The master and the windigo

by stupidswampdragon

2 - Remember

Pinkie's statement was most likely intended as a verbal bombshell, and Celestia knew it worked like one. She must have had high hopes herself, evident by the grin appearing on her face and the way she rubbed her hooves together.

There would have been many adjectives for that posture, but the most fitting was expectant.

"I don't recall anypony by that name!" the cyan unicorn recoiled at the revelation. The bombshell missed her, but just barely. Tiny seeds of doubt already sprouted in her mind, and she only clung to a singular fact to prove her innocence. "Even when I became amnesiac, I still recalled everypony. I still know you, for example! So who was she? Why don't I know her?"

"You know me because you weren't really wiped clean. There are leftover morsels of the cookie your mind once was, Lyra. You only forgot everything pertaining to yourself... and the power of your windigo. Everything necessary to escape the Princesses' wrath," Pinkie explained, stroking the empty air as if she was a villain petting her imaginary cat. "Twilight, on the other hoof? That was a less surgical operation - you were cracking eggs by slamming a table on them. She got a full ticket to forgottensville."

One thing the unicorn noted was how she got called Lyra on quite a few occasions, both earlier and while talking to Pinkie. She tried - tried really hard - but she felt no particular attachment to that random name. It just didn't feel like being hers.

There were more pressing matters than how she was called anyway. Like what she did.

"What the... I really did that?" she shuddered, sneaking a quick glance to the windigo on her side. "Woah. That's a ticket to Tartarus all right."

"Deservedly so," Pinkie raised her eyebrows.

"Completely gone, huh?" the unicorn grit her teeth, then made a pained grin. "Almost as good as murdering her, then. Talking of which... what happened to her afterwards? Is she still around?"

"Haha, no. She's been left in the oven long enough, wouldn't you say? Better take her out before she catches fire," Pinkie went back to grinning mischievously. "She's far away now, on a ship headed west. Twilight Sparkle is dead, long live Ardent Dawn! Quite a catchy identity I came up with, isn't it? It's all sorts of symbolic and everything."

"Totally flabbergasted," the unicorn groaned, not even bothering to feign interest. "So what's your game, then? Why help me if you know of the horrible things I did?"

"Oh, don't you worry. I have a ton of good reasons to do so," Pinkie broadened her grin into a full-fledged smile. "Even besides my contractual role of upholding the story dramatics, I mean."

"So you're a conspirator as well," the unicorn drew the most obvious conclusion.

"More like a conspirational-addict," Pinkie threw a wink. "You know how it goes! First you plan the groceries for tomorrow - and you can't get out of bed without making three overcomplicated plans before you know better!"

I sure hope I wasn't really working with you lot, the unicorn cringed as she faked a laugh. It wound up as one of her poorer acts.

"But as I said: I joined you for many really good reasons," Pinkie lifted her head from her hoof and leaned forward in the chair. "Some more prominent than others. Like how you're my salt, Lyra."

"Salt," the unicorn echoed without any idea what that was supposed to mean.

"Yes, salt! You know - sodium chloride. Good old table salt," Pinkie face-hoofed, throwing herself against the backrest of the chair. "It's the most important stuff in the world, you know? Things taste better with salt! Well, also with water, flour, yeast or sugar... but that's beside the point! Salt is one of the most pivotal elements there is! And you, Lyra, is the salt this place needs. Well, maybe not what it needs... but you're what we got. Cheers?"

For a passing moment, the unicorn tried to imagine herself sitting on a table, banging the side of a metal cylinder that had holes drilled into the top. It was a rather bizarre and surreal idea, all in all.

"I don't like salt," she finally sighed. She didn't mention aloud but she fancied being salt even less, even if just metaphorically.

"Shows what you know about what you eat!" Pinkie admonished the amnesiac pony, pointing a hoof as she dictated. "Salt gives food taste! Even with all the sugar in a pastry, a pinch of salt can still make it go POOF! Ever tried to make a soup without salt? And let's not forget toasts! Without salt they have no taste! NONE! RECOGNIZE THE SALT NOW, UNBELIEVER!"

"Actually, salt IS a vital element," Snowy broke her long silence with the most utterly pointless addition. "Most living organisms need a daily intake of salt or-"

"Don't you have ANYTHING better to do?!" the unicorn snapped at her windigo, looking ready to reverse the traditional roles of hunter and prey.

