//------------------------------// // 4: Hearth's Warming Blizzard // Story: The Hoofprints in the Snow // by Lucky Dreams //------------------------------// — Chapter Four — Hearth's Warming Blizzard As I hurried to the train station, I thought about photos, and what photos actually are: moments frozen in time. Maybe it’s ‘cos I’m interested in ‘em, so I overthink things, but have you ever looked at one and wondered what had happened in life for everypony to be in front of the camera just as the flash went off? I have. It’s one of the reasons I love photography so much, because I like finding weird pictures and thinking up stories for everypony in them. If the ponies hadn’t been in the right place at the right time—or all too often, in the wrong place at the wrong time—then they’d never have appeared in the photo... If I crossed the road a second earlier or a second later, I wouldn’t have been hit by the cart, and I wouldn’t be telling you this story. If I’d gone home a day earlier, I wouldn’t have missed Mom, and so I wouldn’t be running to the station. I guess I had the wolf to thank for snapping me to my senses; and again, what had his story been. What had led him to the park in the first place? Had he hunting me, or had our paths crossed purely by chance? I suppose it didn’t matter much. In the end, the result was exactly the same... though I got to admit, there was something about the idea that I had been meant to die that comforted me, if only a tiny bit, ‘cos if that was really the case than maybe it had happened for a reason, though Celestia knew what. “The train now approaching platform two is the ten past eleven to North Polecat, I repeat, the ten past eleven to North Polecat.” “This is a customer announcement. Bags left unattended will be removed by security, and possibly destroyed.” “Customers are advised to always stay behind the yellow line. Thank you.” Fairflanks Central Train Station is the worst place in Equestria, period. The kind of place that made a small, guilty little part of me feel kinda glad that I would never, ever see this city once again. Oh sure, that wasn’t to say I wouldn’t miss my friends (I often wondered how Star Light and the others were doing without me). I’d miss my house, the park, and the shop around the corner. But never in a million years would I miss that station. Once upon a time, it must’ve been a marvel: it was a cathedral of glass, and a vast, steel lattice reached across from one side of the terminal to the other. There were these massive metal columns which looked as though they had been built to support the sky itself, and there were these huge staircases; and there were shops and cafes and restaurants, not to mention all the ticket offices. But a hundred years of ponies can do a lot to wreck a place like that. The glass was covered with soot and grime. The platforms were dotted with chewing gum, and even at night there were countless earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi all mixing together, bustling crowds which never seemed to die down. I watched them all from the train I had sneaked on. Lucky me! Lucky, ‘cos the whole back carriage was empty, which meant I had my choice of beds. Choosing one right by a window, I kept the curtains open, because hay—it’s not like anypony was gonna spot me or anything... and man, it was super weird to see so much life a couple of hooves beyond my grasp, separated by a sheet of glass. A dog stared me in the eyes from the platform as its owner talked to another pony. I stared back. I rather got the impression that, like the wolf had been able to, it could see me perfectly fine, and that I wasn’t invisible to it the way I was to all these crowds... I shook my head. “Get a move on, train,” I whispered. “What’s taking ya so long, hmm?” A clock hung at the end of the carriage: it was quarter past eleven. After everything that had happened that day—the wolf, running back home, meeting with Death and making a deal with him—I was exhausted. And fighting my tiredness was useless, because try as I might, nothing I did could prevent my eyelids from drooping, plus you didn’t need to be alive to appreciate how awful comfy that bed was. In the space of five minutes, I was fast asleep, dreaming about the cottage in Ponyville. I slept right through the night. Have you ever had ponies tell you that if something can go wrong, then it will go wrong? ‘Cos there’s times when I feel like that’s the story of my life. Or my death, I suppose. When I woke up the following morning, it was to the sound of ponies crowded in a train station. Groggily, I looked out the window. Up above me, a steel grid lined with sooty windows. To the side of me, a load of busy, gum-ridden platforms, complete with swarms of ponies dressed in suits and going to work, or reading newspapers whilst sat on benches, or eating