The frigid air brushed against my coat, causing me to jerk back into the tunnel. Honeydew and Kalypso stepped past me, showing only slight hesitation as a reaction to the cold. His feelers began to emit a soft glow as he looked back to meet my eyes, then beckoned me to follow with a nudge of his head. Heaving a sigh, I tried to ignore the sudden exposure to the icy wind as I stepped out of the shielding tunnels.
Narrowing my eyes, I tried to pierce the dim light around us. With the light of our feelers, I could just about make out the nearest trees in any detail, roughly 15 feet away. “Didn’t you say it was morning already?”
“It is.” Honeydew directed my attention at the utterly dark sky. “No stars.”
I felt my ears fold against my head. He was right, there wasn’t a single star in the sky, instead I began to see the shapes of mighty clouds. “W-what kind of weather can block out the sun so completely?” I whispered.
“Only a truly mighty storm.” Honeydew answered breathlessly. “Kalypso, is this really the time to leave the safety of the clan?” We both glanced to the seer, whose feelers dangled in the air as she closed her eyes. Silently, I begged for her to call it off…
But Kalypso shook her head. “I don’t feel any strong winds yet. If it comes, we’ll have ample warning.”
I wanted to argue that it was too risky, that we should wait, but the words got stuck in my throat as Honeydew stepped forward. “The longer the winds of Fjermengard are here, the worse it would get.” With a glance back, he added: “Twilight, we have to defeat the spirit, but it will help the clan much less if normal winter is already on it' way.”
“But-”
“I know many places to hide during a storm.” Honeydew said, placing a warm hoof on my shoulder. “The sooner we stop it, the sooner we can finally eat however much we want.”
“Wait- can we really?” I asked, my curiosity piqued against my will.
“If we defeat a great spirit?” he chuckled. “I think a little extra rations would be a fitting reward.”
Cursed be my watering mouth, it was tempting alright. “If you both think it is the right time to go…”
“I do.” Kalypso stated with a quick nod. Honeydew shot her a glance before agreeing.
“I don’t think things will improve if we wait.” he said with an apologetic shrug.
After looking from one breezie to another, I finally lowered my head in defeat. “Alright… I just want to do something, if you’ll give me a minute.” Ignoring their questioning stares, I took a step back into the tunnel, just enough to momentarily protect me from the frosty breeze. As I closed my eyes, tuned out the distracting cold and the murmurs of my companions, I focused on my inner self, on that gleaming knot of energy at the core of my self. While traveling in my normal form would be much faster, we had no idea how long our journey was, and if we didn’t arrive before lunchtime, my chances of fighting a windigo would quickly reach zero. But a modification, that I could do!
A magenta glimmer enveloped me, as a skull-splitting headache seemed intent on crushing my brain. Just a moment later, the feeling passed and I opened my eyes again, seeing a startled Honeydew back away.
“It’s fine!” I was quick to reassure him as I rubbed my forehead, grinning proudly as my hoof came upon the tough surface of my horn. “Just making sure we’ll have a bit of magic available in an emergency.”
“Y-you’re not turning back?”
I felt my grin falter as I met my companions looks, the way they were standing close to one another, as if to seek each other’s protection while they glanced at me… like one would stare at a sleeping dragon, afraid that a loud noise could wake it. “I-I just need my horn to cast magic is all.”
“Okay…” Honeydew muttered, stepping closer with a weary expression. “Just warn us next time, alright? I seriously thought you’d accidentally…” he broke off, nervously fidgeting.
“Crush us.” Kalypso helpfully finished for him.
“I’d never!” I exclaimed. “You didn’t think I would, did you?”
“It was kind of scary at the moment…” Honeydew muttered, unable to meet my eyes.
Feeling my jaw tensen, I turned away, following Kalypso as she led us on our first steps to our new journey. I simply stared at the ground as we flew above the groumd, periodically landing and trudging through the snowy mass whenever the wind was growing a bit more wild. It was during our third such landing that Honeydew finally gathered his courage.
“So, you have a horn now…” he awkwardly began as he walked by my side, forsaking the ease of using the tracks me and Kalypso had already made.
