How Lily Longsocks Spent Hearth’s Warming Eve on the Moon
Hearth’s Warming time, as ponies say,
Makes windigoes fly far away,
But children keep the friends they’ve found
And love them dearly all year ’round.
On Hearth’s Warming Eve, a filly might be excused from letting her mind wander to unwrapping presents and breathing in the scintillating spiced steam streaming from the mug clutched in her little hooves. One might also excuse an adult who had never felt the need to squeeze her heart into the confines of offices and desks and marketplaces and busy streets.
But for one such adult, the blessings teeming from underneath her family’s tree had always made her send a silly sigh swishing toward her best friend’s house. Not his house alone, not by far. Far too far from alone was he, and ever since his days as a colt, a cake or pie or parent split so many ways left only tiny tantalizing servings for each.
So Vapor Trail glanced at Sky Stinger, all slumped in his chair, his mind unaware of the speaker who’d just walked in. Vapor Trail sat up and nudged her friend, continuing to dawdle and doodle in his notepad as Princess Luna took her place at the briefing room’s lectern.
“Wonderbolts Reserves,” she said, and even Sky Stinger’s eyes snapped to her. No, she hadn’t said it; she’d proclaimed it, as only she could. Like Vapor Trail’s mother always told her, “A princessly word is never half-heard.”
“I would request volunteers for windigo patrol tonight.”
Very succinct, no conversation. Sky Stinger scoffed and snuffled, his nose crinkling like a sour candy wrapper. “Who volunteers for duty on Hearth’s Warming Eve?” he muttered into his hooves, much as he’d grumpily grumble in their childhood. But he looked away from Vapor Trail.
A few whispered plans of hot cider and singing and sitting down to a nice roast winter squash echoed around the room, and from the more silent watchers, a hoof raised here and there, little multicolored flowers poking through their snowy blankets.
When Vapor Trail had sat in her yard as a filly, peering up into the stellar vastness, and watching for the occasional pegasus darting past while keeping the windigoes at bay, a curious mix of warm and cold always swirled around in her heart. A close threat, but one the patrol would ward off from any unsuspecting foals. Perhaps even the suspecting ones.
Of course she’d grown up, and of course she’d realized it had all been for show, the same as the weather service reporting on Santa Hooves’s progress toward filling every stocking and leaving a present under every tree. That didn’t take away any of the fun.
She’d begun raising her hoof, but a wing flick and a tongue click from Sky Stinger halted it, demanded identification, and threatened to have it thrown in the nearest jail if it insisted on proceeding.
But Luna had seen.
When the briefing room had emptied out, Vapor Trail felt the need to linger, perhaps from that sense of psychic communication mares always seemed to share, or so stallions said. But linger she did, and Sky Stinger wouldn’t leave on his own, not back to a family where he tended to get lost in the shuffle.
“I wonder if I couldn’t entreat you to take on a more special mission,” the Princess said, looking only at Vapor Trail. “One that I normally only offer to full Wonderbolts.” That made Sky Stinger’s ears perk and prick. “Of course, it requires a team. I assume you could locate a suitable wingmate?”
“Hm…” Vapor Trail replied, hiding a grin and rubbing her chin. The more she hemmed and hawed, the more Sky Stinger jittered and juddered in his seat.
“Oh, come on!” he finally erupted, and even Princess Luna let out a somewhat un-princessly chortle, one that wasn’t half-heard indeed.
And with a final smirk, she leaned her head toward the exit. “Excellent. Please come with me.”
Lily Longsocks adorned her card with the most splendiferous splatter of golden glitter before adding her signature at the bottom. That made it official! And Miss Cheerilee said her mouthwriting had gotten much better this year.
However, the mail didn’t run tomorrow, and she couldn’t send her card anyway. Not really. She wished on a star, though, extra hard this time, that her mommy would get it somehow.
She’d left her window open so the star could see her, except… that wasn’t right. No, one could wish on a star, but they were fickle and had their own strange ways. They might answer petitions on a whim, but the moon!
Yes, the moon, shining even brighter than it used to with the shadow gone from it. Even in those days, she’d loved the moon. That was where dreams lived.
She could take her card to the moon, and her mommy would get it in her dreams.
Only a filly could so earnestly believe that the un-happenable might happen, because she hadn’t succumbed to things like logic and stoicism yet. Or so her mommy said, then told Lily to go look those words up.
That left Lily with little surprise when a mare and stallion alighted on the sill outside her window.
“Hello!” the mare said. “My name is Vapor Trail, and this is my friend Sky Stinger.” She smiled a smile of the kind that usually liked to hide behind three or four others in a crowd, a sentiment Lily knew well.
And they had on Wonderbolts uniforms! Well, almost. The pattern was a little off, so trainees maybe?
