By myself on Hearth's Warming
The mood was perfect. Snow fell gently out onto the streets of Ponyville, the cold white environment contrasting with the warm yellow glow of lights and hearth fires of the residents' home. My home also joined in this merry scene, though I am sure my interior decorations pale in comparison to the other ponies in town. A tree, about five feet in height, sat in my living room. It was covered in little ornament balls and amusing decorations I bought from a geek shop in Manehattan. A single yellow star sat atop the tree. A single stocking hung above the mantle, as I was the only pony living there. Beyond that, there was little in the way of decorations. There weren't even any presents beneath the tree. I had some lights strewn to the exterior of my house and a single wreath hanging on my front door. Practically speaking, my home was decorated, but not in a way anypony with any sense of holiday spirit would find exciting.
For the record, it is not as if I didn't care. I may be new to Equestria, having arrived to this world in February of this year, but back in my home... for lack of a better word, reality, I used to love this time of year. We did not call it Hearth's Warming, but many celebrated it as Christmas. Many others used a general term of "the holidays". Either way, it was one of the few times of the year I'd get to relax and not face scrutiny for my identity. That all changed in February of this year when I arrived in the world of Equestria. Apparently, some kind of magical accident involving the fabric of reality brought me to this world of talking pastel-colored horses. In the process, I was transformed from a human and into a unicorn mare. In my human life, my name was Silvia. In the world of ponies, my name is Ink Scroll. My formerly dark eyes are now emerald green, my equally dark hair is now green with yellow highlights, and my former hairless skin replaced with chocolate brown fur. A strange marking I found on my rear consisting of a scroll tied with a blue ribbon was later revealed to be what the ponies call a cutie mark, which I was told signified a special talent or skill.
After some initial confusion, and a very awkward meeting with the Royal Guard in Canterlot, I was able to get an audience with the rulers of the ponies: Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. They explained to me what had happened and that unfortunately, traveling between dimensions is not as easy as science fiction made it out to be. The actual physics of what had happened was hard to wrap my head around, and not even Equestria's best could conclusively explain as to how the accident occurred. For all intents and purposes, I had arrived in a strange and alien world due to what was nature's equivalent of a practical joke. I was stuck in Equestria, with no way perceivable way home.
I was not totally without options. In my previous life, I had been a curator at a university's museum of history and archaeology. I had a master's degree under my belt and had spent my undergrad years working at museums as either a volunteer or a part time worker. By the time I had been sucked into the world of Equestria, I had spent well over six years in museums and laboratories. This is where Princess Twilight Sparkle came into the picture. When she learned of my experiences in the human world, she offered to educate me in Equestrian history and help me connect with the wider historical and archaeological communities in Equestria. This eventually led to being offered the position of chief curator of the Ponyville Historical society in early September, where I have been at ever since.
I sit in front of the fireplace, pondering everything that has happened to me so far. The crackling of the fire is the only sound in the home, for I wanted a quiet background noise to accompany my inner thoughts. Memories of past holidays with my family flashed through my mind, both my found family and biological family. Conflicting feelings flashed through my mind: joy, happiness, bitterness, anger, sadness. All of these and more mixed together to create a bittersweet impression in my mind. I sighed, leaning back in my chair as I tried to process what was going on. Of course, there was a initial wave of homesickness and even depression as the days of my new life in Equestria transformed into weeks. That much I expected, as dealing with cultural shock was something I learned about during my days in undergrad. I did not expect this Equestrian holiday to bring such negative feelings. Perhaps it was because Hearth's Warming so heavily resembled the holidays of my homeland that caused it.
So stuck in my self imposed depressed loop was I that I did not even notice the knock at the door. After a few seconds, I realized what was going on. Startled from my revelry, I got up from my chair and walked over to the door. Upon opening it, I was surprised to see Princess Twilight, her dragon assistant Spike, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity. They were wearing heavy layers of winter clothes.
"Happy Hearth's Warming Eve!" they said after I opened the door.
"Princess Twilight, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Spike, what are y'all doing here?" I asked, my Southern accent coming out.
