Where the Wind Goes

I know I am awake... but I don't want to open my eyes... I am so comfortable... The bed... so sweet. Good thing that Sunny found a way for me to stay... Hotel's beds are just... the best...

My eyes open without my permission, the light that entered the room enlightened me... Damn... I knew I should've closed the curtains.

After some seconds my eyes finally got used to the morning light. The first thing I saw clearly was the TV. As it was black, it stood from the white walls of the room. I saw Sunny sleeping over the small cloud she had brought last night. She was apparently very comfortable laying there... Those clouds surely seemed soft and comfortable. Too bad I can't touch them. She was placed on the end of Classic's bed. The peace and quiet scene made me happy. I smiled.

"*Ahem*... Excuse me, Cobalt..." I heard Classic saying. "I need the-"

"*Shhhh!* I hurried to say. He was speaking too loud, and Sunny was still sleeping. He also destroyed the peace that I loved to see with his loud voice.

I pointed my hoof to Sunny to make Classic know that she was still sleep. She moved slightly and groaned. Classic limited to only roll his eyes with an annoyed face and restarted his question.

"Where does my bag isssssss?" He said exaggerating the whisper... Ugh. So early and already like that?

"Itssss theeeere..." I said copying his exaggeration. I pointed to his bag, which was in front the bathroom door.

"Thank you," he said and silently stood up on the space between my bed and his.

My bed was the one closer to the door and therefore to the bathroom. Last night, while he was on the bathroom I placed his bag besides its door in case he needed something. He would have to walk between the beds and close to Sunny's cloud to get to it.

He walked weakly through the beds, seeming tired. Maybe he didn't have rested well last night. Now that I remember, he had been on a rather uncomfortable position while sleeping...

He took too much time to get to the end of the beds. Almost at it he lost the little balance he had when he walked over my bag. He reeled just a few moments before placing his front hooves on the first thing he had close to stop his fall. That place wasn't other place than Sunny's cloud…

*poof*

The cloud dissipated on the room. Sunny felt to the floor with a loud thud. I flinched at the scene... that must had hurt.

Classic managed to place his hooves on the floor after touching the cloud, recovering the balance. He now seemed confused.

"Ooouch..." I heard Sunny's voice, my ears felt flat over my head. I sat on the bed, ready to stand up.

"Uh... ups?" Classic said like if the accident had been just a joke, maybe to apologize... Yeah, Classic's apologies aren't the best.

I was expecting any comment coming from Sunny. Maybe a reclaim or a-

"YOU!" Sunny SHOUTED angrily. That's was unexpected. Getting angry isn't her style, she would have normally just get upset or sad or-

What the hay?

Sunny THREW herself at Classic! She flied low and attacked him! Classic lost the balance again and fell to the floor. Sunny threw herself completely over him ATTACKING his face. Classic could barely stop her. How was this even possible? I got out of the bed trying to get there before something bad happened. Classic managed to hold Sunny's hooves with his own. Sunny started a groan which ended like a shout.

"I NEVER LIKED YOU ANYWAY!" She shouted with all her strength.

Sunny's eyes opened widely, like realizing what she had done. She gasped loudly and covered her mouth with her front hooves. She suddenly stopped the aggression to Classic and fell back slightly.

Classic quickly managed to free himself from Sunny, using the chance to kick her with his hind legs. The hit sent her sliding backwards towards the crystal door of the balcony. She bumped with it but didn't flinched or anything. She still had the same astonished face. We had some seconds in complete silence.

Sunny's face took a tone of worried. Her eyes filled with tears. She had her mouth open, but no words came out.

"I... didn't... I didn't... meant, Classic... so- sorry!" she finally said and broke up to cry, hiding her face behind her front legs.

What the hay had just happened? For one second she tried to HIT Classic with all her strength, for then crying for doing that?

