I ~ The Lonely Eye
I
The Lonely Eye
At first, there was nothing to see. Only Mother, and her measured, regal voice seeping past her clouded thoughts. It was calm, soothing, and warm against the icy chill that blew against their sanctuary.
And it was everything she needed.
“You are Galatea,” Mother spoke to her. “Scribe of the Stardust.”
“I am Galatea,” came her reply. “Scribe of the Stardust.”
“You are the guardian of memory,” she was told, and repeated as Mother spoke. “As the world turns, you shall stand firm. As the land grows, you shall care for it. You shall watch, you shall learn, and you shall protect.”
She was both asleep and wasn't, and try as she might, she could not open her eyes, and behold Mother nor address her directly. And Mother was so, so very tired.
“Good night, my little ones,” she heard her whisper. “When you awaken, the world will await you, and you in turn shall make it better. Now, rest well. Dream of sweet things to come. And most of all, be brave.”
So she did, falling into a dreamless sleep, waiting for her time, need it take an eternity.
* * * * *
Time welcomed her awakening.
There wasn’t much to be said of the world that greeted her, when she took her first shaky steps into the wilderness outside the cave that was her sanctuary.
She stood upon the cliff’s edge, in the heart of a mountain range. As far as her eyes could see, snowcapped peaks welcomed her penetrating gaze, and beyond their peaks lay a world to explore. How she knew this, she did not know. But the knowledge was given to her, and use the library within her mind she would.
She looked down upon her forehooves, and raised one of them, examining it. The wind blew soft, tantalisingly raising the pale grey furs of her coat.
Then she looked back at the cavern that had housed her, but found no opening to greet her back.
With nothing left to do, Galatea set her gaze upon the mountains before her, and took flight.
And she flew very far, indeed.
* * * * *
She did not know how long she was in the air, letting the wind guide her over the expanse. But what she did know, of course, was that she had to land, one way or another.
So she did, choosing a small clearing in a faraway forest, with a pond so clear that it reflected the clear blue skies above. There, Galatea sat, ruffled her wings, and looked into the pond.
In the tranquil water of the pond, she saw a mare look back at her. A slender, spiralling horn rested upon her forehead. A great, majestic pair of wings upon her barrel. And an ethereal, ink-black mane that flowed, even this far down on the ground, in the absence of wind. All that she was familiar with, and knew already.
It was her eyes that caught her attention, resting within a thin, elegant face. For their icy blue was the only bright colour to grace her form, and their gaze, penetrating and contemplative.
Once she had familiarised herself with all that she did not know of herself, Galatea turned away from the pond, and sat a fair distance away, looking into the forest.
The trees here grew close to one another, so crowded that their vibrant, green leaves blended into one. Her eyes could not see very far into the forest, for outside the clearing, the sunlight barely penetrated into the undergrowth.
But what she couldn’t see, she heard. And while she did not hear very much, her senses told her enough for her mind to wonder. The rustle of dried leaves, from the steps and claws of unseen creatures scampering around the forest floor, and the gentle whistling of the winds. All in the cool touch of the morning air.
Life, as it were. And somewhere, deep down, Galatea knew that she did not belong, a strange being in a stranger land.
She looked back at her flank, where her soul’s mark lay as it had been granted to her. A simple grey eye, darker in its shading than her coat.
Looking back into the forest, she took a breath, and recited the only words Mother ever told her.
“I am Galatea,” she began. “Scribe of the Stardust.”
The forest, in response, said nothing. She cleared her throat.
“I am the guardian of memory,” she said, as Mother taught her. “As the world turns, I shall stand firm. As the land grows, I shall care for it. I shall watch, I shall learn, and I shall protect.”
She stood up, and took a deep breath.
Within her, she knew, Mother had gifted her with the ability to wield the magical crafts – through her horn, which shone a bright grey as she experimentally lifted a few scattered rocks within this clearing; through her wings, with which she cast a calming breeze that joined the rustling of the leaves; and finally, through her own hooves, thanks to which she sensed the life thrive beneath the soil and all around her.
For now, she thought she would rather stay on her hooves. Satisfied, and with renewed purpose, Galatea walked forward, and entered the forest.
* * * * *
Time passed, and she remained.
The forest was dark and treacherous. She tripped and stumbled several times over. The rivers that coursed beneath the canopy were winding and rough, their waters crashing into rocks and casting silt upon the banks. Trees grew from tiny saplings into tall, twisted things with many names that Galatea did not know, for the plants did not speak to her. Yet they bit at her when she bit into their fruit. And though this did not impede her so, she lamented it.
