Author's Note

First story so tell me what you think and any criticism is welcome!

The curse

The vary first hearth's warming was a day to remember for years to come. The leaders of the three tribes had at last forgotten their hate for one another and the spirits of strife and hate known as the windigo where banished from the lands of Equestria. With their banishment the years long snow storms that have ravaged the lands where at last coming to an end and all was well...for most.

The windigos had been defeated its true but they where not gone. One of the windigo did not flee to the frozen north with its brothers... It found a source of strife in what would latter be called the everfree forest. On that day a pony's life ended, this is his first hearth's warming...

Cold, its what the pony felt despite the fire before him and the blood stained winter blanket hugging his thin form. Cold, its what the pony saw in the raging storm outside the shallow shelter of his cave. Cold, its what the pony heard in every howl and whistle of the biting, unending storm. Hunger, thirteen days had passed since his last meal and he felt every second of it. Pain, with every movement he was reminded of his left hind leg snapped at the knee in the scuffle. Numb, his mind was as numb as his right wing, it had snapped at the coracoid inches from his back and now hung limply at his side failing to respond to its master in any way. Hopeless...

Just outside the cave were five random mounds of snow and a broken shovel with its blade jammed into the icy dirt while its handle had already been burned as fuel for the flames. Beneath the mounds of built up snow where five bodies, three pegasus scouts and two vesper or as they are called by many bat ponies much like himself. Hearth's warming in the years to come would celebrate the friendship of the earth, pegasus and unicorn tribes but they would leave out the vesper tribe who had existed in what would latter be known as Equestria for hundreds of years before their arrival. With the three tribes came their hate and with hate the windigos, the snows alone had killed off most of his kind and when the vesper dared speak out they where hunted down by the pegasus who believed them to be monsters and driven underground with what remained of their kind. History is indeed written by the victors...

Sixteen days ago the three vesper messengers had been sent out with hopes of making peace with the unicorns against the pegasus. Thirteen days ago they where ambushed by three pegasus scouts. The first strike had been quick, with the pegasus tribe owning the sky in the area the vespers where forced to take the land and not long after a lighting bolt had struck his brother and with him their food and supply's for the seven day hike had been turned to mostly to ash. Still recovering from the sudden strike the two lowly equipped but skilled vesper where set upon by the scouts and forced to fight for their lives. In the aftermath he stood alone, broken, lame and unfortunately alive with nothing but the dead for company.

On the first day ignoring the burning in his leg and wing he set out to bury the bodies of his brothers, the scouts be damned. It didn't take long for the shovel to break at the handle when meet with the frozen ground, he spent the next many hours throwing his hoofs at the ice until they cracked and bleed trying to dig them a grave before he gave into the cold and took shelter in a nearby cave where he wept for them. To the vesper being put to rest in the ground was a sacred rite and being denied their proper rest was to damn their souls to forever wander the world and his inability to lay them to rest only added to his failure to protect them.

On the third day the hunger set in. The lands were a frozen waste, even what would be known as the everfree was not safe against the deathly cold and bore no food. The chill kept him from going outside for more then a brief time without their supply's, leaving the shelter to go back or forward was pure suicide with his injuries. All he could do was gather wood and home they sent another party along their route in a few days time once they realized they where not coming back.

The seventh day came and still their was no sign of hope. He had lost feeling in his broken wing hours before but could not force himself to cut it free. His leg fared no better and the shattered bone that had pierced the skin became infected and inflamed leading him to fever and sleepless days with his hunger and the cold.

On the tenth day he turned to prayer. Almost all of the vesper tribe believed in the night mother from whom they took her image. Never had he prayed to her until today. He did not pray for survival or safety, he did not pray for a miracle from the heavens the night mother ruled over and he did not pray for the storm to stop. His prayers went to her for his brothers souls as he begged her behind cracked hoofs to grant them passage into her embrace. Hours of prayer passed before sleep finally took him.

On the thirteenth day he awoke to the bite of winter and a dying flame. His morning was spent feeding the flames and staring with dead eyes into the abyss beyond the mouth of the cave until his hunger returned. Hungry...So damn hungry...Tired...Pain...Cold... it was all he thought. Over the days he had had withered away to merely near bones and skin. His leg was swollen and filled with a foul smelling green puss, his wing was dangling to his side by a single strip of sinew and he was beyond the point of pain only knowing the numbness of his body and mind. Outside he noticed movement and for the first time in days a smile came to his muzzle as he gimped his way to the mouth of the cave, crying out with a hollow voice he tried to attract their attention in the white out of the storm as he left the cave.

What hope he had blew away in the wind that threatened to rip away the blanket tied around his shoulders as he spotted the source of his attention. A small shriveled fox had unearthed the leg of one of the pegasus from the snow and was gnawing at the frozen limb. Upon seeing him the fox snarled and hissed until he backed off where his gimp hoof bumped into something forcing him to turn and see a discarded scout helmet that had knocked loose and below that a rusted sword...

