Starlight's legs hurt already.
She had forgotten what it felt like to walk for hours. As good of shape as she had gotten in, training with Valey, a prolonged, mild, repetitive exertion was completely different from being tossed across the deck and putting all her weight behind a kick or two. She wasn't winded, blessed with strong lungs by living at high altitudes for so many of the past few months. Her legs simply burned.
The trail had started sloping upwards about an hour ago, and that was where she really started to feel it. Out of all the memories that had returned to her in Sires Hollow, she was discovering a new set that was just making its way to the front of her mind: her first crossing through the Aldenfold.
This was hard already, and she was unimaginably tougher than the first time she had gone through here. How had she ever done this?
Her leg slipped, a hind hoof sinking in a patch of loose dirt and almost costing her her balance. At this point, the road forward was loamy, a thick carpet of pine needles decaying beneath her and making the ground more spongy than wading through snow. Beside her, the river burbled softly and swiftly, running through a densely overgrown valley that was too narrow to be worth logging and using to expand the village.
For now, she remembered, the path would follow it, using the river's natural aptitude at finding passes to make it up through the foothills. Eventually, the vegetation would grow too thick, though, and the trail would be forced to take a left, uphill and away from the river on a switchback route. But she didn't think she had reached that part for at least another day.
Starlight's stomach growled, and she started to keep her eye out for any places that looked like she had stopped for a rest last time. No matter how much tougher she was, she still needed to eat.
A pine canopy rolled over her head, the trees that comprised it too stunted for it to be properly dense. They tried, though, and looking up at the thick, interlocking branches reminded Starlight how it had been misting the first time she was here. It was her first experience being caught out in the rain, and she had been grateful to the foliage, deciding already that rain wasn't her favorite thing. But that drizzle had been foals' play compared to the rains that came later...
Starlight wondered if the rain would be as bad, this time around. Probably not. The coat Fluffy had bought her was better than any equipment she had carried last time, like her easily-soaked blanket. And she was a lot stronger, too.
The river didn't let up in its relentless flow down the mountains, but she didn't let up in her climb either. Eventually, though, after too long of searching for an ideal campsite, Starlight settled for a dirty boulder by the water, shrugged off her heavy second saddlebags, and decided it was time to eat.
Her new friend had packed well, she decided, looking through the bags. Compact dried fruit and nut cakes were stacked together like bricks, so neatly that Fluffy could have considered a career in masonry. There was one full waterskin and two empty ones, along with a collapsible funnel and stand so Starlight could set them out in the rain to refill, whenever she ran out or made room by eating the food to carry more. There was also cheese, slices of bread so thin and dense they were more like crackers, a hefty slab of fish that was salted for preservation and wrapped in wax paper, and three tiny glass jars, one with some spread, one with a single portion of pears and another filled with some sort of spices labeled 'salad seasoning'. No greenery to eat them with, though.
Starlight supposed the pears were a pick-me-up for if she had a bad day, but had no idea what to think about the spices. Maybe she had mentioned living on grass, and Fluffy just had a really great memory.
She pulled out two of the nut cakes, deciding to save the salted fish until it was more practical to make herself thirsty. Besides, she only needed a little energy right now. If there was one thing she had learned the first time, it was to be very careful with her food.
A few bites in, and Starlight realized she could have kept walking while eating these... if only her horn worked to hold them with. That was the biggest problem she had ever found with being moon glassed, more than any of the emotional or lifestyle tradeoffs for the power it provided: for whatever reason, it left her horn no more useful than a stubby tool for poking things with. Unless there happened to be a mountain survival Nightmare Module in the toolkit that had been left for her, she had a feeling this could turn into a major disadvantage.
She had turned this way without any help from moon glass this time, though. Maybe there was some way she could turn back.
Eventually, Starlight couldn't justify sitting anymore. Her legs still hurt, but were warning her they would cramp if she left them immobile after too much exertion. She had a sudden, painful memory of not knowing how to take care of herself on the first few days, and waking up one morning too stiff to even move.
Another minute, and the boulder where she stopped to eat was out of sight. Several minutes more, and she found a tree, fallen and blocking her way.
That was new. She didn't remember it at all. Starlight blinked at the tree, looking for a way around. It was old growth, with a trunk thicker than Wallace Whitewing, so much thicker than the surrounding pines that she wondered if it had fallen from somewhere above. And it wouldn't be easy to climb over, either.
