Something like the Hearth's Warming Eve celebration is... well... celebrated across all known worlds in one form or another.

The essentials of the celebration are always the same. For a few days of the year, households are gripped with a vicious need to aggressively decorate their houses in all manner of iridescent materials, the worth of which briefly skyrockets around this time. Lots of tinsel and jingle bells are involved, there's always a large coniferous tree put up, and sweets suddenly become an essential commodity - especially if they're long, hooked, and covered in red and white stripes.

The celebration always happens around wintertime, or whatever is the nearest local equivalent. Indeed, a study of the lyrics of one or two songs (or carols, as they're more technically known to Christmasologists) suggests that the celebration simply cannot exist without the presence of snow.

Many academic thinkers who have journeyed across the multiverse have often been led to wonder why this is always the case, and why the celebration is as popular as it is. One rather eccentric mind has proposed that all the worlds are actually the side-creations of one ultimate world, and that the ultimate world's inhabitants have their own Hearth's Warming Eve celebration which they replicate for the created worlds for the sake of sharing the joy. The idea does not have wide acceptance outside of Sugar Cube Corner.

Some have speculated that it has to do with religious reasons, but this theory is dropping out of favour now. Anyone with even the remotest religious sensibility has long since abandoned any notion that all the waiting around in supermarkets for the last talking politician barbie doll complete with scythe-wielding scooter and jungle survival kit helicopter pack does anything other than tarnish the soul rather than uplift it.

The carol singing only polarizes the debate, largely between those who study the carol's origins and lyrics, and those who turn off the lights and hide when they hear the carol singer's club coming up the road.

In Equestria, by contrast, the matter was pretty straightforward. The pageants are put on, the founding of their land teaches the young foals about history, and everypony has a jolly fun time shopping for gingerbread houses and stockings afterwards.

Everypony smiles on Hearth's Warming Eve.

By Royal Decree.

Princess Luna's decree, in fact.

And there's a very good reason why.

Possibly.

Within the palace of Canterlot, at the top of a golden throne, a white mare placed herself on the cushion and looked down the row of columns and stained glass windows.

Celestia had sat on the same cushion thousands of times over thousands of years. It should have been frayed and turned to dust by countless generations of moth grubs, but somehow it always looked as if she'd only just ordered it yesterday morning.

Her only companions were two Royal Guards, standing either side of the golden steps leading up to her hooves. She cast her eye over their suits of armour, which were spotless and oozing with polish. The guards themselves were doing rather good impersonations of statues.

Three royal documents floated in the air before her. Exactly how unicorn magic worked was never fully established, but it always started with a desire, continued with a thin aura of light around the horn, and ended with, say, several pieces of paper responding with the same colour glow and floating up. There are probably magnetic forces involved somewhere.

Three ribbons dropped down as the scrolls unfurled in midair. Celestia's pupils drifted from right to left, then back again.

She sighed.

"I asked her to remove that Royal Decree last month," she said quietly. "How long has this been in the feral archives now?"

"One thousand years, Your Majesty," said one of the guards. He stared directly ahead, as though addressing the empty hall.

"Thank you, Champron," said Celestia politely. She didn't have the heart to tell him it was a rhetorical question. "I must admit, I'd hoped all that business with avoiding her royal duties would have stopped by now, after all that's happened between us."

"She's restless, Your Majesty," said Champron. "Hates being cooped up indoors, she says. She says she can't stop to stare at paperwork all day."

"Oh? You have spoken to her?"

"She spoke to us about it. Asked us to look over the paperwork for her, Your Majesty."

"Oh." Celestia blinked at him, but quickly recovered. "What was she doing in the meantime?"

"Went for a quick flight over the towers, Your Majesty," said the other Royal Guard. "She told us we were to take care of any and all royal business until she got back. I'm afraid that's why there's been such a backlog in the administration department."

"Flanchard, what have I told you about doing my sister's work for her?"

