The old prophecy.

“Sorry! Excuse me! Woops, sorry! Really ma’am, I’m so sorry, I… excuse me!” I can’t believe this! Twinkle Star thought. “Wow, watch it big g… eeehh, excuse me!” I really can’t believe this! I’ve never been in such a crowded place before! Once again, she bumped into another person. “Watch it, young lady!” The old man yelled. “Sorry, sorry!” It had looked like such a cute, little town when she first noticed it, but this little town was everything except cute. It was so crowded, Twinkle Star couldn’t see what stores she was passing by, or where there could be something like an inn. She really wanted to sleep in a nice, soft bed this night, because she had been sleeping outside for a few nights now. She had been travelling a lot further than she had expected; she had been following Fiume for 3 days now, but without any sign of the old lands, or something that was telling her she was getting close. After she had flown over Kiyoi’s forest, she had been flying over some grassy lands. After that she had mainly walked next to Fiume, because there were more ponies living there, so she couldn’t fly and take the risk of being seen. There had bee a few villages, but they were mainly small farmer towns without such a thing as an inn, so she hadn’t been able to sleep there. Besides, she wanted to go on as soon as possible. She had noticed Fiume was getting purer as she was coming closer. Before it could only keep itself pure, but about a day ago she noticed there were only pure flowers growing next to it that were all healthy, no sick or dead plants or whatever. It probably meant she was getting closer to Fiume’s spring. She couldn’t imagine the purity of the water over there. It was late in the afternoon now. She had spotted this little town a few hours ago, and after a lot of thinging she had decided to go here, rest for a bit, before she would go on. She didn’t like what was in front of her now. She had seen it at the same time as she had seen this little town. It was one big, brown plain. There was nothing there but rocks, nothing at all. Even next to Fiume there were no little flowers, no grass, nothing. She couldn’t see where it would end, either. It looked almost endless. There was nothing on the horizon. But Fiume was definitely flowing through it, so she had to go that way somehow… But she wanted to rest a bit before she would risk going to there.

She didn’t know how far the old lands were still away, but she had a feeling she was coming very close now. She couldn’t remember these plains though, There had been no such thing… the borders of the old lands were marked with a big forest, a nice field with flowers and some little farms in it, and a desert. But when she had been looking over the plain earlier, she couldn’t see any of those things. Where was she now, anyway? How much further did she have to go? She somehow didn’t feel uneasy about going to the old lands anymore. Somehow the uneasiness in her heart had been fading away the last few days. She had noticed she had in fact been making the right decision. She wasn’t sure about going back to the old lands, but she knew the reason she had for going back was the right one, so it had to be right to go there. But for now, she had to find herself a way through this little village. The houses were all very simple, nothing fancy. Just simple, wooden houses very close to each other. It looked like a mess sometimes, as every house was build in it’s own style and none of them really matched.  She couldn’t help but wondering how the ponies here kept themselves alive… After all, there were no fields here, nowhere where they could grow vegetables, how did they get their food?

Suddenly Twinkle Star felt she could move a little more. There were somehow less ponies on the road, and the road was getting broader. Finally, she thought, now I can look out for an inn and find a nice place to sleep! But suddenly she realised there were no buildings anymore. Nothing left of her, nothing right of her.

She stopped and turned around, trying to avoid some pony with a car loaded with bags filled with… something. She had already passed through the village! There were only rocks on the ground now. The same weird, brown stuff that had been covering the plains… The road wasn’t leading into the plains though. She hadn’t realised this little town was so close to these plains.

She stepped off the road and walked on the rocks for a bit. They felt weird, the rocks weren’t hard, but rather a bit soft, as they were under a thick layer of dust. “Weird stuff, really…” She said to herself. There was a big rock in front of her. It wasn’t hard to climb it and you would have a great view over the plains from there, so Twinkle Star decided to stand on top of it and look into the distance for a bit. Behind her the road was still crowded, though it wasn’t as bad as it was when Twinkle star had entered the village. The road was going to the east, and it appeared to be the only straight part of the landscape, made by ponies, just for travelling. She wondered what the road was for, why there were so many ponies on the road, but she didn’t feel like asking someone. She noticed some ponies were looking at her in a weird way, because she wasn’t on the road but staring at the plains. It was obvious the ponies didn’t like the plains, just like she didn’t like them. It was as if they held a memory of something horrible, and even though the event was forgotten the memory was still there, haunting those that entered the plains.

