Two Background Ponies Revisit Season Five

Tanks for the Memories

Cloudsdale had seen better days. Currently, most of the residents of the flying city were working with Ponyville to erect a colossal 50,000 foot high scaffold system to support it while the large weather factory underwent repairs. It was quite loud, noisy, belching smog and smoke from work, and had pegasi swarming everywhere. A number of them were hauling what looked like large panels of special tiles up into the clouds.

Far below, on the main drag of Ponyville, two friends, a green stallion and a blue stallion, were seated at their traditional cookie venue near a space heater. They had their normal plate of cookies, but had switched to hot cider. Both had scarves and gloves, but the blue was in a stocking cap while the green was in a trader's hat. Both of them paused briefly to wave to a rainbow-maned pegasus with a book in tow as she flew by, then looked back to their food.

"Welp, it was rather 'hairy' for this year's Winter Set-Up..." Sam stated...grimacing a bit. "Especially since Rainbow Dash was following me around putting every leaf I knocked off back on the trees...but at last Winter is here, and so is hot cider season! Hope it seems to last longer than a day and a half like last year..."

"That reminds me, Sam." Carl said with a smile, holding out a hoof. "Give me my money."

Sam looked up a bit, but then frowned before he reached into his saddlebag, pulled out a 20-bit piece, and put it in his friend's hoof.

"And that makes five years running I've beaten you to the end of the Running of the Leaves." Carl grinned.

"That's only because you never eat any of the cookies before we get started! You always ramble about how we have to dig holes for the animals to hibernate in...except for the tortoises, of course...and so I always have a full stomach!"

"Hey, a win's a win. To be honest...I kind of wish Rainbow Dash had succeeded in her little plot to 'Steal Winter'. You know, if she tried to steal Mondays I'd totally back her up on that..."

"...Monday is a day of the week, Carl. Not a season."

"Then let's talk Princess Celestia into it." The green stallion shrugged. "Just leave the sun down on Monday and everyone gets to sleep in from the weekend and wake up more refreshed than ever on Tuesday."

Sam opened his mouth to respond...then froze. He blinked and thought a moment, before looking stunned.

"...Carl, as horrifying as it is for me to admit it, that might be the best idea I've ever heard...and it came from you."

Carl didn't seem to notice as he looked himself over, sighing a bit. "Anyway, getting rid of Winter would have kept me out of this ugly hat and scarf... Speaking of which...um...are our coats unusually thin around our necks or something, Sam? Or do we get a lot of blood flow there? Because we go to the trouble of putting on these hats, scarves, gloves and boots...and yet most of our bodies are still exposed to the elements. And it's even worse when you see someone wearing a jacket because their backside is still uncovered... Oh, and don't get me started about that weird trend last year when everyone was wearing saddles. That was almost sickening..."

Sam rolled his eyes and took a bite out of a cookie. "So long as I'm not getting frostbite, I'm fine. Anyhow...after that little disaster up in Cloudsdale, they say it's going to be at least a week before Winter is up and running to normal levels. That means the east side of town is going to stay snowed in the rest of the week, so it looks like we both get a surprise vacation."

Carl looked up. "That long, huh? When they're already hauling all that stuff up there in?"

"That's just flooring, Carl. We've got so many Earth Ponies in Ponyville... If they're going to help with repairs at all they need some way to move around Cloudsdale. So they're using the opportunity to upgrade the flooring in the Rainbow Factory to code and using approved tiling. Provides a nice hard surface so that non-pegasi have something to stand on besides clouds."

The green stallion nodded...but then paused. "Wait a sec... I get that non-pegasi can't stand on clouds, but...if they're standing on tile, what's the tile standing on? Tile can't stand on clouds either."

"Oh, they put down another layer of tile so that can stand on it too."

Carl began to nod...but paused again. "But what does that stand on?"

"The lower layer of tile doesn't stand on anything. They nail it up into the upper layer of tile, and that's what supports it."

"But...but what about the upper layer of tile?"

Sam quirked an eyebrow. "...Like I said, that stands on the lower layer. Weren't you listening?"

"But...but..." Carl stammered, then finally sighed. "Forget it. What are you doing for your week off?"

"Oh, Dawn and I are headed to this special workshop to teach you how to stretch out your facial muscles and achieve a greater range of visual expressions. It makes you a much more appealing persona, from what I hear. What about you?"

"Well, I was going to see Babbit and Costanza perform live their old variation on the 'Who's Playing Goalie?' bit...but it turns out they weren't in town. It was just two pegasi with badly-named Cutie Marks getting into a misunderstanding that ended up lasting two days before they knew what was going on. So instead..." He grinned. "I'm doing this."

Carl reached behind him and fished around, making Sam grimace at what would be coming next, before he came back with a lawn-stake sign that read: "Winter Set-Up Alternative: A Modest Proposal". The blue stallion looked confused.

"Carl, what is..."

"Ta-dah, Sam! Check it out! I'm hosting a town hall proposal! You saw what happened yesterday, right?"

The stallion paused. "Yeah, but..."

"It may have been a major industrial disaster and eight or so off-duty employees may have not made it out of the ice crystal grinders alive...but it also turned Ponyville from Fall into Winter with one major blast, all in seconds with no pegasi intervention! It's the wave of the future, Sam! Imagine it...a world where weather and seasons change all on their own without any conscious effort!"

Sam frowned. "That's pretty silly even for science fiction, Carl. Besides, even if this thing works out, you'll put hundreds of pegasi out of work."

Carl gave him a look. "Sam, exactly how many ponies in Equestria do you see currently unemployed, homeless, and destitute?"

The blue stallion paused. He grimaced and bowed his head after a moment. "...Alright, I'll admit I haven't seen any. But I haven't seen a whole lot of ponies around lately. In fact, looking through all these pegasi that have been in town lately, I can't help but think one was missing..."

Carl leaned back. "If stallions like you had your way, Sam, we'd still all hire unicorns to write our letters for us. You can't stop progress. Anyway, I've already posted these things all over Ponyville, so I'm sure to get a big turnout."

Sam suddenly looked alarmed. "Wait...you were putting these stake signs out everywhere? Dude, you can't do that! All this snow just fell down yesterday! There's no telling what's under this snow in a lot of spots!"

"Oh, relax, Sam. I only had one little mishap where I hit an obstacle. But it must have been a rock or something, because I just kept hammering it until I heard a crack and it went in."

The blue stallion's pupils shrank into pinpricks. He swallowed.

"...What if it was a shell, Carl?"

The green stallion waved a hoof. "If some egg was out there under all that snow, it had to be dead or rotten already."

Abruptly, a loud, resounding, agonized cry of anguish came from the forest and washed over the whole of Ponyville...sounding a lot like Rainbow Dash.

Carl turned his head slightly and frowned. "Sheesh. You'd think she never saw a cracked egg before..."

Gulp...heh-heh...

Ok, Carl. I'll bite. How'd you get out of that one alive?

Well...turns out I got lucky. The only thing she could trace the sign to was the shop where I had it customized and they gave her the wrong address. It sent her to some mare's house on the edge of town.

And...what happened to the mare whose house she went to?

...Let's just say her "Hibernation Service" was very touching.

Oh my Luna...