“…and so then I thought, what if the suit could not only be used to disguise oneself whilst in the snow, but to fit in in a more elegant location, such as a field of flowers by a nice quiet lake, perhaps?” I grunted. Rarity and I had been working on the nests for several hours now, and although I would have been happy to do it in silence, Rarity insisted on telling me all about the suit she was still trying to design for me.
“So… what do you think, Snake?” she prompted after realising that I wasn’t going to respond. “Does this suit sound like the sort of thing which you would wear?”
“Maybe,” I lied, not wanting to flat-out say that I didn’t care. “But I don’t see why wearing a white suit in an environment such as the Everfree Forest would be beneficial.”
“Well, it was just a thought,” Rarity admitted, sighing as she telekinetically attached a bow to a birds’ nest. There was a large line of ponies who were all working on the nests, passing them along one-by-one as they finished a minor task on each. Rarity and I were at the end of the line, and added decorations to the nests as we were handed them.
As we continued to work, with Rarity now telling me about some dresses she had made for her friends to attend a wedding in, a light-blue unicorn came up to us. Her mane had two different shades of blue in it, which reminded me of toothpaste, for some reason.
“We’ve just finished the last of the nests,” she said to Rarity. “They’re still being passed up the line, but we’ll be finished within minutes.”
“Really? That was rather quick,” Rarity said, sounding pleased nevertheless. “I suppose I should chalk it up to Twilight’s excellent planning skills… good to see that she’s not trying to help directly again…” she muttered to herself. As the blue unicorn walked off, presumably to start another job somewhere else, Rarity and I were handed the last two nests to finish.
“So… what now?” I asked Rarity as I attached a red bow onto my nest.
“Well, now that we have finished with the nests, I suppose there is ample time to assist Fluttershy in waking up all of the creatures whom have been hibernating throughout winter,” Rarity replied as she finished decorating her own nest. I grimaced. Decorating nests had been bad enough, but waking up sleeping animals? Not for me.
“…Any other jobs I could help with?” I asked. Rarity put a hoof to her mouth in thought.
“Well, I suppose you could always assist Pinkie Pie and the rest of the ice-scouring team,” she answered. Ice-scouring, huh? That didn’t sound too bad… even if I would have to cope with Pinkie Pie.
“Pinkie Pie, huh? Sounds like a plan,” I said. I asked Rarity where I would find Pinkie Pie and the ice-scouring team, and headed there after thanking her. Rarity herself headed off to find Fluttershy and assist her.
It wasn’t too long before I was standing at the crest of a hill covered in ice. Sloping downwards, the hill led to a large, frozen lake, where I could make out Pinkie Pie apparently skating her way back and forth across it. It struck me as odd that Pinkie was scouring such a large lake by herself, particularly after Rarity had mentioned a team of ice-scourers.
“Helooooooo Snake! Wheeeeeeee!” she called out to me as she spotted me walking down towards her. “What are you doing?”
“Hey, Pinkie,” I said as I arrived at the edge of the lake. “I came to help with the scouring, but you must have made a mistake – Rarity told me that you were working with a team to break up the ice.” Pinkie came whizzing towards me as I spoke, temporarily stopping her work to speak to me.
“Well, don’t tell Twily this, but-” Pinkie giggled here “- I told the rest of the team to go work on the other lakes by themselves.” I frowned.
“Why would you do that?”
“Because –” Pinkie leapt into the air and continued her complex skating “– I can’t do this if I’m surrounded by all those other ponies!” She went into a complicated spin from there, which I had to admit was pretty impressive.
“Huh, not bad,” I said. “So, where exactly are the other lakes?” If Pinkie was happy to break up the ice on this lake by herself, then I might as well go look for another group to help scour.
“Oh, no need to go find them,” Pinkie replied as if she had read my mind. “You can help me here! I’m always happy to spend time with you, Snake!” I grimaced as I realised that by Pinkie’s standards that meant that I would have to help her.
“…Okay, what do you want me to do?” I reluctantly asked. Pinkie skated back over to me expertly.
“You can put on those skates there –” she pointed a hoof at a pair of ice skates lying in an area relatively snow-free “- and join me in skating across the lake!”
“Won’t they be too small for me, if they’re designed to be worn on your hooves?” I asked as I noticed the flaw in helping scour the lakes.
“Nope! I had Rarity custom-make these for you, just in case you wanted to help me!” Of course she had.
