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// Myths — The First Windigo 
// Story: In Sheep's Clothing 
// by Kydois 
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Legends often spoke of the Jewel of the Frozen North, the grand city in the coldest regions of Equestria, sitting in the shadow of Mount Everhoof. It has come to be known and referenced by many names, but it has most commonly been referred to as:

The Crystal Empire.

Tales, both believable and outlandish, cropped up around the mythical city. Some books spoke of ponies like moving gemstones, glittering in the light with shimmering manes that never lost their luster. They painted vivid pictures of buildings that appeared as if they had been chiseled out of house-sized jewels. Even the food was said to be impossibly beautiful, flawless and multi-faceted. The city, though surrounded by frozen tundra, was described with rolling fields of green grass that lasted all year round, untouched by the eternal winter surrounding it.

These accounts varied from record to record, and their truthfulness was often questionable at best. Expeditions to the north to find this fabled city have always ended in naught but snow, lending little proof to any of those tales. Perhaps all of those details were false. Perhaps all of them were true.

However, every tale of the fabled city spoke of the Crystal Heart at the city’s core, a magical artifact from which all of the wonders of the Crystal Empire sprang from. Powered by the hope and light of the city’s inhabitants, it kept magic flowing and the city shining brightly.

Though it is difficult to say whether the Crystal Heart, like the Crystal Empire, actually existed or not, the description of the Heart’s enchantments was remarkably similar to the enchantments pioneered on a failed expedition by the unicorns, before Equestria was created.

Seeking to expand, Unicornia tasked members of several noble houses to find promising land, each sending a few of their own ponies to join the expedition. One of these was Lady Iridescent, a promising unicorn mage and researcher who boasted several advancements in the understanding of spellcasting and gem-based enchantments.

The expedition went north, away from the capitals of the earth ponies and the pegasi, and while they weathered the colder climate well enough, the further north they went, the more problems they encountered. They noticed that their telekinesis, the most basic of unicorn spells, cut off randomly at times. Enchantments on their gear had to be refreshed often. Ponies tired more easily. The north, it seemed, was no friend to pony magic.

Iridescent noticed the growing instability of their magic and sought to resolve the problem. Using an artifact of her own creation, the Aether Lens, to see the flow of magic, she discovered that the issues blighting them stemmed from an unexpected phenomenon. The magic that the unicorns had originally believed they were losing was not being drained away. Magic was still present in their bodies, but the ponies themselves were finding it more and more difficult to tap into it.

The expedition had traveled far, and many of the ponies had grown weary, but the expedition would be forced to turn around if a solution to this magic bottleneck could not be found.

Despite the straitened circumstances, Iridescent discovered something else. Among the ponies with her, some had formed strong bonds with each other, and over those bonds, magic flowed. Those unicorns who found companionship were also less affected by the growing difficulties than the more solitary unicorns were. She realized quickly that emotions, especially strong positive emotions like friendship, love, and hope, could serve as a conduit for magic to flow out.

With that revelation, she had her solution.

Gathering her companions, she bid them all think positive thoughts, whether they be about something as deep as love or as basic as hope for the expedition. She saw the links, the fountains of magic created by their emotions, and weaving her enchantment, she tied them to a single light blue gemstone.

By nailing down those magical pathways to the gemstone, Iridescent was able to poke more permanent holes in the cage their magicks had been locked away in. As more magic flowed, the holes even widened, giving them access to their magic once more. The ponies’ high spirits only further strengthened the effect of the enchantment, and they soon found themselves with just as much, if not more, magic than they had access to prior to entering the Frozen North.

By linking their magic to the gemstone, Iridescent also realized that they could pool their magic, potentially allowing the group to cast and maintain spells much larger than any one pony could handle. This, however, she kept secret from the group, only jotting it down in a small snippet in her notes for fear that it would be misused without the proper restrictions.

It was this original gemstone that many scholars believe led to the myth of the Crystal Heart, a theoretical idealization of the formula, but as the first prototype, created by only a single unicorn, the enchantments on the gem were stretched thin quickly and there were few failsafes from catastrophe.

