The Legend of Ash Frost

by Visiden Visidane

Loss

No...no! Longstride! My son, stay with me! Open your eyes! Please!

You alicorns of the Eternal Herd, stewards of our dead, spare my colt! He has done nothing to deserve this! Take his foolish mother instead!

Longstride...Longstride, my son. Why didn't I die in your place? Did not my words bring this to pass? Did not my arrows sting them to act?

Away from me, Steel Point! All your years of loyal service for what? To fail my son in his time of need? Out of my sight or my arrows will find you as surely as they will find every vile scum involved in this treachery. Go to my manor and warn them if you must. Let them run. The fear and despair of the chase will make them suffer before I pass my judgment on their service. Go now, I end your service to me this instant!

---

That terrible night out in the storm was the last time I ever saw Lady Ash Frost. The first time I saw her tears and the first time I saw all her weapons fail her. Her ranger training let her track them through the mud and rocks. Her eyes pointed them out in the dark and rain. Her greatbow, the True Frost Shot fired as true as ever before. Her frost-laced arrows left them as blackened, frostbitten corpses. But the last of these vile snakes realized that he would not be able to spirit Longstride away to Ophidus. With the same knife he likely cut herbs with, he dealt the cruelest blow the Empire could manage against Lady Ash Frost.

I fled to the manor, prepared to plead for her maidservants. Yet, she never returned. It took days until I recieved word of her fateful raid on the Imperial Capital, and the shot that supposedly grazed the Emperor himself. Only a week later, Lord Moon Rage destroyed himself, his array team, and a contingent of ursans in a terrible battle to the west.

I lay these words now, on the tomb built in Lady Ash Frost's honor. She had asked me to record what pearls of wisdom she might spotaneously say during her exploits, but know that what wisdom is to be gleaned from her life comes not from her declarations, but her fate. Lady Ash Frost provoked all around her in hopes of improving with each contest. She was ready for the humiliation of being proven wrong, ready to console herself by knowing how strong the Legion was with so many warriors even better than her. I pray that no more of our noble legionnaires come upon the realization that she had in those final moments. That the only thing worse than being punished for your pride is to watch another suffer for it instead.

Comments

[Obsidian]

And now we see where Project: Longstride comes from. I wonder if the squire had any role in that, or if it was conceived well afterwards.

[Reader Review]

I was secretly hoping we would get to hear more about some of Equestria's famous legends.
Still I wonder if Emperor Sesyth had an exchange with Ash Frost after she grazed him.
Or the more likely scenario is that particular detail was Legion propaganda to help glorify her suicide run.

Awesome stuff all around, especially for the lore junkies.

[Soge]

Fascinating. I particularly liked the style here.

[ponygrad]

I love how the barrier lands feel as alive and full of history as equestria. Just as a Trixie episode will have her ego off the charts and attract an ursa minor, a braggart fighting the snakes will tempt fate.

[Pheblorganzardo]

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I'm sorry.

[Beware The Carpenter]

I've wondered about Ash Frost for quite some time, and now all I'm thinking is that I really feel sorry for Moon Rage.

If these are the 'inspiring and wise' things that Steel Point chose to record, I can't imagine what she was like on a normal day.

[Beware The Carpenter]

Lady Ash Frost won the annual Highstable Archery Contest thirty consecutive times along many other lesser tournaments and personal challenges. I attended to her in each one, always expecting that moment of humiliation when the crowd would laugh at her for not living up to her boasts.

This is the only part that doesn't make any sense. Firstly it means Ash Frost was legendary before she ever won a Highstable tournament.

Secondly it puts a big question on her age. Even if she was just 15 when she took Steel Point as an apprentice (unlikely), then she was at least 45 when she died. If she was 30 when she has Longstide, (rather old for a first child), Longstide would have been 15 when he died, and if Ash Frost had an apprentice at that age she wouldn't have considered him a colt. The alternatives are that she was well past 30 when she had Longstride, got an apprentice when she was really young, or that Steel Point misspoke.

[Follower of Chaos]

Ash Frost was an arrogant fool who fell in love with her own legend, and her son died for it.

It almost makes me glad that the current Longstride is the exact opposite of Ash Frost in many ways. He doesn't boast and he cares more about the sacrifices made to bring him about than of his own personal skill or fame. Breaking Point Rainbow was kind of like Ash Frost but that attitude was beaten out of her pretty quickly thankfully.

Apple Slice is best Legion hero.