"Greetings, young traveler!" The hippogriff chirped as Astral walked into Mount Aris. He was wearing a tour guides uniform and hat, and had a bi smile on his beak. “Welcome to Mount Aris!”
He waved a claw around dramatically, showing off the beautiful crystal ocean and high mountain hat was peaked with snow.
Speaking of which . . .
“Do you sell climbing gear by chance?” She asked as she fell into step beside the lanky male.
The guide paused, clearly hesitant to answer this young teenager. “Well, yes, but-”
“Excellent! Take me there!”
The guide, also known as Ripple, stared in disbelief at the Unicorn for a moment, before letting out a loud, and somewhat pained, sigh.
“Come with me . .”
Astral eyed the pickaxes appreciatively even as she turned a grappling hook over in her hooves. Since she could teleport though, it wouldn't do much, so instead she turned back to the heavy coat.
I could probably enchant it with a heating spell, just to be on the safe side.
The guide. Ripple, cleared his throat when he saw her add a map to her already growing list. “I don’t think you should be climbing a mountain, not at your age, and especially not alone.”
Astral shot him a quick glare over her shoulder as she paid for her choices, before brightening, and disappearing with a pop!
“You should come with me!”
“What?” Ripple asked, bewildered by the mare that was now clinging to his shoulders like a lifeline, blue eyes sparkling.
“You said it yourself, I shouldn’t climb the mountain alone. Well, you probably know the best way up here, right? You should come with me!”
“I don’t know . .” Ripple was only a teenager after all, just a couple of years older than Astral herself. While he did know the mountain very well, he was still very young and very inexperienced.
“Pleeeeeeeease?” Astral begged. “It’ll be safer with the two of us!”
Ripple's ears and wings fell with a loud sigh. “Fine fine” he glared at her from the corner of his eye. “This better be a hell of a tip.”
The two stood at the base of the mountain, heads tipped back to get a full look.
“There’s a halfway point” Ripple explained. “We can see if you wan to turn back by the time we reach it.”
The please want to went unspoken but understood.
Astral stretched and cast a heat spell on her scarf, before setting off with her new companion to climb Mount Aris.
While It was nice and warm and sunny back on land, the higher he two teens wen, the colder it got.
Astral loved it. It hadn’t been rainy or wet or cold in ages, and she watched in delight as her breath fogged up before her.
Ripple was clearly enjoying himself a lot less, bundled up in a thick coat and scarf. Astral had offered to cast a heat spell on him that would leave his wings free, but apparently hippogriffs were naturally skittish around Unicorn Magic, which. Okay, rude.
As they went higher, snow became more and more common, which made Ripple feel even worse and Astral even better. Taking off everything but her scarf, and recasting her heating spell, Astral wasted no time in bounding through one of the short bursts of snow.
“Come on, Ripple!” She cried, burying her head in snow and peeking her head out to stare at him. “It’s great in here!”
“Uh” Ripple said, unsure, only for Astral to hit him with a large snowball.
He stumbled back, shocked, before grinning at her, sudden and fierce. Astral tried to duck, bu it was too late, and within second she was covered in snow. Spitting some out, she glared at him.
“Jerk.”
“Ass.”
Ripple paused to examine their surroundings, and threw Astral’s coat at her. “Come on, we’re close to he halfway point.”
The halfway point was just a very large cabin full of beds and a staff of hippogriffs that lived up here.
They also had some pretty good soup.
“Is this fish” Astral wondered, dipping more bread into her meal. She had never eaten meat before, but this was actually quite nice.
Ripple, who was slurping from his own bowl, craned his neck to look into hers. “Looks like it” he said “maybe shrimp as well?” He shrugged, before polishing of the last of his meal.
“So.”
Astral turned to look at him, eyebrow raised “so?”
“Do you” he seemed almost hesitant “wanna go back?”
Astral jerked her chin back and straightened her shoulders. “Uh, no. I came here to climb a mountain, so I’m gonna climb a mountain.”
“Oh” and for some reason, he looked almost relived?
“Why did I let you talk me into this?” Ripple grouses, and Astral bites back a sharp retort, because getting into a fight isn’t going to help either of them.
She was really starting to regret deciding to trek on.
It was colder now, so cold that Astral had to keep reapplying her heat spell on herself, and had cast one for Ripple. Her hooves, used to the soft ground of he forest, were chipped and cracked from the cold, frozen stone and her good mood had all but vanished.
But they were close.
She knew his, as did he, which was why neither of them suggested stopping.
Astral Plane turned the corner and-
They were there. At the top.
The view was magnificent, Equestria itself spanned beneath their hooves and claws, a sparkling blue ocean and fields of green.
Astral had never been so happy to of have brought her camera.
They stayed there like hat, shoulder to shoulder, just staring down the slopes of he mountain, the mountain they had climbed.
“We- we did it” Ripple said, in total awe. “We actually did it!”
“Yeah” Astral said, a wide, ear splitting grin stretching across her face. “We did!”
There was a lot of whooping and cheering after that, as the two celebrated their success in any way they could think of- cheering, yelling, hugging, fist bumping.
When they were done, they both sat down for a moment, both of hem still grinning, before Ripple frowned. “Wait. Do we have to walk down?”
It was said in the same whiny tone most teenagers have, but Astral just smiled at him. Her horn glowed and they dispersed with a pop!
Astral’s aim had been slightly off- she had been hoping to land in a cafe seat, but instead they ended up right outside the cafe.
The sudden increase in pressure made them both stagger about for a bit, before righting themselves. When they did, Ripple spun around on Astral.
“Are you telling me you could of have teleported us up here this entire time?!”
Astral smiled coyly. “Life’s about the journey not the destination, Rip” she mocked, and he snorted.
“Ass.”
“Jerk.”
The two glared at each other before Astral gestured towards the cafe “so, eclairs?”
"Gods yes.”