//------------------------------// // Chapter III: Cliffs and Caves // Story: Frigid // by Yuri Petrovitch //------------------------------// It must have been just past midnight when the pony sisters arrived back at the cave. Celestia felt every one of her muscles ache from exhaustion, between carrying the creature from where they had found him to carrying a tuckered out Luna on her back the journey had taken quite a bit out of her. Luna was nestled between Celestia's white wings in a curled ball, although she may have been exhausted the filly's powerful sense of curiosity had her transfixed with the odd creature that floated lazily along with them. The creature hadn't woken up yet, its chest rose and fell, but other than a steady heartbeat little life seemed to exist inside it. Occasionally Celestia peeked out of the corner of her eye to study the beast a bit more. Its body was massive compared to her's, its torso was as thick as a pine's trunk and its hind legs were as big as any Stallion's. It was obviously a powerful animal, capable of enormous strength and that unsettled Celestia, she wasn't quite sure that she wanted to be around it when it eventually did wake from its slumber. Although the beast looked powerful and possibly predatory, there was no doubt that it was intelligent. For starters it was wearing clothes, although ponies didn't need to wear such things because of their fur coats', clothing was only worn by creatures that were smart enough to make them, and judging by the cloth on its body this creature was most likely as smart as a Unicorn scholar or a court wizard. A few pieces of fabric were made of things that Celestia recognized; layers of cotton and wool under jacket for example. Other parts of clothing were beyond the mare and confused her; the pants were made out of a shiny black cloth that was slick to the touch, Celestia wracked her brain trying to guess what it might be made out of but her mind only turned up blanks. One article of clothing only reinforced the fear that Celestia had of the Creature, one its feet were a pair of boots made out of dried skin! Celestia's skin crawled at the thought of such a horrid thing, to kill another being and take its body parts to make a pair of shoes was horrifying. What kind of creature would do that? Predators killed ponies and other creatures alike, but never did they go beyond simply eating their body. To perform such an act was something only a monster would do. But it doesn't look too much like a monster, and I don't think that if something can be intelligent enough to make something to fly that it could do something so barbaric. Celestia reasoned as she took several deep breathes, calming down. Maybe it's really made of something else; I should at least give it a chance to explain itself. Speaking of which, it had been inside an artificial creation that at one point, according to Luna, had flown across the sky. No pony had made such a complicated contraption before. Celestia had heard several rumors in a few of the towns that they had passed through of the Unicorns trying to create the wondrous ability of flight that only the Pegasus Tribe seemed to have, but those had been spells rather than a machine like the one in the forest behind them. Another thing that baffled the white mare was that the flying machine didn't need magic! When Celestia had approached the thing before, she couldn't find any magic residue anywhere on it or the creature. To be able to make something like that without the help of magic was impossible, yet this sleeping giant might have just pulled it off. When it eventually woke Celestia promised herself to ask how it had flown across the night sky. "Hey, Tia?" Luna piped up suddenly from behind, "Do you think we can keep him?" Celestia halted on the snowy slope that led to their cave; she turned to look at the beaming blue ball of innocence, "No Luna, we can't keep him." Celestia turned back to work on guiding the creature into the safety of the cave, but truthfully it was so that she was spared from looking at the heart melting cute display that Luna was performing in an attempt to persuade Celestia otherwise. "Awwww, but why not? I'll take good care of Steve! I'll feed him, I'll take him for walks, and I promise to house train him!" "No means no! This isn't a puppy Luna, and quite honestly I don't even know WHAT this thing is. We're just going to make sure that it's healthy and once it wakes up we'll help it get on its way," Celestia said with authority, her brow creasing into a frown as she hammered in her point. Luna shrunk back and went quite for last few seconds of their climb, probably contemplating how she could try and convince Celestia to keep 'Steve'. When the creature was brought inside behind them Luna opened her mouth again to protest some more, but before she could say a word she was suddenly she was cut off by the thunderous bellows of the creature in question. Celestia gave a startled yelp as she jumped into the air; a soft thud came from beside her as Luna toppled over her sister's flank. The creature was now wide awake and speaking in its deep rumbling voice, the low pitch reminded Celestia of a moose. It bellowed at the ceiling with such intensity that Celestia had to flatten her ears to protect her hearing; she cringed as her eardrums started to ring. The