Fimbulvetr

Chapters

9: Muninn
10: Huginn
11: Loki
12: Valkyrja
13: Höðr
14: Baldr
15: Járnviðr
16: Mímisbrunnr
17: Dís
18: Völva
19: Urðr
20: Verðandi
21: Skuld
22: Niðavellir
23: Gjallarbrú
1: Niflheimr
2: Hel
3: Hvergelmir
4: Níðhöggr
5: Jötunheimr
6: Miðgarðr
7: Griðungur
8: Fenrir

9: Muninn

The world was a dark place filled with pain. At moments the pain spiked, and he felt like crying. Other moments brought a bit of relief, and he fell even deeper into sleep that was his world. In his dreams he saw himself driving somewhere on the forest road, dodging elk jumping from the trees. He dreamed about soaring through the skies and trying to catch the wolves that pursued the chariots bearing the sun and moon. He dreamed of laying in the branches of the enormous tree, looking at a huge winged cow circling below, just above fluffy clouds. Below the clouds, the lush forests were consumed by the green flames with elk antlers on top.

Soft whimpering that finally woke him up was the most pitiful sound he had ever heard. It went on and on, drilling into his aching head and driving the last traces of sleep away. The whimpers were at times covered by a deep and tired voice, but it was hard to understand the words. He felt that he was laying on a soft surface, and something was gently pressing on him from above. His whole body was stiff and sent pangs of pain from even the slightest thought of moving. Gathering all of his courage and willpower, Vsevolod made an inhuman effort and opened one eye.

The room that came into focus around him was small. The walls and the ceiling were painted in grayish-white color, with a small window at one of the walls and a door at the opposite one. The whole contents of the room were two wooden beds and one tiny table. One bed was the one Vsevolod was laying in. The other was occupied by a thick wrap of gray cloth with a yellow beak poking from it. The wrap was the source of the whimpering. It also shivered slightly from time to time, but the movement was so weak it was hardly noticeable. Next to the bed with the wrap, slumped a large figure of a pony stallion, somewhat resembling Teplovoz, but smaller and dirty yellow instead of brown. Another difference was a short horn parting stallion's short blue mane. The pony was snoring softly, mumbling something incoherent from time to time. The air of the room was filled with heavy stench of something medicinal.

In an attempt to wake the pony up, Vsevolod opened his mouth, but instead of the words, he was only able to produce a soft squeaking noise, hardly above the whisper. His throat was dry, his tongue was heavy as a brick, and whatever made him able to contort his beak wasn't responding. Even the minuscule effort like that drained him of all his energy and nearly forced him to close the eye and fall back to sleep. Yet, the sound was enough to wake the sleeping pony.

The stallion grunted, snorted and suddenly rose to his hooves. Looking at the wrap before him, he sighed and lowered his horn. Vsevolod was too tired to be shocked, when the horn lit up with the purple light. After a moment, the wraps also lit up with the same light, and started to slowly unwrap on their own. The smell suddenly became even stronger. The stallion sneezed, then flicked his head, and the window creaked, opening a bit. The wraps continued to slide off, and soon, revealed Helga, covered in some sticky substance over all of her many wounds, and with a rough splint tied to her broken wing. The griffin was shaking a bit, and made a movement like she wanted to push herself from the pony, but it was so weak, that it looked almost like just another tremble. Stallion sighed at that.

"You know, for a one to go onto the Great Hunt at your age, and with a younger brother to boot, you sure are good at acting like you are scared of plain old unicorn," said the pony in a deep raspy voice. His Russian wasn't even slightly accented, unlike Teplovoz's or Copeinik's. "I'm not going to eat you, stop quivering like that. You'll only disturb your wounds, and you had lost enough blood as it is. Be thankful to the kid, by the way, he might be small but he saved your stupid life after you almost caused him to lose his. Still can't believe he brought that antler with him, you know. What is it, a family heirloom or something?"

While talking, the pony quickly checked over all of the wounds, applying more of the substance with a hoof at places. Finishing this he wrapped Helga back into the cloth, and turned to Vsevolod.

"Now with you, Wolf Flank. Let good doctor Podorozhnik check what that nasty wolf left you to remember you by... Oh, you are finally awake! Made me worry, your wounds are not nearly that serious! Now, does it hurt anywhere?"

Vsevolod blinked, then made another attempt on speech. This time he made a bit louder croak, but the anything more was beyond him. Still, even that pitiful sound seemed to please the unicorn.

"Hear the mighty roar of the great hunter! Don't strain yourself, kid. After what you did... Let me tell you, you either become the greatest hunter of all times, and maybe a king of some griffin tribe, or die really young. My money are on the second option, but if you ever become king, I'm reserving my right on 'I told you!' dance. Now, be a good griffon and go to sleep." With that, his horn flashed and Vsevolod felt that he can't stay awake anymore. The dream of pink fluffy minotaur dancing on a rain cloud wasn't too bad, though.

When he awoke next time, the pain in his body had receded, concentrating mostly in a single area on his hind leg. The unicorn was nowhere to be seen, and part of the wraps on Helga were missing, leaving her head and the good wing uncovered. She wasn't whimpering anymore, instead darting around the room with her eyes, and weakly moving the wing. When Vsevolod raised his head from the pillow, she looked at him and let out a squeak. He made an attempt to stand up, but the wave of dizziness quickly put an end to that. Instead, he waved to Hel with a claw and croaked.

"Hello there. Good to see you alive, my friend. It seems that..." he stopped to wait out the sudden coughing fit, and then continued. "...seems that we kind of won. I... damn, if one bite hurts that much... not envy you at all."

Hearing him speak, Helga visibly calmed down and stopped her attempts to move. She chirped sadly, waved her wing and relaxed. Then she pushed her head into the pillow and suddenly began to cry. The sight of proud Helga crying was too much for Vsevolod, and in a short moment he found himself crying as well. When the unicorn came in half an hour later, they were still sobbing in unison.

"Oh great, not that!" groaned the stallion, looking at the scene. "The last thing I need today is a collective breakdown here. Now, now, stop this at once! I brought some food that you might like! Now, who's a hungry grifflet?"

Vsevolod slowly stopped crying, turning to the pony. He attempted to smile, and shakily raised his claw. Helga wasn't as happy. She froze at the sound of the unicorn's voice and started to tear a hole in him with her scared eyes. The pony entered the room, followed by two flying cups. The smell from the cups suggested that there was some kind of broth in them. Vsevolod felt his mouth watering from the smell - a welcome change to its previous parched state. One of the cups floated to him, and before he knew it, it was already empty. His hunger had only increased by the small amount of food, so he offered the cup back to the unicorn and, with the most miserable expression he could muster, asked: "More?"

The unicorn was attempting to get some food in Helga, who, apparently, decided to die hungry and undefeated. He was a bit startled by the speed the food was gone, but quickly composed himself and chuckled. "I see some griffin is ready to recover, at least! Now, if you wait a moment while I get your sister fed, I'll see what I can do for you. She needs the food, badly, and she's posing a challenge every time I try to feed her. I'm starting to wonder if she lost her mind or something like that."

Vsevolod looked at Hel, pondering what he can do about it. He didn't want her to suffer, and he knew how important the food is to the sick. Then, a memory struck him. He inhaled deeply, looked Helga right into the eyes, and with all the authority he could produce, screeched: "Kek! Kek! Kerrrk!"

Helga blinked twice, turned to the unicorn, put her beak into the cup and promptly swallowed all of its contents. She then sighed contently and fell on the bed snoring, fast asleep. The pony looked at her with disbelief, and then turned to Vsevolod, raising an eyebrow.

"What was... that? I've met my share of griffins, kid, and none of them used that language... is it a language? Do you even speak... wait, you just did. Argh, it's too early for this... this. I need a drink." With that, the unicorn stumbled out of the room, taking the cups with him. For several minutes silence was interrupted only by Helga's snoring and distant clanking of glass. Then the pony returned, in much better mood, reeking of alcohol and carrying a bottle and a big bowl of the same broth. He handed the bowl to Vsevolod, sat at his bedside, and peered into the griffin's eyes with his already slightly misaligned ones.

"Now, little one, you will tell good doctor Podorozhnik everything he wants to know, and let's hope he'll be able to recall it all tomorrow. First of all, what's your name?"

Vsevolod took a good sip out of the bowl, cleared the throat still a bit sore from speaking Helga, and introduced himself.

"My name is Vsevolod. Before you ask, she's Helga, or, at least, I call her that."

"Interesting," nodded the good doctor, taking the bottle to his lips and sipping a bit. "You call her that, eh? How does she call herself then?"

"Heel-ha!" screamed Vsevolod, startling the pony and waking up Helga. She opened an eye at him, chirped, and went back to sleep. "Though, I'm pretty sure now, it means 'Fly, you moron!'. She used the same screech every time she tried to get me airborne."

For that, Podorozhnik took a much bigger gulp from the bottle. He looked at Helga again, and Vsevolod was quite certain that there was a lot of fear in that look.

"So... kid, be honest here. You have brought me the Wild one to heal. You claim that you can speak to her, command her, even named her 'Fly, you moron', and you are still alive???" At the end the good doctor was practically screaming in panic.

"I still don't know what the Wild one is," said Vsevolod, scared by the drunk unicorn scream. "Teplovoz wasn't clear of what it means, and Helga was away at the time. Playing with the elk, I think. The question just never really came up. I found... all right, she found me when I was leaving the Red Square. She keeps around since then. Saved my life three times at least. A good friend, if you prefer the ones who don't talk much."

The unicorn just stared at him in disbelief. He then had carefully put the bottle away. He rubbed his eyes with a hoof, and then gave Vsevolod the most intense and very sober glare.

"You went and domesticated a feral griffin right in the middle of the Forbidden City, then had her play with the elk. As if that was not enough for you, you then traveled from there to here on foot, murdered an entire wolf pack with your bare claws, and then sprinted for six kilometers carrying the griffin nearly twice your weight, while also carrying that stupid antler with you? Kid, if I wasn't the pony who removed that wolf's head from your flank, I would've had hard time believing you. I still do. Every single part of this story is impossible."

"And the part where I'm the 35-years old human with PhD in philology and applied linguistics, currently talking with a freaking unicorn while enduring quite a lot of pain in my furry cat butt is possible since when, exactly?"

"Since May, 23, 2015," sighed Podorozhnik, "You don't know anything, do you?"

"There was that pony near Moscow, he told me something happened that 'made the world proper'," answered the griffin, calming down. "He wasn't speaking Russian too well, so it was hard to understand what it was."

"Just my luck," sighed the unicorn again. "I guess, I would be the one to give you The Talk, then. I just so love crushing people's dreams and hopes, you know. Went to be a doctor for that. All right, kid, listen well.

"I don't really know what happened back in 2015, I'm not sure anyone knows. Yes, there's Archivists claiming they do. Then there's Umbrals, who also had some ideas of their own. Don't forget the Deerfolk and their beliefs, and don't even start on the old human religions and sects, each with their own explanation. Whatever it was, it took all of the world's population save for scant few, and made us all disappear. It then turned everyone who's left into different creatures. Ponies, like me, griffins, like you, minotaurs, changelings, dragons, Diamond Dogs... The list is quite big, and almost every year somepony discovers something new. Archivists say all of us were made into something from another world, so we can live in this one properly. Lunatics.

"Now, you might want to be ready for that, it all happened nine hundred twenty two years ago. Don't try to interrupt me, I know your next question. It's the same as mine in the same situation. 'How I'm here now', right? Right. Well, that's also part of what happened. Those who disappeared that day, return. Rarely, and nopony had found out how to predict it or how it chooses who'll return and when. They just pop into existence where they disappeared. Changed the same way those who remained behind were. That's what happened to you, that's what happened to me. That's what will happen to everyone who disappeared back then, I suppose. But if you are hoping to meet your family, friends... don't look at me like that, everyone does at first, forget it. They could've returned ages ago. Or will come back in ten thousand years. No one knows." The stallion looked at the bottle, but shook his head and continued.

"The world has changed. Those who remained, built their new lives, grew their children. Those children had their own children. Those born to this changed world had never seen the one that was before it. Only the ruins - for those born in the early years, only the big mounds of rubble for the current generation.

"That brings us to your friend. Her tale is a sad one, for she's one of the most horrible victims of the new world order. Your new kind is very independent, very proud and, sadly, very well adapted to living alone in the wild. In the time of the humans, most of the natural predators were nearly eliminated from the forests. It was easy for the newly returned griffons to take their place. The largest flying predator after the dragons, they simply had no competition. So, where ponies and others had to fight for the survival, griffons just lived. Of course, they also had kids, and they taught those kids all that is needed to live in the forest... but hardly anything else. The third generation was nearly unable to speak. The fifth were animals. Smart, very smart, very dangerous animals. Only those griffins who remained among ponies remained sapient. The Wild, though, still remain in the wilds. Since they are not sapient, every creature that is not griffon is food for them, so they hunt hares and ponies alike. Nowadays, your kind is strictly forbidden from living on your own. Any griffon caught in the forest that can't speak, is eliminated. The Deerfolk are less scrupulous at that. They just kill every griffon they can catch, they are even trying to attack those living with ponies. Many attempts were made to recivilize them, but your little stunt here," he pointed at softly snoring Helga, "is closest anyone ever came to that. If you would be able to keep her under control, there might still be hope for the Wild. That is, if the good ponies of this town won't kill her, and you, when you won't be able to keep your secret anymore. Don't worry, I won't tell, I want to see it to the end. Others are mostly born in this time, though, and don't really get the idea of pet alligators."

With that, the unicorn chuckled, grabbed the bowl and the bottle in his horn light, and added: "And now, go to sleep. I'm still a doctor, and you are still my patient. If you want to recover, you need to sleep more. That's how you catbirds function."

Vsevolod was ready to object, but his eyelids were heavy, the moment he closed his eyes, he was immediately asleep.

10: Huginn

Georgy, the Prince of Yelets, was huge. Vsevolod hadn't seen any adult griffon before. He had no idea how big he might end up when he'll grow up again, but he had his doubts that he'll ever be that big. Or that fit, for that matter. This one was a warrior, and it showed. He also wasn't half-eagle, like Helga, but instead, half-owl. His front resembled great Eurasian eagle-owl, and his rear was akin to snow leopard, with white fur, black dots and long bushy tail. He was also cheerful as a kid on a New Year's party.

The reason for his cheer - as well as for his presence in the hospital - was that now, when Vsevolod was finally awake enough to speak, he was to be punished for his participation in the Great Hunt, one most forbidden activity of griffinkind after living alone in the wilds. He was already found guilty, the wolf head removed from his hindquarters was proof enough. Now, the Prince had to choose the punishment. As Podorozhnik explained, the Prince wasn't a title for a ruler, the town had an elected mayor for that. Instead it was more like a chief of combined police and self-defense forces. He also was often called upon as a judge and a tax collector. Unfortunately, the unicorn had little time to prepare Vsevolod to the meeting, and so his explanation was mostly about the office of the Prince, not about the griffon holding the title himself.

Georgy moved into the room as a happy avalanche, taking up what little space there was with his formidable body and filling the remaining gaps with his commanding presence. Helga gave him only one glance and stopped moving. Vsevolod wasn't sure that she even blinked once for the entire time the Prince was in the room. Thankfully, Podorozhnik told Georgy that she was still too weak to talk, so he wasn't even looking at her. Vsevolod, on the other hand...

"Greetings, my boy!" happily roared the huge griffin, grabbing one of Vsevolod's claws and almost shaking it off his body. "Heard you are criminal today, eh? Going to big scary forest all alone? Risking life and limb to prove that you are real warrior? The shame, boy, the shame!"

For someone not knowing the language, the whole chiding sounded as if the Prince suddenly decided to award Vsevolod with the keys to the city at the least, not to punish him for a serious crime. Younger griffin had some trouble getting the real meaning himself - while Georgy wasn't as bad in Russian as Teplovoz, he still had rather thick accent and, at times, switched to more 'modern' language without noticing.

"Can't leave that unpunished, now can we?" continued the Prince, sitting down and looking at Vsevolod with keen interest. "First time I have to punish someone so young for this. You got potential. You got big future! If you ever decide to join my druzhina, you are welcome! Of course, think about growing up a bit first, but even now we can find a job for you. Now, sorry to cut it short, but duty calls! Get well!"

With that, the huge griffin stood up, winked at Vsevolod, handed him a familiar looking wolf head, and left. When the doctor returned to the room several minutes later, the shocked griffin still sat stunned on his bed, trying to process what had happened.

"Good old Gosha is too much for you, it seems?" asked the unicorn, chuckling, while he went to Helga to check on her bandages. "He's a bit too much for the most, but really nice guy when you get to know him. With some quirks, sure, he's a local after all. He seems to like you, and you should think about the offer. It's a good job for a griffon, and the only one that allows your kind to be out of town often."

"But... punishment?" asked Vsevolod weakly, inspecting the wolf head. It looked like it was carefully worked on by a good taxidermist - cleaned of the parts that can rot, stuffed with something and sewed shut. It was almost ready to be mounted on a wall. It also looked lifelike enough to cause him to wince from a sharp pang of pain in his flank.

"Wait, you... of course you don't, where was my head!" sighed Podorozhnik, absentmindedly stroking Helga's head, producing content purr from the feral. "Your punishment is that from now on you are considered an adult by every griffon. You have proven that you can care for yourself and protect yourself from the world around you, so there's no point in you being a child. "

"That's a punishment?" blinked Vsevolod, putting the wolf head away and turning to the unicorn. "You said it's one of the worst crimes, and that's it?"

"It's more than enough. As a child, you had the right to ask for a certain amount of care from the town. A place to sleep, food, education - children get those if they don't have parents. Now that you are an adult, you had lost that right. You'll have to work, pay taxes, and answer for your crimes as a proper citizen. You are not allowed to marry, though, that is forbidden until you are fifteen. You are also not permitted to leave the town unless you are in a group of three or with a non-griffon. If you do, your new friend Gosha would hunt you and drag you back... and believe me, he's very good at it. Remember that when running away."

"Why would I run away?" asked Vsevolod, a bit shocked on how sure Podorozhnik sounded about that.

"Because from my observations, you like to be alive," shrugged the unicorn, finishing his check up on Helga and turning to the younger griffin. "I've spent some time yesterday talking with ponies in town and... You see, Yelets is a nice place, especially in summer, but beside me there's only four other Returns in it. That's counting yourself. I can understand you, but I've lived sixty years being a human and a vet. The local breed is, on the other hoof, a most xenophobic bunch. Funny, considering there's at least five different species living here, and that's if you count all five kinds of ponies as one. They have their reasons, but that won't help you any."

Vsevolod was feeling his eyes getting wet as he tried to suppress sudden tears. After all his experiences in the forest, he was finally in a place he could call his new home... and now it was taken away from him. Yes, there was an option to abandon Helga to the raging crowds and live here, but he knew he couldn't do it. Sapient or not, she was the only true friend he had in this new, brutal world. She nearly died protecting him. Leaving her to die was out of the question. Other thing was not, so he asked:

"How... how we escape?" His voice trembled, as the tears were threatening to burst through his resistance.

"When your feral friend is healthy enough, you will wait until I get drunk again, steal some supplies and run away in the dark of the night," answered the stallion with a smirk. "You would also mention something about returning to your family in the far north, beyond the Forbidden City, to cover your real escape route to the south-east. Of course, for this entire time you and your nefarious older sister will fool poor gullible me into believing she's too weak to move, so I won't let our dear Prince talk with her. You see, I failed to mention to him that you are a Return. He thinks that you are from one of the other towns, probably Istra. There's a lot of griffins there and their young finish their Hunt around here pretty often."

"Isn't that illegal?" asked Vsevolod, forgetting about his problems for a moment. The matter of the Great Hunt bothered him since Teplovoz first mentioned it, and up until now he never got any explanation of what it is, despite being just 'punished' for doing it.

"Of course it is!" smiled Podorozhnik, fishing the booze bottle from under Helga's bed and settling in for a story. "Every single griffin is drilled on how bad it is from the moment of their birth. Pretty much every day they are reminded, that going into the forest, surviving there on their own, braving untold dangers, fighting other predators..."

"So, how many manage to hold?" by that point Vsevolod was pretty sure where it was going.

"None!" the good doctor exploded in a fit of uncontrollable laughter. "If you meet a griffon that had no Great Hunt by the age of twenty, it's a Return that was at least thirty before returning. But there's more to it!"

"What more can be there?"

"There's three ways to complete the damn thing. First one is easy, about a half of the participants use it. They freeze to death, starve, meet the Deer or someone else who kills first and asks questions never. They never return. Brutal as it is, it saves us from griffon overpopulation, since your kind are notoriously fast breeders. Second one is get to a village or town on the brink of exhaustion or be saved in the forest by someone. It is considered failing it, the punishment for that is usually a good flogging. You may bet that the ones with a flank sore from the failure would try again. Then, there's a third option. After two or three weeks the hunter gets bored in the woods and returns to the town bringing some kind of a trophy to prove their achievement. Usually, it's a head of a fox or a racoon, they are known to be hard to catch for a catbird. That is considered a sign of maturity, though, normally they still do the flogging part. Wemithi is making two thirds of his profits from bandages during the winter."

"Wemithi?"

"Town's pharmacist. Real miracle worker. I think, that's the only reason they let him stay at all - locals are scared of zebras for some reason." Podorozhnik took another sip from the bottle. "Speaks in hexameter, though. Funny, but hard to understand. Speaking of which, I think you may need to learn the modern language if you expect to make your daring escape plan to succeed. You were able to fool Gosha, griffons are known to prefer the Old Speech anyway, but most of the Nomads don't speak it at all. If you want to deal with them, and you will want to deal with them when you get to their territory, you'll need to be able to talk to them."

In the next few days Podorozhnik spent some time teaching Vsevolod the language. It wasn't too hard. It was Russian at its core, but the meanings of some words went far off, while the grammar took a hit of what seemed to be Japanese. Vsevolod's former education proved to be helpful, and Helga, while sleeping all day otherwise, was always awake for the lessons. It never seemed like she's understanding anything, yet she was always ready to chirp some kind of commentary for almost every sentence of Vsevolod, while pointedly ignoring any of Podorozhnik.

Her recovery was proceeding much faster than Vsevolod would've expected, but as the doctor said, it was normal. His own recovery was going smoothly as well. In a week's time the only things that reminded him of the encounter with the wolves was a bit of a limp and two sets of scars looking almost like a rough drawing of a wolf head. The only visitor they had besides the good doctor was the nurse - a young white earth pony filly, barely of Helga's age, who was so shy that Vsevolod wasn't able to get two words out of her.

Naturally, by the end of the first week of confinement to the small room, both griffins were bored out of their minds.

Helga wasn't showing it much at first - she hardly had the way to, being unable to move. But every day the bandages on her got more scarce, the wounds closed and the scars faded unnaturally fast. It became more and more clear that it was only a matter of time before she tries to escape the confinement. She slowly checked every corner of the room, dragging Vsevolod with her to what was probably the weak spots. She looked out of the window every five minutes and poked at the door. By the end of the week the only way to stop her attempts to ram the door and flee was for Vsevolod to grab her and start scratching on her many scars - that brought the wild catbird into a state of bliss, making her purr loudly and completely relax. So when Podorozhnik announced that the day has come, Vsevolod was almost glad to be thrown out into the winter again.

"Tonight I'll return very, very drunk," explained the doctor in the morning. "Who knows, maybe I'll stay over at Wemithi's, I do that when I'm too drunk. You'll have to ravage the kitchen a bit, just don't go overboard. I'll leave your bag with some food on the table, just make it look like you grabbed all of it from the cupboards. The antler will be there too, if you need it. There will be a big snowfall this night, so don't worry about the tracks. You know the rest, so good luck on your journey."

With that, the unicorn turned to leave, but was stopped by Helga tugging on his tail. Her face scrunched in serious effort, she closed her eyes and chirped, shook her head, chirped again, and then, quietly, nearly unintelligibly spoke:

"Thank... you."

11: Loki

The office of the Prince of Elets was rather small and cramped. Most of it was taken by several rows of heavy wooden shelves, containing multiple folders with various official papers concerning the population of the fair town. The rest was taken by a massive desk and a visitor chair. The chair that was occupied by quite unhappy-looking dirty-yellow unicorn. The owner of the office was sitting at the desk, squinting at some papers through thick round glasses. Anyone who knew Georgy outside of these walls was bound to a bout of disbelief, so much was the contrast between his usual fiery and uplifted attitude and the one he was showing at that moment. The room was scarcely lit, abiding to its owner's nocturnal physiology, and for that the unicorn was immensely grateful.

"So, they've left?" asked the Prince, glancing from the papers to his guest and wincing at his apparent misery.

"The... the moment I've went to Wemithi, it seems. Ravaged... the kitchen, quite gently, and disappeared. Into... into the blizzard. Took the... antler, too. Don't understand... the antler."

"Uncle, you know, your weekly 'parties' will kill you someday," sighed the large griffon, removing the glasses and pinching the top of his beak with the claws. "It's bad enough when I have to drag you home from a ditch, but now... where we'll find them in this weather? Would be there anything worth finding? It could kill an adult, and they're just cubs... strong, promising cubs, but cubs!"

"They'll be fine," the unicorn waved a hoof and winced once more from the movement. "They've managed to... fool me for a week! I thought the girl's a goner. Wemithi's stuff can make a dead healthy in a week, and she was looking nearly as bad as the first... day! You... my dear nephew, can't... can't fool me like that, and she did. The boy... heh, the boy is better. So... polite, well-mannered. Old speech without an accent. So... sorrow for his poor dying little sister, so natural. Hic! And all that time... he was timing me! Asked about my job. Should've alerted me. Your kind never... asks about my job. We've been... played, my dear nephew, like the fools we are!"

"Spies? Uncle, your drinks had finally made you mad. Who sends spies to spy on a hospital? Your drinking schedule might be important to the family, but why send two cubs from Archive knows where to learn it?"

"That's a question you should answer yourself. I'm just... a doctor. Not a very good one, too," sighed Podorozhnik, finally feeling the effects of anti-hangover potion. "Good one would've found another solution..." Thankfully, Georgy was too deep in thoughts to hear the last whisper. He had a good excuse for it, though. With the spring coming closer, the blizzards got stronger, and he had two cubs to save from the winter. The cubs that had nearly a day of a head start on him due to his uncle noticing their absence only in afternoon.

That wasn't going to be fun.

Author's Note

Sorry for the small chapter, but it felt like it was needed to be this way.

12: Valkyrja

Admittedly, it wasn't fun at all.

The cave that hid the two young griffins was small, cold and cramped. It was also the only thing that kept them alive in the most horrible blizzard Vsevolod had seen in his life. It did a good job covering their tracks, sure, but on the other hand, it did even better one in draining the last traces of warmth that the small hospital room filled him with during the last week.

It wasn't that bad when they started their escape - grabbing the prepared bags and overturning the kitchen a bit to make it look natural. The snow was already pretty heavy by then, but the air was almost warm compared to frigid hell he remembered it to be, and the wind was very light. All things considered, the initial phase of the plan went without a hitch. They've scaled the town wall near the hospital - not too big of an achievement from this direction, and disappeared into the scarce forest, unseen by the town guards. Fresh, well-fed and rested, they've made a good time putting some distance between them and the city. The snowfall was receding by then, and Vsevolod even worried a bit about the tracks being visible. In the hindsight, he wasn't paying enough attention to Helga - but that could've been explained that after her incredible feat of speech, she was quiet and just followed his lead. Quiet or not, she looked more and more nervous the longer they walked.

Then the storm decided that the foreplay was over.

