Zecora and the Parasite

by Faedelaide

4: Lost in Frost

Though the sun had risen a few hours ago, the mountains of snow that surrounded every side of Zecora's hut remained completely intact. Finally, after two days of non-stop snowing, the storm had ceased. Now, Zecora was ready to go. The front door creaked open a slight crack, but was quickly caught by the wall of frost.

Zecora tried again to shove open the door, but it refused to move. She placed both her hooves upon the wooden frame and pushed with all her might, but all she had managed to do was get the door lodged into the thick snow. She sighed in frustration. "well, at least the storm is through,
but we still have some digging to do."

"Easy enough for me," Reek scoffed. With undoubtable ease, Reek bored his way through the thick layer of frost. It took only a moment for him to breach the surface, but once he turned back to see the cabin in its entirety, he took in just how swamped they were. Reek found his eyestalks scraping against the top of the canopy, and there wasn't a single unburied plant in sight. The tips of tree branches jutted from the pearly floor like thorns, the dull brown clashing harshly with the opalescent, sparkling snowbanks. Only the top half of Zecora's hut poked out from beneath the snow, and as far as Reek could see, there was no easy way they were going to find what they needed to make his potion.

Behind him, Zecora huffed and grunted. A grey hoof emerged from Reek's snow tunnel, and then another, and then a mohawk of black and white rose from beneath the snow.

She huffed and panted, exhausted from climbing up the slippery funnel of ice.
"I'm on my hooves and knees,
Some help, if you'd please!"

Reek hadn't noticed her pleas for help until a thick hunk of ice hit him square in the back. He spun around with a snarl, ready to tear apart his attacker, until he finally noticed the small, struggling zebra. He rolled his eyes, but wrapped his tail around Zecora and hoisted her up to stand next to him.

She took a moment to catch her breath before speaking again.
"Thank you friend,
that would've been my end."

"Oh don't be such a crybaby," Reek chided. He turned back to look at her hut. Above them, the sky was surprisingly clear. The sun shone brightly above them, but the ice had no intention of melting. Reek entertained the idea that maybe the ice was lingering out of pure spite specifically towards him, and that if he walked more than twenty feet in any direction, the snow would disappear.

He groaned. "So whaddya think, doc? What do we do now?"

Zecora thought for a while. As she did, she wandered aimlessly around the frozen wasteland, looking for any way to reach the dirt below. She inspected her house, all five feet of it that hadn't been buried in snow, and walked along the treetops, snaking between the piercing, wooden spears scattered around the place.

She tapped her hoof on her chin contemplatively.
"This is a grim turn of events,
I do not know where the snow ends."

"Well I could've told you that. Ugh!" Reek groaned. This was fantastic. Not only was he stuck with the single most annoying creature in Leudnan Righrean, but now he was going to have to starve to death. He was just on the verge of curling himself back into a depressed, enclosed ball when an idea struck him.

Zecora stared distractedly at some distant, snow covered mountains. She wasn't paying any attention to him as he whined, and she continued not to notice him as he stalked behind her. In his mouth, his rows of serrated teeth twisted and shifted in anticipation. He was getting closer. He had to hold back a growl and kept himself from drooling. A gust of wind blew past them, and with it, he could smell her clear as day. His vision focused. The form of Zecora was crystal sharp in front of him. His first taste of meat in Boiuna knew how long, and it was practically served to Reek on a silver platter.

His mouth opened wide, splitting his body vertically down the middle. Rows and rows of teeth whirled excitedly. And then, Zecora shouted, and Reek toppled over, startled.

"I know, we'll go to the nearby lake.
I know there's plenty there to take."

"The lake?" Reek grunted, "Wouldn't it be frozen over?"

"Frozen over? Likely so,
but perhaps it's not as covered with snow."

Reek took one last look around him, then sighed. "I guess we don't have any better options, do we?"

"No we do not," Zecora beamed, much more eager to explore than Reek was. "Come on, let us trot!"

The zebra practically bounced along the pristinely smooth snow. Of course, she was mindful not to jump around too recklessly, lest she punch a hole in the thin layer of ice and plummet down into ten feet of snow.

"I admit, I'm taken aback," She blurted out after a long stretch of silence, "I've seen snow so highly stacked.
Surely you know more than me
What might have caused this blizzard to be."

"Yeah, I know a bit," Reek responded, stifling a sarcastic, biting tone, "but how much do you know exactly?"

"I suppose an answer is due,
After all you've given more than a few." She cleared her throat, preparing her voice for the unnecessary dramatics that Reek was sure were about to transpire. "About... perhaps a week ago, a glacier arose from down below.
It held some monsters deep within,
And yet the cage began to thin.
Its explosion touched the very stars,
Spreading chaos near and far.
And now the princesses are doomed,
Because there's simply not enough room.
Do I have it all correct,
Or did wrongly recollect?"

Reek took a moment to decipher Zecora's poem before he answered. "Yeah I'd say that's pretty close. Big glacier with a bunch of ancient horrors shows up, explodes, and all the monsters in it start wreaking havoc. You forgot to mention old king Sammakött, though."

"Quite the grisly name,
To what does he owe his fame?"

"Ohhh... Y'know..." Reek tried to put the words together, but just the thought of Sammakött, of what he had done, made Reek want to curl into a ball again.

