A sleigh’s worth of carefully wrapped Hearth’s Warming presents sat idly by in the corner of the studio wing’s guest room. Most anypony would be thrilled by such a grand display of gifts waiting to be opened, but it felt like such a waste to Vinyl. It was mostly because she had helped wrap them herself earlier that day. Still, she was getting cold, and her sweater collection had to be in one of them.
When Fancy had suggested they wrap up Vinyl’s move today, she hadn’t expected it to be so literal. Fluffer Duster and Dapper Dandy had accompanied her to the apartment, dressed in ugly holiday sweaters, to help with the move. At Fancy’s suggestion, the three of them had meticulously wrapped every box and piece of sound equipment up like a present and piled them all into a festive cart. They left the old furniture for Lofty to throw out at the maid’s insistence. The DJ reluctantly agreed knowing that no amount of scrubbing could salvage that couch. Plus, leaving Lofty a parting gift to deal with wouldn’t hurt either. She laid out her ruined drainage scarf across the backrest for good measure.
Once they were all packed up, Vinyl and Dapper pulled the cart with their magic as Duster flew above to make sure the tower of not-gifts stayed stacked on their trip back to the estate. While it was a pain to get everything loaded and unloaded in one trip, it’d been worth it. Nopony batted an eye as a trio of holiday helpers transported a sleigh of gifts through town. Along with their itchy sweaters and festive hats, it was the perfect Hearth’s Warming disguise.
Vinyl took another box and shook it to guess what was inside. It felt just like all the last three boxes of clothes she had jostled around. She couldn’t even make an educated guess based on the size. Labels would’ve been the smart thing to do, but she’d forgotten that critical step while rushing to wrap everything before nightfall. After lugging her worldly possessions from one side of town to the other, she didn’t want to think about sorting through all of her stuff. Still, she wanted to wear a better sweater than the crummy one she had borrowed from Fancy.
“Icky, Dricky, Dracky, Maw. Fight a dragon, tooth and claw…” she chanted Fleur’s Ogres and Oubliettes rhyme as she pointed between the potential sweater containers. She glowed the boxtops with her magic as her little guessing game continued. “… my mentor taught me to draw the very best blade, and you are not—”
“It’s dinnertime, Miss Vinyl.”
For the second time today, Vinyl yelped in surprise and nearly lost her footing. This time, it was a feathery wing that caught her before she hit the floor. The box she had cast her magic upon wasn’t so lucky. Her magic surged from the shock, blasting the top open like a cannon and causing the contents to explode outward. The socks, scarves, and leg warmers raining down around them meant she had chosen poorly anyway.
“My goodness! I’m so sorry, Miss Vinyl! The door was open and—” Fluffer Duster’s apology was interrupted by a wooly sock landing on her head. If they could find the other three, it might help the DJ chase the nippy air away.
“Just Vinyl. And I’m fine.” She righted herself up from Fluffer Duster’s wings and pulled the sock out of the maid’s mulberry mane. “Thanks for letting me know, Dusty.”
“D-Dusty, ma’a—I mean Vinyl?” the pegasus recoiled at the dirty word.
“Shoulda figured it might be rude to call a straight-laced mare like yourself that.” Vinyl tapped a hoof to an unknown beat bouncing in her head as she guessed at a better nickname for the flighty maid. “Fluffers? F.D.? C’mon, help me out here.”
“My friends called me Fluffs in school, but I’m not sure if—”
“Fluffs it is then. Cool. Let’s go get some grub, Fluff. I’m starving!” Vinyl smiled as she walked out the door.
“Very good. Right this way, M...uh Vinyl?” Fluffer Duster said to an empty room before chasing the unicorn into the hallway.
“‘Muh Vinyl?’ Wow, you move fast. At least ask me out first.”
The maid’s light gray fur burned pink as she tried her best not to further break decorum. Vinyl snickered at the stammering mess until the maid finally relented with an irritated whine. “Why am I even trying? You’re as bad as Miss de Lis.”
The unicorn puffed her chest out with pride at the comparison. “I’ll take that as a compliment.” The pride fell away as an alarming thought occurred to her. “Does Fleur come to Fancy’s place often?”
Fluffer Duster quickly trotted ahead to guide Vinyl down the correct hallway towards the dining room. “She’s been around a few times, but I’ve only really met her once before.”
