Why the Gift is Given

by Impossible Numbers

The Ultimate Reason

Dawn crept through the window and blazed a square off the opposite side of her room. Ruby thought she heard hoofsteps, and then only silence.

The instant she awoke, last night hit her all at once. She refused to take any more.

Ruby threw herself out of bed. She marched out of the room and checked Berryshine’s. Empty. So she’d gone out.

Ruby herself had no idea what she was doing. All she knew was she suddenly couldn’t stand living like this. Which was odd, because this was hardly the first time she’d had a night like last night’s. In fact, she’d planned to get up, have breakfast, go out, try again to find something nice for Hearth’s Warming – except she didn’t want to!

She couldn’t.

She didn’t know why she should.

She had this horrible sense that something too big for words – even for thoughts – was pushing her brain up from the inside. Some sense that the world hadn’t merely turned upside-down again, but was now trying to turn itself inside-out.

Why? The word kept rattling around in her head, banging against her skull in the manner of an enraged animal rattling the bars. Why? Why? Why?

So she skipped breakfast. Ignoring Piña’s startled cry, she burst through the front door and followed the only instinct that was making any sense to her.

A while later, Piña scurried after her. “Ruby, where are you going? You haven’t eaten Big Sis’s toast! She left some!”

“I’m figuring out Dinky’s silly question,” Ruby snapped. “Don’t try and stop me.”

“What? Why? Ruby! You’re walking too fast! I can’t walk that fast!”

Out of Ponyville’s maze of cottages and onto the threshold of the countryside, she came up to the vast corrugated fields of snow. All that was left of Golden Harvest’s farmland was a barren whiteness, splashed with mud here and there, all leaving the towering, teetering timber domicile itself stranded amid a sea of cold.

Dinky was already there, standing at the edge overlooking all. She turned at their approach.

“I thought you might show up,” she said, smiling and falling effortlessly into step alongside them. “We had the same idea, didn’t we?”

“What idea?” said Piña behind them. “Why won’t you tell me?”

Never looking away from Golden Harvest’s house as she fought against the brown and white slush, Ruby snorted. “Dinky said that Amethyst said that Carrot Top said something about why we give gifts.”

“So?”

“What do you mean ‘so’?” said Dinky, almost laughing. “Aren’t you excited? We’re on a quest now! We’re exploring! We’re finding this out! We're brightening up the world!”

“The real reason why anyone gives gifts,” said Ruby. “For real.”

“The ultimate reason!” Dinky could hardly contain her glee.

“What’s 'ultimate' mean?” said Piña.

“It means you won’t get a better reason,” said Ruby. “Because it’s the biggest reason of all.”

“Huh? Why?”

Ruby growled; fighting through some of the slush was like wading through quicksand. “Why? Because it’s the biggest reason of all! You can’t get much bigger than ‘why’.”

“Why?”

Viciously, Ruby kicked the ground away and stormed onwards. She could feel the enormous weight of the idea, as firm as the world she was striding on. Vast as a planet, just as indescribably strange, but definitely there.

“You know,” she said.

“I don’t!”

“You know, it’s like… it’s like… why bother giving gifts? Why anything? What’s it for? You don’t want to know that?”

“Er…” Dinky coughed and jumped out of the drifts. “That’s going a bit far. I was just curious.”

Ruby was burning, not even feeling the snow anymore. She knew she was gabbling. It seemed the only way to capture the idea.

“What’s the biggest reason of all, then?” she snapped. “Do you have to do it? What are you going to do? Why are you going to do it?”

“Er… um…” Dinky’s voice strained with discomfort.

“Can you change it, then? Can you do something else?”

“Well, yeah, you could not get a present, but –”

“But then you can’t change it, because you’re going to do that, instead. Nothing changes, but then… then something must change, or what’s the point?”

“Are you OK, Ruby?” said Dinky, not even pretending anymore.

“She’s been acting weird the whole morning,” said Piña before yelping at a squelch of mud.

Finally, Ruby breached the perimeter and leaped up the rickety wooden steps of the back entrance. She threw the door open and strode in, ignoring Dinky’s shouts and Piña’s wails behind her.

In the timber box of a room beyond, a filly stood with a broom in her hooves. Ruby and she stopped and stared at each other. Whatever had propelled Ruby through the fields hadn’t prepared her for a filly, and indoors the same warming energy now warmed her to an uncomfortable degree.

