Cold.
That was the best way to describe how the quartet was feeling at the moment. Completely cold. While the Kingdom itself was cold, they were able to handle it. The ponies had their thick coats to help keep them warm. While Glacier and Arctic held no fur like their sisters, they were able to handle the cold, it not being much of a bother to them. However, this cold, this was far worse than any cold they had ever felt before.
“How is it this cold?!” Cried Glacier, the cloak given to him wrapped tightly around as he rushed forward.
“I don’t know!” Winter called out, as she too ran in a mad-dash to escape this biting cold.
“Think it’s some kind of magic from the Queen to keep things out and away from the Kingdom?” Asked Tundra.
“It could be.” Arctic replied. “But I’ve never heard of the Queen setting up something like this.”
The others agreed. While they have read about many of the trials and tribulations of the Queen as well as the kingdom, they never once heard about the Queen casting some kind of spell that created a frigid cold such as this to keep others away.
As the quartet ran forward in an attempt to escape this cold, they slowly began to slow down. The intense cold alongside the wind blowing furiously, the siblings got colder and colder. The run became speed walking, then became a simple walk, till eventually they were moving at a snails pace.
“T..this..is horrible.” Said Arctic, his teeth chattering.
“How m..much l..longer till we g..get out of this cold?” Winter asked.
The siblings kept on walking desperately trying to get out of the cold. Unfortunately, with the cold as bad as it is, Winter collapsed. Glacier picked her up, carrying her on his back, but this made his struggle even worse. He too, eventually collapsed. Arctic and Tundra drug them along but even they began to struggle.
It had been about an hour when, out of the cold and biting wind, stepped Tundra and Arctic. The two were shuddering badly and on the verge of collapse themselves, but they pressed on. After dragging their downed sibling a fair distance away, they hurriedly began looking for any burnable material and soon, by the skin of their teeth, managed to create a sizable fire, before they also collapsed, fading into darkness as they fell unconscious.
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It had been about eight hours when one finally arose. It was Winter. She groggily looked around, her vision blurred. After blinking a number of times her vision returned and she saw her siblings. They were curled up, evidently still cold, but not as bad as before. She saw they fire in front of her. It was still going but it was dying. Shakily, Winter got up. She stumbled some as she walked away to go find some material to feed to the fire.
Doing this with her body in the state it was, was dreadful. She stumbled and tripped as she walked, looking around for anything to give to the fire to keep it going. It took some time, but eventually, she was able to find a substantial amount of kindling, which sat on her back, and trudged back to the little campsite.
With a groan, Tundra had awoken. She shakily used her magic to pop her glasses back onto her face. As her vision cleared, she looked around.
“Winter?”
“Hey Sleepyhead.” Winter said.
Tundra had seen that Winter was missing and called her name. Once she did, she got a reply.
Tundra looked to where the voice had come from and saw Winter. Winter was wrapped up in her cloak sitting next to the fire with a pot over cooking so soup. Before leaving, the night before, their mother had packed extra bags full of supplies to make food should what they originally packed ran out.
“Nice to see you awake.” Winter Said.
“Same to you. How long have I been out?” Tundra asked as she yawned.
“A few hours.” Winter stated.
“You’ve been keeping the fire going?” Tundra walked up to her.
“Yup. It was difficult finding things to keep this going but I was able to.” Winter said with a small chuckle.
“You did great.” Tundra said hugging Winter.
Winter smiled and hugged her back wrapping a wing around her. They heard a low groan and looked over. It was Glacier. He was slowly and shakily getting to his knees, glancing around before his eyes landed on Tundra and Winter.
“Glad to see you two awake.” Glacier said as he crawled over to them.
“We’re glad to see you awake too.” Winter said. “But shouldn’t you have been able to handle that cold? You’re an Ice Dragon.”
“I can handle intense cold like any other Ice Dragon, but that, that was far too much for me to handle.” Glacier said with a shudder as he thought back.
While Ice Dragons are capable of handling rather intense cold, even they can be overwhelmed if the temperature is too low for them to handle.
“Well, at least you’re okay.” Winter said as she smiled at him.
“Yeah.” Glacier said in a quiet tone. “So, making some of that soup mom packed for us.”
“Yeah.” Winter replied.
“Awesome. I love that soup.” Glacier chuckled.
“Better leave some for me.”
The three looked over to the voice and saw that Arctic had woken up as well.
“We should be the ones saying that.” Tundra said laughing slightly. “With how much you, we’d be lucky to get any.”
The three slowly began to chuckle before erupting into full on laughter. Arctic just rolled his eyes, smiling a bit, before chuckling himself.
With wooden bowls and spoons at the ready, they had gotten themselves some soup and began to eat. The soup really warmed them up which are them smile and sigh in comfort. Not to mention they just loved the soup. It was one of their favorites and it showed.
After eating the soup and relaxing by the fire for a while they had warmed up considerably and decided to continue their journey. After putting the fire out and repacking their bowls and spoons, they had begun to walk.
“Let’s get going.” Arctic said.
“Buck yeah!” Winter exclaimed. Her chirpy nature returning once more.
The quartet had begun walking once more. They were a bit apprehensive but determined to face what the world throws at them next head on.