One afternoon when it was damp and raining, Zecora decided that she needed time away from the forest around her hut. She thought to travel to visit the school of the Steeronists. She had heard about them from the milk vendor, who said that they lived on mountain cliffs, and there dedicated themselves to the cultivation of a certain kind of philosophic skepticism. It was told that those who matriculated from there could not descend the slopes without fear of the hollow earth giving out from under their hooves with each step.
	
This sounded exciting to Zecora, who loved to see different places in the world. She settled her affairs and hired a guide. They crossed the narrows of Bucksor, onto the steppes of Alhippo and Musel, then along the twin rivers of Deer Dar’ya and Emu Dar’ya all the way to the great city of Ramarkand. From there she took a rickshaw up some switches in the Himaneighas, where she was received at the monastery by monks in fustian habits.
	
She remained with them a year, then on another rainy day, she decided it was time to return to her hut in Ponyville. She contemplated the road for many days, when, arriving at the outskirts of town, she felt as a stranger in the old place. As she reflected on this, she noticed a carriage broken down on her way going back to the woods where she lived. It had a shattered wheel, and the drivers were arguing with one another, in a strange accent:
	
“The spokes are old, the rim no good. It splintered like I said it would!” said Trixie, pointing to a wreck of cider barrels which were spilling over where the road dropped off.
	
Starlight Glimmer glowered at her. “It’s not for luck, nor want of taste. The trailer buckled in your haste! You bought the trove to store for long, and cunningly outwit the throng. I came to help—reluctantly—and now you pass the blame to me!”
	
“As puckering as a pickle drizzle, your grousing makes my ear tips sizzle! My thinking was to pay some grunts, and bypass all these self-help stunts!” said Trixie.
	
The railed cart had, evidently, been overloaded with cider; and Applejack, spying them whilst on an errand of her own, stopped to take an interest in the matter.
	
“Lookie at this mess, dagnabit. Quit your fussin’, stop, and grab it! Stand them up to save what’s left. Mind, now where the side is cleft. Everypony makes mistakes, but I can’t bear such cider lakes! With ponies thirstin’, that’s some gall—enough for seven families, ya’ll! You’re barred from buyin’, not a cup, and that’s my final word, eeyup!” 
	
By now the crowd had begun to come in. Bystanders, curious travelers—even the mayor, all arguing with one another in a sonorous racket. Zecora saw that she would not be able to get a word in, anyhow, and left the ponies to resolve their own quarrel. 
	
When she got home, she was welcomed with a croak by her pet bullfrog, Maya, who had thick, iridescent skin and a pretty crown of sorrel flowers. Maya billowed her big vocal sack, and asked Zecora about the school; whereupon Zecora, with her thought still captured by what she had just seen, recounted the mishap on the dirt road.
	
(Was it something you learned on the rocks… that made them sound so strange?)
	
Zecora replied, “There is a change.”
	
(Go back and tell them… that none of their accounts are trustworthy. Each see their own story, only, and history is after all a haze.)
	
“Empires disappear with time,” Zecora answered, “but it is not that at which I gaze.”
	
(Then go and ask, what is a cart? The wheels, the chassis? Which part? For nothing can be known—not even that Celestia’s sun will rise tomorrow, if it rose a thousand times before. Say to them that debts and fights are twaddling… over insecurity.)
	
“That’s the scheme for you,” Zecora said, “but not for me.”
	
The frog, impatiently:
	
(What then… did you learn, at all, in cloisters far away?)
	
Zecora smiled. “We never interrupted one another, I’d say—we paused before we spoke, a year, through meals, and pain, and weather gray. And now I hear ponies in a different way.”