//------------------------------//
// Keep a Warm Fire Burning 
// Story: Utaan 
// by Imploding Colon 
//------------------------------//

	Two tiny specks inched their way across a sea of white.  Tiny gray trenches trailed after them—eventually dissolving amidst the snow-blown wind behind their hooves.

Remna led the trek.  She always did.  Even when the bounty hunter appeared to be slowing down, a huffing and puffing Rainbow Dash could only manage to get within three meters of the pony before she resumed her steadfast march once more.  Rainbow let loose a dull groan and resumed following.

The winds shifted.  The sun sank towards the bleak horizon.  A dull blue sheen hung over the frozen world.  Before the stars broke out, Rainbow's marefriends caught sight of a shadow far darker than the rest.  Rarity flew in front of Rainbow Dash and gestured to the north.  Rainbow tilted her head to the right and peered across the snowy plains.

In the distance, an enormous plateau loomed.  It stood like a wall of ice, connecting the last line of mountains to the northwest with some unseen shelf of stagnant land to the northeast.  Just beyond the solid line of glacial proportions, Rainbow and her friends could have sworn they saw flickers of light.  Curious colors broke the surface in psychadelic blinks, then vanished altogether.

Rainbow's brow furrowed.  She exchanged curious glimpses with her friends, then shrugged the sensation off.  With a sullen breath, she resumed her lurch, following Remna at a distance.





A campfire flickered in the shadow of a granite crest that blocked the northern winds.  Remna and Rainbow Dash sat several paces away from one another, all the while facing the flame and warming themselves.

Remna munched liberally at a strip of stringy meat.  She gazed straight into the flame, her hard eyes glistening with momentary luster.

Rainbow, in the meantime, struggled to eat her fill from a few remaining scraps of lettuce and celery.  She took her time with the matter while her friends looked on with pensive expressions.

Remna's gaze lifted from the flames.  She stared emotionlessly in Rainbow's direction.  After a gulp, the bounty hunter muttered the first spoken words between them in hours:  "You really should eat the meat."

"Mrmmmmmmff..."  Rainbow struggled with the mother of all frowns.

"I've had a glimpse at your rations," Remna droned.  "Even if we're nearing the end of our journey, it's pure foolishness to think you'll last on just those scraps alone."  She took another meaty bite, chewed, and swallowed.  "There's no point in bringing you all the way to Wyvern Point if you arrive as an emaciated corpse—"

"Will you give it a rest?!"  Rainbow Dash snapped, making her marefriends flinch.  She glared into the flames while taking another bite of rusted lettuce, grimacing.  "Look, I'm glad you're helping me get to Wyvern Point in one piece, but lay off the 'meat thing,' okay?  I'm not having it and that's that."

"I assure you, it's no creature that you could ever possibly have crossed paths with."

"I said shut up!" Rainbow snarled.  "That's not the point, okay?!  Just... I-I'm just not going to eat meat, alright?!  Now give it a rest..."  She shuddered, rubbing her forelimbs as she sat closer to the campfire.

Remna's hard green eyes blinked.  "Hmmm..."  She took one final bite and swallowed.  "...how curious."

"Mmmmmm... what is?"

Remna slid the remaining jerky into her bag and brushed her hooves off.  "Just your scale of morality, little pony," she murmured.  "You refuse to eat the flesh of another creature... and yet you will not hesitate to beat other ponies senseless or cause rampant destruction if it simply means escaping your pursuers."

Rarity and Twilight flinched.

Rainbow looked up, eyes narrow.  "I haven't murdered anypony since showing up on this side of the Blight."

"Doesn't mean you haven't tried," Remna said coolly.  "Steam explosions certainly aren't set off for the sake of making friends."

Rainbow frowned.  "If you're talking about what happened in Steamfall, I didn't have much of a choice.  It was either make a crazy exit or hoof myself over to the Talon.  And if Wildcard and Bard have told you anything, then you know that I can't afford to let that happen.  Not even remotely!"

"Uh huh..."

Rainbow's teeth glinted.  "I've never thrown anything at anyone in Rohbredden that I knew they couldn't handle.  Take the Commander of the Talon, for instance.  She had me grabbed by the throat.  That steam explosion was the only way to shake her off!  And she recovered from it just fine!"

"And what of the frost wyrm that you slaughtered?"  Remna remarked, unrolling a sleeping mat.  "Did you regard it with the same mercy?"

Fluttershy bit her lip.

Rainbow Dash leaned forward.  "Look... just what do you want from me?  I've done things that I regret, for sure.  But I still have to keep moving."  She gulped.  "Each day I happen to find myself still alive is merely another day to try to improve myself... for the good of this world."

"Spoken like a true criminal."

"Huh?"

"There's a reason why you need this escort to Wyvern Point," Remna said.  "No matter how noble your struggle, you'll always have a criminal taint branding you as a filthy rung below the rest of civilization."

Rainbow grimaced.  "You... mean the Quade?"

"Indeed."

"Not a day goes by when I don't think about the crud I did to the Luminards."

"And just what do you think, I wonder."

Rainbow merely blinked at her.

