Amuruq
There were certain things that Amuruq had been told about driving. Don’t drive above… some speed while it’s snowing. Don’t drive above a certain speed limit in the Dalton Highway. It wasn't as if Amuruq had a choice in breaking most of these rules. Except for texting and driving or being drunk. Really, he wasn’t stupid.
The Crystal Method was blaring as his car roared up to Prudhoe Bay. Snow pelted downwards so quick it seemed to be suspended in midair.
It was damn cold out there.
“Just… a little too sloww!” the speakers boomed. Hello? Is that you? Is anyone out there?
Amuruq felt that at the very bottom of his soul.
He was too slow.
“Used to listen to this all the time,” Nny was saying.
“You’re not that old,” Darryl said.
“I had a game with this back in the 2000s,” Nny explained. “Played it a lot when I broke my collarbone. I think my favorite car was the Eclipse.”
Oh, he is totally trying to distract himself, Amuruq thought.
Prudhoe Bay and Deadhorse would be coming up soon. Or at least, he hoped they’d be. The landscape looked the same everywhere. It was a flat white expanse in all directions but for the road, the pipeline above the snow,
“Reminds of home,” Vera said.
“What part of Russia?” Fiddlesticks said.
“Yes and…” Vera said. “Actually. Am Azerbaijani. I grew up in place called Oily Rocks.”
“Oh yeah,” Nny said, and much to everyone’s surprise: “I’ve heard of that place.”
“You have?” Vera asked.
“Yeah,” Nny said. “Uh, oil refinery town on the sea. Not, like, on the coast, but actually a town built on an oil refinery in the middle of the ocean.”
Vera smiled at him. “Da. That’s where I grew up. Then, moved to Baku. The pipeline, the… müstəvi… it reminds me of home. One winter it froze nearby, it looked like home was in middle of tundra. But now that we’re in tundra… it reminds me of being in sea.”
“How often do you miss it?” Fiddlesticks asked.
“Who wouldn’t miss their home?” Vera asked.
“You didn’t answer,” Snowshoes remarked.
“Didn’t I?” Vera asked.
Nobody said much of anything that as the truck rushed over the tundra. As the snow pelted against the windshield. It was flat and white all around, and if Amuruq looked closely he could see the pipeline, the slight upward curvature in the snow of the railroad. A narrow rib of land, too long to be a hill, jutted out off to one side of the road.
He idly fiddled with the radio. He could play music, sure, but he was so far north that he didn’t expect to find anyone.
He clicked the radio for the umpteenth time.
“This is Amuruq Johnson. Sagwon’s been emptied. Is anyone out there?”
No response.
He’d never felt more alone in his life. Well. ‘Alone’ might not have been the right word. He was in a car full of people - Sharon, Darryl, Nny, Fiddlesticks, Snowshoes, Sandalwood, Kgalakgadi, Vera, Emma, and Tomorbaator. All of them kind of noisy, clashing with each other. Especially Sandalwood and Snowshoes.
Why couldn’t they make an atempt to just get along?
‘Too bad I can’t just stop at a hotel,’ Amuruq thought. Then: ‘Aww shit, I wouldn’t have the cash for that anyway.’
“Kgalakgadi?” Fiddlesticks asked. “What’s the status on your plot devices?”
“It’s a thaumoemotive indicator, a thaumic barometer, and…” Kgalakgadi looked sheepish as he held it out. “My iPad.”
“So… what are you picking up?” Sharon asked. She was still shivering.
“Well, there’s…” Kgalakgadi held the iPad on one hoof. “Damnedest thing. The readings I’m-”
“Kgalakgadi,” Snowshoes said. “Just… laypony’s terms. Please.”
He glowered at Snowshoes a little, but shrugged. “Very well. It’s… I keep getting thaumic pulses from somewhere west of here.”
“Is it the same thing that brought us back up here in the first place?” Amuruq asked.
Kgalakgadi just shrugged. “Odd thing, though,” he said. “It sounds… for all the world, like Morse code. Can anyone-”
“I can,” Sandalwood interrupted. “Hmmm…”
They listened to the pulses coming from Kgalakgadi’s iPad.
“It’s…” Sandalwood said, and scrawled on a sheet of paper, pencil held in her horn TK. Written on the paper were the characters ‘. -. -.. - .... .. …’
“It says ‘end this,’ Sandalwood said.
“I told you,” Sharon said. “That’s what it wants. It wants us to end it.”
“So something,” Johnny C said, “Is in the middle of the arctic. Asking us to murder it.”
“It honestly doesn’t seem like murder,” Sandalwood said. “More like euthanasia.”
“Why are you two arguing about this?” Snowshoes asked. “We learned this all earlier.”
“I’m just still processing it,” Johnny C said. “I’ve always had… troubles… with that.”
“So is he stupid, or-” Snowshoes started.
If looks could kill, Snowshoes would have been a puddle on the floor of the truck, lapping down between the seats. Nny’s glare burned through her.
“I’m just going to pretend you didn’t say that,” Nny said.
Snowshoes quailed a little.
“I’m sorry,” she said, finally. Meekly.
“You’d better be,” Fiddlesticks said, glowering at her.
Amuruq was both relieved and irritated at the silence. On the one hand, quiet, and he could just sit back and drive.
On the other hand, he was stuck in a car full of people, ponies, a griffon, and a zebra who could scarcely be relied upon to act like friends, or even like people who knew each other.
‘So that’s how mom felt driving me and Annamarie everywhere,’ Amuruq thought. I had wondered.
“Will we be able to get any communications out from Prudhoe?” the yellow mare asked. Fiddlesticks.
