Rainbow Dash left the train from Ponyville.
Cloudsdale was moored to a mountain. The wind was whining around her, threatening to freeze everyone and everything. Scootaloo was also there standing right beside her, covered in two scarfs (white and orange) and a rather stupid blue hat decorated with white snowflakes and a fluffy pon-pon attached right at the top.
Another whiff sends a shiver down Rainbow's back, almost forcing her to drop their luggage.
"Well, let's go, squirt?" she asked her little sister who was jumping in a single place, about to blow up from all the excitement.
Scootaloo slid a pair of flying glasses over her eyes, ready to scoot. "I was born ready!" she said with a voice full of passion. Her scooter stood in front of her, slightly covered in freshly frozen ice.
Dash rolled her eyes and put a wing in front of her. "Clouds, remember? You don't want to lose your new scooter, do you?"
"No," her voice filled up with sadness. She put her Scooter on her back (semi-foldable scooter, a present from her aunts) and shouted with the happiest voice Dash heard in a while, "Cloudsdale Hearth's Warming, here we come!"
Dash covered her face, spewing a few feathers that got into her mouth and began walking home.
“Wow!” Scootaloo screamed as they passed near the main square. Her face was lit up not by just her happiness but also by flickering lights. “It’s the biggest Hearth's Warming tree I ever saw!”
The wind was playing with toys hanging on tree branches; they happily dinged, filling the air with melodies. Flickering lights rounded the tree, creating rainbows. Ribbons enveloped the tree between the lights. And finishing it all was a giant big yellow star shining on the top of the tree and showering clouds below with its warming light.
Dash pushed Scootaloo forward. “Yeah-yeah. They kill one each year to put it on everyone’s display. You’ll see it later, so move!” She switched the wing that was carrying the luggage. A bit of feathers fell from both wings.
Scoots didn’t pay much attention to her grumpy sister. “The stress of the road and a long time away from home affected her,” Scootaloo thought.
She quickly sped forward, to see more of the city before Dash would overtake her and force her to go home. Yet, something stopped her right in front of an old dirty alley. “You!”
Dash quickly trotted towards her, slipping on an iced cloud and almost falling. The source of Scootaloo’s hesitation stood, or rather, sat in front of her. “Lightning…” without much emotion, Rainbow greeted her old friend. She was on the ground (clouds), her teeth clattered audibly and her skin was bluer than the usual turquoise. The only thing keeping her warm was rags of familiar black-green colours.
“C-c-come to laugh at me, D-dash?” She spoke up with a weak, angry voice. “Go ahead. You’re not the first one…”
Dash sighed. “Listen, we had our differences, but as Twilight would say, we grow from any conflict we live through. The past we had… it was awful. But it helped me realize a lot. And now, it’s Hearth's Warming eve so, I’d appreciate if you~”
Dash put her luggage on the cloud (somehow it didn’t fall through… Who the hay knows those devilish clouds…) and opened one of her bags. She took something out and handed it to the Lightning. “Here, you can stay there and have some fun! Just say that you came from me and I guarantee you’ll have an amazing holiday!”
Lightning stared at the card for some time, occasionally turning it around. A slight, forced smile appeared on her face. “Thanks.”
Dash gave her a quick smile and continued her way home with a less grumpy face than before.
Scoots trudged behind, unsure of what just had happened.
Dash threw a swift look at her. “Gave her my aunt’s business card. She runs a hotel a few blocks from here and usually accepts those who have nowhere to go. You didn’t think that only you have cool aunts, did you?” She smirked and aligned with Scootaloo.
“Ok, I get that. But why did you do that? Don’t you remember how she almost killed me that one time? Or the academy? You were on the verge of leaving it!” Scootaloo said, proving Dash, that she didn’t hear much of her dialogue with Lightning.
Dash sighed, steam came out of her mouth. “You know, a few years back I would’ve said the same, but now… I don’t blame her,” seeing Scootaloo’s grimace, she quickly added, “She did wrong things, that’s true, but it doesn’t matter in the end. Friendship is about giving and not taking and as the element of Loyalty it’s one of my goals to make other ponies better. Perhaps after spending some time thinking in a warm place, she’ll see the errors of her ways… Now, let’s finally get home, I believe there should be something waiting for both of us.”
