For ponies, Hearth's Warming Eve is a joyous time. Caribou though... their legends are darker. They know what threats await in the long, dark nights of winter, and what evils can lurk in the hearts of those who dwell there. Join the Cutie Mark Crusaders, as they hear one such tale told by the High Chieftain of the Caribou, on the longest night of Winter's Eve.
This story takes place in the years between the first Three Wishes story, and the start of its sequel. Reading those first is not necessary. This story is a stand-alone tale for the holidays, though there are several tie-ins with the larger stories.
Also note, this tale was written in about 5 hours, from 2am to 7am Christmas morning. It was a crazy, last minute idea for a holiday story, and has not had the benefit of the usual editors and prereaders. As such, blame me (and my lack of sleep) directly for all mistakes and stupidity.
Damn.
Nice story you done gone a crafted.
What all did you use to inspire this?
~Skeeter The Lurker
3681076 Dang, you're quick on these! You're favoriting it before I even know it's been accepted!
I'm not sure exactly where the inspiration came from. I've always enjoyed stories that turn familiar themes on their head, and show the other side of the story. Things like "The Dragon and The George" or "The True Story Of The Three Little Pigs." Beyond that however, I just sat down to write some good ol' fashioned christmas horror. I'm actually surprised myself how many ideas came together so quickly. I literally just opened up google translate, set it to Swedish, and started plugging in words to try and find something that sounded like a good name. Amazingly, "Kol-Klor" is "coal claws" and was just perfect. Likewise, I had no idea I was even putting rudolph, the red nose into the story until I was literally writing that part, and remembered duh, you can't have a story about flying reindeer without rudolph! The nose glowing instead of antlers, and being teased for it by the others... literally felt like it just wrote itself. So yeah, no idea, just lucky I grabbed a hold of whatever muse I did at the time and held on. Wish all my writing attempts went so smoothly.
3681131
A mishmash of all sorts of stuff?
It certainly worked.
~Skeeter The Lurker
3681158 Christmas horror? Don't forget Futurama's version of Santa.
I'm missing all the Three Wishes context, but nice subversion of the Santa legend. It all fits together very nicely.
3682124 Yeah, not sure how I forgot Futurama. I'm sure that was a heavy influence on my subconscious, even if I wasn't actively thinking of it.
3683810 Thanks, glad to hear it works well enough without the background knowledge.
I like this legend, and all the little parallels it has. And I STILL love Gunnar.
This is adorable! And I really love reading Gunnar.
3697136 Heh, thanks, it was fun trying to subvert as many details as I could, and Gunnar is always fun to write!
3699230 Thanks... as I said, he's fun to write too. I like how he pulls the Princesses out of their shells a bit.
Blue Alicorn needs food badly!
This was quite good, especially with the Gauntlet reference.
3724964 Heh, yeah, that just came out of nowhere when I was trying to think what Luna would say to mock the accent without just copying her sister. I had to twist the quote slightly, but I think it worked.
I love the way Gunnar speaks and the way luna and celestia kinda mock him... Great story!!!
3757142 Thanks for the feedback, and glad you enjoyed it! I love writing these characters in fun short story like this where I'm not wrangling a novel's worth of plot details like normal.
Very impressive story; disturbing, yet satisfying. Also:
oh. my. gosh. its like a demented version of santa....or is it santa himself? MUHAHAHAHAH
4001136 Like all Christmas stories should be.
Glad you liked that passage, it's one of my favorites ideals, and I was so happy that my brain somehow managed to work it in during the rush to write this.
4048168 The actual stories of most holidays tend to have a much darker reality behind them. Easter, Valentine's Day, Winter Solstice, etc. Pretty much all of them involve really dark stuff if you look far enough. As for this particular one, I have to say I took some definite inspiration from Terry Pratchett's "Hogfather" which is one of the more excellent Discworld novels.
Mustaschpony like story.
Did I do it right?
4278152 Heh, close enough! And thanks, glad you enjoyed it!
This was amazing, i liked the dark spin on traditional Christmas legends that you did here
4375574 Thank you, glad you enjoyed it. I should be getting back to the caribou in another chapter or few of The Hole in the Sun, so this isn't the last we've seen of these characters.