“Really met her, huh?” Fleur wasn’t a pony to leave somepony alone when she met them. Vinyl knew careful wording when she heard it. “Just how many times did you ‘meet’ her before she broke character?”
Fluffer Duster looked away and drooped her head in embarrassment. “Three.”
“Aww, Don’t sound so defeated, Fluff. Fleur is an actress. Well, voice actress anyway. She does her Lady Faire character around all the classy ponies she meets.”
“I know that now, but it was so shocking when she came by the last time. Miss de Lis was a completely different pony!”
“Hey, don’t sweat it. If she’s stopped her Lady Faire schtick, it means she likes you enough to be herself around you.” Her intended good news seemed to depress the maid even more as her frown drooped lower.
“I’m not sure that was it. The first time I met Fleur, the real Fleur, I wasn’t exactly at my best.” Fluffer Duster’s folded wings twitched from the memory. “I thought Canterlot was under attack by some other new threat, but it was just her almost breaking down the front door looking for you. Either way, I hid behind some curtains in the entryway until Sir Fancy Pants found me.”
“Oh, right.” Vinyl scratched the back of her head. Considering how much her friend had chewed her out the moment she woke up, she didn’t want to think what a frantic Fleur might’ve been like for others to deal with. “Sorry about that. We’ve been best friends for years, and she’s a little protective of me since I keep to myself. I’m a bit of a loner, so if I don’t show up, she kinda flips her flank.”
“I understand where she’s coming from. I can’t even imagine living alone. I’d be so scared of everything.”
“Really? But Canterlot is usually pretty safe with all the guards around.”
“Oh no. I’m not talking about that. I can fly away pretty fast,” she admitted with an odd amount of content in her cowardice. “I meant that I don’t think I could live someplace by myself. I’m afraid of all the little things, like slipping in the shower or cutting my hoof on a knife. I never moved out of my parents’ house in Cirriucuse until I got hired for this live-in estate job.”
“You live here?”
“Yes, and so does Mister Dapper. He was Suede Shoes’ butler before Sir Fancy Pants was even born. The mansion can support a lot more servants, but Fancy has only used a hoof-full of rooms since stepping down from his ambassadorship, so it’s just the two of us now.” The maid turned around and resumed her station by offering a deep curtsey to the DJ. “As an honored guest of the Suede Shoes Estate, we are both at your disposal anytime you need us, Vinyl.”
“Okay, no. Stop that, right now,” Vinyl urged as she tried to swipe the stench of high society away from her face. “I’m nopony’s honored nothing. I’m a hired hoof just like you, so no special treatment.”
“But Sir Fancy Pants said…”
“I don’t care what he said. I draw the line at needless ceremony standing. I don’t need your help. I’m just here to sort through a bunch of old records.”
“But I like cleaning,” Fluffer Duster whimpered.
Vinyl flinched at the maid’s distress. Even though Fluffs was clearly older than her, she felt like she had just yelled at a filly. The fact that she wanted to clean in the first place was already sending the messy DJ into a downward spiral. Nopony was supposed to like chores. It wasn’t possible, like dividing by zero or turning down a Pinkie Pie gig. She had tried both before with surprisingly similar results.
“Just pretend like I’m not here then. I can handle myself.”
“That is a request I’m afraid we must ignore, Miss Vinyl Scratch. You’d be causing a bigger problem if we did otherwise,” Dapper Dandy remarked, emerging from a nearby door to join the two ponies in their walk towards dinner. “Regardless of your position here, our job is to properly maintain everything in the estate. That includes ensuring you are properly maintained as well, young lady.”
“Young lady” caused Vinyl’s fur to bristle on the back of her neck. She had to put all of this polite nonsense to bed before it got out of hoof. “Look, bushy brows, I don’t know if you know this about club DJs, but we don’t do ‘proper’ anything.”
Dapper raised said bushy brows to meet Vinyl’s hot glare. Instead of reacting angrily like she’d hoped, the butler merely chortled at her rude tone. “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does tend to rhyme every now and then. Very well, then.” His shaggy features fell back into their proper place as he walked past the two girls. He tilted his head, signaling them to join his gait. “Come along, you two. We will be having dinner in the common room tonight.”
“Oh, is Sir Fancy Pants taking his dinner in the study tonight?” Fluffs asked.
