A scream of fear escaped Lilly’s lips as she felt the ice beneath her hooves crack under her weight. She stopped running and instead skidded clumsily across the ice, trying to keep her balance at the same time. The sounds of battle still ringed all around her, and as she spun around on the ice she caught a glimpse of Duskshine running up the stream on the shore from which she and Willow had just come from.

Behind him, Bleakers came running with crude axes and spears that seemed to be made out of ice, and they gleamed slightly as they waved them furiously in the air, as if they thought they could still hit him from so far away. They yelled and roared, and arrows blew past them from bows hidden somewhere within the trees.

No more than a second later, Willow skidded over the ice past her, frantically kicking and flailing about. If not for the situation they were in, he would have looked rather comical, but now it just seemed terrifying to her, as a fall here could mean certain death. Lilly reached out and tried to grab him as he passed, but he slipped out of her grip and slid away across the surface of the ice.

To her right further down the stream, she could see something moving in the water, clambering to the edge of the ice. A massive sword rested just a few feet away, but Sawblade was unable to pull himself out of the water, and his frantic kicking only made it more difficult. She saw the big, menacing stallion sink down, his hooves still thrashing around above the surface before they too disappeared out of sight.

Bucket came running out of the treeline, limping on one leg where the arrow had hit him. A trial of blood followed in his wake as he pushed himself out on the ice. After just a few steps, he lost balance and fell over on his side, and a cracking sound reached her ears as he landed on the arrow and broke it. The scrawny pony screamed in agony as it moved around within the wound, causing more blood to leak unto the ice.

Even though she wanted to help them both, Lilly couldn’t run back across the ice and risk breaking through, or run straight into the arms of the pale ponies on the shore. The only thing she could do was hope that they would manage to get out themselves.

She once again turned her gaze to Duskshine, just in time to see one of the many arrows fly in a perfect arc straight towards him. Even before it happened, she understood it would hit him. The unicorn couldn’t do anything else than scream.

“Duskshine, look out!”

But her screams fell upon death ears, drowned by the rumbling of the horde of Bleakers, as well as the sound of cracking ice and more screams behind her. She saw the arrow hit Duskshine’s shoulder, instantly sending him tumbling to the side like some sort of filthy ragdoll. The screaming behind her stopped suddenly.

She saw Duskshine roll across the shoreline before falling off the edge. He hit the murky waters beneath without making a sound, and he instantly disappeared underneath the surface.

"NO!"

Her heart stopped, and the world around her went completely quiet and still. Nothing moved, and nothing could be heard expect her own breathing. Her vision begun to blur, and she felt her legs wobble slightly.

“Lilly, over here!”

She snapped out of her trance as Crescent’s voice called out to her from somewhere nearby. Spinning around, she could see a big hole in the ice right around where Willow would have ended up just a few seconds ago. He wasn’t there, only the black abyss opening up to the cold water. With nothing else to do, she kept on running.

The ice made cracking sounds beneath her hooves, but she couldn’t stop or slow down, or she’d be dead from either an arrow or the cold waiting just beyond the ice. She could see Crescent standing a few meters away, clambering to the top of what looked to be a big rock covered in ice. She hoped they would be safe upon it.

Crescent had his leg stretched out for her, and as she felt the ice break beneath her, she pushed herself forward through the air. For a moment, the sounds of the Bleakers got drowned out by the deafening sound of the ice breaking into shards all around them. The mare grabbed the Stalkers hoof in mid-air, but couldn’t break her fall, causing her body to slam into the rock with a painful thud.

Pain coursed through her from the impact, but it was instantly pushed aside by the sensation of water so cold it burned her skin like hot blades. The ice on the river had shattered all around them, and shards as sharp as razors streamed down towards them. All she could do was to squint her eyes shut hard as she clamped herself on Crescent’s hoof, holding it in a vice-like grip.

More burning shards slid across her hind legs, cutting into her skin like knifes. Lilly’s legs kicked involuntarily, her body wanting to get away from the pain but her mind refusing to react. Inside her head, she could see the body of Duskshine washed up on the shore, soaked to the bone and shredded by the ice that roared around her. The image almost made her want to let go.

Still with her eyes closed, she could feel her body move upwards as Crescent moved back, pulling her up on the rock next to him. The ice covering the top of it didn’t even feel cold against her skin anymore; she’d already gone numb from the water. She couldn’t feel her hind legs, or the pain from the amounts of cuts she’d gained. Without a word or sound, Lilly fell down upon the rock, limp like a boned fish and unable to move another muscle ever again.

At least, that’s what it felt like to her, the numbness and pain brought on by not only the ice, but also by watching what might have been the final seconds of Duskshine’s life.

“Hey! Hey come on, get up!”