Classic didn't seem to take the apology seriously. He was seated on the floor fixing his disheveled coat and mane with his hooves, looking at Sunny with indifference. Obviously he took the insult very personal.

I just was there... standing between the beds, doing nothing. I decided to help Sunny. She had curled up in the floor, still sobbing. I sat besides her and wrapped one of my hind legs around her back, she felt strange... Like if she had been awfully cold for some seconds and now warming up... I don't know how to explain it.

Classic just stood up and entered the bathroom holding his bag, closing the door harshly after him. He was the angry pony now. Sunny lifted her head and looked at me.

"Cob... I didn't meant to... I really didn't meant to do it..." she lamented.

“Don’t worry”, I said to calm her down, but the truth was that I didn't understood what happened.

The room's phone rang, it was placed over the table between the two beds. I stood up to answer. Sunny stood up and walked into balcony, cleaning her tears. It worried me that she could just go away flying. I answered the phone looking at her on the other side from the crystal door, making sure she would still be there.

"Hello? Excuse me sir, but what is all that noise you have over there?" The voice on the other side of the phone asked annoyed. It was the same voice of the pony who gave us the room.

"I'm sorry, we had an accident,"... "Yes... a bit loud, I understand,"... "No, thanks"... I hung the phone.

I walked to the balcony too, Sunny was still there... looking at the street. The sound of another door being opened made me turn back. Classic got out of the bathroom. He was wearing again his bow tie neck and his sunglasses, holding his pocket watch on one hoof. He had his saddle bags on his back.

"Very well, Cobalt, its 10 and a half am. The train to Canterlot will depart on one hour. I suggest getting going now to arrive there in time, shall we? I will wait you two on the lobby," he said coldly. He turned around and left the room without giving me the chance to answer him. Classic surely was difficult pony.

At the sound of the door of the room being closed, the sliding door of the balcony opened and closed. Sunny walked besides me and sat in front of her saddle bags. She started peeking inside. I did the same from my part. I guess that nopony was going to talk... I was still confused and afraid that I could say something that will make the things worst. I turned the TV on to make some sound as we packed the few stuff we had.

"...finally celebrating tonight!" said Windy Fresh with her sweet voicejust as the TV completely turned on.

Winter "Windy" Fresh is the newsmare of the city, and she is also known as the "pony that the city loves".

"Why is this happening? Are the new reforms of Cloudesdale's governor, Sunburst, going to affect us all? Why is he doing this? Stay tuned on TV or radio #5 to discover the answers after this commercial cut!" I paid attention to all what she said. Why do I always fall for her voice? They were talking about a new that had been around for some time now: there are being reforms at-

"Cob..." Sunny said softly. I turned to her, my other thoughts fading into oblivion. She had her saddlebags on and mines at her hooves. Had she finished packing the stuff for me?

I turned off the TV, as it started an old known song, the same they have been using to announce the parasprite repellents for years. I walked my saddle bags, placed them on my back and smiled to her. She didn't smiled back and just walked out of the room, leaving the door open for me to leave. I followed her in silence... Trying to figure out when did everything screwed up.

We walked down the stairs. I had in mind the words that Sunny shouted to Classic: 'I never liked you anyway'. What does that meant? I always knew that those two had their differences... but I never thought the situation had been so... bad. We three had been best friends for six years! Why does this happen now? I don't know... It was like if we weren't friends anymore.

We entered the lobby. The pony of the reception, the one who had phone called us, looked at me with an indifference stare. At least we were leaving now. I think that I will never come here again.

I thought that I would found Classic sitting in the lobby's living room watching TV or reading the news, but he wasn't there. In fact, there wasn't anypony on the lobby... I looked at the door. A concentration of all the clients of the hotel was staring at the outside with surprised faces. Something was happening outside.