"Got to do what the royal says, Your Majesty," said Flanchard in a voice that would have impressed a Stoic. "It's in our oath. Can't disobey a royal order."

Oh, thought Celestia, she got you that way, did she? The rolls of parchment rolled themselves up again. Ribbons leaped up and hugged the paper.

"I think it's about time I had a word with my sister," she said, tapping her chin with a hoof. "Where is she now?"

"Can't say, Your Majesty," said Flanchard.

"Oh?" Celestia's eyebrow rose up to her horn like an arm reaching for a javelin. "And why might that be?"

"She told us not to tell you, Your Majesty."

Celestia's hair continued to wave in that perplexing way. It was hard to tell what was causing the waves to flow through her vast mane. Probably something in the shampoo she used.

"And supposing I were to give a royal order and command you to tell me?"

"Ah," said Flanchard. The two guards continued staring directly ahead, but a bead of sweat dropped from under Flanchard's helmet and ran down his temple. "Um, well... one from the Princess and one from the other Princess, well... um, that would be a little difficult. Makes a bit of a logical problem, Your Majesty, vis-a-vis our not disobeying a royal order."

"Unless, of course, you interpret my new order as a countermand of the old one?" she said innocently.

Several seconds passed as two minds chewed over the words.

"Countermand, Your Majesty?" said Champron, like a stallion who thinks he sees a pit coming but is still too far in the dark to be sure. "Yes... I suppose that could work, too."

"Don't worry," said Celestia, in a chuckle of a voice. She rose onto all four of her golden shoes and guided herself down the steps towards the red carpet. "I'll spare you the discomfort. If she's still in the palace, I daresay I'll bump into her."

"It's not us, you understand, Your Majesty," said Flanchard hurriedly. "It's in our oath. Got to obey the oath, Your Majesty."

"I completely understand."

"Got to follow the order to the letter, Your Majesty."

"Her specific instructions were that we were not to inform Your Majesty that she was in the secret chamber of the Canterlot feral archives, on the first floor of the Tower of Ivory, second wing," said Champron, who was quicker off the mark than his companion. Celestia reached the foot of the stairs, and paused with the two Guards either side of her.

"Is that so?"

"To the letter, Your Majesty."

"Indeed, Champron."

"You can't say we don't take our oath seriously, Your Majesty."

"I commend your diligence," she said. In a quieter voice, she whispered: "Thank you."

"Our pleasure, Your Majesty. Always got the royal welfare on the forefront of our minds," said Champron.

Two bright wings spread out and Celestia gave them an experimental flap. "I think I'll go out for a quick flight around the Canterlot towers. I might be some time. Would you be so kind as to take care of any administrative matters while I'm gone?"

"Paperwork, Your Majesty?" said Flanchard.

"Of course."

Flanchard swallowed. "You mean reading over those old documents, Your Majesty?"

"If you'd be so kind."

"All of -"

"At once, Your Majesty," said Champron, who earned himself a medal. "It is in our oath, after all."

"Um. Yes," said Flanchard. "In our oath. Well said, Your Majesty."

Celestia nodded. The horn on her head glowed, and there was a sound like the air charging up. For a brief moment, a burst of light as bright as a midsummer sun filled the hall. Then it was gone, and Celestia was nowhere to be seen.

Neither guard moved. Then one of them closed his eyes.

"Flanchard," said Champron wearily. "Why don't you just tell them you can't read?"

"Got to do what the royal says, Mr Champron. It's in the oath."

Princess Luna hummed to herself and brought another text up to her face.

Boxes lined the walls. Every last one was stuffed with scrolls, though four boxes were empty and their contents piled up in the middle of the floor. A few were unrolled, and the words Dear Princess Celestia could be seen at the top of some of them.

If she had unrolled many more, Luna would have found that most of the letters had been signed Twilight Sparkle, though more recent entries had other names added to the bottom. She looked around the room and leaned back. The lounge chair squeaked under her shifting weight.