First, the wind picked up, blowing fresh snow from the trees and the ground and hiding everything in the impenetrable white flurry. Then the clouds started throwing down even more snow into the mix. In mere moments two young griffons were completely lost, hardly discerning up from down. As if that wasn't enough, the temperature dropped like an anvil, from near-spring coolness to something that felt like below absolute zero. Overwhelmed by the wind, blinded by the snow and deafened by the wails of the wind in the treetops, Vsevolod was sure that this was the end. There was no way he could survive that. Even Helga seemed scared and lost. She even grabbed onto Vsevolod, shaking in fear, when something dark and fast-moving crashed into both of them, sending them tumbling down the slope they were on top of. That has proven to be their salvation since the tumble ended right in front of the mouth of the small cave at the base of the cliff. Even dazed as they were, they've managed to dive inside. It was still cold and unpleasant, but it was out of the wind, and with three of them, they could keep enough warmth to not to worry about freezing.

It took some time for Vsevolod to compose himself enough to notice the third one. The darkness of the cave wasn't helping, too. The unidentified creature was about the same size as Vsevolod himself was covered in fur, and was shivering profusely while trying to snuggle into Helga's warm coat. Since there was no way to identify who that was, and the storm wasn't showing any sign of weakening, he decided to follow the lead of the mysterious stranger and join the cuddles. Helga wasn't showing any apprehension towards the creature, and with how cautious she was, it was unlikely a threat. Soon, they were all asleep to the howling of the wind outside.

The morning came, but the storm remained. Vsevolod's acquired habit to rise with the sun woke him up way before the stranger, so he had some time to look around. The entrance to the cave was half-buried in the fresh snow, and the blizzard threatened to bury them completely. That was a reason for concern, but first, he had to look at his new acquaintance.

The creature in question turned out to be yet another pony. A pegasus of light-gray color, with dark gray mane and tail, and a picture of two blue-gray clouds with a single bright orange line peeking from beyond them on her rear end. She looked younger than all the ponies Vsevolod had met before. She also snored like a buzz-saw, the sound that would've been a problem if not for the howling of wind outside. The dreadful sound stopped the moment he shifted, trying to see her better. She slowly half-opened an eye, looked at Vsevolod and grumbled something incoherent, but unpleasant. The next second, the eye was closed and the snoring resumed. He turned his attention to Helga, but she was still fast asleep, hugging the pegasus and drooling into her mane a little. The previous week was enough for Vsevolod to know, that waking Helga up was a bad idea. Good doctor Podorozhnik nearly lost an eye for that knowledge. Everything pointed to the fact that the only one to deal with the shrinking entrance at the moment was himself. So he pulled his wing from the snoring pegasus, who had used it as a blanket, and peeked outside.

From what little he was able to see, the storm has calmed down from the night before, but still was too strong to consider going out of the cave. Right before him was a rather wide swath of flat land, which curved into a slope a bit further. The flat part curved a bit, hinting that it was, in fact, a frozen river. If that was the one Vsevolod heard from Podorozhnik about, they were right on the eastern border of Yelets' lands, the river Don. Due to some obscure politics, the good doctor was quite certain that no search party would look for them beyond the river, so the first part of their daring escape plan was almost complete. The storm meant no one was after them yet, and there was hope this was the direction they'll look last. By that time he expected them to be far away, even with Helga's wing still not well enough to fly. Podorozhnik said it would take it, at least, another week to heal. Of course, their new "friend" could complicate things quite a lot.

By the time Helga was ready to wake up, Vsevolod had already cleaned up the entrance and even managed to start a small fire to heat up the breakfast and keep the cold away. The smell of the warming up pies produced a long yawn and a content chirp from the catbird while she stood up and unceremoniously dumped the pegasus on the cold cavern floor. That caused some more discontent grumbles, but finally, their guest decided to open her very light blue, almost white eyes and blink on a pair of griffons near the fire. She held a pause, looking at them intently, then shrugged and said: "Eh. I've seen worse. What's for breakfast?"

Helga looked at the pony with interest, licked her beak and, with some effort, chirped: "Brak-kfast?" She stepped to the pony and poked her right in her butt-mark with a talon. "Brak-kfast!"

"Ow! What are you, the Wild?" grumbled the pegasus, moving away from the griffon. "Is that why you drooled all over me in the night?"

"Helga! No eating ponies! Bad griffon!" shouted Vsevolod, not turning his gaze from the heating pies. Helga sighed disappointedly and returned to his side, laying down near the fire. She got the pie from him and started slowly munching on it, stealing longing glances at the pegasus, who also got her share and was eating it in the furthest part of the cave.

"Brak-kfast latter-r?" suddenly perked up ponicidal catbird, as she finished up the pie. "Vssss... Vseee... SQUAWK! Vlod wis-se!"

"Just don't let her catch you when I'm not around," suggested Vsevolod, sighing on his friend antics. "I'm not sure if she understands the concept of a joke, and I've heard they do eat ponies from time to time."

"Wait, she really is the Wild?" asked the pegasus, involuntary trying to pass through the cave wall.

"Afraid so. As wild as they go. She's getting better, though."

"Are you bucking insane?" screamed the pony, starting to shiver. "She's THE WILD. They don't get better! They get worse! They steal the foals! They curse the crops!"

"Cr-r-ops!" said Helga, giving the pegasus amused look. "Cr-r-ops! Kerrrk!"

"See? She's already at it!"

Vsevolod felt a headache building up. He was trapped in a small cave with a mare that was scared of feral griffons, and a feral griffon, who had apparently no qualms about eating the mare the moment he looks another way. Throwing either of them out wasn't an option, so he decided to try diplomacy.

"Hel, stop that, please. You are not hungry."

Helga looked at him defiantly and managed another word out of her small vocabulary.

"Pr-r-rey!"

"I wonder why I have to endure all this..." sighed Vsevolod, turning to the panicking pegasus. "Calm down. I'm pretty sure she's joking. Now, what's your name?"

"K-kurgash Irte!" answered the mare, still wary of grinning Helga. "Daughter of Timer Urman, the Knowing One."

"Nice to meet you. I'm Vsevolod, son of Arkady and that's Helga, of whose parents I have no idea. So, Irte, are you from Yelets?"

"N-no. I'm from the Yashel Urda. We roam the great plains to the east and south." The pegasus was slowly calming down, but still not enough to leave her corner. "The sky is our roof, and the flowers are our carpet! All of the Wild Field bow to our khan!"

"Lucky!" brightened up the younger griffon, dousing the fire. "And here I was wondering where we will find him. Could you take us to your people?"

"Why would great khan want to talk to children?" asked Kurgash Irte, slowly lowering herself into a sitting position. "Why would he want to talk to a Wild?"

"I don't know!" Suddenly, Vsevolod was near her, looking very irritated. "I don't know ANYTHING! Because everyone in this stupid world assumes that if they know something everyone else does too! Everyone is happy to punish me for something that I'm not supposed to do, everyone wants me to follow some rules no one bothered to explain. Your 'khan' is no different! I don't know how to talk to him or who he talks to. I know that I need some place to call home, where no one would try to kill me just because I made a friend where I shouldn't, and your tribe or whatever can be that place. If it couldn't... well, the world is large, and I'm getting really good at walking."

He suddenly deflated, slumping to the ground and buried his face in his claws. His outburst left him nearly in tears again. That was embarrassing, he never had such rapid and massive mood swings and fits of rage before. The pegasus looked at him with an unreadable expression, then sighed and walked to sit closer to him.

"You are Return?" She asked, carefully touching him with a hoof. Helga squinted threateningly but remained in place. "Sorry. I had never seen one this close. Your kind is rare in the Field. Both... I mean... sorry. I have no idea what it's like. Gra... I mean, the great khan talks to everypony who seeks him. Show him respect, and he will grant you a place in his herds. And your friend..." she looked at Helga and shivered. "And your friend, too... I think. If she won't eat his ponies, that is."

Vsevolod listened to the howls of the wind outside. He had no desire to seek some mysterious khan of some kind of nomadic horse culture. He had to, he knew it, but the more he thought about it, the less he understood how he would be able to live their life. He had not the slightest idea what a life could it be. Well, at least, the representative of the Nomads seemed friendly enough.

"Will you help us to get to him?" He asked, sighing.

"Of course! But first, we'll need to stop by my mother's herd. I took some things for her in Yelets. She would be glad if you help me, and her word is strong with the khan!" She pointed at the pair of small woolen saddlebags that Vsevolod hadn't noticed before.

He felt a shiver down his spine. "By 'took'... do you, by any chance mean, that you bought it there?" He felt like he already knew the answer, but needed some confirmation.

"No way!" The pegasus disgust at the concept was almost palpable. "They stole it from us and now I return it home! We don't pay for what already ours!"

"So... is there any chance they won't send everyone after us when they discover that you 'took' it?" Vsevolod was already feeling his familiar headache creeping up.

"You are very funny Return! Of course, they would want it back! They would probably kill me, if they catch me, too!" Kurgash Irte wasn't looking sad talking about it, she looked almost happy. "But they would never catch me, I'm the strongest in my herd! I can almost fly!"

After careful consideration, there was only one word to describe the situation.

And it was very, very expletive.

13: Höðr

"S-now! Sn-ow! Snow! Wallk-k-k! Walk-k! Sn-n-ow walk-k! Hunt! Cr-r-rops!"

"Honored Ancestor, and what about the hamsters?"

"Cr-rops! Pr-rey! Ham... ham... SQUAWK!"

"I mean, I know that it sounds silly, but..."

It was only the second day of the journey to the Nomads, and Vsevolod was already fully prepared to murder someone. He had a good reason, two good reasons to be exact. While at first he enjoyed the company, it was rather nice to have someone to talk to for once, the amount of talking was wearing him down.

First came Helga, who was so happy with her newfound ability to speak, she never stopped talking. She even mumbled something in her sleep. The fact that she had an extremely small vocabulary in her disposal, and hadn't understood half of the words from it, wasn't making it any better. But that he could remedy, after all, teaching a language was his field of study once, if not the second part of his company for the journey. Kurgash Irte was a nice horse-girl if a bit grumpy in the morning. She was polite, rarely addressed Vsevolod with less than Honorable Ancestor, but she also wished to know everything about the world before the magic. And by everything she meant literally everything. From the basic human anatomy to the principles of the nuclear fission reactors. The last one was really surprising to Vsevolod, he wasn't expecting that knowledge in the backwards-looking society of the modern day, but in the end it turned out that Kurgash knew about the issue more than he did. When he asked her, how it's possible, she waved a hoof and told him that she liked to visit the library in Sarai and that she liked to study the past.

The constant stream of questions from one side and the unrelenting torrent of random words repetitions from the other was a bit too much for the small griffon. It wasn't made any easier by the fact that Helga still looked at Kurgash as at walking emergency food supply, and Kurgash being very well aware of it. Sleeping arrangements became a real chore, especially considering they now were deep into the area that became the Wild Field once more. There were no more trees, no hills with caves, nothing but the great flat expanse of the white snow. They dug a hole in it every night, and it was warm with them three, but the only way to stop Helga from absentmindedly chewing the closest body part of Kurgash in her sleep was to settle between them. While that was the warmest place, it was also rather uncomfortable, since both of his companions acted like he was some kind of plush toy made for hugging. He didn't mind hugs that much, but the inevitable tug-of-war was not pleasant to say the least. It also added to his increasingly foul mood.

As if that wasn't enough, he felt the weight of his own many questions. Despite the lessons with the good doctor, he knew pathetically little about the world around him. Even Helga could probably provide some insights. At least she could help him with his flying since, despite all the lack of practice, he felt the streams in the air stronger than ever. So strong that he felt that a single flap of his wings might send him into the clouds.

So, when he felt his self-control slipping, he flapped them.

Next thing he noticed was that he's about ten meters off the ground, lazily gliding above the streams of sounds that irritated him so much. The feeling of the wind gently carrying him over the great plains was so pleasant that it took him a few moments to realize, that he left both Hel and Kurgash together, unattended. Banking hard to the right, he turned his glide, expecting to see the griffon already preparing the pegasus for the feast, but instead, found Kurgash shaking poor catbird and screaming something at her ear. Hel looked intimidated and just weakly tried to push the aggressive pony off herself. Vsevolod quickly landed nearby, only to hear the end of the Kurgash's scream.

"...and you know I won't stop, so you better tell me... oh, Honored Ancestor, you're back!" she immediately dropped dazed Helga and turned to him, with very large and very creepy smile. "I was just asking our friend here if she can teach me how to fly."

"Right." Vsevolod wasn't sure if she was honest but decided not to press the issue. "Helga isn't that bad at teaching that, actually. But why her? Aren't there other pegasi where you are from? Couldn't they teach you?"

Kurgash deflated a bit, looking sad. "Weak blood. The herdsmates don't fly."

"What do you mean 'weak blood'?" asked Vsevolod, resuming the walk.

The pegasus was silent for a few moments, looking sad and lost. She spread her wings and gave them a flap, making the snow around swirl a bit, then sighed and started slowly talking.

"Honored Ancestor, you know that your kind Returning was the beginning of our kind. In the cities of west and north, that's the only Ancestors they have. Their earth ponies are strong, their unicorns have magic, their pegasi fly in the sky, and their dreamwalkers guard the night. We... we are different. We had other Ancestors, too. The ones who were always of this world. The ones who served your kind when you only had two legs. They had short lives and no magic, but they were many, and they were always there. When Returns started to appear, they went to the herds of those Ancestors and became guides, teachers, rulers. Parents. Some of their magic went into their children, but less than they had. The children had short lives, they had no mark of the destiny. They had some of the gifts of magic. They lived longer, they were stronger, some even had wings or horns, but no pegasi could fly and no unicorn could lift even a pebble with their horns. In time, with more Returning Ancestors coming, the magic got stronger. We found our own ways of it, not like in the books that Archive ponies teach. Yet, the gift of flight is still out of our reach."

She looked up, where the sun was peeking through the holes in the clouds, and Vsevolod noticed tears, glittering in her eyes. Kurgash blinked and raised a hoof to the sky.

"I hear it calling for me. All the time. I belong up there, I know it. But every time I try, I can't go there. You are lucky, Honored Ancestor, you are pure. Your blood doesn't hold you down. You can rule the skies. I might sound mad... but when you flew just now I felt like I can, too. I felt a great river that flows in the air, tugging at my feathers, making me light as a snowflake... but then it was gone. Tell me, Honored Ancestor, what is the secret? It was something you did, but what was it?"

"Hel! Hel! Heel-ha!" was the helpful advice of Helga, who had regained her composition and spent the time Kurgash used to tell the story closely inspecting the pegasus wings. She was obviously not impressed with what she had seen, so she forced one wing to open and started noisily preening it. It was sudden enough for Kurgash to allow it for a full minute before she tried to snap it shut. It was to no avail, the griffon held it tight. Half of the primaries were mercilessly discarded on the snow, and most of the rest had suffered a similar fate. In the end, the wing looked like it was half-plucked, but Vsevolod had noticed that the remaining feathers looked healthy, and in the place of the discarded ones, the new ones were already growing. Finishing with one wing, Helga went to the other, with about the same respect for Kurgash's opinion about it.

"Honored Ancestor, please, stop her! She'll leave me with no wings!" pleaded the pony, looking in horror at how her feathers fell to the ground.

"Trust me on this, she knows what she's doing," answered Vsevolod. "I might be no expert with wings, seeing I had none three months ago, but even I can see that you had been neglecting yours. Had you been preening them at all?"

"Pree... what?"

"Preening. It's when you keep your feathers clean, remove the ones that are loose to make the room for the new ones, lubricate them so they don't get sick... you really don't know?" the sudden lapse of knowledge left Vsevolod puzzled. He thought that such things would be a common knowledge in a society where a significant part had wings. He himself had learned the procedure from an earth pony, after all. If those knew... how had pegasi had managed to miss it?

"We don't touch the wings!" answered Kurgash hastily. "You can go blind if you touch them too much! Wise mares all say that!"

Vsevolod felt a headache returning. The whole horse culture with superstitions that big and insane was feeling less and less welcoming to him.

"All right, I will teach you what I know, and Helga..."

"Heel-ha!"

"...yes, you are. She'll show you how it's done. But first I'll have to show you how to preen, and you'll need several days to grow in some feathers before you could try it. So, first, you need to learn how to use your tongue..."

==Same place, two days later.==

"My prince! We found the tracks again! Looks like they had a fight! Look at all those feathers!"

The huge griffon looked at the tracks on the ground and frowned. The place indeed looked like a place of a fight, with feathers scattered everywhere and a few drops of blood on the snow. It was hard to say what exactly happened, the snow was already starting to melt from the coming spring, but from the looks of it, the small group they've been tracking for the last day since they've found the tracks, was ambushed and then carried away by a larger group of Nomads. If he wanted to have a chance to save the cubs, he had to act fast.

"Call the city. I need the second squad here by the dawn."

14: Baldr

Vsevolod was a happy griffon. In the grim darkness of the far future, it wasn't that hard to achieve. In most cases, all it took was a decent meal. Though, he suspected that living with the ponies could make that simple happiness a bit... problematic.

"Honored Ancestor! Why???" cried Kurgash, looking very green in the face. How she was able to change the color of the fur of her face was a nice little question that no one around was about to answer. The look of sheer terror that accompanied the color was a more pressing concern, though. "H-he was still so... young... so strong! He probably had a family! Why have you taken it all from him? Why?"

"Kurgash, that was a hare," pointed out Vsevolod, licking his beak.

"Yes!"

"So... why all the crying and all?"

"You killed him!" screamed the pony, starting to sob once again.

"So?" the griffon was utterly failing to see the problem. At that point, the number of hares he had eaten was probably somewhere in hundreds, most of which were still alive when he got his claws on them.

"You took a life of an innocent creature!" the pegasus pointed an accusing wing at him. The gesture was somewhat weakened by the still half-plucked state of the limb, but still, her disdain was clearly visible.

"Kurgash, I'm a carnivore. I need to take lives of the innocent creatures, or I'll starve. I was pretty sure you knew that griffons do that."

"I know... but... but... you killed him!"

"SQUAWK! Pr-rey! Food! B-r-reakfast!" Helga was looking at the pony with amusement, licking the remnants of another hare off her claws. "C-r-rops!"

It all started early in the morning when they've discovered that their food supply was finally exhausted. With Kurgash's help what should've lasted Vsevolod and Helga through all their trip to the closest Nomad encampment, was consumed within a week. The pony had no food with her, and that was another question that bothered Vsevolod. He wasn't sure how she was supposed to do the trip without any food, and finally, he's got the answer. It was under their feet all along, or, rather, under the snow. Kurgash quite expertly dug out some old grass and munched on it, offering some to the griffons. Looking at it with his stomach grumbling, Vsevolod thought that having a horse for an ancestor can be beneficial at times. While he was thinking about where they'll get the food that is actually edible, Helga had wandered into the small copse of trees nearby, and a minute later, emerged from it, holding a pair of hares. She threw one at Vsevolod's direction. Predictably, it was still alive and well. The hare had bolted away, but at that point, Hel's training had paid off - the prey had managed only a few hops before the young griffon caught up to it. Then it went the usual bloody way, and then he noticed pure terror and disgust in Kurgash's eyes.

"Nopony... does... that! In the herds, I mean! I..."

"Her-rds!"

"Helga, please, not now. Kurgash, how many griffons are living with your people?" asked Vsevolod, already knowing the answer.

"None, but..."

"Then you had no chance to see how... we... feed, right?"

"Yes, but..."

"Kurgash, I understand that you've spent your entire life among herbivores. It's all right, after all, from what I know most of the returning people end up as ponies anyway. But you must understand that not everyone does, and those less... lucky do have to satisfy some... needs our bodies have, right?"

"Sure, but..."

"Well, we need to eat meat. It's not our choice, we can't really do anything about it. We do it, or we die. We can't eat the grass like you do." Vsevolod was a bit proud of how well he dealt with the problem of explaining the impossibility of vegan griffon to the naive native.

"Honored Ancestor, I understand that, I'm not stupid!" huffed the pony, fluffing her feathers in irritation. "But... the hares are almost people! They even talk a little, in their own way! Not as good as the rabbits, but they are still good friends of the herds!"

It took Vsevolod some time to digest that new piece of the information. It came into a conflict with his breakfast, but he managed to keep it in somehow. But still, the fact that he ate more than a hundred of possibly sapient beings made him queasy.

"Are... are you sure?" he asked weakly, turning to look at Helga and pondering how he can explain the implications to someone who is as far from human moral standards as it's possible to be. While using about two dozen words she understood.

"Yes! Some are even live with the herdsmates and travel with them around the Field! They are cute and fluffy, and smart... and you killed him!"

"Pr-r-rey!" helpfully commented Helga. "Kek! Kerrrk!"

Vsevolod was ready to scream in frustration from the world being unfair once again when he felt a familiar sharp needle of pain shooting from the mark on his hip. Following it, came the memory of cold and hunger that accompanied him during his first days in his new life. He knew that he should feel guilt from what he did, yet he felt none. Somehow, the sapience of the hares wasn't really important to him anymore. His mind knew that he should be concerned about it, but there was no real emotion tied to that concern. From his previous life as a human, he remembered that there should be something, but it just wasn't there. It was a reason to worry, but he had to push that for later. In the meantime, he spent several hours asking Kurgash about the hares and herds' relationship with them.

What he had learned made his worries reduce a bit. While hares turned out to be rather smart creatures, they were no more sapient than pre-catastrophe dogs, and those were the ones kept as pets within the herds. The wild ones were, as the pony easily admitted, quite a bit more primitive. In the end, Vsevolod had to promise not to eat in front of Kurgash, but he had managed to convince her that taking wild hares off the menu completely wasn't really an option for him and Hel. He had made a mental note to learn more about the changes with the wildlife later, though.

The road seems shorter when you get someone to talk to. By the time the agreement was reached, the trio had managed to walk far from the place of the cold-blooded murder of the hares. They were crossing yet another small ice-covered brook when their path was blocked. In front of them stood a pony of a kind the young griffon had never seen before.

He was a bit taller than Teplovoz, but instead of bulky and massive build of an earth pony, he looked more like an Arabian horse, with thin legs and longer and more elegant barrel. The differences hadn't ended there, the muzzle of the stallion was noticeably longer and the eyes - smaller than on the ponies Vsevolod had met before. He was also the most dressed of the ones the griffon encountered - most of his body was covered in something resembling a heavy gilded carpet, and on his head, he wore a gem-encrusted fur cap. The newcomer was eyeing the griffons warily, but when he saw Kurgash, his muzzle had melted into a warm smile.

"Greetings, strangers," he said in a pleasant baritone, nodding to Vsevolod. "Allow me to welcome you to the lands of the mighty Yazgy herd of the Yashel Urda. I see you've already met my herdsmate in your travels. I hope this little mare wasn't too much of a bother."

Meeting the gaze of the stallion, Kurgash wilted a bit, nervously glancing to the side and then assuming a strange half-crouching position. She then inhaled and whinnied something, which made the newcomer raise a brow and whinny something in return. The mare huffed, hoofed at the ground and made a complex grunt-like sound. That caused the stallion to chuckle and turn to the griffons again.

"Forgive my rudeness, but I haven't seen my kelesh for quite a while, and I miss her a lot. My name is Yangyr and by the will of Great Khan, I'm guarding the borders of the Field at the west. Who are you, strangers, and what business do you have in our lands?"

"Cr-r-ops!" happily answered Helga, tilting her head.

"Excuse me?" blinked the stallion, making a step back.

"Ham-msters!" clarified the griffon, raising a claw and making a swiping motion.

"I... see," slowly nodded the pony, relaxing. "You've heard of our pest problems and want to help? That's splendid news! Our crops are being plagued by the pesky vermin for decades, and we would gladly accept any help from somepony so, well, enthusiastic as you."

"Sorry, my friend is not very good in your language," interjected Vsevolod, gently grabbing Helga's beak and stopping her from any further attempts at diplomacy. "We were hoping that you would allow us to live with your herds for a while, and we'll be happy to help with whatever we can in return. My name is Vsevolod and this is my sister Helga, pleased to meet you, Yangyr."

"The proper address would be Mirza Yazgy Yangyr, just Mirza would be acceptable in the less formal setting," smiled and corrected the pony. "I will let it pass this time, since you are unfamiliar with our customs and meant no disrespect, but it won't be wise to make this mistake again, especially in the presence of my warriors. They might spank you for that since at your age a child is supposed to already know how to address his superiors."

Vsevolod sighed and thought that living his life as a child is too much for his already strained sanity, but then Kurgash decided to interject.

"They are not children, oh mighty Mirza! The younger one is..."

"Silence!" suddenly darkened Yangyr, turning to her. "You forgot your place!"

"I'm not your wife yet, so I can speak freely!" defiantly retorted the pegasus, huffing something complex again.

"You may be the daughter of the Knowing One, but no mare in my herd would show such disrespect! Silence, or I'll make you!" the smile of earlier was replaced by a scowl, and from somewhere behind the mirza, a large group of armed and armored ponies emerged. Most of them were of the same kind as him, but there also were two of more bulky earth ponies, a small pegasus with short, stubby and very messy wings, and a unicorn with a similar build to mirza himself, but about twice as tall. The newcomers had encircled the trio and gazed at them silently, but disapprovingly. All, except for the unicorn, who turned to Yangyr and said in a concerned tone:

"Yan, she's right, you know. Marry her and then order her around, do it now and she'll have your hide for a carpet."

"I won't let some low-born piece of..." growled mirza, lowering his head and pawing the ground with a hoof.

"Who do you call lowborn, you worthless mule?" gasped Kurgash, spreading her wings and opening her eyes wide.

"Now he did it," whispered the unicorn with a sigh, motioning Vsevolod and Helga to move away from the argument. He led them beyond the small hill nearby, followed by the raging screams of the loving couple. "Now they'll be at it for hours. I wish my brother-in-law was a bit less ambitious."

"Why?" asked Vsevolod, since there was really not much else to do, except making sure that Helga won't start talking about crops or hamsters again. He decided that the Wild matter could very well wait for the ears of the Great Khan himself, the situation was complicated enough as it is.

"You see, stranger, Yangyr is of the pure Steppe bloodline, yet of very low birth. His father was pulling a scrap wagon for a living. I don't know how it's where you from, but here even the slaves find that kind of job demeaning. Yangyr's foalhood was as bad as you can imagine, some days they had to eat straw to survive.

"He was a smart colt, though, he wanted a better life for him and his family, so he sought the ways to improve. I was one of his first attempts, you know. I'm not that big of a noble myself, but from the pit they lived in, I was like the Khan himself. Well, I'm not complaining, his sister is a good strong mare, and she gave me two strong sons already. So, it was me who invited him to visit the herd of the Knowing One. Sometimes I wish I hadn't," as on cue, the sounds of commotion behind the hill became even louder. Most of the warrior ponies came to sit around the unicorn, shuddering with every angry shout.

"There he met Kurgash. 'Met' might be a bit of a small word here, he rammed her at full gallop while looking the other side. That's when this first happened," he motioned towards the hill. "I think that was the love at the first sight. But no matter what, if they are apart for more than a day, they always meet like... this.

"And today... today Yan really did it. By their engagement, he rose high. But he's still as lowborn as ever, while Kurgash is the daughter of Timer Urman, who's not a Great Khan only because she's a mare. That she's adopted and he's from a pure line doesn't make their situation any better. He always a bit envious that she got something he never had just because those who took her was from the Urman herd. Of course, they'll be sitting side by side in the evening, looking at the Moon and whispering some sweet nonsense into each other's ear, but before that... wait a moment, I don't know that voice!"

Instantly, every relaxed warrior was on his hooves, charging around the hill. The griffons followed them. When they've arrived, they've seen someone Vsevolod hoped never to see again in his life. On the riverside, stood Georgy, the Prince of Yelets. He was blinking at the body in front of him.

