“You ever been some place that just makes you think “I don’t like the look of that place?” Cause that’s kind of what I’m thinking right now,” Applejack said as the caravan slowly made its way down the hill and towards the shanty town outside the Citadel. The huge dark walls of the citadel loomed in the distance and the gigantic tower that rose high above them constantly stayed in view. Even when they finally got level with the walls and wouldn’t be able to see into the rest of the Citadel anymore, that tower was so high it would always be peering over them.
“I thought the same thing when I first saw it years ago. And it’s only gotten worse since it started to halt the travel through it,” Aquamarine replied.
“If it was painted brighter colors I think it would be a very nice place. Imagine if there was a big rainbow spiral going up the high tower!” Vahar smiled and pointed at it.
Applejack rolled her eyes. “I think all the spikes and sharp angles would still hurt this place’s appearance a little bit...”
“You’re just not thinking positive enough!” Vahar pouted.
“And you’re thinking too positive.”
Their lead wagon reached the bottom of the hill and the rest of the caravan eventually made it down so the dozens of wagons were now going straight to the shanty town. Aquamarine said that they’d stop outside it with all of them together so they could create a big wagon circle and start taking all the supplies out. Applejack wasn’t planning to skip out on or speed through her work, but she was antsy already to just get to those gates and get inside the Citadel. Getting here was only half of what she needed to do, once she was inside she had a whole new slew of problems she’d have to solve. And there was no telling where to begin.
The sooner she got inside the Citadel the better. That was all she knew for sure.
Currently a crowd was forming at the outskirts of the shanty town. Watching them, waiting for them. Likely they had been anticipating the caravan’s arrival for a long time and were eager to finally be resupplied. It was obvious just looking around how much they relied on caravans like this one. There was nothing else here they could survive on.
It took a little while longer but the caravan went off the main road as it approached the shanty town and went into the field around it, slowly looping together under Aquamarine’s instructions and creating a tight circle. It almost looked like a defensive position, maybe Aquamarine was that worried about ponies potentially coming in and stealing things. As soon as their first wagon was front to back with the last wagon, Aquamarine whistled loudly and called for the whole caravan to come to a stop. She smiled and the stallions pulling the wagons began to unhitch themselves. One part of the job was done and now the next was about to start.
Aquamarine stretched her back and cracked her neck, looking over at her two passengers. “Well Applejack, about time for you to get to work and earn your ride. And Vahar… all you need to do is gather up your things and then you can go do whatever you want. So this is goodbye I suppose.”
“It is not goodbye! It is merely farewell for now! The Wondrous and Majestic Vahar will certainly see you both again!” Vahar announced and jumped up. She quickly hugged Aquamarine and then gave a much longer and tighter hug to Applejack. “She appreciates everything the both of you have done for her and will be excited to put on a future show for you. But now, yes, her magic show supplies and other belongings must be gathered up! The townsponies here will soon be wowed by The Wondrous and Majestic Vahar!”
And the merpony magician jumped off the wagon and jumped up into the “last” wagon now parked in front of them.
Applejack smirked before glancing over at Aquamarine. “I guess I should go and start unloading boxes? Meet up with my team for what I’m delivering later?”
“If you’d be so kind. And when you’ve finished all your deliveries why not come back here for a quick drink? It might be pretty late in the day,” Aquamarine suggested.
Applejack had to refuse though. “Sorry—but with everything I still need to do and figure out I want to get into the actual citadel as quickly as possible. That means tonight at the latest.”
“Suit yourself,” Aquamarine shrugged. “If you do need to come back for anything though we’re going to be staying and resting up here for at least a day or two.”
“I appreciate it,” Applejack smiled. “You’ve helped me out a lot, Aquamarine.”
Aquamarine scoffed. “Hardly, you offered to work for me and I gave you a job. Don’t go talking about me like I’m some real charitable mare.”
“Well still, thanks. Now time to get to work,” Applejack cracked her neck and jumped off the wagon.
“Sounds like I might not be seeing you again after all this either—so take care,” Aquamarine said to her.
Applejack tipped her hat to the older mare. “You too.”
Three stallions who went by the names Buddy, Brick, and Budge were already at the wagon by the time Applejack arrived and got around to helping them unload everything. According to them they had absolutely no relation to one another but Applejack thought they might’ve been pulling her leg. Since nopony was delivering anything before every wagon was unloaded, Applejack and the three of them took down quite a few extra boxes, bags, and crates and made sure to neatly divide them up in the interior of the wagon circle while other ponies did much the same. By the time that was finished there was enough food and supplies around to adequately feed and take care of a small town.
