//------------------------------//
// 3) Snowy 
// Story: The Storm King’s Dreams 
// by Flufux 
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Chapter 3
Snowy


A cold and lifeless wind was blowing...

...it stung like death itself upon touch...

...and it was endless and unrelenting.

The wind picked up snow and harshly whipped it across the mountain...slamming it into rocks and snuffing out any semblance of life in its path, leaving nothing but a frozen wasteland. 

And yet, even here...there was at least one living thing that still drew breath.

A lonely creature was wading through the thick snow. A furry bipedal creature with cloven hooves and a pair of glowing blue eyes...but with no black armour, no great horns...and he was definitively not called the Storm King.

...At least not yet.

Also, in clear contrast to the giant beast that was the mighty Storm King, now he was a fair bit smaller, being only slightly taller than Celestia, and he looked younger as well. 

For several days and nights now he had done nothing but wander aimlessly through the snow-filled winds and steep cliffs...with no food, no water, and no place safe enough to rest...not even for a moment.

Needless to say, he was thoroughly exhausted at this point.

For every moment that passed, and for every step he took, he felt more of his will, his strength, and his life...fade away from him. Without the aid of a miracle...he was doomed to fall apart and die here sooner or later.

He knew this of course, he felt it in his bones...but still he kept going. Nothing was going to make him give up until his very last breath.

That determination was the one thing that had kept him alive for this long...

...But even that couldn't last forever.

Even if his thick fur and sturdy muscular body made him better equipped than most to handle this kind of weather, it was not enough to make him last several consecutive days of unrelenting cold winds without any food or shelter. 

Just by looking at the guy, you could tell he was feeling it too. His grey skin had turned almost black out of frostbite in several areas, and actual ice had formed on his exposed teeth. By now, he wasn't even so much as 'walking' as he was limping his way forward.

Eventually...the strain proved too much...and he fell to his knees in exhaustion.

With his legs now deep within the snow, and any stamina to keep going all-but drained from him, that last breath was coming closer and closer...and he was definitely not wasting it on something as trivial as breathing.

With deep-rooted wrath in his eyes, the creature faced skyward and screamed, "COME ON THEN, WORLD! DO YOUR WORST! YOU WANT TO KILL ME?! THEN WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!"

After he almost tore his throat by screaming that loud (especially in his current condition), he was left with a much weaker voice when he finished his rant. "What? Don't you...at least have the decency to...ugh...put me out of my damn misery?! You killed the others...why not just go on and finish the job, huh?!"   

With a depressed sigh, the creature lowered his head and aimlessly stared at his shadow in the rapidly growing snow around him. "Yeah...I hate you too."

Hidden by the intense blizzard, and so far completely unnoticed by him, was a silent observer.

Following his every step, but not leaving any prints in the snow of her own, Princess Luna kept a watchful eye on the furred beast, yet also kept her distance from him. 

Unlike last time, she had no intention of interfering with this dream. All she wanted to do was observe. The creature, of course, didn't see nor hear her. To him, she was little more than a ghost or a whisper...far beneath his notice.

While she would have normally intervened at this point, something about this dream...or more likely, memory, sparked her curiosity something fierce...and she became even more intrigued by what she saw him do next. 

Cold tears began to form in his eyes then fall down into the snow, and his laboured breathing started to slowly turn into exhausted sobs. It was the closest Luna had ever witnessed on his face that could come even close to crying.

Seeing him like this was...strange for her. Even if she had held an open mind for his potential redemption, all she had known of the beast dubbing himself 'the Storm King' was that of a haughty man-child who plundered and destroyed kingdom after kingdom just for his own twisted amusement, but this...this brought conflicting feelings of sympathy and pity into the mix as well. 

While she couldn't be certain if this was a memory of a past event or a figment of his imagination, she knew for sure that the pain he was feeling in it was very much real. And no matter how much he might have been trying to hide it, she knew that it had affected him greatly. 

Ever since she was released from Nightmare Moon's corruption had Luna been fascinated by the things that could turn a good creature into a bad one. The stories she had heard from ponies like Sunset Shimmer, Starlight Glimmer, Stygian or Tempest Shadow usually spoke of one common theme: pain and suffering. 