A body covered by something resembling a gilded carpet, with a silly looking gem-encrusted fur cap that rolled several steps from it. Several dozens of griffon and pegasi, all armored and armed with something looking like crude firearms, stood behind him, and the muzzle of one of those contraptions was smoking. The young griffon holding it, looked at the gun in his claws like he had seen it for the first time.

Vsevolod suddenly felt the chill of the Great Winter running along his spine again.

Author's Note

I really should not listen to the Game of Thrones theme while writing those. :twilightblush:

Also, a little overdue glossary on the names:
Yashel Urda - Green Horde
Kurgash Irte - Lead Morning
Timer Urman - Ironwood
Yazgy Yangyr - Spring Rain
Mirza - a title of a noble

15: Járnviðr

Timer Urman, the Knowing One, was old. She was the oldest pony Vsevolod had ever seen - and probably the dirtiest one as well. She was of the same steppe kind as Yangyr, though a bit shorter. Like Kurgash, she was mostly gray, but it was hard to tell if it was her natural color, or if her colors just faded with the age. Her long muzzle was covered in wrinkles and her scowl contained much fewer teeth than one might expect from a pony.

It did contain the proper amount of unbridled rage, though, for the horse elder was furious. Most of the rage was directed on the Yelets' prince, and despite being larger and stronger than the old mare, the huge griffon was visibly wilting under her glare.

Vsevolod had no idea what they were talking about, but the sight of the prince in such distress wasn't making him feel any better. Especially considering his own position. He was sitting in a wooden cage, together with Helga. A pair of grim-looking stallions were standing outside, ensuring that the griffons would remain inside.

The cage was standing on a large cart, filled with crates and baskets of various supplies, beside another similar cage, containing a small earth pony colt. The pony was looking at his sudden neighbors with keen interest, but when he made an attempt to talk, a single glare from the guards made him choke on the words and restrain himself to only looking. In any case, the identity of the colt was not the thing bothering the young griffon. What did was his own status with the horse tribes, since he had very little memory on how he managed to get himself into that cage, or why Georgy was being chewed by an old horse-ghoul.

In fact, the only reason why he knew that the old mare was Timer Urman was because Kurgash called her "mother" loud enough to be heard at the cages. The pegasus sported a bandage on her head, covering one of her ears, and looked about as happy as her parent. She had stopped shouting at the prince not long after Vsevolod came back from the sweet land of unconsciousness, where the masterful kick from the unicorn sent him the moment it became clear that the blood on the snow was real. Apparently, Helga got her dose of the same medicine as well, since she was still out cold.

The prince's troops stood not too far away, surrounded by even more nomad warriors. They still had their weapons and none of them looked hurt, but they looked nervous, and it was easy to see why. The picture of primitive horse nomad culture Vsevolod made for himself was shattered by the sheer number of gun barrels they've sported. The weapons looked about as crude as those used by the Yelets' griffons, but where griffons brought a rifle, nomads brought a cannon. And if it seemed like a cannon won't be enough, they've brought two.

While Vsevolod was looking around, the discussion between the prince and the mare had abruptly ended, with the mare spitting at Georgy's claws and stomping away, followed by Kurgash. The prince sighed, looked at the cage and slowly walked out of the nomads' camp, followed by his troops. The guards allowed them all to pass, but only lowered their guns when the last of the griffons took flight and disappeared. None of them paid any attention to the caged griffons and the pony, so Vsevolod was left to his thoughts.

Their captors remembered of their existence only in the evening, and only by giving them a small loaf of bread and a cup of water. His attempts to talk were immediately and violently cut off, so the only entertainment he had left was to keep an eye on Helga and stop her from provoking the guards into hitting them both with the butts of their spears. Helga wasn't happy about it, but, after the second hit, she got the idea and spent most of the day brooding in a corner and preening her damaged wing that was freed from the cast and the bandages while they were out cold. Luckily, it was about the time to do that anyway.

The nomad camp around them was not really bustling with activity. Most of its population left in the morning, leaving only several guards in place, and the most exciting thing that happened was the change of guard at the cages. When the sun was setting, the horses came back, and Vsevolod caught a glimpse of Timer and Kurgash walking to a large tent on the other side of the camp.

The next day went the same way, only it was harder to keep Helga under control without using words. There's only so much time one can spend preening, and any attempt to even touch the bars of the cage was met with a painful poke with a spear. Writing on the floor with a claw seemed to be allowed, so by the evening all the floor was covered in every fitting citation that Vsevolod managed to remember, including the infamous "Here, homeless and friendless, after thirty-seven years of bitter captivity, perished a noble stranger, natural son of Louis XIV."

The third day of their sudden captivity began as the previous one. The boredom was really getting on Vsevolod nerves by then, and from them two, he was the patient one. Helga was already examining the cage with the same keen interest she had shown in the clinic, and the glances she stole at the guards became less scared and more hungry. Luckily, that was the day Kurgash decided to remember that she had made some friends along the way.

"Greetings, Honored Ancestor!" said the pegasus, trotting to the cage as if it was their usual snow lair. One of the guards, a large greenish-brown unicorn mare, made a motion to stop her, but Kurgash simply walked around her as she was just a part of the scenery. "I'm sorry I had no time to visit you earlier, but my fiancee is sick and I had to tend to him. He might still die, so I can't stay and chat for long." Despite her words being grim, her tone was calm as if she was talking about the weather.

Vsevolod silently pointed at the guard, already preparing her spear to punish him for talking. The pony looked at her as if she saw her for the first time, then groaned and made a shooing motion with her wing. The unicorn raised an eyebrow but lowered the spear and stepped back.

"I forgot, sorry. Slaves in training are not allowed to talk. They would make an exception for me, but would probably tell on me to your master. I will talk to mother so she'll tell him not to punish you too much."

"Slaves?" the chills on Vsevolod's spine returned full force. "We are slaves now?"

"Yes!" confirmed Kurgash with a cheer in her voice, that sounded just a little bit forced. "All captives of a battle become slaves. Since that griffon prince said that you are with him, and his warrior shoot my fiance so it was a battle, and uncle Sasyk knocked you out and captured you, you are now his slaves. Don't worry, it's not that bad. I've been a slave too when I was little!" she pointed at the colt in the other cage. The colt was listening to them intently but remained silent. "You just need to work off your cost, and you are free! Or somepony may buy and adopt you!"

"But we weren't with the prince!" protested Vsevolod after processing all that information. "We only met him once before!"

"Yes, I know," nodded Kurgash, moving closer to the cage and lowering her voice so the guards won't overhear. "But you see, if you are not slaves, then uncle Sasyk is losing two rare slaves and must repay you for knocking you out and all. So if you try to say something like that, he'll just say that you are lying to not to pay him your debt. He would take it to the judge, and the judge is his relative, not yours. Lying to get out of a debt is a serious crime, you'll be punished."

"But why won't you tell them that? They would believe you, right?" the prospect of repaying the debt of talking with a prince once was making Vsevolod feel cheated.

"Yes!" Kurgash nodded once again. "They will! They will execute you, though. And me."

"Why???" the griffon felt his sanity slowly slipping from the absurdity of the nomad customs.

"We spent several nights together. I have a fiancee. Spending a night with somepony's fiancee with no one who is not related by blood to both around to be a witness of... you know, that nothing was... done, there's only one punishment for that."

"Kurgash, you know I'm not happy about that, but I'm technically still a kid. How that applies to us? I'm not sure I'm even capable of... that yet!"

"The griffon prince said that you are an adult by their law!" gladly answered the pegasus. "It's good enough for the elders."

"So, my options are to remain a slave for who knows how long, with a perspective of being adopted, somehow convince a corrupt judge that he should pick me over his relative, or be executed along with you for soiling your maiden honor. All of that courtesy of damn Gosha, who couldn't keep his stupid butt over his side of the border and his beak shut. Had I missed anything?"

"You can run away and be hunted like a wild animal throughout all the Wild Field!" added Kurgash with a nod. "That is more honorable, than being executed."

"Remind me to thank the fair prince if we ever meet him again!" Vsevolod asked Helga. She answered him with an unsure nod, glancing at the guard.

"Flee?" she asked, tilting her head.

"Flee," agreed the younger griffon. "But not now."

"I knew you are honorable griffon, Honored Ancestor!" beamed Kurgash. "But could you stay for a while and teach me to fly?"

That Vsevolod had to agree to since he couldn't see a way to escape just yet. Kurgash spread her wings. Still looking a bit plucked, but the new and healthy feather were already pretty large, and those Helga deemed worthy were looking much better from the preening. The pegasus closed her eyes and shifted her ears as if trying to hear something. Vsevolod knew, what it was, he felt it too. The currents in the air were shifting and that caused his own feathers to tingle a bit.

"Was nice talking to you, Honored Ancestor! But I need to go, my duties to my fiancee await."

"Well, it was good to hear from you as well," admitted Vsevolod. "Hope he'll get better soon."

With that, Kurgash left the two griffons with their boredom. Their punishment for talking came in a form that they received no food that evening, and the next day they were released from the cage. That wasn't much of an improvement since they were chained to a large metal bar by their forelegs instead. It allowed more room for movement, let them spread their wings properly for the first time in days, and even left them without a constant presence of the guard, but unlike the cage, there was no hope of slicing the steel of the cuffs with their claws. The whole process was, as it turned out, a preparation for their meeting with the leader of the herd. In the evening, the Knowing One came to see them.

Up close the old mare was looking even more ghoulish, yet her eyes were bright and her movements haven't betrayed her age in the slightest. She also had the most intense glare, piercing everyone before her to their very soul and pinning them in place.

"Well, well, well, isn't that a sight that the Field hadn't seen for a while!" said Timer, slowly walking around the chained griffons and examining them with keen interest. "Almost fifty years, since the last war, I'd say... and I'd say!" She chuckled, poking Vsevolod with a hoof in the scars on his rear. "You seem to be quite a hunter for one so young. No wonder Gosha said you are an adult, doing that stupid hunt of yours in your age, and with wolves no less, is something that worth the recognition. That shows bravery. And stupidity."

Suddenly all the mirth was gone from Timer's voice.

"Now, keshe, I wonder which one of those brought you to our land. My naive daughter says that you wanted to join the herds, but we both know why your kind doesn't do that. And we both know that you had an army tailing you from the very border. You were almost at the camp of the Great Khan, too, and none of our patrols was able to even see your trail or your tail. There are coincidences in this world, keshe, but it seems too much for one, don't you think?" the horse elder pinned Vsevolod to the place with her glare and continued. "Now, my future son-in-law is dead, my daughter is a widow before she even of the age to marry, and I have a reason to believe that Yelets is now allied with the elk tribes of the north and shaitan knows who else. You, keshe, is right in the middle of it all."

Timer stopped, frowning, and then suddenly nodded and turned to the several important-looking stallions that came with her. Each of them was dressed in the similar gilded carpets as Yangyr.

"Those two are mine. Pay Sasyk their price and chain them to my cart. Tell the herd, tomorrow we move to the Khan."

With that, the old mare briskly trotted away, leaving Vsevolod frantically thinking about a way to run. Somehow he felt that Timer Urman's lust for knowledge won't be sated by the truth.

Author's Note

Hey, it's been exactly one year since I've started this madness! I thought, some glimpse into Nomad culture and traditions of handling a guest would be appropriate for the occasion. :pinkiecrazy:

Almost forgot the translation. :fluttershbad:
Sasyk - Stinky

16: Mímisbrunnr

The enormous tree was a usual sight in Vsevolod's dream as of late. The scene wasn't always the same. He found himself on the different branches, the winged cow was usually nowhere to be seen, and the fires in the forests far below changed color and shape following a pattern he wasn't able to comprehend. The dream itself felt a bit different from the dreams that came to him back when he was still human. It felt more real and he had no trouble remembering it when he woke up. Not that there was too much to remember. On a normal night, it was just him, laying on a branch and looking at the dancing flames below. He was always alone, though at times he had seen traces of movement on the distant branches. Even his eagle eyes were unable to see, who or what it was.

This night was not normal. This night, he had a guest.

The saber-toothed squirrel awaited him on the branch when he appeared in the dream realm, looking in no way pleased. It gave him a stink eye and closed its eyes, scrunching its muzzle in concentration. When nothing happened, the rodent cursed under its breath, waved its paws with utter disgust and turned to Vsevolod.

"Finally! Do you ever sleep? I thought I would never be able to track you down!" said the squirrel, stepping closer to the griffon. "Three days of being nagged by that stupid owl is three days too much for my taste. Next time he'll be dreamwalking for himself! Anyway, my time here is short, so I'll just cut straight to the point. The prince asked me to tell you that he's sorry. I have no idea why he even bothered with this, but it's not my job to ask. Here, I did it, so, I don't know, be happy. Seriously, why the squirrel?" With that, the visitor turned around and marched away along the branch, continuing to mutter something.

The strange dream was enough to keep Vsevolod thinking about it for the entire morning, while the camp around him prepared to depart. Even deep in thought, he was once again surprised by how fast and efficient ponies can be despite their lack of thumbs. Of course, most packing tasks were nowhere near the dexterity wonders required to chain him and Helga to yet another cart, but the sight of folding tents and packing supplies was still worth at least a bit of awe. It took the nomads only about an hour to turn their small settlement into the long caravan of carts, surrounded by the small herds of small horses.

Thankfully, he and Helga were chained to the insides of the cart, so, despite being slaves, they've enjoyed a bit of a "luxury" during the day, and all the boredom it brought with it. Since no pony insisted on them being silent anymore, Vsevolod decided to pass the time with an activity that was his favorite ward from the boredom back when he was still a human. He learned a language.

Of course, it was not the language of Nomads. While they were all around, he doubted any of them would like to chat with him, and even if someone did, it left Helga unattended. Vsevolod knew better than allowing his feral friend to run amok with so many unfriendly armed horses around. Instead, he did what he wanted to do for a while, but was always distracted from. He attempted to find a language in Hel.

At first, his attempts seemed to fail. Helga's chirps seemed to be entirely random, emotion-based and carrying no clear fixed meaning. With no way to write down his findings, it felt like a complete waste of time - but then again, with no visible means to escape, time was something he had plenty of. The idea struck him only after he spent all morning and the better part of the day trying to fish something resembling a system from the combination of chirps and the words Helga already knew. His major field of study were the Nordic languages, primarily Swedish and Icelandic. He had very limited experience with the tonal languages, and never expected to find one spoken by a feral catbird. Yet, there it was, as weird as anything he should've been ready to expect from the world gone crazy at that point.

Knowing that, it took him only two days to pry the simple language apart, though, his own attempts to speak it still often caused Helga to look at him in confusion. The language itself consisted only of a dozen separate short "words", but depending on the tone, each got a different meaning, many of which were too hard to explain with what they had had available. For example, while Vsevolod initial assumption that 'Heel-ha' meant 'Fly, you moron!' was correct, it only became so while the "phrase" was screamed at the said moron. Spoken as calm 'Helga', it became something like 'Fur-smell-bunny', with a big emphasis on the feathers.

The language was very strange to Vsevolod's human mind since it consisted mostly of verbs and nouns, had no noticeable grammar, somehow danced around tenses and had only three adjectives that he could understand. Nothing impossible to understand for a professional linguist, of course. Yet even for him, it wasn't clear how someone can use it for any complex communication. Still, even with a clear danger that Timer Urman posed to his immediate future, he felt that he, at least, managed to achieve something no one else did.

Timer herself seemingly forgot about her new property. Vsevolod saw her several times, trotting along the caravan and ordering ponies around, but she never spared even a glance at him. Kurgash was nowhere to be seen, and that made the young griffon worry - who knew, what the insane horse customs may mean to her in such a situation? He was willing to bet that it wasn't anything nice.

In the meantime, the caravan slowly moved south. The weather was sunny and warm, and he felt the air currents shifting constantly now, indicating that the spring was finally coming. That slowed down their progress to a crawl. By the time Vsevolod was able to pry himself from the exciting feral linguistics, it was evident that the nomads were getting more nervous every day. Still, no amount of shouting at the ones pulling the carts could do anything to make the carts move any faster.

Kurgash found them on the evening of the fifth day when they just ate their usual meager meal and were preparing to cuddle for some sleep. If Vsevolod wasn't told by Podorozhnik, that the symbols on the ponies were more or less unique, he would've never guessed that the pale shadow of a pegasus is the same energetic mare he traveled the Field with. The only thing that was still looking healthy at her was her wings - the feathers have finally grown in and, by the look of them, were preened daily. She silently went to the griffons, embraced Helga and started softly crying into her feathers. After a while, she turned to Vsevolod and said, still fighting the tears:

"He's... gone. My Spring Rain is gone! The light is no more, the spring doesn't sing to me. Honored Ancestor... you are wise, you know many wonderful things, tell me, why? He was so sweet... so smart, so gentle, and now he's no more! Tell me, was it always like that? Was your world any better? Can you bring him back? You went to the Eternal Fields and returned, tell me, is there a way?"

Vsevolod wasn't prepared to deal with something like that. Even Helga became quiet and only carefully brushed Kurgash's disheveled mane with her sharp talons. He couldn't lie to those tear-filled eyes, though.

"Sorry, Kurgash, but no, I can't bring him back. I don't know if it's possible."

"They tell... mother says that he fell with honor. I've been there. I tried... tried to save him. To push him aside. To make the bullet claim me instead. It claimed my ear," she turned her head and Vsevolod noticed that she no longer wore the bandage on her head and that her right ear was missing, "but it still took him. All because we argued... what honor are they talking about? Why..." With that, she turned back to Hel and started crying again. Vsevolod decided that it would be better to remain silent, so he simply hugged the mourning pony and let her cry it all out.

After some time, Kurgash turned to him again.

"Honored Ancestor, I'm sorry I've brought you here. I thought I give you home, instead, I gave you death. Mother doesn't believe me, thinks you are an assassin, that you wanted to kill the Khan. She would ask you questions, and then she'll kill you when you won't answer them. The Khan could've saved you, but we won't be at his camp before tashu. It would hold us, so she'll have to do the funeral first, and she would get impatient after that. She would ask. You must run before she does."

"What about your flying lessons?" Vsevolod was trying not to think too much about the inevitable moment he has to deal with Timer Urman, yet it seemed that the moment was closer than he was comfortable with.

"It would be my funeral as well," said Kurgash matter-of-factly. "Won't need them afterward."

"What?" the young griffon practically screamed it, jumping onto his feet. "Why?"

"Good fiancee follows her fiancee to the Eternal Fields. It's honorable. I know that Yangyr wouldn't want me to go so soon... but the elders decide when it's proper. The elders said I should go," the voice of Kurgash was completely devoid of any enthusiasm about that.

"Why won't you run away then?" asked Vsevolod.

"They would catch me. Then it would be the same, but not honorable. And where would I run in tashu? I can't swim very well."

"What is tashu?" the griffon's mind went into overdrive and he needed some more time to catch the elusive idea that was hovering at the edge of his perception.

"That's a big spring flood. It comes, it comes soon."

"Yes!" shouted Vsevolod, trying to do it as softly as he could to avoid raising suspicion within the camp. "That's exactly what we need! I knew I was missing something, of course! Helga, carry-breakfast-fly-can?"

"Fle-e? Strong-carry-breakfast-high!" chirped Helga, brightening up. "Fly-fly-fly!"

"All right," for once, being in charge of something felt refreshing to Vsevolod. "Kurgash, we are fleeing when the flood starts. Helga would carry you, and I hope my flying is good enough to get me to the next patch of dry land. There we would teach you to fly and then try to leave the Field before the flood recedes. You need to gather some supplies on this cart and find a way to remove this shackles. Yes! That's a perfect plan! Can you do it?"

"Honored Ancestor... That... Thank you!" the pegasus noticeably perked up. "You can use that file to remove the cuffs, and your supplies are already on the other side of this cart! Mother keeps all her evidence here!"

Looking around, Vsevolod noticed, that indeed, further in the cart, half-covered with some sacks, were hidden familiar-looking saddlebag and the notorious antler. Among the sacks, he could see some tools, like old saws and several heavy files. Suddenly, his pride of his own smarts was replaced by the shame of his stupidity and blindness.

"Oh... and on the third day Eagle Eye noticed that the barn we are locked in has a missing wall," he muttered, hiding his face in the claw. "Kurgash... let's never speak of this again, or I'll die of embarrassment. Now, when do you think the flood would come?"

"Two, maybe three days. The herd is seeking the high place to hide now, there's one that we'll probably reach tomorrow."

"Then tomorrow at night we are out of here. Come when you are ready," Vsevolod grabbed the file and started examining the links of the chain. Kurgash nodded and skipped away, already looking much better than when she came to them.

In the evening of the same day, he was distracted from his slow and tedious work of inconspicuously filing through the link of the chain by Helga pulling on his wing. When he stood up, he noticed that Timer Urman herself was approaching the cart.

"Greetings, keshe. I think, it's time for us to talk."

17: Dís

"Greetings, keshe. I think, it's time for us to talk."

The tone of voice was calm, the words were polite, the muzzle of the old mare held a look of a kind old grandmother, yet Vsevolod knew that his life was officially over. The warning Kurgash gave him was still clear in his mind, but even without it, he understood that Timer Urman wasn't a nice pony, and had a good reason to consider him an enemy. Of course, all he needed was one more day to remove the chains, so there was a chance he could stall her long enough...

"Now, is that a look of 'I'll try to stall the old hag as long as I can' I see in your eyes?" chuckled the old hag, coming closer to the cart and playfully squinting at Vsevolod. "Don't try that with me, it would only embarrass us both. Tonight, I'll ask, you'll answer, and your fate would depend on how I like what I hear. Now, I know that you'll be lying, anyone would in your position. I would, and it's well known I never lie. I don't have much time for that game, so let's simplify it a little, shall we?"

With that, the old pony took something resembling a small chalkboard and a piece of chalk from her saddlebag. She placed the board on the ground and started drawing a couple of strange symbols on it. Vsevolod never saw anything like them before, and the placement wasn't giving him any clues. Finishing with the drawing, Timer pulled out a flask of brown liquid and put a drop of it on the side of the board. Next, she unsheathed a small needle-like knife and looked at Vsevolod.

"To make you more willing to be truthful, I'll use this little spell I've learned in one of your fancy western cities. Hard to find something that would work for a poor, old earth mare like me, you see. Now, when I would ask a question and you would answer something you think is not true, your silent friend over there," she pointed at Helga, "would receive a nasty shock. You know, since lying is bad for friendship. It would also make sure my nosy daughter won't hear what is not for her ear." At that, Timer glanced over her shoulder and Vsevolod noticed someone hastily scurrying away from behind the next cart. She sighed and turned back. "Kids these days. Back when I was her age, I could listen in on a room full of Diamond Dogs with none noticing me. So..."

She took the knife again and carefully poked her own leg just above the hoof, letting a drop of blood to fall onto the brown smear from the flask. After that, she used the same knife to draw one last symbol on the board with the resulting mixture. The chalk lines shimmered in the dark and filled with an eerie greenish glow.

"So, that's how you do the Shroud of Silence, keshe," nodded Timer, placing the board under the cart with the griffons. "Of course, you need at least some fresh blood of an earth pony for that, but it's very good for the reputation if no one can hear you lie. I wish I could do the shock part too, but that needs a proper unicorn."

"What?" that was the most intelligent response Vsevolod managed to give.

"Ah, refreshing griffon stupidity, how I've missed you," frowned the pony, glancing around. "We don't have any time to waste, so try to contain it. You think that I'll try to find out who you are or who sent you. That would've been true in any other time. This time I don't care. You should praise whatever spirits you worship for your luck. Had Yangyr lived, we would've been talking about that today. Like it is, I need you more than what you might know. You see, I love my daughter, and those old mules doomed her to follow that pompous moron she fancied. I can't turn on tradition, I can't spit on honor, I can't save my little Irte. So you will. Tomorrow night she would come to you. Tomorrow night you will take her and fly away, as far as your wings would carry you, as far from the Field as you may go. Do it, and you get your freedom and your life. Decline, and the day after her funeral we will talk again. Harm her, and we will talk again. Drop a single word about this conversation to anyone in the world, especially Irte, and we will talk again. You can live a long and happy life, as long as we won't talk again. Now, keshe, choose but choose wisely. And for the love of the Earthmother, be more careful with that file, I could hear it from the other side of the camp!" With that, the old ghoul stood up, grabbed the spell board and suddenly bumped Helga on the beak. The griffon immediately screamed in rage and attempted to lunge at the mare, but she was safely outside of the range the chain allowed Hel to reach.

"I see you are not yet ready to tell me the truth, keshe," said Timer loudly, chuckling. "I think, we'll have to talk again later."

Vsevolod looked as she trotted away. It was hard to admit, but he felt a lot of respect to the old mare and thought that in different circumstances wouldn't mind to know her a little better. Of course, her way of expressing her love to her daughter through the threats of torture and death to the outsiders wasn't the way he liked. Still, all things considered, that was the sweetest thing he saw someone in this world do for another.

And he had two chains to break.

Most of the night and a good part of the next day he carefully attacked the chain with the file, trying to produce as little noise as possible. Helga stood guard and covered his work, pretending to sunbathe her wings. The nomads around them were too busy to notice anything, though. Their movements became much more desperate, the carts were now pulled by the double and triple teams, sometimes even with foals helping. It increased the caravan speed a bit, and when the sun was already touching the horizon, they had reached the place. It was a group of several high hills, covered with thick bushes. The caravan climbed the nearest one, but then part of the carts separated and occupied the rest of the hills. By that time Vsevolod was already done with the chains and his only concern was not to let Helga show every nomad in the camp that they are free. It wasn't very hard now when he could at least tell her to wait in a way she understood, so he saw the arrival of tashu.

For a thing that kept every horse in sight in a state of panic for the last few days, it looked nothing spectacular. Just the snow at the plain below the hills getting dark, first at several spots, and then everywhere the eye could see. It looked like someone just threw a switch from "snow" to "water", and the great plains obediently turned into great ponds. By the time the sun had finally set, everywhere around the hills was water, and the light of the full moon glittered on the small waves. The nomads liked to cut it close. It worked for Vsevolod himself, though - since the effort it took every pony in the camp to get to the hills in time made sure that none of them were paying any attention to the pair of exotic slaves. So much that none even bothered to feed them.

Everything was ready. The food was in the bag, the antler was secured as a counterweight, and the only thing that was missing was Kurgash Irte. Vsevolod had no desire to leave the poor pegasus to her doom, but it helped him none in feeling the dread, imagining that Timer might back off their deal at any moment. When Kurgash finally appeared, he was so scared by his own thoughts that he had nearly jumped out of the cart and ran away screaming.

"Honored Ancestor, I'm... ready," whispered the pegasus, jumping inside the cart. She had her own saddlebags with her, and the look on her face was sad but determined. "Mother sent me to check if anypony remembered to feed you. I'm bad at pulling, so in the camp, I'm the only one who can still walk, except the elders. I left her a note, she'll understand... I think. But she'll get suspicious very fast, so we have to go now!"

"Finally!" breathed out Vsevolod, pulling his own bag on and turning to Helga. "Fly-take-breakfast-follow!"

"Fly-fly-fly!" responded the feral griffon, carefully grabbing Kurgash and looking at Vsevolod expectantly.

He sighed, spread his wings and felt the air. If the first time the feeling Helga had shown him was a stream, now he felt a whole huge river. The air around him was alive. He felt Helga, ready to take off and coiling the currents around her wings, he felt Kurgash, nervously twitching hers and unconsciously asking the sky to accept her, he felt the storm, rolling in from the west and blocking the route to the south. But, most importantly, he felt that the air is ready to listen to him. So he asked without words and fell into the moonlit sky.

