The Dark Mare

by MagnetBolt

The Ice Maiden: Riders on the Storm

Loopy shivered. Changelings were good at a lot of things, but being cold-blooded with no insulating fur or feathers meant they were distinctly bad at surviving in cold weather for long periods of time. Her treehouse wasn't far from the farm, but even so, less than halfway there, Loopy found herself struggling, buzzing her wings to try and get warm.

“Are you okay?” Jetstream asked, concerned. She was handling the blizzard just fine. Pegasai spent so much time at high altitudes and working with the weather that a little snow wasn't going to bother her much.

“It's just cold,” Loopy admitted.

“Oh! What if you change into a polar bear! Then you'll be warm!” Jet smiled.

“I can't change into a bear. They're too big.”

“I could help a little...” Jet stepped closer, putting her wing over Loopy's back like a blanket. It did help a lot with the cold, but...

“Jet.”

“Yeah?”

“You don't have to touch my flank when you do that.”

“I-it's just the most convenient way to- it's not like it means anything.” Jet's cheeks turned red. Loopy gave her a look.

“Jetstream, I was almost exclusively a pegasus for years. You and I both know what it means when you put your flight feathers there.”

Jet moved her wing a little, making things less awkward. They walked the rest of the way to the treehouse in silence. It was covered in snow, the tree creaking ominously as they flew up to the door.

“This sudden cold isn't good for the tree,” Jet said. “Remember when we accidentally grabbed an ice storm instead of a rain shower, and it made the one oak explode? Kudzu told me the sap inside actually froze and broke it apart.”

“It'll be fine,” Loopy said, kicking open the door. Trying to get through while hanging onto Jetstream was awkward, but it was better than having her go crazy from the spell coming down with the snow. She led Jet over to where she had her costume hidden and pulled out the box with her hoof, digging through it and laying it out.

“So I was thinking, now that I know you're a changeling,” Jet said, hesitantly. Loopy had a sense that she knew where this conversation was about to go. “Instead of flying lessons, I could start teaching you about Equestrian culture and values and what it means to love!”

“Are you serious?” Loopy looked up. “Jet, I've been living here forever and this was hardly my first mission! I know more about love than you do!”

“...You do?” Jet blinked, then started to turn red.

“Stop that! I don't mean- not that kind of love! But I probably DO have more experience than you do. I mean... I already have friends, and you all mean a lot to me. I like pretending to be a pony. It's comfortable.” Loopy sighed. “It's not something you have to sell me on. I'm already one of you. It's why I kicked the other changelings out of town when they wanted to hurt you.”

“Oh.” Jet looked down, embarrassed. “Wait, this wasn't your first mission?”

“No. But it was the most important one,” Loopy said, her voice muffled as she pulled on the mask. “Now let's find whatever is behind this storm.” She shivered. The treehouse wasn't really properly insulated.

“Hold on.” Loopy reached over and grabbed a scarf, wrapping it around Loopy's neck. “There. That should help keep you from freezing.”

“You don't think a scarf and a cape might be a bit much?”

“No. I think it's perfect.” Jet smiled.

Songbird winced as another gust of wind cut between the buildings, picking up snow and slamming it into her like a wall. If it wasn't for the glow she could from the windigos and the strange magic in the snow, she'd be completely blind from the blizzard. Even like this, her second sight was worthless for seeing buildings or trees.

Then she spotted something closer. Two shapes moving slowly through the snow. They didn't have the hateful glimmer of the windigos, but there was something strange, aside from them being out in the snow. One of them had a strange glow, washing over the other.

Songbird stalked closer, trying to stay hidden until she knew what was going on, and the snow parted like a veil, revealing Mare Do Well and the silver pegasus Songbird had brought in for questioning before. Two things immediately became obvious to Songbird.

First, that she should never have let Jetstream go, because here she was holding hooves with a monster, though obviously she was telling the truth about not being Mare Do well.

Second, that Mare Do Well was casting some kind of spell on her. No doubt evil changeling magic! Songbird pushed through the wind and jumped at her, dragging the masked changeling away from her victim.

