Chapters It felt odd to fly without moving my wings. As I flew from Canterlot to Ponyville in a carriage beside Princess Celestia I kept stretching my wings, just to make sure they were still there. It got to the point where the princess asked me to stop.
“There is no need to be anxious” she said, she misunderstood my emotions. “Twilight and her friends are wonderful, and I'm sure they will make you feel welcome”
“Whether I feel welcome or not does not matter” I replied coldly “my assessment of your kingdom’s harmony shall not be affected by their welcome”
Then Celestia looked anxious, and the rest of the trip passed in silence until one of the Pegasi pulling our carriage announced our imminent arrival.
As we got closer I looked at the ponies going about their business in the village, many were looking up at our carriage as we approached, but those who didn’t appeared happy, harmonic. That was a good sign.
I addressed the princess “I shall disguise myself until you have assured the townsfolk that there is nothing to fear”
“Is that really necessary?”
“If I am forced to freeze them the situation will only devolve into disaster”
We were descending; I turned myself into snowflakes before the ponies on the ground could see the passengers of the carriage.
We landed softly on the road leading into the village, a small crowd of ponies had gathered around our landing zone, including an Alicorn, the fourth princess, Twilight Sparkle, Alicorn of Magic.
The fourth princess was purple, with a star mark on her flank; she smiled as she bowed to Celestia.
“Greetings princess,” she looked up “In your letter you said you would be bringing an important visitor with you, where are they?”
“Oh he’s hiding” Celestia smiled “I'm sure he’d come out if there were less ponies watching, could we speak in your castle Twilight? Your friends should come too; you will all be needed for this mission.”
The purple princess led the way, followed by Celestia and five other ponies. None of them noticed the small cloud of snowflakes swirling around their hooves.
The magic castle was small compared to the castles in Canterlot and the crystal empire; it was made of crystal and shaped like a tree, with a large star at the top.
We went through a large set of doors into the main hall; Celestia immediately began explaining the situation.
“With me is an important visitor, a representative of another kingdom.” She began “I need you and your friends Twilight, to give our guest a tour of Equestria.”
“No offence to our ‘Visitor’” said a blue Pegasus with a rainbow lightning bolt on her flank “but do they really need a Princess and five other ponies just to show them around?”
“Of course they do Rainbow!” exclaimed a white unicorn with gems on her flank. “They are obviously terribly important and we must show them the respect they deserve.”
“But why us?” asked an orange Earth pony with apples on her flank “isn’t there somepony whose job it is to foalsit fancy ponies?”
“Applejack!” cried the white unicorn “don’t be disrespectful!”
“You are giving the tour my little ponies,” Celestia interrupted “because this will not just be a tour of Equestria, is will be a tour of Equestria’s harmony.”
“Oh blah blah blah harmony this and harmony that. You ponies could use some chaos to make your lives interesting” I could not see the speaker, but I could guess who he was.
The carpet the ponies were standing on slid out from under their feet, it floated into the air and rolled itself up. Then it unrolled, and there stood the killer of Destiny, the Nightmare leader, the last Draconequus, Discord.
I sprang into action. The snowflakes that had been my disguise swirled towards the lord of chaos, the cloud grew quickly as it enveloped him, I froze him solid, then materialised in my true form in front of him.
Some of the ponies behind me screamed.
“Fear not” I exclaimed “he is frozen, he cannot harm you”
The ponies began yelling incoherently behind me.
“Who in the hay are you?!” one of the ponies asked.
A yellow Pegasus with a butterfly mark ran to the frozen master of evil yelling “Discord!”
An odd reaction.
“Unfreeze Discord, Zephyr” said Celestia sternly.
Say what?
I turned towards the Princess of the sun “Why in the name of harmony would I do that?”
“So you don’t kill yourself” she responded “Discord is reformed”
She was right, I realised. Keeping the most powerful being on the planet frozen was draining my life force quickly, and the master of disharmony didn’t seem to be emitting any disharmony for me to feed on, which was certainly odd.
