Zecora and the Parasite

Chapters

Prologue: Arm-Worm
2: All Just Shades of Black
3: Sluggish, Slithering Stories
4: Lost in Frost
5: Heads Up
6. Tip the Scales
7. Sage Advice
8: Petal Plucker, Nuckel Dragger
1: Out of the Ice, Into the Blizzard

Prologue: Arm-Worm

Sammakött could still feel a throbbing pain travelling through his body in thick waves. His arm had stopped bleeding days ago, but it was far from healed. He felt the wound with his remaining hand. Darkness still shrouded his vision, and his eye was still warm with fresh pain. It was only two weeks since his escape from the ice, but he was still blind, missing a limb, and lacking an army of any kind. The soft crunch of soil and frost under his hooves, accompanied by the creaking wind told him that he was still in a forest, but where he was exactly was a mystery. It would help if he could remember where he had originally set his enchantment to take him, but wandering around was out of the question. In a world so densely populated by the enemy, and with no reinforcements to help him, anywhere he went was likely to be dangerous. It was a guarantee that Twilight had already told the other princesses about his release, and they were likely to tell everyone else. Fifteen thousand years of planning, only to end up back at square one.

Sammakött sat still. Slowly, the throbbing subsided, and he focused on listening to the forest around him. The quiet, aged creaking of the trees around him masked the sound of sleeping animals. Snoring squirrels, snoozing birds, even the slowed heartbeat of hibernating animals. There was a bear sleeping away in a cave not too far away. Its breathing was incredibly slow. It was unlikely to wake up if he entered its cave and ate it. Sam was missing many things at this moment, but he still had food, which was good. If there was one thing he was thankful for, it was the fact that, for the time being at least, he wouldn't have to resort to eating ponies. They always tasted awful.

As he listened to the rhythm of the forest, Sam's breathing began to slow, over time beginning to stay in beat with the swaying of the trees. It was night time, as was evident by the quiet breathing of the animals around him. Perhaps it was best to rest, and let the cold envelop him.

As the wind calmed, and Sam began to fade away into peaceless slumber, a faint whistling disturbed the quiet tranquility of the forest. It was a warbling whistle, like the scream of a dying animal. It shook and vibrated in the air, until it finally reach Sam's ears. His eye reflexively snapped open, then quickly shut as he flinched in pain. Heaving himself up from his bed of snow, he looked up into the black sky. The whistling grew closer, and with it, so did an old accomplice.

Sam could feel the rush of wind on his nape, followed swiftly by the flapping of two great, feathered wings. A familiar hiss nestled in Sam's ears, and he turned to the direction of the noise.

"Well... If it isn't Isidora. I suspected you'd be the first to find me," Sam gurgled, a small smile splitting his face.

"Of course, Alma. My loyalty to you is as undying as your brutality, my lord," the peuchen spoke in a sugary sweet voice. Sam could never really tell if her constant whistling came from her feathers, or if she just spoke that way.

"Well I'm glad to hear from you, Isidora. I might have lost my men, but it's good to see my most loyal follower has found me."

Isidora took a sharp breath through her teeth as Sam stared in her direction. "What in Boiuna happened to you, mi rey? You look like you picked a fight with Lady Madness."

Sam grunted. "I'll ignore the fact that you think Markinockyonazae could do this much to me."

"What, are you going to tell me that the ponies did that much to you? They didn't seem all that dangerous on the way here."

"Their princesses are adept in magic, one of them in Aether magic."

Isidora gasped. "You don't think they're a descendant of Ma Vie, do you?"

"No. I nearly killed the new crystal princess, but that... Twilight... Sparkle... stopped me," Sam spat.

"Wow. Would you like me to drink her blood and steal her heart for you, Alma?"

"No, that won't be necessary. She's much too dangerous anyway, especially now that the whole kingdom knows of our existence."

"and the griffons too. They'd have to be pretty stupid not to." the serpent added.

Sam growled, feeling the ooze in his throat bubble and froth as he did. "Thank you, Isidora, for the reminder."

"S-sorry," He could hear the peuchen slither along the branches, her serpentine body flowing through the arms of the forest like water. "So what do we do then? I get the feeling that more than just your eye is dysfunctional."

Sam sighed, mindlessly clawing at the dirt. He reveled in the ease in which his talons carved through the soil. If only it were flesh, and not snow.

"Well," he spoke up, "currently, we're fugitives in a kingdom rife with the very things that want us dead. We have no reinforcements, no magic and, for me at least, no vision."

"Yeah... How long until that eye heals back up?"

"A week at most, but that's more than enough time for some unsuspecting pony to stumble upon us and report our location to the princesses. Speaking of, Isidora, dearest, where are we?"

"Oh, let me do another check around. Be right back, my lord."

Sam listened as she shot up into the air, trailing that same whistling behind her as she flew. He continued to hear her whistling as she soared in a wide circle around him. After a minute, the whistling stopped, and again, Sammakött felt the rushing of wind and the flapping of wings as Isidora landed.

"Well, I got some good news and bad news."

"Don't give me crumbs, Dora. Just tell me where we are," Sam growled

"Judging by the odd pattern of the nearby trees and the ramshackle building that's about a mile off from here, we appear to be on the edge of some sort of orchard. The building sported an apple symbol, so if I were to guess, it's an apple orchard, and a pretty big one at that."

Sam sat upright, his muscular hide rippling in tense waves. "Were there any ponies?"

"There was one big one doing something, but lights were on in his house, so it's possible there are more. I doubt there are more than four however, the building wasn't that big."

"Any unicorns? Pegasi?"

"The big one didn't have wings or a horn as far as I saw. I did have to keep my distance, however. Thank goodness it's night, otherwise he might've actually seen me. I believe the only thing he caught onto was my whistling." Isidora flapped her wings in annoyance. They whistled as she did so, seemingly out of spite. If he weren't upset, Sam might've chuckled. At least that was one question answered.

He grunted. Ripping his hand from the dirt, he pointed in the direction of Isidora. "Then what's the good news in all this, that we're only on the edge of the pony kingdom?"

Sam heard more slithering as Isidora moved herself in front of him. "No. I don't know if I'm right about this, it has been a while."

"What is it?"

"Well, I remember you telling some of us about the 'last resort' when you concepted the enchantment. You told us that if we were lost, we could find you at your old home."

Sam's eye nearly opened again in surprise. "You mean we're..."

"Yup, we're smack in the middle of Narok... or what was Narok. How insulting, turning it into some boring old fruit field."

Sam was quiet for a moment. Isidora slithered restlessly in the trees above, waiting for her master to say something. After some time, Sam collected his thoughts. "How far do you think you could fly, Isidora?"

"For you, Alma? I'd fly to the moon and back."

"Good. I need you to find Lambton. Comb every shoreline, search every cave. Do not stop until you have found him."

"Lambton?" Isidora questioned, the fear in her voice apparent. "You mean like the sarcomancer Lambton? The 'massacre of the grey temple' Lambton?"

"Yes. We can't afford to loaf around here when my army is running amok all across the kingdom and I'm missing an arm and an eye. It'll take me months until my arm is fully regenerated, and that's an amount of time we can't afford to waste. We need Lambton."

"...Whatever you say, my lord. I can't guarantee he'll listen to me, but I'll try."

"If you find him, and he is belligerent, tell him I have an offer for him that he'd regret rejecting."

"Ah, earning your army back with negotiation. Ever the talented and capable ruler, Alma."

"yes, alright, thank you. Now go! Find Lambton!" Sam shook his hand at the serpent, shooing her into the sky.

"Yes, my lord! I'll be back, I promise! I won't disappoint you."

"You never have," Sam gurgled.

With a flap of her wings, Isidora flew up into the air. Sammakött listened as her telltale whistling faded away into the night. Left in peaceful silence once again, he laid his head down upon the soft pillow of snow, and slowly, he was swept off into the serene cloud of sleep.

2: All Just Shades of Black

Reek awoke when he felt something poking his face. His eyestalks rose sluggishly, and it took a moment for him to focus on his surroundings. But before he could gather his bearings, something poked him in his eye.

"Ow! What is doing that?"

"ah, so you are finally awake!
I was not sure how long it would take," A melodic voice answered back.

Reek's eye sunk back into his head to recover. The remaining stalk focused on the blurry shape before him. It was various shades of grey, but seemed to be crowned by stripes of white. Odd, blurry blobs of gold decorated its edges, and above all, it was rather small.

The blob poked him again in his side.

"Hey! Would you knock that off!?"

"Oh, you'll have to forgive me,
but of Gusty's Grace you'll soon be free."

Reek eyed the blob in confusion. As his vision cleared, the unformed figure began to sharpen, until it finally took the shape of a zebra, clad in golden neck and hoof rings. The zebra stared up at him a look of apathetic curiosity. Though Reek could've sworn he'd seen a flash of something else cross her gaze.

Reek raised himself to his full height, and clonked his head on the ceiling in the process. he looked around him. The zebra's home was rather small, which made sense, considering only one creature lived here. All along the walls, shelves held potions, masks, and jars of miscellaneous ingredients. A large cauldron bubbled in the house's center, filled with a boiling purple fluid.

Welp, this definitely was it. This was how he died.