Her mane also flowed in mysterious ways. In her case, though, there were stars in it. When you were making a comeback and found your sister had mellowed considerably in your absence, it was a good time to try and upstage her in the public relations department. Luna hadn't wasted a second.

She shook herself and concentrated on the words. Something about comets flashed in her mind.

"Commendable effort," she muttered to herself, "but they're meteors once they're in the atmosphere." She levitated the punch glass and a trickle of juice rose from the bowl and into a small ball beside her ear, as though gravity had briefly been switched off. "Why doesn't anypony ever get that right?"

Lips stretched sideways for a sip. This is a common tactic when trying to drink without looking away.

As she drained the ball, her ears cocked. Now a click of hooves on stone came from behind her, getting closer.

A light blossomed in the air. To Luna's keen night-sensitive eyes, it was as if the sun had let itself in. Every last scroll rose from the floor and soared overhead. Paper bumped into wood panelling. Luna noticed the sparkle of magic around her. She sat up.

"You could've knocked, sister," she said, pointedly not turning around.

"I can't let myself into our special room anymore?"

"You knew where to find me. You came here too fast for you to have searched the palace from top to bottom. Did those two speak up?"

"Don't worry, Luna. They followed your orders to the letter. And I can confirm that, because they told me about your order, and I know every last word you said to them."

Luna slapped her own forelock with a hoof. "Curses! They didn't, did they? I forgot. You could be sneaky like that. I thought you'd kicked the habit. I didn't know you'd stoop to such twisting. You seemed so much more... mature now."

"There's always room for a little twisting every now and again."

Neither of them looked at each other for a long while, during which the papers became ever so slightly yellower.

"Luna -"

"No."

Celestia sighed. "Just like that? Luna, I haven't even told you yet -"

"I know what you're going to say, Your Highness," said Luna. Celestia winced. "And the answer is still no."

"You weren't expecting to have these kinds of royal duties, Luna, I understand that. And I'm fully aware that you never thought it would affect you like this, but this is the modern way of doing things -"

"But nothing."

"I'm surprised you weren't outside. Weren't you tired of being 'cooped up'?"

Luna glanced along the walls. Even as she watched, a cloud of sparkling green smoke drifted down through a hole in the ceiling and curled up before her snout. The ball of light imploded, gave a brief flash, and another scroll hit the flagstones below. Hungrily, she summoned it to her face.

"I can make an exception."

A golden glow eclipsed her own. The scroll drifted over to one of the less crowded holes and fitted snugly in with its fellows.

"Is that how you feel about it?"

"Of course!" Luna waved a hoof in the air, almost dislodging the dark glass slipper on the end. "I've been stuck on a silicate rock for an entire millennium, with no books, no toys, no company. Just craters and dust and dead lava flows and the occasional meteor impact to relieve the monotony. Beautiful desolation, my flank!"

"I see. You're sure you won't listen to me?"

"Celestia, please. I've been moved from one prison to another. At least when I was you-know-who, I got to see a little of the kingdom besides Canterlot, even if it was mostly the uninhabited portion with the monsters in it -"

She stopped. She lowered her hoof. She listened to the sound of magic, because it was coming from a scroll hovering just in front of her face.

For the first time, she looked to the side. Celestia leaned to the right, as though she'd bowed down to thrust the paper in edgeways. Luna's own aura enveloped the seal, unwinding it.

It smelled faintly of jasmine. Unlike what she'd feared, the words were not tiny. They were few and spaced out and of a height comfortable for her eyes. There didn't seem to be any legalese among them.

It was, in fact, a rather small, plain note. Luna recognized her sister's curly writing.

The princess of the night gently placed the scroll down onto the arm of her chair. She picked it up again, as something occurred to her, but no amount of hexing or straining could reveal any invisible ink. She flipped it over, but the back of the scroll was blank.

Behind Luna's head, somepony made the faint sound everypony made when leaning forwards. It was a slight shift in the air that could easily be drowned out even by a small breath, but Luna's ears were keen enough to detect it.