Scootaloo rolled her eyes.
A second later, Lightning’s scream came from behind. “Dash! You forgot your luggage!”
At home Dash’ Parents awaited them with all the love in the world. A prize for Scootaloo for her Crusader's achievements; a prize for ‘the love’ to Dash, although they were sad that her lover wasn’t able to come (Thousands of animals to care for).
As both Scootaloo and Rainbow were tired (also parents really insisted on it because of Dash’s excessive yawning) they quickly went to sleep. Scootaloo was so excited to spend a few nights in her hero’s childhood room, that it took her a long time to fall asleep.
She kept tossing and turning as the thoughts of everything cool and amazing she was going to do tomorrow didn’t leave her head. The feeling of warmth from a blue-feathered pegasus hugging from behind also kept her thrilled.
Getting up early on Hearth's Warming Eve,
Scootaloo yawned, looking for treats.
Poetry, rhymes filled up open-air,
And she turned around for someone to share
A bunch of excitement she had.
But Rainbow was gone.
The bed wasn’t made.
“Where did she go?!” Scootaloo screamed in awe,
But no one had answered our filly-mare.
She jumped off her bed and quickly made it. She exited the room, but a whiff of wind followed her and sent a few shivers down her back. She didn’t pay much attention to it now, as she quickly ran away down the stairs where she found another open window.
She approached the window on the ground floor and closed it. “Brrr… Why did they open the windows and leave?” A bunch of white flakes fell behind a window and Scootaloo’s eye lit up.
Snowfall began early.
Scootaloo’s first instinct was to find some adult to ask for help. Instead, she found almost empty streets with rare, shocked pegasi looking up at the sky and following the falling snowflakes with their eyes.
No matter how she tried, she always got a similar answer from them — ‘go away' or just plain ignore. They even weren’t trying to be friendly, one pegasus even cursed at her without saying sorry.
Snow was falling everywhere. In some, it already began to pile up in fluffy-fluffy heaps. Scootaloo really wanted to jump into one of those piles, but the coldness stopped her. With each second, the wind, the snow, and just plain air were threatening to freeze her wings off.
Together, those forces of nature drove her back home, but they didn’t let go of her there either. The window she closed earlier opened up and a draft was running through the house once again. A thin layer of snow covered the floor, making it a little bit slippery.
Fighting the wind like an old rival, Scootaloo found herself some defense. A simple, yet beautiful woolen scarf gifted by her aunts. With its help, she found her way into the kitchen and took a weapon — a ladle. She was a knight on her way to slay a mighty beast — wind. And all she needed to do was to pull a handle way up above her.
With a mighty swing, she almost broke the window but also hooked the ladle to its handle. The wind wasn’t about to give up, so it began blowing stronger and stronger, piercing through Scootaloo's unbreakable defense and sending goosebumps all over her body.
*Thump!*
The beast was slain and the hero was left mostly unharmed. She sheathed her weapon and put it on a coffee table. She left the armour on because you can never know when an enemy will attack again.
Returning to Dash’s room, she found a disturbing scene — a pile of familiarly blue feathers close to another open window. She shut the window with ease (the beast wasn’t fighting back this time) and stepped away from the feathers, looking them around.
“Those can’t be hers, right? I mean, it's almost enough to construct a full replica of her wings!” Some thoughts about doing so, twirled around her mind, but she decided that it was not ‘the right time’ and ‘that it would be too rude to use someone’s feathers without asking first. ‘
A familiar business card laying on a windowsill caught her eyes, but she didn’t think about it much.
She sat on the bed which was also slightly covered in a layer of snow, and began thinking of what was going on. A thought occurred in her mind — she saw snowfall in Cloudsdale before. She wasn’t an often visitor here, but she was there a few winter times already.
