The mare smiled brightly to the forward path with a pep in her step. "Cherry Blossom!"

Cherry Blossom, chuckling to myself I think of how ridiculous some of these names are.

"Nice to meet you Cherry, Do you mind if I ask what you do around here?"

"Oh not at all! I just pick cherries, well I and my sister. We are farmers so we just farm cherries and sell them on stands and outsource them."

"So then why be near the forest, wouldn't you have your own acre of like, cherries?" Instead of thinking over it she just laughed at the notion,

I was confused. "What?"

She held a big smile while speaking. "I wasn't over there to farm cherries, I was there to get fruit, I and my sister prefer to grab what's around the edges of the forest or a little further down. Although now that I felt that aura," She grimaced. "I think I'll stay out of its path for a while."

I hummed in agreement. "Probably a good choice, although you keep mentioning you and your sister, what about the rest of your fam-" before I could finish my sentence she interrupted.

"I don't want to talk about it." Her tone was hollow and cold.

"Sorry."

"Don't worry about it, on the bright side we're here" Her tone shifted to a slightly hopeful tone.

Looking up I found what here was. A dirt path had lined itself in the middle that splits into two different directions after a few feet away. To each side along the path held small houses that were fenced along the road. At the split of the road held two signs with one below pointing to the right while the other one on the top pointed to the left, I couldn't see very well what it read.

"This seems a lot more," I tilted my head in thought. "closer than I expected, don't you guys have farmers? Or are you and your sister the only ones?"

She giggled, "This area is more of a home-based location for ponies who aren't farmers, you know where the sign is at the split? It divides to a town center or to the farmer's market which a little further down has farmer's land.."

"Oh, that makes sense."

"Mhm, let's go to the town center, I'm sure you can get a map of the place over at the city hall. That is, if you are going to stay, I wouldn't recommend going out at night though."

Just as she was about to move I stopped her. "Wait, how do you know it's turning night?"

"Huh? Oh! Well, you know how I talked about sending magic from my hooves to the ground?"

"Yeah?"

"Well with the moon luminesce it sends energy similar to the sun where it can be used by plant life to animals. A sort of heat and light, not nearly as potent but still enough to send energy that we can use. So I can sense its energy and due to the difference in intensity I can tell when it's night or day."

"That's, actually pretty cool."

"Thanks!"

"I don't know if I'll stay long though, I was thinking of just keep on moving."

She frowned. "Wouldn't be wise to travel due to a sort of a parasprite infestation."

"Parasprites? The small bugs?" I couldn't imagine them being much of a problem. "That doesn't sound bad to travel through."

"Well no, but they are prey to animals nearby, some ponies say it also attracted a monster that's been seen a couple of times."

"Monster?"

She shrugged "It's nothing, just some gossip, but now that is on the subject I think we'll need to withhold the tour." She stopped at the sign with a hum.

"I- yeah that's probably a good idea."

She sighed before turning. "I'm worried I know the answer but I'm gonna ask anyway, do you have a place to stay?"

The deafening silence is all I could muster... after a few seconds, I could only suck in air through my closed teeth. "If I say yes-" before I could continue she just interrupted with a big, long sigh.

"You can stay over at the farm as I'm sure if you didn't already have a plan of housing then you aren't particularly loaded either huh?"

Damnit she's pretty sharp. "No, I-"

She cut in again. "Shadey, I may not be able to feel your aura but I can hear pretty well, and from the sound of it you're not even wearing a satchel or bag."

"I-" Shit, she's got me there.

"Come on." She started to move along the road leaning towards the left.

"Wait!" I tried to keep pace with her, "What about your sister? I mean wouldn't she, I don't know, be surprised for you to bring in a stranger? And why go through this trouble for me?"

"In my book, strangers are just friends you haven't made."

Okaaaay so ponies are more gullible than I thought.

She zoned in on something, it looked as if it was distant and yet close to her face but she was blind? "And my sister won't be back for a while, she has this trip she's making for some of our extended family. And for you, well while I may not feel your aura I have felt what bad ponies' auras are like. I can't say yours is fuzzy and warm like others but it's not bad, y'know?"

"You, you can see if people are good?"

She laughed at that, "Pft no!"

"What?"

"It's like, y'know how sometimes when you get super excited you feel like you can do more? Or if you're sad you don't feel like you can do as much?"

"Yeah?"

"It's kinda like that, I can feel what ponies are feeling inside sorta, like what is weighing on their soul? It's kinda hard to describe." She knit her brow before slowly continuing. "It's like, it's like I can see a bit of that emotion in a sense, like if it's affecting someone's mana pool like if they see super excited and they release a more powerful spell. But for you, I didn't and still don't feel anything, I can't see your magical aura or your kind of emotions hanging over it. Just nothing, sorry if that didn't make sense." She frowned with a bit of concentration worn on her face.

"No no, that uh," Thinking it over I spilled my thoughts in real-time. "actually kinda made sense."

Author's Note

I know I know, weak but I've been struggling with this chapter for a bit and I've been dealing with school so I'll probably rewrite this chapter later on.