//------------------------------// // Legacy of Everfree: A Hearth's Warming Tale, Finale // Story: The Bridge: A Godzilla-MLP Crossover // by Tarbtano //------------------------------// Without the Sun She hadn’t cried. That was what worried Gloriosa the most for her mother as she sat in the back of the car watching the camp disappear in the background. Celestia had been a model babysitter but Gloriosa Daisy wasn’t oblivious. Her daddy’s work friends from the Navy had come and asked for her mother, and specifically her mother. If it was a big secret and involved her daddy’s friends on a day he was flying back home from being away, and mommy wasn’t telling her anything; it meant there was something wrong. Gloriosa was scared. Scared for what had happened to her father and scared of what was going through her mother’s head, she had barely even seen Wysteria’s face ever since her mother hurried her and her baby brother into the car. Gloriosa bit her lip as the forest rolled past her outside the window, idly noticing there was far more snow on the ground than there had been yesterday. She tried and failed to distract herself with a nature book on birds or checking to see if Timber was still asleep in his baby seat beside her. Had this been any other kind of set up she might have entertained the thought the reason they were in the car so early was because daddy’s plane had arrived before it was supposed to, maybe even an ember of hope he was trying to surprise them like he did once on her birthday. But instead of heading towards the Crystal city, towards the airport she’d been to before, she felt the car turned to the left and turned towards Canterlot’s outskirts. It had been the plan to spend the holiday and New Year’s at her aunt and uncles’ but only after they had picked up Salty. Gloriosa bit her lip and tried to peek around the back seat to get a better look at her mother. Wysteria was still silent and had her attention firmly glued to the front window so her daughter could only briefly see a bit of her expression. What she could see was stonefaced and blank, which worried her even more. She’d seen it before and it made her entire demeanor wilt. This was what mommy looked like when she was trying not to show anything, which only happened when she was really scared. It made Gloriosa want to draw her knees into her chest and curl up. She still felt the urge to do that for a different reason. Icy prickles moved across her skin despite the fact she was wearing her coat. Just as she began to rub her arms to try and force the feeling away, half wondering just how focused her mother had to be to not even react to the cold despite wearing a short sleeve, Gloriosa’s attention was taken away by an uncomfortable murmuring.  Her baby brother, swaddled even in his baby blanket began to shift and frown in his sleep. Evidently, the cold had gotten to him too and Gloriosa was quick to act on it, reaching over and putting her arm, head, and shoulder over her sibling to hold and warm him. Timber Spruce still frowned despite reaching up instinctively to hold onto her through his blanket, whimpering due to being roused from his rest by the discomfort. Her baby brother’s brief mewling finally got a reaction out of Wysteria, who adjusted the rearview mirror to look at her children while slowing the car down. Perhaps Gloriosa’s mother had realized how cold it got inside the car and she clicked on the heater and set it to full blast. Gloriosa shifted to make sure Timber got some of the airflows but despite clearly feeling a bit of the warmth blowing past her, the cold didn’t seem to leave. It was almost like it clung to her like a wet set of clothing that refused to slough off. Gloriosa winced and frowned. She felt at her head and winced. Timber was crying now and she... She felt a boiling sensation. Her eyes twitched and her gaze came upon his whimpering face. She felt an urge, a compulsion to put her hand over his mouth or push his jaws together, maybe throw a blanket over his head. Anything to just get him to shut up! She was getting so annoyed! So angry! Timber only cried louder and Gloriosa grit her teeth, covering her ears. The wind outside whipped up to a roaring gale, the snowfall intensifying. Daddy was in trouble, mommy was shutting down, she was freezing her toes off, and this brat couldn’t just appreciate the trouble they were going to to try and keep him warm enough to just shut up?! She wanted to rip the blanket she’d taken off herself and put around him from his safety seat and put it over his face to just try and muffle his squawking! Didn’t he realize how bad things were and he was just making them worse?! Maybe if he wasn’t around Daddy wouldn’t have had to take that tour and would be back already?! Maybe Mommy would have more time for her if he wasn’t taking up all her spare time between camp duties?! Gloriosa’s anger broiled and she glared! And then quickly recoiled with a dumbstruck expression, her jaw slowly dropping. Her eyes very slowly came upon her left hand. It was raised, to snatch, to swipe, or to strike… At her beloved little baby brother. Gloriosa looked upon her own limb with horror, a cold spike working its way through her chest as she realized what she had almost just done. Trickle by trickle, anger was replaced by despair as her eyes very slowly looked upon a smaller set gazing up at her. Her little brother, face still pudgy with baby fat, sniffled and whimpered in obvious fear. To any god above she hoped it wasn’t fear at her. The shame took root and she leaned in, embracing her little sibling, not caring about the spittle or mucus he got on her collar as he buried into her jacket. She wasn’t sure what had just come over her, but she couldn’t have felt more ashamed. Gloriosa held Timber, whispering assurances to her baby brother about how she was there and it would be okay, kissing his forehead every few seconds. Wysteria thankfully had not seen the almost-strike, or else she might have slammed her foot on the brakes. The odd wave of emotions had come upon her as well, only blunted in experience. Why she couldn’t quite tell any more than she could tell where the emotions that come from. She was already feeling anger, distress, and despair; but it all seemed to try and flare up at some moment before it was ebbed away. Thankfully out of view by her children due to Gloriosa having her back turned to hold Timber by privy to herself, she’d noticed her necklace had begun to glow in tandem with the negativity being seemingly forced back. There were so many things flying through her mind right now in a chaotic cornucopia that she had forced herself to be emotionally stunted to try and sort it all out. Currently, her consciousness could give the unpredictable weather outside a run for its money in terms of disorder. She had to home in on something to avoid breaking down, briefly looking back at her children at that thought. No, she could definitely not risk that possibility right now. She would hold off for them. Focusing back on the road, an idea forgotten upon notice of the weather. The night prior had some very moderate snowfall, definitely expected for the season. It had been a bit of a warm year so most of it melted the moment it touched the ground. But this? This was a virtual whiteout as soon as one gazed more than about 300 meters away with some trees visibly sagging under both the weight of the accumulated snow and the wind pushing on them. If only to answer that question to try and keep her mind on task, she flipped on the radio. “Update on the recent freak weather. Experts are continuing to study the bizarre weather patterns in the Canterlot-Everfree region. Currently the storm, despite its continental origin, is exhibiting traits of both a blizzard and hurricane, thus it has graduated from a snow deluge into a nor'easter.” Her brow furrowed as she continued driving and listening. Certainly was bizarre weather, time of year regardless. And it wasn’t the only bizarre thing in sight as she approached a lonely stretch of highway bordering the forest. Out of the corner of her eye, her attention locked onto the movement. It was very vague in shape and at first, she thought it might’ve been just the tree bending, only to be confirmed as a mobile object given it was moving forward at a fairly quick pace. A dear perhaps? “Wind speeds as of 5 minutes ago clocked in at 60 kmph at their highest and tracking planes show a clearly defined cyclone at its core.” As the radio kept playing and she kept listening, definitely buying how strong the winds were giving she could feel the car rocking slightly despite moving at a pretty significant speed despite her driving relatively slow for the highway, she kept watching the object. It was moving out of the forest and towards the road coming from the north heading south. Just before she worried it might indeed be a deer and she’d have to slow down to avoid hitting it as it seemed to make no effort to avoid running towards the road, she got a better look at the outline through the haze of the falling snow. It was tall and had two limbs moving back and forth that was touching the ground. After blinking a few times in squinting she could confirm it to be a biped. There was a man out in the middle of the storm running towards the road. Naturally, she felt the inclination to slow down and make sure they were all right. With this kind of freak weather, nobody should be outside and they might be running towards the road to beg for help! There was a feeling, a sensation. All those negative emotions were bubbling back up with fear and dread being the strongest. Something about the man wasn’t right. The gait, the pace, the way it seemed he was running directly into a path to intercept them, something wasn’t right at all. Her innate desire to help was fighting with some internal instinct warning her things were not as they should be. But as she started to slow down to at least get a better look and her perception of time grew to a crawl due to adrenaline, a familiar voice came roaring into her consciousness. -”RETAINER, NO! DON’T GET NEAR IT!”- She blinked, scanning her surroundings. A whiplash of emotions came over her like a shock. And shock itself was a good way to describe her reaction. With the haze of the snow dissipating with reduced distance, she could see he wasn’t wearing anything and his limbs were unnaturally long. The man got on all fours and started running even faster than he had before. The speedometer read roughly 70 km/h and he was keeping pace with them. He, it, got next to the car and she got a clear look at it. It was not human in the slightest beyond what was uncanny. Gaunt limbs and a skull-like face with spikes of frost. Dead, white eyes gazed back at her and she floored the accelerator. It missed the car by a mere meter, an outstretched frostbitten hand reaching out to her as she passed it. There was a thump, and its shape disappeared into the storm visible in the side mirror. The tall, gaunt outline standing in the road to look at them as it was left behind. Wysteria only heard the sound of her own heart pounding in her chest, instinctively driving onwards at a quick pace without really knowing what she had just seen. The radio kept on playing like all was normal in the world. “It’s been recommended all persons in Canterlot evacuate to head towards Crystal City as trackers estimate the storm is heading south directly towards Canterlot.” Wysteria clicked it off and change the channel to some goofy holiday song in a desperate bid to distract herself. The fact they were sobbing like she felt she should be told the mother her children had been spared the sight and feelings she’d been cursed with. It took every fiber in her body not to break down crying from both sheer terror as well as the overpowering sense of loss and grief she was going through. The Retainer of the Elements would never be a weak soul, but no one said they would be invincible. And her dread could be forgiven. After all, she just found out monsters exist and had come to another realization. That bump she’d heard when it passed by? It was the sound of the backseat door handle, the only barrier between what was outside and her children, serendipitously locked, being torn off from an attempt to yank it open. She felt the scream, unable to tell if it was coming from her internal fear or the roaring gales outside. Hours later, Wysteria was sitting by a window, legs curled up against her chest as she blankly stared out in the snowy beyond. Gloriosa and Timber had finally calmed down and she’d pretended to. She’d pulled her brother aside an hour ago to relay why his brother-in-law wasn’t with them. It wasn’t a promising tale. Salty’s plane in route. A freak storm appearing from nowhere. A packed airliner vanishing off the radar. The plane had just been delayed and lost track of, storm blocked out the signal or it had to make an emergency landing; so he’d just been delayed. Gloriosa seemed to buy into it, enough to join her favorite aunt and uncle in festivities for the time being and by proxy, infect her baby brother with the holiday spirit. Wysteria...She hoped. She begged. She prayed. She didn’t buy it at all for more than a minute or so given what the news reports spewing out of the radio she’d kept beside her. “Record high winds recorded-” “Multiple traffic incidents across 3 major highways-” “Whiteout conditions in and around the city of Canterlot-” “Still no reports as to the whereabouts of Flight 382-” The radio clack against the wall and went silent, the impact having jostled out its battery. Wysteria had been silent throughout, only blankly staring out the window as she half sat herself upon the edge. There was the sound of chimes moving, only this time in a much more muffled manner like they were trying to avoid excess noise spurred by their presence or sound of a voice. -”Retainer?”- Wysteria said nothing but stared out into the white void. The storm had moved, an idle observation she had made. Weather reports from earlier indicated it had been moving at great haste earlier and yet it had stopped. A curiosity but not one strong enough to demand her attention with the floods of grief and worry surrounding her conscious. She could barely even register her best friend’s word. -”Retainer?.... I hope you take no offense… but I heard what those males spoke of. I am… I am...”- Harmony, arguably the most powerful being within that realm at the current time who is active, stuttered. For one who could see a decade blink by within as one would see a day, her perception of how mortals lived and how they experienced the day-to-day changes of emotion and sensation were from an outside observance rather than personal experience. The only experience she had was observing almost all mortals reacted differently to the same emotions. And given how fractured her best friend was, the last thing she wanted to risk was shattering what was still holding her together. Especially given the current circumstances. It was a rare feat that the goddess was lost for words. “Sorry. I am… Truly sorry.”- Her chiming voice and warm presence surrounded Wysteria in a manner not dissimilar from a hug or at least the pressing up against to show comfort. She barely even registered it. It was an hour later when Wysteria finally spoke in barely more than a whisper. “Harmony.” -”Yes, Retainer?”- Wysteria was blankly staring at her necklace she’d fished out from her shirt, seeing her reflection in the six gemstone’ faces. “Can this power… Can it fix this? Can it bring him back?” She wasn’t very descriptive as to what the “this” was. Banish the negative feelings choking her mind?  Keep her from thinking about it? Or was it something far more drastic? A matter of the light of life and the dark quiet of death. It was fortunate in some strange way that Harmony’s answer managed to apply to all of them, as she did not wish to risk answering incorrectly or probing for clarity. -“... I am sorry, Retainer. The realm of Spirit is something elusive even to me. Especially in my current state… And I doubt your husband would want that, should it go wrong or unnatural.”- Wysteria didn’t change her expression even as her hand more tightly gripped the crystals. The camp director slowly closed her eyes. “No… No, he wouldn’t, if he….” her voice trembled, “If he’s… he’s…” The sting of salt and dampness of liquid came upon her eyes but she couldn’t muster the willpower to wipe it away. She felt so weak as the cold bit into her as if icy tendrils reached through the window and the howling gales outside sang in a dreadful chorus to promote that somber dreariness. -”I.. Believe I can do one thing. To fix this…”- The Elements that bore their creator’s name started to flicker and glow slightly, warming Wysteria’s hands and emanating a slow pulse of magic. Wysteria flinched even as the cold was banished away. Like a medicine being pumped in her system, warmth came over her along with flashes of insight. She glimpsed two small forms, one white and pink and the other smaller one two shades of blue. They looked like horned foals with something extra but the detail was elusive due to how blurry the vision was. The image of the two sleeping foals was overlaid with a memory of her own children, a young daughter and newborn son snoozing together.  Other memories not of her own but mixing with Wysteria’s recollections flashed before her eyes. The memories were so warm, so happy of friends and family. So forced into her. “S-Sto…” Wysteria croaked, trembling as the happiness and calm were fighting for space in her mind with grief. And Wysteria was fighting against the former with the latter. Harmony hadn’t noticed, embracing her friend through the elements and trying to feed her serenity and joy. Six individuals led by a gray colored unicorn in a blue pointed hat, some of them morphing into the image of several little girls including little Applejack. A flash of a towering, leonine canine with the crown of a king mixing with the memory of Missus Posey as the previous Gaea Everfree. “St-op…. St-” There was a regal figure, with wisps of blue mist making up a fur coat with a head adorned in curled, ram horns. His eyes belied great wisdom. Those eyes transformed into those that belied love in the form of Salty Sentry standing with her at an altar. Wysteria felt so jubilant, tears running down her face all those years ago despite the butterflies in her stomach. Torrents of tears were running down her face in the present with her broken heart in her throat. Except not all of these were happy tears. She snapped into motion, ripping off her own necklace and throwing it against the wall as she shouted in pained rage. “DAMN IT HARMONY! I SAID STOP IT! JUST! STOP!” Everything was disconnected from her in an instant when the necklace came off. No more memories, no more windchimes, no more presence. The necklace hit the wall and bounced off to flop onto the bed. Wysteria stood there, having jumped up to her feet and heaving in a breath before cupping her face with her hand and weeping. It didn’t last extremely long, as eventually, she found herself slowly walking back towards the bed and silently with shaking hands, putting the necklace back on. It seemed almost an eternity before she could feel Harmony’s presence again. The Goddess of Light Magic didn’t say or do anything, keeping absolutely silent. One might have been concerned about her being angered, and in some way, she had been hurt. But the response of that pain was not indignation, but fluxes of regret that flavored her words. -”I was… I was just trying to fix it. Fix y-.....”