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// Chapter 2: "Canterlot" 
// Story: Millennial Heartstrings 
// by The Apologetic Pony 
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My journey across Equestria was intended to act as a time killer (or healer, hah!) for a mourning Celestial but it would be much more. Canterlot would be an obvious first stop. The city was ablaze to the senses compared to the serenity of the forest; or even the empty halls of the palace. With its narrow minded view of sophistication, but to an objective layman, was closer to a rampant elitism and, hats. Often silly; occasionally garish, hats. Indeed, an estranged feeling hung over ponies who lived in Canterlot as a whole, after the event, one would think the atmosphere would be somewhat sombre; but they were too giddy with ignorance to obtain humility. But I digress, for it is not as vulgar now. I decided that the best way to remain unseen and thus unmolested would be to glide from building to building by day, so as to minimise the contrast between my coat and the light. Plus, ponies never looked up. Fortunately, it ended up being worth the bother. Among the numerous grand structures there was relatively unkempt small building amongst the emporiums. I would not have taken any particular interest in it, if there wasn't an unspecified gleam of dreadful familiarity amongst the usual shapes one would expect to see inside. Before I’d even processed the detail of it, something was pulling me in...

Overcoming my procrastination, I reluctantly peered from on top of the opposite building. It was too murky inside to see much more than vague outlines, although, there appeared to be something with a dulled red colour  in the far left corner. It was quickly smothered, not remarkable. But what had been a mild unnerving was rapidly becoming a torrent of overwhelming angst that bore no zenith, no longer drawing me in, but repelling me. I waited for a while longer but my tenacity had reached its limit: I needed to leave. Right now. If I hadn't lasted a second longer, perhaps I wouldn't have noticed the male pegasus exiting the place. On his back he carried a veiled cage. It was of the same kind: one never veils a cage in Equestria. If the circumstances were hypothetical, I’d have laughed at the irony.

Instead everything stopped as my seemingly unjustified, visceral fear became a highly directed wrath. The dull red had been a drugged kin; the building a warehouse. Apparently, elitism was not the only concept tolerated in this bloody place they called ‘Canterlot’. Fighting the constant urge to simply swoop down and claw out the bastard’s filthy eyes from their sockets: I tailed him.

Obviously, he didn't want to be followed, but I was not the only one following him. Maintaining a safe distance, she was a pretty, green unicorn who bore a quill as a cutie mark- not that identities mattered at a time like this. She faced the challenge of traversing the crowds, tis no easy task. Even so, she managed to keep up fairly well until the Pegasus took an abrupt left down a scarce alleyway, turned around, dropped the cage and stopped dead. Waiting. I flinched as my unknowing ally did not have the luxury of aerial view and in her haste of losing sight of him, stumbled into the trap. Upon sight, the Pegasus flew over her and immediately began advancing, backing her ever closer towards the impending wall. I wanted to move: I couldn’t. They began to converse. ‘I told you not to follow me...’ Emotionless. ‘And what the hell did you expect me to do after I found out your little secret?’ With spite; she sobbed. ‘So what now, you kill me and continue your little bird trafficking game?’ It was getting closer. ‘I expected you to follow me.’ Still heinously callous, he brandished a hideously adorned dagger that had been covertly sheathed under his wing. The sound between the echoes of the poor mare’s hoofsteps became brutally shriller as the wall approached, as death’s march. As she reached the end, the green mare calmly uttered ‘Enjoy the guilt Raymond.’ locking eyes with him.  At last breaking my paralysis, I nose dived into the assailants rising wing and bit into it, ripping more than a few feathers off. Not for the mortal, but for the one that lay in the cage...right?

The scream of agony that followed was almost enough to make me release, until I was reminded of just cause by powerful a flash of magic that sent him (and me too!) flying, ironically leaving me no choice but to let go of him. I slammed into a surface, couldn’t tell which... OW. Amusingly enough, pain is just about the only thing I can clearly remember throughout these thousand years. Either way, somepony had obviously been a bit overzealous, ahah...

Miraculously, despite the fact that the world appeared to be continually spinning, nothing was broken. A few minutes later I could move, with a distinctive taste of blood in my mouth. There was certainly more than a gout of it, trailing on the floor, accompanied by a multitude of disjointed feathers, including some of my own, but Raymond, was nowhere to be seen. Or the dagger, oddly enough. So much for high society, eh? Magic was working, healing me, it was enough to make the dizziness go away; that’s all I needed right now. Hauling my bruised body off the floor, I ignored my healer and limped to the still veiled cage, desperate to save a comrade.

At last it was within reach, grasping it with my beak; enduring a twinging neck, pulling the dastardly cloth off. But it was already on the floor. She’d removed it. The cage was empty. Though the malicious creed it embodied, remained. I collapsed in disbelief, willing the swathe of consciousness to release me, but my body would not be so kind. And though spoken out of kindness, so very cruel, were the words that came from her:  ‘ I... knew him. I suppose he was a dud. Likely designed with specifically getting rid of me in mind.’ Or maybe she was just a sadist.

Formidably dooming thoughts crossed my mind as to my poor peer's fate now, that which was surely infinitely darker than my own, even had I not been freed once more. I’d failed my duty. Exchanged a neigh on worthless pony's life for what could have been a companion’s. How pathetic. What’s an eternal life worth if spent enslaved, not to a god (not that one would be able to do anything about it in that case), not to an equal; instead to some vastly inferior, asinine mortals, who’d treat you as they would: like nothing else.

Oh yeah. I’m still in that damnable alley aren't I? Great way to ruin the mood, that.  ‘Suppose I’ll get going, thanks for the help.’ she said, almost nonchalantly, then proceeding to leave me rather devastated. You just go... and don’t apologise! Let your gratitude spill out onto the streets, leave me here and don’t give me a chance to show you my own, by giving you a feather for your honorable intentions! You do that! I hope you’re happier for it! Strange creatures, the lot of them: so sassy. I figured It’d be quite the scene if I was to be found here, so I left, albeit painfully. Just about made it outside of the city before I was forced to take respite.

Next I'd go to Ponyville. But it didn’t exist yet. Say ‘Hi!’ to the gryphons, maybe. Return to Everfree forest, even. No doubt be they’d be wondering of my fate. Guess I could have just stuck with civilisation: Manehattan, Fillydelphia, Trottingham... Would be interesting to see what the Canterlot scoff was about. If it was about anything. It probably wasn’t.