The Sun's Song, Ch. 15

A strong gust of wind blew south from the cold northern borders of Equestria.

It passed the castle. It passed Ponyville. It passed Colttown, continuing ever onward through the forests and fields.

It passed four galloping ponies, picking up their scent with its breath.

And it howled through the Dragon's Teeth ridge, where it attracted the attention of a large, brown dog with a steel helm and a long spear. He turned to the north, and sniffed the air.

"What is it?" Another asked. "What do you smell?"

The first grinned.

"Ponies."

The second was a more cautious old bulldog. "Hang on, pup. Ponies come this way lots of times, and some of them are better armed than others. How many?"

The first sniffed again, taking a moment to check himself. "...Few," he said at last. "And they carry no iron, no steel."

Now the second gave a wicked, toothy smile. "No weapons, you say? Sounds like we got a workforce, I say..." the second stood beside the first, looking down on the highway far below. Diamond Dogs held firm control of the Missing Tooth, and would from time to time steal away travelling ponies to toil in the mines. They were of great help, quickly moving stores of gems and ore. Plus the surrounding villages did nothing about it - did they really want to risk their lives when those captured came back beaten up and exhausted, but alive?
"Now, will they be missed...?" The second rubbed at his chin with a large, gray paw. "Bring a shaman up here. We'll bring them into the caves. I'll keep watch."

--------

Four ponies continued onward, now finding rocky terrain all around them. Jagged rocks rose out of the earth on either side. A few beaten paths branched out from the main road, though the ponies ignored them; for the gap itself lay before them, a narrow valley between two towering peaks. They kept onward, feeling like far littler ponies as they went. They mostly kept quiet, galloping on, trying to keep a good pace in spite of tired muscles. The earth ponies managed to hold up well enough - Applejack was a paragon of strength in her own right, and Pinkie hardly ever ran out of energy. The unicorn and alicorn, however, were both beginning to slow down. They tried to keep up with teleporting at first, but now...

"Oooh... confound this costume, I can't stretch my wings," Luna complained. "Do you think it's alright if I take it off?"

"Welp, th' sun still ain't up," Applejack replied. "If ye don't mind ponies askin' ye why it ain't..."

"It's not fair," Luna persisted. "I'm exhausted from all this moving around on hoof!"

Pinkie sensed Applejack would not like that answer, and moved in between the two before the cowpony could retort. "But it'll make you hungry, and then for lunch you can eat all the yummy cakes and pies you want!"

"...Beg pardon?" AJ looked quizzically at Pinkie. "Pinkie, we don't HAVE any cakes or pies."

"We don't? What kind of an adventure is this?" Pinkie asked, staring up sternly at the sky as though it were the fault of the heavens. "You gotta have some treats when you're going along!"

"I don't reckon we'll get many cakes or pies on this one, Pinkie."

"But what about ice cream? Or cupcakes? Or brownies? We gotta have some of those! I even brought s'mores!"

"S'mores? What's a s'more?" Luna asked, listening in.

"What's a s'mo--what's a... Luna, when we stop to rest, you'll get a big batch of Granny Pinkie's homemade s'mores!"

"...Granny?" Luna, who was technically a thousand years older than the earth pony, repeated dumbly.

There was a flash up ahead as Twilight teleported back ahead of the pack. "I'm so... exhausted..." she managed between breaths. "How do... you do this?"

"Maybe we should stop," Pinkie spoke up. "We've been going for a long time. You two can't use magic forever, can you?"

"Where can we stop out--" AJ began, but saw that both Luna and Twilight were slowing down. "...Well, okay. But where? Out here?"

"I don't see... why not..." Twilight managed, her legs wobbling from effort.

"Here." Applejack rummaged through her packs, pulling out one apple after another. Tossing one each to the other ponies, she said, "Eat up. These'll keep ye goin'."

They ate in silence for a little while, resting on the roadside.

"Well, I wasn't sure how ponies would react to this, but now seems as good a time as any to use it..." Luna's horn glowed, and the crystal bearing Farore's Wind emerged from her flankpack. "If I use this here, we can come back to this point in the future, no matter where we are."

"What?" All three ponies chorused in unison.

"Why the hay didn't ye use it back near Colttown?" Applejack protested.

"Because I didn't need anypony seeing a floating green ball of light," Luna replied, concentrating magic into the crystal. For a moment, it seemed as though nothing was happening. Then a floating, glowing green ball appeared above the alicorn, illuminating the group in bright light. Applejack squinted; Twilight and Pinkie closed their eyes. "There!" Luna said, smiling. "Now if we're far away, as long as we destroy Trixie's phylactery, we can come back here easily!"

