Author's Note

Prologue: Rickety Rails

Featherweight felt light... an irony that was not lost on him, yet the humour of that fact was. This was due to numerous factors. Everything from the particular ricketiness of the speeding train car to the subpar food served on board the train put a general dampener on his mood. Even the passing scenery, from the unending woods whose orange leaves made them look like fields of amber, to the twinkling of a great lake under the cloudless sky, did little to heighten his mood. However, the prime deterrent to his good mood, was the was the immense confusion he felt in his gut, which after several hours he became sure was not the egg-salad he had for lunch.

No, this miasma of uncertainty spiked within him only when he did a particular thing, something that he did fairly often as of late; the reason why lost to him. Every so often, for no reason at all, he found his eye involuntarily wondering from the outside as it whizzed behind him to the colt sitting in the adjacent seat. Ordinarily, he wouldn’t do this, but the opportunity wasn’t riper than now. He followed from the very end of his laid out hind hooves, following up his sprawled out sleeping form; stopping to trace the brown splotches on his white coat, watching his chest rise and fall briefly, before finishing the rest of his vision’s journey to land on the adjacent colt’s sleeping face.

Pipsqueak, he said the name aloud in his head, thinking that perhaps the mere mention of the name would add further fuel to his quandary, but it didn’t. The sight of his friend confused him because as of late the mere look of him would cause the photographer to become ill. The contents of his stomach felt like they were floating inside of him, he could hear and feel his heartbeat hasten, the air in his lungs would evacuate, and the heat in his cheeks would heighten to near burning levels. Yet every time he looked away, he had to force the action, like eating brussel sprouts or having a conversation with Diamond Tiara.

There was something particularly forlorn about thinking of his friendship with Pipsqueak. He had a nostalgia for the past when they weren’t yet teens, back then they seemed closer to one another. Pipsqueak was class president, Featherweight was head of the press, working side by side to push the former’s political agenda… Cheerilee always reacted strangely upon hearing the partnership. Regardless, the time saw plenty of late nights spent pressed against each other’s sides looking over the drafts of the school paper, then sharing a bed after a late night of joviality and fun.

Back when they were young, the smiles they shared were over genuine mirth, happiness in the simplicity of each other’s company, but now he wasn’t sure what it was. His own smiles became involuntary as if he couldn’t control his lips, his eyes too would wander to Pipsqueak at his own chagrin. Featherweight would push these thoughts to the side, and just be thankful he had such a good friend in the first place, although they would always linger in the background like an unwanted party guest.

It was after his friend began stirring awake that he blinked away the stupor he unwittingly fell into. Not realizing his eyes were still focused upon the brown mottled colt, his confusion increased abundantly upon recognizing the feeling of shame that grew in his stomach. “Are we nearly at Trottingham?” Pipsqueak asked him, stretching and turning onto his side, looking up at Feather with a groggy expression. Although the colt was something of a runt back in his youth, he had grown to somewhat enviable proportions for Feather, whose own lithe form had made him self-conscious ever since he was a little colt.

“I-I think so,” he stuttered, focusing on the passing outside. “We’re nearly at Manehattan, then we’ll-”

“Take a ferry rest of the way? It’s just like how I remember coming to Ponyville, but in reverse, and less time sleepin’,” the colt finished with an innocent smile, the last vestiges of accent coming at the end as a tuneful twang, before propping himself up in the seat he was sprawled across.

“Do you think it’ll be like you remember it?” Feather asked.

“After spending so long in Ponyville, I can’t say,” he shrugged, giving a slight toothless half-smile. “You’ll probably be relyin’ on a tour guide or a map more than me.”

Feather looked at Pipsqueak with a tight-lipped smile. “It’ll still be fun though,” Feather pointed out, “good weather, good food, lots of places to visit.”

Pipsqueak furrowed his brows in a look of incredulousness. “You… don’t know a lot ‘bout Trottingham do you?”

Feather pursed his lips. “Um… no, not really.”