The records became unclear here, for shortly after the creation of the gem, Lady Iridescent was lured away by one of the members of the group and killed. The gem was lost with her body. The motive of the murderer was not well known. Some say that it was due to the high stress from being in the north. From others, it was frustration and a desire to return home. A few proposed that it was a planned assassination from one of the other noble houses. The murderer himself confessed nothing when he was discovered.

Discontent and anger brewed within the group, but they were all of one mind when they made the decision to turn back.

On their return to Unicornia, however, the air grew colder. The winds bit through their coats and gear, and the snow fell heavier, slowing their progress. Snowstorms became frequent, and dissension within the group only made the situation worse. Casualties mounted, but the first of the group to die was the murderer of the beloved Lady Iridescent. The more ponies that had fallen, the worse the weather got, and eventually the more superstitious of the ponies began claiming that her vengeful soul and the souls of the dead had come back to haunt their every step.

Even when they returned to Unicornia, the winters followed. Unseasonal snows came down on the three tribes, heedless of the wishes of the pegasi. It came to be known that these storms were caused by the windigos, and there, the story of Lady Iridescent changed.

One of the theories that slowly gained ground was that she did not die immediately and that the gem was in her possession at the end. In the moments before her death, her hate and malice poisoned the magic in the gem, and she was consumed by the dark magicks until naught was left but an all-devouring vengeance, giving birth to the first of the windigos that plagued ponykind for years after.

The story was used as a warning against the destructiveness of betrayal and vengeance as well as the disharmony that had threatened to divide ponykind, sometimes together with the well-known Tale of Hearth’s Warming. It has evolved over the years as it passed from tongue to tongue, but it has since fallen to obscurity, eventually finding a home only in the archives of the Royal Pony Sisters.





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I laid the book of myths to the side on top of a similar stack of tomes.

Coming across that particular tale during my magical research had been rather unexpected, but reading over the sequence of events brought back memories of that particular time in my hive’s history. We had to leave for the pony lands in a hurry ever since the death of my mother, and with the strife between the different pony races, it was difficult to sustain a very large hive at all. There were dissenting voices within the hivemind over whether such a move was truly in our best interest or if we should try searching for greener pastures. If it were not for the burst of nourishing love from the Fire of Friendship, my hive would surely have perished.

It was yet another reminder of the pattern of betrayal and vengeance that had long plagued the other races, and a reminder of why we should keep ourselves distant from such chaos.

However, I was now seeing more and more evidence of something quite different. Such strife was largely a product of the past, of abundant and unchecked ignorance and greed. Now, treachery was much less prevalent. The ponies had together built one of the greatest nations to ever be seen despite working without the unity that the hivemind gave us. Theirs was a unity based on trust and friendship, of lasting ties reminiscent of the same bonds that drove away the windigos so long ago.

I had to wonder, would it be better for the changelings if we no longer tried to distance ourselves from the races we fed on?

There were also a few other things of note from the historical accounts of Lady Iridescent’s expedition. One was the description of how the Crystal Heart unlocked the magic of those ponies bound to it. Changelings have long known that bonds of love and friendship allowed us to absorb the most magic from our prey, but the idea that giving magic to the gemstone helped unlock their stifled mana was very intriguing.

Changelings themselves had very different magical signatures from ponies. They were inherently greedier, keeping the core of their magic hidden away under a small layer of magic. It was to and from this outside decoy layer that love collectors filled their supplies, and it was also robust enough to convey the illusion of being a mere pony to potential hostile changelings. The description of how the ponies’ magic on this expedition were slowly locked away sounded similar to how changelings kept a lot of their own magic to themselves, within this inner core. If love and friendship could unlock the magic of those ponies, what would those same bridges of love and friendship do to a changeling’s inner core?

With the state of pony society now, would it not be better for us to simply throw wide the gates and drown ourselves in the abundant love, freely shared and given with treachery as only a rare afterthought?

I sighed and shook my head. That line of thought would have to wait until later. As of the moment, my hive was still suffering under the assault of the unknown queen. The broods were all growing restless, crying out for relief. I must not forget the purpose of my magical research and my duties as a queen.

My mind went back to the myth I had just read. Perhaps something to detect the enemy could be made of the Aether Lens that Iridescent once possessed. I would have to look further.

In the silence, I pulled the next book from the stack and continued my search.