- Even without seeing her, Wysteria knew Harmony was lowering her head based off the trickle of coldness and dampness she felt course through the elements. Remorse from a god. “You-... You just can’t fix things like that,” Wysteria whimpered through her tears as they slowed their falls across her face, “You just can’t.” She expected Harmony’s presence to weaken with a departure, but either out of concern for her friend or some need to know what she had done wrong, she remained. Wysteria hitched her breath and held the crystals close to her chest as if she was hugging them, hugging her friend. “You can’t fix this, by making me feel something else. I need to hurt....” her whispers came with her own memories, most of them involving her husband from the day they met at school to the day they met at the altar to the day he left on his plane. She made sure to recall every finite detail to ensure Harmony saw what she recalled, “So I can remember it all better. Just in case.” The sensation of the presence, Harmony’s presence, came upon her more strongly. The hug was being returned. -”I’ve also hurt.”- Now it was Harmony’s turn to share. The two little foals, two little girls Wysteria knew even if she couldn’t make out the details, grew up healthy, moral, and strong… Until the smaller blue one was overtaken by a dark shadow that came from within her. The jealousy, the grudge, the fight, Harmony getting in the way when a gift she gave was used against another bearer in dire circumstances. A banishment. The pink one, stained in the color of a rainbow, alone in the time of eclipses. Wysteria knew the feeling coming to her. It was one she’d been experiencing all this time today. Grief. -”I just… wished none for you….. Would you prefer I left?”- Wysteria tightened her hold on the crystals as her tear falls slowed. It was the best thing she could do to assure her friend the pain was not intentionally directed at her even after the well-meaning transgression. Harmony seemed to understand even as Wysteria spoke. “Just… for a little bit,” Wysteria whispered, “I promise I’ll never take it off again. I promise…” The chime she heard and the phantom motion she felt against her told Wysteria there was a nod. -”I am so sorry, Retainer. I promise too, I’ll never forsake you.”- The presence lifted and started to depart as Wysteria sat on her bed and stared out the window. She lowered her head in any gratitude she could have before counseling herself again in private, “Thank you, Harmony…” Another hour passed, another time for a mind to collect itself as she stared out into the storm far away. Listening to the distant gales and falling snow almost to meditate, her attention was finally taken away by the sound of tiny feet and a creaking door. The room became slightly more illuminated from the outside hall’s nightlight, a voice chasing the light. “Mommy? Are you crying?” Gloriosa stiffened when she glimpsed what almost looked like glowing green eyes come from behind the shroud of her mother’s disheveled hair. But after a moment where she took a breath, Wysteria put those fears to rest when she stood up, holding her hands before her and sighed. Gloriosa pursed her lips and tilted her head as her mother approached, standing up on her tippy toes as Wysteria crouched down. Both of their faces were reddened and slick with a trail of wetness coming from their eyes. “Yes, adults can cry too sweetie,” Wysteria muttered quietly, especially when she saw something reflecting off Gloriosa’s cheek. Evidently, the little girl’s aunt and uncle hadn’t completely distracted her. Seems she might’ve figured out a few things about why her dad wasn’t with them. Gloriosa reached up to feel her mother’s face, gently wiping away a tear as Wysteria did the same on her face. Wysteria leaned in and pecked her daughter’s forehead, moving in to embrace her as Gloriosa put her arms around her mother’s neck. Wysteria sighed, holding her baby girl and stroking her hair as Gloriosa buried her face in her mother’s collar. “Do you need something to go back to bed?” Gloriosa’s voice was muffled but her audience had years of experience to figure out what she was saying, “Timber needs a lullaby.” Wysteria chuckled slightly and rolled her eyes. Of course, ever since she became the ‘big’ sister, her little Gloriosa was trying to act grown up. Something told her from now on any time she caught her daughter crying Gloriosa was going to use the revelation of “adults can cry too” against her. “Would you like one too?” Gloriosa nodded against her mommy’s cheek as Wysteria picked her up and carried her back to the room Timber was in. Gloriosa tightened her grip on her parent, adding in one small detail. “Daddy’s lullaby please.” Another tear came back, even if a broken heart was slightly patched by a daughter’s embrace, “Of course sweetie, of course.” ====================================================== -”Retainer.”- Wysteria paused and looked off towards the wall across from her as if she had company. Her necklace was glowing slightly. -”I’d thought you were still there.”- Harmony’s audible presence was smaller than it usually was, like a small child just barely nudged by a morning breeze. It almost seemed like she was shrinking back. -”I didn’t mean to impose, I did depart for a time. I promise!...”- It would be a very surreal experience to see a god being humble, let alone skittish. But Wysteria could understand why. She herself was Harmony’s only real bridge left, and the two had more than one thing in common if the visions were right. This was a bridge Harmony didn’t want to burn, but her conscience would’ve made her worried. Wysteria would have too in her situation. -”I did say I only wanted a little bit of time, I’m sorry for shouting.”- -”Necessary. I… made a vow a long time ago to not interfere with the moral lives. Fear of me imposing upon them was a big reason why. And on top of that, you are my- I- mean I consider you my... um. F-forgive me, I am trying to word this properly. I'm saying yo are-”- Wysteria could feel Harmony’s mental pause, knowing the word had come up even if all these years she had never directly stated it. So, she figured she would. -”You’re my best friend too, Harmony. Friends can make mistakes too.”- Harmony’s presence grew stronger, and if Wysteria looked hard enough she almost could swear she saw a vague outline in the low light given off by her necklace. A form standing before her. She took in a slow breath and bowed her head, swearing she could feel someone pushed there forehead up against hers. The chiming was making a beautiful melody. -”I think I saw a lot of things on your end, those two little forms. You’re a mother too, aren’t you?”- She almost would have expected a denial or a pause to contemplate. Harmony was still something she couldn’t quite comprehend, she’d seen a lot she didn’t understand. Her best friend was hurting, and only in the way a parent could. Might’ve been one of the reasons she was so ‘clingy’ as to try and flood Wysteria in positive feelings as a way to cope. But to Wysteria’s surprise and yet extremely heartfelt delight, there was no hesitation. -”Yes, I had two girls... Celestia and Luna.”- -”Gloriosa’s babysitter?”- -”Her and her sister’s counterparts, different world. I've been... separated from them for a long time.”- Wysteria knew not to probe much more. The main consolation she could take was at the very least if those two girls were the blue and pink entities, they were still in the land of the living. But given she hadn’t seen much of Harmony with them in the visions, given she still had only a very vague idea of what Harmony might look like, she could suppose enough. -”Beautiful names though. Harmony, is there any way you can feel what I can? Can that mental merge you did transfer physical feelings too?”- Harmony nodded, and even though Wysteria couldn’t see her she still got the indication the goddess had, and the necklace glowed a little bit brighter with each individual crystal lighting up in sequence. -”But, you didn’t like that”- -”I didn’t like the surprise or force. This is an offer. So step right up.”- Harmony seemed to contemplate her for a moment perhaps try to figure out why exactly she was offering this in the first place. A glance downward gave her the answer and the goddess was moved. On this kind of holiday, it was the best present she could ever be offered. Wysteria felt waves of magic course through her, very similar to whenever she transformed and she could suppose that makes sense as after all her powers did come from Harmony herself. Her eyes glowed, but purple this time in tandem with the sensation of being embraced from every angle. Knowing Harmony could feel what she did now thanks to their link, Wysteria shifted. She gazed downwards at the swaddled form in her arms. A tiny little face poked out of his blankets and the baby snuggled up against his mother’s chest with a tiny hand gripping his wrappings. Wysteria bent down and kissed her son’s forehead, Timber Spruce smiling in his sleep and wriggling a bit. She then turned her attention to the form cuddled up against her side and laying her head across her mother’s lap. Wysteria gently stroked Gloriosa Daisy’s hair, running her fingers through the curly locks. Gloriosa unconsciously pulled in closer as Wysteria adjusted her blanket to cover up her shoulder and arm from any chill in the room. They’re very likely wasn’t given how warm she was. Harmony was silent for the time, but Wysteria thought she heard a sniffle or slight coo from her ethereal friend. Why she didn’t know, but she could guess. And if she ever guessed that Harmony only had a brief time to be a mother before having to give her daughters away to others and watch on for years, she’d have been more right than she could ever imagine. Harmony felt it all. Across the realms of which she helped engineer, various enchanted items she had a hoof in making all began to activate. The Elements of Harmony within an abandoned castle, the Crystal Heart within its limbo, a Silver Crystal in a land of Kirin, and more. Two alicorns, one upon the moon and one upon the world, looked up in tandem as they felt an embrace. In some way, Harmony was holding them. -”Thank you... R…”- It was improper to call a confidant such. Even amongst her line, she was unique. Even amongst the worlds, she was unique. Harmony held Wysteria’s children a bit closer through her friend. -”Thank you, Wysteria… How is it that you weren’t destined to be a Bearer eludes me…”- Wysteria smirked and shrugged. -”Empathy is my strong suit and you only had six options. Besides if they’re like that Apple girl, they’ll be very good picks.”- Wysteria sighed and briefly let her mind wander to the Bearers, a subject that had been swimming in the background of her head for some hours but she had been distracted. -”Harmony, who are the other five Bearers?”- -”I cannot profess to knowing, my insight is limited in that world and how I set it was the Elements would respond automatically to a destined Bearer. Much like how the process of choosing a new Retainer works. You and I would know if we met one but I wouldn’t want to know even if I could. I.. swore off that kind of direct control a long time ago. The Pillars, I’ll tell you of them later.”- -”But logically if one Bearer is present that probably means the others are too. After all, they would need to be close by to eventually receive the Elements.”- -”Lacking the chance they will move in at some later date, probably. They all would likely be of roughly the same age as well, given that is how friendships tend to form. The Elements were designed to all work together. Why?”- There was a howling gale outside that pulled the Retainer’s attention away, Wysteria looking out into the darkness beyond at the spiraling funnel cloud hovering around Canterlot. The storm which had previously been barreling down the continent had stopped in its tracks. Wysteria had a very good idea as to what was going on with the storm. -”What was that creature?”- Harmony didn’t respond, prompting a repetition. -”Harmony, I know what I saw. That is not normal.“- Still, nothing, until the worst detail was brought to light that got the point across. “-Harmony, don't think I won't harp on it. It tried to go after my children….”- The memory of the ripped off door handle was still fresh, the claw marks on her door being the clearest indicators her attacker was anything but human. Her grip on her children tightened slightly and given their connection one couldn’t be sure if it was Wysteria’s action or Harmony’s. -”Windigos.”- -”That sounds plural.”- -”There were three… Dark magic monsters from another world. I once had a counterpart named Grogar.”- There was a spark of memory bringing to light an image of a regal form crowned with a pair of curled horns. Just as flickers of fondness and warmth began to trickle in, they were replaced by a hellish vision. Glowing red eyes protruding from a smoking mass that was locked away in a city sealed from time, one called Tambelon. But he wasn’t alone in the company, a cornucopia of monstrous forms ranging from chimeras to heinous creatures vaguely in the shape of equines all came to light. And amongst their number was a trio of eerie, blue lights that coalesced into the shape of three beasts of spirit that could shift into a hideous, fleshed form. Depravity, suffering, malice, and strife given physical form. -”A monster that created more monsters.”- Harmony held a baited, conflicted pause. -”.... Yes. I managed to defeat him with the aid of others who tipped the scales of the deadlock. But his pupils and creations continued his works. The windigos I thought defeated early on, banished by the first spark of light magic in my current domain. I have no idea how they ended up here.”- Wysteria gazed out into the icy hurricane kilometers away. -”Why did they come after me?”- -”My best guess is they sensed my magic within you and lashed out against an enemy of their master. Be rid of a threat so they could run rampant unopposed.”- -”But they’re not coming for me now, they stopped. And why did they stop there at Canterlot? If they like to spread misery, why stay in a town that had been evacuated? If they sought out threats that could only mean they might have found something else...”- Wysteria gazed out towards the town, the slow look of horror gradually spreading over her face. -”Or they sensed someone else…”- Her necklace sparked slightly, one of the gemstones lighting up in a weak pulse. Wysteria held it up and pointed it towards the town, the pulse getting slightly more erratic in an almost frantic manner. Confirmation. -”There's future Bearer still in the town!…”- Two realizations dawned on Harmony in rapid succession. The first was that Wysteria’s hypothesis was more likely true than not. If most of the future Bearers lived near one another and were around the same age, more likely than not most of them either lived in or around Canterlot. If one of them was either left behind or stayed behind for any reason, their latent power might draw the Windigos’ attention even if they couldn’t pinpoint their location instantly. So they’d freeze the whole town, sure to get their prey in the effort. The second realization was that Wysteria was clutching her necklace and staring very intently at Canterlot while gently putting Timber spruce down in his sister’s arms after moving Gloriosa to a pillow. She was getting up. Harmony’s eyes widened in terror. -”NO!”- She screamed, and if she had the ability she would have shoved Wysteria back down. Due to their bond, Wysteria did feel the resistance but didn’t buckle or flinch. -”Someone is in danger Harmony. It might not just be the Bearer!”- -”This isn’t a car wreck Wysteria! This isn’t a cult abusing an Element! For all you know they could be trying to draw you out! These are the Windigos!”- Wysteria clutched her necklace and narrowed her eyes. -”And I got just about the only power in this world that can hurt them, who else is going to do it?!”- -”You’re a Retainer! Not a Bearer! You don’t have much of any magic of your own in this dormant world and the Elements weren’t made for you. You can’t use them at their full power!”- Wysteria took a step towards the door and felt like a mountain was pushing down on her the entire way. -”If you go out there, they might kill you!”- Harmony’s pleas were shot back against with every step. -”And if I do nothing, they WILL kill others!”- Each of the Elements was firing off frantically as their current Retainer and creator fought for control. Wysteria’s eyes oscillated from their normal blue-green to emerald green and glowing. -”They’re not you!”- Harmony roared and tried to shut the power off, even risk trying to reach out and re-absorb it if she had to. Tartarus, that might even strip away any latent magic in the Bearer and confuse the Windigos! She wasn't at all thinking straight. She was terrified. But due to their link, Wysteria heard some of those thoughts and violently begged to differ. She clutched the Elements to her. She invoked each of them one by one. She recalled memories to embody each. Eyes flashing green, she became Gaea Everfree and forced Harmony’s meddling off. -”ENOUGH! Why should they matter any less than me?!”- Gaea Everfree stood in the dark room, the silent argument having not once stirred her children, gazing at the wall before her. In the glow cast by her necklace, she could see the outline of a figure with a pronged, forked horn and felt almost immeasurable sadness and fear. Her tight grip on her necklace dissipated to a gentle hold. She reverted back to Wysteria. -”Harmony…. Harmony.”- The ‘light shadow’ perked slightly. -”You told me, I was to use these Elements to safeguard and help others until the day came to pass them along. It’s something I could be destined to do. That is why I was chosen to be Posey’s successor.”