//------------------------------//
// 3: "A Hearth's Warming Carol" Part 2 
// Story: Snowed in on Hearth's Warming Eve 
// by GoneGuy 
//------------------------------//

	Icy Heart grumbled miserably as he walked home to his manor on the southern side of the town known only as "Village." The air was cold and brisk, with each moment getting colder and brisker. He walked past several foals singing Hearth's Warming Songs, and seeing the happiness on their faces, scared them off the streets and back into their homes.
He arrived at his manor and began to pull out the key to his door. Unbeknownst to him, his door knocker briefly morphed into the face of his old partner, Money Hungy, and it howled a whispered howl. It was gone quick as it was here, and Icy Heart went inside to fetch himself some gruel before heading off to bed.
He sat in his chair, gruel still sitting on the table, sleeping silently. In the dark manor, a thumping of iron against a wooden floor was heard, waking the miser and startling him as the thumping grew closer and closer. He turne his chair away from the fireplace and sat upon it, ready to face the potential attacker. But the door did not open, and the thumping stopped.
He turned his chair around, and as he sat, a sight he never thought he would behold again floated down manifesting right in front of him. It was agrim spectre, staring at him intently. He had a handkerchief tied around his face, as he did when they had buried him. He was transparent, so that when Icy Heart looked through him, he could see through to his own barely living fire. He wore chains made of padlocks and money-boxes, and deeds, and keys and ledgers, and of heavy pursues, which formed round about him, entangling him all around.
He stared at the phantom for a moment, and asked, "What do you want with me?"
"I have business with you, Icy Heart."
"Who are you?"
"Ask me who I was."
"Who were you, then?"
"In life, I was your partner, Money Hungry."
"Bah!" Icy Heart scoffed, "you are no phantom! Just a hallucination brought about by a bit of indegestion! You may be nothing more than a bit of overdone grass, or some moldy hay, or perhaps and undercooked potato! There's more gravy than grave to you!"
"Is that so?" the spectre asked, then removing the handkerchief round about his face, with his jaw dropping down farther than any living pony's could, letting out a bone-chilling howl.
"Have mercy, O dreaful apparition!" Icy Heart said as he pleaded, "Why do you trouble me, O spirit?"
"I am here to warn you, Icy Heart." the being said as he returned his handkerchief to it's position.
"But why, pray tell, are there chains round about you?"
"These are the chains I unknowingly forged in life," the spectre said, "those of greed and hatred toward ponykind... as I took from the weak and helpless, my chain grew longer still... and I am now doomed to wander the earth forever... I'm captive bound and double-ironed, exhausted by the weight.... but don't you know, your chains were just as great seven Hearth's Warming Ago. And yet you have lingered here longer than I, so that your chain is even the more heavy. These chains are forged by what you say and do....."
"You must wander the land always?"
"Yes. It is a deep and unending torment. It is this time of year where my torment grows unbearable. But hear me now, Icy Heart! My time here grows short, for I am here to warn that there is a way to escape this cruel fate. Tonight you shall be visited by three spirits. There is no light of my penance, for I have sat invisible with you many a day. Take heed of the three spirit's lessons."
"Could I not have all three at once, to get it over with?"
"Expect the first on the first hour. The second, on the second, and the third on the third hour. Without their lessons, you shall be brought into the same fate as me in the afterlife. Goodbye, Icy Heart."
Money Hungry left out the window, and Icy Heart dashed after him, and saw the air filled with spirits, all bound with chains desperately trying to interfere for good in the lives of the living. But none came to fruition, and they all continued their endless struggle.
He closed the window and went straight to his bed, muttering humbug for the last time before drifting to sleep.