For the Long Haul

The Spiritwood.

An eternally snow-covered region of Northwestern Equestria, sitting comfortably along the borders between Equestria, the Crystal Empire, and the Northlands. Eternally present, the light cloud cover above defied the will of the pegasi, always laying a blanket of fresh, white powder over the land below. The unrelenting snowfall repaired any blemish in the landscape in short order, and yet the snow never seemed to pile up above knee height, creating a broad expanse of pure, white endlessness in every direction. Occasionally, a tree would break the stark white panorama: Evergreens that would soak up what little sunlight that peeked through, providing shelter and food for the few small creatures that made the Spiritwood their home. But far outnumbering the lively green trees were the stunted brown husks of trees, devoid of any green at all. Standing tall over the white ground, their skeletal frames gave a painful reminder that even these normally green, life-bearing trees cannot survive in this frigid land forever.

It was here that Salvage patrolled, accompanied only by the ratcheting and whirring sounds of his mechanical prosthetic leg. His patrol followed a path blazed by the pony before him before the snow could fully fill the depression left in her wake, just as he would blaze a trail for the pony that would follow him some hours later.

For most, it was a miserable and lonely job, but it was necessary to protect Equestria and the Crystal Empire from potential threats from the Northlands. Salvage rather enjoyed it. After losing his leg in the Sombran Uprising, the freedom to walk - and get paid for it - was satisfying. Besides, it put food on the table. And, more importantly, it paid for his mother's medical expenses.

As it goes, regularly having nothing to do but walk tended to give Salvage a lot of time to think. Today was no different, and this evening he was reflecting upon his life.

Salvage had been born over a thousand years ago, before the Crystal Empire was sealed away. Sombra had captured and enslaved his family, but his parents had rebelled and tried to get free. Salvage escaped, but at the cost of his father’s life. For many years, he’d been one of the few ponies who had not been enslaved by Sombra; fighting tooth and hoof in a losing battle for freedom and ultimately paying the price with his leg. Then, without the ability to move as quickly, he’d sacrificed himself to let his friends escape, and let himself get captured. Without his leg, he was useless for Sombra’s usual slave labors and for several months he had endured horrible conditions as Sombra's cronies tried to get information from him.

And in the blink of an eye, a thousand years had passed. Sombra was defeated almost immediately after. Arcano-technology marched onward in the world outside the Crystal Empire’s walls, and for his bravery and sacrifice, Princess Cadance had made him the recipient of an artificial leg from Equestria, in the south. It was an amazing gift that was, for most intents and purposes, just like the leg he had lost.

Yet his leg was also a constant reminder of the world outside the Crystal Empire — the one that had marched on without the Crystal Ponies such as himself. Most of the Empire’s citizens remained insular, living in fear of the world outside that had changed so much, and only rarely would a Crystal Pony travel outside the Empire. The culture shock was just too much.

Salvage glanced at one of the dead tree-husks that sat particularly close to the path as he passed.

Death.

The Crystal Empire’s citizens had all cheated death, in a way. It made him uncomfortable to know that he should have died centuries ago. He didn’t belong here. He was somewhat envious of his mother; death would be coming soon for her.

Salvage stopped walking and turned around, squinting. He had nearly missed something important back there, he was sure of it. He focused intently on the surrounding landscape. It didn't take long to find the oddity, a sizable area of torn up snow against the rest of the undisturbed white, flecked with spots of brown, green, and red. Whatever this disturbance was, it must have been done by a large creature; far larger than the usual denizens of the Spiritwood.

He set off toward it, happy to have something else to occupy his thoughts. As he approached, his enthusiasm quickly sobered; the brown and green spots he'd seen in the distance were the shattered remains of a nearby tree. Something had violently crashed through the tree, snapping it like a twig, trunk and all. And it was rapidly becoming obvious that the red was blood-stained snow.