“Are you here to help me with my wish?” Lily asked, her heart floating up on breezies’ wings.
“Absolutely!” Sky Stinger stepped smartly over the sash. “If I can’t get your wish for you, then nopony can!”
Had a star taken pity on her? She twisted and whirled and twirled on one hoof until she bowed deeply before him and held her card aloft. “I need to get a Hearth’s Warming card to my mommy! Will you take it there?”
When she’d gotten no response for a good four and a half seconds, she looked up, and Sky Stinger stared straight at her as if Discord himself had set off a fireworks display behind her. Just to be sure, she checked.
“You can’t mail it, kid?” he said in that tone grown-ups had when they’d rather lie down than listen to children making the kind of sense they used to understand.
“Oh, stop!” Vapor Trail said to him with a roll of her eyes and a great deal of slouching. Then she turned to Lily. “Of course we’ll help you with your card. Where do you need it to go?”
Moonbeams didn’t feel all warm like sunbeams did, but Lily basked in the soft glow, and she sure felt warm enough. “To the moon. That’s where dreams live.”
“Oh, you want to meet her in her dreams? That’s so sweet!” Vapor Trail answered in her husky voice, the kind fun cousins always had.
“You know Princess Luna can just—”
“Sky Stinger, we’re going to the moon.”
He shrugged, but he did sneak a peek at the sky, and he grinned the way Daddy did when the newspaper had a particularly challenging crossword puzzle. “You look like a strong young earth pony. I bet you could jump halfway there on your own.”
Lily’s chest puffed up, all trophy-round. “I’m the strongest in my class. But even I can’t jump that high.”
“Hm.” Vapor Trail finally clambered into the room. “Let’s start at the beginning. What’s your name?”
“Lily Longsocks,” she replied, knowing full well what a splendid name that was.
“And why do you need to get a card to your mommy so urgently?”
Lily scrunched up her nose and fought down the tiny tickling tingle at the tip. “She’s in the Royal Guard, and she got deployed on the far side of the country.” The tart smell of the next question already hung in the air. “She said they wouldn’t make camp until two days after Hearth’s Warming, so they won’t get any mail until then.”
For a week, that explanation had snored around in her head, but now it sat up and blinked. “I don’t want my mommy to be lonely on Hearth’s Warming without her family!”
Sky Stinger flashed a fourth of a frown, and under his breath: “We could just deliver the card for her.”
But Vapor Trail shimmy-shook her head. “It’s not the same. Lily wants to see her in person. Right?” She glanced over.
“Yes,” Lily answered with an emphatic nod. Maybe it took another girl to get it. “Up on the moon. Where dreams live.”
“Look at her,” Vapor Trail said. “Not overwhelmed by a ton of siblings, not doted on by parents who feel they have to keep her in a little cage of perfection. She’s what we both wish we could be.”
“How’d you…?” Sky Stinger smiley-smirked and hopped to the floor. “Y’know, you’re right.” Then he turned to Lily and lowered one wing. “Hop on, little miss.”
So she did, and they leapt through the window. It felt just like being on her mommy’s back, soaring through the cold air with warm feathers and fur around her—she curled her tail by her side and snuggled into it—and the landscape spread out below, its blinky-twinkle lights fireflies at rest in the bushes outside her home on a summer evening. Only then did she hear the voice over the wind-whipped whistling in her ears: “You know how to get there, don’t you?”
Lily pointed her nose toward the stars and closed her eyes.
“Up.”
They’d skimmed and skated through the clouds’ lower reaches, but the more they tried to ascend, the more labored Sky Stinger’s flapping became. So when a low mountain passed beneath, he settled onto a level spot near the top.
He began panting, and Lily jumped down, since he’d clearly tired himself out. But this wasn’t the moon! They’d flown up, but then back down. At least not as far down as Ponyville. She reached a hoof out, but she still couldn’t touch the moon, so far away.
She trotted, pacing to and fro, through moonlight beams and falling snow (which started just an hour ago), and looked up at the sky.
But if they stayed and daylight broke, the dream-door closed, her mom awoke, they lost their chance and never spoke, her mommy just might cry.
Vapor Trail brushed the damp flakes off her goggles and peered into a small cave at the other end of their resting place. A wispy whisker of smoke trailed out. “Looks like somepony’s home,” she said. “Why don’t we warm our hooves a bit before we continue on. Okay?”
Once she’d gotten down from Sky Stinger’s back, the wind had a much clearer path to chill Lily’s bones, so she nodded and scurried inside…
Only to find a unicorn warming herself by a campfire. That wonderful hush that snowflakes always bring had melted and run in here and gobbled up the fire’s crackling, but it didn’t belong in a damp, echo-ey cave. The unicorn had her back to them, and she hung her head like a waterlogged scarecrow. Across from her, the firelight danced along an array of glass cases embedded in the rock, all empty.
