They wanted to ask questions. Dozens, probably hundreds of them. But all seven of the escorts were doing their best to stay silent under Tempest's suspicious glare.
The town was causing enough noise to make up for it. Inside their houses, the villagers murmured fears while overhead the bell continued to ring out a warning. Its constant tolling made Starswirl grimace as they approached town and tower. The irritation was enough for him to finally break the tense silence among the party.
"Must they continue to ring that?"
Bit snorted. "Normally, we would have sent a runner to tell them everything was fine and that they could stop. But somepony threatened to blast any one of us who left her sight."
Tempest didn't feel a hint of remorse and didn't bother to meet his accusing glare.
On the other hoof, Starswirl found it amusing despite his annoyance at the noise. "The Commander can be a bit forward," he chuckled. "But I expect you can see it from our perspective."
"I can," admitted the armored stallion. "I'd be the same in your place."
The teal mare angled slightly to come beside Bit, the bounce in her step making the sunrise-shaded gradients of her robe wobble. "How could you know that? They're from beyond the barrier! Who knows what kind of crazy things they've dealt with!"
Tempest's voice rumbled, low and hard. "You could just ask us."
"Oh! Well--"
She was cut off by Bit. "Scribble, we're all interested but read the room. Let's just get to the Prioress. She's going to ask the same questions you are and I'm sure our guests don't want to keep retelling the same story over and over."
The mare - Scribble, obviously - pouted. "Fiiiiiine." Her reaction, in turn, set two of the others among the escorts snickering. It was contagious, and in short order the whole group was chuckling and giggling.
Except Tempest. She maintained a rock-solid stoic demeanor as they marched into the town proper.
Up close, the town wasn't that different from her initial impressions. The buildings were all in an ancient style, constructed with a focus on sustainability rather than comfort or size. Pieces of wood larger than a stick seemed to be at a premium - reserved for the frames of structures. Stone - grey and likely taken from the surrounding mountains - was the order of the day for smaller details like furniture, intermixed with woven reeds.
Another point that stood out immediately was the emptiness. Not how everypony was hiding, but how many buildings were unoccupied. Particularly along the outer ring of the village, easily half the buildings sat visibly vacant. They'd been kept in usable condition, but thick dust on the windowsills and weeds between the paving stones told their own tale. Even at the most casual glance, the town had been built for a population easily four times the size it now housed.
The town as a whole wasn't abandoned, though - smoke still rose from chimneys and the bakery still smelled of fresh bread. Tempest's mouth watered at the scent as her stomach reminded her that they'd subsisted on dried trail rations for days. It was one thing to endure on the road with what you had available, but the touch of fresh sourdough so close by had her licking her lips.
Her desire didn't go unnoticed as the robed stallion with them floated a chunk of bread over to her in a golden aura. She took it with a gentle smile - it wasn't warm, but it was fresh and soft as she chewed.
"Must be quite the change to have something like this," he ventured. "We're lucky to have a good rye crop and I assume that most of you out there aren't so fortunate."
Halfway through chewing, Tempest stopped. She looked to Starswirl - and he looked back with dire concern. He'd caught it too.
Starswirl was kind enough to ask it while Tempest finished her mouthful. "When you say 'out there', just what do you mean?"
"Script means out in the storm," chirruped Scribble, inserting herself into the conversation. "Beyond the barrier and in the blizzard."
The grey sage dourly grimaced at the implications of the young mare's words. Tempest, however, was the one who countered the statement. "Is that why you were so afraid when.." She paused for moment to mentally assign the robed stallion's name to him. "When Script found our hoofprints?"
Scribble eagerly nodded. "Well, yeah! Nopony has ever come through the blizzard before. So when there's a breach and all that's left are tracks, who knows what you could have been!"
With a little smirk, Script ducked back into the flow of the conversation. "What Scribble means is that the unknown is easy to be afraid of. But seeing that you're real and that, well..." Trailing off, Script half-shrugged and looked pointedly at Tempest's lack of a point on her horn.
"The House hasn't forgotten what we're here for," Scribble completed.
Another spark of hope welled up in Tempest's chest. They weren't immediately dismissing her as hopeless.
Of course before she could say anything, Bit rolled his eyes. "I thought I said we should wait until we got to the Prioress to talk about this?"
Reflexively, Scribble stuck out her tongue. "You're not the boss of me!"
That sent the group into more snickers and giggles. This time, Tempest allowed herself a thin smile to join in.
Reaching the priory didn't take long, even at their relatively sedate pace.
