Twilight felt her stomach dropping in her abdomen, and suddenly traded the void of the portal around her for a cold, stinging atmosphere. She fell a miniscule distance to the earth, looking up after landing to see the abyss of the portal closing into a singularity above her, then disappearing altogether.

She shivered; the sudden switch from the warm shelter of the library to this harsh cold was a bit drastic, and quickly, she produced the scarf and the parka she'd packed minutes earlier. She dressed quickly, and the bite of the temperature shifted from nipping at the entirety of her body to only her exposed flanks and rear legs, essentially going from unbearable cold to something much more manageable.

Dressed appropriately now, the lavender unicorn stood to get her bearings, but was surprised when her hoof falls squished into the ground. She looked down, and saw she was standing on a soft, moist bed of moss.

She was in a marsh of some sort, damp and heavy with fog, and wet from the water that collected in between the patches of lichen and moss; there was no grass, nor any trees, only rocks and spongy plants and fungus. The mist prevented her from seeing very far, maybe thirty feet or so, technically zero-visibility. All that she could see was the marsh, not exactly lively but far from dead, and she imagined it went off in all directions without end.

Twilight sighed; she'd expected to be dropped in the mountains, or at least hills of some sort. Instead, she'd been teleported to a basin, a wet, cold, miserable one at that.

"Oh well," she said to herself at last, shrugging as she removed her saddlebags again.

Twilight reached into the rucksacks of her luggage and produced a map, the only one she'd had of the general area she now occupied. Had it been a topographical map, she could have pinpointed, at least generally, her location with relative ease, but, the piece of paper she had now was more of an illustration than an actual map.

The top of the paper was barren except for the drawings of high rising mountains, spanning the space between the areas marked 'Equestria' and 'The Crystal Empire'. The bottom of the map held familiar names alongside exaggerated illustrations, 'Neighagra Falls', 'Hollow Shades', and 'Cloudsdale', taking up the very bottom of the paper. The middle was filled with drawings of winding blue rivers and lakes; an unnamed drainage basin. She figured that was where she was now, between civilization and the uninhabited mountainous border, somewhere in the midst of the marshlands.

The lack of detail irritated her, but she at least had something to work with. She needed to get to the mountains; the Windriders would somewhere amidst the peaks, which the marsh was completely lacking. North was her only destination.

"Those mountains will be pretty hard to miss," she thought to herself, and prepared for an extensive hike.

She retrieved her compass, and turned her body until its needle pointed to the north. Then, one eye on her compass and the other on where she stepped, she began slowly crossing the marsh, making her way towards the concealed mountains of the north.

Spike, lying on the floor of his bedroom, lazily awoke. His eyes followed his nostrils open as he smelled the sweet essence of breakfast. Pancakes and syrup, and...were those cinnamon roles?

He rolled over onto his belly, ignoring the dragon-shaped hole left in his wall, and trotted downstairs.

"Twilight must be trying to cheer me up," he thought to himself, "She knows how much I like breakfast food other than cereal."

Spike walked past the main cavern of the oak, and went straight for the kitchen. He opened the door eagerly, and went to thank the unicorn before he was fully through its threshold.

"Thanks Twilight, this is so nice. I needed thi... Princess Celestia?"

Twilight felt the damp of the fog leave her before she saw its unveiling, and suddenly was able to see the mountain range before her.

Without much of a change in the landscape, the mountains just suddenly started, seeming to shoot up straight up through the marsh. Their face was dark green up to the tree line, at which point the overwhelming grey of the rocks took dominance in the color scheme. The tops of the mountains were white, not with snow but with clouds.

Twilight suddenly felt as an insignificant speck in the face of the sheer immensity of the mountains. Looking up at their majesty, they were all titanic in size, but there was one that dwarfed them all. Miles away, and it still appeared bigger than the ones she looked straight up at now. It was bigger than the size of the next three closest mountains in height, and the next four in width.

Twilight shook her eyes from the clouds the mountain ascended into, and reiterated the instructions to her destination; 'where the earth meets the sky, and the realms of beasts and ponies meet in harmony, dragons and ponies alike ride the wind.'

From now on, navigation was simple. She stowed her compass, as she only had one place to go; up.

She shrugged her saddlebags into place, and began the trek towards the colossal mountain.

The dragon stood mouth gaping as he saw the regal alicorn standing in front of a griddle, a towering stack of flapjacks on the counter at her side and more in the pan she gripped in her magic.

"Oh, good morning Spike," she said as she jerked the pan upwards, the trio of flapjacks within flying up, turning in the air to be caught on their uncooked sides in the cast iron pan once again.