However, instead of goring him on a wooden spike or tossing whatever was in her cauldron at his face, the zebra turned away and walked nonchalantly over to one of her many shelves. From it, she grabbed a tall glass bottle that was stuffed to the brim with dried, yellow petals. She, along with the cabin, seemed to shake and shimmer, as if the whole building were a mirage, and Reek was having a difficult time figuring out how close she was until he accidently bumped into the wall next.

"It seems that Grace has yet to leave.
But I still have some tricks up my sleeve."

The zebra popped open the jar, and a powerful scent of herbal spices and dried grass wafted in the air. Just breathing it made Reek's body relax. The zebra scooped up a hoofful of the yellow leaves and held it out towards him.

Reek recoiled, disgusted and paranoid by its fragrance. "What, you think I'm gonna eat that?"

"To be rid of the Grace that gives you strife,
then eat these Begonias, the petals of life," She spoke briskly. She continued to hold out the petals for Reek, but he was as still as a statue, a look of utter bewilderment attached to his face.

"What are you talking about!? Gusty's Grace, petals of life, are you insane? Am I stuck in the house of a maniac?"

The zebra pulled back as Reek shouted. That same curiostiy lingered in her eyes, but she looked away, allowing Reek the chance to scan for any and all possible escape routes. The zebra huffed slightly, deep in thought.

"If you truly believe me mad,
then perhaps I should explain a tad."

"Yeah, maybe that'd be a good idea," Reek fumed.

"Fine, if it must be so,
but eat these petals if you wish to know."

Reek hesitated. The petals did smell good, but he had experienced too many near death encounters to naïvely take petals from a stranger's hand... or hoof in this instance.

Reek leaned back, making as much distance between him and the petals as possible. The zebra's face began to fall as moment after silent moment passed by. Her eyes, once full of interest, were now dulling in tandem with the thinning of her patience.

"If you do not want the remedy I provide,
Then perhaps I'll let you go outside."

Reek laughed. "What, you're just letting me go because I won't eat your stupid magic petals? Alright then. That was easier than I thought it'd be."

Chuckling to himself, Reek slid away from the zebra and her probably poisonous petals and headed towards the door. "Welp, it was awful to meet you. I hope I never see you again!" He clenched the doorknob with his teeth and twisted open the door.

As soon as the door creaked open, Reek was shoved back by a powerful, violent wind. Snow flew in from the open doorway, covering his face in a layer of frost. The wind screamed at him, roaring with all the might of a raging dragon. Reek tried to worm away from the door, but the cold quickly numbed his muscles, and all he could see, feel and hear was the cold. It felt like he was back in the glacier. He couldn't go back there. Please, he hoped he'd never go there again. Anywhere but there.

The door slammed closed, and with it, the howling storm receded back into the great outdoors. Reek shook away the flakes of snow covering his face to see the zebra standing in front of him with an unamused expression.

"If you wish to stay, and not freeze in the snow,
then you'll be sure to eat my Begonias, no?"

"W...w-where in Tartarus did that storm come from?" Reek stammered.

"Oh, the Lunar Solstice's winter storm.
It seems to have taken quite a monstrous form."

"Lunar Solstice? What is-you know what, I know I'm not going to get an answer. I'm just going to go curl into a ball and die if that's ok with you."

"I will tell you all that I know
but it would be best if we-"

"Yes I know, I get it! You want me to eat those stupid Begonias! Fine, I'll eat them! Is that what you were gonna say!?"

The zebra giggled. "-Take it slow."

"Oh."

"I must say its pleasing to see
that you are willing to listen to me," the zebra remarked, a sarcastic expression smeared across her face.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Reek grumbled. "So what's the deal with this storm then? How long is it gonna last?"

The zebra didn't respond. Instead, she yet again held out her hoof, holding another small batch of yellow petals.
"If it is truth you'd like me to reveal,
then first you must eat your meal."

"What are you, my mother?" Reek joked. He chuckled to himself for a moment, but after looking at the thoroughly unamused look on the zebra's face, Reek quickly took the leaves into his mouth and ate. His teeth swirled and waved in his mouth, shredding the dried leaves in a matter of seconds. Reek sighed as he chewed. He was gonna be stuck here with an insane zebra for a good while, and he would have to eat weird petals just to keep himself from starving to death. At this rate, starving seemed like a pretty good option.

As soon as he swallowed the insgnificant portion, Reek began to cough violently. Despite their pleasant aroma, the petals were just about the worst thing he had ever eaten. They tasted like the white hot embers spewed from a charred corpse that had been left in the sun for months, was eaten by a wandering onniont, was promptly spat back out, and finally left to decompose in a poisonous bog. Whatever plant he'd eaten yesterday that caused him to pass out was by far a more pleasant dish than whatever this was.

"Wh-hack-what is th-hack-at stuff?" Reek wheezed.

"Begonias that I usually grow for sport,
but they also cure toxins and others of that sort," the zebra smiled innocently.

"what... I mean-but y-..." Reek tried his best to get the words out, but the unholy taste of the petals, mixed with his insurmountable confusion at the recent course of events allowed him only the most fragmented of sentences. After a moment of collection, and gagging, Reek looked the zebra in the eye. She remained calm, even as his eyestalks quivered with rage.

"Am I missing something? Was there some grand event that occurred that would explain all of this madness? Because if there isn't, then what in Boiuna's name is a zebra of all creatures doing living here in the middle of the forest, growing and farming pharmaceutical plants and acting like none of it is weird? Who do you think you are to act so above all of this, like your some sort of messiah or savior just because you dragged me out of the snow and in to your itty bitty little murder hut? Is this just something you do everyday, huh? Do you just take in lost and wounded creatures, give them some poison under the guise of 'healing herbs' and then use their bodies as catalysts for your potions? Is that it?

Reek's body inflated and deflated as he took heavy, enraged breaths. The zebra stood still, her face having returned to that annoying look of curiosity again. Reek waited for an answer, but it seemed he would not be provided one.

After a bout of silence that lasted far too long, Reek shouted again. "Well, is it!?"

The zebra remained quiet for a minute, but opened her mouth once Reek began to calm down.

"I can understand why you would be annoyed,
but you teeter the edge of paranoid."

Reek tried to steady his breathing, but was so enveloped in his rage that it came out as more of an aggravated hiss. "That doesn't answer... my question. Who... are you?"

"I'm afraid I do not understand your commotion.
I am only Zecora, a maker of potions."

3: Sluggish, Slithering Stories

Zecora pulled out a small wooden table from one of the neighboring rooms. Without a word, she sat down on its far end, and motioned for Reek to sit opposite to her. The slug curled himself into a tight ball as he sat at the table's edge, his eyestalks two thin, grey towers on a mound of blackness.

"So... you gonna tell me what's going on now?" he growled.

The zebra blinked. "I'm not sure what you want me to say,
But feel free to ask away."

"Well for one, how long has it been since... uhm...

Reek paused for a minute. He hadn't considered just how much time had passed since he had last seen the sun. He knew it was a long time mostly due to the first thousand years being filled with Sammakött's constant counting. But once the ice had robbed that monster of his telepathy spell... who knew how long Reek had been in there?

"How... long... have we been gone?"

"If by 'we' you mean the beasts that roam
the land of which they once called home,
I have not heard in all I've read
of this old place from which you fled."

Reek unrolled himself a slight amount, only to let out a dramatic sigh. "Can you stop speaking in rhymes please? You're not a sphinx or something, are you?"

"A sphinx, I am certainly not,
but I'm sorry for the stress I've wrought."

"Yeah whatever," Reek rolled his eyes, "So I guess I'd better list off names. Back in my day, my king was Melo Milo. Big snail, lots of tentacles, last of the Carcolh. Ever heard of him?"

Zecora clacked her hooves together, closing her eyes and focusing entirely on scanning every inch of her memory for any trace of such a name. "I will admit, I know of your kind,
but that name holds no place in my mind."

That caught Reek's attention. The slug unfurled himself fully from his comfortable ball, reaching his full height and nearly scraping the ceiling of Zecora's hut. He leaned in towards the zebra, though she remained placid and unmoving.

"You know my people? What do you mean you 'know my kind'?"

"Though you are quite the giant brute,
the Mulilo Slugs back home are cute."

Though Zecora spoke as if what she had said was the most casual thing in the world, her statement hit Reek like a blizzard wind that froze his skin solid and petrified him on the spot. "Wh-where's your old home?"

"A far savannah across the sea,
A place you might not like to see.
If I took you to see your kind,
you might not like just what you'd find."

Reek slammed his thick tail onto the table, causing it to flip into the air and crash into a far wall. Several potions and ingredient bottles clattered to the floor, releasing various brightly colored clouds. "Enough with the riddles, wretched creature! I have never known a zebra in all my days, so either you tell me what you are and how you know me, or I tear you to ribbons and chew on your bones!"

Deep inside his mouth, Reek's serrated teeth began to revolve, spinning and whirling like a grinder in his rage. But somehow, despite his threats, Zecora only smirked.

"Would you still eat me alive,
if I said you wouldn't survive?"

Reek snarled. The zebra's words were quickly going from nuisance to torture. "You think you can stand against me?"

"A Mulilo Slug would eat me quick,
but my poison blood might do the trick."

