They woke up earlier than usual the next morning and made the last thousand feet to the pass. The storm was gone now, and the temperature slowly became more bearable. “The plan stands. Heart and I will go look for the signal. You three wait here at the entrance to the pass.” Hawk eyed Thiemo especially. “So, until later then.” The plan was simple. No one knew that these two were guiding Thiemo and the others, so they couldn’t be seen together. No matter what their mission was, they couldn’t ignore a distress signal. Especially since it came from a princess.

Hawk turned around to Thiemo one last time and pointed with a hoof at her eyes first, then at him. The gesture wasn’t unknown to the human, and he responded with a raised middle finger. “I say we go along without them. I mean, we just have to cross the pass and go down the other side of the mountain. What could go wrong?” His two remaining companions looked at him in disbelief, causing his shoulders to sag in disappointment. “Was just an idea,” he muttered petulantly.

“Why should we do that?” Lyra inquired. “Aren’t they on our side?” She looked over to Amaryllis, but she didn’t react at all. Thiemo tried to catch her look for a second, but she turned away completely.

With a sigh, he rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “Of course they are on our side, but the pony they are looking for sure as hell isn’t. If they really do return with Princess Sparkle, what then? It’s not like I would stand a chance against her. Or any of you. Our two soldiers would probably rather help her.”

“You think she’s here to catch us?” Despite Lyra being a professor, she could be very slow from time to time. Maybe she should have followed a musical career as depicted by her cutie mark.

“Why else would she be here?” Maybe they deceived the Royal Guard with their little manoeuvre in the Everfree, but apparently not the princess. Thiemo had found out that she wasn’t stupid in his time in the palace, but that she would understand such strategies was new to him. Then he remembered that she didn’t understand much about fighting in general. Why should she? Her pure magical power was so enormous that she could stomp everything into the ground if she wanted to. “And maybe she isn’t even alone. I highly doubt that from what I know. Who would let a princess hunt for three wanted convicts on her own?” Lyra swallowed nervously. “Whenever these two come back, I think it would be with more armour and blades than we’d like at the moment.”

Twilight struggled to open her eyes. She felt a thin layer of ice that covered her body and turned her coat into some kind of shell. She turned around a bit and spread her wings. Stiff from the cold, they ached and throbbed, but it was nothing she couldn’t stand. Suddenly, her head perked up. “Hopper!” She looked around the small igloo. The entrance was snowed in, and the only thing inside besides her was the cold air. The young pegasus was gone. Quickly, the princess got on her legs and freed the entrance from the surplus snow with a swing of her horn.

As the warm sunrays of her mother met Twilight’s eyes, she took in a deep breath. The storm was gone and allowed her to see for the first time where she had landed. A look in the distance told her that she was a bit above the tree line, on the upper third of the Chain to be more precise. Peering higher, the view showed her that the top wasn’t really far away, explaining the climate. But, unfortunately, not the hail. “Hopper!” she shouted and listened, but there was no response.

He couldn’t have gotten lost. High up in the sky, her signal was still glowing even though it was faint in the daylight. And there was snow in front of the entrance, so he must have disappeared shortly after she fell asleep. Twilight knew just one place where he could have gone. “Storm...” She looked around again, but the fresh snow had wiped all tracks away. Maybe he even flew there. In her mind, she reconstructed the position of the igloo and the way she went to find Hopper to try to figure out where he had come from. With new motivation, she opened her eyes again and had a clear picture in her mind of where she was going. Twilight flapped her wings multiple times and lifted off from the ground. The wind was still strong, especially up here, but since she didn’t have to levitate a heavy cart this time, she used her magic to keep herself in the air.

Twilight began circling around her lookout and steadily increased the radius. This way, she couldn’t miss anything. Because of this, it took her just a few minutes until she found something in the snow. She flew down a bit and recognized the remains of the carts her friends had been in. To her relief, none of them were nearby. “They must have found shelter somewhere,” she said to calm herself. With another reason to continue the search, she flew higher again. But this time, luck wasn’t on her side. She kept searching until she noticed that the sun was slowly reaching its zenith, and exhaustion was catching up with her. Landing was no longer a question, but a necessity.

