They say no two ponies are the same. Ask half a dozen ponies the same question, and you’re likely to get half a dozen different answers, or at the very least, half a dozen very different approaches to the same answer.
In winter, a fashionably popular question to ask Equestrians involves their favorite part of the Hearth’s Warming season. Some enjoy the feel of a fresh sprig of holly in their manes as they stroll the bistros at Canterlot, sampling the latest in peppermint gingerbread cappuccino. Others prefer threading their way through shoulder-to-shoulder Manehattan crowds, appreciating the lights in central park during a well-deserved break from the rigors of window shopping. Some folks, with peculiar looks in their eyes, might tell you they prefer eating said holly sprigs, while appreciating gingerbread lights with peppermint window crowds.
Or somesuch.
But for many, Hearth’s Warming is all about the food.
In the sleepy hamlet of Ponyville - an unassuming village that has a habit for producing ponies destined to change the world - stands the magnificent Palace of Friendship. On a certain blustery day some weeks prior to Hearth’s Warming Eve, three ponies find themselves hard at work, creating what they hope will be a feast appropriate to the task of inaugurating all holiday meals yet to come.
Would that they were prepared for the fate that is to befall them.
* * * * *
“...and two hundred grams of vacuum-sealed, cooked chestnuts!”
Fluttershy reacted to Twilight Sparkle’s curious proclamation. “Um, how many ounces are in a gram again?”
Twilight levitated a heavy, open tome over her head with ease, her grin blossoming beneath it. “There are precisely zero point zero three five two seven four ounces in one gram!”
Fluttershy watched the book, captured in a raspberry glow of magic, swing gleefully back and forth over Twilight’s head. She came to appreciate her position on the opposite side of the ample kitchen table, out of the heavy-looking volume’s reach. Her eyes turned to the kitchen counters, and she began scanning the jungle of ingredients, utensils, and partially prepared dishes for one tool in particular.
“I, um...I don’t think we have a measuring spoon in that size...I don’t even think they make measuring spoons in ounces...”
“We don’t?” Twilight pondered the new information. “Well, there are twenty-eight point three four nine five grams in one ounce. Do we have one for that?”
Fluttershy rummaged through a pile of kitchen implements until she came up with a small spoon balanced on the frog of her hoof. “This one says one gram. Is that okay?”
Twilight caught the spoon in the glow of her magic, floated it across the table, and peered at it with one eye closed, as though she were looking through a telescope. “Why is there no point three four nine five gram spoon? How are you supposed to accurately convert between grams and ounces if there’s no measure by which to do it?” She chucked, “I mean honestly, how can the companies that make these spoons overlook something as obvious as basic conversion factors?”
“I...think you could just...” Fluttershy held out her hoof and turned it upside down in a pouring gesture, “...scoop it twenty-eight times. Or maybe twenty-nine times. That’s probably close enough.”
Twilight brought the book down from its nebulous position in space, flipped through it, and stabbed one page with the tip of her hoof. “The Trottingham edition of ‘Secret Starswirl’s Holiday Surprise Recipes’ calls for exactly two hundred grams of vacuum-sealed, cooked chestnuts, halved, to successfully create chestnut, spinach, and bleu cheese en croute--”
“...that explains why we’re using grams...” Fluttershy interrupted.
“--and,” Twilight went on, “while I admit I’m no professional chef, anypony should be able to create excellent food by following the recipe to the letter! Why else would you even have a recipe if you didn’t follow it exactly, right?,” Twilight answered her own question, “Right!”
The crease in Fluttershy’s brow deepened. She knew better than to argue the semantics of exact numbers in present company, thus she turned her attention to a steamer pot on the stove. She slipped her hooves into a pair of oven mitts, removed the pot, and went about the business of arranging its contents on a fine china serving tray with a slotted spoon in her teeth. When she was finished, she sat the spoon down and made a fuss over arranging her plate of steamed asparagus in a presentable way.
“My mother never measured anything out exactly,” She explained, a pleasant smile on her lips as she worked. “And she made wonderful dishes.”
Twilight had the look of a computer that had just received gibberish input. “I...don’t see how that’s possible, but if you say so I’m sure they were just lovely!”
Fluttershy took to whistling while she worked. Twilight turned back to poring over her book, until a high-pitched, jarring voice broke her reverie.
“Why would you put cooked chestnuts in your vacuum!? That’s just silly!”
“Oh!!” Fluttershy, startled, receded from the grinning visage of Pinkie Pie, who was suddenly there where she had simply not been before. Pinkie’s face was mostly covered in flour, giving her a ghostly pallor. “D-don’t scare me like that! I thought you were the Spirit of Hearth’s Warming Presents!”
Pinkie waved the comment off, rising the rest of the way from nowhere with a fresh-baked pie balanced on each of her front hooves. “Nah, I only did that for a story once.”
Twilight answered Pinkie’s initial question without so much as looking up, “Vacuum-sealing is just how they store them, Pinkie Pie. You don’t prepare them still sealed.” She paged through the book again, sticking her tongue slightly out of the side of her mouth as she read. “At least I don’t think the recipe says that...”
Pinkie sat the pies down and bent over again, retrieving two more from the same oven. “But there are plenty of chestnut trees in the Whitetail Woods! You could totally go over there and fill up a bunch of baskets with like a thousand million-” Her forelegs spread farther akimbo with each passing second, “-billion trillion septillion gashmillion googleplex of them!”
Twilight clucked her tongue, “At least one of those words is not a real number, Pinkie. I know the woods are full of chestnut trees, but I can’t use those-” She stabbed the book again with her hoof, “It says so right here. Two hundred grams of vacuum-sealed--”
Pinkie listened to the recitation with a blank stare and a series of equally blank nods. Finally she shrugged, “Whatever puts frosting on your friendship, Twilight!” With that, she abruptly tossed the two new, hot pies straight up in the air. A communal gasp emanated from her companions, but Pinkie executed a perfect pirouette, capturing the two pies on a fore and hind hoof, her legs outstretched, with only one hoof still on the floor. The gasps became sighs of relief when she deposited each pie safely on the counter.