- Her fingers gently slid across each of the crystals smooth faces as Wysteria briefly beheld them each. -”These were meant to do good. Let me do that. Not just for the Bearer, but for everyone else…. I’m the only one here who can do this.”- Harmony still resisted even if her strength had faltered, Wysteria could still feel her frowning face gazing past her. Wysteria sighed, striding forward unrelented but stopping at the doorway as if Harmony was blocking it. Wysteria reached out, and somehow to the suggestion of the mind between time and space, Harmony felt a hand on her shoulder. -”I understand… You have your fear, which might become reality; and you have the Windigos, which are reality.”- Harmony was a goddess, but she had her friend. Her only friend still around. It was understandable for her to value Wysteria over a normal mortal that might be in harm’s way, even potentially a Bearer. But that didn’t make it right. And she understood. As she understood Wysteria’s wishes. The Elements wouldn’t allow themselves to be held by a less moral soul. In some ways, she shouldn’t have been surprised. Harmony got out of Wysteria’s way, but something else gave the Retainer pause. ========================= “Evacuation order for the Canterlot urban area is still in full effect but the situation has grown dire. Several emergency crews dispatched to save persons left behind are trapped in the storm and aren’t reporting back-” “Experts have no explanation for this freak superstorm that has broken all the records and continues to baffle predictions as to its movements. Reports have already come in of a plane potentially downed by the arctic blast-” “Bulldozers and snow plows are trying to clear the main road back to town on the north side but high gale force winds and thick ice across the surface is complicating efforts-” Powerful legs sprinted down the road, racing across the tops of the snow without digging into it as if it were a paved road. Hair dotted with flora growth with the vines growing over her legs, Gaea Everfree sprinted past the radio as she moved away from the house and rapidly made her way to the forest. With a tremendous leap, she sprang to the canopy of the windswept trees and jumped branch to branch in such rapid succession she practically flew. All around her the air seemed to still its violent whipping and warmed to a degree. With each prance of her foot upon a tree limb the snow melted and frost dissipated. A trail of steam followed her path, making a beeline for Canterlot at a breakneck pace. Hysteria The city was surrounded by swirling the veil of snow and frost held up by a massive funnel cloud of Arctic gales. Just getting close to it summoned cold in more ways than one. Flickers of doubt, sorrow, and apathy stabbed at her chest like frozen needles; but the Element of Laughter and the memory of Gloriosa’s first birthday; which ended in her daughter face-planting into her cake after falling asleep, forced it away. Gaea Everfree still winced from the effort, feeling the mental suggestion never fully go away as she got closer and closer to the funnel cloud wall. -”Windigos draw power by causing so much despair their victims will first lash out at each other before losing all fondness for anything, giving up in the coming apathy as they wallow in pain.”- Harmony chimed, staying with her the entire time to help channel more of the energy. A memory briefly flashed of a time she pranked Salty with plastic wrap across a doorframe, seeing their daughter burst out laughing. -”Thanks, good idea to use the Element of Laughter.”- -”Morale is an enemy to apathy. Use Loyalty if it starts making you question your drives.”- -”Given what just happened, I’ll have plenty to feed into that.”- -”Wysteria,”- It still felt new, even if extremely welcomed, for a friend to call her by her name. And the way she used it now spoke of a direness before unknown. Gaea Everfree was just about to make contact with the funnel cloud wall and she wasn’t slowing down. -”Be careful. I can help but in this world, my outreach is very limited.”- Gaea Everfree shrugged in a way so very much unlike her predecessors and so very much like Wysteria. She smirked. -”We both know how this is going to end, this fight has real purpose. They won’t be prepared for me!”- She launched herself off the ground to clear the last distance, covering herself in a glow of magic as she crashed into the funnel cloud. The difference in location was immediately apparent within the white out. Doubt, sorrow, agony, fear, malice, spite, apathy, they all dug into her from every angle like a swarm of ants. Every single negative memory hit her all at once and would have surely crushed her had she been a normal human. Or perhaps if she had been anyone but her? She had her regrets, she had her pain, she had times she wanted to give up, she had plenty of times she wanted to indulge her own desires but put them aside for the sake of others. Because she became a mother, because she became a wife, because she became the Retainer of the Elements, because she became a good person. So many problems could have been solved if she took the easy way out, so many struggles could have been won handily if she abused her powers, so many pains could’ve been avoided entirely if she sought her own desires. But whoever said being good and being hopeful was easy? If these Windigos wanted to stop her, they have to try harder than trying to make her stop herself. The dark mask materialized around her eyes and she fully transformed. Because when Wysteria, the current Gaea Everfree, crashed through the funnel cloud, it barely put up any resistance as the juggernaut smashed her way into the eye of the storm. And into the frozen, decadent landscape that had once been Canterlot. The town was barely recognizable. Even in the eye of the storm, the sky above carried enough overcast that the moonbeams that could pierce through dotted the landscape in passing, phasing beams of silver that crisscrossed the glacial earth in a dim gray sheen. Washed out was an adequate descriptor, desolate was another. The setting was gripped in a loose fog that only further served to dilute visibility and color. Numerous storefront windows shattered with frozen waves of ice jutting inwards, cars so covered in snow and frost they looked like hills, multiple power poles, some still pitifully spouting sparks, torn down by talons of ice stabbing through their trunks, all put to the groaning chorus of the frozen wind slithering through the streets and alleyways in a sirenous wail. Except, not all of it was just the wind. When Gaea Everfree first saw it again, she could swear her blood nearly froze. It was as if it suddenly materialized, or had always been there, but had been perfectly camouflaged against the ice, fog, and snow. There was no glint or shine from its eyes or sudden movement by its body. In fact, it was so still that one could almost mistake it for a frostbitten corpse propped up against some backdrop article. But morbid as that thought could be, it was nothing compared to the grim visage it bore and the malefic aura that steamed off it like a haze. Especially when it started moving. Gaea steeled her fear and made ready as it started lurching forward, moving in an uncanny manner so unlike a person in balance, sway, or gate. The closer it got, the less the mist and darkness obscured its form. It left no footprints for it perfectly stood upon the snow without sinking into it. Gaea had to hide her revulsion at its appearance while curling fists and reaching her magic through the ground to feel for any foliage or root systems to use. The hide was bleached white and dead gray, gaunt and tightly hugging sinew and shrunken muscle. The total lack of softer tissue made the ribcage and pelvis so obvious that the bottom of the cage and tops of the pelvis, the iliacs, protruded from the skin in sharp bone points which, in tandem with the extremely gaunt and sunken-in stomach, gave the lower torso the appearance some grotesque parody of a ravenous mouth with four fangs. The arms were unnaturally long and spindly with swells at the elbows and wrists, reaching the knees with the tips frostbitten and twisted to points. It had little hair other than a frost riddled mass partially condensed into icicles hanging down from the head and upon the shoulders. The face lacked soft tissue almost entirely aside from tightened skin hugging bone; the nose near gone to expose nasal bone and the ears had been frostbitten away to pointed protuberances ringed in black. The body shifted slightly, icy growths appearing across it to adorn parts of the form like armor. Adorning the head were a pair of pronged, swept back spires of ice resembling a small set of deer antlers. Gaea Everfree really did not want to think about where the very prominent red staining on this one’s face came from. The lipless maw flopped open far too wide for a normal human, cracked and jagged teeth glinting off the moonlight as the creature let out a much louder wail that Gaea physically felt blow the air past her in a frozen gale that stabbed into her skin. No longer needing his spirit form, he had taken on a more solid state. In Equestria, he reveled in the torment caused to the mermares and ponies, thusly having been created in a form akin to their own as a slight against the six ponies who assaulted his master. In this world of primates, it was a monstrous echo of their form he’d chosen. Had an Algonquian human from Terra bore him witness, he’d have called him the Spirit of the North Wind, Famine, and Evil. Boreas just called himself a monster. Gaea Everfree cringed as she squinted through the gales, hearing a change in the Windigo’s inflection. His scream changed, growing tonal changes that oscillated between low and loud in rapid succession. The shriek stopped and she looked up, no longer having the frozen wind blowing into her face. Boreas was less than five meters away, having somehow closed the distance at the drop of a hat, head tilted in a way that would break a human’s neck while holding up something. It was small, shiny, and red. A snapped-off door handle from Wysteria’s car. Boreas held it up as his vocalization resumed and now, what it was had become apparent. He’d been confronted with the greatest source of good magic in this world. And he’d burst out laughing. In a surge of motion where he blended in with the frozen world around himself, Boreas surged forward and made contact before Gaea even knew what was going on. She yelped and bit back the wind that threatened to burst from her lungs, shoved backward from the shoulder charge and just barely avoiding impalement on the antlers. She remembered the self-defense drills Salty had run her through, and being the Retainer of the Elements made her of a stronger constitution than most. She kicked her legs back to gain a purchase, ripping several roots out of the ground to wrap around her legs and give herself an anchoring. But when she grabbed Boreas around the arm and head, she almost gasped in pain. He was cold. So extremely cold it burned to the touch even with her magic. Still, she hung in there and grabbed on, successfully stopping the charge and locking a grapple. Ramming a knee into the windigo’s torso and near-non-existent gut. It felt like hitting a stiffened hunk some anomalous solid matter rather than any tissue, almost beyond comparison, and stung in backlash. But it did stagger the beast momentarily, but Boreas was hardly pushed back, screaming out yet again and hitting Gaea point blank with a surge of winter gales. For a brief moment, she didn’t see the frozen Canterlot. She was on the edge of a steep hillside, with a burning car looming overhead. Gaea cringed and tried to shake the feeling off, forcing herself back into reality. But the force of the winter surge hit home. Doubt, fear, agony, dread, and grief stung at her mind as the flying shards of ice stung at her flesh and Gaea fell over with Boreas quickly pouncing on top of her. The icy burns came upon her wrist and shoulder of either arm when the windigo grabbed and forced her against the icy ground. It reveled in how the Retainer cried out from the ice seeping from his chilled fingers, freezing her left arm to the ground in a case of ice. Broken, jagged teeth with frozen drool parted and lunged down. Boreas didn’t aim for her throat, both because of Harmony’s taint around her neck and because he wanted to draw this out. With his brothers busy, he’d had this one to himself. No sharing like with Melpomene. Instead, he aimed for her eyes. A crushing force came over his neck and his jaws snapped just a few centimeters from a glowing set of green orbs. There was a surge of power, Harmony’s power, and he heard wind chimes as fingers from Gaea’s right arm crushed in on his throat. Boreas hardly noticed that, more recoiling in pain from the blinding flare that shocked every piece of his body in contact with the Retainer. The necklace, the source of Harmony’s tether, seemed to pulse angrily. And given the ground around Gaea Everfree exploded in a mass of tendrils and ensnared his limbs, that seemed probable. She roared, casting her arm back and commanding the roots. Boreas shrieked as he was flung backward, first bashed into the frost covering the brick wall of a dilapidated store before being hurled down the street. The windigo screamed in rage and pain as it seemed to fly away and melt into the surrounding icy gales for camouflage. Gaea Everfree picked herself off the ground and held her frozen forearm. Gasping in mild pain despite the numbness, she clutched her necklace with her free hand while swallowing her breath and focusing. The Elements of loyalty and honesty lit up as her vision was briefly replaced by a quiet bedroom on her honeymoon night when Salty Sentry saw his new wife transform right in front of him. She had expected rejection or a myriad of questions that would lead to discomfort. But when her new husband saw the Spirit of Everfree standing before him, eyes glowing like emeralds in the dim night, her fears were allayed when he brushed her cheek with his palm and brought his lips up to hers. It was the conquering of fear, and for that, the memory forced what the Windigo had done away. Throwing her arm to the side while fueled by magic responding to the memory, Gaea Everfree barked and clutched her frozen fingers into a fist; a flash of green light shooting out of her necklace as the ice covering her arm shattered. The icy cold that had been surrounding her had been shoved back, Harmony’s light magic offering a buffer against the misery incarnate all around. The sound of wind chimes rang between her ears as Gaea Everfree surveyed the surrounding white out to try and spot where the Windigo had gone. -”Windigos attempt to cause despair by any means necessary. You are alone here so they wouldn’t try and set you against another.”- Harmony noted as she watched on from her realm, trying to act as a second set of eyes as well as bolster the connection Wysteria had to her elements. “Any idea of what it’ll try next?”, Gaea Everfree extended her feeling into the runework under her feet while backpedaling onto a snowy plane that had once been a park. Most of the foliage was dead but what was under the surface was still intact. -”Since you are alone, force you to relive traumatic or agonizing memories, flood you with negative emotions, torture you physically and mentally…. Please keep your guard up no matter what, there should be three of them unless somehow the others are split away.”- “I’m open to suggestion on what I can do to hurt them best,” Gaea whispered while flinching and spinning around to face a glimpse of a moving object rapidly sprinting between snow-covered buildings, it moved inhumanly fast, “I chucked that thing hard enough into the wall to break bones and it got right back up.” -”You probably did break some bones, so you did damage it. But because they are so heavily composed of dark magic, they rebound quickly.”- “Complete destruction, don’t leave a trace, got it.” -”I have an idea for something, but it might take a moment to work with. Get a memory involving all five of the emotional Elements ready and on my mark, I’ll redirect all of it into the element of Magic. You aren’t a Bearer, but this might just do something as the next best thing.”