‘Twas the night before Hearth's Warming,
And all through the farm,
All the buildings were quiet,
Except for the barn.
“Damn it all,” Rainbow Blitz swore through clenched teeth. “Damn it, damn you, damn this hay, damn it all to Tartarus!”
At this point in the evening—or rather, early morning—Blitz wasn’t even conscious of what was coming out of his mouth. He was simply letting loose a stream of profanity so long, so loud, and so creative that it would have turned the air blue—if it wasn’t already below freezing, that was.
Blitz had the short, wiry build of a star athlete—which was lucky, because that’s what he was. Small ponies were aerodynamic, regardless of how much fun his friends made of him. He spent hours a day training with the Wonderbolts, making sure he was in tip-top shape at all times.
But, as it turned out, what Blitz considered “top shape” didn’t mean much for the task at hand. Most of his muscle mass was concentrated in his shoulders and chest, which made him an excellent flyer. Unfortunately, those sorts of muscles meant jack squat for working on a farm.
Blitz was in the middle of dragging a bale of hay across the floor of the Sweet Apple Acres barn, hauling it by one of the strands of red twine that held it shut. The hay had left a trail in the dust on the floor of the barn, leading backwards to the ladder leading up to the hayloft. At the bottom of the ladder was a circular impact crater of loose hay and dust, which indicated Blitz’s uniquely direct approach to the current task. Unsure of how else to get the hay down from the hayloft, he’d simply shoved it out the hole he’d climbed up through.
Blitz gave one more mighty haul, then spat out the twine he’d been pulling on. He made a face, then licked at his own teeth, trying to get the taste of dry, dusty grass out of his mouth. He sighed heavily, then sat down on the bale, not even caring about what the hay was going to do to his Wonderbolts Edition PermafrostTM ski jacket. He’d got it for free as part of a sponsorship deal, so it’s not like it was a huge loss—and yet, he would have liked to keep it nice, for what it represented. But he was too cold, too tired, and too frustrated to care at the moment.
After a few seconds’ rest, Blitz sighed again, unzipped his jacket a few inches, then reached inside and pulled out a sheaf of papers from an inside pocket. He stared at it for a second, then peered closely at the top sheet and read first instruction.
“Cows,” he read aloud, “one-and-a-half flakes hay each.” He looked up. “What in Tartarus is a flake?”
* * *
The papers were a product of about six weeks of preparation—though they sure didn’t look like it.
It was Blitz’s and Applejack’s first Hearth's Warming since he had popped the question, and he wanted to do something special for her. Like, actually special. Something more than front-row seats to one of his shows, or some big fancy jewelry, or a clandestine meeting with her favorite celebrity. After all, he could get her those tickets anytime she wanted, she didn’t really see the point of jewelry, and she was already on a first-name basis with some of the most important ponies in Equestria. So Blitz had to wrack his brain for something that would make her face light up come Hearth's Warming morning.
And then he’d remembered an idea—an idea he’d had a long, long time ago. He would give Applejack a gift like no other: he’d give her the gift of a break. Every morning, she got up before dawn to go and do her chores. Chores like—like—
Well. Blitz wasn’t exactly sure what. That was the problem. See, Applejack got up before dawn to take care of her chores, but Blitz liked to sleep in until noon when he could manage it, and at least eight or nine when he couldn’t. Which meant that, whenever he woke up, Applejack already had all her chores finished, and usually had breakfast on the table for the entire family, himself included—though his portion was usually cold by the time he got around to it.
So, starting mid-November or so, Blitz had gone on a concerted campaign to find out what exactly his fiancee did in the morning, without letting her know what he was up to.
* * *
Blitz yawned, then shivered and stood up. He looked around until he found a pair of scissors hanging from a convenient nail nearby, then got them down and brought them back to the bale of hay. He cut the three strands of twine holding the bale together, each popping free with a pleasing little snap. When he cut the third one, the bale split open and spilled on the floor. Blitz jumped backward and swore in surprise.
