Adagio was oddly quiet as they trotted through the snow towards their next destination; a quaint looking bar Spitfire had seen on her flyover into town. It didn’t seem like a loaded silence, though, so Spitfire was content to wait for Adagio to speak. Meanwhile, she enjoyed the silence of the quiet, snow draped town, and the casual company of the beautiful mare walking next to her.
“Can you tell me about Hearth’s Warming?” Adagio said suddenly.
“You… don’t know what Hearth’s Warming is?” Spitfire stopped dead in her tracks, unable to keep her jaw from falling slack. She glanced back at Adagio, who was looking at the snow and pawing it awkwardly. “Wow. You really are from another world, aren’t you?”
“Forget it,” she mumbled, but Spitfire was curious now. She stepped over and lifted Adagio’s chin.
“Hey. What’s going on, are you okay?” Spitfire asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just lost in thought.”
“Oh yeah? Want to share?” she asked. Adagio started to shake her head, then stopped.
“I was just wondering if it’s anything like the holiday creatures in the other world celebrate this time of year.”
“Well,” Spitfire mused. “It’s a holiday that celebrates the unity between ponies.”
“Ugh. That sounds far too wholesome,” Adagio groaned.
Spitfire laughed. “It can be. It’s a day where we celebrate the harmony between pony races, but also different kinds of harmony. Like the love between families.” Adagio was making gagging noises. “Don’t you have a family?”
It was the wrong thing to ask. A wide-eyed look of dread oozed over Adagio’s face, and Spitfire flinched.
“Wow, that was really dumb of me,” she tossed her mane, angry with herself. Spitfire knew better than anybody else what it was like to be on the receiving end of awkward questions like that. “Sorry. I get tired of people asking me questions like that, and what do I do at the first opportunity but blurt out the same idiocy.”
“It’s okay,” Adagio’s mass of curls swayed as she shook her own head. “So that’s why you got the dubious honor of being my escort?”
Spitfire snorted. “Dubious my hoof. This has been the most fun I’ve had in weeks. And that’s saying something, because I’m pretty sure I’ve got the best job in Equestria.”
“What’s that?”
“You really don’t know, do you?” Spitfire grinned. It was refreshing; she rarely met anypony who didn’t know who she was. The glazed, adoring looks of hero worship on the looks of foals and adults alike grew monotonous after a while. “I’m a stunt flyer. Commander of the Wonderbolts, Equestria’s most elite flying team.” She puffed out her chest as she said it.
“A mare in uniform?” Adagio’s voice danced with delight. The butterflies began their fluttering once again. “How intriguing.”’
“I’d be happy to let you see it some time,” she shot back confidently, her wings fluttering slightly. “But it’s less of a uniform and more of a furtight flight suit.” Adagio’s eyes widened slightly, and Spitfire couldn’t help but grin at the reaction. “C’mon, it’s cold. Let’s find the bar to warm up our outsides and insides.”
“I can think of other ways to warm up,” Adagio whispered, and the butterflies began swarming. There was a definite bounce to her step as she led the way.
“If I remember correctly, the bar was over here somewhere,” Spitfire pointedly ignored the last innuendo, instead simply reveling in the warmth their flirting brought. It had effectively burned away the chill of her earlier faux pas.
They turned the corner and Spitfire moaned in frustration. There was the bar, just like she’d remembered. It was dark, with unwelcoming closed doors and curtained windows, and a large sign on the door.
“Closed for Hearth’s Warming Celebration,” Spitfire read, her voice drooping with disappointment. “Horseapples.”
“Aw, don’t feel too down,” Adagio walked up beside her, their flanks brushing together as she wrapped a hoof around Spitfire. “I’m sure there’s somewhere else in this town we can get a drink.”
“You don’t know Ponyville.” Spitfire snorted. “Sure, the place is growing since Princess Twilight took up residence, but it’s still pretty small. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were only one bar in the entire town.”
“Jeez,” Adagio laughed as she squeezed Spitfire around the shoulders. “What brought that stuck-up goody g…” she cleared her throat. “Er, I mean, what brought that mare to this town in the first place?”
“I don’t know the whole story,” Spitfire shrugged. “She was a bit of a nopony before she suddenly became Princess. I think she was librarian here before the library got destroyed.”
“Destroyed?” Adagio laughed. “So she built her entire royal palace into several libraries?”
“I guess so,” Spitfire said, and they both laughed. “Well, maybe the bar was a bust, but we could find a restaurant or something? Maybe there’s at least one other business that’s as anti-festive as we are.”
“Anti-festive?” Adagio snorted with amusement. “Sure.”
