"It's not looking too good," the green filly said, looking out the window towards the distance. Even beyond the Wall, the way the sky had darkened over the Empire was still easy to see.
The stallion at her side looked out as well, squinting to get a better view of things. "Maybe," he said. "It's a little hard to tell from here."
"You think?" the filly replied. The book she'd been reading sat unopened in her lap, and she sat askew on a bench with her head turning slightly to stare outside. There was irony dripping from her tone, but her voice was worried more than malicious. She didn't like that things looked bad, but she didn't want to deny the way things were.
The stallion looked at her, then sighed and looked out again. He rested his front legs on the bench's backrest, and chewed on air for a few seconds, while his tail lazily moved side to side behind him, kicking up some dust from the floor. "Nothing to do but wait though. Is it really worth souring ourselves over it when we can't do anything about it?"
"It shows we care," the filly said after a moment. "If we didn't worry about it, it would be like we didn't care at all."
"There's gotta be a limit," said the stallion. "It's one thing to go prancing around when a friend is suffering nearby, it's another to spend your day looking out a window at a battle kilometres away you're hearing nothing about. I agree it's not wrong to worry, but you can't let it consume all your time. You'd never find a chance to be happy if you had to focus on all the problems that don't concern you."
"This isn't just any regular occurrence though." The filly shifted a little in place. "The whole country is at risk. All our lives are in danger. I feel like it's fair to be worried at a time like this, one would hope they wouldn't be all too regularly occurring during someone's life."
"Interesting times tend to clamp together. You might have noticed that since the Behemoth came to Canterlot. Then again, if every day is special your idea of what is special changes accordingly, and I guess we've seen that happen to. It's all in our nature, I suppose." The stallion huffed. "Depressing topic of conversation though. Did you enjoy the trip here?"
"I suppose. It was entertaining," the filly said. "Quaint. Probably wouldn't do it again though."
"It was interesting, yeah. I don't think that was any place I know of. And I've never seen a spell like those portals before." He distractedly clicked a hoof against his own horn. "Do you think they'll send us back the same way?"
"I would hope so. And they probably will, no point in sending everyone back by train or something." The filly licked her lips after noticing they were drying, and looked around for the nearest drinkable fountain. "You know, if they do send us back."