As Celestia’s sun drew nearer to the middle of its cycle, two ponies crested the rise of an isolated mountaintop on the outskirts of a town just as secluded, both carrying skis on their backs and helmets on their heads. One of the ponies — a snow white stallion with a mane to match — balanced his skis almost perfectly as he trotted along the shelves of snow and ice whilst the other fumbled with his own and tried to keep up. His struggle was not lost on the other stallion however, whose enthusiastic canter slowed considerably when he realized how far behind his friend had fallen.
“Are you alright, Party Bro?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Party Favor insisted, already struggling under the weight of his skis. “Just gotta get used to it is all.”
“You sure? We can stop and rest if you want.”
“I’m fine, honestly. We can keep going.”
“Alright,” was all the other stallion said before he turned and continued onward. Party Favor trudged after him, desperate to keep his teeth from chattering.
The duo made their way along the snowy expanse without a word, Party Favor too cold and too tired to talk and Double Diamond too worried about getting them to their destination to say much of anything. The silent procession of two continued on for — what to Party Favor felt like hours — until Double Diamond stopped abruptly at the top of a particularly steep incline, causing Party Favor to have to stop as well.
The party stallion was about to ask his friend why he’d stopped when he felt his already compromised center of gravity fluctuate as Double Diamond threw a hoof over his shoulder.
“Here we are. The best spot on the entire mountain.” Double Diamond made a grand sweeping gesture with his hoof, effectively drawing Party Favor’s attention toward the stretch of pristine white slopes in front of them, blanketed by a sheen of untainted snowfall. Party Favor had to admit that, for all of the misgivings and the regrets he was beginning to feel about their outing, the view somewhat made up for it.
“Pretty awesome, right?” Double Diamond asked after a heavy tick of silence.
“Alright, I will admit, it is pretty impressive.”
“Plus it’s pretty nice out today, too,” Double Diamond explained as he threw down his skis.
“Yeah...” Party Favor trailed off as he stared down the length of mountain, the slope staring menacingly back at him. Nevertheless, the party pony threw down his own skis and began to strap himself in.
The process took a fair bit longer than he would have liked — due in part to the lack of instruction from Double Diamond — but the stallion finally got himself strapped in and ready to go.
Party Favor staggered to an unsure standing position, his skis flailing wildly underneath him just as Double Diamond slid up to his side.
“You ready for your first legit day on the slopes, Party Bro?” Double Diamond asked, flashing the wobbling stallion an encouraging smile.
“Ready as I’ll ever be I guess.”
“Just remember what I taught you. Keep your head down and your stance wide and don’t lean too far to either side or you’ll fall.”
“Head down, stance wide, don’t lean, got it.” Party Favor took a deep breath, feeling significantly more confident...until he looked down the length of slope again. All at once, the blue stallion’s face went white as the snow under his skis.
“You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” Double Diamond said, putting a reassuring hoof to Party Favor’s shoulder.
“Sorry, it’s just that — ” Party Favor swallowed hard, “ — It looks way steeper now.”
“We can go back to level ground again if you want.”
“Yeah that might — ” Before he could finish his thought, the soft, supple snow underneath the blue stallion’s skis gave way and he was sent careening off the precipice and down the mountainside.
Party Favor could hardly scream as he began to rapidly pick up speed. Scenery that had once thrilled and captivated now zoomed by in a dizzying blur; rocks, trees, and even branches all becoming potential hazards at the speed he was going.
Miraculously, despite the speed at which the stallion was flying down the mountain, he remained almost completely upright, wholly at the mercy of both gravity and centrifugal force — an utterly terrifying minute that lasted until the lip of one of his skis caught on a stray root.
All of the momentum the stallion had accrued on his way down was suddenly and viciously used against him, the abrupt force breaking his foreleg cleanly in two and slamming him into the snow, knocking him unconscious. Despite this, what was left of his momentum continued to carry him down the face of the mountain, the various protrusions and lips of the slope continuing to abuse his unconscious body until he eventually skidded to a halt.
