//------------------------------// // 04. North, further, much further than anypony before // Story: A tale of Starlight // by redspark //------------------------------// Chapter 4 North, further, much further than anypony before “Thank you for coming with us, Sunburst.” Starlight smiled as her friend nodded and apologetically added “I wish I could join you for the expedition though. I was allowed only up to the last station. After that, I can only wish you the best.” He sighed. “I just wish I could go.” “Do not worry at all, Sunburts. The great and powerful Trixie will keep Starlight safe. I always do!” she proudly proclaimed. Starlight smiled and nodded. “There, I’ll be safe. We will all be. I also wish you could come but you have responsibilities here. Sunburst sighed as he nodded. “Very well.” The train whistle sounded across the cabins as the train finally came to a stop. Starlight peeked outside, opening the curtains. It was quite dark, with the clear sign of a snowstorm around them. She could barely see a few feet ahead, with the lights of the station approaching rapidly. Trixie joined her in looking outside the window, as the two wondered how hard their journey would be the further they travelled. “Are you sure about this Starlight?” Trixie said, forcing herself to not sound scared while clearly being at least slightly concerned. “Why don’t we just head back now? The crystal empire looked comfortable, lots of ponies to entertain, a comfortable room in a palace to sleep in? We can always continue the trip next week! A relaxing rest before the journey?” she finished, a nervous smile showing. Starlight smiled. “Is the great and powerful Trixie scared?” Trixie’s face showed Starlight her choice of words had proven useful. The blue mare scoffed as she looked away. “Me?! The great and powerful Trixie is NEVER scared. I was just… saying.” Starlight chuckled as the train came to a stop. The howling of the wind echoed around the cabin, rocking slightly with the wind. The three ponies went down from the train, feeling the cold cover their bodies as soon as they stepped off. The wind and the snow made it hard to look forward, but Starlight managed to see a couple of Yaks that seemed to be waiting. Most likely the envoy sent by the Yaks to help them on their journey north. Looking to her left, she saw the crystal ponies busy unloading Trixie’s cart from the train and bringing it over. Noticing the ponies, the Yaks approached with the largest one taking the lead. They stopped as they finally stood a few feet apart. Starlight smiled (as much as she could while being attacked relentlessly by snow and wind and cold) and introduced herself. “H-hi! I am Starlight Glimmer, this is Trixie Lulamoon and the crystal mage, Sunburst.” The lead Yak looked at them for a few seconds before replying as he stomped on the ground. “I am Darko! Prince sent me to escort north!” The rest of the Yaks stomped as he said north. “North perilous! Ponies do not survive.” He said, seeming to ignore the straightforwardness of his statement. Starlight smiled nervously. “But Yaks will protect! Yaks best at protecting!” The chorus of Yaks erupted in agreement. Darko stomped and all the yaks fell silent. “However, I will ask. Ponies sure?” Trixie turned to Starlight. “Let’s head back home? Pleeeeeeeeease?” Starlight sighed. “I want to, but we don’t have much of a choice…” She looked at Darko. “We are sure. Please, help us in our journey.” Trixie shivered, for cold or fearfulness, it wasn’t clear. Sunburst simply looked at Starlight, concern in his eyes. “Ponies have spoken, then!” Stomp. “We will go north.” Stomp. “Ten day journey, very cold, very wet. Many monsters.” Stomp. He turned to the rest of the Yaks. “NORTH!” Together all the yaks chanted north a couple of times as Darko turned to Starlight. “We go. Night is dangerous.” Trixie sighed as she began to set the saddle for her cart on her back. Starlight turned to Sunburst. “Well… that went well, right?” Sunburst simply looked at Starlight, seriousness clear on his face. “Are you sure about this Starlight?” “Well, what do you think?” Starlight replied exasperated. She groaned as she shivered and felt the intense cold. “I don’t want to go. I Just want to be back in the school, teaching young minds about friendship.” She began to think about all the little ones wanting help as exams approached right around the corner. “My office would be lined with all sorts of creatures wanting advice, I’d refer them to Trixie since I would’ve been too busy making sure everything was ready for the tests ahead.” She smiled. “Twilight knew this so every year she sends me an invitation to have tea with her once a week in the palace. She knows I don’t need a formal canterlot invitation, but she still does it to show me that I have both my friend and the ruler of Equestria to help me.” She looked down. “Now Twilight depends on me. I have to go. I cannot turn back, not when I’m so close to reaching the edge of the map.” Unclasping his cloak, Sunburst gently placed it around his friend. Starlight immediately felt warm, much lighter and… safe. “I… I enchanted this cloak. It has protective spells. You won’t be cold, nor hot, it will help dampen the hit against any non-magical objects that may hit you and will let me know if you are well.” Starlight looked at it and tried to get it off as she said “Nonononono, I cannot accept this! It’s your precious cloak, and who knows how many years you’ve been working on it to add so many protective and complex spells! I could never…” Placing his hoof on her shoulder, he shook his head. “Take it Starlight, I won’t bring it back with me. But you must promise me you’ll return it. I have more experiments to do with it and it better not even be dusty!” he said, ending in a joking manner with a slight smile on his face. Starlight simply nodded, unsure if she should insist more. However, the warmth and feeling of safety it gave her was highly reassuring. “Ponies must hurry. Longer the wait, darker it gets.” Darko exclaimed this loudly, although Starlight noticed a really slight hint of worry. After spending so much time as the teacher in the friendship school, interacting with yaks had allowed