A Bleak Winter's Tale

by RDT

Rating: teen
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Alternate Universe, Drama, Trixie, Rainbow Dash, Science Fiction, Starlight Glimmer
Length: 2938

Before Snowfall Frost could erase Hearth’s Warming, two spirits had shown her visions of the past and present. A third now takes her to the future she would cause: a world of brass, steam, and bitter cold.

Before Snowfall Frost could erase Hearth’s Warming, two spirits had shown her visions of the past and present. A third spirit, the Spirit of Hearth's Warming Yet to Come, now takes her to the future.

In this city filled with snow, fog, and powerful streetlights, Snowfall Frost overhears a conversation between two old friends: Trixie, a brilliant artificer, and Rainbow Dash, Inquisitor of the Order of the Sun. And Snowfall learns what truly desperate ponies will do for survival…

An alternate scenario for A Hearth’s Warming Tail and inspired by Frostpunk.

Written for Bean's Writing Group prompt 35, "An unexpected factoid about magic".

With feedback from:
Summer Knight, short tale, and Scriblits Talo. Thanks for your help!

Published 2022-12-22 23:50:00 UTC
Last updated 2022-12-22 23:50:00 UTC

Snow, Fog, and City Lights

“Too bad it's going to be the last Hearth’s Warming Eve ever! Ever! Ever! Ever…”

The echoes of the Spirit of Hearth’s Warming ‘Presents’ faded away as fog billowed in, hiding away her beloved town. Snowfall Frost looked around frantically as her companion disappeared into the fog as well.

“Spirit!” she cried. “What do you mean? What’s going to happen?”

She felt the wind brushing against her neck, the cold chilling her to the bone. An endless field of white stretched before her, and she spun on her hooves, desperate to see anything familiar.

But what she saw was a towering, shrouded figure, the shadows cast by its cloak a stark contrast against the snow.

“Who are you?” she asked, though she guessed that there was a pattern.

“I am the Spirit of Hearth’s Warming Yet To Come.” The volume and grandiosity of the Spirit’s voice matched her stature. She spread her wings, and there was the silhouette of a horn on her head. An alicorn, like Princess Celestia?

Another gust of wind blew against Snowfall, causing her to shield her glasses from falling off. She shivered again. “Are you here to show me what future Hearth's Warming Eves are like?” she asked, hopeful. The previous two Spirits had been friendly. Maybe this one…

“No,” the Spirit said sorrowfully. “For there are no more Hearth's Warming Eves for me to show.”

“Why not?” she asked, dreading the answer she knew would come.

“You will succeed in erasing the holiday”—the Spirit’s horn lit up, showing a gaunt face and an angry expression—”as you wished.”

“And what happens?”

The Spirit’s horn grew even brighter, and the world was drowned out in a flash of light.

The fog was still there, though lighter now. Snowfall was standing in the middle of a wide, snow-covered street, its only other occupant a figure huddled in blankets. A light layer of snow had already covered the still form, and there were no hoofprints.

But what captured her attention was the lights. There were hundreds of streetlights, cutting through the mist and showing the little trails of snowflakes as they fell in the wind. Beside them were towering buildings and tenements, the weak glows from their windows barely visible through the fog. At the head of the street was a shadow even taller than the rest, with its own light shining like a beacon from atop a spire jutting up from the roof.

It was… amazing.

“…Spirit?” she asked, approaching the lonely figure. It did not seem that the terrible giant would take on such a humble appearance, but Snowfall did not presume to understand their ways. “What is this place?”

The figure had not answered when the snow before her began to glow, and Snowfall turned around before quickly jumping to the side with a yelp.

What she saw was unlike anything she’d ever seen. It was… an automaton, she eventually decided. It was as wide as the street itself, and a powerful lamp with a roaring flame illuminated its way forward. Huge metal wheels turned as dozens of exposed brass gears and pistons powered its movement. A funnel-shaped wedge moved along the ground, forcing the snow on the street to pile towards the centre where it disappeared into the core of the machine. Snowfall could only guess what happened to the snow after that, but great clouds of steam blew out of one of the automaton’s pipes, lighter in colour than the smoke which was released through a different vent. The wheels and the ground behind it were bare, and Snowfall wondered what magic had allowed this marvel to exist.