He glared angrily at the pile of hay on the floor, then looked up. Sweet Apple Acres’s half-dozen cows stared back at him out of their stalls. Blitz scowled, then looked back at the hay. He did some quick mental math, trying to figure out how much bigger the cows were than him, and how much he should feed them based on how much hay he usually ate—then realized he hadn’t actually eaten dried hay since his last, ill-advised hiking trip before he’d finally quit the Colt Rangers.
Blitz growled in frustration, then scooped up a messy armful of hay, marched it over to the first of the feed boxes, and dumped it in. The cow gave him a reproachful look.
“Don’t give me that,” he snapped. “Eat up.”
The cow made a noise deep in her throat, then bent down and took a bite of the hay.
Blitz walked back and forth, filling each of the other feedboxes with their own armful of hay, then stomped back to the scattered remains of the bale. He snatched up his list from where he’d dropped it, then scanned the second line. He paused, then peered at it closer. “Cows,” he read again. He looked up. “I just did cows!”
A surly moo echoed from the back of the barn.
“Oh, can it,” he snapped. He looked back down at the list and continued reading.
“Cows,” he repeated. “One scoop corn each.” He blinked twice, then threw back his head. “Augh!” he cried. “You stupid cows want corn, too!?”
Another surly moo.
“Shut up!” he roared, despair in his voice.
* * *
Blitz had been quite proud of his little list—before he had to start using it, anyways.
Applejack had been doing the same set of farm chores ever since she was a teenager. She had them down almost to muscle memory at this point, in fact. Occasionally—very occasionally—she’d asked the others to help out when she was away, but even so, the only copy of the up-to-date list of her responsibilities was the one she kept in her head. That was all well and good, most of the time—but that also meantshe hadn’t left a notebook or anything around to go snooping through. He’d tried to wake up early and follow her around, but Applejack had figured out something was up the second he had dug his alarm clock out of the box in the attic.
So instead, Blitz had to get creative.
First, he’d gone by Mac’s. Macadamia wasn’t home—she’d gone to the doctor’s again—but Blaze left a message with Sugar Beau. When she finally got back to him, Mac hadn’t been much help: she could list a few of the things that she generally did, but they’d divided up farm responsibilities longago, and hadn’t really looked back. And no, she couldn’t just ask Applejack either: with her foal on the way, the doctor was making her take it easy, so it was Beau who was doing most of the farm work these days. And he already had his hooves full as it was.
So Blitz had gone by Berry’s. Bubble Berry was likewise busy—though, in his case, busy involved baking about four hundred cupcakes at once. Cheese Toastie was on her way back into town, he said, and he needed to figure out the exact sort of cupcake she’d want as a “Welcome-Back-To-Ponyville, Hopefully-Forever” snack. Blitz tried to sneak out halfway through Berry’s explanation, but it was too late; before he knew it, he found himself helping Berry frost each of the four hundred cupcakes, while Berry himself hemmed and hawwed over which blend of colored sprinkles best matched Toastie’s eyes.
But the day hadn’t been a complete loss. Blitz managed to interrogate Berry about what, exactly, one did on a farm. Berry wasn’t much help, though—rock farms bore only a passing resemblance to apple orchards, after all—but Applejack had asked him to help her out, once or twice. Berry’s memory had never been great for things that didn’t involve sprinkles or confetti, but he still remembered a thing or two. So, when Blitz finally stumbled out the door two hours later, holding a spare cupcake in one hoof, the napkin wrapped around it bore several lines of Berry’s loopy hoofwriting.
But it still hadn’t been enough. Blitz was at a loss for what to do next, and was actually starting to panic—until he heard that Barb was coming back to town.
Barb—the only one who called her “Barbara” anymore was Twilight herself—was Twilight’s dragon assistant. She was apparently settling in to Canterlot just fine, but she still missed her regular spa days with Rarity and Butterscotch. She had apparently arranged a special spa session for the three of them—charged to the Royal expense account, of course.
