You sit quietly in your living room in Ponyville as the room slowly grows darker. The last log in the fireplace pops a single time and spits embers into your metal fireplace guard. You sigh.
You should’ve been on a train now, nearing the end of your journey...Maybe even home already. But, fate had conspired against you, and you were here. Alone.
You gaze off forlornly into a corner of your living room as the lights slowly fade around you. You allow for the memories of old Hearth’s Warmings to flood back into your memory, smiling softly as you remember dinners, worship services, and mornings around the Hearth’s Warming Tree.
A scratching sound breaks you from your concentration. Your pony ears perk up as you listen to the curious new vibrations that seem to be coming from...above?
The sound stops. After a few suspicious moments of looking up at your ceiling, you shrug and go back to your self-absorbed corner-staring.
The sound sharply grates into your ears once again not a few moments later. Again, your ears perk up and listen intently as the sound begins to descend and increase in volume. A few pieces of dust fall from the chimney into the now-extinguished fire.
Your eyes widen as a blue hoof comes into view, skillfully avoiding the metal firewood stand and resting on the ground. Then, a second does the same, and a blue aura of magic gently lifts and moves the fireplace guard away, silently.
After just a few seconds, the rest of a mare in a red jacket with white trim and a similarly designed hat steps out of your fireplace, tail first.
“...P-Princess Luna? You’re Santa Hooves?” you ask.
Luna turns around quickly, eyes wide as if caught. Then, she relaxes and groans. “Ugh, every time somepony is awake...Look, I’m not Santa Hooves, I just dress like him during the holiday season on my dream rounds.”
“...Why?”
“Because we are similar in and as so far as we both break into ponies’ houses as part of our job, and then grant them ‘gifts’ according to what they deserve,” she snips back, obviously tired of being fielded this question. “And what of you? Alone and sitting in a dark room on Hearth’s Warming Eve? Goodness, how pathetic!”
You furrow your brow and sneer at her. “It wasn’t my choice, okay!? I wanted to be with family but it just-” you pause. “It just didn’t work out that way.”
Luna’s piercing gaze appears to soften. Carefully, she drops a large burlap sack she had been carrying on her back onto the floor. “Well then. Please forgive me, I was too hasty in my labeling. Might I take a seat?”
Still pouting, you gesture with a hoof to the couch cushion next to you.
Princess Luna takes a tender seat, crossing her rear legs. She relaxes her candy cane sock-covered forelegs into her lap. “It sounds like this has been a rough day for you.”
You just glare back at her.
She immediately unfolds her forehooves and pulls you into a deep hug, pressing her barrel against your body and burying her muzzle into your ear. “It sounds like somepony needs a hug,” she whispers tantalizingly to you, almost as an afterthought.
“I don’t need a hug,” you protest.
“Yes you do,” she whispers again, swinging her hind legs up onto the couch and wrapping them around you such that her form, somewhat larger than you, sits on your lap.
Slowly, your forehooves unfold and then wrap around her soft midsection, pulling her closer to you. Her warm neck envelops your muzzle as you lean forward into her.
Luna purrs softly and runs a hoof up and down your back. “It’s okay, I’m here,” she whispers in your ear. Then, she pulls her head back and places the tip of her muzzle against yours, resting the side of her horn on your forehead. “Now, it’s time to sleep,” she states almost matter-of-factly.
“Hi there, son!” your Dad greets as he opens the door. “Happy Hearth’s Warming!”
Your Dad pulls you into a big hug. In the back of your mind, something tugs at you. In fact, you’re not sure how you got here, but after a moment the doubts fade on their own. Your Dad releases you and you smile.
“Welcome home! I’m sorry but you were so late, we ended up eating without you. Your mother kept the leftovers warm, though- come in!”
You walk into your foalhood home, which is filled with all sorts of dancing, warm lights, and sit down to eat.
What feels like hours later, your parents bring you a wrapped present and plop it on the table in front of you. “Now Son, I know we don’t normally do this, but I figured you should be able to open a single present on Hearth’s Warming Eve, before we open the rest tomorrow morning.”
