The cold air hit Flash like a sucker punch to the lungs. Each breath felt like he swallowed ice, leeching away warmth from his core as he pushed forward through the heavy snowbanks. He tried inhaling through his nose because he knew he could theoretically warm the air by running it through that part of him first, but that felt like breathing in a snake that bit at him all the way down.
First light came faster than expected, although it may be more accurate to say that night never really came. Despite the sun rising by Princess Magic, there appeared to be a tilt to the planet which meant that Equestria also had longer and longer days in summer the closer to the pole one traveled. Instead of the darkness, both ponies were expecting the sun to dip below the horizon, only for it to coast just out of sight, leaving the Crystal Empire to glitter in the dusk.
“Well,” Flash remembered thinking. “At least we’re climbing a massive mountain in summer.”
Despite their plan to leave at first light, the pair decided to rest for the “night” and move once they were both rested.
In doing so, they discovered that the aura around the city-state Empire also darkened the sky, letting them rest without worrying about the light shining in their eyes.
Flash wasn’t sure he was thankful for that, given that he needed to start acclimatizing himself to sleeping during dusk.
Nonetheless, as the aura around the city lightened, Flash and Sunset left into a small flurry of snow, heading north toward the great Everhoof.
The further away from the Crystal Empire, the lower the temperature dropped, and the worse the snow became. While it wasn’t a blizzard, the snow fell in a wall, limiting visibility to a few yards at best.
He glanced at Sunset, her brown winter coat standing out against the white landscape like the moon on a clear night. The crunch of his hooves against the snow was the only sound he could hear, and his snow goggles were starting to fog up again.
He moved ahead a bit before he pulled off the ski goggles and scooped up some snow. “What’s our heading?”
Sunset paused and pulled her compass free. “We’re drifting to the West again,” she said. “We need to correct toward the East.”
Flash nodded and emptied the snow out of his goggles before placing them back on. As the world regained the orange tint he’d gotten used to, he rechecked his surroundings and found nothing but snow and white.
“This isn’t a promising start,” he said.
“It could be worse,” Sunset said. “We could be doing this in winter.”
“Sure. However, we’d at least be able to see.”
“We’d be able to see now if we could teach you how to fly,” Sunset said.
“Sure, but that means I’m spending a lot of time trying to learn a new skill. We agreed I should learn somewhere where it’s easier for me to actually learn.”
“I know, Flash, I was there.”
“I’m just saying not teaching me how to fly was your choice.”
She glared at him, and Flash decided he’d better put his stick down before he poked the bear further.
Turning around, he marched toward where Sunset pointed, keeping him heading toward the mountain he couldn’t see.
When Flash was in scouts, he learned that the human body was awful at keeping a sense of direction when walking without landmarks. Normally, humans didn’t walk far enough for it to matter, but without landmarks to correct himself, he’d slowly, gradually head toward his left as his right leg took stronger, longer strides than his left. Eventually, given enough time and flat ground, he’d slowly walk in a large circle and start right back where he left off.
Flash wasn’t entirely sure, but he had a hunch that this transferred over to his pony body as well, much like it had for Sunset. As a result, he asked if she had a compass, and when she said, “Of course,” he asked her to get their heading and check it occasionally.
“How much further, do you think?” Flash asked.
“Not sure. We were about eight leagues away from the foothills, and we’ve been out here for six hours now. The only question is how much time we spent heading the wrong way each time.”
“How far is a league?” Flash asked.
Sunset sighed. “About as far as a pony can walk in one hour, Flash. Same as in the human world.”
“I knew that,” Flash lied. “I just wanted to be sure it was the same across the mirror.”
“Even if it weren’t, I’d tell you in human terms anyway.”
“Good to know.”
Flash continued to march forward into the snow. The archaic terms were probably the weirdest part of coming to Equestria. “League” seemed so strange and almost made him wish he played O&O or something.
Though, learning that ergophobia meant fear of returning to work was excellent and may be something he would add to his vocabulary. Snollygoster might as well.
Sunset told him that being in the Crystal Empire might have worsened the problem. “They were magically in stasis for a thousand years,” she told him. “This is the greatest Equinpological time capsule ever to be found. It’s a miracle we still speak the same language.”
Fair enough to them, he supposed. Being pulled one thousand years into the future would leave him in a strange new world with new terms to use, and if he were in their shoes, he wouldn’t stop using his own words to change either.
Pushing ahead, Flash glanced up at the sun, which hung in the sky behind them as they moved. He figured it was around midday, and his stomach was beginning to agree that they should break for lunch soon enough.
“Sunset,” he said, getting her attention, “Do you want to stop to eat some rations or keep going?”
She opened her mouth to respond, but Flash cut in before she could say anything. “Personally, I’d suggest stopping. It would allow us to rest our legs before we continue for the rest of the day.”
