Once Upon A December

by ThePrinceOfTheNorth

Chapter 10: Into the Blizzard

Chapter 10: Into the Blizzard

Carefully, Crystal placed the Shard of Generosity next to the Shard of Magic. Almost instantly, the two Shards shot together and fused along their long broken seam, leaving not even a line to show that it had been broken.

The group of gathered Alicorns, Changelings and two humans breathed a collective sigh of relief, Crystal especially. It had been a hard journey to get to Ponyville. She, Celestia and Alexander had been attacked numerous times by Shadow Ponies, servants of King Sombra, making it obvious as to who had tainted the Shard of Generosity.

"So, did you find the locations of any of the Shards," asked Crystal as she turned to Crystalia, Fate and Elegance.

"We learned where three of them are," said Crystalia, a changeling who was almost Celestia's identical twin, save for the fangs and the chitin that lie below her fur and feathered wings. She'd become this way by feeding of the love Celestia freely gave her to save her life.

"Did you tell everypony," asked Celestia.

Crystalia nodded. "We did, there is one far to the North-East, one somewhere in the Badlands, and one somewhere in the Everrfree Forest."

"Good," said Crystal, turning to the other, "Let's split up into-" Crystal stopped, noticing somepony was missing. "Where's Snowdrop?"

The gathered Ponies, Changelings and humans looked around franticaly for the Alicorn, but to no avail.

Snowdrop had simply vanished.

~~~~~~~~

Snowdrop pushed through the blinding snow of the blizzard, determined to press onwards in a losing battle of strength against nature.

After being told about the Shard to the North, she'd decided to head on after it on her own. It hadn't been that hard to slip away, being a filly, so nopony noticed that's she'd left.

Right now, though, she wished somepony had.

A gust of wind rippled through her feathers, nearly throwing her off-balance and into a snowbank, but she managed to stay upright. She knew nopony knew where she was, and as much as that bolstered her confidence, it made her feel afraid.

If she got hurt, nopony would know where to find her. If she couldn't go on, nopony could come and help her along...

"No," she said to herself, "I want to do this. I NEED to do this."

She took only one more step, and collapsed from the exhaustion of fighting the storm. It was futile. No matter how hard she fought, the storm would only fight harder. She began to crawl, but even that was difficult, the fresh snow building in front of her until she could crawl no more.

She was trapped, alone, and nopony knew where she was.

She was going to die.

Closing her eyes, though it mattered little since she was blind anyway, Snowdrop calmly accepted her fate. And waited for the cold to take her.

Over the din of the storm, she did not hear the flapping of wings, nor the gentle landing of something heavy in the snow, but she felt whatever it was when it picked her up.

It was scaly, almost like a snake, smooth, but not dry. It also had huge claws, which made Snowdrop instinctively fight back.

"NO! YOU'RE NOT EATING ME," she screamed.

"Hush, now," said a soft, feminine voice, filled with love and care, "I wish not to hurt you, but to save you, unless you were trying to kill yourself."

Snowdrop stopped fighting back. The voice of whatever had he in it's claw was not threatening or scary, but loving and beckoning, sincere in it's wish to see no harm come to her.

"Thank you," said the voice softly.

Snowdrop could feel herself being lifted into the air, higher and higher until whatever held her made off to the Northeast, carrying Snowdrop all the time.

Feeling no harm would come to her in the care of her savior, Snowdrop closed her eyes, quickly drifting off into peacful slumber.