Does It Almost Feel Like Nothing Changed At All?
There had been a grey sky and a grey earth with grey rocks on top of it, all while grey drops of water had fallen on her shoulders. There had been a stallion, with a brown coat and a mane as grey as the rest of the world, his eyes looking at the stones with a dullness that penetrated his view of the world entirely. The rain was falling down on his black hat, and then dripped off the brim, she remembered. It had happened, it was done, and yet it was almost like she saw it happening again right at that moment.
He looked at the earth that was as much his own as was the bundle in his arms, the white cloth that covered his newborn child. Carefully, she moved closer, not daring to fall under his fierce stare, like he was punishing her for something he shouldn’t have known she’d done. Why had she, despite her fear?
Maud remembered. My sister, she spoke in her mind and that was all there was to it. She had stepped beside the father she had never learned to truly love until much, much later, and looked at her, how she rested. The pink little thing had the fuzziest mane and seemed to have the most blissful dream back then. It almost got Maud to smile, back then and right now.
Back then, however, her first smile had been broken before it had even started to show, as her father looked at her and asked in that stern voice of his; “What are you doing out here, Maud?”
She trembled and took a step back, looked away, but found an answer that might appease him. “I came to look at the rocks.”
If she was completely honest, that hadn’t been a lie, she had loved their shapes even as a child. Her father understood, because her father was like her, an unsmiling giant who never showed any expression beyond his frown.
“They’re quite beautiful when the rain falls on them,” he said after a few moments.
“Yes, they’re grey,” Maud clumsily answered.
Her father however, nodded. “Quite, dear.”
Pinkie had slept, but a giggle had escaped her nonetheless. The one who had managed to make everypony in her family smile, the one who had established a close bond with Maud, maybe even the first true bond. There had been a grey sky and a grey earth with grey rocks on top of it, all while grey drops of water had fallen on her shoulders, but Maud remembered that day as a first step from the dull rock farm, towards establishing a place for herself.
The rocks had been quite grey back then, but right now they weren’t. The only grey thing was the sky far above, the dark clouds that roamed the heavenly realms, pushed on by the cold winds whose howls reached her ears with ease. The world all around her was white, however. Like in a mad rage, the snowflakes descended from the sky, whirling around and thickening the white cover of the ground. Every step pained her, because the cold was going through her like a hundred spears, piercing through every inch of her body. Her teeth were close to chittering, as always. They never did actually chitter, or make any other unwanted movements.
She looked to her front, but all Maud saw was the white world, which didn’t come as that great a surprise, considering she was atop a mountain, on a path that surely would lead her to a village, a city, or even just a cave to rest. Squinting her eyes, she tried to make something out, but with the snow blazing across her view, she could barely see what was in front of her. So Maud decided to press on. Another step, and then one more, her hooves sank into the snow, and lifted from it, she waded through the thigh-deep mess, knowing that she couldn’t stop, no matter what.
She felt the warm breath against her neck, going in rhythmic motion, serving as a reminder why she needed to continue her path. It’s all my fault, she thought and looked over her shoulder. Strands of a pink mane, so fuzzy and wild, moved in the wind and Pinkie’s face pressed against her sister’s back. Maud had taken extra care when she had fastened her sister to her own back. A lavine halfway through on the way to the top had taken all of their gear except for some rations and a few blankets. Once the fever had gotten Pinkie, Maud had taken to wrap her up in them, keep her as warm as possible.
There had to be something, they couldn’t be all alone in the mountains. Somewhere, maybe past the mountain top, maybe just a few steps farther, that was all it would take. She needed to find a healer, because she had gotten Pinkie into this situation. She was at fault for all of this.
Another step forward, another time the cold went through her. It burned like a fire, so hot that she wished her limbs would fall off. That would make for a fitting punishment even, for bringing her sister into this mess, for going out here into the nothingness. Why was she here to begin with? Maud asked the question but didn’t remember, thus instantly decided to move on. Nothing mattered, nothing but Pinkie Pie whose soft breaths touched on her neck, the sole source of warmth that remained for the earth pony.
The world around her was so white, it made her wonder. “Did you want to come here, or did I drag you?” she asked, whatever paining thoughts dwelled in her mind not reaching her voice, like always.
Pinkie didn’t answer, Pinkie was asleep, leaving her big sister to ponder why she had even bothered to ask herself that question. “I’m at fault for this,” she said. “You had your friends, you had your happiness. What sort of madness took me when I thought that you should go with me?”
