With the sun still high and the last of the afternoon bells ringing over Ponyville’s elementary school, cheering foals of all shapes and sizes began to pour out into the snow-covered world. And there was plenty to cheer about. Because today was the day before Hearth’s Warming Eve.
Some foals galloped out of the small school house’s front door. Others rushed to the playground with friends through the side door. A tiny constellation of pegasi flapped their way out of open windows, occasionally bumping into one another on unsure wings.
But back inside the classroom, a small smattering of ponies remained, either not as eager as their already departed counterparts, or they were otherwise distracted. One such pony was Dinky Doo, the smallest unicorn in Ms. Cheerilee’s class. Small though she was, she wore a face of immense concentration, total and absolute, as she stared at her school bag, hanging by its lonesome on its hook on the wall.
A thin, pale yellow aura, easily dismissible as a trick of the eye, encased her bag, and slowly, methodically it eased itself into the air. Dinky stared at it, unblinking, willing it with all her might to race to her and strap itself to her back, as she’d seen other unicorns in her class do. While talking with their friends. And walking somewhere. And not concentrating as hard as she was.
The aura around the bag wavered, and she banished the distracting thoughts from her mind, focusing only on the bag. It was the whole world to her right now, and it had only moved about a foot.
And then the upturned tip of Fry’s big dumb stupid red mane brushed against the bottom of her bag as he ran under it, and her world fell to the floor with a suspicious crunch.
“Fry!” she shouted with a pounding of little hooves on her desk.
“Sorry Dinky, Happy Hearth’s Warming!” he shouted half-heartedly over his shoulder as he waddled his hay-burger cutie mark out the door.
The little filly hopped out of her seat and trotted over to her bag and scooped it up with a huff. Turning it over in her hooves, she opened the top flap and inspected the contents within. With a frown she pulled out a crinkled up paperbag, and unfurled its opening to look inside.
Ponyfeathers, she thought as she hoofed through the broken innards.
“Everything okay there, Dink-Donk?” asked an annoying voice to her right.
“I’m fine Diamond Tiara,” she said, jamming one bag back into the other. “But the pretzels that I had for snack are all broken. Also,” she said, still rummaging through her school bag, “I left my house key at home.”
“Oh boo-hoo, your pretzels broke. That’s no reason to sit on the floor and block my way out, is it?” demanded Diamond Tiara with a flick of her mane and look on her face that said ‘No it’s really not.’
Dinky slung her old schoolbag over her shoulder and strapped it across her belly, all the while giving Diamond Tiara a dirty look. “Why you gotta be so mean?”
“I’m not mean,” said the taller, prettier earth pony as she shoved her way past Dinky, “I’m tough. There’s a difference. When you’re done getting yourself together Dink-Donk, come outside. I’ve got a holiday surprise for everypony.”
“A surprise?” asked Dinky
Diamond Tiara got to the door and spun in place with a flourish. In her sickly sweet sing-song voice she called out to the other end of the classroom with a wave. “Happy Hearth’s Warming Miss Cheerilee!”
Dinky turned in place in time to see Miss Cheerilee offer Diamond Tiara a small but genuine smile and a wave. Then she turned her attention back to the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who were peppering their poor teacher with questions about gross icky spiders. Apple Bloom had a look on her face that Dinky knew meant trouble. So she decided to stay out of whatever it was the three of them were planning.
Not that they’d ask her to join in anyway.
Trotting out the door, Dinky didn’t have to look hard to see whatever it was that Diamond Tiara had planned. Not with her standing in the center of a small crowd of schoolfoals.
“Oh wow! They’re so cute!” came a cry from the crowd.
“Therth thomething thepcial about thith one!” squealed the unmissable lisp of Peppermint Twist as she rose up above the others crowded around her, and lifted something high into the air with her forehooves. Something fuzzy. And adorable.
And mewing.
Dinky didn’t remember running into the crowd, or ducking under, between, and around her peers. But somehow, a heartbeat later, there she was at the center of it all, leaning into a little red wagon and staring down at a baker’s dozen of snuggly-wuggly kittens, all in a pile on top of the quilt that lined the wagon’s bed.
