//------------------------------//
// Prologue 
// Story: Traveler of Destitute 
// by Soviet 
//------------------------------//

This all started with the trains.

Twenty years I’ve been gone and I come back only as an obligation to my late father—a pony of tradition himself. That was months ago. What possessed me to stay in this nation that I no longer recognize I’ll never know. 

He named me Soft Speak because of my perceived passiveness, and I enjoyed the name thoroughly. I was satisfied with everything about myself then in fact: my brown coat, gray mane, closed book cutie mark, and the time. I enjoyed then what now seems like a time so unreal, with more pleasure than any of my travels ever gave me. Yet I decided to stay in some foolish attempt to find a place here.

There is no proper way to describe the past few months. Everything that I knew has been turned on me and I can no longer claim to hold any knowledge over what Equestria used to be. I have always been one to enjoy my traditions and now there are those that wish to undo them. My time here was long ago. I should have kept it that way. There is no place for me here. Equestria has changed too much since my departure two decades ago.

Still I pushed though. I pushed on searching even knowing that Equestria would no longer be my home. I did what I was good at: traveling.

Only a few nights ago did I truly realize the error of my ways—months it somehow took—after several days in Canterlot. I know now that my time is gone. Even now my thoughts are still scattered after being through that crucible.

Canterlot, how that has changed. For more than a thousand years Celestia and now Luna ruled over the land with wisdom and kindness. Now these urchins filthy the city wishing to subvert all of that with their Ideologies and Progressiveness. Canterlot now is no more than a staging ground for these would be revolutionaries and radicals.

I will not deny my bitterness. Anyone with proper morals and common sense would see how all of this progress has done nothing but slowly bury this wonderful nation under a pile of gilded accomplishments. But I appear to be the only one left in Equestria with either of those. At least the griffins and dragons kept their stable systems.

All of these business unicorns in every city and every town all wanting the princesses to pander to them. Then the workers made of predominantly my own race of Earth Ponies want to have a say for their working environments being too dangerous. Finally the Pegasi need help with their now overbearing work to set conditions right for every business that needs it while just keeping the seasons going. Weather itself has started becoming a business of its own.

I’ll say, It’s most definitely a mess, a fine mess indeed. We’re all sitting on thrones made of materialistic trivialities while suffocating under them simultaneously. It’s a real fine mess. We’re throwing everything we were off of a bottomless cliff and sacrificing the orderly times of my youth to the great god Progress. 

I fled from that corrupted once glorious city and now reside in what could possibly be the last remaining place in Equestria that I can somewhat recognize. Outside of Canterlot lies a small piece of virtually uncorrupted old history. Ponyville is a small village that seems to have escaped the toil of the rest of this so called industrial revolution.

Still, even here I know I cannot remain forever. It is not my place as I hear the mood and attitude of the village and they too only speak of progress and politics. Geographically the town is a fluke, but the inhabitants have all moved on—and so will I.

But for now I am stuck here in this purgatory of a former home. There’s no going back and I do not have much faith in moving forward. It will all be the same. I cannot, and in fact will not, claim that my journey so far has been something of a positive memorable experience that many of my other journeys were. Those journeys were ones of learning and culture. Here it is one of disappointment and loss of culture. Equestria, the nation that stood for more than a thousand years of peace, now has to question what its culture is.

After all of this time now all of that bitterness and disappointment only turns to despondence and dejection. My father would have understood, and I can scarcely imagine the same feelings he must have gone through before he passed on. I am a shell. But I do not know why. I’ve never felt these cynical emotions so much before in my life. No one describing me would use the term “melodrama prone” and I wouldn’t consider myself as such either. I know why I am so bitter towards the changes in Equestria but how has it sunk me so low? What is unique to Equestria that drives me further down?

My only hope now is that Spring Hope will find her place. I’ve finally given up on believing that I will ever find one but she is young. Not like the rest of the vile young. She may be as idealistic but she is by no means deluded. I’ve seen her only sparingly since we left Canterlot. I don’t like talking to her much anymore because I do not know if I am the one who is deluded by this point. Either the whole country’s gone mad or I have.