“Either you are extremely directionally challenged, or you are an immense fool.”

“I came in search of the windigo colony.”

“That would make you the latter.”

Sky stood beside the shivering Lily, facing the windigo that was apparently the leader of the group. The remainder of the windigoes had surrounded the pair of ponies, and their collective breath was an assault of ice shards and snowflakes against his body. Their eyes glittered like stars in the darkness. Sky could barely feel his legs, and a quick glance down confirmed his fears: ice had formed around his hooves, rooting him to the ground. Lily was apparently in the same predicament, as she was struggling and fidgeting against her frozen restraints.

Sky tried to look as neutral as possible as he addressed the obviously perturbed windigo. “King Icevein was kind enough to send me a warning once before. I simply wish to return that favor.”

The windigo’s surprise was perceptible as a shift in the breeze, a warming of the frigid air. Sky could hardly see its body, but one of its eyes grew brighter than the other, indicating an arched eyebrow. Sky smiled inwardly. Got your attention now, don’t I?

“Explain yourself,” the windigo said, its voice devoid of any surprise it felt.

Sky leveled his eyes and straightened himself as much as he could with his hooves fastened to the ground. “My message is for King Icevein. I will deliver it when I am brought to him.”

The windigo raised its head and snorted indignantly. “You may not have the opportunity to see His Majesty if you do not give me a good reason to take you to him.” Several of the other windigoes neighed in agreement. “And it would take something very significant to cause me to let a…pegasus…into His realm.” It spat the word “pegasus” as though it left a bad taste in its mouth.

“I came looking for you. That alone should convince you of the importance of my message,” Sky replied. He was adding a little force to his speech in hopes of making his argument seem all the more urgent. As it was, his case was completely true, but he knew that no windigo would take a pegasus simply at his word. It was imperative that the windigo at least considered his story worth listening to.

The windigo was silent for what seemed several minutes. Sky hazarded a look over at Lily, who was doing an admirable job of appearing unafraid in the face of such mortal danger. She was motionless now, probably scared stiff, but her determination to be strong helped put Sky’s own mind at ease. She had grown a great deal since her last encounter with a windigo back in Polarmino.

Finally, the windigo responded. “And why would a pegasus care to help the windigoes?”

“Because this is a threat to both the windigoes of the north and the ponies of Equestria. But right now, the windigoes are the only ones that can do anything about it.” Again, it was the truth, but Sky made sure to put some extra emphasis into his words.

Silence fell again. Sky felt Lily’s eyes on him, and he quickly shot her a reassuring smile. Her eyes fell to her frozen hooves for a moment, then returned to him. He nodded in comprehension. They were effectively prisoners of the windigoes. The situation would likely get them to the windigo colony, but beyond that, the situation failed to yield any positive possibilities.

He turned back to the windigo, who was eyeing him intently. Sky matched his gaze and tried to simply will the windigo into believing his story. “If your tale turns out to be untrue, your life will end, pegasus.” The name was wrung with disgust, and Sky began to get annoyed by it.

“Oh, like I’d risk my neck for a lie?”

“We shall see.” He looked past the duo to the group of his comrades. “Release them, but if they try anything, freeze them solid.” A disgruntled murmur rose from the group, but Sky felt the ice release from his hooves. He stretched his legs in relief and spun in circles a few times before addressing the ethereal equine before him.

“Thanks, um…what’s your name?”

The windigo scoffed. “You should consider yourself extremely lucky to even still be alive. Do not push your luck. You will simply refer to me as ‘commander.’”

You’re lucky I don’t bake you like a muffin and serve you to the Chimera on a platter, he thought, though he simply said, “Sure.”

“You will go with us back to the colony. There, His Majesty King Icevein will make his decision concerning you.” He turned sharply to his left and made a high-pitched wail that caught the wind and flew away, echoing as it went. The company of windigoes tightened in around the two ponies.

“Move out!” came the command, and the group began to move.

Sky never even considered flying. His wings were partly what caused the windigoes to hate the pegasi as much as they did, and displaying them in the midst of an entire company of them just seemed to be a bad idea. As it was, the group was moving at a quick, but not hard, pace. He kept his hooffalls light, uncertain how far their journey would lead them. It wasn’t long before he found Lily right beside him.

“Well, seems to be working so far,” she said, sounding hopeful.

“For the moment,” Sky admitted. “But what could be the hardest part is going to come when we get to the colony.”