Twilight sought to change the subject, “So Pinkie, what kind of pies are those?”
Fluttershy sniffed the air, “I smell...apple? Oh, and pumpkin. And blueberry. And...and...” She blinked again, “...actually I can’t think of a kind of fruit I don’t smell right now...”
Pinkie had nearly crawled halfway into the oven. At speed, she repeated the process of removing two pies at a time until she ran out of room on the nearest section of counter, and the pile of pies began to grow on the Y-axis instead of the X.
Twilight stared at the ominous pile of pies. Hesitantly she modified her question, “Pinkie how...many pies did you make?”
“All of them!” Pinkie replied, turning gleefully back into the room. Her snout was, of all things, slightly on fire. She went cross-eyed peering at the blaze and snuffed it out with a blast of air from her nostrils, giggling the whole while. “Silly!”
Twilight and Fluttershy shared glances. Fluttershy shrugged. Twilight bit her lip.
Pinkie began pointing at every pie in rapid succession, “I made apple, peach, blueberry, banana cream, pumpkin, raspberry, lemon meringue, blackberry, black bottom, boysenberry, cherry, cheesecake, cherry cheesecake, pecan, coconut cream, flan, custard-” She took a deep breath, “Did I say boysenberry yet? Key lime, shoofly, Sheppard’s pie, which is totally vegetarian by the way, peanut, raisin, that one I can’t pronounce, raspberry, spanakopita, sugar, sweet potato, strawberry, walnut, watalappam, and that one with the stuff in it!”
Twilight gaped. “Do I...really have the ingredients to make all of those?”
“Not anymore!” Pinkie announced.
“Spanakopa...spank...what?” Fluttershy was reeling. “You...you shouldn’t do things like that with a pie...”
“It has feta cheese in it!” Pinkie began to drool, “Feta cheeeeese...nghaah...”
Fluttershy turned back to her plate. “Well, I’m making you all a lovely dish that my mother used to make for us.” She took a deep whiff of the limp asparagus stalks on the plate, “Oh, this brings back such wonderful memories.”
“Pinkie, this...” Twilight felt a crick in her neck from staring up at the stack of pies, “...this was supposed to just be a small get-together for our friends, and maybe Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, though I doubt they’ll have time for something so minor...minor being the opportune word...”
“I know silly!” Pinkie struck a dramatic pose before her creations, “But I started making a cherry pie, and I said to myself, ‘Pinkie! Applejack likes apples!’ So I made an apple pie, but then I said to myself, ‘Pinkie! Rarity likes shiny things!’ So I started making something with biiiiiig sugar crystals in the crust, but then I said to myself, ‘Pinkie! Rainbow Dash likes fast things!’ So I started making a shoofly pie, because flies fly, and they’re kinda fast when they’re really determined about going somewhere, but then I said to myself--”
Twilight felt a headache coming on. She touched her hooves to her temples and ground her teeth. “J-just stop, I get it, but...how did all of those pies fit in my oven at the same time...”
Pinkie waved her forelegs in the air and fixed Twilight with a spooky stare. “Maaaaaaagic!”
Twilight stared. Pinkie stared back.
“Um, excuse me,” Fluttershy cut in, waving a hoof demurely before her chest. “I was going to tell you about my dish...”
“Y-yes of course,” Twilight shook her head sharply from side to side in an attempt to provide a carriage return for her thoughts. Her smile returned and she stepped away from the foreboding confections. “I bet anything your mother made for your family when you were little is wonderful, Fluttershy. Tell us about your dish.”
“Well, it’s asparagus!” Fluttershy beat her wings once and puffed up with pride.
Twilight tilted her head. “Okay...?”
“And it’s steamed!” Fluttershy grinned brightly.
“I...well...yes, it certainly is...”
“With hollandaise!”
Twilight had longsince become used to protecting her lemony friend’s enthusiasm. She forced out a chuckle. “W-well! That sounds...really complex!”
“I know, right?” Fluttershy giggled. She turned back to the table and examined a collection of small glass bottles. Her smile vanished slightly for each label she read, and her brow knitted with incomprehension.
“Wait a minute,” She asked, “Where’s the hollandaise? I’m sure I put it right here...”
Pinkie was counting on her hooves by the simple expedient of raising the same one and counting it over and over. “Cherries, blueberries, boysenberries, scallions, mystery meat that’s totally vegetarian...nope! I didn’t use the hollandaise!”
“I’m sure it’s around here somewhere, Fluttershy,” Twilight offered.
“No, no,” Fluttershy nibbled on the tip of her hoof, despair darkening her brow, “You don’t understand, without hollandaise, it’s not my mother’s dish, and I’ll just ruin everypony’s day if I serve it...”
“It’s only hollandaise,” Twilight observed. “WAH-!”
Fluttershy placed her hooves on Twilight’s shoulders and was suddenly muzzle to muzzle, filling the princess’s vision with a pair of cyan eyes.
“It has to have hollandaise!” Fluttershy’s voice was manic. “Without hollandaise, it’s just steamed asparagus!”
“B-but that’s what it is anyway...”
“Twilight!” Fluttershy snorted.
“Okay, okay!” Twilight pulled back. With her magic she yanked open a cabinet door. “I keep all the extra condiments right here. I don’t know if I have any extra hollandaise, but according to Pinkie I have - or had anyway - a thousand pounds of literally everything, so there’s got to be something in here that--”
Empty.
Twilight’s jaw began to work, and words soon came to her.
“M-my ketchup...my mustard...my relish! Where’s the soy sauce? And the worcestershire sauce! And the horseradish!?”
“Um, I’m right here and the radishes are over there,” Fluttershy mentioned.
