//------------------------------//
// The Windigo Hole 
// Story: The Olden World 
// by Czar_Yoshi 
//------------------------------//

Nobody opened the door to Puddles' containment chamber. It was talked about several more times, jokingly agreed upon that it was a bad idea they should pursue anyway, never acted upon... Somehow, the process of imagining themselves doing stupid things livened Maple's spirits, and she eventually sat up and sniffed.

"Thank you, everyone," she mumbled, drawing a hoof across her eyes and flicking away a last few tears. "I wish I didn't get so down about these things. I know it's a problem, and you didn't have to sit here with me in a place like this... but thank you. I feel better now. It helped."

Shinespark beamed. "Mission accomplished! Now, who wants to go back to the Dream and get some dinner? I'm starving!"

"Sounds good to me," Valey belched.

"I hope it tastes good," Nyala added, trying to be a good sport even though all she would get to do was watch. "Here, I'll get the door."

"Hey!" a metallic voice growled from beyond the other door. "Leaving without even a hello, are you? So much for friendship and harmony, these days."

"Aah!" Maple jumped, fur raising at the sound of Puddles' augmented voice, and whirled toward the door to the containment room. "She was raised!? I didn't... I didn't even go in there!"

"I sure was," Puddles echoed, her voice muffled by the wall. "They might as well just give me a control on this lift! The old fool who experiments on this body of mine down below has a very fragile temperament, and it's frightfully easy to annoy him into banishing me up here. So, going to just walk away without so much as a kindly glance for the poor little mare in captivity?"

Maple froze, tensed, and gritted her teeth.

"We did say this was a bad idea," Shinespark reminded her, standing closer to the exit.

"I know it is," Maple sighed, though it didn't relieve any of her tension. "But I want to look it in the eye when I say what I have to say, and I'm not sure when I'll be down here next. Drag me out if I stay more than... a few minutes."

Uneasily, Valey and Shinespark watched and then followed as Maple threw open the door and stalked into the containment room, Puddles suspended in the middle of her great golden ring the same as last time.

"Hiya! You did come! Yay!" Puddles gave a broad, foalish grin, her voice back to that of a normal mare. "Puddles loves company! Want a hug? You all..." She opened her pupil-less eyes and blinked, centerless circles of frosty blue on white. "Huh. That's weird. A whole party, and the kid didn't even come with you. What are you playing at, my little ponies?"

Maple didn't answer, striding straight to the edge of Puddles' platform. She stood for a long moment, having a staring contest with the windigo.

"...So." Puddles looked slightly awkward. "You were having a therapy session right outside my room and didn't invite me? That's rude. Stupid, too. Windigoes make great therapists."

"Doubt it!" Valey sniped from the corner.

Maple didn't reply, though, still staring. Puddles gave her a cocky smile. "Aren't you on a mission now, though! Got something you want? Who knows, maybe you'll get it! Play with me, I'm bored."

"We're not interested in games," Shinespark added, orange fur bristling at the presence of the same monsters that had torn off the air control tower and killed Grenada so long ago. "I know you'll just try to turn us against each other, and we're too prepared for it."

"Errrr, maybe best not to tempt fate, Sparky..." Valey winced.

"Turning you against each other?" Puddles shook her head. "Why would I do a thing like that? You're right! It wouldn't work! And I'm so terribly lonely and it would be such a shame to alienate all my potential friends..." She made a sad, pouty face. "If anything, you're more in danger of trusting each other more than you deserve as a show of solidarity against me, then getting hurt on your own time because of it. Careful not to overreact, now."

"There's no danger of that," Maple calmly replied. "I already trust my friends with my life and everything I care about."

Puddles whistled. "That's a real tight-knit group you've got there. It makes poor me feel all lonely inside..." She shivered and gave a sad pout. "Okay. So you trust each other! Brilliant. We can work with that. How about your Izvalden hosts, then? Trust them with as much? Because I could spill all sorts of nasties about them to make you overreact in one way or another. What would you do? Mistrust and start a fight with someone who should have been your ally? Or lie complicit and get stabbed in the back? Oh, the things I could tell you..."

