Pinkie Pie vs. The Mari Lwyd

Pinkie Pie hummed a merry little tune as she put the finishing touches to the chalky heptagram drawn across her bedroom floor. The Pie family grimoire had stressed the importance of its precision in the ritual, and while it was a fairly simple design – one Rarity might possibly have called “elegant,” maybe – she was still proud of what she felt was a job well done. The lines were even, all angles and shapes perfectly proportional, and the binding circle containing it all was perfect in a way that would make the most stout-hearted mathematicians envious. And they said all those hours of doing sidewalk art would never serve her later in life! Hah!

The key element of the array was a seven-pointed star, and at each of its termini lay a token of festive cheer: a jug of cider, a paper-cut snowflake, a pink bauble, the very first mitten Pinkie herself had ever worn as an itty-bitty kiddie, five golden rings, the gift wrapping from Sunset’s present to her last year (ribbon included), and of course: a sprig of holly, consecrated by the spit of a yearling reindeer. At the center was the focus of the ritual, both vessel for the impending summoning and anchor for the arcane energies Pinkie was to call upon – the clean-white, lovingly preserved horse skull brought over from the old country by her great-great-great-grandpappy generations ago, bedecked in fresh ribbons and antique ornamentation and nestled in a bundle of the white sheeting that would normally cover the person holding it aloft.

She locked eyes with it momentarily – or at least approximations thereof – and slowly blepped her tongue out at it. The skull of course did not respond, being an inanimate structure of bone and all, but she giggled nonetheless at her own antics. Most people would probably find the old thing a bit macabre or even morbid, and like, she supposed she could see where they were coming from, sort of, if she squinted? But it’s not like they had just up and killed some poor horsie to get it. Well, maybe they had, she couldn’t say for sure how things had ended for an animal that was some few hundred years dead, but she’d always liked to think they were just using every part of one that died for unrelated reasons. Plus, who doesn’t like improvisational song battles?

Pinkie Pie still couldn’t believe that such a cute and silly and fun tradition could be like… like that in Sunset’s world. The Mari Lwyd, a cannibalistic monster? Or… pony-eating, at least. She wasn’t sure if a skeleton creature eating living ponies would count as cannibalism, especially if it had never been a living pony itself. Which of course she didn’t know whether it had or not, because Sunset had been unusually tight-lipped about the whole thing…

Earlier that afternoon, Sunset Shimmer, Pinkie Pie, Twilight Sparkle, and Rainbow Dash were gathered in the pie family garage, instruments out but largely neglected. The loss of roughly half the band to various holiday family trips meant the gathering had started out as more jam sesh than actual practice, but even that had quickly devolved into goofing off and chatting.

Limestone Pie poked her head into garage. “Hey, Pinkie, do you know where the Mari Lwyd stuff got to?”

A loud clatter kept Pinkie from answering as Sunset Shimmer, who had previously been idly toying with her guitar as the four of them chatted, dropped her instrument. Her hands hung in the air as if they had yet to realize the sudden absence, and a look of utmost terror painted her features as she stared wide-eyed at Limestone Pie.

“Wh… what did you just say?”

“Oh, the Mari Lwyd!” Pinkie piped up, seemingly oblivious to the flinch the name got out of Sunset or the look of confusion on her sister’s face, “It’s one of my very favorite holiday traditions! One or two people walk around under this big white sheet like ghosties only they hold up an old horse skull all decorated with ribbons and bling while they go around to houses knocking on doors and challenging everyone to caroling battles and if the people who live there lose they have to let the wassailers inside for cider and snacks! My parents say the horse skull we use came with our family all the way from the old country over a hundred years ago.”

Sunset went pale and silent as she tried to sit down heavily in a chair that wasn’t there, landing instead with a weighty whump against the cold paved floor.

“Er… Sunset? Are you okay?” Twilight tentatively placed a hand upon her shoulder, which snapped Sunset out of it at least enough for her to ask of no one in particular:

“That monster is here in this world too…?”

The girls all shared The Look amongst themselves, the one they share anytime Sunset casually reveals or implies some utterly buck-wild new bit of information about her homeworld. A rather common exchange, given Sunset’s penchant for doing so at the drop of a hat, or even for no reason whatsoever.

