Rainbow Dash was the brave type, anypony would tell you that. Having faced off with evil so boldly just for her friends, the thought of a silly nightmare depriving her of her sleep just seemed impossible. Well, to her, at least. Most ponies would say that it was natural to fear nightmares (which was why the term existed in the first place), but having told herself that she could always totally handle her nightmares, it came as a nasty shock when she found herself drastically overpowered, strapped down, and impaled by icicles summoned by a group of translucent scowling ponies with blue glowing eyes in her dream. It was as if some otherworldly force had infiltrated into her subconscious to force her to become helplessly fearfu-
"I'm not scared, for Celestia's sakes!" Rainbow Dash yelled out, trying to overpower the instinct to cower in fear at the cold winter breeze that entered through her half-opened window. The room, in her dazed point of view, was still empty, for she did not turn around to see that somepony else had joined her in bed. Without even taking notice of the windigo-turned-pony's presence, the sleep-deprived Pegasus unknowingly hopped over him with the grace of a newborn foal and headed straight for the bathroom in an attempt to get rid of the horrible images in her mind from last night.
First things first! Rainbow thought to herself with as much energy as she could muster to liven herself up. A nice hot bath to chase the winter away! She turned the faucets of the tub with her wing, noticing only then that her whole body seemed to be in a disheveled state after all the tossing and turning last night. She couldn't help but giggle to herself at how foalish she must have appeared to be, freaking out over something that was totally unreal. As soon as the bathtub had filled to a desirable level, Rainbow hopped in, sighing in relief as the heat of the water relaxed her mind and body, both tensed up from her recent nightmare. Before the temptation of sleep got too overpowering, however, Rainbow was quick to bring up her dishevelled wing and begin preening it.
Unbeknownst to her, however, the 'intruder' that Rainbow had still not noticed was already awake because of her initial exclamation of her fearlessness. He too, was clueless about the company in the adjacent room as he was still in the midst of his disorientation. Instead, the colt had sat up in the cushions and was in deep thought, unable to make sense of his current situation: No idea about family, no idea about anything at all, really. Just the basic things that a sentient being would know, the knowledge of what species he once was, as well as the distinct command of one his gut feeling told him to trust: "Be by Hurricane's side." It irked the colt to a certain degree that his memory had failed him horribly, and like the erratic splashing of running water in the adjacent room, his thoughts were refusing to find any sense of order. He thought long and hard, trying to recall the past, or anything that would help him make sense of his current situation, but all he got was some kind of mental block that turned him back to the same old words again and again: "Be by Hurricane's side." Of course, frustration from the lack of cooperation of his memories was bound to arrive, and that was why the colt had found a good section of flat, firm wall to slap his head on.
"Think...! Think...! Think!"
Every thump of his head against the wall resounded throughout the room, but he could not care more about it when his memory was still in its broken state. As he continued his vain attempts to relieve himself of his memory block, he failed to realize that a certain pegasus at the opposite side of the door was now aware of the distinct rhythmic thuds that resounded in the bathroom.
Rainbow Dash had frozen mid-preen as soon as she had heard the first thump, her wings instantly straightening out to prepare for flight, but when nothing tried breaking down the door for the next few thumps, Rainbow Dash had chastised herself for letting her dreams get the better of her. Probably just one of my friends asking me if I’m done yet. Nopony else has the keys to the room, after all. She thought to herself as she continued preening herself in the tub of warm water. The knocking still continued, and Rainbow realized with a chuckle that she had not answered the pony behind the door after calming herself down. “Just a minute! I’m almost done with my bath!” The thumping ceased at that, and Rainbow continued freshening herself up, knowing that whoever that was, they would be patient enough to wait for her. The splashing of water was loud enough to drown out the barely audible squeak of the door being pushed open, so imagine her surprise when all of a sudden, she found the shower curtain pulled back by an unfamiliar colt that looked approximately her age. As if the notion of a bold peeping Tom was not disturbing enough, this particular one looked awfully familiar. Terrifyingly familiar, to be exact.
