Let me tell you a story my little colts and fillies, of a Hearth’s Warming Eve long since past…
In fact, come to think of it, is it past your bedtime yet?
Don’t lie to me, I can read you young whippersnappers like a book…
…Yes, even while you’re reading this book. So if your Mummies and Daddies have told you to go to bed, you better listen to what they have to say.
After all, they’re older and wiser than you (in most cases)… and if you ever try deliberately disobeying them, you might just not get any presents tomorrow.
There! That soon got you all tucked up under the sheets, didn’t it? Now don’t move a muscle until your parents come to give you a kiss and turn your light out.
What’s that? You’d like to keep it on? Well, there’s nothing wrong with being scared of the dark. Just remember though; ‘You Have Nothing To Fear But Fear Itsel…’
My apologies, perhaps you’re still a bit too little to understand what I was trying to say there. All you tinier tykes have to worry about is for now is brushing your toothy-pegs twice a day and getting a good night's sleep!
Anyway, let’s return to you older kiddies, shall we? Now that your junior siblings are safely ensconced (ask your teacher what that means) upstairs dreaming of sugar-plum mares and nutcracker stallions, let’s go back to the tail, sorry ‘tale’ at hoof. (You’ll understand the typo in a minute or two)
Get yourself a mug of hot cocoa with marshmallows (don’t burn yourself, mind), take a seat in your most comfortable chair in front of a roaring fire (not too close, though) and allow the festive spirit to sweep over you.
Oh, and if you need a bathroom break at any time, just let me know and I’ll pause storytime long enough so you can do what you need to, then come back safe in the knowledge you haven’t missed a thing…
…Apart from the beginning, the middle and the end, Kay?
Only kidding. Just my little joke to make sure everyone is paying attention. If I’m going to do this I want you all to be listening, no exceptions permitted!
That’s about it for this much-longer-than-I-intended-it-to-be intro. Enjoy!
And remember…
Ho, ho, ho!
*********************
It was indeed a bleak Hearth’s Warming Eve (as I think we’ve already established) as the noted social butterfly Twilight Sparkle sat all on her lonesome in her castle reading, of all things, a book.
In holidays past, she might’ve been expected to be out and about with her friends, celebrating the merry occasion in the traditional manner… but on this particular Eve she just wasn’t in the mood.
“I’m not in the mood…” she grumbled to herself, turning the page whilst not really processing what was written on the cover. “I’ve just come back from yet another reenactment of Equestrian history, and I’m too tired to hot-hoof it over to Pinkie’s for a raucous singalong and the inevitable custard pie foodfight later. Besides, I have a really bad cold… ATISHOO… and don’t want to spread it around. Think I’ll just relax in my castle with this random book I picked up off the shelves, while Spike’s upstairs roasting his chestnuts. Now I wonder what it’s about…”
But just before our protagonist Princess (didn’t I mention she was royalty before? Don’t forget to bow/curtsy… delete where applicable) could even grasp the subject of her latest literature project, a very strange thing happened. The doors to her crystalline abode burst open unexpectedly, and within all the freezing fog which seemed to swirl around the room afterwards, a strangely-dressed figure stepped forward into her chamber.
“...Hello?” Twilight squinted to see through the maelstrom of mist that suddenly impeded her vision, just about catching the sound of jingle bells and the sight of a red and white fuzzy coat in the heavy murk. “Is anypony there?”
“Not ‘anypony’ Princess Twilight Sparkle, but I need your help if you’ll give it to me.” Although she hadn’t quite made out the features of her unknown male visitor, their voice sounded so joyous and jolly she couldn’t help but trust it. “Without you and your friends’ assistance, there'll be an awful lot of children missing out tomorrow. Will you lend me your power, and aid me in my hour of need?”
“We’ll certainly do our best. But first of all, now I’ve gotten a better look at you, I need to know: Who are you? What’s that big bushy white thing hiding most of your face? What’s in that large sack you’re carrying around? And why do you smell like cookies and milk…?”
