I had a strange dream.

I saw... myself? At the edge of a mountain. Somewhere high. Somewhere I could overlook vast major cities and terrains just by looking right to left across the horizon. It was dusk, so the sun was beginning to settle over the edge of the world. The great big fires of some cataclysmic event were now on their decline, lighting the landscape like little wicks only really made visible by the ever-dimming day. The massive columns of black smoke from the fires that stretched far upwards were now beginning to disperse into the air, slowly but surely diffusing into that fire-stained sky.

The surreal sight came when the snow began to fall. As the moon poked it's illuminating light out to meet the setting sun, the reflective snow that had yet to reach the ground took on a gentle blue glow. But upon getting closer to it, those little icy mirrors bounced off the orange of the remaining flame that still lingered on the land. The earth and the heavens were split by snowfall in a strange dance of light on a massive scale. It was the kind of sight that had not been seen on Equus in millennia.

At the foot of my perch below where I stood, I could see an innumerable sea of peoples. Some of them ponies, some not. Dragons, griffons, yaks, hippogriffs, bovine, changelings, you name it. Even monsters and animals dotted that massive collection of souls. They all moved forward toward me. Their faces dejected. Their souls tattered. Now at the foot of my mountain, they look up at my face.

They wait. For me? To say something. To them? But why? I am only their overseer. Only their guide.

The one who they look for is much, much farther than where I am. Somewhere way beyond these mountains and waiting up ahead for them, waiting to save them. They must journey to reach her if they wish for salvation. Of what little remains of them, they must leave their hearths and their homes behind to cross this border. They must pick up their weary bodies and contest the elements with all the strength they can muster, for this path that lies ahead is not so easy and not so kind.

The old will not make it. If they attempt it, they will expire before they can make it across.

The frail were abandoned by the gods at such an inopportune time. If they try, they will surely fail.

Crueler yet, only the able-bodied young will manage the trek. If any are to survive and be graced by her presence, those who cannot will have to be left behind.

The heavy snowfall that descended from the heavens now blanketed the landscape, putting out any remaining fires with no signs of ever stopping. All anyone could do now was curse the cold that was picked up by the breeze. It chilled the bone and the spirit, making one forget how and why there were ever fires to begin with. A foreign calamity had a strange way of erasing bad history. A weird tendency to unite people under a similar banner. A bizarre manner of teaching the simplest of lessons.

With heavy hearts, the god-fearing peoples of tomorrow shed their weights and continued on. On and on and on past the mountains.

To meet with her.

"I found you."

I was awoken by the sharp tone of a whispered breath, like that of a super-heated dagger being drenched into a cauldron of water when the steam desperately tries to escape the drowning of its plight, hissing its burning contempt away. I opened my eyes slowly only to be met by the sight of Tiara's back sitting a ways away from me in that dim cave now that the fireplace had died out. A blue glow illuminated the edges of her outline as though she had a source of light in front of her. Even groggy and half awake as I was, I could feel the tension in the air and in Tiara since her very muscle fibers along her back seemed to be twitching in their composure to remain still and calm.

Whatever it was that Tiara had found, it was making her incredibly excited. Or was it... anger? The breath she took to compose herself didn't help at all to let me figure it out. It felt forced, but also relieved in a way. At that moment, she turned her head to look at the cave entrance where the wall of packed snow still lingered almost as if she were trying to hone in on Equestria due to the directional alignment of the cave's mouth.

There was just no way I was going to figure this pony out. Her smile pressed into her teeth with such force, she couldn't contain herself from baring them. The bridge of her nostrils trembled with the emotion of it, as did her eyebrows while they shifted between expressions in their conflict.

Even looking back at my youth, I couldn't compare myself to her. Whatever was causing that raw and powerful emotion, it was beyond my capabilities to understand it. Mine had been a steady and tempered resentment, like a slow river of lava that threatened to burn anything in its path. Hers... well hers looked more like a mighty volcano ready to erupt, promising to blot out the very sun in its fury.

From the corner of her eyes where she could see me just barely from the edges of her peripheral, she must've finally realized that I was waking up. Almost immediately, her face softened and fell back down to its normal pleasant facade, albeit with a bit of resistance from her own escaping emotion since I could still see the corners of her mouth twitching. The blue glow that surrounded her faded, although groggy from sleep as I was, I figured it was just a trick of the sunlight as it passed through the snow wall.

Feeling like this wasn't a good moment to test Tiara, I decided to act the fool. I slowly got up from the ground where I'd been sleeping with my face made half a mess, wiping at my mouth with a foreleg to get rid of any drool I might've had. I rubbed my eyes and gave Tiara one groggy "Good morning" before yawning nonchalantly as though I hadn't just awoken to the kind of sight that could put anyone on edge.

"Lovely morning, Berry. Slept well?" Her tone did not miss a beat, despite whatever might've caused that sudden shift earlier.

"Actually yes, surprisingly. I didn't expect to feel so well rested after having to make an emergency camp here. The hard stone floor is not exactly comfortable and my body aches a little, but rested I am regardless."

"Well they say that the more exhausted you are at the end of the day due to physical labor, the sounder you sleep. Honest work, and all that."

I let a yawn escape me, "Ugh, yeah, I can understand that. After that climb, I was knocked out cold." Strangely, I felt a twitch in the back of mind at my own off-hoof comment for some reason or another.

"You did sleep pretty heavily last night. You didn't even stir when I set you down so that I could tend to the fire." Tiara turned to the entrance of the cave, making her way over to it so that she could clear the wall of insulating snow.

But her comment had given me pause as well. What was it that I wasn't getting? You know, it felt a lot like when you can't even remember the thing you've forgotten about, but you do remember that it must've been something important. It's such an annoying and unsettling feeling. I looked all around the cave trying to see if anything within it could unlock my memory, to no avail.

"Noticed it too, did you?"

"Huh?" Was Tiara in on this weird feeling of mine...? "Noticed what?"

"You were looking around the cave. I thought you figured it out as well. This is not a natural cave formation."

