Snowbound

by Doctor Fluffy


Chapter Three: The People Who Carry Their Forests Around With Them

Snowbound Chapter 3:
The People Who Carry Their Forest Around With Them

Co-authors:
VoxAdam
Jed R


Darryl

Are things under control?!” Darryl bellowed into the walkie-talkie. Not here. NOT HERE!

Had to keep calm. Had to keep calm for them. He was in command here, and if you stayed calm, then so did they. Had to be. Had to be.

Kgalakgadi and I are heading after her!” Amuruq cried. “I think we’ll be fine. She’s, she’s been enthralled or something! Sandalwood, Spurred Weld, we need a unicorn down here if there’s…

“What was that you were saying?” he heard Snowshoes asking Johnny C. The guy from New Hampshire that’d come here.

“That it was a restraint?” Johnny C asked.

“Exactly,” Snowshoes said. “Whatever this is, it looks like it got Sharon.”

“Well,” Darryl asked, “then why aren’t we?”

Johnny C looked down. “No idea.”

“...The radio station,” Sandalwood said. “Son of a bitch!”

“What do you mean?” Darryl asked.

“Sagwon has a radio station,” Sandalwood said. “Local news, weather conditions for people that feel like skiing outdoors, hunters, music…. Things like that.” She reared up a little, hooves to her face. “The trail of blood goes up that door, to the radio station! If someone went there, there’s only one reason!”

“To record the events,” Darryl said. “Snowshoes. Go find Amuruq and Kgalakgadi, try and help Sharon. Everyone else, we’re getting to that station!”


Kgalakgadi

He was not built for this.

“Please tell me you have…” he panted. “Something… nonlethal… Amy…”

Amuruq didn’t roll his eyes at the misnaming. Somehow, that worried Kgalakgadi more than anything.

“No,” Amuruq said. “There’s no such thing as a nonlethal shot. At this range she might die.”

“Kneecapping?”

“If she doesn't bleed out, it’ll freeze,” Amuruq said.

“And Nny has the Bolas,” Kgalakgadi wheezed. Any idea what to do?”

“An ancient Inuit technique,” Amuruq said softly, and pelted forward, low to the ground.


Sandalwood.

Sandalwood had no idea how long they’d been walking towards the radio station. The hallways all seemed to blur together, as did the paintings.

Who designed this place?!” Fiddlesticks burst out. “It’s like a maze!”

“I feel your pain,” Sandalwood sighed. “Now this, Fiddlesticks, is why we usually just stop at the bar.”

“Truer words had never been spoken about Sagwon,” Spurred Weld said sagely.

He was right. It was a labyrinthine mess of rooms paneled with Alaskan wood, metal, landscape photos, and paintings that were either reproductions or unlikely to make their way to the lower 48 states of America.

Give Sandalwood a cold drink, a chance to be… to be human for a few seconds here, and she was happy. Have her walk through the mess of half-hidden dormitories, through a chapel, a small clinic, equipment rooms, a cafeteria, showers, a whole mess of places that seemed certainly were thrown together at the spur of the moment, and she was somewhat less so. Too many hallways, too few windows.

“I had to come up and visit a friend once,” Sandalwood explained. “And-”

“No,” Spurred Weld said, “I meant why we usually go to the bar.”

There was an uncomfortable silence as they reached an intersection. One hallway led off to the right, another led straight.

“...Why do people even need a radio station up here, anyway?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Well,” Sandalwood said. “To warn about wildlife, weather conditions, give people something to listen t-”

“Need I remind you,” Darryl snapped, “That this is an official mission. We don’t know what’s out there, we don’t know what caused this-”

Why does Snowshoes like this man?’ Sandalwood thought, as she led them down the side hallway. There’d been friends from Europe’s evacuation who lived here. Jorge Martinez, who’d been unaccustomed to the cold weather, and the laborious process of maintaining the rails… but he’d taken it all in stride.

The bartender, old ‘Arry, whose Scots accent had been so thick that Sandalwood didn’t know there was even an H in his name, who’d served as one of the bartenders. Jimmy Wright, one of the lumberjacks, broad and scarred by a bear attack, drinking her under the table each time. Helen Hulme, who’d seemingly felt naked without a chainsaw and shotgun.

And all of them way more personable than Darryl usually was.

And they’re gone. They'd better be okay. I hope to... to God, or whatever is out there, that they're okay, Sandalwood thought. “Fuck.”

“...You okay?” the human named Nny asked.

“No,” Sandalwood said, a little more edge in her voice than she would’ve liked. This was… this was a human after all. “Just… I’ll talk about it later, John.” She sighed. “Not now.” She peered up at a door. “My friend Tricia operated the radio up there. It’s through here.”

Sandalwood would never fully grasp how fortunate it was that she had used telekinesis to grab the door and turn. How she’d been so wrapped up remembering the times she’d had in Sagwon while guarding it (sometimes from the armed ‘survivalists’, sometimes helping to escort a train full of petrol) that it felt only right that she opened the-

CRASH!

...Door.

A log - freshly cut, by Helen’s saw it looked like, swung out the door like the head of a hammer.

Nny yelped like a puppy and practically seemed to teleport back about a meter, cowering behind Fiddlesticks.

“SWEET MERCIFUL GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING?!” Fiddlesticks yelled, a hesitant half-second before picking up the triggers to her assault saddle in her mouth.

“The hell was that?!” Tomorbaator spat.

Vera readied her Leshiy, pulling the charging handle backwards with an audible shunk-click.

Darryl wasn’t so lucky, the log catching his knee at the side. He rolled backwards, hands on his leg, hissing through his teeth.

Only Spurred Weld didn’t seem to react, his eyes only widening slightly.

“Darryl!” Sandalwood asked. “You okay?”

“That looked pretty bad,” Nny said, picking himself up and walking towards Darryl. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Darryl said, a little winded, as he gingerly picked himself up off the ground. “Just…” he fell about an inch to the side. “Just need a minute.”

He wheezed a little.

“What,” Spurred Weld said, with a slight waver in his voice that made Sandalwood wonder just how stoic he really was, “the bitch.”

“...Who even says ‘what the bitch,’ man?” Nny asked.

“I do,” Spurred Weld said. “And at this moment I must ask. “What the bitch.

