So just to recap, because it helps me keep things in order too, at this point I was locked in the little security checkpoint and Falls-the-Axe was outside, along with a bunch of the SIVA-infected raiders. I didn’t even know how many of the raiders were out there because I couldn’t see much through the cracked bulletproof glass, but I did know that when everypony else had guns and you only had a big blade like Falls, it didn’t really matter if you were some kind of elite zebra tribal warrior, you were gonna get shot a lot and probably die. I’d gone up against only a couple of raiders with just my hoof-blade and I still almost got killed -- and I was practically bulletproof!
“Get out of there!” I shouted, hoping he could hear me. He’d taken cover behind an overturned steel table and was rummaging around in a leather pouch hanging from his piecemeal armor.
“Don’t worry, Sky Lady,” he growled. “This one’s on me. I’ll get you out when it quiets down!”
He found what he was looking for -- it looked like some kind of fang or stinger. Without even a moment of hesitation he jammed the sharp tip into his own thigh.
“Must be some kind of combat drug,” Destiny said. “Zebras used them all the time. They had amazing alchemy--”
Falls-the-Axe’s muscles swelled, and I heard joints cracking as he twisted and grew.
“--Okay you know what? This one’s new to me,” Destiny said. “What did he inject himself with?!”
He roared, his skin and coat thickening, the stripes fading and the shape of his legs twisting until he looked like some kind of fusion of bear and pony with a dirty white coat. The straps of his barding had either stretched or given way, and hung around his lower half like an armored skirt.
One of the raiders got the bright idea to shoot him. All that did was decide who Falls-the-Axe was going to attack first.
The transformed Zebra lumbered with more speed than anything that size had a right to move at, charging the raiders position and just crashing through their thin cover, tearing into them and rending them limb from limb.
“I’m getting a new respect for the ponies who fought in the war, if they had to deal with that,” I said. “There has to be a way out of here…”
I stepped back to look at the bulletproof glass. It had stopped a few shots from the raiders already, but it had also cracked. Maybe it had gotten fragile in its old age?
“Think we can use DRACO to blow out that window?” I asked.
“Maybe,” Destiny said. She hovered behind the rifle, reading the display on the scope’s screen. “Not a lot of armor-piercing rounds left. It might be better to wait and let me try getting the door open some other way.”
“We need to get out there and help him!”
“He doesn’t need help. I’m more worried about what he’s going to do once he’s finished with the raiders. If we wait a while, maybe he’ll ride this out and turn back to normal and we won’t have to fight some kind of crazy monster!”
She had a point. He was a giant monster who was ripping ponies limb from limb. On the other hoof I’d be a real jerk if I just sat on my flank and let him get shot up because I was too scared to get between a berserk beast and a bunch of heavily-armed half-machine raiders! I didn’t realize how suicidal that sounded until much later.
The decision was made for me a moment later. I smelled something sweet in the air, and finally noticed the vents in the small room were all closed off and welded shut to make sure they stayed that way. My ear twitched, and I followed a small hissing sound to a pressurized bottle that was leaking something that made me dizzy when I got too close.
“We need to get out of here. Can you get the door open?” I asked.
“I guess we’re taking our chances with the monster mash,” Destiny grumbled, floating under the desk. I saw the crimson light of her telekinesis at work, and every second seemed to crawl until I was practically jogging in place with impatience. Eventually, the green-lit SIVA flickered, and the door beeped and opened on its own.
“Thanks!” I yelled, not bothering to wait for her. I ran out into the atrium and…
I was too late. There were scattered parts of raiders everywhere, and black, oily blood seeped across the floor. Falls-the-Axe stood on two legs, breathing heavily and bleeding from multiple bullet wounds that were closing even while I watched. The massive bear-beast turned to me slowly.
I took careful aim with DRACO and fired, hitting the last raider right between the eyes when he popped out of cover and ran for the door. Falls spun around to see, and I heard something strange from the massive bear. A deep chuckle.
