OC Slamjam: Fillygree

Snow’d, eh?

A thick bank of clouds approached from the north with all the weight and color of another mountain range. The setting sun painted fire across the boiling cumulus, but the wind that sliced through Evergreen’s uniform told another story. She angled her wings and began a spiral to the ground, where an ice-blue earth pony was fussing with an overstuffed pack in between nervous glances at the sky.

Evergreen touched down on the soft pine needles and straightened her campaign hat. “Why hello there, ma’am. Could you possibly be needing some assistance?”

The mare looked up from her pack and blinked, nervously twisting a lock of blond mane that had escaped her bun. She glanced from the imposing pine forest to the lush grasses that led to the emerald lake, then turned back to the pegasus and said, “You are literally the greenest thing I have ever seen in my life.”

Evergreen giggled and poked at her jade mane with a pine-colored hoof. “Oh, my parents had quite the sense of humor, don’tcha think? Sergeant Evergreen of the Royal Equestrian Rangers, at your service!” She snapped off a quick salute before standing at attention with a grin.

“Well, maybe I could use some assistance with…” The mare looked at the tangle of tent poles and canvas poking out of her bag, then up at the ominous clouds. “Uh, directions to the nearest hotel.”

“Oh, goodness, no. There’s no civilization for a couple day’s hike in any direction. You’re about as deep in the woods as you can get. Go any deeper, and you’re on your way out the other side!” She cut off her laugh when she saw the look on the other mare’s face. Evergreen cleared her throat and straightened her crimson jacket. “What’s your name, miss?”

“Fillygree. If you can point me in the direction of a town, I can make my own way there.”

“I’m afraid not, miss Fillygree. This blizzard is gonna be snowin’ and blowin’ somethin’ fierce. You can’t walk out, not in these conditions. And I don’t think even I could survive out here with what you’ve got in that there pack. Why don’tcha come with me, my cabin’s just over that hill right there.”

Fillygree sighed, then hefted the bag onto her back. “Fine. I suppose a warm cabin does sound nice right about now.”

“THAT is your cabin?” Fillygree asked. She squinted against the snowflakes that drifted out of the whiteness hiding the top of the creaking wooden staircase.

“Yeah buddy,” Evergreen chirped from a few stairs up.

“Your home is on top of a… what is this?”

Evergreen’s eyes traced the stairs as they wound their way around the wooden support beams. “It’s a fire watch tower. It’s where I keep all my things, and it’s where I ride out the worst of the storms, but really, the forest is my home.”

“That’s awfully romantic. You give a lot of stallions that line?”

“Heehee, no,” Evergreen said, trotting up to the first corner. “I don’t get a lot of stallions out this way.” She smiled as she continued up the stairs, mumbling half to herself, “Not a lot of ponies at all, in fact.”

Fillygree stopped at treetop level, panting as she said. “If earth ponies were meant to live in the sky, they’d have been born with wings.”

“Hahahaha—” *snort* “—I think you’re talkin’ about me, eh?” She looked Fillygree over, then pointed a hoof at the mare’s bulging pack. “Why don’tcha leave that right here? You can pick it up on the way back down. I’ve got everything we’ll need.”

Fillygree glared at the pegasus, clearly trying her best to stand up straight while the pack weighed on her spine. “I can handle myself. Thanks.”

Evergreen placed a gentle wing on Fillygree’s shoulder. “Look here, bud. You’re tough, I give ya that, but I don’t think you can make it to the top carrying that pack.”

“I told you,” Fillygree said through gritted teeth as she shrugged off Evergreen’s wing. “I can handle it.” She started up the stairs again, forcing Evergreen to turn around and trot ahead of her.

Evergreen was happy to be moving again, and even happier for the silence. The world was at its most beautiful when snow was falling, in no small part because snow in the air tended to absorb the sounds of the world, leaving her in her own little world of black and white. If she tried hard, she could even ignore the wheezing earth pony who was pretending to be fine. The wooden steps were as cold as the grumbling earth mare but not nearly as icy. Without a warm surface to melt on, the snowflakes simply blew back into the gray sky that now surrounded them on all sides.