“Pretty convenient,” I muttered to myself as I knelt down to take off my shoes. Unfortunately, Pinkie somehow heard me.
“Oh, it’s not convenient!” she cheerfully replied. “I have ice skates stashed all over Equestria, in case of ice skate emergency!” As I put the skates on, I opened my mouth to ask what the hell could constitute as an ice skate emergency, let alone how Pinkie could have known the exact size of my feet. I closed my mouth a moment later, deciding to just accept these things.
I stood up, and put both of my feet on the ice. Although I was pretty out of practice, I had past experience ice-skating, and was sure that I could help Pinkie scour the lake. “Okay, what now?” I asked Pinkie as I slowly and cautiously made my way over to her in the centre of the lake.
“Okay, Snakey, now what we have to do is- ITCHY NOSE!!!”
“Itc-” I started, before slipping over on the ice and smashing into it face-first. I groaned in pain, not wanting to get up as my body’s momentum slowly kept pushing me towards Pinkie Pie.
“Sorry, Snake, but I did try to warn you!” Pinkie said cheerfully, before skating off as if nothing had happened. “Now, if you just skate in a right angle to my direction, we should have this lake scoured in no time!”
I slowly picked myself up from the ice, trying not to slip over again in the process. Once I was up, I started skating once more, being careful not to fall over again. My face was aching from the crash, and it felt as though I had injured my back in the process as well.
“You’re getting the hang of it now, Snake!” Pinkie praised me. “Good to see that you’re not so wobbly and bobbly! Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to help so well!”
“I can skate just fine,” I said, defending myself. “I’m just out of practice.” I kept skating across the lake, slowly picking up speed as I got used to skating once more. After completing a lap of the lake, I felt I was ready. “Okay Pinkie. We gonna do this?”
“Of course, Snake! Pinkie called to me from the other side of the lake. “Just skate so that your path crosses mine! Wheeeee!!!” She started skating once more, this time taking a more deliberate path to avoid the places she had already skated across.
I did as she said, skating at right angles to her path as she had told me earlier. However, it wasn’t long until Pinkie spotted a problem with the situation.
“Why are you staying so quiet, Snake? Don’tcha want to talk? Ooh, we could play a game!” After I grunted in response, Pinkie waited another moment to see if I had anything to add, which I didn’t. She tried a different tact. “Want to hear the song I sing to my p-”
“No!” I did not want to hear any more singing today!
“Well, that’s okay I guess,” Pinkie said as she turned around and skated in the opposite direction. I breathed a sigh of relief. “I’ll just have to sing a different song instead!” Huh?
“No, Pink-”
“Dashie’s melting snow,
Fluttershy’s cheering ‘Yay!’
Rarity makes nice bows,
Snake’s a grump today!
Take it away, Snake!” Pinkie had forgotten all about the scouring of the lake, and had been leaping around like a maniac whilst singing. I was amazed that she hadn’t hurt herself yet.
Instead of complying with Pinkie’s request, I instead skated to the edge of the lake, and stepped onto the ground. I had an idea to speed up the scouring of this lake, so that I would have an excuse to go and join some of the more normal ponies in breaking up another frozen lake. “Pinkie, you might want to step off the lake,” I warned her.
“Ooh, why’s that?” Pinkie asked curiously as she did as I suggested. A moment later, she got her answer as I equipped my Nikita missile launcher and fired a shot at the surface of the lake. As the missile hit it, large cracks appeared along the lines which we had carved out with our ice skating, although not as large as I had been hoping. I frowned, and was about to fire a second shot when Pinkie interrupted me.
“Good idea, Snake!” she called out from across the lake. “But I can take it from here!”
“With what?” I called back, confused. What would Pinkie have that could break the ice as efficiently as my Nikita missile launcher?
“Oh, I never leave home without my party cannon!” she replied as she produced a small blue cannon from seemingly nowhere.
“Party… cannon?” I said, although more to myself than Pinkie Pie. A moment later, she had aimed it at the lake, and fired it by pressing a button on the top of it. The shot fired too fast for me to make out what was contained within it, but whatever it was, it was powerful: cracks spread across the rest of the ice almost instantly, breaking it up and saving us several hours more of work. I did find it a bit weird, however, that there was somehow now confetti on the ice. I walked around the lake to where Pinkie Pie and my shoes were.
