The Best Laid Plans of Spirits and Specters
The Best Laid Plans of Spirits and Specters
It was the night of Hearth’s Warming Eve, and as the small snowflakes carried upon the calm night wind lazily drifted towards the ground no living creature could be seen moving around in the woods that surrounded the small pony settlement of Ponyville.
No sound could be heard in the quiet woods, not even the faintest of breaths or the faintest of hoof steps. Nothing but the sound of soft freshly fallen snow landing upon the already snow-covered woods happened to break the tranquility of the night.
Yet, despite the tranquility and peace of the night, a figure was swiftly moving through the snow-laden woods. At first glance, one could assume the figure to be that of a pony. Her size, four hooved legs, short muzzle, mane and tail would easily lead one to assume that. An assumption that was reinforced even further by her pale ice-blue coat and snow-white mane that were briefly illuminated by the moonlight as she darted between the trees as she carefully approached the nearby pony settlement in complete silence.
However, despite it all, if one were to pay attention to the figure small discrepancies started to make themselves known that put said assumption into doubt.
Like for instance how, despite how swiftly she was moving around the moonlit woods, her hoofsteps made neither sound nor left any marks of her passing upon the fresh snow. How she seemed able to traverse even the darkest spots of the shadow-covered woods without a hint of hesitation as if she could see just fine within the darkness. Or the very odd fact that, despite having the appearance and size of a full-blown adult pony mare, the stranger had no cutie mark upon her ice-blue flank.
In addition, the fact that she apparently wasn’t breathing even as she rushed through the woods was also a huge sign that she may in fact not be a pony.
As Frostheart drew to a stop near the tree line between the woods and Ponyville, she hid behind a tree and carefully took in the sight of the pony village in the not-so-far distance. All the lights and noises filling the night as the ponies got ready to celebrate Hearth’s Warming Eve.
As the cacophony of several different songs being loudly sung at the same time reached her ears, Frostheart had to admit that, quite frankly, she really didn’t want to be here. Much less on this night of all nights. Nevertheless, as the gnawing feeling of hunger deep within her could easily attest, needs must when Discord drives.
The period of Hearth’s Warming was never easy for her kind. And that was even ignoring the fact that the festival basically celebrated their greatest defeat and near eradication. No, the problem was that during this very festive and upbeat time of the year most ponies were filled with nothing but cheer and good feelings as the ‘joyous’ date approached, and that left very little for a hungry windigo like her to fill her belly with.
Especially if you were being careful to not be noticed.
Narrowing her eyes, she took in the village for a long while. Took in all the brilliant colorful lights, and the few dark shadows they created. All the ponies cheerfully milling around, and making sure there were no guard patrols amongst them. Took in the myriad festive decorations all around, and probed to see if there were any alarm spells, or any other inconvenient surprises there ready to make her already no- good night downright awful.
Having to run away for one’s life while hungry would be a deeply uncomfortable experience, after all, and she had no desire to experience it.
Quite a few creatures, beasts, and monsters would outright laugh at how careful she was being on her approach to the pony village. They would mock and sneer at the fact that she was also planning to not outright harm, injure, or even inconvenience the ponies in any way, shape, or form as she took what she needed to fill her belly before leaving with nopony the wiser.
They would call her a fool and a coward before bragging about how they would simply barge into the village and take whatever they wanted. For they were strong and the ponies were weak.
Yet, the fact remained. She was still here. While quite a few of those who once laughed at her ‘paranoid’ level of care were not.
Slowly moving forward from shadow to shadow, ears perked up and strained to hear any out-of-place sound. The ice spirit carefully drew closer to the nearest home. Eyes darting in search of movement of any kind. Ready to bolt if need be.
Most would take one look at the candy-colored tiny equines and scoff at the mere notion that they could ever possibly be any kind of treat. That they could ever pose a real danger to anyone. And to be fair, in a fashion, that was factually correct. The fighting prowess of the vast majority of the ponies was, in a word, nonexistent.
Taking a peek at the lit window, Frostheart took in the visibly cheerful and happy family joking and talking around a table brimming with food. She could practically taste all the positive emotions even through the thick wooden wall of the home. With a soundless sigh, she shook her head and moved on to the next house. There would be nothing for her here.
