A Very Cranky Hearth's Warming
A Very Cranky Hearth's Warming
Sweetie Belle shook her head as she looked out the window again. She’d seen snowfall in Ponyville before, but usually the pegasi were a bit more gentle and deliberate. She let out a sigh as she turned away from the sight of shoulder-deep snow and plopped down on her haunches next to Scootaloo.
“There’s no way Apple Bloom is going to make it over this weekend,” Sweetie Belle said. “It’ll take days for somepony to clear the roads all the way from here to Sweet Apple Acres.”
Scootaloo glanced at the window and sighed with frustration. “So much for our weekend marathon of Cutie Mark Crusading.” She casually ran a hoof through her dark pink mane. “I don’t know. It was nice of your parents to let us come over, but to be honest, I don’t think winter is really our thing.”
“I know,” Sweetie Belle admitted, feeling wistful. “But it’d just be nice to be with friends over Hearth’s Warming break.”
“Well, you’ve got me,” Scootaloo said with a broad grin. She threw one hoof around Sweetie Belle’s shoulders as she made a sweeping gesture with the other. “Come on, fellow Crusader, let’s go…”
“Girls?” came a mare’s voice from the kitchen. “Sweetie Belle, did you hear what your father was saying?”
Sweetie Belle frowned and looked at Scootaloo, who shrugged. “Uh, sorry mom,” she shouted. “What was that?”
“He asked if you girls would be willing to go out and shovel the walk,” her mother called. “Now, I asked him what kind of host would make their guest go out and shovel on a day like this, but you know your father…”
Sweetie Belle buried her face in her hooves. “They’re so embarrassing,” she whispered.
“It’s OK, really,” Scootaloo said. “It’s not like the first time I’ve ever had to go out and shovel. Besides…” she grinned, and added, “cutie marks for shoveling?”
Sweetie Belle’s smile was pained, but she nodded. “All right, mom,” she shouted.
Scootaloo’s wings buzzed as she hovered up to the top of the coatrack by the door. She grabbed her own red scarf and tossed a blue one to Sweetie Belle. “So where are the shovels?”
Sweetie Belle caught the scarf in midair with her magic and wrapped it tightly around her neck. “Just outside, thank Celestia.” She opened the door and was greeted by a wall of snow.
“Let me go out and get them,” Scootaloo said, carefully squeezing over the top of the snow.
After a few minutes, they were able to clear their way through the door, and they kept on going.
The air was crisp and their breath froze as they strained against the high snow. Sweetie Belle relied on her magic to keep her shovel moving, until her horn started to ache.
Eventually she staggered, the magical glow receded, and her shovel clattered to the walk below.
Scootaloo set her shovel down and touched a hoof to Sweetie Belle’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”
Sweetie Belle nodded. “Just… need to catch my breath,” she said.
“Well take a look at all we’ve done,” Scootaloo said, gesturing behind them. Sweetie Belle turned. Indeed, in less time than she’d realized, the two fillies had cleared all the way out to the main sidewalk, and were starting to make headway on that as well.
Sweetie Belle frowned as she turned her eyes toward the neat brown cottage next door. “I wonder how Matilda’s doing,” she said.
“Huh? Is that your donkey neighbor?”
“Well that’s one way of putting it,” Sweetie Belle said. “Rarity’s always telling me we need to be sensitive to those around us who are different. I think she’s usually talking about ponies with bad fashion sense, but she must mean the same thing about different kinds of beings…”
Scootaloo huffed. She absentmindedly rubbed one of her hooves. “Whatever. I’m getting cold. Besides, I thought I heard she has a friend coming around these days who could help with things like that.”
Sweetie Belle bit her lip as she tried to remember what she could about him. “Yeah, I think I’ve seen him once or twice… but I think mom said he lives on the edge of town. What if he’s stuck there, just like Apple Bloom is stuck at Sweet Apple Acres? Hearth’s Warming is a sad time to be away from the ones you want to be with.”
“I don’t know,” Scootaloo said. “I mean, I guess it would be nice of us to shovel her out, but…”
“It would be generous!” Sweetie Belle declared, making the mental connection. “Just wait till I tell Rarity about this!” She felt a surge of enthusiasm, and her horn lit up again with magical power. “Come on Crusader, let’s shovel out the very nice old neighbor donkey!”
