Wallflower's Arms Feel Weird
Wallflower couldn’t quite remember how she got to wherever she was.
Her most recent memory is laying face down, somewhere, but before that is all a blur. She knows she should be panicking but can’t quite seem to summon the feelings of anxiety and frustration she normally feels when she's in a situation she doesn't recognise.
But she can't quite remember why she normally feels anxious and frustrated, her mind feels so hazy, so difficult to hold a thought together.
She pulls herself up to a crawling position.
Her arms feel weird.
She looks down at her hooves and they look fine, they're holding her weight at least.
Why does that sound weird to her?
Looking at her body it feels alright, looking beyond her hooves her body is light blue and seems quite shapeless, after her midsection her body appears to ripple and waft like the wind.
That all seems fine, her body feels normal.
But it doesn't, it's all wrong, her arms feel weird.
She turns to look up, and the sun is sharp and blinding. Wallflower lets out a silent cry of pain and feeling suddenly erupts throughout her body.
She's hot. Burning, even. The sun bearing down feels like pure agony is shining onto her.
Her fuzzy head goes completely blank as the first emotion she's felt since waking up attacks her. Panic. A deep, primal panic coming from the burning of her flesh under the impossibly harsh sun.
Her instincts take over, moving in a way that is both perfectly normal and completely alien, the wind carries her to shade, a nearby cave.
As the sun's burning rays no longer assault her body, she touches down in the cave. Her hooves touch down earlier than she feels they should.
Her arms are too long, they feel weird.
With the panic from the sun fading with the pain, Wallflower again finds herself unable to summon any emotions or strong thoughts. She feels, dull. She summons the will to look around her, to take in her surroundings. She's near the mouth of a shallow cave, beyond it a nondescript forest of some kind.
Some part deep inside her recognises that the flora are types she can't identify, and for some reason that should excite her. But she can't seem to fathom why. They're just some trees and plants, they seem so completely inconsequential to her. But her eyes are drawn to them.
A whisper on the wind steals her attention. As her eyes leave the forest all thoughts and feelings about that part of her seem to fade.
She looks to the sky where the wind is blowing, for a second she thought she heard something on the wind, and it piqued her interest. For just a moment her heart flutters with feeling, just as the wind dies down as she.
Her head turns to the cave, finding herself unable to care. Unable to feel much of anything. With the neutral feeling of the cave she doesn't feel, doesn't think. Time, reality, herself, it's all quickly lost meaning. Occasionally a rogue thought drifts into her mind before disappearing the moment it arrives.
Her arms feel weird.
After either no time or infinite time has passed, Wallflower begins to feel something. She's beginning to feel hot.
She feels uncomfortable, a deep unpleasantness that is wrong in every aspect. The heat is unpleasant but not like the intense burning she felt however long ago. A heat rising from within somewhere from her body.
Her mind seems to focus, she can't seem to conjure thoughts about herself or her surroundings, just this heat that's building within herself.
Voices.
She hears some voices approaching her cave.
An instinct she doesn't understand starts screaming at her. Hide.
Her body seems to drift upwards into the dark roof of the cave, losing form and becoming a dark, swirling mass hiding in the darkness. This form feels normal, it feels like her.
But what about her arms? They're gone. They feel weird.
Two creatures burst into her cave. Their bodies' burn her, they feel like how the sun felt, this intense, painful heat.
"My, that blizzard is getting intense, ey?" Says one of the creatures.
For the first time she notices the cold, windy weather outside the cave. She feels a deep longing towards the snow, but is trapped by the ponies at the cave's entrance.
What is a pony? She can't seem to understand why she knows what they are.
"Well, I said we should've waited another day or two." Says the other pony.
A feeling tickles a perception that the creature didn't know they had.
That one remark from the pony cools their burning soul ever so slightly, a deep comfort they've never felt just momentarily touches them.
The wind speaks to them, saying things in a language not spoken with words. Ideas fill them, concepts: "feed, cool, anger, sadness, full."
The message is impossible to understand but they seem to understand it completely. They were burning, they were starving, and these ponies had what they needed.
Ignoring the strange feeling in their arms, the swirling mass begins to circulate ever so slowly around the cave.
"We had to leave eventually, plus, what's the harm in a little adventure?"
They go ever so slightly faster.
"Adventure? This weather is suicide."
Slightly faster.
"That's a bit harsh, don't you think? Why don't we try to just warm up and relax."
Slower.
Warm up? They have to stop this!
The wind whispers instructions they don't comprehend but fully understand.
Their mouth opens, a silent shrill penetrating the ears of the ponies without them realising. The wind picks up in the cave.
"You're going to tell me to calm down? Really? I'm not a filly."
The wind blows harder.
"Excuse me for trying to keep our heads cool."
The mass swirls faster.
"Cool? You're lucky our heads don't freeze in this weather!"
Faster.
"Would you stop being so dramatic, just once?"
Faster.
"Dramatic, I'm being realistic!"
The wind is howling in the cave as the two ponies fight. The creature swirls, the heat is dying out. Its feeling cool, full, it's body feels right.
The ponies fail to notice their hooves freezing over, a deep frost creeping up their body. The heat being slowly sucked out of them.
As two cold husks freeze solid, the creature swirls around the cave. A feeling of contentment fills them in a way they don't think they've ever felt.
The wind from outside the cave blows in. "Join, join, fly, feel, cold, heat, despair, herd."
The creature is drawn out of the cave and to its brethren. The wind picks up another gust that joins the herd of the sky.
The windigos swirl around Equestria, one gust stronger. Seeking out ways to stave off the horrible heat and reveal in feeling the emotions of others.
Time has no meaning for the windigos as they fly from target to target, heat to cool, feeling to feeling. They are of one mind, one gale of wind.
They seek their next target, a feeling of desperation, sadness, anger.
"This seems crazy, Sunset, and Trixie wishes no part of it!"
"I know it seems strange, but this is the forest where we last saw Wallflower. Through this portal lies Equestria, Wallflower, and my friends' memories."
Through the portal, one of the windigos sees these two bizarre creatures. They hear a name that shouldn't have any meaning, but digs up something deep. A wayward thought drifts into its mind.
Its arms feel weird.