Twenty four seconds.
That was how long it took for the window to mist up, Fluttershy thought absentmindedly, as she once again rubbed it clear with the sleeve of her jumper. She stirred her hot chocolate, gently moving the spoon with the feathers of a wing while chewing her bottom lip.
Twenty four more seconds, and a further rubbing of the window with her sleeve. All the while, her already generously stirred hot chocolate was stirred more. Until, finally, Fluttershy was snapped from her daze by an irritated voice.
“I feel like this loses its urgency after the fourth time it gets said, but I’ll give it a go. Your move, Fluttershy.”
She turned to see Discord gesturing to the long abandoned game of Monopoly they had started, an unimpressed expression on his face.
“What? Oh, sure,” Fluttershy replied, rolling the dice and moving her piece.
“Oooooooohhh!” Discord cried, his face moving to within inches of the board, “So many houses, Fluttershy! How ever will you pay the rent?!”
“Okay you win,” she said, her attention back to the window.
“But… what?! Come on, where’s all the grovelling, where’s the frantic mortgaging of your properties? I didn’t spend all those bits to just have you give up the first time!”
“He’s still out there,” Fluttershy responded, prompting a confused look from Discord.
“What?”
“Big Mac, he’s still out there. It’s been hours,” she said, her brow furrowing in concern.
Discord slithered over to the window. His body coiled around Fluttershy’s, a gesture that had once unsettled her, but had now become familiar. Instead, what was currently making her uneasy was the sight of a lone, dark red figure in the snow.
“Well… maybe he just likes the snow?” Discord offered, making Fluttershy frown.
“I should go and talk to him.”
“But… but… we were supposed to have another game! Come on, this time I’ll let you get all the railway stations!” he protested, as a miniature steam train and tracks were conjured on top of the board.
“It’ll only take a minute,” Fluttershy responded, ignoring his pouting, “And we need to make sure that ponies are okay at this time of year, don’t we?”
“Yes,” he replied grumpily, and in the spirit of the season Fluttershy decided to ignore whatever he muttered under his breath afterwards. She got up from her chair and found the largest coat she could, before heading to the door.
As soon as she got out into the snow, Fluttershy had to fight the primal desire to rush back inside and root herself by the fire. The air was frigid and punishing, with biting winds against which her coat felt totally useless. All the while, the red figure she could see didn’t even seem to react to it.
He’d come by a few hours back and offered to neaten her gardens a little bit, and he’d been at it ever since. Fluttershy looked down at her hooves, deep in snow, and thought to herself that she’d seen him clear this part before. He must have been clearing for so long that parts of the garden had been reclaimed by the snow.
So why was he still doing it?
Fluttershy chewed her lip again, before beating her wings to gently hover in his direction.
“Big Mac?” she tentatively called out as she got closer.
“Eeyup,” came the simple reply. It was almost an anticlimax, honestly. After the deep feelings of unease she’d gotten, watching him shovel out there over and over, Fluttershy almost expected him to break down crying. Maybe to run away mysteriously the second he heard her voice, or to stand rigidly still, and for her to find out he was under some kind of terrifying spell.
But no, Big Mac didn’t sound the least bit different from normal, his body language was completely normal, his expression was normal, his tone of voice was normal. Everything was totally, 100% normal.
Aside from the fact that he was still shoveling snow.
Fluttershy went to speak, only to falter as she realised this was the one eventuality she hadn’t prepared for.
“So…” she began, and was despondent when Big Mac didn’t stop shovelling, “How are you?”
“I’m fine Fluttershy, you?” he said, and her wings twitched nervously.
There was a central contradiction about kindness that Fluttershy had learned a long time ago. That was that sometimes, being kind didn’t mean doing what ponies wanted. Sometimes, it meant doing the exact opposite in fact. Right now, all of Big Mac’s body language indicated that he wanted to be left alone.
But he was still shovelling. And, as the snow picked up, even now the areas which he’d just cleared were starting to get filled in again.
“Big Mac,” Fluttershy began, “The path has gotten snowy again,”
“Oh?” he replied, looking up for the first time since she’d come out, “I’m sorry about that. Reckon I can give it another go after I’m done here.”
