XXI - The Choice to Be Certain
“We never told her mother about any of it,” Snips says.
Snail’s laughter rolls on and he kicks the snow off a protruding root under one of the hill’s thin trees. “Oh, Snips, I can’t believe you got away with that! And on your wedding day, too.”
“It was all Twist’s idea,” Snips chuckles, shaking his head.
“That’s a side of her personality I’ve never really seen,” says Snails through a big grin. “Oh, Snips. I’m so happy for you. Looks like things are really working out.”
“Well, better late than never, I suppose. Say, how’s your back?”
Snails rotates a shoulder. “It’s better when I’m out and about. Honestly, I've been kind of tempted to try one of those machines that hang you upside down for a while. You know what I'm talking about?"
"No! That sounds awful."
"I saw it on TV," Snails says. "One of those ad things."
"Oh, I haven't gotten a TV yet," Snips says. "It sort of freaks me out to have something like that in the home."
"Yeah, it's nice, but you're right. I've been watching it way too much. Silver Spoon says I need to get out more." He cracked his neck and took a deep breath of the snow-chilled air. "I’m glad we got to go on this walk. It’s been a long time.”
“Yeah, it has. We used to come up here all the time, remember?” Snips sighs as the trees part, revealing a beautiful view of Ponyville’s winter. “It’s a lot bigger than it was back then.”
“Heck, it’s bigger than it was last Hearth’s Warming Eve,” Snails says, shaking his head. “And shinier, too. Princess Twilight is really turning this place into the next Canterlot.”
“Not yet!” Snips says. “She'd better wait until I’m gone, at least.”
“You’ve got another forty years, pal.” Snails smiles and pats his stout friend on the back. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you live to see Ponyville change its name.”
“Ugh, that would be awful!”
“Ponytopia or something.”
Snips makes a strangled noise. “Please, no!”
They laugh, and continue climbing the hill. The snow crunches rhythmically under their hooves.
Snips lets the last of his chuckling wear out before asking, “How are the kids?”
“Big,” Snails says with a snort. “I liked them better as foals.”
“Oh, come on, you can’t say that about your own children.”
“Silver Spoon takes care of those monsters,” Snails says, waving a hoof. “I just make sure she has the bits to do it.”
“Ha! Oh, come on…”
“Were we that dumb and annoying as colts?”
“Two words: ursa major.”
“Technically it was an ursa minor.”
“Hahaha!”
“Haha… heh… hey, what’s that?”
Snips follows the direction of his friend’s pointed hoof to another clearing up ahead. That part of the hill has no trees and provides the best view of Ponyville. Something covered in a layer of flakes — or rather, somepony — is lying face down in the snow at the edge.
The pair are silent for a moment. The shape’s stillness is unsettling.
“Should we…”
“Yeah, let’s…”
They trot forward quickly, pushing up piles of snow in their wake. Upon nearing the form, they notice its elderly and feminine features. Her mane is grey with a shock of white running from between her ears. In front of her fallen face, lying open, is a massive book. The open pages are blank, though a quill rests over them.
“Excuse me, Miss?” Snails asks quietly. He clears his throat. “Miss? Are you all right?”
Her cutie mark — a curling, golden harp — is dull and as cold as the snowflakes around it. The stallions’ hearts beat harder and their breathing comes quick.
“Oh my gosh, it’s a dead body,” says Snails.
“How long has she been up here?” Snips wails.
“How should I know!?”
“Aaaauughh! Help, somepony help!”
“Snips, calm down!” He smacks him on the horn. “Go run across the park to town and find somepony. I’ll stay here and make sure nothing gets at her.”
Snips breathes deeper. “Okay, okay…” He starts down the hill, kicking up snow and slipping on the slope. “Ohp! Okay, gotta get help, just gotta find somepony…”
Snails watches him go, then glances at the mare. He’s tempted to nudge her with a hoof, but it doesn’t seem very reverent. “I’ll just give her some space,” he thinks, turning around, “and make sure no wild animals get her before Snips gets back.”
