Beneath the Northern Skies

“Hey, Rarity, wake up already!” Rainbow Dash shook her friend more forcefully. While she was glad that waking up first let her extricate herself from the position in which she found herself sleeping, waking up Rarity proved to be a more difficult endeavor than she imagined.

“Hmmm?” Rarity shifted on the blanket for the third time this morning. “It’s too early, Opal. Please, I’ll feed you in a bit,” she absentmindedly said, shooing the nuisance bugging her away.

“Oh no, you don’t!” Rainbow grabbed the edge of the blanket with her teeth and pulled it out from under the unicorn.

The stone floor woke her up immediately, and Rarity stood up with a frown. “What was that—” She stopped as the events of the previous day slowly came back to her “—Oh. I suppose we should get moving soon. There’s no way to tell how late it is.” She yawned.

“About seven twenty.”

Rarity raised an eyebrow, inspecting the remains of their campfire. “And how do you know that, dear? Pegasus intuition?”

“You could say that,” Rainbow answered with a smug smirk. “I can tell from the position of the Sun. It’s different up here in the North, but I bet I’m less than ten minutes off.”

“I didn’t know you could do that.” She yawned one more time and looked back with longing at the crumpled blanket. “It’s good to start early, although I must say I slept wonderfully despite these… less-than-stellar conditions. A little exercise does wonders for one’s sleep.”

Being wrapped in a pegasus’s wing could’ve helped, too, thought Rainbow Dash, a hint of a blush showing on her face. Out loud, she said only, “Um, hello? Telling time with the Sun?”

Rarity gasped. She rushed to the cave’s entrance, blinked the sleep away from her eyes, and looked to the skies. “It’s not much, but the weather did get better!” Her expression fell when she saw massive piles of snow outside the cave. “Although making it back to the train will be rather difficult.”

“There’s something else, Rarity. Look here.”

Rarity’s eyes followed Rainbow’s hoof. What she at first mistook for a shaded part was a route leading between the snowdrifts. She trotted closer, wincing from the cold when her hooves touched the snow. But it was not the cold that made her jump back in shock. “Are those tracks? They lead right to the cave!”

“Whatever it was, it’s gone now.” Rainbow put on her saddlebags and tightened the straps. She smiled, beaming with confidence. “We should pay it a visit.”

“Excuse me, what?!” cried Rarity. “Don’t you see how big those tracks are? If it left us alone, I don’t think looking for it would be wise. It could be a monster!”

“Then it would’ve attacked us at night.” Rainbow huffed. “Besides, I don’t see any other options. Do you want to sit here until the snowstorm ends?”

“Well, no, but I…” Rarity bit her lip and took a deep breath. “You are right, of course. We cannot afford to waste any time at all.” She packed the blanket and quickly slipped into her layered winter clothes. “But it was your idea, so you should lead the way today.”

Rainbow grinned. “I wouldn’t let you go first anyway. Walking head-first into danger has always been my kind of plan.”

Rarity rolled her eyes ostentatiously.

***

The Sun reached solar noon before the two mares decided to take a brief break. Rainbow Dash groaned and covered her eyes with a forehoof. “I like Celestia’s Sun as much as everypony, but I had hoped the North wouldn’t be so bright. It’s snowing right now, for pony’s sake!”

“It’s precisely because of the snow reflecting the sunbeams.” Rarity, who had been panting heavily and insisting she was fine for over an hour, came to a stop next to her. “I imagine we have to be close.”

“You said that three hours ago!”

“I was guessing,” Rarity admitted with a guilty expression. She quickly regained her confidence and added, “This time, however, I know for sure. Look at the tracks.”

Rainbow raised an eyebrow. “Um, hello, that’s what I’ve been doing since we set out. They’re exactly the same.”

Rarity nodded quickly. “Precisely. Isn’t that strange?”

“Why would they be? There are no animals here to walk over them.” A gust of wind threw another wave of soft snow at her, and the imaginary light bulb above her head lit up. Her eyes snapped to the clouds. “The snow!”

“Exactly.” Rarity nodded. “I’ve been looking at the path ahead, and barring the odd wind, not a single snowflake fell on it since we started. It wants us to find whatever is here.”

“But if it didn’t want to meet us or ambush us, why is it leading us deeper into the snow?” asked Rainbow.

“I don’t know,” admitted Rarity. “I hope we’ll find the answer to that question on the other side of this hill. I can sense some faint magic calling to me even from here.”

Rainbow Dash flapped her wings, suddenly getting her second wind. “You should’ve started with that! We’re so close; let’s go!”