She was alone, and the forest did not welcome her. She beheld the creatures of many forms which shied away when she called out to them, and followed her when her back was turned, stalking her in the dark.
This she concluded. At first.
But with the passage of time, she came to see the world differently. For the forest was bright and full of life, too. Where in the one corner a river might be cruel and dangerous, in the other it would be a calm, flowing stream, leading into many a tranquil pond, much like the one that had greeted her.
And Galatea learned to appreciate the Sun above. Wherever it shone, life thrived all around its warm touch.
She watched as flowers bloomed, and little buzzing bees flew back and forth between them and their hives. And where the bees went, life thrived further still. Galatea fed upon the fruits that had sprouted from these same flowers. Some accepted her bite, and she in turn welcomed their ripe, luscious taste.
She could not judge a forest by any one tree, but as its whole. This she concluded. And so she went on, past the forest, and into the plains.
* * * * *
Where the forest was endarkened and enclosed, the great plains upon which Galatea now walked were exposed and expansive. A sea of grass greeted her from one horizon to the next. Sometimes the grass grew tiny, and she had to lean down and squint, just to examine an individual blade. Other times the grass grew taller than even she, burnt yellow by the Sun, and in these large patches, she had to fly above to see where she went.
Yet the plains, though they stretched as far as the eye could see, were not endless. This she concluded.
In a day, she flew, flew, all the way, until she reached the edge, where the plains gently ajoined the mountains that rose to grace the skies.
Now, having found the boundaries, Galatea flew back to where the plains met the forests. She did this several times over, until her wings grew tired, and she longed for the touch of grass upon her hooves.
Where the forest had been dark, broken only by a cycle as patches of sunlight broke through, the plains were clear by day, yet looked out into empty horizons, or cast into shadow at night, lit by the glow of stars. Day and night, it was as if only the ground beneath her hooves and the grass that brushed against her body were real. Until the seasons changed and the grass died, and the plains became covered by a blanket of snow.
But she was never truly alone. Sun and Moon guided her path through the fields, and never did she become lost in their grasp.
And though she spent many seasons in the plains, watching and observing as life too flourished here in the burrows and the patches great and small, Galatea knew that when needed, she would be free to leave. This she concluded.
When the time came, Galatea left, travelling between the plains, the forests, the mountains and the rivers, and many more, with the Sun and Moon above accompanying her.
* * * * *
Change, Galatea surmised, was paradoxically the one constant in the world she trod. How could it not be, when her eyes spied it in every corner of this world.
She had flown and walked, so very far and very close and everything in-between, and traversed it all, watching the sights change all around her.
Forests, evergreen or broad-leafed, cold ice plains and warm savannahs, rocky mountains and raging rivers. The desolate badlands and the shimmering seas. Fields on different lands, blanketed in alternance beneath blossoming flowers, falling leaves and new snow. Nothing remained as it was, nothing was forever a desolate, barren land. Not even when she trudged the permafrost-covered terrains to the North, or the scorching sands of vast deserts to the South.
All of them cast beneath the ever-cycling Sun and Moon.
These were not all pleasant experiences for her hooves or wings or even her mind, that was true. Her hooves would grow chapped and cracked when she walked for too long across the harshness of mountain and desert. Her wings would grow tired and ragged from the challenge of flying against those storms that raged over oceans. And her mind became weary and spent whenever she was awake for too long. But these were things as they were, and she accepted it.
For it was her duty. This she did not conclude. She knew.
And if she was to rest, beneath the shade or anywhere she saw fit, over time her hooves would return to their original state, her wings would turn sleek once more, and her mind be blessed with clarity.
The environment was not the only fragment of this world to capture Galatea’s notice. Where she walked and flew, she took her time to regard the very life that resided, all around her. Their change fascinated her the most.
* * * * *
It had all started with a little bird in a northern forest, where the ground was often cold.
She first noticed it when it cried for its mother, in a nest up there in a great pine tree. Discretely, Galatea spread her wings and flew up there, and watched from a safe distance. It was one of many in its mother’s clutch – small, grey, and rowdy in their chirps. Nothing set this one apart from its siblings, in particular.
That did not matter. It was one chick, and one she chose to watch. She watched for some time.
Its mother brought it food at first, for it was helpless without her, with its weak wings and beak. And like its siblings, it wanted their mother’s attention all for its own.
