Winter Wings, Summer Heart

Dawn  was just breaking over the sleeping land. Fluffy white clouds danced lazily on an early morning breeze, awaiting the pegasi that would come to whisk them across Equestria. Dew sparkled in emerald fields below. All the creatures, great and small, lay asleep, even the birds, though they were soon to wake and announce the coming of day. The shadow of a huge castle hung over a grand city in the sky. Not a soul stirred up above, though a few did down below, except for one.

A small pegasus filly with a light violet coat and a pale, curly white mane pulled back in two pigtails that bounced as she struggled up onto a sky blue bed, her tiny purple wings fluttering madly.

She finally managed to pull herself up with a huff, grinning triumphantly. She started shaking the pony on the bed, who lay curled beneath her covers.

“Psst! Winter! Wiiiinterrr! Wake up!” The little filly whispered, attempting to awaken her sister. The filly beneath her did not stirr. The violet filly began to jump, all the while chanting, “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”

She shook the filly under the covers once more.

“Mm-mm. Go back to sleep, Glacie,” murmured the older filly, her tufts of almost-white icy blue hair falling into her pale cyan blue face. Glacier threw herself onto her sister’s side, staring up at the ceiling.

“I can’t,” she complained. “ The sky’s awake so I’m awake, so we have to play!” She put a  small hoof to her forehead dramatically as she spoke. Winter grumbled and rolled over, pushing Glacier off the bed.

“Go play by yourself if you so desperately have to,” muttered Winter, burying her face in her pillow. Glacier let out another huff before dropping back down to the soft cloud floor. She sat down and let out a sigh of defeat before the light of an idea sparked in her eyes. She lugged herself back onto the bed and opened her sister’s eyelid with a hoof.

“Do you wanna build a snowpony?” she asked with a smirk. Winter smiled and sighed in defeat, gazing up into light blue eyes that matched her own.

~~~

“Rainbow? Ponyville to Rainbow Dash!” called a white unicorn softly, shaking the cyan pegasus shoulder with a dainty hoof

The mare didn’t react. She just kept smiling wistfully with her eyes closed, as if she was thinking of a happy memory of something long gone.

Her three friends stared at her with concern.

“I think you broke her, Rarity,” the violet alicorn whispered, causing the unicorn in question to smile nervously and try to reach her friend again.

"Rainbow," Rarity called again, louder this time. Still no answer.

The four friends were seated around an outdoor table at a local cafe as Rarity, the resident fashionista of Ponyville, had offered to buy her friends lunch as a sort of payment for helping her with a couple of orders as well as to just spend time with them.

Two of her friends had to bail out. Fluttershy because of a surplus of sick animals that needed tending to, Pinkie Pie was on her shift at Sugarcube Corner, the town's famous bakery. However, Applejack's farm chores and work were done, Twilight had no royal duties, and Rainbow Dash's schedule was clear for the week.

"Don' worry; Ah've got this," Applejack said with a smirk. She then reached over and pulled the pegasus's powerful wing, yanking out a few feathers. Rainbow started and swung around with her hoof to punch the amber farm mare square on the nose.

Twilight and Rarity stared at the cyan pegasus with shock as she slowly came back to reality. She blinked a couple times, staring at the smatter of blood on her hoof before suddenly looking up at her friend, who was holding her muzzle, grimacing when she saw the blood.

"Ohmygosh! I'm so sorry! It's a reflex! I swear, I didn't mean to, Applejack!" she frantically explained.

Applejack waved her free hoof dismissively as the flow of blood from her nose began to subside.

"It's alright. Ah'm fine, don' ya'll worry; Ah've had worse," said Applejack, beginning to wipe the remaining blood beneath her snout. The others winced when they saw all the blood, staining her muzzle and hoof a dark red orange.

"I'm so sorry," Rainbow apologized again, offering a napkin to her friend to clean up the blood.

"Ah'm fine! Though," Applejack took the napkin and started wiping up the blood, "ya do pack quite the punch."

"Well, you did pull out my primaries."

"Ah'm sorry, but ya just froze, and we don't have any water at the table or Ah would've dumped it on yer head instead."

"Really?" Rainbow asked with a tilt of her head. Her concentration was always wavering off, but she was usually so focused. Why had she started daydreaming?

"Really," Twilight confirmed. "Rarity was asking you a question and your just kind of zoned out."

"Though it really isn't like you to just 'zone out'," commented Rarity.

"Anyways, I was asking you about that gorgeous necklace. It's unlike anything I've ever seen," said the alabaster unicorn, pointing to the charm around the stunt pony's neck.

It was a pale crystal snowflake, and when it was touched with sunlight, it shone with the colors of the Aurora Borealis, blues, pinks, purples, and greens shining from its depths, causing earth pony, unicorn, and alicorn to stare at it in complete awe.

"You really aren't the type of pony to wear trinkets, and especially not something as fabulous as this," Rarity said, taking hold of the necklace, undoing the clasp, and bringing it closer to her with her magic. Rainbow opened her mouth as if to say something before thinking better of it and closing it again.

Conceal it, don't feel it. Stay calm and remember what father said, she thought to herself as she smiled nervously while her friends ogled the beautiful necklace.

"Yeah, well, I usually tuck it into my mane, out of sight, out of mind," she said with more than a hint of nervousness in her voice. She felt a cold tingle in her hooves and knew that a change of color was soon to follow. Her mind swirled as she tried to figure out a way to hide the change through the blizzard in her head, her body temperature dropping all the while. Just don't touch anything, and they won't notice. Tuck your hooves away. She smiled and picked up her cup, trembling slightly as she did so.

"This is amazing, Rainbow. Where in the world did you get it?" asked Twilight, her violet eyes glued to the sparkling charm.

"My, uh, my dad made it for me as a, uh, a birth- birthday present," she managed to stutter out. It was a lie. Her father had made it for her, but with a more magical purpose in mind.

"He must love you very much to make something was beautiful as this."

"Yeah, he did."

"Wha was that, sugarcube?" inquired Applejack, turning to her winged friend, who quickly put down her cup and hid her hooves in her lap as AJ did so.

"He died. Mom too. At sea. There was a storm," Rainbow quietly explained, her eyes downcast as she stared down at her cup, staring at the frost that covered it in a beautiful and delicate filigree. She glanced down at her hooves, noting that they had fully changed color, now their natural pale cyan, noticeably paler than her currant coat. She gulped. Not now! Anytime but now! Oh, why did I let her take it?

"Oh. Ah'm sorry, sugarcube."

"Nah, it's alright. It's been three years now. We were close, especially after my little sister died in an accident before either of us could fly, but, I'm over it."

Rainbow sighed, looking down at her hooves. The pale cyan was climbing up her legs, towards her knees, and her chair was covered with frost and ice was starting to form around her hooves. She let out a soft gasp and jumped to her feet, reaching out for her necklace.

"Sorry, girls, but I've got to go," she said taking her necklace back and clasping it back around her neck, taking care to have the paler side facing out.

"Why the sudden hurry?"

"Um... There was something that I forgot about and I have to go take care of it," Dash explained hurriedly, stretching her wings and glancing at the ground beneath her, panicking when she saw the ice starting to form and how far up her true coat color had climbed up her legs; it was almost to the shoulder.

"Well, alright. We'll see y-"

"Okay, thanks, bye!"

And with that, Rainbow Dash took off, streaking away as her friends stared after her, bewildered by her sudden exit.

"I wonder what that was all about," said Twilight. As her friends nodded in agreement, a voice called out from the street, making the three mares and the rest of the ponies at the cafe jump.

"Twilight!I found it!"