“Either help me,” Mistral snarled, pushing around Griselda with one last legful of clothes, “or get out of the damn way.”
“You’re leaving?” asked Griselda, shuffling to one side.
“Fuck yes I’m leaving!” Mistral began jamming her clothes into her saddlebag. “I know when shit’s going to go down!”
“There’s a blizzard out there! You really gonna risk it?”
Mistral whirled on Griselda. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she whispered, “did you miss that somepony gouged words into every open space on that sunblasted wall with their bare hooves? Or how somepony went and deliberately covered it up? Or the journal describing the last group murdering each other? Or Thistledown going crazy the moment she looked at the magic around here? Or Clarity barely caring when somepony was murdered in front of her? Did you miss those?” She laughed bitterly. “No. I know where this is headed. Fuck this place, fuck this room, fuck this place, fuck the creepy innkeeper, fuck this place, fuck the dysfunctional wackos hanging out downstairs, fuck this place, fuck this entire sunblasted forest, and, above all, fuck this fucking place.” She yanked the drawstrings on her saddlebag tight. “Oh, and did I mention? FUCK. THIS. PLACE.”
Griselda clicked her beak nervously. “But it… it…” She looked out the window, where the blizzard was still raging strong as ever. She gestured outside. “Look at it…” she said weakly.
“Don’t care,” Mistral said as she adjusted her traveling cloak. “Are you coming or not?” She hitched on her saddlebags.
“N-no…”
“Then goodbye. I’m leaving.” Mistral turned on her heel and scrambled down the staircase. Griselda yelled something after her, but she didn’t couldn’t it out and wouldn’t’ve listened if she could. With no words to any of the other ponies, she yanked open the door, putting up a leg to block out the wind, and left. She was about to shut the door behind her, but the wind caught it before she did. She had to yank her hoof away to keep the door from slamming down on it.
Turning away from the door, she raised a hoof to block out the worst of the snow and squinted into the blizzard. Nothing but dirty white, broken up by a few dim bars of trees. The sun was beginning to set somewhere and everything was darkening. Not something she wanted to go out into, but it was still better than sitting around in that damned inn. Just to check, she opened her wings a little. The wind ripped every last shred of warmth from them and pushed them apart to the point that she had to fight to close them again. The chill seeped from her wings into her trunk, into her blood. She shivered and tightened their covering as best she could. She hated the feeling of her wings being suppressed like that, but she hated the chill even more.
Mistral took a few steps off the porch and immediately clamped her eyes shut. Snow was peppering them, almost freezing them over. Then she had to start blinking to keep the snow from freezing her eyelashes shut. This was not going to be pleasant.
She fought her way through the drifts to the road and looked up at the signpost. Luckily, the writing was easily legible, even in these conditions. North was pointing right. South was pointing left. East was behind her. West was in front of her. Which way, that was the question. She’d been heading north, but the closest town wasn’t going to be anywhere near her if she went that way. It’d be a fine hike if the weather was clear, but not now. South was… debatable. It was quite a distance, but at least she knew when she was going to reach her destination. East? She didn’t know a thing. West? She didn’t know a thing.
She wiped some snow off her face and turned to face away from the wind when an idea struck her. Coming to the inn, the blizzard had come from the west. If she went to the west, she’d be heading straight into it, but she’d also be heading towards the other side, towards clearer skies. At the same time, the blizzard would be coming towards her, making the trip that much shorter. It had come down pretty quickly, which meant it was moving pretty quickly, which meant the other side was coming pretty quickly, right? Maybe. Then again, maybe not. And, still, she knew how far away she was from whatever town she’d last left if she headed south.
With both options looking equally okay-ish, she eenie-meenie-miney-moe’d and came up with… south. She set off, forcing her way through the knee-deep snow. To call it cold and wet would be like saying the sun glowed; the snow rapidly soaked its way through her boots, soaking her fur to the skin and tearing the warmth from her flesh in seconds. Mistral barely noticed; she kept her eyes on the path ahead, such as it was. She wasn’t even sure she was following the path, the drifts were so uniform.
