Celestia Takes a Walk

         A tremendous flash of light at dawn hailed her coming. For a second, the light blotted out everything, too bright to make out any detail. The people shielded their eyes, squinting through their hands to see what it was. A nuclear warhead? A solar flare? Nothing was bright enough to make such a glow. The people in their cities waited to find out what great disaster they could have possibly wrought upon themselves. But, when it faded, standing above the tiny world was something clearly not of earthly origin. An impossibly powerful, impossibly beautiful goddess stood erect above their planet, for reasons the tiny people could only guess at.

         The goddess was a great white horse, standing some two hundred and fifty kilometers tall. She wore gilded hooflets on each of her beautiful hooves, and her immaculate body was adorned with a golden chest plate and crown. Her mane was long and colorful, flowing in a wind not felt, a rich array of blues, greens, and pinks. From her beautiful head sprouted an elegant white horn, and on her back lay two silky white wings. She seemed unaware, or uncaring, of the tiny world below her, staring out steadily with her beautiful pink eyes, smiling lightly, showing off her perfect teeth. Everything for a thousand kilometers in all directions looked up at the tremendous goddess, awe and fear beginning to cloud their minds.

         Celestia took a step. The earth shook below her mighty form, a million people crushed under her golden hooflet, a city ground to dust without notice or care from the goddess. Small beads of sweat dripped from her, drowning thousands more. The great golden walls made short work of anything placed beneath them, mountains presenting as much trouble to her hoof as a mound of soft dirt. The shock wave of her impossible hoof step blew apart forests and towns on all sides around it, the destruction spreading even beyond the goddesses actions. One step, and a million and change were dead. Even so, it seemed that there was no malice in this goddesses actions; the tiny people of the insignificant planet below her were simply too small for her to notice.

         She took another step. The earth began to buckle between impacts, the force causing small ruptures in the earth, lava beginning to seep through. This time, no one was killed, at least not directly, as the goddess had not decided to step on another city yet.

         But as she continued her slow, elegant stroll, millions died beneath her beautiful hooves. Each step she took wrought unimaginable damage, all of it unnoticed by the goddess as she simply walked gracefully across the surface of the world, the tiny mortals ground into dirt beneath her.

         The global community did not even bother with a nuclear launch. It was clear, from the shock she should have been taking at each step herself, that no weapon of man could even singe her, so powerful was she. This being the case, it was the consensus among them that having her not become aware of them, and potently saving themselves from directed destruction, was perhaps their best option. At least this way there would be a world left to lead once she was done.

         Not that the goddess knew, or cared, for the thoughts of tiny men. Each step she brought wonderful death to hundreds of thousands of mortals, flattened beneath her hooves, drowned in her sweat, or swept away in her mane, her simple act of walking bringing an end to their tiny world. She was the ultimate power, deciding the life of the insignificant mortals below her beautiful hooves, without even sparring them a glance, her perfect face never turning towards the tiny world she ravaged so easily.

         Eventually, she stopped walking. Already, one hundred million people had been ground to dust beneath her hooves in her two minute walk. She sighed. There was a rush, as the goddess lowered herself, sitting down on the tiny world.

         Three million people looked skywards as her perfect rump descended on them. There was nothing they could do except scream as the goddess flattened them under her smooth, warm plot. Her tail also impacted the ground, long and billowing, ten million more swept away by its simple existence, another ten million ground into dust as the goddess swept it back and forth gently. Her legs tore apart whole mountain ranges as she lay them out below her, until she finally came to rest in a sitting position.

         There were still a million or so people alive, in the space between her rump and tail, and clinging on to life in the space between her two flanks. They did not have long. Tiny droplets of sweat began to fall off the goddess, so large to the microbes who lived on the planet below her that whole blocks were drowned by a single droplet, expanding outwards in a flood, destroying everything around it. The rush of water flattened whole towns as it slowly rushed to find flat land, and anything it did not simply crush beneath its torrent, it drowned. The tiny city and the few surrounding towns were ravaged by her little drips, every second ending ten thousand more lives.

         After a minute of sitting there, the goddess sighed again, shifting her body from a sitting position to a laying one. Her dock crushed what was left of the tiny survivors of her sitting as she slid herself gracefully to a prone position. Her flank smothered millions more people as she got comfortable, her side flattening even more as it swept the area below her clean. Her mane ravaged the earth in front of her face as she lay her head down softly on the planet.

         She breathed in, the tiny city in front of her mouth being sucked inside without warning or resistance. The goddess licked her lips briefly, then breathed out, ravaging even more of the world in front of her. She put her front right hoof down, lazily grinding it in a circle, three entire cities crushed beneath it as she boredly stroked the earth.

         Eventually, the goddess got up. What had been tens of millions of people, their houses, their businesses, and all the forests and grasslands which surrounded their living spaces, fell like dust from her coat, her fur shedding it easily. Despite all the destruction she had wrought, there was not a speck on the beautiful, perfect goddess. She shook herself one last time, then turned down to look at the tiny world below, a large swath of destruction forming a clear trail of where the goddess had been.

         “Oh, what a wonderful little walk!” She grinned, her laughter shaking the tiny world. She looked evilly down at the tiny survivors, looking up at their goddess in terror. “Be thankful that I don't take them more often.” She laughed again. “You should be thankful that I, a perfect, immaculate goddess, would have chosen your pathetic world for my walk. I expect thanks from you tiny mortals!” She laughed again, and the tiny people of the world dropped to their knees, praising her beauty and power. She basked in it for a moment, then sighed.

         “Don't you worry. I'll come back again. I enjoyed this world a lot.” she said, grinning. “There's plenty for all of you.” she laughed, took one step, and vanished, leaving the survivors to pick up the pieces of their ravaged world, the tiny mortals praying that she wouldn't come back too soon.

         Like they had a chance.