Chapter 1
“You want to do what?”
We all were sitting around a picnic bench as Sunny Starscout had suggested, “All I’m saying is that I think we should celebrate Hearth Warming.”
Everyone around had a different expression ranging mostly from confusion while Izzy looked like she was ready to explode in excitement. “Okay, first question. What’s a Hearth Warming?” I asked confusedly, everypony else giving their agreement.
Sunny looked around with an excitement, Uh oh, nerd-y Sunny mode had been activated. She pulled out her journal with the star marking on the cover, “Apparently it’s a holiday that the ponies used to celebrate when our tribes were unified. To appreciate the first unity of us Earth Ponies-“ she waved a hoof between herself and Hitch, “Pegasi-” next at me and Pipp, “and Unicorns!” last was Izzy.
Izzy was most excited to hear of this, though the rest of us liked the idea of celebrating something that appreciate all tribes. After our adventure with Sunny to help getting magic back, she had been working to find events to show appreciation to Unicorns and Pegasi. Honestly, she was the best friend any pony could ask for.
“So, what do we do to celebrate this?” I asked.
Soon was followed closely by a barrage of questions from Izzy, “Will there be friendship bracelets? How about tea, will I get to use my tea party set with friends? Ooh, ooh! What about a song? Will there be a musical number?!”
We all couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle at her innocent like a young foal, I turned my attention back to Sunny who looked ready to explain, “Well, my d-dad used to say,” and that was when I noticed something, she looked heart broken at what she was about to say, “-that Hearth Warming was apparently celebrated with family and loved ones and they would eat, sing songs, and give gifts.”
We all had agreed to give this holiday a try, it may be fun. We all agreed to take on a task and draw lot to see who would be getting who for Hearth Warming. Izzy had agreed to spread the word of what we were doing, Izzy would prepare the snacks, Hitch would find a location to host the event, Sunny would direct us what we would need for it, and I would haul the supplies back and forth.
It all seemed easy when speaking the idea but came the real problem of this holiday.
“No, no, no, NO!” Each one were followed by the sound of something hitting against the wall, cause every time I tried looking for the perfect gift for my ‘Secret Hearth Warming Partner’ it was not something I felt they’d like.
“What does Sunny like?!” Yep, my pony I’m getting a gift for is Sunny Starscout. I gave out a groan at the question, what did I even know of her and what does she even like?
She likes reading and research, but when I tried looking for some kind of research material, you had to be “specific” on the subject or you’re left looking at things like “Harmful chemicals in our Society.”
It was never ending, why do the smart ones have to have so many subjects? Can’t they just make one and stick with it?
When research was out of the question, I moved on to her other hobbies. Which only spiral to more trouble because I didn’t know her other hobbies. Roller-skating but she already have rollerblades.
“Why does giving gifts have to be so hard?!” I never had to give gifts before, because I never had a friend like Sunny before. Or any friends really. I was always alone, the lie our family used to hide behind was like a wall preventing me from hanging around others my own age.
“Hmm, have you tried matching Hearth Warming Hats?”
I gave a wave off of the suggestion, “I don’t want ponies to think we’re anything more then friends, I mean I do like her, but not like-like her-“ my brain finally caught on to the realization.
I was in my own room, alone, and somepony else’s voice had said that.
I turned around to find another pony standing a few hooves away, a bright smile on her face, she was pink, and I mean PINK! Like a cotton candy. She didn’t have any wings or a horn so that questioned how she got in here without me knowing, these doors weren’t very stealthy when opening, not to mention she shouldn’t have had any clearance to enter my room.
As the brave princess I was, I did the most natural thing that came to this situation, “AHHHH!” I screamed, flailing away towards the other end of my room, falling onto my rump. I swung my forelimbs around to keep her away, “Who are you!? How did you get in here?!”
The pony across from me looked a little puzzle for a moment before speaking, “Firstly, Ahhh to you too! Second, I’m Pinkamena Diane Pie! Or you can just call me Pinkie Pie for short, all my friends call me that, well not all of them since some of them would call me Pinkie, Pinkius Piecus, Pinkie Winkie, Chancellor Puddinghead, that one’s my favorite, or my all-time favorite SURPRISE!”