I took the princess’ advice and allowed Discord to slowly thaw; meanwhile Celestia was calming the ponies. “This is Zephyr” she explained “He is a Windigo, he feeds off of negative emotions, disharmony. You will be giving him a tour of Equestria, he wants to see how wonderfully harmonious our ponies are.”
“Your princess borders on deceit” I said “I am here to search for disharmony, if there is enough to sustain a great storm then I shall bring the rest of my tribe to burry your lands in snow and ice.”
The orange pony rolled her eyes, quite rudely. “Why in Equestria would we give you a tour then?”
“Because, rude one, your princess wants you to show me how good your kingdom can be, so I may be persuaded to spare it.”
The mocking voice of the Puppeteer rang out from behind me “Well you won’t be able to take the tour looking like that”
I turned to face discord, his head had thawed, and he had acquired a monocle. “The transparency is so last millennium, and where are your hind legs? You can’t travel across Equestria looking like you are dressed for nightmare night.
“He’s right Zephyr” Celestia said before I could reply “you will need to blend in if you are to speak to ponies without incident”
“Why would I need to speak to them?”
“So you can ask them questions, questions that might reveal the harmony, or disharmony, they are feeling.”
It sounded reasonable, which was galling. I never liked taking on the form of these creatures, they were heavy, and clumsy, and opaque.
But I did it anyway.
I took on the form of a white Pegasus stallion with long blue hair and an obscure mark. I still looked far from normal, but at least I was the same species as those who I would be conversing with.
“Fine then, let’s get this tour started”
Apparently Celestia had already started planning out the details of my inspection. “You will begin by spending a couple of days in Ponyville.” She began “then you will travel to Appleoosa, a small town in the south, then northwest to Manehatten, then west to Canterlot, north to Cloudsdale, and finally north to the crystal empire, where your tour will end.”
“Those are not the only settlements in your empire” I objected “I must see every possible hideout of disharmony!”
“It would take a very long time to visit every settlement in Equestria” the sun princess reasoned “The towns I have chosen each represent the different types of settlements in Equestria, there are small villages and big cities, rich towns and poor towns, places where all three types of ponies live together and places where there are a lot more ponies of one type.”
Once again, the princess sounded very reasonable, but surely she should not be allowed to influence her own kingdom’s inspection? I realised I didn’t really have a choice, the only settlement in Equestria that existed before the nightmare war was the crystal empire, I couldn’t even name another settlement that should be added to the route.
“Alright, let us begin.”
I woke up grumpy; the remainder of the previous day had been spent arranging my accommodations. I was staying in a cottage outside of Ponyville, with the shy yellow Pegasus. Apparently she had some experience sharing her home with odd guests, including discord, who had not been happy about the arrangements.
I hadn’t slept very well, there were no snowbanks around, so I had to sleep in a bed, which was uncomfortably warm.
And the rude orange pony had just woken me up by shouting from outside the cottage.
“Hurry up Fluttershy! The others are waiting!”
The shy pony came into my room.
“Um excuse me Mr. Windigo Sir” she said extremely quietly “we should probably begin the tour of Ponyville soon, if you’re ready.”
“Yes quiet one, I am ready” I grumbled as I got out of bed. We left the cottage and traveled into Ponyville. We crossed a bridge and began walking down the main street of Ponyville, ponies waved to the yellow Pegasus as we passed. She waved back at them and told me their names, as if I cared. As we neared the center of town I could see the other four ponies and the princess from yesterday loitering on the steps of a large building, smiling insincerely.
The ponies did not seem to understand the reason for the tour, though we had gone over it extensively the previous day.
“And over there is sugar cube corner, that’s where I live!” yelled the pink one.
“I hate to interrupt” I said impatiently “but this is supposed to be a tour of harmony, I don’t need to see all of the sweet shops in town.”