"That's great!" Pinkie cheered. "We'll have a victory party before you know it!"

"Nothing ever dampens your spirits, does it, Pinkie?" Twilight asked, smiling at the earth pony.

"Welllllllllll..." Pinkie frowned in concentration. "Actually, those nasty, big old storm clouds up ahead might."

"Huh?" Twilight turned around, and looked upward. Where once there were clear skies was now replaced by dark storm clouds with a faint reddish tint. "Where did they come from? It was all clear skies! We could see all the stars!"

"Dunno," Pinkie said. "But it looks like we're gonna get wet!"

"Wet, huh..." Applejack stared up into the clouds, as if daring them to start pouring. "Wet don't bother me much."

But at that moment, an incredibly bright streak of lightning shot down somewhere ahead of them, followed by a strong peal of thunder. The four ponies gave startled exclamations, jumping back.

"What about lightning?" Luna asked. She blinked her eyes as she felt a raindrop land on her nose.

"This looks pretty bad," Pinkie said, frowning up at the sky. "And what if all our food gets wet? It won't hold up in a downpour!" Rain began to trickle down faster now, raindrops rapidly multiplying in number and intensity.

"Pinkie's right!" Twilight had to call out as a strong gust of wind bore down on them. "Let's get out of this, quick! To the rocks! Maybe we can find shelter!"

The four ponies took a path to their right and galloped hard for the base of the ridge. Another loud rumble of thunder sounded behind them, off to their left. The rain fell rapidly now, beginning to soak them. The packs fended off the rain for the time being, but would not last very long.

Twilight's horn glowed, giving off a bright light to surround them. Though it was raining progressively harder, it gave everypony some light to work with. "Is there anything up ahead?" She called out.

"Hang on!" Luna's horn glowed, and a beam of bright light emerged from the tip, scanning the looming rocks ahead of them. The path led a little ways off to the right... "Ah! Over there!" She called out. "I think I see an opening!"

"Hang in there, everypony! Just a bit further, now!" Applejack galloped hard, Pinkie right behind her. Luna teleported ahead, rapidly closing the distance between her and what appeared to be a cave entrance. A warning bell went off in her head... A cave with a well-worn path leading up to it? Surely something's using it, then? But a few more moments and they'd face a driving sheet of rain. There wasn't much else for it except step inside...

Luna ducked inside the entrance, training her beam of light anywhere and everywhere she could. The interior was actually fairly small, a circular one-room cave surrounded by solid stone. Oddly enough, nothing besides stone appeared in front of her. Yet Luna wasn't about to be fooled into thinking nothing was there, and her horn glowed again, this time to detect any life in the cave.

...Nothing. They were all alone...

Her attention turned to the sound of hooves pounding on soft, wet ground as three drenched ponies came galloping inside. Twilight brought up the rear, her own light spell confirming Luna's findings - just a small cave, spacious enough for the four of them, nothing there but just ponies.

"Well, shoot," Applejack said, removing her hat from between her teeth and putting it back on her head. "Lucky we found this in time. Any longer, n' ah mighta lost mah hat." She turned to poke her head into her saddlebags. "...Might've gotten a bit damp in these, though."

"And this outfit's soaked," Luna added sadly. Rarity's outfit had not been designed with heavy rain in mind, for now purple spots were clearly visible underneath the white fabric. "I think I'll need to take it off." With wet clothes sticking to her body, this became a lengthy and frustrating process for the alicorn. Even with magic, between all the day's sweat and the afternoon's storm, the suit fought her for every inch of exposed skin, turning an otherwise normal task into an uphill battle that lasted several lengthy minutes.

By the time she at last managed to free her last hoof from the body of the suit and triumphantly yelled, "I'm naked!", her companions were occupied with other tasks. Applejack was busy setting out saddlebags to dry as best they could. Twilight stared in consternation at the falling rain. Pinkie Pie was busy examining the rocks and muttering to herself... something about how they looked "dug out".

"Hey, Luna?" Twilight asked over her shoulder. "Could you come here?" Luna walked over to her, looking puzzled. "Don't you think it's odd that a storm suddenly sprang up like this?" She asked.

"Well..." Luna pawed the ground, lightly moving a hoof across the dirt as though moving marbles across an abacus. "It is summertime, right? Don't these things happen?"

"Maybe," the unicorn conceded. "But the sky was in front of us the whole time, and all I could see were stars. Then all of a sudden, they were blotted out." She frowned at the sheet of rain a few feet in front of her. "Storms like this don't just happen. Something planned it. Something magical." Twilight turned her head to look at Luna. "We're not alone."

"...Well, I could've told you that by the beaten path," Luna said.