He fell out of the moonlit sky on top of the big hill far from the camp of the nomads and kissed the ground, loudly promising not to leave it ever again. Helga drifted down nearby, dropping Kurgash in the snow and yawning contently. She looked like she never even flew, let alone carrying a pegasus almost as big as herself. Kurgash spread her wings and looked at them as if she never seen them before.

"That was... Honore... that was AMAZING!" she tackled Vsevolod and hugged him, producing a scream of pain from the griffon. "What's wrong?"

"My everything hurts! I'm not ready for a flight that long! I would never be ready for a flight that long! It's amazing, yes, but my wings are going to fall off any moment!" answered Vsevolod, weakly trying to escape the hug of doom.

Helga looked at him and then fell down laughing. She rolled on the ground, pounding it with a fist and trying to say something, but it was drowned by the laughter. At last, she calmed down and managed to say more or less coherently: "Small-young-feather-flight-pain! Forget! Heel-ha for-r-rget! Fly-high-rejection-young-small! Sor-r-ry!"

"Very funny," said Vsevolod dryly, getting a file from the bag and starting working on the cuffs. "We could've stopped on that first hill, you know, it was far enough for them to never get to us. But you for-r-rget! Bad griffon!"

"Bad grif... griff... fon!" happily agreed the evil catbird. "Hams-s-ters! Cr-r-rops!"

The morning of the first day of their freedom met them cuddled together under a bush, trying to sleep off the stress of the previous days. Vsevolod looked at the rising sun and thought about his endless quest to find a place to call home. He knew what he did wrong now, what he brought from the warm world of the humans to this frozen unforgiving land of the Great Winter, what had no place here. The answer was with him from the moment he dug out that first lair under a tree, the very first night in the new world. If he wanted there to be home for him, he had to make it himself.

And he was ready to try.

18: Völva

The old mare looked at the gently flowing water. It was dark, deep and cold. She was alone at the temporary shore, her herdsmates knew better than bother old Knowing One when she was upset.

She wasn't upset, though. For the first time in many years, she was happy. Like long ago, in the life she herself thought a myth at times, she did something she wanted to do. No honor bounds weighted her hooves. No tradition gnawed at her conscience, telling her to do something that was smart and useful to somepony so long ago, that even she never heard their names. For the first time in forever, she was free, even if it was just for a brief moment. It felt nice.

There was, of course, the matter of price. Every action had its price, she knew that well, and freedom was one expensive commodity. Last night she bought the freedom of three. The price was the freedom of the fourth. She had crafted the situation well, as she always did, so she knew exactly what was coming. In the eyes of every pony in the herd, her own daughter betrayed the family honor, spit on her ancestors and parents. That meant the death sentence for her little Irte - if they could find her, of course. She was pretty sure that the griffons were qualified enough for that to never happen. But that also meant that the great and powerful Timer Urman made a mistake raising her daughter. In the harsh life of the herds, there was no place for mistakes.

"This is it, demon? That was what you were waiting for?" she asked the water, and her reflection wobbled and shifted into a different face, a face that had nothing equine in it. It was green, rotten and deformed.

"Whatever do you mean, my dear, dear enemy?" whispered the water, letting out some bubbles from what was the abomination mouth. "I was as surprised as you were when she brought those two cubs with her. Of course, that would've been a simple matter of a small nudge to make that griffon to shoot... but why would I break the treaty for such a pitiful gain? Don't delude yourself, horse, I might call you an enemy, but you never was a setback to my plans. You are not important. You may be useful, though."

"As if I would ever help you," scowled Timer, piercing the water with her gaze. Of course, it had no effect on the entity she was talking to. It only worked on the things that lived, and she wasn't sure that the monster was even familiar with the concept.

"Don't worry, oh mighty enemy of mine. You already did plenty. For that, I will help you a bit. Don't thank me, you have deserved it. Goodbye, horse. We will meet again."

The reflection shimmered and returned to normal. Timer looked at it for a moment, then shot up and ran to the camp. She knew the water devil long enough to know that its gifts were as poisonous as nightshade berries. She had to find what happened and stop it while she still had the power to do it. When she reached the tents, the herd was in an uproar. The elders were slowly filing into the meeting tent, while warriors were running around, checking their weapons and forming patrols as if the camp was under attack. Something had clearly happened, and she was sure she won't like what it was.

"...and I say that it should not go unpunished!" she heard the voice of her younger cousin, one of the elders, through the tent. Gaskery Archan was always the first one to demand retribution, and his words meant only that whatever had happened might've deserved some. "We can... oh, finally! Timer, where have you been? Have you heard the news? The Great Khan was killed! Dragged into the water and drowned, no doubt by one of those traitorous pegasi or griffons of the West! We must make them pay for that!"

Timer looked around the tent and noticed that the gathered elders were murmuring in agreement. Everypony seemed to forget that they've planned to exile her today. Every pony wanted her to lead the charge, as she did so many times before. Any other time, it would've been funny to see how quickly those old fools forgot about that precious honor of theirs when they've smelled war and the spoils it brought. It's not like they'll have to go and fight, they always had their Iron Wood Witch to hide behind. She knew that she will do it again. The cities of the west would burn once more, and the creature in the depth would feed on the misery she brought to the world. It was beyond her power to stop, the war would start with her, or without. She knew she had no choice, though. Too many foals she had brought into this world, too many of her grandfoals would have to go to battle. She couldn't abandon them, no more than she could let Kurgash Irte to climb the funeral pyre.

"Well played, monster," she whispered through the clenched teeth. "Well played."

Author's Note

Gaskery Archan - Warrior of the Heather.

19: Urðr

The hoof on Vsevolod's chest lowered a bit, not enough to crush a rib, but quite enough to make him wish he stayed in the Forbidden City, taking his chances with the schizophrenic dragon.

"I told you to stay silent, keshe," said Timer Urman, looking at him and scowling. "You just had to tell her everything, hadn't you?"

Around them, the fire licked a couple of wooden buildings, with a small heap of dead bodies of ponies pierced with a single spear completing the picture of carnage. It looked like no help would come to the young griffon this time.

"Now, you will pay for what you did," declared the old horse, lowering her hoof and crushing his ribs underneath. Vsevolod screamed from the unbearable pain and woke up.

The blizzard beyond the frosted-over window of the bus was as fierce as when he fell asleep. Even though it was the daytime already, the blizzard was darkening everything enough to seem that it was late evening. Once again he was reminded, why he never liked the climate of his homeland. Vsevolod reclined in the bus seat and sighed, "Just a dream. I need to do something about those nightmares, they get out of hand..."

Looking around, he spotted Helga and Kurgash clinging to each other on the nearby seat. Both were still asleep, though it seemed that their sleep was as pleasant as Vsevolod's own. The sudden spring blizzard that trapped them in the bus was violent enough so they couldn't even think about moving today, so they've spent most of it cuddling for warmth and trying to get some extra sleep. Or some extra nightmares, as it came to be. He shuddered, afraid to imagine what would've happened if they hadn't stopped after discovering the bus.

As it turned out, this small bus wasn't a sight unheard of in the steppes. While rarely, the vehicles sometimes returned with their owners around the places, where the big roads pierced the fields once. Every such appearance was a reason to celebrate for the nearby herds. The vehicles provided them with a wealth of rare and expensive materials, sometimes with a Return, possessing a wealth of knowledge from the time long past, and, more often than not, several eager workers with the "pure blood". From the looks of it, this bus returned just before the flood season and was abandoned to be salvaged later. What happened to the passengers was anyone's guess, and Vsevolod had no desire to find out. After all, Kurgash was quite sure that while the Nomads themselves were mostly trapped by the floods, they still had some way to send the word. Every herd out there would be looking for them.

Even with Vsevolod being limited by the young-feather curse, they've covered a significant distance in three days that passed since them leaving the Urman herd. Compared to that, their previous speed of travel seemed to be a crawl, and the young griffon caught himself wondering why Helga had bothered to stick around him for so long - especially at first when she only just met him. He even asked Hel herself, but his knowledge of the language wasn't good enough yet to understand the answer. The only definite thing he got from it was that it was something she intended to do when she first arrived in Moscow, or big-teeth-hungry-ground she called it.

The speed of their travel had one unfortunate implication, though. Since they were moving almost directly north now, they've got to the areas where spring was not yet there, and the blizzard outside was a good reminder of that. In fact, there was no trace of the flood here yet, so their brief time of solitude and safety on the small hills turned into islands was over. The good thing was that they were almost at the edge of the herds' territory, and the copses of trees were getting thicker and larger every hour they flew. The bad was that it was the extent of their daring escape plan. From here there were three ways to continue. They could turn east, but that meant they would be back into the Nomad land. They could turn west and get right back into Moscow with whatever fate Teplovoz was so eager to save Vsevolod from. They could continue north, but the forest meant more chances to encounter the Deer. Since he had no desire to return to the nightmares, he decided to wake up his friends and listen to their opinions on the matter.

"Wake up, sleepy heads!" he called, climbing out of the seat and rummaging through the bags for a little snack. Grumbling noises from above told him that he was heard. In a few moments, a sleepy eagle head appeared over the edge of the seat and pierced him with a ferocious glare. "And good day to you too, Helga. Chipper-fun-wind."

"Death-young-food-stealer," chirped the catbird in return and grabbed a piece of salted watermelon from Vsevolod's grasp. "Hunger-no-prey-parent."

"She sounds happy," said Kurgash, also getting out of the seat and stretching. "What did she say?"

"She said that she wants me and my children to die of hunger in a place with no prey," shrugged Vsevolod. "I guess it's a bit better than her usual 'I hope an elk catches you', my knowledge of death threat vocabulary still needs some polishing. Anyway, I thought we need to decide where to go next. I don't want to roam blindly anymore, we have a history of it ending poorly. Kurgash, what do you know about the lands to the east? It's Nomad territory, so..."

"Honored Ancestor, I'm sorry, but I don't know much. Our herd never went that way, it's Taular herd lands. Their ulus is the largest in the Fields and they guard the border of north and east. They never talk about what lies beyond their lands, so I don't know what is there. Mother might know... oh. Sorry. The only thing I know is that our northern border is some big river, and there's no steppe on the other side of it, and that is some kind of a town on our northwestern border."

Vsevolod once again cursed his lack of knowledge of the land. The only big river he suspected to be nearby, was the Volga, but only because he remembered it going to the Caspian Sea through the steppes. His poor geography skills were finally paying off.

"Helga, maybe you know something?" he turned to the catbird, not really expecting to get an answer. "We need to find some place we can call home, at least for a time."

"Vs-s-evolod want-desire-travel home? Heel-ha help!" the catbird bounced up and motioned them outside. "Fly-fly-fly home! Wind-clouds-way!"

"Helga, are you insane? We can't fly in this!" shuddered Vsevolod, looking at the white blur behind the windows.

"Wind-right-travel! Home!" insisted Hel, bouncing in place. "Fast!"

The blizzard still looked extremely uninviting, but Vsevolod also understood that his friend is not dumb and knows what she's doing. After all, even if Helga was being delusional, nothing stopped them from camping in a way he had learned so well before. With someone to cuddle with it wasn't even cold. He put his bags on, helped Kurgash do the same and stepped outside after very happy-looking Hel.

The griffon smiled at them, grabbed Kurgash and shot right up, towards the clouds hidden by the snow swirls. Vsevolod followed, despite still being not very good in such a flight. When they've traveled, he preferred to mostly glide, saving his quite pitiful stamina for when it was really needed. This time he had to put it all on the line - gliding in this wind was about as easy as to drive a bike underwater. In fact, after a few moments, it felt almost like he's trying to fly underwater. The streams in the air started to act in a way he never saw before, and his progress up slowed down almost to a halt. What's worse, he lost sight of Helga, but could still hear her calling from somewhere above, so he continued his struggle. Several minutes later, he was greeted by the bright sunlight as he pierced the cloud cover.

All around him, the thick clouds looked almost flat, rivaling the flat expanse of the snow below. The fluffy-looking plain stretched as far as the eye could see. Far above he had noticed wisps of yet another cloud layer, thin and almost invisible in the sunlight. Helga was already nearby, still grinning and pointing at the clouds below with a claw.

"Wind-clouds-way! Fast! Safe! Home!"

"I... can't... see... how it helps," panted Vsevolod, looking down. The "surface" below looked firm and inviting, yet he knew that it's a lie. It always looked like that from a window of a plane, and it was always just a dense fog, when... when he got to that point in his musings, Helga flew down to the clouds and dropped Kurgash. He cried of terror for her inevitable doom - while they've spent some time training her for the flight, she was yet to get to the gliding part. Something in the pegasus was different from a griffon, so the same lesson Helga did for Vsevolod was not enough to make Kurgash understand the concept. Kurgash also screamed and closed her eyes - only to continue screaming while standing on top of what Vsevolod knew was just a bunch of water vapor. In a moment Helga plopped onto it as well, defying the laws of physics in every possible way. Vsevolod looked at that for a moment, then groaned and carefully landed nearby. The cloud held firmly. The surface was cold, soft and impossible. He sighed and looked at still screaming Kurgash.

"You may stop now. It looks like our native guide knows more about the clouds than the old world scientists did."

The pegasus stopped screaming and carefully opened one eye. When she found out that she's not really plunging to her icy grave below, she looked around and poked at the cloud with a hoof. When the bouncy surface held, she giggled and jumped up. The cloud caught her, acting a lot like a sprung mattress. She giggled again and started bouncing around, laughing like mad and causing small chunks of a cloud to break off and evaporate all around her.

"First-time-cloud-crazy," nodded Helga. "Helga did past."

Vsevolod pushed at the dense cloud matter with a claw and had to suppress the urge to follow Kurgash's example. The feeling was absolutely surreal. It was similar to when he flew for the first time but even more intense. Sky could be a home, he realized. There would be some complications, but the possibilities felt limitless. That was an idea deserving a good pondering, but before that, he needed to know what Helga meant by calling the clouds a safe and fast way home.

"So... how could this help us to get home?" he asked, sitting down and watching Kurgash jumping around.

"Cloud... kreeek... move! Fast! Wind-direction-there! Home!"

"So, the wind is blowing towards your home and the cloud moves with it?" decoded Vsevolod, looking at the cloud again. From up here, it was impossible to tell if they even moved, but if the winds below were any indication, they were traveling very fast. All while not being subjected to the terrible weather and without moving a muscle. He felt he could like that method of travel. After a short while, winded Kurgash returned to them and fell on the cloud bump that looked like a pillow.

"Helga... that was scary! But exciting! If you do like that again, I'll murder you in your sleep! Thanks!" she rolled on her back and waved her legs in the air. "It looks like Eternal Fields! It feels like Eternal Fields! It's wonderful! Honored Ancestor, do you think we can find my Yangyr up here? Elders said that the dead roam the big fields of white in the skies, so he must be here!"

"At this point, I'm ready to believe in Flying Spaghetti Monster living here, but no, I don't think we can find your fiancee. We are just sitting on the clouds... somehow. There's possibly some good, logical explanation to this. Scientific. With many formulas no one..." his rant continued on. At one point he discovered that both Kurgash and Helga fell asleep, cuddling against the chilly air of the cloud top. He sighed and joined the pile, It wasn't like the cloud needed any steering anyway.

The only downside to riding the cloud, aside from chilly air Vsevolod got used to during his winter travels, was the boredom. There was absolutely nothing to do in the sky. Of course, there were Kurgash's flying lessons, but those progressed slowly and could take only so much time before the pegasus fell on the fluffy surface completely exhausted. As it turned out, the pace of training Vsevolod was forced to take during his trip was a good thing - he had built his flying stamina slowly and carefully. Kurgash wanted everything at once. More than once Helga had to just sit on her to prevent her from overexerting.

Of course, Kurgash was not too happy about that, and more than once attempted to escape the evil predator's clutches. Since there was no way she could just overpower the heavy and mighty griffon, she attempted to dig her way out through the cloud. It wasn't that hard, the cloud was only sturdy enough for them to not to fall through, and in a few moments, the pegasus was deep below Helga, who looked at the cloud tunnel entrance in surprise. After she got a few facefuls of the cloud matter, though, she dived into the hole and easily brought struggling Kurgash out.

Looking at them, Vsevolod wondered if it is possible to have an old-fashioned snowball fight with the chunks of the cloud replacing the snowballs. He clawed at the cloud and tossed a piece of it to Helga. The larger griffon shook her head, watching the misty substance dissipate and then roared, ripping a large cloud ball from the "ground" and sending it flying into Vsevolod. The next hour was filled with something he hadn't felt since his previous childhood, if at all. For the moment he was just a young cub, playing in the "snow" with his friends, with no care in the world. The feeling was so nice he almost lost himself to it, but no matter how young and full of energy his new body was, it still had its limits, and after a while, they all cuddled together in Kurgash's "snow fort", completely exhausted.

"You know, I can get used to it," said Vsevolod, looking at the boundless blue expanse above and stretching his claws and paws as if trying to grab it. "Back when I was still human, I was never much into physical stuff. Disliked sports, wasn't doing my morning exercises, was bullied at school for being a nerd... fun times. Now... I don't know, it just feels... right. I wonder if it's the body, the age, or something else."

"Young-feather-fun," chirped Helga, grabbing him and checking his wing feathers. "Healthy."

Kurgash just nuzzled him and closed her eyes. At this moment, Vsevolod felt like nothing can go wrong with the world anymore.

And for a moment, he was right.

Author's Note

20: Verðandi

The next morning the world broke down.

It had begun as many mornings before that, with Vsevolod waking up first, having breakfast before his companions woke up and then watching the sun rise. Waking before the sunrise was a useful acquired habit he got from his long walk. Of course, on some days the weather was hiding the sun, but one benefit of being on top of the clouds was that it was no concern. The view was spectacular as expected, and the young griffon had already prepared to risk his life by attempting to wake up his friends, who usually were less than enthusiastic about it when he had noticed the strange thing. Before him, in the vast expanse of the clouds was a long tear. It started with a wide gap several steps away from their "camp" and closed several hundred meters further east.

Looking around, he noticed that at the western side the clouds looked weird as well, bunching up into a big hill as if their movement was blocked by something. Their sleeping spot was surrounded by the horseshoe-shaped barrier of clouds, opening into the tear. Worse than that, he had noticed that the clouds were moving all around their small island of stability. Looking at the ground through the tear, he discovered this "island" was almost stationary.

Vsevolod sighed, "Just one day. One damn day for something in the world to make sense. Is it too much?" He looked at the skies above and felt how his anger boils to the surface from somewhere deep within. Back in the day, when the world made sense, he never knew he could be that angry, but the further he went into the madness of the present, the easier it became to get irritated. The anger needed a release, and he quickly found out that his body is well prepared to give it one. His roar was deep, deafening and had an authority to it one would expect from a full-grown lion, not a small catbird cub.

The only effect it had was a pair of bumps on his head. Both Helga and Kurgash had shown excellent skills in hitting a snooze button on the alarm clock without waking up, despite never encountering one. Leaving them to their slumber, the young griffon took the time to examine their predicament closer. The cloud patch was about ten meters in radius and centered roughly at their sleeping spot. The divide between the stationary cloud and the moving ones was clearly visible, and upon touching it Vsevolod felt as if their cloud had more "substance" to it. The air currents around it also felt heavier and lazier, as if they awaited a push from outside to even consider moving. He attempted to push, and sure enough, the cloud slowly drifted across the stream that carried them just the day before. It stopped moving once he stopped pushing it, though.

Vsevolod sighed and slumped on the cloud beside his friends in defeat. He wondered if anything he knew about the world was true anymore. Every time he thought he got it, the sense slipped away once more. It was so infuriating that only the fresh pain from the bumps was holding him from more roaring. Sighing once more, he decided to wait.

"Honored Ancestor, you sleep a lot!" The voice of the pegasus woke him from the slumber he slipped into while waiting for the girls to wake up. "Mother says that rising early you make spirits happy and your life longer!"

"Sleep-much-lazy!" added Helga, shaking her head disapprovingly. "No br-reakfast!"

"You two are the ones to talk," grumbled Vsevolod, touching the bumps that still hurt a bit. "Have you seen what happened?"

Judging from their surprised faces, he assumed that they are yet to see their problem. Shrugging, he pointed to the edges of their unnaturally stable cloud. Helga immediately jumped to the edge and started sniffing at it, looking very puzzled, "No go home? Cloud... rotten-lazy-move-refusal!"

"What? Why? What's wrong?" Kurgash also carefully slipped to the edge and looked at the ground. "This was not to happen? Honored Ancestor, I don't understand!"

"Then I guess it makes three of us," sighed Vsevolod. "The damn cloud doesn't move anymore. I have no idea why, but unless someone pushes it, it's stuck. I hope Helga has an idea what happened and how to fix it."

"Heel-ha elk-meal!" responded the catbird in question, returning from the edge of the cloud wearing the most confused and shocked expression Vsevolod had ever seen on her. "Cloud bad! Cloud no bad! Cloud fast-safe, no bad! No word!"

"...and our expert breaks, wonderful," concluded the younger griffon, looking at their former fast-safe transport. "If she doesn't know, who will? Is there some kind of police that would arrest us for breaking a cloud? Wouldn't surprise me if there actually is. You know what? I refuse to be surprised anymore. It never answers the questions and never helps when the world decides to throw you something like this. Hey, world, have you heard me? I refuse..." The rest of his angry rant was stopped by a faint sound that made Helga jump in place and start looking around. The sound stopped as abruptly as it started, but then resumed, a bit louder. Soon it became apparent that the sound is a very high-pitched screech coming from somewhere above and repeating on more or less regular intervals, getting closer and closer. Glancing up, Vsevolod nearly instantly located the source - an object tumbling through the air, with collapsed parachute trailing behind. The object looked vaguely pony-shaped, but the tumbling and the wind made it hard to discern even for his eagle eyes.

When the object passed directly above them, it slid out from the straps of the parachute bag. Helga chirped "Useful-fun!" and dashed to intercept the parachute. Vsevolod almost decided to jump to catch whoever was falling, but the size of the pony made him hesitate. As it turned out, it wasn't necessary, the pony struck the clouds right in the center of the hill made by them bunching against their stationary sleeping spot and stuck there with his rear pointing directly upwards. The back legs twitched a bit and went still, as well as the horrible screech.

There was one thing that made Vsevolod blink in surprise about that pony, though. All ponies he had met before, and there were a lot of them in the Nomad camp, had one thing in common. They never wore pants. There were plenty of other garments - hats, coats, even boots in some cases, but no pony had pants. This one broke the trend by being entangled in wide green pants several sizes too large. The tail of the pony was partially caught by the belt, and it looked very uncomfortable.

"Honored Ancestor, how did you know he's coming?" asked Kurgash, slowly coming closer to the fallen pony. "Can you feel when the Return appears? I never heard about such powerful magic!"

"What do you mean?" Vsevolod looked at her in confusion. "He screamed so much I think he was heard back in Moscow."

"I haven't heard anything!" blinked Kurgash, eyeing the pants. "You two just started looking around, and then he fell from the skies!"

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything important, but could you please help me to get out?" interrupted an unfamiliar voice from inside the clouds. "Can't seem to get a good grip on this snow."

"It's not a... oh, sorry," Vsevolod reminded himself of priorities and grabbed one of the legs. With a grunt and several hard wing flaps, he managed to pull the pony out of his fluffy prison. The newcomer blinked several times and covered his face with a hoof.

"Who turned up the lights? It's bright as... the hell is this thing? Hey, it's a hoof! It's a... oh, phew, just a dream. Hello, figments! A griffon and a pegasus? Huh, I wonder what would that symbolize... don't forget to look it up when awake... check. All right, let's see where it gets us!"

The pony blinked his huge green eyes with vertically slitted pupils and squinted at Vsevolod. His lip went up into a smile, showing off a set of very impressive sharp fangs. The fur on his face was a dark yellow, almost brown color, and his mane was dull red. Further investigation of the strange pony was interrupted by a high-pitched squeal, almost rivaling the screech from before, but coming from Kurgash this time.

"A Dreamwalker! A real Dreamwalker! Honored Ancestor, it's a Dreamwalker!"

"A what now?" the small griffon turned to the pegasus, tilting his head. "You mean there is a whole kind of pony with such eyes and teeth?"

"Yes! They are Dreamwalkers! They look like pony and bat! Very rare! The herds have only one now, and she's almost as old as mother! I never met her, she's too old for many visitors, but I've always wanted to see a Dreamwalker!" the pony was almost bouncing with excitement, causing the newcomer to try to move further from her. That only lead to him entangling himself in his clothing even further and falling face-first on the clouds.

"Keep her away from me," muttered the dreamwalker, trying to right himself. "She's too loud. Dreams shouldn't be so loud."

"And he thinks it's just a dream! Squee!" Kurgash fluttered her wings and suddenly took off. Yelping in surprise, she closed them and fell to the clouds, almost trampling the new pony.

"Of course it's just a dream, my dear figment," sighed the pony, finally sitting down and managing to slip out of his shirt. The shirt fell through the clouds, causing a happy squawk from Helga, who dove through the tear to catch it. "I have hooves, sitting on something looking like a cloud and talking with a pegasus and a griffon. What else could it be?"

"So that's what they mean by The Talk," sighed Vsevolod, also sitting down and feeling that a headache would come shortly. "Let's start with the introductions, then. My name is Vsevolod, this is Kurgash Irte, Helga would be joining us shortly. What's your name?"

"Oh, getting ominous! I like that! Name's Oleg. Now, what was that Talk you were talking about?"

"That was the local name for a moment when some poor soul crushes all your dreams and hopes," Vsevolod sighed again, looking at happy Hel landing nearby with a parachute and a shirt in her claws. "You see, this all... I very much wish it to be a dream. It's not. I'm living it for the past few months, and I'm afraid, you will have to as well. I won't sugarcoat it for you, it's not pretty, it's not pleasant, and it's about as insane as you can imagine, but this is what counts as reality now. You are a small brown horselike creature with... huh, bat wings? Neat. You are nine hundred years in the future. You'll probably never meet any of your relatives, friends or loving ones again. Oh, and the human civilization is long gone, can't forget that one. If you want to know something else as depressing, don't hesitate to ask, I'm always happy to help a fellow Return to hate their life more."

"Sounds like bullshit," nodded Oleg with a frown. "I hope your other stories are funnier, or I'll have to ask for another storyteller."

"Oh, don't worry, I have a lot of them. Like the one where I almost starve to death in a forest that turns out to be Moscow. It's hilarious, I laugh myself to sleep every time I remember it," said Vsevolod, shuddering at the memory. "Since then I was nearly murdered by a couple of racist elk for being a griffon, was almost enslaved by a bunch of minotaurs for just being there, was half-eaten by a pack of wolves, had a good chance to be lynched for having a friend, was enslaved by a tribe of horse nomads, ran away from a death by torture and, most recently, broke a cloud. You could BET I wish it was all a dream!"

By the end of the tirade, Vsevolod was almost screaming in the bat pony face. Recalling all the stuff that happened to him in such a short time made him furious and ready to cry at the same time. The pony shifted nervously and looked around once more.

"Hey, hey, chill! I... this... you mean... look, I don't..." suddenly, his face went pale and his jaw slacked a bit. "This is... real?"

The young griffon sighed and lowered himself onto the cloud.

"Took me almost a week to believe in it, you know. Though, there was no one around to tell me what's going on, so..."

At that point, Vsevolod had noticed that the face of the pony was starting to shift into a wide grin, showing off his impressive set of canines. He looked around and said in an almost inaudible whisper, "Yes!"

"...wha?" the reaction was so unexpected that the griffon found himself unable to find any smarter sounding question.

"Yes!" screamed Oleg on top of his lungs, trying to stand up, but tangling himself in his own pants and falling on the cloud face-first. That had not affected his hysterical giggles. "Finally! At last! Yes!"

"Honored Ancestor, is the Dreamwalker crazy?" asked Kurgash, carefully stepping away from the giggling batpony.