4377157
Yay!
Another variation on the age old question, what happens in the dead of winter, and one thats pulled off beautifully.
Trouble is, all I can think of now, is Donner and Blitzen on Surf Boards.
See You Later, Navigator.
5040874 Thanks, glad you liked it! I think I'm missing something with the surfboard reference though. Care to enlighten me?
5048657
I was just ging t go with the quote, but the reference is even better.
See Ya Later, Navigator.
Made in collaboration with a Norweigian crew, includes songs by the Beach Boys, has excessive over the top and super stylish abilities?
Yup. Reminded me.
Man in Hat love this story. Maybe write more yes? :3
5328707 Thanks, and I plan to write a lot more back in the main story. Just have to find the time to do it, which has been hard the past few months.
This is great--very scary. I feel that song coming on...
5423524 Thanks! Hard to believe it's been a year since I wrote that. Seems like it was just the other day. I had hoped to get another Christmas one done for today, but... real life didn't give me the time. Oh well.
Interesting song, never heard their cover before.
SPOILER ALERT!!!
(Ok, so maybe a few comments...)
.
.
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"Yeah, it is getting a bit confusing. Cadance and I have actually been meaning to talk to you about that, Celestia. Remind me when we get home."
-I just assumed that 3 or 4 is Equestria's average with some being eternal, and some merely very long-lived... or more likely Fate is preparing them for "interesting times" by giving them the alicorn-power (and in this story, golem-power) to deal with it.
No wonder it take three alicorn escort just for field trip.
Well, field-trip into someplace where "diplomatic incident" is a real danger... actually, they have probably matured that any one alicorn could handle it.
-
Would like to know more about dragonstones... maybe in next story? The sun is a long distance away after all, and they might need a communications system. I'm thinking it is like a radio, but it might send paper instead of sound, and thus be how Celestia gets the Spike-o-grams.
Sorry, but I'm going to be winding down for bed, but still want to read the next part, so no promises on comments.
Yay! A story where caribou aren't sexual deviants!
*Read Fall of Equestria, still don't feel clean.*
6236633 I haven't read FoE... or any other story with Caribou actually. My thought only came from Faust's own comment somewhere that she'd wanted "Viking Caribou" in MLP, and I figured I needed to make that happen. I did so in Three Wishes, then went deeper into it here. They're about to show up again in The Hole in the Sun in another chapter or so.
Anyway, glad you liked it!
Finally biting the bullet and getting back to this series. Didn't notice this was published after The Hole In The Sun started, but I guess there weren't any spoilers here. Interesting worldbuilding (and ship teasing
). I'm curious about the unbowdlerized version of the story now.
Ok so there's those two now where's Rudolph, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, and Cupid. Surely they must be around here somewhere.
Well then... I'm never going to think of christmas in the same way. Also now every time I see a Santa Clause i'm probably going to get chills and have a weird urge to either prepare to run or defend myself with whatever's around.
And then there's Rudolph.
Nice story it defiantly helped get me into the right mind set before I read the sequel and if it's anything like the first I'm sure it'll be great. Keep up the good work.
6236633 The Caribou were enslaved to an obese Anglo-Saxon who worked for Coca-Cola and Hasbro in punishment for their sexual sadism against the ponies.
I may be late to the party (and reading this in the middle of summer). But this truly was a good story. Where other comments have said that this was like turning the original story of Santa upside down, I find it more reminiscent of the story of the Krampus, which is essentially the polar opposite of Santa (figuratively and literally). Where Santa lives in the north pole and rewards the good children, the Krampus lives in the south pole and steals away the naughty children. Kol-Klor is like a combination of the two.
Personally, I don't think this is "horror" enough to qualify as a horror story. Perhaps I'm just desensitized to the genre, or perhaps it's the whole "fiction within fiction" thing. It actually feels kinda like another story I've read, Grogar: A Hearth's Warming Horror Story.
I read Caribou and thought this was a Fall of Equestria story. That series has ruined me.
8956968
Haven't read that series, but thanks for reading this one!