The sun had long since disappeared and the moon was surely pouring liquid silver across the top of the cloudscape, but Evergreen couldn’t detect a hint of its light. It was by blind feel and memory that she found her front door and ushered Fillygree inside. Within minutes, a roaring fire was bathing the tiny cabin in its warmth while Fillygree shivered wide-eyed beneath a blanket.

“Soooo,” Fillygree said as Evergreen busied herself over the fire, “Uh, thanks. I would have gotten the tent set up, you know, eventually. But... thanks.”

Evergreen giggled and glanced over her shoulder. “I know these woods can be tough. Even for me, sometimes.”

“So why are you out here?” Fillygree pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Tough living, freak snowstorms, and nopony around for miles.”

Evergreen pulled a pair of mugs off a shelf and glanced back at Fillygree. “Like I said, the forest is my home.”

“Still, though. You don’t exactly seem happy to be here.”

Evergreen stiffened for a moment, slowing the pace of the spoon clinking against the inside of the mug. She tapped the spoon dry, then laid it carefully on the hearth next to a single fork and butter knife. “I'm just not used to entertaining guests, is all.” Scooping up the two mugs in her hooves, she hovered over to the couch and settled next to Fillygree. She held out a steaming mug. “Here. Nothing like a double-double to warm you right up.”

“A what now?”

“Double cream, double sugar.”

“Ah, thanks.” Fillygree took a sip of the nearly-white coffee.

Evergreen slurped at her own mug and smiled, squirming her way deeper into the musty cushions and watching the fire dance. Between the hissing and popping of the burning logs, the whistling wind outside, and the creak of the tower as it swayed in the storm, Evergreen could almost forget that she was sharing the cabin with an overconfident earth pony. Until she started talking again.

“How do you do it?”

Evergreen peered into the steaming brew as if it held the answers to life. “Like, I kinda got used to it, ya know? After a while, it started to seem normal. And now—” she looked up and shrugged “—it's the only way I like my coffee.”

Fillygree looked at her host through bleary eyes and crossed her forelegs over her chest. “How do you make it out here on your own?”

Evergreen shifted her weight on the dusty couch. “Like I said, this is my home.”

“It doesn’t look like a home to me.”

Evergreen's emerald eyes followed Fillygree’s gaze as it traced the bare wooden walls and empty hearth. Even the nightstand was devoid of photographs or mementos. A few utilitarian items had been hoof-carved or cobbled together from baling twine and forest detritus. Plain brown wool blankets on the bed and stacks of canned oats said “government issue” as clearly as if they had been talking. But they hadn’t been talking. Until Fillygree had stumbled in and collapsed shivering on the couch, not a word had been uttered in the cabin for years.

“Like I said,” Evergreen muttered with the hint of a smile playing on her lips, “the forest is my home. This is just a shelter from the storm.”

A sliver of pre-dawn light tickled Evergreen’s eyes while the smell of coffee did the same for her stomach. With a start, she sat up on the couch, letting the blanket slump into a pile on the floor as she spun around. Her bed was made - sloppily, but made. The red flannel pajamas Fillygree had borrowed were resting folded on the foot of the bed. Fillygree’s overstuffed pack was missing, and a map was laid out on the room’s only table.

Evergreen didn’t bother pulling on her crisp red jacket, but took a second to jam the campaign hat over her tangled mane before darting out the door.

Fillygree didn’t turn around, or even flinch, when the door opened. She remained where she stood, draping her forelegs over the railing and staring past the wispy tendrils of forgotten breath into the overcast sky above.

Evergreen leaned on the rail next to her and said, “Just out for a rip, are ya, bud?”

The sun blossomed into the sky, refracting brilliant pink and orange through the snowflakes still making their way to the ground. The air was filled with flashes of diamond fire as one tiny crystal after another managed to catch the sun’s rays. The bottom surface of the clouds briefly resembled a worldwide blanket of cotton candy before the sun rose too high, plunging the world back into a gray twilight.