“Another time, another time. Right now we need to take to the skies, and summon all your friends, otherwise it’ll be a very sad Christmas all the world over. Brace yourself, My Little Pony, I’m about to use some extremely powerful Santa magic.”
“Wait a second! You haven’t even told me what you want me to do yet or how I’ll be helping! Also, what’s ‘Christmas’? And who the hay is Sant…er…”
Twilight couldn’t say one solitary sentence more, owing to the small fact she’d vanished in a puff of smoke (although, it looked more like snowflakes in close-up).
“Um, hi? I heard a bit of a disturbance from upstairs, so I came to investigate…” A somewhat concerned Spike crept down the stairs, noticing the wide-open front door and shivering slightly at the colder atmosphere which suddenly permeated the air. “Twilight, you’re not playing that stupid game again where you hide somewhere in the castle, and however many minutes it takes me to find you is the amount of times I have to polish the stairs next month? Because my back is absolutely killing me, and also my union rep is…”
“Ho, ho, ho! Well if it isn’t Spike The Dragon. Or should I say, Spike The Elf for one night only. Brace yourself my faithful elf, because we have a packed schedule planned, so no more dawdling and get those pointy ears to work!” A loud booming voice echoed off the walls of the castle, and Spike struggled to locate which direction it came from.
“Elf? Pointy ears? Packed schedule?! B-But I’d just made myself a snack…”
Just like Twilight before him, Spike was cut off in his prime as he simply disappeared without a trace, leaving behind nothing but a wisp of sleet and a half-eaten sapphire sandwich.
A few seconds after the sudden forced evacuation of both inhabitants, a wise old brown bird glided down from the rafters to survey the scene. This was the much-neglected and mostly-forgotten Owlicious, who’d been waiting for an opportunity like this for a long time.
A long, long time even.
“Twit-Twoo! Twit-Twoo! I don’t have a clue what’s going on here, nor do I really care. But now I finally have the place to myself… you can come out now, lads! It’s time to par-tay!!”
Almost immediately, every nook and cranny of the abandoned building burst into life, as all manner of ornithological life flew through the windows, roosted on the furniture, perched on the ceiling, settled on the floor, nestled in the cracks…
Let’s just say, between all the loose feathers, bits of egg shell and pungent droppings left behind afterwards, this was bound to take an age to clean up.
Poor old Spike. Lil dude never catches a break.
******************
The next thing Twilight knew, she was in a very different setting from the comfortable familiarity of her warm and cozy castle.
For one thing, she seemed to be perched on a chilly rooftop somewhere outside, with oodles of snow falling down all around her and a big metallic dish-like structure located nearby.
The next slight oddity she noticed was she appeared to have something knotted securely to the sides of her ears, and she cautiously lifted up a hoof to inspect the general area. Hang on. Are these… antlers?!
Lastly, she took a quick scan of her surroundings, and didn’t notice a single recognisable landmark. I’ve never seen any part of Equestria that’s so well-illuminated, that’s for sure. And what’s with all these huge dwellings? They’re all so intimidatingly large, there’s no colour or vibrancy to them whatsoever and they’re made from lifeless stone and concrete, not like the charmingly rustic homes we have back in Ponyville at all. Also, there seems to be a rather foul stench of pollution in the air…”
“Um, Twi? A little help here, please?”
Huh? That sounds just like…
Twilight immediately spun around upon hearing the sound of somepony very well-known to her… and was confronted by a sight almost as unbelievable as the sprawling metropolis that now enclosed her from every conceivable angle.
For it was none other than Rainbow Dash and the rest of the Wonderbolts (well, six of them anyway) all wearing bridles with reins attached in double-file, so they stood tied-up together in roughly four sequences of two. The sole exception to the Wonderbolt club love-in was Fluttershy who took up the left rear, and they all looked as confused and confounded as Twilight felt right now.
“Twilight, did you do something weird again? …I have questions.” Rainbow Dash (who, like the other ponies there, was similarly attired in a fake pair of branch-like horns) was understandably curious about how she suddenly came from dancing the hoochie-coochie with Soarin at Pinkie’s big bash to being strapped-up like a prize steed with her comrades and friends in an unknown weather-beaten location.
