13th Honesty, Rising Sun
Dear Adventure Journal!,
I had a really weird dream. Princess Luna came to visit us, but she was really angry because somepony on the ship stole her sweet roll. So she made a lot of lightning and waves and wind and it was real scary! We almost sank! But then I woke up and we were on land. And not just any land, but the New World!! Well, not the New World, just a new place, but that still means adventure and I’m very very excited! And it’s not just adventure, but adventure with Mayor Mare as well!!
I don’t know why Mayor Mare is here, but she’s here. In fact when I woke up she was the first pony I saw. I woke up on a beach and then I was splashed with water. So I shouted and got up, and there Mayor Mare was with a bucket. She looked really tired but she smiled at me and said “Good to see you’re still alive”, instead of crying like some girl in the picture books. That’s Mayor Mare for you. She was also really cool when me and mummy visited her office, back when we first came. And she smiled the same smile, and looked at us with the same eyes. But I noticed that her glasses were missing but she seemed to be fine. Maybe she didn’t want to talk about it, so I didn’t ask. Like that one time when Cherry Pip lost her pencil at school, and she didn’t want to say anything for the rest of the day, even when we were playing and she had to say “Aye aye, captain” because she was just a lowly deck-swabber when I talked to her. Later we found out that Devon Dale took it and threatened to hit her if she tole on him, and so we tole Miss Buttermilk, and she got it back, and she didn’t get hit because we were the ones who tole on him not her.
Mayor Mare made a small fire and we dried ourselves just like how adventurers do it! Then she offered me some apples, which tasted bad and salty but I didn’t complain, because Mayor Mare looked kinda hungry too but she was giving it all to me, like when I forgot to bring my lunch and Applebloom gave me her food. And when we were not wet any more, Mayor Mare sat closer to me and tole me things.
She first asked me how much I remembered. So I tole her that I remembered getting on the ship in the morning, and then halfway through there was a storm, and then I went to sleep because I was tired. She asked me if I remembered any more, and I didn’t, so I tole her that. So she sighed and nodded to herself.
We’re in a place called Maretopia. It’s a new continent like Equestria! But it’s also really dangerous, because bad ponies are everywhere, so I had to stick very close to Mayor Mare, because she’s an adult. Mayor Mare tole me that when you go into Maretopia, you need masks to breathe with because there’s a lot of smoke in the air, and you need shoes, because the ground’s really dirty, and you need clothes all the time, because that’s what the ponies here do with them, not like in Equestria. She also says we’re lucky to have landed in this shore, which gives us time to prepare ourselves.
Mayor Mare tole me that we’re going to be going on a real, super-duper adventure, the most dastardly I’ll ever have been! She tole me that I had to be super brave but also super careful! I tole her that I was brave and I could be careful, and that I had defeated even Devon Dale the King of Evil with the help of trusty Red Jacket, and she patted my head with that smile of hers.
Our mission is to get home safely. We have to somehow make contact with the Princess and report and then find a boat to sail back. Until then we have to learn to live in Maretopia.
I asked her where Jangle and the rest of the crew were and she tole me she didn’t know. We were actually shipwrecked by a large storm, and had been floating on sea for a long time before reaching here. Then I asked if we might go and see daddy first, and she patted my head again and said “We’ll see”, which in mummy-speak is “No” but maybe different in Mayor-speak. She tole me she didn’t know where daddy was, and that it was too dangerous to look for him, but if he was looking for us then we might run into him. I tole her that he would definitely be looking for us. She said he might not find us in time, because the city was so big, so I had to be prepared if we didn’t see him. Because that’s what adventurers do, they be brave and complete their mission.
After thinking a while, I asked her if we could make finding daddy our mission, but she said no, we’re not well-equipped enough for that, and that made sense so I had to give in. But she added that completing this mission would make daddy really proud, so I have to do my best.
I’m spending the night in this small shack Mayor Mare found. Really luckily there’s some paper and a quill, thc
20th Honesty, Rising Sun
Dear AJ!,
It’s been a really long while since I wrote you. That was because I ran out of ink and only got some today. Now I have to save on ink so I have to write only the most important things.
