“If you’re feeling lonely and you’re still searching for your true friends, just look up at the sky. Who knows, maybe you and your future best friends are all looking at the same aurora.”
CHAPTER 1: Constant Companions
The lights were beautiful and the pain was amazing. Those were my first two thoughts when I woke up after it happened. I heaved my left foreleg out of the snow and held it above my face. I could see by the ghostly light of an aurora borealis that my poor limb was nothing but a darkened smear of red and mottled orange. The aurora lit up the night sky and glinted off of a jagged shard of metal lodged right into the bottom of my hoof. Then I had my third thought.
I was cold. Freezing. Half of me was sunk into a snowbank and there was a stiff wind blowing over my other half. My thoughts were still sticky and slow as chilled molasses, but something bubbled to the surface of my mind and told me that I really needed to move. But I wouldn’t be able to walk with this oversized metallic splinter sticking out of my hoof. I reached up with my head and took hold of it in my mouth. My teeth just clinked against it as they chattered from the cold and I had to clench my jaw tight to get a good grip. The metal was hard and cold and didn’t give one lick about how it grated against my chompers. My tongue cringed away from the shard, curling into the back of my mouth. I gave a tug and the pain was like the whole inside of my leg was on fire. I kept at it for just a second, pulling a little harder, but it wouldn’t budge. Then my head started to swim with the agony and the muscles of my foreleg refused to stand still and let me torture them any longer. I let go, groaning and clenching my eyes shut. Some tears leaked through my eyelids and a gust of wind froze them against my cheeks. I let my head sink a little deeper into the snow. It was soft, like a pillow. And I was tired.
My Granny always told me that sleep isn’t something you do, it’s something that happens to you. It’ll never come when called, but it’ll sneak up underneath you and let you sink in while you’re not paying attention. And you’ll never know it happened until after you wake up. A fair many times when I was a filly I would wake up to Granny giving me a right colorful scolding for falling asleep on a boring job. So I learned to be wary of sleep and always know when it was sneaking up on me at the wrong place and time.
And that’s how Granny Smith saved my life, for I had barely started to relax into that snowbank when my old instinct rose up and bucked me in the tail. There was something that needed doing, and I had left it half done. And that just wasn’t my way.
My eyelids stuck for a moment, their lashes frozen together, but I got them open and squinted against the wind. The aurora was still swirling through the sky casting an eerie green light down on me. Not sure why, but it made me uneasy. I suddenly wanted to get out from under that unnatural light as sure as I wanted to find shelter against the freezing wind. I just needed to be able to set all four hooves on the ground. With my renewed focus, my mind started to thaw and my thoughts started dripping freely. I knew I wouldn’t be able to just pull the shard out. My teeth were hammering together from the cold now, and it was all I could do to hold my foreleg out of the snow, much less keep it in place while I yanked on the shard.
My Brother had once stepped on a nail and his hoof had swelled up around it. Ponies’ mouths aren’t exactly made for grabbing and pulling much more than grass and weeds, so it was impossible to yank that nail out by just grabbing it in his teeth. I had thought we’d need to find a unicorn with some fancy magic to pull it out, but he had another idea. He tied one end of a piece of twine around the nail and the other end around a wooden board. Then he laid on his back and used his hind legs to push the board away. Now my family’s known for having some mighty powerful hindquarters, so it only took an ounce of my brother’s strength to buck that board clear across the yard and the nail along with it.
I didn’t have a board or twine, but I had my legs and the hair ribbon I always wore to keep my mane off my neck. My shivering made it hard to untie the ribbon, but after a couple minutes of struggle I had one end tied firmly around the shard and the other end knotted into a loop. Then I laid on my back and curled my right hindleg up, slipping my hoof into the loop. Gingerly, I rolled my hindlimb down until the ribbon was taught. I took a few breaths, trying not to think about the pain that thudded in my hoof with each beat of my heart. This was just another buck. Just another apple tree that needed shaking. I had done it a million times. The motion was practically automatic. My leg was curled up and ready to kick. I just had to kick. Just kick. Kick. Right. NOW!
It wasn’t quite like a normal buck. Lying flat on my back made it awkward. But it did the trick. My hindleg snapped straight and for a moment I thought I would buck those dancing lights right out of the sky. The shard followed, flinging a trail of blood out in an arc. The pain flared like fireworks going off in my fetlock. I coughed out a gasping yelp and jammed my hoof into the snow as my whole body spasmed and tensed. Icy cold bit the skin of my foreleg and seeped into my hoof. It was a numbing mercy. I let myself have a few seconds of that relief, but I could feel sleep sneaking up on me again. I might not be able to put my whole weight on my injured hoof, but with the shard out I could at least limp.
