Iridescent with colours from sky-blue to aquamarine, so it looked made of a single chunk of some crystal, the large locomotive rolled along the boarding platform, pulling the long sheets of fog from the depot and the neighbouring waterfall and startling the birds from the tracks with another loud whistle. Water drops shimmered in the rays of the rising sun, quickly evaporating on the shining machine-hull of the slowing down loco. The rays lit the train cars from behind, falling through the gaps and forming the visible slanted areas of light and shadow. They coloured everything on the station into the pastel gamma, turning the entire image into some surreal oil painting with the help of the fog. The latter burst onto the platform, mixing with the smoke, pressing it to the ground with its damp, cold streams; the misty sheets trailed and curled around the light posts, curved metalwork benches and large trunks of the trees behind the platform railing.
The platform came into motion with the awaiting ponies looking for their appropriate carriages, yawning, shivering off the damp morning chillness and stirring the fog with their legs while taking the seats according to the bought tickets. Contrary to the expectations, the Crystal Express was only half-booked from Canterlot, but those passengers were enough to herd the platform considerably.
‘Well, it’s the end of November, too early for the Hearthwarming visits and stuff,’ smirked Alex inwardly. “Nopony here wants to go where it is already colder unless absolutely needs to. Otherwise, the train would be full from here on… I bet it will be in a couple of weeks.”
“Hmm… The first car!” Alex peeked into their tickets and chuckled in surprise. “Tia literally wants us to get to the point as soon as possible…”
“Huh?” one fluffy yellow ear perked, turning to him; Fluttershy seemed a bit drifted into her own thoughts. “What did you say, dear?” She wanted to follow the boarding ponies, but Alex held her back gently.
“Wait, Shy! Why don’t we let them forward?” Alex threw a glance at the station clock, covering his eyes from the sun; the clock hands send bright golden and red glares. “The herd isn’t that large, but let’s not hustle within. We have time to linger.”
Fluttershy was to admit the reasons: staying behind, they managed to catch only a couple of interested glances – the majority of the ponies were too sleepy or occupied with their road plans to pay attention. In his turn, Alex was casually scanning the passengers, especially those boarding their train car. His glance slid across everypony passing by, not stopping on each for too long, yet making some mental list.
A few business ponies with their thin cases and futile attempt to push the serious look through the sleepiness. A loving couple, perhaps just married, considering the hot adoring glances they threw at each other. Fluttershy wrapped her fore legs around him and nuzzled his chest, making Alex smile. Several mid-aged mares, travelling no doubt together, climbed into the train car one by one; the aunties – how Alex inwardly called them – restlessly chattered, complaining of the morning chillness and humidity and wrapping into their shawls. Judging by the humble to fate mien of the trainpony stallion, the latter already foresaw all the problems he received with that pack, including the iterating requests to tinker with the car heating.
‘Yeah, nopony would take your place gladly now, pal!’ smirked Alex, exchanging meaningful glances with Fluttershy. ‘Those few can deliver more headache than a full carriage of royal guards, going on vacation.’
Another mid-aged stallion cheerfully trotted by, burdened with a small saddle bag only – a seasoned traveller, pushing his light-brown cowboy hat to the nape and throwing a glance at the station clock before entering. The sun emerged from behind the train car roof, hitting into Alex’s eyes and making him shield with the palm: a mare with two foals, seemingly a colt and a filly, glimpsed in his sun-blinded sight.
“Let’s move, gradually,” Alex pulled up both large bags; he wanted to grab the third one as well, but Fluttershy nodded towards her back unambiguously. Slowly, they followed the queue of the passengers, planning to enter the car the last.
Two more couples passed their view, one of which attracted Alex’s attention by the overly pompous and cocky look of the pegasus stallion, looking around as if they were some royals amidst the market square. His marefriend smiled around a bit apologetically – for the pretentious companion she loved no matter what.
Rolling onto the platform in the last few minutes before departure, a group of noisy, lively fillies and colts hopped to the car, joking and chattering like wound up. Most likely some students, perhaps of some artistic sphere, judging by their large sketch holders and folding easels, the company rushed into the train car by twos, jostling and laughing, making even the serious trainpony let out a smile. The unicorn filly, getting in the last, shot a sparkly gaze back at them, flushed and giggled when Alex helped Fluttershy into the car, then zoomed up the stairs with his heavy bags. The filly caught up with her mates, quickly whispered something to them on the go; as a result, a couple of students more glanced over their shoulders.
“Are you the last ones?” In response to Alex’s nod, the trainpony stallion followed them into the vestibule, raising the ramp and closing the car door. “We set off in a minute!” he saluted habitually. “Please, take your seats – the train may jolt while we pass the switches and tunnels.”
When they finally entered, the passageway was already empty: taking the seats as advised, the passengers had occupied their compartments, closing the doors and placing the luggage, preparing for a two-day ride. Reminding Alex of the large bees, the humming muffledly reached the corridor from behind of several doors. Just as the entire express, their car turned out half-occupied indeed. The bursts of laughter clearly showed the few sequent compartments the students settled in. With a smirk, Alex let Fluttershy forward and followed her to their stateroom.
Sliding aside, the door revealed a compartment, quite similar to the ones Alex already had a chance to use, travelling from Ponyville to Canterlot and back. With the only exception of it being larger and visibly more comfortable; apparently, that one aimed to make the long, otherwise tiresome journey more pleasant to the passengers. To Alex’s surprise, it appeared that a two-seats luxury was booked by the princess’ order; the compartments they passed were four-seats as Alex could notice through the ajar door of one. The richer trimming called to deliver more comfort to the eyes during the several days of railroad boredom: the wooden details were of different, yet soft and non-contrasting colours, forming a fitting ensemble together. The folding table was wider, more solid in construction, so were the sleeping berths – visibly softer and cosier. The compartment window took more space on the outer wall but had forced triple glazing, unequivocally showing that the car was made specifically for the cold regions travels. Suitable for prolonged storing, the luggage shelves could be closed and even locked, compared to ones on shuttles and short-distance trains. Appraising Celestia’s foresight in his own way, Alex chuckled, raising one eyebrow.
As they entered, the train car barely trembled; the loco started smoothly and slowly, boasting the well-maintained machinery and mastery of the motorpony. It moved on speeding up gradually: the bleary behind the condensing fog and steam silhouettes of the trees, lighting posts and station building started pulling back. The lamps floated behind the hazy glass like some jellyfishes; small drops smudged on the window surface as the Crystal Express gained speed. Despite all the accuracy, the car jerked noticeably on the first switch, making Alex catch Fluttershy around the shoulders, grabbing the table edge with his free hand.
“Why do I have a feeling that Tia’s secrecy wouldn’t meet its aim,” muttered he, burying his face into the girl’s fragrant hair and inhaling, then exhaling slowly and warmly at her nape. “Besides…”
Fluttershy cooed and shrugged in Alex’s embrace, snuggling into him and perking her ears from pleasure. The girl threw her face up, looking into his eyes, which pensively scanned the city landscape passing by in the window.
“What’s bothering you, Alex?” her fore legs reached to wrap around his neck, and before Alex could reply, his lips were covered with Fluttershy’s kiss. Drowning in its sweet, long tenderness, Alex ran his fingers through the soft yellow coat and thought that it was easy to lose all the constructive thoughts during that gentle yet electrifying his entire body trip.
“Mmm… The general ambiguity of the reports and Tia’s explanations…” Alex was to make a visible effort to tune in when their lips parted. “Of course, I can’t blame her, my love – she builds upon what she gets, but… The tickets booked by the royalty,” he chuckled, “and the trainmaster must be informed, naturally. Besides,” he looked down into Fluttershy’s turquoise eyes and stroked her shoulders, “I doubt that only one or two ponies know about the… “mission” there in Crystal Empire. The whole thing looks somewhat strange and…”
Alex threw another look through the window: the train long left the station, and the car floor perceptibly tilted towards the movement direction, showing that they were descending the mountainside. The city buildings and streets were distancing from the tracks; leaving the wide buffer zone, they slid by faster and faster. The train passed residential areas as the number of floors decreased from the centre to the outskirts with the private building.
“And?” the girl blinked, her eyes chained to Alex’s pensive face.
“Have you seen the mare boarding that train? The mare with two foals…” Alex looked back at Fluttershy.
“After that stallion in a hat? Probably… but not sure if I saw the details. The sun… umm… shone right into my eyes at that moment.”
“Same thing,” chuckled Alex. “They reminded me of Sunflowers. And then I thought that they were going to leave for Crystal Empire as well… There from exactly the problems grow… Let’s say, I’m cautiously expecting more troubles from that trip than it seemed from the comfort of Tia’s study.”
“Since when you’re being cautious?” Fluttershy glanced slyly; pulling up she planted another small kiss.
“Every time, my love,” Alex squeezed her lightly, making the girl almost purr, “whenever I am responsible not only for my own troublemaking self!”
Some growing echoing noise reached their ears from the left; jumping on another switch, the train entered the first mountain tunnel of the numerous. With whistling and sizzling and roaring, multiplied and amplified by the stone walls, it quickly pulled into the dark maw of the mountainside, making Fluttershy shortly squeak from the suddenly falling darkness. In a second, the bright train lamps turned on, changing the dark rocks behind the window to the mirrored view of their compartment. Alex looked into the sea-green eyes of his mirrored self, hugging the pegasus mare. For a second a strong déjà vu feeling visited him with the mental image of the very similar reflection but with Rarity in it; the mirror Alex shook his head like a wet dog, dispelling that image.
“Well, as for the mare and foals,” said Fluttershy with a tiny smile, “we can see all the passengers soon, I suppose. Don’t worry about the rest beforehand, please.” She lightly stroked his palm on her chest.
“By the way, have you seen that… pompous pegasus?” giggled the girl in a second, remembering.
“Yeah,” Alex made a wry mien, making Fluttershy laugh. “The one whose mere look screams troubles when it comes down to cooperation.”
The train emerged from the tunnel, but the lamps remained on: the motorpony properly decided that it would be a better economy not to jerk them on and off numerous times, as more tunnels were expected. The centre area of Canterlot was left behind, but the express constantly entered and left the living areas, which once were towns and settlements, but now turned into the districts of the spread across the mountain capital city. Diving into the echoing tunnels and emerging again, the train sewed its path around the mountain – as Alex could notice by the changing position of the sun – going down in the widening spiral. The purely mountainous landscape slowly changed, more trees started to appear between artificially greened districts. The forest was slowly taking over the stone, as the landscape was steadily descending: a few more miles and tunnels left before the express leaving the mountain.
“Excuse me!” The trainpony unicorn coughed and knocked on the half-closed door of the compartment, peeking in when Alex and Fluttershy responded permittingly. “Sir, ma’am, your bed-change!” he was levitating a stack of folded bed linen.
“Thanks!” Alex pulled the door wider, letting the stallion in; remembering about their luggage, he lifted and shoved two heavy bags into the luggage shelf and closed it, freeing more space of the compartment. Fluttershy put her saddle bag on the berth.
“Would you like the lunch delivered here, or have it in the dining car?” The trainpony glanced at them, pulling the special drawer with his aura.
“We probably take a walk a bit later indeed!” Alex and Fluttershy exchanged glances.
“Excellent! I’ll leave these here,” the unicorn began to put the linen into the drawer accurately, “just call me if you need an extra change. The lunch menu changes to the dinner one at three pm in the restaurant. But if you need some tea or coffee,” he nodded towards the car passageway, “we have everything necessary, including hot water, right here in the car.”
The train slowed down again, rumbling over the numerous switches and passing something resembling the freight depot. Under casual glance of the human and the mare, another district slid by. The living blocks interspersed bizarrely with industrial buildings and warehouses, framed by the usual vegetation. The large nameplate on the station building slowly entered Alex’s sight – the express was passing the area without a complete stop.
“Canterton… Canterton…” muttered Alex, unwittingly loud enough to be heard. “I heard that title somewhere, or…”
“You probably remember it from the sadly famous urban legend, sir,” the unicorn turned closing the bedding drawer shut and letting out a tiny smile. “About the long-closed Canterton high school and the ghost of one of the teachers inhabiting its walls. They neigh, the artist was brutally murdered by her ex. Sorry, ma’am!” added he, as Fluttershy shuddered visibly.
“I’m sure that isn’t the context I can connect the title with,” noticed Alex dryly, pulling the girl closer. “I would have remembered otherwise!”
“Well, eh… I hope you’ll enjoy the trip on the board of Crystal Express,” the trainpony saluted with his uniform cap, heading to the compartment door. “And don’t hesitate to call for any help necessary!”
“He probably took us for the less problematic from all of the passengers, judging by our boarding and stuff,” chuckled Alex, cuddling Fluttershy when the door closed. “Hmmm… Maybe Tia wasn’t entirely wrong about that secrecy thing…”
“You mean, he wouldn’t be so hospitable if we had tumbled into the car full armour-clad?” smiled Fluttershy.
“Who knows…”
Alex threw another look through the window: the landscape kept steadily descending, trees grew right next to the tracks here. It became noticeably darker as the train entered the properly forested area. Canterlot was left behind completely but the mountains. At first, it seemed that they were heading back to Ponyville instead, as the tracks reached the mountain foot exactly where tracks from their town approached it. For a short while, the express was even moving south on the plateau, then slowly turned north, running away from another line.
Hugging the soft, warm shoulders from behind, Alex watched the passing by trees, the overgrown area. Their train was leaving the mountains, but it needed to cross the woods before running into the valley, a nice view of which they had from the height. Squeezed between the forest on the south – where exactly the Crystal Express was rushing through – and the hills on the north, the rest of the valley looked like some colourful patchwork of fields with single houses and farms scattered here and there. Darker near the mountain and lighter, almost like dusked gold, further to the west (the soil everywhere was already ploughed for winter); it was lit by the rising sun, which painted the clouds above the horizon with all tints of pink, yellow and golden.
From here, they couldn’t see the sun, even if the compartment window was directed to the east, but the treetops looked candent, thus telling them that Celestia’s star rose high enough above the horizon. The November day was lighting up. It became colder here at the foothills, windier; the forest trees saw the passing train off with light bows of respect.
Observing the highlighted woods, rare road posts, glades with wilted and browned grass passing by behind the glass, Alex let himself dissolve in the sensations delivered by canoodling Fluttershy – the tension was releasing him slowly. Giving him another short kiss, the girl slid out of Alex’s arms and headed to the compartment door.
Watching the landscape with feigned equanimity, Alex heard how the door slid slightly open – Fluttershy checked the passageway – then closed with an audible click of the lock. The touch on his strained back, even if he expected it, sent a thousand volts of electric discharge along Alex’s spine. Rising on her hind legs the girl snuggled to the human softly. Her fore hooves travelled across Alex’s shoulders, then slid to his chest, as Fluttershy squeezed him tighter, resting her cheek between his folded wings. The latter already trembled excitedly; the quiet, tender sigh only strained them more.
Turning in Fluttershy’s cuddle slowly, Alex saw the promising desire in her shimmering eyes, in her half-open moist lips. The turquoise lakes seemed vast; chained to his face, they called, dragged away seemingly his very soul.
“Finally!” whispered Fluttershy; her voice was a bit hoarse with passion and a sense of her own courage. “I could barely wait…”
Instead of an answer, Alex cuddled her tighter; he lifted the girl, sitting her on the table and inwardly praising its increased durability. Not bothering to curtain the compartment window behind her back, Fluttershy let out a tiny happy laughter and closed her eyes, pulling Alex’s head closer to her excitedly fluffed chest. The yellow wings flapped open when the fingers travelled tenderly through her coat, making the girl tremble.
*
The Day Court trudged like an old bullock cart in the scorching-hot afternoon, except it was crispy November morning instead. At least behind the high arched windows of the throne hall, the columns and walls of which, no matter how graceful they were, started to oppress the Princess psychologically. The visitors were few; however, it seemed to Celestia that she had spent an unimaginable amount of time sorting the problems they came with. No wonder that closer to afternoon, she felt completely wrung out; the thoughts floated as if in some haze, and the faint, deeply hidden feeling of anxiety didn’t want to leave her.
Sneaking through the stained glass, the sunlight sent colourful glares playing on the polished to the mirror finish stone plates of the castle floor. The joyful spots of light brought a tiny tired smile on Celestia’s muzzle right the moment, she was about to think that sometimes she hated her job. Well, except the sun management maybe. The break wasn’t long – with a tiny cough, the day guard commander appeared in front of the Princess’ raised sight.
‘Sweet Harmony, the daily report!’ Celestia facehoofed inwardly, rolling her eyes subtly. ‘Okay! You just need to get over it as inevitable…’
Her mind was still far away from the throne hall in Canterlot, somewhere on the road to the Crystal Empire. The monotonous mumbling of the guard commander was seemingly entering one of the Princess’ perked ears, leaving her mind through another one like some telegraph tape. Without the noticeable processing at that moment. Thus the silvery voice addressing her was unable to gain the Princess’ attention at once.
“Thou can’t be everywhere at once, Sunny!” softly repeated Princess Luna, appearing in Celestia’s field of view from the right.
“Sorry, dear? Oh!..” Once again, the Day Princess caught herself upon the thought that her sister read her mind like an open book occasionally. ‘Perhaps it was written on my face too clearly!’ Celestia waved her fore hoof lightly, dismissing the bemused guard. Apparently, she heard enough of his report to conclude that the day guards could deal with everything without her direct intervention.
“Shalt thou send them thither if ‘t be true thou wasn’t confident of their ability to rule out the situation?” with a sly smile, the big blue filly slid for a moment onto the edge of her throne, to the right of Celestia’s one. “Methinks they can perfectly cope!”
‘Not that I didn’t worry,’ added Luna inwardly, ‘but it’s another story!’
“Besides, how many Seekers can we take out at once, lief?” added she instead. “I’m not arrant sure… personally, mayhap one. Thou, Sunny – two-three at once maximum. ‘Tis doubtfully enough.”
“Don’t diminish your virtues, Lulu!” with a tiny smile, Celestia leaned closer, nuzzling her sister behind the fluffy ear. Luna’s words made her relax a little.
“It’s unusual to see you up that early… or maybe it’s better to say late into the day, Blueberry! Is everything alright?” noticed Celestia, referring to Luna being still awake, moreover, without visible signs of sleepiness. The Night Princess was heading somewhere and stopped for a moment, noticing her sister in the need of mental support.
“Oh, that’s a planned meeting,” Luna stifled a tiny yawn, musingly watching the sun glares slowly crawling across the hall floor, “It couldn’t fit into mine nightly duties, due to all of the burdens. A few of the Night Watch commanders expressed their wilt to ask that valorous mare – Rainstorm – some questions. About dealing with the dark abominations methinks, but I preferred to find out the details afore,” she glanced at her sister.
“You know already, Lulu?” Celestia stared at the bright sparkles dancing in big Luna’s eyes. “I got the letter a day ago and… haven’t yet told anypony. Including you, dear, as far as I can remember.”
“Oh!” Luna let out a sincere laughter. “I guess that some rumours must have been spreading through the so-called “pegasi-mail” quite fast and… allowest me to put it that way, reaching Canterlot unofficially. Or, mayhap, dear Twilight was overburdened… or… That’s not the only matter she reporteth about, correct?”
“Mail problems aside, I was quite impressed by the mere fact that a simple pony can not only confront a Seeker but defeat it. After such a short preparation period, I suppose!” Once again amazed by Luna’s ability to read between the lines, Celestia was to admit. “That’s an outstanding achievement!”
“Well…” Luna nodded with a thoughtful gesture of her fore hoof. “I’d say that it was rather one of the best weather-pegasi… after Rainbow Dash, than a simple pony. As far as I know, she is a capable and strong flyer… The fighting skills are receivable. Besides, she hath the advanced armour protection, as I was told. Besides, she wasn’t alone throughout that fight methinks…” She drew a line under her mental list. “Otherwise, thou art correct, lief – it was quite an achievement!”
“I suppose,” added she meaningfully, “we are to recall, who else contributed to that, dearest sister! By the way, if ‘t be true I understood them correctly, mine guards – some of them – were quite interested about that mentioned advanced armour and tactics, thinking, no doubt, that it would better be prepared.”
“So, they practically wanted Rainstorm to… teach them…” Celestia threw a glance at her.
“Mayhap rather share some observations,” dropped Luna casually. “Of course, they want to take a look at the armour likewise.”
“I extend mine hope they learn everything they can!” added she brightly. “Those who want to, at least. And if ‘t be true they express their wilt to have similar equipment, even despite their new armour is good enough, I shan’t object either.”
“They want to form some sort of Seekers Prediction, Elimination And Recon unit, don’t they?” Celestia looked dumbfounded; she blinked, leaning forward; even her wings unwittingly ruffled a little.
“Methinks some of the day guards are hatching the ideas alike,” Luna drawled with a smile. “Mayhap they don’t yet know how to approach thee with ‘t. Thou probably shan’t deny – the more capable… seeker fighters we have, the better. Considering the creatures began to increase their ranks.”
“Mmm… Whom that anti-seeker unit will be subordinate to then?” The Day Princess raised one eyebrow.
“If ‘t be true thou art not confident about Alex still, why hast thou sent him to sort the Crystal Empire problems then?” Luna inquired insinuatingly. Whatever she was going to say, Princess Celestia clearly saw in her sister’s eyes the answer to her question.
“Oh! Believe me, Blueberry, ever since Ponyville freight yard I am completely confident about Alex when it comes down to dealing with the Seekers,” uttered Celestia with a sigh. “I’m not entirely confident about him dealing with himself though!”
“Therefore Fluttershy?” it was now Luna’s turn to raise an eyebrow sarcastically.
“Well… The girl may provide unimaginable help if the monsters still manage to inflict some damage,” Celestia tried to sound casual, but the tip of her nose gained colour visibly. “Besides, Alex will be twice more effective having somepony he values the most to protect! And accurate!”
“Thou art talking like a politic now, Tia,” chuckled Luna; her eyes flashed shortly.
“Aren’t we both, Lulu?” parried Celestia.
“Hmmm… Methinks I would be twice more effective in that role,” muttered Luna, averting her look, “considering that promise Alex made…” She straightened, stretching on her throne. “The way thou art putting it, Sunny, maketh me keep an eye on them, in case some help shalt be urgent!”
“I still wonder,” shuddering inwardly at the thought of what these three might have thrown out if brought together, Celestia preferred to change the subject, “how did he manage to convince Rainstorm to stay in Ponyville and control the situation, instead of following him into the thick of it?”
“I know that type of ponies – loyal till death! She hath left the weather service to devote herself to the fight against the Seekers, and would nev’r stay away of her aim by choice,” pensively said Luna. “He must have convinced Rainstorm of the importance and urgency of protecting the town in his absence.”
“But the Seekers re-appear after some period of time only… However, times change… Maybe he suspects there could have been more arriving,” the Day Princess glanced at her sister puzzledly.
“I recognize Alex!” Luna let out a silvery laughter in realization. “Knowing about that respite, he prudently left Rainstorm in Ponyville. Dost thou see not?” she glanced at her sister joyfully. “The… successful novice syndrome!”
“What, sorry?”
“I’m not that fusty, outdated piece of alicorn as somepony hither may bethink!” chuckled Luna, catching Celestia’s bewildered glance. “I heard that Rainstorm was so set on her mettle the last few days, as she nev’r was ere, since her family perished. Alex simply didn’t want that to hit her on the head, Tia, so, the girl shan’t do a horrendous mistake in her high spirits. Methinks that unwittingly he treats the Crystal Empire problem as more severe than it’s known to be.”
“Hmm… Maybe you are right, sis…” drawled Celestia, then suddenly remembered. “You were right about Twilight mentioning more than that incident in her letter.” Seeing that Luna perked her ears in anticipation, the princess continued. “She thinks that it is important – and truth be told I share that confidence – to inform me about all the oddities in Alex’s dreams,” Celestia looked at Luna meaningfully. “Ever since the dam tragedy, it was nearly the same. But lately, there was a quite curious one. Not the sleepwalking, not some nasty nightmare, but a very strange vision, I’d say.” Briefly, she started retelling Alex’s dream involving the strangers.
“Dost thou mean the human mares… errmmm… women?” this time Luna’s surprise was genuine.
“Well, they looked like those, according to Twilight,” Celestia looked least bothered by that. “But I’m more interested in another fact! He mentioned hearing about some… Scherben,” added she pensively. “Are you familiar with the term, Lulu?”
“That’s… Germane,” the Night Princess wrinkled her forehead slightly. “Meaneth… shards if ‘t be true I’m correct.”
“Yeah, Twilight explained the same to Alex. Namely, that scherben meant shards, parts of something once integral,” quickly said Celestia. “I keep wondering if that’s connected with the Seekers somehow, or their… source.”
“By Twilight’s words, as the human put it, it seemed to be a specific term, a name for some phenomenon, not just a word from his dream,” added she pensively.
“Relax, Tia! Dost not try to jump over the shrubs before they have grown!” Heading to her meeting, the night-blue alicorn already rose from her throne, then planted a small kiss on her sister’s cheek. “Oh, I have an idea… Why dost not ask Welta about that? Mayhap our niece knoweth about some particular meaning of that term.”
*
The next couple of hours, they rolled steadily, heading to the north on the straight as an arrow path through the patchwork valley of fields, farms and smaller settlements. Escaping the forested foothills, the train gained its cruise speed. Dragged by the crystal-looking loco, it whizzed past the small villages, not dropping the pace and occasionally rocking on the rail joints. The November sun reached its maximum, generously pouring around the so valued yet scarce in late autumn golden warmth. Lying on the berth relaxedly, Alex watched the rare alternating patches of light and shade, sliding across the opposite wall of the compartment accordingly to their cloudy counterparts on the sunlit sky, and the thicker shadows occasionally thrown by the large trees and posts they passed by. His fingers lazily brushed through the pink, fragrant hair of the girl resting on his arm. Snuggling her back into him softly, Fluttershy was breathing lightly and tranquilly; for a moment, Alex even thought that the girl had fallen asleep. It made him smile and plant a tiny kiss behind the warm fluffy ear. The ear twitched, perking at once. His eyes met the awoken, turquoise glance: Fluttershy looked over her shoulder, reaching him for a tender kiss.
