Hearth's Warming Gift

Scootaloo opened the door and dashed outside. Somepony has built a snowpony near the porch and Scootaloo had to halt, digging her hooves into snow and frantically buzzing her small wings. She stopped herself in an inch from the snow sculpture almost having booped its muzzle made of pinecone. Birds, sitting on the branches which impersonated the snowpony's pegasus wings, leaped into the air but after Scootaloo has stopped they calmed down and returned to their places.

Scootaloo walked around the snowpony, examining it. "Hey, nice job!" She muttered to herself. Scootaloo reached in her little saddlebags with her nose, took out a bag of mixed grains and poured them on the cleared up spot. "Here, little guys." She said to the birds, "Bye!" With that she galloped off.
She has set to ran through Ponyville, but as she moved through the town she involuntarily kept slowing down, looking left and right around.

The streets were so festive! The shops and homes had their facades decorated with garlands and wreaths. Windows bore various paper applications, mainly snowflakes; the shops and other businesses had them elaborate and sophisticated, the homes mostly had them crude, clearly made by foals, but not less endearing. Snowponies and other snow sculptures were built in most front yards and lawns, on the sides of the streets, from the mounds of the snow cleared from the road.

Ponies around were excited and cheerful. They often stopped to simply greet each other and wish happy holidays, or nuzzle their close friends. Above the streets pegasi called out the land bound ponies and waved hooves at them. Much higher, pegasi in Weather Patrol vests were darting to and fro, making sure that there is enough snow where it is needed and not to much where there it isn't.

Scootaloo looked up at them, with envy. She sighed and trotted forward, took a few turns and approached the outskirts of the town. Now she had to slow down, to make her way through the numerous groups of ponies.
Here, on the outskirts there were main winter attractions of Ponyville: the Great Snow Slide, the Great Snowball Battle and the ice skating area.

The huge snow hill with a fairly gentle slope made an excellent slide. Dozens of younger foals were climbing up the hill and then were sliding down. Either on their belly, or their back, or rolling over, with gleeful squee. Right into the embrace of their parents and siblings, who were standing around the hill, merry but vigilant.
The foals who were a bit older took part in the snowball fight. The air above the snow field was buzzing with snowballs flying around.
Scootaloo cast a brief glance on the field of snowbattle, looking for her friends, the other two Crusaders. They weren't among the fighters, probably busy helping their sisters with holiday stuff.

Scootaloo sighed, with a bit of guilty relief. She wasn't after their company this time. When Rainbow Dash told Scootaloo she exchanged her Weather Patrol shifts with Rainbowshine and offered spend Hearths's Warming doing fun stuff Scootaloo was ecstatic. She always longed for her honorary big sister and at the same has been always conscious to not appear too clingy. She cherished the friendship of the awesome and loyal pony Dash has been and wouldn't want to overindulge in it.
The pegasus filly waded through the crowd, towards the rink. As soon as she approached the fence made of pine branches she immediately noticed Rainbow Dash.

Dash stood atop a small mound of snow, to be above the scene and the ponies. Probably so Scootaloo could spot her more easily. Although they agreed beforehoof to meet here, nevertheless Scootaloo yelped with joy.

"Rainbow Dash!" She shouted, waving her hoof. Rainbow pivoted on the spot. She smiled wide, leaped into the air and landed in front of Scootaloo.
"Hi, Squirt!" said Dash and raised her hoof. Scootaloo bumped it with her own hoof, very proud.
"So, let's have fun?" Rainbow beckoned. Scootaloo nodded, with a huge happy grin. Rainbow turned around and went to the skate rental booth with Scootaloo at her side, who almost had to trot to match the adult pegasus' gait.

At the booth there was a mound of wooden skates and several volunteer ponies, who distributed them. Dash took a quad for herself and doned them, helping herself with her wings and teeth. Scootaloo had a bit harder time.
"Let me, Scoots." Dash caught the laces with her wingtips. Scootaloo tightened them with her mouth right away. "Attagirl!" Rainbow bumped her slightly with her nose, endorsing.

Having spread all four of their legs wide and stepping carefully on the wooden blades the two pegasi got onto the rink. They stood there, on its outskirts, looking at the ponies zooming back and forth.
"Wow, seems hard." Scootaloo commented. She immediately frowned at her own words and looked up at Rainbow, who examined the skating ponies without much enthusiasm herself, for some reason.

"Good thing you're awesome skater, Rainbow Dash!" Scootaloo exclaimed. "I haven't learned it yet. I've been either too litt- ,ahem, young, or had other things to do at Hearth's Warmings."
Dash looked at an earth pony mare ramming the fence and her face soured a bit.
"Yeah! Sure! I've done that several dozen times! Skating, that is."

