Foreword

Upon a doctor's recommendation, I am to write down what I've done in daily or weekly journal entries. Apparently I always had trouble remembering things unless I wrote them down. However, that was several years ago and I've only felt the itch to start writing entries recently. I suppose the main reason that I haven't immediately jumped into the writing was thinking that I didn't feel like I needed to. The kind doctor did supply me with a journal to write in but it sat on a shelf collecting dust until now.

Should this journal find its way out of my possession, return it to the nearest post office. My seal and my name, Letter Bee, will give them some direction in which to send it. Eventually, I would like to pass this journal onto someone else. Be it either by children I might bear or a trusted friend.

Prologue

I grew up in the often crowded of Clackerton. A town located west of the Everfree Forest. The large town was mostly a crossroads and trading center where industrial crafts are fairly common. Large ships came in every morning and usually left the same night. They would bring in crates containing either large machines requiring some assembly after purchase or small and finely detailed jeweled rings using gold and silver. Of course, being a place of just trade wouldn't carry a town forever so other appropriate buildings were made, blacksmiths, barbershops, pharmacies, spas, and of course, a local guard.

The Clackerton Guard, trustworthy as they are always seems to get a bad apple or two in their ranks. “Order & Protection,” it was their motto but some of those bad apples tended to meander from doing so, getting drunk while they're on duty or unlawfully accusing innocents civilians of stealing their coin. Fortunately, that all seemed to come to a halt when I had gotten caught up in one of their messes five years ago.

I was traveling from Flight Gear's, a mentor of mine who had taught me how to fly, back home. Flying within the town was restricted unless you had the proper license. Mountain winds are a very dangerous thing you see, having a habit of whipping about without much warning. Airships didn't have as much trouble though, perhaps due to their size.

Anyways, before I meander further, I had run into three drunken guards, accidentally bumping into one of them as they stumbled out the tavern. The only road out from Flight Gear's lead past there and it was a rather narrow street that lead into the market square. Within the small moment I had spent apologizing to the guard, they had already tied me up and held me to a post. Then, they proceeded to publicly accuse me of the matter but I wasn't alone. They had picked up another young colt, Idol Find. A pony with a quiet and noble heritage

It was a bit sudden, that appearance of the ashen colored wolf and sea foam green unicorn mare. They had pulled themselves through the crowd that had gathered and protested the guards drunken accusations. The fight was rather quick. The unicorn released me and the other colt after pinning two of them down with her mastery of water. The leader of the three guards fought the wolf in sword to sword combat. Amazing that he, the wolf, could wield such a large weapon so easily. Eventually, the wolf brought the guardspony down with a heavy hit to his hind legs using the broadside of his sword. What followed was a loud crack and a scream.

Idol and I thanked them both, but they left pretty quickly. I still wonder today, who they are. I recall Flight Gear leaving the town around the same time as well. He had to travel out west to help some friends of his. He returned about a month later, visibly shaken. I wanted to ask him what had happened but I never had the heart. Whatever it was, he lead him to drinking less than what he used to. His wife told me a bit about what had happened. Something about a wolf that defeated three great beasts that had control of over Celestia's three greatest ships of her legion. It was a fearsome battle. Unfortunately, she kept herself in a very safe part of the ship he flew and didn't see the battles that were fought.

I had asked her about what happened to the wolf, she said that the animal stayed at a place, far west, beyond the edges of most maps chartered of Equestria. She referred to it as the Frozen Desert. A place beyond tall flat-walled cliffs and salt flats which were dotted with marshes. The Frozen Desert was an odd place, the ground was sand but the sky was always filled with endless clouds that created harsh winds and nonstop blizzards. The snow never stayed, always melted once it touched the ground below. She never told me why the wolf stayed there or what might have happened to him.

After he left Clackerton, a large shield was raised up over the town, barring entry and leaving until it went away. What it protected us from was a ink-like cloud that twisted about like a maelstrom. Sometimes it would become dyed with color, bright and vivid. It encircled the entire town, leaving only a small gap in the sky, the only way we could tell if night or day had come to pass. It was scary, to say the least. Some thought it the end of days, a reckoning of sorts. That was until the cloud was cleared away by a wave of silver stretching across the sky.

I don't believe anypony was ever told the cause behind the event. None of the history books in my classes at Clackerton High mentioned it. I suppose some ponies just may have forgotten about it or passed it off with their own conclusions. I wanted an answer. Something concrete, something that would recognize those events. I had a feeling, still do, that I would come across the answer eventually. It didn't need to be rushed. Flight Gear would avoid answering the questions that I had. He would, however, assure me that the answer would come in due time. Saying I wasn't quite ready to understand the full extent of what had happened until the time was right.

