The land is barren and foreboding. There was snow. There was nothing but snow, snow, snow. Sure, there were occasional trees, hills and other normal things one would see in the far north west, but by Celestia the snow. Thankfully, at the moment though, it wasn’t snowing. Such a thing would have delayed the train and they would be late.
High above was a rather thick layer of cirrostratus. The sun still shone through, but was covered enough to keep shadows from forming behind anypony. The temperature outside the train is frigid, even without the wind or said train racing through. But these weather conditions were all normal for this Equestrian territory.
The region had a reputation for being inhospitable. Evidently it was an understandably well earned reputation.
'Still,' thought Princess Twilight Sparkle, 'at least we don't have to walk through it to where we're going.'
As the train rattled on to their destination, she scribbled on in her notes she’s to give to the princess. Or, now rather, her fellow princess. The pens rattled in the pen cup, the ink jar rattled on the desk next to the cup, and the paper in the bin on the edge of the desk shuffled and shook ever so gently, doing so every time the car bumped up and down along the tracks. She was compiling notes and information to tell her friends in the next car. One of the things she learned real fast about being a princess is that you can get all kinds of great perks like, for example, having your own private train. And that is what they were using to proceed to their current assignment. It was ornately decorated and customized for her needs: her quarters in a private car (the current on she is in), a dining/lounging car, a library, and a car for each of her friends. Also, it used a magic power-based engine, so nopony would have to go through such brutal cold pulling it.
At this moment, she remembered that she needed to inform her friends of what to expect when they arrive and what they need to do. At the moment, only she is privy to that information. So, she magiced her supplies and notes to her bag, put it on and made her way to the next train car to inform them of the important details.
She'd ask Spike to carry the item she needed for this, but he wasn't here for this assignment. Spike's a dragon, and dragons, cold-blooded reptiles they are, would most assuredly freeze to death in the frozen wastes of Equestria's north western steppe. There are tundra dragons in the steppe called wyvern's, but Spike wasn't one of them. So, that means he had to stay back home, and she had to make do without him. Besides, somepony needs to take care of our pets. And-
Twilight shook her head and cleared her thoughts. "Can't dwell on that right now," she thought out loud to herself, "this is too important. As usual, Celestia is depending on us and we should endeavor toward prevailing on our mission. Hm, my wording is becoming more sophisticated." She immediately commented. "That sounded cool."
Just as expected when she entered the next train car, the dining/lounging car they were still eating lunch, talking and conversing all the while, just as usual. She glanced at the clock and then at the table. They've got a few more hours til they arrive and her friends have finished eating. Time to tell the-
"HI TWILIGHT!" burst Pinkie Pie from right behind, startling Twilight and made her fall on her face. "Are we there yet?" All her friends turned to her, expecting an answer. She has had to keep them all in the dark about all of this. Celestia insisted that she do that until they have almost arrived before them all the info, which she was about to do.
Twilight got up off the ground, head slightly spinning still, and looked to her a little miffed. "*sigh* For the last time Pinkie, no, not yet." she replied calmly.
She looked at her disbelievingly. All her friends did. "WHAT!?" Pinkie shrieked. 'You seem a bit cooped up.' thought twilight
"Aw come on Twilight" complained in Rainbow Dash, now in her face and off of the couch on the other side of the car, "we've been traveling for two days already! And we STILL haven't arrived yet?"
"And you still haven't even told us where we were going." said Rarity from the nearer couch.
"Or why." Chimed Applejack from the opposite window. "Just what's with all the secrecy?"
'They all seem a bit cooped up.' she thought, "We'll be there in a few hours girls, it isn't much further now." They noticeably looked relieved at that.
'Well, might as well give them the news.'
"And I'm sorry I've had to keep you all in the dark on this, but Princess Celestia felt it wasn't safe to talk about it before we left." They looked at each other when she said 'not safe', knowing that means there would be danger on this mission. And they're right. "Also, I needed to do some research and compile notes for us."
