The Perfect Rose

by tom117z

17 - Winter Bells

Perfect Rose quite liked the snow.

Winter had fallen over Equestria, the weather ponies working overtime to ensure there was just the right amount of snow on the streets. Enough to give that wondrous Hearth’s Warming effect, but not so much that daily life was negatively impacted to any significant degree. But winter could lead to some unscheduled and unexpected permutations with the weather. Be it a rogue cloud a pegasus carelessly let drift away or a random gust of wind bringing some forth where they were not meant to be, controlling the elements was often a job requiring overtime at this time of year.

Canterlot didn’t have the luxury of all the facilities the likes of Cloudsdale had in regard to controlling the wilder aspects of nature. And with the pegasus city presently on the other side of the country, the local teams were forced to do things the old-fashioned way. Good old hoof-grinding work to ensure the fillies and colts of the capital could get the most out of their winter break.

Of course, winter break had to come first. Alas, there were still a long couple of weeks ahead before school shut up for the holidays…

That didn’t mean the kids couldn’t make their own fun in the meantime, however.

“INCOMING!”

Thwack.

Case in point.

“Peh! Ewww… You got snow in my beak!” Perfect Rose complained as she picked herself up from the frosty ground. “Bleh. And my feathers…”

“You shoulda ducked better!” Bright Spark said with zero remorse, already readying yet another snowball. “This is war, Rose!”

“Oh, you are so gonna be trounced!”

She glared at her unicorn friend. But then she brightened into a smile as she charged off towards him while picking up snow in her claws. She may not have magic, but she could role one just as well!

She was very glad her grounding hadn’t lasted so long as to cut into al the wintery goodness. Sure, it had sucked something fierce. But she had firmly learned her lesson, no more breaking into castles! At least not without leaving a note or something. But otherwise, no more breaking into castles!

But it had been a trawl to get through, nonetheless. Fluffy could only come up with so many knock-knock jokes to pass the time. But it had passed, and her parents had eventually allowed the griffon to meet up with her friends again outside of school. Freedom was definitely a sweet feeling, and now that those weeks had passed and the seasons had changed, a snowball fight seemed like the most appropriate way to continue this new bout of adventures and fun.

After all, she had a little pony to thrash!

“Gah!” she shouted out as she ducked behind a bush, several magically propelled snowballs flying overhead as she finished constructing her own. “Magic is totally cheating!”

“It’s not cheating!” Spark’s voice protested from beyond her cover.

“Is too!”

“Shaddup!”

“No!”

Perfect Rose shot up and threw her snowball at the colt, the unicorn giving a yelp as it grazed his snout and sent him hurling random chunks of snow at his friends that hadn’t even been morphed into a ball shape yet.

“Eeek!”

And also not exactly aimed, either. Much to the spectating Sundance’s irritation when a small snow tsunami hit the bench she was sat on.

“Guyyyyys!” she whined as she tried to clear the freezing substance off of herself. “Watch it! Stupid heads!”

“Hey! It was her fault!” Bright Spark redirected the blame without hesitation.

“What!? How!?” Rose replied in clear offence. “You’re just not very good at this!”

“Oh, I’ll show you! I’m the snowball master!”

Sundance gulped, decidedly moving ‘behind’ the bench. “I’m… just going to go over here…”

Perfect Rose was just about to insist that Sundance join them and help in the super-duper important mission of making Bright Spark eat his stupid words. But any such words were prevented from exiting her maw by a sudden flurry of snowballs being hurled her way! Being hit in the wing by one, the griffon was forced to duck back to the ground as a torrent of projectiles came overhead.

What the hay was he doing!? This was cheating, right? Cheating McCheaterson!

Daring a glance through the gasp in the bush, what little wasn’t already drenched in snow, she saw her friend’s magic working overtime to pick up snowballs and propel them at high speeds towards their target. His eyes were focused, deadly and serious, not giving in for anything…

Definitely cheating.

“I surrender…!” Perfect Rose squawked, deciding a tactical retreat might be a better option here. “Griffon down! Stop! Ah!”