“No. The master has simply stepped out for the evening. If Miss Vinyl wants to be treated as one of us, then we will endeavor to do what we can to make her feel comfortable.”
It was hard to tell under all that facial fur, but Vinyl swore the sly codger winked at her. She sighed in resignation. Even her desire for normalcy was receiving special treatment. Still, it was better than staging an entire dining hall for only the three of them.
“Odd, he didn’t mention any changes in his dinner plans to me.” Fluffer Duster quickly reached into her apron’s pocket and pulled out an itinerary. She folded her wing around the small clipboard and read over the schedule to confirm she hadn’t missed anything. “Should I keep his portion warm in the oven?”
“That won’t be necessary. He had me prepare some bits for him before he left, so I believe he intends to dine out tonight.”
Vinyl lowered her shades, looking over the rim quizzically. “Dining out? Tonight of all nights? Just what the hay is open on Hearth’s Warming?”
Fancy Pants shook clumps of snow off his hooves. The bitter cold of the mountaintop made the freezing snow burn where it had snuck under his overcoat. The trip across Canterlot had been miserable, but it’d be worth it to get out of the mansion for a while. After today’s disaster, he really needed a drink and some good company. While every pony-run shop was closed to observe the holiday, there was one establishment in the city he knew would still be open.
Descending the stairs carefully, he was passed by a couple of griffons who had just wrapped up their non-holiday plans for the evening. Fancy hoped he wasn’t too late. The last thing he wanted to do was show up at closing time.
“Fancy Pants!” Athena waved at the familiar stallion from behind the Labyrithiyum’s bar. As he approached, the caring minotaur noticed the shiver in his step. “Hades below! You look absolutely frozen!”
“The weather team have outdone themselves once again this Hearth’s Warming,” he laughed, barely suppressing the stammer from his chattering teeth. Just because he had practice in keeping his speech didn’t mean he enjoyed utilizing the mostly useless skill these days.
Fancy took a seat at the bar while the minotaur quickly pushed a large lamp oil heater situated in the middle of the restaurant closer to him. A few of the patrons voiced their complaints until their fluffy hostess shot a growling scowl over her shoulder. Fancy kept his back turned solidly to their grievances. Not all of them were griffons, but he knew the louder Griffish curses well enough to keep any apologies to himself. He’d let them know the pecking order if it came to it, at least until he could feel his legs again.
“So, what brings you around here on one of the pony-est nights of the year?”
Fancy mulled over the question for a second. “I lost my last good bottle of brandy on a bet, so I was hoping to warm up with a nice Griffonstone classic.”
Athena whistled as she searched for said bottle of brandy from the display next to her. “You only busted out the brandy for diplomatic emergencies. What in Equestria drove you to that?”
“I went all in on a four-of-a-kind when she had a straight flush.”
“Sounds like you underestimated your opponent.” Athena grabbed a wide, snifter glass from under the table and poured the brandy into it while slowly twirling the glass over a nearby candle. “Was it strip poker? You came in without any pants on.”
“Nothing of the sort, but I ended up smoothing over a situation myself in a way I wasn’t expecting.”
Fancy watched in anticipation as the chef slowly heated the amber red liquid over the little light. Griffonstone Brandy was made to be drunk warm like the blood of a fresh kill. While he never dared to try their meat, Fancy had acquired a taste for the griffon warrior’s draught as soon as he was sure there wasn’t actual blood in it. Plus, being able to feel his hooves again would be an added bonus.
“In hindsight, I really should fix that gap in my wardrobe before next winter.”
“You’re the one who’d know the best tailor in town to cover your flank.” With a careful flourish, Athena finished preparing the brandy and handed it over to the stallion. He quickly took it in his hooves rather than his magic and ran his forelegs over the toasty glass.
As he cradled his liquid fire, Fancy felt the gaze of several griffons fall on his withers. The birds of prey could probably smell the little taste of home. Seizing the opportunity, he took his first taste, savoring the liquor with a subtle slurp. He then pushed the sip under his tongue and opened his mouth slightly to take a deep and careful breath through his lips, filling his lungs with the burning vapors of alcohol. Without so much as a hitch in his breath, the practiced diplomat swallowed his first hot gulp of brandy with a loud and satisfied “ah” before setting the glass back down to finish.
