The Emberwolf howled again, long and loud, and Scootaloo’s heart turned golden with wonder as the flames, all of them – all the fires that charred the floor, those that consumed the walls, and the red wisps upon the ceiling – were suddenly unfrozen and began to dance their way towards the fireplace. Flames flowed in through both the open doorway and the giant hole in the wall: it was all the fire from the foyer and the flames from upstairs. The flames washed harmlessly over Scootaloo, drenching her in sumptuous warmth. They were glowshine beautiful. They tasted of smoulder berries and smelled as fresh as dreams. Then the flames poured into the fireplace, even though it should have been too small for such a hugeness of fire.
Scootaloo didn’t think about her parents’ arguments anymore, nor of how she had shouted at her friends. Rather, she simply wanted them with her. She wanted Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle. She imagined Dad draping a loving wing over her trembling body and Mom holding her hoof. She thought, also, of Aunt Holiday and Aunt Lofty, flickering on their bedside desk. Was it too late to grab them? Would the Emberwolf keep its promise, Scootaloo wondered, and transform them back into ponies?
She stared at the Emberwolf.
Then a strange realisation crept over her: she trusted the beast. It listened to her. And although what it had done to her aunts scared her, terrified her, petrified her, she knew beyond the darkest shadow of a doubt that it would turn them back. She trusted its words implicitly.
At last, the Emberwolf stopped howling. “Keep your eyes on the fireplace,” it growled at her.
Yet Scootaloo couldn’t help but glance around the living room. Everything was back to normal, like the inferno had never happened. The hole in the wall was fixed and the wallpaper was its usual maroon. The rug was untouched by fire; the sofa wasn’t burnt, but plump and purple. The Hearth’s Warming tree cast its jolly glow over the furniture. It was as though nothing had changed since Scootaloo had first heard the Emberwolf’s crackling voice from the grate earlier that night, and a swift peek through the living room door showed her that the rest of the house was back to normal as well.
The wall of snow, however, remained sparkling through the window. The house was still buried.
She paid the snow little notice, because the fireplace turned blinding.
Even with the protection of the enchanted cocoa, Scootaloo could hardly bear to look at it. A house’s worth of heat had just been herded there, collected into a space no bigger than herself. It didn’t look like normal fire, but a white sphere that rested on the logs, huge, perfectly round, and as smooth as a dragon’s egg. The air around it shimmered fantastically. It was as though the brightest star in the night had plummeted from the sky, straight down the chimney and into the fireplace.
The Emberwolf breathed in deeply. On its coat, the fiery patterns glowed brighter.
“You must be the one to open the door,” it said. “Dig into your heart, and then tell the egg what makes you angry. Tell it what makes the heat rise in your blood.”
Scootaloo wasn’t prepared for this question. Anger was forbidden. It was something to sweep away under dusty rugs in the basement of her soul, and to be piled into the unlit places of her mind: over the past few months, Scootaloo had learnt that grown-ups didn’t like it when foals were angry. Even Rainbow Dash – Rainbow Dash, who understood her better than anypony! – didn’t like it when she was angry. “Be cool, Scoots,” Rainbow had said to her a few weeks ago, when Scootaloo had fumed about an especially dreadful argument her parents had had a few days previously. “Live with the sky inside your heart. Let the wind carry away your anger, and stuff.”
But there was no sky there in the living room. The wind didn’t blow inside that little house buried under the snow.
… On the other hoof, neither were there any grown-ups about…
Scootaloo frowned to herself.
Why shouldn’t she be angry? Who was stopping her? Why were Mom and Dad allowed to be angry, whilst she herself had to stay quiet about things, and bottle up her rage until she exploded at her friends? It wasn’t fair. She stamped a hoof. It wasn’t fair.
“It’s not fair,” she said, facing the white burning orb in the fireplace. “It’s not fair. It’s never fair.”
“What’s unfair, Scootaloo?”
Scootaloo met the Emberwolf fearsome gaze. But then she bowed her head, and her cheeks flushed from shame.
The Emberwolf snorted. Sparks flew from its nostrils. “This is a safe space,” it said. “By the whiskers of the Grand Wolf Herself, you have so much to angry about. Feel it! Shout it! Scream it!”
Something cracked inside of Scootaloo. It flooded her with heat.
“I HATE IT!” she screamed. “I HATE it when Mom and Dad argue. Why don’t they get along no more? I don’t get it. I DON’T GET IT!”
She stamped on the rug again and looked up at the Emberwolf. Her eyes glistened with tears.
Her voice broke.
“I’m the reason they hate each other,” she whimpered. “I dunno how. But I know it’s me.”
It was awful to admit these secrets out loud, to hurl them at the wolf and at the incredible sphere in the fireplace. Yet, somehow, it felt good as well. It felt, in fact, almost impossibly wonderful. Some hidden, raging part of her was finally given a voice, and there was so much that she needed to screech and scream about.
The Emberwolf nodded. It looked pleased.
“That was a delicious bout of anger, Scootaloo. The egg liked it very much.”
Its gaze fell on the sphere in the fireplace. Scootaloo stared at it too.
The egg burst.
An orange crack split along its surface, out of which emerged snakes of flame, arms of fire, vines of lava, tendrils of magma. The fire-snakes moved ferociously, and with minds of their own. They dove through the air and wiggled along the floor. There were dozens of them, overflowing from the split in the sphere, and each one of them was as long and thick as a foreleg.
Scootaloo yelped but didn’t look away. The fire-snakes mesmerised her – and although they moved with fearsome purpose, she sensed that they wouldn’t harm her. They danced with one another, twisted, twirled, coiled, curled.
Then the snakes grew little eyes and little mouths, and they stared to sing.
“Twist the flames and coil the heat,
Loop the blaze and burn the peat.
Roast the logs on open fire,
Give in, give in, to soul-deep ire.
Melt away your bones and skin,
Bake your spirit: give up, give in!
Shed away your pony shell,
Become wolf-proud: a hound of hell!”
At last, the snakes formed themselves into a flaming archway over the fireplace, and the wall inside of the arch bubbled and fizzled and melted into nothing. The wall was gone, taking the fireplace with it, and the remains of the flaming egg. There was only blackness now. It was framed by the arch, which was tall and wide enough that even the Emberwolf itself could have strolled through without having to duck or squeeze.
The Emberwolf faced Scootaloo. “It is as I said. Where there is a fireplace, there is a doorway. Through this door lies the answer to all your problems.”