I sat up and finally took a look around. The spooky light from the aurora was enough to see the wreckage. A few train cars and a train engine, smashed to smithereens at the bottom of a gorge. The engine was crumpled like an enormous soda can, but it was mostly intact. Might make for good shelter. Even better, I could see a tiny spark of orange light in the cabin. It took most of my strength just to stand up, but I managed the few shuddering steps over to the massive, metal engine. It had tipped over on its side, spilling coal from its wagon all over the snowy ground. There was a crack as long as a barn door in the side of its boiler and steam was still curling out only to be swept away by the night breeze. The whole thing reminded me of a sleeping dragon and I thanked my lucky stars to find a fire still burning in its belly.
Gingerly, I crawled into the cabin through the sideways door. The window on the side that had hit the ground was shattered, but the big heart-shaped front window only had a spiderweb of cracks and was still blocking the wind. I looked up to see the aurora dancing away through the other side window. Next to that window, bolted to the up-turned wall was a first aid kit. I sure was looking forward to opening that, but a fresh shiver reminded me that I was still freezing.
The furnace had been jostled by the fall, but a few glowing embers had survived. I opened it up, which was tricky to do with the whole engine turned on its side, and stoked it with a few pieces of nearby coal. Exhausted, I sat back on my haunches and let the warmth seep into me. As the numbing cold dribbled away, the pain in my left hoof started to flare with each heartbeat again. I stood up one more time, careful of the broken glass that littered the cabin. I didn’t need another hole to patch. Reaching up, I flipped the latch on the first aid kit and everything in it tumbled down onto my head. I gratefully noted the bandages that plopped through my loose mane and the bottle of painkillers that bounced off my nose. I picked up the bottle first, twisted off the lid, and chewed three of the tablets. A few minutes later, I had my hoof tightly wrapped in gauze. It was only then that my instincts lowered their hackles. Sleep came and snuggled up to me again. If it were a stallion I’d have rebuked it for being so forward. But as it was, with a warm fire going and my pain a dull and distant throb, I was more than happy to let sleep carry me down into the dark.
* * * * *
I remembered. She’d found me in the orchards. The dead of winter was a slow time for earth ponies, but work never really stopped. Even in the coldest months, it was possible to grow food. At least it was possible with earth pony magic. And my crop of frost apples would make a mighty fine treat in a few months. The trick was to keep them on the tree as long as possible, soaking up the winter cold so that they stayed nice and chilly all the way up into summer. But of course I had regular apples growing too. Equestria’s appetite didn’t hibernate over the winter, and though the bumper crops of autumn would last at least through Hearth’s Warming, earth pony farmers were always expected to keep the supply of produce flowing.
So it was no surprise that she’d known to find me out tending my trees. She trotted right up to me, just like she might have done years ago, back in the good old days. Back when any little problem could be solved with a change in perspective and a letter to the princess. It had been a strange feeling, watching her plod through the snow towards me, wearing that look of determination she used to get right before she would whisk us all away on some grand adventure. I held my peace as she approached, letting her speak first.
“Applejack, can we talk?”
“Can bees squawk?” I replied. Her lips curled and for just a moment I had thought she would laugh. But I watched that spark sputter out of her face and I knew she was feeling the same, old sadness that I felt welling up in that hollow space under my throat. By now we were both so familiar with that melancholy that it only took a second before we’d both stamped it down and put on a neutral expression. I wished I had just said “Sure.”
I pressed on and said, “How can I help you Twilight?” And like that we were down to business. I quelled the stale echo of resentment that I told myself I didn’t feel anymore.
The lavender unicorn set her jaw and I could tell she had practiced her next words. “I need to ask a favor of you.” There was an old fire behind her eyes. Almost as if . . .
It was too much to hope. I turned away, making a pretense of examining my apples and replied, “Ain’t no harm in the asking. What can I do you for, sugarcube?”
“I need you to accompany me to-- on an errand.”
“An errand, huh? Well, I suppose I’ve got a few hours. Where’re we going?”
I caught her squirm out of the corner of my eye as she said, “I’m afraid this will take more than a few hours. We’ll be taking a trip. I’ll need you for at least a few days.”
I sighed. “Well, I can’t say that’d be too much to spare. But where are we going? And what do you need me to do?”
She hesitated and I glanced back at her. Now she was the one looking at the apples. I try not to be a suspicious pony, but all this hemming and hawing was making me twitchy. There was something she knew she had to tell me, but she didn’t want to do it.
Finally, I pressed her, “Just what kind of errand is this?”
She sighed and I could tell she had made up her mind. Still, she refused to look me in the eye as she said, “It’s royal business. I can’t give you the details, but it’s imperative that you come with me.”
I swear I did my best to stay cordial, but consarnit that made me angry. Well, If I’m being honest, I was already angry. It was an old anger, the kind of unresolved bitterness that curls up deep in your bones and only comes out when it smells your weakness. When you’ve had a rough day, when you’re overtired and the world seems bleak, it saunters out like a smooth-talking salespony and lays out some enticing targets for your bad mood. And very rarely, you have a reunion with one such target, and that sleazy salespony offers you a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. A chance to take out all of your anger and hurt on the pony that made you feel that way in the first place.
