Frozen Heart

by Reviewfilly

Frigid Winds

It wasn’t long before the small group reached the end of Zephyr Heights and peered towards the wilderness laying in front of them. Unlike the wild rush and noise of the bustling and ever-growing cities, the countryside was still very-very quiet. Despite what her father's journal said, Equestria, as far as Sunny knew, had no sentient creatures outside ponies and the few critters that co-existed with them, so there was nothing out there to break the silence aside from the soft whistling of the wind.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Izzy visibly bounced up and down from her excitement.

“Right. We should not let those ponies down,” doubled down Hitch on the unicorn’s words.

The five ponies stepped off the road and began walking into the unknown lands beyond. It was an uneventful journey. Aside from the samey looking, stocky trees and rocks, everything was just a green carpet that gently rolled as far as they could see.

“So, what do you know about these parts?” asked Sunny as she turned to Zipp and Pipp.

“Not much, to be honest,” replied Zipp, “I came out here a few times to practice, but, " she chuckled, “the only thing you can really practice here is dying from boredom.”

“Dunno,” said Pipp, “I never really left the city before I met you. No signal. Can’t talk to my fans.”

Sunny sighed, “so we have absolutely no idea where we are even going or what we might be facing.”

“Nope.”

"Great."

The silence was only broken by the soft clopping of hooves and the occasional small-talk between each other. The sun hung lazily in the cloudless sky. The hours seemed to blur into each other. After walking what felt like leagues to her, Sunny’s initial worries slowly morphed into frustration. They were frolicking in green fields while back home ponies were fighting for their life. Her inner simmering was extinguished prematurely though, as Izzy suddenly stumbled and almost fell over.

“Ouch!” she yelped, “what is this?”

The rest of the group quickly rushed to her side and looked where she pointed. Before them, hidden in the thick grass, laid two thick, dark-brown, almost black beams.

“Are these... Train tracks?” Zipp asked.

Sunny felt confused. As Clear Conscience has told them, they were hours from any known settlements. And even if these were tracks, they looked absolutely ancient from all the rust and deterioration on them. They also couldn't see any station nearby, though based on the fact that they were standing in an empty field, whomever built these tracks must have abandoned it a long-long time ago.

Sunny leaned closer to inspect it and to her surprise the rails felt very cold to the touch, despite it being a toasty summer day.

“I think we might have found a clue,” she said, “shouldn’t we turn back now?”

“Come on, Sunny! Aren’t you interested in where these lead? Maybe we can find out more if we follow them.”

“Yeah, we can’t turn back now!” Izzy, who already got over her fall, chimed in.

“Sunny, I know you’re worried, but lives are on the line,” said Zipp in a more serious than usual tone.

“That’s not... What I meant,” Sunny hung her head. She sighed again, “alright, let’s follow it. Pipp, Zipp, can you fly ahead and check if you can see anything interesting? Just be very careful and turn back if anything seems weird.”

“Gotcha.”

The two pegasi flew up and whizzed past the rest of them. Soon they became little more than colorful dots on the backdrop of the blue sky. Sunny, Izzy and Hitch followed the tracks in the meantime. A few minutes have passed.

“Umm, Sunny,” Izzy broke the silence, “I don’t want to sound like a spoilsport, but I can’t see Zipp or Pipp anymore.”

“What?!” Sunny blinked twice and frantically surveyed the sky. It was as Izzy said.

“But-but they were there just a moment ago! Hitch, Izzy, we have to find them. Let’s go!”

The other two nodded and they broke into a gallop. The green fields were almost mocking them with how spacious there were. There was no logical place where two grown pegasi could hide. Even the trees’ canopy was too thin for that. As Sunny frantically ran, with her eyes still glued to the sky, she suddenly ground to a halt. Did she just feel a cold wind hit her muzzle? That could not have been the case, it was summer.

“Did you feel that?” she asked the others. The wind blew. Grass swayed and the trees groaned as their twigs twisted. There was no other sound.

Sunny Starscout stood alone.

“G-guys? This is not funny. We are on a mission, remember?” she stammered. This made no sense. They were beside her just a moment ago. As she felt her heartbeat increase, her face was hit by another cold gust of air. She tentatively took a step towards where it came from, but as she placed her hoof down, the air in front of her seemed to ripple and parts of her leg disappeared. The stump, that used to be her left hoof, suddenly felt like it was being prickled with a thousand needles.

Sunny screamed from the sudden pain and fell back onto her haunches. She began hyperventilating. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to collect her strength, then took a rugged breath. Finally she looked down. To her surprise, both of her hooves were still intact. She tried to calm her breathing as she took a closer look. Her hoof was indeed uninjured, but it was also covered in rime that hardly seemed to melt, despite the summer heat.

Sunny didn’t know what to do. This wasn’t part of the plan. Her mind screamed that she should flee immediately and let the government handle the rest. This wasn’t a fun adventure anymore. Where did her friends go? What is in front of her?

Sunny continued to take deep breaths and tried her best to calm her trembling heart. She could not abandon her friends. She slowly stood up and put her right hoof forward. Just like before, as if she was submerging herself into a vertical pool of water, the scenery in front of her rippled and her hoof disappeared. She began to feel the prickles. This time, however, she doubled her resolve and instead of pulling back, she put her left hoof forward, which also sank into the invisible barrier in front of her. Finally she threw herself forward. The picture of the green field swallowed her up, rippling wildly, before its surface slowly calmed to how it was before.

The wind, alone, continued to blow.