So Blitz had swallowed his pride and met Barb at the train station, and promised her a whole basket of gemstones if she could distract Applejack for an afternoon. And distract she did: after some discussion with Rares and ‘Scotch, Barb asked Applejack to give her a lengthy tour of the orchard while she took notes—purely for the benefit of Twilight’s own botany studies, of course. Meanwhile, Blitz ransacked the entire farmhouse, top-to-bottom, looking for any stray checklists or farming books that might have given him a clue. At this point, he’d even have been happy with half a sentence scribbled on a loose sticky note.
And, just as the two girls were on their way back, he found it: a letter written to Applejack’s rambunctious Appleoosan cousin Jazz, back when she came to watch the farm for a week a couple years ago. It had fallen behind Applejack’s nightstand, and she apparently hadn’t noticed, even all this time later.
Blitz had barely managed to put everything back together by the time the front door opened again. He stood there, chest heaving and a brittle smile on his face, as Applejack walked in and raised an eyebrow. If she noticed the crooked rug, or the half-opened drawers, or even the dishevelled couch cushions, she had the good grace not to say anything. Meanwhile, Barb shot Blitz a questioning look. In response, he nodded to where his ski jacket hung on the coathook, and at the folded sheet of paper that poked out of the pocket.
But, as it turned out, he still wasn’t done. He had the list, sure, but he had no idea what any of it meant.So, after promising her another basket of gems, he and Barb sat down together, late that night, to go over his notes. With the recollections of Mac and Berry, plus Barb’s memories of one time she helped feed the pigs, they were able to translate Applejack’s list into plain Equestrian. Barb had apparently picked up a few tricks from her time as Twilight’s research assistant, because she’d taken the liberty of adding copious notes of her own, not to mention a table of contents and a bevy of cross-referenced footnotes. By the time she shook Blaze awake, she’d turned his single pitiful page of notes into a packet of clear, easy-to-follow instructions.
Or at least they’d seemed clear, at ten in the evening. It was a whole different bushel of apples at two in the morning.
* * *
Blitz spat the corn scoop back into the bin—which had taken another twenty minutes to find, where it lay wedged behind another stack of hay bales—then slammed the lid shut. He pulled out the list again.
“Pigs: feed slop,” he read.
He frowned. Easy enough, at least in theory. And he knew where the slop bucket was: they kept it under the kitchen sink. But wasn’t there something else to it…?
Blitz turned a few pages, and found the one he was looking for: a lengthy list of instructions, filling almost an entire page top to bottom. But Barb had scratched out every single instruction, and scrawled a single note at the bottom of the page:
“Just feed the damn pigs,” Blitz read slowly.
He sighed, then stuffed the paper back in his jacket. He turned, then glided from the hayloft down to the floor. He walked up to the door, sighed again, then reached in his jacket pockets. He pulled out a knitted beanie hat, a long scarf, and a set of ski goggles. He put the goggles on first, then pulled the beanie down almost over his eyes, and finally wrapped the scarf around and around his face. By the time he was done, not an inch of his sky-blue coat showed above his collar.
And yet, he shivered. He walked to the big, barn door, braced himself, and pulled the door open.
The freezing wind howled in through the gap in the door, slicing through Blitz’s jacket like it wasn’t even there. Instantly, his teeth started chattering.
The things I do for love, he thought to himself.
* * *
When they’d first met, Applejack hadn’t seemed all that special to Blitz.
At the time, he was the lowest pony on the totem pole at the Weather Service. But he’d had big dreams.
Even back then, he’d wanted to be a star. Oh, he was a lazy sack of turds when he wanted to be—and, to be fair, that was most of the time—but he’d worked hard on his speed and his stunts, even taking time to learn all the latest tricks in all the magazines. He’d even almost broken his neck trying to catch the eye of Captain Typhoon and Lieutenant Soarin’at the Grand Galloping Gala, for what that was worth—to say nothing of, y’know, saving the world every so often.