Applejack looked up at the sky as soon as the last box came down—it was already close to late afternoon going by the sun’s position.
She was suddenly nudged in the side and looked up to see Brick—with his red mane—standing right beside her.
“We’re getting ready for the first delivery,” he said.
“Oh,” Applejack blinked. “Well uh, just tell me where we’re going and I’ll follow along.”
He pointed to a couple of crates that Buddy and Budge were standing by. “You and me are taking those two crates to Artsy Hooves while Buddy and Budge make the delivery to Ivory Grace. The both of them have smaller orders so we can split em up like that. But for what Cloudsprint, Father Wool, and Voltbeat have ordered the four of us are going to have to come back here and carry it all together.”
“Sounds good to me. Aquamarine told me the three of you have been here before so whatever you think’s best I’ll go along with,” Applejack nodded.
Brick smirked. “Alright then. And we already know you don’t have a problem carrying heavy crates around.
Applejack smirked right back. “That kind of thing is easy.”
“Well come here and take one of the crates of food, and then you can get your first taste of the… town for lack of a better word,” Brick frowned slightly. “I’m sure Aquamarine has already told you and all, but watch your back and don’t trust nopony unless I tell you they’re okay.”
Applejack sighed. “I’m a mighty trusting mare already but I understand. This place aint like home.”
“Mhm,” Brick nodded.
The two of them grabbed the crates they would be taking to Artsy Hooves and placed them on their backs as Buddy and Budge did the same with the ones for Ivory Grace. The four of them left the wagon circle behind and started walking into the shanty town while quite a few of the “locals” checked them out.
“Just ignore em,” Brick said to Applejack.
“Yeah,” Applejack nodded.
She couldn’t entirely though. As they walked along the muddy dirt path into the shanty town, she could see out the corner of her eyes a lot of ponies keeping their eyes on her. Some whispering back and forth as they looked at her and the caravan. Quite a few with not exactly kind looks on their faces. Soon though she noticed that they weren’t really looking at or interested in her at all. Their eyes were completely focused on the crate she was carrying and the saddlebag she wore. Aquamarine was right, she was going to have to look out for her belongings in this place.
She followed closely behind Brick as they actually entered the shanty town, her eyes going from side to side to try and get as much of a look and feel for the place as possible. She didn’t like what she saw. There wasn’t a smile to be found and the ponies around looked dirty, tired, and disheveled. Some wore clothes that were torn and covered in mud while she could hear loud arguing coming from elsewhere close by no matter where they walked. A few looked out from their tents or from behind the wooden doors of their small huts to glare at her and immediately close themselves back up.
There were a few tents and buildings that looked more like “businesses”. She saw one with a sign that read “Doctor’s Office” above it, and another that looked like an open air bar where a lot of ponies were gathered around. The place may have been grungy and depressed but it had its own system. There was definitely a structure and a way of living to the place, Applejack couldn’t deny that.
She saw some upsetting things though—a family huddled together in the dirt between two buildings. Two colts viciously fighting over a bag of something. The sounds of a mare yelling about how somepony had just robbed her in the distance. A bunch of crows perched on some of the tents and buildings, eerily watching all the ponies. An older stallion being cornered by a group of other ponies.
I’ll fix it. I’ll fix all this soon. Applejack promised to herself.
Desperation brought out the worst in ponies.
“You doing alright? You’re dragging your hooves a little,” Brick said from in front of her.
“Uh, yeah, just got a bit distracted,” Applejack replied.
The stallion nodded. “I understand. You get used to it after a while but the first visit can definitely be uncomfortable.”
Applejack only grunted lightly and followed him. Truth be told it was taking a decent amount of effort for her not to do anything about some of the fights or problems she clearly saw or ask some of the more destitute looking ponies if they needed help. She hated it, but she had to look at the big picture right now too. Getting inside the Citadel was the only way to really solve this—everything else would just be a temporary bandage on a symptom, not the cause of the problems.
So she followed Brick along until they were in a slightly nicer looking part of the shanty town. There at least weren’t homeless or fighting ponies around and most of the buildings didn’t have holes in them or looked broken down. The torn up tents had disappeared and were replaced entirely by quickly thrown up wooden buildings and homes. Of course none of them were big or impressive, or painted or pretty in any way, but they were at least livable. Brick strode down the street to one house in particular—there weren’t numbers or names on any of them, he must’ve just known the right one from previous visits—and knocked heavily on the front door.
