A ball of white mush hit young Twilight Sparkle in the back of the head.
After over two hours of being buried within “The Winter Theory” by Voltage Coil, the purple filly was pulled from an interesting world of science into the reality of a real winter. A cold, wet, undoubtedly real winter that she was surrounded by at that very moment.
“Huh?” she muttered blearily as she surfaced.
Twilight's gaze searched the area, a look of discontent on her face. She had come outside to read because she felt it would aid in her experience of the book. Now up to Chapter 32, she was nearing what she had decided was “the good part” during her last three reads of the exact same piece of literature. Needless to say, she didn't want to be interrupted by flying pieces of snow when she was reading about the intricacy of winter.
The culprit turned out to be her older brother Shining Armor, who hadn't bothered to conceal himself. He was standing out in the open with a mischievous grin on his features, another ball of snow levitating beside him.
“What are you doing?” Twilight demanded grumpily. “Can't you see I'm reading?”
That should have closed the matter as it usually did, but Shining Armor merely laughed at her excuse.
“Come on, Twily,” he uttered firmly. “You can't spend your entire life reading. We only get one winter a year! Don't you want to enjoy it while it lasts?”
“But Princess Celestia.....”
“........wouldn't want you to enjoy yourself doing something other than studying?”
Twilight knew there was logic in his argument, a fact that annoyed her even more than the snowball. Of all the people she knew, Shining Armor was one of the few who managed to use rationality against her with unvarying success. And to further her annoyance, she actually admired him for this skill instead of condemning him for it.
“But what's the practical purpose of throwing snow at me?” she demanded. “I've read at least seven books about the properties of winter and not one of them involved that!”
Shining Armor shook his head, amused and frustrated at her ignorance. He was still levitating the snowball, but he had lost interest in throwing it for the time being. Instead, he tried to explain in the most straightforward way the exact purpose of flinging it in the first place.
“It's a snowball fight, Twily. Ponies fling snowballs......”
He indicated the lump of snow hovering in the air.
“........at each other until somepony surrenders.”
The purple filly rolled the explanation over in her mind for a moment. Despite having read many books about strange rituals, this entire concept was new to her.
“Kind of like.....the griffin vs. pegasi war in the Arctic North?” Twilight uttered slowly, piecing the facts together. “If I remember correctly, near the end of the battle, the griffins were so desperate that they began making cannonballs out of snow. They ultimately lost, but many sources disagree as to whether or not their makeshift cannonballs had anything to do with it.”
Her brother waited patiently for her usual flow of information to come to a halt. When he was certain that she had finished, he nodded.
“Yeah......kind of like that.”
No sooner had he finished speaking before two perfectly formed snowballs struck him in the face.
“For Equestria!” Twilight shouted, beginning to reload.
Shining Armor was both impressed and amazed by how easily she went into battle mode. He had expected it to take several moments, perhaps even an hour, to coax his bookworm sister into an actual attack.
In a matter of seconds, snowballs were being hurtled from both ends. Shining Armor, despite being more experienced, took quite a few hits during the onslaught. However, he retaliated with a level of skill obtained from far more intense fights. For every ball of snow that hit him, three more would hit his opponent. Even with the use of magic, Twilight found it difficult to dodge or otherwise avoid the projectiles.
After the war had waged on for a long duration of time, it looked as if Twilight was going to surrender. She was taking more hits than she was warding off and seemed no match for her superior sibling.
Then, with a sudden burst of magic, a massive ball of white mush began to take form over Twilight's head. It was three times the size of a normal cannonball and certainly larger than the average snowball. Yet, despite its size and the means of its creation, it managed to maintain the flawless roundness of both.
“Twil--,” began Shining Armor, alarmed.
The words and the wind were slammed out of him as the enormous ball of snow collided with the young stallion. He was knocked to the ground by the sudden impact. He ended up almost entirely buried under a blanket of snow, his wits scattered to the wind.
Twilight, her look of triumph fading, rushed over to him. With the use of magic, she melted most of the snow covering his body.
“Are you okay?” she demanded in a shrill voice of panic.
Shining Armor's eyes had been closed up until now, giving him the appearance of a deceased pony. If it wasn't for his obvious breathing, it would have been easy to assume he was dead. At the sound of his sister's voice, Shining Armor opened his eyes. A weak smile spread across his features at the sight of her worried face.