“I can clearly remember it! There was not a single snowflake… not even a pile! Mr. Shy asked us to help him move their weather collection then, I think his collection was the only place where I saw snow in Cloudsdale then…”
Her eyes slowly lit up as an idea crawled into her head — Shy’s! They for sure will know what’s going on — they’re close friends with Rainbow’s parents and Mr.Shy worked in the weather factory!
The Shy residency was on the edge of the city and it took Scootaloo some time to get there. On her way, she saw even more ponies, staring at the sky with frozen expressions, and like a broken record, everyone told her off.
"Hello?" she screamed into the window. Knocking on the door proved to be worthless and rather painful to her little freezing hooves. "Anybody home?!"
The answer came shortly. "I am, " said a familiar stallion's voice. It didn’t have much emotion, just a slight confusion.
She looked up and saw a rather annoying face. Zephyr Breeze. Scootaloo saw him only a few times and never actually spoke to him, but she heard the stories about him from Dash. Like how last year he almost ruined the Hearth's Warming. Or how she is always trying to get to her.
“Is anyone else home?” Scootaloo asked him back. Her left wing was slightly twitching as she waited for his slow voice.
The weather here wasn’t as bad as in the center of the city, but the cold wind was still threatening her.
Zephyr looked back, away from the window. “Swifty is home,” he answered and continued staring at Scootaloo.
Her voice, under the influence of yelling at him and cold weather, was getting weaker. A slight throat pain gave her an idea of just walking away. “And who’s that?” she asked with an irritated voice.
He looked back again. “Cloud dog.” A quiet bark followed his words.
Scootaloo turned around and began walking away. “All that time wasted,”she thought.
“Wait!” Zephyr screamed. His head quickly disappeared into the window and a few seconds after he re-emerged from the front door of the house, with a poorly knitted dark red-purple scarf around his neck.
Scootaloo was annoyed. For the past few minutes, Zephyr was constantly talking. He didn’t even let her say a word. Just ‘Dash, Fluttershy and parents’.
“Listen!” Scootaloo finally lost her patience. “You want to be helpful? Here, do you know where it is?” She handed him the business card.
He looked at it for a few seconds. It had colours similar to Rainbow’s mane, but less bright. Three stripes of black, white, and red crossing that rainbow. Those stripes had writings on them with the address and some other stuff about the hotel. ‘Spend a night in rainbow bright!’
“I’ve stayed there on one Hearth's Warming Day. Dash recommended it when Fluttershy offered me to join their party in the castle. A good place. Why do you want to spend your day there?”
“No! It’s not about… Just show me where it is!” she said. It was hard to follow him since he was moving really-really-really slow. It felt like he was doing it only to anger her.
Meanwhile, the weather became even worse. The wind began ripping small pieces of clouds from the ground out and snowflakes began tearing into Scootaloo’s face. The temperature was dropping gradually and the clouds began to get covered by ice.
Scootaloo however didn’t pay attention to it. “Are we there yet?” She screamed through the humming wind. A few snowflakes found their way into her throat forcing her to gag and cough.
Zephyr turned around, a smidge of confusion stuck to his face. “What?”
“The hotel! Are we there yet?!”
A spark re-ignited in Zephyr’s head as he remembered where he was going. “Agh… Yeah! Just…” He turned around and sped up in a completely different direction.
*BANG!*
The door barely closed, leaving all the harsh weather on the opposite side. A few unlucky snowflakes who found their way in, while the door was open, quickly regretted it. The warmth of the room warmed up Scootaloo and her unwanted companion.
The place was rather small. Just a single well-decorated room which gave off more festivity than most of Cloudsdale. A sole receptionist, whose grey hair contained a single strand of rainbow colour. Wrinkles decorated her face, giving a friendlier look to her smile.
“Hello and welcome! Would you like to take a room? I don’t think it’s a good idea to go out right now,” her voice lit up the room. Her smile could be compared to Pinkie’s.
Scootaloo ran up to her. “Are you Rainbow Dash’s aunt?” she asked a really pointless question, “Do you know where she is?!”
