//------------------------------//
// Dashing Your Dreams 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

"Wait, from across the mountains?" Valey blinked hard, aware that Starlight had snuck up behind her chair, staring at Saffron Sunflower as the mare stared back with a bemused expression. "Like, with a Writ of Harmonic Sanction?"

"Sure as sugar." Saffron gave a self-satisfied grin, her friends looking good-naturedly for Valey's reaction. "It's quite a story how I got it, but yep. I came over the mountains about five, six years ago. Spent most of my time before that island-hopping on Equestria's eastern sea, and now am staying here for a spell. Who knows when I'll move on again? All I know is, it's been a fun and exciting life so far."

Valey returned a grin of her own. "No kidding? My friends and I were kinda considering going there next! We're pretty sick of Ironridge, Varsidel sounds not fun and Yakyakistan is clear on the other side of the world, so why not? What's it like down there?"

"Uh... your whole group of friends?" Saffron slowed down, raising an eyebrow. "How many of you are there?"

Valey blinked. "Uhhhhh..."

"Me, Maple, you, Shinespark, Grenada, Gerardo, Slipstream, Harshwater, two Starlights and Jamjars," Amber said, doing a quick count. "Plus Nyala, and I don't know what we're doing with the sisters or the guy in the pantry. So about thirteen. Maybe more."

Saffron let out a low breath. "Well, it's a fancy dream, sugarcube. But good luck getting that many passes. You know how rare these things are, right? Equestria gives one to the Empire and one to Yakyakistan every year. It would take the whole world's supply for the better part of a decade to get the lot of you through."

Valey's eyes constricted. "Wait! You mean we can't just use one for our ship and get everyone on it across?"

"You never asked how they worked?" Diego raised an eyebrow. "How long have you been planning this, again?"

Valey groaned in frustration. "Awwwww...! Come on, who designs a system like that!?"

"Sorry about that, sugarcube." Saffron's face fell in sympathy. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news. I guess the Equestrians do."

"If anyone could ferry others across, imagine what would happen," Pierre muttered. "These passes would start wars. Exorbitant sums would be charged for service. Control of trade routes would create and destroy nations more than it does already. Entering Equestria is a task sufficiently impossible to exploit that anyone ambitious enough to try would have better luck elsewhere."

Behind Valey's chair, Starlight frowned. "But why, though?" Amber asked. "What good is one of these writs if it only works on one pony?"

"That's the point," Shill said. "Getting past the mountains is too hard for the one way to do it to be of any value. It's like if you're at an auction. If you sell something everyone wants for cheap, everyone will bid for it and you'll sell it for a high price. But if it starts at more than it's worth, even if it's worth a lot nobody will care. The one reliable way to get a Writ of Harmonic Sanction around here is to wish for it from Garsheeva, and you know how special becoming the tournament champion is. If you got there, would there really be nothing you'd wish for instead?"

Valey slumped. "Bananas, that's really uncool. Why do they even do that?"

"Well..." Saffron shifted her eyes. "Equestria is a bit of a different place from what the world's like up here. Imagine an onion, and the mountains are the outer peel, but there's a ton of layers inside that. The capitol's at the center. It's actually the place my mom was from. And the closer you get to the center, the more peaceful and idyllic things get. Yakyakistan trying to take over the world? Varsidel having a civil war? Sphinx lords assassinating each other and raising armies? Sure, Equestrian ponies still have problems, but nothing ever like that. It's like a big bubble of paradise, with a bunch of surrounding buffer land they call Equestria, and then a big wall of mountain out at the edge. And I guess they just care more about protecting that bubble and making sure their ponies don't have to know what this is like than they do about all us creatures up here."

"That's not very nice," Amber remarked, furrowing her brow. "Maybe they don't deserve us anyway."

"Eh. It is what it is." Saffron shrugged. "And it makes sense, if you think about it. A mother looks out for her own children before the children of others. Having lived close to that center myself, they do a pretty good job of keeping things down to peaceful, small-town problems. A few occasional monster attacks, since there's a lot of wilderness for things to live in, but most issues ponies have are personal. The local bakery stopped selling their favorite item, or they had a falling-out with a friend. Nothing like losing their homes to war."

Amber fidgeted. "Still..."

"When you think about it, their bubble of peace is a whole lot bigger than the Empire, too," Saffron continued. "They've got a deity called Princess Celestia, who's kind of like Garsheeva only small enough to talk to and actually the head of government. She's the one who keeps everything working smoothly and made the country the way it is. Some say she even created the Aldenfold in the first place, a thousand years ago. And just between you and me, Garsheeva is strong, but whatever kind of magic it would have taken to lift a mountain range..." She wiped her brow. "But even if she is that strong, what's she supposed to do about all this? I doubt even a goddess could stop the war in Varsidel without just militarily defeating all the squabbling sides. Sure, Equestria's reclusive, but having been on both sides of the barrier, I can't rightly say I blame them."

"So basically what you're saying is that whether they're at fault or not, we'd need thirteen Writs of Harmonic Sanction to go," Valey sighed, slumping. "Blame or not, that stinks. What do you even do with the things once you have them?"

Saffron showed her flank. "Well, they're like a scroll with a little rune on, and you just press it against your cutie mark - that's what we call brands down there - and presto. Single use and good for life. There's other ways for griffons and ponies who are blank, but they let you cross the mountains and use the border passes without getting magicked back where you came from."

Valey nodded. "Yeah, when we first got our airship up and running we kind of just tried to book it south. Didn't really work out."

"You wouldn't be the only one who's tried," Diego said with a grin. "When we first got our ship, we spent a month in there just to see what would happen. Took less than a day to fly back out. The mountains just keep repeating forever."

Starlight poked her head out from behind the chair. "Does it also stop you from trying to cross them to the north?"

Saffron blinked hard at her. "Aww, sugarcube, are you with these two?" She gave a silly smile. "Your mane is real cute. But yep, it does. Equestria has airships too, and they didn't exactly want pegasi or captains flying across and then getting stuck up here."

Starlight tilted her head. "But that's flying. What if you walked across?"

Randorf guffawed, and Diego smiled into his drink, Saffron shaking her head sadly. "A suicidal venture if I ever heard one," Pierre remarked. "The initial mountain wall is higher than creatures can fly, and only the first of many hurdles. In the lands above, there are still mountain ranges upon mountain ranges, with icy summits and impossibly forested valleys, and the weather is magically imbued and unpredictable. If a goddess is required here to control the storms' runoff, imagine weathering them in the Aldenfold itself."

"It's just not an idea that's worth it, hon." Saffron shook her head. "There's just no way."