Cold Wind Blowing

by Rambling Writer

5 - Reading Between the Lines

Mistral stared at Desmoda and took another bite of her salad.

“-and as if that wasn’t enough, THEN her body slipped down the waterwheel and jammed the cogs, freezing all the traps!” Griselda said loudly.

Desmoda stared at Mistral and took another bite of her pasty.

“Oh, Celestia, that’s terrible!” Cassandra said loudly. She chuckled. Somehow, it wasn’t forced. “So why’s it so funny?”

Mistral stared at Desmoda and took another bite of her salad.

“Because it’s so terrible it swings all the way back around to wonderful and kind of amazing!” Griselda said loudly.

Desmoda stared at Mistral and took another bite of her pasty.

The pegasus and the batpony hadn’t said more than five words to each other at a time ever since Desmoda’s story. Once Thistledown had left, Mistral had found it harder and harder to distract herself, and eventually she found herself engaged in a sort of staring contest with Desmoda. They both blinked freely, but they rarely looked away from each other for more than a few seconds. With the awkward silence to rule all awkward silences looming, Griselda had taken it upon herself to fill that void and then some. Cassandra quickly caught on and tried to help.

Mistral stared at Desmoda and took another bite of her salad.

It wasn’t really working.

Desmoda stared at Mistral and took another bite of her pasty.

“So what happened next?” Cassandra said loudly.

Mistral stared at Desmoda and took another bite of her salad.

“Well,” Griselda said loudly, “with the traps gone kaput, I could fly down that one shaft with no problem-”

Desmoda stared at Mistral and took another bite of her air.

She blinked and looked down at her plate. Her pasty was finished. “I’m full,” she said. She promptly left the table and walked to a far corner of the room.

Mistral sighed and slouched, releasing a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “Stupid… little…” she muttered. She chugged down a cupful of water.

“Hey. Mistral,” said Griselda sternly. “Forget about it.”

“Forget- Forget about-” Mistral pointed a shaking hoof at Desmoda, who wasn’t doing much more than brooding in her corner. “I seriously think she wanted to hurt me and was just covering it up,” she growled. “You were right, she’s crazy.”

“See? Told you. But, really, drop it.”

Mistral faced Griselda, her mouth hanging open. “You- You pulled me aside to tell me she was psycho, and now you just- just- just want me to forget about it? Just like that?” She clicked her tongue. “Why did-”

“I told you to avoid her, not to make her the center of your life! You sho-”

“All I did was say I thought she was funny and she acts like she wants to murder me! And, no.” Mistral pointed at Griselda for emphasis. “Don’t say it was a joke. Even if she was joking, there was way too much schadenfreude in there.”

Griselda cocked her head and flicked her tail. “Too much what?”

“Fancy word for sadism.” Mistral sighed and banged her head against the table. “That- stupid- sunblasted-” She sat up and started breathing deeply. She could handle this. She could handle this. She had to. The storm was still going strong. If all she did was sulk and mope about Desmoda, it’d only be a matter of time before one of them caved in the head of the other.

Cassandra coughed. “I know I shouldn’t be listening in,” she said, not sounding very sorry, “but Mistral’s got a point. There’s jokes and then there’s…” She waved a hoof at Desmoda. “That. Earlier, she threatened to throw boiling water in my face when all I was doing was trying to make conversation. Not even with her, with Facet. It’s like she just wants to hurt ponies for shits and giggles.”

“See?” Mistral said, smirking at Griselda. “She agrees with me.”

“But that doesn’t mean you should keep thinking about it,” continued Cassandra. “Find something else to do. Listen to Griselda’s story, since I know you weren’t. There’re books in here, read them. Clean up the table to make it easy for Clarity. Heck, ask her if there’s anything you can do to help. I bet she’d love to have an extra set of hooves for once. Maybe she can be somepony to talk with once you know everypony else.”

“See?” Griselda said, smirking at Mistral. “She agrees with me.”

Cassandra sighed. “You two,” she muttered, “are just…” She shook her head and glanced over at the bar. “Can you put a hold on that story for a moment, Griselda? I need a drink.” She left them alone.