Snips reaches the bottom of the hill and starts to gallop across the park. His lungs hurt. He stops for a breather and looks at the ground. He smiles. “Wow… it’s so sparkly.” He picks up a hooffull of snow and tosses it above him. It doubles the amount of flakes gently falling around him. He wishes Twist were there to enjoy the beauty. “Wait, where’s Snails?” he asks aloud, turning in place.
The orange stallion is looking at the sky, smiling. “These clouds go on forever,” he thinks. “I wonder how many pegasi it takes to cover Ponyville these days.” He sighs, and continues his thoughts aloud: “Sure is nice out tonight.” He glances toward the city… and spots a motionless form lying facedown in the snow.
He squints. “Oh my gosh, it’s a dead body!” he shouts, leaping away. “Help! Somepony help!”
Snips hears his friend’s voice. He looks up the hill. “Snails, is that you?” It’s hard to see in the twilight.
“Snips! Get up here, I found a dead body!”
“What!?” Snips bounds up the hill. His back hooves often slip in the snow, but he manages to keep balanced by pounding them down harder. Chunks of packed snow fly out behind him and roll down the hill. He reaches the top in twenty seconds, breathing hard. “Snails, where did you go?”
“I found a dead body!” He points.
“What the…? Augh, oh my gosh! Are you sure she’s dead?”
“Look at her! She’s old, her face is in the snow, and she hasn’t moved at all and we’re shouting. Besides, look at how dull her Cutie Mark is! Of course she’s dead!”
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh…”
“Calm down, Snips!” He whacks his friend’s horn. “Listen: I’ll stay here. I need you to go to town as fast as you can and find some help.”
“Yeah, okay!” Snips turns and hurries down the hill. He loses his balance and lands on his side, sliding several feet. “Uumf! Oh gosh, somepony died up here…” He stands and brushes off some snow with his tail, continuing his downward sprint. “I can’t believe… I just saw… brrrrr…” He shivers and stops, twisting to brush more snow off his flank. “Gosh, that’s cold! Why was I running so fast? Stupid…”
Snails’ half-lidded eyes scan the cloudy sky. “Wow, it sure is nice out tonight…” He takes a deep breath through his nose and sees Snips at the bottom of the hill. He laughs and waves. “Hey, Snips! What are you doing down there?”
“Huh? Oh… I dunno!” he shouts back, laughing along. “I must have tripped off the edge or… something.”
Snails furrows his brow. “The edge? But it’s just a hill…” He looks along the slope for a spot where his friend might have slipped. Instead, his eyes find a wrinkled, green pony facedown in the snow. Her golden harp of a cutie mark is dull and cold. He gasps. “Oh my gosh, it’s a dead body!”
“What?” Snips yells from below.
“Snips, get up here! I think I just found a dead body!”
“Oh my gosh!”
Snips launches himself up the hill, panting from the get go, and lets his tongue lull from the side of his mouth by the time his stubby legs carry his hefty body to his lanky friend’s side. “Whew… that’s a steep hill…”
“Snips, look at this!” Snails says, wildly gesturing to the fallen mare. “Can you believe it? I just found a dead body!”
“Hold on," Snips says, head hung low. "I gotta... catch my... whew..."
Snails blinks. "Are you okay, buddy?"
"I'm just... exhausted..." He tosses his mane back and blows a jet of steamed breath to the sky. "Jeez! That's a steep hill."
Snails peers around his friend at the slope. "It's not that steep." He smirks. "Maybe you're just out of shape."
"Says the guy who... watches too much... TV..."
"Oh, please." Snails laughs and looks away. "There are actually a lot of good programs starting tooooOOH MY GOSH, A DEAD BODY!"
"Oh my… gosh… that’s… crazy…” Snips squeezes between wheezes.
“We’d better go get help!”
“Okay, yeah…” Snips hangs his head and waves a hoof toward Ponyville. “You run across the park and get help. I’ll stay here and make sure nothing happens to the body.”