"Of course you did." replied Rainbow Dash. Twilight ignored the comment.
"Ok, so" she began, as she magiced around her notes, "how many of you are familiar enough with Equestrian history to know of the so-called 'Burning Times'?" 'I hope they have an idea about it,' thought Twilight, 'not really that important in the history text books these days anyway.'
"Wait, wasn't that around 350 years ago with the uprisings and revolts?" asked Fluttershy.
"Uh, correct." Twilight replied, kind of surprised. "It was 346 years ago, to be a bit more exact. The burden of leading Equestria bit more difficult for Celestia to do on her own when she had to banish her sister. So a few centuries in, she had the local lords run aspects of Equestria to ease things for her. But over time, as they were given more and more power and responsibility, they began to become corrupted by this increased power over there subjects. At this point in time, there was a lot of dissatisfaction toward the royalty and rulers of Equestria." They nodded as this is a more well known fact.
Twilight's horn glowed and then projected an image onto the wall. They saw a moving image of what these times looked like. peasant ponies were going about their business, a bit sad and grim looking, covered in dirt and looking hungry. also going around were the lords, in grand, ornate carriages and beautiful clothing "By this time, increased taxing of the citizens by the lords, Celestia's unexpected ignorance of it and her continued lone reign for several centuries had grown to reach a breaking point for the citizens in the kingdom. The pony barons and ladies in charge, cruel and greedy as they were, had steadily increased the oppression of the populace, taking more and more while giving back less and less."
"Those meanies!" said Pinkie Pie, not liking this one bit. "So what? Did they just go around and took all the sweets and the fun and the happiness and the fun from all the ponies in Equestria?!" she asked, saying it all up in Twilight's face.
"Pretty much." she continued. "And all those ponies had all that they had taken from them-"
"Including the fun?!" asked Pinkie.
"Yes Pinkie," said Twilight all dead pan, "including the fun. They began to have a growing resentment toward those 'in charge'." The image showed some of the ponies looking in the direction of the barons, hateful and angered. "While this was an increasing problem for the barons and lords, they knew that Princess Celestia would put and end to it, set things back to fairness, and ruin it for them. So they took great steps to carefully insulate Celestia from their struggles. And were able to get it to work successfully over the centuries. Otherwise, it wouldn't have progressed to that point over such a long time At the same time, the struggling population had grown a steady and increasing animosity toward her." The lords in the image were conversing with Celestia in gardens of theirs, and when they noticed a peasant, one distracted the princess while the other nodded to a guard, who pulled the peasant past a set of high walls and he walked away angered and resentful.
Her friends all when 'What?' at the same time hearing that. "What was their problem with her?" asked Applejack.
"Wouldn't they even think that these lords were lying to her in the first place?
"The way they saw it she was being lied to by the aristocracy so easily, it lead to them thinking she had grown complacent in her long reign. As such, they began to have and ever increasing resentment of her rule." The peasants looked to Canterlot with anger and disappointment. "They felt that all they, and their descendants, had to look forward to was bowing at her hooves and serving her immortal excellency and the cabal of rulers she shared it all with 'til the end of time. And they didn't want to have their children grow up with that being all they had to look forward too."
"So, a group of ponies began a protest against their oppression, in Baltimare." The image showed a small group of ponies marching around in the middle of a market plaza. It fade transitioned to a larger group of close to a hundred. "The lord's there didn't like that, so, they called for an end to it. The protesters refused to give up and continued." They saw one ruler stand before them and gestured for them to disperse. They seemed to refuse, and transitioned to an image of thousands. United in protest.
They all seemed interested in this, all of it being so fascinating. "How noble of them!" replied Fluttershy. "I didn't know about that."
"Wait," questioned Rarity, "weren't you the first of us to recognize what Twilight was talking about?"
"Actually, I recognized it as the setting for a novel I started reading a while ago." she answered.