Reek spat a laugh out, splattering half eaten specs of Begonias all across the floor. "You don't have poison blood."

"But of that can you guarantee,
for you know nothing about me.
It's been some time since you were last aware
Some things might've changed, here and there."

As Reek thought it over, the rage flowing through his body began to subside. Slowly, he shrank back down to a modest size, and his eyestalks straightened as he calculated the risk. After some minutes, he looked back at Zecora, squinting at her in disbelieving suspicion. "If you really are poisonous, then prove it."

"If you wish to know if I am untrue,
then there's only one thing that you can do."
Zecora held out her hoof to Reek, taunting him to try and bite.

"Take a bite, if you wish.
I hope you enjoy your final dish."

Reek gulped. It had been quite a long time after all, maybe ponies did have poisonous blood now. He didn't know, but the idea of Sammakött choking and dying on ponies of all things made him chuckle slightly.

Deciding against it, Reek slinked back into his ball, grumbling all the while. Zecora smiled, pulling her hoof back and sitting up straight with pride.

"We've reached, it seems, quite the impasse,
let's just hope this storm doesn't last."

"Yeah... let's..."

For a while after that, no one moved an inch. Reek initially spent his time glaring at Zecora, but boredom eventually overcame him, and so he stared at the various bottles and miscellaneous knick-knacks that covered every wall of Zecora's home and even the floor to some degree. Eventually, he slithered over to the window and watched as the snow continued to build around the zebra's hut.

"Ugh, when will this Boiuna forsaken storm ever end!"

"I do not know,
I thought you would, though."

Reek sighed again and rolled his eyestalks. "You know, considering you live here, I thought you'd be more knowledgeable about the present."

"And you knew your past, but now it's sheared.
And all of that history's disappeared."

"Disappeared? It's all over the place! I've had to avoid three peuchens, a bregdi and several hungry kor just to end up getting poisoned of all things."

"Peuchens? How great!
Oh, please elaborate."

"What, you know about peuchens? Do you poison them on the regular too?"

Zecora laughed, and as she leaned back, Reek barely restrained himself from going straight for her neck.

"Of course not, I'm no crook.
But I've read of them in storybooks."

Reek turned away from the window to sit back down in front of Zecora. He wasn't particularly interested in telling her about his old enemies, but looking at the slowly raising snow made him paranoid and claustrophobic.

"What did the books say about them?" he asked in a bout of skeptical curiosity.

"That they were pretty and thin,
With teeth like pins.
It said they were snakes,
that they lived in lakes,
And that the flap of their wings
Would cause shivers and quakes."

"Heh, well that's not totally inaccurate," Reek grabbed a shard of glass from one of the dozen broken bottles and started to carve out the rough shape of a snake onto the floor. "They are snakes, sort of. As far as I remember, they're distant cousins of the wyverns. You still have those here?"

"Not this close to town,
But I know they're around."

Reek grunted in affirmation. "Well, it's not that important anyway," after finishing the body, he moved on to the peuchen's head. " They usually travel in packs, and each of them have got these rows of serrated teeth filled with enough venom to drop a chimera in one bite. Back in my day, if you were smart, you'd run and hide the second you heard their screaming."

"The peuchens sound rather ghoulish,
To fight against them would be foolish."

"Yeah. That was what most of the other kingdoms thought at the time. In flesh, they were children of the mighty amphithere, Quetzalcoatl. But in spirit, they followed only the will of Sammakött. They were the first to join his army, and when they did, Quetzal's only options were to join his children, or face their fangs."

Zecora's face turned a paler shade of grey as Reek continued. "That sounds bad."

"Yeah, just a bit."

"This Quetzal, was he mad?"

"Oh he was furious," Reek paused his carving for a minute to gesticulate during his speech, waving the shard of glass in all directions. "Only one kingdom ever defied Narok, but Quetzal came close to being the second. It was said that in his ire, he cursed all the peuchens so that their wingbeats would mimic his screams of rage forever. It would remain a permanent reminder of their betrayal, but the peuchens saw it as proof of Sammakött's infinite power, having defeated a lord so easily."

"So that's why they scream...
This Sammakött is more then he seems."

"Much more, my monochromatic abductor. There's a reason he's called 'the King of the Dead'... And also why there aren't any Leudnan Righrean graves."

Reek huffed. He looked back down at the crudely carved peuchen, and it started up at him with vacant, soulless eyes. Of all the things that survived the ice, the peuchens were already the most acclimated. Reek would've bet that, had he stuck around the glacier's corpse for a little longer, he would have seen them diving for any cadaver big enough to fit in their mouths. He knew all to well what they were capable of. He dropped the shard of glass, where it shattered on the hardwood floor. He didn't move, only staring at the little wooden monster before him.

Zecora stood up in an attempt to reach Reek's eye level. While she had failed quite spectacularly, she softly placed a hoof on Reek's side. Instinctively, he slithered away from her, and she made no further move towards him.

"I sense that these monsters of old,
Have committed many horrors untold.
I know you're scared it's you they'll find," She leaned closer to him, and he watched her movements with an intently scrutinous eye. "But I could help... if you'd be inclined."

The slug leaned towards Zecora, his fangs rippling as he grumbled paranoid, skeptical remarks to himself. "Help? How do you plan to help me, exactly?"

The zebra responded first with a small, knowing smile before speaking another infuriating verse. "If you are nice, and you put some work in,
I'll make a potion, and you won't be noticed again."

4: Lost in Frost

Though the sun had risen a few hours ago, the mountains of snow that surrounded every side of Zecora's hut remained completely intact. Finally, after two days of non-stop snowing, the storm had ceased. Now, Zecora was ready to go. The front door creaked open a slight crack, but was quickly caught by the wall of frost.

Zecora tried again to shove open the door, but it refused to move. She placed both her hooves upon the wooden frame and pushed with all her might, but all she had managed to do was get the door lodged into the thick snow. She sighed in frustration. "well, at least the storm is through,
but we still have some digging to do."

"Easy enough for me," Reek scoffed. With undoubtable ease, Reek bored his way through the thick layer of frost. It took only a moment for him to breach the surface, but once he turned back to see the cabin in its entirety, he took in just how swamped they were. Reek found his eyestalks scraping against the top of the canopy, and there wasn't a single unburied plant in sight. The tips of tree branches jutted from the pearly floor like thorns, the dull brown clashing harshly with the opalescent, sparkling snowbanks. Only the top half of Zecora's hut poked out from beneath the snow, and as far as Reek could see, there was no easy way they were going to find what they needed to make his potion.

Behind him, Zecora huffed and grunted. A grey hoof emerged from Reek's snow tunnel, and then another, and then a mohawk of black and white rose from beneath the snow.

She huffed and panted, exhausted from climbing up the slippery funnel of ice.
"I'm on my hooves and knees,
Some help, if you'd please!"

Reek hadn't noticed her pleas for help until a thick hunk of ice hit him square in the back. He spun around with a snarl, ready to tear apart his attacker, until he finally noticed the small, struggling zebra. He rolled his eyes, but wrapped his tail around Zecora and hoisted her up to stand next to him.

She took a moment to catch her breath before speaking again.
"Thank you friend,
that would've been my end."

"Oh don't be such a crybaby," Reek chided. He turned back to look at her hut. Above them, the sky was surprisingly clear. The sun shone brightly above them, but the ice had no intention of melting. Reek entertained the idea that maybe the ice was lingering out of pure spite specifically towards him, and that if he walked more than twenty feet in any direction, the snow would disappear.

He groaned. "So whaddya think, doc? What do we do now?"

Zecora thought for a while. As she did, she wandered aimlessly around the frozen wasteland, looking for any way to reach the dirt below. She inspected her house, all five feet of it that hadn't been buried in snow, and walked along the treetops, snaking between the piercing, wooden spears scattered around the place.

She tapped her hoof on her chin contemplatively.
"This is a grim turn of events,
I do not know where the snow ends."

"Well I could've told you that. Ugh!" Reek groaned. This was fantastic. Not only was he stuck with the single most annoying creature in Leudnan Righrean, but now he was going to have to starve to death. He was just on the verge of curling himself back into a depressed, enclosed ball when an idea struck him.

Zecora stared distractedly at some distant, snow covered mountains. She wasn't paying any attention to him as he whined, and she continued not to notice him as he stalked behind her. In his mouth, his rows of serrated teeth twisted and shifted in anticipation. He was getting closer. He had to hold back a growl and kept himself from drooling. A gust of wind blew past them, and with it, he could smell her clear as day. His vision focused. The form of Zecora was crystal sharp in front of him. His first taste of meat in Boiuna knew how long, and it was practically served to Reek on a silver platter.

His mouth opened wide, splitting his body vertically down the middle. Rows and rows of teeth whirled excitedly. And then, Zecora shouted, and Reek toppled over, startled.

"I know, we'll go to the nearby lake.
I know there's plenty there to take."

"The lake?" Reek grunted, "Wouldn't it be frozen over?"

"Frozen over? Likely so,
but perhaps it's not as covered with snow."

Reek took one last look around him, then sighed. "I guess we don't have any better options, do we?"

"No we do not," Zecora beamed, much more eager to explore than Reek was. "Come on, let us trot!"