“I knew I'd catch you in the act!” Songbird screamed over the wind and the distant shrieking of the windigos. “You monsters always make mistakes!”

“What are you talking about?!” Mare Do Well demanded, kicking her away and rolling to her feet.

Songbird pointed to Jetstream. “I saw you casting a spell on her! It's no wonder she admires you so much when you have your evil changeling love magic on her!”

“I'm just trying to keep her from going crazy like everypony else in town!” Mare Do Well countered, trying to get back to Jet. As she turned her back, Songbird pounced again, landing on her back and driving her into the snow, holding her down.

“You're probably just waiting for the right moment before you drain her dry,” Songbird countered, easily holding the changeling in place. “You're going to break the spell you have on her and then you're going to tell me just what you did to my-”

Songbird was cut off as a furious bundle of silver fur and feathers slammed into her, bowling her into a snowbank.

“You're using love magic on me?!” Jetstream demanded, huffing and puffing with anger. Mare Do Well pulled herself out of the snow.

“It's not... well technically it is... but it's to keep them away!” Mare Do Well said, backing off in the face of Jetstream's anger. Songbird shook her head to clear the snow from her ears and nose, recovering her senses just in time to see a shape banking towards them from above.

“Watch out! A windigo!” She yelled, running towards Jetstream. Mare Do Well was much closer, jumping between her and the oncoming spirit. With a flash of green light, it was sent howling back towards the sky. Songbird could see the energy ripple away from Mare Do Well, blasting away the disquieting magic in the snow for a moment in the shockwave it left behind before the precipitation fell again.

“Loopy? What happened...?” Jetstream asked, touching her head. Mare Do Well grabbed her hoof, and Songbird saw the aura envelop her again. The dark magic in the snow hissed and fell away from the light like a drop of water on a hot pan.

“Windigos,” Mare Do Well said, looking at Songbird. “That's what all of this is, you know. It's windigo magic. I'm just trying to keep it off of her.”

“So you are using love magic on me?” Jet asked, sounding pensive.

“...Yeah. But I'm doing it to counter the hate they're trying to put inside you.”

“Don't trust her,” Songbird said, flicking snow from her wings.

“Oh come on! You know I didn't do this!” Mare Do Well gestured to the storm above them.

“...” Songbird looked away. “I know. But that doesn't change the fact I'm going to bring you in.”

“Do it after we make sure everypony isn't going to go crazy and kill each other,” Mare Do Well said. “The magic isn't affecting you because...” she trailed off. “Look, if you help us, I'll give myself up when we're done.”

“But-!” Jet said, looking at Mare Do Well.

“This is more important,” Mare Do Well said, sounding defeated. “I can't let everypony die, and I probably can't run forever.”

“Fine,” Songbird agreed. “It's a truce until we stop her.”

“Her?”

The center of the storm hung over the middle of town, right above the burned wreck of Town Hall. Growing from it, like a flower blooming in a field of cinders, was a tower of solid ice, glimmering with light from within. It was twice as tall as any other building in town, a spire that reached almost to the clouds above. Shadows suggested floors and walls within, but the frosted surface made it impossible to see any details.

“What do we do?” Jetstream asked. Songbird glared at her, annoyed.

“We go in, of course. The wind here is weak enough that we can fly to the door.” Songbird pointed with a hoof to an ornate hexagonal door. “That looks like the main entrance. There are stairs leading to it, at least.”

“Why is the wind weaker in the middle?” Mare Do Well asked. Songbird and Jetstream both gave her a look. After a moment, Songbird huffed and answered.

“I shouldn't have expected a changeling to know anything about the weather. This is a rotating storm, like a hurricane. There's a dead spot in the center that the winds swirl around.”

“No wonder you got kicked off of weather patrol,” Jetstream muttered, though she was less annoyed and more amused.

There was a snapping and creaking sound that got all of their attention as the doors opened, throwing off a cloud of snow as they parted.