volume was amplified even more as the shouting echoed around the cave, bouncing from wall to wall. The shock of the creature's sudden vocal action caused Celestia to momentarily forget about the spell holding it and it crashed to the floor. Celestia wanted to get as far from the creature, to hide and wait for it to leave. The only problem was that they were trapped inside the cave since the creature's body was withering about the entrance. With a bit of quick reflexes, Celestia plucked Luna with her magic from where she was stood and flung her behind a stalagmite. She soon followed as she dove behind the cover. "What the heck sis? It was just startled, and afraid. We could have made contact with it be now if you hadn't dropped Steve on his flank," Luna glared at Celestia with her hooves crossed and cheeks puffed out. Celestia blew out a sigh of relief; at least Luna was alright and apparently not at all frazzled by a mysterious and possibly dangerous 'thing' waking up in their home. Luna's curiosity was working as usual, so Celestia knew that her sister was fine. "Stay very quiet Luna, and don't move. I'm going to check up on our guest," Popping her head over the rock Celestia began to observe the creature, looking for a chance to escape. The creature was laying on the ground, groaning from hitting its back on the hard surface. It soon recovered as the groaning stopped. For some odd reason began to paw at the floor. The way that the black hands moved disgusted, yet at the same time, intrigued Celestia; it was like watching a pair of spiders perform a delicate little dance. It then began patting its own body as if it was trying to find something, moving from its legs and up its body. She followed the creature's arm as it reached up to its face, and with revulsion Celestia watched as it removed its very own eyes! The obsidian 'eyes' turned out to be a covering for the real ones beneath. The creature swiveled its head around as it took in its surroundings, eventually its small brown eyes came to rest on Celestia's own. If she had been any other colour Celestia would have sworn that she would have turned completely white as the blood drained from her face. She stood paralyzed there behind the rock, locked in the stare with the creature. Its eyes widened suddenly, terror etched into its pupils. Unlike Celestia, the creature's pinkish face lost its entire colour, the flesh that was showing from behind its many layers of cloth turning a sickly pale. Celestia realized as she watched the creature's reaction that for some reason it was afraid of her just as much as she was of it. Faster than she thought possible for its size the creature flipped itself over and onto its stomach, immediately pulling its body out of the cave. Celestia blew out a sigh of relief. Well, at least that thing is leaving. I'm not sure what would have happened if it had decided to attack us. The white mare watched as the creature hurried along in its mad crawl away from them. "Wow, that thing sure can move," Luna was peering around the side of their rock. She tilted her head and gave a puzzled frown, "But I wonder why it's not slowing down, doesn't it know that we're on the side of a cliff?" Oh no, Celestia snapped her head back just in time watch the creature's feet disappear from view as it fell beneath the lip of the cave straight to the ground below. Damian was used to the weightless sensation of falling and recognized it in an instant; it was a familiar feeling, though not something that one would want to have on a regular basis. The air rushing by was refreshing and at the same time brought up excitement in the young man as adrenalin kicked in; all in all it was actually quite a good feeling. The not so fun part was the always the inevitable, more than likely fatal, sudden stop at the end. Looking down Damian witnessed the snowy ground floor as it rushed up to meet him as if it was some long lost brother. The poofy whiteness would have anyone else think that they were as safe as houses as the plummeted, that their landing would be like the kind seen in a Loony Toons cartoon: a nice soft one. They were dead wrong. Beneath that deceptive covering of snow was probably a dozen or so boulders and/or a few fallen trees. Landing on one of those would snap a Human's spine like a twig. But even if there wasn't any particularly hard surface hidden under the white field, the snow itself would be sufficient to shatter many of Damian's bones into dust; ice had probably formed under the pressure of the snow above, and when his body came into contact with the snow it would compact further until it was rock solid. Well, I'm fucked, Damian deadpanned. The drop had to have been at least fifteen meters, counting in the amount that his body had already fallen Damian guessed that he had mere seconds left before he ended up a red hunk of meat on the snow below. "Aren't you going to yell or scream? That's normally the reaction most people have when they are going to die," That little voice in the back of Damian's head sounded disappointed for some reason. I think I past 'normal' a long time ago, you're kind of proof of that. The doomed man shrugged in mid flight, but if you insist that I scream like a little girl in my last seconds of life then I guess I could always do the Wilhelm Scream. I always wanted to do that. "That