A little trip to Kin

Now, the good thing about travelling with your mother, is that you always have a nice place to sleep. As long as your mother is the queen of the Friendship Lands, of course. Twinkle Star soon realised this journey was so much different than her previous journey. Gone were the days where they had to sleep under a blanket outside. For five nights in a row now they had been able to sleep either in an inn or in a farm. Damina had left them three days ago. Twinkle Star was sad to see her aunt go, but she had known for a while she was going to leave, so she was prepared. Besides, it wasn't like Damina was gone forever. She had promised to visit them again in the future, with Testi and Vesti. Aline wasn't that happy to hear that, but Twinkle Star told her to get over it already. Testi was sorry, it was now up to Aline to forgive her.

They were at yet another inn now, this one in a very small village. The inn itself was hardly big enough for the 5 travelers, but the dining room was nice and cozy. A fire was burning in the fire place. It was dark outside already, but none of them felt like sleeping yet. Regina had announced earlier during dinner that they would reach the borders of Kin tomorrow evening, and that they would arrive at the castle the next day, if everything went right. They were right on schedule. By now, all of them were quite excited to see what Kin would look like, but Regina didn't feel like giving away spoilers. "You'll see" was about the only answer she would give when somebody asked. Twinkle Star got the feeling Kin did have something special nobody had told her, but she would find out in a day.

The landscape hadn't changed that much. There was still lots of grass and lots of green, though Twinkle Star had the idea it was all a little bit colder, which of course could be explained by the fact that they were heading almost straight north. It was bound to be colder up here.
"So what will we do when we arrive at Kin?" Crystal asked, probably in an effort to make her mother talk about the country.
"Well," Regina said, " There probably will be an official welcome when we arrive. We will have the rest of the day to refresh ourselfs, and there will be a big celebration banquet in the evening. It's how it usually goes with frgein visitors in almost every country. What will happen in the next days, i don't know. I'm sure they have this special program for us. They'll probably want to show us the country, so we'll finish some of their monuments and more recent projects, all that stuff."
Aline smiled. She was happy to see other countries, and she was looking forward to in, even though she wasn't sure what to think of the stories she had heard about Katine.

"Will I be able to get along?" She asked Regina.
"I don't know, Aline. But I'll definately ask. I'll let her know I, ehm, need you for my every day hair care, or something." Regina said and everyone laughed.
"You know, I have been wondering about this for a while." Crystal said after a short silence. "I know you said we need Kin as our ally, right, because we aren't a strong country and we need allies for our defence. But defence against what? I don't remember anything about wars and things like that." Twinkle Star smiled at her younger sister. She had been wondering his herself as well, but she was pretty sure she already knew the answer. Still, it was nice to hear it from her mother now as well.

"Well, Crystal, it is quite obvious you're not familiar with things like wars. In the old Friendship Lands, wars didn't exist. Nobody dared to attack us. we were simply way too strong. No country excited that could match our power, and our treasures were protected in ways you ponies wouldn't even understand. But outside of our country, wars occasionally happened. Even though I only know of two wars between countries, there are other forces we have to defend ourself against. Evil spirits do exist, as do evil creatures. And when they strike, we need all the royal powers we can get. That is why we need allies. We are not as strong as we used to be. The powers of old are gone, buried underneath a thick layer of ash and stone." Regina answered.
"But mother, we still have the strong powers of old, right? Can't we simply force them upon the new country?" Crystal asked. This time it was Regala's turn to answer.
"No, Crystal. We sure have talked about it, Regina, Damina and I. It is true that we might be able to put strong spells on the country for our defence, but it wouldn't do any good. We have to start from the beginning again, and learn. We would only become selfish and indolent if we used spells and powers created for another country in another time. we can only become strong if we grow into it, and learn the hard way. It is what was agreed by the foundation of the new country, Regina told me, and that is how it will be."

Crystal nodded. "I understand. I guess that is the best way. Only with hard work can we become what we used to be, because we became like that with hard work alone as well, right?"
Regina and Regala nodded together. “Absolutely right, Crystal. But to grow strong, we need allies, and we have found one in Kin. Even though their queen has some wrong ideas, she has a good heart. They’re not bad ponies, you will see that tomorrow.”
“I can’t wait.” Stelline said.

The next day they left early, because Regina insisted on arriving at the borders of Kin that evening, so they could be at the palace the next day. The landscape became a bit dryer as they got closer to Kin; the grass got more yellow and there were more parts of stone. They still had the mountains on their east, the same mountains that enclosed the new Friendship Lands for a part. For a part of the journey they had strayed a bit from them, but they were getting closer again now. Regina had explained Kin was at the end of this stroke of mountains. These mountains were actually the longest mountains on the continent; maybe the ones surrounding the old Friendship Lands were bigger, but definitely not longer. At least three countries were located at these mountains: Kin in the north, the Friendship Lands in the middle and on the other side, in the south, Tokowa. Aline wondered where the other farms and villages belonged to, and Regala explained most villages and farms weren's part of a country. You didn't have to belong one, she explained. Most ponies enjoyed the freedom, but of course, they had nobody to turn to if something bad happened.