“Of course I'm okay, Twily,” he assured her happily. “Do you really think that was any match for a future royal guard?”
He got to his feet carefully, as if he wasn't quite sure how to stand. Despite having claimed he was fine, he rubbed the side of his head with a hoof and looked somewhat dazed.
“Just what are you two doing?”
Considering the sternness of the voice, the two ponies half-expected to see their mother when they turned toward the house. They instead saw a strict-looking Cadence standing in the doorway.
The siblings reacted in different ways: Twilight squealed and hurried toward her favorite foalsitter, while Shining Armor went pink and stayed in the exact same spot.
“It's freezing cold,” Cadence admonished them. “What am I supposed to tell your parents when they come back from their trip? Two frozen ponies are not going to make a good impression on my employers.”
Both Twilight Sparkle and Shining Armor knew that, regardless of Cadence's authoritarian speech, she was actually inviting them inside for hot chocolate.
As usual, the cocoa was delicious.
Cadence was an old-fashioned type of mare when it came to cooking. Instead of using the more popular instant hot chocolate mix, she went to the trouble of making it from scratch. The process was longer and required more work, but there was no arguing with the results. It was always the best hot cocoa and tasted a lot better than the kind from the mix that Twilight's parents kept in the cupboard.
Shining Armor was at first indignant when his parents suggested that Cadence foalsit for Twilight, even though he himself was going to stay home as well. But Night Light had pointed out that his son wasn't the best foalsitter. Shining Armor let Twilight get away with too much and he often became absorbed in his Royal Guard training. When he asked Twilight to aid in his training exercises, the entire house was likely to end up a mess.
There was another reason Shining Armor relented, but it was something he didn't feel he could say aloud.
The two siblings ended up wrapped up in blankets in front of the roaring fire.
“Small chunks of chocolate?”
The mentioned cup went to a happy Twilight Sparkle.
“Small chunks of chocolate and whipped cream?”
Blushing, Shining Armor took the second cup from Cadence.
When the foalsitter disappeared into the next room, Twilight's cheerful smile faded. She stowed the cup of steaming cocoa on a nearby table, her expression unusually solemn.
“I didn't mean to,” the distressed filly uttered in a small voice. “My magic sometimes....you know.”
Shining Armor, who had gotten over the snow cannonball incident, wasn't the least bit angry. He put his own hot chocolate aside and turned to smile reassuringly at his troubled sister.
“Twily, I get it,” he assured her soothingly. “My magic used to do the same thing. We all go through it! It's a part of growing up for a unicorn.”
Still, the look of worry on Twilight's features refused to fade. Her mind kept replaying the occurrence in vivid detail, showing her the exact extent of her magic in that moment. The way she had formed the frigid cannonball with such ease troubled her, as well as the fact that she had felt her magic slipping out of her control a little. And she couldn't forget the stunned look on her brother's face and the care he employed when he stood up.
Realizing that his words weren't puncturing her gloom, Shining Armor nudged her and attempted a careless laugh.
“Can I show you something?”
Curious despite her misery, Twilight followed Shining Armor out of the living room and into her brother's personal sleeping quarters. The room carried a strong scent of lavender, which the older pony was fond of. This aroma mingled delicately with an even stronger smell: Honeysuckle. Cadence had obviously been there to tidy up a few moments previous.
While Twilight stood at the threshold, Shining strode directly into the small room. He stuck his head underneath the bed and seemed to be searching for a particular item. Finally, he levitated a thick photo album from the darkness. Allowing it to float above his head, he beckoned his sister closer.
Her curiosity at its peak, Twilight entered the room for a better look at the item.
A broad smile on his face, Shining Armor opened the album. He flipped through it for a few seconds, reminding Twilight of herself with an exceptional book. As he explored the pages, he spoke to the little filly.
“Mom and Dad don't like to talk about it,” he explained. “I really don't either. But do you know what happened the first time I tried to make a magical shield?”
Finding the picture he wanted, he stopped and pointed it out.