“But you are seeing harmony” said the princess “You have seen how the three types of ponies live together happily, have you seen any disharmony in Ponyville at all?”
“There were still small towns in the north until a few weeks ago; you ponies always pretend to like each other, until disaster strikes. Crises show your true colours.”
“Ponyville is like, the crisis capital of Equestria!” said the annoying blue Pegasus “we have a disaster every week!”
“Is that so” I said skeptically “What happened last week?”
“Some guy named Tirek came and tried to take over the kingdom!”
I was not expecting that. First I find out that Alicorns still exist, now Tirek is back from the dead, what next?
I try not to show my surprise. “And I suppose your town fell into anarchy when that happened.”
“On the contrary” said the purple princess “We find that by working together, and staying calm, we can overcome anything.”
If the ponies in the north had done that we wouldn’t have been able to bury them in ice. If these ponies really did stay harmonic in a disaster then maybe they would pass the inspection.
I must have looked impressed, because the ponies shared looks of surprise, and glee.
I scowled “let us continue the tour.”
The rest of the day passed uneventfully, we visited most of the town as well as the apple farm outside of it. Then we went back to the large building in the center of town that the ponies explained was the town hall. As we neared the building I saw the princess whispering to the yellow Pegasus.
“Ok” she said, then to me: “are you ready to go home?”
I was, and we began to walk down the road towards the cottage, when I looked back I could see the ponies huddled up, talking to each other excitedly.
They were planning something.
I woke up the next day with a bunny on my face. It was an angry bunny, I had been introduced to it yesterday, I could not remember its name but I remembered that it was an extreme misnomer.
The bunny tapped its foot on by forehead.
I got up, throwing the bunny to the floor in the process. It made angry yapping noises, then went downstairs.
I followed from a safe distance, and found the shy pony waiting for me near the door. She looked nervous.
“My friends want us to meet them at sweet apple acres” she said quickly “Granny Smith has invited the whole town to help with the harvest, there will be free cider for all who participate, it will be a wonderful display of harmony in Ponyville.”
She sounded like she was reading a script. But it didn’t really matter. Rehearsed or not, this would gather all of the ponies in one place, and I wouldn’t need to hear or see them act disharmoniously, I could sense their emotions.
The foolish pony was right; this would be a wonderful opportunity.
A few minutes later we were walking down the road towards the apple farm, there were lots of ponies from the town on their way there as well, and they smiled and said hello as we walked.
When we neared the farm I could see scores of ponies working, some knocked the apples of the tree, others carted the apples off to the cider makers or storage, and still others made the cider. I followed the shy pony as she walked up to the rude orange pony and her green grandmother.
“Howdy y’all!” said the old one “I hope yer ready for a good ol fashioned applebuck!”
I wasn’t about to let them stick to the script.
“Do you do this every year?” I asked quickly
“Nope!” said the green pony “Twilight’s magical showdown with Tirek had some weird side effects! All the apples just keep regrow’in on the trees as soon as we pick em!”
I could see that she was right, the apples just kept growing. I wondered if the old pony or her loud grandkid understood the supply and demand issues that this might cause them.
The loud pony in question was trying to get back to the script.
“Gee granny, look at how well everypony is work’in together!” she said, somewhat haltingly “everypony’s hav’in a good time!”
Scripted or not she appeared to be right, all of the ponies seemed happy, and I couldn’t sense any disharmony at all. Even when one of the storage barrels accidently fell on a red Pegasus mare, she was not angry, and the storage ponies were very apologetic.
“Yep, said the orange pony, looks like everyth’ins go’in fine!”
It was the way she said it that tipped me off, she practically shouted the sentence, and she was looking at the trees on the west end of the farm expectantly.
And there, as if on cue (which they probably were), was a pack of Timberwolves.
They ran out of the western trees, howling. The ponies on the farm immediately began running about and screaming, but I could sense no fear from them, it was all an act.
The white unicorn from the day before pretended to trip, and then began to wail as the fake Timberwolves neared her.