“Well,” Fiddlesticks said, “It’s, uh… obviously a trap? I’m just glad that it didn’t have nails in there,” she continued, trying to push the log out of the way. “That’d-”

There was a slight creaking noise, and Fiddlesticks fell back. Another log, this one studded with nails, had embedded itself in the wood, just millimeters from her forelegs.

OH COME ON!” Emma yelled, breathing heavily as she flattened herself against the wall and floor.

“...That’s just silly,” Nny said, coughing slightly. “So, who wants to bet there’s more deathtraps in there?”

“They had a trap,” Fiddlesticks said, “Triggered by trying to get past another trap. I’d say it’s a safe bet.”

“By the way,” Spurred Weld said. “Do you think that one was meant to keep them in, or…”

“No, definitely, definitely to keep something out,” Fiddlesticks said.

“Alright,” Darryl said. “Sandalwood, can you do a spell to detect the traps?”

“I can, but…” Sandalwood looked over at Nny and Fiddlesticks. They didn’t look happy.

“Can’t we just break in?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“Fiddlesticks said they had a trap triggered by trying to get past another one,” Nny agreed. “That… doesn’t give me a good feeling about that staircase. Can’t we just break into the station from outside?

“I… think we can,” Sandalwood said. “Just-”

“We’re going up,” Darryl said, fingers twitching. It wasn’t a question.


Sharon.

White.

White.

White.

All around. All-encompassing. Distantly, Sharon Minik was aware that she probably should’ve been feeling cold, but that somehow didn’t feel important.

She could feel herself smiling. Wouldn’t it be better to just be able to forget? To surrender herself. Sooner or later, this would all rot. Be remade under the unrelenting love a terrible, perfect smiling goddess...

And all she had to do was continue going northwest. The cold didn’t matter. Up northwest, she would find her Purpose.

A shattered coast.

A forest choked by snow, near the very edge of Alaska’s treeline. The forest seemed to be almost buried under the snow. There were icicles hanging from the hardy pines, so thick they seemed almost like stalactites. There were no mountains but the Brooks Range south of them, nothing save for a few human communities, pathetic places to be shown the light later. There was a delta to the north, a place where a river split and met ocean.

This was where she would find it. As she walked through the white expanse, she saw it. A great skeleton, not even yellowed under the storm.

It was hard to make out what it could have been. Bits of brown fur clung to its bones. It was as if it was trying to hide itself, to subsume itself into the earth so it could never be found again. Within a week, if the Solar Empire hadn’t gotten here, it would be gone.

It sat in a clearing, lit by a crystalline obelisk.

This was where she would find her purpose. She would be left with nothing but a smile on her face, every little thing she disliked excised until there was nothing but the smile on her face. And her smile would be better… fuller… wider…

What higher joy could there be than serving Celestia and achieving her perfect shape? To kill her imperfect self? To make sure that the skeleton, whatever they were investigating, did not fall into human hands. To find the… those that were lost. To make them pay for the defiance they could have wrought.

For Sharon saw that there were footprints leading away. Or were they hoofprints? It was hard to say.

Perhaps they were both. They couldn’t be allowed to make their way past this desolate land. Humanity could not be allowed that boon. And, hooked by thin brass wires to the skeleton, was a small crystal obelisk. It was lightly buzzing and chirping. Something seemed warm. Inviting. As if there was a chorus of voices within the obelisk, beckoning her, laughing…

Or were they crying?

Yes. The obelisk was warm. The obelisk was inviting. As was each pony, who cast welcoming glares glances at her, smiling, nodding. There was one that caught her eye, though. An albino, so pale that his eyes seemed to almost blend into the fur of his coat. His cutie mark was a shield splashed with something purple.

She could not wait to be with him. Be part of his cause. To come in that light, so inviting, like

like a lantern to moths.

Exactly. Exactly as inviting as that.

That kills moths, the strange, terrible voice said. It will kill you as well. No, it won’t. But sometimes, you will wish it did.

Sharon put that thought out of her mind. How could she ignore the promise of such refreshing simplicity? Of purpose, of simple happiness till the day she died?

So she stepped forward. Heading towards that clearing, smiling...


Fiddlesticks.

It was like walking on broken glass. The seven of them slunk along the sides of the staircase.

There was a creak as the old, overtaxed wood bent with their weight. Nny’s head was swivelling, jerking from side to side. He was shaking. Anyone could see that.

As Fiddlesticks slunk along the side of the staircase, she saw the looks of exasperation that Nny, her love, her life, her anchor in the world had been receiving from Darryl and Vera.

She saw Vera blowing upwards, pushing a strand of hair from her half-mohawk, an annoyed look on her face. Nny had been rather withdrawn for the past few minutes. Sort of out of focus as they walked through the halls.

Coward, Vera wanted to say. Or at least, Fiddlesticks assumed that she did. Nobody much seemed to approve of them.

But that wasn’t Nny. He’d be jittery, he’d sometimes panic-fire and shoot a few times too many, but he wouldn’t run away.

“You okay?” she whispered.

Nny didn’t answer. He didn’t look like he wanted to, either.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“For getting us here,” Nny said, face taut with fear. “We could be back at home, or somewhere in town, sipping hot cocoa-”

“I thought that was hard to get,” Vera said, confused.

“Do you seriously think we’d just not have cocoa or coffee?” Sandalwood asked incredulously.

Honestly,” Nny said, forcing a smile.

“Alright,” Fiddlesticks said, as they came to the door.

“Tripwire,” Sandalwood said, and they all lifted their feet, desperately trying not to hit the razor-thin wire illuminated by her horn TK.

The door was coming up.

“What’s it really, though?” Fiddlesticks asked. “I mean, I know you. It’s never about just the one thing.”

“...What the hell does that mean?” Vera asked.

“It’s personal,” Fiddlesticks hissed, as she stepped over yet another tripwire.

“No, what she means is that single-issue-psychology,” Nny said, “is a lie. We’re not just bothered by whatever the hell happened here, we’re bothered by the fact that it’s cold, and it’s nighttime.”

“I see,” Vera said. “Go on, though. I’m scared too, leg.”


“...Leg?” Nny asked, confused.

“Everyone calls you Nny, da?” Vera asked.

