Chapters Once upon a time, many years ago. Equestria was yet to have its name, the three great pony kinds weren't unified, and ponies' lives were harsh. In this era, an old and strange creature sometimes visited the ponies of the three races. It had an uncanny resemblance with them, but bore two great horns of wood which scattered and propagated in every direction, like branches from a tree. It was taller than most ponies, with a coat brown and white, lacking a mane and yet of great majesty. He was called the Reindeer for he was pulling behind him a large sleigh, helped by reins. Some said it was coming from the great north, beyond the frozen seas, and that a whole kind existed, looking like the Reindeer.
Ponies at the time only saw him at the coldest part of winter, when all were at home, trying to warm themselves in front of meager fires, as snow was falling without the need for the pegasi's help.
When ponies were sleeping, he would descend from the sky, pulling on his heavy sleigh filled with wonderful things. He distributed them to the inhabitants, humming an old song now forgotten, before flying away in the sky, yelling "Merry Christmas!". Ponies never had time to thank him. They could only look up to the sky and sometimes see his shadow pass in front of the moon, before he would disappear until the following year.
"He descended from the sky?" suddenly interrupted Scootaloo, intrigued. "He could fly in addition to having a horn?"
"No just one horn," corrected Twilight, smiling. "He had two! And nothing is said about him having wings or not. But I think he was flying with magic.
"Oooooh."
The three fillies watched the purple unicorn with great round eyes filled with stars. Twilight closed the fairy tale book that she had bought specifically for those three little ones. Watching over them wasn't that much of a hassle with a bit of occupation.
"Now, it's time to go to bed," she said while putting the book on the table.
Outside, the night had already fallen in silence, and snow was doing the same. Wind was gently hitting the panes, as snowflakes were slowly crushing themselves on the windows of the Golden Oak library.
"You think he really existed, Twilight?" asked Sweetie Belle.
"Maybe," the unicorn answered with a voice filled with mystery. "Who knows? No one can tell what he's become. The legend says that, one year, as everypony was waiting for him, he didn't come. Nor the next year, and nevermore after that."
"You think something happened to him?" Scootaloo said, suddenly worried.
"I don't think so, but all of this is extremely old, so no one can really tell."
The small pegasus pouted with a disappointed look, while the three of them walked to their bed, followed by Twilight.
"Why did he bring things to people like that?" Apple Bloom asked once in her bed, on the side.
"Most likely because he enjoyed making ponies happy without having anything in return. Good night, girls."
"Good night, Twilight!" answered in chorus the Cutie Mark Crusaders.
The purple unicorn looked at the three fillies from beneath the frame of the door with a smile, and turned off the lights, before leaving the room.
To be frank, she didn't get why Rarity complained so much about them being unbearable. What Twilight ignored is that Fluttershy had asked them to be quiet, and they had listened.
"Hey," Scootaloo whispered once the door was closed and the room plunged into obscurity. "Why do you think he said 'Merry Christmas'?"
"Somethin' to do with the fact he was always merry and all?" proposed Apple Bloom.
"Or that was his name?" said Sweetie Belle.
"Merry Christmas?" Scootaloo repeated, arching an eyebrow looking at her friend in the black.
"That doesn't make any sense," Apple Bloom followed. "If he was happy all the time, why would he say it?"
"I don't know," answered Sweetie Belle. "And you, Scootaloo?"
"I say it's something from his home. Maybe it's a special saying? Like we say 'Happy new year'?"
"Hmm, that still sounds weird..." Apple Bloom pondered.
The filly suddenly stopped, displaying the greatest smile which the others couldn't see in the dark.
"Hey, wanna look for him tomorrow?"
"Huh?"
"What?"
"The Christmas Reindeer!" Apple Bloom insisted. "We're gonna find him!"
Both the pegasus and unicorn simultaneously turned their head towards the other, which caused them to bang each other.
"Ouch!" said Sweetie Belle, massaging her muzzle. "How do you want to look for him, Apple Bloom?"
"We're going to look for information in Twilight's books, she must be asleep now!"
"I don't know if that's a good idea," Sweetie Belle replied, worried. "We said to Fluttershy we would listen to Twilight."
"Oh come on, we're just going to look in some books, we'll put everythin' back in place, nopony will see it."
"I'm in," added Scootaloo.
Sweetie Belle thought, hesitant. Then finally, she sighed and lit up her horn, which got the two others smiling.
"Hurry up! I'm struggling with that light spell!"
"We're doin' what we can," Apple Bloom replied, leaned over a book under the weak light Sweetie Belle's horn was diffusing in the library.
Scootaloo was looking through the shelves, to see if some books weren't linked to that reindeer story – this "Christmas Reindeer" as they now called him – but without any success.
"The first year, the inhabitants were surprised and amazed to discover all those gifts on their front door, helping them endure the winter that had just begun," read Apple Bloom with a half-voice. "The following years, the Reindeer was considered a savior and many ponies affirmed they had seen him, so his legend was made. He came back at the same date, seven days before the new year, tirelessly distributing his gifts, pushing out the same shout 'Merry Christmas', which got him the name Christmas-Reindeer."
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo turned their heads towards Apple Bloom at the same time.
"Ah told you he was called that!"
"That's just luck," sighed Sweetie Belle, as the little Apple was going back to her reading.
"One day however, as ponies all awaited the coming of this benefactor behind their windows, he didn't show up. Neither that night, nor any other nights. He didn't push his merry shout, and the inhabitants didn't receive any gifts, ordered to pass a harsh and cold winter without any help. The next year marked the unification of Equestria."
The two others waited for a follow up, then Scootaloo couldn't help herself but to say:
"That's it? What kind of conclusion is that?"
"No idea, but there's nothing else. The next page is the tale about the three tribes."
Apple Bloom closed the book and put it back on the table, as the light from Sweetie Belle's horn was beginning to weaken. She tried to comfort her friends with disappointed looking faces.
"It's not that bad. We'll find something as fun to do tomorrow."
"Wait!" Scootaloo suddenly said.
"Shhh!" issued the unicorn with a hoof on her mouth, pointing upstairs to where Twilight was sleeping.
The pegasus didn't pay any attention to it and took a book from a shelf, putting it in front of the two others who read the title.
"Daring Do and the never-ending Blizzard ? Scoot', we're looking for information here, not made up stories."
"Not just any story," corrected the orange pegasus. "It takes place up north, even more up north than the Crystal Empire."
"You mean the Christmas Reindeer's in it?" reacted Sweetie Belle.
"No, but there's mention of Christmas at some point."
Apple Bloom looked at her friend with an interrogating gaze.
"Since when do you read Daring Do?"
"Since when do you read?" even added Sweetie Belle.
"Since Rainbow Dash does!" Scootaloo answered proudly.
"And what does your book say about Christmas?"
The pegasus opened the book and began searching for the moment in question. She remembered a point where it was mentioned, but had no clue what was said about it.
"I think it's there."
All of the sudden, the light turned off and the three fillies found themselves in utter darkness.
After a short silence, a voice said:
"I told you I was struggling with that light spell!"
"That's alright Sweet', can you turn it back on?"
"What do you think I'm trying to do?"
"Ah..."
"I think I know where Twilight puts her candles to... Aouch!"
Both turned to Scootaloo, even though by being in the dark, they guessed she must have hit herself on something. The pegasus was indeed holding her own head after a collision against the table.
She got back on her way, walking by feel, head low so as to not hit herself again. With a hoof, she tapped on a chest near the entrance.
"Ah! Found it!" she said to herself.
She was getting ready to open the chest, but a shadow cast onto it stopped her. Looking up, she managed to picture a dark shape in front of the window, slightly enlightened by the moon.
Then, two great yellow eyes opened and the pegasus yelled in fear, moving back, until she hit her friends who were also looking at the weird shape.
"Who?" then suddenly said the figure with a gloomy tone.
The three fillies started galloping around, screaming in terror under the gaze of the two yellow eyes.
The light in the room turned on abruptly with a Twilight upstairs looking visibly surprised and a little upset.
"What's going on here?"
The Cutie Mark Crusaders kept on running everywhere with non-stop yelling.
"A monster!" said Apple Bloom.
"It's the abominable snowpony!" added Sweetie Belle.
Twilight looked around to find what was terrorizing the fillies and her eyes fell on Owlowiscious in front of the window, who looked completely alien to the scene, shrugging his wings.
The unicorn teleported in the middle of the room, understanding the situation.
"Calm down now, it's just Owlowiscious!"
"Who?" repeated the Owl.
Sweetie Belle glanced at the owl and stopped realizing Twilight was telling the truth.
"Oh..."
She got the two others – who were still galloping – to stop by putting a hoof on their muzzle. When Apple Bloom looked at the howl, she acted like she had done nothing while saying:
"Scoot', you're really a chicken!"
"Hey! You got scared too!"
"More importantly," Twilight interrupted. "What were you doing here?"
The three of them immediately lowered their ears, ashamed.
"We were doing research on the Christmas Reindeer..." Apple Bloom confessed.
The unicorn's face softened with tenderness. And here she was thinking they were up to some kind of mischief.
"You can do that tomorrow, can't you? It's already pretty late in the day, you're going to be tired if you do that now."
"Yes, Twilight..." answered Apple Bloom heading for the stairs with the others. "Sorry. Good night."
"Good night," smiled the unicorn, going after them, before turning the light off.
The three fillies went back to their bedroom. Their eyes got acquainted to darkness, a ray of moonlight now passing by their window, showing the snowflakes which were slowly falling outside in uttermost quietness.
As Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo went to bed, Apple Bloom walked to the window, putting her hooves on the ledge, looking at the night sky.
"What's the matter?" asked the little unicorn.
"Seven days before the new year, that's tonigh'..." thought the filly. "Ah wonder if he's gonna come..."
"Why would he come?" wondered Scootaloo. "It's been centuries since he did."
"Ah know... But... It would be nice, wouldn't it?"
"I'd like to meet him"! Sweetie Belle added.
"Giving stuff to people like that, he must look like your sister," noted the pegasus.
"Rarity only has one horn," the unicorn corrected.
Apple Bloom loudly giggled, attracting the gaze of the two others.
"Ah just pictured Rarity with two horns on the forehead."
Sweetie Belle had to cover her mouth to not loudly burst into laughter, as the image of her sister with two perfectly symmetrical horns was forming in her mind.
It took a little time for the three fillies to calm their uncontrollable fit of laughter, trying to chase away that picture from their mind. After managing that, Apple Bloom continued, still looking at the moon through the snow:
"Ah'd like for him to come tonight..."
The two others calmed their laughter as well and turned to their friend, who suddenly looked a bit melancholic.
"I would love to climb in his sleigh," replied Sweetie Belle.
"And I would like to know how come he can fly without wings," Scootaloo added very seriously.
"Probably something to do with magic," supposed the unicorn.
"That's cheating!"
Sweetie Belle raised her hooves to indicate that it wasn't of her own doing.
"There's more advantages in being a unicorn than a pegasus, it's now my fault."
"What!?" Scootaloo took offense.
"Shhhh!" said her two friends, fearing that she might awaken Twilight.
"That's nonsense!" still protested the pegasus, whispering.
"Unicorns can fly with a spell and walk on clouds. Can pegasus cast spells?"
Sweetie Belle looked at her friends, whose eyes were glowing under the moonlight. The pegasus almost answered, but her eyes were suddenly drawn towards the window.
"What's that?" she said, surprised, pointing outside.
The unicorn turned her head to see what she was talking about. Outside, stars were shining as usual, and so was the moon, sometimes darkened by the snowflakes passing by.
"What are you...?" she started, before receiving a pillow on the cheek.
"No need to cast spells when you're strong like a pegasus!"
Scootaloo crossed her hooves with a triumphant look, as if her argument was irrefutable. However, she quickly understood her mistake, seeing the pillow come back to her, propelled by magic.
With a distinct "pomf", the projectile reached its target and made her fall backwards on the bed. Apple Bloom stepped in between them.
"Stop, Twilight's gonna hear us."
"You're joining the pegasi' side?" said Sweetie Belle, turning her gaze to her, another pillow already floating next to her, ready to be used.
"Of course not," replied the filly as if it was obvious. "In terms of strength, earth ponies clearly outclass the other races."
Right after ending her sentence, she barely dodged her friend's attack, grabbed her own pillow before throwing herself onto the offended unicorn.
Of course, the two friends were laughing while keeping their pillow fight quiet, and they thought about lowering her voice so as to not attract attention. When the pegasus got back up, she noticed that the battle was still raging and, grabbing the projectile that had knocked her down the first time, she threw herself in the melee.
After a few minutes of flying pillows and bolsters, the three fillies stopped fighting to lay down, exhausted but still laughing, on the bed. As they were slowly catching their breath, Apple Bloom looked once more towards the window and the moon. The snow was still falling and already covered the bottom part of the glass with around one centimeter.
"It'd be really nice if he came back..." thought the young farmer.
As if to answer her, a red and green lighting flashed at the center of the night star for a brief moment. Right after it, a shadow emerged from it, plunging to the ground, quickly disappearing from the filly's field of view, out of the window's frame.
"What was that!?" Apple Bloom exclaimed, rushing to the glass that was way too high for her.
Sweetie Belle cringed hearing her talk so loud, fearing Twilight might come to scold them again. Scootaloo didn't worry about it.
"What?" she said, intrigued.
"Yall didn't see? Something zapped pass the moon!"
"Stop talking so loud!" hushed the unicorn.
"Something? Like a snowflake?"
"No!" replied Apple Bloom whispering, overexcited. "There was a sparkle of magic and bam, somethin' passed in front of the moon!"
Both her friends looked up at the window, seeing that there was nothing outside.
"You probably mistook a snowflake for something else," Scootaloo supposed.
"Ah didn't dream, there was magic and after that, it fell! Ah'm sure it landed in the forest!"
"And what was it then?" questioned Sweetie Belle, skeptical.
"Ah don't know, but Ah'm going to take a look!" said Apple Bloom leaving her support, rushing to the bedroom's exit.
The two other fillies exchange a worried look, wondering if she was being serious, before the unicorn interrupted:
"You wanna go out with this weather? At this hour?"
"We have stuff to hold the snow. Come on! Twilight won't even see we're gone!"
The farmer pleaded her two friends with begging eyes, trotting in place, impatient. Her gaze was filled with a weird sparkle of excitement.
Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes, while Scootaloo was hesitant.
"If there's nothing, you'll be the one Rarity will use as a model, instead of me," warned the unicorn.
"And you'll have to watch my new scooter stunts," added the pegasus, understanding she had a way of profiting from the situation.
"Yes, yes!" approved the farmer while hurrying to get out of the bedroom, barely listening.
Both her friends followed her, intrigued by so much excitement, even if they were persuaded that Apple Bloom was just seeing stuff because of the story Twilight had told them.
Author's Note
Alright, slice of life part is over. Originally, this one and the next one were both part 1, but I feel like this fits better.
"I'm cold."
"We barely even got out!" pointed out Scootaloo, looking at Sweetie Belle wrapped up under a heavy layer of wool clothing, the head topped by a beanie visibly sewn by Rarity, leaving her horn free.
Apple Bloom was only wearing a plain scarf, while Scootaloo was wearing wing-mufflers.
"But still, I'm cold," muttered the unicorn.
"Walk faster, it'll warm you up."
"But the snow is too high!"
Scootaloo arched an eyebrow, looking down at Sweetie Belle's legs. They were in what must have been three or four centimeters of snow, at best.
"You're becoming like your sister."
"Where's Apple Bloom?" asked the unicorn ignoring her, looking around.
Ponyville was truly quiet at night, and the snowflakes falling in great quantities made the atmosphere all the more silent. Some houses were still lit, but the moon kept on being the greatest source of light, bathing all the town in a dark yet pale light.
"What are y'all waiting for!?" suddenly yelled a distant voice.
Already a few houses away, Apple Bloom had stopped to look towards her friends. Both of them cringed while hurrying after her.
"Stop shouting!" Scootaloo whispered once close enough. "Do you want to alert all of Ponyville!?"
"Y'all should be the one going faster, before the snow covers everythin'," Apple Bloom replied, before walking towards the town's exit.
"I really think it's not a good idea," maintained Sweetie Belle, yet she followed.
"Do you know where the thing you saw fell, at least?" Scootaloo asked.
"Not more than half a kilometer into the forest, I'd say."
