Nine Realms

Over the course of their quest thus far, Twilight and her friends had encountered many dangerous things and places. They had crossed a sea that contained a world-sized serpent. They had endured blazing fires and volcanoes. They had weathered icy plans with nothing but snow to walk upon. They had even born witness to lifeless barrens with ceaseless winds. After all of that, they had more or less given up hope of the nine realms producing anywhere pleasant for them to go to. However, it turned out that this was not to be the case, for as the group stepped out of that cave, they were greeted with the sight of a lush and bountiful forest, with the brightest shades of green to its leaves that they had ever seen in their lives. And it was a good day for it too, as a quick glance upwards revealed the clear and beautiful blue above, with a pleasant sun beaming down to them.

"Huh...okay...not what I was expecting," Rainbow commented.

"Indeed, Rainbow. This is...not to put too fine a point on it...pleasant," Rarity added.

"Yay! Someplace nice!" Pinkie declared.

"It's a nice change of pace, let's be fair," Fluttershy muttered.

"Ah reckon this is the prettiest little corner of the realms so far," Applejack concluded.

Through all of this, Twilight was slowly nodding, absorbing and agreeing with what her friends had to say on the matter. And it was hard to argue with them. The dry and lush grass below them, the healthy trees around them, each of whom seemed laden with easily-pickable fruit it had to be said, this was, for lack of a better term, a paradise when compared to every where they'd been to before now. But, she had been through too much to simply take a place like this at face value, and so, after narrowing her eyes, she took that first steady step out of the cave. That step was followed by another, and then another, and another, until finally, when she was convinced that no savage beast was about to jump out and attack them, she turned to her friends, giving a consenting nod. The others, smiling to this, followed her out, and as soon as they were all together again, they headed off.

"So...this is...unexpected," Spike remarked.

A chuckle escaped his carer at that.

"You're not wrong, Spike. It's...nice...to come across someplace where the environment isn't looking too bad."

Looking up, Twilight again glanced at the beautiful skies, so pleasant and inviting, much like everything else here. Even the winds that occasional breezed through here were nice, never too hot or too cold. In fact, if one were to ask Twilight of what a "good place to be" would have been like, this right here would have been what she'd describe or imagine in her head. But, while her friends all marvelled at the fact that they'd finally been given a safe-looking realm to walk through, Twilight herself started to make plans. After all, it was all well and good that this place looked nice, but they were once again at the start of a new realm, and that meant, as ever, that they had little in the way of directions or help out here. If there were any locals, which was likely, given how good a place this seemed to be, then they needed to find them and start a dialogue.

"Say...Twilight?"

The young alicorn turned, seeing the bouncing form of Pinkie coming up behind her.

"Yes, Pinkie?"

The party-lover stood silent beside her for a time, pondering on things before finally answering the question she'd been so eager to ask.

"What kinda people you think we'll meet out here? More humans? Giants? Dwarves again, maybe?"

To that, Twilight simply shrugged her shoulders, letting out a long sigh.

"It's hard to say, Pinkie. What I do know, however, is that this realm must have someone living in it. After all, with all of the harsh places we've been to that have some form of life, there's no reason whatsoever that a place as bountiful as this would be uninhabited."

Hearing that, Rainbow let out a hearty chuckle.

"I'll say!"

Without warning, the pegasus flapped her wings, sending her up to the branches of one of the closest trees, all while the others watched. Twilight, with eyes widening with dismay, observed as her colleague unceremoniously yanked off one of the aforementioned fruits of the tree's branch, before promptly opening her mouth wide and taking a good hearty bite of it.

"RAINBOW!!!"

But Rainbow, having already swallowed that bite, looked down to Twilight after she'd yelled up to her.

"What?"

Twilight slapped her forehead with frustration.

"We can't just go around eating strange fruit we find off trees like that! What if it's poisonous to us?!"

Rainbow blinked, looking down to the fruit she was still holding. Afterwards, she waited for a time, occasionally glancing down to her stomach before again settling on the fruit. After a while, she simply shrugged her shoulders.

"Meh, seems okay to me."

Twilight shook her head to this, prompting Rainbow to roll her eyes before gently gliding back down to the ground.

"Seriously, Twilight, you should learn to loosen up a bit. We've been given one heck of a break with a place like this."

Stepping forward, Twilight pointed to her friend in an accusing manner.

"Putting aside the fact that this food might not be good for us, have you considered that these trees might belong to somebody?!"

Rainbow blinked, understanding slowly coming to her. After a while, a slight look of guilt crept onto her face.

"Oh...right...like Applejack's orchard?"

At the mention of her name, the earth pony farmer walked next to Twilight, giving a sharp nod to her pegasus friend.

"Eyup! Ah don't know if these ere trees do belong ta some folk, but if they do, they won't take too kindly to y'all jus' comin' along an' eatin' em!"

Sighing, Rainbow gave a slow nod to her friend's words.

"Right...yeah...sorry."

Hearing the genuine apology in her voice, Twilight sighed, resuming her earlier smile from before. Applejack, likewise, walked forward and gave Rainbow a quick pat on the shoulder. Rainbow smiled to this, and with the matter resolved, the group elected to finally continue on their journey, with Twilight once more leading the way. On and on they walked, with their trip here seeming to go on forever. This forest was truly vast if they could just go on this long without ever coming to its end. But, given how peasant a place it was, it wasn't as though they were all that upset at having to be here. However there eventually did come a time when one of them noticed something, and that person was Spike.

"Um...Twilight? What's that?"

Immediately, all ponies stopped, and Twilight, as requested, turned to where her young ward was pointing. There, far off through the trees, there was something bright and glistening. An entire line, off in the distance, which seemed to glow so bright that not even the sun was able to match it. Twilight, squinting, shook her head.

"I...I don't now."

Then, before she could say anything else, she was taken aback by somepony suddenly putting a pair of sunglasses over her eyes.

"There you go, Twilight!"

Twilight, taking the sunglasses off, looked over to Pinkie with incredulity.

"You...you just had these on you?"

With a wide smile, Pinkie nodded, reaching up and, to their amazement, yanking out another pair of sunglasses from inside her mane.

"I always keep these close by, you know..."

Sighing, Twilight smiled.

"I know, I know...for sunglasses emergencies?"

Pinkie nodded proudly, but Twilight, realising that she had been in the middle of something, put the sunglasses back on, looking to what Spike had pointed out to her. And through the darkness of her newly-acquired shades, her eyes widened.

"Guys...I think we've just found our locals."