It was the coldest snow the family had ever seen. It buried their crops, destroyed their food, and smothered their entire world. Though the family did not wish to do it, they were left with no other choice but to abandon their home…

“Dad? What’s Flatstone?” Luna asked anxiously while Sprout helped her into her winter coat.

Sprout hesitated, his brow furrowing in thought for a moment before he sighed and gave his answer. “Flatstone is… it’s where your mother and I come from,” he said slowly. “It’s an earth pony village at the base of the mountain. It’s almost a week-long hike.”

Luna’s eyes widened. “Where you and mom came from? Then, does that mean your mom and dad will be there?”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Sprout dismissed with a gentle smile. “Let’s just get you suited up so we can get a move on, okay?”

Luna didn’t answer right away. She looked down at the ground, her brow furrowing in thought. After a minute, she looked back up to Sprout. “Will we be safe there?” she asked.

“Yes. The ponies might be a little rude to you and Tia at first, but I ask that you just bear with them, alright?”

Celestia, already wearing all of her winter clothes, watched the conversation from off to one side. Honey stood behind her, her nose buried into one of their pairs of saddlebags to ensure they had all of the supplies they would need for the journey. It had only been a day since she overheard Sprout and Honey talking about leaving for Flatstone, and already they were getting ready to head out the door.

She looked out the window, her ears folding back. She hadn’t realized they would be setting out this soon. She had assumed they would take at least a few days to finalize their plans and let her and Luna get comfortable with the prospect of moving out, but that had not been the case. Just last night, as they were eating one of the thinnest dinners Celestia could remember, Sprout had dropped the news on them.

“What?!” Luna had cried out in dismay. “But why?! This is our home! We live here! I don’t wanna go!”

“Neither do I,” Sprout had replied, a stern but understanding look on his face. “But we don’t have any choice. If we don’t leave soon, we might get snowed in, and we don’t want that.”

Celestia cringed as she recalled how Luna’s eyes had started to glisten. “But… but…”

“I’m sorry, Lu, really, I am. But this isn’t up for debate. We’re leaving tomorrow morning. That’s the end of it.”

Neither Celestia nor Luna had slept well the previous night, despite their best efforts. It had been one long exercise in futility, and Celestia was feeling the effects of her lack of sleep quite keenly. Her muscles were stiff, her eyelids were heavy, and her brain was taking just a little longer than she would have liked to come to any conclusions.

Underneath all of that was an overwhelming, yet understated, feeling of dread. She kept feeling like something was watching her; an itch between her shoulder blades, a chilled tingle on the back of her neck. She shuddered and instinctively drew her coat tighter to her body with her magic.

“Alright, I think Luna’s just about ready,” Sprout declared a moment later, standing up straight and giving her one last look over. Celestia turned her attention back to her sister to see that she was wrapped up in multiple layers of clothing. It wasn’t anything particularly pleasing to the eye, largely being colored in a collection of drab browns, but it would do the trick.

“I’m just about ready here, too,” Honey replied, rising from her saddlebags. “If we’re sparing with supplies, we should be able to make this last until we get there.”

Sprout wandered over, speaking with Honey about their supplies. Celestia tuned the discussion out for the most part. Her attention remained fixated on her sister. Luna was slowly casting her eyes across the front room of the house, her ears down and a far-off, sorrowful look in her eyes.

Celestia felt a stirring in her chest. She swallowed heavily and approached her sister at a slow, tentative pace. When she came to Luna’s side, she draped a foreleg over her shoulders. She would have used one of her wings, but they were pinned to her sides under her coat. Luna leaned into the embrace without hesitation, her eyes glistening yet again.

Celestia nodded quietly. “Me neither… but mom and dad say we have to,” she said, shooting a quick glance towards their parents. “And right now, we really gotta listen to them.”

“But… But what if something bad happens to our house while we’re gone?” Luna protested, turning to face Celestia directly. “What if wolves come? Or bears? Or thieves? What if the bad pegasus comes and ruins our home, or breaks our toys?”

Celestia winced. She struggled internally for a moment, unable to decide between telling Luna bluntly how bad the situation was, or trying to downplay it for her own comfort. Eventually, she sighed and opted simply to dodge the questions. “...We can always fix things when we get back. Dad’s real good at fixing things.”

Luna did not seem appeased by that answer, but she didn’t argue. The two fell into a companionable silence, taking in the view of the front of their home while they waited for Sprout and Honey to wrap up their discussion.

“Hey,” Sprout’s voice suddenly sliced through the silence, drawing Celestia and Luna’s attention. “There’s just a little bit of space in your bags. Go ahead and find one thing you want to take with you. It’s gotta be small, though, so nothing big, and don’t take too long.”

Luna and Celestia hesitated, briefly sharing a look. After a second, Celestia put on a smile before heading for their room. She knew exactly what she was going to get. Luna was following close at her hooves, the look in her eyes displaying her own resolution.

