The Olden World

by Czar_Yoshi

Third Night

Valey's ears twitched.

A bitter night wind laced with memories of stone and ice and native to the highest peaks of the Sky District blew past them, lifting the sodden hairs on her coat. She was wet. She would freeze. She had to move.

Forcing her eyes open, she took in a portrait of black upon more black: jagged, hewn stone, swiftly-flowing water and a starless sky, all darker than even her coat. She was at the bottom of a ravine, three meters deep and blasted into the rock by megaton forces that had stripped the forest away, and the ground, scoured all the way to bedrock and kept going. Her only company was a small river, racing by with scarcely a ripple like a pouncing predator as it drained residue water from the dam.

Valey watched it, sniffing, the air against her lungs feeling just as blasted as the landscape looked. It took a minute, but she caught Starlight's scent. The filly was somewhere nearby, and she wasn't dead.

As her grasp of the situation reasserted itself, she made a second effort to get up, inwardly complaining about everything to ever happen. She would have lifted Starlight, had they been alone. She should have won against the mercenaries, preventing them from needing to go to the Water District. She could have just taken Maple at face value earlier and waited until they were out of Ironridge to see if she was serious about being her friend... but instead she knocked her out, and wasted precious hours brooding in the Flame Barracks when they could have been escaping.

In the end, what convinced her to get off the jagged rock where she had been deposited was the touch of water against her tail. As uncomfortable as having her wing pinned beneath her and her burnt hoof stretched at the wrong angle was, the realization that the river level was rising galvanized her body to action, getting it to listen to her brain and squirm, struggling to stand up.

...She was in bad shape. Her limp from her burn was gone, she realized, but only because it was hard to limp when all of your legs hurt. She felt like she had been ran through a centrifuge, gravity wobbling beneath her as she failed to detect exactly which was was down. Starlight's spinning crystal was probably to thank for that. It might also have been why at least half of her body was a bruise... though maybe that had happened after the gemstone shattered. At some point, she must have passed out, because twilight no longer lingered in the darkened sky.

It took several minutes of standing in place to convince herself she could move. Starlight's scent was still there... across the river, up the cliff and a little ways more. The water trickled past with a gurgle that would have been soothing were it not so deadly, and her legs locked up in protest. There was no way she was going to swim through that.

So, out of better options, Valey moved her legs one step at a time, trudging purposefully along the uneven riverbank.

---

The river curved. It didn't curve away from Starlight, but rather stayed mostly perpendicular to her, Valey's nose constantly twitching to make sure she knew where the filly was. The water level continued to rise; she passed many areas where a smaller stream cascaded down a wall in a flow to join the bigger one.

She rounded a bend, and suddenly made out something that definitely wasn't a rock laying on the far bank at the edge of the water. It looked like a body... She blinked. Maple?

The pony was laying on her side, back to her, and in the darkness it was hard to make out features regardless, but the mane looked the same. The tail... was underwater, along with the mare's entire hindquarters. Valey gritted her teeth. She needed a way across, and fast, because the water was still rising.

There was nothing for it but to swim. The distance wasn't too far, and she had been far enough downriver to know that there were no sudden waterfalls to pulverize her if she got swept along. She was already cold and already wet, and a little more would be worth it if it meant getting back another of her friends.

Or maybe it wasn't worth it! As Valey waded in, first to her chest, then her neck, the current threatening to sweep her off her hooves, she was swiftly reminded that all of the water left was residue from the bottom of a glacial mountain lake. It bit into her legs until she felt nothing at all, losing sensation of the ground and even whether or not they were moving. The former, at least, could have been because she was floating, the river quickly carrying her away.

She angled herself, told her legs to kick, and begged them to work, leaving nothing left she could do but hope. Silently, teeth gritted, she waited... and the far bank got closer. She lurched as her hooves struck stone. They weren't sturdy enough any more to stand, so she crawled forward until she was clear of the waters, hugging herself ineffectually for warmth.

Again, the rising water touched her tail.

Valey sucked in a sharp breath. That was right, she had to get to Maple. If the earth pony got swept away, she sincerely doubted she'd be able to swim out again to get her.

Once more, Valey tried hauling herself upright, but this time she failed. So she continued to crawl, hugging the ravine wall and shivering as she dragged herself breath by breath through another tributary stream, around a corner and back to the spot where she had started to cross.

Maple - and it was definitely Maple - was in a bad way. The water had risen even further, soaking her chest, submerging her belly and lapping at her neck and mane. The spark of panic the sight gave Valey was enough to thaw her legs for one last charge, and she staggered forward, tripping over herself to reach the mare. Anchoring herself, she bit down heavily on Maple's mane, setting her jaw in a death grip, giving her some way to hold on no matter what. Her hooves grabbed at Maple's shoulders, and weakly fumbled, trying to drag her up and out of the water.

As she tugged, she met Maple's eyes. They sparked with hope and recognition, though it wasn't nearly enough to banish the deeper shades of terror, desperation and despair. Her brown body was limp and waterlogged, unable to do so much as flick her tail, and Valey tried carefully not to think about being paralyzed on the bank of a rising river.

