The weather team of Manehattan had blanketed the metropolitan island with an average but strong amount of snowfall on the third day of December. The falling company of snowflakes and the arrival of the chilly winds that stung underneath the naked coat of anypony were unpleasant and bothersome experiences for many residents of the city, though they all knew that such weather was needed in order to maintain a healthy balance between the seasons. Regardless of such inconveniences, the Manehattanites continued on with their day without delay; the natural elements of winter that dotted the grey city with white spots could not stop the ponies who needed to performs their actions in society.
On the numerous, countless streets of Manehatten, ponies on the sidewalks traveled through the snow wearing various forms of clothing articles to face the cold weather; and on the road, the pullers of taxi carriages and other vehicles raced through the city against the wind and snowfall. The ceaseless, flowing activity of ponies moving about to their destinations was present throughout all of Manehattan, including in the southwestern portion of the city, where the famous Maple Heights neighborhood was. With Hearth's Warming coming around in just a few weeks, various citizens and visitors toured through the block to explore the nice little array of shopping stores in search of presents.
The moderate traffic of ponies through the Maple Heights streets was observed by one pony who lived on the middle floor of an apartment complex in the neighborhood. She was an earth mare with a light yellow coat and a long, beautiful mane with glistening orange and hot-pink parallel streaks that covered her right eye. Her cutiemark on her flank consisted of an orange circle resembling a sun and a total of eight raindrops around the sun that each held all of the six colors of the rainbow.
Through the window in her kitchen, that sat between the refrigerator and the sink, the earth mare looked down at the street. In front of the complex, the mare saw ponies, mostly adults, enter through the little shops on the streets in search of presents to buy or leave the shops with gift bags in their teeth or their saddlebags weighing down a bit. On the western end of the street, the mare could make out from distances away the faint motion picture of fillies and colts playing about in the snow in a small park; the pleasant sight of multiple young ponies chasing each other through the white mist to hit each other with snowballs, or also building snow angels and snow ponies, was enough to bring out a small smile from the corners of the mare's mouth.
Her admiration for the city's youth was interrupted when she heard a male voice from down below on the street. The mare leaned her upper half out of the window and looked down to see two stallions standing on the sidewalk looking right up at her. One of the stallions, a cream-colored unicorn, suddenly stared at her with half-lidded eyes and a sly smile, which took her at a surprise for a moment, but when the same stallion bit his bottom lip at her and raised his eyebrows in a suggestive manner, she got the message. Irked by the stallion's weak advances, the mare rolled her eyes, retreated into her kitchen without giving another glance at the stallion, and brought the window down to a shut -- the tasks all completed with her mood slightly soured.
The past few weeks of near-isolation inside of her apartment to catch up with studying and research had barred the mare from much social interaction, even when she had gone out for errands; and so to her, it made sense as for why she did not initially recognize that stallion's attempts to flirt with her. Though her physical beauty had forced her to become familiar with having a stranger's longing eyes on her, the mare was still uneasy when encountering random stallions who were less than subtle with hiding their attraction toward her.
Leaving her kitchen, the mare traveled into the nearby living room, which was decorated with abundant holiday lights, wreaths, and garlands that spread out to every accessory available. The mare went over to a red couch that was situated in the middle of the living room, laid down on it on her side, and stared at the television in front of her. The show that she was watching was a simple high school sit-com series that she unabashedly indulged in during her teen years; but when as before she would find herself immersed in the show whenever it came on, she was now merely watching it to pass time, as an atmosphere of fatigue was muddling her mind.
The mare grabbed a pink and purple coffee mug from the small table between the couch and TV and brought the cup up to her lips. The chocolate liquid that had been prepared hot nearly an hour ago was now cold and bland as a result of some last-minute errands that the mare had on her hooves. With the sound of the cast's dialogue and the audience's laughter in her ears, the mare looked around at the state of her living room. Along with the decorations for Hearth's Warming, a mound of books on psychology, sociology, and neuroscience took over the surface of a dining table near her bedroom, and a mess of papers from her graduate school classes laid scattered about around the table and near the recliner chair.
The depressing reminder of her chaotic education repelled her eyes to the holiday tree that sat by its lonesome self in the corner of the living room next to the TV. Each unique ornament pulled down the thin branches by its own weight, and cables of orange, red, blue, and green lights swirled down the small spruce in a display of neon showiness. At the base of the tree, covered in spruce needles, was a family of eight presents that had been laid down there in the previous night. The mare had bought the gifts a month before December as a guaranteed way of assuring that her college friends would get the things they really wanted this holiday; it was a pain for her to find the right places online to order from, with it sometimes taking two or three days to find one certain item, but she saw her friends as worth the labor.
The abrupt blare of a sports drink ad had cut off the mare's recent train of thoughts, as the volume from the sit-com was not so loud. She grabbed the remote on the table and lowered down the sound as the energized commercial ran through its course. Exchanging the remote in return for the coffee cup, the mare gulped down the last essence of the brown liquid. Just as she put down the cup, her attention was brought to the presence of a single piece of paper that she had been oblivious to until now. With her curiosity now captured, the mare took the paper in her hooves and brought it up to her nose. Once she saw the writing, not only did she remembered what the paper was about, but nearly in an instant was she put into a nostalgic trance by the first words she read:
Stargazer 4
A filly carrying green saddlebags patiently trots up
the lively green hill behind her house. Her legs brush
past the grass blades and pinwheel flowers that dance
wildly to the late spring wind's conducting.
With her Thursday homework done and her early dinner
rested well in her stomach, a march up the hill underneath
the violet-dark and orange-bright night sky was what she
needed to keep her spirits up and opened for the next day.
The heaven cloud of positivity over the filly's head was
brightened even more by the party of flying ladybugs,
fireflies, and grasshoppers that met her at the top of the
hill that overlooked the dimly-lit little houses of her town.
Now at her destination, the little filly dropped down her
saddlebags and sat down on her haunches with her telescope
assembled to watch the thousands of thousand-mile stars
with her small guests while enjoying the warm wind.
After she finished reading the poem, the mare placed the paper back on the table and stared blankly up at the red-painted ceiling. Her situation with her classes and her studies had been on her mind for such a long time that she had completely forgotten about her brother. It had been only two months since she last saw him, which was when he gave her the poem, but the fact that she barely thought about his well-being for over a month brought a shadow of disappointment over her. With her mood even more soured than before, the mare shifted her position on the couch to face the TV; she grabbed the green blanket draped on the back off the couch and wrapped it around her body.
The sit-com came back on after the commercials, and though the laugh track was rolling constantly in this episode, the mare's face remained distressed.
"Sonnet," the mare said softly, "please come see me soon."