The languages of the West

Hikary stared at the great canyon that lay before her, or rather, she stared at the other side, where by all means they should be. Of course, the gaping hole in the earth that stretched out for countless of miles to both directions was a bit of a problem. The view was beautiful, she had to admit; the orange color of the walls of the canyon contrasted greatly with the blue of the small river that flowed on the bottom.

She could see animals grazing at the bottom of the canyon, and she saw a few tiny houses, but there was no way down, or up, as far as she could see. Nor was there a bridge. Hurray for Taira’s map-reading skills. Her instincts were to be trusted for sure, but when it came to reading maps… her older sister was not only horribly bad at it, she was also way too stubborn to admit she was wrong.
“Taira, seriously. We can’t cross this! The only way is around!” She argued once more.

“But the map clearly says the road leads this way!” Taira argued back.
“Yes, well, that map is ancient, and unless you have figured out a way how to fly, there is no way we can cross this. We will have to go back and then make our way around.” Hikary stated.
“Or maybe we should try to communicate with the villagers and see if they know a way to get to the other side faster.” Yuuro argued.

Of course, Yuuro had been arguing that for weeks, ever since they crossed the breach. At first it wasn’t hard, because Taira somehow was able to talk to them with the little knowledge of the western language as she had. However, the further they advanced towards Zoroaster, the more difficult this became. At first, the thick accents made it difficult for Taira to understand what the ponies were saying, but lately she had been convinced they were talking in a completely different language, and even their old dictionaries did not help them. Therefore, they had generally tried to figure things out themselves, so they would not draw too much attention. Besides, if they could not even communicate with the ponies here, there was no reason to visit the villages.

“I know that is your opinion, Yuuro dear, but we won’t be able to communicate with them. We tried, remember, and it didn’t work out. It only made the situation more complicated.” Hikary said.
Yuuro shrugged. “Have it your way then. We go around. Which way do we go? North or south?”
“I’d say north. According to the map Zoroaster is northwest from here, so at least we’ll be advancing slightly in the correct direction.”  Taira argued and for once, Hikary agreed with her sister.

As Stelline was without an opinion as usual, they followed the canyon to the north. The slight glow of prana on the trees stood in stark contrast with the orange canyon, but apart from that the road carried on as usual, not bothered by trees or bushes. The world here was truly beautiful, Hikary realized once more. The purple glow of prana never ceased to amaze her, and the landscape was so different from the east… It was wild, yes, but in a different way than she was used to; the east somehow seemed so messy and dirty compared to this.

After walking for half an hour, they saw something doom up in front of them.
“A village.” Stelline concluded before anyone else dared to speak.
Hikary noticed Stelline was right; she could see the blue roofs of houses that she had seen before; a certain kind of stone that somehow was used a lot in the west. The closer they came, the more it became apparent that this indeed was a village, and a rather large one, too.

“So… what do we do now?” Yuuro asked, obviously hopeful they would finally give in to his argument.
“I do think the villagers might know a way across. The problem is, how to get it out of them.” Hikary had to agree.
“We’ll just have to try. At least, we should try to get a place in an inn. We all could use some proper sleep in a normal bed for once. A good night of rest might inspire us.” Hikary said, though she did not really see how they were going to communicate.

Unable to agree with him anymore, they followed Yuuro into town. He had already taken out the old dictionary again. Even though none of them liked it much, they all followed Yuuro, showing the townspeople that they belonged with him, which would ensure nobody would be suspicious of a male following females. It had happened before, and they didn’t feel like drawing more attention to themselves as they would already do once they started asking.

Soon enough, they noticed a sign of a bed hanging on one of the houses.
“It’s an inn, I suppose.” Yuuro said.
“Yea. Well, let’s give it a try.” Hikary agreed.
They entered the inn, and soon faced the counter where a rather fat pony looked at them, rather uninterested in his new guests. Taira stepped forward, and tried with her basic western speech to arrange four beds. As expected, the innkeeper stared at them with a blank look.

“I don’t think he gets it.” Yuuro said while opening the old dictionary.
“I don’t think that will be of much help either then, Yuuro.” Hikary said disappointed. Taira kept trying to explain, but the innkeeper just looked more annoyed. Finally, Hikary realized she had to admit defeat.
“I don’t think this will work. Let’s go.” She said to the others.

“Please wait!” A male voice said, and it took Hikary a moment to realize it was not Yuuro who was speaking. She turned once again, and noticed a blue-grey pony standing next to the counter.
“You’re from the east, aren’t you?” He asked.
“Y… yes, we are.” Hikary stammered, amazed that someone here spoke their language so fluently.
“I figured as much. So am I… Let me handle this for you. Four beds I assume? One night? Two?” He asked.

“Uhm… one night will do for now.” Hikary said after glancing at the others. The male spoke something in the western language, and the innkeeper grunted and then wrote something down. After they had paid, with the help of the blue-grey pony, the innkeeper showed them to a room with four beds, and pointed in the general direction of a room where they suspected dinner and breakfast would be served.

