Chapters Next
Close
Frozen Land, Frozen Hearts1,439 words
Brittle Bonds are Broken3,821 words
Fight to Flight2,960 words
Broken Wings4,566 words
Dealing With A Devil6,933 words

Frozen Land, Frozen Hearts

Across the Eastern Sea, upon a continent far removed from the ancient lands of Persisus where dwelt the races of griffons and minotaurs since time untold, lay the once-verdant lands of the pony tribes, transformed at the time of this tale by fell fortunes.

The stark country, unrecognizable; where vast forests and verdant fields flourished in better times, now the land grew only rising snowy mounds and jagged ice spires. Cold as ice too were the attitudes of the Unicorn, Pegasus, and Earth ponies who fled their ancestral Dream Valley as the wintry windigoes, demons of rage and hate, froze the land as strife the three tribes had fostered against each other empowered them. As the three leaders of the ponies considered sojourning into the unknown in search of unsullied and hopefully unfrozen ground, abandoning their ancient homeland without further consideration, already they'd discarded in their hearts those they had once called ‘friends’ in the long-lost days when they knew and lived the meaning of the word.

For not alone did the ponies' Dream Valley suffer the frigid touch of the windigoes. Only a short way off as the phoenix flies, the blissfully endless springtime home of the whimsical race of Flutters withered away under the demons’ icy onslaught. Somewhat smaller than the pony kindred, these lithe equine beings bore graceful fairy wings of opalescent hues upon their slender, elegant forms which were clothed in silken fur variegated in colors beyond the most brilliantly-hued gems in a dragons hoard and brighter than sun-kissed dewdrops. Upon the nectar of the lushly flourishing flowers covering their valley from peak to river plain the dainty creatures fed, harming nothing that did them no harm.

And though fragile as a butterfly they might seem, a mythic strength they yet possessed to protect themselves and their allies against all manner of terrible foes. For they could fly swifter than arrows loosed from a bow and dash across the sky like a lightning bolt. And in great numbers unleash the roar of the Utter Flutter, united in speed and power they could split the very air in twain, unleashing a devastating spectrum of shock waves which not even the fastest of the pegasi could hope to create nor their adversaries withstand.

Long before strife took hold, the Flutters and their neighbors allied against all manner of mythic foes, fostering a time of peace centuries long. But as time went on over the ages and the old tales faded to myth amongst all but the eldest of creatures, the ponies' hearts turned to selfishness and prejudice. They divided their tribes from one another and sought only to benefit their own kindred, often at the cost of the others well-being.

So too did the Flutters' change. As the ponies bickered and sequestered themselves in homogeneous herds, the Flutters' simple pride gradually turned to vanity and resentment. Were the not the most beautiful of creatures in the world? Didn’t the ponies themselves say as much when they had first gazed at them in breathless adoration? And so much better in other ways, for they would never stoop to such absurd fighting as between the tribes. What did they care if the unicorns moved Sun and Moon; that Pegasi directed the weather, and Earth ponies tilled the land? Their wondrous Sunstone's magical warmth nourished Flutter Valley and gave arcane vigor to the lush vegetation which provided for all their needs.

They had scoffed in arrogance and open disbelief when the first pony refugees fled across the valley, wailing absurd stories of spectral ice wraiths in the sky who first froze their victims and then descended in a shrieking hoard to sup upon the very essence of the ponies trapped within the ice; leaving only an empty shell of flesh, lifeless even when they could be thawed. “The ponies are eating moldy hay again, I shouldn’t wonder!” they had laughed to themselves… until the numbers of escapees became too great to deny the reality and they’d been left a number of the glassy-eyed living corpses as even those ponies who clung to their lifeless relations abandoned them in their own desperate flight.

But despite this, they felt secure in their little land, for the Sunstone shone brightly and its warmth forbade even the slightest chill or frost from so much as approaching the borders of their sheltered vale. Secure and warm, for some few days afterward they dwelt in blissful, willful ignorance… until the first bone-chilling spectral whinnies split the air as a clap of cold thunder.

The windigoes broke upon the Flutters’ valley with the suddenness of a mountain squall, screeching in ear-splitting tones which promised doom and despair to all who heard them. Hatred for all that lived spewed from the throats of the windigoes, a chilling declaration of apocalypse in every mocking in-equine cacophony composed of the many stolen voices of their countless prey, blended horribly with what might have been the devoured souls’ own bestial screams of torment as their conscious essence slowly, tortuously was consumed into utter oblivion.

Initially caught off guard and disquieted by the fearsomeness of their foe, the Flutters rallied behind their stalwart Queen, Damsel the Divine, greatest and loveliest of their kind. Brave and beautiful Damsel led them and alone raised her daughter, the timid Princess Lacewing, for many years since King Gleamhelm had met an untimely end in battle along with a number of the greatest warriors among the pony folk against the few remaining giant spiders which crept from the wild wood of the outer world to envenom and slowly devour the unwary or lone wanderers of Flutter and pony alike in days long past.

“We shall not fall back from out ancient homeland!” Damsel declared proudly as she rallied her people, her elegant sweeping wings alight with the radiance of the Stone before her floral throne, while Lacewing peeked out nervously from behind it. “We have bested all enemies who’ve challenged us! Forget not that even the embodiment of vileness itself, the Smooze, was turned to vapor by our power!” Though their cheers of defiance rang through the gradually chilling air in unity with their ruler, they could not help but feel the icy touch of fear in their hearts as the wicked winter spirits amassed overhead, beating relentlessly against the Sunstone’s shielding warmth, testing the limits of its power to hold back their cold cruelty.

Time soon proved the Queen’s declarations as mere sabre-rattling. Futile indeed were the Flutters efforts, for their prided swiftness could not cut through the frigid air, thickened with manifested hatred and anguish the windigoes wielded; their limbs and wings grew numb from exertion and cold. Even the might of the formerly formidable Utter Flutter failed to pierce the unnatural icy veil of wrath which surrounded the windigoes, whose power and numbers waxed inexorably greater even as the Flutters ranks began to fall along with their hopes as they witnessed the terrible doom of the downed of their kindred. The very light of of life was drained from the victims and swallowed up, their frozen faces fixed forever in the agony experienced as the windigoes feasted upon their essences.

And to multiply the Flutters’ despair, even the Sunstone itself gradually wore down with the battle, its reserves exhausted, its limits surpassed by the unending wrath of the windigoes’ winter.

At last, as the frosts crept down the hillsides and covered the once-fragrant glades with scentless, solid sterility, the haughtiness and self-assurance of the Queen gradually cracked with the grim reality of failure; her mood mirrored by her glorious wings which became frayed and worn from overexertion in their desperate battle. “Send to the Pony lands,” she reluctantly commanded at last, brushing back limp tatters of her mane which once glistened like spun glass. “While there is still warmth in the Stone, go and see if the greatest of their kind will join us to fight these monsters together.”

Three small group of the swiftest Flutters quickly assembled at the Queen's command and flashed away into the swirling snows, their bright bodies swiftly vanished amid the blinding blizzards while all the remaining Flutters mounted a distraction to mask their departure from the windigoes. After they were certain the messengers had escaped into the storms, the rest of their kin fled back to the shrinking safety of the Stone's light and tended to what few flowers remained to sustain them, hoping against hope that the ancient pacts might be fulfilled and they could rise to victory as they had in the stories from ages past.

Author's Note:

Well, I suppose it's about time I started putting this little thing out there. I actually have time to write and my muse has apparently come out of its coma for a bit.

464 views

Chapters Next