“I think she knows we're here,” Mare Do Well said, quietly. She started walking towards the door. “Jet, I don't sense any windigo magic here. It's too tied into the storm. But stay close to me. If you start feeling angry or confused and you don't know why, tell me.”

“R-right,” Jetstream said. The three ponies (well, two ponies and a changeling) flew up to the door, skipping the staircase entirely. The angled steps and ice construction made it treacherous at best. Songbird kicked the door in, and they walked into an expansive room, the crystal-clear floor looking down at the ruins of town hall.

“Oh no!” Songbird gasped, running to one side of the room. Like statues, there were ponies frozen in place, twisted into painful contortions and left coated with ice, put on display as grotesque trophies. It would have been bad enough if they were dead, but then one of them, slowly, blinked, unable to do more than that in his icy prison.

“Welcome to my palice.” The three looked up to see somepony standing on a landing above them. She looked like a unicorn, her mane and coat the glittering pure white of fresh snow. Bandages covered her face, revealing only a lipless grin and mismatched eyes, one apparently blind and featureless like a white marble, the other raw and red, like the eye of somepony who had been crying for so long they'd run out of tears. As she moved to step onto the stairs leading to them the coating of frost on her coat flaked off, revealing a pale blue beyond it for a moment before frosting over again.

“Oh no,” Songbird shivered.

“Who is she?” Jetstream whispered.

“My name is Fimbulwinter,” the unicorn said. “Learn it well, for it is the chilling sound of your doom. Though I think the Royal Guards have a different name for me, hm? The White Windigo. It's accurate, if a bit overblown. I'm barely even half windigo!” She chittered with laughter.

“She was-” Songbird started, and was cut off as a short blast of magic froze her mouth shut.

“I will do the introductions here,” Fimbulwinter said, angry. “I'm the only one who deserves to tell my story.” She started pacing up and down the stairs as Jet and Mare Do Well tried to carefully break the ice muzzle from around Songbird's mouth.

“You see, I used to be a researcher from Canterlot University,” Fimbulwinter said. “And I managed to get that rarest of all treasures. A research grant! Enough to fund a journey to the far north to study ice magic and windigos. They have a rather significant part to play in the founding of Equestria, you know.” She sighed. “I thought I was well prepared for the trip. I even found some spells to keep the cold away. Though as you can see, they haven't helped much with my chilly disposition!” She laughed again.

She frowned when no one else laughed with her. “Everypony's a critic. Don't worry, the next one's a real killer!”

“She's completely insane,” Mare Do Well whispered. “She's just... empty inside. I can't feel anything.”

“I found the windigos,” Fimbulwinter continued. “And they found me. They're such fascinating creatures! They live entirely on emotions of hate and intolerance!” She giggled. “Of course, I'm sure you know that already. If I had been smart I would have brought a friend along. Not that I had any. The windigos were as empty as I was, all ice and loneliness. I found that we weren't so different, so I tried to make contact.”

As if on cue, one of the ice spirits flew through a window and circled around her. Fimbulwinter reached out to touch it, stroking its mane before it flew off again.

“I've mastered their form of magic. Ice and snow and storm and rage!” She shot a blast of force across the room, shattering the frozen form of one of the guards. Songbird paled as the trapped form was reduced to red slurry. “Oh sure, I got a little frostbite in the process, but I think the stallions can't resist a cute face like mine, even with a few missing parts!”

“You're pure evil,” Jetstream said, terrified, as she looked up at Fimbulwinter's lipless grin.

“Do you hate me? I hope so. It only makes me stronger, you know.”

The muzzle broke free from Songbird's face, and the guard launched into motion.

Songbird screamed and charged at her. The unicorn casually blasted her out of the sky with a short burst of ice magic, Songbird's wings freezing up as they were coated in ice. The pegasus dropped out of the air and landed heavily, the floor cracking slightly from the impact.

“And you're all rather dull,” Fimbulwinter said. “Come now. I want a good fight out of you!” She laughed as energy cascaded up her horn, building to a point. Mare Do Well grabbed Jetstream and ran for cover as icicles blasted outwards in a tight spread like daggers, dozens cutting through the air and slamming point-down into the floor.