"Is it not? You know, I hardly ever visit caves myself, so I wouldn't know."

"Maybe just intuition then. It's possible to notice inconsistencies even in something you have no knowledge about. The mind is pretty special that way. All it needs is the basic building blocks of logic to figure things out. Here, take this for example." She stopped what she was doing to walk over to the walls of the cave to run a hoof along them. She particularly singled out the sharp profusions on the wall that jutted out of the corners. "What can you imagine made this? Erosion from water and ice? Or...?"

I took a closer look at the cave walls. Now that she had called my attention to them and had put the idea in my head that they were not natural, there was something rather strange about them. Almost as if... "It looks like massive teeth marks...? Reminds me of a bite, but made while digging through. I imagine something similar to a worm boring its way through an apple. But there's now way that can be right...?"

"It could, yes, Berry." Oh I did not like Tiara confirming this for me at all. Not one bit. For some reason, it brought a chill to my spine. The cave was big enough to fit several ponies within just it's sheer width alone. Tiara gave an amused chuckle at my reaction. "Last night I did investigate the cave a little and tried going further in. This system is actually a lot bigger than we gave it credit for initially, it's just that a major part of the tunnel has been caved in after years of weathering and instability due to ice build up. You know, typically it's very rare for a cave to exist on such a narrow strip of mountain since we're near the top. Strong structural integrity of newly formed natural caves is much more common near the bottom, thus their proliferation at the foot of mountains."

"So you're saying that something made this cave then. Maybe it was hollowed out by ponies, you think? Rusty Bucket did mention that Gusty the Great and Grogar fought in these mountains once."

"Certainly possible, but something is telling me that's not the case. I fear it was not made by ponies at all. These patterns are all too familiar to me. I have seen these kinds of tunnels once before on sand rock, in a much different part of the world which is very, VERY far away from here. If my guess is right, it's actually quite troubling news."

"Well, don't keep me in suspense now. We're already on the highest mountain in Equus, I would at least like to know what kind of dangers we're facing out here."

"That's just thing Berry, why worry you over something that might not even be the case anymore? These tunnels are incredibly ancient. There has been no sign of movement or alteration in what looks to be many, many centuries. This whole cave wouldn't exist right now if whatever made it in the first place still existed here. Such a thing would disturb and destabilize the mountain just by moving through it regularly."

"Okay, you're doing it on purpose. Now I'm extremely curious to find out what you're talking about. Out with it, Tiara."

"Alright, but don't come crying to me if you can't sleep tonight. The creatures that make these kinds of tunnels are called Tatzlwurms. They are incredibly massive worm-like creatures of immense power and ferocity. Princess Twilight and Princess Cadence once fought one of them together and they had a lot of trouble just subduing the thing. By the stories I've heard, they had a lot of close moments where it almost won. Discord even mentioned that it was one of the smaller ones too."

"Seriously? Like, for real? You're not joking right? They're both ALICORNS, how is it possible that they had trouble with a monster?"

"Well, when it's hundreds of meters long, as wide as entire castles sometimes, and is not only as strong as an Ursa Major but also as incredibly magic resistant as an ancient dragon, ponies by comparison are quite powerless against it usually. It's only because they're Alicorns that they managed to repel it. If this is a tunnel made by one of them, I figure it's a small one by comparison."

"You. are. joking. Tiara. There's no way that's true. That thing sounds like an absolute nightmare. A living calamity."

"And if they were carnivorous, chaotic, and actively hunting for prey, they would be. But unless you accidentally find yourself disturbing its habitat and picking flowers you shouldn't be, then you're fine usually." Tiara took a small stone and began to draw on the cave walls by carving into them, making a surprisingly nice and clean illustration of the creature. "Fun fact, they have three very long extendable tongues that it uses to capture prey, a tripartite jaw mouth that folds outwards, and a whole arsenal of razor sharp teeth lining each mouth flap."

"I should've figured Equus was filled with scarier monsters than the Ursas, but heavens preserve me I was not expecting such a horrific creature."

"Oh don't worry, Berry. There's much scarier stuff out there still. We're lucky that most of them tend to be peaceful in nature."

"I hope so. Do you really think Tatzlwurms don't hang around here anymore?"

"That's what all the signs are saying. But I wouldn't be able to tell you if this is the case for all the mountains along this range, though. I wouldn't worry over it too hard, Berry. We'd sooner find a Yeti than we would another Tatzlwurm out here."

"Let me guess, another towering monster of nightmarish proportions?"

"No actually. Hmm, maybe a little? By pony size standards. Only a smidge bigger than a yak or a hedgehog, I'd say. But oh so much more ferocious. It has to be, what with living in inhospitable parts of the world and all. I'm surprised you've never seen one, Mother. They're native to the Frozen North, so if you spend enough time roaming the tundra outside of Sanctuary, I'm sure you'd meet a few."

"Okay, and what part of me looks like I venture outside of Sanctuary at all? I've never met a creature stupid enough to cross that snowstorm veil encircling the monastery outside of you, Evergold."

"Is that an insult on the sly, I spy?"

I gave her an unamused rise of an eyebrow. "Just returning to sender."

"Well you're quite sharp-tongued today, Berry."

"It's funny what dropping pretenses and weathering an arduous trek will do to an old pony like me."

"Hmm? What was that last bit again?"

"Yeah yeah, I'll be in my forties soon. I'm old, okay. I admit it." I grumbled my displeasure as I slung my backpack over my back, grunting from the effort as dictated by my aging bones. Which only served to give that annoying mischievous grin on Tiara's face more fuel.

"See? Isn't living in reality more liberating?"

"Not when my muscles ache for no reason and my knees refuse to bend the morning after a sleep with slightly bad posture. Can't wait to laugh at you for the same thing when you reach my age."

"Well when's the last time you've exercised at all? I doubt doing Sanctuary's paperwork twenty four hours a day and never going outside its walls for a walk gives you much of a chance to limber up."

