Jade’s defence plan was fairly basic, but it wasn’t like there was much fighting during winter anyway. Phos and Antarcticite would be mostly doing the winter chores -- The former still unknowing of said chores -- but Jade said there would be a few days sunny enough for lunarians to come, so they needed to prepare well. Most of the time though, it was dark and cloudy outside. The lack of sunlight would evidently make the gems sleepy, but thanks to Twilight’s spell, they weren’t.

It turned out the winter chores were much redundant than Phos had imagined. They spent at least two weeks cleaning the Great Oak, shaking the snow out of its branch and reorganising the library with the Princess. That last task especially seemed to cheer up the purple alicorn for some unknown reasons. It was hard work to move that many books and scroll, how could she love it?

One morning, after the reorganisation of the whole library, excluding the Princess’ office and her underground study, cries had started to echo throughout the Great Oak, their source seemingly outside.

“Tsk, it’s the sinners again,” complained Antarcticite to no-one in particular. He was clearing some of the snow with Phos’ help in front of the Great Oak. His slender alicorn body was taller than Phos but still smaller than the Princess, who was a fully grown alicorn. Since Antarc didn’t have any magic, he mostly used his wings to gracefully shovel the snow out of the way.

The cries started again. “Hey, Phos,” called Antarc as the cyan earth pony awkwardly used a shovel with his teeth. “The Princess must have heard them, go make sure she’s in the basement while we take care of it.”

“Why would she need to get in the basement?” Phos asked; it didn’t really make sense to him. But again, he really didn’t know anything about the winter chores. Now that he thought of it, did anyone know what to do in winter except Antarc and the Princess? Maybe Jade knew, but his plan just involved the Lunarians’ attack, so even this seemed unlikely.

“Cause she shouldn’t have to hear them, she already beats herself up too much over it. They’re just meaningless cries, you’ll have to learn to take care of them too,” the white alicorn explained. “Now go inside and make sure she goes into the basement, there’s a permanent soundproof enchantment on the room so she should be good there. With the cloud cover today there won’t be any Lunarians either, let’s do this quickly, come on!” Ordered Antarcticite to Phos, who immediately responded to his order with a half-hearted salute and went straight into the Great Oak to look for the Princess.

Said Princess was currently in the main room, books around her on the ground, hooves on her ears. A third cry was heard in the distance, and she somehow seemed genuinely terrified of it. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she whispered over and over again to herself, trembling, eyes pressed shut and tears running down her cheeks.

“Princess?” Carefully said Phos to the mighty alicorn as if he was talking to Pearl in his younger years.

The ruler of the sun cowered at Phos. “Please, I’m sorry, I tried, I’m sorry, no more please,” she pleaded to Phos.

Shocked himself, Phos helped the Princess back on her hooves. “Come on Princess, it’s okay. Let’s go to the basement, just like Antarc asked.”

“Antarc sent you? Tell him I’m sorry, make it stop please,” she continued. She wasn’t making any sense. Once, last year, the Princess had shown a weak side to Phos, her fears for the future in a way, but this was completely different. This wasn’t the Princess who ruled the gems, nor was it the one who opened up to Phos in the ocean. This was a scared foal, just like when Pearl partly destroyed a book and was afraid to tell Alexandrite.

The walk to the basement was a long one, and the Princess’ weight didn’t help it. Thankfully, Phos’ newly-found strength helped a lot, almost completely carrying the alicorn to the previously forbidden room. After briefly struggling to open the door, Phos entered the unlit room.

“No light, damnit, if only I still had my horn,” he told himself while helping the Princess inside.

Phos could still see its outline, so the dark room must’ve had some sort of slight illumination. There were lots of bookcases, as expected from the Princess. An unlit fireplace was found at the end of the room. It didn’t seem to have been used a lot in recent times. Around said fireplace, six chairs all faced it. They were in poor condition, all of them seemed to have, at one point, had some sort of mark each. When Phos closed the door behind them, the Princess trotted slowly, eyes still wet, to one of the chairs. On it, there was an old book with torn pages and an almost detached spine. The front cover was almost fully gone, except for a single horned pony head, with a single cyan eye. She held onto it, hugging it as if it was bringing her the comfort she needed.

“Are you alright, Princess?” Hesitantly asked Phos.

She sniffled before answering, pain evident in her voice. “I-I am, Phosphophyllite. Thank you for bringing me here, I’m fine now.”

“This wasn’t ‘fine’,” Phos said, gesturing to the door with one hoof. “You were completely helpless, how come? No one ever told me winter does that to pony,” deadpanned Phos.