I hate salesponies. And I was quick to turn down that particular offer. But of course that slick bastard left a free sample of icy resentment that stuck to my words like hoarfrost.
“I don't really see how royal business would concern me.” It wasn't an outright rejection, just a bit of stalling and a cruel reminder that I would be well within my reason to turn her away. I hated myself for saying it, but I kept quiet, forcing her to respond.
A few seconds passed and i watched her expression harden. Finally, she said, “This is of the utmost importance to the realm. It is your duty as a subject of Equestria and an Element of Harmony--”
“You know that ain’t true,” I snapped, “And now my duty is to my family and my farm.”
She bristled. “This is bigger than any one family.”
By now I knew where this was going. It was an old and familiar argument. And I suddenly found that I didn't have the stomach for it. That nasty salespony was gone, slipped away like the unwanted guest he knew he was. All that was left of the wares he was peddling was a sick feeling in my guts and the looming memory that the pony standing in front of me had once been one of my dearest friends. My next words I spoke in sadness rather than resentment.
“Then what do you need me for anyway?” I said, “If this is so important, why not get a more important pony to help you?”
That stopped her in her tracks for a moment. Her tone softened, and she spoke with the sort of tenderness you afford to a broken limb. “You are an important pony whether you like it or not. You're the Element of Honesty.” She paused, then with a small sweep of her hoof she gestured around at our surroundings, “Your farm is doing very well. I, uh, I hear the Cakes’ business has really been picking up since they started pairing your zap apple jam with their buttercream.” I raised an eyebrow, but nodded politely. “And I was so happy to hear about Applebloom’s cutie mark. I see she’s been making some additions to your farm. Is she still helping the local youngsters with their cutie mark problems as well?
I narrowed my eyes and said “Eeyup.”
“Everything is just fine here. Please believe me when I say I hate to ask you to leave, but your farm is fine and your family is fine. But right now there’s somepony far away who needs help. And I can't do what they need without you.”
Land sakes, was she being sincere or did she just know me well enough to figure the exact words to set the hook? I regarded her for a long moment. She stood perfectly still, waiting for my final answer.
I felt a strange mix of emotions. On one hoof, I hated her for asking for my help now, after so many years of distance and isolation. Dropping in out of the blue like a falling piano and expecting to sweep me away without so much as a day’s notice. And after I had made it so clear that I would have been there, I would have had her back whenever she needed, even after our worst failure, if she had only let me. In the light of all that, her current presumption was annoying to say the least.
But on the other hoof, I was thrilled at the prospect of going on an adventure like in the old days. I loved my quiet life, but ever since our last adventure, I had felt that I should have been doing something . . . more. Plus, I couldn't deny that seeing Twilight Sparkle and speaking to her again brought hope to my heart. A hope that maybe, we could be friends again.
“Alright” I said. She closed her eyes, her shoulders relaxing in relief. “I just need to know where we're going.”
* * * * *
Straight to the bottom of a ravine. I looked up the rocky walls at the train tracks above, then down at the twisted ruins of metal that used to be our train. Something had happened to derail it and send it down here. I’d have thought that whatever that was would have left an impression, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember what had happened. Not exactly, at least. One thing was for sure, though. I wasn’t getting back up that cliff until my hoof had had a few days to mend. And that meant I needed some food.
Where's Twilight? I ground my teeth against the first answer that sprung to mind. She hadn’t come looking for me yet. Which meant she couldn’t. Either because she was hurt, trapped, or-- No. I'd never been one for lying to myself but I sure as hay knew when to stop thinking and get to doing. She wasn't here. There was no sign of her and I couldn't get far on my bad hoof, so my only option was to get myself sorted before I went looking for her. With luck she’d be nearby and we'd cross paths soon. After all, she’s a smart pony and would know she'd need supplies. There was a good chance we'd search the same areas.
There had been a few apples in my travel bag, but that was nowhere to be seen. Probably thrown out of the train in the calamity and dashed somewhere in the trail of wreckage that stretched at least a half mile back along the floor of the gorge. There hadn’t been many cars in the train, but the crash had wrenched them apart, one by one, and sent them down a good distance from one another. Their mangled hulks stuck out of the snow, most of them on their side or wheels up. When I was barely more than a filly, I’d had the displeasure of witnessing the aftermath of a cattle stampede that had careened off of a cliff. The broken train cars reminded me of the carcasses, crushed and distorted, with their stiff legs poking up at odd angles. With a shudder, I gave my surroundings another glance. There was nothing but rock and snow and twisted metal. Gingerly, I pawed at the ground but found nothing beneath the snow but frozen gravel. Not even a clump of dried and brown grass. With a sigh, I started making my way toward the nearest train car. I was dubious about my chances of finding food there, but I reckoned that it was better than trying to eat frosted dirt.
