Hearth's Warming Everfree
Zam! Pow! The rush of adrenaline, wings beating aggressively around the body of an aging but ever athletic pegasus, and twirl! Ka-blam! The signature aerial twist, flying mean, of an overcomplicated routine! And zoom, the legendary Wonderbolt flips through the air towards the climax of the boldest Hearth’s Warming Eve air show in Equestiran history, with stunts so dangerous and daring even Daring Do wouldn’t dream about, the bread and butter of the revered Wonderbolt holiday performances, led by the critically acclaimed, one and only Spitfire!
And kablam! Kaploosh! Over and tumble and rocking and swoosh! Into the air and towards the clouds she climbed, wings flashing in the air, the rainbow prism of speed accumulating behind her as she skyrocketed towards the solar center of the cosmos, and – swoosh! Spitfire turned in a dramatic counterclockwise revolution of direction, and nosedived towards the ground, velocity approaching mach-one, ever accelerating as the strength of her wings overpowered gravity itself, towards the shadows on the ground when –
Tweet! A little bird chirped overhead, and Spitfire reflectively glanced at the spectator at just the critical point when–
Bam! Ponyfeathers! Zam kablam! Cursed Elements of Harmony! One minute flying aggressively through the air, a blink later spread out on the dirt, scarcely trotted ground of the heart of the Everfree Forest, twigs and branches littering her mane attached on the journey down through the treetops, scratches and bruises decorating her ever part in wounding tattoos, red splatters set atop her form, all trivialities next to the crooked backwards wing stuck up to the sky over folded into itself in an excruciating pain second only to that she felt the day she told her parents many years ago.
Seconds or minutes or hours passed, and there she lay, alone the night before Hearth’s Warming Eve, in the bitter December cold, accompanied by crying pain and a creative collection of strange Equestrian verbiage. Her wing stuck in position, rendering her immobile; even if she tried to fly past the pain, she would only crash again. Yet in the unfamiliar dark forest, no amount of pained journey on hoof would lead to her escape.
Spitfire moaned, twitching her wing with an immediate yelp, settling into another deep prolonged groan of total defeat, resigned to her newfound helpless fate. She was not afraid – Spitfire was fearless even throughout the most dire moments in Equestrian history within her lifetime, a fact she would gladly assure you of with an unparalleled ferocity lest you ever questioned or suggested to the contrary.
But just because a pony’s fearless doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt like Tartarus, and if only she could find away to get herself back to Ponyville. They were depending on her. She couldn’t fail them.
Still – the sky grew into a pitch black with the pain showing no signs of subsiding, and Spitfire found her eyes drooping, followed by an immediate surge of energy and a shooting pain as she sprung back into wakeful, once drooping, twice drooping, thrice. “Adult mares don’t take naps,” Sptifire mumbled to herself, yawning. Her eyes darted around quickly, feeling like filly with her hoof caught in the cookie jar. She relented. “I’m just going to rest my eyes for a split second,” she announced to nopony in particular. “Just a moment,” and within the moment, she was pulled asleep.
Shooshoo.
Shooooshooo.
Pssssht.
Bwah!
Spitfire awoke to a hoof set on her forehead. Eyes closed, she muddled out in slurred groggy speech, “Rainbow Dash? You’re up early.” Only as consciousness slipped back into her mind did she recall her painful reality. Wincing, she focused on the unfamiliar hoof: firm, more shaped than typical Equestrian hooves, and certainly not Rainbow Dash’s hoof at any rate. It was closer to the hoof of a Saddle Arabian stallion. She paused, then allowed her eyes to open revealing a sunlit morning on the ground of the Everfree Forest, met above by a strange body, with black-and-white stripes, the muzzle of a mare, but the build of a stallion. Spitfire examined the stranger, the visitor who looked somehow different than any pony she ever knew, but bearing distinctly equine features. Not a monster lurking in the forest, thankfully. She hoped. Not a Timberwolf Changeling. Probably. Those were probably a thing, she thought to herself. “Who are you?” Spitfire sputtered, quickly discovering herself to be breathless with a deep pain in her chest forming the moment she uttered the first syllable, but definitely not in the slightest bit scared whatsoever as she would gladly inform you as she wheezed lost and hurt in the middle of nowhere.
The stranger looked her over with compassionate concern. At once she removed her hoof from Spitfire’s forehead and moved it to her own lips, cryptically saying, “Hush, my little pony friend. I come to help; your wounds I’ll mend. Zecora is the name I use. But your bones, I fear, I’ll need to fuse.”
Spitfire, having finally regained full wakefulness stared at the saviour. “Sorry?”
The remark was unheard or ignored, and Zecora continued. “My home is but a trot away, and in it are potions to make you okay. It seems you have already fractured your wing; you must realize flying’s a dangerous thing.” She sighed, and for a moment, her eyes grew distant. “My magic has helped many ponies like you. You’ll be safe and sound – just drink the right brew.”
Spitfire hesitated, unable to parse the couplets in real-time, replaying the words in her head until she could extract the meaning. “OK,” she moaned eventually. “Anything– anything to stop the pain.” She blinked, eyes cloudy, disassociated, vaguely tagging on, “I’m Spitfire, the Wonderbolt.”
