Of Time Before The Stars

by JinxTJL

Of A Forest Ever Unchanging

The forest, as she knew it, was a stoic thing. It was vast and sweeping; a living thing with life all its own to support, but somehow so... static.

But wasn't that just everything, here?

Passing trees that towered above, brushing through plush growth with fronds and ferns too-tall-but-still-short, and stepping in short-then-long-then-short steps along roots that nearly seemed as tall as walls. In the air: a sweet song played to a tune all its own by birds unseen, while little creatures and bugs too-small-but-still-scarily-big scuttled and scampered through the grass and moss that poked and prodded at the softest part of her hooves.

Brown and green on every surface from mud to bark and leaves and ivy, crawling up and invading every surface even amidst colors already in their proper places. A constant war against itself for no reason other than for the daily change to things too miniscule to notice.

But even with the struggle, the life and the change: it still seemed so fixed.

The trees, even with their bark that chipped and wore and greyed, and the roots that crawled and found places-they-shouldn't-be: they still never died. The leaves would never fall. The oak would never break.

She'd watched, once, as a younger filly, while her sister, too-small-and-too-weak, had tried to chop away at one of the earthen monsters. They'd found an old one, the bark at its bottom long since fallen and rubbed to the pale flesh that lay inside, and her sister had taken to gleefully-but-still-angrily hacking at it with her little stone knife.

Before the wood had even chipped, her sister's knife had snapped in two. It hadn't been all that sturdy in the first place, being carved from stone by a filly too impatient and too bent on immediate harm to do it properly, but she'd been unable to even make a groove with it.

She stopped, then, at the base of one. Resting her hoof along its edge, to feel the prick of the rough and unhewn bark on her frog; peering closely at the scaly hide, as if it would somehow tell its secrets at a glance.

She knew wood could be cut. The walls of their home, and even her mother's cutting board: they could be damaged. Chipped, and scarred. Accidentally or purposefully defaced.

When her father would go out for the wood scraps and chunks they used for fire and crafting, he would always be gone for far too long. As if he'd had to travel long for the bountiful material. He'd never said, and she'd never asked, but that was what she'd come to assume.

They lived in a forest, but for the trees' strength: it may as well have been a plain.

She began a rough arc around the tree, letting the hard edge of her hoof dip and scrape along the bark as her hooves carried her in a circle. The very scarce chips and shards that broke off at her assault stung at her frog, but the tiny pain only served a reminder to the thoughts that plagued her.

The bark would break, but the wood would not. But wood could break; she'd seen it for herself.

There was nothing in their books. Her parents wouldn't bring it up without reason. She would not dare to ask.

Which was normal?

This was not the first time she'd wondered, and the way her life seemed to be laid: it would not be the last.

A sigh bubbled in her chest as she slowed to a stop; letting her hoof fall away from its mutually-but-minimally destructive pursuit. There was a sore, now, that she felt near the heel of her frog; a consequence of her idle whim that she would curse for as long as it lasted.

She only grimaced for the first moment as she set her hoof down, but it was a moment passed, and then it changed.

When she opened her eyes, the world was different. The light tones and spots cast along the ground and trees like painted water from a bucket now sported darker shades; an immediate shadowing to the forest between blinks.

She cast her gaze up, feeling the warmth on her fur that she'd taken for granted begin to fade; a chill leaping into the air to bite at her ear as she looked skyward. A sky that she could only barely see for what it was, and what it wasn't.

It was dark. Though, she could barely tell the difference.

The canopy of leaves was overbearing; it covered near enough to the entire view of the sky. High enough that she'd never touch it, ground-bound as she was, but still near enough to serve as that constant reminder.

The constant ceiling that would only ever partially break; she'd never been without it, or something like it. Never seen the sky for what it truly was: what she'd read it as, and what her parents would describe it as. Never felt air not touched by the smell of pine and sap; never saw beyond a glimpse what it was that would cast the light and the dark.

She imagined it would not be all that different from being under the trees.

The light was gone from the faint signs of sky, now painted instead by something lesser. Two tones entirely different, but her parents would tell her tales of how it was nothing to fear. No reason to cower as the forest would grow dark in a drip, then lighten again with no seeming schedule.

It was only something called the 'sun' and the 'moon' raising and setting. Only the harbingers of the light and dark, nothing so intense as the end of the world. A fitting balm for her active young mind, at the time.

But, as she'd never asked, why was it that they saw fit to? What purpose did it serve for the sun and moon to raise, and for that matter, to be so erratic? There was no identifiable interval to their move; they simply did as they seemingly saw fit. Was there no schedule? Did the unattainable things so high in the sky not have their own pots to set themselves to?

There was no answer. Her parents would never tell, even in the scarce times she'd asked. This one thing, when she would so often stay silent for her curiosity: they would purposefully obscure. Why the sun and the moon rose and set whenever they wanted: her parents would keep a secret from her.

But, for her parents not telling, she'd never asked why.

With the dark encroached without warning, it was now only minimally harder to see as she craned her head back down. The light, comforting-in-comparison-to-dark as it was, only really served to warm her path. The forest was so naturally shaded; she wasn't sure there was ever a time she hadn't been able to quickly adjust.

She caught a glimpse of white as she stepped forward, and, for whatever reason, it caught her off-guard. One moment of surprise, perhaps in the span of a drip, and she nearly jumped away from the flash in surprise. Nearly actually jumped, it was such a shock.

But then, she calmed. Of course. She was so silly, getting all caught up in her own mind. This was why she tried very hard not to indulge her too-frequent-for-safety curiosity: it allowed openings for these such... silly things.

She'd only seen her hoof, her own white fur.

A hoof covered in white fur that found itself solidly on the ground again, as she'd raised it in an ill-considered startle. Now, she trot forward confidently, secure in her own mind again. For having banished once again the deep tracts of curiosity that lay like stones in her thoughts.

There was no time, even as she made her leisurely way through the familiar paths of growth and the bristles plucking and tugging at her white coat, to indulge herself in such a distracting manner.

Not when she had her sister to find.

Author's Note:

i ' m b u i l d i n g t h e s e t t i n g

Comments

[Mr Swanky Hat]

i ' m b u i l d i n g t h e s e t t i n g

I ' m r e a d i n g i t