Of Ice and Snow
Chapter 4: Of Ice and Snow
Ice Crystal snapped awake from her nightmare and the memory of her first 'accident' almost fifteen years earlier. Her coat was matted with a cold sweat which sent shivers through her body as she lay alone on her bed of stone. Flashes of her surroundings filled her mind, the only indication that it had all been a dream. The stalactites above her caused the unicorn to flinch momentarily as remnants of her nightmare caused them to appear as teeth in her mind. She calmed herself down, and continued to search the area around her, which was coated in a light layer of snow again.
She listened for the lightest sound; rocks crumbling,claws scraping, and especially the unfurling of feathered wings. The cave lay silent, just as she had hoped. They would never come looking for her in here, but if the snow had somehow blown out the front...
The mare shook the thought from her head, and rolled back onto her side. She focused her magical vision on the bracelets laying on a cloth beside her, their metal worn and marred with scratches which becoming more and more clear with each flashed sight. Tears formed in the mare's eyes, and she slowly drifted back into sleep as the flashing images changed back to older times once again.
"How was your day at work dear?" Snowfall asked her husband through the whistling wind, shielding her face from the snow with one wing, while the other was wrapped around the unicorn beside her.
"Not bad, everything went off without a hitch. And you did an amazing job positioning the clouds" Riptide had to yell to even hear himself, the wind blew even stronger than the planning team had predicted.
The couple were finally walking home from work, anxious to see their little filly again, and their pace was pretty quick, almost at a jog, to escape the storm. Ice had formed in both of their manes and tails, and Snowfall had lost feeling in her wings.
The pair finally reached the front door of their house, and Riptide's magical blue aura surrounded the handle.
*CRACK*
"What was that?" Snowfall jumped a bit at the sudden noise as Riptide pulled the door open as quick as his magic allowed.
The air inside the house was so cold, even colder than it had been outside. Little flakes of shining snow filled the air, and it was eerily quiet. But where was Cryssy? She always ran to the door when it opened, eager to see whoever had come in.
Riptide shivered and pulled away from his wife, "You find Cryssy, I'll go see what's up with the fire."
Snowfall nodded and started up the stairs to check her daughter's room. As she made her way upstairs, the air actually grew warmer. It didn't make any sense, but the pegasus figured Cryssy could have gone upstairs to get warmer. "Cry-"
"What the hay!" she was cut off by her husband yelling from downstairs, and ran back down the steps to see what had happened.
The den was easily the coldest room in the house at the time. It felt like Riptide had just walked into a freezer, and the shining snow particles almost formed a fog in the room. The first thing he noticed was a gaping hole in the wall where snow was blowing into the room with the wind, but they had just weatherproofed the walls a few months ago. Still, that explained the fire being out, but where was-
"Oh my Celestia, Cryssy!"
In the far corner was a twisting pillar of ice, stretching from the floor to the ceiling, and at the bottom was his daughter, her face trapped in a look of pure fear. Above her was a frozen wolf, its jaws opened wide just above the little filly's face. The unicorn couldn't believe he hadn't seen it sooner.
Snowfall galloped into the room behind her husband, but unlike her husband, she immediately noticed the twisted ice. A high pitched scream filled the room, and suddenly the pegasus was pounding on the ice with her hooves, tears flowing down her face at the sight of her trapped daughter.
The ice cracked slightly, and a light hissing sound filled the air. At the top of the pillar, the ice started to evaporate right into thin air. Soon the ice was gone without a trace, and the wolf fell to the ground beside Cryssy, its breathing labored as the body convulsed.
Riptide's magic quickly shrouded the wolf, and the beast was thrown through the hole which the stallion assumed was how it had entered. Snowfall scooped up her daughter in her hooves, still crying as she squeezed the filly close.
Snowfall almost broke the front door to the hospital as she ran into the building, her daugher laying over her back shivering uncontrollably. A nurse behind the front desk galloped over to her side, "What happened?"
The pegasus couldn't answer, she just shook her head as the tears frozen into her coat by the storm shined on her face.