Amuruq pondered this. When he’d worked as a smokejumper, parachuting out of planes to fight fires, he’d come to a realization. There were people who were more-or-less urban, like him - born and raised in Juneau. There were townies, who lived in small towns. Then there were people from what he considered the ass end of nowhere, unincorporated townships well off the beaten path. Then there were people who lived places was nigh-impossible to visit without a plane.
Prudhoe was one of those places. Then again, its oil was absolutely vital to the human war effort, so it was quite likely they’d have some way to communicate…
Amuruq had to hope. Because the way the storm was going, the place they were, it was probably the only chance for anyone south of Sagwon to know for quite some time.
Now if only the snow wasn’t thicker than clam chowder…
It was hard to resist gunning it. But the urge to gun it just seemed to strip his nerves a little more bare. So did the urge to not gun it. And the silence. And his lack of knowledge. And…
Well. Everything.
“So,” he said, desperately trying to break the silence. “I feel… kinda lost on this. Any idea just what we’re chasing?”
Tomorbaator
He raised one foretalon and gave his answer. “It’s just… I have a guess. The… the reindeer. And this mention of a God. The fact that we’re in the frozen north. I think… that maybe, just maybe, it could be Sint Erklass.”
The truck was silent.
“Yeah, I don’t know what that is,” Nny said.
There was silence.
“He was the oldest being on Equus,” Tomorbaator explained. “A great reindeer older than the oldest civilizations of the planet, and the wisest. Legend has it that he was the most powerful, strongest, and wisest being of Equestria.”
“If he trained Celestia,” Sandalwood muttered, “Then I doubt he was that wise.”
Tomorbaator pointedly ignored that kind of disrespect.
“Anyway, from his realm in the north he brought joy to Equus, delivering presents to the good children of the planet,” Tomorbaator said. “On a specific day in the winter, he does so, a smile on his face, riding across the-”
“This sounds like Santa Claus,” Emma interrupted.
“It’s not the same thing!” Snowshoes protested, much to Tomorbaator’s surprise.
“They killed Santa Claus,” Darryl said, slowly. “What.”
“It’s not the same thing at all!” Tomorbaator protested. “He’s a magic reindeer who brings gifts and joy to-”
“So far you’ve just said why it’s so similar,” Darryl said.
“So Santa Claus is dead, in the arctic, and we have to give him a proper burial before the Solar Empire desecrates his corpse,” Nny said. “...Can’t fucking believe this,” he sighed.
“There’s some people that’d consider that sacrilegious back on Equus,” Kgalakgadi said.
“Yes, well, we’re not there,” Sandalwood said.
Tomorbaator just sighed. This is so surreal…
“By the way, though,” Snowshoes said, “What… do we have to do? At first we were investigating, and now…”
She looked over to Sharon.
“Well?” Tomorbaator asked, eager to hear from her.
Sharon
She thought about what Tomorbaator and Snowshoes had asked.
“Well,” she started. Then stopped when she realized that everyone, absolutely everyone, including Amuruq in the driver’s seat, was listening.
She didn’t know what she was saying. She knew beyond a doubt, that the thing was important. That it couldn’t be allowed into the hooves of the Solar Empire. That it was-
Betrayed.
The images flowed through her mind like water. Two happy fillies that were playing in the snow, telekinetically firing snowballs at each other. Being watched over by reindeer. They were speaking a language she did not understand but momentarily understood to be her own.
A great stag, dwarfing them in power and age. Its memories stretching back eons.
“Yeah,” Snowshoes said, voice sounding like it was coming from far away, “That sounds a lot like Sint Erklass.”
Darryl
Suddenly it didn’t seem so silly.
Admittedly, it still seemed silly. It wasn’t that he regretted making a joke about it, God no. It was more that he was trying not to be overwhelmed by the sheer scale of it all and failing miserably.
There was an ancient being from before recorded history, from before any civilization on Equus that had only wanted to help, to bring joy, and Celestia had killed it. Of course she had.
“There’s more, though,” Sharon said. “It… still has power.”
“Okay,” Darryl said.
“What, you’re just ging to say ‘okay?’” Snowshoes asked. “Just like that?”
“Well, it contacted Sharon, didn’t it?” Darryl asked. “And it’s powerful enough for Equestria to justify wiping an entire village off the map.”
“Well,” Sandalwood said. “Maybe that’s just Shieldwall being Shieldwall? I mean, we did see him around…
“Hold on, hold on, hold on,” Emma said. “I…. I mean, I saw him up there. We all did. But what gave him such a reputation? Where’d he come from?”
Darryl sighed.
“I was never on the same continent as him. I was in Spain, he filtered down to Northern Africa. And I was glad for that. So, story goes… Shieldwall was a partisan in the Crystal War. He’d wanted to be a scientist of some kind, but he’d gotten to like being a partisan. So he heads to Earth on vacation, take his mind off of the things he saw,” Darryl explained. “His brother is there, along with his friends.”
“Yeah,” Sandalwood sighed. “That period when so many ponies visit this new, wonderful exciting world and decide in a few months that it needs to be destroyed.”
He could see Snowshoes look over at her, confused. “Did that… did that invert on you or something?”
“I dunno. Probably,” Sandalwood said, both forelegs out in an exaggerated shrug.
“Then suddenly, Shieldwall shows up, after the Three Weeks Of Blood-”
The truck went quiet. Incredibly quiet. Nobody had anything in the way of good memories of that time. Darryl had been in the U.S Army during that time, down in Philly. The Alaskans in this car - Sharon, Amuruq, Emma - were lucky they hadn’t seen anything like that.
