The Most Horrible Hearth's Warming EVER: A Candy Mare Tale

The dying rays of the shimmering sunset faded as the last glimpse of the swollen fiery orb sunk beneath the horizon. The snowy landscape below sparkled in the twilight as it was plunged into the deep blues and comforting purples of the oncoming night.

Freezing winds raked Flash Magnus's wings like icy talons, taking his breath away and blurring his vision. He was used to such extreme conditions, as the patrols of the Cloudsdale Legionnaires covered a wide swath of territory, spanning from Mount Everhoof in the north to the Bad Lands far to the south. Even so, this was the furthest north that Flash had been in quite awhile, and truth be told he was more used to the volcanic heat of the Dragon Lands than the frigid climes of the north. Far below, hills of snow whizzed by monotonously, broken up only by scraggly evergreens and the occasional dark shape of a brooding mountain. He knew he was running late, so despite the chill he did his best to maintain top speed.

Truth be told, Flash was not entirely sure why he was freezing his pin feathers off this far into Yeti territory. Much of the land he traveled over now had been given up for lost with the founding of Equestria, so generally it was viewed that anything that happened here was beyond the bounds of his authority. Secret missions could be fun from time to time, but being out of his normal jurisdiction and not knowing why he was here on top of that set the pegasus pony's feathers on edge. It didn't help that Hearth's Warming Eve was just around the corner, and at this time of year he was usually kicking back and keeping warm with friends, sharing a little holiday cheer in the form of hot drinks and card games late into the night. Still Commander Ironhead, the leader of the Royal Legion, had impressed on Flash how important this mission was to the safety of Equestria and the yuletide peace he so enjoyed.

If all of ponykind was counting on his bravery to defend them and their way of life, what choice did Flash have but to comply?

At the moment, however, he was regretting that sentiment as well as his own bravado. Icicles were beginning to form around sensitive parts of his body, and visibility was dropping fast. If he didn’t reach the rendezvous point soon then he wouldn't be surprised if he ended up turning into a flying pony-cicle shortly before crash landing in the snowy wastes below. He wasn't looking forward to becoming a flash frozen meal for the snow leopards to feast on, so he began to scan his surroundings with a bit of desperation, hoping to see signs that he was drawing close to his destination.

Fortunately just over the next rise a flicker of campfire flame amid a copse of fir and pine trees caught his eye. A whiff of smoke and the unmistakable scent of the standard issue hot cocoa, the kind the legion distributed to patrols for long nights, seized Flash Magnus's attention and let him know that he was not far from his goal. Nothing sounded better than that watery cup of hot chocolate right now, and maybe he could even manage to down some chow before the mission briefing if he hurried! But it was the heat of the bonfire he was truly craving, so despite the extra chill he redoubled his speed and made a bee line for it's cozy glow. Double checking that his trusty shield Netitus was secured tightly to his back, Flash dove from the sky like a bolt of lightning, only spreading his wings again at the last moment as he settled into the clearing nearly on top of the roaring fire.

“Ah Flash, good of you to join us. I was hoping you’d make it here before the scouts reported back,” came the gruff but reassuring voice of Commander Ironhead. It seemed the old pegasus and one other soldier that Flash did not recognize were the only ones in camp at the moment. “Your timing couldn’t be better.”

“Or worse, depending on how you look at it,” mumbled the stranger. He appeared to wear the garb of a royal guard of Canterlot and, taking a few more steps into the firelight, he revealed himself fully to the new arrival. A gasp of fright rose unbidden from Flash's lips as he got a good look at the pony who was keeping his chief officer company.

The stranger was a fellow pegasus, just like the cadet and his commander, but one who had been horribly maimed at some point. Half his once handsome face was a ruin, mangled scar tissue stretching down from an empty eye socket that pulled the flesh back tightly from exposed teeth and gums where a missing cheek had once been. The rest of his body, where it peeked through his armor, didn't seem to have fared much better. Deep gouges were missing from his flesh and horrific cuts, some still raw and wet and barely stitched together by thick black thread, crisscrossed his body. On top of that, he was an amputee, missing not only a foreleg but a hind leg as well. Both of which had been replaced with wooden facsimiles that seemed to only barely do the job of the lost limbs.

What was perhaps more disturbing about the unknown soldier, for a pegasus anyways, was the state of his wings. One was splayed out wide and twisted, clearly useless for flight, while it appeared the other had been amputated and replaced with a prosthetic of shaped metal that seemed ornamental rather than functional. It would be more accurate to say that what Flash beheld was the ruins of what had once been a pegasus soldier rather than a comrade in arms he could rely upon. Even so, the stranger had the bearing of an officer who didn't intend to allow his obviously debilitated condition to sap him of even an ounce of the pride that came with such a position. Far from the demeanor of an invalid, he carried himself with a dignity and grace that Flash was not certain he could ever hope to muster up himself, even able bodied as he was.

