And just as Alaric had said, we reached the port of Sydia shortly thereafter. There was a flurry of activity in the haven. From what I could tell it must have been mostly convoys with guns and supplies for the monarchists from the other nations of the south who were also monarchist and thus heavily invested in making sure the communists of the Griffon Liberation Army would not win. However, despite the help the monarchists were receiving, according to the aforementioned captured newspaper, there was a huge stalemate across the entire front. The Rumareian crew brought out the caches of weapons and soon, an official came and talked with Alaric. Not long after, Alaric gave the crew the sign to start unloading the crates on the dock. The official inspected the contents of the first box and judging them to be fine, let the Rumareians handle the rest. According to Alaric the caches would be moved by them to a military depot close to the port and then they would have to go through some paperwork. The paperwork would be the issue that would take up the most time. Meanwhile, we went to see the mayor of the city. I would need a permit to even be wandering around the city, especially, since I was a pony and not a griffon. The mayor would usually reject such a thing, but because Alaric was providing for the loyalists and many in the Brodfeld nobility knew him, the mayor turned a blind eye to it and signed the permit. Alaric passed it to me.

‘You need to have this on you at all times. If anyone stops you, just show them this and you will be in the clear.’

‘I think that was self-explanatory. Thanks for helping me get the permit though.’

‘You’re welcome, princess.’

Contain yourself Rosa, do not strike this ignorant buffoon down. Deep breaths, deep breaths. At least now, I could go around in Sydia and I wouldn’t have to waste my time being stuck on the stupid boat. In all honesty, not much information was available for the southern parts of Griffonia especially for the areas between the Creeper Mountains and the River Federation. For Prywhen itself, the extent of my knowledge was, that in pre-Groverian times the country was split between the three principalities of Kivessin, Brodfeld and Sydia, then Grover the First happened and the country came under Imperial rule, under which it was also united under Kihai de Kissau in 853. Then Kihai was promptly assassinated due to his increasing power in the region. However, when the Empire imploded, this allowed the kingdom of Brodfeld to be united once more in 973 under King Kloseu de Kissau, this time as an independent kingdom. Then came a famine and after that an assassination attempt on the king’s life by communist supporters, which lead to the death of his wife, which lead to the start of the civil war in 1005.

At any rate, I was simply interested in seeing the city of Sydia today, with its fortified towers all over the place. I passed outside an old temple and that was fortified as well. The way the windows were placed, namely on such height that one could safely fire outside through them, the thickness of the walls and the heavy, reinforced doors all laid testament to that. Down another street I could see in the distance the castle of Sydia, which in older times would have been the residence of the Domnitor of the port-city. While it was indeed impressive with its orange looking roofs on the fortified towers and the scenic gatehouses, it made me wonder, what the reason could be for the buildings in the residential area of Sydia to have just as many fortified towers and walls as the castle. After all, Sydia was not a huge city, at least compared to other cities of the south like Karthin or Kivessin or even Falcor. And griffons, just like all the other creatures, do not fortify their homes, unless there is very good reason for it, so I suppose there was more than enough conflict in the south in older times.

Still, even Sydia’s and Prywhen’s modern history in general were very peculiar, to my mind. Of course, I only knew the stories from one source, a doubtful one at that, but they just did not add up. The communists did exist since, at least, 995, because of the famine. King Kloseu was not exactly unpopular at the time. How else would half the country be fighting for him? Then, I also reckon that back in 1003 the communists were not even a sizable party. They would have existed for a period of eight years maximum and for a situation that was getting slowly alleviated by the king. Not that the king was a saint. Far from that, he assumed dictatorial powers in 1001 and suppressed any opposition. Still, his dictatorship was what halted the downward spiral, at least momentarily. Why would the communists try to assassinate him, while he still had a significant power base? I would understand it, if it was a move taken by a smaller disgruntled group, but according to my sources and most accounts abroad, the plan was undertaken by the entirety of the communist party. Regardless, that was the version publicized by the King in the monarchist controlled areas. I understand why the King would want to get rid of the communists, but the story itself does not add up. The communists were preparing for an eventual uprising in the countryside, but when the assassination actually took place, they were not ready yet, hence, why they performed so poorly in the beginning of the civil war. In general, it looks to me as if events were written specifically in a way to appease and enrage the common folk on each side, who would not inquire any more on the matter. Yet, when one looks at them more closely, they start falling apart. Still, it seems as if this time the presentation was so well written that even those of the population that did inquire slightly, did not end up believing anything else other than the version of events published by their supported side. Makes one wonder, really.

