//------------------------------// // The Journal of Cavalier Forelock: Part 1 // Story: The Legend of Alanticorn // by Bolt McRunFast //------------------------------// The outside of the journal was bound in leather. Its once smooth face was roughened by time and weather. There were the faintest remnants of gold lettering on the cover that had for the most part disappeared. The first page was much less worn. The only writing was a scribble of inked letters below an embossed sentence reading, “This Diary Belongs To:”. The word diary had been scratched out and the word “Jurnel” written in its place. The scribble itself said, “Cavalier,” though some of the letters were written incorrectly. The first entry was on the following page, its letters dotted with ink and misspelled words. +++ Hi. My nam is Cavaleer Forelock. This is my jurnel. Not a diary cause that is for fillies. Im gonna rite down important things in heer. Bye. +++ Below that entry another had been started. This one had much better writing, though it still looked like it was written by a younger pony. +++ Hi. It’s been awhile. I found this in one of my boxes. I guess mom found it in my old room. We moved to a new town. It’s a place near Fillydelphia. I don’t know anyone here. All my friends are back home. Bye. +++ Hi again journal. History’s boring. I don’t see why we have to learn it. Who cares what other ponies did? I only care about what I do. What I’m doing now is eating cookies. Wonder if anyone in the future would care about that? Bye. +++ Hi. We’ve been in this new town for about a year now. Sorry I haven’t written, but I’ve made new friends and learned some new things. Before today I didn’t know what an alicorn was. Princess Celestia is one. That’s neat. I want to be one like her when I grow up. I wish I could fly like dad but instead I’m a boring regular pony like mom. I’ll see if I can buy some wings at the store. I’ve saved my allowance for a whole week! Bye. +++ Hi. Mom and Dad say we have to move again. That’s dumb. I hate moving. I finally made some friends here and now we have to go to Manehattan. That’s a big city up north. I’m gonna hate it there. Dad says this new job opportunity will help us even more. It can’t be too helpful. They still haven’t gotten me wings. I won’t forget you this time. Bye. +++ The next page looked like it had been hastily torn out while the one after it just had a dirty hoofmark. The writing on the next page with entries was much more clean than the previous ones. +++ Hey again, journal. I’m really not good at keeping up with you. It’s been a lot of months since we got here to the city. This place is huge and much more busy than our old town was. I miss my friends but there’s so much more going on that I don’t have too much time to feel sad. Tomorrow we’re going on a field trip to the Museum of Natural History. I think it’ll be boring, but teacher says it’ll be fun. She says the same thing about our math problems. I don’t think she knows what fun is. +++ The museum was more fun than I thought it’d be. There’s a lot of things that lived in Equestria. There was one giant skeleton at the start, but then we went to go see rocks. Those were boring. I stopped some other ponies from picking on a new pony. His family just moved here. I remember how hard it was to meet people when I got here. I told the bullies off and they looked like they were going to get mad but then the guide took us to look at fish skeletons. I talked to the new pony and he said his name was Dusthoof. It’s a weird name but it’s not as dumb as mine. Dad says it’s after my grandfather who was some sort of guard. I’ve been told a few stories about him. He was kinda neat. Anyway, then the museum trip ended and we went back to school and then went home. Bye! +++ Hello again! It’s been awhile! Dusty and I are better friends now. His parents both work at the museum. I’ve only seen them a few times. They’re arka...acha...they dig up old things, so Dusty has to stay with his grandmother a lot. That’s not so bad because she likes to fall asleep so we go play in the open lot next to his apartment. I’m gonna head over to his house in a little be anyway, we’re going to- +++ The ink moved across the page, splattering in a few places. The writing resumed on the following pages. +++ Mom fell down. Dad doesn’t know why, but she must have been hurting a lot since they called a big medical wagon to take her to the big hospital in the middle of the city. They took Mom past some large doors. Dad waited with me in the big room where you wait while we waited for Dusty and his Grandma to come. When they did, Dad went past the big doors. He’s been gone a real long time. Dusty and his Grandma are sleeping. I don’t want to sleep. I want to know if Mom’s okay. Dad just said she was hurting real bad. Oh, there’s Dad, bye. +++ Another page was skipped then the writing resumed, only this time the letters was shaky and ink blotted several times in several places. +++ I wanted to write this down fast, before I forget it. Mom told me to. When Dad came to get me, he brought me into a big room. Mom was laying on a big bed. It looked like she had things sticking out of her. She was really tired. Dad said she was very sick. He pushed me towards the bed. I climbed onto it and when I did Mom gave me a great big hug, bigger than I’d ever gotten before. She told me that she was really, really sick. I asked her if they’d given her any nasty medicine since that’s what they always gave me when I was sick. Mom smiled at me and told me they had, but that it wasn’t very good medicine, even nastier than the stuff they gave me! I pointed to the doctor that Dad was talking to outside. He was a unicorn. I asked Mom if he’d used his magic. Mom said there were some things in this world that magic couldn’t do. Then she gave me another hug and pulled me close. This was where she told me to remember something important which was why I wrote it down. She said that there were somethings in the world that just happened and there wasn’t anything you could do to stop them. Sometimes you couldn’t fly, use magic or even run. Sometimes, she said, you just had to stand and face it with your head held high. I told her that there were times I’d be too scared to do that. She laughed and told me that those were the times you’d have to be extra brave and extra strong. She wanted me to promise her that I’d be that brave and strong. I said okay. Then dad came in and said he needed to talk with mom for a little bit. So I went with the nice nurse pony and sat in a chair where I’m writing this now. I’m tired. I’m gonna take a nap. +++ Daddy woke me up to tell me that Mom was sleeping. He looked really sad, like he had been crying. I’d never seen Dad cry. So I hugged him like Mom had and told him I would be brave like Mom told me to be. Then we hugged some more. +++