“And the sriracha! Where are the barbecue sauce, the chocolate syrup, the spinach dip, the queso, the grape jelly, the balsamic vinegar, the red wine vinegar, the rice wine vinegar, the chimichurri-”
“Cherry chimichurriiiii~” Pinkie moaned.
“--the clam dip, the cocktail sauce, the honey dijon, the hoisin sauce, the mayonnaise, the pickled peppers, the pesto, the remoulade, the mango salsa, the maple syrup, the tartar sauce, and the vinaigrettes!?” Twilight took a breath, “Where are my condiments??”
“Oh, you’re also out of sugar,” Pinkie licked her lips dramatically, “And it was sooooo goooood!”
“What happened to all the sauces and dressings?” Fluttershy mused, crestfallen. She began poking at her asparagus as though the plate contained an injured animal in need of help. “I really need that hollandaise...”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” Twilight rumbled. “Bugs and rats wouldn’t take the containers with them...even Spike wouldn’t eat all of these things, unless...”
“Unless?” Fluttershy repeated.
“Unless!” Twilight slammed her hoof down on the countertop. She drew up to her full height and fluffed out her wings. Greased wheels spun like mad in her head, hurtling her thoughts feverishly towards a singular accusation. She huffed, spun on her heels, and marched unceremoniously from the kitchen and larder out into the gilded halls of the Palace of Friendship.
“Come on girls,” She called, “I know exactly what we have to do.”
Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie traded glances. Pinkie spoke first.
“Do you think she’s gonna go gather chestnuts?” She put a hoof to her mouth and whispered dramatically, “Psst! She’s totally going to go gather chestnuts!” With that, Pinkie bounced from the room.
Fluttershy held up a foreleg, “I-I don’t think...oh dear.” She sighed, eventually falling in behind her companions. Before walking out, she favored her beloved asparagus with a final glance.
“All I wanted was the hollandaise...”
* * * * *
Fluttershy expected the trio’s trek through Twilight’s home to proceed vertically, up to wherever Spike made his personal space. But Twilight marched stalwartly past no fewer than three winding staircases before a din came to each traveling ear. Up ahead, beyond a short passage, was a large chamber that Fluttershy recognized immediately as the main hall of the palace.
“Chestnuts, chestnuts!” Pinkie sang, bouncing along in her usual way, “We’re gonna find chestnuts in Twilight’s vacuum cleaner!”
“Wh-where are we going?” Fluttershy mused. She could feel her flight response rising as they grew closer to the grand hall, the noises now clearly identifiable as shouting. “Is somepony having a fight?”
Twilight did not reply. She marched into the hall, followed closely by a pegasus who was using her as a shield, and a prancing earth pony who was whistling ‘God Rest Ye Merry Gentlecolts’ gregariously out of tune.
“Spike!” Twilight demanded loudly, “Do you know what happened to all of our--”
SPLAT!
In an instant, Twilight’s world was covered in red. For a brief moment she wondered if she had just been killed - if the noises coming from the hall were not as innocuous as she had assumed, and some raging battle for the future of Equestria had developed in what amounted to her living room without her knowledge. Her vision overwhelmed by redness, she opened her mouth to emit a cry of anguish at her unexpected demise, but a taste dripping onto her tongue stayed it from its intended course.
She swallowed. Licked her cheek. Rubbed her eyes.
“...my ketchup.”
A gasp from Fluttershy turned Twilight’s attention back to the room proper. Across a battlefield of stone, two combatants stood. All around them was the carnage that had arisen from their struggle - carpets and tapestries mutilated by staining. Chairs that bore the cutie marks of those intended to rest upon them were spattered in a kaleidoscope of garish colors. Drops of various scented liquids leaked from the roots of the Golden Oaks Library tree mounted in the ceiling, threatening the top of any unsuspecting pony’s head.
Fluttershy yelped and dove under the room’s central round table when a drop of vinaigrette splashed between her eyes. Pinkie caught a taste of something that split a grin on her face from ear to ear, whereupon she began to gallop around the room with her face to the sky, shouting-
“The chocolate rain is back! I always knew it would happen!!”
“Wh-what’s going on!?” Fluttershy whimpered from under the table, in full fallout mode with her forelegs crossed over her head. “Is it a war? I-I thought the map couldn’t do things unless we needed it to solve a friendship problem!”
Fluttershy’s observation was correct. The cutie map was in full magical bloom upon the large round table, displaying the contours of its highly-detailed map of Equestria in high relief. Nothing was amiss about it...beyond the fact that the aura of magic that held it in summons was faintly green.
Poised dramatically upon Twilight’s chair was none other than Starlight Glimmer. Her horn was alive with the sage green glow of her magic, and she was covered in as much spatter as the rest of the room. She was wearing a top hat and spats - floating before her face was a small wooden figurine of Rarity, who was dressed the same way save for the addition of an anachronistic topcoat. There was fire in Starlight’s eyes, and she raised her voice in proclamation as the figurine wiggled in her magical grasp-
“You cannot stop me, Snowdash! I, Snowfall Frost, shall obliterate anything to do with the evils of hollandaise! Ponies should look to the betterment of Equestria, and not waste their time imbibing such odious offal!”
Standing directly on the table with his feet phased through Canterlot and Foal Mountain respectively, Spike wore fingerless gloves and a ragged woolen scarf. In his left claw was another small wooden figurine of Rarity, this one dressed in rags, that he was waving above his head.
“Never!” He shouted defiantly. “The magic of hollandaise exists in all our tummies and cannot be extinguished by the likes of you!”
Starlight sent her figure flying in Spike’s direction. “Have at thee, foul glutton!”
Spike deflected the approaching figurine with his own in a perfect riposte. His eyes narrowed and his lip turned up in a cunning grin. “I’ll have you know - I am not left-clawed!” With that, he switched the figurine to his right claw and began to duel with the other Rarity floating before him, smacking the two of them into one another while making explosion noises with his lips.
Fluttershy had her hooves on the lip of the table, and her eyes peering over the top of it. “I...I don’t remember the part in the story where Snowfall Frost and Snowdash got in a fight...”
