Helping Ponies

It just kept getting colder. Ponies were doubling up in their homes to stave off the cold. Without the shelters it was highly likely they would’ve lost half their number to the cold already. As it was, Thistle was kept trotting trying to treat colds.

It was getting too cold to forage, and that hit her hardest of all. She missed going on long walks, even if the walk was interrupted by having to dig for roots.

“The food store is holding, at least for now.” True Blue informed her during the day’s meeting. Rather than facing each other like usual, they were huddled side by side with Bluebell nestled between them. Rock Slide had also moved in with the Lead Mare, but he was guarding the food today. The guard shifts had to be cut in half to keep the guards from freezing. They were also guarding from inside the storehouse.

“Bellies will be growling, but we’ll make it into spring.” True resettled herself tiredly. Thistle had noticed that as the cold wore on everypony had been getting lethargic. Most didn’t bother leaving their huts anymore, unless it was to relieve themselves or get food.

“I’ve been planning something with Marsh and Holly that will hopefully get us a better buffer next year.” Thistle kept her teeth from chattering. “Those fields to the south of us have good soil. We’re going to clear them of grass and rocks and plant edible things.”

“Mother Earth watch over us, it would be nice not to have to watch our dwindling stores so closely.” True sighed. “This winter is uncanny with its ferocity.”

“I can’t remember a winter ever getting so bad.” She agreed. She was young though, surely this was just a normal hard winter? Surely the whispers of the herd were wrong and it wasn’t magic. Two ponies had already come up to her and asked if there was anything she could do to make it spring sooner!

“Hard winters happen from time to time. They are deadly to most herds.” True looked at her slumbering filly. “This winter would have been deadly for us if we hadn’t built these shelters.”

“Pink told me some ponies have been using moss to plug cracks in the walls, and they’re talking about using mud when it thaws.” Thistle reported. It did help cut down on the cold breezes, but Thistle was so cold all the time she didn’t really notice a difference.

“Is there anything else you’d like to bring to my attention?” She looked at her. Thistle ducked her head, hesitating. Finally, she spoke.

“Elder Enduring is ill, and not improving.” Her cough was more constant, her hearing dimmer, her limbs weaker. Thistle had tried every combination of herbs she knew and hadn’t found any method of revitalizing the old nag.

“Mother Earth calls us all back, sooner or later.” Her ears bent backwards at the gentle sigh. She didn’t want to think about Enduring dying.

“We will be poorer for her loss.” She looked up uncertainly. The Lead Mare honestly looked grieved by the news.

Thistle doesn’t know what to say to that. It feels wrong to grieve while Enduring is still breathing, still alive, still trying to pass on her wisdom.

But there is the problem. Enduring is trying to pass on every kernel of wisdom she’s gained over the course of 43 years and she’s trying to do it in the span of a few months, not even half a year. Thistle feels like she’s known Enduring forever, but she hasn’t. Not really. Life before the Light-That-Wasn’t doesn’t feel quite real anymore. It feels like a story that Light told her. No more substantial than that.

Leaving True’s hut, Thistle winces in pain. The icy breeze is sharp, as sharp as a spear digging into her side. It cuts through her fur like it isn’t even there. Her hooves ache from walking in snow all day.

She grits her teeth, snorts and paws the ground, then forces herself to march home. There will be no foraging today. Not if the simple act of walking outside has become painful. She needs to get home and make sure Cam doesn’t try getting into the healing herbs again. Some of those weren’t good for eating, however tasty they looked.

A hard gust nearly bowls her over. Thistle sets her stance wide and waits it out. When she looks up, blinking snowflakes from her eyes, she’s surprised to see Starlight out and about. The dark velvet coat is unmistakable against the white landscape. She doesn’t have her filly with her, which is good considering the temperature they’re experiencing, but she does have baskets.

Baskets that gleam in the fading evening light.

Thistle ponders on that for a moment before Starlight pulls out of view, going into her own house. A fresh breeze reminds her that she’s standing outside gawking. She shakes away the questions forming in her mind and redoubles her efforts to get home before the next storm began.

“Sun n’ Moon, Burr, yew gone n’ let all da warm out.” Enduring shivered as Thistle wrestled the door shut again. Everypony else was already in, dinner laid out and waiting for her.

“Sorry.” It’s all she can say. Even with seven ponies living in here there wasn’t much warmth to lose. They didn’t sit in a circle to eat anymore, now they all huddled together in the center of the room.

“Cursed Shadows, what I wouldn’t give to feel warm again.” Mountain whined, curled around Morning.

“Do you think if we ask Mother Earth real nice she’ll make winter go away and never come back?” Camellia sniffed, wiping her half-frozen snot onto her hoof.

“Moder Eard’ can’t go doin’ dat, li’l filly.” Enduring hacked and coughed. “Winter’s one o’ dose necessary dings. Widout winter, we don’t got no spring. Jus’ da way da world works.”

“Aww,” Camellia rolled onto her back, flexing all four legs in the air. She’d been so excited to have her leg healed, but she hated walking through the snow, particularly since the snow piled up to her withers now.