The unicorn cast a worried eye behind them. The hoof prints in front of the library were already fading, and the snow looked like it was only getting heavier. Worse then, huge black clouds were slowly approaching the moon.
Quickly, in the soft sound of fresh snow cracking under their hooves, the three fillies came to Ponyville's exit. From here, they could see the edge of the forest very well and, after a bit of silent march, they reached it, pausing for a second this time.
"Do you remember the direction?" Scootaloo interrogated again, as up until now she had enjoyed the touch of the snow, but her courage was starting to flinch.
"A littl' bit on the left of the moon," simply answered the farming filly, while trying to face the celestial body, to play the scene back in her head.
"We should leave some traces behind, in case we get lost..." said the unicorn.
"Oh, yes," the pegasus hurried to chip in. "Otherwise, that'll be too dangerous. Too bad we didn't take anything for that. Guess we have to go back."
As soon as she said it, Scootaloo turned around and was ready to step away, when Apple Bloom pointed out:
"You can leave magical spots on the trees, Sweetie Belle, can't you?"
The filly in question winced, but nodded, just because she didn't like to lie.
"I'll put an arrow regularly, to show where we're coming from. I hope it won't take too long, I won't be able to do that indefinitely."
Scootaloo kept in her concern, even if her saliva was hard to swallow, and she turned back again to join her friends.
In the silence of the night, the three fillies slowly sank in between the trees.
Under the cover of the leaves, the snow wasn't yet covering the forest's floor, and the place was plunged in a darkness way more intense than Ponyville. The pale glimmer of the moon was having a hard time filtering through the branches, and the fillies had to slow down so as to not get their legs caught up against some frozen roots.
After a few minutes of walking, and some stops to place a mark on poor trees that were just minding their own business, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo began to doubt their friend. Or at least, more than before. And the cold was settling beneath their coats.
"Maybe you just hallucinated," Sweetie Belle suggested.
"No, it ain't far, I promise!" said Apple Bloom without an ounce of uncertainty.
"If it so happens, what you saw stayed stuck in a tree," Scootaloo added.
The pegasus saw two green eyes look daggers at her, to which she answered with a shrug.
Apple Bloom, to Sweetie Belle's dismay, looked up at the leaves, pondering her friend's words.
"That's possible, but we won't be able to see it tonight then. Ah think it's better to finish looking around all the ground before goin' home."
"Come on, Apple Bloom, we're all cold," insisted Sweetie Belle.
"And we're tired..." Scootaloo complained.
"Wait!" suddenly said Apple Bloom, her ears lifting up. "Did you hear that?"
The two other fillies stopped talking, attentive as well, even if Sweetie Belle's beanie was covering her ears.
"I don't hear anything," Scootaloo ended up saying after a short silence.
"There was a noise!" said Apple Bloom, overexcited, rushing into the forest, galloping.
"Wait!"
The unicorn and the pegasus followed, worried.
"Perhaps you heard a wild creature!" said Sweetie Belle to try and reason with her.
Scootaloo, seeing that Apple Bloom was ignoring her, was about to add something but she didn't get the time for it. The three fillies arrived in a very small clearing plunged in darkness.
But despite the lack of light, it was evident that two shadowy shapes were in the middle of that hole in between the trees. Two silhouettes laying on the ground, close, with indiscernible outlines.
"What is that?" Scootaloo whispered, intimidated.
"Shh!" issued Sweetie Belle, fearing they might awake a bear couple.
Apple Bloom was way more adventurous and slowly walked towards the obscurity. At the same time, the sky cleared in front of the moon, and the light was brought down to what lay in front of them.
The first thing to be revealed was a great wooden object, resembling a barrow without wheels, that the fillies had once seen in pictures but never in real: A sleigh. As long as three ponies, varnished with red, one of the two runners was broken and lying in pieces further away.
The second shape, and the fillies couldn't believe their eyes, belonged to a tall figure. Taller than a normal pony, maybe even taller than princess Celestia in fact. His muzzle was also longer and the tip was of a different color. A brown coat, no mane to speak of, instead a long piece of fur running along his neck, and hard black hooves.His tail was short and fluffy, his stature way thinner, but something seemed off. His face was displaying a frozen expression of pain and his front legs were in an unnatural position. Branches were also covering his head.
"It's him!" exclaimed Apple Bloom, rushing to the creature.
The two friends joined her next to the stranger who seemed unconscious. For now, the two fillies didn't believe it was the Christmas Reindeer, but there was more important.
"Is he okay?" inquired Sweetie Belle.
"He's breathin'," said the farmer, already busy examining him. "But Ah think he broke a leg or two."
"How did he end up here?" Scootaloo asked.
"With the magic lightin', Ah'm telling y'all!" Apple Bloom re-explained.
"We'll see later," the unicorn intervened. "For now, we have to bring him back to Ponyville. It's too cold, and we have to heal his legs!"
"And his sleigh?" said the pegasus.
"We're gonna use it to transport him."
"I don't know..." thought Sweetie Belle. "It seems broken."
"Well then find somethin' to repair it while we pull him on the sleigh!"
Scootaloo moved in closer to help Apple Bloom, each one positioning themselves on each side of the reindeer and beginning to lift him.
"Maybe we should remove the branches on his head?" suggested Scootaloo.
"Those are his horns, didn't ya listen to the story?" Apple Bloom replied, pulling him with difficulty.
"What, he's the Christmas Reindeer?"
"Of course!" the farmer said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "He doesn't look like a pony, and he has a sleigh, what else do ya want?"
In the meantime, Sweetie Belle had found some branches and vines and was busy repairing the broken runner.
"Ooooh, my legs..."
The three fillies immediately froze, turning their eyes to the creature that had just spoken.
The unknown stranger slowly opened his great blue eyes, momentarily lost. As he was gaining back some sort of consciousness, something came back to his mind and he jumped. Caught by surprise, his two supports moved away and his body fell again in the snow that was starting to thicken.
"What happened!?" the creature panicked, snorting in the snow, trying to get back up without success. "Where am I!? No, more importantly, how long have I been there!?"
"Easy now," Apple Bloom tried to reassured. "You had a bad fall, we were bringin' ya to Ponyville to heal you."
"You broke two legs," Scotaloo followed, "and, according to Apple Bloom, you appeared in a magical lighting about twenty minutes ago."
"T-Twenty minutes?" the reindeer stuttered, in part because of the pain. "Ponyville? I'm in Equestria?"
"Right in the middle," Sweetie Belle confirmed, while finishing the repairs on the sleigh.
"Try to calm dawn," continued Apple Bloom. "You're the Christmas Reindeer, right?"
"Huh?" said the tall horned creature, finally managing to stand up, kind of, despite his legs shaking from the pain. "Oh, yes, in a way."
Barely had he finished his sentence that he fell again, in a suffering whine, preventing Apple Bloom from turning to her friend and shout "Ah told y'all!".
"Hold on," Sweetie Belle said, bringing in a few more branches and vines, setting the whole thing around his front legs to serve as splints. "There."
"T-Thanks...?" he said, a bit surprised, hesitant on trying to stand up again or not. It took him a second, but he finally decided to try.
It wasn't without pain, but at least he could somewhat stand, and the fillies were able to admire all of the height and slimness of his silhouette. He wasn't as tall as Celestia, but clearly above Big Macintosh.
However, he didn't have to stay up for a long time. Apple Bloom was already bringing the sleigh closer.
"Take a sit," she said, unable to contain her excitement. "We're going to bring ya to Ponyville. Twilight won't be able to get over it!"
"Ponyville? Oh no no, I don't have time to stop, I need to go south, way more south than that! And quickly!"
"Why?" asked the farmer, suddenly saddened. "Nopony in Equestria has seen you for ages, why do you have to go?"
The reindeer took his sleigh's tack and checked the straps, answering in a really hurried way:
"Because the windigos are coming. All the north, Equestria included, will be entirely frozen."
"The windigos!?" the three fillies exclaimed in a choir.
"But I thought Equestria's harmony was preventing them from freezing everything?" Sweetie Belle intervened.
"Positive and harmonious feelings sickens them, it's true," answered the reindeer while fastening his last straps, looking up at the sky to orient himself with the stars, before staring at the fillies. "But it's not an impenetrable wall, and they are very angry this year, more than usual. And it'll only get worse."
"But why?" asked the little unicorn once again.
"Because it's a long and tragic story and I don't have time to tell it to you!" he said in a hurry. "With that being said, you better pack up as well! Warn your rulers, and good luck for the rest."
"You're leaving us!?" Scootaloo panicked, alarmed by his words.
"The sooner I go, the further south I'll be!"
The reindeer stomped the ground with a hoof to test the solidity of the snow and almost immediately came to regret his move, letting a grumble of pain escape his mouth. However, it didn't stop him and he bent his legs as if he was going to jump.
But just before he could do so, the light around Sweetie Belle's horn – which up until now hadn't ceased to slowly weaken – sparkled one last time before completely turning off. A lighting of magic untied the vines on the reindeer's splints, and he once again collapsed on the ground.
Both fillies stared at the unicorn, Apple Bloom's eyes filled with reproaches.
"What are ya doin'!?"
But the unicorn was completely infuriated, gazing at the reindeer who was getting back on his flank, massaging his legs, looking at the filly with confusion.
"We help a so-called Christmas Reindeer, who's supposed to bring happiness and gifts to ponies, and all we get in recognition is a prediction of the apocalypse, without any explanations!? And he intends on leaving us like this!? If that's the famous Christmas Reindeer, now I understand why the windigos came right after him in the story!"
"Christmas Reindeer?" suddenly realised the reindeer. "The story? You know the story of my people?"
"Your people?" repeated the three fillies in unison, staring at him.
The reindeer first looked at his splints, then his sleigh, noticing it had been repaired. His expression went from incomprehension to guilt.
"Oh..."
He turned to the fillies with a sorry face.
"You help me, and here's how I thank you... I owe you apologies, young fillies. And explanations."
"We're listening," said Sweetie Belle, still gazing at him with suspicions in her eyes, expecting to see him try to escape once more.
"What do you know about my people?"
"Not much," Scootaloo said, looking at her friends. "We just know that, long ago, the Christmas-Reindeer would visit the ponies once a year to bring them gifts, and that it all stopped one year before the windigos came."
The reindeer sighed.
"Both are linked."
"Well, that was obvious," Sweetie Belle pointed out. "Without gifts, ponies argued and the windigos were able to come."
"I meant to say that the windigos are the reason why gifts stopped being given to ponies," corrected her interlocutor.
"How so? Y'all got attacked as well?" asked Apple Bloom.
"No," the reindeer winced. "I mean that my people, the reindeer people from the great north, the ice fields and the frozen lakes, and the creatures of cold, the windigos, are one and the same."
A cloud passed in front of the moon, preventing the injured from seeing the stunned faces the fillies displayed, but he still guessed their reaction.
"You see," he followed with an uncertain voice. "Reindeer are powerful creatures of magic. But our magic rests on one thing: our generosity. In our land, giving to your neighbor is an everyday deed as commonplace as meals. We like to receive presents, but we love to give them even more."
"It sounds as if we were talking about your sister," Scootaloo pointed out, looking at Sweetie Belle.
"Shh!" hushed Apple Bloom, impatient to hear more about that.
"For centuries, we gave to our friends as we did to nature, and to the other inhabitants of our lands. And we received in return. Nature thanked us by growing grass despite the cold, and would gift us with tall pine trees to build our houses. And the other creatures would help us as well. In the middle of our village, there was a huge pine, more beautiful than any other, and each year we would decorate it on a precise day. The day celebrating the birth of that tree we called Christmas. It was a symbol of our village, and a gift from our ancestors."
Scootaloo wanted to add something, but Apple Bloom's hoof went right on her muzzle, preventing her from talking, letting the reindeer pursue his story. He was displaying a dreamy face.
"It is during that period that one of us proposed to send presents even further away. Rumors had come to us about a new kind of small creatures, weak to the cold, living further south. So, every winter, on our day of celebration, we would deliver gifts to those beings, those ponies, to help them overcome the cold. Their gratitude was enough for us."
"That's us!" Apple Bloom exclaimed.
The reindeer's face got clouded, however.
"But one day," he said. "The day before Christmas, the pine disappeared. We like to give, but we don't like being stolen from. If someone had asked for the pine, maybe we would have accepted. But it was a present from our ancestors, and no one steals a present. My people got enraged and began to refuse giving anything to anyone, as long as the pine was not given back."
"But that's the very essence of your magic, you said it," Sweetie Belle couldn't help but say.
"Yes, and it's where the problem lies. If a reindeer is generous, his magic will be powerful and beneficial. But if a reindeer is selfish, withdrawn and angry, his magic will then become maleficent."
"Maleficent?"
The reindeer closed his eyes, with a bitter look.
"It'll start by attacking his heart, making him even more selfish, solitary. It'll then attack his mind and will make him enter a vicious cycle of hatred and anger, making him aggressive and possessive. Then, it'll be his body's turn, which will take the form of the desolated and hostile lands of the north, that have nothing to offer. In the end, if he spends one year without giving, a reindeer will become a windigo."
Words were lacking to describe the astonishment of the three fillies facing the stranger, but the light of the moon came down on the scene and helped the reindeer grasp the impact of his words on his young audience.
"One year after the pine was stolen, my people became windigos and went south to assuage a blind vengeance on every creature crossing their path. And the rest, I think you know it."
The reindeer got back up despite his broken legs, shaking a bit.
"I wasted enough time now, they'll be here in a few hours. I'm sorry, little ones, but you should quickly go back to your homes and warn everyone."
"What?" Apple Bloom lamented. "You're still going to leave?"
"You repaired my sleigh, I told you what you wanted to know, we're even now. If you have any other questions, I can answer them, but hurry."
The reindeer leaned and got busy putting his splints back in place, while the fillies were looking at each other, lost.
"But, you're not going to try and reason with them?" asked Scootaloo.
The reindeer sighed as he pulled on a vine to try and make it hold in place.
"I tried, believe me. But they can't be reasoned woth."
"Why now?" Sweetie Belle followed. "It's been more than a thousand years, why would they come against us again? And why couldn't we stop them this time?"
"Precisely because it's been more than a thousand years," the reindeer explained. "Sixteen centuries to be exact, and sixteen is an important number for my people, it's about as striking for us as a millennium is for you."
As he said the number, he pointed at the branches on his head. Sweetie Belle counted, they had sixteen ends.
"It increases their anger and, believe me, it has grown quite a lot since the time of your tale. Nothing will stop them this time, except the heat of the desert."
"So you're running away?"
The tall character froze when hearing the young pegasus' tone, full of reproaches. His horns glowed red for a brief moment as he slowly straightened his head, staring at Scootaloo in the eyes.
"Do you have the slightest idea how it is to see all the people you know turn against you? Become bitter, bad, withdrawn, consumed by vengeance? To get imprisoned for more than a thousand years by the same people you ate with?"
His voice was cold. Way more than the night. It was almost a blizzard. The three fillies had to huddled up, finding him suddenly terrifying.
"Yes, I'm running away. Because there's nothing else to do. The cold will devour countries and all those who won't have run away. An evil reindeer lives for centuries, the weather won't be back to normal in Equestria before your death. Me, I don't want to be imprisoned again."
The reindeer calmed almost immediately, returning to his normal expression, sighing:
"Go away. You, your friends and families. While you still have some."
He buckled his splints and turned back towards his sleigh.
"You'll be alone," Apple Bloom tried.
"It's still better than being frozen by the windigos."
"But they were your friends!"
"They were!" he vociferated without turning back this time. "And that's the problem!"
The reindeer harnessed his sleigh and seemed like he was looking to leave, running his gaze on the clearing, evaluating if it would make for a good takeoff runway.
"And if you become a windigo yourself...?" Sweetie Belle asked with a worried tone. "How long has it been since you last gave...?"
"Centuries..." the creature admitted. "But if you don't count the time I've spent in the ice... It'll be one year tomorrow..."
"Didn't you say that the transformation occurs after one year?" Scootaloo said.
Apple Bloom suddenly understood where those sudden jumps in mood from the reindeer were coming from. Not only from his complicated situation, but also from what was already beginning to happen in him. As he had said, the spirit becomes maleficent, hateful. Was it just a reflection from the moon, or was his coat showing white spots?
"Yes, I said it. But what can I do? I'm alone, everyone runs away from the windigos, for the few that believe in their existence..."
