Impressions of the West

Ivy could feel the difference the moment she left the bridge. Crossing it hadn’t been as scary as she had thought it would be. As soon as she had stepped on the bridge the resistance she had felt left her and she was able to follow Taira without any trouble or worries. The bridge felt so stable she didn’t even consider what might happen if it broke. Only now that she was safely on the ground once more, did she think of what could have happened, but it somehow didn’t feel likely that something bad would happen on that bridge. It was safe.

Her first impression of the west was that it was different. She could not tell exactly what it was. The area in front of her looked much like the dry plains on the western side of the breach. The road here was made of red stones, while the one in the east was made of sand. There was a huge building on their left, but on the right side was nothing but yellow stone and sand. She could not see that far into the distance because of the hills made of that stone and sand.

The gigantic building on their left looked more like a small palace than a hotel, and completely unlike the inn they had spend the last week in on the other side. Ivy knew it was a hotel because Taira had told her so, but otherwise she would never have been able to guess. It probably said so on the sign above the gate, too, but Ivy realized she could not read the letters they used in the West. Did they speak another language, too? She hoped not, or she would not be able to communicate with anyone.

While Taira handed the official form to the guards, Ivy inspected the huge hotel. It’s lawn was perfectly taken care of, the flowers were all beginning to blossom. Its huge trees were in perfect shape. The building itself was made of some kind of white marble and had two little towers. Its garden was surrounded by a low wooden fence painted in soft pink. The way from the gate to the front door was made of small light purple stones. It was like a little fairytale…

And so unnatural. The area around them looked as dry and forsaken as it had done on the other side, and yet this small palace with it’s pretty garden stood here. How much effort would it cost to maintain this? She looked at the large trees in the garden and she noticed they all carried their leaves. How could that be, this early in spring? And, Ivy suddenly realized, how come none of those trees had truly green leaves? They all seemed to have an air of purple or pink over them. It felt so… unreal, she once again wondered if she wasn’t stuck in some kind of weird fantasy.

“Done. We’re good to go.” Taira announced as she appeared next to Ivy.
“Good.” Ivy answered, while she kept staring at the hotel.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Taira asked.
“Yes… it is. It must be very expensive.” Ivy said.
“Well… the High King build it for a purpose, one of the guards told me. He wanted to show the grandeur of the west to the visitors of the east. He wanted it to be the first thing they saw after they crossed the breach. The west is richer than the east, Ivy… and not a little bit. But not all of the houses are like this, of course. Most ponies live in ordinary houses, live ordinary lives just like most ponies in the east. But the royalty… they have plenty of everything.”
Ivy had no doubt the west was richer, if they could afford to build such a palace just to show off their wealth. It was indeed impressing, but now that Ivy knew it’s true purpose, it had lost some of it’s initial glamour.

“So do you know where we have to go exactly from here?” Ivy asked her older sister in an effort to change the subject.
“Well… To be honest, not exactly. But the guards told me if we follow this road we will arrive in a small village by nightfall where we can sleep. I exchanged our money for western money in the inn before we left. We’ll ask for directions there. Batafurai… It’s an island not many ponies visit, but if we keep up our merchant act we should be okay. I know Batafurai creates very pretty satin silk. We are merchants who wish to buy that silk to sell in the east. I don’t think we would sound too suspicious if we tell that. I’m sure someone will know the way.”

“Why is it so important, then, to keep up that merchant charade? It’s none of their business what we are doing here, right?” Ivy asked.
She did not understand all the secrecy. She understood it was necessary to get permission to cross the bridge, but now that it was behind them, there was nothing left to worry about, right?
“Ivy… Maybe I should have told you more about the west before we arrived. The reason I didn’t is because I was afraid my memory was untrue to reality. But now that I’m here, I think I can safely rely on my memory. So many things I remember appear to be real…

Anyway. The west, as I have told you, has other powers than the east. Here, other forces are at work than we are used to. As you know men cannot inherit our royal powers in the east, but females here cannot inherit the powers of the west. Therefore, women have the same position as men have in our part of the continent… A second place, next to the men who can inherit those powers. They do not like women who act on their own, and they make no difference between women from the west or east. They will not like it if I show up, asking the way to a remote and partially hidden kingdom because I am looking for my lost daughter to take her back with me to the east. And I do not want to get the royal guards of the high king involved, who might show up if we cannot answer any awkward questions. Therefore, for just a little while longer, we will have to keep up our appearance of merchants.”

Taira’s explanation seemed sensible enough, Ivy realized. She just could not understand why two strong, grown women would not be able or allowed to act on their own, to look for their relative, even if it meant them visiting such a remote place, but she would do as Taira told her. Surely her sister had more experience in this area.