“Are you, uh…” I hesitated. He held up a massive clawed paw and motioned for me to stay back. The air got warmer, and steam rose from his body, and Falls-the-Axe started shrinking, bones twisting and reshaping themselves like snakes under his skin. The stripes were the last things to reappear as he went back to normal.
He stumbled, obviously exhausted, and I caught him before he hit the ground, holding him up so he could keep his dignity.
“Thanks,” he growled.
“That was, uh…” I hesitated, trying to find the words.
“Unnatural? Terrifying?” he suggested.
“I was going to say really cool and I was gonna ask how it works. They probably thought it was really scary, though.” I motioned to the fallen raiders.
Falls-the-Axe laughed loudly. “Yeah, they did seem a little afraid!” He rubbed his nose and looked around. “If there are more of them you’ll have to take care of it. The change always takes a lot out of me.”
“I knew Two-Bears was holding back when we fought,” I said.
“It wouldn’t be fair unless you could change too.” He pointed to a hallway that had been blocked by debris until a giant monster tore through it to get to some raiders. “I think that’s the right way. I got a decent look around while I was mopping up stragglers.”
“Cool.” He was still leaning on me, so I didn’t go for it right away. “So, is it like… a curse where you get bitten by a bear and start turning into one, or…?”
He chuckled and shook his head. “It’s just alchemy. I don’t know all the details. You’d need to talk to Smoke for that. He’s smarter than I am and helps make it.”
“Is it okay that I know about it?”
Falls shrugged. “It’s not really some big secret.” He took a deep breath to steady himself and shifted his weight back to his own hooves.
DRACO’s barrel moved, and I turned to look. Just for a second I thought I saw a shape in the shadows, a cloaked pony like the one I’d seen on the ridge. I narrowed my eyes. I hadn’t imagined it. DRACO had seen it too, but there was no sign of them now.
Falls punched my shoulder lightly and got my attention back to what was in front of me. “Anyway, you fight the next batch of raiders and we’ll call it even.”
“Deal,” I said. He walked up to the doorway and stopped, motioning to it and stepping aside.
“Oh right. I almost forgot. Ladies first.”
“One, two, three--!” I pulled hard, the thick steel door screeching in protest. Rust flakes flew into the air along with chipped paint, and I broke down coughing at the foul air, stepping back and flapping a wing in the direction of the door, trying to push the cloud of dust in some other direction.
“Doesn’t look like they got in there,” Falls-the-Axe said, narrowing his eyes to look past me.
“They must have been too busy setting up that ambush,” Destiny said, hovering near me like a worried hen. “The raiders must have left the outside door broken on purpose to get one of you zebras to wander in and see what happened.”
Falls scoffed at the suggestion. “That didn’t work out very well for them.”
“They were probably counting on you to be stuck in the security room,” I said. “There was that gas trap. They could have waited for you to pass out, then done whatever they wanted.”
“They’ll have to try a lot harder to turn me into a rug.” He nodded to the door. “Is it safe to go in?”
“Huh? Yeah,” I said. “Should be, anyway. No one’s been here for a long time. The most dangerous thing is sneezing ourselves to death on the dust.”
Falls sneezed at that, like I’d put a curse on him. “Great. You go in and I’ll keep watch from out here.”
“You sure? Aren’t you supposed to make sure I don’t do anything dishonorable?”
He looked away. “I just don’t feel right going in there. Just because superstitions are stupid doesn’t mean they aren’t true sometimes.”
“It does feel haunted,” I admitted.
“Yes, it does, because I’m right here,” Destiny said. “You’re both being foalish.”
“You being here just proves ghosts are real,” I pointed out. “So maybe it’s legitimate to be worried about--”
Destiny rolled in a lazy circle that would have been impossible for anypony with a neck to go along with their head. “If there are other ghosts here they’ll stay away when I tell them how little you respect the dearly departed.”
“Thanks.” I rolled my eyes and trotted in.
