Spleens awoke the next day, being gently shook awake by somepony. She had slept well that night, without any nightmares, and presently wasn't very interested in being awake.

"Spleens?" Near's voice said gently some time later, "It's time to get moving and it's your turn to pull."

After letting out a groan, Spleens rolled out of her hammock, shook her head a few times to wake herself up, before giving Near a quick hug. After that quick snack, Spleens somewhat more energetically slogged her way out of the caravan to hook herself up to the harness. Still mostly asleep, Spleens had some difficulty groggily hooking herself up until she remembered she had magic and didn't only have to use her hooves.

Once Spleens was hooked up and moving, with Long Shot's already snoring cloud tied to the caravan, Near Miss trotted up to provide Spleens some company. "She doesn't snore at night, so why is she snoring now?" Spleens asked.

Near thought for a moment before answering, "I wonder if it's a position thing; She sleeps upside down at night, but I'd bet she's on her back right now."

Spleens shrugged and the two mares walked in silence for a while before it started to snow. Around an hour later, with the snow up to their fetlocks, Near Miss spoke again, "Spleens, are you okay? You were really upset at the hive."

"I really don't want to talk about it right now," Spleens replied.

Near was about to respond when they heard a brief swear from above, shortly before a snow covered Long Shot landed next to them. "The next time it starts snowing on me and my cloud, would one of you please wake me up before I get snowed in?"

"Sorry," Near said, "We were kinda busy."

"Doing what?"

"Not waking you up." Spleens answered. At this Long gave a hearty laugh before giving Spleens a hoof bump.

"Now that you're up though," Near started, "would you mind popping up to the clouds to let us know how bad this snow will be?"

Long Shot shook herself off before donning her sunglasses and springing into the sky, where she quickly disappeared behind the snow and clouds. It was around a minute before she returned, lazily circling her way back to the ground. "It doesn't look like it'll get much worse, but it doesn't look like it'll stop soon either," Long reported.

The three mares continued through the wooded path for several more hours, casually debating the most appropriate condiment(s) to use on grilled carrots until they eventually arrived at a fork in the path. By this point the snow was halfway up their legs and they had slowed to a crawl.

Spotting a sign at the fork, Spleens unhooked herself from the caravan and the three of them approached the sign for a better look. After Spleens had cleared the snow off the face of the sign, they saw it read:

Routes to Canterlot:
← Northern route- Gallifrey Gorge
Southern route- Wren's Anomaly→

"Looks like it's time to decide girls, Gallifrey Gorge or Wren's Anomaly" Near said. She was about to continue when Spleens interrupted her.

"As much as I don't mind pulling the caravan, it'll be dark soon, so why don't we make camp for the night while we think it over." Spleens offered, pointing at a clearing in the trees on the south side of the path just before the fork.

Near and Long both looked up at the already darkening sky before agreeing and helping Spleens force the caravan around and over to the clearing. Once the caravan was in place, Long Shot went off to collect firewood while Near Miss and Spleens started preparing dinner and generally making camp for the night. The clearing had an old park bench and fire pit, both of which were still functional, although they had certainly seen better days. Before they had finished setting things up, Long was back with a bundle of twigs and several mostly dry logs, which promptly caught fire under a stream of unicorn sparks.

By the time dinner had been cooked and consumed, all three mares were feeling rather cold, and so they doused the fire before hurring into the caravan to discuss the next day's decision.

Author's Note

If anyone's still reading this, I'd like to hear your opinion on whether they should go the northern route to Gallifrey Gorge, or the southern route to Wren's Anomaly, so please comment which way you would like the girls to go. I have something in mind for both of routes, and if you'd like a quick recap, here's a quote from chapter 21-

We'll have to decide whether to take the northern route along Gallifrey Gorge, or the southern route through Wren's Anomaly. The Gallifrey Gorge route overlooks the Gallifrey ruins, ancient ruins of a pre-equestrian civilization, and the route itself is supposedly narrow and treacherous. The southern route goes straight through the center of Wren's Anomaly, a place where magic doesn't work for some reason, and it's not just unicorn magic, pegasus, earth pony, and even changeling magic all get weaker as you approach the anomaly, and magic stops working altogether about a dozen kilotrots from the center of the anomaly.

That said, the girls are going to talk about it more next chapter, so we'll learn a little bit more about the routes then.