//------------------------------// // 1 - Snowbound // Story: Cold Wind Blowing // by Rambling Writer //------------------------------// “Hen”, Mistral decided, was a woefully poor name for female griffons. Hens were female chickens, with their overly-serious looks and their silly manner of walking and their flighty minds and their mournful bwock-bwock-bwooooocking, and mostly looked harmless. Female griffons, on the other hoof, while too diverse to be jammed into one category, still tended to be moderately intelligent at the very least, and those claws looked dangerous enough to tear through armor. They couldn’t, but Mistral doubted she’d ever want to meet a griffon, female or otherwise, in a dark alley. Definitely not female chickens. She clamped her wings tighter and tugged her coat further around herself and wondered why that, of all things, was what entered her mind when she saw the griffon and unicorn slowly trudging down the snow-covered path several dozen yards ahead of her. It wasn’t like she had much experience with griffons; she might’ve been a long-distance mailmare, but she’d never gone beyond Equestria’s borders. She’d seen maybe eight or nine of them in her whole life. So why was she thinking that? Voices, slightly muffled, filtered through the wind. The first one was definitely female, but a bit deep and husky for a mare. Mistral guessed it was the griffon. “You’re literally jumping at shadows! There ain’t another living thing for miles!” The second one sounded more pony-like. It was a bit quavery and high, just barely short of a mild stutter. “Shadows can hide stuff! We haven’t seen another living thing for miles, but that doesn’t mean they’re not out there.” “‘Kay, sure, but they haven’t seen ponies or griffons before. They’re just as scared of you as you are of them.” “You don’t know me. I’m way more scared of them, no matter what.” They both had a point. When Mistral looked around, all she could see was snow, trees, snow, trees, more snow, and more trees. Plus some trees and some snow, thrown in for flavor. This part of the Frozen North wasn’t very creative. The trees were like crooked black bars poking out from the field of white that was the snow, their branches jutting out and twisting about randomly as they reached towards the sky. Everything was reeling slightly in the slowly-growing wind, but any movement from an animal would be seen immediately. Still, there were only so many directions you could look in at once, and animals could be sneaky little buggers when it came to hiding. Mistral knew that all too well; she still had a few scars from when a chimera, of all things, had jumped out of nowhere and attacked her during one of her routes. It was best to not make assumptions on the presence or lack of monsters. But for once, the fetlock-deep snow was actually an aid. A few sprinkles were coming down now, but it’d been days since there’d been a proper snowfall. Monsters would leave tracks and the snow would slow them down a little. It wouldn’t actually protect the ponies and griffon, obviously, but it’d give them a little bit of a warning. And besides, it’d been hours since Mistral had seen tracks besides those of the two in front of her, anyway. It almost was like there wasn’t another animal for miles and miles. “Well, I’m here,” said the griffon, “so if anything attacks you, I’ll attack them.” “Really? You, you’d do that for me?” “Nah. I’m just raring for a fight.” “…Close enough, I guess.” They were going a little bit slower than Mistral. She was going to catch up to them eventually, so she might as well close the gap now. She went into a trot. “Hey!” Both figures turned around. After a moment, the griffon waved. “Hey.” Details came into focus as Mistral approached. Both of them had on thick cloaks and bags for supplies, but the similarities ended there. The unicorn’s bags had the bulky, angular look of containers and books and the like. Probably some kind of academic on a research retreat or a sabbatical or whatever those things were called. The griffon’s bags were incredibly irregular, probably stuffed full of stuff. Unlike the unicorn, she was also armed; a longbow was slung across her back and a quiver of arrows bumped against one of her legs, just above the snow. She proudly displayed a gaudy golden medallion inset with a ruby around her neck. As she reached the two, Mistral slowed to a walk. “Worried?” she said to the unicorn. The unicorn giggled nervously. “Juuuuuuust a little,” she