But eventually, it grew, and grew, and soon the time came for it to leave the nest, many days later. And so Galatea followed it, carefully, as it flew for the first time, and flew, and kept flying away from its mother’s nest.
Many Moons passed by. The fledgling chick was now an adult, its downy feathers molted and revealing a yellow-feathered belly, and a white cheek. It hunted and fed throughout the forest, unaware or uncaring of the mare that watched it so closely. It flew, it slept, and it continued on its path, which Galatea knew not.
Then came another of its kind, and new hatchlings followed. They did not interest Galatea as much as their parent did. She did not avert her gaze, nor change her path. She wanted to see – no, she needed to see.
So it went on with its life, with another brood to call its own. Life goes on, and that is good, Galatea concluded.
Until, one day, she could not see where it went from her sight. Made curious, she searched every nook and cranny, overturning stones, until she found it on the forest floor, unmoving. And it was not asleep, for as Galatea watched, change came over it, and soon it was naught but feathers and bones and rotting flesh.
And so it passed, and Galatea went on her way.
* * * * *
The little bird was never the first, nor would it be the last.
There were many others like it, though not all flew like it did, nor had beaks, nor were anything close to a bird after all. Some laid eggs, others gave birth. Some ate the vegetation of the forest, the plains, even the odd desert plants or the moss of the tundra. Yet some relied on consuming others’ flesh for sustenance.
They all changed, one way or the other. Their life went on, from the birds in the sky to the lizards crawling on the ground, and crocodiles of the swamps with their hardy scales, to the great elephants of the savannah and tiny mice scampering in their burrows, the whales and the fish that swam in the oceans – with her keen eyes, Galatea saw deep as she glided above the surface – or the foxes and hyenas and wolves, even little snails and bees, and so, so many more.
She remembered them all, well enough, and not once did the changing seasons cause her memory to fade, and though she could recite the pattern each of them were to follow in life, it never bored her to follow one little newborn from life to dust, many times over, whether they were hatched or born.
Not even the trees were everlasting. She watched, as pinecones and seeds were scattered throughout the land, sprouting little saplings wherever they fell. They grew like any other lifeform would, though they were at the mercy of the natural order, swaying in the wind, burning in forest fires and other such misfortunes. Yet their seeds blew in the wind, or spread far and wide by civets or birds feeding upon their ripe offerings.
She watched there, a little sapling, grown from a seed that must have come down from the North by a travelling bird. It grew, like the little bird would, small and in the shadows of its older brethren, reaching out slowly yet surely towards the blessing of the Sun. Soon, it too joined the others, tall and proud, sprouting little flowers that drew the attention of the busy bees and beautiful butterflies that dwelled in the forest. And so did the songbirds come, picking up the ripe red fruits it sprouted, and spreading it further out this deciduous forest.
Here, Galatea took her time, watching the little critters that lived around its mighty trunk, unaware or uncaring of the lonely eye that watched them so closely.
Three of them she became fond of, whenever she went, and she could not decide which one of them she preferred to watch, for they are all equal in her eyes.
First were the earthworms, tiny, slithering creatures that dwelled beneath the soil she lived on. They were elusive, only emerging when the ground was wet after a downpour. And that was why Galatea sought them whenever she could. She could never see their tunnels beneath, yet she could see what they had blessed the forest with, for the ground turned more fertile and lush with life after the soil was tilled.
Then, there were the little snails. Small, out of the way, and very slow. Rarely did any other creature notice them, only the birds that fed upon them. But many a time did Galatea stop to watch their simple life, carrying their homes, unable to affect the world around them much. Perhaps it was their slowness that endeared them so to her. She did wonder aloud, once, just what they wished to do with their slow, slimy lives of dwelling amongst the fallen fruit from their sanctuary and ravishing the taste with their rough tongues – they did not answer, for they were snails, and they did not speak very well. So she watched them move, slowly, as always.
At last, there were the bees, everpresent, but always welcome whenever she spied the little humming insects. Wherever they went, flowers and plant life would follow. She wondered if they knew what gifts they had brought upon the world. But the bees did not seem to care, and they went on with their lives as their roles demanded it of them, for the good of their hives. And though bears would come and swipe at their honeycombs, time after time, they always returned to their colonies to rebuild. Galatea would watch them the longest, with the passing seasons, and the changing times.
And as it would, change did come, as it should. For like all of the life that it sheltered, the tree grew old and cracked and splintered, until it fell quietly one day, tumbling to the ground in a heap of decayed wood.
A tree was enduring. But still it was at the mercy of change, as it lay there, disintegrated and eaten away by the fungi that spread across the wood.