It took a while to get there, limping on my injured hoof, and by the time I finally made it, I was chilled to the bone. I made a note to keep an eye out for cold-weather gear as well. Ponies might not exactly wear clothes, but at these temperatures, I’d have happily put on a frilly dresses just to help block the wind.
The car was on its side and fairly easy to access. I pried open the door at the front of the car and ducked inside. The cabin was a mess of splintered benches that had been torn out of their places by the impact with the worst of the debris piled against what had been the floor. There was a narrow strip of wall, near the ceiling, that was just clear enough for me to walk on. I checked each of the rows of benches as I went. It had not been a busy train. In fact I couldn’t remember seeing a single other pony besides me and Twilight. My heart lurched at the thought of her, but my stomach growled, cowing any concerns I might have for my friend into the back of my mind.
Not many modern ponies understand what real hunger is like. All the amenities of magic and technology make it so a decent meal is never more than a short walk away. Restaurants and market stalls are always stocked year-round, and if there’s a shortage of one crop, there’s sure to be an abundance of another. And you can hardly go two minutes without being offered some form of sugary pastry.
To be honest I'd never felt real hunger either. But my Granny has. She always loved telling and retelling the stories of her youth, but there was one particular yarn that she only ever spun once, and it was something I'll never forget.
My family hasn’t always been sedentary farmers. We have our roots in the wandering lifestyle of vagabonds, always searching for a home, but never quite welcome anywhere they went. Winter was always a hard time for my ancestors, but the winter of my Granny’s memory is something else entirely. Brutal, it was. Malicious and sadistic. Now I’d be the first to tell you that Granny Smith is prone to exaggeration, but you can always tell when she’s being cheeky by the stubborn glint in her eye. When she told me this story, her eyes were dead flat, cold, and distant. When she said that year's winter was out to torment and kill her and her kin, I believe her.
Travelling out of Manehattan late that autumn, they were heading west through a barren tundra on the edge of the Frozen North. Now, normally that’d be a right chicken-brained idea, but Granny’s pappy had heard tell of a new pegasus settlement and figured they’d need plenty of produce living so far off the ground as they did. The whole family was hoping they might even be able to set up a permanent arrangement farming and selling to the pegasi. But they never made it that far.
A week out of Manehattan, the first blizzard hit, screaming down from the north. Granny swears she saw shapes of ghostly, flying horses in the clouds as the wind howled and the temperatures plunged. After it finally died down, one branch of the family tree decided it would be better to turn back and try to make their living on the streets of Manehattan. They were right. But Granny’s pappy led their family onward.
They couldn’t have known that the blizzards would keep coming, pounding down on Granny and her family again and again. It wasn’t until they were weeks away from any civilization that things started to fall apart. Literally. The wind tore apart the canvass covers on their wagons. The icy ground was like driving over jagged rock and turned their wheels into wood pulp. And the sleeting snow stuck to everything, slowly freezing their axles solid. They were forced to stop and endure the weather for as long as it decided to last.
It wasn’t so bad at first. They had supplies. But, as Granny tells it, the winter knew their weakness. Without being able to move, the ponies got cold. And when they got cold, they burned oil lamps to keep warm. Wood fires don’t like to start in the cold and damp, and it wasn’t as if they had much wood for fuel anyway. But oil is happy to burn when wood won’t. It burns in the chilliest and wettest of weather. And once it starts burning, it won’t stop until it’s all gone.
The wind shook a lamp off of it’s hook in the supply wagon and splattered oil all over the provisions. One of the best ways to get wood to burn in the cold and wet is to douse it in oil. In fact, just about anything will burn if it’s doused in oil. That includes food. Months’ worth of supplies was lost in minutes, and all my Granny could do was watch as it was all carried away as ash in the wind.
They tried desperately to get moving at first, but by then the wagons were frozen to the ground. There was nothing left to do but sit and hope that the weather would clear. But the winter was just getting started, and it was patient. It wasn’t merciful enough to take my family’s lives through frostbite or hypothermia. Instead, it sent its faithful servant, hunger, to reap its souls.
There were just enough rations scattered between the wagons that Granny’s family could survive, at the cost of their once-powerful, earth pony physiques. That was the first thing hunger took from them, but it was not the last. Granny said that hunger’s face was a skull, and it was tartarus-bent on sculpting those ponies in its image. She remembered how she could feel her mother’s ribs and joints as they huddled together for warmth. And how their lips would chap so badly they would have to pull them back from their teeth in a deathly grimace. But worst of all, she said, were the dull eyes of her parents and relatives, staring out of the shadows of their sunken sockets.
Hunger doesn’t make you scared, she said. In fact it doesn’t let you feel much of anything except hungry. At first, it demands that you serve it, and forces you to humiliate yourself by eating tree bark and scraps of canvas. Anything to fill your stomach. But, after a while, it just steals any sense of purpose or spark of life. The seeds that they had been planning to plant or sell were consumed without even a mention of how they had been their only means of making money next season. Hunger took from them everything that they were and left them as empty shells, no different than the frozen wagons.