A little nod, as well as a shake of her head, followed. “I don’t have the slightest idea of where that rascal is. I swear, if she keeps sending me more ponies I’ll go out of business,” her face got a little bit more annoyed, “Although, I guess she does good. I mean, this one came covered in rags, her wings were frosted! If you want, you can check on her. Room 13”
“Why would I…” A thought jumped through Scootaloo’s mind as she got a few new ideas. One of which was that Lightning could’ve done something to Dash and the family. The other, that she might help them.
Quickly thanking her and running away so Zephyr won’t follow, she found the room right around a corner. A wooden door was in front of her, behind it — the pony who almost killed her in the past.
“Ugh! Buck it! The longer I stall the worse it’ll get, or whatever Twilight would say.” With a loud crack, she hit-opened the door with her rear hooves. It swung open and loudly struck the wall on the other side, waking the pony inside up.
Lightning jumped off the bed. Her face was covered with a rainbow sleep mask and on her was pajamas with a grid pattern of thunder clouds. “Who’s there?!” With a few quick moves, she lifted up the mask. The sight of Scootaloo calmed her down.
“You? What do you want?” she asked with a slightly unsettled voice. She sat on the bed and turned on the lamp. In the light, Scootaloo could see her wings covered in wing-warmers with Rainbow Dash’s cutiemark on them.
Scootaloo entered the room. “Do you know where Rainbow Dash is?” Her tone was sad and uneven. Trembling, not knowing what to feel or what to think in such a situation.
“No… Why would I? Did something bad happen?” A light sadness filled her voice, making her abandon most of the hope of asking forgiveness.
Scootaloo 'dug’ the ground. “I don’t know. I really-really hoped it was you because... well, it would’ve made things easier.” Scootaloo began feeling some guilt.
Lightning rolled her eyes. “Believe me, kid. Harming her would be the last thing on my list. After all, she gave me this room, and that amazing lady, who I suppose is her relative, did so much for me. I mean, she even lent me those things!” She spread her wings.
“I'm… sorry,” Scootaloo apologised.
Lightning came up to her and gave her a pat. “Don’t worry kiddo, it’s not your fault for thinking that villain would make something bad again.”
“I’m not about that, but yes, it’s my fault. I’m sorry for both, thinking bad about you now, and about thinking bad of you then.” Sincerity was leaking out of her voice as she considered the talk Rainbow gave her earlier. “What happened after Ponyville?”
“Well. Washout broke up. We all went our different ways. I wanted to return home, but… well, let’s just say my folks don't exactly like filly-foolers. I had nowhere else to go — the Academy won’t accept me back and the weather factory doesn’t want ‘criminals’ like me.” She sighed. A tear formed on her eye. “Cloudsdale wasn’t kind either, I guess most of the ponies know what I did because of that damn Friendship Journal or whatever. I would’ve flown away somewhere else, but the weather is too harsh, and I don’t have any money for a carriage.
“That’s when you find me and… well… You know the rest.” She tried her best to avoid eye contact. “When you find Dash, please tell her that I’m really-really grateful to her.”
Scootaloo sobbed. “I hope everything will be good then. I wish you all the best and I’m sorry. Have a great Hearth's Warming!” She turned around and was about to leave the room.
“Stop!” Lightning voices shivered. “That’s not all.”
Scootaloo wiped her eyes and turned around. “What’s more, do you know the future?”
Lightning chuckled. “No… I have to… Listen, I’m sorry too. I wish I could change everything I did to you and to Dash. But I guess there would be no point. Dash was right then, it helped us both grow.
“It’s just… Some of us learn fast and become responsible adults like you and your friends, and some can’t grow up like me. And again, I’m really sorry.”
Instantly, Scotaloo embraced her in the tightest hug. “Do you want to help look for her?” she asked, her voice no longer carrying sadness.
The heart-warming moment was broken by a loud scream from the outside.
“Felissia!” Lighting screamed. In a second she was gone, only a green-yellow trace left behind.