Songbird shook the ice from her wings and ran for the bottom of the stairs, trying to keep low. When she turned the corner, she saw the rime-frosted unicorn smiling at her. A wall of ice rose up and slid towards her, faster and faster. She threw herself to the side and it slammed into the frozen ponies, carrying one into the wall and shattering her.

“I hope that wasn't anypony you knew!” Fimbulwinter laughed. “I didn't think you'd be so cold that you'd sacrifice somepony to save yourself!”

“She's not!” Mare Do Well yelled, as she dropped down on the unicorn. She slammed her down into the stairs hard enough to break through the plane of ice, sending them both to the floor below. Mare Do Well reared up to buck her in the face and was suddenly grabbed, the unicorn biting her hoof. Burning cold surged up her limb and she pulled back, barely getting away, limping.

“Talk about the cold shoulder,” Fimbulwinter said, standing up. “You didn't even want to give me a little kiss?” She looked up and fired a ball of white energy into the air. Shards of ice shot out randomly in every direction as it exploded with frozen power.

“We need another plan!” Jetstream shouted, as she dodged a blade of glassy ice the size of her head.

“We can't get close to her,” Mare Do Well said, shaking her leg. “My leg went numb almost instantly. Her whole body is just filled with ice magic.”

“I got an idea! Cover me!” Jetstream flew straight up, towards the icicles hanging from the roof. Mare Do Well caught on at once and threw a fallen chunk of ice at Fimbulwinter to get her attention. The unicorn obliged her by firing a beam of pure cold at her, snow condensing out of the air in its wake. Mare Do Well ran away from her and up the stairs, using them as cover. The beam hit the ice blocks and shattered them, sending half of the wall down along with Mare Do Well in a heap of frozen debris.

Songbird roared and kicked Fimbulwinter in the back of the head, knocking her aim away down to the floor. A long line of jagged ice appeared, and the glass-like ice started to break from the force of the wintery blast. Fimbulwinter twisted her neck and sent Songbird crashing into the wall, ice covering her hooves and pinning her like shackles.

“Watch out!” Jetstream shouted, as she bucked a hanging icicle the size of a wagon. It cracked at the base and broke free of the ceiling, crashing down and narrowly missing Fimbulwinter and smashing the floor. The entire structure groaned as the floor collapsed under them, sending them down in a cloud of snow and ice to the ruins of town hall.

Loopy groaned and stood up, slipping in the ash and snow under her. The collapse had filled the air with a haze of ice and soot. She could sense Songbird and Jetstream, but not Fimbulwinter. Or whatever she called herself. Loopy shivered. Windigos and changelings had a long history. They competed for prey, changelings infiltrating the social order and draining love, windigos driving ponies apart and feeding on the collapse of society.

In the end, ponies had driven both of them to the far, dark corners of the world. The kind of place that Liveryburg was being turned into, cut off from the rest of the world, full of dark magic, the insane, and monsters.

“Oh little ponies...” Sung Fimbulwinter, from somewhere in the gloom. “Are you hiding? We're just starting to have fun. How about I show you a cool little trick I picked up?” The snow in the air froze in place and then rushed sideways.

With a sound like tinkling bells, Fimbulwinter was revealed, floating in midair, supported by wings of cold blue ice growing from her back, crystallizing into shape as the snow collected and froze in a solid mass. Loopy could see windigos lingering on them, showing themselves in impossible reflections, leering out from the faucets and angles of the magical wings.

“What do you think? I think I'm all set to be a princess now. I mean I know I'd just be perfect for it. Celestia can raise the sun, and Luna can raise the moon, and I can kill everypony!” She started laughing. Loopy felt around her costume. She had brought a few tricks with her, and was hoping they'd do better than changeling magic. With the windigos powering Fimbulwinter's magic, she was all but immune to any mind tricks or prediction.