It was actually that last part that had helped him out most. Getting your mug on the front page of every newspaper from here to Saddle Arabia twice a year did a lot for your reputation, after all. So, after months of waiting impatiently in the Wonderbolts Reserve, and after being cleared of orchestrating Typhoon’s disappearance, he’d finally made it to the Big Leagues.
And it was everything he’d dreamed. Blitz had always been the “Live Fast, Die Young” type, even as a low-rung weather pony. Back when he’d been a nobody, he was the sort to get drunk on a Tuesday night and try some stupid stunt he’d read about in that week’s edition of Dumbass. But with his growing fame—not to mention his salary—his life had only gotten rowdier.
Blitz livedfor touring season. Every week, all the ‘Bolts would fly together to some big-name city, like Manehattan, or Seaddle, or Las Pegasus. They’d do a show, where Blitz would be able to do every insane stunt he’d ever dreamed of in front of a screaming crowd of thousands. Then, there’d be the afterparty, where he’d put on his dress uniform and strut and pose and flex for all his raving fans. And, if he woke up the next morning in the arms of between two and four of the city’s most eligible mares, all the better.
(Twilight had talked to him about that last detail several times, trying to convince him that it wasn’t in keeping with the Element of Loyalty to, as Blitz had flippantly explained it once, “hump ‘em and dump ‘em.” Blitz countered that all parties involved had all knowingly agreed to a one-night stand, and thus, the question of Loyalty had never even entered the equation. Twilight was obviously unhappy, but hadn’t broached the topic in over a year.)
And yet, there’d always been Applejack. He’d trained for most of his life to be an athlete, but athleticism seemed to come to her as naturally as breathing. More importantly, she’d always been able to see past the front he put up for everypony else: she’d been the one to pry out of him how his obsessive need to win was driven by his parents’ stratospheric expectations. How most of his partying was an attempt to fill a deep void inside him that had no name. And how much his self-esteem depended on how loudly the crowd cheered his name.
No surprise, then, that he’d found her irritating at first. He wasn’t the sort to appreciate criticism, and it seemed that all she did was criticize. He might have even left their little team, if he and Twilight hadn’t bonded over his budding love of Daring Do.
And, slowly, things began to change. As he and Applejack spent more time together—first, fighting evil side-by-side, then, during social events with the rest of the group, and finally, on occasional one-on-one outings—he’d realized how much he admired her ability to see past all his bullshit. True, she was mean about it, sometimes--that was just her way--but more often than not, she made him laugh. Most of the time, when she publicly aired one of his crippling insecurities, she did so with a little twist of dry country wit--the sort that made him laugh even as his insides twisted into knots. He had never met a mare quite like her: the sort who wasn’t afraid to be who she was, regardless of what everypony else thought about it. In some of his darker moments, he even wished that he could be like her—ready to face the world all on her own, not afraid of anything.
And then, shortly after the Battle of the Bell, he’d woken up in the penthouse of a Las Pegasus hotel, a deep, gnawing pit in his stomach. At first, he couldn’t figure out why: after all, by all indications, he'd had a wonderful evening the night before. He had a stage actress asleep on his left arm, a fashion model on his right, and a gentle, pleasant buzzing in his head that was just beginning to turn into a hangover. He’d crawled out of bed and made his way over to the window, where he’d looked out at the Las Pegasus skyline. Here he was, with everything he’d ever wanted all around him—and yet, none of it made him happy.
And then, he realized that there was only one pony he ever wanted to wake up next to ever again--and she was waiting patiently for him back in Ponyville.
* * *
Blitz squinted, then held the list up to the reddish light that leaked through the cracks in the potbelly stove. “Clear Orchard,” he read slowly.
The list was still a mile long, but he was making good headway. He’d already slopped the pigs, fed the chickens,fetched firewood from the shed, andlit all the stoves that heated the farmhouse. He’d actually skipped ahead a bit for that last one, but he didn’t exactly care at this point. Icicles were starting to form on his scarf, and he could barely feel his wings anymore. If he’d spent much longer out there, he would have frozen solid.