“Do you mind if we share your fire?” Vapor Trail asked.
“Share…” the unicorn replied, and a shudder ran down her back. And now that Lily looked at her back, it had marks all over it. On her sides, on her face, on her flank—two short parallel lines, repeated everywhere. She looked ready to say more, but she curled her lip as if she’d bitten into a lemon.
“Don’t you like to share?” Lily said.
The unicorn’s head jerked up, but she still didn’t look at any of them. “Like…” she said. “No, not when you have to, because everypony shares everything.”
Nearby, one of the rocks gave off a pleasant little puff of warmth it had soaked up, so Lily pushed it beside the unicorn and sat on it. “If you have to, it’s not sharing!”
Vapor Trail and Sky Stinger stepped up behind Lily, and Vapor Trail opened her saddlebag. “Yeah! Here—I brought along some cinnamon-spiced dried apple slices in case we needed a snack. Would you like them?”
Finally, the unicorn turned to face them, and her eyes flicked back and forth between the offered bag and her own hooves. “F-for the fire? An equal trade?”
“No!” Vapor Trail chuckled, and the unicorn first flinched and faltered. But Vapor Trail continued, “Just because! You can have them no matter what.”
The unicorn slowly took the bag and chewed on one of the slices, and a little bitty grin tiptoed right above her chin, hoping to get all the way across without startling it. “Th-thank you. But letting you enjoy the fire doesn’t mean I get less of it. Is there something I can do in exchange?”
“Only if you want to,” Vapor Trail replied, but Sky Stinger had already sidled up close to the edge of the flames. “That’s the way Hearth’s Warming works.”
“I never liked Hearth’s Warming.” The smile faded, and her lips made two short parallel lines.
“My name’s Sky Stinger, by the way,” he chimed in, rubbing his hooves over the blaze. “And these are my friends, Vapor Trail and Lily Longsocks.”
“Starlight Glimmer.”
Lily peered at her anew. “Hey, I’ve heard of you! But your hair looks different. Doesn’t it swish to the side normally?” Starlight Glimmer barely nodded, and the snow-stoked silence stretched on.
“We’re trying to help Lily get to the moon,” Sky Stinger finally cut in, “but it’s really far up, and I’ve gotten tired just lifting little Lily up to the clouds—”
“I can help!” Starlight Glimmer blurted out, and she gazed at Sky Stinger like he’d held out a cup of water in the middle of a desert. “But only once. An equal exchange. I’ll cast a cloud-walking spell on her, then you can climb up to the cloudtops to save your wings. Or rest, if you need to. I can do that.”
Vapor Trail and Sky Stinger shared a glance, and then Sky Stinger smiled at Starlight Glimmer. “Only if you want to.”
With a crinkled forehead, Starlight Glimmer stared at the ground like Lily sometimes had to when Miss Cheerilee asked her a really tough question. “I-I’ll do it.” She stashed the apple slices in her saddlebag, and her horn glowed, and—
Whoa, Lily was floating! The magic gathered in little clumpy clusters around her hooves before fading away and setting her back down. When she looked up to thank Starlight Glimmer, she could have sworn she saw the soft scale-like overlap of feathers on her hooves, out of the corner of her eye, but when she watched them directly, nothing! And it kept happening, so Lily just thanked her without meeting her gaze, but Lily had a feeling Starlight Glimmer didn’t pry her eyes from the dirt either.
“Would you like to come with us?” Vapor Trail asked. “You might like to see how you’ve helped. I’m not sure if I can carry you, but I’ll try.”
“I-I’ll do it.” The same sprinkly sparkles danced on Starlight Glimmer, over her whole body this time, and she immediately bobbed up, a cork in the pond of her magic.
Sky Stinger stood, stretching his sturdy wings. “I think I’m ready for another go at it.” He crouched down with a wonderful winning smile. “Shall we?”
With a little skip-jump, Lily vaulted onto his back again, and they made a swish-saunter outside. He’d really gotten into a better mood!
But the snow had piled up as well, and down and to and fro it fell. By wing and magic through the squall, each flake a puff-like cotton ball.
Beside them, Vapor Trail kept swiping snow from her goggles, so Lily leaned forward to brush Sky Stinger’s clear, and his withers twitched in a thank-you shiver-shrug. In the back, Starlight Glimmer hovered along, her shield pushing aside the thick, hushed clumps, but she kept her eyes cast downward.
Up, up, and more up, they ascended to tickle the clouds’ bellies, but they didn’t rise through. Of course, the pegasus magic! The clouds were solid to them—they’d have to find a break to get to the top and the clear night sky, the moon, the bright moon they’d lost sight of since the snow began, though Lily hadn’t noticed until now.
