//------------------------------// // XVI: Wish on This!! // Story: ...And It's Freaking Cold Up Here // by TailsIsNotAlone //------------------------------// What a glorious feeling it is to be Snowdrop! Well, somewhat Snowdrop, anyway… No! No. I am entirely Snowdrop, as much myself as I ever was. Except I’m not. Goddamn it. What does “goddamn it” mean? I have no idea. But it seems a fitting expression. Jarvez! Over here, bud. Look, when we call “two-time 69 arrowroot Turner delta,” it’s a very simple play. The only word that matters is “delta,” the rest is just bullshit to throw off the defense. “Delta” means a run fake and a pass to the T.E. in the flat, got it? What was that? One of Jay’s…my…memories? Yes, it was. One of so many different memories. They become clearer with each passing moment. Beth. Beer. Smokes. Football. I feel dizzy. Never mind. I must navigate this maze of thoughts that are mine and yet not, and concentrate. Crafting snowflakes is an extremely delicate art. Concentrate. I am Snowdrop. My mind must be calm as an ocean. A warm and peaceful ocean. Holy Celestia. I can actually imagine an ocean! Jay has seen an ocean! Jay has seen everything! Apples! He has seen apples. I never knew they could seem so delicious. And he has seen grass, and the sky, and clouds, and snow and ice and…yes. Snow, which I am supposed to be making snowflakes out of right now. Concentrate! “J…Snowdrop?” Luna asks me. “Are you all right?” “Pipe down, Loony, and let a man work in peace.” I scowl. “I mean...I am fine, old friend.” “What's a man?” Rainbow Dash whispers behind me. “I do not know. Jay's thoughts are...most distracting,” I wince and shake my head violently. “My friends, I must ask you to leave the room. This may take some time.” I wait until their hoofsteps fade, but my mind is still not clear. “Jay, please,” I whisper to myself. “I must be able to concentrate.” Oh yeah?! I'll give you something to concentrate on. This is MY interdimensional journey and I'M making the damned snowflakes. Just tell me what to do and I'll take care of the rest. “I am perfectly capable of doing this myself.” Like you were perfectly capable of finding the observatory? You flew me face-first into every wall and pillar in this castle. Face it, you're rusty. I'll take the body and you take the mind. Deal? I blush slightly. “Very...” ...Very well. “Whew! That's more like it!” I whoop. “Okay, Snowdrop, what do I do first?” Breathe slowly and relax. “Relax. Damn. How do I do that? I'm half-dead and Equestria's getting buried and it's freaking cold up here. How can I possibly rel--” I do a double take, and a smile creeps onto my face. I raise my voice so they can hear me outside the room. “Hey, Silver! Got a match?” A long moment later, Silver Spoon's irritated hoofsteps shuffle up behind me. “Just take them, weirdo.” She balances the matchbook on one of my hooves. I take the cigarettes out of my mane with the other. What exactly are these? Snowdrop asks me. “These are...a bad habit. The less you know about them, the better.” Ahh, Snowdrop replies, thinking of salt licks in this world – an idea so hilarious it makes me laugh out loud. Say no more. “What the hay are you laughing at?” Spoonbutt is still talking. “Snowdrop says these are like salt licks.” “At least salt licks don't smell like that,” Silver Spoon points out. “Why are you still here, anyway?” I ask. “I can't exactly go anywhere with my house, like, buried in snow. And believe me, there's nothing I want more than to go home and polish my antiques instead of hanging around here with losers.” “Right,” I roll my eyes for her benefit and take another puff. Your non-friend seems very rude, Snowdrop thinks. She's not insulted, though. For the first time I can remember, she actually seems amused. I smirk. "Oh, and get a load of this. Snowdrop says you're very rude." Silver shuffles her hooves nervously. "She does? Um...is this for real? Like, the spirit of a famous historical pony is actually inside your head now?" "'Fraid so." "Oh...my...goddesses!" Silver squeaks under her breath. She's almost hyperventilating. "I've always wanted to talk to a historical pony!" I groan. "Look, brat, this cig's going to last another minute or so. You have that long to say whatever you have to say and then I need to get to work, got it?" "Okay, okay. Um...hi, Ms. Snowdrop. I'm sorry for being rude. I studied you a whole lot in school and I just want to thank you for doing so much for Equestria and winter is my favorite season and it's all because of you 'cause you made it a safer time of year. Well, until this year when your snowflakes ran out but that wasn't really your fault and thanks a lot for bailing us out again. You're, like, totally the greatest and it's an honor to meet you and you have a really cool mane and my friend Diamond Tiara is awesome and - " "Time," I growl, sticking the extinguished smoke back into the box and replacing it in said mane. I'd rather not be remembered as the alien who littered a cigarette butt in Snowdrop's memorial observatory. "She says 'thank you, Spoonbutt'." "What?! She would not call me Spoonbutt!" "How do you know? Is she inside your head? Yeah, that's what I thought." You two are impossible, Snowdrop muses. You remind me of Luna and myself, many years ago. Me and that coffee-addled know-it-all, best friends? No way. If you say so... I don't hear Silver leave the room, so she must be standing there watching. I guess it doesn't bother me. Then again, almost nothing bothers me after a good smoke except for an empty pack...and this one is getting down there, isn't it? I'd better get to work. I sigh