The carriage bumped suddenly, its wheels colliding with the rough cobblestones below with enough force to knock Sweetie Belle free from her seat. With a cry, she fell to the wooden floor, sprawling outward in a way that would have been funny had it not hurt so much.

She stood, attempting to return to her already severely uncomfortable wooden seat, only to be knocked back down by a second and even more severe bump. “Ahg!” she cried, angrily flailing her feet in the air from the floor. “This is so stupid! Why couldn’t we get the carriage with the suspension system?”

“Dearie, we talked about this,” said Rarity, who was holding a cup of tea in her magic with such poise that the bumps of the road did not even affect it. “Did you even see the way it was painted? Pink AND red? Heavens, no! I simply couldn’t bear to ride in something so hideous! I would simply be driven to distraction by the sheer embarrassment…” She paused. “Sheer…hmm…” She pulled out a pad and scribbled onto it.

“Well I’m about to be driven to distraction by having my organs driven to the wrong places!”

“Sweetie, you’re being dramatic.” Rarity reached out with her magic and, with a great degree of difficulty, lifted Sweetie Belle to a standing position that allowed her to return to her seat. “I thought you liked this cart. It’s historically accurate! And I know how much you adore historical precision.”

“If it were a recreation, yeah. But…” Sweetie Belle tapped at one of the extremely dry walls, feeling the thick lining of varnish that covered it. “I think this literally is historical. It’s super old.”

“Darling, t’s simply antique! Isn’t it charming?”

“Charming if you like a sore butt,” muttered Sweetie Belle. She leaned on her side and stared out one of the small windows. She hated to admit it, but she really did think that despite the primitive suspension system, getting a chance to ride in a working historical wooden carriage was actually pretty nice. Few carriages in the Canterlot region of Ponyville even bothered to maintain the historical design; it was considered too dark, drab, and even downright grim. Not to mention the poor quality of the ride, of course.

Still uncomfortable, Sweetie Belle took in the slowly passing view outside. The land outside was strange to her. The long road that they were being brought down was mostly dirt, but still contained many of the stones that had been laid in ancient times, no doubt by earth-pony workers under the supervision of the Unicorn Empire back centuries before anypony would have even heard the name “Nightmare Moon”.

Beyond the road were extensive fields filled with a grass far greener than any that Sweetie Belle had ever seen. The fields, though, were given an ominous cast by the trees that lined the ancient and empty road: the edge was planted with a line of evenly spaced pollarded willows. They were strange, knobby trees that had been forced into their twisted shapes by centuries of cultivation. Their shape was strange, like claws of some strange thing reaching up from the damp soil below, or like trees that had long since died and yet somehow retained some semblance of what they had once been.

Which, Sweetie Belle realized, was probably true. For all she knew, those marshy green fields could have once held hundreds of willows. It was only the pollarded ones that survived now, though, because the same pruning that had destroyed their native forms had rendered them nearly immortal so long as it continued. Or at least that was her understanding of it; her cutie mark, after all, was not in arboriculture.

“An impressive view, I must say,” commented Rarity. “Although the rural aspect is not my cup of tea, so to speak, I can understand the appeal. It does seem so relaxing, if a little, well, rustic.”

Sweetie Belle nodded, but she was not in agreement. Those trees, the fields, and the forest beyond, they were all so empty- -and somehow that made her feel strange. As if the cart was not the only thing making her uncomfortable.

The feeling only got worse as the ride continued. The road was long, but there were no ponies at all. Sweetie Belle supposed that was reasonable; they were in an extremely rural district, far away from any major cities deep in Eastern Equestria. It was the Old World, a region that had been distant even to the Unicorn Empire. But there should have been somepony. Someone walking on the path, or perhaps in the fields, tending a farm- -but there were none. Just the expanse, the road, and the occasional crumbling ruins of a long-abandoned stone foundation.

The only ponies that Sweetie Belle saw apart from Rarity were the two carriage pullers. One of them was a drab brown color, and the other an equally drab gray. They were tall and stern, as were most ponies in this part of the world, and they spoke little. Sweetie Belle got the impression that they might not be able to speak at all, at least not in a shared language. The language in this region had long ago split from Old Equestrian and merged with the now extinct Upper Unicornic, forming something completely unintelligible to those who spoke the Alicornic dialect.

