A Himaneighan Tale

by MasterFrasca

Tip of the Iceberg

ZAP!

The world shot in from the darkness, as a blinding white light barraged my eyes. Before I could properly focus on what was going on, a feeling of limbo overcame me. I tumbled forward, the world flipping in perspective a few times before I landed on my stomach with a thud into the cold fluffy ground.

Lying for a few seconds in the divot my body had made, I waited as my head spun from the sudden change in perspective. After recovering from my bout of limbo, I realized I was sitting in a snow drift. The wind blew over me as the cold dust brushed through my mane, nipping at my cheeks. Getting my bearings, I pushed myself to my hooves and checked to make sure my supplies hadn’t been damaged. Focusing some energy into my horn, I levitated my bags off my back and in front of me.

I opened the flap of the left one, glancing quickly through and listed off everything I had packed. My clothes were still intact and snow-free, thanks to the protection spell I cast earlier. Our food was in its place, and hopefully underneath it all, my exploration books were still dry as a desert. I closed the flap and slung the bags back in place, not bothering to check Twilight’s side. Her stuff had probably survived the fall as far as I was concerned. I didn’t know what was in them to begin with either.

Shivering a little as the wind whistled past my ears, I opened the flap on my bag again, procuring a scarf. It was much colder than I expected it to be. I had never been outside Canterlot much less traversed a mountain range before. I was hoping we could solve whatever this problem Twilight had been blabbing about quickly so I could go back to my home. My nice, warm home...

I didn’t even know why she wanted me to go with her on this anyways. She could have easily taken one of her other friends. They always seemed to be going on adventures together, and I would just be someone to send a letter to every once in awhile. The way she kept going on about the culture of the people up here and how we were going on an academic quest had pulled me in, though.

“I better be winning a bunch of awards for this paper,” I grumbled, wrapping the scarf around me further and shivering. The cold started to dig into me, and I was not enjoying it one bit.

I looked around to see where exactly Twilight had been trying to teleport me to. The snow and wind around me was decently thick, so I couldn’t see much of anything. With what little visibility there was, at least I could make out that I was on the side of a rather large hill. There were a decent amount of trees spotting the area around me. Twilight had definitely sent me to the middle of some forest. She kept telling me about something-or-other-istan when she sent me out. I just hoped she knew her way around up here, because I would not want to get lost in this forest.

“Lots of awards...” I mumbled to myself again, pulling another scarf from my bag and wrapping it tightly around my neck as I focused my magic into casting an aura around my glasses. At least it would help keep the snow out of my eyes if not help with the visibility issues I was having. A small pop resounded from my horn and my glasses seemed to fog up slightly before the ice and snow melted off them and slowly dripped off.

“There we go,” I mumbled, smiling a bit. I knew I could cast that protection spell, even though I had never had to use one in my life.
Blinking a few times as my vision cleared up, I started to look around once more. Before I could gather anything else, a loud pop above me shattered the drone of constant wind. A rather large thud next to me confirmed that it was who I had been waiting for.

“Glad to see you could make it, Princess,” I sarcastically said, adjusting my glasses as Twilight rose slowly to her hooves. She shook her head and got all the snow out of her mane before turning to me.

“Sorry for the delay, Moondancer,” Twilight said, glancing around and gathering her bearings. “I was just getting a final check and making sure we had everything... for our…” She paused, her eyes darting back and forth. “Um, you didn’t happen to see a town around here?”

“I haven’t exactly moved much from this spot,” I replied, looking at the ground to show that the snow had remained untouched around the small little holes that we had created in our brief plummet.

“Right...” She frowned, looking around once more before opening her wings and flapping them a few times. “I’ll be right back.” With a mighty flap she launched herself skyward, blasting a fine dusting of snow in all directions, including directly at me.

“Bleck,” I complained, brushing the cold substance out of my mane and off my back. “No need to show off now, ‘Twily’,” I grumbled, watching as the alicorn twisted around and around in the sky, holding a hoof up to her face presumably to block the bright sun and blistering wind.

I heard her call something as she pointed a hoof down the mountain into the dense deciduous forest in front of me. Her words were lost in the wind, but I assumed that she was pointing to the town we were supposed to be in by now. I gave her an exaggerated nod and waved for her to come rejoin me.