I walked to them and made my way to the outside. It was strange that anypony had done the same. When I finally reached the street I could see what the hotel guests were staring to, and they weren't the only ones. From where I was standing I could saw that the ponies at their houses or stores were also looking at the outside through the crystal doors and windows of their buildings. Classic was in front of me, he had put on the hoodie of the concert. Classic was not the type of pony you would see around with any other cloth than his bow ties or sunglasses, but he now had a good reason to be wearing something else. Out there on the street, besides the cold wind of the outside, everything was white.

“What is this snow doing in summer?” I heard somepony exclaiming.

*** ***** ***

"All right, all right, calm down!" said a police pony through a speaker. He gave it to another pony before he joined others police troops to hold back the multitude.

"What is this? I demand an explanation!" shouted an angry mare.

"I don't know... If you could please calm-" said the new pony with the speaker.

"This snow is going to ruin us all!" said a stallion before being forced to step back by the police ponies.

"Please, stay calm, we don't know where does the snow fell, it was probably only on the city," tried the speaker pony.

"The pegasi did this? Was it part of Sunbursts reforms?" asked another mare.

"Look, I don't know... If you could please let me-"

"What does Cloudsdale has to say about? Why did they did this to us!?" said a journalist.

"I'm already trying to contact them, but the storm took down the signal-" explained the poor speaker pony.

"What are we going to do?" said a desperate mare. The question aroused the mass of ponies that were congregated outside the governor's house.

"Looks that they got him... poor governor Spring." said an old brown pony wearing an equally brown sweater. He was standing right next to us looking at the scene.

"If we were back on the old days they would already have exiled him!" said a grayish white pony. He was old as the first, but this one was grayish white and was wearing a jacket and a scarf.

Both old ponies laughed and continued their way. Us? Well... We were still looking the scene.

The car that was supposed to pick us from the Main Street never arrived. We didn't had any other choice than to walk to the STL, which was already far away from the center of the city. We happened to pass in front of the governor's house, almost at the end of the city's downtown. Some citizens had built up a loud turmoil in there.

"Let's keep moving, the train will depart soon," Classic said.

"But, Classic, we hadn't breakfast yet... Last night we hadn't dinner too," I said and didn't lied, at least I was truly starving. Sunny supported my statement by nodding sheepishly when Classic turned to us.

"No. We must get there first. What if the snow causes the rest of the trains to stop? I want to make sure we will arrive to Canterlot City before midday, fine?" Classic answered us. He seemed to be slightly angry. To think that he used to be my best friend was strange. It seemed like if I didn't knew him now. He had changed too much.

"As you want, Classic," I said. Maybe he wasn't being polite to us but at least he was right. The snow took us by surprise. Though some colts and fillies were happily playing outside on the snow, the rest of us was really worried... What does this could arise to happen? If very well the political situation in Equestria it's already untestable with the pegasi cities...

Classic continued the walk, which I followed closely. It took us about another half an hour to finally get to the station. We entered and walked into the great waiting room. There weren’t many ponies there. Probably the ones that would usually be there were on their houses waiting to be called to snow cleaning duty. Rare are the cases when a governor has to call the ponies to group on a cleaning duty, except for the wrap-up, of course. By our age, we three still don’t have to take part of it. But that privilege it's going to end soon.

At age of 18 everypony must attend its responsibilities on the society. And I don't mean to work. I mean to take part of the auto-sustainable cycle of Equestria. Easy to explain: Earth Ponies: harvest food. Pegasi: keep the sun visible so Earth Ponies can harvest food and provide rains. Unicorns: organize, defend, and do... that magic stuff. Note: it used to be their responsibility to move the sun and the moon, but we already have something else taking care of it. All this rules and changes were established after the Exile of the Alicorns. Everypony has to work now! I sometimes wonder how the life before this…

Now, once a week, every pony has to do a 14 hour workday. There are many different activities to do, but you would always do the same activity for the rest of your working life. It depends on what you are chosen to do during a kind-of-test the Supreme Council makes on your 18th birthday... The worst birthday party. Ever. And we three are just a few months away from it, so we need to go to Canterlot to present ourselves as the future generation of not-paid workers. *ahem* slaves *ahem*. This action is called “Duty to the Nation”, and it was the first law to be approved by the council after the exile of the alicorns.

