Chapter One: Boil Water
Rarity sipped from her paper cup. “This coffee is delightful!”
“Why’re you shouting?” Applejack muttered back.
Rarity, free hand upheld and pointedly turning her ear towards Applejack, lifted her cup as she would a chalice. “Why, it could very well be the most delectable coffee to grace this miserable Earth!”
“Rares, everyone from the café to the school can hear ya.”
“Dare I say it, this coffee – “
“Rarity, dude,” Rainbow said, snapping to get Rarity’s attention. “I said that, not AJ.”
“Oh,” Rarity said in her inside voice. “My apologies. You just sometimes sound so much like – ” seamlessly, she lifted her nose and her voice “ – someone I used to have the unfortunateness of knowing.”
From behind Rarity, Applejack scowled and scrunched her face. In one smooth motion, Rainbow inconspicuously gestured to Applejack to walk off, I got this as she grabbed Rarity by the shoulders.
“So, Rares. That coffee. What were you sayin’ about it?”
“That it is so absolutely heavenly I may as well die now, and if I did I’m sure you, my dear friend Dashie, would miss me dearly – “
“AJ’s gone.”
Rarity dropped her hand and her voice at once. “Oh, finally. Why does she have to make it so hard to ignore her?”
Rainbow let go of Rarity and leaned against a desk. “Because she’s your friend?”
“Well she wasn’t doing a very good job of it before the fight,” Rarity muttered before indulging another sip of coffee.
“What’re you two lovebirds quarreling about anyways?”
Rarity raised her finger up to hold Rainbow up as she continued her distrautingly long sip of coffee that included cycling through various thinking faces. Rainbow herself sported only one face on during the long minute, and that was an impatient frown.
Finally, Rarity lowered the cup, smacked her lips daintily, and hummed.
A beat. Two.
“What was the question – “
“What’re you two fighting about?” Rainbow cut in quick.
Rarity pursed her lips. “Well. That is a very good question. And you see, dear friend Dashie, good questions require even better answers, which are hard to come by.”
“I’m pretty sure if you forgot, then AJ has, too.”
Rarity deepened her frown. “Oh, you’d be surprised by the grudge she can hold.”
“Got a lot of experience with this, do ya?”
“It’s all about give and take, Rainbow Dash,” Rarity declared a bit loudly.
Rainbow nodded. “Sure. The Rarity giveth, and the Rarity taketh away.”
“Quite.”
Rainbow kicked off the desk and started walking to the door. “All right then, but you better get this sorted out by tomorrow. We’re doing the name draw for the Secret Santa, and Pinkie said she’s gonna go full on crazy exorcist if there’s any negative energy.”
Following Rainbow in suit, Rarity inspects her cup. “Oh, don’t you worry. AJ and I have been back from worse.”
Rainbow tipped her head to the cup. “Worse than that coffee?”
Rarity gives Rainbow a look. “It’s dreadful, isn’t it?”
Rainbow grabbed the cup and tossed it basketball style into the trashcan on the other side of the room. “Nothing but net. Or should I say trash. A-booyah.”
Rarity gave Rainbow a long look of disappointment.
“I wonder, will you cease saying such embarrassing things if I stop talking to you too?”
Rainbow punched Rarity’s shoulder on her way out the door. “Guess we’ll never find out, my dear friend Dashie. Now c’mon, we got work to do.”
“Cheeky today, aren’t you?”
On a good day, Fluttershy would be able to handle a massive festive family get-together overlapping with a Pinkie Crisis™.
Today, however, was not a good day.
“Fluttershy, how can you be so CALM?!” Pinkie screamed, slapping icing on a cake that didn't deserve such treatment.
Fluttershy sipped her hot chocolate to quell the inner panic about to burst from her throat. “Oh, I know you'll be just fine.”
“Just fine?!” Pinkie threw the cake into a fragile box and packed it up. “Just fine is no better than satisfactory! On the number line of How Things Are Going, just fine is sandwiched between not too bad and it could be worse!”