She retracted her wings into her body and fell a few meters before flinging them out, gliding the rest of the way down, turning into a shallow spiral. As Twilight slowly fell back to earth, I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help but crack a smile. She had been such a different pony when I had met her back in school, always very analytical and down to earth. Yet, here I was watching her spin in circles on a mountaintop, a Princess of Friendship or something like that.

As she gracefully touched down with a crunch on the snow, she beamed at me. “That was so much fun! Rainbow Dash has been teaching me how to do that until I got the call that this place needed help.”

“I’m glad to see at least one of us is enjoying themselves,” I said, taking a third scarf out of my bag and wrapping it around my neck. I realized at this point that the scarves were no longer helping.

“Heh, sorry for the overshoot in teleportation,” Twilight apologized, shaking her wings out before tucking them against her back. “We’re not too far out of town. It’s just on the other side of those trees. We’ll be able to get ourselves some supplies and information, not to mention a night’s rest, before we set out in the morning. I’ll tell you what, those long distance spells are really tiring.”

“Sounds like a plan then,” I said, abandoning the third scarf back in our bags before turning to the trees. “Shall we?” I raised a hoof in front of me, coaxing Twilight to lead us to whatever town it was we were going.

“Sure,” Twilight nodded before taking the first few steps towards the trees, the snow crunching underneath her hooves.

“So where did you learn to do a spell like that?” I asked, the curiosity of its origin getting to me “I didn’t think long distance teleportation spells like that were easy, at least not from my readings.”

“Well,” Twilight started, tilting her head to make sure I was still following her, “I really didn’t ‘learn’ it from anywhere. It’s your typical short distance teleportation, but modified a bit by yours truly.”

“Really?” I cocked an eyebrow. “I didn’t know you were into research of that nature.”

“I’m not,” she chuckled. I didn’t understand how she could’ve ever figure out something so complex without spending hours and hours on the dissipation algorithms. She’d also have to work out the reapparation matrices and account for any environmental hazards not to mention the dangers of not having a definitive coordinate system to–

“You coming, Moondancer, or are you just going to be lost in your thoughts until we both freeze out here?” Twilight broke me out of the apparent trance I was in.

“Sorry,” I said, trotting ahead to catch up with her. “I guess I’m just a bit baffled how you figured out such a complex spell now that you always seem to be going on adventures with your friends.

“I still have plenty of time to study my magical tomes, Moonie,” she replied with a name I hadn’t heard in decades. “You gotta realize though that most of my learning, and most experimental learning, happens in the field, outside a library.”

We trotted through the trees as the wind whipped through the branches, clumps of snow dropping here and there every so often. I made sure not to bump any branches while we navigated our way through the thick brush. The last thing I needed was more snow on me.

“That’s why I brought you with me today. I was supposed to do this by myself, but I figured it’d be a great opportunity for you to learn about the Equestrian North and the Himaneighas.” Twilight said, pushing some branches out of her way with her large wings. “Plus you’re getting out of the house.”

“Whatever,” I replied shivering some more. I hadn’t been this cold since last Hearth’s Warming when all the power went out in Canterlot’s Castle and I had to study in the cold. “I’m just here to get this paper written so I can go home and publish it, out of this cold.”

“Oh come on, it’s not that bad,” Twilight said, breaking off a few branches and tossing them aside to make a narrow path in front of her. “At least the sun’s out!”

The sun may have been out, but the shade certainly wasn’t helping its case any. “So where exactly are we headed to, Princess?” I asked, pushing my glasses further up on my nose.

“Please don’t be so formal, Moonie,” Twilight said, turning her head to me. “We’re friends. Just call me Twilight. Or call me Sparkles like you used to. I don’t care, just… I don’t like it when my friends refer to me as ‘Princess.’ I’m just a pony like any other.”

“With vastly more magic prowess,” I finished for her with a smirk.

“Oh please…” Twilight blushed slightly, looking away from me before continuing on the path we were headed.

“So, Twily Sparkles,” I started, pulling out a really old name from ages ago. “Where are we going and what are we doing there? You never fully explained it to me.

