Mira stopped flying only after he had climbed no less than three floors.

Another damnable hall stretched out before him as his flying ground to a halt, although this was one he had come to recognize—by the mural adorning the walls, by its distinct curvature, and the…

Huh, one of the doors was left swinging open. He poked his head in the open frame, found a bedroom with nothing particularly noteworthy, and then closed it in short order. After that, he perked his ears and listened carefully.

The racket was coming from below now, though he had to strain his ears to hear it. At this, his tense shoulders eased, and a long exhale left his mouth. He let go of the reaches, in doing so disabling Tsih's invisibility cloak, and slowly dropped to all fours as his brain started to take stock of the situation.

Long story in a nutshell, he was plain and simply screwed. Either he and Tsih could head out into the unknown, run into more danger out there in the form of one of the universe's favorite games called 'Let's Expose Ourselves to the Elements' and see how long they could last out there. Or, they could go back downstairs and explain themselves to the Herald, Windchime, and the strange stallions they kept for company. Or, they could keep hiding in this blasted maze, and let certain death drag them to the seven hells tail-first from a myriad of other factors including 'freezing one's ass off,' 'starvation' and 'dehydration.'

Low options in both number and desirability, and dwindling time to contemplate them. Mira's brow wrinkled, and he spread his wings before curling them to rub and bash the tips of his primaries against his temples. He turned to Tsih, feathers still firmly on face and pressing so deeply they'd probably leave indents come tomorrow, assuming he lived to see it. "Do you know… why they're here?" he asked, careful to keep his voice low in case his ears started to deceive him, though he did let his irritation leak out nonetheless.

Tsih shook her head. "Just that they're here," she answered. "And they have a wounded stallion."

Silence held for a few seconds. Mira's primaries eased off his face.

"And a medic," Tsih added with a frown. "Winged serpents cutie mark."

Mira donned a frown considerably deeper than that of his companion's. Primaries returned to temple-rubbing in swift order. "Lovely," he hissed. "Anything else that's gonna fuck us over?"

Tsih's face contorted a little, her brows trying to erect a bridge between each other. Alas, the effort was for naught, seeing as how big a mountain suddenly formed in their path. Her mute head shake was, unfortunately, all the answer he needed—that meant a fourth problem could come in and blindside them at any moment. And by the time it did come to blindside them, Mira wagered, it would be far too late to run away and fix it another day.

The game of 'Let's Expose Ourselves to the Elements' seemed really tempting right now. At the very least, there was plenty of ground for Mira to dig his own grave in; only issue was finding a suitable location to lay his head down on. That, and one clawed hoof was already in that grave as far as he was concerned; he just needed to find out how deep that hole went.

He turned to look down the hall, studying the mural again. His tail lashed irritably, and he rose to spread his wings and clasp the reaches again. Tsih cloaked once more, and down the hall Mira sped, being mindful of the curvature to keep the wheels from hitting a column as he passed. His brow furrowed as he used the scratch marks to retrace his way up the castle, noticing that only his hooves and the squeaking wheels began to fill in more and more of the silence.

He paused at the scratched double doors at the end of the second hall after passing through the open frame of the first without issue, largely because a chorus of thunder rumbled through the castle with enough force to slam both shut in his face. Simultaneously. He began entertaining the thought that, somehow, the castle wanted to make him stay here. Another peal of thunder shook the doors, ensuring they were lodged shut.

He blinked in bewilderment, frown tugging at one corner as his magic wrenched the doors apart and closed them behind the wagon as he passed with it. He slowly flew up the winding stairs, partly to keep the wagon steady and partly to not touch the stairs as much as circumstances would allow, making sure to avoid the sputtering torches with great care.

A torch leapt out at him with another roll of thunder, missing his muzzle by mere inches. Mira pulled back and halted in mid-air, eyes gravitating to the torch as it clunked down the first ten steps of the flight before rolling towards the doors and dying. His magic grasped the torch and hefted it back to its resting place, and he continued on his way once that was done. He found himself at the topmost balcony without further incident, and that was where things started to go wrong for him. The storm outside picked up, blurring everything five feet around the castle, and lightning was striking everywhere beyond that radius with feverish abandon.

