//------------------------------//
// Chapter 5: A meeting gone awry 
// Story: The Legacy of IceHeart 
// by MineLittleDashie 
//------------------------------//

*A reminder. Assume Johnathan's normal voice is monotone. There! Are you happy Pinkie?!*
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I could only gaze around me as the eight of us entered the Crystal Palace. The walls shimmered and shone with light-shaded colors, unlike the white and light blue of the Ice Palace of the windigoes.

Home.

Was it wrong that I considered the Windigo queendom my home, instead of my home country? 

My thoughts were broken by the sound of Cadence's voice.

"Welcome to the palace."

"It's very nice." I say. "But, my things?"

I know I must have sounded somewhat rude and impatient, but there were a couple items that I really needed right now.

"Right this way." Cadence then proceeds to lead me down a flight of stairs and into a hallway. The other six ponies follow behind us.

After a few more minutes of walking, Cadence stops us in front of a lone door.

"Let me go in first and announce you." She says. "Just to be cautious."

I nod and step back, allowing the door ample room to swing open.

Cadence enters, and I hear muffled conversation on the other side of the wall.

A few more minutes pass before Cadence sticks her head out and calls for me.

"Johnathan, they're ready for you."

I nod, pull the door open a bit more, and enter the room.

The room is dominated mostly by a single table, (possibly a meeting room?) that is situated in the middle of the space. Positioned around the room are what I can only assume to be guards, if their armor and swords are anything to go by. And spread out on aforementioned table, lie my belongings.

My yeti fur backpack, my armor, even my sword lie scattered amongst my other personal items.

"Is this him?" The one who asks this looks different from the other guards. While also a unicorn, he wears only minimal armor, and seems to carry himself more than the other guards.

"Yes dear." Cadence says. "This is Johnathan IceHeart. He will be staying in the palace while he finishes healing. Right now, he only wishes to reclaim his property. Oh yes, Johnathan, this is my husband, Shining Armor."

"A pleasure. That's fine, we've looked over most of it anyway. Nothing, except for his weapons, are dangerous to ponies."

I step forward. "Thank you, sir." 

He backs away as I approach the table, but not in a cowardly way. Just keeping distance between the two of us. Just in case.

I shift my armor to the side, as well as my weapons. 'Sword, hatchet, bow & arrows, knives.'

Good all of those are there. Now for the rest.

I grab my backpack and begin stuffing items into it, checking my mental list as I go.

Journal, check; blankets, check; sacks of food, double check; ice pic.. Wait, where is it?

I begin to scan the table frantically, looking for the one thing that I valued above all others. 

"What's wrong?" Twilight seems to notice my searching.

I raise my head to answer her, but when I do, I see my possession in the magic aura of none other than Shining Armor himself.

I reach out my hand towards him. "Mr. Armor, I need that."

He only glances at me. "I apologize, but his is an item we haven't studied yet."

I slowly begin to make my way around the table to him. "Mr. Armor, I really need that."

"Yes, yes. In a minute."

"Dear," Cadence seems worried. "Perhaps you should give it to him."

"I'm sorry Cadence, but I have to see if it's dangerous." Shining swings around to face his wife.

They say that once or twice in every unicorns lifetime, there is a moment when they lose concentration and their magic cuts out. It's a rare occurrence, but it is known to happen.

As Shining Armor turned, one of these rare moments reared its ugly head, and released the precious item that Johnathan held most dear.

I see Shining's magic cut out, and the item fly across the room. I leap for it, arms outstretched. It scrapes my fingertips, before it hits the wall and shatters.

A stunning silence covers the room as every pony stares at the kneeling figure on the other side of the room.

I am speechless. I scoop up several of the pieces in my hands, only to watch them instantly melt.

A heartbreaking sadness enters the room, where it all seems to condense around me, and I can feel tears begin to appear. 

A moment later, the tears are gone, and all I can feel as I look at the puddle before me, is anger.

"Hey! Look, the weather outside seems to be getting worse."Rainbow Dash's voice seems distant.

"Forget the weather, look at Johnathan!"

I clench my fists and close my eyes as the normally invisible icy blue aura outlines my form.

"Johnathan, are you okay?" my thoughts brush away the voice of Princess Cadence.

"Maybe he was acting the entire time!"

Shining's voice echoes in my head and fuels the fire within.

In a flurry (heh, get it?) of motion, I stand and whip around to face the ponies, fury etched on my face. At the same time, all hell breaks loose outside as my emotionally summoned snowstorm shatters windows and breaks parts of structures with destructive winds and large hail.

A couple of the guards charge me, but I throw out my arms and freeze them in place.

Then my enemy himself charges forward, his horn glowing.

He blasts magic at me, but I create a wall of ice which serves two purposes. The first is that it deflects the spell across the room, creating a burn mark on the wall. My ice wall also creates a barrier, which Shining Armor runs directly into, stunning him.

I shatter the ice and leap forward, grabbing my foe around the neck and slamming him into the wall.

As I hold him there, ice begins to spread across his body, starting at his neck.

"How dare you." I snarl at him. "HOW DARE YOU!!!"

Suddenly, I am shoved sideways and smack into a corner, where I slide to the floor.

Disoriented slightly, I look up to see Princess Cadence standing over me.