“Oh my gosh, Diamond! Where did you get the kittens?!” asked Dinky, trying to speak over the excited noises of the other foals around her.
“Gather round, children,” crowed Diamond Tiara as she stood at the head of her wagon, “and I’ll sing you a tale of furballs for sale.”
And as she spoke those words, a hum began to start in and among the crowd. A hop here and smile there, a stomping of hooves, and a swishing of tails. A tune, a merry little thing with bells and chimes, filled the festive air around Ponyville Elementary School.
Diamond Tiara sang about a night back in early fall, where a roving Catsanova, caught the eye of Diva, the Rich family cat. She sang about how her father tried to chase the tom cat away, but to no avail.
She continued and sparked a fair bit of blushing and giggling from the young ponies gathered ‘round as she sang about their noisy romance atop the gated arch that was the entryway to the Rich family plantation. Finally, when she got to the part where her red-faced father was spraying the two cats ineffectually with a garden hose while shouting expletives, the song crumbled around them into fits and pockets of childish laughter.
Diamond Tiara wiped her face and caught her breath before finishing her tale. “Anyway, Diva had her kittens about a month ago. And daddy said if I sell them all before we pick up Diva from Dr. Spades tonight, I get to keep the money!” she said with sparkling eyes. “So who wants to buy a kitten?!”
A chorus of “Me’s” and “I do’s” went up around Dinky Doo, who couldn’t take her eyes off the kittens peeping and mewing as kittens do at all the excitement around them. Several of them were scooped up, others stood up on shaky paws and explored the corners of their quilted wagony home.
Dinky reached a hoof in, eager to pet one of the purring preciouses, when something large landed with a thud on the other side of the wagon, sending up a wave of snow out over the kittens and surrounding foals.
“Nein!” came a deep adamant cry from the big something as black taloned paws began pulling kittens out of hooves. “No buying, no touching.” it said resolutely.
Scooting back from the wagon full of protesting, snow-covered, kittens along with her peers, Dinky got a good look at the biggest griffon she’d ever seen. Well, it was probably the third or fourth griffon she’d ever seen, but still. This one was the biggest. She had bright white feathers on her head and chest and blue-gray fur and feathers, otherwise. Her beak and claws were black as coal, and her red eyes matched the uncharacteristically jaunty red scarf around her thick neck.
“Jeez, Roch, easy with the merchandise!” protested Diamond Tiara as she dusted the kitten wagon free of snow. “Everypony, this is my new Governess, Roch. She comes from the Griffon Kingdoms.”
Roch eyed the timid gathering before her, and gave them the slightest possible nod. She cleared her throat, and opened her beak to speak, when a cry went out.
“Whoa, a Griffon!” excitedly exclaimed a scratchy voice from far behind Dinky and the cowed crowd she stood in.
Seconds later a burnt-orange filly, only slightly smaller than Dinky was, buzzed her wings frantically as she leapfrogged over the gathering and into the arms of a very confused griffon. Scootaloo stood up, her hind legs balancing precariously in the griffon’s open palms, and her forelegs smooshed up on the griffon’s cheeks, turning the creature’s head every-which way, eagerly inspecting every inch.
“Griffons are so cool,” Scootaloo said, clambering over the top of Roch’s head. “How do you get your feathers on top to stick up like this? They look like a mane. Oh, wow look at your wings! They’re so big, can I touch them?”
The griffon grumbled and muttered as she crained her arms and neck, desperately trying to pull the parasitic pegasus off of her. “Nein! Who said you may touch Roch? Aussteigen ze!”
Finally pulling Scootaloo from her back, at the loss of a hoof full of feathers, the griffon named Roch tossed the pegasus away with the flick of her wrist, the way a pony might try to shoo a fly. Dinky watched as Scootaloo flew through the air, bobbing along her thrown trajectory with the meager buzzing of her wings. She ‘landed’ head-first into a small snow bank beside her two friends Apple Bloom and Sweetie Belle.
