Several years after Applejack and Fluttershy visited her village, Rain Shine decided to visit them for Hearth's Warming. She has a gift, and she thinks she knows how trains work.
Now that her village is full of chatter and cheer, now that one of the Kirin is in Friendship School, Rain Shine decides that she's going to visit Ponyville for Hearth's Warming.
Unfortunately, she doesn't understand trains as well as she should.
On the plus side, she makes a new friend along the way. Sometimes the best friends are the ones you've just met.
An Unexpected Winter Journey Prologue Admiral Biscuit For Comma Typer, Jinglemas 2022
Last winter, Summer Chills had returned to the Kirin village for winter holidays and had told them all the tale of Hearth’s Warming and what traditions ponies had to celebrate it. She didn’t get every detail correct—her learning had consisted of playing a bit part in the student version of the pageant, and what her Friendship School classmates had told her.
Nevertheless, she did her very best to pass her knowledge on to the village at large, and Rain Shine decreed that for the solstice this year, in addition to the traditional feasts there would be a decorated tree and gift-giving. Something from the heart.
A few weeks later, Summer Chills made her way to the train station and left for school. Winter dragged on, as it often does, and Rain Shine spent much of it reflecting on the past. How the formerly silent village was now vibrant, even in the chilly, dreary winter gloom. Kirin were talking, Kirin were singing, Kirin were playing.
She’d thought she’d done what was right for them, but she’d been hasty and foolish and had almost destroyed them. Once they had their voices and emotions back, she asked Autumn Blaze to take her place. Autumn Blaze refused—she didn’t want to be queen. She should have been. She would have made a better queen.
Spring came, then summer. Summer Chills arrived in the village with more tales of Ponyville and Equestria and the lands beyond, of her classmates and her friends and her teachers. She returned home with a case of zap apple jam that Applejack herself had made and all the Kirin shared it during their summer solstice celebration.
Summer Chills returned to school as the summer wound down. The leaves on the deciduous trees in their village turned a riot of colors and then they fell off, covering the green in a crunchy carpet. Snow capped the mountains around their valley, a promise of what was to come. Rain Shine lay awake at night wondering what kind of gift she could give the ponies who had asked for nothing in return for everything.
I didn’t know how empty our village was until it was filled with life again.
Hearth’s Warming was about more than just gifts. It was about togetherness and unity and as such, Rain Shine stood alone on the train platform. This year, the Kirin would celebrate the solstice without her, and they’d do it without burning down the village.
Hopefully.
Summer Chills had explained how trains worked and a few Kirin had tried them; after that experience they’d volunteered to staff the station instead of the weird creepy pony who used to work there.
The wind off the mountains wasn’t exactly pleasant, but she put her rump into the wind and endured it. When they got done renovating the existing station, they could expand it into something bigger with an indoor waiting area.
She was contemplating the question of why there was even a train station here at all when she spotted a distant headlight. In no time at all, it resolved itself into a locomotive.
A shrill screech of metal-on-metal announced its arrival before the obligatory mournful whistle, and the train slid to a stop in line with the perfunctory platform. The brakemare disembarked from the locomotive, tipped her hat to Rain Shine, and trotted to the last car.
Rain Shine stepped up into the coach and studied the interior. She’d never ridden in a train before. Benches flanked either side of a central aisle, and there were doors at the end of each coach for passage to the next.
A pony dressed in a blue vest with a brass-trimmed cap asked to see her ticket, punched a hole shaped like his cutie mark in it, and then walked to the next coach, leaving Rain Shine alone. She wasn’t sure where he was going; no other ponies had boarded the train.
Rain Shine considered her options—the back of the train seemed like where everything was happening, but she was also curious about the locomotive. She’d never seen one before, and it was making all sorts of interesting noises and smells.
She shifted her weight as the train set out in reverse—the Peaks of Peril was the end of the line, and the train had to back all the way to Mustangia before there was a wye where it could turn around.
An Unexpected Winter Journey Chapter 1 Admiral Biscuit For Comma Typer, Jinglemas 2022
As the train made its way towards Ponyville, it began to fill up with ponies. Some of them only had saddlebags, while others brought aboard suitcases and brightly-wrapped presents. The conductor punched each ticket in turn, and as the train progressed the coach got more and more vibrant—when it had left her station, it had been as silent and lifeless as her village once was; now it was filled with the quiet conversations of dozens of ponies, all of them eager to get to their destinations.
