Lyra loved the holiday season: she didn’t have a choice.
She steadied herself on the kitchen counter as merry holiday music filled the room. She sniffed and wiped the tears away from her sink, staring intently down at the dirty dishes she had yet to clean up.
Lyra was throwing a holiday party tomorrow. She loved holiday parties and she hated decorating for them. Currently, the apartment was shrouded in shadows as the curtains had been pulled shut. Books were strewn across the coffee table, the sofa cushions were in disarray, and the floor itself was cluttered and unkempt.
Her tree sat in the corner, bare and undecorated. A single wreath hung from her door.
She was too busy dreading the party to worry much about cleaning and festiveness.
This year would be different.
It had to be. She couldn’t do this for much longer.
Lyra gripped the sides of the sink, her stomach churning. On the sofa behind her was a plastic bag filled with cheap paper streamers and other assorted, awful decorations. It was lazy. It was cheap. But it would do.
Lyra had to keep telling herself that.
It would do.
With that thought hanging in her mind, Lyra sucked in her stomach and with a few deep breaths, settled herself.
It would do. It would do. It would do.
“Oh Lyra, I can not wait for tonight’s party,” Lemon Hearts swooned. “It’ll be so much fun!”
Lyra flinched. Since Lemon Hearts was slightly in front of her she didn’t notice. “O-Oh, thank you,” Lyra said as she summoned a smile.
“Your decorations are always so festive!” Lemon Hearts twirled in a circle, sticking out her tongue and catching a snowflake on the end of it. “Like, your tree ornaments are soooo pretty! I really want to know where you get them from!”
Lyra tugged at her scarf, feeling a lump growing in her throat. “I, uh, make them.”
“Ooooh!” Lemon Hearts bounced up and down easily. “You have to show me how!”
“Sorry, it’s, uh… complicated,” Lyra stammered.
“Family secret?” Lemon winked. “I getcha!” She paused by a bakery window, smushing her face against the glass and hungrily staring at the pastries inside.
Lyra sighed, heart starting to beat again. She rummaged for her bitbag and gave a shaky smile. “H-Here, I’ll buy you something?”
Lemon Hearts gasped. “Oh you don’t have to!”
“I insist, my pleasure!”
With that confirmation Lemon Hearts bolted into the bakery, leaving Lyra to feel a little colder outside.
Lyra stood in front of her tree with a terse frown on her face.
The apartment was a little more lively now. She had hung her up her typical, yearly decorations, mostly just some cheap lights that took hours to untangle and sort. The fireplace was fully stocked with logs, and a few festive throw pillows decorated the couch.
In her hoof Lyra held a cylinder of brittle ornaments she had purchased from Barnyard Bargains. They were brittle and awful, poorly made and disposable in every definition of the word.
They were supposed to be enough.
But she kept thinking of what Lemon Hearts had said.
Lyra frowned, trotted over to the nearby trash can, and dropped them inside.
She sighed and lit up her horn. “Just this,” she whispered. “No more.” Lyra picked up a nearby towel and placed it in her mouth. She bit down hard, seized a clump of her own mane in her magic, then yanked.
Her scream was muffled by the cloth, and she hissed hard as she stared at the strands yanked off her head. Lyra laid them on a paper towel, then separated one with a precise telekinesis spell. She sighed and focused, concentrating hard despite the sharp pain in her head.
The strand began to bend, mold, and stretch. It spiraled and pulsed with no need for direction from Lyra, and writhed about like a worm pried from the mud.
After several minutes, her strand of mane had contorted into a spherical shape: one with an intricate pattern carved into it. To the casual observer it was a plastic decoration, crafted with love and care.
But a few days after Hearth’s Warming it would dissolve into nothingness.
Lyra set the completed ornament aside, a slight headache already clouding her mind. She couldn’t let Lemon Drops down though.
So she started again.
Lyra had to avoid scratching at her scalp. It still stung a bit, and she tried not to think about how much of her own mane she yanked out. Lyra regretted picking a large tree this year. It filled the room fine, but decorating it…
That was another story.
She subconsciously rubbed her scalp as Minuette prattered on and on from the other room.
It still stung, even after the medication she had rubbed into it.
At least the tree was decorated. She could probably cheaply cover the rest with purchased decorations.
“I absolutely can not wait!” Minuette called from the other room. “I’ve got the oven preheated for Hearth’s Warming cookies and brownies already!”
Lyra’s stomach heaved at the mention of food. She tried to smile, fighting off the bile. “A-Ah, can’t wait! Your brownies are lovely Min!”
Minuette giggled. “Thank youuuu! I’ll be sure to set some aside for ya!”
“Aw, shucks!”
Minuette appeared, entering the room with an apron around her waist and a large chef’s hat perched on her head. “Gotta get some prizes for Celestia’s School For Gifted Unicorn’s best party-thrower!”
