Apple Bloom and the Floating Windmill

Exhalation

Walking, walking and more walking, I've been doing a lot of walking since I left Ponyville, putting one hoof in front of the others is such a simple movement you don't even think about what you're doing most of the time if nothing is taking you out of the repetitive yet simple action-

Ouch, that hurt. I wince as the feeling of pain intensifies in my hoof, all I did was stand on a pebble I didn't see but it's enough to make my leg move slightly to the side which in turn is just enough movement to bring pain back into whatever injury I had from jumping out of that window earlier.

It's probably nothing serious, I can still walk after all, that doesn't mean I like the feeling though... ah well, I guess there's nothing more to do right about now than what I usually do when I don't need to pay much attention to what i'm doing.
Thinking is always fun, I can go over all the different stories Granny Smith told me over and over again, she certainly knew how to inspire active imagination.

Seeing Ponyville had given me a new topic to think about at least, I wonder how many actual towns and cities still exist? I mean, Ponyville is lacking in ponies and the population of Canterlot is currently one. Granny Smith had plenty to say about her favourite places in Equestria, she said a lot about places like Manehattan and Fillydelphia, those places were definitely abandoned now, complete ghost cities.

Apparently there used to be flying cities as well, at least one anyway. It seems obvious that such a place would be perfect against The Pestilence, completely disconnected from the ground with a large amount of space and probably plenty of resources. Granny spoke of Cloudsdale every now and again, a beautiful place filled with happy ponies, rainbows and amazing views, certainly a great place to escape from disease... or it was at least, until the day that the princess 'blew it out of the sky' as Granny once said. Nopony knows why she would destroy Cloudsdale but it certainly didn't help her public image of being an evil ruler that causes everypony's problems.

I've heard of another city called 'Las Pegasus' a couple of times, I'm not sure if it floated or not though, Granny Smith didn't like to talk about that place apart from a vague reference here and there. Another kind of place worth considering are the few towns constructed in high places like hills and even mountains, Canterlot being the most obvious example of the latter. Apparently these places were quickly filled with ponies looking to escape The Pestilence, some of them failed because of overpopulation and a lack of resources but some places seemed to be successful, until ponies started to realise that even though they were high up, since the mountains are still connected to the ground below, the disease would spread there eventually, even if it took a while.

I guess floating islands were the last resort, apparently being constructed by unicorns and earth ponies working together, it's the only successful solution to The Pestilence, although they're hard to make so there weren't that many of them created, not enough for every pony in Equestria at least...
There used to be islands everywhere apparently, over time ponies passed away, when they were all gone, nopony would be left to keep the windmill turning and without its magical energy or whatever, the island would fall out of the sky.

Magical windmills, who knew they'd be so useful?

So here I am, still walking through a forest I don't actually know the name of, there hasn't been much of interest to think about around me, although I did just walk by a parasprite, apparently those things used to be a significant threat to ponies because of the ability of constantly eat and multiply, since The Pestilence makes finding fruit and vegetables on the ground almost impossible, parasprites haven't been multiplying as much as they could've in the past. One would wonder why the parasprites haven't gone extinct if there isn't any food for them but apparently they can actually go an extremely long time without eating, they just want to eat constantly.

Now that I'm thinking of eating, I actually realise that I should probably do that soon, and despite everything already being somewhat dark, I have noticed that it's been getting significantly darker over the last few minutes. This is a problem, I hadn't actually thought much about what I was going to do when it was nighttime... I will need to sleep eventually after all.

As I continue to pass through the forest as effectively as possible I notice a small hill nearby, there seems to be a hole in the side of the hill, definitely a cave, it could be dangerous depending on how large the cave is but if it was small enough it could be used as shelter for the night... it's worth the risk to look at least.

I approach the cave carefully, peeking around the edge of the hole too look inside... nothing, completely empty, it's rather small actually, not enough room for anything to be hiding in. I step inside of the cave and take off my saddlebags, I had been lucky enough to keep hold of them even with all the crazy stuff that happened today.

I open my saddlebags to pull out a small blanket and an apple, the perfect food to keep my energy high while travelling. I sit on the blanket and try to relax a little as I eat my apple, I'm positioned in a way so that I can be hidden as possible from anything outside of the cave. There shouldn't be many creatures out there but if there are, hopefully they won't notice anything.

It's while I'm eating and passively looking around the cave that I suddenly notice some kind of writing carved into the side of the wall... a message? maybe I'm not the first pony to sleep in this cave?
I approach the message in order to see it clearly, it's certainly strange...
'We must trade this disease for the promised night. Return to us, Princess of the Moon'
This message leaves me confused and kind of... excited? It's probably just nonsense though, I mean this is the first I'm hearing of there being more than three princesses, I'm sure none of them ever had a title like 'Princess of the Moon' . Either way, it's something of interest to think about...