The zebra practically bounced along the pristinely smooth snow. Of course, she was mindful not to jump around too recklessly, lest she punch a hole in the thin layer of ice and plummet down into ten feet of snow.

"I admit, I'm taken aback," She blurted out after a long stretch of silence, "I've seen snow so highly stacked.
Surely you know more than me
What might have caused this blizzard to be."

"Yeah, I know a bit," Reek responded, stifling a sarcastic, biting tone, "but how much do you know exactly?"

"I suppose an answer is due,
After all you've given more than a few." She cleared her throat, preparing her voice for the unnecessary dramatics that Reek was sure were about to transpire. "About... perhaps a week ago, a glacier arose from down below.
It held some monsters deep within,
And yet the cage began to thin.
Its explosion touched the very stars,
Spreading chaos near and far.
And now the princesses are doomed,
Because there's simply not enough room.
Do I have it all correct,
Or did wrongly recollect?"

Reek took a moment to decipher Zecora's poem before he answered. "Yeah I'd say that's pretty close. Big glacier with a bunch of ancient horrors shows up, explodes, and all the monsters in it start wreaking havoc. You forgot to mention old king Sammakött, though."

"Quite the grisly name,
To what does he owe his fame?"

"Ohhh... Y'know..." Reek tried to put the words together, but just the thought of Sammakött, of what he had done, made Reek want to curl into a ball again.

"You know, it's ok.
If you'd rather not say-"

"No!" Reek interrupted. "It's fine, he's just... A horse of many achievements."

"A horse? he was a pony?" Zecora blurted out, shocked at the thought.

Reek laughed, though this chuckle was notably less venomous than usual, whether that be from Zecora or the thoughts of Sammakött weighing on his mind. "No, no... Well, if he was, no one alive has ever seen what he looked like before he turned."

"So he is a phony?"

" No it's," Reek sighed, his frustration leaning more towards the complexity of Sammakött's history than anything Zecora had said. "It's just complicated. You had to be there for it."

Zecora nodded, taking the hint. The two continued on quietly until both of them noticed an odd dip in the snow bank. Reek squinted to get a better view, and Zecora quickened her pace.

"I believe we've arrived.
Let's see what has survived."

Reek followed closely behind her. All the while they had walked, he had kept a very close eye on the sky and the horizon. He was intent not to get himself caught out in the open, despite Zecora's lack of any worry whatsoever. But now, he was following her into, given the height of the snow, a frozen bowl of death as deep as a castle was tall. And he didn't like it one bit.

Reek's teeth chittered anxiously, but Zecora carried on. Upon reaching the bottom of the pit, Zecora stared out at the crystal blue lake. It's surface was frozen over into a thick slab of solid, cerulean ice. It glistened and shined under the glow of the early morning sun, and all across it's surface, scrapes and cuts were scattered throughout. The small imperfections upon the lake's surface told a story of the storm's ferocity. Near the center of the lake, a wide tree branch curved over and under the ice like an eel before disappearing into the murk of the icy blue. Reek held his breath out of reflex.

"Not that I don't trust your ability to find... things, but can we find what we're looking for and go, please? I really would not like to be here any longer than we need to be."

"Of course, I swear,
we're almost there," Zecora waved her hoof reassuringly backwards towards Reek. He recoiled, a slight hiss escaping his maw in protest to Zecora's gesture. He nearly roared out of fright when that same hiss returned back to him.

"Ugh, I guess sound travels well down here, huh?"

"Mhm, Ensure your words are quietly spoke,
or an avalanche you might invoke," Zecora stated with all the nonchalance of someone who had dealt with a situation like this many times before. As she talked to Reek, her eyes scanned the edge of the lake and the surrounding area, looking for something Reek could neither see not understand.

"You seem pretty casual about all this, considering how dangerous it is. How do you know something isn't going to jump out and attack us?"

"It's simple, nothing much to fret,
there's just one thing you never forget."

"Uh huh, and what's that? 'Always look up'? 'Pick your battle'?

Zecora giggled again, and Reek's teeth chittered in response. "Those rules are all very nice,
but I always remember to-"

Both Zecora and Reek jumped at the loud crack that echoed all across the pit. It bounced around the far edges of the ice, then dissipated as it flew away with the wind. Zecora glared back at Reek.

"Oh don't you dare look at me! I am way too squishy to break that ice. I'm all the way over here!"

Another louder CRACK broke the tense silence that followed. Both heads snapped towards the noise's origin, only to face the center of the lake. Where the winding branch had once been, there was now a wide, dark hole where the ice had been pulverized, leaving only dark blue water to fill the space.

Reek leaned over to whisper to Zecora. "What... was that last survival tip of yours again?"

"Always watch the ice."

Another CRACK Split the lake in two. A wide perforation split the ice right down the middle, pointed directly towards the two wanderers. After the first deafening CRACK, several other pops and crackles continued on in the next few moments. From the large, center crack, other smaller cracks split and branched off, separating the lake into dozens of small, thick pieces of ice that floated harmlessly on the frigid water. Then, from the depths of the lake came a low, deep rumbling. To Reek, it sounded like the growls of a gator, but they never grew that big, did they?

Far off from the shore, several chunks of ice began to sway and bob haphazardly as a very large creature made its way towards the two of them with an increasing speed. Reek stood frozen, unable to move. He tried his best to run, to curl into a ball, to do anything, but all he could do was look over to Zecora, or rather, where Zecora had been. Zecora had left her position next to Reek to sprint towards a far off tree, hidden well amongst the various snow covered foliage. Reek tried to follow her, but he remained rooted to the spot. He turned back towards the lake, only to see the once frozen branch standing high above him. It bent and weaved like the body of a snake. The water around the thin, serpentine head swirled and frothed as the great creature rose from the water, and two great, yellow eyes stared back at him.

Reek was almost relieved that the creature didn't seem particularly dangerous despite its size, but then, four other serpentine heads joined alongside the first. Reek gulped, although it couldn't be heard over the monster's ravenous growling.

So that was what hydras looked like now.

5: Heads Up

The ground shook with the force of the hydra's titanic footsteps. His survival instincts finally kicking in, Reek bolted towards Zecora. Inches behind him, one of the hydra's heads crashed into the frostbitten soil.

Reek looked over at Zecora with wide eyes as the hydra heaved itself out of the water to give chase. "What in Boiuna's name is that!?"

"It is a hydra, a beast of five heads,
it-"

"I know what a hydra is," Reek shouted. another slam from one of the hydra's heads caused Reek to trip over himself. two more heads followed quickly behind, and Reek was only barely able to slither out of the way of the beast's razor sharp teeth. "When did they get this freakin' big!?"

"It's been a long time since you were last here,
perhaps they grew when they had nothing to fear."

"OK that's fantastic and everything but what do I do now!?"

SLAM! Another shockwave jostled snow from the trees. Reek shrieked as the hydra raised one of its heads from the snow. The heads collectively glared at the slippery worm, who was as of now trying his best to reach a rather innocuous tree.

Zecora's heart hammered faster in her chest as she watched the great beast slowly turn towards the tree and follow closely behind Reek.

"No, no! Lead it away,
Give me some time and keep it at bay!"

"I really don't have a lot of space to slither here, Zecora," Reek shouted, but he followed her command and quickly braked to the left. Zecora whipped back behind the tree and waited as the hydra's footsteps began to quiet. She poked her head back out to see that Reek had led the hydra a hundred feet away, and was attempting to circle it around the lake.

Taking her chance, Zecora quickly got to work. The snow wasn't as piled as it was above the bowl, but there was still more than enough to suffocate any of the surrounding plant life. Without any other options, she dug at the snow. After sifting through inches of snow, finally, the brown, wet dirt showed itself. Zecora sighed, the winter had already taken many of the plants, and now it seemed the most she was likely to find was dried up roots and long dead sprouts.

Reek panted. He hadn't fled for a very long time, and it was clear now that he could have benefitted from a little exercise.
SLAM! Reek momentarily felt his foot separate from the ground, and so too did his heart skip a beat as the hydra's head slammed into the dirt just few feet from him.

He glared over towards Zecora and watched as she scampered from one dead tree to another, burrowing for something as if she were a desperate scavenger looking for scraps of food below the blanket of snow. Despite his panic, a low growl snaked through his serrated teeth. He had to distract the giant deadly hydra which may or may not bleed acid while she dug around in the frost for rocks and old roots?

Another SLAM from the hydra's heads knocked him out of this train of thought and steered it back towards a defensive panic. He could feel the hydra's breath on his back, and its rumbling growls shook his entire body. He needed to find a way out of this mess and fast before he ended up becoming an appetizer.

Meanwhile, Zecora pulled at the snow laden dirt. The frosted soil cracked as she pulled a pale yellow root from the ground. She held the root between her teeth and continued to scan the ground for signs of another when something caught her ear.

In addition to the pounding of the hydra's footsteps and Reek's panicked yelps, a new noise echoed along the edges of the bowl. It was quiet at first, but quickly became clearer. At first, Zecora thought it might have been Reek, but the quiet, high pitched ringing grew progressively louder with each moment. It was shrill at first, but as it continued and grew more cacophonous, it began to warble and distort. It quivered as it danced upon the wind like a snake.

