The Dark Origins of the Windigo

by Schattendrache

Dark Realisation

Lucky was hovering below the ceiling of the library with the translated diary in his hooves, re-reading the last entry. “Seems this frozen friend of yours really had an urge to make stupid decisions if you ask me,” he said loud enough that Deep would be able to clearly hear him. “I mean, he’s even more stupid then you when you are in full research mode.” He closed the diary and spun around in midair. “I am assuming you figured out something about that storm?”

Deep Analysis, however, didn't seem to be paying attention. His gaze was quickly going from page to page and hastily reading every section of the books and papers that were strewn across one of the desks. Occasionally, he would even run over to an adjacent desk and scrawl down borderline illegible words in is own journal, oblivious to everything else around him.

Lucky scrunched up his face in displeasure. “Full research mode it is then.” He angrily groaned before flying over to one of the bookshelves and pulling out a smaller book. “Good thing I know how to handle this.“ He then flew directly above his friend and carefully positioned the book over his head before shouting, “Incoming!” and letting go of the book.

The book collided with Deep Analisis’s head with a satisfying thwap. Unfortunately, Deep was too engaged to notice. Instead, he turned up to his friend with bloodshot eyes. “Translation, now!” The way the words were practically shouted made it sound like an angry demand.

“Oh, I’ll give it to you,” Lucky mumbled, “catch.” And with that, he let the translated diary fall towards his friend, adding a little bit of force to hopefully hit him.

The falling journal was quickly caught in a magical grasp and practically slammed onto the table containing the papers and books before Deep began to pour over the pages. After about a minute of this, Deep slowly stepped back from the table and unceremoniously fell back on his haunches, mumbling something under his breath as he did so.

Deep looked up to his friend, only to find that he had collected a stack of books and was ready to drop them on him.

“Lucky, you can be mad at me later, I think I figured out what happened. I also don't think the librarian would appreciate you damaging the books in here.” Deep's usual tone was gone, replaced by a far more distant and serious one.

“Urg… fine.” Lucky placed the books back on top of a bookshelf with a sigh. “So, what did you find out?`”

“The group, the entire expedition, the whole thing going wrong was Equestria's fault-”

“You don’t say!” Lucky interrupted him as he flew down. “That's what I’ve been saying all along!”

“No, you don't understand.” Deep turned back to the table and began to frantically shift through the mess of papers before finally finding the one he was looking for. “The supercell, I knew it was too important to not be recorded. The thing is, it wasn’t recorded by crystal ponies, it was recorded by regular ponies. Two-thousand-seven-hundred-and-five-years before Luna’s banishment, pegasi recorded a storm so powerful coming towards what would be Equestria that they feared it could possibly kill most of the ponies that wound up in its path. Pegasus were mobilized-”

“Pegasi,” Lucky corrected.

“Whatever, all of them, young and old, were conscripted to beat their wings as hard as they could towards the clouds. Since they could manipulate the weather, they figured this might end the storm or slow it down. Fortunately for them, it kept the storm from actually crossing into pre-Equestria, it sent the storm back to the Crystal Empire.”

“Something every unihorn would not have been able to do, or was it spikehead? Well, anyway, saving a whole country at the cost of a few ponies seems logical to me. Yes yes, I know, morality and such, but this happened, what was it, over two thousand years ago? And doing it helped potentially thousands of ponies survive. I think they did well with this storm redirecting thing.”

“That isn’t why I’m upset. I’m upset because of the cascade of problems that doing that caused.” Deep looked down and practically whispered the next words. “I have a good idea about how they all died.”

“Frozen to death I would assume? Or starved while buried under a ton of snow and ice?”

“Most likely, but in a way far worse than you could ever imagine. Remember how I told you about how the Spires change the nature of the weather around them? Hell, even the journal says it.”

“Soooo…?”

“The Spires made the storm even more powerful.” Deep grabbed a hold of an ancient-looking tome and thrust it at Lucky. “Read this.”

“You know you could just as well tell me what you want me to know?” Lucky said while catching the book. “Would spare us the next ten minutes of me reading through it.”

“It's the translated report journal from the commander of Grey Spire at the time of the storm. It details the storm coming back and him receiving a group of four ponies coming in from the capital, obviously our group. He then says they left two days after arriving, and on the same day, the Sires shifted the nature of the storm.”

“Oh, that is something different. In that case, this is quite a bit most interesting.” He opened the tome carefully and started reading. “I am curious about what the captain of the outpost had to say about the group, see if his impression of them matches what your frozen friend wrote. Also, I wonder why they stayed there for two days?” Lucky scratched his nose before continuing. “I mean, if it was so urgent to keep going, why waste any more time there? I don’t deny that our friend here has a habit of making bad decisions, judging by what they’ve done so far, but come on, that's something else.”