He turned skyward, and saw the clouds had turned charcoal black, intracloud lightning dancing across their forms as much as it was striking the ground itself. That effectively ruled out flying too high up. He turned back to the ground, and saw snow dancing around in another thick cloud that was almost fog-like. Great, he couldn't stray too close to that either—which left the as-risky vantage point roughly level with the balcony itself, presently the clearest of his possible paths.

Mira took a deep breath of frigid air, one whose chills raced down all four of his augmented legs with an unspoken warning—'leave, and you will die.' He steeled his nerves, staring out at the storm with as fierce a glare as he could muster; were it physical in force, time would have probably stopped. The storm opted to increase the tempo of its howling winds, but beyond that, it did little else. Had it, perhaps, responded to him directly? Or was it just undergoing the start of a bad winter?

He scanned the roiling landscape, looking for the area least scorched by lightning when he caught sight of a floating shadow that held onto something, accompanied by… moving, flickering lights? It seemed short compared to the object it carried, and against all logic, remained perfectly still even as the gales beat at it. It was close enough that he could see the snow stuck to the object… but not to its carrier. Curious.

Mira turned to Tsih, alighting temporarily to gesture to the oddly stiff figure in the distance with a primary. She disabled the cloaking device, and followed the wingtip's gesture right down to what her companion had discovered. "What the…" she grumbled as soon as she caught sight of the distant form.

"Yeah. You think there might be others like it?" Mira asked, brow furrowing as the anomaly continued to float idly by, seemingly without a care. He blinked again. The figure still hovered in the distance.

"I don't think so," Tsih muttered, ears flattening against her head. Well, that ruled out hallucination, at least. "Maybe we should—"

A bestial, mournful wailing sang in the air, feminine in tone but faint enough to have almost been drowned out completely by the storm surrounding the castle. It took Mira and Tsih a few seconds to realize that somepony—neither were sure who exactly—had called to them from from far away. "Turn back…"

Tsih's ears perked right up again. Mira's twitched, then rotated as thunder clapped through the sky once more. "... it's not just us, is it…" Mira grumbled, seeing Tsih shaking her head out of the corner of his eye.

"Turn back…" the faint-sounding pony warned once more, a note of urgency in its—her?—tone.

Mira's face hardened. He began to flap once more instead, eyes affixed firmly on the distant form. He launched off the balcony, flying within seconds, even as the wind attempted to freeze his feathers off. He clenched his teeth as he flew towards the figure, noting that though lightning was sailing overhead and all around feverishly, it never once neared him and Tsih as he approached that odd entity.

As he drew closer, the flickering lights hovering around the figure turned onto him unanimously. One brightened, then dimmed, and Mira paused again as a laser flew past him, narrowly missing the wagon and his right wing. "Turn back…" the faint voice repeated once again, the urgency growing in its tone.

The laser impacted the castle behind him. Mira pressed on despite the apparent warning shot, nose wrinkling at the echoing words, getting closer and closer to the figure that still refused to move. He clasped the reaches magically, freeing up his front claws in case he needed to use them as the figure's features started to crystalize. First, a short but flowing mane became visible, although it emanated as much shadow as its owner, and appeared tangled. Then, a suspiciously short body formed beneath that mane, and lastly, a foreleg holding up its long object.

Mira's ears flattened as he saw piercing orbs of teal boring into his soul. The figure's orbs were almost unnatural lights by themselves—burning like fire, cold as the landscape around them, yet not casting any relief upon the face shrouded in corporeal darkness. A silver ring of similar light was anchored to the object-carrying leg—the only leg, in fact, that this shadow even possessed. Mira shook his head to make certain he wasn't seeing anything again—and when his head stopped, he found a massive, frost-laden, and crimson-tipped axe pointed right at his snout.