“We were all dead that winter,” Granny had said, “But only one of us was actually dying.”
One of her older cousins that was hunkering in their wagon had a foal. He didn’t cry. Hunger had taken his voice early on and made him quiet just like the rest of them. Still, his mother nursed him every day, pouring what little vitality she had left into his tiny body. And every day, Granny could see the toll it took. It wasn't long before her cousin had nothing left and the nursing stopped. Each morning when Granny woke, she would look over to see her cousin with her son on her chest, slowly rising and falling with each breath. Hunger was working in both of them, slowing their breathing one day at a time.
One morning, Granny woke up, and discovered that hunger didn’t take away all of her cousin’s feelings. The tears on her face betrayed the one thing hunger would leave in a pony. Grief.
* * * * *
I shook the tears from my eyes before they could freeze. My stomach was still growling, reminding me that hunger was always with me, just like sleep, waiting to make itself known. Reminding me what it would do to me if I didn’t keep it at bay.
With a whinny, I pressed forward into the train car, but it was immediately clear that I wouldn’t find much of use in there. Clearly, there had been no passengers here. The benches and cargo spaces were all empty. My stomach growled again and I noticed that my mouth was starting to feel pretty dry as well. My body was reminding me that I was in a race against time. If I didn’t get something to eat and drink soon, I’d get to experience first hand what my Granny had so many years ago. I picked up a few pieces of broken wood that looked like they’d make decent fuel for the fire and moved on.
The wind blasted my hide as I trudged on toward the next car. The sun was as high in the sky as it would be today, but not much of it’s light made it down to the bottom of the ravine. It gave everything a dull tint, and I nearly missed the flash of green in the snow. At a second glance, I recognized the familiar shape of my saddle bag. My heart leapt as I trotted over, hastily flipping it open. There were two pristine, red apples inside, along with my good scarf. I ate one of my apples immediately and quickly donned the warmer clothing. It was frozen, crackling as I draped it over my neck as best I could. I’d be able to dry it by the fire back at the engine, but for now it at least helped to block the wind a bit. Even so, I was shivering by the time I made it to the next car. I wouldn’t be able to keep this search up for much longer.
The front half of this car had been torn away, but the remaining half was fairly intact and miraculously upright. Even better, I could already see from the ground which car this had been: the cafe car. I clamored in and set about searching the various cupboards behind a small counter. It was hardly a buffet. With barely any passengers, I doubted they had even had a designated crew member to run the cafe, but there were still a few items in stock. A few packages of potato chips, some cans of vegetable soup, and some canned peaches.
“I hope nopony else needs any of this,” I muttered as I loaded the food into my saddle bag. I knew it wasn’t stealing. This was an emergency and I needed to do what I could to survive. But I still worried that I might have been the first pony to make it here, and that anypony who came after me would be in more dire straits. Of course, I hadn’t seen hide nor hair nor any sign at all of any other ponies down in the ravine with me. Mulling it over, I decided to take everything, reasoning that if anypony did make it here, they would be heading for the engine anyway and I’d be happy to share what I’d found with them once they got there.
A gust of wind shuddered through the car, blowing my mane about my face and reminding me that I really ought to be getting back to that fire myself. I had enough provisions to last me a couple days. Long enough to recover and find a way out of this gorge. Walking back, the wound in my hoof started to pound again. The pain killers were wearing off, and I didn’t hesitate to take a couple more when I made it back to the engine. The remaining two pills clattered around in their tube as I tossed it and the rest of the bandages into my saddle bag. It seemed terribly forlorn and empty.
With a sigh, I limped over to the furnace and stoked it back to life with a few more coals. I cooked some soup and used the leftover can to melt some snow for water. It was quiet, and for the first time since finding myself at the bottom of this ravine, I had some time to just sit and think. Sunset was tinging the light streaming through the window above me. I was amazed at how long it had taken just to walk out to the cars and back. It was so quiet. I liked the silence and solitude of country living, but this was different. No pony was around for miles. I was alone in the silence. For just a moment, panic swelled up in my throat. I didn’t know how many more days I could do this. I’d be out of food soon. What if nopony came to rescue me? What if I couldn’t make it out of this crevice? I was going to wither away like Granny Smith during the skeletal winter. Only there wouldn’t be anything afterwards for me. I was going to die here.
“NO!” I shouted, slamming my hoof into the metal wall. “No . . . Come on girl. This ain’t even the worst situation you ever been in. You’re gonna be okay.” The sound of my voice in the small space felt muted, but it helped tamp down on the panic. “I just gotta get out of here and find Twilight. She’ll know what to do. She’ll figure this out. Just like old times.”
Just like old times. I clung to that thought as I huddled down near the furnace. I just needed to find Twilight. Tomorrow I would try to find a way up the cliff. At this point it was pretty clear that nopony was down here with me. Or if they were, they’d left the train behind and gone off down the ravine. So I needed to get out and find some sign of my friend. Even if we weren’t with each other, we were still in this together. But where exactly were we anyway?
