It should come as no surprise that the harshest season of the tundra is winter, when the snow fell heavily every few days and stayed on the ground until it all melted away in late spring, turning the less frozen patches of ground into mud. After all, the Frozen Wastes of the Crystal Empire were named such for a reason.

Perhaps a bit more surprising is that the winter is a bit more mild in Yakyakistan to the north. The few times that ever comes up in conversation, most figure that it was a combination of mountainous terrain blocking wind and snow clouds as well as lingering remains of Sombra's Curse on the city. While true, there was also the presence of ancient beings barely ever remembered by most, which is likely better for their stress levels than it would otherwise be.

Details of the local climate aside, Thorax wasn't really there to appreciate it. He counted himself lucky on that: one of his trips to the ravine was suddenly beset by a massive snowstorm a couple minutes after he left the city. It was harsher than any he'd ever been in at that point, so he immediately turned around. It was the right move, as it raged outside the city barrier for two days until it finally left for another part of the icy wasteland. Assuming he had managed to reach the ravine alive, he would have been stuck there for far too long without food.

Inside the city, days were as cool as had been the nights he had camped outside of Canterlot. That was just around the lower end of the 'comfortable without clothes' range, and that meant that he couldn't just brave nights out in the open as would've been the case in the summer. Plus, laying around on the streets would have garnered attention, no matter what he looked like at the moment.

He eventually lucked into the solution as he wandered around the streets late at night. Using Vix's form at the time, he noticed a house that had no emotional energy inside of it, not even the lingering trails that ponies and other creatures tended to leave behind. The door was unlocked*, so he pushed it open, tried his best to ignore the thick layer of dust everywhere, and laid himself atop an ancient bed to sleep, trying not to think about what happened to the previous inhabitants.

*King Sombra abhorred locks on doors. After all, if somepony wanted to bar him access to somewhere, they obviously had something to hide from him, and those that didn't had nothing to fear from him. Well, nothing more than the usual. Naturally, this didn't apply to the doors of his castle, even those leading to the quarters of his servants and guards. However, he was the only one with the keys to all those, and woe betide a servant who was ordered to obtain something from a room he had previously locked.

He awoke the next morning feeling refreshed and a bit curious about the building. Carefully traipsing around as a snowy fox, he learned that the house contained little more than beds, some mementos (the largest one being a faded painting depicting a stallion in armor hugging two hatchlings, probably his), and a room that he wasn't sure what the purpose was, but had many empty storage spaces packed around and a place to keep water.

The house itself was in a rather convenient location for him, too, as it was just outside the marketplace of the city. After all, he did spend plenty of time there trying to keep an eye on the pulse of the city. Should something serious be happening, he was likely to learn quite a bit there, even if the only thing of real importance was the Games months ago.

Life went on, as it does, for months. It could take a long time for a routine to break, especially if the individuals involved had not the will or the power to change it.

One day in the early spring, he noticed from afar a pair of Equestrian ponies enter the abandoned house he was sheltering in, one a guardstallion, the other an unarmored mare. Intrigued, he followed them, doing his best to avoid getting noticed. Once he got inside he was able to take a closer look at them. While the unicorn guard was, unsurprisingly, white and blue like the rest of them, the mare was instead marked with an apple with a worm sticking out of it and had a cream coat and wings and a light orange mane. Thankfully, neither seemed to notice him eavesdropping or keeping to door open with a hindleg.

The pegasus looked at the underside of her hoof with mild disgust. "Wow, this place is dusty, isn't it?"

The guard nodded, his face impassive. "It was already abandoned for a couple of years by the time the Crystal Empire was sent to our time, so that's not surprising."

She turned to the painting. "Was that the family that lived here before? What happened to them?"

His frown deepened. "That stallion was one of the ponies in the Empire's army. As Sombra started to lose against the forces of Equestria, he used... 'stronger' means to keep the army under his control. While everypony knows of the mind control masks he used, it was just the last in a series. Before that, he made the soldiers fear him more than any enemy, and one way he did it was by threatening insubordinate and incompetent soldiers with the execution of them and their immediate families."

