There was a cracking noise, and the purple blur fell away to be replaced by a black blur, which grew and grew.

“Away with you!” a deep voice growled.

The ground shook, and then wobbled. Rainbow, Scootaloo, and Amber swayed, their vision still murky.

“It’s Sombra!” exclaimed Rainbow Dash.

They crawled their way towards each other, appearently all having the same idea to stay together, and stay calm and still until their senses were restored. They didn’t know how much time they had before the pony who hatched from the Reverse Cremator’s second egg cursed them with his dark magic. Before her vision came back, Amber felt something collide with her nose.

“What is this?!” she cried.

Rainbow Dash’s vision was comparably better by now.

“It’s a hoof clipping,” she said in a voice that wasn’t a yell.

“If I wanted to bring an earth pony back, did you think I’d be satisfied with something from that stuffy layabout?” Sombra croaked. “No. The Reverse Cremator will only lay one more egg.”

“Won’t it…” Scootaloo remembered who she was speaking to and stopped talking.

“Not work? No,” sneered Sombra. “It only needs something from all four pony types to activate. Tomorrow, it will still revive Snowdrop.”

Now that their vision and hearing was back to normal, Rainbow, Scootaloo, and Amber could see that a line had formed around them in a wide circle. Snow was falling into it from the dark clouds above.

“Are we trapped in this circle?” asked Scootaloo quietly. “Is there some kind of invisible force field there?”

Sombra wasn’t facing them. He was standing silent and still in front of the Reverse Cremator.

“If there’s a force field there,” said Rainbow Dash, “we wouldn’t be getting wind in our faces, would we?”

Amber remembered the sandwich bags she brought. She let them all go, and they blew away, scattering in all directions and zooming away over the circular crack and off into the mist.

“Maybe not,” she said softly.

“Should we try jumping over it?” asked Rainbow Dash.

Scootaloo could swear Sombra smirked as soon as that suggestion was made, and was alarmed when Rainbow didn’t wait for an answer and made a run for the crack.

Smack!

Neither Scootaloo nor Amber Aldis saw what had swatted Rainbow Dash back into the circle. All they knew was the ground beneath them made a gigantic booming noise as though it was going to blast apart.

“Scootaloo,” said Amber as Rainbow Dash picked herself up and felt her head, “do you remember that book you found in Twilight’s library that day she turned it into a ball pit?”

“Yeah. It was about frostaceans.”

“Did you read it at all?” asked Amber.

Scootaloo shook her head.

“Alright. I’ll fill you both in. They’re underground crab-like monsters. They have light-speed reflexes, and their claws’ maximum reach is miles long. The only things they won’t attack when they see are inanimate objects, and other frostaceans. And watch this.”

Amber cast her path spell. A streak of light slid along the snow and made its way towards the crack in the snowy ground. There was a boom beneath the ground, and the light stopped dead and fizzled out.

“They’re as magic-resistant as the Smooze,” sighed Amber. “We have no way of getting over that gap.”

Rainbow Dash looked up at the dark sky.

“So you’re saying they could reach me all the way up to the clouds if I tried flying over the crack up there?”

Amber nodded glumly. Rainbow Dash shot upwards.

“Oh, you can try!” called Amber. “But… hey, what…?”

Rainbow Dash disappeared into the dark clouds. Amber and Scootaloo realised that she was trying to attempt an escape above the clouds. They looked at Sombra. He was sneering and shaking his head.

“That’s a bad sign,” shuddered Scootaloo.

Rainbow Dash thought her vision must be going wrong again. What she found above the snow clouds was herds and herds of windigoes. They were galloping on thin air and soaring aimlessly around. They appeared to be indifferent to her sudden presence; in fact, they didn’t seem to even know she was there. She touched down onto the cloud cover and took a few steps forward. But with every step she took, the angrier she seemed to get.

Step.

“I go to that lame-o butterfly migration with her and she stomps on my stomach when I try bringing her to that sweet dragon migration.”

Step.

“Every time I get to the front of the line, they’re out of cider. Every. Single. Time! And everyone complains whenever I bring it up.”

Step.

“I lost a whole heap of time with those useless study methods. She just wanted me to feel like an idiot just because she’s an egghead.”

