59th Kindness, Evening Sun
Dear Adventure Journal!,
I’m on an adventure! I hope Mummy doesn’t worry about me though. I don’t think she knows.
Yesterday was the second day of Market Day. Dinky came to my house and asked if I could go with her because she didn’t have anypony else to go with. I wanted to ask about her Mummy but she might ignore me again, so I said yes instead. The stalls were all different because the owners take turns. There isn’t enough space in the town square for everypony to sell their things, or so Dinky says. Dinky knows a lot because she reads so much. So we walked but we didn’t buy anything because we didn’t have any bits. She asked me “Don’t you have a lot of gold?” and I tried to look really angry by scrunching up my eyes, and then she said she was sorry. So afterwards we sat down on a bench to rest, far away from all the noise so that our ears could rest.
That’s when the big ponies came to me and smiled. They said, “We’ve been looking for you! We’re so glad we found you” and then gave us ice cream. Dinky didn’t want hers though, and Mummy had said, “don’t take things from strangers”, and I told them so, but then they said that they were friends of daddy!!
They also said, “We’re friends with your daddy, yes, and we’re looking for you. He misses you a lot but he hasn’t been able to come home due to bad weather.” Also he sent them to look for me instead so I can visit him! But before I could follow them Dinky started pulling my hoof and said that she wanted me to walk her home. I asked her if she could walk herself home and she said no, that it wasn’t safe. She said it really loud, too. The big ponies said that they’d walk her home, and we needed to rush because the bad weather might come back and we won’t be able to find daddy!! So I said sorry to Dinky and I tried to make her let me go but she wouldn’t. So one of the big ponies did a mean thing and hit her, and she let go, and then they carried me to their wagon, which is where I am now. I was angry that he hit her, because even if she isn’t very nice, she’s still my friend. So I made him promise me that he’d say sorry.
We’ve been travelling for a day. They take turns to pull the cart, two ponies at a time, and the others gallop beside us. I get to ride in the cart with the supplies and food. We’ve been rushing a lot so I couldn’t get a good look at the land, but it’s all hills and grass and flowers anyways so I don’t think I’m missing much. And then I asked them for paper because I wanted to write you, and I brought my new pen, so here I am and here you are! I’ll have to get sticky tape or glue to stick you into my journal book though.
I’m really really excited! These ponies are going to take me to see daddy and I can see daddy!
60th Kindness, Setting Sun
Dear Adventure Journal!,
The big ponies don’t really like questions. They stop smiling after I ask them alot of questions. There’s a lot I want to know, like where we’re going and what town is what and are we there yet.
We eat mostly bread. It’s not the soft sort that Raisin Rack makes, or the sweet sort that Pinkie makes, or the nutty sort that Fluttershy makes. It’s dry and hard and it leaves a lot of crumbs everywhere on the cart, and Jangle, he’s my daddy’s number 2, just tells me to sweep them off. I asked him, “isn’t that littering?” And he said it was feeding the birds and worms because nopony else would feed them, and we were doing good so that was alright.
We also have apples, but they’re not as nice as Applebloom’s and they’re green and weird-shaped. Jangle calls them pears. That’s a funny name to call an apple. Applebloom told me that anything crunchy and sweet with white flesh is an apple because apples are the bestest, and Applebloom’s an expert on apples (she has “Apple” in her name after all) and that’s how I know that Jangle is wrong. Then we have water which is okay. It’s just water.
Jangle’s a really nice pony, even if he looks really scary and is really big and when he speaks his voice is really rough and he has bad breath and his left ear is “dog-eared”, which is what I heard from a sailor once. He was talking about another sailor, I think, about fish that can bite. He asks me whether I’m alright and I tell him I’m okay, and he answers most of my questions as long as I don’t ask too much. He’s a darker red than Big Macintosh, and his mane is also pretty dark. The others are just brown with dark manes.
He tole me that daddy is really famous and has a big ship with a lot of ponies, and he’s really rich. He also tole me that I shouldn’t write so much because he doesn’t have a lot of paper. Paper is expensive and he doesn’t have much money, so I tole him that I’ll only write when interesting things happen and he said okay.
