//------------------------------//
// Chapter 3 
// Story: OC Backstory 
// by tazdarkstripe13 
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CHAPTER 3
ESCAPING THE ICE


Vindictus Vulnere emerged from the deep pit, the left side of his face very bloody and his hooves were tatterd from the climb up the jagged wall of ice. He squinted at the sunlight. He had no idea what time it was but it didn’t really matter. In the North, the sun was always high in the sky. He had heard of two powerful ponies further south who raised and lowered the sun, but their magic must not stretch as far as where he was. 
As he emerged, he saw another village a little bit ahead. The snow was shifting on the ground which was usually the sign of a blizzard. The young stallion took a deep beath, then began walking. His hooves and lower legs were numb from the cold and he ahd to concentrate hard to avoid falling face first. He’d lost a lot of blood and was exhausted. He was sure that if he fell, he might never get back up. 
As Vindictus took his first step, he looked down at his hoof. The icicle was still clenched in it, blood dripping from the tip and turning the ice red. He sighed and contined walking, feeling the wind pick up and slice through his bones like a scythe. He hadn’t had time to grab his frs when he and Ugns had fled the previous village but maybe this village would have some spare. 
His hoof hit a bump in the snow and he went sprawiling onto the ice. The stallion grnted as his jaw bashed the ice and he tasted the bitter tinge of blood on his tongue. He tried to push himself up but ended up falling again. Vindictus sighed and closed his eyes. It seemed that this was it for him. Hehad fought his best but now his strength had failed him. He was helpless and felt the snow piling up on his right side. Maybe he should just fall asleep. He was so tired, maybe he could try standing again when he woke up. So tired...

Uguns wrapped the scarf tighter around his face as he squinted to see through the snow. He saw the outlines of the telltale spires which meant there was a village ahead. He quickened his pace, breathing heavily as he fought through the blizzard. He was running low on provisions and would have run out over the next day or two. He was lucky tis village was here. If they had a forge, maybe he’d stay for a while. He thought for a moment, then shook his head. No, maybe he wouldn’t. It would remind him of Vindictus. Just thinking about the young stallion now made him sad. He’d been like a son tot he blacksmith and could have been a fantastic apprentice. Every day the alicorn would visit his forge and watch him hammer a pice of metal or sharpen a blade on the grindstone. They would have long conversations during which Uguns would tell Vundictus about different methods of forging weapons and armour, what to do and what to avoid, how to tell if when the metal’s ready to 
hammer, when to-
He tripped over something in the snow and cursed loudly as his scarf uwrapped from his face and he eat a mouthful of snow. He looked back to see what he had tripped over and saw what looked like a black lump in the snow. He frowned and walked towards it efore wiping snow from the shape. The snow underneath was red and wet. He wiped that away and his jaw dropped.
“Vindictus!” He gasped and instantly grabbed the unconsious pony and slung him over his back. He started galloping towards the village. The kid looked like he’d been bleeding badly. He could feel him breathing, but it was dangerously faint. If he didn’t get warm soon he may end up being paralyzed or even dead. 
As they drew closer to the village, another pony ran to meet them. He shouted over the wind in his own tongue and Uguns replied in kind. They then both started galloping towards the village and reached it just as an unfortunate sabre wolf was hurled through the air from the forceof the wind. The wall surrounding the village kept the ponies inside from being blown away. They took Vindictus to a large spire and laid him down on a soft fur rug next to the fire. The blood from his face had slowed to a trickle but that didn’t mean he it was getting better. The pony ran back out while Uguns sat next to the stallion, folding his legs underneath him. 
A few minutes later, the pony returned with an elderly mare. The mare was a unicorn and wore a mask which covered the lower half of her face. As she entered, Uguns drew a sharp breath. The Healers of Ice Spire were a rare sight outside the tall hollow spire which was deep in the mountains. It was so tall that the tip was lost in the clouds and it took almost a week to walk up all the stairs. All the acolytes of that holy place swore a sacred oath when they graduated and in order to seal it, they sacrificed their voice. Their tongue was torn out and their mouth stitched closed. Nobody knew what their mouths looked like after the precedure apart from the acolytes themselves, but nobody really wanted to know. 
The Healer walked to Vindctus and picke up a damp cloth from a bucket. She began to gently dab at his face, clearing the blood from his wounds. As the red liquid cleared, Uguns saw the source of the bleeding. There were three deep gashes on the left side of his face. They started just below his maneline and ran down the side of his face, over his eye and ended at the bottom of his jaw. 
The unicorn Healer’s horn began to glow and a green aura fellover Vindictus’s gashes. Uguns could see a hint of white there and he looked away. A few minutes passed in silence and the blacksmith began to relax. Until the screams started.