"Not since my time serving in the Storm King's forces, I'd wager. But you see, it's because I was saving all my energy for the day a reckless pink pony decided to embark on a dangerous quest all on her own."

I had said it as a joke, but the mood between us dropped like a stone at that comment, and it reignited my memory of the night before. In an instant, I remembered the desperation in Tiara's face and voice when she had offered me my horn back. She had grown quiet as I relived our conversation last night. Once I was done, I turned to look at Tiara only to see her back turned away from me as she focused on clearing the wall of snow at the entrance.

What was she thinking about? What could someone like Tiara possibly want more than anything else in the world? Wealth? Power? If it was her, the way she was at this moment in time, she could build an entire empire all on her own if she so wanted and with ease.

Yet she was vying for something. Clawing and struggling her way towards that something. If I considered her situation even for a second, the answer seemed so obvious.

"Tiara. You... Are you looking for revenge?" I asked with the quietest voice I could muster, not sure if she could even hear it past the noise of crunching snow as she batted it away with a hoof. Regardless, my question had elicited a response out of her. Her whole body slowly arrived to a stop not even halfway towards clearing the snow, her back still turned from me.

There I had gone again, opening my big mouth as though I understood even a fraction of what she felt, believing we were one and the same. She reminded me so much of myself when I was younger, after all. It was dumb of me to simply assume. It's just... That's what everything on the surface was spelling out. Her parent's willing acceptance of her disownment. The rigged court case that exiled her. All the betrayal from nearly all her friends... If she had said that she wanted to burn Equestria to the ground, it would not come as a surprise to me.

But, and this is a major but, I had learned that there was always more to Tiara than the eye could see. She was one big question mark. A written sickle with a dot at the bottom to denote a question. A symbol used for confusion and mystery. One that was not written on to any paper, dirt, or stone, but made of mist and written onto the air. One that a slight breeze could change its outcome. An ever shifting question to an ever shifting answer. What had been Tiara's beginning? And what will be her end?

"Did you say something, Mother? Do speak up. You know, snow can be surprisingly noisy." Tiara broke my line of thoughts with her own question, all while she had readied her body to buck the wall of snow as hard as she could with her hindlegs, reminiscent of the Apples harvesting their trees.

With one mighty kick, she had applied so much force onto it that the wind gust her strength had produced had shot all of the wall and any nearby snow near the lip of it shooting outward as if shot from a party cannon loaded with triple the explosive powder. In a mesmerizing display, the plume of falling snow spread across a vast space of sky, becoming something closer to a cloud as it separated into tinier and tinier particulates whose falling speed decreased as they became smaller and smaller. Before any of the snow had, had a chance to reach the ground, it seemed to float away as a mild fog before disappearing into the frosty winds.

In that moment, my brain finally kicked me to realize that said frosty winds had... calmed? In fact, you could hardly feel them now. The wind couldn't have been more than a dozen Pegasi wing power, when before on the way up, the storm seemed to reach well over the thousands of wing power. It was the difference between a slight summer breeze being able to nudge any loose mane and coat hairs on your head, as opposed to the tornado-like ferocity of the ancient magic that Gusty the Great had employed.

"The winds... they've... stopped?" I couldn't help but word out in my astonishment.

"How fortunate. Our trek should be easier from now on." There was not a hint of surprise in Tiara's voice.

"No wait, how is this possible? I thought Gusty's ancient magic would remain on Mount Everhoof indefinitely. What changed?"

"Hmm? Indefinitely? What makes you say that?"

"Well, from the stories that Rusty Bucket told us."

"Those are old, OLD myths, Mother Berry. How can we trust them to be true?"

"I suppose we can't... but I sensed powerful magic in those ferocious winds yesterday. It felt like that gale could go on forever..."

"Hmm. Perhaps there might be truth to it then. Do we even know what the nature of the ancient magic that was cast on Mount Everhoof was?"

"How do you mean, Tiara?"

"Remember the basics of magical spells, Berry. You're a talented Sorceress so you should know this just as well as I. Every magic incantation has to be made with a ruleset of commands. To move a pen with magic, you must first dictate the location it has to move to. You have to think of the speed it needs to travel at. You have to output the necessary magic power to account for the force applied, weighing in external factors like air resistance and other obstacles. And finally, you have to give your spell an end point so that it doesn't exhaust your magical power needlessly after it has performed its duty."

"Right. Rudimentary spell construction. What are you getting at, Evergold?"

"It's impossible to create a spell that will linger forever with normal spells, since the magical power in the equation will exhaust itself given time. That's why end points are critical."

"Then how has Gusty's magic remained until today? How can her spell continue on for so long after her passing?"

"If it is a normal spell, the most likely reason is that her spell has no end point, and she has been fueling that spell with a relic artifact and banking on it to naturally run its power dry."

"An artifact..." Speaking of them brought up an old, nasty memory. "Like the Staff of Sacanas. Material magical batteries, so to speak."

"Exactly. And if that's the case, either the relic got removed from the spell, or the relic itself ran out of power."

"It's honestly insane to think that something could have been fueling that windstorm for so long. Just what kind of relic would have that kind of potency and capacity? It would have to be something stronger than anything in Equestria. Probably tens of times stronger than the Staff of Sacanas." A sharp pain on the temples of my head quickly spiked as I had said it, making me wince. It had vanished just as quickly as it had happened. Perhaps it had been the cold air or a migraine of some kind that had incited it, but the timing couldn't have been more perfect. Before I had a chance to think more on it, Tiara's voice snapped me out of my straying thoughts.

"My second theory is concerning the nature of ancient magic."

“You mentioned that earlier. What do you mean by the nature of ancient magic?”

“How much do you know of ancient magic, Berry?”

“Nothing at all except what is spoken about in old nursery rhymes. As far as I know, people consider ancient magic to be a myth.”

“Why do you think that is?”

“Hmm. Because it’s old and has been lost to time?”