The room was darker than Celestia was used to when they entered—or, at least, that was how it felt. The curtains had been drawn tight, preventing the muted, gray light of the snowing sky to enter the room. Celestia had seen such a sight many times, but this time felt different. She walked slowly into the room, casting her eyes from her bed to her sister’s. She felt a pang of nostalgia as she remembered the day Sprout had finally finished building this for the two of them, and how her first experience sleeping in one of these beds had been when she was grounded.

She reached out and ran her hoof along the frame of her bed. She felt at the now long-familiar woodgrain, having memorized every memorable bump, ridge, and shape over the many years she had been sleeping here. She took in a deep breath through her nose, savoring the familiar smell of the space.

“...What are you taking?” Luna asked from behind her. Celestia turned to look to see her sister carrying a small collection of toys in her magic. Small wooden carvings made by their father over the years. Celestia smiled, thinking back on the long hours of fun Luna had with those toys.

But her sister had asked her a question, and she was wasting time reminiscing. She turned back to her bed, her horn lighting up with magic as she pulled an aging, worn, slightly tattered blanket out from under the mattress. She knew that Sprout and Honey had loaded up on blankets already, but this one was special. She briefly felt at it with her hoof before smiling back at Luna.

Celestia turned to Luna fully and floated the blanket over. “Well, yeah, of course. But this one is special. Remember?”

Luna eyed the blanket for a few seconds, her muzzle scrunching up before her eyes lit up with recognition. “Oh! This is the blanket you always brought up to the roof when we watched the stars dancing!” she exclaimed.

Celestia nodded. “Yeah. I never got rid of it, even when I outgrew it. But I don’t think I could bear to leave this behind,” she said, her eyes boring into the fabric. A sense of longing and nostalgia came over her. “All those nights we spent on the roof, watching the stars and the moon… waking up to the light of the sun on our faces… Those are some of my favorite memories. And I wanna bring ‘em with me.”

Luna smiled and gave Celestia a quick hug. “Maybe, if we can find a clear spot in the clouds, we can watch the stars again soon?” she asked hopefully.

Celestia nodded, patting her little sister on the back. “Absolutely. I promise,” she said with a nod. The two remained embraced like that for a short time before coming apart. As much as they wished to spend the rest of time huddled in that room in stubborn defiance, they both knew they had to leave, and it was time.

Celestia folded the blanket up as much as she could, and the two foals left their room. Sprout and Honey were both waiting, clearly ready to go. The foals’ saddlebags sat open on the floor, stuffed to the brim with supplies for the journey with barely any room to spare. Sprout offered a silent, comforting nod as Celestia and Luna got their personal effects stored away.

“So this is it?” Celestia asked as she slipped her saddlebags on with her magic. “We’re leaving now? There’s nothing left to do?”

Sprout nodded regretfully. “I hate to say it, but… yeah. Yeah, that’s it. We need to go sooner rather than later,” he said solemnly. “I’m sorry. I know this is hard, kids.”

“It’s okay,” Celestia replied with a small smile of her own. “We’re coming back someday, right?”

“Of course,” Honey answered for him with a nod of her own. “Just as soon as all this snow clears out, we’ll come right back and get back to living our lives.”

Celestia hummed. That was probably the best answer she could hope for. They would come back, someday. When the snow melted, they’d come back, replant the crops, clear out the dust, chase away the spiders, and get back to quietly living off the fat of the land. They would. They would.

Celestia looked back to the hearth one more time. The last flickering embers sputtered and faded, and the quiet ambiance of the fireplace died with it. The last flickers of orange light were gone.

“Come on,” Sprout ordered, turning and opening the door. A harsh wind immediately howled in his face, making him cringe. He looked back to the family gathering behind him. “Stay close and do not wander off. I mean it. We stick together at all times, and we don’t split up for anything. Do I make myself clear, kids?”

“Yes,” Celestia said. Luna replied with a simple, shaky nod and a quiet hum of affirmation.

And with that, the family stepped outside. There was no fanfare. No further discussion. No heartfelt sympathies or sentiments shared. The cold chased such warm notions away before they even had a chance to form. All Celestia managed to get in that regard as she stepped outside of her home for the last time was a longing glance back at the door. She saw the cold, dead hearth through the entrance one last time before the door closed, and they stepped into the howling white.

They left the clearing in silence. Sprout took the lead, with Celestia and Luna in the middle, and Honey bringing up the rear to ensure neither of the foals ran off on their own. The wind screamed at them all the while, and Celestia had to squint just to see more often than not. The snow lashed at her face like an endless barrage of frozen knives, and the thick white haze was so dense she could barely see ten feet in front of her.

The once familiar forest now felt alien to her. The often-traveled paths that she and Sprout had worn into the ground had been buried in the snow, and the trees she knew like the back of her hoof were gone. In their place were murky, blurred shadows, barely perceptible through the snow. They loomed ominously over them, making Celestia feel tiny and pitiful in comparison.