Maretopia is really a place of adventure. There’s no castles but there are really tall buildings called skyscrapers. The skies are kinda greenish and dark, and the clouds are always black. It’s really dirty and smelly, even worse than Trottingham, because it’s easy to get used to the fish smell but not to this. Mayor Mare says it’s ke-mee-cals, like the things that go into pencils and potions, but not the forest-growing kind.
Everypony here walks with their heads down. And not just ponies, but griffons, too, and they walk a bit straighter. And there’s also goats and cows and monkeys! I’ve never seen a monkey before. Mayor Mare tole me what it was. A lot of them wear cloaks with hoods, and even more of them don’t walk. They ride these really cool metal machines called buses! Mayor Mare says there are buses in Canterlot, but I’ve never been before so I dunno. We don’t ride the buses because Mayor Mare thinks it isn’t safe but I want to try it at least once, even if it looks cramped and sweaty inside.
The ponies and griffons and goats and cows and monkeys here aren’t very happy or friendly. Nopony looks at each other, except for the few that stand on corners and look at everypony, and those ponies look angry and dangerous. Mayor Mare tole me to never never never make eye contact with anypony else, so I keep my eyes on the ground even though sometimes I look up at the sky, which is really weird because it’s greenish.
There isn’t any dirt but there’s a lot of grime, and it splashes sometimes and gets stuck on my fur. Mayor Mare got us both cheap shoes and clothing and masks, which feel kinda itchy and tight but it’s better than nothing. Actually okay it feels kinda weird to wear shoes, because it’s my first time wearing them, but I have to, because if I don’t then I get even more dirty. But the masks are worse because my breath makes it all warm and sweaty inside my snout and it smells funny too.
Mayor Mare usually takes me to visit places during the day. For the past week, we got up late, had breakfast (it’s always cereal, because Mayor Mare likes cereal), went to a lot of shops and kept on asking around for a post office or a dragonfire directoree or a port, but we couldn’t find any, and the port is like really far away. Then at night Mayor Mare would go out, and I had to keep watch in the house, and eat more cereal for dinner, which I know Mummy wouldn’t like but if Mayor Mare says it’s fine then it should be okay. I had to make sure that all the locks on the doors were locked, and I could only let Mayor Mare in if she did the secret knock and gave me the password, which is a list of numbers which I have to write down because I can’t remember but she can. Every time I ask her what she’s doing outside she just smiles, and when I ask her if I can go with her she just smiles and shakes her head. All I know is that she goes with a small sack, comes back really tired, goes to bed really quickly, and always puts the sack under the bed. I don’t dare to see what’s in the sack even though I want to because it’s not good to pry. It gets really boring in the house which only has one room, and I can’t make noise, so I play Silent Pirate, a game I invented all by myself where I act as the bad guy planning to sneak away stolen treasure. It isn’t very fun though. I can’t even say “Arr” which is what you have to say if you’re a pirate.
Two days ago, we got on the train, and now we’re in the city central. Mayor Mare tole me that regular mail doesn’t go to Equestria, so we’re forced to use dragonfire, and the city central’s the only place which has it. I guess it’s because there’s so much sea in between, the mailmares can’t fly across without getting tired and falling, and then the mail would get wet. The city central is just like where we were before, except there’s a lot more bright colourful lights and signboards and ponies here wear nicer clothes. But the room we live in now is still kinda the same, except it smells a bit nicer, and I’m allowed to make a little more noise because it’s noisy enough outside. That’s what Mayor Mare says, at least.
22nd Honesty, Midday Sun
Dar AJ!,
Today Mayor Mare asked me what did I think of this place. I tole her that it was really warm because I had to wear clothes, and sweaty, and dirty. She said, “Yes but what else”, so I tole her that the sky was weird. She said that yes, yes it was. She then asked me what I thought of the ponies around me. I couldn’t remember anypony in particular so I tole her I’d keep an eye out and tell her later. Then she patted me on the head and smiled and said that wasn’t necessary, but I decided to do it anyways.