her to pick up one or two things about their generally careless and hard to understand behavior. This Yak was not completely certain of something… Having said their goodbyes, the two mares followed the Yaks into the big expanse of snow and cold. Their first ascent into the mountains north of the crystal empire was hard and extremely complicated, although with the help of the yaks the two mares managed to move at a steady pace. Not but an hour after leaving the train, Trixie got a yak to help her with the cart, as she was finding it incredibly difficult to move in the treacherous path without risking dropping the cart with herself in tow down from the cliffside. As the storm seemed to subside, they arrived at a little valley in between the mountains and Starlight managed to see the stars for the first time since they left the capital of the crystal empire. It had turned to night and she hadn’t even realized it. That meant they had been walking almost nonstop for at least 8 hours now, and her hooves were no particularly happy about walking on the snow. Noticing the stars, Trixie (who by this time had managed to convince a yak to carry her) seemed to be lost in thought for a second. She thanked the yak as she jumped off and walked next to Starlight, who was panting and barely able to think much of the sky above. (0.3 Light of the Stars) “Starlight… look up.” Trixie’s voice wasn’t worried, but rather had a hint of awe and wonder that Starlight had never heard her friend utter before. She stopped in order to be able to focus on looking up, her brain being extremely tired from all the walking and the cold. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Green, purple, yellow… a multitude of colors dance above them, lighting up the night sky. The stars, much clearer than she had ever seen before, seemed to give as much light as the moon itself did. The constellations, now in entirely different positions, had the clearest forms the school headmare had ever seen in her life. With a playful chuckle, Trixie booped her friend and closed her opened mouth, which she had opened in awe without noticing. “You can close your mouth now.” Starlight looked at Trixie. “This is…” Starlight stopped, thinking for a word. “Beautiful?” said Trixie, completing Starlight’s sentence. Starlight shook her head. “No, that word cannot describe this beauty enough. Why can’t we see this in Equestria?” “Because ponies too distracted.” Both mares hadn’t noticed the lead of the Yaks, Darko, approach them. “What do you mean by distracted?” Trixie asked. Darko thought for a second. “I not know. Darko feels it. Ponies not see the sky as Yaks do. Yak sky is best sky!” The common proclamation rang through the small group of travelers, with Starlight looking once more towards the sky. “You know Darko?” she began. “I think I can agree with that one. It is magnificent.” Darko was about to reply with a smile on his face when he stopped, his face looking stiff. All the Yaks suddenly got in a circle around Trixie and Starlight, with the Yak pulling Trixie’s cart rapidly unfastening it from himself. No words were uttered as all of this proceeded. Starlight and Trixie uttered confused questions as the Yaks grew still. “Wha-“ “Shh pony,” Darko exclaimed, albeit uncharacteristically quiet. “Danger.” (04. Yaks Stomp) Both Starlight and Trixie’s ears perked up. While the night sky was incredibly bright, it was still much darker than daylight and they could barely see anything mor than a couple dozen feet ahead with a little bit of clarity. Starlight carefully approached Darko, making sure her hooves made the lightest noise possible. “Darko… what is happening?” Darko did not reply immediately, but rather stoically looked ahead. After a few tense moments, he replied without taking his eyes off of the distance. “Giant claws.” His reply was as vague as it could’ve been. However, Starlight pressed further. “What’s a giant claw?” As soon as her question was over, she heard a low growl, then noticed shadows around them, swiftly moving in a circle. She could barely see, but if she had to guess there were around a dozen of them. She hoped her eyes were playing a trick to her, but seeing Darko stomp once, breaking the silence they had maintained thus far. The other yaks followed in his example, stomping. The snow was soft at first, but the more they stomped, the harder it got as they compressed it and the sound coming from the stomp grew louder and louder. Soon, the stomp was so loud both Trixie and Starlight had to cover their ears. As painful to their ears as it was, the two mares noticed that the shadows seemed to reconsider, growling once more before fading back into the darkness of the night. While Starlight hadn’t managed to see them in detail, the shadows had given her a clear picture of a possible feline animal. Maybe something similar in size to a panther, or slightly bigger. The yaks remained stomping for a few minutes more before Darko stopped. Slowly, all the yaks stopped their stomping and, after a few more minutes, stopped staring around and broke their protective circle around the cart. “No more stopping,” Darko said. “We move now.” The yaks started walking and, as Starlight and Trixie began to walk, they were picked up by two yaks as another one strapped the cart unto his back. “Huh?” came Starlight’s confused reply at being picked up and placed on Darko’s back. Darko simply looked at the group once more, confirming everyone was good to go as he resumed his walking. The yak then addressed Starlight. “Ponies slow. Ponies get tired easy, more than yaks.” Starlight was going to reply but was cut off by the big Yak. “For safety, yaks will carry ponies now. No harm to fall on headmare Starlight, said prince Rutherford. And Darko will protect purple pony and purple pony’s blue pony friend.” Starlight did not reply, but instead shivered as the sky was once again being slowly covered by clouds, limiting the light for them to see. This suddenly seemed to make Starlight’s body subconsciously remember how cold it was, making her hug herself as she felt Sunburst’s cape flutter as the wind picked up slightly. She slowly closed her eyes, not managing to keep herself awake…