*Chapter 7*

A little light shall glow

The ponies galloped after Winterbrave through the ice and snow. With Mirrorrim's warming spell in place, it was relatively easy going. The two pegasi flew alongside the wingless ponies as they made their way. All they had to do was keep up with Winterbrave, which was not easy; he moved through the soft snow with no difficulty at all, and he did not even so much as stumble upon the slick ice. But still the ponies plundered on.

After some time, despite running his hardest; his heart beating ferociously, sending warm blood through his body, Summer Blaze couldn't help but notice the beginnings of the winter's cold overtaking his body. He looked around to Mirrorrim, who by no means was an athlete and hence was not used to long runs. She was near the back of the group. Blaze was worried to see her breathing very heavily, her head drooping just slightly as she ran flat out. "I'm fine!" she shouted. "We need to keep up with Winterbrave!" The white pony was beginning to fade into the distance, into the endless winter.

The two pegasi were having trouble making headway against the increasingly blustery winds. In the end, they gave up flight and joined the gallop on the ground. Blaze was suddenly more aware of Dusk's weight on his back than usual. It was then that she whimpered, "Blaze, I'm cold..."

Blaze looked back at Mirror again. There was no doubt that she was becoming fatigued. She could barely maintain the spell she was casting and she was falling slightly behind the others. "Don't worry, Dusk, we're almost there. But Blaze didn't know how true this was. The expanse of white had almost no end in sight, Winterbrave was nearly a speck on the horizon, and he was becoming colder all the time.

"Hey, where's Winterbrave!?" Ivy leagues shouted. The unicorn had completely vanished into the night; he was nowhere to be seen.

"What do we do now?" Fairweather fretted.

"We keep moving!" Nova Burst cried. "I know we're close, we have to be!"

Blaze turned again to check on Mirrorrim only to see something wondrous. While only mere seconds ago he was surrounded by ice and frigid air, Blaze found himself under a wide blue sky in the entrance to what looked like a town market. Blaze marveled at the sight. As the others joined him, they too shared in the miracle surrounding them. "How did we...where are we?"

"We must have done it," Fairweather said. "We made it through the winter's edge!"

"But how is the sun shining here?" Blaze asked.

Nopony had an answer for that phenomenon. And yet the bright yellow sphere burned surely in the sky.

Summer Dusk hopped from her brother's back, all remnants of cold and fatigue seemingly gone. "Where's Mirrorrim?" she said.

The ponies looked about, but Mirror was not amongst them. "Y'all don't think she's still..." Ivy started.

"Oh, Celestia no! She's still in there!" Blaze panicked.

This declaration seemed to trigger the arrival of Winterbrave. From the same fold of non-existence that separated the winter's edge from this place, he appeared with a flash. "Hmph, so you all made it," he said.

"Not all of us," Blaze said in panic. "Our friend is still in there!"

Winterbrave's eyes combed the group and he realized instantly who was missing. The five ponies made to get passed him, but he held up a hoof and said, "Stop!" They looked to Winterbrave in question. "If you foals cross the boundary now you'll have to cross the winter's edge again to get back. I'll get her." And without a backward glance he galloped through the boundary.

...

Mirrorrim was utterly alone. Winterbrave and her friends have long since disappeared into the endless white oblivion. She was too exhausted to even maintain her warming spell; her only shield against the cold. The winter's touch was slowly enveloping her, slowly but surely freezing her muscles into rigid iron.

It was by a sheer miracle of will that she was still on her feet; blindly staggering one hoof in front of the other. Every step was an enormous effort, and she was certain each one would be her last. Her nearly frozen mind swam with images of her friends. Surely they would turn around any second now and realize that she was gone. One hoof in front of the other...one hoof in front of the other...then the image of the white winter pony swam before her eyes. He didn't care about her in the least; he had left her out here in this wasteland to die. It was at this thought that her will power broke and she toppled over onto the frozen tundra.

Her body was sapped of any and all strength. Merely keeping her eyes open was more than she could muster. She was going to die here; she knew that. The image of Winterbrave's face came to her mind's eye now and his last words echoed in her head, "The winter will betray you because it belongs to me..."

Suddenly, there was a rush of more of his words, "Hey! You have to get up!" Mirrorrim's range of sight in her dying state was infinitesimal at best, but she thought she could see the image of Winterbrave again. 'Of course,' she thought. 'Death has sent me one last sweet mirage to guide me into his arms...' But the mirage did not vanish. "Please, you have to move, I know you can do it!"

But she couldn't. Her will had been sapped along with her strength. Moving even a single inch was but impossible. "Dammit! You can't give up!" The image of Winterbrave stamped his hoof on the snow. "If you do, you won't even be half the pony that I thought you were." He paused for just a moment. "That I want you to be..."

It was as if an ember had come alight in her chest. A sudden and inexplicable warmth spread through her body that imbued her with a renewed and miraculous strength. She regained her legs as hard-packed snow fell from her body. "Okay, now come this way." Winterbrave walked backwards slowly as Mirrorrim followed him. She kept her eyes locked on his, guided by the sound of his voice and his piercingly intense eyes. "Just a little more," he was saying. "Just a little further..."

And then Mirror found herself surrounded by warmth and light, and most importantly of all, her friends. They descended on her in a joyous group hug.

"Mirror, you made it!"

"We were so worried!"

"For a second we thought..."

They let her go as she looked about the group. "You all had nothing to fear," she said to them. "I would have..." she cast a look to Winterbrave. "I did find my way. All I needed was a push."

Winterbrave and Mirrorrim were staring at each other with the intensity of a moment that only they seemed to share. Fairweather cleared her throat gently,"Guys, maybe we should give them some space..." the group agreed and ambled into the market, leaving Winterbrave and Mirror together.

The fierce glow that Mirror felt in the snow field at Winterbrave's words had yet to fade, and standing here in his presence only served to intensify that glow. "You came back for me," were her first words.

"I had to, it's my job" Winterbrave said back.

Mirror had the feeling he said this in some kind of attempt to maintain his derisive indifference at when they first met. And Mirror responded in kind. "There was no need to make the endeavor so difficult. If such a thing is indeed your task, you simply should have-"

"No," Winterbrave said. "That wouldn't do." He stared deeply into her eyes. No matter how matter-of-fact Mirror tried to remain, her knees couldn't help softening under his ice-blue gaze. "I knew you had the strength in you, and I wanted to see it. I wanted you to succeed by your strength alone." With his eyes boring so deeply into hers, Mirror was sure he was trying to convey his message with more than mere words. And suddenly, without a single shred of her own volition, she found herself leaning into him, her head tilted upwards, a hopeful wildfire burning in her chest.

But she made contact with nothing as she realized that Winterbrave had turned and was trotting into the market. The fire inside her felt as though it had been extinguished by the cold of the winter's edge. And it was with this cold, that Mirrorrim took her first steps into Saba.

*End of Chapter 7*

A/N:

Okay, an explanation of why this chapter is so short. I was just sitting typing to give myself something to do. And as I was writing, the chapter just seemed to take on a change of it's own accord. And as a result, it turned into something much different than I originally intended. I guess you can think of this as a sort of extension to the previous chapter. A nice little story inside another story.

Oh yeah, and my hyperlink making skills kinda suck, so uh, sorry about those bum links in the last note. (If all else fails, just highlight the urls and do a google search!)

Anyway, thanks to anyone who gave my story a read, I'll update again soon.

B.D. Skunkworks