“Well, if it isn’t the Blank-Flank Crus-failers,” mocked Diamond Tiara, commanding the attention of the gathered foals once more. “Here to buy a kitten?”
“Nah,” said Apple Bloom, pulling her friend out of the snowbank by her tail. “We got a whole mess of ‘em at Sweet Apple Acres. Mousers fer the barn, keep the rodents outta our stores, that sorta thing.”
“None for me thanks,” said Sweetie Belle, as she walked around the crowd to check out the kittens. “They’re cute as the dickens, but dad’s allergic and Rarity already has Opal.”
Scootaloo, now standing once again, wobbled to and fro as little stars danced before her eyes. “I like turtles,” she said, insightfully.
“Riiight,” dismissed Diamond Tiara with a roll of her eyes.
Dinky watched Sweetie Belle pick up kitten after kitten with her magic. The littlest unicorn in the crowd felt an uncomfortable jealously swell up inside her chest at the easy and casual nature with which the taller, prettier unicorn used her magic. She’s probably getting private lessons from Princess Twilight, she thought with a frown. I bet if I had private lessons, I’d be…
Sweetie Belle gasped, and lifted a single struggling kitten into the air with her magic, and Dinky shook her head clear her envious thoughts. She could see right away there was something special about this kitten.
“Merbrll,” protested this, the smallest kitten of the litter, unhappy to be away from the warmth of the pile of its siblings and floating in the cold air.
“What’s wrong with her paws?” asked a filly behind Dinky.
Indeed, something was wrong with the kitten’s paws. Her fore-paws were way too short. And they bent at wrong angles, like she was expecting a hug.
“Are they broken?” asked Dinky, her heart pouring out for the little thing. This was the one. This was the kitten that she wanted most.
Clinically, Sweetie Belle rotated the kitten in her magical grasp. “No, this kitten has ‘Radial Agenesis.’”
Everypony within earshot (and the griffon) stood stone still, staring at Sweetie Belle, until she lowered the kitten and looked up at a sea of questioning faces. “What? We had a field trip to the vet last week, remember? Dr. Spades and Dr. Goodall gave us a joint lecture on congential diseases. No?”
Silent blinking was her only answer.
“Don’t you have anyone else to annoy with that big stupid brain of yours?” demanded Diamond Tiara.
The eastern clock tower, which sat in the otherwise empty field between the school and the town proper began ringing out its quarter-till warning, and Apple Bloom let out a whistle of her own. “Come on, Sweetie Belle,” she said as she and Scootaloo walked by the gathering, giving the griffon a wide berth, “We gotta get to the train station if we’re gonna get it to the Crystal Empire ‘fore sun down.”
“Yeah!” exclaimed Scootaloo, still walking funny. “We’re gonna catch a turtle.”
“Tundranchula,” corrected Sweetie Belle, as she trotted over to Scootaloo’s other side to help prop her up. “It’s a big spider that lives in the Frozen North.”
“Oh, that sounds nice. Why are we doing this thing we’re doing again?” Dinky heard the pegasus ask the other two Cutie Mark Crusaders as the trio walked out of earshot.
“How much are the kittenth?” asked Peppermint Twist, who dared to approach the wagon and its griffon guardian.
Diamond Tiara spun in place from where she was watching the trio of blank flanks trot off with a furrowed brow, “Come again?” she asked.
“How much do you want for them?” Peppermint asked carefully as her tail twitching. Dinky knew that the tail twitch was something the poor pony did subconsciously when she was feeling self-conscious about her lisp. That’s why some of the meaner kids called her ‘Twitchy Twitht.’
“The kittens are thirty-five bits each.”
Dinky’s heart sank like a rock in her gut. Thirty-five bits was an impossible amount of money. The muttering of the crowd matched her own grim thoughts on the subject.
“Thirty-five bits?” asked somepony, probably Liza Doolots by the nasally intonations.
“That’s right,” said Diamond Tiara with a nod.
“For a kitten?” asked Fry, “does it do anything cool?”
“They do… Kitten things. Those are cool.” she insisted.