Remna lifted her head, squinting in Rainbow's direction.  "Do you feel remorse?  For the masochistic monks you drove to suicide?  For the centuries upon centuries of history that you drowned in those cold waters?"

Rainbow bit her lip.  She leaned back, her gaze falling to the flames.

Remna continued.  "There are ponies dead now because of you.  There are legacies forever unwritten because you simply had to destroy something that stood in your path.  And yet, here you are, alive and well, carrying on with the blessing of outcast mercenaries."  Remna sat atop her sleeping mat, folding her muscular limbs beneath her.  "Don't get me wrong.  I have no intention of making a profit from the bounty that the Consortium and others in Rohbredden have put on your head.  But I can't help but wonder.  Is it the memory of your wrongdoing that keeps you going?"  She arched an eyebrow.  "Or the willfull ignorance of it?"

Rainbow gulped.  "Maybe it's neither..."

"Hmmmfff..."  The furthest edge of Remna's muzzle curved.  "A hollow answer."

"Or..."  Rainbow inhaled.  "...it's the fact that I know something that very few other ponies know."  She lifted her head, glaring.  "That for all the loss and pain I've inflicted, this land... this entire world stands to suffer even worse if I fail to follow through with my journey to completion."  She shuddered.  "And that no amount of apologizing or humility is ever going to change the fact that I still have so very far to go on fulfilling a duty that I never once asked for."

"So, you're a victim then."

"I'm just unlucky," Rainbow said firmly.  "But I'm trying to make the best of it."  She gulped.  "The Quade... was a major buck-up on my part.  It's n-not something I ever wish to repeat."

"And yet, I wonder."  Remna reclined on her sleeping mat, exhaling.  "Will you ever truly grasp the sheer loss you've wreaked?"

"Look, just what are you?  The guilt police?"  Rainbow gnashed her teeth.  "There's a time and a place for remorse.  But I'm not the kind of pony who can afford to wait around in any one place, cradling my own tears!  I've got places to be!"

"Or else... we all suffer a terrible 'loss,' somehow...?"

"Y-yes!"  Rainbow breathed.  "And, for the record, I happen to know a thing or two about loss!  And I wouldn't wish it on the whole world if, instead, I can help stop it!"

"I know what it means to lose everything," Remna said.

Dead silence.

"Do you, now?" Rainbow asked, almost regretting it.

The bounty hunter slowly nodded.  "I had a home once.  And... a family."  Her eyes narrowed before the flame.  "Mmmmmfff... a nebulous term at best, I suppose, but they were 'family' to me.  Even more, I was wealthy... the wealthiest soul you could ever imagine."

Rainbow stared at her.

Remna exhaled with a hot breath.  "Curious how... small even the most precious of fortunes can appear in hindsight... after you've lived in the ashes of your own failure for so long that the next sunrise is the only forseeable reward for existing.  I used to be terribly angry about it.  Still am, in a lot of ways.  But soon I realize I had become the same as that which I once naturally despised.  In so little time..."  She swallowed.  "...hate has became such a paltry, insipid emotion.  The necessity of life dwarfs it from all angles.  Now, all I can hope for is... understanding.  And at this current juncture, even that eludes me."

Rainbow's marefriends stared at one another.

"This poor mare has dealt with a lot," Fluttershy said in a sympathetic tone.  She gulped.  "And from the sound of her voice, I-I'm not sure she's ever had any friends to share her feelings with."

Nevertheless, it was a deadpan expression that Rainbow Dash asked, "Who took everything from you?"

Remna's eyes lifted, shiny and reflective in the firelight.  "It wasn't taken.  I lost it."

Rainbow blinked.

"I had my own foolishness to blame... my own shortsighted ennui that was my undoing.  However, unlike you..."  She took a heated breath, turning over on her mat.  "...I wasn't moving.  I stuck myself to one place, locked deep in the heart of defeat.  And while there, I had done many... cruel things to countless ponies."

"And now..."  Rainbow arched an eyebrow.  "...lemme guess, it's a lot easier to do cruel things to other ponies on the go?"

"Rainbow..."  Twilight chided.

"Shhhh..."  Rarity upturned her nose.  "Let her roast, darling.  It's her own fault she exposed herself."

In the meantime, Remna had prepared a sullen reply:  "Let's just say that I've had quite a bit of time to analyze the merits of loss... and inflicting loss."

"Then what are you brow-beating me for?"

"... ... ...I simply wish to understand if there's a point to it all."

Fluttershy and Pinkie exchanged blinking expressions.

Rainbow leaned her head to the side.  "Wildcard's... like... your former protege or something, right?"  She swallowed.  "And Bard is his best buddy.  They both seem to believe in me.  Isn't that enough for you?"

Remna lay silent.

"... ... ...Remna?"

"Rest your mind and body, little pony," the bounty hunter muttered.  "And next morning, perhaps we will find out whether or not you're a waste of my sweat."

Rainbow frowned.  She rolled out her sleeping mat, turned around three times, and collapsed with an angry fwomp.  "Have a nice sleep, jerk.  Hope you dream of not being a total flankhole."

"As if either of us can be that lucky."  Remna stifled a yawn.  "Silence now."

For once, Rainbow obeyed.