That only made the situation worse. It was a strange kind of loneliness to be in a foreign land and unable to communicate. That no matter what Sweetie Belle said, they would just look back at her with their hard expressions, not understanding. Of course she would have tolerated this so much better had there just been one other pony, or one sign of life to indicate that this land had not lain abandoned through the intervening centuries between its early settlement and their current journey through it.

In time, the fields were replaced by forest. It was thick and nearly oppressive, and the trees felt strange. They were not like the purpose-planted forests of Ponyville, or even like the mixture of decay and life that was the Everfree Forest. These trees were far more quiet and far more stately; this was a safe forest, but one of unbelievable age and size. The trees were thick and tall, to the point where they blotted out the sun with a thick canopy of leaves. The mottled light that came down from them lit bare trunks, and the remnants of long abandoned stone walls that had once bordered farming plots but that now ran between trees that had survived long past the ponies whose land they had conquered so long ago.

Rarity, of course, seemed not to notice this. She had instead started reading a fashion magazine, flipping slowly through the pages and occasionally making sounds of approval or grimaces of disgust.

“You shouldn’t read that in the carriage,” said Sweetie Belle. “You know it makes you sick.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Rarity. “Besides, I need to keep up to date. To understand the trends and the advancement of the craft.” She sighed, and then picked up a large book- -one of several- -of wedding gowns. “As much as I do enjoy my occupation, my immense skill can be a burden sometimes. This project has to be perfect.” She set down her book and picked up a small compact. She looked closely at her face, and then grimaced. “Although I think I have to be careful.” She poked at the side of her face, not indicating to Sweetie Belle her extreme distress at having seen the early stages of crows-feet forming in her eyes. She pulled at the skin ever-so-slightly, hoping that it was just an illusion but immediately finding that it was not. “Stress can be very harmful to a pony. To her mental health, I mean,” she added quickly.

“Oh. Well that does explain the gray hair.”

“Gray hair?” Rarity glared at her sister. “What did you just say? Sweetie Belle, I thought you of all ponies would know that there are some things that it’s just not okay to joke about.”

“I’m not joking. Look.” Sweetie belle reached out with her magic and lifted a hair from Rarity’s perfectly coiffed mane. Rarity was about to protest, but gasped in speechless horror as she saw that Sweetie Belle was indeed holding a long, white hair.

“N- -NO!” she whispered. “It- -it can’t be! A- -a gray hair!” She was so distraught that she could not even faint property, but did manage to flop sideways on her bench.

“It’s just a gray hair,” said Sweetie Belle. “It’s not even gray. It’s white.”

“That doesn’t make it better!”

“But it’s not like you don’t have white hair. We BOTH do. We’re both covered in them.”

“But that’s coat hair! It’s a completely different thing than manes or- -” Rarity gasped. “TAILS! Oh Celestia no! Please no! Anything- -ANYTHING but that!” She immediately leaned over and started going through her tail, searching for gray hairs. “What if there is one? What if I didn’t notice it? What if everypony was secretly thinking- -thinking I’m OLD?!”

“Gray hairs don’t make you old. Silver Spoon only has gray hairs.” Sweetie Belle paused. “Then again…if I had to hang out with Diamond Tiara all the time, I’d probably have a gray mane too.”

“It’s not the same thing! I’m supposed to actually be attractive! A pretty pony! And you can’t be pretty with GRAY HAIR!”

The cart momentarily stopped, and one of the ponies- -the gray one, who had a speckled gray and black mane- -looked back through the front window and glared. Apparently, they did speak at least enough Alicornic to know when they were being insulted.

“Darling,” said Rarity, sitting up and smiling. “I didn’t mean you. It looks good on stallions. It makes you look mature, as opposed to mares, who it just makes look disgusting and old- -”

“NUne, he said, shaking his head. Then, in a heavily accented voice with broken Alicornic . “We…arrive.”

Both Rarity and Sweetie Belle immediately looked out the windows of their carriage, finding themselves suddenly past the forest and now in the center of a moderately fair sized village. The two of them had been so engrossed in conversation that they had not been aware that they had entered it.

The buildings looked like something Sweetie Belle would expect to have seen on the back of a postcard- -and yet, somehow, also different. The buildings looked at first like they were supposed to, if by “supposed to” one meant out of the idealized photographs of Eastern Prance that tended to be filed neatly in coffee table books. Unlike those pictures, though, these buildings were old. They showed signs of wear: their paint was peeling in some places, and many of them had aged to the point of being crooked. A few even had hastily constructed additions built onto them, making them seem oddly tall as they leaned toward the dirty and weed-covered streets below.

