All across Maretime Bay, the wrath of winter layered sheets of white everywhere the eye could see.
Ponies milled about, chatting and laughing, eating and drinking, simply enjoying themselves in the moment. Hot chocolate, swirling candies, and scalding hot tomato soup occupied the hooves of many a pony basking in the soft sunlight. It was a time of joy, a time of happiness, and a time of merriment. Something all the tribes could enjoy, a Hearth's Warming Eve to come together as one and just be happy.
A happiness that radiated enough that Izzy could feel it even now, sitting from the railing of the Crystal Brighthouse.
She sat as she usually did, forelegs crossed under her chin while she smiled brightly. Watching the ponies of Maretime Bay was always a fun passtime when she ran out of energy and needed to take a breath. Now, however, she was enjoying it to wait for her absolute favorite pony to finish her little ritual.
"Okay, so... we've got the chocolate, we've got the marshmallow, and we've got our gingerbread houses done!" Sunny said, checking off her list. "And that's everything we'll need for tonight!"
The Earth Pony turned to Izzy, a somber smile on her face.
"If you want to back out and try something else, I'd totally understand, Izzy," she said. "You don't have to put up with my rituals."
Izzy blew a raspberry and waved her off with a hoof.
"Don't be silly! This'll be fantastic! I mean, how many ponies can say they spent their Hearth's Warming Eve doing all the things they did hundreds of moons ago?" Izzy said.
"Well, a few historians here and there probably do it to keep their knowledge fresh just in case," Sunny mumbled as she fiddled with her book.
"Well... how many of them can say that they spent it with their marefriend~?" Izzy sang before stealing a peck of the cheek.
Sunny's face lived up to her namesake as she blushed brightly.
"W-well, uh... I don't know... but I can confidently say, one."
Izzy giggled as Sunny opened her journal to a page filled with notes.
"Alright, so... let's run down the notes Dad made of old Hearth's Warming traditions," Sunny said.
She paused as she examined the plastic containers keeping the ancient notes safe from the elements, and ran a hoof down the page slowly. A deep sigh racked Sunny as she steel herself with determination.
"I'll make it one to remember, Dad," she whispered before slamming it shut.
"So, what's first?" Izzy asked excitedly.
\/
The cold wind blew across the sunless city, as chaos brewed in the Crystal Brighthouse. Dragonfire spewed smoke in columns as the ponies inside screamed. Tidal waves of tapioca and pudding cracked open the doors and windows, flooding the exterior with sugary goodness.
"Oh, Em, Goodness! I knew holiday deserts were gonna be totally bad for my health, but I did not expect it to be this obvious about it!" Pipp said, focusing on her phone. "Chat, any ideas on what we should do?"
"Throw in Sparky's stomach medicine, see if that'll work!" Hitch screamed as he struggled to hold on to Sparky, wrenching his son from the grip of an angry puddle of pudding.
Zipp kicked open the medicine cabinet and quickly ripped the top off of a bottle before throwing it into the giant blob of desert. The creature of custard shuddered and whimpered as it retracted most of its body mass, leaving the interior of the Brighthouse cleaned of its substance, but still damaged immensely. It charged out the door yipping like a wounded puppy, blasting apart the front of their home while charging off into the snowy forests outside Maretime bay.
The ponies inside breathed a sigh of relief as they recovered from the attack of the wrathful Hearth's Warming desert. As Zipp and Hitch started to clean up, already in the routine from their misadventures, Pipp pulled her phone out and focused on her livestream.
Across the room from them all, Sunny and Izzy crept out of the kitchen. The Unicorn licked up what little meager portions of the original desert were leftover in her bowl as Sunny slinked towards the gaping hole that was once their front door.
"Mmm, srum-diddly-umptious! I guess it wasn't a total bust after all, huh Sunny?" Izzy said.
Looking to her marefriend, worry spiked her heart as she didn't see Sunny respond in any way, still trotting for the door.
"Sunny?" Izzy said, fear creeping into her throat.
Setting the bowl down, she followed her marefriend outside.
Once outside, Sunny sat down at the edge of the path and... cried.
The cold wind swept her hot tears away, casting them aside as she dropped her book on the ground. A hiccup escaped her throat as she rested her head on the book's cover.
"I'm sorry, Dad," she muttered before sobbing.