All the while, that haunting feeling of being watched continued to get worse and worse. Sometimes her ear would turn and she thought she could hear something moving out there in the blizzard, adding its own harrowing voice to the cold choir of the storm, but whenever she turned to look, there was nothing. Just more snow.

“Gah, this wind is slowing us down too much!” Sprout yelled to be heard over the roar of the wind. He glanced back at Celestia and Luna, and her heart leaped into her throat. “Kids, is there anything you can do about it?!”

Celestia swallowed heavily, shooting Luna a glance. The two stared at each other in tense silence. Could they? It was a long shot, Celestia could already tell that much. The clouds would be completely resistant to their efforts to move them, be it by hoof or magic, and neither of them had tried to influence the wind directly with their magic.

Eventually, Celestia’s expression hardened. If nothing else, it was worth a try. She turned back to Sprout and nodded her head. “I don’t know, but we’ll try.”

Sprout nodded and shuffled off to one side, giving Celestia and Luna a clear view ahead of them to work their magic. Celestia winced as more snow blasted into her face. She turned her head and focused on Luna, who was shrinking down towards the ground with her eyes wide and fearful. She was clearly intimidated by the storm and the seemingly impossible task ahead of them. Celestia quickly made her way over and slid a foreleg over Luna’s back to help comfort her.

She smiled at her sister. “Hey, it’s alright. I’m right here. Let’s just give it our best, alright?”

Luna was quiet for a second, then nodded her head, taking comfort in Celestia’s presence. That done, they faced forward. Celestia took a deep breath and lit her horn, casting her magic ahead of the group to try and force the wind to blow around them. It was haphazard at best, an alien use of her magic that she had never tried before, and even with Luna’s help, she knew it would serve them very little, if at all.

The moment her magic took form and set to work, Celestia could feel the wind eating at it. She gasped in shock at the strange feeling. The wind was powerful, but she knew that, if this weather were normal, she’d be able to fight back against it.

This was different. It was like the wind was systematically dismantling her magic as she tried to apply it. For every nail she hammered down, an unseen force tore another one out, leaving her making no progress whatsoever.

“What in the… grr!” Celestia growled, trying to pour more energy into the spell. She was not going to be shown up by some stupid wind! She was a unicorn with wings, and a darn powerful one at that according to her parents! She wasn’t going to let them down without a fight.

And a fight she gave. She and Luna tried as hard as they could to pour more and more magic into their horns, against the storm, but alas, this was one battle they would not win, as their every effort was unmade before it could even truly do anything. All that they had to show for their efforts was a faintly rippling shimmer of gold and blue light in front of the group that served no real purpose.

Finally, after what felt like forever, they gave up. Celestia cut off her flow of magic with a sigh of pain. There was an uncomfortable throbbing deep in the base of her horn, and she recognized it as a symptom of wearing out her magic reserves. She wouldn’t be using magic for a little while after that.

Celestia sighed, unable to meet her father’s gaze. It was Luna who spoke, though. “We tried. I’m sorry, dad… It’s not working.”

“I don’t know how or why, but it’s like the wind was fighting our magic,” Celestia elaborated, her muzzle scrunching up in thought. “For everything I tried to make my magic do, the wind made another part of it fail. It’s like it’s alive or something.”

The haunting howling of the blizzard rushed by the group, punctuating that sentence. Sprout’s eyes looked up towards where the forest canopy would be, were it not hidden by the haze, and frowned. Honey, meanwhile, shifted uncomfortably behind the group. “What is this storm…?”

“I don’t know, but we got to keep moving,” Sprout replied matter-of-factly. He jerked his head forward. “Come on, let’s go.”

Nopony had any objections to that. They pressed on, continuing their gradual descent. They tried to find shelter from the howling wind wherever they could, but there were precious few places within these woods that were safe from the blizzard. Those few places that could keep the snow back were fleeting, and their protection was painfully short-lived.

Down and down they went. Eventually, Celestia began to notice that it was getting darker. She looked up at the sky, her ears drooping. She could feel the air getting colder, and her breath on her face felt impossibly warm compared to the freezing air.

“We need to stop and camp for the night,” Sprout declared, coming to a stop. “We don’t wanna get caught in the open when it’s dark out.”

“Alright,” Honey replied, nudging Celestia and Luna ahead. “You have the firewood, right?”

“Enough for a night or two, at least, yeah,” Sprout replied, glancing back at his bags. Celestia followed his gaze, noting the various supplies he had rolled up outside the pouches. She saw a thick roll of fabric that, if she were to guess, was either meant to be a bedroll or a tent of some description. She also saw a few pieces of wood poking up from one of the pouches, harvested from their house before they left.

