Arc 1 – Long Echoes Chapter 3 – Canter no more

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The snow shifted.

Then the little alabaster hill moved again—an event of no sound and indistinguishable from the constant stirring of Canterlot’s white blanket, yet still furtive and anxious. The lungs of the mare half-buried in the pale death were bursting with a sigh, her throat craved for a cough—anything to disrupt the winds’ lullaby.

In the end, it was Ash’s stomach that defied her wish to stay unwitnessed.

Its emptiness echoed the low rumble of a long plaintive lament. And though the snow absorbed the plea, it still thundered in Ash’s mind, a wail louder than that of the undead sky above. Her gaze frantically jumped all around, expecting to see little paws carrying her dinner away and promising that the excruciating wait would continue.

The clearing was still, the scene before her frozen in its macabre necessity.

The nebulous eyes met Ash’s frown and for the umpteenth time, she regretted leaving the bait facing her. Her discontent deepened when the sweet stench of rot crept into her nostrils. It was not the reek that bothered her, rather the wind’s direction—the rats relied on their sense of smell after all.

Ash’s horn itched to reach for the crude spear, to find reassurance in its sturdy handle and blood-crusted rusty tip. Yet the shimmer of magic would dispel any hope for the squalid game, so the makeshift weapon had to patiently wait on the bent girders above Ash, snow piling both on it and the shivering mare.

To leave her post, to reignite the pitiful fire and roast the severed head a bit more, then to find another ambush spot somewhere more upwind appeared a reasonable course of action. Deep inside a familiar whisper rose, compelling Ash to abandon the hunt altogether, to return to the rest of the body, to defrost it and have the best meal she had in years.

The young mare remained unmoving.

The winds changed unceasingly, the setup was as good as it could get and trying to alter it would only waste precious time. And if Ash had managed to survive all those years without biting into pony flesh, she could live for a few more hours. The blame for the poor stallion’s death couldn’t even be put on her, though her hooves still ached from the gruesome job of decapitating the rigid corpse.

There was only one way to escape the accusatory stare.

She closed her eyes.

Her dream was not of food, for there was no pleasure in gnawing on rat bones—barely an alternative to death.

Her dream was not of shelter, for none could hide from Canterlot.

Her dream was not of warmth, for she’d forgotten how it felt.

She dreamt of the light, the resplendent source hidden beyond the veil of the eternal blizzard. Witnessed only once and for but a heartbeat, that radiant beauty resonated with her very being, instantly reflected on her flank in a seal of fate.

She also dreamt of angry voices.

Voices!

Ash’s eyes snapped open and with an involuntary jerk, she emerged from her snow barrow. In the corner of her vision, a tiny form bolted away, but all her attention was on the yells cutting through the icy howls.

Her ears flicked away the snow and swivelled for a while. Then they pressed to her skull—it didn’t take Ash long to distinguish more than half a dozen sore throats. Nor did she have to listen to all the words carried by frigid winter breaths to know her fate.

Those ponies were on a hunt, too.

A golden aura enwrapped Ash’s horn with a betraying rustle—hiding was futile anyway. Yet as her magic reached for the only friend the young mare had in those frozen wastes, she found but snow and ice.

The voices cried hungry glee—the hunters saw the side dish.

The severed head gazed at Ash almost mockingly:

“We’re in this together and you got what you deserve, rat.”

The place was chosen and then set in a way, not even a desperate vermin could easily escape the trap. Every second not spent trying to prove she wasn’t one, wasn’t tipping the scales in Ash’s favour. She had no choice but to abdicate her ownership of the spear to the permafrost—the advantage it could offer was dubious—and make a desperate run for the chance to become a hunter again.

She bolted out of the malnourished shadow scantly provided by the building’s carcass, aiding her escape with awkward flaps of her rarely used wings. When she just passed the bait, the bony body of a once huge mare slammed into her, sending them both tumbling into the snowbanks. Ash could swear the cadaverous head cackled.

