Snow fell on the bustling city of Canterlot. Cheer was felt throughout the streets for today was a very special day, one that almost everypony had come to enjoy and love, Hearth's warming eve. Ponies always loved this time of year as it strengthens the bonds between themselves.
The fillies and foals rushed through the snow covered streets, eager to continue the tradition that they had started at least two years ago. The tradition was to cheer up the old librarian who spent most of her time in, where else, the library.
The librarians name was Dusk Ink, an avid reader and an accomlished writer of books who now spends her twilight years taking care of the library that was so dear to her father. That, however, is a story for a different time, for now she had company.
The door burst open, snow falling into the interior, along with all of the fillies and foals.
"Oh dear!" exclaimed Ink. "I'm terribly sorry, I forgot to lay out the salt on the path going to the door."
"Naw, it's okay." said one of the fillies with joy in her voice. "We had fun sliding on the ice."
"Speak for yourself." said a foal with a twinge of anger in hs voice. "You should be sorry!"
Suddenly, the room burst into argument over the foals last statement. Some of the children defended Ink while the others condemned her. They thought that something like that should have been taken care of as a main priority. As they argued, they got into disputes about which reasons for their opinions were the best reasons, turning into a shouting match. Unbeknownst to the children, Ink had exceptionable hearing, even in her old age, and this hearing told her that they should stop the fighting.
"How about we close the door before the fire gets put out." said Dusk Ink with a tiny amount of urgency in her voice. This immediatly shut the children up, who all had an embarassed expression on their faces as they help her close the doors.
The fillies and foals walked over to the fireplace and sat next to it, instanly warming up and filling with cheer once again. Ink set out some snacks for the fillies to enjoy as well as some hot cocoa, to help them warm up even more. Ink pushed a big armchair towards the fire, grabbed a book and then sat on the red, cushiony seat. However, the same foal who started the argument earlier raised some concerns with Ink.
"Can we not hear the same story as last year?" questioned the foal. "We all know the story of how hearths warming eve started." The fillies and foals all nodded their heads in agreement to this, as well as shared whispers.
"A hearths warming story that isn't about its creation, now that's something I would like to hear." said a colt who had just entered the library. He was a taller than average unicorn with a light grey coat, along with a blue coat over that.
"Well now, looks like theres someone else whos interested in this library, at least other than the tax collecter." said Ink with slight anger in her voice. "It looks like I'll have to look in the other sections of the library, who would have thought."
She got off her chair and walked towards the back of the library, only stopping when she had found the book she was looking for. She took it off the shelf, blew the dust away and returned to the children. She opened the first page but found she had to squint to read it. The book was tattered and the horn writing was terrible, but she was able to read it once she grabbed a pair of spectacles.
"Now then, let's begin the story." Said Ink.
The story of Cloudbluff Mountain
Snowpeak Frost was a young unicorn who was exceptionally gifted at ice sculpting. There was a problem in this, however. Everypony else pretty much exclusively had cutie marks that had something to do with magic, but Snowpeak had a cutie mark that related to ice. They stood out in the crowd of magically enthused ponies.
She was still decent at magic, enough to help with raising the sun and the moon when needed, they were rarely called upon, however. This was a blessing for Snowpeak as they could focus on perfecting their craft. There was a problem with this too. The only time they could get ice was on the terms of the pegasi meaning that they only got ice in winter.
This would not do, Snowpeak needed to perfect their craft before they could sculpt for both fun and as a job. The only way that Snowpeak would be able to get the ice would be to convince the pegasi to make it snow in a specific area, but relations between the pegasi had been deteriorating even before Snowpeak had been born, so there was no way of convincing them.
The only other way to get the ice that Snowpeak desperatly needed would be to go up into Cloudbluff Mountain, something that they had been warned against their entire life, as short as it was at this point. There were no maps of the area and it was said that the ghosts of those that had climbed the mountain and didn't make it to the other side still haunted the area, causing the terrible wailing that had been keeping everyone awake at night.
