Turning Back the Winter

by Dinkledash

Warp and Hoof

"Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm... la, da da da da..." The pink earth pony hummed tunelessly around the broom in her mouth, her pale yellow mane shaking and glinting in the early morning sunlight as she swept out her shop. Measure Legscye, you have to learn the lyrics to that song some day...

The small, tidy store was nestled between a bakery and chemist's shop. Today was a good day; the chemist was downwind. The leggy mare inhaled deeply and the aroma of fresh bread filled her nostrils. Beats the smell of a clindamycin suspension any day of the week. She wrinkled her nose at the memory the odor of dirty socks. Dirty socks worn by dirty diamond dogs digging in the dirty dirt... She chuckled at herself as she pushed the small pile of collected dust out the front door, the breeze picking it up as it blew towards the chemist's.

She shivered as she put the broom in the corner and closed the door. It's colder than usual this morning, she thought as she grabbed and donned a white woolen hat and scarf from a peg on the wall. Well, the sun is burning out, apparently. Unless somepony comes up with a bright idea, we'll all be ponycicles next winter!

She forced that disturbing thought to the back of her mind as she fiddled with the clothing on her ponnequins, adjusting a fashionably flared skirt here, cinching a bodice there, until she was satisfied with the display. Then she walked into the back of her store, laying out her patterns, cloth and the sewing boxes she had organized by job type. She hefted her namesake legscye, a tool used to properly mark cloth for fitted foreleg sleeves, and made sure it was sized properly for the dress that had been ordered. A size four, for Banana Nutmeg. Check.

There was a soft noise behind her, and she whirled around, shears in her hoof. These connected, quite by accident, with a rather surprised earth pony dressed all in black, wearing a mask over her eyes. She shrieked as the blades sliced deeply into the soft tissue between her nostrils, bright red blood erupting from her muzzle.

Measure shrieked back, the blood splattering her face and hooves, and she dropped the scissors. The intruder groaned and placed a black sack she had in a saddle bag over the wound, applying direct pressure as tears streamed down her face. "I'm so sorry! Oh gosh, let me get a doctor!" The would-be kidnapper was making whimpering noises, putting her muzzle in her air as she tried to staunch the flow, staggering and falling back onto her haunches, tears streaming from her eyes.

Measure ran out the front of her shop and barreled straight into Starswirl. The two went down in a jingling, bloody heap as Celestia came around the corner. "Starswirl! Stop fooling around!"

She gasped as he extricated himself from Measure, blood sticking to his beard and face. "Oh honey, are you hurt?"

"I'm fine, babe." He looked at the pink earth mare, with blood spattered all over her front. "What happened to you?"

She shook her head. "I'm fine. The blood isn't mine; there's a mare in the shop who's badly hurt. I'm off to find a doctor!"

Celestia's heart fell as she jumped to the wrong conclusion. "You aren't going anywhere! Who sent you!? Who do you work for!?" Celestia lowered her horn, threateningly.

"What, who me? I work for myself. What is all this about?" The mare backed up fearfully as Celestia's horn glowed pink and a nimbus shone across Measure's features. "What did you just do!?"

Celestia looked chagrined as the identification spell did its work. "Sorry, Ms. Legscye. I thought you were the assassin." Measure's eyes widened as she realized she had been magically identified by a unicorn mage. A huge, white mare with pink mane and tail.

"Equesse Celestia?" Celestia still wasn't used to being recognized throughout Unicornia, but she had a rather distinct appearance, after all.

"Please, don't." Celestia reached down to lift the earth pony from her curtsy. "We don't have time for that now and anyway, it's all nonsense. I'm really just an apprentice mage. But we have to get you out of here!"

"Well, first we need to get a doctor for that... assassin you say? Why would somepony want to assassinate me? I'm a dressmaker, not a politician!"

"And I ab dot an athathid! I'm a kitnapher!" The pony in black stood shakily in the doorway as blood dripped down her neck and chest. "Ad we butht go now! Dey cub!"

The three ponies in the street stared, uncomprehending. "Dey cub! Dey... bah!" She trotted up to Celestia and let the black sack fall to the ground, blood oozing afresh. "Heal be blease! We are all in danger!"

The wound, though bloody and extremely painful, was actually shallow and superficial. No delving was necessary for Celestia to cauterize the split capillaries and suture the sundered flesh between the earth pony's nostrils. "Oh! Thank you, that was fast! You're good, aren't you?" Celestia murmured something dismissive of the praise as the earth pony reached up and removed her mask. Pale blue eyes blazed over a still-bloody gray muzzle as a fluffy golden mane burst free of its confines. "I was sent here to take Measure to safety, but now it looks like I'll have to rescue you too!"

