Tia wasted no time in addressing the concerns I had brought up. The first thing she did was sort ponies into work groups based on experience. The farmer majority of the villagers were split into foragers and manual laborers. The foragers went out in organized teams to sections of the surrounding wilderness to find whatever they could find, they brought in whatever they found. The rest of the farmers spent time managing the camp, repairing carts or cutting wood for campfires, which they systematically tended to keep everypony warm. Any pony with experience in cooking, weaving, or medicine were further divided into smaller groups, focusing on cooking what food could be gathered, making more cloaks and sheets out of plant fibers, or tending to the wounded.

But for this first day of Tia’s government, we were only given a few hours to gather what we could before we left.

Who knew if the Loyalist Unicorns would pursue the survivors to finish what they started?

By noon, the camp had been repacked and stowed away. The foraging groups had returned, and whatever they found had been given over to those who would make the best use of it. Even as the carts began to move, weavers had begun to twist plant fibers together in the back of their carts. The makeshift tents that had been erected over the carts were kept in place, to better keep the ponies inside warm. Whatever cloaks that had been scavenged had been given to the ponies who had been assigned to pull the carts or act as patrols along the caravan’s edge.

I myself had been given an intact set of plank armor, and a sliver of white willow bark for my ongoing headache, in addition to the ratty cloak I had found myself with. I chewed on the bark as I was hitched to one of the carts that had a group of mares weaving a fiber mat inside. To my surprise however, the pony I had woken up next to, Summer Glow, was also hitched at my side to the same cart.

“Hi!” she chirped, her own cloak covering her own set of armor.

“Oh… Um. Hi?” I responded, feeling my face heat up as I remembered how she snuggled next to me.

The mare giggled for some reason but otherwise fell silent.

I found myself thinking. 'Ponies were weird.'

Tia had put herself into the lead cart as the caravan left the abandoned campsite, heading South. Her reasoning, she had explained, was that no pony knew what lay this far South. Without knowledge of where they were going, it was very difficult to decide on a safe path. So she put herself in the front, along with several ponies who spent long periods of time in the wild. All the better to navigate.

The only problem with that plan turned out to be that several of the ponies on hoof were needed to stomp down the snow that had fallen. Thankfully, the snow had stopped falling, but the frigid cold remained.

The journey South continued in much the same manner.

By day, we traveled. Foragers would spread out behind the caravan and make use of the time to find whatever they could. Occasionally a cart would get stuck, giving them more time to search the area. By night we set up camp and ate what we dared. Nuts, budding leaves, grasses if they happened to be green enough, the foragers were lucky to find a small patch of mushrooms even.

It was barely enough.

Just enough to not starve. Everypony woke up hungry, and went to bed hungry. What little stored food that could be saved rarely lasted more than a day.

The true boons came when some manner of monster decided to try its luck.

Most of us were wounded, this was true, and the smell of so much blood attracted monsters like flies. Most of the smaller ones kept their distance. The survivors numbered too many for the weakest monsters to gamble with. But sometimes, something like a cragodile or manticore decided it wanted an easy meal. With all the armor and makeshift weapons though, they only ever wounded Ponies before they were slain in turn.

Whenever it happened, the caravan would stop whatever it was doing and descend on the slain beast like a swarm of locusts. They let nothing go to waste. The hide and fur would make cloaks, the bones were made into crude tools to replace the metal ones that couldn’t be repaired. The organs and meat were given over to the cooks and roasted. When the swarm of Ponies finally left, all that would be left would be bloody snow, stomped into mush by so many Ponies.

I refused to eat any of the meat harvested for food. The thought of eating something that probably ate a Pony at some point turned my stomach and made me want to vomit. But I did turn in my wooden armor and ratty cloak for a crocodile hide vest and manticore fur cloak. The wooden armor was difficult to pull a cart in, and the manticore cloak kept me much warmer.

Notably, a particularly large bone, I think the femur of a cragodile; was fashioned into a replacement limb for Appleflower. But I didn’t see her around very much. She kept to her own cart, too big to fit anything else inside. But the village didn’t complain about the essentially useless cart. Appleflower had been a cherished friend and a hero that had delayed the Crown Unicorns for a long time. It was unthinkable to leave her behind.

The foragers and cart pullers often traded jobs. To keep from being bored and overworked, to teaching Ponies like me what could be used and what couldn’t. The farmers of Ùllahdmaiden held a surprising knowledge of wild plants and fungi. Lessons taught to them by their mothers and fathers since the Flight of the Alicorns they told me.

My magic returned to me about a week after Ùllahdmaiden, my constant headache finally fading away. It was about then I found that Pegasoplian spear of mine, it had somehow gotten buried into the corner of the cart Tia and I had escaped on. I was thankful I found it again, because despite Tia spending some of the evenings teaching me some combat magic, I was much better with it than my horn. It was three days after my magic returned that the snow finally disappeared.

But that didn’t mean the journey was any easier. Cold winds from the North swept across the land, freezing the land that should’ve been almost fully green already. Even though we no longer had to dig in the snow for food, what had been even the tiniest bit green had wilted again. Furthermore, what could be found dwindled as we crossed the trails of other caravans and convoys.

The refuse of Earth Ponies, Unicorns, and even Pegasi littered the landscape. It seemed as if the whole North was fleeing South.

A few of the oldest Ponies and youngest foals had starved to death. We lay them in graves whenever we made camp. Along with the grief and the mourning, we knew they were only the signs of things to come.

It was nearly a full month of travel before the land started to become green again.

As I crested a particularly large hill, pulling a small cart all by myself, I first beheld the land that would become my home.

Even more gay autistic horse noises