Chapter 6
Applejack woke first, just as the pale light of dawn began to peek through the trees. She was always used to rising at sunup, and did so even without her trusty alarm clock. Yawning, the orange earth pony tossed off her blanket, rose to her feet, and gave herself an enlivening shake. She reached down and took up her brown cowcolt's hat in her mouth, with a toss of her head flipping the hat up between her ears. Pappy, she thought, feeling the familiar lightness of the hat on her head, what would you think of your little AJ now? All grown up and on an adventure.
She stalked gently over to Rainbow Dash and nudged her behind her ears. “Wake up, Rainbow,” she said. “It's time for breakfast and then to get a move on.”
Dash mumbled and turned over in her sleep; she was still wrapped in the blanket.
“Rainbow Dash, wake up!” Applejack said, louder this time. There was still no response. “Rainbow!” she yelled.
“Whuh? Hurm?!” the pegasus gurgled as she finally regained consciousness. She sat up with the blanket still wrapped around her, making her look like a worm. She tried moving, but gained no ground with the blanket around her. This caused her to panic. “Aah! Aah! I'm trapped!”
“Huh- yes your Majesty?” Rarity mumbled, stirring from a dream. She raised her sleeping mask off her eyes with a hoof. She frowned. “Oh, drat, it's morning, isn't it? And I was having such a lovely dream...”
“Oh, Celestia, I can't move my wings! I'm in a horrible-”
“Rainbow would you cut it out?” Applejack cried.
Dash finally realized she was not ensnared by some horrible beast. The pegasus yawned. “Morning, everypony,” she said, wriggling out of the blanket. She stretched her wings back and then stretched her body forward, lowering herself until her chest nearly touched the ground. Her back cracked a few times. She cracked her head from side to side as well. “Who's up for breakfast?”
“We gotta make it quick,” Applejack said, beginning to roll up her blanket. “At least it's stopped rainin'. Y'all help me break camp, and then we can go nab some grass.”
“Ewww, the grass is going to be soggy!” Rarity whined. “Can't we just have some more apples?”
“I didn't pack two saddlebags full o' apples!” the orange earth pony said. “I only got so many with me, and we used a fair number of 'em yesterday. We gotta conserve 'em for the times we can't get nothin' else- like tonight, when we're in the mountains.”
“You know, Rares,” Dash said, hovering just off the ground, “my offer to get you some leaves still stands...”
Rarity kicked off her blanket in annoyance and sighed. “Well, fine. It can't be any worse than soggy, smooshy grass.”
“Pluck me off a branch or two, will you Rainbow?” Applejack said, folding her blanket tightly. She began to stuff it into a saddlebag. “I've never tried leaves before.”
“All right! One treetop breakfast, coming up!” The blue pegasus shot out of the tent in a rainbow blur.
Rarity used her magic to compress her pillow, shoving it back into one of her saddlebags. “That pony had best not be pulling our legs. If I have to gargle a pulpy green mess for breakfast, I'd rather just go hungry.”
“She's awful enthusiastic about them leaves,” Applejack replied, beginning to pull up the blanket laid over the ground. “I reckon she thinks they're pretty tasty.”
“Yes, dear Applejack, but Rainbow Dash is not always the best judge of others' tastes,” the white unicorn responded. “Do you remember the time she tried to convince us to go cliff diving?”
Applejack chuckled at the memory. “Shucks, I thought that was kinda fun. You just chickened out 'cause you were afraid o' heights.”
“One plummet from the sky to my impending doom per lifetime is enough, thank you very much.”
Dash abruptly soared back into the tent, with two tree branches full of green leaves tucked under each front leg, and a third carried in her mouth. “Ladies,” she said, spitting out the branch in her mouth, “breakfast is served!” She dropped the two branches under her legs, gripped the third between her front hooves, and began to rip leaves off it with her teeth, chewing noisily and making satisfied sounds.
Applejack pinned one branch in place with her hooves, then bent down and nibbled off a leaf. She chewed it thoughtfully, considering the taste as it hit her tongue. “Hmm... tart,” she said with her mouth full. She swallowed. “A little like a Granny Smith apple.”
Rarity was busy nipping a leaf apart into small chunks. “It's not quite as bad as I thought it would be.”
“That's the spirit!” Dash cried, shoving her mouth into the remaining branch and taking an enormous bite of leaves. The bright green sprouts of spring looked like a beard around her snout as she slowly chewed them down. “They're all so fresh, especially in the spring! And nopony's been walking all over them!”