Starswirl scowled as he exclaimed, "What do you mean, you have to rescue us? From what, exactly?"

Celestia reached out with her magical senses, searching for a threat. Her mane almost stood on end and she gasped as she felt daggers of ice enter her mind. Stars, the power! She whirled around, a moan of despair leaving her throat as she looked upward. A ragged black line drew itself across the blue, clear sky and the temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees in a second.

"From that! Quick, take hold of my cloak, all of you, and close your eyes! Keep them closed; hurry!"

Celestia was terrified. The others were frightened, but she knew the cold, dark minds that regarded them, that prepared to destroy them, to drink their lives. She had identified their enemy. Wendigos. A word to frighten foals and conjure nightmares. We're in a ghost story.

A head, like a pony's but elongated and narrow, ice blue with a white mane entered the world through the tear in the fabric of reality and turned to look at her. Dead eyes, black and empty as space, regarded the party. No, not empty; they were full of hatred... and hunger.

"Close your eyes! Grab her cloak, now!" Celestia had no idea what good it would do, but the identification spell had confirmed that this strange gray earth pony was at least a real pony named Cookie Dough. But there was something odd about her, something off. And there was certainly nothing Celestia herself could do about the wendigo. The grand archmage must be informed; maybe she'd know what to do about it.

She closed her eyes and grabbed the trailing black cloak of Cookie Dough. Starswirl looked at Measure and they both shrugged and did the same. "No peeking!" Cookie Dough seemed to be moving somewhere. "If you open your eyes before we get out the other side, you'll wind up in the nuthouse! Or at least highly eccentric." She reached for what looked like a crack in the doorframe, and then everything sttrrreeeetttttcccccchhhhhhheeeeeeeedddddddddd oooooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuttttttttttttt..............

Celestia didn't know what was happening, but it felt as though she was miles long and only a few atoms thick. Strange lights shone against what she thought of as her closed eyelids. A hoof that was a piece of spaghetti a city block long gripped a cloak as solid as interstellar gas and she was pulled between spaces, around corners, through cracks in the earth and capillaries in the roots of trees. Or so it seemed; her eyes were squeezed shut.

"Wwwwweeeeee aaaaaarrrrrreeeeee ccccoooommmmiiiinnnnggggg iiiiinnnnn! Hhhhhoooollllldddd ttttiiiiggghht!" With that, there was a popping sound and Celestia felt like she was being built up from strands of thread and woven back into the tapestry of her own body. She opened her eyes. They were in a cellar, and it was cold and dark, the only light coming from a small oil lamp. In the wall behind them, there was a crack. We came through that?!

She shook her head and shouted at Cookie Dough as Starswirl and Measure blinked and stared in amazement at their surroundings. "What are you?!"

The gray pony smiled broadly at them all. "I'm a Weaver, of course. And we've just been through the Loom, your h-- okay, right?" She looked briefly confused, then shook her head and grinned in a slightly mad manner. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have to clean up a bit. Still have to keep an eye on you for now, though." With that, she backed up into the crack on the wall, her body seeming to squeeze into the tiny space until all that was left was an blue eye on the wall which stared at them under long lashes. The trio returned the stare, mouths agape. The eye winked at them, merrily.

Starswirl was the first to break the silence. "Well... this is seriously weird and creepy, but I think we know how the earth pony spy network functions now."

"What the hay is going on around here!? Is this some kind of crazy dream or something?" Measure Legscye felt around herself, muttering, "I really have to stop eating Haytalian food before going to bed."

"Putting aside this unusual incident," Starswirl said, motioning to the eyeball on the wall, "do you have any insight as to what we were fleeing?"

Celestia shivered, and not from the cold. "Yes. But I want to talk to Dream Chaser first, just to make sure I know what I'm talking about. I don't want bad information to get out." She made a small head motion towards the blood-spattered Measure who was kneeling, looking at the eyeball, which seemed to think it was in a staring contest with her. Starswirl nodded grimly.

Measure made a startled grunt and backed up from the wall as Cookie Dough, now clean and divested of her black costume, popped back into the room, her eyeball snapping back to her head, rocking it back sightly. "Miss me? Except for my eye?" She winked and smiled, still vibrating slightly like a soft rubber ball that has just finished bouncing. Celestia and Starswirl shared a look.

