awareness (introduction)
War never changes. It is born from the darkest hatreds of one's heart, and spreads into their whole being. No matter what the point of entering war is, it always ends with both sides worse off. Death follows in it's wake, and pain heralds it's coming.
Not that anyone'd care about that now. After all, war sucks. It sucked with the attempted assassination of the princess, it sucked when the megaspells hit. Equestria is but a shadow of what it once was. The rest of the world fared no better, but this story resides in Equestria itself. It is the story of my life. And the best way to start is with the begining.
I'm not what one could call normal. Far from it, in fact. Where ponies, zebras, and mostly everything else are born from others of their species, I started out as a simple rock. Yes, a rock. Honestly, I only became aware post-impact, but I am what the Zebras would call a "fallen star."
My first memory was of whooping scavengers sliding down the edges of my crater coming to take me... somewhere. Apparently they never stopped to think maybe something falling fast enough to make a big hole in the ground would be hot. They all perished in the intense heat before they could even reach my still form.
As time went by, the Scavengers grew to ignore me. Rain had fallen, covering me in a pool of liquid. I was content, for a time, to sit in my hole and simply feel. The pain, the anger, the sorrow, it all was so alien, and so very loud to my quiet shell. I'm certain I would have come out completely different had it not been for that one errant feeling, the one that didn't fit. Hope, a feeling so similar, yet so alien from the others, I simply could not compare them. The time that passed as I had lain within that crater was unmeasureable, until the one day, it happened.
I moved. Not on my own, of course, for that was beyond me then. The scavengers that had settled around my pool, in what I came to know as Crater Town later on, were beset by something I'd never felt before. They appeared similar in form to these wonderous creatures, however they lacked that wonderful hope, and everywhere they struck, the hope faltered, replaced by another feeling. That feeling was fear, and it disgusted me. Their cries, and the barks of loud things reverberated through my watery home, eventually going mercifully silent.
The Scavengers had survived, but their feel... changed that day. The hope was number, more subdued by the sorrow, and the fear never faded. As the light outside my home darkened, a pair of the scavengers were wrapped in some cloth and placed within my home as they sank into the waters, I could tell their feel was... gone from them, they were no longer there.
It hurt, to feel their still forms drift down towards me. and then, a third dove into the pool, immediately followed by two others. This one was smaller and sreamed of the earlier sorrow, almost none of the hope in him. His hooves tore through the waters trying to reach the pair, but right when he reached the bottom, and his features became clearer, the other two hooked their limbs under him, and tried to take him back to the knot of feelings above the surface.
his blue limbs scrabbled at the bottom, looking for purchase, and found me. As the young one was taken up, I went with. His struggles were silent and I could feel him fading. I pushed with all my feeling to get him to hold onto his. That day, as I'd left my home, my prison, I beheld the creatures up close, and felt them directly. They felt relief, that the young one was okay, guilt, that they could not help, then, I was seen, and all that faded with a sound.
"Star Bones!" a striped one cried, and fear, that horrible, ugly fear spread through the others like her. I didn't care for them, for the young one, blue with a spire from it's head, was returning to strength. His feel was strong, and I was glad.
A scuffle was felt, frustration, anger, and worry coming to the forefront. The striped ones were attempting to reach the blue one, the unstriped ones and spired ones struggling to keep them back. I grew fearful for the young one's safety, and so I tried something. The spires of the spired ones grew strong, glowing with a silvery light, and I simply wished the striped ones to the other side of the prison I was in.
The spired ones and unstriped ones stared at me for a long time, then took the young spired one and placed him upon a soft, raised platform. He was shivering, so I brought him warmth. They tried to remove me, and I flooded them with guilt. I could not leave him, and so they put me back. He was my savior, and I protected him. I waited, and I listened, to the feeling and the sounds, as they flowed forth.
It was... confusing. I could not understand what their noises meant. indeed, things were a way I'd never done before. everything was so... foreign, so loud. The feelings alone were intense, the young one was shifting, and for a moment, I worried for him. The spire touched my form, and I felt him like I never could before. He was there, in my thoughts, and I knew he could feel me too. I showed him what I remembered through my feeling, and he explained through feeling what happened.
The strange ones that attacked were known as raiders, unstriped ones corrupted by greed and hunger. The striped ones were called zebras, the unstriped, earth ponies, and the spired ones unicorns. He spoke of how the two that were placed into my prison were the chief and his wife, the colt's parents. He asked me if I could bring them back, but I told him their feeling had left them. I'd thanked him for saving me from the watery hole I was in, and he flowed happiness back.
And then I learned to speak. It was hard, but the colt, helped me through it. "You can do it," he'd encouraged. "Repeat it after me 'my name is...' and then you say your name."
"Mye... naame... iz..." I then told him I didn't know what my name was. He showed surprise, and said, "everypony has a name, silly." I told him I had none. His response was, "then I'm going to call you 'hope.' it's kind of girly, but it works" Hope. Yes, that wonderful feeling, with it's many glorious facets, and he'd compared me to it.
I had a name.