Outside, the weather began to change. Chill winds and gloomy skies gave way to blowing snow, piling drifts, and frigid gusts through the coach. Frost crept along the borders of the window and she watched it make its strange fractal patterns as the train continued on.
Like all the rest of the Kirin, Rain Shine had learned about train schedules and timetables from Summer Chills. She knew the order of stations, and she had memorized the name of the station before Ponyville: Haywards Heath.
She didn’t know about whistle-stop stations, because Summer Chills didn’t, either.
•••
The train screeched to a stop in Seven Top, where two ponies waited on the windswept platform. Rain Shine—thinking that this was Ponyville—pushed the door open and stepped past as one of them—a cheerful mare with floral-print luggage and a chicken as a cutie mark—boarded the train.
No sooner had she set her hooves on the platform did the train accelerate away, its rear marker lights fading into the blowing snow. She and her gift stood on the platform in the company of a stallion dressed in a stained shirt and a green bill cap.
From how Summer Chills had described it, Rain Shine had expected for the train station to be adjacent to the center of Ponyville, but as she looked around, there was nothing to be seen but snow-covered fields bordered with denuded trees.
She turned to the stallion who remained on the platform. He was kind of giving her a side-eyed look, as a few of the passengers on the train had.
As she turned to him, he took a step back and then squared his stance and looked her in the eyes. “Do you know the way to Ponyville?”
“Uh, sure do.” He raised a grubby hoof and pointed down the tracks. “It’s thataway. Woulda been fastest to take the train, but you missed it. Guess ya got off a stop too early, huh?”
“This isn’t Ponyville?”
He shook his head. “Seven Top, home of the finest turnips in all of Equestria. I was wonderin, when you got off the train, nopony much has business in Seven Top, specially not on Hearth’s Warming Eve..”
A brief flicker of balefire suffused Rain Shine and just as quickly faded away. The conductor had announced all the previous stops by name but not this one. She’d made an assumption and it was wrong. “When is the next train?”
“Shoot.” The station didn’t even have a ticket booth; it was naught but a platform alongside the tracks. “For Ponyville, once, sometimes twice a day, but tomorrow’s Hearth’s Warming and I don’t think they run any trains on Hearth’s Warming. Never paid it much mind.”
“I need to get to Ponyville,” Rain Shine said. “Is there no other way?”
“There’s the road, but in weather like this?” He gestured to the blowing snow. “Train can smash through drifts a lot easier than a pony can.” He eyed her up and down. “Guess you’ve got the legs for snow.”
The urge to scream and burst into flame had been steadily building in Rain Shine. She needed to get to Ponyville for Hearth’s Warming, and she was stymied. The frustration needed an outlet and she was just on the cusp of going Nirik when he mentioned her legs.
The incongruity and brilliant obvious obliviousness of that statement gave her pause. “So I could walk?”
He nodded. “Wouldn’t recommend it, not in this weather. You’re better off to stay at home and sleep late.”
Her gift wouldn’t diminish if it were delivered a day or more past when the ponies celebrated, but still, she’d been hoping to get there. She dredged up her limited knowledge of the world beyond her valley. “Are there hotels or lodging houses in Seven Tops?”
He snorted. “Nobbut what somepony offers. We don’t—” His eyes went wide as the implications sank in. “You wanna get out of the snow, my house isn’t far. Ain’t much, but it’s warm. Might be better to have walls around us and a roof over us, keeping off the snow, while you figure out what you’re gonna do next.”
“Thank you.”
He turned and walked off the platform; she followed.
•••
He hadn’t been lying; his house wasn’t much. If a Kirin were to pile a bunch of sticks into a vague house-shape, it would only be one step removed from his simple shack, and yet when she stepped through the rough-hewn door onto the simple earthen floor, she still felt the hominess of it. The walls kept the wind-blown snow out, a plain hearth still filled with glowing embers gave heat, and a single hurricane lantern provided light.
“Weren’t really expecting company,” he admitted. “Mighta cleaned up a bit.”
