“They can’t possibly think that you’re the reason for the Yeti attacks,” Galearis said, shuffling through her cupboards and grabbing can after can of condensed soups and dried fruits and vegetables. “Those have been going on for months now, way before you two even showed up.”
“I don’t think Rutherford or Rosensarch blame the attacks on us directly,” Twilight responded, warming herself by the relit fire Galearis had started when we got back to her house. “All I said is that both are refusing to help us. I think I may have mucked up the relations a bit when I mentioned that both needed to see the other side’s point of view.”
“So they kicked you out of the Monastery?” I asked, raising an eyebrow as Twilight sparked up the fire with her magic.
“Not exactly,” Twilight said, rubbing a hoof against her neck. “Prince Rutherford threatened war with Canterlot because he swore that the Yetis were a sneak attack from the Princesses to begin with. Elder Rosensarch argued that the Yeti attacks were all a big hoax to keep the public of Yakyakistan in fear of their new government.”
“Sounds like a pretty big fight,” I commented, going over and starting to pack the cans into my saddle bags as Galearis began rummaging through her closet for supplies.
“It was,” Twilight responded. “In short, I think that the yaks have finally split in two. I think we found the friendship problem we came here to find Moonie.”
“Then what are you going to do about it?” Galearis asked, pulling a few heavy coats from her closet, worn down, but still warmer-looking than the few scarves I had at my disposal.
“The yaks may not be helping us, but I still think we should get to the bottom of these Yeti attacks,” Twilight responded, taking the map she had shown off the night before, studying it intensely for a few seconds and tapping a hoof to her chin in thought. She must have been trying to plan a route before we left. “If we find out what is actually going on, we might understand a little more about the precarious situation that’s going on with your heads of power.”
“Do you think something is actually attacking traders, or do you think there’s something else is going on?” I asked as I ran through a mental checklist of the items we were putting in the bags.
“I’m not sure who's doing it is, but if we stop the attacks now and make sure that trade resumes here, then at least we’ve got leverage to help us resolve the problems plaguing the leader and his father here,” Twilight curtly responded, furling the map back up and placing it in her bag. She trotted over to the counter where Galearis and I were finishing up packing. “Thank you for the help and sacrifice Galearis,” she said as Galearis nodded. “What are we looking at for supplies?”
“We’ve got enough food for at least a week for the two of us, maybe more if we really ration it out.” I responded, packing the last can of carrots into my saddlebags, the weight actually noticeable even under the charm.
“I want to come with you two, Galearis suddenly sputtered, shuffling her hooves a bit after saying the line.
“Then that reduces our food to probably a few days,” Twilight unquestionably commented, tapping a hoof to her chin. “Bullheart’s Bluff is only a half day trip, so we should have enough supplies to get down there and investigate should the weather hold out on us like now.”
“Thank you,” Galearis said while giving me a hug. I stood in surprise for a moment before hugging her back. “Our leaders have been destroying the peace of mind around here for months, so I’m glad I can be a part of the solution.”
“How well do you know the area around here?” Twilight asked Galearis as she put on one of the tattered coats that had been taken out earlier.
“I’ve been down to the trading camp plenty of times, so I know mostly where I’m going,” Galearis responded as Twilight put the hood of the coat over her to make sure her horn would fit underneath it. It was a tight fit, but she made it work. “But this would be the first time I’ve ever made the trek without another Yak to help guide me.”
“That should be fine as long as you know how to read a map,” I said, Galearis nodding to tell me she could. I opened one of my bags and produced a compass. “Take this then, and you can be our guide through the snow. We were in need of one of those to begin with.”
“Alright,” Galearis replied. “Do we have everything we need to start? No sense in leaving anything here, since I’m the only one who lives here.”
“We should be good to go,” I commented, slipping into the other coat. It was a bit big for me, and it felt like a giant cloak, but importantly, it was much warmer than my many scarves. I was starting to feel a little too warm standing near the blazing fire. “We’ve got food, we can make water from the snow around us, and we’ve got warm clothing.”
