“...and then it walked into the fire and disappeared. The mist, the fire, all of it. Gone. Then we came back to base.” Keen finished telling the stallions, Bright Spark taking wobbly notes after dipping into the “medicinal” alcohol.
“Alright,” Parsnip stood and began to pace the common area, “Bright, include that we’re keeping an eye out for it and will do our best to keep tabs on it if we do find it again. We’ll send it down on the next supply train and hopefully have little to report by the time word gets back from Canterlot.”
Bending to his task, Bright Spark had just finished sealing the scroll when the ground started to rumble, shaking the entire base.
“What is that?!” Snowdrift cried, taking to the air.
“Everypony outside, now!” Parsnip ordered. “If the building collapses we don’t want to be in it, and we need eyes on what’s happening, Go, go, go!” He charged sure footed through the door to the mud room and outside, Keen and Drift airborne and carrying Bright Spark between them. As they cleared the door the shaking lessened, but all four continued to search the landscape ahead of them.”
“Snowdrift, check the North.” Parsnip barked out.
“On it!” She let go of Bright Spark and flew up to clear the building, halting once she was able to see beyond. “...Guys? You need to see this.”
“What is it?” Bright called up, running around to the front of the building.
“It’s...its…”
“That’s the same fire-stuff that we saw by the thing that fought the wolves!” Keen pointed. “But that’s a lot more of it.” Rather than the single swirling tendril they had seen before, this was several dozen times larger. Swirling blue, red and green originated from a single point to the north, but was spreading in every direction and didn’t seem to be fading as it went.
Silence fell.
When the wind started to pick up again they all shivered except for Snowdrift. “So...orders?”
Parsnip shook his head. “If you and Keen want to investigate I won’t stop you, but we’re just here to watch. That point is far outside the wards, so I wouldn’t recommend it if you think it’s going to be dangerous. We also need to include this in our report. That’s too big of a coincidence to not be related to what you saw earlier.” He turned to march back into the base.
The two mares stood in the snow, watching the glow slowly spread until it seemed to hit some sort of limit. “What should we do, Drift?” Keen asked.
“Let’s…. leave it for now, Keen. Moonset is coming and we won’t be able to see the ground clearly. We can check it tomorrow after we’ve rested. And Parsnip was right. We’ve already said we’re waiting on orders and keeping tabs. Well,” she pointed a hoof at the spectacle, “there it is.”
There. Oh yes, there it lay. Lost it at first, found now. The Herald. Have it. Possess it. Consume it.
Leave it.
What?! No! Mine! First! Minemineminemine-
You break your toys too easily. This one is useful, you can have it when I’m done.
No! Have this! Mine! Eat…
The world around me was breaking. Great black cracks were filling the sky like pitch-black lightning. For a brief moment I saw stars and swirling purple clouds, then things began pouring through them instead.
They noticed me. I know they did, because they began to wrap the bottom of the spire and I had the sudden impression of black with white eyes. There was an overwhelming presence behind those eyes, greater than the sum of their parts and bearing down on me. As those arms began cutting off the light from outside I also noticed that there was a new glow coming from beneath me: a circle with strange symbols and lines calling me.
Awaken.
Then everything broke, and I was falling. I was being pulled apart and held together. I was a snow globe and someone decided to play baseball with me.
Awaken!
I felt myself shattering and being put together over and over again. I thought the pain would kill me, and I screamed. I could see three worlds at once. The snowy field I fought the wolves in, the empire frozen in time, and a strange room with ponies looking at me. I needed to be here; I needed to be there. I was sitting on the line in between and it was tearing me apart. The moment seemed to stretch on infinitely, the world changing colors. Red, black, green, pink. I was starting to lose myself in the pain.
Herald! You must awaken!
Joey is fast asleep.
Joey woke up!
See? That would have killed him.
Mine. Eat, not kill.
Go wander the wastes. You clearly don’t know your own limits. He would have been too weak after. As good as dead.
Mine.
Go! I said you could have him in the end and I meant it. Right now he’s useless in your grubby hands. Unless you want me to go to…
No! Go. Promise.
Yes, yes. I promise.
“Uuughhh…” My eyes opened a fraction before drifting back closed. The howling wind must have woken me up. “What...happened?” My everything hurt. The last thing I remembered was the Empire and then… nothing. Except that dream. Or was it? Wait.
“The Empire!” I was suddenly wide awake, scrambling to stand and look around. That frantic motion lasted all of five seconds before the pain I was in re-registered and I fell back down. As the pain began to die down I noticed other things, like how I wasn’t uncomfortably hot any more, or the snow around me. Deciding to just pick my head up this time, which still hurt, I was able to see that I was back in the tundra, it was night again as well.
“No more Crystal Empire. Okay. That means I need to find shelter from the things out here. And food. Time to get up. Hnnng!” Easier said than done. I felt terrible. “What I wouldn’t give for a Potion.” I muttered. A dull thup made me look up to the most unnerving thing I’d seen today. A single large berry, sitting on top of the snow. “Ooookay.” I looked around. Nowhere it could have come from, nothing that could have dropped it. I made my way over to it and picked it up in my mouth without eating it. A cursory dig at the snow revealed no bushes or other berries.
Not knowing what else to do, I bit down and ate the berry, feeling better as I did. “Why do I feel like I just made a mistake?” Shaking myself out and stretching, I did feel better. “Shelter. I’ve got to find shelter before moonset, and I’ll deal with what happened then.”
I started looking for a decent hiding place that wasn’t a cave. Even the leeward side of a big rock would do. As I left, I noticed that I didn’t feel the compulsion I did in the Empire.
Setting his saddlebags on a table, Runic looked at the list Sunburst had written up for him. Nothing too out of the ordinary: cold weather wear, goggles, boots, bits for food on the way north and for food supplies for the trek to the yaks. The lack of climbing gear and snowshoes got a raised eyebrow, as did the absence of Fire-summon materials. Maybe Sunburst was taking care of that?
They were leaving just after sunrise the following morning. The “next available train north” happened to be eight hours after Sunburst’s summon and Sunburst was taking no chances on Steel Circle’s orders. As unfortunate as the timing was, it would actually work in their favor. The morning train was slated to continue on to some remote outpost that would save them days of hiking they would have had to do if they took the evening train instead. Runic supposed be had Sunburst’s encyclopedic knowledge to thank for knowing the train schedule off-hoof.
“Alright. Catch a few hours rest and then it’s north we go.” He left the bags by the door and walked to his bedroom, collapsing into bed as the late night caught up with him.
All was still on the plains of snow. The wind had died to nothing, the frost wolves were not on the hunt, the moon had set.
A piercing shriek split the air before a lone figure, yelling in pain and fear, ran from the shadow of a boulder. A giant clawed hand reached out in pursuit before pulling back. If one were to listen carefully, they would have heard quiet laughter in the shadows.