Author's Notes:

For reference: Season 1 of MLP:FiM began in the year 1310 YS (Year of the Sisters)

From the journal of Sunburst, November 22, 1328 YS:

Here I am at the Seawall. Other ponies think I'm crazy to volunteer for this duty, and they've told me so.

It's understandable, and maybe they're right. A posting to the Seawall is really only one of two things: it's either a punishment for somepony who screwed up, or it's the opposite, something requested as an opportunity to earn a great mark of honor and a chance at doing what few are willing to.

I'm not being punished, and there are easier ways to earn recognition and a sense of honor. The only explanation that leaves, I suppose, is at least some kind of crazy.

I can't explain exactly why I volunteered when the posting came up. I suppose I just thought maybe it could help quell, at least for a while, the sense of restlessness that I've always felt. Maybe it would help bring me closer to understanding what kind of place in this world it is that a mare like me really belongs in. I'm not sure why I thought that, it was just a gut feeling that came over me. So here I am.

Well, whatever somepony's reason for ending up here, it's a job best suited for those who are comfortable with solitude and austerity. That much is obvious to anypony. The Seawall is on the extreme west of our continent, well outside the bounds of Equestria proper but not inside any other formally claimed or recognized territory. It's a lonely curiosity more or less in the middle of nowhere. The nearest town or settlement of any kind is many days of travel away.

The distinguishing feature here, more than anything else, is a sense of sheer loneliness. There's only one other pony around, and she seems as content with silence as I am. I'm alone, more alone than I've ever been in my life, and knowing me, that's saying something. I don't say that in a bad way, either. I love it here.

Anyway, what is this wall?

I suppose who would build it is a good question to start off with to understand it and the reasons for it to exist. It's thought to have been built by the old unicorn kingdom, maybe two thousand years ago, long before we all lived together. Why they did, I couldn't really say for sure, myself, nor can many other ponies. The theory, as best as is preserved in history, is that it was the result of fear of an invasion by way of the sea (though it's unknown by who or what). There is also the equally possible, if more sinister, suggestion that it would be very effective at keeping any ponies from fleeing to the sea to escape the powers that ruled the land in those days. For my part, I think it was probably used for both at different times, given how unkind (to put it mildly!) we know that the old separate kingdoms could sometimes be towards other races. The unicorns did basically consider the earth ponies their property at one point, after all.

That's ancient history, though, and those dark days are long over. It's not used for much of anything now except for keeping two ponies at a time here, waiting and watching the sea.

The wall itself is not a very large structure. Most of the northwestern coast of the continent is mountainous, and the edges of the land eroded by the water drop away to form cliffs so high and sheer that they're impassible. The Seawall was built to block the only substantial gap forming an easily usable pass between those mountain ranges and into the mainland. It only really stretches about a few thousand feet from one rocky embankment to the other. There were fortified access doors through the bottom of the wall, once, probably when there was a permanent garrison here to guard it. In later years, as the wall was abandoned, they were plugged up with stone and the particularly excellent strong concrete ancient unicorn construction was known for, cutting off access to anypony who couldn't fly or use magic. Whatever purpose it served, it wasn't built to control pegasi at least. I have no trouble at all getting back and forth over it.

The beach that the wall cuts off from the inland is sandy and actually quite beautiful. I like to walk along it sometimes. It would be even more beautiful, though, if it got more sun. One of the odd things about this place - you wouldn't believe how cloudy it is here. It seems like every day is overcast, with Celestia's sun invisible under thick steel-grey clouds. They form constantly from the moisture carried in the air rolling in from over the ocean. The weather is unregulated, and as much as I would like to help the sun shine at least a little more sometimes, it's much too big a job for me alone. It's also not why I'm here, so I try not to get drawn into interfering with it too much.

I've learned to seize the few times that the sun pokes out, because they're not often. When they happen, they make an untouched and already generally beautiful land absolutely breathtaking, for those few minutes the clouds break. I suppose I should just consider myself lucky for those times. Besides, I don't so much mind the cloudcover. It keeps the heat down. It makes flying easier, at some times of day. There's a certain kind of charm it adds by giving a darker, more washed and faded aspect to the colors of everything. The feel of it is mysterious. This land is full of silently held secrets, but it invites you to explore it and discover them in the course of time, one by one. It's a place with an appropriate sense of being a far-flung edge of the world, one of the few remaining "away from it all" refuges. Sometimes there's little treasures to find, like the large beautiful shell I came across washed up on the beach not long ago. Its intricate spirals and gleaming ivory iridescence are more spectacular than anything I've seen the artists of Equestria make.

