When Mr Wong decided to make a bit of extra cash pushing out knock-off MLP toys he didn't realise just what an effect he was going to have on the Equestrian Universe. Who'd have thought a Chinese-English Dictionary could be such a dangerous tool?

Join Rainbow Dash, the multicoloured plumber and her friend Scarcity as they try to work out what has gone wrong with Ponytown. Contains disorientating scenes of mild memory loss, warped space-time and horrific fashion blunders.

Synopsis
A traveller to a beleaguered merchant city becomes involved in a strange plot when his curiosity takes the better of him. What mysteries lie behind the lit window of the Tower of the West?

Story Notes
The story is based in an era several hundred years before the MLP:FiM episodes, at a time when Luna was still locked on the moon and Celestia had a very hands-off approach to governing the country. Equestria is finding its hooves, slowly modernising itself, and pushing at the edges of its boundaries. The tension between it and its neighbouring countries has started to come to a head, particularly on the borders with the Gryffon Kingdom. All out war is inevitable.

Author's Notes
This is a short story; part of a potential series based around a character who travels from place to place as a soldier of fortune. This particular story is a test piece designed to see if the concept works as part of the ponyverse, and as such the underlying tale borrows from stories about events around Europe in the 1900s. The series, whilst set in an arena of war and strife does not focus specifically on the violence (although there is some), but rather on the way that our main character manages to appear somewhere as a mere observer, yet polarises events to such an extent that outcomes and destinies have been changed by the time he leaves.