Slowly reaching a hoof down he pulled up the frozen blade, the chill from its hilt burning into his hoof as his eyes darted back to the fox. Slowly he approached the fox again licking his lips only to have the moisture freeze and crack drawing blood as he hefted the sword, its rusted point aimed for the beast. The fox spotting the pony returning growled once again in warning as he drew closer and continued to chew at the leg just barely digging past the frozen coat. Once he was close enough he lunged with a choked shout driving the weathered blade at the fox's side!

Starvation, cold, injury or just horrid luck, maybe all at once made him slow as the fox skipped away from the blade and into the woods leaving the pony laid out upon the snow covered body of the scout sobbing. Cry as he might the tears only turned to ice upon his cheeks, the blade dropped and forgotten beside the body as the pony shivered in the snow and berated himself for his failure once again. Soon the cold became to much to bear and he shakily lifted himself off the body, a misplaced hoof unearthing the dead scouts left foreleg with a frosty crack causing him to pause. He looked at the limb next to his hoof then to the limb the fox had been chewing on then to the sword and finally the cave.

The smell...By the night the smell was...Sickening, revolting, foul, WONDERFUL! He wanted to vomit but his body had nothing to give, he wanted to be sicker then he already was, he wanted nothing more then to HAVE IT! Again he berated himself, again he thought of another way, again he prayed to the night mother for forgiveness for now he prayed for himself. Not for safety for that would would never come, not for strength for it would do him no good, not for salvation into her embrace for he would soon be unworthy of that but for forgiveness for what he WANTED to do, NO he berated himself again, what he must do now.

The blades hilt rested on and bellow a set of rocks beside the fire, the blade held over the flames and skewered upon its edge was the scouts left foreleg from the hoof to the knee sizzling as the blood and fat thawed and sizzled into the flames filling the cave with the savory aroma of meat. NO, he beat his hoof into the side of his head for the third time since he had put the limb over the fire. He couldn't let himself think that way, it was wrong, it was taboo, it looked so GOOD! Despite his efforts the thoughts still came, each one burning into his mind and pulling tears from his eyes as he pressed his cracked hoofs together before him in prayer.

Gazing upon the limb he gave a last choked prayer to the night mother for forgiveness and reached a shaky hoof out to grasp the handle of the blade from between the rocks. The meat popped and sizzled as it was pulled from the flames, the steaming aroma greedily taken in by his nose. Long ago he thought the ability of the vesper to eat meat like the pegasus and unicorns was a gift, to taste all the world had to offer had been an old dream of his but now he cursed it. The smell...how his body craved it, his slitted pupils dilated, his mouth watered , his lips curled back exposing his twin fangs in all their glory and a growl came to his throat as it drew closer to his mouth.

His teeth sank into the heated meat slowly with a chaste bite at first but once the juices flowed into his mouth his body gave in and pulled away from the small bite only to dive in for as big of a bite as his mouth could take. Repeating the prayer for forgiveness over and over in his mind his body worked on its own. Bite after bite he consumed even forgoing chewing on smaller bits as he ripped into the savory flesh but even as he ate he grew cold...

No! More! I need more! His mind screamed as the cold sank into his bones. Faster and faster he devoured, even when there was no meat to be had on part of the limb he snapped the bone between his teeth to slurp the marrow with his tongue before continuing to the rest of the meat and ever so slowly he felt...warm...

Behind him unseen to the mortal eye the windigo floated, tendrils of its black magic slowly digging into the pony as he ate. Its laughs echoing in his ears reminding him of the warmth the meat held, urging him to take another bite every time he pulled away. The color of his eyes faded into a lifeless white, he didn't even react with more then another bite as his gimp leg shuddered, twisted, broke and bent back into place as the infection popped and bleed its foul slime onto the ground. His wing once limp, lifeless, half frozen and hanging on by a shred of skin twitched and flexed before lifted and pushing itself into the shattered stump with a twist as the bone shattered and reformed.

The windigo snickered once more before it sank into his body. The pony seized up and thrashed as an unholy wail rang from his throat matched only by the sounds of his body breaking and reforming as he bashed into the stone floor trying to resist the spirit's grasp but ultimately falling still. When the body came to life a few hours later it unnaturally lurched onto its hoofs, its legs bending out of socket only to snap back into place once it was up. Its once bright eyes so full of life now held an empty white to match the snow of the fading storms as the body shuffled to the mouth of the cave and into the snow to stand over where the desecrated scout body still laid.

The possessed pony suddenly started to thrash about wailing once more as the light came back to his eyes, thin slitted pupils surrounded by glowing icy blue irides overtook the emptiness before he calmed and looked down upon the scouts corpse with a twisted grin and spoke seemingly to himself.

Deal...