When the wind permitted it, she looked around. She’d hoped she could get something unique, but it was like trying to find a needle in a stack of needles. There were trees and there was snow. That was all she could see; the inn had been swallowed up by the blizzard. Her visibility wasn’t much more than ten feet at best, everything else dissolving into a dirty white haze. Trees loomed from the gloom, blurry bars that all seemed identical to each other.
Mistral kept walking briskly. Time seemed to blur and her head started to throb from the chill. She had no idea of how long she’d been walking, but she didn’t really care. She was leaving the crazy place; that was all that mattered.
She looked to one side on the off chance she’d see something and her hoof smashed into a hidden rock. She tripped and tumbled headlong into the snow, rolling over and sliding. Flakes promptly found their way down her collar, chilling her neck to the bone. Wincing, Mistral pulled herself back to her feet and shook the worst of the snow off. She put weight on the hoof she’d hit. A mild twinge, nothing too serious. She walked in a circle a few times. The twinge was still there, but it didn’t worsen. She could walk on it, no problem. She looked up, ready to continue her walk.
Then her heart stopped when she realized she didn’t know which way she was going. Her tracks had already been blown over.
She turned around and around, trying to orient herself and wishing she had a compass. Nothing but mottled white and dim trees. Everything — everything — looked the same. Her heart and breathing started back up and went into overdrive. Okay, she thought, okay. I can do this. Her words weren’t remotely convincing.
She squinted, trying to make out shadows. The sun was setting in the west, so if she could see those, she could tell which direction was what. But no luck; everything was too indistinct and what shadows there were blended into the snow. She tried to look for larger-than-usual gaps between the trees, where the path would go. But the trees were too far apart for that; a path could go between any two trees.
Okay, don’t panic. Okay, don’t panic. Okay, DON’T PANIC. Okay, DON’T PANIC.
Fat fucking chance.
A particularly violent gust reminded Mistral of one thing: if she didn’t start moving, and soon, she was dead. End of discussion. With the wind still too violent to risk flight, she started turning randomly, trying to pick a good direction. One bearing felt good for some reason, and if she was going to blunder blindly into a blizzard, she might as well feel good about it. Mistral started walking.
She couldn’t tell she’d changed direction from before. If she hadn’t remembered stopping, there was nothing to say she’d stopped at all. The sheer lack of landmarks, the absolute sameyness of everything, was disconcerting. She walked and walked and walked for, once again, she didn’t know how long. It could’ve been minutes, it could’ve been hours. Her muscles began to ache, but Mistral forged on, determined to keep the blood flowing and stave off frostbite.
Eventually, she saw it. A short, squat shape, looming from the whiteout. Definitely a building of some kind. Perfect. Even if it was just a wreck, it ought to provide some shelter without any psychos.
Her spirits lifting, Mistral approached it. The shape loomed more. Looked intact. Even better. It even looked like another i-
…No…
Her spirits sinking, Mistral approached it. Familiar shapes coalesced from the snow.
It couldn’t be…
The porch. The road sign. The crossroads.
She’d gone away from it…
Mistral took another few steps. It was enough to read the sign above the door.
Please Stop Inn.
Tap taptap-tap.
Facet tried to focus on reading her book.
Taptappity tap tap-tap.
But habit made her rest one hoof on the table.
Tap-tap taptap-taptap tap tap.
And that one hoof wouldn’t stop twitching.
Tappity-tap tap tap.
Between Desmoda’s actions and threats, Facet couldn’t focus. Her ingrained equine fight-or-flight instincts were screaming bloody murder at her. But neither one was an option. She had no chance of fighting, not against a former member of the Lunar Regiment, and outside was the blizzard. Only a complete imbecile would go out into that weather.
Taptaptap-tap-tap.
One of the inn’s resident imbeciles, Mistral, suddenly tumbled down the staircase and shot out the door. By the time Facet had realized what was going on, the door had been shut again. She glanced up at Cassandra, still sitting quietly in her corner; in spite of the distance, Facet could tell that she also had a “what the heck?” expression on her face.
Tap-tap-tap-taptaptap tap.
Facet forced her twitchy hoof down with her free hoof. It didn’t stop the twitching completely, but she wasn’t beating out the world’s worst drumline anymore. She jerked her head at the door and made a questioning expression: What was that about?