Mistral chewed on the last leaf of her salad and thought. It didn’t take very long for her to come to a conclusion: take Griselda’s and Cassandra’s advice and do something. Cassandra had even given some halfway-decent suggestions. Not ones Mistral was fond of, but she was a beggar, not a chooser, at the moment. Besides, every second she spent doing something inane, like tidying the table, was another second she wouldn’t spend waiting in boredom for the blizzard to abate. Tidying the table it was.

It was a familiar routine Mistral remember from numerous family get-togethers: scrape all the leftovers onto one plate, put all the plates in a stack with that food-receiving one on top, stick the silverware in a cup to keep it together, all that boring stuff. With only four people to actually clean up (Facet had taken her food to the bar and Griselda wasn’t done yet, still finishing up her meat), it went quickly. Thistledown had left behind quite a bit of her fruit salad when she left, so Mistral helped herself to a few grapes and a chunk of cantaloupe.

Griselda watched Mistral for a few moments as she wolfed down the last of her meat. When she was finally done, she stuck her plate on the bottom of Mistral’s stack and asked, “So? How’re you feeling?”

After a moment’s thought, Mistral settled on, “Better.” A distraction was a distraction, one way or another, and she hadn’t been stewing while she was cleaning. Plus, now that Desmoda was way over there, it might be easier to not start stewing again.

“See?” Griselda said, grinning. “What’d I tell you?” She looked around the room for a few moments. “Hey, did you see where Thistledown went?”

“Um…” Mistral tapped her head. “Upstairs, I think. Why?”

“I just wanna be sure she’s okay.” Griselda headed for the stairs. “She was looking even jumpier than usual during dinner.”

“She’ll be fine,” protested Mistral, following Griselda up. “She’s just a bit high-strung. You don’t need to worry about her.”

“Her high-strung-ness is why I’m worried about her.” Griselda looked over her shoulder as best she could in the narrow staircase and continued, “What if she has, like, a nervous breakdown or something? Do you really wanna be stuck in here with that?”

Ooo. Yeah. Mistral had always considered herself a “go with the flow” kind of mare, someone who could handle being snowed-in (even if she loathed a certain other occupant), and hadn’t really considered what it might be like for somepony like Thistledown who jumped at shadows.

“So I’m just gonna let her know I’m there if she needs me,” said Griselda. “Give her somebody to lean on, y’know?”

“Out of curiosity, are you doing it because of sympathy, or just to keep her not-panicky so it’s easier for you?”

“Ehm…” Griselda coughed. “Yes, I guess.” She reached the top of the stairs and stepped aside to let Mistral onto the landing. “It’s…” She rubbed the back of her neck. “It’s not a terrible thing to do, is it? Doing good things for selfish reasons? You’re still doing good, so-”

“Well, you won’t hear me complaining,” Mistral said with a shrug. “A good thing is a good thing. And the term’s ‘enlightened self-interest’.”

Griselda nodded. “Hmm. Good to know.” She turned to head down the hall to Thistledown’s room, then kept turning until she was facing Mistral again, looking slightly sheepish. “Ah… You wouldn’t happen to know which ro-”

“Last door on the left.”

“Thanks.” Griselda scampered down and knocked on Thistledown’s door. “Hey! Thistledown! You in there? It’s Griselda and Mistral!”

“Who?” Thistledown called from inside. “Oh, uh, sure! Come on in!”

Griselda looked at Mistral, jerked her head towards Thistledown’s room, and entered. Mistral snorted and reluctantly followed. She hadn’t come up here to talk with Thistledown, she’d come up here to keep talking with Griselda. But, well, she couldn’t really back out of it now, not without looking like a jerk on Desmoda’s scale.

Thistledown’s room looked more-or-less the same as Mistral’s, although she was on the corner, so she had two windows instead of just one, and she didn’t have any wallpaper. Outside, the blizzard kept battering away, strong as ever. No drafts, thankfully. Thistledown was standing in the back of the room, eyes closed and her horn glowing. With not much floor space left, thanks to Griselda’s additional presence, Mistral settled on Thistledown’s bed.

