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.”

Elder Rosensarch

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The mare bowed, showing her respect to Twilight. Her coat was a light purple, and her mane a radiant gold, almost warming the room all by itself with it’s pleasant color.

Her wings were spread as she nearly pressed her head to the floor. A few moments of stillness passed, the drone of the humming yaks still reverberating around the structure. The pegasus raised her head once more, a small smile on her face.

“My name is Galearis,” the pegasus informed us as I packed away my many scarves, noticing the building was warm enough to make one forget they were in the mountains. “I was told you were gracing us with your presence.” Our new host turned her attention to me, asking, “But I was unaware you were bringing a guest.”

“Her name is Moondancer,” Twilight replied for me, a big grin on her face. She really was enjoying having me around to boast about it seemed. “She’s an old childhood friend of mine.”

“Moondancer,” Galearis repeated, the soft grin still ever present on her face. “That’s a lovely name. We at the Budan Temple have our own celebrations for the sun and moon that have their own dancing, among other festivities.”

“It’s a pleasure meeting you, Galearis, but I assure you my name is just a name,” I replied. “I’m not much of a dancer, although I could give you an extensive history of the moon and the past it carries with Princess Luna, from horror stories to historical accounts.”

“So I take it you are a scholar?” Galearis asked, a smile lighting up her face as she gestured for us to follow her. Before I had the chance to answer, she spoke again. “I’m one as well. I came up here to study the different herbal remedies and flora that this region has to offer.”

We followed behind as she took us towards a set of steps leading down into the ground, torches illuminating the small path. The small stairwell was tucked neatly into the corner of the monastery, and the steps it held seemed to be very steep and narrow. It looked almost as if it were just big enough to fit two ponies side by side. “Where are we headed, Galearis?” Twilight asked before the pegasus leading us could take a step down.

“I was told you were sent here to help with our yeti problems,” Galearis said, an unconfident look in her gaze. “So I’m to take you to our eldest priest to see what you can do.”

“Then by all means lead on,” I said, glancing to Twilight and giving her a nod. I could see her questioning look ready to fire query after query, but she stayed silent as our guide continued downward.

We silently walked a few steps down the cramped staircase before Galearis spoke up below us. “We’ll be in these tunnels for a bit unfortunately. The elders like to live deep in the mountain to avoid the harsh weather conditions outside. Plus they feel that they’re more in touch with Busdarna down there.”

I recognized the name from my time in religious research. “Busdarna, you say?” I asked to nobody in particular. “I thought that religion was only practiced in the Crystal Mountains. I had no idea they practiced it this far north in the Himaneighas.”

“Yes, that is where it originated,” Galearis called back to me. “Apparently it was introduced to the yaks here decades ago by crystal pony explorers who discovered Yakyakistan. I’ve learned a lot about the religion from my time up here. For as aggressive as the yaks seem to be, I think the focus on Meditation does wonders for them.”

“Doesn’t seem to be true for all the residents,” I mumbled to myself, thinking of the sentry who had warned us to watch our step.

“Not all of them practice the religion, Miss Dancer,” Galearis chuckled back, having heard what I thought was an inaudible mumble. Perhaps the walls reverberated more than I had given them credit for; we were making our way through a solid stone tunnel lit by only torchlight after all. At least the steps had finally given way to a mostly flat walk now.

I stayed silent, blushing a bit at being exposed so easily. In the silence, I could still hear the low hum of voices traveling through the tunnel, almost amplified by the resonant structure of the rocks around me. Once more, whether from the cold or from the sound, a chill ran down my back, the voices sounding almost too close to the moaning of a creature deep within the earth. The mixture of silence and humming put me on edge, so I decided to keep the conversation going.

“So where are you from?” I asked Galearis, peaking over Twilight’s ears to see the other purple pony as we trotted further and further into the winding tunnel. “How’d you end up here in Yakyakistan?”

“Well, I’m actually from the Los Pegasus area. I grew up there with my uncle just outside the city limits,” she began, ducking under a rather low ceiling area. “I guess I’m what you call a city mare, although my heart has always been in the wilderness.”

We continued further, the tunnel getting noticeably wider as we went on “I finished my schooling in one of the colleges at Los Pegasus, the Fairweather Academy, in Herbal Sciences and Medicine. After graduation, I was approached by one of the Deans of the college asking if I was interested in a research opportunity. I agreed and before too long, I was on a trip with three other researchers to Yakyakistan, even years before their Ambassadors met with you Princess Sparkle.”

“Please,” started Twilight, blushing a little at the formality, “just call me Twilight. Aside from these wings, I assure you I’m not different from anypony else.”

“If you wish,Twilight,” Galearis replied, giving a slight nod as we pushed deeper into the cave we seemed to be entering. I could hear a faint humming coming from the end, although different from what we had encountered at the temple. This one sounded as if only one or two voices were singing in harmony instead of a single long drone.

“So you said a research team had been sent up here, yourself and three others,” I continued, interested in what they were up here for. “What were you all doing up here, and where are the others?”

“Like I said earlier, I came up here to study the implications of herbal remedies this tribe can produce. These yaks can craft almost quasi-magical brews with ease, so we came up to understand the process and ingredients a little better. As for the others, they went back home. I elected to stay. I love this place, and I don’t think I would ever trade it for anything. Let’s just say I’m on year seven of my three month excursion up here in the Himaneighas.”

“It sounds like you really love Yakyakistan,” Twilight commented, the voices I had been hearing growing in volume as we continued towards the end of the cave, torchlight dancing off the uneven walls around us.

“I do, very much” Galearis replied as we abruptly came upon a large wooden door in the cave wall. Galearis turned to Twilight and me and took a deep breath. “For your sake, lets hope that the Prince is in a good mood.”

“Prince Rutherford?” Twilight questioned, taking a subconscious step back. I shared in her concern, having heard how the delegations with the Yaks had gone from Twilight a few months back. “I thought we were going to see the eldest priest?”

“And we are, Twilight,” Galearis replied, turning her head briefly towards the wooden door before turning back to us. “His father, former King Rosensarch, is the eldest priest now. He stepped down from rule a few years ago to study under the teachings of Busdarna and the Temple of Budan. Prince Rutherford denounces the religion, saying it leaves Yaks vulnerable to attack. Elder Rosensarch and his son were never the best of friends after the changing of the throne.”

“So what happens if the two are in a sour mood today?” I asked, hopeful that it wasn’t the case.

“Then I’m afraid our walk will have been for naught,” Galearis replied. “Rosensarch refuses to talk to anyone until he has gone through his many sessions of Meditation.”

Listening through the door, I could hear the harmonic humming continuing to resonate around the cave surrounding us. “I take it the harmonics are not a good sign then?”

“It’s hard to tell,” Galearis responded, kicking a small pebble underhoof. “Elder Rosensarch usually meditates alone regardless of his mood. He could be calm and peaceful, or under a lot of stress and tension, and I really wouldn’t know unless I tried to talk with him.”

“Then I suppose all we can do is head in and see,” I commented, taking a step towards the door. Galearis held up a hoof, briefly blocking my way, before turning to both of us with a serious expression.

“Let me talk with Rosensarch until we know if he’s in a good mood or not,” Galearis said to us, looking right into our eyes awaiting a response. “Please.”

“You have our word Miss Galearis,” Twilight said. “We’ll stay quiet. After all, we’re here to make friends, not enemies. Right Moondancer?” Twilight turned to me and I gave a nod, seeing that she wanted to be certain I was going to uphold my end of the silent treatment deal. Galearis lowered her hoof and took a deep breath in, letting it out as she slowly pushed the door open, knocking softly on its wooden frame just loud enough to be heard over the humming.

She entered the room as the humming went on uninterrupted, and we followed her in, awestrucken by the cavernous place. The room was a massive circle, a spiral staircase wrapping around multiple times before disappearing into the ceiling above, nearly three stories higher than a normal house’s rooms. On the far end of the door we had entered, a crackling fire sputtered sporadically, juxtaposing the constant humming coming from Elder Rosensarch, who was situated in the middle of the room atop a pile of strewn pillows and hay.

Elder Rosensarch looked like your typical Yak, horns protruding from the top of his head, and scraggly fur bellowing over every inch of his being. He wore nothing but an orange robe draped over his back, and a wooden beard ring. His eyes were covered by his long hair, which made it difficult to tell if he had even heard us come in, but soon enough he gave away that he had heard more than we thought.

As Galearis closed the door behind us, he held out a hoof and with very minimal movement, beckoned us to join him in his bedding of pillows and hay. I looked over to our pegasus friend and she nodded, pointing a hoof over and silently telling me to have a seat. I trotted over quietly to the edge of the spread, listening to his soothing drone, only penetrated by moments of silence due to his need to breathe. I stepped softly onto a pillow and shrugged my bags off, levitating them gently onto the stone floor beside me before scooting closer to the yak.

It was only now that I realized how truly large he was in comparison to me. The elder yak towered a good couple of feet above me, sitting on the bottom half of his body, his top hooves touching as if he was praying. I took an involuntary gulp as I realized how easily this giant creature could overpower me.

Twilight soon joined me, placing her bags next to mine and sitting down close to me, her wings outstretched to help her keep her balance in such an awkward sitting position. Galearis soon followed after and the four of us sat together; the sound of humming coming from the gigantic yak was completely transfixing me. I was strangely terrified of the lumbering yak beside me, but yet entranced with his one note song. I made a mental note that I might have to try some meditation when I returned home proper.

Galearis had her wings spread and her eyes closed, lost in the mesmerizing atmosphere Elder Rosensarch was weaving. Soon enough, I heard a second voice join Rosensarch’s. The soprano voice was in perfect harmony with the basy voice of the old Yak’s. It took me a second to realize that it was Galearis who was making the sound. It added another amazing layer to the song. I had no idea that two notes could have such power before then.

And suddenly, a three part harmony wafted into my ears as I heard Twilight’s vocal chords join the mix. A beautiful chord resonated in my brain, an air of suspense surrounding it as if it were missing something important. The structure needed one more note to be complete. I could hear it in my head from all those piano lessons I failed. I couldn’t place the chord exactly, but I could hear the note in my head, I just needed to find it in my voice.

And then there were four. The notes bounced off each other, the room practically vibrating with the sound of our voices. It was amazing to hear, yet such a simple thing to sing. I could hear our voices waver with imperfections, but it felt better somehow to hear it that way. I took a breath every so often, but I felt powerful belting out my lower note along with Twilight and Galearis’s higher ones. I realized now why the yaks back at the monastery sang like this to meditate. It was uplifting and yet calming. It felt like I was floating on a cloud. I could barely describe the warm feeling in my gut.

Just like that, the chord was over. I realized the other three had stopped humming only after the dull silence reached my ears. Opening my eyes I saw that all three of the people in the room were now looking at me in anticipation of the perfect silence. Once my eyes were open and I had blinked a few times, my face turned a deep shade of red as I felt embarrassed for holding my note for too long. Elder Rosensarch finally spoke up.

“That was beautiful moment we had there,” the yak said, standing up on all fours and stepping off the cushy area of the floor. “Thank you.”

“It’s always a pleasure to participate, Sir,” Galearis responded with a smile, looking up to the lumbering yak in front of her.

“So what brings ponies here?” The elder yak asked looking around and seeing both Twilight and I still sitting on the pillows in the middle of the room.

“Sir Rosensarch, this is Twilight Sparkle and Moondancer,” Galearis replied, getting up from the makeshift resting area to point to me and Twilight respectively. “They are visitors from lands far south, and they’re here to help us with the problems we have been having recently.”

“Did Rutherford send them?” the yak asked accusingly, his voice gruff and his tone cutting the mellow mood the room had been in. Galearis hesitated in replying, looking back at me and Twilight with a worried expression. I could tell she had hoped that wasn’t the case.

Twilight finally broke the tense silence. “Nopony sent us here, Elder Rosensarch,” She calmly stated, levitating her saddlebags back onto her haunches. Her horn glowed as a purple aura surrounded the bag on her left, the flap lifting up as she pulled a scroll from its depths. “We’re actually here to ask for your aid in getting us to our true destination,” she said while unfurling the scroll with her horn to reveal a map of the area, walking over to the massive yak to give him a better view.

“Which is…?” Galearis asked. I was glad because I had thought that Yakyakistan was our final destination.

“Here,” Twilight said, pointing to the bottom half of what looked to be one of the mountain peaks surrounding us. “This location, known as Bullheart’s Bluff, is where I was sent to investigate. I have a sneaking suspicion that whatever is out there is affecting your town as well.”

I spoke up to aid Twilight’s explanation. “We’ve been hearing you’re having problems with something known as a Yeti.” A silence broke out in the room as both Galearis and Rosensarch looked at me.

“Then someone spreading nonsense rumors,” Rosensarch replied heavily, looking back at Twilight's map to give it a thorough study.

“The ‘Yeti’ is just a children’s tale about a creature that lives up here and preys on those who are too lazy to prepare for the harsh environment.” Galearis explained, walking over to look at the map with Twilight and Elder Rosensarch. “It’s supposed to be scary to warn children that hard work is necessary for continued survival. It’s such an old yak’s tale at this point, some residents might have blurred the line between fact and fiction.”

“Then why would it have come up in conversation recently?” I asked, as Rosensarch returned to the middle of the room and resumed his place on the comfy flooring. Twilight rolled up the scroll and replaced it in her bags before trotting beside me to hear the answer.

“Rutherford,” Elder Rosensarch replied grimly as if he spoke of a great evil. “Been spreading rumors of Yeti attack. Say they responsible for destruction of encampments and traders.”

“Encampments and traders?” I questioned, furling my brow and shooting a confused glance in their direction.

“The town needs food to survive, just like any other place,” Galearis responded as Rosensarch fell back into the meditative state we had found him in, humming away with his hooves held together as he seemed to balance perfectly in place, solid as a stone. “We get most of it from trading the resources here, like wood and various ores to traders. They rarely come this far north though, as it’s a perilous journey, so we usually set up trading encampments. The place you mentioned, Bullheart’s Bluff, is one of those camps. We haven’t had contact with the workers there for days.”

Galearis shooed us back into the cave that we came from before continuing on. I assumed she didn’t want to bother Elder Rosensarch any further. “So have you any idea what might be causing these attacks?” Twilight asked while following Galearis.

“Nothing solid, unfortunately,” Galearis somberly replied. “It’s been rough getting anyone down to investigate the attacks due to the weather. There’s also been a rather touchy debate about the political implications of it all.”

“I sensed something about that the moment I mentioned the Yeti,” I replied trotting close to the other two as the cavern grew smaller and smaller until it would barely fit a yak once again. “It looks like Rutherford wants to blame a mythical creature and Rosensarch wants to blame…” I trailed off, a thought not coming to me, “something else. What I can’t gather is what he blames.”

“From what I’ve seen from the past few weeks, I feel Rosensarch blames his son for most of the attacks,” Galearis responded, a sad look in her eyes. A few silent seconds passed as Twilight looked nervously back at me and then to our guide, who had kept her head forward the entire time.

“You weren’t kidding when you said they didn’t see eye to eye, huh,” I said, breaking the awkward silence. “I didn’t think Rosensarch would ever suspect his son of committing heresy and attacking his own kind.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Galearis corrected me. “I think the elder believes that his sons denouncement of his faith is causing some greater power to gunk up the works.”

“Greater power?” I laughed. “He can’t quite possibly think the Princesses are behind this can he?”

Twilight shot me an annoyed glance before explaining, “I think she means something more along the line of a greater being in the Budan faith, like Busdarna for example.” I didn’t even consider that she meant another “God.”

“Right.” Galearis agreed with the assumption before turning to us. “Whatever is happening out there, we’d be grateful if you could help us figure it all out.”

“We’ll certainly try our best to help you guys out,” Twilight replied with a warm smile. She certainly did imbue the Princess of Friendship when she wanted to. “But as I said before, we are in need of some aid. We could really use some winter gear and rations for our trip. I wasn’t certain how much you could spare, but we could certainly trade for most of it if needed.”

I pulled out a bag of bits from my left sack to show that we were prepared to spend the money. “Moondancer, Twilight,” Galearis stopped and looked at both of us. “If you can stop these attacks from happening, then you’ve already paid more than necessary to Yakyakistan.” She continued up the path we had been down, finally reaching the stairs where we began our descent into this tunnel.

“I’ll ask around the Monastery and see if I can’t get you some food and clothing for the trek down to Bullheart’s Bluff, but I don’t think you two should be making the trip tonight.” Galearis commented. “There seems to be a large storm passing through tonight, and you’d have a death wish trying to make your way through it, especially in our dark nights.”

“Duly noted,” Twilight responded as the tunnel started to finally grow lighter, a draft softly blowing as we came closer and closer to the peak of the staircase. “Is there a place we can spend the night and try to get some rest for the trip ahead?”

“I’d offer my house, but I don’t have very much room for guests. I only have one spare bed. We do have something set up upstairs, but we weren’t expecting two ponies to join us today. We had only heard of you coming, Twilight, so I’m afraid we only had one room in the Monastery prepared for a pony.”

“If it’s alright with Twilight I can always take the guest bed while she stays at the Monestary. I don’t mind being split up,” I offered, glancing at Twilight who was considering the options. “Celestia knows we’ll probably be spending a lot of quality time together in the next few days.”

“That’s very true,” Twilight said, flashing a small smile back at me. Turning back to Galearis, she continued. “Do you think that can be arranged? I can stay here while Moonie stays with you?”

“Certainly!” Galearis cheerily replied, finally hitting the top stair, the mystical humming from earlier this evening having gone as well as the patrons who provided it. “It looks like everyone has gone home.”

Galearis walked over to a set of stairs in the northeastern corner of the building before turning to Twilight. “Twilight, your temporary arrangements are up these stairs and the third door on the left. Feel free to ask any of your neighbors if you need something. They really are nice folks.”

“Thank you once again, Galearis,” Twilight said, trotting over to the stairs.

“Thank the yaks who run this monastery,” Galearis replied. “They’re the ones who set all this up. I was just tasked with greeting you guys at the gate. I’ll see you here in the morning, Twilight. I need to get Moondancer and myself to my place before the storm becomes too unbearable.”

“Be safe out in the weather, girls,” Twilight warned us before heading up the stairs. Galearis trotted over to me as I pulled out my many scarves to wrap myself in. I could hear the wind whipping outside the door and I wasn’t about to go out there with nothing on. It sounded like the storm had already reached a dangerous level.

“Let me grab my coat before we head out,” Galearis said, trotting over next to the front door as I wrapped another scarf tightly around my neck. Galearis opened a closet door and picked out a thick wool coat. It was the one we had seen when she had waved us in earlier. After a few seconds, the coat was bound tightly to her body, the fluff making her look nearly twice the size of the pony I had seen moments ago.

“Stick close to me and we’ll be at my place before you know it,” Galearis said, throwing the hood up over her mane and pulling down the string as tightly as she could.

“After you.”

Galearis's Garret

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Galearis pushed hard on the door, but the arctic winds outside were fighting her the entire time. It was as if a small battle was taking place until the pegasus came out on top and the door slammed open. A wintry nightmare blew in from outside, the snow so thick that even the statue of Busdarna was completely blocked from view. The wind whipped at our clothing, biting through my many layers of scarves almost instantly.

