Polar Plateau.
Nineteen days later, morning.
With the luggage gone, the expedition had become increasingly difficult. The ponies and caribou had to haul everything themselves. The massive tent was the first to go, and the team had salvaged what they could from the rest. They'd been reduced to bivouacking from here on out. In addition to shelter, food and fire were also major concerns. This far into the tundra, vegetation was difficult to find, and dry vegetation for fuel, harder still.
Rainbow Dash pawed at the ground. She'd found a thinner patch of snow on the windward side of a small hillock, and was scraping together a little bit of long-frozen grass. Her stomach grumbled as she sniffed at the mud-covered tufts. It was half-rotted before it'd been frozen, but they'd eaten the last of their proper supplies a week ago, and at this point she would've eaten mud itself if somepony told her it had calories.
"Any luck?" Donner shouted from another hillock nearby.
"Same muck as last time," Dash replied.
"Well, grab what you can and let's head back."
She pulled what clumps of grass she could, doing her best to knock the dirt from the roots, then followed Donner back toward that evening's campsite. The team had dug a trench in the snow, just big enough to fit all six(ish) of them, and then covered it with salvaged canvas. As a shelter, it was cramped, but adequate, the snow walls providing enough relative insulation to let them sleep through the night; at least as long as they kept their furs on. Nothing more positive could really be said for it however.
As the pair approached, Sweetie Belle poked her head up above the snowbank. "Hey guys, how'd it go?"
Dash levitated her four tufts of yellowed grass.
"Yeesh," Sweetie said. "That bad?"
"I found a couple of rodent burrows, and dug out a stash of seeds. I also found some thistle," Donner said. "At least we can make tea."
Fluttershy and Discord returned a short while later, their luck at finding sustenance not much better. Fluttershy laid a half-rotten wild onion, a few twigs, and some sort of bulbous root by the fire with the rest. Her stomach grumbled loudly, despite the meager fare in front of her, and Discord placed a paw worryingly on the side of her belly.
"We have to find you more to eat," he whispered to her. "You need more food than usual, not less."
Fluttershy turned away. He was right, of course, but reminding her of it didn't solve anything.
Discord felt his own stomach rumble as well. Being mortal was a real pain sometimes.
"Ugh," Blitzen said, looking at the scavenged tableau. The young caribou was stirring a small pot over their only fire. "Guess we might as well toss it all in. At least it'll be cooked." He bent over and snapped a few of the twigs before adding them to the fire, then proceeded to add the roots and grasses to the pot.
----
Later that evening, after the meager food had been shared, and everypony finished picking the dirt and other inedibles out of their teeth, Dash had an idea.
"Hey," she said, suddenly standing up. "Fluttershy! You have Discord's magic. Just snap your digits and make some food appear!"
Discord sighed and looked at Sweetie.
"Yeah," Sweetie said, shaking her head. "Nótt and I already asked that a couple of days ago."
"So?"
"Chaos magic can't make food," Discord said.
"Sure it can," Dash said. "You covered half of Ponyville with chocolate milk, and turned every cloud into cotton candy!"
"Did you eat any of it?" Discord asked.
"Well, no... I figured it might be poison. Wait!" Dash's eyes lit up. "It's not poison, is it?"
Discord gave a nod to Fluttershy, who snapped her talons, causing a cucumber sandwich, complete with plate, to appear.
"I promise it's not poison," she said, giving a weak smile to Dash. "But it's not real food either."
Dash looked around at the others, unsure.
"Go on," Sweetie said. "It's not bad, just... well, you'll see."
Stomach gurgling once again, Dash reached out and grabbed the sandwich. She took a large bite, and chewed. It tasted... plaid.
"So?"
"You're sure it's not poison?"
"No Dashie," Fluttershy said. "I promise."
Dash wolfed down the rest.
"How was it?"
"Kind of a weird taste, but not bad."
"Uh huh, and...?"
Another hungry gurgle from her stomach answered for her.
"Oh..."
"I'm sorry," Discord said. "But Chaos food is... well, real food is about order. Your body takes it apart and uses it to rebuild itself. That's a very orderly thing to do, essentially fighting entropy. Chaos magic doesn't make anything that your body can make sense of though; no little teensy bits to pull apart and build into pony parts."
"It's not real food," Sweetie summarized.
Dash had another idea. "So, what about—"
"No. Fluttershy can't teleport food in," Sweetie interrupted. "Or us out. She also can't magically locate food, at least not more than a mile or so away."
"But... I thought Chaos magic could do anything."