“It’s short for Johnny, but I wanted to do something different,” Nny explained. “Plus, it was a favorite comic of mine. Seriously though, Fiddly. What’re you worried about?”

“You,” Fiddlesticks said. “I just… I didn’t want you to feel guilty. For this. For taking us up here.”

“...Why would I feel guilty?” Nny asked.

“Because you just apologized,” Fiddlesticks said. “Like ten seconds ago. It’s just… I’m glad someone’s discovering this.” She paused. “That, and I’m honestly happy with you doing something so assertive.”

“I’m plenty assertive!” Nny protested.

At long last, they made it to the door. The wind howled all around them, and the wooden walls of the studio creaked in the cold winter air like old bones. There didn’t seem to be any tripwires or other traps at the front.

“It looks fine,” Sandalwood said, her eyes glowing in tandem with her horn. “Nothing here…”

“Assertive, he says,” Fiddlesticks said, as Vera looked on. As Darryl held up his pistol, Vera kept her Leshiy trained on the door, and Nny sighted in his Kalashnikov. “Assertive! The man whose favorite hobby back home is when I force him to wear-”

Telekinetically jiggling the doorknob, Sandalwod pushed the station door open, and her jaw dropped.

“Is it weird that I’m thankful for that interrupting us?” Nny asked, his voice sounding like it was coming from very far away.

“No,” Vera said.

“But you don’t even-” Fiddlesticks started.

Vera looked at the room. At the woman with a heavy hunting pistol shoved up to her chin, the top half of her skull gone. The grimace of pain, combined with her head abruptly ending just above one (and only one) of her eyebrows, setting her face into a mocking leer.

The oddly repetitive scratches everywhere, on seemingly every surface. The blood that stuck to their shoes. The notes. The walls that were almost feathery with notes. The red string connecting photos.

The dead body on the floor, its hands cut off, blood everywhere.

“Da,” Vera said. “I’m quite sure.”


Sharon

And suddenly the clearing was gone.

The snow rushed away under Sharon’s feet like some weird sideways avalanche, the trees and bushes bobbing along in the tumultuous wave of snow and flora. A confused-looking husky poked its head out from the snow as the land abruptly retreated from Sharon.

She could see ponies in the clearing as it ran away from her. As a section of woods ran away.

As the snow roiled like waves in a storm, the newfoals and ponies would be pulled under great mounds of snow and ice. One minute, the newfoals would be smiling before the snow crested and hammered them down like a piledriver, the next when they resurfaced, they’d be screaming in agony before the waves dragged them down once more.

Sharon ran towards it, but the clearing outpaced her. All she had to do was find her way there. Find her way there and the feeling would just… stop. And wouldn’t that be wonderful. All the feeling, all of it, just floating away, like snowflakes on the wind. Like tears in the rain.

Or the snow, perhaps.

It swirled all around her, blurring everything out with white. It was everywhere. It was everything. A white forest - not covered in snow, just white - of strange, conflicting curves and angles rose from the snow before her.

Something from the depths of that white forest sang out to her. The words were so beautiful, so melodious, so… harmonic... And yet Sharon could not put her finger on what exactly it had said. There was a light in the distance. An area where the snow simply swirled around an empty pocket of air.

Sharon staggered along, and tripped over something in the snow. She picked herself up from the ground. She didn’t mind. She didn’t mind how cold she was. She had to get to the light. Had to be part of it. Had to live under the unrelenting love of a terrible, perfect smiling Goddess.

After what felt like hours, Sharon found the forest vanishing along a collapsing coast, great swathes of land falling into the sea.

It wasn’t quite where she had seen the long-dead beast. It was… Stranger, she thought as she headed through the strange pallid trees.

It could become something almost like a paradise in due time,” a voice said, regretful. They sounded… female?

Something sobbed from nearby.

Sharon weaved from side to side to ignore the mass of trees. These were strange - too smooth, too featureless. And then, oh god.

Oh, GOD.

Those were antlers. Growing from caribou skulls. Skulls that were steadily rising from the snow…

“The way to her paradise,” the skulls said, their teeth rattling, “is lined in blood and the bones of those who didn’t share her vision.”

“West,” Sharon heard someone slurring, realizing that it was herself. “N….. nrthwrst…. Th’ callin’ us. North...”

“The way to her vision,” the skulls chorused as she made her way to the clearing, “Is lined with bodies. All who her puppetmaster could not take in his strings, it destroyed.”

She drew upon a clearing in the forest, the skulls weeping behind her. Icicles dripped from their massive eye sockets.

“You must not allow it,” the skulls said, as Sharon made her way to the clearing. “Not here. Nowhere else.”

It buzzed with activity. Tents of strange, purple-red fabric had been pitched out here, in this seaside stand of stunted trees. A great cigar-shaped skyliner hovered overhead.

And ponies bustled to and fro. There were royal guards here and there, a sparse amount of humans earning dirty looks from some of the workers. Scientists - ponies in thick white coats, ascetic-looking windbreakers.

At the center of it all was a buzzing crystal obelisk that hurt Sharon to look at it. And hooked to the obelisk was…

What was that?


Nny.

Nny didn’t like people calling him a coward. He’d seen plenty of “brave” people that hadn’t gone above and beyond. He’d happily crossplayed at cons - somehow, Sandalwood seemed like she’d get that, what with wearing more clothing on her than he’d seen on any other ponies. That was brave, apparently. Lovikov had shot his border collie mix, so Nny had taken it upon himself to piss off the Menschabwehrfraktion and other HLF in his home state in whatever ways he could.

Overcharge them whenever he ended up selling to them, stealing their wallets, and…

Nny paused. Shit, where’d I leave that IED? Ah well, bet it wasn’t anywhere important.

Bravery wasn’t keeping calm in the face of fear. Bravery… was when you kept on going. For example, Nny was shaking as he looked the room over.

“...West,” read the note taped above the recording equipment. As did the words on every square inch of available paper. And the scratches on the wooden stock of some poor bastard’s hunting rifle.

It hadn’t been a quick death. Nny had seen some people shoot themselves when they were at the point of no return, being ponified. That had actually been the first time he killed a man.

