Nineteen
As Jarl Vidar looked down at his hooves and murmured sorrowfully, Twilight Sparkle tried to reassure him that this was a worst-case scenario, and that things might come out much better. She was interrupted by Luna.
“If you wish, I can carry you all back to Sarvvik. I am sure the youngsters are tired of snow by now,” said Luna.
“Does that include my ackja?” said Vigg, who had dragged the thing there instead of just fetching the provisions.
“Your sleigh will surely be no trouble,” said Luna. “And you reindeer don't worry, I can shield you against the sights between space. This is something Lady Sparkle should really practice on” she added looking at Twilight, and not getting why Twilight was looking guilty right now.
“Now wait a second!” said Spike. “You said you couldn't mass teleport just willy-nilly! Except to that glacier, and I don't want to go there.”
“That is true – if I don't have a mark. But I placed one at my temple,” Luna said.
Everyone looked relieved.
“Then let's go. If you are ready, Kvalhissir,” Luna added in Ancient Cervine. The moose shrugged in a way that said he could get his belongings later.
“You have to admit, Twilight, she does it better than you,” said Spike.
Twilight brushed him off irritated.
“Well,” said Eira as she offered Princess Ljufa some coffee from a brand new white paper cup, “luckily we have recently gotten some gifts to the temple, so I could offer hospitality to such eminent guests. That is, from the poor slum dwellers.” Eira looked rather pointedly at the princess' rich shawl, cap and jewelry. The princess had the decency to blush.
“What's the matter?” said Spike. “Are you mad at me for some reason?”
Twilight sighed. “I'm sorry, Spike. It's just that I had to give some really bad news to the Jarl, and now I feel bad about it.”
“What news?” asked Vigg. He and Saga were waiting for the bath water to heat up on the stove – for Eira, indoor plumbing was something that happened to other reindeer.
“Things look bleak for Poatsula, Vigg,” said Vidar and sighed. “I had hope for some relief from Equestria, but it seems they couldn't do what I expected most.”
Luna frowned.
“You told him already?” she said to Twilight.
“He asked me, what was I supposed to do, Your Highness?” Twilight protested. “He was the one who asked me in the first place, I couldn't very well stall or lie to him.”
“What is it all about?” asked Saga. “Is it about Winter?”
Luna sighed.
The night before...
The Goddess of Dawn lay in her bed, a heap of paperwork in front of her. For alicorns, sleep is a pleasure, not a necessity. Under the years of her sister's absence, except for her first century of rage-filled grief, Celestia had barely slept at all, remaining awake for most of a millennium Denying herself that pleasure. The last years, she had reacquainted herself with the blessed wonders of sleep, but it still didn't come naturally to her, and with Luna away and duties of the night, it was easier to remain awake.
The Goddess of Dusk stepped through the open windows. The first sound of her dainty ornamented hoof on the polished marble floor made her sister look up.
“Lulu!” she said. “Are you already finished?” Then, seeing her sister's expression, her own came to ape it. “No, bad news. Is it war, then?”
“It is worse than war, dear,” Luna said. She levitated a bunch of papers, plucking them from space between space, and laid them on the palatial bed.
“I haven't had your priceless pupil go through it – she is the only astronomer I would trust with something like this – but I have run the calculations myself, and there is a serious problem with the orbit of the sun,” Luna said tiredly. “I hope you can check them as well, since no one knows more about the Wheels than you, and hopefully I am wrong, but...”
“What problem?” said Celestia curiously when she eyed through the papers, in Luna's neat handwriting, scribbles in the language of the Wheels.
“When I came back and tried to usurp the world a second time...” Luna began.
“Lulu, that wasn't you!” Celestia's voice was sharp and filled with angst. “That was an abomination possessing you!”
“I think I would know the properties of Nightmare Moon, Tia,” said Luna calmly. “Call it what you won't – I tried to bring eternal night again. Stopping the sun from it's normal course. Then, everything resolved happily, you let the sun on its merry way again.”
