Blizz-arity

by Compendium of Steve

The Drive

The winds blew fiercely with bone-chilling frost. The blizzard that had overtaken the land, whose very scope was beyond mortal comprehension, brought about a coldness that sunk past the flesh and consumed the very soul. In this forsaken storm, a lone figure dared to defy its unrelenting fury. With only a heavy shawl for protection, Rarity forced out each hoofstep into the deep, frigid snow before her. It had felt like days since she began her search for the heart of the storm, and all around her it was hard to tell whether she had gone a great distance, or had simply gone in circles. Yet she moved forward still, driven by unshakeable determination. A desire to find answers, and to bring an end to the hellish cold.

Suddenly, there was a break in the weather. The strong winds had lightened up slightly, but this reprieve was of no assurance to the unicorn. If anything, it only made her more tense. Amidst the flurry of bitter snowflakes, she felt something flit about in the darkness beyond. She wasn’t alone.

Bracing herself, and with a glow beneath her hood, the weapon strapped to her back became unsheathed at long last. The enchanted, shimmering blade drawn out to her side, Rarity looked ahead with a hardened, blue-eyed stare.

Naite nanka,

Naite nanka,

Naite nanka,

                        Naite nanka nai no sa.

Rarity trotted forward, keeping her wits about and her weapon close. Suddenly she felt the presence move around somewhere behind, prompting her to break into a gallop and widen the distance. The flakes began to thicken as she eventually found herself in the middle of a snow-buried forest.

She stopped and turned around, bringing up her sword for whatever was coming from behind. She heard a rustling to her right and spun around to face it, only for it to relocate to somewhere overhead. Suddenly a mass of snow came loose from the canopy above, forcing Rarity to slash away while making a retreat further into the woods.

More snow fell around her from the surrounding trees, making her sidestep and maneuver around the snowfall as she fled. A tree gave out a splitting roar before crashing down, which the unicorn leapt over without losing pace. Suddenly the wind kicked up into a frenzy, whipping snow and cold air around that forced Rarity to stop.

Bracing herself against this impediment, Rarity looked around for the enemy, whose very presence whipped around with the very blizzard itself. The winds howled as the snow whirled around the cloaked unicorn, as though ensnaring her. Rarity dashed forward and shoved through the wintry entrapment, but was met by even more flurries and the deafening rustle of countless shaking trees. From the flare of white turmoil there sprang into sight a silvery blue phantom that announced itself with a heart-stopping screech of icy terror. It was a creature of ancient legend, but one Rarity instantly recognized: a windigo.

The windy beast practically blended in with its surroundings, save for the flowing edges of its ephemeral mane and the fiery eyes of dead silver in its snarling head. This creature wasn’t the misty spirit of history, but rather a feral nightmare of unrelenting horror. Rarity knew it would take more than some goodwill to smother the beast, and she made good on it by leaping forward with sword raised.

Yet the strike was for naught as the windigo rose back and whipped around its wispy back half in retaliation. Rarity was immediately tossed aside by a powerful gust, but managed to right herself and plant her hooves against a nearby tree. She sprang off it quickly as the ghostly stallion conjured an air burst to dislodge the conifer. Rarity leapt from tree to tree, trying to clear the distance and get in a hit before getting blown away with the forest behind her. Eventually she reached her mark and raised her sword up to cleave the thing’s head, but a blast of snow from below knocked her upward while sending a stinging chill over her entire underside.

A whirlwind caught her as she regained her breath and senses, leaving her to flail about her limbs without purchase. The windigo meandered its way up to her, coiling itself like a serpent ready to strike. As it opened its menacing, jagged teeth to bite into its prey, Rarity aligned her horn at it and, in a last ditch effort, set off a heat spell to ward it off. It seemed to work a little too well, as the monster flailed itself back with a screech before tossing the besieged unicorn clear out of the tumultuous forest.

