Chapter 1
Every year, when winter was due to end, ponies all across Equestria turned it into a holiday, with local festivals abound. In Ponyville, the yearly tradition was to do Winter Wrap-Up without magic as the ponies welcomed spring. However, though ponies were eager to bade goodbye to the quiet season, they welcomed her start in a more sombre, subdued tone.
If Fluttershy were pressed to, she might have been able to compose a song on the spot about the start of winter. However, a mere song could never do justice to her feelings about the time of short days, long nights and lots of snow.
Though there was no big festival to start the winter, Fluttershy had her own personal ritual. She hummed as she went through her closet. Pushing aside the light casual wear she owned the few dresses she had kept while on tour with Rarity, Fluttershy found the heavier clothing she kept at the back. It only took a few seconds to decide on a frilly dress and hat combination Rarity had made for her before, the turquoise colour almost perfectly matching Fluttershy’s eyes. For the moderately cool-but-not-yet-cold temperatures outdoors, it would work.
Fluttershy put the dress on, followed by her hat, taking a few seconds to fit her wings and ears through the holes Rarity had provided when stitching them up. At last, she descended the stairs of her cottage home.
“Oh, hello Pinkie,” Fluttershy greeted the other pony as she left her humble abode.
“Good morning, Fluttershy,” Pinkie greeted back. “Are you ready for our walk as well?”
“Yes, I am,” said Fluttershy. She looked over Pinkie’s own outfit. While the Earth pony didn’t have a hat, she made up for it with a heavier jacket-dress splashed in shades of purple, with a wool lining lovingly stitched on. Her jacket was another product of Rarity, if Fluttershy’s keen eye was correct. Pinkie’s ensemble was completed with four purple socks with a design to not slide on ice, no doubt ‘to keep her hoofsies warm’. “That’s a lovely dress you have there.”
“Thank you. Rarity made it for me recently,” Pinkie Pie said, confirming Fluttershy’s suspicions. With that, the two ponies were off.
The first planned snowfall of winter was always gorgeous. The Ponyville weather team was meticulous in keeping the daily precipitation to reasonable levels, instead of spacing out large dumps of snow. The result was snow falling to the ground gracefully, filling the sky with a million billion particles of purest white crystal that scattered light everywhere. The trees were like frosted cake with white icing that drew out the layers of green needles underneath, rather than obscuring it.
Fluttershy knew her wings and tail would be like the branches of the trees by the time she got home. Unprotected by her clothing, snow and frost would find a nest in her feathers. That was alright, for it was the price winter extracted for having this view, and it was as much of winter as anything else.
At one point along the way into town, the two stopped. Fluttershy looked behind her shoulder. The hoofprints she and Pinkie Pie had left behind was the only proof of life in this barren, desolate world. Against the desolate grey sky, and the otherwise-undisturbed snow, the two ponies were the only bit of colour in the world that morning.
“How are all your animals, Fluttershy?” Pinkie asked all of a sudden, breaking Fluttershy out of her reverie.
Fluttershy curled her lip up at the question. Winter was always something she greeted with sad fondness. “Harry Bear has been working on his den for the last few weeks. He’ll be going to hibernate soon along with the bunnies and snakes, and Mr. and Mrs. Squirrel are already sleeping. All the birds have already flown south.”
There was a reason Angel Bunny was her absolute favorite among all her animals. He was an outlier among creatures: while most bunnies would go into a deep sleep for the winter, Angel did not. He was Fluttershy’s only year-round non-equine companion.
Fluttershy gave Pinkie a sideways glance. In winter, Pinkie often took Fluttershy out for walks. It had been like that ever since Fluttershy moved to Ponyville. She didn’t know why the other pony did it, just that Pinkie did. Gone was Pinkie’s always-present ebullience when they went for their walks, replaced by a quiet, even thoughtful Pinkie Pie. She didn’t know why Pinkie had invited her out for a walk that first winter Fluttershy was in Ponyville, without any close friends to curl up next to a roaring fire with and enjoy hot chocolate, or to build snowponies with. Fluttershy just knew she had accepted, and ever since then the two enjoyed the wintery outdoors. Somehow, like finding out Santa Claws wasn’t real, asking Pinkie would ruin the magic.
Instead, Fluttershy asked, “How are the twins doing?”
Pinkie smiled. It wasn’t a wild smile like Pinkie was normally known for. It was a smile full of amazement that reached her eyes, as new life had sprouted and begun to grow in front of her. “Pumpkin Cake managed to levitate her entire crib yesterday. The pedologist was impressed when the Cakes took her in the last time at her magical strength. Of course, she sometimes has ‘accidental’ magic outbreaks that end up with her dumping a bag of flour over my head.”