And thinking of that I realized I was very hungry and it was getting late as well. It was still two to three hours till nighttime so I went back to the boat, where I had food packed with my luggage. It was just cookies and biscuits, preserved well in a box sealed with magic, but they are a lot better than the fish and canned fruit I had forced myself to eat at sea till I arrived here in Prywhen from Equestria, which I had done so as to conserve the food I had with me. And I had to endure this ‘seafaring diet’ for about a month. Allegedly, we could have arrived much faster, but there were a lot of delays, because we had to stop at Eldoran once to refuel and the griffons had said they couldn’t have been sailing the ship constantly at full speed, since that would destroy the engine. At any rate, tonight I would have liked to have been able to eat at Sydia without having to go all the way back to the boat, but I guessed there wouldn’t be any place to find food in Sydia with the impending or, rather, current famine plaguing the entirety of Prywhen. When I reached the port, it was already dusk. I sat down in the boat, took out the biscuits from my luggage and watched as the sun in its beautiful orange like colours dipped to the narrow line where the horizon met the ocean, somewhere far away between the coasts of Cyanolysia to the west and the small islands near the coast of Gryphus to the east, making it blaze a plethora of beautiful orange colours. As I sat there, I thought about the land of the rice fields and how it was tearing itself to pieces on its own and how most likely the beings of no-being must have been responsible for this.

Then I remembered the book I had secured off a local bookshop in Sydia earlier and, using magic to cast light above and around me, I began reading. Strangely it was written by a Mason, namely the Mason of Twelt. The shop owner had given it to me for almost nothing at all. Said it was written in a strange encrypted language, that nobody could understand anymore. When I opened the first few pages, I quickly understood what he meant. The entire thing was written in gibberish! I thought of that jokingly, but indeed the book’s pages were filled with weird characters seemingly put one after the other with no particular structure whatsoever. I was somewhat disappointed by this discovery. Regardless, this meant I wouldn’t be reading that book anytime soon. To pass the time, I instead decided to practice some of my spells. Because of how I learned spell-craft most of my spells were meta-natural, meaning that I could create natural things out of energy. For example, instead of using energy directly to heal a wound, like a unicorn would normally do, I instead can manifest the tools in order to operate the wound, just like a doctor would. This kind of magic does not limit itself to objects though. I can use anything natural to my advantage. This has advantages and disadvantages, of course. On one hoof, it means I can pretty much do anything I want, as long as I have knowledge of it. For the former example of medical operations, the knowledge of such procedures I had learned from my mother, as part of her training on restoration of recently deceased bodies. She always insisted that if a dead body can be raised intact that would be preferable to the raising of a pile of bones, so, if a corpse could be restored to its primordial condition, then it should, prior to its resurrection. While examples like this show the potential of knowledge-based magic, they also reveal the fact that I am always bound to natural boundaries on many spells. This is an inescapable issue for me, which makes me just as powerful as I am vulnerable. Most notably my spells are much more costly in terms of energy than the spells normally used by unicorns. Not to mention, that some of my spells directly affect my mental state whenever used, in case they require extensive knowledge of a certain subject to be used. My elemental spells are the same but in terms of the environment. I cannot just create fire out of nothing. However, for example, I can collect water from the air or out of other creatures. Of course, all that comes after my resurrection and life spells, which I exercise as a necromancer.

Nothing fancy tonight though; I just took heat from a lantern nearby and created two small fireballs in the air and simply played with them. Spun them around and so forth. I am still such a foal, I thought to myself. As the flares danced to my command, they created patterns and repeated said patterns over and over again. Patterns, patterns… What if… I took the strange book out again along with a piece of paper. I started skimming through the pages looking for patterns. Soon, I was able to rearrange most of the letters to their un-cryptographic counterparts. The language was Herzlandic. Knowing this and having a basic knowledge of Herzlandic, which I had learned from school back in Equestria, as well as the order of rearrangement, I was able to actually start reading the book.