Most ponies couldn’t fight their way out of a wet paper bag. To say otherwise would be a joke worthy of the Lord of Chaos. That was a fact, pure and simple. And yet, as the long list of those who tried to mess with the colorful equines only to end up worse for wear could attest, the reality wasn’t that simple. As if it was some kind of cosmic joke from Faust herself, it was almost as if all the fighting ability and potential of the entire pony species were concentrated into but a hoofful of individuals. And getting the attention of any of those outliers was a very unwise proposition.
Her species had learned that lesson the hard way long ago, when but three measly individuals brought the seemingly unstoppable hordes of winter to their knees by themselves. Stealing victory from the jaws of defeat and bringing her kind low.
As such, Frostheart had every intention of listening to the lessons her mother had passed her when she was but a young spirit. Lessons she had learned from her own mother before when she herself had been young, and her own mother before that. Take but what you need. Do not draw attention to oneself. Cause no unnecessary harm. And above all else, do not linger in one place overlong. To do otherwise was to risk drawing the attention of one of the outliers of the pony race, and that never ended well.
That was especially true now that the stupid bugs had reminded the ponies that emotivores were a thing.
Looking at the distant mountain where Canterlot rested, she couldn’t help but scoff at the changelings hard-headed act of going straight against several of the pony outliers. And the expected result of their foolishness.
Dismissing the fourth house in a row as a bad target, Frostheart could not help but remember how getting enough negative emotions to fill her belly had gotten way harder than it should be as the ponies got paranoid and patrols surged like nothing she could remember after the failed bug invasion, souring her already bad mood even further.
Stupid bug-ponies and their stupid invasion making things hard for everyone. Seriously, for a race of shape-shifters they wouldn’t recognize subtlety if it hit them in the face with a fish! The fact that she was far too close to Canterlot for comfort was also not helping Frostheart’s mood in the slightest! Being within line of sight of the Sun Princess abode was not something she was comfortable with!
Not that Celestia had ever done anything against the windigoes directly. At least as far as Frostheart was aware. But, when you were basically a spirit made out of magically charged ice and snow, being wary of a pony that could control the freaking sun was simply common sense!
Peeking at another house, Frostheart actually groaned in annoyance. The first sound she had made the entire night. Another house filled with nothing but cheer and good emotions. This season was simply the worst!
Was it too much to ask to find someone having a bad night?! What did a good honest spirit have to do to find some negative emotions around here?
As the ice-blue mare turned around while cursing her luck, she suddenly found herself letting out a very undignified squeak and rearing back in surprise as the darkness of the night suddenly turned pink.
“Hello, my name is Pinkie Pie! And you are Frostheart, right? Nice to meet you! But you are kind of late, aren’t you? I mean I was expecting you way earlier, but then you took way too long at the tree line and moving around town all ninja-like! Which was really cool but took way longer than walking normally would have, and also seems kinda exhausting now that I think about it! But anyway, I was expecting you but since you are late, like I had mentioned before, we kind of have to rush or we will be even more late than we already are, and that is not cool! So we will talk more later after I bring you to where you are supposed to be! Hope you don’t mind!”
Frostheart found herself blinking in pure confusion as the deluge of what may have been words washed over her. Still trying to process that there was a violently bright pink pony so close to her their muzzles were almost touching. Bright baby blue eyes staring with manic energy into her far more muted confused and perplexed blue eyes.
“Perfect!” The mare cheerfully replied, not giving the still reeling spirit time to fully process what was even happening the pink mare darted forward and grabbed the windigo’s right hoof.
To her dying day, Frostheart would be unable to explain what exactly had happened afterwards.
One moment she was standing in a dark alleyway between two houses, starting to realize that a weird pink pony had found her and so the windigo was getting ready to bolt and flee the village as fast as possible. The next moment the pink mare had grabbed her hoof, and she was standing in a brightly lit room, the chattering of several ponies assaulting her ears and a deeply uneasy feeling that something had happened nesting deep within her. Something she could not remember and was not sure she wanted to anyway.
“Well, here we are! Better late than never, after all! Now just wait here for a jiffy while I find somepony you really have to meet! This will be super exciting! Be right back!”
And just like that she was gone, as if a pink lightning bolt out of a clear blue sky.
If not for the fact she most definitely was inside a brightly lit room filled with ponies, and not alone in a dark alleyway outside a random house, Frostheart would seriously consider she had just hallucinated the pink pony.
Still reeling more than a little bit due to the sudden change of circumstances, Frostheart tried to quell the budding panic she could feel starting to form within her chest and started to try and find the nearest exit.