Past the figure were several round and flat drones, all of them two-faced—one had a crackling, glowing tesla coil's central conductor rod pointed at him, and the others had flickering, cross-shaped broken lens from which unnatural blue light shined onto the weapon—and him by extension. All were decorated with dark magenta, floating and yet weighed down by rust and extensive damage that did not get to their circuitry if their functioning was anything to go by. The armed figure tilted its head, and Mira's eyes widened as a silver, glowing array flickered around the entire right orb in a hideous web almost like scarring.

"I said… to turn back," it hissed in that echoing voice, orbs narrowing slightly in what Mira could only assume was displeasure. The rest of the drones turned their teslas onto him, and each started to charge up a fresh volley whose collective power gathered in seconds.

Mira promptly launched himself downward, dragging the wagon with in time to avoid a laser barrage. Tsih shrieked as the still-floating figure turned her baleful glare to track their movements. "Mira… is that who I think it is?!" she cried as the axe span round, the leg holding it bending unnaturally just to facilitate the motion.

"We're not even sure," Mira replied, jerking to the side as the drones fired at him once again. The lasers only missed him by the width of his ears, and the wagon by its still-spinning wheels as he conjured a pair of knives. "Probably one of the Sableshrouds mimicking her!"

"I'm not sure that's a Sableshroud!" Tsih retorted as the floating figure twisted down and launched after the wagon with the aid of nothing more than sheer force of will, the drones following behind her as she readied the axe again. "That's, like, half a pony! Even Sableshroulds would get new legs to stay whole!"

"Return to the castle…" the shadow hissed once more, gaining speed with the beating wind and raising the axe high to strike at the wagon, against all logic. Mira twisted around, magically yanked Tsih onto his back before she could protest, and made the wagon vanish in a burst of silver light right as the weapon made to connect. It missed, barely, and Mira swiveled around to face the shadow mid-air. He forced himself to ignore the howling winds, the baying thunder, and took another deep breath of frigid air to collect his nerves.

The thing, whatever she was, lunged at him with the axe yet again. Mira stopped the blade with both claws as the gap came level with his horn. "Do you even know what entered that palace?!" he cried, forcing himself to stare into the shadow's orbs. A chill of dread, and odd familiarity, swept down his spine and back up.

The shadow nodded once, and the drones came up to encircle them both with the motion. "I am… aware," she replied bluntly. "I have not been... idle as of late…" Her orbs narrowed further, staring into Mira's eyes with something akin to mild annoyance.

Mira warily eyed the drones as they flipped to shine their light unto him. "What are you?" he asked, turning back to the shadow that, by all accounts, should not have been yet was. Tsih regarded the shade with a snort, sensing an air of both wrongness and warmth about her.

The shadow snorted back. The light of the drones flickered once more. Silence held for a few moments, before the thunder overhead broke it. "You… do not… know me?" she asked, tone softening as her orbs widened in comprehension.

Mira shook his head. The shadow faltered further, and the axe began to slip in his claws. "What are you?" he repeated. "Not who."

The shadow's orbs narrowed once more, and she pressed her axe with more force that made Mira's claws shriek as they scraped its frosted surface. She contemplated the question, for but a moment. "... if you must know… I am but a shell of… what I was," she answered. "But not of who."

Mira huffed and pushed on the axe, throwing it to the side where its head met with one of the drones. The drone didn't break further from the strike—odd, he noted, though the ice might have contributed somewhat to that, as it broke in the drone's stead. It was sent spinning back a few feet, tumbling around and around until it managed to reorient its tesla at him. The shadow span swiftly, trailing the axe and herself with the motion, and with that flourish spheres of air crackled to life in globes of stable electricity that shot from the drones. Mira flew back, narrowly missing being both sliced and singed, and frowned as the globes turned to home in on him.

Tsih scowled. "That's… that's not…" she grumbled, watching the globes with pupils shrinking.

Mira's horn glowed in a pulse, and he traded the knives for a hoof-sized black cube with a crystal button that he clutched tightly in a claw. Immediately upon pushing the button, it sparked with magic and formed four diamond-shaped blades glowing with plasma and power. The thing was half as large as one of his wings, and the blades formed tapered, wickedly sharp points reminiscent of a four-pointed star.Wordlessly, he continued to backpedal mid-air, spinning the glaive and using the howling winds to help accelerate it as he moved.