“In a way. Though many of its spells have survived the ravages of time. Several have been especially well maintained and kept safe-guarded. The real reason why ancient magic is so rare nowadays is due to how controlled the knowledge of it is. Ancient magic is extremely powerful, extremely dangerous, and just as hard to control due to the unpredictable nature of those invocations. To give you an idea, ancient magic is the kind that was used to create relics and give them their unique powers. The kind of magic that allowed the sirens to rule over an infantile Equestria. The magic that was used to birth Windigos. And it’s the reason why Twilight ascended.”

“Geez, I can see why they’d be so secretive about it then. But what makes it so unpredictable and dangerous?”

“You could say it’s because of the ‘ruleset’ that it follows. Since ancient magic uses an enormous amount of power, the spells tend to take on a mind of their own. Old unicorn tribes used to believe that enough concentrated magic would allow Lady Magic to exercise her will upon the world. Whatever your initial plans and edicts for the spell changes without your input. Fail to control that magic, and you’d be faced with dire consequences. Not just you, but the world at large would be threatened by it. It was believed that the Windigos were a result of one such failure.”

“Are you suggesting that the ancient magic spells themselves are sentient?” I was slack jawed by what I was hearing.

“Indeed." Tiara let me contemplate in silence for a while, letting me soak in this revelation I could have never conceived of even if I had tried. "You see, Mother Berry, a normal spell cannot distinguish the difference in a pony's emotions. It cannot judge the morality of the character in question. And it cannot prove if someone is worthy or not. Normal magic is quite mechanical in nature, which makes it predictable and easily understandable, like any science. The only difference between Ancient Magic and Normal Magic, is that the former can. What then was only a science becomes something closer to an art with limitless possibilities. Those spells become something like a painting full of chaotic inspiration, full of ideals and philosophies. With no limit imposed on the immaterial, that magic is free to transcend its user and act on its own. It can fight for its own survival. Self-replicate, if need be. And even change its own programming to benefit its longevity. In that sense, it is no different from you or I. It is a magic that has come to life. That is why ancient magic is taboo, and considered dark forbidden magic. Practicing it is so forbidden in fact, that being found guilty of performing it is enough to land a pony several years in Tartarus.”

“That... huh.” Is all that I could muster to say. If what Tiara was saying was true, it opened up a plethora of existential questions I would have to wrestle with at some point. She had no reason to lie to me about something like this, and if I thought about it even for a second, it all made such perfect sense. Certainly many of the accounts of the mythical ancient magicks spoke of spells that could differentiate between such pony-made constructs and concepts, like one such legend of a magical sword said to be wieldable only by those of true heart. I mean... even the legends of the Windigos spoke of their monstrous personalities, deeply rooted in instinctual behaviors. They were said to be drawn to intense hatred and where hateful beasts in their own right. Made from Ancient Magic, none had ever been vanquished directly and were believed to have been repelled and ultimately died out for good after the unification of the pony tribes brought lasting peace and love amongst the three races. "If what you're saying is true, Tiara, would that mean that it's possible Windigos still exist if they found a way to keep their magic going?"

A strange smile spread across her face, the kind filled with secrets and pride. The kind that was unnerving if you didn't quite understand what it was for. "The Princesses sure do seem to think so. Hearth's Warming is a mainstay holiday in no small part thanks to royal meddling. Promoted and emphasized for millennia every winter for as long as Equestria has been a nation. Do you believe that the celebration of our unification was simple tradition? Many young ponies and professional stages throughout all Equestria put on a play every year which details our history so that we may remember our roots. It's important that none should forget where we come from, and why we are how we are. We are doomed to repeat history if we do not learn from it."

"So what do you believe, Tiara? Personally."

"Does it matter what I think?" Her questioned made me realize how well I was playing into her words, waiting on her own opinions on the matter as if they were hard truth. And who could blame me? Every word from her mouth had been so deliberate, and her tone made her sound so sure of herself. I'd grown up hearing these tall tales and theories in my own youth and magic study, but it never seemed as real as it was when it came delivered out of her mouth. It was hard to distinguish truth from fiction in her tales when she spoke of them. "Well anyways, whatever the case, if Gusty's spell really is ancient magic, it's possible that it manifested a way to make it's equation go on for as long as it has. It could be that the spell found a way to recycle the ambient magic in the space around it, thus creating a pseudo permanent loop. I say pseudo, because nothing is ever truly eternal. But it's too much of a coincidence to think that its life cycle must've ended on the day of our arrival."

Another sharp pain permeated the temples of my forehead, but this time, I knew exactly what they were for. It was my brain connecting the conversation I had, had with Rusty Bucket. Or more precisely, the last few lines he whispered to himself before we had left. The time has finally come to end this endless watch. He had said. Did Rusty know this would happen? Has it all really been just well-timed coincidence? Or poorly timed, in the sense that if only we had waited a day, we could have avoided the fierce winds entirely?

"The spell ended... no well, it could also be temporarily dormant? If I understand ancient magic a little better now, then couldn't that mean there's any number of other reasons why the spell has seized, temporarily or permanently?"

"My, my, Berry. Well done. Now you're getting it. It could be as simple as the spell exhausting itself entirely. It could be that the spell is only momentarily recharging. It could be that something in Gusty's plans or that of the ancient magic's has deemed us worthy of passage. Since we don't know what the actual rhyme or reason for this change of events is, would you like for us to hurry off this mountain before it possibly begins again?" Tiara motioned her winter mask back into place.

"You don't have to tell me twice. I'm set to go already." Following suit, I put on my own mask and followed her to the outside.

What awaited me was a breathtaking view of Equestria. The snow kicked up by the wind and the dusk of night had made it impossible to see much before, but now that all had calmed and daylight had broken through the edge of the world, the scenery that spread out before us was of indescribable beauty. Just by looking across the horizon, you could see most of Equestria's major cities and landscapes. It was a vibrant display of earthly greens from the wooded areas of Northern Equestria, sparkling light blue hues from the Celestial Sea and Lunar Ocean along with its maritime towns, the shiny greys and browns of Manehatten, the pearlescent whites of Canterlot sitting on the side of its mountain, the rich oranges of the Appleoosa range, the multicolored display of Cloudsdale's rainbow falls, and lastly shy to the right of where Canterlot sit, was the small homely yellows of the town of Ponyville.