Twilight, still brushing the occasional rivulet of ketchup out of her eyes, took note of the combatants. Shouting litanies at one another, Spike eventually came up with a squeeze bottle of Dijon mustard, while Starlight levitated a similar bottle of regular yellow mustard.
“Refined tastes free our hearts!” Spike insisted, letting a stream of his condiment fly at his enemy. “How can you not understand the warmth and love for your fellow ponies that is brought about by the joy of things like fancy mustard and hollandaise!?”
Starlight ducked a bit too slowly, the jet of Dijon nicking her ear. She fired back with her own bottle, responding in turn with a bellowing cry, “When I‘m through, there will be only plain ketchup and mustard for all, so that everypony might work to the betterment of Equestria and not waste our time on petty culinary pursuits!”
Twilight watched the melee for a time, standing absolutely still as a dollop of something that resembled sour cream flew over her head. Her eyes narrowed. Finally she lit her horn, and her throat began to glow with projection.
“Ten-HUT!” The princess cried sharply.
The sound echoed throughout the room with such acoustical force that it rattled the high windows. All attention was immediately on Twilight.
Starlight and Spike, both in mid-attack posture, turned to gape at their respective teacher and mother. In the turning of a second they were standing side-by side on the floor next to the table at rigid military attention, their fur and scales so amalgamated with condiment stains that it was difficult to tell where pony ended and dragon began. Twilight raised a brow.
“Would one of you please tell me what exactly is going on here?”
Spike brightened. “It’s a game I came up with! Hearth’s War! Because I thought, y’know, the story of A Hearth’s Warming Tail is awesome, but what if it had more fight scenes? And what if it was about, like, food! Because food is a huge social thing throughout Equestria!” He began to count on his talons, “Breakfast, brunch, lunch, snacks, dinner, fine dining, fast food hayfries...can you imagine what our world would be like without interesting food?”
Twilight’s expression iced over with exasperation. She peered at Spike’s claw. “Spike, you’re holding a little wooden figurine of Rarity.”
Spike blinked, “...so?”
“It has mayonaise all over it.”
Spike clutched the figure of Rarity to his chest. “S-so what...? That’s not...weird or anything...it just shows my appreciation for my dear friend Rarity as a pony...”
Twilight thrust her hoof in the direction of a pile of Rarity figurines. Each one of them was identical to the one he held, save that they were all sporting exquisitely-designed doll clothing placing them in the roles of fine mares and gentlecolts of a bygone era.
“You have thirty-six of them,” Twilight said drolly. “I’m not sure I want to ask where they all came from.”
Spike took to scratching his head with the horn of the figure in his grasp, looking sheepish. “W-well uh...we...needed them for the game, so...”
Fluttershy suddenly shrieked. Eyes turned to find her feverishly digging around behind a chair on the far end of the table. She sat jar after jar of various substances on the table, phasing them through transparent topical features of Equestria. Every single jar had its label removed and replaced by a magic-marker scribbling of an equal sign.
“O-oh no!” The frantic pegasus, whined, “H-how am I going to find the hollandaise? All these jars look exactly the same!”
Twilight’s eyes slunk over to Starlight, whose toothy grin was as artificially inflated as those who had originally worn the mark that now graced the jars. Starlight tried to speak without releasing her teeth, failed, and tried again the proper way.
“You, uh...” She cleared her throat, “You told me to reflect on my past experiences, and...well...i-it really makes complete sense if you take it in context, eh heh heh...”
“Yeah it does!” Spike added. “You see, in Hearth’s War, you get different points depending on which flavors you use, but you can’t know which ones you have to work with or else you’ll always just use the ones that score the most, so you have to mix them all together--”
“Wait, what?” Twilight interrupted, her headache rising. “You mixed all of the condiments together?”
Spike shrugged. “Well, not all of them. Nopony likes horseradish and it has a really weird name, because it makes you think it was made out of radishes and ponies, which is kinda sick. You lose points if you use that one, but you never know when it’s going to pop up, so-”
Twilight held up a silencing hoof without looking at Spike. She sighed, shaking her head, and began to pace back and forth in front of her two charges.
“All we’re trying to do today is put together a nice meal for our friends, and possibly Princess Celestia and Princess Luna if they’re able to make it,” Twilight moaned. “How do the two of you expect Fluttershy to complete her special steamed asparagus and hollandaise dish without any hollandaise?”
Spike squinted. “Special? What else is in it?”
“It’s just steamed asparagus!” Twilight cried to the ceiling, “With hollandaise! And it’s special like that!!”
“Oh!” Fluttershy exclaimed again, and again eyes turned to her. She was licking the tip of her hoof, which had a splatter of some multi-colored substance from an open jar before her. “This has hollandaise in it,” She commented. “Oh my, the subtle flavors...the fiery hint of the sriracha, and the delicate texture of the relish...I had no idea that if you combined all these flavors they could actually work together in harmony...” She smiled down at the jar, “Gee, maybe equality in condiments isn’t really such a bad thing? No flavor is left behind, and it seems very equitable that way...”
“You’re not help-ing!” Twilight sang sardonically. She closed her eyes for a moment and placed a hoof on her chest to calm her breathing. “And furthermore, how am I supposed to develop a point three four nine five gram measuring spoon so I can measure out exactly two hundred grams of cooked chestnuts and complete my chestnut, spinach, and bleu cheese en croute with all this racket?”
Starlight spoke under her breath without thinking, “Why don’t you just measure out two hundred grams with a scale...how are you even going to measure cooked chestnuts with a measuring spoon anyway...measuring spoons don’t even come like that...”
Twilight flailed her forelegs, “Because we only have measurements by the ounce and that’s not exact!! How am I suppose to create a meal without a perfectly proportioned recipe that you stick to!?”
“Just, um...estimate?” Spike offered hopefully. He grunted when a mop and pail were suddenly thrust into his chest by glow of magic.