For thirteen days, Vindictus Vulnere screamed in pain as fire rushed through his veins and his coat turned into ice. He thrashed and the village had not thought something like this would happen so they locked him in the medical spire which also muted his screams slightly. Uguns stayed outside the pale blue spike, keeping watch over the young stallion. For the first couple of days one of the ponies would attempt to feed Vindicus but after one of them got their skull caved in by onw of his hooves, they got the message and stayed out of the spire. By the end of the fourth day, ponies had taken to praying or cursing whenever they passed the spire, throwing pitiful, fearful or hateful glances at the ice sike and Uguns. He didn’t bother himself with them, though. The chief had allowed them leave to spend their time in the village until Vindictus was well enough to leave. After that, though, they would have to leave. In his time travelling, the blacksmith had gained several friends in decent enough places who would be able to give them a hoof. 
Inside the spire had been completely destroyed. Vindictus had broken every piece of furniture and thrown the furs up to reveal the ice beneath. He’d spent the whole time running around, banging his head against the walls or lying on the ground and thrashing his limbs around. The whole time, however, he screamed. He didn’t know time, sleep or direction. But he wasn’t all there. His mind was blank and unconscious, thinking about somthing else entirely. He couldn’t get the image of several ponies out of his mind but they were strange. Their coats were very thin, almost flat, and a couple of them had wings. One of them had feathered wings and the other had wings similar to Vindictus’. They were both stallions. There was a third pony, a mare, who was grey in colour and with red eyes. Her cutie mark was a yellow pentagram in a black circle. Her mane was a dark brown with blue stripes and in a braid. 
The feathered stallion was also grey in colour, but a darker shade than the mare who was also a unicorn. The stallion’s mane was green with stripes of a lighter green through it. He also wore a piece of cloth around his neck and was smiling from ear to ear.
The second stallion was grey as well, but a far darker shade then either of the others. His eyes were golden and his mane was dark blue, as were his wings. He had a stern expression and was wearing something that looked like armour which had a blue gem on the chestpiece. The armour itself was dark blue.
The final pony was a mare, but Vindictus couldn’t tell what she looked like. She was clouded in shadow and it didn’t afford him a single glimpse of her. 
Those four ponies would come into his mind regularly and would play around. At least, the four he could see would. The shadowy mare always stayed away from the others and lept her head down. She seemed very shy and didn’t really do anything. Because of this, Vindictus spent most of his time focusing on her, wondering who she was and why she was staying away from the others. 
He looked at the other ponies as well and noted that the green-maned stallion’s cutie mark looked like a winged gem and the stallion in armour’s cutie wark looked like a black circle within a white circle. He didn’t know what that represented but he would probably find out.

