A Walk in the Woods

by Chicago Ted

Space Lion

I look up, and see a bright, twinkling star.
I watch it, eyes wide open, from afar,
Against the background of the furthest tar.

After a series of uneventful dreams, Fluttershy woke up within the Everfree Forest. It was dark, and cold – so much so, she dared not to leave the cosy confines of her sleeping bag. Instead she elected to watch the forest around her. For such a dangerous place, she reasoned, it wasn’t as bad as her contemporaries had described it. She focused a bit on her breathing – in, out, in, out. She realised that, during the whole time that she was asleep, nothing of great significance occurred to her.

She never before in her life imagined that she could be considered safe – safe! – in the Everfree Forest, where the animals and weather rule over the ponies, instead of vice versa, the way it ought to be. An independent nature could easily find her and do something horrible – unspeakable! – to her. And yet, that hadn’t happened. Not yet, at least. Either they couldn’t find her scent, which was highly improbable, given the nose of a timberwolf, or, amazingly, the local fauna had decided to spare her – a rare gesture of hospitality, it seems.

The air around Fluttershy’s face felt cool – cool enough, in fact, to allow her to unzip her sleeping bag for just a moment, to get up, to walk about aimlessly in Luna’s nocturnal garden, if only for just a moment.

Fluttershy looked up at the starry sky. Day after day, year after year, Luna somehow managed to put each star exactly where they were compared to the previous night. More amazingly still, her elder sister had also maintained their precise placement even during Luna’s banishment to her Moon. Or perhaps Luna was placing the stars still, even when in exile from Equestria. This would certainly explain how they remained constant.

Ponies from generations past have sought patterns to the stars. Some claimed that there is a perfect order among them, some hidden message, some ultimate lesson on life, the universe, and everything. Others were merely contented with concluding that, assuming that such a secret of the stars existed, it was beyond their comprehension, that it was Luna’s and Luna’s only. Princess Luna had stated – multiple times, in fact – that no such order existed, but many ponies believed so firmly that such a pattern existed that entire lifetimes had been wasted searching for it. None of those ponies had anything to show for all their labour, for all their research – it was always all for naught.

The majority of them had to accept a sort of middle ground between a pattern and total chaos among the stars – smaller patterns, forming pictures in the sky. Constellations, they were called. Storytellers weaved fantastic tales about these images, ranging from legendary objects, to fierce creatures, to ponies famed Equestria over, sent on some mighty quest to save his brethren from certain doom. New couples would often lie outside in the grass, and try to spot the constellations that they knew, and point out new ones – often making up new ones altogether.

Even then, some of those ponies – how foolish! – insisted upon some grand plan, a higher scheme among the pictures, hidden by Princess Luna herself, the curator of the night sky. They tried to find new constellations, even a grand constellation among the smaller ones, turning up with nothing notable. Perhaps, it can be reasoned, this was the beauty of Luna’s art – nopony can find a unifying pattern in it; in fact, its chaos was its beauty.

Fluttershy decided to find a constellation for herself, without anypony to aid her – not even her alicorn friend, Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship, who certainly would have memorised the night sky, and would certainly have pointed out all the constellations officially recognised by the Academy of Sciences of Canterlot.

She searched close to the horizon first, perhaps to catch a glimpse of a constellation almost out of reach of ponies’ prying eyes. She started her gaze to the east, then slowly turned her head around, to the right, to south. Nothing. Barely any stars. She continued to turn, soon facing the west, then the north, then finally back to the east. No constellations. Then, slowly but surely, all while turning around and around, she turned her gaze up to the sky. Her sight followed the stars like a spiral, taking in all the sky around her.

Then she saw a single, twinkling star, in the middle of a sea of black, one that stood out from all the others. A heart, of something, one would imagine. But of what?

Then Fluttershy remembered. It was a constellation that her father showed her, many years ago, when she was very young. There was a story of a creature, large in its stature, who roamed the Everfree long ago, whom everypony feared upon the first sight, even Princess Celestia herself. And yet, this creature had just as great a heart as it did a body, and so it never attacked anypony at all. It taught Fluttershy that, as big as she was when compared to some of her animal friends, she needed not always exercise her strength on them.

This was Leo – the Space Lion.

Then, just like that, all the other stars in the constellation lit up, one after the other, to show the gigantic image in the night sky. A delicate arrangement, in Luna’s flower garden, all blooming in perfect coördination to produce a stunning pattern in the heavens. It was a glorious sight to behold.

In that moment, Fluttershy needed such protection, such assurance, against the Everfree Forest at night. She wondered if it was Luna who lit up those stars like that. Or if it was just the weather in the Everfree, playing tricks on her. She hoped for the former.

Other than that sight, she looked around the forest. What a tranquil, serene place it was at night! Little nightlife to speak of – or perhaps it was simply avoiding her, leaving her alone, so she needn’t worry.

Maybe losing the wager against Rainbow Dash wasn’t so bad after all. She didn’t know what she was missing. Perhaps if she came during the day, the weather could show her fantastic, mysterious beauties that not even Cloudsdale couldn’t match. O, how civilisation would strive to perfect its art, only to see that not only Nature had outdone it, but had made it public domain.

Civilisation prided itself upon order – everything arranged in a meaningful pattern, sometimes useful, but usually just for appearances. Nature, on the other hand, was laissez-faire in its approach, but usually outdid civilisation – there was always some je-ne-sais-quoi about its methods. For a civilisation so used to order, chaos had come to be a seemingly impossible arrangement, even though it was so astonishingly easy to create.

The grass underneath Fluttershy’s hooves had sprung forth, seemingly from naught, in a haphazard nature. And yet, from a distance, high in the heavens, it appeared perfectly uniform. The same could be said of the trees as well – who was to say how they could have left a perfect clearing in the middle of the forest? Even Fluttershy herself – she only possessed enough symmetry to keep her flying perfectly straight in the air. She was by no means perfect.

At this time, she decided that it would most likely be best if she went back to sleep – to the dream realm, where Princess Luna watches and cares for all. But when she turned back to her sleeping bag, she saw that a small, brown rabbit had fallen asleep on her pillow.

Now, Fluttershy needed that pillow. But she didn’t want to disturb that poor, sleepy rabbit in the process. So, when she got to her sleeping bag (very quietly, so as not to disturb it), she carefully turned the pillow so that one half of it was available to her, and the other half can be occupied by the rabbit. A perfect compromise, an unspoken agreement. Success! The rabbit remained asleep, undisturbed by the silent unfoldings. Equally quietly, Fluttershy slipped herself back into her sleeping bag, and, slowly, without a sound, zipped it shut.

As she laid her head down for rest, she imagined what life would be like to have Leo in her household. Perhaps it could be one of the more helpful creatures – but if this were the case, what could it do? Perhaps it was a question to be answered at another time.

She shut her eyes, and, under the protection of the Goddess of the Moon, she dreamed of her familiar home amongst her friends, both bestial and equine.

Let me rest here upon the forest ground,
Until the first Dawn’s light is to be found.
Grant me a darken’d sleep without a sound.

Author's Note:

This chapter was inspired by "Space Lion" by the Seatbelts.