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// The Ice and Snow that Binds Me 
// Story: Rebirth of Magic: Izzytastic! 
// by JimmyHook19 
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We awoke the next morning on the side of a cliff face, with the terrain sweeping out before us, and also remarkably empty. I know most countries don't have occupants jammed into every conceivable bit of space, but Equestria was eerily empty for the most part. Rather like a place full of ghosts, in fact. It was certainly very spooky at times, and maybe a bit jinxy as well.

I yawned as I got out of my tent, and saw Sunny was already hard at work on breakfast. "Hey Izzy!" she said. "Looking forward to breakfast?"

"Yes indeed Sunnyroni!" I said. "What ya cookin'?"

"Pancakes with Outingdale's syrup and ice cream," she replied.

"Sounds weird, but I can dig it," I said. "Izzy is something of an extreme omnivore in the show, after all."

Sunny looked down. "It's actually to make it up to a friend."

"What do you mean?"

"As you probably heard yesterday, Pipp and I had a bit of a fight, and... well, I realised something. I've been a terrible friend to all of you. I've been so focused on the plan and the end goal I've not been thinking about what you want. I couldn't see the wood for the trees, so to speak. So, I decided to cook Pipp's favourite breakfast for her. Zipp told me she likes to have this on weekends, and seeing as it is Sunday it counts."

I looked up. "You're not a terrible pony, Sunny. We all make mistakes. It's not how we fall. It's how we get back up from the fall that counts."

Sunny smiled. "Thanks, Izzy. Here's hoping Pipp likes it- I may not have done it exactly the way she has it at home."

After we'd all had a very filling and good breakfast, we turned to a map which Hitch had layed out. "I wanted to discuss potential routes to Bridlewood with you," he said.

"What are our options?" Pipp asked.

"Well," Hitch said, "the map gives us two options. One route takes us through Ghastly Gorge whilst another takes us over the mountains. Based on the scale of this map, the route over the mountains and into the next valley is shorter."

"The Ghastly Gorge route is considerably better layed out, and has fewer changes of altitude," Sunny pointed out.

"But my route is faster because the journey is shorter," Hitch said. "Frankly, we've wasted enough time already, and we need to speed up."

"I second that," Pipp said. "I haven't had a shower in a while, and need a wash. I'm probably starting to smell."

So, we ended up at loggerheads. In defiance of all common sense, we decided to split up and went two different routes. Hitch and Pipp took Hitch's route, whilst Sunny and I chose the path through Ghastly Gorge, which required us to head down. But Misty had mysteriously vanished. Nopony had seen her in a bit.

As we made our way into the gorge, our eyes began to focus on the darkness. The landscape was full of apparent danger, as visibility was poor. Rocks and boulders littered the path, and the terrain was treacherous. There were some signs in and around the landscape which hinted at a formal pathway.

We trotted past a sign. WELCOME TO GHASTLY GORGE NATIONAL MONUMENT. WE WELCOME CAREFUL TRAVELLERS.

We continued past it, seeing more evidence of civilization sitting about, such as the ruins of a hotel and some cabins. Again, it was spooky seeing all this old evidence of a past that had faded away into memory.

We ducked into a nearby building which called itself a Ranger Station. If this was anything like the National Monuments of the old world, we'd find some useful clues in here.

We started digging through all the paperwork and objects. I looked in a fridge and found a lot of very old donuts. "Donuts!"

Sunny looked over. "Izzy, you shouldn't eat those. They're probably hundreds of years old, and you'll be sicker than a mule if you eat them."

"Isn't that offensive to mules?" I asked.

"Are mules even alive in Equestria anymore?" Sunny asked. "I know ponies and dragons are still about, but the others? No sign of them yet."

I turned my attention to another stack of paperwork and began to hunt through it, before finding a document. "Sunny! Look at this!"

Sunny dashed over and looked at it. "The Battle of Thunder Bay National Historic Site?" she read. "Come and visit this historic battlefield, which celebrates the Earth Pony victory over the unicorns and pegasi. Don't miss out on the cyclorama of Gadsden's Charge and the shrine to earth pony liberty."

I looked at her in confusion. "I looked at unicorn history before I left Bridlewood, and I read that Thunder Bay was a unicorn victory!"

Sunny nodded. "No doubt each tribe believes they won the battle. If we get the earth pony, unicorn, and pegasus narratives together, we can figure out what really happened by noticing the similarities!"

We continued searching for a bit longer as we found more useful things. To my surprise, there was a functioning freezer, so I took a look inside. There was a hayburger inside, but I didn't fancy one right now. Besides, the McWings had tasted pretty nice, so I hoped to have some soon.

I collected up a few of the toys, as I intended to give some to the foals in Bridlewood. I chose to leave behind the evil unicorn toy. It had a 'brain frying' feature which caused the horn to go red when you pushed the tail down. That dampened my spirits a bit. We've got a lot of work to do if racism is baked this deeply into society that the stereotypes are being incorporated into children's toys.

Once we had all the things we needed, we left, and the pathway began to climb out of the gorge and up into the mountains. As we went along, there was large amounts of things lying about. Chunks of metal, and even what appeared to be ponies frozen into ice. Had some sort of disaster happened here?

Sunny beat me to it. "What is all of this? Was there an avalanche?"

"I don't know," I replied. "But it seems snow is a regular hazard around here!"

We were most of the way up into the clouds when the terrain shifted a bit. We came across an imposing stone memorial which sat by itself in the middle of the terrain. It stretched into the skies, and had a torch burning at the top. The base was surrounded by brass plates which had names written on them. Names of ponies, probably. The ponies who had died in the accident?

I looked at the text of the memorial closely. "In memory of those who perished in the Battle of Mount Sullivan," I read. "These brave earth pony soldiers succesfully held off a series of unicorn attacks, until the enemy buried them in an avalanche to try and break through. Their names live forever."

I saw some more text below. It was simple, and effective, and to the point. TO THE BRAVE SOLDIERS WHO NEVER CAME HOME.

I certainly knew what that was like. In my hometown there was a memorial to the crew of a ship that was lost off the coast. It's still spooky to think about to this day, that your life can suddenly end like that.

As we looked at the memorial, and saw the broken and scattered military equipment- vehicles, machine guns, and other paraphernalia of war that seemed to litter the mountainside- I heard a strange sound. It sounded like some sort of swallowing.

I glanced over and saw Sunny. It looked like she was desperately fighting back tears. I trotted over to her. "What's wrong?"

Sunny looked down, clearly trying to disguise her pain. "Back in the human world, I had ancestors who fought in the Great War. One of them never came home. He's still out there, somewhere, unable to leave the battlefield." She paused. "He died in the service of his country in a completely pointless war. And the same here. All of this could have been avoided if everypony had just sat down and talked! So answer me this- how can ponies be so cruel to one another?"

She broke down that instant. I couldn't blame her; having also lost loved ones to war I could empathize with her pain. I pulled her into a hug. "Hey. If it's any consolation, we can work to prevent a war like this from ever happening again."

"What chance do we have of preventing another war if Twilight couldn't prevent one?" Sunny asked, her speech distorted by her tears.

"I don't know," I admitted. "But that's no reason to not try."

Our words were interrupted by a series of loud clanking noises on the mountainside. As we looked over, a big machine lumbered over and stopped before us.

Sunny gasped in shock. "H- how?!"