“No no, I mean… you’ve been shovelling for quite a while, haven’t you?”
“It ain’t a bother.”
“Isn’t it?”
The question lingered in the air between them. The snowfall seemed to smother any echoes, and as such her voice quickly disappeared into the flurries, leaving them in silence. Fluttershy turned back to the house for a moment, and allowed herself to revel in the primal yearning for the warmth, for the familiarity.
She couldn’t think of anywhere else she’d rather be right now, even though it was selfish, even though it was unkind. Fluttershy wanted to be with her friends, her animals.
Behind her, her hoofprints had already started to disappear.
“Really Miss Fluttershy, I don’t mind at all. Can’t have folk slipping on snowy paths. You get yourself back inside, don’t you worry none about me.” Big Mac replied, and went to start shovelling again.
Sometimes, it was only the simplest question that was needed. The most basic gesture of care to show someone that there was some connection still out there for them, some strand into the vacuum around them.
Fluttershy supposed she’d needed the same at some points this year, it had felt like a lonelier one than usual. Fewer chances for visits, fewer chances for days out, fewer chances to do nothing at all, but nothing at all with her friends.
‘We don’t live by bread alone’ went the old saying. Fluttershy couldn’t remember where she’d first read it, but it had always stuck with her. It didn’t have to be a partner, it didn’t have to be a family member, but something greater than nothing at all. Maybe for some, a few friends was enough, maybe for some, it was a few lovers.
But one thing that she could be sure of, was that we didn’t live by bread alone. And on Hearth’s Warming Eve, we shouldn’t have to stand out in the frigid air by ourselves. Shovelling snow only to have it filled in by the constant, inexorable drop of more, piling on top.
Sometimes, the only thing needed was the most simple, the most basic of gestures.
So Fluttershy looked at Big Mac, his face straight down, ignoring her, blocking her, a facade of contentment with his wintery solitude, and she asked the most basic question she could think of.
“Big Mac, are you alright?”
And his immediate response was the beginnings of a scoff. Wide-eyed and desperate, an offended veneer for even being asked whether he was alright. Because of course he was! A proud, stoic stallion like himself belonged to this silent isolation. His was a world of stiff upper lips and quiet endurance, and his burden was to shovel the snow without complaint or comment, even as the flurries buried the monuments of his work.
But Big Mac didn’t follow through. Whatever protests he might have had died, stolen like Fluttershy’s voice in the gentle snowfall. Instead, he slumped before his apex, and released a great, shuddering breath.
“I… I know folk say it’s been a long time now since Sugar Belle passed, but… ten years ain’t a nothing. Not when you love them, ten years later is the same as day one.”
“Oh, Mac,” Fluttershy sighed, feeling some release of tension in spite of the conversation’s subject matter because at least he’d stopped shovelling, “I can’t imagine what you went through, what you’re still going through. But what about Stirling? I’m sure he’d love his dad to be with him tonight, rather than out here?”
Big Mac nearly flinched at the mention of his son’s name, and at once the puzzle pieces fell into place.
“He’s not here, is he?” Fluttershy asked gently, and Big Mac shook his head.
“Travel warnings, it’s this damn snow,” he said, and she could hear the deep, weighty sorrow in his tone, “He’s got a family of his own to look after, and neither me or Belle would have ever wanted him making a dangerous trip up by himself, just to be with his damn fool father.
“So,” he continued, “If the snow stopped my Hearth’s Warming, I sure as hell ain’t gonna let it stop anyone else’s.”
“But Mac-”
“You head on in now, Fluttershy, it wouldn’t do for you to catch your death out here.”
“But what about you, Mac,” she asked, and he gave her a wry smile.
“Don’t you worry about me, I’m fine.”
She looked at the stallion. He was strong, still so strong. He had the gait and demeanour of someone twenty years younger. There was almost a permanence to him here, like one of the trees. It broke her heart.
Applejack was away, spending the holidays with Rainbow’s family, his son and grandchildren were stuck somewhere else. And even working in the miserable, wet cold was better for him than wandering that big, empty farmhouse, painted in sorrow and yearning for the absence of a pony who took most of him with her.
