The Last Hearth's Warming Letter
‘Twas the morning before Hearth’s Warming, when all through the town, ponies ran out, doing shopping they’d forgotten about. The chatter filled the air, and the laughing did as well, of mares and stallions, colts and fillies, preparing their day for a wonderful eve.
A beautiful town this was.
But we don’t care about this town.
Well, not yet, at least!
Our holiday story starts somewhere decidedly less pleasant.
It starts in a snowstorm and with a poor little mailmare desperately trying to get to her destination through the storm, the wind, the hail and a nose pink from the cold. Her hooves feel heavy with every step, and her bag heavier still.
Empty things usually do.
Fighting a losing battle against the weather, Ditzy Doo thinks of home. She thinks of her bed, snug with blankets; of her kitchen, filled with the scent of hot cocoa and marshmallows; of her chair, warm by the chimney fire.
She wishes she could go home…
But she can’t!
The mail needs to be delivered through fair or bad weather, for within these envelopes rests the light of knowledge, free communication and the exchange of ideas! Without it, society would collapse! Crumble into dust until from the ashes arose a mailmare bringing with her the whisper of a message, a promise to all: “There is hope yet”.
Or, that’s what the inspirational board at the office said, at least.
But, there was something else.
The letter Ditzy has left is not just any letter. It is perhaps the most important letter of the day, and it is extremely urgent. How does she know that?
Simple.
It says so.
“Extremely urgent,” reads Ditzy aloud, squinting at the wet envelope held in her hooves, the message ‘EKSTRIMLI URGENT, PLEASE HELP’ written on it in a messy, desperate scrawl.
On top of that, above the message, the name and address of Daring Do, adventurer extraordinaire, is written in the interesting calligraphy.
The snowstorm continues to dance around the mare as she tries to make her way through it. How rude of it! How unpleasant and impolite! But then again, the weather is only doing what the weather is supposed to do. How can Ditzy berate it for doing its job?
Her wings twitch at her sides as her hooves freeze in the snow, and she decides that she ought to give flying a try. If she flies in a straight line, perhaps, using all her will and might, it may turn out she’ll leave the storm behind.
Taking a breath and adjusting her hat, she flies up into the air, frowning at the hail that seems to push her down. She flaps her wings three or four times, shaking the snow far, far away, and then does as she planned.
Unfortunately….
Unfortunately for her, but wonderfully for our story, she is Ditzy Doo, and she is, well, ditzy.
What a bang! What a noise! What a yelp when our poor mailmare’s attempt to fly her way out of the storm brings her to a very intimate and rather painful encounter with a pesky signpost hidden by the storm.
Such is the impact that it throws her back, down to the ground where the snow gives her quite the cold reception. Her feathers get wet, her bag too, and to make matters worse, something else goes amiss.
The letter, you see, is lost from her grip.
“Wait!” she calls out, watching the wind carry it away in its midst. “Please come back!”
Though her rump now has a bump, she gets up to her hooves and so begins a chase! She runs, and runs, and runs behind this letter. She has to! Not only it is important and asks for help, it is also the very last letter of the day!
But alas, it’s all to no avail.
Her step slows, her sadness grows, and with the wind her hopes blow. The letter is gone, and with it the desperate message of help.
“Oh no, no, no no!” she mutters, her wings flapping at her sides. “What am I going to do?!”
She frets, and frets for a minute or two, but no longer than that. Ditzy Doo, you see, is many things, it’s true, but a quitter?
A quitter she is not, and if somepony somewhere needs help, she is not one to turn away.
With fire in her heart, she grabs her hat, her bag and her hope, and puts them all on, ready to brave the weather all the way a lonely weathered house in a place not many dare tread.
Standing before the wooden, scratched door, Ditzy Doo gathers her bearings, adjusts her hat and prepares her speech.
“Hello!” she says to the doorknob, which cannot say hello, but doubtless would if it could. “I’m Ditzy Doo, the local mail pony! I’m very sorry I lost your letter, but I will help you get it back!”
Yes! Good! What a grand speech, don’t you think?
Encouraged and ready, she raises her hoof and knocks politely, two times in quick succession and a third time for good measure.
She hears sounds on the other side, ruffling and the like, and a few curses as well. She keeps her smile on, though, even when the door creaks open and a frumpy looking mare peeks out, glaring at poor Ditzy from behind her crooked lenses.
This, as I’m sure you already know, is A.K. Yearling, and she is more than annoyed.