“Right, good idea!” Snails jumps over Snips and hurries down the hill. His long legs threaten to slip out from under him a couple of times, but he gets to the bottom safely. The first thing he notices in the park is its emptiness. Such a lovely winter night, shame that more ponies aren’t enjoying the light snowfall.
“Well… I guess it is getting kind of late,” he mutters to himself, looking to the horizon. The Sun has nearly set, and the Moon’s glow is already visible along the most distant clouds. “Huh… where did Snips go?”
Snips stares at a dead body, breathing hard. His lungs hurt. “Who is she? I’ve never seen her around Ponyville before,” he thinks.
He sits on his haunches and looks down the hill. Snails has stopped running and is watching the Sunset.
“Hey! Hurry up!” Snips calls down to him. “It’s getting late!”
“Yeah, I know!” Snails yells back to him. “Hurry to what?”
“Uhh…” He smiles. “Well, hurry on up here, of course! The view of Ponyville is amazing!”
“Jee, this is great!” Snails beams and bounds up the hill like a dog. “Happy Hearth’s Warming Eve, Snips!”
“Ha ha! Happy Hearth’s Warming Eve to you, too, old friend!”
When Snails reaches the top of the hill, the old friends lock in a brotherly embrace. “It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”
“Only since last Hearth’s Warming.”
“No, I mean since we were up on this hill,” Snips says. They let go and sit down next to each other, watching the nighttime lights of Ponyville flicker to life across the park.
“Yeah, you’re right.” Snails lets out a long sigh, calming his rapid heartbeat. What a steep hill. “It’s prettier than it’s ever been.”
“Maybe to you,” says Snips, rubbing his horn. “I prefer the old Ponyville, without all the crystals and princesses and whatnot.”
“Change is a good thing, Snips,” says Snails. He turns his head to look at his best friend. “You should know, you just got marri—OH MY GOSH, it's a dead body!”
He flings out a hoof, smacking Snips' horn. "OUCH!" Snips yelps. "Why is my horn so sore?"
"Sorry, but look!" Snails jabs his hoof in the air, pointing to a stagnant shape not ten feet from where they sit. They both scream and scramble away, scraping snow off the hill’s brown grass.
“How did that get there?”
“How did we not notice it before now?”
“Snails, hurry across the park into town! I’ll stay here and make sure no animals get to the poor thing.”
“Okay, good idea!” Snails jumps up and heads down the hill. He slips near the bottom on a patch of hoof-marked snow and flies forward, slamming his jaw into the ground. “Aaauugh! Oh, gosh, that hurt!” He stands up, rubbing the bottom of his jaw and moving it around. “Yeesh, what was I thinking? No need to run down a hill, you big idiot.”
“Hey, Snails!”
He turns around. Snips is grinning and waving at him from the top of the hill. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I must have slipped on the way up!” He turns around and begins the climb.
“If we were racing, I would have beaten you!”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Snails says with a grin of his own. He’s breathing hard by the time he reaches his friend. “Yeesh. That’s a steep hill.”
Snips shivers. “It’s g-getting cooold up here!”
“What are you talking about? We just got here.” The muscles in his shoulders twitch. “Ooooo… but you’re right, it is freezing. This can’t be good for my back.”
“Maybe we should head down,” Snips suggests. “It’s getting dark, anyway. The view is better during the day.”
“Yeah,” says Snails, turning around again. “It sure is pretty, though, isn’t it?”
Snips sighs. They take a moment to watch as the Sun submerges below the horizon line and the Moon glows through the snow clouds, casting its mystical light upon the city of their youth.
“So many memories,” Snails says.
“Isn’t it amazing? It’s like it all comes back to you just from one simple thing.”
They look at each other and smile. Then Snails notices something in the snow behind his short companion. He points, eyes large and pale. “Oh my gosh, Snips, look! It’s a dead body!”
“Gaaah!” Snips whips around and lifts his hooves. “Where?”
“Right there! Oh, jeez, what happened to her?”
