The path I walked was one of few that was burned into memory. I could navigate this road despite the near blinding weather, for it was the one salted by my walk on the edge of death.
Once I got close enough, the light of a second soul, my own, shined in my augmented senses. Before the meters of snow had buried all but the most traveled trade routes, I had implanted a piece of my magic, my soul, in the tree near my backyard, a lighthouse only I could see.
I walked until I could sense a mirror image of my burning light beneath my hooves, and began to dig with my little hoof-shovel. Down and down I went. Every few shovel swings, I swiped my hoof across the walls of my hole. Green sparks spread out, then flew back into my hoof.
A hiss of steam, then the crack of solidifying ice, then a near glassy surface a hoof thick all around me.
Another few meters, then finally, the fierce greens of the pines my home was famous for was revealed to me. I stopped for a moment, placing a hoof against the leaves. Green sparks danced across the fur of my entire body, then rushed through more foreleg and into the pine. My vision briefly whited out, returning me slumped slightly against the wall of the hole.
I slowly relaxed my muscles, glancing up at the storm above. Tiny flakes that didn’t freeze against the walls bounced off and floated gently down. My breath gave off no vapors.
After a moment, I stood back up and resumed digging.
A few hours later, using the path and the tree as a measure of orientation, I knocked down the front door to my childhood home, wincing slightly at the loose snow that piled in.
I only managed a few steps in before I froze. A window was opened, letting the snowdrifts pile in. A body lay within it, near perfectly preserved, if slightly dehydrated.
Before my conscious thoughts could scramble into some semblance of order, I was already standing besides it. No, her. My mother had collapsed, presumably trying to get fresh air into a body no longer properly responding.
After a moment, I carefully folded my legs and settled besides her. “... Hey mom,” I whispered. “I ... It’s been a while since I visited, haven’t I?” My ears folded back slightly. “S-sorry. I’ve been busy. I was ... too angry at being helpless.
“But I’m over that now!” I said with false cheer. “Gladas, my teacher, she’s teaching a lot of things about my new life. I have very good practice at keeping control of myself now, and watching my own mental state, seeing as all of me is stuck inside this gem of mine. We especially don’t want someone bringing our group a bad name; we already had to shoo away a few desperate ponies wanting revenge or something. I ... ha, I certainly had that issue for far too long until I burned myself out and was able to actually listen to reason. They did agree with me that the parasite was something worth destroying, and let me do as I willed against them. Hopefully, we will be the last to suffer from them.
“Now, most of us are working on better understanding the magics around the spell that ties us to the world. We can take hits that would be fatal to anyone else, except we still carry a single weak-point, one that we hope we can learn to counter even that.
“Except ... except I doubt we will ever learn how to counter your death.” I lowered my head onto my hooves, my ears folded back. “That was the one thing they forbade me from researching, especially since we have no way of determining whether I’d be able to contact you. Whether there’s anything left to contact.
“I ... I ... “ I shrank down, curling tighter into myself. “Wherever you are ... I hope you’re proud of me.”
There was only the creaking of wood straining against meters of snow.
A surge of rage re-lit the boiling heat in my heart and eyes. “I will not let Sunny Pines be forgotten.”
Present Day
Twilight flinched back as Cycle suddenly dug his hooves into the table. The few waiters and service ponies Twilight could see froze, their faces either stricken with despair or grinding their teeth in anger.
Cycle himself was blank faced, but it took a long moment before his hooves finally started letting up. Twilight cautiously put her hoof over his. “Are ... are you alright?” she asked.
Cycle said nothing for a long moment, the only sound a faint rattle deep in his chest. Twilight was hit with a small feeling of unease when she realized Cycle had become unnaturally still, like a corpse that forgot to pretend to breathe.
Sven too, had froze, but he had lifted his eyes from the book between his claws, and stared into the back of Cycle’s head. He seemed tense, but not overtly worried. Twilight hoped this meant good things.
He only spoke again after the frozen ponies around them, Cycle’s zombies, she realized, resumed their tasks. “I apologize,” he croaked. “There’s something we left out of the Mk-1 Phylactery I believe would be important to let you know, considering my state.”
“Wait, you chose to hide information?” Twilight wrinkled her nose, affronted.
Cycle nodded, his eye lights yet to return focus to her. “It was something we had hoped would be irrelevant, since the Mk-1 will prove to be essentially inferior to all future developments. But I, and most of the founders, are still running off of the bones of the Mk-1, and this ... this is a weakness that will likely appear often. Especially since I am ... unable to move on from the Mk-1.”
Finally, Cycle looked up at Twilight. “The Mk-1 was later found to preserve the mental state of its user upon its creation. Preserved it perhaps, a little too well. Consider my circumstances, if you would please, Twilight?”
Twilight looked down at her notes, tapping her chin. “You were ... ah, very angry at your town’s ... ah.”
“Indeed,” Cycle agreed tiredly. “Rage and grief was what my life became. I teetered on a blade’s edge or risked losing my emotional stability. A problem that wasn’t helped by the situations the Club ran into in its early days.
“I apologize for worrying you. I can’t say it won’t happen again, but you have our word that you will leave this town as healthy as you entered, in all interpretations.”
“I would be a poor handler if I wasn’t able to keep him from lashing out,” Sven snarked before returning to his book.
“Indeed, I will sooner be dismembered than risk injuring you.”
Twilight nodded, then paused. “...ah?”
There was little left in my old home, though what did was remarkably well preserved, if slightly damp. I bundled up some old cups and plates, they inevitably got banged into something, and plus it would be nice to have a personal cup. I picked up a stack of slates. Paper was getting harder to come by, reusable writing surfaces would help the next generation.
Magic pooled in my eyes as I looked around. This deep in, the light could barely penetrate the layers of snow. Residue magic pooling off my in waves gave my enhanced senses just enough range to not run into walls or splinters. Finding nothing more of interest, I moved on, stopping momentarily in silence besides the door before burrowing through.
“I’ll be back,” I whispered.
My next stop was the mail house. It seemed like the place most likely to store parchments, though I worried its small size made it more vulnerable to being crushed. I spent a silent few hours as I dug through the snow, guided almost entirely by memory alone, and the slight illumination of the exposed dirt beneath me.
I wondered how many letters were meant to be sent out, and how many were never delivered to the owners now long buried behind me. I pushed that moment of guilt away. It had been decades. Anyone looking to hear from the denizens of Sunny Pines, if they were smart, will have given up hope years ago. Anyone wanting to send a message here, well, there’s essentially none left.
Before long, my hooves hit desiccated wood. I pushed more snow away from the door, squinting at the wrinkled surface creating dancing shadows through my sight. I pierced my hoof through the door jam and wrenched the door open, spilling the contents of a moldy bag across my hooves.
I stepped over the mailpony’s body, picking up and bag that didn’t look completely moth bitten and started shoveling old envelopes in. As I tipped out the inbox, rummaging for scratch paper, a familiar line of text caught my eye. My head jerked, staring at the surface of the letter, but the pulse of magic left its surface.
I stared hard, sending out another pulse. My name flashed over the small piece of paper. My eye darted to the return address scrawled in the corner.
A heartbeat passed.
I shoved the letter into my bag, and galloped out of the mailroom.