- “Let’s hope so,” Gaea muttered before her green eyes widened. She reflexively backpedaled and lurched to the side as a blurry mass came rocketing out of the storm, almost like it was exploding forth from manifesting within the ice and wind itself. Boreas was back in on the attack, lunging out with his arm outstretched and pointed talons made of exposed finger bone and frostbitten flesh extended. Gaea Everfree winced when the gnarled claws scraped across her shoulder and cut into her upper arm by an inch. The warmth of the bloody wound contrasted heavily with the almost nerve-wracking, biting cold that soon burrowed into her shoulder. Boreas went flying past her, digging his other arm into the snow to grasp it and turn around mid-descent to right himself into a crouch to pounce again. Gaea Everfree sucked in her breath while holding her injured shoulder and swiping upwards with her hurt arm. On command, a torrent of roots ripped themselves out of the ground in a way that sent a shower of fallen snow airborne. Through the ice and frost, she managed to aim it properly and wrapped up multiple roots into a thick, coiled tendril and sent its combined mass jutting forward at breakneck speed. Literally punching the windigo with a spire of pointed plant matter that mimicked the movement of her arm like she was shadowboxing, Gaea Everfree called out and smashed the tendril at Boreas again and again. Boreas shrieked, briefly distorting the world around it from Gaea’s perspective like everything was going into grayscale. She glimpsed it dodging her latest strike, stalking to the side and rushing forward on all fours beside her tendril. Her feet were frozen in place by more than the icy cold. She was back in a small procession over a decade ago, amongst a gathering of people wearing black collected around a small family grave plot. There was a reddened face, slick with tears and mucus, yelling at her in a croaking voice. Sunflower Shy, a friend she’d grown up with, had been in a bad way. Hormonal, heavily pregnant, distraught at losing her mother, and acting irrationally. They’d already laid Mrs. Posey to rest beside her husband hours ago, but she was still raw. “Wh-Why? Why would she leave it to you?...” Wysteria grimaced and tried to backpedal, trying to ignore how deep Sunflower’s finger cut in when the former neighbor she’d grown up with jabbed her index finger into Wysteria’s collar. She was shaking so badly Wysteria reflexively tried to prop her up alongside Mr. Shy, lest she fall over. But the friend Wysteria had been a bridesmaid for smacked her hand away. Had this been a normal circumstance, Sunflower would have been completely alright with the will and testament stating the house and plot of land were to go to Wysteria while everything else and the valuables inside went to her and other surviving family. She didn’t want nor needed the property and know it to be in good hands. But right now Mrs. Sunflower Shy was seeing red, seeing somebody snatch her mother’s house and more importantly, grave, away from her. “Su-Sunny, please yo-you’re acting rash,” Wysteria stuttered, trying not to feel the eyes of the entire procession on them with only her husband and Sunflower’s partner moving forward to back her up. “Honey, stop, we’ll talk about this later, I’m sure Wysteria will take good….” Mr. Shy tried to pull his wife away from someone they had not a month ago heavily considered naming their unborn daughters’ godmother, speaking assurances that of course Wysteria would take good care of the property and would allow them to visit anytime they wanted; that the tomb of his mother-in-law and father-in-law being on the land of someone else they trusted was perfectly fine, maybe even better given they had to live in the city. But Sunflower could barely even hear him. She surged forward with tears rolling down her eyes and her glasses falling off, doing something no one had ever seen her do before. She shouted, she ranted, she screamed and she accused. What exactly she said stung so much Wysteria didn’t commit it to memory, just the subject. How Wysteria had been taken in as a replacement by her mother, how she got pushed to the wayside, how she absolutely hated her and screamed at her go away. Wysteria, Gaea Everfree, felt her heart nearly break and a cold tear that quickly froze stung her eye. She grimaced and sucked in, using every amount of willpower and force she had to not black out into the despair. She wanted to run. She wanted to give up. But she hadn’t. Sunflower had screamed damnation of her. And Wysteria had surged forward to embrace her. Although motions and vent that followed overpowered the memories of agony. She understood why her friend was acting out, she had been hurting as well. The pain was strong, but her empathy was stronger. Gaea Everfree grit her teeth and let out a pulse of magic that shattered ice crystals forming across her body like she had been crashing through glass. Boreas reacted to the action as he kept coming towards her with talons outstretched, but despite the hollow cavities seeping mist he had in place of eyes being expressionless, he nonetheless gave off the distinct impression that he was surprised. Gaea Everfree turned herself around and swung a fist outwards in a swiping motion. Her own knuckles connected with Boreas’ forehead and snapped his head backwards with a sharp crack. The tendril followed, smacking him across the midsection and piledriving him into the ground. The vine-like roots grew over Boreas’ chest and secured a hold before Gaea whipped her arm back and forth, repeatedly smashing the offender into the ground with more than sufficient force. An antler of ice snapped off and went flying past her, Gaea Everfree drawing her arm up while extending her fingers like a set of claws. The dazed windigo was lifted up a good four meters on a pillar of root work that resembled an open hand. Had this been any other type of creature, Wysteria would have stopped right here. She was tempted to on some level, being a protector and not desiring to be anything else. But just looking at those dark cavities in place of eyes, seeing its actions and how it never stopped trying to claw its way to her, the realization was there. In many ways this wasn’t a sapient or even sentient life, this was an incarnation of evil. She didn’t know what exactly Harmony was up to, but she had the mind to end this fight on her own right here. Holding her arm out towards it she crossed her fingers inwards to a fist. The roots constricted over Boreas’ skeletal frame, cracking ice and emitting a sickening crack of splitting bone from breaking ribs and twisting arms. But it never reacted in pain, only in more rage. It bit and clawed at the roots, killing off some of them due to incurring frostbite and forcing Gaea Everfree to replace them. But even with one of his arms’ bones obviously snapped at the humerus in two different directions, Boreas only continued to shriek and snarl what could’ve been profanities in some archaic language that eluded Gaea Everfree other than it sounded absolutely revolting just to hear. Her fist shook and she gritted her teeth, having to apply more and more roots to try and crush the monster to whatever death it might get; having to continually replace them time and time again when prolonged contact with Boreas’ body cause them to shrivel up and freeze, then shatter from their combined forces clashing. Ignoring the pain, she raised up her other arm and called for another surge of roots, now practically smothering Boreas in a mass of tendrils that dragged him further and further into the ground. Gaea Everfree gasped and winced, her face buffeted by gales of icy wind that froze against her face and hair and threatened to cloud her vision with memories of past pains. She was succeeding, she would bury it and crush it under the force of her power and the ground beneath it even if she had to drag it down a thousand paces. Boreas shattered another frozen root and managed to get a broken arm free. His gnarled fingers, blackened with necrosis and twisted at the tips, snatched and slashed at the air in front of her face before suddenly grabbing her by the throat. Boreas hissed a series of guttural noises that sounded vaguely like speech. The language of the dark nexus was elusive to her, but it along with his touch was making her blood run cold. Gaea Everfree fought for a decision. If she tried to pry him off her throat, her focus on the roots might falter with just one arm in use and result in him breaking free. If she didn’t do something about his grab, however, he might end up dragging her down with him or choking the life out of her. She was still human and while her transformed state granted her some clemency on human fragility, she wasn’t invulnerable and still had to breathe. Even now a cold and yet burning sting was coming across her lungs, her body sensing something was wrong and demanding oxygen to compensate; only to be blocked off by an icy grip crushing into her windpipe. She took her gambit. Gaea Everfree swung her arms outwards, ripping the roots away from Boreas and freeing the windigo. If he looked dead before, he certainly did now with multiple limbs and joints bent at odd angles and the rib cage bent over to the left side with several snapped ribs bursting from the skin. And yet still, it was unfazed. He levitated in the air with kinked feet and twisted legs perfectly perching on the snow surrounding the entrance to the cavity in the ground the roots had burst through. Boreas’ jaw cracked and unhinged to reveal its abnormal gape, a fluid that looks like, nonsensical as the descriptor was, liquid black snow and ice, trickled out like drool. He kept saying something, the same phrase over and over. It made Gaea Everfree’s eyes widen and a lance of terror stabbed through her chest. It got the opposite reaction he was probably hoping for though when he started to wrench her towards him with his jaws and pointed teeth aiming for her eyes. Gaea Everfree loudly proclaimed one word. “NO!” Her arms swung in and her open hands clapped together. After a half second delay, a tidal wave of roots smashed into Boreas from either side. There was a terrific crack of splintering wood, shattering ice, and splitting bone. The hand around her throat reflexively opened and convulsed. Boreas looked like a bug that had just been stepped on, not entirely dead and still writhing but crushed beyond recognition. Gaea Everfree interlaced her fingers together and swung her arms up to raise the coffin made of interwoven roots and splintered windigo upwards before swinging down and a hammer-fist motion. The wind blew past her face from the shockwave of the impact. Small fragments of wood, large chunks of snow and ice, and one last antler flew past her face to the sound of one last shriek. It forced her to see Sunflower Shy’s agonized face one last time, the guilt clinging to her. It clawed its way into her mind and would’ve stayed there had her necklace not fired off a magnificent glow. Misery did not love company, and so long as she had the necklace on, Wysteria had that. The sound of windchimes brought a different vision. -”I was watching. Remember what came later!”- A calm afternoon at Mrs. Posey’s house, months later. Wysteria sighed as she watched her toddler daughter play tag with her father while the smell of frying food from Mr. Shy’s grill filled her nose. Sunflower, her best friend, was sitting with her on a picnic blanket near a small headstone surrounded with wild poseys. “You want to hold her?” Sunflower whispered happily while nudging Wysteria’s shoulder. Wysteria beamed, nodding before gently taking the swaddled little form into her arms and supporting the baby with experience. A little girl who looked a lot like her mother but with a soft swirl of bright pink hair. Wysteria had never noticed before in this recollection that something seemed a little… different about this one. Different in a similar way to another little girl she had encountered years later at a different headstone. -”You understood why she was in pain. You didn’t let that pain fester as misery and lash out at others or languish in it like the windigos want their victims to. You overcame it, and through your empathy, you help others overcome theirs… Maybe this was the reason you became the Retainer. I don’t think anyone else in this time would have as well-equipped a mind to confront them like you. Quickly now, the memory!”- Her concentration came back in force. Remembering Harmony’s instruction from before she held onto the memory of the picnic, and holding an old friend’s child while seeing their families joy together. The laughter of Gloriosa. The loyalty to Posey to treat her family well. The generosity to freely grant access to the home and land. The honesty of showing their ties were stronger than any lapse in judgment. The kindness between them and that the baby seemed to exude. It all fed into the one thing that could actually lastingly hurt Boreas. Magic. A burst of green light flew forth from her, all the Elements firing off at once. Gaea Everfree shouted and finished it. Boreas was crushed to splinters and forced underground, the shaking earth indicating his tomb getting deeper and deeper. Through the dirt, through solid concrete, into the void and sealed. Sealed so deep his shrieks and wails were no longer audible. There was silence in the rolling wind from the storm’s eye. Gaea Everfree shook and dropped her knees, panting and trying to keep her heart from bursting forth from her chest as it went a mile a minute. But something else forced her entire body to freeze up. Wide eyes looked to the downtown district. The shrieking wail was back. And this time, there were two of them. Boreas’ absence had been noticed. The roaring gales blew her hair in front of her, pounding into her back. -”The South Wind, Notus, is coming.”- “W-Why just one?!” Gaea gasped while picking herself up, still holding her wounded arm as she wisely decided to run to an alleyway and find a park with some cover. By the way that the wind howled and surged, it seemed enraged. If Boreas’ efforts were a winter gale, this was a blizzard. -”I thought perhaps we could get lucky and lure them into one-on-one confrontations. The North Wind did so but… but that would mean...”- “This wasn’t just a trap for me,” Gaea muttered while blocking part of the wind from buffering her face, the snowflakes caught up in it stung at her like she was being sandblasted. -”Zephyrus is the strongest of them and would never miss a chance for torment willingly, and they clearly know of the defeat of Boreas. If you were their only quarry, they’d both be hunting you.”- Gaea Everfree felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle upwards, despite the chilling cold and snow. Her eyes came upon every shadow, every span of movement, which is to say it was nearly everywhere given how the dilapidated town was being affected by the wind pushing objects around in the snowfall creating illusions of shadows and movement in the moonlight above. Then she heard another shriek, this time behind her a good distance. When she whirled around and saw nothing, she almost wished it was closer so she could get a better grasp of where it was. The scream came from the south now, louder than before. Closer but still invisible. It wasn’t like with Boreas rushing in blood lust. This Notus knew where she was. He was hunting her. All while Zephyrus was elusive. Elusive and clearly upon a task to not join his brethren to assure what happened to Boreas wasn’t a repeat incident or to bask in any misery. Gaea Everfree wasn’t sure what scared her more. -”Harmony, I think my hypothesis was correct.”- -”W-Which one?”- -”I should be the biggest threat to them right now. I should be what they’re focusing on. If their strongest and cruelest isn’t rushing over here and is instead letting a lackey hunt me down, something else more important must’ve gotten his attention. Someone has his attention”- Harmony’s tone dropped in horror. Confirmation, indirect as it was, of one of the worst possible scenarios. -”There really is a Bearer here an he’s found them.”- And doing gods knew what to them. Wysteria still wasn’t quite sure how the grouping of Element Bearers worked. It was reasonable to assume they would all be about the same age, likely know each other beforehand, exemplify their respective element, and would need to be all together to use the power most effectively. But they would still be mortal humans. Very killable mortal humans. Gaea Everfree looked in the direction of where the initial to howls came from. It was her only indication of which way, Zephyrus was. There were two choices. -”I can stay, set a trap for Notus and then go on to confront Zephyrus…”- Harmony was able to pick up on the train of logic without prompting, but the fear in her tone was palpable. -”You do know, it is possible for more than the original ordained to wield the Elements….”- -”Yes, but for that to happen it could mean one of the originals would have to die first… You know I can’t let that happen, and I know you'd never forgive yourself if it did.”- Harmony sighed, knowing it was fruitless to fight such logic. It was the unabashed truth after all. -”If you go after Zephyrus right now, Notus will be at your back. You can’t set up ahead of time and you’ll be outnumbered…..”- The goddess knew what the answer would be before Gaea Everfree even so much as moved to leap up to a rooftop and spring her way across the buildings to head for downtown, to head for Zephyrus. All with the South wind shrieking at her heels the entire time. A virtual blizzard ripped into the side of the building from the west, tearing off large chunks of the wall and ripping free fencing from their foundation. The stubborn magic that had been keeping them away, keeping him away was finally faltering at his will. It wasn’t the first time he broke another’s will, not the first time he turned the powerful into the miserable. This one was young from what he could sense, a sensible deduction. The light nexus’ powers were limited in this world and was only beginning to take root. If Harmony thought she could protect her pets from Grogar’s reach, she was sorely mistaken. And if her power was young here, it would be far easier to snuff out even if he had to smother something in its crib, tear it from the cold corpse of its mother and father and subject it to his agonies before ending it. Zephyrus reminisced with cruel intentions, atrocities remembered with only a slightly amused reaction. Shame if it was so small of an event this time around. As he learned at Mako, one could do far more with an adult and a populace to target. There was a very brief idle pause in his step while walking through what had been a fenced in area. The ground was littered with snow, only obstructed by a few bodies of animals laying amongst it. Probably died from the cold while slumbering. Nothing really worth notice. He stepped on what had once been a poor dog, instantly shattering the body of frozen blood and frosted bone fragments that now littered the ground. He bore no witness to the grisly spectacle, literally walking over several more corpses; Zephyrus’ mind was years back at an island atoll in the middle of the ocean. His masterwork even if he bore forth very little excitement from his occupation. Lord Grogar had created him with purpose, just as the heart’s purpose was to pump blood. So did one savor and rejoice over every pulse in their bodies even if it was the very thing keeping them alive? Still, the distinctiveness of the memory made Mako special. And the young age of his target caused some reminiscing about what might have been the product from the one time he decided to draw out the fun with Princess Melopomene. She’d been the most powerful and the most strong-willed of their prizes, and he very much remembered taking his revenge for the slight their mother caused by erecting that Shroud and barring them from Mako. More idle wonder of the progeny that might result both before and after he grew bored and handed her off to Notus. Zephyrus scoffed. Melophome probably aborted it in the womb or killed their progeny the moment it was born, if it ever existed. Pathetic of her to do so and pathetic of it to be so weak as to die like that. Oh well, he was ageless. And as long as he could smother Harmony’s champions in their cribs, split them in two by the time they could walk, or hear their screams while letting Boreas pick them apart by the time they could speak; they’d cut the Light Nexus’ ploys before they blossomed. Unopposed, misery and strife could flourish to such an extent any potential replacements of Harmony’s chosen would be too overcome by the Windigos’ machinations to field any offensive. If he ever wanted to chance and see if he could have progeny, there would be time to check. He’d underestimated Harmony’s magic in the hands, fins, or hooves of mortals before. It wouldn’t happen again. Master Grogar had blessed them with this world to ravage into damnation; he would not disappoint. His blank eyes looked back upon the dead animals. Most of them had clearly frozen in their sleep given they were curled up, but the snow had been moved around a few of them. Couldn’t be their actions because otherwise, they’d have shown signs of movement before passing. Someone had been here before. There was resistance when he tore the door off. Something invisible, uncanny, and intangible pushing back against him like a curtain of warmed air, which felt scorching upon his form. There was a magic in the air alongside the heat, which he could tell was mundane in nature. Glances around the hallway leading from the door confirmed the presence of multiple burned-out candles, scorched clothes, and other flammable objects set across the tile floors. The air ventilation had been blocked by thick wads of wet papers being stuffed into it before they froze in place. Even the windows were thoroughly covered up, by snow from the outside and by sheets of tin foil from the inside. Insulation and heat sources, recent ones. Most of the primates had fled this area by the time the storm engulfed the town, so all this confirmed what he had already heavily suspected. Someone had stayed behind and was trying to keep warm, some of the icy footprints going down the hall and the doors not being locked suggested they got here after the storm had already arrived. The subtlety of observation was lost upon most of his comrades. Boreas was a maniac whose main question of life was, “Why aren’t we making someone miserable right now? Can’t I claw and ravage something without killing it right away?”