As the stars began to come fully into focus around the shining surface of the moon, the autumn chill seemed to build up even more. While Ocellus could feel it against her chitin and wings, it didn’t really bother her. However, she noticed Gallus, Silverstream and Sandbar all trying to get a little closer to the roaring fire, or at least holding out their limbs to it.
Yona, standing much closer to the fire, and now on the opposite side of the semi circle the other five formed, was sweating. If she minded the heat so close to the flames, she didn't show it. Her eyes focused on the fire, and she began to speak. Her voice seemed to carry farther to Ocellus, and though she wasn’t shouting, it echoed back from the forest, much like Smolder's had, “Yaks tell many stories to their young, to keep them from wandering away from the village alone...
The wilds around Yakyakistan can be dangerous, especially away from other creatures to the north. Yak tell tales about beasts beneath the snow drifts, hiding in caves, and that blend into the jagged peaks of the mountains. All beasts seem to enjoy eating tender young yaks the most. The most important story, however, is the one we tell to keep young yaks inside during blizzards: the story of Tsasan.
Many, many moons in the past, the Prince of Yaks was a young calf named Yin’gar. His father had fallen ill during a bitter winter, when the sun had not risen for weeks. Until he was to come of age, his late father’s advisors ruled in his stead, and taught him all he needed to know to be a good leader for yaks. No yak in all of Yakyakistan felt anything but sorrow for the young prince.
His family's hut was the largest in the village, and so while others held court below, Yin’gar sat in his room upstairs, and looked out beyond the walls. He thought of his father’s spirit, wandering the wastes outside the village, protecting the village along with the other ancestors. He wished that he could be with him, to feel whole again.
One night, the snow began to fall slowly, but by the time he fell asleep, it was a raging blizzard. Against the windowsill, he awoke from a nightmare, and heard his father calling his name.
It was then that he saw a glow within the blizzard, just beyond the walls of the village. He focused on the darkness, and the glow came into the shape of a yak. Yin’gar was still young, but he knew the tales of his people. He was certain that his father was calling to him in his time of anguish. It was a vision that he should follow. And so, everyone else having gone to sleep, he tiphoofed down the stairs, out into the village and then beyond the walls, out into the storm.
His coat was thick, and the cold did not bother him. His hooves were strong, and they carried him steadily despite the powerful winds. His mind was sharp, and he kept focused on the figure, glowing brightly in the blinding blizzard. His ears were keen, and he followed the voice, calling his name. Eventually, forging his way through the snow, Yin’gar saw the figure walk into the entrance of a cave.
Suddenly, the glow about the shape faded, and the call of his name quieted, from a shout over the raging storm to a whisper. Stepping into the mouth of the cave, Yin’gar was finally given relief from the bitter cold of the blizzard and he shook the snow free from his coat.
He called out his father’s name, but the only answer back was the echo of his words and the faint whispers of his name. Soon, even those were silent, and all he could hear was the wind outside.
The figure did not move until Yin’gar took a cautious step towards it. It slinked away, deeper into the cave, fading into the blackness of its depths. Still, Yin’gar tried to speak to it. “Why did you call me here, Father?” he asked. “Is it to show me something? Some treasure hidden away here? An heirloom that must be returned home? A quest left unfinished? Please, Father, tell me…”
With every step he took, the figure retreated, but Yin’gar could hear it speak once more, quieter than a whisper. “Yin’gar… Deeper… Follow…" With no answers, Yin’gar still followed it.
The cave seemed to stretch forever, but finally the figure did not retreat. Yin’gar’s eyes had become accustomed to the darkness, so he noticed the cave walls around him and just behind the figure.
Yin’gar took a step, and the figure did not move.
He took another, and it still did not move.
As he began to take a third step, he noticed that the air was growing colder. A frigid, deep cold cut through his thick fur. He caught sight of ice, slowly forming on the walls and floor, spreading out from where the figure stood.
The figure spoke, louder, but Yin'gar heard it from inside of his head.
“Yin'gar. Stay. Stay. Forever.”
Eyes he had not seen before opened on the figure, and they were blacker than the depths of the cave, more frigid than the winds howling outside and they pierced through him as if he were not there.
Yin’gar scrambled on his hooves to turn, running for the cave entrance as fast as he could. As he turned, a shrill shriek came from the figure, followed by the sound of ice shattering.
The layer of ice on the walls and floor raced to catch him, but he was fast. A patch appeared in his way, but he was sturdy enough to keep himself upright. He saw the front of the cave, wall of ice forming at the mouth, trying to bar his way. Yin'gar put his head down, aiming his little horns at it, and he prayed for his father’s strength.
His horns slammed into the ice, and it shattered. Shards scratched at his skin and cut his fur and mane, but he kept running. The shrieks echoed into the winter night, but he never looked back.
The bitter winds of the blizzard attempted to cloud his path, but he found the lights of the village. He broke through an entire section of the wall in a rush to get back in, and he collapsed as the rest of the village awoke.
It took him weeks to recover, from the cuts and the bitter cold that wracked his body. Every time he would glance out into the still raging blizzard, he would see the figure. Every time it would call out to him, still in his father's voice. Every time he would have to fight the urge to go.
Tsasan seeks to lure yaks away from their villages and their families, to take them to places where they will never leave. To stay with them…
“...forever.” Yona’s final word echoed back from the forest behind Ocellus, and then again from a treeline off to the left, quiet and faint. The effect sent a shiver down her spine, and caused her wings to flutter reflexively, as if they were trying to shake off an accumulation of ice that wasn’t there.
