Unsurprisingly, the stopover at Appaloosa extended much longer than Twilight had originally planned or hoped for. Applejack’s massive extended family was hospitable to a fault and before she realized what was happening they had already been there for a week and had enough apple themed food stuffed into their supplies to last them for months. It took a full day of subtle (and not so subtle) hints and reminders to Applejack to peel her away and even then, some of the more stubborn family members insisted on following them around as they made their final preparations.
“It sure was great to see you again, Applejack,” one of the hundreds of cousins (...Braeburn?) said, at least making himself useful by helping load their luggage into their rented wagon. “Too bad you can’t stay around a bit longer, but I suppose you gotta hit the trail. Where did you say y’all were headed again?”
“Mustangia,” Applejack answered, cinching the harness of the wagon firmly around her withers, “Ever been?”
Braeburn whistled through his teeth, “Headin’ back to the old pasture, eh? Naw, never been there myself, but I reckon a few of the ponies here have wandered over a time or two. Nice place I hear, have to bring me back a souvenir. Maybe a sapling, I hear the soil there is great for growin’ trees.”
“Do you have any idea how to get there?” Twilight asked, desperately trying to keep the conversation on track.
Braeburn smiled indulgently, “There ain’t no set way to get to Mustangia, princess,” he said, “just follow the trail until there ain’t a trail anymore and then keep goin’ until you run into someone, chances are they’ll be a mustang. If you want somethin’ more specific maybe…two, three days trip? Provided you go at a steady trot the whole time.”
Twilight thanked him for the information and turned to her map, forcing the conversation between the cousins into the background. It’s what she had been doing for most of this extended visit when she wasn’t getting various apple pastries shoved in her face. She was either studying her maps or trying to subtly ask around about Mustangia. She may not have succeeded at the subtle part but, thankfully the Appaloosa ponies were a friendly bunch and answered her questions with only a few odd glances here and there.
It was a common trend that mostly only old ponies had any sort of memories of Mustangia with the younger generation only having heard about it second-hoof. Unfortunately, none of the old folks had anything to say that Twilight didn’t already know, so in the end it was just a way to waste time until they were on the move again.
After another torturous twenty minutes of well-wishes the conversation finally petered out and Twilight and Applejack were on their way through the gate that separated Appaloosa from the wilderness beyond, and presumably, from Mustangia.
Spring had well and truly come to Appaloosa and the landscape that stretched out before them had transformed from a barren desert to a flat prairie as far as the eye could see and the grass only got thicker and greener the further they traveled. Every now and then, Twilight spotted a wild rabbit or field mouse going about their little critter business and wondered if the Appaloosa ponies woke up the hibernating animals outside their wooden border or if they were already in the wild lands of the mustang ponies.
Following Braeburn’s advice, they maintained a steady trot all day, only stopping for a light lunch of cucumber sandwiches before continuing on again. Conversation was kept to a minimum and, by Twilight’s estimation, they made good time. Their combination of Twilight’s alicorn advantages and Applejack’s natural earth pony stamina meant that the loaded wagon hardly interfered with their progress and by the time the sun started to set, and they stopped to make camp, Twilight was pleased with the distance they had traveled.
Applejack set up the tents with the confidence of a pony who has gone camping several times in her life and Twilight left her to her expertise, tasking herself with lighting the fire and setting out the supplies they would need for dinner. Mushrooms, leeks, potatoes, and half of a water jar into a kettle over the fire, crusty bread, a chunk of cheese, and an assortment of apple treats all set out in order of size and health benefits. Quite a lavish dinner considering the surroundings, more in line with an extravagant afternoon picnic with Rarity, but Twilight felt like celebrating finally getting out of Appaloosa and away from all those noisy, overbearing Apple ponies.
“Can’t say I like our supplies sittin’ out in the open like this,”Applejack said, frowning at the wagon and glancing around the area, “All manner of wild critter could root around in there durin’ the night and we’d be none the wiser. Wish there was a tree to string ‘em up into.”
Twilight nodded thoughtfully, stirring the bubbling soup. Trees had been few and far between while they had been walking, just miles and miles of rolling grassland. Making camp by a tree would be a wise move especially if it started to rain. She made a mental note to look out for trees in the future when looking to make camp. “I can put a ward on the wagon,” she offered as a solution to their current problem, “that would keep animals away from it while we slept.
Applejack looked uncertain, “Not sure if lightin’ up your horn out here would be a good idea,either, sugarcube,” she said, “We don’t know what kind of varmints live out here, might be some that are attracted to magic and the like. Ain’t that how it is in the Everfree Forest?”
