If the smiling sun hanging above Appleloosa wasn’t enough of a sign that a grand day had dawned for Equestria, than the harsh, braying whistle of the train calling out to the horizon was. Smoke billowed from the heart of the train and clung up above the ponies’ heads like a leaded overcast.
“All aboard!” a sharply dressed stallion called out, his handlebar mustache slicked with beads of sweat. The handful of ponies that still lingered on the platform said a hasty farewell to those who came to see them off before rushing to board the passenger train. Few ponies were leaving Appleloosa these days, and even fewer were coming to visit. Then again, as one particular pony would rave about, that might have to do with the inflating prices of train tickets.
Within a span of minutes, all of the ponies were aboard and the train was ready to disembark on yet another voyage. The conductor gave a hard tug on his rope, eliciting one last earsplitting whistle before releasing the brakes. The metal beast exhaled a loud hiss just as it began to awaken. There would be a few ponies passing by who would pause long enough to watch as the hulk lumbered off, but most in Appleloosa didn’t give the thing so much as a second glance. Not a single one could guess the monolithic role that three certain ponies aboard would play in Equestria’s future.
‘Onward to a new life’ is what Little Whisper would have liked to have said as she and her two cohorts boarded the train. Not only did it have a nice ring to it, but she thought that it might make Midnight feel better- all of the loud noises emitted from the metallic monster had put the skittish stallion on edge. Now that she thought about it, it seemed that every little thing about the contraption made the poor guy jump. Alas, as they entered the passenger cart, Alabaster stole all the air before she even had a chance to so much mutter a word.
“Do you believe that shit?” the pegasus seethed, leading the way through the aisles of seats. “Sixty bits for three tickets? What the actual hell!? Are Equestrian trains running off of some kind of precious gems or something? I’m starting to wonder if we should’ve just hoofed it!”
Whisper opened her mouth to agree sullenly -not taking kindly to being interrupted- but Alabaster’s rant cut her short yet again. “Seriously, I’m surprised anyone can actually get around! It’s as if they’re just trying to hovel us!” Rolling her eyes, Whisper decided to postpone any form of conversation with Alabaster for the next ten minutes or so. That was long enough for him to barf out whatever hot air he had left in him.
Glancing around, Whisper immediately felt herself struck by how empty the passenger cart was. There was not a single soul aside from them. Every single row of cushioned seats lay as bare as a carcass picked clean. This is… eerie, Whisper noted, breaking away from the company of the fuming pegasus. Striding down along the width of the car, she turned her eyes over each barren row of seats as she passed. When Whisper reached the end, she spun around. The two stallions still remained on the other end, one raving to the empty space that Whisper had once occupied and the other watching the mare curiously. Midnight met Whisper’s eyes, and he looked just as puzzled as she did.
“Is this... normal?” Midnight asked, raising his voice. Whether he did so to be heard over the length of car or over the ranting of the stallion behind, Whisper wasn’t sure. Probably both.
Whisper shook her head. “Maybe it is here, but not where we’re from. There’s usually at least a hoof full in each car… never this.” She motioned all around.
At the sound of their chatter, Alabaster snapped out of his blood boiling rage long enough to notice the void of life encompassing them. “Holy shit, is it just us in here?” As if to answer, the train began to lurch forward. All three of the ponies took a quick stumble towards the rear. Luckily, Alabaster and Midnight were close enough to catch one another before spilling to the dusty floor. Whisper though? Not quite so lucky.
“You just had to ask,” Whisper groaned. Her snout ached from it had just kissed the floor and dirt peppered her cerelain coat like freckles. I’m going to have to drown myself in a pot of boiling water before I ever feel clean again, Whisper thought begrudgingly, brushing away at the grit.
Alabaster, who’s left foreleg had found its way around Midnight’s waist, slipped the leg free and steadying himself on all fours once again. “You good?” he asked Midnight. The buck nodded and smiled gratefully.
