The hole in his hood had closed. During the long night filled with terror, Tarnish had sewn it up with fine, tiny stitches that would cause the fabric to self-repair. Seeing it was reassuring, he was getting good at this, and what he stitched together repaired with rapidity. His tiny, perfect stitches concentrated magic in an area. Vinyl could have done the same in mere seconds with a repair spell, but Tarnish wanted the practice.

The constant explosions that happened throughout the night allowed him to practice working under pressure. For most of the night, they awaited an attack that never came. Some of the explosions had been quite loud, and close as well. Tarnish’s ears were still ringing a bit, and he hoped that he didn’t have hearing damage.

Now, it was time to go outside and investigate. It was cold inside of the cave and he knew that it would be even colder outside. In silence, he put on his cloak and secured it around his body. It was a piece of practical, functional clothing, like his pith helmet. The voluminous cloak allowed hot air to rise, becoming trapped beneath its folds, and the pockets of warm air made for an excellent insulator.

Tarnished Teapot was a pony schooled for survival.

Jungles, the tundra, the wilds of Equestria, volcanic wastelands, and now, boreal forests. If he could somehow survive this, it would be another notch on his saddlebag strap, so to speak. The experience he gained from this would only make it that much harder to kill him. He was the unwanted weed, he was poison joke.

“Vinyl, you ready?” Tarnish asked as he turned to look at his companion. “It’s probably lethal outside and the door is frozen shut. I know it’ll be a big drain, but we have plenty of those awful ration bars. Are you ready to radiate heat with your magic?”

Bundled up, Vinyl nodded and her hooded head bobbed up and down. The temperature inside the cave was just above zero degrees with Vinyls’ superheated rocks, rocks that could sizzle your backside should you bump up against them. At least it wasn’t so humid in here and the air was breathable, even if it smelled awful.

Gritting his teeth, Tarnish waited for Vinyl to unfreeze the door.

Tarnish’s head popped up out of the snow and he had himself a look around, very much like a wary arctic hare. The cave was completely buried and Tarnish realised that if he hadn’t added the ventilation pipe when he did, they might have suffocated. He looked left, then right, scanning for danger. It was cold. There was no wind, the sun was shining, and it was freezing.

Yards of snow had fallen through the night.

After some looking around, Tarnish noticed a curious sight. Some of the trees were just snapped in half. The stumps were visible, poking up out of the snow, and various tree bits were sticking up out of the powder. Tarnish let out a startled cry as Daring Do shoved him out so she could come topside and have a look around.

“Outtathaway, goon!” Daring Do commanded as her head popped up out of the hole.

Scrambling, Tarnish sank down into the powder a ways until he hit the hard glazed layer. The snow was in layers, powder, a glazing of hard ice, more powder, he knew this by digging up through it. Reaching down the hole, he grabbed Vinyl and hauled her up with his telekinesis. A moment later, Rainbow scrambled out.

Even with Vinyl providing some magical heat, Tarnish could feel the cold gnawing away at his clothing. Still looking about, the out of doors looked like a war zone, and he had trouble believing what he was seeing. What had caused the trees to explode? Had it been the cold?

“Holy alicorn shit!” Rainbow’s voice was a bit raspy and muffled from her scarf. “I think we had a frozen microburst… I bet the temperatures dropped down to almost one-hundred degrees below zero. This is why the pegasus ponies have to control the weather… if we didn’t, the weather would do this and a lot of ponies and other creatures would die.”

Tarnish believed it.

“How does this happen?” Daring Do asked.

“Weather!” Rainbow shouted and she laughed. “There is warm air higher up, much warmer air, because the jet stream has places where it comes up to the arctic. In the jet stream, there is a lot of warm, moist air. It collides with the pockets of freezing, dry air in the many valleys of these mountain peaks and that produces deadly storms. If you get just the right conditions, you get a frozen microburst, where a microburst forms in the upper atmosphere and then drops down into a swirling vortex of freezing air. From what I know and have read, it causes explosive cold and can drop ten to twenty feet of snow in a small area.”