For a brief time I too had forgotten about the events altogether. I suppose my focused my mind on other things.

Relishing in happiness with my best friends, Apricot Blossom and Idol Find. Apricot, she was adorable, shy, and fragile but some part of her told me she was strong in her own right. She and the fruit and its blossom flowers, matched their colors quite nicely. Her mane and tail were like the flowers, a faded pink at the root fading to a white in her long flowing locks. She often kept them pinned back with clips, ribbons, or bows. Her dark brown eyes were lovely as well, with their little sand-colored streaks. Her pale orange coat freckled with red-orange spots made her stand out from a crowd. Always had a way with animals, mostly ones surrounding the large apricot tree out in the nearby forest. She was a lovely little earth pony.

We've spent many an afternoon together, her and I. Sitting beneath the apricot tree for our studies. We'd discuss a lot of things, how our classmates weren't very bright sometimes or our families. When we weren't talking or studying, we found ourselves just enjoying the gentle breeze the forest and mountain winds brought us.

Idol Find on the other hoof, often found us together and joked about how we should marry, move into a cottage somewhere and start a family. There's not much I can recall about him at the moment, as he had left for Manehatten some time ago. The most I can remember right now is the letter he sent me and his sequin and black coat. The two colors together like continents and oceans. There was also his issue of being bed-ridden at least once a year, something that brought him close to passing several times. I don't know what it was that kept him alive, but I was glad when it went away. I never saw his family much, suppose they kept to themselves. Snobby bastards, perhaps?

Aside from my two best friends, I have a sister, mother, and father: Busy Bee, Honey Bee, and Carpenter Bee. Each one of them having their own specialized talents. Busy, my sister, kept herself to working as a secretary for the new branch of the post office, the Extended Pony Postal Service (EPPS). She would sort through and organize everything that came through. By route, mostly, and then the addresses in numerical order. I'm sure the system is a bit more complex, but I enjoyed watching her her work her magic when I could. And her knowledge compared to mine was substantially higher. Made me wonder why she never went to Canterlot for its university.

My father, Carpenter, worked as a forepony for house construction, sometimes bridges. He and his crew built at least one house over the course of a week or two. They were once confronted with a challenge, to build a large two-story house in one day. Something that my father and his team easily accomplished. Less of a challenge than getting the sawdust out of his coat, something mother often joked to him about. He often rebutted with a sly joke about how she smelled more like honey than her perfume.

Honey Bee, my mother, ran a honey farm in the back yard within a greenhouse as well. She, like Idol, was prone to illnesses as well. But hers were far less severe, only leaving her bed-ridden once or twice. I think it was because she had a weakened immune system at birth or some accident. She was always so frail but she made dues by selling either bouquets of flowers or jars of honey in the market square.

Today, I've been keeping an eye on mother. Her illness had struck again. Father was working and Busy went out to fetch a doctor. The illness itself was usually a cough and mild fever. To pass the time between us when she couldn't sleep she would tell stories. The was one in particular that she told the best, as though it were part of her family. She often told it to me when I was younger as well, to put me to sleep after tucking me in.

The story always began with a princess, who found an injure kingfisher by a riverbed. They were both young and as she nursed the kingfisher back to good health, they formed a bond. When the time came for her to marry as the laws of the kingdom stated, many a bachelor and princes arrived from all over to take her hoof in marriage, but none of them suited her liking. Her kingfisher kept her spirits high when they were alone with silly little antics. She was growing weary of the useless chatter, after all.

One day, her kingfisher had seemed to disappeared from her castle and she searched the kingdom to find it. All her efforts turned up nothing until she arrived back to where it all began. The river. There she saw her pet kingfisher perched upon a single cattail, staring across the river at a stallion plain as earth, with a kingfisher of his own. The princess invited him to her castle, an offer he gladly accepted, with humble hesitance. They eventually married and as they grew older and had children together, their kingfishers did much the same. One day though, all of the two kingfishers that brought them together passed away and thus taught them how to mourn and carry on.

Mother always mentioned that the four children the royal couple had, saying that one of them was of her lineage. And the mourning part always kind of got to me, since my uncle had passed away well before the incident with the wolf five years ago. Left an impression that will never leave me, I think.

I feel that my mother's story and the story of others, whether fairy tale or truth, have compelled me in writing. However, I also feel that my services as a new courier for EPPS might shine some light on what my true talent is. I've gotten my cutie mark of a quill and paper a year or so ago, after doing some writing for a class. Perhaps my new job and writing these journal entries will bring about something. Perchance even more than that.