Applejack heard quite the commotion from behind it, a lot of kids yelling and running about, and the voices of adults trying to calm them down. She raised an eyebrow and looked around at the home—it was just of average size, single-story, a few rooms at the most, but it sounded like there were at least ten ponies in there. While that was going on, Brick took his crate off his back and placed it on the ground by the door so Applejack did the same. Felt good to at least let go of that burden.
In another second the door was opened up just enough for a stallion to squeeze his way out and stand in front of it. “S-Sorry I took so long, had to settle the family down.”
Applejack was shocked at just how tired he looked. Heavy bags under his eyes, stubble on his muzzle, bloodshot eyes, exhaustion rolling off of him. His orange and pink mane fell about his head carelessly, no effort put into his appearance at all. Which was all the more telling to Applejack, as thanks to all the time spent with Rarity and Twilight she could see that this was a stallion that was used to looking good and spending a lot of money on getting groomed. But either the lack of availability or the lack of his own funds had changed all that.
“Hello there, Artsy Hooves. Two boxes of food and supplies, just like you ordered,” Brick said.
Artsy put on a thankless and tired smile. “Yes, thank you. Aquamarine and her caravan can always be counted on to deliver…”
“Will you be putting in another order?” Brick asked.
Artsy looked down at the two crates, looked down for a while, before shaking his head. “No… no thank you.”
Brick raised an eyebrow, a concerned frown on his face. “Are you sure? Will you be moving into the Citadel or-“
“J-Just don’t worry about it,” Artsy Hooves held up a hoof to cut him off. “Just… we’ll be fine on our own from here on out.” He closed his tired eyes and brought a hoof to his forehead. “Things’ll be fine…”
“If you say so… well, we have other deliveries so we’ll let you go,” Brick said and nodded to Applejack, turning to leave the home of Artsy Hooves behind.
Applejack bit her lip. She couldn’t go just yet. “Um, pardon me Mr. Artsy Hooves, but can I ask you a question?”
The stallion opened his eyes and glanced at her. “What is it?”
“How… how many ponies you got living in this house?”
“Sixteen.”
“Sixteen of you? All in this little space?” Applejack grimaced.
“Family used to be spread out but… things happened. Money isn’t as easy to come by. Making a living here isn’t so easy to come by at all,” Artsy Hooves shook his head and went to pick up her crate. “Thanks for the delivery, but if it’s alright with you I need to get this all sorted out.”
Applejack knew she shouldn’t but she couldn’t help but ask one more question. “Were you staying inside the Citadel for a while waiting for your time to cross?”
Artsy Hooves paused, an angry frown coming onto his face for a brief moment before his exhaustion washed it away. “Inside there… it’s a trap. They never called more than a few a day, the Warden knew what he was doing. Knew exactly who he wanted to bilk all the money out of…”
“Warden?” Applejack tilted her head.
“Are you going inside there?” Artsy Hooves suddenly asked, looking at her with bloodshot eyes.
Applejack gulped. “Um… yeah. I have to.”
“Don’t. It’s not worth it. It’s just not worth it,” he shook his head and opened the door to his “home” carrying the crate and pushing the other one inside.
Most of the rest of the transporting and delivery work passed by in a blur to Applejack. Her mind was too caught up on the state of the shanty town and the ponies living in it. Not to mention the mystery and misery surely confined within the Citadel of Al-Karamaretel itself. Her behavior and all the work she did was completely automatic—the only things catching her attention were the occasional fights and yells too loud to ignore.
They had stopped to get a drink of water just once and then it was more work as Applejack finished the deliveries to Cloudsprint, Father Wool, and Voltbeat. Brick, Buddy, and Budge were all nice enough stallions but Applejack was grateful right now that they weren’t interested in conversation or digging into her personal life either. She wasn’t sure how good she’d be at talking. Any place like this depressed her too much, especially when it felt like there wasn’t much she could do about it. Things like this were more troublesome than your usual friendship problem.
Voltbeat’s place was their last stop—it turned out to be some kind of a mix between a general store and a trading station. He was being restocked and asked for the same thing from Aquamarine the next time her caravan came back here. Buddy took a bag of money from him and that was all it took to complete the transaction.
Meanwhile right outside his door was a homeless stallion and mare begging for money and food.
“You were a big help today, guess you really are used to working with your hooves.”