"You know, it's ok.
If you'd rather not say-"

"No!" Reek interrupted. "It's fine, he's just... A horse of many achievements."

"A horse? he was a pony?" Zecora blurted out, shocked at the thought.

Reek laughed, though this chuckle was notably less venomous than usual, whether that be from Zecora or the thoughts of Sammakött weighing on his mind. "No, no... Well, if he was, no one alive has ever seen what he looked like before he turned."

"So he is a phony?"

" No it's," Reek sighed, his frustration leaning more towards the complexity of Sammakött's history than anything Zecora had said. "It's just complicated. You had to be there for it."

Zecora nodded, taking the hint. The two continued on quietly until both of them noticed an odd dip in the snow bank. Reek squinted to get a better view, and Zecora quickened her pace.

"I believe we've arrived.
Let's see what has survived."

Reek followed closely behind her. All the while they had walked, he had kept a very close eye on the sky and the horizon. He was intent not to get himself caught out in the open, despite Zecora's lack of any worry whatsoever. But now, he was following her into, given the height of the snow, a frozen bowl of death as deep as a castle was tall. And he didn't like it one bit.

Reek's teeth chittered anxiously, but Zecora carried on. Upon reaching the bottom of the pit, Zecora stared out at the crystal blue lake. It's surface was frozen over into a thick slab of solid, cerulean ice. It glistened and shined under the glow of the early morning sun, and all across it's surface, scrapes and cuts were scattered throughout. The small imperfections upon the lake's surface told a story of the storm's ferocity. Near the center of the lake, a wide tree branch curved over and under the ice like an eel before disappearing into the murk of the icy blue. Reek held his breath out of reflex.

"Not that I don't trust your ability to find... things, but can we find what we're looking for and go, please? I really would not like to be here any longer than we need to be."

"Of course, I swear,
we're almost there," Zecora waved her hoof reassuringly backwards towards Reek. He recoiled, a slight hiss escaping his maw in protest to Zecora's gesture. He nearly roared out of fright when that same hiss returned back to him.

"Ugh, I guess sound travels well down here, huh?"

"Mhm, Ensure your words are quietly spoke,
or an avalanche you might invoke," Zecora stated with all the nonchalance of someone who had dealt with a situation like this many times before. As she talked to Reek, her eyes scanned the edge of the lake and the surrounding area, looking for something Reek could neither see not understand.

"You seem pretty casual about all this, considering how dangerous it is. How do you know something isn't going to jump out and attack us?"

"It's simple, nothing much to fret,
there's just one thing you never forget."

"Uh huh, and what's that? 'Always look up'? 'Pick your battle'?

Zecora giggled again, and Reek's teeth chittered in response. "Those rules are all very nice,
but I always remember to-"

Both Zecora and Reek jumped at the loud crack that echoed all across the pit. It bounced around the far edges of the ice, then dissipated as it flew away with the wind. Zecora glared back at Reek.

"Oh don't you dare look at me! I am way too squishy to break that ice. I'm all the way over here!"

Another louder CRACK broke the tense silence that followed. Both heads snapped towards the noise's origin, only to face the center of the lake. Where the winding branch had once been, there was now a wide, dark hole where the ice had been pulverized, leaving only dark blue water to fill the space.

Reek leaned over to whisper to Zecora. "What... was that last survival tip of yours again?"

"Always watch the ice."

Another CRACK Split the lake in two. A wide perforation split the ice right down the middle, pointed directly towards the two wanderers. After the first deafening CRACK, several other pops and crackles continued on in the next few moments. From the large, center crack, other smaller cracks split and branched off, separating the lake into dozens of small, thick pieces of ice that floated harmlessly on the frigid water. Then, from the depths of the lake came a low, deep rumbling. To Reek, it sounded like the growls of a gator, but they never grew that big, did they?

Far off from the shore, several chunks of ice began to sway and bob haphazardly as a very large creature made its way towards the two of them with an increasing speed. Reek stood frozen, unable to move. He tried his best to run, to curl into a ball, to do anything, but all he could do was look over to Zecora, or rather, where Zecora had been. Zecora had left her position next to Reek to sprint towards a far off tree, hidden well amongst the various snow covered foliage. Reek tried to follow her, but he remained rooted to the spot. He turned back towards the lake, only to see the once frozen branch standing high above him. It bent and weaved like the body of a snake. The water around the thin, serpentine head swirled and frothed as the great creature rose from the water, and two great, yellow eyes stared back at him.

Reek was almost relieved that the creature didn't seem particularly dangerous despite its size, but then, four other serpentine heads joined alongside the first. Reek gulped, although it couldn't be heard over the monster's ravenous growling.

So that was what hydras looked like now.

Comments

[Forcalor]

This is interesting, but i was expecting something more visceral/struggling from the premise
Well, maybe i'm just weird. Good read.

[dark_samus3]

11528030
To be fair, we're only, what, 4 chapters in? Who knows what will happen, and especially if you consider the last few chapters of "In Reflection, The Same", I'd say it could get pretty visceral

[Forcalor]

11528083
Well, I'm not judging, just talking about my expectations.) There is plenty of time for the premise to unravel itself in all its grizzly glory. Rock on.