And then, the single, shaky note became a harmony. Three other shrieks joined along to create a haunting melody which pierced through Zecora's heart like a spear. She poked her head out from behind the tree and watched as Reek circled the lake and began to approach her again.

Reek had yet to catch on to the quickly approaching choir of shrieks, as the hydra's low growling was all he could hear above his own pounding heartbeat. With one eye he focused on the snapping, growling heads of the hydra, and with the other, he watched the tree Zecora was hidden behind. He noticed as she poked her head out and shouted something to him, but the hydra's heavy breathing drowned her out.

Still, Zecora shouted and waved and pointed at nothing in particular. Reek watched as several of the hydra's heads perked up and stared off towards Zecora with a newfound hunger. Both of Reek's eyes swiveled forward to face her, and his teeth rattled with a mix of confusion and anxiety.

"What are you doing," he shouted as loud as he could muster between labored breaths.

Zecora threatened to dislocate her hoof with the force at which she pointed. "Look to the sky, the snakes, they fly!"

On instinct, Reek's eyes snapped upwards towards the sky. At that moment, finally, he noticed the piercing, shrieking whistling that filled the air. However, he didn't need to, not anymore.

From the skies, like a band of screaming ribbons, four peuchens descended upon the hydra. They slammed hard into the hydra's body, and the resulting crash sent an explosion of ice shooting in all directions. Reek tumbled over himself as chunks of ice split and shifted under his foot. A moment later, clouds of snow blanketed him and continued spreading outward, going so far as to reach Zecora's tree.

Zecora tried to look through the fog to see if she could spot Reek out towards the lake, but all she could make out were blurry, thrashing shapes. Just then, a loud crunch shook her tree, and a moment later, two dazed, twisted eyestalks stared at her.

"Come, come, over here,
It does us good to not stay near."

Another loud CRUNCH from the hydra's direction caused Reek to slither behind Zecora and curl himself into a tight ball. Zecora watched with surprise as he curled himself so tightly that he now only reached as high as her shoulder.

"An impressive display,
Does it help in some way?"

"It's a defense mechanism," a muffled sentence escaped from within the ball, "quiet, or they'll notice you!"

A morbid, wet SNAP startled Zecora to attention. From within the fading cloud of snow, the hydra stirred. For a moment, one of its heads escaped the cloud and let out a loud roar. There was a hiss from within the cloud, then a harsh, wavy whistle. A streak of green and pink lunged out of the snow in a blur and fastened itself to the hydra's neck. The peuchen, as long and wide as the hydra's, neck, wrapped itself around its throat and began to squeeze while its fangs dug deeper into its chin. The hydra tried to roar again, but the only thing that came out was a quiet gurgling. A thin, lime green liquid bubbled in the hydra's mouth and dripped onto the shattered ice. After another moment of struggling against the hydra's thrashing, the peuchen released its grip on the hydra's throat and watched with a sickening glee as the venom began to spread.

Its voice was smooth and sickly sweet, a stark contrast to its wide, eerie smile. "That's it... Keep screaming, big guy. Let it spread."

A choir of laughs erupted from atop the hydra's back. As the cloud finally faded, Zecora saw the scope of the attack. The hydra's body was covered in bite marks. Its back, once a dark orange, was now a sickly green. Where there once were veins, there were now spiderwebs of dark emerald, pulsing with untold amounts of venom.

Three of the peuchens laughed as they watched the hydra's eyes turned a horrid shade of olive. The biggest of them unwound itself from from one of the hydra's necks, which immediately fell limp with a series of small pops.

"Ain't we lucky, girls? Who'da guessed the hydras would end up getting this big, huh?"

A smaller, bright purple peuchen stopped biting her respective neck to join her larger sister in laughter. Her voice was thin and squeaky. "You think their heads still grow back?"

The green and pink peuchen hissed with glee as her hydra's head fell to the ground. "I sure hope so. I forgot how fun it was to hunt!"

"Well then maybe you should learn how to do it properly."

The green-pink peuchen frowned. "You wanna repeat that?"

From under the hydra's chest, another peuchen snapped at the green-pink serpent's neck. It recoiled, flapping it's great green wings.

The fourth peuchen, which was a good deal smaller than the others and covered in rows of dull orange scales, bared her teeth at her compatriot. "Is your brain still frozen?! Only their heads grow back! Look at this thing! There's more bite marks on this thing's back then on its neck!"

The largest peuchen cowered a small bit. "...Sorry Isadora. I would've stopped if I'd known."

"That was why we asked those ponies! But no, you ate them before they could finish talking!"

"We were hungry, Isadora," the green-pink snaked hissed. "Give us a break."

"We would've had more than enough to eat if you idiots held back for two seconds. Now where are we supposed to find another hydra?"

The squeaky purple peuchen spoke up. " I saw what looked like a shack not too far from here. Maybe there's someone there who knows."

Zecora gasped. She tried to cover her mouth with her hoof, but one of the peuchens noticed, and snapped her head on Zecora's direction.

Isadora's head remained locked on to the distant tree, even as the largest peuchen slithered beside her.

"What is it, my lady?" The dark blue peuchen asked.

"I'm not sure... I thought I saw a slug around here when we landed. I think it might still be here."

"Like a mulilo slug?" The purple peuchen squeaked. "If there's a mulilo slug here..."

"Then Melo Milo won't be far behind," the green-pink peuchen smiled widely. "Sammakött will like that."

"Yes... But we still have important matters to attend to, namely finding a safe place to eat this corpse you all made."

The other snakes huffed at Isadora's biting remark. The green-pink peuchen spoke up again. "Aren't you worried Melo Milo might get away?"

Surprisingly, Isadora smiled. "I am the right hand of king Sammakött. Where can they go where I will not find them?"

The peuchens laughed. Together, the four of them wrapped themselves around the hydra, and with their massive feathered wings, began to ascend out of the bowl and into the sky.

Zecora and Reek waited patiently for the whistling of their wings to subside before they left the safety of their hiding spot. As Reek unfurled himself from his ball, Zecora stared blankly at the crater the peuchens had left.

"I've gotten what I have come to collect,
And you have something to tell me... Correct?"

6. Tip the Scales

"So what? What's the big deal?" Reek's teeth rattled with pent up rage. He would've shouted, but all that came out was a thin hiss. After what happened at the bowl, he found himself much more aware of the volume of his voice.

Zecora, just as quiet, squinted at him suspiciously. "Who is this Melo Milo?
I think that I deserve to know.
You mentioned he was once your king,
I doubt that that's the only thing."

Reek's body crumpled slightly from the force of his breathing. "Before I tell you ANYTHING, tell me what that root you grabbed is."

Zecora frowned at Reek, her gaze as cold as snow. But, after a moment, she relented.
"Reeker's Root, if you must know
A tuber only found in snow.
It's just a root when on it's own,
But mix it right and it's in a league of it's own."

Reek's eyestalks straightened with intrigue. "League? What kind of league? What do you mean?"

Zecora smiled, emboldened now that Reek had taken the bait. "I won't tell, not quite yet.
But you have more to say, I bet."

Reek slithered in a small circle, his teeth clicked and chattered, moving like waves from within his mouth. The boards of Zecora's floor creaked slightly as he thought of a way to get out of the corner he now found himself in. "Why are you suddenly interested in the details of my kingdom?"

"Less your kingdom, more your king,
It's seems like you are hiding something."

Zecora's eyes widened at Reek as he began to puff up. He chattered as he spoke, his voice rich with anger. "What's it matter to you anyway? Who my father used to be is of no concern to--"

"AH HA," Zecora blurted and pointed an accusatory hoof towards Reek. However, it quickly clacked against her face, as if she were trying to quiet what had already been said. The two were still for a moment, startled by the noise. When Zecora spoke up again, her voice had returned to a mere whisper.

"A father figure, so you say?
I've learned something new this day."

Reek held back a growl, but the cat was already out of the bag. "Yes, alright, you got me. Melo Milo is my father, I'm technically the prince of Natslyk."

Zecora sighed as a slight frown crept across her face. "This is quite the revelation,
I'm sat with the prince of a long lost nation."

Reek let out a muted but very spiteful groan. "I never wanted to be a prince! Always wondering if another kingdom's going to tear your city down to the foundation, or if one of your 'trusted assistants' is going to stab you in your sleep."

"Is that a concern you often faced?"

Reek's back puffed up in the best imitation of a shrug he could manage. "Eh, not really. Most of us didn't have, y'know, hands. A couple folks did get eaten, though."

"So where in Sammakött's plan was your kingdom placed?"

"Nowhere," Reek scoffed, "and that was the problem. Natslyk was kind of just this little swamp on the edge of Narok, so we were never really at odds... Until Ma Vie, that is." Reek's teeth chattered in sudden rage, the sound akin to a rattlesnake, ready to strike.

But a moment later, the chattering subsided, and Reek sighed. "But that's all history now. And it won't matter anyway, once we get that potion brewing, right?"

Zecora nodded, "Yes indeed, my slimy friend,
but our quest has not yet reached its end."

"Yeah, what a surprise. And I guess that also means we have to go back out there, with no cover, and find some buried leaf or clump of extra special dirt while a troupe of peuchens parade around in the sky, ready to kill us at a moment's notice?"

"That's right I'd say.
Shall we be away?"

