4. What's This?
“And so there it lay, the secret of the Red Cloud,” said Snowy Night to the seven other gathered ponies as she regaled them of the time when she had first met Luna, during her first visit to Canterlot when she was still a filly, which had happened to coincide with the appearance of the Red Cloud of legend. The pegasus was quite animate, having stepped away from the table so that she could gesture with hoof and wing profusely. “The way in to the solid red mass that Princess Luna had found, and into which I followed, Luna unknowing, my father protesting but unable to stop me. And within we found…gremlins!”
“Gremlins?” Ditzy asked.
“Aye, gremlins,” Snowy said. She stomped one hoof on the ground, then slowly drew it up. Beneath it, ice and snow manifested and collected into a foot-tall miniature statue of a two-legged, two-armed, bat-winged creature with horns. “Foul denizens of Tartaros, generally dim of wit, but clever and aggressive. The Red Cloud was unnatural, ‘tis true, but the Princess and I had expected a creation of magic and a mad magician at its center. Instead we found a great balloon hoisting an infernal machine of clockwork design, tended to by the gremlins. The machine harvested the magic of pegasi and unicorns to perpetuate the Red Cloud. Were it not stopped, it would soon cloak the whole world in a night that would never end!
“Here the Princess at last noticed my presence, and it brings me no joy to say that at first I was naught but a distraction.” Snowy leapt forward, planting her hooves on the table. “The gremlins leapt forward! None were a match for Princess, but there were so many of them, and they had brought up foul magic from Tartaros to battle the alicorn, and turned the power of the infernal machine upon her. Mighty though Princess Luna be, even she could not stand against the stolen power of so many ponies focused into a single attack. The Princess was stunned and captured, that her magic might be fed to the infernal machine!”
“No!” Dinky cried out, though she leaned forward herself onto the table from where she sat, opposite Snowy. She almost slipped, but a quick bit of telekinesis from Lyra and hoof from Bon Bon steadied her. “What happened then?”
Snowy grinned, stepping back and putting a hoof to her chest as she closed her eyes. It was a pose that was almost Trixie-like. “I was naught but a pegasus filly, young Dinky, easily overlooked! The gremlins did not see me, so focused were they on their prize. But I did not know what to do at first. The infernal machine that sat at the center of the Red Cloud seemed impossible to reach, protected by too many gremlins. And with Princess Luna now feeding it, the cloud was growing in size beyond reason!”
Snowy spun in place, wings flapping and even taking to the air for a moment as she leapt over the table to beside Dinky. Through where she had flown a cloud of snowflakes remained, and Snowy Night kept beating her wings at it to keep the snow in the air, Ditzy and Raindrops joining in after a moment to aid her. “I was raised but a simple farmer,” Snowy said. “Rarely had I flown, never had I tried to use my pegasus magic. But Equestria needed me, and Princess Luna needed me! And so I crept back into the Red Cloud. From outside it had been impervious to pegasus magic, but I soon discovered that from inside, it was not nearly so robust!”
“Tough,” Cheerilee supplied at a confused glance from Dinky.
“Indeed not,” Snowy continued. “I worked quickly and in secret. I gathered the crimson-hued clouds together. I felt my magic at work for the first time as I compressed them, moved them, shaped them…and then…”
She leapt up, then slammed her hooves down onto the floor for emphasis. A foot-wide, uneven, thin layer of ice crept across the floor from where each of her hooves landed. “Bang!” Snowy exclaimed. “I called upon the mightiest bolt of lightning I could, and directed it at the infernal machine!”
“And blew it up?” Dinky asked.
Snowy grinned, then giggled and shook her head. “Not hardly. I did naught but cause it to sputter for a moment…but the moment was all that was needed for the Princess to escape the machine’s clutches.” Snowy sat back and waved one hoof. “Princess Luna made short work of the gremlins then. And good riddance! The magic of pegasi and unicorns was returned to the ponies of the land. The infernal machine’s wreckage was confiscated by the Princess, I know not its eventual fate.”
Raindrops shifted a little, pointedly ignoring that, in broad terms anyway, it sounded rather like the cloud-making machinery of the Cloudsdale Weather Factory…which she knew had been invented less than three hundred years ago. She really didn’t need more fuel for the stupid urban legend in some circles that pegasi sacrificed their foals to make the weather.
