Little did she know, however, just how difficult her promise would be to keep. For something lurked in the snow. Something foul, and evil. It stalked them on winds of ice and death… and it hungered.

Celestia shivered uncontrollably, both from the cold, and from the heart-stopping fear she felt. She tried to hold perfectly still, focusing on the trembling warmth of her sister just beneath her. The snow they were buried under was impossibly cold, and without their jackets, it dug into their skin, stealing all sense of feeling, leaving behind nothing but a deep ache.

They were still out there. She could hear them. Their voices. They echoed through the trees, barely muffled by the mound. Every instinct in Celestia’s body was screaming at her to run, to take Luna, rise from the mound, and run as far and as fast as her hooves could possibly carry her. But she had tried that already, and it had gotten them here.

So she decided to wait for the ghosts to pass. The snow was freezing, and she knew it would be dangerous to remain buried for too long, but if they were lucky, then maybe, just maybe the monsters would move on and give her and Luna room to sneak away undetected.

Luna gave off another agonized groan in the darkness of their cover. Celestia could feel the rapid rise and fall of her chest, each one punctuated with a barely-audible whimper of pain. Every so often, a louder groan would slip out, making Celestia’s heart hammer wildly in her chest.

“Luna, you need to be quiet,” She hissed, nearly inaudible, yet somehow deafening. “They’ll hear us!”

“It h-h-hurts,” Luna cried, sniffling. “I’m c-c-cold. I’m s-scared. M-make it stop.”

“I will! I’ll make it stop, but I need you to be quiet!” Celestia promised, but internally she knew that it was out of her hooves to do anything now. Her heart twisted and withered in her chest as another miserable, whispered wail of suffering came from her little sister. She wanted nothing more than to take away her pain, but what could she do? She had no idea what they were up against, where they were, or where to go.

All she could do was shelter Luna with her body and hope, pray to whatever was listening that they would be safe.

Celestia’s heart skipped a beat when she heard something moving nearby. Branches were being pushed aside by something passing through. And then she heard it. The ghost’s voice was practically right on top of them, giving off some indescribable vocalization of impatience. It was like wind howling in a valley, sending boulders tumbling into the deep.

Luna gasped, and Celestia felt a surge of panic in her breast. Thinking fast, she sent a tiny pulse of magic up her horn so she could see. The illumination was minuscule, but it allowed her to behold Luna’s terrified face. Her eyes were wide, bloodshot, and her lips were pressed tightly together. She was going pale, and her eyes locked onto Celestia’s, begging her to do something.

The moment ended as quickly as it had come, and the light died, leaving them in darkness. Celestia lowered her head just enough to rub the tip of her nose against Luna’s cheek, silently begging her to stay still and quiet.

Neither of them said a word. Celestia listened, her heart beating harder and faster as she heard the ghost moving around. It seemed to be sweeping the area, heading back and forth, but with every pass, it was drawing closer. Any second now, it would come across their little mound and discover them. Celestia closed her eyes.

“Mom, dad, please, somepony, anypony, help us,” she thought desperately, her eyes starting to burn with tears. “I don’t want to die.”

She heard it again. It was directly over her. Celestia inhaled involuntarily, her muscles tensing up, ready to spring into motion at a moment’s notice. If this was how she went down, she was going to go down fighting.

Somewhere, Celestia could hear one of the ghosts howling. This time, though, its tone was different, somehow. She didn’t know how to describe it, other than it sounded less aggressive.

She heard the ghost above her shifting. A low sound escaped it, almost as if it were disappointed or frustrated. A moment later, there was a gust of wind that pressed down on the mound, compressing the two foals into the earth and each other, followed by a suffocating silence.

Celestia didn’t move. She barely even dared to breathe. Her ears were perked up, listening for any sign of their enemy, but there was nothing; no howls, no roars. There wasn’t even the haunting breeze of its passing. She could hardly hear the blizzard that had swallowed the world for the last few days. It was just silent.

“Are… a-are they gone?” Luna whispered, her tiny, shivering voice deafening in the tight space.