Galearis looked back at me a gave a nod before turning and trudging into the winter wasteland. I followed closely behind, turning and giving a burst of magic to slam the door shut behind us before Galearis and I scampered down the steps. I was eager to get out of this cold as quickly as I could. My sweater and scarves felt like paper in the middle of this storm.

Galearis stopped at the base of the steps and turned to look for me. It looked like the coat she wore obscured her vision something awful. I still envied her though. She didn’t seem to be shivering quite as much as I was. Once she saw me, she pointed off to the left of the Monastery towards a row of houses barely visible in the whipping snowflakes.

Waving a hoof, she trudged towards the rows of houses slowly as I followed her hoofsteps. The snow had miraculously risen a couple of inches in the short time we had taken to visit Elder Rosensarch. What was fine to walk in earlier was now becoming a bit difficult as my hooves sank almost up to my elbows. At the rate the storm was going, it was completely possible that a snowin would be greeting us in the morning.

After the short journey down the snow-covered street, Galearis walked up to one of the houses that had a huge pile of snow nearly covering the right side. The two story building had a heavy wooden door as well as two unlit windows caked with the white powder furling around us. The upper level had a smokestack, but nothing was coming out of the chimney as of yet. Galearis walked up to the edge of the house and I followed her, heading for the main door, but as I got closer I realized she was heading for the right of the house.

She stopped for a moment in front of the pile of snow before brushing the stuff off with her forearm, revealing a stone step beneath the frozen dust. Pointing up at the second story, Galearis shouted just loud enough to be heard over the howling wind. “Up there!” she shouted to bring my attention to a door located right at the top of this pile.

What I had thought was a snow pile was actually a staircase leading to a landing on the second floor of the house. Trotting up next to her, I put a hoof on her shoulder and pulled a bit to tell her to step back. She seemed confused at first, but heeded my warning and took a few steps away from the staircase.

Closing my eyes, I focused on the layout of the stairs, sending out signals with my horn to determine how deep the snow was on each layer. It was a neat trick I had learned in my studies about bats. The stairs had quite a bit of snow on them, but each step was covered in about thirty centimeters of it by my calculations. I took off my glasses and threw them in my bag, not wanting to lose them with what I was about to do. The scene in front of me blurred out significantly, but I knew my dimensions purely from my signals.

Closing my eyes, I focused all the energy I had into my horn, feeling the magical pulses within grow with each passing second. I kept building the pressure in my horn, letting the magical energy compact itself into a dense ball of heat. I started to sweat as I felt heat leaking from my horn, drops of energy hitting the snow with an audible fizzle, leaving tiny holes for the snowstorm to soon fill with ease.

A few more seconds passed, and the energy I built up felt close to bursting. I waited as long as I dared, trying to keep the energy beam controlled. Realizing it was as large as I could muster, I thought back to the dimensions I had formed in my head, adjusting the shape of the energy to match that of the stairs. My horn leaked again and again, and I realized if I didn’t let go of the stored energy soon, there was a good chance it could burst out unexpectedly.

Giving a large grunt, I released the energy, my horn flashing brightly as a beam of pure light blasted into the snow pile, cutting away at it as a hot knife to butter. Within seconds, the snow on top boiled into steam and the staircase was perfectly clear, snow hitting its surface melting at the touch. I gave a quick tap with my hoof onto the first step to test the temperature and noted that it was quite warm, but rapidly growing colder as entropy kicked in.

I looked back at Galearis who stood in awe at the show I had just put on. I couldn’t help but smirk at the pegasus. It was probably the best display of magic she had ever seen. I gave a bow before righting myself and waving her on to tell her it was safe to go. She nodded, her agape mouth forming into a shocked smile. Galearis trotted up the steps and I followed closely behind, noticing how warm and cozy the steps beneath my hooves felt.

I was kind of amazed at myself for pulling that off. It was just a simple extrapolation of the spell I had used on my glasses earlier in the woods, but at a much larger scale. The energy I had expended in getting to that stage was noticeable. My legs felt weak, and my head was pounding ever so slightly. My horn felt much hotter than it should have been in the cold weather. I chalked up the feeling to the spell still bleeding off excess energy I had procured for the hearty zap I had given the staircase.

Galearis stopped at the top of the steps, fumbling around in her jacket pocket for a moment before pulling her hoof from it’s depths along with a large skeleton key. She took the key in her mouth and leaned over, placing it gently into the door in front of her before giving the head a generous turn. I heard the lock click and watched as the door suddenly swung open, being pushed ever so slightly by the wind around us. It’s heavy wooden frame kept it from knocking violently about.

Galearis waved me through the doorway before stepping in herself, closing the door behind us and leaving us both in utter darkness. I focused what little energy I had left into my horn to produce a faint glow just light enough to illuminate Galearis’s face. “Give me just a second and I can get us some proper light,” she said with a smile, throwing her hood back and letting her mane out.

I nodded before letting the light fade to black again, hearing Galearis trot over to my left as floorboards creaked and groaned under her weight. Then a brief silence interrupted the creaking of the old wood as I pulled my scarves down from my mouth, feeling my numb nose start to warm up after being assaulted outside.

The sound of a sharp crack hit my ears as I saw a faint spark jump on the far side of the room, illuminating Galearis’s face for a fraction of a second before the darkness returned. The crack jolted over to me again, another spark coming with it. I realized that Galearis was trying to start a fire with some flint, seeing now the outline of a fireplace in the dull moments of light that the sparks were giving off. “Do you need any help, Galearis?” I called out, hearing one last clack as the fireplace ignited, a small piece of wood finally catching fire in the cold room.

Galearis ignored my comment, too focused on getting the fire started to hear my weak voice. Instead of waiting to get a response, I focused my magic into my horn, breathing heavily and zeroing in on the tiny flame Galearis was gently blowing on. Giving a small spurt of energy, I watched as the flame grew triple in size, engulfing the wood and setting it ablaze with a symphony of crackling.

Galearis gasped and took a sharp step back at the sudden blaze before turning to me, her shocked expression softening to a smile. “There we go, fire’s started,” she said, shrugging off her coat and hanging it on the side of the fireplace to dry. She sat down on a rather large pillow and held her hooves up to the flame to warm them. I stood there as the flame grew, and with it the light of the room. I levitated my bags over next her coat, noticing now how spent the last few spells had gotten me.

Looking around I saw the quaint place Galearis owned up here in Yakyakistan. A black kettle sat to the left of the fireplace, it’s metal stand bent a little over, but otherwise intact. To the right was a set of pokers and kitchen utensils, haphazardly mixed together on a metal stand, the ends looking charred and heavily used. In front of the fireplace was a chair and some pillows that looked big enough to sleep on, albeit a bit worn out and lumpy.

Beside all the worn out utensils and cookery, a wool hammock was tied onto the ceiling, draped just low enough to keep a pony airborne should they get in for the night. A bookshelf rested underneath one end, with a glass of water suspending a blue flower in it, a papaver somniferum if I wasn’t mistaken. How Galearis was managing to keep a poppy plant alive in this climate was beyond me. The hammock itself was next to a window, but the storm outside had covered it completely in snow, the windowpane itself blurred through by a thick layer of ice. It looked like a stained glass window that somebody forgot to paint.

To my left was a small kitchen setup, cabinets in rows from floor to ceiling. Had the room not been so small to begin with, it would have been an impressive amount of storage space. A bookshelf sat next to it with dusty old hardcovers lining the few shelves there were to spare, various crystal geodes breaking the monotony of the lines of books here and there.

I walked over to the bookcase to see many familiar titles about herbology, something I studied back when I was learning about the magical properties of different floral organisms. I noticed that this small library went a lot deeper into the biological workings of plants in extreme environments than I had done during my studies. It was obvious that Galearis still loved her studies in plants.

I few books caught me by surprise, such as titles on poetry and the psychology of species in harsh climates. One particular book took my attention more than any other. A hardback book was stuck in with the others with noticeably more dust on it than its neighbors. The dust wasn’t what caused it to stand out to me. That honor was for the text on it’s edge: Song on the Northern Wind: A Memoir by Galearis Melody.

I blew the dust off the cover and opened it up to the first page, seeing the title with a distinct picture of the same pony that was currently sitting next to me, warming her hooves in front of a fire. I hadn’t realized that she was a published author. Galearis hadn’t stuck me as the writing type, outside of scientific literature. Turning the page, I saw the dedications page and my heart dropped when I read the words inked into the page.

Dedicated to the three researchers who lost their lives on Mount Everhoof:

Flurry Wings

Greenshield

Stratostepper

Your memories will always live on in this book – Galearis Melody

I shut the book softly and looked over to Galearis, adjusting my glasses before clearing my throat. I was always awful about handling awkward situations. “I had no idea you were a published author,” I said, grabbing Galearis’s attention from the fire.

She gave a confused look before seeing the book I was levitating in front of myself. “Oh,” she mumbled. “That’s probably because that book has yet to be published.”

“So are your friends…” I started, not really sure how to proceed.

“Buried under six feet of snow?” she finished for me. “Yes. They all perished up there.”

“I’m truly sorry for your loss, Galearis,” I said, trotting over and sitting down next to her on one of the lumpy pillows in front of the fire.

“Thank you, but it’s really alright,” she said with a sad smile. “I had planned to get that book published soon so their story would get out there.” Her smile was soon replaced by that of a slight frown. “I didn’t tell you guys earlier because I wanted to get you to Elder Rosensarch quickly.”

“So is this a story of what happened in the mountains?” I asked, taking off my scarves and bags and levitating them onto the hook next to Galearis’s coat.

“It’s based on the story,” Galearis said, taking the book from my hooves and flipping idly through the pages. “I changed their names and some of the things that were said. It was a tough time for all of us, and some of the ‘conversations’ we had were too private for me to send to the public.”

“So can you not find a publisher for this?” I asked, taking off my sweater too, the heat finally melting the chill that had been in me all day. It felt odd having it off in front of another pony. I had always worn clothing in public.

“No,” Galearis responded, bringing my attention back to the topic at hoof. “In fact, I have a company who is willing to publish it once it’s completely done. The problem is that they’re waiting on my final draft, this final draft.”

She held the book in front of her before closing it and setting it on the ground. “I’ve been wanting to send it out for some time now, but I haven’t trusted the traveling traders enough to give it to them for delivery. I’ve been meaning to make the trip myself, but things kept coming up. First I got heavily involved at the Monastery, then became the spokespony for the town itself, and now the Yeti attacks…”

She hesitated as we both sat in front of the crackling fire. “And if I must be honest,” she started, giving a hefty sigh, “After reading through that story again, my fear of the mountains has come back to me.” Another brief silence passed before she gave a forced laugh. “Heh, who ever heard of a mountain dweller who’s afraid of mountains? Am I a card or what?”

“No worse than somepony who studies friendship yet is seriously lacking in the friendship department,” I commented, thinking about my own past. I was trying to make new friends, but the theory and the practice were almost two separate worlds of difficulty.

“You got me there,” she said, the smile returning to her face. “Feel free to read through it. I might not be getting it published anytime soon.”

“Where is the publishing company who accepted this at?” I asked, levitating the book in front of me to see about how long it was. A few hundred pages later and I hit the back cover. The book seemed to be a respectable length from what little fiction I had read in my time.

“It’s a publishing company located in Canterlot called Magnum Opus. They accepted my story years ago, but I haven’t kept in contact with them. I don’t know if they’d remember me at all after this huge period of silence.”

“Well,” I started, shutting the book once more and setting it down in front of us. “I live in Canterlot, and Magnum Opus is actually one of my favorite stores. If you’d like, I could take your book myself once we settle all of this yeti business.”

Her eyes lit up when I mentioned the small quest, although it may have just been a stray flame flickering beside us reflecting in her pupils. I had never been good at guessing other’s emotions from facial cues alone “Could you?” she asked, giving me a bright smile. “I’ve been wanting to get it out of this town for years. I just never thought I’d have a visitor from Canterlot itself.”

“Sure,” I replied, levitating the book over into my bags next to the fireplace. “It wouldn’t be too much of an issue. I already end up there almost once a week to see all the new scientific journal entries.”

“You really are a pony of study aren’t you?” Galearis chuckled as she got up and walked to one of the sets of cupboards. “You seem to be an avid reader at the very least.”

“I suppose you could say I am,” I responded, pondering how I was around books and the like. “I do enjoy learning new things, especially when they can be applied to my magical studies. After all, my special talent is magic. I learned that back at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns.”

“I can see that you’re a pretty powerful pony,” Galearis said, pulling a large can from the cupboard with a picture of a steaming cup on the side. Bringing it over to the glow of the fire, I saw that it was a can of powdered hot chocolate. “That feat you pulled off outside my house was something else.” She opened the can lid and shook the tin about. I noticed that it’s contents were a little lacking. The can itself was barely a quarter of the way full. Probably only a few more cups of the powder were left. She replaced the lid before walking over to the kettle next to the fireplace. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen magic of that sort before. Was that an advanced spell.”

“Well, magic actually works a little differently depending on what you’re trying to do,” I started as Galearis put down the tin of powder next to the fireplace and picked up the kettle in her teeth.

“Keep talking,” she said in a muffled voice. “I’m just going to go outside real quick and snatch some snow for the drinks.

“Ok then,” I said as she slowly made her way to the door, the pot swinging back and forth, the momentum making her stumble every few steps. “Like I said, magic is very dependant on the task, but very few tasks require a simple spell. Even levitation requires you to know what object you’re holding in your aura.”

I saw Galearis kick open the door as a blast of snow barraged her and cold air whipped around me, threatening to put out the warm fire. A second later, the door was closed, and the kettle was filled to the brim with snow, Galearis covered with the powdery fluff as well. “So where did you learn that spell?” she asked through gritted teeth, walking over with the kettle still in her mouth before dropping it on the bent stand once more.

“That technique was a bit of a homebrew take on some other spells I’ve found.” I said, readjusting my glasses before recalling what techniques I had mashed together to make my “snow-destroyer” spell. “I mixed it in with my reading on heating spells and energy transfer spells as well as my geolocation spells. See, these spells were used mostly separately in applications now commonly needed together. The heating spells were for the winter months and cold areas where it was hard to get natural heat, and the geolocation ones were used mostly in unfamiliar and dark places. They helped track your surroundings.”

“Uh huh,” Galearis idly commented, tending to the pot for a bit as the snow melted away.

“Anyway, I had used both techniques before and I was in an experimental mood when we got up here. I figured with the snowy steps I’d have the perfect chance to field test it. The stairs worked well because they were linear enough for the geolocation spell to find the right surfaces, and the weather is cold enough to warrant it. I figure I’d go for it, so I used them together to heat up a very specific surface, that of the stone steps themselves.”

“Fascinating,” Galearis interjected, the water having begun to boil in the intense heat of the magically-stimulated flames. “Sorry to interrupt, but would you like some hot chocolate? It’s not anything fancy, just instant powder I have from the last supply run.”

“I would love some, thank you,” I responded as Galearis went and grabbed two mugs from the same cupboard. “And no need to be sorry. I was pretty much done with everything. The only thing I didn’t mention is how exhausting the spell was. I feel close to passing out.”

As I finished up, a yawn escaped me as if to prove the point of the degradation the spell had caused me. “Hopefully you’ll wake up early tomorrow so you can get out there and nip those Yetis in the bud,” Galearis chuckled, dipping a mug into the kettle and pulling it out with hot chocolate steaming inside. She handed it to me as I yawned once more, my eyes seriously feeling heavy.

“Thanks,” I said, enveloping the mug in my magic, chilling it down to a drinkable level with a small pop before raising it to my lips. I smiled when the warm liquid hit my stomach, feeling cozy after all the cold today.

“Feel free to sleep wherever you like,” Galearis said walking over to yet another set of cupboards and opening them to reveal a couple thick blankets. “The hammock and pillow there are all I really have to offer though.”

“I’m fine taking this pillow,” I said, patting the cozy fluff around me. “Reminds me of all the times I fell asleep during my attempted all-nighters in the Canterlot Archives.”

Galearis threw me a blanket before dragging one out herself and making her way to the hammock. Throwing her blanket on the lofty bed, she grabbed another mug and dipped it into the hot chocolate, setting the cup on the small desk near the hammock. “Well, I’m going to call it a night. Remember to move everything away from the fire before you nod off.”

I nodded before picking up my hot chocolate and taking a hearty gulp. Rubbing my eyes, I realized that I probably should be getting ready to sleep as well. I levitated my drink away from me just so I didn’t kick it over in my sleep, and pushed the pillow around, moving the lumps so I could easily lie down in a comfortable sleeping position. Settling in as cozily as I could, I levitated my blanket over me, and closed my eyes, feeling the extra warmth seeping into my body as well as the dark edges of sleep. Opening an eye just enough to see the fire, I willed what was left of my energy into my horn, pulling the blankets tightly around me as I felt the warmth engulf me. After a few seconds of readjusting myself, I closed my eyes once more and let sleep take hold as the wind howled above us and the fire crackled softly beside me.

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“Twilight, where are you?” I called out through the snow. I didn’t know how I had lost her so easily up in the mountains. The snow wasn’t coming down that hard, and she would be obvious out here, her dark purple coat clashing with the intense white and grey that surrounded me. “Twilight!” I shouted into the sky, turning around and around in the white wasteland, not seeing any sign of her. The snowfall around me suddenly picked up, furling me in a cloud of white as the wind whipped the white stuff into my eyes.

The snow was caking on my glasses again, my spell having worn off a while ago. I attempted to summon the energy to cast it once more, but as I was building up, the wind bellowed into me, pushing me into the snowdrift and threatening to cover me in a blanket of frost. Pushing myself to my hooves, I abandoned my glasses, throwing them into my bags and squinting around, my blurry vision not much worse off than when I had them on.

The snow was fiercely obscuring my vision now. A sudden snowstorm had formed out of nowhere, and I was stuck in the middle of it. I trudged forward, the wind threatening to blow me over every second that I stood, and the hill becoming steeper and steeper as I pushed on.

I tugged at my scarves around me, trying in vain to keep the cold from getting to me. Shivering, I realized all I was accomplishing was making it near impossible to breathe. I summoned a large breath and shouted through the storm again “Twilight, are you there?” The howling wind was the only response I got.

Shaking violently now at the bitter cold, I wondered why we hadn’t gotten supplies back at Yakyakistan. I swore I could see my breath turning instantly to snow after it left my mouth. I could feel small icicles forming in the fur around my mouth, and my lips felt cold enough to fall straight off. I kept going forward, hoping I could find Twilight, or at least some shelter to wait out the storm.

In the distance I thought I saw a figure standing tall, the outline a dark blue shade, but it was too far away to really tell if it was real or something my blurry vision was making up in this cold wasteland. “Hello?” I called to the mysterious figure who seemed to be standing motionless. It looked to be pony-shaped, but it didn’t respond to my call. Soon enough, it shook its head and turned, disappearing into the white haze. “Wait!” I called, following it up the snowy mountain.

I came close to the top of the ridge I had slowly been scaling when her voice came to me. “Moondancer!” I heard Twilight call out from in front of me, a state of panic in her tone. “Moondancer, help!”