For those reasons, though it's the kind of place many others would call bleak, I have to say that I enjoy it. This kind of thing has always suited me - the solitude. Maybe they sensed that in me, scrying out in an unspoken way the true reason why I would volunteer. There must have been some reason I was picked, despite the hoof-full of possibly more promising candidates with bigger careers to advance that I would have thought would edge me out.

Certainly I also sense it in my partner on this posting. She's a unicorn. That's how this posting is always assigned, one pegasus and one unicorn. Her name is Morning Mist. I'm not sure what her story is, but she seems to handle being here well. She seems somehow relieved, even, to be so alone.

As such, we don't talk very much, even when we're together. Most of our time is spent apart, anyway, performing our respective duties here. Mine consist mainly of flying the Seawall and the coast and observing, and hers of recording and sending back reports.

I'm not even sure what I'm watching for in particular. Orders are to "remain vigilant, report anything and everything not usual in the coastal environment". That's pretty vague, isn't it? I wonder if Celestia expects something to come from over the waves someday. Maybe we're here just to be here when it happens. I suppose it's possible. Nopony really knows for sure what's out there past the oceans.

There's a pair of watchtowers, on tiny islets out in the distance in the water. They're a long way out, and somewhat nerve-testing to fly to. If something happened on the way, or while you were out there, and you couldn't fly all the way back, you'd be stranded and drown in the waves. There's nopony here to help you. Still, though, this tradeoff, paying for the freedom of wings by living with the risk of falling, is part of being a pegasus. I've chanced it a few times. What's the point in life if you don't feel alive, right?

The towers are of stone, heavy blocks - more old unicorn construction. They're still mostly standing but long ago abandoned and sit in ruins. When I've flown out to them, I've landed on their tops and used them as vantage points to look out even further over the sea, into the west. On very clear days, sometimes I think I can see something out there ... almost. I can't quite tell, even with the sharp eyes I was gifted to be born with. It's not so much seeing something, exactly, as it is seeing the signs - the way there's maybe a kind of the slightest unevenness in the horizon's white haze, a raggedness disrupting the normally smooth gradient it forms on the edge where the sky meets the sea. It's as if there's something, a secret, hidden there, just barely below the line of sight blocked by the curvature of the planet itself. But no matter how hard I look I can't quite tell, even with the eyes of a pegasus, sharper than most other ponies and trained in the army as a flight scout to observe over long distances and spot the subtle hidden things.

What may be more unusual than anything I've seen out here native to the area, though, is the partner who came with me. Once, when I flew out to one of the towers, I was surprised to look over at the other and spot her standing on top, also observing the sea to the west. The islets the towers are on are not far from each other, and it's easy to see to one from the other once you go all the way out to them. I couldn't have been mistaken. I saw her plain as day, and when I did, she looked over and saw me, too. We've never spoken about it, directly. She just turned away from me and went back to scrying the horizon quietly. She was expressionless except for a sense of seeking, as if longing almost in sadness for something she hoped distantly to see out there. I saw something in her eyes, for that brief moment, as restless as my own heart sometimes feels. Maybe that's why we were sent here together. I think we're more alike in some strange way than one would think a pegasus scout and a unicorn messaging scribe would be. Maybe we're here with one another because being here together is better than being restless and lonely alone.

I don't know what it could be that she searches for. Although I wish I did, and I feel like we've made our best efforts to be friends and trust each other, she hasn't chosen to share much about herself with me. I understand that, though. I'm that way myself. I always have been. We both instinctively live behind veils.

Still, though, sometimes I can't help but wonder. To get to the tower, she must have teleported herself. That's not unusual for a unicorn, but at such a distance she must possess great power and talent to do it, although she's never shown it off to me otherwise. She seems to modestly hold many secrets. I don't know what else she could be capable of. For that matter, I don't even know if her posting here is a punishment, or an honor, or maybe both somehow. That isn't my business, though, so I know I shouldn't dwell on it. My job is to watch the Seawall, not to watch her.

Maybe someday we'll be comfortable enough with each other to talk about ourselves. Until then, some secrets will just have to remain secret, or at least unspoken other than the tiny glimpses we chance to catch.

Enough writing for today.