Opaline headed up the hill of ice at a full gallop, the ethereal peytral around her barrel providing magical traction for her hooves to move as if they were on grass and dirt, following her mark across the iced-over prairie. She focused on keeping her breathing steady, for it wasn’t the pace at which she was moving that she had to keep calm against, but the growing belief that this sojourn that she had been led on was quickly approaching its conclusion.

At the top of the next hill, she came to a halt, and her eyes widened at the scene before her.

The southwestern coastal town of Maretime Bay lay before her, and looked like it had been hit by an ice storm. The waves that normally could be heard crashing against the cliffs were silent as the ice had also spread down to the expanse of the ocean.

Over to the east, a gargantuan storm twisted above the largest building in town, and around it was a magical domed shield, glowing with a silver sheen. On the other side of the shield, she saw three ghostly equine forms gallop in a circle in midair, with a howl that sent chills down her spine.

“Windigos…” Opaline whispered to herself.

Her mark continued down the last hill, towards the town proper. As she galloped down the coastal road, she saw that not a soul was out on the streets, and that everypony had taken shelter indoors. She wasn’t able to see any of them due to the iced over doors and windows.

Instead of turning towards the shield on the far east side of the town, her mark instead continued towards the only other bright light in the vicinity; the lighthouse at the cliffside on the southwest cliff edge. The unity crystals in the light chamber at the top was like a beacon against the blowing ice and howling winds.

She galloped under the arched bridge and headed up the hill to the solitary structure. The ice had begun to encroach on the exterior, but didn’t look like it had penetrated any of the doors or windows, and hadn’t been able to get close to the top floor.

The front double doors had been caked in ice, and her cutie mark came to a stop in front of them.

What, was she supposed to knock or something?

She also wasn’t sure she was ready for this… Even after her encounters with the alicorn echoes helping her now, facing the ponies who had been instrumental in casting her down was something she did not want to do.

But it seemed she had no choice.

She heard muffled voices on the other side.

“Ready? One, two, three!” a familiar voice called out, moments before she heard the door begin to strain.

She heard the door creak and groan as the ponies on the other side started to pull hard against the ice. On the third pull, the doors burst open, but the sheet of ice cracked, but did not collapse.

Suddenly, the glow of her mark increased again, and in the warm light, the ice began to melt and give way. A few moments later, it had been reduced to a puddle on the front step which quickly re-froze, but the doorway was now open.

The ponies on the other side were looking up at the glowing orb for just a moment before their gaze collectively lowered down the alicorn that approached the open front door as her mark began to float inside.

“Opaline!” She heard Sunny yell, her tone unquestioningly accusatory.

The two pegasus siblings jumped forward to slam the doors shut, but not before her mark had made it inside, and as the doors shut and latched, Opaline fought the urge to push back against them as she lost sight of her cutie mark for the first time since she had emerged from the ruins of her castle.

“No, no wait!” Opaline objected, coming up to the shut doors, but decided to not push against them. The last thing she needed these ponies to think was that she was here to fight and divide them again. She took a deep breath, as she felt the otherworldly chill begin to overcome her again, and tried her best to resist it, wondering how to best present her case…

The moment the doors slammed shut, nearly in the alicorn’s face, Zipp eyed the floating mark curiously and suspiciously, as it had made it indoors before they had closed the front doors.

“Please, I’m here to help!” Came the muffled voice of Opaline Arcana from the other side.

Sunny stared at the barred front doors with uncertainty as Zipp began to follow the floating cutie mark up the stairs. It looked like all of the other ones that had come out of the Together Trees.

“Likely story!” Hitch countered. “For all we know, you’re the cause of this!”

“N-No, but please listen,” Opaline replied, already sounding like the cold was getting to her. “I know there’s likely nothing I can do to get you to believe me in a hurry. But I have been following my cutie mark across Equestria ever since my castle collapsed. It has lead me to memories, to echoes, of the alicorns. To Celestia, Luna, Twilight, Cadance, and Flurry Heart. They have told me I can help. Sunny… Sunny Starscout, if you can’t believe me, then please, believe them.”

“That was months ago…” Sunny quietly told herself.

Silence fell onto the interior of the lighthouse again, save for the howling winds outside.

“Please…” Opaline repeated, her voice almost pleading.

It wasn’t Sunny that took the first step towards the door, but Misty, who approached the bar lock, and placed her hooves underneath to prepare to lift it.

“Misty…” Hitch warned.

The unicorn turned back to him.

“I’d rather deal with the consequences of believing her than leaving her out in this cold,” she said.

With that, she lifted the bar lock up ninety degrees back up to its unlocked position, then opened the doors, coming face to face with her abusive former caretaker.

The look the alicorn’s eyes was unmistakably one of regret when they met the unicorn’s gaze.

Misty took several steps back, and the alicorn slowly stepped in, looking as if she was unsure if Twilight’s protection spell wouldn’t vaporize her on the spot.

“So if it’s not you, do you know what’s going on?” Hitch asked.

“Windigos… Wintry spirits that—”

“Feed off of hate and mistrust,” Sunny finished the alicorn’s sentence. “But how? Equestria’s been reunited. Why didn’t they do it back when the tribes separated? And if now, how? What hate are they feeding off of?” Sunny asked the same questions she had posed to Hitch earlier.

“Their own.”

The ponies surrounding Opaline almost jumped back at the voice, because it didn’t come from her lips, but rather from the glowing peytral she was wearing from one of the flickering flames, one of the pink ones.

“The Windigos are vengeful, angry that they did not get their chance to feed on this realm when hatred and mistrust spread centuries earlier. The spell to seal them away was risky, because if that seal was ever broken, they would no longer need this realm’s negative emotions to sustain themselves.”

“...If you say so, whoever you are,” Pipp replied to the talking flame.

A glowing light began to descend from the second floor again, and Sunny looked back briefly to see the floating cutie mark return from upstairs, now glowing intensely with the Prisbeam magic of the Unity Crystals. She turned back to Opaline to see the almost palpable relief wash over her at just the sight of the orb.

“And you’re going to stop this, how?” Zipp asked as she saw the orb slowly float over towards Opaline and the front doors.

“I don’t know,” Opaline said as she watched her mark float above her, back outside. “To say that I’ve just been along for the ride would be an understatement.”

Sunny and her friends watched silently as Opaline turned to head back outside and follow the multicolored glowing orb. She paused one last time, turning to look back at Misty.

“Whatever happens, please… Please know how sorry I am, Misty.”

With that, Opaline Arcana broke into a gallop, following the orb back down the hill into Maretime Bay, towards the heart of the Windigo storm...

Author's Note

This chapter was going to be much longer, but decided to split it up and post the first part, because I'm going on vacation at the end of this week, and I'm not sure I'll have it finished by then.