It's Not Hearth's Warming
“Happy Hearth’s Warming!”
Octavia jumped, nearly dropping the groceries filled with candy. Her gaze lifted upwards, and her eyes were violated by a steady stream of red, green, and white. Dumbstruck, she stared at Vinyl Scratch as if she had caught her playing with dolls.
The whole living room was adorned with lazy Hearth’s Warming paraphernalia from top to bottom. From the chimney to the walls, candy canes and hearths sloppily decorated every piece of furniture. And in the midst of all the Hearth’s Warming hugger-mugger stood Vinyl, nervously hyperventilating like she had been caught in the act of playing with said dolls and was attempting to hide her hobby away.
“Vinyl?” Octavia questioned.
“Yes?” she said.
“...what are you doing?”
“It’s Hearth’s Warming! It’s time to celebrate and all that good stuff!”
“No... it’s not. It’s Nightmare Night.”
“Oh, come on, don’t be silly! It is Hearth’s Warming! I think you’re a little tired and disoriented.”
“First of all, no I am not. I had a tight eight-and-a-half hours of sleep last night, I just had a very good jog from here to the candy store, and I’ve been thoroughly scared to death by several foals playing pranks. I think that I am very awake!”
Vinyl’s eyes dashed around the room, looking for something to get her out of the current situation. There, underneath the pine tree she painstakingly chopped down, was the present that she had planned to give Octavia that night. Rushing over to the gift, Vinyl bent down and plucked it from its place of rest.
“I have a present for you!”
The present was poorly wrapped in paper that had birthday imagery on it. An excessive amount of tape and glue held it together.
“Vinyl?” Octavia interrogated.
“Open it!” Vinyl vociferated, shoving the box into her hooves.
“For the love of Celestial, Vinyl, stop dodging my—”
Cutting Octavia off with an em dash, Vinyl stormed into the kitchen, returning only moments later with a large plate and a silver bowl over it. Uncovering it, she revealed a large, well-cooked turkey on a silver platter.
Octavia stared in horror at the corpse of the animal.
“What? Didn’t I tell you that I can cook?” Vinyl said, laying the turkey down on the coffee table.
“Y-You... You cooked that... poor turkey?!”
“Why are you freaking out?! It’s just a turkey! We ate several just like it back at the hive, I MEAN... Las... Pegasus. Where I grew up. Yeah.”
“You just murdered a turkey!”
“Don’t ponies eat turkeys?”
“No! That’s murder!”
“Oh... Welp... Shoot.” Vinyl picked up the unfortunate corpse and tossed it out of the window. “We’ll have to attend the funeral after the authorities collect his body. Anyway, you haven’t opened the present yet. Go ahead and open it!”
“Are you serious?!”
“Open the Celestia darned present already! I’m getting antsy!”
Octavia looked at the ground, horrified. She turned around, jostling the doorknob, only to find out that the door had been locked from the outside.
“There is no escape from Hearth’s Warming! Now open the present!” Vinyl shouted, wielding a pumpkin carving tool. “I have not used one of these before, and I have no confidence that I can figure out how to use it, so for your sake and my physical health, I suggest opening up the present before I open it for you! And that would be incredibly rude to open up your present without expressed permission!”
Octavia looked over at the poor thing like it was the victim of a gruesome murder. Kind of like the turkey, but it reminded her more of a turkey killed on the operating table of a painful surgery and was hurriedly put back together by the doctor, trying to cover up the accidental murder and saying that the patient couldn’t be saved because of an underlying disease.
She picked up the present and slowly ripped it open. It was an ordinary cardboard box with nothing inside.
“It’s a box!”
Octavia looked inside, and back at Vinyl. Back and forth and back and forth like a broken record.
“Don’t you like it? I’ll admit, I was a little... pressed for time.”
“What did you do with Vinyl?!”
The impostor gasped, visibly shaken and betrayed. “I can’t believe you would say such a thing! What makes you think that I’m an impostor? The nerve!”
“I don’t know, maybe it's the fact that the real Vinyl wouldn't kill an innocent turkey!” Octavia spat.
“Okay, granted! My mistake. But hey, can’t we let a simple bird murder go? I bet his family have already started the anger part of the fives stages of grief.”
“If you don’t tell me where she is, I’ll... I’ll—”
“Ugh! You’re such a grouch!”
In the blink of an eye, Vinyl Scratch’s impostor transformed from a pony into a changeling.
“AAAHH!”
“You ponies and your racial bias. Don’t you know that the conflict between us is over?”
“What?”
“...what day is it?”
“It’s... Monday.”
“...Dangit. The ponies haven’t gotten a news bulletin or something about our treaty. Anyway, I expected ponies to be a lot more accepting. Aren’t you guys all about that love and friendship stuff?”
“Who are you to call us racist?”
“Right... My oopsie. Sorry.”
Octavia dropped the box on the ground and collapsed to the floor. Tears like raindrops fell to the floor. The changeling looked confused. She didn’t quite know how to handle this situation, so she chose to try and sneak around her and leave. Maybe try her luck at a different house with a different identity.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
The changeling racked her brain, trying to think of a proper excuse.
“Out,” is what ended up escaping her mouth.
“Where the hay is Vinyl!”
“No need to get vulgar on me, little miss potty mouth.”
Amongst sobs, Octavia pushed a question out of her mouth. “Why?”
“I, uh... wanted somepony to share some friendship with me. I haven’t been able to get any of that metamorphosis business, and everybody else has. I want dat.”
“You want what? I just... I don’t understand you at all.”
“Look, I’d explain it to you, but there’s no reason for explaining it to you. It would make the story more boring than it already is. The point is... I need some friendship. Really badly. And I did some spying on you guys and took Vinyl’s place to get some of it. I would have asked you nicely, but... I got nervous.”
Octavia, still disgusted, and yet somehow feeling sympathy for a murdering intruder.
“Okay. We can be friends. But you should have just asked. I think Vinyl and I would have been more than happy to—”
“Tavi!”
Vinyl Scratch burst through the door, dressed as a cardboard robot. “Are you coming to go get some candy or—” Vinyl stopped dead in her tracks and observed the scene around her.
Nopony spoke a single word until the silence was broken.
“Oh, cool! I was missing a helmet!” Vinyl grabbed the cardboard box that Octavia had received and put it on. She then turned around and rushed outside.
“At least somepony appreciates my presents.”
“Was that a bucking pun?”
