Frosty Fates

by Storm Vector

Chapter 10

The distilled light filtering through the walls of the igloo woke Winter from her nightmares, as much as she didn't want it to. She could sense the snow building up outside, and even though it wasn’t nearly as bad as her nightmares, yet, she knew it was probably a matter of time until it became reality. Her headache and chest pain had returned and were growing steadily worse, making it hard to concentrate sufficiently to shift the ice and snow to unseal the tunnel. She gathered her saddlebag and squeezed her way through the tunnel, only to find that there was still a mound of snow blocking her exit. She pushed it out of the way and emerged, only to realize her igloo had been half-swallowed overnight. “I can’t believe this, I’m totally losing everything…” she whimpered, clutching her head in her hooves as she felt her aches flare. She felt like crawling back inside and just going to sleep forever, felt like she wasn’t worth anything else. It was painful to move, to breathe, and she knew every second longer she was around there was more and more snow threatening to choke the life from Equestria. Was she really worth being this big a threat to everypony?

“Climb…” she heard the voice on the wind, though she swore it was louder than it had ever been yesterday.

“Glad to know that hasn’t changed…” she muttered, using the sarcastic bite she’d picked up from hanging out with Vlyka and Midnight.

A meager breakfast and a few hours later, Winter found herself standing high up on the mountain's face. It had been an uneventful walk, there almost seemed to be a clear pathway winding around the entire structure as it rose to tear her snowstorm asunder. It had grown worse, snow beginning to pile up under her hooves as she kept trudging up the mountain. She heard the wind howling louder in her ears, only seeming to strengthen the hissing voice in her skull. For so long Winter had heard it as an extension of her youthful wrath, the fury she'd suppressed when her parents had demanded she rein in her powers. The pain she'd tried to hide after one of her silent tantrums in her room nearly destroyed the favored teddy bear she still kept close.

Winter paused and opened her saddlebag, sitting on a long rocky outcrop as she pulled out the old bear in question. She'd never named him, she never knew what she might have wanted to, what her grandma might have suggested. It was all Winter had of her left, the only thing she remembered about the elder mare, except for her conditionless love for the chilly filly.

Winter stroked the bear's cheek and smiled, remembering the faint images of her grandmother holding her, smiling, speaking so kindly to her... Winter's tears froze on the bear's nose as she set him down softly on the rock, too broken up inside to look at him anymore. Holding back sobs of regret, Winter stood and walked away, further up the mountainside.

Half a cycle around the mountain later, Winter was just finishing off crying over leaving her precious bear behind, far from her where it belonged like anything else. But as she cleared her eyes Winter glanced up just in time to spot the yawing abyss stretching out beyond her. The mountain was almost vertical here, no chance to climb the side or go around...but the path clearly extended on the other side. Looking around Winter noticed a pair of rotting wooden posts half-buried in her snowfall, a frail rope dangling off the side. "A bridge?" she asked aloud, pulling a portion of the rope up from the abyss. It was shoddy and disintegrated in her hoof, surely none of it had held any significant weight in quite some time.

“Centuries ago, your kind came here and climbed this mountain to become closer to the sky,” the voice whispered to her, before laughing aloud in a sinister tone that sent another shiver along her spine.

Winter gasped as she stared up at the air between the gap. She was shocked that it was suddenly so vocal, and silently prayed that something would finally materialize and show her what was causing this madness. But there was no such luck. "H...how do you know that?" she asked, trying to keep herself from shaking in the presence of this nightmare.

“Because I watched some of them fail. They were buried by the snow when it came, forgotten by others who followed their hoofsteps.” Winter gasped and raised her foreleg, looking down in the snow as though it would rise up and attack her. She shuddered and shook her head, trying desperately to tie the voice back to that childish rage she'd suppressed for so long. That voice spoke to every moment of anger, every time her parents had told off or snubbed her for her icy powers. But it was too foreign for her...too cruel. She could never have taken that kind of sickening glee in a pony suffering, not even when her parents had angered her to her breaking point, when that village had cursed her and her powers. Or...had she wanted them to suffer? Had she wanted it after all, was that voice there deep inside her all along, willing her to harm another pony?