Those that were enraged, desperate or had just suffered too much, may (in some cases, not all, she had to remind herself) go down a dark path and eventually turn into something cruel.

Sunset grew up feeling powerless and ignored during her childhood, and saw her mentorship under Celestia as her chance to finally gain some respect by becoming a powerful alicorn princess...only to grow resentful of her mentor when Celestia denied her that opportunity. Out of rage, she ran away through a portal into another world where she ended up stranded and without her magic, forcing her to use more and more nasty methods to gain any semblance of power or popularity.

Starlight lost the only pony in her childhood who understood her over something as trivial as a cutie mark, and as such, grew up with feelings of resentment over the thing that took him away, even creating her own town where she could make her friends exactly the way she wanted them to be.

Stygian felt overshadowed and unappreciated by his closest friends, and so he sought a way to become as great as they were...but that only resulted in him being banished for a crime he never intended to commit and given no chance to explain himself. Cast out and alone, and filled with feelings of sadness and betrayal, a cunning shadow befriended him in his desperate state and used his rage to transform him into a Pony of Shadows.

Tempest lost her friends and her dreams of becoming a powerful unicorn when her horn was destroyed by an angry Ursa Minor, and soon left Equestria to live in the rough and chaotic world outside of it. Her envy of those who didn't suffer hardship like she had made her bitter and selfish, and her desire to restore her horn blinded her to the Storm King's treacherous nature and willingly chose to aid him in his conquest. 

...But what drove the Storm King himself to such measures? Did something happen in his childhood that turned him into the monster that he became...or was he simply raised to be that way...or...could it be so simple that it was just his very nature to be the way he was?

So far, Luna could only speculate on the answers to those questions. But maybe...just maybe...some of these dreams of his might give her some clues. 

Eventually though, the young would-be-Storm King opened his eyes and spotted something in the distance, then slowly turned his head around to get a closer look. Luna curiously followed his gaze and saw just what it was that had gotten his attention.

By the side of the mountain, there was a cave opening...and even more, a warm light seemed to be radiating from it.

Such a sight could mean many things depending on who you asked, but to the young Storm King, it only meant one thing...

Hope...

...the one thing he didn't have until now.

Desperate to reach this mysterious light, he began to crawl over to it on all fours like a wild animal, not having the energy or the patience to get back up and walk properly...at least by a bipedal creature's standards.

Only once he finally reached the cave entrance did he try to stand up straight, and the only way he could manage to do that was to grab onto the walls and use his arms to pull himself up on his hooves.

Then, with renewed vigour and a regained will to live, the creature limped further into the cave to find the source of the light that guided him there.

It didn't take him long though until he found it.

In a slightly larger compartment of the cave that was protected from the cold winds and snow...sat a distant relative of his. While a bit shorter and slightly bulkier than him, with huge arms and short legs, and claws on his feet instead of cloven hooves, the creature's resemblance to him was otherwise uncanny, given that they were both grey furry bipedal ape-like creatures with a pair of fangs sticking out of their lower jaw.   

Princess Luna, who had followed the Storm King into the cave, recognised the lone creature inside of it as one of the Yeti-like creatures that the King's Storm Guards were mostly comprised off...even if this was the first one she'd seen without a mask hiding its face. She never actually did figure out what they were called, but she was going with 'Storm-Creature' for now.

The Storm Creature in question seemed to have made a home for himself inside the cave, and was sitting quite comfortably next to a lit fireplace on the floor. 

Even more, he also seemed to have gathered a fairly large stockpile of food in the cave with him, ranging from various hunted animals as well as several fruits and vegetables. He was even dangling a crab-looking creature on a stick over the fire in preparation for his next meal.

The sight of so much food, warmth and shelter was like a slice of heaven to the would-be Storm King, and his eyes lit up with happiness while his mouth started to hang open, practically drooling at the prospect...not to mention the fact that he actually recognised the lone creature sitting in the cave.

"Bard! Boy, am I glad to see you!" he happily exclaimed.