The automaton drove forward, and Snowfall gasped as she remembered her companion.

“Spirit! Watch out!”

And perhaps the prone figure was not the Spirit of Hearth’s Warming Yet To Come, for it did not respond to Snowfall’s pleas. But unfounded, too, were her worries; a giant mechanical arm quickly reached out of the automaton, picking up the figure—blankets and all—and placing them in a compartment no doubt made for this purpose.

Phew, Snowfall thought.

But as the machine drove away, she noticed another pony clinging to its underside. Snowfall followed, curious, though it was too dark to make out any of the hitchhiker’s features. They approached the end of the street, where the tall building that Snowfall had noticed earlier slowly came into relief. It had large steel doors covering most of the front side, and Snowfall could see another entrance on the right wall.

As the machine began to turn, the pony jumped off the machine and dashed towards the side entrance. The pony—who Snowfall could now see was a pegasus mare dressed in ornate blue-and-yellow robes—stopped for a moment in front of the door. The prismatic tail lashed and blue feathers shook, shaking off the snow, and for a moment Snowfall Frost could swear that the pegasus was the spitting image of her own assistant, Snowdash.

A moment later and with the sound of rushing air, the door slid open seemingly of its own volition. Snowfall followed the pegasus through the doorway, though she spared a moment to look down at where the pegasus had stood. The hoofprints revealed a brass plate buried beneath the snow.

Pressure plates, maybe? Snowfall thought.

The door closed behind them, but Snowfall barely noticed as she drank in the view before her.

The building felt even larger on the inside, illuminated by gas lights hanging from the ceiling of the central atrium. The floor was filled with rows upon rows of workbenches covered in tools, and pulleys ran through the air, mechanical grippers and even more tools hanging down from them. There was a staircase leading to an upper landing, and in its shadow was a clock that ticked away above a small purple wagon covered with stars. Other objects were placed about the factory floor and on the workbenches: half-finished machines, prototypes, and what looked like a miniature model of the snow-clearing automaton.

The pegasus ignored all of this, immediately heading towards the stairs. As much as Snowfall would have liked to spend an hour or a lifetime studying these wonders, the actions of the pegasus mare were a more pressing concern.

The pegasus took only a few steps on the stairs before shaking her head and taking flight. Snowfall scrambled to keep up, eventually catching her at a door. The pegasus grabbed the doorknob and entered unceremoniously.

“And how did you get in here, Rainbow Dash?” The tired voice came from a light-blue unicorn with a silvery mane hunched over a desk. A pointed hat was placed to her left, and to her right was a bottle of dark, red wine. She had been drawing a diagram, though the quill was now leaking a blot of ink onto the yellowing paper.

“Well, you left the door unlocked, Trixie. Saved me from having to knock on your window.”

“Ha ha ha. Very funny.” The unicorn took another drink from the bottle. “What I meant was how you got into the city. Trixie thought you were still in Canterlot.”

Rainbow Dash laughed, grabbing a stool from the side of the room and plopping into it. “What, you think a closed rail line and a few windigos are gonna stop me? I know you don’t like the Inquisitors, but even then you should know that we aren’t that useless.”

Windigos… are they real? Snowfall thought. Interesting.

“The only good one of the lot,” Trixie said, looking the pegasus over. “So, are you here on the order of the Princess?”

“Nah. I had to sneak out of Canterlot to get here, and I didn’t really have time to ditch these robes.” The unicorn visibly relaxed as Rainbow Dash prodded at her own clothing. “Sorry if I made you nervous. By the way, your automatons can’t catch anything underneath them. They also don’t work while they’re turning.”

“Freezes, Dash,” the unicorn huffed. “Of course you just had to one-up me.” She thought for a moment, picking up the quill again with her magic and tapping it against the inkblot. “But thanks to Trixie’s superior intellect, this one’s an easy fix.” She scribbled down a few gear-like symbols with arrows and labels between them. “See, that’ll fix the delayed execution while turning. And if you can’t get near the machine anyways, no need to cover the blindspot. Ha!”