But Starlight hadn't made up her mind to follow her friends without the intent to follow through, and it would take a lot more than a fallen tree to stop her. Opening her original saddlebags, she pulled out her moon glass sword, and then the shrunken, black knife that used to belong to Gerardo. Maybe she couldn't make it float on its own without a cutie mark to bind it to, but her moon glass inexplicably didn't have that problem...
A few minutes later, Starlight had bound the two weapons' handles together using a little string she found in Fluffy's other saddlebag. Her horn flickered, and the moon glass sword rose, taking the knife with it.
Why could she lift the moon glass, even though her telekinesis wouldn't even manifest around anything else? It didn't matter to her. All she needed was a way that worked, and this would do fine.
Using the moon glass sword as a lift, Starlight maneuvered the other knife around, making slow yet effortless work of the fallen trunk with its cut-anything edge. She had to hack at the log, taking it apart in small chunks, because even if she did cut a path through it all at once, it would be far too heavy for her to push the wood aside.
The air got noticeably colder as Starlight worked, spurring her to hurry. Eventually, though, she was satisfied with her job: a few small steps carved into the side, enough of a hoofhold that she could feasibly climb this while laden with saddlebags.
She hit the ground on the other side with a hard thump, nodding back at the log. Was that so bad? No. She was more than a match for these mountains. She had climbed them before, after all.
Starlight kept walking, drawing Fluffy's insulated coat tighter around herself and fighting back a shiver. The mountains left her all the time in the world to think, yet somehow, her thoughts didn't race. Some primal instinct was telling her that in here, thinking was a waste of energy, perhaps... or maybe, in the mountains, all her troubles were paused. She was walking toward a goal, after all. That had to make it easier than last time. As hurt as she was, there was nothing more she could be doing about it than giving everything to cross these mountains. She had a goal to apply herself to, and that was enough to keep what-ifs from clouding her head.
Although, if someone had told her the mountains were magical and could still her mind themselves, she might not have blown them off too badly.
Starlight fell into a rhythm, a forehoof and a hind hoof, a forehoof and a hind hoof, again and again in time with her breathing. Her legs felt weak, but if she focused on the rhythm, she didn't notice as much. It became more and more necessary as the slope continued to increase, which she measured more by the noise of the nearby river than the actual strain on her body. It didn't matter how tired she was. She would make it.
All she had to do was this, for the rest of the day and then for weeks more on end. But she had done it before. It was the first of the challenges she had conquered. There was nothing to it but stubbornness and determination.
Eventually, Starlight had to stop, leaning on a boulder and panting. She didn't stop because her body was past its limit, although it was... but she was good at pushing past her limits. She stopped because the underbrush had grown too thick, and she just couldn't see where the trail was supposed to be anymore.
Already, she had been hacking at plants with her blades when they got too close, the moon glass proving almost as effective as the metal it was bound to. But now, the trail went from a faint strip of ground where a pony who cared about taking the easy way would have walked to an impassable morass of vegetation. Starlight couldn't push through here. Had she gone the wrong way?
No. This seemed familiar, somehow...
And then, with a start, Starlight realized: this was the point where the trail turned left and grew steeper, leaving the river behind.
She blinked, scrubbing at her tired eyes and seeing that the way was indeed easier to the left. Hadn't it taken days for her to reach this point the first time?
Only two days, now that she thought about it, and she had taken a longer break, but still...
Starlight shrugged, shivered, and started climbing. The chill could only mean she was getting higher, so she'd have to be grateful for Fluffy's coat and get used to it. She would only climb further from here on out.
The path zigzagged sharply, using switchbacks to help her climb the steepening valley wall. Starlight trudged along dutifully, taking the corners as tightly as they would allow her, settling for steeper slopes if it meant saving impacts of the ground against her hooves. Now that she was on the slopes, the tree cover was still there, but frequent rains prevented any needles from building up, leaving the slanted dirt hard and rooty and bare. It made it a little easier on her leg muscles, not having a springy surface to crawl through, but now all the pain went straight to her hooves instead.
Starlight pressed on, too many emotions on pause in her heart to allow her a break. If she stopped, if she thought about it, everything she had been through could hit her again, and she had no one to cling onto here. But as long as she kept walking, she could squeeze those emotions and press them into fuel, use them to force herself to keep going until she made it through to the other side.
