//------------------------------// // On The First Day Of Wishiehoof // Story: Snow Day Tales // by bookhorse125 //------------------------------// “Wishiehoof is a day of fun, friendship, and frolicking - we are very serious about our frolicking. But it’s also a day… of secrets. Wishiehoof lasts for the Twelve Days of Secret Keeping, which has been a Bridlewood tradition for ages. If you tell a single secret during Wishiehoof, the secret jinxies will curse you so that you can never speak again. “What?” Pipp looked shocked. “If you tell a single secret, you can never talk again?” Izzy shook her head solemnly. “Never ever. I haven’t seen it happen - I don’t think it’s happened to anypony in generations. But it almost happened to me.” “Oh, come on, Izzy,” Zipp scoffed. “There isn’t really a jinx that will curse you to never talk-” “It was time for Secret Canter,” Izzy continued, her voice low and dramatic. The blue light coming from the crystal seemed hypnotizingly bright. “We were gathering in the town square to draw names to create our gifts over the twelve days of Wishiehoof. On the last day, when we place our ornaments on the Wishing Tree, we place our presents along the bottom of the tree, and at the end of the day, we all open them together. Her voice, if possible, got even lower, almost to below a whisper. “I… got…” She bit her lip, looking around carefully as if the jinxes were listening in. “Izzy, relax,” Zipp said leisurely, “you can tell us your secret. It’s not like we’re going to-” “ALPHABITTLE! I got Alphabittle!” Izzy burst out, covering her ears with her hooves and screwing her eyes shut like she was committing something treasonous. She gasped and shoved her hooves in her mouth for a few tense moments as she looked around. She took a deep breath before continuing. “And I had no idea what to get him! I mean, Alphabittle’s kind of mysterious - he likes games, but games are really hard to make in just a few days, so I was stuck!” “What did you do, Izzy?” Sunny asked. “Did you ask Alphabittle what he liked?” “I tried!” she wailed, throwing her hooves in the air dejectedly. “But we have to be careful during Secret Canter - if the pony you make your gift for guesses who made it, you get jinxed! I had to be very inconspicuous. “I went to the Crystal Tea Room and started talking to everypony, asking them all what they would want for Wishiehoof, if they could have anything. And it seemed to work - I got lots of answers from other ponies that probably would have helped other ponies that needed ideas for their Secret Canter. But when I got to Alphabittle, I asked him what he wanted more than anything, and he said, ‘Something I can always win.’” “Yeesh,” Pipp said, shaking her head. “That’s… excessive.” “But not at all unlike him,” Sunny said thoughtfully, tapping her chin as she looked off into space. Her face suddenly lit up with an idea. “OH! Did you make him that Just Prance game?” Izzy laughed nervously. “Um, nope! Not… not this year, heh, heh! Nope, totally not me.” She tried to give Sunny a confident smile that came off more nervous than anything. Izzy cleared her throat and continued with the story. “Anyways. So I was stumped again, and I went back to my house to brainstorm. I went to all the crystal lighting ceremonies - of course, we didn’t have magic, so we had to wrap lights around the crystals so that they looked like they were lit up.” She giggled. “It was my idea.” She looked proud. “But the twelve days of Wishiehoof were going by fast, and I was so worried about Alphabittle’s present that I forgot to make my hoofmade ornament, or knit my Wishiehoof scarf! I could have just bought them, but Auntie Buttons says that things are always better when they’re hoofmade, like there’s a kind of magic in them. So it would be jinxy to do that!” She sighed dramatically. “I didn’t have any other choice. I had to go talk to Alphabittle.” “Oh, no, Izzy…” Sunny said, putting her hoof on her friend’s. “But…” Pipp glanced sideways at her sister. “What about the jinx?” Izzy sniffed and lifted her head nobelly. “I would rather give Alphabittle a good Wishiehoof than ever speak again. It was a sacrifice I was willing to make.” “Wow, Izzy,” Zipp said, sounding