Steadily, tiny beams of sunlight moved across the floor of the hollow and landed on the eye of a particular silver maned changeling. Hikaru frowned in her sleep and lifted her hoof to swat it away, as if it were an annoying fly. When the theoretical fly would not go away she opened her eyes to glare at it. As soon as she opened her eyes, however, she quickly moved her holey hoof up to shield them. It did very little to help, though. She found that she was not in her bedroom, like she thought she was, but rather she was in a dirt hollow that had been dug into the ground for other purposes besides a temporary bunker.
She scanned the room and found Terra, her personal bodyguard, and Princess Twilight Sparkle sleeping across the room, their chitin and coat tainted with dirt, respectively. She felt a small figure next to her and looked down to examine it. She found Asher, otherwise known as Prince Eiji to the rest of the kingdom. Or whatever’s left of it. Gently, she levitated Asher over to Terra, taking care to lay him in a similar position and rose to her hooves. She quietly trudged over to the slope leading out the hole. Hikaru hesitated, afraid to see what was there, but decided that she had see what was left.
Slowly, she lifted herself out the hole and the sight of the over world made her heart sink. Out of the some five hundred thousand changelings and over one hundred thousand structures, there was nothing left but smoking heaps of rubble and ash. She collapsed to her haunches and put her head in her hooves.
“There’s nothing left. . .” she softly sobbed.
A tiny gasp came from behind her. She didn’t pay any attention and continued mourning.
“It’s all gone. Everything. Including my mother.”
A pair of tiny hooves wrapped around her waist and she looked down. Asher was clinging to her with teary eyes and a quivering lip. She picked him up and sat him down on her knee. She hugged him back of course. Even a changeling has to show some love sometimes.
Hikaru lifted her head and screamed a scream so loud, her cry echoed across the badlands.
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Terra nervously looked back at Hikaru, still worried about her since her outburst this morning. Hikaru walked with her head head down and her mane covering her eyes, her ears flattened against her head. She stared at her hooves, softly trudging alongside Asher. He had gotten over the sadness faster than she did and had tried to cheer her up. He ended up unsuccessful and had taken to waking quietly beside her. The desolate feeling of the badlands added to the already sorrowful events of the day and overall, the resulting atmosphere was worse than it was in the kingdom.
After a few hours of this, Twilight decided to break the silence.
“Are we heading to Firefly Fields?”
Terra looked back at her and answered, “Yeah. That’s about at the edge of my mind, though. I don’t really know about anything else past that, except for part of Equestria.”
“It’s okay. I can take from there. My family and I vacationed there 10 years ago.“
“Must’ve been nice, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Another night in the badlands, and a few more hours of trekking resulted in them entering Firefly Fields. This change of scenery lightened up the mood but not significantly. They set up camp inside a circle of trees that stood in the middle of the vast plains. Hikaru was still quiet, but for a while she engaged in a simple conversation with Terra, but it was short-lived and Hikaru was silent for another two hours.
After these two hours had passed, Asher again attempted to lighten the mood.
“Meta, there’s a big house over there that no one lives in. Can I go explore it?”
Hikaru snapped out of her trance and took a moment to process what he said. Finally, she said, “Okay, but I’ll have to go with you.”
She pulled herself to her hooves and followed behind Asher as he hummed a silly song he taught himself. They headed off in the direction Asher pointed in and a few minutes later, the big house he mentioned came into view. However, upon closer inspection, it was found that it was a mansion. Eventually, they reached the stony estate’s wrought iron gates, which bore a large ‘S’ over a shield. Hikaru activated her magic and nudged them open, the gates creaking loudly as they slowly swung open.
Hikaru felt a small buzzing in the back of her head as she did so, like she remembered the place. But she knew that had never been to Firefly Fields before now. She simply pushed it away and continued the mock exploration.
Ivy climbed up the decrepit walls of the mansion and the front yard was wild and unruly, the marble fountain in the front long dry. The windows of the mansion were shattered and had fallen out ages ago. The large wooden doors were rotting and you could tell that no one had lived here in a long time.