The group didn’t talk much. Sprout led them in getting their campsite set up. They spent a short time finding a patch of flat ground that had at least some cover provided by a dense patch of trees. It was far from perfect, but for now, it would serve their purposes. Celestia lent what help she could to Sprout in getting the tent pitched, while Honey and Luna focused on getting the campfire going.

It was fully dark by the time they were done. A small, flickering fire was going, barely surviving the cold temperatures. Sprout gave the campsite a quiet look over before nodding his approval. “Alright. Everypony set down your stuff in the tent and get comfy. This is gonna be a rough night.”

Celestia stepped into the tent and looked around. All of their blankets had been arranged in the back, lumped together in one big pile. They would be sleeping together tonight, to share their body heat, according to Sprout. She let off a quiet sigh as she set down her saddlebags, then turned to face Luna and Honey as they did the same.

“You kids doing okay?” Honey asked, her voice low and tired. There was concern in her eyes, but also the same mothering kindness that Celestia had always loved so much.

Luna gave off a long, tired whine, scuffing her hoof along the floor of the tent. “...I’m cold. I’m scared. I don’t like this. I wanna go home,” she mumbled, though her tone made it clear that she knew it wasn’t an option.

Honey’s ears drooped, and she gently pulled Luna into a sympathetic hug. “I know, sweetie, I know. I want to go home, too. But we can’t. Things are probably going to be bad for a while, but we’re going to be okay. Your dad, your sister, and I are going to take care of you.”

Luna hugged Honey back and buried her face into her mother’s chest fur. “You promise?” she asked weakly.

Celestia nodded in agreement and walked over to place her hoof on Luna’s back. She gave her sister an encouraging smile. “Yeah, don’t you worry about a thing. This will all be over before you know it.”

Luna didn’t say anything at first. She simply sat there for a while, basking in the warmth of her mother’s embrace. Celestia watched them for a minute longer, wondering if there was anything else she should say. She knew that Luna was still upset and scared. But really, what could Celestia honestly say that would make her feel better?

She looked outside, listening to the wind. What was there to say to ease her sister’s fear when she was terrified, too? What could she say that wouldn’t be a lie? She had no idea what was really going on out there, where this storm had come from, or what could possibly be causing it. All of those things made her feel far more fear than she was comfortable showing.

She resisted the urge to stomp her hoof and growl in frustration. She felt so helpless. She had never been so weak before. Normally, her magic or her own raw physical strength was enough to solve, or at least diminish, most problems they had faced. But this time? She was useless. Powerless. There was nothing she could do to make the problems go away. All she could do was her own part in protecting her family, as minuscule as that was.

In the end, there was nothing for her to say, and so she simply opted to leave her mother and sister on their own for now. She turned and made her way back outside. She could use a bit of time spent by the fire.

Sprout was still out there when she emerged, putting a couple more pieces of wood onto the fire to keep the flames lit. He glanced up at her as she emerged. “Hey. How are they holding up?” he asked quietly.

Celestia sighed. “Luna’s scared and mom’s tired,” she answered in a deadpan. She approached the fire, cleared some of the snow from the ground with her magic, and sat down. She stared into the crackling flames, allowing her eyes to go distant and her mind to wander.

She heard Sprout walking around the fire before he sat down beside her. He wrapped a foreleg over her back and pulled her against him into a side-hug, lending his warmth to her own. “And you?” he asked in a low voice.

Celestia hesitated, not wanting to admit her own feelings of weakness and powerlessness to her father. She had spent most of her life making herself useful to him, after all. Be it helping with the crops or hauling logs back from the forest, she had stood by his side as his little helper.

In the end, she simply settled with turning her head to one side. “...I’m scared and tired,” she said, willing to admit that much.

“That’s true of all of us, you know,” Sprout said reassuringly. “I’m scared, too. Hay, I’m terrified.”

Celestia managed a weak chuckle at that. “Heh. Yeah, I noticed. But then again, you’ve always been kinda paranoid.”

“It’s not paranoia when things actually go wrong,” Sprout quipped with a small note of victory in his voice.

The two shared a small laugh at that before the wind and the cold stole away their mirth. They fell silent, staring into the burning fire and savoring the warmth it imparted. Eventually, a question came to Celestia, and she looked up to Sprout.

Sprout’s expression hardened. He didn’t answer her at first. He stared into the flame, and Celestia knew his mind was going back to memories that predated her and Luna by a long time. Eventually, he blew out a quiet sigh and shook his head. “It’s nice enough, I suppose. Plenty of ponies, hard-working, strong traditions, powerful sense of community.”

Celestia frowned. Something about that answer didn’t really sound right. It felt like Sprout was hiding something from her. She shifted in place and gently nudged him with a hoof. “Then why did you and mom leave?”

Sprout looked down, his expression contorting with distaste. For a moment, Celestia considered retracting the question, but he answered before she could. “Honestly? Honey and I decided to leave when we realized just how petty all of the fighting was.”

