Surviving the Tundra (The Land Outside The Crystal Empire)

[TheWaywardDreamer]

You know, I like to write. Whether its to better my own roleplaying style or perhaps I like to create fun little stories. I often write to keep my skills up or when critique comes along, I use it to better myself too. So please if you think something is bad, please tell me. I can't improve myself until I have an outside perspective. However, if you think it's good enough, maybe I will make a roleplay surrounding this idea. So give it a quick read. It won't be a long one...that I can make no promises, I do tend to get carried away. ^^'

 

So this idea revolves around my OC, Astral Star and Spike the Dragon. Of course this isn't canon although their relationship had developed a long time ago for years, a rather slow burn until the two became inseparable. Here's one of their adventures together shortly after Astral temporarily leaves Princess Luna's employ in the Night Court. As the title suggest it's in the surrounding tundra around the Crystal Empire where Astral does find something very peculiar after looking through old records before King Sombra's reign of the Crystal Empire. Without giving it away,

 

Let'sa Go~! 

[TheWaywardDreamer]

It was in the middle of the night here within the cave he had slept in, how many days has it been? It wasn't like he lost track of time or rather it felt way longer than it did. Just watching the raging storm outside, a boundless fury of ice and snow, he couldn't help but feel just a bit helpless and guilty. He wasn't alone, Spike had came with him after convincing Twilight to let him go. After all, he wanted to be part of some grand adventure even if said adventure only mattered to him. He was here, sleeping next to the fire that Astral had set up. Astral had watched him sleep after he got up to check up on the storm for the 15th time, didn't see any signs of slowing down. That was to be expected of course and it wasn't like he didn't see it coming either but it was still unfortunate that it came up in the first place.

 

"Maybe I should've waited a few days before I came out...This little trip reminds me of an expedition with a rather amusing archaeologist with a thirst for adventure just like me. I was to be the team's doctor and sometimes help with cooking. Ahh, so young and so eager to learn the ways of Equestria. Their faces are all but a blur to me now...how depressing." he said to himself.

 

It was then that the other occupant began to toss and turn, with a groan he woke up. He wasn't so used to sleeping on hard rock like other dragons.

 

"Astral...? What...What day is it...?" he said groggily as he sat up to scratch his scales.

 

"According to the sun and moon cycles, I'd say it's Friday." he said simply but Spike's eyes widened.

 

"WHAT?!" Spike shouted, which made Astral wince a bit because of the acoustics of the cave made it that much louder. Spike immediately covered his mouth after shouting and mouthing a quick but sincere 'Sorry' to Astral.

 

"Uh, Friday? Great...Twilight's gonna grill me when I get home...if not grill me then ground me and not let me leave the castle for weeks." Spike sighed but Astral turned to him.

 

"Nonsense. I told her that I'd take care of you however I could besides I don't think we can blame ourselves over a sudden snow storm but it does bring up a rather unfortunate problem." he said to Spike which he nodded in kind.

 

"Yeah, we only have two weeks of food and water. If we ration that, I guess it would be almost a month but I don't know.” he shrugged.

Astral shook his head before watching the raging storm outside. “I doubt we’d be here for a whole month, Spike.” he started then he began rubbing his chin a bit thinking a bit. “Hmm...I might have an idea…” he roused.

Spike raised his eyebrow before jumping up to his feet and walking over to the wondering pony. “What do you mean? You gonna try that Slingshot Theory you were talking about earlier?” he began.

“No, too risky. I wouldn’t be sure where we’d end up and would be possible that we wouldn’t be in Equestria anymore. You see the crack in the way to the far left of this huge cave?”

“What about it?”

 

“Do you possibly smell something coming from it?” Astral looked down at Spike as he asked his question.

The drake tapped his chin and tilted his head, taking a whiff of the air but he couldn’t really smell anything odd and he just shook his head. “I’m not following you.” Spike simply said.

“Stand back a minute then.” he said before turning to the solid wall. Spike took a moment to step behind his friend while Astral charged a short bit of magic into his horn before shooting it through the crack. For a moment, nothing happened then there was a small rumble behind the wall then a loud deafening sound from the crack before it blew open rather violently. Astral threw up a shield to stop the rocks from crashing into him and Spike.

It only happened within a few moments but once the smoke cleared, Astral dropped the shield and Spike stepped from behind him and looked at the large hole in the wall. “Whoa. So THAT’S what you meant!” he said before walking closer. “Wait a sec, there’s something here.” the small dragon said.

He took a step closer to the hole and started to look through. What he came out into was something he didn’t know he’d see. From what he could gather, on the other side of the wall looked like an old hall. There were old, tattered banners up on the walls. The tables, candle posts, and chairs were all smashed as if something happened here or someone or something was leaving in a hurry.

“Are you seeing this?”

 

“Indeed I am, Spike. Come on, let’s grab our stuff and move in deeper. With any luck there’s another way out on the other side.” said Astral as he began to pick up his saddlebag and Spike his small bag and placed it on his back before the two of them walked inside the darkened halls leaving the sight of the raging storm.