"Yes, but something might know we're here and wanted us to take shelter. Maybe there's something else going on," Twilight added, "But either way, this rain isn't doing us any favors."

"So what do we do? Try to move the storm away from us?"

"It's not quite that simple." Twilight stared ahead at the pouring rain. "We could try just moving the air with more force than whatever's causing this, but that could take a lot of power."

It was a rare moment indeed, but Luna smirked and tapped her horn. "Hello?"

"Ahh, well..." Twilight giggled. She was unaccustomed to actually having an alicorn with her in some sort of adventure. Normally she and Rarity were the ones who used magic, and Rarity was nowhere near Twilight's level. Luna, on the other hand... she may have been imprisoned in the moon for a thousand years, but it was already clear that in terms of sheer magical muscle, Luna was incredibly strong. She was likely no match for Celestia, but remained in a class by herself. "There is that. But, it might be easier if we could pierce open a spot in the storm and break it apart that way, rather than force the entire storm away at once."

Luna nodded, seeing Twilight's point. Combined, they could probably out-mojo whatever was out there, but it would require a lot of power for the two of them.

"Although..." Twilight paused. "We were getting really tired. Maybe we should stay here awhile and rest up..."

"FOUND IT!"

Twilight, Luna, and Applejack all turned with a start to see Pinkie excitedly pointing a hoof at what appeared to be solid stone.

"...Found what?" Luna asked slowly, wary lest she set off something in Pinkie's crazy mind.

"Take a closer look, silly," the earth pony said, drawing an X in the dirt with a hoof. She moved to one side, bringing her front hooves up to rest close to each other on the cave wall. "Whoever did this is GOOD. See how the stone here's just an itty-bitty bit different from the stone here? It's got a lighter color by a few shades. Plus it's a bit smoother than the rest of the stone. Y'know, like you'd make a door."

Applejack walked up to where Pinkie was standing and stared for a moment. "Wellllllll... ah reckon ah can see what yer gettin' at," she said, walking up. "Ah can't say as ah see the door... but if it's a door, ah can knock, right?"

--------

They lined up behind the door, five lines of four dogs each. It was best not to take chances - take too few, and you risked injury from a strong buck, and then you had to deal with the pesky business of patching yourself up. The four ponies had run to the cave just beyond the door in haste. They would wait until they settled in or perhaps dozed, and then...

Knock. Knock. Knock. The noise rang out through the tunnel.

"Huh! Yeah, sounds like a door, alright," drawled a voice.

"Uh, AJ? You shouldn't just knock like that. I mean, what if whatever's on the other side's a grumpypants?" asked a higher-pitched voice.

"Then we buck 'em while Luna an' Twilight rain magic on 'em like lightning!" Some of the dogs looked at one another uncertainly. The sentries said nothing about facing the powers of a unicorn or two...

"Well, if that's the only way they can get in," a third voice piped up, "Just keep an eye on it while we rest. Once we're ready, Princess Luna and I will try to move the magical storm away."

Dogs started backing away quickly now. They didn't know much about ponies in general, but they recognized the name of Luna... PRINCESS Luna... just fine.

"An alicorn? HERE!?" one of them hissed.

"Oh, Twilight!" A fourth voice spoke up. "Now that I look back at it? There are quite a few purple blotches lined up on the other side of that door."

"Really? Let me see... hey! They look like Diamond Dogs!" The dogs looked wildly at one another. Since when could ponies see through walls!?

"Diamond dogs!? Why, those no-good, pony-nappin' varmints! They behind all this?" There was a hammering of hooves at the door now. "Open up, ya cowards! We know--"

But the diamond dogs didn't stay to hear the rest. They turned tail and fled back up the tunnel, fearing the terrible ponies' wrath.

--------

"Alright, they're gone," Twilight said. "Hmhm... I guess they can hear us."

"Now what? I don't see any way to open the door from this side," Pinkie commented, giving the door another look in the vain hope of seeing anything resembling a knob, indentation, whatever.

"I... think I can handle this one," Twilight said smugly. "Stand back." The earth ponies backed away from the door.

Summoning magic was something of a mixed bag for unicorns when it came to living beings. They couldn't summon other ponies, but they could summon certain magical creatures to come to their aid. The trouble with this magic was that these beings had minds of their own, and while they would come to the caster's aid, they would not do so without a price.

A common warning tale regarding such magic is that of the unicorn mage Swiftwind, who summoned a fairy. Though his need changes in several versions of the story (some depict his marefriend stricken with illness, while others say he had a bet to gallop around the world in just one day), all versions proclaim he agreed to do whatever it said for an hour. During that time, he was then forced to extend his end of the bargain for a lifetime. The moral is the same - be extremely wary in your dealings with summoned allies.