He’d taken the man’s little Ruger and shot him in between the eyes. The first thing Nny had felt during the riots in Vermont, shooting that man and keeping the little LCR (even to this day, he kept it tucked into a boot) had been an odd coldness as he saw the gratitude in the man’s eyes (and how fucked up was that?). After that, there was the feeling bad. No, not quite. He’d felt bad for not feeling bad, if that made sense. He’d kept the little revolver ever since. This was not, as it happened, the handcannon he kept on his back. The one a friend had bought for him during the riots, the one he couldn’t bear to drop.

He was feeling that here. Whatever had happened here, it’d been bad. And he just felt cold. Inside and out.

It was like somebody had switched Nny off, and he was running on emergency power.

“Hey,” he Fiddlesticks say, as he looked at an iPhone half-hidden under the rifle. “I think they left something for us.”

As he looked down at the phone, he became aware of several photos.

Linked together with red string.

A poor-quality photograph, taped to the wall. It seemed like it had two caribou in a snowstorm, but… no. That wasn’t quite right. It was fuzzy, poor-quality, but in the blur, it looked almost like it wasn’t caribou in a snowstorm, it was more like there was a snowstorm ober them. He could see little hints of brown, but it looked more like the snow had just… approximated the shape of a two caribou reindeer. There was a post-it note stuck to it, reading “About three days befo-”

Wait. Why had he just corrected himself there? So obnoxiously? Caribou, reindeer… why’d it matter?

“Huh,” Sandalwood said. “Could get a nice prize in one of the galleries for that editing-”

“It’s not,” Emma said. She’d been quiet. Too quiet. “Edited, I mean.”

Johnny C, Fiddlesticks, and Sandalwood each shared a Look.

“She hasn’t been telling us everything, has she?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“It’s not like her to be this quiet,” Sandalwood whispered over to Fiddlesticks.

“And how is she normally?” Fiddlesticks asked.

“How can you tell?” Darryl asked.

“Simple. I’m a photographer,” Emma said. “That’s a polaroid. It’s really unlikely that was edited.”

Everyone crowded around the narrow, squarish frame of the picture.

“There’s also the note,” Fiddlesticks said, reading it out loud. “Started about when we saw this…”

“You do the honors, Lovi-”

Yob tvoyu mat, ”Vera said, and flipped him off.

Low,” Darryl corrected himself.

“Look for video file ‘Last Testament of Tricia Callum,’” Vera said, reading off a note on the back of the phone. She looked confused, then scrolled down the iPhone’s screen until she found the file in question. She pressed play.

A video popped up on the phone’s screen. Everyone crowded around, staring at the tiny slit of light.

The room looked much the same. The papers and photographs that covered the walls like feathers were still there, though none of them were splattered with blood. Not this time.

The video shook slightly, and they saw a woman sitting in the chair in front of them. A woman who, judging by the beauty mark on her lower jaw, was the same one that’d shot herself.

A man with sideburns, granite-black-and-white, stood at the door. He was holding what looked like a Kalashnikov to the doorway, ear to the wall.

AKs in AK, Johnny C thought, offhanded, as the realization of the setting started to sink in. Huh… oh shit. They’ve died. Goddammit! I could’ve done something, I should’ve-

The man and woman had an odd, determined look to them. They were at once destroyed and defiant, a look of…

Spite, Johnny C thought as he stared down. Never seen anyone so spiteful. He paused. Okay, there was that time…

He considered telling Fiddlesticks about it. No! Fuck this, we… not now.

“I don’t know why,” the woman said, her voice hard to understand through the phone’s microphone and her thick Alaska accent. “But it wants us to go northwest. The call came in the-”

There was a burst of static, and Nny could see her mouth moving. Could see her screaming. Could see strange shadows dancing along the walls of the room.

“L… listen!” the woman said, as if she was forcing herself to talk. “It. Wanted us. To go. Northwest. I don’t know what it was asking. But it all started just after christmas. Right after Hiel tried to shoot that weird deer. One night, the radio just gave out, and we heard this…”

She was interrupted by an earsplitting shriek. The man with the Kalashnikov, who’d been silent, like a statue armed with a rifle,was still expressionless but his mouth was open. Like someone had cut it through. He was swearing, sweating, shaking like a leaf. But there was no change in his facial expressions.

“SONG! Ah, Christ! This song! It was… beautiful. Magical. We knew we had to leave. To go north. That there was something beautiful. That we had to invite someone there, that… that was so beautiful we couldn’t be allowed to have it as humans.” She laughed, a maddened cackle.

“-Getting harder to talk!” someone on the other end screeched. “The, the pull! PER! They’re calling us, and it’s SO BEAUTIFUL!”

“Hold on, Lonergin!” the woman screamed back. “Just hold on, they have to know. It was… Lonergin, that’s it! The lights in the sky! The-”

Nny’s head snapped towards one photo. His eyes widened.

“Oh, shit,” he said. It looked like a UFO photo. There were lights over the sky… purple.

“Yesterday, people just started disappearing,” the woman said. “I was listening to some Death Set at the bar, then everyone else just… walked out. Everyone just decided they weren’t hungry, picked up their coats, and filed out of the bar. Their homes. They just up and left, walked through the snow up west. We tried to call for backup, but… somebody had cut all the lines.”

“Oh, Tricia… no…” Sandalwood was whispering.

“We were being killed off. One by one,” the woman said. “No, we were being convinced to kill each other. Goddamn geldos, you know? It can’t be just asking politely. Assholes.”

She coughed.

How fucked up is it we’re used to this, huh?” the woman asked. “When they came back, they were Newfoals. They were telling us how happy it felt to-LONERGIN! DON’T DO IT, LONERGIN! I’M WARNING YOU, LONERGIN! DON’T!

Tricia, Tricia, Triciaaaaa…” Something sang from outside the door. Nny was shaking, clutching his rife. “Why aren’t you drinking it? You’ll be happy, happy at laaaast…”

“STAY BACK!” a man yelled. “I DON’T WANT IT!”

“Yes you do, Lonergin!” a voice that so obviously belonged to a Newfoal chirped. “You just don’t know it yet! Why, when you take it, when you drown your imperfect self, you won’t be able to imagine anything but the joy of having taken it!”

“MANKIND ILL NEEDS A SAVIOR SUCH AS YOU!” the man yelled.

