It took them some time to get themselves detangled from the bedsheets, before Clover finally managed to get off the bed first. As she rolled over, both Pansy and Cookie gasped in surprise at the sight of her bare flanks.
Clover instantly winced, and lifted her cloak onto herself to cover up. “Please don’t stare,” she asked softly, feeling embarrassed by revealing her unmarked flanks to these people. “I… I have tried everything to get my cutie mark, read countless books and tried all what they said but nothing has worked.” She then blinked and gave an annoyed look at Snöflinga. “I do appreciate what you are trying to do for me but…”
The windigo’s face flushed, caught eating her sadness before he walked over towards her. “While I am sorry for making you upset, I am not sorry for trying to make you happy. You are an incredibly intelligent mare. What can a cutie mark tell you that you don’t know already?”
The mare blushed, looking off to the side before shaking her head and looking back at him. “You are very kind Snöflinga but… a cutie mark for a pony is…” she looked at the other two ponies with Pansy stepping forwards and placing a hoof on Snöflinga’s shoulder.
“A cutie mark defines not only who you are to others but who you are to yourself,” he said as he looked at his own cutie mark, a ship’s wheel. “Mine is for my skill with airships.”
“And mine’s for the work I did helping to feed some of the… well, a group of ponies I ended up staying with for a while, when I didn’t have anywhere else to go,” Cookie added, looking at the three cookies topped with apple slices on her flank. “Not that I’ve been able to really do that kind of thing in a while,” she muttered to herself before looking at Clover. “You will find your mark if you don’t try to force it to happen.”
“She is right,” Pansy continued. “Our marks are made up of who we truly are; unless your talent is reading about other achievements, you won’t find that part of yourself.”
“I know and I have tried, but…” Clover shrugged lamely, looking depressed again before nodding her head at Snöflinga, and in a moment she had started to smile again. “Thank you, Snöflinga.”
Cookie, eying him, shook her head with a faint smile on her face. “You know, you could work wonders for therapists,” she said. “Ponies would pay a lot of bits to have their sadness or other bad feelings siphoned off.”
Snöflinga looked contemplative. “You know, I never thought of that,” he said. “Might be something to try in the future… but I’d have to keep it limited, somewhat. Being around too many good feelings isn’t good for us. You guys’ feelings don’t bother me, but big crowds… I couldn’t tolerate it. At least, not at once.”
“We still need to discuss what our plans are from… what we heard,” Pansy said nervously before grimacing when his right wing extended. He held it out before him before shaking his head. “No feathers out of place, just sore,” he said towards the others in the room, looking at him with worried expressions. “Come, let us get our stuff and head down.”
“I think I am the only one with anything recovered,” Clover said with a chuckle, lifting her saddlebag onto her side.
“I think you were the only one to have anything with you,” Cookie said with Snöflinga nodding his head and Pansy giving a shrug before wincing in pain.
“I did have a few things but it seems they were lost,” the stallion said before he walked towards the door with the other three behind him. “But no real loss, to be fair. It is all up here,” he tapped his head with his left wing before he tapped his chest. “And here.” he said as he led them down the stairs and into a near empty dining room, only attracting a few looks at they piled into a booth with Snöflinga and Clover going in first and Cookie and Pansy, respectively, following them.
After placing their order with Clear Heart who was acting as server, the four of them stared at each other, each waiting for one of them to speak.
Surprising everyone, himself included, Snöflinga was the first to address the griffon in the room. “We all saw our leaders in that hut and I could sense them so they weren’t imposters; does any of that seem impossible to you?”
The three of them shared a look before shaking their heads, Pansy tapping the table with his hoof. “I had heard rumours about Hurricane, we all had. That his rise to power was too unnatural and his sudden successes were very surprising for a then somewhat competent captain. If what they said that about Glaucus being a part of their alliance is true, then it could mean that the two were working together to boost themselves higher in the ranks the entire time during the war.”
“I can easily see that bastard Puddinghead being apart of it,” Cookie snapped angrily, causing everyone to turn to her. The mare’s frown held for a moment before she let out a tired sigh and nodded her head towards Snöflinga with a smile on her face. “Years ago, Puddinghead was the king’s chancellor, but then he managed to usurp control of the kingdom by his endless propaganda and rallying the people against the royal family. He sent them into exile, threatening to kill them if they ever came back, except for one of them - he’s basically kept her hostage this whole time, and they know he’ll kill her too if they ever try to come back.” She let out a tired sigh. “He tricked them into believing if they abdicated, he would give her back, but really he kept me by his side as his trophy.” Then she looked startled as she realized what she’d just said.