Seeing his cadet struck speechless, Ironhead smoothly shifted to introductions, “Flash, this is Commander Hurricane of the Royal Canterlot Guard. Commander, please allow me to introduce Cadet Flash Magnus of the Royal Legionaries and hero of Cloudsdale.”

“Hero is a bit strong, commander,” quipped Flash Magnus, flashing his trademark dazzling smile, “I’m just a soldier following orders.”

“Yes, and sometimes your a soldier who doesn’t follow orders,” replied the commander with a chuckle. It was a familiar exchange, routine at this point. “But your valor has seen your comrades through many close scrapes, which is why I am glad you could join us today. I fear we're in a spot of bother that we could really use your skills to sort out."

“I wouldn’t expect courage and camaraderie to see us through today gentlecolts,” Commander Hurricane groused darkly. “If such was all it took to achieve our mission objective then I wouldn’t be the handsome sight you see before you. Don't think I didn't catch that look you gave me Flash. Take it all in. Have a good stare at what remains of the once famous Commander Hurricane.”

“Wait, are you the Commander Hurricane?” sudden recognition dawned on the younger soldier's face. “You’re one of the founders of Equestria! I’ve read all about you! Is it true you faced down the Windigoes, went hoof to claw with a manticore, and forced the Griffons to accept an armistice!?”

“Don’t believe everything you read cadet, and only half of what you hear,” was Hurricane's stern reply, though he seemed to brighten for a moment at Flash’s exuberant recounting of his past exploits. It only lasted a moment though. “Tell me son, what else have you heard about me?”

Flash thought for a moment and then grew pale. “Er… Nothing else that matters sir. Nothing I’m presently disposed to discuss.”

That got a chuckle from Commander Ironhead who excused himself to ladle out a few steaming mugs from a cauldron hung above the fire, one which he passed to Flash and another which he offered to Hurricane, though the latter declined. “Are you sure?" asked Ironhead, swishing the mugs contents about, "It’s just hot chocolate. Something to warm up our insides while we wait on my platoon to get back.”

“No thank you. I don’t like anything sweet these days,” was the maimed stallion's somewhat curt reply. The entire time, he never once broke eye contact with Flash. “Let me tell you what else they say about me then, cadet. They say that I have gone mad. That I’ve been on a wild goose chase out here in the nether reaches of Equestria, sacrificing soldiers to fight invisible monsters and chase after myths. They say that my body has only come to resemble what it has in order to better reflect the wickedness in my withered black heart. Do you want to know something else, soldier?”

“What?” whispered Flash uneasily, his cooling cocoa going un-sipped, neglected as he listened intently.

“They aren’t entirely wrong,” A glint of zeal flashed in Hurricane's one remaining eye. “The truth is I didn’t want to involve the Cloudsdale Royal Legion in this affair. Sadly, I am running out of soldiers. The closer I get to fulfilling my oaths, the more ponies end up dead. And if you couldn’t guess from my lovely complexion, those that die may be considered to be the lucky ones. So despite your commanders wishes I am going to give you one opportunity to fly away while your wings are still attached to your unmarred body. You are here by special request cadet, not by any orders of mine, so if you look at me and worry about what they will say about you once you are no longer a handsome and strong stallion, then you might as well slurp down your cocoa and head back where you came from.”

In the ringing silence that followed there was a low rumble from above and a brief flash of green as the gently falling snow started to fall a little more fiercely. A snowflake drifted down and landed perfectly in the center of Flash's mug before melting into the now completely cooled liquid. The younger pegasus took one long pull from the mug, gulping down the contents in a single draught, and gave a self-satisfied sigh. He then placed the mug down next to the fire before he turned back to the commander that had in no uncertain terms told him to turn tail and run.

"I appreciate your candor sir," Flash began, very conspicuously not going back where he had come from. "But if we are being candid, I think I might actually look good with a scar or two. Also, I'm not put off by tales of legend and myths. I'm considered by some to be something of a legend myself, but as you can see I'm just one soldier with a better than average shield. Maybe I'm a little special, maybe I'm just lucky, or perhaps I'm just a little more willing to be reckless than the next pony. Regardless, I'm here now. So lets dispense with this cloak and dagger nonsense and get to outlining the mission parameters so we can sow this up and get back to the barracks before lights out."

"As you wish cadet," sniffed Commander Hurricane, though with a note of grudging respect in his gravely voice. "But don't be surprised if by the end of all this, when they're playing taps over your casket, that all they have left to bury of you is that shiny shield you're carrying."