* * * * *
“Great Boar Island,” Twilight said from my living room.
“And where’s that?” I asked, spitting a few apples into my saddle bag. It looked pathetic with barely anything in it. But looking around my kitchen didn’t reveal anything else I might want to pack. I wouldn't need cooking gear. It’d been ages since I’d baked anything remotely exciting. My eyes fell on the open bottle of apple brandy sitting on the counter. Hastily I trotted over and corked it, glancing back over my shoulder, but Twilight hadn’t seen it. She was still standing in my doorway, looking at something else in the living room.
“It’s far to the north. The big island in Luna Bay,” she said without glancing toward me. I took the opportunity to slip the liquor bottle into a cupboard. Regarding my saddle bag again, I decided the apples would suffice for train snacks and that I probably wouldn’t need to pack anything more. I paced back into the living room, shouldering my pack.
“Well, I have everything I’ll need. Is that all you’re bringing?” I said, indicating the heavy-looking metal case she had on her back. “What do you have in there anyway?”
“I can’t answer any other questions.” I raised an eyebrow at her abrupt reply. “It regards the security of the realm,” she said placatingly.
“You expect me to travel halfway across the kingdom and won’t even tell me why we’re going there? Twi . . . You’re not in some kinda trouble are you?”
She glared at me, a steel wall slamming shut behind her eyes. “Are you coming or not?” She said, turning on her fetlock and trotting away through my front door.
I hesitated, taken aback at how she just walked away from me as if she knew I’d follow. Then I rolled my eyes. Of course. She did know. She always knew. I glanced back into the kitchen, wondering if I should grab the apple brandy before I left.
* * * * *
I woke up shivering. A weak light filtered through the dust and ash inside the train engine, the only illumination inside the tiny cabin. Sleep chortled at its victory as dismay rose in my chest. My fire was out. I thought I had been careful. I thought that I had staved off sleep until it was safe, but my fatigue must have been greater than I thought. I hadn’t woken up in time to add more fuel to the furnace.
Panicked, I threw the wood I’d taken from the train cars in to the stove. A few lingering embers lit some of the splinters and caught the wood. My heart lurched as I realized the fuel was little more than kindling, barely enough for a few minutes. In desperation, I gathered a few pieces of coal and crammed them into the cold belly of the furnace. My sticks were burning just fine now, but no matter how long I held the tiny flame to the coal, it refused to catch. In desperation, I dashed outside, looking around for anything that might burn easier. But the ravine was nothing but ice and rock. No trees were growing down here and not even a twig had found its way to the bottom. There was nothing left for me here. I didn’t have any choice. I had to move.
It took a minute to gather my meager supplies. The food I’d found in the dining car plus my remaining apple. A couple of bandages from the first aid kit. Some cardboard matches I found near the furnace, and I also took a few lumps of coal that would prolong any fire I managed to stoke up. I also took a moment to find my old hair ribbon, still tied around the jagged shard of metal. I grimaced, but decided to drop both into my bag. A sharp implement might come in handy.
I tapped my injured hoof on the metal wall of the engine. It still twinged but at the very least, sleep had let my body heal and recover a bit. Ready as I could be, I set off into the cold. I decided to head back the way we had come. With only the two directions to choose from, I reasoned that I might as well travel the way I might find more supplies, and maybe even Twilight among the remaining scattered train cars.
Starting out wasn’t too bad. Nothing I hadn’t experienced in the days since the crash. Even though I’d slept longer than I intended, it was still early in the day, at least by the position of the sun. Night time dominated in the winter north, crowding the daylight into a few, pale hours. Still, I could see well enough to watch for any path out of the ravine, but the rock face was sheer and steep everywhere I looked. I would have to hope that there was some way up further down the path.
My hoofsteps became a rhythm of crunching snow, the only sound in the world besides my labored breathing. Another step. And another. And another. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. It went on for an hour. Then two. A soft breeze whispered over my back and sent a shudder up my spine. It was colder today than yesterday, and leaving my shelter before the sun was high made it even worse. My teeth started chattering and I knew I had a new problem.
Cold.
Cold was a monster with claws and teeth, constantly trying to tear its way deeper inside me and consume the warmth of my blood. My scarf had thawed and dried, but it was poor armor against the beast that rode the wind and snatched at my mane, throwing it about my face and numbing my cheeks. It clutched at my hoofs as they plodded through the snow and climbed up my legs. It battered against my body, trying to bear me down and maul me against the frozen ground.
I thought ponies filled the winter months with holidays, comfort food and cozy fires just because those were all nice things. Fun ways to spend time with friends and family. But now I understood. Hearth’s Warming, hot chocolate, snowball fights, and stories around a fireplace. Those were all the ways we kept the cold away, ignoring it as we played and escaping into our homes before it took us. We locked it outside at night and huddled into thick blankets, blissfully ignorant of the deadly creature lurking right outside.