She sighed. “Sure, Flash. We can stop.”
Without another word, Flash stopped and set his bag down. “Try not to sit down in the snow. The last thing you need is cold water against your skin. Or, er…fur.”
He reached into his bag and pulled out his rations, a fruit leather that tasted better as a pony than when he was human, and then he sat on the saddlebags, keeping himself dry.
Sunset watched him as he sat there before she slowly followed along, taking her bag off and following Flash’s example.
Flash ate quickly and sipped at the water in his canteen, filled with sugar to keep from freezing in the cold. The ye-olde-energy drink went down smooth, and Flash sighed as it went down. “How much Kool-Aid powder do we have?”
“They’re not ‘Kool-Aid powder,’ Flash,” Sunset said. “It’s a proto-alchemical powder that—”
“It’s a flavorless Kool-Aid, Sunset. I don’t know what you want me to say.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re such a good conversationalist, Flash. So respectful of ancient cultures and practices.”
“How much do we have?” he asked.
“Enough for two weeks, just like we have two weeks of food.”
Flash nodded and surveyed the area again, unable to see anything that could give them a sense of direction.
“We’re probably not making good time,” Flash said. “So we’re probably still another three, hopefully not four hours to go, and then we’ll finally have the foothills to orient ourselves with.”
“We’ll also have some decent cliffs for you to jump off of.”
He glanced at her. “Excuse me?”
“So you can learn to fly, Flash,” she said. “So that you can change the weather for us.”
“Oh, right.”
He’d thought she was back to insulting him again like she used to on days when she was particularly annoyed. She had a habit of that when they were dating, so it hadn’t surprised him as much as it should have, but he did feel his old habits rising as he sat there.
He shouldn’t have thought that, though. He should have given Sunset the benefit of the doubt. She’d done so well to be better than that. She’d spent years being better, but Flash still couldn’t trust her.
And he wasn’t sure why.
He finished his lunch before standing and pulling his bag back onto his back. “You ready?”
“Not yet,” Sunset said, starting to move.
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, waving her off. “I’ll go ahead and take a second to empty the tank first.”
She nodded. “Don’t fall in.”
Flash rolled his eyes at hearing that line again. She only said it every time he had to leave her during their stint. “There’s nothing to fall into, Sunset,” he grumbled, knowing full well she didn’t care, and moved on, walking away from her but not far enough away that she disappeared into the snow.
If he went too far away, he could lose his sense of direction and need help knowing where to go. He did his business and returned. “What’s our heading?” he asked.
“The way you just came from,” she said, staring at the compass.
“What?” he asked. “I thought that was west or something?”
“That’s north,” she said, showing him the compass.
Flash blinked. “Wow. That’s…” he began before his mind thought back to the articles he read about people getting lost. Thinking back on it, maybe large circles weren’t the problem. “That’s kind of terrifying.”
“That’s why we have a compass,” Sunset said. “Now, let’s get going; we still have a ways to go.”
---♦---
They didn’t get to the foothills until the afternoon. The small, jagged mountains that marked the boundary of the Himaneighyas left deep valleys that provided some cover from the windchill and some much-needed landmarks for them to use.
It was here that Flash suggested they make camp.
“Since we’re still a few ‘leagues’ from the mountains proper—”
“We’re way closer than that. It’s a mile at best.”
Flash stared at her unamused. “Regardless, we don’t need to worry about avalanches. We only need to worry about the wind and the snow, and the hills should help.”
Sunset didn’t object to what he said, but she trusted that he knew what he was talking about.
So they got to work. Flash set up the tent and began covering the waterproof covering with snow. “To keep the heat in,” he said. “Snow’s a great insulator.”
Sunset, meanwhile, worked on dinner. The food itself didn’t need to be cooked, though her human habits were expecting some chicken or beef to go with it. However, she did want some heat to her carrots.
Getting out some firewood from her pack, Sunset used Create Energy to light some charcoal Twilight packed for them and start it burning instantly. Laying out a pot, she then filled it with some snow for water. “What do you think about a soup or stew?”
Flash shrugged. “Either way works for me,” he said. Before pulling out something that looked like a basket made of metal. “What’s this?”
“A brazier,” Sunset replied. “We can take some of the coals from the fire and put them in that to help heat the tent.”
Flash nodded and set it inside. “In the future, set the fire closer to the tent entrance. Again, we don’t need to sit on the snow and get wet.”
She looked back at the four feet between her and the tent. “Closer than this?”
“As close to the tent as you can get.”
She frowned. “Alright. Will I have to worry about the tent lighting on fire?”
“Yes, but we also can’t afford to waste the heat.”
