He was holding a small, plastic rectangle between his hooves as he walked. “Name: Name. Age: Age. Eye color: eyes. Fur color: color. Mane color: Main. Height: height. Weight: weight. Date issued: yes.” So readeth the library card.
“Okay, then.”
He dropped the card into his saddle bags. He stuffed both his hooves into his left saddlebag, though they were kind of like pockets while he was standing up like this. He pinched his hooves together, pinning the book before pulling it out. He began reading “The Elements Rise.” while pulling his wagon on two legs.
“Reading” was an acrobatic feat consisting of balancing the book on his right leg while pressing his left hoof into the page to hold it down. To turn the page, he cradled the book and stuck his tongue to a page corner, licking the page turned.
He was hoping to learn about the world's political situation. He was expecting a slow and detailed explanation of recent events. He got an unusually wordy picture book.
The images contained abstracted version of “ponies”. Things were simplified and symbolized.
The first page contained an image of different colored horses in a circle, pointing to the center, where a sun and a crescent moon sat next to each other. “The beginning of our tale was long ago, long before what we know. In the distant past, somehow, some way, we were given the charge to turn night into day. The council of horned ones brought light to the sky and sat in their castle on their mountain, high.”
The next page contained an image of lighting striking a line of shields and swords on the ground. This page described the great, hulking beasts and military threats that the “winged ones” held back.
The next page contained an image of the silhouettes of mud ponies standing on rows of tilled soil. Various produce was depicted above and below. It described the taming of the native land and creatures by “grounded ones.”
The book was thin, for a history book. Before long, he would be able to finish and then he would know something about the world, he hoped. He read on.
He learned that the country of Equestria began with a suicidal migration of every tribe away from the other tribes, which they were dependant on. This migration led each tribe to the same stretch of resource-rich land. As it turned out, the leader ponies of each tribe (he had already forgotten their names) all had the same idea: stop social-political tensions by leaving everyone else to die and taking high value land for themselves. Succeeding in a plan like this would probably have resulted in either a loss of the day-night cycle and most of pony knowledge or a rapid unicorn expansion on a relatively undefended and valuable piece of land and then horrible famine. Whatever the tribes were leaving behind, it must have somehow been worse. Alternatively, the ponies in charge were literally insane. Alternatively alternatively, Chancellor Puddinghead, a hornless, wingless(according to the picture) leader pony with a silly name, was insane, and the other leaders just had to “jump ship” because she did. There were many accounts of erratic behavior on her part. Some ponies believed this is evidence of insanity. Some ponies believed she could see the future.
Shortly after the three tribes had settled themselves and reinstated their cycle of dependence, a hate-eating group of wolf spirits set in and spread a winter which the “pegasi” could not remove. Apparently, that was something pegasi should have been able to do. According to the picture, pegasi had wings, but they had no horn for some reason.
There are two sets of conditions which, when met, can calm a starving people. Feed them, or whip up a nationalistic fervor. To work together and survive the winter, they would need a massive population culling and a common enemy. The frost spirits, called windigoes, provided both.
He was looking at a picture of a flaming heart when the day switched over to night. He couldn’t read in the lessened light, so he closed his book and dropped it in his bag. He dropped onto four legs and stopped. He ate the last of his food.
Ever so slowly, the free space between the tree trunks was widening as he walked. Soon, he would escape the forest, the Everfree. It was what it was, and what it was was bad, but it was also food. It was familiar. It was, kind of, home.
It was mostly food right now.
He wasn’t that hungry. He pulled his cart behind some bushes. He hid a little deeper in.
He tried, for hours, to sleep. When he eventually, impatiently, opened his eyes, he found a drifting dark in the air that pooled under him as it faded. He momentarily became strangely aware of the feeling of the night breeze on his fur and the ground under his hooves. As he stared at all the dead plants, he gave up on sleep.
He latched up his cart and trotted into the night, down the road.
A red-eyed rat came, screaming, out of the night and sunk it’s teeth into his neck. It scurried back under bush-cover.
No amount of stomping or cursing helped the wound. He was distracted, at least.