“Apparently the bogeymare we’re supposed to pay a tribute of some of our trick-or-treating haul to was real all along, and get this: she’s my world’s counterpart to our vice principal,” She had said at the Shamnha party Pinkie threw a couple months ago, before casually popping a miniature chocolate bar (Pinkie refused to call them “fun-sized,” for reasons that scarce need elaboration) in her mouth and walking off to answer the door.

“Ponies don’t really have natural predators, just creatures that hunt us for sport,” she had said during their visit to the reptile house, not even looking up from the informational display on Neighle crocodiles to see the horrified faces of her friends.

“Yeah, if we don’t celebrate the holidays hard enough there’s a non-zero chance it’d cause a literal apocalypse,” she had told them not even two days ago around a mostly-chewed mouthful of pineapple-and-peppers pizza, “Like, full-on nuclear winter.”

This time, however, The Look was just a bit different on account of how their normally unflappable friend actually seemed rattled for once.

“Uh… when you say ‘monster’, what do you mean exactly?” Twilight asked.

“I mean a horrifying, nigh-unstoppable creature that eats ponies!”

“Oh, this is one of your weird magical girl things,” Limestone’s rolled her eyes as her rare expression of concern gave way to her much more typical scowl. No one acknowledged the comment.

“Ah,” Twilight frowned slightly, as though she were working through a moderately complex trigonometric problem in her head, “I was afraid you might mean something like that.”

“Gonna need a little more detail than that, sport,” Dash says.

“Nuh-uh, no way. Even just saying that thing’s name is to invite its presence, discussing it in depth is a surefire recipe for disaster.”

“…But it’s just a puppet.”

“Hobby horse,” Twilight Sparkle corrected, almost automatically.

“What?”

“Technically, the Mari Lwyd is not a puppet, it belongs to a category of folk traditions known as hobby horses.”

“Like those things sickly Hocktorian children play with in movies?”

“Not quite,” Twilight began, and Dash groaned in anticipatory exasperation, “though the construction is somewhat similar to the children’s toy which developed later, traditional hobby horses tend to be a bit bigger, sometimes even made using actual horse skulls and some kind of covering over the actors operating it.”

“That sounds a lot like a puppet to me.”

“Well… it’s not. It’s more of a costume,” said Twilight decisively.

“Okay, costume, hobble horse, puppet, whatever! That still doesn’t explain why Sunset thinks we’re gonna get snatched just by talking about it.”

“Because that’s what it does now can we please stop talking about it!” Sunset hissed.

“Dude, we’re not in Equestria, pretty sure it can’t get you over here.”

“When has not being in Equestria ever meant we were safe from Equestrian magic?”

“How can you even be sure the Mari Lwyd is real in Equestria, Sunny? Have you ever seen it?” Pinkie asked innocently.

“…Pinkie, are you, of all people, seriously doubting the existence of a holiday figure?”

“Don’t be silly, Sunset, I know for a fact the Mari Lwyd-“

“Stop saying its name!”

“-is just a silly hobby-horsey-thingie we dress up as to go wassailing. I mean, it’s not like I’m saying the Yule Goat isn’t real!”

“You still think the Yule Goat is real?” Dash asked.

“Rainbow Dash…” Limestone’s already gravelly voice carried an extra-rough tone of warning – or threat, more likely. Fortunately, the comment seemed to have gone unnoticed by Pinkie.

“Look, the last time I thought something from Equestrian folklore was ‘just a myth’, they ended up crashing the school’s musical showcase, turning the whole school against itself, and almost taking over the world! But even if that weren’t true, I know the Ma- that thing is real because-“ she paused, a look of frustration quickly passing across her features as she searched for an explanation more substantive than the gut feeling driving her certainty, “Because I just do! Okay!?”

“Hold on – Sunset, you said the Mari Lwyd is a holiday figure in your world, too?” Twilight asked.

“Uh… yeah?”

“But I thought it was a carnivorous monster. Isn’t Equestria’s yuletide analogue all about togetherness and friendship?”

“Well, sure, it’s just that it only shows up around Hearth’s Warming.”

“So, wait…” Rainbow Dash held up a hand, a slow grin spreading across her face and the beginnings of a snicker-fit tinging her voice, “By any chance, does this thing happen to have a certain preference in who it goes after? Like, say, naughty boys and girls?”

“Yes…?”

Dash burst out into full-on guffawing and tipped backwards off her seat. “Oh man, that is too good! Big, tough Sunset Shimmer is afraid of Krampus! Hah!”