Only, this night really seemed to not be her night.
“What are you doing here?” a voice cold and hard as drawn steel demanded from right behind Frostheart. Cursing under her breath at being surprised twice in as many minutes, the windigo turned to see who had just spoken to her.
The owner of the cold voice was a cream-coated mare with a two-toned mane of black and pink. A mare that was leveling Frostheart with a very unimpressed look. Brows furrowed and eyes narrowed as she discreetly but firmly backed the windigo into a corner and away from the other ponies.
“What?” the ice-blue mare found herself asking, more than a bit lost and confused.
“Do not try and play coy with me, winter spirit,” the mare firmly stated, the look she was giving the windigo showing that the mare had no patience for games or tomfoolery right now. The fact that she apparently also knew that Frostheart was a windigo made the feeling of a rock dropping into her stomach she had been feeling since being abducted intensify even further. “I asked you a question and expect it to be answered.”
The moment the last word left the mare’s mouth Frostheart felt a shiver run down her spine as a very uncomfortable cold feeling blossomed upon her chest. And considering she was a being made out of ice, that was a very worrying thing for her to feel.
As her eyes darted downwards towards her chest, the windigo saw that her feeling of worry was more than warranted, as there was a small dagger upon the mare’s hoof being pressed against Frostheart’s chest. And worse, the cold feeling she felt emanating from the point of contact left no doubt out of what the dagger was made off.
Iron. Cold iron. Not steel or any of the other alloys most blacksmiths used, but iron at its purest form without any other additives or impurities. A material known for its effectiveness against spirits and magical beings, both categories that she firmly fell into. If the pony used that, it was going to hurt. A lot.
This night just kept getting better and better!
“Well, I am waiting,” the mare demanded in a no-nonsense tone.
Looking at the clearly experienced and knowledgeable monster hunter staring at her with suspicious eyes while discreetly but firmly holding a blade of cold iron against her chest, Frostheart suddenly decided that she was completely done with this whole night.
“I have no idea.” She bluntly stated while letting out a long frustrated sigh while letting her rear all but collapse into the ground. She had been standing for hours by this point and since escape really did not look like an option anymore she might as well take a seat while she could.
“What?” the monster hunter asked with clear confusion. Awesome, now she did not have to feel alone in that regard!
“I have no freaking idea what I’m doing here!” she promptly replied, not even trying to come up with an excuse or lie. She was completely surrounded, had no idea even where exactly inside the village she even was, and there was a blade of cold iron against her chest. And that was ignoring the fact that she was still hungry!
More than a little fed up with the whole thing, Frostheart tossed caution to the wind and started to rant at the confused monster hunter holding her at knifepoint.
“I was just minding my own business, skirting around town while seeing if I could find some negative emotions to sneak a bite or two out of before moving on, when suddenly a pink thing basically assaulted me out of nowhere and somehow dragged me here!”
Yes, she knew the pink thing had looked like a pony. But with she herself as proof, you could look like a pony without actually being a pony. And there was no way that thing was a pony!
Last she checked only the horned ones could teleport! And even then she had seen teleports before and whatever the pink one had done had most definitely not been one! Heck, the only being that she had ever heard about bending reality to their will like that was the Lord of Chaos himself!
Perhaps she was related to him somehow?
Banishing the sudden thought that the bringer of chaos was quite old and may have had a dalliance or two that could have had some unforeseen results to the back of her mind, hopefully, to be buried and forgotten, she moved on.
“So, no, I have no idea why I am here! Or where here even is for that matter!” she hissed while tossing her forehooves upwards in exasperation, not caring in the slightest how that forced the monster hunter’s blade to dig into her fur. “So if you want answers to your questions, sorry not sorry but I don’t have them!”
“You are here to attend a party, silly!” the pink apparition said from right next to the both of them, making Frostheart and the monster hunter jump in surprise. Glad to see she wasn’t the only one to have that reaction to the pink one’s sudden appearances. “Well that, and meet a few new friends!
“I see you already met Bon Bon. Don’t worry if she seems a little grouchy and grumpy, she is a true sweety under all that!” the pink one cheerfully declared, apparently paying no mind to the knife on the cream-coated mare’s hoof. Only, the knife was no longer there, and going by the surprised blinking coming from the monster hunter as she looked at her empty hoof, it hadn’t been due to her stowing the knife away. “But anyway, Frostheart, this is my good friend Rarity. A very successful business pony and fashionista, who so happens to be really stressed and grouchy right now due to all the pressure a fashion show she is getting ready for a couple of days from now is causing her!”
