Nothing happens

For some mysterious reason, the royal princess of friendship, princess of Equestria, alicorn, one of the most powerful being in the land and adored by all decided to go on a journey very far away from Ponyville, into the distance glacial parts of the empire, to inspect some advanced military post that had been built under the ice for a reason most ponies had forgotten since long.

Applejack had decided to accompany her as she felt it was unsafe for the alicorn to go alone with Spike as she had intended to do.

The ice in the north was a very dangerous part of the land after all.

And it was proving true, as the three of them, Twilight, Applejack and Spike, had now been trapped for two days in a crevasse.

“We should have turned left…” whispered Applejack for the hundreds time.

“I know!” Spike replied.

He was making sure Twilight was kept warm, as she had lost consciousness during their fall and had stayed that way since. He would have given anything he had to make her wake up. Not only because he liked her a lot, not only because he was identifying himself as her assistant and it was his duty as such to make sure she was okay, but also because he was feeling guilty for the current situation.
He had been the one holding the map and the one who had insisted they turn right, which had proven a grave mistake.

“How is she doing?” Applejack asked.

There was no answer to be given to that question. She was breathing normally. She was warm, but there had been no way to make her drink or eat anything at all, as she was basically sleeping.

Applejack walked away, looked at the walls around her, then trotted to the other side of the crevasse, looked at the walls, then came back and sat. She waited a few minutes, then went back to look at the walls everywhere, trotting in circles in a cacophony of hooves steps.
She then came back to her initial spot, sat again and stood still for a good thirty minutes.

“We have to move.” She finally said. “We can’t stay here.”

“And how are we going to do that?” Spike asked. “We are at the bottom of a crevasse.”

“I’ll carry her.” Applejack said.

Spike looked at the alicorn that was sleeping under the blankets, then up at the sky far above them, then at Applejack again. It was tempting to accept. Applejack was a strong pony and could probably actually climb while carrying Twilight.
At the same time, Spike couldn’t help but feel it was a very bad idea.

“No.” he replied. “What if something turns wrong? What if you fall with her? What if she slips out of your grasp? She probably wouldn’t survive another fall.”

“Are you saying I wouldn’t be able to climb those walls with her?” Applejack asked aggressively.

“No. I’m saying it’s possible that something bad happens.” Spike replied.

“Nothing bad will happen. I can take us out of here.” The farm pony stated.

“You can’t be certain of that.”

“Yes I can.”

“No you can’t!”

“So you do think I wouldn’t be able to do it. You just don’t trust me…” Applejack concluded.

Spike didn’t reply. It was true. He didn’t have enough faith in the earth pony to entrust the alicorn he loved so much into her hooves. It was just too risky. He just didn’t know how he would feel if something else were to happen to Twilight.

Applejack went back to sit on her usual spot and spent the next hour looking at Spike and Twilight without saying a word.

Above their head, the day began to disappear, creating many shadows all around them.

Spike looked around and tried to ignore his fear. But he still was afraid of the darkness. He made sure Twilight was well wrapped into the blankets, and then tried to protect himself from the cold. It soon became pitch black into the crevasse and Spike lost sight of his own claws.

“Celestia help us…” he whispered.

As there was nothing more to do, he slowly fell asleep, hoping to only wake up when the sun would have reappeared in the horizon.

But his eyes opened again in the middle of the darkness. He looked around but saw nothing at all but black. He tried to figure out how long he had been sleeping, but couldn’t. He had no idea why he had woken up. Still, something felt very wrong. Like a six sense telling him he had to act. And act quickly.

Then he heard the sound of a piece of ice falling on the ground.

By reflex, Spike used his fire breath to light the place and immediately saw that Twilight had moved from the blankets to Applejack’s back, and that Applejack herself had begun to climb the walls of ice.

“What are you doing?” asked Spike in panic. “Come back immediately.”

“It’s the only way.” Applejack replied. “One of us had to take some sort of action. I have to do it if you won’t.”