When he reached the tree, he discovered a wide, bloody trail with large, catlike footprints leading away, listing from side to side as if the creature could not walk straight. It meandered roughly toward one of the larger nearby evergreens, about two hundred yards away, and seemed to disappear behind the extremely low branches.

A lion? Salvage thought to himself. Except they don't live around here. I should investigate and report this.

He noted the lack of snow built up on the paw prints, and then glanced out at the dim, grey horizon. Judging from the evidence here, and how quickly the snowfall tended to fill small impressions, whatever had happened was perhaps forty minutes ago, at most. He trotted along the creature's trail toward the tree, noting with alarm that the red tint in the snow was getting darker.

As he rounded the tree, his ears picked up the sound of pained breathing. Listening intently, he pinpointed the sound coming from the other side of a small mound of snow a short distance away and the bloody trail led straight to it. Whatever it was, it was alive. The wheezing of its breath reminded him of his own mother's labored breathing.

With just a few more steps toward the mound, the lion's hindquarters came into view. "Are you alright?" he called out, not really expecting any response from the lion. The lion's legs visibly tensed up. Salvage inched closer, readying his spear, just in case he needed it. "I'm not going to hurt you. I just thought you might need some medical assis..." he trailed off, as the rest of the 'lion' came into view. It wasn't really a lion, but he wasn't sure what he was looking at.

The hindquarters of the creature were like that of a lion (and female, he idly noted), but nothing else was. As Salvage traced the body with his eyes, he saw that the creature's body shifted from tawny fur to red feathers. A great, red-and-white-feathered wing lay haphazardly along her abdomen, mangled and broken, and three massive lacerations marred the side of the creature just beneath the wing, in perfect parallel lines. Where her front paws should be were a pair of raptor-like talons, the nails cracked and bleeding. Her head was like that of a giant hawk, with eyes staring at him, large, beady, and filled with pain. Salvage was reasonably certain he'd seen one of these creatures before in a book, but couldn't remember what they were called.

The creature watched him fearfully for a moment, but then relaxed, a small smile crossing her face. "A pony?" she mumbled. "Oh, Blessings. Please, I need to get a message to Celestia..." She groaned softly and closed her eyes, resting her head on the ground.

"A message to Celestia? What message?"

Silence. With even such little effort, the creature had lost consciousness, breathing shallowly.

Salvage wasn't sure where to start; whatever she was, she was in terrible shape, but he couldn't imagine any creature would come out into this snow-covered wasteland to deliver a message unless it was incredibly important. If she had a message for Celestia, he needed to find out what it was as quickly as possible, but before he could do anything else, she needed warmth. There was no way any creature would survive with such injuries while also freezing to death.

He fished through his saddlebags and pulled out a heat crystal. Elemental crystals: a wonderful aspect of Crystal Pony engineering. Each one had an affinity for a specific element, and could only be activated by a Crystal Pony's touch. This one in particular was like a fire, but safer.

Salvage struck it with his hoof and willed his magic into it. The crystal immediately began to hum and glow, emitting its warmth. He dropped the crystal into the snow, confident that it would clear the snow from the area within 10 minutes, and dry out the ground enough to set camp within the hour, as well as provide a magical warmth that would keep the strange creature from hypothermia.

As the crystal went to work, he glanced around at the nearby trees. Fortunately, despite its otherwise barren nature, there was one useful thing that could be found in the Spiritwood: Woundsalve. A fungus native only to the Spiritwood, it was one of the few reasons that the Crystal Empire actively protected the forest. It grew under the bark of the trees, favoring the northern side of the still-living ones, and was used in countless medical poultices. Its healing properties were potent, and it was mandatory that anyone in his patrol unit understand how to find and apply it properly.

He already had some in his pack, due to its longevity when dried, but it was nowhere near enough for the task at hand. Salvage trotted over to the broken tree, looking for any signs of the fungus. Though it offered nothing, several other trees were only a short walk away, and it didn't take long for him to find the telltale blue color that indicated a patch growing on one of the trunks. He whipped out a short blade from his pack and carefully extracted as much as he could, cutting gently into the wood and through the thin fungal layer. Though it was large, the piece he removed would not be large enough to completely cover the creature's massive injuries, so he took more branches off and continued cutting. After a short while, he walked back to the wounded creature with several large cuts of Woundsalve.

