//------------------------------//
// Chapter 12: Hollow Victory 
// Story: Ice and Shadow 
// by ChronicleStone 
//------------------------------//

     The sky was a backdrop of pristine blue against which the sun sat, casting its radiance across a snow-covered landscape.  No clouds could be seen in any direction.  Far to the north, on the very edge of eyesight, a familiar mountain range peeked its top over the horizon, as if it were bidding a final farewell to its recent visitors.
To the south, at the base of a shallow drop-off from the snowy plain, the small colony of Polarmino sat lazily, basking in the sunlight.  It was much the same as it had been just a few days before, only now, the storm that had plagued it for an entire week had vanished.  It was refreshing to see.
Lily sat upon the edge of the frozen plateau that overlooked her home.  Beside her, Sky and the windigo commander stood, silently inspecting the town below.  Lily had been surprised by the windigo’s offer to escort the pair of ponies back to their home, but Sky had quickly accepted.  Lily figured that Sky must have known something that she didn’t, so she hadn’t argued the point.  As it turned out, the commander had been quite helpful on their journey back.  He had guided them quickly (yet not too quickly) from the mountains back to the edge of Equestria.  And in spite of Lily’s concern, he had assured both of them that the windigoes would be fine.
“It would take something much greater than that to drive us from our dwelling,” he had said.  “We would rather die in defense of our home than leave it.”
And so, here they were.  A unicorn, a pegasus, and a windigo, all gathered at the edge of the place where it had all begun.
It was Sky’s voice that broke the silence.  “Commander, thank you again for your help.  You didn’t have to do any of this.”
“We are creatures of honor, pegasus.  We show respect to those that have earned it, and try to repay our debts in the same way,” the windigo replied.
“What debt?” Lily asked.  “We all worked together to drive off the Chimera.  All we did was warn you about it.  It took all of our strength together to beat it.”
“Your warning saved countless lives.  And we can repay you at least for that much.”
Sky shrugged and sighed.  “Hey, whatever works for you.”
Lily noticed the windigo looking coyly out of the corner of his glowing blue eye.  “Before we part, I should let you know: it is still unsafe to travel into the realm of the windigoes, even for the two of you, who have done so much.”
Sky didn’t seem deterred by the commander’s words.  “Heh.  Well, I don’t think we expected to—”
“However,” he continued, “if I should ever find you in our lands, I will speak no word of it to any other windigo.  I hope you take advantage of that.”
Lily couldn’t help but smile.  “We certainly shall, commander.  Thank you again for everything.”
He bowed before them, and with a shrill cry, he took off into the air and was gone.  They looked back towards the mountains far in the distance for a moment, then, sensing that the time had come, they turned in unison and walked down the incline towards the town.
“So, that was fun, right?” Sky said.
“Fun?” Lily said incredulously.  “Let’s see: I nearly died at least four times, you nearly died at least once, an entire colony was practically annihilated, a creature of immense power is lurking out there somewhere with a really big grudge…oh, sure, that was exactly what I think of when I hear the word ‘fun’.”  She cast a disapproving look in his direction.
“Hey, it’s all a matter of perspective.  I see it this way: we saved an Equestrian colony from being frozen over, averted a potential war, successfully drove off that same powerful creature, protected another colony from mass destruction, and possibly opened the door to friendlier relations with the windigoes.  I’d say that we didn’t do too badly.”  Sky flashed a charming smile back at her.
Lily sighed.  “Still…we both nearly died.”
Sky rolled his eyes.  “Admit it…you had fun.  And you’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
She looked him straight in the face.  And on the surface, his eyes matched his jovial, almost excessively cheerful demeanor.  But behind the façade, Lily could see and feel a deep sorrow that caused her own heart to ache.  “I don’t know about that,” she said softly.
“Sure you would.  Especially if I was asking you to go with me.”
Lily eyed him suspiciously.  “Now you’re just flirting with me.”
“Of course I am,” Sky admitted.  “I haven’t forgotten about our date.”
To be fair, neither had Lily.  It had been pushed to a far corner of her mind over the past few days, but she hadn’t forgotten.  And now that the blizzard was gone and the ordeal with the windigoes was over, she was actually looking forward to it.  “Did you have a certain day in mind?”
“How about tonight?” Sky offered.
“Tonight!?  But that’s hardly enough time for me to get ready or anything!” Lily protested.
Sky stopped in his tracks and held her gaze.  “Lily, I’d be fine going out with you even if you looked like you had just rolled out of bed (which you actually kinda do).  But you don’t need to try and look pretty; you always look beautiful to me.”
Lily felt her face turn red.  “I bet you say that to all the pretty mares,” she replied.
Sky gave her his all-too-familiar smug grin as he started towards the village again.  “I’ll never tell.”