Awed by this, I turned to look at Tiara to see if she shared my sentiment over the beauty of it all, but her eyes were not seeing any such thing. Her stare was blank and empty, full of thought. With the mask now back in place, there was no way I'd be able to see the expressions she was making outside of her brows and eyes, but not even they stirred. Tiara seemed to be floating in a space of her own, contemplating the secrets of the universe I don't doubt. After a bit, her meditation broke and she turned to face the mountains ranges behind Mount Everhoof that seemed to stretch on forever, with some of the mountains being as large, if not larger than Everhoof. They blocked all and any sight that could've lied within that opposite horizon with their massive and imposing walls of ice and stone. Whatever Tiara was looking for, it wouldn't be easy to find. Not from this perch at least.

"You chose this Berry, so now I need you to prepare your heart for what lies ahead. We must make it past these mountains deeper and deeper into the Frozen North. I have reason to believe the things I'm after lie in wait there. If legends are to be believed, we'll be walking into a dead wasteland of frost and snow with no chance of finding food or shelter anywhere. We'll have to make our supplies last as long as possible. A single mistake could prove to be the end for us, since returning to the Monastery will be a challenge on its own." She was speaking freely now despite the thin, frosted air atop the mountain. Without the harsh winds and now having acclimated to the altitude, it was much easier to exist at those heights, and so conversation was now a seldom but possible thing to do.

"What legends? I've never heard tale of ponies making it past Mount Everhoof, much less finding anything past these ranges."

"Oh you have, Mother. You just don't know which legends pertain to the area we’re meant to make it to."

"Care to spill the beans then?"

"No no. That's wasteful and we'll need all the beans we can preserve as food in this journey of ours. Besides, why ruin the surprise? Once we get there, you'll figure it out."

"Fine, keep your secrets. I'll see it for myself anyway."

It is a shame that there is not enough pages in my journal to detail all that happened on our travels. I almost wanted to jot down all my talks with Tiara, despite many of them not being of any real importance, just because I found connecting with her so fun and amusing. Those are things that I'll just have to keep close to my chest. And there really wasn't much to see on those mountain ranges except snow and rock. It really was a dead wasteland with not even the tiniest grasses growing from any of the surfaces that could be seen. Traveling through the mountains took nearly a full week to accomplish. Past Everhoof were the many, many mountain ranges of the Frozen North. The view ahead looked to be like a sea of white mountain tips, with nothing but snow and crag to differentiate one mountain from the next. Although the size of the mountains ranged wildly from peak to peak, a few of them were considerably smaller and interconnected between each other almost purposely and seemed to path out a direction.

It was as if a giant of impossible cosmic size had thread this path before and made the equivalent of a trail along the way, akin to dirt trails off a beaten path. We averaged crossing at least four or five of those small mountains thanks to their congruency during daylight hours. Come night time, conditions were far too hazardous and cold to warrant a journey, so we took the extra precaution of hunkering down at the very moment of dusk beginning its descent.

There truly was nothing out there. No animals. No monsters. Nothing but the cold blistering winds howling as they passed through the terrain.

That wouldn't be totally true, however. There might not have been anything alive out in those mountains, but there were other things lying beneath the snow. On our fourth day traveling, in-between our talks as usual while wading through loose ice, I had stumbled on something that had protruded only very, very slightly out of the snow. After Tiara had helped me back to my hooves, she took great interest on that very thing. Even with my magic, digging it out took a considerable amount of time and effort since the snow had been so densely packed after years of accumulating on top of this something that it was incredibly heavy and hard to move around as a result. With just her hooves alone, Tiara had done most of the excavating herself in the end.

What we found came as a huge surprise, and it lent credence to Tiara's journey. I initially thought she must've been crazy to travel through these mountains since there had never been tale of anyone journeying through them and there certainly didn't seem to be anything worthwhile in sight. But there and then we had discovered something truly historically astounding.

A broken down wheel cart, carefully preserved by the dense ice that had encased it. Its make was unlike any of the ones I'd seen in Equestria. Modern wheel carts had all sorts of new pony inventions to them, even for rural farmhands. Things like shock absorbers, suspension, and other innovations like motorization or simpler things like saddle compatibility. But this cart on the other hoof... This was as simple as simple could get. Quite literally just wheels on a wood platform, with bits of rough, crude metal for its axles and coarse uncomfortable fabrics from the rudimentary grain sacks that it was carrying, who thanks to being frozen in ice, still had a bit of their old contents inside after thawing. Although we left them untouched since eating such a thing would have been unadvisable.

"This in amazing discovery, Tiara! This cart must be at least millennia old. If we're the first to cross through these mountains since Gusty and Grogar's battle, then we're looking at-"

"Two almost three millenia, judging by the inscriptions." Tiara lifted a small metal plate that hung from the front of the cart. It was a small identifying plaque with the name of the owner and the date of the cart's make, written in an old, old version of ponyish. It was something I had to trust Tiara on, since I could not read it myself. The date on it went much further back than even the ruling of the Royal Sisters or the founding of Equestria. If it had been a proper archeologist who had stumbled on this find or perhaps even your average pony, this would've been the discovery of a lifetime. But for Tiara, it didn't seem to hold any such value. She only looked at the plaque with a grim look on her face.

"Oh come on, Tiara. Lighten up, this is really something you know! When we get back, we should inform the archeological instutitions about this."

"This at least shows us we're going the right way." Tiara said, ignoring my words almost entirely. "Thread lightly and with respect, Berry. We're walking through a graveyard."

"What?!" I instinctively lifted two of my hooves with appalment.

"Calm down, you're not likely to get cursed. Their souls are probably not here anymore. I say walk with respect only to honor their memory."

"What are you talking about, Evergold?!" I carefully put my hooves back down, still unsure.