She had regained consciousness with the warmth and was now laying upright, but still looked very weak. The snow had mostly melted around the heat crystal by now, and the cold air no longer had a bite to it. Salvage put on a comforting smile as she stared at him.

"I have something that will help," he said reassuringly. He knelt down and carefully laid the Woundsalve out over the large gashes in the creature's side, trying to cover as much of the gaping wounds as he could while minimizing the disturbance on the injury. The creature watched with silent curiosity as he worked, her eyes following his hooves intently. Satisfied with the coverage, Salvage scooped up a hoofful of fresh snow from nearby. "This part will probably hurt a little bit," he murmured as he spread it over the fungus. The creature tensed up slightly, but then relaxed as the fungus went to work.

The creature broke her silence. "What does it do?" she asked, her voice clearly pained.

"We call it Woundsalve," Salvage replied, lightly massaging the wet film into the wound. "It has several known magical properties, one of which is accelerating healing. More importantly, it stimulates the body's replenishment of blood. I should warn you, though, that magical side effects include visual and auditory hallucinations and severely impaired judgement."

"Hallucinations?" she mumbled. "I've been able to see through you ever since you got here. I've probably lost far too much blood already."

Salvage paused for a moment, glanced down at his very pale orange coat, and then laughed. "You're not hallucinating that. When Crystal Ponies are within the borders of the Crystal Empire, and the Crystal Heart is safe, our bodies become translucent."

He pondered her physical features again. The fur on her coat was thin, and the remaining portions sparsely feathered compared to northern avians. Her body clearly wasn't built for northern climates, and her entire race had probably never really interacted with the Crystal Empire. And with the Crystal Empire gone for over one thousand years, Salvage realized it was entirely possible her race didn't even have any historical records of the Crystal Empire that she would be familiar with.

"I'm guessing you haven't heard of the Crystal Empire before?"

A look of despair crossed the creature's face. Her beak opened to speak, but closed again without a sound, and her head bobbed lightly back and forth with an uncertain expression. Salvage continued to massage the Woundsalve on her injuries in silence. After a few moments, the creature looked back at him with an utterly defeated expression on her face.

"The Crystal Empire isn't part of Equestria, is it...?"

"Well, no," he conceded. "But we are very close to Equestria. If you have a message for Celestia, I could deliver it for you if you like." The griffon shook her head.

After a minute, he stood up and glanced up into the sky. The sun would set soon, and he was nowhere near his evening rendezvous point. He had lost over two hours already working with the injured creature. She wasn't likely to survive a night in the Spiritwood, and without proper medical attention he wasn't sure if she would be able to move under her own strength any time soon.

He shrugged his pack and saddlebags off and started rummaging through them, pulling out several tools that he would need. The creature watched him with interest as he began setting up a prism beacon, working quickly.

"What is your name?" she eventually asked, as he finished affixing the large prism to the device.

"Salvage. Some ponies call me Sal." He tapped the prism lightly, coding it for a medical emergency. "You?"

"I'm Dutchess Geneva. Though currently my title is unimportant. Right now I'm just a messenger from Griffon's Tor, the last remaining stronghold of Griffonia."

Griffon, Salvage thought to himself. That was what they were called. He mentally cursed himself for being slow. If his memories from his ‘Adjusting to the New World’ classes were correct, Griffonia was a once-distant kingdom far to the west of Equestria that had exploded in growth and had shared a friendly relationship with the ponies for centuries. Despite that, the carnivorous nature of the griffons had led to little social interaction with ponies, who found the practice of eating meat revolting.