Twilight hadn’t considered that. The trip had been so peaceful she had forgotten that they were essentially in a different version of the Everfree. A wide open…completely exposed Everfree, with no hiding places, and she had lit a fire that could probably be seen all the way back in Appaloosa and started cooking food. Food that could attract all manner of wild animals, friendly or–she fought the urge to violently douse the flames and looked around with newfound anxiety. “Maybe we should take turns sleeping?” she offered, “we can keep an eye on our supplies and watch out for any unknown wildlife that might be living here.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Applejack agreed, finally settling down by the fire and looking at the food. “You got quite the spread set up here, Twilight,” she said with a smile, “what’re we celebratin’?”
She couldn’t hurt Applejack’s feelings with the truth, but she couldn’t lie to her friend either. Twilight busied herself with ladling the soup into bowls, “Nothing really,” she tried, “just happy to be properly on the road, I guess. Plus, we covered a lot of ground today! That’s worth celebrating, I think.”
“It sure is!” Applejack grinned, “And here I thought you were happy to finally get away from my kinfolk.” She laughed at Twilight’s abashed face and gave her shoulder a rough shove, “Don’t worry, sugarcube, I ain’t mad! I know they can be a lot to handle, and I imagine it can’t be easy for a–well–for a former unicorn to understand how earth pony families work.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, my understandin’ of unicorns is that you don’t keep track of your extended family all that much. There’s you and your brother and your parents, and that’s it. Same for all unicorns, or all the ones I’ve talked to about it anyway. Earth ponies keep in touch with everyone; all the uncles and aunts, cousins, nieces, and nephews, and a lot of them all live together in one great big house too. Family is everything to an earth pony.”
Twilight considered her words as she sipped carefully at her soup. She never really thought about her family outside of those in her house before and it hadn’t occurred to her that not everyone else was the same way. She had attributed Applejack’s closeness with her family to be a trait restricted to that family rather than all earth ponies, but it would explain why Pinkie Pie was so excited at the prospect of possibly being a distant relative of the Apple family, and why so many earth ponies could be so sure of their family history. Twilight could have seen her grandmother on the street every day and she never would have known who she was.
Conversation dwindled as they ate and when they had put everything away and doused the fire the subject came up of who would take the first watch.
“You go ahead and get some sleep, Twilight,” Applejack said, “I’ll wake you up when I get too tired.”
That seemed as good a choice as any and Twilight found no reason to argue. She bid Applejack goodnight and crawled into her tent.
Alicorn advantages or not, she must have been more tired than she realized because she didn’t even remember laying down before her eyes shot open again. Applejack hadn’t woken her and the air around her was as silent as a wild plain filled with insects and night birds could be, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Ears straining to hear something past the cacophony of nightlife, Twilight unzipped her tent and poked her head outside.
Dim light from the crescent moon painted a hazy picture of the camp; long dead fire, the wagon of supplies, Applejack’s tent, and Applejack herself, sitting with her back to Twilight, still as a statue with her hat on the ground beside her. Her back was straight as a fencepost and twice as rigid as she stared out into the darkness around the camp like a Canterlot guard.
“Applejack,” Twilight whispered, “is everything alright?”
The earth pony didn’t turn around, but her ear flicked back in Twilight’s direction. “M’hm,” she hummed, barely audible over the roar of early cicadas, “Just a couple wolves, nothin’ to worry about yet.”
Twilight squinted into the darkness but couldn’t see anything other than shadows on top of shadows. “Would you like me to take over for a while?” she offered.
“No, I’m alright. Go back to sleep, sugarcube.”
“Alright.” Twilight pulled her head back into her tent and zipped it shut again. She strained her ears for several agonizing minutes, searching for any noise other than shouldn’t be there, but there was nothing. No footfalls in the grass, no panting breath of some predator, she couldn’t even smell anything out of place. But if Applejack said there were wolves then there were wolves and the fact that she couldn’t sense anything was more troubling than comforting.
Feeling the need to make as little noise as possible she laid on top of her sleeping bag instead of crawling inside it. She didn’t expect to fall asleep again but suddenly there was light outside her tent and Applejack hadn’t come to wake her up all night.
~*~*~
Applejack didn’t say anything about the night before and Twilight didn’t have the heart to scold her for staying up all night. She just promised to take the next night’s watch, provided they didn’t reach Mustangia before nightfall. Applejack didn’t argue and after a quiet breakfast they packed up their supplies and headed out again at a slightly slower pace to compensate for her sleepless night.
