Two Background Ponies Revisit Season Five

Hearthbreakers

"I think he's coming around..."

iving a dull moan and moving his head slightly, a green stallion lying on his back on a couch slowly cracked his eyes open. He had a wet rag on his forehead covering up a rather nasty bruise, and his eyes were crossed and refused to focus immediately. However, he blinked once, and soon saw the familiar faces of his sister, his brother, his best friend's wife, and, of course, the blue stallion that was his best friend all looking at him.

Immediately, his eyes shot open, and, in spite of the pain, he leaned up and grasped Sam.

"What...what happened?! Where am I?!"

Quickly, the blue stallion put his own hooves on his. "Whoa, settle down, dude. You banged your head pretty bad back there."

The green stallion blinked a few times. "Banged...my head...?"

Dawn, nearby, gave a nod. "Yeah. You were going off on one of your schpiels, talking about why Hearth's Warming Eve is coming before Nightmare Night this year and why we always bring winter back for it just for a couple days, and you didn't see where you were going and you walked headfirst into Sam and our flagpole."

"And we missed dinner waiting for you to snap out of it, you obsessive-compulsive psycho." Farrah nearby grumbled. "Sheesh, Carl...at this rate you'll be dead before you ever get a girlfriend."

Carl blinked two more times, then looked to his right, out a nearby window. Ponyville was in all of its holiday array and everyone was smiling and enjoying themselves as they were immersed in the Hearth's Warming Eve festivities. He finally exhaled in relief and leaned back down.

"...It was all just a horrible, horrible hallucination brought on by head trauma and excessive sugar intake..."

Both Sam and Dawn looked puzzled at that, while Farrah snorted and simply turned and walked away. "I'm starting on the cheese ball. I'm not waiting any longer."

"Uh, Carl..." Sam began to say. "What are you-"

Suddenly, Carl shot up.

"It was horrible, Sam! I was in Ponyville, only Hearth's Warming Eve was a much bigger holiday than before! Much bigger! Everyone got into it so much that they started celebrating it during Nightmare Night!"

Dawn blinked a few times. "But...Nightmare Night sometimes comes after Hearth's Warming Eve..."

"I know! That didn't stop them!" Carl shouted back. "But that was just the beginning! The non-pony residents started to complain to public schools and government institutions about being forced to acknowledge a pony-based holiday when their own religions or backgrounds refused to give credit to ponies... And so everything had to be changed to call it 'Winter Holiday'! They had to stop hanging the flag of Equestria in public buildings and exempting foals and kids of other species from participating in school events based around it...and then start celebrating other holidays like Yaksmas and Griffonalia at the same time of year...

"Then they started complaining about how the entire thing was too commercialized and brought up fillies to be greedy for presents and that this wasn't fair to low income families and ones who don't celebrate Hearth's Warming Eve! And then other ponies complained about how there was too much of an emphasis on sugar-laden food at this time of year and started trying to mandate more healthy snacks! And then other ponies complained about how planting monoculture crops of Lodgepole Pines to make flagpoles was terrible for the environment! And then entire anti-defamation leagues began to picket and protest the holiday pointing out how much the wild Windego populations have declined due to 'ruthless, unfounded persecution based on pagan superstition'!

"And then...and then...they started to edit the parts of the pageant that portrayed Earth Ponies as dim-witted or Unicorns as vain or Pegasi as arrogant...and tried to insist that they only portray the heart-shaped flame as naturally-occurring without directly describing any magical origin to it! Then they started having lawsuits about removing the hearth dolls from the Canterlot Palace! And then somepony tried to convert it into 'Commercial Hearth's Warming Eve' and ponies got outraged that they were letting everyone celebrate only the 'fun' parts without having any deference to its Equestrian origins! And then I think I saw Cheese Sandwich write a song called: 'It's Hearth's Warming Eve at Ground Zero'! Finally the holiday was so utterly destroyed that the only thing anyone was left doing was painting themselves gray and walking around playing with rocks every year because that was the only thing that didn't offend anypony!"

Taking a deep breath, Sam reached out and put his hooves on Carl to steady him.

"Now Carl...just relax. That was all just a delusion. Everything's fine."

The green stallion took a few deep breaths. "It was all so real..." A moment later, however, he exhaled in relief and brightened. "But I'm here now! I'm back in Equestria, it's Hearth's Warming Eve, I'm with my best friend for the holidays, there's a lovely Rock Brisket in the oven, and..."

He paused.

"...Dude, why do Earth Ponies eat rocks?"

"Well, we are 'Earth' Ponies. We had to eat something before we discovered agriculture and nothing grows if not for us."

"...I'll save that for another day. The point being is we're back in wonderful Equestria and we're going to have the best Hearth's Warming Eve ever and-GAAAH!"

Carl's eyes had drifted outside, and what he saw made him shriek in horror before passing out all over again. Both Sam and Dawn blinked, and then looked out at what he saw.

A certain gray pony with a listless stare and holding a small rock was walking up to the snow piles outside their house. On seeing them looking at her, she very slowly blinked.

"...Boulder likes to play in the snow."

She turned her hoof over, letting the rock fall into the nearest snow pile. After doing so, she merely stood there and stared at the indentation it left behind.

Both Sam and Dawn were left blinking.

"...I thought she didn't live in Ponyville."

"Well, neither do Fancy Pants and Fleur-de-Lis."

That was quite a good Hearth's Warming Eve that year.

Oh yeah? How so?

Our family only got into three arguments this time. How about you?

It was going fine until my kid brother slugged my uncle over who found the pickle first.

No more weird hallucinations like that one though, right?

Actually, when I was going into the attic for the presents, the ladder hit me in the head. Then I had a vision where Equestria went into a Civil War over a red coffee cup... That one was real weird...