Winnette sat stock-still by the mouth of the cave. Her ears occasionally flicked.

“They’re coming down the switchbacks,” she whispered.

“Toward us?” Welga asked.

“No,” Winnette answered after a moment.

Wyna wanted to know if Winnette was going to go hunting.

“Quiet,” Winnette said. Her right ear twitched.

“I’m hungry,” Wyna insisted.

“Eat the meat we already have!” snapped Winnette.

“I like it better fresh,” Wyna said.

“Wyna, shh, come over here and eat,” said Welga. When she’d gotten Wyna settled munching on the remains of the deer, she joined Winnette again. “What’s happening now?”

Winnette swiveled her head back and forth, raising one ear up higher, then the other. “They’re going into a cave.” Her ears flicked again. “They’re looking for something.”

“How do you know that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you listening to something?”

Winnette looked at her with a frown. “Aren’t you?”

“I’m listening to you.”

Winnette didn’t answer. Welga sat down by Wyna and stroked her mane while she ate noisily.

“Quiet!” said Winnette.

Wyna made even more of a mess.

“Wyna, stop that!” Winnette hissed. Her face was a mask of fury.

Wyna glanced at Winnette, then at Welga, then grinned, the corners of her mouth sharp. Welga stroked her mane worriedly and looked out of the mouth of the cave at the evening sky. It was darkening, but stars weren’t coming out.

The sickly setting sun was more than halfway over the horizon now. It was like it was dying and taking the stars and other old things with it.

But I’m not old, Welga thought fiercely. You won’t take us. Not tonight.

“It’s leftovers from an old mine,” Gilda said. “This is what the ponies didn’t want us to find.” She turned to Gilbert and Grace. “They know about the project.”

She grabbed some pieces of copper from the back of the cave, then turned around and strode past them to the entrance. “Come on. We need to fly back while the ponies are distracted with the New Year celebration tonight.” Though she didn't like the idea of flying in this weird sky. The sun was all but set, and not a single star had come out, nor the moon.

“What are you talking about?” said Grace, bewildered. “It’s just some old junk from whatever lived here.”

“We can’t take that chance. Come on, Gilbert.” Awkwardly, the big griffon unfolded himself and began to follow her out.

“Wait!” yelled Grace, chasing after them. “Gilda, stop! We can rest here!”

Gilda shook her head.

“Gilda!” Grace screamed. She chased up the switchback after them. “Please, you’re being ridiculous! We can spend one night here!”

“Do you hear that?” said Winnette.

Welga had heard it. She’d understood it too, which was scarier. Whatever these things were, they could talk.

“I think they’re arguing,” said Winnette.

“Quiet!” said Wyna in an uncanny imitation of Winnette. She’d finished eating and was sitting at the mouth of the cave, resisting Welga’s attempts to wipe the area around her mouth clean.

“Stop that, Welga,” Winnette said automatically. Her head swiveled again, ears flicking almost constantly.

“Why should I?” said Wyna.

“Don’t,” said Welga.

“Because you could die!” said Winnette, blue eyes flashing.

“Don’t!” said Welga.

Winnette wanted to scream. Instead, she said, “Wyna, your safety depends on you listening to me right now. Do you understand?”

Wyna didn’t answer.

“Wyna, look at me!”

Wyna looked.

“Nod your head that you understand. If you don’t listen to me, you could die! Don’t you care about that?”

That sharp-cornered smile spread across Wyna’s face again. She broke eye contact with Winnette, looking out the cave mouth at nothing in particular. Then she jumped to her hoofs and was dashing away from them before anywone could stop her.

Gilda turned around. “Grace, I will pay you out of my own pocket. I will feed you out of my own rations.” I’m hurting her again. Why am I hurting her again? There were tears in her eyes, and she blinked them away before they could freeze. “Come on, we can’t wait!”

“Gilda, I—GILDA, WATCH OUT!”

Gilda whirled and saw a rocket speeding up the switchback, blasting snow out of its way. Gilda pressed herself against the rock wall. It shot past her. Gilbert stuck his taloned forefoot out, and suddenly the rocket was a kicking, struggling, blue-white—

“Pony!” said Gilda. “I told you! There must be more around here.”

“My paw is freezing,” said Gilbert. “It’s like holding ice.”

“Hold on tight,” said Gilda. The blueish filly was twisting to try to bite Gilbert’s foot, but she couldn’t reach. “We can get some answers. And some food,” she added to Grace. “They’ll have heard us arguing anyway; they know we’re here.”

“Where’d you come from?” Gilbert asked the filly. “Do you live in one of these caves?”

The filly screamed at them. A weird grin showed on her face, and then it was gone when Gilda blinked.