As a result, very few griffons had migrated over to live in Equestria proper. Those that did settled in Griffonstone, all the way on the Eastern border, where they maintained little to no contact with Griffonia, but similarly little contact with any major pony population centers. The Crystal Empire had effectively no contact with Griffonia or Griffonstone directly, and the only knowledge most Crystal Ponies had of those nations were through Equestrian history books. That wasn't too surprising: Griffons had no interest in such cold climates, while Crystal Ponies rarely wanted to leave the proximity of the Crystal Heart to venture into cultures unknown and far more advanced.

Salvage finished coding the beacon's message and switched it on. The prism began slowly spinning, casting a brilliant rainbow into the sky, with various colors flickering out to send his coded message. Anypony with a properly calibrated prism would be able to receive the message almost instantly. Salvage turned back to his saddlebags.

"Do you mind if I ask what happened to you?" he asked, pulling out the pieces of his tent. "I’m guessing the tree didn’t inflict those injuries."

Geneva nodded apprehensively. "Lately, griffons and dragons haven't been..." she trailed off, searching for words. "...getting along, I guess."

Salvage dropped a bag of tent pegs. "Why would a dragon attack you?"

"Because I have a message for Celestia," she said nervously. "I'm not authorized to tell you more than that."

Salvage could sense that it wasn't just a policy issue: She didn't feel comfortable talking about her apparent mission. And that bothered him in return. He ran through the entire scenario in his head as he assembled the tent, but it made little sense. The wound on her side was consistent with a dragon claw, so at the very least, she was probably telling the truth about that. For that matter, he couldn't think of another creature that could cause an injury as grievous as the one she had.

But Dragons rarely attacked at random, and Salvage had a hard time believing that 'having a message for Celestia' was sufficient reason to provoke an attack. He wasn't absolutely certain about griffons, but the dragons were generally amicable creatures, if a bit rough around the edges. Still, her word was all he had to go off of right now.

And one other thing still confused him: when angered, Dragons tended to make sure to finish the job they start.

"How did you get away from a dragon with those injuries?"

"I’m still a little baffled myself," Geneva replied. "When a second dragon arrived, I thought for sure I was going to die. But the other dragon attacked the one that was attacking me! I flew as hard as I could away from them both, and I didn’t look back." She closed her eyes.

"I really thought I was dead," she repeated. "I didn't expect to be saved after a dragon attacked me, and certainly not by another dragon. I kept trying to fly as far and as fast as I could to get away from them. But before I knew it, all I could see was this white, frozen landscape and I lost all sense of direction." Her eyes opened again, blinking a few times to try, unsuccessfully, to rid herself of the tears. Her voice cracked and her head drooped as she wept. "...I didn't expect to be saved a second time, either."

Salvage continued working in silence as the griffon sobbed quietly. The ground was completely dry by now, and the tent nearly finished, but he was having other concerns. If the dragon that had attacked Geneva decided to follow, the scent of blood was going to make it easy. Dragons fell into several subspecies. Very few were nocturnal, but there really was nothing he could do if the dragon showed up in the middle of the night; his spear wasn't any match for an adult dragon. And Geneva was in no condition to exert herself, either fighting or fleeing. In more utilitarian issues, the tent was large enough for Geneva, but there would not be room for them both. He'd probably have to just stand watch outside the tent all night.

"Spike willing, we'll get through the night," he mumbled to himself.

"Spike?" Geneva asked, looking up. "Who is Spike?"

"He's the..." Salvage bit his own tongue before he could finish speaking. Under the circumstances, it probably wasn't the best idea to mention that many Crystal Ponies idolized a dragon. "...deity many Crystal Ponies worship." It wasn't a complete lie.

Geneva frowned and blinked a few more tears away. "But, don't all ponies worship Celestia?" Apparently, her lack of cultural knowledge wasn't limited to just Crystal Ponies.