Celestia frowned. Why would they have left? That one had been right on top of them. Another second and it would have found them and torn them from the snow. They wouldn’t have been able to do anything then. Why give up the chase now, when the prey was at its weakest? It didn’t make any sense…

Maybe it was a trap? They had pulled back just enough to try and coax the sisters into thinking they were safe so they would show themselves. Then, when their guard was down, the ghosts would strike before anything could be done. It was possible… but there was only one way to find out. Either way, they couldn’t stay here any longer. If the ghosts didn’t kill them, the cold would.

“I don’t know,” Celestia said as she lit her horn, staring down into Luna’s eyes imploringly. “Let me check. Don’t. Move.”

Luna nodded against her. Celestia took that as her cue, took a deep breath, and slowly lifted her head. The snow slid off of her with soft crunches as she rose, revealing the world around them.

It was still snowing, but to Celestia’s surprise, the wind was not nearly as strong as it used to be. She looked up and around, gingerly lighting up her horn. She swept her eyes back and forth across the area, looking for any sign of the ghosts. But she found nothing. It was as if they had just vanished into thin air.

She breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever their reasons were, Celestia could figure them out later. For now...

Celestia knew that was a stupid question, and Luna proved it when she opened her mouth to speak, but all that came out was a choked sob. That sob elicited a gasp of pain from her, which only spurred on more sobs. She tried to force words out through her crying, but could only manage one.

Celestia looked down at the swelling bruise on Luna’s barrel and cringed. Her stomach churned in disgust, and she felt bile tickling the back of her throat. The bruise was getting darker, and Celestia could tell that Luna had broken her ribs from their earlier impact with that tree. “Oh my gosh… c-can you stand?” she asked, daring to hope.

Luna sniffled. Shivering, she tried to get up, only to let out a shrill yelp of pain and collapse back into the snow, shaking from both the cold and her own agony. She shook her head a moment later. “I c-c-can’t. I’m s-sorry,” she whispered, her teeth chattering.

Celestia swore, quickly drawing their blankets out of her saddlebags. With ginger care, she wrapped Luna up in them to stave off the cold while racking her brain for a solution. They had no shelter, no clothes, and barely any supplies in their saddlebags. They didn’t have any food or water, either. They were both hungry, thirsty, and getting weaker all the time. If they didn’t find help soon...

As if sensing Celestia’s internal fears, Luna turned to look up at her even as she was being tucked into the blankets. “Tia…?” She asked in a barely audible voice. Her face was twisted with dread and despair. She lifted her head just a little and continued. “Am… am I gonna end up like mom and dad?”

Celestia went deathly silent upon hearing those words. Her blood turned even colder than the snow at her hooves. She took in a deep, shuddering breath as the mental image of Luna’s eyes closing and never opening again filled her mind. Her heart twisted in her chest, her guts became entangled with themselves, knotting and constricting with horror at the mere idea.

A fire swelled in Celestia’s chest. Her expression hardened, and she shook her head. “No. No, you aren’t,” she declared with finality. “I won’t let you. I promised mom I’d keep you safe, and I will!”

Luna’s eyes bored into her for several long seconds. Somehow, Celestia didn’t think Luna believed her. She wasn’t even sure she believed it herself. But all the same, the smaller pony offered a tiny nod. “Alright…”

Celestia nodded back and put on a comforting smile. “You’ll be fine. We’ll get to Flatstone and get you some help.”

Celestia frowned. That had been the question ever since they wound up on their own. She still had absolutely no idea where they were going. And with Luna in such bad shape, they no longer had the luxury of being able to go the wrong way. If she couldn’t find that town fast, then any chances they had of survival would be all but gone.

She shook her head. No, she would find Flatstone. She didn’t know how, yet, but she had no choice. Luna’s life was riding on it, and she was not going to lose her, too.

“We… we can fly,” she decided with a nod. “I’ll carry you and fly up into the air, right above the trees. We can look for the town from the air once it gets brighter out.”