. He'd rush in without pause no matter the situation and to try and convince him to otherwise was futility. Notus barely spoke but was a thrill seeker. He preferred they fight back in futility or allow him to hunt. More than once Zephyrus had caught him falsely allowing the mermares to escape before recapturing them. But unless he knew there was a thrill involved, he never bothered toc heck for fine details. Zephyrus however was always looking. If Boreas was the brutality of violence and Notus was the crushing of will, Zephyrus was the acquisition of new quarry. He didn’t even have to check every single room, saving himself the need of futilely searching room upon room of emptied animal cages or frozen corridors. The trail of futility and effort in thereof led him to the final door on the left. The magic, Harmony’s magic, was thick and disgusting. Zephyrus tilted his head, on account of his horns, and peered inside. The deduction was rewarded. The room was packed full of filthy animals, still alive and shivering under mountains of blankets and surrounded by multiple candles. Species rivalries have been cast aside as they all huddled together for warmth under many blankets, but even the bear present that could easily weather a normal winter was shivering from the cold and probably pissing itself. There was coughing, of one of the naked primates. Actually, there was three of them. All young females. One with pink hair and pale yellow skin, another other with purple hair and creamy white skin, the last and tallest with cyan skin and an oddly multi-hued hair tone. But they all looked unnaturally pale, unhealthily pale. The yellow one was wearing nothing but small sleep shorts and a simple shirt, having removed her jackets to cover up a small family of ferrets. An old dog licked her face, assuring the chilled to the bone little girl patting its head with shaking arms. She erupted into a coughing fit. The purple haired one was barely wearing any more, but she soon remedied that by removing an expensive looking, ornate hoodie and draping across her friend while hugging her. The last one with rainbow hair was barely responsive, holding her arms and shuddering while whimpering something that caused her friends to come closer and join her under a blanket to share heat together. One last pathetic heat source, a lantern, burned in the middle of the room. Its fire flickered out. Zephyrus understood. Kindness to come running back to help the helpless, loyalty to stay with their comrades, generosity to give up aids of survival for the sake of others. Harmony’s calling cards, three of them. Half of her aspects. The storm would’ve smothered them all, stupid little girls that came running for the sake of a band of dumb animals. Zephyrus wanted to vomit, but he more so wanted to finish this personally. He’d let Notus and Boreas have their fun with the other three once they found them. Gnarled fingers clutched the door and began to pull it open. He thought he might have glimpsed one of their eyes weakly looking to the small window in the door of which his face or antlers might be visible through. Didn’t care, this wouldn’t be over quick. A bright flash of green blindsided him and Zephyrus lost his footing. The West Wind hissed as he was thrown backward with something pressed up against him, hurled with so much force he went flying through the back door with it on top of him. Stabbing ice and pointed fingers grabbed Gaea Everfree by the head, their owner ignoring the sickening shocks of light magic being conducted into him by her touch and gave likewise. With a tremendous roar that sounded like a hurricane, Zephyrus ripped Gaea Everfree off him and threw her into a snowbank a good ten meters away. Gaea Everfree was fighting delirium, crashing headfirst into packed snow causing her to see stars. But even amongst the cloud of sparks in her vision, primal fear came over her when she saw what was stepping over a crushed fence, snapping it underfoot as that bore down upon her. It was clearly a windigo just like Boreas, but that was like saying a deer was comparable to a bison because they both had hooves. Boreas was just under two meters tall if he had stood up totally straight. Zephyrus was easily as tall as that while hunching over, probably over three meters when he briefly rose up to stomp a piece of chain-link underfoot. The overall image was comparable, gaunt and resembling a frostbitten body, but some of the aesthetics were slightly different. Frozen, loose, and ice-riddled hairs extended from his jaw in the form of a short beard. The same wispy, frost-like fog emitted from his body and at some points, it vaguely resembled a horse of some sort. Zephyrus paused and his jaw distended while his rib cage expanded outwards to the sound of cracking bone. -”Move!”- Harmony roared between her ears and prompted Gaea Everfree to dive to the side before a massive gale-force grade shriek split the air and flew past her. It was so extremely loud it deafened her hearing to a muted ring for a few moments. Gaea Everfree saw the rush of air going past her carrying an accompanying hailstorm of ice pellets and shards. The sheer force of the call and the power behind the flowing curtain of air it carried caused several power poles and lengths of a fence to snap and shatter on impact. The frantic state of mind she had from trying to dodge an attack that was mostly invisible left her wide open. While she was blown back by the shockwave’s edge and a few centimeters off the ground, Zephyrus rushed at her with blinding speed with ice encircling his arms. Gaea only had the time to cross her arms, tuck her legs in, and summon up a large root she’d been carrying with her since the fight with Boreas and molding it to grow over her arms as a shield. Zephyrus’ outstretched arm hit the shield and kept going without stopping in the slightest. The momentum transferred into Gaea Everfree and she was sent hurtling down the street. Sailing through the air, she only had enough focus to throw out her gaze and force an eruption of plant life to burst from the ground and tangle up the windigo, lest he chase after her. Her shoulder made contact with the ground first at an angle which caused her to pinwheel head over legs several meters before coming to a stop. At that point, the hard-packed ice inside the snow and a few spaces of exposed blacktop had scuffed and shaved off some skin and riddled her with bruises. Gaea Everfree stumbled and picked herself up to stagger to her feet, reflexively coughing hoarsely in a way that forced her to cover her mouth. When she looked back at her hand and arms, she winced. They were covered in frost and she’d coughed up some blood, and ice was embedded through the gloves and into her skin in a few places. Zephyrus had shattered the shield in one blow, and the frost that had been covering his arm to give it more mass for the impact had turned into flechettes. She sucked in a breath and shakingly gripped an icicle that had been embedded in her bicep. Gaea Everfree grit her teeth against the pain while looking at the bloodied icicle. It had gotten in deep and part of her arm was feeling a bit numb. And Zephyrus had done that in one blow. She threw the icicle away and looked at her opponent. Zephyrus wasn’t thrashing or snarling like Boreas was. His movements were precise, calculated on every chop, rend, or kick he did to inflict frostbite on the foliage before breaking it off. All the while the empty cavities of his eye sockets, still seeping mist, never left her. -”He’s strong.”- Harmony quietly agreed with horrified resolve. -”Strongest of their number, not just by raw power but cognition.”- -”Not much plant life around here, I need somewhere with a home-field advantage!”- Harmony gazed upon the realm through her viewing panels and tie to Wysteria, looking for anything that can help. -”It’s all covered in frost but there is a florist shop next to an unbuilt lot with widespread oak seeds about sixty paces directly behind you.”- -”On it!”- Knowing he wouldn’t stop chasing her now that he’d found her, Gaea Everfree leaped back. As she dashed along down the street, she felt through the earth with every pounding step to sense any remaining plant life. She could change a grassy median into a complete overgrowth engulfing both lanes of the road on either side in a few seconds. But because of the sheer cold and heavy amounts of snow, almost everything outside that wasn’t very deep within the earth was dead. As the milliseconds ticked by she muttered frustrations to herself at finding plant after plant dead and unusable. With how quickly Zephyrus was tearing through his bonds and his sheer power, he would only be a few seconds behind her at most. She had to buy more time to set up an excavation point. A burst of wind almost knocked her off her feet and froze icicles into her hair, shards of shattered roots flying past her face. Even without looking she’d known Zephyrus had gotten out and was no doubt bearing down upon her. A lucky break came when she detected a large clump of roots with plenty of still-living cells sticking out of a noticeable hump in a snowbank. It had been a hedge, and while the leaves and most of the stem were long dead and frozen solid, the core trunk and roots were still together. With a tightened grip in her hand and a flashing green from her necklace, Gaea Everfree swiped at the air and called the flora of to her command. But instead of attack the ice demon directly, she did something else and caused the roots to begin winding around a broken telephone pole. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up on end and there was a sharp chiming noise in her head directing her to the right. Gaea Everfree reflexively followed the command and ducked to the right just as icy talons impaled the space she once occupied. With the sharpness of the spear hand and the quickness of the motion showing its power, she got the distinct impression it might have run her through entirely if it had landed directly into her back. But when Gaea Everfree turned around to drive her knee into Zephyrus’ leg to stumble him, she didn’t find herself facing Zephyrus. She only got a glimpse of it for a very brief second before it seemed to melt into the storm like some sort of active camouflage, but she did see a pair of single-spiked curled antlers, enlarged fangs, and a growth of eyes covering up a damaged eye in a way similar to an eyepatch. Different than Zephyrus, but just as revolting to look at. The entity, Notus, was now virtually invisible outside of some bent light around his outline but still very tangible given he grabbed the Elemental Retainer by her hair and painfully yanked her to the side. If she had been any physically weaker or reacted any slower, he would have crashed her face into the telephone pole. Notus seemed to notice how she caught herself against the pole and attempted to snatch at her wrist, frigid pain shooting up her arm at his touch. Thankfully contact was mercifully brief as a sharp kick to the midsection sent him stumbling backward in a way that suggested he hadn't been expecting her to have strength far beyond a normal person. She followed up again, kicking off the telephone pole and gauging her strike based off of just hoping she was aiming for the right spot. Notus was still virtually invisible, only really discernible against anything around him by how snowflakes flying past would bounce off or cling to his body. Unlike the Invisible Man, he shared Zephyrus’ and Boreas’ ability to levitate just slightly over the snow instead of actually stepping on it, leaving no footprints. Smashing her foot directly into what felt like a face, Gaea Everfree ignored the pain outside of the wince crossing her face as a cut materialized across her calf; likely from his antlers scraping across her leg. Notus' head snapped backward from the hit with his neck at an angle that would have broken any persons', only for his body to roll back into place. The Retainer backpedaled, keeping her guard up. Gaea Everfree was getting a gauge at how she stacked up against them physically. They were close to the same level, though Zephyrus seemed noticeably stronger than Boreas was to some degree. At the least, she could take a hit or two. Durability-wise she might've actually been a bit tougher, whether it was due to her own strong constitution or from Harmony's magic radiating outwards to offer some physical protection. It definitely offered magical protection given she was resistant to the storm, feeling cold but not freezing unless she was directly affected. A problem, however, was that their claws and presumably teeth, antlers, and ice could cut into her without much issue. And more so they could take an absurd amount of abuse and keep coming, with the only thing that really put a stop to them being complete destruction or massive magic use. She was a Retainer of the Elements, capable of sending out flares of magic, but not really able to keep it up as she was not a Bearer. Much of her magic was reliant on manipulating plant matter to act for her or physically boosting her body to move quicker or get stronger. She could wound them physically, but she couldn't seemingly kill them this way. Especially not when it was two-on-one. The price she paid for being selfless. Before she could try and follow up at keeping Notus busy, a hand tightly grabbed the back of her head and it was only by Gaea reflexively grabbing what was coming towards her that she avoided getting stabbed in the face with a set of pronghorns. It didn't stop one prong from burrowing into her palm through her glove. Zephyrus wasted no time in twisting his head to the side, causing agony in Gaea’s hand and snatching at her by the throat. Notus came rushing in the follow-up, bashing and elbow into her gut as Zephyrus held her still. The force of the impact cracked a few ribs and caused Gaea to vomit out any air in her lungs despite Zephyrus starting to throttle her. She was trapped. Notus began wailing on her gut and ripping off chunks of her dress, Zephyrus kept her hands occupied with his antlers so that if she broke away they would go right into her eyes, all while beginning to cut off her pulse and make her vision threatened to black out; his expressionless optical cavities seeped mist that encircled her head. The awful feelings of doubt and failure amplified any pain, ensuing misery, and helplessness. Part of her felt like a prey animal that had been run down. One that couldn't fight back anymore, they were dead anyway. The rabbit collapsing and not getting itself right back up as the wolf came in with her jaws bared. Submit, give up, despair. Whatever awful language these monsters spoke, she could swear that's what they were saying, at least in meaning. The sound of wind chimes heralded the image she had left behind at her brother's household. A young son tucked into his crib, content and safe despite the storm far away. And nestled up next to him was someone very special for this world, but no more special to him than the cherished title of big sister holding her little brother in their rest. A pair of lips kissed both of their foreheads before their mother went off to battle. To battle for them and anyone like them, because she understood anyone's fear or pain better than most could. Gaea Everfree hollered in spirited opposition. She wasn’t going down that easily, they should've brought three hundred instead of three! They wanted a fight, they got it! And the chimes of Harmony very much agreed. Her entire body lit up with a green light and sparked. Everything in contact with her jolted as a shockwave flew out of her, one so strong that it created a snowless bubble within the storm. Notus was unbalanced by the shockwave and promptly double kicked to the ground with a sharp crack. Zephyrus reflexively let go of Gaea Everfree's neck despite being directly adjacent to her sparkling necklace but didn't escape unscathed. In a surge of power and adrenaline, Gaea Everfree yanked hard on his antlers and snapped off one of the icy structures at the base. A taste of his own medicine was given when the antler, wielded like a dagger, was promptly plunged into the empty left eye socket. Zephyrus shrieked and let go of her entirely, stumbling backward and clawing at his face to get the pronged instrument out. Putrid, tar-like fluid dripped from the socket. Falling to the ground and taking a monumental effort to stay up on her feet, Gaia Everfree went on the attack. Roots tore through the ground and coiled around the streetlight. The metal, already damaged from the cold and age, snapped under the gargantuan pressure after the roots compressed down and squeezed into the surface. Gaea Everfree cocked her arm back as the roots copied her movement. Notus was behind her even if she couldn't see him clearly, no doubt recovering from his tumble. Zephyrus was before her, still shrieking from having a broken off antler gouged into his eye socket. The windigo snarled and gripped the antler, wrenching it free and shattering the icy structure between his fingers. The tar-like fluid, the color of aged dead blood, still spluttered from the socket alongside a column of mist. Even without lips, Gaea Everfree could tell he was enraged. She smirked and jumped up. Twisting her body about to get her feet on equal vertical distance with her head after springing up an abnormal three meters off the ground, Gaea Everfree swung her arm out like she was throwing a hook. The roots copied her movement and brought about the streetlight pole like a giant baseball bat weighing well over one hundred kilograms flying forth at significant speed. Gaea Everfree first heard the attack crash into the Notus behind her and grinned as both he and the streetlight pole came flying under her; missing her body by a few centimeters as the winds passed behind it and flowed over her body. Her eyes never left Zephyrus' sole remaining good eye socket. The fact it never looked away from her or made any attempt to dodge was more than a little unnerving and caused her to flinch. Zephyrus was hit across the middle and ripped off his footing. The torque of the swing was too much for the roots, tearing themselves apart at the middle but they had served their purpose. Now with nothing anchoring it to the ground the internal wiring of the pole never stood a chance, fraying and snapping in an instant at the couplings. The pole went airborne, spinning in midflight with the centrifugal force keeping the windigos attached. Gaea Everfree forced herself to look away from the empty eye socket, grit her teeth and hit the ground running for the vacant lot. Her feet pounded against the frozen earth and concrete, willing more force into each step to change from running to bounding through the snowbanks. There was a large explosion behind her, the sound of shattering glass, ice, and falling rubble. If she had looked back she would've seen the pole collide with a storefront, sending both it and the occupants through the already broken front window and collapsing part of the roof upon them. She didn't know though it could buy her just a few precious moments. Her hand clutched the necklace and she called out over the storm instead of telepathically. "Harmony!" she roared. -"I'm still working on something, but you have as much access to the power as a Non-Bearer can have, use it!"