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The phoenix was a calm little bird and it did not seem to sleep. Dry Boy periodically looked back to it standing on his back and it simply just stared back at him. Dry Boy looked at the further distance, his legs were already growing heavily sore from all the walking and the wight carrying. The jacket wasn't the lightest, and the machine gun wasn't a submachine gun. His snowshoes weren't so comfortable either and they really started to bruise up his hoofs since he's put them on. The deep night was beautiful, he looked up to the stars and wondered about the words that the Creator had spoken to him "Eyes as wondrous as the depths of the night sky" the stars glistered with pizzazz, and they shined like well defined golden and silver statues, but also like sprinkling and purifying water or wonderful carvings of clean and crisp ice. The sky was big, how could they fit into just two eyes?

"This pony must be well known for her eyes then, if the entirety of outer space is in her eyes" Dry Boy said to the phoenix. He looked back to see if the phoenix heard him, but the phoenix made no response or any kind of motion. Dry Boy looked forward again and yawned. He was getting tired, his brain started to malfunction when he tried speaking to the bird but couldn't even complete words and just mumbled them with his lazy lips. Dry Boy used a spell he learned in the special forces, an energy boosting spell. He had used it only on one operation on a stakeout for a high priority target, the only difference is Dry Boy was in the same spot for two weeks in a humid region and here he is on the move, using more energy, in a frozen region. He lifted his head and walked even faster with the energy spell waking him up from potentially dropping into a slumber. Dry Boy saw in the really far distant distance, dark clouds and a drape falling from the clouds onto the ground, and knew that it was the center drift. Dry Boy estimated to be about ten furlongs away. Dry Boy still held on to that distance and when he closed in about half the distance from where he was, he could already feel the raging winds beat against the inside of his hood and forcing it to blow off. Dry Boy grabbed a hold of the phoenix and held it tightly underneath his coat. The wind forced him to walk on two legs, he held the phoenix with his right foreleg and held his hood with his other. He had to maintain his position for a moment to use his magic to take off his snowshoes  and tie them to his bag, then he continued with his energy spell and walked forward fighting against the growling winds. It wasn't until about one furlong away that the snow kicked in and really started to tear at his flesh and maul him like a vicious mutt. Dry Boy saw the fury of snow come to attack him like the battlefront of an ancient lunar republic brigade. He turned his head and shut his eyes and once the snow had ensnared him, the coat was nearly useless and he felt the harshness of ice frosting his fur up like a Popsicle. Only his snow pants were able to keep the lower half of his body protected. The phoenix underneath, felt the harsh cold and it heated it's own feather to stay warm, but to also keep Dry Boy warm. Dry Boy had to stop walking again and use his magic to flip down his goggles that he also grabbed from one of the stores in the village. Dry Boy continued his energy spell and walked forward.

The center drift was dark, stormy, and loud. There was no lighting or beast that roared but the storm itself was the beast and it did just roar, but it pounced on you like a vigorous timber wolf and split your flesh but also consumed your spirit. Dry Boy's spirit was strong though, because with him he had One who was eternally stronger, the spirit of the Creator. The legends of the center drift were true. ponies once told hearing the winds talk to them like voices of evil spirits, seeing pictures formed by the snow of frightful and taunting beings made to only discourage you. Even if you were alone in the storm, you would still manage to lose somepony, and that somepony would be your own self, as if your soundness was stolen by the winds and your peace frozen. Dry Boy began to hear those voices, mocking him, taunting him.

"Give up, white horse. To whom do you go for? A mare? HAHAHAHAHA! Heroic war hero falling desperate for his virginity to finally be taken" The laughter grew and grew and grew, as he walked forward he saw something being formed by the blowing snow in front of him, he saw himself walking backwards in front of him "Just go back. Why waste your time going for somepony you don't know when you have mares waiting for you back in the comfort of your hometown? Why do I even want to go back to Equestria? I will only encounter more poverty if I am denied from the Canterlot castle. I will go there and only find the same as I have lived back home, youthful foolishness, poverty, and then suicide again but only this time I will remain dead. I mean really, you hunk dunky, what are you going to get from following the light? You will only blind yourself and no longer see. You think happiness awaits you? You think you're gonna get out of here alive? You're nothing but a loser, and you will die here as a loser"

Dry Boy being annoyed by the thing that was in front of him, he found strength in his voice to look back at the being and shout something back at him: "Not so, demon. The Lord is my shepherd, and I will not want the things you tempt me with. He makes me to lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul, he leads me in the path of righteousness for his name's sake" Dry Boy looked up to the sky and cried out to his Creator "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil! For you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my horn with oil, and my cup overflows" Dry Boy then looked down in front of him again but the being was gone and he said "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of Lord forever". The rest of the walk was difficult, but it was calm however. The voices had gone away, and Dry Boy still remained mentally sound, all he heard was the howling winds of a million wolves and the only thing he fought was nature, and nature was slowly starting to prevail against him. Time was different in the center drift, it was in the arctic and since it was winter, there was no sunlight until summer.

