Why the Gift is Given

by Impossible Numbers

Rating: everyone
Tags: Drama, Carrot Top, Sparkler, Ruby Pinch, Dinky Hooves, Slice of Life, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Berry Punch
Length: 22170

"Why do we get gifts every year?" said Dinky. And thus began a rather strange and strained inquiry for Ruby Pinch, a sensible soul (so she thinks) in a world full of odd adults, bad feelings, and grinding days.

“Why do we get gifts every year?” said Dinky. “For Hearth’s Warming, I mean.”

This seems an easy enough question, but Ruby Pinch never had it easy. Trying to find out the real reason for all this gift-giving, she confronts the odd bond between the energetic Dinky and the reserved Amethyst, the simple-minded approach of her hapless cousin Piña Colada, and, on top of that, her beloved "Auntie" Berry, who's a confusing trial all on her own.

And then there's Ruby herself. For, sensible young mare as she thinks she is, she has her own growing mistrust of the answers she seems to be getting. Especially when it comes time to find her own gift.

Proofreading provided by Sunset_Sparkles of The Proofreader Group.

Inspired by, but not involved in, The Obselescence Memorial Jinglemas Twinglemas Secret Santa Sendoff: Part 2 Edition!

Published 2017-12-20 01:50:07 UTC
Last updated 2017-12-20 01:50:07 UTC

A Foal's Perspective

“Why do we get gifts every year?” said Dinky. “For Hearth’s Warming, I mean.”

At this, both Ruby Pinch and Piña Colada stopped and thought.

In truth, the question had niggled at the back of Ruby’s mind for quite some time, but so many ponies were smiling and cheering and greeting each other that she’d sensed it wasn’t the right question to ask. Anyway, she'd been too busy wondering what to get for Berryshine “Berry” Punch.

The three of them were all schoolfillies, but wandered the Ponyville marketplace as boldly as the adults around them. As such, their size gave them an advantage, hopping among the larger legs and occasionally beneath the underbelly of an unsuspecting mare or stallion.

Although words were polite and the crowd kept its jostling to a minimum, this was at heart a commercial feeding frenzy. Earth ponies and unicorns slipped through as quickly as they could, and overhead the pegasi zipped back and forth whilst darting around each other urgently. The air was thick with the garble of hasty greetings and hurried requests.

Ruby herself was starting to feel dizzy. Too much noise, too many shifting shapes to keep track of: she’d lost Piña at least twice and had been forced to go back and fetch her. Dinky remained up ahead, showing where gaps opened up and where a filly could squeeze herself between bodies.

And now this.

“You just do,” Ruby said, more out of reflex than out of true belief.

“I like getting gifts,” said Piña, bumping into her cousin's flank. “Everyone likes getting gifts. That’s why you do it, or else they feel left out on Hearth’s Warming.”

Dinky stopped to face them, and they stood in a relative patch of peace amid all the shouting and shopping. “Maybe. But then, why just this once? Why not do it every day?”

“I think that’s a good idea,” said Piña.

“Oh, grow up,” said Ruby, but not with much feeling. “It’d never work. You’d have to buy gifts every day too, and I bet you couldn’t. I’ve seen your allowance.”

“All right,” said Dinky. “Every month. I reckon you could manage that.”

“Anyway, you get birthdays,” said Piña. “That’s twice a year, then, and still room for more. I think giving gifts every month is a great idea!”

For her part, Ruby licked her lips. Among foals like her, this sort of philosophical puzzle was food and drink. Now Dinky had rung the dinner gong, she wanted to get her teeth into this new dish, but… but…

“That’s a good question, actually. I kinda like the idea. But… what would you get every month? You’d run out of ideas too quickly. Then you gotta buy stupid stuff, like soap or dandy brushes.”

“Or maybe, maybe, maybe,” said Piña, not one to let go of an idea, “maybe instead of buying everything for yourself, other ponies are nice enough to buy them for you?”

Dinky pouted, and then she winced as a pegasus rushed past her and disturbed her mane with the turbulence. “Buy things like groceries, you mean? That’s what Ammy always gets.”

“Nah. Like books you want, or toys, or magazines, or –”

“But then everyone’s just buying what everyone else would’ve bought anyway,” said Ruby. “I thought gifts had to be special one-offs.”

“I meant –” said Dinky, who got knocked by a passing train of ponies. She growled. “I meant: what’s the purpose of getting gifts at all? Deep down? The real reason?”

Ruby groaned; someone apologized and disappeared into the crowd. “Look, can we talk about this later? I’m going to bite my tongue if I get knocked again.”

Piña yelped. “Ow! OK, OK, but what about –”

“We’ll come back later. How about something from Sugarcube Corner, and then we’ll wait for the crowd to go away?”

This got a nod from Dinky and a doubtful moan from Piña.

“The ayes have it. Let’s get a sugar rush.”

“YES!” shrieked Dinky. “Sugar rush! Bring it on!”

On their way out, a daring thought passed through Ruby’s mind, partly alight with hope and partly heavy with guilt. After all, what was the point of all this fuss over bits and bobs? There had to be a reason, or else it was a waste of time. And if there wasn’t a reason, then… then couldn’t she not get a present this year? It’d save a lot of hassle and disappointment.

For the moment, she put it aside and weighed the pros and cons of an apple strudel and a strawberry tart. If it had fruit in it, surely that made it healthy. Or at least healthier.

The problem of the philosophy of gifts didn’t pop back into her mind until much later, when she was already at home.

It was “Make Your Own Meal” night, which meant Berryshine was upstairs in her room and absolutely not to be disturbed. Not that it bothered Ruby much. By now, she’d even taught Piña to resist going up there, however much the foal had stretched and groaned with the desire to climb the stairs.

“She just needs a time-out,” Ruby had said, over and over.

The two of them had banana sandwiches, mainly because the fruit needed eating up. Ruby cut up an apple and tipped the slices from the cutting board onto Piña’s plate.

“Like hay fries,” Ruby said brightly.

“Thank you,” said Piña to her plate. Not looking up.

Concerned, Ruby cocked her head. “Um… Wanna play tonight?”

“OK.”

“OK, then. I’ll set it up.”

They traipsed past the staircase, glancing up before entering the lounge. As tradition decreed – honed by countless nights upon restless nights – Ruby set up the board game on the floor. She didn’t feel right sitting up to the table or on the sofas, and Berryshine kept the carpet so clean they could eat off it.

“I’ll be Daring Do this time.” Ruby chewed her sandwich and levitated the booklet of rules. “You can be Ahuizotl, Doctor Caballeron, or –”

“I wanna be Daring Do.”

“OK. I’ll be Caballeron, then. You start, ‘cause you’re the youngest. Bet I still beat you, though.”

Keeping half of her mind on the game, Ruby suddenly thought, This was a gift. I think it was, anyway. But I don’t remember who gave it to me. Was it Berry, or Dinky’s lot, or what?

Her unicorn horn lit up, and she rolled the dice. “Darn it. Fell into the snake pit. Move back three spaces and miss a turn.”

By contrast, Piña scooped the dice up in a cup, shook it lethargically between her hooves, and dropped them out. “Two… four… six… eight. I get a ‘Fortune Favours’ card.”

“What’s it say?”

“Uh… Sapphire Stone. Keep this card. Immune to one trap space, then must be discarded.”

“Piña, who got this game?” Ruby blurted out.

Piña shrugged. “Big Sis, I think.”

“Only I was wondering about that thing Dinky asked earlier. Your turn again. I’m stuck in the snake pit, remember.”

“Huh? What thing?” Looking half-asleep, Piña rolled again. “Two… four… five. The crocodile ceiling trap. I play the ‘Fortune Favours’ card. Ha. In a while, crocodile.”

A low moan burst through the ceiling. They both glanced up; Piña had a look of wide-eyed alarm. Nothing followed.

They relaxed again.

“Your turn,” said Piña, heaving a great big sigh and lying herself down with hooves holding up head.

“Maybe… Where’s the other dice? Ah, there it is… Well, I remember ‘Auntie’ Berry said you got gifts if you were a good filly, and didn’t get any if you were a bad one.”

“Like cookies.”

Ruby moved three forwards, right into the snake pit again. “Aargh! Again! Come on! Sorry, what?”

“Like cookies. We only get cookies if we’re good, and we don’t get them if we’re naughty. Then you act good all the time, just to make sure.”

“I dunno.” Ruby watched her both roll the dice and push her piece eleven squares forward. “Sounds like the sort of thing grown-ups would say, but I know for a fact ‘Auntie’ Berry sneaks cookies and drinks when she thinks we’re not looking. It’s a…” She tried to remember the word Scootaloo had used once in the playground. “It’s a scam.”

Or at least not true. It was like calling Berryshine “Auntie”. She hadn’t meant to, all those years ago, but when she’d first laid eyes on her grown-up cousin, the word had slipped out. Berryshine had laughed it off and invited her to keep it, and Ruby had been – and still was – too ashamed to defy her. Especially when Berryshine had said it was cute, and kinda flattering. At least now the shame had dwindled to a barely conscious twinge…

“Here’s the dice. But you gotta do it, or they won’t give you cookies – I mean, presents,” said Piña.

Ruby ripped off a chunk of her sandwich and shoved it in. Any excuse to use what little magical talent she had was fine by her.

Ever faithful, Piña straightened up. “Berry’s a good big sis. She wouldn’t do anything like that. She said the world has to be fair, or what’s the point?”

“Wait. Why am I rolling? I should be sitting out this turn. Here, have the dice back.”

“OK. You gotta admit we’re much better foals now because she does stuff like that.”

“Hm.” Ruby didn’t meet her eye. Anyway, Piña was dominating the board; she’d be at the Temple Vault in no time, at this rate.

“I got it! That’s why we have gifts! To make us into good ponies! Only good ponies deserve good things, right?”

Yet the idea was sour. To Ruby, it sounded too much like bribery. Her lips curled with distaste. No, that couldn’t be it. The whole thing smells wrong.

Nevertheless, she said nothing. Piña was clearly too much of a foal to understand. And, in an uncomfortable but tempting way, Ruby wanted her to stay too much of a foal. Even Dinky seemed to be growing up too fast. It was like slowly converting to an enemy camp, and she wanted someone to hold the line.

Maybe Dinky IS a better bet, though? Ruby decided yes; she'd simply have to wait and ask her tomorrow.

They stayed silent. Piña won the game, but Ruby’s brain was done with games.

“All right! What game shall we play next!?”

The bell had just gone, and recess the next morning was already well under way. As Ruby crawled down the steps from the schoolhouse, she looked across the grassy playground and caught sight of Dinky galloping ahead of a whole herd of students. Other foals skipped rope or clambered over the monkey bars. A few sat by the white fence, munching homemade lunches or deep in gossip.

“Let’s play Grittish Stampede!” Dinky turned and leaped upon one of her followers, who flapped his wings furiously. “Gotcha! Now you’re on my side!”

Grittish Stampede: Ruby remembered Pipsqueak had told the class about it once, after he’d visited relatives in the Grittish Isles. Of course, Dinky had pounced on the idea instantly and had yet to let go.

Ruby watched with the air of one much too old and serious to bother with this sort of thing. Yet her legs itched. She admired Dinky’s leaping technique, and then rolled her eyes as the next captured teammate fluffed a tackle. Even she, Ruby, could’ve done better than that.

Suddenly irritated, she turned away for a moment. She had to look for Piña. Goodness knew where she’d gotten to…

Then she heard hooves running towards her, turned, and yelped as Dinky landed on her back.

“Gotcha! Join the hunt, fellow griffon!”

“Dinky! Get off me!”

Dinky backed off hurriedly; even she knew better than to ignore those tones.

“Sorry.” Then as though nothing had happened, she said, “Wanna play?”

“No… I gotta look for Piña.”

“She’s playing with us. So yay or nay?”

“Huh… I dunno. You just run around catching ponies, right?”

“Only if you have fun, otherwise you can’t play.”

Darn it, I’m not made of stone. “OK – I mean, yay – but only for a bit.”

“Cool! Join the hunt!” Dinky shot off like a cannonball fuelled by sugar. Blinking in surprise, Ruby toddled after her, suddenly aware of how stumpy her foal legs must be.

More young ponies fell to Dinky’s mighty band of griffons that day. No one really expected to “survive” the whole game. Instead, the one who lasted the longest would win the title of Griffon Champion. So far, Scootaloo held the record. And as she watched, Ruby spotted Piña cackling and laughing and ducking and dodging and weaving like a professional. Even Ruby chuckled, after a while. Why not, after all?

“So I’ve been thinkin’,” said Dinky amid all the running; they were both trying to corral three unicorns against the schoolhouse. “About that gift thing. I talked to Ammy. Last night. And I think – Darn it!” At the last second, Sweetie Belle and her fellows shot around them. Dinky groaned and beckoned Ruby to follow in hot pursuit.

“Think… what?” Ruby panted; unlike Dinky, she didn’t have a boundless supply of energy.

“I think I got an answer – HA! Gotcha, Scootaloo!”

“Darn it!” Scootaloo pouted and turned away. “I wanted to break the record this time.”

“An answer?” said Ruby. “Can we slow down for a bit?”

“Good idea.” Dinky leaped at Archer, but the foal leaped higher and was already a shrinking blue dot on the other side of the grass. “Need to regroup and plan our next attack.”

They skidded to a halt behind the schoolhouse again, Ruby panting until she was sure her lungs were going to burst, and Dinky barely snorting a little harder than usual. Where does she get her energy?

“You know that saying,” said Dinky, “‘It’s the thought that counts’? That gave me a clue. It’s a gesture of love.”

Ruby panted on, a long way away from any coherent reply. However, she frowned at this.

“No, really! I’ve seen ponies get all kinds of silly gifts: awful jumpers, dandy brushes, shampoo, stuff like that. And you have to say ‘thank you’ if you get them, even if you aren’t thankful at all. Aunts do that.”

“Ahem!” snapped Ruby.

“Oh. Sorry. Some aunts do that, especially if they're not really aunts. And that doesn’t make sense, because if a gift has to be special, then why would grown-ups make you say that? They’d tell the aunts off if the gift had to be special.”

Scootaloo yelled at them from the white fence. Judging from the strong stampede still galloping across, the griffon side were having a spot of trouble.

“JUST A MINUTE!” Dinky waved over, and then turned back. “So…?”

“What?” Ruby’s throat was aflame. No way was she running around now. She hated that feeling.

“So… obviously, you can get whatever for a gift, because the giving is what’s important. And it’s important because you always get gifts from ponies you know. Who love you.”

Ruby curled her lip. Breathless or not, she couldn’t let such mushy muck mess up her serious inquiry. It was worse than Piña’s “Cookie Bribe” theory.

“Sounds… nice,” she said, smiling a little. “But… isn’t it a bit… simple?”