"I'm sorry," Fluttershy said. "Discord could... he could maybe do that, but I just don't know how yet. I'm trying to learn, I really am, but—"
"She only ever saw me use my power for jokes or very local effects," Discord said, hanging his head. "And my power itself seems to be pulling the biggest joke of all in keeping her to just that." He lifted his chin and his tone. "But if anypony needs balloon animals or a hilarious costume change, we're your team!" Discord finished by giving a half-hearted fist-pump as if to say "go team!"
Looking dejected, Dash surveyed the room. Everypony hung their head as well. They were leagues and leagues from the nearest civilization, weeks at minimum, even if the weather cooperated. There was simply no way they could live on a few bits of rotted grass for that long, much less finish their mission.
"So how do we survive this?" Dash finally asked.
Nopony answered her, and as her eyes tracked from face to face, the others all turned to avoid her gaze. In turn, Dash hung her own head, and, realizing the sun was going down, suggested they all turn in before the worst of the cold got into their bones.
----
Camp.
Morning, such as it is in the North, three days later.
Rainbow Dash awoke to a sharp pain in her wing, as she had for the past several weeks. Open or closed, the frostbitten wing hurt. Though in recent days, it was closely rivaled by the pain in her stomach. She did her best to bite down on the curses, trying not to wake the others.
Stepping away from the other sleepers, she craned her head around to get a better look at her wing, lifting her fur cloak to do so. The tip of her wing was completely without feeling, and the feathers there were starting to fall out, giving her a clear view of blackened, dead skin. The pain itself came from much further down the wing, where black gave way to more healthy color between her feathers. She hadn't exactly been measuring, but it seemed a little bit was starting to heal, as the blackened area was no longer growing at least. But she hadn't been able to even twitch a pinion there for over a month now, so she was pretty sure at least some part of her wing was going to be lost.
"Dashie?" A murmur from a half-asleep Fluttershy. "Is everything okay?"
Quickly dropping the furs back into place, Dash played it off. "Yeah, just needed to stretch my legs." They all had enough to worry about without piling on concern for her as well. She felt her stomach growl with hunger, as if to emphasize the point.
As the others awoke in the ensuing minutes, and the fire was rekindled with the last of their scavenged fuel, Dash sat down in a circle with the rest and tried to warm her hooves.
Donner made tea with the last of the thistle, and the group sat in silence, savoring the small comfort of the warm beverage, finding it just enough to give the illusion that everything was okay, and nopony wanted to break the spell by talking.
"I..." Blitzen spoke up, and the rest sighed. But then he held out a small paper-wrapped bundle of sugar cubes. "I was saving these, for, you know, better times, but..."
He didn't have to say it. They all knew it was literally the last of the last in terms of anything edible.
"They might at least make this stuff taste okay," he finished.
Deep inside, a small part of Rainbow Dash wanted to yell at him for hoarding food when they were all starving, but... a half dozen sugar cubes would do little-to-nothing against that. At least with an act of kindness, they could all smile one last time.
Another few minutes passed, as all assembled sipped their tea. The sugar, while welcome to the tongue, unfortunately only served to remind their stomachs of the need for real nourishment. Bellies growled all around, and the thought of yet another day scraping in the snow for the tiniest of morsels felt hopeless. They burned far more calories gathering food than their meager finds could replenish.
It was, Dash reiterated in her mind, hopeless.
"So this is it," she finally said. "Isn't it?"
Sweetie looked up, her face gaunt. "It's what?"
"The end," Dash said quietly. "We're all thinking it, just nopony wants to say it."
"She's right, you know." Discord stood up. "This is pretty bleak. Shouldn't there have been some magic friendship rainbows by now or something?"
"Har har."
"No, seriously! You ponies always manage to get out of a jam at the last possible minute... or at least as soon as somepony learns an important lesson. Well, I've learned mine! The cold is awful and I want to go home!"
"Discord," Sweetie Belle said. "This isn't some lesson cooked up by Twilight or Celestia."
"But you all taught me that any problem can be solved if you're with your friends and work together! I thought you were just waiting for the narratively appropriate moment. Well, isn't that now? Isn't this when one of you comes up with some brilliant plan to get us out of this mess by just thinking outside the box?"
"Shut up, Discord!" Rainbow Dash yelled. "It's not funny."
"I'm not trying to be funny! I am cold, and tired, and hungry, and until fairly recently, I've never been any of those things before! So lesson learned: being mortal is a real pain in the butt! Now do your thing and make with the heartwarming lesson and then we can all write our 'Dear Princess Celestia...' letters!"
Dash advanced on Discord, "I told you, it's not funny and—"
Fluttershy interposed herself between the two. "I don't think he's joking, at least not on purpose." She turned to Discord. "You've... never been hungry before?"
