//------------------------------//
// The Truth 
// Story: Deer Me: Black Snow 
// by The Psychopath 
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The aftermath of the battle was not pretty. Thousands wounded, and even more dead. The captains of the Crystal Kingdom came with ten-thousand soldiers; eighty percent being earth ponies, thirteen being pegasi, and the remaining seven being unicorns. Only about, two-thousand fifty-seven made it out with minor injuries. Five-thousand seven-hundred and three are gravely wounded. the rest are, obviously, dead. The reindeer came with about twenty-thousand troops, but most survived the encounter due to Anglacite's specific tactics and use of spirits, leading to barely a thousand and thirty-three casualties. Grimliss' are already dead, and Effervescence left with her own people long before tallies were counted. The hunters returned to their respective homes and Clyde of Dale returned upon his trips across the world, feeling his job here fulfilled. Anglacite left his losses in the snow, stating that 'What was part of the tundra must return to it. Those bodies are no longer the reindeer that inhabited them'.

Cadance was killed during the 'tantrum' the colossus had and was brought back to the Crystal Kingdom under the sorrow of Shining Armor and the crystal ponies, but the one who felt the pain most of all was Copper. Shining was using magical constructs to replace his powdered limbs which had to be removed. He would get mechanical replacements eventually, but he had one loss which couldn't be repaired. Stelimus took a little time to comfort Copper as best he could, but she was non-receptive to his  words, so the deer quietly crept away, rejoining his uncle. It didn't go completely unnoticed, and Shining waited that they were far enough away to intercept them and stomp his intact hoof down.

"Can't you revive her?" Shining pleaded to Grimliss.

The god-king looked away and dryly answered. "No."

"But you control life and death! This is surely not something outside your abilities!"

Grimliss didn't bother lowering his head to look at Shining Armor despite the height difference. "I am what I am BECAUSE I tried to bring back life to the dead. The god who watches the dead for the ponies is not an entity I would want to irritate. I've already annoyed one god of the dead.Your wife is dead, and there's nothing you can do to bring her back, so you best get used to that now or be forever tortured within a prison of your own mind."

"I..." Shining collapsed onto the ground after his constructs faded. "But you commune with the undead all the time. Everypony knows it," he started to tear up.

"Oh? A stallion crying? I thought the 'male' aspect of crying faded out centuries ago."

Stelimus tapped his uncle on his shoulder and pulled him away. "Don't keep adding to his pain."

"Then let me explain to him so he stops getting this idea in his mind." Grimliss turned around and lowered himself to Shining's level. "You are right. I 'commune' with spirits and tend to guide them until they can pass on or until the end times come, but I cannot return life to what lost it. To do so is to incur the wrath of the gods of death, and those are the gods you do NOT want to irritate, as I've mentioned before."

"But...then the Crystal Heart? Why didn't it save her?" Stelimus asked.

"If I understood the intricacies of pony magic, and the functions of that heart, one would say that it is formed from pure, crystallized love, but...love is a fickle thing."

Stelimus lifted his head slightly, showing his fur matted with tears. "What are you trying to say?"

"Love can only protect you from so much, especially from normal creatures. However, the magic, no matter how strong or from what source it comes from, could not save her from the colossus' rage, especially on her own."

"Stelimus, brother, are we leaving?" Anglacite shouted.

"Come, nephew. We need to return you to your home before anything and reassess your position. You might have not done much, but I believe that might change once we reach the capital, otherwise..." Grimliss trailed off.

Stelimus was completely confused. "What are you talking about?"

"Shhhhh."

The prince shrugged it off and followed the entire deer army back to the capital. They were all welcome with cheers and open arms once the screaming doors announced their presence. The wounded were immediately taken away to the various hospitals dotted around the city while the two god-kings who came back denied the need for medical attention. The rest of the city was gathering towards the center where a mighty feast awaited. It was almost identical in appearance to the day Stelimus was taken on the festival shortly after his birth, and his mother and sister were both waiting for their family at the main table closest to the steps leading up to the palace. Yolumay had sneaked towards the capital during the battle and seemed rather proud of herself. Effervescence's corruption appeared to have eteched a permanent smug on her face.

"That was a great battle, wasn't it, Grimliss?!" Anglacite cheered.

The stag narrowed...the smoke serving as his eyelids. "Yes. A great battle."

Anglacite stopped and turned to face his brother. "Is there a problem, brother? You seem to be upset about something."

"Well, the ponies did lose one of their most esteemed rulers, tearing a pony traumatized by a similar form of parental loss into a state of depression that I believe even your own son won't be able to get her out of."

Anglacite rubbed his chin and pretended to think about that event, but brushed it off casually. "The qualms of the pony-song is not part of my to-do list. I have more important things to take care of."

"While that may be true, there are a few things I have been mulling over these past few years since Stelimus' birth."

"Oh? And what would you be thinking of that is so important that you needed to wait that we were in the capital, in front of my people, to talk about it now?"

"What are you doing?" Stelimus whisper-shouted.

"I'm accusing YOU of being the Black Snow!"

Loud gasps resonated all around the three, but Anglacite laughed it off. "Really? The Black Snow corrupted living things in the past, but it didn't corrupt any deer, let alone a god-king."

"Oh, but it can corrupt over time. In fact, I found it bizarre how the colossus left when it was staring at the city those many years past. Even more bizarre was that it arrived at the precise time Stelimus was born."