“Yes...” said Celestia.
“Did you ever think to correct the minor distortion of the Sun's orbit after that? The Sun and the Moon do not only have daily cycles, you know?” Luna said.
Celestia's eyes widened in the rarely seen expression of fear.
“The Sun has wobbled on since then, going further and further astray. Here in Equestria, it is not visible. In Tarandroland, where even in the southernmost parts the Sun never sets on the Summer Solstice, and night lasts for months in winter during the northernmost parts, the effects are already visible. Winter has for three years become worse and worse... and there it is not just a season,” Luna continued.
“I never thought of... there was so much...” Celestia murmured. Luna nodded.
“Neither did I. And considered that the whole eternal night debacle was caused by me, it can hardly be considered your fault only,” she said.
“Lulu...” Celestia said. “I must correct this at once...”
Luna nodded. “You are the one who moves the Sun, but I don't think it will be that hard. Once done, the seasons will adjust back, and Summer and Winter will pass as usual” she said. “In fact, it is lucky the reindeer noticed it this early.”
Celestia smiled.
“Yes... but I truly owe them an apology!” she said.
Luna smiled back, but it was a sad smile.
“We both do. But I afraid I am bringing bad news and worse news – and the worse is yet to come,” she said. “We have done more than one mistake here... if that is the right word.” With her mind, she made the papers turn.
“Here are some observations not astronomical. About two years ago, when our old enemy was freed from his stony prison, it did affect the whole world. One of the things least ludicrous to strike Tarandroland was, as you can see, that the Everfrost Glacier... seemed to roll over. 'Like a sleeping dog' was the witness' description” Luna pointed her hoof to the paper.
“But... that's... she sleeps there?” said Celestia, horrified. Luna nodded.
“She didn't wake up, thank goodness, but she is sure to be sleeping more lightly now. What's more, as far as I can tell, the ice-wyrms – the locals call them 'nidhoggs', 'ill that gnaws' – are spawned from her. Even without this happening, even with you restoring the sun's path, the winter weather, and the strength of the forces of Winter, would have plagued the reindeer for years. Winter is not just a matter of the sun's light, as you know. But now it seems there is a massive overpopulation of them – and one of them can cause deforestation that takes a century to recover without Earth Pony magic,” Luna said while her sister listened silently. “And before you suggest it, having her that close to waking up means we cannot sweep down with sunbolts and meteors and eradicate them, and you know that” she added as Celestia seemed about to start to say something.
The both sisters remained silent, pondering.
“At least this cannot be laid at our feet!” Celestia said, striking the paper. “Discord's action cannot be blamed on us!”
Luna raised an eyebrow.
“It cannot? Who was it that placed his imprisoned form as a statue in our garden, so she could mock and taunt him? Where he could absorb enough of the feelings of selfishness and hatred to escape eventually?” she said, somewhat caustically.
Celestia looked down.
“I know. I was in on that was well. Besides, who could have thought he would be free. However, I might have had something to do with that as well...” Luna said.
Celestia looked up.
“Many years ago, when I was first entering my... rebellious phase, a little reindeer warlock, very weak and puny, tried to summon me as if I was a second-rate aery spirit or elemental. I should have ignored him or struck him down, but I was starved for attention, and he amused me. We played a game... and among other things, I might have given him one of Discord's true names. Since he wanted to talk to him,” Luna explained hesitantly. “You know, something like that can have made it possible for him to slowly burrow out his mind...”
“Why in the world did he want to talk to Discord?” said Celestia.
“Seems he was looking for an artifact Discord had a hand in creating. Wiglek was a petty and power-hungry little buck, and I don't think he considered the consequences. After all, he thought he could summon me in my youth and remain alive and sane,” Luna smiled ruefully, and Celestia laughed.
“We must indeed do all we can to help the deer with this crisis,” said Celestia. “But it doesn't mean we can ignore the old problem that started your journey.”
“As far as I can tell, the worsening climate caused an economic and social crisis which made the piracy viable,” said Luna. “But I'll see what I can do.”
