The Missing Princess

by Bronyxy

1 The Start of the Trail

Twilight had taken an afternoon off from her Princess duties in Canterlot to peruse around antique shops and chanced across an old scroll held together with an aging wax seal on a faded red ribbon. She had no idea what it was, but it looked interesting, so she paid the ten bits asking price without haggling and took it away to unwrap it at her leisure, when she got back to Ponyville later that evening.

She really had meant to save it until she got home, but the more the afternoon wore on, the more its siren’s call beckoned her, tempting her to open it. Finally, heaving a huff of disappointment at her own lack of willpower, she resigned herself to waiting no longer and took the scroll into a reception room where she broke the seal with her magic and unfurled the curled parchment on a long wooden table.

What she found was an old map; not one like she had ever seen before, but one that reflected the lands of three separate tribes, freshly redrawn to reflect the newly unified Equestria. She had dared to think that such a map may have existed, but following extensive research in all the known libraries across the land had concluded sadly that such a feat must have been beyond the capability of ponies at that time. For once, she had been proved wrong, and was delighted with her mistake.

She surveyed the map noting that every city and town of any merit was represented by the picture of a grand looking castle, and that villages were clustered within easy reach of one of these castles, which she reasoned had to have been a legacy of the warlike past of the separate tribes. Many towns and villages that she knew well today did not even feature, and even Ponyville was represented by nothing more than a scary picture of a manticore, seeing as how it was right on the periphery of the Everfree Forest.

As she became more engrossed, she crossed off all the places she knew until she was left with an anomaly; Coltchester. She had never even heard of Coltchester, but immediately decided that she had to go and see it, armed with knowledge that had been lost for generations, namely that it had once clearly been an important urban centre.

Twilight’s face had transformed from one of intense curiosity to unparalleled happiness; she had a mystery to unravel and was going to enjoy every minute of it – starting with a field trip to Coltchester.

Because the distance to the old town was beyond her ability to fly comfortably, she chanced an optimistic glance at the clock and gasped; the next train would be leaving in less than quarter of an hour; barely enough time to gather her belongings and gallop to the station! There was certainly not enough time to leave Celestia a note, so she threw everything she had brought with her into her saddle bags and galloped out of the castle, past two surprised looking guards who belatedly saluted her disappearing flank as she rushed down the road towards the station.

“Trottingham …” she gasped to the ticket clerk, “Please …”
“That’ll be twenty bits, please” replied the disinterested clerk, barely acknowledging her presence.
“I have a Royal warrant” she panted.
The clerk lifted his head slowly and fumbled around to find his glasses which he laboriously unfolded and raised to his eyes to peer questioningly at the latest inconvenience to blight his life. From the platform, a whistle sounded as the Friendship Express signalled its imminent departure. The clerk stared at Twilight as if performing some complex mathematical function, clearly unprepared to buy in to her sense of mounting urgency.

She contorted her face into a smile as false as it was desperate, an involuntary twitch in the corner of her eye adding to her expression of mounting insanity, as the clerk tried half-heartedly to get his eyes to focus.
“Oh for Celestia’s sake!” she shouted in exasperation, quickly taking off her saddle bags and rummaging hurriedly through the jumbled possessions to find her purse.
“Well, I can’t verify who you are if I can’t see your face” sighed the clerk irritably, “But language like that is hardly what I would expect from a Princess …” he droned self-righteously.

Twilight screamed in frustration as the train’s whistle sounded again and she finally uncovered her purse that had got wrapped up in her pyjamas. Quickly she opened the purse and drew out a 50 bit note, slamming it on the counter.
“I’ll buy it!” she cried, “Just please be quick!”
“Oh, I thought you wanted to use a Royal warrant” he grumbled, “Make up your mind or we’ll be here all day …”
“Money here - ticket now!” she stated with artificially clear enunciation, “Please!”
“Alright, alright” he moaned taking the money and sliding the ticket over the counter towards her. She snapped it up quickly and bolted for the train, the clerk looking up preparing to find thirty bits to give her as change, but noticing belatedly that she had already gone.
“So impatient …” he moaned, “A real Princess would never be so irritable …”

The conductor seeing a lilac pony barrelling towards him with desperate wide eyes and saddle bags bouncing precariously on her back, stopped as he prepared to blow his whistle and opened the door for her, earning a hurried ”thank you” as she poured herself breathlessly into the carriage just before it jolted forward to begin its journey.

Twilight moved along down the train and slid open the door into an unoccupied compartment, where she found herself a seat and removed her saddle bags. She intended to have a closer look at the map during the journey, but for now she felt she needed to relax and catch a few minutes shut-eye, the last quarter of an hour had been really stressful, after all.

“Trottingham!” shouted the conductor as the train responded with a series of staccato tugs at the beginning of its approach into the station. She woke with a start, having been asleep for hours and felt cheated to have been deprived of some quality research time. Anyway, it couldn’t be helped now, and so she set about organising the chaotic jumble in her saddle bags ready for the flight ahead.

As the train finally came to a halt, her heart raced and she stepped out with a handful of fellow travellers, none of whom had arrived there for the same reason as her, and she felt a thrill run through her at the prospect. She had chosen this station as the nearest stop to the deserted town and studied a map of the city to see if any roads headed towards her destination. She wasn’t at all surprised to find there were no roads going anywhere near; it was like it had been completely forgotten by the passage of time.

She checked the map and took a rough bearing based on the position of the sun and took to the air, rising above the emptying platform. Trottingham sprawled beneath her in all its splendour, but this view, although picturesque, was not her focus but merely a stepping stone in her ongoing journey.

Once she had reached the first clouds, she took one last check of her bearing and set off in the direction shown on the ancient map, towards a town that nopony could remember. Twilight felt a shiver of excitement run through her and she made no attempt to hide the thrill she felt; she was no longer Princess Twilight with stuffy and dull responsibilities, but Twilight Sparkle on an adventure, and she felt liberated.

Mile after mile of featureless barren landscape passed beneath her with no sign of even the most solitary of nomadic creatures below to counterpoint the monotony. Twilight kept going, not because she was particularly used to her wings yet, but because of the prospect of being the first to uncover something that had been ignored and sidelined for so long, her mind racing with all the permutations of lost city adventures she could be heading into.

Eventually the complaints from her aching wings finally began to push past her newly rediscovered enthusiasm and with her energy depleted, she searched for a suitable cloud and flopped down on to it, more tired than she cared to acknowledge. It was late afternoon and a sensible pony in her position should now have thought about turning round and heading back for Trottingham, a hotel and a long soak in a bath, but somehow these ideas were hammered into submission by her fervour to continue – even if it meant spending the night away from civilisation.

She scanned to the horizon in all directions and then caught sight of an anomaly; she hadn’t seen it earlier, but something about the sinking sun’s light caught it from a different angle, and she seized on the remote hope that this may be what she had come out to find. Suddenly, her wings felt rejuvenated and she was ready for what she hoped would be the final leg of her journey, slipping off her cloud and heading for the horizon.

As she got nearer, the shape of the corner of a once impressive stone structure rose up to greet her. It was a castle, or rather the remains of towers that once formed three of the four corners of a castle. Ruined wasn’t a word that best described it; utterly destroyed being a much more accurate description, but to Twilight it was beautiful – the map had been right!

Comments

[Bronyxy]

9711234
Thank you - stay with it, there's going to be some startling revelations as the story develops!

[Braininthejar]

It's little things like the ticket booth scene that make a story world alive

[Bronyxy]

9718702
Thank you - we've all met clerks like him!