“Party Bro!” Double Diamond yelled, coming to stop next to the unconscious body of his friend and frantically unhooking his skis. The stallion took a moment to assess the damage the fall had done before he made a move, cringing as the severity of his injuries began to sink in.
There was a frightening amount of blood, leaking from various fresh cuts and gashes on the party pony’s body and running in rivulets down his body. The party stallion’s foreleg was in no better shape, bent at an almost impossible angle, hints of bone poking through the blue of his hide.
Double Diamond took a steadying breath and, with the utmost care, lifted his battered friend onto his back. He took a moment to make sure the other stallion was secure before he started further down the slope, where multiple days of exploration and documentation told him would yield the entrance to one of the mountains many interconnected caves and tunnels.
Double Diamond moved slowly down the slope, each of his steps made with an incredible amount of care and foresight so as not to exacerbate any of the grievous injuries his friend was no doubt suffering from. However, even though his steps were as careful and deliberate as he could manage, he could still feel his friend’s dead weight bouncing around awkwardly on his back and he feared that he was doing more harm than good by moving him.
A sinister wind nipped dangerously at Double Diamond’s fetlocks, effortlessly invalidating such thoughts and spurring him to move that much faster. Just as the stallion felt his legs were going to give out and his lungs were about to quit, the entrance to the cave caught his eye through the building storm.
Double Diamond struggled the rest of the way and — with the very last bits of his strength — hauled them both through the mouth and into the cave itself.
Not only was the size of the cave that Double Diamond had shepherded them into reason enough be thankful, but the way that the mouth of it curved so that it blocked out a majority of the rapidly accelerating wind was icing on an already generously sized cake.
However, leaning his friend up against the cave wall, Double Diamond realized he had no time for celebration. Party Favor was still gravely wounded, the extent of his injuries becoming even more apparent to Double Diamond as he took off the unicorn’s helmet.
Blood seeped liberally off of Party Favor’s helmet and dripped onto his still unconscious body, adding to the already impressive amount already collected there. Next, Double Diamond took to wrapping his friend’s badly mangled limb in his scarf, tying the knot tight so as not to let the dressing slip off.
After the leg was tended to the best of his ability, Double Diamond moved to inspect his friend on a more thorough level. The gentle rise and fall of his chest told the sports pony that he was still breathing; that was good. Next, he noticed the injured stallion shiver, an action which he moved to counter by wrapping his comparatively warmer body around his friend.
But there was more than one side to this particular coin. They weren’t totally screwed. Party Favor was still alive enough to try and keep himself warm. That was good, right?
Party Favor shivered even harder. Double Diamond embraced him even tighter.
“D-Diamond.” Party Favor’s voice was thin and jittery. Double Diamond gasped when it reached his ears.
“Party Bro!” The snow white stallion exclaimed, nearly squeezing him in excitement before he remembered the wounds. “Thank Celestia you’re okay.”
“What happened?” Party Favor asked, his voice just barely above a whisper. Double Diamond took a few moments to carefully choose his words.
“You, uh...took a pretty nasty fall out there and got knocked unconscious so I carried you to this cave to wait for you to come to.” Party Favor smiled at him, a gruesome, regretful sort of smile that almost perfectly depicted the horrific aftermath of a stupid stunt.
“How bad is it?” The stallion’s eyes began to move down his injured body toward his leg. Double Diamond blocked him with his body.
“Don’t look at it, okay? Just look at me.”
“No, really. How bad is it?” Party Favor asked, his voice sounding tired yet frantic. Double Diamond tried to calm the other stallion down while simultaneously blocking his view of the injured leg. However, Party Favor was determined to assess the damage for himself. So, with a twist of his head and a flex of his leg, it slid out from behind Double Diamond and into view in all of its gruesome glory.
Party Favor screamed.
“Party bro, party bro, listen to me...listen to me, okay?” Party Favor continued to scream. Double Diamond forced Party Favor to look at him. “Party Favor, listen to me. You’re gonna be fine, okay? You’re gonna be fine.”