The three fillies exchanged worried looks, while the reindeer was slightly rubbing the ground to make sure he wouldn't slip when taking off.
Apple Bloom whispered to her friends:
"We can't leave him like this!"
"If we don't do anything, Equestria will be covered in ice!" Sweetie Belle added.
"We've got to intervene!" Scootaloo declared.
"But how?" Apple Bloom asked.
"We would have to be able to go to the windigos' place to calm them."
"Do you really want to try and talk with a windigo, Scoot?" said the little unicorn, raising an eyebrow.
"That doesn't sound very doable."
"I have a plan," the pegasus assured. "But we have to convince him to bring us there."
Sweetie Belle rubbed her chin.
"Hmmm... I may have an idea. But-"
"Good luck to you, young fillies," suddenly announced the reindeer, about to go away.
"Wait!" Apple Bloom desperately said.
"No, that's enough, time is running out!"
Sweetie Belle threw herself on his hooves to catch him, looking up at him with a pleading stare. He shook his leg to try and get rid of her, despite the splint.
"Listen to what we have to say!" the unicorn shouted.
"I don't have the time!" the reindeer said, getting angry, amplifying his gestures, shaking the filly left and right. She suddenly screamed:
"But how will ponies be able to pay back for everything you gave to if you don't listen!?"
The reindeer stopped his hoof, frowning, his head twitching a bit.
"What do you mean...?" he said slowly, suspicious but also intrigued.
The unicorn stared at him, pulling out her best tearful eyes.
"Reindeer taught ponies how to give... Equestria exists thanks to you, but we were never able to give you something in return... To show how grateful we are. If we run away now, we won't ever forgive ourselves."
Apple Bloom and Scootaloo looked at each other with a whisper:
"We won't...?"
"Let us help you! At least this time!" Sweetie Belle pleaded, her eyes dead fixed in his.
The uncertainty going through the reindeer's eyes showed her she had hit right. A being of generosity like him was sensitive to notions of debts others owed him. He could not swipe them away with a simple "it's not a big deal". Not with the way she had put it. She was used to it, with her big sister.
"And what do you want to do...?" the reindeer risked himself to ask.
"Go to your place," said Scootaloo, coming close to help her friend. "Deal with your friends' problem."
"How?"
"We have a plan," the pegasus assured, helping her friend to get back up, getting rid of the snow she had on her clothes. "Bring us there, we'll manage for the rest."
"This is madness..." the reindeer breathed. "You'll end up frozen the moment you lay a hoof in my village."
"Oh, it's enough now!" Apple Bloom grumbled, stomping her hoof. "No more talkin', you take us to your village!"
"We lost enough time already!" Sweetie Belle added in a hurried tone.
"Let's save the reindeer!" Scootaloo shouted, sticking out her chest.
The injured creature looked at them with a displeased, but resigned face. Finally, he let out a sigh, before nodding towards his sleigh.
"Get in. But if you end up frozen, I won't go and explain that to your families."
"No risk of that!" said the pegasus with confidence, climbing on the seats with her friends. "We already fought off way worse!"
"Like...?" Sweetie Belle asked, arching an eyebrow.
"An Ursa Major!"
"Do you mean the costume Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon had made to make us run away from our shed?" Apple Bloom whispered so that the reindeer wouldn't hear them. "I'm pretty sure it's less dangerous than a whole village of windigos..."
Scootaloo's face lost all assurance. She had forgotten about that small detail.
Author's Note
I love writing with the CMCs, I feel like it's really easy to go light-hearted comedy-dialogue with them.
"Get ready," the reindeer warned, snorting a bit, getting in position, hoof scratching the ground.
The little unicorn and the pegasus immediately hooked themselves on the railings that were on each side of the couch-like thing they were on. Apple Bloom, in the middle, didn't find anything to grab onto.
The harness' lashes tensed up as the reindeer pulled on them. Despite his fractures, he put an impressive strength in it and the jolt sent the fillies against the back of their seat. The snow could be heard cracking under the sleigh, as it took on speed.
Scootaloo looked at the ground going by, head above the railing, fascinated.
Apple Bloom was looking at her guide with some worries as he was picking up in pace, and the edge of the clearing was getting close. Did he really intend on going in between the trees? Or was the legend true?
At the same time, a thought crossed Sweetie Belle's mind, and she said out loud:
"Shouldn't we have warned Twilight and the others, at least...?"
Both her friends turned their eyes towards her, taking a few seconds to process the information.
"I-," Apple Bloom started.
Suddenly, the sleigh was violently shaken. The earth filly was projected into the air and, after a little back somersault, she landed in the back, among her pilot's belongings.
"Ouch..." she mumbled, rubbing her head. "What happened?"
She got back up, leaning on the backrest of the couch, looking in front of her. The trees were gone. Instead, she only saw the green-antlered reindeer, her two friends holding tightly on the sleigh, the starry sky and the clouds.
"We're flying..." Sweetie Belle answered in a distant tone, shocked, looking downward.
The forest was going by. As they were gaining altitude, the landscape was getting smaller.
"Really!?" said Apple Bloom, excited, getting close to the edge to see that.
"We're already so high!" Scootaloo commented, impressed. "And we're going fast!"
"You think so?" gauged the farmer. "I don't see the trees moving really fast."
"That's normal, the higher we are, the slower they seem to move!"
"How do you know that, Scoot?" Sweetie Belle asked. "You've never flown."
"Not by myself," the pegasus said, a bit hurt in her pride. "But Rainbow Dash already carried me. Even higher than that!"
The little unicorn looked up, in search of something. And she found it quickly, to her left, slowly fading away. Ponyville, barely visible under the moonlight. All the landscape was now under a heavy coat of snow. And she couldn't be sure of it because of the air lashing her face, but it looked like the wind was picking up.
"I hope we won't take too much time to get back..." Sweetie Belle said, more to herself than to her friends.
"But how are you flying without wings?" Scootaloo asked at the same time.
The reindeer turned his head towards her, looking like the question was irritating him.
"By magic. You're not the only one able to practice it."
"And you can do some other stuff, aside from flyin'?"
Their host sighed, tired. Then, he swayed his head and the tip of his antlers went red. A sudden burst of warm air went by the fillies and the surroundings. The clouds right above them dissipated and the snow stopped.
The three fillies looked at it, extremely enthralled. What he had just done usually required a few good minutes to Ponyville's weather team. They observed with wonder the stars and the circular hole it had formed in the clouds.
As everything seemed calm, the moment suspended in time, the reindeer declared with a dark tone:
"I shouldn't have done that..."
"Huh?" said the Cutie Mark Crusaders, turning their eyes to him.
At the same moment, a strong gust hit the sleigh and all were shaken, their vehicle oscillating dangerously in the air. Scootaloo barely got time to hang onto the railing, before hearing a tearing cry. She looked up and saw Apple Bloom flying over her head, thrown in the air, before falling into the void, yelling.
"Apple Bloom!"
The pegasus didn't think twice and threw herself out of the sleigh to go to her friend's rescue. Putting her hooves in front, she flapped her small wings to catch up to her. The ground was far away, yet closing in fast. She didn't have much time.
Apple Bloom wasn't even looking at her. She was yelling, looking down, towards the snow-covered trees. Another scream of terror escaped her mouth when she felt two hooves going below her legs, before she understood those hooves were actually trying to lift her.
Looking up, she saw Scootaloo trying her best to carry her. Pulling as much as she could on her small wings. But despite all her efforts, the ground was only coming faster towards them.
"Come on Scoots!" Apple Bloom desperately cheered, her eyes tearing up because of the wind blowing on her face. "If ya wanna learn to fly, now's the moment! Flap those wings!"
"What do you think I'm trying!? Would be easier if you weren't that heavy! You should go easy on the apple jam!"
"Hey! You take that back right now! Apple jam is an Apple family tradition since at least-"
"Now is not the time!" the pegasus yelled, feeling her wings about to give up on her, as the trees were getting dangerously close.
"Aim for the big branches at least!" Apple Bloom shouted.
As she was looking at the ground, the filly suddenly felt herself becoming lighter. Like she was being lifted.
"Ah, see, you can do it!"
"That's not me!" Scootaloo pointed out, still flapping since they were still falling, just slower.
"What do ya m-" Apple Bloom began, before she saw the sleigh positioning itself under them.
She barely had time to understand before they heavily fell in all the stuff in the back. The vehicle lost a bit of altitude because of the impact, but a big portion of it was absorbed thanks to that. Sweetie Belle collapsed as her horn was turning off, exhausted.
Scootaloo quickly jumped out of the belongings – and off of Apple Bloom's face – and went back to the front seat, looking at her friend.
"Wow. I guess it's true what they say: Unicorns ARE op."
"Your friends wouldn't have succeeded without your efforts," said the reindeer. "You both react quickly. Now, be more careful."
"Aaah..." Apple Bloom complained, getting up, disoriented. "Ah think ah hurt my leg, but ah don't know which one..."
"We should put a seat belt on you," Scootaloo said, looking at her. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, ah've seen worse at the f-"
Once again, the filly with a ribbon wasn't able to end her sentence. A violent gust of cold wind interrupted her and shook the sleigh. Sweetie Belle barely held onto her seat, while Scootaloo looked in front of them, panicked.
"What is that!?"
"Hum, wind?" the unicorn tried, finding the question silly, especially coming from a pegasus.
"Not that! That!"
Both her friends looked in the direction her hoof was pointing towards. The clouds had become even darker than the night itself. The clearing birthed by the reindeer before had completely vanished. The air seemed to have become even colder as well, the wind tossing the sleigh around.
Suddenly, a neigh pierced the darkness. High pitched, as if coming from another world. The reindeer clenched his teeth, muttering:
"Dasher..."
"What? Where?" Scootaloo said, surprised. "What's Rainbow doing here this late?"
"He said Dasher, not Dash," Sweetie Belle corrected, before looking at their pilot. "Who's that?"
"A friend..."
"Do you have friends that aren't windigos?" the little unicorn wondered.
A new gust of wind shook the sleigh, knocking the three fillies over. The reindeer stomped his hoof in the air and a strong crack was heard. As he took a sudden acceleration, he breathed in between his teeth:
"No..."
A new neigh echoed. Closer. Their pilot seemed to groan and tried to pull on his sleigh even more.
"So, this Dasher..." Sweetie Belle slowly understood as the wind was blowing into her ears despite her hat.
Before she could finish her thought process, she got a little tap on the shoulder from Apple Bloom. She was staring behind them, eyes wide open. Scootaloo as well.
The little unicorn slowly turned her head, fearing to see what they were looking at.
It was worse than what she had expected. Just a few meters behind the sleigh, galloping in the air, two white and cold eyes were looking at them.
Those spheres were a horror that tales had never managed to transcribed. Filled with hatred and anger. A blind furry, directed not towards anyone in particular, but against the whole entire world. This half-transparent white figure detested them. Without any reason. Simply because they existed. And that hatred would never fade. That thing would chase them until the end of times, until its icy breath would freeze them.
The three friends held each other in their hooves and yelled out of panic.
"Faster!" Apple Bloom shouted.
"I can't!" the reindeer answered, already at his maximum. "Dasher is faster than me! You have to do something!"
"Us!?" Scootaloo exclaimed, seeing the windigo getting closer.
"He's a spirit of disagreement! Of selfishness and loneliness! If you show him you're together, it should allow us to escape!"
"Together!? How do we do that!?"
"I don't know!" cursed the reindeer out loud. "You're the group of friends, not me!"
The three fillies looked at each other, confused and terrified. What could they possibly do?
"Er... Nice er... hat, Sweetie Belle..."
"Hum... Thanks, Apple Bloom... I really like your... mane...?"
The creature behind them neighed once again, knocking the three friends down. From this close, his gloomy voice was squealing in the deepest part of their ears, which they tried to cover with their hooves, but to no avail.
"It's not working!" screamed Scootaloo.
The coldness was beginning to sink in the depth of their coat. The reindeer shouted:
"Try again! Or we're doomed!"
"What do we do!?" Sweetie Belle panicked, looking at her friends as the tears flowing from her eyes because of the wind were starting to freeze.
"I don't know!" Apple Bloom lamented, covering her head, trying in vain to keep her ears warm. "We shouldn't have left alone! If Twilight was here, she would know what to do!"
"No!" suddenly said Scootaloo, standing up, stomping her hoof. "We're the Cutie Mark Crusaders! We won't just stay there, complaining and hoping someone else fixes the problems for us!"
"What did she say!?" the unicorn yelled at her friend.
Apple Bloom shrugged, as she hadn't heard her either because of the wind. But the pegasus didn't let go of it, facing the beast.
"We're planning on saving the world! Well, Equestria! We're not going to give up at the first windigo that-"
The creature sent a sudden gust right into the sleigh, lifting it. Scootaloo fell backward, next to her friends.
"We won't make it out like that!" said Sweetie Belle, more panicked than really making a reproach.
"Sorry, I thought it would impress him!" the little pegasus replied, barely feeling her wings.
"I never should have brought you into this!" Apple Bloom apologized, looking at them, terrified. "It's my fault if we went after the Christmas Reindeer!"
"We would have ended up frozen at Twilight's house anyway!" argued the unicorn. "You did nothing wrong!"
"But we could have asked for help!" the filly pursued. "Rather than trying to do everythin' on our own!"
Their legs were beginning to be covered in ice. The sleigh was losing speed as the presence behind them was getting greater and greater.
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo came against Apple Bloom to stay warm and to feel each other in what seemed to be their last moments.
"Ah'm really sorry..." the farmer kept on lamenting.
"It's not your fault..." reassured the unicorn. "We should have prepared better to fight against windigos."
"I hope the others will make it out..." said the little pegasus. "I'm sorry I said you were heavy, Apple Bloom."
"It's ok," she said with a slight sad smile.
"At least, all three of us are here."
The Cutie Mark Crusaders held each other, letting the fated cold gain their bodies.
A new neigh was heard. Even more aggressive than the others, more gloomy but also filled with pain. The creature seemed to suffer. His cry went more distant, less glacial, less threatening.
Scootaloo partially opened her eyes, intrigued, seeing the windigo moving away. The reindeer snorted and pulled on the sleigh with strength, not losing any second, getting away as fast as possible as the air was getting back to a normal temperature.
"Well done!" their guide congratulated them.
"For what?" Apple Bloom asked, just noticing that her legs weren't frozen anymore.
"Aha! I knew my plan would work!" Scootaloo exclaimed.
"Your plan?" said Sweetie Belle, opening her eyes as well.
"Of course! Look, the windigo ran away because of my intervention!"
"Ah'm not sure..."
"I think it's because we supported each other, instead," the unicorn reasoned.
"Yeah, just like in the old tale."
"Pff," Scootaloo said, looking away with a proud face. "Now you want to rob me of my victory."
Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes, while her friend sighed and let her have it, admitting:
"Okay, fine. Thanks Scoots', happy?"
The pegasus rubbed her own torso with one hoof and a falsely unconcerned face, simply answering:
"I didn't hear Sweetie Belle."
"Thank you," the unicorn mumbled.
"Stay focused!" the Christmas Reindeer lectured. "If Dasher was here, it means the others aren't far behind! Do you have a plan to pass them?"
"They will probably gather around the cities, right?" Scootaloo asked which, to her friends' surprise, implied she had thought about it.
"Probably, they'll go where there are more ponies to freeze. Dasher was likely here to scout."
"So we need to turn a bit to the east," said the pegasus. "Otherwise, we're going straight to Cloudsdale."
"Couldn't we stop and ask for the Wonderbolts' help?" Sweetie Belle suggested.
"Ah think they'll be too busy to listen to us seriously..."
"True, adults never listen to fillies," the unicorn muttered. "But they could listen to the Christmas Reindeer, right?"
"Don't count on me to persuade anyone," their driver replied a bit too coldly.
"But..."
"In any case, if you want to get to my home, we don't have time to stop! Unless you want to see your country covered in ice!"
"Will we be there on time at least?" Scootaloo asked, taking all this very seriously.
"By traveling by magic, maybe," the reindeer mumbled. "But it's going to attract the others."
"Perfect! We can keep them far off of Equestria for a time, then! And put my plan in action!"
"What's your plan?" Apple Bloom asked.
The young orange pegasus turned to her friend, wind in her mane and a mischievous smile on her face.
"I'll tell you once we're there. But I'm sure it'll work, if we can complete it before the windigos come!"
