//------------------------------// // I'm a Slow Learner // Story: Do That Again // by Bad Horse //------------------------------// The day after Hearth’s Warming, the snow was still pink with morning light when Snowfall Frost looked out from her laboratory window at the quiet town below. Except for a few foals playing in the snow, every other pony was still sleeping off last night’s festivities. Snowfall chuckled, then let out a full-throated whinny. She felt too good to stay in bed. She had too much to do! Clean the dirty glassware from last night, take the perishable potions out of cold storage, start the dragon’s tears decanting… The furnace gave her a great deal of trouble. Lighting it was Snow Dash’s job, but Snowfall had given her the day off. By the time Snowfall had realized it wasn’t as simple as it looked, she’d tracked coal dust across the floor, sneezed last night’s ashes about the room, and filled the bottom of the fire pit with enough half-burnt matchsticks that it looked like she was trying to build a model of a burnt-out house. She was trying to calculate whether she had better chances of lighting it successfully, or of cleaning everything up to make it look like she hadn’t tried, when she remembered she was a unicorn, and all this nonsense with matches and newspaper and such was for those silly ponies who weren’t. She lit the fire with a burst from her horn and giggled. How absurd, not to be a unicorn! Before long the furnace rocks were glowing, the proper potions were laid out neatly in rows, and the blood-red mixture in the cauldron bubbled and gurgled like a happy baby. Snowfall hummed the tune of a carol she’d learned from Dash the night before as she dropped the four Hearth’s Warming presents in—the scarf Dash had given her, a jar of moisturizer from that white pony with the impractically long red dress, and two pieces of rock candy from that strange grey mare. She held her breath. The moisturizer might have been more of an insult than a present, but she hoped it would count anyway. The potion turned a bright glowing green, and Snowfall clapped her hooves together and whinnied. Success! “Now, hold on, there,” a voice said out of nowhere, echoing about the room. “You sure you wanna go through with this?” “Oh, yes!” Snowfall said. “Yes, I am!” A ghostly cowpony hat rose from the middle of the cauldron, followed by the ghostly pony wearing it. Her face was freckled, and her mane done up in those long ponytails that were all the rage lately. “Well, I’m the Spirit of Hearth’s Warming Past, and you and me have gotta have us...” The Spirit of Hearth’s Warming Past shook her head and blinked. “You again? Didn’t we just do this last night?” “...Maybe,” Snowfall admitted. The spirit rose from the cauldron and landed gracefully on the wooden floor in front of Snowfall. “And didn’t them other spirits tell you about the importance of Hearth’s Warming, and how if you cast that spell, the Windigoes will come back, everypony will freeze, and the world will be a big ball o’ snow forever and ever? And you agreed it’d be for the best to dump out that potion, forget that spell, and enjoy the spirit of camaraderie and good cheer that is Hearth’s Warming?” Snowfall nodded. “Something like that.” “Uh-huh.” The spirit looked around the room. “Seems to me like you got all those same gizmos and potions out as last night.” “True,” Snowfall said. She took a step closer to the spirit. The spirit stirred the pot of green ichor with one hoof. “This looks like the same green gooey stuff you tried to destroy Hearth’s Warming with last night.” Snowfall trotted up to the spirit’s side and looked around the room with her. “True,” she agreed, and giggled. The spirit sniffed at a book propped up on a nearby table. “And this here book is open to a page saying ‘A spell to destroy Hearth’s Warming Eve’ at the top.” “Also true,” Snowfall said, leaning towards the book and brushing up against the spirit. The spirit took a quick step away from Snowfall. “Uh-huh. Um. You got an explanation for all that? Are you just slow at cleaning up?” “Well, you see…” Snowfall took a deep breath. “I changed my mind.” “Come again?” “I changed my mind,” Snowfall said. “Hearth’s Warming is a silly holiday and I want to do away with it. Again.” She walked around to the front of the spirit, getting right in her face. “Don’t try to stop me.” “Okay,” the spirit said. She turned around and began walking away. “Wait!” Snowfall called. “Aren’t you going to try to stop me?” The spirit stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Not that way again. I already said my piece last night. Ain’t no sense repeating it.” Snowfall hurried to catch up with the spirit. “I’m a slow learner! I have a terrible memory.” She smiled bashfully. “Sometimes it takes me a few times.” The spirit narrowed her eyes at Snowfall. “Really. So what do you remember about last night?” Snowfall stepped up close to the spirit again. “I remember the surge that ran through my body when you walked through me. It was better than the first time I accidentally electrocuted myself.” She shut her eyes and shivered. “Um, yeah. About that.” The spirit coughed. “You didn’t happen to mention that to the other spirits, did you?” Snowfall sighed. “It was the most thrilling feeling I’ve ever felt! Nothing comes close to it!” “Nothing?” the spirit said. “Not even… when you get together with a feller you like, and, uh...” “The life of a powerful unicorn is very busy,” Snowfall said. She blinked. “Do you mean that… that it feels like that, when…” “The life of a farmer’s also busy,” the spirit said. “Afterlife, too, for that matter. Rest in peace, my ass.” “Well.” Snowfall smiled. “It seems we both have some catching up to do.” “I always have catching up to do,” the spirit said. “With my work.” “I remember how you caught me up with your lariat. And then you carried me off, soaring through the sky…” Snowfall leaned into the spirit and let out a small gasp of pleasure. “Hey!” the spirit said, jumping back. “What do you take me for, a biophiliac? It was just one time!” “And you liked it!” Snowfall said. “Like you like this!” She lunged at the spirit and plunged into its middle. “Whoa! Whoa! You are in my personal space!” The spirit bucked violently, accomplishing nothing at all. Then she dashed about the room trying to get loose of Snowfall, while Snowfall dashed about trying not to be gotten loose of, until the scene ended suddenly with Snowfall bound tightly in a lariat and the spirit glaring at her, both of them panting and shivering. Snowfall had a look of dazed bliss on her face and a line of drool dripping from her mouth. “Looks like a lively one!” a male voice called. Snowfall looked over and saw a ghostly mare and stallion watching from the other side of the room. The stallion winked at her. “Beg pardon. Heard my girl’s call. Don’t mean to get in the way.” “Oh, Annie,” the mare said. “It does my heart good to see you takin’ an interest in death agin’.” Snowfall’s ears picked up. She lifted her head from the floor. “Are these your parents? Hello!” She greeted them by waggling the part of her right foreleg that stuck out past the knot around her legs. “Ma! Pa! This ain’t what it looks like!” the spirit shouted. “Don’t you fret, Annie,” the stallion said. “We always knew you was different.” “Maybe not how different,” the mare added, eyeing Snowfall’s bound figure. “That’s what I like about her!” Snowfall said. “Come on, ma, let’s leave these two be,” the stallion said. He winked at Snowfall again, then poked his wife with one hoof. “Did you get that? Lively?” She flattened her ears and ignored him as the pair began to fade away. “No!” Annie called after them. “You got the wrong idea! I ain’t… This is just my job!” The fading spirit-ponies exchanged worried glances as they disappeared. The spirit’s shoulder’s slumped. She turned to Snowfall, who still lay hogtied on the floor. “I swear, I love ‘em, but sometimes, I almost wish they was alive.”