Lyra gulped at the well-meaning compliment.
“Hey, you okay?”
“Y-Yeah,” Lyra stammered. “Just, uh… kinda tired.”
Minuette nodded. “You should go get some rest! I know you have so much to do to get ready for the party. Oh, before you go!” Minuette seized a nearby bow resting on the couch. She tied it around her neck and did a quick spin in front of Lyra. “How do I look? Gosh I think bows are so cute!”
Lyra blinked. “Uh, yeah. Yeah that looks great Min!”
“Thanks Ly! Bows really do just make the whole room glow!”
Lyra swallowed heavily.
Lyra’s apartment was looking more and more festive and she hated it. A radio in the corner blared tinny holiday music, injecting a jolly atmosphere into the room.
It did nothing for Lyra.
She stood at her kitchen counter, her tree decorated with elements of her own mane looming over her.
She shivered. “I can’t,” Lyra whispered. “I really really can’t. I don’t want to. But Minuette loves bows.”
Lyra squeezed her eyes shut. She reached for the bottle of alcohol sitting nearby and drained it.
“Just this. Because she loves it. No more. I swear it.” She nodded, then seized a kitchen knife in her magic. Lyra took a deep breath and made a cut into her right foreleg.
She hissed and bit back a scream. Lyra dragged her foreleg across the counter, letting the blood spread across its surface like a small red carpet.
“Hnnng,” Lyra whimpered, throwing the knife aside as the cheery music mocked her.
Her blood, much like her mane strands, quickly solidified: widening and strengthening into a pure crimson ribbon.
A ribbon that was the perfect length for a bow.
And she would need so, so many bows.
Lyra began to sob, her arm wailing in pain as her head began to spin.
But she had to keep decorating. Her friends were counting on her.
She moved her foreleg, still dripping in blood, and prepared to start again.
“I’m so excited for your party!”
Lyra tried to nod. She could barely lift her head.
“They’re always so wonderful.”
She tried to smile. She couldn’t lift her mouth.
“They’re the best part of the year!”
It should have made her eyes shine. She hadn’t stopped crying.
“I need to do this,” Lyra muttered, curled up in a corner of her own apartment. “I need to do this.”
Her mind was racing, her body roaring in protest. Her scalp was in searing pain, her foreleg completely numb.
And yet, burned into her mind was the image of Twinkleshine’s tree: completely draped in tinsel.
Lyra sat in her bathtub.
She should’ve been in ecstasy that her finals were over, she should’ve been happy that she could relax now, and do all the young stupid things college kids did.
She blinked, mildly surprised her eyes were still there.
“Tinsel.” Her voice was barely her own. “Twinkleshine wants tinsel.” Lyra barked out a laugh. “I have to be a good friend, don’t I!”
Her eyes began to blur. Her stomach churned and saliva rushed into her mouth.
Lyra took a shaky breath. "O-Okay. Twinkleshine wants T-Tinsel." She squeezed her eyes shut as her stomach churned. Something stirred and came to life, scraping against her insides, rubbing into her throat. Pain shot through her body, as if she had swallowed a saw that was ripping through her organs. Tears fell freely as she clutched her stomach, face scrunched in pain. "A-Argh," she muttered, as something crawled up her throat. “AARGH!”
She retched, and specks of blood and glitter flew into the tub.
Then Lyra heaved, a stream of red and green flying out of her body and into the bathtub. It cut into her throat, ripped at her stomach and sent blood flying into the tub's basin. “AAAAAARGH!” She didn't stop. She couldn't stop.
Not until there were several feet of tinsel laying in front of her hooves, covered in glitter and specks of blood.
Lyra sat there for seconds more. Everything was quiet, except for the quiet, muffled radio blasting warm seasonal tunes. Snow was falling outside. Carolers were making their rounds through the streets.
It was Hearth’s Warming Eve.
Lyra reached out a shaky hoof and picked up the tinsel, still hacking and coughing and spitting out bits of glitter and tinsel leaves. "It’ll all be worth it," she rasped. She stood, blinking back tears and coughing up blood as she turned on the faucet to drain the blood and loose tinsel leaves away.
There was a knock at her door.
Lyra tried to smile. Her body burned on the inside, as if all of her organs were cut and burning.
She shuffled to the door.
The room was brightly lit with lights dangling from the ceiling, bows interspaced at perfect intervals between them. Her arm ached at the sight. Her tree was tall and proud, decorated with what was once her own hair. It still burned and stung.
A warm plate of cookies sat on the coffee table nearby. She had no desire to eat any.
“H-Happy Hearth’s Warming,” Lyra rasped, her voice choked and weary. “Happy Hearth’s Warming. Happy Hearth’s Warming.”
She opened the door to greet her friends with a smile.