I’m not sure what the place had originally been. My hoofsteps echoed when I walked in, and my first instinct was to look up. The circular space had to reach all the way to the surface, just a big empty shaft lined with old scaffolding and wires. It reminded me a little of the SPP tower, but on a much smaller scale.
I looked down and scraped at the floor with a hoof, a layer of ash and soot coming away from the cracked concrete.
“So that’s what this place is,” Destiny said, her cone of light shining up and finding the edges of a huge metal hatch at the top of the room. “This was a missile silo.”
“Must have been a big missile,” I said.
“Not as big as I was expecting,” she said. “I thought the long-range intercontinental missiles were larger. I know my rockets pretty well and one this size…” she paused. “Maybe it’d reach the coast. Barely. But it’s more likely you’d end up dropping a megaspell somewhere in the ocean, or the Crystal Empire if you were really bad at aiming.”
“You said you forgot a lot,” I pointed out. “Maybe they improved the range.”
“...Maybe,” Destiny conceded. “Or even more likely, it was some general’s pet project and it didn’t have to make sense.”
“So they spent a bunch of time and money for nothing?”
“It wasn’t for nothing,” Destiny joked. “I’m sure somepony got paid very well for pouring all this concrete. You really don’t want to know how much grift there was during the war.”
She swept her light down to the middle of the room, where the real heart of the place was. A huge rock had somehow found its way into the silo, too big to have fit through the doors, so it must have come from the hatch above. A shovel had been driven into it. The ancient wood and metal almost seemed to glow in the dark.
Offerings had been left around it - dried flowers, gold coins, bottles, plates with the remains of what had probably once been food. They were so old there wasn’t even a stink left around the rot and dust. The only thing that stood out among the debris was a big chunk of technology that had been left on a silk square like a priceless artifact.
I got closer and nudged it like it might explode.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s a PipBuck,” Destiny said.
“Are you sure? I thought they were smaller,” I said, prodding the device with my hoof. It looked heavy enough to function more as a bludgeoning weapon than a portable terminal.
“There were a few different models. I’m pretty sure this is the PipBuck 1000. Maybe a Mark IV? It’s in really rough shape.” One of the dials lit up with her telekinetic glow, and the screen buzzed with static for a few moments but never resolved into a picture. “Yeah, the display’s toast and the latch is broken.”
“Just junk, then?” I guessed.
“I guess. I can’t imagine what it would take to actually break one of these things. I took a few apart to see what Stable-Tec put inside them, and even with the right tools cracking open the casing was a hassle.” She fiddled with the other knobs.
“Try connecting to it with DRACO,” I suggested.
“Good idea!” Destiny pulled a cable from the rifle and connected it to a port hidden at the edge of the PipBuck. DRACO beeped and I heard fans start up, the whole gun vibrating a little and getting warm.
“Sounds like it’s doing something.”
“There’s not a lot on here,” Destiny said, using telekinesis to flip through DRACO’s settings. “I think I can salvage a voice recording.”
“Play it,” I said.
“I don’t know what day it is,” the voice started. Whoever they were, they sounded tired, and they had a strange drawl that I’d never heard before. “I always said I’d come back tae help at Equestria’s darkest hour, and here it is. I thought there’d be some awful beast to slay an’ I could set things right, but th’ world ain’t quite that quaint now. There’s a sickness in the air and land that I cannae cure, an’ a sickness in th’ hearts of ponies that’s lingered too long.”
There was a long pause, punctuated by the howling of the wind.
“Th’ Windigos are comin’ again. I thought after everythin’ else that they’d be extinct but they seem stronger than ever, even after all this time. I cannae fight them with just my hooves. Th’ only thing that held them off afore was the Fire of Friendship, but ponies are so distrusting and paranoid they’ve already started shootin’ each other even while th’ world burns around them. I hate tae say it but the old bearded codger might have been right t’ say we needed tae leave this place t’ its fate.”
Whoever was talking put the recorder down to shout at something in the distance.