“Yeah. The three pony tribes rely on each other for basically everything. We earth ponies tend to the land, the pegasi handle the weather that lets our crops grow, and unicorns bring about the day and night, letting ponies sleep when we need to and keeping temperatures nice and even. Without them, there’d be nothing to grow the food. Without us, there wouldn’t be any food grown. So we all depend on each other, you see?”

Sprout nodded before he went on. “Well… see, as much as we need each other, the pegasi and the unicorns had this real bad habit of, ah, overreaching, I guess. They take more than they are due, and it leads to a lot of bad blood. I’d be more than happy to break bread with ‘em if they didn’t keep taking more than their fair share of food. But, well, eventually, a group of pegasi demanded way too much food. Honey and I were livid, of course, but we figured we could talk those featherbrains down.”

Sprout let off a humorless snort, his expression contorting with long-buried resentment. “But ya wanna know what the rest of the town thought about that?”

Celestia leaned back, feeling surprised by the bitterness in her father’s voice. Hesitantly, she swallowed and tilted her head. “What?”

Sprout grunted, kicking a stray pebble into the fire. The flames swayed in response, and a few new embers were kicked up into the air. “They grabbed their farm tools and practically flew into a riot. Chased the pegasi out of town, spitting curses and threats after them as they flew back up into the sky.”

“It was just plain stupid,” Sprout went on, his eyes narrowing. “Nothing more or less to it than that. The pegasi were demanding brutes, but fighting among ourselves is never gonna solve a single one of the problems the tribes gotta deal with. Honey and I’d been dealing with heated arguments and threats of violence for a while before that, but that was just the last straw. We were sick of it. All of the tribes’ pointless quarreling and bickering and fighting. We decided enough was enough, came up here to get away from it, and got married in secret.”

Celestia nodded slowly in response. That shed a lot of light on why their home had been so far removed from other ponies. Celestia had known, more or less, that Sprout and Honey had wanted to get away from the other tribes, but the full extent of the story had eluded her until now. Now that she knew more or less what they were walking into, she was beginning to feel uneasy.

“So, are the ponies in Flatstone going to be happy to see you two again?” she eventually asked.

“Oh, absolutely not,” Sprout replied with a snort of amusement. “We were already kinda the black sheep of the village before we left, and nopony was happy with us for arguing against the show of force. No doubt they were all pretty offended when we packed up and ran off. But, unhappy as they’re gonna be, they aren’t unkind. They’ll scold us and they’ll insult us, but I’m sure they’ll let us stick around.”

Sprout gave her a comforting squeeze. “But don’t you worry, none. I won’t let them get anywhere near you or your sister.”

Celestia put on a smile. About that much, she had always been confident. She looked back up at Sprout with a big grin and a sharp nod. “Right. You’ve always taken care of us, and that isn’t about to change!”

“Darn straight!” Sprout replied with his own grin. He pulled Celestia in for an affectionate noogie, much to her protest. “I ain’t going anywhere! So you just sit tight and let your dad do all the talking. I’ll set ‘em straight!”

“Haha! Dad, cut it out! Let me go!” Celestia complained, squirming against his far stronger grip. He held firm for a few moments longer, continuing to ruffle her mane with his hoof, before finally releasing her. She staggered back and pouted up at him. She felt a surge of indignation at the unrepentant, smug grin he was giving her. “I’m gonna get you for that.”

“Ha! Oh, I’m sure you will!” Sprout replied with a short laugh. He stood back to his full height, brushing some snow off of his coat. “But it can wait. For now, let’s head back inside. Honey’s carrying the food, and I dunno about you, but I am starving.”

Celestia couldn’t argue with that. She happily followed Sprout back into the tent, feeling just a little better about their situation overall. As scary as things were right now, she had him to depend on, and she knew he would never let her down.

Their dinner, if one could call it that, amounted to a couple of fruits for each of them. Without their hearth or typical assortment of tools for cooking at their disposal, the meal was bland and boring compared to Honey’s usual fare. If nothing else, though, it kept their strength up and filled their bellies, which was the most they could ask for, given the circumstances.

As soon as they got done eating, they laid down to get some sleep. Rest did not come easily to Celestia, however. The roaring of the wind outside kept assaulting her ears. Just like earlier, every so often she thought she could hear something moving in the distance, lending its own monstrous call to the storm, but nothing ever came of it. Whatever anxiety she might have felt over the issue was chased away by the warmth of her father sleeping beside her.

In time, Celestia did finally manage to fall into a light, restless slumber. She still woke up frequently, jarred awake by some noise or other. It never took her very long to get back to sleep, but still, the repetitive returns to the waking world were quickly taking their toll on her mind.

Eventually, the darkness was chased away by the coming of the dawn. Sprout and Honey were the first to rise, insisting that Celestia remain in bed with Luna while the adults took care of whatever needed doing before they set out. Celestia did not argue and spent what time she had left in bed cuddling up to her sister.