“You won’t even be able to imagine anything, Howard Lonergin!” the Newfoal was laughing. “And isn’t… that… just… WONDERFUL. Why even dream when you’re in a perfect state of unyielding bliss? You could even be given to an official as thanks, and they’ll show you wonderful things! Terrible things! BEAUTIFUL THINGS!”

A dog was howling in the background.

“You’re not happy!” Tricia screamed. “YOU’RE JUST NOT ALLOWED TO BE ANYTHING ELSE, YOU FUCK!”

“Tricia, don’t yell at them!” Lonergin yelled. “They… they won’t listen! You have to get it out, Tricia! Before they get us!

“Right!” Tricia yelled. “Gotta… break… LONERGIN! HOW’S THE TRAP WORKING?!”

“IT’LL TAKE TIME!” the man yelled.

“They’re trying to break through the walls!” someone else was screaming.

“Listen, don’t cry for us!” Tricia yelled. “We’re already dead! Just… listen. I already got hit with the call. I tripped, fell on my face, got frostbite… but then the Call was in my head, I knew… I knew what was… fuck!”

There’s a great prize in the arctic,” Lonergin said, dreamily. Matter-of-factly. “It escaped. It cannot be allowed to fall into our hands, and it must be in the hooves to which it belongs. But it left a mark. It is full of great and beautiful magic. Magic which humans such as us do not deserve...

“Lonergin, no!” Tricia screamed.

“There are wondrous things,” Lonergin droned. “There are dangerous things. We get what we deserve.”

“Lonergin, yes!” the Newfoal cried, its bubbling cackle sounding uncannily like a scream.

“I don’t know who picks them up, what it’ll do if they find their prize! But you can’t let them find it!” Tricia screamed. “These bastards, just… they came here to ponify us and watch us freeze!”

“Oh, silly humans!” the Newfoal tittered. “Always thinking you’re so important.”

There was an odd reverberation to the Newfoal’s voice.

“Yes, little…” someone said. There was something that could have been joy in their voice. “What is your name now?”

“Starshimmer,” the Newfoal said, happy. Oh so fucking happy, so cloying, in a tone that made Nny want to claw out the goddamn thing’s eyes.

“Harry,” Tricia whispered. “No… Oh, no no no…”

“Come on, that’s behind us now!” ‘Starshimmer’ giggled.

“I’m quite impressed with your resolve,” the one with the unerringly calm yet happy voice said. “Why do you fight? Can’t you see you’ll be happier?”

“Well, I won’t be sad,” Tricia said.

“And can’t you see that’ll be better that way?” the one with the unerringly calm voice asked. A stallion - one wearing spectacles over pale eyes with irises so pale-blue it looked almost as if he didn’t have eyes, just a blank, expressionless expanse set into a smile.

A mark of a wooden kiteshield, with an odd bruise-purple discoloration. He was an earth pony, with an unremarkable build that could fade into the background of any crowd of ponies.

Shieldwall.

Nny’s eyes darted around, staring at them all. He’d fought PER before. Stabbed a few of them, shot them back at home. Been deployed all over the East Coast to deal with them, and… Aw, hell. No use sugarcoating it. He’d been pretty terrible at taking prisoners. Then again, most people in his unit had been as well when it came to PER.

Nobody liked fighting PER. At least, nobody could ever sleep easy after doing that. Fighting HLF… that made sense, at least. That was crazy people, that was what most of the National Guard were used to fighting. PER, though… sometimes they’d have hostages, but…

But they’d…

There was always the threat that if you made the slightest misstep, they might just ponify everyone.

Not long after Nny’s first deployment, he and Fiddlesticks had been called in to deal with a riot on a college campus. Somewhere in Connecticut. There’d been PER. Begging. Demanding for... He couldn’t remember. But one of their snipers, a man named Rawne, had gotten impatient...

“Ah, fuck,” he said.


Fiddlesticks

Is he okay? Fiddlesticks wondered, and then-

“Ah, fuck.”

Aw. Shit. This had to be bringing back memories.

He had to be remembering the hostage-taker who’d been standing out on the middle of the campus. There’d been the sound of chaos from inside, after Rawne had shot the bastard.

They’d burst in only to find most of the hostages were ponified. Rawne claimed that he’d seen the person on campus laughing, about to pour potion down the hostage’s throat. Security footage had been… well, that was the thing. Nobody could tell.

You couldn’t trust PER, people would say. Fiddlesticks hoped they didn’t mean her. Sometimes she was right. Sometimes she was wrong.

She watched in rapt horror at the phone’s video…. Then suddenly, the field of view shifted. The woman looked to have shoved the phone under the papers on the desk.

They could only hear what was going on outside.

“Tricia,” Fiddlesticks heard Shieldwall say. His voice sounded… wrong. He was cheerful like a Newfoal… but the cutie mark he bore, the discolored shield with a spot of purple, said otherwise.

She was shivering.

“You haven’t given me an answer, Tricia,” Shieldwall said. “What’s wrong with not being sad? Not living under the love of a perfect smiling goddess…”

“Are you h-happy, Shieldwall?” Tricia asked, stuttering in fear. “Are you ever sad?”

Shieldwall seemed to consider this. “Yeah, don’t I sound happy? You should be too, eventually. Happy to be without doubt. Without that human nature that’s far more trouble than it’s worth. Wars, politicians, greed, vice… Wouldn’t it be for the best if you just let it all go. So no. I am never sad. What would the point be?”

“No,” Tricia said. “So you’re never happy.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You said you were never sad,” Tricia said. “So. You’re never happy.” She laughed. “I know you, Shieldwall. You’re not a Newfoal.”

“I do as my goddess commands,” Shieldwall said. “I feel her perfection.”

“So,” Tricia said, “I hope one day, you end up happy.”

“Well,” Shieldwall said. “Thank you.” He sounded like he was stammering. Like the facade had cracked a bit. “This is a nice change of pace.”

“Cause the way you look like you’re going,” Tricia said, “You’re gonna need something shitty to happen to you if you can ever feel joy again. One day, Shieldwall… you’ll fall. And you. Will. Fall. Hard.” she cackled. “Someone’ll make that happen to you one day, Shieldwall. Maybe me. Maybe even Viktor Kraber-”

“DON’T,” Shieldwall rasped, his voice seeming to fill the entire room.