impressed. “But you can talk,” Sunny said, sounding a bit confused. “Did the jinx not work?” “Nope! Even better,” Izzy said, her face lighting up. “On my way to the Crystal Tea Room, I passed one of the crystals, and I saw how beautiful it was all lit up. And then I thought about how it had been my idea to use the lights, and that we could see the crystals lit up for the first time in generations. Then I heard Auntie Buttons telling me that I had so much creativity, and that I should go out and use it. I had to make Alphabittle a gift, something so creative and special that nopony would ever guess who had made it, and he would be happy, because he would always be able to win it. At least, if he practiced hard enough.” She laughed, but her friends stared at her. “So… Izzy,” Sunny said after a brief pause, “what did you make for Alphabittle?” “Yeah!” Zipp said, sitting forward and munching on a cookie. “Was it something big and crazy-” “Or sparkly and glittery!” Pipp interrupted, sighing as she thought about all the sparkly presents she had gotten for Wishentine in the past. “Those are the same thing,” Zipp told her, rolling her eyes. “They are not-” Pipp started to say, but cut herself off, working her jaw furiously as she glared at her sister. “Come on, tell us, Izzy!” Sunny begged. “Okay, okay, I’ll tell you!” the unicorn laughed. “I made him his cube. You know, the one that moves and has the different colors on the sides, and you have to match them up? I didn’t know that the earth ponies already had something like that, though,” she added sheepishly. “But I do know that Alphabittle loved it! And it came with an instruction manual, written by yours truly.” Izzy took a little bow and grinned. “But the best part is that I didn’t even get jinxed! Alphabittle loved it so much that he didn’t even bother to guess who had given it to him - he just started playing with it!” Izzy sighed contentedly. “It made me so happy to know that I had made him so happy, you know?” “I do know, Izzy,” Sunny said quietly. “And that was such a great story! Bridlewood’s traditions are always so fun to hear about-” “Ahem,” Pipp said, pretending to look offended. “What about our traditions, Sunny?” “Oh, I didn’t mean-” Sunny started to say, but was interrupted by a sudden sound that sounded like a giant creature thudding towards the Brighthouse. “Do you hear that?” They all paused and tilted their heads to listen, and they all knew what Sunny was referring to. “M-maybe it’s just some ponies coming to help get us out?” Pipp suggested, waving her phone in the air, but still unable to get a signal. “It sounds like it’s coming from-” Sunny started just as the doors began to shake. All four ponies ran into the center of the room, Pipp trembling and trying to hide behind her sister, Izzy’s horn sparking nervously. Sunny glowed with a bright golden light as she grew a pair of wings and a sparkling golden horn, spreading her wings to protect her friends and lighting up her horn, trying to think of what it could possibly be. The doors suddenly burst open, releasing a pile of snow that slid into the room, coming to a stop inches from Sunny’s hooves. Pipp yelped and ducked out of sight again, Zipp moaned, and Izzy sighed, shaking her head slowly. “Huh. Not what I was expecting.” Sunny took a cautious step forward, inspecting the pile, when it began to shake, and all four ponies backed away. “What is it?” Pipp asked, her voice going up several octaves from fear. “Is it some kind of snowpony monster? Like in that old Wishentine story?” Zipp rolled her eyes. “That’s just a story, Pipp-” A figure suddenly burst up from the pile of snow, completely covered in the stuff, stumbling along as it tried to extract itself from the mound. It had four legs and two heads, one on top of the other, with dangerous glowing eyes that shone fiercely in the dim light. Sunny, Izzy, Zipp, and Pipp all screamed and grabbed hold of each other as the snow monster took a shaky step forward towards them. One of its heads opened its mouth and exhaled a massive burst of purple and blue fire- “Ponies?” One of the heads shook off the melting snow, reached up, and plucked the baby dragon off of his head. “Hitch?”