The screaming turned to hysterical sobbing as he continued to stare at his badly broken appendage. Double Diamond took a more hooves on approach to stopping him this time, grabbing either side of his friend’s face and holding it still.
“Listen to me Party Bro, you’re gonna make it through this just fine.”
“No I’m not. I’m gonna die out here!” Party Favor whined, tears spilling down his cheeks. “I’m gonna lose my leg!”
“No you’re not, I promise.” The head in his hooves squirmed almost violently but Double Diamond held it unfalteringly still.
“How come it doesn’t hurt?” Party Favor sobbed.
“You’re probably still in shock.” Party Favor started to whimper again, his eyes moving back toward his mangled leg. Double Diamond yanked his head back upward.
“Look at me, Party Favor.” Party Favor’s head rolled lazily back toward Double Diamond, his eyes still spilling over with fresh tears. “I swear to Celestia that you will not die out here and you will not lose your leg, okay?”
Party Favor’s head rolled back onto the icy wall of the cave.
“Okay?!” Double Diamond reiterated, shaking the other stallion’s head to get his attention.
“Okay…” Party Favor sniffed, another violent shiver assaulting him. Double Diamond Squeezed the battered body closer to his own running his hooves up and down the other stallion’s sides.
“Try to get some rest, okay? Tomorrow we can try and make our way back down the mountain and get you to a doctor.”
“Alright.” Party Favor smiled through chattering lips.
Party Favor groaned as the chilling cold inside the cave licked at his exposed coat. Successfully roused from his restless sleep, the party pony flexed his stiff limbs and was quickly reminded of the gruesome state of his left forehoof as hot, searing pain tore through it.
The stallion arched his back and ground his teeth together as he fought valiantly with the the pain. Double Diamond — who had been sleeping soundly up until that point — shot up beside his injured friend, looking panicked and breathless.
“What are you doing? Don’t try to move, you need to conserve your energy.” A single tear slid from the corner of Party Favor’s eye, an airy whine escaping his maw.
“It hurts.”
“I know. But it’s only gonna get worse the more you move around.” Double Diamond danced anxiously on his hooves, glancing toward the mouth of the cave and back at his injured friend. “Just sit tight, I’m gonna go see if I can find something to make a splint out of. Probably see if I can gather up some firewood too.”
“Wait!” Party Favor exclaimed in a breathy huff just as Double Diamond reached the entrance. “Don’t just leave me here by myself.” Double Diamond came to kneel beside his friend, placing a warm, comforting hoof on his forehead.
“Don’t sweat it, Party Bro. I’ll be back before you even know I was gone.” With a firm determination knit into his brow, the snow white stallion got to his hooves again and made his way toward the mouth of the cave.
“Diamond…”
“What is it, Party Bro?” Double Diamond looked back over his shoulder at his friend just in time to see the party pony grimace in pain.
“Promise me you’ll come back safe, okay?”
Double Diamond smiled as genially as he possibly could, given the conditions.
“Promise.”
Darkness met the stallion’s tired body as he exited the cave and stepped out onto the mountainside. It had been close to mid-day when they’d started their excursion, and with Party Favor’s accident and the pair’s brief rest, what little light he had to work with was quickly dwindling. However, despite his rapidly diminishing light source, Double Diamond remained explicitly focused on the task at hoof, his experienced eye scanning the area for any materials he could use to better dress his friend’s egregiously wounded foreleg.
To his left he could see the slope the two had planned on skiing that evening in the distance. Every other conceivable direction peppered with dense brush that darkened the already dim atmosphere further. Double Diamond reasoned that he could gather up a collection of branches, twigs and tree bark to fashion some sort of makeshift splint to better support his friend’s wounded leg — a trick he’d picked up from a friend who lived almost entirely off the land.
A savagely cold wind howled as it ripped its way across the peaks, kicking up errant snow and shearing effortlessly through Double Diamond’s coat, chilling him to the bone. The stallion shivered, pumping his legs to keep himself warm as he traversed the clearing and ducked into the dense, wooded brush surrounding their enclosure.