“What are you thinking about, my love?” the deep lakes peeked into him caringly; the filly turned to Alex, wrapping her legs around him and fondling her cheek against his chest.
“About us… about… different things,” with all the elusiveness, Alex’s answer was to the point enough – right at that moment, he suddenly remembered about the recent talk with Cutie Mark Crusaders when Scootaloo bemused him with a single question. Feeling the echo of that, Alex still fancied the heat behind his ears. The girl murmured, snuggling tighter into him.
“And you?”
“I keep wondering,” slowly said Fluttershy after a moment of silence; the girl looked up into Alex’s eyes, “what could have happened in the Crystal Empire that the princess decided to send us… you… there.” The small hoof kept drawing the musing patterns on the human’s chest. “Even if I didn’t know that, I could suppose that these monsters appeared not only near Ponyville. But so far, the regions of Equestria seemed to manage the troubles on their own. Does it mean that the problem is expanding? More of the Seekers coming?”
“Probably…” said Alex and then corrected himself. “Most likely, Shy. I told Tia – it was a war flaring up slowly.” He sighed. “Will it be as slow further on? We don’t have a regular living enemy to predict. Maybe, it’ll be a war of the one crucial battle, who knoweth…” added he gloomily. Fluttershy shuddered, and Alex pulled her warm body closer. “For the rest, I don’t know, seriously. And I don’t like the entire situation and our current mission in particular. Things are getting worse for sure.”
“Do you think the other regions are having similar problems? I mean abroad…” Fluttershy bit her lip thoughtfully.
“That depends on what the intruders need,” shrugged Alex. ‘I have only one person in mind I could probably ask about “abroad”!’ Brushing through her mane, he travelled his hand across the girl’s cheek and jawline, making Fluttershy squint from pleasure. “I have some assumptions… If they are correct – I’d prefer otherwise – it may turn ugly for us all. All other… countries included, I suppose. Not at that moment perhaps, but… We’re on the same… Equus at the end of the day.”
Alex cringed: upon the second thought and considering the circumstances, the last phrase sounded out too grim, even for his liking.
“Even that severely…” Fluttershy’s voice sank; the girl hid her nose on Alex’s chest. He huffed vaguely, then uttered with more enthusiasm.
“We’ll see what the Crystal Empire is going to offer… Then, I think I’ll ask Tia a couple of questions more, which are bothering me for quite a while… Hey!” Alex let out a smile, trying to dispel the moody tone. “Let’s check the restaurant and try the vaunted lunch!”
He held the girl tighter, getting seated on the berth with Fluttershy on his lap. Enjoying Fluttershy’s tender kiss on his lips, Alex gazed from the corner of his eye, reaching for his shirt carelessly thrown on the table.
Exiting into the passageway, Alex noticed that it became quieter: the students – as he called the group of fillies and colts – must have settled down finally. All the compartment doors they passed were closed, except the trainpony’s; the ajar door revealed that the unicorn was reading a newspaper under the measured clatter of wheels, putting his uniform cap on the table. Most likely, the stallion wanted to hear what was going on on his accountable territory.
‘The rest must be having their lunch already, or resting,’ Alex thought with a smile, following Fluttershy to the next car. ‘We’ll be the last probably,’ he glanced at the wall clock handily placed at the train car exit.
They passed several, swaying as the train moved. Going through a broad forest belt where the trees stood very close to the railway mound, the express slowed down a bit; it turned darker at once, as the fir-trees overshadowed the sun, spreading the smell of their needles and tar. The distant whistle of the loco reached their ears even through the closed car windows – the motorpony wanted to scare away the wild animals, which could be crossing the tracks.
From a technical point of view, the dining car wasn’t much different from its human counterpart: getting into that car accidentally, Alex would easily have recognized the purpose of it by the mere look and inner placement of the parts. Coming through the typical for all cars small vestibule with two locked outside doors, they got into a larger hallway with a couple of doors leading to the washing rooms. Spending a couple of minutes to use one on its purpose, Alex and Fluttershy went further, past the quietly humming locked doors of some refrigerators, most likely, and right into the long dining salon. The latter even blinded Alex for a second after the relative twilight of the intercar passage, making the human shield his eyes instinctively. Despite the daytime, the broad room was brightly lit by the multitude of lamps spreading the warm light and cosy feel everywhere: on the dark wood-decorated walls, the soft comfy seats, the rich curtains on the wider than in the rest of the cars windows and the accurately served tables with the glowing-white tablecloths.
That was practically explicable: first of all, the food always looked better in the warm light while the cold, especially blue one could make it look stale and unpleasant; the brightness in its turn was reaching two aims at once. It contrasted beneficially the overall darker and calmer gamma of the car trim for the dining salon not to look gloomy; besides, the Crystal Railroad was proud to confirm the quality and freshness of the products they offered in their trips.
By the relatively narrow central passage, the salon was divided into two-seats dining zones on the left and four-seats – on the right for the passengers’ comfort and optimized placement. The soft wine-coloured backrests of the comfy couch-like seats were quite high, effectively forming some screen semblance and turning the dining zones into some sort of separate booths, so the travellers could enjoy their meal and talk, not bothering their neighbours much. The large windows were half-curtained, and the overall look of each placement could make you forget about travelling by train, if not for the measured wheel clatter and the landscape soundlessly flying by behind the clean-washed glass.
Most of the passengers of their car were there, except for the students, who finished most likely or had their meal in the compartments. A few ponies more – various public, travelling alone or with companions – were the unfamiliar muzzles from the rest of the train. Noticing a few of the “aunties” sitting separately from the rest, closer to the buffet zone, made Alex smile inwardly.
‘These will probably be the last to start communicating with the fellow passengers, even if they are chatty within their own company.’
However, the quiet hum of the voices was yet subtle in the entire dining car: the journey had just started and most of the passengers were still to overcome the usual initial awkwardness to talk with the strangers.
Not planning to cruise along the entire salon, Alex spotted a free two-seats “booth” on the left and gestured to Fluttershy welcomingly. The girl fluttered to her seat lightly, but the human was immediately reminded of relatively different pony furniture. There, where despite the preserved comfort, the placement was aimed to be more compact, Alex spent some time and quite an effort to place his limbs comfy enough, yet not obstructing the way for the rest at the same time. The wings, which stubbornly refused to reduce any more at that moment, and the legs, Alex couldn’t bend without trouble, delivered him a few tense minutes. Fluttershy watched him with visible sympathy. Still, Alex was inwardly against taking the four-seat zone for only two of them.
“Why don’t you stretch them under the table?” the girl softly patted him on the hand. “There is plenty of space under my seat, you won’t disturb me, my love.”
“Thanks, dear!”
Grateful for that solution, Alex stretched his legs towards Fluttershy’s seat, not resembling himself some grasshopper finally. Instead, he felt a soft, warm touch on his ankles when the girl squeezed his legs with hers lightly. The wings were still a problem – Alex was to keep them slightly open, not to get them under himself.
“Tia was right,” said he in half-voice, “about being as subtle as we could. We probably gained too much attention already.” Alex spotted an interested, amused glance of the stallion and the mare in the four-seat booth ahead. They quietly said something to their company, invisible to him behind the backrest. Alex brushed off the thought about inevitable side glances and curiosity – he was occupied by the more intriguing one.
‘Interesting, what would Celestia’s journey be like… if she travelled by train,’ Alex smirked, imagining all the trouble no doubt caused by the alicorn size.
The waiter approached, freezing next to their table with the look of polite anticipation; Fluttershy and Alex spent some time deciding. Both finally picked the light variant of the lunch dishes; Alex still felt a bit anxious about the aim of their journey and suspected that Fluttershy had similar feelings. Besides, his choice was naturally limited, compared to hers, due to different food preferences. The railroad company, obviously, aimed towards ponies, forming their menu; the list of neutral suitable dishes was shorter than at home, where Alex could amend, cooking himself and reaching compromise.
Waiting for their order, Alex took another look over the dining salon as far as his sight allowed; sitting his back to the entrance and due to his height, he could easily see other passengers over the booth screens. Those at least sitting their muzzles to him.
‘As usual, you can see the wide variety of characters during a prolonged travel in company,’ Alex’s sight lazily slid from one “booth” to another, watching the ponies minding their own business. However, the first impression was often wrong; Alex examined the travellers carefully, especially those he remembered to be boarding their carriage. Bothered by the subtle yet persistent foresight, he wanted to know, whom would he be forced to deal with in case anything went wrong. ‘When it comes down to the Seekers, things can go haywire any time,’ Alex thought with a deadpan. ‘If Tia started treating things seriously… some really weird crap must be happening there.’
Several business ponies were seemingly occupied by their work and the supposedly anticipated deals only. However, a few of them already started to show tiny signs of attention towards a couple of single mares travelling without companions. The natural communicativeness of the ponies started taking over the initial awkwardness. ‘These won’t pay attention, even if the land cracks in front of them and a dragon flies out… unless it’s beneficial for their business!’ smirked Alex inwardly. ‘They and the… “aunties” are the most troublesome groups, when things roll to Tartarus,’ he threw a glance at the small group of mid-aged mares at the far end of the dining salon. ‘Fixation or absentmindedness multiplied by exaggerated self-confidence… and in the latter case by the tendency to make much fuss over things as well,’ he shook his head at that thought.
“Something’s bothering you, dear,” Fluttershy leaned forward, looking into his eyes inquiringly.
“Just looking, with whom we are locked in the fast-riding metal barrel for the next couple of days, Shy,” Alex squeezed out a tiny smile. “Observations… What else can we do while we have no other information?”
The girl tilted her head, raising one eyebrow sarcastically.
“Okay, okay,” Alex finally gave up under her meaningful glance. “You know that I don’t like…” Alex stumbled, “the idea behind this trip.” He chose another word, because saying that he didn’t enjoy the trip itself would mean prevaricating. “Tia said nothing concrete because Shining Armour wrote nothing concrete. That doesn’t make it easier for us. A… pack of Seekers is pestering the Crystal Empire, that’s given! But there is nothing new; I mean we know that pestering is the only thing these freaks can do towards the ponies.”
“You wouldn’t look anxious if there was nothing new,” said Fluttershy.
“They know nothing exact about these Seekers, not even the exact number. But something isn’t just right to the extent it makes everypony worry and Tia go for preventive measures,” Alex’s facial expression was self-explanatory. “We’re going to travel across the almost wild territory, half of which covered with snow. I guess these two things are making me anxious, Shy. I can’t help but feel responsible for all the herd,” he took a look around the salon, “who have no idea about what is going on behind those walls. So, I’ll exhale only when we safely reach the Crystal City.”
With their lunch delivered, Alex and Fluttershy got distracted a bit by the meals. However, even giving due to the finely prepared food, Alex kept watching the fellow travellers appraisingly. The married couples looked as if they were coming through another honeymoon, as he noted for himself with a smile. Unaffected by daily routines, mares and stallions showed their affection openly, probably stronger than during the regular busy days. Most of them obviously had pleasant expectations of that trip; even if it wasn’t pure entertainment for them, the mere place they were heading to was non-trivial enough to be promising. ‘It would hurt to ruin it for them!’ Alex glanced at the nearest couple: the mare and the stallion were quietly talking, leaning their heads to each other – they look absolutely happy. Alex’s hand reached and covered Fluttershy’s fore hoof.
“Let’s hope nothing happens during the trip at least,” Fluttershy sighed. “I saw your entire fight with the Seekers at the Sunflowers’ farm. The trouble you had trying to keep the innocent victims unhurt…” she looked into Alex’s eyes.
“Yeah… That’s always the worst thing…” nodded he, with an effort dispelling the mental image of the huge boiling spillway. “Speaking of Sunflowers… That mare with the foals,” Alex threw another glance at the far end of the dining car, but the wider load-bearing bulkhead in the middle obstructed the view. “Let’s go check when we finish!”
Fluttershy nodded with a smile; the girl would gladly accept any reason to distract him from the stressful thoughts.
As Alex could notice, the stallion he mentally named “traveller” was also there. Facing the train direction – and most likely watching the passing by landscape as Alex jokingly assumed – he was invisible to the human behind the high backrest. But the familiar brown hat rested on the table edge. ‘That must be among a few ones really prepared for anything. One who can provide some help instead of panic in a tight situation!’
There was another circumstance, which presence worried Alex even more than abstracted business ponies or “aunties” – namely, that couple of the white pegasus and his marefriend. Or, better say, the brash, bulky stallion part of the couple. The mare looked like a titmouse against his background. With the only exception, she was the background in their case. The couple occupied a four-seat “booth”, yet the stallion sat next to his marefriend. However, not to help her with the dishes or something else etiquette-dictated, as Alex saw. It was probably more comfortable that way. More comfortable to deliver his priceless thoughts to the mare: the white pegasus was constantly ranting about something. Louder than the other passengers, to be frank. Perhaps that placement allowed him to keep within the volume, not totally disturbing the neighbours. However, the mare didn’t look overly oppressed; throwing occasional loving glances at her partner, she managed to ignore his defiant and often openly annoying behaviour.
The stallion already gazed disapprovingly several times at the human, which was standing out against the general herd too much. Apparently, he wasn’t of high opinion of aliens or anypony too different from him and kept throwing spiky glances at that weird, in his opinion, couple.
‘Your problem!’ remembering the incident with Upper Crust at the gala, Alex chuckled. That infuriated the “brute” even more to Alex’s vengeful satisfaction.
At that moment, the foals at the far end of the salon got carried away with their antics a bit, showing up from behind the seat backrest. Not very stern, but definitely admonishing voice of the mare returned them to the ground, but the looks of the unusual mane colours – gradient of moon yellow-golden to coral pink of the filly and to steel-blue of the colt – turned Alex’s suspicions into the confidence. He and Fluttershy finished their lunch; nothing prevented them from checking.
“Let’s go pay a visit, my love!” Alex nodded towards the depth of the dining salon, seeing that Fluttershy dabbed her lips with the napkin after the last dainty sip of tea. He smiled. “I doubt, that’s a coincidence: there can’t be many foals with such manes in Equestria.”
It made him some effort to untangle from behind the table, but Alex was endlessly grateful to Fluttershy for the idea – his legs didn’t feel numb at least. Letting the girl lead the way, Alex folded his wings in such a way, not to knock off anything or disturb the rest of the passengers.
Following Fluttershy along the central passage, Alex held on the backrests; the train went smoothly, but sweeping off somepony’s table wouldn’t be a nice thing to do. The wings trembled subtly as if ready to unfurl – he inwardly commanded himself to relax.
The “traveller” was there, indeed, sitting alone in the two-seats “booth”. The light-grey earth pony stallion was already done with his lunch and fixed his gaze over the half-empty cup of coffee right into the picturesque far away behind the window. He watched the passing by fields and groves, the approaching from the west forest edge with a mirthful dreamy look as if seeing something not available for the casual eye. Unambiguously telling about the enthusiastic nature of the stallion’s thoughts, his ears perked from the sandy mane, and a wistful smile was coming through in his hazel eyes.
‘His regular journeys must be less cosy than Crystal Express ride. Perhaps, harder and more dangerous,’ Alex unwittingly followed the stallion’s gaze direction. ‘The guy is fully enjoying the rare case of travelling in such a level of comfort!’
Trotting lightly, Fluttershy slid like a pink-yellow floral cloud, waking the “traveller” from his thoughts. He glanced up at the passing by human, estimating his height and large folded wings with a single look. The reaction was surprising for Alex – with a friendly, understanding smile, the stallion reached with his fore hoof and shifted the wide-brim, light-brown hat further from the table edge. Glowing like a tiny spark, with the hat movement, the small crescent-moon shaped pin on the hatband caught Alex’s attention for a second, causing a smile of pleasant memories on his face.
The next one was the “booth” occupied by the contrasting couple. The petite pale-saffron mare followed Fluttershy with a smiling expression, then alternated at the human and her chocolate eyes rounded; still, from surprise rather than from concern. The bulky pegasus’ sight slid across passing by Fluttershy indifferently but then he perked at once. Stopping at the human, his eyes squinted; quickly digging in his undoubtedly rich collection of displeased expressions, the “brute” fished out the most contemptuous one, presenting a mocking, defiant glance to Alex.
Inwardly frowning, as the white pegasus kept examining him like some rare insect, Alex replied with an empty bored gaze of a fish, staring through the racist git as if there was an empty seat, then heading his way. That, no doubt, didn’t rub the disgruntled stallion well – he was quick to comment the situation to his marefriend, but Alex wasn’t listening to them already.
Fluttershy looked over her shoulder at him; seeing who occupied the “booth” behind the bulkhead was unnecessary to confirm Alex’s assumption – the girl’s smile turned out self-explanatory. Noticing the approaching mare, both foals first froze for a second, then squeaked quite loud. Their eyes widened at recognition; Storm and Aurora Sunflowers almost jumped on their seats, so even the cups tingled on the table. Their caretaker tried reasoning with the foals but the next moment Crystal Chime saw, who caused that reaction, she broke into a smile instead.
“Fluttershy! Squee!!!”
“Easy, kids, easy!” the eyes of red gold glanced at the foals not as strict as they probably should, then alternated to the visitors. “Miss Fluttershy, good afternoon! Glad to see you!”
Storm and Aurora kept bobbing impatiently on their seats like two little mice in the nest. The next moment, another visitor appeared in the bulkhead opening, overshadowing the passage and causing another loud squeak from the foals. The “aunties” in the far end of the salon began to romp anxiously.
“Good afternoon, mister…” Crystal stumbled in subtle confusion, letting out another smile.
“Alex. Simply Alex,” the human squeezed through with the quiet feather rustle. “They are a bit unruly today,” he smirked, nodding at the wings. “Glad to see you, miss Chime. Hi, kids!” he waved to the fidgeting foals.
“Can you sit with us for a while?” Storm looked up at Alex, then turned to Crystal Chime almost pleadingly. “Auntie Crystal…”
“If you both have time and don’t mind,” the mare nodded, gesturing at the free seat next to her.
“Come on, sis! Now if you move your tail…” Storm quickly slid onto Aurora’s place, taking the filly on his lap. “Don’t cavort on me, right!” he grunted lightly.
“Boo, I’m not that heavy!” drawled Aurora half-indignantly, half-jokingly, making both Crystal and Fluttershy chuckle.
Noticing that the waiter, who already finished serving the “aunties” and proceeded further through the dining salon, was waiting placidly till the passage became unoccupied again, Alex quickly landed at the vacated seat. He did his best to compact himself, so his legs didn’t stick out too much; Fluttershy settled next to Crystal Chime.
“It was a surprise indeed!” the mare alternated between her and Alex. “Are you travelling to the end of the line, to the Crystal City, I mean?”
“I suppose - yes, miss Chime,” Alex nodded, then inwardly scolded himself for that strange-sounding phrase. Crystal blinked a couple of times at the vagueness of his answer; she threw another glance at him and Fluttershy and let out a tiny understanding smile. Guessing the direction of her thoughts, Alex coughed. ‘In the earnest, how else could I say if we still have no further instructions. Supposedly, Twilight’s brother can tell us something. But that’s not to be revealed anyway!’
“Cool!” Storm seemed to miss the curious detail. “You are travelling by the same train with us!” One could tell by the foals’ look that the journey must have turned twice more exciting for them at once.
“Moreover, in the same car, as it turns out!” with a smile, Alex ruffled their manes lightly. “I’ve noticed you, folks, boarding at the Canterlot station, but the sun glare distracted me.”
“Squee!!!” the eyes of both foals rounded; Storm and Aurora quickly exchanged glances.
“Then… Then maybe…” started Storm unconfidently. He gazed at the sister, receiving meaningful face in return, and made up his mind. “Maybe we can visit you. If you don’t mind?” Aurora quickly nodded, glancing at Fluttershy and Alex.
“Oh…” Crystal Chime shook her head. “My dears, please, excuse us for… for the slight intrusiveness! I can understand that the toy-making process isn’t so exciting as armour, fighting and so on,” with a dainty smile in the red-golden eyes, the mare looked at the foals embarrassedly. “Kids, really… Miss Fluttershy and… they can have their own plans, so give them some space…”
“Of course, we don’t mind!” exchanging glances, Alex and Fluttershy said almost simultaneously. “You can come, kids. Compartment six,” the girl shook her lush mane determinedly.
“It’s okay, miss Chime,” said Alex, smiling to the lightly flushing mare. “We really don’t mind them peeking in for a while, you either if you want. Let’s cheer up the trip for everypony present.”
“Thank you!” Crystal Chime looked at him gratefully. “You both are too kind! I still think that we keep being a major nuisance for you…”
“Not at all!” retorted Fluttershy ardently; Alex nodded.
“Have you decided where you stop in the Crystal City?” Aurora asked, looking with the foalish directness at the human and the mare. Alex bit his lip not to smile: seeing how Crystal flushed to the roots, he could tell that she definitely predicted the possible further question.
‘We can’t say it plain, that the local royalty would take the placement,’ he had no idea how to react. However, Fluttershy was fast to save the situation.
“We’ll stay at the friends’ place,” she stated with an unperturbed expression. “They planned to take that responsibility. But, of course, we can visit you, if you are okay with that,” added she cheerfully. “And when you all settle as well!”
“I hope you’ll enjoy the Crystal Empire! The not-iced part of it at least,” with a sigh of relief, Crystal Chime threw a grateful glance at Fluttershy. “The Crystal City and the surroundings are covered by the magical dome, keeping it warm and nice to inhabit. Well, you’ll see for yourselves!”
“I guess. Anyway, I’m enjoying the trip very much already,” throwing a glance at Fluttershy, who returned it from under her long semi-dropped eyelashes, Alex returned to the landscape flowing by behind the large train car window.
The railroad ran through the fields, but contrary to previously seen, those were either abandoned or undergoing a prolonged “soil rest” period. The wild grass took over the vastness; large rocks protruded here and there from its now browned surface. The dirt roads, dividing the fields into the huge, almost regular squares, acquired the fluffy collars of bushes and small trees, which swayed their branches in the strengthening wind. A wild deer slowly moved through the nearest edge of the field: diving its muzzle into the wilted grass, it was looking for something almost parallel to the tracks and raised its head at the noise of passing train. The deer followed them with the casual, not nearly startled look, squinting in the scarce November sunlight, then returned to its interrupted business, making Alex conclude that the undisturbed animals there got used to the limited civilization presence.
A dark patch along the far line of the horizon, the big city was flowing by, followed by the stripe of the forest, growing higher and closer; without the map of Equestria, Alex couldn’t tell where exactly they were travelling at the moment. About five-six hundred miles to the north from Canterlot, as he could figure out. There, at its northern edge, the sky was turning darker and heavier – seen from their position like the distant, grey, slanting veil, the cold rain was showering the land. Brought by the wind, a few drops fell on the window glass and raced down, leaving wet diagonal tracks.
Alex’s sight fell on something he hadn’t noticed before: hiding behind the empty plates and cups, almost next to the window, a small clay figure stood, rocking slightly to the beat of the train. At the closer look of his surprised eyes, the toy appeared very familiar to the human. Two legs, two arms, half-spread wings… And, which was more important, moreover, astonishing for Alex, the facial traits of the figure were quite precise, not letting any room for mistake – the clay toy was his fairly reliable copy.
Mildly confused by that sign of recognition and endlessly impressed by the level of precision – Crystal Chime managed to make such exact portrait in a few days, seeing him only once before – Alex turned his bewildered eyes to the mare.
“Aurora asked for a soft plush toy…” explained Crystal Chime, letting out a slightly embarrassed smile; however, she could be rightfully proud of her masterful work. “But I thought that I didn’t have enough time and facilities to make a believable replica in such a complex and inflexible form as soft stuffed plush.”
“So, this is merely the prototype,” Crystal waved her fore hoof while Alex blinked, feeling how his ears started getting ablush. Fluttershy watched the scene with a barely noticeable glimpse of amusement. Thankfully, the foals were distracted from the talk by some quiet romp they undertook.
‘What did I expect?’ thought he, remembering Crystal’s vocation. ‘I guess, she is very dedicated to her job!’
“But it turned out that Aurora loved that variant much as well,” added the mare. “He… You…” she shrugged lightly, “are protecting the filly when she sleeps.” Crystal nodded towards the figure and Alex met the serious, determined glance of his miniature copy. “Aurora takes him with her everywhere and… I suppose I’ll have a hard time taking the model back even for a while when I need it!”
The vision of another toy, half a year distance from that day, stood in front of his mind’s eye, making Alex inwardly cringe a little. On the other hand, what else could he expect? If people had toy ponies, ponies might have toy humans equally.
“Ahem…” the human cleared his throat, catching another smiling glance from Fluttershy. “Miss Chime, I’m, of course, very flattered by such attention but… I have a small request if you don’t mind me asking.” Alex leaned forward a bit, lowering the voice not to catch foals’ attention. “Whatever you do, please, don’t launch it into a series just yet!”
*
“Ooooohhhh!..” groaned Apple Bloom in a martyr’s voice, launching her bag into the deep comfy armchair in the corner. The filly trudged in the same direction across the soft violet carpet, which resembled some large flower with a spiral ornament in its centre. “It seems, they plan to squeeze the entire year program into our poor heads before holidays! For real!” She tiredly sank next to her bag, flattening in the armchair like a big rag doll – for a moment, the girl’s muzzle took an absolutely inscrutable expression of complete relaxation and pleasure, making her friends snort quietly.
“Ah want to become a plaice...” muttered Apple Bloom; then she noticed her giggling friends and rolled her eyes, blowing a raspberry. “What? Don’t ya tell, yar enjoying it.” Then the girl remembered about the matter gathering them – the remaining homework, both girls asked Sweetie Belle to help them with – and her ears dropped again.
“I think that my inner Twilight is about to give up…” Scootaloo let her bag down on the floor and simply flopped across the neatly made dark-green bed under the mauve patterned cover; her small wings weakly flattened on both sides. She took a floating look around the familiar room: the dark wooden panels, belting it to the shoulder height, the light-saffron wallpaper with a light-cerise pattern of curls and hearts, the mustard curtains on the window frame of the same dark wood. Trying to make a volitional effort over herself, Scootaloo said flatly. “Anyway, we should do what we planned, mates. I think if I lie down a little longer… you’ll need a couple of bulls to drag me off that bed!”