Applejack jolted and looked over to see Buddy smiling at her. He and the others were getting ready to head back to the wagon circle already.
She managed to put on a somewhat bashful smile for him. “Aint nothing special, just doing my job.”
“Well consider your job done,” Buddy grinned. “This is all Aquamarine wanted you to do in payment for taking you here. As of now you’ve officially paid off your debt to the caravan. We’ll tell her when we go back since, well, you’re going to the Citadel aren’t you?”
Applejack exhaled and looked in the direction of the Citadel’s walls. They were tall enough where she could easily see them past the roofs of the small buildings here. “Yep.”
“You sure about that?” Brick asked.
“I’m sure. Got… got a lot of stuff to do,” Applejack answered.
“Best of luck to you then, thanks for helping out. Just walk out to the main road and right to the gate—shouldn’t be many more ponies looking to get in at this time of day,” Buddy said and then nodded to Brick and Budge. “Come on guys, let’s get going.”
Brick and Budge both gave her a small wave that she returned, and Applejack was left in the road, staring at the Citadel walls in the distance.
“Here goes nothing,” Applejack grumbled and started walking back in the direction of the main road.
It wasn’t dark yet but it was approaching dusk and the sun wasn’t providing near as much light anymore, there was already an orange glow over most of the shanty town. And where she was going the walls already blocked off all light. She didn’t know how any ponies would see around there or inside the Citadel unless they had a lot of lanterns. Applejack was in the “good” part of the shanty town right now but she still kept her eyes peeled and her ears perked up for any trouble, she didn’t want to get accosted or robbed right at the end of the day, right before she got to the Citadel.
Luckily though, despite a few other ponies being there and warily watching her and her bag, Applejack didn’t get bothered by anypony. Maybe they had seen her with the others carrying those heavy crates and figured she wasn’t worth the effort.
Once she got on the main road she looked toward the gates and got a big surprise. There were two big bright lights on either side of the gate—perfectly illuminating everything.
“Electric lights? Didn’t expect to see something like that out here. Does the whole Citadel have electricity?” Applejack wondered. Nopony had said anything about it so far, but they might’ve been concerned with more important issues.
Thanks to those lights she could see that there were only a few other ponies at the gate waiting to get in, and just as she suspected earlier it looked like there were at least a few more interior gates before you actually got into the Citadel. Right now Applejack could see that the big outer gates were opened up but the few ponies she could see in line who were inside the gate were stopped right in front of another one.
And there were guards.
She was getting her first look at ponies who actually worked for the Citadel of Al-Karamaretel. And she got another surprise—since it certainly wasn’t just ponies. Griffons, Minotaurs, and even Diamond Dogs stood around the gates, shepherding the ponies in and making sure nopony went out of line. There were some pony guards she could see but it looked like an even spread between them and other creatures. She couldn’t remember seeing any non-ponies so far since she had entered the Undiscovered West and suddenly here were a whole bunch. Did they flock here for a specific reason? Did they come from the other side of the bridge? Applejack was just as lost as ever.
The guards also all wore a cold black and blue armor and while not all of them carried weapons a good amount were still holding onto spears. Applejack took a deep breath and walked forward to get in line, nothing else she could do.
The guards didn’t acknowledge her at all yet, they continued with the others ahead of her in line first and every now and then Applejack would see the smaller gate in front of her open up and accept the next pony or ponies in. It didn’t look like they turned anypony away. She took a glance at the lights while she was here and saw that they were indeed electric lampposts built into the ground. Somehow the Citadel had its own power.
Applejack frowned—just one more mystery about this place.
The last pony ahead of her went in and Applejack finally had her turn.
“Come forward,” the first guard—a Minotaur holding a clipboard—said to her in his guttural voice.
She did so, walking past the threshold of the first large open gate, and stood between it and the next barrier to getting inside the Citadel. The Minotaur stood to her left while a griffon—silent so far and holding another clipboard—stood off to her right. Behind them were both a duo of pony guards holding spears. They were stiff and not looking at Applejack at all but she doubted they weren’t paying attention to her.
The armored Minotaur cleared his throat and brought a pen to his clipboard, peering over it at her. “State your name, where you come from, and your reason for crossing the bridge, please.”
“My name’s Applejack and I come from Equestria,” she answered immediately and then internally winced. Aw shoot, should I have told him the truth just now? There’s no way they couldn’t tell if I was lying though. “And uh, my reason for crossing the bridge is business.”
