Chronicles

by beet

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, Mystery, Adventure, Twilight Sparkle, Discord, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Other
Length: 2737

The journal of the last pony on Equus.

Wander doesn't remember the last time they saw another living pony. Recording his daily experiences in his journal, the unicorn attempts to eke out a nomadic existence in the empty ruins of what was once the most harmonious nation on the planet.

Most of his life consists of wandering the country, going from one ghost town to another and scavenging whatever he can: food, tools, books. Its during his wanderings that he stumbles upon a particular shell of a town, one that gives him a rather uncanny feeling walking its dusty streets.

Published 2018-06-09 13:20:07 UTC
Last updated 2018-06-09 13:20:07 UTC

Journal Entries #1 through #11

Entry #1, Journal #23

Filled up my last journal. Sad to see it go. Luckily I found a blank one a few months ago. I still remember the weeksmonths period of time I spent inbetween journal fifteen and sixteen. Not pleasant in the least.

Anyways, the town I found didn’t have much. Mostly canned food, though there were a few trees with apples here and there. It was nice having something fresh to eat, I have to admit. I’m not sure how the things survived, though. The ground here is all dry and cracked, and I’m pretty sure it used to be a desert. From the few books I’ve gathered here, it was apparently an earth pony/buffalo settlement, which might explain it. I haven’t found anything on buffalo magic, but maybe the lingering earth pony magic is helping to sustain the trees?

Anyways, I added the books and canned food to the wagon, and put some apples in a bag. The fresh fruit should last a few days, which will be a nice welcome change to my usual diet.

Other thing of note: There are rail tracks near the town. I’ll check the map, depending on where they lead I may have a new destination.

Entry #2

Okay, so I checked the map, and if I go one way, I wind up in Dodge Junction, an earth pony settlement that apparently produced cherries. If I go the other way, I wind up in some place called Ponyville. The map didn’t have a lot on it beyond stating that it had an equal mix of unicorn, pegasi, and earth ponies and it apparently produced most of Equestrias apples.

Dodge Junction is liable to have more food, as an all earth pony town. It’s been the trend with every other earth pony settlement, and its probably the case there.

But I have enough food to last about a month or two, to be honest. Ponyville meanwhile had a decent amount of unicorns, and its been...I want to say a few years since I last visited a unicorn city? And in terms of supplies it had been a goldmine of tools and knowledge. Sure, Ponyville probably wouldn’t have as much, but there was a good chance of me finding something or other I can use.

I’m gonna check the distance, and if its short enough, I’m gonna head that way. If I’m lucky, the distance involved is short enough that when I’m done I can sweep by Dodge Junction without wasting supplies.

Entry #3

Nothing happened today. I mostly just walked and thought.

Mostly about how us unicorns get the short end of the stick. According to all the books I read, earth ponies had incredible strength, stamina, AND could use their magic to make things grow. I’d love to make things grow; I wouldn’t have to move around as much and could spend more time reading and less time worrying about food and supplies.

Pegasi were less cool, but they could fly and manipulate the weather, which would make scouting out places a lot easier.

Compare unicorns, who get a handful of spells. I’m not gonna lie, magics nice, but I think I’d be happier as an earth pony.

I’m not really sure what brought these thoughts on, to be honest. It might be the fact that the past three towns I’ve visited have all been earth pony.

Anyways, according to the map, Ponyville is a few days away if I keep to a reasonable pace. Hopefully I won’t be out of fresh apples by then. I hate using my canned stuff. It’s not that I dislike the flavor, mind, its just that I almost never get fresh fruit these days.

Entry #4

I take back what I said about wanting to be an earth pony. One of the wheels on my wagon busted and I had to cast an extra strength wagon repair spell to fix it; If I was an earth pony I’d have been stuck hauling the thing with three wheels until I found something to replace it.

That or I’d have to carry around replacement parts and figure out how to replace a wagon wheel by myself. Either way, magic just saved me a lot of time.

Of course, now that I think about it, being an earth pony would mean I wouldn’t NEED a wagon. I’d be able to live in one place, grow my own food.