Twilght was about to respond, probably to remind me not to call her Princess, but Pinkie beat her to the punch.
"WELL, SEE, WE DIDN'T SEE YOU AT THE HEARTH'S WARMING PARTY AT TWILIGHT'S CASTLE TODAY AND WE KNOW ITS YOUR FIRST HOLIDAY SEASON AWAY FROM THE HUMAN WORLD PLUS WE HAVEN'T SEEN YOU AROUND MUCH FOR A WHILE AND WERE GROWING WORRIED SO WE DECIDED TO-HMPH" Pinkie's tirade was stopped by Twilight placing her hoof on Pinkie's muzzle.
"What Pinkie means, Darling," Rarity continued, "is that we are worried about you and wanted to check in on you".
"We even brought you presents," Spike said, presenting me with a package wrapped in beautiful red paper.
It was then I noticed that they were all holding presents wrapped in different colors.
"Y-you, you got all of this just for me?" I asked, tearing up.
"Of course, nopony should have to spend Hearth's Warming alone." Twilight explained, smiling.
"Well, do come on in, it's mighty cold out there." I replied, holding the door open for them.
The four of them came into the house, setting the presents on the kitchen table before proceeding to take off their winter clothing.
"Wow. These decorations are..," Rarity paused, struggling to find the right word.
"Sparse". I replied.
"I was going to say conservatively applied, but sparse works too, if a bit direct". admitted Rarity.
"Nothing a bit of my party magic can't solveeeeeee!" squealed Pinkie as she finished putting her present under the tree.
"Pinkie, that won't be neces-" I began.
But Pinkie had already started pulling decorations and holiday lights from seemingly nowhere. In her typical Pinkie Pie way, the house went from dreary simplicity to holiday splendor in a matter of seconds. How exactly Pinkie Pie managed to brighten up an interior space with decorations and party items so quickly was a mystery nopony ever managed to figure out. It still awed me, even after I lived in Equestria for several months. Eventually, Hearth's Warming decorations covered the walls of my home. Even the tree wasn't spared. A new star had been placed at its peak, now glowing with new white light. My mantle had four more stockings now and I quickly noticed they were nearly overflowing with goodies. Even my own stocking, which I had filled sparingly and with only a few items, nearly bursted with stuffers. The kindness of the gesture caused me to put a hoof to my mouth in shock and nearly start crying.
"Aw, its okay to cry, Inky!" Pinkie hugged me from behind as she said.
"T-thank you." I choked.
Pinkie patted me on the back.
"Now you don't have to spend Hearth's Warming alone." she smiled.
"Speaking of that," began Spike, "just why were you spending Hearth's Warming alone anyway, and why haven't you been hanging out with us?"
"SPIKE!" Twilight chided the young drake, shooting him a glare.
"Sorry," he replied sheepishly, "but you gotta admit: its been weird not seeing you around lately, Ink Scroll."
I nodded, sighing as I did so.
"I guess I.." I began, searching for the right phrase, "this year brought back some bad, well memories."
The room went quiet, and I stood in the middle of my living room rubbing my foreleg with my hoof.
"Let's sit down. It'll be easier to explain sitting I think." I suggested.
As the guests began to sit at the kitchen table, I asked if any of them wanted anything to drink. All four of them decided on hot cocoa, and it sounded good to me too. After a few minutes of preparing, everypony had a steaming mug of hot chocolate.
"Oh, Darling, this is simply marvelous! Did you make these yourself?" Rarity asked, wiping away whipped cream from her muzzle with a handkerchief.
"Actually, yes. It's an old recipe from the human world, and was surprisingly easy to recreate with Equestrian ingredients". I replied, smiling.
At the mention of my old home, the smile drained from my face and I looked down at my mug.
"You miss the human world, don't you?" Twilight asked, her tone making the question more of a statement than a question.
"It's more complicated than that." I replied.
I stopped for a moment to gather my thoughts.
"Remember when I first came here, and you asked me alot of questions about who I was and about my home?" I asked Twilight.
She nodded.
"Yes. You said you were a human from a dimension called Earth. More specifically, you said you came from a place called Georgia, located in a country named the United States."