“Business?” The Minotaur raised an eyebrow at her.
“Business,” Applejack nodded.
It was technically the truth. Any other explanation for what she was doing and they’d probably think she was pulling their legs.
The Minotaur didn’t seem to care much though, he merely nodded and jotted something down with his pen. On her other side—Applejack saw the griffon also intently inspecting her and writing something on his clipboard.
“And are you traveling alone?” The Minotaur asked.
“Yep.”
“Is that hat and the single saddlebag your only possessions?”
“That’s right.”
He quickly wrote down a few more things before stepping to the side and gesturing her forward. “You may proceed.”
Applejack blinked. That was a bit simpler than she had expected. She thought she’d have to pay or bribe them to continue on. But she already figured that there was more to checking into the Citadel than just this and she was right when after walking up to the next gate a buzzer rang from somewhere and it started to open for her. The sounds of heavy hydraulic pistons pulled it into the walls of the Citadel and a new chamber appeared. A gate within a gate, she still couldn’t actually walk into or see the interior of the Citadel yet.
Instead what she was treated to was a rectangular chamber with two armored unicorns and another cadre of spear-carrying guards.
The outer gate closed back up as soon as Applejack stepped through it and the two unicorns walked over to stand in front of her.
“Greetings,” one said. “We’re here to check your possessions before you’re allowed to continue further.”
“Check my possessions?” Applejack raised an eyebrow.
“Yes. We need to make sure you aren’t carrying a weapon or anything dangerous into the Citadel. Hoof over your hat and bag, please,” the unicorn ordered.
“I aint carrying nothing dangerous,” Applejack frowned.
“Then you have nothing to worry about. Now hoof over your hat and bag. Please,” he repeated.
Applejack grumbled but she couldn’t really do anything about it. She took off her hat and saddlebag and gave them to the unicorns. The one with her hat held it in his magic and inspected it—she wondered if he was doing something magical to it—and the one with her bag took it over to a long table inside the chamber and opened it up, laying her stuff out for him to look at.
She really didn’t like that but at least all he seemed to be doing was inspecting things with his magic and checking to see if it really was all what it looked like. Her journal, the old map, her emergency oats, her bag of bits, he went over each thing twice with his horn glowing the entire time. Seemingly satisfied, he put everything back in her saddlebag, carefully too at least, and walked back over to Applejack. The one with her hat was already finished as well, just waiting for his partner to be finished, and together they gave her her things back.
“You may continue, we found nothing suspicious,” the same unicorn said.
“Thanks,” Applejack sharply answered and took her hat and bag back.
Walking past them and the other guards another buzzer rang and the next gate opened up before Applejack entered the next chamber. This one was just like the previous except there was but one guard. A dragon.
Applejack felt her eyes widen as she saw him—though small for a dragon he was still about three times taller than her and he looked intimidating in the black and blue armor. Though on his purply scaled face there was only an expression of boredom and nothing else. He stood directly in front of the next gate and a ticket dispenser that was coming out of the wall to the left of the gate. Right when the gate Applejack had walked through closed back up, he breathed steam out his nose and pulled a ticket from the dispenser.
“Here’s your designation,” he said and held it out towards her.
Applejack stepped up and took the ticket from him, turning it over and seeing “47-XB” stenciled on it.
“Remember that number and keep the ticket with you. You wouldn’t want to miss when you’re called,” the dragon instructed.
“Got a time-frame on when my number might be called?” Applejack looked up at him.
A grin almost tugged up his lips. “No.” He stepped aside so she could walk through the gate when it opened. “This is the last checkpoint, through here is the interior town of the Citadel. You must pay for and acquire a place to stay before the midnight curfew—or else you’ll be thrown back out. Do you understand?”
“Midnight curfew, got it,” Applejack nodded.
“And of course that means if you run out of money to pay for your stay you’ll have until midnight of that same day before you are officially thrown out as well. Do you understand? We are very strict about this,” the dragon said.
“I get it. I’ll be fine,” Applejack answered.
“I’m sure you will be,” this time the dragon did smirk as he pressed a button on the wall behind the ticket dispenser that Applejack couldn’t see. “Welcome to the Citadel of Al-Karamaretel.”
A sharp ding from a bell came and the metal gates hissed as they split down the middle and started to open up for her. A louder groaning sound than any of the other gates came from them while they receded into the thick defensive walls. Applejack took a deep breath and stood before the portal, waiting to enter the Citadel.