“Well,” the white unicorn admitted, “there is that.”
At Applejack's insistence, they ate quickly, each of them finishing their branches in swift succession notwithstanding Rarity's usual daintiness. What followed was last night in reverse: Rarity used her magic to remove the rock weights around the tarp, Rainbow Dash carried it back over the branch, then all three ponies worked together to fold the large oilcloth into a shape compact enough to fit into Applejack's saddlebag. By the time the sky was orange with the risen sun, they were packed up, and they set out from amidst the trees, quickly reaching the same brisk pace they'd kept for much of the previous day.
Soon the gentle slope they'd begun to encounter yesterday grew markedly steeper, and the broad-branched oaks and elms and ashes gave way to prickly pines. The path began to grow rocky, and Rarity almost lost her footing on one particularly large rock in their path. “Can't we slow down a bit?” she cried. “We don't want to fall off the mountain!”
“When we get in danger of that, yeah, we'll slow down!” Rainbow Dash cried back. “But not before!”
“You're not even running!” the unicorn chastised the pegasus.
The Drackenridge Mountains climbed higher and higher, the path growing steeper and steeper as the morning wore on. By the time noon arrived, they were almost above the treeline- and a slight chill had begun to pervade the air. Rarity shivered. “Ooo, it's getting cold,” she said.
“It has started to get a mite chilly,” Applejack concurred. She and Rarity slowed to a trot.
“You girls are wimps!” Dash said as she shot past them; banking hard, she spun around and put her hooves on her hips. “It's not cold at all!”
“You wouldn't know, would you?” Rarity remarked, sliding her saddlebags off her flanks. “Pegasi don't get cold, remember?”
“Well we can tell when it's cold, even if we don't feel it,” the sky-blue pegasus said. “And it's not that cold, not really.”
“Maybe not, but it's gonna get colder the higher up we go,” Applejack said. “I'd rather stop now and bundle up than do it when the snow's comin' down on us. Besides, it's time for lunch.”
Dash fluttered to the ground. “Well if it's lunch time...”
“Hmm...” Rarity said, using her magic to lift two sweaters out of her saddlebags. From the right bag she produced her hot pink cashmere sweater, while from the left she lifted a sweater of alpaca wool, the color of oatmeal. The alpaca sweater was slightly heavier. “Applejack, darling, you should wear this one,” she said, levitating the alpaca sweater toward her earth pony comrade. “It's heavy enough to give you some warmth under that... vest you've brought.”
Applejack tugged a black vest of quilted wool out of her saddlebag. “This baby's seen me through plenty o' winters all by itself,” she said.
“Darling, there's going to be snow-”
“I've been out in blizzards with nothin' but this here vest and my hat.”
“Applejack, please,” Rarity said, putting on a pouty expression. “I'll feel simply awful if I'm warm and you're shivering away up front. I know how much you love playing the martyr-”
“The what?” Applejack asked.
“-but be practical this time. Please?” The last word was accompanied by a flutter of the unicorn's long eyelashes. She leaned forward, her beautiful blue eyes wavering with intensity.
Applejack rolled her green eyes at Rarity's display, but even she wasn't completely immune to the unicorn's charms. Finally, the orange earth pony sighed. “Oh, all right,” she relented. She reached up with her hooves and grabbed the floating sweater. “But don't be mad if I break a sweat in this heavy thing,” she added, feeling the thickness of the material.
“Not to worry, darling,” Rarity said, using her magic to unfold the pink cashmere sweater, “I can always wash it when we get back to Ponyville.”
“Okay, you've played dress-up long enough,” Rainbow Dash said, pounding her hooves on the rocky ledge. “Can we get to that lunch you were mentioning?”
Applejack pulled the neck of the sweater over her head. “Sure thing, just give me a second to get this sucker on.” She wriggled her front legs through the leg holes, noting that the sweater was quite soft on the inside despite its rugged outer weave. The chill in the air around her was greatly dispelled. Flipping her hat back onto her head, the earth pony finally tugged her long blond mane out of the neck so that it was free. “We may have to hold off on dinner this evenin' if we wanna conserve our apple supply.”
“I actually brought some granola bars,” Rarity mentioned, pushing her pink sweater down more securely against her flanks. She gently extricated her curled violet mane from the sweater's neck. “They're not much, but they'll give us something to put in our stomachs. I'd rather not go to bed hungry if I can help it.”