“And he’s…” Darryl sighed. “The worst kind of potion-bombs you hear about? Potion grenade launchers, potion mixed with acid to eat though hazmat suits, anti-personal mines-”
“Don’t you mean anti-personnel?” Emma asked.
“I wish,” Darryl said. “Anyway, that shit? It’s Shieldwall’s inventions. He had something to do with making Quickblade, and rumor is that he likes to tinker with newfoals while they’re still being made. He left so many refugees and cities distraught while he was chasing someone across Africa. No idea who, but… I’ve got theories.”
“And then what happened?” Fiddlesticks asked.
“Well, he just… disappeared from Africa one day,” Darryl said. “Vanished. Guess we know where he is now, huh?”
The car was quiet again.
“...Didn’t they tell you back in boot camp not to talk up the enemy?” Nny asked. “Seriously, man.”
“Yeah, my old sergeant told me to avoid doing that too,” Amuruq said.
“Oh for God’s sake,” Darryl said. “Did everyone-”
He immediately regretted asking. Apparently, everyone - except Kgalakgadi - had heard as much.
Darryl just groaned.
“Well,” Emma said, “If… if Darryl’s breaking that rule, anyone mind if I do?”
Emma
“What do you mean?” Kgalakgadi asked, confused.
“Is anyone else wondering… well, what else we might find out here?” Emma asked. “There’s a lot of stuff out here. I mean, a lot of things.”
“What do you mean?” Fiddlesticks asked
Emma thought on that. Back in high school, one of the things she’d done on weekends was to head up into the middle of nowhere and visit abandoned ships, buildings, and rail lines. It’d been like a game.
The one thing this had conveyed to her was that Alaska was big. Bigger than she’d ever really thought, and big enough that she’d never really trusted globes for the rest of her life.
“It’s just that there’s a lot of space up here,” she said, right as a newfoal splattered against the grill of the truck. “SHIT!”
“What, again?!” Sharon groaned.
The truck slowed down ever so slightly, and Amuruq swore.
“How many of these damn things are out here?!” Darryl groaned.
“Hey, remember when we thought this’d be simple?” Sandalwood sighed.
“Sandy, that was a couple hours ago,” Kgalakgadi said.
The truck trundled along, and then suddenly, illuminated in its headlights, they saw it. There were massive snowbanks on either side of the road, and two children hiding on the one to their right.
Things like fireballs zipped overhead, lights blooming in the distance.
“Amuruq,” Darryl said, “Stop the truck. If I was uncertain about stopping before… Not anymore.”
“Yes sir,” Amuruq said, and Emma felt the truck slow, then crawl to a stop.
Darryl stopped and got out of the truck, zipping up his coat as they went. It wasn’t anything close to disciplined, or orderly, but all of a sudden here they were outside in the biting cold. Nny was holding a Kalashnkov, Amuruq a massive hunting rifle, Sharon with a semiauto Kalashnikov of some kind, Vera with a gun that looked somewhere between a Kalashnikov and a FAL, and Fiddlesticks had two lightweight SMGs in her assault saddle. Emma went for a shotgun.
“Aren’t we supposed to be just a peaceful expedition?” Kgalakgadi asked, half-whimpering, half-sarcastic, his breath visible in the air as the truck’s door opened.
“Kgalakgadi,” Sandalwood said, trotting out with her horn glowing, “This is Alaska.”
Darryl, though…
He walked around to the back, pulling out a long, thin tube connected to what looked like a barrel.
He clicked its pistol grip experimentally, watching a short, lighter-sized jet of flame issue from one end.
“That’s a damn flamethrower?!” Emma yelped, staggering back slightly.
“Nice one, Dare,” Snowshoes said approvingly.
Amuruq looked at Darryl, unsettled. “Yeah. The hell, sarge? What gives?”
“They didn’t tell me not to bring it,” Darryl said. “So I did.”
“The therapist told you not to touch that,” Amuruq said, for what sounded like the umpteenth time.
“Well, the therapist?” Darryl said, dragging the word out unpleasantly. “He ain’t here.”
Emma watched Nny and Fiddlesticks step back. They’d probably heard the stories of Darryl Joseph the hero. Darryl Joseph, who’d managed to liberate what was once a Spanish prison, on his own, with a flamethrower.
Nobody at the base completely believed that. They all knew why he’d really been reassigned here. Nowhere.
“Sandalwood, Spurred Weld?” Darryl barked. “Project shield spells around us. We don’t have much cover, so it’ll have to do. Stay as far back as you can. Amuruq, Sharon? Keep near our truck. We’ll need you to provide cover. Anyone else with a gun, Tomorbaator? you’re with me.”
“Wait, even us?” Nny asked Fiddlesticks.
“Congratulations, kid,” Darryl said. “You’re heading out with us.”
Emma’s field of view became red. For a few seconds, she wondered what was happening, then she realized - that was just the color of Spurred Weld’s magic.
He’d even left cutouts in the shields for their guns. That was nice of him.
And they rushed into the fray. Nny was at the rear, just in front of Fiddlesticks. Darryl was running point, flamethrower outstretched. And Emma…
Can’t believe I’m fucking doing this! she thought, and - more to feel like she was actually doing something - fired her Ithaca 37.
It made its characteristic THOOM, and she heard a scream.
Here’s hoping you’re at peace now, she thought. Whoever you were.
And then she screamed, herself.
“NO NO NO FU-”
She rolled to the side, a fireball landing barely an inch from her feet. She scrambled backwards on her butt, then picked herself up, shotgun in hand.
