//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 // Story: Up Here in the Mountains // by Shaslan //------------------------------// The mountain air was crisp and clear. Snow lay thick upon the ground, frozen solid. Those few brief, glorious summer weeks when the grass had fleetingly shown its face were long gone. Now only frost-rimed snow and the raw face of the cliffs remained. Stone and snow, snow and stone. Sweetie Belle sighed as she gazed out of her window at the plunging slope below. How she missed Ponyville! Its warm and nourishing fields, rich with hay and meadowgrass; its orchards and restaurants. A smorgasbord for all the senses, not just for the tongue. Every season bought a new and lovely aspect to the fertile countryside. But the mountains never changed. The clouds parted to reveal open sky often, but the sun was always wan and pale. It was eternally cold and bleak here, rough grey rock barren as the moon. The little garden just below her window was an oasis of green, raked clear of the snow every day by her own hooves, with foliage tended and trimmed by Rarity. But beautiful as it was, it was only one little speck, lost in a sea of grey. And the warmth of the sun was not the only thing the sisters had left behind in Ponyville. Not a day had passed since they arrived in this empty place that Sweetie Belle had not thought longingly of her friends. The isolated cabin that Rarity had chosen seemingly at random for their new home was far from where Scootaloo and Apple Bloom could ever come alone, and it was not likely that Applejack or Rainbow Dash would be able to spare the time to bring them to see her any time soon. It had been six months already. The Cutie Mark Crusaders had never been separated for so long a period before. Sweetie Belle rested her head on her hooves and sighed. She found it hard to understand Rarity’s decision. Rarity had her five friends, her own life just as busy and varied as Sweetie Belle’s own was. More than that, she had a thriving business and a chain of dress stores that was growing and growing. Why had she taken it into her head to abandon it all, and bring them here? Her reassuring words of ‘rest’ and ‘recuperation’ held little meaning for a filly as lonely as Sweetie Belle now was, and ‘sisterly bonding’ did not reassure her either. Rarity had promised over and over that she would grow to love it here, but it had been — Sweetie Belle glanced across at the tally on her wall — one hundred and eighty-two days, and she didn’t love it yet. She was rather proud of her prisoner-of-war tally, actually. She thought it lent her rustic wooden room a touch of the tragic Prench classic novel. She’d taken the idea from the Count of Monte Cris-pone, one of Rarity’s funny old-fashioned books that she’d been forced to read after her own supply ran dry. Sweetie Belle would never have thought she’d become a big reader, but living alone in the mountains with nothing to do did funny things to a pony. She had tried at first to go outside and play while Rarity worked on her sewing, but playing alone got really old really fast, and it was always so cold up here. If Apple Bloom and Scootaloo were here, she supposed she could have invented some fun games to do in the snow, but she was just too tired most of the time. Getting out of bed was hard when you didn’t have any school to go to or anypony to go and see. She sighed again, and her breath fogged up the glass. It just wasn’t fair. They’d only just gotten their cutie marks, their grand reward for everything they had worked for, and then it was all snatched away from her. And it wasn’t like she could do much crusading from up here. Rarity had insisted that a change would be good for them; that they needed to get away for a while. Just a few weeks longer. But it had nearly been half a year, and Rarity was showing no sign of relenting. Sweetie Belle turned away from that unchanging view beyond her garden and slid down from the wide windowsill with a thump. She thumped her way over to her basket of schoolwork and reluctantly levitated up today’s lessons in her magic. It said something about the lengths she was driven to, didn’t it, that she was willingly beginning her school work when nopony was here to force her? It looked like today was algebra, followed by geography. ‘The nations of Equus’, read the title, in Miss Cheerilee’s neat pink writing. The paper looked curiously crumpled and yellowed for something Missus Cheerilee could only have written a couple of weeks ago at most, but maybe the mountain postal ponies were rough with their cargo. They came once a month, delivering her lessons and post for Rarity. Sweetie Belle hoped every time that her friends would have sent a note, but one had yet to arrive. She had hoped for a long time that the letters were perhaps just getting lost along the way, but after six deliveries had come and gone her hopes were beginning to fray. She sighed and spread the geography lesson out across her desk. Griffinstone. She was reminded of Gabby, one of the toughest cutie mark problems that the Crusaders had ever faced, and had to pause to wipe at one eye. She missed everypony so much. Rarity was always attentive, of course, and never seemed to tire of helping her with lessons, but it wasn’t the same as being at school in person. It didn’t seem that the mountain air much agreed with Rarity either, from what Sweetie Belle could see. There were always bags under her eyes, and grey streaks were developing in her mane — from stress, Sweetie Belle assumed, though Rarity always insisted she was the happiest she could possibly be here, just Sweetie and her. Rarity left about once a month, to visit Canterlot for two or three days and attend to her business. Sweetie Belle had begged to accompany her the first few times, but Rarity had very firmly refused. “You’d be bored stiff, darling,” she had said sternly. “I shall be spending absolutely every minute with Sassy Saddles, going over our accounts.” “But couldn’t I