“Twilight's book said there was plenty o' grass in Gildedale,” Applejack said. “Once we're over the mountains we should be able to eat off the land. If we're lucky there'll even be fruit or somesuch produce that we can store for the return trip.”
Rainbow Dash blinked her rose-colored eyes and grimaced. “Oh, ponyfeathers, I forgot we'd have to make a round trip! Ugh, this is all gonna take forever!”
Rarity's expression indicated that she had forgotten this as well. “Well,” she said, trying to sound happy, “perhaps we'll meet a friendly eagle or hippogriff who will give us a lift back home.”
“Too bad somepony doesn't know how to teleport,” Dash groused, glancing at Rarity.
Rarity's eyes filled with pain; she flinched away like she'd been struck.
“Rainbow!” Applejack snapped.
The sky-blue pegasus quickly realized her mistake. “Ohmigosh, Rarity, I'm so sorry!” she gasped, scooting over to her friend. “I forgot-”
“No,” Rarity said, shifting away from her, “it's quite all right, Rainbow.” Her body language made it plain that this was a lie. “I suppose it would be more... convenient if I knew how to teleport. Perhaps I really should learn some day.”
“Now don't you get your tail in a twist, Rarity,” said Applejack, plucking some apples from her saddlebags. “You don't need to learn how to teleport if you don't want to. You're plenty useful for this trip without knowin' how, ain't she Rainbow?” the earth pony finished with a glare at Dash.
“Oh, well... yeah, of course!” Dash said. “I mean, you still have your other magic, and that's something AJ and I can't do.” Smiling fiercely, she threw a front leg around the white unicorn. “I don't think there's a better possible group that could have gone on this trip! We've got Applejack, a tough and dependable earth pony; we've got you, a magical and... creative unicorn; and we've got me,” she thumped her chest with her other hoof, “the fastest and fiercest pegasus in all of Equestria!”
Rarity chuckled, leaning into Rainbow Dash. “Perhaps you're right, Rainbow. I just hope I can be as useful as you say. I know you and Applejack are the first ponies I would choose to go on an adventure with.”
“I reckon we'll all be useful to each other, before this trip is done,” Applejack said. “Now, let's eat.”
They lunched on two apples each and chatted happily, enjoying each others' company and all feeling much better about their prospects for the rest of the trip. When they had finished, the two running ponies took up their saddlebags again, and the three of them continued their climb into the mountains. The sky was now light gray with cloud cover, and a cool wind had begun to blow.
Higher and higher they climbed; they now had no choice but to slow down, as the path was becoming steep and jagged, filled with rocks. The wind howled around them, whipping through the crevices and cracks of the towering peaks every which way. “Whoa!” Applejack cried, stopping suddenly.
“What's wrong, darling?” Rarity asked.
Applejack said nothing. Sitting down, she took her hat off her head with her front hooves. Turning it over, she tugged around the interior for a moment and pulled out a drawstring attached to the inside of the hat. Flipping the hat back on her head, she used both hooves to tighten the drawstring as it came under her neck, until it was pulled tight and the cowcolt's hat was snugly secured.
Rainbow Dash put her hooves on her cheeks and dragged them down her face slowly. “Can we go now?!” she hissed.
“Yep,” Applejack said, “we can go.” And they began to climb again, rounding one sharp bend where the wind blew fiercely; the earth pony was quite happy that her hat was tied in place.
About an hour further up the mountains, it started to snow: small, scattered flakes at first, then gradually heavier, until thick flurries were swirling on the wind around them. Again Applejack motioned for them to halt. “I reckon it's time to bundle up a bit more,” she said, sliding her saddlebags off. Reaching into her left bag, she pulled out her black quilted vest.
“I do believe you're right!” Rarity concurred; the white unicorn was shivering. Sliding off her own saddlebags, she used her magic to open the right bag and pull out her dark gray coat. It was lined with white lambswool and was exceptionally warm.
“Rainbow, you sure you're not cold?” Applejack called to the pegasus, hovering just off the edge of the path.
“I'm fine!” Dash said back, a distinct note of annoyance in her voice. “I told you before, pegasus ponies don't get cold!”
“Must be nice,” Applejack remarked, snapping together the last of the snaps on her vest. She pulled out an orange scarf from her right bag and wrapped it snugly around her neck.