Twilight, for one, took this moral to heart. Before she'd met her friends, she tended to prefer being and doing things alone. Afterward, she had friends to trust, and so never felt the need for summoning anything that could talk back.

Summoning inanimate objects, on the other hand...

There was a pop, and a small but very solid brick wall dropped down in front of the doors. Then along came another pop, and a dresser appeared on top of it, leaning back against the door. Other assorted heavy objects descended shortly thereafter, and so a pile of heavy magical furniture and architecture now cluttered up the doorway.

"...There!" Twilight finished with a large wood carving of a bear to cover the top-left corner. "The spells will last for a few hours. They're not going to get through that."

--------

"What are you doing, you useless curs!?"

The detachment of diamond dogs cowered before the leader of their sizeable pack, a tall, green-robed shamaness carrying a long wooden staff.

She glared down at them in disgust. Mewling pups, the lot of them! There were plenty of gems to be had in these mountains. Ponies didn't seem to place much value on them, save perhaps as dragon food or sewn into a beautiful dress. This meant that normally the diamond dogs as a whole could just send some of their lesser peons to do the dirty work. The disadvantage was that they were not very bright, and a bit too soft... once she realized both things, for instance, Rarity had taken full advantage of the small enclave she'd stumbled across way back when.

But this ridge had been unusually well stockpiled... it called for some of the more serious alphas to get the work done. Except right now, the work had been left far behind, back at the entrance.

"But they have an alicorn," one soldier whined. "The moon princess herself!"

"The moon princess, you say..." the shamaness' eyebrows raised. "That is quite a find, if true. She is worth a thousand of her lesser kin, easy. So again I ask you..." her eyes narrowed, and she seized one soldier by his red collar. "Why did you come back!?"

"They knew we were coming," the soldier replied fearfully. "They could see us... they'd use their nasty magic!"

"..." She had to admit, there wasn't much point if they opened the door only to run straight into an alicorn that knew they were coming. Yet the dogs had one serious advantage the ponies did not... "Then we shall dig where their nasty magic can't get us."

--------

The four ponies rested again, secure in the knowledge that the only way in was barred.

"Magical or not, the storm can't last forever," Luna said, smiling with relief. "In here, we'll outlast it and hurry on."

"We should prob'ly get rid o' th' storm now, if we can," Applejack added. "Maybe they won't be back, but ah don't think they're the type to just give up."

"I feel like we barely rested at all," Twilight complained. "I'm so exhausted."

Applejack shrugged. "You an' Luna haven't done poorly at all. Heck, you'd give most o' mah family a run for their money. Ya both got Granny Smith beat," she added with a grin.

"Plus you placed really well in the Running of the Leaves last fall," Pinkie added.

"Yes, but there I was able to pace myself," Twilight replied. "Here, it's been all-out running."

"We're not going to fast for you, are we?" Pinkie asked in concern. "I mean, we're not all Dashy."

"Heh..." Applejack chuckled. "She'd prob'ly nag us the whole way about how slow we are." Her expression then became serious. "Thing is, every day we take is another day the sun ain't comin' up an' another day ponies wonder if it'll ever come back." She paced back and forth restlessly. "We've been makin' good time so far, but we can't just lie down whenever we feel like. Not if Celestia an' Equestria are dependin' on us."

"I know," Twilight said quietly, looking down at the ground. "It always seemed like whenever we faced danger, it was always a stone's throw away. Now we've got to travel for days on end, which I've never done before at this pace."

"Me neither," said Pinkie, shrugging her shoulders. "But somepony's gotta do it, right?"

"Indeed." Luna stood up, and stretched her legs. "Alright, let me check this storm and see how I'll break it up. Just wait until I'm finished."

Luna turned her back on the other three ponies and stared back into the falling curtain of rain. It didn't seem to be falling quite as heavily as before... or maybe that was just her imagination. It was still raining very hard out there. She still couldn't see much beyond pitch black in front of her.

I think I'll want to get some room for myself first, she thought, and her horn began to glow. Wind began howling into the cave, wrapping itself around her, circling faster and faster as more air was added. The other three ponies wisely decided to take the saddlebags and huddle up against a wall, Twilight summoning several boulders around them to take shelter. Luna continued adding to the miniature maelstrom. She remained unaffected, it being her spell, though the bear carving from the barricade became dislodged and joined the wind circling around her.

She let it go, streaking upward into the sky, smashing into the storm above. A section of storm blew apart, and for at least a short time, rain stopped falling in front of the entrance. There we go! Luna thought triumphantly, and walked outside into what was now soft mud. Now I just need to see the storm...