“I think the two of you have a lot of work to do in here before our guests arrive,” Twilight huffed snootily. She glanced at Starlight, “And the cutie map is not intended as terrain for a war game!”
Both Hearth’s War combatants wilted like scolded foals. “Yes ma’am...” They muttered in unison. They were about to turn their attention to the task, until a quip from Starlight gave them pause.
“Wait...didn’t I see Pinkie Pie in here a minute ago?”
Spike’s eyes stopped at the entrance. They widened, and he pointed in that direction. “Uh, Twilight, you might want to duck--”
“Wha--”
SPLAT!
Twilight never finished the word. This time, her world was an endless, daffodil-yellow plain that tasted somewhat like Bavarian cream. She sputtered, furiously rubbing the back of her hoof over her eyes until she could make out the giddy image of Pinkie Pie. Arrayed before her were no less than two of the party canons she had a habit for producing from nowhere. Behind her was her entire supply of freshly-baked pies.
No...not the entire supply. Twilight trusted her calculations and knew that the pile had become smaller. She squinted, and noticed telltale fruit stains marring the mouths of Pinkie’s artillery.
Pinkie Pie held aloft a small wooden figurine of Rarity, dressed in a candy laurel wreath and a luscious forest green robe. She announced-
“Bearers of hollamustaketchsrirachanaise sauce! You are woefully unprepared for The Spirit of Hearth’s Warming Presents, who cannot allow your war to proceed without a super-duper scrumptious declaration of FOOD FIGHT!!”
“Pinkie no--!!”
The last thing Twilight saw before her throat was clogged with a delicious dutch apple pie was was the image of Pinkie Pie yanking hard on the triggers for both her canons.
Starlight took a boysenberry tart to the face that knocked her hat clean off. Spike was bedazzled by banana cream. Both of them came up swinging, arming themselves with their wooden avatars, an array of equalized condiments, and their own battle cries-
“Say goodbye to the hollandaise!” Starlight chanted, “With my magic I’ll erase it! Every sauce I shall equalize, and every pony will have to face it!”
Spike leapt up onto the table and dipped his claw to his feet like a linebacker, his bottle of mustard ready to strike. “The hollandaise is about family and friends, not ghosts and equal-opportunity condiments! The mighty Snowdash shall defeat you all!”
“--ory goes!” Twilight spat through the delicious tastes and galloped out to stand between the triangle of combatants. “That’s not how the story goes! Everypony please! What if Princess Celestia shows up? How am I going to explain all of this!?”
Everypony (and dragon) froze. For an instant Twilight felt as though sweet reason had finally seeped into every ear and coiled around every brain stem, perhaps even in enough time for her to take a bath and finish cooking before the guests arrived. Her hopes were dashed when she felt a sudden wetness on the top of her head. Without moving a muscle, she glanced around at every warrior - each in turn received the same multicolored ordinance from above, in a quantity no more than a tablespoon.
Flitting about in a circle above, Fluttershy was taking up dollops of the jar she had been tasting before in one hoof and simply dropping them. “I-I can war too!” She called, her merry voice high-pitched and barely audible. Atop her head, she had a wooden Rarity dressed in a long black coat. “I’m mean Professor Flintheart, and I think you should all just work, work, work all the time, a-and never enjoy any food ever! Hearth’s War, yay!”
“Fluttershy not you too!” Twilight whimpered. “What about your special dish!?”
“Oh, but this is so much fun!” Fluttershy replied from the air. “And hollamustaketchsrirachanaise sauce is really good! I’m sure mom would approve if I modify the recipe a little bit, and we have plenty of it. Don’t worry, I’ll help clean up!”
“Bogey!” Pinkie cut in, “Hearth’s Warming Presents has a bogey at twelve o-clock high! Damn the pie-pedoes, full spead ahead! Fire and brimstone! Dive, dive! Ah-OOO-gah!”
Pinkie opened fire with surface-to-air custard. The battle raged on.
* * * * *
“Hello? Hey, where’s everypony?”
Applejack knocked on the palace door from the inside. It wasn’t proper to let oneself in to a friend’s home, but she and her companions were expected, and the lack of greeting was causing her hackles to rise. She put a hoof to her mouth and called out again, “Hey! Dernit where are y’all? Ain’t we s’posed to be here at three?”
Rarity glanced at a grandfather clock that had recently been placed in the receiving hall and cleared her throat. “You know darling, it’s actually ten minutes after three. You don’t suppose they simply-” She gestured dismissively with a hoof, “-started without us, do you?”
“What? No way!” Rainbow Dash, who was fluttering above the procession, scoffed. “Twilight might be a stickler for appointments, but she would never start without us! That would be uncool on so many levels.”
Applejack began trotting down the hall, obliging her companions to do the same. “It’s only ten after three ‘cause we spent ten minutes outside deciding whether we wanted to let ourselves in or not. Twilight ain’t got no guards, but Spike is usually real good about answering the door...come to think of it,” She pondered, “dragons must have amazing hearing if he can do that in this huge palace.” Her ears perked and she stopped abruptly, bringing the procession to a halt. Rarity, who was levitating a silver thermos beside her head, nearly tripped.
“Applejack, please be careful!” Rarity complained, indicating the thermos, “This is my special cardamom and nutmeg cinnamon swirl eggnog! It’s simply divine and I insist you all try it, but that will be a decidedly un-accomplishable task if it gets spilled all over Twilight’s highly cosmopolitan receiving carpets!” She grinned, adding, “Did I mention I designed them?”
Rainbow Dash folded her forelegs and floated in place. “You do know that Twilight, Fluttershy, and Pinkie said not to bring anything, right?”
“Well of course they did dear,” Rarity’s tone was condescending, as if she were addressing her little sister, “But they didn’t mean no. It’s all a subtle social game. ‘Of course we don’t want you to bring anything.’ ‘Of course we don’t mind when you show up.’” Rarity curled her lip, “Why, such phrases practically scream ‘get here on time and bring something positively fabulous with you’!”