“Twilight!” Just as she was about to fly back to the igloo where her signal was, she heard her name being called. Immediately, she spun around in the air. Through the sudden stop, the strong winds smashed against her shield, but she remained firm against them. Just as she caught herself again, she looked down and saw, much to her surprise, two of her friends.

Applejack waved with her hat while the filly on her back was waving her two forehooves wildly into the air as well. “Twilight!” both shouted again and waved even more. With a wide grin, she prepared to descend next to them. As her hooves finally met the snow, she slid for a few meters but eventually came to a halt.

“Applejack! Auralia!” she shouted at them and threw herself around her friend’s neck. “I’m so glad to see that you’re alright. Where are the others?” Applejack returned the greetings and put her forehooves around her friend’s neck as well.

“It’s so good seein’ ya, sugarcube. The others are safe, no worries. We split up to search for you, Hopper, and Storm. We found a cave where we spent the night. Ah followed yer signal, and Rarity and Estoc are searching for the two pegasi.”

“Applejack!” She let go of her friend, the panic was rising in her again. “Hopper was with me. He said Storm is…” she looked to the little filly on her friend’s back. “… lost. I built us an igloo, but he was gone this morning. I think he wanted to go back to Storm.” Applejack thought about it for a moment.

“Ah think we’re gonna get the others first. Together, we have better chances. We wanted to meet at noon back at cave again anyways.” Twilight nodded in agreement, and they both made their way back together. She quickly noticed that her friends were further down the mountain than she had expected at first. For the whole way, Auralia was telling her in detail what has happened, with fitting sounds and gestures. Twilight didn’t get around smiling from time to time at her tale. And it brought her to another conclusion. Auralia was like every other filly of her age even though she was raised by a human. A small part of her could understand why Applejack was thankful of the human despite what he did in Canterlot. And also, should Estoc’s and her theory turn out to be true, her mother had let him go. It was only raising more questions.

And in the next moment, Estoc’s view turned white. “Everything alright, darling?” he heard Rarity behind him ask as she tried to help him back on his legs. They had spent hours wandering around through blanket of snow to search for a sign of Hopper and Storm Cloud. Miss Applejack was on her way to get the princess. Much to his relief, she had given them a signal. But from the two pegasi who pulled their cart was still no sign to be found. Internally, he hoped they would be with the princess, but she had since drifted off very far, and according to her signal, wasn’t even close to them.

“It’s alright, Rarity.” He beat the snow out of his coat and mane. Estoc had pulled off his armor again and left it in the cave. The metal would surely not be good for him here. “But I think it is time for us to head back. Surely Miss Applejack has already found the princess and…” Again his hoof slipped away, but a whole lot of snow followed him this time. Estoc rolled down the steep hillside and could hear Rarity shouting after him. What seemed to him like minutes of spins and sharp rocks that cut into his soft flesh were surely just a few seconds. Eventually, he came to a halt about ten meters further though not before a slightly larger stone struck him.

The world in front of his eyes was a wavering mist of unclear objects, with one of them quickly coming down the same hillside. “Estoc, Darling!” He shook his head and tried to stand up but fell to the ground again. “Stay there; I will be with you in a second.” True to her word, Rarity was with him just seconds later and threw her saddlebags in the snow. She instantly began to examine him, searching for any wounds. “I don’t think anything is broken,” she finally said. Estoc nodded and shakily stood up again with her help.

“It could have been worse. If not for this stone…” Estoc’s voice caught in his throat as he saw what had actually stopped him. The stone was in fact a block of ice where a familiar pegasus was trapped in. “Storm Cloud.” He had a look of pure terror, his eyes wide open and his mouth stretched into a scream that would never be heard, persevered for eternity. “How could that happen?” Frostbite was one thing, but this was a whole new level. His marefriend stood with an open mouth at his side, trembling at the sight. “Rarity?”