The platform outside the car’s window had already slid away from sight and was replaced with flocks of fleeing buildings. It wasn’t too long before these were gone as well. The last of Appleloosa to vanish from view was a ramshackle shanty on the town’s outskirts that appeared utterly abandoned, save for a tendril of smoke rising from a piped chimney.
“Well then,” Whisper said, “I guess it is just us.” Pushing herself from the seat, she moved over to peer at the world fleeing from them. Soon the buildings of Appleloosa looked like nothing more than dollhouses sitting on the far off horizon. “Maybe these southern ponies just aren’t the traveling type?”
Alabaster shrugged. “Maybe so, but from the way I see it, that means more legroom for us.” Taking a few steps, the pegasus unfastened the straps to his saddlebag and let it fall clumsily onto one of the empty benches. Something -that something sounding very much like glass- made an unapproving clinking sound as it jostled around in his bag. Whisper only rolled her eyes.
Midnight Dreary, his sides still a touch saddle sore, eagerly followed Alabaster’s suit, though he treated his belongings with a bit more care. “How long is the trainride going to be again?” he asked, almost sheepishly. “I think I… I might have to-”
“I swear by the eternal flame, Midnight, if you end that sentence with ‘I have to use the bathroom’, I’m going to buck you right in the face.” Midnight fell silent under Alabaster’s scowl, which only seemed to prod at the stallion’s short temper even more. “Damn it, dude, I told you to go before we got on the train!”
“Leave him be, Al,” Whisper cut in, swiveling her head around. “He probably didn’t have to go then. You can’t blame him for that! Or do I need to remind you what happened during a certain carriage ride from Oberdan Outpost to-”
“Thank you, Wisp, point taken!” Alabaster barked, flopping his rump down on the seat beside his saddlebag. “But I did tell him to go before we boarded. You just remember that in an hour or so from now when his back teeth are floating.” Nothing more to add, he crossed his forelegs and gave a loud harrumph. Shaking her head, Whisper turned her attention back to the window.
Midnight stood still for a moment, eyes darting between the two other ponies. “I actually wasn’t going to say anything about using the bathroom, but that’s fine… I was just hoping you could tell me how long the ride is going to last. I couldn’t understand a word that ticket teller said.” Whoever that stallion had been, Midnight worried deeply for his mental health. The entire time they were trying to buy their tickets, everything he said had spewed out in a witless slurry. Midnight’s nose wrinkled as he also began to recall how rank the pony was, as if the little booth he occupied was a cask of fermenting body odor and rotting apples.
Alabaster began to chuckle, almost fondly. “Oh yeah, that guy. Heh heh! Can’t remember the last time I saw someone so plastered. I’ll be damned if he still wasn’t able to work that register like a pro, though,” he said with a hint of admiration. “Must have a lot of experience with being drunk on the job. I can admire that.”
“Yeah, you would, wouldn’t you?” Whisper snarked with smile before addressing Midnight in turn. “He said it would be close to three hours, give or take.”
“So you know what that means, right guys?” Midnight and Whisper only answered Alabaster’s question with a raised eyebrow. Alabaster yawned and pulled his saddlebag closer to him, hugging it like a lumpy teddybear. “It’s naptime.”
Whisper almost fell out on the floor. “You can’t be serious! We’ve only been awake for, like, two hours! How in the world can you already be tired?”
“I just can’t help it!” Alabaster cried, eyelids fluttering closed as he propped his chin on the makeshift pillow. “It’s the clickety clack of the train tracks, Wisps, they just luuull me to sleep!”
“Oh come on, it won’t be long till we’re out of the desert! Don’t you want to see all the colorful-” She was cut off be a loud, undignified snort, as if Alabaster was already asleep. Whisper knew better though, she could even see the tiny grin he was trying to hide.
“Al, please, where’s your sense of adven-” Another snort. Whisper puffed out her cheeks, a scream of frustration trying its best to pry open her sealed lips. Alabaster knew all the right buttons to press. Clearly he still hadn’t gotten over their little spat from the day prior. However, after a minute or two of drilling a hole in his forehead with her biting glare, a genuine snore did escape Alabaster. The rotten bastard had actually managed to fall asleep.
