Who Needs Harmony?: An MLP Empire Quest

@Questor

"Another one!" -DJ Khaled.

You need to dig, but time has run out.

Your name is Buster, and you work at a farm.

Once, several years ago you would have been part of a raiding force meant to be looting farms like these, but that's in the past.

When your Pack became subjects to the Griffon King, you weren't quite sure what to expect from them. Some in your Pack were more vocal about their opinions, but the chance of not having to risk their lives in the forest every time they went foraging, either to monsters or to the Sickness, was too good to pass up.

It proved to be the right choice in the end.

The best choice.

Hot baths. Three meals a day. Shelter from the cold winds. Medicine.

Your pack settled around the southern areas of Griffonia, as the Griffon's called the land, where a nearby village quickly welcomed them.

It was there that you met your first Griffon friends, Griswald and Giselle.

The couple owned a farm close to the village and occasionally went to the market to buy supplies and sell their produce. They were curious to see your Pack and started asking you questions about your life as soon as the three of you felt comfortable enough to hold a conversation.

Griswald, a strong brown-feathered Griffon, was the one who started it, mostly focusing on broad subjects: your Pack's day-to-day life, what you did when a wild troll caught your scent.

Giselle, the more soft-spoken of the two, focused her questions more on you. You were mostly a gatherer, but you could fight if necessary, and given that your Pack was quite small, you occasionally took part on raids on rival Packs that came too close.

You weren't deemed strong enough to take part in the raids on Griffon-held lands.

You also asked similar questions, of course, and were intrigued by the 'farmer' profession.

Your pack hadn't tried to grow their own food before, and soon enough, you were asking how it worked.

This pattern repeated itself every few days for the next couple of months, and through that time, you occasionally visited their farm, sometimes even helped out. They certainly appreciated the help of a Diamond Dog when some of the fertile lands in their territory were blocked by boulders and gravel.

That was years ago.

By now you practically had a room at their house all for yourself and commonly worked together with Griswald, as Giselle was now a few months pregnant with her second child. Their eldest, a female griffon named Gwen, wasn't yet old enough to start working in the fields, so she mostly helped out her mother when she needed it.

And that's what Griswald and you are doing right now.

Working.

"How deep do you think it needs to be? Think this is enough?" You ask Griswald.

As fast as you could.

He looks down at you from the tunnel entrance you dug at the side of a hill.

"It will do. I'll bring the logs." He says and, by the time he's moved out of your field of view, you are already digging.

You had to.

It had been an optimistic few months. After the discovery of the Yaks over the western mountains, everyone wanted to know who or what was beyond the Peregrine Mountains.

Hell, you all had gone out to see the exploration party. One hundred Griffons and Diamond Dogs, all of them carrying supplies to last them months, had gone through the village. There had been a party the last night of their stay.

You hadn't seen the five who returned, but from what you heard from the rumors, you could only pity them.

And now, a blizzard cast by some mad sorcerer was slowly making its way North, and your farm was in its path.

You had seen several soldiers make their way south to defend the border over the course of a few days, but fighting whatever was coming under the cover of the blizzard wasn't going to stop it.

So, you did what you do best and started digging.

The cold that could already be felt was only comparable to some of the colder winters you had seen, but it's the middle of spring and the blizzard hasn't even reached you yet, so it was safe to say that the house and crops wouldn't stand up to the cold.

You had started digging a shelter on the side of a hill.

The main tunnel that you could easily seal up if it ever became necessary was the first thing you finished.

You were now digging the main chamber, where you Griswald, Giselle, and Gwen would sleep during the nights; then, a storage room to keep as much food as possible, and finally, a few escape tunnels leading north.

It was best not to take any chances with whatever was making its way from the south.

You knew that the rest of your Pack, and several other Packs that were in the southern regions, were doing the same thing as you. Digging shelters and pathways into the earth, where the cold wouldn't reach the people within.

"Here, most of them are Acacia, but there are a few Oaks." Griswald panted as he, presumably, dragged the cart containing the soon-to-be support pillars to the tunnel entrance.

You didn't answer as you quickly made your way out of the tunnel and, with Griswald's considerable help, you started dragging the first pillar into position.

By the end of the day, the main chamber is as completed and stable as can be, the storage room is half complete, and you are both dead tired.

"C'mon you two get inside. Oh, and make sure you wash yourselves, especially you Buster." Giselle says as she stands on the porch of the house. She and little Gwen had spent the whole day harvesting as much food from the fields as they could. Griswald had been against it initially, with Gisselle's pregnancy, but she'd have none of it, which meant that Gwen also wasn't having any of it.

By the time they were done, they had grabbed as many ripe fruits as they could and left the rest to mature a bit more. From there they'd either go to storage or be bartered for other goods in the market like firewood, coal, meats, and water.

That still left the corn and potatoes, but those could last longer when stored, so they were being left for last.

As you drew closer to the house, however, something cold landed on your nose.

Snow.

Griswald gives you a grim look as more white specks fall from the sky.

"We should cover up the tunnel entrance. I don't want to have gone through all that work only to have to dig it out again." You say as the wind starts to pick up.

"Alright then, we should..." Griswald starts before suddenly stopping.

"Giselle," he stutters out, his eyes fixated in the distance, "you and Gwen grab enough bedrolls for all of us and get them to the shelter, I'll get the water and the firewood; Buster, you go finish the storeroom, I'll go out to the fields and get as much food as I can." He wasn't screaming, but it was clear that he wanted everything done quickly.

As you turn to see what he's looking at, his haste becomes obvious.

You have finally run out of time.

You could usually see the peaks of the Peregrine mountains from here.

Now you can't.

There is a gigantic wave of ice and snow over them, being slowly carried by the wind.

It will reach you by the morning.

You say nothing and quickly get to work.

There is nothing else to do.
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I want the bonus to go to Forecast. We need the Intrigue.