She looked around, mouth slightly agape.

"Why?" she said.

"You said you wanted to see the kingdom."

"But this is not right. What about my royal duties?"

"I've coped this long by myself. Another year won't make a difference."

"You really mean that? After all the sneaking around and neglecting of my duties, after all the shenanigans with the Royal Guards and the incident at Nightmare Night?"

"After the attempts at late night parties, too."

"Even after what I did to your fireplace?"

The room became briefly chilly. The question echoed around the hall until it wore itself out. "I beg your pardon?"

"And after all that, you're now giving me this?" Luna tapped the parchment.

Celestia recovered briefly. "Sorry? Oh, yes, yes, Luna." Her smile dawned. "I think it might be for the best. You don't fully understand the ramifications of your decisions. You need to understand why you must do you duties." She winked and leaned forwards to whisper in her sibling's ear. "Besides, I think you'd perish from boredom otherwise."

"S-Sister, please. I have always tried to uphold the standards of the crown. I can improve. It's just a question of self-discipline." Luna put a hoof to the black tiara. Since it was made of obsidian rather than gold, it didn't shine like her sister's. If it did anything to light, it absorbed it and kept it like a decorative black hole. "All the same, it has been a while."

"Yes."

"Perhaps I could give it a try."

"Yes."

"You're quite sure this is wise? If anything, I'd have thought I needed more practice to get better, not less."

"Ah, but you can't keep wearing yourself out for long, Luna. 'Even the most committed practitioners of magic have to rest and restore their strength.'"

There she goes, quoting passages from old texts again. Glass slippers tapped along the flagstones as Luna began pacing. "All the same, an entire year?"

"A mere day to somepony as old as you, Luna. Believe me, I've been there. That should be enough time for you to get at least a broad idea of what it's like."

The mare who had once called herself Nightmare Moon peered back at her own flank. The dark patch was like an ink stain on her otherwise midnight-purple fur, but it offset the pale crescent of her cutie mark. Her unicorn horn tingled. She swallowed and stopped pacing.

"I can't just decide like that. I don't know! Can I have some time to think things over?"

"Of course. Take all the time you need. This is an offer, and therefore it's entirely your decision whether you accept or decline."

"Very well. I shall retire for now to think things over. Thank you."

"Of course. Incidentally, what did you do to my -"

Luna quickly vanished in a flash of moonlight. Celestia blinked and stared at the spot.

"- fireplace?" she said to the empty room.

The feathery clouds were brilliant white. Waves of cirrus trailed behind rows of zooming pegasi. There are only so many variations of cumulus you can try before it gets repetitive.

Matilda the jenny stood on the doorstep of the cabin and placed the goggles over her eyes. She adjusted the woollen hood and sneezed. Snow had clustered around her collar.

"We haven't got up to much recently," she was saying. "After we unpacked the suitcases and settled in, we found a routine that works for us. Cleaning around the house, tidying, dusting, the usual domestic cares."

Pinkie set up the pink snow plow just ahead of her and pushed it, heaving and straining against the dunes of white. On the exposed soil behind the mare, two small babies sat around a pile of alphabet blocks. They were both stuffed in tiny versions of Pinkie's own winter coat, but kept frowning every time the puffy sleeves knocked a block off the tower.

"I don't get it," the pink mare said. A look of concern appeared on her face. "You don't have special talents, you don't have cutie marks, and now you stay at home all day. How do you do that and not go completely frazzle-dazzled mad-ilicious Twilight-on-a-bad-day cuckoo-clock-insane?"

"I could ask you the same question, Pinkie Pie," said Matilda with a chuckle. "Anypony would think you'd run out of steam sooner or later."

"That's silly! I'm not steam-powered. I'm happiness and super-duper-fun powered."

"Still, I have to admire somepony who can throw a party a day and still be the life of every last one of them. Mare sakes, girl, now that's got to be exhausting. I don't know what you have, Pinkie, but I could sure do with some."