“Yes?” she asks without really asking.
It is more than just clear that the holiday spirit is not with her this year.
There they stand, mailmare and author, looking at each other through the snowy threshold. The seconds whisper by, and Ditzy smiles as she tries to remember her speech. It’s working, too, but she was not counting on Yearling to speak again, aggravation lacing her tone.
“Yes?” she asks again, and Ditzy panics, as you do when a recluse author doesn’t hide the fact she’s annoyed.
“I’m sorry!” blurts out our heroine, her wings spreading out into the air. “It was a mistake!”
The grumpy author blinks at her, startled by such a statement. “What?”
“Your letter!” Ditzy elaborates with a start. “I didn’t mean to lose it!”
“You lost my mail?” Yearling clarifies, and when poor Ditzy offers a bashful nod, Yearling does not repress a weary sigh. “It’s fine,” she says shortly, interrupting Ditzy when she tries to explain. “It was probably my editor. Or fan mail.” She offers a smile as cold as the snow as she closes the door. “Have a good eveni—”
“Wait!” Ditzy interrupts, her hoof holding the door open. “It was an extremely urgent letter for Daring Do!”
Yearling blinks at her, and even the wind seems to hold back, until she finally says with a quiet voice, “You mean mail for the fictional character Daring Do?”
Ditzy isn’t too sure what to say! It’s such a strange thing to hear, after all! Daring Do, a fictional character? Why, it’s as strange as if she said the same thing herself!
“No,” she clarifies. “It’s for Daring Do, who is you!”
Yearling looks more than surprised!
“What? No, I’m not,” she protests, her narrowed eyes an even bigger sight behind the glasses she pushes up her nose.
“Yes, you are,” Ditzy replies, for that is that and not much more. “I delivered mail to you at your secret hideout near Heart’s Haven last month! For Daring Do and A.K. Yearling!”
As I said, that is that and not much more, and to something so resoundingly true, there is really one thing you can say.
“Ah, fiddlesticks.”
“Please, Miss Do!” Ditzy continues, for her mission is important. “It said it was extremely important and asked for your help!”
A terrible silence follows the statement, and the more time passes, the more Ditzy’s hope begins to fade. Daring, much like the mailmare earlier had, frets and frets for a second or two, but no longer than that.
Daring Do, you see, is many things, it’s true, but a quitter?
A quitter she is not, and if somepony somewhere needs her help, she is not one to turn away.
No, she is one to run to help.
“All right,” she says and steps to the side, the door and her heart open to Ditzy. “Come in.”
Now, Ditzy Doo tries to be polite at all times. Good or bad, sad or happy, one should always wear a smile as bright as the sun whenever possible. She tries to remember that when she steps into Daring’s house and takes a look inside.
Papers strewn about! Posters all around! Clothes on the floor, and notebooks in the laundry rack! The entire place looks turned upside down as expected from somepony who’s both an author and an adventurer, but mostly an author.
What surprises Ditzy most of all, I’ll have you know, was Daring Do herself. As quickly as she’d ushered the mare in, so did she drop her disguise from recluse author to adventurer extraordinaire.
She speaks very fast too, her mind not giving poor Ditzy time to catch up. She catches wisps of sentences here and there, including the two that mattered the most.
Daring Do routinely got fan-mail, but she also got mail from allies in danger, asking for her to come for their daring rescue.
Who could it be? So many possibilities! Was it Lord Rattlesnake, trapped again in pyramids that were either real or fake? Was it Lady Riverbend, running away from the Deadly Skull Gang as she called for a friend?
The more names Daring rattles off, the more poor Ditzy wishes the letter hadn’t blown so far-off.
“I want to help!” she exclaims.
“I work alone,” Daring disclaims.
Ditzy sees no problem with this. “We’ll work alone together!”
What a bold remark! So bold, in fact, that Daring finds little way to protest. How can she say no to such a heartfelt claim, such a burning desire ready to burn away the snowstorm and its ire!
I did mention before that Daring was no quitter, did I not? Sadly, this still applies.
“I work alone,” she repeats, finding herself in a strange deja-vu. Lessons aren’t so quickly learned, it seems, but just as Daring Do is no quitter, neither is Ditzy Doo.
“Oh, please let me help!” she insists. “I need to deliver the mail!”
What a vexing scenario for an intrepid mare. She wonders inside what is it with strangers barging into her life like a landslide. “All right,” she decides, grabbing her hat and putting it on. “We need to track down who sent the letter and go from there.”