At the last mention, she popped like confetti. Stunned, shocked, or even scared did not fully express how I felt at that moment. A random pony had somehow snuck into my room without me noticing and exploded Infront of me in confetti.
Uuh, I didn’t know what to do, walking over to where the pony had just been standing moments ago to look over the scene. I guess that’s it then, or so I thought.
“What’s you looking at?” the voice came from behind.
“AHHH!” I shot to the roof.
Was this going to be my day? No, I already have to worry about getting a present for Sunny, I can’t have this … freak … ruining it on top of that!
After successfully getting myself down from atop, I glance at the intruding pony, “Okay, how did you do that?”
She looked confused by that, “Do what?”
Yep, it was going to be one of those days. Taking a deep breath, “How did you explode like that and came back unscathed, and why confetti?”
As if she finally came to understand what I was asking, she gave a long oooohhhhh~, “Yeah, that’s normal.” I don’t know which universe you’re from but exploding into confetti is as far from normal as you can get.
When she wasn’t going to elaborate any further on the matter, I figured I should get back on track before she side-tracks me again by doing … who knows what. “Why are you here,” I struggled to remember her name, though to be fair that explosion wiped the list clean.
“Pinkie!”
“Pinkie, right. So, why are you in my room?”
That was another mistake. “Well, I was helping my friend Dashy, which funny enough you kind of remind me a bit of her, pulling a couple pranks around Ponyville when all of a sudden I had a twitchy tail, itchy right eye, shaky body, and a front-flip and that means that there was a pony in some distance future having trouble deciding on a Hearth Warming gift for a friend as a thank you for being my friend and bringing back magic that had disappeared inexplicitly.”
She said all of that without taking a breather, and I did not catch nearly half of that. “Here, have a cupcake!” she said, shoving a peppermint cupcake in my mouth.
It wasn’t that it had tasted bad, but having something randomly shoved into my mouth, I coughed a few times before I could actually relax from that, “Why did you do that?!”
“You looked like you could use a cupcake.” How did I look like I needed a cupcake? What does that even look like? Maybe if there was a cupcake and I was looking at it maybe, but she pulled it out of- actually, where did she pull that thing from? In any case, this mare was crazy!
“So, about that Hearth Warming gift!” she ignored everything else and gone towards the pile of stuff that I was moments ago searching through before she appeared. “What do you plan to get her?”
“I don’t know” I admitted with shame, what could I get a friend that gave me everything I’ve ever wanted. Friends, the ability to fly again, and a life free from pretending to be something I’m not. You couldn’t put a price on that.
“Before I met Sunny, I was always questioning ‘Why should I care?’” I know it is weird taking to this intruding pony about something personal like this, but weird was the very definition of just now. “I’ve lived my whole life lying to those around me, my own family lied, we pretended something we were not, and I felt like a small part of me was breaking every time I would wake up.”
Without noticing, tears came flowing down, “I was so sick of it, but I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I didn’t know how, then Sunny and Izzy both came and gave me a chance. To be something I want to be than to keep living a life of lie! And in a way, I’m thankful, and I don’t know how to show my thanks for that. You know?”
If I was shedding tears, she was a fountain. Pinkie was bawling her eyes out like a water from a hose, “T-that is the m-most saddest thing- I-I’ve ever heard!”
“Hey! Quit crying, you’re going to flood my room!” I was not exaggerating; water had already gone up towards an inch of my hooves.
After some effort on her part, she managed to recede the flooding of my room. “She really means a lot for you, doesn’t she?”
That question took me by surprise, but I guess you could say that was true. She means a whole world to me. Not romantically, but as a friend I wouldn’t ask for any pony better than her. “Yeah, she’s like a family.”
Family . . . Was it that simple? “That’s it!” I knew the perfect gift to give her!
“Thanks, I know what to give Sunny now.” I said, wrapping Pinkie in a hug. It was weird that it took some strange pony who broke into my room to give me this idea, but miracles do happen. How else was I to explain meeting Sunny?
