Tchank!
Tc-Tchank!
Tchank!
At last, after a final swipe of flint, sparks landed on the pile of fibers, starting a tiny... tiny fire.
Rainbow Dash dropped the metal pieces and squatted down low. She shivered in the darkening day as she gently blew on the miniscule flame.
Slowly, with each breath, the flickering light grew into a sizable blaze.
Rainbow Dash sat back. Reaching into her saddlebag, she grabbed a few more fibers and tossed them onto the measly excuse for a "campfire." Her shivers lessened, but only slightly. She squatted in place, rubbing her forelimbs together and holding them before the flame.
"Blessed Celestia. Finally!" Rarity floated closer. "Are you feeling any warmer, darling?"
"Mmmmm... good enough..." Rainbow clenched her teeth together. "Must be nifty not being bothered by the cold. What I wouldn't give for a ghost body right about now."
"Don't say that, Rainbow." Rarity pouted. "At this point, there's only one way for that to happen."
"What are you doing just sitting there, Dashie?!" Pinkie Pie pointed at the saddlebag. "You've got more of those flammable little strings in there! Throw 'em on the fire so you can get all toasty!"
"No can do, Pinkster." Rainbow gulped. "Gotta spare as many of them as I can for later. There's no telling how much distance there is between me and Wyvern Point."
"She's right, Pinkie Pie," Twilight said. "Without any dry wood or branches out here, these special fibers that the Desperadoes gave her are all Rainbow's got."
"You've gotta be kidding me!" Pinkie cackled. "That's not even enough to roast marshmallows to!"
"Mmmm... m-maybe we should have talked Rainbow into grabbing a few branches from the trees surrounding the Snow Blood farm," Fluttershy said.
"Didn't seem to be a p-point," Rainbow Dash muttered. "I was given the frost rods. You'd think that... after all this time traveling east... I would know better than to put all my eggs into one basket." She clenched her eyes shut and hissed. "Stupid... friggin' stupid idiot."
"Don't be so hard on yourself, Rainbow," Twilight said. "Nopony could have expected a monster like that attacking you out of nowhere."
"Nopony except me." Rainbow frowned into the meager flame. "I've fought nasty monsters like that more times than I can count—and almost all of them before breakfast."
"You sure there was no other way you could have scared that big wriggling meanie away?" Pinkie remarked.
"We've been over this, Pinkie," Fluttershy said. "The poor thing was hungry. It wasn't going to let Rainbow Dash go so long as it was alive."
"Yeah, but without those Frost Rods, Dashie might freeze!"
"She had no choice. It was the only way she could live through that attack."
"And just how is she gonna live through the long-term, huh?"
"Pinkie, there is no 'long-term' if I can't take make it past the friggin' 'short-term'!" Rainbow Dash growled. She clutched herself, shivering again as the flame dwindled. "Believe me. I wish I had found another way to have shaken that nasty-nasty, but I'm here right now because of what I did." She sighed, gazing straight up. The jutting face of a mountain swallowed most of the stars. "Might as well make the best of it."
Pinkie Pie sniffled. Her ears drooped as she let loose a tiny whimper: "I just c-can't stand to see you shivering like this." She gulped. "Or worse."
"It'll be okay, Pinkie." Rainbow tried to smile, but it came out crooked. "I've... uh... I've been through worse."
"You sure about that?"
Rainbow bit her lip.
Rarity cleared her throat. "Have something to eat, darling. Let's not try to overthink... things."
"Mmmm... right." Rainbow pulled a strip of celery out of her bag and nibbled on it.
Pinkie blinked. "Aren't you going to have more?"
"Gotta preserve that too," Rainbow muttered, taking another bite.
Pinkie shuddered. "I don't think I like adventuring anymore..."
"Rainbow's been doing this far longer than any of us can imagine," Fluttershy said with a gentle smile. "Just relax, Pinkie. Our loyal friend's an experienced pony."
"Mmmmmm..." Rainbow gulped the last of the morsel and gazed skyward. "Yeah..."
Rainbow Dash's hooves scuffed and slid down a stone incline. Loose pebbles and random patches of gravel made the entire descent extra perilous. She gnashed her teeth, flexed her right wing, and balanced herself at the last second.
Finally, she reached the bottom of a jagged granite ravine. The marefriends floating around her sighed with relief.
Catching her own breath, Rainbow Dash trudged along. Despite it being midday, it was exceptionally cold inside this ravine. Towering mountain peaks blocked out most of the sun, covering the pegasus with a bitter chill.
Teeth chattering, she looked up. A slender patch of sky burned with blue intensity. Rarity devised a plan to scale the cliff-faces ahead. Rainbow Dash nodded and proceeded forward, slipping occasionally on the random pebble or two.
The snow bled with amber light that reflected the setting sun.
Rainbow grunted, pulling herself up onto another thick boulder. Once she stood evenly atop the stone structure, she paused to catch her breath. The mare looked down the way she came.