“Let's see how you like this,” Loopy whispered, throwing a flare towards her. It burst into flame and blinding light and she saw Fimbulwinter recoil away from it, flying back. When she moved, her wings didn't flap, a torrent of cold winds keeping her upright instead. A vortex flung the flare away, ice forming around it and extinguishing it.

“I'm going to kick your ice for that!” Fimbulwinter said, rubbing her eyes. Her wings rose up, and Loopy's eyes went wide as windigos rushed out and down along the ground, ice spreading in a thick sheet around her. Loopy jumped, buzzing her wings to try and avoid it, but with one leg still numb from cold, she was a half-second too late, and the edge of her cape was caught in the ice, the whiplash jerking her down when she tried to fly away.

Loopy grabbed at her cape, trying to free it, but it was frozen fast. She turned as a wave of cold rushed over her, a windigo passing through her, leaving her gasping for breath, the passage of the spirit almost killing her, draining her love reserves. Her wings were suddenly burning with the same numbing cold as her leg, almost completely frozen through.

The effect on the spirit was much worse, the windigo bursting into ethereal flame and howling as it evaporated.

“What?! How did you do that?!” Fimbulwinter demanded. “No one can just kill a windigo!” She started laughing. “At least they can't do it and get away with it!” Her horn started glowing with magic.

“Get away from her!” Jetsteam shouted, jumping onto Fimbulwinter's back. The incredible cold the unicorn was generating burned like fire against her as she held on, flapping as hard as she could.

“What are you doing?!” Fimbulwinter demanded. “Let go of me!” Jet could swear she felt her blood freezing in her veins, but she refused to stop. She looked back, and spotted a window, the ice thinner and almost perfectly clear.

“I'm saving her life!” Jetstream yelled, bucking one of Fimbulwinter's ice wings to throw her off balance. The winds around her suddenly shifted as the ice cracked, sending them into a spiral. Jetstream braced herself and tried to direct them towards the way out.

Her aim wasn't perfect. She hit the ice before Fimbulwinter, the force of it breaking something inside one of her wings, but the pain was distant compared to the numb burning taking over her body. As they careened into open space, everything seemed to slow down. Jet closed her eyes as she saw the ground rushing towards them, letting herself drift away in the chill.

Fimbulwinter's wings shattered as they hit the ground, and the windigos inside rushed out and away. The unicorn screamed as they left, throwing Jetstream to the side and rolling to her feet.

“No! What have you done?! I need them!” The unicorn panted, looking around and starting to panic. The storm overhead was starting to break up, sunlight showing through. Fimbulwinter looked down at her hooves in horror as the frost coating them started to melt in the growing heat, revealing her patchy, blue coat.

“No, no... I can't live without them!” Fimbulwinter gasped. “It's too hot here! I'll thaw out and-” She coughed, almost throwing up. She looked up at the ice castle she'd built, the edges becoming soft in the growing heat, melting with unnatural swiftness.

“Stupid selfless sacrifice...” Fimbulwinter stepped over to Jetstream. The mare was lying still and cold where she'd fallen. “This isn't some stupid Hearth's Warming Eve story where you can just use love and friendship to win!”

Fimbulwinter raised a hoof to strike her. Before she could bring it down, a shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds and shone into her eyes, making her shriek and stumble back into the shadows, water dripping from her body.

“I'll just have to kill you next time,” she said, panting. Focusing all of the energy she had left, she vanished with the distinctive pop of a teleportation spell, leaving behind a thin globe of ice where she had been, which quickly shattered into a tinkling shower of snow.

Mare Do Well struggled to get closer to the window, her back legs barely under her control. The castle of ice rumbled under her, the floor shifting as the foundations started to give under the strain. She felt hooves grab her around the middle as she was lifted into the air.

“Jetstream?” She looked up. Songbird glared down at her. The ice shackles were still around one hoof, and the other was scraped and bleeding from when she'd managed to slip free.

“You're not getting off that easily. You're still coming with me.” She struggled to stay in the air, her wings still injured from when Fimbulwinter had frozen them over. They got through the broken window just as blocks of solid ice smashed down where they had been, the collapse sealing the window behind them.

