Home For Hearth's Warming
Things had only just started, and already, Crystal felt a headache brewing behind her eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was just a phantom sensation within the dream or actually happening to her body, but it felt real enough right then.
She took a deep breath and tried to release it slowly, but the noise all around her unsettled her attempt to find calm.
“Mom! Mama! Mum! Mommy!”
Crystal turned her head to see Coral. Or, at least, the lanky little figure that had her eldest‘s voice; it was hard to see anything distinct under the full-body armor.
The beaming smile was audible in the filly’s voice as she exclaimed, “Runic says that since this is a dream, we can do anything we want! Isn’t this the best? I’m a knight!”
“I see that, my darling.” Crystal forced a smile and looked around to also see, with only a slight amount of dismay, that others had discovered their newfound powers as well.
Soarin was backed up against the wall, cornered by a very masculine Sunny Day. Her—his?—tail swished as she said in her normal voice, “Come on, Soarin. It’ll be hot!”
“Sunny, this is so not my fetish.” Soarin swallowed, his throat going visibly tight from the strain.
A flare of something sparkly and green drew Crystal’s attention away. Winterspear—now, for whatever reason, a unicorn—threw spells into the air in quick, rapid succession. Each one was a different color, spiraled in random directions, and resembled magic Crystal had only seen in a show once in Las Pegasus. Real magic was much subtler, and much less impressive.
“This is getting out of hoof,” Silent said, coming up alongside Crystal and brushing his shoulder to hers. “I’m worried about the princess.”
Crystal chewed on her bottom lip. “I’m sure they’ll settle down once the initial excitement wears off. It’s not as if this is an everyday occurrence, after all.”
“Or everynight.” Silent shot her a small, crooked smile. “All right. She insists she’s fine, so I suppose a little longer won’t hurt.”
She pushed herself up to kiss his cheek. “Could you mind Lady Coral, then? She’s just conjured herself a—“
A high-pitched squeal tore through the air. “Sweet Celestia! Who invited the miniature knight with a giant sword?!”
Silent looked over at his metal-clad daughter and her new sword that was as tall as him. The white of his face turned ashen and gaunt. “Cadet!” He took off in a half-trot, half-scramble. “Put down your weapon!”
A pink stallion with a familiar mauve mane and tail trotted past, a wicked grin on his face that Crystal could recognize in any size crowd.
“Velvet Step,” Crystal called in a low tone that could stop a wild foal in her tracks. “What are you doing?”
The stallion looked over, cocked his brow, and said in Velvet’s voice, “Better question. What are you doing?” He—She tipped her head up to elongate her broad jawline. “Answer: not having fun.”
All Crystal could do was watch as Velvet approached Soarin and Sunny, who seemed to have since arrived at a stalemate of communicating solely through direct eye contact.
When Velvet was close enough, she slapped Sunny on the flank and grinned at the startled whinny. “Soarin, if you’re not going to appreciate this stud on your hooves, I’ll totally do it for you.”
Soarin’s ears shot up. “What? No! I appreciate her! Just, I mean, I appreciate her, you know. A mare. My marefriend. Plus, what would Azu say?”
A little voice squeaked from somewhere else, “Super hot! Kiss him!”
“I—” Soarin sputtered, looking between Velvet as she chanted ‘kiss him’ and Sunny, who also chanted ‘kiss him’. He rolled his eyes and threw himself forward to plant a wet, loud smooch on Sunny’s stallionly lips while Velvet and several nearby ponies cheered.
Meanwhile, a pegasus version of Iridescence was flipping about through the spell-filled air like a Wonderbolt in training. She ducked under a purple bolt and around an arc of red sparkles. Velour and Clement sat on the ground nearby, sprawled out with a bowl of popcorn shared between them as they watched the impromptu show.
“Apologies, Mother. I understand this is most troubling for you.” Cherry floated up to nuzzle up against the underside of Crystal’s chin.
Crystal tried her best to not wince at the sound of her baby’s voice—her temporary, substitute, dream-only snafu of a voice, Crystal desperately reminded herself as she winced anyway.
“You don’t need to apologize, dear heart.” Crystal sat on her haunches to free her forelegs, which captured and cuddled her foal. At least she felt and smelled the same. “We’re all together for Hearth’s Warming. That’s all I wanted this year.”
Cherry bubbled, gurgled, and found a stray lock of blonde mane to chew on. “Then we shall rejoice!” She craned her neck to look behind them. “What is this? Uncle Runic is conducting experiments! Please, Mother, release me so I may partake in the science with him.”