My eyes widened as I heard her cries. Leaping forward in the snow, I doubled my pace towards the ridge, the top getting closer and closer as the path became even steeper and slicker. “Hold on Twilight!” I called out, slipping and falling face-first into a snow-drift. Getting back to my hooves, I finished, “I’m coming!” I grabbed the ridge with my forehoof and pulled myself up only to realize why Twilight had been calling out for me.

In front of me was a deep chasm where the ice had split in two. It was just wide enough for a pony to fall down, and the bottom was beyond a threatening blanket of blackness. Twilight was down on a ledge, just managing to keep her body from plummeting further. Her wing was bent at a gruesome angle, probably having been broken in the fall down. Her horn looked frostbitten and more of a reverse icicle, meaning she probably had no way of producing magic.

The rest of her body was a deeper purple than normal, and it looked like she was just barely above the threshold of being a frozen pony. She wasn’t even shaking anymore, the hypothermia already taking a great hold on her. “Moon,” I barely managed to hear her say above the blistering wind, her eyelids drooping dangerously close to closing. If she fell asleep now, there was a good chance she wasn’t going to wake up. Not in this weather with no aid.

“Twilight, stay with me!” I called out to her, looking around for some way of keeping myself from falling in as well. “Don’t close your eyes now Twilight! Stay with me!” I started to panic, not finding any viable way of getting to Twilight. “I’ll get you out of there!” I threw out an empty promise.

“Moon…” Twilight said again, her breathing substantially slower than it should have been. I nervously worked up some energy and focused it to my horn, only to feel an excruciating burning pain shoot back through me. Lifting a hoof up to my horn, I could feel the ice surrounding it. Without finding a way to melt it, magic wasn’t an option. “I…” Twilight managed to say. “I don’t want… Want to die…”

I could feel her lifeforce leaving her. My heart sped up as she slowly blinked a few times. I whipped my head around, not knowing what to do. I vainly reached a hoof out to try and reach her, but I was still more than a body’s worth away from her.

“Grab my hoof, Twilight!” I pleaded, knowing full well it was an impossible task. “Grab my hoof and we’ll make it out.” I watched as Twilight closed her eyes, not opening them up again. “Twilight, open your eyes and take my hoof!” I cried, tears blurring my vision further. Her chest stopped its steady rise and fall. “Twilight, wake up and grab my hoof. Please wake up and grab my hoof.” I shouted, tears streaming down my face and freezing into my fur.

I watched her limp body roll over and fall into the abyss.

“No!” I shouted, jolting up from the laying position I was in. My fur was slick with my own sweat, and my eyes were teared up, but I was still back in Galearis’s house. I took a few short sharp breaths, the image of Twilight’s body falling still replaying in my mind.

The fire sparked up beside me as I saw Galearis’s worried face looking at mine. “Moondancer, are you alright?” she asked as she went over to her cupboards and started pulling out herbs and ingredients. “You were squirming an awful lot in your sleep,” she said, returning to the pot filled with cold hot chocolate from last night, dumping in everything she was carrying as the fire did it’s work to heat up the brew. “And it looks like you’ve been crying.”

“I…” I began, still trying to calm my breathing down, shaking from the surge of adrenaline I had gotten from the imagery. “Nightmare…” I whispered, realizing that that was all it had been. We hadn’t left Yakyakistan yet, and Twilight was still very much alive, just not with me.

“Just take a few deep breaths, Moondancer,” Galearis said, stirring the pot a bit before walking over to grab my mug. “Drink some of this too. It’ll soothe your nerves.” She filled my mug with the brew and gave it a blow to cool down before handing me the result. I took a sip, feeling the grainy herbs mixed with the sweet chocolate. I almost instantly felt my muscles relax and my heart slow it’s beat a bit.

“Thanks,” I said, taking in a deep breath and setting the mug down on the floor. Letting it out, I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. I looked over at my bag and felt around in it for my glasses with my horn. Feeling the general shape, I pulled them from the bag and placed them gently on my nose. “What time is it?” I asked, looking at the window to see it was still covered in snow. “Sorry if I woke you up in the middle of the night.”

“Don’t worry about it, Moon,” Galearis responded, trotting over to the door with the large kettle now clenched between her teeth. She kicked opened the door with her back hooves to let in the bright rays of light from outside, not to mention pushing all the built up snow away. “The sun’s been up for a bit now,” she said as I shielded my eyes from the blinding light. Galearis dumped the contents of the pot out the doorway before grabbing a fresh chunk of snow and throwing it into the lukewarm receptacle. “I was actually about to cook some stew for breakfast before I noticed you were struggling in your sleep.”

“Alright,” I said, still thinking back to the nightmare. It had felt so real, and I could feel the pain of all of it. It was so cold in the dream too. There’s no way I could have just imagined it. Was there? I started to second guess myself. “I think I’m just nervous about the road ahead,” I half-heartedly explained to Galearis.

I watched as Galearis rummaged through her many cupboards before producing some potatoes, what looked to be onions, a can of broth and some other various spices. Grabbing a plate and assembling all the ingredients, she replied, “Don’t be.” She scooped the plate and all its contents from the counter onto her back and expertly balanced them as she walked over to the kettle. The fresh snow had melted once more into hot water, and the steam from it was beginning to rise from the clear surface. “We’ll have you guys set up with the best equipment Yakyakistan has to offer,” she finished, sliding the plate onto the floor without spilling a single thing.

“Here,” I offered, stretching and getting up from my lumpy bedding as Galearis returned to her cupboard. “Let me help you with the soup.” I levitated the can of broth in front of me before focusing on the top seam of the lid to the sides. Conjuring up a magic can-opener, I placed it on the can and let it work away as the metal slowly cut open. With the seal broken, a strong smell of salt met my nose, and I looked inside to see the heavy yellow-orange color of a typical bone-broth mixture. Levitating it over the pot, I poured the broth in with the water before grabbing a wooden spoon from the utensil rack and stirring it in.

“Thanks for the help, Moondancer,” Galearis said, pulling out can after can after can of preserved vegetables and fruits. “Here’s what I can offer for your trip down to the trading camp.” She grabbed a few cans before walking over and placing them in my saddlebags. “Are you ok carrying this much?”

I picked up the potato before glancing over at Galearis. “Those bags have a spell created by Twilight herself.” I said, turning my attention back to the potato at hoof. “Put as much in as you want. The bag is bottomless and weightless… essentially.” I sent a few quick pulses from my horn and watched as the potato split in half, then into quarters, and finally into chunks as my magic cut cleanly through its interior like a hot knife into butter.

Dumping them into the pot I turned back to Galearis. “Are you sure it’s ok we take this stuff?” I asked, picking up the bits of onion and dicing away with it as I had the potato. Enveloping the wooden spoon in the pot as I did, I stirred it to keep the soup from settling.

“You’re doing this town a big enough favor as it is,” Galearis responded, coming over and putting the rest of the spices in the pot as I kept stirring everything up. “I can afford to give up a few cans of food for the cause. Besides, if you get the trading post open, then I won’t be having to worry about food anyways.”

“Fair enough,” I said, still stirring away. The aroma of the soup was intoxicating as it floated into my nose. I had had potato and onion soup plenty of times before, but never home-cooked like this. Back in Canterlot I only ever had instant noodles, never seeming to find the time to cook anything properly. My studies were always more important than the quality of my meals.

“Smells about ready to me,” Galearis said, taking a deep breath in and drinking in the pleasant aroma the soup had wafting off it. “Let me get some bowls and we can eat before getting back to the Monastery.” Walking over to the cupboards once again, Galearis rummaged around before pulling out two ceramic bowls. They looked homemade and very thick.

I pulled the spoon out from the broth and cast a quick charm on it to dry it off before placing it back on the utensil rack I got it from. Galearis set the bowls down before grabbing a soup ladle in her teeth to dip it in the yellowed broth. Pulling it out, she expertly guided the chunky liquid to the first bowl, letting it fall in, spilling just a few drops in the transfer. Dipping the ladle back into the soup, she repeated the process, this time keeping the floor entirely clean of the liquid.

“Pi’u,” Galearis said with a smile, placing the ladle back on the rack before walking back to the bowls. “That means ‘drink up’ in Yakyakistan’s native tongue,” she explained as I enveloped one of the bowls in my magic, levitating it close to my face.

I watched my glasses steam up as the warmth of the broth tickled my nose. Blowing on the surface of the soup, I tilted the bowl just until the broth reached my lips. I took a quick sip, the contents almost burning my lips. Swallowing the salty broth, I felt the warmth reside in my stomach, completely waking me up from the drowsy state I had been in since I had woken up.

After cooling the soup down with my horn, I took another hearty gulp, grabbing some chunks of potato and onions with it. I licked my lips in satisfaction, watching as some other multicoloured bits strewn about the surface floated about the bowl. Closing my eyes, I felt the warmth of the soup radiate along my stomach. “The soup is delicious, Galearis.”

I watched as she grabbed the edge of her bowl in her mouth, lifting it up to horizontal before using a wing to prop it against her lower lip. She took a swig of the soup before setting her bowl back down on the ground. Wiping her chin with a hoof to clean off the stray soup streaks, she turned back to me.

“Thanks,” she replied, covering her mouth before producing a small burp. “As soon as you’ve had your fill, we can head out.”

“Ok,” I said, taking another hearty gulp of the delicious broth. I realized that the sooner I met back up with Twilight, the more progress we could make, and the quicker I could get home. “I think I might make this a meal to go actually,” I said, finishing off what was in my bowl before wiping my mouth clean and levitating the container to the counter her drawers were under.

Trotting over to my bag, I opened it up and rummaged around inside for my thermos, which was probably filled at this point with cold coffee. Finding it, I pulled it out and walked over to the door. Pushing it slightly ajar, I felt the intense cold of Yakyakistan course over me, the wind just as powerful as it was last night. Quickly unscrewing the cap of my thermos, I threw the brown liquid out the door before hastily retreating back to the warmth of Galearis’ house.

Galearis meanwhile was starting to finish off her soup, slowly going through the process of lifting the bowl up and balancing it in a wing. As she did this, I levitated my thermos over the pot of soup, simultaneously grabbing an indeterminate volume of the broth in a magical aura. Opening the lid, I put the soup in the thermos before releasing it from my magical grasp, placing the lid back on. The thermos was filled almost to the brim, and I was glad I hadn’t grabbed more soup, or I might have accidentally had a mess on my hooves.

I levitated the thermos into my bag before grabbing my sweater from below it, the fabric warm from the fire it was lying beside. Stepping into my sweater, I pushed the turtleneck up to my chin, letting the warmth soak into my fur. Taking a deep breath, I closed the flap on my bag, feeling like the few scarves I had in them wouldn’t do much in the harsh winds that were raging outside. I looked back to see Galearis had finished her bowl of soup and had placed both bowls by the fire.

“Let me grab my coat off the hook,and I’ll guide you back if you don’t remember where to go,” Galearis said, trotting over to her coat and swinging it off the hook and onto her back. Sliding the sleeves in place, she pulled the coat tightly around her before turning around to douse the fire that was still crackling on.

Taking the pot off the fire itself, Galearis reached behind the fireplace and pulled with all her might on something I couldn’t quite see. With a few more tugs, she produced a heavy iron cover for the fireplace. Grabbing my bags from the side of the fireplace, I placed them on my back before turning to Galearis, enveloping the cover in my magical aura. I lifted as hard as I was willing to before a long trek, getting the iron cover a few inches off the ground. Galearis let go as she realized what I was doing.

After a few seconds of concentration, the cover was in place. Turning a knob on the front of it, I locked it in place as the light was completely covered up. At that moment, Galearis opened the door to let the sun outside light the way out. Shivering as the cold wind brushed against me once again, I turned and walked outside to the cloudless day.

The sun was high in the sky, and the reflection off all the snow was nearly blinding. I covered my eyes to let them readjust to the vastly brighter environment. “Watch to make sure you don’t slip down the steps,” Galearis warned me as she pushed her door closed, rummaging through her pocket once more for her house key.

Looking down at the staircase, I noticed just how much snow had really fallen the previous night. The entire staircase looked to be buried under as much snow as I had seen when we entered last night. Not wanting to have to expend as much energy, I dealt with the snow a little differently than I had the night before. Focusing energy into my horn, I sent out a constant beam of light into the snow in front of me, slowly eating away at the cold substance. I stood there letting the beam do it’s job. It took much longer than the show I produced last night, but it took much less energy to produce.

“You know Moon,” I heard Galearis call out from behind me. I stopped what I was doing and went to turn around as I heard a whooshing sound fly by me. A purple and gold blur passed me by, sliding down the staircase until it skidded into a pile of snow at the bottom. I realized the blur had been Galearis faux-skiing down the ramp-like surface the stairs had made. She stood up from the drift and shook off all the snow that stuck to her before turning back to me. “It’s faster that way!” she called out from the bottom, laughing to herself. I stopped heating the minute spot I had been focusing on and looked over to see Galearis’s tracks on the stairs, or rather the long lines she had made during her haphazard descent.

I took a gulp before taking a few steps back. It wasn’t too far down, but I was never known for my balance. Looking behind me, I saw the 2 story drop and shivered. Whether it was from the cold or my slight bout of vertigo I wasn’t sure. “Go ahead Ms. Dancer,” Galearis cheered on from the bottom of the steps. “If you fall, all you’re going to hit is snow. Besides, I’ll catch you when you get here!” Knowing the worst I could face was a slightly colder walk, I took a deep breath in, letting it out and watching the mist from it swirl around me before being blown away by the wind.

Letting it out, I took a few quick steps forward before leaping on the snow pile,my momentum flinging me down the slope. “Augh!” I shouted, barely able to keep my balance as I skidded further and further down the slope, the wind blowing my mane about above me. Luckily I was still wearing my old hair tie which kept my mane out of my eyes. I slipped and readjusted myself a dozen times, Galearis’s figure growing and growing as I slid closer and closer to her. “Look out!” I shouted, realizing the bottom was coming faster than I had expected.

“I gotcha!” Galearis responded, catching me at the end of the ramp and whipping me around in a circle. Galearis fell over in the midst of all of it, and we both sat in the snow, dazed by the small crash. Noticing my glasses already had snow on them, I took them off and wiped them on a dry part of my sweater before readjusting them on my face. “Fun isn’t it?” Galearis said, getting up and brushing herself down once again.

“I don’t know if ‘fun’ is the word I’d use exactly,” I said, shaking half from the snow and half from the massive adrenaline high I had just experienced.

“Well, you look like you enjoyed yourself at the very least,” Galearis replied, beginning to trot back towards the Yakyakistan Monastery. “C’mon, let’s go get you supplied and ready for your trip down to Bullheart’s Bluff.”

I nodded and followed behind her, noticing that the streets were once again barren of any yaks or ponies alike. “Is the place normally this devoid of yaks like it is now?” I asked as we trudged through the snowy street. “We thought it was a bit odd that nopony was around.”

“No,” Galearis started, taking a closer look at her surroundings. “It’s true that there usually aren’t yaks on the streets during the winter seasons, it is odd that none of them are outside helping to clear everything out.” She paused a moment, gathering her surroundings before taking a sharp right. “After a nasty storm like last night, the yaks usually send at least a few workers to go help clear the snow enough to make it easier to walk in.”

Almost as if to set an example, Galearis stepped forward and fell up to her stomach into the snow. I couldn’t help but chuckle before helping her out of her predicament. “What makes you think they didn’t send anyone out here this time?”

“I fear it may have to do with you showing up,” Galearis grimly said, the square we had seen from our initial arrival coming into view. Like everything else, almost a foot of snow was accumulated in the entirety of it. Even the statue was nearly buried in the white powder.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked as we reached the bottom of the steps.

“You saw how well our leaders have been getting along…” She trailed off, leaving me to figure out what she was implying. I caught the gist when I noticed that we were not alone outside. Looking up at the entrance of the Monastery, I saw Twilight, with naught but a scarf standing outside, her bags on her back, and her expression stone-faced. She was waiting for us to arrive.

“Twilight, why are you out here?” Galearis asked, shuffling up the steps a little faster than me. “And why haven’t you gotten any supplies? Come on, I’ll get you to–”

“We’re not getting any,” Twilight cut off Galearis solemnly. “We’re on our own for this trip.”

Travelers in the Snow

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“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?”

The Path Less Traveled

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The rhythmic crunch of snow was almost music to my ears compared to what we had to endure back in the open fields outside of Yakyakistan. I was enjoying the relative quiet as Galearis and Twilight trotted side by side among the trees, the two mares talking about Twilight’s past. “It was quite the amulet she got her hooves on,” Twilight finished. “I was amazed the power of the thing didn’t drive her completely mad. I suppose it’s good that we got her to take it off when she did.”

“And how is she faring nowadays?” Galearis asked,

“You know,” Twilight gave a pause, looking down at the ground in front of her for a few seconds, “I don’t think I’ve seen Trixie since that incident. I just hope she really did learn how much her jealousy was affecting her.”

“You would have thought she would’ve learned after that ursa minor incident to have a little humility.”

“That’s what I had hoped, but then one day she just came back and challenged my skills. It’s not like I had much of a choice in the matter,” Twilight said in a solemn tone.

“I’m sure she’s learned her lesson more than once,” I chirped in from behind the two. “In fact I remember you telling me she was deeply sorry after you guys got rid of that amulet.”

“She was,” Twilight said, readjusting the scarf around her neck as snow started to drift from the sky and lightly coating us in its powder. “And that does give me hope. So Gale, are we coming close to that path you were telling us went around the mountain?”

“It’s about as good a guess as any,” Galearis said as she studied the area around us. “I don’t come around this way often, but judging by how long we’ve been walking, we should be coming up on the path soon.”

“It might be sooner than we were expecting,” I commented as I spotted a clear path between the trees before us which looked as if it had been traveled on recently. Pointing it out to the others, I trotted over to inspect the marks that remained there. “I thought you said this was a largely unused path?”

“Normally it is,” Galearis replied, examining the tracks as fresh snow began to slowly fill them in. “Yakyakistan natives don’t like this path because it’s rather narrow and unsafe for creatures as large as them.”

Twilight spoke up behind us, noting “These don’t look to be made by any yaks anyways.” She pointed a hoof at one of the tracks in front of us as she raised her hood to cover her head once more, the snow beginning to come down more and more. “They’re way too small to be produced by any Yak big enough to be traveling this way. Unless someone’s kid is lost in the woods here, these had to have been made by a pony.”

“Or a wolf,” Galearis added, placing a hoof next to the track to judge size. They looked very similar in composition, but with the snow degrading the tracks’ shape, it was impossible to judge. “You are up in the mountains. We have a decent amount of wildlife out here that would easily take these pony-made paths.”

“Now hold up a second,” I chimed in, placing my hoof next to Galearis’s imprint, noting that it already seemed much smaller due to the fill in from the snow. “See that? These tracks are small now, but they must have been massive when they were first formed, unless we really did miss somepony by mere moments.”

“That just leaves me more curious,” Twilight commented looking up at the sky and seeing that the clouds had caught up with us. “If the tracks are bigger than a pony or yak then what could they be?”

