Equinox

"Ride, warrior, ride, With your blade at your side, Follow on your spirit-steed, While wounds darken and bleed. Reap the wind as you fly, Hear the night beast cry, Cold tears run with the rain, Down the horse's mane." - Mercedes Lackey.

"I've never seen a heroine before" she said over the whistling of the wind. "Don't misunderstand me, I know we have valiant mares, but I swear, never in my life have I seen something truly heroic again, and good Horsemaster knows its been long!"

     Her eyes lit themselves with the bonfire as above the remnants of the storm were slowly dying away. Snowflakes would occasionally fly close enough to the communal hut to show themselves by the yellow light of the fire, but as they passed the torrent that overflew their heads was more and more slowly getting steadier.

"And how is it?" asked a mare from the other side of the fire. "That something truly heroic can be different from everything we've done so far?"

     The mare's words rose approbation from the present, and a murmur of conversations accompanied the unintelligible voice of the wind.

"Yes, chief, why isn't it heroic what we've done?" continued another one. "I mean, we've lived here since the fall of our crystal sisters and endured. How is being heroic different from beating our powerful foes or protecting our fillies?"

     Another generalized murmur. The tribe's questions rose again, but the disorder made them unintelligible. The chief, sitting at her honor spot, simply waited for the crowd to calm down.

"Tell us, please!" asked the first mare at last. "How are our noble acts of bravery, or all of the others' in Ponyland different?"

     The chief remained silent and waited with her eyes, lost in the nothingness of the flames until she suddenly smiled fondly.

"That is a very interesting question, Snow Drops, very interesting indeed" she got rid of her cover and stood up. "To properly answer it, I would have to acknowledge you the many years of pondering and reflection that that question has circled inside my mind, but for the time being I'll leave you my ponies with this single question: what have you mares done that any other wouldn't?"

     Again the murmur began, and just as it reached her ears she was readying to appease them when suddenly the voice of Snow Drops changed the direction of the subject.

"And I suppose you could give us an example, chief?"

     And just as simple as her words came out of her nuzzle, the rest of the present mares turned to plead their leader to fulfill their request.

"Yes! How did it happen?" asked someone from the crowd. A little filly that was in front of all the others. "How did you met her?"

     More voices followed hers, and in a second every mare from the tribe was asking the same thing. The chief, overwhelmed by her mares' voices, patiently waited again, but this time she the comments didn't cease.

     It was just until Snow Drops and her young companion called for silence that she spoke.

"Oh, that is a whole adventure in its own!" she chuckled. "And lest to say that is not a short one too."

"Don't worry, chief" said Snow Drops, looking at the cloudy sky. "I think we got time…"

     Just as everyone in the village paid attention to her words, the winds ceased to blow, and the clouds overhead became dead where they were. Every Snow Pony knew that was a good sign.

"Okay, since you insist…"

It is said that during the eras before to the downfall of Equestria, and even before, the Crystal Mountains used to be a feral land. A place where nature and magic coexisted, and where savage creatures dwelled the land. It was not strange to know that many orc tribes and gobbling clans inhabited the place, and legends speak of worse… But among those who lived and endured in that hostile territory, among our sister and ancestors, the most valiant of all were the hunters and huntresses of the Neighdiq herd.

Valor-driven and freeborn, the Neighdiq tribes stayed independent when there wasn't any Equestria, and even resisted the Equestrian authority. They lived in peace with the other herds, and even revered the Horsemaster in their own way, coming to defend their beliefs with their own lives.

I assure you none of you've heard of it, but at its time, the Neighdiq wrote a certain letter to Celestia concerning her royal authority that no other would've dared to. Poor princess; when the letter was read out loud in front of all of her court the alicorn was so embarrassed and enraged that she declared them enemies of the state! The Neighdiq then rebelled and thus happened the Rising of the Golden Herd.

…But I'm straying too far from the subject. What I wanted to tell you with all of this, is that even though it may be possible that they share a common ancestry with our Crystal Empire ancestors or not, what no one knew for sure was if their herd continued to exist after the downfall of Equestria. There are rumors, of course, but nothing is definite since the Crystal Mountains became too dangerous for anyone to venture there again. Perhaps our good sisters are still out there, surviving and enduring the scourges of their homeland, or perhaps they all passed away in their particular ways.

Indeed there are a lot of suppositions about our sisters, but the reason I brought them up to begin my story is because of something that is very real in comparison, and that no one, not even the wisest egghead of Ponyland have been able to deny as a simple truth: The Crystal Mountains change you. It is not immediate, or noticeable at first, but of the many mares and stallions that have gone there, no one has ever emerged the same as when she entered. Some become broken and shattered, empty husks of what their principles used to be. Others emerge wizened inside, learned from the experiences from the powers of the place, but full of sorrow for the region that took so much of them. And some others, the least in my opinion, find something else, something that they gain from not letting themselves be broken by it. They find their valor...

I know that some of you may not believe me, but in the end the final transformation is up to one and only one self. No one knows how they will change you for sure… Until I, in an unwilling twist of fate, happened to end up there, to find out for myself.

The clouds creeped over the mountain peaks as they crawled slowly to the land below. At that great heights the sky wasn't blue, but it had became a gray mass that kept the sun hidden from view. Since the first lights of the morning a tone of gray and dark blue had fallen down over the earth and impregnated the rocky walls of the mountainsides and the valleys down below that hadn't been covered by fog.

     From one slope to another, series of woods and meadows rose up from the wall of clouds that swallowed the land, and slowly creeped over the mountains, like waves of vegetation that had frozen while breaking in the middle of a gigantic sea storm of flora.