They turned away from the bar just in time to hear an explosion. The ground trembled, and Spitfire crouched, spreading her wings as she stepped in front of her charge.
“What was…” Adagio began.
“Stay here!” Spitfire ordered. “I’m going to get a little altitude!” She fixed Adagio with a stern look. Adagio blinked, then nodded, looking a bit frightened.
She coiled the powerful muscles in her legs and launched into the air, spreading her wings. It was a mere heartbeat to get high enough to see over the thatched roofs, glancing towards the source of the sound. It was the castle.
From what Dash claimed, things like sudden explosions were pretty common in Ponyville. Spitfire had always chalked that up to Dash’s prodigious talent for exaggeration. But with smoke now trailing from the castle’s façade, Spitfire was seriously reconsidering those assumptions.
Her eyes darted about, trying to find the source of the explosion. Even at this distance it was clear from the rubble that something had burst out of the castle, rather than it coming from the outside. She spun in the air, desperately searching for the source of the danger.
“ADAGIO!” the scream ripped through her, making the very air vibrate with menace. It didn’t sound like one voice, but thousands, dissonant and broken. “ADAGIO! I need to SEE you! I need TO talk to YOU! It’s CHRISTMAS, shouldn’t you SPEND it with FAMILY?”
Spitfire’s gaze finally landed on the speaker, a monstrous creature that made her shiver inside. The creature was enormous, standing as tall as three or four ponies. Fur and scales alternately covered her strange bipedal form, and two twisted, torn leathery wings extended from her shoulders. Her two-toned blue hair was ragged and thin, but long, stringing down past her oddly-shaped legs to drag along the snowy ground. A dark misty miasma appeared to float around her, seeping from her skin like a cloud. Her eyes burned with a baleful blue light.
Spitfire darted down next to Adagio, who was trembling with terror.
“Okay, you know how all of this has been need-to-know for me up to this point?” Spitfire began, using her no-nonsense voice that usually got a great response from cadets. “I need to know.”
“It’s my s-sister, Sonata!” Adagio stammered. “She must have gotten past Sunset and the others! This wasn’t s-supposed to h-happen! They said they could f-fix her! With their friendship lasers, or something!”
“ADAGIO! WHERE are YOU, Adagio?” The buildings around them rattled from the force of the scream, and both Adagio and Spitfire had to clench hooves over their ears. “Merry CHRISTMAS, ADAGIO! Let’s spend SOME time together! AS a FAMILY!”
There were more crashes as something slammed into buildings. Spitfire felt a jolt of horror. Most ponies would be at the Hearth’s Warming celebration, but some could still be at home. And whatever that was, it was crushing homes.
“Listen!” Spitfire ordered sternly. “I’m going to need to get that thing away from town. I need you to go somewhere safe.”
“Somewhere safe?” Adagio whimpered. “THIS TOWN was supposed to be safe! If she made it past Sunset and Twilight, now nowhere is safe! I…”
“Hey!” Spitfire took her by the shoulders and shook her hard. “Listen up, Adagio! You’re going to turn around, and you’re going to sprint back to Rarity’s boutique.” She punctuated each instruction with a small shake. “Once you’re there, you’re going to tell Spike what’s going on, and ask him to get a message to the other princesses however he can! Ponyville’s defenders are all gone, and we need their help!”
“Adagio DAZZLE!” the voice ripped through the air again. It was getting closer. “Where are YOU hiding? I WANT to see MY SISTER! I’m going to TEAR this TOWN apart to FIND YOU!”
Adagio seemed frozen in place, unable to move. Her eyes were wide, twitching with fright. Spitfire physically spun her around, pointing her in the direction of Rarity’s boutique.
“Go!” she screamed, smacking Adagio hard against her flank with one hoof. She was sure she’d catch Tartarus for that later. She was also sure she’d probably enjoy it. But at least it got Adagio moving, her hooves splashing fresh snow into the air as she galloped away. Spitfire watched her go for only a second before launching back into the air, this time darting towards the monster as quickly as she could. She was easy to make out, surrounded by a half-dozen small buildings she had already crushed with her frighteningly elongated claws.
As she flew closer she could see how truly terrifying the creature really was. Her patchy blue skin looked sallow and unhealthy, and her misshapen, flat muzzle was twisted with a rictus grin. The blue mists that spun around her looked decidedly baleful. Her glowing blue eyes tracked Spitfire as she flew closer. Spitfire got as close to the thing’s head as she dared.
“Look, I dunno who you are, but you gotta stop,” Spitfire called out.