“Oh, heavens no,” Rarity said, using magic to zip up her coat. “Think of all the wonderful accessorizing and layering we would miss out on!” This earned her an eye-roll from the orange earth pony. Both ponies repositioned their saddlebags, and with an impatient Rainbow Dash flying alongside them, they continued their push into the increasingly driving snow.
By the time evening arrived, the path was winding steeply through mountain peaks that rose sheer all around them. They were trudging through a full-blown blizzard, the snow so dense in the air that they could barely see the way ahead of them. Dash had actually come down from the sky, the wind was blowing so fast. She dragged her legs through the hoof-thick snow in between Applejack and Rarity, her rainbow-striped mane and tail whipping wildly in the wind. They were scrambling up a particularly steep rise, trying to keep their footing in the snow and the tumbling rocks. Stretching out one step, Applejack was surprised to put her hoof on level ground. “It levels out up here!” she called back to the others. She put the other foot up onto the ledge and hauled herself up, rolling onto her side as she finally reached the top. Turning back around, she offered her front hooves to Rainbow Dash. I wish I had some rope now, no lie!, she thought. Still, Applejack was a strong pony, and Dash was light as all pegasi tended to be, so she easily pulled her friend up onto the level space. She did the same for Rarity, though the unicorn's heavy saddlebags meant she needed to expend more effort.
Once she was on level ground again, Rarity surveyed her surroundings. They seemed to be very high in the mountains indeed; shorter mountain peaks spread away beneath them, and deep valleys between the peaks were filled with snow drifts. “Could we be at the highest point in the path?” Rarity called to her friends.
“It's sure possible,” Applejack remarked. She joined Rarity in looking out below them. The snow rose a good ways up their legs.
“Girls,” Rainbow Dash's voice cut through the wind, “look at this!”
The two ponies turned around, and their eyes widened. There was a large, round opening set into the mountainside far back from the ledge. It was no mere cave, either: the opening was a neat, smooth circle, rimmed by an outline of stone into which symbols were carved. “Anypony know what those say?” Dash asked, pointing at the strange glyphs.
“I sure ain't never seen nothin' like that before,” Applejack remarked.
“Twilight's the scholar, not me,” Rarity said. “It's certainly not Modern Equestrian.”
The sky-blue pegasus began to creep forward, breathing out fog into the frigid mountain air.
“Rainbow!” Applejack cried. “You don't know what's in there!”
“I just wanna look,” Dash said over her shoulder. “Maybe we can stay here for the night.”
Rarity exchanged a glance with Applejack. “I suppose it couldn't hurt to take a peek, right?” She trudged through the snow toward Dash.
As Rainbow Dash drew closer to the mouth of the cave, she began to hear something. It was very faint, almost imperceptible at first: a gentle lilt, coming from deep within the blackness. With each step she took she could hear more clearly. The language was not one she could understand, but she knew instinctively that it was the spoken form of the glyphs written around the cave's mouth. It crooned at her like a lullaby, but jauntier and more energetic. It beckoned her to wonderment. The pegasus was deeply charmed. “That music...” she muttered. She began to walk slowly forward.
“Music?” Rarity said, several paces behind her. The unicorn paused and pricked up her ears, and found she could hear it too. It was a haunting, mournful tune, sung by the most beautiful voice Rarity had ever heard, even more beautiful than Fluttershy's. It compelled her to wrap herself in its elegance. “Oh, my...” she whispered, beginning to walk forward.
Applejack, behind both of them, jerked back her head. “What are y'all doin'?”
“Can't you hear it?” Dash said absent-mindedly.
“The music?” Rarity said in a trance. Both ponies' eyes had grown wide and glazed.
Applejack stomped her hoof. She leaned her head forward and craned her ears. “Nope!” she said after a few seconds. “I don't hear no music. I think y'all are just pullin' my leg, to be honest. So cut it out and let's get goin'! I don't like the looks o' this cave.”
Rainbow Dash and Rarity did not seem to be paying attention to her; they both continued their slow, deliberate walk deeper into the cave. Applejack was highly annoyed. “Would y'all mind comin' back here, and maybe gettin' on with... are y'all even listenin'?!” The orange earth pony galloped up behind the unicorn and the pegasus and shouted at them: “Hey! We gotta get goin'!” She stomped her hoof impatiently on the ground. Unseen by any of them, her cutie mark flashed.