Predictably, the orange pony beside me sprang to her rescue, and other ponies across the farm followed suit, soon the Timberwolves were routed, and the ponies were cheering.
“Wow, did you see that? Said the shy pony beside me, we hadn’t moved at all. “Applejack and the others were so brave and selfless.”
She sounded uncertain, and I remembered Celestia telling me that that orange pony represented the spirit of honesty, ironic, under the circumstances.
And for some strange reason, I found that really funny. I began to laugh aloud, immediately I was the center of attention, every pony on the farm looked at me uncomfortably. I decided to call them on their trickery.
“Oh well done!” I laughed “such realistic looking Timberwolves! Were those the princess’ doing? I see she is missing.” I became suddenly serious “do you really think that I am a fool princess? Come out and answer me!”
As expected, the princess walked out of the trees to the west, followed by the pink one and a Zebra, all of them looked sheepish.
“You waste my time princess.” I said coldly “and you waste the time of all of these ponies, crying wolf.”
The princess stopped looking at me, and instead began looking over my shoulder; I noticed that many of the ponies were doing the same. I turned, and saw a cloud of drakes flying towards us.
That was just insulting.
“Really princess? Your first plan failed just a few minutes ago and already you are trying again?”
But the princess was not listening to me, she was shouting at everypony to stay calm, it was almost convincing. The drakes arrived, miniature dragons the size of ponies, they began setting fire to the trees.
They were really running with this one.
I noticed that the ponies around me were radiating legitimate fear, perhaps they had not been informed of the trick? To make it more authentic? The drakes began attacking the ponies, and once again there were fake acts of heroism. I saw ponies in the north; they would never put others before themselves. This was just another trick, a backup plan, in case the Timberwolves failed, which they did.
Some of the ponies were injured; red liquid flowed from some of them. Surely the princess would not go this far?
I saw the princess fall down with a drake clawing her wings, and then I felt pain in my leg, I looked down, and saw a drake frozen by my silver blood. I decided that trickery or not, it had gotten out of control.
I froze the drakes, and found that the ponies around me were radiating enough disharmony for me to keep them frozen as order returned to the farm.
I waited at the farm until a group of royal guards came to transport the drakes to a holding cell on the west coast. Then I went back to the cottage with the shy pony and fell asleep, the energy expenditure had exhausted me. I was woken in the middle of the night by the sound of hooves thumping up the stairs, I sat up and watched the purple princess and her affiliates file into the room.
“We came to apologise, and ask that you spare the rest of the townsponies, they were only following us, it was our fault.”
I was tired and annoyed “apology accepted, goodnight.”
The princess looked up as I settled down and closed my eyes.
“Aren’t you going to freeze us?”
“No, I'm going to sleep.”
“But we caused a disaster!”
“The effects of the attack have been taken into consideration for the inspection, and I would hardly say it was your fault.”
“Some ponies said they had thought the dragons were just another fake attack.”
“Well then it is partly your fault” I said, tiredly “what would you like me to do about it?”
A new pony spoke up, the white unicorn “we deceived you, is that not disharmonic”
I snorted “your act fooled no one, all of the harmony and disharmony that came to light today shall be taken into consideration, I may be back to freeze you later, but not now.”
The ponies spoke quietly to each other, then left. The shy pony was the last to leave, as she stepped out the door she whispered “thank you”
Thank you for what? Thank you for freezing the drakes? For not freezing the ponies?
I hope the town to the south is more disharmonic, I am losing much more power than I had expected.
We arrived in the small southern town around noon, it was horrible. I had thought the other parts of the country were uncomfortably hot, but this town almost made me melt, which would have been awkward.
We were greeted at the train station by a loud yellow earth pony stallion, who appeared to be related to the loud orange earth pony mare. Maybe loudness ran in the family.
“Howdy y’all!” he said, loudly “welcome to AAAAAAPPLEOOSA!”