Minutes of careful struggle later, they were far enough from the water that they would be safe for a time. It wouldn't be long enough, but it would be something. Valey sighed.

They needed to get to safety. To find Starlight, to get up, to move at all, but she was utterly spent, dripping like a sponge just like Maple and with limbs that were ready to quit. Breath catching angrily in her throat, she sniffed. Starlight was still nearby.

She wanted to say something like 'We'll be all right,' or even 'I hate losing,' but all that came out when she opened her mouth was a formless stammer and the chattering of teeth.

Maple just looked at her, with eyes that said she needed to talk even more.

"Urgh... cold..." Valey breathed, shivering. The more time passed, the less the cold hurt, and that meant everything bad. Maple couldn't even shiver. With nothing left to do, Valey pressed against her, hoping that despite their sodden coats, there would be enough warmth between them to share. Please let there be. She wanted to survive.

Suddenly, something sparked in her vision. Valey looked, and realized Maple's eyes had changed: seeming to flicker with dim energy. As she watched, Maple glowed softly, and tiny amounts of pink fire reminiscent of the underground tree leaked from her coat, swirling and crawling across her and Valey and the ground shortly around them. It lasted for a second at the most before the flames receded and Maple's eyes returned to stable, unmoving and very slightly dimmer pink... but when they did, they took the water with them. Maple and Valey's coats were dry, and as much as they hurt, Valey could again feel her limbs.

"Woah..." she breathed, voice partially restored, a bare amount of warmth restored to her chest. She held Maple even tighter as the wind scraped by overhead, not willing to relinquish it, and Maple was warmer, too. "Did you do that?"

Maple just stared at her, unable to answer.

"Uhh..." Valey thought, for the first time uncomfortable and slightly distracted by not giving another pony their personal space, but glued to Maple out of necessity. "You can still look at stuff, right? Look to your left if you can, and at me otherwise."

Maple's eyes slid left, then returned to center.

"Whew..." Valey gulped. "So, uhh... left means yes, right means no. Did you do that?"

Maple stared straight at her.

Valey blinked. "Up means sort of, or you have no idea?"

Up went Maple's eyes.

"Okay..." Valey swallowed, suddenly aware that she was extremely hungry. "That was the tree magic you pulled from that windigo heart, right? Does that mean you still have some?"

Left. Left meant yes.

"...Okay." Valey swallowed. "Well, we'll deal with that later. Listen. I can smell Starlight nearby. I dunno how she is, but she's not dead. I'm going to go find her... and you're coming with me. I have no idea how, but I'll carry you if I have to. Okay?"

She hadn't given Maple a 'don't leave me' option, but Maple gave it anyway, piercing her with her pink eyes.

"Yeah, yeah..." Valey hugged her slightly harder, then started to get to her hooves, instantly regretting breaking contact as the sharp air blew under and over her. "Ow, it's cold. Too cold. Yep... I am definitely finding a way to carry you, because I don't want to be out in this weather alone."

Upon fully straightening up, she gasped. The riverbank immediately under them was clear, but a perfect ring of ice surrounded that, even extending out into the rising river in an iceberg the water flowed around. Flat and shiny, it bore dozens of strange scratches that almost bore resemblance to runes.

"Woah." Valey staggered slightly, touching a damp spot the flames had missed in the area around her pendant. In fact... had they avoided the pendant deliberately? The moon glass within still shone, black and monochrome...

"Ironflanks?" She turned back down to Maple. "Check out all this ice. You think that magic, like... moved heat from there inside of us, or something?" She scratched the back of her neck, then blinked, a realization swiftly coming to mind. "Uhh... Maple?" Her ears drooped and her brow creased, her mane feeling bare and vulnerable without her hat to cover it. "Should I knock this Ironflanks stuff off and use your real name for now? I mean, you always act like it bothers you, and you've kinda been through enough right now... unless it's familiar or something and you just need that right now, or...?"

Maple's eyes went up. That was I don't know, right? Or was it I don't remember? Close enough. She followed that with Please don't leave me.

"Yeah. I gotcha." Valey bent down and started the careful process of lifting Maple onto her back. Even though they were roughly the same size, with at most an inch advantage to Maple, Valey's host of injuries and Maple's inability to use her muscles made it a monumental task. But it was the only way she would be able to bring Maple along, and the warmth being in contact afforded made her certain it was worth it.

Funny, Valey thought as she finally got Maple situated and made sure her legs weren't going to collapse out from under her. Any other day of her life, the mere idea of having a helpless mare riding passively and willingly on her back would have given her all sorts of interesting daydreams to explore, but then and there the only things crossing her mind were warmth, safety, survival and Starlight. That was what almost dying so many times in rapid succession did to a pony, she guessed. Or maybe it was having friends. Just more things to get used to if this was really going to be her future.

Of course, that meant she had to live to see it. Eyes fixed forward, she spotted a cleft in the ravine where she could climb to the surface and began the journey.

Comments

[Davidp1522]

Valey sure is carying the team, like best pone that she is.

[Quinch]

Hmm... not sure if it's been addressed, or will be later, but how does shadow sneaking work when there's water or other liquids involved?