He didn’t have to look back to know the griffons had returned to mind their own business. No griffon worth their wings would raise their talons against a pony who could perform the traditional Griffonlord’s Guzzle.
“That would be Hoity Toity,” Fancy finally answered, getting back on topic.
“Is that what your cutie mark is telling you?”
Pausing to consider the question more thoroughly, he shook his head and sighed. “No. That would be Lady Rarity, but I’m not about to take a train to Ponyville just for a pair of custom-tailored pants.”
“With a name like that, I bet they’d be plenty fancy.”
He waved a dismissive hoof. “No, she’s more fabulous than fancy. But I digress. I came here to unwind, and focusing on my frozen flank is not exactly comforting.”
“I suppose it would depend on who’s looking,” she added innocently enough. The minotaur’s gaze drifted away from Fancy, eliciting a sigh from the stallion.
“Unless they have a blowtorch, I’m not exactly interested.”
“I dunno. Luna was pretty captivated by it last time you were here.” Athena leaned over the bar and waggled her eyebrows.
“That was my cutie mark.”
Athena shrugged. “Same difference in my eyes.”
“Miss Cypriel,” Fancy said, his tolerance for the topic waning, “Luna is struggling to adjust to modern life enough as it is without her friends starting rumors about her relationship status.”
“You’re not a bad catch, Fancy. That’s all I’m saying.”
Fancy took another drink of brandy before he said something regrettable. He swished the burning drink in his mouth, savoring its intensity before swallowing. He’d already spent most of his patience for the day keeping himself restrained around Steeplechase and Vinyl.
“Speaking of Luna, how have you two been getting along, by the way? She mentioned that she’s made a few trips here since I introduced her to the Labyrinthiyum.”
“Wonderfully!” Athena bubbled. She smiled widely and clasped both of her hands together in girlish joy. “I never thought for a second that I’d make friends with a long-lost pony princess, but here we are. She’s a regular these days, but only when conditions are just right.”
While Fancy was happy to hear the princess was going out on her own, his curiosity was piqued by his bartending friend. “Conditions?”
Athena looked around and leaned down to Fancy, cupping her mouth to hide her lips from prying eyes. “Well, it has to be at night when no one else is here. I have to perform a very specific summoning ritual,” she whispered darkly like the beginning of a campfire ghost story.
“Summoning ritual?”
“First, I must prepare the offering by gathering the necessary components.” Reaching into a nearby cabinet, she gathered several items in her arms and began placing them down one by one in front of Fancy at the bar. “An obsidian goblet black as the spaces between the stars, amaranth from the furthest reaches of Hades, cursed, bitter seeds grown near the gates of Tartarus...”
Fancy rubbed a hoof on his chin. Ignoring the minotaur’s malevolent theatrics, the ritual was sounding more and more familiar with each component piece. “Is this that abyssal coffee you’ve gotten her addicted to?”
“Oh, so you know it.” Athena brightened back to her sweet self and began prepping the over-caffeinated beverage normally. “Yep, just run it all through this filter here for a brew blacker than the river of the damned.”
With practiced efficiency, Athena whipped up Luna’s favorite brew and put it in the middle of a moonstone coaster. The top was etched with Luna’s cutie mark encircled by a magic sigil resembling the threads of a dreamcatcher. “You just place it here and then ring this bell.” Carefully, Athena brought out a small, beautiful concierge bell made of the purest silver and polished obsidian. Despite the warm light around them, its surface reflected with pale, mysterious moonlight.
“So what you’re saying is you have a magic bell you use to call Luna when you’ve made her coffee?”
“Where is your sense of mysticism, Fancy?” Athena huffed as she crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “There’s more to it than just that.”
“Do tell.”
“Well if I ring it once, the cup teleports away. If I ring it twice, it means no one else is here and she can come in if she has time. This drink wasn’t on her order schedule, but I don’t think she’ll mind a late evening Hearth’s Warming gift.”
She rang the bell once. A lonely, piercing tone rang from the bell. Despite its small size, the depth of the sound echoed louder and louder as its tone sank into a deeper, more profound note. The sigil began to glow, slowly filling with silver and cyan light along the ley lines. Once the pattern was full lit, the coffee cup flashed, collapsing into a drop of pure moonlight. The moondrop bounced into the air before vanishing into an unseen ethereal sea with a pleasant splash, leaving only one ripple of lunar magic in its wake.
