The Ash Is In Our Coats
Fluttershy walked into the cabin, and gasped quietly. The interior of the house was... gorgeous. While it was one room, The bed was made, a large sea blue woolen comforter covering the entire thing, gently pushed over what she assumed were somewhat large pillows. The walls, which were made of large, tightly fitted logs, were sanded down to perfection, with the natural patterns of the wood wonderfully accented in the light from the lamp hanging off the center the ceiling.
The little kitchen area, which had a large window overlooking the shallow valley that Fluttershy had been admiring not a minute earlier, was simple: a sink sans facet (she imagined that she would be using melted snow, as pipes would freeze over far too easily), a large wood-fueled stove, cabinets mounted on the wall next to the stove, and an ice chest below the cabinets. The pegasus nodded cheerfully at this, and turned her attention to the opposite wall.
Another window was stationed there, giving a view of the forest that the reindeer of Arctica lived in, but Fluttershy was not interested in that at the moment. Instead, she looked directly beside it, where a large ornate fireplace was stationed, almost parallel to the bed. The mantle was silver; upon it were a few candlesticks with half-melted candles held in place by still fountains of wax, a small clock, and a smoking pipe. Above the fireplace hung a painting of the arctic sea, shapely icebergs and playful belugas dappling the scene. Next to the fireplace was a pile of cut wood.
Before the fireplace lay a rug, woven in fantastic spirals of silvers, blacks, deep purples, and grays. To her, it almost seemed as though it were a woven picture of the night sky. Slowly trotting forward, she sighed as her hooves touched the weaving, a wonderful soft feel that sent shivers through her body.
Setting her saddlebag down beside the bed, Fluttershy began to remove her parka. She had only now noticed that the hood felt slightly heavier than it should; the weight wasn’t consistent with the rest of the garment. However, she hadn’t worn a lot of parkas... perhaps Rarity just made it like this for a reason.
That still didn’t explain why she hadn’t noticed it until now...
Fluttershy moved on from this, and took some of the wood from the pile beside the fireplace. As she did so, she noticed that there was also a modest pile of dry moss for kindling. Taking enough for her to complete her task, she placed the soft lichen carefully in her teeth, grimacing as the bitter moss leached the moisture from her lips and tongue tip. Balancing the logs and sticks on her back, she carried all of these fire making ingredients to the stove. She carefully placed the wood inside, and set the moss nearby. Moving her head back and forth around the stove, she looked for a way to start her fire.
“Oh dear,” she muttered to herself, frowning in concern when no such thing could be seen. “How am I going to light this?”
Fluttershy looked all about, but did not see any flint which she could use to spark a fire. Beginning to worry that heat would soon be of an issue, she shivered as the cold became much more noticeable.
“Oh, what would Twilight do?” Fluttershy closed her eyes and focused hard on everything she knew about her clever friend. “Find something that will make sparks...”
For a moment, she debated sliding back into her parka, just to keep warm for the time being. As her eyes fell on the clock, however, an idea came to her.
Cantering over quickly to the mechanism, she moved it to the side with her hoof, and checked the back. Sure enough, there was a crank that connected to a large assortments of gears, just in case she needed to adjust the cogs. Taking the clock down from its place with her mouth, she rushed over and dropped it next to the stove. Running back, she scanned the mantle quickly.
“Fluttershy, you’ve got to hurry,” she muttered to herself. Spotting the pipe, she noticed that the neck had a small band of metal, possibly tin or iron, wrapped around it. Grabbing it hastily in her mouth, she rushed it over to the clock. The bitter taste of old tobacco lingered in her mouth even after she dropped it, but that was not of an issue right now.
Using her teeth to pry off the metal band, she placed that carefully on the wooden floor next to one of the stove legs, and then immediately set to work on the clock. Her hooves shakily removed the gears from each other, rendering the clock useless for telling the time, but allowing her to have two that would turn together when she moved the crank. The rest of the gears had been removed from the clock, which left just enough space for her to carry out her plan.
Grabbing some of the smaller sticks, twigs, and chunks of wood, she placed them inside the gutted clock, on the other side of the gears. The dry moss was put directly behind the place where the cogs began to pull apart due to their shape. The piece of metal was taken in her mouth, and placed between the teeth of the gears, right where they meshed together.
“Alright,” Fluttershy whispered to herself. “You can do this. Just take the crank in your teeth...”
Fluttershy put a hoof on the top of the clock to steady it, and she placed the crank in her mouth and jerked forward. She was trying her best to get the gears to move against the metal, for this was her only plan. Struggling, she heard the pieces of metal moan as she continued to press forward.
Oh, I hope this works... she thought to herself as she pushed forward even harder. Her teeth ached as she clamped down hard, but Fluttershy knew she had to give it her all, or else the chances of her surviving up here would be pretty slim. The parka couldn’t keep her warm forever...
Giving in one final push, the metal was crushed by the two gears with a horrendous crack! In the process of doing this, the metal sent out a wide array of sparks, and to her great relief, she smelt the husky aroma of moss smoldering.
“Yes!” she shouted in her muted sort of way, a giant smile across her face. She leapt into the air, wings splayed in victory. As she hovered there, her gaze fell on the mantel, and a blush grew on her face.