The blows of Ash’s chipped hooves glanced off thin limbs, her chattering teeth found no purchase on the balding taut pelt, her horn clashed with the huntress’s own in a primaeval barbaric fashion. Yet the tide of the frantic brawl slowly but surely turned in Ash’s favour. Though she was just as malnourished, the young mare had always possessed a strength she had no right to.

That advantage was rendered moot when a pair of frostbitten hooves sunk Ash’s wings deep into the snow pinning her to the dirty ice like a butterfly. More and more needles helped to hold her tight, the lanky dark forms they were attached to blotting out the raging sky.

“Finally, something decent,” one of them snarled, licking their lips.

A hoof unceremoniously brushed her fur, revealing her blazing pink skin to the angry cold; the curious pony’s bubbling whisper commented approvingly, “The meat looks healthy.”

The stallion with rattling breath was pushed aside by the limping huntress unicorn. Shedding snow she had just dug herself out from, she hit Ash in the stomach.

A hiss escaped her blood-besprent lips, the convulsions rippled through the mare’s body as it involuntarily tried to curl—that comfort was denied, she was still crucified on the frozen asphalt.

Another blow landed—on her alabaster cheek, crimson spraying from a gasping mouth.

The grinning mare sneered, “I get the first piece,” and raised her hoof to continue tenderizing.

The limb was stopped midway in its pain delivery by a stallion looking like he hadn’t eaten well even before starvation became an intrinsic part of every Canterlot citizen’s life. Despite the size difference, the scrawny almost colt held a striking affinity to the blood-lusting mare.

“Don’t kill her yet,” he croaked, “I want to know where she got that head.”

Ash dropped any attempts to wrench herself from the collective grasp on her body—whatever strength she had was backed up by gnawing hollowness in her intestines. However, it didn’t mean she agreed with becoming a meal. If brute force wasn’t the path to her escape, she needed time to figure what would be.

“Fuck you!” Ash spat blood at the skeletal dwarf and missed, to the amusement of his peers. “I’m not telling you a thing.”

“You.” He pointed his short hoof at the stallion with grunting respiration, a unicorn with a stub for horn. “Make a fire—we are going to roast her alive.”

Where the frost-nipped hooves had been pressed into Ash’s skin, the grease-stained ropes smelling of smoke now dug, binding her securely to the soot-covered steel pole. The fire she had used to make the bait alluring with the unmistakable aroma of crispy meat and reluctant atrocity awaited her; flame ready once more to lick a pony coat clean.

A sharpened metal piece pressed into Ash’s neck.

“Just tell us where the body is and I’ll make it quick,” the small stallion spoke in an almost apologetic tone.

She was out of time and with no smart way to escape the looming agonizing death. In the corner of her vision, the stallion with failing lungs did his best to pry the severed head from the puddle of frozen blood. A sudden idea visited Ash’s mind and she hurried to voice it:

“I know a place with a lot of bodies.” It wasn’t a lie. ”I can show you, just let me go.”

“Nopony is letting you go, we are not stupid.” The dwarf chuckled genially, then the cutting pressure on Ash’s arteries—a generous offer—returned. “But if you want a nice and peaceful death, you are going to tell me how to get there.”

With a dry crack, the rat bait was freed from the icy clutches, the rasping stallion proudly carrying it to the fire to finish the job Ash started. He took only a few steps before it fell from his jaws, the frozen blood and mane shattering in a crimson explosion as a bullet ripped through. With a thump, it buried itself in the ground, but none paid attention to that.

All eyes were glued to a gryphon perched on top of the half-ruined wall.

Clad in battered armour, the half-eagle glided down, the only sound coming from him as he landed—a gentle tinkle of meat-carving knives against the darkened, pink-spotted metal. Wrapped in rust-freckled rags, his gnarled hand pointed a sharp obsidian claw right at Ash.

“This pony is mine now.”

The only things moving were the dwarf’s eyes, going over every detail of the gryphon’s arsenal and protection, weighing the sum against his ragtag group.