"Probably," agreed Vsevolod, also stepping away to Helga, who still stood at the edge of the cloud, holding the parachute.

"Dinner flea-brain?" asked the bigger griffon, tilting her head. "No cloud-crazy."

"Chirp yourself, beakface," giggled the batpony, once again trying to stand up. This time he managed to regain the sitting position. "I'm perfectly sane. At least, as sane as a person could be after fifteen years in software engineering. And guess what? That's another thing I won't miss even for a second! Today's my day, and even your sour faces can't spoil it. By the way, how do you do that with a beak?"

"Magic," deadpanned Vsevolod. "That's all explanation I've got, so you'll have to be content with it."

"All right!" nodded Oleg, carefully taking off his pants and throwing them away. Helga dropped the parachute on Kurgash and dived to intercept the new toy. "Works for me, as long it doesn't break and I don't have to fix it. Now, is there some sort of government? Anything I need to visit or sign? Or is everyone just minding their own business as they should? Are there any religions? Taboos? Come on, man, say something!"

"You seem to be awfully cheerful for someone whose previous life ended ten minutes ago," noted Vsevolod, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that someone was actually happy about what happened to the world.

"I have my reasons, and no, you can't have them, they are mine!" cackled Oleg. "So, any top bird that sets the pecking order?"

"Ugh... I guess?" Vsevolod scratched his head, trying to find a way to describe all the weirdness of the world politics he encountered. "It doesn't look like it was before this all started, but some places govern themselves... somehow. Kurgash here would probably know more. She's a granddaughter of someone called Great Khan, so..."

"Wait, wait, are you sure we are nine hundred years in the future? This sounds more like a history lesson. Next, you'll tell me that there are some princes ruling the lands to the west of the Volga or something."

Vsevolod blinked a few times and scratched his head, "Now that you mention it... yes, there are. I've actually met one. He wasn't a ruler, but..."

The pony deflated a bit, losing a good chunk of his cheer.

"I think I would need you to tell me all that you know about it," said Oleg, sighing and laying on the cloud. The small griffon grabbed the parachute from Kurgash and started packing it back into the bag, telling the story of his adventures in the process.

***

"...and that's how we found that the cloud is broken," Vsevolod had finished his tale and looked at the batpony. "You fell from the skies about a minute later."

"Great, just great," groaned Oleg, carefully massaging his temples with the hooves. "So, they had an empty world, a fresh start, some weird unnatural powers, and all they've managed to accomplish was building a society that was a thousand years obsolete by the time they were born. They even kept the names! What kind of... sorry, I'm rambling. So, you are going to some kind of 'home', and your cloud doesn't move anymore? Have you tried leaving it and coming back? Nudging it in the direction it previously flew? Probably it's worth your time to just replace it?"

Vsevolod looked at the cloud, feeling very stupid. The idea to just hop onto one of the moving ones wasn't among the ones he thought about. For some unexplainable reason, all he thought about was how to make the one they already had to move.

"Erm.. you know, we wanted to try the last one when you arrived," his voice betrayed his lie, but the batpony seemed to be fine with it.

"Oh, well, why won't we try this right now then? Show me how to use those," he pointed at his leathery wings that twitched a bit, but otherwise remained motionless, "and we can get right to it."

"I think we can just walk for now," answered Vsevolod, getting up. "It took me several days just to get the idea how to move the wings and several weeks to take off. Right now, focus on walking, please. Trust me, it's not as easy as it seems."

Oleg sighed and attempted to stand up again. He was able to do it without falling, but it was clear that the surface of the cloud is not the best place for learning the secrets of walking. The soft and springy surface was good for falling, but pretty hard to walk on, like an overly thick feather mattress. Still, with enough trial and error (and a lot of help from Kurgash), he managed to unsteadily climb over the cloud hill and onto the slowly moving clouds beyond. The further they got from their cloud island, the faster the clouds moved, and in a few minutes, the strange stationary cloud was out of their sight.

"So, what's next?" asked Oleg, yawning loudly. "I won't mind getting some shuteye, feels like I hadn't slept for a week."

"Sure, go ahead," nodded Vsevolod, strapping the parachute bag to the sleepy batpony. "You'll have to hold it, since as you can see the clouds are only kind enough to hold ourselves, not the gear. Good... midday, I guess."

He looked around, seeing that Kurgash and Helga were also preparing for a nap. Before joining the pile, he looked at the ground below through the nearby tear in the cloud cover. It was still the same snow-covered plain with small patches of forest, only now it looked more hilly. Among the hills, he noticed multiple gray and brown dots moving in roughly the same direction as their cloud.

"Huh, someone is having a spring migration, it seems," he murmured. He felt too lazy to refocus his eyes to see who that was, so he just cuddled the nearest sleeping body and drifted to the dream realm.

Far below, a skinny elk, whos head was covered with a small embroidered woolen hat, looked at the clouds as his long legs carried him through the thinning snow cover. No threat was looming above the migrating flock, but he knew that one day the winged death would come.

And when it would, he'll be ready to welcome it properly.

Author's Note

Well, the team is finally assembled, and on the anniversary of the Event, no less!
Upd: ...and now with 100% more chapter art!

21: Skuld

The branch shook once more and Vsevolod grabbed Oleg so he won't slip from it. The skies above were covered by a giant aurora that shifted in sync with the roars of the beast below. The giant snakelike dragon was already halfway to them, and with no sign of stopping.

"He'll be here any minute," noted Oleg, glancing over the edge, "and he looks pissed. What did you do to him?"

"Might as well be you," snapped the griffon, plunging his talons deeper into the wood. "I've never seen it in my life! How are you here anyway?"

"I thought you'd know, you are supposed to have more experience with this!"

"Damn it, it's a dream! How can I have more experience with it than anyone else?" The dragon below roared once more and slithered closer. "It was always just me and the tree here!"

"Well, not anymore, and I like to be uneaten, even if it's a dream. Maybe we can fly away from him?" mused Oleg, grabbing a smaller branch to avoid slipping.

"I probably can. You don't have wings," pointed Vsevolod, glaring at his companion's very human form. "Not that you know how to use them anyway."

The beast below grabbed a branch with its mouth and tore it off the tree. The branch fell to the forests below, easily toppling even the largest trees with its immense bulk.

"You can carry me," shrugged the batpony, shifting to get a better hold.

"Are you kidding? You are five times my size!" roared Vsevolod, whose insecurities of being small were only doubled by the comparison to the normal human height. "I'm not sure if I can even pick you up if you were your pony size! I'm a bad flyer, ask Helga!"

"Who cares, it's a dream! You can haul an elephant here!"

"Then you can fly away yourself!" retorted the griffon. The beast was getting really close and he was already considering just abandoning his new acquaintance. It was a dream after all, what was the worst that could happen?

Thankfully, he never got to actually making that choice - or learning the answer to that question - since at that moment the skies above cracked with mighty lightning strike and from the crack descended a giant fishhook on a thick rope. It held a whole head of a bull strapped to it as a bait. The wise eyes of the bull looked at the shocked travelers with sadness. The hook slid to the face of the dragon and it sniffed at it with interest.

"Come on, come on!" whispered a booming voice from above, and the rope shook, dangling the bull's head before the eyes of the giant serpent. The dragon roared and snapped at the prey, swallowing it in one gulp. The hook, of course, immediately lodged itself somewhere in the beast's mouth. The rope ringed from the sudden added weight but held. With a mighty roar, the dragon pulled on it, but the rope and the hook were made of something even such a beast couldn't break so easily. For several minutes both of the stunned dreamers were witnessing a fishing of a giant, with the rope giving some slack, allowing the dragon to pull on it, then tightening and dragging him to the mysterious sky fisher. After a while, it became obvious that the beast is getting weaker, his pulls losing their enormous power and the movement slowing down. Still, the dragon had found some inner reserves for a last desperate pull, so strong, that for the first time since the start of the struggle, he managed to win several meters of the rope. That was enough to finally show the one who fishes for dragons to the onlookers.

The mysterious fisher turned out to be a rather large batpony mare of a blue-gray colors and sporting a magnificent blonde beard. The rope was securely tied to her forehooves. She was furiously beating with her wings to slow her descent. Looking around, she spotted Oleg and Vsevolod, and huffed through her clenched teeth, "Hey there! Newbie! Stop gawking and help me already!"

Oleg has snapped out of his stupor and looked around. The pony was slowly sinking, unable to fight the pull of the monster, and unable to drop the rope since it was tied to her. Thinking fast, he grabbed the nearest sharp object and sliced the rope with it at the moment the batpony finally managed to turn the tables and start pulling the serpent back up. The dragon snapped its teeth in surprise and fell to the ground below, while the batpony was thrown upwards, disappearing into the hole in the skies with a startled yelp. Oleg released the sharp object, that turned out to be Vsevolod's claw, and sighed contently, "Well, that takes care of them both, I think."

Vsevolod blinked and the dream around them faded away.

The griffon awoke to a moonlit night, quiet and calm, save for the soft sobbing. Looking around, he spotted Kurgash sitting several steps from the sleeping spot and looking at the narrow crescent of the moon. She was crying quietly, tears falling through the clouds. Listening closely, Vsevolod was able to hear that what he took for sobbing was actually a song.

"Through the cerulean steppe, the young Crescent roams
With a mane of white that reaches his hooves.
The soft jingle of Mongol stirrups
Born by the winds and fragrant with the rains."

The young griffon felt like he knows the song, though it was impossible. No song of his time could survive the time gap, and he heard none of the local ones. Still, the sad tune continued:

"Over the edge of a jug, the skies are filled with milk
Sleep my love, dream well, for a long road awaits you tomorrow.
You sought the dawn - you got away unscathed, weren't my lips only yours alone?"

Now he had a good idea who the song was for, and the sadness overwhelmed him. After all, he was one of the reasons Kurgash had to be here, on a lonely cold cloud, instead of her own herd with her friends and the loved one.

"So, the grass has risen before the doors of Tamerlan
Am I not your arrow, am I not your bowstring?
You are a heart of fire, you are a song of the banners
You would leave me alone, captured by the fields."

The voice of the small pegasus rose, not a quiet sobbing anymore, but still sad and broken.

"Vagons of the moons through the fog of the road
The herd of the skies, the heavy quiver.
The enemy's arrow cleaves moon in a half
Sagebrush and ash, awaits you, Tamerlan."

The voice had dropped again, so Vsevolod had to really strain to hear the rest of the song.

"You'll touch the grass of the feather on some other shore
And the gold would cool in your high tomb.
And mine fate is to stitch an olive linen
Dropping my tears in a soft jingle.
The bound of fire is my eternal pledge
Not your sister no more
Not your wife ever."

Finishing the song, Kurgash stood up, wiped off her tears and silently rejoined the sleeping pile.

The morning came, and they've discovered that the cloud they were on had suffered the same fate as the previous one. It was completely stationary, but this time it was also completely alone. As far as the eye could see around them, there was no speck of cloud, and the morning sun brightly lit the hills below. The sun was rising from behind the mountain range, its rays glistering on the snowy peaks.

Vsevolod looked at his friends, fighting through the fog of massive oversleeping he had accumulated during the last few days. They also looked a bit tired by the constant napping, though Kurgash was a bit more lively than usual. The batpony had a slightly haunted look that contrasted with his previous happy attitude quite a lot.

"That woman... mare. With the beard. Jackie. She came back later," said Oleg, noticing the questioning look of the small griffon. "We had... words. She wasn't happy. Said she had hunted that beast for years, and now it seems that she'll have to do it all over again. It... seems that I'll have to figure out all that dreamwalking stuff on my own, not that I expected any help... or knew it exists. She said she'll make sure no other batpony would speak to me, ever. She'll be back, though. They always come back after they scream so much."

Vsevolod sighed and handed Oleg a piece of stale bread with something resembling pickled hay on top. It seemed that the problems with the locals were a thing every respectable Return had to endure, almost like the spell that dragged them from their time was made to drop them into most undesirable situation available. Then again, the pony was lucky to fall onto a safe cloud with a handful of friendly people on it, and even some supplies... supplies, that were rapidly running out under their combined assault.

"Well, call me a horse, but I think we're at the Urals already," commented Oleg, trying to eat his breakfast with at least some dignity. Despite all the helpful pointers from Kurgash, the skill of single-digit manipulation was still beyond him. "Where to next?"

"Helga knows," shrugged Vsevolod. "You might've noticed that she's not too good with the explanations, so I just assumed that when she invited us to her home, she was meaning something more than just a familiar branch on a tree."

"Home!" happily chirped Helga, licking her claws. "Close! Soon! Fun!"

"You've heard the bird," nodded Vsevolod. "I don't think our ideas of fun overlap too much... but it's not like we have a choice at this point."

"Well, you're the one with the experience here," said the batpony, squinting at the sun. "So what, we just jump overboard and glide to wherever this home is?"

Vsevolod looked down and then at Oleg, "If you want to die, I suppose that would be the way to go. You are yet to spread your wings, and gliding is not as simple as just spreading them and let aerodynamics do the job. But I can't show you the trick unless you can move your wings."

Oleg turned his head to look at his leathery wing, furrowing his brows in concentration. The wing remained motionless. No amount of grunts and huffs were able to make it even quiver. Looking at the titanic struggle Vsevolod decided to offer a helping claw, lightly tapping the wing membrane with a talon. The batpony shuddered and suddenly went limp.

"He's unconscious!" said Kurgash after inspecting the prone body. "Honored Ancestor, what did you do to him?"

"Just touched his wing, nothing more," answered the griffon. "Wasn't expecting... this."

"Do it again!" weakly asked Oleg, suddenly regaining consciousness. Vsevolod looked at him with concern, but complied, tapping the wing once more. The batpony shuddered once again, but this time managed not to pass out. "This is the weirdest thing I've ever felt! Stop, that's enough! Damn it's weird. All right, all right, I get your point. No flying for me yet. Hmm..." He looked around, pausing to get a better look at himself. "Now, that's not funny. What is this and whose idea was to put it there?"

"What?" asked Kurgash, moving closer and inspecting the stallion's rear.

"This purple stuff. The picture. It was you, right? You have those clouds on your butt, and your tribe traditions declare that I must have something as well!"

"Dreamwalker is funny!" giggled the pegasus, carefully touching the spot in question. "You can't make a Mark of Destiny, it comes when it comes. It's a sign of good fortune in the Herds. I got mine when I was calming the foals with a story during the big storm last year. Mother was so happy..."

Vsevolod looked at the batpony's flank and found out that indeed, he was marked in the same way he saw with Teplovoz, Podorozhnik and Kurgash. His mark was a bright purple cube, drawn with the sides crossing in a way no real cube can be made.

"So it just appears on people's butts and they are supposed to be happy with it?" asked Oleg, inspecting the mark closely.

"Yes! It shows who you are and what place in the world the Great Spirits see you in!"

"Great. Looks like they were drunk when they chose that one. Good for them. Now, since it seems that I won't be flying today, and that's a shame, who would carry me down?"

"No carry dinner!" said Helga, walking around the pony and nudging him. "Fat!"

"Am I?" asked Oleg, turning to Kurgash.

"No! You are small, like uncle Pelesh Chipchik. But you are bigger than me, so..."

The batpony frowned and looked down once again. The ground was still pretty far away and not getting any closer. He poked the cloud and watched as the parts he separated dissipate in the wind.

"I wonder how much of the cloud is needed to support any of us," he mused, trying to carve a chunk of the cloud stuff big enough to crawl onto. Looking at him, the rest made an attempt to do it as well. After an hour of trying, they found out that it's possible to form smaller clouds from the larger one, but the ones made by griffons don't last long and evaporate in mere minutes, while those made by Kurgash remain in the shape and size she left them in for as long as she likes. Oleg's own effort has proven to be more lasting than those of the griffons, but still vanished after half an hour. They also found out that the cloud needs to be about the size of the pony or griffon to support them in the air. Anything less just dissipated if someone attempted to climb on it.

"Interesting," concluded the batpony, looking at their much smaller cloud. "It needs more research, but it's safe to say that the only good cloud sculptor among us is Kurgash, for whatever reason. And we can't just carve ourselves a parachute from a cloud. Here goes that idea. Hmm... maybe I can use the actual parachute? If we shorten the straps... wait, no, I can't pull the release with these bricks." He looked at his hooves with disdain. "Damn, I wish we could just move the cloud itself, would've made this all much easier."

"Actually, we can," said Vsevolod. "I did it yesterday when our first cloud stopped."

Oleg looked at the smaller griffon and sighed, "And of course it was so obvious you never had a reason to tell us that. This world is doomed, as was the one before it. Well, stop looking at me like that, start pushing!"

Shrugging, Vsevolod spread his wings, feeling the streams in the air, and found the one that went downwards. Placing his claws in the center of the cloud, he angled the wings and carefully flapped them, imagining going down. The cloud shuddered and began to slowly descend, trailing thin strands of mist upwards.

"Fun!" Helga immediately perked up, found a spot nearby and started pushing as well. The cloud tilted a bit and the strands of mist became thicker. After a few minutes, it became clear that the cloud is shrinking, and rather rapidly at that.

"I'm not sure it's safe," pondered the batpony, comparing the distance to the ground and the remaining cloud size. "It definitely needs more research. If I survive that, of course."

When the ground was only a dozen meters below, the cloud finally disintegrated completely, dumping its passengers on the snow. Luckily, Kurgash's recently acquired ability to fly was enough to safely glide her into a thorny bush - her steering still had much to be desired. Seeing her safely glide away, Vsevolod looked around, trying to find the helpless batpony splattered on the ground. There were no traces of that, though, as well as no indication that anyone had touched it at all. Glancing around he spotted a strange growth on one of the thicker branches of the nearby pine tree. When the mist of the ruined cloud finally dissipated, he discovered that the growth was, in fact, the missing batpony. Without enough experience of using his limbs, Oleg did the next best thing available to him - he bit the branch as hard as he could. Now he hung from it like a huge pear and mumbled something incoherently, while his huge eyes reflected all the fears of heights in the universe.

Vsevolod carefully landed on the branch, noticing how his body easily balances itself on it and examined the bat's predicament. It turned out that in his attempt to grab onto something, Oleg bit the branch so hard that now his massive fangs were firmly stuck in the bark.

"Elp! M'stk!" mumbled the bat, trying to grab the branch with his hooves and only managing to make himself swing under it a little. "Fhpit oovsh!"

The griffon grabbed the pony's head and tried to pry it away from the branch, but the teeth held with surprising strength. Adding more power only caused the pony to yelp in pain and start shoving Vsevolod away. Helga circled above the tree, looking at all of that, then suddenly smirked and fell on Oleg baring her claws and scowling like she was about to eat him. The batpony screeched, clenched his teeth and bit right through the branch. With yet another yelp he fell to the ground, only to be stopped by the larger griffon grabbing him by the mane. Helga wasn't lying when she said that she can't carry a full-grown stallion - even simply slowing his fall for several meters made her flap her wings with all her might, and even then she could only slow their descent to the safe speed. Dropping Oleg into the snow, she landed nearby, panting.

"Heavy! Fat-fly-denial!"

Oleg spat the remnants of the branch and glared at Helga, "That was scary! And this branch tastes like wood. Zero twigs of five, won't bite again. So, it looks like I should kiss the ground and lie that I won't ever leave it again, right? Right, skipping that. Where's everyone?"

"I'm fine!" shouted Kurgash, slowly untangling herself from the bush. "I can fly!"

"Now you only need to learn how to land," nodded Vsevolod, landing nearby and helping her out. "But crash landing is still technically a landing, so congratulations. Now... Helga, stop laughing at our poor Dreamwalker, we need to move before some wolves or worse decided to check if we are edible. Where to next?"

Helga looked around, sniffed the air, snickered at still glaring Oleg, and pointed towards the nearby mountain, "There. Home! Rock-feather-grey!" She turned in that direction and started walking, not waiting for anyone else. Vsevolod and Kurgash helped Oleg on his hooves and took turns helping him walking after the impatient carbird.

Thankfully, their destination was much closer than they thought. Only a couple of hours later, they walked to a big clearing near the mountain foot. Overlooking the clearing, stood a high cliff with snowy top. Helga pointed to it and happily exclaimed: "Home! Family!" She then led them to the almost invisible thin trail in the side of the cliff, and after a long climb, they finally got to see what was their destination for the last week.

It was rather disappointing. The top of the cliff was almost flat and completely covered by something that looked like huts, in a very generous definition of the term. Most looked like someone took a bird's nest, made it big enough to accommodate a lion, and then turned it upside-down. The rest were resembling piles of straw and twigs with an entrance dug into the side. What was in common for both types was that they shared the same aura of neglect, most showing at least some signs of decay of the materials, and some even completely collapsed and rotting. Among the buildings, the travelers saw a couple of adult griffons, probably even old, judging from the scars, missing feathers, and greying fur, and a pack of younger ones - ranging from very small cubs to almost-adults, like Helga. The elders paid the visitors no heed, while the younger catbirds immediately flocked to them, surrounding and staring at the ponies with judging, hungry eyes.

After a minute of staring, one of the bigger males took a step closer and attempted to unceremoniously grab Kurgash. Before his claws touched her fur, they were intercepted by furious Helga, beating them away and hissing: "Touch-refuse-possession! Wounds-future-implication!"

The griffon shrugged and turned to Oleg. Helga made no motion to stop him, so Vsevolod stepped forward, feeling the fur and feathers on his back bristling. The older griffon looked at him, clearly surprised, but then just pushed him away. When Vsevolod pushed back, the griffon tuned and in a single swift motion sent him flying, with the head spinning from the sudden hit. Turning back, he poked the batpony and chirped, "My-food-tasty!"

Vsevolod felt, how somewhere deep inside him the rage that was dormant since the fight with the wolves stirs and ignites his blood. The world around him turned red and very slow when he jumped up and shot at the startled enemy, his claws making deep bloody gashes in his sides. In mere moments, the bigger griffon was on his back, looking up into the eyes of the very angry philologist.

"No," said Vsevolod, grabbing his opponent by the neck and starting to squeeze. "Mine."

Author's Note

Well, that took longer than I thought it would... by much. Sorry! :twilightblush:
The song Kurgash sings (and I had to butcher into English) is Tamerlan's Doors by Melnitsa. How she managed to learn it we may never know, but I think it fits with her rather well.
Yet another incomprehensible name translation: Pelesh Chipchik means Bald Sparrow.
And look! Home! Fun! :pinkiecrazy:

Almost forgot! This chapter comes with an illustration by the amazing Coffee Bat!

...and now in color by the awesome Negasun!

22: Niðavellir

There were not that many things in Oleg's life that were capable of causing a strong emotional response from him. In fact, since Returning, he had experienced more excitement than in the previous decade. Finding out that the world has suddenly changed into something potentially interesting topped the list, though, the fall from the cloud was also thrilling. Compared to that, a skinny griffon wasn't looking all that threatening, much less so than a ball of feathers and fury that descended upon that same griffon just a moment later.

The ensuing fight was, probably, worth watching, but Oleg's attention was suddenly grabbed by a presence nearby. Turning his head he discovered that one of the elder griffons was now standing very close. Almost like he had covered all the distance from their group to the newcomers in one lightning-fast step. He looked at the fighting cubs with interest, and when Vsevolod started to choke his opponent while screaming "Mine!", carefully hit him on the head with his fist and removed the knocked out cub from his foe. After gently placing him on a pile of straw nearby, the elder returned to the bloodied and crying young griffon. Oleg thought that he'll try to help the unfortunate victim, but instead, the griffon lifted the cub by his throat and started squawking at him angrily, shaking the smaller catbird with each angry sound.

The process was promptly interrupted when Kurgash, recovering from the shock, lunged at the elder griffon. It took all Helga's might to stop the small pegasus from burying her hoof in the griffon's skull. The elder turned to her and raised his eyebrow-like feather in surprise. He chuckled warmly and chirped something to Helga, getting a chirp and a laugh in return. Kurgash stopped trying to reach the griffon and looked at her friend, puzzled.

"Dreamwalker, what's happening?" she asked after a pause, scratching her missing ear with her hoof. "Why they laugh? Why he hit the Honored Ancestor? Why he scream at that sasy ishek like that?"

"I'm sorry, do I look like I speak Bird?" retorted Oleg, checking on Vsevolod. Thankfully, the small philologist was just knocked out and was slowly regaining his senses. "If their faces mean what I think they mean, our little friend just did something extremely right. Maybe even catastrophically right, who knows."

"I'll... translate..." squeaked Vsevolod weakly, opening one eye and wincing. "If... that inedible-rabbit-explicit-part won't stop screaming like that... I'll... probably do nothing, he's too large and strong. And... hits like a truck. Right now he's trying to tell his son that he's... wow, I never knew you can sing it like that... The guy is freaking poet. Well, he's berating son of his son's son for picking fights with an adult. Might've missed a son or two, but the idea is that they are related."

"Seems to be a reasonable lesson, though, I wouldn't mind knowing how he knows you are an adult," nodded Oleg. "But it appears that we're off menu."

Vsevolod rose from the straw, cradling his head and wincing again, though it didn't stop him from chuckling:

"I think you've got it all wrong. He's telling him that the adult as small as me can't eat something as big as you alone, so there'll be plenty leftovers for the cubs."

"So, you've proven your right to eat me, great," said the batpony, sitting down. "Let's hope that also includes the right to do it when you want it, not when that crowd gets hungry. Which would be pretty soon if my assumption that they are short on food is correct."

"Food little," agreed Helga, leading Kurgash closer to their group and angrily glaring at the cubs still following them with hungry eyes. "Winter-r. Bad hunt. Big strong gr-riffons fly far, dange-r-r. Small-feather stay home, safe. Old-feather watch, hunt, feed. Small-not-small find new-stupid small. Helga small-not-small. Found another small-not-small. Rar-re."

"So, the adults fly far away to hunt in dangerous places, leaving the local prey to the young ones, who remain at home while the old care for them, and the young adults try to... catch more young ones?" Vsevolod's attempt at translation brought him a quick hug from Helga.

"Corr-r-rect! Vsevolod wise!"

"Huh, not that bad an arrangement for someone this primitive," hummed Oleg, deep in thought. "I wonder what makes them so sure they'll find some young griffons just wandering around in the woods, though. Can you ask her?"

After several minutes of a weird mix of words and chirps, Vsevolod turned back to the batpony and said:

"Well, it seems that what Podorozhnik said wasn't completely wrong. Apparently, the forests are still full of, well, uncivilized ferals, contrary to the civilized ones we have here. She thinks there's something wrong with how they think... I'm not sure I understand what she means, but the thing is, you can't reason with their adults. They are not much of parents, though, so they tend to leave the young cubs all around to fend for themselves, and if you can catch them early enough, you can still make them Helga's kind of sane. She thought I was one of those, but it turned out I'm too stupid. They all know at least something about hunting and all can fly. They get similar cases from time to time, and from what I can understand, they are mostly kids from our time. They are valuable since they might know something useful - like, how to build a... let's call it a house," he looked at the closest building and sighed. "Yeah, you can see how well it works, but it beats sleeping in the snow... probably. Anyway, there's one thing that is very similar to how the griffons in the pony towns live. They do have that stupid Great Hunt here as well! Same rules, same rewards - you complete the damn thing, you are an adult, you fail - you're dead. Adults that are too young to breed themselves, hunt their future children in the wilds. So... yeah, technically, by their rules, Helga is my mother. Probably the youngest mother with an adult child they ever had."

Oleg looked at the bigger griffon, then at Vsevolod, and then fell to the ground laughing. Kurgash took a bit longer, but when it did, she exploded with laughter, falling on her back and trying to stifle the guffaws with her hooves.

"Yeah, yeah, very funny," scowled the young griffon, trying not to giggle himself.

"Family relations aside," said the batpony after managing to stop laughing, "we still need to decide what we will do next. I don't know about you, but I'm not very excited about spending the rest of my life in one of those things they call houses."

