The tunnel she was in got even narrower the closer she got to the light and exit at the end, so much so that she had to start squeezing her body through. It turned into practically just a crack on the side of the glacier but Rainbow Dash was hardly giving up her escape route just because it was a little cramped on the way out. She reached her hooves out to either side of the crack and pulled her head through.
“Fwah!” She panted in relief, stuck halfway out of the glacier.
She looked down, seeing the glacier drop another perfectly vertical 50 feet before it hit the ground, while looking up she noticed she was maybe only ten feet from the surface of it. Rainbow Dash wiggled her shoulders and wings out of the crevasse, extending her wings and already flapping them so she could keep herself from falling the moment she crawled out all the way. Finally she snapped out of the hole in the glacier and then instantly pressed herself flat back against the cliff, trying to blend in with the ice and make as little movement as possible in case the ice monster was watching overhead for any sign of movement.
Her heart was beating harder than she wanted to admit but she was still cool enough to realize nothing was coming for her just yet. With her calmed down nerves she took a more detailed look around to figure out where she was.
She was definitely on the north side of the glacier. There wasn’t any forested valley down below her, she was looking out at the other side where the mountain range kept extending to the north. The ground beneath her was nothing more than a series of crags and boulders that lied on the sloping hills between the mountains. The next closest mountain to her was dead ahead, it was squat and instead of a single peak the top was all torn apart and there were multiple jagged summits and ridges all creating a mess of a mountain. But because of that it may be a good place to hide. She could already see tons of rock formations and passages all over that mountain that would be difficult or impossible to see from the sky. Rainbow Dash could probably look for food on that mountain while avoiding the ice monster at the same time. The next mountain was nearly its exact opposite, sitting slightly to the northwest it was tall and thin, probably the tallest mountain in this small range. The peak nearly reached the clouds.
Clouds? It was perfectly clear yesterday but now there were dark storm clouds gathering in the sky, mostly coming in from the northwest it seemed. Not over the glacier yet but they’ll probably cover the whole range with enough time. That actually might be good too, she could probably lose the thing by flying through the clouds if it came down to that.
And speaking of the monster she finally tilted her head up to scan the skies directly overhead. She didn’t see it just yet but that didn’t mean it wasn’t up there or perched somewhere out of sight. It might have given up on her but she wasn’t going to take that bet. Either way there was no coverage for her until she actually got to that next mountain, she’d have to risk flying to it quickly and hope she wasn’t spotted. But for all she knew the monster was standing on top of the glacier still trying to find a way to break into the tunnels… if Rainbow Dash flew lower and close to the ground it would probably be the safest.
“Nothing to do but to do it,” she checked the sky one last time to make sure the thing wasn’t right above her and detached from the face of the glacier, letting herself glide down a ways before coming up sharply and flying just barely over the boulders and floor of the small valley between the glacier and the rocky mountain in front of her.
She mostly glided. Only occasionally flapping her wings when needed to fly as quietly and stealthily to the next mountain as possible.
She didn’t hear anything coming after her nor the telltale whistling of something being thrown through the air at her. So far so good. Within a minute she reached the split apart and broken foot of the mountain and ducked behind a boulder, eyes barely peaking out to look for her assailant but seeing nothing. The pegasus quickly zoomed to another boulder, and then another, never staying in plain sight for long. Like this she could slowly make her way up and around the mountain while she looked for food and a safe place to hide. There was a narrow and steep crack in the rock of the mountain that led up it, the walls high enough where unless something was directly overhead it would be impossible to see Rainbow Dash walking through it. She wasn’t exactly thrilled to be walking through a rock version of the ice crevasses and tunnels she had just been through but at least she was already used to it.
Pebbles and dirt shifted loose under her hooves the more she walked, grumbling under her breath to herself. Rainbow Dash had already proven she could walk up mountains and stuff so she didn’t really like having to bother with this again.
When she got out of that crag she took another stealthy look around at the sky and seeing that it was still empty walked out onto a level part of the mountain covered in dirt with some trees and bushes around as well as a dark cave that went into the side of the mountain.
What kind of bushes those were were quite familiar to Rainbow Dash. The same tasty looking and sweet smelling red berries from the valley covered them. Rainbow Dash licked her lips and walked over, this was exactly what she was looking for and these ones weren’t even covered in frost. Perfect! She ate a ton right off the bush and grabbed some more to hold in her wings for now so she could snack later today if she didn’t find anything else.
“Ahh, that hit the spot,” Rainbow Dash sighed with pleasure.
The pegasus then walked over to the cave and stood slightly inside it, hiding herself while watching the skies. Clouds were moving to cover the mountains just like she expected but the sun was still out so it was mostly bright and not very cold yet. She needed to get up the rest of this mountain so she had a vantage point to see around the range and that meant she couldn’t just hide out in this cave for too long. She definitely wanted to get up there while it was still more or less bright out.
Not having much else to do here, Rainbow Dash was about to leave the cave-
“Grrr...”
The deep growl came from inside the cave and Rainbow Dash paused to look behind her. She hadn’t realized this cave had another occupant. But slowly from the darkness a shimmering blue beast began to emerge, larger than any normal bear and with a magical fur of stars and constellations the Ursa Minor stalked towards her on its massive paws.
“Oh. Hey. So I guess this is your cave?” She somewhat nervously asked the large creature.
The Ursa Minor shook with anger at its territory being invaded, barring its huge fangs for Rainbow Dash to see and rearing up on its hind legs. It opened its jaws wide and sucked in a large breath of air.
Rainbow Dash’s eyes widened and she brought a hoof up to her lips. “No! Shh, shh!”
But it was no good, the Ursa Minor let out a bellowing roar that shook the walls of the cave and echoed out over the entire mountain and then some. Birds scattered into the air and lesser predators ran away in fear while rocks and snow threatened to fall down the mountain from the force of that roar. Rainbow Dash covered her ears and winced from the loud noise until finally the Ursa ran out of breath and went back down to all fours, glaring at Rainbow Dash.
To her credit, she glared right back at it. “Thanks a lot.”
The ice monster was atop the glacier once more, inspecting every bit of it for some kind of weakness or trying to stare down through the ice to find the pegasus it had been chasing after. It had grown tired of not seeing her emerge from the glacier and had gone back to hunting her more aggressively instead of trying to wait her out. But this hadn’t borne fruit for it either. The gargoyle balled up its talons and slammed them into the surface of the glacier over and over, partly trying to get in and partly just out of frustration. Cracks spiderwebbed all across the ice but it was still no closer to finding its prey than before. With a final screeching cry it slashed large cuts into the ice and took off into the sky. The gargoyle’s tail whipped about behind it as it tried to figure out where to go and look next. Whatever this monster truly was it had absolutely no intention of just giving up on finding Rainbow Dash.
“ROOOOAAARRR!”
The monster paused in its flight, looking over with its glowing eyes towards the broken mountain. Whether it truly had any capacity to think inside that icy skull was irrelevant. That roar was unusual and it triggered the ice monster to go investigate.
While it flew over the edge of the glacier to the source of that roar something else caught its attention and it swung back around and landed right on the northern face of the glacier, digging its claws in for purchase and inspecting a small crack that led into a deep tunnel. The ice monster looked the crack over, narrow but still just big enough that a pony could slip through it. And there were scuff marks along its edges. Tiny marks and pieces of ice freshly broken off the glacier by something that had just scrambled out of this hole only earlier today…
“KREEEEEEE!” The ice monster let out a screech of its own and jumped from the glacier, its great razor wings flapping hard as it flew to the mountain at full speed.