Discord tried to avoid her gaze, before finally admitting, "no."
"Well," she said, trying to sound upbeat. "It can make a lot of ponies a bit angry, and short with each other. And if you get low blood sugar, it can even make you a bit... loopy." She looked over her shoulder towards Dash. "Isn't that right?"
Taking a deep breath, Rainbow Dash calmed herself. She had to admit, she was on edge as well. "Yeah. Sorry."
After those involved had sat back down, Fluttershy asked. "Okay, now, what are we going to do about our situation?"
All assembled made a concerted effort to think.
"We have an idea," Sweetie Belle said, after a few minutes. "But you're not going to like it."
Discord cocked an eyebrow, and was disappointed at the lack of mechanical clicking sound. "See, just like I said, the narratively appropriate moment!"
"Quiet!" Dash said, snapping at Discord, then turning to Sweetie. "What is it?"
"Fluttershy," Nótt said, the Stygian aura settling over Sweetie's visage. "Did you notice the lemming burrows around yesterday?"
Fluttershy sat up straighter at the mention of animals. "Yes, I saw a few."
"Were they active?"
"I saw tracks leading to at least a couple."
"Do you think you could find them again?"
"Oh," Dash said. "They hoard food for winter, don't they?"
"Well, yes," Sweetie said, the ocular glow flickering. "But—"
"I mean," Dash interrupted. "I'm not a huge fan of seeds, but I'd eat practically anything at this point!"
Nótt ignored her, and looked back at Fluttershy. "Do you think you could catch them?"
"Wait," Dash said. "Don't we just have to dig up their holes and find their stashes?"
Fluttershy was ignoring Dash now as well, her soft eyes focused intently on the ground by her forepaws. She stood in silence for a moment, then looked up and met Nótt's gaze, despite the glimmer of tears in her eyes. "Yes," she said with as much determination as she could muster. "I can do that."
Sweetie returned and, leaning in, hugged Fluttershy. "Thank you."
"I don't get it," Dash said. "What are we going to do with a bunch of lemmings?"
----
Camp.
Lunch.
"Nuh uh," Dash said, waving her hoof in refusal. "I am not eating that!"
Fluttershy held the skewered lemming out in front of her. "I know it's strange, but lots of creatures eat meat, Dash."
"Yeah," Dash shook her head dismissively. "But not ponies!"
"We used to," Fluttershy said. "At least our ancestors did. That's why we have wolf teeth."
Dash's tongue subconsciously probed at the sharper teeth in her mouth. She'd never had hers pulled, though a lot of ponies did when they were young. She'd always hated the dentist, and her parents, after much whining on her part, had eventually given in and let her skip that particular process.
"You have to eat." Fluttershy waved the dead rodent in front of her again. "And this is what there is to eat!" She took a bite of the lemming and chewed for emphasis, even as she fought back her own natural disgust at the taste and texture of seared flesh.
Rainbow Dash felt her eyes start to water in some strange combination of fear and anger. "How can you eat that!"
"I know it tastes weird, but..."
"No!" Dash shouted, stamping her hooves in the snow. "How can you, of all ponies, eat that!" Dash pointed to the lemming; strung out, roasted, thin, hairless, eyes missing, and guts removed. "That was a living creature, Fluttershy! That was one of those same cute animals you always go on and on about saving and helping! How can you eat it?"
Shoving the skewer in the ground like a stake, Fluttershy advanced angrily toward Dash. "You think I don't know that?" She poked Dash in the chest with a paw. "You think I don't know that innocent creature had a family! And a life! And probably even something that passes for friends amongst lemmings?"
Dash looked away.
"Of course I know that!" Fluttershy was now in tears herself, even as she struggled to chew the meat. "But lots of things eat lemmings. And lots of lemmings die freezing to death in a long winter, especially when some big creatures like us come along and dig up their entire store of winter seeds!"
"I... I'm sorry, Flutters..."
"No! You don't get to be sorry. You get to eat. Because you know what? I have family too. And if the only way my family and my friends can stay alive is if that lemming and his family die, then that's the choice I make!"
"I..."
"You are my family, Dash! You and Discord and all the ponies I care about. And I care about that family more than anything else." Fluttershy plucked the skewer from the snow and thrust it at Dash. "Now eat, or so help me, I will mama-bird you this damn lemming!" She made a show of chewing even more loudly.
Dash looked at her friend, and knew she meant it too. She'd seen Fluttershy force feed a rhinoceros once, and that was before she'd gained the powers of Chaos, or even become an alicorn.