Cassandra shrugged helplessly and made a cuckoo motion with her hoof. I don’t know! She’s crazy!
Facet wasn’t sure staying here wasn’t the crazy part, not with a murderer sitting casually at the bar.
She wanted a drink. Not just something liquid, a pint or eight of some good hard liquor. She wanted it bad. But Desmoda had staked her claim at the bar, and there was no way in Tartarus Facet was going anywhere near her. And that was assuming Desmoda didn’t start yelling at her again for approaching Cassandra. She couldn’t ask Desmoda for a drink, and yelling over to Clarity for one just felt… strange.
Facet eyed Clarity. That wasn’t the only strange thing about her. The more Facet thought about it, the more Clarity seemed incredibly uninvolved in everything going on around here. Not just the obvious, where she brushed off a murder in front of her like it was nothing. She hadn’t intervened in earlier arguments, no matter how beneficial it would be for business. She had never been seen doing any sort of work besides making dinner in the kitchen. She just sort of stood behind the bar and looked busy.
What was up with her?
Griselda came down the staircase, looking around the room. “Did Mistral…?” She sighed. “Yep,” she muttered, “she really left.”
“Did she say why?” asked Cassandra.
“Who cares?” Desmoda said loudly. “She’s gone, she’ll freeze to death in a few hours, that’s all that matters.”
“Well, y’see,” said Griselda, taking a spot on one side of the fireplace, “we… What happened down here?”
“Nothing happened,” Desmoda said. She grinned. “We just had a talk, is all.”
“Says you,” said Griselda, rolling her eyes. “Cassandra?”
Cassandra blinked twice, then coughed and said, “Desmoda said she’d kill us if we looked at her funny.”
Facet twitched. That wasn’t what she’d said, not exactly. Desmoda had asked — well, demanded — the two of them stay apart and said that she’d kill Facet if she thought crystal pony magic was being used. Yes, that was aggressive, but Cassandra was making Desmoda sound even more psychotic than she already was with a lack of context. All this would accomplish would get Desmoda angry at Cassandra.
And, Facet realized suddenly, maybe turn Griselda against Desmoda even more.
…Not actually that bad of a plan. Assuming it worked.
“I did not say that!” yelled Desmoda, whirling on Cassandra. Her voice quivered with rage. “I sa-”
“You said that!” Cassandra yelled back.
“Don’t believe her,” Desmoda said to Griselda. “She’s lying. She’s fucking lying!”
“Forgive me if I don’t believe you,” Griselda replied. “You killed Thistledown for being noisy, this isn’t that much of a jump for you!”
“You! Crystal pony!” Desmoda fixed her eyes on Facet, who immediately froze. “Tell her the truth. Tell her I never said that. Remember our talk?”
Facet looked at Griselda, who knew nothing and was looking to her for confirmation. She looked at Desmoda, who glaring daggers at her with all the rage she could muster. She looked at Cassandra, who somehow looked determined and pleading at the same time and was nodding vigorously.
Facet made her decision and swallowed. “She said that,” she said. “We never even did anything to her.”
Cassandra immediately smirked. Desmoda’s face twisted in anger even more; she flared her wings and advanced on Facet. In a deep voice, almost a growl, she said, “I told you to-”
“You’re doing it!” said Griselda. She looked almost darkly please with herself. “If you say they’re lying, how come you’re doing it?”
“Because they’re liars!” yelled Desmoda. “They’re trying to- You-” She looked around the room, her eyes slowly narrowing. “You’re all out to get me, aren’t you?” she whispered. “You think I can’t control myself, just because I killed Thistledown.”
“And for a bunch of other, equally good reasons!” added Griselda.
Facet chewed her lip and opened her mouth to say something, now that Griselda was on her side, but Cassandra began shaking her head and making “no” motions with her hoof. Facet figured the message was Let Desmoda and Griselda duke it out. It wasn’t hard to see why; in spite of her dislike of Griselda, Facet did have to admit that she was probably the best-suited to talk back to Desmoda, with her dangerous and physically-demanding “job”. Facet returned the “no” motion to Cassandra and closed her mouth.
