The pool of melted ice and snow was deep red when she rose from it. It was the third such pool she had made now, not far from the opening of the cave, in an attempt to wash all the blood and dirt from her mane and coat. It had helped her appearance immeasurably and given her a chance to look at her wounds more closely.
Cadance turned away from the bloody pool of water and lowered her horn at another pile of snow. It melted quickly and gathered in a large pool at her hooves. She took a step forward and looked down into the water at her reflection staring back.
Her face had been burnt by the torch but was otherwise unmarred by her recent experiences. Starting with her neck, things looked much worse. Her entire right side had been savaged by the wolves, including the wing. A rib was visible, and behind it … she thought she could see her heart. Cadance looked away, disturbed by the idea of looking at her own internal organs.
Without looking, she took her broken wing in her magic and lifted it off the ground where it had been trailing. Gritting her teeth, she gave it a hard tug, popping the bones back into place with a loud series of cracks. Despite the lack of feeling, the sound alone was anything but pleasant.
She gave the wing a few stiff flaps until it felt better, then folded it carefully along her side, covering most of her wounds with the half-burnt feathers. Looking herself in the water again, she could almost believe she didn’t look like a zombie. Maybe if she got it stitched … a bit of cosmetics to cover … Cadance stared at herself. If that wasn’t enough, perhaps she could look into illusion magic. Perhaps … no one would ever have to know.
She’d had time to think and gather her thoughts, as she washed the blood from her coat. She knew with a horrible certainty that her daughter would live and they would find a way home. How, she couldn’t imagine, nor what would happen to the ponies here. But since she was here, the past would have to be fixed; the past said that she and her daughter had fought and chained the wolf, and that could only happen if she found her way back to her own time.
Cadance tried to imagine what would have happened to the timeline if she had actually died here, or if she failed to find her way back. She and her daughter would never have returned, and never defeated and bound Fenris the first time. Who could say what future would have happened instead of this one. Was that why Discord had saved her, in his way? To avoid destroying this timeline … and himself, as he was now?
Was he perhaps having fun here, in this future? Playing fetch with Fenris with the sun and moon. White Rose and Silica had said he was possibly mad, but when hadn’t that ever been true of him? Cadance shook her head. Asking questions about the motivations and logic of that creature was like … No, nothing good could come of that.
She turned away from the slowly freezing pools of red water and made her way back into the cave where the two fillies were hard at work grinding rocks to glitter dust and wood to pulp. Looking at it, Cadance found it hard to picture the end product, much less how any of it would save them from Fenris and his wolves. She knew, logically, what the plan was with all of it, but logic didn’t give her the confidence she desperately wanted.
What was she doing? She sat down heavily and watched the fillies work. Maybe if she left, maybe if she threw herself at Fenris with all she’d got, he would be satisfied and leave the ponies here alone … Or she would fray the timeline with her death and cause unimaginable chaos to all of Existence.
Cadance closed her eyes and gave herself over to the calming sound of stone against stone as Silica applied her craft, creating heaps and heaps of colorful crystal dust. After a while, she got back up and walked over to help the fillies. A little magic assistance couldn’t hurt.
* * *
If she survived all this, Cadance was going to be picking glitter out of her mane for years after. She dared not even imagine how long the two fillies would be glittering; the rest of their lives, most likely. Silica was practically glowing like a tiny prismatic sun after grinding hundreds of gems into dust. Cadance watched her wipe her brow before moving on to the next pile of gems, an act which did nothing more than smear the thick layer of glitter around her face.
If their situation hadn’t been so hopeless, this would surely have been every little filly’s idea of heaven. As long as it was followed by a coronation, at least.
Cadance turned her head to watch Silene carefully smearing the still-wet paper with crystal dust and coal. Her little tongue stuck out the side of her muzzle as she painted her pictures of smiling suns and pretty, prancing ponies in glimmering dresses made of sunshine and rainbows.
Silene picked up her drawing, carefully holding it in her hooves as she edged closer to the little fire Cadance had lit to keep them warm. She leaned forward very carefully and held the moist paper near the flames to dry.
Cadance was about to pick the paper up in her magic, to spare the filly from holding it, when the paper began to crackle. Silene’s eyes opened wide, and her hooves fumbled with the paper. Cadance didn’t have time to react before a flash of bright yellow light and a cloud of smoke blinded her. She heard Silene cry out in surprise and fall on her tail. Cadance rushed forward and cast a spell to clear the smoke away.