“Were you to be alone on Hearth’s Warming?”
“Well, no, not alone.” He motioned to a threadbare couch and she took a seat. “Fact is, a lotta us farmers have a get together in the town hall, we each make some fixins and sing as best we can. It ain’t no Canterlot Choir, but we all do our best. I’m sure you’d be more’n welcome if you wanted to join; beggin’ your pardon but I expect you got a good singing voice.”
“Too long silenced.” Rain Shine sighed and shifted on her rump. “I had been hoping to get to Ponyville, but if that isn’t in the cards, I could join you.”
“If you don’t mind me prying, you visiting family?”
She shook her head. “Friends—friends who I owe more to than a simple present could ever represent. They’ve given me more than I could ever repay, Fluttershy and Applejack and—”
His ears perked. “Applejack?”
“You know her?”
“She’s my cousin.”
Rain Shine snorted. “You’re pulling my tail.”
“Swear ta Celestia it’s true.” He tucked his sweat-stained hat to his breast. “She’s the most kindest, givingest pony in all of Equestria, strike me down if it ain’t so. Under that hat of hers is the most honest pony in all of Equestria. And her apples are pretty good, too.” He rummaged through the cupboards, finally producing a bottle with a mouth-printed label. “Apple brandy, she made it herself, gifted it a couplea years ago. Said it was for special occasions and I reckon this one’s special.”
“Is it?”
“Well, you know her. Who’d’ve expected you to show up in Seven Top Hearth’s Warming Eve? Almost like kinfolk I didn’t know I had.” He put his mouth to the cork then popped his head back up. “Shoot, we never did introduce ourselves. I’m Hayseed Turnip Truck, Hayseed to my family and friends.”
“Rain Shine.”
The pair bumped hooves, and Hayseed tucked his head back down to the bottle. “Us meetin’ is just like fate, I think.”
An Unexpected Winter Journey Chapter 2 Admiral Biscuit For Comma Typer, Jinglemas 2022
The two of them sat on the couch and sipped apple brandy for a time, and then by mutual agreement they went out the door, back into the storm.
“I can hitch up to my sleigh,” Hayseed offered.
Rain Shine could picture it in her mind, and shook her head. The indignity of being towed to Ponyville when all four of her legs worked perfectly well, thank you very much.
She shook her head. “I’ll walk. Snow never bothered me anyway.”
“Huh.” He shifted around on his hooves and then looked up at her again. “Beggin’ your pardon, but I never thought a fancy pony’d wanna walk if a ride was offered.”
“I’m not a fancy pony.”
“Well, you’re tall like one . . . are you Prench?”
Rain Shine giggled. “I’m a Kirin.”
“Can’t say I’ve ever met one afore.” Hayseed turned towards the path. “I was gonna say that I could go slow so’s you can keep up, but I don’t reckon that’s gonna be a problem.”
“I’ll carry you over drifts if we encounter any.”
“Oh, we will.” Hayseed had started walking, but he stopped to motion over the empty fields. “Terrain like this, get just a little wind an' something to stop it, you got a drift. Fence, embankment, even a tree . . . I know the road as well as I know my fields. We’ll get to Ponyville, maybe a little late and with sore hooves, but we’ll get there.”
He started walking again, and then stopped again. “Before we leave, are you gonna be able to carry that present on your back all the way? I could get my panniers; I think it’d fit in ‘em.”
Rain Shine would have said no, but just then a gust of wind whipped some snow across the path, and the package slid halfway off her back. She could keep it in place with magic if she had to, but a pannier might make it easier.
•••
Hayseed was more than willing to carry it, but she insisted. His girth strap barely fit her, but fit her it did. It was an unusual feeling—Kirin rarely wore saddlebags or panniers or anything else combustible.
She remembered that the train had had a mail car right in the front; she could have given them the present and it would have been delivered . . . but that wasn’t the same as being there, even if being there now meant following a new friend all the way to Ponyville.
“Are you sure that you want to lead me? I can just walk on the railroad tracks and they’ll get me there.”