“Yeah,” Sweetie Belle closed the door of her room accurately. Levitating her bag across the room, she put it onto the closed cover of the large toy chest, then tiredly nested on the edge of her bed, next to Scootaloo. “The teachers indeed seem to turn a little too… enthusiastic, making our load very heavy.”
Both other girls could only snort at that politely cautious expression of educational disaster they had been having the last few weeks.
“If you say so, partner,” chuckled Apple Bloom, finding the strength to raise her head and shake it, “that means something already. You, who is hooves down better than us in all subjects…”
“…except Alchemy,” amended Scootaloo, rising her fore hoof in an edifying manner. That gesture made all three fillies burst laughing despite the fatigue.
“And Housecraft,” laughed Sweetie Belle, “don’t forget about Housecraft! Cooking especially. However, the last time miss Cheerilee said that,” she pretended to be remembering, “yeah, that “my undoubted progress turned the food of my making less dangerous but… she was probably going to order a set of blast-proof cookware anyway.”
“Well! Nothing actually exploded that time at least!” the unicorn girl clopped her fore hooves together with an encouraging expression. Her friends reclined back, groaning, unable to laugh anymore.
“Belle, please stop! Have mercy!” squeezed out Scootaloo, hanging limply from the bed.
“Ah seriously think that there is a connection,” taking her breath, Apple Bloom said pensively. “Between Alchemy and Cooking progress, I mean.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Sweetie Belle cupped her chin. “Still, my last experiment reproducing in school one of the potions Zecora taught us… filled the class with strange colourful fumes…”
“Yeah, we all kept hiccupping the rest of the day,” squinted Scootaloo. “Just confess, it was a hiccup potion of your own making!”
“Okay, okay, I admit that I need to cover the entire topic with Zecora once again, more diligently this time,” Sweetie Belle broke into a wide smile while the girls kept giggling. “I hope she can afford to repeat and you,” the unicorn filly launched a small pillow into having fun Apple Bloom, “can help me as well, mocker!”
“Aha!!!”
In a second, the air was filled with the soft flying projectiles of varied speed and lethality.
To their surprise, the girls felt that the short but intensive romp full of action and laughter served them as the daily dozen rather, cheering them up enough to keep kicking.
“Girls, let’s not forget, what we gathered for!” Levitating the entire heap of pillows onto the bed, Sweetie Belle lit the green lamp under the colourful ceiling of multiple tints of yellow – the light coming from outside wasn’t enough for studying already.
“Okay, peace for now!” Apple Bloom and Scootaloo exchanged glances; the earth filly huffed away a small feather, which was floating in the air and landed on her nose. Even without the kinetic magic both fillies were seasoned professionals when it came to the pillow fights.
“Back to the boring stuff,” sighed Scootaloo, diving under the bed for her bag, which got shoved there in the heat of the battle.
Quite unusual for that place, the silence enveloped the room for the next couple of hours. The silence was occasionally broken by paper rustle or a sigh of diligent effort, not compensated by the anticipated result though. But that was exactly what they gathered there for – assistance and advice. Thus, quickly finishing with her own task, Sweetie Belle moved about her room, leaning to Apple Bloom and Scootaloo in rotation and explaining to them what her friends still failed to understand from the teacher’s words. Diving into the sky maps and reference books, both fillies even stuck their tongues out from their zeal to catch up.
Peeking through the half-curtained window, the daylight faded little by little, as the lazy November sun hurried to finish the day early and roll in for rest. It looked like a dull yellow spot through the slowly flowing grey veil of thin clouds covering the entire sky. The shadows became longer and denser, but dispelled by the lamplight, they stood unnoticed by the busy fillies. Closer to the evening, out of nowhere, the thick soft snow started falling; in less than ten minutes – it stopped as suddenly as it started – almost the entire valley, the town, the surrounding fields, the roads got covered with a thin yet fluffy blanket. Everything said about that first snow would hardly survive the next day, but it clearly manifested what the calendars in every house were ready to state – winter came to Ponyville.
The girls’ work took considerably longer than Sweetie Belle spent to achieve the same result, or even better, clearly suggesting that Apple Bloom and Scootaloo yet had goals to aspire to. But at least they coped with their job, and this time both were sure that it was worth the effort.
“Phew!” Scootaloo caught herself thoughtlessly poking her pencil into the page for the last couple of minutes. “I think my head is incapable to accommodate any more information in one go, mates.”
“Yeah, partner! But at least this time we really completed the task,” noticed Apple Bloom, slowly pushing the star map away from herself. “All thanks to you, pal!” she glanced at the unicorn filly with meaning and gratitude.
“Yo! Hats off to Belle!” with a smile, Scootaloo stretched like a cat, arching her back and spreading the wings. “Mhhmmm!”
“Oh, come on, girls!” Sweetie Belle dropped her eyes; her nose gained colour a little. “You could easily get the same result if you convinced yourself better that you need that,” she glanced at her friends slyly.
“Frankly speaking, Astronomy is better to study with practical examples, not only theory,” added Sweetie Belle, gathering her books and papers and levitating them to the appropriate places. “But with the sky like that…” she slowly shook her head.
“We could probably ask Twilight,” noticed Apple Bloom. “She has a powerful telescope… so, when the sky clears a bit…”
“Good idea!” stretching as well, Sweetie Belle headed to the window. “Besides, she can share her knowledge, would be useful… Oh! Look! Girls!” squeaked she, throwing a glance outside.
Attracted by her exclamation, the girls hurried to look, what brought their friend to such high spirits.
Sparkling in the last rays of the setting sun, the snow-covered landscape behind the glass looked like the contents of a snow globe toy. For the first couple of seconds, the girls simply watched it with bated breath, forgetting to blink. The sun hid behind the horizon, leaving the scene to the shadows, which immediately took over, spreading and merging, enveloping everything in thickening darkness.
The girls exchanged glances, probably thinking about the same. The winter was right on the doorstep. And with it, the holidays were approaching. Hearthwarming – family time, time of unity and wholehearted support, presents and fun. But…
“Ah wonder, what Hearthwarming will look like this year,” Apple Bloom voiced the mutual thought, looking through the darkened window pensively. She glanced at the friends. “Ah mean if we can have at least part of the fun we do yearly… With all the stuff going around and…”
“Yeah!” Scootaloo scratched behind the ear. “I heard a theory… by pure accident,” with a shrug, she returned the quick glance of the girls, “that these monsters, the Seekers… they may have no effective thermo… thermoregulation. I guess it means that…”
“…if you get cold, you can’t get warmer by your own efforts,” nodded Apple Bloom. “We got it. So?”
“Well,” with another shrug, Scootaloo looked outside, at the cold darkness dispelled by the random town lights, “they probably should appear rarer in winter in that case. Who knows…”
“That’d be awesome!” said Sweetie Belle, and Apple Bloom nodded in agreement. “I can’t imagine winter without proper Hearthwarming, even because of those beasts!”
The sound of hoofsteps in the corridor made all three fillies turn; somepony knocked on the door.
“Sweetie Belle, have the girls already…” Slightly concerned, Rarity peeked in. Her concern was dissolving as her eyes shifted from one girl to another – full set! “Oh…” enveloping the fancy glasses, the sapphire aura moved them to the mare’s forehead.
“What’s going on, sis?” pulling the door open with her magic, Sweetie Belle approached Rarity and nuzzled her gently. “You look… a bit…”
“Thank Celestia, you all are still here!” When she spoke again, the relief in Rarity’s voice was almost tangible. Her glance travelled around the room, softly lit by the lamp, the girls’ half-packed bags and maps and pencils still remaining on the floor; with little effort, the unicorn girl made herself continue less anxiously with a smile. “Not hearing you, I was worried that your friends left already, darling.” Rarity returned the sisterly nuzzle.
“Is everything okay?” Apple Bloom and Scootaloo hurried to come closer, looking into her still widened azure eyes.
“No. I mean, yes,” letting out a little nervous chuckle, Rarity exhaled. “It’s a bit late, girls. Too dark outside for the young ladies like you to roam around. Apple Bloom furthermore would need to cover quite a road through the fields and orchard to get home…”
“Come on, Rarity! We’re not foals,” Scootaloo blinked, facing that sudden overprotective (from her point of view) position. “Besides, we always…”
“I’m sorry, dear, but it’s not “always” now,” softly but firmly said Rarity, touching the filly’s shoulder. “The neighbourhood isn’t entirely safe at the dark time now. Previously we were protected, but for an uncertain while… We don’t have anything more reliable than an overly confident pegasus thinking that she can defend Ponyville alone.”
The three fillies exchanged glances; it seemed each one came to the same conclusion, subtly rolling her eyes with a sigh.
‘Not another problem!’
Not giving them time to open their mouths, Rarity took her breath and stated in an objection-intolerant voice.
“Everypony is willing to act as they find appropriate, it’s about their lives and families. But we are responsible for you. Yesterday, we discussed the situation and all the girls agreed…”
The fillies froze, assuming the continuation.
“Agreed that you must not stay outside till darkness!” Saying that, Rarity shrugged with a tint of regret, telling that she would prefer not to appear the herald of those compulsory limitations. “At least for the time, we are generally unprotected.”
“But, Rarity!.. We don’t need a foalsitter! We know the surroundings like our four hooves… there is no place around Ponyville where you won’t see at least one pony in five minutes!” The girls started buzzing altogether. “Sis, Rainstorm must be capable enough if she was trusted to take that duty…”
“Having no other variants at all…” Rarity managed to input dryly.
“Rarity, we heard that she took out a Seeker on her own. Besides, they aren’t roaming the place in packs,” Apple Bloom looked up at Rarity insinuatingly. “Ah suppose it’s safe when it’s technically a day. Last time…”
“It’s dark outside… technically,” Rarity raised one eyebrow. The girl let out a tired smile and shook her head. “Last time you were simply lucky not to be in the middle of the events. And the last but one,” she shuddered visibly, “you were lucky, Twilight and Jackie found you before the Seeker did.”
“Apple Bloom, seeing you developing the same confidence as your sister is heartwarming,” Rarity hugged the filly’s shoulders softly. “If only it was supported by an ability to withstand the impact of these monsters…”
“No, girls, it’s final,” she looked around the fillies. “We all decided: if you stay late in or close to one of our houses, you spend the night in the nearest one, not to roam outside after dark.”
Wanting to retort at first, Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle exchanged glances; one idea fundamentally changing the matter flared up in their eyes slowly. From that point of view, the limitations stopped looking so oppressing to them.
‘A spontaneous sleepover!!!’
“Well…” drawled Apple Bloom. “Ah think everything isn’t that bad. Right, partner?” she nudged Scootaloo lightly.
“Yeah, sure thing!” the pegasus filly woke up, while Sweetie Belle sported a cheerful smile. “If it’s necessary for our safety…”
“Awesome!” concluded Rarity a bit cautiously as she managed to intercept the glances the fillies exchanged. “I’ll make dinner. Something that you all like, girls. I admit it probably won’t be as delicious as Applejack can offer…”
“…still incomparably better than my snacks attempts!” muttered Sweetie Belle jokingly. “The idea looks prudent indeed. Thanks, sis!”
“One more thing, darling!” Rarity looked at the unicorn filly and her friends very closely. “Try not to be overly loud, okay? I have tons of work, girls, tons of work!” she rolled her eyes in a theatric manner. However, Sweetie Belle knew that it wasn’t a figure of speech this time.
“Anythin’ fancy?!” Apple Bloom asked with a smile, rightfully deciding that some creative thoughts might distract Rarity from possible suspicions.
“Upcoming holidays, darling!” Rarity sighed. “I have a collection to finish. In three weeks, simply imagine! And a few personal orders won’t make themselves…” she cocked her nose, putting the glasses back in place. “There is a new dress for Babs, put on hold for nopony-knows-how-long! Sweet Celestia!” Rarity shook her head, turning to the door.
“Thankfully, that one is for the next year, so there is no stress… Probably… I would like to make something special for your cousin,” she threw a bright glance at Apple Bloom. “You know, it’ll be Babs’ first Gala!”
“Yeah!” the earth filly broke into a wide smile. “Half of her last letter was devoted to that! It was even strange to imagine Babs interested by such things…” Apple Bloom giggled.
“Oh, one more thing…” Rarity turned in the doorway. “If I were you, girls, I’d keep my both eyes open even at daytime. Not to say bad about her personally, I don’t think Rainstorm understands all the seriousness of her current position. In her high spirits…” The girl shook her sapphire mane negatively. “She was the weather pegasus her whole life, one of the best, I admit. That doesn’t make her a reliable Seeker-hunter instantly; neither does the single fight she won.”
“Right… What was I at? Dinner, dinner…” and Rarity flitted out of the room, murmuring under her breath.
“The rules of Rarity, guaranteed quality
This I can assure…”
“I bet she is saying that because Rainstorm almost dragged Alex from her grasp that last time,” chuckled Scootaloo when Rarity’s hoofsteps faded on the stairs. “Is this what it looked like, Belle?”
“She was pouting for the rest of the day!” Sweetie Belle snorted, nodding quickly. “I even reconsidered teasing her about that.”
“Although, I must admit, she is rather busy…” noticed the pegasus filly.
“… and naturally jumpy, as usual.” Finished for her Apple Bloom.
“Oh, that’s another story,” Sweetie Belle jolted her mane; notes of sympathy clearly read in the girl’s voice. “Frankly speaking, when the old sewing machine was mechanized… and then the new one shortly after… I thought that Rarity would have more free time finally.”
“But instead, she increased the speed and amount of daily work only,” the unicorn filly raised a meaningful glance at her friends. “When it comes to fashion, she is incorrigible!”
“On the other hoof,” added Sweetie Belle a bit pensively. “Perhaps, that load of work will give Alex a breath.”
The fillies burst laughing, but Sweetie Belle put her fore hoof to her mouth, signalling down with her eyes and a meaningful face.
*
Sounding almost lulling, the clatter of the wheels became monotonous, turning into a low pitch hum. The Crystal Express left another noticeable stop about half an hour ago and gained its cruise speed; it was going to jet nearly through the entire night before reaching the next large station for refuelling and checkup. The snow-covered plain spread out behind the slightly iced glass as far as the eye could catch. The occasional distant groves, rocks, rare separate buildings slowly floated by, dissolving in the thickening twilight; the actual speed turned visible only when the railroad posts or trees approaching the tracks wheezed past as smudged spots. As the train was approaching the Frozen North territory, the motorpony providently increased the heating; it made the small room a bit too stuffy for Alex’s liking. Without further hesitation, he pressed the round handle amidst the upper edge and pulled the unlocked frame down a little, letting the stream of frosty air inside. Bringing the faint bitter smell from the loco pipe – hit by the oncoming wind, the smoke plume was smeared along the train, trailing along the car roofs and slowly dissolving – it was still better than the stifling heat.
The setting sun already hid behind the heavy clouds, delivering no light into the eastern windows. Alex lit the lamp – the landscape behind the glass “turned off” immediately, changing to the reflection of him turning the tap. Splashing a few handfuls of cold water into his face, Alex raised his glance at the mirror over the sink.
‘Hmmm… It has grown long again,’ he remarked musingly, examining himself and brushing his wet palms through the hair to smooth it down. The perspective of gathering it into a ponytail after returning from the Crystal Empire was unwanted yet real. Somehow Alex was sure that he would have little to no time for himself there. At the thought of visiting Rarity to acquire her hairdresser services again, Alex shuddered inwardly and woke up. In due time, he managed to notice the gazes she threw at Rainstorm; the latter nearly pulled the human out of the unicorn fashionista’s anticipating grasp. No doubt, Rarity had been plotting something for him back then. For them both!
‘Yeah, that’s a problem!’ Alex rubbed his face. ‘But I can’t walk around like some mope-headed girl… Maybe I should ask Fluttershy for help?’ he remembered that his marefriend shared some of Rarity’s virtues. ‘If she is perfectly capable of making a dress, then maybe… Of course, I could probably ask Twilight, but something tells me that she isn’t very keen on doing that with simple scissors… and magic is not an option. Besides, knowing her desire for experiments…’ he chuckled, shaking his head.
“Okay! I’ll think about it tomorrow,” concluded Alex, brushing through his hair once again. Then, after a second thought, he closed the window – the next visitor could be less appreciative of the winter chillness. Turning off the light, Alex slid aside the restroom door and stepped into the passageway.
To reach their two-seats luxury in the middle of the long, steadily rocking car, Alex was to pass several compartments, trying to drift apart with anypony he might run into in the moderately narrow corridor. Two doors in a row were locked: the auxiliary room and trainpony compartment – the first was usually locked unless needed and the trainpony was somewhere on his business. The thin scent of unfamiliar perfume reached Alex’s nose: as far as he could remember, he never felt that in their car. Before he could turn, puzzled by that, the train car jerked passing a junction or a switch; Alex was to grab the nearest window frame for balance. At that very moment, the next door on his right opened and somepony vivid and nimble, hurrying out from the unlit compartment, bumped into the human.
“Oh! Excuse me!” A mauve unicorn filly with the fluffy violet mane resembling a big stack of wavy noodles glanced up at Alex. Before he could utter a word, the girl giggled and whisked into the next compartment like a drop of quicksilver, flashing with her eyes and smile. Through the ajar door, Alex could notice the “students” company herding the compartment and singing to the accompaniment of a guitar and harmonica. By the most humble standards, there seemed to be more passengers than seats in both compartments occupied by them; Alex chuckled, remembering that he heard the muffled noise when he passed their door before, wondering what the source was. Some colt’s voice greeted the belated one and her reply drowned in the burst of laughter before the door closed. Still smirking, Alex turned to continue his way and almost ran face-to-face into the trainpony.
“Evening, sir!” the stallion saluted shortly, making a step back. Following Alex’s amused glance, the unicorn let out a concerned sigh.
“Students!” the trainpony rolled his eyes meaningfully. “I sure hope they calm down on their own before they start bothering the rest of the passengers and messing with their sleep schedule. So I won’t need to talk them into order. Sorry, sir…”
“It’s okay,” Alex shook his head with another smile. “As for me, they are just funny and… quite numerous!”
‘Me and Fluttershy aren’t always quiet either,’ jokingly glimpsed in his mind, ‘so…’
“There are no economy-class cars on the Crystal Express,” the trainpony explained, feeling the unvoiced question. “So it’s quite usual for the companies of youth to travel that way, students specifically. Thankfully, nopony complained today! Now, if you excuse me, sir…” with these words, the stallion adjusted his uniform cap with his aura and squeezed past Alex on the way to his room.
“Good luck with the shift, I guess,” said Alex after him.
The next two compartments were closed and quiet. Remembering that one of them belonged to the company of mid-aged mares, Alex tiptoed by, inwardly giggling and praising the decent soundproofing of the Express cars. It was surprising indeed that none of the “aunties” yet bothered the trainpony about the noisy neighbourhood, separated from it by one compartment only.
Next to another luxury door, one of the business ponies was quietly talking with a young mare; her shortly cut accurate mane was sending into the air that faint scent Alex caught the trails of before. In the dim light of the passageway lamps, the heads of the stallion and the mare leaned close together; their soft talk, barely overshadowing the wheel clatter, definitely was not intended for the stranger’s ears. Recognizing one of the single mares, he saw boarding the Express in Canterlot, Alex knowingly shrugged and subtly cleared his throat, accurately declaring his presence.
“Excuse me!” With the light feather rustle, he slid past the couple, leaning against the outer wall and replying to their slightly abashed glance with an apologetic smile. However, showing no reproach, both nodded understandingly to the human, then disappeared into the compartment, likely deciding to continue their interrupted talk in its privacy.
Reaching their with Fluttershy room, Alex already put his hand on the sliding door handle, but a glance thrown into the window made him linger for a while. Timely guided by Celestia, the sun already hid behind the distant western mountains, leaving the valley flooded in the deep shadow. Manifesting their proximity to the Frozen North, the snow covered everything, even the trees standing separately or in small groves. At some places, the white blanket was so thick, it bent the large branches to the ground and made the fir-trees look like pyramids in winter camouflage. Enthralled by the scene, Alex stepped closer to the glass rectangle with a thin frozen frame. The soft hallway lighting took over the look outside – to see the landscape clearly, one should almost snuggle to the window. Alex did exactly that, using his wings to shield from the artificial light and letting the winter reveal itself in all the beauty in front of his admiring eyes. One by one, the stars began to show through on the mazarine velvet of the darkening sky, weaving the familiar and unfamiliar constellations little by little. First, the largest ones, then the tiny specks of dimmer or farther stars hurried to attend their nightly duty.
Fighting the strong wish to open the window and enjoy the unobstructed panorama – which would have been immediately protested by some of the passengers most likely – Alex heard a couple of reserved hoofsteps and realized that he wasn’t alone in the car passageway. A short glance to his right told Alex that, moreover, he wasn’t alone admiring the view – the stallion, they with Fluttershy mutually defined as the “traveller”, was also staring into the window, pushing the unchanging hat to his nape. The human lit with realization, whom that stallion reminded him of by the hat, the checkered neckerchief, the general expression – Indiana Jones; the clean-shaved, well-rested version of at least. That thought made Alex giggle inwardly. Suddenly, a subtle yet expressively mirthful smile lit the traveller’s muzzle, which looked anticipating, as far as Alex could tell.
The smooth sound of the door sliding open made them both turn back. With a slightly concerned look, Fluttershy peeked out of compartment number six. However, the girl’s expression changed to the relieved one when her glance stopped on Alex right behind the door.
“You’re here! I started worrying a bit…”
“The road back took slightly longer,” Alex couldn’t hold back a smile. “I wasn’t the only one who decided to stretch the legs tonight,” he pointed with his thumb back at the aisle, where a couple of students whisked forth and back between the compartments again.
“Oh, I see! Good evening, sir,” noticing the stallion, Fluttershy greeted him with a friendly smile, getting the same in return.
“Good evening, miss!” the “traveller” raised his fore hoof to his hat.
“Well… Won’t bother you,” with an understanding glance, alternating between him and Alex, Fluttershy returned to the compartment.
Exchanging the belated greetings, both Alex and the stallion addressed the interrupted stargazing again. Staring through the window at the flowing landscape, Alex kept guessing; his thoughts were occasionally circling around the crescent pin on the hat of his involuntary silent collocutor, but asking directly seemed too awkward to him. While he was absently reflecting like that, the picture behind the glass changed – rising from behind the train, the bright silvery light flooded the surroundings, making the cars throw long dark shadows on the snow-covered railway mound. The shadows rushed to catch up with their material counterparts in the futile race, becoming shorter and denser as the light rose in the sky. The entire valley sparkled with myriads of tiny diamonds when the moonlight played on the snowy fields, rocks and occasional trees. Yet invisible to them, the Night Beacon was slowly ascending, turning the blue colour of the sky lighter, hiding the smaller stars behind its silvery shine and leaving only the largest ones visible in their eternal pattern.
“Amazing...”
“Hmm?” Alex was pulled out of his thoughts by the quiet exclamation of admiration.
“Isn’t it absolutely amazing?” the “traveller” looked at him, nodding towards the view outside. “Simple, yet magical.”
“Most definitely!” Alex let out a dainty smile. “The masterpiece… and the artist herself.”
“I’d say you are an admirer of moonlit landscapes as well,” seeing the stallion’s understanding smile, Alex glanced at the crescent pin on his hat.
“Yes, kinda!” his collocutor gave a laugh. “But with a good reason, sir, rest assured.”
“You see,” elaborated the stallion, leaning against the window frame, “I always had a habit to address the invisible yet omnipresent… eye in the sky for the guidance and oversight, especially during the most difficult night trips.”
Throwing a glance at the moonlit valley, where seemingly every occasional rock and snowy shrub became revealed like at the bright day, Alex nodded.
“First, unwittingly as if I simply needed some inward sign of support,” continued the stallion, adjusting the hat; the pin shimmered brightly in the light of car lamps. “Imagine my surprise when I once was honoured with the personal confirmation of that guidance. Even if I always knew that occasional watching over me was a tiny part of her duties – our Night Princess, naturally. Moreover, I got the material sign of that guidance and, may I call it, friendship, the keepsake of a kind,” added he after a moment of silence, pointing with his hoof at the hatband pin. Emerging from his thoughts, he raised his glance at the human. “I hope, I haven’t bored you with my memories.”
“No, not at all! Do tell please,” Alex expressed genuine interest.
“Oh, nothing too fascinating in the story in general,” smiled the stallion, but his smile told about him truly treasuring that memory, “except the actual visit from Her Highness, Princess Luna. I was on the routine trip to Oatlahoma – quite a long yet familiar road, I could probably follow with my eyes closed,” he let out a chuckle. “Knowing that I was going to wander into the night, I addressed inwardly the one who might easily provide the safety and guidance, if not physical then mental. Believe me, it’s as important, if not more.”
“Oh, I understand. And can easily relate,” Alex nodded, returning in his thoughts into his early days in Equestria.
“So, I barely hit the road when the Night Princess appeared on my way,” shrugged the “traveller” as if still not entirely believing his luck. “Her Highness was quite interested, why I kept starting each of my travels with the prayers to her, even if holding sway over the night was always her duty, thus putting me under her oversight naturally. She even blessed me by her company for a while,” the stallion let out a humble smile, “while I was explaining the nature of my usual requests being purely a source of my inner serenity and confidence. How honoured I was, told that my little prayers didn’t fall on the deaf ears, but rather gained some vivid interest from the one I never dreamed to see in pony lest alone talk freely.”
“That’s so like her,” said Alex; his glance froze for a moment, directed seemingly in the distant space. “She may look unattainable at times, yet always ready to support those who need and deserve. Methinks she receives tides of prayers regularly; however, she singled out yours… it must be coming wholeheartedly forsooth.”
“So it was,” confirmed the stallion, throwing another glance at the passing by shimmering plain. “I assured Her Highness of the purity of mine intentions as considering myself her friend was a matter of great happiness for me. And… got that token, I keep close ever since.”
“Sometimes I strongly suspect,” the stallion leaned closer to Alex, lowering his voice, “that this small souvenir is imbued with the same featherweight spell, Princess Luna applied to my cargo wagon that night… Or maybe the warm feeling of protection causes that effect on me.”
“I wouldn’t wonder if it is,” Alex broke into a smile, “if we’re thinking about the same Luna.”
“You look… and sound like one knowing Her Highness well enough,” the “traveller” tilted his head inquiringly.