His very first sentence to us, and already I found him annoying. He began chattering incessantly, so I tuned him out and looked at the town.
It appeared to be even smaller than the last town, and unbearably dry and hot. Surely the ponies living here would be unhappy?
But I could not sense anything, and all the ponies looked happy. They were probably used to the weather.
Which was unfortunate, I grew even weaker in the heat; I hoped the next town had disharmony.
At that point my thoughts were interrupted by a rumbling sound, the ground began to shake and everypony began running off to the south.
“Quickly y’all!” shouted the annoying stallion “we don’t wanna miss ‘em”
Apparently the ponies did not want to ‘miss em’, because they ran so fast I had to fly to keep up, I needed to practise being on the ground.
We crested a ridge and saw an apple orchard below us, there were ponies as well as buffalo waiting amongst the trees, looking east down a dirt path. There was a cloud of dust racing along the path towards us, at first I thought it was a sandstorm, but as it got closer I saw that the dust was being kicked up by yet more ponies and buffalo running full tilt towards the orchard.
I watched as the stampede thundered through the trees, shaking apples onto the ground that were quickly picked up by the townsfolk who had been waiting there.
“hoo-ee!” shouted the loud pony, annoyingly. “aint it somthin’?!”
“But why are there buffalo harvestin’ apples?” asked the orange pony.
“and why are there ponies running with the buffalo?” asked the blue Pegasus.
“well first some buffalo came sayin’ they wanted to try their hoof at makin’ pies” explained the loud pony “then some of the fillies wanted to run with the buffalo, and before you know it we’re all mixed up and closer than ever!”
I had never seen two separate species living together on this scale, it was interesting.
“Y’all arrived just in time too!” continued the stallion “tomorrow we’re havin’ a feast to celebrate all our cooperation!”
Creatures often hate those that are different; the feast would be a good time for me to see if they actually liked each other.
The feast was a massive event, a line of tables stretched down the main street of the settlement, loaded with vegetarian delicacies.
There were all kinds of salads, flower sandwiches and more sugary treats than I could name, and of course everything had apples in it.
All of the ponies and buffalo came and sat around the table, in no particular arrangement, with the buffalo chief and the pony lawmaker at the head of the table.
The leaders had apparently written a speech.
“Today we celebrate the coexistence of our two tribes” began the buffalo.
“And the mergin’ of our two cultures” continued the pony.
“Let us toast to our continued cooperation”
“And our continued integration”
It was short, but it was well delivered, and the crowd clapped politely. Then music and singing began on the salon deck and everyone began to eat.
The singing and festivities continued uninterrupted for about an hour, most of the participants had finished eating and were chatting to each when the music gave way to someone tapping the microphone. I looked up to see Twilight’s pink friend smiling widely. I wasn’t really paying attention when she gave her speech, but I was unable to ignore her when she started singing. The song had something to do with sharing, but I was too busy trying to block out the horrible noise to hear the lyrics.
The crowd’s reaction was immediate, their smiles disappeared and I could sense anger from many of them.
The song went on for a minute or two, and the anger grew as it went.
I do not laugh often, the mocking laughter of the other day was rare, but when the pink one stopped singing and the entire crowd glared at her I began to chuckle.
And suddenly they were not glaring at her but staring at me, and as I laughed their anger faded, some of the young ponies laughed with me and soon the whole crowd was laughing and the pink one was being congratulated for her ‘comedic performance’.
It was interesting, the effects of laughter on disharmony.
The next morning, while my guides were eating their morning meal, I told them about the disharmony.
“The other towns had virtually no disharmony” when I began speaking the ponies listened intently “except when something bad happened. But this one is different, the ponies here are often unhappy, even when there is nothing obvious to be unhappy about.”
Twilight and her friends looked surprised, the quiet mare looked sad.
“The other towns were good” I continued “but this one… this one could almost certainly sustain a great storm, all by itself”
Then Twilight’s group looked slightly alarmed, they traded wide eyed glances, but the quiet mare was not alarmed.