So today we went to look for a map of the city central. There were a lot of ponies, and they didn’t wear hoods but they wore really fancy nice-looking black suits with the stiff collars and colourful ties that Miss Rarity would have liked a lot. Their faces were normal but they looked hot and sweaty and I could tell because they kept on taking out their handkerchiefs to wipe their faces. A lot of the ponies were carrying brown folders. All of the folders were brown. Brown is boring, but maybe it’s proffessional so they have no choice. Miss Twilight has a lot of brown things in her house. A lot of them had short manes. It’s probably because they get so hot. It’s hard to wipe your sweat if you have a long mane.
Then we went to a bookstore. The shopkeeper was a quiet pony who didn’t say a lot. He was old and had thick glasses and was gray, and had a gray mane and tail. He wore a jacket and was sitting down so I couldn’t see his cutie mark, but I’m sure that it’s a book, because he sells books so it makes sense.
Then we went to lunch at a place with a small door in a dirty alley. The alley smelled really bad but it was nice in the store. The store was cramped and the floor was sticky, I could feel it even though I was wearing shoes, but the food was okay. The table was dirty but the chairs were the comfy long kinds that looked like stalls, so it was kinda cool. We were like agents except without the suits, and on break. You can be the secret document, except you’re not a brown folder. But you have a brown cover so I guess that’s close enough. We had noodles in soup. The noodles were okay but the soup was really really good, like it was salty but it made me want to drink more! But Mayor Mare said that it’s because they put some kind of bad salt in it and that I shouldn’t have so much because it will make me go bald. So I didn’t finish the whole bowl of soup even though I wanted to.
The ponies at the shop were not in suits but wore simpler clothing like construction vests, the orange bright kind that Rainbow Dash wears sometimes during storms. They were bigger and were stained with black stuff and talked really loudly about their boss. It was kinda scary so I only stole looks at them, like a secret agent should.
Then we went to the dragonfire place at last, which was super-duper amazing and so so so cool!!! It was so amazing that I tried to draw it, but I couldn’t because it was so big and colourful and complicated, and I can’t draw very well.
It’s kinda like Town Hall but the ceiling is round upwards, and it’s way way way bigger, and there’s glass windows along the top but they don’t let much light in because there’s not much light to let in, so there’s lightbulbs instead lower on the walls. It’s even almost as big as half of Ponyville. The floor is grimy and made out of concrete, you can tell from how everypony walking around makes clunks instead of drags or squishes. And there’s lots of dragons! There’s big cages and small cages and they all hang from the ceiling. There’s a lot of moving and clinking and snoring, because most of the dragons are nocturnal. That’s what the dragonkeeper told me. I tole him that I had a dragon friend called Spike, and he laughed, but in a kinda mean way. I asked him whether they could come out and play but then he tole me to get lost which was mean and so I didn’t talk to him anymore.
The way the dragonfire place works is really cool. There’s counters made of moldy wood along the sides and in the middle. The counters have signboards on them with names of places. At least I think they’re places. They’re all places I’ve never heard of. But it makes sense.
Ponies line up at the counters with packages and letters and things, and then the pony at the counter takes their stuff, and then he uses his magic and there’s a lot of clinking and moving and the cages on top move! Then the cages are lowered with chains really quickly and the pony hands the stuff to the dragon, who then breathes fire on it. And then the cage goes back up and another pony comes with his stuff, and so on.
The place was really noisy with all the chains moving and ponies talking. Mayor Mare kept a hoof near me all the time because it was crowded, so I did my best to stick to her even though I wanted to see more of the place. Anyways, we went through the entrance and down, and down, and down past a lot of counters, and then we lined up, and Mayor Mare said something to the counter pony, and they talked for a while. I didn’t hear what they were saying, but then we went back out and Mayor Mare tole me that it was all good! Now to the next leg of the adventure!
So anyways we’re back to living in our room. This time I have my own bed! And I can make a little more sound too, because Mayor Mare said so, but it’s still not very fun just playing by yourself. But I won’t need to play anymore because we’re moving on and instead of playing fighting we might have to fight real pirates and monsters and unsavoury scallywags. I’ll be ready for them because that’s what a captain is.