“Do the kittenth come with food or anything?” asked Twist.
“No, the thirty-five bits just gets you a kitten.”
“We’ve got thirty-five bits!” said Snips and Snails in chorus, standing over a pile of bits, old gum, and some marbles. “Can we split one?” asked Snails, blinking his eyes one at a time.
Diamond Tiara winced at the question, “You mean, can you share one?”
“Oh! Sharing sounds way better. Yeah, can we do that?” asked Snips, excitedly.
“Sure,” Diamond Tiara said flatly, pulling a random kitten out of the wagon and hoofing it over in exchange for the shared treasures of the dundering duo. “Knock yourselves out.”
The two boys ran off down the road towards town, laughing all the way. Their new kitten, a tan and white little thing with a rather permanent looking frown, bounced in the air between them, suspended in a motley aura that shared the two colors of their unicorn magic.
“Anypony else want a kitten?” asked Diamond Tiara as she began strapping herself into her wagon.
“Would you take leth than thirty-five bith for a kitten?”
“Prices are non-negotiable,” the magenta little mare said matter-of-factly.
“What about the little broken one?” asked Dinky, as loudly as she dared.
Diamond Tiara tossed a look over her shoulder at Dinky, then at the runt, and shrugged. “The little one’s twenty-five.”
“Last call before I bring these guys into town. Any takers? No? Okay then, I’m bringing the kittens to market. Be sure to tell all your friends about Diamond Tiara’s Delightful Kitten Sale! And do hurry,” she said with an annoying upturn of her voice, “Because supplies are limited. Come on, Roch!”
As Diamond Tiara began her walk into town, Roch the griffon shot up into the sky and flapped in lazy circles around her charge pulling her wagon. Dinky thought that Roch looked like a buzzard flying high in the desert. Except for the whole ‘buzzards aren’t griffons’ thing. And buzzards didn't wear jaunty red scarves. And the-
“I’m gonna athk my older thither!”
“Huh?” asked Dinky, turning to face Peppermint Twist.
Peppermint Twist’s tail twitched, and she frowned. “I’m going to talk to my… Older relative about buying a kitten.”
“Oh, blimey, ‘at’s a great idea, Twist!” said Pipsweak, who Dinky thought was the only pony in class shorter and more easily overlooked than she was. “I’ll bet me mum’ll get me a kitten!”
A round of reassuring ‘mhmms,' ‘yeahs,’ and other such positive soundbites filled the air, and the tiny stampede of foals ran off towards their various homes and relatives, back in town to the west. And in the midst of them, galloping for all she was worth, was Dinky Doo. Twenty-five bits, she thought to herself, wearing the widest grin.
Momma might say yes to twenty-five bits.
The herd of foals dashed their way through the snowy lane into the town of Ponyville and exploded into all directions as soon as they hit the first major artery on the eastern edge of town. Some ran for home. Others ran to find parents or loved ones out doing last minute holiday shopping. But each pony, one and all, ran on fueled by a shared desire: The desire to buy one of Diamond Tiara’s twelve remaining kittens, and have the bestest most adorablest Hearth’s Warming Eve ever.
Dinky Doo was with the larger of the splinter groups as she hussled her tiny tush dead ahead, into the heart of Ponyville. She wasn’t running for home, and her momma wasn’t out shopping, no. Today was a work day, like any other.
She ran past Elm, where her house was. She ran past Pine and its nine tiny bridges that criss-crossed the small river that separated the town. She turned down Oak, the street named for the old library that burned down and then was subsequently rebuilt. And that new library was all decked out from hall to hall in its holiday finery with magical blinking lights and tinsel both hanging from its mighty boughs.
But the new library didn’t stand out from its neighboring homes and shops, other than being a giant tree, because it seemed that every building’s Hearth’s Warming decorations were bigger and brighter than the last.
Running farther down Oak, she passed two familiar mares, her momma’s friends Mrs. Heartstrings and Mrs. Bon, who were engaged in a shouting match about the right way to store the firewood outside of their home: bark-side up, or bark-side down.