The southeast mountainface was nothing more than a series of crooked steps made out of massive rock clefts and jutting cliffs.
Gulping, Rainbow Dash looked straight up.
The mountainpeak high above was a towering knife of a structure. A cold, brisk wind blew clouds of snow against the summit in a parting fashion, so that the cold precipitation spread beyond Rainbow Dash and settled in the hilltops southeast of her.
She knew that once she was on the northwest side of this mountain, she'd no longer have any protection against the blistering elements.
After a brief shudder, she pressed on. Her friends hovered helplessly around her, watching with nervous expressions as she threw her forelimbs up... then slowly pulled herself up yet another boulder clinging to the mountainside.
Rainbow Dash huddled under a blanket, staring intently into a small patch of flame. She tried scrimping as many of the flammable fibers as she could. Somehow, it didn't feel like enough. Rainbow settled for what she had, hoping that the insulation of the blanket would do the rest of the work.
Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie "sat" close to her, their faces blank, their muzzles mute. Rarity hovered a few feet away, fiddling her fetlocks. Twilight paced back and forth in a straight line, gnawing on her bottom lip.
Nostrils flaring, Rainbow squinted past her breath's vapors, then tilted her head up.
Starlight disappeared behind a wandering veil of deathly gray clouds, growing thicker and thicker.
Frost clung to Rainbow's blue ears. She could scarcely feel them anymore from the numbness.
The mare clung to the west edge of a mountain. The ledge she was traversing had grown thin—the cliff shrinking into a shallow shelf with barely any room for two hooves to stand on, much less one.
Here, she faced the full wrath of the high elevation's weather. A blizzard's murderous winds blew at her, pelting her petite figure with flakes of snow and miniature daggers of ice.
Rarity and Pinkie acted as the mare's eyes, carefully surveying the frosted landscape and guiding the mare along her path.
Maintaining her grip to the mountain's edge was a painful feat in and of itself. Attempting to shuffle sideways made the task ten times as difficult. Every five minutes or so, the mare had to pause and relax her muscles—at least as well as she could manage.
At one point, she braved a shuddering look over her shoulder. All she could see was a haze of gray madness flurrying through the mountain pass. Looking down, Rainbow saw a two hundred foot drop—and then nothing beyond it. The mare knew better than to pretend it was anything but empty nothingness for untold lengths.
At last, having fully "rested," the mare continued her sideways shuffle, shimmying towards her left while Rarity and Pinkie guided her along.
This evening, the flame barely had the luminosity of a candle. Rainbow had found a protective niche within the northwest edge of the mountain, but it didn't shield her from the cold... nor did it shroud her ears from the constant howl.
Just two feet away, the screaming blizzard scraped the mountainside. Every now and then, there would be a particularly strong gust, and Rainbow would feel the freezing temperatures knifing their way into her bones. She found heat by piling all of the blankets, saddlebags, and even the tent canvas over her figure as she pressed her body into a stone wall, shivering. She could see that the flame was dying out, but Rainbow decided that she could stay warmer by just remaining where she was, unmoving beneath all of the improvised insulation.
"There's..." Twilight gulped. "There are some more fibers inside your saddlebag, Rainbow," Twilight managed. Her violet eyes lifted nervously. "I'm sure you can spare one or two of them... if you want to."
Rainbow gulped. "I can manage, Twilight."
Twilight bit her lip.
Rainbow's eyes made contact with hers. She managed a chapped smile. "I will manage. Don't you worry, egghead."
Nevertheless, Twilight sniffled. "I... I-I just wish there was some way that... that we could make this easier for you, Rainbow."
The other mares hung their heads, shuddering.
"It's... it's just so much to go through." Twilight gulped. "It's too much. It's not fair, Rainbow. It's not fair."
"One way or another, I'm gonna get to Wyvern Point," Rainbow said. "Twilight... girls, look at me."
They lifted their heads.
Rainbow's ruby eyes flickered with the last light from the fire. "I'm gonna make it, okay? Don't you worry." She bore a devilish smirk. "Wyvern Point. Bleak's Plummet. The Midnight Armory. The whole nine yards." She swallowed, then bore the hint of a frown. "I'm going to get the Harmonic Prism. I'm gonna bring you girls back. That's a promise."
The four exchanged glances, fidgeting.
"You hear me? I'm not gonna friggin' let you down—"
"We never said that, darling," Rarity said.
Rainbow looked at her friends.
They stared back at her.
Exhaling, Rainbow flicked her ears and snuggled tighter under the material. She turned her head and stared out the entrance to the tiny niche.
The winds grew calmer and calmer as the world turned darker and darker...
The next morning was nightmarishly bright.
This was because the blizzard had dwindled completely. A partly cloudy sky hung over the mountain peaks as Rainbow Dash marched up a steep incline of thick snow.
"Well, this is nice!" Pinkie Pie said with a smile. "For a change!"
"Ahem..." Twilight leaned in with a frown. She pointed at Rainbow Dash. Pinkie craned her neck to look.