The nurse pulled Cryssy from her mother's back, and raced her into the back of the hospital. The doctor poked his head from his office, and seeing the nurse running, followed her to the operating room.
"What happened here?" he asked his nurse, who simply responded as Snowfall had.
The doctor looked over his shoulder as he ran, catching a glimpse of the distraught pegasus breaking down in the lobby before he passed through the door to the urgent care ward.
"Before I tell you what I found," the doctor sat behind his desk, sweat coating his brow, "I want to know what did this to Cryssy."
Snowfall and Riptide were resting in the doctor's office, both of their coats soaked by snow from the storm. They still couldn't believe what they'd seen. Wolves almost NEVER wandered into town, and if they did they wouldn't break into a pony's home. Either the beast was starving, or they were growing more bold. And the ice inside their home, that twisted pillar which had saved their daughter. Neither of them could think of any explanation.
"We...we don't know what happened" Riptide was the first to bring himself to answer. "We both just got back from working on the storm, and...and there was this wolf."
"A wolf did this?" The doctor asked suspiciously, "I've never seen anypony enter hypothermia from a wolf attack before Riptide. That only explains the scratches."
"It just didn't make any sense, when we found them..." Riptide continued, still trying to make sense of it all, "when we found them they were stuck in ice, frozen solid."
"What do you mean 'frozen solid'?"
"I mean they were trapped in ice!" Riptide lost his temper, the emotion of what had happened finally catching up to him. "I don't know where it came from, or what caused it, all I know is it saved my daughter!"
Snowfall placed a hoof on her husband's shoulder in an attempt to calm him down, "It's okay dear, you don't need to yell."
The doctor gave Riptide a moment to calm down, waiting for the unicorn to relax before speaking again, "It did save your daughter, but I'm afraid she's very weak right now. We managed to warm her body back up, but something about the encounter drained her. She was barely breathing when you brought her in, and she will need rest for a few days to recover."
"Is she awake?" Snowfall asked quickly after the doctor finished his explanation.
"For now, yes. You may see her, but please keep it brief, as I said, she needs her rest.
The hospital's recovery room was nearly silent. It had 4 beds, all but one of which were empty. The only bed with a guest was covered by a green blanket. The little filly's pearly eyes shined beneath the white light above her, a small glint flashing across them with each spark from her horn.
The filly's parents quietly sat beside the bed, their faces stuck in a frown at the sight of their daughter. She'd been to this hospital many times in her short life, but this was different. Her face had a bandage here and there covering up the small scratches from earlier, and they could tell she had been crying.
"Mama, Daddy, I don't feel good" she said weakly.
"It'll be okay Cryssy," Riptide tried to comfort his daughter, "the doctor said you'll be just fine."
A small smile curled into the corner of her mouth, only to fade away, "is the mean wolf gone Mama?"
The pegasus nuzzled her daughter, "Yes sweetie. The mean wolf is gone."
It didn't take long for the little filly to return to her joyous old self. The next morning when the doctor went to check on her, Cryssy had wiggled out of her blanket and was talking happily with the nurse, "But my FAVORITE food is cake, especially chocolate!"
"Really? That's my favorite too" the nurse replied warmly, "and what about your favorite drink?"
"I really like apple juice! Mama can't buy it very often, but when she does it's always my favorite day of the week!"
"That's great" the nurse smiled before turning to the doctor, "She seems to be doing much better doctor."
"I can see that" the doctor smiled to the filly, "Did you sleep well Cryssy?"
"No. I had a really bad dream," she frowned, "but nurse Softheart made me feel better!"
"That's good."
The bell over the front door jingled loudly behind them, and nurse Softheart left to see who had entered.
The doctor did a quick checkup on Cryssy, checking her breathing and temperature to make sure the two main issues from the night before had cleared up. The filly had recovered much quicker than he had thought she would, and he was worried perhaps she was just hiding her symptoms. But after his checkup, everything seemed normal. The filly didn't seem bothered by her cuts, and the entire checkup she was lively and eager to chat. There was only one difference he could notice in her, and it both scared and excited him.