The pegasus turned the paper around and looked at the symbols. “I’m no artificer, but yeah, that seems about right.” She thought for a moment. “You still have to modify them all, though.”

The unicorn grinned. “That’s true. But Trixie’s engineers will have it done within the day!”

“I can believe that,” Rainbow Dash said. “Still don’t get how you got the automatons to enforce curfew so quickly, though. Like a hot knife through snow.”

“Well, what’s that when compared with Trixie’s genius?” The unicorn grinned. “Though, I admit that it was a brilliant move, even for me.”

“I hate those things anyways,” Rainbow Dash declared, fluffing out her wings. “Couldn’t fly for hours, hanging on to the undercarriage of one of them and hoping that it brought me here. And I can’t even use my heat-shifting to keep warm!”

“The fact that you hate it means it’s working. Just another feature of one of Trixie’s greatest inventions, the null field generator.” The unicorn grew a faraway look in her eyes. “Hey, do you remember when we finally roped that earth pony into doing a demonstration for us? The way he looked when he realized that we’d unlocked the secrets of his magic, and discovered why it worked on both crops and machines! And then, with your own knowledge of pegasus magic, we realized that all magic was based on intent, so we just made something which could redirect all of that attention to itself…”

This was something that perked Snowfall’s ears. All magic was based on intent? And she knew that counterspells existed, but a general magical nullifier? And then there was the fact that the automaton’s function must not have been magic-based if the field affected itself. The world had expanded before her eyes, and Snowfall knew that she would spend her life trying to recreate these feats of magic and technology.

“That experiment was only a year ago, Trixie,” Rainbow Dash said. “You’re talking like it was decades.”

“Well, a year is a long time in this Sun-forsaken city!”

“Only because you won’t let us help!” The pegasus sprung up from her seat. “Every time you turn us away!” She spread her wings, and the robes momentarily showed off an impressive lightning bolt pattern.

The unicorn took another drink before answering. “Trixie will never become just another of the Sun Princess’s puppets,” she said, slurring her words slightly despite the resolute tone. “Not like that frozen Blueblood.”

“The Princess’s will is absolute! None shall doubt or challenge Her!”

“And of course you would say that,” Trixie said. “Lieutenant Inquisitor Rainbow Dash”—and that title was spoken with mocking formality—“do you still have the heart to listen to a story from an old friend?”

The pegasus traced a circle over the yellow sun emblazoned on the front of her robe before taking a deep breath. She nodded and sat back down.

“When Trixie was just a little filly,” the unicorn whispered, so quietly that Rainbow Dash had to lean forward in her stool, “she had wanted to join the Priory of the Sun, for it was said all the great unicorns went there. So Mother had sold everything in her possession to make the long journey to Canterlot, just so little Trixie had the chance to fulfil her dreams.” She took another drink. “But of course, Trixie had no training and failed the entrance exam.

“We had nothing to our name after that. And when Mother died from pneumonia, Trixie was forced to set out by herself with nothing but a wagon we built with our own hooves. I’d picked up a few tricks, you see, so I could perform little shows to passersby for some coin.” She giggled softly to herself. “Imagine that. The Grrreat and Powerful Trixie! It was the moniker I had picked for myself, forever denying that I was not skilled enough to be accepted into the Priory of the Sun.” She looked to her left. “And this was my hat.”

“You’re drunk, Trixie,” Rainbow Dash said, rather needlessly. “Get on with it.”

“But of course.” Still, the unicorn could not resist another sip from the bottle. “I had to travel along those dangerous paths between cities, for no audience wanted to watch the same tricks twice. And that’s when you found me in the blizzard.”

“I see you haven’t forgotten that,” Rainbow replied.

“You think I could ever forget?” Trixie suddenly shouted. “Ha! Saving my life is the only reason I still put up with you!” She laughed and slammed a hoof onto her desk, knocking over an inkwell. It spilled onto the hat, the black ink slowly spreading over the field of stars, though the unicorn seemed not to notice as her laughter slowly died down. She took a breath.