“You misunderstand, they arrived, spent the next day there, and left the next morning, all in line with what’s in the journal. And unfortunately for us, the captain never described the ponies, just them arriving and leaving.” Deep’s next words had a slight tint of venom in them. “And why are you so adamant that they were making bad decisions? From what I’m seeing, they were fairly good ones. And even if they were bad, I doubt you wouldn’t do the same thing in their position.”

“Well, first, I doubt princess Celestia would order such nonsense for no good reason, I mean sending ponies to die just for a bit of knowledge that could have waited until after the next storm season passed,” he hesitated for a second, “that is if she wouldn’t just send princess Twilight and her friends of course. But a far more important question is who sends earth ponies on such a task?” He rose his free hoof in defense, “I know what you wanna say, harmony and equal tribes and such, but look at this logically, you don’t send ground-bound ponies on such a mission for Celestia's sake! Or if you don’t want to have pegasi just fly over when the weather's calm, especially since some of us have fluff to help us stay warm, send unicorns. Ones with the skills to protect themselves, heat the ice into water or simply cast a shield to protect themselves from snowstorms.” Obviously, his pegasus temper had gone a bit wild at that moment, though, the logic in his words was true to him nonetheless.

“Oh yes, what a brilliant idea, sent a bunch of pegasi to an area of the Empire known to have the most unpredictable, uncontrollable weather. Weather that can kick up gale force winds so strong that even a dragon would be thrown around like a kite. And on the point of clear skies, did you even read the journal or listen to me? The Spire’s weather was only modeled with any accuracy fifty years ago. It’s not exactly like they could have waited it out for a day or two. The pony writing this was concerned, and rightly so, that the same opportunity might never come around again. And finally, yes, let's send a unicorn to an area where the mana flow is so unstable that it is capable of controlling the weather. That is bound to work out swimmingly, especially since every attempt by them had failed to that point.” Deep’s anger made his voice just as fierce as Lucky’s. The longer he talked the louder he became, to the point of actually shouting the last few words. Deep lifted a hoof to his temple before closing his eyes and angrily continuing, but at a normal volume. “Just read the book, I don't want to get into another of our arguments just now.”

The orange pegasi flew straight into Deep’s face, hovering there for a moment and looking him in the eyes. His facial expression was tense, Mirroring Deep’s. He flew closer. Inch by inch… and stuck a donut on Deep's horn before flying off to the ceiling again. “Alright, I’ll read the book!” he yelled laughing, “You fell victim to one of the classic blunders again!” He rose and shook a hoof at his friend, “Haha! You can’t use magic to punish me since you said you want me to read this book and not continue our argument!”

Deep just levitated the donut off of his horn and placed it on one of the chairs in the room, letting out a sigh.

Still reading the book, hovering belly up in the air, Lucky called down, “No food in the library, Deep, you really should know that. Tztztz!”

A small pop signaling a spell being cast resonated from beneath Lucky. Turning to look, Lucky saw that the donut he had placed on Deep’s horn had disappeared, likely teleported away.

“Much better, your self-control is increasing. Now, could you be quiet and let me read this?” In the following minutes, the pegasi hovered in the air and read the tome as he was told to, releasing just a little sound of surprise here and there.

“You know what?” Lucky asked, “I still have no clue about why this makes you so sad. So they rescued a country, and by doing so, maybe, just maybe, killed a few strangers in a distant land. I think I heard about such a scenario at University, it is called the butterfly effect.” He closed the book. “Such things happen, Deep.”

Deep just stared at Lucky in disbelief, with wide eyes and his mouth slightly agape. “Really? You really can't see why I would be upset about reading that the nature of the storm changed only a few hours after the group departed? How the storm went from an estimated one-hundred knots on the mountain to over one-hundred-fifty? You honestly are questioning why I would be a little bit emotional when I read that this group of ponies had to face a CONCENTRATED version of the storm? A storm that had already almost killed them when it was weaker?”

“Well, can we have it with the emotion already? Sheesh. You can call me cold-hearted, but this is not too different from all the heroes' stories you can find in this library, just the difference is the sacrifice here wasn’t intended. Still, their death was an accident, likely caused by some ponies saving a whole country.” He shrugged. “It is not like other ponies didn’t die during the centuries, Deep.”

“You aren't getting it. The last moments of their lives would have been pure agony. They were climbing up a mountain made of granite and ice, exposed to the winds, in the middle of a storm, with gear that barely served as protection due to how little they knew back then. What they went through in all likelihood puts Tartatus to shame when it comes to torture.”