Unlike the surrounding town, the priory itself was no rough construction. Stone through and through, hewn in great slabs from the mountain itself and stacked into a veritable monastery-fortress. Surrounded by a two-story wall, the compound included a handful of smaller buildings - including a smokehouse, several storage sheds and a glass-roofed chapel - but was dominated by the monastery itself. As high as the surrounding palisade, it sprawled over an area almost as large as the Crystal Castle in Ponyville. The architecture was surprisingly simple, sticking to gabled shale-tile roofs and straight walls with little adornment. It was built functional rather than artistic, restricting the decorations to carvings of the six-ray sunrise over each window and door. At the center rose a tall belltower - one that finally stopped chiming as they came into the keep.
Entering through the west-facing gate of the outer wall, the nine didn't delay and beelined for the priory itself. There were a few other ponies around - most in the same sunrise-shaded robes that Script and Scribble were wearing or the same armor as Bit. They were arrayed for defense, scattered to spots around the wall and courtyard. Oddly, they stood in the open rather than behind any sort of cover - which implied to Tempest either a very strange defensive strategy or an idiot of a captain.
While the eyes of the defenders followed them, none moved to stop the returning group. All the eyes were on the two newcomers - and Tempest could feel the familiar settling of eyes on her jagged horn. The nine didn't pause to entertain and simply made way into the priory through a pair of heavy doors made of iron-reinforced wood.
The interior reflected the exterior in many ways - heavy stone all around, built to withstand both siege and century. It bore the weight of generations living and working within it, leaving smooth grooves in the floor where thousands of hooves had walked. Thick tapestries hung along the walls, most faded beyond recognition but bearing an old majesty and the marks of earnest care to preserve what could be saved. The great hall they entered into took up a large section of the structure's center, shooting off wings to the north and south. But it was the east door they headed for - going past passages that suggested the sweet smell of a kitchen and the mustier scent of a book-laden library. They passed into a short hallway as five of their escorts peeled away - and then they emerged into a room unlike the rest of the stoic stone structure.
Half outfitted as a dining area, the easternmost room of the priory was walled on three sides by glass. A solarium facing the direction of the dawning sun and edged with a wild variety of carefully curated greenery, it was surprisingly insecure compared to the rest of the stoic, solid structure. In the middle of seating for six in a space large enough for fifty was a pony taking tea.
She was older - not as much as Starswirl (even excluding his extra thousand years), but the lines around her eyes made clear she was no filly. She wore the same orange robe as the others over her pale golden yellow fur (and the robe in turn being partially hidden by her greying once-black mane), letting it conceal her Mark and much of her wiry frame. Tempest was immediately reminded of the spindle-legged unicorn nobles and socialites around Canterlot, though this unicorn seemed to be lean less from fashion and more from simple frailty. When she turned in her seat to face them it was with the careful slowness of someone recovering from an injury, as if expecting each movement to herald a spike of pain.
Still, she smiled at them - even if it was paper thin.
Bit was the one that stepped forward from the group, drawing beside her and turning to face the pair. "I would introduce Prioress Reliquary Heart, matron of the House of the Rising Sun." He paused as both newcomers bowed respectfully - Starswirl first, and Tempest following his cue. "Prioress, these two are visitors. From beyond the barrier."
That thin smile brightened slightly. "Beyond." The word was breathed out with the reverence of retelling a myth. "Well-- I--I'm sorry, travelers." She paused for a moment, mouth working the seemingly unfamiliar word around like hard candy. "It has been a very, very long time since we have welcomed anypony who could use that title. I'm sure you have a critically important mission, but first I must know - how did you survive to reach us? Is it a repeatable path?"
"By... walking?" Starswirl hesitated, confused by the question. "It was a treacherous trip but not unmanageable."
The Prioress nodded grimly. "Yes. You must be well experienced with hardship as well as brave. I admire your fortitude. How many lives did the journey cost? I ask so that we can give proper thanks for their sacrifice."
Again, the old sage hesitated. "I'm afraid I don't understand. It was just the two of us who made the journey." Starswirl glanced over to Tempest questioningly. "It wasn't that difficult."
"You still must be exhausted. Please, sit." She waved them over to two of the chairs near hers and poured out two more cups of tea - dark, with the slight woody hints to pin it as a chicory brew. The other two that remained - Bit and Scribble - took up places standing off to the side near the Prioress while the others left to continue about their duties. "The House will gladly do anything we can to help you if it's within our power. I suspect your injury is the reason?" Her eyes unsurprisingly cast to Tempest's jagged break.