Of course there was no answer, only the howl of the wind. Maud found that almost profound, for whatever reason. Maybe she just enjoyed the irony of only being met by silence, if it even was irony. Maybe there had been no madness, maybe she had had a real reason. Why then? What reason would drag them to the edge of the world, crawling up the highest spires along white roads and past frozen waters.
She had no answer, only an aching in her head that warned her not to search for one. She could live with that, she could live with walking through the world with no reason. She liked to do that anyway, and along the way, she had seen many rocks. Most of them had been grey, but they had all been beautiful. Her father would agree, she knew. As she had travelled alone, she had thought it would make him proud.
Yet nothing had ever made him as proud as Pinkie, the daughter who gifted him the brightest smile and happiness every time she was around. Nopony in their family wasn’t proud of Pinkie, funny little Pinkamena. If she would end here in the snows, then what would become of Maud? Would her family forgive? Could she?
“We’re going to make it,” she said to herself, finding her voice cracking, much to her own surprise.
The snow whipped across the sunforsaken road to nowhere, and Maud had long lost the feeling in her ears. She still heard well enough, so she hoped that frostbite wouldn’t take them. Even if, it’s a small sacrifice, she thought to herself, yes, but it would be one she had yet to make. Maud heard it howl, the brazing wind that cried out. Whether it was a warning or laughter, she couldn’t decide, but she decided to entertain the thought that it was cheering her on.
Why did you come here, Maud? She wondered.
Why only she and Pinkie, why not those five friends? Why not anypony? She took another step, but the snow was much thicker in this spot, her leg sank quickly and she stumbled forward, landing face first in the snow.
“There’s a land where there’s always summer, maybe they know what has happened,” the voice of the purple alicorn mused in her memories.
She blinked, looking at the white falling. That’s right, she thought, We escaped. Winter took Equestria and refused to leave. Summer knows the answer, we need to find the summer.
Maud lifted her leg out of whatever hole she had stepped into, the cold flame burning the flesh beneath her coat. Still, she carried on despite the pain, despite the world of hurt she was in. They had set out to find hope, but that didn’t matter anymore, because Pinkie was sick and she needed help.
Her hooves dug themselves into the snow, as the mare carried on, her sister on her back. “Windigos came, Windigos and frozen giants,” she said, feeling the cold blazing around and within her. She needed to find a cave. “Do you remember, Pinkie?”
There was no answer, but she felt the bits of warmth still, thought of the smiling face in the bundle.
“There were grey skies, and the world was grey, too. There were rocks of many kinds and we would push them around, build mountains and forts. Remember the forts, Pinkie?”
Step by step she moved forward, and step by step she heard her own voice less and less. The winds were crying and there was no cave in sight, no city. There were cities, she knew, at the end of the road, and a land with sapphire grass and trees with golden leaves, where the water had the color of the sky and the summer never left. I’ve been there before.
The weight of her sister did not hinder her; for all her cake-eating, Pinkie was an incredibly light-weight pony. This was good, but with every new meter, Maud also felt a bit more horrified. She’s still breathing, there’s no need to worry, she told herself, without actually believing herself. No, she had to believe herself, no matter what, and she would find a doctor who would tell her her little sister was fine. They would go down the mountains and see the trees, drink the water and eat the grass, and then they’d bring summer back to the world.
Twilight Sparkle had said that they could find the secrets there, had asked Maud if she had been there before. She had, her mother had told her the stories and she had journeyed to the west, past the red waters, beyond the dragon’s kingdom, and she had climbed these mountains before. They were called the spires of the world, and she had been the first pony to conquer them, for they were only a bunch of rocks in her path.
Her legs hurt, she felt dizzy, yet the road continued on. She was walking the spire of the world, and Pinkie did not see it, Pinkie only slept, looking much like the foal who had surprised them once with confetti and sweet cake, had brought all of them to laugh, all of them but Maud.
Maud had never laughed, Maud had never cried. She was her father’s daughter and she could control herself. Her teeth were chittering as she took another step. “How long is this going to continue?” She wondered aloud, feeling less and less confident that she would make it.
She remembered a city by the mountains. It had white towers and a golden castle, she remembered it and there had been a doctor too. Why didn’t she see it? There was only one road across the mountains and they should have reached it by now.
Twilight and the others should be there too, maybe. They had left them some time ago, in the dragon’s kingdom, between the lava and the fires. Somepony had screamed, she remembered, another had urged them to move on. A smile had been on her yellow face and her mane had been a blaze of orange, red and gold. They had stayed behind and now Pinkie was dying.
“Why?” Maud wondered. Why did they leave us? Why didn’t they stay? “Why can’t I find the city ...”
