"Nothing too eventful to report in, but that's good, in a way...

"Having nothing to report means that nothing went wrong, but nothing went right, either," one of my teachers used to say.

I didn't get a good chance to write, between trying to nick things from places that were safe to go in and trying to fix things that I already nicked, and I didn't find those pages, so now's a good enough time to copy it.

My name is Winter. I'm a earth pony, my fur is white, and I wear my greasy mane in a tail. I'm a bit of a fanatic of things that involve notes, writing, maps, other things like that. It's like how some ponies like to do things with there hooves or draw, but for me, it's charts and data and all that. So, basically, a nerd.

I~~'m~~ was an assistant to a geology professor Clay from Manehatten, my hometown. He was the one that said the thing above, actually. It wasn't the most lustrous job - I majored geology and archaeology in university, "the most boring subjects possible" so I've been told, which didn't have massive amount of hype - mostly just putting rocks in a tumbler, holding things under a microscope, note taking, secretary work, those things. Prof. Clay made it a lot better for me there. He gave me more experience than I could have hoped for, from training programs after work, to access to all his equipment, and even some things under the table like food and a couch to sleep on a few times. The pay was mediocre, if not obvious, and I didn't have anything saved up, so I mostly worked. Clay himself was a great pony, too. Middle-aged, stark black hair, wire glasses, he could have made for a dashing Daring-Do clone. He wasn't renounced, but he did get a small glimpse after he wrote a book and went on radio. He was wise, almost sage-like, and he was always calm but happy. Pleasant, would be a good word to put him in.

He took me on a expedition to The Cold North once and that's where I learned a lot of the stuff that's keeping me alive out here. They had a course on an ice age-apocalypse scenario that I took for what I called "conditioning". It was mostly for fun. Its a little weird for me that it turned out like this. Almost morbid.

The first day all of this happened, I was on another expedition with Clay, this time in front of Canterlot Mountain, in a valley where we could hitchhike to the castle if we wanted to. It was just after autumn, so we took some leftover coats and things from the North trip. Neither of us could stand the cold well - ironic for both of us, considering him and I were named after un-freeze-able earth and the coldest part of the year respectively.

I don't know what happened the whole time. I was inside the camp wagon, sorting through some equipment, it was getting cold and windy, and the sky darkened. I didn't think of it - a cloud could have just passed over the sun or it could have dipped behind the mountain, and the it was the right time of year for the air to stir around, but then another researcher working with us slammed open the door and yelled about running and that Clay wanted me to just run as far as I could and someone pointed me to a forest and

I remember that in patches, sometimes more or less, depending on how much I'm trying to keep warm or when I'm working. I remember the forest even less. It was thick and the trees creaked the whole time. The wind was howling so hard, I could barely hear anything else besides that and the wind. I ran in a panic until I my lungs felt like they were filled with ice water and I took a rest. I didn't understand why the whole camp was like that, but worse, I didn't know why I was alone. Nobody had followed me, or if they did, they went in a completely different direction - either way, I was lost in the woods. I had taken a notebook, and I ripped out the first page. It was just some reminders. I wrote basically blind, since the wind was so cold and blowing sideways into my eyes, no matter which way I turned my head. I just rambled on about what happened in the camp, not even saying my name.

And then, the wind picked up even more. It was like a tidal wave, concussive, it tore down massive trees and whipped branches like they were made of string. It knocked me off where I was sitting on a log, and I'm glad it did. Right after, this giant crashing starts barreling through what's left of the forest. It was the wagon - the one from the camp that I was just in. It landed just hoofsteps away, and it banged so loud, I was in shock.

When I shook out of it, I felt something hit my leg. It was almost like a ghost, with the then freezing cold wind making everything that wasn't covered numb, but I felt it. It was snowing and hailing, little things at first, almost sleet. Though after standing up and staying still, dumbfounded, for a minute, it grew into marbles, and they started to sting my legs like crazy. I blacked out, and when I came to, I was running again.

I passed in and out of a fear induced trance and forgot completely about the camp and even Clay. By the time I stumbled out of the woods, it was snowing fat, heavy snow and huge chunks of ice the size of oranges. One of them could have came down on my head or even a leg and I would have been out of commission. I saw a house, half torn down and abandoned, and huddled behind what was left of the place, mostly out of the wind. The thing still could have collapsed on me, or the wind could have changed and hurled hail right at my face, but I wasn't thinking. I wrote a quick blurb, something along the lines of "My name is Winter. Equestria is frozen. I need to move on." I couldn't move on, obviously, so I just leaned against the wall, gritting my teeth under my mask.

After who knows how long, the wind died down and the hail shrunk enough to be safe for me to move. The rest is history; I look up and see the whole town, ruined, and find a bigger, more intact place to rest.

I think that's enough to sum it up. It was probably more than what I wrote at first, actually. I ought to sleep soon...

"...I found a decent haul in one home across town, and I'll be spending most of tomorrow lugging them up."

Author's Note

Two chapters in a day?! Who is this person possessing my hands and how do they get to be so productive? I need to know.