The nurse came back to the doctor's side with Cryssy's parents behind her.
"Mama! Daddy!" the filly shouted in excitement, and tried to climb down from the table before she was stopped by nurse Softheart.
"Cryssy, you look so much better" Snowfall praised her daughter and gave her a big hug along with Riptide.
"She's definitely doing much better" the doctor confirmed, "and I think I have a way to make her even happier."
The family looked to the doctor with matching confusion on their faces.
"Take a look at her flank."
Both of the filly's parents looked down at their daughter's flank, and their faces lit up. "Oh my goodness! Cryssy you got your cutiemark!" Snowfall exclaimed and squeezed her daughter.
Cryssy's face opened into a huge smile, and she wiggled with excitement in her mother's arms, "I got my cutiemark!"
Riptide brimmed with pride, "Look at that. 3 icicles. Looks like she'll be helping her folks with the weather one day."
None of the three even wondered how she had earned the cutiemark, the fact that it was there was enough to lift their spirits high enough for Celestia herself to see.
Over the years, nopony in the family asked, or figured out, how the filly had earned her particular cutiemark. They all assumed it was like Riptide had thought, that she was destined to work with weather as her father did. But when Cryssy discovered the true reason behind the retrieval of her cutiemark, it was the worst day of her life up to that point, and the lively and happy unicorn everypony had come to know ceased to exist.
It was Cryssy's last day of school, she just had to make it through this last class, and she'd be free. Okay, not FREE but free from school. Soon she would have to find a job, hopefully with Dad planning out weather for the city. It was actually really exciting, she always thought her father had one of the best jobs in Equestria. She would've loved to work with Mom as well, but it would be a bit hard for her without the wings. But Mom and Dad worked at the same place, so she would still kinda get to work with her.
Her second choice would definitely be to work as one of the Snow Clearers. Each morning after it snowed, the team was in charge of clearing all of the snow off of the crops outside of town. Without them, the crops could be over watered, or worse, crushed by the weight of the snow. Most of the team was unicorns, since they could clear the snow fastest and with the least number of workers, so Cryssy hoped she would be a shoo-in.
Her teacher was giving the class one final lesson on work ethic, as if the other ponies in her class hadn't heard all about this for the past 18 years of their lives.
Cryssy focused on the flashing image of the clock above her teacher; only 5 more minutes and she'd finally be out of here!
When the teacher's back was turned a hoof flashed onto her desk one moment and vanished the next, leaving behind what looked like a crumpled ball. The unicorn made sure the teacher still had her back turned and quickly tossed the ball into the pony beside her, Cherry Blossom. The obnoxious earth pony always poked fun at Cryssy's partial blindness, usually by slipping her pieces of paper. At first Cryssy would pretend to read off of it, as if she had suddenly gained that ability, but once the giggling around her cued her into the fact that they papers were almost always blank, she started to ignore the bait.
"Miss Crystal" her teacher had apparently seen her throw the paper, "why are you passing notes in my class?"
"Sorry Miss Penstroke."
Her teacher trotted over to Cherry Blossom and collected the crumpled ball, opening it magically as she returned to the front of the room. Cryssy groaned quietly, hoping to Celestia that the paper was blank.
Apparently it wasn't. Miss Penstroke stared at the paper for a while, leaving Cryssy to wonder what was on the page.
The teacher finally placed the paper on her desk and looked back to the blind unicorn, "Miss Crystal, if you really want to know if Red Lightning is interested in you, wait until after my class. You really couldn't wait 5 minutes?"
Cryssy's head dropped onto her desk, hiding the blush that had crept onto her face. She didn't even bother arguing that she couldn't write because she couldn't even SEE what she was writing. It hadn't worked that last time, or the time before that, or ever. She could only guess that Miss Penstroke assumed somepony else had written the note at Cryssy's request.
*DING*
'Saved by the bell!' Cryssy thought to herself as she packed up her saddlebag and trotted out of the class. The front door to the school flew open as everypony galloped out into the street, finally free of school! Cryssy always left after everypony else. It was hard enough for her to move around the halls when they were crowded, forget about a hyped up stampede of ponies racing out as fast as they could. Besides, her friends usually waited up for her outside.