At one point they crossed a bridge over a medium sized river. Regina explained this was the unofficial border to Kin; they wanted to extend their country to this river for a long time now, but there were still some farmers here and there that refused to give up their independence, and thus the land wasn’t officially of Kin. Regina told them it was only a two or three hour walk to the next inn, that was in the first official town of Kin. The two and a half hours, which it turned out to be, went by quickly. The landscape was quite pretty, but also quite rough. They were quite close to the mountains now, which were certainly a lot lower than they were back home, Twinkle Star noticed. They began to look more like hills than actual mountains. Twinkle Star noticed there actually was a little house on top of the hills, and right when she wanted to ask her mother why there was a house up there, her mother explained that the little house was actually the border marking of Kin. In it lived a guard, who could watch the borders on both sides of the mountains. Aline asked why there actually were no other countries on the other side of the mountains. “That’s because of the weather over there, Aline. You see, these mountains are the first the sea wind reaches. The air goes up there, and becomes rain. This happens a lot, and explains why our side is so protected of bad weather. Anyway, because of the unusual amount of rain and storms there, it is a very nasty place to live. There are quite a lot of landslides there, too. A few ponies live there, but never have enough lived there to create a whole country, except in the south where Tokowa is, and up here, Kin, because there the mountains are far lower so the winds can go over them.” Regina told her.
Aline nodded as if she understood, even though Twinkle Star was sure she would come up to her later and ask what her mother had exactly meant.

It didn’t take long before they entered the little village. Twinkle Star noticed every single house was made of stone, which was quite unusual. Almost every country and village she had ever came to had mostly wooden houses. Ponies simply preferred to live in wooden houses, even though all castles were made of stone. It turned out there was lots of stone in Kin, but not that much wood, so ponies had to turn to stone to build their homes. It was warmer in winter as well, which was necessary as it could become quite cold up here. They soon found the inn, which was made of the same yellow bricks. Twinkle Star liked the interior, there were couches instead of wooden chairs, and the walls were painted in a nice red color. There was a nice fire burning in the fireplace as well. Above the fireplace was a picture of a pony, and while her mother checked in Twinkle Star curiously walked towards the painting, followed by Aline. On the painting was a dark pink pony, with salmon pink mane. On her head was a golden crown with a red stone in it. She wore a silver colored furred cape, and she held a large sceptre which also appeared to be gold. The pony looked quite majestic, probably more than her own mother, Twinkle Star thought.
She heard Aline softly whisper “Whow…” Only then Twinkle Star realised there was a little sign on the bottom of the painting. ‘Queen Katine.’ It said.

Everything was dark inside the castle when she sneaked through the door. Did these ponies have no security at all? She was able to sneak in without any trouble. The door wasn't even locked. The first two days the ponies had had a party, and after that they had sleepovers. Those two sure were enjoying their days off. But even they became tired, it seemed, as they had gone off to sleep early. It had been quiet for a few hours now, and she knew it was now her time to come in action. She slowly walked through the castle halls, as soft as she could. She knew how to avoid making sounds. She knew the treasure room was on the ground, not on one of the other floors. It had to be close to the throne room, and she had already found out where that was. On her second guess she had found the room. This one was of course locked, but it didn’t take long before she was able to open it with her mind. Quite the handy gift.

She slowly walked inside and closed the door behind her. She focussed a bit, and a light appeared in front of her. Oh, what He had thought her. She almost sighed with disappointment when she saw the size of the room and what was inside. It was so small, and the walls weren’t even painted. All that was inside was some worthless jewellery. There was nothing of true value, of true power here. Except the stone, which she saw right in front of her. The copper stone, as they called it. She didn’t know what was so special about it. Nobody did. But He wanted it, and that was all that mattered to her. She walked towards the stone. She opened her bag, and reached out her hoof to pick up the stone. Slowly she touched it.
 “Hikary…” The voice said. She looked around her. Where did that voice come from? It sounded so distant, so faint… She picked the stone up once more.
“Hikary…” the voice said again, and she shook her head when she had put the stone in her bag. She had to get out of there, and fast. Maybe someone was awake. As she walked out of the castle with the stone in her bag, she wondered what the voice had meant. Hikary… was it a name? She had never heard of it before. She shook her head and began to walk faster. She had to get home fast, and bring the stone to Him.