Now that creature had finally caught me. My body convulsed in shivers as cold took me in its jaws. I didn’t have any weapons to fight it off. All I could do was keep moving and endure its relentless onslaught. My muscles felt stiff and distant, like my flesh was being flayed away by cold’s teeth. Chill settled into my skin, stinging at first, but then fading into an unsettling numbness. I was turning into one of my frost apples, soaking up all of the frigid cold. It definitely felt like I would stay frozen straight through to summer.
I let out an angry groan as I trudged on. My vision was starting to waver and I was having trouble staying focused. My hoofsteps slowed as I felt deep fatigue in my limbs. Hypothermia. My body couldn’t make heat faster than the cold drained it. I was bleeding out, dying from the ravages of an invisible monster. Once, on a camping trip, I’d seen a fox catch a squirrel. It was horrific, watching the poor critter struggle in the larger animal’s grasp. After a short struggle, the squirrel’s eyes had gone glassy and it’s kicking had stopped. I thought it was over, and so did the fox. But in a sudden flurry of fur, the squirrel made one last bid for survival, tearing itself free and bounding away, the fox hot on its heels. Today, I was the squirrel, and this was my last chance to escape the cold before it consumed me.
My breath shuddered as I drew it back in and I took off into a gallop. I didn’t know where I was going, all I knew was that I needed to get there fast. I passed a few cars that were too shattered to provide any shelter. I needed some place where the cold couldn’t follow. Some place safe from the beast dogging me as I ran. In the distance, I could just make out a dark red train car that looked whole. The caboose. The last car on the train, and my last hope to escape the cold. I’m sure I wasn’t moving too fast, but to my cold-addled perceptions I was flying, barely able to keep my balance. The ravine was a blur around me as the caboose loomed closer. I knew if I stopped or tripped the cold would take me again and I would never be able to escape.
And wouldn't you know it, just as I thought that . . . I tripped. It wasn't much of a thud as I hit the ground, either because I was moving even slower than I thought or I was too numb to feel it. With a defeated moan, I glanced back, half expecting to see an ice colored monster closing in.
Instead I saw the remains of a campfire. It was half buried in the drifting snow, but the arrangement of charred wood was unmistakable. There was even a couple more pieces of wood, seemingly reclaimed from the wreckage of a crate, stacked nearby. If I hadn’t stumbled over them, I’d likely have walked right over my salvation.
I wasted only a few minutes as I broke one of the wood pieces down into more manageable kindling. It was nearly as much work just to retrieve the matches from my saddlebag with my clattering teeth. Holding it as steady as I could, I struck one of the precious matchsticks, inhaling the phosphorus aroma. Delicately, I lit the kindling, watching with anxiety as it began to smolder.
“Come on. Come on,” I urged it. Smoke rose as the kindling slowly began to flare, but just as it began to lick at the reclaimed wood, it suddenly sputtered and died, vanishing into wisps of gray. I cursed colorfully enough to feel a bit of heat touch my cheeks and drew out another match. Again the kindling caught, and again it failed just as it reached my fuel. It was starting to feel as if my shivering would shake me apart. And I only had three matches left.
I never was great at fire starting. That was always Big Mac’s job when we went camping. It always used to make me nervous that he’d catch his mane on fire, bending down so close to flames to blow into them like a bellows. I suppose that was why I never wanted to do it myself. The thought of lighting my own mane on fire made me feel warm . . . or maybe I was actually starting to feel warm again? Oh. That was not good.
The last match took me a few tries, but it finally came alive with a *chirk*. This time, instead of letting the kindling burn itself out, I leaned in close and let out a gentle breath. My reward was a face full of smoke, and a bright glow as the flames leapt. I blew again and again, stopping to cough a bit as I inhaled too quickly. But once my coughing subsided, I had a small but durable fire going. With a whoop of triumph, I piled on a few more pieces of wood and a short while later, tossed in the coal I’d saved.
Huddling near my crackling handiwork, I slowly started to feel my sensation returning. The cold grudgingly and slowly released me from its icy clutches, retreating for now, but I knew it wouldn’t go far. I stayed next to the fire until my body felt more like a refrigerated jell-o and less like a block of freezer-burned ice cream. By then the fire was already starting to burn down, and I didn’t have anything else to toss in.
I stood up, glancing around on the off chance there was another chunk of wood or charcoal I’d missed. A glint of yellow caught my eye. I wiped the snow away from the colorful object and found a small can of lighter fluid, sadly empty. Huh. Where did that come from? For that matter, who built the original fire I’d tripped over? Could that have been Twilight? Another breeze set my teeth back to chattering. Good thing I was near a shelter when I fell. Any further investigations could take place inside.
The caboose was usually reserved for high paying customers. I had been lucky enough to ride in one on a few of my old adventures with my friends. Those were good days, sharing a tense sort of excitement with the most faithful of companions. The kind who you knew would have your back no matter what. Those memories were crushed and misshapen now, much like the caboose I was trying to pry open.
