The Deep Cold

"Raaaaaaarity!" Sweetie Belle whined. "You have to get up!"

The bed made an onomatopoeic flumph as a tiny, filly-sized weight impacted the mattress. Burrowing into the blankets from my right, my sister pushed against side through the covers, shoving me with her nose.

"You won't have time for breakfast!" she squeaked.

I pretended to yawn as I pulled open my eyelids, and the fake yawn turned into a real one. Darkness awaited me—the comforter drawn over me was more than sufficient to block out all the light. The smell was unbearable. Sweat soaked the sheets below me. A drop of the liquid stench dripped from my hair. Disgusting.

"Come on, Rarity!" Sweetie insisted. She prodded me with her horn.

"Sweetie Belle, dear, I'll be fine."

"Nu-uh! Twilight said you had to go!"

"Sweetie, I—"

Sweetie Belle's nose wedged its way through the final sheet, breaking the seal between it and the bed. She gagged as the smell was set free, and a breeze of air drifted in from beneath the covers, a frigid breath of air that drifted over my head.

I looked down into the icy floor below, and saw my face reflected by the purple light tied to my horn. Not even my eyes were visible in my cold weather gear—the thick goggles dampened the light considerably, and layers of fine brown weave formed an impenetrable layer over my muzzle. A metal cage enclosed my horn, locking the light on top of it and the cloth around my horn in place. Glancing up, I saw that the tunnel continued up into the distance, no light besides my own in sight. I tried to get up, but my muscles felt as if they were made of glass—brittle, immovable. Somewhere behind me, I could have swore that I heard the tip-tapping of crystal on crystal, slowly getting closer...

But when I looked, there was nothing there. Turning back, I moved forward, ignoring the frigid breath of air that drifted over my head.

"Rarity?"

"Hm?" I rotated my head, spotting Sweetie Belle looking up at me from lower in the bed. Her head was framed in harsh light from the room outside. I squinted, my eyes not yet adjusted.

"You spaced out again, right when you were saying something."

"Oh. I'm sorry, Sweetie. I'll be out in just a moment."

Sweetie Belle nodded, and pushed hard with her forelegs to launch out of the bed, leaving a small tunnel in the covers. It was about twenty centimeters across—

There was a way past. There. To the right, a hole, a twenty centimeters across. The wall of frost-crystal drained me of my warmth even from here. It was an awful idea. It would kill me.

tikkita-tikkata-tikkita-tak
The sounds rushed right behind me, going up and to the left, and then stopping.

tic-tic-tic-tic-tic

They were moving back towards me, more slowly than before. I chose the less certain death, and dove at the hole. A crag of crystalline ice bashed into my goggles, cracking one of the lenses, but I kept going, worming into the passage as ear-splitting cracks rang out against the floor I had previously occupied.

I had nearly turned around, before I realized that I didn't have to go through the hole in the blankets that Sweetie Belle had left. In fact, that was ridiculous. I could just take off the sheets. My horn glimmered as the blankets were sloughed off, and air buffeted me from all sides, the light blinding and brilliant...

Air buffeted me from all sides, light blinding and brilliant. I tried to laugh, but I couldn't find the voice, and instead, leaped into the snow, rolling into it. It was warm. Everything was warm. I was free. I reached for my horn, and tore off the bindings, my magic lighting up brilliantly as I lifted the bag tied below my belly-button. I opened it, examined my spoils, wearing a manic grin that was ignorant of everything. One shred of black wool, frozen in a jagged spike. Dozens of gems, glittering a brilliant blue-white. Enough to make me the richest pony in all of Equestria. The wealthiest being on the planet, perhaps the richest of all time. No sentient in all of history had ever conceived of this much fungible good, this much sheer power in a single bag. My smile faded as a thought floated past my ears. "Was it worth it?"

I looked back to the Cold. I felt drawn to it—not out of desire, not out of jealousy, not out of anything that originated in me. I felt drawn to it because the Deep Cold wanted me back. I felt drawn to it because it pulled me in. Because it was hungry.

No. That was my answer. It wasn't worth it. Nothing could ever be worth the Cold. Rather than being taken again by the Cold, I passed out over the sound of my name being called.

I sniffed. It really did smell awful.