Ahead, a beam shone through like a beacon, and Sky Stinger soared straight for it. Beckoning to them, inviting them to the grand ball above the clouds, and Sky Stinger bowed, accepting its gracious hospitality. A proffered arm, an escort past the cumulonimbus gates, a tunnel, left, left, right turns—a pegasus would know the way! A forward surge, and then emerge: a sparkling menagerie!
They alit, and Lily hopped onto the cushiony softness of cloud fluff, but her eyes roved this way and that and back again. A waterfall of mist, gushing over, splashing, collecting in pools and running down, down, amid the lumpy tufts to swirl through unseen drains and fuel the snow shower below.
Icy spars like trees, and stars reflected in their gleam. A silvery light made day of night, and frost like buttercream.
Lily pranced and danced, a-gambol in the moonbeams. “Is this what it’s always like on the cloudtops?” she squeaked.
Vapor Trail set down beside her and cast her own awed glance about. “No, I’ve never seen one like this. The tops don’t usually look any different than the bottoms.”
The mist-stream gurgled by, and Lily dipped her nose in for a taste. A chilled flavor, not too far from peppermint, but faint, and it didn’t make her tummy the least bit cold. “Come try some!” she said to Starlight Glimmer, who only stared at her hooves. She hadn’t raised her eyes since they’d left her cave. And if Lily wasn’t mistaken, more lines had filled out her coat, black overtaking the pink hue. “Won’t you?”
She floated over and peered into the stream, but no reflection would show in that roiling froth. She did detach a small piece with her magic and dab it with her tongue, her eyes focusing on it for a moment. Then she hovered another glob to Vapor Trail without looking. “W-would you like a taste?”
“Thank you!” Vapor Trail said, and and she swished it around in her mouth. “It was nice of you to share.” Just the tiniest tease of a smile tugged at Starlight Glimmer’s face, and a few of the lines on her body faded, though a confused wrinkle surfaced on her forehead.
“Very dreamy up here,” Sky Stinger remarked, “and very dreamlike. This must be the right place.”
No snow to muffle the sound—crystalline globes dangled from the trees and dingled in the breeze. Their tinkling carried across the cloudscape, and the rustle-bustle of white rushes on the stream bank hissed at them to keep quiet.
Stars, so many, more than Lily had ever thought could exist, cast their glitter glow on everything. A bright one, over there! Then another and another, and look away for a half second, a few faint flecks found in between, lost if she watched them directly. In the corners of her eyes, countless points of light.
The cloud rumbled beneath her, and the stars fell from her eyes.
To the left and right, more gauzy meadows, but straight ahead, the pillowy billows piled to a pinnacle, the peak too far high to clearly espy, and the moon hung atop it all. “There!” Lily said. “We have to go there.”
Sky Stinger slouched slightly, but then he perked up and marched forward. “Okay, then, let’s go! I’ll get you there.”
“Um…” Vapor Trail said. “You sure about this? We might need to think about how to get there.”
“Just walk on up,” he replied, pointing at the cloud-crag. “I got this, if the two of you want to stay behind and rest.”
Vapor Trail pursed her lips, but she took up trotting beside him, and Lily followed, with Starlight Glimmer and her hum-thrumming magic trailing behind. “We’re here to help, you know. You don’t have to do this on your own.”
But Sky Stinger grinned back. “I know, but this’ll be easy.” If Lily had seen right—far behind them, in the mist, a faint figure following, but as soon as she squinted, it disappeared.
Vapor Trail didn’t look convinced, but she kept on. They climbed and clambered and scrambled up the tufty-puff inclines, and Lily could swear she heard birdcalls. What would a bird do this high? Even the tinkle-chime trees thinned out the further they went, but—yes, a few frosty finches, seemingly made of ice, and they tittered and warbled at the ponies passing. What a magical place!
Back down the slope, a white halo ringed the pool where the mistfall splashed, but Lily only spared it a glance—the moon was the other way, and she must have made that mysterious figure up. Still, that impression of feathers on her hooves lingered, and it actually felt like feathers with each step.
Minute after minute, maybe even hours, and that same pool looked absolutely tiny. Vapor Trail and Sky Stinger both panted relentlessly, but Lily hadn’t even broken a sweat, and Starlight Glimmer merely floated along, silent as ever.
“How much further?” Sky Stinger said.
“We can fly, if that’d be easier,” Vapor Trail replied.
Truth be told, Lily could scamper uphill fast enough that they probably would keep pace better by flying, but Miss Cheerilee had always instructed patience, so Lily had been picking out hoofholds a little more cautiously. Not everypony could climb like an earth pony.
“I can handle it.” Sky Stinger leapt atop another mound of cloud.
“You don’t have to alone,” Vapor Trail said. “We’re here to help.”