Dash lit her horn and levitated the skewer toward her mouth. She closed her eyes and finally, reluctantly, took a bite. It tasted... well... At least it wasn't plaid.
----
87th Parallel.
Another six days later, night.
Sweetie Belle was awakened in the middle of the night by a crackling, hissing sound. Lifting Donner's hoof and extracting herself from the rest of the be-furred ponies around her, she moved to find the source. It sounded tinny, like a buzzing insect scraping cloth or something. She tracked the sound to her pack, and dug within. Moments later, she found the source, a small rock with runes carved upon it. She placed it on the ground and tapped it.
"Hello?" she said. "Can anyone hear me?"
"Sweetie!" The voice from the Dragonstone was faint, but clearly belonged to Apple Bloom. "Is that you? Can you hear me?"
"Yes!" Sweetie shouted, leaning in as close as she could to the magical communication device. "I'm here!"
"Oh my gosh! It worked!"
"But how? I thought the Hole completely disabled the dragonfire magic in these things?"
"The eclipse!"
"What eclipse?"
Another voice cut in. "Umm, the whole 'sky is dark at noon' thing?"
Sweetie recognized it. "Uh, it's the middle of the night where I'm at, Scoots."
"Oh, right..."
"Look, Sweetie," Apple Bloom cut back in. "We've only got ourselves a few minutes here."
"Oh, right..." Sweetie sat down on the snow, forcing herself to calm down. "So what's up?"
"First, have you found the other obelisk yet?"
"No, though we're pretty sure it's near the pole, and we're getting close."
"Dang it. Well, we ain't got much of a shot then."
"Shot at what?"
"Well, this here eclipse, it's gonna happen again in twelve days. Well, eleven days and nineteen hours."
"And?"
"Well, it's blocking the Hole, and we thought we might have a path through totality—"
"That's the really dark part," Scootaloo added.
"Yeah," Apple Bloom continued. "The dark path of shadow goes across the pole in twelve days, and we think we might just be able to fly a Cauldron up there and help ya'll get home quicker."
"I thought the Cauldrons wouldn't be ready for almost another six months?"
"Not ready to fly without magic, but if we get a strong unicorn or two to hold it together and a pegasus airshell, we could pull it off with the prototype."
"Maybe pull it off," Scootaloo clarified. "If we can fly totally inside the umbra."
"But it doesn't matter," Apple Bloom said. "If you haven't found the obelisk yet..."
"When's the next eclipse after that?" Sweetie asked.
"Not for almost another year."
"So you're saying we've got twelve days to finish this mission?"
"Eyup... or ... got to... the thing ... by hoof." The transmission began to break up.
"I'm losing you guys."
"Sweetie, do you know where it is?"
"Close."
"Are you sure?"
"Does it matter?"
Sweetie heard the distant pair laughing through the last flickers of the magic flame. "We'll see you in twelve days." Apple Bloom said. "Sure hope ya got us a giant rock by then!"
The flame cut out before Sweetie could respond.
----
Same camp.
Dawn.
"Twelve days?" Dash said, incredulous. "We've been out here like a hundred times that long already, and haven't found squat!"
"That does seem awfully short," Fluttershy said.
"None-the-less, that's what we've got." Donner said. "So let's get to it."
"While I am all for the quixotic quest," Discord said. "What exactly do you propose we do to speed up our search?"
"Move," Sweetie said. "North."
"Umm," Blitzen spoke up. "Why is everyone so sure this ooblek thing is north?"
"Obelisk," Dash corrected. "But yeah, we've been inside the borders where the Northern Kingdoms used to be for weeks trying to find this thing. Why are you suddenly so sure now?"
Sweetie dipped her head. When it came back up, Nótt's eyes were emitting their now-familiar glow. "Because, I know where it is."
"Yeah, and you're totally not just leading us into some big trap I'm sure!"
"Rainbow Dash!" Fluttershy admonished. "Shame on you. Nótt has been nothing but helpful!"
"Yeah yeah yeah, the lemmings have been delicious." Dash rolled her eyes. "But it's like none of you ever even read Daring Do."
Donner looked at her quizzically.
"It's like, exactly how every villain ever does it. It's the double-cross! Play all nice and friendly, and then when you least expect it, bam! Trap sprung." Dash waved a hoof at Discord. "Ask him, he knows."
The last part got an angry glare from Fluttershy, but Discord, for his part, merely shrugged. "The prismatic one has a point," he said. "Pretending to be reformed, and actually being reformed look rather the same from the outside."
Nótt shook her head and blinked as Sweetie returned. "I'm not on the outside, guys, I'm in here with her. Can you trust me on this?"