Ruby fidgeted. It was “No Identity”, Golden Harvest's younger sister. She could handle other ponies' younger sisters, but she’d never got a good idea of what to do around this one.

“No Identity? Where’s Carrot Top?” said Ruby.

“My name’s Odd Job,” said “No Identity” in a voice resigned to say this forever. Transferring the broom between her hooves, she nodded to the next door. “She’s in there.”

“OK.” Ruby went straight for it.

“No, hold on! She’s got a guest!”

Ruby burst in…

…on Golden Harvest, sitting up to a crate-for-a-table, her laughter swiftly cut off at this intrusion. Unusually, she was lounging on her back, propped up by her elbow, while her other forelimb reached across for a mug. This was not a position to her advantage; farmers generally sat tight during the winter months, having nothing to do, and in Golden Harvest’s case there was a noticeable pudginess around her belly, suggestive of one too many indulgent evenings.

Opposite sat Berryshine. Her laughter settled to a snorting chortle on her own time, intrusion or no intrusion. Contrasting with her host, she sat up and leaned forwards, sucking through a bendy straw connected to her own slim novelty cup, itself on the crate-for-a-table.

Unlike last night, her eyes were alive. Even her smile focused more sharply, until she looked like a crescent moon with a face behind it.

Ruby gaped. They both looked up at her.

She said, “What…?”

“Hiya, Ruby!” Berryshine waved and beamed at her, showing more of her brilliant teeth. “What a nice surprise, eh?”

Golden Harvest sat up at once, trying to hide her pudginess behind her forelimbs.

On the crate-for-a-table was the Daring Do board game. Whoever was playing Caballeron was halfway across the board, whereas Daring Do’s piece was stuck at the beginning – Are you mad? Who cares? Why have they got the game at all!?

“What…?” Ruby said. Behind her, clattering hooves told her Dinky and Piña had caught up at last.

Following her gaze, Berryshine rubbed her chest casually. “Yes. I used to play this all the time with dear old Goldie. Didn’t we play this all the time, Goldie?”

“Uh, yes, yes we did.” Golden Harvest rubbed her forehead, not so casually. “I mean, not for years, obviously, but Berry just wanted, you know, for old times’ sake, just this once, I was going to give her one game, that’s all… um…”

Ruby hardly ever saw so much sweat glisten on one pony.

“Ha!” said Berryshine, a diabolical glint in her eye now tainting her sharp smile. “And just like old times, I’m knocking the stuffing out of her! Your Auntie Berry isn’t called the Daring Do champion for nothing!”

Ruby continued staring for a few more seconds before she finally caught up with herself. She turned to Golden Harvest at once, falling back on her original plan, come what may.

“Carrot Top…” she began.

“My name’s Golden Harvest,” said “Carrot Top” in a voice also resigned to say this forever. “Yes? Oh my, you look a bit red around the face. And you’re covered in mud. What’s wrong?”

Ruby took a deep breath. “Dinky said that Amethyst said that you said that… that ponies who don’t earn their way end up in a box.”

“Did I?” said Golden Harvest, looking to Berryshine for support and finding only confusion. “I, uh, don’t know what you mean…”

“And something about why we give gifts. This for that.”

“Tit for tat,” whispered Dinky.

“Tit for tat, yeah,” corrected Ruby at once.

Golden Harvest looked from one to the other in the search for some glimmer of understanding. “Look, what is all this about?”

“Why do you give gifts on Hearth’s Warming!?” bellowed Piña.

“What?”

“WHY DO YOU GIVE GIFTS ON –!?”

“I heard you! I’m not deaf!” Again, Golden Harvest looked at Berryshine, seeking support and getting confusion. “Me? Well, you have to, right? It’s Hearth’s Warming. Everyone generally expects it.”

“What is this in aid of?” said Berryshine, pushing her cup away and swivelling on her seat to face them.

Ruby now had too many ponies to keep track of; Piña was so out-of-breath that she kept gasping as though emerging from water, Dinky stepped forwards to wave for attention, and both adults kept fidgeting where they sat.

“What?” Ruby said. “You just do it?”

“Me?” Golden Harvest shrugged. “Well, yes. I’d get funny looks if I didn’t, wouldn’t I?”

No. I’m not putting up with this. She glared at Berryshine. “So what you’re saying is,” she said coldly, “is that you give presents because the other ponies will punish you if you don’t?”

“Ruby, what are you going on about?” said Berryshine, struggling to wipe the whole thing clean with a smile again.

“So you have to earn presents? So’s not to get punished? That’s it?”