Crystal blinked, but couldn’t think to respond before her foal had wriggled out of her grasp and was already flying away. “A—All right, just be careful!”
In the center of all the noise and chaos—though she wished there were a better word—Runic sat, holding two different gemstones in his hooves and beaming up at Marmes Malade, his sweet marefriend who seemed to have just arrived.
“Watch this, Marmesy!” He smashed the two gems together and they fused into an amalgamation of both, green and red streaks blending together in one heart-shaped stone. “I call it a Hearthstone!”
“That’s nice, dearie.” Marmes glanced around, ears pressed flat against her braided mane. Her soft voice was laced with nerves as she asked, “Did your experiment send us to the afterlife?”
“Nope!” Miley bounded over, taking a moment to hug Marmes tight. “This is just a dream.”
Runic looked between them with eyes that seemed comically wide behind his goggles. “This is an opportunity! Can you imagine what we can accomplish in such a lucid dream?” A hoof raised to push his goggles up. “Oh, hey, Cherry!”
Cherry flopped on top of the green flat cap he wore. “Greetings, Uncle Runic. I am here to aid in your experiments.”
Without missing a beat, Runic lit up with a big grin. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
The ceiling slid open, stone grating against stone, revealing a beautiful night sky above. Cherry squealed and wiggled all four of her legs as Runic began to conjure seemingly random objects.
Crystal’s gaze slid across the room. She felt entirely disconnected from it all, like the dreams where she wasn’t actually even present. Just an observer of oddities, distant and uninvolved in the random proceedings.
At least this was a dream and not a nightmare. It’d been years since she’d been plagued by those, and she wasn’t keen on thinking too much about them lest she contribute to the crazed conjuration going on all around her in the worst way possible. Nothing would ruin a good dream quite like blood and death.
Sparkles and rainbows, Crystal hurriedly thought instead, and both began to fill the air around her. She let out a sigh of relief, and her ear twitched back to the nearest voice.
“By the way,” Miley said, one foreleg slung around Marmes’s neck. “Can you tell me anything about this experiment Runic was working on? Like, what level of danger are we talking about here?”
Marmes put a hoof to her cheek in thought. “Oh, goodness, certainly not an Inner Core level danger. More toward the Upper Mantle layer.”
Miley hummed and nodded, understanding in a way only she and Marmes could. “All right, that should be fine, then. I’ll still swing by when this is all over just to be sure.”
“Thank you.” Marmes gave a soft peck of a kiss to Miley’s cheek. “I appreciate that. I’d really hate to be dead. If we are, could you please be sure the marmalade jars in the back room go to good homes?”
“Oh, don’t worry!” Runic chirped, pausing his mad scientist act to smile at them. “If the experiment went wrong, there isn’t a back room anymore to worry about. Or marmalade jars.”
The little pout of Marmes’s lower lip combined with Miley’s stern frown made Runic’s smile fall, and he ducked his head. “I mean, it’s all fine, we’re fine, the back room’s fine. I took every necessary precaution. That’s a rock promise.”
That only made Marmes’s pout more pronounced. “Your last rock promise turned all my glass jars into very lovely conch shells that were very ineffective at storing my marmalade!”
“It’ll be okay, nopony panic,” a vaguely familiar stallion said as he trotted over, a white lab coat materializing around him. “I’m a doctor.”
Miley groaned in spite of the smile tugging at her lips. “You can’t just say that like it solves every problem!”
The earth pony stallion gave a charming wink. “You can’t prove it doesn’t.”
Silent trotted over to them, Coral perched on top of his head as though she weighed nothing despite her armor and drastically downsized sword. “Dr. ‘Miley’s New Husband’, I presume.”
Taking that as a cue to partake in the proceedings rather than just observe, Crystal stood up and went to stand beside Silent. “Miley’s husband? Oh, it’s a shame we haven’t had the opportunity to meet in the real world prior to…” She waved a hoof at all the noise around them. “This.”
“Never bother,” he replied, holding out a hoof. “Miley was the one who wanted to elope for our wedding. It’s a pleasure. I’m Doctor Doctor.”
“Doctor Doctor?” Crystal repeated, her brow furrowing, but she took the offered hoof nonetheless. “I’m sorry, but have we met before?”
There was a mirthful sparkle in his sky-blue eyes as he inclined his head. “It’s always possible! I meet a lot of ponies in my line of work.”
“Wait.” Silent frowned. “Doctor Doctor? As in, you’re a doctor named Doctor? No offense, but isn’t that… a little on the nose?”