would be lovely." No problemo. And so like many of his predecessors Damian let loose his best manly little girl scream as his body plummeted to the unforgiving ground below, the spirit of Private Wilhelm would have been very proud. Celestia's body had moved before she realized just what she was doing. Her hooves thundered along the cave to the entrance, the clack of hoof of on stone bouncing around her as she ran out of the darkness. As she neared the pale light Celestia's horn began to glow pink as it was charged with her magic, if she was fast enough she knew she could save the creature from its demise, she just hoped that it wasn't too late. Skidding to a halt at the cliff Celestia quickly peered over the edge just in time to see the form of the creature come dangerously close to the ground, its terrified scream reaching her ears. Without a second thought or breath she fired a bolt of pink lightning. The creature was almost immediately encased within Celestia's magical haze; the body hung just a hair's breath away from the frozen snow. "That. Was. So. Coooool!" Luna's tiny blue body had materialized next to Celestia, grinning like a foal as she began to hop in a circle. "Do it again!" Celestia gave a tired grin back, "Well, maybe another time." Luna halted her prancing to peer over the edge and down at the ground below where the screams continued on. She hummed as she did her usual tilt of the head, "Now what do we do?" "Aaaaaaah!" wailed the young man as he plummeted to his certain death. Damian had glued his eyes shut, not wanting to see the end as it neared, though it seemed to take a bit longer than he had originally guessed. "Maybe you should take a peek then?", the schizophrenic voice suggested. Bollocks to that! As soon as I open my eyes I'm going to hit the ground in those last seconds. So I'll just keep them shut and continue screaming, that plan has worked so far. Though Damian began to doubt the integrity of reality as the seconds ticked by. "That so? ... You sure you haven't already hit?" What!? There's no way tha- where's the wind...? Damian hesitantly opened his frightened eyelids which had been caked with frost. There before him, mere inches from his face, was the dreaded ground. The snow had a soft gleam to it as the moon shown down on it from up high. Damian opened his mouth and inhaled as he readied for he possibly last scream, then he noticed something, he wasn't getting any closer to the solid earth. "Okay, what gives?" It was maybe a second or two after he breathed the words to himself that Damian began to rise. At first the ground was only half a meter away, then two, then ten. The odd thing was that Damian didn't feel anything hoisting him up, and when he patted his back no cables were found. Though a discovery of a different nature put the man's mind on hold further as it desperately tried to rationalize it. There on his hands, and the rest of his body, was an aura. It was pink and moved around his limbs like a sort of fog. Damian flexed his fingers and tried to dust the mist off, but to no avail, the stuff seemed to be glued to him. It didn't take long for Damian to guess that this was the reason for his prolonged life expectancy, and a wide grin plastered itself on his mug. "I can fly!" the man hollered out at the top of his lungs, thrusting his fist out in front of him and forming the superman pose. I guess that little escapade with death brought on my hidden superpowers! Who knew that having near death experiences could reveal an X-Men in someone? Ahem, so sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I don't think that it's you that has the power. And there went Damian's subconsciousness, ruining all the fun once again. "Oh, fist I wake up all healed and such after I should have died back in that wreck of a plane. And now I gain the power of flight! How can't I be a super hero?" Damian crossed his legs and arms in mid flight. First of all, you haven't done anything heroic, so even if you got bitten by a radio active skunk you'd still have to earn that title. Secondly, I think this pink haze is coming from that creature over there on the cliff. With a few creaks in his neck, Damian slowly swiveled to face the cave that he'd previously jettisoned himself from. Sure enough that white horse thing was there, it's spike on it's head glowing the same pink that was currently defying gravity around Damian. The smaller blue one giggled and raised one of it's legs and waved it in the air, an evil smile on it's face. "No," with a bit of horror Damian watched the monster reel him in. "No no no!" Damian flipped over and started to breast stroke in mid air in a vain attempt to escape from the tractor beam. A peek over his shoulder and Damian was looking eye to obscenely large eye with the creature. "No!" And touch down. The pink mist guided Damian onto the ledge, despite his best efforts to get the heck away from there. The firm sensation of solid ground under his rump told Damian that he'd made full contact. As he left the air, so did the mist as it vanished into nothing. From where the young man was seated on the edge he could see the vast dark forest valley stretch before him, moon light turning the snow covered pines into silver geysers. It would have been a beautiful sight had Damian not been trembling with terror. Alright man, you