I kind of forgot to say before that that was the reason we are going to Canterlot today...

"The train to Canterlot City it's departing on 5 minutes. The train for Vanhoover will delay 10 minutes," said the almost robotic voice of a mare announcing the train schedule.

"Come on, let's go!" Said Classic and broke into full gallop across the station, we two followed at his same speed.

We arrived to the train just in time to hear a train pony shouting. "All on board!"

We entered and start looking for seats, which wasn't very difficult to find as there wasn't many ponies around. The doors closed right after we took seat. One of the main advantages of the STL is that it's free, so we don't have to buy tickets. If we had to buy them we would have never made it on time.

The train started moving. The STL connects the entire nation by underground tunnels, due to that the old train system was replaced by highways. Canterlot is the only city that actually needs to be reached by train, the cars can't move very well on a giant slide of highway to reach the top of the mountain.

We had chosen to sit around a table that had 4 seats, which formed two rows of two seats facing each other. Only Sunny and I were using it, though, one on each row. Classic preferred to take a seat two rows away from us on my direction. Was he still so angry with her? I thought earlier that everything was cooling down, but this didn't helped.

The interior of the train to Canterlot city was very elegant. Crimson red velvet covered the inside and the lamps hanged from the ceiling instead from the walls. Close to us, a pair of two old earth pony mares had taken seat. They were avidly taking to each other while knitting with their old hooves.

The trip on train was going to take between 30 to 40 minutes. I made myself comfortable and placed my saddle bags on the seat that Classic didn't took, Sunny did the same. It was dark inside, but red lamps and dim lights gave the train an elegant atmosphere, just as its city it belonged.

The train moved and entered to the subway tunnel, which made everything darker. The first 5 minutes happened almost in total silence between Sunny and me. She seemed really sad and guilty. She had almost all her front legs over the table between us, her hooves were crossed and her head laid on top of them, she looking outside the window. It was a very sad view. I decided to break the ice (again).

"What's wrong? If he wants to be mad at you then let him! It will go away... just like the time we sneaked a toad on his pillow, you remember?" I said trying to cheer her up.

She smiled and muttered a short laugh, but didn't change her position. Very well... If she doesn't want to talk then it will be a long 30-40 minutes trip for me. I just hope that somepony offer us food soon.

"Cob..." She started, using my less famous nickname. I paid attention. "...what happened at the hotel... I don't know..." She was confusing me more of what I was already. "...I didn't want to... You believe me? I truly, truly didn't want to say that, and don't know why I acted like that..." She said looked at me sadly without leaving her position.

"Of course I believe you," I said. I don't know, maybe she was right. Maybe it was just a reflex or a really bad moment what happened. Everypony has its reasons.

"Thank you... but I know he doesn't... I- I just can't live with that. I would want to say sorry, but he scares me... What if-"

"Does he scare you? Come on, Sunny. Maybe is just sad because you acted rude with him. You already know him," I interrupted, and the truth is... I was right, heh. Classic usually keeps the problems to himself. He is not the kind of pony who will go into the hooves (fists) fighting. "Maybe you should just talk to him,"

Sunny denied quickly with her head, pasting her back to the seat.

"I can't..."

"And why not?"

"He could hurt me..."

"No more than you already did!" Ups! I... shouldn't had said that. Sunny now looked at me flinching. She recovered her last position.

"Sunny..." I started, placing one of my hooves in her head to make her look at me. "...it's better try to talk to him. If anything goes wrong I will get your back, deal?" I offered. It was good that we had this conversation. I just wanted to solve this mess as soon as possible.

Sunny seemed to doubt my words for a second, but then looked at me straight into my eyes, like looking for some kind of trust.