Dr. Doctor shrugged, chuckling. “My parents were very determined ponies. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out so well for my sister, Trapeze Artist.” He winked. “She’s an accountant.”
Huffing lightly, Miley swatted at his foreleg and reprimanded in a tone full of fondness, “Stop that! Her name is Lily and she’s very lovely.”
“Hey, Miley!” a voice called, and a Silent-sized Azurite popped into existence in the middle of the group. Her normally cute little smile was somewhat intimidating on her larger self. “Now who’s the biggest little pony?”
With an undignified squawk, Miley went from surprise to indignation to determination, and then she swelled up to be two hooves taller than Azurite. “Still me!”
Azurite frowned and, faster than a blink, she was twice her size. “Nuh-uh!”
“Hey, careful!” Iridescence exclaimed when one of her mid-air triple loops nearly sent her crashing into Miley’s growing flank.
There was no acknowledgement as the two continued to double, triple, quadruple in size. They crashed through the ceiling, sending rubble everywhere that bounced harmlessly off ponies like foam blocks.
Silent’s wings flared to cover Crystal, who had already snared Coral, Clement, and Cherry in her magic to force them to her. His expression turned cold as he yelled, “Fillies, stop right now!”, but his voice was lost in the rapidly increasing chaos around them as ponies scattered to flee the giant hooves.
Somehow, through the noise, Velvet’s voice was the one that reached Crystal’s ears. “Come on, Soarin! The world’s ending, so it’s now or never! Are you going to stallion up and jump on Sunny’s—”
“ROCKET!” somepony shrieked, and sure enough, there was a giant rocket sending out smoke and sparks. Crystal had only seen much smaller versions in school science fairs, and those had nothing on the monstrosity taking off in the middle of the room.
“I’m going to the moon!” Runic declared, straddling the nose of the rocket and waving his cap about.
Silent’s eyes went wide. “Runic, no!”
All around them, the world began to crumble. A massive cavern opened up across the floor, splitting the room in half. The walls flashed from stone, to wood, to canvas, and eventually to nothing.
Crystal followed Silent’s gaze as it fell on Princess Luna. She was standing tall, all four hooves planted firmly, her horn burning bright. Strain was written across her face. Strain and frustration.
“Enough!”
Princess Luna’s voice visibly rippled through the room, tearing the dream apart as it went, until Crystal jolted upright—back in her own bed.
Silent was already standing between her and the door, his body tight and his wings out to the sides to defend her. She saw the rapid rise and fall of his chest, and for some reason, the sight settled her.
“I think we’re awake, love,” she said in a soft voice, and his head whipped around to look at her.
They stared at one another for a moment before he crossed the distance, clambering onto the bed to take her face in his forehooves. “Are you okay?” He sucked in a breath and jumped back. “The foals!”
Before he could reach the door, it flew open and two little figures came galloping in, panic clearly written on their faces. Coral took refuge under her father while Clement dove onto the bed, pressing himself as close to Crystal as possible.
“Shh, my darling,” Crystal whispered, holding him tight with one foreleg and stroking his mane with the other. “It’s all right. It was just a dream.”
Silent took a step back and lowered his head to bump against Coral, and she clambered onto his back, buried her face in his mane, and hugged his neck.
“Come on, Cadet,” he said. “Let’s go get your sister.”
Coral sniffled. “Okay, Dad.”
The lack of a rank made Crystal’s heart seize up before it promptly cracked in half. She leaned down to kiss the top of Clement’s head while watching Silent carry their eldest out of the room.
“’m sorry, Mom,” the colt said, looking up when Crystal jolted back in surprise.
“Sorry?” She slid her hoof to cup his cheek. “What in harmony’s name are you sorry for?”
Clement dropped his head down against her chest. “You were s’pposed to get the perfect Hearth’s Warming party. We promised.”
“Oh, my darling Clem.” She couldn’t help a soft, startled laugh. “It’s all right. I’m just grateful it was only a dream.”
“It felt real,” he muttered. “And it was a disaster.”
As Silent trotted back into the room with Coral and Cherry on his back, he looked over at Crystal with a worried expression. “Is he all right?”
Crystal nodded. Her magic gently swirled around Cherry, lifting her up and bringing her over so Crystal could see for herself that their little foal was all right, as well. “He apologized for the dream not going well.”
“I’m sorry, too, Mom!” Coral exclaimed before she leaped from Silent’s back onto the bed. She stomped her way across the fluffy hills of the comforter and plopped down in the very middle. “I didn’t mean to get carried away. It was just so cool!” She sniffed. “Until it wasn’t.”