The athlete quickly went to work, tearing off loose pieces of bark and gathering up an assortment of twigs and branches. Satisfied with his haul, he removed his helmet and placed the debris inside, taking just two steps back toward the cave when the rustle of a bush a few paces ahead caught his eye.
The stallion stopped in his tracks, easing his payload into the snow and crouching down behind a fallen tree branch. He grabbed a decently sharp stick from his bunch and squeezed it tightly in his hoof, bracing himself for an encounter with some sort of ferocious wild animal. A tense moment of waiting happened and just as Double Diamond figured his heart would beat itself still, a tiny, snow white rabbit hopped out from the bramble.
Double Diamond immediately felt himself relax. He returned his stick back to the pile and prepared to stand up when a sharp pang of hunger and the noisy rumble of his empty stomach made themselves known.
Double Diamond clutched his stomach with a hoof, a breathy moan escaping his muzzle. He realized that between Party Favor’s injuries and them having to wait out the earlier blizzard, neither of them had eaten a thing since that morning. Another particularly painful jab of hunger stabbed him in the stomach and his eyes immediately turned to the rabbit who was aimlessly chewing on a root not ten feet away. Without a second thought, Double Diamond rearmed himself with the stick and dropped to the snow in a low, predatory crawl.
The snow was absolutely frigid to his already chilled body, but he had to keep himself as low to the ground as possible if he wanted to avoid being seen before he was even close. Forcing the now nearly bone-chilling cold out of his mind for the time being, Double Diamond steadily crept closer to his quarry, his every muscle tense and his breath almost completely silent.
He was no more than five yards away when a rustle in the brush to his right caught both his and his prey’s attention. Double Diamond went rigid, hoping to Celestia that the rabbit didn’t suddenly become aware of his presence. A deathly still nothingness transpired before the rabbit’s guard dropped and it went back to munching on grass. Double Diamond exhaled a staunchly held breath and continued his advance.
Double Diamond had covered no more than two yards before another rustle — louder and more insistent than before — shook the brush to his right again. Immediately, Double Diamond froze, remaining absolutely still while his mark’s ears swiveled atop its head. Then — after what felt like hours to the starving athlete — the rabbit’s guard dropped and Double Diamond once again resumed his approach.
He’d traversed another two yards and was finally close enough to strike when something tore out of the bush and slammed into his side, effectively scaring away his bounty and sending him careening into a nearby tree. The athlete blinked the stars out of his eyes just in time to see the snarling visage of a wolf meet his gaze. Double Diamond sucked a gasp through his teeth, his muscles becoming tense as an entirely different kind of chill shot up his spine.
The two hunters took a long moment to size each other up, the wolf looking angry, vicious, and starving while Double Diamond seemed on the verge of passing out from fear. However, somewhere amidst that very same budding fear, there was a stark realization. The realization that If he were to die there — gutted and ripped to unidentifiable shreds — then Party Favor would surely perish as well, and there was no way he was about to let that happen.
Swallowing down what little of his dread he could, the sports pony did a quick survey of his surroundings. Noticing the stick he’d been carrying moments prior lying on the ground not two feet away, he made a move to grab it. However, the wolf’s predatory instincts were sharp and the second he saw Double Diamond twitch, he growled low and threatening in his throat which cowed Double Diamond firmly back against the tree.
Feeling out of options, Double Diamond theorized that his best bet was to make a mad grab for the stick and hope that he could take out one of its eyes so that he could get away. But it seemed fate had other plans as another wolf — equally as menacing and hungry looking as the first — stalked out of the bush and went to stand beside its pack mate.
Double Diamond offered the wolves a wry smile as he tried to rationalize that his situation couldn’t possibly get any worse. However, it seemed fate had decided to deliver him one last particularly hard kick in the balls as a third wolf — who just so happened to be carrying the same rabbit Double Diamond himself had been hunting in its mouth — came to join its compatriots to bring the total of rabid, bloodthirsty killing machines to three.