Izzy rushed up to her side and quickly hugged her marefriend tightly as she could, pressing her face into Sunny's neck and cuddling up to her.
"Sunny..." Izzy whispered before Sunny hiccuped another word.
"I... I failed..." she cried. "I failed Dad, I failed our friends, I messed up every little thing in this book... and I failed you! I ruined Hearth's Warming for everypony, and I-"
"Hey, look at me!" Izzy shouted, pulling Sunny's face aside. "You did not mess up!"
"Yes I did!" Sunny sobbed. "First, the pageant went horribly wrong, then the gift exchange blew up in our faces, and now the pudding nearly destroyed our home!"
Sunny cried even harder, gasping and shuddering as Izzy lifted her into a hug. Head perched on her marefriend's shoulder, Sunny embraced the hug as she kept Izzy close.
"I'm so sorry I wasted your time... and ruined everything."
"Sunny, you didn't ruin anything," Izzy said, patting her marefriend's back. "I know a lot of stuff happened that didn't go as planned, but it was still fun!"
"H-how!? Everything went horribly wrong!"
"And we still had fun doing it!" Izzy cheered.
"But... t-the pageant! Everything was wrong! The script, the effects, the audience was laughing at the performance the whole time!"
"But we still enjoyed it!" Izzy said, pulling back to look Sunny in the eye. "Sure, we didn't get the history totally correct, but everypony enjoyed it! A lot of them were still talking about it even when we went out shopping for gifts!"
"The exchange went terribly! Nopony got anything that they actually wanted!"
"And they traded everything with one another afterwards!" Izzy said, chuckling. "Sure, it was a hassle getting everypony something, but when we all sat down and talked about what we got, a lot of ponies just kinda... traded between one another. No one left unhappy with it."
"The pudding... I wanted to make you something special, something meant just for you."
"Just for me, huh?" Izzy said, raising an eyebrow.
Her horn lit up as she opened Sunny's book, flipping it to the pages where Sunny kept reading through, and found the entry of pudding. Specifically, its relationship with another former hero of Equestria.
"Mmmmmmmm-hm! Just like I thought!"
"Wha... what do you mean?"
"Sunny, you were so caught up trying to relive the holiday the way they did it, but I don't think you really read about how it went down."
"I... might have skimmed the notes," Sunny said sheepishly, looking away. "I only checked the parts Dad highlighted and... sped through the rest. I wanted to get to spend some time with you today, and I thought that it didn't matter much if I skipped a line or two."
"'But it turned out that the slightest error in any step of the baking process results in Chancellor Pudding Head's famous pudding turning into a hostile mass of fully animated pudding, so do not try this recipe at home' seems like a pretty important warning."
"... what?"
"Oh, and here it says that Twilight and all her friends got real upset at one another during their Hearth's Warming Eve pageant! They got into fights and everything, but that it really helped them bring that kinda anger to the characters on stage!"
Sunny sat down, perplexed by what she was hearing.
"And then there's their gift exchange."
Izzy suddenly guffawed loudly, slapping the pavement with her hooves as she trot in place.
"Oh my GOSH! It's even worse than what happened earlier! They didn't get any good presents at all! Just a bunch of over-priced rip off dolls and had a giant monster attack on top of having to deal with the pudding!"
Izzy's laughter crept warmth into Sunny's chest, and she spoke up again.
"But... b-but I thought that... how did they let it get that bad... I thought the heroes of Old Equestria didn't have to deal with that kind of stuff."
"I think what the book's trying to say is that... well, they were ponies just like us after all. I mean, we didn't have a fight at the theater or anything, but we all mess up some times. We can't do everything perfectly as planned all the time, where's the fun in that?"
"But... but I ruined our first Hearth's Warming Eve together," Sunny said dejectedly.
Izzy shook her head as she approached.
"Who ever said my day was ruined? Sure, nothing went according to plan, but... I still got to spend the day with you, Sunny."
A gentle hoof's caress graced Sunny as she gazed into Izzy's eyes.
"A day I get to spend with you is always going to be a perfect day. And every one of those is a Hearth's Warming present I'd never trade for anything else in the world."
As their lips met, Sunny let more tears flow as her sadness was overwhelmed by the happiness her beloved Unicorn brought her.