Suddenly, the orange earth pony did hear something- something terrifying. She supposed it could be called singing, but the loud, rumbling roar was so dense and throaty that she could barely tell words were being spoken. It echoed from deep within the cave, harsh and threatening. “Rarity! Rainbow! Don't go in there!” she called, galloping forward and grabbing both ponies' tails in her mouth. She planted her hooves and gave them a tug, trying to drag them backwards. Both ponies glared back at her, their empty eyes flickering with expressions of malice. Rainbow Dash flapped into the air and jerked away, while Rarity used her magic to pry Applejack's mouth open. Both ponies resumed their forward progress, their pace picking up to a trot.
Panicking, Applejack did what she always did in desperate situations: thought about how she would handle things if she were on the farm. Galloping past her two friends, she skidded to a stop next to the wall of the cave, reared up on her front legs, and bucked with all her might. Her back hooves slammed into the rock, sending a long, forking crack racing up the wall and across the ceiling. Dust and crags immediately began to tumble down, stalactites cracking off and falling like stone daggers to the floor below. A small rock hit Rarity on the head, snapping her back to her senses. “Hmm? What- oh my!” she cried, looking up at the collapsing ceiling. Dash was still entranced by the singing, which she could hear even over the growing din.
“Come on!” Applejack called to her. She cut across in front of Dash and ducked down, then rose up, putting the sky-blue pegasus across her back. Galloping with all her might, Rarity close behind her, Appeljack dodged and wove around falling rock as she pressed desperately toward the entrance to the cave. Finally, gasping for breath, the three of them emerged into the driving snow of the mountains- and not a moment too soon, for the cave completely fell apart in their wake, ceiling and walls alike tumbling down into a pile of rubble that completely filled the mouth of the cave and spilled out of it onto the rocky ledge.
“Huh?” Rainbow Dash finally murmured, her pupils shrinking back to their normal size. “What happened?”
“All I recall is hearing some beautiful singing,” Rarity said. “Applejack, darling, did you-”
A long, roaring howl rose up from within the crumbled cave. It came from deep in the chest of something unseen and strange, full of rage and annoyance, potent enough to cut through dozens of feet of piled rock and who knew how much more empty space deep within the cave. The roar gave way to snarling and gnashing, and the three ponies swore they could feel the ground beneath them thud with faint pounding.
“Geez! Is that what was singing?” Dash yelped, drawing back.
“It sure was!” Applejack said. “Y'all seemed to hear it pretty-like, but for me it was just as ugly then as it is now!”
“Perhaps it was some sort of magic,” Rarity speculated. “A bewitching song... to lure travelers to their doom? Oh, I do wish Twilight were here. She knows this stuff far better than I do.”
“So why didn't you get bewitched, AJ?” Dash asked. She smiled. “Maybe you're just too stubborn?”
“Not a clue,” the orange earth pony said, “and I don't see the point in ponderin' any further. Right now I'd much like to get away from this place in a hurry.”
The howling was picking up again. Rarity shuddered. “I think you're right, Applejack,” she said. She gave Applejack a big smile. “And thank you for saving me- us. Rainbow Dash and I would be goners if you hadn't been there.”
“Oh, yeah,” Dash said. “Thanks a ton, Applejack.” She flapped her wings and was airborne again- the blizzard had died down some at their present altitude, and the winds were not as fierce. “Now let's get going.”
They moved on as quickly as their legs would carry them. As Rarity had guessed, they did appear to have reached the high point in the trail, at least for the time being, and now it was all downhill. The path soon led them into a winding, narrow valley, almost a crevice between steep cliffs jutting up on either side. As they descended from the summit into the vale, the blizzard began to pick up again, once more forcing Rainbow Dash to the ground. As the pegasus looked around, she noticed that the snow was driving incredibly thick. It cut across and around them in sheets of pure white, billowing Applejack's scarf and Rarity's coat. Dash still wasn't cold, but the wind was now cutting at her skin like a knife. She had to blink furiously to keep the snow out of her eyes. It was also growing darker, and not just from the snow. Night was coming on fast.
The path seemed to suddenly open up, the crevice giving way to an open plain. Now there was snow everywhere- it had room to swirl and gather, and was no less fierce for the wider space in which it moved. Dash scanned her surroundings. Up, down, side to side- everything had become a field of flickering white, with no visibility beyond a few feet. She was... trapped. She was closed up in a box of snow. There was no way out. “Girls?” she cried, shouting to be heard above the roar of the wind.