- The six crystals in her necklace lit up in sequence and she felt a surge of power come through each one. Some of the weakness was banished away, fatigue reenergized. This wasn't her power, but she would make it count. There was no way she could fight the two remaining windigos out in the storm. The best she could do was fend them off briefly, keep them at bay and knock them around. But there was more of her blood on the ground than theirs. It took a lot of focus and concentration to just pin down Boreas, and that was in a fairly plant-rich area with plenty of flora to use from under the ground. A street fight over paved concrete? It was a massive stroke of luck that there was a root network near that pole. She winced and resisted the urge to grab her bleeding arm or hand, even as red stains fell upon the snow. Even with her magic resisting the cold, she could tell she was getting some frostbite, especially in the areas they had touched her. They were in their element in the snow, so she'd just have to change who had home court advantage. Gaea Everfree, Wysteria, hollered out and pointed her palm up to the sky while clutching her necklace. With a flash of magic, each of the Elements combining into a green light that encompassed her body in a dim glow, she thrust her palm to the ground with her lifeblood of the physical and magical flowing into it. There were dozens of oak seeds buried beneath her. And the magic pumped into them was the equivalent energy they would absorb over a decade. They grew to scale. Notus kicked over a cabinet that had fallen down on top of them, his body only briefly revealed in full until he stood up and got into the frigid wind and blown falling snow coming in from the opened storefront. Against the frost, he became transparent with bent light once again. It didn't flinch nor react when a partially caved in wall virtually exploded in a shower of debris and broken drywall. Zephyrus stepped out from the cavity, calmly reaching out and trying to pull a piece of rebar that had gotten impaled through his virtually nonexistent knee tissue. He was met with some resistance on account of the metal piece being bent aside on both ends in a slight Z shape, getting caught on frozen limb bones. He seemed to contemplate leaving it, keeping eyes firmly trained upon what was outside the store, upon who was outside the store; when a pair of hands helped grab the rebar. The noises that came out of Notus' misty maw could only tangentially be considered speech. To any listener of any language, it would have sounded vile and loathsome to hear, spurring a flurry of negative emotions on instinct like how one might recoil from a loud noise or feel fear from a snarling beast. But to Zephyrus, it was simple instruction. Notus gripped the side of the rebar sticking out of Zephyrus' back while the lead windigo gripped the other end. Metal was chilled rapidly to an almost unimaginable level, instantly freezing not just the air around it into frost but also affecting the molecules to the metal itself. The uneven reaction to cold between the pure iron, carbon, and bits of slag embedded within the rebar caused the matter to shrink and shear past each other. With an agreed-upon simultaneous motion, Notus and Zephyrus snapped the bar in two and pulled it out. Dark ichors and wisps of oddly smoking frost emanated from the bits of frostbitten flesh that stuck to the metal. Another cornucopia of indescribable speech came from Notus when Zephyrus stumbled. The alpha looked at his knee and tested it. The lower part of his leg and foot hung limply, held on only by some broken cartilage in strands of tissue with a noticeable gap where his kneecap had been. Zephyrus seemed to pause. He drew up one of his talons formed by sharpened fingertips and seemed to note something. Notus raised up one of his arms and removed the cloaking from the forelimb. Zephyrus took the limb and drew his fingertip across Notus' palm. The frostbitten flesh and cold ice sticking to it made it tough, but he did break through as indicated by the cold darkness seeping out. Notus clenched and opened his palm several times, one-time closing and squeezing tightly in a way that made his creaking joints pop in a sickening manner. Black, putrid fluid wept from the corners of the fist, another opening confirming the wound hadn't closed and instead had stained the entire hand dark. Notus clicked a few times, a sound that could only be compared to the chink of ice against ice, reactivating his camouflage but finding to his annoyance that the dark stain was still visible. He snatched a shirt, dismissively swatting the still, cold corpse it was attached to aside and swiping his hand across the surface to wipe off the gore. Zephyrus took his hand again and inhaled. A sickening, muted shriek accompanied a surge of cold air. Frost formed over the cut and sealed it. He did the same into his own knee and lower leg, forming a brace of sorts the hold the leg in place as it healed. Typically nothing lasting could be inflicted upon these bodies. If it had they would’ve torn their legs apart from muscle exertion alone, not including friction and rough surfaces on the ground they had been running upon, just from sprinting all the way here. Notus looked to his compatriot in catastrophes and Zephyrus responded by motioning where he had been looking the whole time. The Retainer's magic. The only thing that could ever hurt them was Harmony's taint. And those who wielded it. It had been a long time since they took on a physical body, tormenting the ponies mostly in their ethereal forms. But in these states they could be compared less to taking on new forms in accordance to this new world and more them still being spirits of ice, storms, and misery; just inhabiting a physical body like one would a puppet. The Retainer hadn't actually hurt them significantly, she didn't wield the power like Harmony or one of her chosen might after all, but she did have the potential to damage their connections with these bodies. And if they lost their physical manifestations in this world of limited magic and with seemingly no contact with their creator or his pupils, there was the possibility they might not get it back. And that was unacceptable... Yes, one could torment the living as a spirit. Visit so much misery upon them that they would develop spite for those around them, hatred for what they saw as an enemy, gluttony for what they had, greed for even more, and lust for what others had. All until they either destroyed everything close to them or found themselves unable to care anymore, curling up and dying in the cold from apathy so strong that they didn't even feel the need to seek warmth. But that was only possible when they were at the peak of their power. And the quickest way to develop to such a state was to run rampant in the world of the physical. Give them something to fear in manifestation rather than just fear of their neighbor. And there was so much more they could do to inflict such agony and grief than just kill someone in these forms. Plus there was the possibility they'd want to see their race expand, an impossibility without the physical. All of that was threatened by the Retainer. As mythic as the windigos were, they still had some of the same trappings as any living thing. They wished to prosper, they wished to conquer the challenge, they wished to propagate. The Retainer was a threat to all of that now. Zephyrus hissed slowly with her image in mind while looking out onto the storm where she had fled. He was getting more and more ideas for what to do to remove this threat. As well as more and more ideas on how to spite the cursed Harmony in doing so. Some of them didn't involve killing the Retainer. Not initially. They both tossed aside the respective ends of rebar casually and started to make their way back to the entrance of the shop. Notus nimbly jumped out the broken storefront window and landed in the snow bank virtually invisible aside from a flake of snow or two sticking to them, an unreactive Zephyrus simply walking through the front door and breaking it from his forward motion with it barely offering any resistance. There was a low scream in the winds of the storm. Notus and Zephyrus both returned it in kind, though only Notus looked towards the source across town. At their call the storm raged to a new height, the walls of the storm’s calmer eye tightening as the swirling mass beyond encircled at a faster pace. Zephyrus not once took his eye off the path the Retainer fled. Enough toying and indulging Notus’s hunts or Boreas’ sadism. The blizzard of a hurricane would condense down further and further every minute. The eye of the storm would shrink and shrink until it swallowed up the entire town. Even now the eyewalls contracted, ripping trees out of their roots and pulverizing some perimeter buildings. Scattered chunks of debris from the carnage were thrown about inside the townscape, the sky darkening due to some of the cloud formation beginning to blot out the moon and starlight. But the rate of devastation was slowed. Whereas it previously billowed over a street, it crawled. Something was bringing its pace down, and Zephyrus knew exactly what the cause was when he found himself standing with Notus beside him in front of a thick, painfully temperate, scenic forest. Whereas there had once been frost and ice smothering a flat plain, there was now a grove of oak trees, some well over four stories tall, and tightly clustered together with only a few spaces a few meters across forming paths. The air was filled with mist, especially on the border due to a massive difference in temperature within the forest versus that freezing cold beyond. Even beyond the tree line the air bit and scraped at the windigos’ hides tauntingly with heat. The land outside of the town was gripped in a polar hurricane, and yet within the grove it was a calm spring. A celebration of life and endurance thereof. Zephyrus heard Notus hiss and cackle. It was an abomination. Some of the rootwork extended to well beyond the abandoned lot, coursing under the street and encasing the animal shelter in a thick meshwork of oak trees and heat; shielding the occupants inside from the cold. No one, especially the Future Bearers, were going to die on her watch. The windigos though? They were already dead. Gaea Everfree made no attempt to hide herself, exchanging a stare down with the two windigoes that said everything there needed to be. They couldn’t tempt her to come out by going after the animal shelter with the occupants as hostages, an impenetrable wall of foliage as well as a set of threatening, snapping tendrils made of roots that appeared in front of the wall served as a phalanx to bulwark the defense. Just the same, however, she was not going to come out and fight them in their turf. Did they want her dead? She was gonna give them the worst fight of their lives in the attempt. Notus hesitated, especially when a step forward into the heat and foliage of the temperate jungle ruined his camouflage and made him fully visible. Zephyrus had no such reservations, only staring directly through Gaea Everfree in a manner that made her twitch uncomfortably while standing her ground ten meters in. Her focus was on him and his focus was on her. The question was which one of them would act first in the standoff. =========== Earlier ============ Harmony got out of Wysteria’s way, but something else gave the Retainer pause. A tiny sensation she hadn’t felt in decades. And the last time she had felt it, the flow of energy and the almost indescribable feeling was flowing towards her. This time it was flowing away from her, pointing in a specific direction. On that prior occasion, she was a little girl lost in the woods until she had encountered a legend of the Everfree she’d later come to know as Mrs. Posey. A Retainer, the Elements were indicating the presence of another Retainer; and given she was currently holding that title it would be her successor the flow was directed to. Wysteria held her breath and closed her eyes, somehow knowing this would be the case for years if it turned out she wasn’t to be the last. Maybe it was because she and her husband had conceived them when she was in the form of Gaea Everfree, maybe it was just a gigantic coincidence. But the Elements of Harmony always would choose right by means she didn’t understand, somehow knowing who would be fated to be needed in the role of Retainer when the time came. Wysteria, Gaea Everfree, turned around and looked to her successor. Her daughter. Still asleep, holding her brother protectively. Gaea Everfree, Wysteria, felt a subtle sting of salty tears. There were so many things this could mean. There were so many ways she could respond to this and most of which she was experiencing. The elation that maybe this meant she could personally walk her daughter through the process when the time came, give her an even better start than Mrs. Posey had given her. A joy that her own child had been chosen for this kind of duty, this kind of an honor to help ensure a heroic legacy in this world… or should she be scared? Should she be frightened because now she knew monsters existed and that one day Gloriosa, her baby girl, might have to be the one to fight them? Or should she be upset at someone else, even if it was just fate, for giving her child this burden? Gaea Everfree clutched her necklace. -”Did you know?”- Harmony was silent for a time, spurring a repetition of the question. -”Did you know my successor would be her, my daughter?”- She felt Harmony’s presence beside her, wavering in confidence and poise. If she glimpsed the shadows within the crystals, she could just barely make out the outline of an equine with a branched horn, nodding slightly. -”I had... I had indications,”- Harmony started with guilt slipping through her tone, -”But I didn’t know for sure until now. The Elements are part of me, yes, but I cut off my connection to them long ago. So I couldn’t use them myself unless I forcefully reabsorb them. I didn’t want to be tempted to whisk away mortals’ defenses by reconnecting to them, otherwise they'd return to me.”- A fairly noble sentiment, Wysteria never pried too far into Harmony’s past, as she could tell early on there was a lot of pain there, but she did understand the gist of it when she took it all in context. An eons-old goddess intentionally pulling off chunks of her own power to give them to others with the express purpose of them using it and not her? Sounds like somebody who wanted to ensure they didn’t have absolute authority. But this was a very stellar time for her to talk about indications… Frustration and confusion broiled up in her. Wanting to direct itself at the being within the crystals. Part of her wanted to. A much bigger part of her correctly called out the folly in that action. Harmony might be naïve in some ways, arrogant in others. Her earlier demonstration, however, proved that it came from lack of understanding rather than any malice. She could hope it was well-placed. -”I didn’t wish to deceive you.”- Gaea Everfree paused, almost feeling like either Harmony sensed her inner turmoil as a twisting pain in her gut or just had very good timing on her clarification. -”I knew there was a chance, especially when you did what no other Retainer had done before and revealed yourself to your spouse. It would be less that she was conceived when you were in this form, and more the household she grew up in that planted the ideals that make for a good Retainer. You were planning on revealing yourself to her and your son eventually, weren’t you?”- Gaea Everfree nodded slightly, unashamed as if it were as simple a fact of life as teaching her children to walk. -”Even if neither of them was chosen to be my successor. They deserve to know.”- -”Why, if I may ask? All the other Retainers lived long lives with their families, if they had any, in ignorance. It could afford them protection and better contained the secret.”- Gaea Everfree sighed, her face neutral as she gazed downwards, pulling up her hand. She flexed her fingers, feeling at a slight buldge around her ring finger that was evident even under her floral attire. -”Because I remembered how Mrs. Posey ended up after her husband died. Alone for the most part. She wouldn’t move away because she wanted to protect the secret, even if they kept her from her child and extended family. I saw the pain it caused. I knew how they could feel about it. Call it empathy, call it my strong suit.”