His was a heart cleaved, and half of it belonged to the dead now. And rather than being reminded of that, he’d come here. He’d been here for hours.
Hours.
Contrary to the generally held belief, the Apple family weren’t terrible liars. Sure, they couldn’t convince anyone of a single thing if it wasn’t the truth, but other ponies aren’t the only ones we can lie to.
When it came to lying to oneself, the Apple family were some of the best around. Their true feelings so often combating with their sense of pride and duty. The affront at the idea of being selfish, of taking care of your own feelings first, ran deep in their roots. And while it made them dependable friends, loyal to a fault and steadfast in their sense of justice, it also led them to shovel snow, sometimes.
Sometimes it stood them in the dark, backlit by the shadow of lights and fires from a joyous warmth that didn’t contain them. Sometimes it had them look across a field of snow and not know where they’d cleared yet, or even where they’d come from, since the blizzard had already reclaimed the land and stained it white.
And this is where Big Mac had remained for hours tonight. And though he said he wanted to combat the snow, and Fluttershy was sure part of him truly did, there was a problem. Because Big Mac could have gone all over Ponyville in the time he’d been here. He could have salted each doorstep, cleared roads and cleared the snow again when the flurries returned.
But instead, he’d been at Fluttershy’s cottage the whole time.
And it had been a hard year, for so many ponies. It had felt at times bleak and desolate. And in this season, after a year like that, who could blame Big Mac for seeking out a little kindness? Even if he didn’t want to admit that’s what he needed, even if he didn’t know he needed it at all.
“Big Mac, you know, Discord and I would normally see the girls at Hearth’s Warming. It seems like everyone’s ended up separated this time though. Family commitments, travel, the snow…” Fluttershy began, “We’ve got plenty of space.”
“No,” he replied, and Fluttershy reflexively flinched.
“No, I just mean…” he sighed when he saw her reaction, “I’m not really myself tonight, I guess this has gotten to me more than I realised. And I won’t put that on anyone else, you hear? I won’t be that burden to anyone.”
“You wouldn’t be a burden, Mac. We’d love to have you,” Fluttershy replied, and started to head back to the cottage. And when she heard the sounds of the shovel resume, it seemed slower, less focused than before.
And there was no chance in the world that she would ever leave someone out here to freeze in solitude, crushed by a stoicism they never had a choice but to embody. But there was a central contradiction in kindness, and sometimes it meant doing something that seemed terrible for someone’s own good.
She knew what Big Mac needed, and it wasn’t someone making him talk when he didn’t want to. It wasn’t someone mithering him to come inside. Because while the Apple family could be great liars, they ultimately came round to the truth. And the truth was that he needed her tonight.
Even if he didn’t know.
Even if he didn’t want to accept it yet.
The cottage was warm, and she gratefully returned to that warmth. Discord’s pleas to start a new game washed over her, and she responded to him only in faint hums. When he set up the board and she took her seat, Fluttershy rolled the dice and moved her piece, but once again she found herself occupied by that window.
She cleared it with her sleeve, and saw a lone, red figure out in the flurries.
And Fluttershy waited.
Twenty four seconds, followed by another clearing, over and over. She watched as the figure’s motion slowed, how his shovelling came to a conclusion, how he started to peer over at the window.
Twenty four seconds, and Big Mac slumped, seemingly rife with an unvoiced conflict.
Twenty four seconds, and Big Mac was staring at the window, shovel forgotten on the ground.
Twenty four seconds, and Big Mac had vanished entirely.
Twenty four seconds came and went unnoticed, the window remained fogged, because long before that Fluttershy had heard the door to her cottage gently open, felt the biting wind from the blizzard filter in.
But the cold didn’t matter to her, it wouldn’t last. All she cared about was the room’s new occupant, looking sheepish, colder now than he had when he was outside.
And sometimes, it was only the simplest thing that was needed. The most basic gesture of care to show someone that there was some connection still out there for them, some strand into the vacuum around them.
So Fluttershy went simple, and smiled while patting the space next to her on the settee.