My first year as a Queen was quite trying. It is tradition for a Queen who has fully matured to leave their home Hive and search for their own hosts. This can be as simple as finding or negotiating for territory, and then leaving the space open to any sentient being to join and live, as within changeling territory itself, or it can be as difficult as establishing a Hive where none have heard of the changelings, and either overtly or secretly integrating with your new Hosts. Only once you have fully integrated with them and have a fully built Hive are you considered a fully-fledged Queen, and it is only while building your own Hive that you are allowed to not attend a Royal Conclave. You are, however, required to send at least two drones to them with a message, as proof that you are still alive. There are traditional gifts given to a new Queen upon her first Conclave, but that is information for later.
As I stated, my first year was difficult. I had no luck in convincing even those who I had intended to join an An-Bale with to share territory with me, partially due to a famine that the Host races were currently facing. There had, not even a few decades ago, been an unusual series of extremely cold winters, and Equiss had not completely recovered yet. Prepared, with love reserves sufficient for a small scouting party and myself, I was about to take flight and leave the Hive, when I received word that my mother had been killed by a dragon. I, a young queen of just three decades, was now the leader of a Hive that had stood for centuries.
As was required, I immediately began preparations for the trip across the land bridge, towards the Royal Conclave. I also, sorrow filling me, began preparations for both driving away the dragon, and my mother's funeral. The thestrals would, I knew, be saddened as we were. She had been the first to interact with them. Nevertheless, our trip took a long time, for beyond the forest is the swamps, and beyond that... well, the ponies have a way to travel, so you need not worry about it yet.
SE 1014
The train had entered the Forest proper not long ago, only the night before. It was the last stretch of the train, and as Celesta's sun rose to midday, each of them disembarked at the furthest West point of the railroad tracks. Each held a small amount of luggage, and the rest of their supplies was being put on a cart just a short distance away. The forest was nowhere near as dark as the Starsea Forest, even at the Beightbloom level, instead it was just think enough to cover the sky. If any of the winged members wanted to, they had but to fly in a straight line to break this canopy and see cloud and sun. It was warm, for winter. There was snow, but it was midway melted already, the branches trapping heat sufficient to see stave off the cold, many a scarf or hat was placed back on it's bag or case already and the guards looked to be uncomfortable in their winter gear.
Princess Luna and Silent Gaze were keeping an eye on the woods, alongside several of the guard. All was quiet, though not overly so. Unlike the fantastical creatures of thestral lands, there were no creatures altered by concentrated magic, but the occasional sounds of a snow rabbit or the tinkling of a bird landing on an icicle leaden branch was enough to show that the place was alive.
Twilight knew that there were fantastical creatures around, though she had no idea where they might be. There was the Ice Phoenix, not a true immortal bird but one that was made of ice and went dormant until nature brought back the cold of winter, and it's magic. They were, with pony weather control, quickly becoming extinct, but forests like this were their favorite habitats. Another, White Furryes, were a fair bit more worrying, as in large enough bunches they could cause artificial blizzards. She was, at the moment, sitting under a tree which had one just a branch above her, reading a book on winter magical creatures.
The rest of the girls were busy with hanging around or making preparations for the trip. Moonlight, hovering down from the train, was hovering her small amount of luggage with her. She landed and glanced around, trying to decide whether to go, before the not-changeling King, Thorax, waved her over. With a single deep breath, she headed over.
"Hi," he began, "We haven't had a chance to talk yet. My name is Thorax, nice to meet you."
She flicked her tail, so now was going to be when they did this. In the middle of a potentially terrifying forest. "I am Princess Moonlight," how did it go? Oh, right. "The pleasure is mine. How may this Princess be of," right, which word to use, "Assistance?"
"Oh no," how strange, his voice didn't harmonize like hers. "I-I don't need anything, I just wanted to talk with you! I didn't know that there were any other Hive's, you see. I've only know my own."
Did he want to ask about other Hives? "Princess Luna would know more than I, for I have only heard they existed, not lived or even talked to another changeling." Not had she ever expected to, but now she knew it would have always been a matter of time.
"Well, surely you have a question or two about ours?" Their conversation was interrupted by the train starting again, with the blow of it's whistle and hissing of pistons, Moonlight turned to it and coughed, the smoke blowing in their direction as it sped off towards the next station. Once the air was free King Thorax spoke once more. "O-oh, it looks like we're ready to move." Indeed, their things were all on the cart, with several guards standing in formation around it, and everyone getting into groups.