The book was apparently some kind of analysis of observations. It talked about the repetition of events. The author was of the opinion that, while history did not repeat itself, instead it cycled. He talked about how evidence could prove that before Grover’s Empire, other similar empires had existed for centuries, before written history was available. The idea of the chaos that reigned before Grover the First is simply an illusion created by the Grovers themselves and then popularized by the griffons. Indeed, there was chaos before the Griffonian Empire, but that was only for a short period of time. Before that period of time there must have been other, equally, sizable empires that once ruled the land. All in all, history could be predicted according to the author, but that was, according to him, unnatural. By the laws of nature and logic such cycling is possible up to a point, but not forever. Yet, it has been happening basically forever. Prywhen was no different. In ancient times it was a kingdom, the Kingdom of Whiteflower, that had ruled Prywhen, Blackrock and Lushi. According to the very few records left from that kingdom, there was a significant effort to build a dam as the river there was very well known to flood the region. The goal was to use the dam so as to redirect a portion of the flow of the river towards another river that had been artificially extended, so that the river would not overflow around its main basin. This would also allow for the cultivation of more rice fields along the secondary river, without the fear that any riverside towns would get destroyed by the next flood. But the dam always fell and one time a cataclysmic flood raged over the ancient kingdom, virtually annihilating it. That’s when Prywhen was finally split up between the principalities of Sydia, Brodfeld and Kivessin. The writer concluded that the failure of the construction of the dam was not natural. They had the technology, they could build it, but every time something simply went wrong, without fail. The thing is that other dams had been built in the region, even on faster streams, and they all had stood. It was only that specific one that would always collapse. The writer concluded, by mentioning, that events like Equestria’s unification or the coalition against the Empire of Undeath also suffered similar fates. They all seemed like they would end up in peace and prosperity for the respective parties involved, yet they only stayed so for a short while before they were ultimately crushed by events totally unpredictable. The book ended there. For my part, I thought that all this was absolutely true, but the problem was that this book itself was no evidence of anything. The ‘unpredictable’ reasons would, in most cases, be the beings of no-being, the Wendigos. The question was, whether it was possible to actually prove the effects of something that should not exist in the first place and how one should go about doing so. While I was mulling on that, Alaric returned, but I couldn’t see the rest of the crew.

‘Despite my expectations, you are back early.’

‘This is Brodfeld, so there is little food but plenty of booze. However, I did not come here to get wasted. As for my griffons, they do deserve to do as they like tonight. On another note, I expected you to still be in the city, princess.’

I looked at him angrily.

‘Do not call me princess!’

‘Alright, I get it. Anyhow, for your information, we will be leaving again tomorrow morning. Will take us another month or so to be in Bakara. From there you will have to go on land to the River Republic, Rosa.’

I pondered for a while, what it really was, that I wanted to do. On the one hoof, mother had arranged for me to go to the River Republic and continue my magic practices there. On the other, I did not think I would have much to gain from training on magic anymore. Not to mention, that my goal, in reality, was to improve myself, so that I could uncover more about Truth, soul harvesting and the Wendigos. If I went to the Republic now, I would be pretty much stuck there and not able to progress on any of those fronts. Maybe I was just being crazy, but I thought that the best option would be to end my seafaring journey here in Prywhen.

I turned to Alaric who was busy rearranging some of the weaponry on the ship.

‘That won’t be necessary, Dawnbreaker’

Alaric turned slightly to me, but did not stop working his way around the guns and ammunition.

‘I am sorry, but I do not understand, Rosa.’

‘I will disembark here, rather than have you take me to Bakara.’

Alaric fully dropped the guns and faced me. I could not clearly tell the expression he was making, as it was quite dark, but he must have looked confused.

‘I am sorry, but I still don’t understand what you are saying.’

‘I am getting down on land here, in Prywhen.’

‘First, it is called Brodfeld. Second, my contract was till Bakara. Third, are you out of your mind? Brodfeld is a majority, if not entirely, griffon nation, with absolutely no regards to other races, especially ponies. Fourth… are you absolutely nuts?! Did you forget that Brodfeld is in a bloody civil war between the royalists and the communists? You have a death wish or something?’

‘I do not think that I could in any way be physically harmed, if that’s your concern. As for giving you a reason for deciding to stay in Prywhen, I do not think you are entitled to being given any reasons from me whatsoever. However, for what it is worth, know that I am not crazy. I just think that in Prywhen I can start my research on the things out of our control, that I had talked to you about before.’

‘You know, ‘that’ did sound crazy. What is it exactly that you want to do? You want to go smack down Redglad or Kloseu? Are you out of your mind?’

‘I wasn’t meaning them. But I don’t think you will understand, even if I told you. Not to mention, that most likely it wouldn’t help you, specifically, if I told you. But rest assured that I have my reasons.’