After exactly thirteen days, the screams stopped abruptly. Uguns snapped awake and looked around, wondering what was off. He was on his stool, he still had his hammer, nopony had stollen his gold... then he remembered. It was silent. The blacksmith stood and flung the door to the spire open. Inside was Vindictus, lying amidts the debris of what was once a home. He walked over to the young stallion and checked his pulse before moving him into a comfortable position. By this time a small crowd had gathered to see what had happened. The healer walked in confidently and grunted to Uguns before gesturing for him to get out of the way.
“No,” The backsmith growled. “You don’t go near him, you understand me?” He said. The Healer simply walked forward and shoved Uguns out of the way. She was a lot stronger than she looked, almost unnaturally. She knelt beside the unconscious Vindictus, snapping an already broken table leg as she did. Her horn glowed and the stallion was again bathed in her magical aura. It was at this moment that his eyes snapped open and his hoof came up. It connected with the mask on the Healer’s face and caused a major dent in it, as well as snapping the mare’s head back and causing her to grunt. Vindictus then tore the mask off of the pony. Underneath was what looked like a jagged scar insteda of a mouth with terrible stitches holding it together. The healer’s eyes widened and she squealed before Vindictus brought his other hoof up. In it was the bloody icicle he’d been cutching the whole time and it was now in the forehead of the Healer. She stayed silent for a few seconds, then collapsed. The blood began to flow form her head and create a small puddle. 
Uguns stared at the young stallion. The Healers were said to be immortal. They were supposed to have endured every injury, every disease, every possible way of harm so they knew how to cure it. Vindictus had proven everypony wrong. 
The blood continued to pool around the Healer’s head as everypony stared. After several minutes of silence, Vindictus turned and walked towards the door. All the ponies parted before him, looking away sa he passed. Uguns stood and followed him but was stopped by the chief.
“You brought him here,” He snarled in the northern tongue. “He killed our Healer because of you!”
“Well, was I supposed to just leave him to die?” He asked back.
“Do you have any idea what we had to go through to get a Healer from the Spire itself!? You have outstayed your welcome,” The chief barked an order and all the ponies took up arms. Uguns looked over them all and nodded, sighing. 
“So be it,” he said, then took his hammer to hoof. “VINDICTUS!” He roared and threw the hammer. It sailed over the heads of ponies and landed at the hooves of Vindictus who had stopped and turned. He looked at it, then at the blacksmith’s face through th crowd. He had a small smile on his face.
“Run,” He said simply, then threw himself at the crowd. Vindictus let out a scream as his father figure threw himself on a blade. But the crowd didn’t stop there. They all surged forward, grabbing a part of Uguns and trying their best to tear it off. One of his legs was thrown into the snow a little bit away from Vindictus, who took the message. He grabbed the hammer in his mouth before turning and running. He ehard the chief bark another word and looked back to see several stallions chasing after him, their eyes wild and filled with lust for blood. 
Vndictus ran as fast as he could but he could hear them catching up. He wished desperately for a way to escape, another way to run that they couldn’t follow. He wished he could just fly up, out of their reach, and zoom through the air. 
Then his wish came true.
He closed his eyes, tears streaming down his cheeks and freezing on the ground. He willed something to happen, directing the mental energy towards the wings on his back. He’d never used them before, he’d never known how. The only times they moved was when they twitched occasionally or when he was sleeping. But now he tried to stretch them himself, to do what he’d heard ponies do beyond the Barrier. Then he felt them. For the first time, he felt his wings. And they were rising. Once they had gotten vertical, he willed them to go back down, and they did but still stretched. He repeated this motion, speeding it up until he felt himself rising. He opened his eyes and looked down as his hooves left the ground. He flailed his legs around, keeping his jaws clamped on Uguns’ hammer. He then relaxed and resumed flapping his wings, changing the pattern so he started moving forward. 
The villagers all gasped and pointed in amazement. There were no pegasi north of the Barrier, only earth ponies and unicorns. They had never seen a pony fly and were shocked. Vindictus didn’t focus on them, though. He just focused on flying forward.

He flew for several minutes before his wings began to hurt from exertion. He began to descend and tried to land carefully but was going too fast. As he landed, his hooves went out from under him and his face met the ice. His snout broke and he tumbled, gaining several new bruises. He was too tired to scream in pain as his snout broke and instead just groaned. He forced himself to his hooves and wiped the blood from his nose before noticing that his jaws were still locked on Uguns’ hammer. He took it out of his mouth and held it in his hoof, fresh tears coming to his eyes as he remembered the closest thing he’d had to a father. But Vindictus wiped his tears away and looked around. He had no idea where he was and no idea where to go. So he put the hammer back in his mouth and started walking in a random direction. Whenever his wings felt like it, he took flight again but could never stay up for very long. He covered a lot of ground when flying, however. 
Finally, he came to what looked like a wall. Except it was far too tall and wide to be a normal wall. He couldn’t even see the top of it or the ends of it. And it was also made of a very dark blue substance. He walked up to the wall and looked at it. It was very reflective and he could see his own body in it. He tapped it and realized it was ice, only very different form the ice Vindictus was used to. He looked up and down the wall but saw nothing, so he began walking to the right. He stayed next to the wall. He had something to follow now and he was curious as to if the wall had en end or a gate. It had to have a gate. Whoever made it would want a way to get past the wall. 
Vindictus walked for a long time, not bothering with flight this time around. He didn’t want to miss anything important like a sign or the gate. But he didn’t come across anything for hours. Just dark blue ice beside him and bright blue ice beneath him. His eyelids were becoming heavy and he yawned widely. Finally, he folded his legs beneath him and closed his eyes, the hammer still clenched in his teeth. He drifted to sleep.

He saw Uguns again, but he was different. There were countless scars on his body and it looked like they would open up again at the slightest push. His eyes are blank and dead as he stared straight at Vindictus.
“Uguns?” The young stallion asked. “You’re okay!” he rushed forward and embraced the blacksmith and hugged him for a full minute before backing away. The joy was short lived, though, as he saw how Uguns didn’t respond. He just stared straight ahead, eyes glazed over. 
“You killed me,” A voice said from behind him. Vindictus whirled and saw Uguns again, except this one was different. Hate was evident in every line on his face and his eyes burned with it.
“What do you mean?” Vindictus asked.
“If you had just had the decency to die in that hole I’d be alive right now. But no, you had to go ahead and kill a bloody Wyrm and come back out. I should have left you to die instead of helping you. You’re pathetic, not even able to take care of yourself!”
Vindictus shook his head weakly, tears streaming down his cheeks again.
“No... it can’t be real, it’s not real!” He turned to the other Uguns and looked at him hopefully for a few seconds. Then the body started to shift. His head slowly began to slide to the left and eventually fell from his shoulders, blood spurting from the neck. Then his right foreleg collapsed and his whole body fell in a pile of body parts. Vindictus watched it all in horror before turning back to the other Uguns.
“You don’t deserve to live,” The blacksmith snarled before drawing a dagger and stabbing it at Vindictus’s chest.