A couple of rolls in a patch of snow brought Rarity to a halt on solid ground, but there was no time to rest as she willed herself back on her hooves. Shaking herself back into focus, she looked over to the forest and saw her target loping away in a hurry. The warrior maiden brought up her sword and gave chase, galloping headlong after its wispy tail. Eventually she spotted her quarry racing up the foot of a mountain, and sped up her pursuit in response.

Bounding up the steepening slope, she witnessed several large snowballs rolling down, looking to dash the unicorn to bits. Sidestepping and the occasional swing of her sword brought her through the onslaught, and she reacquired her fleeing target in no time. The windigo shot forward and vanished into the darkness of the mountaintop, but a moment later it reappeared to Rarity’s left.

Bringing up her sword to engage, Rarity was surprised to see the windy beast bounding past on her right. It dawned on her that she had been led into a trap, and that she was caught between two feral windigos that were corralling her upwards. As the slope steadily narrowed, the windigos made their move by circling around their would-be hunter.

Once more Rarity felt herself being lifted up, only now by the powerful gales of a twin windigo whirlwind. The twins circled closer, increasing the speed and frigidness of the air. It seemed they were looking to freeze the mare in midair, but in their hurry to finish their prey off, they got themselves a little too close.

Rarity slashed away with her sword, cutting the face of one of the creatures and bringing the whirlwind to a dead stop. Tumbling through diamond dust, Rarity righted herself to land on the powdery peak of the mountain, yet this gave her little room to move as the windigos came down to attack. With escape out of the question, she brought her blade close, determined to fight with all she had.

As a windigo charged at her front, she stabbed forward, then immediately spun around at its compatriot that tried to get a sneak attack on her. She hopped and flipped over the charge of the previous beast, slashing downward and cutting lengthwise across its back. Her aerial maneuver got her caught in a conjured mini-tornado, but with some balancing she used it to get a height advantage. Jumping forward she plunged her sword at one of the windigos, but it brought up a burst of frigid wind that pushed her back while also frosting the edges of her shawl. The twin spirits dived down and rushed up to catch her in their icy jaws, but Rarity was quick to bring up her sword, casting a quick spell before tossing it downward, past the beasts and right onto the mountaintop, where it erupted in a great magical blast.

Rarity found herself falling yet again, only down a steep cliff face amid a hail of earth and snow. The windigos tried to capitalize on her predicament, but Rarity rolled betwixt the debris and gave off heat spell bursts to fend them off. Eventually the debris overwhelmed the unicorn and she lost all sense of sight and direction, but in a few seconds it came back harshly as she and the avalanche crashed down on the ground below. After a moment, Rarity struggled to push through the snow and dirt and back into open air, only to discover complete stillness.

High above her was the eye of the storm: a breach in the thick overcast where the light of a full moon was allowed to alight the snowy land far below. Rarity had no time to take in the sublime beauty, as the two windigos swirled into being overhead, along with a third and a fourth, the latter being considerably bigger than the others and was undoubtedly the herd leader. They grouped together and looked down at the snow-covered intruder, snarling and whipping up more winds to freeze the unicorn. But Rarity stood her ground and faced the menaces unerringly, even as frosty air screamed around her, cutting against any exposed flesh. Further pain was manageable, when the very end was in sight.

A magical channeling to her hooves gave Rarity a powerful spring straight up at the windigos, who immediately charged and converged upon her. Amid a flurry of snow and ice Rarity twisted about, hacking at the creatures as they made an effort to overtake her and sink their ghastly maws onto pearlescent flesh. The largest windigo charged and managed to tackle Rarity right in the chest, immediately encasing her front in ice and tearing through her shawl. She wouldn’t give in, gritting her teeth and focusing her willpower straight to her horn until a brilliant flash shot out.

The ice encasing her shattered, and from behind her there appeared her sword plus three additional magical blades, which she used to levitate herself like a set of wings before sending them into a rapid spiral around her. She then launched out her weapons, each one plunging into a windigo’s chest. For good measure she threw herself at the larger windigo and pierced its neck with her own horn, funneling magical heat into its deathly cold form. The beast writhed madly, but eventually jerked to a stop as the cold flames of its malice were swiftly extinguished.