Before they all got sidetracked, Twilight continued. "Anyway, the ruling aristocrats saw that the protest grew and grew, and as it spread all across Equestria, to nearby towns to the other cities, they felt that they had to stop it before it ended them. So..." she hesitated. This was the bad part. She took a deep breath, then showed and said what happened. One of the lords in the image spoke to what looked like a soldier, who nodded and was then seen leading a whole formation of soldiers.. with muskets and blades. "They called up their bravi and militia's and ordered them to break up the protest... with deadly, indiscriminate force." Their eyes grew as they realized what she meant. The image showed them raising their harquebus and take aim at them. "They were ordered to... massacre the protesters." They fired and then charged with swords and clubs.
All her friends were silent. They definitely didn't know about this, the darkest point in Equestrian history.
"Well..." said Rarity, with a look that said she did not know what to make of it. "That took an unnecessarily dark turn."
"They.. they massacred those innocent ponies?" pleaded Pinkie Pie, who obviously didn't want to believe it to be so. "As in-"
"Yes Pinkie, as in a bloody crack down on the protesters. This incident, known as the 'Haymarket Square Massacre', caused the it all to quickly escalate out of control. All at once, when word spread of the massacre, it went from protest's to riots, and from riots to full scale revolt. The violence spread across Equestria and began to look more and more like a revolution. The entire nation began to convulse and erupt in violence." The images showed buildings burning, ponies rioting and throwing objects at militia, bringing anarchy all around "Celestia, bereaved that it had to come to this violence for her to find out, knew that if it continued, all of Equestria would perish. So she ended the fighting," The image showed Celestia appear in between the militia and rioter's, anger and tears in her eyes and said 'Enough.' They all stopped. "and told them she agreed to negotiate with them."
"They told her what the barons and lords had done to them, and demanded that this horridness be ended. She accepted when they explained it and set about going from town to town, city to city, and began rebuilding and reforming her kingdom." They watch what occurred, when she talked with the workers, the farmers, families and the poor souls who protested. "They got better living conditions, taxes lowered to the lowest ever, and the higher up's who caused it all were arrested, put on trial and summarily punished." The lords were seen then chained and shackled, wearing prisoners attire, at their trial and then them going away to the prisons.
"Good!" yelled Rainbow Dash, with fire in her eyes. "They deserved all they got coming to them."
"Quite." agreed Rarity, equally worked up. "But Twilight, what does this have to do with where we're going?"
"I'm getting to that. Though the violence was ended and peace returned to the land, there were still hundreds who refused the peace, and would settle for nothing less that Celestia's downfall. These were the long time revolutionaries and extremists who were the instigators of the rioting and had led the revolts, rallying the populace with promises of new beginnings for their liberated homeland."
"They'd probably have made it into something worse." said Rainbow Dash. "Each time a revolution or something like that happens, a complete jerk steps in and becomes a dictator, and that place turns horrible and completely uncool." she reasoned.
"Yeah, that does tend to happen." said Applejack.
"Well, from what I understand," started Twilight, "some of them really were rather brilliant and could have helped a great deal in the recovery. They were young idealistic and driven to help other and could have made quite the difference." The images showed several ponies that were leading them from the front yelling at the top of their lung's, bringing them strength in the protests, red and blue flags waving behind them, and cheers emanating from the crowds. "But when the rioting ended, they were placed into custody along with the darker and crueler elements of the revolts." It switched to the more brutal elements in the riots as she spoke, fire-eyed and aggressive with black flags waving behind them while they throw bricks and rocks. "They were all grouped together and labeled as extremists and were to face imprisonment or worse. She couldn't very well imprison them all, but couldn't release them, seeing as their words can be just as dangerous, not to mention the process of rebuilding the land after the violence had stopped. So, on suggestion from the other monarch's in the world, mainly the king of the Versailles Kingdom, she decided they could lead their own lives in exile as colonist. They were able to last by shipping them to their colonies, so they convinced her that using the old Equestrian practice of exiling criminals to the north would work for her too. So, she made the decision to send them to the far northwest, to start new lives in a new land." The final images were of them walking in a vast caravan off into the new lands. Then the images cut out, and her horn stopped glowing.