The two others exchanged an uncertain look. Not that they didn't trust her friend, but she often had trouble evaluating the reliability of her plans. When it was something other than scooter tricks, that is.
The reindeer slowly changed course to deviate off of Cloudsdale's route, looking not that enthusiastic about doing something that would suddenly lure his own kind.
"Are you sure you want to go there with magic?" he grumbled, even though he knew the answer he was going to get.
"Certain!" Scootaloo exclaimed, facing the wind. "And well, your friends have to be there if we want to give them back their normal appearance, so we might as well bring them."
"Fine. Brace yourself then. I won't turn back if any of you fall."
The three fillies obeyed immediately, taking refuge at the back of the sleigh, where they could find the most things to hold onto.
"We're ready!" the pegasus declared once she was installed in the belongings.
The reindeer briefly shook his antlers. They took on a deep blue taint, like the night. The halo first spread on the tall ungulate's body, then went to the straps around him, before taking the whole sleigh in.
The wood reacted to the magic. It began to vibrate. Sweetie Belle didn't need much more to understand:
"It's enchanted."
As soon as she pronounced those words, a huge detonation happened. Like fireworks, including the pyrotechnical effects. Their transport suddenly took a deep acceleration, sticking the three fillies at the back of the sleigh.
The wind blew on their face for a brief instant, before it stopped. The acceleration also seemed to have ceased, but they were zooming in the sky, faster than anything they had ever seen or imagined. Encircled by a blue halo protecting the whole vehicle and the driver, they were looking, flabbergasted, at the landscape of Equestria going by so fast it was blurry.
They also saw the sky darkened even more than it already was. The last rays of the moon disappeared, leaving an almost total obscurity in its place. Never had the night been so dark in Equestria.
Or rather, north of Equestria. Because they weren't in their homeland anymore. The immense mountains above which they were flying didn't belong to their nation.
"We're... already at the Crystal Empire...?" Sweetie Belle stammered, as she couldn't get over it.
Barely had she ended her sentence that the mountains were already but a distant memory. Now, it was great monotone tundras, with just some pine forests and hills sprinkled here and there, right below them.
"Why did we have to dodge Cloudsdale if we could do that from the beginnin'!?"
"This sleigh reacts as much to my friends' magic than mine," said the reindeer with a bitter voice. "They would have stopped us without any trouble. Instead, they're just going to chase us."
"How did we go so fast?" Scootaloo wondered, coming back to the front seats.
"The sleigh has been enchanted to help us in distributing our gifts to the other races. Hold on tight, we're getting there."
The fillies didn't wait for him to say it once more. Quickly, they grabbed the sides of the sleigh.
Barely had they done it that their vehicle was struck by a brief but intense shake. They weren't dashing through the continent at an incredible speed anymore. The reindeer was slowly moving in the sky, progressively losing altitude.
The three fillies looked down, catching the glimpse of a snow-covered valley. Plunged into the darkness cast by the clouds, the Cutie Mark Crusaders wondered how their guide was able to make his way in between the mountains. For them, there was only the night and, sometimes, a big shadow passing by, indicating they had just brushed past a rocky peak.
"It's here?" asked Sweetie Belle, putting a hoof above her eyes to protect them, squinting to try and make something out.
"The lights have been off for a long time," said the reindeer with a dark tone. "But yes, it's my village."
The great ungulate's hooves touched the snow, then so did the runners. Carefully, he landed, slowing down until he came to a stop in the middle of the valley.
"How many are you?" Scootaloo asked, catching sight of a few houses thanks to her pegasus eyes.
"We were nine."
"So there were only nine windigos attacking Equestria?"
"Eight," Apple Bloom corrected. "Since he wasn't a windigo. And it wasn't even Equestria yet."
"Still, that's not a lot."
Their guide simply replied:
"Enough to plunge the world into an eternal winter."
The three looked at each other, worried. Then, another question came to the pegasus' mind.
"We saw Dasher, but you, what's your name?"
"It doesn't matter," the reindeer muttered. "Now hurry, the others will be there in less than an hour."
"Oh, but we didn't introduce ourselves!" the small earth pony realized. "Ah'm Apple Bloom!"
"I'm called Sweetie Belle."
"And I'm Scootallo!"
The reindeer turned his eyes to the three fillies, which were all putting on a great smile. Their insistent look showed they were waiting for him to do the same. He sighed, his red nose lowering as a sign of defeat.
"Rudolph."
"Nice to meet you, Rudolph!" they said in unison before jumping from the sleigh.
The unicorn and the pegasus managed to land with grace on the snow, then heard a little "pomf". Turning their heads, they only saw a hole where their friends should have stood.
"Apple Bloom?" Scootaloo called.
"How is it that the snow is so weak!?" the earth filly grumbled, dragging herself out of the hole.
"A lot of snow falls here all the time," Rudolph explained. "Especially with the avalanches. It takes a bit of time before it becomes solid. Be careful. And hurry."
He took off the harness and sat down in the snow, massaging his legs. The Cutie Mark Crusaders gathered in a circle and began to focus.
"So, Scoots', what's the plan?" Apple Bloom asked, pawing at the ground with impatience.
"For now, we can't put it into action. We can't see anything."
"Could we put the lights back on?" Sweetie Belle said to Rudolph.
He sighed again. His horns glowed once more, this time with a pale green color.
A slow sound rose around them. A deep vibration that gained in volume as small lights were piercing the shadows. Red, green, golden, silvery and blue, they rapidly gained in intensity, revealing the town.
It was in between three tall mountains, in a small valley. Each house was built on an abrupt slope, on one of the mountainside. Above, they could see a pine forest.
Everything was covered in snow. The wooden framework of the habitations was barely visible. They were also rather quaint, slightly crooked and entirely made of wood. True little cabins.
Each house possessed a frontage decorated with luminous bulbs. The light came out of them. Despite the house being the only one lit, it was enough to let the whole valley bath in a soft glimmer. At least, at first.
As the filly looked at them in awe, many spheres began to crackle, one after the other, then simply turned off one by one. In a few seconds, only a fourth of them stayed on.
"What's goin' on?" Apple Bloom asked, a little saddened by this.
"They haven't worked for years," said the reindeer with an annoyed sigh. "The magic inside of them must have gone. The one in the center already didn't turn on anymore when the pine was stolen."
"And where was it?" Scootaloo followed very seriously.
"At the center of the valley. About where we are currently standing."
Rudolph's eyes went lost towards the sky, while he began to dream out loud:
"I remember all the lights on it. The decorations on its branches, the spheres holding our magic, the painted sticks surrounding it, the gifts laid at its foot. The celebrations done around it."
His sigh was sad this time. Then, he fell silent.
"So, now that we can see, are you going to explain your plan?" Sweetie Belle inquired, looking at her friend.
"Oh, you'll see, I find it's a super plan!" the pegasus boasted, sticking out her chest.
"Get to the point, Scoots', we don't have time for that."
"Alright, so listen up."
She put one leg on the neck of each of her friends to get them closer, exposing her idea:
"The reindeer all became like this because they didn't give anything in a long time. And the three pony kinds fought them with cooperation and friendship."
"Yeah, nothing new there," the unicorn pointed out, arching an eyebrow.
"But for now, nopony has tried to offer them something in return," Scootaloo continued, with an ambitious smile. "Giving is a big part of their culture, but receiving can also be one. An appropriate gift could help them to calm down."
"And what are you proposing...?" Sweetie Belle asked. "In case you didn't see it, we didn't come with gifts."
"We're going to give them their pine back! Well, we're going to give them a new one. And make their village look as good as new!"
"How do you plan on doin' that? Ya got an ax with you to cut down another pine and bring it here?"
"No need for that. We're going to make one with snow and decorate it like they did."
"In an hour?" said Sweetie Belle, a bit skeptical.
"There's three of us. Four, counting Rudolph. We already did more with less time before."
"Ah don't know..." Apple Bloom winced, rubbing her cheek. "That plan sounds a little... light."
"Trust me."
The pegasus gave them a confident smile. The two others exchanged a look, before agreeing.
"I'll get on clearing out the roofs from the snow," the earth filly proposed. "Sweetie Belle, you'll get the decorations done and Scoots', you'll do the pine tree."
"I hope it won't end up like the spectacle," the unicorn said with worries. "I'm not sure the windigos want to have a laugh."
"Don't be defeatist like that," said the pegasus, letting go of them. "Come one now, we don't have all night! Cutie Mark Crusaders!?"
The three fillies united their hooves with a smile.
"Tonight, we save Equestria!" Scootaloo declared.
"Yeah!" said the two others, raising their legs in the air.
Immediately, Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle went their own way, hurrying in their search for stuff that could help them. Scootaloo, on her side, stayed where she was and undertook gathering as much snow as she could in between her hooves, beginning to make it roll.
Author's Note
This, along with the next part, used to be part 2.
Rudolph, doubtful, looked at the three fillies at work. They weren't very much organized, in addition to being in a foreign land, but they were putting their heart in each of their actions. In a way, it reminded him of his own people. That will to please. To offer something.
Looking up at the sky, which had just cleared, he remembered. Staring at the stars, he let out a sigh. Even if, for him, it was only a year ago, that time seemed so far away.
Scootaloo heard him.
"What's wrong?"
"I miss the aurora borealis..." he said, which was partly true.
"The what?"
"The symbol of my people's magic. Who knows, maybe you'll see them if you succeed."
The tone of his voice didn't leave much room for any doubts: He didn't believe in it.
"That'll be cool, then!" Scootaloo answered with a smile. "You'll show us that!"
On her end, Apple Bloom was still looking for something to clear out the snow. A bunch of branches would have been enough, but the forest was too far and too dark for her to go alone. Maybe she could find something to help her in the abandoned houses, but politeness led her to ask Rudolph instead.
"Do you have tools in your home by any chance!?" she yelled through the valley.
The reindeer looked up to her, dismayed.
"She's going to trigger an avalanche!" he said loud enough for Scootaloo to hear, not the earth filly.
The pegasus invited her friend to come over, understanding Rudolph's worries. She needed a reminder about where they were it seems.
"Stop shouting," Scootaloo scolded once her friend got closer. "There's snow everywhere, you're going to bury us."
"Yeah well I'm trying to gain time," Apple Bloom grumbled, still waiting for an answer to her question. "Can we go inside the houses to look for stuff to help us?"
"I would avoid that if I were you," Rudolph advised. "Taking the belongings of my people isn't a good idea."
"And yours?"
The reindeer's face turned a little darker. The wind appeared to succeed at piercing in between the mountains to blow in the valley, penetrating the fillies' coats. Something changed in the air as they began to shiver.
"Hum, Rudolph...?" Apple Bloom slowly asked.
The tall ungulate did not answer, suddenly exhaling heavily through his muzzle, as if he was angry.
"Please...?" Scootaloo tried, thinking good manners were important for him.
The reindeer slowly opened his mouth, speaking at a reduced pace, with a much deeper voice:
"You want me to give you something...? You come here and you expect to be able to take whatever you want...?"
"It's to clear out the snow," Apple bloom quickly said. "To help you. I'll give everything back after."
The black hooves clenched on the white ground, compressing it a bit in a muffled sound. Then, Rudolph's leg's muscles relaxed as he sighed.
"Sorry..." he sincerely whispered, filled with remorse. "My house is the one alone on its hill. You can take whatever you want in it."
Apple Bloom looked at the four mountain sides. Indeed, if every one of them had two or three houses, only one, a little bit further from the center than the others, had just a single cabin on it.
"Thanks!" she said, rushing towards it.
"Now come on! That tree isn't going to build itself!" Scootaloo said to herself, trying to forget the fact their guide looked less and less stable.
With her little hooves, she dug in the big snowball she had made. Trying to make it into the shape of a pine tree, she ended up stopping, noticing that the powder snow against her hoof didn't seem so cold anymore. In fact, she couldn't even feel its texture anymore, the tip of her hooves.
Meanwhile, Sweetie Belle was examining the lights on the ground. She had already seen similar ones during her sister's expositions, simple sources of magical light, contained in colored spheres. Well, "simple" not quite, since to have them last for so long, they had to be made by someone very talented. But the little unicorn was thinking she could make a few, which might last for the night.
Taking the broken ones, she began to try and inject her magic in them to put them back in working condition.
The little farmer arrived in front of Rudolph's house, after a slope that had seemed unending.
"I should have taken boots," she said to herself, annoyed, looking at her snow-covered legs.
Bringing her eyes back on the habitation, she quickly understood that she would have to dig. Only the roof and a window were still visible, poking out of the ground. Thankfully, the little luminescent path and a big tinsel showed her the place where she would probably find the entrance.
After a few minutes of each of them being busy on their own, under the attentive gaze of the reindeer, the three filly looked like they were making progress. The earth one was already almost done clearing out the door, the unicorn had brought their lights back to two houses, and the pegasus had already a nice base for a pine tree taller than her. The work done was still rough, but the simple fact of seeing his village given a second breath warmed the heart of Rudolph. But a question persisted.
"Why are you doing this? Nothing forces you to, you could have ran away, or tried to vanquish my people."
"We can't let Equestria down," Scootaloo answered, starting to form a second snowball. "Even if we had Ponyville evacuated, everything else would have ended up frozen. But I don't know if the Elements would have worked."
She thought about that option for a few moments. She didn't even know where the stones were kept. If it had been in Canterlot, they wouldn't have made it in time.
"Do you know some people outside of your village?" the reindeer followed.
"Not many, well not me at least. Apple Bloom has family in Appleloosa."
"What would prevent you from leaving all those strangers behind, then...?"
Scootaloo stopped, slightly surprised, turning her head towards Rudolph, before thinking.
"Because it's bad...?"
"You don't have to risk your life for people you don't know..." he sighed.
"Well, and you, why did you handed out gifts to ponies without ever even going and talking to them?" the filly asked. "Or why did you help us coming all the way here? Why are you still here, when we just asked you to bring us here?"
Rudolph readjusted his splint all the while slowly answering the three questions:
"It was vital, you have a debt to pay back to my people, and where we are, galloping would not be of any use."
"It was vital?" the pegasus repeated, unconvinced.
"Being generous is important for us, I already told you," the reindeer angered, beginning to growl.
"But you didn't need to go to the ponies."
"You think you know everything better than us!?" he suddenly yelled, standing up.
A strong wind almost knocked Scootaloo over. Rudolph was standing right in front of her, straight and menacing, looking at her up and down. His eyes had become white while his antlers seemed to have partially vanished.
The filly huddled up, terrified by this abrupt change. Even if she felt like every word could make the situation even worse, she defended herself with all the honesty she was capable of.
"N-No, it's just that the way you described it, things seemed to be different..."
"In what way!?" the reindeer shouted at the same moment the sky rumbled.
Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle raised their heads hearing this, fearing that the windigos might already be here. Without noticing that their friend might soon be facing one of them.
"Y-You said you love to give... I thought it meant you do that for another reason than simply not transforming into windigos..."
"And what would that reason be!?" the ungulate growled, his voice covered by the icy wind, yet even more powerful in it.
Scootaloo folded on herself even more, shivering from fear.
"That you did all this because you find true enjoyment in being generous... You gave gifts to ponies simply because the act of giving makes you happy..."
The wind abruptly ceased, bringing back silence in the valley. Rudolph was immobile, his eyes straight on Scootaloo. Behind his anger now lied confusion. Why had he been generous?
A cold voice inside of him said it was to prevent himself from hurting others, by fear of becoming a monster. That he was naive for ever wanting to protect all those selfish creatures from who he was. Ungrateful thieves, this world was only filled with those. They didn't deserve him working so hard for them.
But that voice wasn't the only one. Another one, more distant but warmer as well, was trying to remind him. That heat in his heart when seeing his kind feast. That profound feeling when he gave a present to a friend. This wave of joy when, during his distribution, he felt the surprise and happiness from those strangers, discovering an unexpected gift. The simple pleasure in offering. In sharing.
His legs gave up on him as his eyes took back their natural brown shade. He collapsed on the ground, in front of the filly, burying his head in between his hooves, remembering. Oh, how he had become bitter. How much his heart had grown dark. Like theirs.
"Are you okay...?" Scootaloo hesitated, seeing him in such a state, shaken by all these sudden changes.
"No, little one..." he slowly answered. "For I had forgotten who I was..."
"Which is to say...?"
He put his hooves away from his head, revealing a tormented face to the filly. But he wasn't looking at her. His eyes were someplace else, along with his thoughts.