"Now that we have all of that bloody business out of the way, I should like to hear what all this is about myself," spoke up Commander Ironhead rejoining the conversation, with a fresh mug for his favorite cadet. "It's been some time since the rest of the squad was sent out and I should like to be able to have some idea of what to be looking out for in their reports once they make it back."

"I sincerely doubt the rest of your battalion will be making it back commander," the scarred pegasus turned away from the fire, his face disappearing into shadow as he stood silhouetted against the night. "I'm sorry to say that they are most likely already dead. If we are very lucky, then perhaps they will stay that way."

"Dead?" Flash sputtered on a mouthful of hot chocolate, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. "What do you mean dead?"

"What do you mean indeed!" choked Ironhead, coughing as he nearly inhaled the peppermint stick from his second mug of cocoa.

"I'm afraid the two of you are in for a rather rude surprise. I know I was," Commander Hurricane turned his gaze back to the fire, a haunted look on his face. "At first they just thought it was some kind of disease. A virus, that effected the mind as well as the body. They dismissed it... dismissed her, as some sort of mass hallucination brought on by the illness. But then the rumors began to spread like wildfire, and ponies that were unconnected to the original outbreak began to rapidly disappear. We thought they were just getting lost in the snow as they evacuated the old tribal kingdoms. 'Taken by Windigoes' was the half joke, half horror story told by the old timers to the new recruits. Little did we know the truth was something far worse. A patient zero had been theorized of course, a source of the pathogen, but she was so much more than what we had expected..."

"I say, enough of the campfire tales, what do you bloody well mean our squadron won't be returning?" blustered Commander Ironhead, his feathers ruffling.

But the scarred pegasus just ignored him. His one good eye reflected the firelight eerily. "I had dispatched Private Pansy to oversee the evacuation and to determine if there was any truth to the rumors about the disappearances. She was there to make sure that those earth ponies who had long feared the pegasi as brutes would be treated with friendship and tolerance, even as they were forced to leave their homes and livelihoods behind for new lives in Equestria. Though she could be somewhat timid, she could at least do that. I assure you that she was not meant to intervene directly, to act on her own, yet Pansy was always so tenderhearted that when she heard about the missing children she couldn't help but investigate. There was no way for her to know that they had been taken by her... by our 'patient zero'." He gave a dry, mirthless chuckle that sounded like the cracking of brittle tree bark. "They were taken to a house out of a fairy tale, made of gingerbread and other sweets, or at least that was how it appeared on the outside. Inside it was an abattoir, a slaughterhouse for ponies. She had been hunting them, eating them it seems, for some time. She had been doing worse than eating them, too - storing them away so she wouldn't go hungry over the course of the unending winter."

"Wh-who...?" stuttered Flash Magnus, his jaw tightening.

"The Candy Mare," spat the old war horse with disgust, as if the name itself left a bad taste in his mouth. "Pansy escaped, but only because she let her. Pansy was meant to be a message to all of ponykind. A vow of unfathomable hatred and darkest revenge. It was not a disease she had inflicted upon her victims, but rather a curse. A curse which we were just barely coming to grips with when it suddenly changed and mutated into unspeakable horror. No longer were the afflicted listless and weak shadows of themselves. Instead their bodies bloated with corruption and at the same time swelled with strength. Their deranged giggles and sing-song voices echoed through the night, haunting the edges of Equestria. It was no longer a threat that lay quiet in the shadows, but a promise of teeth and claws flashing from the dark to snatch whomever they might devour. And it's been coming closer to our territory day by day. I've lost so many royal guards putting down the Candy Mare's victims, but still she herself eludes us. She has become wary. She's not a mindless monster like her victims, but rather a cunning predator that watches and waits for her time to strike. The only way to draw her out now is with the proper bait. Live bait..."

"The Clousdale Royal Legion," muttered Ironhead, grim realization dawning. "We weren't sent here to help scout for a threat! We were sent here to draw it out! How could you do this!? How could you use your fellow soldiers in such a cruel way!?"

"I told you, this was not my plan to begin with," replied Hurricane, his face ashen and expression desolate. "I never wanted this. I'm following orders, just like you."

"Who's bloody orders then!?" demanded the leader of the doomed legionnaires.

"Wait... do you smell that?" asked the one-eyed pony, his nose turning upwards.

"Don't change the subject!" shouted Ironhead.

"Shut up!" barked Hurricane in frustration,"Just, take a moment and listen to me. Smell the wind. Half my nose is missing so I can't smell things the way I once did, but is that the scent of peppermint on the air?"