“IDIOTS!” Darryl yelled, and his weapon let loose a gout of flame.
And then, illuminated by Darryl’s flamethrower, she saw the two children. They looked terrified. Incredibly out of place. The way they were dressed, it almost looked like they’d freeze to death any second.
There might have been fire raining down from the sky. This might have been more battle than Emma had ever seen. This might have been… terrifying, to be honest.
And yet that was her first reaction: Get to the kids.
“Nny?” she asked. “Cover me.”
Nny just nodded, and let loose a burst from his own Kalashnikov. Fiddlesticks did the same with her SMGs.
As they fired, Emma ran towards the snowbanks. Towards the children. She was about 16 feet from the children when it happened.
An earth pony had clambered to the top of the snowbank, a newfoal judging by its glassy eyes. Emma was about to fire when several strange things happened.
Firstly, the newfoal stopped as it looked down at the children. It looked…
Well, Emma couldn’t say what it looked like it was about to do, but it looked almost like it was uncertain of what to do next. Which never happened.
Then someone, or maybe somepony yelled: “You don’t know what they could do!”
‘But they know exactly what guns do,’ Emma thought. ‘What?’
She brushed it off. There were children to save. So, shouldering her shotgun, anticipating for the recoil, she fired. At that range the pellets didn’t merely punch through, or hit the newfoal. They vanished the newfoal, its blood staining the snow above the kids.
She rushed towards the children.
“You’re going to be okay,” she promised, crouched by the two children, a boy and a girl. Her shotgun brushed the tip of the snow.
“Are you hurt?” she asked.
They were silent. Weirdly enough it didn't even look like they were shivering.
“Where are your parents?” she tried again.
“Dead,” the boy said. “They… got him. Left him bleeding out in the snow. We barely got out alive!”
“Please!” the girl pleaded. “You have to get us out of here! Before they get us!”
“I'm not letting anyone else turn into one of those… things!” Emma yelled. “Come on, both of you!”
She motioned for the two children to follow, guarding them with her shotgun.
“LOOK OUT!” Tomorbaator yelled, and a newfoal fell to the ground behind her, blood issuing from a hole in its throat.
Emma nodded thanks, and kept moving.
“That… those were people?” the girl asked.
Emma didn’t have time to think about that question. It was like a dull buzz in her head as she escorted the children towards the APC.
She thumbed a round from her Ithaca’s sidecar into the loading port.
“Look out!” Nny yelled, and drilled a round through a newfoal’s head with his Kalashnikov. It tumbled down the snowbank, blood gushing from the ruined flesh and bone where there used to be a head.
So how had the children gotten here? They didn’t even look cold.
But Emma could ask that question later. At this very moment, Tomorbaator had dropped from the sky, bleeding profusely.
“Damn… newfoals!” he choked out.
Nny
He didn’t know what to do.
There was Tomorbaator lying there, blood oozing out of one foreleg. And there was Emma. What to do?! Obviously, save the children, but he couldn’t leave Tomorbaator th-
“Wait a damn minute!” Fiddlesticks yelled. “They don't have any Potion with them!”
Something snapped inside Nny.
“EAT MY DICK!” he yelled, and fired off a long, saturating burst with his rifle. There was a yelp of pain from off in the distance.
“He got Will O’ Wisp!” a pegasus newfoal yelled, circling overhead.
Haven’t I heard that before? Nny asks. Huh, maybe it’s like Transformers, all the good names are taken.
And then he dropped downwards. Towards…
Towards Tomorbaator!
Nny was running before he realized it, just ever so slightly outpacing Spurred Weld’s shield.
He slipped his rifle onto his back and grabbed Tomorbaator by the chest, desperately trying to move him out of the way before the newfoal dropped.
Come on, come on!
Tomorbaator slid across the snow, millimeter by millimeter. Nny wheezed, trying to pull Tomorbaator onto his back.
It didn’t work.
The newfoal’s forelegs slammed down on Tomorbaator’s own forelegs, and he screamed like a banshee.
“Griffons,” the newfoal sneered. “One day, when we’ve fixed this world, we’re going to have to-”
Nny was holding his revolver - the larger .44 with the central shotgun barrel - before he realized it. He fired into the newfoal’s face, splattering their brains across the snow.
“Come fucking ON!” he yelled, holding Tomorbaator to his back, bent slightly.
And he ran. At least, as best he could, struggling under the Griffon’s weight.
“NO!” a newfoal earth pony yelled, rushing up to the truck at impossible speed. “You’re not taking them! You’re not-”
Suddenly, he collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. Fiddlesticks stood nearby, her little SMGs smoking in the cold weather.
“AWRIGHT!” Nny whooped, and made his way to the truck.
Then they heard it.
A horrible, slithering sound, like someone slapping boneless limbs against the snow. Coming from behind the truck.
“I WON’T LET YOU,” a magically amplified voice boomed. “YOU ARE NOT TAKING THEM!”
“What the hell is that?” Amuruq asked, turning to the other side of the truck… and then freezing.
“Oh hell no,” Nny breathed, looking almost physically sick.
Not far behind the truck, he could see… something vaguely person-shaped, glowing patches and lines intersecting their body.
Except it looked like it’d also been shaped from people. Bodies were joined together haphazardly into a shape like a four-meter, headless person. A head was visible where feet would be, the crotch of another body looked to be the knee, and arms jutted out at seemingly random points.
“Golem!” Amuruq yelled, and started firing. With a shrug, Nny joined in as well. “FIND THE PUPPETEER!”