One more time did she move her hooves forward, one more time she used her strength to carry on. Maud knew that she couldn’t give up. The one thing she could never do was give up. Her father would be sad if Pinkie died, he would cry and Maud wouldn’t, because Maud never cried.
The ice numbed her cheeks.
“You can do it, you and Pinkie. We’ll meet in the land of summer and we’ll all go back together. I’m sorry that we have to leave you, but I can’t leave Rainbow Dash alone,” Twilight Sparkle spoke in her memory, close to the spires, and a thousand years before Maud had begun her climb.
Twilight was the last to leave, and only three made it to the harshest part of the journey. She remembered, she actually remembered that the third fell, whoever it had been. Maud’s head hurt and she didn’t really want to revisit that memory. There was nothing there but the cry of a familiar name.
She refused to remember, but she also refused to give up. Pinkie was still here, and Twilight had said that she would find a way. Doing the impossible was her thing, it had to be her thing to promise something like that. “Just you wait, Pinkie, your friends will all be there,” she reassured her little sister.
She hoped for both their sakes that it reached her.
Maud almost stopped however, as she spotted something in the distance, a silhouette. She couldn’t make out what it was, but there was something there. For a moment she forgot to breathe. The city, she thought and suddenly the strength was returning to her body. Her walk became a trot, her trot a gallop. She was as fast as the ground the weather allowed, and the towering silhouette came closer and closer.
“We made it Pinkie,” she heard herself shouting for the first time in her life, though her tone still seemed vaguely neutral, “We reached the city with the towers and the castle! The land of summer is close!”
She wasn’t crying, she wasn’t laughing, but she felt happy. Just as she had thought that it was over, everything changed. Step by step, closer and closer. “Pinkie,” she said, “wake up. We’re there, you’re saved! You’re saved. You’re–”
Maud fell over her own legs and then felt the snow pressing against her face.
”I never thought we’d go adventuring together,” Pinkie said with that easy smile of hers, the fire the group reflected in her eyes. “This is so fantastic. Not only do we have enough snow for an army of snowmen, but we can actually fight ice giants together. That’s the stuff of legends!”
Rainbow Dash, trying to get her food can open, merely frowned. “Yeah, totally fantastic. We have weather you can’t fly in, are on a journey to the edge of the world with success chances somewhere below the ten percent area, and I could listen to Rarity’s whining for six weeks in a row.”
“Oh, shush, Rainbow,” Rarity threw in. “You just don’t understand how bad this is. I’ve only got six pairs of boots, and we’re going into our seventh week. You have literally no idea about the gravity of the situation.”
“That’s not really grave. The longer we take, the more the trees are damaged, a lot of them won’t survive a winter like this and the farm was already standing on its last legs when we left. That’s grave,” Applejack grumbled, throwing her friend a grim look.
Fluttershy said nothing, stroking through her mane, the one she had cut after it had gotten stuck on one of the giants. Her eyes were somewhere far away, in a better time, they had been ever since her home had been destroyed and those close to her had been hurt.
Twilight herself tried some of the vegetables she had preserved via magic, swallowing them despite their attested horrible taste.
“Don’t worry, Applejack,” the young alicorn said, “if Maud’s book is to be believed, the land of summer is real. We’ll find what we search there and it won’t be a problem.”
Maud nodded in Twilight’s direction, before she looked at the fire. It was warm and it felt good, not like the cold blaze outside. It reminded her of home, of laughter and of happier times. Maud liked happy, but at that time, she still wasn’t that far away from it. No, she still had Pinkie.
“Sometimes I close my eyes,” she said, “and it’s like nothing changed at all. Like the long winter never came and we’re still together.”
Pinkie looked at her, not saying anything.
“We’re going to the spires, and I failed to climb them once. I don’t know whether I’ll make it this time.”
“This time you’re not alone, silly,” Pinkie said with that bright smile of hers. The smile that had vanished when the ropes had come loose and she had fallen down, down and deeper down.
Maud remembered and looked up. The fall had loosened the strappings and Pinkie had rolled off her back, lying in front of her. Maud couldn’t help but smile at her younger sibling. No wonder she’s been such a lightweight, she’s made of wool and linen.
She hadn’t been able to save her sister, she hadn’t been able to help her friends, and the silhouette before her was just the way to another mountaintop. Maud tried to smile, tried not to give up, but she was cold and now she knew that she was truly alone. There was nothing more to do, nothing more that could be done. The only thing she could manage was to rest, catch some breath.
Maud Pie decided to close her eyes, there, atop the highest mountains, and remember happier days.