Right behind where the pipe had been was a book of matches, with almost all of the matches left. Sinking to her hooves slowly, she hung her head in embarrassment.
“How could I have missed that?” Fluttershy took a sideways glance at her makeshift fire starter, and jumped backwards. The smoldering moss had lit the wood inside on fire, and was now at a full blaze! Quickly, she dumped the contents of the clock body inside her wooden stove, and the rest of the wood was soon crackling merrily.
“Well, at least I’ll know how to start a fire in a similar circumstance,” Fluttershy mused to herself, grinning slightly. Her cheeks were still flushed, but at this pint, it had become somewhat hilarious in hindsight.
Loading the fireplace up with wood and moss kindling, she used the matchbook to strike up another blaze. Soon, the entire cabin was a toasty warm.
I wonder what food is in the cupboard?
Fluttershy flapped into the air, and drifted through the room towards the cabinet. Opening it, she found on the highest shelf a large sack of rice, two knives, three potatoes, a peeler, a modest rationing of hay, some dried hibiscus petals, and a bag of noodles. On the shelf below it were two pots and a saucepan, in addition to a ladle, an large assortment of silver forks and spoons, and three bowls. A plate lay in the back left corner of the bottom shelf, but it was cracked and covered in quite a number of cobwebs with their owners still there, so Fluttershy decided that the best course of action would be to forgo that for now.
“I think noodles and potatoes will be nice,” Fluttershy told herself, and she gathered the necessary ingredients up in a pot. “And that dried hibiscus... I have no idea how they got all the way up here in Artica, but I am saving those for dessert!”
Moving her pot full of food down next to the stove, she slowly removed the items from the holding spot. Peeling the one potato she had taken, she looked at all the other ingredients and came to the inevitable conclusion; she’d have to go outside and get snow for melting into water.
Striding quickly across the room, she shimmied into her parka once more, and set herself on a course for the door, stopping by the counter to grab the pot she had taken out. Now that she had noticed the heaviness in her hood, it would not go away, and even annoyed her slightly. No time for dwelling on that, however...
Opening her door, she braced herself as the wind blasted her in the face. The sudden change in temperature from the warm, cozy cabin inside to the cold, biting chill of the outside world wasn’t unwelcome; it woke the pegasus up, and Fluttershy felt herself become ever-so-slightly more perky. Pot carefully clasped in her hooves, she flew outside towards a nearby snowbank to gather the needed frost.
As she flew out, she saw that a group of penguins had wandered up next to her cabin, and had gathered around the snowbank she was considering using for her snow source.
“Aw,” she crooned, landing down next to one of the larger ones, and leaned in. “You’re so cute!” These penguins were relatively quiet and were not doing any laughing like the other penguins had, and this made Fluttershy feel much safer.
Fluttershy nuzzled the penguin with her cheek, her warm fur brushing against its cold, sleek polar coat. The penguin reached its tiny flippers up and hugged her cheek.
“Oh!” Fluttershy giggled at the friendly display. The penguin giggled in return, and went on to jabber something in its own language. Fluttershy shot it back a kind look, and the penguin blushed as well as a penguin could blush, and then gave Fluttershy a quick peck on the cheek with its small beak. It waddled away quickly, continuing to giggle in its high pitched, birdish way.
Fluttershy blushed almost hard enough to melt the snow around her. Had she just been flirting with a penguin? Laughing, she watched as the penguin jabbered to its friends, almost as if it were bragging. Certainly, stranger things had happened.
“I see that you’ve making good friends with the native wildlife,” came a soft, smooth, feminine voice.
“Oh!” Fluttershy jumped, and turned around. There was one of the doe from earlier, who had accompanied the stag with her to the cabin. “I’m sorry, you startled me.”
“The blame is all mine,” the doe said apologetically. “I apologize.”
“It’s quite all right,” Fluttershy insisted. “I’m an easily frightened pony.”
“One hopes you will not meet The Other, then,” the doe said sagely. “Although, it would take great luck not to.”
“Who is this ‘other’ you keep speaking of? If you don’t mind me asking, that is...”
The doe shifted uncomfortably on her hooves in the snow. “Well... the winds will whisper to you when you must come to learn of their truths.”
Fluttershy nodded, her face downcast. “I see...”
“Do not be disappointed, however,” the doe said. A hint of a smile could be seen on her muzzle. “I come bringing you a message from the winds, even though it does not pertain to The Other.”
“Oh?” Fluttershy raised an eyebrow.
“It is from your friends.”
Fluttershy paled. “Oh no! I hope they’re okay! Did something happen? What happened? Oh sweet Celestia, tell me they’re alright!”
The doe laughed. “Calm yourself; it is a cryptic answer as any us reindeer have given throughout time, but I think you’ll find it of no ill tidings.”
Fluttershy leaned forward, eyes wide and attentive, ears perked.
“The ash is in our coats.”
Fluttershy drooped slightly. “I-is... is that it?”
The doe nodded. “I am afraid so.”
With that, she turned on her hooves, and bounded off into the snow, back towards the forest, leaving Fluttershy sitting there, confused and cold.