Chapter 1 - Snow and Ice

A cold wind blew across Spike's face as he slowly woke up.

Did someone leave a window open? There's not usually a draft...

He opened his eyes, only to icicles dangling from the ceiling. He sat up and got out of his bed, taking a quick look around his room. White powder covered nearly every surface, and the floor crunched under his feet with the sound of snow. The window next to him was broken, shattered by some force from the outside, and broken shards of glass covered the snowy floor. He gulped as he slowly approached the door, the cold air causing him to shiver under his scaly skin.

His hand recoiled in shock the first time he touched the door handle. It felt like it was thirty degrees under zero. Taking a deep breath, he forced his hand to stay on it and pushed. The door took some effort to open, and it felt almost like he was pushing something heavy out of the way. As he walked through the door, he realized why: even in the castle's interior, snow covered the floor to at least a good foot high. He walked out into it, and instantly his legs felt freezing cold. He shuddered, but kept walking all the way to the door to Twilight's room.

As he opened the door, he gasped in horror. Twilight was certainly inside; she was sitting on a small couch, reading a book. The only problem was that she was frozen. He walked up to her and poked her; she felt rock-solid and cold to the touch. He gulped, trying to tug on her mane. He tugged and tugged, but nothing happened. She wouldn't wake up. He gave one final tug out of desperation, and a chunk of her mane broke loose. It fell to the ground, making a small imprint in the snow. He just looked at the frozen piece of purple hair, before slowly walking backwards out of the room and closing the door. He leaned against the wall and just stood there for a moment, taking deep breaths to try and calm himself down.

Minutes passed. He looked up and went bcak into the room. Trying his best not to look at the frozen unicorn, he walked up to her desk and found a piece of paper, a bottle of ink, and a quill. With a bit of dragonfire, he melted the frozen ink and dipped the quill in it, before beginning to write on the parchment.

Dear Princess Celestia...

Princess Luna stood in an ice-covered hallway, wearing a thick midnight-blue parka. She sighed as she looked at the letter that had appeared in front of her sister's bed, where she lay encased in ice. She reread it a second time, a third time. Each time, his description of Twilight Sparkle matched what had happened to her sister. She folded up the note, stuffed it into a pocket in the front of her parka, and slowly walked down the hall. Frozen guards stood at attention at even intervals, their armor still showing gold under the white powder.

She eventually made it to a small room, where a fire was burning. About a dozen ponies - servants, guards, and the royal librarian- were gathered around it, wearing Royal Guard winter uniforms borrowed from the barracks. She walked up behind them. "I've received word from Ponyville," she said. "They've been hit by the freeze as well. Twilight Sparkle is confirmed to be in the same state as my sister, or one similar. The only pony we know for certain has survived is not a pony at all: Spike the dragon."

Murmurs rose from around the campfire, before a guard stood up. "So, what do we do?" he said, rolling his neck and stretching his legs. "We can't wait here forever. Stonewall and I can look around the city for survivors while you guys figure out what caused this."

"No." Luna said. "Fire off a magic flare, but do not leave the castle. We have no way of knowing whether or not you would be able to make it to the city and back, let alone while leading a group of scared, likely panicking ponies. Stay here. I will go to the library and find out who -or what- caused this.

"Yes, ma'am." the stallion said before sitting back down and shaking his head. Luna merely sighed as she magicked her hood back over her head and stepped out of the room.

The walk from the spare guest room the impromptu camp had been set up in to the library was already long, but it was made significantly longer by the need to trudge through snow and ice on top of the marble floors. There was also the fact that in several corridors, the large stained-glass windows that lined the walls had been broken inward by some sort of force, spreading colored bits of glass that Luna had to be careful to avoid. With as high as Canterlot was in addition to the abnormally low temperatures, even a small cut could cool her blood to the point where she'd soon be fighting hypothermia.

Once she reached the library, she took a deep sigh and began walking. She walked past the public section, past the restricted section, past even the secret tomes that only she and her sister knew the existence and location of, and into a small tunnel. No snow had penetrated this deep; she was too far under the mountain. The temperature, as well, was a comfortable roughly sixty degrees, kept in check by a series of enchantments on the walls. Eventually, she reached a thick stone door, dimly lit by an eternal flame in the ceiling. She stuck her horn in a hole in the center of the door and thought a magic codeword; the door immediately began rumbling open. With a deep breath, she entered the Royal Archive of Anomalous Items.

The Archive was really more of just a large room with several dozen items placed on small pedestals and kept in position by a magic stasis field, which also blocked most of their anomalous properties. She passed by a series of strange artifacts before stopping in front of a scroll, held vertically in the field. She deactivated the field and picked up the scroll. At the same time, the seal on the front of the scroll began to glow a dull red. She gulped.

"'Tis as I feared..." she mumbled.

Spike sat in a small chair next to the castle fireplace, which had a roaring fire in it. He contemplated his next move as he slowly felt the warmth course through his body. He could go into the town, to try and see if anypony else had been as lucky as he had. But at the same time, he wasn't sure he wanted to see what had likely become of its residents. He could try send another letter; he'd sent the last one almost half an hour ago, and there hadn't been a response. Perhaps Celestia was.... no. He abandoned that line of thinking quickly, before it led him any further. Celestia was the Princess of the Sun. Surely she wouldn't...

His thoughts were interrupted by the loud pop of a long-range teleport. He jumped up and turned around, only to see Princess Luna standing there dressed in a dark-blue winter coat. "Spike." she said with a calm, even voice.

"Luna? What are you -"

"I recieved your letter. Celestia is in much the same condition as Twilight Sparkle. Her body is frozen, and yet her soul persists, trapped inside." Spike breathed a sigh of relief at Luna's words. "However, there is no way currently available to us that can save them."

"Oh..."

"I have determined the cause of this to be Wendigoes."

"Wendigoes? But weren't they-"

"Their 'defeat' was merely a delay. No amount of friendship and harmony could keep a demonic force like theirs locked away forever; it was only sheer luck that they were held back as long as they were. This was inevitable; it is merely the way of things that it happened right now."

"So, does that mean that what worked for the early Equestrians won't work for us?"

"Correct. But there may be another way. There are tales, ancient myths of a power located far away from here. More powerful than the my sister or I, the Elements of Harmony, or the forces of reality itself. It consists of seven scrolls, created by an ancient civilization thousands of years older than we Alicorns that destroyed itself through arcane experimentation. According to the legends, they radiate a certain type of power that tends to make them extremely valuable possessions of the most powerful nations on this planet. I know this because I have one here."

She took out the scroll, and immediately its seal began to glow much more brightly. Spike stared at it intently, his eyes focusing dead on it for several seconds before he snapped out of it. He made eye contact with Luna.

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked with a hint of a growl.

"Because, young Spike," Luna said with a somber look. "You are our only hope. They were made by ancient dragons, for ancient dragons, to fend off a much stronger Wendigo threat. They will only manifest in their true form to the eyes of a dragon; an old dragon friend of mine is the only reason we were able to find one."

"And?" Spike asked.

Luna sighed. "To activate, they require the blood of a dragon."

Author's Note:

This is my first story in damn near a year, so it's really bound to be not-great. At least at first.

As always, remember to like(or don't, if you didn't like it) and have a great day!

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