Crescent’s voice rang in her ears; sounding foreign to her, like they were underwater and it distorted his words into sounds from another world.

“Don’t you dare die on me, Lilly!”

Slowly, she opened her eyes. The Stalker filled her vision, standing over her and looking down on her with worry in his eyes, hidden behind his goggles. Wind tugged hard on his mane and scarf, and his ears lay almost flat against his head.

Suddenly, there was a loud crack, followed by deep rumbling and what felt like vibration within the rock she laid upon. Crescent’s eyes shot open as he felt the rumbling under his hooves.

“… What was that?” Lilly whispered up to him.

He didn’t answer. In the blink of an eye, the stallion threw himself over her, pinning her down against the ice. Lilly instantly panicked and tried to writhe her way free, but he held her down with more force then she’d ever believed him capable of possessing. The skin on his belly felt like burning coals as it pressed down on her back, and she wiggled back and forth to try and get away from it.

“Stop moving and cover your eyes!”

Another loud crack reached her ears. Then she felt the rock move under her.

Lilly understood then that he was holding her down because he’d already realized what just dawned on her; it wasn’t a rock, it was only a massive block of ice, and it had now broken lose and was about to follow the current down the river, still with them on it.

Water splashed over her face and body, chilling her even more than she thought possible. Her body trembled, and the warmth of Crescent slowly faded away. She opened her eyes for just a second, and caught a glimpse of the shoreline, where the Bleakers still pursued them, galloping at full speed next to the water. Even if the block of ice stopped, they would await them as soon as they got out of the river.

“What happened to the others?” Crescent shouted into her ears to make himself heard over the sound of the streaming water.

“I don’t know, I think they might be de-” Lilly’s jaw was shaking and it made it hard for her to talk properly, and her teeth clamped themselves together tight, rattling slightly from the immense cold.

“Don’t you even dare say that, girl!”

The currents of the river tossed them back and forth across the river surface, and they did their best to hold on as the block of ice smashed into other bigger shards of ice and debris, even as water sprayed over their trembling bodies. They couldn’t do anything else than just press themselves down onto the ice and hope that it didn’t topple and throw them into the darkness beneath.

Lilly lost track of how long had passed since they began moving. Her entire body had gone numb, and she was sure that nothing but her head remained, which felt like it was split in two due to the headache that the cold had brought upon her. Crescent no longer seemed to care about pinning her down, and several times his hooves slapped her across the face as the block of ice careened across the water.

She wanted to give up. The pain was too strong, and she couldn’t take it anymore, she just wanted out. But she couldn’t move, and her wish to just jump off into the water remained unfulfilled, no matter how hard she tried to move.

Another hard hit and Crescent slid off of her. He wasn’t moving anymore, and his chest wasn’t raising and lowering itself. Lilly wondered if he was dead, but couldn’t move to check on him. Her mind was just as blank as his eyes, staring at her.

“… cres… Crescent…?” Her voice was frail and broken, and her throat felt like it was full of ice and smoke.

He didn’t respond, didn’t make any sort of sign whatsoever that he’d heard her.

Up ahead she could see the river turning and a large cliff at the shoreline approaching faster and faster the closer it got. She wanted to scream, wanted to grab Crescent and jump, save themselves from the crushing edges of the cliff.

In a sudden outburst of adrenaline, she could feel warmth coursing through her body, like the sweetest waves of pleasure. It calmed her nerves, soothed her skin, and without understanding how she did it, she bent her legs and slowly stood up, still trembling slightly. She took one step forward, hitting her hoof against Crescent’s stomach by mistake as she did.

The unicorn panted heavily as she desperately tried to wake the Stalker up, pushing at his face with her snout and shouting, though it came out like broken whispers. She tried whatever she could to wake him up; kicked him, nudged him, bit down on his ear and licked his face, but nothing made him move.

She fell down on her knees once again, the short moments of pumping adrenaline gone, and the chilling numbness and pain once again taking back its grip over her body. All she could do was to aim herself so that she laid down close to the stallion in a final attempt to protect him, just like he’d done to her.

Her head rested on the side against the cold ice, but she didn’t feel it. The cliff came closer every second, and her mind raced with thoughts. She didn’t want to die here, not like this. She wanted to die old, together with whatever stallion that wanted to be with her. She wanted to die, knowing she was loved. Not like this, frozen and broken like a brittle porcelain vase.

It would all end any second. Before she closed her eyes, she could see a tiny puff of pale smoke rising from Crescent’s scarf, right around where his mouth would be.

A few seconds later the block of ice smashed straight into the cliff, sending both Crescent and Lilly sailing through the air. Wind blew hard around her, tugging on her like it wanted to grab hold of her from every direction, hold her back and save her from the inevitable death. She saw the Stalker hit the rock back first, before it approached her face.

There wasn’t any pain.