“But when Trixie finally wound up in Manehattan,” she continued, dropping her voice back down to a whisper, “it was not an audience she would find there. It was a teacher, a unicorn by the name of Sunset Shimmer who saw Trixie’s potential. She had managed to teach me so much more than what any Priory could have managed.” Her expression darkened. “At least, before she was murdered.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Rainbow Dash said. “We’re still investigating.”

Trixie opened her mouth, but then closed it and shook her head. It was a while before she finally spoke. “Sunset would never have died in a simple windigo attack, so you can stop peddling that ridiculous story.”

“You walk a dangerous line, Trixie.”

“Trixie thought this meeting was unofficial?” She waved a hoof dismissively. “Point is, the ponies of this city helped Trixie when Celestia never could.”

“Do not speak Her name in vain!” Rainbow Dash hissed, increasingly agitated. “Don’t play games with me!”

Trixie only sneered, but upon seeing the look on the pegasus’ face, she shook her head and sighed. “Fine. On account of our friendship, Trixie repents.” The unicorn traced that same circular shape in front of her chest as Rainbow had done earlier, though without noticeably less care. “Still, I will preserve the freedom of this city at any cost. And if that cost is surviving without Canterlot coal, so be it.”

“Your problem isn’t Blueblood.” Rainbow Dash walked slowly to Trixie’s side. “It’s gonna be the windigos. Look at what you’ve resorted to, rounding up the tramps with those machines and throwing them outside the city walls, just to buy yourself some time. You hide in your cozy little workshop, Trixie, but I’ve seen the corpses! It’s certain death out there!” She stared Trixie in the eyes, a look of pleading on her face. “And still, it’s barely working. Reconsider our offer, please.”

That… was that, truly, what the automaton’s claws had been designed for?

“Trixie will not,” she said, pushing Rainbow Dash away. “These automatons? Not my fault. The Sun Princess forced my hoof by withdrawing her priests right before the winter solstice, when she knew that the windigos were the most dangerous. She reduced those ponies into something merely to appease the windigos’ appetite. She will be responsible for these deaths.”

Rainbow Dash backed away of her own accord, and so did Snowfall Frost. “How… how dare you!” the pegasus said, flaring her wings.

“How dare I, indeed.” The unicorn grimaced. “But this is not my fault. Damn Celestia, and let her freeze in Tartarus like the hundreds she’s doomed. May the world be warm without her.” She downed the rest of her bottle.

“You will not get away with this!” The pegasus planted her hooves wide. “As Lieutenant Inquisitor of the Order of the Sun and Rector of the Wonderbolts Seminary, I arrest you for treason and blasphemy!” Snowfall Frost could almost feel her fur begin to stand on end, and sparks arced across Rainbow Dash’s feathers.

“Oh, no, you don’t!” The unicorn laughed maniacally, her horn glowing. Smoke suddenly filled the room—hiding both ponies from view—a moment before a bolt of lightning arced through the air, blasting open the door. Snowfall ran out as quickly as she could, and a beam of magic flew over her head.

But as she ran, the stairs and sounds of fighting faded away from under her, and she found herself back in that snowy, never-ending wasteland. The wind howled.

“Do you see now, Snowfall Frost?” The Spirit had returned, cloaked in her dark shroud.

“Magic and technology beyond my understanding, and…” Snowfall shivered, and it was not from the cold. “And ponies doing horrible, horrible things to each other.”

“Yes. This is what the future holds in store, and it will be your actions that cause it.” The terrible figure turned and began to walk away.

“No!” Snowfall shouted after the Spirit as the fog thickened again. “This isn’t what I wanted! I didn't see how important Hearth's Warming Eve was! Please, spirit! I haven't cast the spell yet! Is there still time? I'm sorry!”

Snowfall came to her senses back in her home. The cauldron was still bubbling. She rushed outside the window and saw, in the streets, ponies still participating in the festivities.

“There’s still time!”

Author's Note

♫"I see a cold wind blowing through..."♫