Dinky pouted. “And Hearth’s Warming isn’t?”

“I think with grown-ups, it’s a bit… more complicated than that.”

“Huh. That’s what Ammy said last night.” Following another bellow from Scootaloo, she added, “Say, maybe you should come over and talk to her? She knows about all these kinds of things.”

“I thought you talked to her last night?”

“Yeah, but you know,” said Dinky in what was clearly meant to be a casual voice. “We had our disagreements. So, you wanna come over after school? I got snacks in.”

Scootaloo bellowed for the third time, and they had no choice but to throw themselves back into the hunt.

Dinky was as good as her word; the cupboards were loaded with snacks at her house. Sweeties from Bon Bon’s shop and pastries from Sugarcube Corner. Trifles and cookies of all flavours and varieties. Even the fruit bowl was much fuller than anything Berryshine had maintained.

“No more than three,” called a stern voice from the next room. “Those snacks are for parties and Hearth’s Warming only, understand?”

“Got it!” Whereupon Dinky levitated bags of stuff and tottered under the weight. Remembering Berry’s advice, Ruby selected a slice of strawberry trifle and a slice of lemon drizzle cake – they had fruit in, after all – before following Dinky into the next room.

The fire crackled in the hearth. Such warmth settled upon her like blissful snow. Festive reds and oranges and yellows crowded the available space. They even had a tree! A whole decorated tree! Berryshine hadn’t gotten theirs out of the attic yet.

“What did I say?” said Amethyst sharply from the main table.

Dinky groaned and walked back into the kitchen.

On the table, not a square inch of wood was visible. Cards and lists and papers of impressive size and font lay in clear rows and columns until the whole resembled a chessboard designed by a bureaucrat. Head down, Amethyst scribbled note after note, as mechanical and precise as an assembly device.

“Erm,” said Ruby. She was never quite sure around Amethyst. The mare had such a penetrating glare.

“Just filling out Hearth’s Warming cards,” said Amethyst without looking up. “Don’t mind me.”

And she never sounded cheerful either. Mildly annoyed in a firm and polite way, perhaps, but not cheerful.

“That’s a lot of friends,” Ruby said.

“They’re not all from yours truly.”

Ruby didn’t reply, because she didn’t understand what she meant.

Dinky marched back in, carrying only one supersize bag of goodies. She wriggled into place on the rug before the hearth.

“As I was saying,” she said, waving Ruby over, “ponies buy gifts to show they love each other. That’s why they only buy for their nearest and dearest.”

“No, Dinky,” said Amethyst wearily, without looking up. “Ponies buy gifts for their nearest and dearest because any more would be too expensive.”

Dinky shoved a load of candy into her mouth. “You mean, like, for strangers?” she tried to say.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full. I mean for anyone. You gotta set limits on your budget, unless you like sleeping in cardboard boxes.”

“Which I do.”

“On the street. Not for pretend.”

Dinky swallowed. “What? In the cold?”

“You betcha.”

Dinky shivered. “What a horrible thought. Why can’t they get blankets and things to make them nice and comfy?”

Amethyst did not stop writing – she was far too efficient for that, and Ruby for one respected this trait – but the wiggle of the ballpoint definitely slowed at this.

“Dinky, it’s not a nice world out there,” she said in the sad tones of someone who regretfully had to take charge of the conversation’s navigation deck. “Some ponies fall through the cracks, and they can’t do what you do anymore. They lose money, or run away from home, or make a stupid decision, and suddenly they can’t buy blankets and things.”

“Just cardboard boxes?”

“They find cardboard boxes.”

“Ew. That sounds mucky.”

“Well, there you have it. Welcome to life.”

Dinky stared at her for a moment, and then chuckled away whatever distressing parts hadn’t fit into her mental state. “You say such funny things, Ammy.”

“So why do ponies buy each other gifts?” said Ruby. If anyone could be trusted with this, maybe Amethyst could. “Why am I getting Auntie Berry a gift this year? I don’t think it’s just because I love her. There’s gotta be a deeper reason.”

This time, Amethyst looked up and raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you a bit young for that kind of question?”

“Uh, no.” At least, she hoped not.

“Does it matter if you get the presents anyway?”

Dinky scowled at her. “This is serious, Ammy.”

“All right, all right.” Amethyst sighed, as though indulging them against her better judgement, and lowered her pen. “Think of it like this, then. You help other ponies, and other ponies help you, right?”

“Uh huh,” said both foals, Dinky with her mouth full.

“A friend in need is a friend indeed, right?”

“Uh huh.” Both foals swallowed, Dinky with a wince.

“Friends and family look out for each other, right?”

“Where are you going with this?” said Ruby, getting impatient.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Amethyst returned to her scribbling. “Tit for tat. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. The reason you give a gift to someone is because they gave you a gift.”

Ruby frowned. It really was hard to tell with Amethyst, sometimes. “That’s it?”

“According to Golden Harvest? Yup.” Even her voice was inscrutable. “You got something better?”

“OK, then. Who gave the first gift?”

“Meaning what, precisely?”

“Meaning: If I give you a gift because you gave me a gift, and you gave me a gift because I gave you a gift before then… How did it get started at all? Someone had to give a gift first, and they couldn’t do it because the other pony gave them a gift before. Otherwise it wouldn’t be a first.”

“Can’t catch us out that way, Ruby. Obviously, it’s hereditary.”

“What, all the way back to the Founding of Equestria?”

Amethyst shrugged. “Good a reason as any. Unless you can think of a better one?”

“I reckon Carrot Top could,” said Dinky around her mouthful.

“Be polite. That’s Golden Harvest to you, Dinky. And don’t talk with your mouth full. You’ll make a mess.”

While the fire crackled on and the pen scratched its way through several cards, Dinky chewed her sweeties and Ruby curled up, absorbing the room aflame with Hearth’s Warming cheer. This wasn’t her first time in Dinky’s house. It was a temporary shelter, but a shelter nonetheless.

This has to be a test of some kind. There must be more to gift-giving than that. I just wish Amethyst would give a signal, or something. And what’s with all the “living in cardboard boxes” stuff anyway?

Why am I getting anything for Auntie Berry? If it’s not tit for tat, then what is it? There must be more to it than that. There must be. If there isn’t… Well, there must be.

She swallowed and tried to enjoy the warmth, knowing it wouldn’t last.

Two Different Families

The next morning, Ruby woke up groaning on her own bed. Alone. She realized she hadn’t had a slumber party for months.

Everything was blank. Within her mind, she barely seemed to be there. A bedroom, the quilt and blankets on the floor, with just… stuff lying around. She barely registered the posters. She barely registered the light, though the sunbeams cut through her eyes.

For some reason, the words Tit for tat floated unconcerned in her head. Groggily, she rolled herself off the mattress and onto the pile of kicked-off blankets which cushioned her thump.

Stumble as she did down the stairs, her sides bounced off the wall and banisters so that she zigzagged her way down. Passing the lounge, she noticed Piña curled up on the floor, a book open before her and a plate of toast under her chin. Her eyes were wide, and she chewed without looking away from the pages.

Berryshine sat in the kitchen. Her head hung so low she was going to drown herself in her own mug.

“Mornin’,” mumbled Ruby. Thus exhausted, she went over to the sideboard.

“Mmmmmummmmmurrrrrrrrrrrummmmmunnnnnnurrrrrrr,” mumbled Berryshine. She threw back her drink and gulped before banging the mug back onto the table.

Berryshine had made toast for her too. Ruby levitated her slice from the sideboard, flattening the lumpier parts of the butter spread. “Want anythin’ f’r H’rth’s Warmin’?”

“NNNNNoooooo.”

“Feel better?” Ruby crunched her toast. It was burnt again. She ignored the charcoal peppering her tongue.

“Bit. P’rty l’st n’ght.”

“Party last night?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m wondering what to get you for Hearth’s Warming.” Ruby had to make sure the message was getting through. Irritably, Berryshine was rarely strong enough on the first try in the mornings.

Berryshine threw back another gulp and banged the mug. “Like parties.”

“And berries,” said Ruby. “I like pear cider.”

“Pfft.” A fleck of spit leaped for freedom. “Foul muck.”

“Apple cider?”

Berryshine pouted. Another gulp. Another bang. “Di-vine.”

“You had a good time at the party last night?”

“Lots of cider there.”

I’ll take that as a yes, thought Ruby. She still didn’t feel anything. This was all going through the motions. It’d hit her later, she knew, and she knew this in the detached, floaty way of someone drifting through the underwater world of alien creatures, not yet desperate for breath.

Shoving the last of the toast into her mouth – and wincing at the crunch of charcoal – Ruby swallowed and made to walk out the door. Whether this was the prompt or not, Berryshine jerked up. She was about to stand, forelegs braced against the table.

Ruby noted this, and a flicker rose in her chest.

“You like parties, don’t you?” said Berryshine, slightly more awake but still on the threshold of some living reverie.

“Me.” It was supposed to be a question, but Ruby’s voice struggled with the tone.

“None of that material stuff that costs the earth. Just all of us together at Hearth’s Warming. Family too. Friends too. Me and you and Piña. We could have a good time. Together. Good times sound good to you?”

Narrowing her eyes suspiciously, but at least holding her Auntie Berry’s gaze for a moment, Ruby at last ventured her first small smile of the day. She gave a little nod.

“Sure,” she said. “That sounds… good. I guess.”

To her confusion, Berryshine didn’t move. If anything, her stare widened slightly, became a bit more intense, as if she were looking for something in Ruby’s face.

The spark in Ruby’s chest flickered and grew. Charcoal flavour clung to her tongue.

She walked out.

Behind her, Berryshine sucked and slurped at her mug like a leech. As if her life depended on getting every last drop she could.

Ruby shuddered. She peeked into the lounge. Other than that her cousin now turned a page, nothing had changed.

Now the world’s details poured into her head, and the little spark grew. Tit for tat. Tit for tat. What a horrible idea, tit for tat! Amethyst was being stupid on purpose. I bet anything.

Ruby strode up to the front door, fiddled with the keys that were still in there, growled, shook them, fiddled with them again, and finally unlocked the wretched thing and threw herself onto the grass and snow.

The marketplace wasn’t on the way to school, but she went anyway. Most of the stalls were being set up. One or two remained abandoned.

Bet she forgot, thought Ruby. She stomped over to one particular stall, its rear full of barrels marked with all kinds of icons. Apples, cherries, grapes, elderflower, cranberry, even bananas.

It was stupid, this time of year. Half the stock would spoil within days. The only good side was that it wasn’t summer, when it would spoil even faster.

And… yes, the cash box was still under the till. Ruby unlocked it. Hardly anything rattled around inside.

She’d passed through anger and out the other side, into a strange calm that meant she held the box carefully and walked slowly and coolly back through the maze of canvas and wooden posts.

Her inner spark went out. Cold winds blew over. She shivered against the snow all of a sudden.

How was she supposed to get anything? She was just a foal. She didn’t have a job. She didn’t have money of her own. It was grown-up stuff. Why did she care?

She couldn’t help but notice how well cared-for the other stalls were. Berryshine’s had been rickety and full of splinters. She didn’t even have any canvas.

Ruby’s path returned her home, where she entered the warmth and the dim, non-blinding hall. The box rattled as she bore the lot towards the kitchen.

Not remotely surprising: Berryshine hadn’t moved.

“You forgot this.” Ruby dumped it onto the table.

Berryshine – a little more awake now – glanced up and then sighed with relief. “Phew. I thought I’d left it behind again.”

“You did leave it behind again.”

A pause, then… “Oh.”

Ruby curled her lip. She wanted nothing more to do with this room, or this house, or this life. She spun and went for the door. At least being at school would be like washing herself clean of this day.

“Ruby, wait!”

Moodily, she skidded to a halt right on the threshold. Berryshine’s clumsy thuds followed her. Wanting nothing to do with her own actions, she turned to face her Auntie Berry’s legs. Not her face.

“You going to school?” said Berryshine.

“Yes,” said Ruby, jutting her jaw.

“Um… doing well?”

“Yes,” lied Ruby. Her grades stunk.

“Well… well… uh… It doesn’t matter if you win or lose, you see. So long as you took part. You see? See?”

Ruby filed this away for never. Adults said the dumbest things. “Bye, Auntie Berry.”

She got a quick peck on the cheek which did absolutely nothing for her, and then marched away without a backwards glance.

The worst part was that she knew she should turn all gooey and lovey-dovey at something like that, but the rest of her treated it like a disease. It didn’t matter. Every day was the same, and suddenly she was sick of it. She almost tasted the vomit.

Something told her that the less she had to do with her Auntie Berry, the better. And the rest of her pointed out that this would never happen. She didn’t know which side she hated more.

Not that any of that stuff mattered. She’d have to get a present, one way or another. Even if she had fewer coins than legs, or was sure that any warm glow her gift gave to Berryshine wouldn’t last longer than a few days, her mind – her very bones – insisted she get something. Always had. Always would.

Only as she neared the school, when she saw Piña swinging in the playground, did she realize she’d forgotten to double-check on her cousin.

“You’re not leaving me out this time,” Piña said, several hours later.

“I know,” said Ruby to the floor.

“I had to look after Big Sis yesterday. You know I hate doing that.”

Ruby squirmed. “Well, we’re here now, aren’t we?” After a while, she added, “How was school?”

“You were there!”

“I meant for you!”

“Oh.” Piña grinned apologetically. “It was good. Cheerilee’s the best.”

They spread themselves out on the rug again, before the snapping and crackling of the fireplace, and surrounded by little Power Ponies action figures. Dinky’s, of course: they didn’t have their own.

Once more, Amethyst sat up to the main table, only this time with abacus and two heavy-looking books laid out like coffins before her. Oddly, she wasn’t using them yet; instead, her horn was aglow, she had an elbow on the table, and her dull eyes were staring into the dull sheen of the gemstone hovering magically before her, rotating gently.

Dinky burst into the room. “I got snacks! Oh, this is gonna be great. Tonight! For your viewing pleasure, fillies and gentlecolts, I’ll be the Masked Matter-Horn, Piña will be Mistress Mare-velous –”

“I wanna be Radiance,” said Piña sulkily.

“Or she can be Radiance.” Dinky didn’t miss a beat. “And you, Ruby, can be… um…”

In time to see the bags of sweets land on the floor, Ruby looked up. To her surprise, Dinky was still. And she was staring at Amethyst.

The gemstone rotated in midair. Amethyst’s dull eyes matched its dull sheen. Otherwise, she seemed pale, even devoid of life.

Ruby felt the flickering spark return. “And I’ll be?” she insisted.

Without any apparent thought, Dinky walked as though hypnotized towards and around the main table. Apart from the flat nothing of the dull sheen, that side of the room was twilight, especially compared with the bright sunset of the rug and the walls before the hearth.

“Dinky?” said Ruby. The spark dimmed.