“Spring’s not that far off.” Thistle settled herself next to Light and accepted her portion of the food gratefully. “Another moon of this and we’ll reach spring.”

“I want it to be spring now!” Camellia cried, angrily pouting at the ceiling. “Why can’t there be magic to make it warm?”
“If magic like that exists, no pony has found it yet.” Thistle sighed. She wanted to know the answer to that question too, but she had so many other things to keep her attention. Just one more moon of this and they’d be free.

Hornet doesn’t know if this is what it’s supposed to be like, being a stallion. He spends his days inside mostly, or pulling guard shifts. He’s still smaller than the other stallions and it must look ridiculous to have him standing with his spear inside the door. He’s got room to grow still.

When he’s inside, he tries to keep himself busy. There’s a whole lot of nothing to do, but it leaves him too much time to think. Too much time to think about everything they lost. Everything they never had a chance to gain.

So he keeps himself busy. With Camellia mostly. Morning gets tired easy and Mountain watches Cam when he’s guarding. Enduring doesn’t move much anymore, and she falls asleep faster than Morning does these days.

Mostly, he spends his days with Camellia. He doesn’t know what to do with a filly, but he’s not sure he’d know what to do with a colt either. In the end, he does the things his dam used to do for him and mixes it with stuff his sire did and it seems to work. He’s probably teaching her a bunch of stallion stuff that she doesn’t really need to know but it’s not hurting anypony.

Besides, this family doesn’t seem to care much about stallion and mare stuff. Enduring, Thistle Burr, and Light know more herb lore than the deceased healer of his old herd. And Light’s not even a healer, she just helps out when Thistle Burr needs an extra set of hooves. Morning and Mountain aren’t too picky either.

Well, they couldn’t be picky if they chose him, there’s plenty of much better stallions in this herd. Stallions who are older, more experienced, stronger. Stallions without burn scars on their back.

“Hornet, I’m booorrreeed!” Camellia moans as if the affliction causes her real pain. She rolls back and forth on her back, watching her legs kick up in the air.

Are all foals this entertaining to watch? He’d never noticed before.

“Do you, uh,” He casts around the room for something quiet to do. He spots the emerald on the floor, left ignored and dusty. “want to play a game?”

“What kinda game?” Camellia squints suspicious little eyes at him. Hornet chuckles as he grabs the gem and three empty water baskets.

“I’m going to put this gem under a basket, then move them around really fast, and you have to guess which basket is hiding the gem. Get it?” He’s quite proud of himself for thinking of it.

“Yes!” Camellia bounces up, sitting up properly so she can watch. He goes slowly the first few times, getting a feel of the baskets. Camellia guesses those easily but she’s still amused so he guesses that’s a success?

“That one!” She points confidently at the far right basket.

“Whoops, you guessed wrong there.” He lifted the middle basket to reveal the gem. “Want to try again?”

“I’m gonna win this time!” She informed him.
Hornet chuckled and got back to switching.

Mountain regrets joining the guard. Sure, the position carries respect and some extra food rations, but Cursed Shadows is it cold! Even inside the storehouse it’s freezing. And there’s nothing to distract her from it here except for Shiny Rock, and that mare doesn’t know the meaning of the words ‘small talk.’

She resists the urge to look over her shoulder at her. Shiny Rock is doing what she always does, cuddles her foal close and warm and counts the food. If a pony comes in Shiny Rock decides whether or not they get more food, based on how much that group has taken that week. She’s heard ponies grumble about it, but they’re all aware that it’s still better than fending for themselves. No one’s starved to death this year.

But there are snowflakes in her mane and ice crusted in her hooves so Mountain’s not feeling too generous about it. She’s sick and tired of being cold all the time. Sure, spring is just around the corner, but there’s got to be some way of making it warmer in winter.

She sighed tiredly and adjusted her spear. No pony had even tried taking any food so she wasn’t sure what purpose a guard served. Then again, maybe no pony tried because there was a guard. Some ponies weren’t above stealing food from each other during hard winters.

It made her pretty damn glad she had a family now. They split the food evenly and curled up together at night. They looked out for each other. And it was absolutely adorable how Hornet would play with Cam when everypony was busy. The stallion could barely string two words together around an adult, but he could entertain a foal for hours.

It was a wonder he didn’t get along with Thistle and Light better. Then again, Thistle was a healer and Light acted like an old nag. At least things were peaceful at home, and never boring.

“AAAAAHHHHH!” She yelped in surprise, bringing her spear up at the door. Confused and not a little scared, she looked over her shoulder at Shiny Rock.

“Let’s go see what’s going on.” Well, don’t let anypony say Shiny Rock didn’t have balls the size of boulders. Mountain nodded and galloped through the door first.

Ponies were screaming, panicking, on the verge of stampeding if only enough of them could find a direction safe enough to run in. Mountain gaped at the sight of such unrelenting terror. What was causing this? Snakes and bears slept in winter and there’d been no sign of wolves in the valley.

“MONSTER!!!” One of the Other mares screamed shrilly, diving into a snowdrift and caving it in on herself.

Mountain swiveled this way and that, looking for whatever beast could inspire so much terror. Was it a manticore? A chimera? A hydra? Oh, sweet Mother Earth don’t let it be one of those!