“Hey!” Another voice sounded, a familiar one he had not expected. Their heads spun around, and they saw Night Hawk, Captain of the Nightguard. “Everything alright with you?” As she came closer, Estoc saw that she wasn’t alone. Behind her was another soldier. According to her appearance, she was a Royal Guard. Both followed Rarity’s example and slid down the hillside and joined them at the ice block. “Wow, cool guy. One of yours?”

Estoc knew her way very well and knew that she didn’t mean it as disrespectful as she sounded. “Yes, Storm Cloud. A citizen of Sunny Town. He and his friend Hopper have flown our cart here.” Hawk nodded. “What gives us the honor of your presence, Captain and…?”

“Cadet Iron Heart, sir,” saluted the white pegasus mare at her side. Now he remembered where he had seen her already.

“We are on a mission, Captain,” Hawk replied. “May I ask now why you are here?”

“Quit the games, Captain. I know that you are escorting the human.” She showed no reaction except for a blink. “More important to me at the moment, however, is the well-being of my companions. Namely Princess Twilight Sparkle and the still missing pegasus, Hopper.”

“Alright, Heart, can you take a closer look at this,” she nodded the cadet over to Storm Cloud. “Miss Rarity, Element of Generosity, correct?”

“Correct. It’s a pleasure, Miss Night Hawk.”

“Likewise. Could you make a magical scan? I doubt that this ice block is completely natural.”

“I don’t even need to do a scan for that. I have a theory.” All looked at her expectantly. “You would surely know my friends and me have performed the Hearths Warming Eve play in the past. In my life, I’ve only heard once about something that could do that. Windigos.” Hawk started to laugh.

“Pardon, but you can’t be serious. In the last thousand years, nopony has seen these creatures. Not after the war, and even then it was just a rumour that they had allied with Nightmare Moon.” Before she could say anything more, Heart coughed slightly.

“He’s alive.” Everypony stared at her. “Of course, I can’t be sure until we get him out of there, but he shows no signs of being dead. Also, look at his pupils.” Estoc took a step closer and saw that his eyes seemed to fixate on him.

“By Celestia!” was the only thing he managed to say, and the others were not less surprised.

“What do you mean, Hawk? Couldn’t it really have been windigos?”

She shook her head. “I was raised here. If windigos were really living here, we would have noticed. It would also have taken a good amount of hatred to…” Her voice trailed off.

“What?” Estoc asked, worried.

“How could we get lost?” Lyra asked for the third time now.

“Just ask our great leader.” Thiemo had let the nagging of the two mares went over him for hours now. They had continued their journey alone just like he had suggested, but the pass was blocked by an avalanche in a bottleneck. Without further ado, he had decided to take a little detour of five minutes to get around it. Well, the five minutes have turned into a few hours already, but that wasn’t the point.

“Yeah, alright, I got it. We got lost, and it’s my fault. But it’s still better than going back to a cell in Canterlot.” That, at least, silenced Lyra. Amaryllis instead looked at him like she would jump at him any moment.

“Thiemo?” Lyra said after a minute of silence.

“What?” To say that he was annoyed would have been an understatement. Something Aura never managed to achieve in two years.

“Look there.” Lyra was pointing at something off the way. At first he saw nothing but snow, a few stones and a cliff, but then something was moving. It was small, white, and apparently out of snow. “What’s that?”

It was just what he needed. A valve. “Oh, how I hope that it’s the same.” On a small hill sat a snow rabbit in full pride and with a grin. “Listen here, you little shit, you’ll soon be laughing on the other side of your face.” Thiemo began to climb up the small hill, his eyes still locked on the rabbit in front of him that still grinned. Just as he arrived at the top, he kicked it with all his strength. Snow flew off in all directions, and the little stones that served as eyes fell to the ground. “Take that, you stupid thing.” A squeaking laugh sounded, and everyone present turned around to the source. Some distance away stood another rabbit… no, rather the real one.