"Do you remember the stories of the Great Migration?" My eyes widened in my surprise as she had said it. I looked over to the vast sea of snow-filled mountains that still lay ahead of us, and my mouth dropped in awe now that the answer to my question of where we were going was square on my face now. All while Tiara chuckled to herself at my reaction. "See. This is why we keep the beans until we need them. Because it's funny."

"The three pony tribe kingdoms, Tiara? Really?! Like from the Hearth's Warming myths?"

"Yes, really. And this is what I meant by thread with respect. Before there was ever this much snow to make the path less perilous, a great number of creatures, not just ponies, traveled through these very mountains once. Several people lost their lives out in these ranges, as they were monster-ridden obstacles not meant for the weak to cross. Only the strongest and luckiest of the tribes survived, and the survivors eventually found peace within Equestria. In a strange way, the Windigos' winter fury destroyed the land for so long, even the monsters that once inhabited this place had to move away to survive themselves. The snow called forth by their power weathered the terrain to be more forgiving to traverse. But with all flora and fauna gone, it is a dead land with little way to obtain food again."

"Safer but deader than ever. I can't tell if the Windigos were trying to hurt or to help..." I mused to myself not really meaning to suggest that the Windigos could or would help anyone for that matter, but that's just how it sounded like from the information Tiara was giving me.

"Whose to say? Ancient Magic has a mind of its own, after all."

"So if we're headed to the three kingdoms, what do you expect to find there anyway, Tiara?"

"That's a fantastic question, Berry." Tiara turned to keep walking, leaving the cart behind in its entirety.

"One that you're not going to answer yet, are you?" I said as went to go catch up to her. She smiled at me, confirming my suspicions.

I understood why we had left everything of the cart behind, as the journey itself would prove to be hard and long in its own right. We could ill afford another burden. It had been exhausting work just to put a hoof over the other in that kind environment yet Tiara was relentlessly forging on ahead with the stamina of a hundred bulls, determined to get to her destination. Her steps waded and cleared the way of deep snow, allowing me to traverse largely unimpeded through her trails. Still even with her leading the way like that, before the day was up, I would be run to the ground with exhaustion and her looking no worse for wear despite doing all the laborious effort. She would set up our tent, cook our meals, and tend to the fire for most of the night while I slept.

If I hadn't caught her sleeping once when I awoke in the middle of the night to relieve myself, I would have imagined her to be more machine than pony. Had I not tagged along, a part of me wondered if Tiara even had a need for the two tents she packed into my backpack. The second one was already useless since we shared a tent to stay warm, and so I had left it untouched in my backpack this entire time. If she had been alone, I imagined that she would continue the journey well past dusk without a regard for her own safety. And so without evidence, a part of me was touched to see her worry for mine.

Her sleeping face was precious in its own way. All her bravado and demure appearance seemed to wash away in her rest. It was soft and cute, and seemed to revert her to the young pretty pony she was meant to be. It was a night and day difference almost as if I were staring into the face of an entirely different pony. After returning from handling my business, I couldn't help stare at her as she rested for a while. It was a sight that would be a rarity to see, and so I wanted to take it in while I still could. But perhaps, it would have been better if I had gone to sleep upon my return.

They say dreams are a reflection of our soul. They show us our state of being, even when we don't want to see it. I've grown more and more superstitious with old age, and a part of me can't help but believe it to be true. Although, just as much, I wish it weren't. Tiara's dream that night shifted after I stared for long enough. Her brows furrowed and she tossed and turned in her sleep, showing signs of a nightmare. But this was no nightmare. It was a memory.

When I put a hoof to pat her on the chest to comfort her, she softly wrapped her head upon my foreleg and cried. Her tears flowed steadily downwards towards the snow, freezing near the ends of it with the frost traveling up the stream and towards her eyes. I kept awake for longer that night, making sure to carefully dry her eyes periodically before the frost could do her harm, gently patting her and whispering a hushed humming lullaby of no particular song, just whatever sounded lovely to me at the time. For the minutes that this continued, Tiara kept repeating something. Broken up and out of order. Barely even a whisper. She kept saying... "I'm sorry. Couldn't help. Not enough. Save you."

Was she... trying to save someone? And failed? Was this the reason for why she was going through all this? A wonder as to who it could've been. Nothing in her demeanor or files suggest she had a lover or a partner. Plenty of friends and some very close ones, by the personal accounts of Princess Twilight herself. But none of which are currently in any danger or were endangered by her alleged actions. None of her court case's testimonies describe anything of the sort either.

No point in dwelling over it. It's no use trying to pry it out of Tiara. I'd come to learn that she would tell me only when she felt it appropriate. Trying to stress it out of her now could only damage our relationship further. Like it or not, I would have to be comfortable with this distance between us for now and allow her to grow at her own pace. I let a quiet chuckle escape me right there and then. I wondered if this is what mothers felt over their unruly daughters. Was there really nothing else I could do but worry over her?

Even after she had stopped crying and returned to normal, I kept awake to brush her mane and hum to her for a while longer. A part of me imagined seeing a flustered Tiara if she had happened to wake up to me doing so. Had Tiara ever felt this kind of warmth before? How would she react to it? I found myself thinking similar questions about all sorts of things, imagining what her reactions would be. Why were these thoughts so amusing to me? Why did they matter so much? These are questions I feel that I can only answer with time.

I hadn’t realized when I had gone back to sleep that night. I awoke the next with a blanket tucked neatly on top of me to protect my warmth, with Tiara preparing our usual dehydrated soup using melted snow to reconstitute it back to normal. Even her packed supplies were practical and ingenious, since creating these unique meals allowed her to pack more of them in her backpack and could last us weeks and even months while needing only a fire and a source of water which could be found all around us. Her meals were also surprisingly delicious and nutritious, which is not what I would have expected to say after eating dusty dried soup the first time she presented the idea of dry preserves to me.