"Commander Hurricane! It's nice to finally-"
"AUGH!" In situations like this, the first thing a mare would do when they found somepony invading their privacy was to find more privacy, and that meant pulling off the shower curtain and wrapping herself up with her improvised bathrobe while shutting off the shower. The second thing she did was to glare at her intruder, whose smile gradually faded, replaced by a look of utter confusion. Just the presence of this colt who still couldn't take a hint angered her even more, and she had half the mind to give him a good smack with her hoof for peeping on her. "Who the hay are you?! What are you doing here?!"
"You summoned me, didn't you, commander?" The colt asked innocently, as if he still didn't understand what decency was. The lack of a blush on his cyan face miffed Rainbow even more. Was he seriously that dense to not even realize that he shouldn't be here? "Didn't you wish for companionship last night?"
"That's gotta be the worst excuse I've ever heard..." Rainbow muttered to herself, still uncomfortable with why the colt had not buzzed off yet She waved around at her surroundings, trying to hint to him that this was a bathroom. "Dude... Never heard of privacy? Kinda need some right now." He continued giving her that same confused look that he had kept on this whole time, and Rainbow concluded with a groan that whoever this was, he certainly wasn't living with ponies for too long. But how was that possible? "That means get out! Shoo!"
The colt still bore his same confused look, but he bowed nevertheless, and Rainbow flinched at this gesture. As he got up to leave the bathroom, Rainbow was beyond weirded out, and the mood for freshening herself up just wasn't there anymore. She quickly placed the torn shower curtain on the counter and towelled herself dry, hoping that whatever had just transpired was just her paranoid mind playing tricks with her, that no colt had just boldly trotted in on her while she was bathing.
Unfortunately, however, she opened the door to see him sitting outside the door like how a puppy would wait for its master, his vibrant gaze reminding her of last night's nightmare. He bore an uncanny resemblance to a windigo, that was for sure, but from his obvious look and build, he definitely was a pony. A pure coincidence, maybe? This colt was probably just really interested in her, and was horribly blunt and direct about it. "Commander Hurricane?"
Now that she thought about it, maybe this colt may have escaped from some institution, and maybe he was a huge fan of last night's play. She didn't know for sure, of course, so she decided against knocking him out and going to the hospital to report him. Sure he seemed really, REALLY inappropriate, but the last thing she wanted to do was to provoke the anger of a potentially dangerous pony. A gut feeling just told her that his coloration was not the only thing that was similar to those ghostly equines, and that added on to her apprehensiveness. "No. My name's Rainbow Dash. And who the hay are you? You still haven't told me your name."
"I don't have one, Hurri- Miss Dash. You were supposed to tell me what my name was, weren't you?" Now it was Rainbow's turn to draw a blank at having to come up a name for him, and the thought of sending him to the hospital became stronger. "The pact you made with our kind? You don't remember?" And now she felt like she was the one that had memory problems. She shook her head to answer his question, but trepidation started building up the more she thought about this. What pact? His kind? He didn't mean he was... "We must have been mistaken then. My apologies, Ms Dash. I recognized your spirit as Commander Hurricane, so I must have mistook a descendant of his to be the very stallion himself."
"Eheheheh… That’s nice. You can just call me Dash or Rainbow, really. And as for your name… um… Let's just go with Ice Storm first, okay?" Rainbow was able to hide the fear that threatened to break its way out from her heart well enough, because she found that the colt, who she now labelled with said name, was smiling ear to ear as if he had just won the lottery.
"Ice Storm... That name sounds beautiful, Dash."
"Yeah... I know it is, Ice, but I kinda need some privacy here. Think you can wait outside while I finish freshening up? Thanks!" Ice nodded and got up to leave, and as soon as the click of the doors shutting sounded, Rainbow Dash did not waste a single second in throwing her windows open and fleeing from the windigo that may have (for her sake, she hoped not) brought along a few more of his counterparts to torture her soul.