Thiemo noticed that the one at its feet wasn’t reassembling. “So, these are their feared tricks?” he asked Lyra. None of his companions moved or said a word. “Something is behind me, right?” Lyra nodded. “I hate Albion.” Slowly, he turned around and saw nothing but blue mist. He blinked a few times and looked up. The head of a giant horse, a normal horse, looked down at him. The entire construct seemed to only consist out of a dark blue mist and glowing eyes. Out of the giant nostrils came an icy breath that turned the end of his hair into ice immediately. “Good ghost horsey?” His right hand wandered towards its chest out of habit, which was directly in front of his face and just went through the mist. As he pulled it out again, it was covered by a thin layer of ice. “And so nicely cold…”

“Run Thiemo! Run!” These were the first words in days he heard from Amy that weren’t sarcastic, and they just had to be those. “Just run!”

Spurred on by Amaryllis’ shouts, he stumbled backwards and slid down the small hill just in time to dodge the construct. It was rearing its forehooves in the air like a wild horse and flew away. “What was that thing?” Thiemo asked, panicked. He had never seen anything like it.

“A windigo. You must have attracted it with your arguing! We should get out of here immediately before—“ More of the misty creatures joined the first one that was still circling over their heads. “More are coming.” Thiemo, meanwhile, looked from ground where he was lying at the gigantic creatures spinning in circles without giving them much attention. “Come on already!” When Lyra shouted at him again, the heads of all of the, by now eight, creatures spun towards, and they began glowing brighter than before.

Slowly, Thiemo began to stand up and reached for Protes at his left wrist. Then a small snowball hit his face. His view wandered to the little rabbit that was now pointing his scrotum at him before he disappeared. The neighing of a horse, a sound he hadn’t heard in a long while despite his company, directed his attention back to the danger above them. The windigos bolted down at them, and Thiemo managed to duck into cover just in time. “Maybe we really should go,” he mumbled to himself.

Thiemo jumped back on his legs again, and without wasting any more time, he pulled out his staff. The windigos, meanwhile, changed and prepared for another attack. Lyra and Amaryllis were still on the ground and managed to dodge them, but Thiemo readied himself to hit them. When the first windigo came into reach, he stabbed with Protes at it. The staff pierced through the chest of the gigantic horse, but showed no other results. The next thing that Thiemo noticed was the horse running through him. It was cold, colder than he had ever felt in his entire life. The sweat on his body froze along with the saliva in his mouth and the water in his eyes. Then it was over, and he fell to the ground. Carefully and accompanied by the cracking of ice, he leaned his head forward to look at his arms. Both were covered by a nearly two centimeter thick layer of ice. With all his force, he began to move and gasped for saving air. One thing was clear to him at this moment. Without the Luna’s protection on his clothes, he wouldn’t have survived that.

“Lyra? What are you doing? Run!” Confused, Thiemo looked around and saw a purple pony coming towards him. A bit larger than the others and with a both horn and wings, it could only be the lost princess. She fired, whilst in full gallop, some magic missiles at their attackers that stopped them to fall over the human. “Come quick!” Lyra didn’t need to be told twice and whooshed past him in the next moment. “Amaryllis, you too!” she shouted again. A quick look back told him that the changeling princess was lying on the ground, frozen in fear. Once again, he reacted quickly. Amy was a creature that fed off positive emotions. These windigos were looking for hatred, according to Lyra, the exact opposite of positive.

Swiftly, he sprinted over to her and just in time. One of the creatures headed directly towards her, and he managed to grab her stomach just in time to pull her aside. Now with her lying on the ground in his arms, he noticed how much she was shaking. He had no choice but to put his staff away. The last thing he wanted now was for her to touch it. “Amy, we have to get out of here.” She nodded faintly. Thiemo helped her up on her legs while more magic missiles were flying over their heads. None seemed to hit the windigos, but they helped keep them at distance.

Finally they were standing, Amaryllis leaning slightly against him as they more or less stumbled over to Lyra and Twilight Sparkle. Lyra had switched over to help her by forming snowballs and throwing them at their attackers. They, of course, had even less impact than missiles, but one snowball hit one of the windigos midair. The snowball exploded and created a small cloud of steam that blocked their opponents’ view for a short while. Thiemo used the moment, reaching inside his bag and pulled out a sapphire. He held the stone briefly so that Amy could see it and began to sprint. The deep snow didn’t make him as fast as usual, but it was enough to reach Twilight and Lyra. They immediately stopped their cover fire and turned around on their heels, Thiemo and the others shortly behind them.

