Snow fell, thick and heavy, from cotton ball clouds. The world had gone quiet to watch them, drifting clumps of crystalline patterns, forming valleys and mountains where they landed. Beyond a short distance, the world took on the grey white complexion of the clouds, and further still was only stark whiteness.
All was still, secluded. Private. An intimate show for the few who could bear the cold, distractions curtained away so that all attention was on the performing flakes.
“Rarity!” shouted the rough, unwelcomed sound of those same distractions. Rarity yelped, a short hop away from the noise sending her into a snowbank. While it did little to her already white coat, her curled purple mane, and the picturesque scene of her imagination, were ruined.
She righted herself quickly, brushing off the powdery clumps with bursts of magic. Rainbow Dash was snickering, hooves crossed on top of her shovel.
“Really, Rainbow, must you be so abrasive? Can’t I take a single moment to enjoy the winter scenery?”
“It was more than a moment,” The pegasus pointed out, swooping down to retrieve Rarity’s own, somewhat more dainty, shovel. She propped it against its owners side, much to the unicorns annoyance. “But ya did call me out here to help you clean up, and it’s starting to get cold, even for me.”
A gust of frozen, biting wind accentuated her point. Rarity shuddered, pulled her scarf tighter, and picked up her tool. With one last, narrow glare at her friend, she set back to work. There would be time to admire the beauty of the day later, when she wasn’t asking for favors from the most impatient of her friends. Despite her incessant energy and bounciness, even Pinkie could manage to wait longer than Rainbow Dash.
Another yank on the shovel, and more of the path to Carousel Boutique was unveiled. Rarity sighed lightly, tracing the fresh marring on what was once a pristine landscape. It really was a tragedy that she must carve up so wonderful a scene. But an order was due to be picked up today, and it was simply unacceptable to let her customers trek through the snow.
Whether or not they actually came during this storm was another thing entirely. In fact, as far as Rarity could see, she and Rainbow were the only two ponies outside. No matter, though; one must always be prepared.
The snow was giving her some wonderful ideas for a new line of capes, though. Sparkling with diamonds, flowing with ripples and dips like the world around her…
Rainbow chose this moment to interrupt her creative flow. Again. “Uh, Rares?”
“Yes, dear?” Rarity hummed, trying to look like she hadn’t been drifting off again.
“You, er. Why do you have hair in your yard?”
Rarity lost her magical grip on the shovel, blinking repeatedly. She asked, “What?” as she approached where Rainbow was, hovering at the edge between path and grass. “Oh don’t be absurd. You just stumbled onto some grass, Rainbow. Really, hair? Why would- Oh my. That’s actually hair, isn’t it?”
Before both ponies, in a space of snowless ground accidentally uncovered, was a twirl of moss colored hair, the strands splayed out in the wilted greenery. While the color could have initially been mistaken for grass, the length was too much, and it dripped water, freshly washed in melted snow. It even had the sheen of wet hair.
Rainbow turned one eye towards Rarity, brow raised, and keeping her shovel between them. “There something I should maybe know about you?”
“I truly have no idea how this got here, Rainbow! Perhaps somepony cut their hair, before the snow came?” Rarity reasoned, hoof against her chest.
Rainbow dropped the searching stare and stopped using the shovel as a barricade. She reached down, wrapped the hair around her hoof, and yanked it. The hair stayed put, giving a twang as it was pulled to its full extent. A few more experimental pulls, but the hair was not moved.
At full length, the hair was as long as Rarity’s tail, tangled and knotted. Dropping it, Rainbow wiped her hoof off on the snow.
They stared at the spot for a moment.
“Do you think a pony’s buried down there?” Rainbow asked. It was more of a statement than a question. Rarity could only shrug. “We should make sure there isn’t."
Slowly, they scraped away the snow surrounding it, being careful to keep some distance between them and the hair. After a yard had been cleared, Rarity’s shovel hitched. She lifted it and saw more hair, this one pale aqua with a streak of darker blue.
“Rainbow?” she called, shaking, taking small steps away from the newest discovery.
Rainbow answered from her left, “Find another one?”
“How did you know?”
“I did too.”
Their eyes met across the gap; two yards away from each other, only one yard from the original hair. Both were pale now, not only from the growing cold. And both mares resumed digging through the snow.
An hour later, two hours, she couldn’t tell anymore. The sky had grown dark behind the clouds, and the snow had stopped falling. But still Rarity was carving her way through the snow. She wasn’t sure why. At one point she almost compared it to gem hunting; scratching through the dust and rocks to find something hidden beneath. But gem hunting brought a sense of achievement to her. Each time one of them found another bunch of hair, they felt nothing but a compulsion to discover the next.
Her scarf was a sodden wreck, her mane limp and partially frozen. The shivering had faded away, replaced by a sharp numbness in most of her body. Her magic had run out at some point, and she hadn’t noticed until the handle of the shovel cracked against a tooth.
Rainbow Dash wasn’t doing much better. On the ground now, because her wings were heavy with ice. The cold had worn through her resistance at last, and now she shook with every shovel full.