“Did y'all say somethin'?!” Applejack called over her shoulder, her hat's brim curving in the force of the wind.
Dash began to breathe faster, slowing her pace until she finally stopped walking entirely. I'm trapped, she thought, again and again looking around her. “I can't see the sky!” she finally yelled to Applejack.
“Oof!” Rarity cried as she bumped into the sky-blue pegasus' rump. “What's wrong, Rainbow Dash?!” she yelled.
“I can't see the sky!” Dash yelled over her shoulder. She began to tremble, fidgeting furiously, lifting each leg one after the other, fluttering her wings fruitlessly in the gale-force winds.
“Speak up!” Applejack yelled over the winds, turning around to face her.
“I CAN'T SEE THE SKY!!” Rainbow Dash yelled at the top of her lungs.
SKY!! SKY!! SKY!! SKY!!
The last screamed word finally cut through the interference of the wind and echoed deeply against the surrounding mountainsides. Dash was breathing hard, shivering now. Applejack looked her up and down. “Well of course you can't see the sky! You can't even see the mountainside, even though it's right... there?”
A rumble began to fill her ears: faint initially, it quickly grew louder. The world around Applejack began to shudder, and she looked frantically about, searching for the source of the disturbance. Rarity spun around, likewise seeking the noise's source; Rainbow Dash was still frozen in place. It was only belatedly that Applejack realized the rumbling noise was coming from overhead. She looked up, just in time to see a wall of white block out what remained of the daylight. “Oh, horseapp-”
BOOOOOMMMM!!!!
White, cold, cold white, everywhere and anywhere, all around them, rolling and thundering and piling. The avalanche quickly buried them, snow piling on thicker and thicker. The rumbling continued for a few minutes, thundering in the darkness around and above them as more snow fell down. A few seconds later, there was silence.
“Brrrrahawawa!!” Applejack sputtered, poking her head up from the snow and staring around at the blackness. The snow was packed so tightly around her that no light filtered in from above. However, she seemed to have raised her head up in a hollow in the snow. Reaching down through the freezing white powder to her saddlebags, she flipped one open and dug through it until she found her flashlight. She pulled it out and used her tongue to flick it on, illuminating a miniature blue-white cave of snow only about a head taller than her hat. There was shifting in the snow next to her, and Rarity's head popped up. A few feet away, Rainbow Dash emerged as well.
Rarity blinked twice. “AAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!” she screamed
“AAA!! AAA!! AAA!!” Dash shrieked, spasming and twisting through the snow around her. “WE'RE TRAPPED!! WE'RE TRAPPED!! OH CELESTIA I CAN'T SEE!! I CAN'T MOVE!!”
“WE'RE DOOMED!” Rarity wailed. “WE'RE DOOMED AND WE'RE GOING TO DIE FROZEN IN THIS HORRID ABYSS!!”
“Hey, y'all,” Applejack said, “I think we should just calm down-”
“I CAN'T SEE!! I'M IN THE DARK AND THE SKY IS GONE!!”
“WE'RE GOING TO BE STUCK HERE AND WE'RE GOING TO STARVE-”
“I think if we-”
“I-I-I C-CAN'T MOVE MY WINGS! I'M STUCK AND MY WINGS ARE GONE!!”
“-WON'T EVEN WANT US, AND WHEN SOME POOR TRAVELER FINDS OUR BODIES, MY MANE WILL BE BLEACHED WHITE, SO THEY'LL LOOK AT MY SWEATER AND THINK, 'THIS PONY DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO COLOR-COORDINATE AT ALL!' AND THEN I-”
“CUT IT OUT!! ALL OF Y'ALL CALM DOWN RIGHT NOW!!” Applejack barked, using the sharp voice she used with cattle and pigs. It shut Rarity up, and at least made Dash more quiet. Applejack glared at the white unicorn. “We ain't dead yet! I'd much appreciate it if you stopped panickin' and started thinkin' rational!”
Rarity took several deep breaths, blushing fiercely. “I... I am sorry, Applejack. I don't know what came over me.”
“Just so you keep your head on your shoulders; the last thing we need is to overreact to a manageable problem,” Applejack said. She turned toward Dash. “As for you, Rainbow, I expect... Rainbow?”
