Falling feathers and fading light
It's amazing how many things the ponies of Equestria got right in their history, while getting so many many things wrong. Take for example the name of Chancellor Puddinghead. That was nothing more than a slander by those horned cowards in the unicorn tribes. Don't get me wrong, Ironhoof wasn't the brightest pony out there, but it is kind of tasteless to slander your enemies like that. Trust me, I'd know something about taste. Where was I?
Ah yes, the many things history seems to have gotten wrong over the last millennia or two. I know you have so many questions to ask, but I'm afraid the paralytics won't be wearing off anytime soon. I might be a monster and all, but I'm not A monster if you get my meaning. I'd offer to step into the light, but I'm fairly certain you'd not appreciate my current condition. I guess you could say I am a little emaciated to put it mildly. The hunger is something I've learned to handle over the years, but don't worry I'll introduce myself in due time.
I've seen the so called "Hearth's Warming" play that you ponies put on every year. It is painfully inaccurate to be honest, but like the true nature of things your Princesses have hidden the darker parts. Tell me, Quartz, what do you know of the monsters of the past? Not much I'd presume. Yes, I am aware that you cannot answer my questions. They were little more than rhetorical anyhow. I measured out the toxins in your tea rather precisely if I may say so. You get plenty of practice after almost three thousand years of life, a good portion of that in service to the royal family.
I can see you trying to speak through the numbness coating your body, trying to force the sad little words out through lips that just won't respond. I do promise you this, trying to fight it will cause you pain unimaginable. Just accept lying on that frost covered table and let the cold take the pain away for a while. We'll finish our little chat before it wears off and you go on your merry way. Part of my instructions was not to harm you after all.
Monsters, that was the topic wasn't it. You've heard of Windigos, like every other red blooded Equestrian. What the histories don't tell you was their vast numbers were only the larger part of a family. Windigos fed on the hate and strife, cooling the world around them. It was also their method of breeding in a way. As the temperatures fell, ponies became more and more desperate, committing vile and disgusting acts on each other in a last grasp for power or survival. These days, ponies have largely forgotten that we are by nature an omnivorous species. Be it willfully forgetting our history or not teaching our foals properly, so few know it.
That is actually how the windigos forgotten bastard children came about. Those that died full of hate and wrath became windigos. The rare few that took the final few steps into the dark, became something much different. Please understand that I am trying to explain, not terrify you. I can hear your heart pounding away from this distance, beating into my ears with a delicious pulse. Sorry, poor word choice there. So the poor bastards that did what they needed to just to survive, most died in horrible agonizing ways. Ponies found out and killed them, burned them out of their homes to freeze, threatened their families, whatever their panic filled souls told them to do. Some struck out and died in a shower of gore only to be forgotten as a horrible creature in the mists of time. Few, oh so few, managed to survive the ravages of time. Every time I awoke there were fewer and fewer of us, till it was only me.
Yes, I can hear the song in your blood, flee or fly, fight or die. It is probably screaming in your ears, wailing in your mind. Again, I promise you peace for now. That burning in your limbs will only get worse the more you fight it. At least let me step into the light for you, so you can see what you fear so. Wendigo, with a 'we' not a 'wi,' is the name for what I am. I truthfully doubt there will be any more of my kind. Emaciated, starved, those are the words you are thinking now that you see me. Feathers askew, ribs protruding against my paper thin skin, let alone the balefire burning in my eyes. This is what happens when a pony becomes one of the damned. I had a name once. A family even. If you could believe it, I was even a scholar. No more, not for so long that their chewed bones are but ash in my mouth and my name is a curse on the wind.
I see you attempting to recoil, fighting the poison to get away from me. I don't blame you. At the time, I did everything I could to provide for my two foals as the world froze. Food became more and more scarce until there was none. We weren't afraid of freezing, that is peaceful in your sleep. Starving is agonizing. I did what I must for my family you see. One night I found our neighbors frozen in their house, no food to be found except bare scraps of half frozen meat in their icebox. Ironic really considering everything was freezing. So I fed it to my family to buy them another day, only for me to discover the scraps were little more than the flesh of a foal. The neighbors had eaten an orphan you see, the bones hidden in their fireplace.
I couldn't tell my family this, but continued to bring in meat as I could. I'd rather hate myself and have my children live you see. It just so happened I had a source of fresh chilled meat next door, until it ran out. Several days later my beloved wife passed in her sleep and we mourned. I buried her in the snow as the foals watched, yet they never questioned where dinner came from. We did what we had to survive and I damned myself to carry that weight for them. In the end, it didn't matter really. The roof of our home collapsed under the ice one night, a foot thick sheet of it landing on both of my foals and trapping me in a pitch dark room without escape.
The first week was agony, rocking myself next to them and wishing for death. The second week was hell, half starved, half mad. I don't even remember the third or forth, just that I was so cold and hungry. Just like I am now Quartz. You see, you may have been declared "not guilty" by the courts, but you were not by Celestia. She who brought me out of the ice. She who holds the key to my perpetual hell. SHE that is the only being that can kill me. The bitch that uses me as little more than a tool to protect her ponies.
To her, you are a predator that cannot be controlled, Quartz. Control is the iron that keeps Equestria together. Dissenters are quietly removed or replaced as they crop up, by her menagerie of demons. It keeps the illusion of peace for everypony. I understand you are afraid Quartz, please don't be. I am here because SHE willed it so. Your fear makes me hunger in ways you can only imagine, the sweet coppery taste of your warm blood bathing me. Your fear will make that happen Quartz. Be calm for a little longer and the pain will be gone when you sleep. It'll be the sleep of the dead but there will be no more pain for you.
Relax Quartz, breathe. It's almost over, feel the chill matching your pulse as it slows.
Thump...thump......thump..........thump.............
Rest well Quartz, you weren't the monster they said, but I certainly am. It's amazing how far someone will go to get a hot meal around here.
Author's Note
It's an idea I've been tooling around with for a while for the Petrichor verse. I want to have a darker, grittier version of Equestria. All the things Twilight goes through is canon, but they never see the shadows where Celestia keeps the tools to hold the peace.
Not sure on the execution though. Feels to close to The Cost of Harmony. Then again, same universe. *shrug*
Thoughts or comments?