"I... O- Okay," she said slowly. She stood up from the seat. "But, stay close please,"

"Yeah,"

Sunny walked the two rows on my direction to meet with Classic. I pocked my head to the corridor after she passed by, making sure nothing would go wrong this time.

"Classic? May I seat with you for a moment?" I heard her saying.

"Sure..." Classic answered with a neutral voice and moved to the other seat so she could take place.

"Classic... I'm sorry-"

"It's okay. Just tell me what happened exactly," Classic interrupted.

I smiled and returned my head back to the seat. He had accepted to talk.

***

The next 20 minutes of the trip happened slow… or at least they were slow for me. Classic and Sunny had spent the entire time on a long apology that turned into an explanation, a promise, and thankfully, reconciliation. They were now talking about other stuff. I had read the newspaper that the newspony gave me yesterday when I accidentally bumped with him. The news wasn't new after all.

I have been hearing that exact same thing all the week, everypony talks about it, the news repeat it all the day… it is kind of boring. As I said before, the politics right now are a bit difficult. I’m not really into them, but at least I can understand what is happening.

If I’m not wrong, the three major pegasi cities: Cloudesdale, Solstice, and Las Pegasus are bowing for independence or something like that. The problem is that they want to form a huge “Cloud State” but the actual Supreme Council won’t allow it. And one of the three governors, Dawn Song of Solstice, forms part of that council. This has the governor of Cloudesdale, Sunburst Solar Flare, completely mad about it. He is the one who is trying to get the independence, and I mean “he” because the other governor, the old Typhoon of Las Pegasus, it’s his puppet… everypony knows it. Sunburst only needs the approval of Dawn Song, but he already stated a “No”, so Sunburst it’s openly attacking him, taking advantage that the governor it’s too young for the charge of both, counselor and governor, which is technically right. The Supreme Council it’s already taking the situation on their hooves, but we already know the answer.

Since the Exile of the Alicorns, every city manages itself independently. The only thing that keeps Equestria as a single nation are the Councils of Canterlot, the Canterlot Declaration, and the Act of Duty to the Nation. The council will not allow the declaration of independence by their own, that would mean the loss of one part of the national territory, and they are worried that if Sunburst manages to triumph he will cut all relations with Equestria. That would be a very hard hit to the society… pegasi it's at least one third of the total population of Equestria, and more than the half of them lives on those three cities, including Sunny. Of thy cut relations who would control the weather? The situation has everypony very worried these days, as Sunburst hadn’t made public any declaration yet.

I don’t know what to think about the whole situation, a council meeting will happen tonight at the Canterlot’s Palace, the headquarters of the Council. I hope we end our business soon so we can see it on TV. My father once told me to start watching the news to keep myself informed, and I followed his advice. I know that Classic does the same, and Sunny… she once said jokingly that if Solstice separates from Equestria she would keep visiting us to help clear the sky every day on our Duty to the nation.

I folded the newspaper and threw it to the trashcan. We were almost about to get to Canterlot, just a few more minutes and we will start ascending the mountain, which is the only part of the trip in which we can see the exterior of the tunnel.

I looked through the window. The light was coming on our direction. The tunnel started illuminating with sunlight. We were almost outside. I was preparing myself to see the beautiful view of the valley when we felt a loud crash.

*Pfrrrrr Crash!*

It sounded as the train tried to stop, the rails squealed, metal against metal. We felt as something had pushed us. The train didn’t stop though, it just moved slowly now. Classic and Sunny came immediately to my side.

“Everything okay?” asked Sunny, worried tone.

“Yeah, sure,” I answered. The hit had barely moved me from my position.

The wagon we were in finally made it out of the tunnel. Almost immediately I heard one of the old mares that were close to us screaming.

“NO! THE HARVEST!” she screamed loudly. What she had said also was really worrying. I looked at the outside as soon as I could see.

Everything was white… the far mountains, the forests, the valley, Ponycity!

…and the fields.