“Wait, are you saying you’re Princess Tough A. Cookie‽” Clover squeaked with surprise with the other mare nodding her head.
“You’re the only one to call me that without making it an insult, Clover,” the mare sighed as their food was brought to them, keeping quiet until Clear Heart left the table again. “Puddinghead and his flunkies call me that all the time, but they do it as a reminder of what I’ve lost. You’re using it as a term of respect, like ponies used to.” She smiled. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Clover said as she lifted her salad to her mouth with her magic before noticing everyone was staring at her. “Oh you’re waiting for me to wonder about Platinum? No, everyone knows that she killed her entire family.”
Pansy coughed, shaking his head and said, “Excuse me?”
“She was the youngest child born of her family and when she was our age, she demanded some land of her own. Her father rejected it, saying she was unfit and unready to rule so she killed her way to the top,” Clover said with a shrug. “When I was cobbler, I had messed up her shoes and I knew had to leave before she came after me - she’d have killed me too, just because she could.”
The four of them stared at each other as they digested what they had just admitted before looking at Snöflinga who blinked and put the fish he had been eating down. “I… I never expected my father to work with any others, let alone ponies. This was the sort of thing he had always mocked me about and encouraged others to do the same. It doesn’t make any sense…” Suddenly, he shook his head. “No wait, it does. If he and the other leaders keep up this distrust your lands have of each other, my people can eat off the negativity and your leaders can keep in charge by playing up the others as bad guys with them being the only ones keeping their people safe.”
“You’re right,” Pansy said with wide eyes. “If they didn’t put up the threat of the other kingdoms, then we wouldn’t need them to protect us.”
“Wait, there is also the thing they spoke of during that meeting, something about legendary fires?” Cookie asked. “They said they could cement their rule if they find it.”
“But what can we do about it?” Clover asked. “As much as I don’t want them to get away with their evil plans, what can we do about it? Who would believe us?”
“No one,” Cookie responded calmly. “Tartarus, if I ever made my way back to my kingdom, they’d accuse me of lying because everyone ‘knows’ the entire royal family is gone and never coming back because of how badly Puddinghead has them all snowed. Er, no offense,” she said to Snöflinga.
“None taken.” Snöflinga gave her a smile. “I know what you meant.”
“And I was just a civilian,” Clover said with a sigh. “And I know privateers have a bad reputation among their people, so except for maybe his old crew, Pansy couldn’t get anyone to follow him…”
“And like my father said, everyone but me follows what he says without a second thought, except possibly Mom, and she hasn’t said a word about anything to anyone in years,” Snöflinga muttered. “So getting her to speak up isn’t likely to happen.”
“So… do we even try to help or not?” Pansy asked with them sharing uneasy looks. “Okay, on that matter, what we do next then?”
“We head south,” Cookie said. “The kingdom’s reaches don’t extend that far though I don’t know how your tribe works Snöflinga.”
“We migrate from place to place but not near the south; not enough people for us to harvest negative emotions from,” Snöflinga said. “If we do go south, we won’t run into any windigos though we might run into changelings if we do this.”
“Before we even think about leaving everyone to their fate under those four, we need to plan this out,” Pansy said with a sigh. “I wish I still had my maps from my secret hold.” He shook his head before flashing the three with a grin. “Hardly anyone looks up, not even those that can fly.”
“Yes, I knew it! It,” Clover said as she pulled out a rolled up parchment before frowning at it. “Wait, this isn’t my map of the world.” she said as she examined the wax seal on it before her eyes widen. “Platinum’s seal?” Breaking it open, she unrolled the scroll to show a blanket map with a small legend of text at the bottom center.
Ye of different ways of walk
Come forth with unity in your heart
Reveal the way to the Eternal Fires
Claim the powers the Fire gives and bring all under one
“Wait... how the Fimbulwinter did you get this‽” Snöflinga asked in amazement.
“I… I don’t know,” Clover said before she gasped. “Wait, I do know. When I got fired, I ran into this other mare on my way out of the shop, and we dropped our things… I must have picked up one of her maps by mistake.”
“This changes things,” Cookie said, placing a hoof onto the table. “We presumably have the sole key they need to take over completely. What do we do with it?”
There was a moment of silence before they shared a look. And an understanding passed between them. “We have to find this Fire; we can’t just leave it out in the open for them to find,” Clover said. “We find it and either hide it away or…”
“We find it and hide it,” Pansy said with the others nodding in agreement, placing his hoof onto the center of the map with the others doing the same.
It was at that moment that a glow encompassed the table, with the map now alive with directions to the Eternal Fires.