The Aldenfold, she remembered, did have another side. They ended somewhere, and that somewhere was Riverfall.
She tried to think about Riverfall. She tried her hardest to put a positive, hopeful spin on it, but her steps were simple and repetitive and so was her breathing, and that made her thoughts simple and repetitive too. Riverfall. It was where she was going. Riverfall. Maple would be there, and the others. Maybe if she was a little more stubborn, a little more determined, she could find a life she would be happy with there, now that she knew so much more about what was waiting for her everywhere else.
It felt like it was no use, because the thoughts weren't doing anything productive. But steady, rhythmic and matching her step were the most productive thing she could ask for, and at the very least they were staying out of her way.
She had to push herself. She had to keep going.
And then, Starlight met a break in the canopy, and stared slack-jawed at the world around her. It wasn't just nighttime; it was more than halfway to dawn.
Had she pushed herself that far for that long?
It explained why it started cooling off so long ago, at least. And why she felt like it had taken so much longer to reach the turnoff from the river during her previous climb. Stupid moon glass... Apart from the general light level and the presence of the stars, it didn't make night look that different from day.
Starlight suddenly remembered again the painful lesson of what happened if she didn't pace herself. She had pushed hard on her first day last time, too. Maybe she should have stopped to rest a long time ago.
She couldn't here, though. She was just exiting the forest, and the winds that blew high up along this valley were chilling her already. It was turn back and seek shelter, or press forward and seek shelter, and there was only one choice she could find acceptable.
Starlight Glimmer kept going.
She was going south by now. If her internal compass was correct, the valley extended from Sires Hollow to the north, and the switchbacks had taken her west up the valley wall. Now, she was out of the forest, but to the north was the end of the valley, the river pouring down into it in a waterfall that fed from a canyon from higher up in the mountains. There was no way to scale that rock face, even though it was the direction she needed, so instead the trail looped around to the south and then west again, circling a lone peak and finding another pass so it could continue off the edge of Equestria.
It was less steep than the switchbacks, but more dangerous, a path of rock too narrow for a cart, with a slanted forty-five-degree drop-off to the left and an equally sharp slope to the other side. The whole thing was covered in so much fallen gravel that her hooves threatened to skid beneath her, and every other gust of wind brought a pebble or two tinkling down from above. She looked up the mountainside, its snow cap far, far in the distance...
This wasn't a day trip. It wasn't a week trip. Starlight slowly started to remember just how impossible these mountains were supposed to be.
The sloping road continued, a zigzag up ahead where a small ridge blocked her view forward. By this point, it wasn't just her hooves and legs that hurt. Her spine hurt from the weight of her saddlebags, her neck hurt from bobbing her head with her breathing, her lungs hurt from the cold night air and her stomach hurt purely from exertion. Starlight eyed the zigzag greedily, the trail dipping into a slight niche in the mountains where it would be sheltered from the wind. That looked like her stopping place for the rest of the night. She prayed she had left herself enough energy to continue in the morning.
Starlight reached the niche, sliding off her saddlebags with a sigh of relief, her bones and muscles immediately thanking her. The mountains were rocky and offered no wood here for a fire, but she didn't think she needed one for tonight. Hunger and thirst aside, Fluffy's coat would provide more than adequate bedding for now.
Sitting back against the mountainside, Starlight let herself breathe, finally giving her legs the rest they deserved and emptying half her water flask at once. Hopefully it would rain soon so she could refill it. Though she sort of remembered there being another river ahead...
She didn't eat until her stomach was full, but she did take enough that she no longer felt starving. Sleep tugged at her eyes, tempting her with oblivion while her body rested and healed itself. She wanted to oblige, but... common sense halted her. It would at least be a good idea to spend twenty more steps scouting, going to see what was beyond the ridge the zigzag went around. If this wasn't a safe place to rest, she would rather push herself even further than spend the night where she would regret it.
Starlight limped along, favoring all four hooves, and stared when she saw beyond the ridge. Nestled far to the south below her, framed by two other steeper mountains, she got a glimpse of a lake, and beyond that a valley with buildings, one or two of which still had their lights on.
Sires Hollow. The home that was not meant to be.
...Starlight knew she would dwell if she stayed around to watch it, and she couldn't afford to spend that much emotional energy. She retreated back to the mountain niche, adjusted Fluffy's coat about her like a sleeping bag, and quickly fell into slumber.