The chronologically, if perhaps not physically, older student of Luna pressed on. “Princess Luna was impressed with my efforts even as she scolded me righteously for getting involved in the first place, no less so than my father did. But then she offered my apprenticeship…” Snowy trailed off then, and looked down. “And…well, and then things went well for seven years after that. And then rather less well for the following three hundred and one.”
“Two hundred and one,” Trixie corrected. “You could have left Tartaros a century ago.”
All that Trixie got in return from that was a non-committal grunt. Snowy’s eyes widened a little when she noticed the ice layer she had created at her hooves, and she let out a long sigh as she rubbed her hooves over it like she had a rag and was scrubbing the floor. The ice seemed to retreat up and disappear into her body. The snow she had created, meanwhile, had since fallen from the air and melted, while her gremlin statue was being picked up by Carrot Top and looked over.
“You know, this is actually quite beautiful…” she said. “Well, I mean, not the gremlin itself, but the detail, anyway.” She set the gremlin on the table, and smiled warmly at Snowy Night. “Have you thought about what you want to do with yourself? You might be able to make a living as an ice sculptor. Especially in the summer…”
Carrot Top trailed off when she noticed a desperate cutting motion from Trixie, but it was too late. Snowy had started at the mention of the season, and looked morosely to the earth pony. “I fear I may fare no better than that bauble in the summer’s heat,” Snowy said, waving a hoof at the ice statue. She paused when she saw her motions created snowflakes, and watched them fall to the ground. She glanced once again to the Punch Bowl’s fireplace, the roaring fire in it that she was keeping as far away from as possible. She looked back to Carrot Top, and smiled a smile that was devoid of cheer. “It matters not. Ice and snow and…rime…were always beloved by me.” She chuckled mirthlessly. “Rime. I chose the name Rimewind, you know. It seemed…fitting.”
Raindrops blinked a few times, then did her best to suppress a growl. “Okay,” she said, putting both hooves on the table and looking at Snowy Night. The blue pegasus looked to her, eyes wide. “I’m just going to say it: you’re hiding something.”
“Raindrops!” Cheerilee exclaimed, as all the ponies turned to face the weather mare. “I know you’ve had a long day and can get a bit cranky, but – ”
“Nope,” Raindrops said, shaking her head slowly, her eyes never leaving Snowy’s, who had begun to wilt under her gaze. “Nope. Remember back on Tambelon when Trixie invoked her right to be suspicious of Bray? And how it turned out to be a good idea? I’m calling that right now.” She jabbed a hoof at Snowy, who flinched. “The first thing you did when you showed up to town is butt to the weather patrol. I don’t care how long you’ve been in Tartaros, there’s no way you’d forget something as basic as introducing yourself. And the whole night you’ve been evasive about certain things – your age, how you handle heat, the name Rimewind right now.”
“Gee, I wonder why Snowy wouldn’t want to talk about something she spent three hundred years in Tartaros for,” Lyra drolled, eyes narrowing as she looked at Raindrops. “C’mon – ”
“I said no,” Raindrops said in a low voice, stomping a hoof as lightly as she could while still being heavy enough to make her point. Everypony at the table jumped – except Snowy, Raindrops noted – and the table itself did as well, causing cocoa and wassail to spill slightly from several mugs. “It’s not just that she doesn’t want to talk about it. I can get that, okay? I have things I don’t want to talk about either.” She turned her gaze back to Snowy. “But that’s not it. It’s not just that you don’t want to talk about it. It’s that it keeps reminding you of something else.” She leaned across the table. “Not something you’re avoiding, something you’re hiding.”
The other ponies all looked between her and Snowy Night. Dinky scooted closer to her mother, who put a re-assuring wing over her daughter. All of Raindrops’ friends, in fact, were tensed up, on edge – looking like they were ready to act to try and restrain her if she attacked Snowy. Which suited Raindrops just fine, if she was wrong about all this and had just escalated a mare in mourning over her choices, then Raindrops would want to be held back.
But Snowy Night stared at Raindrops unblinkingly during her whole accusation. When Raindrops finished, she took in a deep breath, closing her eyes, and let it out slowly. “Truly,” Snowy said, “it be plain why Honesty claimed you, Ser Raindrops.”
The other ponies at the table, save Raindrops, all blinked at that before looking back to the other pegasus. “Snowy?” Trixie asked.