“Right!” Twilight said, her ears perking up before turning slightly to me to make sure I was still following behind her. “We’re headed to a bit of a remote village called ‘Yakyakistan’ where we’re going to be solving some sort of friendship problem.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, ducking under some low hanging branches, making sure my scarves didn’t get caught up in the pointy bits. “What sort of friendship problem?”

“That’s just the thing,” Twilight replied. “I really don’t know. We’re going to have to figure out what that is.”

“Seems promising,” I sarcastically remarked. “Can’t wait to get there.”

I think my cynicism was lost on Twilight as she stepped through the final bit of trees and into a sort of open field and jumped up into a bit of a loop for some reason. “Then you’re in luck!” she said after landing on her hooves again. “We’re here!”

She pointed a hoof at a structure sitting in the middle of a plateau formed by the mountain. the structure was a massive wall, presumably holding a town within its borders. In the front was a massive gate, seeming small beneath the two massive Yak statues standing guard above it, torches lit in their upper hooves. The fire blazed in the torches, being whipped about by the chilling wind.

I could barely make out a sentry standing above the gate, an old shield in his hoof like those fixated to the statues. The wall looked terrifying yet, welcoming in this bleak environment. “Let me do the talking when we get to the gates, Moondancer,” Twilight told me, looking up at the town with a serious expression. “They’re expecting me, but not another visitor. It may get a bit hairy, but I’m sure our good relations with the Yaks will pull through.”

Twilight hadn’t warned me about their hostile attitudes when we began the trip. I could feel a cold sweat break out on my forehead. I simply nodded and we continued on our way, trudging towards the mountain town. This certainly was going to be different from going into Canterlot. I’m sure there was no identification system here besides word of mouth. I took a big gulp, realizing that my heart was starting to speed up a bit.

What would happen if I wasn’t allowed in? I thought as we made our way closer and closer to the ever-prolific gates of the town. Would I be stuck out here in the cold with no way of getting home? Would they even let me leave alive?

My teeth started chattering, a mixture of the cold and fear within me finally setting them off like some sort of subconscious motor. I tried to strengthen my thoughts back up, rationalizing that Twilight would never leave an innocent pony behind, much less one she calls a friend. She needed my expertise on documentation for this trip anyways.

“Halt!” a bellowing voice cried out as we approached the doors. Looking up, I saw it was the sentry at his post, gratuitously larger than he had seemed from farther away, a spear raised in his hoof, poised for attack. “Who approaches Yakyakistan?”

“Princess Twilight Sparkle, sir,” Twilight called boldly up to the menacing creature who was still pointing the spear directly at us. “I am here to solve a friendship problem of some sort. I was called here by a greater power to assist you in any ways you folks need.”

The guard lowered his spear, but with his hair obscuring most of his face, not to mention the blistering wind blowing around us, it was hard to tell if he was any more trusting of us ponies. “And who is partner?” He pointed an accusing hoof right at me. I cowered behind Twilight a bit, almost expecting the spear to come any second.

“This is a good friend of mine, Moondancer,” Twilight calmly replied, her focus unfazed by the harsh emotions the guard displayed. “She’s here to assist me in this endeavour.”

The guard finally lowered his hoof, standing motionless on his perch once again as the wind ruffled his thick fur around. For a second it seemed as if he forgot there were ponies outside and was once again on the watch for other intruders, but suddenly he called back down, “Are ponies here for..” the yak trailed off, a morbid silence surrounding him, “Yeti?”

Twilight’s expression glazed over for a moment before she briefly turned to me, a look of confusion in her eyes. I gave a little shrug and pursed my lips to show I knew about as much as she did on why we were here. “Potentially,” Twilight called back, looking back up to the guard. “May we please come in and talk more extensively with your leader about this Yeti problem?”

The guard nodded before turning around and speaking to some entity behind him. Turning back to us he shouted one final warning. “Be careful ponies,” his bellowing voice commanded as the large wooden doors creaked and groaned, the sound of gears clanking in the woodwork. “Yaks no like foreigners.”

I took a gulp as the wooden doors finally lurched backwards, slowly but surely opening inward to allow us to pass. “What do you think he meant by Yeti?” Twilight whispered to me. I thought back on the research I did on the Himaneighas and vaguely remembered the word.