“I really don’t think that’s what they meant,” Dash replied. “Otherwise I’d have brought this cheesecake I got at the Wonderbolts’ team Hearth’s Warming party! It’s three days old and I only have a third of it left, but you never tasted cheesecake as awesome as that! Spitfire’s mom is the most amazing--”
“Shhh! Applejack hissed. “Y’all hear that?”
Her companions listened. Rarity spoke first.
“Oh dear, that sounds like...a rather awful cacophony of shouting.” She peered down the hall, “Is it coming from the grand hall?”
“A fight!?” Dash punched one hoof with the other and flew to the foreground, her gaze steely. “Nopony trashes our best friend’s home on our watch! Let’s get ‘em!”
Applejack waved drastically, her attention still on the sounds. “Relax, just hold on now! We don’t know what’s goin’ on and it pays to be prepared! So let’s just listen in and see if we can figure out what’s--OOF!”
Before she could complete her thought or get out of the way, a large white mass shot down the hall and bowled Applejack over, bearing her to the floor with force.
Rarity’s horn flared. Dash reared for the counterattack.
“--ait! Wait!” A voice pleaded from within the mass. Applejack tested the surface of the fluffball – her hoof came back sticky. Unfortunately half her body now felt the same way.
“What in tarnation--Twilight?” Applejack licked her hoof, “Is that...marshmallow all over you? I can’t hardly even see ya in there!”
“Queso...s-so much queso in that room...” Twilight muttered pitifully.
Applejack slipped out from under Twilight and righted her back to a standing position. Rarity reached out a comforting hoof towards Twilight, scrunched her muzzle up, and decided the better of actually touching the gooey princess.
“There...there darling...” Rarity hesitated. “Can you, perhaps, tell us how you ended up...jet-puffed?”
Twilight was nose to nose with Applejack, “It’s Hearth’s War! Hearth’s War is on in my living room! And it’s all because of the hollandaise!”
The trio of newcomers exchanged glances, mouthing the strange phrase. From outside Twilight’s line of sight, Dash shrugged and made cuckoo gestures, her hooves to her temples.
Applejack took a step back and crossed her eyes, staring at the dollop of marshmallow on her snout before licking it up. “Sure is the tastiest war I ever heard of. But the holidays ain’t no excuse fer--”
“Hollandaise!” Twilight repeated frantically. “J-just come with me and I’ll show you!”
Applejack gave up trying to get the expanse of fluff out of her coat and cracked her fetlocks, pulling down the brim of her Stetson. She glanced at each of her traveling companions in turn.
“Y’all ready for this?”
Rarity ground her teeth, “Such a waste of haute cuisine cannot be allowed to stand unimpeded.”
“I heard there was gonna be cider,” Dash glowered, “If somepony spilled my cider, it’s gonna be so on!”
Applejack nodded solemnly, “Lead the way, Twi! We’re all with ya!”
Applejack’s last words were famous. Three steps into the great hall, she was felled by several pounds of meringue, a smattering of Worcestershire sauce, and a cherry on top that fell with dainty precision from the sky, to the tune of a melodic giggle.
“Wh-whut th--arghrmf!!”
Rarity recoiled in horror at the small puff of collateral meringue on her shoulder. “Alright, who did that!?” Sapphire flames licked at her eyes, “Do you have any idea how long it takes to get sticky substances out of one’s coat? It could take half a day of spa treatments just to clean this mess up!”
“It’s like the size of a walnut,” Dash observed.
“Exactly!” Rarity declared. She flared her magic and took up a somewhat-intact blueberry pie that was still sitting upright in its tin on the floor, “I most certainly have no idea what’s going on here, but you know what they say! When in Fillydelphia, do as the Fillydelphians do!”
With a bellow, Rarity let fly at the closest movement she detected that was not one of her own troupe. A scaly crest ducked down behind a huge pile of discarded pie tins, quickly followed by a pair of claws raised in surrender.
“Rarity! Rarity! I’m on your side!!”
“Spike?” Rarity stuck her lip out in a pout and approached the little dragon, who rose from his protection to meet her. Not much of his body still bore its original color, “My word, what happened to you?”
“It’s Hearth’s War!” Spike replied vehemently. “Oh hey, you’re all here! Except...where’s Applejack?”
“Mnf,” Applejack replied, her foreleg emerging from the pile of meringue.
“Oh, okay,” Spike went on, waving his figurine around, “I’m SnowDash, and I’m battling for the glory of a happy Hearth’s Warming against Snowfall Frost, The Spirit of Hearth’s Warming Presents, and the mean Professor Flintheart!”
Spike pointed. Pinkie Pie’s figurine was perched atop a wall of pies knitted together like sandbags. She was wearing a colander on her head, had cherry sauce under her eyes like warpaint, and her canons were pointing out from the wall like gun redoubts.
‘Vive la Hollendaise Resistance!!” She shouted, letting fly with another salvo over a room that was now so covered in food residue that one could scarcely walk across it without slipping.
On the opposite end of the room, Starlight Glimmer had retrieved her hat. She was floating several feet from the ground, her entire body ensorcelled in her magic - all around her, moving like the curves of a Mobius strip, were containers of sauces and condiments.
“There will be no more hollandaise on my watch!!” She cried.
Fluttershy was caked with all manner of goo, but her lazy circular flight path had otherwise not changed - she was still dropping small dollops of whatever she had in her jar randomly on the floor.
“Whee!” She sang, “I’m mean and you shouldn’t ever eat the hollandaise!”
Rarity examined each combatant’s extra wooden accessory. Then she looked at Spike’s claw.
“Spike dear...is that me?”
“Huh?” Spike glanced at the figurine in his claw and went red. “O-oh uh um...n-no? It’s Snowdash!”
Rainbow Dash was suddenly hovering at Spike’s side, peering at the figure, “Totally not SnowDash.”
“H-how would you know!?” Spike confronted.
