"He quit. He told me that he doesn't want out in three years, or five years, he wants out now. The farm is going to his brother"
This year had been a great harvest. The wheat was drooping over with heavy heads, the peas were tall and standing straight, and SilverStalk had remembered counting over three hundred pods on a canola plant. The three hundred acres were so plump with crop that the family had hired a few other farmers, three from Stalliongrad, four from Ponyville and one from Canterlot, each with their own equipment, to make their way over and help.
And yet, they would never receive it.
It was a dew-ey morning, the windows glistening with condensed water and the grass seeming the same. The four mares that lived in their humble farm cabin were awake and already working in the morning. The rule that the three sister's mother had was, you get from seven to eight to get up, shower, eat, have your breakfast and do any other work you needed to do before you hit the field, and then from there they work until dark, with a lunch break of course. This left the three sisters very stressed after the last week of working in their wheat field.
Thornbush tended to her herbs, the scent of Sage, Cinnamon and Vanilla all flowed freely throughout their home. Silverstalk enjoyed her porridge breakfast, and Amethyst, the youngest of the three sisters, was playing with their golden-furred cat. The little filly had sore hooves and bandages on her stomach from where she'd tripped and been cut by stubble. and seemed less bright than she normally was, but the sisters's mother, Shallowshine, blamed it on the strenuous work. Despite her making it clear that Amethyst could sit aside for a while and take a day off of work to go and play with her friends, the kid always stayed and helped.
Finally, the clock struck eight and the four mares, sisters and mother, all grabbed their heavy horseshoes and their hats, and headed out to the field.
"Look mama... A shooting star," Amethyst pointed into the sky, her eyes glinting slightly.
"Don't be silly, little one. You can't see stars during the day," Shallowshine told her daughter. Amethyst had always been a different filly. She looked nothing like her mother or her father, and she acted differently and had a higher fascination with magic than the rest of her sisters had. Probably a result of her being the only unicorn of the three children.
"But... Fine mama," she looked back down and split from the other three, heading to her section of the fielt. She had a small pouch for water and a big hat with a hole cut in it for her horn. Every so often she looked up in the sky to see the shooting star again, a large glowing orange circle. It had been joined by another one, and she could see a third glint far off in the sky. She took her mother's word and let them go. She had a small blade that she used a a sickle, as her mother didn't trust her with the large blade.
An hour later the little purple filly had made up four bundles of wheat, and was almost ready to collect the stalks to make her fifth. She glanced at the sky again to notice more and more of those little shooting stars, the one she'd noticed was the side of a penny, if she was holding it a few feet from her face in her magic. She was starting to get worried. Clumsily, she ran over to her mother on the other side of the field.
"Mama!" she called from a short ways away.
"Yes my gem?" she called back, grunting as she lifted one of her bundles of grain into their cart.
"The shooting stars are getting bigger, look!" she panted and skidded to a stop beside the cart.
"Amethyst, what did I tell you about talking rubbish during work time?" Shallowshine looked at her filly and shook her head. "Now get back to-"
"Mama just look up," she pleaded, cutting her mom off. Something she didn't often do as she had been taught how rude it was.
"Fine, but if you interrupt me again I swea-" she tilted her head up, and suddenly stopped speaking. "Amethyst... Go to the house, into my drawer... Two tickets, bring them to me please," She told the little unicorn very sternly, but also with an odd calm that Amethyst had never heard from her mom before.
"Yes mama," she replied and galloped off, heading towards their small home. Halfway there her heart started to thunder in her chest and her vision became blurry, but she kept running as best she could. She could hear her mother shouting to her sisters, but it sounded like she was underwater. Her vision cleared enough for her to climb up onto the porch and she stopped, panting for a few seconds. After the blurriness had subsided for the most part she trotted up the stairs into her mother's room. She had a drawer in her bedside table that nobody was allowed in, ever. Only her mother. She used it to keep her most valuable things so she wouldn't use them. On the very top there were two slips of paper, 'Stable-73' printed on each of them. She ran into her room too, a sinking feeling in her chest that something was wrong. She had a small figurine of Princess Luna that she had grown attached too, and in her six-year-old mind she figured that it would be able to protect her in the event of a cataclysmic event. She held all three of the items in her violet magic and began her sprint out to her mother again.
Luckily, the gray mare met her halfway with Thornbush, and they both looked very very frantic. The little filly looked up at her mom and gave her the tickets, but the mare pushed them back. "Keep them love. Go with your sister, you're gonna be safe okay?"
She could see tears on her mother's eyes. "Wait mama... What's wrong?" she asked, wiping the droplets of sadness from her mother's cheek.
"Nothing my love. Just promise me that you will always be my good little filly okay? And I promos you that you will see the sunshine again soon," the older mare whispered to her filly, ending the conversation with a little kiss on Amethyst's forehead.
Before she could react, Amethyst was scooped up onto Thornbush's back and they were galloping off towards Stalliongrad. The little filly called to her mother and looked around for her other sister, Silverstalk, tears beginning to stream from her eyes.
"Mama! Why aren't you coming!" she shouted, but sobbed harder when her mom never answered. She held onto her sister and sobbed into her dull crimson mane, feeling the wind ruffling her own dark black locks around her ears. In the distance she could hear large thunderous booms, and she whimpered. Instead of the road to Stalliongrad, her sister sprinted down a steep hill with a large line of ponies at the bottom.
There was a large cave with lights bolted into the ceiling of the light. It was fenced off, with two gates open. One stallion was wearing a blue and gold uniform and was taking the line and writing down names on a piece of paper, most likely filling empty spots. The empty gate was taking tickets, and it looked like most anypony who'd bought a ticket beforehoof had already been admitted into... Whatever this place is, or they haven't shown up yet.
Thorn brought her to the empty gate, handed him their tickets and told him their names. He approved them, and the two of them ran towards a bright yellow light at the end of the cave, and the sound of ponies talking within...
-Start New Game?
-Yes/No
[Yes]
-Save File 001
-Level 1
-Entering Character Creation Mode...