Only now noticing that he wasn't alone anymore, the Storm Creature apparently named 'Bard' looked at him with an expression that went somewhere between surprise and dread. 

"Snowy?" Bard said in an alarmed tone. "You're...alive?!" 

Luna had to do a double take to make sure she heard that right. 

Snowy?

Bard addressed the Storm King as...Snowy?

The implications of that nearly made her giggle. Apparently, underneath that monstrous appearance and that fancy title...was a creature named Snowy? The mighty Storm King's true name turned out to be something as unflattering as 'Snowy' of all things?

No wonder he would choose to call himself something as pretentious as 'the Storm King', Luna realised. It would certainly be hard to take someone named Snowy seriously if he was trying to be intimidating. 

Turns out the Storm King wasn't so different from Tempest Shadow after all, given that she used to go by something as silly as Fizzlepop Berrytwist before she met him. Honestly, Luna couldn't tell which name was funnier.

However, it also confirmed something that Luna had suspected for a while. Since no one seemed to refer to the Storm King by his real name anymore, not even the beast himself, it would probably mean that he likely buried his previous identity a long time ago, with as few reminders of it as possible. 

Something must have happened to him that made him want to change his entire identity...but what? 

Perhaps that was what she was seeing right now...

"Well, I'm here, aren't I?" 'Snowy' answered, bringing her focus back to the situation in front of her. "Good thing I found you, old buddy! I was starting to think I was the only one left."

Bard eyed the new arrival suspiciously as Snowy took a few careful steps into the cave and trailed his hungry eyes over the great amount of food the Storm-Creature had spent most of the day collecting. 

That reaction made one thing quite clear: Bard did not like where this was going.   

"Oh yeah, now we're talking!" Snowy muttered as he reached one of his claws over to grab a fruit. "I owe you big time for-OUCH!"

...but was stopped when Bard picked up a stick and slammed it straight into Snowy's forearm with enough force to make him cry out in pain and clench the wounded area with his other hand. 

"What the heck was that for?!" he questioned in an offended tone.

Bard stood up and clenched his claws over the stick he hit him with while giving Snowy a defiant glare. "This is my food, not yours! I found this cave, I gathered everything here, I set this fire...and you are not welcome here!"

Snowy was nearly lost for words, and you could tell as much by the baffled and hurt look he showed on his face after Bard said that. "Hey...look, buddy, I just want something to eat. No need to make such a huge deal out of it."

With a grunt, Bard explained "It won't last for the both of us, especially with your appetite! Now leave!", then made his stance even more clear by smacking Snowy in the face with his stick hard enough to make him fall over to the floor while drawing blood. 

After making a pitiful attempt to get back on his hooves, only to find himself too weak to do even that, Snowy looked up at his old friend with a desperate glint in his blue eyes. "Bu-bu-but you can't just throw me back out! I'll die out there!"

A conflicted look very briefly showed itself on Bard's face, but he quickly hid it underneath a stern and angry expression that made it abundantly clear that Snowy would get no sympathy from him. 

This time though, Bard went ahead and grabbed his unwelcome guest by the neck, dragged him through the tunnel leading out of the warmth and comfort of the isolated cave, and once he reached the exit, threw the poor creature out into the icy cold of the world outside. 

Snowy fell face-first into the snow-covered ground and was immediately subjected once again to the harsh, life-draining winds of the relentless blizzard plaguing the mountain. 

"If you come back, I'll hit you even harder! So don't even think about it!" Bard selfishly yelled before he turned his back to him and returned to the comfortable cave he had camped out in, not even sparing his former friend a second glance.

Princess Luna however was left frankly horrified by what she had just seen. On one hoof, she could understand why Bard wouldn't want to share his food with someone else if his life depended on it...but on the other was the simple act of throwing out a starving creature to freeze to death something she wouldn't wish on her worst enemy...a statement that happened to be a lot more literal in this instance.

True, the Storm King was undoubtedly a monster, and Luna had no doubts that he'd probably done something far worse to someone else, but it still pained her to see him suffer so much. At this age, he probably hadn't even gotten around to doing anything all that bad yet for all she knew. 