The inside fared no better. The furniture in the foyer was worn and faded and the once extravagant shining stairs were cracked and and had lost their luster. Once again, that buzzing feeling arrived in Hikaru’s mind, this time more persistent. She felt like she had been here the place a long time ago, but she when she searched her mind, she found nothing about this place. So she pushed it to the back of her head once more.
They wandered through the ancient manor a little longer, and came upon a dining room. There was a long, wooden table that sat in the middle of the room and had enough seats for twelve. Across the table, there sat a magnificent fireplace that sat under a number of plaques, awards and trophies. The things that stood out the most, however, where the three pictures that stood atop the fireplace.
The first two pictures were worn and faded, the subject of the photos indistinguishable. The last photo was still quite clear.
Without thinking, her magic floated the third photo off the fireplace and over to her. The subject of this photo was a pure white stallion, with a short silvery mane. But most importantly, he had the exact same eyes as Hikaru. The buzzing returned again, and Hikaru felt like she knew this stallion for some reason.
For the rest of the mock exploration, the buzzing feeling never left Hikaru as she followed Asher through the mansion. He asked many questions about the things that sat around the large estate. She, of course, tried to answer as best as she could. When she couldn’t, she asked him what he thought it was and Asher made up a silly explanation as to why the things were what they were.
By the time they had finished the exploration, Celestia’s sun had already begun to set and the moon was steadily beginning to rise over the plains. Hikaru left happier than she came, but she also left with more questions than she started with.
“Why did that place seem so familiar? I’ve never been outside the badlands except for now. But for some reason I felt like knew the place. And the stallion in the picture looked familiar, too. I’m probably just getting a sense of déjà vu because that place reminded me of the castle before the forest disappeared.” she thought. She pushed the thought out of her mind again and decided to focus on getting back to camp before it had gotten too dark.
As soon as they stepped in the camp, they were immediately greeted by Terra.
“There you guys are! I was beginning to think that you had gotten lost or something.” she said.
Hikaru answered, ”Or something.”
“You’re just in time, too,” added Twilight. “You’re about to learn why it’s called Firefly Fields.”
As Luna added the last few stars to the beautiful masterpiece that was the night sky, one by one, tiny lights popped up in the tall grass. Soon the air was filled with fireflies, and it was soon realized why this place was called Firefly Fields. It seemed as if half the stars the Princess of the Night had placed in the sky had refused to stay put, and had come down to Equus to dance over the fields.
Asher watched all this with a look of pure wonder and amazement. Of course, Asher had never seen things like this, for he had never been outside the kingdom before now. That was all he had ever known. But now, he got the feeling that this wasn’t the only amazing he would be seeing. If things like this existed outside the kingdom, then what else was out there?
After this revelation, Asher decided to take action. He charged through the fields and made more lightning bugs fly into the air. He began to murmur a little song about fireflies just for the fun of it. Asher felt like he do this for hours and never get bored of it. Hikaru simply sat on her haunches and watched him do all this with a small look of wonder herself. She had never seen fireflies before now, only now.
“So, have you ever been outside the badlands before?”
Hikaru turned and saw that Twilight had decided to sit beside her.
She answered, ”Well, no. In fact, I’ve never even been to the edge of the badlands before. The farthest I’ve been is to the scouts’ tower and a little beyond that.”
“So that’s why I never seen you before! I have to admit that I never even knew Chrysalis had a daughter before now, or a son for that matter.”
Hikaru didn’t answer and seemed far off when Twilight tried to get her attention. The buzzing feeling had returned and she got the feeling that she once been doing the same thing.
“Hikaru?”
She snapped out of her sense of nostalgia.
“You seemed distant for a second there.”
“I don’t know why but I keep getting the feeling that I’ve been here before.”
“You probably keep getting that feeling because it’s reminding you of the kingdom before the jungle disappeared. You did say there was a jungle there, right?”
“Yes, but that was a long time ago. Over fifty years, to be exact. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen something like this.”
“If you think that’s something, wait until you see the Crystal Empire!”
“Hmm. . . An empire made out of crystal. Sounds interesting.”
With this conversation, Hikaru felt a large weight lifted off her chest. And for the first time in two days, she smiled.