“Whee! That was fun, Snake! Let’s do it again!” Before I could reply, Pinkie bounced away, off to the next lake. I put my shoes back on before following her. I was about to ask her where she had put her party cannon when I got an unexpected call on my codec, which I answered. “Hey, Twilight. Any luck finding me a decent job?”
“Sorry, Snake, not yet. I’m up to my neck in paperwork at the moment,” she replied. Although she couldn’t see it, I grimaced.
“Huh, figures. Maybe I should be the All-Team Organiser, so that I can find a decent job.” Although the assistance I had given so far hadn’t been too bad, I still would rather have had a more enjoyable job, where I got to see a bit more action.
“I would say yes, Snake, buuuuut….” - Twilight seemed to be taking me more seriously than I had intended, and was trying to let me down nicely - “… I am technically the boss here. And there’s only room for one boss, and one Snake.” She chuckled a little bit, not realising that I wasn’t really listening to her.
“So why’d you call me anyway, if you haven’t gotten me a job?” I asked Twilight.
“Oh, well I just thought I’d check up on you and see how you were doing. I remember how disastrous my first Winter Wrap Up was…” Twilight said, sounding concerned.
“Fine.”
“What?”
“Fine. It’s been a bit boring so far, but I’m coping. I’ve helped Rarity decorate the birds’ nests, and Pinkie Pie and I are currently scouring lakes.” As I spoke the words aloud, I wondered how I had ended up going from a dangerous infiltration mission to decorating birds’ nests as a part of manually changing the seasons for the year.
“Oh, good work, Snake!” Twilight replied, genuinely happy. “So you haven’t ended up covered in bees or anything?”
“Covered in …bees?” I repeated, wondering why it felt like I had heard that phrase before. “No, nothing like that,” I answered after deciding that it wasn’t important.
“Well, good to hear!” Twilight answered. “I promise that I’ll try to have you a job within the hour!” I was within eyesight of the next lake that Pinkie and I would be scouring next by now. There were already three or four ponies putting on ice skates and skating across it, and I could make out Pinkie about to join them.
“Twilight, I’ve got to go now,” I said, before smirking slightly. “Any chance I could hear one of your famous proverbs before I go?”
“Uh, sure Snake! I’m sure I’ve got something here…” I heard Twilight shifting around some papers for a moment. “Oh, here we are! ‘Your registration number is to be assigned by your team leader. Please leave this space empty.’” I hesitated.
“…You just read that from one of those paperwork forms, didn’t you Twilight?” Did she really expect me to think that that was a proverb?
“N-no, it’s a real proverb,” Twilight stuttered. “It’s a metaphor… for… life! You see, the registration number is your sense of self; who you are. Your team leader is… is… everypony who inspires you!” I thought about it for a moment. It made sense.
“Huh. That’s some good advice, Twilight. I’ll make sure to pass that on.” As I said this and finished the codec call, I started thinking. What was my life here, in Equestria? Was it real? Was there such a thing as absolute reality? Most of –
“Snake!” Pinkie called across to me, bringing my train of thought to a halting crash. “What are you doing just standing there? Come down and join in the fun!” She turned around and started skating on the lake, starting to sing another of her nonsensical songs. Sighing, I put my ice skates back on and joined her and the other ponies in scouring the lake.
===================
“… hereby I declare that winter is wrapped up on time once again!” It was the end of the day, and the mayor was giving a speech now that winter was over. I had to admit – as weird as it was to help manually change the weather, it was at least efficient. Plus, unlike seasons changing on Earth, there would be no unexpected snowfalls happening months after winter.
“Let’s all give a big thanks once more to our All-Team Organiser, Twilight Sparkle, and the leaders of the three teams for being responsible for the efficiency we all witnessed today!” the mayor finished. As the ponies around me stomped their hooves on the ground, I clapped my hands quietly, which gathered some odd responses in return. Twilight stood up to the podium to make a short speech of her own.
“Good going today, everypony! Despite some of the problems – ” I could have sworn that I saw her eyes flick to some of the ponies that had been pestering her at the town hall this morning “ – everything was a complete success!” I was about to clap my hands again when I realised that Twilight wasn’t finished, as she got out a chart and levitated it next to her. “Now, as you can see, the weather team increased performance by 14% this year, but at the cost of a 34% decrease of the food team’s efficiency. I hypothesise that this is due to…”
I found myself feeling more and more tired as Twilight went on about some of the data for the day, before the mayor cleared her throat loudly after a few minutes. Embarrassed, Twilight blushed slightly. “…So, basically, we did well this year, everypony,” she said. “Good luck next year!” As she stepped down from the stage, the crowd dispersed. I made my way over to Twilight with the rest of her friends.