“Urg, that's nasty. Though, you know my opinion about stupidity, it kills ponies.” Lucky flew down and sat on one of the free chairs around the desk. “In all seriousness, Deep, that’s why I was against the idea of sending earth ponies in the first place, not to mention their haste and lack of common sense.” He tapped his hoof on the desk. “Look, I know you have pitty for these ponies, but in the end, they are to blame for what happened. No one would blame a bugbear if it ate me if I went into its territory unprepared. Stupidity kills, Deep… even these poor ponies.”

“What other options did they have? The mages at Grey Spires predicted that the Spires would shift in three days. They had a ridiculously small window to attempt to cross the Spires. How is it their stupidity that the weather shifted the next day? It’s the Spires, the window could have been five days for all they knew.”

“Now it is my turn to ask if you really read that diary? They were in a rush from the start, if they wanted to cross the spires, fine, make preparations months in advance. Form a team, train them, and get ready for when the times come. From what he wrote, this was an expedition that should have taken a long time to plan and enact, but everything was planned and executed in under a day. If they really wanted to cross the Spires, no one would have prevented them from training and preparing for months, if not years. Real explorers would have been ready and waiting at all times, till the times came, Deep.” He crossed his forelegs. “That’s the difference between explorers and madstallions. I mean, if there was a threat or something, like they needed to find a magic artifact to help their city survive or so, that would at least justified their haste, heck, that could have even ended with this being one of those hero stories. But this here’ -he lifted the diary up- “this is just the story of a bunch of bold stallions blindly trotting to their death for no good reason.”

“Look you dense bag of feathers, he was in a rush because of love! He was desperate to be with his wife, he said so in the journal. He didn’t want to be stranded at Grey Spire for Celesia knows how long just to find a species that he had little if any interest in finding in the first place. He was distraught. Are you still going to say that he was being stupid and insult the very thing that saved this capital and what it stands for?”

“Let me see…” Lucky said and stood up, walking over to Deep. “You’re telling me he just risked his life, the life of his teammates, and, the whole operation, just to be back as his wife's side? He says that he’s concerned about not coming back, but at the same time, he’s pushing everyone to continue on and not to turn back?” He shook his head. “You know that seems quite stupid and inconsistent with his goal of getting back to his wife alive.”

Lucky then walked behind his friend. “Bag of feathers?” The moment Deep recognized the strange tone of the words, he was already being pulled up to the ceiling by his tail. “You are very lucky we are friends, Deep, not all pegasi would take this so well you know?”

“I would prefer it if you stop insulting the thing that my culture is based on. And if you are quite done, I would prefer it if you put me back down before you dislocate my tail you overgrown pidgeon.” Deep’s voice had some confidence behind it, but being suspended about a dozen meters off the ground was not somewhere he wanted to be, and it was coming through in his voice.

“So you’re telling me your culture is based on going back to your wife and having some good time under the sheets or in the clouds? I would never ever insult that!” A smile crawled onto his face, “And about letting you back down, sure, as you wish.” He forcefully flapped his wings twice before hanging his friend from the chandelier by his tail. “I think you know the way back down.”

Just then, the door to the library opened, and a crystal pegasus mare wearing thick glasses and carrying several sheets of paper under a wing walked in and began looking around the library for something.

“Hello, Deep Analisis? I heard that you were in here doing some research. I hope you don't mind, but I brought the next translation of the journal.”

“He’s over here,” Lucky loudly said, pointing at his friend hanging from the chandelier and futilely trying to bend far enough so that his front hooves could reach his tail.

“Oh, uh, does he need help? That doesn’t look very comfortable… or safe,” the mare said meekly, curling into herself slightly.

“Oh no, he is fine, he just called me,” Lucky’s voice lowered to a whisper, “a bag of feathers.”

“I’ll do it again you, you, you…” he trailed off, unable to think of another insult for pegasi.

“Uhm, that was not very nice of him, but I still think you should help him down. I am sure you two could talk this out,” she rubbed her foreleg together nervously, “peacefully?”

Lucky looked back at his friend. “Maybe, but it doesn’t seem like he is in the mood for a civilized conversation right now. Besides, as soon as he manages to free his tail, he will recognize it was a bad idea anyway. Also, he could just use his magic for this,” Lucky whispered once more.

“Got it!” Deep had managed to reach the chandelier and dislodge his tail from between the metal. Unfortunately, this left him suspended about fifteen meters in the air and without any spells to help him down. Upon realizing this, Deep turned to Lucky and glared. “Now that that's sorted, GET ME DOWN!”

“Sure, if you apologize for calling me a bag of feathers.”

“Fine, I’m sorry you have no capacity to handle mean words and need to resort to putting ponies in danger.”

Lucky only raised an eyebrow before giving the chandelier a weak kick, letting it swing back and forth a bit, causing Deep to grab onto it for dear life.

“I’ll… just leave you two be.” The translator quickly made her way out of the library, leaving the pegasus and unicorn to sort this out themselves.