“Sounds unpleasant.” Tarnish wobbled a bit, then found his balance. “Yet another way Skyreach kills all who come here. We’re still alive though, so fronk you nature, fronk you right in your dirty, dingleberry encrusted ass!”

“Um, Tarnish, should you be saying that as a druid?” Daring Do asked.

“Nature can go get horned!” he bellowed in reply. “Ugh”—shuddering, he shook his head—“I hate nature!”

“Okay then… right.” Daring Do made a gesture. “Dig out the sledge. Time to take advantage of the sunshine and Mrs. Scratch’s radiant heat spell. We have a lot of work to do, so it is time to pony up. Let us away to the Endeavour!”

The corpse of the Endeavour had a heavy dusting of fluffy powder. Tarnish looked at the ruined ship and felt a sense of sadness. For a moment, he even felt guilty about complaining about her bunks, small and cramped though they had been. Straining, he lifted another load onto the sledge.

Daring Do insisted on taking everything that was left in one go. Tarnish wasn’t sure it could be done, but Daring was confident that the loose, fluffy powder would allow it to happen. Vinyl was already showing some signs of fatigue from the constant, steady power drain of her radiant heat spell.

It was warming up, but not by much. No matter how much it warmed, there were bitter, moist winds that blew down upon them from up above. These winds lanced like daggers through their warm clothing and chilled them. Each time it blew, Tarnish thought about what Rainbow had said, how freezing microbursts were formed. To Tarnish, it seemed that Skyreach was just trying to catch its breath before it tried to kill them again.

And it would try to kill them again.

It wasn’t enough to survive, they had to explore. Tarnish was already making plans to this end. The problem was the limited amount of daylight and the brutal temperatures. It was possible to go out at night, but dangerous. Tarnish had done it, and had burned a few chemical warmers tucked into his pockets. Vinyl had her radiant heat spell, but it drained her and left her quite weak.

There had to be a door someplace that automatons came in and out of. Of course, going into a door where automatons came out of was its own special kind of crazy, but Tarnish was that sort of pony. Blinking, he realised that the sledge was full and he had zoned out. Vinyl was securing Rainbow Dash and Daring Do to the sledge with ropes.

It was time to go.

Daring Do and Rainbow Dash were somehow pulling the overloaded sledge. Progress was slow, but they inched forwards. Tarnish and Vinyl walked, staying close to Daring Do and Rainbow Dash, as Vinyl’s spell used a lot more power if she extended the range. Vinyl was starting to stagger a bit in the snow and Tarnish feared the impending burnout.

She was drinking a runny, gritty gruel made from the 4K bars, which Vinyl loathed. Tarnish watched as she pulled away her scarf for a moment, exposing her red, chapped muzzle, and took a swallow. The best that he could do was keep her drink hot, which didn’t feel like very much, but it was better than doing nothing.

Vinyl mouthed the word, “Semen.” She then shook her head, shuddered, and pulled the heavy folds of her scarf back over her muzzle.

Feeling bad for his friend, Tarnish lifted her and ignored her little hoofy-kicks of protest. She went still as he laid her over his back, as she didn’t want to kick him, and he could feel her bundled up face pressing into his heavy clothing. There wasn’t much to Vinyl, she was slight and thin, nothing at all like Maud, who was heavy on his back. Maud actually weighed more than he did, but it was a fact that he never brought up in conversation.

Watching Vinyl kick her legs triggered a memory for Tarnish. He thought of Pebble and the first time he had bathed her. Holding her over the water had caused all four of her stubby little legs to kick, and he had learned that full grown adult ponies did the same thing. Octavia however was not pleased with his little science experiment, but she did look so adorable as she kicked her legs over the tub. Vinyl had even snapped a picture of it, and Octavia vowed revenge.

Octavia’s revenge was forthcoming and Tarnish hoped that he would live to suffer.

Author's Notes:

Hoofy-kicks.