daffodil sandwiches from one of the stations’ many cafes. It didn’t matter that I was dead: I still felt my stomach bound into my mouth. I was in Fairflanks. ... But how?! Was it just that I was tired, and I was mistaking Canterlot Station for Fairflanks’? However the more I looked, the more panicked I became, ‘cos I recognized it all: the peeling black paint on the steel pillars; the long, thin platforms, all ten of ‘em; the grime which coated every last panel of glass. Yep. This was Fairflanks alright, and that meant I was on the wrong train. Later, I’d find out that there’d been some weird mix-up or whatever, and the real night train to Canterlot had been on a different platform. The mistake had been spotted quickly. All the passengers had been swiftly transferred to the right train, all of them that is except for poor me, cursed with a ghostly body nopony could see. And it had happened in my sleep... Flooded with nerves, I glanced at the clock: one minute to twelve. Having checked the train times last night, I knew, with a lurch in my belly, that the last train to Canterlot and Ponyville would leave at precisely midday. Sure enough, through the window, the train on the opposite side of the platform blew its whistle, and steam shot out of the engine. As if in slow motion, it started to move. I didn’t stop to think, didn’t stop for anything. I passed through the window straight onto the platform, and galloped like crazy as the train to Canterlot picked up speed. “WAIT,” I yelled desperately, though even I’d been alive and they’d been able to hear me, there’s no way in Equestria it would’ve stopped. My last chance to see Mom and it was leaving without me! I dashed, almost flew alone along the platform, but it was always just a tiny bit faster and barely out of reach. I ran straight through other ponies as though they weren’t even there. None of ‘em seemed to notice a panicky little ghost pass through them. “WAIT,” I shouted again, wishing for the first time that I had been born a pegasus. “STOP! PLEASE, CELESTIA, STOP!” But of course, once more, nopony heard me. I may as well have not existed for all the attention I got. It was getting faster and faster and faster. The platform was running out, but my tears were just beginning... But then, a miracle: the train slowed down. I dunno why—faulty signal perhaps—but who cared?! What mattered was that it was grinding to a halt, and that gut instinct told me that, given a few more seconds, it would came to a complete stop. I didn’t wanna risk it, though. The moment I was close enough, I leapt through the air, my ghostly body passing straight through the wall of the train... A second later, a whistle blew, and the train picked up speed once again. I’d made it. I’d made it. I’ll tell you what, for the relief I felt then, it almost made the whole ordeal worth it, and though I didn’t know what time we’d arrive in Ponyville, for a shining, precious moment, I couldn’t have cared less. I collapsed on the floor, acting as though I was out of breath, like I’d run a mareathon or something. Course, I didn’t need to being a ghost and all, but it was fun to pretend. Plus I had the carriage to myself again. Good. I didn’t want to be around other ponies. After a while I got up off the floor, sat on a bed, and stared out the window... then it hit me. All these buildings, all the parks and the trees and the houses... They were going, going... Gone, I would never see them again. The train shot into a tunnel, and everything went dark, and my mind went dark too. Fairflanks was gone forever, snatched away from me, and the relief I’d felt for such a brief moment was snatched away from me in an instant. “Think of Mom,” I whispered, repeating it over and over to myself. ... If only I hadn’t fallen asleep last night and gotten on the right train. I would’ve left in the dark, unable to see Fairflanks; and perhaps the fact I’d never see it again would never have occurred to me. Mom had moved house, but Death had given me a second chance to find her; I had come this close to missing the last train to Ponyville, yet thanks to determination and dumb luck, I’d made it on-board. For the first time days, I felt good about myself. I was gonna see Mom. And if nothing else, what had happened in the station was all the proof I needed that there wasn’t anything that would stand in my way. As the train travelled across Equestria, I saw teams of pegasi moving fierce, angry-looking clouds into position for the Hearth’s Warming blizzard, and as the day wore on, after a brief, afternoon pause, the snow began to fall again. A lot of the landscape had already being coated in a sprinkling of snow, but it seemed that weather teams all over the land had much bigger plans up their sleeves. Steadily, the snowfall became heavier and heavier. I swear to everything that as we passed