“Never!”

PUNT.

“Noooo!”

The snowballs stopped. In fact, everything went eerily silent from the other side of the bush. Waiting a couple of moments just to see if this was some kind of evil genius-level trap by Bright Spark, Perfect Rose slowly raised her head up with the expectation of another face full of snow at any given moment.

But none came.

In actuality, when she saw what lay beyond her cover, she found it was him who was practically buried beneath a small pile. That and the colt was glaring in no small amount of irritation at the other unicorn who had done the deed.

“Uh… sorry…” Goldenblood apologised sheepishly. “But Dad said I should always, uh… defend uh… what was it… a madman’s honour?”

“Maiden’s honour,” Sundance corrected, still behind her own piece of cover. “It’s what knights do in stories and stuff.”

“Right. That.”

“I didn’t need help!” Perfect Rose lied. “I had that! Stupid colts and stupid maidens and stupid…”

“I thought you had extra lessons or something…” Bright Spark deadpanned in annoyance. “Somepony help me out of this, by the way…”

“Say please~!” Rose taunted.

“…I’ll make my own way out.”

“Uh-huh, sure…” she replied doubtfully, emerging from the bush and approaching the colts. “But yeah, didn’t your Mum say you couldn’t come out and stuff?”

“She did,” he confirmed. “But I had the nice tutor today, they let me out early.”

The young griffon frowned. “Wouldn’t that get her in trouble? Your mother is mean.”

“Um… please don’t talk like that…” The Prince scuffed the ground awkwardly. “But yeah, we both would. But she promised not to tell. She’s my favourite teacher for a reason.”

“What about Miss Caring Hoof?” Sundance pointed out.

“Her too.”

“You can’t have two favourites!” Bright Spark rebuffed.

“But I do. So there.”

“Ugh, whatever! You’re the Prince! Get me out of here!”

Sundance approached the group, looking at her stricken friend with an entirely unamused expression. She lit her own horn, wiping away the snow the pulling the colt to his hooves with a roll of her eyes.

“Use your horn, dingus!”

“Ohhhh.”

“Honestly…”

“Hey! I forgot…”

“The wizard forgot?”

“I coulda done it!”

“But you didn’t.”

“Hrmg…”

“Anyway…” Rose interrupted, her eyes remaining on Goldenblood. “So, you’re good to hang out for a little while?”

“So long as my mother doesn’t find out, yeah,” he confirmed with a nod. “…A snowball fight looks like fun. I see other kids doing it all the time right now. But Mother and Blueblood say it’s for common ponies.”

“Do I look like a common pony?” the griffon asked.

He blinked. “…Is that a trick question? I feel like that’s a trick question.”

“I don’t know what the means, but whatever!” she responded. “Point is that snowball fights are super fun! You already got Brighty really good!”

“Ha ha, so funny…” the colt deadpanned once more.

“Better luck next time,” Sundance said as she patted the other unicorn on the shoulder.

“Well, I guess I can join in. We don’t get to hang out too much…” Goldenblood decided, looking around at the already slightly decimated piles of snow around them. He idly picked up a bunch, rolling it into a ball and examining it. “Mum has been keeping a close eye on me since what happened at the castle. She gets this really scary look if she thinks I’m doing something I shouldn’t be, so it’s hard to get away.”

“She is a little scary…” Sundance agreed.

“Yeah… But don’t worry about it, we’ll take ya when we can get ya! Oh! Or maybe I can have Fluffy pretend to be you so that you can sneak out more!” Rose enthusiastically suggested.

“Thanks, but I’m not sure that’s going to work,” he denied. “She can be smart too.”

“Right. Mothers are smart, they always know when I’ve nibbled on just one cookie…” the griffon recalled. “Oh! What about that thing that the school is doing at the end right before the holiday!? You coming?”

The colt tilted his head. “Thing?”

“Yeah! You know when Miss Caring Hoof was talking about those ghost horses and the biggest snowball fight ever?”

“…Huh?”