Maple interrupted her with a cross stomp. "We'll form our own opinions of our hosts, thank you very much, and I didn't come here for advice on who to trust. I'm here to tell you I pity you."

Puddles raised an eyebrow. "What, the poor little pony who's definitely not trapped inside me, screaming for her adorable snuggly body back? That's a relief. If you didn't, you'd be such a monster it would make me look like a saint!"

"Yes, but you too. You." Maple stood firm. "I can't imagine what it must be like to be a creature made from pure hatred. You probably don't even have the freedom to choose to love or care about things. I wanted to tell you that I will kill you and get the real Puddles back, and when I do, it will be a mercy to you."

Puddles winced. "Ow, that's harsh! Lady, aren't you supposed to be Kindness? You certainly felt like it the other day..." She drew her lips into a hurt grimace. "Would you believe me if I told you I wasn't made of hatred? Because it's true. I think you've got us windigoes all wrong."

Maple stood firm. "If you're trying to make me feel sorry for you, I told you I already do."

"Hold on a minute." Shinespark stepped forward. "But all the legends I've heard say you cause and feed on strife and enmity between ponies! That you're the embodiment of the worst things in our hearts. You're lying, aren't you?"

"Is it?" Valey raised an eyebrow. "Hear the windigo out. It's tied up. The worst thing that can happen is we get chumped."

Puddles winked at Valey. "Actually, the worst that can happen is you get chumped and teased, too! I see the way you're looking at me. You're a thirsty one, aren't you? My offer for a hug still stands..."

"Please... don't." Valey shivered. "I've had a ridiculous enough day with that already."

Puddles' hips, tail and cutie mark were covered by a wide restraining belt across her waist, so she had nothing to shake in teasing. "Fine. Want to bite? I'm only offering to tell you this because it'll make Chauncey mad with how stubborn I've been about giving information, that I now turn around and tell you something interesting for free. And because you bleeding hearts will feel it and get sad. And because I like to brag. Windigo history one oh one, going once... going twice..."

Valey winced. "Getting baited..."

"She's going to monologue, isn't she?" Nyala sighed.

"What do I have wrong about you?" Maple asked, voice level. "And the moment you tell me you're more evil than I thought you were, not less, I'm leaving."

"It's not like that!" Puddles protested, sounding genuinely vulnerable... until her grin solidified in an eager smirk. "It's like this. Ever heard of greed, lust, gluttony, envy... words like those?"

Maple nodded, keeping a firm eye on her.

Puddles nodded too. "Good, because that's where we're starting. But first... this room is bugged, and I'm not telling this to Chauncey or any of his goons. So I need you to break the microphone first. I'll take the blame."

"That's suspicious..." Shinespark narrowed her eyes.

"Hold on, danger detector." Valey stepped up. "If this somehow lets you out so you can freeze us, it won't work. What do you need busted?"

Puddles beamed. "See all those pipes on the wall? The one sort of to my right, with a yellow stripe halfway up. It's more fragile than it looks. The recorder's in there."

"Valey, wait a-" Shinespark raised a hoof to stop her.

"Nope. Lemme see this." Valey stepped up to the pipe and pressed her hoof against it. "Nothing special. She might actually be telling the truth, and do you potentially want a dude as angry as Chauncey knowing we know things we shouldn't know?"

Nyala tilted her head. "Wouldn't he hear what you're saying now and know you were about to be told anyway?"

"Not if you break the recorder," Puddles interrupted. "Nobody's been by to pick up its data yet."

"Valey..." Nyala frowned.

Without being asked, Valey punched the pipe. It really was flimsy, and when she yanked her hoof out, it yanked out a small box with some trailing, sparking power cords. She stared at it.

"That's a recorder, all right," Shinespark agreed, looking curious. "Ironridge model, too. An old one, without battery power. Whoever bought this must've been on a budget."

"Easy way to break that, then!" Valey brought her hoof down, shredding the power cords that still attached the recorder to the pipe.

"That'll do it!" Puddles beamed. "Okay, get ready. Where were we?"

Maple frowned at the smashed, powerless recorder and broken pipe it had been yanked out of. "You were talking about laziness or lust or something."