Fillygree took a deep breath, then spoke without looking back. “I thought I would leave early, get a head start, and hike as far as I could before sundown. I had everything figured out, see?” She motioned toward a pair of snowshoes that were leaning against the side of the cabin. “I even memorized your map.”

“The novelty map of coffee shop locations?”

Fillygree grunted. “Well, that explains a lot.”

“I’m sorry if I was a bit owly last night.” Evergreen shuffled her hooves, then looked at Fillygree and said, “If you don’t mind my asking, how did you end up in the Northwestern Unicorn Range, anyway?”

“It was just supposed to be an overnight hiking trip. Vanderhoof to Waffleton, one night of camping somewhere along the way, then another train ride back to Canterlot.”

“That’s a proper hike. You were planning to spend only one night in the woods?” Evergreen poked the canvas bag still balanced on Fillygree’s back. “How’d that work out for ya?”

“Well, at first I thought I was just hiking slowly. No big deal. I’d just be a day late getting to Waffleton. But I started to get worried around sunset the third day. I thought I’d missed it, so I doubled back.”

Evergreen helped Fillygree lower the pack to the snowy deck. “So, what made you think it was a good idea to run around the woods all by your lonesome?”

“I had it all planned out. Every detail. I knew the train schedules. I memorized all the edible plants in the Unicorn Range. I packed for every contingency. And besides, I wasn’t supposed to be alone, but none of my friends wanted to come. They said the hike was too much.”

“Smart friends,” Evergreen said as she squatted next to the bag and opened the flap, digging around beneath the mangled tent. “What’s this here?”

Fillygree glanced down, then looked back out over the monochrome pines and replied with her chin resting on the guard rail. “Snakebite kit.”

“You sure did pack for everything.” She looked at the jumble of odds and ends still in the bag. “You got a map in there somewhere?”

Fillygree huffed, her breath hanging in the air like an unspoken answer.

“A map kinda seems like a big thing, yeah?”

“I guess I just got caught up in the—”

“The nine different kinds of tweezers?” Evergreen said, waggling an open zippered case.

Fillygree rubbed the back of her neck. “One is for thorns, one’s for bee stings, one—” she flailed her hooves over her head “—Whatever. I thought I’d planned for everything.”

“Then mother nature just came up and gave you a proper cross-check, yeah?”

“Well, I certainly wasn’t planning on running into a blizzard in September.”

Evergreen shrugged. “We’re like the great white north, ya know. We don’t have fancy planned weather like you big city ponies.”

Fillygree rubbed her muzzle with a hoof. “It’s funny, there are legends about spooky places where the clouds move by themselves.”

“Legends?” Evergreen rolled her eyes. “Yeah, you can’t make it on your own out here.”

“But you do. Why can’t I?”

Evergreen shook her head with a smile. “I’m not alone. Not in the woods. You put me back in Vanhoover, surrounded by all those Coasties…” She shivered. “I never felt so alone in my life.”

Fillygree toyed with the end of a strap as she eyed the snow-covered world below. “I think mother nature won this round. I’m not gonna be able to walk through that, am I?”

“No, not for a week or so. Don’t worry, though. We’ve got another good melt before winter hits for sure.” She put a hoof on Fillygree’s shoulder. “Why don’t we go inside, eh?”

Fillygree flicked her tail and huffed, then brushed a swath of snow from the rail before turning around. “Yeah, why don’t we?” She hefted the bag onto her back and followed Evergreen into the cabin. “Say, you don’t happen to have any board games, do you?”

“Ha! I don’t have much use for board games out here.” Evergreen tossed her hat onto the bed and climbed onto the couch.

Fillygree grinned as she began dumping her pack’s contents onto the floor. “Well, it’s a good thing I packed a few travel-size games and a deck of cards.”

Evergreen turned around and leaned over the back of the couch, squinting at Fillygree. “Why would you pack board games for a solo trip into the wilderness?”

“Like I said” —she winked at Evergreen— “I planned for every possibility.”