“But… what if we get hit by that wind again? What if we fall? What if... you d-drop me?” Luna asked, curling into herself. She hissed and screwed her eyes shut at the irritation of her injury.

Luna jumped and looked up into Celestia’s eyes again. Celestia leaned down and pressed her forehead gently against her sister’s. When she spoke again, it was with solemn confidence that left no room for argument or doubt. “I won’t.”

Silence fell over the two after that. Luna didn’t say anything. She simply nodded. That having been said, the discussion ended. With nothing else for it, Celestia carefully hoisted her sister onto her back, being sure to leave room for her wings. Once Luna’s weight was settled on her shoulders, she looked up into the sky.

Without another word, Celestia flared her wings and took to the air, leaving a swirling vortex of dusty snow in her wake. In mere moments, all traces of their presence were buried by a passing gust of wind and snow.

Though the air had calmed significantly once the ghosts fled, the wind was still far from gentle, and the snow was still falling in massive flakes that stung upon impact with Celestia’s bare fur. It was like a flurry of daggers trying to break open the side of a mountain. None on their own could do much, but as time went on, the chill crept deeper and deeper into Celestia’s muscles, leaving them stiff, sore, and increasingly numb. Her only sources of warmth were the bundle on her back and the heat generated by every strained flap of her wings.

All the same, she grit her teeth and powered through it, focusing on flying down along the slopes of the mountain. She tempered her pace, being sure not to go too fast. If they were hit by another one of those freak gusts, she needed to maintain control. Luna couldn’t survive another fall like that.

On the way down, she couldn’t help but think back on the ghosts, and how they had just left them like that. She racked her brain for any clues, any possible answers, but none were forthcoming. It was like the ghosts had given up right at the moment of their triumph and fled back into the wind that had spawned them. In truth, that was what scared Celestia the most. Those creatures were still out there.

She flew on in silence like this for what felt like hours. Slowly but surely, the light of day began to creep back into the world, filtered through the clouds to paint the world in depressing shades of gray and white, and little by little the jagged crags and rocky terrain began smoothing out the farther down Celestia went. She realized with an air of surprise that the trees were thinning out as well, leaving more and more patches of ground barren of foliage.

She looked ahead and came to a total stop as she realized that, at long last, she had reached the bottom of the mountain. And she was not prepared for what she saw. She had been surrounded by mountainous terrain for all of her life and had never been able to see very far through the trees, the slopes, and the ridges. She had gotten used to the idea that there would always be something in front of her to block her view.

Here, it was different. It was as if the world was a ball of clay, and the sculptor had given up after one infinitely detailed spot, leaving the rest smooth and barren. A field of white stretched out before her, reaching out to the horizon with the only noteworthy features being a few gentle rises and falls in the terrain, but even those were practically nonexistent. Here and there, she saw dead trees poking up from the snow, the last vestiges of the world from before the snow marking their own graves with their bodies.

It was just so… empty. Celestia rubbed at her face and her eyes, thinking that she must have been hallucinating, but the reality persisted: that infinite field of white, stretching on and on and on. Fear’s icy fingers took hold of her heart, and Celestia whimpered, shying back from it. She could see so far, and it suddenly dawned on her just how little her world had been up to this point. Now she could see more, and all of it was buried in snow.

Was the whole world like this? Had it all ended while her family wasn’t looking? Was there anything left…?

Desperate for something familiar, Celestia spun in place to look up at the mountains she had just finished descending. They loomed above her, their highest peaks lost amid the clouds, tall and imposing, like a judgemental giant. She could barely make out familiar ridgelines from here, nestled deep into its slopes about halfway up.

Her entire life, all twelve, almost thirteen years of it, had taken place on this one mountain, in one little crevice that she couldn’t even see from here.

“My whole life… except for the first three years,” she thought, her mind briefly wandering back to her oldest memory, one of gentle blue eyes, filled with love and sorrow and fear. Of that smile, comforting and loving, but burdened by something heavier than Celestia could ever hope to understand. Celestia idly wondered how the owner of that smile was faring, and if she was even still alive...