“You mean convincing this ‘King Icevein’ that you’re telling the truth?”

He nimbly leapt over a fallen tree trunk. “Well, yes, that’s part of it,” Sky replied. “But what has me really concerned is trying to convince him that one of his own subjects is the problem.”

Lily’s pace slackened for just a moment. She pulled even with him within a few seconds, but her brow was furrowed in confusion. “You mean a windigo really is the cause for all this?”

“No, it’s something that’s disguised as a windigo. But the King doesn’t know that. It’s just my word at the moment. I need to be able to find a way to convince him to let me search the colony for the impostor.”

“Oh,” Lily said softly. “But how is that a problem?”

“Because what King wants to admit (to someone that they consider an enemy, no less) that they’ve allowed an impostor to penetrate their kingdom on their watch?” Sky asked, though the question was rhetorical.

He literally saw the light go on as Lily finally understood. “And you think he’ll be too stubborn and proud to even consider it?”

“That’s my fear,” Sky nodded in agreement. “So I’m trying to think of a way to expose the Chimera quickly, so that I can convince the King without having to get into a debate with him.”

“Because there’s really no way you’d win that, right?”

“Not in windigo country.”

The horizon had begun to change into a faint red hue, indicating the coming of the imminent sunrise. Sky’s body was wide awake, but after several mostly-sleepless nights, his brain was starting to suffer. But he had to focus. Can’t lose it now, he thought. I should have gotten more sleep, but that’s in the past. Right now, I need to focus.

They ran for what seemed to be hours. The sky continued to grow brighter, and the stars were slowly engulfed in the light of the oncoming day. Still they ran. Sky looked from windigo to windigo, and each one returned his gaze with a cold stare and a snarl that sent a shiver down his spine.

Sky watched Lily run beside him. She had been doing great, but he could see the weariness on her face as the night dragged on. Finally, she began to fall back in the group. Sky slowed his pace to stay with her, but a screeching cry from behind them warned them to speed up. Sky twisted his head backwards for a moment, then broke into a hasty gallop to the front of the pack.

“Commander! Commander!”

The lead windigo turned his head slightly, as if he wanted to make the least effort possible to acknowledge that someone was calling him. “Commander, we need to stop. My friend is too tired to keep up at this pace for much longer.”

“Then she is unfit for this region.” The windigo did not turn to face Sky, nor did his pace lessen in the least.

“It would only be a few minutes. Please,” Sky pleaded, glancing back to where Lily was running at almost the tail end of the group, where a trio of windigoes watched her with malicious concentration. Her face was set in a permanent grimace, and every breath looked painful.

“Why did you bring her with you?” the windigo asked.

Sky turned back to the commander, the question taking him by surprise. “Why? Well, because she wanted to come. But please, let her rest, if just for a few minutes.”

“You could have told her that you didn’t want her to come.”

Sky’s blood was beginning to boil. “I rather wanted her to come. I appreciate the company. Now stop!”

The windigo continued on, though his voice seemed cruelly cheerful, as if he were enjoying the conversation. “But is it any company you enjoy, or is it hers specifically?”

Sky felt a tingle in his wings as his frustration began to overpower his patience. “What does it matter? Just give her a chance to catch her breath!” he shouted.

The commander finally turned around to face the pegasus, but he continued to move in the same direction at the same speed. “Ah, you do care for her, don’t you? You would demand the same thing of me for hours on end for her, wouldn’t you? Don’t deny it. It’s almost painfully obvious.” His mouth turned up in a sneer. “But what do these affections do for you? Hm? At least we can feed off your negative feelings of anger and hatred. But care and love? Pah, they’re useless! If love had any real power, then you could at least use it to help her!”

Sky swallowed his rage and looked straight into the eyes of the windigo. “That love is what brought me up here in the first place…to help her,” Sky countered.

“Then that love is subject to me? Some power that is,” the commander mocked.

“It’s not something I expect a windigo to understand,” Sky retorted. “Anger and hatred only cause disunion and rifts between ponies. But love and friendship grow stronger as more ponies are involved. And maybe,” Sky said as he felt the hair on his mane and tail begin to stand on end, “you’ll get to see its power before all this is all said and done.” Finally, drawing all the courage and compassion he could find, he spoke again. “Now STOP!”

His command came out with such force and authority that the entire company halted where they were. Lily came panting up beside him, looking wobbly on her legs. The commander looked at Sky curiously: equally disdainful and impressed at the same time. “You may rest for a few minutes,” he said at last. “We will reach the colony shortly.” With that, he turned away and hovered back to his position in the group.