Rainbow Dash had stopped screaming, but appeared no calmer. Her pupils had shrunk to dots, and she had curled up in the snow, where she lay shivering, unblinking. “I can't see, I can't move, I can't see, I can't move, I can't see, I can't move-” she whispered again and again, occasionally darting glances at her white surroundings.
“Rainbow?” Applejack said, softer, more gently. She scooted closer to the pegasus. “Rainbow, are you all right?”
“I can't see I can't move I can't see I can't move I can't see I can't movecan'tseecan'tmovecan'tseecan'tmovecan'tseecan'tmoveI can't see-”
Applejack shuffled through the snow until she was right next to the trembling Rainbow Dash. She sat with her legs beneath her and leaned against Dash's sky-blue body, pushing her head gently against Dash's head. “It's okay,” she whispered gently. “It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay.” The earth pony could feel her friend's jagged breathing, so she kept her own breathing steady and even, soothing her, like she did with Apple Bloom when she had a nightmare. “It's okay. It's okay. It's okay.”
Rarity slowly scooted over to join them, leaning against Rainbow Dash on her other side. She spoke no words, but began to hum a gentle tune, the music of a lullaby she often sang to Sweetie Belle. She nuzzled Dash softly as she hummed, planting a brief kiss behind her ear.
“It's okay. It's okay. It's okay,” Applejack continued to whisper.
Slowly, inch by inch, Dash's breathing returned to normal. Her eyes grew back to their healthy size, and her shivering slowly abated. Her rose-colored eyes slid closed, and she breathed out a long, shaking sigh. “Th-thank you,” she whispered. She didn't want her friends to see her cry, but she had a very hard time keeping the tears out of her eyes. She sniffled, and scooted away from Rarity and Applejack, wiping her eyes with her hoof. “Sorry about that.”
Applejack smiled warmly at her. “It's no big thing, sugarcube. You never told me you were claustrophobic.”
“I-I'm not,” the pegasus pony said. She glanced down into the snow. “I just like being able to see the sky. When I can't, I get nervous.”
Applejack scooted back over to where her flashlight lay in the snow. She picked it up and planted it on its base in the snow in the middle of the clear space, lighting up the snow-cave around them. She looked up at the ceiling close over their heads. “You know,” she said, “I reckon we should stay here tonight.”
“Under the snow?” Dash asked incredulously.
“Snow's a good insulator,” Applejack said. “We never mind it fallin' on the ground durin' winter time at the farm, it keeps heat in from the ground. And down here we're out o' the wind. We can stay the night under here, and hopefully the blizzard will have blown over by mornin'.”
“Won't we run out of air down here?” Dash asked.
“Not if we dig some more room,” Applejack said. “And if we give ourselves just a bit of a hole...” she poked the roof of the snow cave with her flashlight, causing a small chunk of it to collapse. A few stray flakes from the blizzard without flew inside.
Rarity sighed. “I suppose it's the best we can do, in lieu of finding another cave- and I'm not terribly inclined to trust caves right now,” she said.
“It's a little cramped, you know?” Dash said, stretching her wings out of the snow.
“Rarity, can you dig down a little bit with your magic?” Applejack asked. “I reckon there's a few feet o' snow between us and the ground.”
Nodding, Rarity's horn shimmered, and snow began to fly away from the middle of the small space. It pulled away from the bottom of the snow-cave and revealed yet more snow, which in turn flew away, piling back against the circular opening created by Rarity's magic. About four feet down, black rock finally emerged, Applejack's flashlight clattered as she dropped it down. The orange earth pony leapt into the hollow, followed shortly by the sky-blue pegasus and the white unicorn. Reaching into her saddlebags, Applejack pulled out one of her blankets and spread it across the rock. She then pulled out another blanket and spread it down on top of the first. “Rarity, you brought a blanket, right? Bring it out here.”
Rarity took a moment to unzip her coat with magic, pulling it off and sliding her front legs out of the sleeves. She reached into her saddlebag and pulled out a velveted black blanket that shimmered slightly in the light of Applejack's flashlight. Applejack gave the blanket an annoyed look. Always has to be fancy with that one, she thought. Still, it would serve. She took it up in her mouth and laid it on top of her second blanket. “Now we just bunch together and roll up. The three of us together with these blankets should make enough heat to keep warm.”
“We can gather up in my coat, too,” Rarity said, starting to shiver without the warm gray overcoat on her body. “It's quite warm.”
“Sure,” Rainbow Dash remarked. She yawned. “I... I'm tired, girls. I'm tired and I've been out in the wind. Do you mind if we go to bed?”