Snowy jolted at the criticism and looked ready to melt under the gaze of her master. Then she made a nod. Very enthusiastically.

"Then go do it," the unicorn sneered, her gaze following the windigo as it scampered away from her side. Snowy picked up speed as the distance from her master increased, finally disappearing behind Pinkie's chair.

"Woah. You're sure keeping her on a short leash," Pinkie whistled at the small scene.

"Eh, sorry. She's really super at times... but she can turn into a dimwit on the drop of a hat," the unicorn explained with a weary tone. "It's back to salt, isn't it?"

"I'm ready to turn Canterlot into Carthage if you force me!" Pinkie declared. She also punctuated her sentence with a loud knock on the armrest of her chair. "It'll be nothing but salt until you recognize the rightful order of the world!"

"Anything that makes you a happy pony," the unicorn groaned, no longer seeing the light at the end of the tunnel her conversation turned out to be. "Just what are you baking that you need a whole pony's worth of salt, anyway?"

"Awww, Lyra. You know me!" Pinkie giggled so innocently that she left no doubt how guilty she tried to appear. "I wouldn't do anything that goes against the established norms."

"Your mere existence breaks like a dozen of those norms," the unicorn facehoofed. She happened to use her sticky hoof; but the mistake didn't register with her just yet. "Seriously though! You knew me, I'm sure of that. You call me Lyra - okay, I can roll with that. But you also say I killed this Sparkle whoever... sort-of. Yet here I am, talking to you. Acquitted and unrepentant. How come all that doesn't bother you?"

"Never I said I need to like how salt itself tastes," Pinkie shrugged. "My muffins being delicious is good enough for me! No need to have every single ingredient taste good as well. Have you ever tasted cinnamon, for example? The way it burns, you'd think it's some acid! And the taste wouldn't get out of my mouth even after a good wash either! I had to bleach-"

"Stop talking of sweets already! My ears are going to catch diabetes," Lyra pre-empted the would-be detour of their discussion. Then she yelped loudly; she tried to move her hoof away from her face. The sticky horseshoe, however, have already made close friendship with her facial hair - to the point where they wouldn't let go of each other.

"Master, I... I don't think diabetes works that way..." came an unsure protest from beyond Pinkie's chair.

"I don't care how it works! Augh!" Lyra hissed. She tried to yank her hoof from her face with increasing vigour, only stopping when her eyes began to water. For being so pointless in terms of survival, that patch of facial hair seemed to hurt disproportionally much. "I'm much more interested in why you're luring me into a - AGH! - a trap, Pinkie! Ugh... in the name of Equestria, what's this sticky stuff made of?!"

"A bit of this and a bit of that. Sugar and egg... and lots of chemicals most likely," Pinkie mused for a moment. Then she wrinkled her eyebrows and stared at her struggling visitor in earnest. "So it's me luring you into a trap now?"

"You're the one being suspicious," Lyra growled. She settled onto the ground, placing her free hoof on her other leg, ready to tear her sticky hoof free. Takes what it takes!

"Uh-huh," Pinkie did some sort of a negative-nod, managing to convey her complete disbelief with a move associated to agreement. "You're kind of making me curious how your reached... that... conclusion... uuuh, Lyra? You sure you want to do that? That thing should wash off with some water-"

That was a sound advice; too bad Lyra wasn't particularly big on waiting at that point. She stomped hard and stumbled forward. She remained standing; with all of her legs finally free, maintaining balance was no issue to her. She hit the ground moments later anyway though, screaming bloody murder as she clenched the freshly epilated part of her face.

Pinkie didn't even bother to comment on the sight. She just reclined into her chair and cringed mightily.

"Miss Pie?" Snowy sneaked out from her cover, trying to capitalize on the small break of the main conversation. "You mentioned ingredients earlier. Could you detail a little, if I may inquire? That gryphon did not look like the baking type. Why does he serve raw eggs?"

"Is that even a question? Oh- oh! Must be because you don't, well, drink any more. Wait- do you ghosts actually drink stuff? Ghost milk, perhaps?" Pinkie gave the windigo a quizzed stare. "That would be nice... going to GhostCo and getting a few litres of the stuff. Ooh, I would sure love to taste that! Do you have ghost-pies as well?"

