Wish Fulfillment

Rally couldn’t say that the sun was rising before she knew it. It felt exactly as long as it took when the first fellow rays made their way onto the horizon. It was hours spent walking down the incline of the mountain face when she finally got the warmth of Celestia’s golden sun on her frostbitten face and stiff coat. It made her breathe a long, thankful sigh of relief when the bright ball was hanging in the middle of the sky just a few minutes later, already a significant improvement over everything from the previous night.

Her hooves and legs now were starting to ache from all of her walking, but she didn’t dare stop. She felt tired– no, downright exhausted– but not sleepy. As long as she had her concentration, she would continue to move forward, not wanting to spend one second longer than she needed to outdoors. If she did start to become sleepy though, she would be forced to stop. As much as she hated being out here, the only thing worse would be slipping on a patch of ice and breaking her back or bleeding out.

It was disheartening to the stallion to see how slowly she was moving though. It felt like the distance between her and the dot of green she saw at the top of the mountain was no closer now than it was before. A quick look behind her though showed she was nowhere near where she started this journey, which only made it more frustrating and frightening that she wasn’t any closer to safety yet. How long was this trip going to take?

“Fuck you,” Rally said aloud as she walked, mostly to herself, but imaging that the spellcaster could hear her anyway. “Fuck. You. All of this for one tiny joke. You’re absolutely horrible.”

It was mostly silence from there on out, her full concentration on her hooves. She wanted to try and figure out how she was able to manipulate them so easily without any trouble despite having never been a quadruped, but decided that it was way too risky to start getting into that. Better, it was, to just accept that she naturally knew as she came to a spot where the trail flattened out for a few feet, only to drop steeply from there, too steeply for her to continue. It’d be trouble enough to get down as a human, but as a pony, it was nearly impossible. Even worse, the trail seemed to be taunting her, leveling off into something close to flat past the fifty foot section of cliff she was stopped at.

I’m gonna try and get down there and break my leg, the stallion thought to herself. I just know it. Break my leg if I’m lucky, break my neck if I’m not.

She pranced in place as she tried to decide how best to go about this, staring for a few minutes at the problem. It was a long moment of still silence, not even wind to fill her head with noise as she considered what she was up against. The more she stared, the more frustrated she became until finally she screamed and sat down on her haunches in anger.

She was at a dead end with no way to advance. From what Rally could tell, her options were to either sit there, head back up the trail and find another spot to descend, or risk killing herself attempting to climb down. The first option was completely untenable, and the second option was much too dangerous to even seriously consider. It left only the most frustrating one available to her. Heading backwards was the very last thing she wanted to do.

“God damnit, come on!” Rally sank onto her stomach, wanting to cry, but unable to. She was tired and cold and dysphoric and hungry and wanted nothing less than to be put in this position. Why couldn’t Luna just help her? This wasn’t how real life was supposed to go, let alone being a human in Equestria. And yet, here she was, living out exactly what wasn’t supposed to happen.

If the cold was good for something, it was what kept her from being in one place for too long, her body starting to go numb if she stopped, even in spite of the sun. Unless she wanted to get frostbitten, she would keep moving.

“Come on, Rally,” the stallion announced out loud to no one. “Rally up some strength or an idea or something. You’ll have lots of time to cry later when you’re safe. Or dead when you break your neck trying to get down this thing.”

She took a breath, not starting down immediately, instead pacing back and forth in thought. How could she do this? She was a unicorn, which meant that, in theory, she should know how to use magic. If she could, that would make it much more feasible to get to the bottom.

Of course, she didn’t actually expect to know, and after a few minutes of trying, proved she was no Lord Zulu. Even if she could use magic, she had no idea what kind of spell she would cast to get off this cliff.

She had just as little luck with her hooves when she tried to see if she had some form of hoof grip. If she did, she didn’t know how to use that either, the hoof full of snow she tried to form into a ball not doing as she commanded. She couldn’t even get her hooves to latch onto it, nor the random rocks and pebbles she found lying around, or even her own mane. Her hooves weren’t an option, either.

Fine, Rally thought, doing everything she could to keep from screaming. No magic or hoof grip. I’ll still figure this out. I am not turning around.

She looked over the edge again and scowled. The cliff still taunted her, having ledges and hoof holds built into the side of it, like its express purpose was to climb up and down. Impossible to do without any grip though. She knew she’d only go six or seven feet before she fell, and that a forty five foot drop was about as deadly as a fifty foot one. There was no way she was going to get down the thing alive.

“Eerrggghh, god! Fuck!” Rally screamed angrily as she began to stomp her way back up the hill. She didn’t go very far though, only a couple of hundred yards before she stopped again. It was just too demoralizing to head back up there and waste another day and night trying to find some other path down. She was going to get down the cliff one way or the other. Probably not the safest plan, but she couldn’t say she was in a healthy enough state of mind to care that much.

I’m not gonna die, she tried to convince herself. No one in Equestria ever dies. Ponies do dangerous things all the time, like head into the Everfree and fight monsters, and they never died. Heck, there was an episode where Rainbow Dash broke her wing and it healed in a day, and one where Twilight was slammed against a wall by Tirek, and they didn’t have any trouble. I’ll probably be fine if I end up falling down.