Some of the winds began to spin along with the glaive, coalescing into a grey cylinder as the spheres moved to home in. The teslas fired once more, though their lasers went wide and sailed off into the snow. Mira watched, still backing off and letting his summoned weapon generate enough movement to take care of the rest, pulling his claws out and replacing them with his magic. The glaive twirled faster and faster, until its pointed bits became a dizzying blur that would have made his eyes spin and go blind if he looked at it for longer than a second.

The wind it collected and generated did likewise, for that matter, and gravity started to shift around it accordingly. Mira added more fuel to it by beating his wings to send some more energy into it, right as the globes of lightning made to touch the weapon. The moment they did hit the glaive, their fate was sealed; it dragged the sparks into its axis, turning fast enough that its blades almost seemed stationary despite its motion.

A small smirk crossed his face as bits of snow, lightning, and the distant shadow were all swept up in a horizontal tornado that lanced out almost instantly, reaching all the way and stopping just shy of the crown jewel of the castle. Around and around the drones, the axe, and their owner went, drawn into a shrieking vortex that then sent them into each other over and over. It lasted for mere seconds, yet it was more than enough to dent the teslas and bust the lights to non-functionality on the drones. Though even then, their unnatural blazes still burned fiercely.

The winds relented as Mira made the glaive vanish, but even as they did the shadow and her weapon still whirled through the air for a few seconds longer as gravity started to gather its bearings. Mira rushed forward with another flap and seized the shadow by her neck the moment she was within reach, then let go and kicked her in the chest with his sturdy hinds to send her plummeting below. Drones and axe went with, and for a moment, she was swallowed up by the whirling snow-devils.

Mira waited, smirking triumphantly and crossing his forelegs over his chest. It did not fade when the shadow rushed up at him from below, body and axe spinning with another flourish of snow and an elegance that suggested it had years of practice. As she raced to meet him, Tsih noticed that massive boulders of ice were forming along behind the shade, and pried herself off his back to levitate at his side.

With a wordless nod between them, both pulled back, the axe's blade grazing against an augmented front leg and slipping entirely over Tsih's horn. The shadow turned to face them as her attack ceased, a thin line appearing on her muzzle to complete an irritated scowl. "Listen to me!" she barked, her command echoing across the frozen landscape with a formidable fury that shook with enough force, even the thunder overhead fell silent. A front right leg started forming on her shoulder, made entirely with and glistening of ice, with shadowy tendrils within reminiscent of wiring encapsulated in the mass. She pointed it accusingly at the stubborn pair in lieu of her axe the instant it had finished forming. "It's not just you and Tsih that are in peril! Stop being so selfish and consider the situation!"

The frozen boulders lifted up behind the shade, each with a drone and burning fire trapped within. Mira raised a brow as Tsih reared her forelegs up, gem and horn crackling with a strange unison between them. "We already have considered the situation, thank you kindly," he snorted.

The shade's scowl deepened. The web on the right side of her face pulsed with latent power. "Then you two leave me no choice," she snapped, swinging her axe at them once again. The strike went wide as both backed off, but she slashed again after putting her new and frozen leg onto the shaft to put more strength into it. That time, it managed to cut into Mira's shoulder and Tsih's front legs, drawing blood that froze almost instantly with the weapon's passing.

Tsih grit her teeth, turning to focus on the ice-boulders as they started to home in. She smiled and darted below Mira and the shade, eyes affixed onto the drones within as they shifted to follow her. She took notice that the shade herself went after Mira, wildly swinging her axe with reckless abandon, getting deflected by augmented forelegs and kicked in the chest over and over for her troubles.

But she ignored that, and goaded the boulders into following her just above those snow-devils. She snickered wickedly. "Self-levitation really comes in handy some days…" Tsih mused, eyes glinting as the massive, sluggish projectiles came closer and closer. Within moments, she was completely encircled by them, at least from a horizontal standpoint. "I just wished more ponies practiced it…"

The drones within the boulders flared up, fire burning brighter and brighter until they shined refracting light in all possible directions. Tsih squinted her eyes, and turned up as she heard steel clanging overhead. Mira started to retaliate with his glaive, blocking the axe with one claw and bashing the weapon into the shade's face with the other. Despite the whaling, though, the shade seemed unfazed in the least, and kept trying to block it with her shadowy foreleg to no avail.