"Miss Pie, you have obvious conceptual issues," Snowy pointed out. "You're asking an amnesiac ghost to remember all those many things."

"Is THAT what you're objecting to?!" Lyra screamed from the background, still rolling on the dirty floor with a hoof pressed against her face. The clean one this time. "Stop being stupid and help me, you idiot! Oh Celestia, my face! Ah... ah! I have torn off my face, I know I did! Why did I even do that?!"

Acting on the command before the rest of her impulses could react, Snowy leaped forward. She didn't continue to her Master however, slamming the breaks instead and giving Pinkie a begging stare.

"What?" the pink pony blinked, then clapped her hooves together as the realization dawned on her. "Ohhh, the dried-up yolk and sugar stuff, right? Silly pony-eating-ghost. I was referring the cocktails! Surely you've seen those already? Fancy drinks with tiny umbrellas on the top! Well, that gryphon up there? He does make a few cocktails. Not that I'd drink anything he touches, but I saw him whip up something earlier... too bad I know how his drinks smell. His wine, for example? I swear it's a mixture of sulphuric acid and sugar! Makes you wonder what he puts into the rest, eh? Maybe that's also why his counter sticks so well..."

"Sulphuric acid," Snowy repeated slowly, acknowledging the description with a shrug. "That sounds weird, Miss Pie. Like something a doctor would prescribe."

"Prescribe?! More like get you to one!" Pinkie frowned, then sighed as her gaze ventured onto the twitching Lyra. "In even more ways than I could imagine it seems."

---

"Hold still... we're almost done," Pinkie commanded, eyeing the other pony from a few centimetres. "Hmm, pretty good! Almost as good as new. In fact, you'll need to wait for it to be regrow to look better. So I guess it'll only be better when it'll be new! And that's 'almost as good as new' at its best."

In front of her was Lyra, sitting in a thoroughly broken pose.

"It's never going to be new," she cringed. By the hollowness of her voice, one could have assumed her windigo just made a snack out of her.

"Master still sounds rather strange," Snowy noted her tone. "Should I cool the bruise a little more?"

As a ghost, Snowy didn't have a tangible shape; which limited her interactions with the physical world to a great degree. She could only really rely on her windigo abilities to affect her environment, and those never came in huge varieties. She could drain objects of their heat - and that was about it. Sure, stories described ordinary windigos to be much more capable. Just how Snowy wound up deficient was up to anypony's imagination; her mind devoid of any information regarding herself, she couldn't offer any explanation.

Still, having a walking refrigerator next to one's self isn't a bad thing. The ghostly windigo had no problems numbing Lyra's face, turning the screaming wreck of a pony into a rather docile wreck of a pony. All Pinkie had to do was glue the torn pieces of hair back into their spot. Hardly ideal, but a badly combed spot was always better than a bald spot.

"You know, you're really like a B-movie villain," Pinkie giggled as she surveyed Lyra from a different angle. "No matter what you do, the greatest threat to you is always your own self!"

"Hardy-har-har," Lyra imitated some laughter with a mocking tone. "Because you're that much better, huh? Why don't you act out your little show yourself, then? Surely you don't need a clumsy fool who's a threat to herself!"

Whatever mark the comment hit, it wasn't intentional; Lyra was only grumbling because she was cranky. Pinkie however took it to heart, the goofiness quickly drying up from her face. She turned away with a much sourer expression, shuffling to a shelf full of bottles.

"Master, please calm down," Snowy tried to hit a soothing tone. "At this moment, we owe a great deal to Miss Pie. I understand you're feeling down, but please remain considerate."

Lyra gave the windigo a glare. Her eyes were as cold as her face though, the fire gone; only weariness was left in her gaze. It was obvious that at that precise moment, the Master ranked lower than the servant.

"Yeah. Yeah, you're right," she sighed. She raised her eyebrows and bit onto her lip, nodding slowly to herself. "Sorry, I guess. Hey Pink-"

"Spike brought me these letters," Pinkie swept the shelf with a hoof. The move caught more than she intended: a few glasses fell and crashed straight away. Luckily they were empty, so didn't make a mess; only the clinking shards jumped around until they settled into the dust. The subjects of Pinkie's interest shared the same fate; a book also arrived on the floor with a thud, speeding past the many parchments that began to zig-zag their way down.