Off they went, Daring and Ditzy Doo, out of the house, the jungle, the forest, all the way up to the big post office by the florist.
Daring peers inside, looking and looking and looking for a plan that makes sense. A big, burly, grumpy pony mans the counter, clearly not the toughest foe to encounter.
“We need to access the archives,” Daring says, turning to her companion. “You can do that, can’t you?”
Ditzy’s reply is pointed.
“Uhm…”
“Uhm?”
“Well, Ms. Do,” Ditzy says with a cough, “I’m just a mail pony… I don’t have access to the archives, but I’m hoping to get promoted soon! I was going to get promoted last month, but I got confused and delivered something bad to a place it shouldn’t be, and so Mister Sharp Letter said I should wait a bit more!”
Daring Do’s reply is pointed, as well.
“Ok. Well. Ok. Change of plan.” She looks around and narrows her eyes. “We need to infiltrate the mail office and get the address from the archives.”
“Why not ask Mister Sharp?” Ditzy asks, and she rushes towards the door. “Or I can ask! I’ll go ask!”
“Well, that didn’t work,” Daring says when poor Ditzy ambles back. Clearly telling him the letter was lost was not the best of ideas, she thinks while Daring makes an entirely new plan.
There’s a chimney, she notes, and if she’s learned something as an explorer, it’s that chimneys are meant to be climbed down.
“But we need to distract the stallion…” she thinks aloud.
“I know!” Ditzy exclaims. “Mister Sharp Letter is a big fan of your books, Miss Do! You can go talk to him as Miss Yearling and I’ll go through the chimney and get the address!”
Daring blinks at our heroine, her eyes lit up like christmas lights.
“That’s a great idea!” she exclaims, which were things Ditzy tended to have more often than not. A perk of having a big heart, you see.
Our two mares take their path, one donning a disguise and the other making like good ol’ Santa Cloves. Ditzy flies up, up, up to the top of the building, ready to make good on her mission. It wasn’t that she condoned breaking and entering, mind you, but certain situations warranted such illicit infiltration.
She crawled down the chimney, the soot and ashes painting her uniform, until she landed with an oof at the bottom of the room. She thought, belatedly, that she ought have checked if the chimney fire was there, but all’s well that ends well!
Dusty and determined, she makes her way to the files and riffles them around, looking and looking and looking for the thing she needs. It takes her a minute—and a terrible fright when an assistant walks in and she has to hide in a box—but she finally finds the Hearth’s Warming miracle she needed.
A slip of paper with today’s addresses, including one sent to Daring Do.
She wants to rejoice and does a little dance, but her dancing abruptly ends when she takes a good look at her new destination.
17 Windy Lane in Sunswept Village.
“Sunswept Village?” she asks herself, confused and befuddled and confounded and many others words that sounded like baffled.
Sunswept Village, she remembers, is not a dangerous place.
In fact, of all the places to call dangerous, the idea of Sunswept being dangerous was so silly, so ridiculous, you wouldn’t even think of it as you made your list.
She takes the note, still amazed, and completely forgets she was supposed to leave back through the chimney. She pushes on the double-doors and pulls them apart, giving poor Daring quite the start.
Not that Mister Sharp Letter even notices at all.
“And then,” he says, continuing to read from a massive notebook filled to the brim, “the adventurer Sharpened Letter heroically rescues Daring Do from the clutches of Caballeron! And then, she realizes that she’s never had somepony like him before—not really—and as he carries her out, she decides to make him her new partner!”
Oh, what a pained smile poor Daring gives! So many things she has faced, both good and bad, but oh dear, oh my, of all the ponies she’d expected to meet, a fanfiction author was certainly not whom she’d wanted to greet.
Not that they were bad, mind you, for she too had gotten her start with that art, but boy oh boy, how they talk and talk and talk!
“So! What do you think of that for the next book?” he asks with a grin.
“Miss Yearling! Miss Yearling!” Ditzy exclaims. “We can go now!”
“Great!” Daring exclaims, and at her fan’s reaction, amends her reply. “I mean. That was a very nice story, Mister Sharp, but I can’t use that due to legal issues.” She’s already walking towards the door, smiling broadly and waving as much. “Thank you for read—”
“But I don’t mind about copyright!” he pleads.
“I’m sure you don’t!”
To their great fortune, Sunswept Village was not too far. A brisk flight and there they were!