“So… what brings a group of three pretty ladies and a young lad to the west, eh? Especially when you can’t even speak Aster.” The pony asked when they finally sat down.
“We are… on an important errant. We’re on our way to Asterian… to ZoroAster.” Taira explained.
“What about you?” Yuuro asked the other male, eying him suspiciously.

“Heh… I’m a merchant, lad. I am on my way through, just like you, but I’m on my way back from ZoroAster. My name is Ken. I just traded my wares in ZoroAster, and now I’m on my way back to the east, where I hope to sell these western items on the trade route. Certain kinds of jewellery, and cloth, which are rather common in the west, are of course rare in the east. I sell them. Well… they do lose some of their shine, once in the east. I suspect the lack of prana has something to do with that. But alas, ponies still want them. And it gives me a good reason to be on the road.”

Ken liked to talk, and Hikary realized this was probably the first time in weeks he could talk in his own language.
 “So, Ken, you seem to be fluent in the Western language.” Taira observed. Ken laughed.
“I wouldn’t call it fluent, lady. But yes, years of trading here in the west forced me to learn.”
“Is it hard?” Yuuro asked.
“Nah, I wouldn’t think so, no. But it requires lots of practise. Well, I guess you need to have some skill in it… if you need to be in ZoroAster. Don’t expect anyone to speak anything else but Aster there.”

“Aster… is that the name of the language of the West?” Hikary asked. Ken nodded.
“It is the language of Asterian, and thus the language of the High King. That doesn’t mean it is the only language spoken here though. Closer to the breach ponies speak a whole different language, and I heard people from the southwest and from the north on the market, too… and that was definitely not Aster. I don’t know anything about that though…

Oh, wait! I may have something for you. I picked up a few school books for children… I got them to sell as the artwork is stunning, but I guess I can sell them to you. I just have to teach you how it is written, and then you can use those books to learn the language while on your way there. How about it?”  Ken proposed.
“Are they recent?”  Taira asked, probably thinking of Yuuro’s old dictionary.

“Oh yes, they are. Used in the best school of ZoroAster at the moment to teach little ponies how to read. Want me to go dig them up for you?”  Ken asked.
“Yes… that might be nice. No need to rush, though, as we have one more question for you.”  Hikary said. “Bring it on.”  Ken said while he sipped on the beer he got himself.

“Well, as you might have guessed we are traveling without much knowledge of the west and the few items we do have are very old and in most cases no longer accurate. We have a map which shows that we can cross the canyon here, but we obviously can’t, as there’s no bridge or anything. But ZoroAster is on the other side, right?” Hikary asked, sure that Ken would know the way if he truly just came from ZoroAster.

“ Ah, your map must be really old then. I always rest for a few days here in this village, and I was told that there once was a bridge here, which is the reason this town was born here in this place. There was said to be a similar village on the other side of the bridge, too, but nothing is left of it now. It completely died out when the bridge broke.

I’m not too sure on the details, but it was said an ancient High King once used his powers to make a bridge here, so ponies could easily cross the canyon without going all the way around, or down and up like they do now. Ages later, though, it was destroyed in a horrible storm, and no High King ever attempted to rebuild it. The walls of the canyon are not very steep here, so over the years ponies build a long stairs down.

Once you are down, simply follow the road. It will lead you a bit more south, where you will find similar stairs on the other side. It’s the only way to cross this canyon now, unless you want to go all the way around. The stairs are safe, but very tiring, especially once you have to go up. Still, the view is magnificent. These canyons truly are something, don’t you agree? And at the other stairs there is another village, though obviously less old and smaller than this one. Still, the inn there is nice and cozy, and you’ll be able to rest properly.” Ken explained.

“Thank you, Ken… thank you so much.” Hikary asked.
“No problem at all, lady. Very pleased to help out fellow travelers.” Ken answered.
They hadn’t noticed the stairs when they had entered the town, but they had not been looking for them either. They just had gone straight for the inn.
“Then, tomorrow, we’ll cross the canyon.”  Hikary said, and her companions agreed.

The rest of the day, they spend with Ken, who wrote an alphabetical chart for them, linking each of the western letters to their eastern counterpart. The basic system of the language was similar to that of the eastern language, though the writing was very different. Ken had explained that the writing system was the same for all western languages. Hikary was surprised, not that there were different languages over the west, but at the fact that in the east, everyone seemed to speak the same language, while the east was more divided than the west.

When she was in her bed late at night, Hikary stared at the stars through the window, which did not have any curtains.
“ Even here…” she whispered while she looked at the dark, black sky. So many things were different here in the west, but the sky was similar to the one in the east. Even here, the stars in the sky were fading. Even here, only darkness greeted her while she looked up. They were still there, the few stars that were left, but the emptiness in which they floated reminded Hikary that they had no time to waste. Tomorrow, they would continue on to ZoroAster.