Lyra and Snowy both watched the papers dance in the air. They couldn't know for sure but felt: those papers were important, somehow. This was the sole reason why none of them spoke up, waiting for Pinkie to continue as she saw fit.

"Well... it'd be more correct to say he brought them to just about everypony he knew," Pinkie giggled weakly. She seemed to inch towards being upbeat; but that was more a force of habit than truly being in elevated spirits. "He said he found them in the library. You know... the library he always managed on his own. Some major oversight on Princess Celestia's part, the Daily wrote."

Lyra gulped. There must have been a reason her host brought that up; and if so, then it must have been her doing. Messing with ponies' memories again, no doubt.

"Anyhow, these are letters we wrote. You know, the exploits of Mane Five!" Pinkie leaned against the empty shelf with a wry smile. She fell silent, visibly waiting her guests to comment on the revelation.

"Something's wrong with them, right?" Lyra took the bait.

"I am siding with Master," Snowy scratched her head. "If those are letters you wrote yourselves... then Spike wouldn't go through the effort of showing them everypony."

"Oh, the letters themselves are fine! So fine you could almost eat them. You know: peachy-fine," Pinkie widened her grin until her teeth began showing. "That's what everypony told Spike anyway. I don't think anypony actually read these letters though. AJ is busy with her scandal, Rarity is trying save her business, Dash is being the complete braggart who won't have time for some flimsy pieces of paper, and Fluttershy... she is busy keeping tabs on Discord, yay. The perfect ingredients, wouldn't you say? Throw all those into the pot and stir - and bam, you have disaster! You did all that without anypony suspecting... you sly devil, you! Even I was left astounded when I finally realized."

"So, these letters... not only are they important, but nopony cared about them either," Lyra translated the lengthy speech to a variant her mind could more easily process. Then she narrowed her eyes and leaned towards the letter than landed the closest to her. "What's in them?"

"I just told you, silly! Our exploits!" Pinkie gestured with a hoof. "How the valiant Mane Six defended Equestria time and time again! Because that's right, there are six Elements of Harmony! I've actually borrowed that heavy encyclopaedia from the Golden Oak to double-check... right before I put it to use as a stool. You know, I wonder how is that library so full. Didn't ponies realize books are so multi-purpose?"

"Mane... Six?" Lyra blinked, her ears filtering the nonsense before they could get to her vulnerable brain. "But you just said there's only five of you."

"Every pony would tell you the same," Pinkie nodded. "Except these letters and a few books. Then again, those are just papers. They certainly don't count as ponies, so yes; every pony would tell you the same."

"Master! You got out of prison because nopony could remember you," Snowy gasped and spun towards Lyra. "Could you be that missing member?"

"No. I had to be forgotten because I did something unforgivable," Lyra shook her head. Her voice also shook, a barely suppressed giggle hiding in her tone. "Pinkie... you're referring to Twilight Sparkle, aren't you? She is the one missing from your group. I made everypony forget about her... but Snowy can only wreck minds it seems. The letters, they remained intact."

"You may have lost yourself, but your mind sure stayed edgy," Pinkie made a congratulatory smirk. "Yeah, that's how I realized. Apparently I was the only one who had a funny feeling about these notes... well me and Celestia, it seems."

"Celestia!" Lyra recoiled with shock.

"I heard this from Luna, so it's probably true. The sunny princess suspects something's up, but she's very much in the dark," Pinkie explained, looking around as if she was worried she'd get eavesdropped. "She has the bigger half of these letters, you see. I think she understands she used to have somepony she trusted... trusted enough to trust her with an Element anyway. So if you see the Sun getting up late next morning, you can be sure: she spent another night wondering just what trick befell her."

"Haa... so the charges against me... they were all valid!" Lyra broke into a grin and wobbled. She finally threw herself forward and smacked her head into the floor, generating a small cloud of grime. "I'm a freaking monster, that's what I am..."

"You think I would help a monster? Especially if she zapped one of my friends and kinda' broke the rest?" Pinkie raised her eyebrows. Her question also snapped Lyra out of her stupor, the cyan unicorn giving the pink pony a terrified look. "What? We were the Mane Six. I mean, okay! I don't really remember Twilight now... but I must have had! At some point. Err... probably. Anyway, my point is - you're a miniature destroyer of worlds, yep! That might make you a little unsavoury to the untrained eyes. But!"