“Is he really asleep?” Midnight asked, looking from the snoozing pegasus to the fuming mare.
“Yes, Midnight,” Whisper huffed, “I do believe he is. A special talent of Al’s is that he can fall asleep anywhere - I do mean anywhere- and at the drop of a hat too...”
***
Though Whisper had half a mind to clobber the frustrating pegasus to a pulpy mass of feathers and fur, she managed to find the decency to let the matter slide. Besides, she thought with a grin. Midnight will be much better company than the annoying little goat. Glancing over to the earth pony seated next to her, Whisper’s smile faltered. The stallion had that same vacant expression he wore whenever he drew deep into himself. Occasionally, his gaze would wander and flicker over to a window, but mostly his eyes remained fashioned to his hooves.
Inching closer, Whisper cleared her throat loudly. “So… how are you enjoying Hearts Across Detrot so far?” Midnight didn’t jump like he normally did when roused from thought, but he did look at Whisper a bit quizzically. There was a click in his train of thought as he remembered the book she had lent him.
“Sorry, wasn’t sure what you were talking about for a moment. It’s… interesting….” As his paused, Midnight felt himself grow hesitant. “It’s kind of hard to keep up with though. There’s so much going on. Between all of the shifting perspectives and converging plotlines, I find myself a bit overwhelmed… but not in a bad way!”
“I can understand. The story is kind of waterlogged at first. You’re just thrown into the mix with all these strange ponies, not sure who they are or what their purpose is to the driving plot, but trust me, things start to make sense as you get further along. Just have to enjoy the ride for bit, you know?” Her cheery resonance comforted the string of worry knotting up inside Midnight. He had been afraid that he might obset the mare, especially after seeing how adamant she had been about the penny dreadfuls. It amused him to think how much he saw that little filly, the one who had named him, in Little Whisper.
“Well, that’s good to know.”
Whisper edged half an inch closer, corners of her mouth drawn back in a grin. “So how far are ya?”
“Let me think…” Midnight’s brow furrowed. “I got a couple of pages into chapter six last night.”
“Wow, you’re cutting through it pretty quickly! You just have to let me know when you get to chapter ten! That’s when things get a bit interesting, if you know what I mean.” She gave a sly wink.
“Um… okay?” Midnight didn’t quite know what that wink was about, so he elected to pay it no attention.
Whisper droned on. “You’ve gotten through chapter six, huh?” She paused and thought for moment. “If I remember correctly, Detective Steely just pulled the big drug bust, am I right?” Midnight nodded.
“Alright, so you’re far enough that you’ve met most of the characters. Tell me, who’s your favorite character so far?”
It pleased Whisper to see Midnight give the question earnest consideration, and it pleased her that much more to hear him say, “I guess my favorite would have to be Skyla, Steely’s assistant. Steely just has so much gloom and doom about him, and Skyla is such a breath of fresh air in comparison.”
“I know, right?” Whisper nearly swooning. The sudden rise in her voice gave Midnight quite the start, but he managed to play it off with a smile.
“I always thought that Skyla added a splash of color to the story, especially with the grisly backdrop of Detrot!”
Unbeknownst to Midnight, a pandora’s box of gushing and squeeing had been opened. Whisper dove into her thoughts of the wide eyed, well intentioned Skyla with much fervor, her words spilling out like bad sacklunch that hadn’t agreed with her. Midnight smiled and nodded, even though he could only keep up with about half the things she was saying.
A few rows back Alabaster stirred, spurned awake by the noise. His head peeked over the next seat and he opened his mouth to shout at the two, but Alabaster’s ears twitched as he began to make sense of the conversation. The pit of his stomach tripped over itself as it fell. If they were just going to be talking about one of those penny dreadfuls for the entire trip, Alabaster figured he’d be better off just playing dead… or asleep in this case. His head sunk back down.
