The Frozen North's Secrets
Twilight was practically at the edge of her seat in the Friendship Express. One wouldn’t think that she was one of Princess Celestia’s most faithful students by the way she was acting on the train. Well enough, the exact reason she’s on the train in the first place was to perform a duty issued by the Princess, herself. Various passengers watched as Twilight bobbed up and down on her seat as if she was a little foal getting a new toy, which was especially jarring since she was accompanied by a young dragon child who had acted significantly more maturely than his guardian.
“Twilight, you’ve been doing this ever since we entered the train!” Spike said as he tried to calm down the excited pony. This was going on for sometime now and he was starting to worry for his friend’s health. “You’re gonna tire yourself out by the time we get there!”
“Oh, Spike,” Twilight rubbed the little dragon’s head with her hoof, appreciating his concern.
“I’m sorry, but any other time I would act as I usually would, but in this case, I can’t help but be so excited!”
Spike crossed his arms upon hearing that statement. “But you always act like this when you do a job for Princess Celestia.”
It was only yesterday that started Twilight’s “classified” mission for Princess Celestia. Curiosity,once again, filled the pony’s mind with questions that desperately wanted to be answered. The young unicorn was searching around the Canterlot Archives on her own mission to find the secrets of Equestria. Celestia happened to come across Twilight and at the same time, she stumbled across a rough map of The Frozen North, which was said to have no traces of any written layouts whatsoever.
“Just think, Spike, The Frozen North,” Twilight started saying. “A place where nopony has ever traversed since the very foundation of Equestria!”
“Yeah, about that, Twilight...” Even though Spike is always willing to accompany Twilight with her escapades, he was having doubts about exploring a place that was said to have nothing in it. “Are you even sure we’ll actually find something in The Frozen North?”
“C’mon, Spike, the most completely secluded area in all of Equestria where they say there’s nothing interesting about it and it’s only there to exist? That’s just asking somepony to explore it and see what the heck is hiding under all of that snow.”
Spike crossed his arms once again. “Well if you ask me, I think it’s best that we leave The Frozen North alone. Don’t you think it’s weird that nopony has ever set hoof in that place? I mean, what if we get lost or what if there’s a big nasty ice troll that lurks there, or an evil possessed snowpony or maybe even a gigantic ice....giant.”
“Way ahead of you, Spike.” Twilight reached into her bag that she brought with her and pulled out a scroll. “Before we left, Princess Celestia gave me this spell that allows me to teleport the both of us back to Ponyville if anything goes wrong in The Frozen North.”
“Really? That’s seems a bit too convienent if you ask me, Twi.”
“Well don’t start holding your breath, Spike, cause this spell only works once.”
“Hah! I knew there was a catch,” Spike said as the train’s conductor walked into the passenger car.
“Next stop, Cloudsdale! I repeat, next stop is Cloudsdale! All passengers please prepare for your destination!”
Aside from Twilight and Spike, all of the passengers of the train consisted of Pegasi who all started to prepare to depart to their destination. Once the train stopped at Cloudsdale, most of the passengers left the train until it was Twilight and Spike who were the only passengers left. There was a moment of silence between the two remaining passengers as the train proceeded to travel to its next stop.
It was Spike who decided to break the silence. “So Twilight, what exactly do you expect to find in the Frozen North?”
It took a moment before Twilight answered Spike’s question. Indeed, she was so excited when she found an actual map of the Frozen North, but for all she knows the whole place could actually be a barren wasteland that would ultimately be a waste of time to explore. Perhaps she was merely hoping that if something was hiding there, she would be the first pony to discover it. As a result, Twilight was starting to consider whether her extreme desire to discover and learn was either a gift or a curse.
“I’ll be honest with you, Spike,” Twilight said as she put a hoof to her chin. “I’m not sure what to expect once we reach the Frozen North.”
Those were the last words that were spoken on the train until it reached the Frozen North.
Some ponies are not sure why the train stops at the Frozen North. There are those who say that it stops there because there’s actually a fueling station located there while the more cryptic ponies say that it stops there so that it can pick up any ponies who got lost within the snowy area. Unfortunately, anypony who was brave enough to travel through the Frozen North were never seen again.
Twilight and Spike left the train wearing their snow gear- ready for their excavation of the land. Interestingly enough, none of them saw any sign of a fueling station.
Twilight looked up and saw that there were clouds scattered around the sky and looked as if they were about to bunch together.
“There’s going to be a snowstorm,” she concluded.
Spike looked at her with wide eyes. “What?!”
Although it didn’t look like it, Twilight knew that the formation of the clouds would result in a snowstorm. She chuckled to herself, as if she was amused by the current situation. It was like the world was somehow telling her that exploring the Frozen North was a bad idea.
Spike concluded the same thing, but he decided to side with the warnings. “Y’know, Twi? M-Maybe this whole thing was a bad idea after all...”
“Spike, we just got here,” Twilight said completely deadpan.
“Yeah, we just got here, and already we have a reason to leave immediately,” Spike said as he gestured towards the sky.
