Author's Notes:

You'll want to read the story description if you are returning to this story. If this is your first read-through from 10/24/2015 then don't mind this comment~

"I suppose if your so excited we can skip any more yakking and get to the fun part." I quickly find out that Yaks are a people to our direct west that mother explicitly explains "You will not step within 60 miles of!" Oh mindlink, all you do is oppress me when I ask a question. On task, on task Swift! I bring myself back to the present and nod my head. "Yeah, lets go. Move it!" Maybe I'm being too rushed? "Alright Sister, follow me and don't lose sight of me. We're moving in a snow storm to camp behind a ridge a ways from the city just like we was planned. Our collectors in the city say Sombra has been missing a couple days so this is a good time to get near the city."

I nod my head, pretending to be patient. "Alright alright, sounds good." My companions all seem amused. Stupid link and its stupid subconscious communications. I press it out of my mind and march toward the exit we happened to be taking. A hidden angled entryway in the side of a mountain on the south side of the hive. When I say hidden I mean a snow covered forest of pine trees and a flurry of glistening white agents of cold flying all around. Fury quickly catches up to me and takes the lead when I realize I have no idea where I'm going. Crunching snow under his hoof as he advanced into snowstorm. I follow behind, my ever helpful brother Flurry on my right and Withering Blur...Out of sight. When I ping for her in the link she gives me a flash of her vision. She is apparently somewhere forward of where we are, searching around for anything near us. Wow, Mother wasn't kidding about my safety.

I follow alongside Flurry, deciding to make small talk over the link. "So uhh, what do you do normally as your job before I...I guess I repurposed you huh?" He doesn't show any sign of me speaking to him next to me, but he responds over the link, his actual body still glancing around us in the thick blanket of flying snow and howling wind. "I am a caregiver for new hatches, like you. Not usually assigned to outside jobs though, I much more enjoy teaching your brothers and sisters things that the link just can't." I scrunch up my nose, but he doesn't seem to notice, so I vocalize my confusion. "What do you mean? What can't the link teach me?" Again, he seems more interested in watching out surroundings instead of looking at me to speak. "For one, how to fly. As you can personally attest to. It can't teach muscle memory or practice. Only concept and book smarts." Books? Oh. Books. The mindlink must just be cheating at this point. "Yeah, books. Anyway, it can't teach you wisdom. I help young ones fly or run, teach them what they can't know through just information."

I am pleased with his answer, nodding my head and sending him a taste of my appreciation, as useless as inter-emotional contact was. It was an easy and fast way of communication. He returned the favor almost automatically. But before I could think of another topic Fury interrupted with a signal through link to listen up. "Withering Blur has sight of a snow giant skirting the mountain west of us, its watching down into the forest, we're going to need to take the long way east and down toward the city." Snow giants...Yeah, huge muscled monsters in small numbers that hunted and survived only this far north. Covered in thick coats of fur and blubbery skin, I ping Blur for a image of it. I instantly get a image of a large figure outlined even in the snow moving distinctly in the distance.

"T-that thing must be five times bigger than mother!" I look at it in disbelief, watching the live images coming in. "It would be about seven times actually, it's a full grown adult after all. It'll most likely have fully formed tusk teeth at that size, so no way we can overpower it without any magical energy." I already know why we can't do that, so I leave it at that, letting Fury use his experience to lead us on a safer path. "So snow giants...Do you know where they live?" He looks down at me. "Usually they create dugout dens down in these forests, can't handle the temperatures in the ice formations where the hive is hidden or high in the mountains. They aren't terribly intelligent either, not known to often speak any language. But I've heard of pony stories that spoke of some that could speak." I purse my lips, knowing I'm going to regret asking the next question. "What do they eat? Besides the obvious."

"Well lets see, foxes, wild cats and wolves, deer and ponies. They've been known to eat Yaks too...But uhh they haven't ever been known to eat any lings. Thank goodness. Unfortunately what they do instead isn't too much better. They get very violent when any see a ling, it's almost a ballistic fear that just takes control of them. But instead of running it almost always leads to conflict." Woah, quite an infodump there Flurry, jeez. I decide to stop questioning about it, not for lack of drive to, but because I'd heard everything I could think to ask. I look ahead to Fury to question him over the link. "Uhm..How much longer do we have?"

"Little miss you better be ready for a couple more hours of this because of that giant. I'd settle into step if I were you."