"But," Lyra covered her eyes with her hooves, going fully limp as she laid on the floor.

"But I got this inkling that we need to add a Lyra-sized pinch of a salt to this pastry," Pinkie brought her hoof down, pointing straight at the cringing pony lying in the dust. "Or else this muffin is going to wind up tasting all sorts of wrong. Then I would need to give up my chef-hat, and let me tell you: I'm really proud of that. Or well, I WILL BE once I find it. I wonder where it was left... I was so sure it was in that cupboard..."

That worry left Lyra all sorts of cold. She was, however, rather concerned by the other matter.

I have wrought so much chaos... all by myself, she says. And she still doesn't flip out at me. Does that mean... It was all to some end?

"You don't mind if I destroy the world," she spoke aloud, paying great care to not let her suspicion bleed into her tone. She also tried to give Pinkie a hard stare, but the swollen part of her face didn't really allow for such strict looks. "No, you're actually helping me to do so."

"Helping you! Hmm, hmm. I wonder," Pinkie sat down and stared back at the Lyra, her hoof pressed against her chin. "Sure, let's go along with that! You know, just for the sake of having fun. Let's say I'm helping you. Just why would I be doing that?"

"Because I'm your salt," Lyra threw the inane reasoning back to where it came from. "Because this giant muffin you're baking needs me, apparently."

"D'aaaw. Now you're making me sound so outrageous as if I was from some Shyamalan movie!" Pinkie cried out, snapping her hoof to her forehead as she struck an overly theatrical pose. "Just to let you know, that one hurt. With a capital H. Friends don't say such about each other!"

"Which brings us to the one hundred bit question," Lyra narrowed her eyes. "Are we friends, Pinkie? Or rather... were we?"

That question was straightforward; perhaps a little too much so. Pinkie snapped out of her overdone pose right away; she looked completely shocked, a first during their meeting in the cellar. Snowy was also confused, the windigo yanking her head left and right as she tried to look at both ponies at the same time. She didn't have much to observe. Lyra held still, waiting for an answer; and Pinkie only blinked in return, most likely wondering if she heard the question right.

The silence became palpable after only a little while. Only the noise of the inn filtered in from above, taking the form of faint murmurs and dull bangs - guests partying, tables being pulled aside, chairs being tossed.

"Master, I think we ought to-" Snowy gave in to the pressure.

"Surprised? You shouldn't be. You're not mad, Pinkie - you're simply shrewd," Lyra interrupted her windigo without the slightest care. "Too bad you're also honest. When you said I'm your salt, you really meant all of it, didn't you? An important ingredient. You tried to focus me on the important bit... but that's only one of the two words, isn't it? So are we friends? You don't befriend something you intend to bake with, after all. Having to part with all those precious ingredients would make for a rather tearful muffin."

Snowy's eyes shot wide at the explanation. She turned to Pinkie, very slowly and as hesitantly as if the pink pony became the sun that would melt her ice-ghost body away.

Pinkie did no such thing, however. She remained sitting and even seemed to calm a little. Her hoof returned to supporting her chin, and the corners of her mouth twirled into an easy-to-miss smile.

"Silly Lyra," she giggled, shaking her head as much as she could without removing her muzzle from her hoof. "Of course we were friends! Everypony is my friend, no exceptions."

"That's nonsense," Lyra scoffed. That statement reeked of being a cop-out and there was no way she could accept it. "You can't be friends with everypony! No-one can!"

"Well, maybe I'm spe-ci-al!" Pinkie doodled, almost signing the last word. "Just like you are! Oh- oh! I see where the problem is. You don't recall that right now. Teehee, I'm silly! Forgot that you forgot. Axiom!"

Axiom, Lyra savoured the word. She knew that name, she was sure of it. What was it? It wasn't a pony, no... it was-

She glanced up and saw her answer.

From the shadows of the ceiling appeared a huge spider. It wasn't dropping or falling; it was descending just fast enough to leave no doubt about its abilities. His brief stunt quickly got everypony's attention, all the eyes tracking him by the time his legs touched the floor. He seemed like a mighty imposing ghost, a huge black creature with yellow eyes that glowed like tiny flashlights. His many eyes looked around as he landed, surveying the floor like an experienced veteran would...

