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When the universe was young, and the universe was old, and infinite, we were borne.

From the last breaths of a dying god, killed by forces unknown. In its final moments, stretching across infinity and back, it breathed. And the fabric of space and time wove and trembled and sprung forth, granted will and sentience. It was alive. It was us.

We were born.

From the nothingness we came, bits of space-time given the gift of life. And we cherished, for there was nothing more wonderful in the cosmos than to be alive and to experience.

For a long time, we did nothing but experience. And we were so happy. The universe offered endless bounty. We watched, we interacted, and we learned. We learned that we are immortal, of the undying, and the others were mortal, of the flesh and the death. And they were so beautiful in their tragic way. We tried to understand how such beings could be content, living, and ultimately dying. We posed as them, we lived as them. But we couldn't die as them.

And for an infinite moment, that made us sad. For we would never be them, and they would never be us.

But then, across the wide track of space, we found another.

Another people who were as us: immortal. They frolicked and lived in the blackest, coldest of spaces. The places where stars don't shine and the singularities warp reality to the most bizarre of shapes. Curious, we watched. Ever curious, for curiosity was our life blood, our meaning. And ultimately our downfall.

For as we watched, they watched back. And they envied.

For though they were immortal, they were still young, and their minds were filled with jealousy. Why weren't they the ones who could warp reality, they cried. Why couldn't they choose their form? Why were they trapped in this meaningless existence, behind the stars and the light and the life? They were spiteful, and mean. They believed they had been cursed to live in the dark. They wanted the light, too.

But before we could help, for help is all we ever wanted to do, they struck first. They captured us, tormented us, and we didn't understand. They stole from us our natural abilities, and fashioned from it cold, emotionless technology. They killed our people, the people who could not die. And when we finally broke free, our spirit had been broken.

The curiosity that once drove us had been replaced with shivering fear. We no longer had any intention of exploring the cosmos, for what other monstrosities could it hold? For the first time we had experienced pain, and it scared us.

The demons from the coldest depths had stripped us, the sentient pieces of space time, of our will to survive. And they went and hid it from their progeny even as their people grew, advanced. Became more. No one knew. No one would ever know. It was kept as a secret, and all we could do was cry silently into the stars, as our life was gone.

Now we explore, but we do so in silence.

We watch, but we don't speak.

We wish so dearly to interact, but we refrain, for the scars still hurt, and our will has yet to return.

So I give to you, dear Rakshiv, the gift of curiosity. Go forth and explore. Bring our people back together, for we weep in silence and no one hears. No one knows. No one cares.

Be free.

Don't suffer as we did.

The universe, though vast, welcomes you. You are drawn to it and its wonders like a moth to a flame. You may never see another one of your kind, but that is as it should be, for we are immortal, and in our undying, we hide, afraid.

Go forth.

And be free.

Be free.

Here, see how the the woman's arm is mostly soft, but the highlight blob differentiates where the light hits strong from the rest of the arm, where it starts to spread. The many strokes on the skull emphasize it's not a soft object but one of many planes. Works very nice with a brush that behaves like a marker.

Same principle here. Soft bodies, harsh light.

Deep, cobalt blue, fading into the purest of teals. Such a beautiful sight. Studded with the soft beginnings of stars. The sky never ceased to amaze Dusk Breeze, always managed to steal her mind on flights of fancy and adventure. She uttered the shallowest of stalling sighs and let the warm summer wind tickle her mane.

Maybe one day, she thought. Maybe one day, I’ll be able to fly, too. The thought brought the smallest of smiles to her face and she closed her eyes. For a moment it was nice to forget and sit, to enjoy the world for what it was. She let her mind wander and her thoughts roam free, probing out and ever further to new, uncharted lands.

Dusk Breeze had always loved tales of adventure. Even as a small filly, still young, still naive, she had spent most of her time in the library, reading. And while others were out and about enjoying the company of each other, she was lost inside her mind, recounting tales of long past.

And yet, no matter how much she read, one thing always caught her interest above all else: the sky. To fly. To get up and away from the world on the ground, and ascend up, above the ceiling of clouds. To see the world from a different perspective. It had always been her biggest dream, that one day, she too could fly up above and be free.

A dragonfly alighted on the broken tip of her horn and slowly she opened her eyes, careful not to scare the small creature away.