Dinky stopped. She looked at her sister as though trying to fathom some strange species of bird that had perched on the fence of her life. Still, Amethyst didn’t respond.

“Er…” said Ruby.

Even when Dinky pounced and threw herself into a hug, clinging awkwardly to Amethyst’s elbow and neck, the older sister still didn’t respond.

Ruby felt the blush rushing to her cheeks.

But then she did. The elbow slid away and the forelimb wrapped around Dinky’s shoulders. The tight squeeze was brief and businesslike, yet it was there.

Surprising herself, Ruby held her breath. Irritatingly, Piña hadn’t noticed or didn’t care; she was already picking up action figures and mumbling a made-up story to herself.

Dinky released the grip, but darted forwards, planted a quick peck on Amethyst’s cheek, and then scurried back and round to jump and thump onto the rug. As though nothing had happened, she levitated the leftover figures into a kind of battle formation.

“And you, Ruby,” said Dinky cheerfully, “can be Zapp, because you make the best lightning noises, and no two ways about it. Ruby, are you listening to me?”

Amethyst stirred. Eventually, the click of the abacus started up, as did the scratch of ballpoint on paper. One of the ledger books flipped open, and more scratching ensued. The gemstone landed with a light tap.

“Hm?” Ruby shook her head and looked down at Dinky. “Yeah, yeah. Zapp. I got it.”

Ruby picked up the figure, but so weakly that at any moment she felt she might drop it. Now that Piña was here, there was going to be no one home tonight except Berryshine.

And she hadn’t given the gift any thought all day. Not even during the arts and crafts lesson, when they’d made paper decorations and Hearth’s Warming origami figures. Cheerilee had even talked about the students giving them to their loved ones as a little present, or to add to their homes.

When all’s said and done, who else was going to be home tonight?

But she buried this, and tried to focus on making Zapp use her lightning all the time until Dinky said, “Hey come on, let the rest of us have a turn.”

“Zapp always works alone,” said Ruby, trying to get into character and deepening her voice. “Don’t you know that?”

Dinky rolled her eyes, making Piña giggle. “Come on, Zapp. It’s not about hogging the glory and getting results. It’s about us all taking part. You silly devil.”

“I’m sure the Masked Matter-Horn doesn’t say ‘you silly devil’,” said Amethyst without looking up.

Dinky twisted herself on the rug to pin her down with a glare. “My Masked Matter-Horn does. My Masked Matter-Horn can fly, and she can turn invisible.”

“Also, since when is crime-fighting not about getting results? We’d be in trouble if it wasn’t.”

“Exactly,” snapped Ruby. “Can we get on with this?”

Amethyst glanced up at her. One eyebrow rose, but in a genteel, cautious manner, as a valet might rise upon noticing their employer make a faux pas.

Ruby squirmed where she sat. That glare. That glare could mean anything.

Pursing her lips, Amethyst made her keen eyebrow sit back down, and she returned to her ledger.

“But the Power Ponies all take part, even Humdrum,” said Dinky, picking up her Masked Matter-Horn figure again. “They fight crime better when they care about how they do it.”

“Ah,” said Amethyst without looking up, “a means to an end.”

“No, Ammy. Because it’s good to try together. Carrot Top said that you can’t control your results, but you can control your efforts. So there.”

Amethyst’s abacus clicked. A few more pen-scratchings added figures to the page.

“A wise prophet, our Golden Harvest,” she said. It was maddeningly hard to tell if she was being earnest or being ironic.

“Yes, Ammy. She is,” said Dinky, who didn’t even know what “ironic” meant.

“And what about you two – Piña, Ruby?” said Amethyst, raising her voice as though they were against the opposite wall. “What do you think? Do you control your efforts or your results?”

“Um…” said Ruby, trying to make eye contact with someone too busy on financial calculations to notice.

“I try things all the time,” said Piña proudly. “I made a ‘gami figure today.”

“Did you?” said Amethyst.

“Yeah,” said Dinky. “She made all the Founders of Equestria. All six of them.”

“My word.”

“Without help!” said Piña.

“So both efforts and results.” Amethyst nodded but still didn’t look up. “Very good.”

Piña looked helplessly at Dinky, the go-to Amethyst translator.

“She’s really very impressed,” said Dinky as if it were obvious.

“THANK YOU!” Piña called over to the table. This merely earned her a grunt in reply. “So what next?”

“Yeah,” said Ruby, trying to ignore everything that had happened and throwing herself back into the play. “So what do we do next, Masked Matter-Horn? Your move.”

What do I do now? thought Ruby.

Briefly, she wished real life was more like the comics. Problems would be easier to solve if all you had to do was find the nearest baddie and beat them to a pulp.

Not all this everyday stuff. Not having to drop the action figures and go home and go straight to bed. She hadn’t even cared if Berryshine was up at all. She hadn’t checked, in spite of Piña’s complaining.

Ruby stayed up for what felt like hours. Thinking. Mulling things over. The house was unnaturally silent.

What do I do now?

Limited Happiness

Come the next morning, the window was iced up. A pegasus was still there, painting fern patterns up the glass. Gulping with embarrassment, Ruby slid the curtains shut – she forgot to do so last night – and scurried downstairs. She had forgotten to do anything last night.

“How’s my favourite cousin this morning?” called up Berryshine, her voice echoing from the kitchen. She must have heard the footfalls.

Ruby paused and sniffed. Her mouth started to water. Eggs… and beans…? She sniffed again and cocked an ear. There was a definite sizzling coming from the kitchen.

When she entered, she saw Piña at the table, wolfing down her own plate of beans and revealing the sauce-reddened toast underneath. Her cousin tried to speak around the mouthful, but succeeded only in spraying red flecks.

Bent over the cooker, Berryshine hummed a tune and stirred the eggs in the frying pan. She put down the spatula for a moment.

“I thought I’d treat you this morning,” she said, beaming at Ruby. “Today’s going to be a good day, I can feel it! Drinks a-plenty, and you know what that means?”

Ruby did not dare herself to smile, but darn if it wasn’t a close thing. “You got a request?”

“Pinkie Pie placed an order yesterday. I’m catering for a birthday bash.”

Her heart lightened. “Really? You mean it?”

“I mean it! Auntie Berry’s in her element today! Say, I should try that new recipe I’ve been working on! It’ll blow their socks off, if they’re wearing any, which this being Pinkie Pie, they might be, but you know what I mean.” Berryshine cackled and reached over to stir the pan full of beans.

“Um… cool,” said Ruby. She allowed herself a quick little flicker of a smile. That was all.

“You want a full breakfast?”

Piña held out her sauce-smothered plate and grinned within her sauce-smothered face. “I do! I do! Seconds! Seconds!”

“There’s a big girl with a good appetite! Grow up, grow happy! Here you go. So what do you say, Ruby? Want the works?”

Ruby’s stomach rumbled. Her mouth watered and drowned her tongue. Those smells were the finest she’d smelled within this kitchen since forever. Her Auntie Berry was humming again.

Maybe Dinky had been on to something. Maybe gift-giving really is nothing more than a love gesture.

That should’ve been sickening, but right now she hungered for a taste. Licking her lips, she stretched her smile.

“Yes, please,” she said, sitting up to the table.

Eggs slopped out onto two plates. “Who wants the pepper?”

Both Ruby and Piña raised their hooves at the same time and cried out, “Me, please!”

“All righty then. Bottoms up, girls!” And she snatched up both plates and drew in, as efficient as a train, to the stop at the Dining Table Station, steaming plates on her saddle and ready to disembark.

“Choo, choo!” said Piña, leaping out from the front door. Ruby hastened to follow her; as caboose, she could not fall far behind the train itself.

Berryshine shut up the house and slipped the key into her saddlebag. “Well, school’s off. Where’s the Friendship Train heading today, you two devils?”

“Hearth’s Warming shopping spree!” cried out Piña.

“Yeah, I wanna go shopping,” said Ruby, blending in with the general genial atmosphere. “I’ve got dozens of gifts to get. Hundreds.”

“Oh yeah?” Berryshine chuckled. “You’re not getting everyone stamps, are you?”

“Very funny. No. But I am getting something special.” Now I just have to think of something. Oh well. Details, schmetails.

“How about the marketplace, then? I’ve got to sort out my stall anyway.” Berryshine pouted. “Who’s sitting pretty now, huh?”

“You’re not!” called out Piña wildly. “You’re standing! Choo, choo!”

And she shot off, the Friendship Train apparently getting a magic nitro boost. Waving to Berryshine, Ruby scurried after her, past the first few stalls and then deep into the market’s armada of crowding ponies. A few cows trundled past, but the two of them ducked and rolled and then continued out the other side.

“See you later!” cried out Berryshine.

“SEE YOU!” they both yelled back.

Now they were getting serious. So many moving obstacles surrounded them and cut across them that they stopped being a train and started being a pair of detachable spider robots, scuttling up and around chests and heads and limbs and tails. After all, if the average child couldn’t imagine their way out of a tight spot, what could they do?

Panting, Piña skidded to a halt so fast that Ruby bounced off her flanks and onto the grass. Regardless, Piña didn’t seem put out; quite the contrary, she was as pleased as a puppy waiting for treats.

“So what next, what next?” she yipped.

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” said Ruby, getting up. She wiped the worst of the snow off her tail, not that she cared much. Just snow, really.

She paced up and down in deep cogitation. “Auntie Berry deserves something spectacular, I’m sure of it. We have to show her we care so much that it’ll blow her mind.”

“Ooh, I like that! So what, then?” A ladybird landed on her ear, though she didn’t notice.

Ruby giggled. “I don’t know! Imagine the fun we’ll have finding out! Um… Ooh, ooh! She likes all the old adventure stories. Maybe something like that.”

“Another Daring Do book!”

“No, no, she’s got them all.”

“Another adventure book!”

“She’s got loads. Aren’t you listening?”

“So not a book, then?”

“Actually, I think we need something bigger than that. Like a costume… or… or a decoration. A vase? Uh, a picture to hang on the wall? A big poster – nah, too cheap…”

More ideas fizzed and streamed through, her mind abuzz with firecrackers and wow-bangers. So much energy burned through her that she couldn’t keep still and kept bouncing off nearby ponies instead. Wow, is this what it’s like to be Dinky all the time?

“Hey, there’s Carrot Top!” Piña pointed. “Let’s ask her! She’s one of Big Sis’s best friends. Betcha she’ll know what to get.”

Indeed, Golden Harvest aka “Carrot Top” stood with wicker basket behind her withers, examining a display of frying pans and tapping each one, ear cocked. By the time Ruby spotted her, Piña was already barrelling over to meet her, making silly “beep beep boop boop” noises.

Momentary doubt trickled into Ruby’s chest, but the leak was soon plugged. True, theirs was an odd friendship; Berryshine had nothing to do with carrots – they didn’t make good cocktails – and old “Carrot Top” farmed nothing but carrots. Also, Berryshine was known as the life of the party after Pinkie Pie, whereas Golden Harvest treated parties as some kind of dreary necessity. Still, there were weirder. And Piña had a point.

“Hey, Carrot Top!” Ruby scurried over to them, weaving among the shifting legs.

“Huh? Oh, it’s you two.” Golden Harvest coughed; she seemed to be trying to hide her underbelly behind her legs. “Doing your Hearth’s Warming shopping, are you?”

“We’re trying to buy something for Big Sis,” said Piña. “But we just can’t think what to get her.”

Golden Harvest glanced at the stall owner, who shrugged, and then tapped at a nearby frying pan. “Uh, you can’t think of anyone else who might know how to –?”

“We thought you might know,” said Ruby, nodding encouragingly. “You’re her best friend.”

“Well, a friend,” conceded Golden Harvest. Whether through modesty or a desire for her associations not to become well-known, she reddened about the cheeks as though suffering from bad circulation. “I’m not sure, to be honest. Chocolates usually go down a treat.”

“Chocolates?” Piña laughed off this typical simplicity of adults. “No, we mean something special.”

“Yeah,” said Ruby. “After all, she deserves it.”

To her surprise, she saw Golden Harvest screw up her lips at this. “Well…”

“She puts a lot of effort in,” Ruby added. Those screwed-up lips bothered her.

“Oh, yes. Absolutely. She does her best. I know.” Golden Harvest shrank where she stood. Now it looked like she couldn’t hide enough of herself behind her limbs. “Look, I’m not saying she doesn’t. It’s wonderful you’re going out of your way for her, I appreciate that, really I do…”

“What?” said Ruby, narrowing her eyes. This wasn’t what she’d expected. Not from what Dinky was saying last night.

“Well, it’s a lovely gesture, sure, but… but… um…” Golden Harvest sighed. “I really am –”

“But what?” snapped Ruby. Already, the bright sunshine of her day was turning harsh and stinging.

She vaguely knew Golden Harvest. Sometimes, the mare came round for a cup of coffee and a chat. More often, Berryshine would disappear for hours to go see her. She struck Ruby as a sort of genial orange cloud; a fine cloud, in her own way, and a cloud who worked hard – or so Berryshine said – and had all kinds of earthy wisdom and the occasional weird view on carrots – or so Dinky said – and was OK – or so most everyone else said. But still a cloud.

Not the sort, in short, to suddenly harden and start acting like Berryshine had done something wrong.

“But,” said Golden Harvest, straightening up, voice now on firmer ground, “you have to think about a budget too.”

“I don’t think she’d like a pet,” said Piña.

“I meant spend within your means,” said Golden Harvest. She shrugged helplessly and glanced at the stall owner, who unfortunately had moved to talk to another customer nearby. “Well, not to put too fine a point on it, but… well, it’s about rationing, if you think about it. You have to be sensible. Your heart’s in the right place, I appreciate that, but don’t sink too much money into this sort of thing.”

“But she deserves it,” said Ruby coldly. Her sunshine was now thinning. Clouds loomed.

“I’m sure she does. She works hard. She just doesn’t… earn… um… well… you have to consider the fruits as well as the efforts.”

“She does,” said Piña. “She deals with fruits all the time.”

“I meant results.”

Ruby’s inner weather chilled fast. Desperately, she thrust out for a patch of warmth. “Did you know Berryshine’s got a job with Pinkie Pie? I bet we’ll get our ‘fruits’ then. So come on. What should we get her?”

“Has she? Look, I really think something simple would do.” Golden Harvest waved to the stall owner, but failed to lure her out of a haggling match with a stallion. “What’s wrong with chocolates? Chocolates make a fine gift.”

Scowling, Ruby said, “Never mind. We’ll think of something. We just wanted a second opinion, that’s all.”

For she’d just remembered. Golden Harvest. It was Golden Harvest, according to Amethyst, who’d said all that awful stuff about “you scratch my back, I scratch yours”. And according to Dinky, she’d also talked about efforts, not results, which had sounded… better at the time.