She looked determined, and I sensed some anger in her.
“And everypony has a different problem, it would be impossible to solve all of them”
“No” said the quiet mare, not very quietly “nothing is impossible”
“You are welcome to try solving all of these problems” I said with a cynical laugh “but I don’t believe it can be done”
“Let’s make a bet, shall we? If I solve all these problems you promise not to freeze this town, or any town.”
I shook my head “My job is to punish disharmony; I don’t care how these problems are solved, by ice or otherwise. If there is no more disharmony, I would not even be able to freeze the town.”
The pony was still mad, she stood from the table they were eating at, and headed out of the building, the rest of us followed her.
“Who has a problem?” she said as she stepped out onto the sidewalk.
It was not hard to find somepony, a few feet to our left there was an old mare begging for change.
I pointed at the old one “she is angry”
The determined looking mare walked over to the beggar “why are you angry” she demanded, as if it wasn’t obvious.
The beggar looked at the mare for a second, then said “these ponies, they ignore me, they refuse to even acknowledge my existence, much less give me aid”
“I have acknowledged you, and here, take these bits, now be happy.”
The mare was naïve if she thought a few bits was enough to help this beggar in any meaningful way, but the old one smiled anyway, and her anger faded. She was probably happy that someone seemed to care.
The mare turned back to me “who’s next?”
I pointed to a young couple behind her, they were arguing.
The mare walked up to the couple and started to talk, I don’t know what she said but the ponies soon lost their anger, and began to laugh. I doubt she solved their problem, but she did solve their disharmony, for a while anyway.
The mare returned to me, and I directed her to another pony, we went on like this on the same street for a while, until nopony on the street was disharmonic, and everypony was staring at us.
Then we moved on to the next street, and some of the ponies we had helped followed us, intrigued.
We continued this for hours, going up and down countless streets and gathering a massive crowd of onlookers, it got to the point where ponies would forget about their disharmony and go to see what all the fuss was about, without us even having to raise a hoof.
And then we came to a large pile of rubble, there were worker ponies clearing it out.
I pointed to the one who was obviously the overseer, “he is angry”
The mare walked up to him, and asked what was wrong.
“We just demolished this building” said the worker “we are behind schedule and we need to clear this rubble by the end of the day, but there is not enough time, it’s impossible.”
“nothing is impossible” said the mare, and she began to help them clear away the rubble
For a minute or two the entire crowd just watched them work, and then Twilight and her friends stepped forward and helped as well.
And then the beggar mare pushed her way to the front of the crowd and began helping as well.
And soon the entire crowd was pitching in to get the job done, and it was over within hours.
And as the streetlights came on the determined mare walked up to me and said “who’s next”
And there was only one disharmony left, a small one, buried deep down. I had only been able to detect it when all of the other disharmonies in the area were dispersed.
“There is a mare, with hate in her heart.”
“Where?”
I put my hoof on the determined mare’s chest “there”
And an odd expression came over the mares face, sadness and anger and regret. And she led us west towards the setting sun. We walked for around half an hour and got onto a street where the tall buildings were replaced by houses; the mare walked up the steps of one of these houses and knocked on the door.
The door was answered by a pink mare with a purple mane and buttons on her flank, and as soon as she saw the determined mare she became hateful too.
They talked at the door for a while, then the pink mare allowed the determined mare to step inside and they talked in there for a while, and then they both stepped back outside and said a few final things before parting.
And as the determined mare walked back towards me I saw that she was crying, and I sensed both ponies still had all of their hate.
I guess I was right, it is impossible to solve every problem, without ice.
The next day we left the mare at the train station, she still felt hate and I found myself almost hoping I would not have to freeze her later.
It was just a short trip west and up a mountain to Canterlot, we arrived at the train station and were immediately escorted to the castle by royal guards.