“It is too bad some good old fashioned divine intervention cannot solve this,” Celestia sighed.
“It never could, sister. It never could,” Luna said.
Back in the present...
“So The Sun will soon be back on its correct track again, and we will do anything we can to help Tarandroland, but we cannot just step in and stop this winter directly,” Luna finished to a saddened crowd.
Saddened except one. Prince Vigg wasn't sad, he was furious.
“Why?! YOU caused all this! WE did nothing wrong, yet now you say all you can do is 'help us' with this problem, not remove it!” he said.
“We cannot do it,” said Luna with some irritation. “The medicine could be worse than the cure!”
“WORSE!? HOW!? When the Winter that is coming could kill all life in the country! What could possibly be worse!?” he countered.
“Vigg, calm down...” his mother began.
“NO! I won't 'calm down'! You never let anyone be angry! Not Dad and not me! The only one allowed to shout is Grampa because you are afraid of him! Unlike him, I HAVE THE RIGHT TO BE ANGRY! What in the freezing bucking world are you saying? That you are not going to use your godlike powers WHY?!” he said as he shoved her aside and stamped right up to Luna.
“It is things that mortals should not know!” said Luna. “Trust me in this, young...”
“You have given me no reason to trust you! And everyone is young to you, but you are as irresponsible as a fawn!” said Vigg as he thrust his face into Luna's, his antlers almost pressing into her eyes. “HELP MY PEOPLE OR TELL ME WHY YOU CANNOT! NO LIES, NO EXCUSES, NO HALF-TRUTHS!”
His shout echoed all over the empty, dilapidated temple. Luna was beginning to get red with anger, when Twilight Sparkle cleared her throat.
“Actually, I would like to know as well, Your Highness,” she said quietly. “Or I would assume you are in the wrong, Princess Luna.”
Twilight's gaze was very sad, and Luna remembered what she had learned about the spy, and about Celestia's possible involvement. Luna returned it, and felt her blood pressure receding.
“Alright. I will show you what danger can be caused by the direct involvement of me... or even worse, my sister, whose warm light should be the foremost weapon against Winter. But it will require a short journey, not dangerous, but not for the faint of heart either,” she said quietly. “We will visit a place I really shouldn't go to, where I think no one, mortal or immortal, has been for a millennium. Anyone who wishes to remain here... step back.”
The world was white and blue. It was beautiful, and horrible, so that once having seen it it would always be there, in the back of your soul. It struck worse in the unicorn, the moose and the dragon, because all reindeer know deep down that it exists, and have an idea how it looks like. Yet no one who saw it would ever forget it.
They were standing on the top of an immense mass of ice which almost stretched as far as the eye could see. It sloped gently down, but the gentle slope felt like a precipice. Both Spike and Kvalhissir had laid themselves flat, their rather different minds both convinced they would slide off if they remained standing. Maybe they would. Far at the edge of the ice was in one direction gray sea, in another white gray-flecked tundra. Beyond the tundra was a small thing string that must be the vast forests of Tarandroland, and beyond the sea was a small black line.
“The end of the world” said Twilight breathlessly. “Where the world-disc ends and the cold black void begins.”
“The Everfrost Glacier,” said Luna to her guests. “Joukulvakt.” she clarified to the reindeer. “This place... scares me. It is also, in ways, dear to me. This place means family, to somepony who has lost most of it.” She sighed. “We were once very very close, back at the dawn of time...”
“Who?” said Vigg, who was more or less cradling his shivering mother.
“I will tell you a story,” Luna said. “About the creation of ponykind, and the creation of reindeer and moose. You asked for no lies, but I must give you metaphors. It is the only way for mortals to grasp this. It is once reason I sometimes dislike talking about my family – it is so easily misunderstood. This story in particular.” She shut her eyes and began...
Once upon a time, there were two little fillies, two little sisters who loved each other and their parents very much. They came from a large family, and had many aunts and uncles who might, in their own way, have loved the fillies as well and been loved back.