whispered. “Something’s gonna jump in front of me and rip my throat out, I just know it. Anyway, I’m Thistledown. I’m a botanist.” Mistral wondered just what the heck a botanist was doing here, but the griffon spoke up before she could ask. “A- a botanist?” Her laugh sounded a lot like an eagle’s caw. “What kind of plants do you think you’ll find up here? They’re all buried under snow!” Thistledown giggled again, less nervously. “And that’s why it’s going to take work. I didn’t become a botanist for the money. I’ve heard rumors there’s a rare flower a few dozen miles north of here, and I want to catalog it.” She glared briefly at the griffon. “Yes, I’ll dig it up if I have to. I’m just, well… This is the Frozen North. There’s lots of monsters out here, and I know some defensive spells, but they’re not much good if I can’t see the monsters coming and I keep thinking that-” “Monsters? Ha!” snapped the griffon. “Haven’t met a monster I couldn’t slay. And I’ve met some nasty ones in old ruins.” “And you make it a habit of getting lost in them?” Mistral asked. She couldn’t keep a little bit of sarcasm from her voice. “Yes, actually. I’m a treasure hunter, I am.” The griffon held out her medallion. “Name’s Griselda. If I don’t get lost in ruins, they’ve already been mapped and already been pillaged. Getting lost’s the best way to get into uncharted territory.” Thistledown looked at a loss for words. Eventually, she said, “…Okay, then.” To Mistral, “And you?” “Mistral,” said Mistral. “I’m a mailmare.” “A… a mailmare.” Thistledown released a high-pitched chuckle. “I’m protected by a treasure hunter and a mailmare.” “Hey, don’t laugh,” said Mistral darkly. “We’re the most effective law enforcement branch in Equestria.” Thistledown stared at Mistral. Griselda stared at Mistral. Griselda snorted. “Really? The postal service?” Pouting, Mistral thrust out her chest and flared her wings. A frigid gust of wind chilled them to the roots of her feathers, but she barely noticed. “Totally. The post office’s conviction rate last year was over ninety-eight percent,” she said. “Even the RBI has trouble managing ninety. And besides, I’m a long-distance mailmare. I often need to go through hazardous lands, so I’m used to danger.” She raised a front leg and pulled back on the sleeve. A six-inch folding dirk was stowed there, ready to swing out for use at the proper flick of a hoof. She held it out just long enough for Thistledown to take it in. “See this? I’ve killed bears with it.” “Wow.” Thistledown looked the blade up and down. “I had no idea delivering the mail needed so much… aggression.” Nodding gravely, Mistral said, “Don’t fuck with postmares. We’re tough as nails and twice as sharp.” Thistledown didn’t say anything, but when she started walking again, her pace was just a little bit looser. Griselda moved next to Mistral and whispered, “You serious? Or you just reassuring her?” “Both,” whispered Mistral. “That really is our conviction rate, and I really have killed bears. Wanna hear about it?” Griselda looked up and down the path and shrugged. “Eh. Why not? We ain’t got anything better to do.” “Alright. It was… five moons ago, if I remember right, and I was making a special delivery with a partner…” Facet was not a happy camper. She was also utterly perplexed by the phrase “happy camper”. Camping was cold, wet, boring, hard, and miserable. How could campers be happy? Maybe it was the company. Ponies almost always went camping with company (after all, misery loved it), but Facet did not like company. Which was a problem at the moment, given that she had it. So, evidently, she was about as (un)happy as she could possibly be while camping. “Ah, come on, what’s the big deal?” needled the earth pony. “Don’t you wanna talk? We don’t have anything better to do.” “Not a ponies pony,” Facet grunted. The earth pony waited a moment for Facet to continue. When she didn’t, the earth pony continued, “…What, that’s it? You’re just gonna clam up?” “Yep.” “Well, aren’t you just a bucket of fun.” “Absolutely.” They’d run into each other a few miles or so back, at a chance meeting of paths, and ye princesses was she annoying. She just wanted to talk, talk, talk, when all Facet wanted was some peace and quiet and, most importantly, solitude. All things this pony seemed bound and determined to steal from her. The earth pony looked up and, with a truly record-breaking leap into the banal, said, “Wonderful weather we’re having, isn’t it? We can see