//------------------------------//
// The Roads of Hoofica 
// Story: Rainbow Dash Around the World 
// by MagicS 
//------------------------------//

In the early afternoon of the day, Wish found herself outside in the south yard of the castle. It alone was already a pretty great thing for her. To be able to stand in the dirt of the yard and look up at the sky without any towers clawing around her, to feel the breeze, to get some fresh air. If it wasn’t for the Head Inquisitor standing right beside her she probably wouldn’t have anything to complain about at all. It was still enchanting though, to finally be outside the castle for real. She may have been inside the walls and on its grounds still but Wish was going to chalk this up as an accomplishment. The thing she had been wanting to do for quite a while now.  

Where Wish was right now happened to be somewhere she hadn’t really known about before. This south yard lied right between the west and south wings of the castle. Attached to the southern face of the west wing was a prodigiously large stable and staging area meant for the vast personal fleet of luxury carriages and wagons owned by the King and Queen. Obviously her father had gotten permission to use it and any carriages that Wish needed for her little trip from the Queen. And so now the other Inquisitors and servants were getting it all ready.

Despite what Vox had said, apparently she had no intention of actually having Wish get to know any of the others that would be accompanying them on this trip. She had Wish stand with her, alone, and just watched as things were prepared. Wish was supposed to learn their faces but not talk with any of them. Vox’s reasoning was that Wish shouldn’t mingle with anypony or simple servants who were lower than her.

Then what did that make the Head Inquisitor?

What would her father say about Vox’s position and how she was supposed to be acting around these Inquisitors and servants? Wish had said she wanted things to be more normal. But at the same time she was a little too afraid of Vox to directly contradict or disobey her. The Head Inquisitor was just plain scary. Pure and simple.

In the end, they were using three carriages and two supply wagons in total. Wish and Vox alone were going to be using and staying in the central carriage that was the largest and most luxurious one available (which Wish suspected meant it was actually supposed to be the King and Queen’s personal carriage). Other Inquisitors and the mare servants would be using the other two carriages, and anypony left over would be using tents carried in the wagons.  

Again, this was the opposite of what Wish wanted. She realized that in dismay.

And was even more dismayed to realize that she simply couldn’t speak up around Vox about it at all.  

Both of the supply wagons and the other two carriages had teams of six strong stallions each to pull them but the royal carriage that Wish and Vox would be traveling in was so big it needed ten stallions all roped and tied to it. The carriage was just plain huge. Going by the windows and size it looked like it had more than just one central compartment built in it for sitting in as well, and not only that, it was a beauty to look at. Painted a pristine white, with purple drapes in the windows, golden wheels, and a mixture of red, yellow, and purple roses painted across its exterior. To complete its luxuriousness, the bench the driver sat at was covered in a soft red velvet cushion.  

“How’s our ride look to you?” Vox suddenly asked her.

Wish jolted in fright at the sound of her voice, she hoped Vox hadn’t noticed. “It looks comfortable.”

Vox, a little too roughly, reached over and patted her head a few times. “Always the best for you. They’ll be finished stocking things up soon and then we can get out of here. You’ll enjoy driving down the road, right?”

“Yeah,” Wish nodded, trying to move her head away.

“Know any good songs we can sing to pass the time with together? Or do you want to talk and get to know each other better? Or perhaps you’re just going to want to look out the window at everything we pass by?” Vox asked.

“Um, the last one...” Wish said.

Vox couldn’t help but chuckle. “My, what a surprise.”

Only about twenty minutes later and everything was ready to go. The wagons were packed, the carriages were cleaned and ready for use, and every Inquisitor and servant heading out on the trip was here. The very last thing being done was a pair of Inquisitors carrying a large box to the back of the royal carriage and tying it down to a luggage rack. Wish raised her eyebrow at it and glanced up at Vox.

“What’s that?” She asked the Head Inquisitor.

“Just something that has to do with me and my Inquisitor duty. Nothing you need to bother yourself with,” Vox smiled down at her.

There was another sort of disconcerting glint in Vox’s eyes as she said that. Something malicious that made Wish feel cold. Vox was always unpleasant to be around, and gave off an uncomfortable aura, but sometimes it was even worse. She took one last look at the box. Whatever was inside it, she was pretty sure she didn’t want to find out.

“Now come along then!” Vox gleefully said and smacked Wish’s backside, pushing her forwards towards the royal carriage. “Let’s see how nice the inside of our ride for this trip is going to be.”

She definitely did that harder than she needed to on purpose. Wish frowned at the ground and moved along with the Head Inquisitor.

The Inquisitor that was also going to be their driver stood in front of the cabin door and moved aside to open it up for them when they got close. He bowed low to Wish and Vox as a little step popped out from inside the carriage for the two of them to use to walk up inside. Wish wanted to smile at or thank him but he kept his eyes trained on the ground. She sighed internally and followed Vox right into the central seating compartment of the carriage.  