"I only have a few hours left, before I'll become a windigo as well... And I can't do anything about it..."
"How is it that you're only transforming into one now?"
"I beg your pardon...?" said the reindeer, slightly confused by her wording.
"All the others transformed, but not you," the pegasus pointed out. "Why?"
"Because I kept on giving despite their anger... When the tree was stolen, the day before Christmas, all of my people ceased their gifts. Even between themselves."
Rudolph painfully leaned on his forelegs again, getting himself to sit in the snow, his gaze still plunged in his own past.
"But it was Christmas. We had to do our round of the surrounding villages, to distribute our usual presents. Besides, it was my turn to proudly lead our sleigh to the other regions of the world."
The filly sat down in front of him, listening to what he had to say.
"But my people didn't want it... They demanded for the tree to be returned before anything else. And I... I thought that by giving, it would be given back to us. So, I gathered the gifts we had crafted before the other would destroy them, and I went for the delivery. Because for nothing in the world would I have missed this moment I had waited for during nine years... But the tree wasn't given back... Whoever was the robber, my gesture didn't touch them. My friends locked me in my home, to punish me. All year long, I tried to reason with them. All year long, they refused to listen to me. I couldn't give... I didn't want it anymore."
Rudolph's voice was slowly lowering as his story progressed. Scootaloo had trouble pinpointing what emotion he was feeling. Sorrow? Remorse? Coldness?
"When a year had gone by, when the day before Christmas arrived, they changed into windigos. I tried to get out of my home. To reason with them one last time. And the only answer I got was to be frozen. Until today."
"You just woke up?" the filly said in shock.
"This is why I still have a bit of time left... I was hoping I could fly south and give some of my belongings to someone. It would have prevented me from turning into a windigo too..."
The pegasus looked at him weird. Was it truly a problem? Could giving be that complicated?
"Why don't you offer me something then?"
"But what...?" the reindeer asked. "What could I give you...?"
Scootaloo arched an eyebrow.
"You have things in your sleigh, right? Or even snow could be enough, couldn't it? What matters is that you give something."
Rudolph's hooves tensed again. His teeth slowly unveiled themselves, as he was clenching them.
"A gift is only valuable if it is made out of the kindness of one's heart... I don't know how you proceed, but a forced present isn't a present... It is scorn, fear or pity..."
"That's what I was saying earlier," Scootaloo pointed out. "You need a true feeling. So giving your sleigh to someone wouldn't have helped you either way."
"No... But until I met you, I didn't have any other choice..."
The pegasus slowly gained back some confidence, going by his side. With an assured tone, she summed up:
"So, it's up to us to give you back that desire to give! To you and your kind!"
The great reindeer relaxed a bit, finding a semblance of peacefulness. But it was about the only thing he had found back.
"Maybe... I don't believe it much, little one..."
"Trust us!" said the filly, puffing out her chest.
"Mhh..."
"Well, I have to get back to work," she followed, returning to her hint of a pine tree made of snow. "Everything needs to be ready when the others arrive!"
As the pegasus was bringing her attention back onto her work, Apple Bloom finally managed to sufficiently clear the front side of Rudolph's house out, opening the door. Or, at least, she tried. The mechanism was frozen, surrounded by snow, which itself was frozen. Despite all the strength an earth pony her age could show, she wasn't able to make it move.
"Come on!" she begged, forcing her shoulder against the cold wood.
"Something's wrong?" suddenly asked a voice near her.
Once she landed back from her surprise-induced jump, the filly looked toward her friend. The unicorn was holding many little colorful and luminescent spheres, linked by a small cable.
"What are you doing here?"
"I come to hang decorations," Sweetie Belle answered. "Seeing as it's the first house you've shoveled the snow."
"But there's already a tinsel on this one," Apple Bloom noted, pointing at the frame of the door, indeed decorated.
The unicorn proceeded by exchanging it with her own tinsel, taking the other and examining it before replying:
"Yeah, but this one needs to be repaired. But then, what's your problem here?"
"I'm trying to get in the house, but the hinges are frozen."
Sweetie Belle looked at the tall door in front of them. From up close, the house really gave the impression to have been made by giants. Which wasn't surprising, seeing Rudolph's size.
After a short reflection, the small unicorn pushed on her magic, engulfing the edges of the door in it.
"Try to open it?" she said, staying focused.
Apple Bloom didn't need to hear it twice. After making sure the handle was turned, she slammed her shoulder against the door. It moved, a crack coming from her sides.
"It's working!" the earth pony said.
Taking a step back, she charged at the door once again. This time, it opened wide in the dull sound of ice breaking.
"Woooow!" Apple Bloom said, carried by her momentum in the cabin, her run ending on the floor after a meter or so.
Sweetie Belle calmly entered after her, looking around a bit, lighting the place as her filly friend was getting up.
"It's quite cozy here," the unicorn noted.
"It's as cold as outside!" Apple Bloom complained, as she was starting to freeze, attracting the uncertain gaze of her friend.
"What did you expect? It hasn't been warmed in centuries."
"I should have put on clothes..."
The two of them looked at the house. Everything was made out of wood, obviously. The entrance directly led into what was probably a living-room, judging by the decorations, the couch and the table.
"Now what? What were you coming here for?"
"Looking for tools! A shovel would be nice!"
"There must be a storehouse for that?" Sweetie Belle assumed. "If they live in the snow all the time."
"Surely. Can you light the way for me?"
"I don't have infinite magic. Here."
The unicorn laid a luminescent sphere in her hoof. It was shining dimly, but it was better than the pitch blackness of the night.
"I still have a lot to enchant," she continued. "I don't even know if I'll manage to do the second one entirely."
"Oh, don't worry Sweetie Belle, you'll do it," her friend reassured, looking at the sphere.
The unicorn filly went out while kindly saying to her friend:
"Thanks! Good luck!"
Leaving Apple Bloom alone in the darkness. The light was enough to brighten the walls, but not really much more. The sphere was also warming her hooves, slightly.
"Alright, time to look around!" she exclaimed, throwing herself into the house with enthusiasm.
Author's Note
So that's a bit more than hallfway through the whole thing, if you're wondering.
Many minutes went by. As each filly was busy doing her own task, the time was going by dangerously fast. The clouds had slowly shifted, letting the light from the moon fall down on the small working hooves.
Rudolph observed them. A strange feeling was getting a grasp on him, as he was looking at his town finding back a sense of shape. After spending a year seeing it deteriorate, it was weird to witness the opposite process.
Apple Bloom had cleared out the front of five of the houses, as well as their roofs. She was really efficient for that kind of manual labor requiring endurance.
Sweetie Belle was putting up her fifth tinsel. The lights weren't as bright as back in the days, nor as many, but she had found a good compromise by deciding to put less of them, to space them out more.
And finally, Scootaloo was getting to the last part of her pine. The work was still a bit crude, but the shape was enough to bring back many memories to the reindeer.
"At least it's practical that the air is cold," the small pegasus tried to reassure herself despite her shivers. "The snow stays in place."
"Your coat isn't made for that kind of cold, isn't it...?" finally noticed the tall ungulate.
"That? Pff," she said, waiving a casual hoof, before quickly pulling it back towards her. "It's absolutely nothing!"
Rudolph stood up, going by her side, looking at the snow-made pine. It was way less tall than the old one, but it didn't matter much to him. Laying a hoof on the pegasus' shoulder, without removing his eyes from the work, he ended up saying:
"Thank you..."
The filly looked up towards him, a little surprised by his answer. He was moved, that much could be seen in his gaze.
She was about to reply, but something cut her. A far away sound. A frozen neigh.
The clouds invaded the sky once more. Darkness fell again and a strong wind blew in the whole entire valley. Scootaloo had to cover her eyes with her legs to prevent them from definitively freezing.
The reindeer clenched his teeth. If the cry wasn't clear, he recognized the noise accompanying it. A long rumble, the sound of a spirit splitting the air.
"Keep on doing what you're doing, little one!" Rudolph ordered, stepping in front of her as a protection. "Finish that tree, finish giving back this village its old appearance!"
"But what ab-"
"I'll hold him back! He's alone for now, and Comet doesn't scare me!"
The reindeer's antlers brightened in red and green, as he stomped his hoof on the ground. The cry echoed again, closer, and the four saw an ashen light, growing intense. Way bigger than a regular windigo. Like an aura.
Rudolph put his branches forward. Bending his legs, he suddenly pushed on them to jump, but the pain reminded him of his earlier injury. He staggered a bit, under the worried gaze of Scootaloo, stumbling, before getting a hold of himself at the last second, managing to give a strong enough impulse to take off.
Throwing himself into the air, he headed straight for that glow. The latter was approaching quickly. Dangerously. Soon, he was able to make out the equine shape hidden behind that aura of frost. Under that form, windigos weren't physically distinguishable, at least for ponies. But Rudolph recognized his old friend.
The reindeer's antlers created a reddish halo, engulfing him, protecting him. His magic was weakened, but he believed he could still do it. He didn't really have much choice.
The three filly stared at the sky while the cold was getting more and more present. Scootaloo remembered Rudolph's words and went to see her friends to tell them to keep on working. Barely was she halfway through reaching the unicorn that a loud sound of fracture was heard.
The pegasus turned her head to the two shapes in the sky. Facing each other, opposing, releasing small yellow sparkles and a noise similar to ice cracking.
Rudolph threw his antlers forward, hitting the silhouette in front of him harshly. It was projected backwards, landing in the forest and disappearing from the fillies' sight. The reindeer ran after it.
Scootaloo got a grip of herself and went towards Sweetie Belle, hurrying:
"Quick! We need to finish everything before the others are here!"
"I'd like to!" the unicorn replied, looking at her. "But there's a problem."
She showed her friend twenty or so spheres to which pieces were missing, explaining:
"I can repair the ones where the magic has run out, but not if they're broken."
The pegasus looked at that, thinking of a solution. If they were back home, a simple request to Rarity would have been enough to get the necessary supplies. But they were far away from Carousel Boutique, further north than anypony had ever been, and Rarity was probably sleeping at such an hour.
"Maybe they have spare ones?" Scootaloo finally suggested. "I wonder how they made them."
"Hmm, good idea. I'll look in the houses."
As the unicorn was going back to a shed to inspect it, the pegasus launched herself to see her other friend. She was looking at the forest, with worries.
At the same moment, a humming sound shook the trees. A strong blizzard suddenly blew on the whole valley, bringing in snow and wind to the fillies.
"Rudolph!" Apple Bloom shouted, concerned about what this could mean.
A violent gust of wind swept the fillies away. Apple Bloom latched onto the shovel she was using to clear out, planting it in the ground to not fly away.
Scootaloo wasn't so lucky. The wind lifted her from the snow, carrying her into the air in an ascending current, as she yelled from surprise and terror.
"Scootaloo!" the little farmer shouted, reaching a desperately too short hoof towards her.
"Apple Bloom!"
The pegasus gained height against her will, blown away by the mini-tornado, while she was agitating her little legs and wings in vain, trying to steer herself.
Then, all ceased. The whistling in her ears stopped, the snow thrown into her face wasn't anymore. Calm came back as quickly as it had gone away. Scootaloo shook her head, before she felt her heart running away from her chest.
She was suspended in the air. Tens of meters away from the ground, the clouds right above her head, silence and night for only companions.
Then came the fall.
In a harrowing cry, the pegasus fell towards the ground. Or rather, towards the forest under her, the wind had carried her far from the village. After a few unending seconds, which she would have liked to never stop, the first shock came.
A branch. Then another. Thankfully, the snow on them prevented the branches from scratching her. Instead, she got the sensation of making a sequence of bad falls onto many piles of cushions.
Her uncountable scooter stunts had taught her how to properly soften the impacts as well. It is then in a muffled sound of snow getting compacted that she finally came into contact with the ground, disappearing under a layer of powder snow.
Apple Bloom had lost track of her. Impossible to see in what direction the wind had carried her. She was terrified. Was she alright? Where was she?
Another dull sound came from the forest. The earth filly desperately turned her head towards the noise, expecting the worst.
Light emerged in between the trees. The silhouette of Rudolph rose in the air, looking tired. His splints weren't there, making him limp in the air to come back to the village. His antlers were still shining, but with much less brightness to them and a bluish glow.
After a few seconds hovering in silence, he collapsed in the middle of the valley, near the snow made tree.
The little farmer hurried to his side, worried. How could this night go so wrong?!
The reindeer was still moving, weakly. He heard Apple Bloom coming more than he saw her, while breathing hoarsely:
"He didn't want to listen to me..."
"You fought with him!?" said the filly, arriving by his side, panicked, examining him.
"I didn't have any choice... He was going to hurt you..."
"But he's your friend and-"
"I wouldn't be a real friend if I'd let him do something he would regret... Don't worry, he is fine... You have to finish everything you've started, more than anything... Otherwise..."
He didn't get the time to finish his sentence. A new neigh cut him, and was soon repeated many times. Rudolph winced.
"Too late... They are here."
Apple Bloom slowly turned around, fearing what she was about to see.
Four ethereal shapes were hovering in the air, in the distance. They were descending towards them, slowly, staring at them with white eyes.
"Go hide yourself," the reindeer breathed. "Quick!"
"But I-"
"If they see you, they're going to be furious! Go seek your friends!"
The filly gazed at him, torn on the inside. Should she abandon him here if he was asking her to...? He discerned her concern and said:
"I can deal with them. Go away! Hurry!"
Apple Bloom stared at him in the eyes for a brief instant, before running away, fear in her heart. Where could she go? She would lose herself in the forest. And what if the windigos were to see her before she could reach it? No, she didn't have time to get there.
In the end, she chose the closest house as a refuge. At least from there she could observe the scene in silence.
After hiding herself behind the barely opened door, she turned her attention to the center of the village. The four ghostly equine figures were already in front of Rudolph.
He got himself back on his legs, painfully, facing them with straightness and the few strengths he had remaining.
The windigos stayed floating above the ground, staring at him coldly, literally.
"So here is the coward," suddenly said the first silhouette.
Apple Bloom jumped. The creature was far away and yet the wind carried each of its syllables towards her ears like a thunderclap. The tone was scornful, dry, hiding in itself a hatred both directed at Rudolph himself, but also another one more passive, more profound. That sound gave the impression that no benevolent words could ever come out of that thing.
"They can talk...?" the filly said to herself in a low voice, surprised.
"You are the cowards, Blitzen," Rudolph replied, looking hard at him. "For letting your hearts grow black."
"Ooh, look at him, little red!" viciously criticized another silhouette. "Do you really want to give us a lecture after your little cycle spent in the ice?! Or maybe you came here to ask us to put you back in it?!"
The voice was whistling horribly to the filly's ears. As if each word pronounced was a stalactite poking at her eardrums. She had to cover them. If the fact they could talk was a surprise, Apple Bloom was already regretting this discovery.
However, the remark seemed to hit a sensitive spot in Rudolph. It's true that he seemed smaller than the others, now that he was facing them. He clenched his teeth, refraining a scathing reply, as he would rather focus on his diplomacy.
"I didn't come here for this, Prancer. I was just hoping I could convince you all, one last t-"
"Shut up!" dryly cut the one named Prancer. "You're irritating when you talk!"
A strong draft almost slammed the door on Apple Bloom's muzzle. But she managed to catch it in time, still listening.
"There's no need to get carried away," a third voice tempered, with a slow and sadistic tone. "Rudolph has always been like this, he won't change today. He's a lost cause."
As for the previous ones, this creature also had its particularity in its way of talking. And the earth filly thought it was probably the worst she had heard up until now. The words pierced her being with the intent of removing all the heat from it.
"At least you gave us back our sleigh," the strange voice continued. "That kind of thing shouldn't be in the hooves of someone like you."
"Enough!" Rudolph thundered, stomping his hoof on the snow, his antlers letting out a pulse of red magic that surrounded him.
Three windigos moved back, slightly surprised by his reaction. But the first, Blitzen, let out a long strident cry and a lighting bolt came crashing down on the reindeer, blinding the filly.
When she opened her eyes again, Rudolph was still standing, facing the others with a determined look on his face. Even the spectral face of the windigos couldn't hide their surprise.
"How can you still do that kind of magic?" Blitzen asked, upset.
"Because I never stopped trying to give! To try and give to you! Even if you always refused! Here is why you're the cowards, you who lash onto others by selfishness! And why I am still here tonight, with my true appearance!"