“Wow, great speech, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie said excitedly once we were within earshot. “I really liked when you talked about how the thingamajig needed to be more… more… wowzaroonie next year!” It was a good thing that Pinkie didn’t see Twilight roll her eyes, although she was also smiling a little.
“Thank you, Pinkie. I’m just pleased that everything went so well today!”
“Yes, once more a splendid job!” said Rarity, whilst Fluttershy nodded. Rainbow Dash had been hovering just above us all, but flew down to speak next.
“Well, Twilight’s organising may have helped us, but we all know that it was my pegasi team that really helped with the snow and everything!”
“Yeah, but why’d they melt the snow? So that mah plant team could grow all them different types of food!” Applejack countered, although not spitefully. As they friendlily bickered, I noticed that Twilight’s saddlebag had some papers coming out of it.
“What are those papers, Twilight?” I asked her, curious. She took a moment to look back at them.
“Oh, these? Just some last minute paperwork I didn’t have time to get done today – I’m hoping to finish it tonight, as a matter of fact. Are you ready to head back to the library, Snake and Spike?”
“Sure.”
“Yeah. The sooner I can get to bed, the better.” Twilight nodded, and turned to the others.
“Well, we’d better head off now – I still have some paperwork to do, Spike wants to get to bed, and Snake no doubt wants to do some reading before the day is completely over. See you tomorrow, everypony!” The rest of Twilight’s friends all returned her goodbye, before the three of us headed back to the library.
===================
“So, what did you think of Winter Wrap Up in the end, Snake?” Twilight asked me as I drew Star Swirl the Bearded’s Abridged List of Master Spells: Volume Thirteen out from the bookshelf once more.
“Yeah, it was alright,” I admitted. I wouldn’t have called it fun, but it wasn’t as bad as I had been expecting.
“Good to hear!” Twilight replied cheerfully as she started on the final few sheets of paperwork for Winter Wrap Up. “I’m sorry again that I didn’t manage to find another job for you – when I wasn’t filling out this paperwork, I was trying to manage and look after the teams. You wouldn’t believe how many problems can come from simply changing the seasons!”
“Changing the seasons, huh?” I repeated as I flipped through the Abridged List to my bookmark. “A pity there’s not a spell for doing that for you ponies, rather than having to do it manually.”
“Oh, there is – it’s how we used to do things back in Canterlot,” Twilight answered whilst refilling the ink of her quill. “But since Ponyville was founded by Earth ponies, it’s traditional to do it without magic.”
“Huh.” Twilight and I continued to fill out paperwork and read, respectively, in silence for the next few minutes. I was nearly at the end of this Abridged List, still hoping to find a spell to transport me back to Shadow Moses. “There are too many useless spells in this,” I said, breaking the silence.
“Well, maybe for your situation, Snake,” Twilight replied. “But I’ll bet that any one of those spells can be useful in the right situation – read out one of the ones from the page you’re on now.”
“'Apples to Oranges – As the name suggests, this turns apples to oranges',” I read aloud. “See, now what sort of situation could that be useful for?”
“Well… how about if apples were cheaper than oranges at the market, but you’d rather have an orange?” Twilight suggested. “It would be pretty useful then, wouldn’t it?” I grimaced.
“Yeah, but that’s a pretty specific situation,” I said. “And even then, some of these still aren’t that useful. Like this one here –Dimension Locator. Can be used to –”
“Dimension Locator?!” Twilight asked loudly in shock. I double-checked the spell.
“Yeah, that’s what it say – Can be used to identify the inhabitants and/or contents of any number of different universes. What’s the point in knowing if you can’t interact with them?”
“That doesn’t matter, Snake!” Twilight said happily. “Don’t you see – I can use the Dimension Locator spell in conjunction with my teleport spell to send you home!”
“Teleport… spell?” I repeated, never having heard Twilight mention it. “…Are you sure that it could work?” This seemed too good to be true.
“Of course, Snake! There’s nothing that could go wrong with it!” Twilight leapt out of her seat and trotted up to me. “Snake, we’ve found a way to send you home!”