That made Fluttershy feel uncomfortably targeted by the accuracy of it, given she often used those interchangeably when asked how she was.
“This Christmas needs to be Slammin’ Jammin’ 'Cause of Pinkie's Plannin’ (patent pending). And I still got ten orders to fill out before I even begin party treats, and we still need to pull names for the Secret Santa! Are you panicking now, Fluttershy?!”
Yes, she was. “Oh no, not at all.”
“WHY?!”
Fluttershy hugged her cocoa close. “Because I know everything will turn out better than you wanted. It does every year.”
Pinkie, in the middle whipping a batter, gave Fluttershy a teary-eyed smile. It was an unsettlingly divided image. “Aww, you're so supportive in my time of need.”
“Anything for a friend.”
Pinkie squinted her eyes and pursed her lips. She stopped stirring – though the whisk continued on its own – and pointed at Fluttershy with a finger covered in wet flour curds. “Remind me to bring mistletoe.”
Fluttershy would be startled if that wasn't the third time someone told her that today. “Okay.”
Pinkie jumped right back into folding doe over itself. “Great!”
As Pinkie began a rant on enrolling Twilight to study the effects of confetti colours on food taste, Fluttershy's mind drifted off into its Worry Place.
Therein, pinned against the mental wall, was a long Worry Over list, enumerating:
1. Big brother is coming home
2. Big brother asked for mistletoe
3. Big brother asked for Rainbow Dash
4. Rainbow Dash has been banned from the family get-together since seventh grade
a. this, in brief, is because of an incident involving mistletoe and a slime machine
5. Big brother has never come to know this
a. this point should forever hold true to maintain balance of family and friendship and [self]
6. [New] This year Big Brother found out about the Secret Santa and insists that Fluttershy bring Rainbow Dash to the family get-together after that gift exchange
7. [IMP] Should big brother find out about the household Rainbow Ban, he will surely cause a scene, which will top the other three Big Scenes [see Thanksgiving, Christmas, Black Friday]
8. Secret Santa
It all filled Fluttershy with a terrible dread that even her comfort drink couldn't do away with.
“By the way,” Pinkie said, as she beat a few poor eggs that did nothing but stayed quiet as they were wrenched from their mothers, “Hot cocoa is on the house today! Take as much as you’d like.”
Fluttershy nodded, wistfully eyeing the pot of hot cocoa on the stove where Pinkie continued her mad baking. Pinkie’s hot cocoa was almost worth losing an arm for, but things were hard enough already.
Fluttershy would help Pinkie, but given today was a Bad Day, she didn't want to do anything to ruin Pinkie's charity cakes – even if they were made with an excessive amount of force, inanimatity of the ingredients notwithstanding.
So she defaulted to supportive words, which she may be best at anyways. “Why don't you use an app to do the name draw?”
“Speak up, buttercup! Can't hear you over OVERTIME!”
“An app,” Fluttershy said again, not so much louder but she risked moving closer to the storm. “Or a website. I'm sure there must be a bunch for name draw events.”
Pinkie stopped everything with unreal suddenness. Then, everything seemingly suspended in air, she whispered, “Yes…”
That was when Fluttershy felt the eye of the storm pass over them – which meant the worst was yet to come, and then followed the aftermath.
She sighed and stared into her mug. It was going to be a long holiday break.
“If Fluttershy gets Rainbow Dash, she would probably give her a Dobermann.”
“Doesn't that go above the $50 limit?” Twilight asked.
Sunset shrugged. “I mean, what if it's a rescue?”
“There are still nominal costs involved, aren’t there?”
“True.”
Twilight took a methodical sip of her coffee. Methodical, because it filled the space where the conversation dipped, but mostly because methodical sipping was the best way to innocuously get rid of awful tasting coffee.
Rarity always had Le Tea's coffee, and indulge in a post-having brag. Maybe it was a refined taste.