“This isn’t right,” said Rarity. “We were supposed to be brought to Château De’Lis. I have urgent business there.”

The two pulling ponies looked at each other nervously, and the gray one shook his head. He turned to Rarity. “Nune, mademoiselle. Nous ne umeya- -we cannot. We go, not farther. Cannot.”

“But you have to,” protested Rarity. “Darling, I don’t wish to imply that I know how to do your job better than you, but it’s not much farther. The contract- -”

“NUNE,” shouted the puller pony, his voice suddenly becoming loud but his expression turning not to one of anger but of fear. “No closer! No closer!”

His brown colored companion spoke to them in their own language, and the pair of them seemed nervous. The gray pony seemed far more anxious, but the brown one turned to Rarity and spoke in his own language. Rarity seemed to understand at least some of it, and Sweetie Belle only caught the fact that he was apologizing. The only other thing she understood was the word for “bad” and the word “mesta”, which Sweetie Belle did not know the definition for. Everything else sounded like he was mumbling rather loudly.

Rarity did not seem to be able to convince them to go an inch further. Eventually, she gave up completely and decided to depart with Sweetie Belle on foot. Their prodigious quantity of supplies and luggage- -with “their” being about ninety eight percent Rarity’s- -for the most part had to stay, as neither of them were strong enough to carry it themselves despite Rarity’s pleading for Sweetie Belle to at least try.

This situation, of course, caused Rarity to become quite peeved. Before the pair of pullers departed, Rarity stomped over to them.

“I was going to give you each an enormous, beautiful Ponyville crystal as a tip,” she said, angrily. “But for this horrible service, you each only get a MEDIUM crystal. I hope you’re pleased with yourselves!”

Rarity levitated the crystals to them, and Sweetie Belle pressed her hoof against her forehead. With their almost complete inability to understand Alicornic, the pair likely had no perception of Rarity’s expression of displeasure by the giving slightly smaller crystals.

“Well,” said Rarity, turning back to Sweetie Belle. “I suppose we have to walk the remainder of the way.”

“You’re going to get sweaty.”

Rarity gasped. “I will not! A proper lady does not…eew… ‘sweat’. She…leaks beauty.”

“I guess that makes sense. But after a seven hour cart ride? You smell pretty beautiful, sis.”

Rarity at first seemed pleased until she understood what Sweetie Belle meant, and then she dashed to where her luggage had been unloaded, trying to find perfume of some sort. Knowing how long that could take, Sweetie Belle started walking through the town.

It was impressive, but not by its design. It was actually rather rustic, and it seemed that the ponies who lived there were poor, or at least poorer than those in Ponyville. What struck Sweetie Belle, though, was just how strange it was to be in a foreign land so distant from her home.

That sense of strangeness only grew, though, as she realized just how silent the town was. This was so severe that it caused Sweetie Belle to stop in the center of what should have been a busy street. There were a few ponies, of course, but they kept their distance and eyed Sweetie Belle with great suspicion or even outright dislike.

The majority of the townsfolk, as far as Sweetie Belle could see, were drab colored, either in earthy shades of brown, gray, or dark blue. That made sense considering their racial makeup: all of them were either earth-ponies or, strangely, thestrals. Bat-ponies were a rare sight in the Canterlot region, but here there seemed to be many. They were short but well built, with unnerving and seemingly unblinking eyes with irises in several strange shades of yellow.

Some of them- -both the native earth-ponies and the thestrals- -stared at Sweetie Belle, but not for long. They immediately each seemed to realize that they had something better to do, and wither walked off or returned to local buildings, closing the doors behind them.

“Well,” said Sweetie Belle, “now I know how Zecora used to feel.” She paused. “Wow. I can’t believe we were such jerks.”

“Sweetie Belle!” called Rarity, trotting to Sweetie Belle’s side. “Don’t just walk off like that, dearie! Do you have any idea how terrible I would feel if I lost you somewhere out here? Not to mention what mother and father would say!” She looked around, and frowned. “Especially with ponies like this around. My they seem unhappy, don’t they?”

“I would be a little unhappy if I lived here too,” said Sweetie Belle as the pair of them started walking. “It’s a little…well…”

“Drab?”