Songbird looked around, trying to spot the two ponies that had gone out the window.

Fimbulwinter was gone, the only sign that she had been there was the shattered remnants of her wings.

Jetstream was covered in frost. And she wasn't breathing.

“Oh no...” Mare Do Well ran over to her, searching for some sign of life. She could only sense a fading wisp of emotional energy from her, and it might have just been wishful thinking. The changeling knelt down over her, doing the only thing she could think might help – forcing energy into her body.

Jetstream coughed and sputtered, her heart starting again. She took a shaking breath, but her body was still as cold as ice.

“She needs a doctor. I don't know enough about ponies to-” Mare Do Well met Songbird's mismatched eyes. “You saw what happened last time I tried to help.”

“Fine. Help me carry her to the hospital and I'll take you into custody once she's safe.”

“I can't fly until my wings heal. She doesn't have that long.” Mare Do Well looked at Songbird. “You're the only one who can get her help in time.”

“But I have to-” Songbird bit her lip, hard enough to draw blood.

“You're going to have to choose. Help her, or take me in. You want to be a hero? Well here's your chance.”

Songbird passed the frost-covered Jetstream over to the doctors and nurses as she got to the hospital, just before they took her aside to treat her own wounds. There were dozens of ponies being treated, some of them very badly hurt. After what had happened it would take weeks for the town to recover, not just physically but spiritually. The windigo magic had hurt everypony in some way.

“Minor ice burns... some broken feathers... you're stable. But that eye is...” The examining nurse shivered, looking at Songbird's right eye. The pegasus self-consciously wished she had her eyepatch.

“Don't worry about it,” Songbird said, quietly.

“R-right. Um, we need to treat the other patients first. We only have so many doctors and-”

“No, no, it's okay.” Songbird waved the nurse away. She was obviously uneasy with Songbird's condition and just wanted to get away from her. Songbird couldn't blame the mare. “I'm fine. I just need to get some sleep and let somepony know if it gets worse, right?”

“That's right.” The nurse smiled apologetically, before running to help a doctor with somepony still struggling and kicking. Songbird could see the spell still on him, only slowly breaking away from his aura. It was horrible. It was all horrible. But they were getting better.

Songbird wouldn't, though. She touched her eye, remembering what Mare Do Well had said just before she left.

“I tried to use a regeneration spell to fix your eye. There was a lot of energy tied up there. I thought it would just use up the energy or heal anything wrong with your eye but... I think the spell was only intended to heal a changeling, and it changed you trying to fix you. I'm sorry.”

“Sorry my flank,” Songbird grumbled, turning over on the bed and closing her eyes to block out the sight of the lingering windigo magic. She resolved to check on Jetstream before she left, but first, she needed to get some sleep. She was exhausted.

When Songbird got to the hospital room, a nurse was looking over Jetstream's charts. The silver pegasus was asleep, but seemed to be breathing easily.

“How is she?” Songbird asked the nurse. The earth pony looked at Jetstream and sighed, then gave Songbird a somewhat forced smile.

“She'll need some time, but she should make a full recovery as long as she stays nice and warm and gets bed rest. I heard you were the one that brought her in?” Songbird nodded. “You got her here just in time. Too much later and she would have had permanent injuries.”

“...Then I made the right choice,” Songbird said, quietly. “Thank you. Has anypony else been here to see her?”

“No,” the nurse said, shaking her head. Songbird looked at the sleeping pegasus. She was going to have a lot to apologize for, soon.

“Would it be alright if I stayed here for a little while?”

“Of course. I'll let you have your privacy,” the nurse stepped out, closing the door behind her after giving the hospital bed a last long look. As the pony trotted quietly down the hallway, a doctor stepped out and spotted her.

“Ah! Nurse Heart Murmur! I was looking for you!” He took a step towards her before a voice came from behind him.

“Can I help you with something, doctor?” The stallion turned to look, and saw the nurse behind him. Frowning, he turned back to the hallway where he'd seen her walking away. It was empty.

“I must be getting old...”