Chrysalis braced herself against the cold, her frost-bitten face practically disappearing into her woolly red scarf, as she wondered for the millionth time just what it was that had compelled her to agree to this chaotic little jaunt through the Whitetail Woods. The wind was fierce enough to almost knock her on to her behind, and her companion was lagging some way behind because her impractical-but-stylish purple boots continued to stick in the viscid mushiness of the deep snow. “Now would be a good time for you to grow a pair of wings, Twilight,” said Chrysalis mirthlessly, watching the girl – no, the young woman – negotiate each step with all the grace and finesse of a newly-calved deer.

        Through teeth that were gritted as much out of annoyance as the chilly weather, Twilight replied, “And now would be a good time for you to keep quiet and focus on walking.” Of all the people I could've gotten lost in the storm with it just had to be Chrysalis, didn't it? If she could've avoided taking in a mouthful of snow, she would've sighed in exasperation at this point. There were few people in the world who knew how to needle her as expertly as CHS' new vice-principal did.

        “Let's face it,” Chrysalis said, gently amused by the ire in Twilight's voice, whilst drawing to a halt and trying to peer through the hail, “we've probably been going around in circles ever since we first got separated from the rest of the group. You of all people will know that, without the sun or moon, or any other frame of reference for that matter, it's nigh impossible to keep to a straight line.”

        Panting hard, her warm breath quickly cooling to form ice crystals in front of her, Twilight had to sprint to catch up to where Chrysalis had stopped. Their fellow hikers – composed of a mixture of students and teachers from Canterlot High school – had, so they hoped, been able to forge ahead and make it to base camp before the blizzard had become too dangerous. With the countryside buried under several feet of snow, none of the markers depicted on their maps would be of any use. As much as she hated to admit it, Twilight knew that her companion was most likely correct: they were probably retracing their steps over and over again without realising it. Their footprints would be obliterated almost as soon as they left them by the rapidly falling hail.

        Luck was not on their side either; the storm had shown no signs of abating, and if the way the sky was rapidly darkening, despite it still being the middle of the afternoon, was any indication it was probably only going to get worse. Twilight huddled deeper inside her jacket, wishing desperately that she'd thought to bring a few more layers. Say, nine or ten. There had been nothing on the news about this kind of weather, and all the forecasts had shown that it would be mild for the rest of the week. Twilight was under the impression that this was yet another one of those freak storms that blew in from the Everfree Forest from time to time. Someone needs to do a proper survey of that place one day, she thought irritatedly. So many freak happenings seem to occur there.

        Of course, the Whitetail Woods weren't any better at the moment. If it hadn't been for the battering hail, the howling wind and the perilous snow, it might actually have been pretty to see the landscape swathed in an endless expanse of white.

        “Hey, uh.” Chrysalis frowned, suddenly unsure of what it was that she wanted to say. Not that she wanted to start thinking negatively or anything, but unless someone from CHS or the ranger service happened to accidentally stumble across them it was looking increasingly unlikely that she'd have the chance to say anything to anyone ever again. In these conditions you could barely see your own hand in front of your face, never mind find two people lost in the depths of the woods. “I, er, I want to apologise for all the crap I've given you since I got here.”

        Twilight paused, rather taken aback by what she'd just heard from her colleague. “You? Apologising?” She raised her eyebrow sardonically, though the fact that her face was frozen stiff made it more effort than the gesture was ultimately worth. “You don't think we're gonna make it out of this, do you?”

        “I'm being serious here,” Chrysalis said, her voice taking on a tone of mock-hurt as she playfully slapped Twilight on the arm. “I know I teased you a lot about being hot for teacher when Celestia asked you to be her new assistant after what happened to Luna and maybe I went a little bit overboard with it.”

        “Yeah, you were kind of a jerk to me,” Twilight replied, inclining her head slightly in agreement, though she felt far too tired, too cold and too drained to harbour any real sense of malice toward Chrysalis for her asinine behaviour. Plus, she reflected sagely, she just wasn't the sort of person to hold a grudge. What was the point? Besides, the huge crush that she had once held for Celestia while she'd been a student of CHS was so glaringly obvious that it was probably visible from some bizarre parallel universe accessible only by a portal in the school's courtyard. I need to stop eating Pinkie Pie's brownies.

        It was a crush that had quickly faded, however, much to Twilight's surprise; it had begun to disappear when Celestia had asked her to become the new vice-principal during Luna's absence. The principal had needed someone that could be relied upon as a friend, confidante, and was exceedingly thorough in every task assigned to them, no matter how trivial it may have seemed. Who better than the Princess of Books, as Twilight had been nicknamed due to her studious habits and fondness for libraries? “You'll probably end up living in a library,” was a much-loved taunt amongst her classmates.