Rainbow was gnashing her teeth with the effort it took to march up the powdery slope. Every step she took sunk deep into the snow so that the surface of the bank was nearly up to her belly.
"Oh." Pinkie gulped. "Well, I meant 'mostly.'"
"How are your legs, Rainbow?" Fluttershy asked.
"Nnnngh..." Rainbow's teeth chattered as she struggled uphill. "Wet... but I can still feel them."
"Maybe you should take a moment to rest." Fluttershy gestured. "Expose your fetlocks to the sun before the moisture freezes them."
"I'll be good for a little bit longer, Fluttershy," Rainbow muttered.
"But... b-but you've been going at it for hours now—"
"I just want to reach the summit!" Rainbow hissed. A slight wince, and she blurted, "Thanks for your concern, Flutters, but I need to make as much ground as I can before another blizzard rears its ugly gray head."
Fluttershy sighed, her features drooping. "I was afraid of that."
"Wow..." Twilight blinked at the thick snow surrounding them. "Last night's storm certainly laid it on thick, didn't it?"
"Don't worry, Twilight." Rarity winked aside. "There's still a mountain hidden beneath it all."
"Got your senses on overdrive, eh, Rare-Rare?" Pinkie said.
"Without a doubt!" Rarity nodded. "I'm keeping track of every square inch of this ridge as Rainbow climbs higher!" She flew along the pegasus' side. "Just keep straight, darling. See that boulder up ahead?"
"Mmmm... y-yeah...?"
"It should be a good resting place," Rarity said. "Once you've gathered your strength, it won't be all that long until you've reached the summit. Why, I daresay you have this day's climb—"
Just then, the mountains all around them groaned with a deep bass roar.
Rainbow Dash froze in place, as did all four of her ghostly marefriends.
"—in the bag." Rarity blinked. "What the devil?"
"Uhhhhh..." Twilight looked all around. The mountain and the snowy topography surrounding it remained absolutely still. "What was that?"
"Another darn snow snake?" Rainbow muttered.
"No." Fluttershy shook her head vigorously. "We're the only living things up this high! There's not even a bird in the sky!"
"Then..." Twilight squinted. "...what in Equestria's name was—"
"Uhhhhhhhhhh..." Pinkie stammered.
The others turned to look at her.
The mare's fluffy tail was twitching nonstop, practically becoming a blur. Pinkie pointed at it with a blank expression. "This can't be good."
Before Rainbow Dash could say something...
...another loud groan issued forth from the mountain. This time, Rainbow felt it in her fetlocks.
"Rarity...?" Rainbow gnashed her teeth.
"I don't get it!" Rarity hovered in an anxious circle. "The mountain isn't moving one bit! It's not an earthquake or a tremor. It's almost as if—" Just then, she froze in place, eyes twitching. "Oh goddess. The snow."
Rainbow flashed her a look. "What about the snow?"
Another groan—this time from high above. Everypony tilted their heads up.
Crkkk-rkkkk! A dark gray fissure formed in the snow clinging to the mountain summit. The frosted face of the peak shifted a couple of inches... then feet... then meters.
"Avalanche!" Rarity shrieked. "Rainbow, darling!" She spun around, gaping. "You must move!"
"Where?!" Fluttershy squeaked.
"Down the mountain!" Rarity pointed at the pegasus tracks leading up to that spot. "Quick! You might be able to outrun it!"
"I don't th-think s-so!" Pinkie vibrated, her eyes reflecting the incoming wave of snow. "It's c-coming s-super f-fast!"
"I don't care!" Twilight barked. "Rainbow, just move!"
"... ... ..." Rainbow stared up at the incoming wall of death. Her eyes fixated on the thick boulder lingering between her and the accelerating calamity.
"Rainbow—?!" Twilight gasped.
Rainbow Dash darted uphill, galloping briskly through the snow.
"Rainbow, what are you—?!" Fluttershy began.
"Pinkie's right!" Rainbow huffed and puffed, kicking frost with each bounding step. "There's no outrunning it! Gotta find a safe spot and I see one!"
"Rainbow, that boulder isn't entirely stable!" Rarity yelped. "You have a noble idea, but I can't promise it work!"
"Leave the promises to me!" Rainbow hollered as she slid forward, pressing her back to the exposed gray stone. The collapsing snow was virtually deafening at this point. "Rarity, keep your senses open! Pinkie, tell me when the avalanche has stopped completely!"
"But... unngh..." Twilight hyperventilated, her violet eyes greeting the pale white bedlam sweeping over them. "What are you going to do?!"
"Hopefully..." Rainbow Dash yanked the tent canvas out of her bag and flung it over her curled figured. "...breathe!" She huddled into a little ball as—
THWOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!
—a thick layer of snow and ice rolled over the boulder with screaming speed. The previous day's blizzard hurled itself over the pegasus with the force of ten runaway trains. There were four ghostly shrieks, a flicker of lavender light...
And then...
...nothing.