//------------------------------// // Are gods real? // Story: Deer Me: Black Snow // by The Psychopath //------------------------------// "Then wh-what do you feed on?" Stelimus wondered aloud. The windigo swirled around him and faced him directly. "Negativity formed from arguments, among other things." She flew away and flicked Stelimus on the muzzle then went back to her 'desk'. "This is why your leader doesn't like us very much." "Huh? Why not?" a young doe wondered. "Because we're the ones that united the pony tribes during their great conflict. To be honest, we couldn't care less, but your leader has an obsession with them." She moved a foreleg to the side. "It is ironic, really, that the one who wished to see them perish in conflict feeds us the most." "Is that why windigos stay around Machlacite?" the same doe asked again. "You have many questions." The fawn blushed in response and looked down in embarrassment, but the windigo was unmoved. "That wasn't a compliment." "O-oh..." "Apologies. Our nature compels us towards conflict. I agreed to prevent it between you during the class. That feels against my nature but I'm compelled to also teach you. One must compromise another, and there is always conflict around so I will not starve." The windigo waved her forelegs around in strange, circular patterns and started creating a localized frost storm in front of her from which a sheet appeared and landed in her left foreleg. "Hmmm. We'll start with spirits today." Stelimus stood up and asked: "Wait, aren't you going to going to ask our names?" The windigo stared at him with widened eyes. "Names?" She tilted her head like a confused dog. "Yeah. You know. My name is Ste..." He cut himself off and thought briefly. "Gotta be 'undercover'. Gregary, she's..." he rotated his foreleg awaiting a response. "Oh! I'm Filiane," she cheerfully replied. The doe in question's body was almost completely white, but there were already some splotches of gray randomly dabbed around her body. Like the dark brown stag before her, she also had antlers growing out of her head, but they were less pronounced. Around her Brunswick-colored eyes was a strange, black substance Gregary could only surmise as being some sort of 'mascara', which was disturbing considering her assumed age. "I'm Aless," the dark brown stag answered. A fawn with an apathetic expression and a strange coat lifted his foreleg. "Oporus," he said with a depressed tone. He's coat was black on the inside, but it had a bizarre mutational coloration to it that made his coat shine white at the edges. He looked like he was cell-shaded, although no such effects affected his white eyes. This fawn, however, had no antlers growing on his head. In fact, it didn't look like anything was going to grow from his skull at all. "I--" "Yes yes. You all have 'names'. I will hear them later," the windigo waved off. Considering there were around fifteen fawns, Stelimus was thankful. Why would his coma dream have so many names anyways? "I did not come here to learn names. I came here for learning." "Isn't that contradictory? You didn't come here to learn but to learn?" Stelimus lift an eyebrow. The windigo stared at him for an extended period of time, a time which only had the wind making itself known to everyone there. Stelimus didn't back down from the stare fight even when the other fawns there just looked horrified and kept switching back and forth between the two like spectators at a tennis match. "I suppose it is contradictory. Nevertheless, I will learn your names as time goes on. First, we learn more about the spirits that live in the world. And to do that." Her body wrapped around all the fawns there, scaring them. "We must go outside of your city's wall and into the tundra." "WHAT?!" the whole class shouted. Their outcry was ignored and they were taken into the air at such speeds that they all nearly blacked out. Once they came to, they already found themselves lying down in the snow of the outside tundra. Almost immediately did the majority of the class slam into each other and tremble in fear. Stelimus rolled his eyes and started walking forward, trying to see through the darkness and the strong, snowy winds. From afar, he could barely see a beer-brown illumination across the horizon that barely broke through the pitch blackness of this arctic desert. A few glaciers were around, but they weren't close enough to size properly. "So, what are we supposed to do?" A bright, blue glow illuminated the area behind Stelimus, attracting his attention. Before he could discern the source, a large wave of blue energy flowed outwards, pushing the snow storm away and creating a calm zone within it. The huddled fawns looked around at the bubble being created by this spirit and started to calm down as well, until a terrifying roar erupted in front of them. Turning around, Stelimus met with what looked like a fluffy t-rex from Earth. It looked around to see the huddled fawns together then noticed that Stelimus as the only one alone, making him the easier target. Stelimus' bravery left him like an ex-wife and all that remained within him was fear wracking his little body. The gigantic beast started stomping towards him with a vicious romp, readying to eat him in one swoop, but it found itself being swatted away, interrupting its sprint, ruining its balance, and making it fall into the snow. Stelimus hurried over to the others for some unknown reason and turned to see the windigo facing off against the brute. It shook some snow from its head and roared at her. With no time to react, it chomped down on her...or at least it tried. The spirit's body was non-corporeal, and any attempts at physical damage was futile. The windigo quickly became bored and wrapped its lower body around the beast's mouth, covering it in a pale fog. Its mouth completely froze over in a flash, leaving the spirit to fly back towards its 'class' while the monster tried swiping at its mouth with its tiny arms, but failed. It quickly scampered away in fear back into the storm where it was hoped it wouldn't be seen again. "What was that?!" Aless shouted. "A Sabre-Tyrant. Just gigantic carnivores that bite you and make you bleed to death. Do not worry. I did not freeze the nostrils. It will live...maybe..." she trailed off. "Now, let us pursue the study of us spirits," she said while lifting a foreleg. Stelimus stepped forward violently. "Woah-woah-woah! Are we seriously just going to gleam over a giant dinosaur trying to eat me?" The Windigo looked at him and simply answered 'Yes', making the fawn nearly drop from exhaustion and disbelief. His lack of energy was almost immediately reinvigorated when a faintly glowing blue ball flew through his chest. He made sure he wasn't hurt then checked to see where the ball had gone and realized that they were everywhere now and were rising from the ground as well. They looked like blue fireflies. "Well then. I guess we're just going to glance over what just happened. What's next? I end up fusing with a spirit, giving me frost powers?"