“You’re going to die, Shieldwall,” Tricia said. “The cruelty you’ve wrought. I hope you’re happy with us, in the ass end of nowhere. I hope you’re happy with it. Because this is pointless.”

No…” Shieldwall said, his calm voice shifting into that rasp.

“Did it feel good? Destroying my home?” Tricia asked. “Because when you get back, you’re going to freeze. Knowing my friends were worked to the bone for nothing. Knowing that you’re just as bad as the HLF…”

“Don’t… you bucking… compare me to them…” Shieldwall said, biting something back. Something… horrible. “You know what? When you die as a Newfoal, having-”

And Fiddlesticks could just hear the smirk in Shieldwall’s voice-

“-atoned for your crimes against the Solar Empire,” he said, “When you see what we have found… then you’ll know it was all worth it. You’ll come around. You apes always do.”

“I doubt that,” Lonergin said, his voice sounding as if it was coming far away.

“My Goddess,” Shieldwall said. “You are a strong one.”

“Let me tell you something,” Lonergin said, his voice weak and wavery. “You… nnngg… gluesticks relied on your goddess for everything. We created the hydrogen bomb-”

“Is that something to be proud of?”

“We clawed ourselves up to your level, piece by piece,” Lonergin continued, not listening to him. “We had no teacher.”

“You know how tired I am of hearing that one?” Shieldwall said, laughing. “If you think you had no teacher, my friend, you’ve no idea how deluded you are. Did you, Harold Lonergin, when you came into this world, a blank slate, teach yourself everything you know, from the moment you opened your eyes? Of course not. You were guided, taken by the hand, by others, maybe your parents, your community, your comrades, whatever, someone showed you which fruit and animals were good for you to eat, told you of stories, of numbers and of craftsmanship, how to knock wood, stone and metal together, how to keep a sharp aim for and a steady finger on your guns. You built into the heights, only, did you truly look towards them? Radio, television, computers, iPads… you had all those things, relied on them, to coin a phrase. But just how many of you knew how they actually worked?”

He paused, letting it sink in. “You may call us arrogant, us and our supposition that we can impose our will upon you. But it is this, this very self-centred, cocksure assurance of your own individual ingenuity which strengthens our dogma. Deep down, all humans think they can go about it alone. And that’s the antithesis of friendship. Look at yourselves. You're children playing with high explosives, knowing the consequences, then crying like spoiled children when you get what you deserve.”

“And what's. That. Make. You,” Lonergin stuttered. “Super two-fisted Jesus for the Pony Way? Do you think you’re b-b-better?”

“Well, obviously -”

“R-rhetorical q-question!” Lonergin’s stammering was getting worse as his voice got louder. “Y-you think y-y-you're peddling friendship? Y-you c-c-can’t stand humans, y-y-you only accept t-them when they want to change everything t-they are? Y-you know who else does that? Abusive friends, abusive relationships! Y-you p-ponies d-don’t understand friendship at all. It’s your buzzword, your version of being a fucking Aryan! People like you, people that think turning us into mindless little zombie-dolls, about how things would be so great if only us poor stupid humans could understand… look in a mirror! It’s only ever your terms, anyone else who doesn’t like them gets stomped out till they’re stains on the ground! H-how much of what makes us us gets kept i-in those things?! H-how d-d-dare you play h-high and mighty when y-your fucking p-potion guts what makes us w-who we are! Turns us into broken little half-people!”

Shieldwall sighed. “You will never understand.”

“I und-derstand plenty,” Lonergin replied. “You're a cunt, Shieldwall. I bet you were so sad watching an orphaned foal, weren't you? But you don't care about orphaning someone’s kid. Oh no, that's for a greater cause. You're no goddamn different than any of us.”

“Of course I am. I’m doing this to save you,” Shieldwall said. “Look at this place. Can you truly say you want to live here?”

“Sagwon is awful,” Tricia said. “The entertainment is awful, it's little more than a railroad station, and it freezes all the time. But goddammit… It's mine. And it wouldn't exist if it wasn't for you. You and your empire caused the refugee flood that led to this place being built. Think about what you're ‘saving’ us from, huh? How much of it you caused.”

“I seriously doubt I’m responsible for your state’s poor economy,” Shieldwall said. “No wonder they call this place Sewell’s Folly. And really? Arguing that your horrible lives are okay because it's yours? You have no idea how stupid you sound.”

“It wouldn't be perfect,” Tricia said. “Sure, people might get hurt. It wouldn't be perfect, but it'd be life.”

“You're stupider than I thought,” Shieldwall said. “It all comes back to how natural things are and how good that is. How wonderful it is that a wolf eats and kills for survival. How wonderful it is that because things are natural, people die. That's the kind of thinking that made particularly stupid humans afraid to vaccinate their children-”

“Admittedly, all the anti-vaxxers like that who died in the war… they're not a great loss,” Lonergin supplied.

“Thanks, Harold! For proving my point. Resorting to the same monkey brutality, afraid to look up from the shite and blood on your feet. Afraid of transcendence. Let me tell you something, ape. Pray to your primitive gods all you want, you’ll never truly understand what’s here.”

“A god,” ‘Starshimmer’ supplied.

“Yes, new foal,” Shieldwall said. “A god. It would have stopped us. Would have thought it was above Queen Celestia. Would have left us to ask questions. To doubt her glorious plan, and if one of us doubts… Well, your PHL are evidence enough of that. We hunted it, kiled it… It thought it could disappear off the face of Equus… but it had to go somewhere. So it went here. And we can’t let you have it.”

“You said it was dead,” Tricia said.

“Just because the god was killed,” the Newfoal said, “Doesn’t mean it can’t continue.

“Exactly,” Shieldwall said. “You’re learning fast. This is something that dwarfs all your primitive gods. Something that could turn the tide of the war. Something that has children all over the world, so… very sad to see us take the remains of their father...”

“Ha,” Lonergin said.

“Excuse me?” Shieldwall asked.

“Ha ha aha hahahaha ahahahahahahahahahaha! HAHAHAHAHA!” Lonergin cackled.

“Wha…” ‘Starshimmer’ asked.