“I’m here, in Equestria for about half a year only,” said Alex. “But yes, we are… very close. That was an unimaginable gift of luck in my case, I guess…”
The Moon rose high, making the shadows short and the entire landscape passing behind the glass – crispy contrast. Turning all the tints of blue, the deep clear velvet, spreading above the valley and the train cutting it, was barely stained; however, the moonlight revealed the dark stripe of heavy clouds along the northern edge of the sky. Rare snowflakes swirled in the air, pulled with the hurrying train and agitated by the smoke, erupting from the pipe of the loco. As the first ambassadors, they were reminding the passengers about the frozen lands still lying ahead.
“If you don’t mind an advice from a stranger,” noticed the stallion when they both returned to contemplation. “Cherish that relationship no matter what, sir! Princess Luna is that special kind of a treasure-person, rare and difficult to find nowadays.”
“I know,” simply said Alex.
“Longhaul Hoofer, by the way,” his collocutor turned to him with an appraising glance. “Simply Longhaul for the friends.”
“Alex…” Alex stumbled upon almost adding “the human” but held himself in time, properly assuming that he would sound unnecessarily official. ‘Celestially official!’ inwardly chuckled he, adding instead. “Simply Alex without any stipulations… as there is hardly another one here anyway. Nice to meet you!”
“Mutually!” smirked Longhaul. “Hmmm, I know about a princess who introduces herself alike…”
“Yeah…” It dawned on Alex that mister Hoofer was talking about Twilight, but he was captured by another question. “By the way, it seems that we were right. We with Fluttershy were guessing if you were some kind of a traveller,” elaborated Alex, nodding towards the compartment door. “Apologies if we took too much liberty accidentally,” added he with a guilty smile.
“It’s okay,” Longhaul gave a laugh. “Especially as your guess was truly bull’s eye. Not that I ever was concealing it much. However, my travels were of a bit different, more prosaic nature than it is considered usually: I’ve been delivering cargo for my entire conscious life, and, daring to say that, have been almost all over Equestria with my cargo wagon.”
“I see. So, while it was still travelling, it was kinda far from pure entertainment!” said Alex through a sympathetic smile.
“Yes and no at the same time,” Longhaul stared through the night landscape; his hazel eyes turned to the events of his past. “Believe me, it was rarely boring, even occasionally entertaining… up to thrilling and some degree of dangerous sometimes. But hardly restful… Well, like every job, I suppose, even the favourite one. For which it is called a job exactly,” he gave out a smile.
“So now…”
“… I am in the middle of a different kind of travel. More refreshing to be exact. It’s nice to be carried once in a while instead of carrying. For a change!” chuckled Longhaul; his philosophical outlook made Alex break into a smile as well.
“Thus, I’m using my free time to visit the places I missed during my cargo trips,” continued Longhaul, pushing the hat to his nape. “Some sights, more time to enjoy them rather than dashing by. Crystal Empire is one of such places I had no time to visit to my shame.”
“Although, considering the possible weather there,” the stallion threw a meaningful glance at the strengthening snowfall behind the window – the sky wasn’t cloudless already; in the bright moonlight, the shadows were running across the valley like giant shaggy dogs, “something tells me that the next place I visit for leisure will be somewhere at the eastern coast, likely south-east.”
“Can’t deny it’s reasonable!” chuckled Alex, watching the dance of the large snowflakes, which swirled in the wind wrapping around the train. “I haven’t yet seen the equestrian ocean likewise…”
‘Otherwise than in a dream,’ added he inwardly. ‘But that doesn’t count I suppose.’
“Supposedly, it isn’t too different from the ones in my homeworld, but still…” Alex caught a mental glimpse of his old dream, including him, Fluttershy and Luna somewhere on the shore.
“I guess it is a natural wish,” Longhaul shrugged, “for a mid-aged stallion, who managed to earn enough to afford a small house somewhere warm and serene. Especially after the last few years, which were more than eventful and made me almost live on the road with my wagon,” added he confidentially.
Alex wanted to say something when they were interrupted by the sound of quick, light hoofsteps; he remembered fancying a door sliding open subtly a while ago.
“I extend mine hope we didn’t bother anypony by our talk…” muttered Alex turning to the approaching steps. At that exact moment, somepony small almost bumped into him, hugging above the knees.
“Wow! Somepony said about their home world! By the way, you never told us anything about it, Alex! Why?!” Aurora’s eyes were shining with curiosity when she glanced up at him inquiringly.
“We heard somepony talking in the corridor…” Storm was following her close; he was making a visible effort to hold back his enthusiasm, but it was obvious that the colt shared his sister’s interest. “And it turned out to be you, so… I hope we’re not bothering much, sorry!”
“Good evening, sir! Please excuse us,” he greeted Longhaul a bit confusedly; getting a reassuring nod from the stallion, the colt let out a little smile.
“It’s okay, kids… as long as you aren’t compromising your sleep,” with a chuckle, Alex picked up Aurora into his arms.
“Storm… Aurora…” Miss Chime appeared in the hallway following the foals. Seeing a concerned expression on her muzzle, Alex nodded, greeting her and showing that it wasn’t much of a burden for everypony. Longhaul was watching the scene with kind humour in his eyes.
“And how you got to Equestria also!” added Aurora, nesting with all possible comfort.
“Good evening, gentlecolts!” Crystal Chime approached, still looking slightly unconfidently at the foals clinging to the human. “Excuse me! I hope that…”
“Not at all! Don’t worry, ma’am,” Longhaul’s eyes were smiling. “I suppose they brought a fresh stream into our musings. It’s probably me who is interfering now.”
“By no means, sir!” Alex shook his head, supported by everypony present. “Stay if you wish and if our company hasn’t become too noisy for your liking.”
“Oh! It’s a full-time meeting! Mind if I join?” The door slid open behind Alex’s back, letting out a trail of floral aroma; with a smile, Fluttershy took a look around the small herd. Alex leaned in and planted a kiss at her immediately flushing nose instead of an answer.
“Come on, Alex! Spill the beans,” Aurora nudged him lightly but impatiently, reminding the human of her question. Noticing the same urge in Storm’s eyes, Alex let out a feigned sigh and gave up.
“Okay, kids. How can I put it simpler?” he pondered, how to depict his arrival in a less gruesome way than it originally looked. “Let’s say, I rode a thunderbolt,” Alex chuckled, trying to sound as jokingly as it was possible. “The heavy rainstorm started when I… departed. The oncoming car… errmmm, sort of automatic carriage, we use – it lost control and crashed, doors jammed. So, I was to help the other people,” shrugged he. “I got inside their car and then a lightning struck into it… somehow carrying me to your world!” finished he in a bit crumpled way.
“I can’t explain better,” added Alex after a second of impressed silence, “as I still can only suppose, how it exactly worked.”
“Maybe it’s for the best,” quietly said Fluttershy, throwing a meaningful glance at the human. Crystal Chime watched the suddenly hushed foals with a surprised smile as if seeing them for the first time ever.
“Well, on the bright side of the Moon, nopony got hurt!” Alex drew the line cheerfully; the mood slowly passed on to the foals – Storm and Aurora gave smiles again. “I hope we don’t interfere with somepony’s plans at that hour,” Alex sat down cross-legged on the train car floor, pulling the foals closer, thus blocking half of the passage. With his eyes chained to the darkening sky behind the large window, Alex pointed at one group of the stars. “There, kids, is one of the phenomena I still can’t comprehend! See that constellation?”
“It’s Ursa Major!” squeaked Aurora, excited to show her knowledge. “Mom usually tells us about the night sky…”
“Right!” Alex hurried to distract the filly before she had time to get sulky. “And those three bright stars over there, rising over the horizon? That’s part of Orion. Now to the phenomenon,” added he mysteriously. “These two constellations are well known to me; we have them as well in my home world.”
“Moreover,” continued Alex while the foals and, frankly speaking, everypony present tried to digest the meaning of that statement, “they both are a part of exactly winter sky on Earth, in the northern hemisphere. Where we are now on Equus either,” he said meaningfully.
Crystal Chime blinked wonderingly – she started getting the course of human thoughts. Longhaul’s glance was still drawn to the night sky, but he clearly listened to the talk from the corner of his perked ear. Only Fluttershy, already familiar with Alex’s explanation of his travel and possible interposition of Earth and Equus in time and space, wasn’t surprised a iota. With a light smile, the girl kept listening, wondering how the human was going to explain the latter to the foals.
“That could mean that Earth exists in its own dimension at the same spot where Equus exists in its one,” said Alex with an expression of residual disbelief.
“How’s that even possible?” whispered Storm, following the human’s glance across the starry sky with the named constellations.
“Believe me, half a year ago I would say this was nonsense as well,” chuckled Alex, ruffling their manes while his wings supported foals’ backs. “Just like about the multitude of other things, including… well… never mind. Back to the topic though. I don’t know half of the common constellations here. So,” he raised his finger, “how can our planets share the part of constellations and their positions while not being the same planet, and at the same time differ regarding the rest?”
“I didn’t understand half of what you said, Alex!” Aurora nudged him with her nose and pouted jokingly, making everypony around smile. “Why don’t you simply tell about your home planet instead? Without much scientific stuff…”
Alex looked through the window at the flying snowflakes – swirling and dancing, more and more of them competed with the stars in the night sky decoration, shimmering in the silvery moonlight. At the north, the gloomy stripe of the clouds became wider and wider, threatening to flood the entire scene with darkness.
“Okay,” Alex gave up with a smile. “Not a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”
*
Lit by a multitude of magical crystals, the large hall was so quiet that one could probably hear the strained hum of the uneasy thoughts of the light-grey unicorn. The latter measured the room with his steps from one wall to another, from the large doors to the wide window of stained glass. The silence got broken occasionally when the stallion paced up pensively, so his hoofsteps echoed under the high, randomly faceted ceiling. The setting autumn sun was unable to dispel neither the twilight, gathering in the far corners, nor his anxious reflections. Coming through the stained glass, its light could only send the faint colourful rays full of dancing dust specks into the room. The tightly shut window among other precautions was explicable: even managed exclusively by the weather pegasi under the magical dome, the weather fluctuations could disturb the proper work of the magical device of great importance and sensitive precision placed in that room.
Once in a while, the concerned unicorn raced past the window: the long dense shadow cut the sunrays and fell on the giant table in the centre of the hall, running over the peculiarly made map of the lands. The Crystal Castle, towering in the middle of the city, the streets and buildings, big and small, the surrounding lands, spreading like the colourful patchwork blanket with the fields and groves, forests and lakes, rivers and roads, cutting that pie of land in different directions – everything was presented on that incredible miniature copy of the domain. The magical dome of the smaller scale than the real one covered the entire inhabited land representation. Faintly shimmering on the perimeter like some giant rainbow soap bubble, it was rising over the tiny landscape elements and became invisible in the air. The miniature low, dark clouds slowly flowed, wrapping and swirling around the ethereal yet impenetrable barrier. Contrasting with the inner one, the outer land looked hostile, whitened with the eternal snow and shining ice, peppered with rocks, only tinted here and there with patches of grim dense fir-wood; small settlements of industrial purpose like mining were scattered through the frozen grounds.
The actual magical dome was exactly the same as its imitation depicted – the only reliable barrier between the heart of the Crystal Empire and the kingdom of winter around, the Frozen North. Mostly invisible, it protected the inner space from natural hazards and known hostile intrusions. One of the miraculous manifestations of the Crystal Heart – the magical artefact of the immense power, having the almost symbiotic bonds with the crystal ponies – the barrier allowed the inhabitants of the Crystal Empire to live and work safely, as the conditions inside were similar to Equestria. Moreover, it allowed the weather-pegasi to maintain the weather nearly perfect. Any jobs outside of the dome were well compensated; besides, the workers spent only limited periods of time in the “white lands”, in a rotational manner, so nopony stressed themselves excessively.
However, as with everything in the endless Universe, the barrier had its flaws. Impenetrable from outside for the known threats – nopony could clearly tell how that process of recognition by the Crystal Heart worked – it could oppose nothing against the totally unknown menace or the attack from inside, by the threat already seeping in somehow. That had happened twice already – both times, only the unprecedented actions from the defenders saved the Crystal Empire from the seemingly imminent danger. Thus not being ideal, the magical dome still demanded constant vigilance from the Empire inhabitants and especially from the rulers of the domain.
Yet again as many times that evening, the unicorn stallion stopped near the live map and stared fixedly at the motion playing up in front of his light cerulean eyes. Pursing his lips, he watched the small coloured flags, crawling on the landscape model as some bright bugs. A couple of them was moving inside the dome at its southern border; much more though were scouting the frozen lands outside along the south quarter of the rainbow hemisphere. Judging by the measured scanning movement of the marks, one could suppose that nothing unsetting was happening yet. Still, the eyes of the unicorn seemingly penetrated the distance, trying to see what hid behind the moving signs: he leaned forward, the sapphire with cerulean and phthalo-blue streaks mane fell on his progressively glooming muzzle.
‘Waiting is the worst thing possible!’ the stallion looked away from the magical map, which currently was unable to provide him with any new fuel for pondering. ‘But waiting helplessly for what the new day may bring is a crime!’ meeting the tired and stern glance of his dim reflection in the crystal wall, he clenched jaws – the lumps on his cheeks jumped up and down. ‘I don’t want to put everything at risk ever again…’
The hoofsteps drumming through the hallway made the unicorn turn to the sound expectantly. Slowing down, not to burst in like a hurricane, the guards’ commander appeared in the opening doors, stopping a few steps in with a salutation. With a tired nod, the unicorn welcomed the visitor to report without ceremony.
“Your Highness!” Understandingly, the commander turned right to business. “Two news…” he cleared his throat subtly, “…both bad more or less, I assume.”
“It’s easy to choose then!” chuckled the unicorn ironically; lately, the bad news was more usual than good. “Go on, commander!”
“The weather outside of the dome is getting progressively worse,” the guard approached the map. “We expect the strong snowfall to begin in the next few hours.”
“I’m afraid the pegasi can do nothing this time, except freezing in the sky,” he replied the inquiring glance of the unicorn. “Flowing around the barrier, two cloud fronts collide at the southern border; with the increasing wind, it already resembles a thresher up there.”
“Well, we’re amidst the Frozen North,” dropped his collocutor; however, a shadow of anxiety slid across the stallion’s muzzle. “Snowfalls are usual for this time of the year.”
“With all respect…” with the light clanking of the armour, the guard alternated from hoof to hoof. “Your Highness, this one is going to be massive by all the signs, threatening to block the roads outside of the dome. Railway tracks included,” added he after a second of strained silence.
“Now, that’s unacceptable!” the unicorn’s muzzle gloomed, then he remembered. “And the other thing?”
“The Seekers were lost of sight in the starting blizzard! The groups keep searching, but with no result so far,” the commander nodded towards the slowly moving flags on the map. The small magical clouds indeed herded at the southern border of the dome, getting gradually denser and darker.
Judging by the unicorn’s expression, that was the most unwanted news to receive.
“Any changes to their numbers?” he hurried to the map. “Where were they seen last time?”
“Unfortunately, we didn’t manage to eliminate any of the creatures again,” responded the guard. “As for the location…” he stepped forward; a part of the burning up shining aura of his horn detached and floated to the giant table. The tiny light ball chose a spot on the map and settled like a glowing mark on the toy landscape. “The last information about the pack was there-about.”
The unicorn stared at the spark sitting at the edge of a large stony valley, frozen and squeezed between two stripes of the forest. Searching for a moving target during the strong blizzard was a bad and futile idea there. But that wasn’t what made the stallion’s muzzle darken. With a heavy sigh, he closed his eyes for a second – straight like a guitar string, the railroad from Canterlot was cutting the valley in halves.
“What about the Express?” the unicorn shook his sapphire mane, glancing at the reporting guard gravely.
“It is moving according to the schedule, Your Highness!” Even if the guard could ease the concerns of the unicorn, it wasn’t enough to dispel them completely. “Passing the Crystalshard mine, it didn’t yet enter the zone of possible snowdrifts.”
‘The question is, will it arrive before the full blockade?’ for the long silent minute, the light-grey unicorn fell into deep thoughts, alternating between the map and the patiently waiting commander.
“Don’t waste the ponypower in the upcoming snowstorm!” He finally made the decision. “Send several groups to circle the valley, cover from the blizzard and wait for the further orders. Stay sharp!”
“Even if it is fitting the schedule now…” the stallion glanced at the fading away sun behind the stained glass; his eyes narrowed. “We must get ready for the worst type scenario, commander. Prepare the Icebreaker!”
“Your Highness!” the guard saluted.
“That’s all, commander. Dismissed!” the unicorn nodded with permission.
Meeting somepony in the doorway, the leaving guard stepped back with a bow, giving way to an alicorn mare, then hurried to deliver the orders.
“Is everything okay, Shining?” the light-greyish cerise princess lightly trotted to the unicorn; swaying back her long wavy violet mane with rose and pale gold streaks, she looked into his eyes. “That dusk look on your face…”
“More or less like every day lately, Cady,” Shining Armour forced out a smile, trying his best for it to look more natural. “But it may turn worse anytime soon…” he hugged the girl’s shoulders apologetically, being unable to tell the brighter news.
“But… auntie Celestia promised to send help, didn’t she?” incrusted with a violet gem, the peculiar golden crown trembled lightly as the girl tilted her head. The light purple eyes looked inquisitively, then widened. “You are talking not about these monsters, right, my love? What then?”
With a deep sigh, the stallion adjusted an out of place strand of her mane with his light rose aura.
“Considering how the situation is developing, those sent by Princess Celestia may need our help instead, sweetheart!” His glance was tensely serious. “The blizzard is approaching the southern border; there is a high chance that snowdrifts will block the railway… It may turn out that we’ll need to save them from the snow captivity instead. The train was last reported here,” the tiny light of his aura marked the spot at the edge of the map. “By the time they approach the outskirts of the barrier, the road may become blocked already.”
“Oh…” The princess looked at the glowing mark, at the tiny but menacingly dark clouds, gathering between it and the magical dome. “They have nothing to oppose the elements, I assume. It made me wonder, why auntie Celestia refused to arrive herself…”
“I suppose she has matters keeping her tied to Canterlot at the moment,” Shining Armour decided that telling Cadence about Princess Celestia being unsure in her ability to take down the multiple Seekers… without mass destruction measures wasn’t the best idea. “Besides, if she has fewer problems dealing with the monsters than the rest of us, that doesn’t mean she has none. So, she sent somepony unaffected by the Seekers mental impact.”
“But not the dangers of the Frozen North…” Cadence shook her head. “Still strange. I know Fluttershy. With all her undoubted virtues, she is not a traveller. Neither a fighter. What about that… human, right?”
“All I know about them is – they exist. At least one does. Only my sister could give you a detailed answer, Cady,” Shining Armour chuckled, although not very cheerfully. “As I could understand from Princess Celestia letter, he is big, keen in mechanics and weapons, has a difficult character… and can easily take down the Seekers. Nothing about him being frost resistant was told, so I assume…”
“As you put, it sounded nearly scary,” the alicorn mare let out a tiny smile.
“We’ll see, sweetheart, we’ll see,” the light cerulean eyes promised loving protection. “With the creatures clearly aiming to reach the Crystal City while we may only guess about their intentions… we shouldn’t refuse any help offered.”
“We had it close twice already!” uttered he after a moment of silence. “I’m not going to waste a possible chance or to risk putting our folk in danger and our protection to be compromised. Not any more!”
*
“Hmm… You managed to slip out with your story nicely, my love!” Fluttershy nuzzled Alex tenderly. “I’d bet everypony listened to it, not only foals. I did for sure.”
A minute ago, everypony left, wishing each other a good night. Miss Chime took the yawning and almost nodding into the sleep foals with her. Longhaul, who stayed with the company till the end, listened to Alex’s story with a genuine interest of the traveller – even if realizing that his chances to visit the described lands were more than ephemeral. Nodding goodbye, the stallion lifted the hat before heading to his door, making Alex instantly regret that a handshake wasn’t an option with everypony in Equestria except Spike.
Getting back into their compartment, Fluttershy and Alex just managed to sit on the berth facing the train direction. The dimmed lights made the swirling snow outside mix with the faint room reflection on the dark screen of the glass. Throwing a glance at the linen drawer, Alex was seriously pondering to make a bed first or simply fall asleep.
“Yeah,” he said a bit hoarsely, feeling his throat asking for mercy after talking for so long. “The last thing Storm and Aurora need to know now is the supposed reasons and details of my arrival. As well as the rest relating to the monsters invading Equestria. I’d like to hope they’ll have no more Seekers in their life, but it’s out of my powers to guarantee that. They aren’t that small to not understand many alarming things happening, yet I’d better tell them a fairy tale, than that.”
“Merlin’s pants, my mouth is a desert!” he reached for the half-full glass of water on the table and downed it at once; however, there was a strong feeling that it half-helped only.
“That we can remedy, I guess!” before he could say a word, Alex found his lips covered by Fluttershy’s. The girl wrapped her fore legs around his neck; her fragrant mane surrounded the human, his view taken by the smiling desirously turquoise eyes, faintly glistening in the twilight of their compartment, like two deep lakes. “Don’t talk, Alex. Just feel!”
In a second, Alex found himself melting in the soft fluffy cuddle while Fluttershy’s lips kept experimenting, making Alex’s head spin from pleasure. Sending his hands to travel across the girl’s back, shoulders and wings, he made Fluttershy murmur something through their kiss. No matter how persistent Alex’s palms were, stroking the heating coat, his mare wasn’t going to give up, even if her wings already trembled excitedly, barely held from unfurling ecstatically.
“Mhhhh…” emerging from the seemingly endless kiss, Fluttershy took a breath. “Oh, it seems to be less fatigue in your eyes now!” she pressed her nose against Alex’s; the girl’s cheeks started gaining colour, but playful sparkles were dancing in her eyes. Distracted by another short kiss, Alex felt the soft touch of the girl’s fore hooves pushing him on the berth with sudden strength and determination.
“As if I could argue now…” diving headlong into these deep turquoise lakes, he brushed his fingers through the girl’s flowing mane as Fluttershy leaned over him, inhaling excitedly. Before their lips merged again, Alex caught a glimpse of familiar sly expression, he used to see on another beloved face.
*
The sequence of jolts when the train braked, then started to speed up, then slowed again, crossing over the track junctions, finally pulled Alex out of his sleep. Opening his eyes, he was laying for about a minute, waking up completely. The train reached its cruise speed again; except for the occasional wheel clatter, only Fluttershy’s even breath was breaking the silence of the compartment – her head rested on Alex’s chest, hair tickling him lightly when the girl moved in her sleep. The room was still dark, making him think it was too early in the morning; however, throwing a glance in the window, Alex saw the sunlight falling on the passing by landscape slightly veiled by the snow. That made him stumble for a moment; absently stroking Fluttershy’s mane, Alex was lying, overwhelmed by the feeling that something wasn’t just right.
‘Yesterday, we, our berth was facing the train direction, now though…’ the answer even made him jerk of surprise. Indeed, the car was rolling Alex’s back forward.
“What the…” muttered Alex, waking up momentarily. “It can’t be that we are going back!”
“What’s up… my lo-ove?..” Fluttershy raised her head slightly, bathing him in the floral wave of her hair scent; the girl’s eyes were closed – she didn’t even really wake, only slightly disturbed by Alex’s motion. That little sleep last night definitely was not enough for her.
“It’s okay, Shy,” Alex couldn’t hold back a smile, watching her mirthful sleepy face; still in Lunaland, the girl dropped her head again, planting a small kiss on his chest. She was about to nest, snuggling tighter and wrapping her legs around him, but Alex was full of determination to find out what bad joke was going to be played on them. “I’ll go check for a minute…” he uttered crumpledly, trying his best to get up without bothering the sleeping mare.
‘Did Tia make some mistake? As far as I know, she never travels by train, not needing it…’ little by little, he managed to slip from the girl’s embrace, gently leaving her under the covers and unwrapping himself. Nevertheless, Fluttershy muttered something through her sleep, pulling his pillow closer and nuzzling into it. Alex leaned closer and kissed the long, slightly trembling eyelashes; the girl made a faint attempt to reach for him, twitching her nose funnily, but the sleep took over, making Fluttershy drop her head on the pillow and snooze.
Dressing quickly, Alex slid the door open and peeked into the empty passageway, then approached the opposing window. There was no doubt that their car was running backwards. Alex blinked several times with a feeling of something completely crazy going on. The sound of an opening door made him turn.
“Good morning, miss Chime! Dost thou know…” he rushed towards the mare exiting the compartment like a drowning human towards the lifebuoy, even making her wince first, “…what is befalling hither?” Alex caught himself and lowered the voice, remembering that the foals could be sleeping still.
“Good morning, Alex!” Crystal Chime smiled; the eyes of red gold looked up at the human. “You’ve startled me a bit…”
“Apologies,” muttered Alex. “Still…”
“You mean the cars going “backwards”, right?” the mare kept smiling, making Alex hope that maybe everything wasn’t that severe as he thought – he nodded resignedly.
“We have passed Trottsburgh. The city is not particularly large; which can’t be said about its station and transport hub,” stated miss Chime as if it was to explain everything. Watching the human blinking bemusedly, she realized. “Oh, I’m sorry, Alex. You might know not… The cars of most of the trains are reattached to the locomotives oppositely, due to the peculiarities of Trottsburgh station layout and sorting process. The Crystal Express is not an exception,” explained the mare with an apologetic smile. “Nothing bad happened, we’re still going north, it just seems that the cars go backwards.”
“I knowingly take tickets to the first car,” added Crystal, “as it becomes the last one for the second half of the trip, allowing us to rest from the loco noise and smoke before boarding off.”
“Merlin’s pants! It was that simple, yet gave me a few stressful minutes,” exhaled Alex, shaking from the silent laughter. Another glance through the window told him that he could probably notice that they were still going north by the Sun position. If he wasn’t startled by the seeming weirdness of the situation. “So, Tia still made a mistake. Slightly different one, but…”
“We were supposed to arrive in the first car,” feeling a load off his mind, Alex elaborated to confused Crystal. “But she never travels by train, so…”
“Well, what’s done – done for good. If we had gone as she planned, then we wouldn’t have boarded the same train car with you, miss Chime!” Alex broke into a cheerful smile.