"Let's go then!" Scootaloo decisively pushed herself with her hind legs and began sliding forward. Then she noticed a colt going her way, crossing her trajectory. Panicking, she tried to stir herself to the side, failed, almost fell, but regained balance and buzzing her tiny wings managed to stop just as the colt shot in front of her. "Hey, careful!" He shouted back. Scootaloo sighed with relief and at that moment Rainbow Dash, who was sliding forward in a way not unlike Scootaloo herself, has almost rammed into her. Rainbow managed to flap her wings and leaped over Scootaloo, landed on blades of her skates and began rotating in place. Dash flapped again, to the side this time, and then she stopped. Two or three ponies zoomed past her.

"Hey, Scoots, grab my tail, will ya?" Rainbow said. Scootaloo readily chomped on the glorious stream of rainbow hair. Dash used her wings to move them both back, closer to the fence.

"Let's, hmm, let's stand here for a bit? Those ponies have curious skating styles." Rainbow offered, with a sheepish smile.

"Uh? Yeah, OK." Scootaloo agreed and leaned onto Dash's side. Rainbow embraced her with her wing and Scootaloo half closed her eyes, savoring the moment. They stood like that for a good while, observing ponies having fun on the rink.
"You know what, Scoots? I'm hungry!" Dash proclaimed suddenly, "Let's go get something."
Scootaloo looked up from behind Dash's wing. "You didn't eat breakfast, Rainbow?"
"I did. I just got hungry again!"
"OK." Scootaloo said, a bit puzzled.

They returned their skates and went to the vendor area, full of colorful stands with food and festive goods. Delightful aroma was hanging in the air, from all the tasty treats around.
Dash led them to a booth with fried patties. "Hi!" she greeted the salesmare, "Gimme lots of that!"
"Which ones?" Earth pony mare asked, stirring the deep fryer bowl. Dash glanced at the blackboard with menu and pointed with her nose, "These! With eggs and greens."

"Right away" The salesmare fished out a bunch of golden greasy delights from the bowl and put them into a paper bag. Dash thanked and gave her bits.
Scootaloo dived into her money pouch as well, but Rainbow smacked the filly slightly over withers with her wing. "Nononono, Squirt, come on! What was that? Just eat."

She speared one of the patties with a wooden stick and offered to Scootaloo. She grabbed it with her front hooves and bit into the patty with gusto. Hot and slightly crunchy dough revealed juicy stuffing: shallots, dill and sliced hardboiled egg. Dash threw several patties at once into her mouth and was chewing them with distinct, quite uncouth, noises. After they both chomped down a dozen of patties Scootaloo asked "Hey, Dash, wanna go skate more?"
Rainbow snorted. "Nah, stuff's boring. Let's go have some fun at the slide."

With Scootaloo in tow Dash climbed atop the hill. They waited for a bit for their turn, to not crowd the slope too much. "Look how I can!" Rainbow exclaimed and dived down. Scootaloo followed. Being heavier, Dash got to the bottom of the hill faster. She flew out from the slope like a shell from a party cannon and planted face first into the snow, with her rear stuck out. Scootaloo flopped on the ground further behind, giggling. Rainbow climbed out of the snow and wobbled. "Fun! Let's have another go!"
They climbed back up the hill. Rainbow squinted looking down, calculating something. "Hey, here's an idea: hold tight on me, Scoots." She crouched down.
"Oohkay." Scootaloo got onto Dash's back, hugged her barrel with her legs and grabbed a bunch of strands of the rainbow mane with her teeth.
"Ready?" Dash glanced back.
"Uh huh." Scootaloo nodded.

Rainbow rushed down the slope. This time she slid in orderly manner, collecting her wings and legs, trying to get as much momentum as she could. At the end of the slope she suddenly opened her wings to their full span, caught the wind and launched herself into the air, gliding fast. Scootaloo wanted to squee with excitement but held herself down and didn't let go of the mane. She just whynnyed happily through her teeth holding Dash's rainbow flock.
They got fairly high. Scootaloo looked around, marveling how peculiar things looked from the altitude of a flying pegasus: the bluish circle of the rink, mist of flying snowballs between two snow fortresses, the slide, ponies who looked like a bunch moving colorful brush strokes on the white canvas. 'Someday I will do it like that too!' She thought.
Rainbow made a round over the festive grounds, lowered towards the snow slide and landed perfectly. Scootaloo leaped from Dash's back and hugged her. "That was soooo cooool!"
Rainbow laughed happily. "Yeah, I know, I'm pretty awesome." She looked around. "So what do we do next?"
Scootaloo looked at the snow battlefield in distance. "Maybe some snowfigtings?"
"Great idea, Scoots!"