She began to set the table, Spike still standing in disbelief at the bizarre spectacle of the princess cooking.

The alicorn herself placed the pancakes on the table, and plopped a generous heap of them onto her own plate, eating hungrily once a coating of maple syrup had been applied.

"Is something wrong?" she asked the drake, still standing in the doorway with a loose maw.

He was unable to speak; rather, he pointed at the monumental tribute to the god of flapjacks on the table, then to the oven, then at the princess, who was still eating hungrily.

"What?" she asked, moving the food in her mouth to her cheek, "I got hungry."

Spike, shut his mouth, seeming to accept the explanation by his cocked brow.

"Aren't you going to eat?" the princess asked, pointing with her fork to the pile of pancakes and the empty plate on the table

Spike shrugged and sat down, helping himself to a few griddle cakes, and began munching away, forgetting about manners as the princess seemed to be doing the same.

"Do you ever cook?" he asked to receive a questioning look.

"Do you not like my cooking?" she asked, as if she were offended.

"No, it's very good," he said, swallowing hard, "It's just, ya know, I always kind of figured that princesses would have somepony cook for them," the princess smiled to herself, "I thought princesses just kind of sat in the dining room elegantly waiting to be served, like a fancy restaurant all the time."

"To be honest, most of the time it is like that," the princess confessed, "But when I can indulge, I do. Being on your best behavior all the time is a bit tiring, so when the chance to be informal comes around, I seize it," the princess acted as if she were grabbing onto some invisible foe, her voice oddly determined and serious, "In the palace we call it a lazy day; everypony in the palace knows to throw formality to the wind when they come around."

Spike seemed to understand, and shoveled more food into his mouth. Then, he heard the door open in the library, accompanied by a masculine voice and the metallic jingling of armor.

"You're sure the princess is here?...I smell pancakes."

"Lazy Day!" called out the princess with a bit of pancake in her cheek.

"Aww yeah!" came a another voice, excited by the sound of his tone.

A trio of armored earth pony stallions came plodding through the door, two of them wearing copper helmets that were a size too big, and the third carrying it on his shoulders. They were all smiling widely.

"What up Tia!" yelled one of them excitedly, obviously the youngest and smallest of the group while the other two began eating from the recently prepared breakfast without waiting to be invited.

"What up Sparks."

Spike was shocked by how naturally the response came from the princess. The colt she addressed was beige and skinny, the color of his mane revealed to be blonde when he threw off his bronze helmet.

"So, you sent for us?" rumbled the largest of the group, the one carrying his helmet.

He spoke in serenading bass notes, and had glossy black fur alongside a rich brown mane. He was eating hungrily like the one at his side, a red stallion of medium build with a rust colored mane, the only one still wearing his copper colored head casing.

"Yes, did you all get the electricity lines repaired?"

"Yeah Sparks worked his magic," answered the third, while the colt still standing slapped his chest twice and pointed to the ceiling in success.

"Good, once you're finished eating I have another assignment for you, an easy one this time."

"Yes!" celebrated all three in unison, while Spike felt himself coming to already like them.

They were at ease and seemed professional, as well as fun.

"So, what're we doin'?" asked the youngest, just now sitting down to begin eating.

"Dragon sitting."

"Wait, what? Why?" asked Spike suddenly, nearly choking on a chunk of pancake.

"Spike, these two stallions and one colt," she said, looking at Sparks as she emphasized 'colt' to prompt a simultaneous, "Burn" from both of his comrades, "will be looking out for you for a while."

All three of the guards looked at the dragon in synchronization, who was utterly confused.

"This is Sparks," she said pointing to the young colt, still blushing from the not-so vicious verbal assault he'd received from Celestia earlier, "Barns," she said as the red stallion nodded, "and Sarge."

"Wait, your name's Sarge?" asked the dragon.

"Yes," said the black stallion immediately.

"No really. What's your real name?"

The black stallion stared at him menacingly, putting his fork down on the table with a *clink*. From behind Sarge's plane of view, Barns flashed his hoof across his throat, a worried look on his face as he signaled for the dragon to drop the subject.

"Ok, so why do Sparks, Barns and Sarge," Spike looked at the black stallion as he spoke to make sure he knew he'd accepted his title without any further question, "have to look after me? I mean, where's Twilight?"

Celestia swallowed before she looked at the drake.

"Probably half way up a mountain a few hundred miles from here."

"What!?"

Author's Notes:

Hey guys, I hope you've liked it so far. I've decided to do two separate story lines here; one from Twilight's perspective, and the other from Spike's.
More coming soon. Thanks for reading.