Other than the little village there was nothing here except for the weird, soft, brown rocks. Her view was now turning to the north. Fiume was flowing there, going to the northeast. She knew where it was going, but that wasn’t what she wanted to know. She wanted to know where it was coming from. But there was nothing there. As far as she could look into the west, there was nothing, only these weird, brown rocks. There was nothing on the horizon. The sun was setting now, and Twinkle Star thought it looked like something very sad. The sun was slowly sinking into this endless nothing, as if it was showing that something once beautiful had vanished just like the sun was about to vanish, with the single difference that whatever had been here wouldn’t return in the morning. She sighed. For 3 days now she had been looking for something of which she didn’t even know if it would be still there. Maybe it was all just a dream… Maybe she was looking for something just as empty as these plains, as deserted as this place…

“It’s sad, isn’t it.” Twinkle Star looked down in surprise. There was a pony standing next to the rock she was standing on. She couldn’t see who it was, or what she looked like, but there was someone there. “Who the hell are you?” She asked, “Sneaking up on me like that!” Twinkle Star was really surprised. “I don’t see many ponies actually looking at these plains. Most try to pass by them as soon as they can.” The pony said. “I can understand that…” Twinkle Star answered. She decided to go down the rock and to see who the pony was. The pony had a soft, cute voice, and Twinkle Star was really interested in what the pony had just said. She wanted to know more… When she reached the bottom she saw a girl from about her age, or a little younger, standing there. She was soft pink with yellow mane and tail, and a very cute, girlish face. She was wearing a small pendant in the shape of a small light blue butterfly. “Hi. I’m Twinkle Star.” She said to introduce herself. “My name is Aline. I live in the village… My parents have a store there.” The pony replied, while she was staring at Twinkle Star, something Twinkle Star had gotten used to lately. Ponies seemed to stare at her in surprise everywhere. “I see. What is it what you know about the plains, Aline? Somehow they caught my interest…” Twinkle Star asked. Aline stared at the ground. “My mom used to call it the big emptiness. I don’t remember it being something different, but she does. There used to be a forest here, she said. A beautiful forest, full of little animals, full of light, full of little places that were there for children to discover… those were her words. I never saw it.” Aline said. Her voice sounded a bit sad. Why is she telling me this, Twinkle Star wondered. “Then what happened?” she asked. She felt her heart beating faster again. She was somehow getting closer to something she wanted to know, but she didn’t feel like telling Aline why she was here or why she was interested in the plains. She had to be careful with what she said, she realised. She had been talking way too much lately. “Have you ever heard of it, Twinkle Star?” Aline asked, “A magnificent land, beautiful, light, full with joy and pleasure, no evil had touched it for thousands of years because of the pure powers of the royal family.” I knew it, Twinkle Star thought, I knew it… I am getting closer. But this is not… It can’t be… “I heard of it… It was supposed to be beautiful, right?”  She replied. Aline smiled faintly. “It was destroyed in one night. A volcano eruption. I heard no one survived. The lava destroyed the land, and after that destroyed this forest. My mother said it had been burning for a few days, until there was nothing left to burn, until it became ash… the very thing we are standing on now. The villages here were destroyed, too. Ponies died I heard… My grandfather died trying to safe me and my mother. Only a few ponies decided to stay in the end, rebuild this village, reopen the old trade route. That is what you see now, this road, it’s the ancient trade route. Ponies follow it so they can buy stuff they need, you know how it works. Of course it used to go to the Friendship Lands too, but since it is destroyed… This is the closest there is to it. There are no villages or farms close by, except for this little village. I grew up here… Just as my parents did, only, well…” Aline sighed. A short silence fell. “Did they ever go back to it? The Friendship lands, I mean?” Twinkle Star asked after a while. “One time. We had send out scouts to the Friendship Lands, a few months after the disaster, or so I heard.  We wanted to know how it looked like, if ponies could start to live there again. But all we found out was the prophecy.” Now, Twinkle Star was puzzled. Prophecy? That was something new. She couldn’t remember her aunt talking about it. She knew about prophecy’s, spells, riddles… they were something very common in the old Friendship Lands, but she hadn’t heard about one in a long time, and obviously this one had to do with her old lands. Did one of the prophecy’s survive? Could it be… that it had to do with Stelline? “What prophecy?” she asked. “ The prophecy of the future of the Friendship lands, or something. I don’t really know either. Those scouts… they had been gone for over a month. Only one of them returned, puzzled, confused, completely lost it, he did. It took a while before he was able to talk again. It was hard to make out what had happened to him. He kept talking about something… the winter, snow, ice… but it was summer! Really weird, he had gone completely crazy. They didn’t understand him, of course. It took months before he could finally tell what had really happened. They had to climb the mountains when they had wanted to enter the Friendship Lands, as the old entrance ways to the land were closed with ash and rocks. There was no other way to get in there. He said a light had appeared before them there in the middle of a snow storm. Told him a riddle, a prophecy, or something.” Aline’s voice had changed a bit. Twinkle Star noticed Aline didn’t really believe in the whole prophecy, but Twinkle Star knew it could in fact be really important to her. “What was it about, then?” she asked. “In the word where everything is lost, go find the winter in a diamond’s eyes, unlock the tear in your soul and the future of the lands that are lost will be revealed.”