//------------------------------// // A // Story: PROTOTY // by shortskirtsandexplosions //------------------------------// The glaciers were duller here. The ice beneath her hooves felt like rigid steel. An overhang of permafrost enshrouded her, providing bleak shelter from the falling snow outside. She came to a stop, cast in shadow. With a flicker of alicorn magic, she unfurled a portion of her thick woolen cloak. A wooden rod levitated in her magic, and after aiming her horn at the end of it the thing caught fire—illuminated brilliantly like a torch. Flurry Heart's adult muzzle peered out from behind a frost-laden hood. Her ocean blue eyes squinted. She levitated the torch higher, piercing the shadows caused by the unnatural overhang. There—wedged secretly within the massive mouth of the adjoining glaciers—was an enormous black door. Its surface was etched all over with a million claw marks, and a paper-thin seam ran vertically down its center. The princess exhaled. Vapors coalesced between her face and the torch. Shuffling forward, she approached the door. She rested the torch on the cold icy ground, then reached into her saddlebag for something else. After a few seconds, she procured an hourglass. But instead of sand, each glass bauble housed a living scarab—one black and the other white. They stirred slightly as the hourglass was placed horizontally on the ground. Flurry Heart inhaled... slow and steady. She sighed once. This time—as the vapors formed again—she fired a beam of magic at them from her horn. The breath froze in midair, forming a translucent halo that fell like a rock. She caught her “breath,” in two regal fetlocks... then set it directly on top the dual baubles with the scarabs. Reaching for her torch, she held the flame close to the frozen phenomenon while—with a free hoof—she sprinkled a mysterious powder from her saddlebag. The sediment mixed with the flame, then oozed onto the frozen breath. This too melted, coating the hourglass all over. As if reacting, the scarabs stirred with fright. Their carapaces split open, exposing gossamer wings that blurred against a magic wind. The hourglass began spinning like a top, and a low-pitched hum filled the air. This tremor spread through the glacier, then into the framework of the massive door itself. Flurry Heart stepped back, steeling herself. The hum intensified. Dust fell loose from the tall vertical seam, pouring grey rain on the alicorn explorer. Then—with a pronounced hiss of escaping air—the doors split down the center and slowly slid open. It wasn't long before the cold air of the north billowed in to fill the suddenly available space. This roused something from within... something that growled. Flurry Heart shook her cloak off completely. She unsheathed a curved sword that glowed with the heart-shaped runes of the Crystal Empire. The glow cast shadows of menace across her furrowed face. One by one—with fibrous hairs waving in the frosted air—enormous chitinous legs symmetrically peeled out from the darkness, hauling a pendulous frame