Scootaloo muttered something, but Sweetie Belle’s focus was unwavering. They shoveled all the way to the edge of her parents’ lot without delay. However, as they progressed to perhaps the one-third mark on her neighbor’s sidewalk, a sudden noise from down the street gave them pause. Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo traded quizzical glances, and the pegasus buzzed upward to see what she could see.
“No way,” she called down. “This is crazy.”
“What is it?” Sweetie Belle asked, bouncing in a fruitless attempt to see over the high snow.
“It’s Snips and Snails,” Scootaloo said. She touched-down again next to Sweetie Belle. “They’ve got some kind of… big machine thing that’s shooting snow out of its side, and they’re coming this way, and everything… the snow… it’s clear behind them!”
Sweetie Belle blinked. “What?!”
“Climb up and see,” Scootaloo replied, herself beginning to scale the wall of snow in front of them.
“But, I…” Sweetie Belle started. Then she dropped her shovel again and made an attempt to climb up the powdery snow as best she could. This mostly resulted in embedding herself in the snow and feeling even more frigid than she already was. However, she did manage to get her head higher than the snow line for enough seconds to confirm what Scootaloo was saying. Indeed, a strange and rumbling metal thing was headed their way, alight with two glows of unicorn magic.
Something suddenly occurred to her. “Um, maybe we should tell them somepony is in their way,” she said.
Scootaloo nodded, then attempted to shoot forward over the snow. “Hey! Shut it down, guys! Sweetie Belle’s stuck inside the snowbank there!”
Sweetie Belle winced. “Thanks for throwing me under the cart,” she muttered as she got clear of the snowbank. She planted her shovel in the snow next to the sidewalk, and started using her magic to brush snow off herself.
The rumbling grew louder. Sweetie Belle looked up, feeling nervous.
It grew louder still. Suddenly the metal thing burst through the snowbank and showed no signs of stopping. Sweetie Belle squeaked as she dove from the sidewalk. She quivered in the snow that covered Matilda’s yard as a stream of thrown whiteness flew overhead, painting a long white splotch across the front of Matilda’s house.
The rumbling finally subsided a moment later. Sweetie Belle took her hooves off her head and was finally able to hear Scootaloo in a full-tilt argument with Snips and Snails. She gritted her teeth and moved around the side of the metal thing, prepared to join in.
“…could have run her over, you dolts!” Scootaloo shouted.
“Yeah, but… oh, hey, Sweetie Belle,” Snails said, suddenly looking sheepish. “Sorry that our snow thrower almost threw you too.”
“You mean our super awesome snow thrower!” Snips added. His voice sounded even more peevish than usual.
“Where did you even get that thing?” Sweetie Belle asked.
“My dad bought it off some guys who came through town a while back,” Snips said. “And now he’s letting us use it in our quest to make loads of money this winter!”
“That’s right! Money for us!” Snails added.
Sweetie Belle squinted her eyes and put a hoof to the bridge of her nose. “And just how is this thing supposed to make you all this money?”
“Ponies all through the neighborhood will pay us to plow them out!” Snails shouted.
“You mean, all through Ponyville,” Snips added.
“No they won’t, they…” Sweetie Belle started, before she caught a glance from Scootaloo. “Well, that is… they wouldn’t… right?”
“I don’t know about you, but I’m still feeling pretty frozen and tired,” Scootaloo said.
Sweetie Belle frowned. The logic was almost as cold her breath. “I bet that thing could clear this whole street here in no time,” she admitted. “But what about the spirit of the season? It’s Hearth’s Warming… shouldn’t we be generous with what we have?”
“Huh?” Snails said.
Sweetie Belle opened her mouth, but was interrupted by the sound of a door being flung wide on its hinges.
“What in Tartaros are you dang kids doing on this sidewalk?!” shouted the donkey at the door. Sweetie Belle startled at the anger in his voice. Shock took hold as she realized this wasn’t the sweet and prim Matilda at all, but a gnarled and huffing donkey with flared nostrils and an unnaturally blond pompadour perched precariously upon his head.
“Sweet Celestia, is that her friend?” Scootaloo whispered.