The strange tracks ended at the crest of the hill, disappearing mid-step, but if either of the mares ever considered turning back, what they saw ahead banished such thoughts immediately. Free-standing mountains dotted the landscape sporadically, their peaks and slopes covered by a coat of pure white, and between them lay a great expanse of perfectly even land that shone in the sunlight despite the snowstorm raging above it.

Rarity and Rainbow Dash descended the hill quickly, wordlessly agreeing to examine a group of a few dozen light blue points located on the edge of the snowfield. Rainbow was the first to identify it as a village, the blue spots all resolving into houses as they got close. Every building in the village was perfectly chiseled from ice with no visible flaws or blemishes, each surface measured and replicated with greater precision than anything either of them had ever seen. The architectural style was distinctly foreign to them, bearing some similarities to ancient pegasi cloud-cities at the height of their power, but lighter and more refined—lacking the practical considerations that the pegasi tribe adopted over the course of centuries. Where Pegasopolis was a kingdom of brave warriors, the village radiated grace in a way that would put even the finest ancient unicornian art to shame.

It was also empty. The icy doors to the cottages were purely ornamental, fused into the doorframes for eternity, and even the snowstorm seemed to avoid it, ending unnaturally just a stone’s throw away from the first house.

Rarity didn’t hesitate to light up her horn and let the blue glow dance on the semi-translucent structures, endlessly reflected and refracted. For a moment, the small town appeared almost alive.

“It’s beautiful,” said Rarity, the admiration in her voice carrying over the snowstorm. “Have you ever seen anything like it, Rainbow Dash?”

“Can’t say I have. It looks like something from a Daring Do adventure—” Rainbow touched an intricate pattern carved into the wall of a house “—But even Daring Do never went this far into the North.”

“First the Crystal Empire and now this. Maybe the North wasn’t as empty as we all thought and—” Her hornlight died instantly, and she stood frozen in place for a fraction of a second until Rainbow Dash pulled her into a nearby alley. The see-through nature of the buildings made it far from the perfect cover, but it was better than nothing.

“Did you feel that?!” Rarity whispered to Rainbow, trying to keep her panicked voice quiet.

Rainbow’s pupils narrowed. “Yeah. We were being watched. I’d bet all my bits it’s the creature that left those tracks.”

“So what do we do now?” asked Rarity. “Shouldn’t we try to reason with it? If it guards this village, it must at least be capable of reason.”

Rainbow’s frown deepened. “And what if it doesn’t listen to us?”

“If it turns out to be a brute who rejects our diplomatic solution, we do the same as if it couldn’t talk.” Rarity looked away, feeling uncomfortable with the alternative she was about to suggest.

“Do we make it listen?” Rainbow spread her wings, ready to dash at any moment.

Rarity almost choked on her tongue. “What? Heavens, no! We run.”

“Fine,” grumbled Rainbow. She did not fully fold her wings, just in case. “Best you do the talking, though.”

“Here goes nothing.” Rarity stepped out of their hiding spot, with Rainbow Dash following right behind.

The street was empty again. There was no trace of any creature, real or imagined, and all of the houses looked exactly the same as fifteen minutes earlier. The only sound the duo could hear was the snowstorm surrounding the village, reminding them how far from home they had come.

“I think it’s still watching us, Rarity,” whispered Rainbow. She fluffed up her coat to look more confident in the face of the cold and distant gaze of some unidentified creature.

“In that case…” Rarity trotted to the middle of the street and raised her voice. “Excuse me! Did you create all of this? It’s simply stunning! We are honored to see it, we really are, but could you please help us find our way back to the train line?”

Suddenly, the sky roiled, and a blue vortex appeared right above them. At its front, a spectral deer wearing a long cloak rode an invisible tailwind, his great wings casting a shadow as wide as any of the houses. He was easily thrice their size, with sprawling antlers that branched an innumerable number of times around his head and formed a jagged, rime-covered crown, its color matching the conch shell necklace that he wore around his neck. His antlers shined for a second before he reached the ground, dispelling the magical wind.

“A windigo!” Rarity cried with a mix of fear and awe. She tried to retreat back into the alley but bumped into Rainbow Dash, who was standing still with wide eyes and an open mouth, pale and frozen in shock.

The ghostly caribou leveled his piercing blue gaze at the two ponies. “Oh, how low have I fallen, to be compared to my serfs!” He stomped, causing the ground to shake. “You are trespassing on the land that belonged to me since before your kind learned how to speak, ponies.”

“Oh, I’m—we are very sorry for that.” Rarity tried to show the creature her best apologetic smile. “We saw the path leading here and we thought…”

“You took your curiosity as a sign of my permission where one was never given to you.”

“Well, about that…” Rarity glanced back to find her friend still staring blankly at the caribou. “I’m Rarity, and this is my friend Rainbow Dash. We—“

The impatient voice of the ancient deer crackled through the air like a thunderbolt. “I have heard your story when you disturbed my peace last night. I care not for your names, and I will not give you mine. Knowing it was the privilege of the heroic denizens of this kingdom, who once called my home their home and me their guardian.”