Rushing out of my room, I headed on to get the stuff for the gift to give her.
Me and Pinkie both walked on over towards the town factory of Maretime Bay where apparently, they used to design anti-pegasus and unicorn contraptions. Ironic really, a place made once to keep ponies like us out was now a place to welcome us.
I gone on up the hill towards where the entrance was, as I was about to go inside I noticed that Pinkie was no longer by my side. I gave a pause and look behind to see she was a few steps away looking happy-sad? “Aren’t you coming?” I asked.
She shook her head, “No, I can’t.” what did she mean by that? Sure, she could, this party was opened to the public for anypony to come celebrate.
“Sure, you can, I’m sure Sunny and the others will love you once they get pass your crazy antics. Well, I’m sure Izzy will love that about you, but I’m positive they would be happy to have you there.”
“I can’t, I was only allowed to come help you find the perfect Hearth Warming gift. And now you do,” she motion towards the present I was holding. “I’m certain she’ll love it and wish her a happy hearth warming for me. Okay?”
Why couldn’t she just say it to her herself? What does she mean she was only allowed to be here to help me find the perfect gift? “What do you mean?” was I going to get an answer, or is she going to do something crazy again?
I was shocked when she was starting to look transparent, “W-what’s happening?” I asked, scared for her.
“It’s time for me to go, I guess this is goodbye.” She looked at her hooves, able to see through them like a specter. I rushed on towards her, tossing aside the present to wrap my hooves around her.
“Don’t go,” I pleaded, “you can stay.” It was hard to explain but earlier today she was annoying me but now I felt like I had a friend in her. Were Earth Ponies just skilled at making friends? Or did she just have the same kind of magic that Sunny has? Either way, I didn’t want to say goodbye.
She whispered something, I could not understand what it was, but it felt warm and carrying, what did you say? I couldn’t hear you?
For a moment I stayed like that, when I looked to see why she was not saying anything more I found that she had disappeared. And for some strange reason, I felt like she would not appear out of thin air like before.
After wiping the tears away, I decided I had best get the holiday through and give my gift to Sunny before she and the others start to worry. After retrieving the package from the grass, I walked into the lit room filled with ponies of all different kind.
All of them were mingling, drinking by the punch bowl, and the foals were harmonizing a song with a bunch of ‘la-la’. I found my friends all gathered together around a corner where my sister Pipp was applying makeup for something.
In all same though, I had gone ahead on over to the others where and it wasn’t long before they noticed my present, “Zipp!” Sunny called out, waving a hoof to alert me of their location. Not that I didn’t already know.
“What took you so long, we’ve been waiting for you.” Pipp said.
“I was just finishing up some last-minute stuff.” I said back, presenting the present.
“Are you alright, you look like you were crying.” Sunny asked which got everypony else’ attention. They looked worrying at me, waiting for my response.
“Yeah, just had to say goodbye to a friend.”
After that whole sappy moment of my loss for a friendship, we all had gone ahead and opened presents. Pipp got a beautiful hairclip in the shape of a rabbit, Hitch got a detective hat which got a few good laughs from us, Izzy was given a verity of teas and a voucher for Hitch to join her for tea which we were all happy to add our names to the voucher, I got a pair of new googles with my cutie mark on them, and when I’ve given Sunny her gift she was absolutely stunned.
Inside was a picture frame that reads ‘My Family’ and in the frame was a picture of the five of us.
It was a great first Hearth Warming and I can’t wait till next year, and maybe I would see Pinkie again. We all celebrated with cheers.
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That was a good story.
Sorry for the delay in writing a comment. I finally got the chance to take an hour to write a comment more substantive than “thanks” or “nice work” (I’ll mostly respond to the author’s note, TBH: I’m in a meta mood this afternoon).
I’m a fellow writer who works best on a deadline. I’ve found that I personally am at my most long-winded when I write out literal transcriptions of conversations in dialogue. My Hearthswarming entry was 6,668 words and it felt like it was ⅔ dialogue.