But Clear Orchard. He knew this one. He’d had a plan for it almost as soon as he’d heard about it. In the wintertime, Applejack always walked up and down the orchard, checking the buildup of snow on the branches of the trees. If there was too much snow, Mac explained, it got too heavy, and could break branches clean off. So Applejack always patrolled the orchards, knocking big clumps of snow off the trees before that could happen.
It always took her an hour or two to walk the whole orchard—but that was only because she couldn’t fly.
Blitz instinctively flexed his wings. After all the hauling and the slopping and the trudging, it would feel wonderful to stretch his wings again.
But at the same moment, his gut twisted uncomfortably. Going fast, in this weather, meant he’d get even colder. And what was better—spending an hour and a half shivering through the snow? Or zipping through it in sixty seconds, and freezing his tail off in the process?
In the end, it was his lack of patience that won out. He had a long list of chores to do yet, and didn’t have time for a leisurely stroll. So, after a few more minutes of thawing by the stove—not to mention cursing Granny Smith for refusing to buy a hot water heater, or at least a Kiger machine—he suited back up again and stepped back out into the freezing dark.
He spread his wings, trying not to think of what this would do to his poor feathers, and took off into the teeth of the gale.
It took him a minute to find his bearings—after all, he wasn’t used to flying across the orchard in the dark, and there weren’t exactly neon signs pointing the way. But once he realized the rows of regular mounds in the snow were trees, he grinned behind his scarf, pinned back his wings, and dove.
He shot across the orchard, leaving a blazing trail of rainbow light in his wake. His flight lasted only a few seconds, but it was glorious. It reminded him of his old Weatherpony days—clearing acres of clouds with a well-placed wedge formation, bringing golden sunlight to entire cities at once. He was just a single pony—and an out-of-practice one at that—but the roar of rushing air behind him told him he’d got his angles right. His one-pony wedge had stirred up enough wind to suck the snow right off the trees, and up into a tight tornado-swirl behind him.
Blitz flew across the river, dragging the Sweet Apple snow behind him, then abruptly pulled up. The snow-nado tried to twist after him, but the abrupt change in trajectory stripped it of all its momentum. The tornado dissolved, and the orchard’s snow sprayed across the empty fields next door in a harmless dusting of white.
Blitz whooped, then did a quick loop-de-loop in the air. He looked back down at his handiwork, grinning—and then frowned.
“Aw, dammit,” he muttered.
The snow below him was soft and white--but it wasn’t pure white. Mixed in with the snow were sticks. Lots of them.He’d pulled the snow off the trees, alright—but it seemed he’s pulled off a lot of their branches with it.
He sighed miserably to himself, then started a slow, lazy spiral back down to ground level.
At least it wasn’t the first time he’d messed up today. Even if Applejack didn’t notice the missing branches, she would absolutely notice the pig-slop he’d spilled all over his jacket while carrying it to the barn. Or the chicken feed he’d scattered all around the feeder as he tried his best to stop shivering. Or the two dozen broken or burned-out matches scattered all around the potbelly stove.
He had tried to do something special for Applejack, to try and show her how much she meant to him. But, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, it seemed that all he was doing was making things worse.
* * *
Years ago, when he’d been a little colt, Blitz’s mom had taken him to see a Hearth's Warming play in Canterlot. Blitz remembered the trip mostly because there had been a special Wonderbolts holiday show going on at the stadium a few blocks away, and he had been furious Mom hadn’t taken him there instead. He could have been watching Sky Strider doing her trademark Sooper Dooper Loop, but no--Mom had forced him to go see a stupid, sappy play that he knew he was going to hate.
Maybe it had happened because he was so mad. Or maybe because Mom had promised him a bag of sugarplums of his very own if he was good. Or maybe, maybe, it had happened because, somewhere deep down, he had recognized that, despite his protests, the play really was something special. In any case, he had never forgotten what happened on the stage that day.