A sharp pain erupts from my left cheek and my head is thrown to the right.

Shocked, I look back at the princess, she does not seem happy anymore. Instead, her fur appears to be slightly wet, especially around her face...wait, are those tear stains?

Cadence slaps me again, and again, and again, before she finally relents and backs away from me.

Slightly dazed, I use the table to help me stand, only to get a look at the destruction I've caused.

"Wha...what? What happen....what have I....." Words fail me as I gaze around the wrecked room.

I look outside and notice that there are clear skies again.

I eventually notice the ponies. All seven of them are across the room from me, terrified.

I take a step towards them, but they back away from me, their faces now a mixture of hatred and terror.

My thoughts and feelings are conflicted, swirling around me. 

My gaze sweeps the room again, before settling back on the ponies.

I take another step towards them, reaching out my hand.

Twilight's horn glows and I feel a burst of pain.

I draw back and put a hand to my right cheek. I look at my hand and see blood, then the knife that the purple unicorn holds between me and the group of ponies.

Every emotion hits me at once, and reality sets in.

Cadence's teary face is the last thing I see before my vision is obscured by snow.
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Pov: 3rd Person; Ponies


The main six and Cadence watch as Johnathan is obscured by snow, then disappears.

The snow collapses into a pile on the floor, but a few minutes seem to pass before anypony can say anything.

Surprisingly, it is Fluttershy who breaks the silence.

"Where did he go?" She asks in a quiet voice

"Let's hope he went far, far away. " a very shaken Rarity answers.

Wordlessly, the seven ponies proceed to return the room to normal. Twilight and Cadence attempt to unfreeze the guards and Shining, Rainbow and Fluttershy cover up the windows, and Applejack and Rarity begin to straighten up any knocked over items. Pinkie Pie, well, strangely, is the only one who hasn't moved from the corner. Her mane is deflated and her face expressionless. There is nothing that even she can say to cheer everypony up.

Within several minutes, except for the puddles of water left over from the ice that had trapped the guards and the covered windows, the room had returned to a normal-looking appearance. 

The main six sit around the table. Cadence had left with the frozen soldiers and Shining for the hospital.

"To think we actually took a liking to him!" Rarity scoffs.

"Who coulda figured he'd be that dangerous?" Applejack asks.

Rainbow Dash pounds the table with a hoof. "If I ever see that destructive, lying, weather changing fiend again, I'll buck him in places he didn't even know could be bucked! Who's with me?!"

There is a resounding chorus of "here!" from all but one pony.

"C'mon Twilight, you with us?"

But the purple unicorn doesn't  seem to be paying attention to her friends. Instead, she is staring at a glass of unusually clear water.

"Hello, earth to Twilight, come in Twilight!" Rainbow taps the unicorn on the head.

"Hm, what?" Twilight shakes her head and looks up. "What's going on?"

"We're going to beat that meanie the next time we see him." Pinkie Pie says matter-of-factly. "Are you with us?"

"Maybe." Twilight says, returning her gaze to the glass.

"What do you mean, Maybe?" Rainbow appears flabbergasted. "Don't you remember what he just did?!"

"Oh trust me, I want to have some words with him too." Twilight says. "But what if his lashing out was merely the result of whatever it was my brother accidentally broke?"

Applejack looks thoughtful. "Now that ya mention it, he did seem kinda worried when he couldn't find it. If only we could know what it was."

Twilight thinks for a second, before her face lights up. "I think I have an idea! It's a spell I read about. It allows the caster to see a ghost image of what a destroyed object looked like before the object was destroyed."

"You mean, maybe we could see why Johnathan was so upset?" Fluttershy asks.

"That's right. Now, I've never done this spell before, so let's hope this works."

Twilight closes her eyes and takes a breath. Her horn begins to glow and purple magic reaches out and begins to mix with the water inside of the glass.

After a few moments, the water flows out of the glass and onto the table, where it begins to reconstruct something. 
The main six watch as the water creates a relatively flat oval approximately 5 inches long and 4 inches wide, then freezes back into ice. 
At first, it appears to be a mirror of some sort, until the images appear. Several images appear and disappear, like a slide-show.

A light-blue palace made of ice. Many pictures are of strange, see-through light-blue ponies. What startles the main six the most is how many of the pictures also include a light-blue alicorn.

However, one picture, containing a creature that appears half horse and half ghost, makes Twilight lose control of her magic, resulting in the mirror turns back into water.

"What was that, Twi?" Applejack asks, concerned.

"Th-that creature in that picture! I remember reading about them. It's a windigo!" Twilight exclaims.

"A windigo?" Asks Rarity. "Aren't those the dreadful creatures that supposedly almost froze Equestria a long time ago. The ones involved in the Hearth's Warming Eve play?"

"Yes." Twilight replies. "And this means that Johnathan must've lived with them for a while!"

"Explains his magic." Applejack reasons.

"True, but are we able to trust him?" Twilight runs out the door. "We need to find Johnathan and ask for an explanation!"

And so, with the rest of the main six behind her, Twilight charges out into the streets of the Crystal Empire, hoping to smooth things over, and get some answers from their late friend. 








*What are you talking about Dashie? I'm always happy.*
*Pinkie, out now..*