- MLP: FiM
- Slice of Life
Maud Pie and her protégé celebrate their first Hearthswarming away from home while they visit Equestria's undercarriage for fieldwork.When you write your expansion, I’d encourage you to include more Izzy dialogue. Of all the characters, the way you wrote her lines was the best at making me hear her voice actress in my head. Do you think your expansion will expand into the before, after, or be mostly the same story told in more detail?
I have a fifth chapter I’d want to write for my story, but it would have blown me right past the hard cap of 8,500 words if I had included it for Jinglemas itself. I may write it anyway sometime in the next week or two.
If you scroll far enough in my G5 review, I have a section dedicated to Zipp’s personality. It took watching the movie twice plus three weeks of on and off browsing of movie clips & GIFs to come to those conclusions. The tl;dr is that Zipp reminds me of if Scootaloo had Twilight’s mathematical prowess. She has the athleticism of Rainbow Dash but (at least in the one movie we have) is the opposite of a braggart.
The entire reason I ruled out Dash in my prompt is that she was the far too obvious choice. Pinkie was a good pick. Twilight would have too much self-preservation to jump herself 1,000+ years into the future.
That could be a good story prompt by itself. Granny Smith is the immortal mare in the woods and meets G5 ponies.
Speaking of story prompts, I know my prompt for next year: Tell me a story with time travel. I’m not making that one any harder than it already is by specifying specific ponies to be included. I wonder if we’ll ever have a Jinglemas in July contest.
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Thanks for the respond and it's okay for the delay.
I have a plan to do a better telling of Zipp and Pinkie's adventure to find the perfect gift though I would need to mix it up a bit if I did.
Izzy was the easiest since she's more the low-key version of Pinkie Pie (Willing to make friends with anypony & excited for almost anything) without all the 4th wall breaking.
I was wanting to throw in a lot more meta but it would've derailed before I knew what happened.
I also wasn't able to get my friend/editor's help on this project (though it may sound like making an excuse, he's the one who helps keeps me in line)
I'll work better on observing Zipp's details (She & Pipp are the ones still out of my range of knowledge) and I'll look into the link you'd provided.
Glad to also gave you an idea with GS. Thanks for the feedback and can't wait to get a better grasp on the G5s' characters.
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You had trouble with Zipp & Pipp because the Royal Pegasisters were the least-developed of the main crew (Pipp more so than Zipp).
Agree that editors are good but near-impossible to find when on a deadline.
What how the heck did she get the time spell and who helped her with the time spell anyway
Well Zipp the only thing is it's just Pinkie Pie and you cant question her
Well then that was a very interesting story and sort of sweet so it looks like hearts warming eve is here once again but the thing is Sunny's friends doesn't know about this holiday but then she did explain about the history about it and they all decided to celebrate it the thing is Zipp doesn't know what to give sunny what it looks like the blast from the past pony came to help and it's Pinkie Pie if she wanted to give her a little push to find a perfect gift for sunny which despite everything Pinkie Pie driving zipp crazy she realize what gift to give to Sunny and with that she was on her way to her friends but it looks like Pinkie Pie's time is up and she has to go back Zipp was pretty upset that she's disappearing and not only that losing a friend Pinkie Pie has that kind of thing no matter how annoying she can be she's one of those that you really want to hang out with and that's what I like about her this was a pretty good story keep up the good work
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That did summarize the whole bit, I wanted to do more for this story and I planned to. I got a lot more ideas I could play with here.
We'll see. But I did enjoy the small bit of randomness that I did with Pinkie.
I can't say much but I did get in touch with my editor / companion for a Hearts & Hooves story (I believe I've spelt that right.) And Pinkie will play cupid . . . I just won't say for who.
Glad you liked it though. Here, have a Spike with a moustache.
I liked this one a lot. Pinkie is a natural choice for this sort of cross-generational encounter. I am convinced that she would be everypony's Fairy Hearthswarming Godmother when she does.
As for Zipp and personality, I would like to propose that she has some serious smarts to her. In the old airship station, she had a board full of pretty complex-looking engineering equations related to flight. So maybe if that sticks, future fanon will have her and sunny be differently nerdy?
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* rpglover will remember this *