Snow Day Tales

by bookhorse125

You Better Watch Out, You Better Not Cry

“One of our Wishentine traditions growing up was that, each night, we would hang up cloud stockings over the fireplace the night before, and when we came down the next morning, they were filled with presents. The story that we were always told was that, while we were sleeping, the three Spirits of Wishentine Past, Present, and Future, would see if we had been good that year, and if we deserved presents. If we weren’t good, then all we would find in our stockings were bricks.”

“Bricks?” Izzy asked, sitting up and tilting her head curiously. “Why would you get bricks?” Her eyes suddenly glazed over, and she sighed contentedly. “Oh, the things I could do with a few good bricks…”

“Izzy!” Pipp reprimanded, batting the unicorn with her wing. “Bricks are bad! They’re so heavy that they’ll weigh us down, and then we’ll never fly!” Beside her, Zipp nodded solemnly.

“Anyways,” Pipp continued, resuming the story after giving Izzy one last glare, adjusting the flashlight, “ponies were always careful to be good growing up, so that when they grew up, they might be able to fly. But sometimes ponies weren’t as careful as they should be.” She threw a meaningful look at Zipp, who was intentionally looking anywhere but her sister. “And when those ponies wake up on Wishentine morning and find nothing but bricks in their cloud stockings-”

“La la la, can’t hear you!” Zipp said loudly, clapping her hooves over her ears again.

Pipp laughed and pulled out her phone. She started scrolling through her videos and dozens of selfies before she came to a stop on a specific clip. She pressed play and held it out for her friends to see. Izzy and Sunny leaned in eagerly.

In it, a younger Zipp was standing by a fireplace decorated with the symbol of the Zephyr Heights royal family and boughs of evergreen trees, decorated with deep ruby bulbs that twinkled in the soft firelight. Hanging on the top of the fireplace were three massive socks made out of a fluffy white yarn that looked like it was made of clouds. They were sagging from the weight of the objects inside of them, and on the outside, stitched in bright gold thread, the ponies could see the names of Zipp, Pipp, and Queen Haven, whose face was outside of the frame because the video was being taken by a much younger Pipp.

Haven reached up and took down Zipp’s stocking and handed it to the filly, who eagerly dug into it. Her gleeful expression quickly shifted to shock as she pulled out a solid red brick, dusted with dirt.

The Pipp in the video let out a little giggle, and Zipp turned towards her sister, her cheeks turning red. “Pipp did it!” she shrieked. “She did it, it was her fault! She switched our stockings!”

The filly launched herself at her younger sister, and the camera tumbled for a few seconds as a scuffle was heard off screen. The camera faced up at the ceiling before Haven’s face blocked it. The queen of Zephyr Heights sighed and shook her head, smiling as she reached down and stopped the video.

“I stand by my judgment,” Zipp said now, folding her arms and lifting her head haughtily. “That was completely uncalled for and definitely undeserved.”

“I agree,” Pipp said solemnly. “You attacking me and blaming me for your actions was indeed undeserved and uncalled for.”

“What? No! I mean that I had bricks in my cloud stocking,” Zipp corrected. “I specifically remember it being your fault, Pipp.”

“Um… no,” Pipp said, rolling her eyes and sliding her phone under her wing again. “That was all because of you. That was your fault, Zipp. I had nothing to do with it.”

“Ooo,” Izzy said cheerfully, looking back and forth between the two sisters. “What happened?”

Zipp opened her mouth to answer, but Pipp beat her to it. “The day before,” she said, her eyes sparkling with excitement, “Mom was walking Zipp and me through all of the basics of our fake flying, and we were supposed to practice. It was one of the first times we ever did that, because Mom wanted us to do it at the Wishentine Royal Carousel Concert the next day. But Zipp thought that it would be like real flying, and she crashed into me while I was livestreaming and got us all tangled up in those wires. It took an hour to get us back down!” Pipp sniffed woefully. “And when we did, my mane was so frizzy that it took another hour to fix it again. Not to mention that my hoof polish was chipped. And everypony saw it happen…” She sighed, dramatically fighting back tears in her eyes. “It took me forever to forgive her. But I decided that, because it was so close to Wishentine, that I would find the goodness in my heart to look past the cruel mistakes that we have made.”

Zipp rolled her eyes at her sister’s over dramatic performance. “No,” she said through clenched teeth, “that is not what happened. What happened was that I slipped because Pipp was distracting me, and I was completely out of control when I crashed into her. It was not my fault. I couldn’t have stopped it even if I wanted to. Which Pipp should know, since she was the one who set it all up in the first place!”

Pipp gasped and scoffed. “I what? Zipp, you have no idea what you were talking about. I did nothing wrong. I swear, I was minding my own business on the ground while Mom was teaching you all about it, and you crashed into me! I had nothing to do with it.”

“Yeah, right! You rigged the wires,” Zipp said, standing up and stomping her hooves agitatedly. “I investigated afterwards! You had just gotten your hooves done that morning, and there was a bit of golden hoof polish on some of the controls.” She glared at her sister, and Pipp gulped.

“Um… I didn’t have hoof polish on,” she stammered.

“Yeah you did, Pipp! You said so,” Izzy cheerfully reminded her. “Remember? You said that you were angry that you got your hoof polish chipped when Zipp crashed into you!”