She was suddenly broken out of her thoughts however when a strange otherworldly howl loudly echoed through the mountain, making her fur stand on end. Frantically, she immediately began to look around for what unholy abomination could have possibly caused it. 

The noise sounded feral and animalistic, yet also at the same time poisonous and unnatural. It was also strangely familiar even if the sound itself had never passed her own ears before.

Looking up into the snowy sky above, Luna soon saw the creature that caused it...or rather the creatures that caused it...for there were three of them. 

Decrepit and ghost-like, three unsettling horse-like beings flew across the stormy winds, using their foul magical breaths to make the storm even harsher and colder than it already was...and in turn, killing or smothering everything that was unfortunate enough to be around them.

Though she'd never seen these creatures in person, she immediately knew what they were from not only stories of old, but also from many nightmares that she had visited over the years.

Windigoes.

Spirits of ice and death that were summoned by fighting and hatred. Either a great evil drawn from the essence of evil itself...or a just punishment to those that refuse to be swayed by the power of harmony. No one knew for sure...not even Luna.

What they were doing here, in the Storm King's dreams...she didn't know either. Her best guess would be that somehow, he had seen these monsters with his own eyes, perhaps in this very memory (if it truly was a memory anyway)...even though the Windigoes had been gone from Equestria for so long that most ponies these days discount them as little more than a myth.

But then again...the Storm King didn't come from Equestria, did he? 

Perhaps outside the harmony of the land of ponies, into the vast lands beyond it were many other monsters now believed to be extinct or locked up in Tartarus. Maybe in the lands where the Storm King came from, the Windigoes are still around to this day, maintaining their lifeless winter indefinitely. 

The thought alone was enough to send a cold shiver down her spine.

However, the sound of movement took her attention away from the evil ice elementals in the sky and back down to Snowy, who was making a move to push himself off the ground with his hands and get back up on his hoofed feet once more.

Though when his face was revealed to her, still full of frost and specks of snow, there was a certain expression on it that was somehow way more unsettling than the appearance of the dreaded Windigoes. 

In the limited time she'd been in contact with him, the Storm King had mostly acted like a goofy and petulant brat with a superiority complex, who was prone to dishing out temper tantrums when he was angry or act like an obnoxious comedian when he wasn't. The expression he had on his face right now though, with his fanged mouth forced into a snarl and his blue eyes unblinking and focused, that expression showed none of that. This wasn't one of his usual childish tantrums, this was a face of pure rage, his unbroken will to survive driving him to push all of his usual eccentricities aside and turn into the feral beast he was hiding underneath that facade. 

After letting out an angry grunt, he reached his clawed hand into the snow and picked up a rock. A rather big and heavy rock...and definitively not something most ponies would have been able to lift as easily as he did, at least not without magic.

What unnerved Luna even more about his current mood was the fact that for once, he was actually quiet. He didn't utter a single word or let out a laugh or anything as he slowly made his way back into the cave...his pure force of will making him ignore his weakened body protesting against his movements for every step he took.

A bit worried about what was about to happen next, Luna carefully followed him in, making sure to keep herself squarely in observer mode so she didn't disrupt this...dream, memory? She still wasn't quite sure.

As Bard, who had sat down by the fire again to keep himself warm, heard the sound of hoofsteps by the entrance, he tensed and picked up his stick again, and when he saw Snowy emerge from around the corner, he once again put on a harsh face and reminded, "I told you already, you're not welcome here!"

He steeled himself, so he could rebut any plead for mercy or pity that Snowy might throw at him, but what he did not see coming was for his old friend to suddenly pounce on him like a starving jaguar and tackle the shorter storm-creature to the cave floor.

With nothing but savage untamed fury in his eyes, Snowy pinned Bard down under his own weight, baring his long fangs at him while letting out a beastly growl...then, he raised the hand holding the rock up high...and brought it down on Bard's skull.

Luna flinched, then looked away in horror as Snowy repeatedly bashed his former friend's head in with the rock, it now having turned red after only the second time he swung it...though she couldn't bring herself to watch any more than that. 

The sound however...that she could do nothing about, even as she clenched her eyes shut and turned her head down to face her own hooves.

Murder.