65th Kindness, Latenoon Sun
Dear Adventure Journal!,
We arrived at a town called Upper Hillings, which is funny because it’s at the foot of the big hill range that we have to cross to get to the port, not the top. Jangle let me walk with him to buy food. His friends went to get more water and send a letter to tell my dad where we were, just like how the old explorers sent letters back to their lords by dragonfire. I asked him, “Why can’t dragons just send us to daddy by dragonfire?” and he tole me that was a silly question. I don’t think it’s a silly question though, because then we wouldn’t have to walk every time we wanted to go to the port if it could work. I could visit him from Ponyville and bring Mummy too. He then tole me that unicorns could do that, but they were expensive. He also called them a few names that I heard before, that were bad names. Red Jacket tole me about them last time because his dad said them. I don’t know how to spell them, but even if I did, I won’t write them down. Mummy wouldn’t be happy with that.
The houses here are nice and it’s a bit like Ponyville, except there’s a lot of mountains all over. They’re big and covered in trees. And there’s no library or Sugarcube Corner, but there’s this really big busy place with a lot of shouting and laughter called Luna’s Left Hoof and I wanted to see what it was about because Princess Luna might be there and I could say hi, but Jangle said no. He had enough trouble keeping his own ponies out of there, whatever that means. It did smell funny though, so I suppose I didn’t miss out much. Princess Luna probably doesn’t like weird smells anyway, and she would be shouting the loudest out of all the shouting ponies, and that would definitely be bad for my ears. Last time took me long enough to get better.
68th Kindness, Setting Sun
Dear Adventure Journal!,
We arrived at a town called Greenway. I don’t know why it’s called Greenway. It’s not green. There’s a lot of rocks everywhere that are really, really, really tall, so tall that I can’t see the top of them and you only see the sun in the midday, when the sun’s in the centre of the sky. Then it gets really hot, but when the sun passes it then gets cold.
Greenway’s a funny town. There are a lot more ponies like us, with carts and carriages and cargo holders, and they’re all so big and angry-looking. And there’s a lot more stallions. Well, some of them don’t look angry, just sullen, like Diamond Tiara when she gets told off by Cheerilee. Except, well, scarier, like the stallion version of pouting, like, the regular pouting Diamond Tiara does, but with more muscles, taller, and a lot more scary-looking.
They all wear hoods or cloaks, which makes sense because they’d be cold otherwise. Jangle got us some cloaks, but they’re icky and heavy and smell of sweat. I don’t want to wear mine until I get really cold. Another thing about the ponies is that they keep on looking everywhere like they’ve lost a bag of bits. Their eyes don’t really stay still. Jangle told me not to stare at anypony. I didn’t want to stare in the first place anyways so I didn’t.
There are a lot of stalls in Greenway. They sell a lot of colourful bottles with crinkly labels, and some sell knives and little bits of metal that you can put on your shoulders, like armour, and colourful plants that I’ve never seen before, not even in the Everfree Forest. I bet Zecora would know about those. She knows a lot about plants. Actually come to think about it, there were quite a few zebras there too, and griffons, and even a huge bear that walked on two paws. You don’t get much of them in Ponyville. Actually I haven’t ever seen a griffon or a walking bear in Ponyville, and Zecora lives outside of Ponyville, on the edge of the forest, if you want to be picky about it. I wonder why. Maybe I should ask her when I get back.
I didn’t see any colts or fillies in Greenway. That made me a bit sad. I haven’t played Sail Ship in ages, though I did play a lot of I Spy by myself, because Jangle won’t play with me.
I wonder when we’ll get there. Jangle said to not ask that question again, but I never got an answer so it’s only fair that I get to ask. I asked him to get some fruit and he said that there’s no fruit in Greenway except for raisins, because raisins keep longer. I tole him that bread was boring, and he tole me bread was bread, and if I wanted to not be hungry I would eat it, a bit like what Mummy used to say, except the next day she would always have something new, like apples or oranges or daffodils. I don’t think they grow very well around here. Apart from moss, and maybe the interesting flowers, I don’t think anything does.
5th Honesty, Daybreak Sun
Dear Adventure Journal!,
Now that I come to think of it, we’re travelling really fast. That’s nice because it means I can see daddy faster and I won’t have to eat only bread.
We were actually attacked by griffons!! There were five of them and they had swords, but everypony just galloped away fast, and I mean SUPER fast, even faster than Rainbow Dash, and the griffons couldn’t catch up. I asked Jangle about it and he said he had rented “seven-league boots” from Greenway. They rent the boots out because the pass is really dangerous, he said. The boots are actually just horseshoes made of green metal. I’m sure they’re super-magical though. I wanted to try them but Jangle said that they’d sever my leg from my body, and I didn’t want that so I said, “maybe not then”.