“Buzz, BUZZ, little fly. SHO, fly!” Her voice was cracked and breaking, but it sounded like the creature was trying to sing. Spitfire flinched at the horrid sound. The monster lifted a claw to swipe at Spitfire, and she easily darted out of the way. “Fly AWAY from HERE, don’t BOTHER ME!”
“Hey, sure, I’d love to leave you alone,” Spitfire countered, darting back in front of her face when she tried to turn back to her destruction. “But I gotta get you out of town, first.”
“OUT of TOWN!?” the monster shrieked. “BUT Adagio is HERE! ARIA said SO! BEFORE I hugged her TIGHT. I SQUEEZED and squeezed, and LOVED her SO MUCH!”
“N-no, Adagio’s not here!” Spitfire called, feeling a cold chill in her spine. Had the monster harmed somebody else? Maybe… killed? She shuddered with horror while swooping to the side, trying to draw the creature’s attention away from Ponyville. “We hid her outside town! In the Everfree!” She pointed at the forest.
“YOU sound like a LIAR!” The monster swung at her, and Spitfire was just a tiny bit too slow to dodge, the claws catching just the edge of her wing as she dashed through the air, wrenching the wing painfully sideways. She dipped in the air, losing altitude just enough to cut into the mist that clung on the snowy ground. A quick gasp of pain and surprise was enough to get some of the blue mist in her lungs. It smelled like cold, rotten meat, and Spitfire immediately gagged, suddenly fighting for altitude with wings that didn’t want to move.
You’re alone.
Visions spun in Spitfire’s head.
A cloud home, far too small for even the three ponies that lived there.
A father, slumped and nearly witless from drink.
A mother, working herself ragged to support them.
Not good enough. You’ll fail.
Her wings beat the air, trying to rise above the mist. She panted, trying to expel the foul stench from her lungs.
You’re not good enough. A Wonderbolt? Don’t make me laugh.
She flailed at the air with her hooves, as if trying to push the mist away.
Spitfire? Your mom’s had an accident. It’s bad.
She felt her body slam into the ground, and she gasped in pain, bringing more of the foulness into her lungs.
Dad? Why’d you even show up? Mom left you years ago, before…
She clawed at her face, her chest, with desperate hooves.
You’ll always be alone, now. No family. Mom dead. Dad lost in a bottle. Separated from your fans by your fame. Separated from your squad by your rank, by your duties. Always by yourself.
“Spitfire! Hold your breath, don’t breathe it in!”
The voice broke through the visions, cutting through the mist like a blast of fresh, cold air. It was Adagio’s voice.
“SISTER!” the monster shrieked from somewhere above her. “It’s SO good to SEE YOU! MERRY CHRISTMAS, Adagio!”
There was a haze over Spitfire’s mind, a curtain of pain and loss and grief, of loneliness and anger. She struggled, shoving her hooves hard against the ground as voices swam about her. Some were real. She tried to focus on one, the one that told her to hold her breath, but it was hard. She wanted to take a deep breath, but something stopped her.
“It’s despair and loneliness! The mist will latch on to your worst relationships, and fill your head with their voices! Fight it!”
It was true. Her father’s voice echoed all around her. The smell of stale, lukewarm beer drifted through the air, mixing with the stench of the mist. She heard the sound of something slamming into the ground. Of Adagio screaming in terror.
“No,” she muttered. Voices and mists swirled.
“No!” she yelled, and closed off her lungs. Her chest burned almost instantly, begging for oxygen, but she didn’t dare breathe in another bit.
My daughter, Captain of the Wonderbolts!
The voice didn’t come from the mists, from outside, but from her memories. Her mother, Misty Flare. Always too busy. Always working hard. But always proud, always supportive. Gone, but never forgotten.
You’re the reason I always wanted to become a Bolt, ma’am. You’re an inspiration!
That time it was Rainbow Dash. Sure, she was a subordinate, but that didn’t stop the warm feeling from growing in her chest. Rainbow was a friend, too, no matter what regulations said.
A mare in uniform? How intriguing.
This sultry voice was new, but no less welcome, pushing back the chilling mist with the warm fires of infatuation and maybe even, someday, something more.
“You can’t beat me,” Spitfire muttered with the last of the air in her lungs. Her chest ached from lack of air, but she felt the tingling warmth in her limbs. She flared her wings with the very last bits of her strength, her muscles screaming in protest as she launched into the air, dragging herself above the mists.
Desperately Spitfire filled her lungs with clean, fresh air, and the voice of her father, the smell of him, dissipated like smoke in the wind. She was left with nothing more than the voices of her friends, and the fire that lit in her belly.