the sun and everything’s pretty, but there’s still enough clouds to keep it from being blindingly white. Could do with a bit less snow coming down, though. If we happen to run into any weather pegasi, we sho-” “Weather works on its own up here,” said Facet. She didn’t take her eyes from the path. It wasn’t visible as much more than a long, continuous depression in the drifts and the occasional signpost. She didn’t want to lose her way; maps weren’t reliable up here. “No weather pegasi. Could turn into a blizzard in a few minutes. And there’s no ‘we’.” “Hmm. Weird. And of course there’s a ‘we’. There’s you, and there’s me, and that means there’s two, and that means plural, and I’m a part of that plural, so it’s first pony plural, so it’s we. I’m Cassandra.” Facet choked down the urge to groan and roll her eyes. All she wanted was quiet. What would it take to shut this pony up? Well, actually… Time for a little magic. Crystal pony magic was notoriously vague. The commonly-stated purpose of the Crystal Empire was to amplify the hope and love of the crystal ponies’ magic similar to how a crystal refracted light, sending it across Equestria — a description made even earth pony magic look direct and impressive. But if fear and terror took hold of the crystal ponies, then that would radiate across Equestria. In short, whatever quality of being the Empire sent out was a direct result of the crystal ponies’ state of mind. Facet strongly doubted anypony outside the Empire, and most ponies within it for that matter, truly understood what that meant: that it was possible for crystal ponies to use magic to manipulate others’ emotions. As above, so below. As within, so without. It wasn’t just a wacky theory Facet had; she’d tweaked other ponies’ emotions in the past. Done it often, actually. It wasn’t much, usually just making some friend-wannabe get bored with her and leave her in peace. And she knew from experience that there were limits (something to do with cognitive dissonance); if you bent somepony’s emotions too far from what they were naturally, they’d know something was up and they’d get harder to manipulate. You couldn’t, say, drive a loving couple into a murderous rage at each other, not even if you had all the time in the world. Still, in the right situations, it was useful. Like now, hopefully. Facet glanced at Cassandra. Her eyes were half-lidded and she spoke in as flat and emotionless a voice as she could muster. When sending out an emotion, she found it easier when she was pretending to be that emotion. “Look,” she said, “not really in the mood right now. So could you be quiet?” As she spoke, she pushed out a sense of boredom and detachment. Cassandra seemed to take it. She blinked and her steps got less peppy. She nodded. “Yeah.” Her voice was already less upbeat. “Sure. Sorry.” Facet grunted in acknowledgement and turned back to the path. Finally, she had some- “I just thought,” mumbled Cassandra, “that since…” She blinked again. “…that… since we… Hang, hang on. How’d you do that?” Facet’s hopes melted like a snowflake in a dragon’s flame. No way she was making this one bored; Cassandra was too curious for her own good. “Do what?” “You know. Make me just get bored all of a sudden.” “You think that was me because…?” Cassandra rolled her eyes. “Because it happened right when you were talking and told me to drop it.” “Could be a coincidence.” “Ha ha ha no. Seriously, tell me and I’ll shut up.” Facet’s ears went up. “Really?” “Really really.” Finally. Facet started talking without a second thought. “It’s how crystal pony magic works. Emotion-tweaking.” After a few moments, Cassandra nodded. “Yeah, that makes sense, with the relation to the Crystal Empire and all. Can’t believe I-” “Didn’t you say you were going to shut up?” Cassandra smiled a very punchable smile. “Well, we’re still walking together. And…” She looked up; the sky was beginning to cloud over. “It looks like we might be in for a blizzard. We’ll have a better chance in it if we stay together. And if we’re staying together, we might as well talk, right?” Facet bit back a groan and her lip. She was this close to telling Cassandra that she’d rather freeze to death alone than stay alive with her. “…and stabbed it a few more times once we stopped rolling down the hill,” said Mistral. “Just to be sure, you know? After that, all that was left was to get Wax Seal to a hospital. We were still pretty close to Noon Mount, though, so that wasn’t too hard.” She