"So she just shipped them all out?" said Applejack. "Just sent them to some other land to be away from Equestria and hoped they could make something of themselves there?"
"That's what I said." Twilight responded, "She said it seemed like a good idea at the time. She had just negotiated the transfer of thousands of square miles of land to the northwest and everypony at the time were rather reluctant to colonize the area. Appleloosa was a colony and they've done rather well after negotiating with the buffalo. And other places have been established as close to home. This was a chance to spread to a vast new territory and this would have been the furthest colony of all."
"Huh, ok" said Applejack, "that makes a bit of sense."
"Wait," questioned Rarity, "wasn't the monarchy in Versailles remove in a revolution?"
"Oh yes, but that was years later. But anyway, since it was founded, it has been continuously hard for her to admit it as a part of Equestria. Normally, a colony become admitted as part of Equestria pretty quick. It only took about a year for Appleloosa to be admitted. This one has remained a colony for all this time and just has been so difficult for her."
"When did they settle there again?" asked Rainbow Dash.
"346 Years ago."
"Seriously? Then why are we going there?"
"Princess Celestia thinks it might at last be time to admit them into Equestria. She's always been too busy to go and I need experience in diplomacy. So our job is to assess whether or not they really are ready."
"Why us though?" she persisted "I mean, why not send some other ponies to see if they can be admitted?"
"That's why Celestia wanted me to wait to tell you guys. See, each time she's sent somepony, they either lie and say they aren't ready, or disappear under 'mysterious circumstances'."
"They lied to her?" asked Fluttershy, disbelieving that anypony could lie to the princess.
Twilight nodded. "She could tell that something was making them keep quiet on the subject and they were forced to say it." They looked at her nervously, not that sure they should even be doing this. "She figures that sending us over might prevent any foul play and we can tell her the truth on it. We're too high profile back home for them to do anything to prevent it. So, we'll be fine." 'Hopefully.' she thought to herself. "It does sound dangerous for us, yes, but nevertheless, they might very well be ready to make the change and rejoin us. We just need to be sure and help them with it. Now we may not have much info on them or their ways, but we can still get the basics down before we arrive." Her words seemed to have put them at ease. They looked ready.
"Ok." said Rainbow Dash, as the others nodded in mutual agreement. "One thing though, what's this place even called anyway?"
"Koltsovo. The name of the colony is Koltsovo."
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
-George Bernard Shaw
Before they had left, Twilight had done as much research as she felt was needed on the place they were supposed to go too. According to Celestia, where they were supposed to go was a city, large and populace, by the name of Stalliongrad. Yet they had arrived in a depot town. Maybe this was a city by local standards and their information was wrong. Koltsovo, isolated as it was, maintains a more isolationist policy toward external diplomacy. Particularly as the need to contact the outside world isn't really necessary when a region is building its self up. Fact's they learned of in the short briefing they finished not that long ago.
Another thing that they had learned was that there wasn't much known about them in the first place. And even what is known is either from what little was said by the colonial examiners, or has traveled back with travelers through the region and is little more than hearsay. It is known they are advanced in some respects, highly intelligent, capable of sophisticated technology and possessing amazing survival skills. Exactly to what extent these rumors are true is as yet not known. It is also said that the ponies there have digressed in some ways. In what ways is, also, not known. They are known to have the same language spoken as Equestria and the native dialects of the local ponies of the region spoken just as frequently. The divergence of their tongue from the original isn't known. Their culture and customs are all obviously based on Equestrian ways. But any changes in these ways is not entirely known. In short, they have no idea what they're walking into. But honestly, that makes things a bit more interesting.