“Kill him.”

Emaciated and ghastly, the flesh-eaters slid across the snowbanks in a horde of shadows, hot saliva dripping from crooked mouths—white meat was a delicacy, abundant in this gryphon.

The large unicorn mare was the first to reach the winged predator. He met her with effortless agility, stepping to the side. Before she even could realize her target had dodged her, a set of claws flashed out, grabbing the long horn. Though the huntress’s head was now moving in the opposite direction, her body followed the inertia of the initial charge. A heartbeat later, the balance was severely offset; she found herself about to land on her back and a gun-butt rushing to her muzzle.

The next reckless attacker crashed into the unyielding armour in a tide of thin limbs, harmlessly bouncing back. Another wasn’t even given the privilege of smearing her snot across the burnished steel—a just as hard fist met her halfway.

The display of effortless triumphs halted the cannibalistic force’s onslaught. Even the instigator of the attack now leading the charge with a razor-sharp metal piece clutched in his rotting teeth froze to the ground. His dark eyes reflected another round of calculations taking place inside the balding head.

It wasn’t let to come to fruition, the scales inside the dwarf’s head imbalanced beyond recovery by the gun barrel pointing at him. The gryphon graciously offered a hint:

“This is when you all turn your backs to me and run away.”

For a heartbeat, the little stallion followed the orders of the void in his stomach, even dared to take a step forward—his loyalty to hunger was unwavering. But before his hoof could find purchase in the soft snow, his entourage decided the course of action for themselves and heeded the half-eagle. His sister was the last to keep him company, limping past, dewing the whiteness with scarlet from a broken nose.

He followed her, but not before spitting in the gryphon’s direction.

“Fucking Pink, hope you choke on that mutant whore.”

The gryphon let the vile wish hang in the air for a few long seconds, then readjusted the aim of his rifle, a sharp yellow eye snuggling up to the scope.

A precise shot thundered, the fleeing flesh-eaters’ whimpers not letting its echo be devoured by the malignant winds.

Her binds undone, Ash fell from the skewer, almost landing in the dying fire.

By the time she rolled away from the flames and out of the disgusting rope coils, she found the gryphon too close to call for comfort. The predatory half-bird was studying the severed head mere steps away; its eyes rolled back in post-mortem ecstasy, basking in the attention.

“Morbid but inventive,” he commented, stealing an amusing glance at the hyperventilating mare. “Perhaps we can get along this time.”

The mare blew the flakes of her namesake away from her muzzle and glared at her savior.

“Have we met?”

“I wouldn’t expect you to remember.”

Blood on the snow—her ruby eyes squinted at his feathers, undulating in the wind, once raven-black but now bleached to cinder. The plumage framed the nick-covered ivory hook of his beak; a pair of untouched by age eyes gleamed back at Ash, seemingly mildly amused by something—someone, she suspected.

Anyone who could remember her—or that she recalled—had been long dead since the grim dawn of the endless winter in Canterlot. The only clue of their possible link were the specs of pink paint on the gryphon’s armour. Though it was in exceptional cases, the terrorists sometimes used the Deep Tunnels to carry out their nefarious plans.

The topic of remembrance faded into oblivion and the relative silence suddenly turned ominous. With the severed head abandoned once more, the gryphon’s interest was now in the shivering mare. Leaning casually on his gun, he stared at Ash with the unsettling intensity of a predator waiting for its cornered prey to make a gadarene final move.

“So, what now?” She ruffled her feathers, unsure what prompted her—fear or cold. “You gonna shoot me or cut me?”

“Haven’t you heard the saying: the gryphons don’t eat things that know their name.”

“Dead things don’t know their names.”

Though hearty, his laugh wasn’t melodious. The sonorous and eager clinking of his knives against the breastplate turned the titters of amusement into something foreboding.

Ash tensed, rueful of her spear stolen by ice. It would make a poor difference against the skilled shooter, but it was better than wagering solely her meagre arcane ability against a creature born to kill.