Golden Harvest rounded on her friend. “Berry, what have you been feeding these two?”

“What do you mean, what have I –!?” Berryshine spluttered. “She just said you were telling Dinky –”

“Telling Ammy,” said Dinky helpfully.

“Right. Telling Ammy, telling Dinky –”

“No, no. You say ‘Telling Amethyst’. I get to call her Ammy, not you.”

“Right. Telling Amethyst, telling Dinky all this stuff about boxes and earning your way.”

“Auntie Berry isn’t gonna end up in a box!” wailed Ruby.

She clamped shut at once. Despite those words wailing out of her own mouth, she’d had no idea where they’d come from. A seismic weight shifted around her private nightmare. Something had opened up inside her chest, and she didn’t like it.

Ruby watched the adults squirm where they sat. They were hopeless, the pair of them. It had been a simple question, and they’d gone and muddled it up. She looked to the other two, and saw both Dinky and Piña staring at the adults like lasers. Their mud-splattered coats gave the impression of two cannons about to explode. Merely standing near them, she felt the air thick and hot as flamethrowers.

Within her own head, the world was frozen: not quite upside-down, not quite inside-out. A mere word one way or the other could tip the lot.

Golden Harvest licked her lips. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” she said – or rather rehearsed from some inner script. “I told Amethyst about that box thing when she was round here one night. All I said was that they’re a little less forgiving in the big cities. That’s all I said. It was just talk. We had to pass a long winter evening, you know.”

The world quaked, but remained teetering, not yet tipped.

“It’s not like that here in Ponyville,” she continued. “No one’s going to end up in a box just because times have been a bit harsh. There,” she went on, letting out a breath of relief. “Is that all you were worried about?”

“I wasn’t worried.” Ruby shook with the lie. Within her own head, the world finally started to fall over, in the deceptively slow and floaty way of a glacier breaking free.

“I said nothing about gifts. It’s not like you earn gifts, or anything. It’s just one of those things you do.” Grumbling under her breath, Golden Harvest added, “Beats me why.”

Berryshine thumped the table. “Ha! Don’t be so stingy, Goldie! You always were a tight one!”

“Will you stop calling me ‘Goldie’? I’m not stingy. When you’re running your own farm, you tell me whether or not it’s stingy to keep to your budget, watch the harvest day and night, make sure everything’s on schedule –”

Berryshine grabbed her cup and raised it high, almost to the ceiling. “To Goldie’s work ethic! Ha! But not to her Hearth’s Warming spirit!”

“Now, hold on. That’s going a bit far…”

They soon devolved into an argument, which on one side was laughing and half-garbled with the drink, and on the other side was firm and level with barely suppressed impatience.

Ruby looked back. Both fillies shrugged at her. This was grown-up stuff, their shrugs said. Grown-ups will be grown-ups.

After some time spent like this, chairs scraped back. Ruby saw Berryshine hop down and skip towards her, and self-preservation made her jump away in turn. Yet it was no good; strong limbs got her tight within the near-strangling embrace of the sentimental.

“Oh, you silly little thing!” Berryshine somehow found a way to squeeze tighter. Miraculously, no bones broke.

“Auntiiiiiiiiieeeee!”

“Me in a box?”

“Let me gooooo!” A pop later, she shot out like a cork and landed hard on her flank.

“I just don’t like waste,” said Golden Harvest to no one in particular. “You know how much wrapping paper costs, for something that gets thrown away anyway? And before you say anything, it’s not laziness. I work on a farm, for crying out loud. You try mucking in the mud for a living. See how twitchy about money you get.”

“Come on,” said Berryshine. “Let’s take you home, eh? We can start today all over again. What say you to that?”

“Why?” said Ruby suspiciously.

“Goldie, we’ll be back later. Hold the game for me, will you? Still gotta beat your haunches when I get back, you know.”

“Um,” said Dinky, stepping forwards.

“Sure, you can come,” said Berryshine with a shrug and a smile. “Haven’t got much in, mind, but you pig out on what you want, you little scallywag. Come on now.”

Still not remotely sure what was going on, Ruby made no effort to resist. Instead, she was nudged out the door – past Odd Job, who straightened up and pretended she hadn’t pressed her ear against the frame the whole time – and out of the box-like room to the bright and endless wastes beyond. Only the tramping of hooves on wood reminded her that she wasn’t alone against all this.

She was nudged back through the mud and the snow, this time not warm with emotion, but numb with doubt.

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