Anyways, otherwise, not much happened today. I made good progress for the most part, though I did have to keep going a bit longer than I usually do to make up for the lost time from the wagon wheel.

theres not really much else to say, so im gonna leave this entry here

Wait, just remembered, before I forget, I started on a new book! ‘Dragon Anatomy and Culture by Soot’. Apparently it was authored by an actual dragon, which is neat! It’ll give me something to do in the evenings, at least, and I’ve always been curious about dragons.

Entry #5

The Dragon’s magic, unlike pony magic, is a primal thing, being all about brute force: When we fly, we lack the precision and grace of the pegasi, but our wingflaps give us incredible lift and speed. Our affinity for the land is simpler than that of earth ponies, not letting us grow as bountiful crops as you do, but this is made up for it in sheer constitution; very few things can seriously hurt an adult dragon, and, even more, we can claim our meals directly from the lands bounty, through our ability to consume gems. Our fire is less versatile than the spells of a unicorn, but it burns all the hotter for it.

Soot the Dragon

Change of opinion: If I could be anything at all, I would be a dragon. Like look at that quote: It makes being a dragon sound awesome!

That said, most of the book is a lot less impressive. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t bad, but for the most part its pretty much just a normal textbook.

Still, it had a few interesting spells in the appendix. A gem finding spell if you wanted to give a dragon friend a gift, a fireworks spell if you wanted to imitate dragonbreath, and, for whatever reason, some kind of messaging spell that requires dragonfire.

I’m not sure why the last one is there. I can understand the gem one, and I can see why they might add the fireworks one, but what does dragonfire have to do with sending messages?

Entry #6

Idle thought: You know what I’d love to see? Night. Actual night, with all the stars out and the moon in the sky. Sure it’d be harder to see, but I remember the one painting of a starry night I saw a few years ago (I think. I really need to look for a calendar and watch so I can track the passage of time), and it was beautiful. It had an enchantment to make the stars on the canvas actually twinkle, and the moon really shine.

Now I kinda wish I had taken the painting with me. But that was before I had my wagon.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and find a nice painting in Ponyville. That’d be nice.

Entry #7

Its been a few days since I wrote anything, sorry.

...I don’t know why I’m apologizing. No ones ever gonna read this and even if they did, they aren’t gonna realize its been more than one day between entries unless I mention it.

Anyways, I reached the outskirts of Ponyville. Found a nice, big apple farm. If the other town I visited had nice apples, the ones here are amazing. Nice, big, juicy, delicious. If there was any way to measure lingering earth pony magic, this place would be crawling in it.

There was also a house on the farm I explored. It didn’t have much on it. Some canned food, an old recipe book, some cooking utensils.

I’m not sure how to put this next part: I found a corpse. I’ve found dead bodies before, once or twice. I’m never quite sure what to do. Am I supposed to bury them? It feels wrong to just leave them there, but I usually can’t waste the time and energy necessary to dig a grave.

However, due to the abundance of fresh food on the farm, that wasn’t as much of an issue. It was, I think, a decent trade: A proper burial for a few days rest and some good meals.

I’m assuming, of course, that the pony was the owner of this farm. For all I know they could have simply just been visiting here when everything died.

Anyways, tomorrow I think I’ll venture into town proper. See what I can find. Try and forget the dead body, hope it doesn’t haunt my dreams.

Entry #8

This town is bigger than I thought it was. A lot bigger. So far I’ve found enough food to last me...

Well, awhile. I’m not gonna be going hungry any time soon. Especially with the apple farm. I might be able to stay here awhile. The thought makes me a bit giddy. Not having to journey far and wide! No longer worrying about finding enough food! Not having to deal with random monster attacks!

Sounds like paradise. That said, something about this town rubs me the wrong way. I’m not sure what. I just get this itchy feeling that somethings up.

It’s probably just my nerves from dealing with the body, honestly, but still.

Anyways, as far as tools and books go, I’ve found a decent amount. One building that was reminiscent of a carousel had a number of sewing tools and fabric left over, as well as one or two books on the subject of clothesmaking. Probably useless, but if I ever need to go north, I could probably use these to make something warm to wear.

There was also a building that looked like it had a gingerbread roof. Judging from the inside, it was probably a restaurant of some form. Most of the things there were unusable, but there was some cooking utensils and a few bags of what I presume is flour still unspoiled.

The last place I stopped was what I think was a local school building, judging by the desks. It had a few books, but they were all on subjects I had already read. I packed them into the cart regardless. I wasn’t going to just leave a book there to rot, after all.