The peals of laughter winded down, the merriment ebbing back into the gryphon’s eyes to shine from there.

“I’m not hungry.” The ‘yet’ hung in the air—a dark promise.

Rapid heartbeats and quick breaths counted the nervous moments of pregnant stillness until it became apparent to Ash that the first move was up to her.

“Thank you for your help, I guess.”

The gryphon was a statue.

Sunlight enveloped around her horn and the same aura started to weave a cocoon for the rat bait.

“I’d better return to hunting.”

“Is that your only option?”

The threads of her magic shimmered around the repeatedly desecrated remains, yet Ash hesitated to tug on them. She would like to hope the events that had just transpired were but a setback and the hunt could resume as soon as the flapping of grey wings dissolved into the continual murmur of the blizzard. Except only death came for free in Canterlot and she was just repeatedly disallowed to meet it for some reason.

Letting her light abate, she met the gryphon’s eyes with a question, “You have something else to offer?”

The half-eagle came to motion, twirling the rifle in his clawed hands with impressive fluidity. It ended up extended in Ash’s direction almost as if he invited her to take it.

“We could team up.”

The mare contemplated the offer for as long as it took her to blink, then turned away heading to the ruins where she lost her weapon. She threw over her shoulder, “You seem to be doing fine without my help.”

In a whirlwind of snow, the gryphon took off and followed Ash, flapping his wings lazily. She spared him a cautious glance, though did not pause.

“It’s boring alone,” he commented, catching up with the resolved pony.

Tiny explosions of sunlight scattered the snow, revealing nothing but more frost. The excavation effort lasted for a few long and increasingly annoyed minutes before Ash had to give up—her horn began to ache.

“If you are looking for a chatterbox,” she said frowning at the snow banks that had swallowed her only possession without a trace, “then you came to the wrong pony.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine. You seem to know these parts well.”

The half-eagle hovered behind her, sending gusts of piercing wind into her back. Even with the mantle of her own feathers, she could feel the ice peppering her coat. She chose to ignore that… for now. The spear had to be somewhere near.

“And, what, you flew into Canterlot an hour ago?”

In the corner of her vision she saw the gryphon do an effortless barrel roll, in the constrained space his wingtips grazing the snow on the girders. That wasn’t that caught her attention, however.

When she turned to face him, her makeshift weapon was clutched in the jet black claws extended to her in a genial offer. Frowning—it was as if the gryphon had produced it from thin air—she warily accepted her spear back and opened her mouth to express dry gratitude, but the winged predator spoke first:

“Oh, I’ve spent more time here than you can imagine, Sunny,” he noted somewhat sadly, radiating pure nonchalance nonetheless. “But maybe you know some interesting places I don’t.”

The readied response evaporated from her mind in a heartbeat.

“Sunny?” Ash echoed incredulously.

She had been called many names, and though she’d never heard that word before, she somehow knew it was different and more important than anything else.

“Oh, you know, that thing in the sky and on your ass.” With his hands behind his head, the gryphon left the premises of the dilapidated building, gliding backwards with his lean stomach to the raging sky. His next words accompanied by a chuckle came from the outside, “The good ol’ Sun.”

Ash instantly followed and the half-eagle was already waiting for her outside, leaning on his rifle like before.

“Tell me more about it!” she cried almost despairingly.

The bony nature of the gryphon’s beak prevented it from stretching into a wide smile, but his eyes said it all.

“I need to leave Canterlot! How do I do that?”

Ash was bursting with energy—the scarce resource provided by her heart rather than stomach. Hearing about the Sun, the magnificent blazing orb moving across the sky beyond the unceasing blizzard created a novel spring of motivation inside her, so drastically different from the simple directive of not perishing in the snow.

Despite sharing his knowledge generously, the gryphon wasn’t eager to share Ash’s enthusiasm, nor to help it, commenting wryly, “And that’s where the catch comes. If I knew how to escape, I wouldn’t be here myself.”