But now? They sounded not so different. So, if Berryshine put in the effort, then someone else would put some effort in for her. Right. So was that because it got results, or not?

“You don’t think she tries properly,” she said. “Do you?”

Golden Harvest frowned. “I never said that.”

Worse, unless Ruby wasn’t remembering right: didn’t Golden Harvest tell Amethyst, who told Dinky, about all that cardboard boxes stuff?

A great weight rumbled deep within Ruby’s chest. She felt herself freezing over, becoming harder, colder, more solid. Worse, worse than waking up from a dream, was realizing the dream had been playing her for a sap.

“We’ll find something,” she said. “Come on, Piña.”

“Huh?” said Piña.

Brow crumpling with concern, Golden Harvest leaned down. “Are you all right, Ruby?” she said gently. “What’s wrong? Anything I can do?”

“No, thanks.” Ruby backed off, nose wrinkled. “We’ve got some shopping to do. Thank you.”

“You’re sure –?”

“Thank you.”

Having thrown those parting words away, Ruby chewed her lip and stormed off into the crowd, gritting her teeth every time someone bumped her and then apologized before disappearing.

Within her, the weight rumbled again. She ignored Piña yelling after her. Stupid Carrot Top. Doesn’t know what she’s talking about. “You have to consider the fruits as well as the efforts,” she’d said. Aargh! Why do grown-ups keep changing their minds all the time? Why don’t they keep it simple?

“Choo choo!” called Piña, catching up to her.

“Never mind that,” said Ruby swiftly. “Come on, we’ve got gifts to get.”

Piña cocked her head. “No choo choo?”

“Later.”

“But –”

“Later! Job first, OK?”

Very, very quietly, so that it was almost hidden beneath the rabble of shoppers, Piña said, “Oh… um, OK then. Job first.”

“Good. Now help me find something. Let’s look around, see if anything stands out.”

As they went on, the rumbling inside her rose and fell once more. Regardless, even in its absence she felt the aftershocks ricocheting back and forth within her chest and head, boiling her up, shaking things. Never, ever going away.

To Think, Surrounded by Shadows

“Anything there?” snapped Ruby for what felt like the millionth time.

“I don’t know.” Piña stumbled in her wake.

“You didn’t look!”

“I did! I still don’t know!”

“All right! Never mind! Maybe… Maybe there’s something over here.”

No matter how many stalls she flashed by, or marched towards, or stopped to run a quick eye over, Ruby never saw anything that sparked her interest. It didn’t even look remotely believable: mugs and lampshades and goblets and kitchen utensils hanging off racks. What little hope she’d had in this wild goose chase was crumbling away.

In truth, the worst part was that she felt so empty about the whole thing. Nothing stood out, but she had that vague, suggestive feeling – like being on the cusp of pain and yet never actually being painful – that no matter what she looked at, it wouldn’t be up to snuff. Canterlot could open a wonder emporium right in front of her, and she’d still wrinkle her muzzle at it.

“Ruuuuuuuuby,” moaned Piña behind her. “I’m tiiiiiiiiiiired. I hate all this waaaaaallllllllking and I wanna go hoooooooooome.”

Amid the thinning crowd and under a sun now falling towards the horizon, Ruby heard her fall onto the mud. There was a squelch and a little sigh.

Frustrated, disappointed, worried, hopeless, and now disgusted, Ruby placed a hoof on her face and held it there, trying to restrain so many emotions at once. Her own feet were aching, biting at her consciousness whether she lifted them up or stood heavily on them. She was aware of how much fleshy weight clung to her, even though she knew she wasn’t fat for a filly. She seemed too aware, as though everything was now suddenly brighter and louder.

“OK,” she said. “Yeah. I’m done. We’re done. Let’s go home.”

Piña squelched in the mud again. “But what about Big Sis’s present?”

“What about it?” Ruby turned around. “And get out of the mud. You look like a baby.”

Piña slopped her way onto all fours. “Don’t call me a baby.”

“All right. I won’t call you a baby.”

“I’m not a baby.”

“I just said –Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to get angry. It’s just…” Ruby ran the hoof through her own mane, bumping her horn. “Look, let’s just go home, OK?”

Piña chewed her lip, and then spat because she’d accidentally scraped in some mud. “But –”

“We’ll try again tomorrow.”

“HEY!” called Dinky’s voice. Hoofsteps slapped the wet earth and grew louder.

Thankful for the interruption, Ruby turned away from her cousin. However, the instant she did so, she spotted the thick, bulbous, noticeably straining-at-the-seams look of Dinky’s saddlebags. Dinky herself skidded to a halt before them, leaving tracks through the mud patch.

“I think… I’ve made… a breakthrough!” Dinky was almost breathless.

But Ruby had her eye on the saddlebags. The voice barrelled on regardless.

“About… the gift… giving… thing. I was… talking… to Ammy… and she… she said… when I go… and buy a gift… to pay attention to… how I felt… when I did it. Well… I’ve done it lots… ‘cause Ammy said… to make sure… to do it lots and lots and lots of times… and get… a general feel for it, she said. So I did…” Dinky belted out a chuckle and did a little jig on the spot. “Ruby! Piña! It’s the BEST! The GREATEST! The most AMAZINGEST THING EVER!”

“What?” said Piña.

Those bags look gigantic. Lots of gifts, she said. But where did she get the money for all that? Dinky doesn’t have an “Auntie”.

“I figured it out!” continued Dinky. “We give gifts because it’s super-mega-awesome-wonder-tastic GREAT!”

Who are they for, anyway? I know she plays with a lot of foals at school, but she can’t really have gotten them all gifts. Anyway, her family’s not that big.

“Oh,” said Ruby. “OK.”

She noticed Dinky staring at her as though she were a madmare. “‘OK’? Is that all you’ve got to say? I’ve just solved the mystery.”

She’s making it up. Buying gifts feels great: yeah, sure it does. Throwing money away sounds like a great thing, doesn’t it?

“No, you haven’t,” she muttered. “What about other ponies? Maybe they don’t think it’s great.”

Dinky’s smile, already melting around the edges, sagged under her dimming eyes and drooping brow. “Well… we can’t all be that different, can we?”

A nasty little thought crawled into her mind. I won’t know. I haven’t bought anything, so…

No. She’d be darned if she’d give Dinky an inch in this mood.

“Maybe we can,” she said, without apparent rancour. “Maybe some of us don’t want to get gifts. And then ponies like you go on about how great it is, so maybe everyone else pretends they feel the same way. What if that’s true?”

“Who’d do something as silly as that?” said Dinky, trying to laugh it off. “They must be pretty sad to not enjoy Hearth’s Warming.”

To her own surprise, Ruby felt her face twitch. A surge hit her limbs as though urging her forwards.

Calmly, she said, “Pretty sad?”

And then the surge washed away, leaving nothing behind. Even her smile was empty.

“Yeah,” Ruby said, not to Dinky but to the space to the left of Dinky’s ear. “Pretty sad.”

“I like it,” said Piña.

“But what else can they do?” said Ruby. “They can’t help it.”

Dinky shrugged. “I dunno. I wasn’t really thinking about them before now.”

Without warning, a fresh surge rushed through Ruby’s legs. Her mind caught up. She jutted her jaw and about-turned and marched through the marketplace, between the stalls, not even noticing the shouts behind her and the bumps of ponies around her.

What made the whole mess horrible – and knotted her stomach tight at the mere thought – was that she knew she’d be back tomorrow. Something was supposed to be there, in her heart, to give the final push and wave goodbye to all this silly business. She knew it was supposed to be there. It was as obvious as a missing tooth she kept probing with her tongue. But it wasn’t there. And she’d be back tomorrow, doing this whole stupid shopping thing all over again.

“Ruby!” called out Piña.

Well, for what? She was sick and her hooves ached and her mind was in shock because, for a moment, Dinky’s idiotic talk had made her feel like a cornered animal. And for what? Because she “had to” get some Hearth’s Warming junk? For what? For grown-ups who didn’t have a clue or who played smug little games with her or who kept kicking what little spirit she managed to coax out of herself? No. No! NO!

“What’s wrong?” Dinky, of course, managed to keep pace with her. She even ran sideways the better to talk to her.

“Oh, nothing’s wrong,” said Ruby.

And the surge became so powerful that she stopped speaking to grit her teeth hard; at least until said surge washed away again.

“I’m a good filly,” she said, layering on the sarcasm because Dinky would probably laugh it off if she didn’t. “I’m a good little pet to be moulded. Here’s a cookie. No allowance for you. Have a treat. Go to your room. Good girl. Bad girl. Well, who cares what they say anyway? I don’t have to waste my money to get another ‘good girl’ out of them.”

“Out of who?” said Dinky, stumbling. “Grown-ups?”

“Ruby!” shouted Piña far behind.

“Who do you think?” snapped Ruby, rounding on Dinky and marching all the harder because she was so done with her right now! “Do you even think at all? It’s always la-di-da this and hug that and oh I’m so happy perfect. Are you for real?”

Dinky gaped at her. She creased so much around the eyes that all that was missing were the tears.

“I do think,” she murmured. Then redness flared on her cheeks, the starting flag for war. “Anyway, what about you?”

“WHAT!?”

Ruby skidded to a halt. Dinky skidded to a halt. They both glared at each other. Even the air shimmered between their gazes through sheer radiation.

“What about me?” said Ruby.

“You…” But Dinky froze. Anger was probably foreign to her nature, or something. Ruby curled her lip.

“Yeah?” she said. “I dare you to say it.”

Unexpectedly, Dinky’s face smoothed down. She stood up straight.

“I don’t want to,” she murmured.

“Why?”

“Ammy said if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

Ruby growled and marched on. She ignored Dinky’s scampering behind her. She knew she was acting like a “little snot”. She’d had it pointed out to her too often before not to know it when it happened. And she wanted to be in the right, but she felt like she was in the wrong, which made it sting in her chest.

Clear of the crowds now, on a mere grassy street, she stumbled and panted for breath and braced her limbs. To her surprise, Dinky didn’t immediately catch up to her. When the filly came, in fact, she was treading cautiously, like an antelope approaching a wounded lion.

“Piña’s still calling you,” murmured Dinky. “And I am for real.”

Ruby grunted. Whatever had powered her this far seemed quite happy to leave her with the aches and choking lungs and knocks to show for it.

“I’m not la-di-da,” murmured Dinky. “And I do think.”

Whatev – Ruby chocked off the thought. It was dawning on her that Dinky rarely spoke this quietly. She was one of nature’s bellowers.

“She’ll catch us up,” said Ruby.

“I do think.”

“She’s not a baby. She just acts like one to get attention.”

“I do think. I’m not la-di-da. I do think.”

Mixed among the burning aches and things, the chill of winter crept around and about. She shivered. Everything seemed dimmer now.

“Like…” murmured Dinky. “Like… Ammy also said some ponies buy gifts to show off how much money they have.”

“Had,” said Ruby at once. “How much they had.”

“That’s what she said.”

She refused to look at Dinky, but instead focused on the darkening sky. The sun was setting. Behind it, the sun left the sky to blaze its last death-knell, only created by colours rather than screams. Yellows, greens, pinks, and oranges wailed and yelled across the dying sky.

“That’s pretty sad,” she said.

“I thought it was mean,” murmured Dinky. “What about ponies who don’t have that much money?”

“They’re not that dumb,” said Ruby flatly. “They can’t afford to throw stupid money away.”

She didn’t actually know, but it made sense to her. Who would, after all, when they couldn’t?

“I meant the rich ponies could give the poor ponies some money,” said Dinky.

“Why would they?” said Ruby, who in some respects was jaded, albeit cutting as a diamond.

And now she wasn’t marching or yelling around a maelstrom of urges and surges, she sensed the same rumbling quake again. There, clear as a tremor through her legs. The slight sense that she was on shifting ground. Rumbling. Almost waiting. Like a predator.

Blood rushed through her, not just because of the recent excursion. A tremble ran through her body. Then she slumped, her head lowering. Her lips screwed up as though determined not to let anything in.

“Look!” said Dinky with her old vim and vigour. She patted Ruby on the shoulder so hard she almost spun her around. “Here they come!”

“They?”

It was Berryshine. After Piña charged from her to tackle Dinky and laugh, the grown-up, the embarrassment, her Auntie Berry, whatever – she ambled over to the foals.

“Um,” said Berryshine, eyes darting about Ruby as though looking for some clue.

“Hello,” said Ruby, far more politely than she wanted to.

“Time to go home?” said Berryshine. “Couldn’t find anything, huh?”

“Er…” Ruby glanced across. Piña tried to tackle Dinky, but Dinky was as stiff and unmoveable as an ice sculpture.

Then, Piña scurried over to her big sister’s side, obedient little schoolfilly that she was.

“Y-yeah, yeah,” said Berryshine. “Uh… I’ve got nothing to do, so…”

“Another bad day again?” said Piña, cocking her head.

“What?” Berryshine looked down as though seeing her for the first time. “Uh huh. Yeah. Um. Time to go home, then?”

“And then you’re going out?” said Ruby.

This time, Berryshine’s sharp look went right through Ruby’s eyes and came out of the back of her head. “What?”

“For the birthday bash? Or is that not today?”

“What birthday bash?”

The rumble was right under Ruby’s mind. Her lips parted.

Then Berryshine grinned at her. “Oh, that one. That’s right. Yes. Not tonight. Pinkie’s scheduled it for later this month. Ah well. That’s that.” She winked. “Thanks for reminding me. Well, back to the depot, Friendship Train?”

Ruby felt the cold seeping through her and creeping over her. Suddenly, her heart beat so hard the rest of her body throbbed with it.

She took a step back. Berryshine’s grin faltered.

“I thought I’d…” Ruby glanced across; Dinky was still not moving. “Go see Dinky and Amethyst again.”

Without knowing why, she wanted very, very much to be a long way away from Berryshine. Piña shook her head frantically, but no sympathy rose up within Ruby’s chest. She backed away.

“Oh,” said Berryshine. “No, you’re sure –?”

“Sure I’m sure. See you later.” Ruby spun around at once. After a while, she heard Dinky traipsing after her, but she didn’t dare look back to check.

Because Ruby was afraid, and she knew it. She just didn’t know why.

Worst, worst, worst of all, she couldn’t really enjoy Dinky’s house anymore. Not that evening. No matter how much she tried.

However warm and bright the lounge – or whatever they called the room – was and had been and would be, the dark cloud hovered over everything. Sooner or later, she’d have to leave. And this time, the mere thought made her freeze.

Guiltily, her thoughts drifted back to Piña. Yes, sometimes she acted like a baby, but she also just didn’t get things. Ruby was supposed to be there to take some of the knocks of life for her.

Of course, Piña could have asked to come to Dinky’s too. Nothing was stopping her. Berryshine could handle herself, really. Except something was stopping her. Big Sis was Big Sis. Shirk her duty once or twice though she might, Piña would not follow Ruby everywhere. In some ways, she really was like a puppy.