“Perhaps we’re looking at our Yeti,” I suggested, glancing over at Twilight, who looked down to examine the tracks much closer once I had spoken up. There was a shared moment of silence between all of us. I wasn’t sure whether to believe my own speculation and it seemed Twilight was skeptical as well.

“Regardless of what we’re looking at,” Galearis said, a hoof raised up to her face and her eyes skyward, “we need to get a move on if we don’t want to get caught up in a snowstorm on the edge of a mountain.”

“Fair enough,” Twilight said while joining Galearis in watching the skies. I saw that the clouds we had seen off in the distance earlier were now looming menacingly close.

The billowing grey lumps caused a pit to form in my stomach. My mind flashed back to the nightmare I had had back at Galearis’s house and a cold sweat started to form over my body. It had just been a stupid dream, but the possibility of it all started to get to me. I wasn’t ready to deal with something like that. I didn’t think I ever would be.

“Let’s get a move on,” Galearis said, bringing me back to reality as I saw her point down the path. “We don’t want to be stuck on the mountain when this storm hits, but we don’t want to be out here either. Without shelter, we wouldn’t survive the night.”

Twilight nodded solemnly, glancing back at the cloud cover and the light particles of snow already starting to fall from them. I nodded my head to indicate to Galearis to lead us onward. She turned and took a few steps down the path. Twilight and I followed behind as the wind began to bellow down the path itself, waves of powdered snow drifting past our hooves.

As we continued down the snowy path, I saw more prints of whatever we had found earlier. The creature had gone the same way we had; the way the tracks were pointed made that clear, but the pacing made no sense on any of them. They were spaced out quite like a pony’s normal gait would be, if that pony was twice as big as your average one. But randomly the tracks would all clump together as if the creature making them suddenly stopped and shuffled forward before continuing on its normal way.

The path between the trees opened up into a field of snow and continued obviously up the side of the mountain. The tracks that we had been inadvertently following led up the steep incline. This yeti, if that was what we were following, was certainly not afraid of heights.

“We’re going to be headed up this path,” Galearis said, pulling down her scarf so we could hear her over the building wind. “Watch where you step very carefully here. When we get to the peak of this path, we’ll be almost twenty stories above the forest below. If you fall …” She trailed off as her expression became unfocused, her eyes lost in the distance. I could tell her mind was on her old friends.

“We’ll be careful, Gale,” I comforted her as I placed a hoof on her back. “You’re not losing anyone on this trip.” She stood for a few seconds in silence, her eyes darting back and forth before looking directly at me. I pulled down my scarf and gave her a sincere warm smile. I gave her a pat on the back, not sure what was going through her mind at the time. Whatever she happened to be thinking about caused her to look close to breaking out into tears.

After a few seconds of our silent conversation, her frown transitioned into a slight smile. I gave a nod and replaced my scarf over my mouth. The chill of the air around us had already started to chap my lips. “Let’s get going,” Galearis awkwardly said before turning and walking up the path in front of us.

Twilight trotted up next to me as we both followed the now visibly-shaking pegasus. “I swear, it looked like you two were about to make out on this mountain,” Twilight smirked, giving me a friendly nudge.

“Ugh, please,” I scoffed at Twilight’s comment as I rolled my eyes. “I was just helping reassure her. She’s got a bit of a bad past with these mountains.”

“Moonie, you may not get out much, but even you should know when another pony is ogling you,” Twilight’s sly smile clearly visible despite the piercing cold air. We continued to escalate as we followed the narrow snowy path. I had no idea why, but I could feel myself blushing.

“We’re just friends is all,” I complained to Twilight, pursing my lips and giver her a disapproving glare. “She just needed some umph getting up the mountain. I was just helping her get that umph.”

“You certainly were,” Twilight calmly said with a wink. “I know a set of good friends when I see them. I am the Princess of Friendship after all.”

“Would you stop implying that Galearis and I are …” I started, trailing off as I looked back at the light purple hooves trotting in front of us. I couldn’t finish the sentence I started. Sure we were friends. That much was obvious from how she treated me last night but to say we were … .

“I’ll imply it all I want, but if you want a professional opinion, you’ll have to talk with my sis-in-law, Cadance,” Twilight shot back, the sly smile seeming impossibly to widen on her face. “She’s the Princess of Love.”

At this point I was surprised that there wasn’t steam pouring out from under my hood, I felt like I was blushing so hard. “We didn’t kiss alright!” I said a lot louder than I had meant to. It was at this point that Galearis slowed her pace to fall back in line with us.

“If you wanted a kiss, then all you needed to do was ask,” Galearis said, her glum mood all but vanished. She was also looking at me with a rather coy smile. “I just didn’t know you were into little old me. I mean, you know what they say about assuming.”

I was completely split emotionally between angry and embarrassed at this point. Letting myself fall behind the two, I let myself cool off as they went back and forth. “I can’t say I knew what Moonie liked either,” Twilight giggled. “She keeps to herself most of the time, but I do have to say you two would make a cute couple.”

“Wouldn’t we, though?” Galearis responded as I looked over the side of the path idly, trying to take my mind off the thought of it all. “Our kids would look so cool with my light purple fur and her red hair. Plus, who knows? We might even make an alicorn.”

“That’s not how genetics works, even if we could procreate!” I complained, not really angry with the statement, but not wanting to hear any more about me and Galearis being a couple. While I did think it would have been enjoyable having a small unicorn around to teach all what I’ve learned to, an apprentice really, the idea was simply preposterous.

She did have a rather nice body structure, I had to admit. All her time living in this wasteland probably kept her resilient, strong and healthy. She had a very nice mane and was truly a nice pony to be around. “I think someone’s in denial,” Twilight whispered just loud enough for me to hear.

“No, genetics don’t work like that at all!” I argued as the two ponies laughed in front of me. “To procreate you need a male and a female, because you need to have the proper chromosomes from each pony to make a fully-fledged child. I have a hard time believing a botanist like yourself doesn’t know about the most basic principle of …” I trailed off as it suddenly occurred to me that they hadn’t been talking about my genetics comment. I scrunched my nose in disbelief before glaring back down at the snow in front of me, kicking the white stuff around. “I’m not in denial,” I grumpily muttered out. You had to be sure what side you played on before you could be in denial.

“She’s pretty cute when she’s flustered,” Galearis said, trotting back to let me catch up with her. “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you, Moondancer,” she apologized, the tables seemingly flipped around from the few moments ago when I was comforting her. “I do enjoy your company very much. Take that as far as you want to,” she finished with a wink before embracing me in a tight hug.

I recoiled a second, not expecting the embrace, but as I felt her warm neck against mine, I couldn’t help but crack a smile and return the favor. “I suppose I was just a little sensitive to that ‘denial’ comment,” I said, looking at Twilight with a serious tone as Galearis and I let go of each other. She gave me a big smile before turning towards the path once more. We were getting rather close the the twenty stories Galearis had warned us about. The drop was enough to make me shudder and give a gulp.

“I have been pretty cut off from the world until recently,” I admitted, cocking my head slightly to the left. “Love was just never on my mind, I suppose. I had my studies to worry about. I hadn’t even gotten into some of the more involved stuff I’d always hear about from my classmates in college. Stallions never interested me, but neither did mares.”

“Well, I can say from experience that having your head in a book is nice, but one can always use a nice companion,” Galearis said, turning around and swishing her tail in my face, headed back towards the bottom of the mountain. I stood speechless for a few seconds as I slowly came to terms with what had just come out of that.

Galearis had just implied that she’d love to date me, and I had this gut feeling that I was about to say ‘yes.’ “Galearis,” I said, stopping her in her tracks. I felt odd standing there about to ask this stupid question. I had never been in love with anyone. I barely had any friends. Why was this pony different? Was she different in that sense. I could feel the butterflies in my stomach duking it out over the soup I had earlier. “I … wanted to tell you …”

Twilight had even stopped to wait for us. The air suddenly felt really tense, and I felt like I was back in preschool, playing the tree in the school production of the Hearth’s Warming Eve Story. It was my line, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what I was supposed to say. I could feel hundreds of pairs of eyes on me, even though I knew Gale, Twi, and I were alone. I opened my mouth and made a bit of a guttural noise, my voice completely failing me. I couldn’t ask it. I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t think.

“Girls …” Twilight said, her ears flicking back and forth, hearing something. “Not to interrupt this touching moment, but do you hear that?” A low rumble was resonating from the mountain beside us.

“Is that …” I started, feeling the ground begin to shake as the noise grew louder and louder.

“Avalanche!” Galearis screamed, her face contorted with fear. She glanced at us before turning and booking it as quickly as she could manage down the narrow path.”Run!”

In a flash, Twilight and I bolted after her, only a few steps behind her lead. The rumble above us grew into a roaring noise as I felt the earth vibrate beneath my hooves. The path flew past underneath me as I galloped forward, just on the heels of Twilight’s pounding hooves. My heart was pumping as snow whipped into my face. At a full on sprint the light snowfall felt like I was getting pounded by beads of metal. Even with the aversion spell cast on my glasses I could barely see where I was going, relying on Twilight’s purple hooves to guide me.

My legs began to hurt as my rather sedentary physique showed the problems that neglecting aerobic activity could cause for somepony like me in a moment of crisis. I couldn’t keep up with Twilight in the slightest, not anywhere near as fit as the pony who had been going on adventures and doing far more hoof travel after getting her Ponyville friends since we had first parted. I slowed my gallop just to be able to feel my legs and keep my eyes from tearing up too much. The cold air burned in my lungs as I gasped over and over again, trying to keep oxygen in my system.

Starting to limp, I saw Twilight pull ahead of me as the very bottom of the mountain came into view. Galearis had sprinted way ahead of us and had already reached to bottom. I saw her turn and watch as her two new friends barreled down this deathtrap of a mountain. Turning to my right, I saw the billowing cloud of snow that was causing the rumble suddenly burst into view.

An insurmountable wave of snow crested over a hill just within my range of vision and I realized how quickly the snow was cascading down the mountain. Looking back towards the ground to where Gale and Twilight had stopped to wait, I realized they were far from a safe distance away from the avalanche. Trying to gather the breath to shout for them, I felt my voice fail me. I was already gasping for air from the run, and I just didn’t have the lung capacity to shout.

Looking back at the cascade of snow, I realized that I wasn’t going to make it out of its warpath either. My mind shot back instantly to the nightmare I had and I realized that it wasn’t Twilight who was in trouble, but me. Just then a loud pop sounded off beside me and Twilight materialized out of thin air.

“C’mon!” she shouted, nearly tackling me over before I felt a surge of energy pass over us, the snow crashing beside us. For a brief moment I watched as the white wall surged over us, engulfing the sky and blocking out all the light for a brief moment. I saw Twilight’s purple energy field sputter around us. I saw the snow envelope us before I felt the cold powder as it smashed into my back, and then it was dark.

But I could feel myself falling through a void. I couldn’t feel a huge pile of snow crushing up against me, and I barely could tell which way was down. Either I had been knocked unconscious and my mind was trying desperately to grasp onto something real, or Twilight had miraculously teleported me out of there at the last moment. Fearing the former and hoping for the latter, I focused on conjuring energy within my horn, tumbling aimlessly into the void. I couldn’t feel Twilight still gripping me. During the impressive snow-blast we must have gotten knocked apart.

Letting off a burst of magic, I tore a hole in the vast emptiness and stumbled out, noticing once again that I was way above the intended landing zone. I wanted to scream, but my body was so tired from the run and the ensuing teleportation that I couldn’t even think about the new terror I had found myself in. I felt the wind whip past me as I fell through the air like a brick. I felt my glasses slip from my face as the wind pummeled my body. My coat flapped around me as I watched the sky spin above me.

And with a slam, I hit the ground, the snow breaking my fall a bit. My legs felt numb, and I could feel the cold slowly seeping into me. I realized that this was going to be it for me. There was no way I was getting back home from this. I had no idea that this would be the place I’d see the end. I blinked a few times as the light snowfall covered me in the huge divot I had made in the snow. I was still breathing heavily, but every time I did, I could feel a sharp pain in my chest.

I concentrated on the pain to try and keep myself awake, but I could feel my earlier dose of adrenaline subsiding. My breathing slowed and I closed my eyes, whimpering from the pain that each breath brought. Opening them again, a dark figure was looming over me. I smiled, thinking that Galearis or Twilight had made it out alive. Without my glasses I couldn’t make out which one had come to rescue me.

Before I could speak, the figure blew some sort of dust into my face. I blinked a few times and tasted a touch of mint before suddenly the world faded into darkness, taking my conscious mind with it.

The Yeti

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Ringing. My ears were ringing, and I was consciously aware of it. It wasn’t loud, but it was constant. I took a breath in, feeling an unnatural warmth in the air. The smell of smoke with a hint of mint hit my nose as I slowly came back from unconsciousness.

I opened my eyes slowly, blurry shapes greeting them, a flickering light dominating my vision. It was only now that I became aware that I was in a bed, under a multitude of covers. I shifted to the left, blindly grasping near the flickering light that I assumed was a candle. I waved my hoof back and forth on the little bedside table before finding what I was looking for.

Casting some magic through my horn, I engulfed my glasses in a magic aura and levitated them onto my face, the world becoming clear once more. I sat up on the bed, noticing that someone had stripped me completely down in the time that I was unconscious. It made me rather uneasy to know that someone had been messing with me while I was out.

Blinking a few times to let my eyes become used to the sudden change in vision, I saw that I was in some sort of stone room, almost like a cave that had been dug out by hoof. The light flickering beside me was indeed a candle, and a rather large one at that, sitting in a brass holder that looked like it had come straight from Canterlot.

Shuffling out from under the covers, I rolled over the edge of the bed and on my hooves, my head suddenly taking a bit of a whirl as I realized I wasn’t as awake as I had thought. Leaning on the mattress of the bed, I closed my eyes as my head tumbled, a slight nausea washing over me. I let out an involuntary groan and clenched as the nausea built up.

Soon enough, the feeling passed, and although my legs were just a bit shaky, I could make out up from down again. Rubbing my eyes a bit I took a better look at the room I was in. The bed next to me was a wood-frame bed. The shape was crude, almost as if someone had sawed it by hoof with no knowledge of how carpentry worked. The posts were nowhere near flat, and the wood was roughly cut. The surface had been sanded, but only barely.

The mattress and sheets seemed to be from a different world entirely. The top quilt was expertly sewn, designs of all shapes and sizes imprinted on the material. I saw pictures of the sun and moon, various animals that were nowhere indigenous to mountaintop life, and dozens of generic ponies doing generic things. There was no way the maker of this quilt lived around here. The sheets underneath were a silk fabric soft to the touch and, like the quilt, were completely out of place against the bedframe.

Other than the bed, the room was rather barren. The side table holding the candle sat next to the bed, an identical one sitting on the opposite side, and a tiny trunk was lying at the end. A curtain of the same silk material from the bed, probably taken from the same roll, hung in the doorway, acting like a makeshift door. I saw little bumps at the bottom where the curtain was folded over, probably filled with something to weigh the fabric down and keep it from blowing about.

Slowly I made my way to the foot of the bed, picking up the candle in my magic so I could shed some light on the trunk. It looked old and dusty, as if it hadn’t been used in ages. Setting the candle down next to the trunk, I examined the latch. There was no lock to be seen, and it looked as if the latch had been broken off ages ago. If this trunk ever did lock, nothing short of a magical charm would keep it that way nowadays.

Reaching out a hoof, I pulled up on the top half of the chest. It may not have been locked, but it certainly was heavy. With a grunt, I lifted the heavy wood and let it fall back on the foot of the bed, a creak in the hinges showing their age. Inside the trunk were my bags and my sweater, neatly folded and sitting on top of yet more astonishingly well-crafted blankets.

“I suppose I should thank whoever stripped me and brought me here,” I mumbled, levitating the sweater out of the trunk and back onto my torso, feeling much less naked. “But it still creeps me out that someone was moving my unconscious body.”

I gave a stretch, getting used to having the wool against my fur once more. At the same time, I realized how sore my hooves felt. This had been more walking and exercise than I had gotten in probably over a year or more. My body certainly wasn’t built for adventuring, much less adventuring in the Himaneighas during the winter.

I closed the lid of the trunk with an audible thunk, deciding to leave my bags inside for later so I could get a better look at the place that Twilight and Gale had dragged me to. Levitating the candle in front of me once more, I readjusted my glasses to make sure they were snugly on my face before continuing towards the makeshift door to the room. The curtain was hanging on a bar not unlike those found surrounding a bathtub. Instead of plastic, however, this one was made from a beautiful silk. I could tell that the material was being used unconventionally.

I slid the curtain aside with a hoof, taking a look into the main room. It seemed rather simple, yet elegant in places. The center of the room held a four small wooden chairs, cushions on the seat to make them less stiff I assumed. In between the four was a makeshift table made from stone. A thin slab of it sat on four carved supports. Like the bed I had awoken in, the table seemed shoddily done, as if an amateur had carved it out with crude tools.

The chairs, on the other hoof, seemed to be made expertly, and sanded down beautifully, The finish was worn, but smooth. The chairs seemed to be strong and what one would expect to be up in such a mountainous area. All four of them were placed around the table as one would expect, but the short height of the table seemed odd with the seemingly dinner-table sized chairs.

On the wall opposite me, a fire crackled in a small pit, the logs shifting as a small blaze was kept contained by a metal grate. A few cushions sat in front of it for ponies wanting to warm themselves. The style was archaic but effective, as I felt the warmth radiate throughout the room. The fire also provided a decent light source for the room, along with a lantern hanging on the wall next to me. A few candles sat around the room in holders similar to the one I was currently carrying. They were unlit for the time being, but the light from the fire and lantern was more than enough to see around the room.

To my right was a small small alcove with makeshift shelves filled with canned food and spices. I levitated my candle into the small indent to see large glass jars of grains and pasta sat on the floor of this pantry. It looked like food exclusively found from trade caravans, and certainly not anything that would really be found in the area. Most of the cans were preserved beans and other vegetables as well as some dried fruits. If it weren’t for the cavernous architecture and mismatched furniture, this could easily be a cottage back in Equestria proper. This looked like the makeup of my own pantry back home, albeit less fresh foods.

Taking my candle out from the small room, I set it down on the table of stone before turning to my left to see another curtain hiding another side room like mine. Pushing the curtain aside, I looked into the room to see a very similar layout to the one I awoke in. The same shoddily-worked wooden bed with elegant quilts sat in the middle of the room, a trunk at its foot. In the bed, Twilight and Galearis were lying side by side, stripped of their heavy clothing like I had been. They seemed to be in a deep sleep, the quilt ever so slightly rising and falling around their bodies.

Slowly I stepped back out of the room, leaving them to get the rest that all of us needed after that avalanche. I gave a smile, glancing once more at the bed. “What I wouldn’t give to have a camera right now,” I whispered with a bit of a giggle when I saw the two mares so close to each other. If they were going to joke about how I was going head over hooves for Gale, then Twilight might as well tumble with me.

Levitating the curtain neatly back into place, I turned and made my way towards the fire. Walking up to a cushion, I could feel the warmth of the fire grow, almost getting a little too hot as I stepped onto one of the cushions in front of the crackling flames. Willing a bit of magic into my horn, I cast a simple protection spell around myself, letting just the right amount of heat through and displacing the rest to the room around me.