“All on tape,” Tricia said. “Everything you said? On tape. On one of the cameras in this room, feeding to the local server. Whoever comes here next does-”

Lonergin screamed in agony.

“My oh my,” Shieldwall said, any hints of anger abruptly vanishing. “It would seem that your friend is… indisposed. Allow me to… make him more amenable. Unless...”

“UNLESS WHAT?!” Tricia yelled.

“Unless you tell me… where… it… is,” Shieldwall hissed.

“I left it in...” Tricia spat. “YOUR MOTHER!”

“My mother’s dead,” Shieldwall said.

“I know,” Tricia said. “Why do you think I left it there?”

“Come on, Tricia,” ‘Starshimmer’ said, a hint of (was that impatience?) something in their voice. “It won’t do any good. Nobody will ever find you, and you’ll be ponified anyway. Just give up.”

“You willing to bet on that?” Tricia asked, a reserve of strange energy welling up inside her.

“Obviously. Look at the storm outside. Do you really think something like that is natural? You’re going to die here or come with us,” he said, a hint of what might have been fatherly calm in his voice. “You’ll be happier as a Newfoal. Please.”

“How about,” Tricia said. “No.”

*BANG*

There was silence.

“BUCK!” Shieldwall screamed, and Fiddlesticks winced. “Stupid… bucking… apes! They can’t look past themselves, their stupid monkey brutality, and try for something different!”

There was a set of wet, meaty thumps. Lonergin wheezed.

“If you must hit me, do it somewhere that I will not be impaired,” Starshimmer said.

*THUMP

“If you hit me, do it-”

*THUMP*

“Irrrfffff yrr…”

“Oh! I’m sorry!” Shieldwall asked, snapping back. “I… lost control. I do hope you don’t mind that it’s invigorating to do that?”

The Newfoal made a noise of vague disagreement.

“Exactly,” Shieldwall said. “Sacrifices for a greater cause! I’m… I am quite sorry.”

“Apology accepted!” the Newfoal slurringly chirped, through what must have been severe injuries.

“But you’re not like that, Lonergin,” Shieldwall asked. “Are you? Because, if you stay the way you are now, I’d be content with keeping you like this. Hands, for example. Those are useful. But that human nature-”

*THUMP*

“Far too much of a hassle,” Shieldwall said. “I wonder what I can do with you… We need a human face. A lure. And that could be you. Dicey? Make him… amenable.”

There was a noise like an opera condensed into the space of a short sentence. A beautiful, melodious cacophony.

“It’s an honor to serve,” Lonergin said, each syllable a screech of agony.


Sandalwood

Sandalwood retched onto the floor.

Nobody had spoken during the video. A first for this motley crew. But…

“Bastards,” Sandalwood whispered, staggering backwards.

“Tricia,” she said. “Lonergin.”

She wasn’t sure what she was feeling. She wasn’t sure if she could feel anything.

“They’re… dead,” Sandalwood found herself saying. “Lonergin… I hope he’s dead!” she sobbed, head not quite smashing against, not quite coming to rest on a nearby desk. “He’s… God. How fucked up is that, is it? Being glad a friend shot herself and wishing the other did the same…”

Emma knelt down against Sandalwood.

“They were my friends too,” she said quietly. “Amuruq’s. Vera. Darryl-”

The latter two gave Emma an odd look.

“Didn’t know anyone here,” Vera said, sadly, her Russian accent broadening. Darryl gave a quick grunt of agreement. “But nobody deserves this.”

“Nobody,” said the yellow earth pony and short human. They’d been quiet most of the time.

“God,” the short human said. “Why... could’ve… those bastards,” he spat, and Sandalwood saw red on his face.

Something… horrible.

She stepped back a little. He looked just like the HLF she’d seen, right in the middle of torturing others.

Just like...

“Speaking of Gods,” Darryl said. “I’m… guessing this is something Equestrian. Any idea which one?”

Sandalwood and Fiddlesticks looked at each other.

“Fucked if I know?” Fiddlesticks asked. “Wasn’t raised with religion. Or caring about that sorta thing.”

Sandalwood pondered it. “I… wouldn’t know either,” she admitted. “Same here. I just… what the fuck could possibly be worth killing all my friends and… and…”

“Turning us into cannon fodder is what makes us worth it,” Fiddlesticks said coldly. “I was one of them awhile ago,” Fiddlesticks said. “I did benefit concerts before the War. Tried to ask people to kill themselves for the greater good. And… and seeing reminders of what I used to do…” tears burst from her eyes.

“Fiddlesticks,” Johnny C said, kneeling down. “That’s… you’re not going down a good path there.”

“But the bastards… we...” Fiddlesticks sobbed.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Johnny C said, both arms clasped around her barrel in a hug. “It. Wasn’t. Your fault.”

Vera looked at all of this, uncomfortable, not sure how to respond.

“Is Sharon okay?” Vera asked, turning on her radio.

“Amuruq says he’s gonna use an ancient Inuit technique!” Kgalakgadi wheezed.

The room went silent.

“Um…” Fiddlesticks said, voice not quite choked by tears. “What?”

Sandalwood and Vera just stared up at each other.

“Oh, great,” Sandalwood groaned.


Sharon

Ahead of her, Sharon could see…

Bones.

A towering, leviathan godbeast, with antlers like the branches of a good-sized tree. With massive eye sockets that could have only fit the eyes of something from Equestria.

The thing was dead, plainly. But there was something about the icicles from the eye sockets. Something about the shape of the bone ridges, a little too angled upwards… that suggested… that suggested…

Regret.

“What is this?” Sharon breathed, surprised to hear her own voice.

“My father,” someone - a male? - said. “Ours. He was... “

Sharon thought she could see a hint of a smile, a curvature in the winds outside.

“It’s not important. But… I’ve hijacked the spell. What’s important, Sharon Minik, is that you do not let them find our father. Murder them. Leave them to freeze. Take their supplies. We don’t care,” the voice said.

“Don’t!” a female voice pleaded. “Please, don’t be so rash…”

“I don’t think we can stop them if they are,” the voice said. “Just please. Make sure our father can rest in peace here. Away from the land that turned against him. And don’t let him be pressed into Celestia’s serv-”

And then Amuruq tackled Sharon to the ground.