“The Hearth’s Warming Pageant!” Sundance gushed. “Acting and princesses and making a story come to life and acting and really fun stuff like that! And acting!”

“We got that bit,” Bright Spark remarked.

“Don’t take this from me!” she hissed in turn.

“Yush, that thing!” Perfect Rose continued. “You coming? Are you? Are you? Tell me!”

Goldenblood looked between his friends, but then lowered his head sadly. He then shook it in denial, Perfect Rose’s wings drooping at the unfortunate news.

That was so unfair! They should all be going in to get parts for that thing together! After all, their teacher said it was all about how Equestria started and how everyone became friends and beat back ghosts and stuff! That was so cool! She liked friends. Friends were the best. She liked fighting ghosts because that was just adventure. And Equestria was kinda cool too, she lived there! It was weird to think there was no Equestria once. Her grandparents were super old, maybe they were there? Nah, that didn’t sound right…

Oh well. Either way, it wasn’t as fun as it would be if not all of her friends would be there.

“Aw, how come?” Sundance asked.

“Duh, it’s Mrs Social Grace again,” Bright Spark deduced. “She’s always spoiling things. Meanie!”

“I asked you not to talk about her like that…” Goldenblood reminded him, his ears flattening against his head.

“But it’s true, isn’t it?”

Goldeblood looked even more downcast, causing Sundance to elbow the green colt in the ribs.

“Ouch!” he complained, though he otherwise got the point. “Sorry… But it’s just dumb that you can’t come with us. We could have been knights for Princess Platinum!”

“Yeah, I know,” he replied. “I asked her, but she said it was, uh, low brow. She says weird things like that, but I think she doesn’t like plays like that. She listens to opera a lot, she dragged me and my brother to this one and it was really weird. Not boring, just… loud.”

“That really is a shame,” Sundance sympathised. “Hey, we can tell you all about it when it’s done. Oh! I’ll even act out my bit!”

“You don’t even know who you’re playing yet,” Bright Spark pointed out.

“So? I’ll do it no matter who I play. This’ll be great!”

“Thanks, guys…” Goldenblood didn’t really look like that helped at all, but he showed polite gratitude anyway. Whether that was because of his lessons in etiquette, because they were his friends, or a mix of both, was anypony’s guess. “Can we not talk about this? I kinda want to forget about all of that and do something fun…”

“Well, you have that snowball,” Bright Spark suggested. “I think you know what to do?”

“Is it really the same if you see it coming?”

“Depends who you do it on,” he said. “I’d say a certain bird right around there would be an awesome target.”

Perfect Rose glared at him. “Um, what?”

“Revenge!”

Goldenblood considered this for a moment. He looked at Bright Spark, his eyes expectant and full of glee. He hummed, turning his head around to study Perfect Rose’s reaction to this turn of events. He also saw as her glare steadily redirected itself and pierce straight into the colt’s soul with promises of great retribution should he attempt it.

The choice was obvious.

Thud.

“Ow! Why meeeeee!?” Bright Spark complained as he was once again subject to a snowball to the face.

“Good choice,” Perfect Rose said approvingly.

Bright Spark wiped the snow from his face, his eye twitching as his horn lit up with great menace and an even greater level of intent.

“Oh-ho, I see how it is…” he began. “Sundance, our alliance against their’s! Let’s go!”

“It’s on!” his griffonian rival instantly agreed.

Sundance baulked. “But-”

The battle started without her, Perfect Rose and Bright Spark pulling their respective startled partners back towards the future locations of their now forts as the trade of fire began.

And what a battle it was.

Comments

[The Voice in the Water]

Kids and a snowball fight. Good, wholesome winter fun.

Though, Rose isn't taking advantage of her biggest strength in such a situation: flight. Ah well, she's figure it out soon enough.

[JMP]

Good to see Goldenblood out and about. Poor kid deserves more time with his friends.

[Frazikar]

10374172
Not quite, a unicorn with levitating snowballs make decent AA batteries ... until you get to range limits becoming a bomber ...

[dzamie]

Adorable!