“So do I Rainbow… the problem is, I haven’t got any answers. One minute I’m talking to this elderly guest who visited me this evening to ask for my help, the next I’m here trussed up with everypony in the middle of who-knows-where…”
“I’m not that old, I’ll have you know. Just a few millenia at the very most, about the same age as your Discord and Celestia combined. But enough about how ‘mature’ I am, we have to get down to business. For it’s starting to get late, and we don’t want to let down the millions of kiddywinks here on Earth, do we?”
“Business? ‘Kiddywinks’? Urth? How does he know the exact ages of both Celestia and Discord? And is that a giant sledge me and everypony else are currently manacled to?! Questions upon queries upon requests for information began passing through Twilight’s overloaded brain like speedy freight trains, but before she could even begin to talk to the mysterious voice behind her and the other ponies (who she’d now realised, was the same overweight guy who gatecrashed her quiet night-in earlier) he began speaking again, this time with a hint of wry amusement.
“Yes, Princess Twilight Sparkle… this humble sledge has, believe it or not, clocked up millions of miles so far with nary a scratch on its paintwork. I’m in the delivery trade you see, responsible for dropping off many, many, many packages to the young, and the young-at-heart for one special night of the year. This fine tradition has been proceeding like clockwork since almost the dawn of recorded time, but recently I hit a bit of a snag. The magic reindeer who usually guide me safely through the sky every night have come down with a touch of foot and mouth disease at the worst possible time, and in desperation I had to resort to multi-dimensional travel to find their replacements. That’s where you and your fine friends come in…”
“ ‘Friends’? I wouldn’t say we were exactly that, especially considering the situation we appear to be in now that she seems to have agreed to on our behalf without consulting us first…” Spitfire humphed indignantly, whilst straining at her tether. She hated even standing still for a second, let alone restrained in this humiliating fashion.
“Yeah! I mean, we like Twilight and all, but at the very most, we’re just casual acquaintances.” Thunderlane added helpfully, wondering what he and his troupe of professional flyers had been ‘roped’ into against their will. Literally.
“I see. So you’re not friends with Rainbow Dash then…” The jolly voice moved away from addressing Twilight to the bemused equines tied up behind her.
“Um… what a silly thing to say. Of course we are! She’s a fellow member of the Wonderbolts; we’re cloud-brothers-and-sisters to the end!” Fleetfoot scoffed at the mere thought of the answer being in the negative.
“Exactly. She’s the fastest, bravest, most determined pony among us… I can’t imagine there even being a Wonderbolts without her now!” Soarin added his own admiration for the blue pegasus, and if it hadn’t been so dark up high on that roof you might just have seen a certain already colourful mare nearby blush an extra colour.
“That’s good to hear! Well, as I always say, the friend of a friend is a friend, so when Twilight volunteered her ‘friends’ including Rainbow Dash to aid me, I couldn’t think of anyone, or I suppose in your language, ‘anypony’ better than the best bunch of flyers in the whole of the cosmos to help me in my hour of need. So, are you up to the challenge?”
“Well, when you put it like that…” Surprise lived up to her name by abruptly changing course in her opinion upon hearing this shameful yet blatant flattery.
“I guess we could give it a try, after all as you so rightly say… we are the best.” Misty Fly wasn’t quite as enthusiastic as her teammate, but seemed to be willing to give it a go, and judging by the mutual general nodding of heads around her fellow Wonderbolts agreed.
“Great, then it’s settled. We’ll depart immediately… oh, and Fluttershy… you have a very important job at the back there. If you see any approaching aeroplanes or large birdies please notify me as quickly as possible, so I can swerve us out of the way and keep us all in one piece. We don’t want more to go wrong than has done already, do we?”