and sit on my haunches. “Okay, enough chitchat. Snowdrop, what's next?” Think of Luna's stars, high above this castle. If you listen very hard, you can hear them twinkle. Wish for the thing you desire most. “The Jiminy Cricket thing. Gotcha.” I shut my eyes, not that it makes a difference, and think about what I want most. I want to go home. I want to coach the Frederick Douglass High School football team again. I want to live to see the Vikings win a Super Bowl. But most of all, I want to see Beth again and tell her how I really feel. I feel a frigid gust from the observatory window, and then a little chunk of...something...lands right on my muzzle. I take it in my hooves. “Feels like ice. Is that it?” It is everything, Jay. The night has answered you. I turn it over uncertainly in my hooves. Feel how rough and hard it is. It must be refined. She's right. It feels like a rolled-up ball of frozen sandpaper, and it refuses to melt. Equestria is the same way, rough and uncompromising. Every creature uses their own form of magic to adapt and adjust nature into something they can survive in. This snow needs a shape. It needs a purpose, just like I do. Think of the stars. You have seen them twinkle, just as I have heard them. They grow little points at the edges. That is the shape we want, to pay tribute to the night. “What do I carve it with?” Pull out one of my feathers and use the pointy end. I obey. “YOWCH! Damn, that hurts.” Like a mother, Snowdrop thinks absently. She seems to have picked up a few things from my human vocabulary. What does that expression mean, anyway? “Um...never mind.” I take the soft end of the feather in my mouth, bend down to the crystal, and get started. I can't see what I'm doing, of course, but I can feel it give under the point of the feather. After a while I realize that Snowdrop has fallen silent. She's just letting me work, so I must be on the right track. It's funny because I never was much of a craftsman. I worked for a contractor as a teenager and while I wasn't very good at the job, I envied my boss for being able to build something with his own hands. Next to having children, which I never experienced, it's the purest form of creation. When it's finished, you can stand back and see what you've done, and you know that you made a difference. Too many young people these days don't get that experience. They're confused and bored out of their minds because our screwed-up society has no place for them anymore. We just cram them full of guilt and knowledge they can't use, give them smartphones and turn them loose. It seems crazy to me. If they just had somebody looking out for them, showing them that doing real work and contributing can really feel good, I think it would solve a whole lot of problems before they start. That's part of what I wanted to do as an assistant coach. Back in my world I was just one guy with a failed dream and a bad marriage, but I could make a difference in those kids' lives. Over here I was just one blind undead filly, but I can make a difference for other ponies too. The details, like being stuck in a different body, don't change the end result. I'll still be doing some good, and that's sure as hell better than sitting around drinking beer. (Not that there's anything wrong with a good beer.) Finally I tuck the feather behind my ear and feel the crystal. I think it's done. I doubt if it looks like anything special, but it's pointy and it's got holes in it. It's a star, but it's lunar ice, but it's a snowflake, but it's a wish, and it's...oh, what the hell do you call this anyway? Celestia called it wishing snow, Snowdrop says helpfully. And you have just made your first piece of it. Congratulations, Jay. I can't tell you what it means to finally share this with somepony, as I have with you. I know how difficult this whole experience has been, and...I would ask your forgiveness. “Oh, what the hay. You might've saved my life, so no harm, no foul as long as I get home again. Now we just have to make about a thousand more of these, right?” Right. But Equestria needs this one now. “Way ahead of you,” I turn to where I think Silver Spoon is still sitting. “Silver? Go get Luna.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The royal sleigh races up into the clouds. It's just me, Luna, and the pegasus guards who are pulling us. Luna's magic protects us from the cold and the blanket of snow. At least we don't have to worry about running into any weather ponies; they've all been forced to evacuate the unfriendly skies. We're headed for the highest cloud in Cloudsdale, where Rainbow Dash took me before, and that's not a short trip. I huddle in the backseat, cradling the urn with that precious snowflake in my hooves. Nopony says much. Maybe we're all wondering what to do if Snowdrop's plan doesn't work, and if it does I won't be around here much longer. Neither will she, for that matter. Sure enough, Luna breaks the silence a few minutes later. “Jay, would you allow me to speak with Snowdrop again? I must discuss something with her before she leaves, and there is not much time.” “No problemo. I'll be reliving the Minneapolis Miracle if you need me.” I relax in my seat and let Snowdrop take over. It is strange to be sharing a body and mind with someone else, but really no stranger than anything else I've experienced lately. “...Luna? I am here.” She reaches out and holds me (us?) closely. “How I have missed you. How do you feel?” “I...feel,” Snowdrop giggles nervously. “It has been a very long time. I am most grateful for the sleigh. This blizzard is extremely dangerous, and I never was much of a distance