He grimaced again. That meant going further around the border provinces of Equestria where there were more wild things and troubles. He could fault the ponies for a lot, but their magic was something he couldn’t dismiss. It was what kept the inner provinces lush and vibrant and prosperous, and why no other country gave the ponies any serious trouble. All other races had to seriously work to control magic to any extent, some even being forced to do outright witchcraft to achieve anything at all. Ponies? The stuff came naturally to all of them. The pegasi naturally ruled the skies and had such an acute affinity for weathercraft that it made other races look like they were fumbling about with hatchling’s blocks when it came to their own weather control. The earth ponies, easily the least versatile of the pony races, were the strongest, the magic in their bodies giving them bucks that could crack stone and the plants of the earth theirs to command and control. The unicorns spoke for themselves, with enough raw magical finesse at young ages to make dragon elders green with envy, mastering in a few short years what took dragons decades at the earliest to summon forth.