“Are you sure this is the right place?”
The village bustled with life and joy, with laughter and warmth, and certainly not with the perils one expects alongside a letter asking for help—certainly not the ones Daring had ever faced.
“Yes!” Ditzy insists, peering down at her paper. This is the place, it is, it is! This she insists as they walk, and this she insists when their trek leads them to an even quainter house. “17 Windy Lane.”
Holiday decorations hang from the rooftop, candles light the windowsills, and four snowponies--two adults and two foals--greet them with coaly smiles. One of the bigger ones, Daring notices, has white plastic wings.
“Are you sure this is right place?” Daring asks again, and again Ditzy nods her head.
With great concern, as you should be concerned when all seems a bit too well, Daring walks to the door and knocks three times in quick succession and a fourth for good measure.
She presses her ear to the door, narrowing her eyes, and finds that all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. Now that, she decided, was worrying enough.
She walked back to Ditzy Doo, and a plan was made between the two.
“We’ll go down this chimney,” says Daring atop the roof, watching as Ditzy peers in.
“Boy, you really like going down chimneys!” exclaims the mailmare as she wiggles her way down. “Don’t you?”
“Ho, ho, ho,” says Daring Do next as she jumps in after Ditzy.
They land with a thud at the end of the tunnel, and poor Ditzy’s rump now has one too many bumps. They dust themselves off, gather their hats and their bearings, and step inside into a quiet tableau.
A quaint little house, three stockings hanging by the chimney in hopes that Sandy Cloves soon would be there. A music box on a table plays gentle music, and the smell of holiday food wafts in from the kitchen.
All seems well, all seems at peace, and to that Ditzy can only say one simple thing.
“Huh?”
She scratches her head, tries to understand! This house, this place, this cheer abound! Why, she wonders, why would anypony here ever need urgent help?
Daring, on her side, feels quite the same way. Help? Help who? Help what? Help when? This makes the least bit of sense!
She walks towards the chimney again, her eyes reading the names of three stockings— Caramel Jam says the first, and then two little stockings with similar names, Vanilla Drops and Cinnamon Jam.
Above the stockings, there is so much more to see, including a photograph of a family of more than three. A stallion, a mare, a filly and a colt, smiling and waving to whoever might see. A family of four are sharing a laugh, she notes, so why then do the stockings not match the photograph?
Before she can think much more, the lights around her turn aglow, and when she turns around to see, she finds a brother and a sister next to the tree. Their eyes shine like the stars up above, the young colt clutching his sister’s leg, and with great big smiles they cheer.
“She’s here! She’s here!”
To Daring they run, giggles and gasps all around, as they celebrate the fact that she came as he promised she would.
“He?” Daring asks, startled by the two foals crowding her legs. “Did you send me the letter asking for help?”
“Yes, it was us!” says the filly, and calls herself Cinnamon Jam. “Can you please help our mom?!”
“Your mom?” Ditzy asks, not wanting to be left behind.
“What’s wrong with your mom?” Daring asks next.
The filly explains with great joy, that once upon a time, before bed every night, their dad would tell them of her grand adventures through the land. Through the pyramids and the jungle, through the desert and the river, Daring Do was the greatest explorer of them all, said the filly.
“And,” she finished, “he told us that whenever something’s wrong, Daring Do will always come to help us!”
“We sent you a letter!” the little brother continues. “‘Cuz mommy is sad!”
For the first time that night, Daring Do feels no solution is in sight.
A mother being sad is certainly quite bad, yes, but… but it was not something Daring usually helped with. She fought thieves and miscreants, explored tombs and ruins! She swung from vines and flew through sandstorms! So many things she did, but cheer up a mom? Well…
“Where’s your mom?” Ditzy asks.
“Shopping!” Cinnamon replies.
“And your dad? Where’s he?” Daring asks, and the cheer she’d brought soon fades away as two foals look away. They stammer and stutter, their eyes lower and lower, and when the littlest one clutches his sister’s leg, she speaks up, strong and brave.
“He… He’s not here anymore,” she says quietly.
Daring and Ditzy don’t say a word after that. There is, after all, not much to say when faced with quite a fact. How sad, is it not? How empty the house feels now, how heavy and bleak. Like her heart shot through with a spear, the reason there’s only three stockings is now more than clear.
“Oh.” Her heart is heavy as she asks the next question. “What’s his name?”
“Sugar Drops,” says the colt, and Daring’s heart is heavier still.