Ash would be glad to leave the frozen wastes even before she learned how beautiful the world was outside Canterlot, but she knew the futility of jailbreak. Still, she said, more to herself, “There has to be a way.”

Her own experience and what she learned whilst eavesdropping instantly excluded the seemingly obvious option. The tumultuous screaming clouds continued down to the ground level and were fortified by some sort of arcane barrier. Nobody knew who was to be thanked for it, because it wasn’t just not letting them escape. It wasn’t letting things get inside.

Going through possible exit paths left Ash with the only choice:

“Listen,” she began, unsure, “when I saw the Sun for the first time, there was a hole in the clouds. Perhaps you could fly us away when it happens the next time?”

To her dismay, the gryphon hesitated with the answer, and when he finally spoke, it wasn’t what Ash hoped to hear:

“My old wings are not what they used to be and…” He squinted at her feathery appendages tightly pressed to her back and asked, making it much worse, “What’s with yours?”

“I…” Ash had to clench her jaw and steel herself before admitting, “I don’t know how to use them.”

The deflated mare couldn’t tell what the gryphon’s reaction was—she didn’t want to know, so she turned away. There was a justification for her lack of flying skill—her early life in the cramped underground warrens offered nothing to contribute to its development. And though she’d lacked nutrition for her entire life, she still somehow managed to get enough mass to make experimenting with falling too risky.

That didn’t make it less shameful, especially in front of a creature renowned for its aerial prowess. At least he wasn’t a unicorn—there was nothing to justify her pathetic arcane mastery.

Yet, lo and behold, guess who readily met her eyes? With a scowl, Ash turned away from the dead gaze, somewhat ready to face a more amicable expression and to her surprise was met only with patience and even a resemblance of sympathy.

The unexpected warmth prompted a no less sudden urge inside her.

“Can…” she gulped and almost decided against opening her mouth ever again. “Could you teach me?”

“Perhaps.” The half-eagle extended his limb until the sharp claw poked Ash’s ribs—she jerked away with a yelp. “But you have no chance anyway so long as you are skin and bones.”

The claim was fair, though she still glared at the gryphon. Rubbing the offended side, she grumbled, “Back to hunting rats then.” Her stomach loudly agreed with the plan.

The elder dismissed her words with a click of his beak. Taking off into the air to languidly circle above Ash’s head, he added, “I’ll die of old age before you catch enough.”

“And you propose... what exactly?”

“Have you forgotten already?” His rifle fell from the sky, thrust into snow vertically and followed by a catty comment, “At such a rate teaching you’d be useless even if you ate the best in Canterlot.”

Before a no less sarcastic response could form itself on the tip of Ash’s tongue, her gaze stopped past the rifle’s worn out carbon butt, meeting the familiar set of eyes, foggy with visions of the afterlife.

“There is one place with food, actually.”

It was time to return to the rest of the body.

The drums of snow pelting the vestigial ruins in blind fury were a marching song for the army of two braving the tapestry of infinite snow cover. Whilst the gryphon pounced from a frozen spire to a crumbling wall, to a rusty flayed spoke, Ash had to wade through the restless sea of white. It shifted under the hooves of the stalwart mare, the lethargic waves covering the path and uncovering the secrets buried in icy cairns.

A tide of rime ebbed revealing an unnamed obliged grave, a body curled in the final attempt to find warmth and solace. It appeared to be somewhat recent, yet to become petrified, and held a striking resemblance to the members of the flesh-eaters group. The unfortunate pony wasn’t one of them, of course, but the associations born by the malnourished and ravaged by disease frame were there.

Another of the gryphon’s leaps took him right over Ash and she yanked him out of his graceful manoeuvre with a call, “You didn’t kill any of them.”

The half-eagle dexterously rolled in the air without losing momentum and glided to her side, a quizzical expression prompting Ash to continue:

“Why?”