“If I need a boost, I know you can give me one—” Vapor Trail started to speak again, but Sky Stinger shushed her. “Look, I know how I used to be. I acknowledged that I can use a boost sometimes.”
With her lips in a taut line, Vapor Trail rolled her eyes to the side. “That’s not…” she mumbled. “Never mind.” And yet again, Lily got the sense of somepony trailing them, well behind, but stronger now.
Before long, however, they’d run out of cloud to scale. The squishy, smushy droplets tapered to a point, and still the moon tantalized them from above. Lily hooked an arm around the peak and peeked, shielding her eyes with a hoof. No further way to ascend except by wing again, but they’d gotten closer.
Lily didn’t even have to ask. Sky Stinger swooped past, and Lily pounced on his back, then up, up, further up, with Vapor Trail flapping a gust to bolster him.
More than halfway! And she could jump the remaining distance, she just knew it!
So she sprung skyward.
So she tumbled earthward.
She rolled to a stop on a rocky outcrop—without opening her eyes, an earth pony could tell. Once her head stopped spinning, she noticed the glow around her.
“Thank you!” she said to Starlight Glimmer, who floated just overhead. The rocks themselves hadn’t stopped Lily, or she’d have a lot more than a case of dizziness. And only a second later, Sky Stinger and Vapor Trail dove to her.
“That was reckless, kid!” Sky Stinger said. “My wings weren’t even tired yet. I could have gone higher.”
They trembled, though, and Lily watched Vapor Trail shake her head at him.
Past the rocks, a dark shape wavered, hidden in the fog. But Lily could swear she saw glitters of light inside. “Hold on a minute,” she said.
And she walked into the blackness. Another cave?
The others soon followed, and Starlight Glimmer’s magical illumination cast sharp shadows around. Nothing. Lily must have been mistaken. And Vapor Trail was right: Sky Stinger couldn’t have taken her much higher.
She knelt on stone within the dark, her progress lost and failure stark, and if she fell short of the mark, her mommy’d be alone.
With chilling winds and burning tears, she’d just surrendered to her fears, until a faint sound reached her ears: a rustling, squeaky tone.
“Hello?” Lily said.
All four of them peered up at the yellowish flashes multiplying on the ceiling, spelling out minute constellations on an inner sky. Then one pair came detached and fluttered down to Lily.
A… a batpony!
A young one, at that, probably about Lily’s age. The young bat cranked his neck sideways and stared long and hard at her. “Who are you?” he said.
“Lily Longsocks. I hope we didn’t disturb you.”
He shook his head, and Lily grinned at the cute little hair flares on the tips of his ears. “We sleep during the day, but we didn’t want to go out in the snow, so we slept in.”
“Oh. Well, we were trying to get to the moon, but—”
“The moon!” His eyes widened so greatly that he might have swallowed her whole with them. “Our watchful goddess! Have you touched her face?”
“No. We tried, though,” Lily answered.
“Many of us have tried, too.”
Lily let her shoulders go limp and languid. “My name’s Lily Longsocks, and these are my friends. What’s your name?”
“Nightshade,” he replied, but he’d already gone nosing around Starlight Glimmer. “You can fly without wings?”
She settled to the monolithic floor but kept her light spell going. And she still had her eyes downcast. “Yes.”
Nightshade’s nose poked and prodded toward Starlight Glimmer’s saddlebag. “Cool. And… do I smell fruit?”
A susurration from overhead, and more of those yellow gems gleamed, blinked, approached, materialized out of the darkness. “Fruit?” various voices ventured, their echoes rebounding off the cavern walls and bombarding each other for supremacy.
“Would you like…” Starlight Glimmer said. Then her forehead wrinkled and her eyebrows vexed as if reasoning out a philosophical conundrum. “…to share?”
She promptly produced the bag of apple slices and opened it, levitating out a piece for every batpony who filed past. Behind her, Vapor Trail grinned at Sky Stinger as the assembled denizens munched happily on their snack.
“Do you think you could help us get to the moon?” Lily asked.
“The moon!” the crowd exclaimed softly.
“I don’t know how,” Nightshade replied, smacking his lips. “She’s come down to us before, but we’ve never gone up to her.”
“How do you get her to come down?”
Nightshade only shrugged a shaggy shoulder.
“Wait…” Vapor Trail held a hoof to her chin. “We have a lot of wingpower here. And Sky Stinger is the best around at boosting up high. He can take off like nopony else.”
“Yeah,” Sky Stinger chimed in, but a teensy little frown weighted his lips down. “Hey, why didn’t you boost me that last time then?”
“I did,” Vapor Trail answered quietly. “It wasn’t enough.”
