Although today’s story is a tragedy, you can fall in love with it without any regrets.

The Mare Who Fell In Love With The Wind
[Romance] [Tragedy] • 3,806 words

Once upon a time, a Princess was alone in her crystal palace, and she sang to the wind in her sorrow. But when the wind is a Windigo, the wind sings back.

FROM THE CURATORS: The first thing you’ll notice about this multi-part fic is its small size — six chapters in less than 4,000 words — and that was one of the factors that turned our heads.  “This story shows how to do more with less,” Chris said. “It’s a bare, almost spartan storytelling style, and I thought it did a great job of showing the strengths of that type of writing.”  Horizon agreed: “IceOfWaterflock shows a deft touch in keeping us flipping the page.  This is exceptionally economical storytelling.”

What that storytelling skill presented was, in JohnPerry’s words, “a genuinely engaging story with a classic star-crossed lovers premise and a great fairy tale feel in places.”  While — as Present Perfect noted — “the fairy tale structure really helps it along,” it went beyond those roots.  Chris’ nomination offered an idea of the breadth it was able to pack in: “Even as it builds a fairytale romance, spins a history of the Crystal Empire, and speculates on the nature of windigoes, this slim fic doesn’t resort to clunky exposition or asides.”

The core fairy tale, meanwhile, inspired several comparisons to the classics.  “This is the Brothers Grimm version of the Fall of the Crystal Empire,” Horizon said.  “It’s almost ‘Biblical Monsters‘ dark — and it’s made a hell of a lot darker with a little fridge thought about what canon shows us in modern times — but it carries its own weight.”  AugieDog went even further back: “With so much of the show being inspired by Greek myth, I’m surprised to think that this might be the first fanfic I’ve seen that really visits that same well.  And that it’s sort of a pony version of ‘Iphigenia in Aulis‘ just makes me grin.”

Read on for our author interview, in which IceOfWaterflock discusses therapeutic stories, immortal robots, and Bermuda Triangle dragons.
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