A whoosh and a crackling sound encouraged her to duck, just in time to miss being raked across the scalp by some kind of bird.

But it was the heat that got Mountain’s attention.

“What in Sun and Moon is that?” She watched it climb and dive again and again, squawking terribly as it attacked ponies.

“Who cares? Look at the roofs!” Shiny scowled, pointing.

One of the houses was on fire. Mountain’s jaw dropped and she quickly found the bird again. It’s wings and tail flickered like flame.

A bird made of fire.

A bird made of fire attacking her herd!

“Oh no you don’t!” She galloped after the thing, dodging screaming ponies along the way. Shiny was running at her side, stone tipped spear held aloft. She split off, circling around a hut to try to cut the bird off. It cawed at her like a hawk, Mountain swung her spear and missed, but the bird veered off for another go.

“Get back here you Shadows Cursed Monster!” She shouted. Shiny took a whack at it, nearly causing the bird to fly into a wall. It shrieked at them both in fury.

Mountain held her spear steady. She’d never tried to hit a moving target before. It was surprisingly difficult. She had to wait for the bird to slow down. A young colt, the mute one from the Other herd, came out of nowhere and stabbed at it with his spear. He got pretty close before the feathered menace turned tail.

Right towards her. Mountain smirked and readied herself, when it saw her it tried to turn left but her spear was already waiting for it. She clipped it’s wing and felt her stone tipped spear dig in. Blood so hot it was bubbling oozed from the wound.

“Kill it! Kill it!” Somepony screamed. Sobbed.

That was when Hope Springs appeared, fury and hatred on her face. Without mercy or hesitation, she struck, slamming her spear straight through the bird’s head. The whole thing twitched for a moment, then disintegrated into ash, except for some feathers and charred bones.

Mountain panted. Bubbling blood dripped down her spear, startling her into dropping it. The snow hissed as it came into contact with it. Steam poured off.

And she was warm. Sun and Moon blessedly warm. Her heart was pumping and her legs were trembling.

“Mountain!” She gasped as Morning nearly tackled her.

“Whoa, whoa, easy! I’m alright!” She laughed. She was alive and warm and she had Morning’s legs wrapped around her. Honestly, could things get any better?

“Uh, Hope Springs? Your spear is on fire.” Oh, and Thistle was here. Mountain untangled herself from her marefriend to see.

“I am aware.” Hope Spring’s lip curled up in distaste. Mountain eyed the sparking flame with longing, then lunged forward when Hope Springs threatened to douse it in the snow.

“Wait!” She stopped her. “Can I have that? I’ll trade!”

“Why do you want a flaming spear?” The ex-Lead frowned.

“It’s warm.” Who wouldn’t want it after all this snow and ice?

“It’s fire. It burns.” Sheesh, now she just looked plain disgusted.

“Only if you touch it, everypony knows that.” She rolled her eyes. “C’mon, I’ll trade! My spear has a stone tip!”

“Fine.” She accepted her burning spear with great satisfaction.

“Mountain, you are not cuddling me while holding that.” Morning sniffed.

“Aw, Love!” She pouted. She’d deal with it, at least for a while. For now she held the spear from the end that wasn’t on fire. She needed to get some wood and find a dry place to set this down.

At the hut she got Hornet to help her clear a space in the middle of the floor. Morning, though she didn’t understand Mountain’s plan, agreed to break up some of the branches she had left over from building sledges. Once they were all half the length of a leg, Mountain made a small pile of them and set them on fire. Only when that flame was as big as its parent did she douse her charred spear.

“Tada! I’ve made it warm!” And bright. Wow, she could actually see the walls and everything now. The huts usually only had what light came in through the cracks of the doors.

“I like it!” Cam declared, happily sitting close to the fire to bask in the warmth. Mountain joined her with a happy sigh.

“Oh, wow.” She looked at the door to see Thistle walking in. She wasn’t looking at the fire though. She was looking at Mountain’s…

“By Sun and Moon!” She jumped up to her hooves. “When did that get there?” A little pile of wood, lit on fire, was sitting on her flank.

“Mama’s gotta Magic Mark!” Mountain froze, turning wide-eyed to Camellia.

“What did you just call me?” She had to have heard that wrong, right? Cam just pronounced Mountain really weirdly?

“Mama.” The filly answered. “Because you aren’t my dam but you act like my dam so I asked Hornet what some other words for dam was and he said there was mom and mother and mommy and mama. There’s a bunch of other words for dam!”

“Oh, he taught you that, huh?” Hornet blushed almost as red as the fire.

“Yep, you’re Mama and I’m gonna call Morning Mommy!” Camellia announced with pride.

“And what are you going to call Hornet?” She could see this hadn’t occurred to the filly yet. She turned on Hornet, placing her front hooves on his chest.

“What’s some other words for sire?” Mountain couldn’t take anymore. She broke into huge gales of laughter.

She had a daughter who loved her enough to call her Mama. She had a stallion sweet enough to teach his filly things. She had a loving family. She had a Magic Mark.

And, best of all, she was warm.