a light in the darkness.

R I X E N Taivas’s explanation of there being two worlds, a tangible one and a spiritual one, is not something that I’ve heard many horses speak of before. At least not in the land that I came from. Somehow, though, it made sense that everything was connected by spirits. How else would the world function if there wasn’t some unseen force shared between every living and non-living thing? Without such a thing, it would be impossible to understand the earth. It would be impossible to feel the Rift, assess its condition, and understand what needed to be done to help this place heal. That, or I was just desperate for some type of consolation amid the ruin of the Rift.  My emerald gaze followed the mare’s as she looked to the trees and sky. I studied each carefully, searching for some new conclusion about life or the world to jump out at me in an aha moment, but there was nothing. And not a cloud in sight. The sky was brilliantly blue, clear as a crystal lake above our heads. The young pines were beautiful, of course, but it was the same natural beauty that could be found in all of nature - nothing out of the ordinary. I tried to see the spirits in them but all I could see were tall trunks and spiky green needles.  I watched as Taivas closed her eyes, a concentrated look on her face. Then, the earth shook before our hooves began to shake ever so slightly, as if wakening from a deep slumber. From the damp soil rose a cloud of dust or smoke or maybe even something else - something more magical. Either way, it had the appearance of a translucent mist, rising up in the air to a height that was about the same as my chest. It twisted and twirled before my very eyes, transforming from a shapeless blob into a creature with a face and then back into a swirling mass of mist. The sunlight could shine through it, but looking through the mist I couldn’t make out the details of the pines on the other side. My eyes fell back onto the silvery pegasus with golden tresses, my mouth falling slightly ajar in amazement as she manipulated the magical substance, guiding it carefully back into the patch of earth it had come from with utmost care. Her eyes, her lips, and her spirit all at once smiled at the ground before her hooves, and then raised back up to me. "You can do that?" Was all I could think of to say. It was a spirit. A strange, swirling mist, but nevertheless a spirit had risen before my very eyes. The spiritual world had always seemed so distant but now, it seemed...real. My mind flooded with questions about how everything worked. There was always so much that I wanted to know, and, well, there was so little time to learn in this short life. Taivas began speaking again, raising one feathery wing and pointing to my snow-colored chest. I flinched slightly, but it wasn’t the result of nerves. The feelings that coursed through my body were a mixture of awe and curiosity. I was never one to believe in spirits or magic or anything of that sort, but now I felt sure that I certainly could. "Do you think that knowledge of these...spirits can help us heal the Rift?" I asked, my brow furrowed slightly as I considered the question myself.  "Talk." they heard me singing and they told me to stop quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock

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