//------------------------------// // When all else fails, throw yourself into your work. // Story: A Hearth's Warming Scheme // by Hasty Revision //------------------------------// “Ponies voices fill the night! Hearth's Warming Eve is here once again!” I groaned and turned my muzzle deeper into my pillow. “Happy hearts so full and bright! Hearth's Warming Eve is here once again!” 'Happy hearts' my tail. My heart was not happy. “Oh what a sight! Look at the light! All for tonight! Hearth's Warming Eve is here once again!” I pulled my pillow up over my head which served well enough to block out their miserable singing. I'd give them a light. Maybe a few dozen fireworks right up their noses. I'd always hated that song. So sickeningly cheerful and sweet and it clearly would flow better if the line was 'Hearth's Warming Eve is here once more'. 'Once again' was one syllable too long and made the end of the line feel rushed. Nopony ever appreciated the blatant superiority of my version, though. Not 'traditional' enough. Nopony wanted to see magic shows on Hearth's Warming either, just the pageant. Again. Celestia forbid all of Equestria didn't have that ridiculous legend beaten into their heads every. Single. Year. Windigoes were as made up as… okay, so Nightmare Moon turned out to be real. As had Discord. And Tirek. So, really, law of averages. One of the ancient myths was going to turn out to actually have been a myth sooner or later, might as well be the windigoes. And even if they were real, everypony else was being more than cheerful enough to keep them at bay, so I could be as miserable as I pleased. Or maybe they'd swoop down and bury my entire wagon in an ice block and leave it hidden in a snow drift until spring. That would get Starlight's attention. I tightened my grip on my pillow and stifled another groan. Starlight didn't deserve that. It wasn't her fault I was like this. I knew she'd be miserable and upset if something horrible actually happened to me. Even I'm not that petty. Not with somepony I actually liked. It really wasn't her fault. Sure, she was Little Miss Friendship's student but… well, there was kinda a reason for that. Not that she wasn't smart. Starlight was brilliant when it came to magic in ways I'd never seen. She studied, sure, but she really shined in experimentation. She liked to dive in and get her hooves dirty actually using magic, combining and testing spells with methods I didn't know were possible. She created works of absolute genius. In other ways she was… different. She got angry. She missed obvious social cues that even I got. Her first instinct was to use magic to solve absolutely every problem, no matter how small. She could be a little paranoid and obsessive and generally get lost in her thoughts until she came out the other side worked up to a fever pitch over nothing. I've heard a few ponies whispering that she's 'unstable'. That she causes disasters wherever she goes. One of those ponies was her. I wouldn't change a thing about her. So many ponies settle into their talents and coast through their lives content to just exist. They call it being 'sensible' and 'responsible'. I call it lazy. I call it boring. Starlight was never lazy or boring. She got angry because she cared. She obsessed and worried and got worked up because she was invested in where she was and what she was doing. Most of the greatest artists and geniuses in history were 'unstable', so why in Equestria should that need to be a bad thing? I mean, Starswirl had bells on his hat. You can't tell me he was playing with a standard deck. I lifted my pillow enough to confirm that Ponyville had stopped singing for the moment, then put it back under my head. Laying in my hammock had stopped being comfortable hours ago, but I had no intention of leaving my wagon for anything but visits to a public restroom. Naturally, upon doing so that morning I'd discovered the roads had finally been cleared. So nice of them to wait until after it would have helped. Can't have Trixie scoring any good luck, no no no, that wouldn't do at all. It could have been worse. I mean, if the universe was actually going to punish my being petty and spiteful by being petty and spiteful itself, that meant I would get to enjoy a bit of smug superiority when I called it a hypocrite. No doubt this would kick off a cycle of escalation that ended with my wagon burning down, falling over, and being swallowed by a sinkhole, but that was a chance I was willing to take. Well, that was one good thing about being stuck in Ponyville, anyway. Ponyville was a pretty friendly town, all things considered. No matter how many of them might mistrust me or dislike me, they weren't going to vandalize my wagon on purpose. Freak accident due to a petty, vengeful universe, sure. A pair of slow-witted foals deciding to actually lure an Ursa Minor to the center of town? Also, possible. Honestly, even if I could vanquish an Ursa that still would have been stupid. Why had their parents even let them go out that late? Regardless, at least if something like that happened again I knew a pony who could fix my wagon. I rolled onto my back so I could glare at the ceiling. I couldn't even go five minutes without thinking about Starlight. Why couldn't she have just been predictable, just once? All she had to do was like Hearth's Warming. How many ponies could there have possibly been who didn't like Hearth's Warming? The worst part was that it was something that, a few moons ago, we'd have had in common. It would have been one more little detail we could have shared and laughed about. I gritted my teeth and sat up in bed. I was not going to spend all week wallowing. I levitated my notebook out of my trunk and started flicking through pages. If I wasn't going to sleep all day and I wasn't going to be with my friend, then I would go with the next best thing and work on my routine. I fished my pen out from between my trunk and cabinet and chewed the end absently while I skimmed my latest notes. Once the holiday was past, I had work to do. I needed bits and that meant performances. Ponyville was a tough crowd thanks to my history, and it was going to be difficult to live up to the Moonshot Manticore Mouthdive. I'd have to get creative. Sawing myself in half? A classic, one of the first things anypony thought of when they thought of stage magic. Unfortunately, I didn't have one of the trick boxes on hoof and that one really required an assistant. The rings? A nice warm up but a tad… plain. Maybe if I set them on fire...