She hurried past them and hung a right down Main Street, finally separating from the last of her fellow classmates as Button Mash hurried on down Oak, where his house was just a few blocks away.
Moments later, Dinky slid to an icey stop in the crowded market that lay at the heart of Ponyville and wrapped itself like a crescent moon around the old Town Hall. Crowded wasn’t a strong enough word for it. The place was packed. Ponies of all shapes and sizes filled every available inch of standing space. And then some, what with the pegasi.
Higher still was a different group of pegasi, but these weren’t shoppers. These were the hard working members of Ponyville’s local weather team. Up and off, left and down, they zipped and swooshed, gathering clouds heavy with snow for tonight’s big snowstorm.
While she was looking up, a hoof bumped into her rump, and she nearly fell on her face. She turned with an angry pout, but the stallion who’d bumped her was too busy buying apples from a nearby cart to notice that he’d kicked her. She let out a sigh and trotted along carefully, dodging those who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, bother to look down to see that there was a little unicorn in their path. By the second time she had to duck under a passing cart ladened with gifts pulled by happily humming holiday shoppers, she lost her bearings in the crowd, and had to clamber up a bunch of boxes to find her way through.
From high on her perch, she saw Ms. Fluttershy at Peachy Pitt’s booth. The salesmare had all sorts of great fragrances burning away in little display hearths all around her booth. “A scented hearth is the hallmark of a happy home!” she boasted merrily to the pronounced nodding of Ms. Fluttershy.
Off to her left, a group of gaily clothed carolers warmed up for the evening’s carousing with some hot cocoa, freely offered by that clown-about-town, Miss Pinkie Pie.
To her right, Dinky Doo saw her Aunt, Golden Harvest, selling some root vegetables and her holiday classic, the preserved carrot cake. This year’s batch was all made in the late summer. She remembered the weekends she spent on the old family farm shaving carrots, chopping up beets, and pitting about a gazillion cherries. Once Aunt Goldie baked them all before stacking them in old rye whiskey barrels and soaked them to the brim with red wine to keep them from going bad in the cellar for so many months.
Momma said she was too young to have any just yet, since it was ‘too boozy’, but she had her fill of the cake before it was soaked back in the summer. It was okay, but nothing to shout about. Adults have weird tastes, Dinky thought to herself as she spotted her destination across the bustling sea of pony, the Pony Express.
The little unicorn hopped down and, taking careful note of her direction, ran as best she could across the snow-covered cobblestone and through the rainbow forest of legs and wagon wheels. And smack dab into the side of the town’s resident dragon.
“This is it!” shouted Spike as the smaller unicorn plowed into him, knocking both into a tumbleweed of flailing limbs, fur, and scales. When her head stopped spinning, she looked up from her spot on top of the purple drake and panicked.
A warm, tingly sensation wrapped itself around her like a sweater made out of static, and the world took on a magenta hue as she was lifted off of Spike and slowly set down before Princess Twilight Sparkle, who looked fit to burst with both pity and laughter. Dinky frowned.
“Are you alright, Dinky?” asked the taller, prettier pony.
Dinky Doo bowed, and tried to smile. “I-I’m fine, Princess.”
Twilight smiled a defeated sort of smile and sighed. “Great, now even the kids are bowing to me.”
“Gee, I wonder why,” grunted Spike sarcastically as he lifted himself up to his feet and dusted the snow from his helmet and knee pads. “Maybe it’s because you live in the only castle in town?”
Princess Twilight rolled her eyes and smirked at her dragon. “So that was it, right? That was the no good terrible bad thing that was going to happen?”
“Huh?” asked Dinky, feeling more than a little left out of the conversation.
Princess Twilight shook her head and Dinky noticed how some of the brighter strands of her mane took longer to float back down to her neck than others. “Spike’s convinced that something terrible is going to happen.”
“Not just terrible, ‘No good terrible bad!’” he said emphatically.
“Why?” asked Dinky with a tilt of her head.
“Cause it’s been too long!”
“...What’s been too long?” she dared to ask, as her curiosity got the best of her.