The boulders drew closer still. Tsih's magic lanced out at them, right as they touched her legs and muzzle and tail. She pushed them back with a wave of her horn, though the boulders shook as their lights burned fiercely, trying to scour her fur from her body. In fact, they lashed out with tendrils of their own at her, frozen yet snaking with glowing light at such speeds she could barely react in time. She levitated up, but one tendril seized her by a hind pastern and pulled her back down into the encirclement.

Tsih pumped more magic outwards, shoving the boulders back before they could crush her again. They sent out more tendrils, ensnaring her fronts and other hind with a cold, cruel efficiency. Her legs began to burn at the sensation, and yet ice grew upon them simultaneously—all while gravity began to shift around her. "Pigya!" she shrieked, looking up again as Mira broke his close-quarters range from the shade.

It was time for her to make her move, and she only had seconds to do it. Tsih's horn crackled and sparked as she span with the boulders in tow, pushing herself up and up as much as her magic and encirclement would allow, shaking her legs wildly as she felt flesh writhing and augments activating. The ice flaked away, but the burning did not stop, and one pair of boulders started pushing towards her to grind her body against its companions.

The shade lunged at Mira once more, unaware she was about to be interrupted. Tsih pushed back once more against the boulders, this time by splaying her legs as she would after a harsh landing against the ground. Hooves met ice, almost froze on contact, and legs stretched as wide as they could. Two boulders shot off, sent careening through the air as the shade kept charging forward with a furious cry. One missed her entirely, but another hit her axe and sent her into a barrel roll that made her veer wildly and dangerously close to the snow-devils.

Tsih wasn't finished; she moved her legs and kicked another boulder at the shadow, breaking the tendrils on her fronts and hinds with the motion. Her magic seized the rest and anchored them by thin, fraying strings of power as she watched the shadow dodging the third strike clumsily and with legs and axe flailing. Another boulder was sent back at her, and she crossed weapon and leg in front of her face to take the blow.

The shade was sent careening further away, her iced leg breaking apart entirely with the strike. The last two boulders were launched in unison, with a flourish of Tsih's front legs that made the burning wane. The shadow didn't have time to react; she was sent head-first into the snow as the boulders moved to crush and grind her between them.

Mira and Tsih reunited, and the latter moved to rest on the back of the former again. Another minute after that, the shadow and her drones came screaming at them from below, axe once more raised for another strike. But Mira was quicker; he waited until she came in range, shifted away just enough to avoid having a wing amputated, and clasped the shadow's neck with his claws as he made his glaive vanish once again.

Then, he flew back to the castle as the shadow flailed about, trying to strike at him repeatedly with her axe. Tsih deflected with her magic every time the head came near them, though that wasn't as much of a problem for them thanks to its rather generously elongated shaft. Within a few minutes after the shadow had been ensnared in metal claws, she got to see Mira personally pin her backside to the castle's crown jewel with enough strength to crack the crystal for years to come. The drones, no longer bound in boulders but still levitating and burning in spite of the odds, flew with her and embedded themselves in the crystal around her, creating a half-dozen smaller craters that kept them out of commission for the moment.

The shadow smirked with a thin line of white on her muzzle, and her scowl eased even as she once more lifted her axe to try and swat the pair away. Tsih simply flashed her horn and held it back before its mighty head could reach either of them, and she pinned it to the crown jewel for good measure. Well, at least that ruled out incorporeality; this beast was as solid as they came. Which meant she could be hurt, seemingly crippled as she was. Though, Tsih still wondered if he was burning just touching her; her legs still stung from all that had happened today.

Mira parted, then raised one clawed hoof and balled it into a tight, metal fist as his face hardened into a glare. "You wanted us to return here… knowing damn well what's found her way inside," he spat, fist trembling with the restrained urge to pound the shadow's face into the crystal. "Why?"