“Oh, there is nothing more boring than a dead pony,” he responded with a chuckle and let himself drift away to the nearest roost of the building.

The gryphon sat with the rifle on across his knees and elbows holding his head, watching her with the same amusement. Ash preferred to press onward, urged by the painful emptiness of her intestines, but she was to blame for starting the conversation and had to pay for it.

“That’s a stupid reason to let them go so they can continue hunting ponies.” A bit uncertain, she added, “Or gryphons.”

“You hunt rats.” The clawed hands silently fell on the gun, taking a loose hold of it. “Why shouldn’t I kill you?”

Internally, Ash praised herself for not even flinching. Though, she hoped it went unnoticed how frantically her eyes scanned the surroundings for the nearest cover.

“That’s not the same, not even close.”

“Are you sure?”

“Are you sure you are a gryphon?” she retorted, holding her head high. “Your kind eats nothing but meat. Or are you going to tell me rats know their names?”

The only indication of her accusations having any effect was a squint of the keen eyes, but even that was unreadable. Without missing a beat, the predator went on, “They were just trying to survive, like… you. Or rats.”

“Except I don’t kill to survive.” Ash almost cursed as she received a raised eyebrow—she was digging herself a grave. She desperately hoped it was only a proverbial one. “Not… not sapient beings.”

“Why?” the gryphon echoed her own question, his eyes generously compensating for the lack of the smirk on his beak.

Ash baulked at the simple question, with her mouth hanging half-opened and making incoherent noises until she finally found words:

“That’s…” came out lamely, “That’s just not right.”

The gryphon laughed—a mirthless sound.

“And yet you’re asking me why I didn’t kill those sapient beings.”

Even though it was Ash leading the way, he bolted into the icy turbulence, leaving the mare to catch up with him.

As payment for sunlight-laced tales—and a part of the escape plan—Ash brought them both to a mass grave.

It held little interest for anyone but the most unscrupulous vultures. Those who came to wrest the bodies from the pale fingers also had to possess one more quality if they wished to not join their spoils—furtivity.

Amidst the dark forms half-buried in the pink snow a mausoleum stood, a stout low building full of life preserved in rusty tin cans and soggy card boxes.

A warehouse.

Tumours grew on its rime-painted walls, nests full of death ready to burst out in the form of searing lead eager to dig deep into frostbitten flesh. Even when the veil of darkness descended on the one-sided battlefield, one had no chance of escaping the messengers of war unless they were born with a coat of a certain colour. And, still, that would be a reckless test of luck and the snipers’ vigilance.

The duo of travellers kept a respectable distance from the border of the corpse-strewn opening for that reason. Taking shelter on the fifth story of the still standing half of the apartment building, they were so far away, Ash had to use the rifle’s scope to see the warehouse as more than a dirty speck.

The generously offered gun—not that its owner needed it to see himself—pressed awkwardly into the mare’s shoulder and she had to bend herself in quite uncomfortable ways to peer through the tinted lenses. The observation taught her nothing new about the perils of nearing the depot, so she returned the weapon to the gryphon hesitantly—it felt good to hold power in her possession, even if she had little understanding of how to make the best use of it.

The half-eagle didn’t accept it, though, his eyes glued to the distant building, so she carefully put the rifle against the peeling wallpaper to keep company to her spear. Long minutes passed before any of them moved again. It was Ash, disturbing the stillness with words coming from her lips instead of glimmering mist:

“Thank you.”

The gryphon came out of his reverie to glacially turn and regard the mare.

“For what, Sunny?”

“For not killing me.” She pretended to be interested in the view of the snowbound street. “You are the first one to not try, though you are the first one who made it appear like I actually deserved it.”

“Nobody deserves to die.”

A peculiar thing happened—when Ash turned to face the gryphon, her expression was of amusement for the first time in a long period, whilst the merriment faded from the eagle’s eyes.

“The more I listen to you, the more I get the impression you came to Canterlot no more than a week ago. It is a horrible place now, but that’s just the winter to blame. Before—it was a nightmare because of ponies.”