Dash struck a pose, “Because anypony with ‘Dash’ in their name has to be as awesome as me, and to be as awesome as me, you have to look like me!” She pointed at the figurine, “That’s totally Rarity wearing a bunch of rags.”
“Rags!?” Rarity looked shocked. She leaned in for a closer look, but Spike quickly stuffed the figurine behind his back.
“N-no! That’s not what they are at all!” He insisted. “They’re, uh...it’s uh...”
Rarity wasn’t paying attention. Her eyes were on a spot over Spike’s shoulder. Her jaw hung open slightly, but she collected herself and carefully spoke.
“Spike, sweetie...why are there thirty-six small blocks of wood whittled in my image wearing various avant-garde ensembles from yesteryear in a pile over there?”
Spike felt his temperature rise to levels dangerous even for a dragon. His eyes began to dart, and he didn’t even notice the hard impact of a pumpkin pie against his back. “I-I-I...uh...w-well y-you’re famous, Rarity! All over Equestria! You’re the Element of Generosity, you helped saved the world like a dozen times...s-so of course there are fan...things...of you...!”
Dash could barely contain her laughter, “Oh yeah there are, and Spike owns like all of them!”
“I, uh...er...”
Rarity felt a single cherry bap her between the ears from above, followed by a giggle. She took a deep breath, put on a smile, and caressed Spike under the chin.
“Oh Spikey-wikey,” She cooed, “Before we have a little talk about what you do with your personal time, you’ll be a dear and be my personal dragon-shield as I show all these heathens the abysmal fate that awaits them for messing with my personal grooming, won’t you?”
All of Spike’s higher reasoning suddenly and inadvertently ceased. He felt as though he had suddenly sprouted wings, and the sounds of battle reduced to the sweet music of a romantic Spanish guitar in his mind.
“S-sure Rarity...a-anything for you...”
Rainbow Dash nabbed the figurine from Spike’s loosened claw. “I’m SnowDash,” She insisted. “You can be...uh...” She rooted through the pile and came up with a Rarity wearing a dressing gown and a night cap, “This sleepy guy here.” She sat the figure in Spike’s claw, which closed involuntarily around it. “Suits your mindset right now.”
Rarity let out a playful squeal. “Oh you’re such a dear, Spike. And now-” Rarity wrapped her magic around half a dozen equality jars in various stages of sloppy repose. “It is officially on like it has never been on before!!”
With that, Rarity was off at a gallop, vast gouts of colorful, flavorful slop launching magically from her ammo canisters. Spike, true to his word, leapt directly into the path of every incoming pie and saucy blast.
“Hey wait!” Dash called, firing up her wings like jet engines. A pie few at her at speed, but she dodged and stuck out her foreleg, stopping the projectile and taking control of it. “Hah! Now I’m gonna show you ponies what happens when you overwork poor SnowDash without enough pieces of coal in the fire! Starting with you, Snowfall Boss!”
Dash too entered the fray, leaving behind a partially-immobilized, fluffy mound of purple and white, standing alongside a completely immobilized blob of meringue.
“Oh Spike…” Twilight rolled her eyes, considering her assistant and de facto son. He was a malleable soul, but his grin plus the enthusiasm with which he devoured incoming pies on contact at least made it clear he was having a good time. Her head and most of her forelegs now under her own power again, she reached out and poked the sugary mess beside her.
“Applejack? Are you okay in there?”
“Mnfh, ngggmfn hn.”
“Um...can you repeat that?”
There was a chewing noise, and a pocket of the meringue began to implode until Applejack’s face appeared. “Whew,” She breathed, “That there’s tasty armageddon!”
The two filthy-sweet ponies stared dumbly at one another for a moment. Then they both broke out in laughter.
“Y-you look like apple meringue pie!” Twilight chortled.
“And yer the Stay-Puft Marshmallow-corn!” Applejack guffawed back.
Twilight allowed the laughter to raise her spirits. She placed a hoof on her chest, gazing out at the raging battle and the horrible landscape in its wake. “Why am I even laughing about all this...” She rattled with uncertain giggles, “What if Princess Celestia shows up and sees this...”
“So what if she does?” Applejack raised her one free foreleg. “Sometimes you gotta let your mane down and just enjoy the holidays for what they are, instead of being all uptight and worried about everything coming up roses. Even Rarity’s out there gettin’ dirty. That’s gotta tell you something.”
Twilight watched Rarity, who was now simply floating Spike in the way of incoming projectiles while counterattacking in all directions over him. She, her living shield, and the rest of the combatants seemed none the worse for wear in the sharpness of their smiles. “Well...you do have a point...”
“Oh hey, I almost forgot,” Applejack struggled and kicked, finally shrugging off the majority of her prison and stepping forth from it. She tipped up her hat and allowed an object to slide from it onto her hoof, which she subsequently offered to Twilight.
Twilight glanced down at the very small, old, tin measuring spoon before her eyes. “What’s this?”
“This here’s something my old great uncle Orange Pekoe made. He was stubborn as they come and only half as anal as you, so I figure if he went so far as to make a point three four nine five gram measurin’ spoon, you’d probably have good use for it.”
Twilight’s smile could have topped the tree in the palace receiving hall and blinded the room. The bluntness of Applejack’s commentary rolled right off her back as she took up the spoon in her magic and nuzzled it like a lover. “This...this is perfect! Oh thank you Applejack! But how did you know?”
“On account of the fact that I heard you were usin’ a cookbook from Trottingham.” Applejack grinned.
“I don’t understand why they don’t sell these in every kitchen supply store! Oh but,” Her smile faltered, “I can’t just take this from you. Don’t you ever cook from recipes like that?”
Applejack made a face, “Well, sometimes sure, but...I really don’t think we’re gonna need it much, Twi. It suits you so well that I think you’re perfect together. You go on and knock yerself out.”
“I can finally measure out the perfect quantity of vacuum-sealed cooked chestnuts!”