“Oh, no, can’t do that.” Hayseed shook his head. “Train might come along . . . passenger trains run a regular enough schedule, but freights go when they can. Plus, ties ain’t spaced right for a pony to comfortably walk on’ em.” For the second time, he started along his walkway, this time without stopping to turn back. “And I do want to, seems like when a pony needs help anypony who can oughtta help her.”
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
•••
The two walked in silence to the end of town—or what passed for a town. A few scattered homes, a couple of stores. Most of them were closed. A restaurant or tavern—she wasn’t sure, since there wasn’t any sign on the ramshackle building—had ponies seated on the patio. One pony waved to Hayseed, and a few pairs of eyes studied her with curiosity.
Tempting though it was to cut their so-far brief journey short and introduce herself to them, she focused back on the road ahead.
Was that the right thing to do? Kirin weren’t well-known in Equestria proper, and even if it hadn’t been her intention, she was essentially an emissary. Summer Chills said that ponies were always curious about her and the other pony-adjacent species; she said that it fell off after a while, unless she visited somewhere new.
Which was more important? Getting her present to Ponyville or stopping to chat and disambiguate?
That thought led off in two directions; first that Hayseed might be upset if she delayed him—a silly thought; he seemed more interested in her journey than whatever he’d had planned for his evening.
Secondly, she wondered if some of the ponies who saw her in his company might think they were a couple. Gossip had started from less, and sometimes gossip led to anger and oftentimes anger had led to fire.
That was in the past, and that should stay in the past. The whole reason for her trip . . . Rain Shine growled and turned her attention back to Hayseed, who’d actually managed to outpace her while she was lost in thought.
•••
His village fell away and the duo journeyed into a more feral part of Equestria. Some of it would eventually be worked by ponies; a few fillies and colts got their cutie marks and then bought a farm. Not all the land was tillable: bottomland was good, flooding brought nutrients into the soil and a pony just had to be prudent about what crops she planted and when. Other land wasn’t so good, it stayed swampy most or all of the year, and there wasn’t anything a pony wanted to eat that would grow on it.
He’d done well with his plot of land; it had been just the right soil for turnips. They might not have been as fanciable as some crops, but he didn’t mind. They were good eating, they filled a pony’s belly, and they could be combined with almost anything. Kept nearly forever in a root cellar.
Hayseed glanced back to make sure that Rain Shine was still following.
She was.
He had a lot of questions about her. The horn made her a unicorn and her build should have meant she was Prench, Saddle Arabian, or a princess. She didn’t fit any of those categories.
Plus, her horn was wrong for a unicorn anyway. It looked more like a changeling horn . . .
Hayseed stumbled on his hooves as the realization hit him. What if she’s a changeling? She’d said she was a Kirin, but he wasn’t sure what that was.
There were lots of new species showing up in Ponyville lately, on account of the friendship school there. He snorted. Friendship school was a silly idea; ponies ought to know how to be neighborly without having to go to school for it. He knew how to be neighborly, and he hadn’t attended a friendship school. Heck, he’d barely attended regular school; there was always farm work that needed to be done and that took precedence to book-learning.
It was so much easier when they were just three tribes in Equestria, he thought. A pony knew where they stood. Now it seemed like some new kind of creature showed up just about every day.
He turned back, both to make sure that she was still following him and to get another look at her. Not that he really needed to; he’d gotten a good look on the station platform.
There were good changelings and bad changelings; the bad ones had black carapaces and holes all over them and crooked horns, while the good ones were pastel and had a curved horn. Both kinds could change to look like other ponies, and it didn’t take a school diploma to realize that a changeling who couldn’t change the shape of her horn as part of her disguise would get discovered very quickly.
And she knew Applejack, which he decided made her the real deal. He might not know what a Kirin was, but any friend of Applejack was a friend of his.
“Getting to the edge of Seven Top,” he told her. “Lands go beyond the town border, but it’s more feral—from here on out, road’s gonna be bad. If you’re thinking of turning back, now’s a good time to say so.”
“How far is Ponyville?”
“Well, I don’t rightly know, never paced it out. Normally takes me half a day to get there, if’n I go by hoof. Snow’ll delay us, I don’t think we’ll get there before nightfall.”
Rain Shine nodded. “You . . . I should have asked: do you have a place to stay in Ponyville? You aren’t planning on walking back, are you? Because I can follow the road on my own, I’m sure.”