It was a lie, even if Apple Bloom was unaware of it. The only thing that allowed him to hold on was this glimmer of hope the three fillies had put in him. That will to help, to give, which he hadn't seen in so long.
"Red-snoot has become confident in the ice," Prancer noted with a horrible sarcasm.
"But he's lying," followed the windigo that hadn't spoken up until now. "Isn't he, Cupid?"
"His heart is dark," Cupid answered. "He doesn't have much time left. Maybe we should wait until his true nature comes out."
There was a mocking tone in their voices. And yet, Apple Bloom had thought they would swoop down on Rudolph without leaving him any chances. But maybe they still had a bit of respect for someone of their kind, in them? Or maybe did they just wish to see him fall as well?
The reindeer opened his mouth to answer, but he was once more interrupted, this time by the sound of a door suddenly opening.
"I found some!" Sweetie Belle proudly declared, holding high a bunch of tangled up tinsels.
Apple Bloom's heart gave up on her. The little unicorn, on her end, displayed a face of utter incomprehension for just a few brief instants, before she froze on the spot, fear seizing her being.
The four windigos were staring at her. The relative quietness their appearances had developed during the conversation had gone away. Ashen volutes were flying in all directions, like some kinds of immense spectral ribbons shaken by the wind.
In a vain hope to escape this situation, Sweetie Belle slowly moved back towards the inside of the cabin and began to close the door.
The creatures suddenly jumped forward, seemingly forgetting Rudolph's presence. Blitzen shouted:
"Thief!"
Even if the word itself was drowned into the rumbling of his anger. Putting yourself in front of a windigo with stuff belonging to him was probably the worst thing someone could ever do.
The unicorn tried to find refuge in the house, panicked, smashing the door. But barely was she inside that it was violently opened, almost teared from its hinges. A strong wind knocked over most of the possessions in the house, carrying the filly into a corner of the room with her tinsels.
Sweetie Belle painfully opened her eyes despite the coldness blowing in the room. The windigos weren't there yet, maybe she could still hide?
A red lightning bolt illuminated the entrance for a few instants, then the quiet settled back in.
Outside, Rudolph had just stepped in the way of the four creatures, despite his wounded legs.
"You won't do anything to them!" he growled.
It was a lost cause. His peers weren't really conscious anymore, only their rage mattered. The hatred towards this creature treading on their village. Who wasn't frozen. Who dared to exist while they had nothing.
They tried to go around Rudolph, setting off a blizzard even stronger than the one that had existed up until now. Blowing with so much force that even the cabins began to shake, almost shattering the snow-made pine and threatening to carry the tinsels away.
One of the reindeer's broken legs was pushed by the wind, awakening a great pain in him. Which only made his own anger grow even bigger.
Sweetie Belle curled up behind a conglomeration of chairs and tables which had been blown by the winds, her heart beating like crazy. She was glad to have brought warm clothes, because she could feel her coat freezing even under her sweater.
Terrified. That was the word. Never had she been so scared, not even when she had explained to Rarity that her ice cream consumption was probably the cause of her dress-size issue.
What was going to happen to her? End up frozen here, far from her closed ones? And Equestria?
There was a thunderclap, or at least, something resembling it, and the blizzard ceased again. Or rather, it wasn't blowing in the house anymore. However, the air itself seemed to get even colder, the unicorn catching a glimpse at small snowflakes forming in the air coming out of her mouth.
With caution, she came out of her hiding spot, casting an eye outside.
A tall shape was now levitating in the air, in front of the houses, facing the four windigos. They were mired in ice.
The thing floating in front of the door was staring at them. It looked like a windigo, but more real, more tangible. The unicorn couldn't see through it like the others, and the color wasn't the same, a kind of vague pink, slowly growing pale. Sweetie Belle jumped when the thing talked with Rudolph's voice. A deformed voice, but his nonetheless.
"You're right," he growled in between his teeth. "My heart is as dark as yours... But, as opposed to you, I know the culprits. Those who stole me of who I was."
The creatures looked at him, mute for a second. Then their anger took over again, and they struggled to escape from the magical grip. Yet, it only got tighter, as Rudolph's antlers grew longer, losing their consistency to become mere shreds floating in the air.
"You know who stole the tree!?" Blitzen rumbled. "You hid them from us!"
"Tell us who it is!" Cupid railed against him in a violent neigh.
The magic closed around their muzzle, which didn't prevent them from talking, since they were speaking without it. But Rudolph still thundered:
"I don't know who stole it! But you! You deprived me of the only thing which had meaning for us! Because of your inability to move on! Your obsession for an old tree that was only a symbol!"
The reindeer rose in the air even higher, as he was losing more and more the shape Sweetie Belle had known him, slowly sliding into his own darkness.
"If you so desire for me to become like this, my only hatred will be targeted at you, and solely you!"
"No!" the little unicorn yelled, rushing to him. "Rudolph! Don't become like them!"
She jumped to throw herself at one of his hind legs, desperately trying to bring him back on the ground. The other windigos didn't know who to put their attention on, but the presence of the filly only angered them more.
The reindeer froze in the air, seemingly coming back to his senses for an instant. Then, his antlers blinded the surroundings. When Sweetie Belle opened her eyes, the windigos had been immobilized. The halo of their mane was still slowly swinging, but their shapes were engulfed in a reddish aura.
"You're going to give those fillies the time they are asking for. To you, who are threatening their world, they want to offer a gift. You should drown in your own shame for thinking they want to steal your belongings."
Rudolph's voice didn't have much left in common with the one Sweetie Belle had known. If the reindeer had seemed a little antipathetic at first, now he was straight out terrifying. For now, he remained on their side, but would he stay that way for long?
"Ah think we should hurry," someone suddenly whispered in the unicorn's ear.
She jumped on the side, turning to see Apple Bloom right next to her.
"Don't ever do that again!" Sweetie Belle said, holding her own heart.
"Shhh," her friend issued, her voice low. "Now is not the time to argue. Especially in front of them."
The earth filly uselessly nodded towards the trapped silhouettes. Their eyes could still move and were now locked on them.
"We have to hurry and finish everything," Apple Bloom followed.
The unicorn looked all around them, before wondering:
"Where's Scootaloo?"
"The wind carried her away, she fell in the forest ah think."
"W-!?"
Apple Bloom put her hoof on her mouth, preventing her from talking.
"Come."
Sweetie Belle threw a worried eye at the windigos. While it was true she'd rather get away from those things, she was still very much worried for her friend.
The two of them walked away from them, leaving Rudolph in front of his peers. Once sufficiently far away, Apple Bloom explained:
"Ah don't know where she fell. And if we go out looking for her now, we might not be able to finish before it's too late."
The unicorn looked at her friend, shocked and about to get angry.
"You're telling me that Scootaloo may be currently freezing just a few meters away, with who knows what kind of injuries, and you want to stay there!?"
"If we wait too much, it'll be too late to save Equestria!" the earth filly energetically protested.
"Scootaloo could be agonizing alone and in the cold! Look at you, you have frost on your legs! Imagine what kind of state she might be in!"
"And by the time we find her, we may all be frozen by the windigos!"
The unicorn couldn't believe it.
"Are you scared...? You're scared of not succeeding, so you're not even going to try and save Scootaloo?"
"That's not what Ah said!" Apple Bloom stomped her hoof on the snow. "But we don't even know where she is! And-"
A shrilling cry came to the fillies' ears. If they hadn't been completely freezing already, they would have probably shivered hearing it.
"Alright, let's calm down," the earth filly tempered. "I think this whole thing is slipping out of our hooves."
"It's them," Sweetie Belle said, nodding towards the windigos. "That's what they want. For us to argue."
"Yeah, we should avoid doing that if we want to get back to Ponyville some day."
The unicorn sadly sighed just thinking about it. She felt like she had left her home so long ago, when it had been probably less than two hours, at best. But there was more important:
"I still say that we have to find Scootaloo. We have to show them we're united."
"If you say so."
Apple Bloom looked around them, checking in on their progress. A lot of lights were still missing, the cleared roofs were already getting in part cover with snow again and the top of the tree was still to be done. She sighed.
"Ah think repairing the lights and finishing the tree is the most important thing if we want to get out of this... I'll go look for Scootaloo."
"All alone?" said the unicorn, surprised by this sudden one-eighty.
"The tinsels are really important, you have to do them good. And I still have somethin' to light my way."
As she said that, she pulled out the luminescent sphere offered by her friend earlier on. Sweetie Belle still looked worried.
"You're also the one less protected against the cold..."
"You'll stay next to these things," Apple Bloom said, pointing at the windigos. "You'll get colder than me."
The earth filly tried to send a smile her friend's way. The unicorn returned it slightly, uncertain.
"If you need help, call me."
"Ah'll be sure to do that! Come on now, we have to hurry, I don't think all the windigos will be as patient!"
Sweetie Belle nodded, going back to her tinsels. Apple Bloom turned to the forest. Dark, cold, and surrounding the whole village. Despite her words, she had no idea as to where she should start. So, she decided on simply going with her instinct.
The forest wasn't very dense, made of multiple species of pines spread around, all covered in a thick layer of snow. This vision gave the filly a hope that her friend might not have made a too brutal fall.
The slop was steep, but not uniform. The terrain was bumpy and Apple Bloom quickly understood she had to navigate a valley by zigzagging in-between mountains. She decided to stick to the lowest trail, her friend was much more likely to have tumbled all the way down rather than staying on the slope. But at the same time, she stayed on the lookout for any traces of a recent collapse.
However, it wasn't an easy task, given her poor vision. The forest wasn't too dense, but the clouds in the night sky were. Her lonely little magical sphere only allowed her to guide herself, but also to warm her hooves at least a bit.
How cold it was.
Author's Note
Yes, the windigos talk. Fight me.
On her end, the unicorn was patching up as many tinsels as possible. Her little magic was exhausting her and she felt weirdly warm. Maybe the layer of clothes didn't help, but she ignored all those problems, there were more important matters.
"If someone had told me the fate of Equestria would be decided by a pair of tinsels..."
She lifted said tinsels in front of her.
"... ugly at that. I hope Rarity will never see them."
Lost in her out-loud thoughts, she looked at the houses. Most of them were already decorated enough, well, relatively speaking. But something bothered the unicorn.
The cabins were bathed in nice colors, indeed, but they were only nine in such a big valley. In the end, having only them being decorated made the whole thing even sadder, lonelier.
"There should be a few more things. How come there's not even a bench or a well to bring some life to this village?"
The unicorn truly regretted the place being so empty. With that said, she could still decorate Scootaloo's pine, couldn't she?
As she was thinking, a detail caught her attention. A spot of green light, in the snow, not too far away.
After a few well-placed hooves gestures, she exhumed... another decorative ball. Weirdly enough, a little far away from the houses. Had it fallen over time?
When she tried to lift it, the unicorn realized it was held down by a cable, just like the tinsels. The string was plunging diagonally in the snow and seemed solidly attached.
"What's that now...?"
Momentarily forgetting the urgency of the situation, carried by her curiosity, the filly investigated. After a few minutes spent digging the snow, another dim light was seen, reddish, this time, coming from another luminescent sphere.
So a whole tinsel had fallen down a long time ago? Slowly covered by snow? In any case, it was still going down, under the thick blanket of snow, askew. Yet, something was bothering Sweetie Belle, and she managed to put her hoof on it right as she uncovered another oddity. A wooden fixation in the ground. This wasn't there by accident.
The wind squealed in her ears. A shiver made her come back to reality. This wasn't the time to linger on that. She had to make that village pretty, and following a trail of abandoned tinsels wouldn't help. Or at least, not fast enough.
No, she was seeing bigger. More central. The pine could become magnificent with the proper lighting. It wasn't often that she felt the stylist streak of her sister, but this time, it was the illumination.
"Ew, I hope it won't happen to me often."
Nonetheless, she got to work. Gathering the little materials she had at her disposal, trying to make appropriate decorations.
Apple Bloom tried to laboriously open her eyes. Her head was hurting, her eyes were hurting, her eyebrows were hurting. On the other hoof, the cold pain in her legs felt far away. Very far away. Just like the voice echoing in her ears.
"Apple Bloom! Wake up!"
What had happened to her? Her ideas were in shambles. But she didn't want to wake up. That place was so comfortable. Her eyelids were heavy. Why did she have to wake up?
"Hey!"
She suddenly felt two hooves grabbing her by the shoulders and shaking her sharply, forcing her out of her drowsiness.
"Woooa!"
Shaking her head, she finally opened her eyes, even if that didn't really make a difference at first. She was in a dark place, almost deprived of light. But soon enough, she distinguished something shiny in front of her. Shiny and magenta.
"Scoots'?"
"Finally! How did you get here!?"
The earth filly rubbed her head, still disoriented.
"Where is 'here' even...?"
"A cave. From what I got. It's not easy to be sure without light."
Apple Bloom tried her best to think. Trying to remember how she had even got here.
"Ah went to look for you in the forest... Then I think Ah fell?"
"I heard you yell either way. You probably walked into a crevasse."
The earth filly thought, before remembering.
"I had a light, didn't I?"
"Yeah, it's there," Scootaloo said, pointing at a small sphere resting a few meters away on a pile of snow.
Apple Bloom hurried to get it back, going back to her friend after wiping away the water covering it.
"And you? How did you get here?"
"When I fell, I hit a few branches, and I landed in the snow. Well, not for long since I went through. And I ended up here."
"Are you hurt?" the farmer worried.
"No, I'm alright. A few scratches here and there because of the trees, but that's it. I barely feel anything."
"That's ain't very reassuring," her friend noted. "If you don't feel anythin' with the cold, it's not good."
"Now that you mention it, I don't even feel cold anymore," the pegasus noted, slightly anxious about that fact.
"We should head out and get back to the village."
"Where's 'out'?"
The two fillies looked at each other, their faces barely lit by the shining sphere. As one, they turned their eyes up to the ceiling. A star could be seen.
"Unless you can fly, it's gonna be tricky."
"We'll look for another exit. Lead the way, you're the one with the light."
Apple Bloom opened the way, sinking into the cave with her friend. The ground was relatively flat, far from what they had imagined about a crevasse. The weak glow struggled to light the surroundings, but at least they could see where they were putting their hooves.
"At least there's no wind here," Scootaloo commented. "I really thought we were going to freeze outside."
"And yet, you haven't seen the windigos coming!"
"What!?"
The echo of surprise from the pegasus bounced on the walls, making the ice tinkle.
"Not so loud!" Apple Bloom issued. "You're going to make everything fall down!"
"Pff, it's been frozen for centuries, there's no risk of that. What were you talking, about the windigos?"
"Others came. And Ah really thought they were about to freeze us all! But Rudolph did... something, and it held them back."
The pegasus picked up the hesitation in her friend's voice, arching an eyebrow in her direction, even if it remained unseen in the darkness.
"What did he do?"
"You'll see when we get back," the earth filly vaguely answered, not wishing to worry Scootaloo.
"You're hiding something from me."
"What's that?" suddenly said Apple Bloom, coming to a stop.
"Don't try to change the subject!" the pegasus warned.
"But look!"
The farmer pointed her hoof right in front of them. After squinting, Scootaloo realized they were in front of a wall of snow. Only snow, not rock. Even weirder, a very weak purple glimmer was coming from inside.
Apple Bloom got close to the epicenter, curious. She shoved her hoof in and was surprised to feel that it sank in it like mousse. The snow was almost liquid, as if recently warmed. And the earth filly quickly got her explanation when she touched a small sphere radiating a bit of sweet heat.
Yet, as soon as her hoof touched it, a little "pop!" was heard, the light vanished, and so did the heat.
Something else caught Apple Bloom's curiosity. She clearly felt that a small thin cable was attached to the sphere. Its tip was actually sticking out of the snow, a few centimeters further.
"What is it?" Scootaloo asked, intrigued by her lack of reaction.
"Ah... think I know," he friend thought, frowning. "Is it possible that...?"
She looked up, staring at the ceiling, her eyebrows only becoming more suspicious. The stalactites were many meters above them, menacing and magnificent.
The earth filly's face suddenly brightened, realizing something.
"We have to get out!"
"Well, obviously," the pegasus pointed out. "It's already what we're trying to do."
"I meant that we have to get back to the village! I know how to calm the windigos!"
"Because my idea won't work, is that what you're saying!?" Scootaloo said, offended and hurt to see her friend having so little faith in her.