The listeners find themselves watching the aether swirl and form half-shapes and sounds, of two small beings which could have been alicorns playing in a glade, half filtered light coming down through a canopy from a sky without sun or moon, night or day. Vast shapes moved above and beyond them, made up of mountain and sea, forest and fire, volcano and desert and wind.
Then one day the fillies lost heir mom and dad – not to death, because they were Immortals – and they became very very sad. This worried their relatives, but they were not certain what to do, for never before had a child been sad. But one of their uncles, who loved making things with what we might call hooves in lack of a better world, and who had in fact made all mountains in the world, had an idea. He made out of baked clay little toys for his nieces. Dolls that looked a little like both of them, yet like none of them.
First the glade was dark and the green light was weeping. Then a shape like a sandstone mountain hovered it... and then they could see something that might have been two little alicorns playing with toys... dolls that looked like unicorns. Pegasi. Earth ponies. And soon... the little fillies began laughing again, and they started to changed their playground... making let's pretend houses, and gardens, and roads, and ponds... and the dolls started to walk and fly and make things and talk...
And the little fillies love their new toys so much... that they became alive. Not just alive like birds and flowers, but being able to talk and think and create like the immortals. They had souls, given by love. And while they had created a world among themselves, no immortal had ever succeeded in this. They all went to the mountain-raising uncle, thinking he had something to do with it, but he just shook what we can say was a head and shrug what we can say was a pair of shoulders. It was the love and imagination of the fillies that made it, he said, and anyone with love and imagination could apparently beget life like that. And all the immortals visited the girls and saw their playground, and they all went home and imitated them in their own, grown-up way.
They saw the vast shapes moving, and they saw paws and hooves and fins and tentacles form rock and wood and clay. And all over that changed... into griffons and perytons. Cattle and buffaloes. Camels and llamas. Antelope and gazelle. Red deer and fallow. They saw the vast sandstone shape getting an equine one, forming himself after his work, as he created donkey and zebra and gave them a mountain-range and a savannah to live on. They all formed themselves after their work. They all became like their beloved toys. The world became a less wild place, to house their given-life pieces of art.
There was one aunt in particular who was not very good with her paws, who might also have been fins or hooves. Neither was she good at talking, dwelling mostly in the deeps of the world. She wanted no toy-servants of her own, but she did want to gives the little fillies gifts, because she loved them much, especially the younger one with the dark blue coat. So she went to the mountain-raising uncle and asked him to make some more toys for her, and she would pay him in some way, and then she could give them to the fillies. But the uncle said that it would not be a true gift if she wasn't putting part of herself in it – so instead he helped her make some more dolls. Since was of and in and made up the sea, they were like her finned and tailed, and made as if of glass or water, yet similar to the fillies.
The onlookers watched as the huge shades, one fainter than the others, splashed the water, and from it formed toys shaped like sea ponies – hippocampi...
She brought her toys to the fillies and was glad to see them play happily with them by the water. She hadn't intended to stay long, but the little blue filly said: Stay Auntie. Play with us. Help me build a house for my little ponies. She couldn't help but stay and play with the girls. And when she came home she started to make for herself toys, dolls... to make for herself a people carved out of dried pine she picked on a cold, remote island...
They saw the fillies play, they saw their... aunt, a vast thing both cow and bear and whale, play with them. They saw her fumblingly carve dried trees... making reindeer and moose. They saw her playing with them in a rocky, dry landscape that must have been a Tarandroland millennia ago. They saw reindeer and moose walking alone without her help, but reindeer playing in the snow, moose swimming in lakes, as if they longed a little bit for the deep deep sea. They saw a blue alicorn raising a curtain of color and lights above the land, they saw the vast shape watch it and smile. And they saw something like yawning... stretching... laying down... at the same time as the whole world was cooling, calming, becoming ordered and small, with sun and moon and stars rotating and giving light and darkness as ponies think of it, not the diffuse green light.