“So,” Sunset began, and set the conversation wave back up. “What would Rainbow Dash get Rarity?”
It was a chess match; Twilight and Sunset played this game to get the advantage in the next one.
The game of Secret Santa.
“A Vampire Diaries memento,” Twilight suggested smartly.
But she deflated when Sunset pursed her lips. “Don't think Vampire Diaries has any mementos. Like, at best she could get a Blu-ray set, if they still do that sort of thing.”
Took a risk on unknown territory, missed step. Twilight chose to fallback to safety. “Perhaps a makeup set, then?”
Sunset pushed back in her chair and stared off. “I guess. But that's predictable, and you know how Rainbow Dash hates being predictable.”
Well, she knew now. Noted and logged.
“So I think Dash would end up going way over the top just to prove to Rarity that she's not what Rarity thinks she is. Complicated, I know.”
“So..?”
“So…” Sunset echoed. She paused for a beat, then answered, “So Dash would get Rarity some hella nice heels. Like, brand-name nice.”
“I suppose,” Twilight yielded, storing the idea away. “But, given we just predicted it, would that still be unpredictable?”
Sunset clicked her tongue nonchalantly. “I guess. Theoretically.”
“Theoretically.”
Theoretically or not, it still gave Twilight a few ideas. And, given this was her first Secret Santa, she was determined to do all the research she needed – inconspicuously, in tandem to the nature of the game – to ensure a successful participation.
Oh, and fun. But Twilight wasn't sure if it got any more fun than this.
Sunset pulled forward again and began to tap the table with a finger. “So what about you? If someone for you for Secret Santa, what would you like to get?”
Twilight blanched. Could Sunset really ask point blank? And was Twilight supposed to answer her honestly? What would she gain if she chose not to?
“I mean, theoretically,” Sunset added, smile sharp.
Sometimes Twilight forgot how Sunset could go toe to toe with her and still walk in the same direction.
But it didn't mean Twilight would make it easy for her. “I don't know, actually. I'm okay with anything anyone thinks to get me, really.”
“Oh, sure, Fluttershy,” Sunset said, picking up her cup. “But really, everyone's going to get you something academic in nature, but I'm thinking you'd really like...a telescope?”
Twilight honestly hadn't given her own gift much thought – just enough to know that she may as well make the game challenging on Sunset – but apparently Sunset had, because a telescope sounded perfect.
“And like, one of those nice compact ones,” Sunset continued, “that you can carry around with you. Bet you don't have one of those, right?”
“I'll bet,” Twilight offered, but anonymity was a moot point now. But she could shake the loss and turn things around, quite literally. “But I suppose you'd want some leather gloves. For your motorcycle, and to match your favourite jacket.”
Sunset grinned catlike, and, cup lifted to her lips, said, “I suppose.”
Twilight smiled her own victory smile. Her mental compendium of gifts for friends was now populated with enough to work with, to extrapolate from, for optimal gift exchange experience.
She looked at her phone, which read half an hour until name draw, and thereby twenty-four-and-a-half hours to gift time.
Twilight took a bitter, almost sour sip from her coffee, that she imagined would taste sweet were she of more refined palate.
She was ready.
“And that's the story of how Father Christmas had dinner with Mother Nature,” Applejack finished, coiling the last few strands of Apple Bloom's hair.
“Gee, sis,” Apple Bloom said, then paused. “Uhh. That was – an interesting story.”
Applejack sighed, moved the braid over to one hand, and used the other to grab her cup and stir the eggnog in her mug – the same almond milk non-alcoholic eggnog that Rarity always claimed was too not Applejack-like, darling.
“Ya know, Bloom, you really gotta 'ppreciate a good ol’ story. Y'jus’ can't get the heart of it from TV.”
Apple Bloom twisted slightly. “AJ, no one watches TV anymore. Not even you.”