Before Reek could even respond, Zecora began stuffing several empty glass bottles and an assortment of unknown herbs and ingredients into two small pouches. When they were full, she slung them over her back and made her way towards the door, all while Reek stared on with a look of utter bewilderment.

"... Did the cold do something to your brain? We had a talk about how bad peuchens are, like, yesterday!"

"The snakes flew off with a hydra meal
They won't be back for a while, I feel."

Zecora reached for the door, but Reek refused to move even an inch. He slithered into the emptiest corner of Zecora's hut and balled himself up. "Well, I'm not going out there. The whole point of making this potion was to not get me killed."

The zebra huffed. "If you are not willing to lend me some aid
I won't be the only one feeling betrayed."

Reek puffed, uncurling himself only slightly. "Is that a threat? Are you threatening me?"

Zecora stared at the slug, her face as cold and still as stone. "Do you want this potion? Then get into motion."

A low chuckle slipped from Reek's zipper of a mouth. He uncurled himself, and in a second, slithered up to Zecora. He towered over her, his serrated incisors shaking and rattling in his mouth. "I think you underestimate just how much joy it would bring me to rip you to pieces and eat what's left."

"I have no doubts of your voracity
just as you have none about my toxicity."

"I'm beginning to have a few... After all, who says I have to eat you after I kill you?"

"and when I die, who's to say,
my poison needs ingestion to take you away?
A single drop, I'll proudly boast
could kill you in a minute at most."

Reek leaned in closer, his eyestalks inches away from Zecora's face. "And why should I take your word for it instead of finding out for myself?"

"It must not have occurred to you yet,
that my people turned your kind into pets."

The zebra's statement, accompanied by the unflinching stare, caused Reek to recoil. She did know what Mulilo Slugs were, despite him never telling her, and she had obviously been set up here for a while, so she couldn't have been stuck in the ice. Though he had no definitive way of proving it, Zecora had done an expert job of convincing him that her blood was the single most toxic substance that he'd ever come across. The longer Reek stayed in this new world, the more it made him yearn for the old one.

Zecora, meanwhile, turned to the door and creaked it open, careful not to allow a deluge of snow into her home.

"Now that we're on the same page,
We'll need to find some Sepulcher Sage."

Reek watched her for another moment as she began to ascend through the tunnel that led to the surface. As the end of her tail disappeared out of view, leaving only her shadow visible, Reek turned to a nearby shelf, where several empty bottles stood alongside strange wooden masks and various herbs.

With utmost precision, Reek grabbed a small glass from the shelf. With his front row of teeth, the tucked the bottle into his mouth and curled himself into a ball. Then, barely audible from within the ball of flesh, a quiet Crack!

"Reek, are going to come up here?
The surface is barren, there's nothing to fear."

The sound of Zecora's voice floated down and reached Reek as he unfurled himself. His mouth full of shattered glass, all he could muster was a muffled "cumm'n." He slithered towards the door, and as he began to enter the tunnel of snow, he opened his mouth inch by inch, spewing small chunks of glass all around the floor of the hut's entrance.

Reek let out a small chuckle, satisfied with his work, then closed the door and followed his companion up and into the surface.

7. Sage Advice

Under the pale light of the full moon, the snow shimmered and twinkled like many frozen stars. And though the light of both the moon and the snow fully illuminated his surroundings, Reek still kept an anxious eyestalk on the sky. The sky was still as dark as ever, bespeckled with many small glowing stars, and he didn't like the idea of something hiding between them in the darkness of the night, waiting to strike from above.

Zecora, meanwhile, trotted along at a carefree pace. Though her eyes were shut, she continued on, as if guided by some unseen force that Reek couldn't comprehend. Nor did he want to, for as far as he was concerned, the frigid cold that gnawed at him from all sides was much more worth his attention.

"Boiuna almighty, are we walking to the end of the world? We've been wandering around this frozen wasteland for hours. I can feel the mucus on my skin freezing over."

"This journey is nearly finished, Reek,
we should soon see the plants we seek."

"Right, these Sepulcher Sages. What do they do, exactly?" Reek slithered up next to the zebra, less interested in making conversation than he was in distracting himself from the cold.

" They're an herb of mint with pale glow
that like to live in graves down low,
few have plucked it, fewer tried
because it mimics those who've died."

It took a moment for Reek to unravel Zecora's roundabout poem, and when he did, all he could muster was a confused chuckle. "What? What do you mean it mimics those who died? Is this some more weird pony magic?"

"Magic, yes, but not equine
but maybe once it blurred the lines.
Amongst the full moon's subtle grace,
its bloom will quicken up its pace,
and with its petals smooth as lace
It copies a long dead pony's face."

Reek's slithering stuttered for a second, then continued as he caught up with Zecora. "Ok... uh... huh. So... why would we ever want that?"

Zecora chuckled. "It's quite the morbid little flower
and yet it holds an intriguing power
for those who knew the flower's host
they'll see its glow, yet still can't boast
for those who never knew the dead
can never see their flowerbed."

"Oh my god I know it's, like, your thing but could you please talk normal? At least make it somewhat sensible," Reek groaned.

Zecora rolled her eyes but obliged nonetheless.
"If you know the host, the flowers remain
if not, you'll never see either again.
And just to make sure you know what I mean,
they cannot be tracked, scented or seen."

Zecora stopped, as did Reek. She eyed him, waiting for a response. In the silence, the cold wind whistled, kicking up small clouds of white frost from amongst the half-covered treetops.

"Ok, I think I get it," Reek finally spoke up. "So what, if we put it in the potion it'll make me invisible?"

"Not quite, I've got something better in mind,
a way to be lost by all of your kind
if mixed just right, then any old threat
will think of your name, and simply forget."

Reek perked up. Though the cold wind continued to rip through the air around him, his teeth chittered restlessly. He stared down at Zecora, his eyes wide open. "So I'll be forgotten, by everyone? Like, actually everyone?"

"A brand new start, with no reason to hide
what you do with it next is for you to decide."

Reek chuckled, but quickly transitioned to a worrisome cackle. He began to absentmindedly circle around Zecora, focused on nothing in particular. "Well what are we waiting for then? Point me to where these Sages are. Hell, I'll help you pick 'em!"

"That's the problem I fear I face,
amongst this snow, they're hard to trace."

In addition to his circling, Reek's eyestalks twirled and twisted about above his head, as if hoping they could be seen from a distance. "Huh, alright. Do they look like anything? You said they glow, right? Do they have a color? Are they bright? How big are they?"

"If I recall, they're a pale blue,
but I doubt that they'd be seen by you."

"Right, right. The whole 'only see them if you know the dead guy' thing. Hmm..." Reek slowed his slithering. Slouching over and closing his eyes, he allowed himself a moment to think. "Ok, well you know where they should be, right?"

"I do, it's true."

"Well why don't we just keep heading in that direction and see if maybe we can find something. We came all this way anyhow."

"Yes, I suppose that you are right
But if we do, we must stay the night."

"Oh... Uh... Really?" Reek asked aloud, but the hours of walking it took to get them here had already answered his question for him. If they headed back even now, The sun would be likely to rise by the time they made it back.

But Reek was not deterred. "It's fine. We'll figure it out when we get there. Better to suffer through one night than sit around for another month, eh?"

Zecora nodded, a slight smile painting her face. "I'm glad to see you in good mirth
Perhaps this trip will surpass its worth."

"Uh... Sure, yeah. Whatever that means. Totally."

Zecora laughed, a low, smooth sound that was joined by the scratch of Reek's cackles. In the gloom of the night, surrounded by the tops of buried trees and above feet of snow, the whipping wind was overcome with the sounds of hope.

"Alright, let's be on our way,
we shouldn't waste the night away."

"Alright, yeah. Lead the way." Reek slithered behind Zecora. She looked around for a second, then down at the snow. Reek waited for a moment, and yet Zecora remained still. It was only until he looked over her, down at where her gaze was locked, that he noticed she was staring at a trail of slime.

"Reek, If might ask real quick,
how many slugs lived in Natslyk?"

"More than just me... that's for sure," Reek mumbled.

The trail wasn't his. He knew it, and by the looks of it, Zecora knew it as well. It was wide, much wider than Reek's. All across the trail, small, thin wisps of smoke writhed and flickered. The pale blue glow of the smoke was barely noticeable against the ground, lit pale blue by the moon, and yet, as it rode upon the billowing wind, it made the snow appear almost magical.

"Do you know who'd leave this here,
and is it someone we should fear?"

Reek's eyestalks curled slightly, his best imitation of a squint, while he racked his mind for an answer. "I Don't know... I can't... I can't remember,"

Zecora sighed, tapped her chin with her hoof. "Then let us try to stay its wrath,
because we need to follow its path."

Reek's eyes bolted upright. "I'm sorry, what?"

"The slug has followed the path to the grave,
another danger that we'll have to brave."

Reek sighed. "Of course... Of course, Boiuna forbid anything go right for once!"

"All will be fine, we'll stay alert."

"Oh yeah, sure, 'stay alert', and you think that's gonna save us from whatever nightmare monster's currently holed up in this graveyard of yours?"

Zecora shrugged. "It's our only choice, it couldn't hurt."

Reek was still, his expression unchanging, but the muffled, rough chattering of his teeth gave enough away. And yet, after a moment, he exhaled. "Yeah, alright. Let's just go."