You look up at your proud, loving parents for a few moments. “...Are you sure?”
“Of course!” Your mother beams down at you. “Go ahead!”
You carefully peel back the wrapping. As soon as you catch your first glimpse of the box inside, the speed at which you unwrap increases suddenly. “No way. No way!”
“Pretty neat, huh?” Your Dad chuckles. “I found it at a flea market and knew immediately I had to get it for you!”
Tears well up in your eyes as you look at your favorite foalhood toy; it’s not the same one, of course, and the box is a little banged up from what you can assume is a decade or more of sitting in somepony’s attic, but your favorite toy nonetheless. You immediately leap from your seat to wrap your hooves around your parents as your siblings watch on, seemingly bemused.
“I love you too!” your mother tells you, kissing your cheek in response to your unspoken sentiment.
Your Dad just wordlessly ruffles your mane.
Suddenly, there is a knock at the door.
Your Dad whips his head around quickly. “Who in Equestria is that, banging on our door so late at night on Hearth’s Warming!?”
Your Mom gasps, covering her muzzle with her hooves. “Oh! Honey, maybe it’s more Carolers!”
“Alright, alright, I’ll open it,” he grumbles, marching from the dining room to your foyer to open the front door. The jingle of the bells hanging from the knob is unmistakable as it opens.
“Good evening,” a hauntingly familiar voice echoes from the front door.
You are immediately frozen in place, brow furrowed, as you try to remember where you have heard the voice before.
Your Dad’s voice echoes from the front not soon after. “Son, I think you have a, uh… what’s the word...What’s a Gentlecolt Caller, but a mare?”
Your brow furrowing further at your Dad’s linguistic indiscretion, you get up and join him in the foyer, where you find a blue alicorn princess dressed regally in a haunting, dark purple coat. You gasp slightly as the memories flood back to you.
“At a boy!” Your Dad praises, smacking you on the back. “You didn’t tell me you were...friends with a Princess!”
You whip your head around to sneer at your Dad before turning to Luna, who smiles calmly at you.
“Aren’t you going to take my coat?” she asks coyly.
Before you can move, your Mother bolts into action and takes the Princess’ winter gear to the closet. Luna closes the gap between you quickly and tilts her head. “It was so sweet of you to put up mistletoe,” she tells you sweetly, leaning in to gently kiss your lips. You look up, and find that there is indeed a sprig of mistletoe above you. Luna leans in and kisses your cheek, and this one is much warmer and longer than the first.
“Well, I’m about to hit the hay,” your Dad says. “You and your Princess friend can share your room, if you’d like!”
“Dad!” you protest, your cheeks burning and puffed up in indignation.
“Oh, that’s alright,” Luna sing-songs. “I think we’ll just snuggle together on the couch, if that’s alright.”
“Oh, yes! Yes,” your Dad agrees.
You sneer at him again as him and your mother beat a hasty retreat up the stairs. Luna offers you a hoof, and you take it, following her into the family room where your family’s tree is adorned with multicolored lights and ornate glass ornaments collected from years past.
Luna lies down on the couch in the room and beckons you over. You sit on your haunches and grunt in dismay as she pulls you to a lying position with her magic.
“Luna, is this a dream?” you ask curtly.
“Of course it’s a dream, don’t be stupid,” she tells you as she wraps her forehooves around your barrel and rests her muzzle against your ear again.
Your heart sinks. “I thought I was actually home for Hearth’s Warming.”
“Hmm. Yes...Nothing I could do about that.” Luna answers, just a hint of solemn resignation in her voice. “But, the spirit of Hearth’s Warming, and those who love you, is in that noggin of yours,” she explains, tapping her adorned hoof against your temple. The metal adornments are still cold from the outside. “They just needed a little magic to escape.”
You huff, muzzle scrunched up, as you try to process your complicated emotions. You twitch as Luna nuzzles your neck.
“Did you not enjoy it?” she asks quietly, suddenly unsure of herself.