“It’s been too long since anything bad’s happened around here!” he shouted, his eyes shooting left and right, as he tightened the strap on his helmet.
“It has?”
“No,” said Princess Twilight. “That’s not how causality wor-”
“Causality, smausality!” dismissed Spike. “Look. It’s been a month since the Jackalope invasion, right?”
Both ponies nodded.
“And a week before that, we had the dire-parasprites, remember?”
Dinky shuddered, but again she nodded.
“And the week before that? Well, nothing happened that week. But the week before the week before?”
Princess Twilight nodded. “Queen Chrysalis returned and cast a spell that made all the vegetables in Ponyville sentient.”
“I’ll never eat peas again,” said Dinky Doo with a quivering lower lip.
Spike flinched at the look what you did look that the Princess hit him with, but he soldiered on. “And before that, even more stuff happened! But it’s been a month since the Jackalopes. Something crazy is gonna happen. And soon. I can feel it in my frills.”
“Oh Spike,” said Princess Twilight Sparkle, “it’s the day before Hearth’s Warming Eve. What could possibly go wrong?”
In the distance, fading into the north, a train whistled.
Dinky opened her mouth to ask something, but the sound of the market square’s clock tower striking three in the afternoon stopped her. “Oh my gosh!” she said, trotting in place and bowing over and over again. “I have to go. Sorry Your Princess-s-ship!”
“That’s okay, you don’t have to…” was all Dinky heard Princess Twilight say as she ran out of earshot, back into the chaos of hooves, ice, and wheels once more.
A few moments later and she was home free, through the crowd and face to face with a new challenge: the line of ponies, half a block long, that stood unmoving before her mother’s place of employment. They each stood, to a pony, looking bored or angry or both, with stacks of packages destined for all corners of Equestria and parts beyond.
Dinky Doo let out a low whistle as she approached the crowded front door and tried to squeeze her way in.
“Hey, kid!” somepony called out behind her. She turned and looked at a peevish-looking mare with her maroon mane in a tight graying bun knotted up on the top of her head. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, looking right at Dinky. All the ponies were looking right at Dinky.
Dinky’s tail tucked up under her and brushed against her tummy, self-consciously. “M-me?” she asked.
“Yes, you. You can’t just walk in there ahead of the rest of us! The back of the line is over there,” she said with a dismissive toss of her head.
“But I-”
The stallion standing next to Dinky looked down at her and sighed. “Look kid, just head to the back of the line, okay? The last thing we all want is more shouting, right?” he said with a tired, pleading smile.
And so Dinky Doo, defeated by a bunch of adults who wouldn’t listen to what she had to say, slowly made her way to the back of the line. But she made sure to glare as hard as she could at the mare who started all of this fuss over nothing. And she just smiled back like she won some kind of prize.
Sometimes, adults were real jerks.
Dinky reached the back of the line and waited. The line moved a bit forward, and she waited some more. The clock tower back across the marketplace chimed out the quarter hour, and she waited even more.
Soon the sound of hooves coming to a stop behind her and the smell of spiced Chrysanthemum drew her attention to the previously empty spot behind her, and she saw one of her favorite, most beautifulest ponies in town. Ms. Rarity, the owner of her favorite shop in all of Ponyville.
Ms. Rarity always had an eye for the details, and she never missed anything, no matter how little. Dinky’s heart was lifted when she turned and Ms. Rarity was already smiling at her.
“Oh, hello Dinky Doo,” she said as she set down a score of perfectly wrapped parcels that she’d been carrying in the powder-blue aura of her magic. “How are you this rather chilly afternoon?”
“I’m fine,” she lied.
Rarity cocked an eyebrow at her omission by admission. “Truly?” she asked, as Dinky felt that she was being sized up and assessed like a bolt of cloth. Dinky tried her best to keep her face neutral, and after a moment, Rarity asked her, “Dinky, where are your packages?”
“Packages?”
Rarity nodded. “Yes, well I assume you’re in line to mail something, yes?”
Dinky frowned. “No. The mean ponies in the line wouldn’t let me in to see my momma.”
