//------------------------------//
// IX: Burning 
// Story: Pohjola 
// by Professional Horse 
//------------------------------//

The backpack on Twilight's back grew heavier as she walked and the sky above grew darker. She had been trekking south for hours and her legs ached.

It was time to rest.

She sighed and went through the checklist in her mind. She'd need firewood and a good location for sleep. She had water and food for a week, so worrying about those was unnecessary. Wood was plentiful and the ground around her was fairly uneven. It wouldn't be too difficult to find some shelter for the night.

She stopped to look around her. The sun floated above the horizon, the branches above her shattering its light into a thousand bright rays. The vivid colours of the forest, awakened by sunlight, proudly decorated the trees. The air was filled with the stuffy smell of moss, but she barely even noticed it anymore. Instead, the odour of pine needles entered her nostrils and reminded her of Hearth's Warming Eve.

"This forest... is actually quite beautiful," she mumbled as she continued walking. "It looked so gloomy and strange before."

Discord had opened her eyes and helped her see again. The world often seems bleak when you're feeling down...

She noticed a furry creature lying still on the ground nearby. Several flies flew around it and a grey crow dug the belly of the motionless animal. The smell of needles was replaced with the stench of death.

She winced and covered her nose. Her eyes had widened, for no one could see anything like that in Equestria. Maybe in the Evergreen forest, but not in the land of harmony. 

She received a grim reminder of the true nature of Pohjola.

Twilight approached the dead critter, and the crow flew away, croaking as it went, a red tendon hanging from its beak. She looked at the brown creature but didn't recognize what species it was, although it vaguely looked like a weasel.

"I can't leave you lying there, little buddy," she mumbled to it. Night was approaching and she still had no firewood or shelter, but she couldn't just ignore the remains and walk away. Never again.

She closed her eyes and her horn glowed. The corpse was engulfed in cold variegated flames. 

Ponies didn't bury their dead. They burned them instead so they wouldn't rot and wither. The three races had different traditions for burning the dead: The unicorns used a special spell that would leave behind nothing, the earth ponies buried the ashes so those who had passed away could give birth to new, greener life while the pegasi scattered the ashes to the sky so their souls could fly forever...

She stared at the bright flames, her eyes reflecting their colourful dance.

"Why didn't I go there?" she mumbled quietly.

Soon nothing was left of the perished animal, no ash or smoke, the moss beneath it covered with some blood but unburned by the magical fire.

Twilight sighed and continued her search for shelter. Eventually she found a dead tree spanning a small dry basin on the ground. She put down her pack in the hollow and approached a living tree nearby. It wasn't old and thus not very thick. It was, however, wide enough to provide good firewood.

"I should leave it alone," she mumbled. "I don't want to anger Taapio again."

So instead she walked to the roots of the dead tree and tore off some of them with her magic. For an alicorn, it wasn't much effort. The roots were covered with moisture from the rain earlier that day, but were otherwise dry. 

"Let's see... I can get about two cubic trots of wood, which should produce about... well, if it's like Equestrian spruce or Yakyakistan pines, about 15 gigagallops of energy. That should suffice for a while, if I can carry it all."

As she mumbled, she cleared out a spot for a campfire near the fallen tree. She knew little about campfires, but assumed that stacking some wood in the middle of a dry spot surrounded by rocks would suffice. So after placing the wood on the ground, she searched the nearby area for pebbles and stones. She found several, picking the ones that were the most symmetrical and even.

Not much later a campfire roared, ignited by a spell. She looked at it and smiled. "Heh, camping isn't too bad," she mumbled. 

The light of the flames illuminated her surroundings. It was dark, for night had fallen. Twilight looked at the moon above and raised an eyebrow. A small sliver of the moon was missing.

"Huh, that's odd. Must be an optical illusion," she murmured and chuckled. "Or maybe I'm just really tired."

After eating a meal consisting of bread and biscuits, she took out a sleeping bag from her backpack and yawned.  As she tucked herself into the bag, she prayed no nightmares would haunt her tonight.