“Yes, I guess you’re right.” She took a few deep breaths and regained her composure. “I owe you an explanation. The short version is, I don’t know why it happens. The ice flows sometimes take strange forms as Antarc will show you. These things emit noise that we perceived as cries. For some reasons, they make me hear horrible things. For example when I failed to save Cinnabar’s horn or when I almost lost you, Phos,” she explained, the book still in her hooves.

Phos didn’t know what to say once again. This was really something he didn’t expect in winter. “I’m sorry I can’t do more to help you and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. These voices affect me for some reasons, I’ll have to stay here while you and Antarc deal with them,” she concluded.

Phos absently nodded to her explanations, he didn’t understand much of it but he’ll ask Antarc, maybe he knew more about it.

“They’re sinners,” the white alicorn explained over yet another cry. The two were now preparing for some reasons. Antarc hadn’t provided much explanation on what they would be doing with those ‘sinners’. “They’re gems who can’t form a body like you and I, so they blame their own weakness to the Princess. Be careful to not listen to their plea, they will try to trick you,” he warned.

They were currently in Obsidian’s workshop. The messy interior was filled with half-made swords, axes and other strange weapons the gems asked Obsidian to develop for them. Finally, Antarc took a long wing-sleeve out of one chest. “This is perfect, I’m sure Bort won’t mind if I try this,” said Antarc, grinning at the idea of messing with a diamond. Phos himself let out a small laugh. “Here’s your sword by the way,” he continued, hoofing him a long heavy sword.

Phos hesitated, he’d never used any sword in real combat, the one he had in the ocean was a very small one whose apparent weight was reduced by the water. He carefully took the massive sword in his mouth and found himself able to lift it somehow. That is, until Antarc let go of the rest of the sword, which clattered to the floor along with Phos’ lower jaw.

The white alicorn exploded in laughter. “Pfff ahahah, damn you actually tried I can’t believe you really fell for it!” He was on the ground, holding his sides and laughing maniacally at Phos, who just deadpanned the prankster, a clear look of “Tired of your shit” on his face.

A quick fix later, and after a small lesson on how to hold a smaller sword outside of water, Phos and Antarc went in direction of the cries. When at first they had been some time between two cries, now they just wouldn’t stop. Phos hoped that the soundproofing spell worked well. If not, both the gems and the Princess would be bothered by them.

The ocean was filled with bodies. Half-formed gems struck out of the frozen water, as if trying the escape. “Here they are,” pointed out Antarcticite. “It takes them some time to form so we won’t need to do it that often but it has to be done, I’ll show you how I do it, and then I expect you to help me. I don’t want to have to do this all by myself.”

Phos nodded in understanding. “Great, now, look and learn three point five.”

Antarc’s speed was simply impressive. As soon as he finished talking he galloped to the frozen ocean, using his wings to speed up further. The first few figures didn’t last long as he ran into them with his right wing. The wing-sheet protecting the delicate antarcticite under it, and its sharp front helping to cut the ice. He seemed to fly across the plateau of ice, methodically taking down the pony shaped ice sculpture. Each time one was destroyed, the others cried more, yet Phos heard that the cries were diminishing. He could still see several dozen of them as he decided to go help the white alicorn.

Phos wasn’t as steady on ice unfortunately. Not having wings here to help with balance was a big part of his struggle. After some time, he managed to somewhat canter on the ice and he went for the first ice pony he could see, sword in mouth. He gained some speed as he approached it, readied himself for the impact… ….And was put on a stop as his sword got stuck in the ice pony. If only he had more strength to… Wait, I do have strength.

Phos abandoned the sword inside the figure and readied himself for a kick. With all his might, he bucked the base of the statue, shattering it into thousands of shards. Phos himself was thrown forward from the blow and fell face first on the ice. As he looked behind himself, he could see the extent of the damage, the destroyed ice sculpture’s pieces flew into another ice pony and destroyed it as well. Phos grinned.

He knew how he'd take care of them now, his new hooves would finally be useful.

Name: Sinners

Mane color: N/A

Age: N/A

Hardness: 1.5 (I think)

Cutie mark: N/A

Personality: N/A

Explanations: The sinners are what Antarc calls the ice sculpture that sometimes appears during winter. Their cries seem to trouble the Princess so we take care of them as best as we can, I just feel there’s more to them than they want to tell me. Why would only the Princess hear them clearly? How come they even appeared in the first place? For now we just destroy them, and with my new hooves it’s been really easy so far.

Author's Note

Slow chapter, exciting things are coming fortunately.

Alternative title: Sinners.