Immediately her eyes were assaulted and overwhelmed by the color pink.  

Pink cushions, pink sheets, pink carpeting, a pink marble table in the middle. Wish had to wonder if this wasn’t the King and Queen’s carriage but actually just the Queen’s. The carpet was soft beneath her hooves and when she went over to feel one of the small throw pillows on one of the carriage’s couches she found it was even softer. The only things not garishly pink were the royal purple curtains and a brown cabinet under a window on the opposite side of the compartment from the door.  

“Wow,” Wish said as she looked around.

“It’s like a cotton candy nightmare, isn’t it?” Vox said with a laugh as she walked over to the table.

Wish chose not to point out how it was pretty much the same color as her mane.

Behind the both of them, the other Inquisitor folded up the steps and closed the door, now leaving Wish alone with the Head Inquisitor. The start of this unfortunate way of traveling was here. Wish also noticed she had been right about something else; there was a small door next to the back couch leading to another compartment in the carriage. She guessed it had to be for sleeping since Vox said that’s what they were using this carriage for. Of course that brought another unfortunate thought to Wish’s mind as she looked over at the Head Inquisitor…

Vox caught on quickly the moment she saw Wish’s look. “No worries, we won’t be sharing the same room for sleeping. I’m just going to take this couch out here.” She said and patted the couch on the front side of the compartment. “You can have the bed back there.”

“Thanks...” Wish said.

“It’s covered in pink too,” Vox snickered and hopped up on her couch, motioning for Wish to get on the one across from her. “And now we have allll this time together, just us two.”

“Yeah...” Wish grimaced.

“You’re so enthusiastic. Well, no bother, you can just look out the window or get lost in your own thoughts if you want. I’m fine with that too. We’re going to start moving in a moment,” Vox shrugged.

Wish decided to take Vox’s advice and basically ignored her. She slid across the pink couch to the other end and looked out the window above the cabinet. Right now she only saw the castle’s yard and its exterior wall but she hoped to soon get a good look at the capitol city and then the countryside. Glancing up she saw the dark sky and its endless black clouds. Unfortunately that wasn’t going to change anywhere.

The sudden lurch of the carriage alerted Wish to the fact her trip had begun. She could hear the heavy wheels move and watched as things slowly passed by the window outside. Nopony said they would be traveling fast, that was for sure. She was still excited though. Very, very excited. A different town she had never been to, new ponies to see, just being away from Hoofica Castle in general, it was all so great. She sincerely wished it was Dotty sitting across from her instead of… yeah… but Wish would accept what she could get right now. It would’ve been nice to go on this trip with her father too but oh well. Maybe she could bring a gift back for him?

In a short minute, their carriage started passing through a gatehouse on the south side of the castle wall. It wasn’t as big as the main one on the north side that eventually led up to the main entrance of the castle and Wish hadn’t even really known about it until today. Still, she couldn’t help but feel a relieved shudder pass through her body as they went through the gatehouse and came out the other side. She was now officially and completely out of the castle.  

For a short while there was nothing to see except for another wall that closed off the path in and out of the castle from outside view. But once they were past that they emerged onto a street and Wish got her first look at the city from an even level instead of looking down at it from her window for the first time in months.

In truth, it didn’t look so great down here either. Despite being the middle of the day hardly any ponies were out and the ones that were seemed downtrodden or outright huddled in fear when they saw the carriages. The dark sky was reflected in the dark mood and appearance of the buildings and ponies down here. Instead of a bustling city like it should have been, with all sorts of ponies going up and down the streets, it was closer to a ghost town and the only thing Wish heard was the sound of her carriage’s wheels as they rolled over the cobblestones.

“Nice and quiet, isn’t it?” Vox said as she also looked out the window. “It was always sooo busy and loud before the sky went dark and we all got these pretty black bands around our necks. Don’t you think this is better?”

Wish bit her lip and didn’t answer. She also noticed a lot of posters plastered up on the buildings out there, but she couldn’t make out what the posters were of.

“Heh, you’re a good kid. Your father’s always saying that,” Vox said and leaned back on her couch.

This time Wish looked over at her. “Does he talk about me a lot.”

“Sometimes you’re all he talks about,” Vox snorted.

The thought made Wish happy, she had to admit that.

“And now that we’re well on our way...” Vox said and turned to the cabinet with a grin on her face. Her horn lit up with red magic and several drawers on the cabinet popped open.