They had talked it over on the train ride, and so Moonlight and the other royals settled into the middle of the group. The guards stood, save those guarding the luggage, in a circle around the ponies, with two pegasi and thestrals each flying above and around the group in shifts, serving as reconnaissance. In the back of the train was the luggage, in front of which the Princesses and King Thorax walked, and in front of them were Applejack and the others.
At first, the trip was easy. The forest was uneven, but not especially difficult to travel. The problem, as far as King Thorax would be concerned, was that despite the relative ease of travel, they still had to be quiet in case of dangerous creatures. Silent Gaze, standing with the rest of the guard due to his training as one of them, was unable to even hold a silent conversation with his daughter, let alone anypony else whispering.
In this manner the afternoon passed until the sun began to set, at which point they set up camp. It was a simple setup, with the luggage set in the middle and tarps set around it, poles used to hold them up, and a small hole on one side where the fire would be set. The guards would take shifts guarding the night, mostly Thestrals, who used small clouds they gathered from the sky to create posts for themselves. The meal was a simple vegetable soup, nothing too tasty, with dessert provided by Pinkie Pie herself.
The next day came, and again they travelled with hardly any conversation, everypony being tired from the day before. The further they walked in the forest, the harder that the trip became. The trees thickened, their roots rising above the ground in complex ways, forcing the ground to become even more uneven, and more branches started to grow low enough to obstruct the ponies. The animals which had at first avoided them no longer did so, birds and prey animals would approach, only to flee when anypony other than Fluttershy tried to interact with them, and the predators began to keep tabs on them, following the slow, cumbersome creatures.
That night they were safe, and the next, but by that point snow had begun to fall again, making the trip even more difficult as they had to don boots, scarves, and so on. By the fifth night they were moving slowly, and came to rely on pegasus sight to guide them in the right direction. By the sixth they would walk through part of the night, and everypony was no longer able to consider conversation. On the eighth night they stopped, there was a snowstorm and they needed to rest, and by the tenth day they were out of the forest. The first to show her happiness was Rainbow Dash, who immediately took off into the sky with wings spread wide, shouting in joy.
The swamplands were relatively sparse, more a giant clearing with trees on the occasional solid bed of land, forming an uneven lattice around the lands. There were small woods, here and there, visible in the distance. There were several ponds, most frozen over and having mounds of snow over them, and a few hills. There were a few mountains with glaciers even further away, only noticeable by the pale grey and white marking the land itself. The ground, wet in summer, was even at this moment frozen to the point where it would hurt bare hooves, but they had switched to wearing boots long ago. Grass, overly present and covering each bit of the ground, was frozen solid, and those stretches where it had been lost were covered in moss. Winter plants grew on the sides, and the sky was temporarily clear, a high pale blue broken only by the light of the Sun. There was, through the road and continuing far beyond their view, a half-visible road, almost completely swallowed by nature.
The dignitary party was travelling through the only relatively safe road in the swamplands, cutting a winding road around the nests and territories of the worst magical creatures. The majority of the trip would continue through, until it turned to the base of an unnamed mountain halfway to the land bridge. On the road they would have to worry about mystic snakes, Minko Birds, and the occasional swamp shifter, formless creatures which tried to trap pony and animal alike below the water, where their magic would become it's meal. Luckily it was winter, so most of the swamp threats were hibernating, trapped underneath the frozen swamps, but in exchange they had to be weary of blizzards and the occasional mythical creature, like the Ijiraq or Qiqirn.
To ward them off, the cart holding their things was also filled with wood, as much as possible, which would be dried by the pegasi, and the watches were doubled. Given the swamps were easy to see across recon was abandoned, as one of the worst threats was isolation. Either they would end up lost, or one of the many threats would capture the small party, and given the danger of monsters in the swamplands, they could not afford even one loss. The only sounds were the howling of wind, the falling of snow and ice from branches, the branches moving in the wind, and the sounds of the forest behind them. The plan was to reach the first campsite before night, for no longer could they afford to travel at night, there were many dangerous creatures that could and would eat anypony foolish enough to cross them. It was in this perilous land that they would have to travel, for nearly two months, before they were safe once more. There was no more time for squabbles or distrust, their only allies were each other.
Let the journey begin.
March -A form of music written for marching in two-step time. Originally the march was used for military processions.