Step.

“Everyone acts so disgusted whenever I burp. They know they want to get rid of their gas just as much as I do. Pretentious…”

Rainbow Dash stopped walking. She was incensed.

“I hate Wind Rider! I hate that store clerk! I hate Discord! I hate reading!”

She shook with rage, throffing at the mouth, and toppled over.

The snow was falling more heavily from the clouds now, and the wind had picked up. Scootaloo and Amber Aldis gasped when they saw Rainbow falling through the clouds and down towards the snowy ground. Amber took off straight upwards to catch her, but not before she drifted high over the crack where the frostaceans could see her. Rainbow Dash was knocked backwards, and because she was too far away from the ground to lose momentum, she sailed over the other side of the circle and got swatted again. Amber caught her before she could go within the frostaceans’ line of sight again, and carried her back down to the ground within their prison.

“Are you OK?” she asked.

Rainbow’s eyes weren’t focused, and she was slurring in reply. A few minutes after Amber and Scootaloo had laid her down, she came back around and told them what she saw and how she felt above the arctic clouds.

“But I thought windigoes were attracted to hostility,” said Scootaloo. “Not that they cause it.”

“They do. If you display anger and distrust in your own territory, they’ll come to you. It’s the other way around if you go into their territory,” Amber explained grimly. “They can fill you with hatred and bitterness if you intrude on their domain.”

Sombra chuckled darkly. “It’s been so long since I imprisoned ponies by frostaceans and windigoes. I’ve forgotten how entertaining it is.”

Amber buried her face in her hooves. There was no need for her to tell Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo how stupid she felt getting tricked by Sombra.

“I should’ve known you made up all that stuff he said about me,” Scootaloo frowned.

“I didn’t,” protested Amber, removing her hooves from her face. “Those were his very words.”

Scootaloo couldn’t believe it.

“Sombra!” she shouted.

Sombra turned his head and eyed Scootaloo, but gave no reply.

“Why did you want my feather for Snowdrop’s resurrection?!” demanded Scootaloo.

There was a pause.

“I’d say you are the closest thing to a modern-day Snowdrop,” Sombra said at last. “Sharp, resourceful, and a promising future ahead.”

Scootaloo had no idea how to feel. She’d been paid the most flattering and encouraging compliment she ever received, and it was from one of the evilest ponies who ever lived.

“Definitely somepony I need to keep contained while I wait to make my return to my empire,” Sombra finished icily.

He turned away from his prisoners.

“She may not like what I have planned,” he muttered loud enough for the three pegasi to hear, “but I’m sure she’ll come to agree with me when I tell her what I’ve discovered.”

The prisoners were sure they were misreading his expression; the side of his face appeared somewhat solemn to them.

“Well, somepony will notice we’re missing and come looking for us,” Rainbow Dash drawled, still a little woozy.

Sombra chuckled again. “Now that you’ve disturbed the windigoes, there will be a good excuse for your absence.”

The snow had been falling more heavily in the arctic north since the windigoes had worked their magic on Rainbow Dash, and the wind had picked up. The harsh natural weather rarely affected the Crystal Empire, but Clopley Hill, the city south of the empire, often had unseasonable snow squalls from the north. The weather team sometimes called for volunteers to assist them in cleaning up. And now the town was getting dumped on, and there simply weren’t enough volunteers to make a dent in the mess. Messengers were dispatched to all the nearby towns to ask for pegasi to come to Clopley Hill and help deal with the snow. After word got around at the Crystal Empire about this, it seemed unlikely that anyone would question where Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo, and Amber Aldis disappeared to now. They’d be inclined to assume that they offered their services for the clean-up effort. The prisoners themselves realised this must be the case that afternoon. Their situation appeared well and truly hopeless. They were stuck on that small glacier with Sombra standing guard over them and the Reverse Cremator, they were hungry, thirsty, and freezing their flanks off. They weren’t looking forward to finding out what Sombra would do once the lifelike phoenix model laid its third and final egg the next morning. They didn’t think Snowdrop would want any part of whatever plot Sombra was hatching, but they were also sure he would have a great deal of influence on the matter.

Author's Note

Cadance and Shining Armour are above average, so they were perfectly good candidates for their species I feel.