Gilbert hauled the violent little creature up the slope, Grace hurrying along behind. They didn’t get far before they saw two other ponies emerge from the mouth of a cave. In the gloom of the starless evening, their bodies were a deep, dark blue.

“Let her go,” said the taller one, stepping forward. The wind was so loud that Gilda could barely make out what she was saying.

“Do you live here?” Gilda called out to them. “We’ve traveled a long way. Let us join you in your cave!”

“Stop!” said the pony as Gilda advanced cautiously. “Stop all of this! We don’t want you here! You can’t be here! This is our place!”

“I’m a friend,” said Gilda. “I know a friend of Nova Flare of the Daughter bank.”

None of this seemed to register. The pony growled at her, viciously. It was a predatory noise. Gilda had never heard a pony sound like that.

“Wyna, are you okay?” the other pony shouted. She was smaller than the one who had stepped forward, but bigger than the filly struggling with Gilbert, who had to inch his way cautiously up the slippery slope. The middle sister, Gilda guessed.

“We caught her when she was about to fall off the switchback,” Gilda said. “She was going way too fast.”

“She’s going to fall!” the middle sister screamed. The wind stopped as suddenly as if they were indoors and all the windows had been closed.

“...Okay,” said Gilda, shaken. “We don’t want anyone to get hurt. Step back into your cave. We’re coming along with your sister. Grace, can you light a torch now that the wind has stopped?”

Grace passed the torch up to Gilda, who led them into the cave the ponies had retreated into. They were standing at the mouth but backed up when Gilda entered with the torch, hissing and averting their eyes at the bright light.

“Come on,” said Gilda quietly. Gilbert and Grace came in, the filly struggling tirelessly the whole time. Gilda examined the interior of the cave. It was overstuffed with junk, but she saw that there were mounds of copper here as well.

“Let her go,” said the oldest sister. Gilda nodded. Gilbert released the filly, who bounded toward the middle sister and hid behind her.

Gilda studied them. They really did look like sisters, and the biggest one stood bravely in front of the other two. As for their species, she wasn’t so sure anymore that they were ponies. Ponies didn’t have translucent white-blue color coats. Ponies didn’t have chills emanating from them like they were made of ice. And ponies didn’t live in caves by the dead sea and come out at night to swim through snow faster than they could gallop.

All three of them had bodies like ice, and two of them had eyes like tourmaline. The oldest had blue, icy eyes. The middle sister had green eyes, and the youngest sister had pink eyes. That wasn’t how pony genetics worked. That wasn’t how any genetics worked, as far as Gilda knew.

Strange, strange….

There were four cots. “Where’s your other sister?” she asked.

“What are you talking about?” the eldest demanded. “Why have you come here?”

“Keep an eye out for a fourth,” Gilda said to Gilbert. To the icy not-ponies, she said, “Do you live here alone? Do you have parents? Who lives in the other caves?”

“Why aren’t they going away?” demanded the littlest one in a choked voice.

Grace looked miserable. “Gilda, what are you doing?”

“Not sure,” Gilda admitted. She lifted the torch, sending shadows fleeing across the walls of the cave.

Strange, strange….

“Who cares if some ponies live in a cave?” Grace said. “Gilda, look, they’re afraid.”

“They’re not ponies,” said Gilda.

Listen, daughter.

Ah eh ee oh ah.

“They’re windigos.”

The sun fell below the horizon, and the sky was utterly dark. Under that starless canvas, the torch of the leader of the king beasts was the only source of light.

Winnette’s eyes jerked back and forth between the three king beasts. She couldn’t think of what to do.

This was it, this was it, this was it, it was over, and she’d failed, she’d lied, she’d broken her promise to Mom.

You’ll take care of her when I’m gone. Tell me you will.

I didn’t, Winnette shaped the words with her mouth. They disturbed the air so lightly that they hadn’t really been said at all.

…Then again, the air was so utterly still in that moment, and the sun so totally gone, that it was entirely possible that Winnette’s tiny little not-even-really-a-noise was, to somewone listening as intensely as you could possibly imagine, a scream loud enough to wake dead wind.

And if you listened even harder than that, you might have heard it screaming back, so faint and weak that the scream was no more than a little sigh.

Didn’t?

What ‘didn’t’?

I’m not gone yet.

In the corner of her eye, Winnette thought she saw the edge of the quilt on the fourth cot move with a rush of wind that snuffed out the king beast's torch.

Go, the voice might have sighed, or maybe the torch just went out on its own, maybe the quilt moving had been a trick of the light, maybe it was the fate of all windigos to die by the dead ocean or be burnt up under the sun, but all the maybes in the world mattered less than the fact that right now, she needed to take care of her sisters.