“Indeed, I take that coincidence as the happy one,” nodded the mare. “Besides, it made the trip a lot easier!”
“You both are coming along with the foals awesomely,” she explained. “Thanks a lot for helping them to fixate on the problems not. Not to mention that they became suddenly obedient,” added Crystal amusedly. “Makes me wonder, if I had looked like a human mare, maybe they would have obeyed a bit more out of impression in my case as well.”
“I have nothing to complain of with Storm and Aurora, but… I simply can’t be stern with the foals and sometimes they feel that too well,” Crystal Chime shrugged. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing though.”
“Don’t ever change, ma’am!” Alex shook his head. “Not with the kids, at least. They need you as you are, especially now.”
Returning to the compartment, Alex was seriously considering the advantage of diving under the covers, into the warm embrace of Fluttershy again. The majority of the passengers seemed to share Alex’s sentiments about the early rise as the only one he met was miss Chime; the rest were still sleeping. Quite a reasonable decision if you were travelling a few days through the frosted land and the only foreseeable entertainment would be the breakfast, which, furthermore, was served in the dining-car till eleven. The train was proceeding steadily; nothing could seemingly interfere with its unshakable run. However, nopony would doubt the direction of their travel as Alex could confirm now: the landscape behind the window turned more and more untouched with each mile. The settlements, even the mere signs of civilization became rarer; as for the large cities, Alex suspected that Trottsburgh was the last they passed that day.
Patches of the forest started to come across rarer as well; denser and gloomier, they looked like the regiments of tall, hard-faced soldiers in the rifle-green overcoats with snow-covered shoulders. Separated by vast fields of whitened, frozen land with the iced rocks scattered across, those regiments were not going to wait for the stragglers – the occasional separate trees on the plains looked bent down, crooked by adversities and unhappy. Apparently, strong winds were common for that land. Indeed, Alex could easily see the elements raging as the snow became denser: the gusts of wind raced the plains, wrapping their semi-transparent sheets of dusty snow around the obstacles. Winter reigned there most of the year and its presence clearly felt even in the safety and warmth of the train car, behind the thick triple glass of the window.
No animals could be spotted by the cursory glance, except a few of large birds, rising from the woodland and diving back into the safety of the forest after a loop or two, making it easy to presume that it was too cold yet. Or even simply quite cold; the temperature didn’t rush up with the rising sun, judging by the wide frame of ice on the window glass.
With loud noise and clatter, the train jetted over an openwork bridge above the sudden deep ravine. Far below, squeezed between the sharp rock shelves and chained in ice, a river was lying like a snaking band of hardened grey tin. Half of a year ago, that image solely would make Alex’s heart drop into his stomach or even lower; now though, he watched the landscape, slowly lightening by the rising sun through the cloudy veil, with the growing concern. Even without a map, by the look outside, he was going to suppose that they had already crossed the boundary of Crystal Empire.
‘Somehow I doubt that the ponies, willingly living here, are easy to discompose,’ concluded Alex darkly. ‘Yet some circumstances made them ask for help.’
While he was pondering, the train slowed down noticeably, making Alex wake, looking for the reason for that. The latter appeared after a short while in the form of some station, even rather an observation post next to the railroad. A few snowbound buildings surrounded by the fence slowly passed by in front of his eyes. The older and the bigger one was accompanied by the newly built, enforced windmill stirring the air with its rotor blades. Flaunting behind the flowing snow veil, the big, polished steel letters “CSC” were attached to the metalwork frame. Apparently, his generator found its use there as well, in that Celestia-forsaken corner, making Alex smile involuntarily.
“Well, smart decision,” muttered Alex while the Crystal Express started to speed up again. “Especially as winds blow here three hundred sixty-four days a year, except one when they have a day off!”
“Mmhmm… Good morning, dear!”
Before Alex turned to the quiet rustle behind, two fore legs wrapped around his chest lovingly; he cupped the gentle hooves with his hands, feeling the softness of the lush mane and the girl’s warm cheek, snuggling between his shoulder blades.
*
The last early sunset of that autumn painted the fields around the smithy light orange and pink, casting long thin shadows of the lonely standing trees and large rocks scattered around. They stretched out their clock hands south-east, almost corresponding to the real four hours past noon. As planned by the weather pegasi, the snow kept covering everything around with the thin plaid; judging by its persistence, there was no doubt that the plaid was going to turn into the proper blanket by the next morning. The wilted grass was drooping to the ground under the increasing load, covering securely the young green blades from the upcoming frosts. Passing these folds, the sunlight painted the pink-orange sea rippled with darker waves, over the fresh white snow, making the long shadows look like some kraken tentacles endeavouring to reach the smithy from the north-west. Steels’ house and yard seemed the only serene and warmed island – not the least because of the candent smelter – before the calm harbour of Ponyville.
Leaning at the fence, Diamond Chisel kept staring at the field ahead, submerged into the thoughts known to him only. They decided to finish earlier that day, due to all the routine work being done, common orders completed. Alex’s departure made unexpected changes to their work schedule. Fortunately, they managed to produce quite a lot of blanks for the new armour, technically loading the smithy with assembly work for a while. However, with the finally increasing interest of the royalty, Diamond Chisel suspected that with the current production pace the stash could dry out faster than expected. For the first time in a while, they started feeling the labour shortage again. Alex promised to have a word with Princess Celestia about enforcing the smithy with some of the royal guards’ armourers. But nopony knew if he had time to do that – they left in a rush with Fluttershy, making most of the acquaintances guess, what could have happened in Canterlot.
Yet, that wasn’t the main reason for the unicorn’s concern. Diamond Chisel started feeling some uneasiness a while ago; something he couldn’t even explain to himself, something of foreboding nature. Remembering the effects, the Seekers could cause, the stallion started watching the fields and his colleagues. But Steels looked calm and concentrated, the fields could be seen far through and little by little Diamond Chisel convinced himself that it was some trick, played on him by his conscious. Normally, he would have left the smithy after the work day, heading to his home at the eastern edge of the town. However, that day, the stallion lingered, unwittingly obeying his sudden gut feeling. Meticulously gathering the tools, Diamond Chisel checked everything twice, if not thrice, cleaning the work zone and levitating all the remaining stuff to the appropriate places. Even when Willsmash headed into the house after discussing tomorrow plans shortly, he stayed on the smithy yard as if waiting for something and thus watching the field subconsciously now, letting the snowflakes slowly settle down on his mane and coat.
“It’s getting colder here!” the quiet voice made the stallion turn. “Even despite the working smelter.”
“Yeah, perhaps it is. Look at that red sunset, well, what’s left of it – it’s going to get frosty tomorrow. I think this snow is going to stay,” Diamond Chisel let out a strained smile, not wanting to pass his anxiety. His glance nolens volens returned to the snowy field behind the fence and road.
Trotting lightly from the porch, Silver Ingot approached him. Following the stallion’s concerned glance, the unicorn girl took a long studying gaze across the fields. The wind played in her golden fluttering mane and tail, making Diamond Chisel throw an admiring side look.
“Are you okay?” Silver Ingot eyes scanned him attentively. “You’ll have a long road ahead. Why don’t you come in for a cup of hot tea?” the girl nodded towards the house with its welcoming, warmly lit windows. “Wait! It’s not the cold, right? You look…”
Her bright glance slid across his muzzle, then turned to the field again; noticing nothing unusual, Silver Ingot looked at Diamond Chisel inquiringly.
“Don’t you feel it?” the stallion looked at the filly fixedly, trying to read something in her expression. “Something… I… I can’t explain. Something uneasy, so to speak!”
“Probably,” Silver Ingot blinked, not quite understanding. “We are a bit overloaded. Not sure if we have enough metal and details to keep producing till…” she bit her lip pensively. “And something happened in Canterlot, I suppose, otherwise…”
“But these are the problems we can do nothing about at the moment,” Silver Ingot looked up at him with a faint smile. “Even if we worry naturally.”
“No, it’s another… thing,” uttered Diamond Chisel. “I thought about all these, but understood – that feeling must have different nature. Perhaps with the same reasoning as you, Silver Ingot,” the stallion kept watching the field from the corner of his eye. Suddenly, his muzzle twitched, noticed by the girl, finally passing the anxiety to her. “Wait! What was it there? Just…”
Diamond Chisel was absolutely sure that it wasn’t his imagination, despite he spent half an hour staring in the distance – one of the large dark rocks far in the field just made a move in the rays of the setting sun. His concern finally passed on to Silver Ingot entirely – now, the girl watched the strange object fixedly; a small muscle trembled under the coat on her shoulder. Hardly because of the cold wind.
“Go inside, please! Quickly!” Diamond looked into her widened eyes. Silver Ingot definitely felt something, she couldn’t explain easily like before. “It’s approaching…”
“It may be an animal…” the filly said not very confidently; her eyes were still chained to the dark silhouette, which – as they both saw clearly – was moving behind the veil of falling snow.
“Oh, come on, Sil!” groaned the stallion, out of concern addressing the girl as only her uncle and the human did. “An animal that large, seriously?”
“It’s winter now. What could it be, except some bear?” explained he, answering her bemused glance. “Isn’t a bear enough of a reason to get out of its road anyway? Especially in winter! But I’m sure it’s not a bear, not at all!” Diamond Chisel looked at Silver Ingot almost pleadingly. Meanwhile, the dark spot in the field paced up.
“Maybe it’ll wander by…” muttered the girl as if seeking confirmation of her words from Diamond Chisel. “It’s quite far…”
“It won’t!” stated the stallion doomedly. “Don’t you see? There is nothing in the field except us. In that direction at least.” He pushed away from the fence, politely but persistently trying to direct Silver Ingot towards the porch.
“Wait! What about you?” her eyes reverted from the approaching creature – both of them could make up the distinctive features already – and stopped at Diamond’s muzzle. “You don’t have time…”
“I’m not going anywhere,” uttered the stallion gloomily. “Here, I have everything necessary to confront the monster… if used properly.”
“But…” the girl’s eyes dilated from the understanding of what he was going to undertake.
“Wait, Sil,” interrupted her Diamond. “If we all simply hide inside the house, it’ll be only a matter of time for the monster to find a way in. Then we’re worse than dead, right?! Remember, what two of them did to the farm of Sunflowers!”
With those words, Diamond Chisel pulled one of the unicorn-fitted helmets from under the canopy. Mounting it over his head, he fidgeted with the clasps for a couple of seconds, blindly trying to direct them with his aura. Silver Ingot rushed to help, but the stallion recoiled, waving his fore hoof and finally fixing the armour piece in place.
“It’s not fitted for you!” squeaked Silver Ingot. “You won’t be able to see properly…”
“Not the best visibility,” smirked Diamond Chisel under the steel. “But I can see enough!” Levitating a heavy pan of bolts, nuts and small metal clutter, he jetted to the smelter, opening the delivery tray and wincing back from the heat bursting out. Under Silver Ingot’s bewildered glance, he smacked the pan down in front of the tray, just far enough not to melt it with all the contents yet making it heat up almost immediately.
“I’ll be fine!” the bulky metal head looked over the shoulder, catching Silver Ingot into the view. ‘I’d like to believe!’ added Diamond Chisel inwardly, cringing from the approaching wave of anxiety. “Hopefully, somepony else from the town noticed… everything!”
“Behind that snow?!” Silver Ingot still lingered.
“Now go!” almost shouted the stallion. “Tell Willsmash and don’t show up outside, till… Till it’s safe to!” He kept waving her off with his fore hoof until the girl finally ran up the porch, disappearing behind the front door after another desperate glance at him.
The Seeker – nopony would now doubt the origins of the approaching creature – already covered half of the distance separating them and sped up even more. Through the narrow visor, left for him by the unfitted helmet, Diamond Chisel could clearly see the four thick legs supporting the equine-like body and torso attached to its front, the swirling stripes of dark substance around the beast, the menacingly glowing red “eye”.
‘Come on, freak!’ Diamond Chisel grinned wryly, throwing a glance at the crackling pan full of candent metal junk. He took another moment to find and pull closer another one with the same load, prudently deciding that later he might have no time for that. ‘Let’s see how you can stomach some spicy stuff!’
The last dozen of yards before the old road, the Seeker turned to almost galloping, not giving any doubts regarding its intentions. The monster was ploughing the snowy field with its legs, leaving a wide stripe of disturbed, spread wilted grass where it passed. Jumping out on the road, the Seeker suddenly stopped to Diamond’s sheer surprise. The stallion was sure that the beast could at least feel his presence, perhaps, both Steels in the house as well. Rushing to the smithy wasn’t accidental – even if the Seeker was simply wandering before, it clearly aimed at the blacksmith’s house when Diamond Chisel spotted it fortunately.
However, at that moment it looked as if the monster suddenly lost its confidence of fast attack, feeling that the pony in front of it not only wasn’t turning into a motiveless rag doll, but didn’t even plan to flee, somehow ignoring the Seeker’s mental impact. The potential victim was on direct “eye contact” distance, yet kept obstructing the creature’s path.
Giving the beast no chance to react, the sparkling aura enveloped several bolts from the red-hot, almost skewing pan, forcefully launching them at the enemy. The metal parts drew shiny, slightly spreading arcs in the cold air of the grey frosty evening; not having time to cool, most of them hit the motionless target directly. To Diamond’s joy, the Seeker made an unconfident step back, shiver travelled across its huge frame. Hissing at the impact, the candent details penetrated the monster’s body deeply, falling out slowly and unwillingly, leaving noticeable holes in its skin. There was expectantly no blood, but the Dark Mist trailed faintly from each of the small wounds.
Diamond Chisel had no idea if those abominations could feel any physical pain, as he had very little knowledge of their nature, mostly limited to the information told in the official warning several months ago and random things the human used to tell. However, one thing was clearly visible – the nearly molten metal wasn’t digested well by the monster, no matter how much alive it technically was. The Seeker reared up, lifting its torso and fore legs with heavy hooves. Diamond suddenly realized how huge his enemy was – at least thrice his size, husky and durable at the mere sight, but that rather made the stallion angry. Blood rushed into Diamond Chisel’s head, muffling all the feelings except contempt towards that chunk of flesh attacking the innocent.
The Seeker made a step back as if losing balance but the unicorn was sure the monster did that to gain more momentum, as Diamond Chisel already foresaw the next move. The rock-solid hooves rushed down driven by the entire creature’s mass, smashing into the frosted ground and making it palpably shake under the unicorn’s legs. The cooling down metal details slipped out of the monster’s body, their glow dying out in the snow. The Seeker’s move was an intimidation and self-remedy act simultaneously.
‘Huh! Don’t like it!’ scoffed Diamond Chisel under his helmet. Yet it was too early to celebrate: the creature moved forward again, full of determination to reach the stinging foe, which turned out suddenly annoying despite the size. The long swaying tendrils of the Dark Mist snaked out of the Seekers body; gaining mass and density before the eyes, they possessed even more threat than the column-like legs of the monster.
Diamond Chisel had no time to linger – one or two black tentacles were already wrapping around the fence planks, going to clear the way even if the Seeker was large enough to simply step over the obstacle. Scooping another portion of hot metal parts with his aura, the stallion threw it at the monster, aiming higher in an attempt to smite the torso-like part of it or even the red orifice, habitually taking it for an eye of the creature. The latter was glowing brightly in the condensing twilight; with grim satisfaction, Diamond Chisel noticed that the helmet was actually working. The heat of the fight did the rest – the unicorn felt almost calm now, even if he suspected it to be some hopeless tranquillity. He didn’t hit the “eye” of the Seeker, but a good portion of almost liquefying metal hit the large carcass again, making it wince back and buck to shake the burning projectiles off. The tendrils pulled away, swaying in the air chaotically.
‘Please, let the monster be dumb and straightforward enough!’ glimpsed in Diamond’s head. ‘That will help me gain us more time.’ Reaching for the next candent load, he was constantly thinking of another fearsome possibility. If the Seeker decided to retreat and go around the smithy, attacking it from the sides or the northern edge, farthest from the smelter, that would seriously complicate Diamond’s task. The unicorn couldn’t dash back and forth, picking the new portions of heated scrap and hoping wholeheartedly that the Seeker wasn’t ramming into the house the next moment.
Throwing a desperate glance at the armour stand, Diamond Chisel was to admit regretfully that taking any melee weapon wouldn’t tip the scales for him – sword and spear combat wasn’t his turf. His best chance would still be keeping the Seeker on the distance, dodging its tendrils and constantly peppering the monster with the sizzling hot details.
Meanwhile, the Seeker rushed to attack again. Jumping over the snaking tendril, which tried to knock him off his legs, Diamond Chisel picked up the entire tray, deciding to give his enemy a bath worth of Tartarus. Risking to scorch himself as well, the unicorn launched the tray over the attacking Seeker – the shimmering rain showered the black creature, highlighting the space in the several yards radius.
‘Somepony, please, notice that!’ flashed in Diamond’s head when he yanked another tray of bolts and nuts closer to the smelter maw, realizing that chances to keep the monster distracted that way were melting as fast as the trampled and ploughed snow around. The mental wave rolled over the stallion, making him stumble and cringe. If the Seeker couldn’t roar or groan aloud in a common way, it definitely felt and reacted to the impact. Feeling as if he was bucked hard into his chest, Diamond Chisel straightened with visible effort, watching the monster prancing and stomping behind the smithy fence in the attempt to get rid of the scalding treat.
‘Anypony!’ Diamond Chisel was about to grasp the closest to him spear with a thin, wide, razor-sharp leaf-like blade – plenty of those dully shone under the canopy; it was only a matter of seconds for the monster to recompose and try to outpace its enemy, looking for another weak spot in the spontaneous smithy defence.
The new tray had no time to heat to the maximum temperature. The stallion already was reaching for the spear, ready to exchange his sanity or even life on a higher price. In the limited sight of his helmet – Diamond Chisel already blessed the device numerously – he watched the Seeker shaking off the remaining shrapnel and already aiming to go around the smithy, attacking it from the “cooler spot”.
“Watch out!!!” sounded seemingly from the gathering clouds. Something flashed in the evening sky, making Diamond Chisel throw his head up in the last hope.
Glinting dully in the firelight, the steel silhouette folded its wings and screwed in between the swaying tendrils of the Dark Mist on an absolutely crazy trajectory… cutting against the monster’s left fore leg. The hit was tangential and visibly not very hard; however, the Seeker collapsed on that knee as if it was shot through.
Encouraged by that sudden help, Diamond Chisel grabbed the weapon with his aura and levelled it for the better aim. With all his anger gathered in one strike, the blade sizzled in the cold air, hitting another fore leg of the monster, making it kneel down helplessly. Watching in awe the shimmering silhouette, which spread its wings going for another vertical loop, the stallion noticed from the corner of his eye that the monster’s left leg was turned completely inoperable, almost turning into some sort of jelly right before the sight. The Seeker still jerked, trying to get up and continue the fight or maybe flee, but the defeat was obvious.
Reaching the highest point of the loop, the winged figure turned around and darted to the ground, making it almost impossible to follow its flight because of the speed. Something detached from it, cutting the air and penetrating the Seeker’s back, practically impaling the monster, pinning it to the ground. Spreading the wings and slowing down, the newcomer landed next to Diamond Chisel with a strong gust of wind sending the remaining snow fly.
The Seeker trembled one last time; shivers ran across its large body. Right before the eyes of bewildered Diamond Chisel, the creature started disintegrating, crumbling into a heap of harmless ash-like substance. The Dark Mist was leaving the falling apart carcass in sheets and threads, weakly trailing in the winter air and slowly dissolving, caught by the wind, which began to disperse the black ash.
“Huh!” the mare’s voice huffed from under the patterned steel of the helmet. “Surprisingly, it works perfectly still!”
Diamond Chisel turned to her uncomprehendingly, then followed the armour-clad mare’s sight. In some unfathomable way, part of the remaining Dark Mist gathered around the blade of the stuck into the ground spear; seeping into it, the substance seemed to be consumed by the sharp edges of the weapon.
“Alex’s blood…” the pegasus in dark grey armour turned, elaborating. “He applied it to the blade to help take out the Seekers faster. Almost dried but it still works. It burns them like acid, eating the bastards from inside… Fascinating!”
Soaring again, the mare headed to the spot where the Seeker hit the ground; examining the place, she pulled out the spear from the thinning pile of ash, handling her weapon with care, then returned.
“R-Rainstorm…” creaked Diamond Chisel out of his throat full of sandpaper, making it sound as it was way more “s”es in her name. “What? How…”
Before the mare could reply, the door behind them slammed open. Outstripping the blacksmith appearing on the porch, Silver Ingot ran down the stairs and rushed to Diamond Chisel. Giving the stallion a quick integrity inspection, the filly grabbed the confused unicorn in a sudden hug. Diamond felt a couple of tears burning his cold shoulder through the coat. Releasing him after a second, the girl sniffed and let out an embarrassed smile. Approaching them, Willsmash nodded; his healthy eye flashed joyfully, reflecting the glints of the smelter.
Finally realizing that his knees trembled treacherously, Diamond Chisel felt as if he was pressed down by a rock. The stallion strove to get rid of the helmet, trying to grasp the clasps with his aura but with little success.
“Can you please help me?” he cleared his throat. “I can’t see a thing!”
“Yes… Just a minute…” shaking off moisture from her eyes, Silver Ingot rushed to take the armour piece off Diamond’s head.
“Well, I’m glad I could get here in time!” cheerfully noticed Rainstorm, watching the scene. Pulling up her precious spear, she explained. “Yesterday I heard that the guys from the freight yard complained that the last shift was harder than usual. You see, the “old chap” – railway station master was out of sorts… and gave them hard time. An outstanding occasion, if you know him. Besides, they all looked somewhat not at ease…”
Finally taking off the helmet, Diamond Chisel stared at her, blinking. Silver Ingot and Willsmash looked not entirely understanding as well.
“That made me thinking, what if…” with a light clank of her armour, Rainstorm elaborated. “So, I returned to the station several times while patrolling around today, flying around it and searching. Everything seemed quiet until I checked once more in the evening and saw… your fireworks across the field,” she chuckled echoingly under her helmet. “I darted here and, well… that was the right thing to do!”
“Thank you both, guys!” the old blacksmith’s voice was full of gratitude; he turned to Diamond Chisel. “Without you, son, we wouldn’t have made it through! It was mind-wrecking enough even from behind the house walls.”
The stallion nodded confusedly; most of all, Diamond Chisel craved for some rest at the moment, feeling his entire body numb.
“I wonder,” uttered Rainstorm, staring pensively at the almost dispelled pile of ash, “if that Seeker appeared with the one we managed to destroy with Alex. It looked a bit smaller than the first one. It had to be sneaking around unnoticed for quite a while… We need more ponies on guard!” The mare squinted.
“Anyway!” She shook her head almost joyfully, making the armour tingle again. “I hope we are not going to see them for a while.” Rainstorm took a look around the company. “You need some rest, folks! Have a good night!”
“She is right, son!” noticed Willsmash, watching off the soaring up mare. “We need to warm you before you caught a real cold. Come on in…”
Diamond Chisel closed his eyes in agreement. Supported from both sides by the old blacksmith and his niece, the stallion followed them into the house.
*
Propping up his chin, Alex stared through the window at the smudged view behind the snow-covered glass. Starting subtly and stealthily, it looked more like the wall of snow after ten; the snowflakes didn’t dance and swirl gracefully anymore, they turned into the white scratchy curtain, which snuggled to the compartment window, wavered by the strong gusts of wind. The latter, unleashed by the inhospitable nature of the Frozen North, attempted to slow the Crystal Express and howled plaintively, realizing the futility of its efforts. The Sun barely peeked through the running clouds, the shadows of which condensed, then suddenly dissolved almost completely when a clear spot appeared, letting some extra light through. Rarely seen before, birds and animals disappeared completely, as far as Alex could discern in the mess of snow-veiled blots the landscape turned into.
‘Reasonable,’ Alex shook his head – the flickering outside lulled, making even the thoughts flow slower. ‘It looks as if a strong blizzard is going to start. Everypony is hiding…’
“What are you thinking about, my love?” quietly nesting next to him, Fluttershy hugged Alex from behind, nuzzling into his nape with a tiny sigh.
“The weather…” Alex tenderly rubbed his cheek against the soft fore leg. “If it keeps raging, or gets any worse… the snowdrifts won’t linger to appear. I don’t know how much that loco can pull through, but I know for sure that the Frozen North – if half of what I heard is true – can easily offer way more.”
“How much is before the Crystal City yet?” he turned to the girl after a short silence.
“Mmm… We passed Trottsburgh city two hours ago…” Fluttershy bit her lip; the long eyelashes batted. “Several hours more. I can tell only approximately…” she glanced at him meekly. “More than six, I think, but that depends on the train speed.”
“Methinks we haven’t lingered anywhere so far,” pensively drawled Alex, pulling the girl closer and placing her on his lap. “But I don’t know if we still can outrun the elements.”
They both noticed the Express paced up compared to the first day of their journey; as if in reply to their worries, the train rushed forward, making the clatter of the wheels merge into an even hum and balancing between the attempts to catch up and general safety. Reaching their ears from time to time when the wind blew along the train, the long plangent whistle was tearing the snowy silence – speeding up the loco, the motorpony warned accidental deer and elks, which may occur on the tracks, to get off the rushing machine’s way. Since breakfast time, the Crystal Express did its best to deepen into the Crystal Empire territory as much as it could, aspiring to reach the Magical Dome before the roads turned unusable for a while by the snowfall.
During the breakfast – Alex and Fluttershy preferred to have it in the dining car, one more curious detail became revealed: the numbers of passengers of their car thinned considerably. Taking a look around the dining salon, Alex couldn’t find the detached group of “aunties” and the usually joyful and noisy pack of the students; one or two business ponies travelling with them as well were absent. At first, Alex thought that some of them might prefer their breakfast delivered to their compartments; he chuckled at the unlikeness of that for the students at least. However, passing the two compartments later – they were coming first in the direction of the train after the cars reattachment – Alex couldn’t hear the usual hum of the colts and fillies voices, which made him wondering and knock on the compartment door before those two.