...then he began to throw an impromptu dance. Whatever tune he moved to, it was fast; no more than two of his legs touched the ground at any moment.

"Agh! Agh! What are ya' doin', ya' CRAZY PONY!" he shrieked at Pinkie. "Look at all this dust 'ere! This place is FILTHY! Why'd ya' even make me come down 'ere, eh?! The ceiling's at least clean, ya' bastard!"

Her ears dropping to horizontal, Lyra sighed with all the pain of a broken illusion. Yeah, that was definitely Axiom... a spider no less special than his master.

"Puh-lease!" Pinkie turned to her ghostly spider. "I've been waiting for hours in this mess. Surely you can tolerate a few minutes."

"Ya've got hooves, ya' bastard! All ya've got touchin' the dirt are them fancy horseshoes!" Axiom's complaints flew unabated. "All I've got are these joint legs! See what my legs end with, eh? HAIR, THAT'S WHAT! I'm literally sweepin' this floor 'ere! What's you gonna' do about that, eh?! Ah, wait - nufin! 'Cause yer' a fricken' pony who doesn't care, that's what's happenin' 'ere!"

"What a fitting duo," Snowy muttered as she observed the conversation. "I wonder how he kept silent up until now."

"I bet he hoped Pinkie would forget about him," Lyra made a bittersweet smile. It felt nice knowing that she could have wound up with a worse ghost than a useless windigo, after all.

"There's a mat upstairs. You can just wipe your feet there when you leave," Pinkie pointed at the ceiling, or rather: at the inn beyond. "And you better do so mister, because I do not want you carrying all this grime to my Sugarcube. Mrs Cake would have my head on a plate if that happened!"

"Master, do you believe ghosts can get dirty?" Snowy mumbled as she leaned closer to Lyra. "Because if so, then the state of this cellar begins to worry me as well..."

"Resist," Lyra cringed in response. "I know idiocy is strong with these two, but please resist the pull."

Snowy nodded heartily and proceeded to take countermeasures right away. She closed her eyes and plugged her hooves into her ears, becoming an image that further eroded Lyra's belief in intelligent life surrounding her.

"Yer' head on a plate! That'd be a bold menu," Axiom rubbed his head with one of his many feet. "But I kinda' doubt ya'd enough blood sugar to make that work. Then again, I've heard of some folks puttin' horse-heads into beds. Message delivery's a tough business."

"Wait, is that doubt I heard? Well, I'm letting you know right here and now: I fit any position just fine!" Pinkie stomped her hoof onto the ground, pushing some parchments and a lot of dust into the air. "Be it my neck, a plate or a bed, my head does brilliantly anywhere!"

Still cringing silently a few steps away, Lyra was reconsidering her opinion on simply plugging her ears with her hooves.

"Whatever ya' say, Boss! Anything that gets me outta' here on short order," Axiom capitulated by throwing four of his legs into the air. "So, what's ya' wanted me to do 'ere again?"

"Just do your magic," Pinkie pointed a hoof at Lyra.

"Aaaah, rite', rite'! Gotcha', Boss!" Axiom turned to Lyra as well, his eight legs shuffling around as he rotated. "So she's the one who wrote that horrid diary, eh? Sounds like one fun job. Ya' do know the risks, rite'?"

"Risks?" Lyra squinted, her ears perking back up right away. Come to think of it, I never saw Axiom in action before... I have no idea what he actually does. Or I simply made myself forget...

"Not ya'. Yer' gonna' be as safe as the christmas present ya' hid ten years ago and never found since," Axiom dismissed Lyra, his eight eyes turning to Pinkie instead. "I'm talkin' to da' Boss. Ya' do know that pullin' back an entire mind is dangerous, rite'? Ya' could go crazy."

"Ponies already call me crazy," Pinkie made a deranged face as she shrugged. "Wouldn't they be happy to be proven right?"

"I don't mean the happy kinda' crazy," Axiom sighed. Despite not having any facial muscles - or face - whatsoever, he was visibly put off by how his warnings fell onto deaf ears. "I mean the talkin'-to-yerself and sleepwalkin'-at-daytime kinda' crazy. Ya' know, the Jekyll and Hide kinda'."

"Wait! Wait," Lyra hastily interjected. "Let's not do this thing if it's so risky. There are other methods. Have to be!"