It was at that point where Twilight felt a little pity for her young dragon friend. From the very beginning he had reservations of exploring the Frozen North. If she could, Twilight would’ve let him stayed back at Ponyville, but she couldn’t do this alone. Sadly, Twilight didn’t get a chance to ask her friends for help. She was too excited from having discovered the map of the Frozen North that she didn’t get a chance to go back to Ponyville.
“I’m sorry, Spike,” Twilight said. “I know you didn’t want to be here in the first place.”
It took a moment before Spike responded to her. “Aw, it’s fine, Twi. In fact, I’m sort of happy that I am able to share this experience with you, in a somewhat messed up, life threatening sort of way.”
Twilight laughed. Even though she knows that Spike was scared on the inside, she’s happy that he was still able to put on a brave face.
Both Twilight and Spike shared a moment of silence as they looked around the area. All of the stories of the Frozen North being an empty wasteland were seemingly true. As far as the eye can see, there was nothing but snow. If there was indeed a secret located here, it would either be buried underneath all of the snow or located somewhere atop of the mountains.
Twilight was not about to take the risk of mountain climbing with the upcoming weather conditions.
“Let’s not waste anymore time, Spike,” Twilight said. “Time to find out what secrets this place has to offer."
Spike nodded his head as he and Twilight ventured forth through the Frozen North.
Obviously, Twilight didn’t expect to find anything during the first hour or so of their excavation, in fact it gave her a chance to look around and mark certain areas of the Frozen North on her map. Ultimately, this was her main task given by Princess Celestia. Twilight sort of wondered why the Princess of the Sun would only want her to mark maps rather than find hidden secrets. Sure she was around for at least thousands of years, but certainly there were some things in this world that not even the princess would know about, right?
Although there wasn’t a snowstorm yet, there was still a little snow falling from the sky. Twilight watched as the snow gently fell from the sky. As she watched, Twilight couldn’t help but have a small feeling of unfufillment.
Unfortunately, one can only appreciate the cold nature for so long. Eventually the few hours of nothingness from the trip turned into a few more hours of nothingness. Despite having walked through the snowy tundra for some time, neither Twilight or Spike had found anything that would count as a breakthrough discovery. The only progressive thing that was accomplished during this trip was that Twilight was able to mark the map so that nopony would no longer get lost in the Frozen North if they ever decided to go there.
“Ugh, but what’s the point?!” Twilight sighed in exasperation. “Nopony would even want to go The Frozen North now that we found out that there’s literally NOTHING HERE!”
Now it was Spike’s turn to feel some pity for his friend.
“I’m sorry, Twi,” he said. “I know you were really excited about this, but this sort of disappointment is something you kinda need to expect sometimes.”
“I know, Spike, but sometimes I wish that there was something more to this world.”
Spike was certainly surprised by Twilight’s statement. “What do you mean?”
“Think about it, Spike, our world is filled with such unique creatures and places that there’s kind of no room left for surprises. Perhaps I’ve seen all of what Equestria has to offer.”
Twilight signed once again. As much as she wanted to find something in The Frozen North, Spike was right. Moreover, the weather was starting to change for the worse as the wind was getting stronger.
“Alright, Spike, I guess we shouldn’t overstay our welcome any longer,” Twilight said as she pulled out her magical scroll. “I bet you’re just aching to go ho-”
Suddenly, a strong gust of wind blew the magical scroll away from Twilight.
“Oh no! The scroll!” Twilight shouted.
They couldn’t risk going back to where the train was when there was a snowstorm coming so, both Twilight and Spike ran for the scroll as the wind kept blowing it further and further away from the two.
Luckily they didn’t have to spend a long time chasing it as the wind slowly died down and the scroll fell to the ground near the base of a mountain.
Twilight immediately picked up the scroll before the wind had a chance to.
“Phew, that was a close one,” Twilight wiped a sweat off of her brow. “Sorry to worry you there, Spike, but we managed to get the scroll.”
She waited for his response, but it never came.
“Spike?” Twilight’s parental instincts started to kick in as she immediately thought that she somehow lost Spike while chasing down the scroll.
She quickly turned around, but sure enough Spike was indeed behind her, but for some reason he was wide-eyed with his jaw dropped.
“Spike, what’s wrong?”
It took a moment before Twilight realized that Spike was not looking at her and sure enough, he pointed to something that was apparently behind her.
Twilight slowly turned back around and tried to find what exactly caught Spike’s attention.
Is wasn’t even a second until Twilight realized why Spike was so dumbfounded.
Twilight couldn’t even put into words of the sight that was before her. The mountain that the scroll fell near to wasn’t a mountain at all, but it was certainly as tall as one, if not taller. To her, it looked like a giant fortress made entirely of gold, or at least metal that was gold colored. She also noted that part of this ‘fortress’ seemed to be buried underneath the ground.
Twilight soon developed the same dumbfounded expression that Spike had. This was nothing like she has ever seen before and she was sure that nopony has seen anything like this either. She looked up at the enormous monument and couldn’t help but have a small feeling of curiousity.
‘Perhaps this trip was worth it afterall,’ Twilight thought to herself.