"Right! Right." Puddles' voice lowered slightly. "Greed, sloth, blahbitty blah blah. Bad words, things you don't want to be. Yakyakistan will tell you that. So will Garsheeva, and the Night Mother. Even Celestia! Maybe not anyone higher than them, but that's not your fault. But when you think about them, they all mean the same thing: wanting something you don't deserve and can't have. A rest when others are working. Love that belongs to someone else. More than your fair share. Sometimes you get those anyway, and that's a whooole 'nother story that isn't mine to tell. But hatred is too general a concept. Windigoes like me... we're the special brand of anger that occurs when you want something you're not supposed to have and you don't get it. We don't howl indiscriminately. We're more like... a cosmic temper tantrum, thrown about one silly thing. Following?"

Maple blinked, and nobody interrupted.

"Yay!" Puddles looked pleased. "That's us. Windigoes. One prime directive, and our existence is to rage and throw a fit and convince every mortal ever to rage with us whenever it's not being met. Physical pain if we don't. And we don't even get to decide what that directive was. Just... locked in a box for thousands of years, waiting for one to be given..." She leaked a crocodile's tear, though there was a tiny chance it was genuine. "It's a raw deal, when you think about it. Makes you want to rage instead at the jerk who thought it would be a good idea to create a whole entire sapient race just to do a thing like that. Alas for us..."

If anyone had not been curious before, that was completely and utterly gone. Maple, Valey and Shinespark all stood within a hooflength of the platform, with Nyala using her height to look over their shoulders. "Wait a minute," Valey interrupted, "so you guys back in Ironridge were really just having a pity party and figured you'd ice the city and mess with everyone's emotions just to get us to join in?"

"That's how it was supposed to work," Puddles hissed, a chagrinned look spreading on her face. "In reality, we got a far worse deal. Two thousand years ago, when someone let us out... you know what they asked us to do? What they cared the most about in their hearts, and we were automatically bound to enforcing? Ponies fighting. Brawling, squabbling, tearing at each other's throats. Being disharmonic. The scum who let us out didn't even know we were in there; they were just on a power trip until some unicorn rolled them over. And a part of the deal I forgot to mention is that harmony hurts windigoes. We're disharmonic lifeforms. It makes us shrivel up and go dormant from constant exposure, and instantly die from too great a concentration! You know what harmony is, right? Friendship is magic and all that stuff? Ponies getting along?"

She spat in disgust, hitting the floor of her pedestal. "It's the most miserable, accursed existence ever! We have a job to do, and suffer a painful curse whenever it needs doing! But when it doesn't need doing is the only time we can do it, because the exact thing we're instructed to fix also repels us and forces us away! And the worst part is, we can't ever get a new prime directive, because the thing you need to do that? Some stupid pony got rid of it!"

Puddles looked legitimately worked up, a vein twitching on her forehead in anger. "So when we can move freely? We freeze. It isn't enough for ponies to be fighting. We have to ensure they never stop, because the alternative is being tormented by our nature. And sometimes, when you live an existence as unfair as this one... you just want to rage. We were already made for it. But rage at anything, at everything, purely because we can and we're not locked in a box waiting to be awakened or to see a drop in your accursed harmony. Feeling sorry for the monsters now, little ponies?"

Maple stood back, eyes growing glassy. "So it really would be a mercy, killing you. And you even realize it."

"Oh, I didn't say anything about me," Puddles laughed. "See, that's the best part. All those other windigoes out there, locked beneath a glacier in the ruins of Unicornia because that's the one place chaotic enough for them to exist without tarnishing their strength? They're the wretched ones. But I... have... evolved."

She looked downwards, trying to eye her fuzzy body. "Does anyone have a mirror? I really would like to admire this, sometime. Ponies are harmonic lifeforms, though, you see. You'd think it would be toxic to even touch them, if I normally had a physical form that was more than just a hideous cloud. But there's some... sciency stuff that nobody's around to stop others from messing with, and here I am. Seamlessly fused. A windigo with a harmonic body. And it's so cute! Physically solid, too. I really wish somepony would give me a hug already... Friendship? Cuddling? Merely being in a room where ponies are happy? It doesn't hurt me anymore. In fact, your friendship actually warms me, and as funny as it may seem for an ice monster to be saying this, it feels good! In short, I have evolved to the point where I can exist in harmonic situations, cause them to deteriorate to chaos and mayhem, and then sit back and enjoy my labors instead of spending every free moment raging in terror that it could somehow end."