Amuruq

Well, I’d tackled her, that was sort of like an ancient Inuit technique… Amuruq thought as he dragged his friend up from the snow.

“Shit, is she… is she not wearing a jacket?” Amuruq asked.

“Empirical evidence suggests yes,” Tomorbaator muttered.

“It was… I just… nevermind,” Amuruq sighed.

“What the hell?!” Snowshoes yelled, alighting next to Amuruq. “What’s going on here?!”


“I have no goddamn idea,” Kgalakgadi wheezed, coming up next to Amuruq. “She… she just… I don’t…”

“I mean here in general,” Snowshoes said. “Apparently… the PER are here. Ponified everyone in this goddamn town.”

“...Shit,” Amuruq breathed.

“It’s worse,” Snowshoes said. “They’re… looking for something.”

“What?” Kgalakgadi asked.

“If I had to make a guess… I’d say the same signal you picked up on,” Snowshoes said.

“It’s a god, you know,” Sharon said, her speech muffled by the snow.

“...What,” Snowshoes said.

“A God. From Equestria’s past,” Sharon said, her voice growing steadily clearer. “I don’t know what they’re planning there, but… they can’t be allowed to have it. It must rest in peace.

“Sharon, how do you…” Snowshoes asked uneasily.

“Because it makes as much sense as anything else,” Sharon retorted.

“She's…” Darryl’s voice crackled over their radios. “Not wrong, actually.”

“What, that it makes as much sense as anything else, Dare?” Snowshoes muttered.

“No,” Darryl said. “There’s… something out there. A god. Or at least, something they call a God in Equestria. I’ll explain at the train station.”


The station was virtually unchanged by the time they all made their way back there.

“So that’s it,” Snowshoes said, looking down. “Goddamn.”

“Yeah,” Darryl said. “We can’t contact anyone from here-”

“Why not?” Amuruq asked.

“The bastards cut the phone lines,” Sandalwood explained. “We… tried to make some phone calls soon as we heard about this. And wireless is pretty terrible out here, so that’s out.”

“It all makes sense,” Kgalakgadi said sagely, though he was trembling. “The car, the cracked windows… everyone being gone…”

“So then, Kgalakgadi…” Nny asked. “That signal. Think it has anything to do with this?”

“Definitely,” Kgalakgadi said, heading back to their vehicle and bringing back an inscrutable-looking device held to one forehoof. “I… think I’m picking up something else…” he stared at the screen. “Oh dear. That looks… that looks familiar.”

“What’s that?” Nny asked, crowding behind Kgalakgadi. “I… kinda can’t read your instruments.”

“There’s definitely something else up there,” Kgalakgadi said. “I’m reading serious magic coming from up north…”

“They made this storm, didn’t they?” Snowshoes breathed.

“That seems oddly convenient, Snowy,” Amuruq said.

“But it makes sense,” Snowshoes said. “Think about it. The storm kept us grounded. The phone lines down. The fact that we’re damn near stranded…”

“No, they couldn’t have,” Sandalwood interrupted. “Not enough thaums in the air, remember?”

“Well, you tell me how this could’ve happened?!” Snowshoes yelled.

“ENOUGH!” Darryl yelled.

Everyone fell silent.

We’re dealing with some well-funded PER,” Darryl said, ignoring them. “So we’re going to find them. We’re going to hunt them. And ki-”

“No, we’re not,” Fiddlesticks interrupted.

There was a look of what could have been raw hatred on Darryl’s face. “Excuse me?”

“Exactly,” Sandalwood said. “There’s holes in this plan. We get to civilization first and get them to warn the Fort. Then we kill every PER son of a bitch on the coast.”

“Don’t interrupt your superior officer!” Darryl yelled. “Both of you! We would have done that anyway!”

“Actually I was thinking it wasn’t just PER,” Fiddlesticks said. “Think about it, you guys. You’re Alaskan. PER don’t want to bother with most of the people here. Think about all the resources that were needed for this. The… Sharon. You saw a skyliner, didn’t you?”


“I… did,” Sharon said, uncertain for the first syllable then suddenly growing in confidence. “I did. I did. I did -

“Ok, we get it,” Amuruq muttered.

“You’re seriously trusting a paranoid dream here?” Sandalwood scoffed.

“Considering it told me most of the same things you guys already learned, I think it’s worth listening to,” Sharon snapped.

“Okay,” Fiddlesticks said. “But if she saw that, then… think about it. Does that seem like-”

“Oh God,” Nny interrupted. “We’re dealing with the Empire itself.”

You could have heard a pin drop.

Almost everyone in that room had fought Solar Empire forces. But it wasn’t something you did lightly. Solar Empire forces were goddamn terrifying.

Highly militarized, armed with weaponry that could turn your mind and body inside out. More of them than your bullets could possibly hit. And creative.

Oh God. Were they creative. While there’d usually be the customary swarm of newfoals rushing at you, there’d usually be something insane directed at you. A strange kind of newfoal. Pegasi with potion clouds or, or some kind of gun to fling that goddamn soul-destroying purple goop at you. Even golems made of crystal.

Usually it was the strange newfoals and the ponies assigned to… so shape you the poor bastard that got ponified into something tailor-made to take out armies.

“And they’re smart. They pulled this off, so clearly, this ‘god’ they’re looking for is something important. Something… big. “This god they’re looking for? It’s very important. Enough that it was worth it to just destroy their cover like this,” Nny said. “The skyliners. This kind of mass ponification in the middle of nowhere.”

“Okay,” Darryl said. “I’m sorry. Viol… Fiddlesticks. You were right. We’re getting to Prudhoe Bay soon as we can. And…”

“Yeah?” Snowshoes asked.

“They’re smart,” Darryl said. “We’re dealing with one hell of an operation here. And I don’t like the idea of this… this ‘god,’ this prize of theirs being powerful enough to make it worth doing something so horrible.”

“So, we’re going to find it?” Sharon asked.

“Yes,” Darryl replied heavily. “Against my better judgment, yes.”

“And we’re gonna make the bastards die of frostbite,” Snowshoes snarled.

There was a pause as these two declarations sank in.

“Why do I have the urge to say ‘I have a bad feeling about this’…?” Nny asked.