“Let’s head out then,” Twilight said, opening the door and covering the fire with a magical shield, dousing it within seconds. Trotting over to the door, I looked back to see Galearis rummaging through her pockets for her house key.
We both stepped outside on the hard stone of the staircase which was once again snow-free. When we were heading back to Galearis’s house, I couldn’t help but show off the new spell I tried the night before. While expending a lot of energy once again, I wasn’t tired out this time. Galearis’s soup had kept me awake.
“Remind me when we get back to Canterlot,” Twilight began, turning to me with a smile, “you have to show me how you do that spell.”
“You might have to wait until we have our next scheduled snowstorm,” I said as Galearis shut her door and awkwardly placed the key in the lock, turning her head to seal the door shut.
“I’ve got connections back in Ponyville,” she alluded with a wink before Galearis trotted up behind us.
“We’re all ready to go right?” Galearis asked as Twilight looked back to her, giving a quick nod of approval. Twilight looked back at her bags, igniting her magic to lift a flap off one of the saddlebags, producing the folded map from earlier before levitating it over to Galearis.
“As long as you’re ready, Galearis,” Twilight answered with a smile. “You’re going to be leading us most of the way anyways.”
“Right,” she responded. “Then I suppose the first step is to get out of town, no?” I gave a chuckle and a nod as Twilight suddenly gave off a loud pop next to me, vanishing on the spot. Looking down at the bottom of the stairs, I watched as she phased into existence with another pop, leaving a sizeable dent in the snow below her.
Twilight had always been keen on teleportation, and I kept telling myself I’d ask her to show me how she so effortlessly pulls it off every time. Maybe she’d teach me once I showed her my technique on clearing out snow.
“You go first this time,” Galearis said from behind me with a slight nudge. The map was probably packed away in one of her pockets, as she was no longer holding it in her mouth. “It’s your turn to catch me at the bottom of the slide,” she said with a wink.
I hesitated a second, not sure what to make of the remark, but figuring it was all in good fun, I took a gulp as I stepped out over the edge. Somehow, the stairs seemed much further up than the last time I had slid down them. Twilight raised her eyebrows, probably confused as to why I wasn’t moving already.
“Threetwoone go!” Galearis shouted all of a sudden, giving me a hard push and launching me down the steep slope of the stone staircase in front of me. I reflexively shouted out as I scrambled all four of my limbs in an attempt to keep myself upright. I felt my body twist and turn as my appendages all flailed in different directions. Before I could take hold of my situation I was facing Galearis, sliding backwards towards the same snow-drift she had crashed in earlier.
Instinctively, I flashed energy to my horn, pulling out the same teleportation spell Twilight had. A pop rang throughout my ears as the world went black around me, the sound of rushing wind blowing past my ears as I felt myself tumble through a void. A wave of nausea bowled over me, and I blinked, struggling to find which way was down.
Then as quickly as it had gone away, the world came back, only now I was upside down, with Twilight a few meters directly above me. My momentum had stayed though, as I tumbled past Twilight and landed headfirst with a slam into the thick snowdrift that made up the street behind her. My heart was pounding, and all I could see around me was a small cave I had made in the snow around me upon my less-than-graceful landing.
I heard Twilight laughing and the sound of hoofsteps crunching as I felt a magical aura surround me. The aura lifted me out of the snowdrift, and gently back to my hooves. My glasses still had a layer of half melted snow, so I could only assume the purple face in front of me belonged to Twilight, and not Galearis. Feeling my glasses being lifted off my face I started to protest, “Hey, I need those.”
“I’m just cleaning them off for you,” Twilight said, still chuckling at the incident. I could feel my cheeks glowing with embarrassment as Twilight gently replaced them on my face. “You know, when teleporting while moving like that you have to add opposing momentum so that you won’t fly out the end like that,” Twilight commented with a smile before turning to face Galearis. “Also, using the correct exit helps,” she commented over her shoulder.