Their trainpony quickly made the situation clear, telling Alex that the students and so-called “aunties” got off the train overnight, reaching their destination long before Trottsburgh. As the stallion added with a smile, he wouldn’t be going to miss any of – too much hassle from both the groups during the long ride. One of the business ponies boarded off in Trottsburgh. The rest of the passengers were still present, as Alex could judge by the familiar muzzles seen at the dining car.
Thus their company now consisted of miss Crystal Chime with Storm and Aurora, the seasoned traveller Longhaul Hoofer, two more business ponies, that cockish pegasus stallion with his spouse, two married couples more and the trainpony himself. Although, Alex wouldn’t mind being relieved of the necessity to observe that snobbish winged brute for another day.
‘Well, you can’t have all the comforts at once!’ he smirked inwardly, heading to their compartment. However, Alex was to admit that fortunately either the car bulkheads were sound-proof or the white pegasus wasn’t so mouthy without the wide audience – anyway, Fluttershy and Alex were not disturbed by their neighbours and could hope to be of no disturbance as well.
The wind became raging; throwing handfuls of dry spiky snowflakes at the compartment window, it minimized visibility outside, so only the nearest to the tracks objects whizzed by as dark smudged spots of different shapes. From time to time, it brought the faint bitter smell, pushing the loco smoke to the ground almost parallel to the train; with a wry face, Alex got up and checked if the window was tightly shut.
It was. But something other than that attracted Alex’s attention, making him forget about the window at once. He could swear he saw something flashing by behind the glass but in a completely unusual way, unlike the rest of the landscape details.
“What the…” Alex glanced over the shoulder wildly; Fluttershy was sitting on the bunk, murmuring something and braiding her mane. Her long luxurious tail rested next to her already gathered into a thick tight braid as well. “Did you see that, Shy?”
“Saw what?” the girl raised her turquoise eyes at him. Any other moment, that glance could make all the thoughts flee from Alex’s head in a wink, but…
“Something flew by the window a moment afore. A dark silhouette…”
“Maybe a close or fallen tree,” Fluttershy blinked with a tiny smile but clearly got the seriousness in the human’s voice. “If it was, we’re lucky it didn’t fall across the tracks…”
“I’d like to think so,” Alex shook his head; squinting, he kept peering into the snowy mess outside, passing his concern on to the girl. “It flew in the train direction, Shy!”
Before she could realize what it meant, their car jerked tangibly – their bags clanked on the luggage shelf.
“Wow-wow-wow…” Alex was to grab the table edge to keep balance; Fluttershy gracefully leaned back on the bunk not to slide to the floor. “Kinda large for a switch!” But the human’s voice wasn’t jocular a iota.
“Somehow, I doubt that our motorpony could be so careless,” Fluttershy peeked through the window from behind Alex. “Not after a day of the nearly perfect ride.” Their eyes met, telling Alex that they both were thinking about the same.
“Somepony else should have noticed,” muttered Alex, sliding the compartment door open and listening. Indeed, at least three more doors opened with a specific sound.
“What was that?” inquired the stallion from his left; the business pony’s muzzle kept an extremely puzzled expression. “I nearly fell from my seat!” he shook his head reproachfully, not hurrying to return to his compartment as if expecting some explanations from somepony.
“Oh, Celestia! I hope we didn’t run over something!” Crystal Chime peeked from her compartment anxiously; the mare glanced over her shoulder and told something to the foals, calming the scared kids. “Does anypony know what happened? Alex?!” she noticed him checking the hallway window view.
“No idea, ma’am!” Alex’s tone was saying instead. ‘I don’t like that very much!’
“What the buck that motorpony thinks of?!” the white pegasus peeked out of the compartment. “Do they want to ditch us all!” His eyes scanned the passageway in the search of somepony he could blame for the inconvenience. However, this time common sense took over, or maybe the innocence of the present ones was too obvious even for him; thus, huffing loudly at the view of Alex, the stallion returned to the compartment. “I’m going to sue the railway company…” the closing door cut the rest of the phrase and the flowing, soothing reply of his wife. Alex would have chuckled at that under the different circumstances, but this time something felt seriously wrong.
“Dear?” Fluttershy showed up from their luxury, touching him lightly. “Anything?” Now her eyes looked seriously concerned, examining Alex’s puzzled face.
“Did somepony hit the emergency switch?” another door slid open; suppressing a yawn, Longhaul gave a smile. “I dozed off… and that shook me back awake!”
“Wait!” exclaimed Alex, raising a finger. “The train. It’s slowing down!”
“Oh, dear,” exhaled Crystal. “We must have run over something!” Fluttershy bit her lip.
Without further words, Alex started first towards miss Chime, quickly recollected and turned back to the other end of the car, to the anxiously hurrying towards the passengers trainpony. In reply to Alex’s inquiring glance, the latter only shrugged, uninformed about the problem like the rest. Rushing past the unicorn, Alex jumped out into the vestibule, jerking the door open.
For a very long minute, nothing disturbed the complete silence, except slowing down wheel clatter – everypony, including the new puzzled passengers peeking into the hallway, realized that the train was going to stop.
The barely closing vestibule door slammed open again, revealing the human. A strange mixture of shock, sarcastic admission and realization could be read from his face at the first glance.
“There is no train…” dropped Alex. Somepony exclaimed sceptically.
“There is no train!” in reply to Fluttershy’s fitful exhale, Alex repeated loudly, so everypony could hear him. “Our car has got detached from the rest and is stopping now!”
“What?!!” a couple of stallions rushed to witness that themselves, squeezing past the trainpony and frozen in place Alex. When they returned in a second, their muzzles clearly told that the human wasn’t joking.
“What should we do now?” a mare pulled one of them closer, snuggling to her spouse with a desperate expression. “It’s… it’s a few hours till Crystal City still!”
That phrase – almost the call for help as it sounded – woke Alex from his momentary stupor. Or maybe that was the train car, which rolled slower and slower and finally stopped with a light vibration travelling through its entirety.
“Please, sir, gather everypony in the hallway!” the human addressed the trainpony. “Longhaul, can you help us as well?” After the affirmative nod of mister Hoofer, Alex explained. “Our car was receiving its heating from the loco, like the rest of the train. It’s only a matter of time afore we start freezing hither. If we are not troubled otherwise prior…” added he in half-voice, making only Fluttershy catch what he meant. “Please, make everypony take any warm clothes they might have had and gather in the hallway!” called he after both stallions.
“That applies to everypony present likewise!” Alex looked around the group of ponies almost apologetically, then hugged Fluttershy’s shoulders lightly, directing the girl to their compartment. “Comest on, Shy. I thought it would befall another way, but… I can’t allow thee stay unprotected, lief!” barely audibly added he.
Noticing with relief that the ponies began to follow his advice one by one, Alex closed the compartment door and quickly pulled one bag from the luggage shelf.
“Time to suit up, mine lief!” he was already pulling Fluttershy’s gear out of the bag. “They shall be coming shortly!”
“You think…” Fluttershy looked up into Alex’s eyes when he was helping her to put the armoured suit on.
“I’m adamantly sure of that!” dropped Alex, accurately packing his marefriend into protection he and Rarity meticulously improved lately. A couple of minutes, only rustling broke the tensed silence of the compartment.
“Can I leave the helmet for now?” leaning on the table, the girl looked over her shoulder as Alex carefully zipped the suit on her back, locking the additional plates over the seam. “Don’t want to scare anypony in vain, foals especially!”
“Okay, Shy!” Alex nodded understandingly. “But promise me to put it on when it is necessary! I extend mine hope that moment shan’t befall…” added he under his breath. Instead of an answer, Fluttershy reached for him and gave Alex a loving kiss.
The hum of concerned voices outside told Alex that the ponies started returning, following his instructions. Their appearance was met with a few astonished exclamations when the rest of the passengers saw changed Fluttershy.
“Wait, wait, wait! What’s all that about?” one mare pointed at Alex’s marefriend; anxiety made her voice rang. “Are we under some attack, for Celestia’s sake?!”
“A minute of patience, please, everypony!” Closing his eyes for a second and taking a deep breath, Alex raised his voice. “I shall try to tell briefly, ladies and gentlecolts!”
“What the hay is going on?! I demand explanations!” the arrogant pegasus stallion stated intrusively.
‘That’s exactly what I’m going to do, moron!’ With a sigh, Alex mentally counted to ten, not to pour his entire contempt on the guy.
“All of you might have heard about the monstrous creatures, randomly terrorizing Equestria the last half of year – we call them Seekers,” Alex took a look around the small herd. He was to say that regardless of him wishing to be wrong. “I have strong reasons to assume that we were detached from the train exactly by them. And, answering your question… we are probably going to be attacked in some way sooner or later, ma’am,” he nodded towards the scared mare clinging to her spouse. The muffled grumble rolled across the company and died out when Alex raised his hand, asking for attention.
“Besides, we have another relentless enemy – the cold,” stated Alex harshly, not going to inspire any futile hope. “That is why I asked you to take all the warm stuff you have. We need to keep everypony warm and protected the best way we can… Then keeping the creatures away from the car will be my job,” he drew the line.
“What do they need?” right to the point, the business pony, their neighbour from the fifth compartment, asked.
“Most likely to prevent us both from reaching the Crystal Empire,” simply stated Alex, letting out a wry smile.
“Afore thou speakest out any suggestion…” he turned to the white pegasus, who already opened his mouth. “This girl is thy only way to stay sane if ‘t be true the Seekers arrive,” Alex glanced at Fluttershy meaningfully, then added. “That concerneth everypony hither!” With satisfaction, he caught the short reproachful look the pale-saffron mare gave to the “brute”. But the latter wasn’t going to give up easily.
“Who made you the chief, I’d like to know?!” huffed he with a challenge in his voice.
“Nopony! Howev’r, I know what to do at least,” Alex replied with a long fixed glance into the pegasus’ eyes. “Wantest to lead? Beest mine guest and take the duty and all the responsibility!”
“Now, when that problem is solved…” Alex stated with dry emphasis. “Wouldst thou mind if ‘t be true we disassemble the wall between our compartment and thine?” he addressed the business pony. “I can explain.”
“Well, it’s mine only formally for the ride time,” smirked the stallion. “So…” he made the welcoming gesture. “If our trainpony has no objections and you are the one who negotiates that through with the transport company later.”
“Errmmm…” the trainpony unicorn wasn’t getting the course of Alex’s thoughts yet.
“Believe me, that’s the last thing we should care about now,” said Alex to both stallions. “We must do the following!” he turned to the trainpony, seeking his support. “First, gather all the passengers in the two luxuries in the middle of the car. For which, we are going to merge the compartments. Then block the compartment windows and the ones in the hallway opposite the doors. Mister Hoofer, I’ll need your help.”
“With pleasure!” Longhaul touched his hat readily.
“Then we need to keep the merged compartments warm at any cost,” Alex turned to the trainpony, trying to ignore the audible howling of the wind outside. “Dost thou have anything that could serve as a stove, sir?”
“Hmmm… Hardly,” the unicorn rubbed his nose, then brightened. “Wait! We can use the boiler technically, simply need to get rid of the water and cut the top. It’s high enough so the smoke will trail under the ceiling and the train car ventilation should serve as the pipe,” added he. “And… I’m Cab Forward. Can call me Cab, gentlecolts.”
“Alex,” Alex introduced himself. “It’s pleasant to know we have a purposeful yet level-headed companion!” He gave a smile. “So, mister Forward, please, drain the water into as many containers as you can find – we’ll need it. Then bring the boiler. And… give to drink everypony who needs, while it’s warm, but in moderation. Water means gold, nopony knows how long we are grounded for.” Alex pretended to not hear the sigh of terror rustling from the herd; while he could understand them perfectly, giving up to the feelings alike wasn’t constructive.
“We’ll help to look for the bottles and… stuff,” two married mares volunteered to help. The third pulled to aid, but her pegasus partner held her back, whispering something in her ear, making Alex squint.
“Take the keys to the auxiliary compartment,” Cab levitated the ring to them. “You’ll find the med-pack there, bring it as well!”
“Excellent!” Alex finally allowed himself to believe that they had a chance to make it through. “Mister Hoofer, let’s get the necessary tools!” without further words, he squeezed through the passengers and rushed along the car, closely followed by the traveller and the trainpony.
“That’s what we need!” Alex stopped in front of the fire extinguisher board at the end of the train car, next to the boiler; his glance fell on two large fire axes and a crowbar. Picking the axes for himself and Longhaul, Alex handed the crowbar to the trainpony unicorn with enthusiastic surname. “I suppose the boiler will give up faster that way.”
For the next several minutes, the entire herd of the passengers was listening tensely to the loud crackle and clicking, then increasing rumble coming from behind the closed doors of the compartments five and six. Soon it started to sound like a couple of elephants ruining everything inside, making a few ponies exchange concerned glances.
“Is it indeed as severe as he said?” Crystal Chime, whom the foals subtly kept pulling closer to Fluttershy little by little, looked at the girl almost with the hope of getting negative. “About us being attacked by these creatures,” added she in half-voice not to agitate the herd more.
“I’m afraid yes, ma’am,” trying to keep everypony present in her sight, Fluttershy nodded seriously. “I never witnessed or heard about a train car detaching on its own before. Chances are high that we were delayed deliberately.”
“Are you both afraid of nothing?” Storm’s fore hoof clanked lightly on the dark patterned steel plate on her shoulder.
“Are we going to end like… like mom and dad?” almost whispered Aurora.
“I can’t tell for Alex… but I am afraid,” throwing back the pink braid, the girl leaned closer to the colt. “But that won’t help us make through, so, I’m trying my best to hold…”
“We are going to do everything possible to not let that happen!” Fluttershy let out a tiny smile and nuzzled the filly’s mane.
Carrying the bottles and the med pack, both couples returned – the stallions went searching with their spouses. Taking a look over their find, Fluttershy noticed how few the suitable containers were.
“Unfortunately, this is all we could dig out!” answering her glance, one of the stallions shook his head slowly. “We’ll need to preserve the water anyway,” with a regretful look, he rushed with the bottles to the end of the car, where metal crackling of the uprooted boiler was sounding from.
“Truth be told, I wonder why we aren’t attacked yet,” lowering his voice, Alex told Longhaul confidentially when the compartment doors closed behind them. “Usually, these scoundrels aren’t lingering to act!” added he, shoving the fire axe under the bunk fastening and leaning on the handle with force.
“Maybe our car rolled far enough from the spot it was detached from the train,” Longhaul shrugged and got down to work from his side. “We may turn out lucky to have some more time to prepare if the named creatures lose us in such a blizzard.” Unsure if the Seekers ever relied on sight or had any, Alex kept silent.
They were to detach the berths from the inner wall between the compartments first. Both tried to work as fast as they could while keeping all the screws and nails usable. Strained silence from the passageway and the audible howling of the wind from behind the snow-blinded glass goaded the human and the pony to hurry.
“We need to fasten both berths over the compartment windows,” Alex explained the plan. “Triple glassing or not, I don’t want you all to test its durability if the Seekers try to break through!”
Longhaul nodded. Not wasting time, they nailed the removed bunk to the outer wall, almost completely obstructing the compartment window. The compartment submerged in darkness: a tiny stripe of light still shone through above the upper edge of their improvised shutter.
“Will hold… if they don’t try to ram through with their entire mass,” Alex propped the berth additionally with the wide folding table, jamming it that way, nopony could unfold it anymore. “But that will be my job to prevent.”
“You’re going to go outside…” that wasn’t a question, rather a statement of the fact; the stallion shook his head. Grinding off the closet in the corner, Longhaul examined the inner wall appraisingly while Alex was performing the final check of their barricade. In a second, he attacked the bulkhead with his axe, completely disappearing behind the cloud of dust and wooden debris. Several well-placed hits and the loud rumble told about the successful completion of the task, as he crashed through into the next compartment.
“Hmmm… Luckily, it wasn’t bearing and durable,” huffed the stallion. With an earsplitting sneeze, Longhaul showed up again in the newly made opening.
“Yeah,” Alex responded muffledly; with the collar covering his nose and mouth, Rarity’s sweater came out really handy. “I’m afraid that’s the only option,” he waved his arm, driving the dust away. “We can’t let them in, yet I’m sure that these guys will insist on meeting me personally.”
Longhaul only chuckled, shaking his head. Together, they ripped off another berth, blocking the window tightly, then started demolishing the rest of the wall dividing the compartment, trying to strike more and breathe in less often.
“Alex, they are asking if you haven’t broken out from the train already,” when the loud crashing fade out a bit, the door of the compartment slid open, letting out a cloud – Fluttershy even started back for a second. “Oh! Errmmm…” She huffed the dust away.
“I… I am glad some of them kept their humour still,” Alex couldn’t hold back the cough. “We’re done. Give it a moment to settle down!” He and then Longhaul emerged from the darkness of the merged now compartments, shaking off the small wooden trash and blinking in the suddenly bright light of the hallway.
“Watch out! Coming through!” supported by the magical aura, the boiler appeared in their view, resembling a long grey zeppelin sausage. “Sorry, folks,” mister Forward addressed the ponies forced to give the wall. “Here it is,” reported the unicorn, putting the heavy thing at the quickly cleared spot. “We filled all the bottles we had; let the thirsty ones drink while you were… working. Unfortunately, I was to pour away quite a load as well,” the trainpony shrugged regretfully.
“Never mind! Nowhere to contain, it would be wasted anyway,” Alex wasn’t going to let them concentrate on the regretful thoughts. “Please, sir, take a couple more bunks off with mister Hoofer,” Handing the axe to Cab, said Alex, “and block these windows as well.” He pointed at the ones opposing the compartment doors. “Take them from the farthest compartment,” added he after both stallions.
“You, I mean all of you staying here, will need to stoke that oven somehow,” elaborated Alex when both stallions glanced at him inquiringly. Not wasting time, the human fished out something large, sharp and shiny from his luggage. “That means collecting anything that can serve as firewood!” The brought up object turned out to be the folded glaive, causing an excited whoop from Storm Sunflower. Before the surprised eyes of the herd, Alex pulled the boiler into the compartment, leaning over the metal barrel and examining it. “Better start from the farthest ends of the car,” he raised his glance at the listening ponies, “as I expect these creatures to become only more impatient and aggressive with time. Thus the shorter your supply routes become, the better.”
“Quite encouraging…” one of the married stallions shook his head, but Alex saw that it was a mere statement of fact than a rebuke from him.
“Well, I’m not going to lie that it’ll be a walk in the park,” chuckled Alex. “You will need to take everything that can burn, including the luggage you can sacrifice. It’s crucial to keep you all warm for as long as you can. Break the inner trim, take the doors of the compartments, the berths, but keep the outer walls intact obviously. Yeah, don’t disassemble the aux yet,” with the short, well-aimed strikes, he started cutting off the top of the water tank of the boiler. “And… the main thing – wherever you go and whatever for, don’t go alone!” articulated Alex, making sure that everypony heard him. Longhaul and Cab nodded, going to complete their “defence line”.
“Hmpf!” forcing his way between them, the white pegasus seemingly felt the urge to declare his opinion again. “You all staying here”? What does that mean? What are you going to do then?!”
“Go outside,” imperturbably stated Alex, without even a glance at the annoyance, “and make sure none of them finds its way into our carriage!” hearing the crashing sounds coming from afar, he nodded and returned to dissecting the boiler.
Thus, when both stallions returned after several minutes, loaded with two berths, an improvised oven already waited, placed in the middle of merged compartments. Alex cut off the top and a large rectangle opening in the side of the boiler, striking a few small holes near the bottom edge of the water vessel.
“Put the firewood here, into the upper tank,” he pointed at the side hole. “Don’t forget to save it – we need to survive, not overheat. Besides, don’t forget about the smoke,” reaching the car ceiling, Alex ripped away two ventilation grills, revealing the shaft openings. “It’ll go away naturally if produced in moderation,” he nodded at the ventilation holes at the bottom of compartment doors and the vents in the ceiling. “The car airing system will serve as the natural chimney as long as there is some draught.”
“Well…” Alex took a look around the increased room while Longhaul and Cab were nailing the windows shut. “Errmmm… And whose is that?” in the darkened compartment, he pointed at the bag casually thrown at the survived bunk.
“Let me…” the business pony peeked in. “That must be my neighbour’s,” the stallion hoof-bumped his forehead. “I totally forgot…”
“And where is he?” accurately inquired Alex, inwardly knowing the answer – he saw exactly that stallion with some unfamiliar mare on the eve.
“He went to visit his new acquaintance,” shrugged the stallion, his nose turned slightly pinkish though. “That single mare… He headed to see her in her compartment this morning – that’s in another train car; didn’t return since…”
“Hmmm…” muttered Alex. “That may help. Your neighbour may need something from his bag or return and notice… there is nowhere to return. Let’s hope they can notify the station earlier about our absence,” elaborated he, then clapped his hands, making some ponies wince. “Now, come on, everypony! Take your seats according to the booked tickets,” Alex smirked sadly. The feeling growing inside was too familiar to provide tranquillity; seeing understanding in Fluttershy’s eyes, Alex decided to keep silent – he could sense the approaching Seekers already.
“Why does this feel like a trap?” sighed one of the mares when the comrades in misfortune pulled inside; somepony already brought a bunch of newspapers, making the first humble lights dance inside the cut boiler.
“Because this train car was supposed to turn into such as soon as we got detached from the rest of the Express. Sorry, ma’am,” Alex slowly shook his head, watching the entering ponies. “However, it’s in our power to turn it into a fortress instead!”
Waiting for the last of the passengers to enter, Fluttershy pulled him closer.
“Why don’t you want to face them while sleepwalking?” gesturing to lean closer, the girl whispered ardently in his ear. “It won’t be as risky… Besides, the frost wouldn’t affect you this way!”
Alex kept watching the ponies huddled around the slowly warming up oven. With much relief, he noted that the foals and their aunt, just like the rest of the mares, were let closer to the life-preserving fire. The rest gathered around, instinctively keeping some distance from the outer wall of the car. The white troublemaker nested in the corner when his attempt to squeeze closer to the centre failed; the pegasus grumbled something yet didn’t bring much trouble so far. Alex let himself think that perhaps they had a chance to whisk away from the danger this time.
“Can you hear me? You’re going to freeze, Alex!” Fluttershy shook his arm, waking Alex to the reality. “Why not…”
“Sorry, Shy, but I decided!” Alex cupped her cheeks, looking into the shining turquoise eyes lovingly. “This time I can trust my physical form only. Don’t you get it?” he took a look around the crushed compartments. “Where do you think I could stay to guarantee my sleepwalking uninterrupted?” asked Alex quietly, in the most soothing tone he could manage. “If something or somepony wakes me amidst the fight, I won’t be able to react fast being disoriented and…”
Fluttershy pursed her lips silently, still clinging to his arm.
“Shy, please understand, if I’m awakened, I’ll… quit the fight instantly. That lets the monsters do whatever they want for a while,” Alex pulled the girl closer, hugging softly. “What if one of them gets inside while I am sleepwalking?” he inwardly shuddered. “At the very least, I shall be awakened up and attacked, not receiving a chance to react properly. And in the earnest, I hate to think about it getting to you all first…”
“B-but… You can miss a Seeker regardless of your form, nopony is perfect! So what’s the point risking?” the girl wasn’t going to give up.
“Then I am to miss none!” stated Alex. “In mine physical form, mine readiness for the battle doth not depend on the car being sealed from the beasts. Givest me a promise – stay safe and take care of Crystal and the foals! I shall take on the rest outside…”
Instead of an answer, Fluttershy rushed into what was left of their compartment, returning with Alex’s bag in a moment.
“Put on what you can!” peremptorily stated the girl, dropping it at the human’s feet. “Don’t you hear it raging outside?!”
At that moment, something barely knocked on the car casing. That could be snow thrown by the rioting wind; however, Alex noticed how the ponies strained. He could see the tiny sparkles of terror in their eyes and knew what that meant. Unzipping the bag, Alex quickly pulled out an extra sweater as some compromise.
“I can afford as much!” he shook his head. “I’ll feel myself like a barrel under my armour otherwise…”
His eyes searched for somepony while he was pulling the sweater on; attracting the attention of Longhaul and Cab, Alex signalled them to come closer.
“My friends,” Alex lowered the tone when both stallions approached, “within these circumstances, I can count on you only. You two and Fluttershy. I would like you to keep the rest of the passengers… well, as strange as it sounds, under control. For their own sake. Panic is our worst enemy! I can imagine how it feels, mister Forward,” he addressed the trainpony unicorn, who swallowed nervously and constantly looked back at the herd. The stallion focused on his collocutors with visible effort. Longhaul, whom Alex already brought up to date regarding some of the Seekers’ peculiarities, was holding up incomparably better, yet it was clearly taking some concentration to consciously ignore the mental pressure and anxiety the creatures brought with them.
“They are on the verge of panic already, because of the situation itself. Any step further may bring chaos into our task. I shall do my best to keep the creatures at some distance, but… alas, their effect hath some range, so…” Alex shrugged meaningfully.
“There is one thing though…” added he. “While others may be frightened to death, there is one who is arrant unpredictable. One who can worsen the situation by the mere incoherent acts.”
Three ponies exchanged glances; apparently, Alex had no need to explain whom he referred to.
“Watch this “brute”!” stated Alex quietly. “And watch close!”
“Are… Are you going to confront them,” the trainpony jerked the head convulsively towards the train car door, “like that?” The stallion pointed his fore hoof at Alex’s sweater, which didn’t look formidable by the military standards. “I admit you have your own methods, but that’s…” he shook his head, not going to voice what he was thinking.
“Of course, I’m not that presumptuous to go out unprotected,” Alex let out a tiny smile. “And as you mentioned – I have my own… little secrets!”
The next moment, the thin metal band on his forehead enveloped in the silvery glow, the wave of which travelled across the human, making both stallions take a step back. Surprised, Longhaul and Cab witnessed how the unusually looking armour started appearing on the human, leaving only Alex’s head uncovered.
“I won’t wish you good luck not to jinx it away!” Fluttershy held him back for a second when they reached the train car vestibule. Laying his hand on the door lock already, Alex turned and looked into the turquoise eyes; leaning closer, he gladly noted that they had no fear in them but some stern determination instead. “Simply return in one piece, okay!” carefully avoiding the spikes, the girl reached his lips with a short but meaningful kiss.
“Neither shall I then,” the armoured glove travelled clumsily through the lush, fragrant mane. “Simply stay safe, my love! All of you. It shan’t be arrant easy, I’m afraid.”