Wish looked on to see just what Vox was doing and taking out of there. She got the answer quickly as the front drawers opened up and several racks full of wine and liquor bottles was revealed. That wasn’t a cabinet, it was a bar. Drawers on the sides of it contained crystal glasses and even a refrigerated metal tin that had ice cubes in it. Vox levitated on out a bottle of red wine and a single glass for herself before fixing Wish with a mischievous gaze.  

“Would you like a glass as well?”

“Uhh… I don’t think my dad would like that,” Wish said, an uncomfortable look on her face.

Vox chuckled. “I know he wouldn’t. I was only joking anyways.”

Were you? Wish wondered as Vox popped the cork on the bottle. And would he like it if he knew you were drinking alcohol right now? 

While Vox started taking a sip of her wine, Wish went back to looking outside. The street they were on was mostly straight and she assumed it was because it was one of the main streets through the city that led right to the castle. There were certainly plenty of side-streets, alleys, and other paths she could see from the carriage and most of it ended up making the capitol look rather complex and messy. The city was pretty ancient so it probably hadn’t been built to any sort of specific plan, ponies just put streets and buildings where they needed to go for centuries and it ended up creating this sprawling labyrinth. The average building was two or three stories high, she didn’t see any that went higher than five, and all were made of dark stone. The city would already have an unfortunate look to it on most days just thanks to its architectural style, the perpetually black sky above only enhanced that.  

It was funny since she knew before this all happened that the city wasn’t that bad at all. “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, was that the phrase? The capitol was a nice and friendly place with barely any more crime than anywhere else in Hoofica. And yet now the inside reflected the outside. Cold, dark, unfriendly, hopeless. Those were the words that sprang to Wish’s mind as she looked out at the city.

It ended up looking so repetitive and oppressive to her that eventually Wish decided to stop looking out the window until they left the city limits. She had never been south of the capitol at all before, coming from the northwest of the country like she did, and she wanted to see if things looked any different. For now she sighed and relaxed on the pink cushions, hoping Vox wouldn’t try and start up another conversation with her.

“So then-” the Head Inquisitor said.

Darn it. Wish grimaced.

“-you seem to have gotten enough of a look at the city. You wouldn’t want to travel through it and visit anywhere special in it at a later date? I could show you around for that. I was born right in the capitol, you know?” Vox smiled.

Wish didn’t know. And she didn’t care, looking down at the floor of the carriage. “No, that’s alright.”

Vox giggled a bit and took another sip of wine. “You’re better at saying no to me than I expected.”

Wish twitched but did her best to not look at Vox.

“Heh, and here I thought you were a little scared of me. Even though I don’t know what I could have possibly ever done to make you so scared,” Vox said, the sarcasm dripping from her. “There’s really no reason to be scared though. I’m here to take care of you, and I’d never, ever, do anything to harm you. Your father wouldn’t like that.”

“I’m not scared of you...” Wish said, finally looking up into Vox’s eyes.

Vox swirled around the wine in her glass before setting it down on the table. The smile left her face and was replaced with a piercing gaze. “Silly filly… you’re a bad liar.”

Wish gulped as she started to pale and her hooves shook against the cushions of the couch.

Possibly out of amusement, Vox smiled again. “Hehe… but like I said. There’s no reason to be scared right now. Just enjoy your trip and enjoy our time together. Your father wants you to be happy. And I want you to be happy. That’s all there is to it.”

Wish wasn’t sure about that but she didn’t have the nerve to speak up yet. There wasn’t much for her to really think about right now, she was just waiting for them to finally get out of the city so she could at least ignore Vox and look outside. The city was too depressing to look at. She wondered how many ponies were watching the carriages as they passed from inside those buildings. Did they know or have any idea about who was in them? Did they recognize the Inquisitors? Maybe that was why she was seeing even less ponies than she had already expected.

The good thing was, Vox apparently didn’t feel like speaking up anymore. At least not for the moment. She just sipped away at her wine and looked outside at the city as they passed it by. She seemed to be surprisingly deep in thought about something going by her body language and the look in her eyes, but Wish had no idea what.

Thanks to the size of the capitol city and how slowly their carriage traveled it took almost an entire hour before they actually reached the edge of the city. The buildings and streets started to get less crowded and smaller until the street they were on opened up into a large half-circle plaza that had a number of closed up shops lining it. The cobblestone street they were on turned into a dirt road the moment it left the city. Wish could hear and feel the difference as soon as the wheels changed from rolling over stone to dirt.

Because of that, Wish went back to looking outside full time. To her countryside-experienced eyes it looked like most of the land directly outside the capitol was going to be farmland. Made sense, had to feed that city somehow. It was interesting to her how quickly things changed from a big city to looking like they were almost in the middle of nowhere. The few buildings and houses she saw in the distance now were usually made of wood instead of stone as well. A few windmills and barns dotted the lands out there beyond the road too.