They arrived on the edge of town walking side by side.  The ponies of the colony were out and about, mostly working on cleaning up the town and repairing whatever damage had been caused by the storm.  The snowdrifts across the main road through town were slowly beginning to disappear, and Lily could even see the ground in certain spots.  A group of unicorns was working together on repairing holes in the roofs of several buildings.  And many of the younger ponies in the town were scampering about, gathering small pieces of debris and placing them into buckets to be disposed of.  
Lily’s heart grew lighter as they approached.  “Just look at them, Sky.  This is how the colony is supposed to be.”
They went unnoticed until a familiar light golden colt saw them approach.  His eyes grew wide with recognition as Lily and Sky walked through the center of the road towards him.  
“Miss Lily!  Mister Sky Streak!” Countdown shouted excitedly as he dropped the bucket he had been carrying and raced towards the pair of approaching ponies.
“Countdown!” Lily called, feeling her heart jump in her chest as she finally saw a familiar face again.  “Oh, I’m so glad to see you!”
The colt ran headlong into Sky, tackling him to the ground.  “Oof!”  Sky’s breath rushed out as he hit the ground beneath the force of the colt.
“Haha, I knew you’d come back!  I just knew it!” Countdown said, clambering to his hooves and jumping around excitedly.  By this time, most of the rest of the ponies had dropped their own items and were beginning to congregate around Sky and Lily.  The cheers and shouts made quite the ruckus as they welcomed back their heroes.
Sky quickly stood up again as the townsponies gathered around.  He looked around with wide eyes for a moment.  Lily thought that he seemed rather bewildered, so she decided to take charge of the situation.  As her horn lit up, the crowd grew quieter.  “Everypony, if you’ll head to the meeting hall with us, we’ll tell you what we know.”

A short time later, the entire population of the town was gathered into the meeting hall.  Every pony from every family was packed inside to see the return of Sky and Lily.  Even the Clock family (whom Lily believed was still unwilling to reconcile with the Grain family) was there.  Their curiosity was apparently stronger than their resentment.
“Well, as I’m sure you’ve noticed,” Sky began, “the storm is gone.”  This drew another tremendous cheer from the group, which involuntarily brought a smile to Lily’s face.  When she had left Polarmino, the town was nearly devoid of any kind of joy or happiness.  Now it was everywhere.
“We came to the windigo colony, where we confronted the creature that had started this whole ordeal,” Sky continued.  “It was a hard and terrible fight, and extremely dangerous, but in the end, we managed to drive off the creature.”
“What was the creature?” a stallion in the back of the room asked.
Lily looked at Sky.  He had that “I’d-really-rather-not-answer” look on his face, but she knew that he felt compelled to give the honest response.
“I’m afraid I can’t give you an exact answer, because I don’t know exactly what it is.  But I’ll tell you what I do know.  The creature is a shapeshifter, stealing the forms of other creatures and claiming them as its own.  I had seen it change forms before, when I fought it the first time.  It had utilized part of the guise of Night Mare Moon that had fallen from Princess Luna, thereby enabling it to take on that shape.  This time, it had stolen the form of a windigo so that it could hide away in the windigo colony undetected.”
“But how did it start the storm if it was disguised as a windigo?” another mare asked.
“Because it took more shapes than just that of a windigo,” Sky answered.  Lily noticed that his lip was quivering, and his legs seemed tense and taut, like a rubber band stretched to its limit.
He’s still upset, Lily thought to herself.  He can hide it for a while, but deep down, he’s still holding on to that anger and rage.  She recalled the emotion in his voice as he had argued with the Chimera as it transformed into the bodies of the two missing ponies.  It drives him.
“It…it took the bodies of Grandpa Grain and Grandfather Clock to cause the two largest families in the town to become hostile towards one another.  It tricked you by telling each of you a different story, so that each group would think that the other was lying.”  He paused as a hushed murmur floated around the room.  “It had planned to let the division spread and fester.  That would bring the windigoes there to feed.  And as the animosity grew, the bad weather would do the same.  Polarmino would have been frozen and buried, and the Equestrian leadership would naturally pin the blame on the obvious culprits: the windigoes.  A war would break out.  And that’s exactly what the shapeshifter wanted: chaos.  It wants destruction.  Destruction to its—”
Sky’s eyes suddenly glazed over.  He seemed to be lost in his own thoughts for a moment, drawn to another place, or reliving a memory that took on a sudden importance.  “Sky?” she asked, nudging him with her hoof.
Instantly, Sky shook his head and seemed back to normal, but he seemed deeper in contemplation now.  “Sorry, just something I remembered.”  Turning to Lily, he whispered, “I’ll tell you later.”
“So what about Grandpa Grain and Grandfather Clock?” Barley asked from Lily’s right.  “Did you rescue them?”
Every pony sat up in anticipation, hoping to hear an affirmative response from the blue pegasus.  But Sky simply 	sagged where he sat and let his head droop.  “No,” he managed.  “The Chi—er, shapeshifter stole their bodies.  And as long as it lives, those bodies will remain a part of it.  I’m sorry.”
The excitement in the room deflated like a popped balloon.  Every pony’s face faded into a look of stunned disbelief at the news.  Lily discreetly cast a calming spell over the group, though she didn’t think it had much of an effect.
“You mean…they’re gone?” Silent Moment asked, tears welling up in the filly’s eyes.  “Forever?”
Sky’s head rose to gaze out across the crowd.  For a moment, he sat perfectly still as his eyes scanned the audience.
Suddenly, Lily felt a change in the room.  It was like a charge in the air before the coming of a thunderstorm.  It sent a chill down her spine.  “No,” Sky said at last, but his voice carried a tone of steely determination.  “Not forever.”  He stood up on all four hooves and stamped.  “It got away from me this time, but I’m not going to let it get away again.  You’ll see Grandpa Grain and Grandfather Clock one day soon.”  He looked past the assembled group of townsponies and out the window.  “I promise you that.”