It had been a relatively simple play, about a family of earth ponies who lived on a farm. The daddy of the family always woke up before dawn to do all the farm chores—even on Hearth's Warming Day, when everyone was supposed to be together. The little colt of the family wanted to give a gift to his daddy—a special gift, to show how much he cared. To show, even if he didn’t always do a good job of saying it, how much his daddy meant to him. How much he loved him and appreciated everything he did. How, even if he didn’t agree with him all the time, or even understand him sometimes, life would never be the same without him.
So, one Hearth's Warming morning, the little colt had woken up before-before dawn, and done all his daddy’s chores for him. Because, no matter how many bland little cards he bought and halfheartedly signed, or how many ties he picked out because he could never figure out what else to get, he wanted his daddy to know exactly how much he loved him.
Blitz had been a real pain when he was little—a fact he even bragged about from time to time. And he had probably been an even bigger pain throughout the play. But, no matter how much he claimed to hate the it forever afterwards, he always remembered the story of the little colt who had sacrificed the only thing he could to give a gift beyond compare to the pony he loved most.
* * *
Applejack shivered, then opened her eyes.
The sky through her bedroom window was still dark—it being Hearth's Warming Day and all, it was going to be dark for a while yet. But all the same, it was time to get up. There was work to be done before breakfast—and before she could give Blitz his gift.
But—Applejack shivered again—her bed was freezing. It was never this cold, not since Blitz had moved in, at least. Sleeping next to the colt was like sleeping next to a furnace. Even on cold winter nights, she didn’t need an extra blanket. It was secretly one of the things she loved most about being engaged to him—though there was no way she was ever going to tell him so.
She rolled over, and discovered, to her surprise, that Blitz’s spot on the bed was empty. She reached over and felt his pillow, but it was cold—so, no, he hadn’t just gone to the bathroom. That was weird—most mornings, you couldn’t pull him out of bed with a raging elephant.
But then again, he’d been acting weird for a while, now...
Applejack steeled herself against the cold, then threw back the quilt and rolled onto her hooves. She snatched her hat from where it hung on the bedpost, then slapped it on her head—more out of habit than anything, this time of year—then slipped downstairs to get the stoves lit.
The first thing she noticed—which only occurred to her when she was already halfway down the stairs—was that she wasn’t shivering anymore. It was still cold, no doubting that, but she was no longer frozen down to her core. Either spring had come early, or someone had already lit the stoves that heated the house.
The second thing she noticed—this time, after she’d hit the bottom of the stairs—was the snoring. She tip-hoofed into the living room, then stopped and stared. After a moment, she rolled her eyes, shook her head, and smiled a warm little smile.
Rainbow Blitz lay on the couch, dead asleep, under a pile of three or four of Granny’s quilts. He was on his back, mouth open and tongue lolling out, snoring so loud he practically rattled the windows. On the other side of the room, the fireplace had burned down to coals—even from here, she could tell he had only put one log on the fire for some reason. Picturesque, but not enough to really keep a fire going for long.
She shook her head again, then snuck across the living room, plucked another log or two from the pile by the hearth, and set them on top of the coals. She rubbed her forehooves together and warmed them at the fire for a moment, then looked around and wrinkled her nose.
The third thing she noticed was the smell. Something stank of rotten apples. You’d think that would be par for the course around this place, but the Apple Family was very good about keeping things clean. Every bit of the apple that wasn’t eaten or cooked went straight in the slop pail to go to the pigs. Which meant that, unless Blitz had somehow stepped in the bucket again, someone had to have taken a bite of an apple and then left it somewhere.
Applejack grumbled to herself, then turned around—and spotted the culprit almost immediately. Crumpled on the floor beside the couch was Blitz’s ski jacket, the one with the Wonderbolts logo embroidered on the shoulder. All down the front of it were thick, dark stains. Applejack raised an eyebrow, crept forward, and sniffed at the stains—then immediately jerked her head back and gagged. Yep. That’s where the smell was coming from. Blitz hadn’t stepped in the slop bucket—he’d been wearing it.
But when had he touched the slop bucket in his life, save for the occasional bumbling accident? And what was the slop doing all over his nice jacket, anyways? For that matter, why was the rest of the jacket covered in smudges of dirt and little bits of hay?