“That’s quite the spectacle for a to-go order,” Fancy remarked as he took a sip of from his glass, his eyes still fixed on the point where the splash of magic disappeared.
“I know, right?” Athena agreed with a chuckle. “So, enough about Luna. What did you want to talk about so badly that you came all the way out here?”
“I thought I explained myself rather clearly. I wanted to enjoy a drink that I lost in a bet. There’s not much more to tell beyond that.”
“Uh-huh. And for some reason, you couldn’t just stay home with a similar drink?” Athena drummed her fingers on the counter.
“Now, what made you jump to that particular conclusion?”
“Why else would you trudge all the way over here on one of the coldest nights of the year with no pants on?”
“I suppose the benefit of your company isn’t enough of a selling point for you?”
“I’m sure there’s plenty of other ponies in the upper districts that have better bars in their mansions than mine that would love to spend Hearth’s Warming with. But no. You came here.” Athena beamed victoriously and gave Fancy her full attention. “So, if you want to enjoy my company, start talking. What’s eating at you, Fancy Pants?”
Fancy pressed his hoof to the bridge of his nose and wondered if there was some unwritten law somewhere that all bartenders had to be incredibly perceptive. “Do you remember the Vinyl Screech from a few weeks back?”
“The what?” Athena tilted her head to the side.
“The Vinyl Screech. Do you not remember?”
The minotaur flicked her ear as if she was trying to spark her memory to life.
“It was the day before I came here with Luna for dinner,” Fancy added.
The chef shook her head at the new information. “You’re asking me to recall something from the day before I had a life-changing encounter with one of my biggest fears in Equestria?”
“Athena, all of Canterlot heard it! It was all over the newspapers the next day. You have to at least remember hearing something ear splitting earlier this month.”
“I don’t just live under a rock, Fancy. I live under many, many rocks.” Athena pointed to the solid stone ceiling which ran under a cobblestone street. “The only reason I knew about the invasion when I did was after a bunch of ponies ran through the door screaming bloody murder.”
“Fair enough,” the unicorn conceded. “Well, just know that the girl who caused the ruckus had her life turned upside down for no real reason. Long story short, she is staying with me now while it all blows over.”
“Hold it!” The minotaur slammed her hands down on the bar, causing an audible thump on the countertop. “You can’t just ‘one-thing-lead-to-another’ a story that ends with a mare moving into your place!”
“It’s not like that!” Fancy objected. “She’s one of Fleur’s friends. Her best friend at that. The problem isn’t that she is there anyway. It’s the context in which she is staying.”
“You’re not helping your case, Fancy Pants! If you don’t start giving me the lowdown real soon, I’ll call Luna to drag it out of you.”
“I was just getting to that. Without going into too much private detail…” Athena scowled unamused as she threateningly hovered her hand over the bell. “I hired her to do a job I had no intention of having her do correctly! Happy?”
Athena pulled at her horns in frustration. “You are the worst storyteller! Every time you open your mouth, three more questions pop into my head!” She readied her hand back to slam it on the bell.
“Okay, fine! Just calm down.” Fancy begged while waving his forehooves in defense. The massive minotaur crossed her arms and tapped her elbow with a finger impatiently. “Now, how much do you know about Winter Rollout?”
As Fancy recounted the events of last month, Athena ran through a gamut of emotions. Her dramatic reactions caused several patrons' heads to turn in curiosity. She’d even started crying after hearing of her financial woes, quickly offering to hire her until Fancy assured the restaurant owner that Vinyl was perfectly fine now. Fancy mentally noted to warn Vinyl about the sensitive minotaur’s crushing hugs if he ever decided to introduce them. Athena’s kindness was quite overwhelming at times.
“So now, she’s going to go through the entire collection and crystallize it for preservation.” The story had taken half an hour, a few refills, and a half-eaten pasta salad to retell. He had mostly told the truth, albeit with a few key omissions. Fortunately, the resolution had calmed his friend down, but her ruminating frown and constant ear flick didn’t fill him with confidence.
“So, what’s the problem again? Sounds like if this student can pull it off, it’s a win-win for everyone. Well, I guess everypony in this case.”