Anyways, I’m gonna take the cart back to the farm and unload it. I’ll probably spend the next few days looking over the

I apologize for the pause, I lost my train of thought. As I was writing, I noticed something in the distance. It appears to be some kind of castle growing out of a tree, judging by the distance, just on the outside of town. I’m not sure what thats about. I’m tempted to investigate immediately, but it would probably be best to wait til I’ve got a good understanding of the layout of the town first.

Entry #9

I found another body. I decided to search the edge of the town first, get a bearing for the place. I found a sort of cottage,
with a green sod roof. It was right next to a river, and had a lot of birdhouses surrounding it. What was curious was that the cottage, and all the birdhouses, were all in perfect repair. For a moment, I felt a twinge of hope that I might have found somepony alive. After all, if no one lived here, surely it would have fallen into a state of disrepair, right?

Unfortunately, a detection spell turned up no signs of life. What it did turn up was a powerful spell of preservation. I’m not going to lie, it was a very ODD spell. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think it wasn’t cast by a unicorn.

I was a little disappointing, but I probably shouldn’t have expected much. In all my life, I’ve seen maybe two or three other ponies, and each of those meetings occurred when I was young. The chances of me finding anypony else now was next to nil.

Of course, preservation spells mean magic. Preservation spells means that theres something inside someone wanted to keep in mint condition. I had thought the cottage might contain a magicked item, or at least something valuable.

Imagine my surprise when all it held was a corpse. Most likely killed in the same event that killed everything else. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.

One thing that was odd was the fact that, unlike every other dead body I’ve come across, this one didn’t have a look of confused pain on it. It was odd. All I could see was a strange look of...serenity. Acceptance. She had a piece of paper on her. Out of curiosity I took a look at it. It turned out to be a letter of some sort. Here are the contents as best I could transcribe them:

Dear Fluttershy,

I’m sorry I couldn’t protect you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there when this happened. I’m sorry I couldn’t save your friends. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

-Disco

It had more, but the rest of it pretty much consisted of some variation of ‘I’m sorry’. At least I presume so; after a certain point the writing got smudged enough to be illegible. Even the name, I suspect, is half finished since next to the O is something thats either a half formed R or a particularly poorly written K. Regardless, I buried the body. I don’t know who Fluttershy was or what she did, but just like the pony on the farm, I didn’t feel right leaving her there. I made sure to put the letter with her.

That’s the second body I’ve found in this town. I hope it’s the last one. I sincerely hope so.

Entry #10

I had the oddest dream. My dreams are usually odd, granted, but this one had a detail that unnerved me. It was a dream I’d had a thousand times before, me walking the streets of a big city, full of people, looking for a particular building or event. What struck me as odd was the fact that I kept spotting in the crowd odd ponies that did nothing but stare at me. Most unnerving was the fact that their eyes were...off. I know I’m not an expert on other ponies, but I’m certain they didn’t have yellow eyes with red pupils. Otherwise, the dream was normal. I went inside the building, which in this case was I think a furniture repair store.

Anyways, odd dream aside, today has been rather boring. I’ve found a few things here and there that might be useful, primarily furnishings for the farm house. The only interesting thing I found was a biography of Princess Celestia.

You know, its odd. Celestia is consistently the only princess that history books ALWAYS mention. Sometimes theres a second princess, once or twice I’ve seen mention to a third, someone called Luna, once or twice I’ve seen reference to a fourth princess, but Celestia ALWAYS shows up when princesses are mentioned.

I wonder what she was like. Every source on her seems to sing her praises, so she was probably pretty nice.

I’m rambling a bit, sorry. Anyways, unless I find anything particularly interesting I think I’ll wait a few days for my next entry.

Entry #11

I know I said I’d wait another day, but I had that dream again. That EXACT dream. Usually it happens once every week or so, and only once has it occurred twice in a row. The ponies with strange eyes were gone, this time. Instead, it was only a single pony with strange eyes, following me as I walked. He occasionally said something, but I was too far away to hear every time. Towards the end of the dream, he started to look....angry. Frustrated.

I think I’m going to hurry up and visit that castle. So far I’ve encountered several strange things in this town, and I’m bettintg that the castle has at least some answer to whats been going on.