Fluttershy wrinkled her nose at that. She doubted it was entirely accidental. The pegasus knew how much of brats young colts and fillies could be, having foalsat many times. The Cutie Mark Crusaders were proof of that, having once gone into the forest to find a lost chicken after Fluttershy had put them to bed.
Then she observed Pinkie’s eyes again. Where Fluttershy would compare her own eye colour to the green of the sea, she would say Pinkie’s were blue like the open sky, boundless and without limit, always with the endless freedom Fluttershy wished she could embrace. The joy never left Pinkie Pie’s eyes. “But you enjoy every moment of it, don’t you?” Fluttershy asked.
“I enjoy every moment of it,” Pinkie Pie agreed. Then she turned her head, and pointed her hoof. “Look, Fluttershy!”
Fluttershy followed where Pinkie was pointing, and gasped. A squirrel, one who hadn’t gone to sleep yet, was scaling a tree. Against the relaxed snowfall, he was a frantic, buzzing icon of life, defying winter and all it represented. Perhaps he had neglected to gather enough food for his three months off, or maybe he enjoyed the cold like they did. A half-dozen possibilities went through Fluttershy’s mind, and then the squirrel hopped off a branch, bounding towards another tree and deep into the forest.
A shower of diamond dust sprayed into the air as the branch cut back up with the squirrel no longer weighing it down, throwing up some snow. The snow hung in the air for a moment’s breath, and in that moment Fluttershy wished sorely that she had super-sight, so she could see the intricate designs of the snowflakes as each of six dendrites grew, morphed and formed a unique pattern before finally being snuffed out. Then the moment passed, and mother earth accepted the flakes into her sweet embrace as the snow fell.
“It might be winter, but that doesn’t mean every creature has called it quits yet!” Pinkie said enthusiastically.
“No, they haven’t,” said Fluttershy, nodding. “Some of them will continue to stay around, though many of them will eventually go away for the winter. Only a few of them, like Angel Bunny, stay awake the entire winter.”
And perhaps that was it, Fluttershy decided. Maybe Pinkie Pie did this every year to help keep Fluttershy’s mind away from the painful feeling of absence that gnawed at her every year as they got deep into winter’s heart. For all that she was often bouncy and energetic, Pinkie Pie was still her own pony, and every pony had more than one side to them. Fluttershy felt herself privileged to be able to see this other side of Pinkie, like the multi-faceted snowflakes, each without equal. Pinkie was one member of the six Elements of Harmony, each member providing an equal take on the virtues of harmony, much like the typical six-fold radial symmetry of a snowflake: yet each pony, each dendrite was different, shaped by her birth and life’s experiences.
Past the surface of being Ponyville’s number one party pony, Fluttershy was seeing more of the true Pinkie Pie.
“The world is quiet today,” Pinkie Pie remarked.
“Yes, yes it is,” Fluttershy said. Then again, she was a coward. It could be she was reading far more into Pinkie’s motives than actually existed. Maybe Pinkie, in staying true to her mission to be friends with everypony in Ponyville, merely saw walks as the best way to cavort with Fluttershy, instead of a wild party. Fluttershy wouldn’t think of her any less for it, yet a part of her still clung onto some romantic notion of Pinkie having a greater scheme for their friendship.
Maybe winter was actually Pinkie Pie’s season, Fluttershy thought. As everypony else around her went into a gloom and funk over the lack of colour in the great outdoors and the shorter days and the cold temperatures, Pinkie was always the pony to see the best in everything. For her, winter would mean skiing, snowball fights, and ice skating. It would mean hiking through the snow, observing nature in a fragile state of stillness, of cuddling up with a friend around the fireplace and drinking hot chocolate. Pinkie’s challenge of bringing cheer and joy to ponies was the greatest in the winter, and the payoff would also be greater than any else.
If that were the event, then Fluttershy considered her successful. Every year, without fail, Fluttershy always looked forward to their walks, quiet as they were.
Then the world around them suddenly brightened. As one, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie looked up to see the clouds splitting open, witnessing the first hint of the blue sky thus far. The sun peeked through the opening, and the snow glittered in its radiance.
“Welcome to the first day of winter, Fluttershy,” Pinkie said, beaming at the pegasus.
Fluttershy smiled back. “Thank you, Pinkie. A good winter to you as well.”