Zecora nodded and, with Reek in tow, followed the lightly glowing trail of the mystery slug. For a while, the two were silent. Zecora stared straight ahead, every once in a while looking down at the trail as if hoping the slug might have changed its course and went somewhere else. It was in vain, but she remained vigilant. Reek, meanwhile, continued his habit of keeping one eye on the sky above while the other swiveled every which way. It was a constant watch for danger which, despite the snail trail, was worryingly lacking.

Reek was so invested in his watch that he was the first to notice the slight blue glow on the horizon. At first, he mistook it for the morning sun, and a twinge of fear pricked his heart. When he realized it was the wrong direction to be the sun, another spasm of fear shook him as he feared it might be a monster. It was only when Zecora gasped and quickened her pace that he realized it might've been what they were looking for.

"What is it, do you see it? What's going on?" Reek snapped out of his watch to look at Zecora. Her pace quickened, she had been renewed by a surge of energy that only came from the knowledge that the worst of the journey was over, that they were nearly finished.

"Reek, it's here, we've finally arrived,
Despite the danger, we both survived!"

"Yeah I guess we-... wait, did you expect one of us to die?"

Reek received no answer as Zecora's trot turned into a sprint. He struggled to catch up with her. She was surprisingly quick, even with a set of saddlebags. For a moment, he wondered if maybe the Sages had really excited her that much. His focus on Zecora had prevented him from truly noticing the Sage in front of him until he looked up.

And saw, intertwined within several giant, thorny vines, the ghostly figure of a Nuckelavee.

8: Petal Plucker, Nuckel Dragger

"Reek, do you see it? Can you sense their light?
There's so many of them blooming tonight!"

Reek didn't move. He could feel the frost building on his back, seemingly goaded on by the single, wretched, hate filled eye that stared right at him. Reek tilted his head to avert its gaze, but it didn't matter. The frigid loathing that flowed from the petalled Nuckelavee was palpable. Wind passed through Reek's teeth, and with each cold breath, it felt as if dozens of thin, sightless needles pricked at the soft flesh of his insides.

"Uh... yeah. I see it."

"Really, you can see them bloom?
Oh dear, my bags may not have enough room."

Reek watched out of the corner of his eye as Zecora picked at the dark, thorny tendrils that lay at the bottom of one of the Nuckelavee's hooves. The beast was suspended in midair, leaping with as much grace as could be allowed for something so massive. a single clawed hand reached zealously into the sky, frozen in place, yet eager to cleave. The other arm was shorter. In place of a claw, there was a roughly made metal hook, dented and pocked with long gone viscera. The single blue eye stared down at the ground, and though it was hard to tell, Reek felt as if the Nuckelavee was smiling.

Reek gulped. He felt his stomach churn more and more the longer he stared at the great behemoth. He shuffled closer to Zecora, though one eye maintained a constant watch over the great glowing specter.

"Ahem... So, uh... Who-who do you see," He stammered.

"Old friends, animals too.
don't worry, they'd have no importance to you."

Reek scanned the edge of the flower patch. On the outskirts, small, twirling branches peeked out from the snow. He could make out small pieces of other individuals copied by the sage's petals. A small hoof here, a large, leathery wing there. There was even the occasional eyestalk that barely managed to burrow through the heavy layer of snow. But no faces.

Reek scowled. He didn't like thinking about what expressions those faces might have, buried deep down. What expressions of torment and horror became their final emotion, now forever remembered through the petals of a ghastly flower. He could feel bile rising in his throat. It was too much, she was too much.

Zecora nipped at a sage flower with her teeth. though she was excited, the process of wringing a sage free from its spiked vines was a delicate, slow matter. It took ample amounts of time and concentration, which meant she hadn't noticed Reek's anxiety growing with increasing haste behind her. She was broken from her duty once Reek's shallow, even breathing began to transform into slow, quiet retching.

"Reek, are you doing alright?
If you want, we could go home for the night."

Reek took a moment to compose himself. "Do we have enough?"

His eyes flickered from Zecora to something above her, and every time he looked up, she could swear he grew a lighter shade of grey. "Is it the sage that makes you sick,
or is it perhaps their nasty trick?"

"It's someone I... Well I didn't know her, but..."

She could hear the muffled chittering of Reek's teeth. She didn't quite understand what caused them to rattle so involuntarily. However, at the current moment, there was something wrong with Reek, and he likely wouldn't say any more than he wanted to until they were home. With a quick breath, she zipped up her bags and trotted off back in the direction they'd come.

"Say no more my slimy friend,
Your pleas I hear and hoof I lend."

Reek made a noise, and Zecora paused for a moment. She turned around and, sure enough, there he stood. Still as stone, eyestalks pointed up towards the sky. Her brow furrowed, and though her hoofsteps exploded across the silent snowbank, she tried her best to approach him quietly. He spoke up, surprising her.

"I never thought I'd see her in person. Well, as in person as this. She's bigger than I imagined."

"So you see her too?"

Reek and Zecora jumped at the third voice. Around them, the snow remained as it had, still peppered with hoof marks and the strange ghostly trial. Reek puffed himself up.

"Who's there?" He called out into the empty sky.

"Oh spoiled prince, I never thought I'd see you alive out here, not in times like these."

Reek squinted in the dark, but it took him only a moment to realize he didn't have to. Not fifty feet away, the snow began to shift. It rolled in thin, stringy patterns, slithering along the frost like a serpent. With a crunch of snow, the shape shifted again, raising itself into the sky. He gasped, seeing that it had never been snow, but rather a pristinely white worm.

It stared down at Reek. two pale blue eyes glowed faintly with an energy Reek didn't know the origins of, and on its underside, a viscous, blue slime sloughed off in thick globs and splashed onto the snow, where it immediately began to burn away.

The little black slug recoiled, deflating fast. He knew better than to pick a fight with this thing, noticing its body extended far into the distant snowbanks. "Who are you?"

"Oh, boo hoo," It mocked, its eyes pulsing with light as it spoke. "What a tragedy, to be dead and forgotten by my own people. Such strange times these are, though it would be foolish to say it is not an age of resurrection. The putrid lord would agree with that, no?"

The beast swirled around them, its impressive length allowing it to stay far out of the range of Reek's teeth, yet still completely circle them several times over. "But such is the way of things. The king demanded I be forgotten, and so I have. I had just hoped the little prince might show me some sympathy." It leaned in close to Reek, its aquamarine eyes casting upon him a ghostly glow. "But this is not a time for sympathy, is it?"

Reek took a moment to talk, afraid that the wrong start might set the beast off. "You're the old ice worm. Father banished you for siding with Lambton."

The beast's pearly head rose higher into the air, dwarfing Reek and Zecora and nearly meeting the petalled nuckelavee's eye. It huffed. "The old ice worm. The first, last and only resident of the lake that Sammakött's own hooves would touch. The frostfire traitor."

"The Lagarfljót," Reek mumbled.

The worm laughed. "And so I am remembered after all. This truly is the age of resurrection."

A wet squelch tore through the tense air. The white worm's ribbon-like head began to swell, until it unfurled itself, unleashing a poof of blue-green flesh, and within it, five glowing blue fangs. Before Reek and Zecora had time to react, its head launched forward with incredible speed. With fangs out and horrid mouth agape, it snatched a clump of sage and swallowed it whole. Zecora, still startled from the lunge, groaned as she heard the sage's thorns snap and crack from within the worm's stomach.

The worm turned away from them, towards something on the ground. Its coils unwound, shuffling or slithering their way under the snow. "Come," it spoke curtly, "We can talk underground. Less risk for both of us."

Zecora and Reek looked at each other for a moment, watching as the worm descended into the snow as if it were merely a pool of water. They inched closer, still wary, when the hole became clear. It was some distance from the sage, and nearly impossible to see from any angle other than straight on. Reek was impressed, the Lagarfljót had made an enviable hiding spot.

As they descended, Zecora squinted in the darkness. It took them a moment while they continued to descend, but eventually a mild aqua light revealed the tunnel was nearly at its end. At the bottom, the tunnel expanded greatly outwards, enough to fit the Lagarfljót's incredible ribbon-like body. Along the walls and on the soil floor, holes filled with its thick mucus coalesced into spots of bright blue-green flame, which lit the entire burrow rather nicely.

"This is a nice place," Reek admitted, taking in the scope.

"I have grown used to living under my frozen lake home. At the very least, this place offers me food and protection from those wretched sky-serpents."

"You've seen them?"

"Plenty. Enough to know what they're looking for."

Zecora perked up. "A lead on the lord of dead's acquisition,
This could give us an advantageous position."

The white worm tilted its head. "You're a curious one. Why do you speak that way?"

"It is who I am, and all that i've been,
but from where it might stem shall remain unseen."

The worm chuckled. A drop of mucus plopped from its chin and into a hole below, setting the fire inside alight with new energy. "How intriguing. Even more so to be travelling with such unlikely company."

Reek huffed, making his presence known. "Why did you bring us down here, Lagarfljót?"

"Ha! Little prince has forgotten so much. That word is a title. If you must call me something, I am Snjór," Snjór uncoiled himself, slithered aimlessly around his burrow, as if tired of sitting in one place for more than a moment. "And you as well as I could spend some time to reminisce, to revive the memories of our long lost world."