A few seconds later, several bright fireworks shot up into the sky, exploding with bright red light. Making sure they weren't so bright as to blind her, Luna got a good quick look at the storm front. At first glance, it looked like a solid roof of the world. But she definitely felt that the storm along the ridge looked lighter than the rest. "I think the storm's weakest along the cliffs," she concluded. "If we follow the cliffs back to the gap, the storm shouldn't be hard at all to move."

At that moment, Applejack's ears perked up. She looked upward, toward the roof.

"Well then ah reckon we'd better move now," she said. "Sounds like things're diggin' our way." She looked down at the ground. "Above and below us."

"Right... to the gap. Follow me!" the moon princess commanded.

The four ponies burst out of the cave entrance, Luna's horn shimmering brightly as powerful gusts of wind slammed into the clouds ahead of them, parting the storm ahead. Behind them, the four ponies could hear distant barking - diamond dogs were now pouring forth from where they'd just come, running to catch up to them.

Twilight turned her head, focused on a patch of ground, and made her horn glow again. As the frontrunners of the pack reached the ground, they were startled to find grass skyrocketing underneath them, carrying several of them some yards high before stopping, soaking in the mixture of rain and magic.

A look of smug satisfaction broke out on the mage's face, but only for a few seconds. In front of the new hedge there suddenly appeared another dog, clearly arriving by teleportation. It was a sobering reminder to the unicorn that magic was not limited to ponies. But what was even more sobering was watching the dog stare at the fleeing ponies for a second, then swing her staff down onto the ground, shouting aloud what were clearly magical spells. The water currently soaking the ground rapidly chilled, then froze into solid ice. This water then froze the water in front of it, and that new ice froze that water in front of it.

The rapidly forming river of ice arced towards the ponies. Perhaps if they'd just started after a night's rest, they may have outrun the ice. As things were, the ponies were at least fatigued, and half of them struggled to maintain a gallop.

"Now what?" Pinkie asked, also looking back. "If it hits us, it'll freeze our little hoovsies off!"

"Or we go slippin' and slidin' all over ourselves," Applejack added. Now she looked back, and saw the ice was instead slowly forming a wide upward arc. Given another moment or two, it would most likely come around and over them and down the other side, trapping them in a prison of ice. "Got anythin', Twi?"

"I'm busy clearing clouds here!" shouted Luna, as if they needed a reminder.

"Ummm..." Twilight looked back again. The dog was a little ways off, but she didn't seem to care too much - she was placing her faith in the ice to trap them, or at least throw them off-balance. The soldiers continued to pound through the rain, but they seemed to hate doing it. It was the shamaness she needed to focus on, with the staff and the... chanting...

"That's it! She has to give voice to her spells!" Twilight knew just the spell to stop that. She just needed to focus on that fell voice in the air and...

The shamaness kept the ice moving forward, keeping an eye on the fleeing figures before her. It wouldn't be long now before they were caught. Yet something bothered her: why didn't they cast back? The alicorn was clearly busy, yes, but what of the unicorn? Did she not know any fire, or lightning of her own? Was there anything she could do?

The shamaness shook her head at them. What a pathetic unicorn, she thought, keeping the spell going. Oh, now does her horn glow? Let's see her magic, then. But it never came. No fire, no lightning. Nothing. She paused after a sentence of magic and barked out a laugh.

Or, at least, tried to bark out a laugh. Nothing came out. She was silent. Her eyes widened in horror as the ice river, lacking magic to power it, rapidly ground to a halt.

And she thought: A pony that doesn't speak spells learned Silence!? Dog's breath!

The soldiers pounded on, and a few even managed to catch up to the small herd. Yet a dog could not both run and wield a spear at the same time, and hand-to-hoof they were beaten back each time. Pinkie sent one sprawling behind them after ramming his side. Applejack, finding one strong enough to jump on her back, pivoted, bucked to fling him off, and rejoined the herd after a mad gallop.

At last, on following the cliffs, they could see an opening to their right. The gap, at last! Luna poured more energy into her magic, the horn shining with brilliant light as the clouds parted before them now through sheer force. The great ridge passed them on the left and right, and they were through! The storm clouds lessened greatly, and now easily gave way. Luna found herself barely trying now. They had passed the ridge; the dogs had given up the chase, going back with naught but their tails between their legs.

"Hoo-wee! That was a job well done, everypony!" Applejack cheered.

"Bridleburg's not far now," Twilight said happily. "We can take a train down to Appleoosa from there. And that's when our search begins!"

She grimaced. Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Princess Celestia... hang on, everypony. We're going to make this right, whatever it takes.