Trigger warning: Implied canibalism
Twilight Sparkle was worried. Since she was also cold, hungry and lost, that would have been the case anyway, but this new problem added extra intensity to the situation. She had successfully inhabited the cave she'd found for over a week, and managed to survive by her ingenuity, guts, and information from a number of wilderness survival books she'd read. The low growing fir trees she'd found in the lee of the outcrop her cave was a part of had helped too.
Two branches, thick with green needles, had been chewed off and served as an uncomfortable mattress and equally uncomfortable blanket. Needles from other branches had provided a food supply of sorts. They tasted terrible, but the survival guides were right that they did stay down and prevented hunger turning into outright starvation. A piled up ramp of snow had blocked most of the entrance; leaving only a hole big enough to get in and out of and preventing the almost constant wind from making the interior even colder. As for water, she had an unlimited supply of it, as long as she didn't mind it chilled.
By yesterday horn's mana burn had healed up and she was finally able to cast spells after a fashion. She could levitate a few pounds, create a small light and even trigger a spark. But she'd decided against trying to set up a fire. The resinous fir wood and needles burned easily enough; she had the singed mane to prove it. However, a fire would eat up the wood at a furious rate, and her supply was limited. A secondary concern was that using magic also took metabolic energy, even if it wasn't a direct conversion. Even with a diet of fir needles, she was mostly living off her body's reserves. She was hungry enough to eat fish, but she had no idea where to get some.
The limits of her food supply were the latest addition to her checklist of problems. Her relentlessly analytical mind could no more avoid analysing and measuring things then she could stop breathing, and it was quite clear after a week of consumption that the needles were not growing back as fast as she ate them. It might take as much as two months if she limited herself to two mouthfuls a day (plus or minus 8 days allowing for variation in the size of a mouthful), but she would eventually strip all the fir trees and her bedding bare.
The answer was clear, she had to move on in the hope of finding somewhere more hospitable. South was her best bet, and though the permanently overcast sky hadn't allowed her to check her initial guesses as to directions, a simple cantrip to find north had worked just as well. If so, she needed to do it as soon as possible, while she still had reserves to use. That was why she was sat in front of her cave first thing in the morning, weaving one edge of her blanket and mattress together to form a greatcoat/food supply/hermit crab shell to wear as she walked.
The springy twigs twined together nicely with a little bit of precision telekinesis; something that she'd learned from watching Rarity and fortunately just within her current power limits. While barely possible, a warming charm would have required constant energy input to maintain it, energy she didn't have to spare. The last twigs entwined, she nosed it upright and backed into it, dropping a little to get fully under the cover of the dense needles. When she straightened up, the coat barely lifted off the ground, just as she'd planned. Recasting the direction finding cantrip, she turned herself round and started walking south.
She had little to do but think as she tramped along. She avoided thinking too deeply about her lost friends and family by concentrating on recalling her studies, creating and solving maths problems and trying to remember the order of books on the shelves of Golden Oaks library. She stayed on course by keeping a distant mountain due south ahead of her. It was the largest she could see in a range that spread to the southeast. As the day wore on, the protection of the branches and her own trapped body heat actually allowed her to feel slightly warmer, even if her fur was getting a coating of tree sap to match the Crusaders best efforts.
The combination of warmth, internal distraction and external concentration was the reason she failed to notice that she had found some-pony, or rather some-pony had found her. Not that it was actually a pony.
"What do I find here, a walking fir tree?"
The rough voice jolted Twilight out of her attempt to solve Martingale's Third Theorem and look around. Then up. Standing in front and to the side of her was a giant caribou with a big grin on his muzzle. She stumbled back a few steps in surprise and not a little fear. Almost nothing was known about the reclusive caribou of the far north. Distantly related to the deer of warmer climes, there were rumours that they were savages, cannibals who ate their own dead, and did worse to anyone else who strayed across their path.
This particular specimen certainly looked shaggy enough for a savage, but the grin and the humour in his voice made some of the wilder tales she'd read seem unlikely. Her options were limited anyway. She needed no calculations to deduce that she couldn't outrun him, even if she discarded her 'coat', and even if she could, come nightfall without the protection it granted she would certainly freeze to death. There was no way she could overcome him physically, and magically she doubted he would be overawed by the few parlor tricks she was currently capable of.
That really left only one option, her preferred one under other circumstances. Extend the hoof of friendship and hope that it's magic worked even here. She pushed forward, sliding her head and shoulders out into the open and turning to face him.
"My name is Twilight Sparkle. Pleased to meet you."
He gave her an odd look. "Am not sure you are. Look more scared then pleased, ya?"