The comment went over Pinkie's head like a pegasus facing a road block.

"Doesn't it get..." There was a grunt. "... really boring... out here?"

"Town's only a few minutes away. It isn't a problem. And this isn't exactly the Everfree Forest, now is it? Not as you'd recognize it. Nice, peaceful, quiet, privately owned land."

"But that's the point! It sounds like a fate worse than death by chocolate, but without the chocolate!" She fell silent and listened. All around them, the vast expanse of trees leaned in close and seemed to look at her out of the corner of their non-existent eyes. It made her shiver.

"We're just different folks from you, Pinkie. Some like noise and some like quiet, and Cranky and I like quiet. You ever wonder why your friend lives out in a cottage outside of town?"

"Who, Fluttershy? Nopey wopey lopey. I already know. All her animal friends live there, so it's like duh, she's got to stay near the edge of Everfree Forest."

"You never thought she might have had another reason?"

Pinkie pushed against the plow. In fact, she tried several variations of it, all of which were successful in being completely useless at beating the snow.

"Thanks for helping me clear a path, Pinkie. I was getting tired of having to wade through snow every morning."

"Okey..." There was another grunt. "...dokey..." She spun around and strained, panting and sweating. "...lokey."

Both babies giggled and waved blocks over their heads at her. Pinkie collapsed and continued panting. Before her, Matilda kneeled and let the twins pat her own muzzle.

"Besides," she said, "home responsibilities are very important. Cranky and I wouldn't dream of giving them up to do something we didn't really want to do."

"Responsibilities." Pinkie looked down at the two babies, who were beaming up at her. "Yeah."

It was just occurring to Matilda that the twins weren't paying attention to her, though they kept on patting. They were looking at Pinkie with confused eyes. The old jenny smiled craftily.

"You've done a good job so far," she said. "I think she deserves a treat, don't you?" Two tiny heads nodded in agreement. It was debatable whether they actually understood or whether they just noticed her look at them when she spoke. "Perhaps you'd like a nice carrot jennings supreme to pep you up?"

"CARROT JENNINGS?"

Pinkie seized the plow handle and shot downhill like a rocket on wheels. They could all make out the pink contrail flowing from the threshold to some point beyond the distant trees, and when it cleared a line of brown soil was revealed in all its soggy glory.

A second zip and Pinkie was standing before them.

"All done," she said.

"Wonderfully done, Pinkie! Cranky will be so pleased." Matilda pushed the cabin door back as the twins clapped and giggled. "I suppose you'll be wanting a treat now?"

"Yeah yeah yeah! Yeah yeah yeah!"

"Stick your tongue in, then, and come inside. I'll carry the twins."

"Oh no, I'll carry Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake." Each one was picked up in a glowing red hoof. Steam rose up from the seat of their coats. "I'm the responsible one."

"Glad to hear it, Pinkie, glad to hear it."

As they wandered inside, Pinkie stopped and pulled Pumpkin Cake off her puffy mane. "Oh, you silly filly!" she said. "Don't eat that! My mane's not cotton candy."

"No," said Matilda, "but I believe this is."

"Cool!"

While upstairs in the cabin, on the border of some long-forgotten boxes and chests, Cranky Doodle Donkey threw an old snow globe over his back and muttered to himself.

"So much junk," he was saying. "Honestly, Cranky, did you really need all this? And these coffee mugs?"

He held one up. On the side was written "World's Greatest Dad".

Cranky had no idea how he'd gotten it, but when Matilda had found it a few weeks before, it had taken a lot of embarrassed silences before he could explain it to her. At least she now took it as a good joke he hadn't yet seen the punchline to.

He gave it a closer look. The rim was chipped opposite the handle. Old memories slouched into the part of his mind he knew as higher management. Wait... Ah, now he remembered. He did know where he'd gotten it. There had been a party, a farewell party. Lots of drinks - he remembered the punch vividly - and cheers. The office had been full that day, hadn't it? There had been plenty of empty mugs lying around.