One day, Snowpeak was given the perfect excuse to travel this dangerous route, and it wasn't a nice reason. Their mother had been bitten by an unusually large snake when she was out picking berries in the nearby forest and the next day they were sick. There was supposedly a cure for the venom of the snake, but only if it was treated as soon as possible, but the city didn't have any and the only other cure was inside of the pegasi city on the other side.
Without thinking, Snowpeak set off to go across the mountain. They knew that the trek through would be a long one and so got food and water that would last them the trip, along with snowshoes and icepicks, just incase, as well as paper, ink and a quill to map the area. Snowpeak set out the day she heard that their mother was sick.
The mountain loomed above her, filling her with excitement and dread. They would either pass over the mountain, or be stuck there for eternity.
The trek had been going smoothly so far, but they didn't know how cold it was going to be, meaning that the water they brought with them had frozen. This was a cold that Snowpeak had thought impossible, yet here it was. The wailing within the mountain became ever more deafening the higher snowpeak climbed, yet they continued. Eventually, the wailing became too much and so Snowpeak wrapped her scarf around their ears.
Thinking that the wailing couldn't get any worse, Snowpeak had reached the peak of the mountain, or rather a valley between its peaks. Snowpeak Frost had discovered the source of the wailing sounds, recent winds had been blowing through the mountains peaks, creating the wailing sound. Snowpeak thought to themselves that the only ones capable of this would be the pegasi, luckily the peak was above the clouds meaning that no one would notice any suspicious activity.
Snowpeak was not impressed with this realization. They could now, however, strike two birds with one stone, so to speak. When they got to the other side of the valley, Snowpeak saw some armoured pegasi. Snowpeak rushed over to them, but they held up their spears in retaliation. Snowpeak stopped just before they had their face meet with the spears.
Snowpeak told the pegasi what was happening, but they didn't care at all, giving remarks about getting rid of the enemy without doing anything. Snowpeak was done with these guards and was about to leave, when commander Hurricane flew up. Hurricane was only there to congratulate the guards on their work with the howling when they spotted Snowpeak Frost and immediatly turned around and tried to get them away from the guards, but Snowpeak finally had their chance to talk to the pegasi leader.
They told commander Hurricane what happened, but they didn't seem to care, until Snowpeak mentioned the giant snake. Immediatly their face turned white. They turned around to the pegasi and told them to get the cure that they had along with a copy of the recipe. Snowpeak, however, wasn't done. They said that if they didn't want the unicorns to know that the pegasi had been amplifying the wailing noise on cloudbluff mountain then they had to stop doing it, or risk Snowpeak spilling the beans. Hurricane was backed into a corner, so they allowed this.
Snowpeak, filled with delight, took both the recipe and the cure back down the mountain. It was nearly night when Snowpeak got back, but they got back in time. Their mother was cured of the venom and they gave the recipe to clover the clever, so that they could use it to make more cures in case the snake became a larger problem.
Snowpeak then realized that they had forgotten to get the ice that she wanted, no, needed for her sculptures. She knew that the mountain wasn't actually as dangerous as everypony had thought, and it had been mapped by the unicorns meaning that it was definetly much safer than before. However, they decided to go to bed.
The wailing sound in the mountains, however, wouldn't let them sleep. Snowpeak realized that they hadn't actually tried to cross the mountain meaning that the other side of the mountain was probably more dangerous. This thought terrified them as maybe there were ghosts up there, but they hadn't actually met them yet.
The next morning, they set out to climb the mountain, this time carrying heated bottles so as the water to not freeze. Snowpeak had climbed into the valley, and noticed a distinct lack of pegasi, which was a good thing. However, the wailing sound was just as bad as ever. Then, the wind picked up and snow rained down upon Snowpeak. They were certain that the pegasi couldn't be behind this.