------
As soon as the door had closed itself, Ice Storm stood outside the door to wait for the pegasus mare inside. When one had so many things to worry about, waiting for somepony else was actually something really easy to do. Other than the obvious void that should have been his memory, another thought was busy conflicting as it thought about how he had heard about Hurricane.
Hurricane had a cyan coat, and it did match that mare's coat, but that seemed to be the only thing that was the same. A myriad of colors had taken the place of a once bleached white mane and tail, and he knew that Hurricane couldn't have simply changed his genders. The legends did say he was a male, after all, and windigos did not lie to each other, no matter the costs. This Pegasus was called Rainbow Dash, and it started to make sense that maybe it was not Hurricane that held his oath anymore; a few millennia had passed, after all, and that supported his conclusion that it was not Hurricane who summoned him, but a descendant of the commander who 'accidentally inherited' the oath. In other words, she was clueless about the pact her ancestor had made, and clueless about his reason for being here. Of course, nothing was more reliable than getting Rainbow’s family tree straight from the horse’s mouth, so Ice promised himself that he was going to find out from her.
And speaking of Rainbow Dash...
He sensed her presence rapidly fading away, and he quickly realized (with some embarrassment) that he had been tricked to wait outside like a fool as she escaped in fear. Ice was not going to give up on his task just because his unintentional master didn't want him, so he quickly found his window of opportunity (literally) and dived out of the building, beginning his gallop to chase after her. What the windigo-turned-pony didn't expect, however, was that galloping mid-air was not the way of flying anymore, and the colt ended up plummeting to the ground, fortunately landing in a crate of foam pieces. As soon as he recovered from his fall, he felt annoyed at letting himself make more distance between him and Rainbow
"Note to self: Use your wings next time." Ice muttered to himself as he clambered out of the crate and gave his wings a few experimental flaps before he took to the skies once again to chase down his master. He could make out the silhouette of the mare flying towards a building next to a set of rail tracks, and the prismatic trail of hers was enough to tell him that he'd found the right pony. With new-found motivation, Ice flew towards the train station, performing many accidental loops and corkscrews due to his lack of airborne balance.
Luckily for Ice, the flight was not too far away, and he managed to land on the roof of the shelter Rainbow stood under without any injury. He looked down to see that Rainbow had not noticed his presence yet despite the loud clang of metal from his ungraceful landing, and she was standing among five other mares. The unicorns and orange earth pony among the five was what caught his attention, as he could tell that they were obviously displeased with her. He braced himself for a fight, readying himself to swoop in and give his master enough time to escape should the situation get too awry.
"Wow, Dashie! You actually set a new record for being early!" He turned to see a pink mare with a small circular contraption strapped against her hoof. "You're fifteen minutes late!"
"Heh... Like I said, guys, I'm really sorry that I couldn't make it earlier! I... Had some stuff to settle before I could leave! You wouldn't believe that a fan actually broke into my apartment and told me that he was my servant!" The lavender and white unicorn merely rolled their eyes at her, and they began entering the train that had just pulled up. "He told me he forgot everything about himself, so I had to give him a name and-"
"I do believe that's enough excuse, Dash." Ice could see the white unicorn raise a hoof to interrupt Dash mid-sentence, and he let off a barely audible growl at the rudeness of the unicorn. Seeing that they were going to be in the same cabin, Ice figured he was going to have to stay close by, so he noiselessly hopped onto the top of the train carriage, where he was still able to hear them talk. "You really shouldn't use your imagination for excuses on why you overslept!"
"Ugh, you all seriously don't believe me?!" Rainbow groaned. Ice could not see her, but he knew she was obviously in a sour mood now. He felt slightly guilty about bringing all this upon her, but what could he do? He definitely didn’t know that the situation would lead to this. "Fine! I don't feel like trying to convince you anyway! My sleep's important and I didn't get mine last night!" Ice managed to catch a glimpse of her moving to the next carriage, and he wordlessly hopped onto it, grasping on to the ridges of the roof with a frightened yelp as the train let out a deafening whistle before beginning its abrupt movement towards the next stop: Ponyville.