        Chrysalis extended her gloved hand in Twilight's direction, interrupting the younger woman's reverie. “Friends?”

        “Friends.” Twilight took the proffered hand with a wry smile. “So. Have you made your peace, then?”

        “Yeah, I have no regrets,” replied Chrysalis, her own smile hidden underneath her scarf.

        Eventually, through the endless sea of white, they were able to discern the opening to a cave; it wasn't exactly an ideal shelter, but under the circumstances there wasn't a whole lot of choice when it came to places that they could hunker down until the storm passed. Any port in a storm, as the old saying went. “Of course,” Chrysalis said, shooting Twilight a surly look, “with our luck there'll be a ravenous bear in there that'll tear us apart the second we try to cross the threshold.”

        “Shall I call Fluttershy? She can talk down almost anything,” replied Twilight, feeling a slight pang of regret the moment she mentioned the name. “Or Rainbow Dash? She could barrel through all this snow until we got to safety.” She suppressed a sigh as she reminisced over her dear friends, all of them having long since moved on from Canterlot to new places.

        “Come on.” Chrysalis grabbed the recalcitrant Twilight's arm and urged her inside the safety of the cave. “You'll catch your death if you stay out there much longer.”

        “Oh.” Twilight shook her head to clear the sudden downpour of memories she was being deluged with. “Right.”

*

        The cave wasn't very deep, but it was incredibly narrow, thus Twilight and Chrysalis were forced into some uncomfortably close quarters in order to get far enough into the hollow so that the worst of the wind and snow could no longer reach them. They placed their backpacks in front of the entrance to provide additional protection from the elements; in the end, apart from the sharp rocks digging into their legs and backs, it was actually pretty cosy. “If only we'd packed a picnic, huh?”

        “How long d'you think this'll go on for?” asked Twilight, ignoring Chrysalis' forced attempt at levity, wishing that she could stretch out her aching joints, but she was prevented from doing so by both the tightness of the cave and the proximity of Chrysalis. Any sudden moves and one of them was likely to end up maimed.

        “Damned if I know,” replied Chrysalis heatedly, feeling the effects of the cavern a little more acutely than Twilight. She'd hated small spaces ever since she was a child. “They average about four or five hours, but given that this is a freak storm that no one predicted-” she made a hesitant noise in the back of her throat before adding “-some of them have been known to last for days on end.”

        “D-Days?” Twilight's eyes widened in fear. Surviving five hours, even in the relative safety provided by the cave, was going to be a big ask, but days?

        Putting as much scholarly authority into her voice as she could muster – which wasn't a whole lot, truth be told, because she'd always preferred to take a more laid back, nonchalant approach both at work and at home – Chrysalis looked Twilight straight in her pretty mulberry eyes and said, “Look, all we can do right now is relax and try to keep our spirits up. Whether it's for hours or days, we are gonna be stuck here for a while and our energy is too precious to waste on fretting.”

        For just a moment, Twilight looked at Chrysalis in exactly the same way that she used to look at Celestia. She shook her head as soon as she realised what she was doing and blushed, hoping that her companion hadn't noticed her staring. The family resemblance was easy to see … sometimes. “Right. You're absolutely right.” She took a deep breath and found, to her surprise, when she blew it out that a lot of her nervousness had dissipated along with the rapidly evaporating crystals of ice. “So, uh, should we do something to pass the time?”

        “Like what?”

        “Um, we could play a game? Or tell stories? I mean, we're gonna end up going stir crazy pretty quickly if we don't find something to keep our minds occupied.”

        “Fancy a game of I Spy?” Chrysalis asked sarcastically.

        “I'm glad you haven't lost your impeccable sense of humour, anyway,” Twilight replied with a roll of her eyes.

        Chrysalis pulled her knees up to her chest and folded her arms around them in order to keep as much warmth in as possible; she hoped that the scant shards of light creeping in around their backpacks would not be enough for Twilight to see her properly, to see just how on edge she was, and she rapidly came to the conclusion that a distraction would be most welcome at the moment. “Fine. Tell me a story. How are things going with Dreamy McCuteBottom?”

        “With who?” Twilight's eyes narrowed as she ran through a mental checklist of all the people that she knew; it took a moment, but then she remembered the stupid nickname some snotty girls had come up with after his, ahem, energetic dance moves during a music contest a few years back. “Flash Sentry, you mean?”

        “Yeah, him. The two of you seemed pretty tight, from what I heard. When you weren't swooning over Celestia, that is.”