Immediately, Nightshade charged outside. “Well, we got plenty now. C’mon, guys!” Sky Stinger and Vapor Trail could do little but follow them out, and they all stood around awaiting instructions with their fur fluffed out against the cold. Little drifts collected on the tips of their ears.
“Well, um, okay,” Vapor Trail began. “I guess just listen for my signal, and then everyp—everybody give a big, mighty flap, as hard as you can, directing it under Sky Stinger. We’ll shoot him to the stars!”
“No, just to the moon,” Lily said, taking her place on Sky Stinger’s back. But no sooner had she uttered the word than the whole night-colored crowd gazed skyward most reverentially.
“The moon!” they chorused, silvery light reflecting in their eyes.
But already Sky Stinger soared aloft, and Lily gripped his mane. “We’ll get you there on this try, I’m sure of it,” he called over his shoulder. “I won’t fail you.”
He flew a little loop for good measure, then swooped low over the assembly, who all took off on an intercept course. And as he lifted away again: “Now!” Vapor Trail shouted, and the gustiest gust Lily had ever experienced buoyed them up, more, more, still more!
Sky Stinger leaned into it, a sharp spear cutting through the air, through the wispy whispers of cirrus clouds, and Lily hunkered down against him, but she chanced a glimpse, and the moon grew bigger yet, taking up half the sky!
And still too far.
Sky Stinger’s momentum died away, and they fell, spiraling back to where they’d started. The shiny yellow eyes, watching, glistening, now also falling with her heart as they saw her returning with him. He skidded to a landing and collapsed, unable to get enough breath to speak. And still closer, that feeling of being watched!
Vapor Trail galloped over and nuzzled him.
She whispered something in his ear, a whisper Lily couldn’t hear, but only on her mother dear would Lily’s thinking dwell.
The evening gone, the morning nigh, and fate had set the moon too high, and gracious friends had helped her try, but no success to tell.
Lily’s tears dripped on the bare rock, and some of the batponies emitted little screeches, and only then did she notice. There was no snow anywhere near the cave. In fact, the air coursing out was rather warm. And… and so was the huge dragon lumbering out!
“Dragon!” she yelled, but no twitch of muscle, no stitch of hustle from the batponies. And the dragon clamped his claws over his ears at her shouting.
“Keep it down out here!” he grumbled. “I’m trying to sleep.”
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Lily said, bowing. Vapor Trail rushed to her side as well.
“Yes,” Vapor Trail added, “we didn’t realize. Please don’t be angry!”
The snow had turned to sleet, and it skittered off his scales. “It’s bad enough I got chased away from Ponyville, but now I can’t find a good place to nap.”
Lily’s nose twisted. “Don’t the batponies bother you, all living in there together?”
“No, we leave each other alone. I don’t hear them unless they get excited.” He added a most stern scowl. “So if you don’t mind, I’m going back to sleep. Could you just keep quiet for the next year or so—?”
“Year!?” Lily erupted, and the dragon winced from the sound. “I have to get to my mommy tonight!”
“Knock off the noise, alright?” the dragon said with a grimace. “Just let me go to sleep—” a heavy, smoke-laden sigh “—alone.”
Vapor Trail tapped Lily on the shoulder. “Let’s move along,” she hissed. “We can find another place to try.”
But as he trudged off, Lily said, “Wait!” Then she ran up to him, a mere speck below his towering form. “You don’t have to be alone.”
“I just want to sleep,” he growled, “and I don’t see any other dragons around here.”
“What if, um…” Lily squinted one eye and rolled the other up a more dragon-appropriate distance. “What if I helped you get back to sleep?”
“Hey,” Sky Stinger whispered in Lily’s ear. “He has huge wings. We should see if he can help.”
For a moment, Lily considered it. But his grunt was sour and his posture dour, and she didn’t get a good vibe from that dragon. “I think this time we should just help him. Do the right thing, and it pays off for you in the end.”
Lily turned back to the waiting dragon. “What if I sang you a lullaby?”
His belly stoked, his nostrils smoked, and he snorted out puffs of ash. “I don’t know…”
“I don’t mind. I’d do that for you.”
“A-and I wouldn’t be alone?”
Lily smiled. “I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep. And the batponies are never far away.”
“I guess. But it might help if I had a new piece of gold. Just a little.”
Then Vapor Trail trotted over and removed her Wonderbolts Reserves pin. “Will this do?” she said.
She’d really give that up? “That’s so nice of you!” Lily said, and quickly lowered her voice. “Sorry.”
The dragon barely pinched the pin between two claw tips, but he did grin at the shiny sheen before plodding back into the darkness. Lily trailed him, and when he’d curled up with his tail wrapped around his chest and the eensy bit of metal clutched in one enormous claw, he closed his eyes.
And Lily sang the lullaby her mommy always did.
“Hush, my sweet, now, and don’t you fret,
The day is gone, and the sun has set.