“Right. I’m leaving this here in case any of the others finds it. These zebra are the only decent bunch I’ve found in the North an’ I’ve done what I can for the sorry sops. I told ‘em to keep this bauble with my shovel, an’ that if they were ever in trouble, I’d do all I could tae get back tae them and help. For now though, I’m off tae find the others. Splittin’ up tae get the lay of the land was a poor idea, an’ I can’t imagine what horrors they’ve found. Anyway, I’m gettin long in th’ tooth because I don’t relish goin’ out into that cold again. Whoever’s listening tae this, I hope fate finds you well. Now how do I shut this bloody thing--”
It cut off with a burst of static.
“That must have been the pony that the Ghost Bear tribe saved out in the waste,” I said. “I guess there really was something to that legend after all.”
“Whoever it was, they sounded like they had some kind of hero complex,” Destiny said. “Can you imagine thinking you could punch the world until it became a better place?”
“Isn’t that kind of like what we’re doing by trying to kill the SIVA dragons?”
“No, that’s totally different, don’t be stupid! Unlike him we’re actually going to be directly fighting a singular force of terrible evil spreading its corruption across the land. It’s not naive because I can back it up with data.”
I nodded, because that was way easier than arguing.
“So what do we do now?” I asked.
“I’m pretty sure we grab the shovel and leave,” Destiny said. “I don’t know what they’re going to do with it, but maybe one of them needs to plant some turnips?”
“I just hope this isn’t one of those weird tests of worthiness,” I said, spreading my wings and sending a cloud of dust into the air along with scattered coins and dry flower petals. I flew over the shovel and hovered there, looking at it.
“Worthiness?” Destiny asked, obviously confused.
“You know! Like when a mystical princess shoves a sword in a stone and says that only the pony who is worthy enough to pull it out can marry her. There are tons of stories like that!”
“I met Princess Celestia. She never jammed a scimitar into a rock. Besides, if she was ever interested in a pony she’d probably be the one to make the first move.”
“What about Princess Luna?”
“If somepony wanted to date her they’d have to fill out paperwork with all six ministries just to be allowed to send her a letter,” Destiny said, holding back a laugh. “I’ll tell you what, though -- if pulling that shovel loose does mean you’re engaged to somepony, I’ll help you pick out a wedding dress.”
“Har har,” I said, grabbing the shovel and bracing myself. It had been here for buck knows how long, so there was a good chance it was rusted in place or glued there or-- I barely had time to finish the thought. It came free like I was pulling it out of warm butter.
“That didn’t look too hard,” Destiny said.
“It wasn’t,” I agreed. I looked at the rock. There was a big chunk missing from it now. I frowned and gingerly pressed the tip of the shovel against the stone. It swept right through the boulder like it was barely there, and I tossed a shovelful of solid granite to the side. “Wild.”
“That’s a powerful enchantment,” Destiny said, hovering up to it. “I take back what I said. I can see why they’d want this thing back in their hooves.”
“Hmm…” I looked at the edge of the shovel. It didn’t look very sharp. It was worn and blunted, clearly something ponies had used for decades and not just hung up in a museum.It didn’t look all that dangerous. I pressed the tip carefully against my leg. Then I pushed a little harder. My skin resisted the shovel in a way the stone just couldn’t. “I guess the enchantment only works on dirt and stone.”
“Did you just test to see if it was a deadly weapon by trying to sever your own hoof with it?” Destiny asked.
“I…” I paused. “That’s not important.”
“You’re an idiot, Chamomile.”
“Smoke-in-Water, please take this one off my hooves,” Falls-the-Axe growled. “She’s been asking questions the whole time we were gone and my throat is getting sore from telling her to ask someone else.”
The older zebra nodded to Falls as we walked into the Companions’ camp. “I take it you were successful?”
“Ask her. I’m getting a drink and a nap,” Falls said. He stopped for a moment to glance at me. “She did well, though. I think you can trust her.”
“We didn’t really do all that much,” Destiny said. “If it wasn’t for the little ambush by raiders it would have been a total milk run.”