        “I thought you were gonna stop doing that?” Twilight said darkly.

        “Sorry, habit. Anyway, spill.”

        Once upon a time, it would've been a sore subject to contemplate, but time, as it always did, had salved the wound. Her one foray into the world of dating. “He was too hung up on another girl. His first girlfriend, in fact. I suppose if I'd been a bit less naïve about romance, I would've cottoned on a lot quicker than I did to the fact that he wasn't really satisfied with me.” Twilight laughed sourly. “Actually, I haven't even thought about him that much lately. I mean, I was definitely heartbroken at first, but after a while it seemed pointless to bemoan the fact that he'd ditched me for her. Honestly, I hope both he and Sunset Shimmer are happy now.” She shot Chrysalis a look. “How about you? Seeing anyone?”

        Shifting awkwardly, as much due to the cave as Twilight's question, Chrysalis said, “Me? Nah. Free spirit. I don't go in for all that mushy stuff.”

        “Rainbow Dash used to have that exact same attitude, you know?” replied Twilight. “Look at her now: married, still maintaining her career, and expecting her first child. She used to worry about settling down, and it took a lot to convince her that being in a relationship doesn't necessarily mean having to give up your freedom.”

        If she got out of this alive, Twilight decided that the first thing that she was going to do was look up all her old friends and arrange some kind of reunion party at Sugarcube Corner. It had been so long since they'd seen each other properly; after college, they'd promised to stay in touch, but as always real life happened and got in the way. Still, what sane individual could resist the siren call of Sugarcube Corner's hot chocolate and pastries? It would be heaven.

        “You're drooling,” said Chrysalis dryly. “I wouldn't mind, but since we don't have a lot of space and I'd rather we didn't die by drowning.”

        “Hm? Oh!” Twilight wiped away the sticky film of saliva collecting on her chin with her gloved hand and looked sheepish. “Sorry, I was thinking about Sugarcube Corner.”

        “Ah, say no more,” replied Chrysalis knowingly. “I would commit murder to get at one of their pecan pie slices right about now.”

        A hideous, echoing rumble filled the cave at that moment, and for a split-second Chrysalis was afraid that the bear she'd prophesied earlier had come for them at last. “What the …?”

        “Uh.” Twilight blushed and patted her stomach gently, wishing that she'd been in charge of the backpack with the supplies in it. “Maybe we shouldn't discuss food?”

        “Good plan,” Chrysalis said wisely and quickly changed the subject to something less likely to provoke furious debate. “So. Sunset Shimmer, eh? She was kind of a Queen Bee, from what I've heard said about her around the school, and I'm not talking about the insect variety either.”

        “You're one to talk. Ow.”

        The Ow had been elicited from the younger woman by a sharp poke in her ribs courtesy of Chrysalis' bony elbow. The older woman shot her companion a nasty smirk. “You deserved that.”

        “Fair enough,” said Twilight, wincing slightly, not quite able to shake the feeling that Chrysalis was possibly overreacting to her comment. Still, for the sake of her sides, she wasn't about to say that to her. She shook her head. “But yeah, Sunset Shimmer was a little bit difficult when she first transferred to CHS. Once you got to know her, though, she was actually quite a decent person. Acerbic, but nice. I mean, she'd had kind of a rough childhood and liked to keep people at a distance unless she felt that she could really trust them. It took a lot of perseverance for anyone to get close to her, though she finally did mellow out during her last couple of years at school. Mostly, the staff just remember the worst aspects of her, unfortunately.”

        “I didn't have such a great childhood either,” Chrysalis replied, once again glad of the fact that Twilight wasn't able to see her face properly. “That doesn't give you a license to treat others however you want. Over a certain age, you can't just keep blaming your parents for your crappy decisions any more, you know? People will look to any excuse, no matter how pathetic, in order to justify their poor life choices to themselves.”

        “What was it like? Your childhood, I mean?” Off Chrysalis' look, Twilight said, “You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, of course. I was just curious.” Like I am about everything. I should learn to just keep my big trap shut. “It's, well … neither Celestia nor Luna have ever spoken much about it, and I never even knew that you existed until I was sent to Palomino Creek to fetch you.”

        “Oh,” Chrysalis said, rather surprised about that. “It wasn't anything terrible, really. I was just kinda … forgotten about, I suppose.” She rubbed the back of her neck, unsure as to how best to put her difficult thoughts into words. Or whether she should even do so at all. It wasn't something that Chrysalis had ever felt a need to talk about before, and she hadn't ever expected to either.

        That said, the look from Twilight Sparkle was difficult to ignore. What continued to astonish her was the knowledge that it wasn't even out a misguided sense of politeness, or the base-level sympathy a teacher was expected to display when confronted with a problem, but the actual, genuine empathy that a person could only ever be born with.