“Do you need anything?” Thistledown asked, not opening her eyes.

“Just wanted to check in,” said Griselda. “You doing okay? No psychotic breaks coming or anything?”

Thistledown chuckled. “Not any more than usual. No, for the moment, I, I’m fine, thanks.” She still didn’t open her eyes.

Mistral and Griselda exchanged looks. Mistral pointed at the side of her head and made a circling motion with her hoof. Griselda gave her a dirty look and cleared her throat. “So, if you’re fine, what are you doing?”

“Hmm?” Thistledown opened one eye. “Magic. What’s it look like I’m doing?”

Before Mistral could start ranting about the stupidity and vagueness of that answer, Griselda beat her to it. “I know you’re doing magic,” said Griselda, her voice a bit tense. “But I don’t know anything about magic, so I don’t know what kind of magic you’re doing. For all I know, you might be trying to make teacups dance.”

“It’s a kind of long-running spell,” Thistledown said, closing her eye again.“Basic magic detection. It helps with finding magical plants, and it didn’t take much tweaking to work with magic in general.”

“And just why are you trying to detect magic?” Mistral asked. She had a pretty good idea, but wanted to be sure. She wasn’t sure whether Thistledown was overreacting or not. On the one hoof, she still hadn’t yet seen anything that wasn’t just a coincidence or personalities clashing. But on the other, between the journal and Clarity’s (probable) lie, it was kind of hard to deny that something was up here.

“If I’m right and there’s weirdness ahoof,” said Thistledown, “I want to start doing something about it rather than sitting down and wringing my hooves.” For the first time, Mistral noticed her voice sounded a lot more confident than usual. “Step one is finding out if there’s any strange magic around here, hence the spell.” She pointed at her horn. “I won’t know what any magic’s doing, but I should be able to tell if there’s any up here in the first place. If the- Haaaang ooooon…”

“You feel something?” asked Mistral.

“I… I think so,” said Thistledown. “It’s kinda faint, though, so I don’t really know if it’s there or not. Maybe if I…” Her horn flared a little and its aura began wavering. Eyes still closed, she frowned. “Huh. That’s-”

She abruptly clapped a hoof to her chest and began retching. Her legs weakened and she started sinking to the floor as her legs weakened.

“Whoa!” Griselda was at her side in an instant, giving her something to lean on. “What’s up?”

“I…” Thistledown’s voice was shaking. “It’s…” Her eyes flew open, her pupils shrunk down to pinpricks. She clutched her head in her hooves and breathed deeply. Then she fell to the floor, screaming and thrashing.

---

With her hot chocolate gone, Facet was thinking.

A lot of ponies didn’t really get the Frozen North. To them, it was strange, uninhabitable, uncontrollable, the place windigoes lived and Celestia knows what other kinds of monsters. The Crystal Empire, to them, was an island of Equestrian facts and ideals, the one place things worked properly. (In fact, a lot of scholars believed that the Empire was an oasis of warmth because the snow was caused by roving windigo tribes, hence its wildness, while the friendship radiated by the Empire was enough to drive them away, preventing any non-pegasus snow from falling in it and keeping it more in line with Equestria proper.) Outside of that, almost anything could happen.

So what if Thistledown was paranoid about that in some way? Frightened that something was manipulating them? Say, windigoes. Facet didn’t think windigoes could manipulate emotions in any way, but the only things she knew about windigoes were, A, they were responsible for driving the original tribes out from… whatever land they lived in (why couldn’t she remember the name?), B, they fed off negative emotions like fear and hate, and, C, sightings of them were very rare outside of quick glimpses. No windigo had ever been captured for study. It wasn’t unthinkable that-

“So, how’s my best frenemy?”

Facet almost punched Cassandra’s teeth out right then and there. She slowly turned to Cassandra, who grinning cluelessly. “What,” whispered Facet. “Do you. Want?”