Twilight hung her head, ears folding flat. "I'm sorry, you're right. I don't know much about your kind, and you are rather intimidating."
That brought a laugh. "Ha! Olaf is no threat, not to pony or anyone else! So what is one horn pony doing in Wintergard?"
Twilight had not heard the name before, but the meaning was obvious. "Right now, trying to find somewhere to rest for the night and something to eat that isn't fir needles."
"That Olaf can help with. But must be paid for."
That brought back her worries. "How? I don't have anything."
"Do not worry, little pony. Just tell Olaf story or how you are here, tell Olaf's clan too. Other stories too, if you have them. Good story helps keep spirit warm when fire runs low, feeds spirit when body is hungry, gives new ways to see when things look hopeless."
"I can do that." Twilight gave a relieved sigh, if there was one thing she did still have, it was an abundance of stories. While a lot of her reading was non-fiction, she'd worked her way through many genres of fiction as well. Daring Doo was only the tip of the iceberg... She shivered as the cold wind gusted around her exposed head. Icebergs were the last thing she wanted to think about.
The caribou turned away, and she saw for the first time that he had several bundles of wood laid across his back, bound up with some material she didn't recognise. "Come! We must go before night comes."
She followed him as he started striding southwest, having to push herself to keep up with his longer stride. He was carrying a heavy looking bundle strapped to his back, but it didn't seem to slow him down. Her own burden of branches was making it harder to keep up, thougn the exertion was making her warm enough to sweat. After a few minutes she was panting, her throat burning from the cold air. "Wa... wait!"
He turned round. "What is problem?"
"I... can't keep... up. Can you walk more slowly?"
He shook his head, antlers swinging back and forth. "Can, but then not get to home before nightfall. We not want to be walking at night. Get too cold, lose way, die."
Twilight hung her head. "Then you'll have to leave me. I'm walking as fast as I can."
Olaf examined her, tilting his head slightly. "If night too cold for caribou, far too cold for pony, and no time to build shelter. No worry. I carry you instead."
"You'll whaaa... oof!" Twilight found herself slung across the Olaf's shoulders, in front of the bundle. He'd ducked his head and scooped her up with his antlers with surprising speed, tilting them back to roll her off onto his back. He wasted no time in setting off at his former pace. The swaying motion made Twilight slightly ill at first, but she quickly adjusted. The fir branches had wrapped around her, and underneath it she could feel the shaggy carpet of the caribou's coat, making her almost comfortable.
The bundle she was pressed against was made of some sort of thick cloth she didn't recognise, but the contents quickly identified themselves from the smell. Fish, and quite a lot of them since the bundle was bigger than she was. Her curiosity bump started twinging. "You have fish? Where did you get them?"
"From water, ya!" The caribou gave a short laugh at his quip. "Is big salt water two days walk away. We trade crystal berries found in hills around big mountain to Yaks for nets. Fish is good food. Even pony can eat fish."
Twilight's mind worked on the information. She'd read of the isolated country of Yakyakistan, to the far north of Vanhoover, which was to the west, if the way he'd pointed with his antlers meant anything. So that would make the mountain range to the south west the Yaket range and the bigger mountain directly south was Mount Everhoof. That made the 'big salt water' to the north the fabled Boreal Ocean. A few brave explorers from Trottingham had sailed up the Northern channel from the Celestial ocean and explored the eastern end of it, but most of it was uncharted territory.
It amazed her how much comfort she derived from knowing where she was, even if it was far beyond anywhere ponykind had travelled. Though that did invite the question.... "How do you even know about ponies?"
"One horn pony like you, Northen Star. Was old pony when I was calf. Taught many things. Helped with horn. Was good friend to caribou. Became part of clan."
That explained a lot. Northern Star had been a famous explorer, a real life Daring Doo (though technically so was Daring Doo). His journals of his explorations of the lands north of Equestria were the only reason that anypony knew anything about Yakyakistan. He claimed to have climbed Mount Everhoof, using an air bubble charm to supply him with oxygen. He'd been one of the explorers to sail the Boreal sea, and even ventured into Bugbear country.
Twilight had read some of his journals, as well as many scholarly articles derived from them. Though she remembered something about the records of his final explorations being banned from publication as being too shocking for public consumption by the Canterlot College of Arts, his sponsor. Rather than appeal to Princess Celestia, he'd resigned his post and headed back out into the Northern wastes. He'd never been heard of again.
Her stomach Interrupted her musings with a growl. She bit a mouthful of needles of her cover and chewed them slowly as the caribou chuckled. "Big sound from little pony belly. You look forward to eating with clan, I think? Is hokay, we have plenty fish."
Twilight said nothing, for her mouth was full. Then she swallowed, and she spoke. "Thank you again for offering your hospitality."