Lay your head down and say good night,
Till you see bright morning light.
“No more sorrow, no more pain,
Stay in my arms till you wake again.
Go to sleep, cast off your fears,
Dream of me and dry those tears.
“Darling snug, all bundled in tight,
Moonbeams bathe you in heavenly light.
“Hush, my sweet, now, and don’t you fret,
The day is gone, and the sun has set.
When you see the new sun appear,
Know I’ll always love you, dear.”
For a creature who could take a year to fall asleep, he’d sure nodded off rather quickly! Soft snoring, and he sucked at a thumb.
So Lily tiptoed out and pre-emptively shushed everyone.
“Okay,” Sky Stinger instructed, “one more try. I’ll give it everything I’ve got.”
All in position again, swiftly streaking skyward, a big blustery boost, frenzied flapping, but Lily’s heart wasn’t in it. Nothing had changed, so why would it work any better this time? It came as no surprise when Sky Stinger stalled out again, angled down toward the colony of batponies once more.
And with it hope had gone away, her resignation here to stay, upon the dawning of the day, her card would be left here.
The words she’d sung had praised the morn, but with its start, her heart was torn, her mommy lonely and forlorn, without her daughter’s cheer.
Yet as they plunged, Lily spied over the cloud’s edge a curious sight: Derpy and Carrot Top floating lazily in a hot air balloon. And the huffing and snoring and chuffing spilling out of the cave caught her ear. When ear and eye compared notes, they completed a circuit which fired off a spark in her head.
“Sky Stinger,” she called. “Swoop past the cave opening. There’s a lot of hot air coming out. I think it’ll lift us up.”
“O-okay,” he said, but lumbered in for a rough landing instead of soaring up. “I just… I just need a little rest.”
When he jerked to a halt, he stood next to Vapor Trail. “I… whew… I’m going to give it one more try. Lily has an idea.”
“Don’t you mean ‘we’?” Vapor Trail replied.
“Huh?” A gray outline emerged from the snowfall, equine in shape, and—that was it! It had pursued them ever since Vapor Trail and Sky Stinger had begun their little argument, that Sky Stinger was taking too much credit. Yes, Lily had perceived that particular point of contention. Children knew more than adults thought they did. But Sky Stinger really was the best flyer here, so why jeopardize her journey?
Vapor Trail scraped a hoof at the snowy stone and looked away. “It’s been bothering me all night, but… it’s not just you. We’re all helping.”
“I know,” Sky Stinger said. “I accepted a while back that it hadn’t been me doing all that great stuff alone, not since we were young. I haven’t lied about that.” The windigo plodded closer, its breath tatting frosty lace on the air.
“No, but…” A quick sigh steamed from Vapor Trail’s nose. “But you still treat it as your accomplishment. Don’t get me wrong—I appreciate all the times we’ve worked together in training sessions. You’ve helped me out a lot, and you’ve been very receptive about getting help as well. But through it all, I’m afraid you still don’t see this as a team effort.”
Closer yet! Lily turned to warn them as the snow intensified. “Guys, I…”
Sky Stinger’s glance wandered around from Vapor Trail to the crowd of batponies to the gaping cave entrance and finally to Lily, who’d remained on his back. “I didn’t—”
Almost upon them! One good leap, and it might freeze them solid! “I think we should run!”
He slumped his shoulders and swallowed hard, casting his eyes about for some means of escape or denial. But in the end, the rest of him deflated as well. “You’re right.”
And… it was gone. Lily surveyed all around, but no trace of it. And the snow had stopped.
“Did you say something, Lily?” Sky Stinger asked.
“Um… no.” Not a single sign of their solitary stalker.
Sky Stinger walked up a low rise and addressed everyone in a hushed tone (no need to wake the dragon, after all). “One last try. I’ll—” he shook his head “—we’ll use the dragon’s hot breath as an updraft, and we’ll make it this time! Once more, to the moon, for Lily!”
Wide eyes and tufted ears sought out the silvery disc at the mere mention of the word. “The moon!”
Subdued squeaking and quiet clapping ensued, and Sky Stinger raised his shaky wings. With a wingstroke, they were airborne again, looping up to gain speed, back down to race over the cave, and the warm column lofted them high! The assembly of batponies had followed Vapor Trail up, and as Lily shot past, a great big collective flap launched them even faster, frenetic feathers flying farther, full moon filling her field of view, growing greater, greatest, until she could almost reach out and touch it. Almost.
Sky Stinger hung in the air, unable to ascend anymore. And Lily heard the voices frozen in time, as if standing right next to them.
“I don’t think they’re going to make it,” Vapor Trail said.
“The moon…” a soft chorus answered, the hope gone.
“Isn’t there anything you can do?” Vapor Trail asked.