Applejack took a swig of eggnog and resumed her braiding. “I know. Jus’ wanted to keep the spirit alive, least for the holidays.”
“It's probably a noble thang, sis.”
“Thanks. Hair band?”
Apple Bloom looked over AJ’s bedroom, grabbed blindly about, and finally noticed it wrapped around her wrist. She passed it back to Applejack lamely.
Applejack chuckled as she tied off the end of Apple Bloom’s hair. “There ya go.”
“Thanks, sis!” Apple Bloom said, jumping off Applejack's bed and tossing her head around to test the braid. “I love it!”
“Anytime,” Applejack said. As long as it wasn’t Rarity asking for hair things, AJ was happy to help. “Now I got get skedaddling to the name draw or Pinks is gonna blow like a pipe on pig washin’ day.”
Apple Bloom opened her mouth, then seemed to decide against it, then seemed to undecide that and speak up. “No one says any of those things anymore, sis.”
“You do, sometimes.”
“Yeah, well, I make it cute.” Apple Bloom emphasised that with a spin that made her braid fly. “Hey, sis? Ya know how Granny's always talkin’ ‘bout the good ol’ days?”
“Yeah?”
“Is that what we're doin’ now? 'Cause I don't remember a word of that story and I'm pretty sure I ain’t gonna remember any of this after two days.”
Applejack shrugged. “Hey, some things jus’ stick, and some slip away. You'll get it when you grow up.”
“You always say that,” Apple Bloom groused.
“Yeah, well, 'pparently I been sayin lost'a things no one else is.”
Apple Bloom laughed – “Exactly!” – and pushed Applejack before running out of her room.
Applejack snorted a laugh to herself, and drowned it with a sip of her drink. Apple Bloom may not know it now, but she would definitely at least remember how excited she got every year for her Christmas sleepover Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo.
She finished her drink, then slipped on her hat. Applejack could say the same for herself and to the Secret Santa she was gonna be late for if she didn't get going.
She checked her phone, which showed a text from Pinkie saying, planz have changed [bee emoji]yaches!
She would also remember how angry she still was with Rarity and how much she would wrangle Pinkie if she did anything to skew the name draw.
“Finally,” Rarity sighed, admiring the glass mug she held out. “A worthy holiday drink.”
Without looking away from her phone sitting on the kitchen counter, Rainbow continued to tune her ukulele. “Yo, Rares, you get Pinks text?”
“I swear, Rainbow, you never listen to moi.”
“That’s why we never get into any fights,” Rainbow bounced back, still mostly occupied. “But did you read the text ‘bout the name draw?”
Part of Rarity seriously considered proving Rainbow Dash wrong, but the rest chimed against it to the tune of All I Want For Christmas. “No, what about it?”
“She says we’re not meeting up, and we’re just gonna use some website to do the name draw.”
Rarity set her cup down, then approached Rainbow Dash and looked over her shoulder at her phone. “Huh. I can’t decide if that’s a good or bad thing.”
Rainbow frowned. “Uh, bad thing. That messes the whole plan up! How am I gonna casually suggest to ‘Shy that I play at her family thing if I don’t coincidentally show up with my uke?”
Rarity nodded. “I’ve decided: it’s a good thing.”
Rainbow finally looked back at Rarity, arms thrown wide. “You seriously gonna try this now?”
“Sorry,” Rarity said, patting Rainbow’s shoulder. “Too tempting.” She checked the time, then walked back to her cup. “In truth, it could work in our favour.”
Rainbow strummed a sad chord on her ukulele. “How?”
Rarity removed the bag from her cup, lifted it so the steam tickled her nose, and smiled winningly at Rainbow Dash. “Oh, I’ve got it all planned out.”
Two different chimes rang out, and Rainbow looked back at her phone. “Oh, it’s a notification…for the name draw? I got – oh, hey, so it’s just gonna text us, huh? Guess that’s useful. Cool.”
Rarity smiled – “Game time.” – and took a sip of her tea.