When the thunderous artificial avalanche was over, Sunny took her hooves away from her face. She was in a... oh, what were they called. The surf shop near her home sold snowglobes with mini mock-ups of these in them. Ick... Itch...
"Igloo!" Sunny exclaimed to no one. "This is an igloo. Like the Yakutian Earth Ponies up north live in."
"Earth... P-p-p-pony."
Sunny flinched. The voice had been close, but it wasn't clear where it was coming from. Seemingly the walls themselves.
"Y-y-you... Earth P-p-pony..." Sunny's holographic wings and horn shimmered in the blue gloom.
"Most of the the time I am, yes. My name is Sunny Starscou-"
A wad of frozen, pony-shaped magic tackled her.
"Are y-y-you the one I left b-b-b-ehind?!"
"Ack! Cold! You're very cold. For the love of Faust, please get off me!"
The mass of subzero retreated and Sunny sat up. There, huddled against the far wall of the igloo was what Sunny had come to confront. A windigo. Sure it was smaller than the illustrations, and for some reason it was all alone instead of in a herd. But its powers were unmistakable. Even now some sort of frost lattice was forming in front of its face. Or wait... the lattice looked more like a pair of makeshift sunglasses.
"Rec-c-c-cognize... me?" It wasn't clear whether the windigo was asking or pleading. Either way, Sunny decided honesty was the best policy here.
"I don't. I'm sorry. My name is Sunny Starscout. Can you tell me yours?"
The windigo deflated, looking relieved. "You're not h-her, then."
Sunny braved a few steps towards the entity. "Not who?"
"Oct..." the windigo's face wrinkled. "I can't remember her whole n-n-name anymore." It was rocking back and forth like a damaged foal. "Not her n-name or f-f-face... I shouldn't have l-l-left her."
Sunny risked a few more steps, getting near enough to see a curious pink ribbon tied around the windigo's wrist. She shrugged it off. One mystery at a time. "Do you remember your name at least?"
"Vinyl Scratch." The answer was immediate, and the first thing out of the windigo's mouth that hadn't been a stutter.
"My name is Sunny Starscout," Sunny repeated a third time. She was right next to Vinyl now. She laid a hoof on the windigo's shoulder, keeping it there despite the scalding cold. "Can you tell me what you're doing all alone up here?"
Vinyl Scratch's phantom eyes were fixated on Sunny's saddlebag. More specifically the pink six-pointed star on her notebook's cover.
"F-f-first show me that book."
Sunny's notes were sprawled across the igloo floor. All the relevant ones, anyway. Vinyl Scratch sat surveying everything, fidgeting with that odd pink wrist ribbon as her ephemeral tail wrapped around her like a security blanket.
"M-mount Everhoof," the windigo mumbled.
"That's where we are, yes. Where you've been for who knows how many moons. I think you might've been dormant here while magic was gone from Equestria. But after it came back you were able to... I don't know. Come back too, I guess. Which... um..." Sunny was treading lightly as possible. "You still haven't told me how you got here."
Vinyl Scratch rubbed her glasses, gathering courage and pulling at freezerburnt memories.
"Magic was g-going away from Equestria. Nopony knew what to do. Most looked t-t-to Unicorns for answers."
Sunny tilted her head at the horn that crowned Vinyl Scratch's forehead. How had she not noticed it before? Windigoes weren't supposed to have horns.
"I remember f-f-feelings, not moments. Ponies were s-s-scared. Desperate. All ideas no matter how wild w-w-were given go-aheads. I think I climbed here to... f-f-find something. I don't remember what, b-but I left someone behind to come here and I s-s-shouldn't have done that! I shouldn't have d-d-d-d-dd--don-"
The windigo was jittering. Puffs of biting, frigid air were fluttering the pages on the floor. Sunny decided to steer the topic away from whatever dangerous direction this was going in.
"Were you an explorer? Is that why you came up to Mount Everhoof looking for answers? The fabric that yacht sails are made out of is called Vinyl, so maybe you were a travel-"
The windigo was shaking her head. Frowning and frustrated, but at least she looked stabilized.
"Explorer isn't r-r-r-right. You said 'Hear' though, and that sounds closer t-t-to... hm. Hear and Sound. Sounding right. Sounding g-g-good."
Getting exasperated, Sunny lit her holohorn and levitated up her journal's page on Mount Everhoof. There wasn't much written on it.
"Tallest summit in Equestria. First referenced in a fable about a goat warlock. Eternally inclement and too windy to fly near." She peered helplessly at Vinyl Scratch's vacant expression. "Does any of this ring a bell?"
"Bell!"
Sunny felt the warmth get sucked from her body, from the humid igloo, and even from the air itself. There was an ear-popping rush of pressure as Vinyl Scratch fled outside like a whirlwind. Sunny staggered after, stray papers clutched to her chest as her heart thumped with worry she'd scared the prehistoric ghost away.
Fortunately, Vinyl hadn't gone far. She was facing away from Sunny, standing in the snow and looking more solid and shaped than ever. She glanced at Sunny, then back at what she'd been surveying: the blunted cliff face above them where Mount Everhoof's summit had once been.
"I was a musician. I c-came here looking for a Bell."
Sunny followed Vinyl's gaze. "Was it on the summit? Are you the one who... did that to the mountain?"
Vinyl Scratch was regarding her pink leg ribbon. Or no, now that Sunny saw it up close it looked like a bow. A pink bow.
"I was musician," she repeated. "And so w-w-was.. the one I left behind. She was an Earth P-pony. Not magic. Not able t-t-to help. So I..." Vinyl was having trouble speaking, and her stutter wasn't the only culprit.
"I went alone. I knew music m-magic. I was s-s-sure with the most ench-ch-chanted instrument ever created, I could fix everything. Save Equestria. I rememb-b-bered the legends, where to look..."
Sunny hadn't realized it when she'd first exited the igloo, but the air on Mount Everhoof was still. For the first time in recorded history, the winds were gone and the sun shone down from overhead. Vinyl Scratch wasn’t paying the weather any notice.
"But the Bell wasn't here. I found its cradle, with a magic b-b-barrier so weak and thin you could poke it with your horn, but... no Bell. No hope. I was s-s-so angry. So damned angry..."
Sunny laid a hoof on Vinyl Scratch's bow. "Was this your friend's?"
"It was." Vinyl looked like she wanted to elaborate, but different words came out instead.
"Anger ch-changed me. This place... it gets ins-s-side you when you're weak and... takes you. It took me. And then..." Vinyl was shaking. "I couldn't leave..."
Sunny slid the bow off the windigo's foreleg. "I think you can now, Vinyl Scratch. Now that magic is back."
A nod. "I'm... s-s-scared."
"Were you scared to come up here too?"
Another nod.
"Then don't be afraid to go. This isn't a place where ponies should stay. Not forever." Sunny slid the bowtie over her scarf. "We both have someone waiting for us where we're each heading. And if… if you see my dad out there, can you tell him I’m doing okay?”
The ghost of Vinyl Scratch tilted her face to the sun.
"Octavia," she murmured. And then she was gone.
Sunny Starscout lingered on the cliff face for awhile. Chilled graphite wasn't the easiest thing to draw with, and she didn't exactly have Izzy's artistic talent. But this was important. Her twin sketches of a sunglassed unicorn and bowtied Earth Pony were proof that what she'd seen had mattered. What she'd done was real.
As reverently as she could manage, Sunny pressed the ageless pink ribbon into the hem of her journal, right between Vinyl and Octavia's peaceful faces. Then she set off for home.