“Now that’s what I call cozy,” I said to myself, settling into the oversized pillow and levitating my glasses onto the table near my still-burning candle. As I crouched into my sitting position, a kink in my knee made me wince in pain. Apparently I hadn’t come out of that avalanche as unscathed as I had hoped. Taking a deep breath in, I laid my head down, resting in the perfect warmth provided by the fire.

A few minutes passed before I became acutely aware of how hungry I was, not having eaten since Galearis and I had at her place. Almost as if on cue, my stomach growled, wanting nothing more than a good meal. Levitating my glasses back over to me, I yawned, the sleep still not completely shaken from me. Slowly standing up, I winced as my pained knee reminded me that it was still sore. I stretched it for a couple of seconds before trotting over to the pantry I had seen before.

“I hope whoever lives here won’t mind if I steal a can of beans and some spices,” I worriedly mumbled as I levitated a can of beans from the small pantry. Looking further in the back, I spotted a small pot in the back traditionally meant to be used on a stove The scorch marks on the side of it gave away that it had not been used that way for a while. The pot was dented in as if it had been dropped a few times but seemed to be capable of still holding food to be cooked.

Levitating the can towards me, I focused a burst of energy towards the top, and with a rather conspicuous pop the top sparked before the metal cover came cleanly off in a horizontal slice. Scraping the bean residue from the top of the lid and placing it into the pot, I set the clean lid down on the table before trotting over to the fire. On my way over, I scooped out the can as cleanly as I could without taking out slices of aluminum along with it and dumped the contents into the pot. I then levitated some of the spices into the pot randomly hoping something good would come out of it. I never was the best cook when it came to home recipes.

I levitated the pot and can onto the table, releasing them from my magical grip so that I could focus on breaking the warmth spell surrounding myself. If I wasn’t careful with my magic use, I might tire myself out before we even set out again. Focusing energy to my horn, I felt the magic course over me, as if I were standing under an invisible shower. I felt the shield wash off me as the room seemed to grow slightly colder than before. Taking the magical residue, I shifted the shield to cover the pot in it’s entirety. The very least I could do with this beat up pot was protect it from any more damage.

Opening my eyes, I levitated the pot once more and moved it over to the fireplace. Setting the metal cover aside, I stuck the pot into the flames and let it hover slightly above the charcoal and logs. As it sat in the heat, I levitated the lid of the can into the can itself and placed both of them next to the fire itself so I could find some place to dispose of it later. I heard the beans start to bubble when the sound of curtains sweeping met my ear. Turning around, I saw that Galearis was standing in the doorway, rubbing her eyes.

When she saw me, she paused for a second and perked up before trotting quickly over to me and embracing me in a hug. “You made it out!” she excitedly whispered, obviously trying not to wake Twilight.

“Well of course I did,” I answered with an awkward smile, completely red in the face. I wasn’t sure how to interpret the gesture Galearis was giving me. “Twilight came and saved me.” Galearis let go of me, taking a step back and giving me a look of a half frown and questioning eyes. “Right?” I asked, seeing the doubt in her face.

“I thought she got buried in the snow with me when the avalanche finally hit,” Galearis responded, walking over to look at my handiwork in the fire. “I remember somepony pulling me out, but I thought you were a goner for sure. You were so deep in the drift.”

“Well,” I started, placing a hoof on her back, “I did make it. That’s all that matters. You didn’t lose any more.” Galearis looked up into my eyes and gave a warm smile, knowing I was still thinking of her and her friends.

“So what are you doing with that pot in there?” Galearis asked me, pointing to the pot engulfed in flames.

“Cooking some beans,” I replied, moving the grate and tilting the pot to see if the beans had started to boil yet. When I saw they weren’t a put the grate back and turned to the pegasus. “Would you like some?”

“Won’t they just burn when you stick them that far in?” Gale asked, trotting over to closer inspect the pot. “Now that I think about it, how aren’t you burning the pot itself?”

“Magic, Gale” I said with a grin, pointing a hoof at my horn. “I’ve got a heat shield cast around the pot. The food’ll cook, just fine.”

“Right,” Galearis said, giving a yawn and stretching her hooves. “Whoof, it feels like I’ve been sleeping for days. I’m sore all over. And yeah, I’ll have some beans too. I could use some food in me right now.”

“I know exactly how you feel,” I said, adjusting my glasses and checking the beans once more. They looked to be bubbling at this point. “When I woke up, I was pretty sore, and I’m still feeling it in my knees.”

I pulled the pot out from the fire carefully to make sure the beans wouldn’t slosh out. Heat protection or not, boiling hot beans would not be a fun mess to clean up without any towels. I set the pot down on the stone table before lifting the charm from the surface, the steam finally meeting my nostrils. The smell wasn’t exactly intoxicating, but the food was definitely cooked and not burnt. It was better than I’d normally do at least.

“I wonder how Twilight made it over to you after surviving such a hit from all that snow,” Galearis mentioned, looking in the makeshift pantry for something to put the beans in. After a few second her face lit up, and she reached into the dark corner, coming back with two clear drinking glasses in her teeth. It wasn’t what I was expecting, but still was a better idea than trying to eat it directly from the pot.

“She must’ve teleported at the right time to avoid the avalanche,” I responded, taking the glasses from Gale’s mouth and levitating them over to the pot, picking it up as well in my magical aura. Carefully, I tipped the pot until the beans oozed into the clear glass cups, talking as I poured. “I know if I was as adept at teleporting spells as she was I would’ve tried something like that. I’m just grateful one of us got through that. It’s amazing we did that much less get to this empty house.”

“Right,” Galearis said, climbing into one of the disproportionately sized chairs. “It’s almost more than a miracle that she found this place and got us there intact. There’s food, shelter, fire, furniture…”

“That is crazy,” I mumbled, setting the pot back on the middle of the stone table, letting my cup cool as a lazy cloud of steam wafted up from the inside. Now that I thought about it, I knew Twilight was an adventurer and a great spellcaster, but that was quite a feat she pulled off saving both me and Galearis. I didn’t even hear her use her teleport spell.

“Do you…” I started before cutting myself short. The idea was preposterous, and yet I couldn’t shake my mind of the fact that I hadn’t heard that distinct teleportation spell.

“Do I what, Moon?” Galearis said, taking a sip of her beans, my growling stomach reminding me that I had yet to do the same. I blew off the steam before taking a sip of the soupy beans. They were rather bland tasting, but the concept of warm food relaxed my tense body.

“Before the avalanche hit you, did you hear anything unusual, like a loud bubble popping?” I said, setting down my cup and wiping my mouth with my sleeve, adjusting my glasses and giving Galearis a serious look.

“Well no,” she replied, her brow curling into one of worry and confusion, “but it was pretty loud. Hundreds of tons of snow barrelling down a mountain would probably be able to cover up just about any sound, much less that of a bubble pop.

“Right,” I said, my weak tone betraying my want to stay neutral. The sound of the avalanche probably would have covered up the sound of a teleportation. Clearing my throat, I took another sip before asking, “But did you actually see Twilight teleport away from you?”

Galearis tipped her cup completely vertical, letting the last bit of her beans fall into her mouth. Happily chewing on them with a beam in her cheeks, she swallowed before opening her eyes again, the enthusiasm that came with fresh-cooked veggies waning away until her smile became a slight frown. “I don’t think so,” she paused, deep in thought. “I can’t say that my vision was perfect in that blizzard, but I remember seeing Twilight get hit by the snow just as I did.”

Galearis set her cup on the table, hopping out of her chair and walking over to the lit fire. “Maybe she teleported after I lost track of her,” Galearis offered, sitting gently down on the cushion in front of the fireplace.

“Right…” I mumbled, taking another sip of the warm cup of beans. I was still skeptical about it all. Twilight would’ve gotten hit just as hard as I did. I’ll admit freely that physical prowess isn’t one of my strong points, and it wasn’t surprising that I’d hurt myself up in the mountains, but I had a hard time believing that she came out of that unscathed. Not to mention she then dragged both me and Galearis to this house she miraculously found. It just didn’t add up.

“Speak of the devil,” Gale commented, glancing behind me to the tired form of Twilight standing in the doorway. “Morning, Princess. How’re you feeling?”

“Like I got on the wrong end of an apple-bucking competition,” Twilight responded, the tiredness apparent in her eyes. “My head hurts so much still.” She raised a hoof and rubbed her forehead, leaning a bit against the wall.

“Here,” I offered the pot of beans, the steam still rising from them. “Have a drink on me,” I joked, motioning to the glasses next to Gale and I. “There’s plenty of beans to go around.”

“I didn’t know you were about that life, there Moonie,” Twilight replied with a smile, trying to cover the still pained expression in her face. I got up and walked over to the pantry to grab another glass.

“I may not have been a partier, but that doesn’t mean I’ve done my fair share of research on the subject,” I quipped, using my horn to light up the darkened space. Seeing the glasses in the bottom corner of the room, I grabbed one in my magic and turned back to the weathered alicorn. “I’ve even read a book by your resident partygoer, Ms. Pinkamena.”

Putting the glass on the table, I poured a hot cup of beans for Twilight as she walked over and sat down in one of the fancy dining chairs. “Really,” she responded skeptically. “Pinkie not only wrote a book, but got it published? Since when has this been a thing?” Taking the cup, she took a small sip and her brow furled after tasting it. Admittedly it wasn’t exactly a standard flavor for beans.

“If I recall, the book’s been out for years,” I replied to Twilight’s question, finishing off my own cup of beans. “I think the title was something like ‘Partying for the Prevalent Pony’ or something like that. I remember seeing a copy right after graduating with my PhD in Ancient Philology. It was one of my more... interesting... scholarly reads in Canterlot Library.”

“Well I’ll be..” she trailed off, taking another sip of beans and shaking her head slightly. “Pinkie wasn’t lying when she said she had a PhD in Partying.”

“I was surprised to read that myself,” I commented, taking my cup and setting it next to the pot on the table. “I didn’t know any university around even offered something like that. I didn’t think there’d be anybody that interested in taking a degree that was that specific.”

“You learn something new every day,” Galearis popped in from her position in front of the fire. She looked snug sitting on that huge body pillow. It looked nice and warm by that fire and it really complemented her golden mane.

I gave my head a shake, snapping myself out of the trance I caught myself in. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. Galearis was a very nice mare, but she was nothing more than a new friend and a guide up here. “Sorry,” I apologized to nobody in particular at my obvious distractedness.

“You make this too easy, Moonie,” Twilight giggled, standing up and giving a long stretch before turning towards Galearis. “You know I still haven’t thanked you for saving our butts back there, Gale. I’m just glad this place was around for us to crash in for the night.

“Wait,” Galearis said, a puzzling look immediately spreading over her face, “what do you mean I saved us? I thought you were the one teleporting around and saving butts yesterday.”

“No…” Twilight said trailing off for a second. “I was buried in the snow in that avalanche. I thought it missed you. You seemed to be way ahead of me when everything hit the fan.”

“No.” Gale dismissed Twilight. “I was buried too. So was Moondancer.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said, getting to my hooves, worriedly looking around the room. My heart started to race a bit, the calm safe feeling I had had when I woke up in this place was gone and a massive bout of fear had replaced it. “How did we end up here?”

“I don’t like this,” Galearis quietly said before suddenly we heard a loud thump outside the front door of the cavern-house.

We all turned our attention to the heavy wooden door, waiting to see what was about to come through. A moment of silence passed before another dull thump hit the door and it swung open to reveal a creature covered in blindingly-white fur caked with fallen snow. It stood on four legs and was just bigger than the average pony. Its face was covered in what looked to be wind goggles, not unlike those worn by the Wonderbolts during their shows. A piece of cloth covered the mouth and nose, white and thick. Each leg of the creature ended in a clawed foot and it was carrying a massive pile of logs on its back.

Standing in the doorway, it seemed to pause and look around at the three awake ponies that were currently standing in its house. It gave a hearty chuckle upon seeing us, and I started to shiver, not sure what to think of it. Slouching over, it let the logs tumble onto the ground beside it and reached up to pull the cloth away from its nose and the goggles up from it’s eyes.

A stallions muzzle, along with a set of deep brown eyes revealed themselves before the creature talked. “Hello there,” it said, swinging the door shut behind it. “The name’s Divvy. I’ll be your savior for the day.”

Divvy Out the Truth

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Divvy stretched and pulled down the hood on the suit that led him to become iconically known as the Abominable Snowman, a patch of muted green bursting forth from the white fur. His mane was a veritable mess atop his head “So you’re the ‘Yeti’ that’s been terrorizing Yakyakistan?” I questioned, my fear subsiding at seeing just another stallion greeting us.

“I wouldn’t say I’ve been terrorizing them,” Divvy said, brushing the snow off his back before removing the heavy white fur coat to reveal his light orange fur. With the coat off he looked more like an orange fresh off a bush rather than a legendary white beast. “Unless you consider walking around trading posts trying to keep them maintained terrifying. And as cool as it would be to be a beast of legend, I’m just another trader here in the Himaneighas”

“Wait,” Galearis said, getting up from her position in front of the fire. “What did you say your name was?”

“Divvy,” the orange stallion responded, throwing his coat off next to the door and walking over to examine the pot I had left on the table “Kit Divvy if you want to be formal.” As he approached the table and took a look in the pan, I noticed that his cutie mark was that of a tent covered in snow. “I’d really rather you not, though. I haven’t really had much company until I stumbled across you three playing in an avalanche.” He gave a sly smile, pouring himself a cup from the pot that was sitting on the dining table.

“Thank you for saving us,” Twilight said before Galearis could respond to the statements. “We’d be goners if it weren’t for you.”

“Welp,” he said in between sips, raising an eyebrow at first, the taste probably throwing him off guard. “I wouldn’t be doing my job if I left you there.”

“I think I may have traded with you in the past,” Galearis said getting up and walking over to the stallion to properly introduce herself. “I’m Galearis.” She offered her hoof which Divvy quickly took for a proper shake.

“Galearis, huh?” Divvy said, studying her face carefully as they shook hooves. “I can’t say I recognize your face, but then again, I rarely do any trades indoors, so you might have been a bundle of cloth when we last met.”

“I haven’t gone and traded directly with the caravans in a while though,” Galearis finished off as they finished their almost-awkwardly-long hoofshake. “I don’t usually have time to do my own trading. I’ve become so involved in helping keep Yakyakistan healthy and peaceful…”

“Not to offend, but I can’t say you’re doing a great job,” Divvy commented, sitting down in one of the dining chairs, kicking his hooves up onto the table and pushing the chair back so it was balanced on the two back legs.

“That’s why we came up here,” Twilight commented walking over to sit down across from him at the table. “To help Yakyakistan out in any way that we could.”

“Judging on your appearance, you’re either a Princess, or the best kept secret I’ve seen in awhile,” Divvy snarkily remarked, looking over at Twilight’s wings and horn.

“My name is Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship,” Twilight cordially replied before pointing over in my direction. “This is my friend Moondancer, from the City of Canterlot. I brought her along to help me with any issues that we came across.”

“No kidding,” Divvy said, looking between his hooves at Twilight, barely shifting so that he could look her in the eyes. “A princess in my home. I never thought one would venture this far up the mountains, and even so I expected it to be Princess Cadence.”

“Well, I’m sure Cadence is busy running the Crystal Empire and keeping things from getting out of control there,” Twilight replied as I walked over to join them at the table, Divvy finishing up the rest of his cup of beans.

“Well, nonetheless, welcome to my cavernous abode, Princess.”

“Please just call me Twilight,” Twilight interjected with a forced smile.

“Twilight,” Divvy corrected himself.

“So how’d you end up way out here at Bullheart’s Bluff trading station if you’re trying to solve a problem in Yakyakistan?” Divvy asked, setting his cup down and kicking his legs back down into a normal sitting position. “Other than very sparse trade, even moreso recently, I don’t really deal with many folk from Yakyakistan. Most of the time I rarely even talk with them unless it’s negotiating trades. They’re a very standoffish society.”

“You can certainly say that again,” I commented glancing over at Galearis with a smirk. She returned the gesture with an exasperated smile, rolling her eyes.

“We’re looking for the Yeti, or the Abominable Snowman if you prefer that term,” Twilight said, getting up and headed to her room with a purpose in her eyes. It looked like she was going after her bag.

“Join the hunt,” Divvy said sarcastically as he leaned back in his chair, tilting his head towards the doorway Twilight went through. “Ponies have been searching for that myth for hundreds of years now. Even if you are a Princess, I doubt you’ll find any trace of the beast.”

“I think he’s more of a bedtime story that got out of hand than some legendary monster that roams the mountainside,” Galearis commented, still sprawled out in front of the fire.

“I’d have to agree with you there,” Divvy chuckled, pouring himself another glass of beans before turning to me. “But I thought you and Twilight were just doing some detective work for a town of Yaks. What warped that into going on a search for some storybook monster?”

“The simple answer that I can give is that the citizens of Yakyakistan seem to be split politically and are down on trading. A lot of the Yaks believed that the Yeti was terrorizing the trade station here and that’s why the traders always came back empty handed.

“Yeti terrorism?” Divvy raised an eyebrow. “The only thing being terrorized is my trade profit. Yaks only show up probably a quarter as much as they used to. Trade’s been down, but it’s not because of lack of product. I’m just not getting the visits I used to.”

Twilight came out of her room carrying a rather large leather-bound book. Setting it down on the table with a dull thud, she opened the cover and flipped rabidly through the pages, looking for something specific. I got up and trotted over to watch next to her has pages upon pages whizzed by. Finally she found what she was looking for and the pages settled into place as I saw an archaic depiction of the Yeti followed by an article about the creature.

“That’s what I thought,” Twilight said, looking up at the coat that was now a pile on the floor. She flipped the book around and scooted it over to Divvy. “The mythical Yeti may not exist, but I think we’ve found the one that’s been ‘Terrorizing’ Yakyakistan.”

Divvy looked closely at the image in front of him, reading quickly through the blurb underneath it. “I see what you mean there, Twilight,” Divvy said, getting up and taking the pot to the fire, probably intent on cleaning it later with boiled snow. “That jacket could probably fool someone who believes in the Yeti.”

“The storms probably aren’t doing you any favors either,” Galearis chipped in. “With that white suit in even the slightest snow, I’d be a little hesitant to approach you.

“Fair enough,” Divvy said, heading over to pick up his coat and move it over to the fire to help dry it off from the snow that had melted and soaked into the various furs it was composed of. “I suppose it makes sense that recently my trading’s gone down. They’ve been that way ever since I got that coat on one of my shipments. Never connected the pieces I suppose.

“So we have our Yeti,” I said, looking over to Twilight, “but what are we going to do to convince the townsfolk that it’s just another trader out here trying to make a living? You know as well as I do that just saying it won’t convince any of them, aside from maybe Rosensarch.”

“Well…” Twilight said, hesitating as Divvy sat down next to the fire beside Galearis. “The only way I could think to convince the Yaks to stop this mad fearmongering is to show them the truth firsthand.”

“And by that you mean…?” I coaxed Twilight, pretty sure of what she was getting at.