It didn’t help. The bullets only looked to be staggering it, and wherever the puppeteer was, Nny couldn’t see him.
He deposited Tomorbaator on a mostly empty seat, watching everyone else squeeze in, watching Amuruq force himself into the driver seat.
“Are the kids okay?” Tomorbaator wheezed. He sounded like he barely had the energy to talk.
“Yeah,” Nny said, looking over two the two frightened and most assuredly out-of-place children. “I think they are.”
“Good,” Tomorbaator said, through gritted teeth. Obviously from the pain. “That’s… a relief.”
“How fast can you take us?” Sharon asked, as Amuruq hit the gas.
“Let’s find out!” Amuruq whooped, and their truck shot off into the snowy alaskan night. Nny and Fiddlesticks desperately held Tomorbaator in place, hoping he wasn’t shaking around too much.
Darryl
Something bothered him. Firstly, where had the snowbanks come from? They were too huge to have formed completely naturally. And how could the children have gotten there? It was too far away for them to have walked, and there weren’t any vehicles in the vicinity.
So they hadn't seen a newfoal. No, they simply had no idea what they were like. No idea how they acted, how singleminded they were, how broken?
Darryl was calling bullshit.
No matter how isolated you were in Alaska, it was impossible to not know that much about newfoals. He'd known some people who talked a blue streak about newfoals, some that could almost mistake them for the real thing. But that always stopped.
In 2018. Enough in 2019 that he could barely count it on one hand.
Something was very wrong here.
“So,” he said, “Where are your parents?”
“Dead,” one of the children said.
“Not ponified?” Darryl asked, raising an eyebrow. That was interesting.
“No,” the boy said.
“What happened?” Darryl asked, doing his best to be gentle.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” the girl said.
“Is there anything you can tell us about Sagwon though?” Darryl asked.
The children stared at him suspiciously.
What aren’t they telling me?
“Are we going to be okay?” one of them asked. “Where’s Elsa?”
God, I’m interrogating children? Darryl thought. That’s screwed up. But… they’re the only survivors. And there’s just… so much isn’t right here.
Sandalwood
The foals - excuse her, the children - had been sitting next to Sandalwood this whole time, and it felt like whatever Darryl was directing at them had spilled over onto her.
She could see him… scrutinizing them. Treating them with a complete lack of trust. And he looked intense enough that even she felt some of it.
If that was how she felt, she didn’t want to know how the kids felt. She felt a stab of pity as she looked at their faces. They were…
Lost.
It was the first word that came to mind. They had something like the same look Sandalwood had seen on the faces of Barrier refugees. ‘The Dispossessed,’ as some called them. They like something had left them with nowhere and nobody out there to help them, and they knew it.
“Darryl,” Sandalwood said, “Just… we didn’t even ask their names.”
She looked to the two of them. “Who are you two?”
“I’m Eadmund,” the boy said.
“Lucie,” the girl said.
Their accents are a bit odd, Sandalwood thought, but she ignored that.
“And I’m telling you,” Darryl said, “Something isn’t right.”
“Yeah,” Sandalwood said. “I know. Acting like they’re suspects, like something’s wrong with them… that isn’t right.”
Darryl fumed, but there was an oddly tight look to it. Something that could have been regret.
He might have a point, Sandalwood thought, but like hell I’ll interrogate kids.
Nny
He looked over the van. At Sharon, still shivering from the cold. Darryl Joseph, an apparent war hero from Spain who’d been willing to interrogate children. Snowshoes, who had all the intrapersonal skill of a flying mallet. Tomorbaator, kept immobile to keep him from hurting his bleeding, broken leg.
“Are you sure I haven’t made a huge mistake?” Nny asked.
Fiddlesticks’ face was blank. She looked at him silently, her mouth in a contemplative frown.
“Honestly, I think we’d both be happier if we were in a house with a hot meal, ignoring this,” Fiddlesticks said.
“...Oh,” Nny said. ‘Yeah. That’s… that’s what I thought.’
“But…” Fiddlesticks said. “You know, on some level, I think you may have wanted to hear that. But, here’s what else I think you need to hear.”
Nny looked at her expectantly.
“We’ve done good out here,” Fiddlesticks said. “Rescued children. Found out about an atrocity nobody else would’ve known about for days”
Despite himself, Nny smiled. “Yeah, Fiddlesticks. I think I did need to hear that too.”
He looked out the window.
“Huh,” he said. “I think… I think that’s the coast.”
“Yup!” Amuruq called from the driver’s seat. “We’re nearly at our destination, everyone. Hot food and a break from this goddamn stupid drive await!”
“I thought our destination was, uh… the thing that the Solar Empire took,” Kgalakgadi said.
“It is, but we won’t be any good if we don’t warn somebody,” Darryl said. “Besides, Tomorbaator…” he looked back towards the injured griffon. “He needs help. Badly.”
“What’s his name?” Lucie asked.
“Tomorbaator,” Snowshoes said. “His name’s Tomorbaator.”
“Well…” Lucie said. “Tomorbaator, I’m sorry. For what happened.”
“Nothing to be sorry about,” Tomorbaator said. His beak didn’t allow for smiles, but Nny imagined from the tone of his voice that the griffon would be smiling weakly. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“You don’t know that,” Lucie said.
Nny thought about that.
Thought about the sadness in her voice. The way she responded.
Darryl might just have a point. Also, do their names seem familiar, or is that just me?
Fiddlesticks
They rolled into town,and Fiddlesticks took in all the sights. Before she’d come to Alaska, she’d thought of arctic villages almost romantically, thinking of quaint, ancient wooden architecture that looked like it could survive gale-force winds.