“Don’t you worry about me. I got plenty of family in Ponyville, I can spend the night practically anywhere.”
“Because you don’t have to accompany me.”
“Yeah. I do. You don’t know the road; I’d hate for you to get lost and wind up in Forelle by mistake.”
•••
Kirin had never really gone for long journeys, not in her lifetime. The vastness of Equestria hadn’t really crossed Rain Shine’s mind, not in a meaningful way. She knew of some towns and cities that were ‘far away,’ and the train ride had started to give her a sense of what ‘far away’ meant. Being on her own legs on a snow-covered road let it really sink in. From anywhere in her village, she could see the whole of their land, and the range of mountains that surrounded it as well. It was easy to know how far her lands spread.
Here, she had no idea. Seven Top was a memory, replaced by trees and occasional clearings covered in snow, and somewhere up ahead was Ponyville. Far enough away that the sun—still faintly shining through the heavy snowclouds—would be gone before they arrived.
It was intimidating when she thought about it that way.
All the stations the train had gone between. She hadn’t considered how fast it was going, how long it would take to walk the same distance. What would she have done if the train didn’t come almost to her doorstep?
She’d be ruling over a silent village, as quiet as the woods that surrounded them.
Hayseed hadn’t been lying about the drifts; near clear areas they piled up on the road. Sometimes there was enough wind moving in the right direction to clear all the snow off; other times it looked like shifting clouds, hiding the road from her sight.
Every now and then, they’d pass a small home tucked into the woods. Hayseed knew most of the ponies who lived along the road and what they did. Some of them just preferred to be alone, while others gathered firewood or mushrooms or made wicker or syrup. Some of them would go to Seven Top on market days to buy food or other supplies; others relied on what the woods could provide.
His stamina was impressive; serving both as a tour guide and a trailblazer, his pace hadn’t slowed since they’d left his house. She’d wrongly assumed he was a lazy, slovenly pony, although kind-hearted. She’d wondered if he’d been trying to discourage her from walking to Ponyville since it was too far for him to walk, but she was starting to get the idea that he could keep up his pace for as long as he needed to.
•••
Hayseed didn’t expect that naming off the ponies who lived along the road would mean anything to Rain Shine—although if she knew Applejack, who knew who else she might know?
In truth, it had been a while since he’d walked the road. The train was fast and convenient, and lately he’d just been whisking by all those homes on his way to Ponyville.
Even if it was cold and snowy, even if so far he hadn’t seen any ponies he knew out by the road or working in their yards, it was good to take the slow way.
Seven Top had never been big enough to get a full market, and they’d always grown more turnips than they could sell in town, especially once he got big enough to help out in the fields. He couldn’t count the number of times he’d made this journey either riding in his mother’s market wagon, or walking alongside.
He rarely sold turnips in Ponyville anymore; it was just as easy to send a consignment by freight train. Just as easy to talk to a broker who looked over his crop and made an offer for a certain number of bushels. It gave him more time to make sure his turnips were the best he could grow, and he’d never considered what had been lost in the convenience.
How many ponies who lived on this road had watched the daily hoof traffic fall off as the train took precedence? Some of them still came to Seven Top to sell their wares, or at least to catch a train to Ponyville or wherever else they could get the most profit.
Sometimes he wondered how much progress was good, and how much of it wasn’t. Investing in new and improved farm equipment always paid off over time; a cultivator that could clear two rows simultaneously was better than the old one that did it one row at a time, and he spent hours in the winter perusing farm catalogs by lamplight, trying to decide if a new implement would give him good bang for the bit.
He focused his attention back on the present as he bashed through another drift. Rain Shine was still keeping up her pace, which impressed him. She didn’t look like a pony who’d spent a single day in harness.
Just the same, she had good endurance. Most ponies he knew that weren’t earth ponies didn’t have a lot of endurance, especially unicorns. They didn’t like discomfort; they’d constantly complain if they had to do any work, and here she was, trailing along through the drifting snow and blowing wind with no complaints.
An Unexpected Winter Journey Chapter 3 Admiral Biscuit For Comma Typer, Jinglemas 2022
The pair hesitated as a velvety nose poked out between a copse of trees, followed by a thin muzzle and antlers. Rain Shine’s horn started glowing—she’d never seen such a creature before, and wasn’t yet sure if it was a threat or not.
