It was cold and dark and Rainbow Dash tossed and turned on the ground. Grumbling in uncertainty and unsure of what was going on, her mind replayed scenes from her recent life like a movie projected on the back of her eyelids. Her hooves pedaled around thin air as she watched herself walking up and up mountains, her jaw tightened and her brow furrowed at the sight of a large yak blocking her way any further. More and more chaos swirled around her, all disappearing in a white blizzard that consumed everything else. Freezing cold unlike what she had been feeling before enveloped her and all she could see was ice falling like rain. Rainbow Dash shivered, trying to fly through the ice on unresponsive wings as something flew down to her. The rainbow pony lashed out at it and-
Woke up as she kicked a rock, reflexively grabbing her leg and wincing.
“Ow… what?” The pegasus groaned as she struggled to open up her heavy eyes.
She didn’t feel like an absolute mess unlike the previous day but her throat was still dry and her head was hurting. What’s more her wings felt sore and they weren’t moving right, like something was on top of them or tying them down. Rainbow Dash finally realized she was on her back, disoriented, and half her body was buried in the snow.
“Ugh, did I sleep on top of my wings?” She asked the air as she managed to open up her eyes and look around.
The pegasus was… somewhere. She rolled over and stood up, faltering only slightly, and looked in front of her. Rainbow Dash was definitely still facing north, her sense of direction good enough to tell her that, but she wasn’t sure about how far she had flown since yesterday or if she had maybe flown a little off-course and gone sideways. The entire previous day’s events were all a blur to her.
As expected it was mostly just a bunch of snow she saw on the landscape in front of her.
She was also atop a decently sized rock that was covered in freshly fallen snow as well, her sick self must have drifted to it last night and she decided to sleep up here. Rainbow Dash saw where she had accidentally kicked part of the rock and reached down to rub her still aching leg again. She also glanced at where she had been slashed by the ice monster a few days ago now, only the faintest of scars were still there and those would be gone in a few more days. Unfortunately her tail still hadn’t grown back to normal either. That still annoyed her.
Rainbow Dash stretched her wings to try and get them back into working order, she’d have to fly a lot to make up for all the lost time. And she’d have to check to make sure she was back to going directly north and not careening off somewhere else. She clicked her tongue and kicked a little bit of snow off the rock. She had just woken up and she could already tell this was going to be a bad day. Everything had just gone wrong lately. What should have been her first awesome fight and challenge up in the True North hadn’t gone as expected… she got sick immediately after and couldn’t even remember what happened yesterday, and now she wakes up in some desolate place all sore so she can’t even make up all the wasted time as quickly as she wanted to.
“Bleh,” she stuck out her tongue and sat down, still wiggling her wings around.
For the briefest of moments she almost felt upset enough to head back south but her mind quashed those feelings. She wasn’t the type to give up so easily. Her immense stubbornness when it came to the ice monster was proof enough of that. It didn’t change the fact though that she was fairly disappointed in the True North at the moment. Archibald was right about the danger and how remote everything was compared to down south but it wasn’t awesome in the way she wanted it to be.
The whole point of this was that Rainbow Dash wanted to go up here where no ponies from Equestria knew anything about it because there had to be cool and dangerous stuff here but so far it all just felt a little hollow. She could brag about some stuff but it wasn’t anything remotely close to her normal adventures back in Equestria. She needed something truly epic and she needed it soon.
Rainbow Dash individually rotated her wings around in their sockets. They were feeling better and she could start flexing them and the wingtips almost like normal.
Scowling, she decided to not waste anymore time this morning and hopped off the rock to the ground below. She could at least walk until her wings were ready for flight again.
“Achoo!” She sneezed once more the moment her hooves touched the snow.
The pony grumbled and wiped her nose on the back of her hoof while she continued to walk. There was a breeze in the air going from east to west and it caused wisps of snow to drift along the land in front of her. In the distance she could see a number of “snow devils” moving along too. The whole thing reminded her of a snowy version of her trips through the plains around Appleloosa and even the southern desert that Klugetown sat at the end of. Now she half expected a tumbleweed to somehow blow on by.
Rainbow Dash yawned and stretched her neck, which was also sore thanks to the awkward position she slept in last night, stretching it kind of made her head throb since she was still suffering the tail-end of a headache but it was no big deal. What she wanted to do the most was find some running water somewhere so she could deal with this sore throat. Chomping down on snow just didn’t work as well as actually drinking some real, cool, water.
“Geez… maybe I really should’ve taken Daylight’s offer to go with them?” Rainbow Dash wondered as she looked up at the mostly empty sky. Only a few thin lines and sheets of cirrus clouds were anywhere in sight, the sun mostly allowed to shine through to the ground below.
Shrubs grew up out of the snow in a few places. A tundra like this being unable to really support any plants bigger than those and some grass. Maybe a few types of flowers. Twilight would probably know the best, it didn’t really seem like Applejack’s area of expertise. Nothing aside from apples really seemed like Applejack’s area of expertise.
Rainbow Dash snickered at her friend’s utter obsession with the fruit. She wanted to think that she at least had more varied interests than her farming friend.
Getting tired of a dry mouth and throat she went for the only option she had and scooped up some of the snow, eating it.
She instantly stuck out her tongue after chewing and swallowing it up. “Bleh, wonder if that isn’t too healthy… maybe I should only eat snow when it’s falling.”
The pegasus slowly continued on, her wings twitching when she tried to fold them in all the way to her sides, signaling that they weren’t near to being back to flying condition. It might be a long morning of walking, the good thing being that she still had many hours of daytime left. The bad being she was in yet another place up here in the north devoid of any signs of life or civilization. What was up with this place? She knew there was stuff up here but most of it was just so… empty. That ice monster had to have been some kind of magical creature too, right? Did someone make it or was it like the windigos from that old story? She thought it might have been a sign or meant she was getting somewhere but so far that didn’t seem to be the case.
In the end there was only more snow and mountains in front of her. Maybe things would change when she took to the skies and could actually see elsewhere but for now her scenery was much the same as always. She might as well have been doing nothing more than taking the train to the Crystal Empire.
Rainbow Dash started grinding her teeth together. She just couldn’t stand this slowness! Even the clouds were slow! It’s like they were mocking her. She tried flexing and flapping her wings up and down a few times but they either hurt or felt like lead depending on how she moved them. It felt like her headache was getting worse too thanks to how annoyed she was. Of course all that stress and negative thinking was just going to hurt her head, she wasn’t even totally over her cold.
As the hours rolled by so did the clouds and eventually a layer of low flying clouds blocked out the sky, sending her snowy tundra into a twilight. By then, however, Rainbow Dash’s wings were feeling good and she could lift off the ground to finally return to flying. It was unfortunate that she’d have to go easy on them for the rest of the day but tomorrow she already knew she’d be going full speed ahead. The north couldn’t be “empty” for much longer.