flier.” “Indeed. I said to the others that we have not had a winter like this one since your fillyhood...your true fillyhood, that is. My sister once told me that you never really left, that you would always love me and my night – but I think she was just trying to cheer me up. It surely never occurred to her that you had preserved your spirit somehow.” “Celestia always lacked imagination,” Snowdrop says playfully, snuggling closer to her. “She was very surprised to hear about your arrangement with Starswirl. I admit that I was, too.” Snowdrop nods. “It was my last resort. I knew that my snowflakes would run out someday, and I researched with Starswirl the Bearded for many days to prepare for it. But preparing for temporary reincarnation is one thing; completing the process is quite another. It was challenging for Jay as well. He has been...very argumentative, but very helpful also.” Hey, I can hear you, you know. “Snowdrop," Luna says reluctantly, as though she's just remembered something unpleasant. "There is something I must tell you. As I'm sure you are aware, I had some...difficulties before you passed away. Difficulties with my sister, and most of all with myself.” Oh gees. Heavy stuff going on here. I feel guilty for being able to hear them. And, in Snow's case, to feel what she's feeling. She's more than sad; she's also upset, and not with Luna. “I remember,” Snowdrop says tightly. "I was old, not senile. She banished you. I begged her...I begged her to reconsider. She would not listen." “I am sorry,” Luna whispers. “I failed. I was not the pony you looked up to.” "No matter what you became, I loved you. I always will." I feel the depth of Snowdrop's affection as she turns toward Luna, and it really impresses me. There are no walls in this love. It's unconditional, unrelenting. However young she might look now, she is no child. "I accept your apology. It is more than she ever gave me." Uncomfortable pause. "Celestia never apologized to you?" "Never." Luna tries to laugh it off. "Well, it is no matter. Most ponies would say she had nothing to apologize for." “Most ponies did not see how she treated you. Nor do they know what it is to spend a thousand years alone. And that was too harsh a punishment, Luna. Far too harsh." "Please do not blame Celestia. What's past is past. I am here now, and so are you. That is enough." Our flight path begins to level out, and a few seconds later we slide to an uneven stop. "We have arrived," Snowdrop flutters delicately out of the sleigh as the "buzz" from Luna's protective spell fades away. There's no more snow up here, not even wind, although it's so cold that the air stings our nostrils. "Let's hurry." "Snowdrop," Luna is right behind us. "Will...will I be able to say goodbye to you this time?" "I can manage a few minutes, though not much more," Snow holds out the urn. "Would you like to do the honors?" "Why don't we allow our friend Jay to do it instead?" Luna says kindly. "He has earned the opportunity, I think. And if anything goes wrong, we can always blame him." "Oh, Luna," Snowdrop giggles, and gives control of our body back to me. "Gee, thanks," I snap. Luna carefully guides me to the edge of the cloud. "Okay, let's do this. Get down there and fix winter, magic starflake thingy." This is the moment I've been waiting for. I really hope I'm able to hear or feel...something. I tip the wishing snow out of the urn, hold it out over the edge, and let it fall. Then I wait. And wait. And wait some more. I shuffle on the ancient cloud and clear my throat. "Um...is that all there--" The last word is obscured by one of the loudest explosions I've ever heard. The power coming up from beneath us is staggering, like somepony decided to test an A-bomb near Cloudsdale just for kicks. I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that! "By Starswirl's beard!" Luna shrieks, grabbing me around the withers and reverting to Old Equestrian. "What hast thou done?!" "What the hell do you mean? What happened?" "Thou hast destroyed all Equestria!" the princess hurls me to the surface of the cloud. "What?!" I scream over several dozen smaller explosions as every hair on my body stands up. "No freaking way! That's impossible!" "Oh, my precious home, so recently found again!" Luna sobs. "My dear sister...Twilight Sparkle...the Elements of Harmony!" Never mind, Jay, Snowdrop says wearily. She's full of it. "My star charts! My ancient jelly bean collection! Gone, all of it gone!" Luna continues to mourn. The wishing snow worked. Equestria is fine. "My moon rocks! My adult novels! My..." Luna trails off, maybe because she finally sees the steam coming out of my ears, nose, and possibly every other orifice in Snowdrop's body. "Er...woe is me, for thou hast blown up Equestria...no, truly! Ka-boom!" "Luna," I very slowly shake my head. "Did I ever mention that I hate you?" "You seemed to want a climactic ending," she says innocently. "I did not wish to disappoint you." Get her, Snowdrop urges me. With a snarl of Snowdroppy rage, I hurl myself at Luna's voice and tackle her onto the cloud. She grunts in surprise. I feel her hoof on the side of my face, so I know she must have rolled over onto her back. TICKLE HER WITH OUR WINGS! It is her greatest weakness! Luna tries to push me away with her front hooves, but I wedge my body in between them and turn, flapping my wings as hard as I can over her chest and face. "NO! Not that! Anything but - eeeeeeek!" Very un-princess-like laughter, squealing, and pleas for mercy echo through the sky as I tickle her into submission. You have done well, my young apprentice, Snowdrop chuckles evilly.