Hayseed, meanwhile, stopped and waved at it. “Hey, Blackthorn.”
“Hayseed.” He nodded his head and turned to look at Rain Shine, who quickly snuffed her horn.
“That there’s Rain Shine,” Hayseed said. “She’s a Kirin.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Blackthorn offered.
“What brings you out on the road?”
Blackthorn sighed. “King Aspen’s in one of his moods, things got shouty, and I thought I might run off some of the stress before we wound up butting antlers, y’know?” He lowered his voice, almost—but not quite—low enough to prevent Rain Shine from overhearing. “He gets this way every Yule, can’t decide what presents to give his wives.”
“Little late to be thinking ‘bout now.”
“Tell me about it.” Blackthorn snorted. “I already got everything I’m gonna give mine, laces and ribbons and fruitcakes. The kind of things that make a doe happy—good food and things to look pretty.” He glanced back over to Rain Shine. “So . . . where are the two of you going? Ponyville?”
Hayseed nodded happily. “She got off at the wrong train station, she’s got to get to Ponyville for Hearth’s Warming on account of having gifts for Applejack and Fluttershy, and—”
“I love Fluttershy.” He turned his head back into the woods. “Wait here, I’ll be right back.”
Rain Shine and Hayseed watched as he turned and ran off, his tail flagging as he leapt a downed tree.
•••
Five minutes later, he returned, a woven basket balanced on his back. “Fruitcakes and ribbons and lace,” he explained, unpacking the basket into Rain Shine’s panniers. “For Fluttershy and Applejack. And the rest of them, too. I made the fruitcake, it’s all good winter berries and buds, they’ll love it. Tell her that Blackthorn sends his regards.”
Then with another flick of his tail, he was gone, racing down the road.
“What an interesting creature,” Rain Shine said.
Hayseed nodded. “Deer’ve got this whole section of forest, it’s their kingdom. It’s part of the Everfree where ponies don’t go. Some years ago a minotaur was going to rip it all up and build an amusement park and the deer stopped them, along with Applejack and Fluttershy and Princess Twilight and her friends. I heard that the minotaur got eaten by a hydra.”
“Really?”
“Everypony says so.”
“So is the forest dangerous? Could we get eaten by a hydra?”
He shook his head. “It ain’t dangerous so long as you don’t go in it. Or if you have friends who live there, like the deer. I wouldn’t go wandering off the road just anywhere, though; there’s all sorts of dangerous creatures who live in and around the Everfree. Best to stay on the path and not get in anypony’s way.”
•••
Staying exactly on the road wasn’t possible; some wind-blown drifts covered it entirely, and they’d tread off to the side to avoid them.
Hayseed had decent knowledge of the road, but it wasn’t exhaustive, as Rain Shine discovered when he fell into a ditch.
The two of them had long since grown accustomed to drifts springing up across from open clearings, and the land alongside the road looked perfectly flat, an illusion caused by the blowing snow.
Hayseed took two steps off the road and then vanished entirely. It was just like a magic trick—he was there and then an instant later he wasn’t.
Rain Shine jerked back. The walk had reached the point where it had gone from ‘interesting’ to ‘tedious’, and the two of them had run out of casual chatter, so they were mostly walking in silence, unless Hayseed wanted to tell her about a new landmark.
She didn’t really know what sorts of powers the different tribes of ponies had. Summer Chills had told her about some; she knew that some ponies could teleport. Starlight Glimmer teleported a lot. She also knew that earth ponies were stronger than they looked, something which Hayseed had illustrated for her.
Then she heard a muffled voice through the snow and moved closer—now the pony-sized hole was obvious. A snow-dusted Hayseed sat at the bottom of it, pawing at the snow.
“Are you okay?”
“Nothing busted but my dignity. Weren’t expecting to not have ground underhoof.”
She lit her horn and pulled him out, setting him down on the other side of the snow drift.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” Rain Shine didn’t know how to teleport, but she could bash her way through the drift, and did, rejoining him on the other side.