"That's the least of your worries," sighed Vsevolod. "We're running out of food you can eat. Unless you want to roleplay a Yakut horse and dig the grass from under the snow, we'll have to search for something else. Probably grow something, but that's when the spring catches up to us."

Oleg frowned, deep in thought, and then shook his head, "No. Let's be real, we're not farmers, and our gracious hosts are about to ascend to the early stone age if I'm not mistaken. In the tropics, we probably could grow something, but here? Man, we're spitting distance from the polar circle. The only thing we can reliably harvest here are the pine cones, and that's only because they grow themselves. We also lack the knowledge of which plants are edible for a pony - Kurgash probably knows everything about the ones that grow in the steppe, but we're deep in the forest. Don't want to sound pessimistic, but I don't think we can stay here for long. This was always a hunter territory back in the day."

"I don't know forest plants," admitted Kurgash, "but I know how the herds get more food when we can't grow or find enough!"

"Really?" the batpony turned to the pegasus and raised a brow. "How?"

"We go war and take it from those who have more! Or we trade!"

"I like your priorities. Too bad both solutions require neighbors," sighed Oleg, frowning even deeper.

"Neigh-bors! There!" Helga pointed in a direction away from the mountains. "Come soon. Bad hunt. Danger-r. Keep away!"

Helga hissed and the hair on her back bristled. Several nearby cubs chirped in fright and hid beyond the building. Vsevolod turned to her and tilted his head.

"Hey, I know that hiss! Don't tell me... we've got elks as neighbors? Great, I was worried we might have a chance of staying in one place for longer than a week..."

"So it's settled then, we stay," nodded Oleg, standing up and shaking the snow off his coat.

"All right, so we need to ga... WHAT?" Vsevolod turned to the batpony, mouth agape. "We just found every reason why it's impossible!"

"Indeed, so now we know what we must overcome. Now we just need to overcome it and we're golden!"

"But... impossible?"

"Look, pal, I've heard your story. Impossible is how the world works, it seems, and I'm not a big fan of chasing some other kind of it all over the continent. I'm lazy. If we do what you did up to this point, we would wander around until something finally kills us, dodging one impossible thing after another. We need to stop somewhere and dig in. At least here we can hope that no one else would come to eat us, with so many apex predators around. As for impossible... turning into a horse is impossible. Neigh."

Vsevolod looked at the pony, raising a talon to protest, but then sighed and lowered it back on the ground. Oleg's words struck the part of him that was really, really tired of aimless wandering. Deep down he knew that it has to stop somewhere, that he'll need to build a home for himself. And, while he was reluctant to admit it, hoping that there was a place where it would be easy was pretty stupid of him. Yes, the griffons' rock wasn't looking like the best place to settle, but it was a start, and he already managed to impress the locals somewhat.

"Fine, you win this one," he said. "But if they'll eat you while I'm not looking, it's your fault and your fault alone."

With that decided, the group looked around to try to understand what they'll have to do next. During their conversation, the majority of cubs lost interest and wandered somewhere. The elder had also finished "educating" his offspring and left, as did the most of the older griffons. The only one left was perched on the roof of one of the huts and paid the newcomers no attention.

"Well, first things first, we need a place to drop off our stuff, and I don't think we can just take one of the houses," said Oleg, eyeing the nearest hut with disgust. "If only there was a cave or something nearby, it would've made a perfect base of operations."

"What cave?" asked Helga. "Fun place?"

"Not by your definition," Vsevolod shook his head, finally trusting himself enough to stand up. "Remember when we met Kurgash? We've spent a night in a cave. Is there anything like that nearby?"

"Ah, fun-scare-hole! Yes! Near! Fun!"

"You know, we need to work on your definitions of fun, Hel," sighed the small griffon, gesturing to her to lead the way. "I'm afraid to imagine what can be a scary kind of fun to you."

They walked beyond the settled area, through a thin line of trees on the mountainside, and found themselves on a small clearing. Before them, the grey stone of the mountain was broken by a sight none of the Returns expected. Kurgash was first to break the stunned silence:

"Honored Ancestors, is this a door?"

"Aghk!" replied Oleg, gathering all the wits he could muster. "Bghlk!"

Vsevolod couldn't agree more. While, in theory, he knew such things exist, he never saw any in person and wasn't expecting to see it nine hundred years in the future. Any mechanisms that once held the enormous construction in place had long rusted into nothing, and the only reason it was still standing was its thickness. The door was at least a meter thick and was likely half-open when whatever powered it stopped. Now it stood there, a reminder of the era when the human technological genius sometimes trampled any sense of reason.

"Y-yeah, it's a door," he agreed weakly, carefully touching the rusty surface. "Or was a door, when it was still working."

"That... can be useful," said the batpony, examining the door and turning his attention to the hole in the mountain it once closed. "I wonder what's inside, though. Let's hope it's not a rusted pile of plutonium warheads. Wait, scratch that, we do know that it's safe - Helga apparently went in and is still alive."

The apparently alive griffon trotted to the dark entrance and gestured with a wing, inviting everyone to follow her. Hesitantly, the travelers went into the wide gap, stepping over the pile of rust indicating where the steel threshold was once. The first part of the cave had nothing of interest - the concrete walls had long lost all the paint and plaster, the floor was covered with dried mud and rotting leaves, and the only sign of the artificial nature of it was a lone lightbulb on a wire hanging from the high ceiling. How did it manage to survive almost a thousand years intact was a mystery. About half a hundred meters in, another massive door was hanging half-open. It wasn't as rusted as the one outside and the hinges were still holding. Oleg pushed it, but it didn't budge even a little. Beyond, the light from the surface became scarce enough that Vsevolod nearly bumped into a wall - the corridor split right after the door, with the left side partially blocked by a pile of rubble from the ceiling.

"Nice place," said Oleg, looking around. His eyes quickly adapted to the gloom of the cave and he looked around, noting the cracks in the walls and the remnants of the various appliances once adorning them. "The entrance alone is enough to make a decent home, and this could be used... hmm, guys, you don't look too good."

Turning to his friends, he noticed that both the griffons and the pegasus were shaking, glancing around and clinging to each other. Kurgash looked at him as if she was barely able to see him and said:

"D-d-dreamwalker, this place is sc-c-cary! And d-dark! I-I-I can't see the walls! They are closing on us, right? I know they... they are!"

"Scary! Scar-ry!" nodded Helga, nudging the group towards the pile of rubble. "Go! Quick! Fun!"

Shrugging, Oleg carefully stepped over the rocks and, after several steps, turned a corner.

"Wow!" was the only thing he managed to say, sitting down, overwhelmed by the sight before him.

The enormous cave lying before him was the most beautiful thing he ever saw. The corridor connected to it pretty high above the floor and every surface of the huge cavern was covered in a soft multicolored glow. Everything was covered by a layer of large crystals, each adding a slightly different hue to the wonderful rainbow filling the air.

"You were not kidding this time," admitted Vsevolod to Hel, carefully stepping on the narrow ledge near the entrance to the corridor. "I've got no idea what it is, but it looks... you know, I know seven languages, and I don't have a word for this. Not a single one."

"Pretty!" whispered Kurgash, forgetting all her fears and crouching to see the nearby crystals better. "Never saw them grow so big!"

"Fun!" chirped Helga, lying down near the entrance and fluffing her feathers. "Scary, then fun!"

"You know what those are?" Oleg turned to the pegasus, raising a brow.

"Yes! Those are magic crystals. They are made... grow? I'm not sure... from magic. You can use them to make strong potions or torches that never go out, or you can even make magical items if you know how! Mom knows... we always had some small at home. They cost much, especially when big... and this... we can buy half of the Field with just a couple of those!"

Vsevolod blinked at the glow and settled down near Helga. The glow of the magic crystals was warm and soothing. He felt his eyelids getting heavier by the moment.

"Sleep," said Helga, covering him with a wing. "Good place. Good sleep. Good dreams. Safe."

With it, the small griffon closed his eyes and for the first time in who knows how long, his dreams were filled with summer and warmth.

23: Gjallarbrú

The warm rainbow-colored winds carried Vsevolod up and around the great tree of his dreams. Never before could he reach this high. Looking up, he could even glimpse on the top of the tree, see the bright light shining from something that crowned the great trunk. He still had ways to go to see what it was, so he pumped his wings, trying to pick up the speed. The rainbow around him shifted, supporting his effort.

"Look how far you've come, little bird," said a bit raspy voice from somewhere nearby. "From a small, scared and hungry cub to a proud and strong hunter who took his own life from the maws of the wolves, and not only his own, but of his family. Who would've thought that you'll be able to do so much with so little... yet, your final choice is yet unmade. Soon, soon you'll have to decide. Each side will take sacrifice. One will take you to the sky. The other will... look for yourself."

Glancing around, Vsevolod saw nobody. As he prepared to dismiss the strange voice, a mighty invisible force has grabbed him and started to squeeze. He felt like his body is changing, molding into something he knew very well, yet almost forgot how it felt. Just as sudden as the force came, it vanished, leaving a human in place of a griffon. And at that moment he remembered that humans don't have wings. The rainbow parted and he plunged down, to the burning forests below.

The fall had not scared him - after all, he knew it was a dream, and given how high up he was, it was a long way to the bottom anyway. So long that in the real world he should've had troubles breathing being this high. The trees in the forest below were small only compared to the giant he used as a perch, reaching hundreds, maybe even thousands of meters into the skies. Now that he was falling towards the forest, he could see that some of the trees were bare of leaves, covered in snow, while others wore green of the summer or gold of the autumn. His fall was towards one of the snowy patches, one that had the flames in the shape of the antlers coming from it. The flames shifted as if they saw his descent, roaring high and attempting to impale him. The moment the flames reached him, though, he was yet again soaring high above them, looking at the fire devouring a small humanoid figure.

"Almost there, little bird. Almost ready. Choose wisely."

Vsevolod felt his gaze being drawn to the shiny object on top of the tree. A wide bridge with a golden thatched roof was unrolling before him, leading towards the trunk and spiraling into a ramp around it.

That was the moment he woke up.

Opening his eyes to the rainbow glow of the crystal cave, he found that everyone else was still asleep. Everyone except the certain batpony. And that batpony was not looking happy at all.

In fact, the look on his face was best described by a word of the wild griffon language that, roughly translated, meant a blood rage consuming everything it touches. Vsevolod only knew it because, as it turned out, that it was the name of the state he went into when he attacked the larger griffon earlier that day. And even more apparent was that the state itself wasn't exclusive to the griffons.

Noticing that the small griffon woke up, Oleg turned to him and made a visible attempt to calm down a little - just enough to regain the ability to speak. It took him several minutes, and, judging from his face, a titanic amount of effort, but eventually he was able to convey his grievances:

"This... place. It's magic. It's... argh! It's broken! And it... it... IT! It wants me to... FIX IT!" growled the batpony, gritting his teeth. "I knew it! I just ... knew it would end like this. It always ends like this. You thought it won't, right? Well, too bad, it is! I just... ARGH!"

"It wants you to do what?" asked Vsevolod, trying to move further from Oleg and closer to still snoring Helga.

"Look there," the bat pointed his hoof into the rainbow curls. There, near the far wall of the cave, a recent cave-in crushed a patch of the crystals. The area around it was darker than the rest of the chamber, and the colors around it looked greenish and sickly. "That stuff is bad stuff. It's not healthy for those shiny rocks. They fear they might catch it and it would be sad. So they want it fixed, and fast."

"Do you know how to fix such stuff?" asked Vsevolod, squinting at the damaged patch.

"Of course I know! Let me show my damned degree in thaumic repairs! Oh, wait! Are you stupid or what? Of course, I have no idea how to fix it!"

"Then why it asked you to?" Vsevolod raised an eyebrow at Oleg.

"Because it somehow knows that I will fix it if I'm asked," growled the batpony, pressing his forehead to the cold concrete of the wall.

"But you don't know how, right?"

"Of course I don't! It's magic, I don't know shit about magic! Three days ago I would've told you it doesn't exist!"

"Then how would you fix it then?"

"Argh, and I wanted it to stay in the past... all right, time for a brief history lesson of one ex-human. You see, back in the day when everything was either stupid or boring, there was one kind of magic that is not really magic. A curse that needs nothing supernatural to work. I called it a curse of implied competence. Most of the people called it 'you're a programmer'. I'm pretty sure you were on the other side of this problem more than once," Oleg squinted at Vsevolod suspiciously and continued. "Somehow, if you worked with computers, you were considered a benevolent omnipotent being, ready to share your skills and wisdom on demand. If you have a problem - call a programmer. Any, absolutely any problem. Blue Screen of Death, keyboard not responding, the power out in the entire city, a clothing iron short-circuited, a goat is giving birth... yes, I'm not kidding, and that wasn't a particularly friendly goat.

"If you don't want to think, call the smart guy, he would know. He knows everything, after all. Don't forget to mention how you envy his job where he's doing nothing and getting a nice paycheck for it while you at it. Who knows, he might've forgotten since the last time you said it. Be prepared to be angry at him if he's somehow busy with something else, though, since you of all people know that your task is of highest possible priority, and no unreachable deadline from the boss should keep him from spending several hours assisting you with an IT-unrelated task you have."

Oleg took a moment to make several deep calming breaths and continued: "It was infuriating. I hoped beyond hope that I could leave it all behind, you know. Be a simple silly winged horse, solve simple winged horse problems for once. Not something several magnitudes beyond my level of competence. But it seems that everyone around me could smell it. Like there's a huge shining sign painted over me, saying 'This guy here can solve your unsolvables, get in line!'''

The batpony sighed, looked around and glimpsed a soft glow, coming from the symbol on his thighs. He froze for a minute and then his eyes widened with realization. Screaming something unintelligible, he lunged at the symbol, but the movement caused his rear end to jolt out of his reach. That didn't stop the furious pony, and so, Helga and Kurgash woke up to the unforgettable sight of him swirling in place and snapping his teeth, trying to bite his own butt.

"So, Dreamwalker is crazy," sighed the pegasus, dodging the frantic swirl. "What made him angry at his tail?"

"He's having a hard time accepting his destiny," shrugged Vsevolod. "I'm not sure I can explain it to you, you know, Return stuff and all, but trust me, his reasoning is solid. Let him blow off some steam."

It took a while, but eventually, the bat has tired himself enough to stop trying to bite himself and fell on the cavern floor, panting, but still growling softly. He looked around and spotted the rest, sitting near the wall and engaged in betting on his success on reaching his mark. It looked like Helga had won, so she grabbed a shiny stone chip and hid it somewhere in her feathers.

"So, how's your existential crisis?" asked Vsevolod, turning towards Oleg and tilting his head. "Feel better?"

"Not really, but I guess it won't help much if I continue. This place needs to be fixed, our base of operations needs to be built, and since all of you seem to be as claustrophobic as I don't know what, the only option for that will be the entrance chamber. Also, I need to think of a way to have my revenge. None got my help in something I don't like and got away unscathed."

"Fair enough," admitted the small catbird, standing up and stretching. "Let's go see what we can do about our new home."

After a detailed inspection, the entrance chamber turned out to be almost perfect for their purposes. Since it was made to admit and unload cargo trucks, it was large, with various adjacent rooms they hadn't noticed the first time they went through it. One of them could be turned into a comfortable bedroom, compared to every dwelling of the griffon settlement. The only issue was the lack of workforce. Vsevolod was never a craftsman even when he had proper hands, and his young age meant he had not much stamina. Oleg was big and strong enough for most of the tasks required and had some experience, but he lacked coordination, barely being able to walk straight. Helga had no concept of manual labor whatsoever, so in most cases, it was easier to wait for Oleg to tumble into a solution than to explain to her what needs to be done. That only left Kurgash as someone who has both the knowledge, skill and ability to do something useful, but she wasn't very strong and most of her time was taken by teaching the batpony the basics of everything.

Thankfully, the area right before the gate was some kind of grassland, so that solved the food problem for the ponies. With Helga making hunting trips in the forest, it kept them all fed. That also left Vsevolod with enough free time to work under a strict, if not always calm and collected, guidance of Oleg. Truth to be told, it contained a lot of ultrasound screaming in rage. It looked like the griffons had an inborn knack to be bad at construction work, and visits from the curious cubs from the main settlement helped nothing. Like overgrown magpies, they tried to steal anything that wasn't guarded or a part of the bedrock, eat any food that was left unchecked for more than a minute and started an uncountable number of fights right in the middle of half-assembled wall or door.

But even with all those hardships, in about a week, the first room of their new home was completed and "furnished". By human standards, the room they've chosen was small, but with their new size, they've managed to make room for five separate sleeping spots - one for each of them and one for sleeping in a pile. One corner of the room was taken by a big pile of rocks Oleg proudly called a caveman's best stove: a crude fireplace with smoke vented outside by the remnants of the old ventilation system of the facility. Despite its horrible looks, it provided enough heat to draw all of the cub population from their "homes" and into theirs. After a lot of screeching, they've managed to keep the winged menace in the hallway that also got much warmer after they've barricaded the most of the entrance with rocks and twigs. The older griffons also checked what the younglings were up to, but none of the four living in the village chose to sleep inside. They moved their sleeping spots to the trees around the clearing, though.

The only task that saw no progress in that time was the rainbow cave. All of them visited it almost every day, somehow the magic of the crystals calmed the mind and energized the body, but none had any idea on how to fix the damage. Vsevolod carefully removed the crushed crystals, but part of the greenish glow remained, and the affected area grew a bit since then. Oleg said that at this rate they may have plenty of time to think of something, so the search for the solution was put on hold, though they've checked the affected patch daily.

All in all, their life was starting to turn out to the better, with a clear goal and the means to reach it well within their capabilities. This far north, the spring was yet to be felt, so it seemed like they have several weeks before they could try any farming, but it wasn't a reason not to prepare what could be prepared. So, each morning Vsevolod flew into the woods both to practice his flying and look for promising meadows. He had found several and was checking one of them when a glance towards the bushes revealed the sight he hoped he won't have to see ever again.

Half-hidden by the branches, there stood a big elk whose head was covered with a finely embroidered woolen hat. An empty string hanging from the beast neck told Vsevolod everything he didn't want to know about the origins of the elk.

Both froze, locking their gazes and waiting for the other to move. After a moment, Vsevolod sprang into the air with a powerful flap of his wings, screeching "Elk-danger-hide!" on the top of his lungs, while below he heard familiar "Kaluchata! Sa kaluchata! Isika ma bik!"

Only back in safety of his home, Vsevolod thought that flying there directly might've been not the best idea.

Author's Note

Well, here we are, back in the saddle, so to speak. It might be late, it might be small, but the end is in sight and I really hope to wrap it up sometime this year. :rainbowdetermined2:
Grab your Mjolnirs, people, Ragnarök is coming.

1: Niflheimr

Cold. Always so cold.

His life, as of late, was made of cold. It crept after him during the day, it came full force during the night. It stepped away for a moment - when he needed to run - but hammered back the moment he stopped. Nothing in the frozen world around him could drive it away. It was no small wonder he was even alive - he knew, that winter, alone in the forest, kills even those who are ready. He wasn't ready. Yet, he was still alive. The cold have tortured him, but never enough to kill.

Then, of course, came the hunger. A forest is a place that is filled with food - in summer. It's overflowing with it in autumn. But winter, winter is bad for anyone who haven't stored enough food at home, or even inside one's body. Winter is the time of hunger. He had no storage, except for the small grocery bag, stolen by a wandering bear. He had no stored fat inside of him. He wasn't expecting the winter to come. He wasn't expecting to come to winter.

Yet, this day was different. This day the hunger wasn't around. The other, happier time, he'd probably befriend that hare. Or ignored it, since the hares are not too social towards his former kin. Today, he named that hare Lunch and made him his first meal in a week. That had probably saved his life, and even the cold wasn't as irritating for some time. Even the fact that he had to eat the hare raw wasn't going to rain on his day. It was going to snow on it. Rain would've meant spring, but his world had no spring anymore. Yet, laying there in his simple shelter made from a spruce tree and a lot of snow, he felt a little better. Maybe, there was hope. Maybe, there was spring. Because today, he also found out where he was.

The first clue was, actually, the spruce tree he had chosen as his shelter for the night. He didn't remember where, but he found out that a medium spruce tree can be repurposed into a makeshift shelter by just putting a lot of snow on its lower branches. It wasn't ideal, but it kept at least part of the night cold out. He did it for every night of the week, slowly walking south every day, and today wasn't any different, but the tree itself grabbed his attention. All the trees before it were green. This one was blue. He knew only one place the spruces were blue.

The frantic search in the fading light of the day revealed his suspicion to be true. The steep cliff he used to ambush the hare, the one he thought to be just another of the weird hills he came over during his travels, wasn't a cliff, it was a wall made of brick. The color was faded, but it was red. He made his temporary home at the Red Square, right beside of what remained of the Kremlin red walls.

Now, he laid in his humble abode, shivering a bit, and thought about last week, trying to put all the pieces of the puzzle he had together.

=A week earlier. May, 23, 2015=

The moment of spring turning winter was nothing special. No flashes of mystic light, no wind, no booming voice from the skies, just one moment he was closing the car door after a short trip to the store, and the next he's tumbling down rather massive snow pile. To say that he was in a panic is to put it mildly, his scream had shaken the skies above and his thrashing nearly obliterated the small pine tree his tumble have left him in. It also brought a fresh pile of snow down from much bigger pine tree nearby, so it took a bit of a time for him to finally find the top from bottom and dig himself out of the snow.

What was around him wasn't anything he could expect. Instead of the sunny and warm day in a peaceful suburb of a small town, he met early winter morning of a sparse forest, with no sign of civilization in sight. The only traces of human presence were his own short pants, hanging from a branch about half-way up the snow pile he fell off and the bag with the groceries a bit further down. His crushed glasses finalized the scene, lying near the smaller pine. The last part terrified him a bit more - since he was well aware of his near-blindness without the glasses, and it took his panicked brain some time to realize that, despite the glasses being utterly destroyed and nowhere near his eyes, his sight was better than at any point in his life. So good, that he could, probably, count the needles on a pine branch nearly a kilometer away. And a bright yellow beak on his own face.

That was the breaking point. All things piled up, he couldn't take it anymore. He wanted to faint right on the spot, to curl up and die, to wake up, or to suddenly remember that all his previous life was just a dream of some kind of alien bird. He didn't. He froze in place for a couple of minutes, eyes on the beak, tail swishing around and wings quivering. The tail was what woke him up from the stupor. Long, flexible, covered with dark gray fur, it was just too annoying to ignore, as it's end flew right into his painfully wide field of vision only to disappear the next moment. So he caught it with what was his hand just a few minutes before - and found out that he now had something resembling a claw instead. With long and very sharp talons on it, and a vice-like grip. The sharp pain in the new extremity finally woke him up completely.

With his very mobile neck, he examined his new form. To say it was weird was to remain silent. Mostly, it reminded him of what would griffin look like if such an abomination of all things science could actually exist. His lower half resembled one of a big cat - not a lion, the colors were wrong, the hair was too long and thick, the tail didn't have the trademark tuft on the end of it. It was more like a tail of really large house cat. Unlike the griffins he'd seen on the pictures, his front half was covered by the same fur, giving way to feathers only in front of the forelegs. The forelegs were more like those of a feline as well, excluding the lower part, large birdlike claws with sharp talons. The feathers on his head and body were an even darker shade of gray while those on the wings matched the color of the fur.

The last thing he examined were the wings. Large feathery appendages rested on his sides, quivering softly when he turned, sending dizzying signals to the brain that had no idea what or how to manage two extra limbs. All attempts to move them were ignored, so for the time being, he decided to leave the wings alone. Besides, even being this large, almost as long as his entire body even closed, he hadn't expected them to be functional. Unless there was a way to flap them with a speed of a hummingbird, the wings were obviously just for show. What kind of evolutionary hiccup can produce a creature like that was a mystery, but even larger one was how he managed to end up like a parody on a mythical creature lost in a winter forest. A rather small creature, too, if the trees around him were anywhere close in size to what he was used to. A big dog, at most.

He had enough experience with the kind of literature where the protagonist is thrown into an unfamiliar world. It was hard not, too, with the stories being so popular, but most of them focused on how the former nerdy geek, suddenly trapped in a body of a muscular barbarian, or bestowed upon with hidden unfathomable magical power, or given an artifact of immense importance, went and saved the world, rewritten history or something else along the lines. None explained how you supposed to survive the winter. Most had many helpful locals about, ready to at least imprison the hero in a warm prison. None had any hints on how to walk with four legs.

Thankfully, the snow is a soft substance, and his first attempts on moving weren't too painful, but he still spent a long time figuring out some kind of gait that matched his unmatchable set of limbs. It was slow, but at least, it didn't involve hitting the ground with a face every third step. It allowed him to gather all the worldly possessions he had - which included his pants, that didn't fit being way too large, a grocery bag (several packs of nuts, a pack of buns, several apples and a frozen chicken), and mangled remnants of t-shirt and a west with pockets. Unfortunately, while the contents of those pockets were very useful in the day-to-day life of a modern human, all of them were nearly useless in a forest. The phone had 5% of the battery left and no signal, the driver license and car keys required the car, and the house keys set... had a small multitool attached to it. That was useful, despite the tool being more of a joke than a real tool. It was also almost impossible to use with the talons - the "fingers" being less dexterous than he was used to. He used the small knife to convert what's left of t-shirt and the vest into one small bag with a string to hang it on the neck under the feathers. It was just large enough to contain the keys and the tool itself without the risk of losing it walking around. And he felt that his future had a lot of that in it. If he wanted to find out what happened, if he wanted to survive, he had to move. His food supplies were meager enough, he had no doubt in his ability to find food in the forest (skill not found), he was already feeling cold creeping up on him, so he did the only sensible thing left - picked up the bag in his beak and marched south. Even if there wasn't any kind of civilization there, there were at least some hope of it being warmer - if he could survive long enough. He did not give himself too much of a chance, but then again, he was going to at least try.

When the world had spring in it and the names had a meaning, he was named Vsevolod, "the owner of all". Who would he become now? Only time will tell. But his journey had begun.

Author's Note

And so it begins. Can't promise that this journey will end up in Asgard, but who knows?

All comments are greatly appreciated. Even if you hate me, my writing and my story, don't hesitate to tell me why. I really want to know. :twilightsmile:

2: Hel

The first night was the hardest. It came sooner than he thought and was colder than he expected. With no means to make a fire, his only defense from the cold, besides his own fur and feathers, was to dig a hole in the snow under a small fir tree and plug the entrance with the same snow. He hardly slept, despite being exhausted from all the walking in the deep snow, and with the first light of the morning, he was on the road again.

The forest around him got thicker after a little while, leafless bushes making the hard track even harder. Fir trees gave way to birches and pines, then something he couldn't identify without the leaves. No trace of humans and no trace of any wildlife met him on the second day of his lonely walk. He ate some of the buns and an apple, trying to ration his meager supplies. He knew he'll have to eat the chicken too, but also knew it'll take a lot of time to work up that kind of hunger.

That was also the day he first met the strange hills. It wasn't too easy to notice them. They were not that tall or particularly large, and his ability to notice things was severely limited by the exhausting monotony of pulling through the snow but the oddity was still too big to miss after bumping into several of them. The hills were devoid of any big trees, had distinct long and narrow shape, and were in many cases aligned. It was almost like someone took the time to build them. Vsevolod heard about such things before. Many ancient cultures did something like that to bury their important people, but the number of the strange hills was enough to bury a nation whole. Either it was some kind of ancient necropolis that held ages of dead kings, or there was something else to the hills. Winter kept its secrets, though, the snow was thick enough and he was tired enough to drop this mystery for another time. Still, the hills took his attention long enough. When he stopped pondering what could produce such hills, it was already too late to run.