        “What you say to me won't leave this cave,” Twilight said, putting her hand on Chrysalis'.

        “That might literally become the case,” Chrysalis said, listening intently to the continued roar of the wind just beyond the frail barrier of their backpacks. “Our parents-” subconsciously she took Twilight's hand in her own and idly played with her fingers as the memories washed over her “-they were always very driven people, and it was pretty obvious to them, even from a young age, that I wasn't really measuring up to the standards that had been set by my older sisters. Hardly a day went by without one of them berating me for not getting as high a mark on a test as they believed I should, or for neglecting my after-school pursuits.” Chrysalis let out a breath she didn't even realise that she was holding. Her chest felt heavy and the beat of her heart quickened.

        Twilight said nothing, feeling that Chrysalis still had more to say, judging by the way that she was gripping her hand tighter, anyway.

        “Growing up, you think that what your family does is normal, right? I tried to speak to Celestia and Luna about it, but just like our parents, they were compelled to succeed, to always be the best at everything. They couldn't understand why I wasn't pushing myself as hard, why I wasn't … more like them.” Chrysalis sighed, letting go of Twilight's hand in the process and turning away. “First chance I got, I was out of there, did every terrible job imaginable to put myself through college, and wasn't it just my luck that I happened to end up getting a job under my sisters at CHS? Things were actually good for a while, too. Until, that is, I got myself fired.”

        After a long moment, Twilight finally said, “I'm so sorry that you had to go through that.”

        “It's cool,” Chrysalis replied with a thin smile. “I turned out all right in the end.”

        “People have this crazy notion that, so long as they aren't physically abusing someone, then it's fine, that it won't lead to any long-lasting repercussions,” said Twilight, trying to keep a lid on her temper, “but they're wrong. The scars of psychological abuse run deeper than anything else, leaving their mark on you long into adulthood. Pushing someone to fulfil their potential is one thing, but pushing just for the sake of it is never good.”

        It wasn't often that Twilight thought about her own formative years; for want of a better word, they had been perfect: her parents had never argued, as far as she knew, at least not about anything serious. Her older brother, Shining Armour, had always been looking out for her, even rushing to her aid whenever she was bullied at school. And her former babysitter, Cadance, was just about the sweetest, kindest soul on the planet. Add to that, five of the best friends one could ever hope for, and the most loyal, attentive dog it was possible to imagine.

        “Still, suffering through that might have been preferable to the alternative that I found for myself,” Chrysalis said quietly. “Leaving home so young, not having anywhere else to go, I ended up getting myself into one bad relationship after another.” Names and faces flashed before her eyes: Tirek, Sombra, Discord, Starlight Glimmer. She had a talent, it seemed, for attracting the worst possible people. Manipulative, emotionally-needy, cruel. “They'd start out all right at first, but as soon as they got what they wanted from me, they were quick to turn into monsters. That's why I've not been in a relationship for a long time. I don't want to take the chance on giving my heart to someone only for them to step on it.” She let out a pent-up sigh. “Sorry for dumping all of this on you.” That said, Chrysalis did feel a lot better for having got all of this off her chest at last.

        “I just wish I could do something more practical to help,” Twilight said morosely. “If you ever want to talk more, I'll be there for you.”

        “If you really wanna help me right now, you could let me use you as a pillow,” Chrysalis said, her mood changing in a moment as she arched her back against an outcropping of rock until a satisfying click reverberated through her spine. “I'm bushed.”

        “Yes, Your Majesty,” said Twilight with a slight shake of her head. She nonetheless lifted up her arm to allow Chrysalis to rest her head against her side, however; with nothing else for it, once the woman had gotten herself into a snug half-sitting/half-lying position, she let the arm go around Chrysalis' shoulders. “Comfy?”

        “Eh,” Chrysalis said, sounding uncertain, “I suppose it'll do.” Despite her teasing, however, she was already beginning to nod-off, and she offered Twilight a tired smile. “You might want to get some shut-eye, too. From the sounds of things out there, this storm's going to go on for at least the rest of the night.”

        So wrapped up had she been in Chrysalis' story, Twilight had completely forgotten about the storm raging outside; she shifted her legs until they were a bit more comfortable, and less prone to having her legs jabbed by the plethora of stones dotted around the cave floor, then placed her head atop Chrysalis'. The wind blowing past, coupled with Chrysalis' light breathing, was oddly comforting and the sounds lulled Twilight to sleep.

        Just before drifting off, she heard three mumbled words, “Thank you, Twilight.”