Lemon Bar was waiting right were she usually was, so that Cryssy wouldn't have to search through everypony in the street just to recognize her. "Isn't this exciting Cryssy? We're finally done with school, forever!" her friend excitedly whinnied.
"Hay ya girl!" the two bumped hooves and began the trot home.
Before they even rounded the first corner, Lemon Bar nudged her friend in the ribs, "Hey Cryssy, Red's coming."
"What!" Cryssy almost screamed, looking around almost too quick for the flashing images to keep up.
Okay, so the note in class hadn't been a COMPLETE lie to get her in trouble. She had a bit of a crush on the pegasus named Red Lightning. Fine, she had a HUGE crush on him, and now he was headed her way.
"Oh no, ohno ohno ohno" she started stammering to herself, trying to pretend she hadn't noticed him coming.
"Calm down girl, it's not like he knows right?"
"N-no...wait" Cryssy's eyes bolted open. Red had been sitting right behind her in class! Which means he had heard the teacher read that note. Even if the note hadn't even been written by her, what if he was coming to tell her he wasn't interested?
"Hey Ice, wait up!" the young stallion's voice called from behind her. No backing out now, she wasn't deaf after all.
She swallowed hard and turned around. The first flash from her horn confirmed it, the pegasus was right behind her. "Oh, hey Red" she tried to act cool.
"Pretty lame class huh?"
"Oh, yeah" yup, she was nervous, and she wasn't hiding it well at all.
"Hey, I'm sorry about what happened at the end there. I saw Cherry Blossom put that note on your desk."
"Oh, you did?" Cryssy felt like a vise had been loosened off her gut.
"Yeah, she's a total foal."
"Totally."
Lemon Drop had backed out of the scene, winking to Cryssy at just the right speed so she only saw it in one flashed image. That pony had gotten WAY too good at timing her expressions around her blind friend.
"So, I was wondering" Red Lightning continued, and the vise tightened back up around Cryssy's gut, "if you aren't busy later..."
Cryssy's heart practically jumped out of her throat.
"Would you like to, go get some dinner or something?" the pegasus started scratching the back of his mane.
Cryssy didn't know what to do; she had never been asked out before, and she never EVER thought it would be Red to ask her. She had hoped, but she never actually thought of what she'd do if he did ask her.
After a moment of thought, she smiled and quietly replied, "Yeah, I'd love to."
Cryssy instantly had an internal freak out. Was saying "I'd love to" too much? What if that freaked him out, and what if-
"Awesome" the pegasus smiled to her. "So does 8 work for me to pick you up?"
And Cryssy's fears flew off, "That sounds good to me Red."
"Great" he waved and continued to smile, "I'll see you later then."
After she was sure the pegasus had gotten out of earshot Cryssy started bounding around in the snow, "Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes."
The dinner was fantastic. Red Lightning had taken Cryssy to her favorite restaurant; obviously a certain citrus-named pony had dropped a hint on it, but Cryssy didn't mind her friend's 'assistance'. Their conversation had started out a bit...non-existent, but after a while they picked it up. They talked about what they were hoping to do now that they had finished school, and what they were going to do for a job.
Red was hoping to work at the weather factory in Cloudsdale. He had always been interested in how they made the clouds there, and how they got them shipped all around Equestria. He had never gotten the chance to live or visit there, being born and raised right there in Snowhoof.
Cryssy told him about how she hoped to work with her father on the weather planning team, or maybe get a job clearing snow from the crop fields.
After dinner, Red led Cryssy to a 'special place' on the lake shore. She was a bit nervous at first, but it ended up not being what she originally thought. Red described what was around them for her; it was a little outcropping of tall trees, with an opening above which was filled by a full moon, the light of which reflected beautifully off of the rippling tide of the lake.
Cryssy felt a large wing wrap over her back as she was pulled gently into Red's side. She smiled shyly and followed along. "Thank you for tonight Red. It was really nice."
"It was my pleasure Ice."