Winter shook her head violently to get the thought out of her head, wanting to focus herself anywhere else. Thankfully there was something else she could focus on right now, a looming problem ahead of her: the gap. An answer formed in Winter's mind before she could stop herself, an elegant bridge of ice spanning the expanse. She was quickly working out the weight and angles needed to support it, her natural skill in mathematics figuring out the forces at work for her latest work of art. But just before she began to craft, just as she was about to blast her magic from her horn, she stopped herself. Something deep in her soul made her afraid, something about the ice pained her very essence. She'd been losing control of herself ever since she'd left Ponyville, ever since her ice and snow had ramped out of control into the chaos that surrounded her now.

"Maybe this is a bad idea..."Winter thought. "Maybe I shouldn't be using my magic for this. Maybe this is wrong, hurting me..."

But just as Winter took a step back to reconsider, a crushing weight settled in Winter's chest. It radiated pain like a fire pressed to her heart, causing her to cry out in pain as it flared up her neck and into her horn. As her head lowered, an icy burst formed around her horn, and blasted out of her, coating her in a dark shroud as it impacted the ground on the other side. She gasped as the power coursed through her body, burning like it had never done before, until the burst finally halted and the pain fell away almost instantly.

Winter's eyes opened as the pain subsided, withdrawing to that cold yet burning lump that had nestled right next to her heart. The weakened sense of relief from the pain didn't last long however, as her eyes opened and gifted her with the sight of an icy bridge. The structure seemed sound enough, certainly, but it was nothing like Winter had first envisioned. There was no artistry, no fine angles or support, not even the guardrails she had seen for both artistic and comforting herself as she dared to cross it. The artistry, or lack thereof, was crushing enough for Winter's sense of self as an artist, but beyond her personal pride the bridge terrified her. She felt so afraid it would simply collapse under its own weight, or the center would snap out from under her as she dared to step out to the weakest point. This wasn't something she would have made...it wasn't something she'd made. It had felt almost just like something had ripped her magic from her horn and thrown it down into this mess. Something had used her to make this...thing, and that made Winter shudder with disgust.

"What in Equestria is happening to me?" she whimpered, clenching her eyes shut as the pain in her chest grew stronger, the voice’s echoing command grew louder and louder in her ears. “Alright, alright, I’ll climb!” she yelled, “just make it stop hurting!” To her relief, the pain began to subside, giving Winter the faint strength to push aside her panic at the slow loss of control in her own life. She needed her energy for other crucial tasks right now...like not falling off a bridge.

Winter stepped up to her...the bridge spanning the gap, swallowing nervously as she looked at it. She tentatively placed a hoof on the edge of the ice, testing her natural grace and traction on the slippery substance she so easily crafted with her gifts. Even with the assurance she wouldn't slip on the bridge, she was hesitant to take the first step out onto the bridge. But it was either shimmy her way across or turn around and try to vanish into the woods...but she'd come this far already. What good would it be to turn away now?

Winter's hooves clicked along the ice as she walked, a slow and steady pace not quite fitting of the stress bound tight in her heart. But Winter knew that giving into her panic would only cause her to lose her hoofing and fell into the abyss, so she refused to look down even as she felt herself reach the midway point of the bridge. The stress wound itself down as she inched closer to the stone ahead of her, letting her breathe as her hoof touched the snow-covered mountain face. She glanced back across the bridge at her the hoofprints in the snow. She'd been pacing a little, the deep hoofprints she'd left still clearly visible despite their distance from her now. But there was no going back to the other side...

Winter turned and continued her climb, watching as the mountain peak grew closer and closer. Another turn around the mountain, and Winter found the end of the pathway at long last. The peak was still several feet up, but Winter found no way to climb further up, nor any desire to. For as she looked up at the rock face, she found a pair of eyes glaring down back at her.