Tempest nodded, not drinking her tea but instead holding it in her hooves to treasure the warmth. "Yeah. Starswirl told me about the origins of your order and that you might be able to help me. We visited Neigh Orleans where the Temple is nowdays, but they weren't able to help. So we came here."
Reliquary beamed happily. "Neigh Orleans survives and one of our outposts still exists there? That's wonderful news!"
Another glance between the pair of travelers, and then Starswirl spoke. "Pardon but... 'survives'? Why would you think it didn't?"
"Our histories call it a very small and remote location," noted the Prioress. "I suppose it's no surprise that some of the smaller settlements would have banded together to endure."
And then it clicked. Tempest's head jerked as the pieces finally came together. The sudden movement pre-empted Starswirl's next comment, drawing the attention of all the room to the soldier. "Prioress." She held her tone as steady as she could. "When was the last time somepony from the outside came here? You said it had been a long time, but just how long is that?"
Reliquary looked to Bit for a moment with a frown before answering. "Well... never, to be honest. Perhaps a few arrived in the very early days, but you are the first travelers to reach the House in dozens of generations."
"And how many have you sent out to explore?" Tempest leaned forward, one hind leg bouncing with nervous energy.
The question was answered even before the Prioress opened her mouth - her look of disgust and horror said it all. "None! I, nor any of my predecessors, would ever ask one of our ponies to go on a suicide mission like that. Just because you're an epic hero who can survive doesn't mean others can." The mare grimaced, biting back the rest of her outburst. "My apologies. That was uncalled for, but I'm certain you understand. In the first days, a few brave souls did venture out for aid - and none returned. Most ponies wouldn't survive for an hour, let alone the days it must have taken you to reach us."
Starswirl gasped as he connected the dots just as Tempest had two minutes before. His hooves shot up, covering his mouth as the gravity of the situation finally struck home.
Tempest pushed one more time. She had to be sure. "Prioress, I..." Holding herself back for a moment to get the phrasing right, she bit her lip. "What do you think is outside your barrier?"
The three natives knew something was wrong. Not what - their visible confusion and unease made that plain. But they could tell that something was happening. Still, the Prioress answered with minimal hesitation. "The sun and the moon still move, so we know the Princess is out there somewhere. Presumably she still holds court at the Castle of the Two Sisters, albeit alone after the tragedy of the Nightmare. And if Neigh Orleans survived, there must be other towns that raised their defenses in time."
"No!" Tempest's violent outburst made the Prioress flinch and both the other locals take a defensive step forward. "No, I mean closer than that. Where do you think the storm ends?"
"...Ends?"
And there it was. Tempest slumped back with a shuddering breath as her fear was confirmed. Starswirl took up the talking in her place. "Madam, we only came upon the leading edge of the blizzard a day ago. Two at the most, depending on how badly the storm fouled our sense of time."
The teaspoon clattered into Reliquary's teacup as her rose-tinted magic sputtered. She had no words - just painfully wide eyes that had lost all focus and most of their thought. Bit's expression was similar - slack and empty. Scribble handled it the best of them. She merely trembled and shook as emotion after emotion warred across her face for dominance. And she managed a single squeaked syllable. "what."
"Equestria lives," Starswirl assured them. "It thrives. It was you who was lost - we came here expecting to find an empty ruin. The House of the Rising Sun was said by history to have been abandoned in a terrible snowstorm and never rediscovered. The temple itself destroyed and all who dwelt within lost."
Beside the Prioress' chair Bit collapsed to the ground, chest heaving with heavy, panic-laden breaths. Scribble staggered to his side, taking his hoof in a rough attempt to provide comfort she didn't feel. The Prioress pinched her pale rose eyes shut to regain some focus. "I... I don't know," she admitted between gasping breaths. "I don't know what to say. There's other towns? Other ponies still?"
"Millions," Starswirl softly confirmed.
She laughed as she balanced on the edge of breakdown. "I don't even know what a million is."
"I understand just how you're feeling, madam. I was lost for a long time as well - trapped in Limbo and only recently rescued." Rising from his chair, Starswirl came to the Prioress' side and set a gentle hoof on her shoulder. "I don't know why this blizzard has continued to plague your town, but now that we know you're here I promise you. Equestria will come to your rescue."
Reliquary's eyes popped open in surprise. "You don't know why the storm is here?"
Starswirl shook his head with a soft jingle.
"Then... but..." An almost painful spasm screwed Reliquary's face to a sour grimace. "But if you don't know why it's here, then that means you didn't run into them. And if you leave again... how are you going to get past the windigoes?"
Both of Tempest's eyebrows spiked and her tongue outran her brain. "Windigoes are real?!"