Alaric grinned across his beak.

‘Who’d tell me I’d carry a lunatic who wants to learn the truth about the world five months prior? Well, lunatic or not, you certainly got my respect. I have seen many creatures your age. They waste their lives away. Your conviction is outstanding. But the things you wanna do are neither easy nor pleasant. You know that, right?’

‘A bit late for such advice, I am afraid. Though, you should give that advice to yourself as well, shouldn’t you Alaric? Will you go back to Rumare now?’

‘Ah, yes, I must. Now, I think, we will have the funds to start off. Also, while it is none of my business, have you thought where you’d stay and so forth?’

‘None of your business.’

Alaric’s laughter could be heard in the silence of the night. Made me feel pleasant in a way. He turned to go back to his work, but I spoke up again. I would have felt wrong, if I hadn’t. Yes, I was not obliged to tell him anything, but he was also not obliged before not to throw me overboard, when he learned I was a necromancer.

‘Well, I plan on heading to Twelt first. As for accommodation, I will think about it on the way. I have enough money, even though I highly doubt it is of any value in Prywhen, in its current state.’

‘Brodfeld’

‘Okay you monarchist sympathizer. Brodfeld.’

‘Has nothing to do with me being with the monarchists, really. Yes, I do not appreciate the communists and I did business with the monarchists, but I do not exactly support the monarchists. But Twelt is currently under monarchist control, so you had better refer to the nation as Brodfeld, there.’

‘Alright, thanks for the advice. In general, I plan on moving around quite often. There is much I want to find out about, after all. I will have to go to Kivessin once as well.’

‘Do not make a habit of moving between front-lines.’

‘I will be just fine. My first goal will be to see what I can learn about the conflict and how much it actually has to do with the attempt on the King’s life, that ended up killing his wife.’

‘Alright. Will you go out tonight or will you wait till tomorrow morning?’

‘I planned to start off tomorrow morning and sleep on the boat again tonight, for the last time, if you don’t mind.’

‘Not at all. Well, I’ll go gather my crew. They must be blind-drunk now. As I said before, food may be scarce, but booze indeed is not.’

Alaric left and I was alone on the boat again and thus opted to go to sleep immediately, so that I wouldn’t be woken up, when the Rumareians came back. I secured my newly acquired cryptic book in a bag and curled up to sleep. The boat rocked slightly due the waves below and the little splashing sounds made the cool spring atmosphere all the more pleasant. I reckon it is the first time in quite a long time that I will sleep without having to bear the engine roaring in the back, as we had been moving day and night to limit the time of travel. As my eyelids grew heavy, I desperately tried not to think about home or my parents. I hoped that, if I dreamt today, that it would not be another nightmare. With the lights of Sydia behind me and the horizon in front, I closed my eyes, smiling, for once.

When I woke up the next morning, the sun had barely come up yet. Alaric and his crew were already awake though, or better said they hadn’t really slept, but had just sobered up from last night. Alaric saw me get up.

‘Good morning, Rosa. You should have heard yourself in the night. What in Arcturius’s name were you giggling about?’

I was relatively confused.

‘Must have been a dream or something along those lines.’

‘Must have been quite the good one then.’

‘I guess so.’

I didn’t waste any time. Alaric helped me haul my luggage from the bottom deck and then I put my bag on my back.

‘Right. Well, here I go then.’

‘It has been an honour to have met you, Rosa Maledicta. May you raise the dead far and wide!’

Alaric laughed heavily, but he was sincere. He was rough, but honesty he did not lack.

‘Likewise, Alaric Dawnbreaker, Baron of Rumare!’

As I stepped out of the boat Alaric stood in attention, saluted and shouted: ‘Yma o Hyd!’

I turned around, saluted back and replied: ‘Yma o Hyd!’

As I turned to leave, I heard the crew cheering and shouting ‘Yma o Hyd!’ towards me. I waved at them and then continued on my way. Soon, thereafter I had walked off the port and could see the old smuggling boat no more. Well, my time now.

Author's Note

My depiction of Sydia is based upon the Romanian city of Sibiu, or at least upon the depiction of the city of Sibiu on Wikipedia.

Special Thanks to:
Amadoow
Scribbly
Again, and just like with chapter 1, all syntactical, contextual and grammatical corrections are done thanks to Scribbly and my good friend Amadoow.