Winter's Bloom

by Bookworm S.

Applejack felt a chill over her body. She tried to wrap her legs around her for warmth, but the very motion instantly sent lightning bolts of pain up her spine.

Her eyes were closed, and she wasn't sure of where she was, or how she had gotten there. She felt a throbbing pain in her temple, and imagined she must have been knocked over the head by something, but she couldn't remember what or how.

She tried opening her eyes. She expected stabbing pain from the too-bright light, but instead she was met with only darkness. For a brief moment, she wasn't even sure she had actually opened her eyes at all, until she began to be able to make out faint pinpricks of light, blurry at first, that eventually she realized to be the stars.

She dared to move her head a bit, thankfully not triggering any more lightning bolts in the process, but was unable to find the moon.

Maybe it's behind the trees, she thought, then immediately chided herself. I'm stuck out in the middle of Celestia-knows-where with no idea how I got here, and I'm worried about the moon? What's wrong

She finally decided that she wasn't going to get anywhere just lying around and, despite the agony she expected to have to endure, she pushed herself to her hooves.

Amazingly, other than a pounding headache, she experienced none of the pain she had previously, which brought a small smile to her face. A sharp gust of cold wind wiped it right back off again.

I better find some shelter and get a fire goin', and right quick too if I don't want t' freeze out here.

She looked around her, but couldn't make out much of her surroundings in the moonless night. She could tell she was in a field of some kind. The ground was sparsely covered in grass, but the soil itself was cracked and frozen. She couldn't make out anything on the horizon, save for the ominous blankness where she gathered mountains must lie. She wasn't sure what direction Ponyville lay in, so she decided to follow the North Star and hope she came across some form of civilization. She wasn't hungry now, but she knew that wouldn't last. So, she set off, eyes on the ground to make sure didn't trip over anything. The ground seemed smooth, though, and free from debris, so she was able to make good time, despite the darkness.

---

She had been wandering for several hours, heading due north, as the terrain began to grow rougher. The sun was beginning to rise, and she was grateful for it, as she could see that the flat terrain soon gave way to rocky cliffs and crags. She sat for a moment, resting her tired hooves and waiting for the sun to rise so she could take stock of her options. The mountains weren't familiar to her, even in the growing sunlight, but she could see a narrow ravine cutting through two rocky peaks.

As good a path as any, I reckon. There's nothin' but desert on this side of the mountains, maybe it'll be greener on t'other

She wasn't sure of her own reasoning, but the notion gave her a small glimmer of hope, so she trotted off towards the ravine, hoping to, if nothing else, find a stream to quench her thirst from, if not a path to greener regions.

The sun was barely over the horizon, and the dark shadows from the ravine's walls clad the passage in a deep darkness. There was a stream, though it was shrunken and muddy, and Applejack decided to wait for clearer water. She wasn't desperately thirsty, not yet. But she worried that, as the sun rose, the air might heat and cause her to regret not drinking when she had the chance. Nonetheless, she'd seen the effect that unclean water had on cattle at times, and she decided that it wasn't worth the risk in the long run.

the ravine started out smooth and shallow, but it wasn't long before the walls reached high above her, and the rocks littering the ravine floor began to grow in size and number. It was only when she began to hear her hoofsteps echoing back at her from the ravine walls that she noticed the eerie silence that had followed her since she woke. There were no birds singing, no insects chirping. She hated to sound cliche, but it was too quiet. The silence began to unnerve her, but she clenched her teeth and pressed onward, the promise of cooler fields on the other side of the mountains urging her forward.

Suddenly, she stopped short. Her hoofsteps bounced back at her, and as the last echoes faded, she strained her ears against the silence. Nothing, other than the lazy trickle of water from the stream, but for a second there she thought she had heard... Something.

Shaking her head, and blaming her imagination, she pressed onward. There! Again! She definitely heard a sound, hoofsteps that, while similar to her own echoes, definitely did NOT belong to her. She whipped her head around, looking up at the high cliff tops, trying to find the source. She thought about calling out to the pony who was keeping itself hidden, but something in the pit of her stomach told her to hold her tongue, to not give herself away.

She continued at a measured pace, listening carefully to the sound of the echoes and trying to discern which belonged to her, and which to her mysterious fellow traveller. Or travelers.

She shivered. The wind began to pick up, and the sun, still behind the walls of the canyon, did little to keep her warm. The wind began to howl around her, drowning out the sounds that she had been straining to hear.

Something is wrong.

She felt it in her bones, though she couldn't say why the wind should unnerve her so. There was something about this place that just felt... wrong. She decided that she didn't want to be in this canyon any longer than she had to be, and began to pick up the pace. As she did, the wind grew as well, and she had to grab a hold of her hat to keep it from blowing off.

This ain't right. she thought, she saw icicles begin to form on the branches of the thick brush on either side. She locked her eyes, and then she saw it.

ahead of her, rearing up on its hind legs, was a.. Thing. Pony shaped, It appeared to be made of solid ice, but it moved with a wispy fluidity, and it was headed straight for her.

Applejack decided not to wait to see if the shape rushing towards her was friendly, and turned to run the opposite direction. The floor below her began to ice over, and Applejack found it hard to keep her footing, slipping and sliding on the suddenly frozen ground. She looked back in terror, and found herself taking a dive onto the frozen surface. The thing was much closer now, and she could feel the heat in the canyon drain into its body. She looked on with terror, unable to move, as the icy shape bored down on her.