"No, well, it's not that!" she explained, rolling her eyes. "I know what happened to the reindeer's pine tree!"
Sweetie Belle took a step back, observing her work. She had used every little bit of tinsel available to decorate the pine tree in the middle of the village, and the result was very satisfying. The varied colors, the harmonious coiling, even the absence of a tree top wasn't that awkward. At least, not to the filly's eyes. But would the reindeer think the same? Was it really going to be enough?
And the others weren't coming back... Should she tell Rudolph that she was done? Wait for them? But wouldn't waiting for them run the risk of angering the windigos even more? And what if she failed? What if her friends had things to add that she wasn't aware of? She couldn't resolve to take the responsibility of condemning Equestria, but she didn't know which decision was the most likely to lead to that disaster!
Her thoughts tortured her mind. What to do? Buying some time, surely, that was the best thing left. But how? She didn't have any tinsels left. Weren't there any other decorations here?
"That's it!" She suddenly thought.
She had to find other decorations! After all, tinsels, those were dreary. What this place needed was diversity!
Without waiting, the unicorn threw herself towards a house, seeking new things to put on the houses and the pine. At first, she began to feel disappointed. No ribbons, no pearls, nothing.
But that was Ponyville's way of decorating, not the reindeer's way. She had to make do with the local customs, even though she didn't know them. In Rudolph's house, she found little wooden sculptures in a crate. A gift he had prepared a long time ago?
In fact, there were many crates in this room. Like some kind of storeroom. Sweetie Belle felt a little guilty to help herself to his belongings, but she was certain he wouldn't hold it against her.
The sculptures would make for nice decorations to be hung on the houses. But what intrigued her most was what laid on top of the shelf. A great box, onto which was inscribed words from a language she didn't know.
Truly, this night had a lot of magic usage opportunities in store for her. But she was more used to that kind of practice. Delicately putting the box down, what was inside intrigued her even more. A star? Bells? Some were linked by a kind of net, and others only had a simple rope to hang from.
Their noise was sweet, a pure jingling, that Sweetie Belle quickly understood the charm of. Shaken by the wind, they probably added a peaceful ambiance wherever they were put.
The star, on its end, was sparkling brightly under her horn's light. What would this look like, surrounded by the town's tinsels? The unicorn had to see that. She had to show it to the others.
On his side, Rudolph was still facing the red jail of his peers. The prisoners, silent, were staring at him in a veil of darkness.
"What did you make of Comet?" Cupid asked. "He should have gotten here before us."
"You'll know, sooner or later," Rudolph replied, clenching his teeth. "Now, be quiet."
"Do you think those little things have a chance?" the white shape gently mocked. "Look at you, you're on the verge of becoming just like us. To unleash your anger against those who robbed us. And you will help us punish this world of its greed."
"Yeah, right!" Prancer bawled. "The second I get out of here, I'm going to make a mess of red-snoot for impri-"
The windigo was interrupted by Blitzen's head violently hitting his.
"Shut it!" he cursed.
"Oh, but he isn't that naive," said Donner, staring at Rudolph. "Red-snoot knows he will be the first one. Doesn't he?"
"We should have done that from the start," Blitzen muttered.
"Why wasn't Vixen with you?" Rudolph cut, ignoring the question. "Usually, only Dancer and Dasher move alone."
"Yadi yadi yada, as if we're going to answer!" Prancer snickered.
"You told us to be quiet, after all," Cupid followed with a scathing tone.
The semblance of ice around the windigos abruptly tightened in a sinister crack. The four of them intensified their own aura in response, menacing but for now inoffensive. The old friends fixed each other.
"Those walls won't hold up forever..." Blitzen blew.
"It's not my problem, it's yours."
"Rudolph!" suddenly said a little voice approaching.
Sweetie Belle arrived by his side, worryingly glancing at the reindeer at first, then at the windigos.
"What is it?" the great ungulate asked with a not very courteous tone.
"I-I'm done," the unicorn replied, intimidated.
She didn't have the courage to wait for the return of her friends. Scootaloo couldn't really do better, and Apple Bloom had cleared the houses enough for them to be presentable, with some amendments from Sweetie Belle.
"Are you sure?"
The unicorn slowly nodded, even if that question had just sprouted a lot of regrets inside of her.
Rudolph turned back his attention on his kind, his face dry.
"This filly has already done more for you than you did for her."
The reindeer closed his eyes, focusing. The ice prison slowly rose in the air, under the worried and curious gaze of Sweetie Belle.
"What are you...?" she began.
Before her sentence was even finished, the jail shattered into pieces, freeing the four windigos.
The filly froze on the spot, but weirdly enough, the creatures didn't attack. Instead, they looked surprised, staring at Rudolph in silence. The reindeer let out a long sigh, his tone still dark, but with a faint sincerity, a request, a hope.
"If there is still an ounce of generosity in you, give those fillies their chance. They came from far away, to try and appease creatures they only knew from terrifying legends. You bring death to their world, they bring you a new life."
The four shapes looked at each-other. Despite their large eyes of ice, one could see they were dumbstruck. Could it have been that the Cutie Mark Crusaders' intentions had reached them?
Without a word, they began to hover over the town, observing.
The houses were still covered in snow, but Apple Bloom had cleared a good chunk of their entrance, and Sweetie Belle had made do with what she'd been given. The filly had simply laid out the snow to make it fully part of the scene. As if the dwellings were dug in the mountains themselves, giving them a charming, warm side.
The tinsels surrounded the entrances, releasing a beautiful colored light. Well spread out, the fact there weren't so many of them wasn't too noticeable.
From the sky, one could also see little shapes carved in the snow. Notably, paths going from each cabin towards the center.
"Like before..." thought one of the creatures, remembering trails now long erased.
And at the center, of course, the tree. The pine, displaying thousands of colors, wrapped in tinsels, decorated by the sculptures projecting shimmering shadows. And, at its top, the star. The great star, reflecting the light like thousands of sparkles, covering the town in green, red, yellow and blue petals. A true dance of colors.
The windigos slowly descended to get a closer look. When they touched the ground, the wind seemed to cease. The snow wasn't falling anymore. The clouds dispersed.
Faced with their silence and their shape not letting any emotion show through, Sweetie Belle found the courage to get closer, shyly asking:
"Is it well done...? We don't have many great pine trees in Equestria, but Scootaloo tried to make one similar to ours... But she didn't have time to finish it."
"Ours was taller..." one of the creatures let out in a breath, without it really sounding like a reproach. "Way taller... Christmas... The last gift from the elders..."
"I know it won't replace it..." the filly confided. "But we wanted to build this one to allow you to pay your respects."
In reality, Sweetie Belle was improvising on that last part. The goal was to not end up frozen, and to help the windigos – no, the reindeer – to move forward.
"Maybe..." Cupid slowly said, thoughtful, eyes fixated on the snow made edifice.
A slight blow of fresh air swept through the valley. The unicorn looked at the four shapes with a foolish hope. Was that truly going to work? Their voices weren't that menacing, or unpleasant.
As the filly's heart was tightening with apprehension, a tragedy stabbed her hopes. The heat released by the tinsels finished melting the load-bearing parts and the whole upper side of the tree fell backward, splattering onto the ground, quickly followed by the lower branches detaching as well, only leaving a simple snow stump.
Sweetie Belle slowly widened her eyes, feeling like she was going to faint. She couldn't believe it.
A heavy silence fell into the valley. The filly didn't even dare to look away, staring at the stump, while she felt a tear coming to her eye. But it didn't have time to run down her cheek, as it froze almost immediately in front of her eyelid.
"So unicorn magic is more thermal than ours..."
Sweetie Belle slowly turned her head towards the windigos, astonished by the calmness of that reaction, but still horribly terrified.
The four shapes were standing in the same spot, their ethereal aura peacefully dancing in the quiet of the night, as they were still looking at the remains of the snow edifice.
"I-I'm sorry," the small unicorn stuttered, getting closer to the tree, trying to put it back in place with her magic, to no avail since she was so exhausted.
"It's nothing," Cupid said slowly.
Sweetie Belle stopped, looking at them shyly.
"You're not angry...?"
"The thought and the heart put into a gift count more than the success of said gift," Blitzen slowly explained with a deep voice.
"S-So it worked?" the unicorn immediately inquired, hope coming back to her eyes, expecting them to turn back into reindeer any second now.
But none of that happened.
"It won't be enough," said Donner, looking at his peers. "Won't it?"
"Your action momentarily appeased our rage," Cupied confirmed, staring at Sweetie Belle in the eyes.
"But our hatred is deeper than that," Blitzen followed.
The unicorn could tell just by seeing them. Their eyes were still cold. The wind was less strong, but it was a true calm before the storm.
"And now good luck showing that to the others," Prancer pointed out. "So, when they'll come, it's-"
A violent high-pitched screech pierced the night and the eardrums of everyone. The filly covered her ears, turning to Rudolph. He was surrounded by an overwhelming red aura, which didn't stop growing.
"You told me it would work!" he screamed with rage.
He rose in the air once more as his coat began to totally disappear, leaving in its place a browning halo rapidly turning purple. His antlers finished their transformations into long ethereal manes, his shape growing ever so slightly.
"Rudolph!" the filly shouted, understanding what her failure had caused.
"You had a debt to pay back! I can't even trust my own kind, I should have never hoped you would be any different!"
"No! I-It's not that!"
Sweetie Belle was on the brink of collapsing into tears. No. They had truly done their best. And their plans had worked, at least in part!
"I should have let you freeze..."
"Red-snoot is getting angry," Prancer commented in a mocking tone.
The aura around Rudolph began to concentrate around him, starting the last phase of his transformation.
At the same time, a bolide came crashing down onto him, burying him in the snow. A long ashen shape descended from the sky right after, hovering over the point of impact.
"Rudolph, returned home. But not to become one of us."
Sweetie Belle collapsed on the ground. That voice was almost worse than all the others. It was numbness incarnate, the tiredness of the cold, the feeling of abandonment, all into one simple whistling sound.
"Comet?" the windigo called, starting at the crater in the snow.
Another creature came out of it, rising in the air without taking its eyes off its prey. The so-called Comet silently stood by the other creature's side.
The latter suddenly stared at its four congeners still in front of the pine's remains.
"Why didn't you take care of him!?" the windigo berated.
"He got us by surprise," Cupid hissed.
"And imprisoned us," Blitzen added.
"But we got away," Prancer continued.
Sweetie Belle looked at them in disbelief. Were they consciously lying? Had they already forgotten that Rudolph had freed them to witness the Cutie Mark Crusaders' work? Their gift?
Seeing the wind coming back, and their voice becoming unnatural again, the unicorn understood. Yes, they had forgotten. Their nature pushed them to erase any act of kindness from their memories.
"Oh that's your specialty, criticizing others, isn't it, Vixen?" Donner threw with contempt.
"And you, always defending your incompetence," Vixen spit, bringing its attention back towards the crater where Rudolph was lying, outside of the unicorn's field of view. "In any case, I finally caught up to him, that's the most important part. To think he had managed to escape despite the damage on his leg."
The windigo slowly landed, snorting.
"This is all a thief like him deserves," Comet approved.
His voice was more brutal. Stronger, like an avalanche.
"You're the one who hurt him!?" Sweetie Belle shouted with anger, understanding Rudolph's wound hadn't only been caused by his fall in the forest.
A strong whistle came to her ears, as Vixen was straightening her head, turning it slowly towards the filly, imitated by the other creatures. The unicorn quickly understood her mistake, lowering her ears from fear. They had forgotten about her, for a moment.
Alone, faced with six windigos.
"What is another creature doing in our village!?" Vixen thundered, her voice going into horribly high-pitched range.
Sweetie Belle collapsed on herself, shaking even more, feeling the wind suddenly rising.
"I told you we should have climbed up!"
"How did ya want to climb!? There wasn't nothin' to get a grip on!"
"We could have gone up with our backs against one another. Just like in the last Daring Do!"
"Urh, stop with that!"
Apple Bloom let out a sigh of exasperation, as she kept on moving forward in the snow with great difficulty, Scootaloo in her trail.
They had taken quite some time to find a reachable exit in this cave, but they were once more in view of the village. Despite the surrounding blizzard, they could see the dancing lights of the decorations.
Dancing? The filly became a little suspicious. What if those glowing lights meant something else?
"Do you think Sweetie Belle is doing okay?" Scootaloo asked at the same time. "Did she have time to finish?"
"Ah don't know, I have a bad feeling about this."
The two of them arrived at the town's entrance and quickly understood that something wasn't right. In the air, the shrilling sound of windigos flying echoed, and the snow was only getting more intense. On the ground, the pine wasn't there anymore, the houses were starting to disappear once more under the white powder. But what made the fillies' blood curdle was the sight of their friend, encased in a large block of ice, in the middle.
"Sweetie Belle!" Scootaloo panicked, immediately galloping towards her.
A heavy projectile crashed in front of her, forcing her to stop. Comet arose from the snow lifted by the impact, menacingly hovering towards the filly.
"W-What did you do to her!?" the pegasus asked, still taking a few steps back, intimidated by the cold gaze of the creature.
"You'll know soon enough," a voice hissed in her ear.
She jumped, staring with fright at Cupid standing right behind her. She was trapped. Further away, Apple Bloom was also surrounded by Prancer and Blitzen.
"So this young insolent didn't come alone," Vixen noted with a laugh, looking down at them from high in the air.
It was cold. Extremely cold. The fillies felt in each moment their bodies growing ever so slightly more numb.
"No! Stop!" Apple Bloom pleaded, looking for a way out.
"You don't understand!" Scootaloo shouted in terror. "The pine is right here!"
"This poor imitation your friend attempted to make?" Prancer spit. "You dare compare it to our most precious artifact!? To Christmas!?"
"No!" Scootaloo said, as the freeze was starting to get a grip on her hooves, preventing her from running away. "Christmas is here!"
"Urh, is this one of those pony things again?" said the windigo with a disgusted face. "Christmas is in us all or something like that?"
"That won't work with us," Cupid mocked.
"It is truly here!" Apple Bloom desperately interrupted. "Under the village!"
The great white horses stopped, taken aback. Cupid and Blitzen exchanged a glance, before looking towards Donner, in the air, seeming as lost as they were.
"What are you waiting for!?" Vixen scolded. "Freeze them! And once Dasher is back, we will head south! To castigate all those selfish people! Those greedy!"
Cupid ignored the words of their "chief" and got closer to Scootaloo.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I-In a cave under the town," the pegasus painfully replied, shaking so much it was interfering with her speech.
"We think there's been a cavin' in..." Apple Bloom struggled. "And snow covered everythin'..."
"The tree was never stolen!"
Scootaloo's cry seemed to freeze the windigos in place, as the wind stopped. The creatures looked at each other with confusion. Only Vixen didn't seem affected by the news.
"You're letting yourself be fooled by their lies!" the windigos thundered.
"Shut it!" Blitzen ordered.
"Oh come on!" Vixen replied, infuriated. "We would have heard if it had collapsed under the village!"
"There was a huge blizzard that night," Donner pointed out. "It could have covered the sound, couldn't it?"
"J-Just go and check..." Scootaloo weakly said, as her eyes were starting to freeze behind her tears.
Prancer and Comet cast an eye over the center of the town. The remains of the snow tree were still standing, and the tinsels kept on melting them, even attacking the ground, for the ones who had fallen.
"How do we remove the snow to check?" Prancer asked. "Comet can't just bash himself into it."
"What do I know!?" Blitzen vociferated. "It's red-snoot's job to make heat, not mine!"
Despite the windigos not having some, Vixen clenched her teeth. All a bunch of incompetents...
"Let's ask him, then," Cupid suggested.
With a slow movement, the creature abandoned the cube of ice in which the small earth filly was now set, walking towards the crater where they had left Rudolph. He was still there, lying, unconscious.
"Hmm, that won't work."
A violent lightning bolt suddenly smashed the remains of the snow-made tree, attracting everyone's attention. Vixen was furious.
"You are even dumber than I thought...! To believe the lies of little thieves!"
But the windigo was once more ignored. In the middle of the impact, a little cloud of smoke was rising. Continuously. And the others couldn't help themselves but to watch. What could be burning to release this smoke?
Cupid went to see, searching for a few moments in the ground, before pulling out something with magic. The windigo turned around, brandishing a needle reddened by the heat. The others couldn't believe it. Was it possible? After all this time?
