Starlight didn't need to wake up. She didn't want to wake up. In her dreamless, half-lucid sleep, she was warm... and the functional part of her brain told her that the only thing waiting beyond her eyelids was water, ice and darkness.
It felt so nice... Somewhere, a flicker of thought said that if she was far enough gone that she didn't feel the cold, that meant she was almost dead. She had to get up. She had to move, had to make herself truly warm. She had to... yet she couldn't. Would there really be warmth after the mountains? If the mountains were going to defeat her, shouldn't she take this last shred of comfort?
No. She couldn't. She had to keep living, it was too important. Pooling her consciousness and her willpower, Starlight lifted an eyelid as hard as she could... and the warmth didn't vanish.
A fuzzy, tingling sensation rolled over her body as she slowly regained feeling. Something large, soft, and honestly, truly warm was wrapped around her, covering her back and ears and other eye. The area was bathed in an ambient orange light, so dim the only thing it showed for sure was the lack of dripping walls all around her. Her ears registered the dim thrum of rain pounding somewhere above.
The cold of the mountains was still there in her chest, but it was fighting a losing battle against whatever her present insulator happened to be. The aches in her legs from untold hours of standing were there too, as were all the pains from hitting the water at the base of the falls. But how? The last thing she remembered was... rain. And her boat. They couldn't have just gone away, but...
The thing touching her moved, expanding slowly... and contracting, a quiet stream of warm air brushing past her exposed ear. Starlight would have tensed, but her body decided not to. Focusing her eye on the thing her head was leaning on, she squinted... and the outline of a fetlock came into view.
It was a pony. Somepony was hugging her. She had been found.
This time, Starlight shook. She scrunched her eye back shut, but the warmth was now overpowering. It mixed in her heart with her blankness, her solitude, her decision to run away, morphing into the realization that this pony had probably saved her and definitely cared. That realization ballooned throughout her, finally finding an outlet through her eyes. Motionlessly, Starlight began to cry, tears soaking cleanly into the foreleg beneath her.
The older pony noticed. After a gentle drawing of breath, her muzzle prodded the top of Starlight's head. Her voice came, then, in the barest of whispers from above.
"Are you awake yet, little filly?"
Starlight opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out. Then, after a pause: "Am I alive?"
"Hmm... You are, and you're lucky to be. You're still so cold, little filly." The mare responded with a gentle hush, laying her chin over Starlight like a blanket. "It's the middle of the night. You're safe here. Go back to sleep."
Nestled between the mare's forelimbs, with bedding beneath her and warmth all around, Starlight felt her willpower weaken even as her tears continued. Was she in danger? Did she trust this pony? If she didn't, did she trust her less than the river and the rain?
She knew for sure that she was tired of fighting for her life. Maybe the north really was as good as she'd told herself. Maybe this was a risk she was ready to take.
The state of survival that had taken hold of her in the river finally began to abate. This time, when Starlight's eyelids drooped, it was loose and peaceful. The exhaustion of the past days and weeks spread through her, and she was finally free to do what it told her.
Starlight didn't even have time to finish registering how tired she was when she fell back asleep. She didn't wake up for a long, long time.
The next evening, a door creaked open, ringing the room with a vertical halo of light. "Willow?" A face peeked in, whispering softly. "You've been in here nearly twenty four hours."
Willow's silvery head stretched to look at the door, having given up on laying upright and now sideways on the bed. "She woke up a little, but quickly went back to sleep. She's more peaceful now. Want to take a shift? I need to stretch, eat and other things..."
"I sure hope you do," the other mare said worriedly, sliding through the door and closing it to a crack behind her.
"Nngh..." Trying to avoid letting the bed bounce Starlight, Willow spread her weight, untangled herself and got up, sliding away. "All yours. Thanks, Maple."
Maple winked. "No problem."
As she moved to slide back onto the bed, though, the filly stirred again. Both mares froze, waiting to see what would happen.
Starlight's large eyes opened and took both of them in, unblinking. Willow and Maple watched back with kindly smiles. Eventually, Starlight worked her jaw, and after a few attempts, said, "Am I a-alive?"
"You already asked that, little filly," Willow replied, smile growing as she took two steps back toward the bed. "And you are alive."
"You really are lucky," Maple added. "Earlier, my friends and I were down by the river, when we noticed a crate had gotten caught on the shore. But there's nothing upriver a crate could have come from! We got curious and decided to camp out by the river to watch for more, but it was raining and the sun was setting and we were almost ready to go back to our homes when you floated along."
Willow nodded. "Was there anyone else with you? Anyone we should be watching the river for?"
Starlight shook her head, teeth already beginning to chatter in memory of the cold, even though it wasn't chilly in the room at all. "N-No..."
"That's a relief." Willow sighed and brushed back her mane. "I guess I'll go tell Amber and whoever replaced her, too. And I need to check up on my kids after leaving them alone all day. You'll be fine here on your own for a bit?"
"I think so." Maple nodded, already on the bed. "You will come back though, won't you?"
Willow gave a sure smile. "Wouldn't miss it for anything."
The door clicked behind her, leaving Maple to turn to Starlight. For several moments, no words were said. Then: "Do you have a name?"
"Starlight," she murmured, shaking.
Maple spread her forelegs, patting the bed in front of her. Starlight raised an eyebrow, looking on with caution.
"Here," Maple said, frowning. "Aren't you still cold?"
Starlight nodded and bit her lip.
"Were you out there for a while?" Maple asked softly, lowering her head to the bed. "Alone?"
Starlight nodded again.
"Oh." Maple's face fell. "I guess you're not really used to other ponies right now, then."
Without moving from where Willow had left her curled, Starlight gave her a look that told her all she needed to know.
Maple sighed and looked away. "Right. You're probably a bit wary of everything right now, aren't you?"
Starlight still said nothing, fixing her with wide eyes that reflected what little light there was in the room.
"If it will help you trust me..." Maple paused, and produced Starlight's saddlebags as if out of nowhere, tossing them halfway over to her. "I saved these for you. I opened them to let them dry, but I didn't look in your book or your box."
Slithering across the bed, Starlight reached the bags. They were still fairly damp and unpleasant to the touch, but a brief bit of poking revealed that the most important things were still there.
Maple smiled. The filly had at least gotten closer.
"Starlight is a pretty name."
Starlight said nothing, watching Maple from across the bags.
Flicking her tail in irritation, Maple thought... and perked up. "Starlight?" she offered. "Are you hungry?"
Starlight nodded, mumbled, and sat up.
Maple instantly brightened. "Yes! I can fix that. Follow me!"
Rolling across the bed until she hit the floor, the older mare straightened up, trotted to the door, and swung it open, letting evening light flood the room.