The weird picture appeared in front of her. A reindeer with rainbow mane stood in the middle of the room, trying to unravel her horns from the Hearth's Warming decorations. On her back was a big bag, from which, a pair of hooves was sticking out. Familiar screams from the receptionist were coming from the bag.
They met eyes and both of them sparked. In a blink, reindeer were gone, leaving a rainbow trace with notes of green and gold behind. Lightning dropped off her wing-warmers and a second trace appeared. The poor entrance door didn’t withstand the force of two rivals.
“What was that?!” Scootaloo asked Zephyr, panting.
He picked up his jaw from the ground. “I think they just flew away really fast.”
She growled. “Who was that?!”
“I think it was… Rainbow Dash.”
The weather got awfully bad. It was almost impossible to see past a few meters in front and the cold air was creating icicles anywhere it could (including wings of a turquoise pegasus). Luckily for Lightning, Reinbow wasn’t too far away. Unknowingly why Dash flew much slower than usual.
It took some time, but Lightning managed to level with her up. “Dash, listen. I’m sorry if it’s because of me, but you have to stop!” she tried to put some sense in her frienemy.
Lightning could hear muffled screams coming from the bag.
Dash’s deer-ears perked up.
“I wanted to thank you hugely. For everything, you did for me. I probably would be dead if not for you. So please, stop!” she tried again. Same results, although Dash’s eyes lit up.
Dust sobbed. “I’m sorry.”
She speeded up into her, forcing them both to fall down.
They all were going to crush.
But a mere thought flew through Lightning’s head. A dizzitron — device made to train young wonderbolts air-recovery.
Lightning maybe wasn’t a psychologist, but she had some experience and a lot of hope. Wishing for everything to end well, she said a word that started this whole rivalry, “Release!” Her imitation of Spitfire’s voice was awful, but it seemed to do the trick.
In the next 6 seconds, they both managed to recover from spinning and land safely on the ground, catching the bag filled with ponies.
They landed on the Cloudsdale main square. Lightning untied the bag, letting the ponies out.
“Is the monster gone?!” someone screamed. Lightning didn’t hear it as she embraced her friene… friend in the tightest hug she ever gave to anyone, followed by a little smooch on a cheek.
The blizzard stopped and soft snowflakes began falling on the ground.
“So. Do you remember anything?” Scootaloo asked Rainbow. They again were in their room.
Rainbow rubbed the place where her horns used to be. “I don’t think so. The only things I remember are the faces of my friends and family blinking before my eyes. And then her speech.”
Lightning gave out a nervous laugh. “So you remember that, but you don’t remember kidnapping ponies and putting them on the Hearth's Warming tree?”
Rainbow spew out some water. “I did what?!”
Scootaloo face-hooved and she laughed. Lightning followed her example and chuckled.
“Huh. At least the weather is better now. I could’ve sworn that Cloudsdale was about to fall under the weight of snow… You know, maybe ask Twilight to check you when you come back to Ponyville,” Lightning said. She stood up and was about to leave the room.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Rainbow asked her.
Scootaloo added, “Yeah, where are you going?”
“Back to the hotel. Maybe I’ll read a book for the holiday or something. Why are you asking?”
Both Scootaloo and Rainbow burst into little laughter.
“What’s so funny?! I just saved you, why are you making fun of me?!” It forced them both to laugh even more.
Lightning was about to rush away when Scootaloo managed to stop laughing. “No-no-no. Stop. That isn’t what we meant!”
“Yeah,” Dash added. “You’re not leaving this house at least not until we all had a great Hearth's Warming. After that, it depends on you.”
That evening the day was a simple perfection,
Many adored Hearth's Warming diner conception,
The table was full of the laughter-infection,
And a pony found a new life-direction.
That day Lightning learned a valuable lesson,
Don’t be rude and don’t hide your inner aggression,
Be kind and there won’t be any evil possessions,
And the mind will be clear of any obsession.
After the evening, guests went home, and Lightning stayed with her new friends, who offered her to stay for as long as she wanted.
That night, Scootaloo had a great sleep in the company of Rainbow Dash and Lightning Dust, whose rivalry finally came to a peace.