Without any more discussion, Sunset began to work on the soup. She used Transform Body to cut the carrot into prepared, diced pieces, along with lentils and some onion. The coals simmered the soup, but it did cook quickly, and Sunset pulled a handful of coals into the tent and into the brazier, where it would provide some heat.
Flash had already unpacked his and her sleeping bag, and he began sitting on his to begin warming the bag. “So when do we start looking for the crystal?” He asked. “And how do we do it?”
“It’s a little complicated,” she said, pouring the soup into some bowls. “So, the short version is that I’m changing my sense with magic to look for spikes in thaumaturgic fields. That will be the easy part, but I need to look out for the usual activity associated with ley lines and—” She glanced over at Flash and saw his eye glazing over. “I have a spell. I must get close to being sure it’s actually the stone and not normal magical activity.”
“I see.”’
“Do you really?”
“It’s magic.”
Sunset shook her head. “Just about,” she said.
“See, I’m following along.”
“Right,” she said before pulling the spoons from the bags. “Here. Enjoy.”
They began eating, staring into the white void beyond the handful of rocks that offered any color other than snow-white. “Let’s hope we can get started tomorrow,” Flash said.
“Oh, we will. And first things first, you’re going to learn to fly.”
---♦---
Snow still fell the next day, but it wasn’t nearly as thick. In fact, Flash could see the faintest outline of the towering spire of the Crystal Palace from here, all eight leagues away.
Of course, that was all the excuse Sunset needed.
They stood on an outcropping about ten feet off the ground, with a large snow bank beneath, waiting to be landed in. “We’ll start with just taking off,” Sunset said. “From a standing position. It will be pretty intensive, but it’ll help you learn how to use your wings.”
“If we’re just doing a standing take-off, why am I standing next to a cliff?”
“Because,” she explained, as though she’d done this a hundred times before—despite not having wings herself, he noted, “once you get in the air. We’ll worry about gliding. But I want to ensure you know how to use your muscles first.”
Flash compiled, stretching out his wings, and took a single, exploratory flap.
His wings caught the air, and Flash yelped in surprise as he lifted himself off the ground. That alone wouldn’t have been so bad, but he realized too late that he somehow put forward momentum into the flap. As a result, he took a short leap forward and fell ten feet into the snow with a surprised yelp that was quickly cut off.
He rolled out of the embankment just in time to see Sunset looking over the edge. “I was hoping we could try going forward later,” she said.
“So helpful.”
“Look, I don’t know how to fly, alright. I just remember the half-heard lessons from my pegasus friends. It’s not like I’m asking you to make a magconstruct thaumometer. That’s my expertise.”
Flash rolled out of the snow and shook off whatever powder stuck to him. “Glad to know.”
“Anyway, I want you to try again. Try not to throw yourself off the cliff.”
Flash shook his head. “We need to get some travel done today,” he said.
“Sure, but I need to get us a heading, and that will take some spellwork first.”
Flash climbed back up the little outcropping to his take-off point and re-adjusted himself. This time, he tried to flap his wings directly up and down, and even though he still went forward, he managed to correct them at the last moment. Flapping what felt like backward, he slowly moved up before hovering in the air.
“Sunset! Sunset! I think I have it?”
She glanced over from her work and equations that she was writing down in the snow. “That was fast.”
“Well,” Flash said. “They do the job well enough. It’s just a matter of learning how to use the equipment.”
“Oh, is that all?” Sunset asked with a smirk.
“Alright, so what now?” Flash asked.
“Now, I want you to try and change your elevation,” she said. “Try getting higher and lower without moving around too much. Then we’ll worry about flying after that.”
Flash nodded, though he dropped as he split his concentration momentarily. He forced his mind back on his wings. “Is…is it supposed to be this hard?”
“You’re doing pretty well, I thought.”
Flash shook his head and landed. “No, no. That’s not what I mean,” he said. “The actual flying part is fine, but it takes a lot of concentration.”
Sunset shrugged. “It’s probably because you’re new to it. Your body can do it fine, but you don’t have the habits built in. All that will take is practice.”
Flash frowned. “I suppose.”
Sunset smiled. “In the meantime, Flash, keep going. While you do, I’ll focus on figuring out where we’re going; after all, Mt. Everhoof is a big place.”
She returned to her equations in the snow while Flash focused on flying. Despite that, his mind couldn’t help but wander. The trip up the mountain was the more important subject. After all, this little training break would only last a few hours before they had to start moving again. Standing out in the middle of the snow wasn’t the best place to waste time or energy doing something that wasn’t survival related, even though flying would be the best tool to climb the mountain.
He took to the air again, pulling himself into a hover before moving up and down, slowly gaining confidence in his ability to change altitude.
Then, as he was hovering there in the air, it slowly dawned on him that he was flying.
He was flying.
He had his own wings, and now the sky was his. It took effort, sure, but no more than walking, and he could go anywhere.
He was flying.