Hibernation Preparation
“The freshly chip air that was once all around Ponyville was now starting to get colder and colder every day,” I said. “So, it makes sense that she’d be working in overtime.”
“I know, I know,” the voice to my left told me, “but do we have to help out today? Why not tomorrow? Or the day after? Why not next week?”
I sighed and looked into his blue eyes. “Icy, we’ve talked about this before. Six times. Today. We are helping her out today and that’s final.”
Icy tried to look at me, but couldn’t seem to manage to do so. “S-still...” His usually neatly combed mane was in disarray. “I, I had a pretty hard day today. I don’t want to-“
“All you did was fly around town, dropping off letters and packages while Ditzy went to deliver things to Canterlot. Something you do pretty much any usual day.”
“But with Hearth’s Warming coming up, everypony is trying to-“
I stopped in front of him and looked at him. “Stop it, right now. We both know that that’s not the real reason you don’t want to go.”
Icy’s body was all jittery. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“How is it that you were a part of the Royal Guard, with a good service record, praise, and acknowledges for the short time you were a guard, yet be afraid of a soft butterball like her?”
He scuffed at the ground. “...she’s scary...”
“I’ve seen her scared of her shadow. She’s not scary.”
He mumbled a bit under his breath and walked past me, plowing into my shoulder along the way (not sure if he did it on purpose or not). I rolled my eyes at him and followed suit.
We walked for a bit longer, leaving Ponyville proper behind us, as our destination came into view.
Now, I never understood why she decided to live here – a large tree that stood against the outline of the Everfree, dark and twisted compared to the bustling, liveliness of her home. The bark on her tree was marked with many holes, the brown lively and a good home for her many pets. Usually her windows were open, allowing all sorts of animals to come and go as they please, but right now they were closed, trying to keep the coldness in the air out. The path to her house was lined with trimmed grass, which was surprising for the current weather. The leaves on the branches were a multitude of colors – golden browns, greenish yellows, sharp oranges – that hung onto their branches.
We crossed the bridge and made for her door. “You know, it kind of feels weird not seeing all of those critters around like usual,” Icy said.
“Well, it’s pretty close to winter. All of her animal friends should be more or less starting to go into hibernation. She says it’s nothing too hard for her to do, but I know she could do with some help.” I gave Icy a little smirk. “Which is kind of why we are here.”
“Grey, have you told her that we were going to drop on by? You know how she gets when she gets surprise guests.”
I shook my head and went for the door, only to have Icy stop me.
“Icy, buddy, you seriously need to let go of me, right now.”
“Or what?”
“Or else I’ll spoil the last two books of the Blackstone Cases.”
“...you trying to learn to fly Grey? Keep talking and you’ll make history as the first airborne earth pony.”
We stared each other down, neither of us wanting to back down. My concentration was broken by a pitter patter hitting my left forehoof. I looked down and saw a weird sight – a big snowball of fluff. It took me a while, maybe a little too long to realize what it was.
“Angel?” Somehow, I could tell the fluff had its arms crossed. “Yep, Angel. Do you know where Fluttershy is?”
The little figure started to thump his leg with a paw stretched out. I sighed and gave him a carrot from my saddle packs. He shook his head and kept his paw stretched out.
“Listen here, you anno-“
Icy placed a hoof on my mouth. “Angel, what Grey was trying to say is that we’d be willing to give you another carrot if you actually showed us where Fluttershy was.” He removed his hoof. “Right Grey?”
I glared at him. “Right.”
Angel didn’t seem to buy our “performance,” but the promise of getting another carrot seemed to be enough as he walked us to the back of Fluttershy’s home.
As soon as we rounded the corner, we were given an interesting sight – Fluttershy was hovering in the air, her hind legs barely off the ground, moving around to some kind of dance routine: her forelegs closely bent to her chest, moving them from one side then the next, before spreading them out then bringing them together for a clap. She’d then stretched out one foreleg at a time before spinning in place and doing a playful bow. She did that dance two more times all the while singing some gibberish song.
I smiled at the sight. “Now that’s some serious cuteness, huh Icy?”
I nudged his side a bit, but got no response. I turned and could barely contain my laughter. His mouth was wide open and a small puddle of drool starting to slowly get bigger.
I pulled something out of my pack and lightly smacked him with it, which seemed to snap him out of it.
“Hey, what was that for?” he snarled.
“Oh, just thought you’d like a bucket to use for that drool of yours.”
“What are you...” His eyes widened as he went to wipe the drool off his face. “That didn’t happen, Grey. Got it?”
I couldn’t hold back any longer and starting to laugh my flanks off. Didn’t know how long I laughed for, but that didn’t matter to me.
“G-grey? I-icy?”
I tried to stop laughing, and failed miserably at that, as I got to my feet and wiped away a tear. “H-hey Fluttershy,” I said between laughs.
“Umm...h-how come the t-two of you are h-h-here?” she asked us, hiding behind her pink mane.
“We thought that—“
“I thought that you might need some help,” Icy said. “So, I asked Grey if he’d mind coming with me to offer you help, right Grey?”
“....right...”
“O-oh....you didn’t have to do that for me...” Fluttershy said as she scuffed the floor a little bit.
“Fluttershy, this is the time of the year that all of your animal friends are getting ready to hibernate. It’s a pretty taxing job for anypony to do. I don’t want to say that you can’t do it yourself, but it wouldn’t hurt to get some help.”
“W-well, I guess a few extra hooves wouldn’t hurt.” She opened the fence door for us.
~
The sun started to set as Icy and I leaned against Fluttershy’s fence.
“Who knew helping animals hibernate was hard,” Icy said as he tried to pop his stiff shoulder.
“Easy for you to say,” I told him. “You didn’t have to deal with Harry. Who knew bears got cranky whenever they get sleepy.”
“Starting to wonder how tough she is for having to do all of this by herself.”
I stretched out and popped my back. “Just goes to show how caring she is, buddy. She’d be an amazing mother.”
Icy muttered something under his breath.
“T-thank you for your help, you two.”
“Think nothing of it Fluttershy,” I told her.
“You needed the help,” Icy said. “Least we could do.”
We got up to leave, but Fluttershy stopped us to give me a hug; Icy didn’t love that. Then she gave Icy a quick little kiss on his check; he really loved that. Swore she was blushing as she got inside her house. I turned and saw a big grinning doofus statue standing where Icy just was.
I shook my head a little. “Guessing it was worth it buddy.”
His smile grew as he nodded. “Completely worth it.”
Author's Note
So, here we are again with another fic. Seems like a record or something to publish something so soon after another fic was completed. Really truly weird. Anyway, if you liked, disliked, enjoyed some moments, grew a beard, or went blind while reading, let me know. I swear that the blindness wasn't on purpose. Oh, before I forget, the books mentioned in this story, the Copperfield Cases, is a play-on words for the Dresden Files, which are an amazing book series.
Anyway, I asked my editors, FlashKenshi77 and PonyJosiah13, to spare some words on this fic of mine.
FlaskKenshin77: "Nothing important to say. Although it might be weird for your followers, since it's from Icy's perspective and we have quite the different writing styles." He's quite a card, ain't he.
PonyJosiah13: "Just that I thoroughly enjoy working with you on this series, and I love how you're fleshing out your character and your universe." He's pretty humble and good at flattery.