“...I did,” you answer. “It was everything I wanted. It’s just not real.”
“Of course it is. Our minds shape reality, you know,” she tells you. “Your family is already with you in spirit, I’m sure, even if you’re alone for a short season.”
You flip your body around out of the spooning position and into the deep pools of her clear blue eyes. “You gave me a Hearth’s Warming,” you relent, recognizing what you already knew with words.
“You’re very welcome,” she says with a smirk, tapping one of her hooves against the tip of your muzzle before placing it once again on your back and squeezing you to her body. “There is of course one more similarity between myself and Santa Hooves, you know. We both carry wonderful gifts in our burlap sacks.”
Your brow slowly furrows as you continue staring entranced into her eyes. “Is the sack really necessary?”
Her countenance takes on a sinister air almost immediately, fires flaring behind her pupils so hot that you can practically feel the heat. “You dare to question the sack of dreams!?”
“N-no, no!” you immediately wither, curling a hoof to your barrel in fruitless self-defense.
Luna huffs through her nostrils, but the heat in her eyes dissipates. “Good. Well, if you enjoyed your Hearth’s Warming, all there is left to do is wish you good tidings. Happy Hearth’s Warming, my subject!”
“Happy Hearth’s Warming,” you answer, almost as a reflex.
“Wonderful. Now, it’s time to awaken.”
Flailing as you suddenly find yourself under gravity’s influence, you bang your leg on your coffee table and smack the floor in your living room. You let out a brief yelp as you do so, then groaning in pain as the ache in your leg sets in. It appears you have rolled off of your couch.
Wobbling, you stand up in your living room, morning light now illuminating the ashes in your fireplace. Feeling something on your head, you bring up a hoof to your mane and pull off a cheap Santa Hooves hat- the same one Luna was wearing last night.
Shaking your head and throwing the hat haphazardly down on the offending coffee table, you stumble into the kitchen and find a note alongside some wet raisins.
Wet raisins?
You lift the note to read.
Hello Dear Subject,
Thank you for keeping me company on Hearth’s Warming Eve. I do hope I was able to provide a suitable experience in return.
You have Hearth’s Warming within you. Remember that the distance between a dream and reality is a mere hair’s breadth; and sometimes, dreams are the best reality, anyway.
-Luna ☾
P.S. In my capacity as Santa Hooves, I ate the packaged cookies in your pantry. Please remember in the future that raisins are never acceptable as part of cookie tribute. They are disgusting affronts.
P.P.S. I also drank directly from your milk jug.
As the same confusing well of emotions you felt in the dream rise in your chest, you shake your head as if to clear it. “What a stupid princess,” you mumble to yourself.
Shuffling to the bathroom, you flip on the lights and stare at yourself in the mirror. You’re disheveled, of course, but your eyes are drawn to the lipstick-ringed kiss mark on your cheek. The same warmth you felt in your dream suddenly flares up, tingling your cheek. “What a stupid princess,” you repeat, lips beginning to quiver.
Walking more quickly now, you lurch toward your front door and throw it open. You weren’t sure what you were trying to see- Luna, maybe- but find nothing but a field of white snow leading from your door to the street. Except that it appears an alicorn has immaculately shoveled your front walkway. “What a stupid princess!” you declare loudly, tears beginning to well up in your eyes.
Practically limping back into your house and closing the door with a back hoof, you look right to find your small, artificial Hearth’s Warming tree-supposed to be just for decoration- with a single present under it. Tears now streaming down your cheeks, you take shaky steps towards it and rip the paper off of it, revealing your favorite foalhood toy in a very familiar-appearing, banged up box.
You let out one sob and let the tears flow freely from your face, collapsing to the floor. You hug the box tightly to your barrel as you cry, and cry, and cry.
“What a beautiful, wonderful princess,” you choke out between your tears.
Author's Note
This story is dedicated to everyone who- by choice or by necessity- is at home alone this Christmas. We all love you and the magic of the season is still with you.
The basic idea is originally from this story I wrote- I thought it was cute.
But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. -Luke 2:10-11