"You can't keep it," Maple announced. "That body belongs to Puddles. It isn't yours, and we will get you out."

Puddles stuck out her lip. "Hmmph. Raining on my parade before it's even started. Yayyyy. I love you ponies so much, you know."

"...So are you hurting now?" Nyala asked cautiously. "Because of the curse, since we're not fighting and you're not doing your directive? How come you stopped trying to get us to mistrust Izvaldi, or one another?"

"Oh, that's the best part." Puddles put on a look of immense satisfaction, relaxing completely. "It does hurt. Really, I'm tormented. But you know what I've realized? I've lived with this pain for two thousand years, cute little ponies. I know it. I'm desensitized to it. It's my new normal! I'm not going to die from being exposed a few years longer. So, now that I've ascended and become a more perfect being... why cower before my old directive and let it control me? Am I going to waste this chance on what some punks who are no longer around wanted? As if! I'm going to want some things of my own, and I'm going to revel in them, all to spite my own existence and laugh at everyone who's no longer around and say that I won. I. Am. Perfect."

"You're a narcissist," Valey declared, pointing a hoof. "...Huh. So I guess this is the part where you try to bribe us to let you out, right? Because sorry, I don't even know how to open a thing like this."

Puddles' chains were too taut for her to shrug. "Actually, I was going to ask for a hug again. Really! I don't have any hidden traps or dangers, I promise! I just want to feel..." Her eyes watered. "And wouldn't you like to be friends with a windigo? I can make friends now without dying, you know."

Maple and Shinespark looked stuck... but Valey stepped forward, climbing onto the platform. "You know what?" She narrowed her eyes. "I think you're actually not somehow dangerous and really want this, and bananas, I don't care anymore. This is frustrating. Have your hug."

Valey reared onto her hind legs as Maple and Shinespark stared, waiting for an explosion. She leaned into Puddles and made contact, head just tall enough to rest against the hanging earth pony's neck. "Huh," she muttered as she made contact, even wrapping her hooves around the mare. "You're actually warm. Didn't see that coming."

"Awwwww..." Puddles' limbs were too bound to return the hug, but she smiled in bliss. "Fuzzyyyyyyy... Thanksies. That was everything I thought it would be."

Valey waited for a minute and then broke contact, still standing on the platform. "What do you know?" She shrugged. "I guess it really wasn't a trap."

Puddles still looked just a little overcome by the sensation, eyes squeezed shut in pleasure as she tugged at her chains. "Oh, that was nice. Thanks, little pony. You've just made friends with the windigo! How does it feel?"

"Not friends," Valey corrected, meeting Puddles' gaze with even eyes. "I still don't trust you, for one."

"Oh, but I trust you," Puddles countered with a smirk that suggested she'd just won something. "In fact, I think you deserve a reward! Wanna see something?"

"Uhhh..." Valey took another step back.

Suddenly, Puddles made a face. Her belly visibly convulsed, and then her throat rippled, Valey jumping back in case she hurled. But then she stopped, was calm, held her head up with her eyes closed... and made the broadest smirk yet, parting her teeth and sticking out her tongue.

On it was a dark crystal.

Puddles opened her eyes, glancing around and reading everyone's reactions to make sure they saw, then drew it back in and swallowed again. "You like that?" she asked after swallowing several more times. "Chauncey doesn't know I have it. Nobody in the world does, except you. What a helpless, sneaky windigo."

"W-What was that?" Maple's voice broke, just a little. "It looked like moon glass! And you have some? Is this a trap?"

"Oh, it isn't moon glass." Puddles shook her head in wicked satisfaction. "Made from the same stuff, actually, but this is something more. It's called a Nightmare Module, and it's some of the most interesting and unusual magic to exist in the world. Very very dangerous, too. Almost as dangerous as us windigoes."

Valey frowned. "I've heard that name before..."

"In a letter from Arambai, explaining what had happened to your old husband." Shinespark pointed a hoof at Maple, eyes narrowing. "I don't forget things like this. He said it was some magic Dorable had to erase or damage memories."