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As they moved deeper into the hall, the room became more pronounced. There were old bookshelves all with either torn, tattered, or absolutely destroyed books. Spike picked up one of them while Astral was illuminating around the place. Spike held the book with care, the title of the book was named 'The Crystal Collective' though he didn't know if it was a group or just the name of the book. However, trying to read its pages but all the writing was either faded out or outright missing like someone put invisible ink on some of the words. He looked at it kinda confused until a piece of the wall came down and crashed to the floor, startling him and throwing the book back on accident where it hit Astral in the back of the head.

“Ow! What was that for?” Astral asked groaning from the pain.

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to do that! This place looks like it’s falling apart. Should we be in here, what if we get trapped in here?” Spike asked, it was a legitimate question.

“Don’t worry, there pockets of gas all over the place. If we get stuck, we can blast away the wall. Though i’d advise against it unless we really needed to. No telling how well this place is holding up if at all…We should keep moving, just in case this place is falling apart, we don’t want to be here.” he said looking around. Spike agreed and they both walked down the dark corridor with Astral lighting the way.

The both of them didn’t notice the book beginning to flip through its own pages until it stopped on a particular blank page.

‘They came…’

 

‘Too long…since.’

 

‘We must show them…’

 

‘What happens to intruders…’

 

‘Yes, we shall…’

The book began to shine with brilliant light before a deliberating light blasted forward, covering everything.

Astral and Spike looked back, seeing as if somepony turned on the lights all of a sudden and became startled to see the book spewing out all kinds of crazy magical energy!

“Uh oh, let’s get out of here! Get on!” Astral shouted, Spike didn’t waste any time and jumped on then Astral started dashing down the dark hallways, not sure where he was going. All the while the ceiling began crumbling down on top of them.

“Go left!”
 

“Right!”

“Look out, it’s coming down in front of us!”

Spike was barking out while he was upon Astral’s back. Since Astral was running on autopilot, he was following his instruction to the letter. Even quickly shooting an anti-gravity spell on a large chunk of the ceiling before it came down on them. Only for a moment, however, once they were past, it fell and took out a part of the floor with it.

“Hey look, I can see light out that way!”
 

“Hang on, Spike. I’m going to give us a boost!”

Spike knew what that meant and wrapped his arms around Astral’s neck tightly. Astral’s horn shone once more, gathering magic in it. The walls were starting to rumble and collapse around them,  even the floor began to crumble.

“Just for a moment, don’t let me down!” Astral yelled at the top of his lungs. The cone of a magical shield came out in front of him effectively eliminating the wind resistance around them. His black cape behind him became animated, sucking in the divided wind in front of them and absorbing it into the cape. The more it did, the faster Astral began to run. It made his body go lighter and lighter until…

“Resonate!” he shouted, both his horn and cape connected their individual energies to each other and in a explosive flash of power and magic, it shot them forward extremely quick almost blindingly so. Astral blasted through the doorway with speed unfurled along with Spike who almost lost his grip on Astral due to how fast he was moving. They got clear of the collapsing hall and back into the storm on the outside.

However, due to desperation of not wanting to become buried along with the old hall, he overcharged the emergency spell and now he was becoming lighter and lighter, faster and faster until, thanks to his cape, his hooves were no longer touching the ground. Astral didn’t notice this at first but Spike did but he was unable to speak due to the wind surrounding them, his voice got drowned out.

Spike took a moment to quickly look in the direction in front of them. He was blinded by the sheer strength of the snow but more than that, the wind as well. “Astral, you gotta slow down! I think we’re starting to take flight!” he said as loudly as possible.

That’s when Astral opened his eyes as fast as possible and stopped using the spell. Effectively giving weight to his body again. The only probably was now that he was back on the ground and the poor footing of the snow tripped him up and he spun out of control. Even so, he grabbed Spike as quickly as possible into himself before they crashed into a thin snow bank against a mountain. The resulting speed knocked Astral out cold but Spike who took a moment to make sure the world wasn’t spinning anymore, stood up and held himself.

“S-So cold! Astral, we gotta get out of the storm!” he yelled but when he didn’t get an answer, he yelled his name again. “Astral!” he said again but there was no answer, he rushed over to his friend to see that a very large bump was on his head from hitting rock wall, even though the snow softened the blow, he still did hit it pretty hard. Spike, seeing this, grabbed his friend and began dragging him.

“Hold on, I’ll save you, I promise! For the love of all things Equestria, for once, give me some good luck!” Spike said loudly as he struggled to move his friend through the inches of snow. Seeing as the cold was really starting to get to him, he blew fire in his way to melt it to move easier. It wasn’t until Spike found a light at the far end of the crevasse did he get the renewed vigor to go toward it while dragging his friend whose coat was starting to have ice patches all over.

Spike eventually got there, out of breath and super tired from dragging his friend Astral. He seen that the light was a lantern, and it seemed as if it was recently lit too. “M-M-Made it...C’mon Astral…’ he said in a weary tone before catching his breath and carrying his friend a show distance into what seemed to be another cave. Soon enough his strength gave out and he fell on the ground just as something or some pony were walking up to them.

Spike didn’t get a good look at who or what it was, the last thing he saw was it reaching for him...

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[TheWaywardDreamer]

That's it for now...not really, kinda having fun with this. I KNOW I'm gonna write more but tell me what you think please! ^^