To say Tiara had prepared for this journey would have been an understatement. None of our tools and supplies felt needless, save for the second tent which I imagined was Tiara's insurance if something had broken our first into disrepair. Everything in our packs had seen extended use for what I would have thought initially to be niche issues we would not face on our journey across those ranges. Our snow horseshoes were spiked and were made to cling onto rocky, icy slippery terrain. They had even been outfitted with indentations along the sides so as to click any additions to the shoe cleanly into place, which we used to put on our snow rackets, another practical addition to our tools since the shape and strings of this hoofwear allowed us to through traverse deep and loose footings of snowy trails without sinking all the way through. Our picks were dual-headed, with one head being the pointed pick used to cleave into hard stone, while the other being a flat hammer head to clear surfaces of built up ice easier. On the opposite ends of the pick below the grip was a sharp little blade blade which we had used to cook and sometimes clear ice more precisely and delicately. She had even brought special heat resistant stones to warm up in the fireplace so that we could put them within a special pocket she had made in our coats close to our chest, so that we could place our hooves into that insulated pocket in order to warm our limbs back up in case they became numb from the cold, while keeping our center of mass cozily heated.

All of this had been meticulously sourced by Tiara. Tale was from the tailoring Yak who had made my horseshoes, is that Tiara had provided some very specific instructions. Construction of some these tools had never been heard of, yet her ideas for these things seemed like a natural evolution of what already existed. Practical and ingenious in their own way.

"Yak strength and bodies accustomed to life in Frozen North. What tools we have, they not see changes. If serves purpose, then we not see reason to improve it. Maybe because your friend is pony and not Yak, she have need of improvement. That why ideas so smart. She see what can be better. New tools will help Yaks. Younglings who not as strong will find easier time. Tiara good friend to all Yaks for many such contribution." Is what the outfitter had said to me then. But where those words really correct? Tiara was equally as strong as any fully matured Yak, if not far, far stronger. She probably had less of a use for such improvements, but sought to introduce them anyway.

As for what the tailor had said, in essence, the Yaks had been stuck in their mired traditions for centuries, and had not needed a reason to improve what they already had. It's not until Tiara introduced those upgrades to them that they noticed that life could be easier if they would only evolve their tools.

In the end, Tiara's outings to Yakyakistan had not only been for the benefit of our monastery in order to do my chores and procure essential goods for Sanctuary, they had also served to improve the Yak's way of life. For a long time, the Yaks seemed to be having a difficult time in the construction of their homes. Their natural strength and tendency to smash things created many issues even for the strongest of buildings, despite Equestria's ongoing help in their reconstruction efforts time and again. They needed more permanent solutions, and Tiara found it for them. Although the way she went about doing so was... tricky to say the best, as it had almost caused her friction with Equestria's and the Crystal Kingdom's royalty.

Apparently she had called in a favor from a good friend of hers. A friend that wasn't from Equestria or the Crystal Kingdom. A bit of a trickster in his own right, who hadn't the ability to speak up for Tiara or so much as attend her hearing due to his similarly checkered history denying him the right. This friend had provided Tiara with something called a Plunder Seed, which Tiara used in order to make the type of magically resilient wood that could grow big and strong even in a winter tundra like the Frozen North, and who could resist the brute-like strength of a Yak in a smashing fever. But by the sounds of it, this flora was all sorts of dangerous, since it had been imbued with a lot of malicious chaotic magic. It had once threatened all of Equestria until Twilight had been able to put an end to it.

Before it could become a national issue however, Tiara seemed to have somehow pacified it. Envoys from both nations had arrived on multiple occasions to confirm it was so. Even without her constant vigil, she had managed to make those plunder seeds grow only what the Yaks needed, and so they were finally able to gain smash-resistant homes without the plants those Plunder Seeds produced destroying their livelihoods. Her contributions eventually gave her official sanction by Twilight to roam out of the monastery, since she hadn't had approval before, though I doubt she realizes any of this since all this information reached and ended at my desk. In my own little way, I had been protecting Tiara in what ways I could politically. And not only because I had use for her talents. She eventually became a good friend and a confidant of mine.

Outside of this one incident, apparently she had also made several things that the Yaks would eventually find useful for their own purposes. Of the most notable of these, she had shown the Yaks how to make magnesium firestarters. As a Unicorn, it never occurred to me just how important such a thing could be, since making fire was like second nature. But for a Yak, or say an earth pony, starting a fire was not such a simple task. And doing so out in a wet and frozen landscape was doubly so. Yet this small metal stick she had concocted had not only trivialized the process, it had also seen its fair share of use in our campaign.

At the end of every day, I was far too exhausted from our journey to cast the necessary magic to start a fire. Tiara would use that same firestarter to light our campfires and cook our dinners. To say that I was ashamed of myself would have been an understatement. I had began this journey so sure that I would have to be the one protecting Tiara from her own recklessness. I quickly realized my usefulness was nearly zero in this whole thing. If anything, I was beginning to see how much of an anchor and a nuisance I must've been to Tiara. I had forced myself on this journey of hers, without an ounce of effort to contribute. I had left Sanctuary so sporadically, at the first mention of seeing Tiara go away. It's not something I would've found myself doing before. The signs were all pointing to the obvious.

The reckless one was I.

"I'm sorry, Tiara." These words finally reached my mouth after the seventh day, just as we had stopped to survey the land only to see another impossibly large mountain twice, maybe thrice the size of Everhoof. The path of mountains we were led through from the short interconnected mountains had made traversal straightforward, with only the occasional mountaineering climb to overcome, and most of the other mountains didn't seem like they could outdo Everhoof by more than a few miles. This mountain on the other hand absolutely dwarfed the others. Not only was it toweringly enormous, it's sheer width alone was a thing of awe and it made Everhoof look like a grey bony finger sticking out of the ground. It alone looked to be like the boundary that obfuscated the lands that might lie past the Frozen North Ranges. We had taken a small break before beginning our ascent to it, at the foot of the mountain. Laying eyes on this mountain had forced me to realize how over my head I had been about involving myself.