Dry Boy walked and walked, his back snowshoes didn't help because they were still getting buried underneath the snow, and the only thing keeping Dry Boy warm was the phoenix underneath his jacket. The food in his bag was determined to be no good after the journey, that is, if he even finishes the journey. An exceptionally mightier wind hammered against the two creatures and with a shocking fright, the phoenix underneath Dry Boy's coat dug it's claws into Dry Boy's fur to grab a tight and good grip so that it would not slip out from underneath the coat. Dry Boy screamed from the piercing pain, but laughed afterwards once the claws were out-felt by the biting of the brisk arctic. Dry Boy's horn however was not as determined as Dry Boy, and it's magic started to short out slowly. In total Dry Boy walked in the beginning of the arctic for three days, and he walked in the center drift for what was currently two days, but he did not now how many days he walked because when he looked up all he saw was a night sky throughout most of the arctic. Without his energy spell, he would travel no further than five seconds in weather like this especially when he's been walking this far on just two legs with so much weight. Time came quickly and his magic was worn out. Being worn out of magic made him tired the more, he tried getting some nutrients in his system to build up more magic by eating something from his bag quickly while facing the opposite direction of the wind, but he had no energy at all. He struggled to untie the bag, but his vision became hazy and his brain drifted into fuzziness, his muscles became numb and he felt no more pain at a all, he felt nothing at all. The storm got the best of him, and the blizzard ran over him like a dump truck over a squirrel. The bag ripped open because Dry Boy had loosened the knotting by trying to get food, and the last thing Dry Boy saw was the blanket being yanked out of his hoofs and the food getting lost into the storm.

Dry Boy was knocked out, he did not know what was going on around him but there wasn't much to know. His body lay there in the snow and was soon starting to be buried underneath the snow that had quickly built up to where the tip of his horn was the only thing that popped out of the snow. The phoenix still underneath his coat nudged and nudged to try and move, but it could not break free from his pressing weight. The Phoenix was the only one of the two that was still conscience, he kept his heat radiating from his feathers so the white pony on top of him could still live. The only thing the phoenix was able to do is fall asleep with the big pony, but as the phoenix snuggled into the inside of the coat, it heard thumps coming from above the snow, something like hoof steps onto the snow. Two mighty large paws drilled through the snow with a fierce jab and dug out a huge chunk of snow to be able to see the orange and brown fabric of Dry Boy's coat. The large beast gripped onto the coat with it's teeth and pulled the raggy and spindly body out of the snow and set it aside. The phoenix felt fearful and planned to pop out of the jacket if it was ever breached by the creature, but the jacket was never opened. Instead the humongous beast lifted the corpse of the coated pony with it's snout and managed to slide underneath it so that the body slept on the back of the animal.  Then the beast walked southward to the end of the storm and eventually it made it out of the center drift, where the winds died down and and there was finally a steady calm. Time passed and it was the next day, but the sun was still not out. Dry Boy finally received enough sleep to gain enough energy and he was awakened by the heat of the phoenix underneath him, burning the fur on his belly. To his surprise he woke up, riding a giant polar bear across the arctic plains. He took time to think about what was in his sight, but he took no time to give thanks for the gift of another breathe of the next day. Dry Boy also remembered how back in the Caneighdian War, he rode back to his base on the back of a giant polar bear, which is why he famously known as the Ceneighdian Polar Bear. He thought about how he laid there back in the center drift as a dead pony, to be forgotten and loved by no pony but he was loved by One that is beyond pony and back there he was lost but now here he is found. Underneath death he was determined to die but by the faith of Love he was redeemed to continue in life. As he sat up with a cracking back, he straightened himself and the phoenix came out of his coat and stood on Dry Boy's shoulder and as a growing phoenix's yawn is, it screeched a mighty bird's howl. Dry Boy looked into the distance and bathed himself in the liberation from the clutches and imprisonment of the storm and as he stared further beyond of what is visible he was able to see the unseeable and he said to himself "Oh, how He loves me" A wind flew through Dry Boy's main and his hair flowed along with it. Dry Boy shed a tear as he looked into distant plains that sat underneath the open heavens and he uttered with a crying whisper "Freedom"