Foundations of our nation

Everfree evacuation

"But daaaaad!" squealed the small filly.

"No buts Twinkle, everypony is going to the new castle today... unless you want to stay in this creepy forest?"

The small purple unicorn seemed to think about this for a moment, casting a glance at the magically cursed forest that was growing through town so fast she could see it moving outside her window.

"sigh, OK daddy..."

Twinkle didn't want to give up her room for anything, even a fancy nobles house in the new capital. This was her room and she had worked hard to make it perfect.

"If you really want, we can make your new room look just like this. You can even bring your dolls but we have to go now."

"Can I even bring smarty pants?" The little fillies eyes twinkled brightly, glimmering with excitement.

"hmm... I don't know..." said the stallion, smirking slightly. "Only good fillies who are organized get to bring assistants with them."

The fillies eyes widened.

"But I am organized and on time!" she pouted. "besides, I don't care about those other toys, just miss smarty."

The lavender stallion groaned. He could not remember when the tradition of passing that doll down through the family had started, each generation fixing her up and passing her down every thirty years or so. Not even his great grandmother could remember who owned the doll first.

"But Twinkie, those toys were expensive!" the stallion cried, pointing his hoof at the large pile of fancy dolls and fluffy toys.

"I don't care!" Twinkle exclaimed. "According to my list, smarty is the only thing of value left in the room, the books are already packed right?" The filly said in her usual intelligent manner.

"You're so cute when your scolding" the stallion said in an amused voice.

Twinkle grimaced and started to retort but she was interrupted by a mares voice from outside.

"Twinkie! Sparkie! Are you two ready to go?" she called from outside.

"Coming Lula, come on twinkle lets go meet mom on the cart" said sparkle.

Glancing around the room one more time, Twinkle picked up miss smarty pants and followed her father from the room.

Celestia watched the last family move out of the castle, squinting against the daylight to identify the ponies on the cart.

She recognized the pony trio as the sparkle family, watching the light reflect of Lulamoons white hair and the sparks of purple magic emanating from twinkle's horn as she tried to lift passing rocks with her magic.

"Such talent for a very small filly." she commented to nopony in particular.

Signing, Celestia glanced at the sun to gauge the time. Being princess of the sun meant that she could tell the time down to a second, but looking at the sun always calmed her, old habits and all that.

Letting out another sigh, Celestia stretched her wings; her mighty wingspan easily going past the tower roof she was standing on. With a strong push of her legs, Celestia heaved her large body into the sky. Magic or no, she was still a large pony. Her majestic form required a lot of strength to lift off and touch down without stumbling.

Pumping her powerful wings she climbed above the trees of the cursed forest, gliding above the treacherous, battle scarred terrain.

Deciding on a moderate pace, the princess flew towards her newly built castle. The shining white towers were easy to spot from this distance and Celestia orientated herself on the still under construction rail-road while she flew.

The new site for the castle was perched upon the edge of the largest mountain in all Equestria, this mountain had been chosen for a few reasons. One such reason was its position in the center of her nation, this would provide easy access to most smaller settlements by rail and its height allowed flying transports to glide gently down for miles.

A more important reason was one that Celestia did not make as well known, but not kept as a guarded secret. This mountain was magical.

Very few ponies were skilled enough in the use of magic identifying spells or "magic vision" to see it, but Celestia was a goddess. She gazed up at the towering green pillar of magic essence, it stretched from just a little past the edges of the mountain base and went up further than she could see or sense. Such a large quantity of magic would easily outmatch Celestia's power or even the elements combined with both alicorn sisters.

This alone would scare Celestia away from the mountain if it were not for one fact.

The magic upon and around the mountain was just an essence inside a lump of rock, not a living creature. Living creatures contained both an essence and living magic, this must have been some powerful spell cast on the mountain to keep it around. Celestia was unsure why someone would want to keep a mountain the same for such long periods of time, but she had personally seen discords power become useless when he tried to do anything to the mountain. No doubt he had been trying to make it flip upside down like he had before to other mountains, but his power was ineffective against the strength of the mountain.

Celestia also new that this spell was not created with harm for ponies in mind, the magic of the mountain alone giving benefits to the ponies who lived upon it. The ponies just chalked it up to Celestia's blessing and ignored it.

Reaching the base of the mountain, Celestia gave an extra strong push with her wings to begin her ascent. One white feather became dislodged from her wing and fluttered slowly down.

Down, past the cliffs of the mountain. Down, past the tops of the mighty pine trees. Down, past flora and fauna alike until it settled on a small river flowing from above the city.

The current was swift, quickly carrying the feather towards a large waterfall.

It passed over the edge of the falls and fell through a rainbow vista of water droplets and was picked up by the wind around the waterfall's base.

The wind carried the feather on its back, performing many acrobatic stunts as it went. Eventually, the feather came to rest inside a large cave where it would remain undisturbed for over one thousand years. Still sitting, caught in a cracked section of rock, until a blue and white unicorn would enter the cave, dislodging the feather with a large brush she held in her magic.

"Huh, so this is where miss Ursa lives." said Colgate as the gloom swallowed her.