Egress

by Grey Vicar

Chapter 7: The Mountains Beckon

The snow crinkled underhoof. Twilight's mane billowed in the wind. The air of the north had a crispness and freshness that was so unlike the air of Canterlot it felt as if she'd stepped onto a whole other planet. She vaguely wished for a scarf, but her thoughts didn't linger long on that, as they were quick to turn to her surroundings.

She was on a rocky outcropping overlooking a plunging valley carpeted in freshly-fallen snow glimmering silver in the moonlight. A forest as dark as tar surrounded the shimmering trail, and here and there, the eyes of its inhabitants shone like mirrors in the darkness. The snow softened her hoofbeats so that they made only the faintest muffled sound as she trod upon the immaculate ground beneath. Ponies were rare here, and the animals curious.

Nopony went into the mountains if they didn't feel their call, not even the most daring of pegasi. Theirs was a sacred slumber, revered and feared alike, and to break their solitude was to attract a gaze as ancient as the mountains themselves. She could feel it on her right then and there, a subtle weight that silently judged her. Ponies nowadays seldom knew where their fear of the mountains came from. That fear was simply as natural as the fear of a newborn foal before a wolf, a fear told through stories and legends by parents to their children, and their children after that, and their children after that, until all was left was the distilled essence of uneasiness that shrouded those mountains.

There was a gate delimiting the threshold to the mountains, whipped to unnatural smoothness by the wind and ice that existed in permanence in these lands. A tattered blanket poked from underneath a large boulder a short distance away from the threshold. She tugged at it, and it unfurled. Her waterskin was inside, traces of ice clinging to its lip. Useless now. She left it behind and crossed the threshold.

A long, silent walk followed. An odd sense of familiarity clung to her as she pushed into the mountains and started on a wide trail shielded from the wind by the mountain flank. Here and there, colourful scarves poked out of snowbanks. The path wound about, curving so much at certain points that she swore it was going back and over the entrance point, but despite trying to make out her position, she couldn't see behind the stone flanking either side of the trail. Had somepony carved that path? It was much too smooth, much too cohesive to have been formed naturally. Yet despite this, it also felt as if there was no way somepony had designed it. It wound around itself strangely, became unnecessarily wide at certain places only to then tighten in such a way that she could barely squeeze her way through. Had it been carved by the whims of the strange winds surrounding this place? Was it something more? Hours passed, and dusk started to fall, yet Twilight still walked. She started seeing stone circles and remnants of fires long-gone from ponies that had had to stop for the day and replenish their energy. Supernatural stamina kept her going, gritting her teeth.

Eventually, the trail widened into a large forested valley. The smooth stone of the mountains sloped away from her until they were only peaks far above her. How odd it was to go from a bare, snowy mountain trail, to a thick coniferous forest. There were no animals there, only silent trees and that ominous wind that whistled somewhere close by. She had to climb over fallen trees, go around thickets so dense she couldn't see through them. The air smelled different here. It almost smelled of home, of rich earthy scents and good wood, only much, much colder. She filled up her waterskin at a running stream, ate some of the rations she'd packed for the road. Even that brief stop sickened her. The pull inside her was too strong, too demanding. She needed to get moving, to find her Question. She left a half-eaten biscuit behind in her haste. The walk was… good. Surprisingly good. The forest here truly was beautiful, with pine needles dusted with snow making her surroundings look like it was out of some fine landscape painting, and the sounds of a river coursing through the mountain forest soothing her. How had this place become cursed, shunned by everypony?

Eventually, she stepped into a large clearing within the valley, and she understood. She understood the legends and myths, the fairytales and fears surrounding the frozen north. She understood the fears of ponykind, the monsters they made up in the night. She smiled, and wiped cold sweat from her brow.

In the clearing there was an altar. A small stone pillar bared by the elements and polished clean by the winds, with barely a trace of the fine engravings that once covered its surface. And atop the altar lay an old tattered journal eaten away by time, wet with snow and seeming about to fall apart at any moment. Despite the state of disrepair it was in, Twilight could still see the horseshoe printed on its front page, the six gems finely inlaid to mark its importance to her.

She could still see the very first page in her mind.

Dear Diary,

This is the first official entry of the Journal of Friendship being entered by Twilight Sparkle.

She could still feel the smile on her face when she had written that first entry. She could still feel the weight in her saddlebag as she had carried it everywhere she'd gone. She could still feel the heat of the fire as she'd thrown it into the ever-burning hearth at the centre of Canterlot Castle. Chill filled her to the core, a chill not from the frigid mountain air.

“You're still watching me, aren't you?”

The journal felt as fragile as it looked between her hooves, and the corners cracks and fell. She cradled it like a mother would her foal, and undid the clasp of her saddlebag, slid it inside.

She looked up. Snow-topped peaks loomed overhead. Inside them, there was a Place, and she had to reach it. The mountains beckoned.

Comments

[Golden Tassel]

I love watching how this story unfolds, and the imagery continues to be great!