"You thundering idiot! Of course it is! I found your stash of peppermint sticks where you left them by the fire!” bellowed Ironhead, the veins bulging in his neck, "What do you think I've been using to stir my cocoa?"

“But I thought the commander said he didn’t like sweets?” wondered Flash aloud.

As he said this, Commander Hurricane’s eye grew wide with horror and he quickly knocked the mug from Ironhead’s grasp. Too late, the peppermint stick seemed to rise into the air of its own accord and exploded into jagged splinters of candy shrapnel. Hurricane and Flash managed to duck aside, but Ironhead was too close to evade the cloud of razor sharp shards! The explosion flayed off Ironhead's face with a sound like a power sander being brought to bear. Once embedded into the raw meat, the peppermint pieces began shredding the rest of his head! In mere moments he went from a normal pony to a gore dripping ghoul as his scalp was peeled completely off and left flapping uselessly from the back of his skull!

Blood flowed down Ironhead's neck like a waterfall as the candy razors sliced into his throat, robbing him of both breath and speech. His eyelids had been completely removed, leaving him staring in shock at the other two pegasi who were helpless to aid him. The tendons in his mouth were severed, causing his jaw to flop open and hang slack, blood and shards of broken teeth dripping into the snow as his tongue was snipped clean through by the animate peppermint slivers. Ironhead twitched as the cold air licked over his skinned head, before the pain overloaded his senses and his knees buckled out from under him. The once indomitable commander fell in an ungainly heap without uttering so much as a whimper, peppermint shards still dusting the stripped bone where his face had been.

In response, a shrill cry of girlish glee echoed from the dark, childish giggles bursting like bright Champaign bubbles over the clearing.

"She's here!" roared Commander Hurricane, his wild eye darting to the trees. "We need more light!" Flash was frozen where he stood, the sudden violence done to his direct commander coming on the heels of Hurricane's harrowing tale had left his mind numb and his body useless. It was only when the voice of authority turned to him and shouted once more 'We need more light, now, cadet!' that his instincts kicked in and he quickly darted to a nearby log pile and threw fresh fuel on the bonfire.

They were under attack, and spotting the enemy was paramount to their survival. The flames roared up, eagerly devouring the fresh seasoned tinder, expanding the circle of light and visibility up to the nearby treeline.

Sadly what the blaze illuminated was more discouraging than what had happened to poor Commander Ironhead.

Each tree around the clearing glistened wetly in the firelight. Strewn about in their evergreen boughs were grizzly 'decorations' that shimmered moistly as they dripped a steady crimson rain into the snow. Entrails were strung haphazardly about the tree limbs, which were also bent down under the weight of draining organs that had formally been very much internal. Here was a heart, and there a kidney, and over there the unmistakable butterfly shape of a pair of lungs. All were shining and shimmering, dusted as they were with sugar and shards of candy!

Bones and shreds of flesh hung all about the foliage as well and on the stripped hides Flash Magnus could just pick out the cutie marks of the members of his battalion. Each and everyone, down to even the very newest recruits were all present and accounted for. Indeed the eyeless decapitated heads of his fellows crowned the tops of each tree, staring down at him with expressions of terror and despair. Their pain distorted faces seemed to cry out to him even now, begging to know why he was not there to protect them.

The childish giggles from before gradually grew into peels of insane laughter that were punctuated by orange and green lightning flashes which only served to further illuminate the grizzly parody of a Hearth's Warming grotto.

"~Oh, what a sight...~" howled the deranged voice in a sinister sing-song tune, "~Look at the light! All for tonight! Hearth’s Warming Eve is here once again!~ Hahahahaha!"

"The Candy Mare..." Flash Magnus slipped his shield from his back and readied it to defend himself as he tore his eyes from the remains of his comrades and cast a glance back towards Commander Hurricane. "Did she do this? She can't be a pony. What is she? What is she really?"

"She's a myth and a legend, cadet," responded Hurricane, readying a spiked mace he had hidden under his cloak. "The very worst kind, straight out of the blackest depths of Tartarus. A nightmare which Equestria must wake from at all costs!"

"No Commander, I mean literally, what could do all this without us even noticing!?" cried Flash, unable to keep his eyes from wandering back to the accusing stares of the eyeless sockets of his brutally dismembered friends. "How could one mare do this? What is she?"

"Who? Me?" asked a tiny filly that danced out from just beyond the fire-lit circle of death. "I'm just a little pony, mister."

The Candy Mare's lollipop eyes spun crazily as dozens of candy corn fanged mouths erupted with laughter all over her body, her red and black licorice mane writhing around her head like a nest of vipers.

"Oh ponyfeathers..."