"No, ordinary ponies don't generally worship Celestia." He paused, frowning. "I mean, those who do worship anything at all tend to worship Celestia, I suppose. And Luna has what amounts to a minor cult, really. But most ponies don't really worship anypony. They just view the Royal Sisters as the Princesses of Equestria. And really, that's all they are. We Crystal Ponies have our own Princess, too, but our culture is quite a bit different. The majority of Crystal Ponies worship Spike, The Brave and Glorious, who saved us from the clutches of King Sombra."

Geneva nodded, but Salvage wasn't sure she really understood. "Okay," she said. "I guess I can understand that. Dragons have a similar belief in The Dragon Oracle, a noble dragon who they believe is incapable of being wrong and will continue to lead them to prosperity. I find it somewhat strange that you Crystal Ponies don't worship your princess, though."

Okay, maybe she somewhat understood. "To the Crystal Ponies, Spike represents freedom. He saved us from enslavement. Princess Cadance brings us love, but she did not free us."

The griffon stared at him in confusion. "So you worship a deity that has done great things in the past. But what does Spike do for your future that your Princess cannot?"

Salvage swallowed, finding himself woefully unprepared for this discussion. "We trust him to be there for us when we need him." It sounded stupid to himself even as he said it, but Geneva seemed to accept it with a polite nod before turning away and laying down to rest. He finished setting up the tent and turned back to his saddlebags to pull out a heavy blanket to lay out when a voice called out in the distance.

"Salvage! Status?!"

Salvage looked in the direction of the voice, relieved to see Wild Life. Patrols went both directions, passing at roughly two-hour intervals, and Wild Life was the pony he'd expected to be camping with for the night.

"Hey, Wild! I found an injured griffon," he called back. "Says a dragon attacked her."

Wild Life was an elderly stallion who had once been a veterinarian - even his cutie mark was a bird with a broken wing. When Sombra had taken over, forcing the Crystal Ponies into hard labor, most pets had been abandoned as families could not provide for them. Most of them had died. Even though Sombra was no longer in control of the Crystal Empire, the animal population was still tiny, and there just wasn't any work to be had, so Wild Life had joined up with the border patrol. In short, Wild Life was the closest Salvage would see to a doctor on such short notice. And all that aside, Salvage was glad to have some backup, just in case the dragon showed up.

The elderly stallion trotted up, surveying the damage in the fading light. "I was at the rendezvous point for about an hour when I figured I'd come look for you. Your beacon came on, and it wasn't too far away, so I just figured I would head over instead of decoding the message." He glanced at the quietly sobbing griffon and noticed her broken wing.

He stuck out a hoof toward the griffon. "Wild Life," he said, matter-of-factly. "Pleased to meet you, ma'am."

Geneva looked up, her red, tear-stained feathers plastered to her face. Her shoulders drooped for a moment before she drew herself up straight and took a deep breath. "Hello." She gingerly held out a bloodied claw. "I'm Geneva."

"Hello, Geneva," Wild Life replied, touching his hoof to her claw. He turned to Salvage. "Can you make a splint for that wing?"

Salvage pointed to the two trees he had stripped for Woundsalve. "I pulled a bunch of branches off those trees over there. Not really sure what kind of branch makes for a good splint, though. I'm no doctor."

Wild Life nodded as his saddlebags dropped to the ground. He quickly drew out some bandages and began tending to the large gashes in Geneva's side. "Just bring me a few of the thicker ones, then. I should be able to fashion an appropriate one."

A few moments later, Salvage had brought a few of the largest branches to Wild Life's side. Wild Life looked down for a moment and then nodded. "I'll let you know if I need anything else. For now, it's getting late, and your tent looks like it will be a bit full of cat-bird. Pitch my tent while I work on this wing. We'll just have to cozy up close for the night - like old times."

Salvage hadn't known Wild Life during the Crystal Rebellion, but it wasn't uncommon for the Crystal Ponies to huddle close for warmth in those times. They had been uncertain times, but at least they were... part of his normal life? An unwelcome normal, for sure, but compared to being thrust a thousand years into the future, Salvage couldn't help but long for the old days.

"Yeah," Salvage nodded. "Like old times."