"Nah, I'll be fine. Just ignore the scarecrow! Or, eh, scarespider?" Pinkie waved a hoof aloofly. "Axiom, we've already discussed this, didn't we? You won't be getting treats if you keep skimping your work!"

"Pfffft! Boss, ya' know how I work! I can recall more conversations with ya' than how old ya' are! I just haven't the faintest which of them happened," Axiom rolled his eight eyes in perfect sync. He reached to the floor and picked the lone book up. He also held up two more of his arms, a quill and a blank parchment appearing in them. Then he held all three items in front of his eyes, looking really intent. "But, since this is what ya' really want... sure can do, Boss. Anythin' ya' want."

"Okay, just for the sake of my curiosity... what are you up to?" Lyra gulped as she watched the spider ready himself.

"Don't ya' worry 'bout me. I'm like yer' windigo," Axiom threw an answer without looking up from the book. "Well, more like an anti-windigo, kehehe. She's oblivion and I'm a poet! She erases memories; I write 'em."

With that singular answer, Lyra understood everything. Why she had to come to the inn, what Trixie was promising her, what Pinkie was planning... why she would agree to getting her own mind wiped.

A sleight of mind, huh...

"Fuhaha! You know, I had my doubts," Lyra laughed, feeling the weight of suspicion lift from her back. "But this - this is simply brilliant. I guess I'll owe you one! Or two, even!"

"Heh, well... will see if you want to thank me after we're done," Pinkie mused, turning serious all of a sudden. "Axiom is going to stuff everything back into your head, you know."

"Is... is that a bad thing? You make it sound like it's a bad thing," Lyra mumbled, each word carrying less and less confidence. She gave the pink pony a weak grin, hoping she just misunderstood something. "Not being amnesiac sure sounds promising to me... remembering yourself is good, right?"

"Nopony becomes a villain for no reason," Pinkie made a bittersweet grin. "I think you will want to be who you wanted to be when you were who wanted to be you right now. Still, I pinkie-promised I would do this... and so I will! Axiom, if you would..."

Lyra opened her mouth to protest, but the spider's quill struck his parchment first. The world around her burst into colours, sounds and noises; a vast sea of experiences, all wanting inside her head. It wasn't a pleasant feeling: the swirling chaos looked like a whirlpool of things.

Thoughts, emotions, experiences... values, morals, concepts, ideals.

All thrown into a mixer and coming out as some weird, psychedelic milkshake.

She lacked the words to describe that thing, but she was pretty sure that it frightened her.

Her opinion didn't matter much though. The pull of the whirlpool was much stronger than her, her resistance akin to a leaf trying to swim upstream. She was dragged by the colours before she knew better, and was fully submerged before she could as much as shriek. Oddly enough, she didn't hear the usual bubbling like when she was in water; all she could hear was rhythmic clanging and an odd whistle blowing in the distance.

Almost like a steam train...

---

- FOUR MONTHS EARLIER -

The window was cold. Not just the kind, 'oooh let's touch this thing because it's soothing' level of cold; but harsh, almost oppressively cold. Cold enough to flash-freeze one's tongue to the glass, should one be stupid enough to give it a lick.

It still wound up as Lyra's favourite spot.

It was a stupid decision, there was no denying that. It was, however, properly explained by an equally stupid decision: some pony believing that trains passing through cold regions should have their heating dialled up to eleven. There was little joy in the frozen landscape zooming by when she was about to fuse with the seat beneath her. She sought relief from that purgatorial atmosphere - and only found one in that glass-pane. She would have actually pushed more than her nose against it if it meant cooling down further - but rubbing her side against the window might have given the others ponies the wrong impression.

"Lyra," came a voice from her right. "You're being weird again."

There was no edge to that statement; to ordinary ears, it must have sounded like so many other sentences. We're out of milk. Ah, it's going to rain today. Lyra, you're being weird again.

To the ears of trained musician like her, however, it was plenty evident what that sentence was. It was an admonishment, sprinkled with hints of thinly veiled threats. She knew those inside-out already. She could spot them coming even before Bon-Bon would need to say them out loud.

Lyra, you're sleeping on the couch. In a different house.