He shook himself, long donkey ears flapping. This wasn't going to get the job done. Putting the mug aside, he dug through the cardboard box's contents and pulled out an old cowboy hat. He turned it over between his hooves. It was still in good condition.

"Dodge Junction," he said, placing it beside the mug. The following item he pulled out was an ice hockey stick.

"Hinnysota." Wood clattered on wood. A wooden pony bust with feathers came out the box.

"Eeyowaii." Cranky threw it aside. "Manehattan, the Bronco, Pastern Island..."

When his hoof emerged again, it was slotted into a foam finger. He groaned.

"Pinkie Pie."

The foam finger was used to start a new pile, some way away from the first one. The aged donkey adjusted the toupee on his head and sniffed.

"Well," he said, sticking his snout into the box, "what else is there?"

A silver film reel was there. He read the engraving on the length: Gaskin Donovan. Ah, yes, he remembered him. Just looking at it was enough to bring back the sounds of chatter and the smells of pool tables and billiard balls. Manehattan was a long way away now, he was starting to appreciate that.

For a while, he broke off and peered out the window. Endless rows of trees crisscrossed before him, but he could see through gaps in the branches. Beyond them, there was a green valley, and in the middle of the valley he saw the town of Ponyville.

Thatched roofs stretched from border to border before him. He still found it quite beautiful, even at this distance. He'd considered buying one of those timber buildings a long time ago, when he'd walked through the town with a cartload of all his worldly possessions and peered across the grassy streets. The overwhelming impression had been of wattle-and-daub walls and lots and lots of flower baskets. Not for the first time, he regretted not coming here sooner.

There'd been too many ponies around, though. In fact, he'd been annoyed to find himself wandering into the middle of a broadway musical on his first day, but that was just Pinkie's way. She had a very... infectious way of saying hello. And she never ran out of material. Heaven help everypony if she ever released a debut album.

He stayed there for a long while, just admiring the houses. All this time, and the love of his life had been much closer to Canterlot than he'd thought.

At the time, he'd dismissed it as too country for her tastes. Nopony in Canterlot cared for that little backwater town, where the hicks grew apples and the ponies considered it normal not to wear clothes in public. For a few moments, riding the horse-drawn train through the town, he had sensed it slowing down, and he had put a hoof on his suitcase. A town was a town, and wasn't there the slightest possibility that she was there? The train had stopped at the station, but it seemed to be just because there was a station there. Nopony had gotten on, and nopony had gotten off. He'd seen the bare plank platform through the window.

He noticed a slight reflection of himself in the window of the attic. His chin was covered in stubble. His eyelids were tired. The golden toupee did take him back a few years, but he could feel through his scalp how loose it was.

Then he looked around the attic. Never mind, old Cranky, he thought. It's all water under the bridge now. She's here, you've both done with all the wondering and waiting, and you've found each other at last. It's like that old pegasus story about the odd sailor and his wife - have I told her that one yet? It took decades and decades, and they weren't all decades wasted, now were they?

He peeked over his shoulder at the mountains of unpacked boxes that had been stacked there. The two of them had a lot to catch up on. His lips tingled with the strange warm feeling he'd only recently been experiencing to the full.

He turned around and fished through the open box again. This time, he found a pink shirt with a logo on it.

"Wasn't this white at one point?" he muttered.

A call came from downstairs. He cocked an ear and concentrated.

"Cranky?" It sounded faint through the floorboards. "Do you want something to eat?"

"Coming, Matilda!" he called back. The shirt fell back into the box and Cranky hurried over to the trapdoor and the folding steps.

"MATILDA SAID," Pinkie shouted as she rose through the trapdoor. "DID YOU WANT SOMETHING TO EAT?"

Cranky shook himself down.

"Pinkie!" he said. "What did I tell you? I said don't use the megaphone indoors!"