She noticed a similar reaction from Silverstream, but Smolder and Gallus were more reserved. Sandbar gave a shiver, front hooves wrapped around his barrel before he got up to walk closer to the fire. “That was uhhh, pretty chilling,” he muttered, before giving a chuckle.
Ocellus caught Smolder's and Gallus’s eyes roll in tandem. Silverstream, however, gave a giggle before looking at Yona. “Are blizzards really that bad in Yakyakistan?”
Yona nodded. “Yaks haven’t had a bad storm since elders were Yona’s age, but they can get bad. Even strong yaks like Yin’gar and Prince Rutherford can’t go out in them alone. Tsasan good lesson to keep young, headstrong yaks safe!”
“You must have been told it a dozen times,” Gallus said, his tail flicking back and forth behind him. He waved his claws in front of him when Yona glared at him. “Not that that’s bad! We don’t really get bad storms up near Griffonstone. They sound pretty intense though.”
“It’s the same with the Dragon Lands. It’s kind of weird to see creatures talking about snow and ice like they’re… dangerous,” Smolder said, punctuating her sentence with a flick of flame from her mouth.
"You just told a story about those really cold wastes, though," Silverstream piped up, raising an eyebrow.
"Cause it's weird. Snow and ice are just the weather. It's totally different!" Smolder retorted, lifting out of her seat and pointing a claw at Silverstream.
“Tsasan not just about blizzard,” Yona said, once more looking into the fire. “Tsasan prey on yaks’ care for family. Winter is season of ends.” She walked back over to her seat next to Ocellus and sat down quickly, the motion rocking the log enough for Ocellus to almost fall off.
Ocellus thought on the words for a moment, and from the silence that hung in the air, only broken by the rustling of leaves and the crackling of the fire, so was everyone else. It was Sandbar who finally spoke up.
“But winter gives way to spring.”
Ocellus caught Yona’s smile before she nodded and looked to Sandbar. “Yes. Snow thaws, ice melts, plants come back and yaks remember the lost. The lost stay with yaks forever, and make spring warmer.”
"A lot of stories aren't really about what happened," Ocellus said. She looked at Gallus and Smolder, who both gave her confused looks. "I mean, Smolder said the Hollow Caverns were trying to give a cause for why the Bitter Wastes are so cold.
"And Gallus, the Große probably isn't real, right?"—he gave a reluctant shrug—"Maybe it's just a cautionary tale to keep griffons from getting stuck deep in that forest. The same with the Shadow Walkers. It's just about expressing fears. I noticed a lot of scary pony stories are about ponies acting weird, or becoming something strange."
"Like the Headless Horse, or the Rusty Horseshoe, yeah," Sandbar said with a nod. "And it's the reason the Everfree is so creepy, because the weather just happens, and animals are wild there. It's not how things are for us."
There was another pregnant pause, and Ocellus started to reach for her book before stopping. She didn't know if it would really hold an answer to the nagging feeling in the back of her mind.
Something about every story her friends had told seemed familiar. Besides the fact that every creature in them had managed to escape their predicaments, however, she couldn’t put her hoof on it. It was like a fickle flame in her mind, and every time she'd turn to see it, the motion would cause the light to flicker out into a wisp of smoke.
She felt a weight on the log next to her, and looked over to see Silverstream sitting next to her, smiling expectantly. Ocellus looked back and forth between her pile of books and Silverstream for a few moments. “Yes, Silverstream?”
“Are you gonna tell a creepy changeling story, or can I go?” Her talons were pressed into her cheeks as she waited, smiling, for a reply. It gave her a much more sympathetic look, though it wasn’t really needed.
Ocellus laughed and shook her head. She was wondering how she was going to bring it up. “No, no. Uhh… Changelings don’t really have stories.”
Silverstream gave a gasp of excitement at Ocellus’s “no,” flapping her wings rapidly, but it turned into a confused exhalation. She tilted her head to the side and dropped a few inches back onto the log as her wings stopped. “Why not?”
Ocellus noticed the others looking at her as well. She took a moment to try and order her thoughts to best explain it. “We didn’t have a reason for them,” she stated plainly. “Before we were reformed, we just did what the queen said. Infiltrators needed to know creatures’ stories a little, sometimes, but we never had our own. Instead we, well, have a sort of instinctual memory.” Ocellus tapped her chin with a hoof, wondering if she had found the right words.
“You mean you just know stuff?” Smolder asked.
“Yes, but not all at once,” Ocellus corrected. “We’d just remember them when it came up. Like the fact that bugbears are dangerous if we aren’t transformed into one. As soon as we see a bugbear, we just remember that, and either turn into something that can hide, or something that can fight.
“That’s all different now, with Thorax in charge. Some changelings back home are trying to write, I think. One of them even asked me to bring some fiction books back for research material.”
“That seems so weird,” Sandbar interjected. “Like you didn’t even have any that you told each other?”
Ocellus shook her head. “No. It just… wasn’t important. The hive was about being efficient then, for a lot of reasons. Stories weren’t efficient when you can just… burn the important bits into every grub's memory.”
“I wonder if it will still happen with new changelings,” Gallus said, before popping a roasted marshmallow into his mouth. “I mean are they born… changed now?”
“Uh huh. I guess we’ll find out when they grow up,” Ocellus said, before looking back to Silverstream. The hippogriff still looked confused, and a little disappointed. “So, yes, Silverstream, you can tell one next.”
Her mood immediately lightened up, wings going from zero to hummingbird in the blink of an eye before she began to circle the air above the fire, chanting, “Yes, yes, yes, yes!”