“Um, okay. I'll make sure we don't hurt any of the darling birdies. But what’s an ‘aeroplane’? And will this take very long? You see, I just put my animals to bed, and they tend to get a bit cranky if I’m not there to feed them the minute they wake up…” Even in the midst of such unparalleled craziness, Fluttershy’s heart lay with her precious pets.
“Just one night of your life, that’s all. In return, you’ll make a whole generation of children on this planet very, very happy. A decent trade-in, I’d say. And believe me, you’ll know what an aeroplane is when you see it. Or rather, feel it.” The stranger who now seemed to have assuaged most of his stand-in reindeers’ nerves then turned back to Twilight, and for a change he was the one with the sort-of question. “Now Miss Sparkle, I suppose you’re wondering why I picked you to lead my team, after Rudolph sadly had to be confined to his stable along with every one of his ‘deer’ friends.”
“Erm, not quite the thing I wanted to ask which was uppermost in my mind, but yeah, sure, tell me ‘why’.” Twilight fired back, expecting him to say that she was a ‘born leader’ or another reason equally as modest.
“Ho, ho, ho. I’m sure you’re a great Princess where you come from, but actually that has little to do with why I picked you to head this very important assignment.” The reply was accompanied by a slight chuckle, as if reading her thoughts. “I chose you specifically to lead this group because of the minor virus you’re suffering right now. Do you know what happens to alicorn’s noses when they contract a cold?”
“N-No I can’t say that I do.” In all the confusing events which had occurred of late, Twilight had plain forgotten about her bad case of the sniffles; and she suddenly felt like a tissue. “But what’s that got to do with…”
“They light up like a red stoplight, that’s why!” The voice announced with delight, and as if on cue Twilight’s muzzle began glowing with an eerie scarlet hue which lit up almost the entire area around her. “This is how you’ll be able to find your way in total darkness tonight, and that is why you’re the perfect pony to guide the others where they need to go! Oh, and there’s one last little helper I’d like to introduce you to…”
Wow. I thought Celestia taught me everything there was to know about being an alicorn, guess there was one aspect there that slipped her mind. Unless, she’s been lucky enough never to have a cold, and I’m the first. Then, maybe she would’ve been chosen instead of me tonight, and I could be at home right now chowing down cake in my massive castle in Canterlot instead of going on a suicide mission commandeered by a deranged old plumpish geezer with a sleigh full of presents. I swear, my royal psychiatrist is gonna blow a gasket when he hears this one…
“Cheer up Twilight, it’s not so bad. We’ll get to see this entire new world in one night, we’ll make so many ‘kiddywinks’ very happy by bringing them free stuff, and the best part is… look at these brand new togs our kind benefactor has just given me… to keep!!”
“Spike! Don’t tell me you’re here too?! Get down from the top of that slippery sled at once! You can’t even fly yet! And what on Equestria are you wearing?! You look like a court jester… and yet I thought you wanted to be taken seriously!”
“He’s actually wearing a standard elf uniform consisting of a green shirt, red pantaloons with a floppy cap, Twilight Sparkle, and let me tell you, they take their job very seriously indeed. After all, why else would they work three hundred and sixty-four days of the year to make the best toys?” The booming voice sounded out yet again, as close to a reprimand as it’d made so far. “I decided to invite your dragon friend along with me because this is the one night my elves have off, and I figured I could use the extra help. Besides, their little outfits fit him perfectly. I didn’t even have to give him the optional pointed ears either, as his scaly ones are already nice and sharp. Anyway, enough dilly-dallying already. Time to spread those wings, and head out into the night sky. Shall we sing a special holiday song to get us motivated for the big task ahead?”
“Yes!” Screamed almost everypony (and dragon) gathered there.
“No!” Shouted one sole grumpy-grots objector, from the front of the team.
“Sorry, Miss Twilight Sparkle, guess you’re overruled. Come on now, at least attempt to get into the spirit of things by joining in. You too, at home! Now I’ll start; I’ve been told I have quite a strong baritone voice, so pardon me if your ears feel funny as they adjust to it. Here we go… On Dasher, on Dancer, on Prancer… oops sorry, old habits die hard. Ho. ho, ho!”