Cherry gurgled, and though a lock of Crystal’s mane was within reach, she neglected to put it in her frowning mouth.
Silent’s expression shifted from worry to confusion. “We should be the ones apologizing.” He climbed back onto his side of the bed, a wing extended to stretch out over them all in a loose embrace. “Why would any of you kids be sorry?”
Crystal glanced between the three foals, then eased in to a smile. “Colonel, I think we’ve made a fatal mistake in our Hearth’s Warming battle plans.”
“Battle plans?” Coral squeaked, her head popping up and eyes glittering with interest.
Silent tilted his head while one hoof reached down to ruffle Coral’s mane. “Oh? And what would that be?”
“We were so focused on routing our resources to the friend lines that we neglected to care for our most precious assets.” She kissed Cherry’s forehead.
With a sage, understanding nod, Silent hummed his agreement. Then he said in a flat tone, “Can you repeat that without the clever metaphor? For the foals’ sake.”
Crystal giggled and waved a hoof to gesture at the whole of the bed. “Our family, Silent. Our foals. Every year, I obsess over trying to get all our friends together and you obsess over trying to make that happen for me. But what are we doing to make Hearth’s Warming a special memory for Coral and Clem and Cherry?”
Silent’s gaze lowered to look down at three little faces that turned to look back at him. He was quiet for a while, thoughtfulness writ in his furrowed brow until he gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “I honestly never thought about it that way until just now.”
“But Hearth’s Warming is special!” Coral said, jumping up and stomping all her hooves. “It’s when we bake cookies and exchange presents and eat candy and make snowponies!”
Clement nodded. “Yeah, we like Hearth’s Warming. You didn’t make a fatal mistake.”
With a small sneeze, Cherry’s nose dribbled.
“That’s sweet of you, dear hearts.” Crystal wiggled to lie down on her side, Cherry cradled to her and Clement sliding off to land next to Coral. “But just wait until next year. Your father and I will make it the absolute best Hearth’s Warming yet.”
Coral’s nose scrunched up, and she shifted to snuggle up next to Silent. “But what about our aunts and uncles? Don’t you want to spend the holidays with all our family?”
Silent chuckled, tucking his daughter under one foreleg. “Of course we do, but it doesn’t have to be on Hearth’s Warming to get together with them all. We learned that lesson when your Aunt Dream Pop showed up on Hearts and Hooves Day, remember?”
“I remember that,” Clement said in a steadily drowsy tone. “So what lesson did we learn this time?”
“Don’t cross the dreams?” Coral supplied.
Silent hummed in thought. “Too many ponies all in one place makes for a bad party?”
Cherry drooled.
“I don’t think there’s a lesson, per se.” Crystal giggled, burying half her face in a pillow. “This isn’t like one of Cherry’s foal tales that ends with a neat little ribbon of a moral.”
Clement rolled onto his back, hindlegs sprawled out and forelegs tucked in to his chest. “I think the lesson is that we’re the most important things in your lives now, so next year, you’re going to spoil us.”
Coral gave a big, wide yawn before curling in on herself. “I like that lesson.”
“All right, then.” Crystal smiled as she slowly let her eyes close. “Happy Hearth’s Warming, my darlings.”
The sweetest sound sent her to sleep as one foal gurgled and two replied, “Happy Hearth’s Warming, Mom and Dad.”
Merry Christmas, Happily Holidays, Happy Hearth's Warming! Crystal and I hope that 2018 treated you well and that you've enjoyed our holiday special. We look forwards to sharing new things with you next year!
If you are enjoying this story, please consider taking a look at Crystal and my's website QuillnBlade.com for extra content such as mini stories, Q&B AU wiki, and special rewards for the awesome folks who support our Patreon. We have monthly art give aways, a Q&B Discord RPG, a several other fun gifts for patrons.
Stats
Page generated in 0.023 seconds
Total duration
994 users online
1,491,649 hits today, 2,280,440 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Loving the Ghostbusters reference from Coral
”Come on, Soarin! The world’s ending, so it’s now or never! Are you going to stallion up and jump on Sunny’s—”
“ROCKET!”
Y-you really went there❣️ This is why I love you.
... Is that a reference to what I think it is?
Good story! Really enjoyed the 3rd person perspective on this one.
Doctor, Doctor. Give me the news I got a
Bad case of loving you
Geez how long has it been since I heard that song. I also know he came up before I just dont remember when. Was he the doctor that took care of Silent while he was in a coma?
Love the Stewie reference.
Hah GB ref!