     A sound traveled through the cold air as it took form. The cliffs and hillsides resonated with its echo, and it lost within the entrances of the earth before being recognized. The shape of screams accompanied by an all powerful roar of a larger and coarser throat soared to unrecognized reaches. Both noises broke the pace of the place, but were lost in an uncaring scenario as the battle for survival, as seen everyday in the wilderness of those mountains, took the place and time of the least thing any traveler would want to happen.

     Chilly Breezes hit the floor with a dry sound, that most surely took the breath away from her since she wasn't able to make a noise. All that came from her throat was an unintelligible pant, and perhaps what was the hint of a whine. The mare bounced a little bit, and with a wild look on her face laid low, failing to get air back into her again.

"Breezes!" Mittens cried in awe, but couldn't do nothing, as she was the next one.

     With a deafening roar, the ogre that had struck Chilly Breezes just a second before sent a straight punch at the other Snow Pony. Mittens didn't saw it coming at first, but she snapped in the last second and jumped, dodging the blow and turning to Jingle Jangle as she landed, who was watching at everything dumbstruck.

"Run!" she shrieked as she dodged another strike.

     Jingle didn't react. In the same stance where she was she'd seen everything: how the monster had mercilessly beaten Chilly Breezes and sent her nearly ten feet away with a single swipe, and how Mittens's spear had broken trying to pierce through the creature's thick skin, which only had gotten it angrier, and now she was just lying there, seeing her last standing chance of survival fleeing and dodging the strikes of the powerful beast.

"Didn't you heard, filly!? I said run!" Mittens shouted again as she leaped to dodge another blow.

     The ogre tried to reach the pony, but Mittens wasn't like Breezes, and the mare leaped from place to place, letting the strikes pass her as they opened every time bigger craters in the ground. Jingle still stood where she was. Perhaps the words of the mare would've made her snap, but being a filly as she were, Jingle Jangle was too shocked to know what to do. Heck, she was too shocked to know what to think!

"Jingle!" Mittens whinnied again. "What are you waiting for? GO!"

     Mittens jumped again and again, making the monster start to growl in frustration. After a few tries its punches began to became slower, and the power with which they were sent started to diminish. It looked as if at this rate the creature would exhaust itself, but sadly the mare's luck wasn't that good.

     The ogre, beginning to realize she wouldn't be an easy meal, suddenly changed its tactic, and in an unexpected move charged ahead. Mittens was taken by surprise, and dodged again, jumping as far away from the reach of the creature as she could, but couldn't get out completely. The ogre extended its huge arms to get her, but in the end it passed its objective neatly, falling over its belly while it did.

     The earth shook under the excessive weight of the creature, and the monster made a loud crack noise in the stone floor as it was being broken underneath. Mittens landed with a little more effort, but this time her timing wasn't as good, and the backlash of the attack made her stagger and trip. She hit the floor as well and took a second to recover, but when she did the ogre had already stood up and was ready to squash her.

     Jingle jangle watched as the creature rose its arms and aimed for her helpless friend.

"MITTENS!!!" she screeched.

"Cover your eyes!" another voice suddenly exclaimed.

"W-what?" Jingle stammered, taken by surprise.

"I said, cover your eyes and duck!" the voice shouted again, this time revealing itself straightly behind her.

     Jingle didn't know what to do. Everything happened so fast… Before another second passed a floating dot of light appeared in front of the ogre, and the second that followed, much to the surprise of everyone in the scene, it exploded with the loud noise of a powder shot. Jingle didn't close her eyes in time, and was thrown to the ground by the shockwave. The world in her sight became a blurry sequence of images, and her ears ringed with a sustained note that faded everything she could perceive from the outside. Her spacial perception, also shaken by the flashbang spell, created the sensation that she was flying, even when she realized that two curiously shaped hands took her from her belly and carried her over a shoulder.

     Jingle gasped, but she couldn't hear anything as her sight steadily returned, changing at times from a white screen to the moving reminiscences of the land. What she could hear though, as her world was shifting its valance in her head, was something that she found little less difficult to explain as to how did she got there.

     In the sequence of images, she could see Mittens, shaking her head, attempting to get over her numbness, and the ogre, struggling with its own equilibrium as it was trying hard apparently not to pass out. She could hear the vibrations of the air, and know that someone was screaming, but couldn't tell who. Before anything else could happen whoever was carrying her suddenly dropped her in the snow.

     Although with care, Jingle shook when she hit the ground and stared as her sight, now more connected, showed her the figure of a clocked pony, standing behind Mittens, and battering the ogre with a purple energy blast. The creature, when received the shot fell to his back, but a second after recovered when it used its large arms to stand up again. The stranger struck it again, but this time the ogre was more enraged, and it let out a deafening roar that she could pick up halfway.

     As the creature readied to attack again, Jingle could pick up the face of the stranger when she pulled up her hood. Judging by the blurry factions she couldn't tell wether she was a mare or a colt, but by the horn in her head she could assure she was a unicorn.

"COME ON!!!" she whinnied in an unmistakably female voice.

     The stranger sent out two more rays of energy, that the ogre deflected with its arms, and then galloped away. The ogre, triggering its predator instinct, charged after her, tearing rocks away and toppling down trees as they got lost in the forest. Jingle tried to follow them with her sight, but couldn't go far before her eyes lost their focus again.

"Show off" another voice spoke when the two of them disappeared.

     Jingle tried to say something, but in an instant all the strength in her body disappeared. Just as she felt how the hands carried her again she passed out.