With a click of its lock, Alex slid the exit door aside – the strong wind immediately threw a bunch of snow into the opening not losing that chance. Fluttershy stifled a shiver under her armour, throwing a glance at the ponies behind: both stallions already returned to the herd – Longhaul’s rational voice reached them, calming somepony in the compartment.
“Lock the door after me, Shy,” the words sounded muffled as the helmet appeared around Alex’s head. The human jumped off the edge, forcedly pulling the door against the efforts of the strong wind, which ruffled and fluffed the feathers on Alex’s wings. “And don’t open any of them or the windows unless I clearly tell you that I need to get inside!”
Fluttershy nodded shortly, squinting from the gusts throwing the strands of her mane in her face. The shut door isolated the train car from the raging weather.
Minding the time, Alex took a minute to examine the butt of the train car nevertheless. The soft, made of some rubber-like material sleeve, supposed to envelop the intercar passage, was hanging limply, torn to multiple scallops by the mass of the transport piece. Some of the metal constructions inside it were skewed and twisted a bit, showing the forced and improper nature of the detachment of their train car.
‘Hmmm… Sure thing, it wasn’t an accident!’ leaning over the train coupling, Alex examined the mangled hook and stubs of some pipes, which once connected their car to the train heating and braking systems and were now cut open like veins and vessels of a dissected limb. ‘The strike was direct and deliberate!’ He straightened up, struggling to see anything in the swirling mess surrounding them.
Accompanied by some haze, the snow formed a white wall, limiting Alex’s visibility by a thirty-yard diameter area. The big snowflakes – beautiful, yet anything but fluffy – were dancing in the changing wind. From time to time, flowing straight to the ground, the ghostly veil jerked aside occasionally and fluttered in visible sheets and strands when stronger gusts drove the snow almost horizontally, making it even harder to discern something around. Neither of the actors of that surreal play planned to calm down – it wasn’t a question of when the blizzard ended but rather of how long they could hold on until the help was supposed to arrive.
In one direction, running from under the train car, the rails were frosting right in front of his eyes, becoming dull and disappearing under the surging snow even before they hid behind the milky haze. Turning back, Alex could barely see the opposite end of the blue carriage. Intended to look bright and optimistic during the ride, it suddenly turned dark and gloomy in that place where the grey-white sky subtly transformed into the grey-white land in the details-erasing blizzard. No matter how hard he tried, Alex couldn’t see what surrounded them behind the visibility line; it could be a forest or some cliffs or endless plain miles and miles around. The latter was more realistic to suppose, judging by the speed of wind howling wildly in the narrow gap under the train car.
Alex could see neither if there was any danger lurking around them in the snowy haze. But he could feel it. Or them rather. Several creatures, more than five as he concluded. They didn’t hurry to approach but at the same time were not going to leave. Alex shook his head slowly: he could imagine the condition of the ponies inside the train car – the Seekers were giving them a hard time even before actually appearing in the view.
Unfurling his wings, Alex soared, shaking off the snow and bursting it into the air. He had no right to leave the motionless train car even for reconnaissance purposes, but undertaking nothing wasn’t his credo either. Seeing Fluttershy’s concerned glance in the exit door window, Alex nodded to her shortly, then rose higher when the girl disappeared in the depth of the train car. He landed on the car roof, fairly supposing that it could give him some advantage – thus he could see a bit further (or at least Alex tried to convince himself) and everywhere around their railway carriage.
Not wasting time, the human squeezed the glaive handle: with the quiet rustle, the weapon started growing in his hand obediently. The sections unfolded one from another, locking and forming a proper handle; finally, the blades turned into the armed position with an icy zap.
‘I’d prefer it to get stuck in the armed position, than in folded,’ inwardly smirked Alex. Folding his wings that way, so he could at least pretend to be ignoring the strong wind blowing into his back, he prepared to wait for the mean opponents.
“What was that sound?!” one of the mares rushed to Fluttershy as soon as the girl returned to the ponies waiting in the compartment concernedly. Looking around, Fluttershy noticed the same shared questions in the eyes of the rest and did her best for her tiny smile to look natural and encouraging.
“Alex got to the train car roof. He could probably see better that way in the snowy mess outside – the blizzard is truly blinding,” she shuddered as if still feeling the gust of wind throwing the snow into the passageway as soon as they opened the door. Trying to assure herself, Fluttershy added. “Don’t worry, we own the situation so far!”
“…or get into a safer place…” quietly huffed the white pegasus in his corner. Even if he muttered that for himself, Fluttershy caught the phrase perfectly – a grimace of reproach appeared on the girl’s face.
“Why don’t you join him… and explain the undoubtedly approaching monsters about your supremacy personally?” she squinted, turning slowly and measuring the “brute” with a meaningful look.
Her opponent huffed something again; not getting a definite answer, Fluttershy nodded inwardly and addressed the rest of the herd.
“The railway tracks are completely blocked by the snow, as I could see,” the girl noticed ruefully. “A few yards forward and the road turns into a snowdrift already.”
A sigh of concern rolled across the darkened compartment lit only with a weak glow of the improvised oven.
“Which makes that,” Fluttershy nodded towards the flames dancing in the cut boiler, “really vital. Staying together and quiet – as well!” added she with emphasis.
“If snow is blocking everything,” Storm Sunflower threw a worried glance up at Fluttershy, “how are we going to be rescued?” At these words, Aurora snuggled closer to her brother, looking into Fluttershy’s eyes with the hope that the mare in steel had some reassuring answers. “How?” whispered the filly under her breath.
“I suppose they have… suitable resources,” Fluttershy nuzzled the kids. “The rescue team. They live here constantly. That’s not the first blizzard and snowdrifts in their practice! We just need to hold on for a few hours.”
“On the other hoof, the snowdrifts aren’t that bad in our situation,” added Fluttershy pensively.
“How come?!” hugging the foals, Crystal Chime glanced at her uncomprehendingly. Half of the ponies followed suit, raising their surprised eyes at the girl.
“With the road blocked by snow,” elaborated Fluttershy, “we don’t risk the following train to crash into us at least. There will be no trains until the railroad is cleaned – that means until we are picked up by the railroad emergency team.”
The trainpony grunted concernedly; realizing that it sounded not very optimistically, Fluttershy could only shrug.
“If choosing between two evils…” The girl attempted to encourage the rest. “At least, we have one problem less to worry about!”
“She is right!” Mister Hoofer supported her wholeheartedly; his nod looked probably more confident than the stallion felt, but he gave a sincere smile.
“Why don’t we go and find more fuel?” Longhaul picked up the fire axe. “I mean, while it’s still quiet and we can move freely across the train car.”
“Yeah! Let’s go,” Cab Forward gladly grabbed onto that possibility, welcoming something to distract from the feelings delivered by the creatures outside, “and take everything we can tear off from the farthest compartment!” he levitated the crowbar as if weighing it in the air.
“Don’t forget about the extinguisher board itself,” noticed Longhaul. “It was made of wood…”
He fell silent when the white pegasus suddenly got up, making his way forward. Everypony around seemed to be equally surprised by that – seeing him willing to help was the last thing passengers expected. The stallion picked up one of the axes, showing determination by his entire look. Longhaul and Cab exchanged glances and Longhaul shrugged, letting the pegasus through; the compartment door closed behind them.
“What?!” With the habitual challenging look, he turned, noticing the glances the other two stallions followed him with. “Didn’t expect that, eh?”
“Frankly speaking – yes,” Longhaul’s expression and smile couldn’t cause aggression probably by the pickiest standards; however, the irony in his voice was also audible. “Why if you weren’t happy about the methods used anyway?”
“Well…” The “brute” gave Longhaul a long evaluative look, but failed to find any dubious undertone and cocked his head again. “We are going to survive, are we not? I’d prefer to be sure that we have enough firewood not to freeze then.”
The trainpony made an understanding mien, but he intercepted Longhaul’s meaningful glance and nodded when they both let the pegasus forward.
“Where do we start from?”
“Let’s disassemble one of the water closets and “tenth” first,” the trainpony pointed counter the train direction, “as we decided to keep the aux yet.”
The wind and snow were not going to give up easily: even despite the higher vantage point, one and a half dozen yards in any direction – and everything turned into a smudged mess. It resembled some white noise on the television screen… with the exception that it was white noise on the white background. Inwardly anathematizing the circumstances, Alex took several cautious steps along the train car roof. He was to be careful: warm air escaping through the vents turned the roof metal around them icy and slippery, especially for steel armour soles.
As far as he could see, the train car roof was empty, untouched, with the only scratches appearing on the metal because of his spiky boots. So was the area around the car; no signs of intruders, no trails. Although, the latter would be smoothed out fast by the omnipresent snow. Alex already felt how the small snowdrifts tried to form on his shoulders and head.
He walked to another end of the train carriage, peering into the surroundings yet seeing nothing except the flying snowflakes galore. The scratching and creaking he heard were coming from inside the car; straining first, Alex relaxed a bit – those were the sounds of volunteers scavenging for the firewood. However, he was to believe his inner feeling to know – they were not safe. That sensation couldn’t be mistaken for anything: several creatures were lurking around behind the blizzard.
‘More than five,’ Alex listened to himself. ‘No, rather more than ten!’
‘They became surprisingly cautious this time,’ a grimace distorted his face under the helmet; Alex wiped the mirror-like faceplate from the settling snow. ‘Something new! They were usually more hit-or-run straightforward…’
He headed back across the train car, struggling with the wind and trying to step lighter, not to alarm the already frightened ponies inside. Something on the edge of his sight made Alex stop abruptly. A dark silhouette glimpsed through the snowy veil.
A flying silhouette!
Slowly, trying to miss no single movement around, Alex turned on the spot, examining the landscape as thorough as nasty weather only allowed. The dark shadow – Alex saw it for a fraction of a second only, not sure if it was really a thing – was too large for a bird. Considering the blizzard, the place and the mere fact that they hardly saw any birds in the sky that day, he was to dismiss that idea. On the other hand, as Alex admitted, he was inwardly prepared for something alike.
‘If the… common Seeker could accommodate quite fast, turning from ethereal to fully materialized to reflect the threat coming from me more effectively…’
The dark shadow glimpsed again. Even if it was only a smudged dash against the snowfall, Alex was now completely sure – that wasn’t a product of his imagination, fatigue or dance macabre of the blizzard. One more thing was obvious – the creature was nimble enough, especially compared to the common Seekers.
‘Nimble and kinda slim… judging by its frame!’ Alex slowly turned around, starting to rotate the glaive. He just reached the end of the car where he started, thinking out hectically whether he had any way to notify those inside the train car about the danger.
‘Staying on the spot isn’t a good idea anyway when you have such a bullet flying around!’ Besides, he had no idea how many of those could actually attack.
However, the creature suddenly landing on the opposite end of the train car roof, made Alex freeze and stare at it amazedly. Accustomed to the generally horse-like look of the regular Seekers – Alex cringed at the idea of how regular those bastards became for him – he was expecting something along the same lines. Something like pegasi of Equestria, but not what he was finally observing in entirety silently.
Hands down, the vision was surprising and disgusting at the same time: the raven-dark creature standing on the metal roof shared with the familiar Seekers the same glowing, red eye-like orifice, the colour and the misty substance visibly flowing and curling around its body. The similarities ended at those! The Flyer (as Alex mentally named the new abomination at once) most resembled some sort of bony pterodactyl, covered by dimly glistening black leather, with leather-like plicate wings instead of upper limbs. Threads of the snow carried by the strong wind swirled around the creature’s legs and unusually long “thumbs” on the tops of its wings. Thin and blade-like, the extremities seemed to be made solely of sharp bones coated by the dark skin everywhere except razor-sharp edges. Imagining how the creature must walk with the audible clacking and creaking with that constitution made Alex shudder.
Standing on the tips of those four legs, the monster slowly turned its head. Whatever it had for the head, as it practically consisted of the single red “eye” and the same long sharp blade where the normal bird would have had its beak. A single look at that thing was enough to conclude – the monster was created to kill primarily. The Flyer’s stubby butt surprisingly had no tail, and Alex inwardly thanked for no extra weapon added to the beast’s arsenal.
Strangely, the monster didn’t rush into attack as if studying the human first, making Alex wonder if the so-called Flyer had some actual vision in human or pony sense, or relied on the different senses instead. The creature definitely originated from the same roots as the Seekers, except being faster (at least in the air) and more morbid.
Knowing that he was to get rid of that vicious generosity someday, Alex didn’t attack it first either and was watching the flying Seeker with growing disgust. The more Alex was staring, the more agitated the creature turned. Its short jerky movements reminded the human about some mantis, an oversized and extremely ugly one.
Starting to spin his glaive again, Alex made a small step forward. The metal roof produced a barely audible tingle.
The monster turned its head to Alex, sharply, momentarily. Like a wild splice of bird and insect, it jerked, stepping aside and turning to face the enemy. If not seeing, the Flyer was definitely feeling human’s presence, just like its predecessors. So far, it didn’t look afraid of his presence or simply cautious, rearing up and demonstrating the blades threateningly with short abrupt movements. While it stomped on the spot (surprisingly heavily for its constitution), one of its claws accidentally penetrated the roof; going through, it got stuck in the metal for a moment. With a freezing heart, Alex wondered how sharp and dangerous those blade-like legs must be. Granted, they could hardly damage his armour, but the mere force of the strike was quite impressive of an image.
Using two fire axes and the crowbar to their advantage, three stallions already finished ripping off the wall panels and trim of the train car lavatory. They tried their best to produce less sound – inevitable though if one tried to disassemble the wooden parts in a hurry – listening every moment to the muffled footsteps coming from the car roof.
“That seems to be all we could rend here!” Longhaul took a look over the heap of wooden planks and debris.
“Fine!” Cab’s eyes performed the final scan of the small room for anything that could still be used as fuel. “I’ll go pick the extinguisher board off the wall and you two… can start with the tenth,” the unicorn waved his fore hoof towards the next compartment.
“Wait!” the white pegasus glanced at him as if the trainpony started behaving suspiciously insane. “We were not supposed to go alone anywhere. Besides, I suppose that we should bring these first,” he poked the wooden heap. “Less noise and so on…”
“Fair point,” not expecting himself to come to a consensus with that guy, Longhaul was to nod nevertheless.
Cab shrugged. Enveloping the door with his aura, he accurately peeked into the passageway, checking both ends of the train car, then turned to his companions.
“It’s clean!” the unicorn waved at them to follow, grabbing a good portion of wood with his magic.
But before the three stallions made a few steps into the passageway, the roof above them sounded with loud blood-chilling skirr – the ceiling trim parted, breaking into small pieces, which powdered the frozen ponies, and revealing the metal parting into a widening hole. Something long came through, reaching almost the middle of the passage and shining with the sharp edges. The stallions could barely dodge the seemingly imminent strike and flattened along the corridor walls, watching with dropped jaws how the thin, black extremity jerked and wiggled convulsively. Something horrid on the train car roof was trying to free its undoubtedly stuck part, pulling the blade-like thing with screeching and crackling of the metal above.
Feeling how his heart slowly returns to its normal pace, Longhaul took a look around his companions flattening along the walls; he gestured with his eyes only towards the middle of the train car. However, one of them seemed to have a different idea: cautiously shifting around the sharp source of danger, the pegasus, who was to recoil to the window when the monster hit the roof, was going to join them at the inner wall of the passageway.
“Shhh!” Longhaul cupped his mouth, signalling them to stay quiet by his entire look.
The bulky stallion nodded; but instead of holding his breath upon reaching the wall, the pegasus reached for the crowbar, Cab was clutching tightly at. The unicorn released the metal bar easily, not understanding the need completely. Noticing the tiny lights of mad excitement in the eyes of their companion, Longhaul could barely shake his head.
Grabbing the tool more comfortably, the white pegasus suddenly attacked the claw still protruding from the ceiling. Attacked with surprising strength and rage, making the crowbar produce a humming sound. The fountain of sparkles splashed from the spot where the metal bar met the creature body, whatever the latter consisted of. Freezing for fraction of a second, the monster’s leg started twitching stronger.
“Don’t like it, bastard! Take this! Take more! And here is another one!” The strikes followed with the speed of a machinegun, as the “brute” shouted, agitating and enraging himself more and more. “Get lost, you fucking crab!!! Out of here!!!”
Longhaul and Cab froze, watching how with the muzzle twisted with rage, he bashed the jerking blade-like leg, again and again, causing new sparkles to fall. Finally, no matter how durable the monster’s extremity was, it started pulling out almost in panic.
“Beat you, wretch!!!” the pegasus almost twitched with a psychotic grimace, throwing the crowbar up.
With the last strong pull, the sharp claw finally popped out of the metal trap, followed by a few clacking steps on the roof outside. Dropping his weapon with a loud tingle, the stallion grabbed the firewood he carried before and rushed into the depth of the train car.
In the falling silence, two stallions exchanged dumbfounded glances; Cab could only shake his head slowly and Longhaul understood him without any words. If not for the steps outside, it seemed they could hear the snow falling on the metal roof. Quickly gathering the remaining wood, both hurried to the merged compartments, not forgetting to pick up the axes and misfortunate crowbar with them.
The pegasus stallion already piled up his load next to the dimly glowing boiler and was standing, doomedly resting his forehead against the bunk they nailed over the compartment window and breathing heavily. Under the uncomprehending glance of his wife, he quickly turned around and cast a rancorous glance at the incoming.
“What did I say?!” quietly but venomously started the “brute”. “This is some bullshit trap! No?!”
“I’m sure that was a pure accident…” accurately noticed Longhaul, putting his load on the floor and keeping his eyes on the opponent. Fluttershy pulled the foals back, subtly shielding them and Crystal with herself. “The creature had no intent to get inside. Neither did know about us… Yet!” added he with emphasis, pulling his hat lower. “If we…”
“Accident, for buck sake!!!” the pegasus punched the soft bunk violently, making the train car casing hum hollowly. The fire of dangerous folly was still burning in his narrowed eyes.
‘This one will kill us all if he keeps making that much noise!’ Fluttershy caught Longhaul’s meaningful look. But before they could say or undertake something, everypony heard another quiet voice.
“Why don’t you simply calm down, mister?” To everypony’s surprise, Storm stepped forward from behind Fluttershy; measuring the pegasus thrice larger than himself with the calm look, the colt was entirely confident in his right. “If you want us all…” Storm emphasized deliberately, “to survive, you either do something for that… or don’t prevent others from doing.” The stallion’s jaw dropped in bewilderment; truth be told some other passengers followed suit. Meanwhile, watched by Crystal Chime with the entirely new look, the colt glanced at Fluttershy, then Longhaul and added. “Shouting won’t help… unless you want to join Alex and try shouting at monsters to repel them… probably.”
The pegasus opened and closed his mouth at a loss; looking around the compartment and meeting mostly the reproachful eyes, he wanted to reply to Storm in his usual manner, but…
“Look, sir! Your wish to help was appreciated…” Longhaul stepped between them; an epitome of subtlety, he scratched his nape with the crowbar he was still holding. “But your aggressive spurt wasn’t.”
“It wasn’t smart to give out us hiding here,” added he after a heavy meaningful pause, adjusting his hat. “And if you keep making noise and putting us all in danger… I will be forced to knock you out, sir! Understood?”
“And I have enough sheets to tie you into a mummy if you keep making trouble,” mister Forward gave the brute a look from under the brows.
The pegasus froze, choking on words because of that organized counteroffensive. Prudently catching the moment, his spouse pulled him back, whispering something calming into the white strained ear. However, intercepting her glance, Fluttershy noticed that it was rather thankful than any else.
Miss Chime pulled Storm back, shaking her head slowly; however, her eyes were smiling when she looked at her nephew. Aurora looked at her brother with plain astonishment.
“Thanks!” whispered Fluttershy to Longhaul. “For a short while, I thought I would need to kick him myself…” She threw a meaningful look on her steel-shod hooves.
The attack from inside of the train car turned out for Alex hardly less surprising than for the Seeker. Watching the twitching creature attempting to free its leg from the metal trap, the human even forgot to attack the monster. To his bewilderment, Alex realized that he was hearing the shouts coming from the train car – somepony attacked the Seeker’s leg deliberately and violently.
He unfroze only when the Seeker finally managed to pull out his blade-like extremity, stomping his legs with visibly more accuracy now. Grabbing the glaive firmly, Alex prepared for the uneasy battle: despite the sharp, jerky movements, the seemingly clumsy creature turned out quite fast and tough. With the steel rattle, the Seeker dashed to the human, resembling the attacking mantis even more at that moment.
The first strike of the monster was deflected by Alex with a single wide swing of the glaive! The steel met the creature’s claw… sending sparks fly into the air! That blow could easily cut the equine-like Seeker’s leg off and even made the Flyer step back. However, the glaive only scratched the dark chitin-like surface of the claw. Comforting himself with a thought that the strike came out merely tangential, Alex was to admit that it would take more than one blow to cut off extremities that durable.
After a momentary confusion, the creature produced another dry clicking sound – it was unclear if the monster itself or its angular legs made it – and resumed the interrupted attack. The winged abomination aspired to pierce its enemy or at least inflict cuts as severe as it possibly could. The human and the Seeker started spinning in the deadly dance; each tried to incapacitate the opponent faster, ensuring the damage would appear hard enough to finish the enemy. As if breaking from its leash, the wind started howling shrilly, coming in strong gusts and pouncing the fighters. It swirled around them, throwing handfuls of snow in Alex’s face and ruffling the feathers of his wings, making them stand. Desperate to sneak and trail in and between the armour parts, as the frost wasn’t a threat for the fast-moving, heated human at that moment, the wind found its vengeful joy in pushing Alex in random directions, using his wings as a sail.
Wholeheartedly hoping that the wind was hindering the monster’s movements as much, Alex noticed that his enemy wasn’t feeling very confident on the train car roof. Of course, some jerkiness was dictated by the “flyer’s” gnarly, wicked constitution – it was hard to expect it to move on the ground or generally any surface as fluidly and naturally as its equine-like brethren. But there was more to it; that variant of the monster looked as if it was created to be the perfect airborne killer… at the expense of treating its ground capabilities slipshod.
‘Some…thing created you in a hurry!’ Alex smirked inwardly. ‘To react to the quickly changing circumstances and threats for their mission, whichever it was. It seems,’ he swayed his weapon sharply; hissing in the air, the glaive beat off the Seeker’s claw, sending another large bunch of sparks flying as if Alex was forging some metal instead, ‘that the distance and…’ Alex made a lunge, trying to use the momentary gap to his advantage and make a hole in the monster’s wing at least, ‘…informational delays are indeed a thing!’
The abomination managed to fold in some inscrutable way, diving under the glaive and evading the piercing strike; in the attempt to hit the human’s legs instead, the monster made a wide grappling move while staying low.
‘These guys aren’t to be underestimated!’ grinning wryly, Alex jumped right in time to dodge the long blades trying to catch his legs. The wings unfurled, keeping him in the air; with all possible strength – he had no time or space for a proper swing – the human’s right foot met the creature’s “beak” with a booming sound. ‘However…’
As the result of the sudden counterattack and its gravity centre shifted, the beast lost its balance and was to lean on its fore claws, spreading its wings quite clumsily.
The glaive already flashed in the snow-filled air, aiming down!
Catching that opportunity, Alex did his best to hit the monster’s wing. Pinning the thing to the train car would be the perfect gift; damaging its wing would suffice either. He missed it by a mane strand though!
With some incredible impulse, seemingly using its hind legs only (Alex was surprised by those blades being capable of that), the Seeker managed to whisk back like some giant, pulling its wing from under Alex’s impaling hit. Alex was to pull the glaive back, quickly interrupting the strike, not to get the blade stuck in the train car metal, and the monster had time to regain its balance, rising to all four.
The creature strained; however, not to pounce again, but rather soar as Alex noticed in the last moment. Not losing a second, he rushed to the monster, shortening the distance and barraging the Seeker with short, strong blows. Each one sent bright sparks into the cold air: the glaive slipped off the creature’s claws surface, leaving scratches and notches. To cut those blade-legs, Alex needed to strike at the right angle or aim slightly above the claw, at the point it attached to the rest of the wing. It was nearly impossible at that pace of attack. However, that wasn’t what Alex actually planned.
‘So, you want to get airborne again, bastard!’ Breaking the creature’s balance with hard hits, Alex aimed each second blow at the Seeker’s wings, constantly threatening to damage them. ‘I’ll be damned if I allow such a missile attack in the air!’
The dark spawn of somepony’s perverted mind was to retreat, defending its obvious advantage the creature couldn’t use at the moment. Its enemy seemed to guess the only real weak point and wasn’t going to let the Seeker soar as any attempt to spread the wings would mean having them cut off in a wink. Clicking and scratching on the roof metal, the monster backed off, forced to deflect the hail of strikes peppering the train car with sparks on each impact.
‘I’ll pinch it in the corner of the roof and…’ Alex squinted – a stroke of darkness glimpsed in the surrounding snowy mess. ‘Another one! That’s going to be harder than it looked!’
Thankfully, he spotted the approaching silhouette reflecting in one of the blades of his weapon. Inflicting another short blow to the enemy almost flatwise with the glaive, Alex dashed into the snowy sky right the moment before another flying beast reached the scene of the fight from behind.
The result surpassed his most optimistic expectations – Alex couldn’t hold back a snort, making a loop in the air. With the speed that high, the flying Seeker couldn’t interrupt its dash momentarily; another monster was focused on the human who unexpectedly stopped the attack and soared. With dry crackling, one creature crashed into another: locked together, the entire heap rolled on the train car roof with the loud rumble; beating out more sparks and wearing off the ventilation caps, they disappeared behind the edge, smacking into the snow. Alex fancied a muffled cry of fear coming from inside of the train car.
“What’s going on, for Celestia’s sake?!” the pupils of one of the deadly scared mares shrunk to the pinpoints; another one wasn’t far from fainting, shaking visibly.
“Quiet! Quiet, please!” Fluttershy tried to calm down the alerted passengers, pulling both mares closer to the centre of the small herd. Strangely the noise from above didn’t startle her much – somehow, the girl was sure that nothing was threatening Alex’s life at that moment. “Alex is simply trying to fend off the… whatever has found us. Just stay quiet!” Articulated she with emphasis.