Snowy hadn’t opened her eyes, and was sitting with her head drooped down. Her wings spread slowly and gave a single, deliberate flap, scattering snowflakes around her. She did it a second time, then a third, each time spreading snow. “Look at me, Ser Trixie,” she said, eyes still closed. “I doubt I can survive beyond winter’s chill. Gelid blood oozes through my veins. The warmth of the hearth has become my mortal enemy. It would move me to tears…if I still had tears to shed.”
The pegasus opened her eyes to look at each of the others. “Think of it, ponies. To never again walk on a summer’s day with a hot wind in your face and another warm pony beside you. Oh yes…I will kill for that. Snowy Night ventured into the frozen northern realms. Snowy Night sought out the frore lords of the Windigo. Snowy Night bargained with them…but it was not Snowy Night who was carried thence on a winter’s gale back to Equestria.”
She leapt suddenly away from the table, towards the door. The other ponies reacted swiftly themselves, pulling away in the other direction, getting the table between themselves and her. The Punch Bowl’s other patrons and staff all turned to look, and the pegasus met their gaze a moment, before rearing back and stomping her hooves on the ground. Ice erupted from beneath her, spreading in a line that circled around the Elements before rising up suddenly, forming a wall that cut everypony else off from her and the Elements.
“I am Rimewind the Frigid – and my Fimbulwinter begins tonight!” she exclaimed, before waving a hoof casually and forming a wall of ice between the Elements and her.
---
There had been time to act, but no will – Trixie had been too surprised by the suddenness of the change that had overcome Snowy. One moment Snowy had been the cheerful, animate pegasus, and the next…
But there wasn’t time for that. As Snowy – Rimewind, Trixie appended, ignoring the pang of regret as she did – formed the wall of ice between her and everypony else, Trixie at last forced herself into motion. It was too late to stop Rimewind, but Trixie could at least grab the nearest pony, Carrot Top, and pull her closer to herself even as she moved up to Ditzy, who hugged Dinky close to her, while Lyra, Bon Bon, and Cheerilee likewise got up to Raindrops. Pegasus magic would keep them safe from any oncoming ice, to an extent, and they’d be able to help out the other five. At least, that was the theory.
But it turned out to be for nothing. The ice didn’t advance and no chill wind came to steal their strength – though the temperature had plummeted. Raindrops had wrapped her wings around Lyra and Cheerilee, but once nothing happened she slowly withdrew them and looked between the two. “I’m not gonna say it…” she said, “but you know what I’m thinking.”
Cheerilee was looking around at their icy prison with more than a little trepidation. “Fine. You win. We’re never going to trust anypony ever again,” she said, obviously fighting back memories of the Windigo they’d encountered less than a month ago. “Please tell me we’re not trapped…”
She was answered when Carrot Top raised a hind leg and bucked out at the wall. There was little resistance as she was able to kick through it, and from the other side other side the ponies “trapped” in the rest of the dining area were already kicking their way through themselves, as was Berry Punch and Fizzy Orange from the other wall. The ice had been only a little more than an inch thick, easy enough for anypony to break through.
“Must have been a distraction,” Trixie reasoned, before she suddenly found herself face-to-face with Berry Punch. She let out a yelp as she stumbled backwards.
“So, Trixie,” Berry Punch said, voice high and full of pleasantness. “I’m certain there is an excellent reason why a pony claiming to be Rimewind the Frigid, who you brought here, just tried to freeze us all.”
“Technically she’s not just claiming…” Bon Bon said, before putting a hoof to her mouth. Lyra turned to shoot her a seriously? look, to which Bon Bon couldn’t stop herself from laughing slightly. “I…I cannot shut up when I’m nervous,” she apologized.
Berry Punch took this in, then looked back to Trixie, waiting for an explanation. Trixie threw her hooves in the air. “I don’t know!” she exclaimed. “Luna pronounced her sane! That she was okay! She’s not supposed to be Rimewind anymore, she’s Snowy Night!”
“Wait,” a patron of the Punch Bowl said. “Rimewind? The old mare’s tale? The Windigo?”
Trixie blanched. “S-sort of, but it’s not like that, she was never actually a – ”
“There’s a Windigo in town?!” Several ponies exclaimed at once. A moment later, and there was a crush of ponies charging towards the door, or where the door lay behind a wall of ice. That wall proved no sturdier than the others, and in just a few moments the ponies had kicked through the ice and pulled open the door, rushing out into the chilly Ponyville night and to their loved ones.