Pipp bit her lip. “Oh, really? I forgot I said that,” she said with a nervous laugh. “Well, actually I did have hoof polish on, and it was really pretty, but I didn’t get it done that day, Zipp, so there is no way that whatever you saw came from me. It was probably one of the ponies who manned the controls-”

“You got your hooves done that morning, and I know because before you did, you got mad at me,” Zipp started before Pipp interrupted her.

“All right, fine! I admit, I did rig the wires a little bit. But that was only because you stole my cell phone again, Zipp! I was looking everywhere for it, and I was freaking out, because I had promised the Pippsqueaks a new livestream of my flight practice, and they would be so disappointed if I let them down!”

“I stole your phone because you’re always on it, Pipp!” Zipp said, sitting down again and grabbing one of the pillows. She looked down at it and traced her hoof across it as she said, “We were growing apart and getting so different, and I missed the days that we were friends, Pipp. I got scared. You were my best friend, and I felt like I was losing you. So I took your phone so that you wouldn’t have any choice but to spend time with me, and it could be like the old days. I’m sorry I did that, but it’s the truth.” She sighed. “All I really wanted for Wishentine that year was for us to be friends again.”

“Zipp… you could have told me,” Pipp said, placing her hoof on her sister’s shoulder. “But… I’m sorry, too. Sometimes I can get a little… carried away, I guess. I forget that there are ponies outside of the social world. But I was so excited for Wishentine, because I would get to spend it with my Pippsqueaks, too! It felt like it would be extra special for me. And whenever you act like those things don’t matter to you… it feels like I don’t matter to you. So I’m sorry, too.” She smiled at her sister. “I guess wishes do come true?”

Zipp grinned. “Yeah. Even though that was, like, five years ago. But I still think that I did not deserve to get a brick in my cloud stocking-”

Pipp’s eyes widened, and she cleared her throat. “Oh! Yes. Uh, huh. Definitely. Yup, totally agree with you there, sis, one hundred, uh, one hundred percent, yup.” She swallowed forcefully and smiled warily at her sister. “Totally…”

“Pipp?” Zipp stood up, flaring her wings. “What do you know about that?”

“Nothing!” the younger pegasus shrieked, spreading her wings and leaping into the air so that Zipp couldn’t reach her. “Nothing, like I said, total coincidence, I had nothing to do with that, totally didn’t swap it out-” She clapped her hooves over her mouth like she hadn’t meant to say anything. She took one look at Zipp’s face and flew off through the Brighthouse.

“Pipp Petals, when I find out what you did-” Zipp roared and leaped into the air as well, flapping her wings and taking off after her sister.

Sunny sighed as the two sisters chased each other around the Brighthouse, Pipp shrieking every time Zipp got close to her. Sunny picked up the flashlight that had been left, abandoned, on one of the cushions, and turned it off as she stood up and stretched. She calmly trotted into the kitchen and pulled a fresh batch of cookies out of the oven and set them on the top of the burners, the delicious smells wafting up and through the room.

“Fresh cookies!” she called out, and Izzy, Pipp, and Zipp all flew into the room, their eyes wide and their mouths watering as Sunny divided the treats among the four of them before they returned to their pillow fort by the fireplace.

“So!” Sunny said cheerfully as she sat down, picking up the flashlight once more and turning it on again. She passed it to Izzy, saying, “Here, Izzy, why don’t you tell us a little bit about the unicorns’ Wishiehoof traditions in Bridlewood?”

“Oh, I would love to!” the purple unicorn said cheerfully, but she batted the flashlight aside. Without telling any of her friends what she was doing, Izzy dashed upstairs and back in under a second, returning with a bright glowing crystal in her hooves, which she held instead. “It’s jinxy to talk about Wishiehoof without the special Wishiefhoof crystal!” she explained when her friends gave her confused looks.

“Really?” Sunny gasped, leaning forward to peer at the crystal in Izzy’s hooves. “How does it work? Is it magic, or is it just a-” She broke off before she called it a “silly unicorn superstition”. She knew that, while other ponies might view the unicorns beliefs and traditions as a bit overly complicated when there was really nothing to be afraid of, the inhabitants of Bridlewood thought that they were very important indeed - every single one of the three dozen or so that she knew of.

“I should warn you, though,” Izzy said seriously, looking around at all her friends. “If I want to tell you everything that there is to know about Wishiehoof, there might be some jinxies against some of them. That’s what this crystal is here for - it protects against the jinxies.” She grinned and stroked the crystal fondly.

“Oh, boy,” Zipp sighed, her head falling into her hooves. Out of all of them, Zipp found it the hardest to tolerate the unicorn superstitions. She believed in science and rules, and none of the beliefs of the unicorns seemed to follow any of those things.

Izzy cleared her throat, and all light disappeared except for the cool, blue light coming from the crystal. “It all began a long, long time ago…”

Author's Note:

I, personally, would like a future episode dedicated to how Hearth's Warming Eve developed into Wishday, Wishentine, and Wishiehoof, but maybe that's just me. Or are you guys curious, too?

Constructive criticism is appreciated. Thank you for reading!

Comments

[BronySonicFan]

I, personally, would like a future episode dedicated to how Hearth's Warming Eve developed into Wishday, Wishentine, and Wishiehoof, but maybe that's just me. Or are you guys curious, too?

I mean... the point of Hearth's Warming Eve was to celebrate unity among ponykind.

With the three tribes separated for centuries, there was no point on keep that thing alive, so each tribe just made their own holiday. I don't think there's a lot to explain.

[bookhorse125]

11445026
I know, but I want to see how the holiday changed throughout the years, and how each tribe came up with their own holiday. I think it would be interesting.