"Correct. In my homeland, I was known as Silvia, and I was a recent receiver of a master's degree in History with a specialization in Museum Studies."
Twilight let out a approving "mhmm" before continuing, "but what does that have to do with how you're feeling?"
I leaned back in my chair to gather my thoughts.
"I also said in my interviews with you that in my old world, I was a trans woman." I replied.
"In those interviews I did with you, Ink, you had spoken vaguely about your experiences in the human world much as a trans individual. I did not press it at the time because I got the impression it was a sensitive subject." Twilight replied.
I nodded, sipping the hot cocoa.
"You have to understand: Earth when I left it is nothing like Equestria. Here, ponies and other sapient creatures are free to express their gender identity without getting into trouble. Some places on Earth were starting to get like that, but where I lived". I began.
The ponies and dragon sat attentively, looking at me in the eye.
"Before I arrived in Equestria, I was just starting out in my career, so I wasn't making alot of money." I continued.
"That was on top of still being in the process of transitioning, as I had been on hormone therapy for a year by the time the magical accident happened."
"What about your family, didn't they support you?" Rarity asked.
"No, they didn't. I got through my undergrad and master's program on a mixture of student loans and scholarships as well as the jobs I was taking at museums."
"That's awful, Darling." Rarity replied, looking genuinely hurt for me.
"Yeah, well, my family were always steeped in very conservative ways of thinking."
"How could a people as sophisticated as yours have such... backwards tendencies?" Rarity asked, clearly disturbed.
I had discussed fashion from my part of Earth with the pony fashionista many times, as well as general facts about life for most people.
"Sadly," replied Twilight, "such attitudes are not that far behind us. Equestria has always been a forward thinking society, but even we dealt with bigoted attitudes. Acceptance of gay marriage and gender nonconforming ponies happened within the last 300 years."
I nodded, having a passing familiarity with the topic.
"Where I'm from, acceptance of gay couples and gay marriage is about thirty to twenty years old." I continued.
This caused a collective gasp, even from Twilight.
"Meanies." Pinkie said, her expression horrified.
"I had no idea." the purple-colored princess replied, shocked.
"Gender non-conforming humans had, of course, been around for a very long time, but acceptance of them into general society was only starting to grow a little less than ten years ago."
A harsh silence fell over the room. I noticed that Pinkie's mane was starting to deflate, and her expression was starting to turn from horrified to saddened. I sighed, and took a long sip of the hot cocoa.
"As for this time of year, I cherished it because I spent with the family of a close friend of mine throughout college and even up until I was brought to Equestria."
I let myself smile at the memory.
"Even though my family was terrible to me even before my transition, I still have good memories of spending the holiday season with them."
Pinkie's eyes began to grow wide.
"Ink", she began, "was your family, you know...?" she let the question hang in the air, too terrible to ask out loud.
"Yes."
The three mares gasped and Spike stared at me with a look of horror on his little face. Rarity had her hoof to her mouth, a look of sheer horror plastered on her face. Twilight had a similar expression, though she was covering her mouth with both hooves.
"Oh Inky!" Pinkie cried and lunged at me over the table.
Before I could do anything, she had me wrapped up in a tight hug, her mane now totally flattened. Despite the tightness of the hug, I found I had the strength to return the hug back. It felt.. nice, comforting, like I was being smothered with the care of someone who actually likes me. I suddenly felt Twilight, Rarity, and Spike all come to hug me and for the first time in several weeks, I let myself cry. I cried hard, harder than I had cried in a while. The release of all that stored up emotion felt relieving. After a minute or two, the girls and dragon let me go, smiling compassionately at me. I wiped away my tears with a spare handkerchief Rarity kept on her.
"Do you still want to be alone?" Twilight asked.
I looked into their eyes and saw only concern and genuine compassion in them. I realized then that shutting myself off from everypony during this first holiday season was a mistake, that I needed companionship.
"If you don't mind, I think Id like to share this Hearth's Warming Eve with you." I replied, smiling.
And so, I spent the rest of Hearth's Warming Eve accompanied by a small group of friends. A girl couldn't ask for a better holiday.