Smoke nodded and patted Falls on the shoulder, pointing him towards a barrel. “That cask was just opened and it is as fine and sweet as can be.”
“I could use a drink too,” I said.
“Let’s take care of those burning questions first,” Smoke said. “Is that what I think it is?” He nodded to the carefully-wrapped shovel at my side. Falls-the-Axe had insisted I use some of the stiff, ancient cloth to wrap the tool up before taking it outside.
I nodded and walked over to a table made from a round cut from a log almost as wide as my wingspan, putting the shovel down and carefully tugging the wrapping off it. Just like before, it almost seemed to glow when the light hit it just right.
“The Shovel of Rockhoof,” Smoke said reverently, picking it up gingerly and examining it. “Amazing! You have done us a great service, and Falls seems to like you.”
“He’s cool,” I said. “I just have like one or two tiny questions.”
“Is it about him turning into a bear?” Smoke asked, throwing the question out there like it wasn’t a big deal.
“It is definitely about him turning into a bear,” Destiny and I said at the same time. I glanced at her and she bobbed in what I interpreted as a shrug.
“I suppose you are expecting a long and winding tale of our history, pacts made with the spirit of winter, an epic worthy of poetry and song?” Smoke waited for me to nod. “It’s less exciting than that, I’m afraid. Our people have always been masters of alchemy and potion-making in the same way ponies are masters of their own magic.”
“It’s some kind of combat drug,” Destiny translated.
“The Tincture isn’t quite that simple, but yes, in essence,” Smoke agreed. “It was necessary at first, before we found this place of peace. We had no weapons to fight off the wild beasts of the northern waste. The first Companions were given the Tincture to allow them to hunt for food and drive off the worst of the monsters.”
“They’d turn into giant monsters… to wrestle other giant monsters?” I asked quietly. “That’s so cool!”
“Chamomile,” Destiny warned.
“I wanna wrestle a giant monster,” I said.
“I like that!” Smoke said. He grinned and punched my shoulder. “The Tincture doesn’t work for ponies, though. I’m sorry.”
“Darn…” I sighed.
“Even if you weren’t a pegasus I have no idea what it would do to you with that steel plague eating you up.” Smoke gently touched my right forehoof like he was afraid it’d bite him. “I doubt it could transform this. It might pop right off your body.”
“I’d be more worried about the parts in her brain. The last thing she needs is more head trauma,” Destiny said.
“I’m sure she’s enough of a warrior that she doesn’t need more help to put up a fight,” Smoke said. “But you know, if you did want to wrestle something twice your size, I could arrange something.”
I shook my head. “That’s great and I’m gonna be honest -- if it was Two-Bears I might think about taking her up on that, but you’re just not my type, sorry.”
Smoke managed to maintain a serious face for about half a second before breaking down in laughter.
Destiny just hovered there, staring at me.
“What?” I asked.
“There’s just no accounting for taste,” Destiny sighed, shaking her head. “She’s a zebra, Chamomile.”
“And she could totally beat me up,” I agreed.
“Before I learn far too much about the Sky Lady’s taste in mares, what I meant was, Walks-In-Shadow wants to join the Companions. As you know. But as you don’t know, to do it he has to hunt a Ghost Bear and bring it back to us.”
“Does he have to do it alone?”
“I wouldn’t be asking you if you wanted to help if he had to do it alone,” Smoke said. “It would be good for the tribe. We need the bear to make the Tincture. I expect we’ll need more than we have, if things continue as they are.”
“Chamomile, we can’t sit around and delay this,” Destiny said. “Every moment we spend playing around with these primitives -- no offense--”
“Offense taken anyway,” Smoke mumbled.
“--Is time we could be using to find a weapon.”
“I…” I sighed. “I need to do this. I’ve been fighting ponies and things that used to be ponies and I gotta take a minute to do something else.”