got this. There's just two freaky horse things right behind you, most likely relatives to those ghosts that handed your ass to you. They might try and eat you, they might try and steal your soul, but if you going down you are going to take them down with you. After a few deep breaths Damian knew that he was ready, the plan was that he would turn around as fast as he could, take them by surprise, and drag the two monsters off the cliff side with him. Alright, on the count of three; one, two, three! Spinning around Damian came face to face with his captors. Well, to be accurate, face to hoof with them. The white one was holding out it's front hoof to the frightened man, as if it was offering a helping hand (Hoof?). For all the world Damian could have sworn that it was smiling too, not the 'I'm going to fuck you up' kind of smile ether, more of an awkward and nervous, 'Hi there, um, sorry for stepping on your toe there' kind. Damian blinked several times in surprise. Maybe he was imagining it, but this thing in front of him might just be intelligent, and seemingly friendly. Taking a closer look at the being revealed another interesting surprise, Holy crap, it's a unicorn! The spike on it's head was actually an ivory horn that jutted out of the small horse's forehead. As the human watched, a pink spark circled the horn and faded away. "Well, at least we know who, or what, saved your ass a few moments ago," said the voice. For a few seconds Damian's jaw dropped and he could do nothing be stare in bewilderment at the Unicorn in front of him. When he finally regained a semblance of his sanity back he directed his confusion back at the voice. Well, gee golly, who would have thought that I would owe my life to a creature of fantasy! I bet you didn't see that one coming. Damian snapped back at the voice, his life was stressful enough as it was to begin with, now he had to deal with a bout of insanity and things that never should exist outside a Brothers Grimm story book...maybe the whole thing was just the schizophrenia's fault. Returning his attention back to what was supposedly reality Damian found that the creature hadn't really moved its leg, and amazingly still, hadn't made any attempt to eat him. The horse thing traded several nervous glances with it's small companion beside it as time ticked on. Aside from the occasional jet of wind it was pretty quite on the side of the cliff, though that only heightened the defining awkward silence that hung over the three. Eh, why the heck not. Damian reached out and grabbed the hoof and shook it lightly. The eyes of the unicorn bugged out as it's jaw nearly hit the floor. The horse emitted a tiny squeal as it recoiled back a bit into the cave, there it flicked it's focus between the leg that Damian had shook and the culprit of the shaking himself. Maybe grabbing unknown animal appendages isn't the best way to go about things. The blue one jumped over to the pony thing and began chattering lively to it. Damian wasn't sure how he felt about all of this, heck, he didn't even know what was normal to feel in this kind of situation. There he was, sitting on the precipice of a cliff in the middle of god forsaken nowhere, stranded after his plane crashed due to a fight with supernatural entities, knocked on death's door twice from severe injuries that vanished after a nap and from falling off the same cliff that he was sitting on. All the while there were two seemingly fictional creatures out of a children's story book acting for all the world like a pair of cave men that had met someone that just popped out of a time machine. Damian wondered if the correct response was to freak the fuck out, or to calmly deal with what came his way and hope for the best. I think I'll settle for option two, I'll probably live longer that way since option one landed me off a cliff already. Who knows, maybe they won't suck out my soul after all? "Yeaagh" Celestia yelped as the creature reached out and grabbed her hoof, quickly backpedaling to a safe distance; sure she had meant for a friendly hoof shake, but those things on it's paw were just too creepy! The way that they grasped her leg sent a few shivers down the mare's neck. Staring down at her hoof Celestia found that there was a bit of crimson mixed in with the white fur. Looking back at the slightly offended creature Celestia noticed that it's clothing still had a few red blotches of blood from it's owner's previous injuries. It raised an eyebrow at Celestia, it was more than likely that it was just as confused about their predicament as she was. Celestia's heart felt sympathy for the beast, it had been through so much pain, and now it was in a strange place with no one else It was more than likely just as confused about everything as they were. "You really are a scaredy cat Tia! You acted like it had eaten your hoof or something," Luna laughed as she came bouncing up to Tia. "Y-yeah well...you try it then! Those claws are too weird!" Celestia's face heated as two splotches of crimson surfaced on her cheeks, melting a few snow snow flakes that had begun to drift lazily down. Celestia blinked and turned her head to the heavens. More snow started to fall from the heavens, gradually filling up the dark night sky with white flakes. Celestia turned back to face the creature who was at the moment eying the snow