And Berryshine…

Why couldn’t she be more like the other ponies? Like Applejack, who – OK, got into shouting matches with her little sister sometimes, but – who was far more likely to play games with her or do chores with her. At least, that’s what Apple Bloom said one Family Appreciation Day.

Or like Rarity, who if anything made shouting matches with her little sister into an official competitive sport. But then they bounced back and Sweetie Belle was gushing and singing her praises later as the “bestest best sis” ever.

Or like Dinky? In fact, did Ruby have to become a little sister, or something? No, Berryshine never exactly treated Piña the way, say, Amethyst treated Dinky…

Wait. Dinky?

Squirming at how long it had taken her, Ruby finally glanced up from the rug.

Dinky sat on the sofa. She had no toys, no books, no distracting snacks, not even a mug of hot cocoa to nurse. Eerily, she sat there, staring at the opposite wall. Occasionally, Ruby just made out the tiniest sway, as though Dinky was trying to rock herself without rocking herself at all.

Now outright shaking, Ruby glanced up at the table.

Amethyst was placed where she usually was. While there was a hardback open before her, she wasn’t even pretending to read it. Instead, her gaze was on Dinky. Hawklike. Calculating. Patient.

The grown mare’s gaze seized Ruby’s own and held it. No one had a gaze like that. Diamonds would crumble before a gaze like that.

Ruby swallowed. She was sure Dinky hadn’t said anything about what Ruby had said to her. There’d been no opportunity from entrance to kitchen to hearth, not with Ruby beside her the whole way. And Dinky hadn’t said anything anyway.

Amethyst’s gaze switched back to Dinky, akin to a dragon losing interest.

“Find anything out at the market today?” she said.

Dinky hummed, so softly that Ruby wasn’t sure she’d heard it.

“I noticed your bags were quite full. Had a lot of practice, huh?”

A pause. Then Dinky hummed again.

“Not quite what you were expecting, I take it?”

Hum.

Suspicious, the gaze darted back to Ruby, who immediately wanted to crawl backwards and scurry away. There wasn’t any apparent anger. Instead, the gaze had the sharp edge of an emotion much less prone to wasting time and energy. Not so much hawklike as crocodilian. Or even with the same sleek, predatory patience of Death itself.

Once more, the gaze lost interest and returned to Dinky. “How’s your gift-giving inquiry coming along?”

Hum.

“Not good,” said Ruby. This time, the gaze ignored her utterly. “I – We just don’t get it.”

“Uh huh.” Amethyst waited for the next move.

Had that been a test? “I don’t know why anyone would get gifts. I don’t know how we’d even find out.”

“Sadly, so it goes.”

Amethyst unfolded and stood up – Ruby tensed – and walked quite calmly around the table to the sofa. Not once did Dinky look up, not even when her big sister sat down next to her, almost leg to leg.

“But we really tried,” said Ruby, still braced. “We wanted to know.”

“So you put some effort into it.” The gaze softened slightly. That still left a stare like baked earth and as calculating as a fox’s, but there was a suggestion of a softer option around the edges of the eyes.

“And got nothing.” Ruby started to fidget.

“You don’t think you could put some more effort into it?”

“What’s the point?” murmured Dinky.

Surprised, Amethyst blinked and looked at her. “Well, you wanted to find out, didn’t you? I thought you’d find a clue at the marketplace.”

Dinky hummed again; her hardening jaw suggested this was all a lot less amusing now.

“I see,” said Amethyst quietly.

Ruby turned away. Whatever Amethyst was building up to, it was probably going to be sappy. Or not. It was hard to tell with Amethyst, but then Ruby herself couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Dinky like this, if she’d ever been like this at all.

“We tried so hard,” murmured Dinky. “We put in so much effort.”

Did we? Ruby first thought. The rest of her shushed it.

“Not always enough, I’m afraid,” said Amethyst. “Let me put it this way: however many ways there are of doing something right, there are far more ways of doing it wrong.”

To Ruby’s utter shock, Dinky sniffed. Her blood froze and stilled. Ruby kept staring fiercely into the flames, her skin burning with sympathy. When Dinky next spoke, the voice she mustered up was quavering.

“I’m –” Dinky sniffed again. “I’m not la-di-da… am I?”

And if Ruby had been shocked before, it was nothing to her horror now. Amethyst spoke, and her voice actually had emotion bubbling through.

“Dinky. What’s this all of a sudden?”

A sniff. A choked breath. Then the whine of an opening, half-stifled sob rose to the ceiling.

Ruby’s ears curled with embarrassment. She heard the muffled squeaks as though Dinky had buried her face into her sister’s chest, the gentle shushing, the slight pat of a hoof on shoulders, the creak and groan of the sofa as the weights shifted.

“‘M not… ‘m not la-di-da.”

“Of course not. Whoever said that doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

“I think.”

“I know you do.”

“And I think right, not wrong.”

No reply was forthcoming.

Ruby didn’t dare look around until the sniffling died away. When she did, she saw Dinky fumbling away from her sister, and the filly's eyes shone against the flaring lights of the hearth.

Amethyst tilted her sister’s chin up, and then slipped off and ambled over to the table. “Come over here. I wanna show you something.”

Eyes still shining, Dinky watched her sister and then glanced at Ruby for inspiration. Ruby shrugged. She didn’t know what else to do.

Both foals eased themselves onto their hooves – Dinky hopped down onto the carpet – and they shuffled over to the table after Amethyst, who now sat down.

As quietly as she dared, Ruby whispered, “Sorry.”

Dinky ignored her.

Amethyst winked at them and lit her horn. From up behind the table, the gemstone rose. It drifted forwards, over the table.

“Lights off,” she said.

The fire went whumph and died away. Whatever decorations shone, they were now extinguished. Yet alone in the darkness, Amethyst’s horn shimmered, itself overshadowed by the dull sheen of the hovering gemstone, perfectly cut, rotating gently.

Through the darkness, there was barely a suggestion of eyes and nose. Otherwise, Amethyst basically didn’t exist. The room didn’t. There was nothing around them.

Dinky sniffed, but it was a leftover sniff that cut itself off.

“Don’t forget this,” said Amethyst. “However many ways there are of doing something right, there are far more ways of doing it wrong. You understand?”

“Huh?” murmured Dinky.

Ruby looked to her for inspiration, but the darkness was nigh absolute; Dinky was just a shine in two unseen eyes.

“We’re in the dark,” said Amethyst, and a thread of delight weaved through her voice. “Always have been, always will be. Well, maybe always will be. You think you’re the first pony to ask ‘why’ this or ‘why’ that or ‘why’ anything?”

“I asked why we give presents on Hearth’s Warming,” murmured Dinky, but it was rising, and thus nearing her own voice again.

“Exactly. When you did that, you looked out onto a darkness that ponies from every time, from every place have looked out on. This is that darkness.”

“About Hearth’s Warming?” said Dinky. Ruby heard her own doubts in the voice.

“Obviously not all of it. This is just the start. You’re that much closer to asking bigger questions. Darker questions.”

Dinky hummed, though with interest or doubt it was hard to say.

“Maybe you’ll get your answer, and maybe you won’t. Smarter, duller ponies than you have tried and gotten nothing. You know why?”

Lips squeaked as they twisted in contemplation. “Because,” said Dinky, insight brightening her voice, “they didn’t have something I have? Something bright and precious and simple…”

Amethyst laughed. “No. Not a chance. They would have bested you five times over.”

“Oh.” Dinky’s voice dropped again.

“They got nothing,” added Amethyst, “because the universe is a stingy good-for-nothing tease that doesn’t give two bits for what they want.”

“What?” said Ruby. “But that’s –”

“And so it’s no shame,” said Amethyst warningly, and then she continued, “if you don’t always shed some light on it. You’re up against the dark, Dinky. This –” the tip of a hoof tapped the dull gemstone and then vanished again “– this is where you are.”

“Ooooooooh.” Dinky’s voice rose once more. She leaned forwards, and now the outline of her face was a bright line.

“This is still about Hearth’s Warming, right?” said Ruby, suspicious.

“This is about ponies,” said Amethyst sternly. “And what they do, and why they do it, and the world they live in. And why it’s the weird way it is. You’re asking why we give gifts now. Tomorrow, maybe you’ll ask why we give at all. The day after, maybe why we have anything to do with each other. And then, why any of us are here. And finally, what 'here' is.”

“So you know the…” What was the word? “The ultimate reason for why we give gifts, then?”

“Me? No. Probably no one does.”

“Oh.” Ruby sagged in her seat. For some reason, Dinky if anything leaned closer to the light.

“So this light.” Dinky reached up and tapped it. “It’s so small.”

“Compared with the universe, yes,” said Amethyst. “Sorry, I couldn’t find a smaller gemstone on such short notice.”

“Whoa.” Dinky tittered. “All that darkness to shine on.”

“Tell me: does that sound la-di-da to you?”

Dinky paused. “Um…”

“Or like the work of ponies who don’t think?”

“N… No?”

“No.” Then, in a blink, the dull sheen went out.

No one said anything for a while. Ruby wondered if they’d finished, but she couldn’t move. Hearth’s Warming can’t lead to all that, surely? Is she playing mind games with us again? Or is she really sappy under all that?

Yet captivated despite herself, she stayed where she was. Holding her breath. Waiting.

The gemstone flared. Red, blue, green, yellow, pink, orange, purple, white: each facet burst with colour and beamed across the room. Dinky laughed and fell back onto her chair, surprised. Kaleidoscopic colours wiped across Amethyst’s serene smile as her horn vibrated and the aura pulsed and the gemstone’s colours shifted and swirled and beat back the shadows of the room.

“So,” said Amethyst as though summing up a dry lecture, “the next time anyone tells you you’re a la-di-da no-thinker who gets it wrong, Dinky…”

Dinky’s eyes were wide. She scrunched up her entire body, legs tucked in, through sheer giggly delight.

“…you just remember who’s shedding that light in the dark. Who’s making it brighter. Got it?”

Ruby opened her mouth – almost defensively, she felt – to point out what mushy nonsense this was, but Dinky squealed and leaped up as though to grab a yellow light beam, shifting to red, right out of the air. At this transformation, Ruby hushed up at once.

When she glanced across the table, she saw Amethyst give her a smug grin. A grandmaster who’d just declared checkmate.

And Ruby was, in her heart, very, very alone.

She didn’t want to leave. This was all clearly a stunt to make Dinky feel better – After I made her feel worse in the first place – and she squirmed. This felt wrong. She shouldn’t be here. Yet she didn’t want to leave.

Instead, she silently watched the colours, and saw the last of the shadows fade away. The darkness was never completely gone, she noticed. Even ignoring that which was hiding behind the crevices, the room had more contrast between light and dark than actual illumination.

It was just that the darkness was now less intense, and she felt less abandoned than she’d felt in the pure black, where she was a spark that could’ve been in the middle of anywhere, wishing that and dreading whether the lights would turn on.

Anywhere at all. She'd imagined places. Some of them had not been nice places, either. Not there, in the primeval darkness.

But Dinky was laughing and leaping, and Amethyst was smiling. She wanted that. She just didn’t feel it.

For a moment in the darkness, the cloud hovering over her had loomed and threatened.

She didn’t want to leave. It wasn’t fair. She didn’t want to leave.

It didn’t last. Sooner or later, she had to leave. To go back to her own home.

Why the Lie was Told

Ruby knew what was wrong the instant she saw the lights were out. And in that instant, she wanted to turn around and walk back. Sheer habit, pity, and a childlike inability to veer off-course soon had her at the door.

It wasn’t locked. A bad sign. She forced herself not to whimper.

Instead, she strode right in. Look tough. That was it.

She found Piña standing outside the lounge, looking utterly lost. Guided by memory, Ruby walked into the dark room and flicked on the lights. Magic sparks fizzed and spat overhead. A gradual light filled the space.

The sofa had its back to them. Berryshine’s limbs slumped over the arm and footrest.

Ruby glanced back at Piña, who gave a start and shook her head fast.

“Um,” said Ruby. “Auntie?”

As though ready to bolt, Ruby stepped carefully around the sofa.

Berryshine had a bottle clasped between ergot and hoof at the end of her other forelimb, but otherwise didn’t seem aware of its existence. She had a book open on her lap, and her half-open eyes struggled to focus on it. On a book she’d been reading in the dark.

Tactfully, Ruby leaned down to check the cover. A Daring Do book. Berryshine kept saying they were her favourite books as a foal.

Berryshine hiccupped.

“Hullo, Ruby,” she said in a thick voice. “I didn’t even know it was dark.”

Ruby said nothing. At moments like this, she felt the world trying to turn upside-down, and she fought it.

“What’s wrong?” she said, for a moment feeling more adult than child.

“Ha!” Berryshine belched. When she next spoke, her voice was still strangely thick. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m a goooooood pony, aren’t I? Nothing’s wrong if I’m a gooooooood pony. I just like grape juice. Pinot Noir, they call me. I can tell.”

She hiccupped again.

Ruby sighed. Both Amethyst and “Carrot Top” had told her about this at various times. Grape juice, or just too many grapes, could send a pony funny in the head. For weeks, Berryshine had experimented with mixtures of berry juice, cider, and crushed red grapes, always going on about how it’d be loved by ponies all over. It was certainly loved by Berryshine. She’d made herself the head taster.

The trouble, of course, was that drinks-making was locked onto her flank. One bunch of grapes. One strawberry. A master of punch bowls, which should have been great when parties broke out all the time here.

Except for one problem: a party did not always mean a demand for punch. Sometimes they preferred simple juices. Sometimes milk and milkshakes. Sometimes coffee and tea. Which meant sometimes, most of the time, nearly all of the time in fact, Berryshine’s entire purpose in life depended on whether a bunch of ponies thought punch was in this season.

And when it wasn’t… well, Berryshine hardly needed an excuse…

The bottle thudded on the carpet. Eyes bloodshot, Berryshine yawned and half-melted off the chair before struggling to her hooves.

“I’m a good pony,” she said to the opposite wall. “Aren’t I, Ruby?”

Piña whimpered. The worst thing about being lost, Ruby knew, was the feeling that she shouldn’t be lost at all.

“Do you wanna see what I got you?” said Berryshine.

Yet Piña clearly didn’t understand. Ruby, on the other hoof, suddenly did. It was a trial to watch, but…

“Auntie Berry…” She gulped. “You… didn’t get the birthday bash commission. Did you?”

The shocked pause told her everything.

Nonetheless, Berryshine unfroze. She fumbled her way out of the lounge and down the hall. While Ruby followed her hoofsteps – being dragged along by unseen chains – her “Auntie”, her big dumb cousin, her lying, shameful so-called Auntie Berry flung open the cupboard and rummaged around inside.