The fourth thing she noticed was the folded sheets of paper, poking out of one of the pockets of his jacket.
Applejack wrinkled her nose again, then gently reached down and tugged out the papers by one corner with her teeth. As she pulled them free, they slipped open, revealing several pages of notes and diagrams. She picked them up and flipped through them, her frown deepening as she did.
It took her a while to realize what she was looking at: a list of her daily chores—more or less—with detailed instructions and notes on how to do them. He’d left one or two off, and kept a few that she’d passed on to Apple Bloom by now, but the list was pretty complete anyways.
It wasn’t until her eye ran across the item Pigs: Feed Slop that it clicked. She looked from the list, to Blitz’s jacket, to Blitz himself, plumb tuckered out on the couch.
Applejack smiled, then shook her head fondly. “Ya big galoot,” she muttered. “Did you really try and do all my chores for me?”
Blitz just kept on snoring, but Applejack could have sworn she saw the corners of his mouth turn up, just the slightest bit.
Applejack chuckled, then leaned down and kissed him gently on the cheek. Blitz stopped snoring, let out a happy little gurgle-moan, then rolled onto his side and started snoring again.
Applejack laughed out loud, then picked up Blitz’s list and went to go find her own snow jacket. As she walked down the hall, she scanned the list again. It was nice of him to try and save her time, today of all days—but even so, she should still probably go double-check on everything anyways. He tried so hard, but there was a reason she didn’t let him help out with chores. She’d asked him to help her harvest apples—once—and she, Mac, and Apple Bloom had all agreed that next year they’d find an excuse to send him to Canterlot for the afternoon.
Besides, she’d come to enjoy her early-morning walk through the orchard. She enjoyed the exercise, even cold as it was.
Her walk gave her time to think. And she had a lot to think about these days. Especially about the future.
* * *
Rainbow Blitz sniffed once, then twice. He took a deep through his nose, and his eyes snapped open. Two inches away from his snout hovered a plate of applesauce pancakes, with a little swirl of whipped cream and a dash of rainbow sprinkles on top.
“Hah,” said a voice, “I knew that’d get ya up.”
Blitz sat up, then rubbed his eyes. He smiled, then looked up to see Applejack standing there in the middle of the room, holding the plate of pancakes in one of her forehooves and smiling down at him.
“Breakfast is ready,” she said simply.
He yawned. “What time is it?” he groaned.
“Early,” she said. “Everypony else’s still sleepin’.” She leaned in close and whispered in his ear. “But that means we get the kitchen all to ourselves.”
And she turned and walked to the kitchen, swaying her hips and swishing her tail as she moved. Blitz watched her go, his mouth hanging open, then tore off the blankets and chased after her.
The two of them shared a simple, candlelight breakfast together. Applejack ate her pancakes plain, with just a pat of homemade butter each, but Blitz laid on the whipped cream and the syrup thick. Applejack even looked away so he could put on extra sprinkles without anypony looking.
They whispered and giggled to each other as they ate—or, at least Applejack did. Blitz kept on nodding off between bites. Each time, Applejack just shook her head fondly, then nudged him under the table. Poor colt… he wasn’t used to being up this early.
But still: she needed him awake, this morning of all mornings.
Finally, Blitz shoved the last of his pancakes into his mouth and chewed noisily. Applejack rolled her eyes, then looked down and found, to her own surprise, that she had barely touched hers.
Blitz seemed to notice at the same time she did. He gulped down his pancakes, then looked at her, concerned.
“Everything alright?” he asked.
She smiled, then stood and walked around the table. She bent down and kissed him on the forehead. “More than alright, Honeycrisp,” she said.
A slow, sappy grin spread itself across his face.
“I love you,” he murmured.
“Love ya right back,” she returned, and kissed him again—this time on the lips.
Applejack pulled away, then turned and walked from the room.
“Now you sit right there,” she said over her shoulder. “I got a present for ya.”