But Spike wasn’t ready to give up that easily. As Applejack was only about ten feet high, he ran and jumped to force her to come back on the ground. Applejack struggled fiercely, but suddenly lost her grasp on the piece of ice she was holding on and all three fell down.
Applejack immediately got up, ready to face Spike, but the darkness hid him away from her. She heard his steps behind her, but also in front of her, and on her sides, as they were echoing due to the configuration of the ice walls.

“You know we have to take her out of here. None of us is going to make it if we don’t come out of here!” Applejack shouted.

“I won’t let you harm her!” replied Spike’s voice from right behind her as he jumped on her.

She struggled again, but with the advantage this time as she could use all of her four hooves to fight. She achieved to make Spike let go of her and bucked him violently against the nearest wall that he hit very hard.
Everything went silent again and Applejack felt completely lost in the middle of the darkness. She couldn’t find Twilight again, nor find out if Spike was okay or if she had injured him. She wasn’t even sure if she wasn’t just having a big nightmare. For a moment, she felt like she had left reality.

“So you want to do this the hard way…” said Spike’s voice in the distance.

Applejack felt relieved. Even if it was to threaten her, she was happy to know that Spike was feeling well enough to speak. But then, a giant green flame appeared in front of her, forcing her to step back a bit. A then another giant green flame. And a third one.

Applejack hit a wall of ice behind her and felt the warmth of the fourth giant green flame.

“I just wanted to help.” She tried to defend herself. “I did it for Twilight. To save her.”

But Spike clearly didn’t listen to her. He breathed fire a fifth time and Applejack took the opportunity to evade it and use the light to see her target and jump on him. She hit him on the head and the fight stopped there as the dragon fell unconscious.

Applejack stopped to move too. She was trembling pretty badly. It took some time for her to breath normally, and she finally checked on the dragon that was lying under her hooves. He felt alright, as he was breathing normally. She took him on her back, then began to search in the dark for Twilight.
She eventually found her, as well as their bags.

High above her head, the sun began to appear, very slowly, but providing a bit of light that was way better than nothing at all.

Applejack tied up both Twilight and Spike to her, as she wasn’t ready to leave any of them behind and, having the advantage of seeing the wall of ice this time, began to climb while trying to ignore the weight of the alicorn and the dragon.

She climbed for a good hour. She had gone almost two third of the way. But she was exhausted. She had already let the bags slip down the crevasse, as they were too heavy for her to carry at the same time she way carrying her two friends. Better sacrifice the bags than them.
She put her hoof on a piece of ice that got loose and almost fell, but could keep her grasp with her other hoof and avoid it. She took a deep breath, then kept on climbing. Another piece of ice got loose under one of her back hoof, but she avoided once again the fall by pure luck. A third piece of ice almost disappeared as she was leaning on it and she soon ceased to feel the weight of the alicorn and the dragon as the sky above her began to look more distant by each passing second.

At least she had tried.

She could always convince herself of that.

It’s not like anypony would care about it anyway.

She closed her eyes, only to open them again as she was very slowly and carefully touching the ground with her hooves.
She looked up and saw Twilight flapping her wings as hard as she could. The alicorn finally landed, used another spell to make check on Spike and finally turned to Applejack:

“What happened?” she asked.

“I…” began the earth pony.

She stopped there. She had almost said “I was about to kill us all.”, but that’s something that is pretty hard to admit at any given time, no matter how true it might be.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” She replied. “We have to get out of her.”

“No problem.” Twilight said, as she was feeling hungry, and thirsty, and was worried about Spike, and had, to make it short, all the reasons in the world to want to go back to civilization. “Hold on!” she told her friend.

A huge amount of magical energy filled the crevasse and in one magnificent flash, Twilight, Applejack and Spike simply disappeared from the crevasse, to reappear far away, in a little village at the border of the crystal empire that they had left two days ago before falling into the crevasse.

They were out of danger, and Twilight decided that she preferred to face whatever was awaiting her in Ponyville than go back into the lands of ice of the north.

Also, she would be glad to finally eat once again in a true restaurant from Ponyville or Canterlot. Because she was still hungry and was feeling homesick.