So it was that when the train pulled into the station, an elevated rail-line that was little more than a platform with a bench, a couple of over head lamps and a hut to stay warm, Twilight and her friends were rather surprised to find the town they arrived at to be so small. That's not to say this town was small. Quite the contrary, it was a rather sizable settlement. Large buildings could be seen from the platform, rising above most of the other buildings. Stark, artificial, generic, they seemed quite plain compared to the ones back home. They had faded green, red, and purple signs everywhere indicating which was which and yellow ones indicating streets. Ponies could be seen going about their business and work in the nearby streets. All in all, they seem to be fairing well here. The sun is setting on the horizon, and the temperature was starting to drop, so now was the time to meet their host and go to their lodgings.
The six of them filed off the train, ready and determined to succeed.
"Alright," Twilight began, "according to- Whoa it's cold here!" They all wore jackets, hats, scarfs, anything needed to stay warm, but they still felt the biting cold through their clothes nonetheless. It was the kind of cold you could feel in your very bones.
"Oh my goodness! How c-can ponies survive u-up here?" said a shivering Rarity.
"I know, r-right?" replied Rainbow Dash.
Twilight, like her friends also vigorously shivered when she stepped off the train. "According to Celestia, we should be greeted by our host while we're here." She looked up and down the platform. There wasn't anypony around, except for a few ponies unloading their bags using magic. They were the conductor and the crew who operated and powered the train.
"Sssoo isn't the pony we're supposed to meet supposed to be here? Like, now-ish? Cause he ain't here." asked Rainbow Dash.
Twilight looked around one more time then looked to her friends. "Well.. It's probably for a good reason." she replied, 'That isn't a good sign.' she thought. "We should probab-" she began as she turned to find a grey-blue pegasus standing in front of her.
"WHOA!" She screamed as she fell backwards in startled surprise.
"Hello ma'am." He said to her, sounding tired and bored, and lightly nodded his head. "How may I be of service?"
When she stood back up, Twilight noticed that he was a bit shorter than her. His eye level would come up to her nose. He had short burgundy hair, notable eyebrows and deep violet eyes. He had a simple yellow (Rarity'd say marigold) porter's uniform, a hat, a vest and an under shirt, along with a small looking plaid scarf. He looked young like them, but skinny, almost gaunt. Was he well?
"Uh, hello." She started, still a bit shaken. She decided to take the 'title' approach out for a spin. See how it works out. "I'm Princess Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship and Element of Magic."
He raised and eye brow.
'Ok then.' "Uh, these are my friend's, and fellow embodiments of the Elements of Harmony." She swept her arm to her friend's. "Rarity, the Element of Generosity, Pinkie Pie, the Element of Laughter, Applejack, the Element of Honesty, Fluttershy, the Element of Kindness and Rainbow Dash, the Element of Loyalty."
He just kept staring with his eyebrow still raised, making the silence feel a bit awkward and a bit more uncomfortable.
"Right, title approach, wrong way to go." She said under her breath. "*ahem* So, What's your name?"
He lowered his eyebrow, then replied, "Callused Wing, ma'am.", in the same bored tone.
"Well, nice to meet you Callused Wing." Twilight said. "Are you the one we were told to meet?"
He raised an eyebrow again. "I wouldn't know about that ma'am."
"Huh?" Twilight said in surprise, "But, we were told that somepony was to be here waiting to greet us as our host."
He was about to respond, but then thought a moment. "Oh, actually, I believe I know something about that. I think he was told you'd be arriving tomorrow morning actually."
"Wait what?" She said, confused.
"There was reported to be a storm heading in earlier and delay you another 12 hours."
"Really?" She replied, a bit skeptical.
"Meh, it happens ma'am. You don't know how unreliable the weather prediction services are around here."
" Weather.. prediction?" Twilight asked, a bit perplexed. 'Don't they have weather control like we do back home?' "What-"
"Honestly, it's 'bout as reliable as the colonial government. Heheh." he joked with a light smirk. Then he went back to his bored tone. "Shall I get your's and your friends luggage ma'am?"
"Uh, s-sure. That sounds good."
He trotted off to get their things, leaving Twilight and her friends still a bit perplexed.
'Well, this'll be interesting.'
There is no beauty without some strangeness.
-Edgar Allen Poe