“Oh, Celestia,” she moaned. “I’ve become an inspirational Hearth’s Warming tale. I’ll never live down the lameness.”
She had only a brief second to take stock of the situation, to gather her thoughts and take in what was happening. The creature had Adagio by the throat and was squeezing, while Adagio’s hooves dangled and danced helplessly beneath.
“I LOVE you, ADAGIO! I love when YOU call me IDIOT, when YOU made me and Aria FIGHT because it AMUSED you and KEPT US weak. And NOW I’m GOING TO love YOU until…”
Spitfire never let her finish. With a powerful beat of her wings, she dove towards the creature’s head. She wasn’t looking Spitfire’s way, her attention entirely focused on Adagio. Spitfire slammed hoof first into her head, knocking it sideways.
The monster screamed in agony and her arms flew wide, flinging Adagio to the snowy ground. Spitfire’s heart leapt with fear, but she could see Adagio coughing and twitching, so she turned her gaze back to the monster.
“No! YOU’RE like ME! LONELY! Hurting! YOU have NOBODY!”
“Yeah, think what you want, crazy,” Spitfire muttered, but immediately felt guilty. Clearly this creature was hurting. She could do better than that. She thought back to all the conversations she’d had with Dash about friendship magic, all the lighthearted teasing she’d done about mushiness and rainbow friendship lasers. “Um, you’re not alone? You have friends?”
It may have been the wrong thing to say. The monster shrieked with rage, swiping it’s claws so quickly that they slammed into Spitfire with a sickening crunch. Pain knifed through her side, and she soared through the air, bouncing against the ground with a limp thud. She tried to rise up, but agony burned in her ribs, and she slumped back down.
“Sonata, wait!” Adagio cried out, desperately. Something moved beside Spitfire, and she opened her eyes enough to see Adagio standing over her. “Please, stop!”
“STOP WHAT?” Sonata shrieked, loud enough to make Spitfire’s ears ring. “I’m just SHOWING you LOVE! The SAME way you ALWAYS DID!”
“I know,” Adagio whimpered, and to Spitfire’s utter shock, slipped so that she was kneeling, her stomach pressed against the ground. “I know, Sonata. I hurt you. I’m so sorry.” She pressed her face down, close to the ground. “Don’t hurt these ponies because of me.”
“But I’m NOT HURTING them! THIS IS how you LOVE!”
“It’s not, Sonata,” Adagio whispered. “And I’m so sorry it took me so long to realize that. Please, stop all this, so we can talk.”
“TALK? WHAT should WE talk about?”
“About what I did. About how I used you. About how I’m going to keep trying to get better. Please? You’re hurting ponies.”
Spitfire struggled to her hooves. Each breath hurt, like a spike in her chest. Probably a broken rib. She stood aside her charge, looking up at Sonata’s wretched form.
“I… I… I don’t want to hurt PONIESssss….” The last word hissed out of her mouth, full of despair and self-loathing. Sonata began to tremble, shrinking back from the two. The mist seemed to retreat back, as if absorbing into her.
“No,” Spitfire muttered, watching Sonata tremble and shake as the foul air seemed to absorb back into the poor thing. “That can’t be good.”
“What—” Adagio began, before yelping in protest as Spitfire again leapt into the air. It was agony, but she kept her wings moving, pushing herself in a tight circle around Sonata. The monster didn’t even seem to notice as she whipped around her, spinning up mist and air and snow in a flurry of movement. Sparkles of white light trickled at the edges of her vision as the intense pain of her efforts screamed through her. But she had to help. It was what a Wonderbolt would do, after all.
As her usual tornadoes went, it was honestly pretty pathetic. Barely a dust devil, really. But it was enough. A spinning mass of cold air, snow flurries, and vile blue mist danced around her. With one last desperate gasp of effort, she released the tornado, spinning it off towards the Everfree. She was barely conscious enough to watch as it rushed off, only to dissipate harmlessly as it slammed against the dark tree line. It left behind not a monster, but a gently trembling earth pony with soft blue fur and a two-toned blue mane, her eyes closed in unconsciousness.
Something caught her before she could hit the ground. Something that was shaking, but warm. Something wet was brushing against her cheeks, her lips. Kisses. She was being kissed. She opened her eyes just enough to look into a pair of trembling, wet ruby eyes.
“Is this…” Spitfire rasped, barely able to breathe in enough air to talk. “Is this the part where you coo the line?”
“The… line?” Adagio asked, confused.
“My hero,” Spitfire whispered, and Adagio’s face flooded with bright red.
“Sh-shut up!” she stammered, even as she held Spitfire tight. Laughing hurt, but it was worth it for that gorgeous blush.