As one the windigos erupted into evaporating particles of ice, instantly dispersing the clouds all around and freeing the starry night from its stormy imprisonment. The moon shone even more brilliantly as a bedraggled Rarity hovered in place, seeing the country below finally saved from the bitter, cursed blizzard. Yet she couldn’t enjoy the moment for long, for turning upward she witnessed something strange happening on the lunar sphere above. On the moon’s surface, several thick lines popped into existence, quickly forming a familiar symbol. As the mark reached full completion, the world suddenly popped into nothingness.

A shocked Rarity found herself in a peculiar domain, which was covered in endless darkness and had a light snowfall coming from above. A few yards ahead and over her, there stood a wooden throne of gold and velvet, and sitting awkwardly upon it was the unpleasant gray stallion from the other day, minus the hat and scarf.

“You?!”

“Howdy,” he greeted with a hoof wave. “Listen, I changed my mind about getting a sweater. Sorry if I led you on before.”

“What… What are you, exactly?”

“Why, I’m the Windigo King, obviously.” He smirked and chuckled at Rarity’s confused expression. Of course, she would have none of his jests.

“What is the meaning of all of this? Are you the one behind this blizzard? For what reason would you do this to Equestria?”

“To make things exciting, of course,” he said very matter-of-factly, if a bit smugly, as he rested his cheek on a hoof. “I have to say, I’m impressed how quickly you responded. Just a few hours and you were out on a little adventure making a bad-ass hero of yourself, when last time it took several days to get a noticeable reaction. Then again, I was more direct this time around.”

“Last time?” Rarity’s eyes widened. “Wait a second. I knew there was something familiar about that voice: you’re the one who said that nopony liked me!”

“Heheh, thatta girl. Although, I do have a pretty memorable personality when you get to know me.”

“What was the purpose of you telling me that that night, or about how much better my friends are than me? What have I ever done to you to have deserved that? I don’t even know who you are!”

“As well you shouldn’t. It’s a big risk planting myself in the story; not many people are keen to that sort of thing. Though in response to your questions, it’s nothing against you personally (Heh, if ‘person’ is an applicable term here). It’s just that yours and everyone else’s existence here has brought about a certain following that irks me from time to time.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“To put it simply, my dear, all of this was put together solely for my own amusement, and perhaps anyone who cares to follow along. But my entertainment and self-indulgence comes first and foremost.”

“So… you torment me, and bring about devastation, just for fun? Like our lives are something you can toy with as you please, and in the most cowardly manner?”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, sweetheart. Conflict has to exist for there to be excitement in the world, whether it’s artificially produced through pen or voice, or caused by the very acts of nature itself. Now whether it’s considered ethical or particularly nice doesn’t entirely apply in this context, given what you are, and what I am.”

“I… I don’t understand.”

“And best that you don’t, otherwise that’d shatter the illusion and really make a mess of things. That being said, I may have gotten a little too involved this time around. Last time it was more subtle, giving the hint of continuation rather than a guarantee. But I got too impatient after that, practically forcing all this to occur like it did. Now it’s kind of ruined the luster of things. You know, someone said that I was the Discorded Doctor with how I did things. As though there weren’t a million other better non-pony related things to compare me to. Still, it made for a neat enough image.”

The ramble out of the way, the stallion stood up from his throne, which instantly vanished into the ether. He took a few steps before stopping to look down at the confused unicorn, his glasses flashing to reveal his piercing, faded green irises at her. Then in an instant, Rarity thought she caught a glimpse of some towering silhouette behind the earth pony, one that was slim in build and decked out completely in white. And with those same mocking eyes…

“And so this is where we part ways for good. If I keep this going, it will devolve into something too inane to be enjoyable by anyone (not that anyone wanted it to begin with). But hey, at least this time made for some half-decent practice.”

“...Practice for what?”

The stallion sneered and chuckled. “We’ll see.”

With a raise of his hoof there was a snap, and everything went to black.