“I am perfectly capable of controlling myself,” continued Desmoda, “and I only react when I’m pushed too far-”
“Like when someone tries to take a drink of your hot chocolate?”
“Shut up! SHUT UP!” screamed Desmoda. She bared her fangs. “If you don’t quiet down, turkey, I’ll de-”
Griselda moved almost too fast to see. One second, she was squatting on one side of the fireplace; the next, she was rearing on her hind legs on the other side, an arrow nocked and drawn on her bow with her talons. She was aiming right between Desmoda’s eyes. “Say. That. Again,” she whispered.
Mistral stared at the sign, jaw agape, heart pounding. No. This wasn’t possible. She’d gone away from the inn. She hadn’t left the road. How had she arrived back? She… she’d been going straight. The whole time. Right?
No, wrong. She’d been turned around that one time. Mistral looked at the direction she’d arrived from. South. At least she’d come from the right direction.
She looked over her shoulder. Tracks: already gone. Great.
Okay. Not a problem. She just needed to set off again. Walk straight, and only straight. No turning around, not for anything. Then she’d get out of the blizzard (eventually… somehow) and get away from the inn.
But as soon as Mistral set off (heading west, this time), the wind reminded her just how “easy” that was. The air was just as cold as ever, clawing its way into her and stabbing her lungs with spears. Breathing became hard — painful, even — and it felt like her lungs were freezing. She almost had to force herself to keep breathing, but with each breath she took, she got colder and colder.
She kept walking. The snow seemed to cling to her boots, trying to drag her down into it and sap the warmth from her. It was like walking through mud in a swamp. Worse, even, because at least mud wasn’t this cold. She almost wished she was an earth pony; they had the strength and stamina to push their way through the snow more easily. For everything about pegasi being able to handle hotter and colder temperatures than other ponies, when the extremes hit, they hit hard.
As much as she tried to keep straight (she refused to even look back), the wind kept buffeting her, forcing her to change her tack every now and then. She tried to keep track of the way she turned, but between the cold and her pounding headache, she couldn’t. For all she knew, the wind was blowing her in a circle. It was hard to tell, with all the samey-looking trees around. No matter how many she passed, more identical ones stood straight ahead of her.
She kept walking. She slowly became aware that her pace was flagging. The cold was getting to her, no matter how hard she pushed. If she didn’t get out soon, she knew her legs would just collapse beneath her, she’d drop into the snow, and the blizzard would cover her. Nopony would ever know what’d happened to her. She tried chewing her tongue to get some adrenaline running. It didn’t help.
Finally, it was too much. She had to rest, if only for a few seconds. Mistral staggered up and leaned against a tree, panting heavily. It wasn’t a physical tiredness that slowed her down so much as burnout from struggling through this white Tartarus for Celestia-knew-how-long and getting nothing to show for it. She couldn’t tell if she’d walked ten miles or ten feet. For the moment, she just wanted to rest…
She immediately bit her tongue and shook her head. No. She couldn’t rest. Not here, not now. Not until she could see the sky. Mistral took the biggest, deepest breaths she could; the cold tore at her insides, but the pain was the point. It woke her up a little, a shock to her system. Not perfect, but it’d do for now. She shook her head again and set off.
She kept walking. Whether it was the rest or the pain, she didn’t know, but Mistral felt almost rejuvenated. Not quite as down as she’d been. She still felt like her bones were freezing, she could still barely see ten feet in front of her, her head still felt like shit, she still had to force her way through the snow, but she could do this. She could do this.
Then she saw it, that blocky shape slowly appearing from the whiteout, and what little energy Mistral had regained began draining away. It couldn’t be. It just wasn’t possible. She’d made sure she was going in as straight a line as possible. But there it was. She screamed in frustration.
She finally reached the building. She didn’t need to look at the sign outside the to know what it said.
Please Stop Inn.
Facet shook as she looked between Griselda and Desmoda, waiting with baited breath. Cassandra suddenly looked nervous; maybe she hadn’t intended it to go this far? Whatever the case, the can of worms had been opened.
Even Desmoda seemed shocked; her eyes widened and her wings flared. “Do… Just what do you think you’re doing?”