The mare grew rigid. "He went through with it sometimes, didn't he?"

The guard solemnly nodded. Silence reigned in the abandoned building for a while. This stretch of time was especially tense for Thorax, as he could easily detect inside her the sort of dark rage that he'd previously only seen in the Queen. He had to suppress the groveling reaction that practically every changeling in the hive developed.

Eventually, the anger in the pegasus subsided, and her stance weakened with a heavy sigh. "You know, I figured something must've happened for this place to pass into the hooves of the local crown, but I wasn't expecting it to be that bad."

The unicorn nodded again. "Nopony wanted to risk the notice of the King, so it went to him. Plus, there's the memory issues from the mass mind control."

"How bad is it?"

He let out a weary sigh. "The first couple of days, they could only remember Sombra, and not much else. The Crystal Heart managed to deal with much of that, but, well, the best way to put it is that the oldest of the crystal ponies can't remember how many years old they are, and the ponies in general can't remember anything about their parents if they died more than what was to them a few years back."

She silently stared at the portrait again before asking, "Does anypony even remember their names?"

The unicorn shook his head. "Sombra rarely bothered with names in his records, and nopony we asked so far knew. Sadly, this is the case for many of the places like this."

Thorax watched firm, rugged determination expand within the mare. "That just convinces me even more that giving the foals of this place a better future is the right thing to do. Can we run over everything again so that I know for sure what'll happen?"

The changeling could detect a slight tang of annoyance from the stallion, but it was well hidden. "Of course. We'll be converting much of the lower floor into a classroom, while you'll be staying upstairs and using the kitchen facilities down here. Because we are providing housing, you'll be getting the reduced teacher's pay."

She nodded and asked, "And even if we need to expand the building to make the classroom large enough, there's still enough space in the yard for a small flight camp, right?"

He skeptically replied, "Yes, but why is this so important to you?"

"Well, I know the Crystal Heart is what's keeping the weather around here nice, but what if anything happens to it?"

"Miss, I don't think-"

"Sombra got around it somehow, right?"

The soon-to-be teacher got a nod in response.

"So there has to be weaknesses to it, right? What if something happens to it during winter?"

The other two in the room shuddered. "I got caught in a snowstorm while out on patrol, and almost got lost. If I did..." the guard trailed off, the light fear evident to Thorax in multiple ways.

"That's why it's a good idea to keep an emergency weather team. Getting one means we're going to need a stable population of pegasi like me, and that means families. They're more likely to stick around if we teach their foals how to properly fly, and if everything goes right, we might be prepared for the harsh winters in a few years."

While difficult to see, the guard had a small smile. "I haven't thought of it that way. Do you have any other questions?"

Thorax decided it was best to leave now, as if there weren't any, one of them might turn around to leave and spot him in the process. He silently pushed the door open and slipped out, going back to wandering the streets as he usually did.

It looked like that shelter was no longer an option. A pity, but at least it was warm enough again for travel to and from the ravine to be safe, even in the worst of conditions. Besides, he had by now learned that he shouldn't think of places as homes. It made losing them all the harder.

...although it might be interesting to keep an eye on the place, if only to alleviate to monotony of his current life.

Apple Skies and Guard** turned to the front door as it closed, the colt that was there having disappeared.

**While she readily gave him her name, he refused to the same, saying that he preferred to remain nameless with anypony he would work with only once or twice. As a result, she capitulated and capitalized.

She said, "It looks like that little guy finally left. I'm guessing he left to tell his friends about the new school and teacher."

"I wonder if those words will be of great joy or grave warning," Guard deadpanned.

Apple Skies giggled. "I certainly hope it's the former. Now, about my question?"

"As with all direct employees of the crown granted housing with employment,..."

Author's Note

Originally, this chapter was supposed to be shorter with only the troubles of winter and Thorax finding shelter, but then I found the backstory I made for the abandoned house and its future a little too interesting to leave alone. At least it lets me skip large swathes of time in which Thorax just does his usual routine.

Sombra's disciplinary actions within his military are a remix of the recruitment practices of the Red and White Armies during the Russian Civil War. Minus the mind control, of course.