“Fergot that there’s sometimes ditches,” he explained, then he looked back at the Kirin-sized hole she’d bashed through the snowdrift. “You think that’d be easier? You could lead.”
“It is easier to walk around, so long as nopony falls into a hole.” Rain Shine looked down the road, where she could see another big drift before the road was protected by trees again. “Does anypony clear this road?”
“Sooner or later,” Hayseed said. “Might be a while, on account of Hearth’s Warming. Crew works out of Ponyville and another crew works out of Seven Top; they’ll meet somewhere in the middle. They’ll roll out the snow and shovel out some of the bigger drifts. Sometimes the pegasi’ll help out, they’ll set up winds to help blow it clear if they can.”
•••
In Rain Shine’s valley, the sky stayed light long after the sun had disappeared behind the surrounding mountains. Not here. It got dusky and then it got all the way dark.
Hayseed didn’t seem too bothered by the lack of light; Rain Shine lit her horn just the same. It would help them see the path.
With the setting of the sun, the wind picked up again, blowing the snow around and obscuring what little view they had.
Rain Shine hated to ask how much further it was, but: “How much further to Ponyville?”
Hayseed shrugged. “Well, I dunno exactly where we are, on account of not being able to see much past my muzzle. We crossed that crick a while back, and that’s about an hour from Ponyville on a summer day. So I reckon from here we’ll be there in an hour . . . do you need a break?”
“I’ll be fine.”
“Say, that’s a really neat trick you can do with your horn. Most unicorns I know can make it glow, I guess, but you’ve got stripes in yours.”
“It’s just the way we Kirin are. The light’s not bothering you, is it?”
“Not a bit. It’s kinda pleasant, and it’s helping me see where to put my hooves.”
The two were walking side-by-side now; the forest was close, bare branches overhanging the path. The snow was sparser on the ground, and her horn-light did show occasional fallen branches that they had to step over.
“This ain’t my favorite section of the Everfree,” Hayseed admitted. “'Specially at night. Sometimes there’s—”
He never finished that thought; a timberwolf came charging out of the forest, its glowing green eyes shrouded by the snow haze until it was too late.
Hayseed rolled out of the way as its jaws snapped shut. Rain Shine flicked her ears around, listening for any other unexpected foes as Hayseed scrambled back to his hooves.
“There’ll be more,” he warned.
Sure enough, another pair charged out of the woods. Rain Shine grabbed one with her aura and tossed it against a tree where it shattered into a cloud of rotten sticks, raining down to the forest floor.
Hayseed bucked the one attacking him right in the snout, tearing its head apart.
“They can regenerate—run.”
Rain Shine looked around her; she could see more glowing green eyes appearing in the woods.
Despite his short legs, Hayseed was a fast runner. He took off down the road, his hooves kicking up clods of snow, and Rain Shine raced along behind him. She turned her head back: the timberwolves were following, and they, too, had a good running pace. They’d gotten a head start, but the timberwolves were catching up.
The leader nipped at her heels and she kicked back, sending him tumbling. That slowed them, but as their leader got back up, they picked up the pursuit again.
Hayseed was galloping flat-out, and then he tripped over a branch that was across the road. He stumbled, almost recovered, and then slid through the snow on his belly.
Rain Shine slid to a stop and turned to face the pack. They also halted, momentarily confused.
She took the opportunity to release her belly band and toss her panniers aside, hoping that fruitcakes weren’t fragile, and then she and the timberwolves faced off.
“If you want him,” she muttered, ‘Come and get him.”
They hesitated, their eyes regarding Rain Shine. The leader snorted and blew green flames from his nostrils; he pawed at the ground and swelled up the sticks on his back, making himself look bigger. She held steady, keeping her eyes locked on his.
Her ears snapped around at the last second. He was already airborne, and he bit at her neck and clawed at her back and her scales protected both.
But it knocked her off balance and distracted her; a moment later she was dogpiled by the pack of timberwolves.
They had no idea she was hoping they’d do that.
All of the Kirin had gotten good at channeling their Nirik form, mostly focusing on keeping it suppressed whenever their emotions were running high. Some of them, like Autumn Blaze, had gotten skilled at transforming on demand.
