a final kiss, she met her end.

With a heavy heart and whispered words, he lay her to rest.

With winter's end, few remained. Broken hearts, families smaller than they had been before the coming of the snow. Little food, and far less joy. He stayed only until no snow remained, until the first flower grew upon his beloved's grave.

Without a word, he left. There was no love. There was no dream. There was no home.

While he travelled, he created. His works of wonder, delightful to those around him, seemed as hollow and empty as his heart. It was all he knew, without her by his side.

Days became weeks, and weeks turned into months. The summer, the spring, the autumn and the winter. No laughter beside the silver rivers, no warming touch in the shelter of snow-laden trees.

He walked, he created, he never wept. His tears lay frozen upon a mound of earth, where hope and a dream lay buried.

Until, that is, he made something he once had wanted, but now could not imagine. The artist's touch, when left alone, gives rise to the heart's desire, and when he broke from his thoughts, he found a foal in his hooves. Tiny, carved of the wood he had picked up to put on the fire, and utterly perfect. It had her eyes and her smile, his mane and his cheeks. It was what he could have had, the dream unrealised, chased away by cruelest fate.

The tiny statue was cast into the flames, regret and anger at what he had lost filling his soul. How dare his traitorous hooves taunt him with such a thing? He cursed the world, his fate, himself. He cursed his hooves, the knife with which he had created the lifelike mockery of his dream, a dream he would never attain.

And yet... it was there. Almost alive as the hungry flames danced across it, his features and hers slowly blackening, the smiling, innocent face everything he had ever wanted.

The fire burned, but the pain was meaningless compared to the loss he would not feel again. The tiny carving was snatched to safety before it could catch, cradled within his hooves as though it were alive.

It was not a foal. It was mere wood, but it was enough... enough to reawaken the dream he had long thought dead.

It was not a foal. It was hope.

He knew only his craft, but his dream, his hope, were his once more, and the wooden foal would not let him forget them again.
Plans were made. All he knew, he used. He travelled further, to learn what he did not know. Towns he had passed with her, he found himself within once more. Her paintings, her spirit, the freedom with which she had viewed the beauty of the world, showed him what they could have had. What he would have.

Months became a year, became two. Wood and brass and bronze and copper, from all corners of the land, became gears and mechanisms, the pinnacle of his art, shaped by his own hooves. Always, the wooden foal gave him strength.

Two years became three. Gems, cut and polished, touched by the magic of unicorns paid with lesser examples of his art, came alight, waiting only for the completion of his masterpiece, his dream. Always, the wooden foal gave him hope.

Three years became four. The town he once called Home was found once more, and he spoke to her of his dream. His old house belonged to another family, a sign of the town recovering, much as he was. A new house was built, in the woods where nature reigned in all her glory, and the beauty was almost as wondrous as his wife's paintings.

Wood and brass and bronze and copper. Wood to carve, to find the face. Brass for hooves, to touch the earth. Bronze for wings, to soar and see the beauty of the world unfettered. Atop it all, copper, a gleaming skin.

Gems, for heart and eyes and mind. The magics within, though from many a unicorn, touched one another and found a harmony, guided by his dream.

As the sapphire eyes sparked, the first flicker of life within, his heart leapt. As the first hoof was moved in an unsteady step, he moved to assist. As the great, gleaming wings spread, he felt his soul soar.

Always, the wooden foal smiled at him. He had found his dream, though in a way he had never expected. Through clockwork and magic, copper and brass, he had a child.

Comments

[Chadbane]

Beautiful. Feels poetic and mysterious. I love it. Great work!
gifs.gifbin.com/1233928590_citizen%20kane%20clapping.gif

[gaymr_girl]

wonderful. This is true poetry. You should put it on amazon. It doesn't mutter the word pony so it could be acceptable as non fanfiction.

[ColdGoldLazarus]

This is amazing. I love the poetic feeling from the prose, and the actual story is a very interesting one, which I would love to see continue. Well, onto the next chapter!