Her leg had stopped bleeding so profusely but it still dripped a few drops from the cuts onto the ice below every now and then. Rainbow Dash had gotten good at ignoring it at least. After flying through the crevasse for a while she came to a part where the ice closed up overhead and the bottom rose up and up until she was flying through little more than a pony-sized tunnel carved into the heart of the glacier. The ice monster had followed her, watching and occasionally growling with its cracking noises, for as long as it could until Rainbow Dash disappeared under the ice. Even then she could hear and see it through the ice above her for awhile, poking and stabbing at the surface of the glacier in an attempt to get to Rainbow Dash. But that had been almost half an hour ago, now the ice was too thick on top to see through and she had no idea where her pursuer was now or if it was still looking for her or had given up the chase.
Rainbow Dash frowned and dropped down onto the ice floor of the tunnel to start walking instead of flying. She didn’t really want to but felt she should probably conserve as much energy and strength in her worn wings as possible. The one positive spot in this affair was that the unnatural cold and numbing sensation that had been growing in her hooves and legs had abated. Hitting that ice monster was what first caused it and it seemed like now that she had gotten some time away from it and hadn’t hit it anymore that her body was returning to normal. She was still tired and her leg hurt a bit but she wasn’t feeling as drained as she was when she was still dueling with that thing in the air.
It was still cold in here, of course, but it was a normal type of cold that Rainbow Dash could easily deal with. What was also good was how… bright in here it was. Maybe it was how the light was constantly refracted throughout the ice but Rainbow Dash had no problem seeing in here. She might as well have been right out in the sun or walking through a brightly lit hallway.
Drip
A droplet of blood fell onto the ice that Rainbow Dash did her best to ignore. The light in here didn’t change the fact that she had no idea where she was even going or if there was another way out of this ice cave in the first place. It had gone alright for her so far though so she might as well keep going, if anything it had been a decent reprieve from the monster. She was worried if she stopped for too long and tried to rest in here her fur and feathers might get stuck to the ice though. That would be pretty annoying.
She didn’t feel sleepy though. It was still too early in the day and the aerial duel with the ice monster had her too on edge for a nap. She wasn’t sure how easy she’d be able to tell time down inside this glacier but she expected it would get dark fairly soon. Then she actually would have to be careful, the wrong step could send her tumbling down another crevasse too narrow for her to fly in or she could twist an ankle on the uneven ground or cut herself on an icicle. And she really didn’t need anything like that happening to her with everything else she had gone through at the talons of that monster.
Rainbow Dash was avoiding thinking about the fact she had technically just lost a fight and had to run away, even if it was just temporary. That was definitely not something she had just done. And it wasn’t running away, it was a retreat! A tactical decision! She just needed to work on some way to beat that monster without just hitting it like normal. It had to have some kind of weakness. She already knew she was way faster than it if she was in top form and could easily dodge all of its attacks, that wasn’t a problem. But it didn’t seem to get tired and no damage she did to it lasted while at the same time punching it took more energy from her. So what did she do? Ugh! Where’s Twilight to figure stuff out when she needs her? She could still easily fly away, fly so fast to create enough distance where this thing would lose her… but she couldn’t. She had to actually beat this thing. If for nothing else than for her pride. She had made the decision to come up here, to go on an adventure in the True North, she had to win.
There probably wouldn’t be anymore fighting for the rest of the day though. Not with that thing being unable to get in here and her wanting to rest first before going out to face it again.
She lazily dragged her feathers along the ice walls of her tunnel as she walked and then remembering something looked back at her tail and frowned. Shorn slightly short by that thing’s razor tail. Rainbow Dash hated having her mane and tail cut or styled in any way, it’s why she always refused Rarity’s offers to “fix” it. The way she saw it you couldn’t fix perfection and her natural style was perfect. Perfectly awesome. So now she had just one more thing to be angry at that dumb ice monster for.
“Tch,” Rainbow Dash clicked her tongue and swished her tail over her right back leg to try and clean up some of the blood.