“See? Just because I don’t have as much as usual, doesn’t mean I can’t deliver, right?” Berryshine kicked the door shut. “Look what I got! Isn’t it wonderful? I can give you stuff after all!”

It was a trial. No “but”. No good side. Nothing.

That’s all it was now.

Ruby would’ve sighed, except she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

“Clothes,” she said, “Auntie Berry?”

“Not just any clothes. I had these imported from Manehattan. They’re the in thing this season, not that we care about that sort of thing, but one must, eh? I’ve got two tickets to the Canterlot Garden Party, and I’m giving them both to you two. See, Piña? Yours is under Ruby’s here? You’ll look like princesses now! My little princesses!”

They must have cost a month’s worth of money. Each. At least. And to have them imported –

Forget it. This time, Ruby sighed anyway.

“Time for bed, Auntie Berry,” she said.

Berryshine did not dare move for several moments. Then a smile struggled on her muzzle.

“You won’t fall behind, see?” she said. “You’re still waiting for your cutie marks. You could be whatever you want, and I made it happen, see?”

“It’s not you,” said Ruby, more to herself than to Berryshine. “It’s just the stuff in that bottle talking. Carrot Top always says so.”

“Everyone will see you in these lovely dresses,” said Berryshine, but the defeat was draining what little strength her voice had. She was almost yawning the words.

Piña looked pleadingly at Ruby, who groaned.

“Come on, Auntie Berry. Time for bed.”

Yet when she reached forwards to guide Berryshine up, the grown-up stiffened like a stubborn mule.

“You’re not throwing me into the street!” yelped Berryshine to some invisible pony before her. Her eyes shot open. “You’re not!”

“No one’s throwing you into the street. That sort of thing doesn’t happen in Ponyville, Auntie Berry. But it’s time for bed. You’re tired.”

“Oh, why oh why oh why!? I’ve been so selfish!” Berryshine resisted no more, and as delicately as one carrying a china cupboard, Ruby led her up the stairs, nodding to Piña so she’d push from the rear. “I’m an idiot. What am I? Why are you even bothering? I’ve done nothing to deserve anything.”

“Yes, Auntie Berry. No, Auntie Berry.” Ruby didn’t care about the words. So long as Berryshine heard a reassuring tone, she’d cooperate.

They guided her through the doorway and eased her gently onto the bed. Ruby knew what her Auntie Berry was doing, and she wasn’t going to rise to it. She just wished her Auntie Berry didn’t do it. At all. Ever.

“There you go,” said Ruby. Trying to look relevant, Piña fluffed the pillow.

Both of them backed out. Knowing Berryshine, she’d be out like a light within minutes. While her gaze was fixed on the bed and on its slumped occupant, Ruby eased the door to a close with a click. Not once had her Auntie Berry made any effort to get up again. It was as if she were already asleep.

“We’ll let her rest,” whispered Ruby to Piña, “and play a game again, OK?”

Piña’s eyes gleamed in the darkness of the landing. “Is Sis going to end up in a box?” she whispered, horrified.

Ruby shuddered. “What?”

“Only Dinky said that Amethyst said that Carrot Top said that ponies who don’t earn their way end up in a box.”

“Nah,” said Ruby, far more confidently than she felt. “Carrot Top’s just a cynic. So’s Amethyst.”

“Huh?”

“They’re grumps, Piña. Auntie Berry won’t end up in a box. The other ponies wouldn’t let her. This is Equestria and that sort of thing just doesn’t happen here.” Feeling her cousin deserved some accuracy, she added, “Maybe in the big cities. But not in Ponyville. OK?”

“OK?”

“Right, then.” Ruby tiptoed downstairs: an unusual feat for an ungulate with one toe per foot, but a feat she was well used to, after so many nights like this one. “Game time. You’ll feel better after a nice game.” We’ll feel better. Right now, I feel like I’m gonna be sick.

“She loves us, you know,” said Piña, clinging to the fact like a lifebelt.

Leading the way, Ruby crept down the stairs and across the hall. “I know.”

“She isn’t selfish.”

“I know.”

“She just wants us to be good ponies.”

Good ponies. Using flashy dresses? I don’t think so. “Come on. I’ll be Daring Do this time.”

Piña cried out.

“SHH!” hissed Ruby. “Auntie Berry’s trying to sleep!”

“I want to be Daring Do.”

“All right! Fine! You’ll be Daring Do this time. And tomorrow, I think I need to talk to someone.” She pushed the lounge door open.

“Huh? Who? What for?”

“A grump. I’m sure I’m on the right track. About the inquiry, I mean. Let’s just play this game for now, OK, and try not to think about it.”

When she looked into herself, she felt nothing. This was back to normal. She could deal with normal. She didn't need to think.

She didn't want to think. Or to feel. She did not want anything.

Yet she could not stop thinking about those dresses. They were hers. They would never be hers. They were too good. They were rubbish, overpriced garbage. After bedtime, she spent most of the night lying awake on the mattress, trying not to think about dresses. Willing herself to sleep. Feeling nothing. Wanting nothing more, and especially ignoring the sobs coming from the next bedroom.

The Ultimate Reason

Dawn crept through the window and blazed a square off the opposite side of her room. Ruby thought she heard hoofsteps, and then only silence.

The instant she awoke, last night hit her all at once. She refused to take any more.

Ruby threw herself out of bed. She marched out of the room and checked Berryshine’s. Empty. So she’d gone out.

Ruby herself had no idea what she was doing. All she knew was she suddenly couldn’t stand living like this. Which was odd, because this was hardly the first time she’d had a night like last night’s. In fact, she’d planned to get up, have breakfast, go out, try again to find something nice for Hearth’s Warming – except she didn’t want to!

She couldn’t.

She didn’t know why she should.

She had this horrible sense that something too big for words – even for thoughts – was pushing her brain up from the inside. Some sense that the world hadn’t merely turned upside-down again, but was now trying to turn itself inside-out.

Why? The word kept rattling around in her head, banging against her skull in the manner of an enraged animal rattling the bars. Why? Why? Why?

So she skipped breakfast. Ignoring Piña’s startled cry, she burst through the front door and followed the only instinct that was making any sense to her.

A while later, Piña scurried after her. “Ruby, where are you going? You haven’t eaten Big Sis’s toast! She left some!”

“I’m figuring out Dinky’s silly question,” Ruby snapped. “Don’t try and stop me.”

“What? Why? Ruby! You’re walking too fast! I can’t walk that fast!”

Out of Ponyville’s maze of cottages and onto the threshold of the countryside, she came up to the vast corrugated fields of snow. All that was left of Golden Harvest’s farmland was a barren whiteness, splashed with mud here and there, all leaving the towering, teetering timber domicile itself stranded amid a sea of cold.

Dinky was already there, standing at the edge overlooking all. She turned at their approach.

“I thought you might show up,” she said, smiling and falling effortlessly into step alongside them. “We had the same idea, didn’t we?”

“What idea?” said Piña behind them. “Why won’t you tell me?”

Never looking away from Golden Harvest’s house as she fought against the brown and white slush, Ruby snorted. “Dinky said that Amethyst said that Carrot Top said something about why we give gifts.”

“So?”

“What do you mean ‘so’?” said Dinky, almost laughing. “Aren’t you excited? We’re on a quest now! We’re exploring! We’re finding this out! We're brightening up the world!”

“The real reason why anyone gives gifts,” said Ruby. “For real.”

“The ultimate reason!” Dinky could hardly contain her glee.

“What’s 'ultimate' mean?” said Piña.

“It means you won’t get a better reason,” said Ruby. “Because it’s the biggest reason of all.”

“Huh? Why?”

Ruby growled; fighting through some of the slush was like wading through quicksand. “Why? Because it’s the biggest reason of all! You can’t get much bigger than ‘why’.”

“Why?”

Viciously, Ruby kicked the ground away and stormed onwards. She could feel the enormous weight of the idea, as firm as the world she was striding on. Vast as a planet, just as indescribably strange, but definitely there.

“You know,” she said.

“I don’t!”

“You know, it’s like… it’s like… why bother giving gifts? Why anything? What’s it for? You don’t want to know that?”

“Er…” Dinky coughed and jumped out of the drifts. “That’s going a bit far. I was just curious.”

Ruby was burning, not even feeling the snow anymore. She knew she was gabbling. It seemed the only way to capture the idea.

“What’s the biggest reason of all, then?” she snapped. “Do you have to do it? What are you going to do? Why are you going to do it?”

“Er… um…” Dinky’s voice strained with discomfort.

“Can you change it, then? Can you do something else?”

“Well, yeah, you could not get a present, but –”

“But then you can’t change it, because you’re going to do that, instead. Nothing changes, but then… then something must change, or what’s the point?”

“Are you OK, Ruby?” said Dinky, not even pretending anymore.

“She’s been acting weird the whole morning,” said Piña before yelping at a squelch of mud.

Finally, Ruby breached the perimeter and leaped up the rickety wooden steps of the back entrance. She threw the door open and strode in, ignoring Dinky’s shouts and Piña’s wails behind her.

In the timber box of a room beyond, a filly stood with a broom in her hooves. Ruby and she stopped and stared at each other. Whatever had propelled Ruby through the fields hadn’t prepared her for a filly, and indoors the same warming energy now warmed her to an uncomfortable degree.

Ruby fidgeted. It was “No Identity”, Golden Harvest's younger sister. She could handle other ponies' younger sisters, but she’d never got a good idea of what to do around this one.

“No Identity? Where’s Carrot Top?” said Ruby.

“My name’s Odd Job,” said “No Identity” in a voice resigned to say this forever. Transferring the broom between her hooves, she nodded to the next door. “She’s in there.”

“OK.” Ruby went straight for it.

“No, hold on! She’s got a guest!”

Ruby burst in…

…on Golden Harvest, sitting up to a crate-for-a-table, her laughter swiftly cut off at this intrusion. Unusually, she was lounging on her back, propped up by her elbow, while her other forelimb reached across for a mug. This was not a position to her advantage; farmers generally sat tight during the winter months, having nothing to do, and in Golden Harvest’s case there was a noticeable pudginess around her belly, suggestive of one too many indulgent evenings.

Opposite sat Berryshine. Her laughter settled to a snorting chortle on her own time, intrusion or no intrusion. Contrasting with her host, she sat up and leaned forwards, sucking through a bendy straw connected to her own slim novelty cup, itself on the crate-for-a-table.

Unlike last night, her eyes were alive. Even her smile focused more sharply, until she looked like a crescent moon with a face behind it.

Ruby gaped. They both looked up at her.

She said, “What…?”

“Hiya, Ruby!” Berryshine waved and beamed at her, showing more of her brilliant teeth. “What a nice surprise, eh?”

Golden Harvest sat up at once, trying to hide her pudginess behind her forelimbs.

On the crate-for-a-table was the Daring Do board game. Whoever was playing Caballeron was halfway across the board, whereas Daring Do’s piece was stuck at the beginning – Are you mad? Who cares? Why have they got the game at all!?

“What…?” Ruby said. Behind her, clattering hooves told her Dinky and Piña had caught up at last.

Following her gaze, Berryshine rubbed her chest casually. “Yes. I used to play this all the time with dear old Goldie. Didn’t we play this all the time, Goldie?”

“Uh, yes, yes we did.” Golden Harvest rubbed her forehead, not so casually. “I mean, not for years, obviously, but Berry just wanted, you know, for old times’ sake, just this once, I was going to give her one game, that’s all… um…”

Ruby hardly ever saw so much sweat glisten on one pony.

“Ha!” said Berryshine, a diabolical glint in her eye now tainting her sharp smile. “And just like old times, I’m knocking the stuffing out of her! Your Auntie Berry isn’t called the Daring Do champion for nothing!”

Ruby continued staring for a few more seconds before she finally caught up with herself. She turned to Golden Harvest at once, falling back on her original plan, come what may.

“Carrot Top…” she began.

“My name’s Golden Harvest,” said “Carrot Top” in a voice also resigned to say this forever. “Yes? Oh my, you look a bit red around the face. And you’re covered in mud. What’s wrong?”

Ruby took a deep breath. “Dinky said that Amethyst said that you said that… that ponies who don’t earn their way end up in a box.”

“Did I?” said Golden Harvest, looking to Berryshine for support and finding only confusion. “I, uh, don’t know what you mean…”

“And something about why we give gifts. This for that.”

“Tit for tat,” whispered Dinky.

“Tit for tat, yeah,” corrected Ruby at once.

Golden Harvest looked from one to the other in the search for some glimmer of understanding. “Look, what is all this about?”

“Why do you give gifts on Hearth’s Warming!?” bellowed Piña.

“What?”

“WHY DO YOU GIVE GIFTS ON –!?”

“I heard you! I’m not deaf!” Again, Golden Harvest looked at Berryshine, seeking support and getting confusion. “Me? Well, you have to, right? It’s Hearth’s Warming. Everyone generally expects it.”

“What is this in aid of?” said Berryshine, pushing her cup away and swivelling on her seat to face them.

Ruby now had too many ponies to keep track of; Piña was so out-of-breath that she kept gasping as though emerging from water, Dinky stepped forwards to wave for attention, and both adults kept fidgeting where they sat.

“What?” Ruby said. “You just do it?”

“Me?” Golden Harvest shrugged. “Well, yes. I’d get funny looks if I didn’t, wouldn’t I?”

No. I’m not putting up with this. She glared at Berryshine. “So what you’re saying is,” she said coldly, “is that you give presents because the other ponies will punish you if you don’t?”

“Ruby, what are you going on about?” said Berryshine, struggling to wipe the whole thing clean with a smile again.

“So you have to earn presents? So’s not to get punished? That’s it?”

Golden Harvest rounded on her friend. “Berry, what have you been feeding these two?”

“What do you mean, what have I –!?” Berryshine spluttered. “She just said you were telling Dinky –”

“Telling Ammy,” said Dinky helpfully.

“Right. Telling Ammy, telling Dinky –”

“No, no. You say ‘Telling Amethyst’. I get to call her Ammy, not you.”

“Right. Telling Amethyst, telling Dinky all this stuff about boxes and earning your way.”

“Auntie Berry isn’t gonna end up in a box!” wailed Ruby.

She clamped shut at once. Despite those words wailing out of her own mouth, she’d had no idea where they’d come from. A seismic weight shifted around her private nightmare. Something had opened up inside her chest, and she didn’t like it.

Ruby watched the adults squirm where they sat. They were hopeless, the pair of them. It had been a simple question, and they’d gone and muddled it up. She looked to the other two, and saw both Dinky and Piña staring at the adults like lasers. Their mud-splattered coats gave the impression of two cannons about to explode. Merely standing near them, she felt the air thick and hot as flamethrowers.

Within her own head, the world was frozen: not quite upside-down, not quite inside-out. A mere word one way or the other could tip the lot.