Nopony said a word when the time came to eat. Another rationed meal, barely more than a snack when compared to their previous standards, would have to do. Celestia took to helping Sprout get their camping equipment packed up, while Honey tended to Luna. Celestia’s eyes routinely flicked over to her little sister, and she winced every time at just how exhausted Luna looked.

It seemed that her little sister, for reasons easily guessed, had gotten the least amount of rest out of all of them.

Before long, it was time to move on, and they set out into the snow once again. Maintaining their formation from the night before, Celestia followed closely behind Sprout as he led the way farther and farther down. The wind wasn’t quite as intense today, allowing them to see farther than before. A welcome change, though it did come with the drawback of seeing how the world around them had been absolutely smothered.

It was frightening in its own way. Celestia could see ice and frost clinging to every imaginable surface. Tree trunks sparkled and glistened with ice in the early morning light, while icicles hung dangerously from the branches. Snow was still falling, of course, and the blanket was inching ever higher. Celestia and Luna were at least able to clear it out from the front of the group with their magic, though pushing away the wind was, sadly, still impossible.

It was after another few hours of steady walking that the group broke through the treeline and came to a stop at the top of a sharp ledge. Celestia paused and looked down, her brow furrowing. The drop wasn’t particularly far, only about ten feet or so, and ended with a small beach—at least, she assumed it was a beach, given the frozen river that stood in their path. It was as wide as two full-grown trees from the forest around them, and the waters had frozen over surprisingly smoothly.

It was odd. The longer she looked, the more familiar this spot looked. She didn’t get much of a chance to think of why, though, as Sprout grunted in frustration.

“Gah. Shoulda figured the river would be frozen over…” he muttered under his breath. “We’re gonna have to cross on hoof.”

“But, won’t that be dangerous?!” Honey asked in alarm. “What if the ice breaks and we fall in?!”

Sprout was quiet for a few seconds. Celestia eyed him cautiously, a nervous feeling building up in her gut. He examined the sight of the river for several long moments, working his jaw from side to side while his brow furrowed in intense thought.

Sprout sighed and shook his head. “Nah, not a good idea. I know this river. It winds and twists like an angry snake. If we tried to go around, we’d end up even farther from Flatstone than we were back at the house. We gotta cross if we wanna make good time.”

“But again, what if the ice breaks?” Honey pressed worriedly. “If anypony falls in the water…”

Luna whimpered at the implication, and Celestia couldn’t suppress a shudder of her own. Honey didn’t need to say it. The air was already freezing, and if anyone fell into the ice, the cold water underneath would be likely to cause hypothermia.

Sprout’s eyes shifted from the river and settled on Celestia and Luna. His brow furrowed even further before he gave a sage nod. “We cross one at a time, lightest first. Kids, you two fly over the river and you wait for us on the other side. Honey, you go next, and I’ll go after you,” he instructed plainly.

“We don’t have the room for other options right now, Luna, I’m sorry,” Sprout said before sitting on his haunches and shrugging off his saddlebags. He turned to Celestia and held them out to her. “Here. Take our bags across with ya. It’ll lighten the load and make it safer for your mom and I to cross.”

Celestia swallowed heavily but did not argue. She simply took the bags in her magic and floated them over to hover beside her. “Be careful, dad,” she said after a moment.

Celestia nodded and took a step back. She glanced over at Luna and Honey. The two of them still didn’t look completely convinced, but, for lack of a better option, Honey began to go along with it herself. She shrugged off her bags and passed them to Luna, who reluctantly took them in her magic.

“Just fly straight across,” Honey whispered to her, giving Luna a hug. “And no matter what, you don’t move an inch until Sprout and I get to you, okay?”

“Okay, mom,” Luna replied in a fearful whisper. The two came apart, and Luna made her way to join Celestia. “I’m ready.”

Celestia nodded, then took a moment to open up her coat enough to let her wings out. She immediately shivered as she felt the biting air attack her skin, but she forced herself to tough it out. She’d put her coat back on just as soon as they were across. She gave Luna a meaningful look as she did the same. Luna shivered, whimpering from the exposure.

Well, they were as ready as they were going to be. Celestia gave a satisfied nod. “Alright. Come on, let’s go,” she ordered before kicking into the air with a powerful flap of her wings. Luna was close at her hooves, though Celestia had to slow down to let her keep up. The added weight of the saddlebags was slowing both of them down, not to mention the tailwind. It may have died down from last night, but it was still far from a gentle summer breeze.

Their progress was slow but steady, and Celestia took the longer flight time to look down at the frozen surface of the river. She spied the tips of numerous rocks that broke the water’s surface, along with broken-off branches lodged between some of them. Maybe they were the remnants of some badger’s old dam, she thought. More striking than that, though, she could just make out her reflection staring back at her, twisted and distorted by the ripples in the stream.

