Far Away

CHAPTER I

It was a warm, sunny day when the tan coloured pegasus set out of her cool abode, shadowed with sweeping willows, with a tightly rolled yellowed piece of parchment. She darted through the bustling rush hour Canterlot traffic and jumping from cover of one tall building to another, like she does not want to be seen. She made her way swiftly to a grand, white marble train station where a bright steam engine was waiting.

She held up her ticket before she reached the large, delicately crafted wrought iron gates. A guardspony let her slip through the gate as she presented him with the ticket. He let out a grunt of approval as she stepped into the third carriage of the train and found herself an empty compartment. The compartment was cramped and claustrophobic but still shining with many bright yellows and reds.

‘This is the day,’ she thought aloud to herself as she unpacked her possessions and took off her pith helmet onto the train’s comfortable, plush carpet. She sighed. How mundane it was to sit in a train cabin doing nothing. She stopped after done laying out her few possessions and took stock of the situation. ‘I hope Kasha and his lackeys don’t find me,’ she thought to herself.

Stroking herself on the chin, she took out a pen and a bleak looking notepad. It was nothing that would catch anyone’s eye, well that was the point anyways. She started scribbling ideas and recounts of her day onto the notepad, as the train lurched from the station and rocked soothingly after it steadied its pace.

The train flew steadily in a south-eastern direction, chasing the blood red setting sun. as it set on the hilly horizon. The trip she knew would take time, three days at least as she closed her notebook and started dozing off. She didn’t bother about going to dinner that night. ‘I can’t believe I’m going to Oreientallis at last!’

The sun sank slowly but surely. The jagged horizon was full of peaks and hills, causing the backdrop to the green fields to seem ominous and black, drenched in the shadow where the setting sun couldn’t cast its light. Long shadows were cast by the occasional tree planted on the fields, though most of which was used for crops, especially gran that shone golden in the sunlight.

The night soon came, stars appearing in the night sky, dotting the black emptiness of space. The silvery moon rose and cast its light onto the objects that were in her light’s way. It lit the sky nonetheless and provided a sufficient amount of light for the eye to see barely, but not fully, using its rods instead of cones to observe the incoming light.

She spent the night tossing and turning as nightmares weren’t a common visitor. She experienced herself blown to pieces again and again in her dreams, in some unknown temple full of ancient traps. It was 5am, at least what she could tell from the digital clock on her small, equestrian oak bed stand. She thought about going back to sleep but her sheets were drenched in her cold sweat.