Trixie only half-paid attention to them; she knew that trying to get through to them would be useless, and nopony seemed to be blaming her. Except Berry Punch, but she had gone over to her sister to make sure she was okay, giving Trixie time to think.
It didn’t make sense! Snowy Night had been completely reasonable…well, as reasonable as a pony coming off a three hundred year stint in Tartaros could be, anyway. She’d laughed, she’d made jokes, she’d told a story to Dinky Doo! She had drank hot cocoa…well, cocoa, anyway…and all in all made merry and seemed like she was having a perfectly good time! Yes, of course Snowy had been hiding a lot of deep pain, that had been obvious. How could she not be? But Trixie had thought that with time and companionship, she’d be able to help Snowy. Zut alors, she had thought that they were becoming, that they were, friends, even after what she’d said to everypony else before Snowy arrived about not really knowing her.
But now…
“Trixie!” The showmare jumped as her reverie was broken; she looked, and found herself looking at Carrot Top. “Elements,” Carrot Top continued, “we need them. Cheerilee sent Ditzy and Raindrops to my farm to get mine, it’ll be faster to fly than try and gallop there and back. I’m supposed to go with you to get theirs, then we all meet up at the Residency. Okay?”
Trixie nodded after a moment, trying to let herself slip into ‘hero mode’…and failing. Something just wasn’t right, but she couldn’t put a hoof on what. But she followed Carrot Top out into the snow and wind anyway as soon as the farmer was bundled up in her winter gear, even as she wondered what Rimewind the Frigid had in store for them.
She got her answer as soon as she stepped outside, and felt her jaw drop. Hers wasn’t the only one, at least, as she, her friends, and more than a dozen Ponyvillians stopped and stared just past the edge of their town proper, on the road leading south towards Bridleton. Through the still-falling snow, and illuminated by patches of moonlight, light from Ponyville, and its own eldritch blue glow, a great shadow was taking shape over roofs of Ponyville. Trixie could just barely make out a spiked wall surrounding a thick central tower, from which jutted over a dozen spires, making the whole thing look like some kind of frozen tree.
An ice palace.
“…so,” Cheerilee said at length, looking to Trixie. “Did you ever figure out how you melted the one in Canterlot?”
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Oh, it just occurred to me that I never posted what Snowy Night looks like, I don't think. Here you go!
images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/intermediary/f/9ec95e11-a7ac-47c1-af8d-a11c5e4d22d7/dcuum9p-cad797fa-f7f8-4b87-8fcc-52acc6bb6388.png
Rimewind looks a little different...I'm going to see if I can get art of her made.
Well, that was a quick update. Also things are certainly escalating quickly... like zero to full crazy in all in one chapter, though I'm imagine Trixie might be right that there's more than the obvious at play here.
Rewinding a bit, Snow certainly seems to have similar penchant for dramatic flair. Maybe a quick the mutually picked up from apprenticing to Luna, or perhaps more likely that the Princess has a habbit for selecting those types of personalities to train in the first place.
This surely must have been the flower trio... the horror, the horror.
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I was going to say that, the flower ponies certainly seem to enjoy their melodrama.
Mmm the Batman tas is strong in this chapter.
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Yay someone noticed!
And in the distance the sound of singing could be made out on the breeze
~Let it go, let it go!~
Well. That escalated quickly.
Fascinating setup, though that abrupt tonal shift has me wondering what's going on with Snowy. Looking forward to finding out.
Thank you for referencing best Mister Freeze.
Anyway, holy shit, she's gone nuts.
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I think Luna would have caught on if she was still extra crazy.
Mayhap she's just trying to force their hooves, to get the punishment she thinks she still deserves. Or just doesn't want to live thousands of years never having a chance to live a normal life. Or at least whatever passes for 'normal'.
Ooh, didn't notice there was a new chapter of this.
*some reading later*
Trixie really doesn't have luck with her pre-Ponyville friends and acquaintances, huh.
Seems to be an escalating thing with her.
First there's Amethyst, who just doesn't like her, then Galeb, who swears vengeance, and now... this.
"My Fimbulwinter begins now!"
Quick, Trixie, you've only got three years to stop her!
Oh, a new chapter!