"Oh come on, don't everypony thank me all at once here!" She reached back into her puffy golden mane and from somewhere, pulled out a pitcher of water, a wash basin and some towels. "Maybe you should get cleaned up first, Measure."

"Umm..." Celestia was still at a loss for words when speaking to this... Weaver... whatever that meant. "Could we maybe get an explanation or something?"

"Well... no, not really. But you can have some cookies." The impossible mare reached back into her mane once more and pulled out a big plate of hot chocolate chip cookies, released it to float in mid-air, and then quickly reached to a location just outside of Celestia's peripheral vision, retrieving a set of table and chairs that obviously weren't there before and moved them under the cookie plate, which dropped onto the table with a clatter.

"I, I, ah..." Celestia sputtered. "I really don't want any cookies, thank you, though I appreciate the offer. What I really would like is..."

Cookie Dough cheerfully interrupted her, "Cake! Of course, how could I forget? Sorry!" She slammed her face down on the table and somehow managed to fit the entire tray of cookies in her mouth. She made a loud swallowing sound, and the platter was plainly visible as it expanded her throat to five times its normal width, hitting the floor with a clang as the bottom of Cookie's belly rebounded when it reached her stomach.

"Hey, just a..." Starswirl was dumbfounded. "How? Why? Where?" He dabbed lightly at his beard with a wet towel, absently noting that Cookie Dough's blood tasted rather like strawberry jam.

She ignored him, smiling broadly at Celestia and reaching once more into her mane. She produced a rather large and elaborately decorated white cake, placing it on the table. Cookie Dough shook her head and four plates flew out to land in a stack. "Yellow cake with creme vanilla frosting and raspberry filling!" She pulled a cake knife out of nowhere and started serving up.

"Wha... my favorite!" Celestia couldn't resist licking her lips. Of all her vices, cake was the most irresistible. If it was yellow cake with creme vanilla frosting and raspberry filling, she really didn't care where it came from. She salivated. "Do you have any coffee up there, by chance?"

"I always keep some stashed around in case of a coffee emergency. Which happens to me every morning, for some reason." She swept away her poofy golden tail and a silver coffee service appeared as though it had been there the whole time. Celestia grinned as a deliciously calorie-laden plate was deposited in front of her.

"Celestia, how can you eat cake at a time like this?" Starswirl looked at her in confused outrage as Cookie Dough poured a steaming cup for the Equesse.

Celestia's horn glowed and her saddle bag opened. Napkins and silverware floated out to complete the four settings. "With a fork, my dear. I hope you don't think me uncivilized." She giggled and then closed her mouth around a mouthful of pure delight.

Comments

[NobleValor]

*Impersonating Howard Cosell* "Pinkie Pie...You have got yourself some competition."

[NobleValor]

And, lest I forget:

[Dinkledash]

5455074 Yeah, well, I suppose I should have put it on hiatus, sorry. I started working from home and to be honest, now that I don't spend every other week in a hotel room, I wind up having little opportunity for solitude at night, so less writing gets done. Like, zero.

I just had a week off watching my kid during his school break, so I was able to get some quiet time. I just need to learn how to write with distractions.

[NobleValor]

5455121 Eh, no worries bout that. My own story is put on hiatus while I caught up with other projects (and to be honest with everyone, it needed work anyway).

[Dinkledash]

5455138 I wish I could get more views though. I really appreciate your feedback but it doesn't contain much in the way of criticism. I mean, enthusiastic support is great, but it's not like this thing has 100 upvotes. I'm worried it's just appealing to a niche.

[NobleValor]

5455548 You could ask one of those extremely critical groups to do a review. (I hear 'Rage Reviews' is a good one, however most of the people on it tend to vent their frustrations on the story, but they do offer good reviews with that in mind.)

[Dinkledash]

5456490 I want to finish it before I ask for a review, and eventually submit it to EqD... maybe I need an editor. I go back and re-read it and I see things I don't like... maybe I should finish it before I do any more updates but I don't know if I can maintain that effort without some support.

When I wrote Twilight's Dawn, I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and a lot of readers were enthusiastic in their praise... then someone with a great deal of insight and kindness wrote critically about it in the nicest way they could and what they said was so true and so devastating that I can't even look at it any more without seeing so much wrong with it.

I really don't want to get to a point where I think I'm finished with this one and someone points out a fatal flaw.