Rainbow Dash Around the World

by MagicS

South Pole I

Rainbow Dash set down on a snowy hill as the wind whipped against her heavily-clad body. Naturally a lot of snow was kicked up thanks to the windy weather but it wasn’t so bad she would call it a snowstorm just yet. It was still cold though, much colder than when she was flying over the ocean. Even the warm clothes she had on couldn’t change that. They were just keeping her from being frozen solid. Some frost still caked her wings, her tail, and threatened to fog over her goggles if she didn’t clear them away every now and then. And the longer she stood here, standing still and looking at the white landscape ahead, more and more snow would come to cover her and the colder she would get.

Rainbow Dash had only one thing to say in this situation:

“I hate the snow.”

The south pole spread seemingly endlessly all around her, she had no idea how big it really was but she was certain she hadn’t yet crossed the halfway mark and made it back to the Equestria side of the world. Thankfully thanks to her rationing and preparation she still had more than half of her food in her saddlebags so she was feeling decently good about the trip.

Aside from how cold it was.

She really didn’t miss that.

To the east and west—many miles away—mountains rose up. But ahead of her was a mostly flat landscape of snow and ice with only a few lackluster hills and drifts. It was as boring as most of the landscape in the True North had been, only now was she remembering the sheer monotony of flying over all that ice and snow. Hopefully there would be more to see at some point. More to occupy her time with, otherwise she’d be at the mercy of boredom just as much as the cold.

Rainbow Dash flew off from the hill and took to the sky again to avoid freezing where she stood. The wind and snow whipping through the air was still a bother but thanks to her goggles she at least didn’t have to lift a hoof in front of her face to protect her eyes. It wasn’t going to be a fun flight for the rest of the day but it wouldn’t be terrible either. It probably wasn’t going to be very long before she stopped either, it was already closer to evening than it was noon and before it got too dark and too cold she’d need to go and create some shelter to pass the night in. Likely that meant she’d have to do the same thing she did a lot in the True North; go down and create a small burrow or igloo in the snow. Probably going to be miserable but—she also had a light tarp packed away in one of her bags to keep the snow from directly touching her clothes and body.

Rainbow grinned as she imagined bragging to Daylight about how well she had actually prepared for this. It would’ve been fun to rub that in her face.

The wind remained steady the further she flew, not getting worse but not letting up either. The snowfall was steady because of that and Rainbow could still see decently far ahead. If it got any worse than this her vision would be shot. There’d be nothing she could see but howling wind and snow, even seeing her hoof in front of her face would be difficult. That’s just how it got in environments like this sometime. Rainbow Dash knew that well.

She was going to tempt fate and hope that she never had to deal with weather that bad while she flew over the south pole. Maybe she hit it at a good time? Maybe it was the right season to avoid big storms down here.

She could deal with minor winds like this just fine if that was the case.

Just don’t give her snow blasting in her face at hurricane speeds and hail the size of walnuts.

While flying south again, Rainbow looked over at the eastern and western mountain ranges in turn. They weren’t particularly large mountains and she couldn’t see any of the stone that had to make up their cores. A skin of ice and snow covered them completely, they were white jagged teeth jutting up from the ground. She couldn’t imagine what climbing a mountain like that would be like and she didn’t envy any creatures that might have to do it one day. Being able to fly over any mountains like that if they ended up being directly ahead of her was a nice perk.

Everything about being a pegasus was a nice perk.

Still, the more she looked at the mountains the more she realized how desolate this place really was. The True North, on her side of the world at least, still had trees and animals and other stuff in it. She hadn’t seen anything like that so far on the south pole. Even the birds had left the skies back around the time she made it to the coastline. While it wasn’t so unnaturally cold and cruel like the other half of the True North beyond the Gate of Winter, it wasn’t exactly inviting either.

When she flew into the True North there had been a yak in a shack there to greet her. There was a valley full of trees and woodland creatures not far from him. Here she had flown much further already and still come up with nothing. Was this place truly so dead where nothing could really live or grow? Was it all ice, rock, and snow with nothing that could sustain life?

Was it just going to be cold winds for company the whole time?

“It’s not like that would be too unfamiliar at this point,” Rainbow Dash snorted.

She shivered from the next cold breeze and doubled her efforts to make it a little further along before it got darker. She wanted to still be feeling a little warm and have her blood pumping when she went down to make her shelter. Possibly the one good thing about a lack of wildlife here was that she didn’t have to worry about being bothered by anything when she slept. With the way she flew, she’d never be caught by any sort of arctic predator unless it crept up on her while she was sleeping.

“Doesn’t seem like it matters though.”

She took her eyes away from the mountains and looked at the expansive empty snowfields below her again. Another mile and she flew over a large crevice that ran across the snow, separating the two sides like a violent cut. It went down deep, very deep, enough for the bottom to be totally shrouded in darkness. She kept her gaze on it for a second to see how deep the ice went before it became stone only to realize that she couldn’t see where the ice ended. The glacier below her must’ve been hundreds of feet deep. It’s possible it went all the way down to water or the very bed of the south pole. No wonder she didn’t see anything growing here, it was just ice. There had to be actual “land” elsewhere, like by the mountains, or on other parts of the south pole.

Rainbow Dash looked up at the clouds to try and guess what time it was. It had gotten slightly darker so she probably only had an hour or two until evening came by.

Trying to pass further over the glacier she made a slow, slightly sloping, descent to the snow. She still went several miles before eventually she touched down on the spot she planned to spend the night at. A glance up at the sky again told her she still had plenty of time to dig out her little snow cave and make some walls to block the wind.

“Been a long time since I’ve done this...” Rainbow muttered as her hooves started to dig into the snow. “The boots sure make it a lot easier.”

That was indeed true. While her body might have been fairly cold from flying through the wind and snow, the added protection of the boots kept her hooves from going numb. The cold didn’t pierce them at all. With her wings now folded inside of the jacket too she had a pretty warm situation going on actually. She knew that was going to change and get much worse at night though so she didn’t slow down at all when it came to making her shelter. Rainbow Dash pawed, dug, and packed up the snow to make an acceptable hovel. A sunken pit in the middle with decently think walls around it was created after an hour of hard work and Rainbow Dash was just about ready to turn in. She reached into one of her saddlebags to withdraw a small roll to eat so she wouldn’t be starving when she woke up, then found the waterproof—and therefore snowproof—tarp that she could lay down and wrap herself in.

She knew she was still going to be cold and maybe even freezing when she woke up. But overall things weren’t so bad. The south pole was looking easy.

Comments

[Cosmic Potato]

Literally tempting fate

[RoboRed]

Agh no don't jinx it, Rainbow!

[redmar]

Something is going to happen that will make it hard to get past the south pole.