From Beyond the Badlands

As I walked through the crowded streets of Björn, a small but populated village towards the borders of Norhay. Hrókr, his faithful companion, and friend shrieked in rage and flapped at the cage he was held in. Four large adult ponies had trapped me in ropes, as well as carrying Hrókr. As we were walked up to a stage that was prepared for my exile, I saw the disgust and hate in the eyes of many of the ponies in the crowd as I was roughly tossed onto the stage, and my wings were spread out. As I lay on the cold and snowy platform, I heard ponies start muttering amongst themselves about me. I couldn't help but overhear what they were saying. I was like they *wanted me to hear what they were saying.*

"Hey, there's the freaky pony with wings"

"How did he even get into the village anyway?"

"I don't know or care. I also heard that they were removing some of his feathers from those wings of his anyway."

"How are they going to do it?"

"I don't know, but here comes Torvald"

The ponies gathered fell into a sudden deafening silence, as the leader of the village, Torvald approached me. Torvald was a large white unicorn, with a pale blue mane and lion's tail, with darker blue highlights. As Torvald approached me on the platform, I shuddered, knowing what would happen next. It had happened to many other pegasus ponies before me, and I had seen it happen many times when I was much younger. *" Lukas Spiritfeather"** Torvald thundered*

" You are hereby exiled from this village for giving unwanted knowledge to the foals of this village and the ones around it"

"B-but-" I stammered, only to be cut off

**"As proof of your exile, your wings will be clipped and you will be banished from this village"* Torvald thundered, but with a look of sorrow in his eyes. Before I could say anything, I felt feathers being torn away from my wing, which elicited a painful scream from my throat as my secondary feathers were forcefully removed from my wings. Most ponies in the crowd jeered and laughed at my pain, and Hrókr screeched in fury at my tormentors but was helpless as he was caged. Some of the ponies who didn't were Elin, my little sister. I could just about see her through my haze of pain. Another pony who didn't laugh at me was Torvald. Some of the ponies gathered must've asked themselves why. I knew, as did the rest of my family. Just before the pain enveloped me, I heard him whisper* "Forgive me, My son..."

(1 Year later- The Badlands)

I screamed at the nightmarish memory that I re-lived almost daily as it plagued my sleeping mind. As I got my breath back and ate some of the meat that I had for breakfast when my companion Hrókr, approached from the skies with a letter. He cawed at me as he held out the letter. Cautiously, I took the letter and started reading it. As I read it, I could feel my eyes widen in surprise. "Really?" I muttered to myself before looking over to Hrókr before saying to him

"Come on Hrókr, we're leaving this place," I said to my companion as I showed him the letter, which was a map of the place I was in, and the areas around it. According to the map, I was in a place called the Badlands.