The bear wasn't particularly large, and wasn't looking too aggressive, but Vsevolod knew that trusting a bear that isn't asleep in winter is suicide. No matter what rose the beast from its den, the unhappiness of the event should've made its already highly unsociable nature even more so - and hunger, that was inevitable in this frozen hell, wasn't doing anything to improve the bear's mood. So, having no other real choice, the ex-human used the only thing he had as a weapon - he threw the grocery bag right into the bear's face. The bag ripped apart, spreading his measly supplies around, and that had proven to be enough to distract the bear. It was probably already very hungry, and the apples took its interest immediately. Not bothering to check for gratitude, Vsevolod turned tail and scrambled away as fast as he could. Only when the sun had started to set, was he able to calm down and stop.

If the exhaustion of the previous day was bad, this time, it somehow got even worse. His limbs were refusing to move, even his wings were tired, yet he knew that he'll need some kind of a shelter. The sky above the trees was darkening faster than it could be because of the coming evening, and in winter, it meant that the night could bring the wind, snow or more cold. Looking around, he spotted several fir trees nearby, with lower branches touching the snow and the upper ones covered in even more of it. It wasn't perfect, but he had heard the stories about people braving the winter night like that. Of course, they weren't entirely happy about it, and got clothing, but he got his fur and feathers. Not an ideal defense, but it was obvious that without those he would've frozen yesterday. Even with those, the cold was slowly creeping up on him, so he used the little strength he had left to gather even more snow on the lower branches and then crawled inside. It was cold, but he wanted to believe that it was warmer than on the outside. This night he slept, though the sleep was fitful and in the morning he wasn't feeling rested.

He could still walk, so that he did. The walking made the cold go away for a time, and his gait was better than yesterday, but the hunger, not sated the day before, became even more apparent. He thought about everything he knew about finding food in the winter. His current form screamed "carnivore", with its sharp beak and talons, but his halves told him different stories about how to approach the hunting. The front one, being of some kind of an eagle, implied soaring through the skies, finding the prey from above and attacking it from an unexpected angle. The back half was of an ambush predator, crawling in the bushes and jumping from the branches. First was impossible since he was barely able to move his wings - let alone fly with them, the second - because the forest was too scarce and completely transparent. Even with his bleak coloration, he stood out in the snow and was very visible from very far away. Sometimes, he saw the hares that started to run away from him before he even noticed them.

The forest around wasn't as dead as it seemed to Vsevolod on the previous days. With his new eyesight, he started to notice the traces of various wildlife around him. There were tracks in the snow, from hares and foxes, there were birds in the treetops, once or twice he even stumbled upon an entrance to a lair of some kind - probably, fox or badger. The only thing same about it was that everything alive, except for that bear, had given him a wide berth, not willing to be helpful about his food difficulties. In his perpetual tired state, it took him a while to understand the meaning of that.

The wildlife knew, that it should be wary of a griffin.

There was some hope in that, he realized. If the animals knew his form, there should be the ones to not only create that fear but to maintain it through short animal generations. And those should be frequent enough guests in the area. He sincerely hoped that they are not as territorial as cats or eagles. He didn't hold much hope in them being sapient. After all, if he wasn't dead yet even with his non-existent survival skills, this form was good enough to survive the winter, and that meant that it doesn't need much intelligence to do that. Especially with his both halves belonging to well-known solitary animals, and solitude being a bad soil for sapience.

In any case, while meeting another griffin was a possibility, and not immediately a bad one, he didn't hold much hope for it. Meeting a herd of deer, though, was more of a possibility for food. He could track them by their deeper tracks and strike in the night, when they would be more vulnerable. Or there could be an old and weak animal in the herd he could outrun and overpower. He hadn't seen the traces of the deer presence yet, but there could be some later. So he walked, and walked, walked until the sun had set once more. This time, he was ready and have selected the proper spruce in advance. It wasn't easy to fall asleep with his diet for the day being only the snow, but he managed to curl up enough to retain some degree of warmth. His sleep was deep and in his dreams there was cold and hunger.

The morning was as cold as his dreams, and the hunger even more. His lonely trek had brought him to the area nearly completely covered by the strange hills. There was less wildlife around, but it was less scared of him for some reason. The pines and firs of the previous day gave way to several massive rowan groves - with a lot of berries still hanging from the low branches. Vsevolod's heart and stomach rejoiced with the sight of the food - he knew, that rowan isn't the tastiest of berries, but in his position, it was a gift he wasn't about to throw away. So he threw them up. Something in his digestive system had a grudge against rowan berries, and it took him a lot of time to recover from the vile aftertaste that was left in his mouth. That night he dreamed about being half-waxwing instead of half-eagle. For those, the groves were an open buffet.

In the morning, when he dug himself out from his temporary lair and was about to continue his struggle with the snow, he saw a griffin. The evening caught him on an edge of the forest, before the large clearing, and high above it, in the rays of morning sun, lazily spreading its wide wings, soared probably the most majestic creature he ever saw. Vsevolod's eagle eyes easily bridged the distance, letting him see the snow-white feathers with tiny dark specks, that adorned the front half of the creature, light brown fur of its rear, and impossible purple splotches around the golden eyes. In a short moment he was caught in the beauty of the sight before him, the griffin above angled its wings and darted south at the speed one won't expect from the living being. The only reminder of its presence was the ring of a distinct eagle cry that ringed in the woods long after the creature left.
His world was cold and hunger, but now it had an angel of hope in it. So, from that moment, his world also had a purpose.

3: Hvergelmir

"Right wing up! Right wing down! Left wing up! Left wing down! Wings fold! Wings spread! Right wing up!..."

The new addition to the daily routine of walking through the snow feeling cold, hungry and lost, was the wing gymnastics. The griffin in the skies shook Vsevolod's views of the world more than sudden Great Winter. He knew his physics, he knew his biology. He wasn't some kind of big scientist, but his knowledge was quite enough to understand that his current body can't possibly fly unless thrown. Yet, the unknown griffin did just that, and with no visible strain, like flapping the wings at fifty times per second. He believed in science, but he believed his eyes more. After all, scientifically, it was Thursday, May, 28. Monday of the next week was supposed to be the first day of summer, and he was human. His tail flickered into his field of vision, as a cruel reminder of a place he sent science that morning. Those were his first words aloud since he first dug himself out of the snow that shouldn't be, and some of them weren't expletives.

He had wings. He could fly. That was important, more important in his head than the immediate concern of slowly starving to death. So he pulled all the strength he had to spare - not that much at that - and had put it into learning how to properly move his wings. He already knew the basics - felt the way to move them on his second night, trying to curl tighter, but his movements were still very slow and sluggish. His brain was slowly adapting to the idea that he had two new limbs, but every time the wing sent some new sensation, it went into a halt to process it and understand what it was. His walk that day was slower than the previous one, and carefully avoided most of the trees and bushes the wing can suddenly touch. Instead, he spent a part of the night touching things with the feathers and learning the sensations it caused. It wasn't the worst way to forget about his empty stomach.

Next morning met him with the world that had only snow in it. The sky was presumably covered by low, heavy clouds. Vsevolod had to guess that, since there was no way to see - the snowfall was dense enough to hide everything more than a few meters away. He probably overslept the sunrise, too, since the snow had covered the tiny hole he always left in his lair while he slept. With so much fresh snow there was no way he could continue with his wing training, walking alone took all he had got. There was also no way to ensure that he still walked southward. He probably had some kind of innate sense of direction, being half-bird, but he didn't know for sure. So, he simply walked into the blizzard, hoping he's not backtracking his progress of yesterday.

The forest clearing gave way to some more dense forest, and then, suddenly, to the field of strange hills, bigger than he ever encountered before. The snowfall had thinned out a bit, so from the top of one of the higher ones, he could see rows and rows of them up to the horizon. There was some kind of system to them, too. There were many smaller clusters divided by the forest lines, almost like a city of hills with the forest "roads". It wasn't easy to notice, but the forest lines seemed to converge to some invisible central point. Since it was in the general direction of where he was going anyway, Vsevolod decided to adjust his course a bit. It wasn't like he had anything to lose. At least, he could sate his curiosity, if not his belly. Looking at himself, he noticed distinct signs of malnourishment. His ribs were visible, his fur lost its former sheen, and the feathers looked matted and unhealthy. He had not too much time left to find food. So he went on until the night fell again. In his dreams, he raided the "Animal husbandry" exhibit of VDNKh for chickens the size of an ostrich. His assault was thwarted by the large bipedal cows.

The new morning came, and on he went, walking around larger hills and over the smaller ones, until he was about to jump down a low cliff. There, he saw it. It was beautiful. It was glorious. It was everything he dreamed of, and more. Most importantly, it was the first hare he met that wasn't looking at him while running away. The hare sat at the bottom of the cliff Vsevolod was about to jump from. It was digging in the snow, probably looking for food, and even when it raised its head, it still only looked around, not up. It was, probably, not the smartest hare in existence, but it's not like Vsevolod needed it for a chat.

His body seemed to know what to do better than he thought. The moment he saw the hare, his legs crouched on their own volition, his wings spreading a bit while his tail started to shiver in anticipation. His eyes locked on the prey, he shifted closer to the edge, careful not to drop any snow down alerting the hare of his presence. At this point he didn't need to think about what he needed to do, everything went smoothly, like he'd done it many times. He could hear the loud thumps of his own heart, seemingly slowing down to a halt while his muscles coiled into loaded springs. The hare bent down again, digging at the snow and, for a moment, ignoring the world around it.

He fell on the hapless rodent like an avalanche - heavy, swift and deadly. The hare had no chance to peep in fright before his sharp talons ripped it apart, spewing blood everywhere around. Vsevolod was never a bloodthirsty man, he was pretty certain that if there will be a choice for him between killing a rabbit or dying from hunger, the rabbit will get to live, but at that moment he felt like he was doing the only right thing, the only possible thing to do in the situation. A week of constant cold and hunger have broken something inside of him, some hidden set of restraints, something that makes civilized people think there's "good" or "bad" ways to do things, with "bad" being the ones you shouldn't do no matter what. Before this week, he thought that eating something not quite dead yet is bad. Now he knew that this way he had food, other way he was hungry and cold. He had no desire to be hungry and cold anymore.

He also had no more hare left. It seemed like only seconds had passed, but the only thing reminding of the Lunch existence were several splotches of blood on the snow and the pleasant weight in his stomach. Even his claws and feathers were licked clean. The air ringed with the sound of the eagle call he heard the day before - but this time, it was his own. He wanted more, and he knew that from now he'll seek more, but for now... for now his body decided that it was content with what it got and needed some peace and quiet for proper digestion. The spruce tree nearby offered its blue branches to him, promising some relaxing time with little cold and no hunger. He was almost under it when the oddity clicked in his mind relaxed by the food. The spruce was blue. Turning around, he looked at the brick wall he just jumped off. It was red. The row of strange hills on the other side of a large clearing... looking at them he could easily remember the old walls of GUM standing there, covering the streets full of small and grossly overpriced shops within it. The hill to the left should've been Historical Museum, and the large one at the far end of the field was right on the spot where Saint Basil's Cathedral should stand.

Vsevolod thought he'll need to find a way to get home. He was home all along.

Author's Note

And with it, the introduction is over. The hero stands at the source, the place his new world will be born from.
From here it's only up the Yggdrasil, or down into Ginnungagap.
Before you ask, there's a reason it's three chapters and not one. Cookie* to the one who guesses it. :derpytongue2:
*self inflicted

4: Níðhöggr

The air in the small lair under a blue spruce tree was heavy with heavy thoughts. Vsevolod's eyes, nearly unblinking, stared at the piece of red brick he collected before retiring for the night. This was the final piece of the puzzle of where he was all the last week, yet he seemed to miss most of the rest of the puzzle to go with it. He was in Moscow, he was camping literally three steps from the Kremlin wall, yet this Moscow was nothing like the city he knew. It wasn't like any city at all. It looked like it was abandoned for centuries. There were several possible explanations to that, ranging from insanity to inter-dimensional travel. None of the explanations were pleasant, none had an easy way out. Being honest, none had any way out. He had to learn to live in this new reality, or die. Sighing softly, he said goodbyes to his family and friends. No matter where he was, it wasn't like he was going to see them again - unless the same force that brought him in this frozen hell would bring them as well, and he was sure he won't want this fate even for his worst enemies. Slowly, he closed his claw on the brick until it broke into sand. As any product of human civilization left unattended for too long, the brick was brittle and useless. This night held no dreams for him.

The morning met him with what he first thought was an earthquake. A low rumble and rhythmic thumps shook the ground, shook the snow from the trees and scared flocks of birds out of their slumber. Vsevolod crawled out into the early morning light and blinked several times, trying to see the source of the noise. A deafening roar, louder than any sound he had ever heard, helped him in that. From under the hill that he assumed was the ruins of St. Basil's, a creature of a legend emerged. Technically, he was a creature of a legend himself, but this one dwarfed any other, quite literally.

The dragon was beyond huge. If the walls of Kremlin still stood at full height, it would've been easily able to look above them. Its wingspan covered half of the field that was Red Square once, and it was proudly displaying it all, raising its head to the rising sun and popping its joints with the sounds akin to cannon fire. Something this big couldn't possibly be alive, yet the monster before Vsevolod was most definitely alive in all of its fifty-meter long glory, with shining golden-brown scales and gleaming sharp spines on its back. Each spine was three times as long as Vsevolod whole, including the tail. Stretching a bit more, the dragon burped out a cloud of smoke, scratched its belly, yawned and suddenly said in plain Russian:

"Well, time for some breakfast, don't you think, mister Gorynych? Why, senior Gorynych, what a splendid idea! I think monsieur Gorynych will be happy to accompany us? You are indeed right, my dear Gorynych, I'll gladly do so!"

With that, the dragon flapped his wings and slowly flew away westwards, whistling a tune from an old Soviet movie. It took Vsevolod several minutes to finally close his beak. The flying reptile was, apparently, batshit insane. Still, he was the last griffin to deny a dragon its right for some personality quirks. Being on the creature's menu wasn't too endearing as well, so he carefully sneaked along the wall behind the St. Basil's dragon lair, and quickly trotted further south, trying to keep himself hidden under the trees. Now the reason of the animals being unfamiliar with the griffons in the area was clear - with such a behemoth, even the stupidest of predators will keep their distance.

His trot had brought him across the frozen river, and into the heavily forested area of its southern bank. The building remnants were here as well, but unlike the northern part of Moscow, these were much smaller and many trees grew right on top of them. The area was also much heavier populated by the wildlife. Flocks of different birds chirped in the treetops, the tracks in the show indicated heavy hare traffic, and thus, Vsevolod's attempts to be sneaky were quickly rewarded. The hare probably tried the trick its kind is famous for, when the hare attempts to hide right until the danger steps on it, jumping out and startling the predator long enough to escape. Its only miscalculation was in how fast the griffon is able to close its claw when startled. When Vsevolod calmed down from the scare, he had two neat half-hares for breakfast. Since his hunger was only partially sated by the yesterday meal, this was most welcome. Later that day he learned, that while him being half-bird allows him eating his prey whole, he also has to do what birds do with the stuff they can't digest. Still, it was better than being hungry, and for the first time in a week, his gait had something like a spring to it. He even took some time to try to preen his feathers before going to sleep that night.

He was about to embark yet again when the loud thud behind him indicated that he had a guest. Turning around, he found himself beak-to-beak with the very same griffin he saw in the sky several days ago. This close, he noticed, that the griffin was nearly a head taller than him, and unlike his sorry self, was a picture of health. The creature eyed him carefully, tilted its head and produced soft birdlike chirp.

"Sorry, I can't understand you," answered Vsevolod, trying not to startle the griffin with a sudden movement. If his claws were of any indication of griffin strength, he didn't want to get on its bad side. The catbird in front of him backed away on his words, lifted its right claw and chirped again, this time, clearly confused.

"Still can't understand. Are you sure you don't speak any other language?"

"Squeak?" squeaked the griffin, pawing the air with the claw. "Squeak! Screeeeeech! Gak! Gak!"

All the sounds were so animalistic, that Vsevolod's last hope at communications shattered like an icicle. This griffon wasn't sapient. Well, at least, it was friendly enough not to claw his spine out.

"I'm sure whatever you want to say is important," he said to the griffon, "but unless you can speak Russian, I really can't understand you, and I really need to go. Drop in in the evening, we might chat then. Fine?"

"Squack! Kia!" the griffin shook itself and, with a little running start, flew away. Vsevolod shrugged and turned south, unfolding his own wings. There was no point in missing his exercise, no matter how pointless it looked. He already made several attempts to fly, but his wings were doing about as good job in lifting him as he would've expected from their size. Yet, his new friend seemed to have no problem flying, so there should've been some trick to it he hasn't found yet. The only way to find was to try - so he marched, flapped his wing and even sung a song.

The day was going as any other day before it, but when the sun started to set and he started to look for the shelter, he heard wingbeats, and in a few moments, the feral griffin plopped in the snow nearby. It dropped large partridge before him, pushed it with its claw and looked at him expectantly. He also pushed the dead bird, not understanding, what the griffon intended for him to do with it. He could've sworn the catbird rolled its eyes at him, crouched and imitated tearing the partridge apart with its beak, then moved it to him again.

"You want me to eat it? Really? Thanks! That's the nicest thing someone did for me, you know. It's hard to find food when all you can do is walk moderately fast!" With that, he attempted to grab the bird with his beak. But the moment he was about to touch it, lightning-fast claw grabbed it and moved out of his reach.

"Squee!" said the griffon, looking at him with a hint of a smirk in its eye.

"You are evil catbird, just so you know," Vsevolod informed his tormentor, trying yet again to grab the partridge. This time it was also moved out of his way the last moment.

"Kek! Kek! Kerrrk!" said the griffon, looking innocent.

"All right, mister Griffin, not funny!" growled Vsevolod, getting irritated. This time he lunged after the food with his own claws, but with seemingly no effort at all, it was yet again out of his grasp. That did it. He roared in defiance and started to chase elusive partridge using all the speed and agility he had acquired during his long hike. It seemed to be just enough to fail few hair widths short of grabbing the food, to the visible amusement of the native. When Vsevolod was ready to give up, suddenly his next jump brought him right on top of the partridge. Griffin moved away from him and squeaked something encouraging. After such a workout that even made the cold go away, he didn't need any more encouragement. He clawed the bird apart and nearly inhaled it. It felt good, better than just receiving it as a gift. He looked at his friend with a new understanding.

"Thank you, kind stranger. If you ever need any help, I'm in your debt. Not like you really understand me... you know, I don't even know your name! I'm Vsevolod, and you are...?" to emphasize the meaning of his words, he pointed at himself and then on the griffon. The griffon looked at him confused, then shook its head and repeated his gestures.

"Vree-vok! Heel-ha!"

"Helha? Helga? Hmm... all right, Helga it is. I'll call you Hel, for short, if it's alright with you?"

"Hel! Hel! Heel-ha!"

With this said, newly named Helga took off and disappeared in a flurry of snow.

Author's Note

Look who we have here, a griffin stupid enough to hunt in great Gorynych hunting grounds! :pinkiegasp:
At least it seems nice to Vsevolod. Can he keep it? :raritystarry:

5: Jötunheimr

That night Vsevolod woke up from a feeling he thought he had forgotten. It was so sudden and nice that it scared him. For the first time in what felt like forever, though it was only a little more than a week, he felt warm. When the best you can get is "almost not cold", the warmth can be startling. For a moment he thought that the madness was over and he's back home, and all it was a terrible nightmare. His hope was shattered the moment he opened his eyes - he was still under a fir tree, surrounded by the snow of the Great Winter. Darkness was already receding, the morning was near. Yet, he still wasn't cold, the warmth wasn't a dream. Then he felt that he's not alone in his lair. Two strong arms ending with vicious talons were wrapped around him, and two large wings that weren't his, covered him and sleeping Helga. The native griffin cuddled to him like he was an over-sized teddy bear and whimpered softly into his feathers in her sleep. Whatever dream was haunting her, it wasn't a happy one. She squeezed him a bit, inhaled and suddenly calmed down, starting to snore contently, her beak settling in a wide grin.

That was another thing Vsevolod hadn't understood about his new anatomy. His beak was, when needed, hard as steel and sharp as a razor - but at the same time he could shift it into pretty much every expression he would expect from a human face. Adding to the weirdness, the sides of the beak had a ridge of bone-like growth that looked almost like teeth. Those gave him the abilities no bird possess - he was able to smile and properly chew his food. Yet, until his meals became more regular, he hadn't even noticed it.

The sight of contently smiling griffin beside him, the warmth she shared with him, he haven't even noticed when he drifted back to sleep. When he woke up again, the sun was already up, and there was no trace of Hel's presence.

She had returned when Vsevolod decided to at least try to hunt, when several hours of walking brought him into the forest not littered with the remnants of the buildings. By his count, he should've been somewhere near Bitsevski park, the area that was the forest even when the city was alive. Unlike the areas with buildings, the forest was thick here, and that allowed him to at least attempt stealth. His attempts wasn't very successful, more dense forest meant that there were many more bushes, branches and other things that make unwanted sounds. Still, it was a bit more fun than just walking, and somehow he felt like this was the right thing to do. Somewhere in the middle of it, Helga appeared from the undergrowth like a shadow. She moved through the woods effortlessly, making no sound above light creaking of the snow under her claws, and no branch was disturbed by her passing.

"Sq-q-q-wee?" she asked, looking at Vsevolod's attempts to sneak on a bullfinch. The bird that observed his rather noisy approach for the last minute, chirped something obscene and flew away.

"Hel, you can at least let me finish!" He moaned, watching it go. "I almost caught this one! And it was so plump, too!"

"Keerak!" retorted the larger griffin, nuzzling his wing with the beak. "Kee! Hel!"

"I still can't understand you, and you should know it by now," sighed Vsevolod, twitching the wing. "If you want something from me... hey, what's your problem?"

Helga snapped at him, and with her claw unceremoniously unfolded his wing. She sniffed at it, tugged at a feather, carefully removed another one that was loose, and then repeated the process with the other wing. When he attempted to close the wings again, she suddenly snarled.

"Vree-vok! Heel-ha! Hel-hel-hel-ha!"

"So you want me to stand here with my wings open, like I have nothing better to do?" his confusion was so visibly apparent, that Helga sighed deeply and sagged a bit. Then she unfolded her own wings and gave them several strong flaps, almost taking off.

"Heel-ha!"

She then put one of her wings under his and tried to force him to do the same. Vsevolod repeated the movements, but in his case, the only effect of the flapping was the snow it rose from the ground. Helga tilted her head at this, seemingly deeply in thought, then, suddenly, jumped in the air.

"And now you are gone like the wind. I wonder what was tha... HEY!"

He wasn't able to finish the sentence, or even close his wings, when the native decided to finally betray his trust and assault him from above. She landed on his back, firmly holding on his forelegs with her claws and standing on his back with her hind legs. It wasn't easy for her, since she was quite a bit longer, but she had still managed to pin him in place.

"Stop! What the hell, lady? I'm not that kind of gr... Stop I say!"

"SQWACK!" Nearly deafening him with the angry cry, Hel carefully lowered herself so she was almost laying on his back. Her wings slowly descended on his, feathers gently touching.

Then he felt it.

It wasn't easy to describe even to himself. All the feelings in the wings were alien to him, but this one was distinctly different from them all. It was akin to the feeling one might get from putting a hand in the fast flowing river. Some kind of invisible stream was flowing from Helga's feathers and washed over his, and something similar, if not that potent, was flowing from his feathers as well. It was invisible, he made sure to turn his head and look, but he was able to tell where it is and where it goes as well as if it was visible. He realized that the flow was not just there, it was part of himself, a part that he could control as he liked. Much like with the wings at first, his control wasn't any good, most he could do was make it "twitch" a bit, but even that small bit was enough to make his feathers tremble from the sudden random gusts of wind. And then the constant pull of gravity that always linked him to the ground, suddenly disappeared. For a moment he was floating several centimeters above the ground, before plopping back into the snow.

The iron grip of Helga's claws was suddenly released. With a mighty sigh, the bigger griffin jumped off his back, looking tired, but content. She looked at Vsevolod and spread her wings again.

"Vree-vok! Vree! Hel! Heel!" To emphasise her "words" she flapped her wings several more times.

This time, he felt the faint echo of the strange stream in her wingbeats. Concentrating, he tried to repeat after her, and this time his clumsy flaps had produced some lift. Not nearly enough to fly, and he immediately felt tired like after a whole day of walking, but the feeling was there. He didn't know what was that feeling, but now it was obvious it was the secret to griffin flight. Despite him not flying right away, Helga looked content and hadn't made any attempts to force him to try again. Instead, she made encouraging noise similar to cat's purring, and turned to Vsevolod, seemingly to give him a friendly nuzzle. Halfway she froze in place.

In some other case, he would've thought that what happened next might be interesting or maybe even humorous. Every single feather on Hel's head suddenly poofed out, giving an impression that her head suddenly grew three times in size. Next, every hair on her lion side did the same, including the tuft on the end of her tail. With wings half spread she crouched low and made the most vicious hiss Vsevolod ever heard. Her eyes were wide with terror, and whatever caused it, was on his other side.

Snapping his head around, he looked at the cause, and for a first moment didn't believe his eyes. It was a feat, since his life, consisting of winter in June, crazy dragons, griffin flying lessons and a city that aged into ruins in a second, made saying the word "impossible" hard. Yet, the sight before him warranted it. At the edge of the clearing he was in, stood a moose. A large beast, with shaggy fur and long antlers, it wasn't a sight that uncommon around Moscow, even when the city was still there. What was uncommon is that the antlers of the moose wasn't on its head. Instead, they were forming a weird necklace, hanging from the moose's mighty neck on a string. Instead of the antlers, the head of the moose was adorned with a small woolen hat, richly decorated by an embroidery. On the sides it wore two large bags, seemingly empty. The look the moose was giving to the pair of griffins was less than friendly.

"Kaluchata! Sa kaluchata! Isika ma bik!" suddenly roared the moose, stepping out of the bushes. Vsevolod felt a sudden surge of the stream and a slam of the air, signalling Hel's take off. But instead of flying away, she circled the clearing and dived at the moose, screaming.

"Vreek! Kereeek! Kreeeek!" At the last moment, she veered off, missing the moose's head but startling the beast enough so Vsevolod was able to regain his senses and bolt for the forest. The moose, recovering after the assault, ran after him. Helga repeated her attack, making the moose stumble and lose speed. He roared once again, and charged after the fleeing griffin. Luckily for Vsevolod, the griffin he chose to charge after, was not him, but Helga, who danced in the air just out of the moose's reach and lead him the other way. Deeper in the forest, more roars of "Kaluchata!" and "Hatima baruk!" were heard, but it was clear that the commotion was moving away. Gathering all his strength, Vsevolod had ran, and ran, until the sun had started to set. He hadn't heard a noise of the pursuers for a long time by then, but the fear drove him forward anyway. He was worried about Helga - he had no idea what suddenly sapient mooses had against griffins, but it was quite clear that the one they've met wasn't about to give out hugs. He wanted to help her somehow, but he also understood that there was nothing he could do, except accepting her attempt to lead the hunt away from the one that can't just fly away. Why had she suddenly decided to bother with him at all he had no idea - but was sure that he'll want to know eventually. Right now, running was more important.

In the last light of the dying day, his flight brought him to a big clearing. There, the forest receded and the terrain gently lowered down to what seemed to be a small river. On the river shore, stood something that Vsevolod was least expecting in this frozen world. There stood a normally-looking village of several dozen wooden huts. Smoke was rising from the smokestacks, some kind of a horse was pulling a sleigh with the firewood. The place was far from the killer moose or crazy dragons, it was so normal, that all the exhaustion of the last week, all the stress, caught up to Vsevolod in one huge wave. He passed out and slowly tumbled down the slope towards the village.