"I'm not being weird," she protested anyway, not willing to give up outright. It was a daring decision; once Bon got to the point of being actively threatening, she had already made her mind up about the punishment. Still, one had to have a few principles to fight for! Cold windows for everypony! "It's hot in here."

"Uh-hum," Bon-Bon mumbled absent-mindedly. She barely paid Lyra any attention, her gaze focused on the small magazine in front of her. "Sure is. Now stop leaving nose-marks on the window and act like grown-ups do."

"I'm acting like a grown-up," Lyra whined. "I am a grown-up. I can't act any differently!"

"You look like a grown-up," Bon corrected her friend as she flipped a page.

"Forever young, I want to be!" Lyra pouted. There must have been some unevenness to the tracks as the train jumped; the sudden motion also bumping the passengers inside. Lyra in particular wound up with her entire face pressed against the window. The bitter coldness made the hairs on her back stand at first, but she was in no hurry to detach from the icy pleasure afterwards.

"Lyraaaaa," Bon moaned, her voice inching close to a growl. "Sit properly or you're staying at home. I didn't come all this way just to make you behave."

"Then stop treating me as a filly!" Lyra mumbled as she hopped back into her place proper. "Lyra, don't do this! Lyra, don't do that! Lyra, sit! Roll! Fetch!"

"You're just whining now," Bon sighed, raising her eyebrows as she ran across some curious article. "Could you get me a glass of water when you're done? It's hot in here."

"That's what I said ten seconds ago," Lyra snapped her ears to her neck as she fumed. "That's exactly what I said ten seconds ago!"

"See, you can be smart when you're not being a spoiled filly!" Bon congratulated in the most distracted fashion possible, not even removing her eyes from the magazine. "Water please."

She didn't need to ask a third time. A plastic bottle landed square on her nose, first knocking her teeth together and then doing a group meeting between her jaw, the magazine and the floor.

"Aww, sorry about that!" Lyra cooed. Quite unfittingly to her tone, her mouth was sporting the largest grin she was capable of doing. "I thought you'd catch it. I guess I didn't think an article could be really so interesting."

Hooves clenched on her nose, Bon-Bon gave her friend a sharp look. Whatever she was planning she didn't follow up though; she just sighed and relaxed her expression.

"Stones and glass houses, eh?" she rubbed her muzzle. "It's good to know you're not the kind who holds grudges."

"Because I'm such a nice pony?" Lyra beamed, cracking her own bottle open with her unicorn magic.

"More like because you have the attention span of a bumblebee," Bon-Bon giggled. She also popped her bottle open - by locking the bottle between her hooves and breaking the cap off using her teeth. Then she spat the cap out and ran her tongue down her molars, chasing that odd sensation. Plastic always tasted wrong. "We'll always be best friends... given I survive those critical thirty seconds."

"Hey! I would take offence to that if bumblebees weren't so adorable, hard-working members of society!" Lyra waved her bottle threateningly, spilling mineral water over the floor.

"Huh. You know, that's quite right," Bon-Bon cocked her head to the side and raised her eyebrows as she considered the new point of view. "Poor bumblebees. They gather honey all year and don't even get a vacation."

"I doubt they'd like the cold," Lyra sneaked a glance to the frozen landscape outside the window. "Bugs don't really do well in cold as I heard. They're a little bit too small or something. They kinda' freeze to death."

"Ouch. Well, be glad we're not bugs I suppose?" Bon-Bon grinned after she gulped from her bottle. "That reminds me! Read this list... carefully, all right? I don't want no funny accidents once we arrive to Blizzard Buff."

"Another bunch of safety stuff?" Lyra frowned as she yanked the blue-coloured paper from her friend. She only had to give it a quick look to make her eyes shoot wide though. "Bon, this list is long! And by long I mean L-O-N-G! Am I really supposed to keep all this stuff in mind?!"

"You better do, because I'll be sure to bother you about it," Bon threw a wink at the rather distraught friend. "And you better hope I do it well, because I'm a lot more forgiving than mother nature."

"You made me sleep in the attic once," Lyra wrinkled her eyebrows.

"Sure did, and you deserved every bit of it. But you know, I can promise that I will never break your neck with an avalanche," Bon-Bon made a rebuttal that caused Lyra to frown and cringe at the same time. "So get to reading! I'll just browse this magazine in the meantime. Did you know we can actually rent skiing equipment for twenty bits a day?"