Golden Harvest licked her lips. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” she said – or rather rehearsed from some inner script. “I told Amethyst about that box thing when she was round here one night. All I said was that they’re a little less forgiving in the big cities. That’s all I said. It was just talk. We had to pass a long winter evening, you know.”

The world quaked, but remained teetering, not yet tipped.

“It’s not like that here in Ponyville,” she continued. “No one’s going to end up in a box just because times have been a bit harsh. There,” she went on, letting out a breath of relief. “Is that all you were worried about?”

“I wasn’t worried.” Ruby shook with the lie. Within her own head, the world finally started to fall over, in the deceptively slow and floaty way of a glacier breaking free.

“I said nothing about gifts. It’s not like you earn gifts, or anything. It’s just one of those things you do.” Grumbling under her breath, Golden Harvest added, “Beats me why.”

Berryshine thumped the table. “Ha! Don’t be so stingy, Goldie! You always were a tight one!”

“Will you stop calling me ‘Goldie’? I’m not stingy. When you’re running your own farm, you tell me whether or not it’s stingy to keep to your budget, watch the harvest day and night, make sure everything’s on schedule –”

Berryshine grabbed her cup and raised it high, almost to the ceiling. “To Goldie’s work ethic! Ha! But not to her Hearth’s Warming spirit!”

“Now, hold on. That’s going a bit far…”

They soon devolved into an argument, which on one side was laughing and half-garbled with the drink, and on the other side was firm and level with barely suppressed impatience.

Ruby looked back. Both fillies shrugged at her. This was grown-up stuff, their shrugs said. Grown-ups will be grown-ups.

After some time spent like this, chairs scraped back. Ruby saw Berryshine hop down and skip towards her, and self-preservation made her jump away in turn. Yet it was no good; strong limbs got her tight within the near-strangling embrace of the sentimental.

“Oh, you silly little thing!” Berryshine somehow found a way to squeeze tighter. Miraculously, no bones broke.

“Auntiiiiiiiiieeeee!”

“Me in a box?”

“Let me gooooo!” A pop later, she shot out like a cork and landed hard on her flank.

“I just don’t like waste,” said Golden Harvest to no one in particular. “You know how much wrapping paper costs, for something that gets thrown away anyway? And before you say anything, it’s not laziness. I work on a farm, for crying out loud. You try mucking in the mud for a living. See how twitchy about money you get.”

“Come on,” said Berryshine. “Let’s take you home, eh? We can start today all over again. What say you to that?”

“Why?” said Ruby suspiciously.

“Goldie, we’ll be back later. Hold the game for me, will you? Still gotta beat your haunches when I get back, you know.”

“Um,” said Dinky, stepping forwards.

“Sure, you can come,” said Berryshine with a shrug and a smile. “Haven’t got much in, mind, but you pig out on what you want, you little scallywag. Come on now.”

Still not remotely sure what was going on, Ruby made no effort to resist. Instead, she was nudged out the door – past Odd Job, who straightened up and pretended she hadn’t pressed her ear against the frame the whole time – and out of the box-like room to the bright and endless wastes beyond. Only the tramping of hooves on wood reminded her that she wasn’t alone against all this.

She was nudged back through the mud and the snow, this time not warm with emotion, but numb with doubt.

A Gift of Many Colours

From the outside, Berryshine’s cottage looked no worse than anyone else’s. Usual thatched roof, usual humble country design, usual little hanging flowerpots – though admittedly not as many as there were on other houses.

Berryshine laughed again and skipped over to the front door, soon unlocking it after one or two fumbles. Dinky and Piña scurried in after her, but Ruby felt no pressing need to indulge in such giddiness. If anything, she crept in, still not sure about… well, anything.

Inside, it was a very different world. The wallpaper was peeling off. Damp stained the corners. They had barely any carpet, giving way instead to woodwork and a nasty wet timber smell that clumped like mud on the nose.

Ruby turned back as though to leave, back into the white snow and the open brightness outside.

Then Berryshine beat her to it; she slammed the door shut as though her life depended on such prompt action.

She looked at Ruby. And smiled.

“That’s better,” Berryshine said. Forcing Ruby to sidestep hurriedly out of her way, she went back up the hall to the kitchen. “Now, who wants a nice drink?”

The rumbling, shifting world gave a threatening jolt inside Ruby’s mind. In an effort to keep things steady, she stared down the corridor, barely hearing the excited compliments and gushing words of the other two foals.

Ruby’s mind was a blank.

Berryshine knew her drinks, though. Soon, Ruby heard the sloshing and trickling of poured beverages. She took a step towards the kitchen door, still slightly ajar.

They used to make drinks together, the two of them. Young Ruby had watched in awe as they’d added crushed berries to colourful bowls of punch, or shaken things, or blended things, or kept a close eye on measuring jugs while pouring things out.

They used to take them to everything. Birthdays. Little get-togethers. Cute-ceañeras. All the foals in Ruby’s class used to squeal and cheer whenever Berryshine and she, Ruby, walked into a kitchen, bearing bowls after bowls of punch…

Now…?

Ruby looked at the splinters on the banisters. At the damp stain on the ceiling. She walked to the lounge entrance, and despite the clean carpet she still noticed the frayed edges.

From the kitchen, Dinky was going on loudly about something-or-other. Cheerfully, Piña replied in kind. Well, that was fine. Ruby wanted them out of the way for a bit.

And then she heard a snatch of their talk. They were going on about gifts, and reasons, and trying to find out this and that.

Ruby shuffled into the lounge. Strange, that, she thought in a distant, detached way. The rest of the house is mucky, but she always cleans the carpet in here. It’s the one room we all use. Except for the kitchen.

Her workroom, she reminded herself.

Gifts… reasons… trying to find out… What?

She threw herself onto the sofa. Perhaps, while she had a moment, she could think about that gifts thing. Whether she’d wanted it to or not, the question had stuck to her mind.

“And I reckon,” boomed Dinky from the kitchen, “we’ll shed some light on it.”

Berryshine made an appropriately intrigued response, raising the tone of her voice in that special, humouring way of adults.

Alone on the sofa, Ruby looked around. She wasn’t going to stare at the opposite wall all this time, and now she did so, she saw the bookcase tucked out of the way in the corner. Her mind hummed with interest.

So many Daring Do books. And so many other adventure series. No, she realized: so many travelling series. They had titles like The Lost Land of the Dragon King, or Escape to the City, or A Paradise in Manehattan. Stuck like eyesores among them were the occasional bulky books about home repair and practical lifesaving.

Ruby had considered getting another book as a gift, but then Berryshine could get one of her own so easily. She bought them all the time.

Some of the books were children’s books. Faded with use and with dust. Yet she never got rid of them.

Hoofsteps came thundering down the hall. Idly, Ruby turned her head, trying to pin down something lurking in her mind – something she was sure would make it all make sense – and caught the bright sunlight blazing through the window.

To her surprise, she saw Berryshine go over to them hurriedly, thundering along. She drew the one curtain across.

“If we’re starting the morning again,” said Berryshine as she shut the other, “then we don’t want any sunlight just yet, now do we?”

Ruby looked around, but was plunged into darkness again anyway. Only a thin glow escaped the edges and the occasional holes of the curtains. She could just make out Berryshine, a moving shape, a face obviously with mane and eyes and cheeks and muzzle, but not much more detail than that.

“The other two are in the kitchen: busy,” whispered Berryshine. For a moment, her cheeks stretched in a smile. She held up something. “I found this under the stairs. Remember this? We shoved it onto the Yew Tree one year.”

“What is it?” whispered Ruby.

“It’s still got a bit of magic inside.”

A switch clicked.

Her old decorative bulb shyly eased them from darkness to light. Blue splodges glowed on all the walls, rotating gently. Ruby watched, mesmerized. Easing across, one of the splodges of glowing blue crawled over Berryshine’s wide smile.

“Remember we used to put this right on top of the Yew Tree?” she said, extending her hoof – Ruby winced as one of the glowing blues blinded her for a moment. “You had to stand on my head to get up that high, ‘cause I lost the stepladder in a ditch.”

Old joys – old friends – walked slowly into Ruby’s mind, the surprise reveal at the end of a celebration. Despite herself, she smiled.

“I thought we lost this one,” said Ruby.

“So did I. I thought you might like it. Amethyst bought me that cheap thing after she lost a bet, the tightwad. Grim Reaper, we used to call her before I beat her at her own game. I was a devil with cards back then: just me and Goldie and the Grim Reaper. Goldie couldn’t bluff for toffee, and the so-called Grim Reaper got too cocky near the end and fell right into my trap. Ah, good times.”

Ruby reached out slowly, carefully, uncertainly. These days, she knew this kind of light-based magic was nothing but copper wire and a bit of simple trickery: nothing like Amethyst’s kaleidoscopic gemstone. For one thing, there was only one colour. Nothing else came out.

Her smile faltered. That Berryshine could only get one colour, and Amethyst all the colours of the rainbow…

She turned the thing over and over. Wasn’t there a way to put more colours inside the bulb? She could fiddle with the wiring, or find a unicorn to cast a stronger spell. There had to be more than one colour. They couldn’t just settle for blue.

When she looked up, the blueness wiped across Berryshine’s face, which was also wiped of its smile.

Berryshine coughed. “Anyway,” she said with false cheeriness, “how’s your question thing going? Dinky said you’d got loads of answers, but not the real one you wanted. What was it? The ‘ultimate’ one.”

After all, there was more than one colour. We can’t just settle for one. Amethyst wouldn’t –

Inside Ruby’s head, a light flicked on.

“There’s more than one,” she murmured.

“Is there?” said Berryshine, but all hope was draining out of her voice. “Dinky was saying that, but she didn’t seem to like it very much.”

Ruby looked up sharply. Trust Dinky to get there first! “She said there’s more than one answer?”

“Yeah. Too many, she said. No idea what the real answer was.”

Ruby gave a burst of laughter, and then clammed up at the look this earned her.

“What?” said Berryshine.

“Oh, um.” Ruby stared at the bulb; it was safer, she felt. “Nothing. Just… thinking.”

While the blue blaze shifted and the splodges turned slowly along the walls, Berryshine was silent. Ruby wanted to melt deeper into the sofa, hide within the soft warmth, and sink away from the surface completely.

Strong limbs seized her around the head. Walled in by belly and limbs and the underside of the neck, she was caught within a cramped world of pure burning blue. Close to her ear, she heard Berryshine’s gasps as her precious Auntie Berry breathed.

“We’re all right,” breathed Berryshine, as though reciting a mantra, “so long as we’re in here. You, me, Piña: We’re all safe and sound.”

“Auntie! You’re choking me!”

Yet this time, Berryshine didn’t let go. Heat and embarrassment blazed along with the blueness. In the end, Ruby stopped struggling against what she realized was a hug.

Maybe there were lots of answers. Maybe there was no ultimate reason to give a gift. But maybe, just maybe… Ruby swallowed… there was nothing she could give anyway.

That hug was far too tight. What was going to make that any better?

What was she going to do? Open her mouth to say it was going to be all right anyway, they didn’t do that sort of thing in Ponyville, everyone’s safe and sound? She didn’t think it’d make a difference. Berryshine had hugged that tightly before. Being Berryshine, she’d probably do it again.

Now Ruby’s insides trembled like crazy. She didn’t believe it herself. Not really. It’d be lying to say so.

So what was she supposed to give as a present? A pony couldn’t wrap up an “all right” or a “feel better” and hand it over. Anyway, she wasn’t supposed to. She was a foal. She knew well enough foals in her class gave… stuff to their grown-ups. Thank-you cards. Chocolates. Little foalish things no one really thought were real gifts. That was why she’d turned her nose up at them.

She looked at the blue again. She thought of rainbows.

Maybe… Maybe there are different ways of giving…? I mean, I get different presents from different ponies.

Finally, Berryshine broke free. As quiet as possible, Ruby sucked in a full breath.

Berryshine disappeared behind the sofa for a moment, and then re-emerged with a glass tight between ergot and hoof.

“I put it down there earlier. I’m awful in the mornings,” she muttered, and she downed the lot.

Ruby grimaced and drew back.

Smacking her lips, Berryshine continued with a half-hearted shrug, “Well, I’m awful anyway, but I’m really awful in the mornings.”

“Me too,” said Ruby. “I hate getting up early.”

“Tell me about it.”

From the kitchen, Dinky’s endless chatter rose excitedly.

“Bet Dinky loves getting up early,” Ruby said.

“What, jumping out of bed through sheer excitement? Ha. Oh well, it takes all sorts.”

Feeling she had to meet her Auntie Berry halfway, Ruby said, “Did Carrot Top or Amethyst ever used to jump out of bed?”

“No idea. Goldie hated mornings, I know that, but she had to get up for working the fields anyway, the poor thing. As for Amethyst… hard to tell. Funny, really. I never asked. Doesn’t seem like the type to me, to be honest. I always saw her as more of a late-night scribbler.”

Berryshine tried to down her already-downed drink again, throwing back an empty glass and flailing her tongue for the slightest drop.

Maybe she’s not… bad. Ruby watched the tongue and saw Berryshine’s face clench with frustration. Maybe she’s just… different. Maybe it’s like colours, and there’s no one right colour, or something. Maybe… Maybe she’s… Maybe she just happens to be blue, and Carrot Top’s orange, and Amethyst is… ha! The Grim Reaper is black. Black as the night. Dinky would love that.

Different colours. Like different gifts. Different ways of giving gifts. Or different reasons? I don’t know.

She sighed. She was sure she’d got it then.

Berryshine groaned and dropped the glass. Below, there was a faint thump. Not that she even looked down; Berryshine’s grimace of horror stared up at the opposite wall, as though she were hearing a commanding voice no one else could. A stern commanding voice. Her face twisted up, her ears fell before the intangible gales, and her head even started to sag.

“I need a drink,” she moaned.

Ruby swallowed. Despite the blue splodges, the room seemed a lot darker.

“There’s plenty in the kitchen,” Ruby said, hoping to get through to her.

Berryshine’s voice became panicky. “I can’t go out yet! I need a drink in the morning! You know I’m awful in the mornings!”

The low background murmur of foal voices died away. They must have heard her from the kitchen.

Ruby turned away. She tried to block the voice out.

“If I don’t get a drink… I might as well starve right now! I don’t stand a chance! What am I? Just this little worm in the grass! I can’t face them – No, I won’t face them without a drink!”

Sighing, Ruby turned the bulb off. Hovering orange glares of afterimage faded like ghosts.

So…?

So what now?

I’m not getting her a present. So what if I could do it because of all that tit-for-tat stuff, or because it’d make her act better, or because I “have to”? I don’t care. I don’t care anymore. I don’t care at all. She’s too different. She’s not blue. She’s that sickly green no one wants to look at.