Such is the fate of all life, indeed. And Galatea went on her way, with a small frown.
* * * * *
Many things Galatea had concluded, from observing the little bird to the elderly apple tree, yet it all came back to one thing. Life, in all its shapes and forms, was not and never had been eternal. It changed, always, no matter how long any one lifeform may last. It grew, it moved, it fought and bled and fell, and passed like the Sun and Moon’s movements across the sky. And it remained at the mercy of the world they resided in.
But there were none like her.
She had eschewed food, for some time, waiting to see change. And though she starved, and suffered from thirst, many times over, she did not perish, and regained her luster and spirit whenever she slept for a night.
Of course, she did not try to cast herself off a cliff. To deliberately end herself would be foolish, entirely against what Mother wanted or expected from her. But many an accident did befall her, from lightning storm to volcanic eruption, to even tripping down a crevasse or a gorges. And always, always did she emerge from it unscathed, whether it by the beat of her wings, the will of her thought, or by the strength of her hooves.
It was then, after she had travelled for some time, right there at a meadow in the East, where the spring flowers bloomed and birds sang among the branches, that Galatea sat to think. Not of the world she dwelled upon, and had been tasked to watch. But of herself. It was so, so strange to think of herself.
So it was that she spoke to herself, the words Mother had taught her.
“I am Galatea,” she said. “Scribe of the Stardust.”
No reply came, neither from the gentle breeze nor from her thoughts. She continued.
“I am the guardian of memory. As the world turns, I shall stand firm. As the land grows, I shall care for it. I shall watch, I shall learn, and I shall protect.”
She had recited it many Moons ago, and it gave her comfort. But now, alone in this world of hers, with only her thoughts for company and not another soul, the words felt loose and distant both.
After a moment’s hesitation, she asked herself a question, in a whisper so soft it may have been the whisper of the wind.
“... Who am I?”
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As I once saw written by a dear co-writer on a story of my own, nearly six years ago - not you, Sledge, but you know how much I value our time together, mate, and it also started with Spectrum and Joy to the Worlds - I am really pleased to see this in the public eye at last.
Galatea, though a character type not unfamiliar to those who've spent their time long enough in ponyfiction, was far too good a character to let go to waste, and I have faith this will do her justice.
I very much liked the evocative, lyrical feel of this opening chapter, of time moving fast or not at all, nearly wholly free of dialogue. Until Galatea, who throughout has been nought but a silent watcher, her inner life unknown even to her, asks her first true question - and whom can she ask if not herself?
10211078
To which I can't credit you enough for the encouragement. Thanks, mate, and here's to Galatea
10213122
One that I hope you would enjoy
Truly some wonderful prose, like Vox said down there. As always, it seems. If I ever write something one day, I can but hope to be able to deliver such elegance.
10285814
Thanks! I try
I aim to diversify my prose - though perhaps the practice gained here will creep through to the main Spectrum, hehe.
Incredible pacing, beautiful descriptions, and wonderful foreshadowing.
This may be just single chapter, the first one at that, but this chapter was good enough to not only earn a like but to also gain a spot in my favorites.
I'll rate it when I finish it, but so far, your on track for a 10/10, hopefully the next chapters keep this ones momentum.
A nice relaxing read that really puts things into perspective and makes the reader really question what life is at its core.
What is my life if it's only a tiny ripple in the sea of time?
What makes a day special if it ends as quickly as it came?
What is one life in the grand scheme of things?
Know this:
As a writer I can appreciate this...
As a reader I can enjoy this...
And as a Brony I can love this.
it's interesting, having the first chapter of a story be the elements of a creation myth: the emphasis on the day/night cycle, the variety of the terrain, plants and fruits and how to distinguish them, then the animals, starting with the little bird in the northern forest.
it really does feel as if all of this was purposefully set up to have Galatea learn this lesson, this base fact about the world. but for what purpose and by whom?
it is disorienting, to have this clearly born-yesterday Galatea be taught this sequence of words, so many layers of abstraction above the base material world she seems to be just discovering, which does not even yet include the other sentient beings (ponies, presumably) who she would need to understand for those sentences to have any meaning, or anything to contrast with. the juxtaposition is intriguing.
A very interesting beginning. Apparently the birth of what I could assume would be one of the first Alicorns.
I really like the descriptions of the world in the eyes of a young endless-mind, capable of observing for entire lifetimes.
However, the real question is only asked at the end, and I would venture a guess that it will be what moves our character forward for now on.
I'm really interested