Normally, the sight of a Windigo rolling around in the snow while giggling like a little filly would scare, amuse, or just outright confuse anypony walking by. But in Ponyville, nopony or body seemed bothered by it. Likely because, by now, they were used to my antics. And my love for snow.

A small rustling reached my ears and I stopped. I glanced around a bit, finding nothing, and resumed my rolling. Apparently I didn't look hard enough, because the next thing I knew, I was being tackled by a flurry of light yellow.

"Gaaah!" I cried, going into a small roll with somepony grabbing onto me. We stopped after a second, and I got a good look at the grinning culprit. It took all of half a second for me to start imitating that grin. "...hi, Asylum."

"Hi!" With a giggle, the yellow pegasus threw her forelegs around me in a big hug before nuzzling me. "How's my little snow cone?"

I blushed at the nickname, but my smile didn't fade. "I was doing fine...but now that you're here, I'm doing perfect." I managed to pull my face away from her nuzzling, just to turn and kiss her on the cheek. I was vaguely aware of some passer-bys watching us, but I didn't particularly care.

"That's g-good." Her voice seemed a little shaky. I pulled back from her and looked; as I suspected, she was shivering. Aside from a set of boots and a purple scarf, she didn't seem outfitted for snowy weather like this.

Standing up with her, I chuckled. "Cold?" She nodded sheepishly. "Come on, let's get you inside."

She made a pouty face that gave Sugarcube Corner a run for its bits in the 'leading cause of diabetes' factor. "Aww...but I liiiike b-being outside..."

I nuzzled her. "But you don't want to freeze, do you? That wouldn't be very-"

"Cool?"

There was a brief silence in which I stared at her, while she slowly broke out into a grin. "...you have definitely been hanging around me for too long."

She giggled. "I d-don't think that's possible." She shivered noticeably. "Brrr...okay, m-maybe we should g-get inside..."

I chuckled and started leading her to our house. Thankfully, my playing and rolling hadn't taken me too far away, and we only had to walk across and down the street a short bit. I briefly wondered how rolling around in the snow had gotten me across the street, but however that happened, I'd likely hear about it from many ponies later on.

Now, while I may be immune to negative effects of the cold, that doesn't mean I can't feel it. And while our house is normally at a temperature that's warm enough for Asylum but cool enough to keep me comfortable, today it was strangely just outright cold. It was hard to say it was warmer than outside.

Asylum didn't even take her scarf off, and the only reason she took her boots off was to avoid tracking snow on the floor. As soon as we got inside, she went straight for the closet to see if she could find something warm yet comfortable to wear. While she did that, I looked around the house to see if we had left a window open or something.

Ten minutes of inspection revealed that, while we hadn't left any windows open, one had been forcefully opened by an outside force. That is to say, some asshole went and broke the window in our bedroom while we were outside.

On the floor was a rock, with a piece of paper tied to it. I rolled my eyes, having a feeling I knew what it would say. I picked the rock up, took the note, and opened it up.

Dear confused pony,

You are in danger. You must leave your Windigo "companion" at once. It will only cause pain to you. How you have fallen under its control, we have no idea. We are here to help you.

If you receive this message, get away as fast as you can and meet us outside the town library by five PM. We will take you to the shelter we have been preparing for incidents such as this.

Do not let the Windigo follow you. Do not tell it of this message. It will only cause further harm to you and those you love.

- The Imperium

I crumpled the paper up and threw it out. We had been getting letters from the "Imperium" ever since we moved into this house. We got at least one letter every two weeks, and every time, it was either a death threat towards me or a calling for Asylum to "escape". Or both at once.

At first we thought it was funny, but it started getting both annoying and disturbing. She asked not to be shown them anymore unless they had anything important on them, and even then, to get False first. So far, the letters were extremely vague about who was sending them, not even having return addresses - whoever sent them must have just been putting them in our mailbox themselves. With anonymity like that, we couldn't trace down the culprit.

It's like Equestria finally acquired the Internet, and all the bad parts along with it. All we're missing is Rule 34.

Making a mental note to get the window fixed, I sighed and decided to head back downstairs and check on Asylum.

Author's Notes:

This was just a short little Arrell/Asylum side thing I thought of that's hopefully d'awww-worthy. It is canon, but obviously not chronological with the current story so far. Just assume it happens offscreen at some point when there's snow, and after Arrell and Asylum have their own house. (Not really spoilers that that's gonna happen.)

This'll be maybe two or three chapters long, with the chapters not sticking to my self-made minimum of 1k words, since that'd force me to do filler and padding. It's just gonna be a little slice-of-life thing, and it'll take place in bonus chapters only since that way they don't interfere with current story arcs.

Also, I might do a relevant clop chapter at some point, if people want that.