Whisper carried on the bulk of their conversation for quite some time. Outside, dusty flatlands dotted with the occasional daring cacti gave way to patches of brown, dying grass that clung to the earth desperately. The mare’s voice became a low drone as Midnight’s gaze slipped from Whisper and strayed to the window at her back. His heart did a small skip and jump as it threw itself against his ribcage. Before Midnight’s eyes life started to breath its way into the countryside.
For all his short existence, Midnight had only known the bare bones of the Equestrian desert. Rocks, sand, dead grass. These were things that had become the norm. Aside from the occasional garden and the trees that grew Appleloosa’s famed cash crop, it appeared to him that the dominant colors of this world were grey and brown.
However, his eyes bulged at the surge of green that swept through the land like a drowning tide. Midnight couldn’t quite recall when the change had happened. It was as if a sudden storm had swept by and left the train in the midst of an ocean… a swirling viridian ocean…
It took some time for Whisper to realize that every word she had been throwing at the stallion had been missing their mark. “I think that’s why I’ve read it so many times, it’s just so engag-” The sentence tapered off as she noticed the dumbfounded look on Midnight’s face. “What is it? What are you looking at?” Midnight only nodded towards the window.
Turning, Whisper stared for a moment at the endless expanse of shimmering greenery, too stunned for words. Then she split into a grin as she scrambled over to the window, pressing her face to it like a foal.
“Holy cow!” she exclaimed, her breath fogging the window. “Hey, Al, wake up! You have to see this!” The only response she received from the unseen pony was a snort.
“I’m not kidding! Don’t make me come over and pluck your feathers out!”
It took a few moments, and Whisper thought for a second that she would have to make good on her word, but eventually Alabaster’s head peeked up over one of the seats. He looked at her with eyes that were baleful as well as bleary.
“Come on, Wisp, can’t a guy just get a good nap in for good lu-” Whatever else he had meant to say lodged itself into his throat. “Holy hell… that’s green… like, really green...” He was transfixed, same as Midnight, his gaze never once straying from the world lying outside the windowpane. The sprawled waves of lush grass twinkled at him as a brisk summer breeze rushed through the field.
“I know!” Whisper beamed. “That’s what I was trying to tell you!”
“The Dragon Lands don’t have anything like this?” Midnight asked absentmindedly, hardly aware that his mouth was moving. “The grass, I mean.”
Alabaster huffed. “Of course there’s grass! … It’s just... not like this. The grass back there was gray, almost the color of ash. And it certainly wasn’t as lush looking as this stuff.”
Silence fell like a blanket, snuffing out anything else that could be said. For a time -for a long time- the trio simply watched the passing of the land, all in rapt attention. So intense was the quiet that a single sneeze from Midnight sounded like the pop of a pistol. Aside from a few startled glances, their eyes hardly left the field.
Eventually, the luscious fields gave way to sprawling forests. This drew Whisper and Alabaster even further to the edge of their seats. Back in the Dragons Lands, the pitiful excuses of trees there were nothing more than toothpicks, bare splinters of bone that dared to defy the harsh winds that sliced across the land like a steely kiss. Bare branches and sallow trunks had long been the standard, unless an unfortunate soul found themselves in the swamps. However, green in that forsaken spit of land was twisted and sickly. But not these Equestrian beauties.
These were great sentinels, vibrant with life. Though they varied in size, they all had magnificent caps of viridian and mighty trunks near about the size of a pony. Whisper sighed in awe, her eyes shimmering with delight, and Midnight gulped, feeling like nothing more than an ant when staring at the jolly green giants congregating in the distance. Only Alabaster seemed composed, but just barely. He had to clench his jaw shut, lest it drop to the seat. Sure, he knew that the color of grey that seemed to reign supreme over his homeland could extend its reach only so far, but he couldn’t have imagined anything like this ever existing beyond the great, cold harbors of Dragon’s Head.
