Chapter 1: Dust

My name is Dust. Nothing more than that, just Dust. Some have called me Dust the wanderer, others Dust the lost.
Though the latter's not true, the first is quite accurate. I'm never lost. OK I'll admit, when lacking anything resembling a proper map, I have gotten lost on a few rare occasions. Moving on, I'm a drifter, a wanderer. I don't have a home, nor a family but that's fine by me. I live like this by choice. I enjoy traveling, its the only thing that feels right. Some times I spend some time in one place, just to rest or earn some bits, but I always move on. It just makes my hide itch staying still for to long.

I have a problem with settling. I'm always thinking, "There's something better, more interesting, more exciting, just...... more, over that next hill, or around that next bend, or in the next town." I have.......erm....... a problem sitting still. I've always been this way. Weather it was running around the school yard in my younger years, or having adventures in my bunk at the orphanage, I was never able to sit and stay. Time just moves to fast for you to waist it in one place. Why not go out and explore the world?

Well for me that reason was that I was too young. Luckily that reason had an expiration date. As soon as I turned sixteen I packed up my meager belongings, and headed out of Trottingham. The rest is simply history. Well it will be, once I finish this book, hehe. Like I said, I've never been one to sit still, so writing was never a really big thing for me. Reading, on the other hand, was my main outlet in my days stuck in Trottingham. Though I still had a problem sitting still, I became pretty good at reading while walking...... after the first few bloody noses that is. So I just wanted to give some young filly or colt a story to keep them from climbing the walls like I did.

Wait, I think I got a bit off track. Let me start over. Ahem. My name is Dust, I'm a drifter, and these are my travels.

....

I guess I should start from the beginning, right? Well like I said I was born in Trottingham, or at least that's were I was left. I don't know who my parents are, where I'm actually from, or anything really beyond the fact I was left on the Orphanage's front step one summer morning. I was a healthy three month old colt with a blanket and nothing else. The Orphanage took me in, of course, and I grew up happy, well about as happy as one can with no mom or dad. I didn't mind much though. I watched others come and go over the years. But the adults just never liked me I guess. *Sigh*.

I didn't have any friends, not for lack of trying mind you. I just had kind of a reputation for being a little bit... odd. That usually drove ponies away. But, once again, I didn't mind much.

When I was old enough I struck out on my own. With nothing more than an old jacket, a survival knife, a back pack of necessary supplies, forty bits, and a sleeping bag. After a teary goodbye I took to the road like I'd been born for it. Which according to my cutie mark, that I got on my first day out, I was. My cutie mark being a leaf blowing in the wind. Yep, I was pretty surprised that after so many years of being the only pony in school without a cutie mark, that it decided to pop up right when I couldn't brag about it..... Figures.

My first night was a little rough. Not because I was frightened or lonely. I was just so exited that I couldn't sleep. My whole life I had been dreaming of getting out of that old boring Orphanage and that old town and seeing the world. And there I was, finally living my dream. I laid there on my sleeping bag, out in a field next to the road, staring up at the stars, and thought about the days ahead of me. I imagined seeing the natural wonders that I spent so much time reading about, cities so big that it would take me days to see everything, and meeting interesting ponies the world over. For the first time in my life I truly felt happy. I don't know when I slipped into unconsciousness....... but I remember the exact second that I woke up. The hoof that hit me in the face and the scolding voice that followed makes it pretty hard not to.

Now I'm no stranger to getting hit in the face, being a hyperactive knuckle head has its ways of getting you into fights, but what I'm not used to is getting woken up with a hoof to the face. Suffice it to say I was quite surprised.

"Get off a my property right now ya trespassing varmint!"

The next few minutes were filled with me apologizing repeatedly and claiming that I had no idea that any pony owned the land. Which, of course, sparked a new round of shouts from the disgruntled farm pony. In the end he accepted my apology and I promised to never trespass on his property again. So he let me go.

Now one would think that after a morning like that the rest of the day couldn't go anywhere but up, right? *Sigh*. I was plagued by misfortunes from the moment my hooves touched the road. From stepping on broken glass to almost getting crushed by a run away cart, it seemed that my bad luck just wouldn't give out. And that's all before I met Her.

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