She turned away again, caught up in memories of her sordid underground life. Ash didn’t see the long searching look she was given.

“So, was this cataclysm deserved?”

Ash frowned, then glared at the gryphon.

“Don’t know what that word means. But I heard Canterlot brought the winter upon itself.”

Their eyes locked—the gryphon’s still lacking laughter in them; it was an unnerving sight as if him being serious was gravely wrong.

“It did,” he finally agreed, then suddenly inquired, “Where are your parents?”

Hissing, “Take a wild guess, ” Ash once more looked out of the window to glare at nothing. She could feel the half-eagle studying her face, but it was a familiar mask showing no emotion—at least she liked to believe it didn’t.

“Did they deserve it, too?”

Dust and snow screeched under Ash’s hooves as she turned sharply and abruptly stomped out of the room, throwing over her shoulder:

“Are we going to wait here until we turn into icicles? Let’s get going!”

The gryphon and the pony were crouching behind the stump of the wall. Ash’s relationship with their cover was strange—she tried to hug the wall as her body struggled to keep upright, yet her contact with it lasted only as long as it took the rebar to poke her under the ribs with an icy needle.

She looked expectantly at the gryphon and he answered with an innocent question:

“What’s the plan, Sunny?”

Anger flashed in her eyes—she’d expected him to have one on his own. Yet, Ash was running on fumes, too exhausted to give that bitterness a form. She started to whisper loudly instead, even though she was sure they couldn’t be heard.

“I watched the shooters once.” She cautiously glanced over the crumbling corner to confirm nothing had changed. “They never check on each other and they are bundled deep in their places. I bet if you took out at least two of them out, it would create a blind spot and we could just go there before anyone notices something’s wrong.”

“You want me to kill them,” the gryphon deadpanned.

Ash hesitated momentarily—the conversation they’d had on their way there was still fresh in her mind. Then a dagger of hunger slashed her guts and it didn’t go away.

“Do you think they are going to invite us in?” she barked.

The rifle’s butt hit her in the chest—flatwise.

“Then you do it.”

Her incinerating glare was the only response to that.

The gun was slung over the cover, cement and ice crunching under the long barrel. Ash spent more than a few moments trying to find the best way to press herself to the gun—it was for a very different goal than before. Finally, the weapon became her extension and she began to search with her deadly gaze.

A pony appeared in crosshairs, a young mare who would have been called a filly a month ago.

Shivering, she was hugging a rifle of her own, the bloodshot and dark-rimmed eyes unceasingly checking the uncounted victims being swallowed by the snow, making sure nothing in her vision moved faster than that. The shooter shifted, rubbed her hooves—they were blue from cold and thin from lack of food. A cloud of hoar escaped her indigo lips—a silent whimper thundering through Ash’s mind.

“Shit!”

The rifle was thrust back to the gryphon without a look.

The silence was deafening, stretching until another knife found purchase in Ash’s stomach. Though she preferred it to feeling a burning coal of a trigger in her magic, it was still a question of life and death.

“How do we get inside?” she asked in a resigned voice.

“I do think they are going to invite us.”

Ash whipped her head at the half-eagle only to see him putting his weapon on the ground.

“Wha..?”

He was looking neither at her nor his rifle. Following his gaze, she saw dark forms converging on them from the ruins. Clad in armour and bearing guns they were no common scavengers. They moved with the confidence and ease of those who could come in and out of the warehouse.

Yet, the amusement kept sparking in the gryphon’s eyes.

“Just keep calm, I’ll see you through this.”

“Fuck,” was all she could say to his promise.

For a moment Ash clutched the spear in her magic—she refused to give up.

It cluttered to the gravel. That friend wouldn’t be able to help here, her only hope was in the stranger she’d met an hour ago.

“I never even asked your name.”

“Call me Discord, Sunny.”

Author's Note

If you notice any mistakes sneaked in through the editing, let me know.

Stay awesome.