“I’ve been thinking,” said Cassandra. She pointed at Facet. “You. Crystal pony. Can tweak emotions.” She gestured to the rest of the room. “Everypony else. Emotions running high.” Her grin vanished and her voice became completely serious. “Do you think you could maybe get everypony else to, I don’t know, turn it down a notch? Make them less likely to want to strangle each other?”

Although she immediately knew what Cassandra was getting at, Facet doubted Cassandra truly knew what she was asking for. “Everypony?”

“I said that, didn’t I?”

Facet stared at Cassandra. “You’re clueless.”

“So clue me in,” Cassandra said with a shrug. “Why can’t you? If things heat up a lot more, somepony’s probably going to get hurt, so if you can cool them off a little, that’d be great.”

“Do you… really think… I can manipulate the emotions of an entire group of ponies at once?”

“Do you think I’d ask you if I did know?”

Facet rolled her eyes, but had to admit that Cassandra had a point. “No,” she said, “I can’t. Too many ponies.”

“Ah,” Cassandra said. She sounded disappointed, but not very. “Bummer. Kinda hoping… Ah, well. But what about just, say, Desmoda?”

That nagging thought came back to Facet: had her earlier manipulation had any after-effects on Desmoda? She was still kind of leaning towards “no”, but it was still impossible to say for certain. She decided to play it safe. “Right now? Probably not,” she said. “Too angry. Any calmness’d just get pushed aside.”

“Ah,” Cassandra said. She sounded a little more disappointed. “Double bummer. But, maybe, if-”

An ear-splitting scream rent the air from upstairs. Everypony in the room jumped and looked up. “The heck…?” Cassandra asked.

“Ignore it,” muttered Facet, fully aware of just how much wishful thinking was involved in that. “It’ll stop eventually.”

For several seconds, it didn’t. In her corner, Desmoda flattened her ears with her hooves and groaned. Then it slowly wound down until Facet couldn’t hear anything, even if she strained. She sighed in relief, but Cassandra wasn’t satisfied. “What do you think that was about?” Cassandra asked.

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Facet said. “It-”

“Hey! Does anyone know anything about first aid?!” Griselda yelled from the stairs. She came down slowly, supporting Thistledown. The latter was staring off into space and shaking.

Cassandra was up in an instant. “What happened?” she asked. “What did she do?”

“I don’t know! Gimme some space!” Still supporting Thistledown, Griselda shoved aside the dinner table and chairs, leaving a patch of empty floor. She slowly settled Thistledown on the ground. “We were upstairs, in her room,” she said breathlessly, “and she was analyzing the magic here, and suddenly she just started screaming!”

Mistral scrambled down the stairs, breathing deeply and her mane in a tussle. “Checked her bags,” she said quickly. “No seizure medicine or anything.”

“Crap crap crap,” muttered Griselda. She placed a talon in front of Thistledown’s mouth. “Okay. Hyperventilating. What does that mean?” She gripped her headfeathers in her talons and rocked back and forth slightly, her breathing loud. “WhatdoIdo whatdoIdo whatdoIdo…”

Desmoda cleared her throat. “I know some first aid,” she said disinterestedly.

“Yeah?” Griselda asked hopefully. “What is it?”

Desmoda smirked. “Don’t move the patient.”

Griselda blinked rapidly, then screamed, “I didn’t know! Those rooms are tight and she needed space! If you’re not going to offer anything useful then shut the fuck up!” She turned to Clarity, who was restocking something behind the bar and hadn’t so much as glanced up. “Don’t you know anything?”

“Hmm?” Clarity looked vaguely in Thistledown’s direction. “Oh, sorry. Sh-she doesn’t have anything I can help. Who kn-knows what she has?” She shrugged. “Can’t do anything.”

“Some help you are!”

All the while, Facet was chewing her lip. She had no idea what was up. For all she knew, trying to magically calm Thistledown would just make everything worse. But she’d be lying if she said she wanted Thistledown to stay like this. And if she could do something… She walked over to Thistledown, sitting opposite Griselda. “I think I can try something,” she said. “Don’t disturb me.”

Griselda opened her beak, then snapped it shut, nodded, and moved away.