“Don’t be afraid, kids!” She leaned to the foals. “Everything is going to be okay…”
‘I wholeheartedly hope!’ added Fluttershy mentally.
“I’m fine,” Storm was surprisingly calm, even squeezing out a semblance of a tiny smile. “I didn’t expect it to be a picnic after Alex said we were going to be attacked.”
“They haven’t been at our farm! Lucky ones!” shrugged Aurora, glancing at the still panicking mares; the filly snuggled to her brother habitually but accepted the circumstances with sad tranquillity as well.
“Oh, my dear!” Miss Chime shook her head, hugging both foals tightly.
‘If somepony described me this day a year ago,’ Fluttershy sighed, watching them, ‘I’d have told them to go get their head checked… What have we lived to?!’ She caught herself on listening carefully to the silence which fell outside interrupted by the draughts of wind only. The new feeling – awareness that Alex was unharmed – was strange but calming.
‘It could be even laughable… if not happening with us!’ Alex was to admit.
Unfortunately, none of the monsters looked hurt, as he could notice, reaching the train car edge and checking on them. Not even stunned much. Taking a few moments to untangle, the Seekers got up and turned around slowly, bogging down in the snowdrifts; a pair of red “eyes” glared at Alex again. That, hilarious otherwise, mishap even played into their claws: watching them climbing out of the snow, Alex missed the perfect moment for attack. When he realized it, both monsters already were spreading their wings. With the first strokes looking clumsy, the flying abominations rose into the air heavily; but as soon as they got on their wings, their clumsiness vanished at once.
Getting on their wings, both flying monsters effectively gained their attack speed in a matter of seconds. They started circling the train car, and none of the Seekers was going to wait till Alex soaring – he was to dodge the first attempts to knock him down as soon as he took off. There in the sky, the creatures turned into truly dangerous enemies. Distancing and approaching again they never gave the human the second strike after he deflected their short attacks, fleeing right when Alex was about to reply with a surplus.
The snow was swirling in the crispy, frosty air, so were the combatants. Three dark silhouettes in the misty sky spiralled around the imaginary axle drawn through the train car centre, coming closer for a fraction of a second to exchange strikes with metal clanking and fountains of sparks. Realizing their tactics, Alex became endlessly thankful to Luna for their recent friendly fight. The entire situation that day looked overly similar, making the human wonder if that had been a lucky coincidence or the Night Princess had had a hunch about something alike happening. Thus, fortunately, he entered that fight prepared, understanding his abilities better and ready to use them to his advantage.
‘Not much, though!’ Alex thought, making the glaive skirr across the incoming monster’s “beak” with a flash of sparks and a nasty screeching sound. The black wretch slapped its wings and turned away immediately before he could aim another blade of his glaive into the monster’s belly. ‘Don’t know how long they can keep that way… Long enough to become a problem, I’m sure!’ Alex noticed the unfortunate similarities with his fight against the timberwolves in October.
Basically, the new Seekers simply tried to impale their enemy on the fly, coming at him at their maximum speed and fleeing again as soon as their attempt failed. They turned out what Alex suspected them to be designed for – the large bullets. Even if dumb and straightforward as they were, the two flying creatures were quite tough to stand against. Alex suspected that with growing numbers of such enemies the problems would grow in geometric progression.
There was another thing complicating the fight: Alex couldn’t let himself move away from the snow-covered train car. Despite any circumstances, he was to keep the situation controlled, the ponies – safe from the monsters lurking around in the snow. Besides, a few more yards aside or up into the sky, and the train car started dissolving in the flowing snow veil – it was so easy to lose the spot, getting too far from it. Deadly easy! Everything looked the same around because of the blizzard; losing the train car from sight, Alex could lose it for good as only his vestibular apparatus could tell him where the ground was, let alone anything else in that case.
However, that seemed to be the thing the monsters aspired to do – luring the human away from the crash site, thus giving their company a chance to approach the prize and try it by the tooth. The first time he noticed it was when Alex attempted to chase one of the creatures after a specifically impudent attack. As if crossing some invisible safety line around the train car, Alex felt how the other creatures started towards it, making him delay his revenge and return at once.
The carriage itself and its passengers might be not so important for them. But Alex had no doubts that Fluttershy’s ability to cure the ponies affected by those creatures might put her under their attack ever since. That and the general chance to distract the human from the fight, thus making him vulnerable to their attacks were most likely what the flying bastards aimed at.
‘Okay, bony heads! It’s either strike or run situation for you anyway, unlikely that you had any alternative,’ Alex decided to bring the fight back to the surface – the train car roof looked suitable enough. ‘Let’s play by my rules, flying rags… As long as your mates keep hiding their butts in the snow!’
Folding his wings, Alex darted towards the ground, making the snow swirl in his trail and braking right above the train car. Exploded by his dash, the thin thread of smoke spread flat; the shreds of it kept flowing down the roof edges for a while, pressed down by the wind. Hovering over the frosted metal, Alex began taunting the creatures to attack the promising target, as if telling – “Here I am, come and get!”
Having no other way out of that lingering encounter, both Seekers continued their attacks on the human as expected. Seeing that their enemy was not going to chase them, they soon concentrated on the power of their impact, trying to hit the human with their entire mass, accelerating as much as possible.
There exactly, the lessons learned in their fight with Luna came to use: no matter how hard the Seekers tried to smite the human, the taunting winged figure always appeared slightly aside their aim just a second before they hit. Alex was about to suspect that those creatures were capable of showing the signs of enragement or frustration, so persistent those living bullets turned in their attempts to get him down.
They whizzed in the gloomy, snow-filled sky like a pair of angry supersonic wasps, coming down one by one on the maximum speed and making the snowfall follow them, bringing bunches of snow into Alex’s face. He only brushed them away with laughter – suddenly the situation turned even slightly amusing. Besides, Alex noticed that he was spending a lot less energy that way than keeping the useless round dance in the sky. Even if his dodges looked more like teleporting for the foreign eye.
One moment the hovering figure froze barely above the train car roof.
The bony flying menace was coming fast, folding its wings and aiming its spear-like beak at the human; the red eye focused on the target almost hatefully.
It seemed nothing could save from the approaching missile.
The next moment it was already nothing at the spot and the flying creature heavily changes its trajectory, almost slapping its wings on the train car metal and turning into the sky again. The human appeared a couple of yards aside in a wink, lazily trying to slap the Seeker with his glaive but without much effort – he was perfectly holding his position.
‘I wonder, how much time will it take those bony heads to realize I can keep that play longer than they imagine!’ Deflecting the Seekers’ repeating attacks, Alex wasn’t forgetting to throw an occasional look around in case any of their mates decided to infiltrate the train car in that ruckus. So far none of them in the field (Alex assumed that it was actually a plain around them) dared to try; all seemed to be waiting for him to make a mistake and fall.
Seeing another attack incoming, Alex inwardly sighed and got his glaive ready. The wings strained, the next second making the snowfall around smudge like an unsuccessful photo and sending him not strictly aside but rather towards and under the rushing creature. The glaive jerked in his hand, bringing a vengeful smirk to Alex’s face.
With the nasty ripping sound, one of the blades met the leathery wing of the monster, tearing it across almost from the margins to the back edge. The flying thing fell on the damaged side, losing height.
Feeling the overload with his entire body, Alex braked and turned in the air. The world around regained sharpness momentarily.
The next moment, the giant feathery wing slapped the wounded Seeker on the fly, knocking it down at once and practically smacking it into the train car roof, breaking the thin ice with the creature’s body.
Alex froze in the air for a moment, watching the Seeker – beaten but not defeated – rising heavily and clumsily to its legs. The right wing of the creature trembled, flapping heavily when the dark abomination tried to soar, but it was unable to lift its owner anymore. With dry knocking of the claws on metal, the ex-flying monster turned around, not going to give up. From the corner of his eye, Alex noticed another creature landing on the roof edge behind him.
Without further lingering, both Seekers attacked at once, trying to take Alex into a tight vice of razor-sharp claws striking from both sides in a raging attempt to take down the persistent and so far invulnerable enemy. The fight burned up with increased strength. Spinning like mad and delivering strikes back and forth, Alex noticed with grim satisfaction that the armour they made with Willsmash was still doing its job perfectly. The occasional hits simply slipped off its smooth faces, screeching on the steel but unable to penetrate the plates. As for the closer encounter, the monsters preferred to avoid it, prudently keeping away from the tactically placed metal thorns.
Realizing that it turned into the battle of endurance and the advantage was after all at the enemy’s side, Alex would prefer both Seekers attacking him from one side as while he took on one monster, another had time and opportunity to check his armour for strength. The creatures in their turn appeared smart enough to recognize Alex’s efforts to properly “herd” them and face both at once.
Through the array of flailing blows, the combatants were constantly stomping around, making the train car roof hum with rattling metal sounds. The monsters did their worst to spin Alex, expecting him to get distracted or even fall; needless to say that all they would need in that case was to pounce at him with the combined mass and wait for their “friends” to arrive. Alex, however, tried to dodge the hits and tactically lure or force both creatures to one side of himself.
Rotating his glaive like a deadly propeller, Alex started advancing, bashing the crippled monster repeatedly and pushing it to the train car edge. The double-bladed weapon whistled in the air, fanning away the flying snow and smacking heavily into the Seeker. The human hit it in all the possible ways, aspiring not to cut but rather stun and push off, delivering the flat strikes and aiming into the monster’s head. Kicking the Seeker off the roof would give Alex time to deal with another creature one-on-one as the first one couldn’t get back from the ground with its ripped wing.
As soon as Alex started feeling triumphant – the first Seeker’s butt was inching towards the roof edge, almost reaching it and making its owner fret, another Seeker rushed into a fierce attack, drumming the human’s steel back with the claws and flapping its wings with the loud noise. While not immediately threatening, those hits were quite palpable and distracting as if Alex was safely (thanks to the armour) yet persistently bucked in his back not by a pony, but by a full-grown horse or alicorn for that matter.
However, the next strike was definitely aimed to try piercing the armour or at least give Alex a severe concussion: the Seeker attacking from behind leaned back to gain momentum, aiming its pointy beak right between the human’s shoulder blades. The planned strength of the blow would have made Alex lose balance or experience a moment of overwhelming pain enough to perform an undeflected series of dangerous hits.
Throwing a glance over the shoulder, Alex bashed the frontal Seeker across its pointy head as hard as he could, making the creature flinch back. He started turning right in time: the hit was supposed to turn out monstrous, but the beak of another Seeker slid on Alex’s armour with a loud skirring sound, barely contacting the armour. On the contrary, the back blade of Alex’s glaive found its aim, sticking out of the red “eye” of the rear Seeker.
The glow faded, and the disgusting bony creature froze for a fraction of a second as if switched off by somepony’s invisible hoof. The Seeker twitched once and went limp, hanging with its weight on Alex’s weapon. Turning around, Alex forcedly pushed the creature aside, pulling the glaive out not to let it get stuck in the monster’s skull. The large wing finished the job, striking the already disintegrating carcass off the train car roof, into the snow, where the defeated Seeker collapsed with its entire weight, scratching the metal with its blade-like legs.
‘Damn it!’ flashed in Alex’s head – his leg slipped on the iced metal and in a wink Alex fell flat on the train car roof, crumpling the last surviving ventilation cap. The hit was so hard it would beat all the air out of the human’s lungs; by some miraculous coincidence, Alex tucked and managed to fold his wings in time. They softened the fall, not turning out a perfect target for the remaining enemy. Nevertheless, the train car roof and the snowfall tripled in Alex’s view for a moment.
Meanwhile, another Seeker recomposed from the human’s attack, distancing from the roof edge and having enough time to plan out its vengeance. Its opponent was lying flat on his back, open for the attack. Not lingering for a second more, the Seeker rushed forward, swaying and hitting with its fore claws one by one, as if trying to make the human pay the full price for the damaged wing.
Almost pushing with his legs from the rising and hitting down blades, Alex spent several moments snaking away on his back from under the attacking thing. The latter was so determined to finish what it started that the strikes became heavier and more enraged second by second. The last strike was so strong, both claws of the Seeker went deep through the metal, making the flying beast wriggle and jerk for a while to release them.
Thankfully, Alex fell with his wings folded. Thus, pushing away from the stomping thing, he rolled to and over the edge of the roof, grabbing the narrow water tray with one hand. Making his fingers almost creak inside the armoured glove, Alex swung with his entire weight; unfurling and giving a monstrous flap, the wings provided the additional impulse, throwing him back to the train car top. Regaining the balance, Alex applied all the force into a single, wide swish.
It was impossible to miss at that moment!
With a well-aimed strike, the glaive met the Seeker’s neck under the right angle, chopping the monster’s head off and sending it flying into the blizzard, sticking into the snow with its sharp beak.
The black abomination flopped down like a sack of rags, clacking its lifeless claws on the roof! Swirling and curling into the thin threads and strands, the Dark Mist started escaping the decapitated body, flowing above the icy metal towards Alex, finding the tiniest gaps between armour plates and seeping inside.
Getting used to the terrifying sounds above their heads, the passengers seemed to submit to their fate, whatever it was going to deliver. Different kinds of rattling and heartrending screeching of steel, sounding as if the train car metal was about to be torn – nothing could make the ponies fret. Silently waiting for the ending of the battle unrolling outside, they looked at each other with the doomed tranquillity; not even the strong thumps making the train car roof visibly swell inside with dents made them shudder, let alone panic.
Forced to reassure and comfort the frightened mares and stallions at first, Fluttershy watched them now with surprise – so quiet the ponies herding around the small flickering fire became as soon as the hell broke loose behind the train car walls. She kept talking to them nevertheless; however, if later somepony asked what she was telling, Fluttershy wouldn’t have been able to remember. Subtle, carefully searching for the gap in their sanity panic circled around, approaching and distancing in waves as if only waiting for the right moment to pounce. Fluttershy was to admit that the terror didn’t feel overwhelming; probably because of the distance the Seekers preferred to stay at, or maybe the reason was simpler – hope was holding their minds together. Anyway, her words and touch worked, and the girl was determined to do her best to keep the small herd adequate.
The white pegasus stallion was probably one of those worst affected by the circumstances. Once an arrogant brute, he almost curled in his corner at that moment, capable to perceive his wife’s word only – the mare kept holding his fore leg and whispering something to his strained ear. Fluttershy felt a tiny prick of conscience for first being harsh with that, terrified to the point of psychosis, guy and now not giving him a supporting hoof. However, a certain part of her mind presumed that it would hardly be wholeheartedly accepted. And, in fact, when she tried to address the shaken stallion, the latter winced from the girl as if she was the Seeker terrorizing the passengers. Giving Fluttershy an understanding and almost apologetic smile, the little pale-saffron mare shook her head subtly, gaining her spouse’s attention again and trying to soothe him on her own.
The most surprising turned out to be the foals’ behaviour: keeping close to Fluttershy, both Storm and Aurora were listening to the sounds of the battle outside, seemingly showing no fear, as the only thing concerning them was trying to guess what exactly was happening at the train car roof. The girl almost saw how they tried to watch it with their inner view, perking their ears. Wondering if she had managed to pass her sudden confidence to the foals somehow, Fluttershy threw a glance at their aunt – miss Chime looked a bit pale, yet a weak smile and grateful glance she returned told Fluttershy that the mare was doing her best to hold.
Something collapsed on the train car roof heavily, a blood-chilling rattle of the claws ceased abruptly. The silence that followed felt louder than a dozen of avalanches; freezing on their spots and listening, the ponies started exchanging concerned glances, finally able to hear the plangent howling of the wind behind the thin walls. Slow first, then faster and faster, the sense of terror and desperation ebbed away. That change turned out nearly as shocking as the first, even if contactless, acquaintance with the mind-wrecking enemy.
A couple of loud steps on the metal burst-popped the windy silence outside, followed by a juicy sound of the unfurling wings. The train car trembled pushed by somepony getting airborne. Distancing, the flapping didn’t cease; occasionally coming through the squeals and howls of the raging blizzard, they seemed to be circling the motionless train car.
Little by little, listening to themselves as if still fearing that the feeling of monsters’ presence might return, the ponies came into motion, cautiously interesting in their co-travellers wellbeing. The foals seemed to be ready to break into the happy gallop around the merged compartments. Fluttershy caught them and squeezed into a tight short embrace, pushing back her tears with an enormous effort, then releasing Storm and Aurora, so their aunt could grab and cuddle them not going to release soon.
“Err… Errmmm…” Cab Forward wiped the big glistening sweat drops from his forehead, not noticing that he dropped his pushed to the nape uniform cap to the floor. “Wasn’t… Wasn’t Alex supposed to return… to warm up at least… I mean, the weather is extremely unfriendly outside, and he has been there for quite a while already. That’s dangerous!”
‘I know! Sweet Harmony, I know!’ screamed somewhere inside of Fluttershy’s soul. ‘I would like to bring him inside immediately more than anything else!’
Feeling that her lips were about to tremble treacherously, the girl pursed them so hard they turned paler. Swallowing a sudden lump, Fluttershy straightened; her eyes gave a spark, looking around the muzzles in the dim flickering light.
“I believe, Alex knows better what to do!” sounding with more confidence than she felt, the girl stomped her fore hoof on the floor – the armour plates clanked loudly. “The monsters can return any time… I’m going to trust him with my life! You all better do as well.”
Standing on the train car roof, Alex took a look around – nopony and nothing dared to approach them from the surrounding snowfall. The white swirling veil ate all the sounds and colours, and nothing disturbed the swirling snow globe they seemed to get into. The human caught himself on the urge to turn his eyes to the train car occasionally while watching the landscape; that was the only way to ensure that something still kept standing on the solid ground, the only way to avoid inevitable vertigo. The Seekers’ presence vanished completely as Alex could tell. Either the creatures decided to leave the unbreakable prey alone or at least distanced far enough for him to feel them.
However, Alex wasn’t that naïve to indulge in vain hope that the black monstrosities completely gave up the idea of attacking the so promising train car stuck in the snowdrifts.
‘I am still alive only because hoping for the best I was always inwardly prepared for the worst!’ a wry smile ran across Alex’s face when the magical helmet opened for a short while to let in some cool wind. ‘Hopefully, I can teach the ponies around the same useful trick, as so far I could see only a few of them treating the situation truly realistic.’
‘But before that, I need to keep that forsaken train car safe by any cost! At least for several hours more, until the help arrives…’
With a sigh, he commanded the helmet to close again: what Alex planned was an unsafe thing to perform without protecting his face. His best chance to avoid all the nasty moves the remaining Seekers could undertake was to keep them away from the train car and the ponies inside. Alternatively – to keep the train car isolated from the outer impact.
Mentally drawing a circle of twenty-seven yards in diameter, with the train car in its centre, Alex soared again. His secondary mission was not to freeze solid in the continuing blizzard. As before, moving was his best friend in keeping the acceptable temperature. Speeding up slowly, Alex started circling the drowning in snow train car along the mentally drawn line. His wings didn’t betray him so far: unfurling to the maximum span, they carried him slightly above the motionless carriage. More and more snow was rising from the ground. In a few minutes, Alex reached the speed he so successfully used a few minutes before, his wings pulling even the falling snow after him.
*
The wind calmed down considerably: it wasn’t dragging the large snowflakes parallel the ground anymore but rather made the white grainy veil flow slowly changing direction from time to time and swirling gracefully. Mercifully letting the last rays of daylight through, the clouds thinned, making a casual observer wonder, how such an amount of snow could still be produced. Indeed, the visibility didn’t improve a iota – once limited by the raging blizzard, the view was now blinded by the falling dense snow. Undisturbed silence spread in the frosty air, seemingly letting one hear how the scratchy icy flakes settled one over another with a faint dry rustle. Not a single bird was staining the snow-filled sky; not a single animal dared to leave its prints on the virgin white cover of the valley.
However, the seeming improvements were insidious. Vanquishing and finally driving away the warm weather front, the wind stopped raging, yet the cold air masses kept flooding the valley, constantly flowing from the North and coming around the magical dome. In the face of the approaching night, the temperature was going to drop even more. The snow hardened, compacting under the weight of adding layers. The cold tranquillity of the place was hardly less dangerous than its wrath.
Suddenly, a faint shiver came through the blocked tracks. Thin cracks ran across the snow crust. The snowdrifts crumbled a bit, flowing down the railway mound while something large and heavy moved along the valley, making the ground tremble. Cutting the persistent snowfall, the two blades of bright light started scanning the darkening surroundings, fumbling around the railroad and snatching details of the landscape from the snowy haze. With growing tremors, the snow gave up; it began escaping the rails, pushed by a giant steel wedge.
A gust of hot air pushed the snow veil away, making the separate snowflakes melt on the fly and revealing the mammoth, fiery red locomotive. Topping the three-storey building in height, the monster rolled forward using both railway track pairs, easily cleaning the road with its shiny snow grader which was attached to the loco muzzle like an enormous cowcatcher. The golden digits “303” shone through the dusk from the red hull. Covering several yards by inertia, the machine stopped slowly, exhaling a giant cloud of steam which completely dispelled the snowfall around for a while.
“Give the main light!” sounded from the top of the locomotive: barely guessing from the ground, the upper platform was hiding in the twilight. With a loud click, a broad cone of blinding light fell on the snow-blocked tracks, immediately turning dusk into day for the dozens of yards ahead. The main floodlight couldn’t be turned, always shining in the “Icebreaker” direction unlike the humbler searchlights, but it clearly showed – there was nothing to search for in the viewable distance. The snowflakes seemingly tried to sneak away from its shine, bashfully falling on the empty railway mound.
‘Strange! We already reached the location, they were supposed to detach,’ Wrapping into his cloak, the light-grey unicorn peered along the cone of light shimmering with myriads of falling sparks as if trying to notice something beyond its boundaries. Unwittingly he continued aloud. “According to the words of that stallion and other passengers, who felt the jolt…”
“Slow ahead! Dead crawl!” he leaned over the railings, addressing the motorpony, who was waiting for the further orders, peeking from the located lower cabin. “Last thing they need is the Icebreaker accidentally running into them,” muttered Shining Armour.
Coming from above, the feathery rustle distracted the unicorn from his thoughts. A pegasus guard landed on the platform a bit further: ruffling his feathers and shaking off the snow, he didn’t want to spray the royalty with it.
“Your Highness!” the guard approached, saluting; the unicorn nodded impatiently, telling him to continue. “We found something on the tracks… about a mile ahead.”
“Something?!” Shining Armour raised one eyebrow, watching the guard expectantly.
“Ahem… This… object is standing on the rails,” the pegasus cleared his throat and elaborated a bit confusedly. “It’s nearly the train car in size, so we concluded that must be our goal.”
“What do you mean under “nearly”?” Shining Armour interrupted him. “Is it the train car or not?”
“That was the actual problem,” the pegasus’ nose flushed, which could look comic for the royal guard under the different circumstances. However, both stallions couldn’t probably find anything funny in the current situation. “The thing is standing in the middle of some sort of tornado. Namely – the strong whirlpool of wind and snow, making it impossible to approach. Our search team could discover it and estimate the size of the object inside only with magic,” added he apologetically. “Even so, there is strong interference, Your Highness! Unicorns said that the spells barely came through, but they could glimpse something big circling the object slightly above its height.”
“That must be them! What else…” Shining Armour jerked his shoulder convulsively. “But…”
“Commander! Your Highness!” before any of them could utter a word, another pegasus emerged from the snow in the darkening sky. “The snow barrier is fading,” he kept hovering above the upper platform. “If it keeps that way, we can try to check the object in a few minutes.”
“Commander!” Shining Armour turned to the guard on the observation platform. “Return and take the lead! Approach the object when possible, but don’t take further actions till we arrive.”
“Ahead two-thirds! Keep the main light!” swaying the snow-powdered sapphire mane aside from his muzzle, he waved his fore hoof to the motorpony, who kept listening to the talk above, when the pegasi left saluting. The earth pony stallion nodded and disappeared into the depths of the loco.
A second later, with a loud sigh of the steam engine and metal rumble, the giant red locomotive started, mercilessly crumpling and shoving aside the snowdrifts. Pulled from the snowy darkness, the rest of the train revealed itself one by one: the huge fuel tank, the powerful telescopic crane on the separate chassis, several empty platforms and a couple of regular-size auxiliary locos attached at the tail.
*
Alex had to slow down – he had almost no strength left and the reserves were draining fast. Spending the last few hours jetting in the air around the motionless train car – actually, he long lost the count of time – Alex felt as if there was no single cell in his body that wasn’t freezing. Perhaps the motion was the only thing holding him from hitting the ground like an icicle. That and the reassuring occasional view of the thin smoke thread still coming from the carriage. The enemy presence vanished long ago, but he couldn’t allow himself to lose vigilance; the price of the tiny mistake could have become unimaginable.
When the bright light flooded everything and started approaching, Alex was ready to believe he was seeing things already. The speed dropped even more, he was barely holding in the air, keeping himself on the fly with slow heavy wing-strokes. In the thinning snowfall, he started noticing dark figures, surrounding the train car. Those were not Seekers: normal, pony-like silhouettes caused a faint smile on Alex’s face.
‘It seems that we made it!’ It was time to land and Alex went to another, last loop.
Colourful blots were floating in front of his eyes. The giant red locomotive, slowly crawling into the view, looked surreal, smudged and flickering in the cloud of steam it spewed. Even when the blinding frontal spotlight faded.
Appearing against the huge shiny snow-scrapper, somepony galloped towards them from the rescue train. The figures around, recognized by Alex as the guards, rushed to the train car. The passengers already started to climb out; staggering and stumbling, they entrusted themselves to the rescuers.
Alex almost fell through the air, lurching on one wing. Levelled off by some miracle and the quick wing-flaps. The legs met the ground as if they were made of wood. The silvery glow enveloped the helmet, removing it and opening his face to the gust of snow carrying wind.
Like through the dream, Alex saw the dark slim silhouette detaching from the group of passengers and examining them guards; it darted to him, smudging in the air like a stroke of steel, yellow and pink.
Alex wanted to smile, but broke into a cough instead; the snow-covered valley started swirling around him. Making a couple of unsteady steps, he fell flat, spreading the huge wings forcelessly. A spring of blood escaped Alex’s mouth, planting a handful of rubies on the snow ahead.