I made her the Northern Lights as a gift... to thank her for the toys she gave me... But she and the others... they stopped playing. They were adults, after all. They settled down... and she, my favorite Aunt... she took a very long nap...
Luna let her illusions fade out.
“She rests her, the mother of all reindeer. She rests here, and no one wants her to awaken,” she said solemnly.
“The myths say Karhu-Akka, Old Mother Bear, sleeps here,” said Eira reverently. “They said she made reindeer and that she makes Winter.” She smiled serenely.
“Are you saying... we are just the toys of the gods?” said Vigg, still awed, with some despair in his voice.
Luna smiled crookedly.
“Now now, not just toys. Ponies gave meaning to the life of me and my sister. My aunt was no different. Besides, if I have got modern terminology right from young Spike, my aunt would vehemently have insisted that you were 'action figures'. Remember, though, that I am speaking in metaphor. It is the only way to describe how my family thinks. They are not like you. They are barely like me,” she said, barely satisfying Vigg.
“Are you saying,” said Twilight, “that some antediluvian being sleeps under the ice, and that you are afraid of awaking it?”
“No, Lady Sparkle. She who the reindeer call Karhu-Akka isn't under the ice, she is the ice. The Everfrost Glacier is her body, or a significant part of it,” said Luna.
They all looked around them, saw the mountain of ice with no end.
“Wait!” said Spike. “You said she had something to do with the sea – how can she be ice?”
“What is ice but water at rest?” said Luna and smiled. “But that even more shows why you don't want her awake, or Tarandroland would flood with ice water. And not only it – it would severely affect many other lands. Not just her mere presence, but any action she might take when awake and active. Lady Sparkle used the word 'antediluvian', and any deluges in the history and the making of the world was her doing.”
Uncomfortable silence reigned. It was starting to be very very cold up here.
“So you see why I am very wary of disturbing her. If I and my sister used our full powers to fight the winter creatures in general and the ice-wyrms in particular, we would surely do so, especially the warm light of my sister. That is also one of the reasons I denied my courtiers using my full force to fight those pirates – it is a bit away to the coast, but I would have to be really careful. I even think a powerful sorceress – like Lady Sparkle here – could do so if she wasn't careful. Not a reindeer one, but a foreigner, that might be enough,” she continued. Twilight felt an urge to lift her feet, to not stand on the ice. “But don't despair. This is but a setback. There are other ways we can help you, and we will, if I can just sort out this horrible political mess I am in.”
Vidar cleared his throat.
“See, sister-in-law, Ukko must muster the army and help us grazers. We can never do it ourselves, the weather has already harmed the reindeer on the coast, and now the nidhoggs are close to Sarvvik – in October!” he said to Ljufa. She sighed and shook her head, apparently close to tears.
“There is no army!” she said. “I don't see why you warriors cannot realize it! I can, and I have nothing to do with it! Father disbanded most of it!”
There was a stunned silence.
“What?” said Twilight Sparkle. “Old traditionalist Ukko, the guy who wants to be a warrior-king like in the good old days, demilitarized the country? Why?!”
“Because,” said Vigg “in his 'good old days', there was no army. It was like it is among the grazers still, when the king needed an army, he made a call to arms and everyone who could fight and felt responsible followed him. It's still like that with most everything among the grazers. Grandfather has tried to do the same, so he reduced the army and navy a lot. And well, since he didn't spend anything on the army and navy, he could do things like lower taxes...”
“So he expected the nobledeer to raise the army as they used to do instead?” said Luna harshly.
Vigg nodded.
“Anyone who could afford to fund it, really. Like, he meant why do we need a navy when we have so many good ships? And when he became king, it was because he said things like this, and deer cheered him for it. But now... he doesn't dare make a call for arms. Because he thinks no one will respond,” he explained.
“That was actually how it worked back in my day,” said Luna “so I understand how he was thinking. But it still doesn't make it a very good idea.”