“She looks old… maybe she just passed out!”
“What’s that thing in front of her? Is that a book?”
“Holy crap, that thing is massive!”
Snails steps forward and nudges the old mare’s grey head. “Excuse me, ma’am? Are you all right?”
No response. The stallions glance at each other, wide-eyed.
“Aaaaaahhhh!”
“Gaaaeeeuughhh!”
“Help! Help!”
“Somepony come here! Help us!”
Just at this moment, Scootaloo is flying overhead. She hears the screams of stallions and dives into the trees to find them. In a clearing that shows a lovely view of Ponyville, all lit up for the evening, are Snips and Snails, screaming to the sky.
“What’s the matter with you two?” she snaps, landing hard behind them.
They yell louder and turn around. “Scootaloo! You’ve got to help us, we just found a dead body!”
“What?” Scootaloo’s pupils shrink. “Where?”
The stallions part and point their hooves at the lime green mare in the snow. Scootaloo jumps forward and gasps. She takes the mare’s fallen head gently between her hooves and lifts it out of the snow. Sure enough, her golden eyes are wide open and lightless.
“Who is she?” she asks. When neither stallion can answer, Scootaloo flips through the pages of the open book lying in front of her. “This book is empty! Oh, gosh, that’s freakin’ creepy!”
“Scootaloo, fly to the city!” Snails says. “Get somepony to help us out here!”
“Right, I’m on it!” Scootaloo takes off in a purple streak, arriving in the streets of Ponyville within seconds.
“Quick, everypony, get to the hill!” she says loudly. Several heads turn to listen. “There’s a… um…” She puts a hoof to her chin. “Huh… what was there?” She shrugs. “Well, I dunno, but there’s something important to see out on the big hill past the park! Quick, let’s go!”
A few pegasi follow her flight back to the hill. Earth ponies and unicorns look at each other worriedly before hurrying to follow on hoof.
Scootaloo lands hard enough to make a crater of snow. “All right, boys, what’s the deal here?”
“We don’t know!” Snails says. “Thank goodness you showed up. We just found a dead body right this second!”
Scootaloo and the other pegasi gasp at the sight of an old, green mare face down in the snow. “What’s that book?”
Snips’ magic turns the pages. “Nothing. It’s empty.”
Scootaloo shudders. “Oh, jeez, that’s creepy.”
“What do you think happened?” asks one of the pegasi.
“She probably died of old age up here,” another one guesses.
“But why the big empty book?” asks Scootaloo. She bends close to the body. “From the looks of the snow here, I’d say somepony grabbed her head with their hooves not too long ago. Was it one of you?” she asks, glaring daggers at Snips and Snails.
They eep. “No, we just found her like this, honest!”
“Hmmmm…” Scootaloo grabs the back of the dead pony’s neck and gently lifts her face. Her open golden eyes refuse to reflect the light of the Moon. “Huh. Unicorn. I don’t recognize her. Do you?”
All ponies present shake their heads.
“Looks like we’ve got a mystery on our hooves,” says Scootaloo. “We’d better fly back and get some authorities before we mess up the crime scene.”
“Crime scene?” Snips asks. “Oh, this is the worst Hearth’s Warming Eve ever!”
“Come on, ponies!” Scootaloo zips back to Ponyville with the other pegasi in tow.
Snips and Snails notice a large group of ponies climbing the hill. “What’s going on?” they hear. “Is Scootaloo up there?” “I think she just flew—” “Gosh, this hill is steep!”
“Hey, up here!” Snails shouts. “We think we found a dead body!”
“Oh my gosh!”
“A dead body?”
“Stay down here, Apple Dash.”
“But Mooooom!”
“Come on, let’s hurry!”
The group of ponies reach the top. They gawk and ask many unanswerable questions among themselves. A few minutes later, another wave shows up at the bottom of the hill.
“Hey, what’s going on up there?”
“Hmm?” A yellow mare looks down. “Oh, nothin', we’re just enjoyin' the view!” She waves along with the rest of the ponies smiling at the top of the hill.