Sky breathed a sigh of relief as he turned to Lily, who collapsed onto her haunches and tried to catch her breath. “Thhh…anks. W-what did…you say to make him…stop?” she asked between gasps.

“Slow breaths, Lily. Don’t hyperventilate.” He looked around at the windigoes that still surrounded them. They all seemed to be staring at him intently, though the maliciousness from earlier was not as apparent. Still, it was disconcerting. He returned his attention to the unicorn at his side. “And he wasn’t listening very well, so I kinda subverted his authority and told all the others to stop.”

Lily’s eyes grew wide as she gazed at him. “Sky, what are you thinking?! He could—”

Before she could continue, Sky raised his hoof gently to her mouth. “No getting excited; just breathe.” She glared at him, but he didn’t flinch away. “I was joking. I basically shouted at him, but I guess all the others thought it was a command from the way I said it. Does that make me the first pegasus to be able to make a group of windigoes obey me?” he asked, a mischievous glint in his eye.

Lily’s breath was becoming more and more steady. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?” he asked, confused.

“It’s like you have a switch that you can just turn on, and you can start joking and being playful, even in the midst of very dangerous circumstances. Have you always been like that?” she asked.

Sky’s mind was suddenly filled with pale images of his colthood; faded memories that were a bittersweet reminder of his life before his chance meeting with Princess Luna. “Well, sort of,” he said. “I’ve always loved to be on the lighter side of things, so I am kind of a natural jokester.”

“I’ve noticed,” Lily commented, her face deadpan.

Sky continued. “I told you about how I moved around a lot when I was younger. I didn’t think it affected me that much, but now that I look back on it, I realize that the constant moving from place really made me feel especially lonely inside. I had no real friends wherever I went, and all the friends I had from my past had moved on without me. I was still the jokester, but it was just an illusion. I was only fooling myself. I wanted ponies to be able to laugh at my jokes so that I could feel accepted and believe that they were really my friends. And maybe they would have been, if I hadn’t been so shallow as to believe that a few jokes make a strong bond between ponies.”

“They can be a start,” Lily admonished.

Sky nodded. “You’re right. And that’s the big thing that Twilight and the others taught me: a simple start can lead to a lasting commitment. She and Spike just wanted to travel with me into the forest, and now, we’re all friends for life. And I really believe that I’m a better pony because of that. Of course, the jokes and sarcasm still come, but now, they come from a heart that really feels what it shows. I feel happy now. I have lots of friends to thank for that. Yourself included,” he added with a compassionate smile.

“Is that what you didn’t think the commander would understand?”

Sky’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “You heard that?”

“You were pretty loud about it.”

“Oh.” He shot a quick glance back at the aforementioned windigo and shook his head. “Yeah, I don’t think any windigo will fully comprehend the true nature of love and friendship. They’re too concerned with being strong and controlling each other. They try to sow discontent and start uprisings so they can rise to the top. Every pony for himself, basically.”

He sighed. “The real power of friendship isn’t how strong it makes you, though it certainly does do that.”

Lily gave him a knowing look. “And what do you think the real power of friendship is?”

Sky looked her straight in the eye. “The windigoes use their powers to try and get ahead in life during the time they have. But the ponies that value friendship…they try to get more life into the time they have.”

Lily smirked at his comment. “That’s an interesting way of putting it. But I have to agree with you. And I must say, I’m certainly thankful for every moment that I’ve spent with my friends.”

“You say that like you won’t have any more time with them.”

Her eyes fell. “I…I might not. We might not.”

Sky’s heart dropped like a stone. How had he not seen it? Here she was, facing what may be her last few hours alive, and completely unnecessarily! His eyes darted back and forth, looking at nothing in particular, but frantically searching for the right thing to say in response.

“We’re moving again,” the commander said suddenly. Sky looked up to see the windigo looming over them, looking more menacing than ever. “We will arrive at the colony in half an hour, if we suffer no more…delays.” With that, he turned, wailed again in a high-pitched voice, and started for a line of mountains ahead of them. Sky and Lily began to run again. Sky noticed wet streams running from her eyes. His stomach clenched like a dragon’s claw. Finally, mainly because he could think of nothing else to say, he caught her eye and held it as he spoke.

“You will see your friends again. We both will. I promise.”