"Nothing," answered a windigo. "We kept to the terms of the agreement."

"Liar," she growled, teleporting out of the pit and seizing every hate-filled winter spirit in her aura. "Equestria would not simply fall. You must have manipulated them."

"The agreement was strict," another windigo spoke up. "You made sure of that the first time. 'Take only what calls you by its nature, and yield to the fire that ponies hold'. We could not have disobeyed, even if were capable of starving into desperation."

Nightmare Moon growled, and reached out for something. She found it quite easily. "So what happened here? Why do I return to a frozen wasteland, instead of a continent of prosperity and immeasurable wealth?"

Yet another windigo thrashed against the Nightmare's aura, just enough to get her attention. "The greatest fire that ponykind ever lit. The Warming of the Hearth. One of yours decided to end it."

"End it?" Nightmare Moon started in incomprehension, then something else sunk in. "One of mine?"

"Burner of the midnight oil," a windigo hissed. "You know the sort... They stay awake into the smallest hours of the night, so absorbed in their work that they only turn away from it to watch the stars for a while. Ponies that live in the night."

Part of Nightmare Moon flared up at that, like a meager flame that has been guttering for hours only to burst back into glorious life. "And they... they loved me? They loved the night?"

The windigos nodded, some eagerly and some venomously. "Not a single one of them was ever in our grasp. Fire in their hearts, near as strong as the Warming, and all for industry."

Nightmare Moon closed her eyes and shook her head in confusion. Princess Luna opened them. "Industry," she whispered fondly. "And under my stars as well." Then the pressure of her encroaching asset urged her back to relevant information. "You said one of mine, they ended Hearth's Warming. How? Why?"

"Why do you think? A season dedicated to not-work. An entire day where progress was an unworthy goal, and work was treated as torture. Constant distractions from brilliant magic, and it was brilliant, even for an alchemist."

"An alchemist," Luna repeated in amazement. "An alchemist did this. How?"

"Pony memory. 'Tis even more ephemeral than the pony body. She brewed up a potion that made the ponies forget to warm the Hearth. From there... we have held to the agreement. Barely two years, and the last of them fell."

"Who was this alchemist? Was she of any noble house? What tribe was she?"

"What do you care?" one of the windigos asked. "She's been dead for over a hundred years."

Princess Luna bared her teeth, and stamped her hoof against the ice and snow. "And now the world stands as a monument to what she did. She will be remembered from now until the moment when Equestria crumbles to ash and reality itself bleeds away. Not even I or my sister could boast such accomplishments. So tell me her name, that I might remember her."

The windigos fell silent. The wind picked up, and it blew the snow so hard and so fast that the world turned to solid white. Luna held her breath, and wondered if the cowards had fled. She dared not ask if they were still there; uncertainty was weakness, and as the only fresh meat in a hundred years, she could not afford to show weakness.

"Her name was Snowfall Frost," said a voice far too close to her ear. "She was a unicorn, and a direct descendant of Clover the Clever at that."

"How ironic," Luna joked, and she looked up at the sky. The clouds had cleared, and there was a great white light shining down on the snow. The blizzard around them was sparkling like a sea of diamonds, and the windigos were almost transparent under the rays of piercing light. Then they looked up as well, and they saw the star falling from the sky. Rather than scream and run as ponies might have, they just stood there, and turned to glare at Luna.

"Last question, I promise." The Princess of the Night wove the arcane sigils of a time spell, and prepared to catch the star. "Did you really think that you could take over the world, and there wouldn't be any consequences?"

One of the windigos