“Div,” she called out to the orange stallion who was starting to chat with Galearis about Yakyakistan life. He finished his sentence with a hearty chuckle from the both of them before turning his head towards us.

“What’s up, Alicorn of the South?” he casually asked.

“Is there any way to convince you to come back with us to Yakyakistan to show them that you’re just a trader and there’s nothing to be afraid of?”

Divvy closed his eyes and stretched his neck with a rather audible pop before opening them again and speaking. “Seeing as how the trade not coming in affects me just as much as those yaks in the mountains who, for the longest time, were my biggest customers, I’d think I would need to come with you three to clean my slate of the whole mess. I need trade to survive up here after all.”

“Well great, then we can—”

“But,” Divvy cut her off before she could finish speaking. “I don’t want to be leaving here until tomorrow morning at the very least. You three have been out for a long time. There’s only a few more hours of light left in today. As much as I know my way around these mountains, I don’t want to be out in them after dark. If the animals don’t get to us, the freezing climate will. I’m not risking that much over some inner-house dispute.

“That sounds like a reasonable plan,” Galearis said, standing slowly up and stretching, probably nice and warm from sitting in front of the fire for so long. “We’ll spend tonight packing up and getting rested for a trek back to Yakyakistan in the morning then?”

“Deal,” Divvy said, yawning. “I doubt I’d be able to stay awake for the trek anyways. Not after dragging your collective butts up a mountain in the middle of a blizzard.”

“We’re very grateful for that,” I said standing up and joining the two by the fire, sitting next to the pillow that Galearis was on. Galearis gave a quick glance my way before darting her eyes down at the pillow she was on and sliding over on the pillow slightly, tapping a hoof on the fabric to invite me to sit next to her.

“Just joking around Ms. Dancer,” he said as I maneuvered myself onto the pillow next to Galearis, scrunching up to give her as much room as I could. Before I could completely settle in, though, Galearis pulled me really close and leaned her head into my neck, digging in like a kitten trying to cuddle close to her mother.

Divvy glanced our way, a curious smile surrounding him as I felt Galearis’s warm fur push against mine, her slow breathing rubbing my neck and legs slowly and softly. I could almost feel my entire body tingle as I felt every hair interconnect with my body. I knew I was blushing, but I couldn’t help myself. Going with the flow, I pulled a hoof out from under Galearis and started to run it down her side, petting her like a cat. She gave a little faux purr and a goofy smile to go along with it before opening her eyes to look at my face.

“I am beat though,” Divvy said, getting up and heading over to the pantry. “I’m going to get a start on packing supplies and I’ll crash with one of you girls. Mind sharing a bed with me Twilight? I’d hate to break up the cute couple.”

Were we really so obtuse? At this point I was almost embracing the jokes. Galearis’s body was just so cozy on mine that I really couldn’t argue with Divvy. “Yeah, yeah,” I commented rolling my eyes and flashing a snarky smile. “We promise not to make out if you two don’t.”

“I think Twilight deserves at least a proper dinner before we get into anything of that sort,” Divvy fired right back without missing a beat. “I’d say I’d need to treat her like a Princess, but I doubt that’d do much. She’s probably used to it.” I watched him flash Twilight a wink, and for once it was her turn to blush like a cooked lobster.

“You can certainly sleep in the same bed as me,” Twilight said, obviously choosing her words very carefully. She regained some of her upbeat and confident posture before continuing. “And I’ll certainly help you out with the supplies. I do love a good list!”

“You better start packing before she get’s her writing utensils,” I called back, still petting Galearis who I swear was starting to fall asleep in my arms. “She’ll keep you up all night making the list otherwise.

“Not all night…” Twilight mumbled, a look of slight defeat in her eyes as her mouth drooped into a half-frown. Divvy laughed before heading into the pantry and starting to grab some cans. Twilight disappeared into her room before appearing again with a set of bags, opening them and levitating the book from earlier inside before joining Divvy.

“Psst,” Galearis whispered from underneath me, opening one eye as if faking sleep. “You should totally break the ‘No Makeouts’ rule. We could totally hook up Div and Twi.”

I gave Galearis a curt smile and looked her straight in the eye. “You’re sure this is about Twilight and our new savior and not you and me?”

“What?” she faked surprise. “Nah, I’m just looking out for the Princess. She seems lonely. I thought it’d be a neat idea to help her play the field, you know?”

“Right, because the princess of friendship is having trouble finding a good friend to potentially hook up with.”

“You never know what she has trouble with,” Galearis said, shifting over so that she was lying completely on her back, her head now even further embedded into my personal bubble. “Cadence is the Princess of Love after all. Maybe Twilight has trouble going further than friends.”

“Maybe she does,” I played along, leaning in close so that my mouth was close to Galearis’s ear, “but I bet that a certain other pony is in need of help here. That certain pony should wait until she’s alone with her helper to see where things go.”

“Oh my,” Galearis, whispered back, closing her eyes and giving me the widest smile she could. “I can’t wait until that pony get’s the help she’s being promised here.”

“You sure you two aren’t about to make out over there?” Twilight called back to us jokingly.

“Nope,” I called back, barely moving my head from it’s position and staring Galearis lovingly into her loving pink eyes. “No makeouts here, Ma’am. Just some friendly ear nibbles, that’s all,” I said right before giving Galearis’s left ear a soft bite, just enough pressure for her to feel it.

“Be careful over there,” Divvy joined in, his voice half-joking and half-sincere. “Ear biting leads to kissing leads to all sorts of bedroom activities. It’s a slippery slope. One day you’re making googly eyes, the next you’re mud-wrestling.”

“Man, now I have the sudden urge to mud-wrestle for others amusement!” Galearis mockingly responded, playing along with the joke. “Oh Divvy, won’t you get us girls some mud to play in or maybe some warm water or oil?”

“Don’t tempt me!” Divvy said, finishing the bags as Twilight laughed beside him. “I only get scant amounts of lotion for trade up here, and I will gladly give it to the lot of you.”

“Sorry, Div,” I said, leaning over to look at him carrying the filled bags to the kitchen table beside us. “I don’t do free shows, even if you are providing supplies.”

“Ah, maybe we’ll get to it the next time I get a vodka shipment up here,” he said.

“I’m holding you to that one,” Twilight joked, giving Divvy a light elbow. “I’m just as curious to see two mares going at it all muddied up. You know, for scientific reasons.”

“Sure, sure,” he rolled his eyes. “Scientific reasons. Tell you what, when I get that shipment in, you can practice in the sacred ritual yourself to learn some of the local culture on this soon-to-be national sport.”

The two of them laughed before heading toward their collective bedroom, Twilight striking up an immediate conversation with Divvy. “Speaking of local culture, do you think I could ask about some of the traditions around here?”

The pair disappeared into the room, and I tuned out their voices to nothing more than a mumble in the background. “I tell you what,” I spoke up, still softly rubbing Galearis in front of the fire, warmth surrounding me, “I feel bad for Divvy. He has to spend the night with the walking library sleeping next to him. He’ll be lucky to get any sort of good night’s sleep with Twilight next to him.”

“Too bad for him he didn’t choose the right girl to sleep with,” Galearis responded, eyes still closed and fluttering every time my hoof brushed across her side. “He left me with the better choice.”

“I know,” I said, looking down on Galearis’s golden mane and soft purple fur. “I don’t know how he didn’t snatch up this golden goddess in my arms either. Clearly he’s delusional from lack of sleep.”

Galearis gave the cutest giggle before muttering, “Oh you.” She shifted back onto her stomach before pushing herself into a sitting position and placing a hoof onto mine. “You know,” she said with a small smile, looking directly into my eyes, “for a supposed shutin, you really do know how to woo a girl. Maybe the fact that we almost lost each other out there is starting to get to me, but I really enjoy being with you. Like, more than just a friend…”

“Gale,” I started as she turned her head slightly away, the embarrassment of just admitting her love to me showing in her face. “Before we started this trip, I’d never even thought I’d had feelings for anyone the way I do about you.” I paused as Gale turned her head back to me, a Twinkle of hope in her eyes. “I was kinda spiteful at Twilight for being such a filly about calling us lovers. The only way I knew it was schoolyard taunts and rumors of who loved whom. But when you two kept going on about us being a couple, something clicked in my head. I’ve never dated any stallions before like all the other girls that I lived with in university or in grad school. I hadn’t even considered dating a mare. My mind was just elsewhere.”

“You’re a regular nerd, Moonie,” Galearis interjected in between my pause in talking.

“I know, right,” I glanced down at myself. “I’m that girl who spent her entire college career practically living in the library. I double majored in philology and thaumaturgy in university and even still read about whatever I can get my hooves on today. But then Twilight drug me out here to the Himaneighas with the promise of writing a paper on the social and economic culture that existed in the mountains. I never expected to be searching for a Yeti and falling for one of the locals.”

“Crazy things happen when you leave the house,” Galearis curtly responded. “You save your town and meet this really cute foreign girl, and before you know you, the two of you are in love.” Galearis gave a small wink before continuing. “But of course, that’s just speculation. I’ve yet t experience anything like that myself. All I’ve done is go on a quest to save my town and meet a very beautiful foreigner and her purple princess pal.”

I gave a laugh at the silly name she gave Twilight. “Well there’s really only one way to tell if you’re going to fall in love with this beautiful foreign girl. I say you should go for it.”

“I don’t know if she’s ready and warmed up to me though,” Galearis playfully strung me along, denying my obvious advances. “All we’ve done so far is cuddle by a fireplace.”

“And almost get taken out by an avalanche,” I interjected, staring into Galearis’s pretty pink eyes waiting for her to retaliate.

“Right!” she agreed with me. “How will I know when this foreign love of mine is ready, Moonie? How can I tell?”

“Gale,” I softly responded, leaning in close to her. “She’s ready.”

“Then here goes nothing,” Gale said, lifting a hoof up to grab the side of my face.

She leaned in close and I closed my eyes, bracing myself for her. I felt her hot breath on my lips and before my mind could connect the fact that this was really happening, I felt her soft lips brush against mine. They locked and I felt the entire world melt away. I felt Gale’s other hoof pull me close as our bodies meshed together, her mouth playfully nibbling at my lips.

I sat in ecstasy, not knowing what to do. Every book I had ever read on the techniques could not have prepared my for the euphoria I was feeling. I put my hooves around her and hugged her as tight as she seemed to be gripping onto me. I felt her tongue play around in my mouth and I responded with my own pokes and prods.

Somehow the moment became some sort of half-competition, with her mouth nibbling mine and her tongue playing against mine for a few moments followed by my response of nibbling tongue-play. I ran a hoof through her mane, hugging her tighter and tighter, and I could feel her hooves stroking the entirety of my body, stopping around my sweater to playfully invade the space inbetween.

All the while the fire blazed behind us, it’s warmth almost paling in comparison to the heat that I was feeling being liplocked with Galearis. The moment turned into hours and I swear that I didn’t want it to ever end. Any hesitation that I felt towards Gale before just seemed silly. This pony I was with was the perfect mare. I felt a few final nibbles as she seemed to pull away to my dismay. She bit onto my lip gently and pulled away, letting my lip slip out from hers.

We shared a moment of beautiful silence as we stared into each other’s eyes. Still we sat pulled close by the interlocking of each other’s hooves.Gale still rubbed down my side as I brushed her mane softly with mine. “The foreign girl certainly was ready for that,” Galearis said with a smile.

“Oh my god Gale,” I said, trailing off slightly. “I’ve never felt that good in my life.”

Gale simply smiled back at me. “I’m glad we share that same sentiment, Moondancer. But that doesn’t have to be the end of any festivities of tonight.” I felt her hoof rub a little lower than I would normally let somepony touch me, but I knew immediately the implications.

I giggled a little, giddy from the feelings that were coursing through my body. My heart was beating a million times a minute and I was starting to shiver at the thoughts of what the rest of the night held. Sleep was basically the last thought in my head at this point.

“Let’s be very quiet so we don’t disturb the others,” Galearis whispered in my ear, giving my flank a big squeeze. I gave a quick sound of surprise before holding my tongue seeing what she just did there. “Why don’t we take this night into the bedroom and finish it there?”

I merely nodded my head, completely at a loss for words, my breath completely taken away at this sudden turn of events. I had never expected to go so far in one night so soon after meeting, but somehow I knew that I wanted nothing more than to do just that. I couldn’t wait to see what was in store, everything completely new to me outside of merely reading about common practices like this in books. Every book I had red on the subject involved a stallion and mare though.

Gale let go of me and stood up, reaching out a hoof to help me up. She grabbed it and pulled my up to a standing position, eying the bedroom we were to share for an entire night. “But is the foreign girl ready for the rest of the night?”

I tried to respond, but I couldn’t let out any more than a mere squeak as she started to trot towards the doorway. “Let’s get some ‘shuteye,’ my little moon.” My heart fluttered at the sentiment and I walked towards the room in a sort of trance. “We can make this a night to never forget.” I swallowed hard. I was completely head over hooves for Galearis at this point, and I knew she was falling for me right back. I had never envisioned doing this when I set out on this trip but I knew now it was the only thing my mind could manage to process.

I was in love.

Alternate Path

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“Moon,” a whisper slipped in my ear. I opened my eyes to a darkened room, only scant amounts of light filtering through the cloth doorway. “Moon, I want to get up,” the voice said. My senses slowly came to me when I realized that the voice was Galearis’s and it was coming from the body I was practically strangling on the bed next to me. My tired mind took a second to process why Galearis was talking to me when I actually realized what she was saying.

“Oh,” I said in a half daze, letting go of Gale’s soft fur and rolling over onto my back. “Sorry about that,” I groggily apologized, rubbing my eyes, still tired from last night’s events. I could’ve sworn that we went on for hours and hours in bed. I couldn’t even remember going to sleep. It was just hours of pure ecstasy.

Gale rolled over, free from my death grip now, and gave me a light kiss on the cheek. “It’s ok, Moonie,” she said before rolling out of bed in the darkness of the room. “I just really needed to get up and take care of some business. Now if only I could find my way around.”

“Here, hold up a sec, Gale,” I called out, closing my sleepy eyes and willing a little bit of magic to my horn. Opening my eyes, I saw the soft chalky-white glow scatter off the walls, blurry as it was to my naked eyes.

“Thanks, Moondancer,” Galearis said, making her way to the curtained door. “I’ll be right back, so don’t go anywhere.”

“Hurry back,” I said, snuggling further under the warm covers. “I’m getting cold already without your warmth beside me.”

I heard her giggle before her blurry outline disappeared out the doorway, leaving me alone in the stone room. Letting my magic disperse, the room went dark once again, the fire from last night certainly fizzled out by now. A sudden yawn overcame me as I stretched my legs one way or the other to get them out of their sleepy state. One groan later and I had rolled over on my side again, rubbing the tiredness out of my eyes with one hoof as I used the other to feel around the side table for my glasses.

Bumping into them, I engulfed them with magic from my horn, the slight glow illuminating them enough for me to see what I was doing. Letting them slide onto my face, I pushed myself into a pseudo-sitting position and lit the room once again with my white magical aura. Looking around, I saw that a candle sat on the end-table next to Galearis’s side of the bed.

Levitating the wax candle and it’s holder over in front of me, I concentrated for a second, careful to not let my sleepy mind get the better of me. I bit my tongue and watched as a spark shot from my horn, lighting the room brightly for a split second and landing on the already-used wick on top of the candle. For a second, the light in the room was dominated by my ghostly white but before too long, the warm yellow glow of the candle filled the room, flickering here and there, the slight draft of the doorway threatening to put it out.

Sitting for a second more, I shot my magic around the candle, creating a sort of wind barrier so the flame wouldn’t be extinguished. The flame flickered a few times as I adjusted the tolerance of the faux screen that I had conjured around the wax lightsource, letting in more and more air until a balance was reached. Oxygen reached the candle, and the flame remained quietly burning.

I smiled at my handiwork with the candle. Like the snow-clearing spell that I had produced outside Galearis’s house, this was a handcrafted spell made specifically for situations that I found myself in, being a bit of a night owl when it came to many of my studies. A bit of arcane shielding from magics used in Alchemy to let certain substances through and keeping others out and a bit of modern shielding used in many upscale homes around canterlot to be used more as a wind barrier were mashed together to form what I dubbed the “Flame Protection” spell.

“Heya, Moon,” I heard Galearis whisper as she pulled back the curtain covering the doorway to show herself. “The mountainside is quite beautiful up here when it’s not the middle of a blizzard.”

“Is that so?” I said, setting the candle I had been messing with back down on the. “What makes you say that, Gale?”

“Well for one, you’re not getting pummeled by snow,” Galearis giggled, giving me a wink.

“Oof, you got me there,” I cheekily responded before giving another stretch. “I’d say anything is more beautiful than a face-full of freezing water.”

“But it’s the perfect time of the day, Moondancer,” Galearis said, walking over and grabbing my arm, giving it a soft tug. “It’s twilight, and the Northern Celestial Lights are out!” I opened my mouth just a smidge before Galearis immediately shut down my argument. “No I’m not talking about the pony sleeping next door,” she harshly whispered, “or the other princess in Canterlot. Just come on, Moonie. It’s a really dazzling sight.”

“Alright, alright,” I quelled Galearis, hopping out of bed and on my hooves before heading to the foot of the bed. “Let me grab my sweater and I’ll come look.”

Galearis practically squeaked as she bounced ever so slightly in place waiting for me to get my sweater on. “You know,” I started, opening up the heavy wooden chest and grabbing my neatly-folded sweater from within, “you seem more excited for me to put this on than you did when I took it off last night.”

“Oh shush,” Galearis said, rolling her eyes. “I just want to show you the Northern Lights. They’re almost as pretty as you are with your sweater.”

“Well I don’t see the point in looking at them if you’re going to downplay them like that,” I joked, finally slipping through my sweater, adjusting my glasses after realizing I once again forgot to take them off before putting that old turtleneck on.

“Are you always this hard to woo?” Galearis said, a small smirk on her face. “I think I may have signed up for something I’m not ready for.”

“Alright, I’m going,” I faked exasperation, giggling slightly at the end of it. “No need to patronize nerdy old me.” We stepped outside the bedroom, the place nearly pitch black without the fire roaring as it had been the previous night. I tried to walk as quietly as I could, not wanting to wake up Twilight or Divvy.

“Well, nerdy Miss Moon,” Gale whispered in my ear as she slowly pushed open the heavy wooden front door of this makeshift house, the whipping wind pushing back and making quite a drone. We stepped outside and let the wind shut the door behind us, the crisp chilled air immediately seeping into my skin. “Have you ever seen the mountains at night?” I shook my head as she guided me towards the cave’s entrance, just left of where the door was positioned.

As soon as I rounded the corner, the awesome beauty of the pre-dawn twilight hit my eyes. The cave we were at was high within the peak of one of the taller mountains around, and the drop-off outside the entrance was dizzying. Easily hundreds of feet down was sheer rocks and snowbanks going for miles and miles around, the first sign of trees just appearing within what limited vision I had of the darkened wilderness.

But amazingly, the beautiful part was not down in the valleys, but up in the skies themselves, broken only by clouds and gusts of snow blowing past. “By Starswirl’s beard,” I muttered, taking it all in from this small indentation in the mountainside. “The Celestial Lights.” I was utterly speechless, and for a second I even forgot I was in a deserted frozen land.