shrugged. “And that’s how I killed a bear. What do you think?” Griselda didn’t seem all that impressed, and was almost glaring at Mistral. “You almost let her die,” she said. “Weren’t you listening? The bear came out of nowhere. I thought she was dead. She’s still alive. Full recovery, even, if you ignore the scars. I know she does.” “You check to be sure that the bear is dead, but not that your partner is alive?” “It’s easier to-” A chilly gust of wind blew Mistral’s hood down. She scowled, shivered, and pulled it back up as she blinked the flakes out of her eyes. “I would’ve had to check in the middle of being attacked by a bear, y’know? That’s kinda hard to do.” “Yeah, but when it had its leg caught in that log, you coulda go-” “Hey!” yelled Thistledown. She sounded a lot more sure of herself than usual. “Cool it, you two. It’s already annoying.” Mistral rolled her eyes. “Look,” she whispered, “if I’d had the time, I’d’ve checked up on her. But I didn’t, so I couldn’t. Okay?” “Okay,” said Griselda in a tone of voice that indicated it wasn’t, but it was easier to just drop it. She kicked briefly at a small drift, then looked up. “Hey. Is it just me, or is it clouding over?” “Looks like it,” replied Mistral. The sky was darkening to a slate-gray. Not only that, but the wind was picking up and the snowfall was slowly increasing. “Wish I could change the weather. I think a blizzard’s coming.” “Great. You got a tent or something?” “I have one for me, but-” “Hey!” Thistledown yelled again. “I think I see an inn!” She began trotting off. It only took Mistral a moment to see the small building Thistledown was referring to. “Wait up!” She jogged after Thistledown. She kept her wings at her sides; it was too cold to fly comfortably. Behind her, she could hear Griselda picking up her own pace. It wasn’t long before Mistral reached the inn. Thistledown had given up her run, wheezing, ninety percent of the way there. Griselda offered Thistledown a shoulder to lean on while Mistral kept running and took the place in. Inn at a crossroads, with a sign indicating the cardinal directions. Completely uninteresting. But it was here, and it had lasted, so it was probably good. Some hoofprints ran from the path to the door and a covered sleigh, of timber from the looks of it, poked out from around a corner. Griselda and Thistledown loped up next to her; Thistledown was still gasping like a broken bellows. “Does this place-” she coughed, “have- a name?” Mistral peered at the sign hanging over the door. “Hmm. The… Please Stop Inn.” “Great Grover,” groaned Griselda. “Must every inn have a punny name?” “Guess so,” Mistral said with a shrug. The inside of the inn was functional enough: rock walls, hardwood floors, big common room with plenty of space, big roaring fireplace on one wall with couch and chairs to sit on, table and chairs to eat at. Even accounting for the fireplace, the inside was nice and toasty; Mistral’s limbs slowly stopped feeling like they were liable to shatter at any moment. One wall was taken up by a bar, stocked with a… sufficient amount of beverages. A door sat to one side of the bar, with another on the wall opposite below a staircase leading to the rooms above, both marked with a sign: EMPLOYEES ONLY. A batpony was sitting at the bar, being served by a crystal pony. Hearing the door open, the ponies looked up. “Hello!” the crystal pony said brightly. Her voice was a bit shaky, slipping into a stutter at times, but ruthlessly happy. “Welcome to the P-Please Stop Inn. I’m Clarity, and I r-run the place. Alone, too.” She chuckled. “There’s n-not another inn for miles, but you’ll be s-safe from the weather here.” “Hey,” said Mistral with a wave. “Mistral.” She hid a shiver; she didn’t like stutters. She knew she was being silly and she really ought to get over it, but bingeing on books when she was younger had ingrained “stuttering pony equals dishonest pony” into her mind, and she kept thinking that a pony who stuttered was hiding something. The batpony smiled in a way that didn’t quite reach her eyes. It might’ve been the fangs. It might’ve been the slitted pupils. “Hey. Desmoda.” “Griselda,” Griselda said as she sort of shoved Thistledown onto a couch. “And this sacked-out pony is Thistledown.” Desmoda looked at Thistledown, eyebrow raised. “What’re you doing up here if you can’t walk without your heart giving out?” “Can walk forever,” panted Thistledown. “Not good with running. Was running.” “Eh-heh,” said