"I trust you." Donner said, stepping forward. "And Nótt too. I want to hear what she knows."
"Hey," Discord said, doing the same. "Draconeuqui in glass houses and all that..."
Sweetie blinked and Nótt returned.
"So?" Donner asked. "Where is it? The pole?"
Nótt grinned, her fangs barely showing. "Yes, it's obvious, isn't it? The true pole is exactly the sort of focal point Nemesis would choose. I'm certain it's there."
"True pole?" Dash said, suspicious.
"You ponies," Nótt explained. "You play with all sorts of things you do not comprehend. You spin this world now, based on your own maps of what was up and what was down, what was north and what was south. You put a pole on the world, based upon a map." Nótt's eyes glowed brighter, the red aura pulsing as she continued. "But did you ever wonder why your maps had a pole at all?"
The others sat, rapt with attention, but Donner spoke up. "It's where the magnetic field seems to center. All compasses point there."
"Yes, I'm sure they do. But did you ever wonder why?"
There were some nods, but nopony spoke up.
Discord was casually leaning against a tent pole as he pretended to clean a talon. "Don't keep them waiting, sister."
The red aura faded somewhat as Nótt rolled her eyes. But she continued anyway. "In ancient times, this world spun on its own, imparted with momentum during its formation. There, where the axis of that spin met the surface, was the old northern pole. And within the world, currents flowed and moved, causing the field you use today to find your north. But the fields and the old axis, they are not the same."
"So our maps are off by a bit, big whoop," Dash said.
Donner, for her part, was fascinated by this tale. She'd been exploring for most of her life, but had never once questioned why maps were oriented as they were, or why Celestia and Luna had chosen to move the sun and moon in the paths they did. Now, it started to seem far less of a coincidence that the obelisk was here in the far north.
"So," she asked Nótt as she unrolled a cloth map of the arctic and placed it over the packs and blankets they were using for a table. "If this obelisk is at the old northern pole, then where exactly is that?"
Nótt examined the map. The lines of longitude converged on a point near the top of the map, not too far from where they were currently camped, just north of the mountains they'd crossed. She drew a claw gently across the map, but slowed as she looked around and made eye contact with the rest of the party.
"Really?" she said. "Is it not obvious to you yet?"
Blitzen and Dash both shrugged, while Discord continued to play at nonchalance.
"Fine," Nótt huffed at a voice only she could hear. "I'll get to the point." She pointed to an empty region of tundra, some hundred or more miles from the map's illustrated pole.
At first, there didn't seem to be anything special about the location, then Donner saw it.
"The center!" she shouted. "It's the center of the circum-arctic range!"
"What?" Dash said, leaning in to examine the map. "That's just... kind of off to one side by the top."
"That's just this projection! This map isn't the best for it... hang on." Donner nosed into her pack and quickly dug out another map. This one had all the lines converging on the center, instead of the top edge. "There, this is a polar projection."
Donner quickly pointed out the same spot on the new map, and the others were quick to see that it sat almost exactly in the center of the circular mountain range.
"See," Nótt said, her grin returning. "As I said, it's obvious."
"So, lemme get this straight," Dash said. "You're saying that spot there, perfectly in the center of this really circular ring of mountains used to be the actual north pole, back when the world spun on its own? And that's where the big ancient evil rock tower is?"
"Exactly."
"Nope!" Dash said, throwing up her hooves. "Daring Do novel all over again! That is way too obvious to not one hundred percent be a trap! You really expect us to believe that the entire world just happened to spin exactly on the center of the mountains? Ha! Nice try!"
"Is she always this dense?" Nótt said, seeming to start a conversation with the air. "What? No, I didn't. I was? Out loud? Oh, I'm... I'm doing it again, aren't I? Okay, fine."
Sweetie blinked a few times as the wisps of red aura faded. "It's not a trick, Dash. She showed me what really happened."
"Yeah, some amazing coincidence, I'm sure."
"It's not a coincidence at all, actually."
Dash cocked her head, waiting for more.
"The mountains weren't always there, not in ancient times when the world was still spinning."
"Well then how'd they get there, and how's that not a coincidence?"
"Because," Sweetie continued, a tone of sadness seeping into her voice. "There used to be a fortress there."
"How's that explain it?"
Sweetie Belle sighed. "It became a target, Dash. They built it to fight Nemesis and he targeted them."
"Then how'd the mountains get there?"
Sweetie looked down at the map laying across the blankets, then raised a forehoof. In one smooth, swift motion, she stomped down on the cloth and twisted, the ripples and folds in the fabric around her hoof doing a fair imitation of the valleys and peaks drawn on the map itself.
"They lost."