Suddenly, an intense gust of wind blew against her out of nowhere. Celestia gave out a startled yelp, fighting to maintain control of her flight. “What in the-” she tried to think before another burst of wind smashed into her, forcing her back a few feet. The falling snow seemed to suddenly grow in intensity, and the hail of flakes was now slashing at her face and forcing her to screw her eyes shut to protest them. She grit her teeth and growled even as her face began to go numb, forcing herself to fight through it.

Celestia’s eyes flew wide open, and she quickly spun around to see her little sister being thrown out of her stable flight by the wind. She fell head-over-hooves for the river below, her precious cargo falling freely in a different direction.

Adrenaline flooded through Celestia’s veins. “LUNA!” she screamed, pumping her wings for all they were worth to chase after her sister. She heard Sprout and Honey shouting at her, but she couldn’t make out their words through the sound of her heart in her ears, much less the sudden, monstrous roaring of the wind.

Her heart all but stopped in her chest as she realized that she wasn’t fast enough. With how quickly Luna was falling, she’d hit the ice long before Celestia could reach her. It was like the snowstorm around her flooded Celestia’s veins as the mental image of her sister freezing beneath the ice entered her mind. It was there for but a fraction of a second, but that was enough.

She reached out with her magic, the whole world fading away except for her and her sister. She felt a throb of pain in the base of her horn from the added effort, but she pushed through it. Her sister needed her, dangit!

She smiled triumphantly as she felt Luna’s body in her magic, and she quickly latched on. “Got ya!” she declared, slowing her rapid descent.

Another gust of air blasted against her, and this time, Celestia was unable to resist it. She hadn’t even been prepared for it, and she felt herself being thrown backward by it, her wings unable to close as they caught the wind. Instinct took over her mind, and she pulled on Luna with all of her might. She felt her sister cartwheeling after her through the air before she met the ground.

Celestia gasped in pain, the air torn from her lungs as she struck the snow-covered bank. She rolled along for a few feet before coming to a rest. Her face was numb, and that same sensation of nothingness was quickly pooling into every other part of her body. If nothing else, it was making it easier for her to ignore the pain she was in.

She heard another crash nearby, and was immediately reminded of Luna. she looked up, another spike of adrenaline in her veins. Luna was curled up into a ball in the snow a short way away.

“Luna! Are you okay?!” Celestia cried out in a shivering voice. She stood up and quickly zipped up her hoodie before rushing to her sister’s side. Luckily, it seemed Luna was none the worse for wear. Her eyes were screwed tightly shut, her head was held in her hooves, and she was probably going to get a nasty bruise from that less-than-gentle landing, but otherwise, she seemed fine.

“Kids! Are you alright?!” Sprout’s voice echoed from the other side of the river. Celestia lifted her head and looked across at him. He and Honey had both jumped down from the ledge and were now standing at the very edge of the river, watching them with clear concern.

Celestia frowned. What had happened? She looked back up, and to her growing confusion and surprise, the intense gust of wind that had thrown both her and her sister from the air had suddenly died down. “But… that doesn’t make any sense. Wind doesn’t work like that,” she thought, her brow furrowing.

“I don’t know!” she shouted back after a moment. “There was just a lot of wind all of a sudden!”

Sprout and Honey turned to one another, talking animatedly, though not loud enough for Celestia to hear them. So she instead returned her attention to Luna. The smaller foal was starting to sit up, shivering uncontrollably from the cold. She opened her eyes, only to suddenly screw them shut and hiss through tightly clenched teeth. “Ow!”

Red flags went up in Celestia’s head. “Luna?!” she asked, reaching out to steady her sister. “What is it?!”

“H-h-hurts,” Luna replied, a few stray tears leaking out of her eyes. “Side. It hurts. Ow, ow ow…”

“Oh boy,” Celestia muttered. She was no expert on injuries. If Luna had broken any bones on impact, she would have no way of knowing, and no knowledge of how to treat it. Still, she had to do something. “Okay, uh… okay, come on, here, I’m gonna help you sit up.”

Luna didn’t protest as Celestia gingerly lifted her back up to a sitting position to get a look at her side. It was definitely bruising, but that was all Celestia could really tell. She swallowed heavily. “We’ll just have to hope it’s not as bad as she’s making it sound,” she thought before using her magic to help Luna get her coat back on.

Luna sniffled. She gave Celestia a small, strained smile once her coat was back on and secure. “Thanks, sis…”

“Anytime,” Celestia replied, getting her own coat back on. “You tell me if it starts getting worse, alright?”

“Okay...” Luna’s smile faded, and her eyes slowly drooped. “Um… I’m sorry.”

They were interrupted by Sprout’s voice shouting at them from across the water. “Did the supplies make it?!

The blood drained from Celestia’s face. In all of the sudden chaos, she had totally forgotten. She quickly lifted her head and looked around for any sign of the saddlebags that she was absolutely not carrying now. Her eyes swept across the river, and she soon spotted her quarry. A part of saddlebags, stranded in the middle of the river, resting against a few jagged rocks rising up through the ice.