"Coincidences, of course," Anglacite said dismissively.

"Even MORE bizarre was that it appeared when Stelimus and I were traveling through the tundra to reach the Crystal Kingdom and it was waiting for us in the blizzard and aimed only at Stelimus." Anglacite was about to argue, but was interrupted by Grimliss. "It even appeared fifteen years before Stelimus' planned conception, and wandered around the tundra, passively, ignoring even the deer when they passed by it, then it suddenly became aggressive when it witnessed your son? Even with a direct line of sight presented to it?"

Anglacite frowned and stood tall. "Oh? Then tell me, brother, why would I plan something so long in advance? Why would I kill myself? Why would I try to kill my own son?"

"Because Stelimus was planned as a link between deer and ponies, and you had already discussed this thirty-seven years ago with the white one from the south. The plan then went to the ponies of the north here after their emergence as a full power, but if you had your son killed by the colossus and killed everyone else, then you could have blamed it on the ponies as the tundra would have hidden the proof. 

You could have remained in the tundra without worrying about the black snow as it would only target ponies and the southern equines would not have declared war on us."

Anglacite smiled. "So you're saying I would have tried to rid the world of the pony-song to better my own people and sate my anger of their kind?"

"Precisely. You masqueraded the whole thing as a semi-willful endeavor to eventually use the black snow as a weapon to destroy the ponies. This explains everything. You were corrupted by it and became a controller for it, which is why it always knew everything it needed to and why it did what it did, but you didn't take into account a change in your whole plan. The one thing that was the support pillar for it all."

Anglacite looked downwards briefly and seemed to be confused, then he looked up and tilted his head. "Stelimus?"

"Exactly!"

"What do I have to do with this?" the young deer asked.

Grimliss turned to face his nephew. Stelimus could see his body trembling. "Your personality is the most drastically different of any child my brother has ever conceived. Your sister is the average ideal of the children he has sired, so my brother expected you to end up like him. In fact, he also expected me to remain impassive to you like I was with the others. You were the one thing on which the whole plan depended on, yet you were the one who destroyed the whole plan before it even started."

The reindeer all around were mumbling and most did not want to believe it, but considering they had already heard about the events mentioned, albeit distorted by rumor, but the gist was there, and they were both god-kings. Grimliss was a god-king of the dead, and even the reindeer have heard the saying 'The dead do not lie', but Anglacite was their ruler and guardian...but this sort of thing didn't seem beyond his methodical-yet-simplistic mindset. They all started turning towards King Anglacite. Their eyes were begging for it to all be a lie.

Anglacite snorted. "Fine. I'm the black snow, but it's also me! If I must manipulate everything and destroy the rest to let my people prosper, then I will do that! And I won't let you, nor my 'son' ruin those plans!"

Grimliss and Anglacite crossed antlers, blasting frost and undead mist all over the area and across the deer around. The god-kings were both too exhausted to use their full powers, but the black snow was revealing itself through Anglacite's body. Large patches of fur became pure black as did the ice on his antlers. A black mist started rising from that ice and mixing with the uncorrupted ice's mist in the air. And while they fought, that same voice from before whispered in Stelimus' head.

"Yes. The fear feeds. The horned, frozen soul will spread it and feed, but what will the familiar soul do? Two paths lie ahead, and both will still create fear and feed."

"You may be tired," Stelimus whispered to himself "But I'm not!"

The prince dug deep inside himself and focused to try and summon the monster that protected him in the forest, and with so much more intentional power added into the summoning, the spirit was coming out much stronger for it and was warping the light and colors all around it. Four, gigantic skeletal arms came through a tear and spread it open, allowing the cloaked being to reach out and grab hold of Anglacite.

"STELIMUS, NO!" Grimliss shouted.

Anglacite could not focus, and without his full powers, he could not repel the creature. When he looked at its face, his eyes widened and he stopped struggling. The winds were blowing in literally every conceivable direction, as if reality were being warped by the realm of the dead.

The god-king struggled to look away and gaze at his son's surprised expression. The only thing Anglacite could utter was 'I lost control' and impaled himself with several stalagmites of ice. The undead monster retreated back into the tear and pulled the winds back with it to properly close the portal, leaving silence and the frozen corpse amidst everyone. Grimliss buried his emotions on what just occurred and hurried the situation by pushing Stelimus towards the chair right next to his mother who could only look on in horror. It was best to get a new royal member as fast as possible onto the leading throne to prevent confusion, mass panic, and nobles vying for power.

"Anglacite's son is now your king. I will remain here to counsel him so that he may lead you appropriately."

"And if you don't like it, then make sure to tell me," Yolumay growled after sitting next to her brother.

"This is a new age, deer, and one that will allow you to prosper in a world of progress, rather than stagnation!" Grimliss shouted.

A large portion of reindeer started cheering, but many did not. There was far too much that could be said right now, and everyone needed some time to think and understand. But the cheering...that was just how reindeer culture grew under the rule of Anglacite, and that still left many questions unanswered. Anglacite sending his own son around to become stronger and his moments of passiveness which were unfitting of his current personality were just two questions left unanswered.

"Yes. The path that feeds the most, but will the sand aid the familiar soul in its future? Awaiting for the unraveling of amusement"


When the black snow falls, an icicle melts.