“GO!” Winnette screamed, and she was jumping and kicking where she knew the leader of the king beasts had been, and she felt the impact and heard the grunt. Winnette landed on the ground, stumbled, “GO!” she screamed, and Welga got it, “Come on!” she said to Wyna.

“What’s going on?” demanded the male king beast. She heard him step forward. She screamed at him, the scream of the windigos who had hunted with the wind from one end of the continent to the other, who had walked under ice. She heard him stumble backwards.

The three of them tore out of the cave, landing in the snow outside. Winnette struck up the switchback, blind in the utter darkness, but she knew the path, and she heard Welga and Wyna right behind her. In a minute they reached the cliff.

“Winnette!” said a voice.

“Will!” she cried with relief. He was there suddenly, a breeze finally blowing again.

“What’s going on? The king beasts went down to the caves, and then the sun…Winnette, something happened to the sun!”

“Good!” she snarled. “There’s a lot more that’s going to happen to it if I have any say.”

“What do you need from me?”

“Be my eyes and get us out of here.”

“No problem.”

“Who are you talking to?” Wyna said.

“Wyna, trust me, okay? Stay close to me. We’re finally leaving the caves like you always wanted.”

“Wait—why? Winnette!” Her voice rose in pitch until it was a terrified shriek. Winnette heard Welga move to comfort her.

There would be time to deal with that later. There would be time for everything.

“Here,” said Will, and Winnette heard his voice and followed, and her sisters heard her and followed. Swiftly other voices joined as well, the once-quelled winds rising all around them. She couldn’t see it, but she felt the snow blowing all around them and knew that nothing could see well enough to follow them, nothing could swim fast enough to catch them.

The snow was as fresh and soft as it had been the previous day. And the voices joined her in her speed, keeping up and running ahead, calling out every rock and root for her, and she never felt anything but snow and wind and the tears sticking to her cheeks.

At first it was ten voices, then a hundred, then a thousand, then….

“Faster, faster, faster!” one screamed with glee.

“Follow me, I know the fastest way,” bragged another. “Back in my day, no wone could keep up with me.”

“Can’t you fly? Go on, fly if you can! Just jump into the air and weigh nothing at all!”

“Wâlêoran! Wâlêoran wonlic we!”

Winnette answered back with screams and cries and a single thought.

I don’t know most of you. But there will be time for that. Somehow, I’ll find time for that.

The griffons stumbled out of the cave, staring in shock at the disappearing forms of the windigos rushing up the switchbacks through the snow. Then their eyes carried up past the cliff to the empty, velvet sky.

The rush of wind, less than a breeze, swept to the mouth of the cave and back around, passing over three of the cots. As it did, it turned the pages of what might have been old diary, a spellbook, a journal, or a conversation. By some coincidence, the book opened to the last page, which had but a single line written on it, and the little breath of wind passed over the words and faded into nothing.

Don't worry, Mom, I figured it out. —Winnette

Under a sky where not a single star shone, three figures streaked through the snow like wraiths.

They flew up slopes and leaped into the air and were moving even faster when they landed.

By the time they reached the forest, a hurricane of winds surrounded them, whipping up a storm of snow and ice. The three wraiths burst through the trees, and a multitude of winds streaked ahead of them and behind and around.

Winnette’s eyes were starting to adjust. There was no light from above, but the snow was faintly white, casting everything in a spectral glow, as if it had held in the starlight from last night.

It was bright enough to see now, and so Welga and Wyna didn’t need to follow right behind her. They spread out beside her, taking in with tourmaline eyes the frozen trees glimmering with starlight from below and the sky as dark as sleep.

For a while, hooves made no noise as they sliced through the snow. Even the voices were stunned into silence.

For a while, hooves made no noise, and the snow damped the sound of their breath.

There was no sound from the spin of the Earth or the growth of a tree, no sound from the slow decay of a mountain or the dying of water.

For a while, the only noise was the sound that reading makes.

Until a voice from the wind finally broke the silence:

“Sorry, but I’m really bad with awkward silences. My name’s ______, can I ask yours?”

And as Winnette journeyed in the land of new snow, breathing the breath of old voices, she began to understand that the place of the windigos was not under the sun, nor even exploring the dark night of the faceless moon. No, theirs was the land of eternal whiteness, where beautiful blue creatures swam a scene of snow under the pale and winking stars.

A suspended place of perfect memory, where no voice was truly silenced and no dance had to end. Where Wyna, the last windigo, would have forever to roam, to hunt, and listen, and her sisters would still be able to find her, play with her, teach her, tease her, hold her and love her until even the stars fell from the sky and the universe was a single black coal with all its embers burnt out.

Author's Note

The blank is meant to be there.