Rain Shine hadn’t, and as she’d faced them she had a moment of doubt that she’d be able to turn Nirik if she needed to. Claws raking along her barrel and teeth gnashing for her throat were powerful motivators, and she instantly transformed into a raging balefire inferno, bright enough that Hayseed held a foreleg over his eyes.
All the snow around her flashed to steam, briefly enshrining her in an electric blue cloud, and then the fight was over. The remaining timberwolves fled to the winds, yipping in terror.
Burn it all. Teach them a lesson. She let the anger leave her, let it sputter and die as her flame guttered out.
At first, the snow steamed and hissed as she walked back towards Hayseed, then she had cooled down enough to not melt the road clear. Off in the distance she could still see the flames licking at one unfortunate timberwolf.
Hayseed was still trying to blink the spots out of his eyes as she picked her panniers back up and strapped them around her barrel.
“That was mighty impressive. I . . . I didn’t think you were strong enough to make it all the way to Ponyville on your own hooves, I thought I might have to carry you some of the way.”
She laughed, dispelling the tension that still hung over the road like a cloud. “I don’t think you’re strong enough.”
“I’m stronger than I look.”
“You’re braver than you look. Have you encountered timberwolves before?”
He nodded.
“Alone?”
He nodded again. “Got this scar on my leg from one of ‘em. Take the leader down, don’t show no fear, and they leave you alone. Safer to have a couple of ponies, though. They don’t like to attack groups, just stalk along in the hopes of getting a straggler.” He reached out to her, hesitated, then ran his hoof down her back, feeling her scales. “I shoulda known that you were a mighty warrior, why else would you be wearing armor?”
“And the blue fire, was that some kind of spell? I seen unicorns make fire afore, but never blue.”
“Some kind of spell.” Rain Shine explained her Nirik form. It wasn’t something she was usually comfortable sharing, but since the two of them had gotten to know each other—and faced down a pack of timberwolves together—she felt it was only right to share the bad with the good.
When she was done, Hayseed chuckled. “Well, shoot. Here I was worryin’ about you and you’re more’n capable of taking care of yourself.”
An Unexpected Winter Journey Epilogue Admiral Biscuit For Comma Typer, Jinglemas 2022
As the two approached Ponyville, the snowy haze finally dispersed, revealing a sky spread with stars above, and a town twinkling with lights in front of them.
“Sweet Apple Acres is off to the north of the road,” Hayseed told her, pointing a hoof. “If’n we’d arrived during the day, you’d see it.” He pointed out other businesses and houses in Ponyville as they walked through.
Rain Shine tried to pay attention, but her eyes and ears and nose kept getting distracted. Pegasi flew overhead, more than she’d ever seen. Fillies and colts trotted through the streets, chatting and laughing. Houses had candles in the windows and garland on the eves; and smells of baking came from everywhere.
It was so beautiful, so vibrant and alive, almost like a scene from a storybook. Every moment of the journey to Ponyville faded in importance: her sore legs, the scrape on her side from the timberwolf, her frustration of misunderstanding how the train worked. She’d gotten where she needed to be.
After a few polite knocks, Apple Bloom opened the door, nuzzling Hayseed before looking at Rain Shine in confusion, then her eyes widened. “Ain’t ya one of those Kirin like Summer Chills?”
Rain Shine nodded. Introductions were made and the pair invited inside where the house was already filled with ponies. Filling a few extra bellies was no problem; the Apples made plenty of food and Applejack even passed around zap apple jam.
It was well past midnight when the house finally emptied. Apple Bloom had surrendered her room to Apple Rose, but didn’t mind since she wanted to stay on the couch and see Santa Hooves.
Rain Shine joined her—the couch was plenty big enough for two—while Hayseed curled up on a throw rug in a spot well-warmed by the hearth.
Rain Shine was the last to fall asleep. Hayseed had drifted off as soon as his head had touched the ground. Apple Bloom had stayed awake for another hour, her head nodding and then jerking back up, but she eventually succumbed to Luna’s embrace.
Rain Shine was tired, too tired to sleep. She listened to the soft breathing of her companions and the gentle hisses of the embers in the fireplace; she listened to the creaks and pops of the house as it slumbered; she listened to the occasional gusts of wind and the brief jingle of bells outside.