“Pinkie Pie, must you air a lady’s secrets like this?” a white-coated unicorn with a purple mane asked in a long-suffering tone of voice after apparently being dragged here by the pink one too. And while Frostheart wondered how common it was for the pink one to drag beings around willy-nilly, she did notice that she was right. The unicorn was all but radiating frustration and stress in quite significant quantities. Making Frostheart’s stomach growl in hunger.
“Rarity, this is Frostheart,” Pinkie Pie continue as if she hadn’t even noticed the unicorn’s grouchiness, gesturing grandiosely towards Frostheart confused and frustrated form. “She is a windigo that can eat negative emotions like stress, worry, and anger straight out of a fretting grumpy pony like you! Leaving you right as rain so that you can properly appreciate the party!”
“What?” Frostheart wasn’t sure who had verbalized the confusion shared between herself, the monster hunter, and the unicorn. But she seconded the question.
“Yuperoni! Now eat up!” Pinkie cheerfully replied, pushing Rarity forward until she was right next to Frostheart.
“Now wait just a minute!” Bon Bon started to say, only for a pink hoof to silence her as Pinkie materialized next to her with a blinding smile.
Deciding that she may as well fill her belly before whatever else was going to happen next in this crazy night happened, Frostheart shrugged her shoulders and opened her mouth. Focusing her innate magic and drawing Rarity’s anger and stress out of her until they reached far more normal levels for a pony than the huge amount she currently was harboring.
Frostheart expected many things from the mare she had just drawn a stream of angry-looking red energy out of. Panic and rage being the most likely reaction from the tales she had heard. What she was not expecting was for the mare to stop, briefly look her own body over, before looking at Frostheart with a deep considering look and declaring in a clear and cultured voice.
“You are hired,” Rarity promptly replied, causing Bon Bon and Frostheart to snap their necks toward her.
“What?” both mares asked in tandem, incredulity radiating out of both of them as they stared at the fashionista as if she had just sprung forth a second head.
“This is the most relaxed and calm I have felt in months! Not only that, but I can feel my muse coming back to me now that all that stress isn’t clouding my vision any longer!” Rarity huffed while carefully fixing her mane in place. “If she can reproduce what she just did without side effects on demand, why wouldn’t I hire her?
“There are no side effects, right?” she added at the end, looking at Frostheart in search of an answer.
“As long as I don’t take too much at once there shouldn’t be,” the winter spirit replied automatically, more than a little poleaxed and unable to think of answering with anything but the truth.
“Excellent! This will be the beginning of a long and profitable partnership, I’m sure of it!” the unicorn happily declared as she gently but firmly grabbed one of Frostheart’s hooves and started to guide her deeper into the party. “Now come along darling, a good friend of mine is sadly worrying herself to bits due to an important concerto she will be having tomorrow.
“All that stress simply cannot be good for her! And so, dear Octavia could easily use your unique abilities!” she fiercely declared to the still very confused windigo following her semi-willingly.
One does not fight the might of the storm head-on. For all you accomplish by doing so is tiring yourself before being dragged along by its power anyway. Instead, one should allow it to guide your path and follow in its wake willingly, saving your strength for later when it is needed.
And looking at the all but vibrating pink pony excitedly prancing behind them, and at the very determined-looking white-coated unicorn still firmly holding her hoof while leading her deeper into the party as they left a very flabbergasted-looking monster hunter behind, Frostheart keenly felt her dear mother’s words were more than warranted to her current situation.
And besides, her cover was already blown beyond all hope of recovery anyway, so why not see where the storm would take her next?
“What the heck, sure, why not.” She finally replied, shrugging her shoulders as she followed the two mares towards a grey-coated mare with a black mane that was radiating stress and worry even more strongly than Rarity had been earlier.
This was shaping up to be the oddest Hearth’s Warming Eve Frostheart had ever experienced, but at the very least, she was no longer hungry. Therefore, she would consider it a win.
Author's Note
Sometimes we reach the end of a story, and while feeling quite happy with it, we cannot help but ask ourselves: “How did we get here exactly?” This was one such story.
After receiving the story prompt, I started to write about a windigo trying to infiltrate Ponyville during Hearth’s Warming Eve to find something to eat, and then Pinkie Pie happened.
Hope you all enjoy this little tale. Merry holidays to you all.