Incredibly, the car was right side up, but the crash had warped its door frame. I stood back to regard it for a moment. Well, nothing for it. It wasn’t as if somepony would be looking to collect payment for any damages I caused. Wheeling about, I bucked the door right in the center, blasting it back into the caboose’s interior. It struck the opposite wall and splintered into perfect firewood.
The red car was drafty. One of the windows had been shattered, apparently by a rock thrown from outside. It looked like someone had gotten here before me, but there was no way they got inside. The window was too small, especially with the razor sharp glass still clinging to the windowsill. I took in the rest of the room. A decent-sized bed took up the far wall and a small fireplace was nestled next to it. A wood basket nearby was overturned and empty. That must be where the fire outside had come from. A smile broke across my face as I glanced from the fireplace to the broken window. There was no way a pony could have reached that far. At least, not without magic. I knew any unicorn could have done it, but my gut said this was Twilight’s handiwork.
I wanted to dash right back outside and start galloping. If my friend had been here, then she must have gone down the ravine the same direction I was traveling. If she’d gone toward the engine, we would have crossed paths. But the fire she’d made was half buried, which meant she was long gone, probably a day ahead of me. And I was in no condition to strike out on a nighttime pursuit. It was already getting dark and I was still pretty weak from nearly freezing to death. Even so, I felt my spirits lifting like I’d lassoed a pegasus. Twilight was okay. And if she was okay, then I’d be okay.
A sudden yawn interrupted my thoughts. I may have chased off the cold, but sleep had snuck in to take its place. And with a loud grumble, my stomach let me know that hunger was waiting in the wings. But now I’d gotten to know these three strangers well. These consonant companions of the frozen north, each one waiting take me into the long dark if I let my guard down.
So, instead of running back out into the cold, I started a fire in the fireplace using the pieces of the shattered door. In just a few minutes, the caboose was nearly comfortable, and once I’d wrapped myself in the heavy woolen blanket from the bed, I was snug as a baby dragon. I was even able to warm up one of my cans of food. Peaches. Not as good as apples, but sweet and filling. After washing down my meal with some melted snow, I finally curled up on the bed and let the dancing shadows from the fire lull me to sleep.
* * * * *
“Long time since I been this far North,” I said, looking out the frosted window of our train car.
“Yeah,” Twilight replied flatly, “Seems like a lifetime ago.”
There was a pause as we both teetered on the edge of that painful topic. Our last trip North. I knew she must have been feeling the same.
She spoke before I could think of the words I wanted to say, “I saw that you still have it.”
“Huh? Have what?” I asked.
“The picture. Our picture. The one of all of us in front of the library. It was on your mantle.”
“Oh. Yeah. I mean, I couldn’t really just get rid of it. After a while I just sorta forgot.” I knew she was watching me now. I just kept staring out the window into the inky, frozen night.
“I kept mine too.”
I took my eyes off the window, turning to her in surprise. “Why?”
“Memories I guess,” she said, her eyes distant.
“I thought you wanted to forget.”
The faintest hint of a smile touched her lips. “Not all of it.”
Neither of us could bare to look at the other. Instead we lapsed into another pause, examining the upholstery of the seats and swaying with the gentle movement of the train.
“So . . . Are you still working on that project for the Princesses?” I asked when the quiet became too much to bear.
“No,” she replied promptly, “ I’ve . . . moved on to other things.”
“What other things?”
“I’ve been working on my own projects. My own research.”
I raised my eyebrows, “You’re own research. Without any input from the Princesses?”
“Yes,” She replied coldly.
“That sounds . . . interesting.”
Her sidelong glance was a warning.
I tried to back off from that topic, “Still trying to save the world, huh?”
“Someone has to.” There was a hint of venom in her words that stung like a flyder bite.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Her eyes widened. “Nothing, I -- I didn’t mean -- Never mind. I really don’t want to fight. Things have just been . . . difficult lately.”
“. . . Yeah. It’s alright sugarcube.”
Another quiet moment passed.
“I think about them all the time . . . you know?” Her voice was so quiet.
I looked over to see her staring straight ahead. I knew what she was seeing. The same scene played out in my mind nearly every night.
“I know you do, sugarcube.”
“What I did. The choice I made. I did it for all of us,” Her gaze didn’t falter as she spoke. Like she was oblivious to everything except what she was saying. A soft light from outside was glinting in her eyes.
“You don’t have to -- We shouldn’t,” I said, looking away. As I looked back out the window, I saw it.
“No,” Twilight said, “I need to tell you this.”
“Twi--” I tried. The light was brighter now, and it wasn’t just coming from outside anymore. But she didn’t seem to notice. “Twi, hold on a min--”
“No, I need to say this. You need to know before-- AH!”
A flash of bright green and magenta, and then nothing.
* * * * *