It seemed to stretch on and on. She could see an artificial creek not too far from the road that fed water to the crops that covered the ground. Unsurprisingly she still didn’t really see many ponies out there working the fields.

How well were crops doing with the sky perpetually dark? Didn’t they need sunlight?

A lightning strike hit the ground in the distance and its flash silhouetted both Wish and Vox inside the carriage.

“I always loved stormy weather,” Vox suddenly said. “Dark clouds, rain, lightning. It always put me in a good mood. That’s why I like the sky the way it is now. It’s just a little thing but it really does have a big impact. Every single day I wake up and look out my window and a big smile stretches on my face.”

Wish blinked at her before looking back out the window, they were passing by a dilapidated farmhouse that may not have even been occupied anymore. “How um… how long are we going to travel?”

Vox refilled her glass of wine for… either the third or fourth time, before answering. “We’ll be on the road until late this evening today and then we’ll be traveling again all day tomorrow. We won’t be arriving at New Pasture until early the day after that.”

“Oh...” Wish said.

“Not looking forward to all that time with me?” Vox snickered.

Wish didn’t answer so Vox just huffed in amusement.

“Heh, you know I didn’t really want to come on this trip either. I didn’t want to spend so much time away from the castle. There are ponies who I miss already,” her lips curved up in a sinister, almost hungry, grin.  

Despite herself, Wish couldn’t help but ask this time: “Who?”

Vox merely lifted a hoof and wagged it back and forth in front of Wish’s face. “Not telling~”

Wish could take a guess as she thought about her recovered memories and how much time Vox spent in the dungeon…

“Nothing to see out there right now, is there?” Vox said as she glanced out the window and looked at the farms. “There’s one other smaller town on the way to New Pasture, but it’s all farmhouses really. Your father wanted you to go someplace that was more like your old town, something, something thicket or whatever. A place that would have some other ponies your age and some stuff to do.” Vox shrugged. “At least the fresh air might be nice, but it sure is a boring trip.”

“Maybe you should get out and walk then,” Wish said and then immediately clamped her hooves over her mouth. Trembling, she looked up at Vox’s face.

The Head Inquisitor was smiling at her. But her eyes were wrong. They looked different than Wish had ever seen them before.

“You know-” Vox said. “I find that sometimes I’m genuinely amused by you. That feisty attitude of yours that peeks through every now and then, even though you’re terrified of me, is really a joy to see. I know you lie about being happy in the castle, and only your love of your father keeps you from speaking the truth about it every day. And your fear that maybe there are some very bad things going on and you don’t want to rock the boat. So for you to say something so honest to me, something that you can’t help but say even when you know who you’re saying it to and that your father wouldn’t approve of that attitude. Oh yes, that is amusing. But I also happen to have a limit to my patience, and there’s a fine line between cute little sass from a filly, and insulting defiance. Not only that, but I don’t have anything or anypony around right now to, oh, relieve my stress. So here’s what’s going to happen.”

Vox’s horn lit up and Wish found herself pulled forward, levitated off the couch and caught in a vice-grip of magic, and stopped in front of Vox’s face. “You’re going to listen to me. You’re going to respond to me. You’re going to be a good filly. And we’re going to have a lovely trip and become great friends and then I can go back to the castle and have a whole lot of fun. So just think before you speak next time, alright? Because you never know when what you say can go right from amusement, to annoyance, to anger with me. Your father wants us to be friends and for you to be happy and he would be very angry with me if he knew I was doing this right now. So everything that happened before right now? It didn’t happen. We’re getting off on a brand new hoof the moment I set you back down on the couch. Give me a big and bright smile and I’ll give you one in return. Clear?”

Wish vehemently nodded, tears pooling at the corner of her eyes.  

“None of that,” Vox grinned and grabbed a small throw pillow, using it to wipe Wish’s eyes clear. “Good. Now it’s time to get along.”

She calmly and gently put Wish down on the pink couch and Wish—automatically—smiled at her. Just like she wanted.

“How’s the trip so far, young lady?” Vox asked her, a harsh twitch in her left eye.

“I-It’s great,” Wish’s voice wavered slightly but she responded loud and clear. “A ten out of ten trip so far.”

Vox smiled and reached forward to pat her head. “I thought so.”





Later that night, Wish had trouble sleeping. It wasn’t that the compartment was cramped. Or that the bed was smaller than what she was used to. She stayed wide awake for hours with her eyes glued to the ceiling because the Head Inquisitor was sleeping right outside in the main compartment of the carriage. And there was nothing Wish could do to calm her beating heart as it pounded away inside her rib-cage. The sheer terror she felt throughout her entire body kept her awake. Her face was a blank mask but beneath that her mind was replaying the horror she had felt earlier. Despite the pitch black insides of the bed compartment, Wish could see the red eyes of Vox as bright as day.