“What’s it look like?” said Griselda. “Or are you really that stupid?” She slowly uncurled and recurled her talons around the bow, one after the other. “Take it back.”
A pause, the silence filled by the howling of the wind outside. Then Desmoda slid off her seat and chuckled, sure of herself again. “Look,” she said, flaring her wings, “do you really think you have it in you to take a life? You’re talking a big talk, but most ponies, I don’t care how big they talk, what do you think happens when they’re actually challenged to do it?” She grinned. “Yeah, they fold. Ten bits says that’s what you’re gonna do.”
Griselda didn’t respond, but the tip of the arrow didn’t waver one inch.
“So do the world a favor,” continued Desmoda, “simmer down, and put that bow down before you hurt somepony.”
Twang.
Desmoda recoiled, screaming through clenched teeth at the arrow embedded in her wing joint. Facet and Cassandra both jumped. Griselda leisurely notched another arrow. “But that’s the idea,” she said innocently. She drew the new arrow. “Also, you owe me ten bits. And take what you said back.”
Desmoda didn’t respond. She stared at the arrow in her joint, chest heaving, legs shaking, pupils shrinking. Her ears slowly folded down. Her attempt to back up brought her up against the bar. When she looked up at Griselda, her eyes were as wide as Facet had ever seen them.
And yet, behind her, Facet was drawn to Clarity’s reaction. More precisely, her complete lack of one. She kept wiping down the bartop, again not the least bit interested in the physical confrontation between two of her customers.
Facet was brought back to the standoff when Griselda’s bow creaked. “Last chance.”
“Wait!” yelled Cassandra. She scrambled between Griselda and Desmoda. “Don’t- Don’t kill her!”
Griselda blinked and lowered her bow. “What? Why should I-”
“Because you’re better than that!” said Cassandra. “If you kill her, you’ll be bringing yourself down to her level an-”
“Don’t care.” Griselda raised the bow again, this time pointing it at Cassandra. “What I do care about is that she’s been nothing but trouble ever since we came here and I can get rid of that now. And if you’re between me and her, as far as I’m concerned, you’re on her side.”
Even from across the room, Cassandra’s swallow was visible. She twitched, but she didn’t step aside. She glanced at Facet; Facet shot her a dirty look and shook her head. The time for crystal pony emotion tweaking was long, long, long gone.
“Besides,” Griselda added, “all she needs to do is take back what she said. That won’t be too hard. Right?”
Finally, Cassandra took a step aside. She was biting her lip so hard Facet was sure she saw blood. “Don’t,” Cassandra muttered, “don’t kill her. Please.”
Griselda ignored her, pointing the arrow back at Desmoda. “Well?”
“Look, I, I, I, I didn’t mean it like that.” babbled Desmoda. She was smiling, but there was no way for it to look less forced. “Just a, just a one-off slip of the tongue, right?”
“Get down on your knees and say you’re sorry.”
Desmoda dropped like a stone, slamming her face to the floor. “I’m sorry I called you a turkey I swear I won’t do it again I’m sorry!” she yelled quickly. She lifted her head up to look around. When Griselda didn’t shoot her, she slowly rose back up. “Good?”
Griselda’s deep breathing echoed through the room, even over the storm. The tip of the arrow wavered as her chest heaved.
Suddenly, Clarity spoke up. “P-please,” she said, her voice incredibly bland. “Could you two p-put all this behind you? We’re not going anywhere, and y-your actions aren’t helping us not stress out.” She pointed at Desmoda and Griselda in turn. “You shut up, you put the b-bow down, and we can all move a-away from this.”
Griselda blinked and her breathing softened. “Apology accepted,” she said, and shot Desmoda between the eyes. Desmoda’s head snapped back and her entire body spasmed. Griselda had another arrow notched, loosed, and embedded in Desmoda’s skull in barely a second. Desmoda was dead by the time she hit the ground.
Facet gasped and looked between the body and Griselda, shuffling away from her. Vandal or not, Griselda had never seemed violent; at least Desmoda had been obvious. She wasn’t sad to see Desmoda gone, but it looked like she’d just exchanged one psycho for another.
“Heh,” Griselda said, smirking. “I always wanted t-”
“I-I needed her alive!” Cassandra screamed.