“I knew that!” I lied through my teeth, not wanting to let her know that teleportation spell had been used out of pure panic. “I must have miscalculated is all,” I said instinctively pushing my glasses up on my face. I could feel a warmth radiating from them. Twilight must have put the repulsion spell on them while she was drying them off.
I walked over to the bottom of the steps with Twilight to look up at our map-reader to see if she was coming down. “You made a promise, Moondancer!” Galearis called from the top of the frost-ridden steps.
“Not willingly,” I mumbled under my breath as Twilight giggled next to me, having heard what I said. “Come down when you’re ready, I suppose,” I called up to Galearis, a hoof outstretched to show I was prepared to stop her. Knowing her weight was close to mine though did not fill me with confidence, because as Apple Newton wrote in his discoveries, an object in motion will remain in motion regardless–
“Geronimo!” I heard Galearis call out, breaking my inner thoughts on why this was a terrible idea that would only wind up with both of us in the snow. I watched as she raced down the slope, her form becoming bigger and blurrier as she came closer to me. I saw her impossibly striking a beautiful pose and smiling daintily, juxtaposing the alarming speed she was coming at me. I couldn’t help but stare in awe, mouth slightly agape at this enigma of a friend I had made.
“Moondancer!” she yelled, her smile wavering as she saw I was standing motionless. I reached out my hoof and grabbed her’s last minute, not realizing I was standing directly in her skiing path. I felt her grab my hoof and drag me down into the snow as we both careened to the middle of the street, spinning around and around until we skidded to a halt in the snow pile.
Once again, my head was spinning, but at least I could see what was happening due to Twilight’s charm on my glasses. The sound of Twilight’s hooves clapping together reached my ears and I shook my head to clear the dizziness I had suffered from the botched landing. “Bravo!” Twilight shouted as we both stood up. I looked over to see Galearis bow over and over, stopping to throw out fake kisses as Twilight cheered on. “Encore! What a sight to behold!”
“You’re too kind truly,” Galearis said, wiping a fake tear from her eye and waving to Twilight as if a huge crowd was surrounding her. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the silly display the two ponies were making.
“You, know, you’re a special kinda crazy,” I said playfully to Galearis, trotting over with her to where Twilight was now standing with a huge smile plastered across her face.
“You’re talking to a pony who chooses to live the yak lifestyle,” she responded with an over exaggerated smile. “You have to be a little nuts to willingly do that.”
“Touché,” I said, scrunching my lips together as Twilight finally joined up with us.
“This might be a fun trip after all if you two are going to keep entertaining me like that,” Twilight told the both of us with a smirk. “Just don’t get yourselves hurt once we get outside the city and we should be good.”
“You can count on me, ma’am,” Galearis said with a salute as I rolled my eyes at her. Getting back to a more serious tone, Galearis pulled out the map and showed us a marked path Twilight had hastily written in by hoof. “Once we get out of the front gates, we’re going to want to head left and along this mountain path. It’s a very short path that can only be accessed on better days, like this one.” She gestured to the mostly clear skies to prove her point. “That path will lead us to the trail we normally use that goes around the other side of the mountain, and all we need to do is follow that to Bullheart’s Bluff.”
“Sounds like as good a plan as any,” I said as we approached the main square to see the Busdarna statue. Walking towards the main gate, Galearis lagged slightly behind, her gaze fixated on that of the statue itself, looking rather odd covered in so much snow. A few more steps towards the door and Galearis stopped walking entirely. “Something up, Gale?” I asked as she glanced quickly to me, her eyes avoiding mine.
“No,” she said, seeming lost in thought. “You two go ahead and get the gates open. I need to go do something really quickly.” Galearis then trotted over towards the Busdarna statue before stopping directly in front of it, looking up at the impressive statue before her.
I looked to Twilight, who motioned for us to head to the gate. I followed her, glancing back to see that Galearis was now kneeling before the statue, face close to the snowy ground and eyes closed. “She’s praying for us,” I mumbled out loud, thinking back on the story of her old colleagues. This was probably the first time she had been outside the village since then.