The photograph was of a much younger Shining Armor. He looked to be close to Twilight's current age in the picture. He was lying in a hospital bed with a tired look on his features, the top of his head encased in thick bandages. Standing beside the bed was a filly that Twilight had never seen before. Most of her body was heavily bandaged, a pained smile on her face. She was offering Shining a bushel of grapes, although he seemed unlikely to take them.
“I was trying to protect two ponies my own age,” Shining expounded. “I knew it was stupid to attempt such an advanced spell, but when an angry dragon is bearing down on you, logic doesn't come easily. But the spell backfired in the worst possible way. Instead of protecting anypony, it caused a miniature explosion that injured all three of us. I woke up in the hospital the next day with a terrible headache. If....if a group of ponies hadn't been out hiking that day......”
He hesitated, cringing at the imagined outcome.
“I was the luckiest. The other two ponies had to stay in the hospital for days after I was released. The girl forgave me for my mistake, but never spoke to me again. I never saw the boy again after he finally got out of the hospital. Him and his family moved out of Canterlot for “business reasons”. To this day, I still think that was just an excuse for them to get as far away from me as possible. It's silly, but.....part of me still believes it.”
Abruptly, Shining Armor forced the cheerful expression to return to his features. He was afraid that the descending sorrow of the memory might rub off on Twilight.
“You see? Even future royal guards have trouble with their magic. It's not a big deal, Twily. You're not going to hurt anypony on purpose.”
Twilight's grief was obviously lifting a little after hearing the story. She was gaining her own smile as the facts sank into her mind. To prove that she was on the road to recovery, she gestured toward the open photo album and did what she normally did: Asked a question.
“But why do you have this?” she queried, perplexed. “If something like that happened to me, I wouldn't want somepony to take a picture of it. Even if they did, I wouldn't stick it in an album and put it under my bed!”
Shining Armor laughed, both amused at the question and delighted that she was returning to her usual self.
“You need to see this.”
Thus began a journey of errors, quite a few of them entertaining to listen to. Each tale was attached to yet another photograph in the album. Some of the more intricate ones had an entire page dedicated to them. Every photo in the album had the same general theme: Shining Armor at the tail end of a mistake. There were pictures of him failing at sports, failing at mixing potions, and dressed in silly, albeit adorable, costumes that he didn't seem to be enjoying. He skipped quickly over a picture of himself in a lamb costume on Nightmare Night.
“No one is perfect,” Shining concluded his last non-fiction tale. “Whenever I start to get full of myself, a quick look through here reminds me that I'm really just another pony.”
Twilight laughed at this sentence. At last, she had regained her optimism. All of her misery over the snowball incident had vanished, disappearing under a tidal wave of funny memories.
“Just another pony?” she echoed teasingly. “I guess being my brother doesn't make you special at all, huh?”
Shining Armor ruffled his sister's mane, a sign of affection between the siblings that had survived many years.
“All good ponies should be getting ready for bed.”
Cadence had appeared again, failing to look completely strict as usual.
“Bed?” Twilight repeated blankly.
The siblings turned to gaze out of the bedroom's only window. To their astonishment, a blanket of darkness had fallen across the sky. Sometime between the snowball fight and the storytelling, Princess Celestia had lowered the sun.
Twilight hurried from the room to begin preparing for bed. She knew that Cadence would allow her to read for at least another hour, but only if she was ready for bed in less than ten minutes.
Finding himself alone with Cadence, Shining Armor turned an interesting shade of pink.
“I....I should be getting ready for bed as well,” he stammered. “School tomorrow. Busy day. Research paper to finish.”
“I already finished mine,” Cadence commented, giggling slightly.
Shining had forgotten for a moment that Cadence went to the same school that he did. Chuckling nervously and feeling quite unintelligent, he returned the photo album to its original place.
Cadence left the room before he could notice that she was blushing herself.
Twilight thought about the stories as she climbed into bed.
It was fascinating to learn about her brother's past mistakes. She had always been somewhat under the impression that he was perfect. She now understood that he wasn't flawless and nopony expected her to be either. Still, making mistakes happened to be one of the things she was scared of.
But Shining Armor bounced back from those blunders, she told herself. He was still a pony that could be looked up to.
He'll be captain of the Royal Guard, Twilight thought confidently. And I'll be.....something.
With that, she picked up a large book and began learning about the art of the snowball fight.