“I can see how you became a scout, with that ability to pick out subtle details.” I replied dryly as I kept my eyes on the path infront of us.
“Y-yes,” he stammered. “Sorry, this is just… new.”
With an amused chuckle, I turned my head to smirk at him. “You’ve seen me in my natural form and you’re shocked by this?”
“I’m not shocked!” he protested quickly, before biting his lip. “But it does look really strange. And this is where your power comes from?”
“Not exactly. It’s what I use to channel my magic, giving it precision and purpose instead of just sending it out as an unrefined blast.”
“You can do that?!”
“Sure, everyone can- well, every unicorn, that is. It’s… not very impressive. For us, I mean. You know, unicorns.”
“How strong is it?” he demanded to know, his face twisting into a grin. “Could you do it now?”
“It wouldn’t be too impressive now, honey.” I giggled at his eagerness. “My magic isn’t even that strong right now.”
“Oh… so it becomes smaller when you’re smaller?”
I gave it a nod, although his assessment wasn’t entirely true. My magic hadn’t shrunk in size, or rather strength, as size wasn’t exactly a measurement applicable to magic in the first place. However, a horn tiny enough to fit a breezie body wasn’t capable of channeling much energy at a time, practically downscaling the strength of my spells with the size of my horn.
That’s why horn envy was such a great issue in some unicorn families.
Glancing to the side, I saw his eyes once again staring at my forehead. “It looks that weird?” I muttered, my ears folding down.
“Yeah…” he said absentmindedly. “I don’t think I really noticed it when you were big… it was hard to even understand how huge you were.”
“I guess…” I heaved a sigh, silently begging him to drop the subject, why couldn't he just treat me like a breezie again? He managed it just fine yesterday!
I didn’t want to look weird…
As the sun came close to the end of its journey across the sky, the wind began to take a turn for the worse. The previous wisps now became strong gusts sweeping over the forest ground, completely tying us down to the icy surface, where we were forced to plod through chest-high snow, our advance coming to a tedious crawl. Worse, the wind carried thick snowflakes, pelting us with a barrage of icy shards every step of the way.
“How long is this gonna last?” I shouted forward where Kalypso was now following after Honeydew, the scout cutting a path through the snow that we could take.
Kalypso cast an exhausted glance at the sky. Worriedly, I noticed a beat of sweat running down her face, a serious health hazard in this temperature. “It won’t be stopping anytime soon.” she replied loudly and wiped a hoof across her face, leaving ice particles clinging to her coat. “Honeydew, we need to start looking for shelter!”
He grunted, pushing through the snow that now reached nearly up to his shoulders. “Been leading us there- for a while now!” he replied, his voice breaking so he could gasp for breath. With a hoof shivering from both exhaustion and the cold, he pointed at a slightly crooked old tree right in our path. “It’s got a hole we can hide in.”
“It won’t keep the cold away!” Kalypso protested. “We’d use up most of our sizzlegrass, we should build a shelter in the snow!”
“We would get buried alive in there!” Honeydew argued. “We can’t spend the night pushing snow away, we need to rest.”
“But-”
“I am the scout here!” he barked at her. “I know what I’m doing, so unless you have a vision telling you we shouldn’t, we’re going there!”
She gave a curt nod, too exhausted to give much of an answer. Honeydew shook his head, biting his lip as he gazed at the tree that was still at least twenty minutes away. Just as he seemed to gather himself enough to push through the snow again, I laid a hoof on his shivering shoulder. “I’ll lead from here. You follow me.”
He blinked a few times, as if he couldn't quite believe it was me saying these words. “Sorry, but you don’t seem strong enough to-” he began, then was suddenly interrupted by a wave of sheer energy blasting from my horn into the snow blocking our way, catapulting it off in all directions.
“There. Blast. Like it?” I said, flashing a strained grin. With a thought, I conjured up a thin trail of smoke emanating from my horn, allowing me to ‘blow it out’. Call it childish, but magic had to come with a bit of theatrics.
Just ask Trixie.