“I think the Yeti is some sort of monster of legend if I remember correctly,” I told Twilight, recalling the passages I read on the culture of this area. “He apparently attacks hikers and lives up high in the mountains. I don’t recall anything about an incident inside a village. Especially one that’s this fortified. I remember it just being a scary story to keep ponies from venturing too far up the dangerous mountains.”

The doors finally split apart enough for us to glance inwards. A large, snow-covered square greeted us, a massive shrine to some sort of cow with a long trunk placed directly in the middle. The creature, of which I think was representative of some deity if I recalled correctly, was posed in a meditative state, eyes closed and hooves pressed together, as if focusing energy. Flags tied on pieces of rope were positioned around the statue, leaving an opening to let one walk up to the front. Many burnt candles were melted into the base of the statue, surrounded by small pots of various sizes and colors.

Twilight and I stepped in and looked around the desolate place. Behind the statue was a large building that looked to be a monastery. Small paths to the left and right of it led to what looked to be homes built into the walls. Darkened windows and cold stone walls were all that greeted us from the sides. To the left and right of the statue were two raised platforms, meant for what I had to assume were normally gardens when the winter season passed. A few benches were strewn around the square in the expected places, but nopony was to be found.

Other than the blistering winds scattering snow about the square and blowing the many flags adorned around the shrine about, the town was eerily quiet. “Where is everypony?” Twilight mumbled to herself loud enough for me to hear.

“Is the town normally this desolate?” I asked Twilight, walking up to the shrine and giving it a better look. The statue was a greenish-grey and seemed to be carved out of solid stone. It’s heavily worn surface showed its age, but for being in such a harsh environment, it seemed to be in a fair condition.

“I’ve only ever been here once before,” Twilight began, joining me in front of the statue as we heard the wooden door close behind us with a walloping boom, “but the town was set up for market at the time, so the square was so crowded it was hard to move around.”

“Maybe it’s a different place out of harvest season,” I commented, looking back at the doors to see no sign of even the guard that had let us in. He probably was instructed to not leave his post.

“This is worryingly different though,” Twilight said, her eyes darting around looking for any sign of life. Her ears perked up when she glanced at the monastery.

Looking over to where her gaze was fixed on, I saw that the door was open, and someone stepped out, glancing over at us. It looked to be another pony, but they were wrapped so tightly in a winter coat it was hard to tell.

The new friend waved to us, beckoning us to come inside before disappearing back behind the door. Twilight glanced to me to make sure I saw before I motioned for her to once again lead the way. We trotted towards the pony as the wind started to pick up, snow starting to fall from the skies.

I looked up, re-adjusting my glasses so that I could try to make out what was happening in the sky. The clouds were so thick, it was hard to tell what was going on. It did appear as though a storm was brewing. Whether planned or not, I was glad that we had gotten here when we did. I wasn’t about to get caught up in a polar vortex up here.

We finally made our way to the monastery steps, clomping up the few that were present. The door was ever so slightly ajar. I grabbed it in my magical aura and swung it open to let Twilight and myself in. The faint sound of a drum lightly being played reached my ears as we crossed the threshold of the impressive structure. Glancing back, I made sure Twilight had joined me before shutting the door tightly behind both of us.

A hymn was resonating against the walls, the sound of the wind outside almost completely drowned out by the low drone of dozens of voices humming in unison. In front of us sat nearly half the town, sitting together in meditation, creating the mesmerizing noise surrounding us. Yak after yak sat in rows beside each other, facing the far wall where another shrine had been mounted. One yak sat off in the corner, melodically tapping a frame drum to the odd music. Despite finally being out of the cold, a shiver ran through me as I heard the noise drone on.

“Hello there,” a soft female voice broke the trance-like drone alluring us from beside me. The pony who had been wrapped up in the winter outfit was standing before us, now with only a scarf adorned around her neck. “Welcome to Yakyakistan, Princess.”

Author's Note:

Fun fact: Most of this chapter was written with these noises on in the background.

Read, Comment, Enjoy!
-MasterFrasca99

Comments

[Skeeter The Lurker]

Well I'm certainly fucking sold.

~Skeeter The Lurker

[Starlight Nova]

So I take that the Pony equivalent of the Abominable Snowman will be appearing?

[MasterFrasca]

7082649 It's certainly what Twilight and Moondancer are expecting...