Apart from the boring bread, this is a really fun adventure, even though we ran away instead of having a super-cool fight like in the stories. I just wish my friends were here with me because it’s a bit lonely being the only foal. Even Dinky, even though she’d just read all the time. I can’t remember her face very well because she always bends over her books, but her voice is okay. It’s girly but not as girly as Sweetie Belle’s, and her writing looks nice.
I asked Jangle if he had a family. He said no. I tole him that was impossible because everypony has a daddy and Mummy, and he tole me that both were dead. Then he wouldn’t talk to me anymore. I feel sorry for him. I can’t imagine what it’s like not to have Mummy, or even daddy, because even if he’s out to sea he’s still alive and somewhere.
The nights are really cold. I have to wear the stinky cloak now. The food sack is pretty cozy because I can hide my hooves under it and it feels less cold, and you can cuddle up to the bread, even if I’m not allowed to use them as pillows.
9th Honesty, Latenoon Sun
Dear Adventure Journal!,
We’re at the port!! I haven’t seen the sea in a long time and it’s good to be at the port because it’s so sunny, and there’s the sea breeze and the smell of the sea and fish and seaweed and things. It’s a lot cleaner than the one in Trottingham, and there are lots of big, grand galleons as well as fishing boats and regular sailing ships. Jangle says we’ll be waiting here until we get a response from daddy. We have to wait for the signal before it’s safe to sail, because there might be pirates looking for daddy, because he’s a good captain and they’re enemies. That’s what Jangle tole me. It would’ve been boring except I got to explore, and that was really fun!
We parked our cart and went to settle in an inn, an actual inn! called The Crimson Clupea. That’s what was on the signboard, in nice big red print block, the way all signboards are written in. It was really busy with a lot of ponies and a lot of weird smells. That’s probably sweat because sailors are usually sweaty, especially in a hot inn like this one. I hope Mummy doesn’t mind. We had one like this back in Trottingham, and she tole me to never go in, ever... I can’t help it because we need somewhere to stay. I should apologize when I see her afterwards when I get back.
I miss Mummy a lot now. She cooks really well, and reads me bedtime stories sometimes, and there’s my comfy bed. The inn beds are lumpy and smell funny too, like everything else, and it creaks loudly and there’s moss. But it’s still better than the cart. I found two bits under the bed. Jangle let me keep them!
After we got settled, Jangle let me walk around the port while he did something. So I did. I went and looked at the docks and the ships at bay. There were a lot of blank-sail ships, and a few Royal ones, with the red-and-gold crest of Princess Celestia. The ships looked really nice and they probably belong to rich ponies, because their sails don’t have patches in them, and the hulls aren’t covered in barnacles and there’s shiny bits of metal all over the ships.
Then I went to the trading stalls, where there were a lot of things, just like in Trottingham but more! And all of the ponies were sailors, too. Big sailors. I was afraid I might get pushed into something, and then I’d knock it over, so I didn’t stay around there for very long. There were a lot of vases and pots and things. You know how it is. And there were ponies with ropes around their necks and legs, too. They looked really hungry and thirsty and tired. I felt really sorry for them. So I looked around, and I found a baker stall and bought a fluffy-looking bun. It looked really nice, so I bought another one. Then I took a bite out of the first one, broke the second into bits, and gave it to them. They looked really happy until something happened, and then they panicked and swallowed the bun bits and told me to shoo. That isn’t very nice of them, I thought, but then I saw this really really big pony, bigger than Jangle coming over, and he looked really mean and he made an angry face at me and I ran. Then I finished my fluffy bun. It was a nice bun. Not as good as Pinkie’s treats, but still nice.
When I went back, there was this one pony staring at me for a really long time. He was sitting in the corner by himself, with a dagger on the table and a bowl of salad. And when I came in, he was the first one I saw, and he looked at me, and as I tried to get to the inn part of the building I could see him watch me. I couldn’t see him clearly but that’s all I knew. And his eyes were red, sortta, except that it wasn’t red, but a bit more purply.
I’m really happy that I came. I got to see the sea again, and soon I’ll be with daddy! I just wish Mummy were here, though. And maybe Dinky, just because she needs to play more and I bet that she’s never had an adventure before.