So Twilight lifted off with great reluctance lighting the way ahead with the rest of her hoofpicked crew thinking: The quicker we get this over with, the faster I can return to my old dull life solving friendship problems on a tiny map which looks to scale about a millionth of the size of this smelly urban jungle I find myself in now…
In the meantime, the strange red-and-white clad bearded man in his specially-optimised sledge being pulled by the alicorn and company began his little ditty. Time to ring those bells, clear those throats and sing along, me hearties!
Twilight the red-nosed alicorn
Had a very shiny nose
It was because of a chest infection
Not a bad one, as it goes
All of the other ponies
Were out enjoying Hearth’s Warming Eve
Poor old Twilight stayed at home
She simply didn’t want to leave
Then that foggy Christmas Eve
Santa came to say
“Twilight with your nose so bright
Won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?”
Oh how the Wonderbolts loved it.
Even Spike called out with glee
The only one who didn’t was Twilight
“Why does this always happen to mmmeee?!”
********************
“Ohmygosh what a weird nightmare!” Twilight rose from her slumbers with a comically stunned expression on her face, knocking off the book that had lain on her lap as she jumped out of her seat. “I was kidnapped by a big hairy biped wearing a red suit riding a deathtrap sled who laughed a lot and made me fly over oceans deserts, forests, skyscrapers and mountains with the Wonderbolts and Fluttershy for no other reason than to drop off a load of plastic tat to over-privileged spoilt brats who’ll only throw it away before the end of the year regardless!”
“Wow, Twilight you must be stressed! That’s the longest sentence I’ve ever heard you say without pausing for breath or even adding a full stop.” Spike had woken up about an hour earlier, which had given him just enough time to clean (damn that Owlicious) and finish up eating the remains of a stale sandwich on the floor he didn’t even remember making. “You’re not gonna believe this, but I dreamt something very similar! Only, I was shoved down chimneys a lot, eating loads of something called mince pies because the guy ‘wanted to watch his weight’, then running away from vicious dogs and murderous cats. I think a burglar alarm went off at some point as well…”
“Hmm. That’s odd. Why do I have the taste of carrot in my mouth, why do my wings feel like I’ve flown a marathon, why do my ears bear the marks of having glue stuck on them… and how did this enormous tree get into my castle?!”
It was true, and this oversized fir wasn’t just any old tree either. For it was absolutely festooned with strings of tinsel, reflective baubles of every description, fairy lights of indescribable prettiness, a glistening, glimmering star right on top… and presents addressed to Twilight and all of her friends, along with a single card.
Spike opened it up with a single shaking claw. On the front was a single nondescript picture of a snowman, but inside was written… ‘Thanks, couldn’t have managed Christmas without you. Happy Hearth’s Warming Day, Love, S Claus xx.’
“I-I think I know what the ‘S’ stands for…” Spike said with a gulp, dropping the card onto the floor. “A-And look at this…”
The anxious dragon went over to tear open his gift, and inside there was a green and red outfit with a floppy hat that…
“M-Makes you look like a c-court j-jester.” Twilight stammered, realising with growing horror that her ‘weird nightmare’ may not have been so much in her head after all. “E-Excuse me, I think I’m just gonna lie down on the floor for a while…”
So it was as Twilight took another unscheduled nap on the ground and Spike wondered what to do next (they should’ve opened my present to her first… it was smelling salts), let’s get a close-up look at that book Twilight never got round to reading, shall we?
Apparently it’s about some dashing chap by the name of Kris Kringle who manages to give every single good little boy and girl a present every year without fail, especially those who go to bed on time without fail.
Any connection to the story I just told you? Probably not.
But just to be on the safe side, best join your younger brother/sister upstairs now the candle’s nearly burnt out, and close the bedroom door behind you lest you catch a glimpse of him in action.
After all, if he sees you, the best thing you can hope for is a lump of coal in your stocking.
And that doesn’t taste as nice as candy, let me tell you.
Ho, ho, ho!