Applied Starlight

by Unknownlight

7 – Creation

She opened her eyes.

The first thing she noticed was that the tub of whiteness was gone. Poof. No more white. A sense of relief washed over her, and she smiled contentedly. No matter where she was now, it had to be better than the white. Even the nothing was better than it.

She blinked a few times to focus her eyes, and gazed around her new home in awe.

The glass was black now. It was a comforting and warming black, not an empty or deathly black. It was the black one would see looking up into the infinite expanse of the night sky, full of wonder and possibility.

She blinked and focused her eyes again, and suddenly realized that that wasn’t just a metaphor—what she was standing on was the night sky. Floating within the black, liquid glass were little pinpricks of starlight, shining brightly and slowly flowing down weak currents that curved and spiraled in fluid, complicated patterns. It wasn’t like the real night sky, with the stars all light-years away and looking like it; rather, while some stars looked infinitely far away, others seemed to be right underneath her hooves. The night was no longer a two dimensional image, it was a three dimensional pool of swimming stars and galaxies, close enough to touch but separated from her by the imperishable black glass.

No… no, that wasn’t quite right. The glass didn’t separate her from the sky; the glass still seemed to be impossibly deep, sinking forever into the abyss. The black glass was space, and all the stars were swimming around in the glass. The glass floor was night solidified. Theoretically, she supposed, if she were to break the glass in one of the spots where a star seemed close to the surface, she could probably pick it up and hold a piece of starlight with her own hooves.

A prickly part of her brain then reminded her that stars weren’t actually tiny, twinkling little bits of fairy dust; rather, they were enormous, exploding white balls of death, and trying to touch one had the potential of being a very bad idea and she shouldn’t try it. She regretfully obliged.

Okay, that was enough stargazing. What about the rest of this new world?

She raised her head and looked up at the sky. Straight in front of her, down near the horizon, the sky was a deep, full, bright blue. As the sky got further from the horizon, so did its color become darker, turning from a bright blue to ultramarine to a midnight blue, before then becoming warmer and transitioning into yellow shades of goldenrod and amber, to straight above her head where the sky was a solid, pumpkin orange. She turned around and followed the color of the sky down toward the opposite horizon. The sky now transitioned to shades of red, starting with deep carmine into cerise and lust, and then finally terminating on the horizon with the brightest shade of scarlet surrounding a fiery white sun.

It was rather amazing how many shades she could could name when she was desperate for color.

The sun was only a semicircle of light. Half of it was luminous, and radiating heat and warmth. The other half was hidden below the horizon, immersed into the black liquid glass and giving off not a speck of light or heat. Essentially, the sun looked like it was cut neatly in half by the night sky itself.

It was the most beautiful twilight she had ever seen.

Wait… if everything has color again, then maybe…

She looked down at herself. Her fur now appeared to be a very consistent shade of violet, covering a lean, young mare’s body. Her mane was long-ish, reaching down her torso a fair bit. It was a navy blue color, but the plum and pink highlights in it made it look a good deal more purple-colored than it really was.

Unfortunately, where her cutie mark should be there was still a grainy spot on her flank she couldn’t focus on. On that note, where her name and identity should be there was still only a little piece of brain matter that was carefully directing the excavation on her intimate memories, praying that they were still recoverable and not simply crushed by the rocks of stress and fear and despair that were currently denying access to them.

She blinked. Where did that thought come from?

No, no, forget about that. It’s not important.

She turned on the spot, looking for any other features of her new home she had missed. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a small piece of white.

She let out a sudden gasp and stumbled back, for a moment deathly afraid that the immense whiteness had returned and would consume her home. She blushed in embarrassment when her eyes focused on the whiteness and found that it was merely a small rock.

So, the rock had kept its achromaticity, even though everything else had gained color and shade. Interesting.

There was something else. Next to the eternally-white slab of stone, she saw a small, greenish-brown seed.

Oh yeah. She did wish for “life”, after all. A seed. That makes sense.

Now what was she supposed to do with it?

Well, I guess you usually bury seeds so that they can grow…

She looked around. Around her was sky-black glass reaching infinitely in every direction.

…The black glass may have looked prettier than the white glass, but she was quickly discovering it was just as limiting.

On the other hand, she had already proven that the white glass was breakable. This black glass was probably the same…

She lifted the rock with her magic. She felt vaguely uncomfortable about doing this—the idea of breaking what seemed like a window to the stars activated the same gut feeling she would have if she thought about burning a priceless piece of art—but she reassured herself by remembering that the glass would likely reform within seconds of breaking it.

She found a spot where there were no stars near the surface (stars were enormous, exploding white balls of death, after all) and started hacking away at the glass. A few small shards and splinters of glass burst from the impact zone, leaving ripples in the ground where they fell. Before long she had successfully dug a hoof-sized hole in the glass.

Knowing that she only had a moment before the glass repaired itself, in one flowing movement she picked up the seed with her magic, placed it in the hole, and then instantly covered both the seed and the hole with the white rock.

There! That counted as “burying” the seed, right? Now she just had to sit back and watch.

It wasn’t immediate. She had to sit there for several minutes before she noticed that something was happening. In fact, she was just about ready to leave the rock and the seed behind and write the whole thing off as yet another pointless distraction (a distraction from what, she couldn’t answer) when she noticed the stars below her begin to gather around.

The stars seemed hesitant. They were gathering, but only occasionally did one move close enough to the seed and the hole to poke at it, and each time they did they scurried away right after, as if they’d been burned. They were clearly uncomfortable with its presence—an intruder in their bliss—but were curious regardless.

As the minutes past by, more and more stars gathered around the seed until there was a full, bright halo of starlight surrounding it. The stars stopped poking at the seed, instead joining the rest of the stars in the sphere. There was a pause as the stars held their formation, and then suddenly they dived all at once to the center. The seed glowed for a moment as it absorbed the starlight, and then suddenly it shot out of the ground like a time-lapsed sprout, knocking the rock out of the way and causing it to fly a few yards.

Very quickly the sprout grew into a sapling and then an adult tree, roots shooting into the glass and wrapping around stars. The trunk grew larger and thicker, forcing her to retreat from the tree lest she be struck by the ever-expanding trunk.

The tree stopped growing. It was only now that leaves sprouted out of the branches, but she was focused on something else entirely. The tree was… changing. The trunk shivered and transformed, as if an invisible hoof was carving away at it. Holes appeared where there was solid wood before; a piece of wood above her suddenly jut outward, forming a sort of balcony; pieces of glass started to form, covering the holes and other openings with windows.

Finally, a door carved itself out of the base of the trunk, and with that the tree was stable. With no small amount of apprehension, she trotted up to the door and pushed it open.

Books. Tables. Telescopes. An unhatched purple egg. She’d been here before. She couldn’t remember when, but this place was too familiar for her to ignore. She knew, from a memory she never experienced, that if she went up the stairs in the other room and hung a right, she would find herself on the balcony. And she did so.

The golden light of the half-hidden sun shone upon her as she stood tall on her balcony, looking up at the brilliant colors of the sky above her and looking down on the solid night below her. She knew, at that moment, and in her heart of hearts, that this was her home now.

And she planned to make the most of it.

Comments

[Tom ruler of the stones]

After all that's happened ends, I hope she keeps the glass rock as memento.

[PostPony]

i don't think that she would have a clue what a time lapse is so I doubt that that comparison can be used but who cares. She's a god. Well, a goddess