The pair sat in the alcove for what felt like hours, just enjoying the night and each other's company. It was almost perfect.
Above them, the pair heard a loud swoosh. Followed by another, and another. They looked up to see what the noise was, but there was nopony and nothing there. They shook it off and suddenly realized what time it was. "Hey Ice, let me walk you home, it's late."
Cryssy smiled and nodded, more than happy to let the pegasus walk her home.
The cave surrounded Cryssy yet again, her ears perked, and her coat chilled. Something wasn't right in the cave, though she couldn't put her hoof on it.
Rather than risk finding out, Cryssy quickly packed her saddlebags, the last item to go in the bags were the two bracelets that lay beside her. She wrapped her shoal around herself, and galloped back out of the cave. Her mind focused and increased the rate of her mental imaging, a skill she had practiced for nearly a year with inspiration from her failure at Celestia's school.
Behind her rocks crumbled to the ground, and the whisper of unfurling wings urged her to push herself even harder. Her chest was burning, the cold air roughly passing into her lungs as her breathing grew heavier and faster. Behind her, the unfurling of wings sounded again and again. Her silent stalkers had found her again, but this time they had gotten closer than ever. A cold tingle began to fill her belly as she ran, slowly spreading through her body with each passing second.
She could hear the air flowing around their wings as they closed in, and soon she could feel them within feet of her. She screamed as loud as she could, urging herself to go faster. The mouth of the cave was just ahead, she just had to reach the forest. It was building; her fear, and the magic.
She felt one of their claws tear through her shawl. She just had to hold it back a second longer, she was almost there!
She broke out into the forest as a second tear sounded behind her.
She couldn't hold it back any longer.
The sparking of her horn halted, but only for a moment as the cold in her body rushed to her head. A brilliant flash shot from the tip of her horn, and everything whited out.
Stats
Page generated in 0.021 seconds
Total duration
933 users online
234,908 hits today, 2,244,100 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
I have no idea what the hell is going on.
I apologize.
First part-future
Second part-picks up right where chapter 3 left off, but from Cryssy's parent's POV
Third part-steps forward into Cryssy's adolescence.
Last part-back to where the beginning was.
I guess I did a poor job of making that more apparent. I will do some revisions in an attempt to fix the issue.
Well it appears that this story
*glasses*
Just got 20% cooler
Anyway, loving it. The flash forward did throw be for a tiny bit of a loop, maybe just say *flashforward* above it or something.
*spoilers*
I love the idea of ice as a unicorns power. My favorite of the elements. I can't wait for more.
I like you use of the flash forwards and flash backs but sometimes its a little hard to differentiate especially at last part... not sure where its going but i'm eager to wait and see... keep it up!
I have one very minor additional comment:
There was a little outcropping of trees, with an opening right where the moon was resting. It provided a wonderful view of the moon, and the light reflected beautifully off of the rippling tide of the lake.
Is this supposed to be from Cryssy's point of view? If so, then how does her magic-sonar reach the moon, and how could she see the light reflecting from the lake?
Miss Penstroke huh?
MOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR
.....Is the teacher retarded? It's been canonically established that SHE CAN'T READ. Why does she think it wise to publically humiliate a filly through something that is obvious to anyone with a functioning brain stem she had no part in?
.....Is the teacher retarded? It's been canonically established that SHE CAN'T READ. Why does she think it wise to publically humiliate a filly through something that is obvious to anyone with a functioning brain stem she had no part in?
39689 damn. The comment has been doubled.
The only issue was not capitalizing the first word in every speaker's sentences.
I also hated this line- "ya, I'd love to."
I don't like the use of 'ya'. It just really bugs me. Try, 'Yeah' or something along the lines of that.
If you could fix those errors, that would be great! Keep it up
Thanks for the comments guys
For PegaSister: fixed your 'yeah' issue, I'll try to keep away from that word in the future
Chip: Thank you for pointing that out, I fixed that segment so it made more sense
And La Barata: We've all had this teacher before, the one that will create her own world if she thinks you did something wrong
Thank you all again for the comments