The greatest spectacle had yet to reveal itself, however. Before long, the silhouettes of rooftops began to peek out over the horizon. The trio’s destination was drawing near and their stomachs did somersaults as they fantasized about any settlement that made its home in the midst of this sea of green. Whisper opened her mouth, probably to say that she could see the town, but she felt her lungs seized with a jolt. However, Alabaster managed catch his own wind quite well.
“What the hell!” the pegasus gasped.
Neither of Whisper or Alabaster had ever been admitted passage into the Free Pony Cities before, as both were degreed ‘undesirables’ by the laws laid down at the kingdom's conception eons ago. Because of this, castles were nothing more than fairy tales that gypsies sung about as they sat and drank around a campfire. However, what the trio laid their eyes on was no fairy tail. The castle before them was as solid as the glass they pressed their noses to. It looked as if it could’ve stretched to the heavens. The stones of its making were great lavender slabs, but that wasn’t quite peculiar enough. The castle sat upon what appeared to be a monolithic tree. The tree itself, its branches weaving into the castle’s stonework, was just as wondrous and vibrant as the castle itself. Its bark shimmering from top to bottom like a magnificent coat of diamonds.
All Whisper could manage at first was a little pant before eventually her tongue found proper footing. “It’s amazing… though, I don’t think that quite sums it up, does it? I don’t think any one word could!”
“I don’t know,” Alabaster said, his mild tone drawing both ponies attention. “Seems like whoever designed the place is blowing smoke up their own ass if you ask me.”
“Al!” Whisper gaped as if she had just witnessed him perform some great act of sacrilege. It was probably a good thing that five or so rows of seats separated them, because that deadly glint in her eyes suggested that Alabaster might have lost a few feathers if he was only within her reach.
“What? I’m just being truthful, Wisp! Who builds such a queer and gaudy thing like that in the middle of a rural town? It’s an eyesore I tell you, not to mention impractical! Bet you a pound of bits that whoever lives there is some stuck up noble that just enjoys looking down on all the little people. That very well explains why the place is so big!”
Shaking her head, Whisper muttered something that sounded like “typical bullheaded stallion”. Peeking over her shoulder, Whisper was glad to see her own welling wonder echoed in Midnight’s azure eyes. It was nice to know that there was at least one pony onboard the train that she could relate to.
“That’s it then, isn’t it?” Midnight asked, his tongue suddenly feeling clumsy.. “T-that’s where the sheriff said we could make a new start… Ponyville…” Distant rooftops began to pierce the horizon. They were miniscule when compared to the castles jutting towers, but they there and steadily drawing closer.
“Sure looks like it, buddy.” It was Alabaster who answered, his previous tone of disapproval gone. He actually wore a smile now, and he spoke with a sweetening sense of hope that he just couldn’t help but feel.
“Sure looks like it...”
****
The clouds stretched along the blazing afternoon sky like fat blotches from a brushstroke. Far down below them Canterlot sat, nestled safely under the shadow of a mountain standing vigilant nearby. The city’s stark white buildings were splashed with streaks of opulent gold and dreamy blue. Canterlot had always managed to dazzle any who gazed upon her regale and elegant beauty. It was a testament to the wonders and magnificence that the two sisters have strived to bring to their subjects.
Far above Canterlot’s spires hung not only the clouds, however, but the startling lavender face of a hot air balloon. Princess Twilight Sparkle, her front legs propping herself up along the basket’s side, surveyed the city she once called home and sighed contently. Though Ponyville was now where her heart would forever lie, the hex Canterlot had spun upon Twilight when she was but a filly had never truly faded. Not completely. She would always be charmed by its beauty, no matter how old she became or how often she came by for a visit.
“It’s finally happening,” she said to herself, her voice touched by no small amount of excitement, though, only a part of it was reserved for Canterlot. “The first landsmeet in nearly twenty years! I was only a tiny foal during the previous one, not even two years old yet. But now… I’m actually going to see it all happen in person!”
This could arguably be the most exciting day in young Twilight Sparkle’s life.