“It’s beautiful!”
“I like how the Moon glows through the clouds.”
“Happy Hearth’s Warming Eve!”
“Mom, can I come up now?” Apple Dash asks.
The yellow mare laughs. “Of course you can, silly filly!”
Apple Dash smiles and climbs the hill with the new group, eager to see Ponyville at this time of evening from such a unique vantage point. Many of them ooooh and aaaah at the beautiful sight. Thousands of tiny snowflakes fall softly throughout the park and onto modern Ponyvillean roofs.
“Luna’s stars…”
“That’s amazing!”
“OH MY GOSH, it’s a dead body!”
The whole group gasps and leans away from the outburst. Screams erupt as more and more eyes find the grounded mare, face down in the snow.
“What’s that in front of her?”
“Is that gigantic thing a book?”
Suddenly, a big group of pegasi dropping from the clouds catches the group’s attention. “Make room, everypony, make room!” somepony shouts, and the ponies scramble away from the edge of the hill. The pegasi land and immediately begin to set up their equipment.
“What’s going on?” asks Snails.
“I’m Scrap Duster of the Ponyville Evening News. Scootaloo told us there was something really interesting and suspicious out here,” a handsome stallion with a microphone hovering in his magic says. “She couldn’t remember what it was, but only how it made her feel.”
“Maybe it was this gorgeous view!” somepony says. All eyes turn to Ponyville, followed by collective “Oooohs!” of delight.
“That is quite the view,” Scrap Duster agrees with a frown. “But not exactly the kind of news story I was hoping—”
“Oh my gosh! It’s a dead body!” shouts Apple Dash. The surrounding ponies gasp and look around frantically, pattering their hooves and kicking slushy snow into each others’ sides and faces.
“Perfect!” Scrap Duster beams a winning smile. “Roll the cameras, Destiny Nugget. We’re getting the hot Hearth’s Warming scoop tonight!”
“Okay.” Destiny Nugget aims his camera at Scrap. “We’re live in three… two…”
“Tonight we’re standing with a group of ponies on a hill,” Scrap says. His smile slowly fades. “I, uh… I can’t quite remember why…” He turns around and gasps. “Oh my gosh, it’s a dead body!” His eyes flash in the artificial lights several newsponies have pointed his way. “This group must have killed her! Now they’re gonna kill us! AAAHHHH!”
In Ponyville, several families watching TV scream along with Scrap as the camera zooms in on a limp, pale green mare. Some of them continue to scream. Others turn off the TV and start playing games.
Meanwhile, Celestia sits down in her room after another long day. “Happy Hearth’s Warming Eve, Luna!” she calls out to her sister stabilizing the Moon on the balcony. Celestia’s magic wraps around the remote control and turns on their new television set. “I wonder how Twilight is doing tonight…”
She flips the channels to Ponyville’s local news. She gasps at the sight of three dozen ponies screaming in the dark. “What is happening?” she asks, stepping closer to the TV. The camera swivels, and suddenly there’s nothing on screen but a dull harp of a Cutie Mark.
Celestia’s pupils dilate and she breathes a single word. “Aria…”
The entire planet explodes, sending chunks of Equestrian, Griffonian, and Zebraharan soil into the never-ending reaches of space. Silence reigns in the quadrant that harbored panicked Ponyvilleans only moments before. The Sun flickers out, and the Moon disappears altogether.
At the center of it all, a cold, green form floats helplessly in the void. Her grey and white mane twists beautifully around her golden eyes, void of the life she must have once lived. Beside her floats a well-worn quill and a large, blank book.
A serpentine creature maneuvers between the chunks of shattered earth. He reaches out a lion paw and an eagle’s claw to seize the book and tucks it into an invisible pocket. His yellow eyes lock onto the green mare’s floating limbs and a crooked grin graces his features.
“Oh, look! A dead body.”
He looks at us. “F’naaaaaaaa!”
Author's Note