“I was going to say depressing, but sure. Yours works too.” Sweetie Belle looked around, watching several ponies suddenly reach out and shutter their windows. As the pair of them walked down the road, Sweetie Belle even saw an entire group of children her own age take one look at them, stare wide eyed in fright for a moment, and then scatter.

“Blancos!” cried one of them as he fled. “Blancos ici!”

“Well, that’s rude,” said Rarity. Rarity tended to think that most ponies and their actions were rude, but in this case Sweetie Belle actually agreed. “I was going to ask for directions!” Rarity paused, turning her head, before she caught sight of an adult threstral who was busty hurrying past them, her shoulder rubbing against the buildings as she tried to stay as far as possible from Rarity and Sweetie Belle.

“Excuse me!” said Rarity, trotting up to the very surprised looking thestral mare. The thestral was so dusky that she blended in almost completely with the shadows of the building, with only her large yellow eyes being readily visible. She did not appear happy that her camouflage seemed to have failed. “We’re a bit lost, I’m afraid, and we’re looking for the way to Château De’Lis. If you could help us?”

The thestral did not react. She just stood there, perfectly still. Her head was cocked to one side, so only one large golden eye was staring at Rarity and Sweetie Belle. They eye did not move, nor did it blink, for what Sweetie Belle was sure was at least a minute.

“Um,” said Sweetie Belle, “are you okay?”

“Nune,” said the thestral suddenly in a loud but still somehow raspy voice. “Ne blancos! Nune!” Her eyes narrowed, and she suddenly took flight, flying swiftly up the building near her and taking refuge on the thatched roof, with only her head peeking over the edge. “Blancos lasser!” she hissed before vanishing entirely.

“Hmm,” said Rarity, now seeming to be losing her patience. “I was assuming that ponies living in the birthplace of Equestrian culture and mannerism would have MANNERS!”

“She can’t understand what you’re saying, you know.”

“Oh, I know. Or else I would not be saying such things. But that does not excuse her being so RUDE!” She extended her neck, yelling at the roof as though the thestral was still on it even though she was no doubt gone. Sweetie Belle caught a pair of greenish eyes peeking through the gap in the shutters on the second floor and glaring down at Rarity.

“We don’t need directions,” said Sweetie Belle, pulling a map from her bag.

“A map?” said Rarity, suddenly less angry. She smiled. “Of course. I should have known I could count on you to be practical.”

“I know, right? I am pretty great.” Sweetie Belle opened the map and oriented herself. “Alright,” she said. “There’s actually three of these little villages here.”

“But which one are we in?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Sweetie Belle pointed at the map, and the roads that all led to a large central area. “All of them connect to the castle in the middle. See? We just need to go down the center street.”

“Oh,” said Rarity. She frowned in the direction of the thestral. “That would not be difficult for somepony to explain, would it.”

“It would be if you don’t speak Alicornic.” Sweetie Belle closed her map. “And didn’t you tell me you spoke their language?”

“Not the same dialect, apparently,” said Rarity. “I suppose the version Fleur uses is different from the one that the…well… ‘less aristocratic’ ponies use.”

Sweetie Belle accepted that answer instead of pressing her hypothesis that her sister only knew the most fashionable four or five words of the region’s native language, and they started walking again. “What exactly is this place, though?” she asked.

“An outer village,” said Rarity. “A small town around the castle in the center.”

“Canterlot isn’t set up like this.”

“Well, no. That’s because this is a little different. The De’Lis family is one of the oldest in Equestria, after all. Their ancestors have held titles here since the medieval days.” Rarity sighed. “When every aristocrat wore flowing dresses, and there were knights in shining armor…with long, hard, pointy horns…”

“Eew,” said Sweetie Belle.

“It’s not ‘eew’, it’s romantic. But that’s my point. This place is hardly modern. It’s still set up much the way it was when it was a medieval manor.”

“Medieval- -wait, you mean we’re going to have to stay in a dusty, drafty, dark, drab, decrepit- -”

“Sweetie Belle, please. Stop alliterating.” Rarity put her hoof to her head. “I have a headache from getting so darn PEEVED.” She paused, and then sighed. “If you would be so kind as to not tell mother and father that you heard me use such uncouth language. I just don’t like ponies being so RUDE. And yes, we are staying in the castle. Assuming we can get there.”

“Great,” said Sweetie Belle, sarcastically. “Well, at least I have the map.”