On the way I sensed a lot of disharmony. It was mostly jealousy, everypony wanted what somepony else had, and every single pony seemed to be effected by this desire, and those who weren’t were the ones who already had more than anypony else, and they were effected by greed.
The worst town yet, and right under the twin princesses noses too.
We entered the castle and went straight to the great hall, where Celestia was waiting on her throne, Luna was nowhere in sight.
“Hello Zephyr, welcome to Canterlot” the princess greeted me informally and happily, like we were friends. “Twilight tells me in her letters that the kingdom is doing well on the inspection”
“It was” I said “until I got here. Your capital is absolutely rife with disharmony, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those ponies out there are hiding greyness under makeup.”
This seemed to have an effect on Twilight and her friends, perhaps they have seen corrupted ponies before.
The sun princess did not seem bothered though.
“Oh surely you exaggerate, the ponies of Canterlot can be a bit, snobby, at times, but they are goodhearted, just like everypony else in this kingdom”
I think she expected me to argue, but I did not need to. It did not matter what the princess thought, she did not command the storm.
We left the castle and walked the streets of Canterlot; nothing had changed in the few minutes we were away.
I suppose Canterlot could have been helped, like the last town had been helped, if somepony wanted to go around solving problems.
But that wasn’t my job, yet, and my escort seemed depressed after we left the determined mare behind.
The pony who would best be able to help was the sun princess, and she seemed blind to the faults of her kingdom.
I guess sometimes we only see what we want to see.
We spent a few more days in Canterlot, walking the streets and seeing nothing new, before we moved on.
The next town was on a cloud, so three of Twilight’s friends would not be able to accompany us. They had planned to use a spell that allowed them to walk on clouds, but I stopped them, I didn’t want to attract attention. For that reason I asked Twilight to go with her non-Pegasi friends, they would take the train to the crystal empire, and meet up with us when we got there.
So the blue Pegasus, the shy Pegasus, and I flew northwest and up until we reached the town on the cloud.
It was a very infrastructure heavy town, the weather factories took up most of the space, and various sports facilities and administrative buildings took up the rest, the blue Pegasus informed me that the pegasi houses were actually on smaller clouds all around the town. As we flew around I sensed very little disharmony, the worst places seemed to be the sporting facilities, where jealousy and anger and cruelty were all present in some form, usually minor.
As we flew past a large building with a lightning bolt on a flag out front we were hailed by an orange Pegasus dressed in some kind of military uniform.
“Rainbow Dash! We need to talk.”
“Oh, hey Spitfire, can it wait? I'm on an important mission for the princess”
“That’s what we need to talk about, come with me” the orange pony glared at me as she said this.
The blue Pegasus gave me an apologetic look and followed the orange pony into the building. As the shy Pegasus watched them leave I changed into snowflakes and followed them. As the door of the building closed I heard the shy one calling my name.
The orange pony led the blue one into a side room.
“I understand you are escorting a Windigo around Equestria?”
“Yep, his name’s Zephyr”
“You know windigos can be very dangerous, right?”
“Zephyr says he only freezes disharmonic ponies”
“And you trust him?”
“The princess trusts him, so I do too”
The orange pony grimaced at that.
“Dash, as the commander of the Wonderbolts I am responsible for the kingdom’s security, and monsters that can freeze ponies solid are a threat to the kingdom’s security”
“He’s not a monster”
The orange pony was getting annoyed, I could tell
“The point is I need to know what his weaknesses are, and I need you to help us capture him”
The orange pony was foolish, you cannot trap the wind, and you cannot trap a Windigo.
“Why? He hasn’t done anything”
“But he could do something at any moment! He is an evil creature and as a member of the Wonderbolts reserves it is your duty to help us defeat him.”
“He’s not evil, and he doesn’t need to be defeated”
The blue pony stood and walked towards the door.
“Don’t you walk out that door Dash! I’ll have you court marshalled”
The door closed behind the blue pony, and she walked back outside to find the yellow pony panicking.
“Zephyr disappeared!”
