As she softly let her brush pet her hair, she couldn’t help but feel a little sad. In the large window in front of her she saw her long yellow hair flowing from her neck. Soon, it would all be gone. It was so long, so pretty… She had let it grow all her life, but now she had to cut it off. It was a custom every married woman had to face. And soon, she would be one of those. Not that it meant anything towards her future husband. After all, she was the oldest woman of her household and heir to the position of steward family of Ekiyu forest. It only meant that if she took a husband, her family considered her old enough to handle responsibilities, and considered her able to step up to the position of steward any time. To cut off her hair only showed her allegiance to the queen.

Yet, as she felt her long, soft hair again, Elia couldn’t help but wonder if it was all just a façade. Did she really have to cut off her long hair to show the country she was willing to serve her queen? None of the common folk had to give in to any such weird customs. Nor did anyone at the court cut their hair. Only the steward families had to do this. Did queen Hazante even care? Yet, it wouldn’t help her to think about it like this. Even if the queen wasn’t bothered with whether she cut her hair or not, her family most certainly was. Her engagement to Konrou from the border district was a big deal, and for their wedding, they would follow every custom there was. For a few generations now, her family had to marry with boys from lesser families. Her own father had only been the son of a merchant who traded with ponies from the trade route. Elia suspected this was why her mother was so pressed to have her wedding as formal as possible; she was ashamed of her own husband. But boys were a rare thing in noble families in this country. My, even among the common folk boys were lesser than girls. The other side of being the strongest country in the continent, she supposed. After all, the powers the royal family of this country possessed were legendary, but not passed down on boys. Yet, the powers were dominant when it came to inheriting, so almost no boys were born in even the lesser noble families.

But Konrou was one of those rare boys born in a noble family, and he was to be her husband. The father of her future children. The reason she had to cut her hair. Not that she disliked Konrou, he was a nice man, as far as she could tell. She had only met him twice, after all. Their parents had arranged the wedding. She was still enraged by it, that she could not marry the man she loved. There was no such man in her life at the moment though, but that didn’t mean there still couldn’t be one in the future. She had not been able to convince her parents to wait a few years. She still felt so young, like there was yet so much to do. But she had no other brothers and sisters, so she had to be ready if something happened to her parents… She put her brush back on her vanity. It could not be helped. It was her future, laid out before her, something she could not walk away from.

“Eila, sweetheart.” A voice said from the other side of the door.
 “Come in.” Eila said, and a moment later her mother appeared in the room. Not for the first time these days, Eila considered her mother’s short hair strange, and she wondered how her mother would have looked like if the stupid tradition didn’t exist.
“Are you not yet in bed? You know tomorrow will be an important day.”
“I know, mother.” Eila said with a sigh. “I know. Tomorrow Konrou will arrive for the wedding, and I have to look nice and presentable. I just couldn’t get some sleep, that’s all.”
Eila noticed the concerned look that had appeared on her mother’s face.
“Oh, dear, you must be so excited. But staying up isn’t going to bring tomorrow to you faster. Now, come and go to sleep. You need all your energy tomorrow.”
Her mother had walked to her bed and had taken the sheets up. Yeah, right, exited. That was exactly the right word, not. Yet she followed her mother’s advice, because she knew better than to argue with her. When she lay in bed and her blankets were nicely tucked in, her mother gave her a goodnight kiss.

“Sleep well, my dear. I will see you tomorrow morning. I am sure all will go just fine.”
“I know it will, mother, I know it will.” Eila replied dutifully. Her mother smiled at her one last time, and then took her candle with her and left Eila’s room. Even before she had stepped into her bed, Eila had been convinced she would not be able to fall asleep. She simply stared out of her window to the bright stars in the sky. Her future… Would it really be like this? Was she bound to her fate, just like the stars were bound forever to the great blue in the sky? No, it wasn’t like that. It couldn’t be like that. Because… there were falling stars, right? Those that had broken free of their destiny and began a journey on their own.

Talking about falling stars… Eila sat up straight in her bed. Something was moving in the sky. A light… was it? A falling star? She could make a wish! But it didn’t look like a falling star. It wasn’t a dot of light far away from her. It was like… Someone was actually falling out of the sky! Before she could move or act, the pony that had fallen out of the sky had hit the ground. Eila didn’t hesitate, she got up, opened her window and jumped out, once again being grateful for her room on the ground floor. She ran through the bushes, and found herself in front of the garden walls within only a few moments. She hoped her old way of climbing over the wall, by using the old tree, would still work for her. Slowly she put a hoof on the lowest branch, and sighed with relief to find the old branch still didn’t break with her weight. As she climbed the tree, she wondered why on earth she was doing this. Was she running away? Was that what she truly wanted? Or did she really want to help the pony she saw falling from the sky.

When she reached the top, she paused. She looked over the fields than were between the forest and her mansion, but she didn’t see anything that looked like a pony. Had she imagined things? What pony fell out of the sky, anyway? It is not like ponies could fly. And she couldn’t have fallen off the mountains, that was still miles from here. But just when she was about to give up, she saw something sparkling on the ground, a few hundred meters from herself. Was it the pony? She jumped off the wall into the high summer grass, and galloped towards the light that she had seen.

When she reached the pony, she had to blink quite a few times before she could believe her eyes. In front of her lay the most extraordinary pony she had ever seen. A pony with a silvery white coat and silver mane that shone with a purple glow in the light of the moon. her entire coat seemed to give off some light, like she was something really special. Was she a star fallen out of the sky? Were stars actually ponies? Was this what happened when stars fell down? But what interested her most was not even the sparkling coat, nor the beautiful hair. She finally realised why this pony came out of the sky. For this pony had not only a horn on her head, like the legendary unicorns, but also beautiful wings on her back, something she had never seen nor heard before.

Eila shook her head furiously. What was she doing? This beautiful pony obviously needed her help, and all she could do was wonder about this pony.
“Hello?” She whispered softly.
“Can you hear me?” The pony didn’t move or respond. Slowly Eila touched the pony’s back with her hoof. “Hey. Are you okay?” She whispered again. This time, the pony made a soft sound. Not much later she slowly opened her eyes to reveal a soft purple color. As soon as she saw Eila, she jumped up, only to almost fall back on the floor again.
“Wow, take it easy there. Don’t worry, it’s okay.” Eila said with a soft voice, but the pony still looked at her suspiciously. Eila didn’t really know what to say, so she just waited for the pony to respond. The pony looked from Eila to the forest to the mansion, and back at Eila.
“This isn’t right…” She whispered softly. “This isn’t right at all… Where am I?”