Luna shivered on her back. Celestia shook her head, bitterly chasing away the memory. She had more important things to focus on than the mare that had abandoned her and her sister at the door of the first ponies she came across. With a scoff, she spun in place and cast her eyes across the endless fields before her again.

“Flatstone is supposed to be at the bottom of the mountain, right?” she thought, looking for any sign of civilization. Not that she really knew what civilization looked like. Her family’s secluded home was all she knew. “So I just have to find more of that. Buildings.”

She looked around for several minutes, starting to drift forward through the air. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, but she was sure she’d know it when she saw it. It had to be around here somewhere, right?

She continued her search for several minutes, eyes scanning the featureless plains beneath her. She was starting to get worried. She wasn’t seeing anything like her old home in the mountains. No buildings, no chopped down trees. It was just snow.

Were they too late? Had it all been buried already? The faint sound of Luna whimpering on her back sent a spike of fear into Celestia’s heart, driving her to fly faster and glare harder.

She was beginning to grow frantic when, finally, she saw something. It was a ways ahead, tucked just out of view behind a small foothill coming down from the mountain. Celestia squinted against the snow and the haze, trying to make out details. It was difficult to ascertain much through the snow, but the closer she came, the more she saw.

Soon, she realized what it was, and her heart fluttered with joy as the sight of a small village, tucked haphazardly up against the shores of the river, came into view. Celestia paused momentarily, a quiet, giddy laugh escaping her. She looked back at Luna, her eyes shimmering. “Lu… I think we found it,” she whispered quietly.

Luna cracked open an eye, having been trying to rest for the whole flight. Her voice was tiny, almost silent, but no less hopeful. “We have?”

Celestia nodded, shifting Luna in her magic and pointing ahead. “Yeah. Look. Right there, see? Against the river.”

Luna squinted forward, shivering slightly. Then her eyes lit up, going wide. “Woah… how many ponies live there?” she asked, sounding dumbfounded.

Celestia shook her head, settling Luna down on her back before taking off again, flying faster than before. “Dunno. Doesn’t matter. Let’s just get in there and get you some help.”

As they drew closer, Celestia tried to ignore the pit of unease starting to work its way into her chest. This was an earth pony village they were about to set hoof in, when both of them were winged unicorns. Neither Sprout nor Honey had heard of such a thing prior to their self-imposed exile. Unless things had changed down here, then the sisters were in for a very hostile welcome.

But there was no other choice. They needed the help. Luna needed the help. That one fact alone gave Celestia the strength to throw away any concerns she had about what other ponies thought of her.

Slowly but surely, the buildings became distinct from each other. Celestia realized with some amount of surprise that they were built very differently from her old home in the mountains. Instead of wood logs stacked together, most of them were built out of some kind of stone. Many were circular in shape, and each one had its roof totally smothered in snow. The streets fared no better than the ground outside.

As Celestia came in for a landing, something struck her as odd. Where were the hoofprints? If this was a village, and a lot of ponies lived here, then surely there should be prints in the snow to mark their passing. But there were no prints to be found. When Celestia touched down in a circle of structures in the middle of the village, shivering as the cold bit into her already freezing hooves, she came to the stark realization that the snow was smooth and undisturbed.

The wind was starting to return, just strong enough to whistle ominously between the buildings and the streets. Celestia looked this way and that, her ears drooping. Save for that ghostly whistle, it was utterly silent. Nothing else moved in that village. All of the windows were dark, their curtains drawn, flapping uselessly in the breeze.

Celestia took a step back, starting to shake from more than just the cold. “Something’s wrong…” she said in a hushed voice, her wings ruffling against her sides.

Luna shifted on Celestia’s back, lifting her head to look around. She was quiet for a long moment, but there was no missing the growing tremor felt through the fabric of her blankets. She took a shaking breath, and in one, terrified whisper, perfectly summarized Celestia’s fears in a single question.

Rise and Shine

by Skijarama

XII - Silence