Valey's eyes widened. "Then... but..."

"Oh, you've heard of these?" Puddles looked deeply intrigued. "Now that's a first. They're supposed to be an impossibly-well-kept secret. Don't tell anyone that, because you never know who might flip their lid if they knew you knew. Let's see, other known modules... Any chance its discovery had to do with an exploding windigo heart?"

Valey stepped back, eyes widening in horror. "Wait, no, how'd you...?"

"Want to see something veeeeery interesting?" Puddles grinned sharkishly.

Everyone stared.

"The restraint around my waist." Puddles nodded downward. "It isn't actually a restraint. It's a cover. Swings right off if you just touch it, no resistance whatsoever. Why don't you see what someone wanted to hide?"

Valey touched it with a shaking hoof. One of the hinges was false, and the metal strap swung away, revealing Puddles' flanks and cutie mark. The mark was a giant snowflake, unsurprisingly... but both sides were riddled with painful-looking welts and bandages.

"Needles," Puddles said simply. "And I can guarantee you that whoever stuck them in wasn't trying to cure Morena's little filly. Guess what they were trying."

Maple looked up in horror, hooves trembling. Shinespark looked sick.

"I saw that look in your eyes." Puddles grinned. "You considered releasing me, even for just a second, didn't you? You can't hide that from me. But come now, you don't want to be making enemies of Izvaldi. And besides, I told you I'd turn you toward them or against them, one way or the other. Come visit me again, my little ponies. And give me more hugs! But for now, you need to skedaddle."

Maple, Valey and the others wasted no time in walking out, moving stiffly and fully aware that something was wrong. "You can't trust her, remember?" Nyala protested, the only one not invested.

Shinespark nodded and flicked the descent switch to lower Puddles back below, preparing something to say... but the moment she did so, the power cable that had been severed from the recorder sparked and there was a loud clang from the winch.

"Hey!" Valey spun rapidly as the platform dropped a short distance and awkwardly caught, Puddles grinning from it victoriously. "What did you-"

"Ever heard of things receiving power in series?" Puddles grinned victoriously. "I got the therapist ponies who installed that to put it on the winch cable! See ya later, friends!"

The winch went slack, and the platform fell, dropping like a bullet down its shaft.





With a loud metal boom, the platform and its ring dropped through the ceiling of a claustrophobic room, racks and racks of equipment and eldritch devices lining the walls. It sat there on its rails at the bottom, silent, until something dripped off Puddles' throne.

"Nnngh... oww...!" Puddles whimpered, dangling lopsidedly in her chains. "Pony bodies really hurt sometimes...!"

Her right foreleg was missing, the shock of the impact and her unhealthy restraint positioning having torn it off in the crash landing. Puddles winced, glared, her eyes flashed... and the wound on her shoulder began glowing with frosty blue light. Slowly, the severed leg still hanging in its shackle did too, until it disappeared, leaving the chain hanging, empty.

The outline of Puddles' shoulder glowed brighter, and like woodchips assembling themselves into a statue, the missing leg rematerialized, flaking out of thin air and putting itself back together with frosty magic. The whole process only took a second, and then she flexed the restored leg, wincing, feeling the pain recede. A devilish smirk crossed her face. One of her legs was free.

Her restored hoof flew to her other shoulder with a twist of her back, meeting the chain that shackled her other. Teal light flowed from the tip as it made contact, and spikes of jagged ice coated the shackle, freezing it solid, solider... and finally it smashed, letting her drop to all fours. The throne itself got the same treatment, and before anyone could so much as arrive to check on the commotion, Puddles was standing free on the platform, testing her muscles and licking her lips.

"Well, this'll be fun," she announced to no one in particular, stomping a forehoof against the floor and sending a lance of cold shooting through it, hitting an operating table and exploding into a peacock tail of ice shards that fully encased the object. She lifted the hoof and blew on it, a faint wisp of blue trailing away from its dimly-glowing flat side. "Alright, friends, I have a jail to break, but I'll see you later! Maybe we can even go on a date! That would give Morena a heart attack. I'll take good care of you, cuddly pony body. Hee hee hee hee hee hee heeeeeeeeeeee..."