- Her mind flashed back to the night before her wedding. Salty and she had finished dinner and were heading back to the bedroom. It had hardly been the first time they had slept in the same bed, and to be honest she wasn’t sure if either of them could sleep well without the other up against them. At this time, something had been gnawing at her. Wild speculation mostly. Based on the diary, Mrs. Posey had become Gaea Everfree very early on, well before she got married. Did her husband ever know? Based off how the diary never said so and Sunflower seemed oblivious, the answer seemed no. She had locked an entire part of her life away from her family. But no one could be oblivious. They must have noticed her stealing away sometimes, her refusing to talk about certain things or giving vague answers that made it seem like the lies they were. Maybe they knew something was up, but never spoke up about it for the sake of Mrs. Posey’s privacy. Maybe Harmony couldn’t have stepped in at those times to try and help if she sensed it was wrong. If she sensed it was as wrong as Wysteria felt it was. The agony of the questions chewed at her as she felt it must’ve chewed at them. All the families before her for each Retainer. She could empathically feel that pain. It hurt enough that she would never for a second wish to put her husband to be or any children they might have through that. Wysteria gently took Salty by the shoulders and pushed him onto the bed to sit down. He gave her a questioning look, one that warped into concern when he clearly saw the conflict on her face. The call for safety and bliss in ignorance was fighting with her empathy and love. It was no contest in the end. It took a lot of love, the drive to better others, to be a Retainer; and it took a lot of empathy to be Wysteria. “Tomorrow, I’ll be your wife,” Wysteria started, a dark mask was beginning to form around her eyes at the necklace started to glow in tandem with her feeling the sensations of every Element. “But you should know who I am…” Gaea Everfree finished as she opened her eyes, standing in the shadows of the window curtains. A quiet minute passed. Salty Sentry was understandably confused and shocked. His fiancée had just grown several centimeters taller, completely changed her attire, and was now clad in a beautiful barrage of natural colors, her hair waving through the air like she was underwater. She looked completely different. All except her expression. Wysteria braced for rejection. Thankfully, Salty found the similarity he was looking for in her gaze. The same unabashed trust and love he expected to see at the altar behind a veil tomorrow. She, his fiancée and beloved, look scared and uncomfortable. He sought to fix that when his hands gently caressed her cheeks and their lips touched. Gaea Everfree, Wysteria, felt her heart jump forth in her chest and she pushed forward to get closer to him. The chain was broken, a drive of empathy engendering love that created not one, but two children born out of it. She didn’t regret it for a single second… Until potentially now. Back in the present, Gaea Everfree felt a push behind her back. Harmony was fighting her again. The sensation was strong, a drive to get closer to her children and to get away from the door. She didn’t want her to leave. -”Harmony, I need to go.”- The pushback was only stronger. -”Harmony,”- Gaea Everfree mentally shrugged like she was having to lecture someone, -”you can’t stop me.”- Harmony was giving it her all and her all was to all but force Gaea Everfree to look at her daughter. -”The elements have chosen her, meaning they are fated to come to her eventually. That could mean the monsters will be stopped by something else or they will burn themselves out.  If you go out there you will endanger yourself and the Elements”- -”Who else could stop them but me?”- Harmony could not answer though it was clear she greatly desired one. Any power, any hero from another world that might help. She could be considered selfish for this. She could be called anxious about it, the truth was simple as her being terrified of it. Harmony was loathed to any soul losing their life, but it was almost human, the way she was especially scared for the potential loss of her friend. Especially given said friend was crying. -” Wysteria?...”- The tears hit the floor after rolling down Gaea Everfree’s cheeks. -”Wysteria, no one could blame you for being too scared or wanting to stay to protect them. If you’re scared that the windigos will win-”- “They won’t,” she whispered under her breath with a hint of a restrained gasp. Through the tears, those glistening waterfalls coming from her eyes, she was smiling. Smiling with all the emotions one could think of all at once. Pride, happiness, sorrow, fear, anger at this cruel fate, anxiety, confusion, then silence. -”If she is fated to succeed me, then the Elements will be out of the monsters’ reach in the future.”- -”How can you be sure of that? We don’t know how the selection works exactly.”- -”It was fate that led my predecessor to discover me when she did, even when it wasn’t my time to take the mantle. I’ll have to have faith it’s still the same for my daughter… If she takes on this power someday, that means it’s fated the future is safe right?”- -”She will grow up, and will inherit this Legacy of the Everfree. If all that is true, for her to someday get this power,”- Gaea Everfree looked out into the storm, -”then this battle will have a real purpose!”- -”Fateful or not, it’s enough for me,”- Gaea Everfree’s smile never wavered even with lamenting she knew far from everything in this impossible scenario. Harmony could see how wide the smile was, how confident Wysteria looked. She was the most powerful Gaea Everfree that has ever existed. She wore an expression of unbeatable power and Harmony knew she could never get in her way. Even if the tears never stopped flowing to indicate some fear walked away behind that grin. Gaea Everfree’s hand gently brushed her daughter’s hair. Gloriosa was facing away from her but Wysteria knew after kissing her baby girl’s scalp, that she was at least half awake. Gloriosa mumbled lightly and fidgeted, soon realizing her position and gently pulling her baby brother closer to her. She recognized her mother by her touch, her presence, and her love; even without seeing her beyond the curious green glow her tired mind couldn’t fixate on. “Mommy?” “Shhhh,” Gaea Everfree whispered while stroking Gloriosa’s head. “Mommy has to do something,” she cooed, leaning in closer, “I know you always like a story or lullaby before you go back to bed. I have a new one for you. Can you remember?” “Hmmm,” Gloriosa yawned but nodded, touching her closed eyelids with the back of her wrist, “I’ll try Mommy.” “It’s a fairytale, about a spirit in the woods, and monsters in the snow.” A silent understanding came between Harmony and Wysteria through their mental link. There were volumes not spoken, volumes more understood. Wysteria reiterated a common point with her firm stance. There was no way, goddess or not, her friend could stop her. So instead, she should help her. Harmony began relaying images and recollections of ages past, of the Windigos. Their origin, their traits, their abilities, their evil. With each detail, Gloriosa shivered, but with every detail of horror, there were flickers of hope. Hope against despair came in the form of a forest spirit that embodied five virtues that collected together to create magic. ========================================== Forest of Battle There was virtually no other sound perceptible other than the malign, earsplitting howl Zephyrus let loose. A shockwave of polar wind came flying out, Gaea Everfree bringing up two branches and coiling them together while stretching them out to form a shield. She gritted her teeth and was sent flying backward as the icy cold gouged icicles through the shield and just centimeters away from her face. Notus quickly followed up, following the trail of cold and ice across the ground and leaping between the trees to an active camouflage and mask his oncoming assault. A single blow of his talons shattered the shield just as Gaea Everfree was about to make contact with the ground, sending her careening off at an angle. As she flew backwards she thrust her arms out and ripped them upwards. Roots and vines tore free from the ground, cutting through the ice and snow from Zephyrus’ scream attack and disturbing Notus’ camouflage. His invisibility flickered just long enough for Gaea to track his movements when he dove back towards the frost to hide, catching him by the ankles with a tendril and ripping the monster off his feet. The vine, soon joined by others of its kin, all wrapped themselves around the ice demon despite suffering frostbite on contact. He was smashed against the tree trunk before being thrown over and left dangling from a branch. Notus shrieked and tore at his bindings as more and more wood and plant fiber wrapped around him. ========================================== “The nymph of the forest, like a fairy or angel, couldn’t stand by and let others get hurt when the ice demons invaded the kingdom. They spread strife and despair in their cold blizzards.” “Like the scary storm from earlier?” Gloriosa whispered as she propped her head up on her mother’s side, sensing something was different but too tired to look up and somehow, she didn’t mind the difference. Her mother felt so warm and it had been cold. Enough that she didn’t want to risk letting go of little Timber, lest he get a chill. Gaea chuckled, knowing that remembering that in particular might be very useful, “Yes, exactly like that. Imagine the storm can make you feel cold on the inside with how you feel for others just like how you feel cold on the outside from the chills.” ========================================== Gaea Everfree dug her heels into the ground when Zephyrus came at her at a blurring speed. She ignored the frostbite forming on her arms when he grabbed onto her by the elbows, hopping off the ground and letting out a burst of magic like she had before in tandem with swinging her legs up. Her knees made contact with its chest at the same time it let loose an earsplitting scream that hit with the force of a blizzard. Both of them went shooting back in opposite directions. Gaea Everfree skid across the ground, rolling along it to get her bearings back up. Notus had frozen and shattered the vines holding him, falling back to the ground in a shower of dead plant matter raining down like shrapnel. Gaea Everfree divided her attention between the two, thrusting an open palm out and commanding the tree Zephyrus had crashed into to split open. Jagged spears of wood shot out and impaled the windigo, wrenching him backward into the tree trunk which then snapped shut on top of him like it was an iron maiden coffin. Given the ice forming across the trunk, it wouldn’t hold him for long. She had just enough time to refocus on Notus and- A blur of motion hit her from the side and suddenly she felt much colder. Something warm ran down her leg and she realized there were several talons, frozen and impossibly cold, jabbed about an inch into her gut. She looked up at a familiar expression that was just as manic as Zephyrus’ was stoic. Boreas, looking like he had just been put through a wood chipper and then strung back together given all the fibers and frozen mulch sticking out of his body, grinned without lips. Gaea Everfree felt the second finally end and after a short gasp and sucking in her breath, she grabbed Boreas by the wrist and held her free arm back before swinging forward. Midflight, just as his claws upon the other hand were reaching for her eyes, a club of condensed oak formed around Gaea Everfree’s forearm by a tendril forming around it and then cutting off. The makeshift bludgeon hit Boreas right in the forearm as Gaea Everfree pulled away while still holding onto his hand. The blow shattered the forelimb like ice, Frost and bone shards flying everywhere and sending Boreas to the ground. Gaea Everfree backpedaled and called out in pain, the fingers still stuck inside her contracting downwards like the hand was trying to form a fist in its convulsions. It took a lot of focus to create a concentrated burst of magic but she pulled it off, causing the hand to go slack and open up so she could pull it free. Red ran down her side and she had to try and stem the bleeding as best she could. While at the same time having to sweep her arm side to side and create a barrage of tendrils to mimic the motion and attack the areas an invisible Notus was no doubt flanking her from. She stumbled backward from a blow by the invisible force hitting her in the side of the head, grazing her and making the world spin. A surge of power sent into the ground through a stomp yielded no reward. When the ground cover came to life and snapped about to try and seize the camouflaging hunter, Notus sent out a curtain of cold air to rapidly freeze the water hovering about as vapor and within the plants themselves to ice over parts of the ground. He now had far more range to roll about in, encircling the Retainer in a zone of frost. She couldn’t see him but she could see the frost coming off him as he moved about the forest through the ice and snow managing to invade it. Glimpsing several tree trunks beginning to ice over, Gaea Everfree called out and punched the ground. On command, the tree trunks snapped inwards and fell down in a cascade of wooden branches. A heinous, vile scream confirmed she actually managed to hit him somewhere. But now Boreas had recovered from his tumble and was righting himself. His limbs stretched out to the sides and bent at unnatural angles both due to injuries and the chunks of wood still stuck in them from getting crushed earlier, contorting like a dying spider to pounce forward. Gaea Everfree was knocked on her back with him on top of her and she narrowly dodged a lunge for her neck by bared fangs made of ice and jagged bone. Just getting in contact with them was frigid but offered no response via numbness, fear trickling in an unnatural way like it was being stuffed into her mind. Stuffed in with every snap of the jaws meant to maul. Gaea Everfree was forced to take her other arm off her wounded side and brace it and her legs against him. With a colossal burst of green magic conducting into him from every point of contact, she managed to blast him off and send Boreas careening into the canopy. And yet judging from the almost energized shriek he gave, he was far from done yet. Knocked down but not knocked out. She tried to multitask in getting back up. The area she had collapsed the trees upon was frozen over entirely and there was a gaping hole in the top where something, Notus no doubt, had to claw its way out through the thicket of branches. That meant he was back up in hiding in the encroaching frost, yet again invisible. She frantically scanned for any sign of him. There was a massive screaming roar accompanying the sound of an explosion. ========================================== Gloriosa shuddered, “But if there’s three how is she supposed to beat them?” “The ice demons only fought for themselves and to make others feel despair, the Legend of the Everfree fought for everyone else behind her. But there was something much more to it...” ========================================== Zephyrus smashed through the tree trunk he’d been held in and through another in his way. He came for her and he wasn’t stopping regardless of how much he’d been damaged. Black, tar-like blood and mist seethed from his body but he only managed to speed up more and more to an insane degree. No more games. If Notus was the agony and fear you couldn’t see coming, and Boreas was the nagging pain that never went away no matter how much you fought it, Zephyrus was the unstoppable despair that would take hold over any tragedy.  Especially the ones he had to inflict. A wall of tendrils was shattered on impact, freezing before he even made contact. Gaea Everfree’s eyes dilated and her body glowed a brilliant green light. She called out to all six Elements, she called upon all the power they could give to someone who wasn’t a Bearer. Every single one all at once. The explosion was massive. ========================================== Gloriosa listened and she wasn’t alone. Harmony was listening closely as well and she would remember this in a few hours especially. Gaea Everfree stroked her daughter’s hair. “Because despair means not caring about anything, even yourself. Empathy means caring for everyone you love.” ========================================== It wasn’t enough. Gaea Everfree was battered and cut as she was shoved against an icy embankment. Much of her forest had been frozen over or the windigos were completely ignoring it now. Too bloodlusted. Boreas had pulled himself free from the canopy and was yanking chunks of wood out of his body to recover, having been so eager to rejoin the fray that he hadn’t even noticed they had been there till now. A large splinter lodged in his eye socket was casually pried free and thrown over his shoulder. An invisible force held down her right arm, talons digging into its palm. Notus removed his cloaking and seem to chuckle. Zephyrus said and did absolutely nothing besides pinning her down, his foot planted on her knee, and hand gouging into the ice with her other arm between the fingers, and his other hand around her neck. He was smoking and bleeding from every place in his body, looking like he could fall apart at any minute if not for sheer determination. He had never had worse and he was feeling very inclined to return the favor. He removed his hand from her frost-burnt neck and clutched the necklace. It seemed to cause agony just touching it for him, but it certainly did for Gaea. The necklace was connected to her very soul, tied to her entire body now that she was in this form. She tried to gasp out something but she couldn’t, choking. There were sparks, there was resistance, the fragment of Harmony was fighting as hard as it could. Zephyrus knew Harmony was watching. This was to send a message from their master. He ripped the necklace off and threw it aside, causing Gaea Everfree to scream out into the storm. She convulsed almost like she was having a seizure, the magic of the necklace having been the only thing keeping the dark magic the Windigos were emitting at bay this whole time. Fear, dread, agony, misery, despair all hit her like a tidal wave and dunked her head under the surface to drown her. Wysteria could feel herself being pulled down into the void. It was so dark she didn’t want to react to anything, she didn’t want anything, she just wanted to lay down and die as frozen tears stung her eyes. She glimpsed- no, saw clear as day, a city locked away beyond time and space. A heinous realm of distorted architecture and no sky. Parts of it had length, width, height, and yet other things. Much of it was indescribable beyond it being heinous and eldritch. It would be incorrect to call the master of that realm, sealed inside the sarcophagus, any type of creature. It was more of force that in her mind’s bid to comprehend, conjured up the visage of a demonic looking ram made of smoke and shadow. There was a long crashing of bells, the sound of which seemed like it wanted to tear her mind apart as the red eyes, for they were the closest color one could compare it to, swooped down. ========================================== Gaea Everfree, Wysteria, sensed her daughter smiling hopefully that the story would have a happy ending, “And those who care for each other are never alone in any fight…” ========================================== The flickers of light were gradual at first, coming behind her. But she knew who it was. The sound of wind chimes gave her clarity. A burning light formed on her chest. She sought every single person she had ever met and cared about. Her parents, her childhood friends, her mentor, her beloved, her children, and her best friend. Wysteria did something miraculous in itself. A mere mortal gazed back into the darkness and destruction, and she stood up to it. She had far too many to care about to even waste a second of her time wallowing in despair. Her gaze shifted away from the damnation and into a dazzling void of stars and glass walkways. There was a figure standing before her. She saw her now in full for the first time ever. The beauty was indescribable as was her true voice. -” Wysteria, your ability to care for others through pain and fear is vast. You have the power to inspire great empathy for mortal and god alike.”