Ivy got her answer soon enough. As they continued to travel deeper into the west, the scenery changed. The dusty plains were much slimmer than in the east, and before noon they already passed some natural trees, which were almost completely purple, and some vegetation on the ground. The way nature had arranged herself here was somehow much different than in the east. Ivy could not pinpoint exactly what it was that made her feel this, but somehow it felt less wild, and more controlled.

The deeper they got into the west, more trees appeared. It soon became clear to Ivy that the road was leading them into a forest. The forest felt so mystical to her. As the sun was setting behind them, the trees got a wider pallet of colors. Dark blue, purple, pink, but also ordinary green. In fact, all trees had green leaves, as Ivy discovered when she got close to a tree she at first thought had pink leaves, but they had a strange glow over them that differed in color from tree to tree.

She realized these forests were inhabited when the sun sunk low enough. Suddenly laps lit up at both sides of the road. They were positioned as swan necks with a blue lantern hanging from them. Ivy could not make out what caused the light, but these little blue orbs of light were like small guides in the multicolored forest.
“Is the village inside the forest?” Ivy asked, when the forest showed no sign of ending and the sun was all but gone.

“Yes. Most of the west is covered in forests, Ivy, or at least most of the parts that I can remember. I do think there are more open spaces closer to the capital, but I’ve never been there, and we won’t be going in that direction this time. Maybe, we’ll go there once… I’d like to see it, from what I’ve heard it’s very big and very beautiful. But I think I see the village over there.” Taira said.
Ivy looked at the end of the road, and through the trees she, too, saw the white houses appear. The road led them to the village gate, but there was no one to guard it so they could walk right in.

The road led them past several houses, which were all made of pretty white stones and all had their own little gardens. The houses were much further apart than the ones in villages in the east, Ivy realized. Trees were still scattered through the village, so that it seemed as if the village was a natural part of the forest. They finally arrived at a town square with a fountain in the middle. A rearing pony who looked up at the sky, made of the same white stone as everything else, stood in the middle and had water, with the same pink glow as some of the trees had, came out of it’s mouth. It was a very pretty sight, Ivy had to admit.

“Ah, the inn is there.” Taira said as she pointed to one of the larger buildings on the square.
The inn, too, had a little garden where roses grew. How this all was possible this early in spring, Ivy could not understand. She followed her older sister to the inn. Inside, it was as different from an eastern inn as outside. No wooden benches and simple tables, but chairs in a soft pink color decorated with flower patterns and round tables covered by a table cloth with the same pattern on it. On top of each table stood a candle in a silver holder. “It’s so pretty…” Ivy whispered as they entered.

“It is. I’ll go check if there are any rooms available. You wait here, okay?” Taira asked as she walked to the dark wooden counter.
Ivy did not really know what to do and she was afraid to move. She didn’t want to touch anything. Her eye fell on a painting that hung on the wall opposite of the counter. She slowly walked towards it, careful not to touch anything.

The painting showed six ponies, all dressed in purple. Only two of them were women, Ivy realized instantly. The one who featured most prominently in the picture was a large dark blue male pony, covered by a beautiful golden cape and wearing a gold and red crown on his head. The high king, Ivy realized. This was a painting of the high king of the west with his family.

His wife, the queen, was soft white and also wore a purple cape. Her crown was a lot smaller than her husband’s. The four others were their children. One of the boys looked really young, not more than four years old. He stood close to his mother. Next to him stood a boy who probably was about nine or ten years old. On the other side, next to her father, stood what looked like a young girl. She stood a bit apart from the rest, as if she didn’t really belong to the family but nobody dared to kick her out. Was that a woman’s fate here, just as a male was unwelcome in an eastern royal family?

In the middle of the painting stood what Ivy realized was the heir. A handsome boy of about her age, dark blue with dark blue mane like his father, who wore a crown like his father’s, only smaller. Like the heir’s crown we used to have before it got merged with the pearl of light, Ivy thought. This family… Was very much like her own.

“We got a room, Ivy.” Taira said as she showed up next to her. “It wasn’t even expensive. I only paid a little more than I would have done in the east, can you believe that? It was a bit difficult to arrange it though, as the western speech is so different from our own. But slowly it came back to me. So I guess we should be fine. I can teach you a few things. It’s not that different from our own, really. I think once we all spoke the same language, but time and lack of contact made it develop in a different direction. Anyway, shall we go see what our room is like? I suggest we go to bed early, we still have quite a way ahead of us and we still have to ask for directions.”

Ivy only nodded to her sister’s long talk. Before she followed her sister to the stairs, she glanced at the painting one more time. That family was, indeed, just like her own.