Snowpeak then saw the cause. It looked like a horse made up of clouds with only its two front legs. The back legs seemed to just trail off behind it. Snowpeak was frozen with fear as the creature towered over them. Then, two others joined it in a circle around Snowpeak. They started flying around Snowpeak, who was currently cowering in fear. These creatures let out their cries for all to hear.
Snowpeak then gained the sense to run. They didn't care whether they hurt themselves, they just had to get away from the creatures, these ghosts of Cloudbluff mountain. Snowpeak slowed down the closer they got to the bottom of the mountain, thinking that the ghosts wouldn't follow them, but they did. The ghosts were always one step ahead of Snowpeak, cutting them off every chance they got.
Suddenly, the ghosts stopped chasing and Snowpeak was confused. Snowpeak then looked down and realized why. These ghosts couldn't leave the snowy areas of the mountain, meaning that they couldn't come down the mountain any further. This delighted Snowpeak, but then they noticed that the snow was in a different place than the day before. The snow was further down the mountain, meaning that the map had to be updated.
Snowpeak then waved the creatures goodbye without even thinking hy they did that, and then they ran down the rest of the mountain. Snowpeak told their mother what had happened, and she laughed. She could not believe Snowpeaks story. She told Snowpeak that Cloudbluff mountain was dangerous because it was unkown, not because there was actual danger there. Maybe Snowpeak was delirious from climbing the mountain two days in a row.
Snowpeak would not forget what they saw, however. They continued to climb the mountain to study the ghosts, knowing full well the dangers of doing so. Evnetually, they had collected enough data on the ghosts to give them a proper name, but Snowpeak still called them the Ghosts of Cloudbluff mountain.
Snowpeak would later be one of the ponies that tried to explain the cause of the snowstorms, but no one listened to them. This is when Snowpeak decided to leave, to travel to a different country, along with their extensive knowledge of what we now call Wendigos.
The End.
Author's Note
Going to say this now, it was so hard to not write she when writing this gender neutral character known as Snowpeak Frost.
"That was a terrible story!" shouted one of the fillies.
"Yeah, that was terrible!" shouted another filly. Soon, the entire library was filled with the chatter of argumentations once again, all of them having differing opinions on whether the story was bad or not and how much in either direction it was.
"You do know that this is a real story, right?" said Ink.
"That story can't be real!" shouted a foal. "It's such a bad story, so that means that it couldn't have happened.
"Well, you're the one who wanted me to tell a different story than last year, were you not?" said Ink with some spite in her voice.
"I, uh, well you see..." started the foal but was interrupted by the colt in the blue coat.
"Well, it is an interesting story, I thank you for reading it." said the coltin the blue coat. "Although it does look like it's getting dark out, wouldn't you fillies say?" Indeed it was getting dark out for the moon was being raised. The fillies and foals realized this and then they rushed out the door, only a few of them thanking Dusk Ink for the story.
"Thank you for that." said Ink with relief in her voice. "May I ask what your name is?"
"That isn't important as you won't be seeing much of me but what is more important is where did you get that story?" said the colt in the blue coat, dismissing Inks question entirely.
"Well, let's just say that the stories passed down within familes are usually enjoyable." said Ink. "Although maybe taking one from the Frost family wasn't the right idea."
"So the story is true?" questioned the colt.
"It is." Replied Ink. "Sometimes the stories that don't seem realistic are the most trustworthy."
The colt was taking some time to wrap his head around this statement, as weird as it sounded to him. He was about to leave in confusion but was stopped by Ink.
"Excuse me." said Ink. "May I ask what do you do for a living."
The colt was puzzled by the question, considering that she didn't even know his name, but he obliged her.
"I am training to become a traveling magician." said the colt with pride.
"How wonderful." said Ink with sarcasm. "Some advice, try to come up with your own spells. Using other ponies spells will only get you so far, and that is as a travelling magician, instead of one that is remembered throughout history." The colt took some time to ponder this and then left, with a new goal in mind. He would become the best sorcerer in history, one that would rival even Alicorns, and in that he would succeed. You might already know who i'm talking about, and if you do then there is no further explanation needed.