Rarity balked, stumbling from the shock of it. The scandal. “I-eh-wha? They wouldn’t let you in to see your mother?!” she practically shouted, scooping the unicorn up in her aura and placing her on her back. Dinky wasn’t used to all this magical handling from other unicorns, but at least Ms. Rarity’s magic didn’t tingle with raw energy the way that Princess Twilight’s did.
Rarity pushed ahead through the line of ponies, butting her way through as she went. “I cannot believe that here, in Ponyville of all places, and on today, the day before Hearth’s Warming Eve of all days, that anypony would stop a child from seeing her mother!”
Cowed by her chastising words and her imperious glare, the ponies in line parted before the furiously trotting Rarity, with a smiling and triumphant Dinky riding on her back. She was too happy to really bask in the shame that the mare who originally shouted at her wore on her face. Dinky was now certain that Ms. Rarity was the best unicorn in all of Ponyville.
As they reached the door, Dinky was lifted off of Ms. Rarity’s back and set on the worn hardwood floors of the Pony Express’ stuffy interior. She hit the ground running, dodging around a lanky brown stallion with an angrily buzzing box labeled Live Bees, and shouted back to her savior as she was about to run into the loading dock, “Thanks a bunch, Ms. Rarity! I hope Sweetie Belle and her friends catch their big scary snow spider!”
Rarity, mid-wave, faltered, and though Dinky Doo didn’t hear it, the pretty white unicorn asked, “Their what now?”
Boxes, stacked ten or more high, lined almost every available square foot of space in The Pony Express’ loading dock. Dinky could barely make her way through the maze of packages to where she could hear the workers in the back talking and the familiar thuds and thumps of boxes being moved from one place to another. The musty air smelt of sweat, cardboard, and packing straw, yet it brought a smile to her face.
Here, in the heart of Ponyville, was one of her safe places; a place where she was always welcome, and where she was always noticed. And, as if on cue, the various conversations up ahead trickled to an expectant silence.
“Oh! I know the sound of those hooves!” said an achingly familiar voice up ahead that made Dinky gallop all the faster.
She rounded one last corner, and there was a clearing, an oasis among cardboard and tape. Floating above this sanctuary was a small flock of pegasi, half a dozen in all, wearing matching hats and sashes. One swooped down with a happy sigh and scooped Dinky up in a big hug.
“Momma!”
“Baby girl!” Dinky Doo’s momma cheered as she did a lazy loop de loop with her favorite pony in the whole wide world. “What are you doing…” she stopped her question, and slowed to a mid-air stop, flapping to keep the two ponies stationary as best she could. With her good eye, she looked Dinky over, sniffing all the while. “Are you wearing perfume?” she asked with a slight bend to her brow.
Dinky laughed and shook her head, rubbing her muzzle into the sash on her momma’s chest. “Ms. Rarity helped me get past the line of ponies at the front door.”
Her momma laughed. “Well that explains that!” she said with noticeable relief as she slowly returned her daughter to the ground, but not before giving her a quick squeeze. “What are you doing here? I’m always happy to see you, but wouldn’t you rather be at home?”
Dinky kicked the ground sheepishly with a forehoof. “I kinda forgot my key again.”
Her momma chuckled to herself. “You know when I was your age I forgot my keys all the time. And darn near everything else. Heck, Grandpa Sprouts used to say that…” she heard a cough from behind her, and Dinky watched as her momma spied her forgotten co-workers with her good eye before clearing her throat. “Nevermind what Grandpa Sprouts used to say. Come on, I’ll let you take mine from my purse.”
Her momma started to trot past her towards the break room, and tapped her on the rump with a wing, but the little filly didn’t budge. “Uh,” said Dinky with a start, looking around the loading dock as if the words she wanted were written on one of the boxes.
“What is it, Baby Girl?”
“You know how you’re always saying that I need to be more responsible?”
Her momma stopped in her tracks and turned her head. With a flick of her right ear, she nodded. “Mmhmm…”
“Well, Diamond Tiara’s cat had kittens!” she said, her voice bubbling over with uncontainable excitement.