An indignant shade of red flushed through Sunset’s cheeks. “Sh-shut up, Dash, it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to be afraid of.”

“Mmmmmaybe let’s change the subject,” Twilight suggested slightly nervously, standing and stepping over to Sunset to give her a hand up to her feet, “Pinkie, how about you go help your sister find the- thing?”

“Okie-doki-loki!”

As the two Pie sisters left to dig through their family’s boxes of festive paraphernalia, Sunset Shimmer visibly relaxed, and before long was right back to talking and joking with her friends like any other day. Inside the Pie household, however, the intricate machinery of Pinkie Pie’s mind had continued to turn in its unknowable way even as she searched for the grim heirloom.

The problem wasn’t that Pinkie Pie was worried about Sunset not getting fully into the spirit of the season causing a little bit of nuclear winter over on their side of the mirror – she was reasonably sure that she could party hard enough on her own to pick up the slack of maybe a dozen grouchy-grinches, bare min. The problem wasn’t even that she wanted to help Sunset get over one of her very few fears. No, it was just that the thought of one of her best friends in the whole world not enjoying herself over a silly little thing like this just broke her not-so-little pink heart.

So here she was, performing an unholly ritual to help Sunny get over what she was certain was an irrational fear and find her holiday spirit. Lucky that she had remembered this particular ritual was in the Pie family grimoire – she’d never been a skeptic, exactly, but, well… becoming a horse-themed mahou shoujo does a lot for a person’s perspective on the supernatural.

Speaking of which:

Pinkie Pie double checked her heptagram against the example in the book, making absolutely sure she wasn’t about to invite something other than the Mari Lwyd into her world. Thus satisfied, she lifted the first of the ritual candles (all-natural peppermint scented, naturally) from its place by the sprig of holly, lighting it then slowly and methodically bringing it around to light the candles by the other six points. She returned to the head of it, kneeled, and began to chant:

O Jolly Spirit, of rhyme and rime,
Hail thine splendor from worlds untold!
By cider spiced and glove of mine,
By gifts of yore and rings of gold,
And decorations of festive times,
I call upon the Mari Lwyd!
That thy may come forth from the void
To make good cheer and hearts-a-full,
To light our joy in dead of winter,
O Mari Lwyd, O Beast of Yule!
Heed my call and come thee hither!

Seven repetitions of the incantation were required, and with each the flame of a candle flickered from gentle and inviting orange to a ghostly-pale blue, the one directly in front of Pinkie last to turn. A gentle vortex of wind, far louder than it should have been for its intensity, kicked up in the center, ruffling the fabric beneath the horse skull even as the flames stood almost rigid against it. Halfway through the fifth round, the skull began to lift from its place on the floor, pushed upwards as though something were taking shape beneath it, or pushing its way up through the heptagram. By the end of the sixth round, it stood even with the top of Pinkie’s poofy locks, the sheet intermittently lit from within by gentle pulses of light that revealed the space beneath the skull remained empty despite its apparent occupation by… something.

When Pinkie at last finished the seventh round of her chant, it stood just shy of six feet tall, the snout of the skull pointing straight upwards towards the ceiling. The bottom of the sheet brushed whisper-quiet against the floor in the last vestiges of wind, and finally the candles snuffed themselves out just as it ceased completely. With a crack from nothing it very quickly hunched over, head jutting out towards her below a ridge where the bony curve of a spine should have maybe been. Though the baubles in the eye sockets did not glow or burn with some spectral light, they gave off some undefinable quality of intelligence now; a glint, a gleam, a je-ne-sais-quoi that gave Pinkie the distinct impression there was a spark of something alive (or at least sentient) within.

The ritual had worked.

“Woo!” she sprung to her feet and cheered loud enough to be heard across the street, “Go Pinkie! Who’s the bestest amateur summoner in the greater Canterlot suburban area? This gal!”

The Mari Lwyd’s jaw fell open a little as she congratulated herself, and it bounced slightly back and forth in time with her own joyous hopping. She squealed in delight and stepped across the circle to take its cheekbones in her hands.

“Welcome to the ape dimension, my festive Equestrian friend!,” she said, and the Mari Lwyd tilted its head in her hands, “I bet you have lots and lots of questions, like who I am, and why I brought you here, and whether this world’s cider is better than your world’s, so ask away!”