go to Ponyville while you were there?” “No, Sweetie! You’re too young to take the train unaccompanied, and I can’t possibly spare the time to take you there — I want this visit to be over as quickly as possible, so I can get back here to our special sister bonding time!” It was the same every time. But after — another glance at the tally on the wall — nearly two hundred days of special sister bonding, Sweetie Belle was beginning to feel like she was reaching the end of her tether. Besides, didn’t Twilight live in Canterlot some of the time now that she had been officially coronated? Sweetie Belle was willing to bet good bits that Rarity was finding some time in between her business meetings to visit her Canterlotian friends. It wasn’t fair that she got to see her friends, while Sweetie Belle was expected to stay cooped up like Raponezel or something. Sweetie Belle huffed air through her nostrils and picked up her quill to begin scratching out an essay on Griffinstone and its architecture. She supposed that at least it wasn’t all bad up here. There were plenty of opportunities to work on her singing, and there were some lovely spots where the mountain provided brilliant acoustics and echoes. Like her own private version of Harmonising Heights. And she still hadn’t given up hope that if she explored the mountain enough she’d find some lonely foal with a cutie mark problem, or maybe a griffin or some other creature. Heck, she’d even take a mountain goat at this stage. They probably had cutie mark problems too, right? She worked at her essay for half an hour or so, the room silent but for the scratching of her quill and the occasional distant hum of Rarity’s sewing machine. Sweetie Belle reached the end of her paragraph on the pitch of the rooves on Griffinstonian homes, and let the quill fall with a snort of disgust. She glanced up at the window once more, her expression drooping a little when she saw that the sun was barely even at its noonday peak yet. She dropped her gaze to the parchment again, but then froze. Wait — hadn’t she seen something out there? Something that wasn’t a rock or an icicle? Sweetie Belle shot back to her hooves and darted back to the window seat. Her breath caught in her throat. A figure on the path! Somepony cloaked and hooded against the cold, their purple garment swathing them head to hoof and shielding them from view. Sweetie Belle pressed her hooves against the windowpane and let out a soft squeal of excitement. No mountain mailpony she had yet seen wore a cloak anything like that. They were all well accustomed to the frigid air up here. That could only mean one thing. A visitor! Somepony new! Too big to be Scootaloo or Apple Bloom, of course, but it could be somepony from home. The mailpony had bought no letters from the other Crusaders, but surely, surely, her friends would have felt able to entrust their best-friend-secret letters to someone from Ponyville. That thought was all the encouragement she needed. Sweetie Belle turned on her heel and galloped at full pelt away from her window, back through her bedroom door and into the elegantly decorated rooms beyond. The front door was in sight, her cloak caught up in her magic and ready to swing over her shoulders, her hoof on the doorknob — when a soft white foreleg blocked her way. “Sweetie Belle?” Rarity asked, ” Rarity asked, the pitch of her voice rising enough to turn the name into a question. “Where are you going?” “We’ve got our first visitor!” Sweetie Belle was almost bouncing with impatience. “They’re coming up the path now. Let me past, Rarity, I’ve got to go and say hi!” Rarity’s eyes widened but her leg did not rise. “A visitor?” There was sudden trepidation in her tone. Her tape measure still hung around her neck, a pin cushion strapped to one hoof, and a few spools of thread floated in her magic. “Yes!” Sweetie Belle confirmed. “Come on, Rarity, get out the way!” “Let me see first,” Rarity answered, still sounding anxious. She tugged the door open, and though Sweetie Belle tried to duck under her leg to get through, Rarity effortlessly blocked her. Rarity peered short-sightedly down the slope, and Sweetie Belle huffed and reached up to push her sister’s muzzle in the right direction. “Over there, silly. I keep telling you not to work by candlelight.” “Yes, darling, of course,” Rarity murmured absentmindedly, squinting into the distance at the purple-cloaked figure. Sweetie Belle was thrumming with eagerness, pressed up against Rarity’s foreleg, so she felt Rarity tense up all over. “Oh, no,” her sister whispered. Sweetie Belle froze, and she looked up into Rarity’s eyes. “What is it, Rarity?” Rarity seemed to be struggling to compose herself; she fought for calm, but her lips still trembled as she replied. “Ah, it’s — it’s no one, darling. Just somepony that I…well, that I used to know.” “Alright,” said Sweetie Belle slowly. “What is there to be worried about, then?” Rarity released Sweetie Belle at last to wring her hooves anxiously, but Sweetie made no attempt to run. “Well, when we last spoke…it didn’t end well, darling.” Rarity seemed lost in nervous thought for a moment, but finally seemed to come to a decision. “Look, Sweetie, I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to meet…this particular pony. I know you’ve been very bored lately, so I am sorry, but please, darling, will you wait in your room while I deal with this?” Sweetie Belle slumped. A visitor, after all these weeks of loneliness, and now she was to be denied that, too? “Do I have to?” Rarity was still looking at the approaching purple figure, and her face tightened almost imperceptibly. “Yes, Sweetie Belle. Now.” Sweetie Belle scowled, but she knew when she was beaten. She hunched her shoulders and let her cloak slide off her back onto the floor. “Fine.” She sloped back to her room and flopped down onto her bed. Limbs spreadeagled, she stared up at the ceiling in silence. Just like her whole life was lived, these days. Alone, and in silence.