She closed her eyes, bracing for the inevitable... When a burst of heat exploded in front of her. She could hear distant shouts, and the hair on her back singed as another ray of heat hit directly behind her. She rolled to her back and looked behind her, just in time to see a third beam, bright yellow and painful to look at, striking the icy figure directly in the chest. It let out an ear-piercing cry, and melted almost instantly into water that splashed over her and soaked her fur. She looked back, and saw the shapes that had been trailing her. High up on the ravine wall, their details were hard to make out, but she recognized them as ponies, two earth ponies and a unicorn, each with an odd array of metal strapped to their back, staring down at her. As she watched, they slung ropes off their back and began an odd rappelling motion down the canyon wall. Still wary, Applejack braced herself to run, just in case these ponies that had saved her life turned out to have less than noble intentions.

As they drew nearer, she could see that they were dirty and ragged. The weapons on their backs looked cobbled together. The two earth ponies carried what look like large tanks, connected via a series of tubes and valves to nozzles strapped to their fore legs. The unicorn's weapon looked slightly different, with a series of wires connected to a cone that covered her horn. The two earth ponies looked... Familiar, somehow. The first one on the ground, gray with a silver mane and a decorative spoon as a cutie mark and a wicked scar over one eye, looked at her intently.

"Are you crazy, coming out he on your own like this? What unit do you belong to?" the other two ponies finished their rappelling and faced either end of the ravine, scanning for more danger, their weapons held to their faces.

"What was that...thing?" Applejack waved off the barrage of questions, still unsure of what was happening. The lead pony just stared at her.

"Did you get hit in the head?" the unicorn spoke up now.

"Captain, ice clouds, to the south." the grey pony grabbed Applejack's hoof and started heading up the canyon.

"We'll let the General al with you. Now we need to hurry, if those Windigoes caught wind of us we won't have much time!" the pink earth pony took point, leading them along the stream, weapon held at the ready. The gray mare pulled Applejack onward,and the yellow unicorn took up the rear, casting worried glances to the plain and the dark clouds Applejack could see forming in the distance, drawing ever nearer.

---

Applejack didn't even realize they had arrived at their destination at first. The ponies that had been flanking her, vigilant for more attacks, the entire way, pulled up to stop for what Applejack thought was just a quick break, until much to her surprise the rock of the cliff face opened up, and two more ponies, each holding the same weapons as the ones who had escorted her, shot her a questioning look.

"Another refugee. Found her in the ravine." The guards accepted the captain's explanation, and let the four of them in, quickly sealing the cave entrance behind them. They trotted down a low tunnel before entering a large cavern, filled with ponies, mostly wretched-looking refugees like herself. She saw a few families, but mostly younger ponies, some keeping themselves busy, cooking or cleaning or chatting amongst themselves, but most of them just sat there, a haunted look in their eyes. Applejack couldn't stand to look at those for very long; it looked like the very fire had been extinguished in them, and all they were doing now was surviving.

The smell in the cave was intense, smoke and sweat and other, even less pleasant odors, hung in the air in a mist. What little ventilation the cave had barely served to keep the air from running out, but did nothing to dispel the evidence of too many ponies in too enclosed a space.

She gulped down the lump that had formed in her throat as the thought that had be clawing at the edges of her mind - that something terrible had happened to her hometown - resurfaced with a vengeance. She had managed to reject it so far, but the evidence now was undeniable. Something had happened, she was sure of it. And while she didn't recognize many of the ponies in the cave, she caught glimpses of one or two familiar faces that confirmed her worst fears.

The ponies who had rescued her paid little mind to the ponies in the cave, leading her instead straight through to another tunnel, then another, before pulling up to a well-lit room barred by a crude wooden door. The lead unicorn rapped on it three times, then took a step back as it swung open.

"Lieutenant Spoon to see the general."

"Proceed." The pegasus on the other side of the door stepped aside, and let them pass into the room on the other side, which looked to Applejack to be some sort of command center.

"So, this is the pony we heard rumors about?" the pony who had let them in, a bright blue filly, was looking at Applejack with a stare that made her slightly uncomfortable.

Spoon... why do I know that...?

The reality hit her like Big Mac hitting a tree during applebuck season. The reason the grey pony looked so familiar, the hair, the cutie mark. But how...? That pony is at least in her early twenties. There's no way that that's Silver Spoon!

somehow

But even in her denial she knew it was true. Everything about her, from the way she held her head to her gait... She knew this somehow was the same filly who her little Apple Bloom went to school with, just much, much older.

With this realization came another - the unicorn who had been standing at the door had the same coloration and name as Carrot Cake, the Cakes' little filly.

She gulped hard as she heard the hoofsteps coming towards her. A feeling deep in the pit of her stomach told her exactly what to expect when she turned around, but she still didn't want to believe it could be true. She shut her eyes and shook her head as the hoofsteps stopped just behind her.

That voice... it can't be... this isn't happening...

"This is her. Same cutie mark, see? And she looks just like she did in the pictures."

She finally willed herself to look at the pony whose drawl she could never mistake, not in a million years, even if the pitch was much lower than it should have been.

"Applejack? Sis, is that you?"