Zecora nodded gloomily, extending her hoof towards Spitfire to act as a guide through the forest, leading slowly but firmly down an unmarked path towards a small hut illuminated in the distance, using her own body weight to minimize strain on Spitfire’s. Through the journey, the injured pegasus groaned and croaked, and at each utterance, Zecora flinched, but in words, the duo remained silent. Finally approaching the home, Zecora brought her hoof to the door and channeled her magic until the door hinged clicked and swung open. She entered through the narrow channel, beckoning Spitfire to follow. A step, step–
“Aye!” Spitfire yelped, her crooked wing stuck upright pressing up against the door frame. Zecora opened her mouth and raised her front hoof out, but before she managed an utterance, Spitfire burst through the door, wing bruised and the creases of pain etched into muzzle but silent, save for the initial outburst. She opened and closed her lips for a moment in quick succession, perhaps muttering something to herself or simply hallucinating from the pain, but the room heard only silence. She twisted her head aggressively to each side with a pop-pop, exhaled, stretched, and promptly collapsed on the dirt ground of the hut.
Unsure if the collapse was an accident or not, Zecora cringed. “Are you okay, o pegasus? I fear to ask is quite superfluous.”
Mmf. Crnk. Snrk. Fft. “Fine. Great. Perfect. Please.” Pkh.
A nod, a sigh, a striped hoof running across a dizzying array of cans labeled in arcane languages of Middle Zebrish and Old Equestrian indicating potent raw ingredients read off not by signage but aura felt against the hoof. Every so often, the hoof would clutch a touched can with a mutter, syllables dripping off zebra lips, understood only as utter gibberish to a casual observer, but with a calculated cadence and patterned beauty unknown to randomness yet unfamiliar to Equestria’s finest polyglots. The can would be removed and placed delicately on a surface just beside its home in the well-stocked repository of obscure origins. Finally, after each row and column of the wall was carefully scanned and a dozen cans piled up out of place, the zebra got to work, measuring – or feeling out – quantity and quality of ingredient and ingredient. A potion recipe recited from memory – one half litre of water, fourteen grams of wood broken off from a baby timberwolf, seven grams of oil extracted from the stem of poison joke, a pinch of saccharine liquid to counteract the ill effects of the wood.
After measuring, Zecora cautiously brought each ingredient into the cauldron in ascending order of thaumaturgic entropy, beginning with pouring water and ending with maple syrup. She waved her hoof above in a circle, igniting a flame, and then continued to circle her hoof around the perimeter of the cauldron with an incantation dancing upon her lips, while Spitfire lay immobile, watching warily with her flicker of optimism growing and fading with her consciousness. Finally, the brew solidified, changing colour into a deep brown, and Zecora clapped her hooves, extinguishing the flame.
She reached over to grab a wooden cup and dunked the cup inside, filling it to the rim with the liquid. Bringing the cup to Spitfire’s lips, she said, “A sip of this will help you so; with time, your bones will heal and grow.”
Spitfire hazily drooped her head and lapped up the liquid, gagging as soon as the taste hit her lip but persisting and downing the concoction. Instantly her wing softened, drooping ever so, and she emitted a relieved sigh. “Thank you.” Zecora nodded.
Spitfire glanced around the hut. “Cool place you’ve got here!” She flashed a smile, quickly wiped away by memories shooting up her eyes. “No! No, no, no, no! It’s Hearth’s Warming Eve. I have to get back to Ponyville for the show! Thank you for everything, gotta go, bye!” She turned around and extended her somewhat softened but still frozen wings and prepared to fly when a surge of pain came crashing through, not verbalized but visible in a strained larynx and contorted visage.
Her pain was accompanied only by harrowing words. “You’ll have to miss the show I fear. While you are healing, you must stay here.” Though her glance was sympathetic, Spitfire cringed, red flashing through her.
“Fluffin’ clouds!” she muttered to herself. She coughed, wiping her mouth with her hoof. “I’m sorry, but my team is counting on me. I can’t let anypony down, least of all on Hearths’ Warming Eve. I need to fly with them for the holiday.”
Zecora stared at the pegasus quizzically, first nodding, then cocking her head, then shaking to herself. Studying the frustration – how it nuanced Spitfire’s face, how it seeped into a foreign atmosphere of home – she sighed. “Yes, you’d loathe to miss your holiday. But might there be another way?”
The pegasus lowered her eyes, unamused. “A teleportation potion? Cloning? Time travel?”
A dark laugh. “Twas something simpler I had in mind. Be mindful, where you are, what you seek is what you’ll find.”
Blink.
“Though the airshow you must miss, you need not be remiss. For your holiday’s here tonight, and my it is truly a beautiful sight. Thousands of ponies together, it’s true. Thousands of ponies–” she smiled– “Like me and you.”
Spitfire deflated, her reality sinking her gaze to the barren floor. No teleportation, no cloning. No time travel, just time together with a stranger.
A stranger who might have saved her life.
Spitfire looked up, still bruised, still hurting, and sighed. Softening, her lips curled up ever so slightly towards her hostess.
“I don’t suppose you have any eggnog?”
The airshow proceeded, the show must go on,
A spectacle! – Empty, a Wonderbolt gone.
Meanwhile, a search squad scoured the city,
Though they never lost hope, it was truly a pity,
For up in the air were they missing out,
On a moment below their arduous route.
For the Everfree Forest smiled that night,
With potions, drinks, and tales of flight.
Author's Note
Happy Hearth's Warming, Nocturnas.