I let them fly around a bit before rematerializing behind them
“I have seen all that I need to; we shall fly to the crystal empire now”
So we flew off north east.
I thought about the conversation I had heard, the blue pony was the element of loyalty, if I remembered correctly.
Disobeying a commanding officer is not very loyal.
But I suppose she had conflicting loyalties over that issue.
We left the southern town early the next morning; we had a long train ride ahead of us.
On the train, the ponies seemed much more relaxed than last time; they chatted amongst themselves and even tried to talk to me once or twice.
“It’s your own fault you know” the princess said quietly to me after I had politely rebuffed the pink ones attempts to have a conversation about cake “they look at you differently know”
“All I did was laugh”
“It was enough”
“I do not care how they look at me”
“You will”
I doubted it, I could not be friendly to these ponies, I may need to freeze them later.
We were passing through the next town long before we got to the train station, it was very big. The buildings stretched across miles, without any walls to keep them contained, and they reached to the sky, the tallest ones went up until I had to crane my neck to see the tops.
And ponies, there were thousands, all the races, everywhere, all looking very busy, all in a hurry.
And many of them were unhappy, or disharmonic.
There was a blue haired earth pony mare with a hat mark waiting at the train station; she was quiet, like the yellow Pegasus. I decided I liked her, but didn’t bother to remember her name.
We walked with the quiet mare from the train station to a large building that seemed indistinguishable from the other buildings; apparently our accommodations were in there.
Then we began the tour.
As I had noted previously, everypony was always rushing around, and whereas in the previous towns ponies had smiled or waved to each other as they passed, the ponies of this town seemed to ignore everyone around them. I came to the conclusion that these ponies did not know each other, it seemed that the more ponies there were the more alone the ponies were.
And many of them were disharmonic.
It was mostly anger, but all of the elements were represented.
The obviously wealthy ponies were followed by an entourage of jealousy, venders on the streets positively reeked of deceit, and there were acts of violence committed in the alleys.
Acts of hate, of cruelty, and around these acts there were auras of cowardice, and despair.
And I couldn’t freeze them, that would cause a panic, and that would have only made things worse.
And my escort could not see through the shadows of the alley, could not sense the disharmony all around them, they were oblivious.
So the tour continued for hours, and by the end of it I was convinced the kingdom was doomed.
After an hour of flying we reached the crystal empire, we found them in the middle of preparations for a celebration.
“They are holding a special crystal fair” explained the purple princess when we met up with her in the crystal castle “in honour of the dignitary from the Windigo kingdom”
I snorted, this had begun as a scouting mission, and now I was a dignitary.
But I didn’t need to scout the crystal empire, I had been here before, and it had impeccable harmony.
And so I wandered around, and talked to ponies.
The crystal ponies seemed surprised that the foreign dignitary would talk to them, and they were also scared of the Windigo, a creature their stories taught them was evil.
But they quickly got over their fear, and talked with me about all manner of things, from the fair to the weather.
At some point I realised that I had accidently dropped the Pegasus disguise I had been wearing for weeks now, and that nopony had said anything, or been scared.
Twilight approached me after a while, asking if I would tell her about windigos, because the ponies apparently knew very little about windigos.
So I told her of the Reverum, our collective memory, the ability of all windigos to see the memories of dead windigos. I told her of the way disharmony felt, like warmth in the cold, and the way actual warmth felt, uncomfortable. I told her of SnapFrost, the ability to instantly freeze and kill a pony, and that any Windigo capable of SnapFrost was considered an elder. And I told her how we are created, when there is enough disharmony for a great storm, a vortex created by the elders that seeks out disharmony, and snapfreezes anypony in its path, when innocent ponies are snapfrozen, their souls become windigos.
And after I had told her all of this, she left. And I waited until the crystal heart started the rainbow aurora before I too left.
And as I flew away from the ponies I hoped the rest of the elders would agree with me, there was a lot of disharmony in that kingdom, but there was even more harmony.
