Days go by; those turn to years and decades and centuries; finally a millennium passed. One

thousand years later, where the sun rises and sets on the horizon. The rains stop to bring

flowers blooming life. I can see everything moving around me; the brightest days and the

darkest nights, the plant life flourishing in and around the castle. There I stood there looking

into her eyes for a thousand years, with the stone tear frozen in time on my cheek, thinking of

when we could escape. Sapphires eyes started to change from a rocky slate grey to a beautiful

shimmering baby blue, like she was being reanimated after all this time. I heard stone cracking

and breaking away. The stone surrounding Sapphires front-right hoof fractured and her hoof

broke free. With a little more effort she completely broke out of the rock. After she stretched and

brushed herself off. Standing and looking at me she spoke for the first time in a thousand years.

"Onyx? You in there buddy?" She asked me while knocking on my stone head, "Don't tense

up, okay?"

With that being said, she raised her hoof and cracked me on the crown of my head, shattering

the stone that encased me. Being broken free from the earthen prison, I fell over and held my

head in pain.

"Gahh! Sapphire! Don't do that!"

"What did you want me to do? Kick you? I'd think getting kicked would hurt more. It's been

too long."

"Yeah, but at least we still have a home."

"True, so what's first on the list?"

"I don't know, but we have to deal with Celestia and bring your mother into power. No more

armies, no more battles, no more depending on other ponies for support. It's just you and me

out here. So first things first, we need to find a library, we need to know what has changed over

the years."

"Why do we need a library? We could just visit Mourning Gloom."

"We need to find some history books...It'll be faster."

"Ok but first we need to get to Gloom, I'm starving."

"Okay, that mare should be around here somewhere, right?"

"If the orphanage is still around...then we can find her easily."

"Let's hope nothing changed over the times."

"What do you mean? Everything changes over time."

"I mean the path to Canterlot."

"Okay, then let's go!"

We started off to where I remembered Canterlot was. The forest definitely changed, but not by

much. There were more trees. We soon arrived a building with a luminescent sign that said The

Bright Days Ahead Orphanage.

"Hey, it's the orphanage Onyx, look!" Sapphire pointed

"Let's kill two birds with one stone, then."

"Sounds good to me." Sapphire finished as we stepped up to the door. I pushed it open with

a shove. Inside the doors were fillies and foals running around and playing. Some were drawing

and some were talking and playing games. I saw an old mare in the kitchen, down the hall in

front of me. We entered and I shut the doors behind Sapphire. We moved into the kitchen.

"Gloom?" I asked. The mare turned around and looked at me perplexedly.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Onyx" I responded, baffled.