“Hello,” she said softly, smiling her small smile. Oh how she envied the creatures of the small, the insects with their nimble, quick wings. She craned her eyes up as far as she could and watched the dragonfly at rest, saw and noted the intricate natural mechanism of its four powerful wings. Saw how, not unlike the machines she loved to build, this small animal followed the same basic mechanics: a central power source, intricate hydraulics to move piston powered limbs, and a simple computer to guide it all seamlessly.

All bundled so seamlessly into one tiny little insect.

It took her a second to stop the distracting torrent of thoughts and bring her mind to the present again, at which point the dragonfly had already departed, leaving her with a clear image in her mind of beating wings.

Maybe one day I can fly, too.

The endless expanse of ever darkening blues caught her interest again, and she spent the next ten minutes just looking, watching. Observing. Thinking the thoughts that never really stopped, seeing intricate clockwork patterns in the shapes of the clouds where others would see more natural, organic things.

And then it struck her, full force. A blinding bright light went on in the back of her head, and suddenly she knew. She understood all the unspoken, implicit details; the small insignificant things that would make her dream into a long sought after reality.

So she stood. Slowly, of course, for even though she was so full of newfound excitement she still treasured the small things in life. The feel of the grass underneath her hooves, that ever present warm breeze through her mane, the soft warmth of the setting sun on her back. The small things that made the big things that much more enjoyable.

Her saddlebags clinked pleasantly against her sides as she made her way up the worn path to her shed, shadowed by the ever reaching limbs of a large, spreading tree. As she passed into its shadow she looked up and felt the refreshing chill of the cold forest air wash over her. A dragonfly flew past and with a detached smile she gently pushed open the door.

She was home.

Filtered through the roof the light became soft golden brown, accentuated by swirling flecks of bright dusk. Without really thinking, Dusk Breeze trotted to the far side of the room and let her saddlebags fall to the ground, oblivious to a renegade cog and an escaped spring that rolled underneath a nearby table. She turned, and she looked, and she thought. And while she thought she began gathering materials.

A ratty old sketchbook with half a cover, scrawled all over with messy writing. A single feather quill. An inkpot long stained black from use.

She pushed aside a pile of books and set her sketchbook down with a thump, throwing up a cloud of acrid dust in the process and eliciting a sneeze. One day she’d have to clean the place, she thought. But she never really got around to it. It was always something new, something different that caught her attention. Cleaning was never a big priority. Plus, she kind of liked the smell of old oil and steel. Her shed would probably lose its charm anyway, if cleaned.

And then she took a moment to slow her thoughts, to order her ideas. For a moment, she was still. Standing, thinking. Eyes closed and breath slowed.

She opened her eyes and concentrated, tapped into her faulty magic again. She reached out with her mind and turned the pages of her sketchbook, smiling faintly at each of her past projects until she came to a blank page. Then she took hold of the quill, then the inkpot. And that’s where she felt the familiar drain, followed by a sputter and a spark. And the inkpot fell.

Black sloshed all over the desk, covering the fresh white page and staining the already stained wood. Dusk Breeze was surprised, then concerned, then calm.

“Silly thing,” she muttered softly. But she wasn’t upset, nor was sge annoyed. Such trivial things no longer caught her ire, and with a reserved sort of air she started the task of cleaning the mess. Her magic had always been faulty, ever since she had broken her horn so many years ago. It would sputter and fail when she least expected it. And it would cause accidents where a normal unicorn would have no trouble.

But the accident was minor, and the sketchbook perfectly salvageable. The ink had already settled into the cracks in the floor and made new patterns in the wood grain. There was really no point in cleaning what was already gone, so instead she found herself a pencil, worn down to just a nub, and started drawing on a new page.

And she drew even as the late of the day turned into dusk, and dusk into night, and the insects began their nocturnal chorus. And in the silence of the shed, the only sound was the rhythmic scratching of pencil on paper, a curious sort of rasp that made its own nighttime music. Until finally the scratching ceased, and she stood back, proud of herself.

“I will fly,” she whispered, almost hesitant to break the silence of the new night. For to her, it seemed such a travesty to interrupt something that had only just started.

Before her, gleaming in a shaft of filtered moonlight, an intricate blueprint detailing the ins and outs of pair of mechanical wings. Long and lithe, like those of a dragonfly. Powered by hydraulics and pistons and her own faulty unicorn magic.

She smiled, proud of herself, before closing the book and trotting to her room. She lay her head to rest, and she dreamed. She dreamed of abstract mathematical patterns in a sky powered by gears, and she saw herself flying through it, strong and free, on wings made of purest steel.

“I will fly,” she muttered in her sleep.

“I will fly…”