It was at that moment that Double Diamond became startlingly aware of his own mortality. Jarringly conscious of the fact that if he didn’t do anything within the next few moments, he would surely be gored to death by the three savage beats standing before him. So, confident that he couldn’t fight the three hunters, he did the only other thing he could think of.
Utilizing the exceptionally toned leg muscles his many years of skiing had granted him, Double Diamond took off; the terror he’d been trying his best to stave off being effectively muted by a massive outpouring of adrenaline. However, he hadn’t expected to get away so easily, and, true to form, the wolves were hot on his hooves not a second later, so close that he could practically feel their breath on his flanks as he ran.
The muscles in Double Diamond’s legs burned and strained as he pushed himself to his absolute limit, vaulting over a fallen log and swerving in between the trunks of some particularly large trees. But no matter how hard he pushed himself and no matter what dexterous maneuvers he employed to try and throw them off, he could still hear the trio of hunters as though there were right on top of him.
Nevertheless, Double Diamond continued to run, so consumed by the need to survive that he hadn’t even realized their heated chase had come full circle until he exploded out of the dense underbrush to meet the now terrifying openness of the clearing that housed the cave he and Party Favor had claimed earlier in the day. Feeling winded and desperate, the athlete briefly considered ducking into said cave until flashes of a gravely injured Party Favor blinked into his head and he was forced to pull away, leading his pursuers away from the cave and back into the darkness of the brush.
Double Diamond could feel himself growing more and more out of breath as his life or death sprint continued, causing his breaths to shallow and dulling the edge on the adrenaline that continued to push him forward. He knew he couldn’t run forever and that it was only a matter of time until one of them caught up.
Feeling hopelessly out of options for the second time that day, Double Diamond decided then and there that he had to try something bold if he wanted to shake the mangy hunters. Steeling himself, the sports pony locked eyes with a bulky looking tree a few yards ahead. Flexing the aching muscles in his legs, he shut his eyes and made a dive for its trunk, wrapping his hooves as tightly as he could around its base and scrambling up it as quickly as he could.
Unfortunately for him, this is just the opportunity his pursuers had been waiting for, and before he made any significant progress he felt the sharp, jagged teeth of one of the wolves come down hard on his right hind leg, shearing easily through the skin and sinking themselves into the soft flesh.
Double Diamond let out a pained cry as he was ensnared, but the adrenaline still coursing through his veins offered him a crystal clear sort of presence of mind even in such a dire situation, and right as the wolf began to try and tear him away from his perch, he reared up his other hind leg and brought it down hard onto the wolf’s snout.
The canine let out a noise somewhere between a yelp and a whine as it was struck, immediately releasing Double Diamond’s leg and stumbling back into its pack mates. Double Diamond wasted no time reveling in the sweet revenge, shimmying up the tree as far as he could as fast as he could, all but collapsing on the first branch he came across the looked sturdy enough to hold his weight as the exhaustiveness of his life or death sprint finally hit him.
As he lie there trying desperately to feed his starving lungs, he could hear the recursive scrape of claws on bark as the wolves tried to climb up after him, only to realize they weren’t exactly equipped to climb trees. Perturbed, but not dissuaded, the canines opted to instead station themselves around the base of the tree and wait patiently until the earth pony stallion made a move.
Double Diamond sighed as he realized that, even though he was temporarily safe from the looming jaws of certain death, he was also well and truly stuck without any sort of viable escape route. Not only that, but as the sun continued to dip lower and lower behind the mountains, it graced the already freezing landscape with an absolutely gelid touch of cold; and without the potent mixture of fear and adrenaline surging through his veins, the severity of it hit him in full force, making him shiver harder than he ever thought possible.
As he hugged his hind hooves as close as he could to his chest to try and conserve his body heat, his thoughts idly drifted to Party Favor and the promise he’d made earlier that evening.
“S-sorry, party bro,” Double Diamond mused through chattering teeth, his eyes settling on the bloody mess of a limb that was his right hind leg. “I guess I won’t be back as soon as I thought.”