“It’s because getting the job itself was never the point,” Fancy admitted with irritation. “I finally figure out how to help the poor girl, but before I can even tell her to keep it from the ESPA. The one pony from there that I don’t want to know about it just so happens to find out immediately.”
“Again, I don’t really see the problem. Now she’s just gonna do it for real.”
“Actually having her finish was never part of the plan. I was intended to let her get back to her own life once she’d been mostly forgotten about, regardless if the task was done or not. Now they’re expecting results.”
“And what’s so bad about that? Isn’t it better that she is actually going to do the job instead of just going through the motions? I mean, I’d be pretty mad if you hired me to cater a party, only to find out you were going to stuff me into a broom closet for money.”
Fancy rested his exhausted forehead on his hooves. Without explaining the problematic Suede Shoes connection, of course she wouldn’t see anything wrong with the situation. He didn’t want anyone knowing about him, even someone as far removed as Athena.
“I suppose you’re right, but I am still not happy with how unexpected things turned out. This feels like the Stampeding Grounds Compact all over again.”
Athena blinked. “And you lost me again.”
“It was an agreement I helped orchestrate four years ago between Appleoosa and a tribe of native buffalo that had no right answers. It was either restrict the Appleoosans from planting trees or risk losing the settlement entirely. Last I heard, it was broken by the Appleoosans, because of course it was. How can you expect farmers not to farm? It’s like telling pegasi not to fly.”
“Or a unicorn not to spellcast,” Athena added as she warmed another glass of brandy. “So, you feel trapped?”
“Honestly, after talking about it, I don’t know how I feel about it. Conflicted? Irritated? Relieved?”
“See? That’s what we call a good thing. Just worrying over nothing. You helped Fleur’s best friend in a way she agreed to. Just let her do the job like you told her you wanted it done and let the magic happen. I for one think it’s great that you saved that lost little kitten from a pack of wolves.”
Fancy laughed at the comparison harder than he should’ve. It was probably the buzz of his brandy talking. “DJ Pon-3 is anything but a kitten.”
“Wait, DJ Pony? That wouldn’t happen to be spelled with the number three in it?”
“I believe so, yes. Did I not mention her stage name before?”
“I knew it wasn’t ‘pawn three!’” Athena smiled victoriously to herself, but the confidence quickly fell into an anxious frown. “Oh wait, then all of that happened to DJ Pon-3? She’s a student, archiver, and performer? And here I thought I was biting off more than I could chew.”
“Yes, but I am not sure how her stage name changes things.”
“You mean you don’t know? DJ Pon-3 is one of the most popular performers on the Drive! You’d think she’d be fighting off job offers left and right, but I guess it’s more complicated than I thought.”
Knowing what little he knew about the DJ, nothing was ever simple when it came to Vinyl Scratch. “So, do you ever go to the Drive? It’s not terribly far from here.”
“Me? Oh no, I don’t think I’d fit in there, physically or mentally. But I do enjoy some of the music. The other day, Luna brought in a bunch of records she’d picked up from a store, and DJ Pon-3 was my favorite out of all of them. I’d never heard anything like it before.” The chef’s eyes sparkled as she stared past Fancy into her memory. “It was just so… captivating. I think Luna called it ‘Trance.’”
“I suppose I should ask her about it sometime. I’ve heard her perform once, but…” Fancy trailed as he remembered Vinyl’s strange remarks about her piano playing. “I’ve never heard her more original work. Every time I’ve run across her at an event, she’s played the records of other musicians.”
“Well, next time you see her, tell her she’s welcome in my restaurant anytime. Drinks are on me!”
Fancy winced at the mention of Vinyl drinking again. “Maybe just offer her a discount on a meal. I think she might appreciate it more.”
Fancy took another bit of his meal. Even with the snow falling outside, leaving for dinner had been the right call after all. He knew he’d have to head back to the mansion soon before the cold became intolerable, but he had to admit that Hearth’s Warming was always better among friends. Even when those friends didn’t observe the day itself.
Being with Athena reminded him of his days as a diplomat. He always found some excuse to spend the holiday away from Equestria after Suede moved back to Canterlot with his happy family. He’d learned winter traditions of creatures all over the world, as well as several summer ones if he headed far enough south. Perhaps next year, he’d charter an airship to Hawhinny for old time’s sake. Those warm island beaches were always a lovely escape this time of year.