The caribou gave only an amused grunt in return and plodded on. The sky was starting to darken when they came over a low rise and down into a frozen vale where a large field of boulders were scattered like foal's toys below a rocky cliff. In the lee of the cliff was a small forest, mixing in with the boulder field, and in front of that were a scattering of cylindrical objects with light spilling from small holes in the cone shaped tops. A couple of caribou were moving around between them.
As they got closer, she could see what obviously had to be dwellings more clearly. They were made of the same heavy looking fabric that the bundle next to her was, mostly patches stitched together with some sort of thick cord. The edges of the rectangle curved in oddly. She was sure she'd seen the shape somewhere before... her heart suddenly gave a thump and began to race as she remembered where she'd seen it, in a book on ancient griffon culture. Those were _hides_, the skin of once living creatures.
More than just her heart had jumoed because Olaf glanced back. "What is wrong?"
Twilight for once was lost for an answer. Half remembered horror stories she'd pooh pooed about caribou suddenly seemed a lot less silly. To get a hide you had to remove the skin from a creature, not a pleasant concept. What else did they do with the rest of it? Was Olaf's whole friendly attitude just a pretense to bring back some additional tent making material?
"The... your dwellings... where did the covering come from?"
"Ah, it from ancestors. Ancestors are with us, ancestors protect us even after spirits go beyond."
"Other caribou?" Twilight asked, feeling equal parts shocked and relieved.
"Yes. Northern Star tell of how ponies treat dead. Bury them in ground, wing ponies burn them to ash with thunderbolts. Is sad, is nothing left. Is wasteful too. When caribou die, spirit is freed to travel long path to beyond, but body is left as gift to family, to clan. Comes from clan in first place so only fair. Hide and sinews make yurts to keep us warm, bags to carry things. Bones make tools, frames. Meat is smoked and saved for deep dark of winter. When food runs out, gift of ancestors keep calves and elders alike alive."
So the rumours were true, after a fashion. If Nothern Star reported this, no wonder his final journals were banned. Twilight knew she should be horrified, but the matter of fact way Olaf talked about it... It made sense from a practical point of view. These caribou lived on the very edge. They could not afford to waste anything - she was close enough to smell the fires buring inside the yurts, and they were not wood - even their own waste. Necessity had clearly become custom and eventually ritual. At least they only used what was left behind. Considering her own actions, she was the last pony with moral grounds to act the high horse.
Olaf stopped in front of the largest yurt and knelt down to let her off. She was glad to do so, as she now knew what the bundle she'd been resting against was made of. Acceptance did not equal comfort. She extracted herself from her fir overcoat and shivered as the true chill of the evening air finally reached her. Another caribou came up beside them, looking curiously at her before going in through the entrance, simply an unlaced seam in the side of the yurt.
"This is meeting hall. Only most honoured of ancestors part of it. Most of clan here. You greet, you tell story. Hokay?"
Twilight braced herself. "Okay."
They entered together. Several dozen caribou were resting around the edges of the interior, chatting and drinking from deep clay bowls. A fire of peat and droppings burned brightly in the centre, a hide bag suspended over it acting as a cauldron. It felt almost sauna-like compared to outside, and the air hung heavy with the scent of peat and musk. Shaggy pelts scattered around the edge acted as seating/bedding, and the fur lining continued up the walls in the form of the tawny hides of past caribou.
As she'd expected, there was also another, smaller pelt among the ones on the far side of the yurt, one in royal blue with a pair of symbols on it. They showed the northern constellation called the Princess's Mane overlaid on an aurora; the star that formed to point of the horn, the pole star, was larger and depicted with four points where the others were simple circles and lines.
There were cheers and greetings as Olaf entered and not a few cries of surprise and curiosity when they saw his companion.
"I, Olaf, have returned! I bring food..." He pulled on a tie and hauled the massive bundle off his back and down onto the floor beside him. "... and a lost pony. At least, lost until found by me!"
All eyes turned to Twilight, and she felt a twinge of anxiety. She pushed it down. Friendship had worked so far, so it was only sensible to continue it. She gave a weary smile and bowed her head. "Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle."
Her stomach gave it's own introduction with a loud gurgle, which caused an uproar of laughter from the listening caribou, partly from the noise, partly from her expression of embarrasment.
An elderly female, with a necklace of bone pieces and stones, motioned to her to come over as the laughter died down. "I am Arga, Elder of the clan. It sounds like you have great hunger. Come, share our food, and share your tale."
Twilight smiled again, more freely this time as her heart eased. She was in the company of huge cannibal caribou who just about out-everythinged her, and for the first time in weeks she felt safe.