She wasn’t sure if she quite believed it, but it was enough to psyche her up and allow her the courage to start making her careful way down the side of the cliff. She moved backwards so that she could have some grip on the ledge with her fetlocks, knowing she needed everything she could get. It was extremely risky business.

Rally was shaking in anxiety as she looked down to find the next spot to place her hooves. She gingerly let her front hoof hang out, now having only one fetlock to support her as she leaned down to get to the next spot. She felt her hoof touch the rock it was supposed to be on, but then screamed as the limb suddenly slipped out from under her.

Or rather, it nearly slipped from under her. She was somehow lucky enough to gain control of her body and stop that from happening, but only barely. Now though, she was absolutely shivering with fear, wanting to stop and pull herself back up. Her lack of hoof grip though told her that reascending wasn’t an option anymore.

What the hell is wrong with me? Why did I think this would be a good idea? I’m going to die falling down this ledge.

She stayed where she was for a long minute, taking deep breaths to try and settle down again. She couldn’t be shaking when she continued to descend. The more stability she had, the better.

Come on, Rally, you can do this, she encouraged herself as she quickly moved her left hoof down to the ledge her right was on. You thought this was a good idea, after all, now get your butt moving. Err, flank moving.

Another breath was taken, but before the stallion could move again, a particularly strong cut of wind hit her. It was enough to make her stop in fear again, unable to help the huge shiver she let out because of the cold. She was already realizing that her frustration made her make a poor choice. This was an incredibly dangerous idea with a high risk of death.

You’re not gonna die, she told herself. “You promised yourself a long time ago that you wouldn’t die as a man, and being a stallion is the exact same thing as that. Now get moving so you can find Twilight Sparkle and get yourself out of an ugly, masculine body for a second time.”

That provided her with the encouragement she needed. She didn’t know how, but somehow, with either hoof grip or magic, she was able to make her careful way down, step by step. It was arduously slow, but before long, she was a quarter of the way down, then nearly halfway. She started to become more confident, and moved more quickly, wanting her hooves to touch the ground as soon as possible.

It was a mistake though, because the next thing she knew, she was slipping. This time though, Rally didn’t catch herself, her back hooves sliding completely off the ledge. She screamed again and closed her eyes, certain that this would truly be the end of her.

Instinct was a powerful thing though, and something that saved her skin. By pure instinct, she was able to grip onto the side of the cliff and hold herself in place. Not that it was a particularly good position to be in; her hooves were dangling out under her, no support to rest them on. She was hanging on for dear life.

“Somebody help me!” the stallion yelled desperately, hoping somepony was around to hear her. “Please! I need help! Anyone!" She might have been almost halfway down, but she didn’t need to experience falling from either height to know that thirty feet would hurt just as much as fifty feet.

No answer came, but she hoped somepony was coming around the corner. If they were, no one made a sound, but what could she do other than hang on for dear life? She didn’t understand how she was able to, and was too panicked to try and figure it out. It might have been a good thing actually. There was a chance that putting conscious thought into it would cause her grip to give way.

It still did eventually however, much to Rally’s terror. She tried hard to pull herself up, but didn’t have the strength to. Her heart beat harder in fear, the knowledge that there was nothing below her except solid rock forcing her to hang on as long as she possibly could. It was all she could do. Falling would hurt more than a little.

“Lord Zulu, please!” she got out in a last ditch effort, her voice cracking as she was on the verge of tears. “I won’t mess with you again!” she pleaded. “I’ll give you whatever you want! Just don’t let me die like this! Please! I learned my lesson!”

As though listening and trying to spite her, her grip slipped further, and a second later, gave way. She screamed loudly, and closed her eyes a moment after she turned over and looked at the ground racing up to her, bracing for impact. It was truly going to end like this, over a joke.

The impact never came though, and a few seconds later, Rally opened her eyes to see she was suspended in the air. There was a brown glow of magic holding her up just a few inches from the ground. Somepony actually heard her and saved her.

Her body shook and her heart pounded hard as she gasped for breath, tears running down her cheeks as she was carefully settled onto the snow covered ground. She gingerly glanced up to see who her savior was, finding a vaguely familiar brown unicorn with a whitened out mane and little mustache. He was dressed in a little bit of armor and had a stitched together threadbare cloak, a stick for a staff and a rusted bucket for a helmet laying on the ground next to him.

She recognized him as the stallion who lived on Mount Everhoof, the one who stopped Cozy Glow from ascending on her own, which at least told her where she was. She didn’t remember his name though, or him being a unicorn, but she certainly wasn’t going to be complaining about that.

“I hafta say, that there was a close one,” he started as he gently trotted over to the fiery maned unicorn. “Good thing I heard yer screamin’ when I did. Another second and ya’d be painted all over the side of this here mountain,” he said as he magicked his bucket back on his head, covering his smallish looking horn. “What were ya doin’ up here anyhoo, what with no gear or winter garments or nothin’?” the stallion asked.

Rally opened her mouth to answer, but instead of words, sobs came out.