“I don’t like it much either,” Destiny admitted. “If you need to take a little trip to remind yourself you’re not a monster, then do it. I just wish I had the same luxury.” She spun around, the helmet hovering there and not facing me in a way that felt more like sulking than being judgmental.
“How much longer will it take for the armor to be repaired?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Sixteen hours? Maybe less. I have the self-repair talismans running at full power, but the structural integrity fields were shattered and it’s having to repair parts of the thaumoframe. That’s delicate work for an autonomous spell, so it’s slow.”
“We’ve got that long, then,” I said. “You’re right that we need to get on it, but…” I rubbed my right forehoof. “I don’t want to get anywhere near that dragon without the armor shielding me. I could feel it reaching inside me.”
“You’ve got a point. But if you’re going to be playing around, I’m going to be working,” Destiny said. “I’m going to stay with the armor and try to manually repair what I can to speed things up.”
“Good idea,” I said. “I’ll feel better having access to our medical supplies, too.”
“You mean you’ll feel better when I can shoot you full of Med-X the next time you get a bullet in the guts.”
“That too,” I agreed.
I raised a hoof to shield my eyes against the wind. The high winds and biting chill reminded me of the brief time I’d spent with the Greywings. Also, walking on snow? Very disconcerting experience. It looks just like clouds but you crunch right through it and there’s this moment where you think something has gone terribly wrong and you’re about to fall a few thousand feet and never be seen again.
I wasn’t gonna let Walks-In-Shadow know that, though. I settled for flying slowly alongside him and fighting the winds instead of my instincts.
“So we don’t get a whole lot of bears in the Enclave,” I shouted over the wind. “How do you even hunt them?”
Walks-In-Shadow was wearing padded barding made from tanned hides and layers of dried grass, probably more for warmth than any kind of protection. He was wearing the silver blanket Wolf-in-Exile had given him as a cloak, and the edges whipped around with the gusts. He looked up at me and adjusted the goggles he was wearing to help with the glare.
“You’ve never gone hunting, Sky Lady?” he asked.
“Well, uh…” I hesitated. I couldn’t let a kid think I wasn’t cool! “Not a bear. I’ve hunted Skyjoys. You probably don’t get them down here. They’re like living clouds that eat your magic.”
Walks gasped in awe. “Wow! Really?”
“Yes,” I lied. I’d seen a Skyjoy once, at least. They used hypnotic lights to lure in pegasus ponies and drain their magic. Unless somepony caught them, they’d lose their ability to fly and stand on clouds and the last anypony would see of them was a hole in the cloud floor that closed up around them.
Walking on the snow reminded me too much of that moment when gravity got its revenge on us for our hubris.
“So what’s the plan, fearless leader?” I asked, changing the subject back to what was really important - finding a bear to wrestle.
“I’ve been on plenty of hunts with the Companions,” Walks-in-Shadow said. “Mostly I was just carrying things for them, but they showed me what to do!” He hefted his spear in both hooves. “This time of year, the Ghost Bears are bulking up for winter, so they’re especially vicious and hungry. All we have to do is use some bait and wait for them to come to us.”
“That actually sounds like a great plan.” I nodded. “So what kind of bait do we use?”
“Ghost Bears are attracted to the scent of blood, so I have a gourd full of blood we can pour on the snow and… and…” Walks-in-Shadow frowned and felt around in his pack.
“What’s wrong?”
He pulled out his hoof, and it was black and white and red all over. “The gourd must have leaked,” he said sheepishly.
Something huge and terrifying roared, and with the wind whipping around, I couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from.
“That was a Ghost Bear, wasn’t it?” I asked. He clutched his spear and nodded, backing up to get closer to me. “It’s okay. This is a wide open plain. We’ll be able to see it coming from miles away--”
The white bear standing under a white sky on white ground faded out of invisibility and smacked me in the face with a paw as big as a dinner plate. I slammed into the ground and made a snow alicorn.
“Ow,” I said, touching my cheek and finding a few shallow claw marks.
