//------------------------------//
// Day 36 
// Story: The Winding Northward Road 
// by Rambling Writer 
//------------------------------//

Why’s the Crystal Empire so important that it can be in the middle of a field of snow but not have any snow fall within its borders?

I’m sorry, this is a stupid thing to get upset about, but it’s really bugging me.  No other place in Equestria is exempt from the local weather, not even Canterlot.  It plays all sorts of merry hell on your sense of temperature; it’s nice and warm within the Empire, but you take two steps over the city line and suddenly you’re freezing your tail off.  Then when you adjust to that and go back into the Empire, it’s way too hot for a little while and you’re sweating bullets until then.  There’s a good chunk of farmland within its borders, but that doesn't justify the suburbs also staying warm.  It’s not like Dodge City or Hollow Shades, where they depend on a crop that grows well in a specific climate and they need to work to maintain that climate.  (To be honest, I don’t even know what the Empire’s economy depends on.)  It’s not even as if Princess Cadance’s living here warrants it; nopony changes the weather when Celestia or Luna goes to someplace.  If Celestia’s visit to Sacramaneto happens to coincide with a scheduled thunderstorm, by golly, she’s going to visit it during a thunderstorm.  (And probably fire her PR guys, because what kind of moron wouldn’t check the weather schedule first?)  And besides, Canterlot still gets snow in the winter.  So why’s here so important?

Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve seen many pegasi working with the weather at all up here.  Probably missing them, I tend not to look up, but it’s still kind of noticeable.  Must start staring into the sky tomorrow and maybe find out some things about the weather.

So yeah.  Reached the Crystal Empire at long last.  Stepped into it, got hot, was immediately bugged by the lack of snow inside it.  But once I got over that, wow.  This place is beautiful; it’s just so shiny.  Even the pictures of Canterlot that I’ve seen haven’t looked this glistening (but those’re pictures, so…).  And not just the buildings, the Crystal Ponies are like that, too.  I said yesterday that the term wasn’t metaphorical, but it really isn’t.  The light DOES catch their coats in a way to make it look crystalline.  They don’t look hard, either, it’s actually a kind of soft crystalness.  Don’t ask me how that’s possible, I can’t explain it.

Staying with Skydale for at least tonight, maybe more.  Well, technically Skydale and I are staying with one of Skydale’s friends, but close enough.  And the friend’s the one who volunteered it.  When we reached the Empire, Skydale said I needed to meet her friends (who aren’t Crystal Ponies, but not every pony who lives in the Empire is a Crystal one).  I said okay, and we did, and during the course of conversation, where I was going to sleep somehow came up.  One unicorn said that, even with Skydale, she had an extra bed, and I was free to stay there.  I took her up on it; save some money from not staying in hotels.

So I made it.  Didn’t think I had it in me.  I’m thinking I’ll stay in the Crystal Empire tomorrow, and start heading back the next day.



	At my journey’s end.
It’s been a long, hard winding road,
But I loved it all.



Well, I need to get back to Lareindo, so I guess this technically ISN’T my journey’s end.  Hmm.

When I go back home,
Who will I be?  I’ll have changed.
Hopefully for the b
In good ways, I hope.