“Uh, sure...right...” Applejack stretched, rotating her shoulders. She considered suggesting the use of a dry kitchen scale or mentioning perhaps that grams are seldom used as gradations for measuring spoons, but thought the better of it. “Anyway, I’m all fer havin’ a...Hearth’s War or whatever it is, but didn’t you say somethin’ about having the princesses over for dinner?”
“She did indeed, Applejack.”
Both idle ponies turned to meet the immaculate, illustrious countenance of the princesses of both sun and moon, filling the entranceway with their presence. Applejack politely removed her hat and deferred to Twilight, whose smile had dropped straight through the floor.
“P-princess Celestia! Princess Luna! I...I can explain!!”
Princess Celestia calmly stopped a peach cobbler in the air that was on a trajectory for her face. Bemusedly she examined it in the glow of her magic, “I’ve heard of fast food before, but this might be setting a brand new precedent.”
Princess Luna carved a slice from the cobbler with a skilled incision of her magic, removed it, and tasted it. “Mmh, I am forced to agree, my sister. A truly bountiful and expedient feast.”
“This, this isn’t what it looks like,” Twilight babbled, her chuckles taking on a neurotic tone, “I mean, well...it is what it looks like, it’s a food fight, but you see, the hollandaise was missing, so naturally Hearth’s War started breaking out, and Pinkie Pie made enough pies to feed the Foreign Legion, and I tried to tell them that A Hearth’s Warming Tail doesn’t involve ballistic desserts, but things just kept getting more and more out of hoof, and--”
“Hearth’s...war?” Celestia tasted the odd phrase as readily as her sister had tasted the peach cobbler.
“Yes, well,” Twilight attempted, “they all have roles from the story, and...”
Celestia casually watched the swirling melee while munching on a slice of cobbler. “Well, it certainly sounds entertaining, but I don’t believe my sister or I played much of a role in that particular story...”
Luna beat her wings until she was floating above the conversation. She lit her horn, and from the Rarity pile issued forth a statue wearing a dark, heavy hood. Luna grinned.
“Speak for yourself, dear sister!” Luna floated higher, spread her wings, and surrounded herself with the equality jars of war that were available in ample supply all around the room. Projecting her voice with magic, she announced, “Know that you have summoned the wrath of the Spirit of Hearth’s Warming Yet to Come! I forsee my victory in the struggle to protect the hollandaise and save us all from the wrath of the windigos!”
Luna considered her own odd statement, and before launching herself into the battle, appended, “Because...clearly windigos are allergic to eggs, and thus the hollandaise must be protected!!”
Applejack watched the princess of the night sweep into the fray. She shrugged, trotted over to the pile, and drew forth a Rarity with her mane done in braided pigtails, wearing a patterned skirt with fringe and a modest blouse. Fitting it securely into the brim of her Stetson, she reared and spun her forelegs-
“Yee-haw! It’s time y’all remembered everypony that don’t respect the past is doomed to repeat it!”
Applejack took off at a gallop, leaving teacher and student standing alone on the sidelines. A veritable cone of silence hovered around them until Celestia finally stopped chewing long enough to break it.
“My sister works very hard seeing to the dreams of all of our subjects. This is probably good for her.”
“You...think so?” Twilight mused, watching the battle.
“Yes,” Celestia smiled softly. “And I’m certain that’s what you had in mind here today, isn’t it. For everypony to have a wonderful time.”
“W-well yes, but--”
“That seems to me like exactly what’s happening. What do you think?” Celestia smiled knowingly, “Rooms do clean, after all.”
Twilight’s creased brow finally smoothed out. She nodded in silent appreciation of her mentor’s understanding. “O-of course it is. And I guess at the end of the day, that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?”
“Mmhmm,” Celestia nodded. “Oh, yes, I brought something along...”
“Huh?” Twilight turned to her teacher. “Oh, but you didn’t have to bring anyth--”
Before Twilight’s eyes was a floating glass jar of hollandaise with a festive red ribbon tied around it.
“You know, it’s quite wonderful on steamed asparagus,” Celestia said simply. “Also, think fast.”
“What?”
Instantly the jar of fresh, un-equalized hollandaise became a target for every attack in the room. Myriad projectiles hurtled in Twilight’s direction, and a communal cry went up-
“SAY GOODBYE TO THE HOLLANDAISE!!”
Twilight lit her horn and threw up a magical shield to deflect the assault, but not before ducking low enough to allow one unidentified pie on a high trajectory to sail over her head. There was a squishing noise, and Twilight glanced back to see Princess Celestia’s face covered by a pie tin.
Twilight did her best to keep her composure, but humor dug at her lips and uprooted them. “...I…eh heh, Princess Celestia, you look like…hah…I always wanted to do that...”
Calmly, the Crown Princess of the Equestrian nation waited for the pie tin to fall on its own and licked her lips. “Ah, vegetarian Sheppard’s pie. Always tasty, but to this day I have no idea what’s in it. Oh, and there’s even hollamustaketchsrirachanaise sauce! I haven’t tasted that since the food fights with my sister ten thousand years ago.” Her smile held all the approval a hungry student could ever need, “Truly a fine feast, Princess Twilight Sparkle.”
Twilight beamed, all thoughts of worry for her drapes and upholstery dispelled, “I-it really wasn’t my idea, though…”
“It came from the hearts of your friends,” Celestia commented. “Friendship is nothing without friends.”
With that, Princess Celestia raised the remainder of the peach cobbler over her head like the rising sun. “Of course you realize this means war.”
“Friendship is magic,” Twilight declared, twisting the cap off of the new jar of hollandaise, “And so am I!”
The Palace of Friendship took approximately three days to clean. Spike, fortunately, did not have to do it by himself.
* * * * *
There are many ponies in Equestria, with many different outlooks on life. Most of them agree that Hearth’s Warming is all about the food. May your hollandaise be joyous, bright, and taste excellent over steamed asparagus. Happy Hearth’s Warming!