- Harmony enacted a plan she had been working at since the confrontation started. She had been given empathy and now she gave empathy to her best friend. She tore a chunk of her power away and gave it away freely. The burning red light engulfed Wysteria’s form in both the realm of Harmony and the physical. The other Elements reacted to one of their kin and flew back to join it, tearing free of the necklace and flying through a wave of ice Notus and Boreas vomited out unimpeded. Gaea Everfree once more, the 7th Element of Harmony, Empathy, nested within a hexagon formed by its brethren. It only made sense in some ways. After all, one needed empathy for friendship and magic, with Wysteria as its first Bearer. The Elements all fired off point-blank. The Windigos all screamed out briefly before being shouted to silence as they were engulfed in the Rainbow of Light. …. ……. ………. …………. ……………. ................... The storm was parted, dying away in the night sky. The frost and ice remained behind scars upon the land where the conflict that had taken place. The first thing Wysteria ever saw when her vision cleared was the beauty of the unobstructed stars. “Harmony,” she croaked quietly as she lay there alone with her hair spilled out across the snowy ground, “the windigos?…” The sound of wind chimes returned, almost like they were at her side. -”Their physical bodies were destroyed, along with the vast majority of their magic. It’ll take decades to even be able to interact with anything if they survive.”- Wysteria chuckled and shook her head, “Guess th-they’ll be dealt with by the Bearers or Glori…” -”H-How do you feel? You can’t stay here.”- “B-Burnt… out,” her whispers came out raspy and weak. The Elements weren’t meant to be used all at once by just one individual, even a Bearer. Harmony could tell herself she should’ve expected Wysteria to use everything she could from it, never expecting moderation from a protective mother. The snow was red around her, as was a large icicle laying beside her. A combination of physical injuries, the cold, and exertion of the Elements. Harmony knew exactly what was happening but she couldn’t stop herself from crying. But even in her final moments, the Retainer and Element of Empathy couldn’t help being who she was. She raised her hand up to where she sensed Harmony’s presence when she was stroking her cheek. “Ssshhh… Shhhh... Why are you crying?” -”Because I couldn’t save you...”- Wysteria shook her head, “I knew this would happen as soon as I knew Gloriosa was next. I didn’t stop. Don't think of who you couldn't save, but who we could. Did we save the children?” Harmony tearfully checked in on where she could sense the remnants of her power in that realm. The ones that were in danger of going out were now shining brightly. They would prosper. It looked like it was going to be a calm winter after all. -”We did, we saved everyone.”- Wysteria smiled and nodded weakly, her face paling because she felt so tired. Before her eyes shut, one last phrase slipped from her mouth. “Promise me…” Harmony, despite being a goddess and not needing to do so, leaned closer to listen well. “When it’s my daughter’s time, no matter who she’s up against… Don’t let her be alone.” Wysteria’s eyes shut as the Elements began to leave her to leave for a location of safety, “Please…” Harmony, using all she could muster in her even more weakened state after tearing out more of herself to make the Element of Empathy, willed the Elements to not immediately call out to Gloriosa as they had her mother. After what she'd put the family through, they deserved freedom from any burden; especially at the future Retainer's age. Wysteria felt a hoof on her hand, a vow as strong as the wedding ring upon her finger. -”I promise.”- ========================================== “And she won?” Gloriosa whispered while feeling a blanket drawn over her. Her mother chuckled, “And she won. The demons were defeated because while love is harder, it’s always stronger…” Gloriosa shifted comfortably as sleep took her, glimpsing her mother as she leaned down and kissed her head. She would later attribute seeing the unworldly beauty, the flowing hair, and glowing green eyes to her being half asleep when she’d remember seeing Wysteria for the last time. ========================================== It took a lot of holidays for Gloriosa Daisy especially to smile again. The reports came in from the town about the miraculous story of how several children in a hospital full of animals survived the worst of the blizzard. They said an angel saved them and kept them warm from the monsters outside. She would never forget the heartbreak her family experienced when the ‘angel’ turned out to be her mother, dead in a snowbank before a grove of trees. The official story would be her mother, caring soul she was, rushed back into the storm to save anyone she could, perishing in the effort that spared other families agony. It was so bittersweet she didn’t know what to make of it when the flight reports came back in and her father walked through the front door, having been held up by the plane needing to make an emergency landing due to the storm it got trapped in. It would prove to be a year with a lot of miraculous stories, the pilot managing to land inside the forest through a white out because he was following the sound of jingles or chimes of all things. She was confused at why it had happened to her family, she was angry the people on the plane and the girls inside the animal shelter got to have complete families and not her, she was sad and stricken even before they held the funeral and still was for so long after. For almost a decade winter was the worst time of the year, and she wore fake smiles for the sake of others. She took after her mom in caring that others enjoyed themselves a lot, even at the cost of her own discomfort. She put up with the holidays. She put up with the medal ceremony given to her family by the mayor in recognition of what her mother did. She put up with the stupid girls coming to thank her for being saved. She put up with helping throw large parties every winter at camp for the guests. That was years ago. And it took years for her to be able to so much as look at a complete family portrait… ... …... ……... She saw a gaunt, tall figure with antlers of ice standing before her in the frozen gales. She saw it attack her. She was thrown down and rolled across the ice and snow that stung her body. As she picked herself up, Gloriosa Daisy looked into her reflection in a sheet of ice that had frozen across the road. A being with green eyes that glowed through the darkness gazed back at her. There was a god-awful shriek and a story of icy demons and forest spirits echoed through her mind. Gloriosa Daisy snapped awake with a cold sweat over her body. She wasn’t gasping for air, in fact, it felt like the wind had been knocked out of her body. She took a hot minute for her to collect herself and finally refill her lungs despite the choking. Fear and dread coursed through her body, before fading away like phantom pains from an old wound. It seemed to come from her chest and she felt at the source, felt at the necklace. She frowned and looked upwards at the ceiling as if begging for an answer. That was the second nightmare she’d had this week. The second one relating to that night. Why? Why now and why so? She fiddled with the necklace, looking to it. -What are you doing to me, are you trying to tell me something?- No response, just the dim glow of the crystals. Gloriosa looked at her hand, and looked at her reflection, if only just to see if she stayed herself and not the green-eyed entity she always saw in the reflections in those dreams. Fruitless… She was sat at her desk at camp Everfree, eyes falling upon an old family picture. She hadn’t known how long she kept staring at it, but something about it was bothering her and she kept staring longer, tilting her head. She had never noticed the necklace her mother always wore under her shirt looked almost like it was made of… Her hand slowly reached up to her own necklace, strung across by a vine. Could it…? The door opened and Adagio Dazzle stepped through. “You ready?” Gloriosa felt like she could think about that answer for hours without knowing for sure, especially now. The story about frigid demons and forest spirits, she would never forget it and as of recently, she could never think of it the same way. She felt a little heat coming from her necklace and the subtle noise in the back of her head was almost like a… wind chime. She breathed in and nodded, getting up and following someone she could tentatively consider a friend to the mess hall. The decorations were all strung up in a tacky manner. A tree she heavily suspected was real and had been recently cut down was propped up in the corner with some wax candles set up on it, and a fire extinguisher set next to it. Aliens, ancient magical bats, not-so-ancient magical ponies, and literal sea witches collectively didn’t quite understand why someone would put burning candles on a potentially flammable tree, but had gone along with it. A table full of food, recent acquisitions from the supermarket, was set in the corner, illuminated by the television playing some tacky special. Part of Gloriosa wanted to just ignore it or scoff at the whole thing. But she felt she couldn’t, especially when she remembered who this was for. Empathy was a strong thing especially when it was for a friend. Sonata Dusk sat at a table with Megalon, being very quiet but with the first big smile she had in a long time as her friend helped pass a large turkey leg that Irys was drooling over and made Twilight seem queasy. Ever since the sirens got into Nightmare Night, Sonata especially had gotten into all the holidays even if she didn’t quite grasp a lot of them. They had effectively missed all the ones during the majority of the winter because of the incident that Gloriosa had learned was also responsible for destroying the bridge leading into the park and X leaving his handprint in the cliff face. Gloriosa passed by Sonata’s table and put on a smile, the best that she could manage. Before she could mentally will herself to do it however, Sonata got up and wrapped her arms around her. Gloriosa was so taken aback it took her a few seconds to mentally collect herself. Poor girl had been through a lot and was still going through it. Gloriosa mentally kicked herself to shove some of the sadness away. It had been years and she had never really been alone, the least she could do was give company to those who needed it. There was a lot of swimming through her head. Some of the weird dreams she had been having, the odd sensations the necklace was giving her, a small sense of dread hanging in the air like thin smoke, and her conflicting concerns and yet cravings regarding the necklace and the crystals… She could deal with that later. Gloriosa Daisy hugged Sonata back and giggled, “Sorry it’s not exactly the right time of year for all this, and I know most of us don’t really seem to grasp what we’re going for but- well we didn’t exactly even get gifts or chocolates or-” Sonata cut her off with a single look. And honest, joyful smile with a slight glisten in her eyes. She shook her head lightly and snuggled back into the hug. Gloriosa couldn’t help but chuckle as she patted her head. There was some of the old Sonata she knew and was hoping to see more of. With luck, that would come true. Sonata broke away from the hug and seemed to glance about. Gloriosa raised her eyebrow at the siren but was soon being pushed along with Sonata’s hands on her shoulder blades, nudging her along to one of the other tables. A chair was nudged outwards by an orange leg, belonging to the siren sitting across from the empty seat. Adagio seemed to pretend not to notice her approach, though thankfully Twilight was much more open. She beamed and beckoned Gloriosa over. And when the camp director was seated, she couldn’t find herself objecting to where it was. Twilight, the most jovial of the oddball group was eagerly nudging a comically large plate of salad towards Gloriosa, hoping no doubt to have at least one ally in herbivory. Adagio barely gave her a glance but nonetheless poured a glass of cheap sparkling water and passed it off next to the salad. And as soon as she sat down, a set of red sunglasses looked over at her. Gigan just now noticed she approached, having been fiddling with some kind of small comic book. “Don’t do anything funny with the salad,” he grumbled and spurred a snicker from Twilight and, at least Gloriosa thought she glimpsed, a smirk from Adagio. Evidently, they got a lot of mileage out of his phobia. Gloriosa put her hands up assuredly and shook her head. Her eyes wandered to the comic book. “What’s that?” Gloriosa muttered as she tilted her head, "Didn't take you for a manga reader." Gigan contemplated for a moment, likely debating if he should answer or not but resigning himself with a shrug. “I'm not.. Sonata said she can’t read the Asiatic language, Megalon wanted to give her a present so I was tasked with translating it,” he noted dryly, “I was bored, but this language makes no sense.” “Oh,” Gloriosa chirped and silently watched on. And on. And on. As he kept going back over the same few pages. She couldn’t help but snicker slightly. She never quite took the cyborg to be the caring type at first, but the benign intent was rubbing off on her empathetically. He clearly did care about his brother as well as his teammates, but this was one of the first times she’d seen him do anything overtly benign when it didn’t deal with ‘the job’. Her hand reached out and touched the page, causing Gigan to flinch and pause. “You’re reading it wrong,” Gloriosa whispered, trying to keep it low as a means of preserving his dignity, “First time reading manga?” “I avoided it like the plague for years after a… poor choice in selection,” he muttered back. Gloriosa leaned in a little further so she could better see the page and turn it, “Can’t quite read the script, but I read a lot in high school. You turn the pages in the opposite order that you do for Western books.” To demonstrate, she pulled the page aside to show a costumed heroine going from her civilian form to her lunar-themed superhero guise by turning the book around and going what would’ve been otherwise the back to the front. Gigan was quiet for a time, almost a full minute. Gloriosa had to bite her lip and hold back a snicker wondering just how long he’d been stuck on that, or if he would ever admit to it. Instead, she got a pleasant surprise. “Thank you, Daisy,” he spoke in a monotone but her face flushed a little bit nonetheless. Gloriosa Daisy sighed and took her glass of sparkling water, sipping it. For a cheap brand, wasn’t half bad at all. She took in the atmosphere. Adagio was sitting back relaxed, clearly able to stop stressing for a while. Iyrs was going to town on more of the turkey, looking like a gerbil that had just found a mountain of seeds. Megalon and Sonata were sitting together and watching the holiday special with a vested interest in the red-nosed deer. Twilight Sparkle was chewing away at her salad with a large book before her. Gigan was constructing his present and didn’t seem to mind that the two were practically touching shoulders. And she could see the outline of Aria and X sitting very close to one another with their hands intertwined all gazing out onto the moonbeam-kissed lake. It all encompassed the entirety of the spirit of the winter holidays. Gift giving, relaxation, eagerly trying something new with the new year, and love between a couple. Perhaps it was a little bit improperly dated, but that didn’t seem to be what mattered at all. Almost on cue, her phone began to vibrate and she drew it forth. The number was very familiar and her smile, not a mask at all, shone through. “Excuse me a moment,” she whispered as she got up and walked out the back door into the cool night air. She tapped the receive icon and brought it to her ear. “Hey Timber, hey Dad, what’s the occasion?” “Doing just fine sis! Classes are killer but we just wanted to call in. Just wanted to check in on you. How are you holding up?” Gloriosa felt the wind shift a little bit. But not like how it had before when it roused her awake. This wind was warm, gentle. It brought her back to a certain holiday season over a decade ago. Back to a certain bedtime story like before. Only this time, it didn’t hurt. Unbeknownst to her, Harmony had made a promise and she had kept it. “I’m doing just fine, got company.”