Silene was sitting on her rump, her hooves still outstretched as if holding the paper. Her surprised face was painted with soot and glitter, and her mane was blown back, looking like a bedraggled porcupine. Cadance couldn’t help but laugh at the sight, once she saw that nothing worse had happened. She stepped over to the filly and helped her back on her hooves. Behind them, Silica was roaring with laughter.
“Whoa …” Silene said and looked down at her hooves, amazed. Then she looked at the paper, coal and crystal dust scattered all over the cave. “That. Was. Awesome!” she exclaimed, her eyes gleaming with wonder and excitement.
“Be careful now,” Cadance said, recognizing that dangerous look of inspiration in her bright young eyes. “Don’t want to get anypony hurt now.” She wasn’t sure if the filly heard her at all. She was already busy studying the different piles of powder her sister had created. Cadance gnawed on her lip and stepped around the fire, watching the girl.
Silene looked around until she found a relatively long stick among the small pile of remaining wood. Then she took a tiny bit of crystal dust and held it into the fire. When nothing happened but a slightly charred stick, she tried another pile of glimmer. Cadance watched her go through each pile this way, then she started mixing them, methodically going through each combination.
Silica’s work had slowed down as she too watched her sister experiment. “What is she doing?” she whispered to Cadance.
“Something that would make Twilight Sparkle proud, I am sure,” she replied and gave the little ball of condensed glitter an affectionate nuzzle.
“Princess Twilight?” Silica asked, looking up at Cadance with big eyes. “Why?”
“She loves—loved science and experiments,” Cadance said, her voice cracking with emotion as she wondered what had become of her sister-in-law and all her friends in this bleak future.
They both looked back at Silene as the filly held the stick carefully into the flames once more. The flames barely licked the tiny pile of dust at the end of the stick before it exploded in a flash of bright light and smoke, sending a small cloud of glitter into the air. The fillies coughed and Cadance cleared the air once more.
“That was so cool!” Silica cheered and ran up to hug her sister. She stopped and stared.
Silene grinned and looked at the exploded stick. “Heh. Do you know what this means?” she asked, looking at her sister’s gaping face. Silene tilted her head. “What?”
Silica broke into a grin and poked her sister’s flank.
“Hey, stop th—” Silene turned around to escape her sister’s poking but came to a halt when her eyes caught what she was poking at. She gave a squee and spun around herself like a dog chasing its tail. “My cutie mark!”
Cadance chuckled and got up, walking around to have a look. A flame and crystal beaker had appeared on the filly’s flank. She smiled and ruffled the girl’s soot- and glitter-smeared mane. “We have found ourselves the world’s next mad scientist, I think.”
Silene giggled, her eyes glimmering with mischief. “I’m gonna make all the pretty explosions!”
“Save some glitter for the letters,” Cadance reminded her, but again she wasn’t sure the filly had heard her. Shaking her head she walked out into the cold, misty air of the gorge to watch for their mother’s return.
* * *
“Mom! Look!” Silene burst out of the cave and into her mother’s surprised hooves. “Look!” she repeated and spun around, proudly showing off her cutie mark.
“Silene?” White Rose said in surprise before she saw the mark. She brightened up immediately. “You got your cutie mark, it … looks dangerous.” Her brief excitement on her daughter's behalf turned to mild apprehension at the implications.
Cadance chuckled. That cutie mark had to be every parent’s worst nightmare. She was about to open her mouth, but the excited filly had already grabbed her mother’s hoof and was dragging her along with her into the cave. “Come on! I gotta show you what I’ve made!” she said.
White Rose did her best to keep up, followed a moment later by Cadance. Cadance reflected that the cave looked like somepony had blown up one of the big jewelry stores in Canterlot. She stepped carefully around the piles of glitter, stacks of crude paper, and finished drawings. The two fillies had been amazingly productive.
Silene dragged her mother into the light of the small fire and let go, jumping excitedly over to her piles of powders and papers. “Look, mom!” she said and took a letter and folded it into a simple paper plane. Her mom watched her with a worried smile as she lit one corner of the paper plane and threw it into the air.