over the Horseshoe Mountains, I saw flakes the size of dinner plates! The snow transformed the mountains into towering, icy sentinels standing guard over Equestria; then after that, we passed forests, and they were blanketed in so much snow that it weighed down the branches. We headed through the great plains of Pennsylmaneia. They had been turned into endless sheets of whiteness which stretched all the way into the distance, far as the eye could see; and the sky was dark and grey. I’d never seen anything so bleak as long as I’d lived, yet nothing half as magical, either. It was beautifully bleak. I could’ve lost myself forever staring out over that sea of snow, and, in a way, knowing that in this landscape the train with all its passengers were every bit as small and alone as I was, I felt a little better about my situation. My loneliness was being shared. Evening came, and then night, and then the scenery was lost to darkness. The train carried on. “Come on, come on, come on,” I said under my breath, too jittery to sit down. The announcer had said that the next stop was Ponyville. He’d forgotten to say when we’d get there. Five minutes to nine. Four minutes. Three. Two. One... With one hour left to go, I was stuck on the train, dark thoughts enveloping me. It had taken nine hours to get this far, but what was to say it wouldn’t take another nine hours? Oh sure, I knew roughly where Ponyville was and stuff, I wasn’t dumb. But this was the first time I’d made this trip. How was I supposed to know for sure? I pressed my face against the glass, careful not to tumble through it, ghost that I was. I squinted my eyes. Lights! There, in the distance, and I wasn’t imagining them: a little collection of twinkling yellow lights, shining through the blizzard. The dark thoughts uncoiled themselves as they were overpowered with wild, giddy delight. I smiled, and I’m not talking about a little grin, but a real, proper smile, the kind that seems to reach right across your face. I tapped my hooves together. This was it. The happiness was making me feel lighter than a pegasus’ feathers. One hour. I had one hour to find Mom and say goodbye. It wasn’t much, but Ponyville was meant to be real small, so it would be enough, I hoped. “I’m here, Mom. I’m back.” Ponyville train station couldn’t possibly have been more different from Fairflanks Central. For starters, there was only a single platform. Not only was it out in the open, but it was made out of wood, and it was being kept clear of snow by an old earth pony wearing a blue uniform and holding a broom. He trembled as he brushed—I don’t know if it was ‘cos he was cold, or because of his age—but then again, he was humming to himself as well, and beaming, so he obviously enjoyed what he did. That was yet another change from Central Station. I swear to everything, all the times I was there, the staff never smiled once. It was quiet here. I liked it at once. Two other ponies got off with me, then the whistle blew, the engine roared, and then the train was eaten by the night. My last connection to Fairflanks... “Stop thinking like that,” I told myself. “You’ve gotta find Mom, and quick.” According to the big clock above the station, it was five past nine. Good. That gave me fifty-five minutes; with Death’s instructions, that should’ve been plenty of time... what was it he had said again? Stay close to the Ever-something? Yeah, that was it, the Everfree Forest, and it’d lead me straight to Mom, he’d said. A forest. I had to find a forest. As I thought to myself, the other two ponies disappeared, leaving me all alone apart from the old stallion who continued to hum, very happy with himself. I grinned. His joy was catching. I rushed out of the station and into Ponyville. What an awesome place this was, and what was more, I recognized from my dreams; walking here was like trotting through a half forgotten memory. There were clusters of homes like gingerbread houses, and the snow was like icing on the roofs. There was nopony else around other than me, and I ran through the streets, drinking everything in: a large circular building that could’ve been a town hall or something, or perhaps it was a theatre; little stone bridges over a frozen river; and you’re gonna have to trust me on this one, but there was even a hollowed out tree which had been turned into a house! Oh man, if only I’d had more time to explore. The Hearth’s Warming lights as well, they were flat out perfect. Ours—Fairflanks’, I mean —looked like they’d been tossed up in a day, no thought at all, but here in Ponyville they’d obviously spent ages and ages getting everything just right. The buildings looked like they had been lined with stars. A bell sounded: quarter past nine. If this had been back in Fairflanks, no way would it have been so quiet so early. I was wasting time. I pressed on.