“One of the reasons I chose to live up in the Himaneighas,” Gale softly said, walking up next to me and staring skyward as I was. “On a clear night like tonight, you can see the lights go on for miles and miles.” We both stood and watched as they shimmered and twisted around, the very wind seeming to paint obscure pictures before our very eyes. “Legends say that they’re the doing of all the spirits of the animals and ponies alike, dancing and making merry even in the afterlife.”

“I’d read about them and thought they would be a neat topic to research,” I responded. “Canterlot’s Scientists believe that they’re the resulting magical energy left over when the two royal sisters trade the sun and the moon. They said the year of Luna’s return, the Northern lights were bigger than they had been in hundreds and hundreds of years.”

I paused for a second to glance at Galearis who was still gazing towards the heavens. “But this, Gale,” I said, taking a second to think of what I wanted to say in such a time. “You can’t read this in a book. You can’t feel this icy wind blowing through your mane and see these lights in the sky and feel this… this…” I trailed off, looking down and locking eyes with Galearis. “Feel this way about someone.”

“Not unless the romantic fiction writer is really good at their job,” Galearis responded with a curt smile as I blushed, realizing she knew what I meant. “Of course, I don’t think I’ve read any stories about mountain romance or any that even come close to you and me, Moonie.”

My blush deepened as I took a slight step towards Galearis. I took another and felt her fur brushing against my own. Leaning over, I let Gale be my support, burying my head into her neck and just letting the cold air whisper amongst us as we stood watching the sky together. We stood there for a long time, watching the lights shimmer and change until finally, the sun came to wipe the sky clear, blue replacing the deep shades of red, yellow and green.

“We should probably head inside and get the others soon,” Galearis said as I lifted myself off her. “We’ve got to trek back to Yakyakistan and get everything sorted out with my small town.” Her smile faded into a distant frown as she glanced back inside.

“What are you going to do when all of this is over?” I asked Gale as she turned towards the door. “I’m going to stay here in the mountains and keep on doing what I do. I love living up here, and I don’t really have anywhere else to go.”

“Well,” I said, kicking some snow from in front of me. “Are you interested in maybe having a research partner? I’m kinda in a weird spot in Canterlot. I help run the Library up there, but I practically live there. It’s a pretty isolated life.”

“If you think you’re up for living in the frozen north,” Galearis said with a smile, “I’ve always got room at my small cottage. Having a unicorn helping me would certainly be great.

“I’ll let the Library know I’m doing some field research for them,” I said, brightened up at the offer. “Between you and me, I think they’ve been trying to find reasons to get me out of the place for a while. I bet they contacted Twilight behind my back for this trip.”

“Seems like it worked out for the best this time,” Gale said, putting a hoof on the heavy wooden door and pulling with all her might against the wind. I stood back, letting magic flow through my horn and envelope the heavy wood. Pulling magically as hard as my mind could manage in it’s half-drowsy state, the alert feeling from the cold already starting to fade we managed to tug the wooden door open.

We both stepped inside, shivering from the sudden realization of just how cold we were, before seeing Divvy standing in front of the fire, poking around at the ashes delicately with a hoof, probably looking for any stray coals from the blaze last night. Letting the door swing shut behind us, Divvy shook his hoof of the ashes and turned to us with a smile. “Glad to see you two are awake. Twilight and I are just doing some last minute checks before we head out.”

“So how are we getting back to Yakyakistan,” Galearis asked, going over to our packed bags and rummaging around until she found her coat. “The quick route we took to get here must be buried under dozens of feet of snow because of that avalanche. There’s no way we’re headed back that way.”

“You’re right about that. With that path gone it could take days, and maybe even weeks to make a trip to Yakyakistan. With that blizzard, I wouldn’t be surprised if the only other path to that remote town was also hit. If that’s the case, we’d need some digging equipment or a team of unicorns to get the path dug out again, both of which would take days to get out here to begin with.”

“That certainly would put a damper on this trip,” I said, rubbing a hoof along my chin. “Twilight and I are already over the few days we thought it would take to get this done. We definitely didn’t bring enough supplies for a week or more up in these mountains. It’s not like the Yakyakistans are keen to even let us back in to begin with. We didn’t exactly leave the place in the best of moods.”

“That’s where I come in,” Twilight said, suddenly appearing from within the bedroom she and Divvy had slept in, holding dozens of books and scrolls in her magical aura behind herself. Trotting over to the stone table and laying down the books in a pile alongside one of the scrolls she unfurled before us. “Forget weeks,” she said as I walked over to see the scroll was a detailed map of the various mountain passes. “I can do minutes,” she boldly stated with a smile on her face before wavering a second and adding “I believe.”

“And how are we going to travel multiple kilometers in a minute, much less multiple kilometers of Himaneighan mountain passes?” Divvy skeptically said, joining the rest of us at the table.

I looked at Galearis and winked at her saying, “Magic, Divvy. I imagine Twilight’s going to be casting her long-distance teleportation spell again.”

“Precisely,” Twilight said, hunching over the map and looking for something specific. “I’ve been studying these maps all night, and I believe I can get us to Yakyakistan from here. Moreso, I’ll be able to get us into that courtyard we arrived in, Moondancer.”

“I was curious why you were reading those things half the night,” Divvy mumbled, sitting in one of the chairs. “But isn’t magic like that nearly impossible to perform? That seems like a lot of magical energy.”

“You’re talking to an Alicorn, Div,” Twilight chuckled. “I’ve taken on things much worse than teleporting four travelers and baggage a few kilometers.”

“She did teleport us to the town a few days ago all the way from Ponyville,” I said, reassuring Divvy that he was in good hooves. “But in the middle of the courtyard?” I turned to Twilight a doing my best to convey a sense of worried skepticism. “When we came here, we were off from the town by a good distance. What makes you think you can suddenly teleport us to exactly the town’s courtyard. I don’t want to be off again and risk another fusing incident.”

“What’s a ‘fusing incident?’” Divvy asked from his spot at the other side of the table.

“Trust me when I say you don’t want to know,” Twilight said to him with a shudder. “I know I can be this exact because we’re only traveling a couple of kilometers, not a couple hundred. Plus I realized my mistake last time I cast the spell. I didn’t account for the extra distance caused by the curvature of the earth I won’t have to worry about that this time because I’ve redone my calculations.”

“If you say so, Twilight.” I said with a sigh. “I’ll trust you, but I swear if I break a rib from falling a few stories onto hard concrete, you have to visit me at the hospital every day during my recovery.”

“Deal,” Twilight said with a wink. “So does that mean you volunteer to be the first teleportee?”

“I suppose that I might as well get it over with,” I said, stepping away from the table and headed towards our room, intent on grabbing my bags and my coat and many scarves. “I’ve got a way to contact you to make sure it worked anyways.”

Throwing my coat over my body, I grabbed my bags and set them on my haunches, walking back to the main room. Pulling up the cover of one of the bags, I reached in with my magic and produced two simple stones that I had cast a spell on years ago to magically link them together. “These are special stones,” I explained to the three ponies in front of me. “What I do to one happens to the other, for the most part.”

I picked up one and sent a pulse of magic through it, vibrating it slightly in the air. No sooner had I done that when the one still sitting on the table vibrated with a loud buzz, the stone resonating with the stone tabletop. “One buzz means I made it no worries. Two means I’m in trouble, but alive. I hope you know what silence means.”

Twilight nodded her head solemnly. “I’ll make sure you get there safely, Moonie.”

“As will I,” Galearis said, stepping boldly beside me and putting her hoof up against mine in reassurement. “You can send multiple ponies at once, can’t you? I’d like to be there just in case something happens.” She glanced over and caught my gaze with her eyes. “It’ll be like a buddy system. She’ll watch out for me and I’ll watch out for her when we get there.”

“Smart thinking, Gale,” Divvy said, stepping up next to Twilight, putting on the same white coat and goggles that had started this whole feud to begin with. “You never know what these mountains are going to throw at you. I’ll stay behind then and look out for the Princess here.” He threw a hoof around Twilight and gave a quick half-joking squeeze.

“It shouldn’t be much harder to extend the teleportation zone to two ponies. Just a matter of calculating in a bit more error,” Twilight mumbled, looking at the map once more.

“I’m telling you Twilight, no multiple stories now” I said again as the alicorn chuckled.

“I’ll catch you and fly us to safety, Moonie,” Galearis said, giving me a hug herself, using her wing instead of a hoof like Divvy had. “You’re not breaking a leg or a rib on my watch.”

“Can you even fly in that coat?” I said, looking back at the heavy clothing draped over her back. “How do you get your wings out?”

“It’s magic,” Galearis joked, waving a hoof in front of her in a faux-showy style as if she was a stage performer. Reaching back she pulled up the fur to show a small slit near where her wings would normally be. “Also known as ‘zippers,’” she finished with a sly wink in my direction. She reached back and undid one of the zippers on the jacket and unfurled her purple wing from it. “Bit of a tight fit, but they still function like pegasi wings.”

I rolled my eyes at her joke before looking over at Twilight. “I suppose if the mage herself is ready to go, then so am I,” I said, pushing up my glasses and shuffling my back to make sure my bags were snugly secure. I was certain that this teleportation was going to be rougher than the average one.

“Alright,” Twilight said, sliding her maps and books into her bags and procuring a few sheets of scrap parchment that had an amazing anomaly of calculations and notes sprawled over its surface in low-quality ink. “I did my calculations from precisely outside the front door of this place. I wanted to be in a place where I wouldn’t accidentally damage anything important. This spell is going to take a lot of magical energy to perform.”

“Thanks for the consideration” Divvy said, picking up his own bags and coat, “But I’m really not worried about too much of this stuff. “Perks of being a trader up here is that you get whatever neither party wants. A lot of stuff around here is rejected by the others for whatever reason.”

“Well, with the new ‘Yeti’ scare, I’m not surprised why,” I commented, putting on my many scarves and heavy winter coat that I had borrowed from Galearis’s place. “Shall we get on with this adventure?”

“Let’s,” Galearis said, pushing the heavy wooden door open to let the pulsing wind in. “As much fun as this adventure’s been with you two,” she said, looking back at me and Twilight. “I’d like to get home soon and tend to my plants that are probably worried sick about me.”

“I’d like to get out of the mountains soon,” Twilight said, heading out the door with me, Galearis, and Divvy. “I’d really like to see my friends and get back to my student-in-training. I think Starlight can get a little restless if I don’t have something for her to do.”

“So,” I commented as we let the door shut us out, the wind whipping by us and the skies starting to brim with light now that the sun was out and not impeded by a blizzard. “Gale, are you ready to go?”

She merely nodded as she took my hoof in hers and looked to Twilight as if to give us the ok. Her demeanor was very different from the gung-ho one she had shown inside Divvy’s house. I could see the fear in her eyes. She wasn’t as ready as she had led us to believe. I could even feel her hoof shaking slightly as it gripped mine, although if it was from fear or cold I couldn’t tell.

“Give me a bit to charge up the magic and set the coordinates of everything,” Twilight said, closing her eyes and breathing slowly. Her horn started to glow and spark as she prepared the long distance teleportation. It was at that moment I realized that Galearis had probably never been teleported before, and that’s why she was scared.

“Gale, look at me,” I said softly, gripping her hoof with my own. “Teleportation is one of the safest ways to travel. It’s feels just like diving underwater for a brief bit. You’ll feel a lot of pressure because we’re being launched through another dimension, but the best thing you can do is stay calm and let the teleportation occur. So just hold my hoof tightly and don’t let go. We’ll be absolutely fine inside Yakyakistan before you can say ‘See you later gator.’ Ok Gale.”

I paused and looked into Galearis’s eyes. The fear was still there, but I could tell she trusted in my words. She blinked a few times, her eyes never wavering from my own. A few seconds passed as I heard more spurts and sparks erupt from beside us, Twilight’s magic growing more and more. “Ok, Moondancer,” she said, lowering her hoof and instead pulling me into a hug. “I trust you.”

I gave her a few pats on the back as she continued to stay in the embrace while turning to Twilight. “Twilight, how much longer until we’re off?”

“Just, ung...” she grunted, stepping back shooting out a bolt of lightning that hit the wall next to us. “There,” she said, eyes still closed. “That’s as far as I dare build. Here we go.”

She opened her eyes up to reveal glowing purple pupils bursting with magic. It was just as terrifying to behold as the first time she sent me to the Mountains. A thick beam of pure magic slowly sprouted from her horn, as if she had concentrated her magic into some form of paste. “Hold tight, Gale,” I said to the pegasus still gripping me in an embrace, although it had escalated from a friendly hug to a death squeeze. “We’re about to leap.”

The magic beam finally hit what seemed to be an invisible wall, spreading out like a shattered egg until there was a solid glowing magical dome around us. Twilight disappeared behind the wall of magic, a solid purple enveloping us. The ground seemed to fall away as I got the feeling of floating, a soft hum from the ball beginning to grow. Soon we were surrounded by purple and I could feel every hair on my body stand on end, magical energy coursing through my fur.

I could also feel Gale’s grip tighten even more than it already was, her heartbeat pounding into my chest, starting to race. “Keep your eyes closed,” I said, stroking her mane as the sound built up around us. “We’ll be there before you know it.” A vibration surrounded us as bolts of magic struck inward at us, sending very small shocks through me. I heard Galearis yelp as a few hit her. The humming grew and the shocks increased. The walls seemed to be vibrating and spinning and spinning and vibrating faster and faster until suddenly the purple energy exploded inward towards us.

And then came the void. Galearis sat gripping me, all sound seeming to have gone, all light having left. I could feel Galearis’s heart pounding and her arms gripping my body. I kept holding her hoof and petting her mane, trying my hardest to keep her calm in such a barren existence. Before the magic haze returned, I saw the ghost of a pony in the blackness. It looked just like a miniature version of Galearis, only with an orange mane instead of a golden yellow one.

“You’ll never amount to anything with an attitude like that,” a harsh voice called out to the filly. “Goofing off all day with your friends. You need to buckle down and study.” I realized that it was my mother’s voice. That was what she had told me when I was younger. I didn’t know why this filly Galearis was being told that. My mother’s form appeared over the filly, shouting at it now. “You’re a worthless child! Failing your tests and disappointing your parents. Is this how you want our legacy to go? Well, tell me!”

“No mother,” I said in unison with the smaller filly.

“Then straighten up!” the ghost of my mother shouted, pulling out a ruler and raising it high above her head as the filly screamed and I flinched not wanting to see the punishment but not wanting to look away.

Before anything could come of it, the ghosts burst into purple smoke before the stuff surrounded me and Gale, finally lighting up everything again. With a sudden pop, the world burst into view, the familiar square of Yakyakistan greeting us. A clean hold in the snow below us was carved out as we both fell mere centimeters to hit the impacted water

“Gale, we made it,” I said, giving the pony a shake, a smile creeping along my face as I realized that Twilight had successfully gotten us to the middle of the square safe and sound. I looked down to see gale looking back up, letting go of me ever so slowly with a shocked expression on her face. She looked paler than she should’ve been even considering the climate. I realized something was up. “Gale what’s wrong?”

“Moonie, I saw…” She trailed off, blinking a few times before looking back at me “Moon, I saw my dead sister in that void. She was getting yelled at by this demon pony and she was about to get hit when we…”

“Gale, hey,” I said, pulling her chin up to look her in the eyes. “Those were memories, and tainted ones at that. It’s called the Dizzy Dream Effect, named after it’s founders, Dizzy Style and Dream Catcher. When two ponies go through a teleportation together, their thoughts and memories can get mixed into each other. It’s almost telepathy, but it’s more chaotic than that. That wasn’t the ghost of your sister, it was your memory of her.

“Oh…” she said, taking in a deep breath and looking at the ground, letting it out, the steam being whisked away by the wind. I picked up the stone from my bag and gave it a buzz to let Twilight know that we made it before looking around at the city, as deserted as it had been when we first came.

“And that demon was my mother,” I said with a sly smile.

“I’m sorry Moondancer, I didn’t mean—”

“Moon, it’s ok,” I said, giving her a quick hug and putting the hood up on my jacket. “I’m not exactly a fan of her either. She wasn’t the nicest of Moms.

“Oh…” Galearis embarrassedly muttered, looking once again at the snow and shuffling her hoof before looking back up at me “Sorry…”

“Don’t be,” I said as another pop resounded beside us, Twilight and Divvy appearing right next to us. “We’ll timed,” I commented. Let’s roll.”

“HALT!” A booming voice called out from behind us. “YOU ARE TRESPASSERS TO YAKS.”

“Oh geeze,” Twilight said as we all sighed. “Not this song and dance again.”

Quid Pro Quo

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“It is tiny princess pony again,” one of the two guards said as we turned around to reveal ourselves to them. “How you get past gate?”

“I can teleport magically,” Twilight unenthusiastically responded to the hulking guard. “I wanted to visit with Elder Rosensarch and Prince Rutherford as soon as I can, because I believe we’ve found our Yeti.”

“Ponies found Yeti?” The guard on the left asked in surprised, raising his eyebrows enough that we could see his pupils. “Did ponies kill Yeti?” He seemed a bit too excited asking the question.

“No, we didn’t kill the Yeti,” Twilight said, much to the dismay of the yak in front of us, “because there is no Yeti. There never was one. It‘s just a storybook monster that got out of hoof up here. This over here is your so-called ‘Yeti,’” she finished, motioning to Divvy who had his fur suit and goggles and mask snugly fit across his face.

“Greetings,” he managed to say through the mask, muffled by the fabric and restraint his jaw was under.

“This not Yeti,” the other guard grunted, looking closely at Divvy’s getup. “Creature too small to be Yeti,”

“Exactly,” Twilight interjected, the exasperation clear on her wind-smitten face. “This isn’t a Yeti. This is Divvy, a friend and trader I found up here. I need to get him to see Elder Rosensarch.”

“Halvard,” Galearis stepped in front of Twilight, addressing him by name. “These are my guests. You’ll remember we left on a quest for the Elders. We’ve returned now with answers, so please step aside and let me escort these ponies to see Elder Rosensarch and the Prince.

“Ponies still not welcome in Yakyakistan,” Halvard threatened before taking a step back. Galearis stood firm and gave him an evil eye until he took another few steps back. “Ponies are free to go,” he said after a few seconds of this silent standoff. “Halvard and Brosnan need to return to guard post. Halvard is watching ponies.”

“And I’ll keep an eye on you, Halvard,” Galearis responded with a toxic sting to her words. It was obvious how fed up she was with the Yak guards. We stood there for a few seconds as the guards sauntered back towards the main gate and Galearis turned back to us. “Sometimes those guards can be so hostile towards ponies for no reason. Apparently they haven’t even forgiven me and my team for crashing here so many years ago.”

“Thank you for dealing with them, Gale,” I said, pulling my hood tightly around my head, the chill of the mountain air really starting to get to me. “Now let’s get to Rosensarch.”

“Right,” she said, nodding and turning around to face the temple that we had seen coming into the town to begin with “back to the old job I suppose. Come on, we’ve got no time to waste.” With that, she began, heading towards the steps to the monastery. Reaching the massive snow-covered steps, she climbed them triumphantly, the three of us following closely behind.