Three princesses... although there's only one left now... I wonder were they got the idea of there being a fourth princess. The only thing that comes to mind that could be related to a 'Princess of the Moon' is the old story of the 'Mare in the Moon' Granny told a couple of times... that's just a story though, maybe whoever wrote this message had a little too much faith in old storybooks.

Whatever the case, I can tell I definitely need sleep now... I should stop thinking about this so hard and just focus on getting some rest, Canterlot is still a while away, after all.

It's morning before I realise I've even been asleep, I can tell it's morning, even though the sky is constantly dark there's enough light to tell that the sun has risen at least. I step out of the cave, inhale... exhale... I'm ready to start walking again.

I think I'm still heading in the direction of Canterlot, despite being unable to cross through Ponyville directly and having to use the forest as an alternative route. If this place wasn't dead it'd probably be beautiful, green grass and tall trees everywhere... too bad that's not real.
I'm pretty tired of grey, everything seems to be that colour down here.

After a while of walking I've come across something I've never seen before, although I probably should've expected to find at least one of these eventually... A floating island, not actually floating anymore. It had crashed to the ground a long time ago, damaging the land around it, multiple trees had been knocked down and there were large cracks in the earth surrounding it.

Rubble, an old house and a broken windmill, it's weird to see something like this because of how easily this could and probably will eventually happen to my own home...
I let my curiosity get the better of me again, I climbed on top of the island and walked towards the house, it's small and badly damaged of course. I open the front door and the first thing I see isn't exactly something I enjoyed looking at...
Dust everywhere, not regular dust obviously, this is what was left of the owner of this house, they passed the same way Granny did.

Tears, I'm crying. I probably should've cried sooner but for some reason seeing it a second time made the emotional impact from before return much stronger now than it was before. I don't know why but I didn't cry when I lost Granny Smith, I was definitely crying now though.
I guess it just took a while for me to realise how I was feeling.

I left the house, I didn't want to see anything else in there.
I did walk towards the windmill though, there was something I wanted to see before continuing on my journey.

The inside of the windmill was almost exactly the same as the windmill back home, full of gears and whatever else made windmills work. It's nothing that interesting really but I just wanted to see how similar it was, everything in here was what I expected.
There was one thing that I wasn't expecting to find though, on the far end of the windmill was some kind of... altar?
It's badly damaged but there's an old book lying on the ground in front of it, the book had some kind of golden unicorn on the front and as soon as I opened it and read the beginning I knew what it was.
This book is the story of the Mare in the Moon, maybe someone from this island wrote that message in the cave?

Regardless of how interesting this discovery was, it was ultimately unrelated to my journey so it'd have to stay as just one of the few interesting things I've found along the way.
I move on, leaving the crashed island and walking through the forest once again, I've been doing that for a while but the breaks I've had have made it less tedious than it would've been if I had just been walking in a straight line this entire time, so there's that at least.

Ahead of me, the forest seems to be coming to an end, there're less dead trees, they're still there, just more spread out, more of a field with the occasional tree than a forest.
One thing that filled me with hope was that now I wasn't surrounded by trees, I could clearly see the mountain I was supposed to be heading towards, I had been slightly turned around after all but I now know exactly which direction to walk in so problem solved, I guess!

I continue walking ahead and the grass begins to disappear as I enter an area with a lot of stone and rocks, some kind of barren wasteland, not that the forest wasn't a wasteland as well but at least there were dead plants there, here there aren't any plants at all, well, maybe a couple here and there but not much.

There're holes scattered around the area, I walked over to the largest one and looked down, it was dark and I couldn't tell how deep it went. If I wasn't more familiar with them, I'd say these were probably holes dug by diamond dogs but these holes are... I'm not sure how to describe it but they're dug in a way that a diamond dog wouldn't be capable of doing.

It was less like a hole was dug and more like an incredibly powerful creature wanted to be underground and the floor was just in the way so it had to be opened. That doesn't even make sense to me but it kinda describes it in the best way possible, the creature wasn't thinking when it created this hole.

Letting curiosity get the best of me yet again, I lean in slightly and squint, hoping I can see something at the bottom... hold on, there is something down there...
Eyes.

Immediately I back away from the hole, knowing what I had just seen was the creature I had desperately hoped I would never see... an ashenwolf.

The creature claws itself out of the hole, it looks like disease in wolf form, grey and deteriorated, its eyes glowing red.
It immediately throws itself at me without hesitation, I fall backwards out of fear, I feel a sharp pain from moving my injured leg so quickly, I know I have no chance of defending myself from this thing.

In an instant the creature reaches me and... stops?

It's just standing there for a couple of seconds before it suddenly turns to look at something behind me, whatever it sees must be more important than me because the ashenwolf quickly leaps over me to get to it.
I turn around quickly to see what's happening just in time for me to witness some kind of magic cover the creature's body.
The ashenwolf stops moving and crumbles into pure dust, in front of it is the source of this powerful magic, something I didn't expect to see at all.

It's a unicorn.