“Twi said something ‘bout it worryin’ her and went off again,” Applejack explained to Estoc who just shook his head. “She feels responsible for what happened with Hopper and Storm.”

“She should have waited for us. Did she at least eat something?” This time Applejack shook her head at Rarity’s question. “I hope she comes back soon. Maybe we should abort the mission?”

“No!” Immediately, everypony looked at Estoc due to his outburst. “Sorry. I meant that it would be a bad idea. It would have been for nothing that Storm has…”A slight trembling shook the little cave with the burnt out fireplace. “What was that?” The three ponies looked outside. The first pony he saw was Night Hawk. She headed directly for the cave and shouted something at them. Directly behind her ran Iron Heart and behind her a green unicorn that could have been Miss Heartstring. Then the princess came in sight with two larger figures behind her. They all ran like Nightmare Moon herself was behind them.

“What in tarnation?” Applejack stepped at his sight and looked at the scene confused.

Hawk was still shouting something, but Estoc just couldn’t understand it. He rapidly went a few steps in her direction. “Too late! Run!” For a second, he didn’t get what she meant, but then came the creatures behind them into his field of view. Not less than twelve windigos were on their heels in full gallop, nostrils that breathed icy winds and eyes as colds as their non-existent hearts in full display. Only as Hawk almost reached him did he turn his eyes away from them as they all stormed into the cave.

“Dad!”

“Quick, close the door!”

“I hate Albion!”

“What shall we do? Whatever shall we do?”

Over the shouts of the newcomers, Princess Twilight Sparkle tried to yell something, but no one seemed to care. In one quick move, however, she turned around and created a barrier at the entrance. A moment later, the windigos crashed against it, finally calming them down.

A few small stones fell from the ceiling, but besides that, only the heavy breathing of everyone present could be heard. “Everypony alright?” Twilight asked and a nod went through the room.

“Dad!”

“Aura?” The filly jumped off the back of Applejack and into the arms of the human. “What are you doing here?!”

“Searching for you, what else?”

“You took my daughter on such a dangerous journey?” he turned at Applejack, an angry glint in his eyes.

“What? She’s also my daughter, and this is just your fault! And what is different from your journey from Dragmire to Equestria?”

“Guys!” The princess interrupted them again. “We have a bigger problem.” The walls of the little cave shook again as the windigos hit the force field. “I tried to tell you that this is a dead end. What now?” The force field continued to be battered by the unrelenting assault by the fey creatures.

“Doesn’t the cave have another exit?” Hawk asked Estoc.

“No, unfortunately not.”

“Princess, how far can you teleport us?”

Another trembling. “No idea; I didn’t really had time to recover. Maybe a couple hundred of meters, but not more than two at once.” Estoc knew this wasn’t enough, and judging by Hawk’s hanging head, she knew that as well.

“Aura! You still have that ember I gave you as a gift?” The filly nodded proudly and got the necklace out of her saddlebags. The human grabbed it and went to the backside of the little cave. “If it doesn’t fit, use a bigger hammer. I’ll make us an exit.”

“Wait! We don’t know if this is safe! The whole cave could lose its structure and could collapse.” Another trembling.

“So, Miss OCD. You can choose. Either these fine gentlemen out there or—“

“Just do it!” Hawk shouted, and without further ado, he went to work. For a short moment, it looked like nothing was going to happen as the tunnel began to form, but then the windigos hit the force field again. The cave trembled worse than before, and Thiemo fell to ground along with the ember.

“No!” was the last thing he yelled before the spell, now without guidance, was released fully and disintegrated the ground below them. Screaming, they all fell into the abyss.

Author's Notes:

And that is the short intro arc for chapter 3.

On a another note; I just released a new story. With it being the mature one I announced last time I'm not allowed to link it here, but you can find it if you click on my profile. To celebrate that this chapter was released early. And say thanks to JBL, it was his idea to do that.

Thanks to Gron for translating this chapter.
Special thanks to JBL for proofreading and editing.

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