Sweetie Belle painfully opened her eyes. She felt like she just had the worst nap of her life. Akin to sleeping on an iron plate, while being constantly smashed against it. She was then surprised, to say the least, to make out the face of her friend, Apple Bloom, right in front of her.
"You'll be alright?" the earth filly worried.
"How many buffaloes stomped over me...?" the unicorn asked, holding her head.
Her friend smiled a bit.
"Not that many."
Sweetie Belle rubbed her face, before she looked around, the current situation coming back in her thoughts little by little. The windigos, the snow, the cold. She was about to panic, but what she saw stopped it. The blizzard had ceased and, in the center of the village, there was now an immense hole the creatures were gathered around. The unicorn felt that something wasn't right but that, weirdly, she didn't need to worry.
"What's going on...?" she asked, her eyes staying on the great white equines.
"We found the pine. Come and see."
Getting one leg under hers, Apple Bloom carried her friend up to the pit. Even if the unicorn threw a concerned eye at the windigos, she lowered her gaze to observe what was laying down there.
It was here. Slightly poking out of the middle, leaning on the side, the majestic tree of some twenty meters high was slowly getting exhumed from its secular snow prison. It wasn't very radiant, its branches folded towards the bottom by the weight of years worth of freezing. But it was far better preserved than one would expect from a pine buried for one thousand six hundred years.
"How...?" the filly began.
"A collapse," the earth filly explained. "There's a cave right under, the rock probably yielded under the weight."
"So... All this time, it was simply there?"
Sweetie Belle found that a bit easy for an explanation. Cliché, even, she was sure she had read stories where something similar happened.
"They had no indication," Scootaloo explained, getting to their level. "If we hadn't fallen into that cave, we would have never known either."
"And we'd probably be freezin' by now."
"Scoot!" Sweetie Belle rejoiced. "You're okay!"
She threw herself onto her friends for a hug, relieved. The pegasus returned her embrace with an amused smile.
"Yeah, sorry I got you worried."
A loud noise made the three fillies jump, while a red lightning violently hit the village. A husky scream coming from another realm made the accumulated snow on the mountains' sides shiver.
Rudolph jumped out of his crater, a collection of ethereal red veils swirling around him, as he rose in the air.
"Rudolph!?" Scootaloo shouted, since she hadn't seen him in that state yet.
"Oh no..."
Apple Bloom turned to the other windigos, panicked.
"You need to do somethin' for him!"
The creatures slowly looked away from the pine, turning their attention towards their enraged peer, with a... sad face?
"What can we do?" Vixen asked with calm regrets. "The tree has been found back, yet we are still in that form."
"His darkness comes from a different place than ours..." Cupid said. "We do not know how to stop it..."
Apple Bloom couldn't believe it. Were they desperate? To not turn back to reindeer after recovering their tree? The filly had expected to see many things on that night, but certainly not windigos feeling depressed. But maybe it was better than to see them angry.
"Yer gonna stay like this and w-"
A rumble of thunder cut the filly mid-sentence, as Rudolph glared at the creatures down below, infuriated.
"Rudolph, stop!"
Sweetie Belle hurried towards him, even if he was levitating a few meters in the air. The unicorn pleaded:
"The pine tree has been found! There's no point in getting angry anymore!"
"But they are still there!" the red windigo vociferated, pointing an accusatory hoof at its ashen congeners. "They haven't paid for what they stole from me!"
"But you won't get anywhere by becoming like them!"
Apple Bloom looked at the creatures, begging:
"Y'all have to apologize! Please!"
"I don't see why we would do that," Blitzen grumbled.
"We didn't do anything."
Prancer's answer got the filly angry. They had not lost their bad temper one bit, even after all of this!
"It's you who-"
She was interrupted again, this time by someone clearing their throat. With incomprehension, she turned to Scootaloo, wondering what she wanted in such a critical moment.
"If I may," the pegasus began, standing next to the sleigh. "Rudolph?"
The ruby colored creature directed its gaze towards her, electricity sparkling around its ethereal veil. The pegasus was shaking inside, but tried to appear confident, staring at the entity, trying to discern the eyes of the reindeer that had brought them here.
"They won't bother you anymore for the gifts distribution," she calmly said, still pushing her voice loud enough to cover the wind.
The thing's eyes showed surprise upon hearing those words. It looked like they could still reach it.
"You'll be able to go for it," Scootaloo followed. "We can even help you craft some presents."
The pegasus clenched her hooves on the snow slightly, even if she could barely feel them. She continued.
"But for that, you need to turn back into who you were."
"You have to give something," Sweetie Belle carefully suggested. "It is in your nature, right?"
The windigo growled, a sound like one of a storm.
"What could I ever give to those things!? To them, who took so much away from me, and don't want anything except the death of the world!"
"A second chance," Scootaloo simply replied, with conviction.
The growl ceased, as the other windigos raised their heads towards Rudolph. A semblance of peace settled in the valley, all awaiting the answer.
"But they won't change..." the red creature mumbled.
"They're already changing," Sweetie Belle countered, making a broad gesture with her hoof towards the patiently waiting windigos. "Please, Rudolph."
Silence. The dark-red eyed being took in a slow breath, then let it all out in a long sigh, getting back to the ground. The fillies got closer, to encourage him to say it.
"I... agree to give them a second chance."
The Cutie Mark Crusaders gave the reindeer a gentle and encouraging smile. Even if, internally, they all let out a deep sigh of relief.
A little whistle was heard and a fissure appeared on Rudolph's torso. After a dry sound of ice cracking, a flash of light temporarily blinded the scene. When they opened their eyes again, all the equines present saw the reindeer, turned back normal.
"Yes!" Apple Bloom exulted.
"It worked..." Rudolph assessed, despite not believing in it before, looking at his hoof.
"So it is possible!" said Scootaloo, turning back to the other windigos.
They were stunned. Well, as much as their faces allowed them to express such emotions. But their gazes were clear: a glimmer of hope had just seen birth inside them.
"Did you see?" the pegasus said, moving towards them. "You just have to agree to give once again. And things will only improve."
Sweetie Belle joined her, adding:
"Find back the generosity inside you... The one you've repressed for so long."
"You sound like an add for Iron Will's lesson," her friend discreetly pointed out in a whisper.
The unicorn rolled her eyes.
"But what can we give...?" Vixen asked.
The three fillies looked at each other.
"Er..." Scootaloo hesitated. "Just give us a sec!"
They grouped up in a circle, talking in low-voice.
"We need something they can do right now," Scootaloo said.
"Leavin' us alive and not freezin' Equestria doesn't sound that bad as a gift, doesn't it?" Apple Bloom suggested.
"It won't be enough," Sweetie Belle said. "Maybe something that would involve their magic?"
The pegasus evaluated the proposition of her friend. But that wasn't really her department, so she asked:
"Do you have an idea? You know better than us what they could or couldn't do."
"I don't think they can create a gift from nothing," the unicorn replied, worried. "And with the state they're in, we should avoid advanced magic."
"Can a windigo do somethin' other than blizzard at least?" Apple Bloom asked.
The two other fillies thought about it. It's true they should at least consider this as their starting point if they were to ask anything.
"Anything that is connected to ice, cold and the north," replied a voice right above their heads.
Rudolph looked at their surprised faces with a little amused smile, following before they could even talk:
"I owe you some thanks, but they will be for later. You need to find something they could give to you."
"If they can manipulate ice, we could ask for a great castle," Sweetie Belle suggested.
"No," the reindeer immediately contradicted. "It needs to be something that demands effort, that demands courage to their heart, but that also does good to it."
"Could you elaborate a bit?" Apple Bloom said, arching an eyebrow.
"Imagine confessing to your best friend that you lied to them, even though nothing forces you to do so, and you're doing it simply because they asked you."
The farmer exchanged a gaze with her friends. They seemed to have understood as well. It wasn't going to be that simple.
"Is this why it worked with you?" Scootaloo asked, even if she knew the answer.
"Yes. Giving them a second chance, even though they took so much away from me... But they are still my friends. It was the right thing to do. It is what I wanted, deep down."
The little mares went back to their thoughts. They had to find something like that.
"Well, then, not freezing Equestria ain't that bad?"
"You can't ask it like that," Sweetie Belle said, rubbing her chin.
"I know!" Scootaloo exclaimed, getting out of the little circle and walking to the windigos.
"Hum, you're sure?" the unicorn hesitated, fearing her friend might do something reckless.
"Trust me!"
Sweetie Belle winced. Last time she had said that, her plan was to make a snow pine tree. But, after all, it had worked. More or less.
Scootaloo went in front of the patiently waiting creatures. The events had calmed them down, but for how long?
The pegasus cleared her throat, before pronouncing:
"Your anger once led you to wishing for the destruction of the world. And for ponies, it almost signified the end of our existence. But in the end, it allowed for the creation of Equestria and harmony."
"Ah think you could get to the point," Apple Bloom whispered.
"You distributed gifts for many years," Scootaloo continued. "Could you do it once more this year, and give a present to Equestria?"
"Didn't we say it was impossible?" Sweetie Belle said to the earth filly in a low voice.
"She must have an idea..."
Cupid observed the small pegasus with a strange melancholia, asking slowly:
"What gift would you want us to make in so little time...? The day has almost passed..."
Scootaloo stared at the creature in the eyes, confident but not insolent.
"Show Equestria the aurora borealis... Show them that the north doesn't just bring the cold. I won't ask you to show yourself, or even to wake up the inhabitants. But if you're feeling remorse for what you've done... it would be a great way to apologize. And a great gift for Rudolph."
"The what?" Sweetie Belle asked in a whisper, looking at her neighbor, who didn't have the slightest idea what their friend was referring to.
The windigos, on their end, seemed a little more intrigued by the idea. Despite their impassive face, the pegasus felt a little discomfort in them. Had she said something wrong?
Rudolph went to Vixen and whispered something in her ear. The white creature turned a slightly surprised face towards him, to which the reindeer replied by a simple, light but sincere smile.
"So be it," Vixen said, slowly taking altitude. "Even if it doesn't turn us back into who we were, we can't refuse that to the ones who gave us Christmas back."
"Before that," Rudolph nonetheless interrupted. "Do you know where Dancer is? She still hasn't arrived."
"Dancer?" Vixen said with surprise, looking at one of her peers. "Blitzen, when was the last time you saw her?"
"I don't know, one thousand five hundred and thirty years ago, I think? She left one day, but not for the south."
"I see..." Rudolph sighed. "So she probably won't come. Let's leave without her, then."
"Do you have more sleigh?" Scootaloo asked. "We won't make it in time otherwise."
Sweetie Belle's eyes went wide, suddenly scared.
"Twilight is going to scold us if we're not back before morning..."
"Don't worry," Cupid reassured. "We can all harness ourselves on it at the same time."
"Then there's no time to lose!" Scootaloo said. "We have a blizzard to clear and reindeer to transform back!"
The fillies set forth towards the sleigh, joined by many of the creatures. Rudolph looked at them with a smile.
Vixen landed by his side, staring in the same direction as him, seeing ponies and windigos helping each other.
"Where did you find such fawns? Ponies have never been kind-hearted, especially during winter."
"The times have changed," the reindeer answered with a little smile. "And I think they say foals for their young. I found them by chance, and I don't know how they managed to make me come back here. But I think there's hope coming out of them..."
The two watched in silence, as the windigos were busy clearing the sky from its big dark clouds.
"I'm sorry for Dancer..." Vixen said. "I know she was the one you were getting along best with."
"If she left but no legends talk about her, then she found some form of peace."
"Maybe..." Vixen let out in a little strident sound.
A ringing went to everyone's ear. The sound of delicate metal rolling, attracting attention.
Scootaloo was very much interested by Sweetie Belle explaining she had hung the jingle bells to the reins to add a little touch of decoration on the sleigh. Apple Bloom waived at them from the seat to invite them to hop in.
The windigos hitched themselves to the sleigh, with the help of the reins present in the strange packets the fillies had seen in the back. The three of them took place.
"In the end, it ain't that bad," Apple Bloom concluded, happy that things seemed to get better.
"Oh yes, I have been frozen, we almost lost Equestria and Rudolph, but honestly, it was quite a peaceful evening," Sweetie Belle ironically said.
"Hey, we still helped to save a whole town. And we're still alive, not even hurt."
On their end, the creatures were trying to agree on the steps to take.
"Not too fast, Dasher," Blitzen mumbled. "Otherwise, y-"
"Blitz..." Cupid let out in a surprisingly cold tone, even for a windigo.
The creature scowled with a grumble, as Vixen was taking the lead of the cortege, declaring:
"I set the pace, that way we know no one will be left behind."
"It's true that, without Dancer, you're the slowest of the bunch," Prancer mocked a bit.
"Do we really have to bring him with us?" Comet sighed.
"No discussion!" Rudolph thundered. "I remind you that we're trying to thank the ones who brought back Christmas, so show a bit of manners!"
"Mm, yeah..." Prancer growled.
The Cutie Mark Crusaders looked at them with a bit of unexpected surprise.
"In the end, they're not that different from us..." Apple Bloom whispered, as she hadn't thought she would see them bicker around.
"Are you ready, in the back?" Vixen asked, turning her head towards them.
"Reading!" they all said in unison, grabbing onto the sleigh, not wanting to be thrown out once more.
"Then, onward!"
It was always a cozy feeling, for Twilight, to be snuggled in her bed sheets, as the snow was calmly falling on her window. Knowing that she was in the warm, while outside was cold, gave her a nice sensation. Even in her sleep.
But a strange noise pulled her out of her dream. A ringing, high-pitched, that she didn't recognize right away. The sound was muffled and a little bit far away, but enough to wake her up.
After a bit of doubt, her mind clouded, she noticed the noise was coming from outside. Very little odds of it being the work of the three little devils she was keeping, then. But her snow-covered window didn't allow her to see what it was. And that sound wasn't stopping. A metallic swinging, regular, plentiful.
Her curiosity got the best of her and she stood up, without a noise, climbing down to the door of her library.
As soon as it was opened, she stopped from sheer surprise. Ponyville was covered in snow, yes, but was displaying unusual blueish and greenish reflections. Raising her eyes, the unicorn saw that, in the sky, great glimmers were dancing in curves, bathing the surroundings with their colored hues. Too astonished by this unknown but magnificent vision, she didn't notice the little hooves disappearing by the window on the second floor.
Once inside, the Cutie Mark Crusaders turned back to the sky, right at the same moment when Twilight caught a glimpse of the origin of that peculiar noise. In front of the moon, a long form passed. A great sleigh, pulled by eight strange equine figures. Seven of them possessed a white light on the muzzle, and the eight one, right in the middle, had a red one.
The three fillies made great gestures with their hooves, as a goodbye. The reindeer still had many places to visit in Equestria and in the world, now that they had come back to their senses. Their form had returned as soon as they had flown above Ponyville.
"Is everything in place?" Vixen asked, laughing.
"At your command!" Comet joyfully shouted, already focusing his magic in his antlers.
"Come on!" Vixen threw.
In concert, the eight pairs of horns illuminated, the eight heads rose, eight magical beams left.
Seven went to the sky, firstly exploding quietly, in the middle of the few clouds present. The blow completely cleared the sky, leaving the aurora even more visible. But if white snowflakes stopped falling, the snow itself didn't cease. Small glimmers, light-green, yellow and blue, began to slowly descend towards Ponyville, forming a thin shiny layer.
Ponies were starting to get out of their homes, wondering what was happening. And they didn't need to go further than their doorsteps, stunned by the spectacle unveiling before their eyes. Few noticed the red beam heading for the forest, nor the brief illumination that followed.
Many thought they saw shadows go by the moon, but they couldn't distinguish their precise shapes.
The reindeer had powerful laughs of joy, of liberation. And as Equestria was getting flooded by light on that winter night, without knowing why, the world remained unaware that this vision meant the disappearance of a threat which had always been looming. And all of that, thanks to three fillies.
Maybe they would try to explain, in the morning, what had happened to the others. But, without any proof, who would believe them?
In any case, it was something they didn't have the strength to think about for now. Weariness suddenly managed to catch them, and they all fell asleep untidily on their bed. Without knowing that one last gift was awaiting them, in the forest, right in the spot where they had met Rudolph.
A little engraving on a stele made of ice, in the form of a sleigh, where one could read "To the three fillies who managed to restore our generosity, and saved Christmas."
Author's Note
It's too long.