That was what she was hearing...

Vicious, cold-blooded murder...

Having seen the circumstances, she could tell that it was done out of desperation, but still...that did not change the fact that murder was exactly what it was.

The princess was not naive, she knew murder had occurred, even in Equestria, and even by her own subjects...however rare that might be. She herself even held the haunted memories of when she tried to kill her own sister in cold blood under the control of Nightmare Moon, as well as many other albeit non-lethal punishments she'd inflicted on many other ponies that stood in her way when she was in that crazed state, not to mention her part in turning King Sombra to shadow...which she at least thought would be his end, even if he did come back some 1 000 years later or so. 

Nevertheless, it was not something Luna enjoyed seeing before her own eyes, and definitively not something she would ever condone of her own free will. 

However, the emotions she allowed herself to feel after witnessing that event, they unwittingly bled into her surroundings and disrupted the vision around her, making the memory fade away into the endless void of the dream realm.

"You know, Woona," a familiar voice called over to her. "If seeing stuff like that disturbs you so much, then maybe you shouldn't go snooping around inside my brain!"

Luna opened her eyes and looked up to see the Storm King, now very much the Storm King she remembered, not the younger Snowy he was just a second ago, stand in the void, looking down at her with an annoyed expression on his face.

A bit too shaken up to address that comment, Princess Luna instead began to ask, "Was that...?"

"Something that actually happened?" he finished for her. "No, it was just something I made up as a funny little joke, OF COURSE IT REALLY HAPPENED!" 

"That...Bard, was he-" she began to ask, but before she could get much of a word in edgewise, the Storm King raised a finger to her lips to cut her off.

"BE-BE-BE, no, no, no, NO! None of that!" he declared, now crossing his arms and turning away dismissively. "You know the deal. If you want me to tell you anything, you have to do something for me first."

Of course, Luna did indeed remember the deal she made with him last night, she just hoped he hadn't done so as well. Either way, given that she knew he wouldn't tell her squat otherwise, the princess let out a sigh and simply asked, "What do you want this time?"

The Storm King began to pace around a bit, putting his hand on his chin while considering his options. 

Eventually though, an idea came to him. "Hey, you know something I haven't done in, like, forever, that is very much not possible when I'm stuck in crystal?"

Luna braced herself. Whatever this could be, she knew she probably wouldn't like it. After all, the last favour she made for him was to basically let him murder Tempest, or thankfully, just a fantasy image of her. Goodness knows what horrible thing he would ask from her this time. 

"Dancing!"

Luna blinked a few times in surprise. "I'm sorry, what?"

That...clearly was not what she was expecting.

Keeping a big bright smile on his face, the king simply reiterated, "Dancing! If there's one thing I love more than pillaging entire kingdoms or burning them to the ground, it's to celebrate it with a couple drinks, play some music, then bust out some wicked moves on the dance floor! I mean, what's the point in being a big bad conqueror if you never get to enjoy it every so often?"

"So let me see if I got this straight," Luna began, sounding a bit baffled and slightly confused. "You want me to give you a dream where you're...dancing?"

"Not just dancing, sweetheart," the Storm King answered, now getting right up in her face with a big goofy grin. "I want a party! Lights, music, action, the whole shebang! You're in my mind, you'll know what I like."

A...party, right! Luna had participated in tons of parties, hadn't she? 

It took her only a second to realise that that's a laugh. In truth, the reclusive princess cared little for large crowds, rowdy guests or obnoxious dance music...in fact, she could barely remember when the last time she danced even was. Probably a thousand years ago at least if she had to guess. 

However...there was one pony Luna knew who not only had far more knowledge about throwing parties than she did...but probably knew more about throwing parties than anyone. Period!

It was time to call in the big guns!

Giving the Storm King one last glance, Luna requested, "If you would please wait for a second, I will return with your...'party' shortly," before she quickly and abruptly disappeared in a bright flash of light, thus leaving him alone in the void for now.

Raising one of his thick white eyebrows at the spot she just stood at, the Storm King muttered, "Why do I get a bad feeling about this?"

Princess Luna meanwhile had a pink peppy party pony to find...