falling all around him with what Celestia supposed was a concerned expression. She knew that she might just regret what she was about to do, but at the moment what she was planning seemed like the only option that she had. With a heavy sigh Celestia stamped her hoof into the rock several times, gaining the attention from the creature. Looking it directly in the eye the mare raised her right hoof and pointed it into the cave, "Would you like to come in?" Damian still had no clue as to what the heck was happening, but taking everything into account, it wasn't exactly the worst thing that could be happening to him. Okay, I think its high time for a little mental check list. The man thought to himself as he tried to make some sense out of his ordeal. First things first, my plane was obliterated when I smashed it into the ground at roughly 200km/h, why I'm still alive from that kind of crash boggles my mind. Another mystery is that I know that this all happened because I really was knocking on death's door not too long ago, it felt like my body was put through a meat grinder and thrown around like a hacky sack. Odd thing though, if I really was that badly injured then I would already be dead; or at the very least be so near to it that it wouldn't make a difference, but somehow I don't feel any pain at all and all my bones aren't broken. Now I may not be a doctor, but I know that injuries that bad don't just disappear; so maybe I didn't crash in the first place. Damian paused in order to take in a deep breath through his nose, the musty cave air stinging his nostrils. It was dark inside, but from where he was near the mouth of the cave some moon light managed to illuminate the darkness just enough to outline it's contents The other inhabitants of the cave stared at him from where they lay in their corner; a mixture of fear, uncertainty, and curiosity was angled at where he lay against the opposite wall. Second topic of the day is those things. From what I can tell they are horses of some kind; granted, horses that look like they were thrown straight out of a Disney cartoon. Those horns on their heads mean that they're unicorns of a sort, but I never heard anything about a Pegasus knocking up one of it's more Earth-bound cousins in any of the Brother's Grimm books. Damian silently observed the snow white one with the pink mane that had tried to shake his hand before, it looked back at him with probably the same thoughts as him. That one seems to be the older out of the two, judging by it's size and it's friend's I'd say that it's not too much older though. My guess would be that it's still just a kid though. Damian's eyes then drifted to the small blue form next to it's partner, it seemed to have finally fallen asleep. Although the young man would never admit it out loud, but that one was so cute it hurt just to look at her. Well, from what I can tell those two are possibly related. Though, it does beg the question of where their parent's are. Ending my existence by being impaled by an angry mama Unicorn probably won't be as badass as it sounds. I'll have to keep an eye out for them. A shiver went up Damian's arms and legs as the cold became even worse; his only way to prevent hypothermia was to wrap his arms around his knees; that and trying to picture himself on a nice tropical beach somewhere near the equator, it didn't really help but it at least calmed him down a notch. These guys are also responsible for dragging me out of the wreckage and bringing me to their 'home'. They must have been wandering by and seen the mess, and they wanted to save me. A nice sentiment I guess, but now I have no fucking clue as to where I am; at least when I was back at the plane I could get access to my supplies... "Now what are you going to do? Surely you have some sort of plan." The voice inside Damian's head asked. Well for starters, could you not talk to me? I really don't want to add schizophrenia to the list of things that are so wrong with this mess I'm in. And yes, I have a plan. The plan is to get the heck out of here in the morning and try and find my plane, from there I can see if I can send out a proper distress signal. I also have a better chance of survival if I stick near the crash site if any search and rescue party happens by. There was a pause before the voice made any comment back, and when it did it sounded a little bit concerned. "You do realize that if you go out there you'll get even more lost than you are now. You won't be able to even make it a day." I thought that insane voices inside ones head were supposed to be...I don't know...a little bit insane? Why aren't you telling me to do another swan dive off of the cliff like what a normal crazy hallucination is supposed to do? The voice made an imaginary cough, "Well considering that I'm actually your sub-conscious that you managed to tap into I'd say that its in my favor if I keep you alive. And lets be real here, there are sentient horses inside a cave with you that look like they feel out of a children's story book, I think that it'd be really hard to be any more crazy than that. Damian grunted and positioned himself so that he laid on his side, "I think I need to get some professional help once I'm out of this nightmare." After saying that Damian fell into a fitful sleep where monstrous banshee's tormented him.