LEGEND OF THE GODDESSES
western pine forests, 1,088 years ago
A storm swirled around the towering pines. Once, the needles had shone in different shades of green, darks and lights, tinted with blues and grays, with bark in shades of brown and red, but now the entire forest was blanketed in frost, not a shred of color showing through.
Two earth ponies trudged through the snow, wrapped in thick coats and blankets and laden with packs of their possessions.
One of them was a beautiful blue mare with a braided blond mane and pale yellow eyes. Her cutie mark was a winding river; her name, Rhea Strait. The stallion was Chronus Twister, gray-coated, his mane shaved off but with a scruffy brown tail, and vibrant purple eyes. His cutie mark was an empty hourglass.
"C-Chronus," Rhea stammered through the cold. "We should turn back. This isn't going to work!"
"We cannot!" Chronus declared. "This is our best hope to escape this dreaded plague of ice. You know this!"
"Can we be so sure?" Rhea urged. "Chancellor Puddinghead is searching for a new land, a new earth pony nation. Can't we see what she discovers before we do anything so rash?"
"No," Chronus growled. "If that scatterbrained chancellor chooses to solve this problem by going east, it's in our best interests to go in the exact opposite direction!"
"She's not so incompetent as to lead us to our doom!" said Rhea.
"Perhaps not… but I heard rumors that the unicorn princess and pegasus general are searching in the same direction," said Chronus. "And like the chancellor, their hearts are full of hate. The storm will follow them."
"What difference does that make?" Rhea demanded.
"Rhea," Chronus said patiently, "our little daughter has told us of the malevolent horse spirits who brought this dark time upon us. She's seen them in her dreams, and she knows that they feed on hearts full of hate."
Rhea was silent for a moment. "If the storm is following our leaders, wouldn't it serve us just as well to stay in our own country?"
"No," Chronus said. "As long as the three pony races hate each other, the storm will linger there as well."
"And what's stopping the storm from following us?" Rhea challenged.
Chronus turned to his wife and looked deeply into her eyes. "Rhea, my love… the ice spirits consume hate. I carry no hate in my heart. Do you?"
Rhea blinked. "I… you've convinced me. Your course is the correct one." She chuckled. "I've always known your love would be the death of me, Chronus Twister."
They stopped walking to kiss each other briefly.
"On top of which…" Chronus muttered. "Staying at our former home wouldn't rid us of our other problem. Leaving that place behind might be the only way to escape the other thing that haunts Kolassa's sleep."
Rhea blinked. "Where is our daughter?"
They turned around. Their hoof tracks through the snow were almost being filled in by the raging blizzard. They frantically galloped down their path, calling out their daughter's name. "Kolassa? Kolassa!"
It was only a short run through the snow before they found her, an unusually diminutive filly hopping from one hoofprint to another. Her parents came upon her and hugged her tightly.
"Kolassa, are you okay?" Rhea breathed.
"Yes," she chirped.
"Don't fall behind like that again, honey," Chronus said sternly. "In all this snow, you could get lost far too easily."
She looked down at her hooves in shame. "I'm sorry, Father."
Chronus' face softened. "It's all right, Kolassa. Just don't make us worry like that. Let's keep walking."
Kolassa kept pace now, standing between her parents. She was seven years old, and a pinkish-purple color. Her mane was ratty and tattered, bright red with a zig-zagging orange stripe. Due to her young age, her baby-blue eyes were huge and wide.
"Where are we going?" Kolassa asked.
"Well, if we keep going west," Chronus said, "we'll—"
"Oh my," Rhea breathed.
The three of them stopped in their tracks, for the forest had suddenly… ended. Behind them were the frosted pines of the west, but ahead of them, what could only be described as nothingness. A flat surface, smooth as glass, without a single imperfection, none of the up-and-down slopes of natural ground. This area was perfectly circular, and many miles in diameter, though the three ponies couldn't perceive this detail: to them, it simply looked like the world suddenly ended.
"What… what is this place?" Kolassa whispered. "It's nothing…"
"It's called the Matrix," Chronus said solemnly. "Come along, my dears."
He stepped out onto the smooth surface, his gray-tinted reflection beneath him. Rhea urged Kolassa along, then followed herself. They quickly discovered it was warm within this area; though the cloudy sky remained above, no snow fell upon the Matrix, even though it raged mere feet behind them.
"It's warm!" Kolassa remarked joyfully. "Have I ever been warm before?"
"Oh, sure you have," Rhea said gently. "Many years ago, before the blizzards came… you don't even remember the time before the cold?"
"I guess not," Kolassa muttered.
"Yes, even the snow knows better than to come here," Chronus said, looking up at the sky as he walked. "We won't be menaced by any animals or creatures, no elements or obstacles… there is nothing here. We, as thinking beings, aren't smart enough to know to stay the hell away, too evolved to know how unnatural it is. We'll be perfectly safe. We'll make our straight shot to the west at an excellent pace as long as our path takes us through the Matrix."
"Oh, I'm not 'too evolved' to know that this shouldn't be here," said Rhea with a shiver. "The sooner we get to the other side, the better."
"Father?" said Kolassa.
"Yes, my dear?"
"Where do we go after we get to the other side?" Kolassa asked. "I mean, where do we… end up? At the… the end? Where do we end up at the end?"
"Well, here's my plan," Chronus said jovially, ruffling his daughter's mane. "On the west coast, we'll find the ports where the merchants from the Whispering Desert come in to trade with the pony nations. Everything we have left, we'll use to buy passage onto one of their ships. In their country, we'll find a new life in a village just like ours." He kissed the top of Kolassa's head. "How does that sound?"
"It sounds great," Kolassa breathed. "And there are no monsters there, right? No more wind spirits freezing our hearts? No more monsters in my room?"
Chronus paused for a second, not knowing how to answer. Rhea caught up and patted Kolassa's head comfortingly.
"That's right," she said. "They won't be able to find you anymore."