It was amazing that only a few days ago we had been on these same steps offering our services to the town. Now we came back, veritable veterans, nearly getting crushed to death by an avalanche and having found a creature of legend, even if that creature really turned out to just be a stallion.

The snow on the path up to the door was untouched, meaning that at least since the night prior, no one had been directly outside the monastery. I had to assume that the Yaks were still inside, making sure to keep safe from the blizzard. I personally couldn’t blame them. If I had access to a warm place amidst this veritable frozen mountain, then I’d take it all the chances I could get to be inside.

We approached the magnificent doors to the place when Galearis stopped in her tracks, just outside the place. She seemed to be frozen for a second staring straight at the place for a few seconds before Twilight spoke up. “Galearis, what’s wrong?” she asked as all four of us stood just outside the place of meditation. I was sure Galearis wanted to go in just as much as the rest of us, but something was wrong. She wasn’t standing motionless outside without reason.

“The meditation,” Galearis responded, voice barely audible over the whipping wind around us. I looked over to see her eyes were fixed to the door and her face was a blank expression lost deep in thought.

“What meditation?” I asked Galearis as she blankly stared behind me. When she heard my voice, she glanced over to look me in the eyes. “Gale, what’s got you so frozen up?”

“The meditation songs, Moon,” she softly said to me. I perked up my ears, but only the sound of wind met them. I couldn’t hear any of the songs she was talking about.

“Gale what are you talking about?” I asked her, putting a hoof on her shoulder to look closer in her eyes. She seemed distant and worried, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why. “I don’t hear anything.”

“That’s the thing,” she suddenly said, turning slightly to face the others. “In the five years I’ve lived up here, I’ve never been at this temple where there wasn’t at least one yak meditating. I’ve never heard it this quiet before.”

“Well, all the more reason to get inside,” Divvy said, nodding his head towards the door. “We’re not going to figure out what’s going on slowly freezing out here.”

“Right,” Galearis said, turning back towards the doors to the temple. “Welcome to Yakyakistan’s Busdarna Temple, Divvy.”

Galearis pushed the door ajar just enough to let us in. Funneling us through to the main room, this time inside the temple, however, no candles were lit for warmth and none of the yaks I had seen meditating were to be found. Galearis shoved the door closed behind us once we were all inside. We stood for a second in the eerie chilly silence, looking around for any sign that someone was around.

“Hello?” Twilight called out to the empty temple, her voice softly reverberating around the spacious room. No response came from any of the walls. She shouted again and again we were met with only her reverberations.

“I’ve never seen the place so empty before,” Galearis mumbled, going over to a candle and grabbing one of the matches next to it, striking it on the wood and keeping the candle lit. Before she could pick it up in her teeth, I levitated it off the ledge it was resting on and over to us.

“Where could they all have gone?” I asked Galearis, walking over to join her next to the candle as Divvy took off his goggles and Twilight pulled up another map, presumable of Yakyakistan itself.

“I don’t know,” Galearis said, shuffling from side to side, looking around, the silence and chill of the place starting to get to her. “I need to go visit Elder Rosensarch. I fear something bad has happened in the few days we’ve been gone.”

“Right there with you,” Twilight said, stepping over to the underground entrance that we had taken our first day here. “We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms a few days ago. I wouldn’t be surprised if this absence of yaks has to do with that political tension I was seeing. Elder Rosensarch is most likely dealing with this unease as we speak.”

I glanced at Divvy who put out a hoof in front of him, bowing his head slightly to silently tell me to lead on and that he’d follow. I trotted over to join Galearis and Twilight at the entrance of the long and cavernous path that eventually led to Elder Rosensarch’s chambers. Twilight picked up one of the unlit candles from the room and put the wick against a lit torch, transferring the flame for our trek into the isolated tunnel.

Twilight looked back to make sure we were behind her before descending the steep stone stairs, holding out the candle in front of her. Galearis waved us through before taking up the rear of our short line. “Try to stay relatively quiet as we approach the elders’ chambers,” Galearis said, her voice echoing off the walls and reverberating down the tunnel as if to prove her reasoning. “I don’t want to get roped into anything we’re not ready to deal with.”

“Got it,” Twilight’s voice echoed off the walls, the frozen stone doing little to dampen the reverberations. Divvy turned to Galearis and me and put a hoof to his head, giving a quick salute before turning back towards Twilight. I gave a soft nod to Gale to let her know I understood just as well as the others.

The cavern was just as cold as it had been inside the vacant monastery. As we seemed to descend further and further into the earth, I could feel the chill rising and rising, every breath I took leaving behind a cloud of mist that soon disappeared. I wrapped my scarf tightly around my neck to no avail. The chill was seeping into my skin, and no amount of clothing seemed to be stopping it.

The only relief was the slight patches of warmth that were brought on by the torches that became further and further apart. Soon enough the tunnel started to flatten out and narrow as it had before. The torches seemed to stop almost entirely after a while, burn marks still appearing on the walls, as if someone had taken all the torches away for some reason.

Twilight seemed to take note of this as she would occasionally levitate the candle up to these marks to note that a torch holder was sitting empty. After what seemed like an eternity of cold echoed walking, the path widened again, opening eventually into the cave that we had seen the first time we visited the area. I couldn’t help but shake the tense feeling in the air.

When we had first come here, we had chatted the entire way, and nothing but warm conversation was to be had, but now there was almost a sinister feeling, with the silence and the chill of the place really starting to get to me. We took a few steps when suddenly, the wind whipped up around us, and the candle Twilight had been holding blew out.

For a few seconds, the world was dark, and the only sound was that of the wind moaning in the caverns above us. All four of us were standing motionless, each of us afraid to speak the first word. A few, terrifying seconds of this unnatural darkness passed and the near-silent soundscape oozed around us when the faint hum of magic broke the tension in front of us, a purple glow appearing with it. Twilight was casting a light spell to let us see what was going on.

Silently, she turned to Galearis and glanced forward, instructing her to lead from here on out. Galearis nodded and walked past us, leaving me to hold up the rear now. The two led on simultaneously, Twilight providing the light and Galearis providing the direction. We were getting very close to the Elders’ Chambers now.

Paranoia was starting to get to me though at the back of the dark line. I found myself sneaking glance after glance behind us, looking for something that didn’t belong. The cavern wasn’t inhabited, but I kept feeling like we were being watched. Every so often I would catch a glimpse of something out of the corner of my eye and whip my head around to find what had moved. Everytime, I was only met with rock walls or stalagmites and stalactites. I told myself the cold was messing with my vision, but I never seemed to truly convince myself.

Before I could find the demons in the caves, our party came to a halt, the same wooden door that I had seen from our first day here conspicuously positioned in the middle of the cave wall blocking our path forward. Gale held up a hoof as she gingerly put an ear up to the wooden door. From the back I couldn’t hear anything but the slight white noise produced by the currents in the cave.

Galearis stood there for quite a long time before lifting her ear off the wood and going for the handle. She held out a hoof once more to tell the rest of us to stay put as she slowly cracked the door open just enough to see inside. Light poured from the crack and spilled over the cave floor, lighting up the dull grey rock and providing some warmth to the dark dreary cave. But as soon as the light was starting to feel welcoming, Galearis shut the door again and turned to us.

She took in a deep breath and sighed slightly, whispering to us, “The place is empty. Rosensarch doesn’t seem to be in his chambers.”

“What does that mean?” Divvy asked, keeping his voice as quiet as he could while still letting us hear what he said. “Where else would he go?”

“The only place I can think of if he’s not in the monastery is the Grand Stupa of Reconciliation,” Galearis responded.

“What’s a stupa?” asked Divvy.

“And more importantly, where is it?” Twilight added in a hushed and slightly scared tone.

“A stupa,” Galearis started, “Is a holy shrine to the Budan religion usually picturing their deity Busdarna during one of the significant stages of her life. The Grand Stupa of Reconciliation, which is actually part of this underground structure, is a stupa built by the Elders themselves to represent Busdarna’s reconciliation with all the bad in the world. It’s a place of forgiveness and a place to meditate on reconciliation essentially.”

“So this stupa is located in this complex?” Twilight asked. I could see the need in her eyes to learn more about the place and its history, but I could tell she was trying to stay on the task at hoof.

“Yes,” Galearis responded, trotting over to the spiral staircase that led out of the room. “The stupa is built into this place just above the living areas for the Elders. The visit it in times of need of spiritual guidance, or for any sort of debate. They’ve got to be there, trying to solve this yeti scare. Hopefully it’s being done peacefully. Rosensarch takes the stupa seriously, but I know how Rutherford can get.”

“Then we have no time to waste,” I said, walking up next to Galearis and looking up the stairs to see a wooden door separating the room from the rest of the complex. “Let’s get there and get this all sorted.”

Galearis nodded and looked back to see Twilight and Divvy close behind. Nobody said a word as we quickly ascended the rather hazardous staircase that ran counterclockwise around the circular room. Getting to the final steps, we found ourselves in another cave-like hallway with plain wooden doors lined up on either side every so often. Lanterns were lit along the hallway itself and at the end another staircase led upward. The doors beside us all read off different names, but I didn’t have time to read them as we half-galloped down the hall towards the stone steps. I assumed they read off the names of the elders that lived here.

Reaching the stairs, our little group bounded up the stone steps as the sound of voices started to echo throughout the caves. They sounded like a babble of yaks all intermixing with each other. They didn’t sound happy either. As we reached the top, we were met with a circular room with three doors, one across from us and two opposite each other beside us. The door opposite us was very cold and I could only assume this was the normal entrance to the Elder’s living quarters.

The sound of crowded voices shouting was coming from the heavy door to our left. “Oh no…” Galearis muttered, turning to us a deep frown imposed on her face.

“I’m going to take a wild guess and say that’s the entrance to the stupa,” Divvy said as all four of us stood staring at the door that seemed to be producing an awful racket. Galearis merely nodded before turning back to the door. I walked over to the wooden structure and put an ear to it. The sound of dozens of voices all talking over each other met my ear. I couldn't make out one from the other with the muffled sound.

“Let’s get in there and stop this before it becomes violent, if it already hasn’t,” Twilight said, surrounding the door in magic. Opening it gently as to not let it slam into the wall and announce us unprepared, the sound of voices seemed to multiply as if she had taken the lid off a jar of angry wasps.

We looked down into the stupa, a set of steps leading down into the center of the room, where a massive horde of yaks were standing all facing the middle of the carved circle. They were all up in arms, shouting at the middle of the room about things that I couldn’t possibly understand with their special dialect of Equestrian. In the middle of this circle of yaks, a rather wide gap was left open with two yaks in particular standing and facing each other. The two yaks at the center of attention were no other than Prince Rutherford and Elder Rosensarch, locked in each others serious gaze.

“Rutherford, tell yaks to leave this holy place! This is sacred ground, and meant for religious yaks only,” Rosensarch yelled to the sound of dozens of yaks approval and dozens more disapproval.

“Why?” Rutherford responded with almost a growl. “So Rosensarch can order the yeti to slaughter non-supporters?” Rutherford stepped to the side slightly as if it were two lions about to jump at the bit and fight to the death. Rosensarch followed suit, mirroring the prince’s actions.

“Yeti is not working for Rosensarch,” Rosensarch loudly argued to more boos and cheers. The crowd seemed to be completely split on who to be in favor of. If I weren’t surprised, a few more days of the controversy and there may very well have been a civil war in Yakyakistan.

“Then why are Elders not fighting Yeti?” Rutherford accused Rosensarch, taking another step, digging his hooves into the ground and huffing looking very close to charging at his own father.

“Elders believe in peace. We sent out pony team to help with Yeti. Why does Rutherford still accuse Elders of fighting against him? Yaks are all on same side.”

“And where are ponies?” Rutherford quickly snapped, not letting anything get past the massive yak on the other end of his stare. “They have been gone many days. Why are ponies not back to speak to us unless they are part of Yeti plans.”

“Cover your ears,” Twilight whispered to us at the top of the stairs. “I’m stopping this.” We all quietly obeyed and got down on the ground, covering our ears, I glanced up as I saw Twilight rapidly charging up magical energy. I closed my eyes too, knowing exactly what she was doing. The best way to get the attention of a noisy crowd in a large room was to be the noisiest.

A second passed of the same dulled arguing before suddenly a flash of light and a loud bang erupted through the room, followed by pure silence. I opened my eyes to see the crowd facing us and Twilight standing tall at the top of the stairs. “Here are your ponies, Rutherford.”

We all stood up as Twilight walked down the staircase towards the center of the silent room, her voice echoing off the walls along with our hoof-steps. “And I can tell you now that we’ve found your Yeti.”

Twilight continued into the middle of the circle, the yaks parting and staring at us as we went past them to the Prince and the Elder who up until a few seconds ago were preparing for a fight. When she came to the middle of the circle, we stopped and stood for a few seconds in the middle, the silence of the room being broken up by mumbled conversations around the room.

“Where is Yeti, then, pony?” Prince Rutherford bitterly spat, his aggression not having subsided a bit. I gulped, suddenly realizing that we were in the middle of a very large group of yaks that could easily beat us in any fight.

“You’re Yeti is right here,” Twilight said, pointing to Divvy, who waved a hoof in fake greeting, even going so far as to blowing a few kisses to the crowd. He didn’t seem as phased that the creatures around him were easily twice his size and there were probably a dozen of them for every one of us.

“He was dawning that coat you see before you in the wild, and he has noticed that the yaks population is avoiding his trading posts. He has told me himself that there seems to be no reasoning behind this lack of visitation.” Twilight continued her explanation to a very angry-looking Rutherford, Rosensarch standing solemnly at the other side, as innocuous as ever.

“But raided camps and destroyed trading posts,” Rutherford replied back on the offensive.

“Shouldn’t exist,” Divvy piped up. “I manage all the trading posts up here in the Himaneighas, and I have yet to get any reports from camps other than the occasional snow-in or natural wear and tear. The camps are in no better or worse condition than they’ve been in the past few years to the best of my knowledge.”

“Prince Rutherford, I do apologize, but our trip to Bullheart’s Bluff was only affected by the snowfall and a surprise avalanche,” Twilight said. “There were no Yetis or any signs that a Yeti was the cause of any sort of damage. I think what’s going on here is fear-mongering.”

An audible gasp arose around the room, everyone realizing that Twilight had just accused Prince Rutherford of lying to his subjects. “Whether or not the yeti is real will always be up for debate,” I chimed in, wanting to make matters clear to everyone. “But all the evidence we’ve found shows that the trading posts are well off and in no danger from anything, much less Yeti attacks.”

“Rutherford, Rosensarch,” Twilight said in a pleading manner. “You must see that these constant fights and this fear mongering are splitting your people up. Everyone is living in fear of what could be lurking outside those walls. Say what you will about leading subjects in a kingdom, but something needs to be done when all that’s happening is internal fighting.”

She turned to look directly at Rutherford. “Things happen in this world that we don’t enjoy, Prince Rutherford, but compromise has to be made at some point. You can’t attack someone’s ideals and stay in power with fear. That’s no way to win anyone over and it’s no way to be a good ruler.” Elder Rosensarch gave a hearty harumph in agreement, causing Twilight to turn to the large yak.

“And Elder Rosensarch, you can’t just be exclusive because of what religion you practice. Sure some may not agree with you and may annoy you, but shouldn’t the teachings of Busdarna be available to all those that are willing to listen? Also, shouldn’t you be more inclined to talk with your son about everything that’s going on instead of just having shouting matches in front of the town? Busdarna didn’t hide from the unpleasantries of life, she dealt with them until she achieved internal peace. In the same way, you need to talk with your son more, not shut him out.”

“And you need to be willing to listen to him, Prince Rutherford,” I commented as Twilight finished up her little spiel. “Accusations and hurtful words will only split a family apart, and to a greater extent, a town. A debate is a debate, but petty argument won’t solve anything.

“Ponies are right, Rutherford,” Elder Rosensarch said with a sigh. “Rosensarch and Rutherford have not been the best of yaks.”

“Rutherford may have been a bit attacking,” Rutherford agreed. “Rutherford does not like Budan religion, but that doesn’t mean he should discriminate.”

“Rosensarch apologises for silence to Rutherford,” Rosensarch said, walking over to his son. “He did not think anything needed to be said.”

“And Rutherford apologises for unkind words to Rosensarch,” Rutherford apologised back to his father. “He just wants what’s best for yaks in Yakyakistan.”

The two came into a big embrace and the rest of the town began to softly cheer, getting louder and louder until the entire stupa rang with cheers and happiness, the two old yaks in the center hugging and finally making amends after fighting for so long.

I felt a hoof wrap around me, and I turned just in time to watch Galearis pull me in and plant a kiss directly on my lips. I was so surprised about the sudden exchange I didn’t know what to do with myself. I looked around to see that Twilight and Divvy were staring right at the two of us. Twilight was jumping up and down, whistling us on. Divvy was smiling like an idiot right next to her.

When I saw their happy faces, I took the kiss in full stride, closing my eyes and letting the cheer and happiness of the stupa melt away. For just a few moments all there was in life was Galearis and me, locked together in an embrace that could never end, happy at last with our adventure finally over.

“Everyone!” Elder Rosensarch’s voice bellowed from behind us, dragging me back to reality as Galearis and I ended our public smooch, her timid smile melting my heart. “Tomorrow is day we remember Busdarna Reconciling with all her demons in life. In honor of Rosensarch and Rutherford reconciling, Yaks are having celebration in Grand Stupa of Reconciliation! All are invited, even little pony friends.”

He stepped over to us as the cheering continued, talk spreading throughout the room and plans being rapidly made to set up the festivities. “Thank you Twilight, Galearis, Moondancer, and…”

“Divvy, sir,” the trader finished Rosensarch’s sentence. “Kit Divvy. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“Divvy,” Rosensarch repeated.”Thank you all. Without ponies, yaks would be at war, but instead they are at peace. Please enjoy tomorrow’s festivities. We will set up rooms for three visitors.”

“Actually, Elder Rosensarch, sir,” I piped up, still being gripped by Galearis. “I’d like to stay with Galearis tonight. We’re going to discuss my moving up here to assist her in her field studies.”

Rosensarch gave a hearty laugh before saying, “Then we will set up two rooms. Enjoy your time with Galearis. You are always welcome to come back. All of you are.”

“Thank you, Elder Rosensarch,” Galearis said before turning to the rest of us. “What say we get the night over with so that we can get to these festivities?”

“Sounds like a date, Gale,” I said with a wink.

“I’m telling you guys,” Twilight said, leaning in close. “Beautiful fillies.”

“Goodnight Twilight,” I said with a roll of my eyes.

“We’ll catch up with you all tomorrow here at the stupa. We might be sleeping in after a rather eventful night of planning,” Gale said giving my flank a bump with her own.

“Can’t wait, my flower,” I said, giving her nose a nuzzle.

A Himaneighan Tale

by MasterFrasca

Tip of the Iceberg

Elder Rosensarch

Galearis's Garret

Premonition

Travelers in the Snow

The Path Less Traveled

The Yeti

Divvy Out the Truth

Alternate Path

Quid Pro Quo