Her hooves clacked on the ice as she ground her teeth in frustration. This glacier was big and if this tunnel twisted and turned enough she could easily be walking for miles inside it. Which means she could also end up backtracking for miles through it if there wasn’t another exit from the dumb crevasse/tunnel system. But there had to be, right?
As Rainbow Dash was thinking that she ended up coming to a split in the tunnels for the very first time. One went right and the other went left, both of them looked identical from what she could see, just more ice in both directions, so at a glance she wasn’t sure which of them she should take. She lifted up her front hoof and licked it, putting it in the air between the two tunnels to see which direction the air was flowing.
She couldn’t feel a difference either way, so either the air was stalled or it flowed both ways equally. Whichever tunnel she took was just as likely to take her to an exit, it was just a coin flip.
“Whatever!” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and went left.
Her hooves continued to clack over the ice just like before, a steady sound that was starting to get on her nerves if she was being honest. With the echo in here and the lack of other sounds that steady staccato practically drowned out her own thoughts. It just kept going and going too as she traveled down this left tunnel. What direction was she even going in at the moment? It was probably west but if the first tunnel curved at all she wasn’t totally sure and she obviously couldn’t check the sky and sun to reorient herself.
None of that really mattered until she got out of the glacier but she didn’t like the idea of not knowing exactly where she was headed. When she was flying out free in the sky, Rainbow Dash could always do or check a number of things so she always knew where she was going. And most of the time she could just naturally feel what direction she was flying in. But walking through this glacier was different.
She continued going through that tunnel for what felt like, and very well could have been, hours until she noticed that the tunnel started to widen up a bit. Before it was barely tall enough for her to walk upright in or wide enough for her to extend her wings a bit but slowly over time it had doubled in size compared to what it had been. Some more breathing room was pretty nice, she wouldn’t complain. It kept getting wider too, and brighter the further she looked down the tunnel. Was this an exit or something else?
Rainbow Dash picked up the pace, getting into a slight trot, as she went to see what was at the end of the tunnel.
The tunnel finally opened up even wider into a full on ice cavern tucked away in the glacier, Rainbow Dash stepped into it and looked around at the house-sized cave where huge icicles hung from directly overhead and several pillars of ice rose from floor to ceiling. There were a number of other tunnels leading away from this new cavern, showing Rainbow Dash that this entire glacier likely had a huge tunnel system going through it. The ceiling of this room was higher than Rainbow Dash had expected, she must’ve been lower in the glacier than she thought or this section was just raised on top. There were also a bunch of rocks frozen right into the ice here, some of them completely buried that Rainbow Dash could see through the ice and some of them halfway out.
The greater brightness clearly had come from how more light could easily shine down into this cavern from the top of the glacier. But even as Rainbow Dash thought that things started to get darker. She looked up and saw the light steadily diminishing, it was getting closer to evening. She bit her lip, she really would’ve liked to have found a way out first but if it was getting dark it might be better to rest in here for the night. At least she had found this cavern first.
Rainbow Dash floated on over to one of the rocks half stuck in the ice. Circling around like a dog for a second she eventually plopped down on it and rested her chin on her hooves. Cold, hard, and very uncomfortable, but it was a better bed and place to sleep than just lying right on the ice. Her weariness would win out shortly despite the early hour and soon Rainbow Dash drifted off to sleep in the middle of her glacier.
Up above on the surface of the glacier the ice monster repeatedly pounded and scratched on the ice, trying to find and reach Rainbow Dash. No matter where the monster looked it couldn’t find any crevasse or hole that it could fit into and had resorted to doing this ever since. Ice scraped against ice as it broke chunks away and gouged tiny wounds into the glacier, but no more than that. The tunnels below were too deep and the ice of the glacier too thick and strong for the gargoyle to break through and find them or create any paths of its own.
“KRAAAAOWWWW!” With a roar of frustration the monster balled its talons up and slammed them into the ice one last time before flapping its wings and rising into sky.
It flew in circles above the glacier, keeping its “eyes” trained on the ice below for any sign of Rainbow Dash. It could wait for her. It could outlast her. Whenever the pegasus came out of the glacier the ice monster would resume its chase and this time take out its prey for good.