Desmoda skeptically. “City slicker.” She turned back to her drink. “Hey!” said Griselda. “Just bec-” Clarity faux-coughed loudly. “If y-you think of anything you want or n-need, let me know. I’ll probably have t-to go upstairs and get it, but I can’t l-leave you uncomfortable.” “No, just need to rest,” said Thistledown. Mistral didn’t have it nearly as bad, but she appreciated the sentiment. She shrugged off her bags and flopped into a chair. She turned an ear towards the door; she could hear the wind picking up, but it was still plenty warm inside. She wondered if there was some spell to keep the warm air in and the cold air out. Clarity could’ve given a unicorn a free room for the night if they cast it. Or maybe the inn was just really well built. It was warm, it didn’t matter. “So is this it?” Griselda asked as she surveyed the room. “Not much.” “N-no,” said Clarity, shaking her head. “Just a place to spend the night and s-shelter from the elements. The rooms are upstairs.” She pointed to the steps. “That goes to storage and the furnace.” The door below the steps. “Kitchen.” The door behind her. “You’re complaining about this?” Mistral asked. “You said you were a treasure hunter. Shouldn’t you be used to bare rooms like this.” It was less than Mistral wanted, but she figured they couldn’t expect anything more. If the middle of nowhere was a tourist attraction, it wouldn’t be the middle of nowhere. “I was just observing,” bristled Griselda. Her feathers puffed out a little, which Mistral figured was probably a defensive mechanism to make her look bigger, but really just made her look silly. “It’s fine, but it isn’t much.” “It’s shelter,” said Thistledown. Her breathing had steadied and sounded less wheezy. “That’s enough. As long as no snow gets in.” The door banged open, letting gusts of snow and the sounds of howling winds into the inn. A crystal pony and an earth pony staggered in, taking with them half a snowdrift. They immediately planted their backs against the door and pushed it shut against the blizzard. The earth pony grinned. “See? Told you we needed to stick together. You never would’ve seen this place in that weather if not for me.” “I noticed it before you said it,” snapped the crystal pony. “I’m just not the kind to belt out every single sunblasted thought that crosses my mind.” The earth pony chuckled and turned to the inhabitants of the inn. “Hello, fellow travelers!” she said. “My partner and I-” Her eyes fell on Desmoda; her speech stopped and her jaw dropped. The crystal pony rolled her eyes and mumbled, “I’m Facet, this is Cassandra. And don’t believe what she says, we’re not traveling toge-” “I’ve never seen a batpony!” Cassandra yelled. She zipped up to within an inch of Desmoda’s face (she shied back; Cassandra just moved forward again) and examined her intently. “Holy crap, you guys! Look at her little fangs! Look at her tufted ea-” Desmoda swung her hoof in an uppercut, catching Cassandra under the chin. Cassandra’s head snapped up and she staggered back. Desmoda swung again, hitting Cassandra in the jaw; she stumbled and fell, knocking over several chairs. “Sorry,” Desmoda said, not even trying to convince anyone. “My hoof slipped.” She put a hoof on Cassandra’s neck and pushed lightly. Leaning down next to Cassandra, baring her fangs, flaring her wings, she whispered, “Don’t. Do that. Again. Okay?” “Okay,” wheezed Cassandra, “just lemme-” Desmoda stepped off Cassandra’s neck. “Don’t do that. Just don’t.” She promptly went back to her drink. Except for Cassandra’s coughing, silence reigned for a few moments. Then Clarity cleared her throat and said, “If you think there’s a lot of ponies here, d-don’t worry. You six are my only guests, so there’s enough room, even if you all s-stay.” “But leaving isn’t really an option, is it?” Mistral asked Cassandra. Cassandra was still rubbing her neck, so it was Facet who spoke up. “Not really. You saw how bad the blizzard was already, and I think it’s just getting worse. And there aren’t any towns nearby, are there?” “Not for at least fifteen miles,” said Mistral. “Rounding down.” By quite a bit. Mistral suspected it was more like twenty or twenty-five, but she wasn’t completely sure. Either way, there was no way she was going out in that weather. “So we’re stuck here until the storm passes, whenever that is.” Desmoda snorted. “Great.” She downed the remainder of her drink, then grinned. “But it’s not that bad. I’m sure we’ll all get along just fine.”