They had found fifty-five more instances of the hair. All of them were different. Pink, gold, red, black. Striped or spotted. Short, long, frayed, glossy. All exactly yard apart from the nearest ones. Years of matching cloth to a ruler had taught Rarity how long a yard was, but she didn’t want to confirm that measurement. The preciseness of their placement suggested something less spontaneous than she would have liked.
Rarity stopped for a moment as her mind came up with a gruesome, but accurate, comparison. This was like unearthing a graveyard. Though if the tails were the bodies or the markers, she couldn’t tell.
A snap from the side, Rainbow cried out in shocked pain. Her shovels handle had broken, and her momentum had scored her cheek along the sharp edge. She was holding her hooves over the cut, swelling red lines running down one leg.
And for a moment, one terrible, mindless moment, Rarity started to dig again.
She stopped, dropping the shovel and backing away, as though it were a snake coiled to bite. Trotting to her wounded friend, weariness settled into her legs with each step. The strength that had kept her digging had fled, and she felt the weight of her toils.
With a hoof she could barely keep up, Rarity guided Rainbow and herself into her house. Inside, she shed her clothing and mustered a spark for the fireplace. The ponies sat as close to it as they could, moisture steaming as the heat worked through it.
For awhile, neither could talk through chattering teeth.
“What do you-” Rarity began to ask. She was stopped by a near lifeless blue hoof, weakly but pleadingly pressed into her muzzle.
She looked down at Rainbow, who shook her head. “I’m tired. If we havta talk about it, that’s tomorrow.”
They leaned against each other in front of the fire, and fell into sleep without another word.
The next morning, the sun was shining bright on the snow. Fillies and colts were out playing, and the streets of Ponyville, while moving, were slow even for the typically sleepy town. Another snowy day in a long winter.
Rarity was awoken by a knock at her door. The fire had died, a puddle of lukewarm snowmelt surrounding her and Rainbow. The unicorn dragged herself to her hooves and to the door, noting the pile of thoroughly soaked clothing near it. She picked it up and moved it towards the washing room, but her magic flickered out part way and it fell with a wet plop. Nothing to be done about that mess, it seemed.
Behind the door was Fluttershy, wearing her understanding smile. The kind she wore when her animals were caught stealing food. Had she seen the hair in Rarity’s yard? Rarity tensed, her own smile wavering, scenes of accusation or terror playing out in her thoughts.
“Rarity? I hope I’m not bothering you,” Fluttershy began, glancing at the dozing pegasus by the fire, and at her dishevelled friend, usually so attentive of her appearance. “But, is there a reason you shoveled your yard?”
Gulping, Rarity laughed, a thin thing that quickly broke. “Well, you see, it’s, ah…”
When Rarity did not continue, the yellow pegasus before her turned her head, looking at the obvious patch of green against the white. “It’s none of my business, of course. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. It’s just that it, well, looks a little funny. Not that there’s anything wrong with it!”
Rarity managed to catch sight of it through Fluttershy’s pink mane; it was simply green, without any spots of odd coloring or misplaced strands of hair. She let out a long, relieved breath and rested her head against the door. It would have been a horror to explain, and with its publicness, that would have likely been to the whole town. But more than that, she was glad that the hairs were gone.
Rainbow came up behind her, suddenly, eyes going wide then small when she saw Fluttershy. “Wow, hey, Fluttershy! I can totally explain.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Rarity responded, prepared to stop her friend before her thoughtless mouth got them into trouble they had just escaped.
“I hope so,” Fluttershy said in the same instant, frowning.
Rainbow Dash and Rarity looked at her, the first with dread, the other with renewed concern. Fluttershy was staring directly at Rainbow.
“What could you have possibly been so occupied with that you didn’t have that cut looked at?” She demanded. Rarity sighed again.
“Oh.” Rainbow sounded relieved as well. Her hoof touched the now dried gash, retreating with a wince. “Well, I was helping Rarity out and we,” a quick glance at Rarity, who was mouthing ‘no’ as fast as possible. “...I broke my shovel. On a rock. And I cut myself.”
Rainbow donned a poor imitation of an innocent smile. Fluttershy leaned forwards, and Rarity thought for a moment she was going to witness the most polite interrogation in history. Instead Fluttershy grabbed her fellow pegasus and lead her outside.
“Come on, I’ll fix you up at my cottage.”
They walked down the half cleared path. Rainbow looked at the perfectly normal grass they had uncovered last night, then back at Rarity. Rarity could offer nothing to reassure her.
When they had left, she stood at the doorway and watched the cleared grass. She could ask one of her friends about it; what it was, how it happened. Where it went. Could talk to them about it, just for the sake of killing the secret. It’s not like she was crazy, Rainbow had seen it too, she would vouch for it.
No. She wasn’t going to do any of that.
She was going to close her door, clean up the mess from last night, and forget this ever happened. Something told her Rainbow Dash would do the same thing. It was for the best. The whole incident, nothing more than a cold induced delirium.
All the same, she doubted she would ever walk across her yard without looking down.