Author's Note

Technically, it wasn't moose, it was european elk, moose being it's close relative from Canada.
But I like the word "moose" more. :derpytongue2:

6: Miðgarðr

The sleigh was creaking softly under a heavy load, and it was the perfect music to go with the thoughts of the stallion pulling it. His thoughts were about yet another day of work well done, of the many families that won't have to freeze because of this. They were of the plans for the next day of woodcutting. The usual stuff that filled the head of the proud scion of a proper earth pony family on daily basis. His thoughts were always slow, through and grounded. It is proper for an heir to the long and proud line, in which every elder son was a stallion providing everypony with warmth during the long winter and kept their stoves running all year-round. Teplovoz was never a dreamer, that would've been improper. He always was the most reliable stallion around, though, like his father before him, like his father before him, down to the dynasty founder, who made something called 'nuclear turbines' for a living before the world became proper. Despite his young age, he was already a respected member of the little community. He moved into it when he was considered old enough to live on his own. That, of course, was in no little part the result of the fact that he was the first to rise in the morning, the last to go to sleep, and was never seen shirking from the work. That also meant that if something happened when everypony else was asleep, it usually was his problem to solve.

So, when the unconscious griffin cub rolled down the hill and stopped by the village border, it was Teplovoz who spotted it. He looked down at the body at his hooves, and with a sigh wiggled out of the harness. The firewood could wait, no one would steal it in the middle of the forest, but the griffin couldn't.

"The second time this month alone!" The stallion's grumble was not stopping him from checking the griffin for life signs, but his irritation had to vent. "Why, why would you do that? Everypony knows that it's dangerous. Every griffin teaches their cubs not to do it. And yet here you are, alive, thank Archive, yet nearly not!" Sighing, he hauled the limp form of a cub onto his back and ran for his home.

===

Warm. So... so warm.

The warmth was everywhere, it pierced his body, it soothed his mind, and it drew all the nightmares away. He thought that it must be Helga again - why else would he be warm all of a sudden? She must've lost the elks and caught up with him. He wanted to open his eyes and look, but it was so comfortable to just lay there in the warmth... Vsevolod curled under the blanket and allowed the sleep to claim him.

The stallion at his bedside huffed and relaxed. This grifflet wasn't going to die on him. That was good. Telling his parents that he was too late to save their son was not proper, despite the cub's foolishness never being the stallion's fault. He told such news to too many already. Every year winter had claimed its toll on griffins youth's stupidity. Not this time, though. With that thought, he climbed on his own bed, giving the sleeping griffin the last checking look, and went to sleep. Tomorrow he had more work than usual.

Vsevolod woke up with the first rays of morning sun, like he did every day since the winter started. He rose from under the blankets, blinking at the light. The window of the room he was in was pointing east, so that it could welcome the first rays of the morning. He was so relaxed and rested, that it took him good several minutes to register that he wasn't in his usual makeshift lair under a tree. Around him was the real room of a real house. A real blanket covered him. He was resting on still warm surface of something that could only be the real Russian stove. He paused to take that in.

Then he screamed.

His scream woke the other occupant of the room, the one sleeping soundly on a large bed in the corner. A big brown head with a mop of bright red hair on top emerged from under a blanket. Huge blue eyes groggily examined the screaming griffin. Vsevolod had looked at the monster before him, inhaled and screamed again. The terrifying head winced and shook from the vocal assault, and then its owner climbed out of the bed completely. Vsevolod gave out a third scream. This one was nowhere near as scared as the first two, more surprised and uncertain. What stood before him wasn't looking like a terrible monster. It looked almost like a horse. Of course, if you accept horses with legs as thick as a log, short barrel, huge head and incredibly humongous eyes as possible. Vsevolod wasn't the one to deny the creature its existence, though. Not while he had a tail and a beak of his own. Yet, he wasn't able to remember how his escape from the killer elk had led him to sleeping in the same room as an alien horse.

Teplovoz sighed, looking at the screaming catbird over the edge of his facehoof. Every single time it went exactly this way. The late evening rescue, the night in the warmth of his home, and the terrible scream in the morning. He was already expecting the usual jokes of his neighbors about what he's doing to the griffins that makes them scream so much and that they don't want to discuss with anypony. In a village this small it was hard to get decent entertainment, so gossip mill worked non-stop.

The griffin, seemingly tired of screaming, was looking at the stallion incredulously, like he had never seen a pony before. Teplovoz rolled his eyes, and went to the next step of the ritual. It was usually not that hard to calm down a grifflet once he stopped screaming, all that was needed is to introduce himself, and promise that his parents will come to fetch him shortly.

"Good morrow to you, young hunter!" rumbled the stallion, offering the cub a hoof. "I hope your Great Hunt went well and your parents would not be ashamed with its outcome!"

He knew, that griffins fresh out of the forest were usually quite skittish and easily spooked, but the reaction of his recent find wasn't going traditionally at all. Instead of taking the offered hoof, the cub screamed in terror and jumped in the opposite direction from it, jamming himself in the corner of the room. Pony's attempts to close the distance and calm the kid was met with a vicious swipe of the claw and a threatening hiss. There was one possible reason for such a reaction, but Teplovoz wasn't happy to confirm it.

"Would you happen to be one of the Wild?" he asked, thinking about all the pain in the flank it would be to safely toss a feral out of the house. He only had to do it once before, and the scars of that morning were still visible on his coat. He could, of course, just call an exterminator from the elk tribe, but he knew they'll ruin his house in the process. That also meant the death sentence for the griffin, and Teplovoz wasn't happy about that. He had always hated the Wild ones, everypony did. It was proper. Killing, on the other hoof, was not.

Vsevolod slowly calmed down from the shock of the alien horse creature talking. The words sounded a lot like Russian, but the phrases themselves weren't making much sense. The first part had to do something with hunting in the morning. The second sounded like a good-natured declaration that his parents would hunt him out of great shame, caused by him being way too young. Why would the creature wish something this crazy to him? What was going on? While his brain was trying to process that, his eyes darted around the room, trying to find an escape route. The horse creature was blocking the path to the door, but the window was in the other direction, and if he could be just fast enough...

His body sprung to action before he was able to successfully formulate his escape plan. Throwing the blanket in the face of the enemy, he darted to the window and slammed into the muddy glass with a loud 'thud'. The window rattled a bit, but remained closed and whole. Feeling the seconds slip away and his possible doom working its way out of the blanket, he fumbled about the frame, looking for a way to open it. His efforts were rewarded when he spotted a latch, big, sturdy and tied with a piece of string. Not even thinking about it, he pulled his keys from the pouch that was still hanging on his neck, and sliced the string, throwing the window wide open. His jump to the freedom, however, was cut short when his tail was yanked backwards, sending him tumbling back into the room. The strong hit to the back of his head knocked him out.

Teplovoz was shocked. He knew ferals were smart, but he also knew how far those smarts went. The ferals knew why do they have talons and how to use them to rend almost anything. Rumors said that they can slice through the steel armor, if pissed off enough. No feral in history was able to use tools, they had simply no need for that. This required investigation. Investigation required the griffin to remain contained. The winter required the window to be closed at all times. The stallion sighed and went to close it. When he turned back to check on the griffin, the cub was already trying to throw the door latch open. Thankfully, this one was made by an earth pony for an earth pony, it was about twice as heavy as the malnourished griffin.

Vsevolod knew that this was it. The huge and hostile horse creature just locked the only way out of the room he could possibly open, and was closing on him with the clear harmful intention. No matter what, he was just too small, winning this fight wasn't an option. Of course, he intended to fight to the last breath, but he knew that it would come way too soon. It was ironic how he survived the impossible odds of the dead frozen city, to be murdered by a herbivore. He had the worst luck with herbivores, it seemed. In any case, it was the time for the last words.

"I don't know why you hate me so much," he told the horse, "but I will make sure you will regret every second of it."

With that he had crouched, spread his wings a bit and prepared to pounce. The horse creature looked at him in shock, and then sat on its rump with a thud. It shook its head, scratched at its mane with a hoof, and then asked in plain, if a bit accented, Russian.

"You not Wild one?"

Author's Note

7: Griðungur

"You not Wild one?"

The question stopped Vsevolod's pounce like a wall. He flapped his wings and tumbled down to the horse creature hooves. His desire to claw the heart out from under the brown coat had evaporated completely. The creature no longer looked hostile, and even hadn't used its chance to attack when he was recovering from his fall.

"So you can talk normally?" He asked, trying to hide the embarrassment of his less than dignified position of being entangled in his own limbs.

"I can a bit Old Speech. School. Everypony can. If not Wild one, you Return, yes?" The creature was hard to understand, it hadn't used half of the proper grammar, and some words sounded strange, but it was much better than before. Vsevolod picked himself up from the floor and prepared for a long talk.

"First thing, I have no idea what is that 'Wild' or 'Return' you are talking about. Second..." His questions were interrupted by a loud knock on the door. Alien horse looked at it with an unsure expression, and then cringed like it just had its teeth removed. It then hoofed the blanket to Vsevolod and motioned to the oven. The griffin decided to play along and jumped to the corner, hiding under a blanket. The horse then imitated a loud yawn and shuffled to the door.

"Coming!" it called, raising the latch. The door opened with the bang, and through it came the new herald of insanity that filled the world around Vsevolod. He was able to see the newcomer through the small hole he left in his blanket cover for air. He wished he didn't.

The guest was a minotaur. A very large and very muscular minotaur, or, at least, giving off such an impression with his thick hands and shoulders that nearly hadn't fit in the door. The beast was wearing a thick and long winter coat, almost covering his furry legs. On his head was a hat that Vsevolod knew pretty well. He just never expected to see one of the Greek mythical beasts wearing ushanka. The front of the hat was adorned with a cocade in a form of big red letter 'M'. The long horns of the minotaur were capped with a pair of large corks, one painted bright red, other - bright blue. The sight was so out of place that it took him all his willpower not to laugh. The minotaur gave a polite nod to the horse, before entering the room and taking off the hat.

"Top of the morning to you, my dear Teplovoz!" said the guest, radiating as much of false cheerfulness as it is possible for a bull-headed beast. His Russian was less accented than the horse one. It took almost no effort for Vsevolod to understand him. "The new year is upon us, and it came to the notion of the Labyrinth, that you are willing to give your annual donation to our worthy cause! It is a heartwarming thought that there are still ponies in this world so concerned with the well-being of our poor Returning kin..."

The door that the minotaur just closed, slammed into the wall once again, nearly hitting him in the process. The startled bull-man turned to the door with less than pleased look on his face. Outside, from what Vsevolod could see, stood a large brown-haired wall. Only when he noticed the antler on a string, he realized that it was the same elk he met in the forest earlier. The second antler was missing, though, and the fur in his broad chest was bloodied in many places. The elk had to crouch low to be able to look through the door, and the look he gave the occupants in the room was far from polite and cheerful.

"Maks'sa is Kalushatak wip?" roared the beast, putting his head in the room. The rest of him didn't fit the door. "Silama asha'a kisa!"

"And hello to you too, esteemed Los'," forcefully smiled the minotaur. "I'm very pleased to see your kind not violating our treaties and not barging into the honest pony's home demanding the Wild. Now, I would be even more pleased if you remove yourself from our presence, since we have no business with you and a lot of it among ourselves."

"Kalushatak se masakara! Maks'sa! Didsera mok!" disagreed the elk, attempting to enter the room once more. The minotaur sighed, put his ushanka back on, and then put his hand on the elk's muzzle. Then he made a step outside, moving the huge creature out with no visible effort. He carefully closed the door after himself, and then the outside exploded with his irritated roar. Vsevolod had no idea what they were screaming about, they were using the weird elk-speech, but somewhere in the middle of it they came to blows. The house shuddered. The alien horse just covered his face with a hoof and moaned something under his breath. He turned to Vsevolod's hiding place, motioned to him to remain hidden and started talking in a low voice, shuddering every time the house received another hit from the battle raging outside.

"Sorry, little one. You must confused. You so young, and still you have to go through this. I can't explain everything, I'm no smart city pony, but I try. Never had to explain to youngling, see. You come from time far, far away. Hundreds of years passed since time you come from. I not know how many. I know, that last day you remember being human was day when world was made proper. Magic came to it, and lawless humans were banished into streams of time by Great Spell. When humans atone for sins, they Return, like you, blessed with a proper form. You come scared, you come weak, yet you kin, so we help. We know word of great Archive, who shines beyond seas and teaches us proper way.

"You should be wary, though. Not everypony hears word right. Servants of Labyrinth hear it differently. They 'help', but you no want their help. Los'... they do not know word, they no kin. They fear the Return, they hate Wild ones, and they will kill you if they learn of you. Little one, you stay hidden when Copeynik returns, or I won't be able to protect you. I help you when he's gone."

Vsevolod could only nod. The truth of his position was heavy enough to let 'little one' slide. He was much smaller than the alien horse, after all. The idea of 'world made proper' and 'magic' sounded a lot like something a cult will come up with, but he assumed the part about the hundreds of years at least looked plausible. The rest was, probably, just a way natives had decided to explain the time-hopping and form-changing. Archive, most likely, was a prophet or the church. The roar and violence outside was no less than a full-scale religious dispute. With the puzzle finally clicking into place, the griffin felt himself relaxing a bit. The sounds of the polite disagreement outside also started to recede.

Copeynik returned to the hut missing one of his horn-corks, with several deep cuts in the coat, sporting a black-eye and carrying the antler with him. As no elk made any further attempt to search the house, Vsevolod assumed that today the concept of mysterious Labyrinth had won the day. The minotaur was happy to confirm that.

"The nerve on that one! Breaking the treaty, arguing with an officer of the law, and calling me a cow! Won't be doing that no more. Teplovoz, what was he whining about you hiding the Wild one?"

"How could I do that?" The surprise in the horse voice was so genuine that the hidden griffin concluded, that whoever was those Wild ones, they wasn't too cooperative. "I still have scar that chick gave me last year, I know you can't talk them, first-hoof! There was Wild one nearby, last week. Likely after the foals. We sent word, haven't heard since."

"Honestly, deer priests get more senile every day!" sighed Copeynik. "Next they'll say that you hide Gorynych in your stove or something!"

The horse and the bull shared a laugh, though Teplovoz's sounded a bit forced. The horse pulled a big sack from under the bed and tossed it to the minotaur.

"Here, this is all. Hope it helps."

"The Labyrinth expresses its most sincere thanks for your contribution, good citizen!" smiled Copeinik, weighting the sack on his palm. "If only every pony was this reliable. Now, if you don't have a dragon hidden somewhere, I need to depart. This day is only beginning! I have three more villages to go through, and I've already had a nice talk with an elk executor! Good luck murdering the trees!"

With that, the minotaur left, whistling a non-melodical tune. Teplovoz waited a bit to ensure he's gone, and then locked the door.

"You come out now, little one. He won't be back to our village until summer. He calls it a donation drive. I call it robbery. Those who do not donate to Labyrinth decide to resettle into it one night. They never decide to resettle back." The big stallion sighed once more, and then rummaged inside of the oven's opening, retrieving a large pot from there. "You hungry, little one. I don't have meat that you griffins like, it not proper for pony to have it. But this should be enough to get you back in shape. I'm afraid, it is not safe for you here. Tomorrow, before sun is up, you have to leave. I will explain road, tell which ponies you may trust. But you can not stop anywhere before you reach Tula, and no pony except those you can trust must see you. If deer spot you, you die. If Wild ones spot you, you die."

The tone of the large stallion voice was grave and grim. For Vsevolod, who abandoned his hiding spot and was greedily consuming buckwheat porridge from the pot using large wooden spoon, it was clear that he doesn't really believe in his chances to reach Tula safely. It was also clear that getting much more information from Teplovoz would be impossible, the pony was straining with words as it was, and was visibly tiring from that. One question, though, he had to ask.

"You keep calling me 'little one', why? I know that I'm smaller than you, but when you do that I feel like I'm ten years old all over again!"

"Sorry, little one, I had to ask your name first, not insult you." Teplovoz looked genuinely ashamed at his mistake, "And forgive me if I got your age wrong. I know how hard to be reminded of when you were ten when you're twelve."

"My name is Vsevolod, and I'm 35 years old." said Vsevolod, finishing off the porridge. "I'm sorry, I ate it all."

Then the part about the age had caught up to him.

"Shit."

Author's Note

A bit of exposition dump this time, but that's the point I can't keep him completely in the dark anymore. :derpytongue2:
Next stop - Tula?

8: Fenrir

It was at least two hours before the sunrise, Vsevolod was well-fed, warm and rested. He also felt violated. It turned out that the regular care for the stupid griffin youth had made Teplovoz quite adept in it. He knew what was proper to do with a young cub just recovered from the frozen forest, either from his own observation, or from angry parents of the younglings. The list included warm bed, lots of food and plenty of rest.

It also included a bath. A bath that, like any other point of the list, was not exactly voluntary. In fact, the pony was so caught up in the routine, that he hadn't even asked Vsevolod to take it, he just dumped the startled catbird in the large bucket of hot water and placed it into the oven. When he was either tired of the stream of death threats from the bucket, or was sure that griffin within is soaked enough, he took it out and, with all his unfair strength advantage, attacked Vsevolod's fur and feathers with soap. How he managed to do it with hooves was another mystery in the growing collection. At the end of the humiliating procedure, the griffin was clean and furious. He thought nothing can get him any more mad, but then Teplovoz went and mentioned preening.

It took the most part of the rest of the day to get it right. It was humiliating. It was demeaning. It also was to be done twice a day for the rest of his life, if he wanted to keep the ability to fly. Thankfully, according to Teplovoz, it was also considered rather private activity.

All the hustle with the bath was humiliating in yet another way. It made Vsevolod realize just how small he really was. The elk, the minotaur, the pony, everyone in the world were much larger and stronger than him. For everyone he was just a child. Even Teplovoz looked skeptical when he told him his real age. For another griffin he'll be just an orphan cub, nothing more. Of course, it also meant twenty-five more years of possible life, if the griffins lived at least as long as humans. But to get to that point he had to survive the walk to Tula first. When the pony had learned that Vsevolod is yet to figure out how to fly, his expression had shown that he holds no illusion about the success chance of this travel. He still insisted that staying is out of the question, though.

For a creature as proper and honest as he looked, the stallion had shown a lot of talent for subterfuge. Since this was the day of the 'donation drive', no other resident of the village had expected him to leave the house. It was nearly a tradition to sulk for a day, lamenting the loss after such an event. Most of the village did the same. He already had a bag suitable for a small griffin, packed with some food for the road. He knew the best time to leave so that no one will notice, and he knew the way to Tula around the territories claimed by the elk. It was like he was sending young flightless griffin on such a death walk daily. His explanation, though, somehow connected that with a vivid picture of a campfire he had on the both of his flanks.

"Now, little... sorry, Vsevolod, you go. I wish I could help more." Teplovoz's eyes were sad, as he put his hoof on the griffin's shoulder. "It will be hard. But you griffins sturdy. You can do it. Remember, one day east, then south. May the Archive's light bless you, little one." With that, large stallion stepped away and disappeared into the bushes. Vsevolod was alone in the forest once again. He sighed. He started to become good at walking.

The first light of the morning met Vsevolod quite far from the small village. He had no idea how far, but for Teplovoz distance and time it took to travel it were the same thing. With no other way to measure distance, so it become for the griffin. When the sun poked above the horizon, he spread his wings and felt the stream on his feathers. After the bath and the preening, the feeling was much stronger, and it felt like it was responding to his will a bit better. Careful experiments brought unexpected fruits. While he was still unable to take off, his control was strong enough to make the simple gliding possible. It slowed his progress quite a bit, since he immediately felt like he should try it more, then even more, and finally he was going out of his way if he had a glimpse of a slope high enough to try. Of course, gliding was one thing, landing was the other, so every attempt graced a pile of snow, a bush or even a tree with his presence. Still, it was fun enough. A griffin whose entire life was destroyed by something he hadn't even understood, was in need of as much fun as it was possible. It made him hungry, too, so when he thought it was almost noon, he opened the bag with the food.

Inside, carefully wrapped in dry leaves, were twelve almost identical pies. Each, according to Teplovoz, was enough to feed full-grown pony for a day. With twelve of them, it meant that Vsevolod had no problem with the supplies for at least half of the way to Tula. He hoped he'll figure the hunting by then - or earlier. While pony food was familiar, and he made a significant dent in Teplovoz's supply, there was still something missing from it. Something that his previous crude meals had, despite being uncooked and containing a lot of fur, feathers and bones. It wasn't even the meat, it was something Vsevolod had yet to put his finger on... and pin it with the talon so it won't run away.

He took one pie out, unwrapped it and sniffed the pleasant smell of freshly cooked bread and the stuff the pony put inside. He had no idea what it was, Teplovoz brought the pies from a neighbor while Vsevolod was asleep, but something in it was familiar. And suspicious. Not wanting to risk, he cracked the pie and sniffed the stuffing. His following sneeze was so loud that it was likely heard back in the village. Helpful and proper stallion had equipped him with tasty and filling rowan berry pies.

Quick check had shown him that to his relief half of the pies were safe apple pies. The other half was as edible to him as rocks. Hunger suddenly became a much closer concern. He was still thinking about the reasons of why his life sucks so much, when he was ambushed by a bit worn, but still smug Helga.

The wild griffin had all the signs that the elk was a worthy opponent, and hadn't gave up his antler that easy. Her coat was dotted by several small gashes with spots of dried blood around them. Some feathers from her front were missing, and one of the big feathers in her wing was broken. In her claws she proudly held the antler.

"Sqwee!" Announced Hel, plopping on the ground in front of Vsevolod. "Kreek. Ki-ki-SQAWK!"

Vsevolod sighed and grabbed the startled native into a bone-crushing hug. He was a bit startled by it as well, he wasn't aware just how much he was worried about her until he saw her. Helga squeaked several times, but made no attempt to flee. Instead, she nuzzled Vsevolod with her beak and made a purring sound.

"I was so worried, you stupid griffin! You and your stupid heroics! I know you don't understand me, but promise me never to do it again!" he sniffled and let several tears fall into her feathers. Hel allowed him several more emotional moments, and then effortlessly slipped from his grasp. She sniffed at the rowan pies, made gagging sound and grabbed one of the apple ones. Munching on the pie, she let out content "Kreek!", gave Vsevolod the antler and took off.

"What I'm supposed to do with this one?" mused the flightless catbird, packing the remaining edible pies back into the pack. While he did it, he had noticed that the pies weren't the only contents of it. On the bottom, there was a small length of thin rope made from some sort of hair. It was just enough to fix the antler to the strap of the bag. It made walking a bit easier, since the antler now was balancing the weight of the bag. The rest of the day was boring, and the night was cold again.

The next morning he found that Helga somehow had found his improvised lair once again and was snoring nearby, using his bag and the antler as a pillow. Near him he had found a plump wood grouse, already cold, but still quite edible. Hel woke up while he freed the bird from its feathers, and provided a lot of running commentary on his clumsiness with her screeches. When he offered her half of the grouse, though, she looked at him like he suddenly grew a second head. With startled "SQWAWK!" she bolted out of the lair and disappeared.

"Well, here goes my good manners." blinked Vsevolod, eating the rest of the bird. "Hope she won't bring all her wild family to avenge her maiden honor."

The talking to himself became more of a habit as he turned south. In the next few days he saw Helga several times, but she never came to his lairs anymore, and hid if she noticed him looking. She still dropped occasional bird or a hare near him almost every day, though every next one was more alive than the one before it. At the end of the first week of his travel he ran out of pies, and the hare for the breakfast was almost undamaged. It was a bit dizzy, though, so Vsevolod was able to catch up to it before it ran away. Helga cheered him with a loud screech before disappearing again. From that moment she stopped bringing him food, scaring some hares in his direction instead. That made his meals scarce, since he was still not nearly fast enough to catch one. With a bit of gliding it became easier, and the gliding itself was becoming easier each day. By the end of the second week he was almost content with the winter forest. While still cold and often hungry, it wasn't the place of certain death anymore. Having a friend, even shying away like Hel, was nice, too.

Wolves on the other hand, weren't nice at all. It was the middle of the third week. From the forest getting thinner he assumed that he must be closing on his destination, when the pack first appeared. The next day Helga was keeping much closer to him, not attempting to scare the hares. In the night the howling kept him awake. They got closer the next day, still a bit wary, but clearly too hungry to keep the distance for too long. That night Helga got in his lair for the first time since the incident with the grouse. The pack shuffled around the fir tree, but none got bold enough to get to the pair of sleepless griffins trembling under it.

The first wolf attempted to jump Vsevolod when he made only a few steps out of the lair. Its only mistake was that it hadn't accounted for Helga, already up in the air. Despite being a bit smaller than the wolf, the height advantage made it easy for the catbird to claw at the spine of the predator mid-jump, its corpse slamming into Vsevolod, already dead but yet to catch up on that. The rest of the pack took it as a signal. All five remaining wolves jumped at once. Helga was able to avoid one, claw a deep gash on the muzzle of the second one, but the third one grabbed her by the wing and pulled her to the ground. The pair that assaulted Vsevolod was luckier. The first one got its teeth sunk into griffin's, hind leg while the second one grabbed the empty bag and ripped it from his back. He bent and sunk his claws into the eyes of the attacker, his vision going red from the pain and anger. Unfortunately, it only made the wolf sink its teeth even deeper, also giving time for the second one to try to bite him in the foreleg. Vsevolod had managed to dodge that, but it made him release the first wolf, blind, but not dead yet and not relenting its grip. The second one lunged again, successfully biting into the same hind leg as the first one. With both enemies in one place, Vsevolod got a bit of a breather, as much as two wolves trying to shake his leg apart can be counted as such, so he grabbed the first thing his claws found on the ground and crushed it on the skull of one of the wolves. The thing turned out to be the trophy antler, and the desperate blow was strong enough to instantly kill the wolf Vsevolod wasn't aiming at, the grip of its jaws immediately slacking and the body sliding off. The one he was aiming at was the one he blinded. While he lost the grip on the antler, with proper aim his claws had proven to be enough to decapitate the wolf in one swing.

Looking around, he had noticed, that Helga had also defeated her enemies, but her wounds were more severe. It seemed that the wolves wasn't trying to hold her with their teeth, instead producing long and bloody gashes on her sides and chest. Her left wing looked broken, and her beak was covered in blood of her last enemy. She attempted to smile weakly to Vsevolod, but then her eyes closed and she had slumped to the ground unconscious.

Podorozhnik woke up to the incessant pounding on his door. He wasn't a happy unicorn in his better days, and this morning, or, as sun in the window hinted, noon, wasn't about to fix it. The pounding on the door had perfectly matched with the pounding inside his head, and the events of previous evening were hazy enough in his memory to easily match the symptoms with the cause. He didn't need to be a doctor to do that. Still, the doctor he was, and the pounding most likely meant that somepony in town was injured enough to wake him up early and risk his delayed wrath. Like the week of calling him by his real name, or having the next tooth removal done with no painkillers. Nothing irritated the good doctor more than false patients. This time, though, the ones he found on the other side of the door, looked like a real deal. The young griffin cub that was pounding on the door was thoroughly soaked in blood, most of it already dried off, and sported a disembodied wolf head clamping its jaws on the cub's rear. On his back he held a slightly older griffin chick, covered in nasty cuts, with broken wing, and unconscious. The smaller griffin held a large Los' ceremonial antler, also covered in blood and something else Podorozhnik decided not to pay too much attention to. He used the antler for pounding on the door. When the door had opened and revealed the unicorn, the small cub looked at him with tired eyes, sighed, muttered "What next, flying cows?" and passed out.