“That's the most sensible thing you've said in hours,” Applejack replied with a smile. They laid Rarity's coat out on top of her blanket on the far right side, and the three ponies snuggled close together in the lambswool lining. “On the count o' three, roll left,” Applejack said. “One, two, three!” They rolled left, and they moved left, wrapping themselves in three layers of blankets as they did. When they reached the end, they were cocooned, and the biting cold of the snowy world outside was a distant memory.
“Don't forget to leave enough opening to breathe, darling,” Rarity remarked, fumbling against Applejack's flank.
“There's air comin' in from up here,” Applejack said, nosing open a small crack near her snout. She yawned. “Whew, I'm feelin' more beat by the moment. G'night, everypony,” she murmured.
“Good night,” Rarity said.
“Good night, girls,” Rainbow Dash said. She was in between Rarity and Applejack, and the two ponies were surprised when she stretched out her wings over both of them. “Thank you... again.” With smiles on their faces, Rarity and Applejack scooted closer to Rainbow Dash.
It is difficult to gauge one's tiredness after a long and difficult day until one comes to the end of it. Having endured much hardship and at least one brush with death, the three ponies now found they were utterly exhausted, and so slipped quickly into dreamless slumber.
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They actually would all have suffocated bunched up in those blankets under the snow. Whoops!
You killed them!
Another date marker in this chapter--after "Sonic Rainboom".
I don't know why picking at that is entertaining me so much.
Why do I imagine that's the "Hush Now Quiet Now" song, and that's why Sweetie knows it in "Stare Master"?
Pegasi are invulnerable against cold (OP as fuck, but whatevs) but are more susceptible to phobias, as both of the main pegasi of the show (Flutter and Dash), are clearly easily frightened by lots of phobias.
You know, Rainbow acted like I do with spiders. Like, really, I have a true phobia for those little fuckers. I get just about the same way, though with more running.
Ah, so this was your headcanon too. It used to be pretty popular, until Applejack's Hot Minute dispelled that idea.
So I herd u liek forshadowingn
Oh, you went there. *giggles*
*giggling ceases* Wow. Nicely done.
Wise words, AJ. *mutters something about foreshadowing*
Wow, I've never actually seen this done before! Good job, Jet.
Obligatory:
AJ's right, Rainbow. One does not simply enter a hole shaped like the entrance to the domain of the dead men of Dunharrow.
She really is the most sensible of the bunch, isn't she?
Sorry, this is just a thing I do:
The lyrics are... oddly appropriate.
HOLY CRAP, DEM CAPS! My eyes, my poor eyes...
You've hit the nail on the head there. Hundreds of times have I awoken after not realising I'd fallen asleep, to which I've awoken at stupid times, left skype signed in, missed phone calls...
I want to know what was in that cave. It sounded quite dangerous and threatening.
Total occurrences of "sky-blue/cyan/rainbow-maned pegasus" so far: 19
Total occurrences of "the lavender unicorn" so far: 10
Total occurrences of "the white unicorn" so far: 16
Total occurrences of "the butter-yellow pegasus" so far: 5
Total occurrences of "the orange (earth) pony" so far: 18
Total occurrences of "the pink (earth) pony" so far: 4
Total other occurrences of descriptions of characters by ways other than their name: 47
Well then, we can't have them all dying on us! How 'bout we just say Rainbow's innate pegasus magic gathered the air around them and kept them all alive?
Do you know what this reminds me of?
"If the mountain defeats you gandalf. Then what will you do? "
-Saruman
4274741 Because Sweetie actually says it's a song her sister would sing to help her sleep.
PS: I do not expect a reply, I know this is very late response, sue me.
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You are Relevant Heavy Metal AICM5P.
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One day mm I will find a story we are reading at the same time. Until then I suppose I will just keep following on your wake
Grew up and works on an apple orchard, bucking trees on a regular basis. Never tried eating a leaf in her life. Sounds legit.
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My wife is that way with cockroaches. She wiggs out and cant even watch a movie with them in it. She screams hysterically and starts crying if one crawls toward her or god forbit touches her.
The mysterious cave was interesting... I’m curious if there will be more in that later.
I see we are going to get a lot of Applejack is best pony here. Awesome!
Very engaging! Loving the playful bickering. That scene with Dash was heartbreaking and heartwarming.
Excellent use of a phobia that really should be obivious