Grinning down at Honeydew, I chuckled as he stared with an open jaw, his startled amazement transforming into absolute relief. “I love it!” he breathed in a happy sigh, even managing a smile on his tired lips. “Please, keep doing that.”
“My pleasure.” I grinned and shot another blast into the snow, leading my fellow breezies for the first time.
But even as we now galloped across the ground, we were hit by mighty gusts of wind, slowing us down as we charged for our shelter. The storm we’d suspected this morning now came to full effect, reducing visibility as more and more snow was blown into the air.
“TWILIGHT!” Kalypso’s voice screeched. The wind had caught one of her wings, it's ferocious pull causing her to slide backwards, despite her attempts to brace herself against it. Honeydew tried to help, but as he leapt at her, the storm propelled them both into the nearest snow bank. “We can’t make it like this!” she screamed as she tossed her limbs around to free herself of the snow. “We need-”
My horn erupted in light, creating a popping sound as we all found ourselves inside the tree hole.
“-help!” Kalypso finished, before falling to the ground. Even Honeydew, who looked thoroughly spooked, was too exhausted to ask many questions.
“I- didn’t know you could do that.” he simply said before falling to the wooden ground, shivering at the thin layer of snow that had found its way even in here. “We’ll… need to start a sizzle pit.”
“Just rest, I’ll do it.” I offered. But as I lit my horn, pain lanced through my skull, causing the levitating bag to drop to the ground. Honeydew jumped up as I screamed, worriedly rushing over.
“Twilight, are you okay?”
“Y-yeah, I’m fine.” I gasped, reaching up to my horn. Another startled shout left my throat, it was hot like metal that has been soaking up the summer sun!
“Y-your horn is smoking…” Honeydew muttered.
“I must have used too much magic.” I replied, even though I know that couldn't be. My magic reserves were barely touched from my weak spells. But maybe it wasn’t about overall power. Relative to my size, I’d still squeezed an unordinary amount of magic through my horn. Maybe it was some kind of friction coming from too much magic being squeezed through a channel too narrow. “I’ll just build this sizzlepit normally.”
“No, you rest.” Honeydew ordered, already back on his legs as he gathered up our bags. “You need to get some rest, more than we do. Remember, you need to be able to fight a spirit at the end of this.” With that, he nodded to Kalypso, who groaned, but also rolled onto her hooves, grasping her own bags.
“But-” I stared at the pair as they swiftly piled up the sizzlegrass in a spot they’d freed from the snow. “We could’ve done it all together.” I closed, dragging myself closer to the warm aura.
“It wasn’t that much work.” Kalypso shrugged. “How does your horn feel?”
“B-better.” casting down my eyes, I resisted the temptation to touch it. “Give me a few hours, and I should be able to cast spells like before.”
“That’s reassuring.” Honeydew swallowed, glanced to my horn, then blushed as I caught his look. “Sorry…”
“You still find it weird?” I whispered.
“I don’t want to lie… yes, it does.” he replied so quietly that I could barely make it out over the storm outside. “It’s easier to forget that you’re not a breezie when you look just like us. Now, you- well, don’t.”
“Sorry.” heaving a sigh, resting my eyes as I curled into a resting position. “If it bothers you that much-”
My voice cut off as he sat down behind me, shielding my side not warmed by the sizzlepit. “Your horn saved us right now, and it saved Kalypso before. I-I may need some more time to get used to it, but if I can love you without a horn, then I can love you with it, too.” his hooves reached around me as what he’d just said sunk in. An intense heat suddenly grew in my face as I sunk into his hooves, brushing my cheek against the fur of his leg. Quietly, so much so that he wouldn’t have heard even without the storm, I breathed:
“I love you too.”
And with that, resting comfortably in his embrace, warmed from both sides, I was ready to drift to sleep.
The tree lurched to the side, throwing us all against the wall. Screaming in shock as we were violently torn from out semi-sleep, we fell over one another, trying to get away from the sizzlegrass which was burning small holes into our coats. Suddenly, from somewhere deep below, there was an almighty crack. And with our terror-laden shouts, the tree began to fall..