“Auntie Berry?” said Ruby, not looking at her vague outline in the dark. “What does it mean, ‘it takes all sorts’?”

A desperate gasp. A silence.

“I don’t know,” said Berryshine, defeated. “Why?”

Ruby’s insides settled at last. All flat. All dull. All still as a giant, dead desert, with not a blade of grass or living thing in sight.

Her thoughts ran down. Her inner light darkened. She’d run out.

“Just wondering,” Ruby said. She sniffed, as though hoping the trail hadn’t gone cold. Deep within, she’d really counted on this one. She thought she’d had it.

I’m not getting her a present. Ruby curled up. She didn’t want anything to do with anything anymore. Not now. Not ever. Not if she had a million years.

A weak and lonely laugh escaped Berryshine’s lips. “So, um… Good morning, ha. And, um… any thoughts what you’re gonna get for Hearth’s Warming?”

“Why?”

“Oh, don’t start that ‘why do we buy presents’ stuff again. Just go ahead and do it. Any thoughts? I could help, if you want.”

“Um…”

“Well, what about me? Got any idea what to get me? Just say the word, and I’ll write a list.”

Ruby pouted. Might as well.

“Could get you a nice cider,” she mumbled.

A pause, but clearly an uncomfortable one, because it was broken by: “You know I like to do stuff other than drink cider and punch and juice, right? Don’t you?”

“Um…”

“Oh really, stop saying ‘um’. Come on. You’ve got a good brain, haven’t you? I mean, look at all that ‘why do we get gifts’ stuff you and Dinky went on about.”

Ruby glanced across to the vague suggestion of her Auntie Berry. Suspicious. Yet… strangely hopeful.

“You think I’m smart?” she mumbled, a little more clearly.

“Absolutely.” There was no hesitation.

Ruby cast about. “Smart like Amethyst?”

“Sure.”

She wriggled. A chill had escaped down her spine, and in that moment some of the old life came back to her. Hesitantly at first, then more keenly, she chewed and pulled the thoughts back up.

“Well…” she said.

What was it Amethyst had gone on about? You start off asking why we give gifts on Hearth’s Warming… and then you go and ask why you give gifts at all… So then… So then you ask what a gift actually is? I don’t know, but it sounds right, I guess.

A crash of a door, a thunder of hooves, a squeal, and someone rushed into the room and tackled Berryshine so that she fell and vanished into darkness for a moment.

“Piña!” yelled Ruby, standing up on the sofa. “I was talking to Auntie Berry!”

“You’ve had lots of time to talk!” said Piña. “I want time to tackle!”

“You see?” said Berryshine, all warmth again. “This is what I mean. It takes all sorts, like this little beggar. Get off me, Piña. You’re heavier than you used to be.”

Ruby watched their outlines scrabble and wrestle, and heard them laugh and squeal. Gradually, her mind slipped away again. Her legs itched to jump in, but the rest of her waited.

So… if you’re supposed to ask “what is a gift?” then how do you tell? There must be lots of different types, for lots of different ponies… Um…

More thundering hooves, and another foal rushed into the room. “Hey, don’t leave me out!”

“Sorry, Dinky,” said Piña. “Anyway, I beat you to it. Anyway, only family’s allowed to tackle. Anyway –”

“Oh, let her tackle if she wants,” said Berryshine from the floor. “She’s honorary family. Yeah! She can be the mad uncle.”

“I’ll uncle you!” Dinky leaped onto the scrum, and more squeals and laughs broke out. “Whee! It’s fun climbing in the dark!”

“Ow!” said Piña. “That was my ear!”

“All right, now you climb me. It’s only fair.”

“Big Sis says I’m heavier than I used to be.”

“Well, I’m stronger than I used to be. Top that!”

“OK, then!”

“Right!”

While they shuffled and struggled on the carpet, Ruby’s front half jumped up to the arm of the sofa. Not that there was much to watch over. She leaned forwards. So much simpler, if she only jumped on top of them and joined in.

She screwed up her face. No. Too simple. There had to be more than that.

But maybe that was the point. It started with simple things. Included simple things. Or simple things were… were really very complicated. Like love. Didn’t they say love was hard to understand, even though lots of ponies had tried to? After all, if it was big, then it’d take a lot of light to get through all that darkness.

Berryshine yelped and laughed; someone had come a bit too close to a sensitive spot. Just like she, Ruby, used to.

Lost somewhere on the sofa was the bulb. Standing like this, she could almost imagine the arm of the sofa was Berryshine’s head, and all they had to do was stretch and get the light on the top of the tree.

She fidgeted. She felt a surge, but this time rising – joyful – giggling and squealing rather than yelling and snarling.

Why couldn’t this be a gift? It’s like a gift. You can give time and love and friendship and chances and futures to other ponies, couldn’t you?

No, that’s not a real gift. Seriously, it’s got to be something you buy and wrap up. They look at you funny if you don’t. It’s not the right way.

Frustration overtook the joy. Her surge burned, exactly like last time –

“By the way!” cried out Berryshine in a stupidly cheerful voice. “Morning, Dinky!”

“Morning? You call this morning?” Dinky briefly appeared as an outline leaping up and over. “Gotcha! Ammy would call you a lazybones ne’er-do-well! ‘You call this morning?’ she’d say, and then –”

The scuffling stopped. All three outlines were still.

After a while, Piña said, “Wh-what’s wrong? Big Sis?”

Berryshine took a deep, despairing, deadening breath.

“Big Sis?” Piña’s outline backed off hurriedly. She whimpered.

Curious, Dinky cocked her head. Berryshine just sat there, doing nothing. Under cover of darkness and her own hunched shoulders, they couldn’t even tell where she was looking.

“What am I doing?” Berryshine breathed.

Thinking fast, Ruby hopped off the sofa a moment before her Auntie Berry rose up. Behind the foal, the thump of the adult body hitting the fabric was heavy, and the sofa creaked beneath the weight.

Ruby’s surge dimmed again. Frustration hardened, and then all crumbled away. From within, leftover joys disappeared back into her inner world.

She looked at the curtains. It was getting stuffy in here. She couldn’t smell anything now, and she made a step towards the window. By her little leg, the emptied glass of Berryshine’s latest drink bounced off and rolled away. Just in time, she caught its shine wiping across as it rolled.

A tiny thump: the bulb rolled after it. Berryshine must have just pushed the thing off the seat.

Ruby began to levitate that bulb… and then dropped it again. Her surge had a mind of its own, and it was whispering.

Don’t bother. The bulb’s not the real gift. It’s just a piece of plastic and some copper.

She didn’t want the bulb. Until now, she’d forgotten all about the foal’s toy, which was all it was. Some stupid foal’s toy. Easily impressed baby.

But the surge of joy enveloped her, wrapped around her, and coddled her.

But it was babyish.

But… But…

Berryshine stirred on her seat; Ruby heard the sofa creaking. “She called me a lazybones?”

“It was only a joke,” said Dinky loyally.

Berryshine groaned. Ruby creased up her face against the pain.

“A joke!” Berryshine moaned. “No, it’s true. I am. A frightened, overgrown child. Why? I didn’t ask to be this way. I shouldn’t be this way. Of all the pathetic, time-wasting –”

Ruby’s mouth trembled. Hastily, she sniffed. Nothing could help her: she couldn’t stop it trembling.

Then, unexpectedly, Berryshine groaned and leaned forwards. Warm hooves closed around Ruby, much more gently this time. Without a word of protest, she rose up and let the forelimbs wrap around her and carry her up to the sofa. A soft, breathing belly met her. On the arm, Piña put her front hooves to watch over them. Her eyes were shiny.

Ruby clenched her jaw. Whatever happened, she couldn’t break now.

“You know we’re stuck with each other,” said Berryshine miserably. “Unless I do something really stupid and get dragged away. Which I probably will, knowing my ruddy luck.”

“You won’t, though,” said Ruby sharply. Sudden pain shot through her throat, just as much as the anger did.

“No, I won’t. I’m sorry.”

“Carrot Top said the other ponies wouldn’t let you.” Ruby shifted. Until now, she hadn’t realized how long she’d gone without sitting in Berryshine’s lap.

“They’ll try,” said Berryshine, as though not keen on the idea.

“But –”

“Look, Ruby… and you too, Piña. If I’ve got nothing else to give you, I’ll give you this: you can’t choose what cards you’re dealt.”

Against the welling inside her chest, Ruby frowned. “What have cards got to do with –?”

“They’re not real cards. It’s a metaphor. Although it does work with real cards, but… You get what I’m trying to say?”

Piña shook her head, her gaze spell-bound. For once, Ruby was of one mind with her cousin.

Berryshine’s sigh caressed Ruby’s mane, even tickling her horn. “Anyway: you can’t choose what cards you’re dealt. What matters is how you play what you’ve got.”

She gave Ruby a tender nudge.

“You remember that for me?”

“Yes,” said Piña at once.

A new light shone within Ruby’s mind. She nodded once.

Berryshine gave her a moment to wipe her eyes before tapping her. It was a signal to hop off, and Ruby had to be tapped twice before she did so. The room was so cold without a lap to lie on, even if it was stuffy.

I know what to get her. What to get her for Hearth’s Warming.

She kicked the bulb away. It was dead. It didn’t really give off a light, if it was dead. Gifts – those kinds of gifts – were just dead things. So in a way, they didn’t give light. Real light.

Now she felt she was on the right track. After all, they called the feeling a “warm glow”, so…

Wait a moment. You can’t tell with grown-ups.

“Auntie Berry?” she said.

“Yes, Ruby?”

Ruby shivered. “Can you give things… other than things? As a gift?”

Berryshine blew, flapping her lips. “The Grim Reaper’s gotten to you, hasn’t she? What the heck does that mean?”

“No, I mean…” Shame grabbed the words and tried to pull them back. After all, Dinky and Piña were right there watching. “Things like… um… time, and, and… play, and, um… and love and stuff.” She was briefly proud of the “and stuff” she’d wedged in. Any escape hatch was welcome, in case of follow-up questions.

And yet, as soon as she said it, her face… lit up.

It felt… yes, it felt good.

When Berryshine spoke, her voice was equally as bright. “Well, well, well. Ruby is sentimental, after all. You’re like the Grim Reaper. She’s a softie under all that seriousness too, and you didn’t hear that from me.”

“Can you give gifts like that?” insisted Ruby.

Dinky giggled, and Ruby wished she could shut her up. Shame was still itching to take back what had already been said.

After a thoughtful hum, Berryshine said, “Like what?”

“Well,” said Ruby, dredging her memory for clues. Something they used to do together, so long ago… “I liked it when we had dinner at Dinky’s once.”

“I liked it too!” piped up Piña.

Once more, the sofa creaked. Four hooves thumped on the carpet. Berryshine loomed up before her.

“I dunno,” said Berryshine sadly. “It’s a bit last-minute, and –”

“Ah, don’t worry about it,” said Dinky cheerfully. “I’ve got influence. Just say the word, and it’s done.”

“All right, then.” Berryshine chuckled. “So that’s what you want for Hearth’s Warming, is it? A nice big Hearth’s Warming dinner?”

“And then…” Ruby gulped. “And then we could play a game together?”

“Oh? What game?”

“I dunno. Any game.”

“Uh huh. And then?”

“And then… we could go for a walk?”

“Hm. Might be a bit late. I don’t know if I could walk in a straight line by that point.”

“Or…” Piña groaned, forcing an idea out of her head. “Ooh, ooh! How about we clean up the dishes afterwards?”

“Come off it.” Berryshine laughed. “Chores? Really?”

“We could make a game out of it!” piped up Dinky. “Ammy and I do that all the time. Like once, we pretended we were monsters fishing for submarines –”

“What? Old Grim Reaper?”

“Ammy likes playing. She just takes it really seriously.”

“Ah. That’s more like it.”

Biting her lip with excitement, Ruby stamped for attention. “And then we could tell stories. I liked the one about the flying pigs.”

“Nah,” said Piña. “That one was silly. I liked the one with the evil witch and the army of cats. Or… No, better! I liked the one with the slime monster.”

“You’re all silly,” said Berryshine. “The one with the magic goat is obviously the best.”

Howls of protest broke out, but Ruby was jumping on the spot. She wanted to keep talking, to shout out whatever popped into her head, and to ride this surge all the way. She’d make Dinky look like an amateur. She could come up with more ideas if she kept thinking about it.

All too soon, however, the excitement died down. Berryshine smacked her lips.

“So…” she said. “That’s all you want for Hearth’s Warming?”

Confused, Ruby cocked her head. The surge fell back.

“I thought you might want it,” she said.

“Eh?”

“It’s… a gift. Kind of.”

The darkness was still for a while, but not silent, because Piña rather disgustingly started blowing shiny foam out of her mouth.

“Oh,” said Berryshine.

“From me to you,” said Ruby.

“Oh. Right.”

The surge waited.

“How, exactly?” said Berryshine.

Ruby gaped, waiting for an answer to come. Blushes burned on her cheeks. The silence rolled over her. Sheer darkness did nothing; she still felt dangerously exposed.

But there had been that moment… she could’ve sworn this was right.

“It’s a gift, of, um, time,” she mumbled. “And… love, and stuff…”

“Ah. So you’re going for the non-expensive option.”

Horror ran her through. She took a step away from the outline of the sofa. “No, no, I meant –”

Those warm forelimbs gripped her head again. She almost got a noseful of fur.

Then the embrace grew tight, as though it would never let go and never wanted to. Shamefully, utterly wrong for the moment, her eyes began to burn.

“Priceless,” whispered Berryshine.

Ruby kept her mouth shut. Apart from the tremble coming back, she wasn’t sure what Berryshine meant. Far too soon, she was freed from the grip.

“And now, I think it’s about time we did our morning properly and opened those curtains, eh?” said Berryshine.

“I’ll do it!” shouted Piña.

“No, I will!” shouted Dinky.

They both drew the curtains aside – Dinky using her magic on one, Piña using her teeth on the other – and light flooded the room.

Snow dazzled from the ground. Cottages stood together in a vast herd, all strangely uniform under the drifts. One or two had wisps of smoke rising from their chimneys, but that was it.

Ruby stepped aside to let Piña rush past; the young foal clambered up Berryshine’s back to get a better view, and then put her hooves up and rested on her head. Irritated, Ruby clambered up after her, getting a few ticklish giggles for her trouble, and looked out.

Dinky, meanwhile, stood beside them. And that surprised Ruby more than anything; her mouth was a rare thin line, not bursting with energy as usual. Instead, Dinky was quiet, thoughtful, her gaze wide as though taking in – or taking on – the entire universe.

Under the pool of white – which was a lonely sun amid blue skies – roughly a dozen ponies went about their business on the icy street. Lots of them: some smiling, some grumbling, some twitchy, some with wrinkled noses.

Ponies of all shapes and sizes. Ponies of all colours, too.