Holiday entered the house and quickly shut the door behind her, panting heavily from the heat. She took off her sunglasses and dropped her insulated saddlebags off her back, and dark spots on her coat where the sweat had gathered showed exactly where they had rested on her body. Her mane, long since cropped short, glistened with sweat; and when she brought a hoof up to wipe off her brow, it sent a small stream of it splattering on the ground. “Lofty, I’m home!” she half-called, half-breathed.
Lofty trotted over. “Holiday!” she said brightly as she reached up, going for a hug.
“Nah-ah-ah!” Holiday protested, waving her away and taking a quick step back. “You know what I want first.”
Lofty rolled her eyes, but she took a step back and braced herself on her hind hooves, and started flapping her wings, giving Holiday a much-needed breeze.
She closed her eyes and turned into it, feeling the soothing air run across her body. “Ohh, that’s good. Thanks, sugar. Oh, I feel sorry for everypony who doesn’t live with a friendly pegasus. It’s a scorcher out there today!”
Lofty gave her a flat look and slowed her wings.
“Yeah, yeah, ‘it always is’, please don’t stop.”
Lofty smiled as she shook her head and continued. Classic Holiday.
Holiday reared up, letting Lofty’s wind brush against her underbelly. “Oh, that feels good. It was just so hot today. Next time, forget fruit quality, I’m sending you.”
“Yeah, that’ll work great, until I pass out from heatstroke,” Lofty countered playfully, patting a hoof against her stomach. “I’m still carrying a little too much weight for this hot new world.”
“Oh, you know I love you the way you are,” Holiday answered, falling back to all four hooves.
Sensing that Holiday had cooled sufficiently, Lofty folded her wings and quickly retrieved the saddlebags. “So, how was your trip to the market?” she asked around the strap in her mouth.
“Well, I got the strawberries I needed for the fruit salad right before they closed,” Holiday said, running a hoof through her short-cropped mane to spread it out. “And ice, since we were running low. But I swear it’s getting pricier every day.”
“I could believe that,” Lofty said as she quickly loaded the ice into the insulated ice box. “I heard the ice cutters are having more trouble finding it. They’re having to go further north to higher mountains. Prices could go up even more.”
Holiday let out a low, pained groan. “I hadn’t heard that, and now I wish I hadn’t.”
“Well, we can’t think about that,” Lofty said. “Right now, we’ve got a fruit salad to make,” she sang invitingly.
“What do you mean ‘we’?” Holiday teased. “We both know I’m going to make it, and you’re just going to eat all the marshmallows.”
“They’re tasty!” Lofty said, opening her eyes wide and giving her the cutest, most innocent smile ever in an attempt to preempt any effort to remove her from the kitchen.
It worked. Holiday rolled her eyes. “It’s a good thing I love you,” she said, batting at Lofty’s short mane as she passed.
Lofty beamed.
“I’m excited for tonight,” Holiday continued. “It’ll be good to get out, see everypony when they’re not hiding in the shade or sweating profusely.”
“Or see them at all,” Lofty said wryly. “I’m sure Rarity’s making a killing, with how many of her giant hats and those long white robes I see around Ponyville. Makes it kinda hard to tell ponies apart,” she added under her breath.
“Knowing her, they probably have a special name,” Holiday said, washing her hooves in preparation. “But right now I’m more interested in this white whipping cream.”
“I can help with that, too!” Lofty said cheerfully as she wiped a bit of sweat off her brow.
Holiday smiled.
The two mares worked together, with Holiday doing most of the actual work of slicing and mixing, with Lofty sneaking bits of fruit with her tongue while Holiday (pretended she) wasn’t looking.
At long last, her masterpiece was done; the most beautiful fruit salad that would ever grace a table.
“It’s beautiful,” Lofty said breathlessly.
“It’s heavy,” Holiday cautioned. “I’ll get it in the icebox after I clean my hooves.”
But there was still one more tradition. Holiday held the spoon out in invitation, and Lofty gladly accepted, extending her tongue and slowly licking off the whipped cream and stuck marshmallow bits.
Holiday giggled at her enthusiasm. It was cute.
It was familiar.
She paused, remembering.
Lofty looked up as she realized her antics weren’t getting the desired reaction, and understood instantly. This was usually something Scootaloo did.
Or rather, had done.
There was a short pause.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Holiday said hopefully, answering the question neither of them dared ask aloud. “She’s a fighter.”
“That she is,” Lofty agreed.
But with that reminder of their vanished little charge, their mood had been dampened. Lofty half-heartedly tossed the spoon into the sink, and Holiday followed.
But right as she put her hooves in the water, there came a knock at the door. She rolled her eyes. What timing. “Lofty, could you get that?” she asked.
“But the outside wants to kill me,” Lofty protested weakly.
Holiday cast a glance at the clock and mentally calculated the position of the sun. She pursed her lips. She wasn’t wrong. “Maybe, but I’m a little busy here,” she said, holding up her wet hooves.
Lofty took a step forward towards the door and then rested a hoof on her brow, as if the heat from outside had already overtaken her. “I’m dying already. Literally dying from the heat.”
“Didn’t you spend all morning in front of the fan?” Holiday teased.
Lofty continued, dragging her hooves. “Stick a fork in me, I’m baked, like one of your cakes.”
“Keep that up and you won’t get any cake, period.”
“Fine,” Lofty said, suppressing a little smile, “but you’re getting the next one.” She quickly trotted over, reached out with a wing for the pad that covered the handle, and opened the door.
The resulting heatwave made her close her eyes. It was like opening an oven, but worse; somehow the world seemed even hotter than usual.
And then she opened one eye, and quickly wished she hadn’t.
A tall mare, taller by far than either of them, stood on their porch. Her coat was a brilliant white.
But that was where the similarities between her and any other pony ended. For unlike any other pony, this mare had both wings and horn, her mane seemed to be made of living fire that danced dangerously in a swirling wind only it felt, and her eyes were as black as the corruption that had overtaken her heart.
Daybreaker.
“Hello,” she said pleasantly.
Lofty‘s ears pinned. “Mercy,” she whispered.