A bright flash followed, filling the air with glitter in all the colors of the rainbow. Their mother jumped back in shock and surprise, staring at the flaming glitter. Silene jumped up and down like a filly who had found the secret stash of sugar and gone absolutely wild. “See? Did you see?”
Her mother composed herself and smiled. “That was …” She looked around at all the piles of dust and paper, lost for words.
“We can make pretty drawings for everypony,” Silene continued, unstoppable in her enthusiasm. “And they can make paper planes, and when they light them on fire—” She made a gesture with her hooves “—BOOM! Glitter!” Her face twisted into a huge, expectant grin at her mother. “Glitter, mom!”
“That’s …” White Rose patted her wild mane, making a feeble attempt to smooth it back out as she sought for something appropriate to say. “That’s wonderful. But isn’t it a … little dangerous, do you think?”
“Pffft,” Silene scoffed and brushed back her mane with both hooves. “Danger Schmanger! Them wolves will be all like—” She made another gesture with her hooves “—BOOM!” She made a face like somepony who had just had a face full of explosive glitter. It was a very convincing face, authentic even.
Her mother stared at her, then laughed. “Yes, I’ll believe that.”
Cadance decided to break in, turning to their mother. “Did you find somepony who can take care of my daughter?” she asked anxiously while Silene and her sister went back to work.
Their mother nodded. “They’re all still frightened, but the letters have given them some hope. I found a young mare who had a little foal of her own. She was willing to take good care of your daughter. The poor thing is still weak, but I saw the mare nursing her before I left,” she said.
A wave of relief washed over Cadance as she walked towards the cave entrance, gazing out into the gray and white emptiness surrounding them. “And the wolves? Are there any news about them?”
The mother followed her. “They are gathering in large numbers at the edge of the gorge, waiting for something. There’s word they have the whole gorge surrounded, and that there are a huge number of wolves joining them from the lands around us.”
“They’re not going to take any chances,” Cadance mused. “They’re going to sweep through the gorge and kill everything in their path.”
“What are we going to do?” the mare said, her ears drooping.
Cadance glanced back towards the cave, where the two fillies were hard at work. “We give them the best welcome we can,” she said, hoping it didn’t sound as desperate as she felt.
* * *
Silica held out the stack of explosive, glittering letters they had made to their mother who took them, with some trepidation, and put them in her saddlebags. “I’ll make sure to give them to everypony in the village,” she said. “If … if it gives them hope and maybe … maybe some way to fight back, then it is the best we can hope to do.”
“We’ll make even more while you’re gone,” Silica said and hugged her mother. “The wolves will be so surprised, they won’t know their heads from their tails!”
Cadance smiled sadly as she watched the fillies hug their mother and say goodbye. The mare turned to Cadance and bowed her head slightly before turning, walking off into the mist with the letters for the village. Cadance and the two fillies watched her until she vanished in the gray and white mists hanging heavy over the gorge.
Cadance looked into the cave, where the piles of dust and paper had somewhat diminished. How many more letter bombs could they produce? How many would it take to drive back the wolves, and even if they had enough for that, what would they do afterwards?
The glitter sparkled in the dark. Cadance watched until the darkness and the glimmering dust had swallowed everything around her. If she had been alive still, her eyes would have watered and she might have turned away or blinked.
Her eyes slowly drifted to the back of the cave, where a blue flame glowed. She almost jumped out of her skin when she thought she felt a sudden beat in her chest, but it hadn’t been … Couldn’t have been. “The Crystal Heart!” she gasped under her breath.
A memory tickled her ear. “Do me a favor and dispose of this, will you? There’s a good princess.”
Cadance stared at the darkness, her mind suddenly one bright flame. Slowly she reached out with her magic, picking up the heavy heart of crystal, and turned to the two girls. “Silica,” she said and held the heart out to the filly. “Do you think you can grind this?”
Silica looked at the heart, then up at Cadance. “Princess—”
Cadance smiled at the filly. “Grind it,” she said. “Trust me.”
Silica took the heart in her hooves, struggling with the weight for a moment. She gazed down at the brilliant azure heart gem, as if she was holding something sacred, something she had just been told to destroy.
“Trust me,” Cadance repeated and nuzzled her cheek, then turned to her sister. “Silene … I want you to make as much explosive powder as you can from what we’ve got left. All of it.” She gave both girls a confident smile. “Then we’ll show those wolves what our hearts are made of.”