Luna sniffled, drawing Celestia’s attention back to her. She was looking down, her ears lowered with shame. “I couldn’t hold on. I tried really hard, but I just couldn’t. I was too scared, and the wind was too strong…”

Celestia withered on the spot, but she was quick to put on a brave face. She reached out and pulled Luna into a comforting hug. She then turned and looked back towards Sprout. “We dropped them! Yours are right there! I’ll go get them now!”

“NO” Sprout shouted, stopping Celestia dead in her tracks. “No, no, just stay put! Do not leave the ground, do you hear me?!”

Celestia withdrew slightly from the intensity in his voice. A moment later, she swallowed heavily. “Okay! But what do we do?!”

Celestia frowned and eyed the bags again. They were right in the middle of the river, and there was plenty of wind in her way. Tentatively, she lit her horn and tried to reach for the bags. Alas, as before, the wind pulled her magic apart before it could get close enough to haul the bags closer. Celestia grimaced, allowing her horn to go dark.

Judging by the way Sprout kicked the ground on the other side, Celestia could tell he had just said something not at all welcome in polite conversation.

“Alright, just stay put! I’ll try and get it when I cross! What about Honey’s bag?!”

“Luna dropped that, too,” Celestia called back. She winced guiltily when she felt Luna shudder with another guilty sob into her chest, continuing to mumble out apology after apology. Her ears folded back, but she forced herself to keep talking. “I can’t see them from here! I dunno where they are!”

There was a moment of silence before Honey’s voice carried across. “I’m coming over! Wait for me, you two!”

“Right!” Celestia called back. She looked back down to Luna, her brow furrowing in concern. Luna was still clinging to her and trying to stifle her guilty sobs. Celestia leaned back slightly, taking a hold of Luna’s shoulders. “Luna. Hey, look at me.”

Luna slowly lifted her head to look into Celestia’s eyes. Her own were red and puffy from the cold and her crying. She opened her mouth to talk, but Celestia cut her off.

“This is not your fault, okay?” she stated emphatically. “You have nothing to be sorry for. Don’t blame yourself.”

Luna sniffled and offered up a tiny nod. Celestia knew that it would probably take more than that before Luna was really convinced of that herself, but they didn’t have time for a better pep talk right now. Satisfied that Luna would at least focus for the moment, Celestia let her go and got back to her hooves. She looked across the river to see Honey slowly crossing.

It was agony to watch. Celestia’s heart wouldn’t stop beating, and she was beginning to sweat from the tension. Honey’s stance was spread wide, and every step she made was slow and delicate. Even from here, over the wind, Celestia and Luna could hear the ice crackling beneath her weight with every step. Every so often, a crack would visibly appear under her, and Celestia’s heart would skip a beat each time as she feared she was about to watch her mother plunge into the water. Mercifully, however, the ice never broke out from under her, and she was able to keep moving.

Celestia let off a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding when Honey finally made it to the other side. She took off at a full gallop, Luna close behind her, heading straight for their mother. Honey fell to her haunches on the bank, looking just as relieved as the foals. She looked up to them, a weary smile on her face, and her hooves reached out.

“Mom!” Celestia exclaimed, throwing herself against Honey in a tight hug. She felt Luna doing much the same beside her, and then Honey’s hooves enveloping them both. She gave a content hum, allowing her mother’s warmth to chase away the fear and anxiety of the last few minutes.

“I’m okay, kids,” Honey whispered, pulling them close and kissing both of them atop the heads. “I’m okay. It’s okay.”

“You across, Honey?!” Sprout’s voice called from the other side. She turned back and nodded, shouting back an affirmative. “Alright. Wait right there. It’s my turn!”

Celestia’s relief was short-lived. She pulled away from Honey and looked across the water to see Sprout beginning his own crossing. He was taking a different route from Honey, no doubt to avoid the cracks she had left in her wake. His progress was even slower than hers had been, but it was steady nonetheless.

Celestia’s eyes darted between him and the saddlebags. He was slowly starting to curve around towards them. Every step was carefully tested and measured before he put his weight down. So far, though, everything seemed to be going fine…

At last, Sprout reached the bags, and he reached down to lift them up with his mouth. Celestia felt a small bit of relief as he lifted them up and then turned to finish the crossing.

The ice under Sprout’s hooves cracked, spiderwebbing out from his position in all directions. Luna squeaked in fear, her hooves flying up to cover her mouth. Honey rose to her hooves, visibly tensing. Celestia held her breath, watching Sprout’s every move with utmost focus.

Sprout looked down at the ice, his eyes wide and fearful. He stood perfectly still, and Celestia could see his chest heaving with every panicky breath he took. He slowly looked up at them, his eyes boring into hers for an instant that seemed to drag on for eternity.

Rise and Shine

by Skijarama

VIII - Into The Cold