I was not young anymore. Even if I wanted to join Tiara in all her crazy ideas, whatever she had planned, I doubt I could continue this song and dance if this is what I could expect of her normal. I had given my feelings a lot of thought on our travels. This was the most I had ever interacted with Tiara in the time since I've gotten to know her, and it's been an incredible journey. I got to see so many new sides to her, from casual fun banter about nothing in particular down to her emotionally vulnerable sides. We had grown so much closer than we ever had in that week, and day by day I could feel her opening up to me little by little. It's safe to say that my feelings have only grown to match. I want to be there for her. I want to help her do whatever it is she thinks needs doing.

But... Tiara has a need to keep moving forward, and I'm afraid. Afraid that I could be the one to stop her.

"Well that came out of nowhere, Berry. Sorry about what?" Tiara asked. Initially amused by what I had said, her expression dropped when she looked at my eyes understanding that the apology I had made was no joke.

"I... haven't been pulling my own weight this entire time. I've done nothing but hold you back. I was so sure I could've been a help to you when we started this journey, and yet you've been the one helping me since the start. Not just with this journey, but with Sanctuary too. I realize that you were right. Once we get back to Equestria, that's it for me. I'm getting too old for these kinds of adventures anyway."

"Oh come now, you took one look at this mountain and got cold hooves? What happened Berry? You're not going to pull the age card now, are you? You're not even forty yet." Her tone was still trying to sound floaty so as to help the mood.

"Don't worry, I still got energy left in me for this adventure at least. But I concede that I'm not able to keep up with you as I'd like to, much less help you."

"I don't need you to help me every step of the way, and it wouldn't do you any good to compare yourself to me, Mother Berry. I'm not exactly a... normal pony." She sounded conflicted in insulting herself, as though her reputation was on the line.

"I know that all too well, Evergold. All the normal ponies are resting their heads back in greener pastures. Again, I'm real sorry for having butt into your journey like I did. It's only now that I realize how truly capable you are, Tiara. I promise I'll be out of your mane once this is all over. I'll return to Sanctuary."

At that moment, I saw something in Tiara I hadn't quite seen before. Her facial features dropped a little. Something so subtle, if you drew it onto a painting, ponies would argue for years and years to come about whether she was making that expression or not. A pout perhaps?

"What will you do once you return?" Her voice had softened and quieted, now illustrating the purpose of her expression even more.

"I don't know, honestly. Even though I don't think I was good at it, I've only ever seen myself in a position of authority. But I don't want to return to being the Head Mother. Maybe I'll just go travel Equestria and whittle out my days sight-seeing..."

"But you once told me you hated idling your life away. Would you be okay with that?"

"I doubt I'll be able to change that side of me, so I don't know. I'll just have to give it a try and see if it works out. If not, I'll find something else to do. Something that won't have me making things worse for everyone else under my leadership."

"You'd be lost, Mother."

"Aren't we all, at the end of the day?" Tiara was silent at my words, now clearly troubled by them. There was no question left in her expression. Her brows had inclined themselves inward and upward to show her concern and conflicted sadness at my statements. After a bit of silence, her voice finally spoke. Trembling and quite unsure of itself, almost cracking at the end of her statement.

"And what would you do if I said you can't leave?"

Wait, was she saying what I think she was saying? Was I understandings this right? Did she...?

Did she actually want me by her side?

I had come to learn a lot about Tiara. In a contradicting and strange way, the more I got to know her, the less that I could trust her words and the more I could trust of her character. A part of me wondered if everything she had shown me and taught me in the last week was ever really genuine, or perhaps just a ploy to lead me along. But a bigger part of me did not care if it was.

"Then... I guess... I would stay?"

Tiara turned away from me to look at the mountain ahead, almost as if she were hiding her face. She cleared her throat and thought for a bit. Without turning to look back, she answered my response.

"There are not enough ponies I can trust. And it wouldn't sit well with me either if you wasted your talents doing nothing but wandering aimlessly. So work with me, Berry. You're a great leader, of that much I am absolutely sure. I think you just got a loaded die these last few tries for a game you couldn't have won, so don't doubt your strengths. This world will have a need for ponies like you. At the very least I know that I still..." Tiara hesitated on her words, almost as if she were forcing herself to say them. "need you."

"Hmm? What was that last bit?" It's too bad our masks were still in place. Tiara would have seen just how big, wide, and proud my smile was when she turned to look at me. All the same, she must've seen it in my eyes, since I could clearly see the burning of flustered shame on her ears.

"I still have need of you, Mother."

Author's Note

Well what can I say! I channeled my inner ghost and died for a few months again. Apologies for the long wait but I do have a good reason that's more valid than just "Life issues" you know? Which also did happen but I digress. A big reason I was gone so long is because I wrote a whole separate story about what happened to a certain little someone who a fair amount of people wondered about, especially considering the twists and turns this story has taken.

And her story is meant to connect to this one in several ways! It'll help give some of you insight of the inner machinations and dynamics of this world-building, if you care about that sort of thing. Maybe it'll help you be just a little less confused about what's happening. Or maybe it'll just tack on more and more questions.

Whatever the case, if you're interested, check out Cozy Glow's story for yourself and find out! See what became of that little rapscallion and how her story deviated in this alternate future we're in.

EKnow That I Lived

• MLP: FiM
• Drama
• Sad

Amidst her greatest scheme, Cozy is met with an enigmatic and mysterious fellow by the name of Víss ør-grandr, an entirely magic-less elk. Their meeting ultimately saves Cozy in more ways than she knows, and as if by fate, so to does it save Víss.

• Alt. Universe
• OC
• Cozy Glow

Darkevony · 34k words  ·  25  0 · 573 views

P.S. Almost forgot! Hope you all enjoy the new cover art by my wonderful artist, Damayanti. You might think it's a spoiler but trust me, it's not! There's all sorts of things this story will do, if I can get around to them in a proper time frame anyway.

Oh! And if you've noticed anything screwy with the chapter numbers, I apologize about the numbering conventions as well! I recently changed the first six chapters to better illustrate what they are meant to be, since it wasn't so obvious before. It's just meant for newer readers to figure out they're reading what's meant to be only the introduction to the story.

Until next time, ciao!