“Hello?” Twilight shouted from beside me. Her gaze was fixed on the guards post on this side of the wall. “We need to leave the city,” she shouted up at the post, as I saw nopony show up. “Is there anyone up there who can let us out?”
With no response, I looked back to see if Galearis had finished up. I watched as she bowed her head lower, giving the snow a light kiss as she got up from her kneeling position, turning and trotting towards us, her eyes a little red as if she had been fighting back tears. The happy pony I had just seen when we left her house was nowhere to be found. As she trotted closer to us, I started to ask, “Galearis are you–”
“I’m fine,” she responded with a sniffle. “Facing your fears can be a challenging thing.” I simply nodded as the pony closed her eyes and took a deep breath in, letting it slowly out to let the cheerful demeanor I had seen earlier return. “Halvard,” she shouted up to the sentry’s post that was currently empty. A few seconds later, the same yak that we had met coming into Yakyakistan emerged from the dark wall. “Open the gates. Our guests and I are leaving for a bit.”
“Ponies finally realize they not welcome,” the yak named Halvard bellowed, laughing as he finished. His spear was shaking as were the curls around his face as his chuckles echoed against the empty square.
“Halvard!” Galearis shouted, anger seeping into her voice. “That will be enough of that kind of talk! Open the gates. Please.”
The yak still laughed as he disappeared back into depths of the wall, the sound of gears grinding together as the massive wooden doors creaked and moaned. After a few seconds of these unpleasant sounds, the wooden doors lurched towards us, groaning under the weight of all the snow pushing against them.
We stood our ground as the gears crunched against each other until the doors were completely parted. With a gap just enough to accommodate us, we took our first steps outside the city. A harsh wind blew across the threshold of the city, whipping about us in a fury of cold and noise. It felt as if the wild itself was rebelling against our journey into the mountains. As the wind pushed against us, I felt glad to be wearing a coat and not just a few scarves.
Looking over, I saw Twilight nod to the both of us in a gesture that we needed to move out. I saw she had a scarf of her own wrapped up around her nose and mouth, keeping the cold out. Letting Galearis step in front of me, I followed behind her as we heard the doors groan into action once more. The gates lurched back towards their closed position, pushing the amassed snow back into place.
Galearis glanced back and silently pointed a hoof towards the right of the town, towards a rather large peak in the distance. In between us and the peak was a massive wintry plain, covered in snow and surrounded by a thick forest of deciduous trees. Galearis trotted over to me, pulling out the map and unraveling it as best as she could. Taking it in my magic, I held it steady for her in front of us as Twilight leaned in to see what we were looking at.
“This area is normally a small lake,” she half-shouted to keep her voice audible over the blistering wind. “It should be completely frozen over and traversable by hoof now. If we travel directly across, then we should cut our time by at least an hour. Just be sure to be careful where you’re stepping. We don’t need to be bringing anypony back to their families as an icicle.”
Twilight and I both nodded in agreement as I pulled out two scarves from my saddlebags. Giving one to Galearis as she folded the map back up, I said, “I can’t imagine flying is very practical in these clothes, is it?”
Galearis shook her head, adjusting the scarf I gave her around her neck, pushing it up to cover her nose as well. That meant that an aerial check wasn’t going to happen any time soon, or probably throughout the entire journey. I gave a frown as I joined the other two, pulling my scarf up to cover my nose. The material was itchy and uncomfortable, but much warmer than going without it.
Blinking a few times as the wind stung my eyes, I readjusted my glasses with my horn, noticing the cold was really getting to me. Even with the coat covering my head, I could feel my horn freezing up. Making sure to keep some focus into it, I kept a warm current of energy running through my horn. If I needed to cast any spell, the warmth would make it easier to do.
Galearis trudged ahead ready to guide us towards our goal, stepping methodically and carefully, making sure the snowy ice trap that was the lake below could support her. Every so often she would pause and lift a hoof to tell us to stand still as she gently stepped around, presumably looking for weak spots in the ice.