Reek scoffed, becoming increasingly annoyed at how often his past seemed intent on following him. "Reminisce all you wish Snjór, But I intend to rid myself of that world."

Snjór's slithering stopped. He stared listlessly at the fire below him. "Yes, you do, as you always have. What truer curse is there than a keen mind too afraid to remember?"

Reek puffed slightly. His teeth rattled in his mouth. "You are more than welcome to take the position of prince in my stead if my actions so disdain you."

"It would be no more earned than if I declared it myself." Snjór turned to reek, his eyes aglow with ghastly light. "But your cowardice affects me none. We are, both of us, removed from our lineage. We are the last of our kind. I had hoped you would agree, but perhaps you are a kind of your own. A uniquely amoebic mass so intent to stay alive it will abandon all it has ever known."

Zecora, stood indignantly beside Reek, began to notice that this enclosed space, quickly becoming cramped in the thick, tense atmosphere, was not where she wanted to be. "If I could say--"

"I am intent," Reek growled, his rage beginning to blind him to both reason and fear, "to find peace, to live in a world where I am not pursued by one kingdom or another, including my own. I would have given everything to have been banished like you."

"I am acutely aware of every privilege and fortune you would dispose of to hide away forever. But what point is there in relaying this to you? This conversation is only further depriving you of your wish, and so, there is nothing more to be said."

Reek's teeth rattled. He huffed a breath and made his way towards the exit. Zecora lagged behind, watching Snjór as he continued to stare deep into the frostfire's dazzling hues.

"If I could ask, Mr. Snjór,
you mentioned a lead? I'd like to know more."

It took a moment for the worm to respond, but after a time, he raised his head to look at her. "They're after Lambton. I'm not sure why. Perhaps some aspect of Sammakött's plan has gone awry." He chuckled to himself. "Now I'm rhyming as well."

"I'm sorry, my friend, you'll have to expand,
I know very little of the figures from your land."

"I am unsurprised, given present company," Snjór glanced quickly towards the tunnel, where Reek was already long gone. "He was a wizard among our people, as respected as he was feared. He could bend the flesh of the dead like it was water, and with it, he could heal the sick, the infirmed, those who had lost pieces of themselves. He would have been an irreplacable asset in the war, had we not all frozen over. I am sure Sammakött believes he may be of use now."

"Oh... I see... my thanks you've found,
Perhaps we'll see each other ar--"

Zecora made her way to the door, only for it to be blocked in an instant by Snjór's rapidly folding body.

"A word before you go, miss. I insist."

Zecora turned to face him, skepticism twinkling in her eyes alongside the shimmering fires that surrounded her. However, afraid as she was, Snjór remained still and calm.

"Your companion fears much of the world he once knew. I dare not place responsibility upon you to control his actions, but you must know that he has done many things, many awful things, to have earned such ire from his kin. I beg you not to let your guard down around him. I made no hyperbole before. He will do anything to find his peace."

Zecora gave Snjór a solemn nod. "I thank you, your advice I'll heed,
We'll see in time what sprouts from this seed."

"So we shall." Snjór unfurled himself from the exit. Zecora passed through without another word, away from the warm glow of the pit and back out into the darkness. Behind her, Snjór chuckled.

"Strange times, strange times indeed..."

1: Out of the Ice, Into the Blizzard

The first thing Reek heard was the sloshing of the waves and the howling of wind as he plummeted into the shimmering blue water. It was startling, and not just because it was the first sound he'd heard in who knew how long. The water itself wasn't much issue to him, though it was cold enough to make him want to curl up into a ball. The biggest problem was his neighbors. In the few seconds that passed between Reek being freed from the ice and falling into the ocean, hundreds if not thousands of creatures from all twelve kingdoms spewed forth from the misty corpse of the once great iceberg that imprisoned all of them. Wyverns from Morvelek's brood, peuchens and atatoli from Queztocoatl's kingdom, and even a few other worms and slugs from Reek's own home city. As far as he was concerned, though, they could all get eaten by a bregdi.

Reek's first instinct was to run, run far away from the rest of those beasts, but every time he broke the sea's surface, he would be swarmed by flying creatures of all shapes and sizes. The water wasn't any better either. Bregdi the size of galleons cruised through the water, while hundreds of brittle stars, moha-moha and other watery creatures swam in every direction. The water surrounding the ice was soon tinted red with the viscera of countless casualties and half eaten bodies, and Reek's odds of survival were dwindling by the minute, so he swam, and kept swimming until he finally reached dry land.

That was a week ago. Now, bathed in the weak warmth that the winter sun provided, he stirred awake. His stomach grumbling, Reek stretched, squeezing himself out of the thin crack that was his hiding place. One of the advantages of having very few bones, finding somewhere to hide wasn't too difficult. But he wasn't entirely boneless, and oftentimes, Reek wished he could spit out all his teeth and leave them behind. Sure, it'd be hard to chew anything, but at least then he'd be able to stuff himself in a cave and just eat lichen or something for the rest of his life. Any opportunity to stay away from the rest of Leudnan Righrean was an opportunity that Reek would gladly take. They were all savages, not a single neuron amongst them.

Waiting for the sun to reach its zenith, Reek chewed on a frozen bush. His teeth made easy work of it, but evergreens were always gross. Not a bit of flavor in them, and the snow just tasted cold. Oh well, anything to be rid of company. As he ate, Reek poked an eyestalk upwards, scanning as much of the forest as he could. Evidently, there was not a lot of food left. Anything the cold hadn't taken for itself was already stripped bare by him or some other animal. He was going to have to move again, which of course ran the risk of running into... undesirables.

The sun was still rising, but seeing as he didn't have much else planned to do except eat, Reek made his way along. As the day crawled on, he found that the land he slithered on had progressively become flatter, and the forest darker. In a way, it kind of reminded him of home, the swamps of Natslyk. A wave of nostalgia creeped over Reek in that moment. It crawled through his skin like a great centipede, causing him to shiver uncomfortably. Home, ugh. At least it seemed like no one else got here before him, which was kind of surprising. Rather than feeling relief, however, Reek only felt foreboding crawl down his non-existent spine. If nobody was here yet, they would be soon.

As if on cue, a quiet whistling rang out from somewhere behind Reek. He heard it immediately, and his squishy hide tensed up until developed the consistency of stone. Curling himself into a ball, he tried his best to look like an unassuming boulder as a harmony of whistles zoomed past him. Reek focused on keeping form and not panicking as he heard the troupe of peuchens soar by. They didn't stop for a moment, but Reek refused to uncurl himself until their whistling had left for a good while. It was always better to play it safe when everything was willing to eat you.

Reek only unfurled himself from his protective cocoon when an especially cold breeze slid along his back, nearly freezing the layer of mucus that covered his skin. Of course, in this flatland, there wasn't any rocks or crevices he could squeeze himself into. He needed somewhere safe to hide, and fast. He quickened his slithering, keeping one watchful eye out for any noticeable holes or dens that would make for good shelter and another on the sky in case the peuchens came back.

The more he looked, the more paranoia bubbled in his stomach... or maybe it was something he ate. Come to think of it, the more Reek looked around, the more he realized that the flora looked... off. Did bushes always look like that? Did the trees back in Natslyk always smell this... foreign?

Reek's stomach grumbled more. He could feel his gut turning and twisting inside of him, which made it incredibly hard to focus on the sky and the forest at the same time. He lurched forward. Whatever he ate had hit him hard and fast. He felt like passing out. No, he couldn't. That was a death sentence. He couldn't let Leudnan Righrean get him now, he wouldn't.

He struggled to keep his vision from blurring. Panic began to set in almost like an instinct. Was that a snake? No... just a twig. The same trees that once granted protection from the horrors of the old world now loomed over him as grand, disfigured horrors. Branches and boughs became bands of slithery, thin hydras hanging from the sky itself. Did hydras still exist? Who knew what abhorrent native abominations called this dung heap their home. Sure, hydras were little, but what if they were poisonous now? What if they spat acid? what if they bled acid? Did everything in this Boiuna forsaken land bleed acid!? He sure didn't know!

A small, insignificant light snuck faintly between the gaps of the dense growth of the forest. Every fiber of Reek's body told him it was a bad idea, but then again, passing out now was about as good idea as fashioning a dinner bell and thrashing it as hard as he could. With no other options, and with countless unknown things swaying about in the haze of the forest's shadow, Reek slithered his way towards the light as fast as he could.

He could feel many wooden hand claw at his flesh. Hundreds of greedy, selfish monsters licked their lips, each of them declaring dominion over their own portion of his soon-to-be lifeless body. As hard as he tried, Reek couldn't move any faster. The forest floor seemed to ebb and flow, dragging him back every time he attempted to move forward. As if stood upon the back of a titanic worm, the world itself writhed and shook, knocking Reek off balance and causing him to tumble down to the cold earth beneath him. Under the cover of hungry giants, and with innumerable frozen spears digging into his soft skin, Reek could only blink as darkness enshrouded everything around him. His body refused to move, despite his best efforts. As his eyelids became too heavy to hold, and shadowy black hands obscured his vision, the last thing he was able to see was stripes.