An appreciable gasp went up behind Dinky. “Itty bitty kitties?” said the voice.
Dinky watched as her momma’s good eye spotted the mare who owned the voice with a frown, and the collective silence behind them came crashing down as the air filled with the sounds of boxes shuffling, wings flapping, accompanied by tuneless whistles and hums.
Dinky took in a breath, and with as much courage as she could muster in her little heart, she looked her momma in the eyes and asked the day's burning question. “Momma, can I have a kitten for Hearth’s Warming?”
Her momma’s ears flattened against her head, and she sighed. Taking a step forward, she hugged the filly in tight with a wing. “Dinky. Sweetheart. I love you. You know that. And if I could give you the world, baby girl, you know I would.”
Dinky looked up through threatening tears and saw the sadness in her momma’s eyes reflect back. “I would! Stars above, child, I would,” her momma said defeatedly as her hindlegs collapsed to the floor. “You’d never go to bed hungry ever again. Ever.”
“Momma, that was only the one time, I-”
“You’d have it all baby girl,” she said, squeezing Dinky Doo tightly, “but I can’t. A kitten deserves a better family than one that barely feeds itself. A kitten needs toys, and medicine when it’s sick, and expensive vet visits, even when it's healthy.”
“I know,” Dinky said, sniffling, and pulling herself out of the hug.
“Maybe next year?” her momma asked, as she wiped her golden eyes with a wing and cleared her throat. “By then you’ll be old enough for a real summer job on Aunt Goldie’s farm, okay?”
“Yeah. I just…” she said with a quivery voice, “I just won’t have the kitten I want,” she finished, feeling doubly miserable for being so selfish and for not getting what she wanted.
A soft voice cleared its throat, and mother and daughter both turned to see a buttercream colored pegasus offer them a sheepish smile. She was scrounging through a small bag of bits that had been hanging from her company-issued sash. Finally chiming in, she asked, “So uh, h-how much is the kitten?”
Dinky’s heart soared, and she totally missed her momma’s quietly mouthed ‘no’ and head shakes behind her.
“Diamond Tiara’s selling them for thirty five bits each, but the one I want is ju-”
“Hot crackers!” exclaimed the mare, releasing her bag of bits to dangle from its purse strings. “Thirty five bits? That’s skyway robbery!”
Dinky’s head sank once more. “Come on baby girl,” said her momma, rising to her hooves, “let’s get you that key so you can get into the house.”
“Okay, momma.”
“Hay, you know,” said another of her momma’s co-workers as she fluttered into view just above the entrance to the break room and rubbing her chin in thought, “maybe you can get a family friend to buy the kitten you want?”
Dinky looked up at her with a puzzled look on her face. “Huh?”
“Well, I mean you’ve got your heart set on the kitten, right? If you get a friend to buy it, then, you know, whenever you got to visit your friend…”
“Then I can visit the kitten there, too!” said Dinky, her spirits rekindled.
“Oh, that’s a wonderful idea!” her momma said, happily ruffling her feathers all along where her wings met her shoulders. “Go ask our friends and find out who needs a kitten for Hearth’s Warming Eve, okay?”
Dinky nodded, giggling as she ran out and back into the maze of boxes, off towards the front of the store once more.
“Hay, baby girl!" her momma called out after her, “I’ll be home after eight, so be home by then! I don’t want you out in tonight’s snowstorm!”
“Okay momma, I love you!”
As the sound of her little hooves carried her out of the loading dock, Derpy smiled at her co-workers, who were gathered around, smiling back. “Thanks guys. Especially you, Glitters,” she said, nodding to the mare who had the idea, “you really saved the day there.”
“My pleasure Hooves,” she smiled, casually waving the praise away. “Now come on,” she said while flying over the towers of boxes to a sky carriage overloaded with goodies. “This delivery to Canterlot isn’t going to fly itself.”
Derpy laughed self-consciously before taking off after her co-worker. “For holiday pay plus time-and-a-half? I’d fly it to Tartarus.”