She was poking around in the pile of presents in the living room when Blitz poked his head around the doorframe, a frown on his face. “A present?” he repeated. “Don’t you wanna wait for everypony else to get up?”
“Nope,” she replied. “This is a present just for the two of us.” She found what she was looking for, then gestured at the couch. “Now sit down, ya goof.”
Blitz trotted to the sofa and sat down. As he did, he noticed his messy jacket, still lying on the floor where he had left it. He looked up at Applejack, a bright smile on his face.
“I got a present for you, too!” he said brightly. “I did all your chores for you today!”
Applejack smirked as she walked back to the couch. “I noticed,” she said.
“Did I do a good job?” he asked.
Applejack tried to hide her grimace, but to no avail. Blitz’s face fell.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered after a moment.
“No, Honeycrisp,” she said, sitting down. “Ain’t nothin’ to be sorry about.”
“Yeah there is,” he insisted. He looked up, and Applejack saw, to her surprise, that his eyes were sparkling with tears.
“I love you, Jackie,” he said, his voice suddenly hoarse. “I love you so much, sometimes it hurts. And I wanted to do something special for you—something really special. And all I did was make more work for you.” He looked away and slumped a little deeper into the couch. “Figures,” he muttered.
Applejack smiled weakly, then reached over and pulled him in for a hug. “Thank you, Blitzie,” she whispered. “I love ya, too—and I don’t need you doin’ my chores for me to know that.”
He squirmed uncomfortably against her.
“Though I much appreciate it,” she added quickly.
Blitz took a deep breath.
“Are you proud of me, at least?” he asked glumly.
She kissed him on the forehead. “ ‘Course I am, Honeycrisp,” she said kindly. “Just… let me show you how to do ‘em first, next time.”
He sighed heavily. “I tried really hard,” he added.
“I know, I know,” she said.
Blitz pulled away a little bit, and Applejack released him from her grip. He flashed a grin at her, then leaned in for another hug—a proper one, this time.
They held each other like that, no sound except the crackling fire, for several minutes, just listening to each others’ heartbeats. They stayed that way so long that Applejack almost thought he had nodded off—but then, she felt him shift against her.
“Is that...?” he asked.
Applejack looked down, and found him staring at her lap, where lay a brightly wrapped package.
“Mh-hm,” she said, her smile widening.
He took the package, pulled the paper off, and frowned. It was a small, narrow box, the sort that you used to hold fancy quills. He looked up at Applejack, and she nodded at the box.
“Go on,” she said, still smiling. “It ain’t gonna bite ya.”
He turned back to the box and lifted the lid. He blinked, then stared at the contents for several seconds. Finally, he reached inside and pulled out an object: a thin stick of plastic, in purple and white. In the center of the stick was a small, circular window, revealing two red lines.
Blitz stared blankly at the stick for another second, then his eyes widened. He turned to Applejack, and she smiled and nodded.
“Uh-huh,” she said simply.
Blitz stared silently up at her—and then, Applejack noticed that his eyes were filling up with tears.
“Honeycrisp—” she began.
Suddenly, Blitz lunged in and grabbed her in a bear hug. Applejack let out a little squeak of surprise—then grinned and started stroking his mane.
“Happy Hearth's Warming, Daddy,” she said.
Blitz mumbled something into her coat, something that she didn’t catch. But that didn’t matter—not when there was just the two of them, together, on this snowy, Hearth's Warming morning.
Author's Note
Given the prompt, I freely genderswapped a number of ponies. Since many of them aren’t described beyond context clues, here’s my list of who got swapped, along with any notes I think are relevant:
Barbara “Barb”: Spike
Bubble Berry: Pinkie Pie
Butterscotch: Fluttershy
Cheese Toastie (the English name for a grilled cheese sandwich): Cheese Sandwich
Jazz (a type of apple): Braeburn
Rainbow Blitz: Rainbow Dash
Macadamia: Big Mac
Sky Strider: Wind Rider
Sugar Beau: Sugar Belle
Typhoon (a British WWII aircraft): Spitfire