The Mari Lwyd titled its head the other way before pulling it out of her hands and turning towards the five golden rings. A seam that had not been there before opened in the sheet, and out pushed a pair of skeletal arms that ended in hands with stubby fingers that had too few segments to be human. It picked up the candle and one of the rings and brought them up to its eyes to examine them before bringing the candle to its mouth and biting into it. The wax beyond its teeth fell through the bottom of its jaw, landing on the floor with a soft thump. The rest of the candle and the holder followed it shortly, before it slipped each of the rings down an arm, one at a time, to rest in the crook of its elbow.

“My name is Pinkamena Diane Pie, but my friends all call me Pinkie, and everyone is my friend so you can call me that if you want! But you can also call me Pinkamena, or Diane, or I guess Miss Pie if you want to be formal, but – blech! Why would you want that, am I right? As for why I brought you here – my friend Sunset Shimmer is originally from Equestria, just like you, and she seems to be under the impression you’re a big meanie nastypants, so I was hoping we could correct that little misconception for her! Can’t tell you about the cider, unfortunately, but I can let you try some and decide for yourself.”

It shuffled back the other way and picked up the wrapping paper next. The way it moved reminded Pinkie of a muppet. It brought the memento of Sunset up to the end of its snout and made a long, loud sniffing noise that it really shouldn’t have been able to.

“So yeah, I was thinking once you got your bearings, because trust me I know how disorienting the trip can be – or well, I don’t know exactly, personally, it never bothered me? But everyone else is always telling me I’m weird for that, and mostly they look kinda loopy when they go through the mirror. When you’re ready, we can head out and visit Sunset and show her you’re not that bad!”

The Mari Lwyd did not answer Pinkie Pie, nor indeed even make any indication that it was listening to her in the slightest. It pulled its arms back within the white sheet of its body, taking the wrapping paper and rings with them, and jaunted over to her room’s window.

“Uh… Miss- or, Mister? Mx.? Mari Lwyd? Hello? Are you listening to me?”

The Mari Lwyd turned its head to one side, then the other, seeming to examine the window, before the arms came out from within the sheet again and gently pushed the bottom up. With a speed Pinkie would never have guessed it possessed prior to that moment, it lunged forward through the opening, scuttling over the sill and down the side of her house in a manner reminiscent of a centipede, or perhaps some manner of small lizard, such as a skink.

Pinkie zipped over to the window, but it was too late. By the time she got there the Mari Lwyd was already at the sidewalk in front of her house, and as she watched it sped away in the direction of Canterlot proper. It moved then rather more fluidly than it had in her room, reminding her instead of one of those dancing lions if it were put into fast forward. The sight was actually quite majestic.

“Hm,” she said to herself once the Mari Lwyd rounded a corner at the end of her street. She leaned back inside, gently closed her window (gotta keep the cold out that time of year!), and pulled out her phone.

It rang four times.

“Yyyello,” Sunset answered.

“Hiya Sunset!”

“Oh, hey Pinkie! I was just thinking about texting you, actually. I wanted to apologize about earlier, it was completely uncool of me to freak out on you and the girls like that.”

“Aww, that’s okay Shimmy,”

“Nah, it’s not. It was ridiculous to think you’d call the… the Mari Lwyd to this world just by talking about it, especially since you apparently do your version of it every year,” Sunset said the name hesitantly, like she didn’t fully believe what she was saying, “And, you know, thinking about it… you were right. I can’t know for certain that it exists in Equestria. Anyway, what’s up?”

“Oh, not much. But um… you might wanna call Twilight and Dashie, because we’ve got a little Equestrian magic situation on our hands.”

“Oh, crud, and here I was rambling about my feelings,” Sunset chuckles on the other side of the line, and though Pinkie can’t see her face she knows she doesn’t mean that in any really disparaging way, “Where are you? Are you safe?”

“Oh, I’m perfectly safe! I’m at home, but I don’t know where exactly the magic situation is.”

“What do you mean? Did you see it on the news or something?”

“No, no, I saw it firsthand, it’s just that it kinda-sorta got away from me and now we’re gonna have to track it down.”

“You encountered it at your house? Pinkie, what’s going on?”

“Well, I did this ritual I found in my family’s grimoire to call the spirit of the Mari Lwyd to our world, but then it just slipped right out my window and wowza is that thing fast! You’d never know to look at it.”

“…you WHAT?!”