The shadow, in spite of having the tables turned on her, kept her smirk. "The situation… is far more dire than you believe," she answered, orbs glinting with a cryptic spark that Mira didn't miss.

That managed to withhold his raised fist, for now. Still, Mira kept the shadow pinned. "Stop speaking in tongues!" he barked.

The shadow shook her head. "Windigos… they feed on the remainder of life that still clings to the world," she said. "Except I and… a small cadre of like-minded others. We do not feed—we have no need."

Mira's brow furrowed at that. "Translation?" he asked.

The windigo obliged, her smirk falling as she did, "The Herald… is in as much peril as you. So is… the Windchime." Her orbs narrowed again. "Once they and the Guardians are gone… the world will become devoid of life."

Mira glanced below, at all the swirling white as the grim statement made him drop his fist and release his hold on the windigo. Then he considered what he had just heard. That walking, talking harbinger, the Blasting Fuse of the World's End, as screwed as he? Some day this was turning out to be. He glanced back to the windigo and sighed. "Fine. The fuck you want us to do?" he grumbled. He saw her open her mouth and snapped, "Besides returning back inside and potentially getting our tails burnt off?"

The windigo frowned, muzzle scrunching for a moment. "The scourge that makes the windigos feed… stop him," she answered. "But make haste to safety first… even now, the cold grows… and this castle is no longer… a sanctuary." She pried the axe out of Tsih's magical grip, and used it to gesture to the distant, fallen airship. Both the ponies looking at her turned to it, though they had to squint to see through the cloud of swirling snow to locate it.

Mira sighed, but allowed himself a tiny smirk at that. Tsih, seeing the smirk, did likewise as a hoof moved to her gem. "Even those searchlights couldn't find me when we had out sparring sessions, back during the Clash's hayday…" she muttered, just as Mira closed his wings and turned his muzzle to plummet. Tsih kept eye contact with the figure, and for a fraction of a second, she could've sworn time slowed down as the shadow's identity—her mannerisms, choice of weapons, even the reason for the ring of flame on the one leg she had remaining—all dawned onto her.

She even saw a flickering, gem-like object on the shadow's chest, burning with a cold but faltering light, though it soon was swallowed by the rest of the darkness making its owner's form. It all made sense to her now—even the shadow's plea for them to return to the strange palace, though there was a chance things could heat up and they'd become ash before they could do anything about it. That, and if that didn't happen, there was a slimmer chance that the Windchime would chop their legs off.

If the windigo was telling them to meet up with those crazies, Tsih supposed that she and Mira hadn't much choice left in the matter—fireworks or not. Still, she wasted no time cloaking herself and her companion, though only after one last batch of words left her mouth in a final parting taunt just as the blanket of flying snow swallowed her head. "Could they, Alte, if that is really you? Or are you a hollow being just copying her?"

And as Mira turned to fling open the double doors with his claws, Tsih could've sworn that Alte—or rather, the thing that had her axe and was possibly just a hollow being mimicking her—had smirked at her nonetheless. She turned to the foyer as Mira landed inside, magically closing the doors behind them and perked her ears to listen for trouble.

Far up above, though she couldn't tell how many floors, she heard the sound of crystal breaking. Again, and again. It was steadily growing louder too, accompanied by several voices shrieking…? After a few seconds, the castle shook, and she reluctantly looked up. The ceiling started to crack with a groan and a cry, and she slowly raised her hoof to tap at the back of Mira's neck.

Mira instead looked up, just as dumbstruck by what she was seeing. The ceiling caved, split, and gave way with the aid of several chunks of rubble and the last pony both of them wanted to see right now. There was only enough time for them to scramble out of the underside of the shadows of the mess, but just that—a few solid chunks of stray debris managed to clock both of them on the backsides of their heads even with the cloak up. And when those chunks hit, the world began to spin as the cloak collapsed along with Mira's legs. Both were sent into a sprawl upon the floor, consciousness fleeing to greener pastures as they landed with a unanimous thud. The last thing both Mira and Tsih heard was the flapping of oddly-whistling wings.