Sweetie Belle didn’t have a chance to answer. The fuming donkey began advancing toward them through the deep snow, a look writ across his face that seemed to dare either the young ponies or the snow itself to slow him down.
“Look what you kids did to the house!” he bellowed, gesturing with a hoof toward the line of whiteness that had been sprayed across its windows. “Someone better clean that off now! And then the rest of you all had better scram!”
Snips nudged Snails hard enough to make the taller one stumble. “Talk to him,” he hissed.
“Uh, hey there, Mr. Donkey… uh,” Snails said.
The donkey gave him a withering look.
“Uh… yeah, maybe let’s start with your name there, Mr. Sir,” Snails said.
The donkey’s lips seemed to move in slow and terrifying motion as they formed a single word: “Cranky!”
“Y… yes, I s… see that, sir,” Snips stammered. “But did you know, sir, we are Snips and Snails, and this here is our Super Snow Slinger… uh…”
Cranky leaned closer. Snips shrank as he trailed off.
“Six… six thousand…”
“I don’t care what this dang thing is!” Cranky shouted, mere hoof-lengths from Snips’ face. “You clean the house off now and get it out of here!”
The pair obliged without another word, neatly bounding across the open snowfield of Matilda’s front yard. Cranky watched them for a moment. Sweetie Belle watched a glimmer of satisfaction cross his face. But then he noticed Scootaloo and turned the full force of his displeasure on her.
“Well?!” he yelled. “Are you part of these nitwits’ posse, too?”
“No sir, I don’t think so, bye!” Scootaloo shouted, not waiting or looking behind, but simply bolting back toward Sweetie Belle’s house at full speed.
Sweetie Belle swallowed. There she was, alone, with Cranky.
He leaned in. She could feel the heat of his breath on her face. It would have been a pleasant warmth, had the look in his eyes not chilled her to the bone.
“And then there’s you,” he said. “You’re that neighbor kid, right?”
“Y… yes sir,” Sweetie Belle stammered.
Cranky gave her a look that made her wonder if he was trying to decide to kick her with one leg or two. “So? What’s your story?”
Sweetie Belle shivered and struggled to find her words. “I… we… were just going to shovel Matilda’s walk… uh, Cranky, sir.”
His brow furrowed. “What did you say?” he asked, slowly.
“Just… just shoveling her out,” she said.
“Profiteers!” Cranky bellowed. Somewhere out there in the snow, Sweetie Belle saw Snips and Snails jump at his outcry. “One measly bit of snow falls, and all you kids think you can make bits preying on us older folks!”
“I… just wanted to be nice to my neighbor,” Sweetie Belle said.
“And that’s it?” Cranky asked, somehow pressing closer. “There’s nothing in this for you at all?”
Hot tears welled in the corners of Sweetie Belle’s eyes. “Yes, there is,” she confessed, feeling piteous. “I… I just wanted to make my sister proud… by being generous…”
Sweetie Belle’s composure shattered. She was cold, and tired, and sad that one fellow Crusader couldn’t be with her, and disappointed that another had left her all alone with the crankiest donkey she’d ever known. When she began to cry, it came out as a sobbing, wailing torrent.
“Hey. Hey there. It’s okay, kid,” a deep, strong voice said. Sweetie Belle felt a warm hug around her shoulders, and a dry cloth blotting her tears.
She blinked at Cranky through moist eyes. “You’re… you’re not going to be… mean to me?” she asked.
He smiled. Sweetie Belle idly thought that the donkey’s face seemed unaccustomed to smiling. It was as if his wrinkles all ran the wrong way. And yet, the smile was genuine, and comforting.
Cranky stepped back and cleared his throat. He offered a hoof to Sweetie Belle. “Maybe we can start this over again. What do you say… friend?”
Sweetie Belle hesitated, but only for a moment. She took his hoof and let him help her to her feet. “Thank you,” she said. A moment later, she added the word, “Friend,” trying it on for size, uncertain how well it would fit.
Cranky started back through the snow toward Matilda’s house, but this time his steps were slower and he was clearly straining to make progress.
He stopped.
“I’ll tell you what,” Cranky said, looking back at her. “Maybe if you could finish getting this walk cleared, maybe me and Matilda could bring over some cocoa for you and your folks.”
Sweetie Belle smiled. She paused for a moment, and then retrieved her shovel.