This was partly Nny’s fault, considering the places he lived. But Prudhoe Bay couldn’t have looked anymore different than she’d imagined. The first words that came to Fiddlesticks’ mind when they came up on Prudhoe Bay were ‘blunt’ and ‘utilitarian.’ The buildings looked to be designed with function in mind - and only that. There were some flourishes, like painted signs, but nothing else.
Though she could barely see a lot of the buildings under the snowdrifts.
Through some of the frosted-over windows, she could see people staring at them. Hardened, weatherbeaten-looking workers.
She didn’t doubt for a second that someone was aiming a gun at them.
“Huh,” Vera said. “It really does feel like home.”
Fiddlesticks made a mental note to google what Oily Rocks looked like. She pressed her face to the window, looking over the snow and rime ice-encrusted buildings. The newest thing there looked to be a railroad station, one that looked slightly less weatherbeaten than everything.
Oil cars and other freight cars sat on the rails off to the side. As did a steam engine, a large 2-8-0 just like the one from back home. It looked like it was easing itself back into a shed made of corrugated metal, where someone had spraypainted the words “END OF THE LINE.”
“...Huh,” Johnny C said, looking over at the thing. “They have something like that back home, kids. I actually knew one of the engineers.”
Despite the forlorn looks on their faces, Fiddlesticks could see the children looking curious at that. ‘Where’s this stranger from?’ she imagined them asking.
“Could you drive it?” one of the foals asked.
Nny shrugged. “Probably.”
Amuruq laughed slightly, hearing the surprise. “They had to keep up with the supply and demand somehow. Having another engine helped.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Johnny C said.
It wasn’t long before they saw it, though: A person (It was hard to tell under the heavy coat) armed with a revolver the size of a small rifle and walking out towards them, an assortment of vaguely official-looking armed men (again, hard to tell under the thick, heavy coats) guarding them. Following her.
Snowshoes
She stepped out of their truck.
Snowshoes had only been to Prudhoe Bay once, with Sandalwood. Both of them vaguely suspected Snowshoes had only been brought on because she could camouflage herself. A lot of people either didn’t have the best view of ponies, or didn’t know anything about them in the least.
Sandalwood… really hadn’t liked it.
Her friend - her more-or-less friend - was shaking as they stepped out into the snow, and it wasn’t from the cold. After all, Sandalwood wore clothes all over her, snowpants and a parka adapted from clothes for human children.
The approaching humans scowled at them. They didn’t have their guns aimed at them, or in any position other than nonthreatening. Which was, oddly enough, exactly why Snowshoes felt threatened.
The leading man threw back his hood with his left hand, massive revolver at the ready. Snowshoes remembered him: Project Manager Edward Coolidge. In charge of most everything here, or at least… whatever there was to be in charge of somewhere like here.
He wore an ushanka to cover his bald pate, though thick clumps of hair spilled out from under the hat into his hood. His face didn’t quite look craggy - he was too short, heavy, and vaguely overweight for that to be true - but there was a sense of solidity to it.
“You know,” Coolidge said, “I actually volunteered to be up here so I’d be safe. Away from it all.”
Amuruq and Sharon walked out of the car, Darryl and Emma behind them. The four of them stood, facing Coolidge and the men flanking him.
“Not so I could be dragged into some business involving ponies. Here. Of all places. Where I can just forget about it. Why not? It’s not like much changes for us here. But no. You have to bring those things here.”
Snowshoes wondered about that. About how eventually, Barrier movements would push him south. Sure, he had it good when it came to his own oubliette - a place he could forget about the Barrier, if only for a few moments - but he didn’t have it Last Resort good.
“Don’t,” Sandalwood said, looking over at her. “Just don’t.”
Must’ve looked pretty angry, Snowshoes thought. “You’re just gonna ignore this?” she asked.
“Why not?” Sandalwood asked. “He’s right, anyway. Besides, what’d it do to argue with him? What would it accomplish?”
Snowshoes found that she couldn’t quite argue with that.
“We didn’t even tell you what we’re here for,” Darryl said.
“Well then, what is it?” one of Coolidge’s guards asked.
“First things first,” Darryl said, “We have a wounded griffon in the truck. He needs medical are as soon as possible.”
“You might be better off getting him to Barrow,” Coolidge said. “We don’t have much of anything that could help here. Especially not for a griffon.”
“His foreleg’s broken, and he’s bleeding pretty badly,” Emma said. “As far as I can tell, it’s not too different from what we’d do for a human. I can help if you want.”
“I… think the doctors would appreciate that,” one guard said.
“Now, I know you didn’t come here just to bring me a wounded Griffon,” Coolidge said. “So why don’t you-”
“Sagwon’s gone,” Amuruq interrupted, ignoring the glares from Darryl and Sharon.
Coolidge looked to Darryl, confused. “Gone as in…”
“As in something made them all walk out and leave,” Johnny C added, Fiddlesticks in tow. “We came in, and… the kids were all we found.”
The look of rank disapproval on Coolidge’s face didn’t exactly disappear as much as it collapsed. “Oh, God. What happened to them?”
Nobody who’d been in the truck could muster the strength to say it.
“Oh God,” Coolidge said. “That.”
One of them men at Coolidge’s side vomited into the snow right then and there. Snowshoes couldn’t blame him.
“Yeah,” Snowshoes found herself saying,”That’s what happened.”
“Wait, what kids?” one of the guards asked.
“Two children,” Emma said. “Kids. Definitely brother and sister…”
“They rescued us from those… those newfoals,” Lucie said.
