Chapter 5
Giant Claws
Soon, they had arrived at a little outpost that appeared to be abandoned. It’s two huts were covered in snow and a large bonfire in the middle seemed to not have been used in many, many months. I had a short fence with one door that seemed more to mark the area of the outpost than to keep anything out.
The yaks visibly relaxed as they arrived within the little outpost, Darko lowering himself to allow the sleepy unicorn to get off. The two mares saw as the yaks began to clear the huts from snow and getting the fire ready. The yaks seemed to know their way around the outpost and everyone set out to do their individual tasks fast and efficiently.
Feeling useless for the time being, Starlight sat down and took out a little notebook, in which she began to scribble. Trixie peeked and asked.
“What are you writing in there?”
“A journal of the trip. I’m sure Twilight will be more than excited to learn anything from what this trip might reveal. That includes the yaks, and whatever we encounter from now on. I don’t recall any mention of giant claws anywhere in the entire canterlot library, and I’m sure I would’ve noticed if something was mentioned in the ponyville one about them. I just want to keep everything logged and ready to present to Twilight.”
Trixie groaned. “Even in a trip to save Twilight, you are thinking about showing off to her.” Starlight looked annoyingly at her friend. “What?! It is true. While I do not think that is a bad idea at all, maybe you should… I don’t know, rest or something like that?”
“No Trixie, I don’t have time for rest. I rested enough on Darko’s back.” Starlight answered as her voice grew slightly impatient and concerned. “The yaks are doing something while we two just stand here doing nothing. I’d feel bad if I weren’t doing anything remotely productive.” She then looked back at the notebook as she scribbled faster. “What will they tell prince Rutherford?” Starlight stopped and grabbed Trixie worriedly as she imitated the Yaks. “Headmare pony is useless. Headmare pony not tough. Yaks not send yaks to friendship school more and declare war on ponies!” She finished with a slightly mad look, her left eye twitching slightly.
“Dooooon’t you think you may be exaggerating…” Trixie said, pushing Starlight off her carefully. “Now, don’t get me wrong. I would worry if we gave them a reason to distrust the great and powe- ahem! The ponies and friendship school. However, I am sure that they won’t think you’re weak, and even less declare war.” She smirked. “I think Twilight’s rubbed off on you a bit too muuuuch.”
Starlight looked at her for a few seconds before sighing. “Ah… You’re right Trixie.” She closed the notebook just as Darko approached.
“Outpost is safe. We rest and move in four hours. Darko asks ponies to join the yaks near bonfire.” Both mares followed the large yak as the fire began to grow. The party of yaks were already sitting around the fire except for one, who seemed to be atop one of the huts looking around, most likely for any danger.
The group remained silent for a few moments before Darko stomped. “Ponies, we now welcome you to Yakyakistan!” Stomp. The rest of the yaks stomped in response. Starlight and Trixie smiled nervously, unsure about replying. Trixie hesitatingly stomped once. “Yaks are sad we cannot show capital to pony friends, but will make sure you are safe crossing yak territory. Perhaps on return, ponies will want to join us in the capital!” Stomp. Stomp reply.
“Yes! We would love to,” Starlight replied smiling. The yaks looked at her, expectantly. She chuckled nervously and looked at Trixie, asking silently for support. Trixie gestured for her to stomp. Starlight did and the yaks replied with a stomp of the own.
Darko smiled. “Ponies get Yaks!” He pulled both mares in for a hug. “You now Darko’s friends.”
“Y-yes,” Trixie replied, barely managing the words as the yak squeezed the air out of them. “Cant- breath-“
The yak let the two go and laid down, with Trixie and Starlight staggering to their seats on the left of the large yak. “Since ponies friends, I will introduced yaks to ponies.” He pointed at the firs yak to his left.
The yak, a smaller but bulkier-looking yak pointed at himself. “I am Bor! Ponies are safe with me,” he proudly stated before sitting down. The next Yak and who appeared to be the only female stood up next. “Zora.” With that, the rest of the Yaks introduced themselves. In total there were 6 yaks: Darko, Bor, Zora, Volo and Kaz, who introduced themselves a brothers while banging their heads in a painful way causing both Starlight and Trixie to flinch, and the one on the roof, Vad. Vad could be seen faintly thanks to the moonlight that occasionally filtered through the thick layer of clouds. He appeared to be the thinner one of the group of yaks from what Starlight remembered when they were travelling earlier.
Starlight smiled. “My name is Starlight Glimmer and this is my friend Trixie. We thank you all very much for your hospitality and for helping us stay safe earlier today.” She then looked at Darko. “What were those creatures?”