The batponies had done all they could. Why would she ask them that? But the answer didn’t come from them.
Starlight Glimmer’s lethargic drone lifted from her silence. “I cast the cloud-walking spell on her. It was an equal trade.”
“But you shared your fruit with the batponies. Just because you wanted to. It seemed like that, anyway.”
“Sh-share?”
“You could share your magic with Lily.”
“For… for an equal trade—?”
“No, just because. You came with us for a reason, I think. You could have just stayed at your campfire.”
“Somepony taught me… I don’t remember. But I don’t think ponies are supposed to be alone on Hearth’s Warming. I think… I think the whole point—a trade! I can make an equal trade, my magic for letting me spend time with you!”
Lily peered over her shoulder at Vapor Trail, who shook her head, the snow tumbling from her mane. “No,” Vapor Trail said. “We’re happy to have you with us. No price, no trade needed for that.”
Sucking in a breath, Starlight Glimmer finally met Vapor Trail’s gaze, maybe the first time all night she’d looked somepony in the eye. “I’d forgotten!” The little lines all over her twinkle-winked out, one by one. As each extinguished, a new star blazed and blared on the horizon. “Hearth’s Warming, past and present and future, and friends and gifts, and Twilight Sparkle taught me that today, and—I don’t think I can do much at this distance!”
“Every little bit helps,” Vapor Trail responded.
So a bright beam burgeoned from Starlight Glimmer’s horn, lanced like liquid light into the amethyst sky, but it dimmed the further it went, and it barely glowed anymore by the time it reached Lily. Yet Vapor Trail was right.
The magic glow lifted Lily, pushed her higher, the last little bit, until the moon filled everything. Did she still have her eyes open? It looked the same either way. She embraced the light.
With all the friends who’d helped her soar, who’d given of themselves and more, with her this awe-filled place explore, and grant her wish most dear.
She dashed ahead and called aloud, and with her card, as she’d avowed. Her mommy stood there, grin so proud, and hugged her daughter near.
On the moon. Where dreams live.
Vapor Trail awoke with a start, the feeling of snow still bright in her heart, and moonlight scorched like a naked flame—she’d never see Hearth’s Warming quite the same.
On the cot next to hers, Sky Stinger sat up as well, peering around. Orange sun rays filtered through the bare trees and danced on the walls.
Vapor Trail got up gingerly and scanned over the other dozen or so cots, all empty, but all clearly having been slept in. Her saddlebag lay on the floor, and the top of a full sack of dried spiced apple slices poked out. With a quick gasp, she glanced down at her uniform—her pin sat perched in its usual spot on her chest.
“I must thank you two. You had a particularly demanding mission.” Princess Luna stepped out from the room’s one remaining shadowed corner and stifled a yawn. Vapor Trail immediately bowed, and Sky Stinger fell to the floor in his attempt to roll off his cot and do so, but Princess Luna waved both of them off. “You performed admirably, and I must say, it does help matters when my agents are children at heart themselves,” she added, winking at Vapor Trail.
“Yes, Your Highness,” they both responded.
“I expect a certain amount of discretion in keeping all of this secret, of course.”
“Yes, Your Highness,” they said again, and Vapor Trail continued: “But Starlight Glimmer? And were the batponies and dragon real? Did you summon them?”
Princess Luna shook her head amid a faint smile. “I did not. Dreams overlap sometimes. And I daresay Lily is not the only one you helped last night.”
“Her mother?” Sky Stinger said.
“She was there, too.”
The Princess yawned again, and Vapor Trail couldn’t help echoing it. “Yes,” Princess Luna said, “after that sleep, I believe you will need some rest.”
“How about we just spend a quiet day together?” Sky Stinger asked. “Stop by home to say hello, of course, and—heh—tear into a few presents, but then I could use some time alone with a friend.”
“Just what I was thinking,” Vapor Trail replied.
On their way out the door, Vapor Trail paused. “Princess Luna… can we do this again next year?”
The Princess’s smile only grew.
Author's Note
I got quite a few requirements on this one: Use Vapor Trail and Sky Stinger, but no romance, no Equestria Girls characters, no movie characters, no comic book characters, no post-season 5 characters (wait, Vapor Trail and Sky Stinger are from season 6…), and no antagonists.
Turns out those were mistakenly relayed to me, as the ones after the characters were meant to say what Impossible Numbers was willing to write, not what restrictions he wanted to put on what I wrote. It ended up not mattering. I did find out later that IN doesn't like Starlight beyond her initial appearance, but she's not taking her usual show role here, so that didn't bother him.
That lullaby Lily sang? Yeah, I recycled that from my story "Duet in the Folk Style," specifically chapter 4. And the sighting of Derpy and Carrot Top in a balloon is a quick shout-out to Chris's story "Going Up," just because.