“Well,” Coolidge said, “I might not be happy to see you, but I’ll be damned if I don’t help them out.”
“Get Tomorbaator out,” Darryl said. “Emma, Nny, can you carry his stretcher?”
The two of them nodded.
“So, while the two of them are dealing with that,” Coolidge said, “Tell me everything.”
Sandalwood
It took some coaxing, hot chocolate, and a warm room in one of Prudhoe Bay’s buildings, but they did it.
It was all stainless steel, formica and wood paneling inside, with guttering lighting that barely illuminated the cramped spaces. Sandalwood didn’t know much about earth decorating, but she guessed the place was old. It felt like it hadn’t been given a touch-up in decades.
Just like it always had.
She’d had to go there a few times - there were a few spells that the PHL had applied to the oil derricks that she’d needed to re-cast. Spells to ensure lack of leakage, to enhance the durability. If there was any way the remaining forces of humanity could enhance oil production, they had Sandalwood cast a spell that’d help them do it.
And some things about the place never really felt right to her. The people here - like Coolidge - lived about as far as you could get from ponies, the war, and they’d developed a sense of independence about it. Enough that Sandalwood never felt safe going there.
“So,” said Coolidge. “Sagwon’s gone, and they have… what, exactly?”
He tapped his fingers on the table. Something about the motion unsettled Sandalwood. Just like… just like...
They wouldn’t hurt us, Sandalwood thought. We’ve got a lot of PHL here. This is not the same.
“Something powerful,” Darryl said, completely unperturbed.
Coolidge was surrounded by an assortment of guards, workers, oil drillers, and others from all over the small town. So each and every last one of them got the whole story. From Kgalakgadi’s signal - he piped up there with something about the signal he’d picked up that Sandalwood only vaguely understood - to even hitting the deer that wasn’t there, to Sagwon, to the moment that they found the children.
Who, as it happened, were sitting off to the side with hot chocolate of their own.
“Well,” said a thin-faced woman with thick glasses, “This might explain a lot about the storm.”
A computer sat on her lap. Kgalakgadi stood near the woman, looking down at the screen.
“Thought there was something off about it,” Kgalakgadi said.
“What do you mean?” the woman asked.
“It’s been a pretty vicious storm, yeah?” Kgalakgadi asked. “But… it’s been here much too long.”
“Definitely,” Amuruq agreed, nodding. “So, what does it explain?”
“It explains what it looks like from above,” the woman said. “...By raising about 20 more questions.” She sighed, and facepalmed. “It should be moving, but it doesn’t seem to be. It’s like something’s keeping it stuck here.”
“I was beginning to wonder if it was normal on Earth,” Snowshoes piped up. She’d been weirdly quiet.
Fiddlesticks
Wish Nny was here right now, Fiddlesticks thought.
“You say those children were from Sagwon?” asked one of Coolidge’s guards.
“Where else?” Amuruq asked. “I mean, we found them a litle bit outside, far away from any houses, but…”
“That’s the thing,” another man said. “See, we’d been thinking. One of us - at least for awhile, maybe till we find them a better place to grow up - takes care of them for a bit. Because what the hell, they’re from Sagwon, and everyone here knows a man or woman from that township.”
“What are you getting at?” Fiddlesticks asked, leaning in, confused.
“So, we talk among each other. Have a little who knows who, yeah?” the man continued rambling, as if he hadn’t heard a word. “We get to talking, and we find something isn’t right. So we double check. Triple check. We even check birth records.”
“Sully,” the first man said, “Get to the point. You’re freaking them out.”
“Right,” ‘Sully’ said. “Sorry. The point is, those children aren’t from Sagwon. They’re not from any of the pump stations, either. There’s no ID on them, no nothing.”
“I told you,” Darryl said, arms folded across his chest. “I told you something wasn’t right!”
“So what’re you gonna do?” Amuruq asked.
“Honestly?” ‘Sully’ said. “Still probably going to take care of them. Anyone could see that even if something isn’t right, they need help.”
There was a strange, questioning edge to Sully’s voice.
“What are you going to…” Fiddlesticks asked, suspicious.
“There’ll be a room with armed guards, of course,” Coolidge said, interrupting her.
He’s what?! Fiddlesticks thought.
“You said yourself that the Solar Empire were after them,” Coolidge said. “We’re only keeping them safe, after all.”
“I…” Fiddlesticks started. “Are you sure? Really?”
“What’s there to be unsure about?” Coolidge asked. “They’re kids. Refugees. We only want to keep them safe.”
He narrowed his eyes. “I mean, I know ponies like you have weird ideas about-”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?!” Sandalwood yelled.
Coolidge threw up his hands. “Nothing! Nothing. I…”
“That’s what I thought,” Sandalwood said.
“I just have one question now, though,” Coolidge said. “What are all of you going to do now?”
Darryl
A few minutes later
“I just can’t get over that,” Fiddlesticks was saying to Nny, her friend. “What do we do now?”
Darryl sat down at the table, and looked at everyone around him. Well, everyone but Tomorbaator, who looked to be out of the picture for awhile.
Nny. Fiddlesticks. Emma, Amuruq, Spurred Weld, Kgalakgadi, Sandalwood, Snowshoes, and Sharon - who, strangely enough, seemed to have become their guide. All drinking something, snacking, looking incredibly out of place.
“Alright,” Sandalwood said. “I’m gonna say it. Fiddlesticks has a point.”
Almost predictably, everyone was looking at Darryl. Of course.
“Well, we can’t just… leave, can we?” Nny asked.
“There’s a snowstorm, we can’t reach anyone thanks to the weather, and nobody else can get here,” Snowshoes said. “I’m going to go with no.”