“Giant claws. They are vicious beasts. Eat yaks, terrorize the rest,” came Bor’s reply.
Darko nodded. “They live all over yakyakistan. Yaks can beat them; our stomp is powerful. But a lone yak cannot. We are mighty together!” This was awarded by soft thuds as the yaks stomped, albeit much softer as they all appeared tired.
Trixie and Starlight shared the warmth of the bonfire as the yaks slowly drifted to sleep. The two sat closely, trying to feel warm by the fire, but not too warm that it burned. As soon as the yaks appeared to be asleep, Trixie stood up.
“I’m heading to the cart to sleep. We should probably rest.”
Starlight nodded and followed her friend. The two got in and got comfortable, slowly drifting to sleep.
“UP PONIES, UP!”
The loud call from Darko outside the cart woke the two in surprise, with Starlight yelping as she fell off the hammock. Trixie got off and rubbed her eyes. “Couldn’t he have woke us up less, I don’t know… aggressively?”
Starlight looked outside and saw as the yaks seemed to be making the final checks before departing. “I think they actually allowed us to sleep in much longer than we should have.” She yawned as Trixie opened the door and exited the cart. Starlight followed and was soon greeted by a rough wooden plate being handed by Darko.
“Ponies eat now. No time to waste.”
Without saying anything else, Starlight levitated the plate off of the yak’s hooves and looked at what it was. It appeared to be a piece of bread and one leaf. While she wasn’t going to be picky, the leaf made it look extremely depressing. She slowly bit the bread and almost spit it out. While she wasn’t going to be disrespectful to Darko, the bread wasn’t exactly the that far from inedible. Trixie, however, did not have any reservations.
As she gave it the first bite, she looked confused for a second before dropping it on the floor. The yaks looked at her for a second before laughing and continuing what they were doing. Starlight looked confused as she debated between panicking due to her friend possibly offending the yaks or their laughter in response. Darko seemed to notice her confusion and laughed as he roughly head patted her. “Yak travel food can be rough for ponies. Yaks laugh at weak pony.”
Trixie heard that as she huffed and pulled out her own piece of bread from her cart. “You don’t have to be strong to eat that. Just have no idea nor a sense of ta-“ Quickly stopping her, Starlight looked at Darko apologetically, who seemed to not be paying the two mares any attention anymore as he surveyed the outpost getting cleared. Starlight struggled with Trixie as the showmare tried to get Starlight’s magic off her mouth so she could talk. Once Darko was no longer nearby, Starlight release Trixie.
“Hey! That is rude!”
“Sorry Trixie, I just don’t want to offend the Yaks at all. They’re helping us out a lot and who knows what can happen if we were to get them to hate us!” Starlight looked suspiciously around them, with Trixie rolling her eyes.
“Paranoid! That’s what you are!” She then proceeded to stuff the bread in her mouth.
Soon, the group was on its way again. The sun was up and the clouds were gone, but the cold was still there. However, the yaks carried the two ponies on their backs from the start, making Starlight feel useless. Trixie seemed to be enjoying herself, however. She was laying back, as if she were on the beach.
They went on for a few hours, nothing relevant happening. Starlight was making sure to track their location on the map, which seemed to be updating itself magically as they advanced further north. Locations that were wrongly placed or out of date changed around it and a red dashed line seemed to be marking the route they were taking. Starlight thanked Cadence and Sunburst for the map mentally, as it was going to prove to be extremely useful should they need to return without the yaks once they rescued Twilight, and knowing the way they came was going to make it much easier.
Starlight was lost in thought just as she heard Vad, who’d gone scouting ahead earlier, return panting. He exchanged a few words with Darko, who then began to frantically look around. The rest of the yaks began to form a circle as they had done the other night. Starlight and Trixie jumped off the yaks’ back and stood next to the cart, which was now entirely surrounded by the yaks in a protective circle.
“Darko, is it giant claws again?” asked Starlight.
Darko nodded. Right after her question, a deep growl was heard around them. It wasn’t dark anymore, and the sun was shining down brightly allowing her to see as a large feline head covered in white fur come out of a hill. Next to it, other head appeared and, soon, she managed to see around a dozen feline-like white animals running at them. They appeared to be similar to tigers, but much leaner and agile.
However, the thing that caught Starlight’s attention the most was the claws.
Each giant claw sported… well, a set of giant claws on each front paw and another set of smaller (albeit still large) claws on the back ones. The claws appeared to be at least half the length of her own legs, and Starlight couldn’t help but wonder how they didn’t stab each other, or themselves for that matter, as they charged towards them.