They galloped towards the snow bastions where dozens of foals and their related adults were having fun bombarding each other with hail of snowballs.
Having arrived in position Dash assessed the situation and chose a snowfort which slightly elevated over the field, standing on a small hill. "Lets get there! It looks awesome enough for us." She pointed with her hoof.
Ducking under the hail of snowballs the ran to the fort. Dash positioned herself between the line of throwing and Scootaloo and was pushing the filly with her wing, to help her keep the pace. They both dived under the cover, looked at each other and giggled.
"Hey, ain't that Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo," they heard from nearby, "Hello!" They looked at the wall and saw Apple Bloom, Sweetie Belle and Applejack.
"Hello there, Rainbow!" Applejack stopped lobbing snowballs for a moment and ducked."Wanna show some throwing skills?"
"You bet!" Dash exclaimed and scooped a mound of snow with her wings to join the fight.
At first Scootaloo and Dash were throwing together, but after some time they decided it is better to let one of them do the throwing while the other would prepare snowballs. Likewise, Applejack and Apple Bloom were shelling the opposing fort, while Sweetie was making ammunition with her telekinesis. "Sweetie," asked Scootaloo at one point, after receiving three snowballs in a row to her chest and exchanging position with Dash, "dont you want to have fun too?"
"I'm having plenty of fun as is, Scoots. No need to overdo it, really." Answered Sweetie.
"Where's Rarity anyway?"
"Take a guess." Sweetie snorted.
"She said it's uncouth?"
"Wow, how did you guess?"
Both fillies laughed.

Eventually, Celestia has set the sun and ponies decided to make armistice.
Rainbow Dash rubbed back to normal Scootaloo's slightly frozen snout and they went back to the vendor area where there grew a huge Hearth's Warming fir. It was opulently decorated with hundreds of toys and lights; those were both master crafted glass figurines and simple toys made by the schoolfoals. Ponies have gathered here in large numbers. They were waiting while Mayor Mare stood on the platform before the fir and signaled the band of the town's most powerful unicorns, Rarity and Twilight Sparkle among them.
The unicorns lit up their horns and the magical lights on the fir shone up, bathing the tree and surroundings in multicolored light, making the toys glitter.
Ponies around cheered loudly.
"Happy Hearth's Warming!" Mayor Mare proclaimed.
Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo stood a bit to the side of the common gathering.
"I think the day went absolutely awesome! Don't you agree, Squirt?" Scootaloo hugged Dash once again. "Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much, Rainbow!"
"Always a pleasure, Scoots!"
Scootaloo sighed. "Well, I probably need to go back. It's rather late." She nuzzled Dash's side. "Thank you, Dash." She repeated. Then sulked a bit and set to walk away.
"Wait!"
The filly stopped and looked back.
"Squirt, you do not need to return to the boarding stable if you don't want to." Rainbow said.
The little pegasis stood in place, bewildered.
"Yeah," Dash continued "we can go hang out at my place if you want."
Scootaloo's eyes went wide. "Really?! We... can?"
"Yep." Rainbow nodded.

Dash opened the door to her home. "Here you go, Scoots. Welcome to my shack!" Scootaloo walked past Rainbow, who lingered at the the door to close it, and looked around the room.

There were a table, chairs, sofa, a bed and, strangely enough, a smaller bed nearby. The walls were adorned with numerous Wonderbolts posters and Sky Derby promotion materials. In the corner, Tank peeked from his shell. Seeing Scootaloo and Dash he relaxed and retreated back.

"OK, Scoots, get cozy, I'll make us something to chew on." Rainbow patted the filly on the withers and went to the kitchen.

Scootaloo, with a huge smile on her face, slowly walked towards the sofa. Walking past the table she glanced there. On the table there was a gramophone, a bunch of records and an unfolded scroll, with an important looking seal of some official kind.

Scootaloo couldn't help but read into the scroll. 'Maybe Dash got accepted to the Wonderbolts Reserve?' She thought excited.

"In the name of Celestia and Luna," the scroll proclaimed, "by the authority granted to me by Their Royal Majesties, I, chairmare of the Ponyville local office of the State Guardianship Council hereby proclaim Rainbow Dash as a rightful legal guardian and representative of Scootaloo..."

Dash peeked from the kitchen.

"Hey, Scoots, I've got some caramelized oat and barley cereals and also bunch of greens and a half of that pie Pinkie made me. What would you like-"

Scootaloo darted to her, reared, hugged Rainbow tight and planted her muzzle into Dash's chest.

"Hey, what's going-" surprised Dash looked at Scootaloo, then glanced at the table, smiled and hugged the filly back. "Happy Hearth's Warming, Scootaloo."