“So then,” Sandalwood said to her not-quite-friend. “What is it?”
“I don’t know,” Snowshoes said.
“Well, we have to do something!” Sandalwood argued. “Our friends are gone, and the Solar Empire is doing… whatever they’re doing to Sint Erklass’ corpse.”
Kgalakgadi looked over to Sharon. “What are they doing, anyway?”
Sharon blinked. “I… well, I wasn’t exactly left with a strong impression. Going by what I understand about Sint, he was incredibly powerful-”
“Absolutely true,” Snowshoes said, nodding. “I… I lived pretty far north. Not too far from Yakyakistan and Rainbow Falls. Close enough we could visit Adlaborn fairly regularly.”
“Wait,” Kgalakgadi said, “Wouldn’t that mean that during the Crystal War, your town was one of the first to be-”
“Yes,” Snowshoes said, glaring at Kgalakgadi. “It would definitely mean that.”
“I, uh, don’t know much about the Crystal war,” Nny put in. “What happened there?”
“Oh, Celestia was trying to train us for war with you, so she put us into a bullshit conflict against our ancestors,” Sandalwood says.
“You know that’s a conspiracy theory, right?” Spurred Weld said. Everyone started as he spoke, for what seemed like the first time in a long time.
“Are we really in a position to say what is or isn’t a conspiracy theory?” Fiddlesticks asked. “I mean-”
Her mouth clamped shut.
“What? What is it?” Amuruq asked.
It was impossible for Darryl not to see the pain in Fiddlesticks’ eyes. He glanced over at Snowshoes, seeing the look of curiosity on her face.
“What were you going to say?” Darryl asked.
“I was going to say,” Snowshoes said, “That it probably should’ve been a warning sign. When the Elements of Harmony, you know… failed.”
Vera snorted. “What a novel concept.”
“No, no,” Snowshoes said. “Back then, it was like… we could do everything, you know? Even during the Battle of the Wedding, the Elements still saved Canterlot. But, well, then there was the Crystal War. Where the elements… well, failed.”
“I have to say,” Nny said, “That sounds like perfectly reasonable grounds for a conspiracy.”
“Ponies. Humans. Griffons. Zebras,” Darryl said. “This is all very stimulating dialogue, but it still doesn’t change the fact that we have no idea what to do.”
“I say we keep doing what we came to do,” Kgalakgadi said. “The signal from the tundra… if anything, it’s growing stronger.
He pulled an ipad from his saddlebags. “See, on this-”
It was making a set of pings.
“It says, it’s… it’s getting weaker. But these pings make it sound like it’s… almost increasing in intensity. It keeps repeating this.”
“Wait a minute,” Amuruq said, grabbing a paper napkin. “Anyone got a pencil or something?”
Wordlessly, Nny passed him one.
Amuruq tapped on the table with the eraser, then made some scratch marks on the napkin.
“...That’s morse code,” Amuruq said. “It’s saying… It’s saying…” he scrawled something on the napkin.
“If I may?” Spurred Weld asked, pulling a thick pencil as wide as a thumb from one of his saddlebags. “No, no, that’s… that’s a dash.”
“Certainly,” Amuruq said.
“ ‘Running out of time. Cannot be allowed to have my power,’” Spurred Weld, Amuruq, and Shannon said in unison. Then, suddenly, there was another burst of pings and static from Kgalakgadi’s iPad.
“Sandalwood,” Kgalakgadi said. “Can you… I don’t know, examine for magic in this?”
“Oh, I barely need to,” Sandalwood said, though her horn was already glowing. “It’s… it’s heavy stuff. I’d be more surprised if it wasn’t Sint Erklass.”
“‘Finally. You hear me. You must come. Now. There is no more time,’” Shannon said, going pale. Or at least, paler than normal. “‘We have come to the end of our time.’”
Well shit, thought some distant part of Darryl.
So he made a decision.
“We’re suiting up,” he said. “Kgalakgadi, you can track whatever this is?”
“Yessir,” Kgalakgadi said.
“Then we’re finding it,” Darryl said. “I still don’t understand anything going on here. But if it means fucking with the Solar Empire, then I’m all for it.”
“Yes sir!” everyone at the table said, all saluting.
Even Sandalwood and Snowshoes.
Well, how about that.
“I hope you do well,” said Eadmund.
Darryl didn’t jump. Nny and Fiddlesticks, however, did.
“Where did you come from?” Emma asked.
They didn’t answer.
But out of the corner of his eye, Darryl saw
Nny
They’d easily managed to procure some snowmobiles and a snowcat, along with a few spare guns. Darryl sat nearby, in a snowmobile that looked to have a modified seat so Kgalakgadi could sit behind him.
‘Never thought I’d be doing this,’ Nny thought.
“We ready to go?!” Darryl asked, revving his snowmobile.
“Yeah, but… before we go, one thing,” Sandalwood said. “I was still trying to detect ambient magic, trying to… like, make a token effort to levitate anything. But I looked at those kids, and… nothing.”
“...That’s good, right?” Vera asked.
“Eh, it’s more neutral than anything,” Spurred Weld said, earning a snicker from Sandalwood.
“Right,” Sandalwood said. “But… it was like the magic just… bounced off. Humans have no magic, but this time, this time it was like a negative number.”
“Something,” Fiddlesticks said, “Is… seriously weird with those children.”
“...We can’t do much about that,” Nny said. “The best we can do here is our job.”
“He’s right,” Darryl said. “Roll out, everyone. We’re finding this… whatever it is.”