I heard the ice groan underneath us as we came upon the middle of the clearing. Galearis rapidly threw up her hoof while the sounds continued across the surface of the lake. I bit my lip and listened to the reverberations, feeling like I was standing on the edge of a mountain that was about to crumple. If the ice broke now, there was little hope of us getting to the other side without falling in. The sounds settled and disappeared as I released the breath I had been holding in the whole time.
Galearis lowered her hoof, moving left and right ever so slightly to test the surface once more. I waited while she did the slow test and realized it was a good opportunity to test out a “half-levitation” spell I had been experimenting with back in Canterlot. It wasn’t true levitation, but it made things much lighter, and I’ve never tried using it on a pony before.
Closing my eyes, I let energy amass in my horn. I whispered the archaic words underneath my breath to begin the spell. Focusing the beam of energy slowly oozing from my horn around my body I let it absolve me and finished my silent chant as I felt the spell seep into my fur itself. Opening them again, I felt like a much lighter pony, almost like I was being lifted by clouds.
Noticing that Galearis and Twilight had moved on from the small scare, I began trotting towards them, feeling like I was walking on the moon. I couldn’t help but crack a smile at the alien feeling it was sending through me. I didn’t feel like the same slightly-out-of-shape nerd from Canterlot that I normally did. Noticing how easy it was to walk with such reduced weight, I caught up to Twilight and Galearis fairly quickly.
Just as I met with my two colleagues, an unnatural chill ran down my spine. Despite my surroundings I knew that it couldn’t have been the wind’s doing. My coat did nothing to stop this chill as it slowly crawled along my back and to my tail. I paused a second as my mind went into a daze, a nauseating feeling suddenly overcoming me.
“Moonie,” Twilight called back, snapping me out of my trance. “Are you ok back there?” I looked forward to see that Galearis was waving me on near the edge of the lake, almost half the size that she had been before I spaced out. “We need to get to Galearis before this lake gives out. Who’ll know what the midday sun will do to melt it.”
I merely nodded, blinking a couple of times to get my head grounded again. The strange feeling had subsided a bit, but the lingering feeling of dread still sat in my gut. “It was just a stupid dream,” I said to myself, feeling like the image of Twilight falling into that pit had something to do with this negative feeling. Pushing the notion to the back of my mind, I called out to Twilight, “Hold up, I was just trying out a new spell.”
Trotting at a decent speed, I caught up with Twilight and apologized for falling behind. “Sorry, I had a bit of a rough night last night, and I think the cold weather is getting to me.”
“Sounds like a typical reaction to someone trying to travel in an extreme environment to me,” Twilight responded, pulling her scarf down to flash me a smile. We caught up with Galearis at the edge of the lake and she pulled out the map once more. “We’re just headed through the woods, aren’t we?” she asked Galearis as we gathered around the shivering pegasus.
“Yes, and we still will,” Galearis said, glancing over to Twilight before looking up at the sky and pointing a hoof to the distant south of Yakyakistan’s front gates. “But I’m not sure how much I trust that cloud cover coming in.”
Squinting in the bright wilderness, I saw the clouds she was talking about. “They look pretty far off to me,” I said guessing we still had hours to go before we even needed to worry about them. Looking down at the map, I saw that after the forest we were going to have to cross a rather narrow path on the side of a cliff. After that we would be at Bullheart’s Bluff. “Why don’t we get through the trees here and see where the clouds get to then.”
Galearis nodded in agreement saying, “I think if we travel quickly, we might be able to beat the snow and be at our goal by the end of the night.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Twilight said as Galearis folded up the map and shoved it unceremoniously into her pocket, rubbing her left leg with a hoof. I could see the frayed nerves in her somber expression, and whether she was shivering from the cold or from the near miss we had just gone through was impossible to tell. Luckily we’d have tree cover for the next stretch, so wind probably wouldn’t be too much of an issue. “ So you said you had a new spell,” Twilight commented, turning to me as we headed into the woods. “Care to show me?”