Thistledown’s eyes were open but unfocused. Facet looked into them and awkwardly patted Thistledown’s still-shaking fetlock with what little bedside manner she could muster. Trying to push out as much calm and serenity as she could, she said, “Okay, listen. Can you hear me? Everything’s going to be okay. It’s-”

“No, it’s not!” screamed Thistledown, making Facet fall back. Her eyes suddenly came back into focus and she stared at Facet, wheezing. “It’s not gonna be okay!” she gasped. “I felt it! I felt it!”

“What?” Griselda asked. “Whatisit? What’dyoufeel?”

“It’s- There’s-” Thistledown started pacing. “Look, I, I don’t know what there is! It’s, I can feel-” She smashed her head against the wall once, twice. “I don’t know what I can feel! But it’s, it’s bad. It’s really fucking bad!”

“If you can’t tell us, keep quiet,” snapped Desmoda. She didn’t sound very invested. “I don’t want to listen to you whine.”

Everyone else ignored her. “What is it?” asked Cassandra. “You’re not-”

“I told you, I don’t know! It’s- It’s like-” Thistledown made tiny choking sounds. “I can’t even think about it without wanting to puke, it’s…” She paced faster, whimpering quietly.

Facet’s heart began racing as she exchanged looks with Griselda, Mistral, and Cassandra. She had no idea what Thistledown had done; “analyzing the magic” was incredibly vague, and she didn’t have an inkling as to how unicorn magic worked anyway. She didn’t even know if her own magic had been of any help. But her gut told her that Thistledown had hit on… something. That this wasn’t just some “I’m scared!” reaction.

“Will you shut her up?” bellowed Desmoda. “Go upstairs or something, I don’t want to listen to a whiny little pansy!”

“You shut up!” Griselda bellowed back.

For half a moment, Facet seriously considered trying to shut the two of them down with her magic, but before she could, Clarity spoke up. “D-Desmoda is right, you know. That screaming w-will get annoying soon-”

“It’s annoying now,” said Desmoda.

“-so could you k-kill the panic? Y-you don’t need to worry.”

Facet (and, she noticed, Mistral) stared at Clarity. She’d expect an innkeeper to have a little more sympathy for her customers, even it really wasn’t anything to worry about. Unless-

Thistledown wasn’t listening to Clarity. “We need to leave,” she muttered, derailing Facet’s train of thought. “We need to leave RIGHT NOW! If, if we don’t-”

Desmoda stomped out of her corner and shoved her muzzle into Thistledown’s. “I’m warning you,” she snarled, “if you s-”

“You don’t get it!” shrieked Thistledown, shoving Desmoda away. “We’re all gonna-”

Desmoda jumped, hurled Thistledown to the floor, lunged. She sank her fangs into Thistledown’s neck.

And ripped.

Thistledown’s breathing turned to a wet rattle. She fruitlessly pressed her hooves to her throat. The blood kept flowing. With every gasp she took, she got a little quieter.

After a few moments, she was silent.

Desmoda casually spat out the chunk of flesh in her mouth and licked the blood from her lips. She looked around the room, at everyone staring at her. She shrugged. “What? I had to stop her screaming.”

Comments

[Dlaf rferg]

Oh god.

[Thought Prism]

Take note people. This is how you write a horror story.

[CommanderBigMac]

sudden escalation

[shaithis1]

Nice Clue movie reference at the end.

[LeylaQuartz]

Oh. No.

[FOXTrot2]

“It’s a kind of long-running spell,” Thistledown said, closing her eye again.“Basic magic detection. It helps with finding magical plants, and it didn’t take much tweaking to work with magic in general.”

Yeah she knows what's up.

“I…” Thistledown’s voice was shaking. “It’s…” Her eyes flew open, her pupils shrunk down to pinpricks. She clutched her head in her hooves and breathed deeply. Then she fell to the floor, screaming and thrashing.

And this is when you know it's a Rambling Writer story.

Desmoda casually spat out the chunk of flesh in her mouth and licked the blood from her lips. She looked around the room, at everyone staring at her. She shrugged. “What? I had to stop her screaming.”

Holy fucking shit.