“I think it was an excellent idea!” said Vigg. “Why can't coast deer defend their own country? Grazers do! I can't believe I am defending Grampa!”
“So it is not just father you have to talk to, Vidar!” said Ljufa with a tired voice. “It is the coastal jarls, and the shipping owners, and the mill owners. They have money, ships and even their own guards.”
“This changes all diplomacy,” Luna mumbled. “Why couldn't anypony tell me this?”
“Because Lord Eminence was apparently the smartest on staff,” groaned Twilight. “And you know how he is, Your Highness?”
“Lord Eminence? The scary gray dude?” said Spike. “How 'is' he?”
“I'll tell you later, Spike” said Twilight.
“Saga!” Eira suddenly shouted. “Silly doe, have you done?!”
The older doe was cradling the younger, who was shivering and mumbling.
“She is Seeing!” said Vigg. “What... did she look at?”
Luna raised an eyebrow.
“Reindeer magic... they must look at something for their clairvoyance to work,” explained Twilight. “It must be one of us!”
Eira shook her head sadly.
“No no, my poor granddaughter... she must have looked down. At Karhu-Akka,” she said. “That must have been a shock.”
“Is she hurt? Will she be OK?” wondered Spike anxiously.
“I sure hope so, but not here. My Goddess, we need to come back to civilization,” Eira said, her gaze raised to Luna.
“You are right, my priestess. We are finished here. We have things to think and talk about, but that is better done in a warm house with some food and drink,” Luna said.
And in a wink, they were back at the temple of Hrimfaxi, Our Lady of The Moon.
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I'm a shipping fan and I rarely read anything else, but I must admit the description drew me in. Adding to my track list to read at a more convenient time
39368
No, I am afraid there is not much shipping per se. 
This is intended as a pure adventure story.
Thanks!
This should go up on Equestria Daily.
39541
I take that as a compliment. :) I have considered it, but I don't even have a prereader. I've always assumed they have high demands on quality like that.
39373 Oh don't worry! I understood that when I clicked on.
Hey,There's Karhu-Akka...Lets poke her with a stick!
Ohhhhhhhhhhhh SHIT!
And I love the idea that the creation myth of this world is... that they were all toys. Ha!
Oh, that's going to be bad. She's going to See what could be, and there probably aren't a whole lot of "good" situations if she wakes up. Goodness, such an interesting adventure story. Why do I get the feeling the pirates are going to somehow "forced" into becoming the standing army? Not, like, at spear point or anything, but more in a "you're here, there is Winter, you have to fight or you'll die" way.
The way you've built this world...how in the world did you come up with this stuff? Are you a wizard?
917856
No, but the only "real" (paid for) writing I have done, the kind where you have an actual editor and demands and guidelines and so on, that was for tabletop roleplaying games. And the only thing you really learn to do as a game writer is world building, because it is crucial, and exposition, because otherwise the readers fall asleep. Hence, I suppose I'm more skilled at that than at other kinds of writing.
I'm very happy you like this, because I am very proud of the creation myth. First, I think it actually fits the show (love and imagination created everything, the responsible are two little 'girls', it is fairy-tale like), second, of course, it's so very meta: the origins of ponies is that they are the toys of two little girls.
Their world is a disc?
...
encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSZZsnr0JIJ1LuYjTeejVRV1qZMr9v52CyqgwRdvasB3XwxVuAo
2392587
Yeah. My mind is very simplistic, and the easiest way for me to fit my image of "raising the sun/moon" is a non-heliocentric universe with a flat world. I know there 's a truckload of trouble with it, but they don't matter much to me.
That... actually makes a lot of sense, that the ponies were created from fillies' dolls. Nice touch of meta to it too, as IRL this all started as a toy line.
"Action figures" *snerk* Not "collectibles"?
Now I'm wondering where Luna's and Celestia's parents went to, or what happened with them.
2392587 YES.
YES! YES! YES!
Wizzard.
am i the only one who if i was there would want to trie going over the edge
i dont care if i die i think it would be an awsome sight