About eight hours into the day, just before they planned to stop for lunch, they reached the end of the trail just like Braeburn had said they would, meaning they were officially in Mustangia. All they had to do now was keep going until they spotted someone, an admittedly vague and daunting task given the sheer scale of the area, but Twilight had searched bigger haystacks and found a needle. She was more concerned about Applejack making it to nightfall without collapsing. The lack of a hard-packed trail made pulling the wagon all the more strenuous. She kept insisting that she was fine and going on about earth pony stamina and endurance, but Twilight wasn’t going to take any chances. She announced a long lunch and persuaded Applejack to take an hour nap before heading out again.
When she had started preparations for this journey, Twilight had been expecting walking through Mustangia to be similar to maneuvering through the Everfree Forest. Eerie and unsettling with strange noises and the threat of danger around every corner. It had never occurred to her that it would be so…pretty. The flat prairie that had emerged from the desert of Mustangia had transformed again, this time into rolling hills of thick green grass dotted with white and yellow flowers. A few clusters of trees were visible here and there, covered with fresh spring leaves and pink blossoms, and she could see the sunlight sparkling off a river in the distance, right at the edge of her ability to see. The air was thick with the warm smell of sweet, sun-soaked grass and daisies. Twilight had forgotten somehow that daisies just…grew out of the ground.
Whether she would admit it or not, the nap had done Applejack some good and they made better time in the second half of the day than they had in the first. Still, Twilight didn’t want to push her friend too hard so she decided to set up camp a little early and urged Applejack to head straight to bed after dinner.
“Alright, but you give me a holler if you notice anything, y’hear?”
Twilight promised that she would and took her spot by the fire, approximately where Applejack had been the night before and settled in for a long night. A childhood of long nights spent cramming for tests had prepared her for times like this and the night passed without incident and no sign of any unpleasant creatures of the night.
~*~*~
“How much farther do you reckon we’ve got to go?” Applejack asked, breaking the comfortable silence that had clung to them since they had started walking.
“It’s hard to say,” Twilight frowned at the green landscape before them, “It would make sense for a civilization to be located close to the water so heading to the river is our best option so far. If we don’t find anything there we can at least refill our water supplies while we plan our next–” sudden movement to her left caught her eye. A pony was standing like she had just sprung up out of the ground, the movement Twilight had seen had been a flick of her tail, the only part of her that seemed to move.
How had she not noticed her there?
“Uh…good afternoon!” Twilight called out hesitantly, “my name is Twilight, and this is my friend Applejack, we’re looking for Mustangia, are we close?”
The pony looked puzzled but came closer and Twilight was able to get a better look at her. She was a simple light bay colored earth pony with a dark brown mane and tail, a little tangled and windswept, with a few bluish colored streaks in it. She regarded Twilight with curious brown eyes, “I do not know the place you speak of,” she said slowly, glancing between the two of them, “but if you are in need of a place to stay you are welcome in the herd.”
“Do you and your kin live nearby?” Applejack asked and the strange mare nodded.
“Where the herd lives has no name,” she said, “we simply call it home, but I imagine it is the place that you are looking for, winged unicorn. It is the place that the other of your kind is always looking for.”
“You know Princess Celestia?” Twilight asked, perking up, “you must be a mustang pony then?”
“I am Cornflower,” the mare said, “I will take you to the herd. You will want to speak with Mushroom and he will want to speak to you.” She promptly turned and started walking away, apparently expecting Twilight and Applejack to follow.
Twilight’s head was reeling. She didn’t know what she had been expecting from the mustang ponies. Suspicion? Hostility, maybe? Perhaps she was expecting them to come at them with spears and clubs like savages. Whatever she had unconsciously thought was going to happen, it wasn’t this…lukewarm reception that they had received.
Cornflower’s speech had surprised her too. She hadn’t expected such an eloquent manner of speech from ponies who supposedly shunned the rest of ponykind. Maybe it was hideously presumptuous of her, but she had expected them to be more…primitive. Cornflower was anything but, though she hardly represented all of the mustang ponies, it was still a surprise, and a rather humbling one at that. Twilight would have to make sure to keep a more open mind from now on.
She almost ran into Cornflower’s rump before she realized that the mare had suddenly stopped. “Is something wrong?”
The mare looked back at her and gestured ahead vaguely with her hoof. “Welcome to the herd.”