Vindictus woke up with a scream and punched at Uguns, who he still half saw in front of him. He felt his fist make contact and fell back, taking deep breaths. He finally blinked and realized he was awake, but that wasn’t the only difference. He looked around. He was no longer in the snow or leaning agaist the dark blue ice. He was in a spire... but it wasn’t a spire. It was a room, square in shape. He was also lying in something soft and warm. It was large and covered part of the room’s floor. The walls looked like ice but even from the soft thing he was on, he could tell it wasn’t. It was too blue. He looked down at himself and saw that there was a arge piece of cloth over his body. It was very soft and comfortable. He raised a hoof to stroke it and noticed his hoof was red. It was also wet. With blood.
He looked around and saw a mare in a corner. It was an earth pony and she was crouched and whimpering, clutching her nose. Her hooves were red with her blood and Vindictus realized he must have accidentally hit her as he awoke. Instantly he felt a stab of guilt in his stomach and looked away. As he did, he noticed some brown poles running from the corners of the object he was laying on to the ceiling. There were curtains on them but they were tied to the poles. He looked at the curiously. 
Vindictus had no idea where he was or what any of this was, so he turned to the mare in the corner. He also noticed for the first time that she was sparkling and was a pale green in colour. Her mane was a pale pink and was tied in a bun. He forced his surprise to the side for now, though.
“Where am I?” He asked in the northern tongue. The mare only heard guttural and raspy noises issuing from his mouth. Immediately after asking this question, the mare wailed and galloped towards the door, which she flung open and ran out, crying. Vindictus just watched her go and sighed. 

Princess Cadence walked through the corridors of the Crystal Palace to where their guest was staying. She was slightly annoyed that he had assaulted one of her staff but this was all a new experience for him. And if the North was as harsh as she had heard, he was going to be hostile. This was why she had multiple guards with her. Just two hundred years as princess and she was already dealing with foreign ponies. Cadence sighed and shook her head slightly. This would take some getting used to, especially since she was still very young for an alicorn. At least her mother had taught her about being a princess. She felt a pang of sadness as she thought about her mother who had passed away seventy years before. She had been ill for a long time before the pain finally ended. Cadence had been distraught and had spent three weeks crying and refusing to leave her chambers. It took a stern talk from one of the military commanders to make Cadence realize that it was now her in charge. 
The princess pushed these thoughts aside as they neared the pony’s chambers. She paused outside them and took a deep breath before opening the door. She looked at the young stallion on the bed but she knew he was only young by alicorn standards. He already had scars and his eyes were hard and slightly fearful. He was still lying in the bed and his head snapped towards the door as it opened. Cadence entered with her guards and smiled warmly at the stallion on the bed.
“Hello,” She said. The stallion just looked at her so she tried again. “My name is Princess Cadence. What’s your name?” 
The stallion replied but spoke in a completely different language. Cadence had forseen this and waved in a translator. The stallion spoke again, gesturing at the room and pointing to Cadence and the guards. The princess looked at her translator but he shrugged his shoulders.
“I’m sorry, your highness. I’ve never heard that language before...”
“I thought you understood every language,” Cadence said.
“Every known language,” The translator replied sadly. “Alas, I do not know this one. Perhaps she really is one of the barbarians from beyond the Barrier,”
Suddenly, the stallion grabbed the inkwell, quill and parchment from his bedside table. The guards drew their weapons but Cadence held up a hoof, motioning for them to put their blades away. The stallion wrote quickly and frantically and finished after a minute. He offered the parchment to Cadence. She used her magic to levitate it towards her and cringed slightly at the hateful hiss from the stallion. She took the parchment in her hoof and let her magic die down and the stallion calmed. She looked at what he had written. It was just a bunch of random symbols which she had never seen before. 
The translator looked at it and a smile spread across his face. 
“I know this transcript!” He said happily. “I can translate it, but it could take a while. May I?” He asked, holding out a hoof. Cadence gave him the parchment and he bolted from the room. Cadence looked at the stallion before turning and walking out of the room, her guards following. She closed the door behind her and sighed. Nothing could be done until her translator had finished with that lette