“Staaaaarliiiiiiight!” Trixie shouted worriedly as the yaks began to stomp as they had done last night. Starlight readied herself. She knew she could probably stand against one of them. Maybe two, without risking herself. However, the stomping of the yaks seemed to stop them for a second, as they slowed down their charge and began instead to stalk the circle, going around them like a pack of hungry wolves… but instead they were hungry tiger-like felines with giant claws.
The yak’s stomp was thunderous, and Starlight noticed that the giant claws seemed to reconsider and were about to leave again. However, this time one of the giant claws seemed to ignore the stomps and throw itself against Zora. Zora noticed and headbutted the leaping attacker, sending it flying away before landing with a thud on the snow and rising back up again, growling louder. The rest of the giant claws then attacked at once. Starlight gulped.
Most of the giant claws were repelled by the headbutting of the Yaks, who used their larger size and strength to keep the off. Their horns proved to be useful as well, as the giant claws became weary once one of them seemed to get hurt by Darko’s.
Two, however, managed to leap inside the circle. The beast’s original idea seemed to have been to simply attack the yaks from behind, but once it spotted Trixie it licked its lips. A nice meal had presented itself in there, seeming defenseless.
“Oh no you don’t!” Trixie was shaking in fear, and couldn’t possibly fend the giant claw off, so Starlight teleported herself between the two and used a blast of magic to send the giant claw flying away. Just as Trixie was about to thank her, two more giant claws managed to pass the wall of yaks. Starlight readied herself and blasted the first one before they even managed to notice the two ponies inside the circle. The other one quickly turned and growled at her. Starlight prepared another magic blast, but this time the giant claw was faster. With one swipe of its paw, Starlight was sent flying a couple of feet. Trixie looked shocked as the giant claw pulled back its claw.
There was no way Starlight hadn’t been… She saw as Starlight struggle to move and pictured the worst. That claw had definitely hurt her friend! Trixie stopped shaking and levitated a rock that landed roughly on the giant claw’s head, who had gone to give the killing blow on the fallen unicorn. It yelped and instantly turned its head, growling at the blue unicorn. Trixie gulped and focused. She couldn’t let her friend get eaten by a beast like that! Or any beast! As the giant claw charged at her, Trixie prepared her own magic blast.
While Starlight was immensely more powerful than herself, her tutoring had allowed Trixie to become an actual magician. She could perform harder feats and many spells that most common unicorns could not. While a magic blast was not common at all and Starlight had resisted teaching it to her, with enough insistence she had managed to convince her. It was not nearly as powerful, but would certainly do the trick. At least until a yak turned to help.
“You. Won’t. Touch. Even a hair!” Trixie exclaimed, as she struggled to get the blast powered up and remain stable without blasting on her own face. After a second, or what felt like minutes to the showmare, the blast left her horn and managed to land a direct hit on the giant claw. "The great and powerful Trixie shan't allow that!" she exclaimed as the blast sent the animal tumbling a few feet back, not nearly as much as what Trixie expected. Noticing that, Trixie gulped nervously and took a step back. However, as the giant claw began to stand back up, a yak unknowingly took a step back.
Stomp.
The giant claw moved no more.
Trixie gulped and looked around, searching for any more giant claws that had crossed the yak circle. After making sure no others were a danger to Starlight or herself, she ran to Starlight who was slowly rising back up.
“Ugh… that hurt…”
“Starlight!” Trixie exclaimed as she helped her up and inspected her friend for any gashes the giant claw could’ve made to her when she got swiped by it. Upon inspection…. Nothing seemed wrong. “Bu-ho-how?” Starlight was confused at first, but then noticed a long scratch on Sunburst’s cloak. It hadn’t penetrated it!
“I'm definitely going to thank Sunburst once I see him again... What happened to the giant claw?” Starlight asked, as she looked around. The rest of the giant claws outside the circle had fallen back, with the last one turning back once, growling and sprinting off into the woods.
Trixie pointed at the fallen giant claw and Starlight just mouthed oh.
Darko finally turned around after a few minutes had passes since the giant claws left. “Ponies okay?”
Both nodded. “Yeah, we’re fine,” Starlight said as she caught her breath. While the giant claw’s strike hadn’t wounded her, it had been enough to knock the wind out of her and disorient her. That’s when they noticed Zora flinch slightly. Darko approached her and looked at her leg, which seemed to have been hurt.
“Zora fine!” Zora protested as Darko inspected her to make sure nothing else was wrong, but the larger yak ignored her please.
After a few moments, every yak had been checked by Darko.
“Zora will be at the front. Vad, keep looking ahead. Ponies, I will carry both. Hop on.” Darko finished organizing all the yaks. Bor strapped on Trixie’s cart.
Soon, they were on the move again.