A gasp escaped Rarity before she could stop herself. “You ruled over windigos?”

“Have the ponies’ brains atrophied so much that they cannot understand what is said to them?” The caribou’s horns shimmered again, the spell turning the buildings invisible. “The windigos were my hounds, beasts whom I turned loose after there was no more work left for them here. No, my subjects were elegant souls who appreciated all of the nature’s harmony without trying to control it like your pegasi do.” A frown marred his ancient image as he glared at Rainbow Dash, air temperature dropping several degrees.

Rarity cleared her throat, hoping to diffuse the tense atmosphere. “So the faint magic I felt when we approached the city was—“

“A remnant of a civilization that left it millennia ago,” finished the spirit. “The land from here to the horizon is still soaked in their magic. I have lent my assistance to mortals only once since then, and they lost the token of my protection to the first monster that came for it, proving that they weren’t worthy.” He narrowed his eyes into a glare. “That is not important now. Why did you come to my home, and did so with a pegasus?”

“She is not a mere pegasus!” Rarity protested in a much stronger tone of voice than before. She moved between the giant caribou and Rainbow Dash, holding the creature’s gaze for three seconds in which not even her heart dared to beat. “I understand that you have some grievances with their work, but Rainbow Dash helped countless ponies and saved the world a dozen times!”

“So you say, unicorn.” His expression lost some of its harshness, and he let out a breath that turned into a freezing gale. Wherever it touched the ice buildings, they reappeared with a cerulean glow. “But the world is much greater than you ponies can understand, and it will outlast you all. All acts of heroism will be forgotten in time, until not even the wind carries their echoes.”

Rainbow Dash stepped forward. She shivered under the spirit’s attention, but she didn’t retreat. “That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t fight for what we care about. Look, I get that you don’t like pegasi. To be honest, I don’t love it here, either.” As she spoke, her confidence began to return, and she grinned, wrapping a hoof around Rarity’s neck. “But if Rarity wants to brave this weather just to keep her old Hearth’s Warming promise and I can help her, then I’d rather be here than anywhere else!”

The caribou’s eyes sparked with anger, and freezing winds barged into the town, surrounding the ponies in a cage of sweeping frost. “You are afraid of everything that I stand for, pegasus, and yet you speak to me so brazenly about a holiday celebrating my servants’ humiliation.”

“Both of you demonstrated courage,” he stated flatly as the indignation in his voice made room for recognition, and the winds calmed down again. “You remind me of myself when I was still walking the earth among my subjects. Indeed, I have not been surprised in ages by such feeble creatures.”

“So you will let us go?” Rainbow asked.

“That was something I already decided on yesterday. All I require from you is to keep this meeting to yourself. The favor you’ve earned today has earned you a different privilege.” The caribou raised the conch from his neck and blew into the shell. The wind embraced him closely and carried the mournful tune far into the horizon. “Your pony train shall not find any storm in its path today. Now go, ponies, and do not disrupt my watch ever again.” His cloak billowed out and obscured his face.

Rainbow turned to leave at once. Rarity, however, couldn’t look away, muzzle twisted in a conflicted expression. She mouthed a silent question, “Why?”, but the spirit heard her anyway and startled backwards. “Did I not tell you already?! Don’t test my patience, or I’ll send a ruthless storm after you!”

“You let us go so easily,” Rarity looked up at his face. “And you said that this used to be a kingdom. As beautiful as the place we’re in is, everypony can tell that it is no more than a village that you’ve built.”

“This is where I met the first of their kind, where I met her first. You reminded me of her.” The caribou’s whispered words echoed between the buildings, their sound like a low growl of a thunderstorm. “She was brave, beautiful, and kind—she didn’t run away. I felt alive for the first time in my long existence. I promised her that she won’t ever be forgotten. Thrice-damned fool I was. Our children ruled the kingdom to its very end, and I have maintained this village ever since, defending it from the radiating warmth of your ‘Hearth’s Warming’ every year.”

“So it’s not about ruining the holidays!” Rarity raised a hoof to her mouth. “I… thank you. I know it doesn’t mean much to somepo—someone like you, but we are both truly grateful, and I promise you I won’t forget what you shared with us today.”

“You still need to find the train in time. I hope you do.” The caribou blew the conch again, disappearing in an instant. “Good luck,” the wind echoed.

Rarity trotted after Rainbow Dash. She looked back only once, after they made it to the top of the hill that marked the perimeter of the ancient kingdom. She smiled at the timeless perfection encased in ice. “I’d never have taken him for a romantic type.”