“They turn invisible! That’s why they’re Ghost Bears!” Walks-In-Shadow yelled, pointing his spear at the apparition and trying to get some distance, poking in its direction to make it back up. “Are you okay?”
“No big deal,” I said, shaking myself off and getting back to my hooves. “Alright, bear, it’s you and me! Let’s go!”
I squared up on it. If anything, it was bigger than Falls-the-Axe had been when he transformed. It felt the same as an oncoming storm, something bigger than life. Something that we had to fight just to tame its fury. It swung down at Walks-In-Shadow, and I shoved the kid out of the way, catching its paw in my hooves and holding it in place.
“You don’t like that, do you?” I grunted, straining to hold the beast back. “I bet you’ve never seen anypony as strong as you are!”
It roared and redoubled its efforts, my hooves slipping in the ice. I fell, and it was on me in a flash, all white fur and teeth and awful-smelling breath. I managed to grab its head, trying to keep those deadly jaws away. I kicked it in the stomach, and it felt like I was kicking a layer of rubber over a core of solid steel. I doubt the bear even noticed.
“I’ll help you!” Walks-in-Shadow yelled. Before I could tell him to stop, he drove the point of his spear into the Ghost Bear’s side. To his credit, he hit it hard enough to go right through a pony, but it only dug into the animal’s thick hide a few inches before the spear’s shaft bent and snapped, leaving the zebra with only a stick.
It wasn’t even close to a fatal wound, but it was just enough to get the bear’s attention. Some of that terrible, crushing weight came off me, and it tried to snap at Walks-In-Shadow. Ice flooded my veins and everything dropped into slow motion, sounds echoing unnaturally as my vision tunneled. I saw that huge maw full of fangs swing towards the kid, and that was my whole world.
Before I knew it, I was back on my hooves and holding the bear back. My hooves dug into the snow and to the solid permafrost beneath it. The bear made a surprised sound when its lunge was stopped in mid-motion. I pulled, and I could feel my bones creaking under the strain as the bear flipped over. It was a picture-perfect Wing Chun shoulder throw.
The bear crashed into the ground, and I wrapped my hooves around its neck, squeezing as hard as I could. It slapped at my side, and I felt its claws struggling to rip through my skin, like a dull knife meeting something too tough for it to bite into.
It got up, stumbling and trying to throw me off. Everything stank like burning hair, but I barely noticed it. I adjusted my grip and flicked my right forehoof, snapping the blade there out to its full length before driving it into the bear’s shoulder. Blood poured out, spurting over the snow in steaming gouts that almost instantly froze into crimson pools of ice.
I pulled the blade free and drove it in again, changing the angle and twisting. I felt the bear react to that, the stumbling getting a drunken, dazed quality. The bear used the last of its strength and tossed me aside. I hit the snow and rolled, my back legs almost collapsing under me when I stood. I panted, trying to catch my breath. Whatever font of strength I’d found, it was expended, and there was nothing left inside of me for a round two.
“You want to go again?” I rasped, my throat dry. “Come and get me if you’re bear enough!”
The bear coughed up a gout of thick, dark blood and collapsed, letting out one final, shuddering breath before going still.
I wiped my forehead, feeling weak and feverish. I must have been coming down from the world’s biggest adrenaline rush.
“Oh wow, are you okay, Sky Lady?” Walks-in-Shadow asked.
“Yeah, I’m--” I stumbled. “I just need a second.” I sat down, right in a puddle. I blinked and looked down. The snow had melted around me in a wide radius, like I was burning like a bonfire. My feathers, the ones that looked like tinfoil after they’d been plucked and regrew wrong, were glowing softly and shimmering with heat.
It probably wasn’t healthy.
“So how do we get this thing back to the village?” I asked, nodding to the bear corpse and just trying not to pass out. My stomach growled in protest, suddenly empty.
Walks-in-Shadow looked at me sheepishly.
“We carry it, don’t we?” I groaned.
The zebra colt blushed. “I’ll take the left side?” he offered.