She recognizes the name, you see, from letters a-dozen, of a stallion who loves her works. An inspiration, he’d called her once, and here lay the proof in the shape of two foals who’d sought her out.
If only, she thinks, that was something I could rescue them from.
“But it’s okay!” Cinnamon exclaims, and her smile powers through. “You’re here now to help!”
Before Daring can reply, the door opens wide and in comes a mare with tired blue eyes. She carries her bags, she carries her hat, and she carries her eyes as wet as her coat. It’s the snow, she told the pony selling her food, it’s just the snow.
“I’m home!” she calls out, and what a start when she sees the surprise. Two mares in her house, right near her foals.
It’s to be expected! It’s quite normal, it is, that faced with such a sight, the poor little mare had no choice but to scream.
“Who are you?!” she gasps, alarmed. “How did you get into my house?!”
“No, mom! It’s okay!” exclaim the children, running to their frazzled mother. “It’s Daring Do! We asked her to come!”
“And Ditzy Doo, too!” Ditzy exclaims, wanting to be part of the action.
“Da...Daring Do?!” exclaims Caramel Jam, at a loss for what to do.
“It’s okay, Ma’am,” Daring says, trying to reassure where she can. “I… I was sent by A.K. Yearling! She, er, loves the letters your husband sends her, and so she asked if I could drop by as a surprise.”
“B-But how did you get in?” asks the mom.
“We let her in!” the filly exclaims.
“Cinnamon! You shouldn’t let strangers into the house!” Caramel scolds, and Ditzy can’t help a giggle when Daring shakes her head at the filly in disapproval.
“But still,” the mom relents, her fears all gone. She turns to our heroines and her smile… her smile turns sad as tears fill her eyes. “My husband… My husband would have loved this, but…”
She tries to explain, find the words to say what hurts so much, and it a sad sight to see. Ditzy and Daring share a look of their own, their feelings clear. The mystery’s been solved, nothing else to show, it’s time to put on our hats and go.
“It’s fine,” Daring says. “We know.” She smiles broadly and gestures to the foals. “You have wonderful children, and we hope you have a happy Hearth’s Warming eve.” She dons her hat and nods to the door. “Ready?”
Ditzy nods her head. “Okay!” She turns to the mother, to the foals and all, and she smiles as best she can. “Nice to meet you!”
The foal’s eyes grow wide, their smiles all gone. Wait, they seem about to say! Wait, oh please, won’t you wait?
And yet, to everypony’s surprise, it’s not the children who call out, but the mare by the door.
“Oh, please wait!” exclaims Caramel Jam, reaching out for the mares. She steps back, afraid and embarrassed, but eventually steps forward, heart held out. “I… Well, I’ve never been a big fan of Yearling’s books, but… but my husband adored them and, well…” She smiles warmly, to her children and her unexpected guests. “If you two are able, we would love for you to stay for dinner.”
“Stay for dinner?” Ditzy repeats with a smile. She turns to her friend and taps her hooves excitedly against the floor. “Can we?! Can we?!”
Daring looks around, to the decorations and the lights, the stockings and the trees, the family and her friend. ‘Twas the night before Hearth’s Warming, when all through the house, all ponies wait for a mare to announce:
“Yes, we can,” she says, taking off her hat and offering her heart, “but only if we get to help with making dinner.”
So the hours passed, one by one, with Daring and Ditzy helping along. The foals play with Ditzy all manner of games while Daring and Caramel cook on the flames. Caramel speaks and speaks of her husband of late, her eyes filled with tears but her heart filled with cheer.
Not much later, they sit down to dinner, six--not five--plates on the table.
"He's watching us over," Caramel says to all.
Ditzy speaks next. "Don't forget to leave him left-overs!"
They eat and eat, laughing and talking, and to herself Daring thinks this was quite shocking. Years before, over and over, she's had Heart's Warming dinner quite alone! On adventures she was, or reading a book, but never before had she had to cook!
How strange! How odd! These events she did not foresee! ...But now that she's here, well…
This was a grand adventure, indeed.
"Happy Heart's Warming, Daring," Ditzy says to her, her smile quite grand.
Daring smiles back. "Happy Heart's Warming, Ditzy, and a happy new year."
Author's Note
For Sixes_And_Sevens, who made me realize that writing something other than RariTwi is not only possible but fun, and for Nick, who much like the father, is gone from this land but still lives within the hearts he touched.
