Author's Note

FAIR WARNING - I'm a busy (lazy) writer. Chapters may take weeks to be published; Sometimes they can be dished out in a record time. Be patient, I promise it'll be worth it, I'll try to propperly patch out any mistakes made during the writing process.

Without further ado...

Prologue: Arrival

Night 1 of our arrival.

My name's Warm Heart. I'm an Earth Pony, one of the few that knows how to write and read. My Family comes from a long line of farmers and miners -But I was lucky enough to be allowed to be taught Engineering to, alongside my Brother, Cold Hooves. He was the one that helped me get accepted into the Engineer's Guild of our town, and that's paying off now.

It was so quick. From night to day, we were struck with the strongest blizzards we've ever had. Snow felt on the family's field covering it with a thick, cold layer of ice, killing the plants in the next few days, for how hard we tried to keep them warm and alive. Eventually we had to move out as the soil completely froze, but as we were heading south, we met a group of Engineers going north instead.

My Brother knew some of them, and asked why they were going north. They said that somepony was going to build an arcane device that heats the ground enough to make the soil fertile again, and that it seemed to be the only way to survive this Winter, or as they called it, the Frost. At first we didn't believe them, but they provided firm specifications. Enough to convince my brother and I to change plans... But Father wasn't convinced. He still wanted to go South, with Mother and my sister.

I explained them over and over that the North was a better choice, but they didn't listen. Talk became shouts, and it would've ended with hooves meeting jaws if a sudden blizzard didn't set us aside. It was quick and strong, so much that we got sepparated. I was lucky to have held my Brother's hoof during that, we didn't flew away during the strong gusts of wind. But we were alone. So we set north, following the directions of the Earth Pony engineers, for how much I wanted to cry after losing our family.

For a month, we walked aimlessly through snow and desolated villages, ransacked and stripped of everything but their basements. We ate little to nothing, less than one ration of hay and packed apples a day, and we whitnessed the horrors of the evacuation effort. Families like mine, torn appart by famine and desperation, entire households collapsed by the snow's weight and stripped out of wood that was then used as fuel. Libraries worth in books and knowledge reduced to nothing in the name of survival... And we aided with that. I had to burn my favourite novel a week ago, just so we could camp inside a cave. Thankfully I still keep this diary, wich is the only thing keeping me sane at this point.

We met with other refugees in the way north around two days ago. Most were intellectuals and workers escaping from the cold. Some had Foals accompanying them. Oddly enough, not everypony was an Earth Pony. Some had Unicorns, and a few Pegasi were dotting them. Most of our initial group didn't mind them following us around, as they worked hard, communicated with us, and they were in equal condition to us, even if this long Winter is surely responsability of the Pegasi. They tried to deny it a few times, but we were in no condition to argue or fight, so we just nodded and continued walking north.

A day or so ago, we saw a faint column of smoke emerging from a mountain at the North-East. We thought that it was a volcano getting ready for an eruption, but it was too artificial to be that, plus there were no rumblings under our hooves or strange smells, outside our own. The Pegasi we had with us quickly flew up there and came back within minutes, and told us that it was a camp with something tall and large in the middle, jabbed on a depression within the mountainside, like a crater.

Filled with a regained hope and joy, we went straight to this camp... And we found it, after climbing up the mountain and down the crater's slope. The arcane device that heats the soil was there in the middle... But it was inactive; Nopony here knows how to operate it. But some built little encampments around it, tents wedged in a circular manner around the obelisk. Not enough for all the Ponies that were here, but it was a start.

The newcomers, like my brother, me, and the group I was part of, had to sleep on the ground, cuddled next to the Obelisk on the cold ground, wich was at least a flat surface to lay on. Tonight we became a larger group, the most Ponies I've seen together in one place since the Frost hit. Not everypony was an Earth Pony, however. At least half of us were, One-fourth were Unicorns and the rest were Pegasi. There were some children around too, wich was something that brought a smile to my face. They were the ones that kept the tents for now, we had to leave space for them. The last thing we want is to lose our future to the cold. There seemed to be little to no elders among the ponies I've seen thus far, wich... Isn't too surprising.

Most of us were hungry, and some were sick. The Ponies that were here before us shared some rations of packed Hay with us, enough to feed the ones that were in the weakest state -Though I suspect that they are complimented with sawdust, to compensate for the lack of propper Hay. They gave me a ration too, perhaps because I haven't slept in weeks before this and looked like a wreck of a mare. I could put a hoof under my eyes, and that wouldn't be enough to cover the bags under them! But that wouldn't take a smile from me, even less when a smile is the only thing keeping us from looking back to the horrors we saw.

Tonight I'll try to sleep. We'll have a lot of work to do tomorrow. There was some talk around about appointing a leader to guide us through this hard time. Most of us are workers. Farmers. A few old Guards from the Pegasus army here and there, and intellectuals dotting the fifty or so ponies huddled around what we consider to be our last beacon of hope, the one that was a frozen solid as the mountainside we were in. At least the wind whizzes above the drop and doesn't take the camp away with it. We'll try to solve our problems tomorrow, once we find somepony with a cold head and leadership skills. I really hope it isn't me.

Hope is the last thing we can afford to lose.

Warm Heart.